I spent my 20th birthday in a hospital, getting an X-ray of the ping pong ball-sized infection on my left lung that the doctors told me was pneumonia.
I had a terrible cough for nearly two months, was behind in school, had my midterms coming up, and was trying to take extra shifts at work because rent was coming up and I just got my hydro bill.
I remember thanking God that I had pneumonia and not something else because the pneumonia I had wasn’t contagious and that meant that I could still work and attend class.
The pneumonia was so substantial that inhaling caused tear-jerking pain, and at times, I coughed so hard that I would throw up. My manager at work heard I was in the hospital and covered a few of my shifts for me. That month, I had to choose between paying my bills and feeding myself.
I chose to pay my bills. I couldn’t be late again, not when my landlord was already gracious enough to accept the previous month’s rent in two separate payments.
Student hunger isn’t a joke and it’s not something that should be taken lightly. When I saw the cover of last week’s issue of the Charlatan, I thought it would be about homework or something satirical, something that we can all share a laugh at.
Instead, it was a cover meant to reflect the study published by Merryn Sanders Maynard (and three other authors) on the vast number of students she observed were being affected by food insecurity.
I find last week’s cover of the Charlatan insensitive to our fellow Ravens who have experienced food insecurity and who may be experiencing it now. With the tornado causing power outages all over the city, I couldn’t help but think about the many students whose groceries were going bad and I wondered if they would be financially capable to replace the food that had to be wasted.
In the wake of this natural disaster, and on a day-to-day basis as the study suggests, hunger, however temporary, is a reality to some of Carleton’s students and staff who spent this past weekend without power.
I’m a journalism student myself, and I know from class and from experience that reporting the news can leave little to no room for creativity, and the opportunity to make a clever play on words is exciting and rare.
However, there is a time and a place for a funny cover of what looks to be one of the Charlatan’s editors, taking a bite out of a textbook, and a playful pun to headline it. The issue of food insecurity and the severity of the number of people that it affects calls for a serious photo and a respectful headline.
