Roderick Cook

DP Reporters and Editors Meeting with Amy Gutmann

Roderick Cook | A different kind of financial aid

By Roderick Cook · Dec. 9, 2014

Recently, my fellow columnist Yessenia Gutierrez wrote about challenging the misguided notions about low-income students being “privileged” and “lucky” for not having to pay tuition.

Roderick Cook | Reframing violence

By Roderick Cook · Oct. 29, 2014

We must move beyond calling the act of robbing a store or taking someone’s money “violent.” We must also use this term to refer to Penn’s role in the gentrification of West Philadelphia through the expansion of our university, which forces families out of their homes and perpetuates intergenerational poverty. Poverty combines with systematic racism, leading people to commit these crimes of survival.

Roderick Cook | Politicizing Halloween costumes

By Roderick Cook · Oct. 15, 2014

“Given that culturally appropriative Halloween costumes are caricatures of the cultures that they aim to emulate, they’re a means of exercising control over them,” Huynh says. “In this mindset, white culture gets to be complex. It cannot be reduced to a certain type of clothing or mannerism. But ‘East Asian culture’ can be reduced to the geisha girl. Cultures can be bought and worn for Western entertainment.”

Roderick Cook | Our faves are problematic

By Roderick Cook · Sept. 30, 2014

Furthermore, we need to be aware that when we uphold the value of artists such as Iggy Azalea, we allow them to take space from other artists — in this example, black artists — who are producing art that is both more authentic and less offensive.

Roderick Cook | Rethinking the 'true academic experience'

By Roderick Cook · Sept. 18, 2014

Still, some who recognize this fact think that prefacing something with a trigger warning somehow disrupts the intellectual experience of reading or viewing it. As the DP editorial put it, “It is sometimes deemed necessary for students to experience visceral reactions to the material with which they come into contact. The purpose of such material is to be taken by surprise, offended and even, at times, disturbed.”This statement shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between being surprised or offended and being traumatized. Furthermore, it exposes the unsettling fact that many people out there genuinely care more about some assumed abstract “true academic experience” than the safety of students.

Roderick Cook | Beyond a single cause

By Roderick Cook · Sept. 3, 2014

This legacy of true queer activism has quickly been subjugated to the point where violence against trans women of color still runs rampant, but large, wealthy LGBT marriage equality organizations can afford to spend thousands of dollars on networking galas to “build community.”

Roderick Cook | It's story time

By Roderick Cook · April 24, 2014

Some stories are hard to tell, but chances are those are the ones that desperately need to be heard.We far too often have an aversion to using individual stories as a way to understand societal problems and enact change.

Roderick Cook | Not-so-happy hour

By Roderick Cook · April 17, 2014

From the first moment that I was offered a beer at a party to this very day whenever people around me are drinking, I have felt at least a little bit uncomfortable and have had a sense of dread. I can’t quite explain it, but it’s very real.

Roderick Cook | Come out, but don't come in

By Roderick Cook · April 6, 2014

Our mere existence [as queer and trans people] challenges the structure of objectification of women that frat parties are designed for.

Roderick Cook | What a drag

By Roderick Cook · March 31, 2014

Expressing femininity in a way that I have been actively and passively told that I am not supposed to has been such a powerful and important experience. It’s helped me to understand my gender and myself in ways that I have previously not been able to.

What's the T?

By Yolanda Chen and Roderick Cook · Jan. 20, 2014

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