Research shows that people who conform to our most stringent appearance norms -- those considered to be "beautiful" -- are also assumed to be more congenial, happier, intelligent, successful, and deserving of greater respect from others (Ruane and Cerulo).  Both men's and women's anxieties about weight, height, hair color, and fashion reflect this obsession over virtually impossible-to-attain appearance norms.  The obsession manifests itself with every hour put in at the gym, every calorie counted at the dining commons, and every session at the local tanning salons.

This obsession is not always obvious and for college students its causes may be somewhat different than for the rest of the population.  Coming to college requires adaptation to a new environment, and acceptance into the mainstream of campus life is crucial for many students.   What better way than to try to be everybody's ideal student with good looks, great grades, and a popular social life, right?  Unfortunately, such pursuits are successful for only about two percent of the population.  Many students hide the fact that they believe something is wrong with their body and secretly try to fix it.  The famous "Freshman 10" compromises the goal of achieving the ideal look and becomes a nightmare for entering students trying to fit in.

The problem arises when rationale is thrown out the window and the goal of becoming physically perfect takes on the characteristics of an obsession.  Low self-esteem, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive behaviors and depression arise easily as a student becomes more and more invested in achieving the unachievable.   This in turn can lead to physical ailments, illness, hospitalization, and even death in the most extreme cases.  Many students don't even realize what they are doing to themselves because so many other students are in the same struggle.  One study shows that only about six students a year with eating disorders are treated through health service programs (Swerczek).  Health Services on this campus offers programs that try to increase students' self esteem and self worth, but these programs usually involve re-active rather than pro-active measures.  The root of the problem lies within the larger culture.  The media bombards us with images of beautiful people, and the race for the ideal body adds stress to students who are already stressed about academics, athletics, and social relationships.  Unfortunately, until society can prove to be a place where all people -- regardless of appearances -- are accepted and can succeed, the race to achieve the ideal body image will continue to be a chronic problem.

Cerulo, Karen A. and Janet M. Ruane.  (1997). Seeing Conventional Wisdom Through the Sociological Eye.  Thousand Oaks:
        Pine Forge Press.

Swerczek, Mary. (1998). "Campus Attempts to Digest Eating Concerns." The Brown Daily Herald.  Online:
        http://www.theherald.org/issues/100495/eating.f.html October 30, 1998.

 I reached the top of the stairs and knocked on the door to Ray's apartment.  One of my friends opened the door and immediately sprang out at me, giving me a violent hug.  Inside, I was greeted with the same teen angst-filled smiles that I saw every day.  A large group of us just started hanging around Ray's house after school.  His mom worked evenings, so there were no parental figures that we had to worry about offending.

After I made my rounds in the apartment, seeing who was where and exchanging many hugs and hellos, I went to find Ray.  I had been living with a mop of beached-blonde hair for two days now and I was getting a little sick of the sight of it.  It was time to change that and he was going to help me.

 I found him in his bedroom.  The thick smell of cigarette smoke hit my nostrils, tickling them almost to a sneeze.  Ray sat in his tattered recliner with a cigarette hanging from his fingers that ended with long, painted fingernails.  He jumped out of his seat with an evil grin on his face.  "Are you ready?"

 My heart almost skipped a beat, but the certainty in my head was enough to cover it up, at least for now.   "Yeah."  I tried to sound as convinced as I wished I were.

I knew he detected my cover-up because his grin got wider as he walked past me, toward his closet.  He reached into its dark recesses and pulled out a bowl that was mostly yellow but stained with a bright blue that could only have been hair dye, the color that he wore on his head.  My heart started to beat faster as I reached into my backpack and pulled out my own bottle of hair dye.  He motioned for me to sit down on the floor in front of his chair.  I watched him pour the thick fluid out of the bottle
and into the dish that he always used for this purpose.  His leg swung over my head and he planted himself behind me.
 "Are you sure?" He asked for my sake, just one last time.  He leaned over my shoulder and looked straight into my eyes and told me, "You know that this will change you forever, right?"

