Ever since he was a kid, Chesson Hadley wanted to be a professional golfer. “I never really considered doing it as something just for fun,” said Hadley in his exclusive interview with the Technique. “It was serious for me, forever.”

A native of Raleigh, N.C., Hadley began playing golf at the age of six, under the tutelage of his dad. He enjoyed the challenge of trying to solve the riddle that each course, hole and shot presents. Like any sport, golf is impossible to truly perfect, but it can also be extremely rewarding to perform correctly, which can make it a rather addicting challenge. “When you hit a golf shot the way that you envisioned it to be hit,” remarked Hadley, “I haven’t experienced much that can top that. That’s why I keep doing it.”

Although Hadley always had his sights set on the PGA Tour, he considered himself rather lucky to be recruited to Tech when it was time for him to attend college. It is increasingly common in today’s world for colleges to recruit student-athletes in early high school and even middle school, but Hadley did not receive any such recognition. Fortunately for him, he was noticed by coach Bruce Heppler between his junior and senior year of high school, and he arrived at Tech in the fall of 2006.

According to Hadley, coming to Tech was “one of the easiest decisions I ever made.” He had also visited the University of Florida and the University of Virginia, but when he compared the opportunities each school had to offer, both academically and athletically, there was no question in his mind where he wanted to be. In his words, “it was a no-brainer.”

Upon arriving at Tech, Hadley quickly made an impression on his older teammates. “I was very outspoken,” he said, and this led to a lot of good-natured ribbing from the more accomplished members of the team. Hadley specifically remembers seniors Roberto Castro (IE ’07) and Kevin Larsen (BA ’07) and sophomore Cameron Tringale (BA ’09), three players who had all received NCAA All-American honors the previous year, constantly teasing him for not being a part of their “All-Americans only” club. This teasing served as great motivation for the freshman as it was intended to – “they knew they were motivating me” – and it had its desired effect, as a fourth-place finish at the 2007 NCAA Championships earned Hadley an honorable mention All-American award.

“I was so proud of myself” said Hadley, “and so were they.”

Hadley one-upped himself in his sophomore year, when he was nominated to the All-American first team after five top-10 finishes, including a first-place finish in the Carpet Capital Collegiate. At one point, he was ranked the top college golfer in the nation by Golfweek and would finish that season ranked ninth overall. Hadley also received the honor of participating in the Palmer Cup as a representative of the United States.

Although Hadley’s junior year was comparatively somewhat of a down year for him, he still finished third in the ACC Championship at the end of the year, helping Tech win the conference title. The Jackets again won the ACC the following year.

Hadley won the individual championship as well. Hadley also finished T-14th in the NCAA Championships, earning him another All-American honorable mention.

Overall, Hadley received All-American honors three times and All-ACC honors twice.

The Jackets won the ACC conference title three times in his four year career.

After graduating in 2010 with a degree in Business Management, Hadley fulfilled his childhood dream of pursuing professional golf.

He joined the Web.com Tour (now the Korn Ferry Tour) in 2013 and made it onto the PGA Tour in 2014.

Since then, Hadley has qualified for the FedEx Cup four times, recording a top-10 finish in the 2019 U.S. Open, and winning the 2014 Puerto Rico Open. Speaking of being on the Tour, Hadley said that it is “everything you think it would be” but also noted that there are many unexpected aspects to it.

The accomplishment that Hadley is the proudest of in his professional career is winning the Rex Hospital Open (a Korn Ferry event) in 2013.

Although it may not be the most heralded tournament, it was held in his hometown of Raleigh, where he has spent his whole life, and so it had a special meaning for him. “You don’t get good crowds at [Korn Ferry] events” said Hadley, “but there were … several hundred people there, and they were all there to watch me.”

Winning that tournament sticks out in Hadley’s memory as a special moment for him personally — “that’s the best thing I’ve done in my golf career, hands down.”

Looking back, Hadley spoke very highly of his time at Tech. He loved the location of the school right next to Midtown in the heart of Atlanta, and he enjoyed the convenience that Tech provided for exploring the city.

Most of all, though, Hadley appreciated everything that Tech did to prepare him for life as a professional golfer, both on and off the course.

He spoke very highly of his teammates at Tech, and the “undeniably successful” culture that Coach Heppler has fostered. In Hadley’s words, Heppler’s recruits are almost always “legitimate human beings” who are driven to pursue excellence both academically and athletically.

Hadley believes this experience is one of the biggest reasons for the success him and many other alumni have experienced on the Tour.

Hadley is just another example of the success of the Tech golf program.

