My high school classmates' senior years did not go as planned. Call it dumb luck or terrible mistakes, but many of my closest friends received concussions that year. The head injuries, from either football or soccer, lasted weeks or months. In one case the headaches were bad enough that my friend John had to drop out of school for the...

Jamaica. Jamaican Parliament voted to decriminalize the possession of small quantities of marijuana last Tuesday. The act made it legal for residents to carry up to two ounces of marijuana and authorized the creation of a licensing agency to regulate marijuana distribution for medicinal and scientific purposes. Additionally, citizens may now grow and maintain up to five cannabis plants. Foreigners...

Yet another very public incident of soccer-related racism has the sports world abuzz, discussing what has become a tired refrain—European soccer has a racism problem. Last week, several Chelsea FC fans, heading to the club's Champions League round of 16 first leg against Paris Saint-Germain, were videotaped aggressively pushing a black man away from the doors of a Paris metro...

Thunderous applause emanating from Thorne Hall is a sure sign that the Black Student Alliance's Apollo Night has arrived. This year, students put their hands together at the annual talent show for acts ranging from spoken word to strolling and stepping. Kyle Beasley (senior) and Mika Cribbs (junior) hosted the event, keeping the audience's energy up between talents with dances...

Karen Romero was only a few months into her time at Occidental when a racist classmate made her consider leaving. In her first-semester CSP class, Romero (now a junior) encountered a white student who was openly dismissive toward her classmates of color. “She wasn’t like that with other students who were white, but she was very condescending towards the Latinas...

Emily Watkins (senior) is no stranger to dedication and hard work. In addition to ranking second in the SCIAC at the 100 Breaststroke, the potential Fulbright scholar serves as the president of Occidental's chapter of Colleges Against Cancer. She has no qualms about spending her valuable time enriching the lives of those around her and working toward the causes she...

Singer/Songwriter Tinashe will perform at the Remsen Bird Hillside Theater (Greek Bowl) for the annual SpringFest concert April 4, making her the first female artist to headline the event. Occidental's own rising musician, Rachel West (senior), will open the show. Programming Board Event Manager Asa Welch* (junior) and the other board members wanted to choose an artist who diverged from...

They should've known better I froze right when I heard her say it. The guys shouldn’t have done that. But they shouldn’t have been out there either, much less dancing. They could’ve just been smarter about it. Then this wouldn’t have happened. Indignant, but also too torn to form words to respond right away, I stood there silently while the...

This week has been the last of Black History Month, and unfortunately it bore yet another glaring example of social human regression. If you are unfamiliar, the dress below has sparked some of the most intense, anger-fueled and heavily participated in discourse of the year so far. The picture of this dress resulted in an explosion of social media arguing...

Al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda affiliated Islamist group that has wreaked havoc in the war torn nation of Somalia over the last decade, has kept a relatively low profile in recent months. Banished from the Somali capital, Mogadishu, by African Union (AU) troops in August 2011, al-Shabaab’s control over Somalia has gradually shrunk. In the same year, their legitimacy in the eyes...