 I didn't want to take him seriously, but there was a look in his normally playful eyes that made me want to listen to him.  I was too excited and nervous.  I just thought, If I didn't do it now, I never would.  I had to do it; this was something that I was just too curious about; so I told him to just get on with it.

He tilted my head back.  I could feel the brush running through my hair, spreading the cold fluid on my head, drips of it trickling through the roots of my hair.  My back shivered.  I'm not sure if it was because of the dye that was chilled by the February air on my walk over there or because of the tension I was feeling.

A drop of purple fell from my head and landed on my corduroys.   "Oh my god, that is sooo purple," I gasped.  I could see the deep hue soaking into the dark brown of my pants.  I began asking myself if this was a good thing to do.  Generally most adults and all of my teachers respected me.  I wondered if this might change that.  I worked as a waitress in a local diner most of that year and I enjoyed getting pulled into conversations with my customers.  I learned so much from the many people there who were just a little bit friendlier than the rest.

"Now we have to let it sit for a while," Ray instructed.  "It's going to be awesome."  He knew that I needed the reassurance at that point.

We watched the sunset from his bedroom window.  I sat with the gooey purpleness in my hair.  I concentrated more on the dye caking to my head than the spreading array of sunset colors.  I had only one color on my mind.   The water splashed past my ears, filling the bathtub with color.  My heart raced.  The water surrounded my head with the intense purple that rushed past me, down the drain.  It engulfed me, making it run into me, showing me that this is what I was becoming.  This would be the color with which everyone would associate me, even long after the dye washed out, supposedly about three months later.

I flipped my head up, spraying water on the bathroom walls.  His house was so trashed that he never cared about stuff like that.  I turned to the mirror and saw the darkness of my hair.  The naked light bulb didn't give enough light for me to see the exact color that I now had to live with.

He dragged me into the kitchen to show off my new hair.  Everyone stared, letting it sink in.  They were getting used to the color that was now me.  He was right.  I was...different.  I saw the room through the purple halo that surrounded my vision.  They all said that they loved it, but I could see the jealousy in their eyes.  It always caused a degree of mixed resentment and admiration whenever someone in this attention-seeking crowd found a new way differentiating him or herself.  After numerous compliments from my friends, I realized that it was just about that time when we all needed to get home for dinner before our parents... "Oh, shit!  My mother...."  I had just realized what I had to go home to.

 My friends erupted in nervous laughter for and with me.  We usually looked out for each other on a regular basis, but this hair and my mother's reaction was one thing that they just couldn't protect me from.  All the same, a few of them walked me home and consoled me as I anticipated my mother's wrath.

We got to my house and stood outside for a few minutes talking, just to get my mind off of going inside.  They eventually had to leave, though.  I stood in front of my house and watched them leave, finishing off my cigarette.  I watched a car pull up in front of my house.  It was the people who rented out the second floor apartment.

I  stomped out my cigarette as Bill and his four-year-old daughter piled out of their car.  The child that I used to baby-sit just stared at me.  Her father briskly pulled her up the steps that lead into the house.  I followed them up the walkway, listening to their conversation:   "Daddy, why is her hair purple?" her small, innocent voice questioned.  She shot a curious glance over her shoulder at me.   "It's because she's a bad girl, honey," he snapped back at her.

In one instant I knew exactly what I had gotten myself into.  But I could hardly guess the scope of it, for he would come to represent the opinion of about 75% of the adults that I would encounter.  This rejection was going to change me in ways that I could never have imagined at that time.  But I knew that the next person that I had to deal with was my mother.  Her anger, however, would be short lived.  She would take her role as the dutiful and loving parent that she had always been and love me regardless of my hair color, because she knew that I was still a good person and she could look past my purpleness.

As for all those other people, I would have to live with them turning their faces to the sidewalk and quickening their pace when they walked past me.  But this portion of my life would teach me more about the sociological notion of normality than at any other time in my life.  For the next three months I had made myself an outcast.

Environmental racism refers to racial discrimination in the making of environmental policy and the unequal enforcement of environmental laws and regulations.  Environmental racism is a fairly new concept, and controversy exists over whether or not it really exists.  It does.  Whether by conscious design or of institutional neglect, communities of color face some of the worst environmental devastation in the nation (Bullard, 17).