Coach Heppler has brought a host of accolades to the school. Many former Jackets have gone on to have very successful professional careers. More recently, Tech amateur golfers Andy Ogletree and Tyler Strafaci have won the last two U.S. Amateur Opens.

Hadley remarked that while he has not followed their careers particularly closely, he believes they will have every opportunity to be successful in the future. The academic rigor of the school plays a big role in developing the work ethic that allows these players to be so successful. The quality of character that is a prerequisite in Heppler’s program creates a healthy environment for players to grow as golfers, students, and individuals. Although Hadley will not receive a typical induction ceremony this year, he deserves recognition for his representation of the Institute both during and after his time at the school.

For the first time in the history of the program, the Jackets will travel to Syracuse, NY to take on the Orange this coming Saturday in the historic Carrier Dome. This is only the fourth time the schools have met on the football field, partially due to the strange scheduling method employed by the ACC, which only allows teams from different divisions to face off once every six years. The last meeting between the Jackets and Orange was in 2013, the latter’s inaugural season in the ACC. Tech won that game by a resounding score of 56-0, but both programs will look significantly different on Saturday, as both teams have made coaching changes since then.

Syracuse is led by head coach Dino Babers, currently in his fifth year with the program. Babers and company will be looking for their first victory of the season after two losses against ranked teams in the first two weeks. The Orange fell to 25th-ranked Pitt 21-10 last week, one week after being dealt a 31-6 defeat at the hands of 18th-ranked North Carolina. The team’s biggest struggle so far this year has been on the offensive side of the ball, as they have only managed to find the end zone once so far. Syracuse has done a very poor job of protecting starting quarterback Tommy DeVito, surrendering 14 total sacks over the two contests. DeVito’s performance has been very underwhelming, and he might be in danger of losing his starting spot to backup QB Rex Culpepper, who delivered the only offensive highlight of the season when he fired a 69-yard touchdown pass to Taj Harris in the second quarter against Pitt. Culpepper, a senior, is a cool comeback story, as he has been able to successfully return to the playing field after a battle with testicular cancer. It is likely that both DeVito and Culpepper will take some snaps under center on Saturday.

On the other side of the ball, Tech will face a stiff test against a Syracuse defense that has performed admirably so far this season. Despite the abysmal production offensively, the Orange have been able to compete into the fourth quarter of both games thanks to first-year defensive coordinator Tony White’s unit. Tech fans should watch out for sophomore linebacker Mikel Jones, who already has two interceptions to his credit this year, as well as a fumble recovery last week against Pitt.

Meanwhile, the Jackets will look to build on their success over the last weeks on the offensive side of the ball, while also cutting down on the mistakes that proved to be so costly against UCF this past Saturday.

Freshman running back Jahymr Gibbs became the second straight Jacket to win ACC Freshman of the Week honors after he racked up 219 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns against UCF. In the absence of junior running back Jordan Mason, who was unavailable for unknown reasons, Gibbs had a 75-yard kickoff return to open the game, setting up Tech’s first touchdown of the game. He then caught a nine-yard touchdown pass from Sims in the second quarter and ran for a 33-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter.

Freshman quarterback Jeff Sims won the award last week for his performance in the season-opening win against Florida State. Sims filled up the stat sheet for a second straight week, throwing for 244 yards and rushing for 82 against the Golden Knights, but he also committed two interceptions and lost a key fumble deep in UCF territory.

Overall, the Jackets committed five turnovers, which makes winning a football game virtually impossible at this level. Sims and company will need to tighten things up against a stout Syracuse defense.

Defensively, Tech will look to rebound from last week’s performance. UCF quarterback Dillon Gabriel threw for 417 yards and four touchdowns in a scintillating performance. Tech struggled to keep up with UCF’s fast-paced offense, as the Knights ran 92 plays en route to 660 yards of total offense, which were the second-most by a Tech opponent in school history.

The Jackets showed signs of fatigue defensively in the fourth quarter, and were already missing several players, including Curtis Ryans, a hero of the Florida State game. The hope is that UCF will have prepared the Jackets well for Syracuse, who also runs an up-tempo offense, albeit much less talented.
Tech had some success against the Knights, forcing two turnovers and getting two fourth-down stops as well, and the hopeful return of Ryans and others should help the team produce a better performance defensively
on Saturday.

As we approach the eight-month anniversary of the first reported coronavirus case in America, the country surpasses the 200,000 mark of COVID-19 related deaths.

It will forever mark a tragic day in history and make us look back and think about what we could have done differently.

