ATULYA DORA-LASKEY
STAFF WRITER

Many Americans believe that our society functions as a meritocracy, an informal governing system where people climb the ranks based on their ability. The best, brightest, and most hardworking can get all the way to the most influential positions in the country. While everyone else exists in lower roles that are better suited for their skill-level.

The belief in an American Meritocracy is heartening for a couple reasons. It tells us that anyone can reach the top if they try hard enough, including you! And if you don’t quite reach the top, then at least the people who managed to climb higher deserve to be there. It can be comforting to know that those serving at the highest levels of government or those put in charge of the biggest corporations are qualified to make decisions that affect millions of people. There is a reason we spread the word about our favorite candidate or read the Forbes “400 Wealthiest People” list: we think these people are inherently smarter and better than we are.

On March 12, this idea was challenged. Federal prosecutors announced an investigation into a college admissions bribing scandal. The FBI investigation (nicknamed “Varsity Blues”) found that William Singer, a college admissions counselor, had unethically carried out admissions for more than 750 wealthy families. District of Massachusetts prosecutors have released indictments and complaints against 50 people, including parents who have used bribery and various kinds of fraud to gain admission for their children at the country’s top colleges and universities. The federal prosecutor revealing the scheme assured the nation that there would be justice, and that “There can be no separate college admissions system for the wealthy.”

Despite the valiant efforts of these federal prosecutors, there is a separate college admissions system for the wealthy, and it will continue to exist even after this investigation concludes. There are many ways that wealthier families get advantages in the admission process by the simple virtue of having more money, and most of them are very legal.

Nearly half of private colleges and universities take into account whether an applicant’s family members attended that school, giving special preference to “legacy admission” students who are more likely to have come from richer backgrounds. Many colleges consider if an applicant has made a campus visit, which can be trip that’s too expensive for other families. Wealthy parents can pay thousands of dollars for test prep and college consulting for their children, in contrast to struggling families who may need their children to spend their time working jobs in order to support the household.

Wealthier school districts can offer far more sports and extracurriculars which can help those students distinguish themselves in ways that kids from poorer school districts can’t. Wealthier parents can also simply donate large amounts of money to schools in order to get their children unofficial special preference. And some high school students will simply never be able to afford college no matter how smart and talented they are, unlike their more privileged peers.

The college admission scandal is not an isolated event in well functioning system, it’s a crack in the lie that there is a meritocracy that deserves to rule over us.

Many of the people at the top aren’t there because they’re far smarter or more hard-working than you are, they’re there because they had more money or knew the right people. The CEO of Mylan, Heather Bresch, who raised the price of EpiPens from $50 to $600 didn’t become CEO and jack prices because she was smarter than you, she did it because she was the child of a senator and was provided every opportunity in life. White House advisor Jared Kushner didn’t get into Harvard because of his spectacular GPA and SAT scores, which his high school administrator says “did not warrant it,” he got in because his father donated $2.5 million dollars to the school. Bresch and Kushner now both make decisions that affect millions of Americans because of their parent’s wealth rather than their own merit. And they aren’t the exception, they are the rule.

You could consider me hypocritical for writing about this. My family’s secure financial position allowed me to spend more time studying so I could perform better academically than the average student. My high school had enough money to run a whole host of extracurriculars which I had the time to join because I wasn’t working to support my family. My decision to go to Alma was aided by the fact that my mom’s employment here grants me an almost tuition-free college education. I could afford to work an unpaid internship over the summer and use it to build my resume. I’m the result of many privileges. Yet, I have also turned down my favorite college because of the costs associated with it, like many other people have.

There are students who are far smarter and more qualified than me who aren’t in college because of their financial situation. Similarly, there are students less smarter and less qualified than me who are in more prestigious colleges because of their financial situation. We’re all products of our environments, and some of these environments are better than others. None of us are hypocrites for admitting this.

We don’t live in a meritocracy, we live in a system ruled by inequalities. To recognize this doesn’t mean we should all be ashamed of the advantages and privileges that we have or don’t have. You may have deserved better or worse than what you got, and you may have gotten more or less opportunities than the person next to you. But you aren’t defined by what you deserved or how many opportunities you had. You are defined by how you use what you have to make sure that those after you are more deserving and that they have more opportunities.

ATULYA DORA-LASKEY
STAF WRITER

At its core, Captain Marvel is a story of empowerment. The film’s protagonist, Carol Danvers, is both a strong yet nuanced woman, capable of tearing apart entire spacecrafts, yet she is also capable of showing a personal side when interacting with her best friend. It helps that the star of the movie, Brie Larson, is an incredibly outspoken feminist herself. This combination of factors led to Captain Marvel being the highest-grossing movie with a female lead of all time.

