T U E S D A Y NOVEMBER 18, 2003
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXXXVIII, No. 116
An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891
www.browndailyherald.com
“Lock up,” says DPS
Panel explores religion and sexuality
BY ZACH BARTER BY ALEXANDRA BARSK
Religious traditions may pervade people’s views on sexuality, but the morals they impart are by no means uniform, said Professor of Religious Studies Ross Kraemer in the Monday night discussion “A Conversation about Religion and Sexuality.” Kraemer and Associate Chaplain Jennifer Rankin led the event, sponsored by the Interfaith House. Event coordinator Priya Cariappa ’05 asked panelists to explain how they believe religion influences people’s choices in determining their sexual practices. “All religious traditions have ideas about people’s sexual practices and these become part of the way in which people raised in these traditions are brought up,” Kraemer said, but religions “don’t have a singular thing to say on these issues.” She added that religious traditions draw on different authorities to determine their views on sexuality. Even within Christianity, she said, sex can range from being viewed as a necessary evil to being perceived as a good and healthy act when within a proper marriage. A student asked if the group felt that engaging in sexual activities outside of marriage inhibits or promotes spiritual enlightenment. Michaella Matt ’06 responded that many religions teach, “If God is in everything and if everything has a spark of the divine in it, then sex too has a spark of the divine in it.” But “that doesn’t mean that every time you have a sexual impulse you should follow it,” she said. Rather, “you should refine that sexual impulse and find out what is divine in it and with the right intention you can make it holy.” Other issues addressed by the group included traditional views of sexuality as they relate to those in religious service, the obstacles religion poses to homosex-
Marissa Hauptman / Herald
Kim Hopper, former president of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said he wishes advocates for the homeless had placed more of an emphasis on affordable housing.“It was not wise to make homelessness an emergency social work issue instead of a housing issue,” he said.
Homeless advocate criticizes “industry of homelessness” BY MARSHALL AGNEW
The way to combat homelessness is to stop researching and start taking more action, said Kim Hopper, former president of the National Coalition for the Homeless at a Monday night lecture in Lower Salomon. Hopper, who has spent the last two decades studying homelessness, said he believes too much emphasis is placed on research and ethnography and not enough on advances in affordable housing and work-based programs. “If there’s one thing I would have done differently, I would rather have technical skills in housing develop-
see SEXUALITY, page 4
Prof., activist dissects Foucault’s prison BY SARAH LABRIE
Author and professor Vijay Prashad, like many other civic scholars, was originally inspired in his search for penal justice by the French philosopher Foucault. Unlike other academicians, however, it was indignance at some aspects of Foucault’s doctrine — especially his lack of concern for individual humanity — that inspired Prashad’s future career as a prison rights activist. At a lecture Monday night for the Wayland Faculty Seminar and South Asian Identity Week in SmithBuonanno, Prashad recalled asking himself, “Where are the people? Do people matter to him? These are just structures” after reading Foucault’s famous study of the justice system,
“Discipline and Punish.” Prashad, a professor at Trinity College in Hartford and author of several books, including “Keeping up with the Dow Joneses,” a critique of the American economy published in 2003, spoke about the relationship between an economic underclass and the nation’s prison system. “Prisons are the people that build them, the people that live there,” Prashad said. “The people make the prison come to life. The prison itself doesn’t live.” Prashad centered his lecture on the complex social patterns that have led to an increase in prison populations rather than the prisons themselves. He see PRASHAD, page 4
ment,” said Hopper, who said he now regrets many of the approaches to homelessness he advocated in the past. Hopper said he primarily regrets the creation of an “industry of homelessness.” By raising awareness of the problem and advocating programs to assist the homeless, Hopper said he thinks he may have helped create a self-sustaining industry that has yet to make headway. He also said he wishes advocates for the homeless had placed more of an emphasis on affordable housing. “It was not wise to make homelessness an emergency social work issue instead of a housing issue,” he said. Another “fight we lost was to try and convince people that poverty had as much to do with why people were on the streets as disabilities,” Hopper said. People often associate homeleness with disability, but poverty is the more pressing issue, he said. As a result, Hopper said he wishes he’d advocated for a work-based program early on instead of an emergency relief-based program. In the future, he would like to see social workers and politicians engage in open discourse about innovative work-based programs. “Most positions in government are held by politicians, not by people who know what they’re doing,” Hopper said, urging students to learn technical skills rather than political skills. “We know more than we ever needed to about how these people survive,” Hopper said. The next step is to find ways to make their lives better, he said.
I N S I D E T U E S D AY, N O V E M B E R 1 8 , 2 0 0 3 R.I. leaders and Simmons talk up new U. research facility in the Jewelry District metro, page 3
Pawtucket fire spreads from mill because of heavy winds Friday, destroying 13 homes metro, page 3
Only the O.C. can save Cali from the disgrace Arnold brings to the state, Nelson ’06 says column, page 7
The Department of Public Safety is urging students to lock their doors after a burglar struck four Sears House rooms early Sunday morning. Each resident reported being asleep in the room with the door unlocked at the time of the crime. Laura Schonmuller ’05, a first-floor Sears resident and Alpha Chi Omega member, said she went to sleep at 4 a.m. and awoke at noon, when she found her keys, I.D. card-holder and makeup bag missing. She said the burglar likely mistook the makeup case for a purse. Two other members of the sorority awoke to find their purses and wallets missing, Schonmuller said. A fourth student reported being woken up by the burglar, according to a DPS email sent to the campus community Monday afternoon. The student described the suspect as a college-aged male of medium build with short brown hair. None of the students were injured in the incidents. DPS is investigating the episode. Yannic Fletcher ’05, another Alpha Chi Omega member, said the door to the building had been propped open Sunday night because the sorority had hosted its “Commando Chi-O” cocktail party. Although Schonmuller said she usually locks her door when leaving the room, she said she went to bed so late that it slipped her mind. She said another victim left her door unlocked so her sister, who was visiting, would not be locked out. “I’m definitely going to be more cautious in the future,” Schonmuller said. “I would hope that a Brown student wouldsee CRIME, page 4
DPS on lookout for Brook St. muggers A pair of muggings on Brook Street over the weekend has officers on the lookout for a maroon Toyota Camry with stolen license plates and a suspect described as a “scruffy” white male with short black hair. The Department of Public Safety and Providence Police Department, which is investigating the incidents, are asking Brown community members for help in finding the car, which has Rhode Island plates VY589. The campus community learned of the incidents in a DPS e-mail Monday evening. A woman checking her car at the corner of Brook and Transit streets just before 9 p.m. Saturday night reported that the suspect demanded her purse before punching her in the chest. The suspect then fled in the vehicle. PPD also received word of an earlier crime involving the suspect. A suspect of the same description was seen fleeing in the car after stealing a bookbag outside Squire’s Cleaners at the corner of Brook and Power streets. DPS is asking anyone with information to contact its office or PPD detectives —Zach Barter
TO D AY ’ S F O R E C A S T M. cross country’s Gaudette heads to nationals after team gets third in regionals sports, page 8
W. ice hockey drops two games in weekend play to the undefeated Minnesota Gophers sports, page 8
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