Although many believed America should have been the forerunners in stopping the novel coronavirus in its tracks, it is unsurprising to me that we have done just the opposite.

We pride ourselves on liberty and freedom but never take into account that the same sentiments are held by those we disagree with.

In the case of stopping a deadly virus, freedom and liberty cannot have a seat at the table.

In the most valuable window of time when we as a nation had the power to exponentially slow the spread of COVID-19, our president was instead downplaying the pandemic and telling Americans to ingest bleach as a means to fight it off.

Back in early March, when I first heard about COVID-19 it was a passing thought.

I believed that it wouldn’t effect me and honestly I had a lack of empathy for the countries that it was effecting because I viewed it as an issue for those on the opposite side of the world.

This was obviously wrong, but it boils down to American culture. We are taught from a young age that we are the best country in the world and in other words, better than all other countries. This is absolutely not true and this event has burst this bubble for many as of lately.

If America is the greatest country in the world then why are we leading the world in COVID-19 deaths? Deaths, not cases. It would be one thing if we were leading in cases, but COVID-19 has become the third leading cause of death in the country.

My beliefs early on that this virus would not change my everyday life were also shared by the majority of Americans when first hearing about the virus.

We soon found out that the virus does not discriminate against any color, creed or nationality. Our stars and stripes don’t protect us anymore than anyone else.

This virus has showed Americans that we are no better or worse than our neighbors. This pandemics has evened the playing field and reminded us that we are the same.

America is not the end all be all and it sure as hell isn’t the best country in the world.

We’re supposed to be leaders in medicine and technology, but this event has made me question everything. What good is throwing that title around when we still let 200,000 people die on our watch?

In these past months, the world has slowly become a brand new place. Americans are beginning to see first hand just how not great America is.
Our leaders are anything but that and the country is more divided than it has been for decades.

Our country’s savior complex and deeply rooted colonialism are finally being challenged. Right now, the only thing we’re “winning” at is having the most COVID-19 deaths, but at least we’re still number one, right?
We try to “save” everyone else and never stopped to fill all the cracks in our own foundation.

Who is there to “save” America when we have the highest rate of the virus? And who would want to?

I had no idea that in eight months time one virus would claim nearly 100 times many Americans that were lost in 9/11.

This isn’t to minimize the 2,977 American lives lost in 9/11, but it is important to put it in perspective.

We commemorate the senseless deaths of the nearly 3,000 people lost in that terrorist attack but still go to brunch and continue to party in today’s climate.

The 200,000 deaths since March were also senseless and the lack of action on behalf of our state and national government should be considered domestic terrorism as well.

Unfortunately, the 200,000 COVID-19 deaths and two million cases are just the tip of the iceberg.

Scientists have projected that there will be a second wave and there is a possibility that it will be even worse than the first wave.

Although the cases continue to grow, Americans have tried to adapt the new normal to their lives instead of the other way around. There is nothing normal about having to live with a deadly virus.

This virus already has such great momentum that the future of when everything will go back to normal is unknown.

Moving forward all that we can do is not lose sight that there is still a pandemic ravaging through countries across the globe.

As of lately, many have let their guard down because there has been a slight dip in cases, but it is obviously too early to do so–and this is why.

March 16, the day we were told to not return to campus, there were 872 new cases in the US that day, but on Sept. 22, there were 48,206 new cases.

All the terror and uncertainty was at a high when the first cases began to pop up and spread, but we are now in a whole new ball game.

We should still be discouraging non-social distant activities. It is just as dangerous, if not more dangerous than it was when the first few cases started to pop up.

The sooner Americans realize that they are not immune or invincible, the sooner we will be able to get back to a sliver of normalcy.

It has been a long road, but an even longer road is ahead of us if we do not make the necessary changes now.

The changes necessary are not just behavioral changes, but also in our beliefs.

Although freedom and liberty are integral to the patchwork of America, we must see the forest from the trees.

We have to make sacrifices and allow for some of our freedom to be taken away in the name of the greater good.

After five days of grieving for the Notorious RBG herself, there doesn’t seem to be much to add to the discourse surrounding the incredible body of her life’s work, and the even more astounding person behind it.

It is amazing to me the amount of lives she quietly touched, and continues to touch, even in death.

Even in death she will manage to break yet another barrier when she becomes the first woman to lie in state at the Capitol.

But despite a universal outpouring of grief for a larger-than-life person, it is hard to put precisely into words why I, like so many others, took her death so personally.

There is definitely the sense of loss for the passing of a feminist icon and role model in career and in life.