Captain Marvel chronicles the journey of a tenacious Air Force pilot who battles sexist expectations as she demolishes her (both human and alien) enemies. The film’s themes go further than feminist empowerment with it’s second act twist, which reveals that the Skrull aliens, that Captain Marvel had been hunting down the entire movie, are actually victims of the very Kree soldiers that she had been working with. The Skrull leader tells Danvers that they are forced to live in ruins of their former communities because of frequent bombings by the Kree, contrary to what the Kree had told her. In the climax of the film, the super heroine changes sides and helps the refugee Skrulls escape the oppressive Kree forces and quite literally catches bombs out of the sky in order to protect the innocent civilians below. Captain Marvel’s final lesson is that we should be empathetic of people, even if they look different than us.

However, the film’s final message of peace strikes as inconsistent with its enthusiastic promotion of the Air Force.

The military has a long record of collaboration with Hollywood, working to maintain a positive image of its various branches by requesting changes to scripts, while in exchange letting movies use logos, props, and locations. From 1911 to 2017, more than 800 feature films received quid-pro-quo support from the Department of Defense.

One of the main reasons for collaboration is that movies can be a powerful recruiting tool for the military. The Air Force noted an uptick in sign-ups after the release of Top Gun and even set up recruiting tables inside theaters to catch people exiting the film. They now seem intent to recreate that success with the release of Captain Marvel, running ads for the Air Force before showings of the film in which a group of female fighter pilots narrate, “Every superhero has an origin story. We all got our start somewhere. For us: it was the U.S. Air Force.”

Todd Flemming, chief of the Community and Public Outreach Division at Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs, told military issues website Task & Purpose that, “Our partnership with ‘Capt Marvel’ helped ensure that the character’s time in the Air Force and backstory was presented accurately. It also highlighted the importance of the Air Force to our national defense.”

The Air Force provided advisement, training, shooting locations, and even promotions for the film. In exchange, Marvel had Brie Larson star in promotional material for the branch aimed at recruiting more young women, and let Air Force pilots give testimonials during the film’s red carpet premiere.

Unmentioned during these mutual promotions was the Air Force’s grim record of civilian causalities. A 2018 report by the United Nations found that there had been 8,050 civilian causalities in Afghanistan as a result of U.S. Air Force led bombings of the region in nine months alone. From 2004, up to 3,224 people have been killed by U.S. Air Force drones in Pakistan. Just earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order revoking the requirement that U.S. intelligence officials publicly report the number of civilians killed in drone strikes.

Today, drone operators outnumber any other type of pilot in the Air Force. Which means that young women recruited into the Air Force by Captain Marvel promotional material will most likely end up in a drone program which unaccountably racks up a completely unknown civilian causality rate.

Young women will have been encouraged to enter this program by a movie that told them that indiscriminately bombing people is bad, while simultaneously encouraging them to join an institution that seems almost dedicated to indiscriminately bombing people. They will be put into a job that requires them to feel no empathy for different-looking people because of a movie that asked them to feel empathy for different-looking people. They will help drop bombs on innocent civilians because of a role model who stopped bombs from dropping on innocent civilians. That is the contradiction at the core of Captain Marvel.

Only Robert Mueller can deliver the fatal blow to Trump, and everyone else is just there to support him as he collects all the evidence. While it’s important to hold powerful people accountable, the hinging of all hope on a prosecutor to possibly catch the President violating a law is an ineffective and unsustainable way to lead a resistance against someone in power. Even if Mueller does catch Trump, and Republicans in the Senate somehow decide to impeach, that is simply a return to the status quo. Without significant societal changes, we return to an America that has simply just reset the ticking time-bomb of another person like Trump rising to power.

True resistance is more than just finding a way to go back to the status quo when conditions get bad. It’s about examining and fixing the inherent problems and assumptions in the status quo that allowed conditions to get bad in the first place. Harry Potter may have been unable to, but reality is often stranger than fiction.

ATULYA DORA-LASKEY
STAFF WRITER

The views expressed by contributors are their own and do not represent the views of the Alma College.

America does not have a strong success record when it comes to “helping” other countries.

