“Trans people are facing abuse right now as a litmus test to what our society will accept,” Alex Benach PO ’28 writes. “The American right seeks to rid our society of pluralism, with trans people acting as one of the first victims of this horrific, white, Christian, cis-hetero, ethnonationalist crusade.”
Tag: Alex Benach
OPINION: In defense of PDA and reflections on embodied love
“We have a collective problem, not only of loneliness, but of an inability to celebrate the manifestation of real love upon exposure to it,” Alex Benach PO ‘28 writes. “In other words, seeing love represented can act as a medicine for our repulsion to love.”
OPINION: We don’t need to go to Bentham’s Prison, we have panopticons at home
College campuses have long existed as hubs of student expression and activism and Pomona’s attempt to diminish that through increased surveillance disguised as security is reprehensible.
OPINION: Everyone is dialoguing, but who is actually listening?
“While the administration and the board of trustees promote dialogue and free exchange of ideas as the best thing in the world, their actual actions are out of touch and completely unaligned with the needs and opinions expressed by the student body,” writes Alex Benach PO ‘28. “If we are to foster a relationship between student body and administration in which various input is actually welcome, said discourse must be followed by responsive, concrete action.”
OPINION: Why are we so obsessed with memorializing horrible people?
As the media works through the death of Dick Cheney, we must not let mourning get in the way of the collective condemnation of immoral acts committed by the deceased, though grief is a necessary process in the midst of the death of prominent public figures.
OPINION: Use a condom before it’s too late
Gen Z, depending on who you ask, is a generation of prudes or perverts. However, Alex Benach PO ’28 argues that our primary sexual dysfunction is not prudeness but imprudence. Birth control is great and all, but wanting condomless sex puts you at more risk than you realize.
OPINION: Who is allowed to not shave?
Bodies, even women’s bodies, have hair. Good news is, it’s cooler than ever to not shave it. But while body hair autonomy for women and gender non-conforming people has been on the rise, largely thanks to the efforts of Gen Z, the full benefit has not been equally extended for non-white people. According to Alex Benach PO ‘28, this asymmetrical normalization follows a typical trend even outside feminist movements.
Navigating between policy and community within ASPC’s first-year elections
This week, TSL sits down with Pomona College’s recently elected freshmen members of ASPC: First-Year President Manar Hadi PO ’29 and South Campus Representative Soren Murphy-Pearson PO ’29. Hadi and Murphy-Pearson discuss their campaign goals, leadership styles and their experiences so far on campus.
OPINION: Our empathy drought in a time when it’s most needed
The overwhelming rise in political violence in America characterizes the birth of a new, terrifying era, which can only be resolved with empathy.
OPINION: We should all be ashamed of our monolingualism
As a larger portion of Americans speak multiple languages than ever before, there is an alarming decrease in multilingual pursuits by students on college campuses across the nation. Amidst the implementation of ongoing mass deportations and racial profiling initiatives by the Trump administration, “learning languages serves as a small but effective tool in order to push back against authoritarian efforts to make our nation less diverse,” Alex Benach PO‘28 writes. Benach wants students to take personal responsibility in realizing the inclusive and diverse vision of America that many claim to value deeply by learning languages other than their native tongue in order to foster a better understanding of the diverse perspectives around them.