I think the reason her passing resonated so strongly with me is because of how much she embodied the spirit of my maternal grandmother, and her mother before her.

I am reminded so potently of the women who came before me and paved the way for all that I am able to be today.

When a friend showed me a video of RBG’s famed workout routine alongside a panting Stephen Colbert, I instantly thought of the persistence of my great-grandmother, who I am told did her daily stretches and lunges up until she died of a broken hip at 102.

In her time, just three generations ago, it was still fashionable for women to have their feet bound.

The bones in their feet were broken one by one, again and again, until the natural arch of the foot was contorted into an unrecognizable shape suited to the whims of men.

My great-grandmother resisted this practice, managed to receive an education that was unheard of at the time, and became a music teacher instead.

She instilled in my maternal grandmother the same drive to uplift women, to aspire to achieve something greater than the self. My nai-nai, born ten years before Justice Ginsburg, was one of the first women on the other side of the Pacific Ocean to graduate from medical school.

Like Ginsburg, she faced intense discrimination in both her professional and personal life, and built a career as an OB-GYN combating deeply held stigmas against female reproductive medicine and treatment.

She was a modern woman in every sense. She was Chief of Surgery at a time when women did not go to college and she acted as both a father and a mother to my Mom.

She was also incredibly petite, but dared to take up space in a world and time that did not welcome her.

In Justice Ginsburg’s biography I see the same ambition and sheer will I profoundly admired in my nai-nai — a willingness to take up causes for others, and a commitment to veracity about the issue of women’s rights.
She served jail time, torture, and public humiliation for her beliefs about a woman’s place. She was a woman ahead of her time, ahead of our time even.

My own mother grew up being told that she should have been a boy.

Sexism and gender discrimination practices are still prevalent in our time.
Yet alternatively I think about where we would be without women like RBG and my nai-nai. We are all indebted to the women that we know and do not know for moving the needle forward, one legal fight and one less dying mother at a time.

When I hit search for ‘RBG’, even almost a week after her passing, the Wikipedia entry that appears at the top right still tells me: “Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States … and has served since August 10, 1993.”

It seems fitting that her bio not be updated to reflect her existence in the past tense, because she remains very much alive, at least in my mind.

I like to imagine that, for now, there is a Wiki user out there that continues to moderate the page to change the language back, as a repeated reminder of RBG’s desire for justice and choice that lives on concurrently in you and in me.

Two on-campus Jewish organizations, Chabad and Hillel, have adapted to the pandemic restrictions to provide students with new ways to observe the High Holy Days, which include Rosh Hashanah, the 10 Days of Awe and Yom Kippur.

“The biggest challenge to any of our programming, but specifically around High Holidays, is that we can’t gather,” said Hillel Program Director Lauren Rekhelman.

Rekhelman, who oversees the team of staff for Tech’s Hillel and makes sure all programs are running smoothly, elaborates on changes that have been made to their events.

“Particularly for the High Holidays, you would go to synagogue in big numbers and you would have services and you would have a big, festive meal together on Rosh Hashanah,” said Rekhelman.

“So this year, we’ve adjusted and all of our meals have been grab-n-go style.”

Rosh Hashanah marks the start of the Jewish New Year on the Jewish calendar. This is the start of year 5781 and Rosh Hashanah fell on Sept. 18-20.

“We had our Hillel table with all the meals, pre-packaged, individually wrapped, all of that, and the students came and picked up what they had ordered,” said Rekhelman.

“And then we offered virtual services for all of Hillels of Georgia, so we had a rabbi leading services from our building at Emory and we live-streamed it on a Zoom webinar.”

Chabad has also been facing similar challenges this semester. Second-year BMED and Chabad Leadership Team member Mira Mutnick explains what this has meant for their events.

“Every week, pre-COVID, there would be Shabbat dinners on Friday night. So Shabbat is the main weekly holiday that we have and so on Friday night, we have a big dinner,” said Mutnick. “… but during COVID, we can’t really do that, so they’re running Shabbat to-gos, where they’re packing up dinners and people can come and pick up the dinners and have them with their friends in smaller groups, socially distanced.”

To celebrate Rosh Hashanah, Chabad held a special Shabbat to-go and small events at the Chabad House.” It was more of a grand Shabbat to-go with more food in the boxes just to celebrate the holiday, including different kinds of honey and apples,” said Mutnick.

“And then they had small in-person services in their backyard in the tent for people who wanted to have the prayer service.”

On Sept. 20 at 5 p.m., Chabad also held a shofar blowing on Tech Green.