The American drive to interfere in the affairs of other countries often results in incidents such as in 1953, when America overthrew the Prime Minister Mossadeq of Iraq, installing Reza Shah as a dictator. Or in 1963, when America backed the assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem, and killed 2 million Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnamese war. Or in 1973, when America staged a coup in Chile to replace President Salvador Allende with the infamously cruel dictator Augusto Pinochet, who murdered 5,000 of his critics through massacres and silenced others through rape and torture. Or in the 1980’s, when America covertly financed and armed Islamist fundamentalists in Afghanistan (which likely included Osama Bin Laden) to fight against Soviets. Or starting in 1991, when America-led sanctions and bombings of Iraq lead to the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children. Or starting in 2008, when America covertly used 10 times the amount of previous American drone strikes which resulted in the deaths of up to 807 civilians.

With all these horrific failures, it might seem like common sense to simply stop interfering. Yet, while America doesn’t have a strong success record on its imperialist actions, it does have a strong record of inflicting backlash against its critics.

The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 gave the American government authority to close newspapers and jail citizens for having anti-war views. From 1955 to 1970, the FBI regularly targeted critics of American involvement in the Vietnam War and the American government jailed those who refused to serve. In 1970, the National Guard fired 67 rounds into a crowd of Kent State University students protesting the American bombing of Cambodia, killing four students and wounding nine others. In the wake of 9/11, Barbara Lee was the subject of scores of death threats and called a traitor in major newspaper editorial boards for being the sole lone vote against the authorization against the Afghanistan war, a war most Americans now believe to be a mistake.

In light of these historical missteps, it comes as no surprise that Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has now faced similar accusations for daring to question the American Empire. Omar came to America at the age of ten as a refugee, force to flee because of the Somali Civil War in which American forces were involved. Consequently, Ilhan Omar was given a personal and real view of American imperialism that most Americans will never truly understand. Omar would go on to win her Minnesota representative seat with 73% of the vote.

Omar drew scorn in February for spending her time, during a Congressional hearing on Venezuela, harshly criticizing and questioning Reagan-era administrator Elliot Abrams for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. Abrams pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra scandal, which involved the Reagan administration illegally funding and arming Nicaraguan contras under the guise of “humanitarian aid.” Omar also criticized and questioned Abrams for his role in covering up a massacre by an American-trained El Salvadoran army which left hundreds of civilians dead including 131 children. Because of this, Ilhan Omar was called “uncivil” by both Republican and Democratic officials. Elliot Abrams has now been

appointed US Special Representative for Venezuela and is in charge of distributing what the Trump administration deems “humanitarian aid” to the politically unstable country. At the time of writing, Congresswoman Omar is the only member in both the House and Senate to oppose American intervention in Venezuela.

Omar drew even more scorn last week for repeatedly criticizing the influence of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbyist group. In tweet that was later deleted, Omar wrote “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.” Despite Omar apologizing for accidentally using anti-Semitic tropes, it’s become clear that the backlash against Omar is overwhelmingly not about anti-semitism but rather about criticizing the American-Israel relationship.

Human rights groups have condemned the actions of the Israeli government repeatedly for their human rights violations, including the unlawful transfer of Israeli citizens to the occupied west bank, the killing of 189 Palestinian protestors including 31 children and 3 medical workers, and the frequent air and artillery strikes in the Gaza strip. Despite this, criticizing the American-Israel relationship remains a deep taboo.

AIPAC spent $3.5 million dollars last year on lobbying, resulting in bipartisan support for support for the state of Israel to the tune of $500 million for missile defense and $3.3 billion for security assistance. Last month, bipartisan support passed a AIPAC-backed Senate bill that would allow state governments to punish those who boycotted products from Israel. In Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer’s running mate, Garlin Gilchrist, was forced to apologize during the gubernatorial campaign for a 2009 tweet disapproving American support for Israel military.

Omar has had a slew of death-threats filed against her, yet many of her congressional peers have refused to support her. Instead, House Democrats tried to pass a bill condemning anti-semitism as an attempt to censure Omar, but decided to broaden the bill to include all types of discrimination after many members of the Jewish community spoke out against the move and supported Congresswoman Omar. Omar ended up being one of many of the “yes” votes to support the bill.

Undeterred, Omar would go on to condemn Obama last Friday. Calling Obama’s image of “hope and change” to be an illusion, as she called out his practice of droning countries and locking up undocumented immigrants. “We can’t only be upset with Trump,” Omar said fiercely, “His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was.”

America has never been good at interference despite its unified support of crushing opposition to interference. Americans should reflect on why we cling so hard to the unsuccessful idea of an American Empire and why we punish those that don’t in an almost cult-like fashion.