A current example of a group experiencing environmental racism is the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in north-central Montana.  The Pegasus Gold Corporation of Spokane has taken over the ceremonial and hunting lands of the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes to deposit its toxic wastes, seriously polluting the reservation's water supply (Koberstein, 1).  Gold Corporation has received ten permits from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to expand its production area, despite the
fact that the company has a lengthy record of spills and illegal toxic discharges at the site.  These include at least six cyanide spills between 1982 and 1993 and acid runoff with heavy metals in 1993.  Despite the $23 million worth in fines, the Gold Corporation refused to stop the pollution.

In an attempt to stop these actions, the indigenous tribes are trying to prove that environmental racism is at the heart of their pollution problems.  As part of their lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management, the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes note that the average civil penalty imposed on a violator of environmental laws in a minority area is only one-sixth as large as a penalty imposed in an area where the population is predominantly white (Koberstein 1).

Some argue that environmental racism does not exist.  Companies and governmental agencies argue that there is no intentional discrimination involved in depositing waste products.  Intentional or not, the statistics show that racism influences the likelihood of environmental and health risks (Bullard, 17).  It has been repeatedly documented that non-colored people of all classes have been provided with an "edge" in gaining access to a healthy physical environment (Bullard, 17).

Environmental racism exists.  It is a serious issue involving abuse of power and it needs to stop.  Environmental racism seriously affects the health of minority people and their lands.  It will remain a problem until we combat the twin evils of racism and environmental devastation.

Koberstein. (1997). "Environmental Racism Alleged at Montana Mine." The Cascadia Times. Available
        http://cascadia.times.org/page8.htm.

Bullard, Robert D. Ed. (1993). Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from  the Grassroots.  Boston: South End Press.

Violence in cartoons teaches children aggressive behavior and desensitizes them to acts of violence.  Children watch and understand television in different ways, depending on the length of their attention span, the way in which they process information, the amount of mental effort they invest, and their own life experiences.  Certain plot elements in portrayals of violence are considered high risk for children.  These elements include characterizations in which the perpetrator is attractive because viewers may identify with such a character, showing violence as being justified, going unpunished, and having minimal consequences to the victim.

Cartoon violence permeates children's programming.  Violence toward animals is rampant in Saturday morning children's programs, where more than one-half of the animals depicted suffer overt physical violence.  These violence-saturated portrayals are not only dangerous to animals, they are also misleading and detrimental to humane attitudes in general.  Most cartoons are constructed with vivid production features, which greatly increases children's predisposition to violence.

Researchers have determined the following ways in which a violent cartoon program may impact young viewers:   It can encourage children to learn aggressive behavior and attitudes; it can cultivate fearful and pessimistic attitudes in children about the non-television world; and, it can desensitize children to real-world and fantasy violence.  According to researcher Dr. George Gerbner, many studies have concluded that after watching violence, children are more aggressive.  Also, children who watch violent cartoons are more likely to think of the world as a violent and dangerous place.

It is society's and parents' responsibility to teach children the vast difference between Wile E. Coyote blowing himself up in a Looney Tune and what the real world experiences when violence occurs.  Parents should explain that these characters are drawn and not a character in a costume.  Society may not be able to stop the violence in cartoons and on television, but it can stop the effects of it.  "Even in cartoon violence, we see victims that really don't die," writes clinical psychologist Evelyn Kohan.  "But people do die when they're shot with guns, and people really do die when people hurt them in violent ways.  Our children have to know that."

It is certainly true that cartoon violence does not account for all the causes of children's aggression.   It is also true that some children are a great deal more likely to be affected by television violence than others, and it is these children who are likely to be potentially more aggressive anyway.  But the effect of cartoon and television violence is to make these "at-risk" children even more aggressive than they would otherwise be.  And although the group especially at risk might be a minority of viewers, they are likely to be the majority of aggressors.  This fact makes them, and the violent content of television, worthy of our attention.  Higher priority must be given to achieving a more realistic and positive representation of animals on television.  Such reform would be a progressive step toward stemming society's "culture of violence" and its desensitization to the suffering of others.