“A shofar is a ram’s horn and that’s one of the main aspects of Rosh Hashanah is hearing the shofar blow,” said Mutnick.

Yom Kippur, which translates as the Day of Atonement, will occur on Sept. 27 and 28. It is traditionally a fast day in which teshuva is done, which translates to repentance or return.

“The idea of Yom Kippur is that it is a time to return to ourselves, return to our best selves, return to what we want to be doing in life and also to let go of anything you don’t want to take with you,” said Rekhelman.

“It’s an opportunity to ask for forgiveness, if that is needed, and to give forgiveness too if that is needed.”

Placed in the context of 2020’s events, the themes of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur offer a chance for reflection. For Rekhleman, the global pandemic and imminent election have been especially relevant.

“For me, it definitely has an extra significance,” said Rekhelman. “It’s a chance to say, what do I want to do in the coming years to make the world a better place? And so I think that is very present for me, I obviously can’t speak to if that’s everybody’s experience, but I know it is mine.”

Mutnick also draws similarities between Rosh Hashanah and the practice of making New Year’s Resolutions.

“Learning from the lessons of coronavirus and becoming more connected to people that you drifted away from has definitely been a really big influence on Rosh Hashanah this year,” said Mutnick, who mentions getting closer to her family has been a positive this year.

Moving forward, both Hillel and Chabad are working to implement safe activities for students to participate in.

“We have been finding ways to have small groups able to gather in outdoor spaces, primarily, with social distancing and masks, [which] has been really wanted and needed,” said Rekhelman.

“So I think that as we move through the year, we’re going to try to maintain some of those small community connections where maybe five students meet each other.”

Hillel offers additional programming related to Shabbat and Jewish holidays, Israel and Jewish learning, sports and outdoors events. To find out more, students can reach out to Rekhleman at lrekhelman@gthillel.org, Engagement Associate Shaina Lubliner at shaina@gthillel.org or Israel Fellow Elinoy Granot at elinoy@hillelsofgeorgia.org.

Chabad has also been trying in-person events in small numbers.

“They’ve started doing some Shabbat in-person for team members to keep the numbers small, and to kind of test drive it, see how people are social distancing and we’re trying to kickstart some picnics,” said Mutnick.

“There’s someone who’s trying to lead that, having more picnics around campus throughout the week, to have more of an in-person community feel while still being socially distant.”

Students interested in participating in Chabad can reach out to their Instagram account, @chabadgt_gsu.

On Sept. 14, Dr. André Brock, LMC professor and author of Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures, talked with Jayla Williams about Black cyberculture via BlueJeans.

He began by discussing the pessimism we tend to hold when talking about the internet — that it is riddled with cheap political discourse, that it has created a surveillance state, etc. — but says that as a researcher with a critical eye, he is interested in exploring how we use information technology and its effects on how we understand ourselves.

The saying goes that “the computer creates the user,” but Dr. Brock emphasizes that culture is at work behind the scenes when we create and use technology. None of us can escape our cultural assumptions when we create anything. The Silicon Valley narrative that technology is either innovative or disruptive is something Dr. Brock disagrees with — this binary is too exclusive of the complex cultural discourse happening over the internet.

According to him, “Black people have a natural affinity for the internet and digital media.” He sees Black-created internet platforms, such as “Black Twitter,” as safe spaces constructed by African-Americans to decenter whiteness. Black cyberculture is a space for performance and conversation where the mundane lives of Black people are normalized.

In order to produce compelling research on the internet’s role in culture and vice versa, Dr. Brock created an analytic technique called Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA).

It combines the study of user discourse with the study of the technology itself to explore the links between form, function, belief and meaning of communication technologies.

One example of a case in which CTDA is helpful is the Yahoo Finance tweet fiasco of 2017. Yahoo tweeted “Trump wants a much n*****navy. Here’s how much it’ll cost.” Almost immediately, a hashtag “#n*****navy ” was created, and users made fun of the tweet. According to Yahoo, it was an autocorrect error, but cancel culture rejected this and argued that it had been a purposefully racist tweet.

With CTDA analysis, we can see that out of Yahoo’s blunder came the creation of a space to engage in discourse about race, but not necessarily in an “academic” way. Black Twitter can enact joy and, far from being naive, intentionally takes life’s racist challenges and turns them into celebration.

In describing Black techno-culture, Dr. Brock stresses that it needs to include the every-day, the mundane. The discussion of racism doesn’t make up all of Black culture, nor should Black culture reflect one subset of itself.

