18 is a big age in America. You can drive past curfew, buy lottery tickets, and get drafted, among other things. And in most states, it's the age at which you can legally buy cigarettes. Some states, like Utah and Alabama, have changed this to 19, and so have some counties, in an effort to discourage the use of cigarettes. But just yesterday, New York City made a big change: they changed the legal smoking age to 21. Many younger New Yorkers are outraged about this, and the comparison is being made to the minimum age required for service in the military; if I can kill a man for my country, why can't I smoke a cigarette?
But while this is a big change, it's not necessarily a surprising one. NYC is one of the most anti-cigarette areas in the country, with huge taxes bring the average price of a pack to upwards of $12, as opposed to the national average of just above $5. So with the taxes and raised age minimum, one would think smoking would be substantially diminished in NYC, right? Well, apparently not. Just below 16% of New Yorkers smoke cigarettes, which is only slightly below the national average of 18%. But with an economic recession in full force, it's just not practical for NYC residents to pay $14 for a pack of cigarettes. And that's where one of New York's best kept secrets comes in: it's multi-million dollar black market cigarette industry.
NYC's rising cigarette taxes and restrictive smoking laws have created a slight decrease in smoking, but on the other hand, they've created an enormous market for black market cigarettes. Smugglers buy carton after carton from Virginia and Washington D.C. for a fraction of the price, and sell them to local NYC stores, generating a hefty profit. One shop owner even went as far as to say that "every store in Brooklyn" buys from one man, who the store owner claims "makes a million dollars a year."
Despite action from lawmakers over the past decade, this underground cigarette industry has not gone away, and has only flourished with newly restrictive smoking laws, and it's likely that this newest one will be no exception. Should NYC enforce it's newest cigarette law, or will it just push more teens to the ever-growing black market?
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Checking Your Privilege
I go to New Trier High School, of the small city of Winnetka, on the north shore of Chicago. It's one of the wealthiest areas in the country, and in turn (due to America's lopsided educational system,) it's high school is among the top in our nation. But likely the biggest difference between my school and, say, a CPS school, is the diversity of my school (or, rather, lack thereof.) If you walk through the halls of New Trier, you don't see Latinos, African Americans, and Asian Americans... you see white people. I don't believe I'm in a single class with an African American student; and despite the fact that this doesn't happen in most schools, it really should NEVER happen. So taking all this into account, if I were told to "check my privilege" by someone with a different racial background than myself, I would acknowledge it as probably being honest.
But that's not what Tal Fortgang did. Instead of considering the comment and realizing the fact that he's been luckier than most, he took it as a personal assault. Instead, he wrote an article about it in the Princeton Tory entitled, "Why I Don't Apologize for 'White Privilege.'" And if you read his article, you can already see why the title is misleading. It implies that someone attacked him, personally, with some kind of inversely racist remarks, but no. An African American student at Princeton simply told him to "check his privilege." No one is asking him to apologize for being a rich, white male, but merely asking him to acknowledge the fact that his life has been somewhat easier than the lives of many people of color. But Fortgang rushed to his computer and typed out an enraged article about how his parents and his parent's parents worked oh so hard to break the cycle of poverty, and how he is a product of their labors.
Fotgang's outrage is an unfortunately accurate portrayal of some of America's most elite, and their ignorance towards the advantages that they've had. Despite many U.S. laws that discriminate against minorities and the fact that Princeton's population is almost 60% white, he still somehow denies that he is being favored. But I ask: how can this be true when I look around the halls of a place like New Trier and I don't see any minorities?
But that's not what Tal Fortgang did. Instead of considering the comment and realizing the fact that he's been luckier than most, he took it as a personal assault. Instead, he wrote an article about it in the Princeton Tory entitled, "Why I Don't Apologize for 'White Privilege.'" And if you read his article, you can already see why the title is misleading. It implies that someone attacked him, personally, with some kind of inversely racist remarks, but no. An African American student at Princeton simply told him to "check his privilege." No one is asking him to apologize for being a rich, white male, but merely asking him to acknowledge the fact that his life has been somewhat easier than the lives of many people of color. But Fortgang rushed to his computer and typed out an enraged article about how his parents and his parent's parents worked oh so hard to break the cycle of poverty, and how he is a product of their labors.
Fotgang's outrage is an unfortunately accurate portrayal of some of America's most elite, and their ignorance towards the advantages that they've had. Despite many U.S. laws that discriminate against minorities and the fact that Princeton's population is almost 60% white, he still somehow denies that he is being favored. But I ask: how can this be true when I look around the halls of a place like New Trier and I don't see any minorities?
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