“Social justice activism isn’t all of Black discourse. We’re not all angry Black Lives Matter gangbangers,” he said. Instead, Black digital space is, or should be, a celebration of regular life. Explaining further, Brock said that the “white belief in rationalism and logic that excludes Black subjectivity objectifies the world they find themselves in.” These platforms should reflect the whole person each user was “before the police hailed them over.”

The medium of Twitter or the like affords a safe space to recover from brutality and to grow. Online, the space is not limited by in-person racism. Rather, it is a place where each user can freely express a point of view and “be a point that is viewed.”

Dr. Brock also discussed the elitism and exclusion built into certain apps and websites.

“The sleeker and more difficult the technology is, the more we say it’s accessible to the elite,” he said. “Canvas and Banner — but not Twitter — are ‘appropriate technologies.’”

In opposition to these elitist technologies, or perhaps out of exclusion from them, communities of people create safe parts of the internet for conversation to happen.

Dr. Brock pointed out that Twitter is interesting in that it allows for people who aren’t following each other to have a discourse. Hashtags invite discussion and by design cannot shut anyone out. Black Twitter provides an uplifting, joyful space for genuine discourse and for catharsis.

When asked about technology usage in the famous Disney-created Black utopia of “Wakanda,” Brock answered that “Wakanda is not an Afro-future I can believe in.”

He elaborated that this fictitious nation, invented by a white Disney employee in 1968, is autonomous and technologically advanced, but refuses to help its neighbors suffering Western domination.

He said that the Black Panthers are a more realistic Afro-future because they also focused on the mundane in addition to bigger ideals by providing schooling, packing lunches, and attending to other quotidian needs within the community.

One attendee asked whether it would be useful to create a Black platform to interconnect all Black people around the world. Dr. Brock argued that it would instead be more productive and cost-efficient to reshape funded platforms that already serve us.

Another participant asked about this summer’s murders and the emotional suffering he is exposed to as a researcher of Black culture.

In reference to the George Floyd video, Brock said: “It was like watching a lynching, and it could have been me.”

He expressed the “racial battle fatigue” he and others feel when constantly exposed to racist violence and spoke about the negative effects of social network algorithms that continually show us media of death.

“While I talk about Black joy, I also focus on catharsis in a world where we’re presented as objects in the regime of white supremacy.”

Last Wednesday, which also happened to be Constitution Day, the Atlanta History Center partnered with Tech’s library to celebrate the centennial of the 19th amendment. Jessica Vanlanduyt presented the center’s new exhibit on the amendment through BlueJeans, and discussed the ways women have used political power over the years.

Vanlanduyt began by emphasizing that the history of the amendment is not one-sided. The women involved in the suffrage movement often differed greatly in their motives for advocating the right to vote.

Lucretia Coffin Mott, an American Quaker, abolitionist, and women’s rights advocate, held the first woman’s rights convention in Seneca Falls in 1848. Mott is important in showing the long and complicated history of voting rights in the United States. Citizens play an important role in establishing democracy, because although we are all entitled to the right to vote, individual states decide how the voting process works. This leaves a lot of room for discrimination at the state-level, which we are dealing with today and which women historically faced as well.

In 1870, the 15th amendment eliminated race as a barrier to voting, but states quickly made laws such as the infamous literacy test and the grandfather clause to keep Black men from voting.

“I want to have a say, I want equality, I want to be represented,” explained Vanlanduyt of the general goal of suffrage advocates. Seneca Falls was an important moment in the declaration of these desires: for the first time, a document written by the organizers declared that all men and women were created equal.

Vanlanduyt was quick to point out the varying views these women held. We usually think about Susan B. Anthony, or rich white women in general, as the face of the cause, but she is of course only one of many.

Mary Bottineau Baldwin was an indigenous woman of the Métis group who fought for Native American rights and women’s rights. Adelina Otero-Warren wrote pamphlets in both English and Spanish. Ida B. Wells fought for anti-lynching as well as suffrage and Dr. Mabel Lee was a Chinese immigrant who fought for women’s right to vote even though the Chinese didn’t have this right at all until 1943. These important women and their causes are often forgotten.

Interestingly, not all women who supported suffrage believed that women were equal to men. They wanted the right to vote so that they could have political power for other purposes.

The Temperance movement required votes to change legislation, and women understood that their political voices were crucial for this reform.
Another division within the women’s movement was the question of voting rights for Black men and women. Some followers believed in universal suffrage, but many believed that voters should be white-only.

In Georgia, Helena Augusta Howard founded the Georgia Women’s Suffrage Association, which lobbied for the National American Woman Suffrage Association conference to happen in Atlanta. Mary McCurdy, another Georgian, wrote about universal suffrage and voting for Black women in particular. Emily MacDougald of Columbus headed the Equal Suffrage Party (ESP), one of the most progressive organizations. Once the 19th amendment passed, ESP turned into the Georgia League of Women Voters, which educated girls about the government and taught them why they should want to vote.

The National Women’s Party, led by Alice Paul, was the first group ever to picket the White House. For months, there were protests and hunger strikes — the only time the movement became violent.

In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson finally openly supported the movement, largely because of the role of women in WWI. In 1920, the amendment was ratified by an all-male senate. Women were not allowed to vote in Georgia state elections until 1922. Surprising is the length of time it took Georgia to fully support the movement: the Georgia legislature didn’t actually ratify the 19th amendment until 1970.

The Atlanta History Center is open to the public. “Any Great Change: The Centennial of the 19th Amendment” and their many other exhibits are on display, so go check it out and don’t forget to register to vote!

It has been two years since conservative Fox News host, Laura Ingraham, told star NBA players, Lebron James and Kevin Durant, to “Shut up and dribble” after they spoke out about police brutality in America.

Many are coining the historical NBA strike last week “The Great NBA Awakening,” but why? As the sport with the highest percent of Black players (74%), it is no surprise that NBA players would be the ones to lead a sport-wide strike.

What is the difference between what Colin Kaepernick did and what the NBA players did this week? Both were peaceful.

Both have clearly been vocal in the past in regard to systemic racism and police violence towards Black people.

Both were heard, but only one was truly listened to. The difference is money.

Top NBA athletes threw their name and weight behind the strike. For some time now Black athletes have been seen as commodities.

How can white team owners and managers profit off their Blackness while never wanting to celebrate or protect it?

Sure, a millionaire Black NBA player has the financial leg up on a middle to lower class Black man, but what happens when the NBA player gets pulled over by the police and he isn’t recognized as such?

He will be treated like any other Black man pulled over for a DWB (Driving While Black).

When the Milwaukee Bucks refused to play after the egregiously violent arrest of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

They caused a ripple effect that would go down as a historical moment in NBA and American history.

Other NBA teams shortly followed their lead and it caused a multi-sport strike. WNBA players also followed suit and supported the issue by canceling their scheduled games that night. Both MLB and MLS had teams that also took part in the sports strike last week as well.

Two days after the initial strike on behalf of the Bucks and other NBA players, over 100 other NBA employees walked out in support of the teams striking.

When you call it a boycott or a protest, you minimize the importance of NBA players as a workforce.

It reiterates the belief that these players owe the white masses entertainment and that their work is not their own.

A boycott, for instance, would be if fans decided not to buy any NBA merchandise or tickets because they disagree with something the organization has said or done.

Although what the athletes have done does fall under the umbrella of protesting, it should be recognized as a work-strike primarily. So what did this all accomplish?

The teams came to an agreement just 48 hours after refusing to take the court. The NBA promised to assist with creating more voting and ballot location sites.

They even went as far as agreeing to turn many of their own arenas into polling locations for the upcoming election.

This outcome was a brilliant catch-all solution.

It is ridiculous to believe a deeply corrupt and racist pillar of our society could be entirely re-written overnight.

Although we are nowhere near close to the America we want to see, this event has exemplified the leverage that these teams have.

Increasing access to voting is the next best thing and will undoubtedly increase voter representation.

Even though not everything was solved by the NBA strike, it was a major step in the right direction towards ending police brutality and bringing awareness to systemic racism in America.

Maybe next time, people will think twice before telling these players to “shut up and dribble.”

It all started with a pair of black jeans. High-waisted, made of thick denim, and reasonably priced, it felt a little too good to be true for a broke college student ­— but I caved. I had just bought a pair from Pull&Bear, a brand I had never heard of, and after thinking a bit I decided to do some research. I wanted to know if there was actually any merit to its “Concept” page that reads: “Pull&Bear started … with a clear international mission and with the intention of dressing young people who are engaged with their environment, who live in the community and relate to each other.” When we are constantly inundated with ads about “sustainable brands” and ‘“ethical” fashion, and greeted with sleek websites that tout their commitment to the environment, was there any evidence to suggest that these brands were taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint and promote fair labor?

Unfortunately, had I bothered to read a few lines further on the website, in the same breath the company states that not only do its stores receive new inventory twice a week, but that the company belongs to Inditex Group, which also owns Zara, a brand I avoid. Zara is known for its “fast fashion” business model that is predicated on rapidly changing current fashion trends. The industry is responsible for excessive water and agricultural pollution due to mass production of toxic synthetic dyes and for unethical international labor practices that have seen young people’s preferences trend away from cheap distributors such as H&M and Forever21. It seemed that a simple rebranding trick was sufficient to pull the “non-ethically sourced wool” over my eyes, and I wondered about the practices of popular brands among the college population.

Goodonyou.com is a brand ratings website that breaks down sustainability into three categories of impact: people, planet and animals, from which I learned a few things. Unsurprisingly, brands like Uniqlo and Urban Outfitters were grouped in with other fast-fashion culprits and received a low overall score. But what surprised me were the equally low ratings for brands like Madewell and Everlane, which are both priced higher and have commitment to transparency. Even more surprising were the practices of expensive outdoor brands such as Marmot and Arc’teryx, which “do not take adequate steps to reduce textile waste or minimize packaging” or “manage greenhouse gas emissions” despite coasting on a brand identity that wholeheartedly supports environmental initiatives.

The appeal of fast-fashion is mainly price over quality. But it turns out that more expensive brands that wear sustainability-driven practices on their sleeves do not fare any better under closer inspection. These brands have managed to capitalize on the millennial desire to shop ethically while wearing Allbirds and drinking green smoothies — there’s even a term for it: greenwashing. But what often goes unsaid is that behind the muted color palettes and minimalistic designs, clothing brands are inherently bad for the environment. The sheer volume of clothing output far outweighs any “organic-cotton” or “clothing recycling” initiatives that are often greenwashing PR. The biggest problem isn’t that we can’t afford expensive clothing that tracks its production to the first step or supports fair wages, but that we are simply consuming too much altogether.

During quarantine, I’ve been thinking a lot about trimming excess during a time when everything is being performed at a minimum level. With our reliance on single-use plastics on the rise, historic wildfires blazing through the West Coast and Australia, and the continued rolling back of key environmental regulations, climate change is never far from the collective mind. What I’ve learned from this short forray into the world of sustainable fashion is that it is an ironic phrase at best. Will I still wear my Pull&Bear black cutoffs? Regrettably, yes. But before succumbing to the pull of the next ‘sustainable’ brand, I’ll be sure to stop by the nearest thrift store first.

Reaching for higher education is something every parent wants from their kid, especially if the school is one of the best learning institutions in the country, like Tech. With this excitement, any type of family gathering involves one or more parent heavily bragging about their child going to a great university that will have them set for life. And this constant bragging can create pressure on the student to stick with the path they created for themselves, regardless if the student picked the right major path.

I can only speak on my previous high school and high schools like it, but I was ill-prepared for college. I went to a below-average school with lackluster test scores, low funding and only strived to meet the bare minimum. And I’d like to think that there are a lot of other high schools like this. There are a lot of students who don’t pursue higher education unless they are an outlier who had real-world experience. The students that wanted to pursue higher education had little to no frame of reference for what they wanted to do. So these students must make the hastily decisions to choose a major and follow that path, or choose undecided, which opens another layer of complications.

So we are now back at the dinner table, first week of classes is in the books and we find ourselves as an uncertain student who has chosen an uncertain path. As the academic years roll on, the student joins clubs, experiences different cultures, and goes through exponential personal growth. The best part of pursuing higher education is going from the small pond that is your high school in your hometown, to the massive ocean that is a living on your own, in a new city, at a large university. Us Tech students are so fortunate to attend such a diverse school in a state that isn’t exactly known for its diversity. With this personal growth, along with a couple of years of classes, the student realizes their true passion is different from the academic path they chose. But being two years deep into a major and following the same narrative of a student coming from a low-income household, making a drastic switch really isn’t a viable option financially. The financial loss of dropping out coupled with the pressures family letdown pushes the student to continue forward pursuing a degree they don’t want.

I have found that this narrative or variations of it are common amongst Tech students and college students in general. And it is disheartening to pursue something you aren’t passionate about, but it’s okay.

Regardless of major, a 4-year stent here at Tech teaches us students a lot about life, work ethic, efficiency, and grittiness. Tech is a fiery crucible that builds strong-willed students with its academic rigor and stress. Along with the intense conditioning, Tech has so many amazing communities and opportunities to explore talents and passions at a very high level of execution and quality.

It is something that makes me so thankful for transferring here. So regardless if you love your major, Tech provides a wealth of knowledge that more than prepares you to pursue your true passion.