The Supreme Court’s examination of the legality of affirmative action serves the same purpose as Toni Morrison passionately declares of racism: it is “a distraction.” Rather than focusing on dismantling the system of racism, we are fiddling with the band-aid we’ve placed over the bullet hole.

As we walked through the lobby, my friend passed her hand through a black plastic slot in a strange-looking machine, and the student worker at the front desk nodded her through while I waited for my OneCard to be swiped.

From ASAP Rocky being featured on Fenty Beauty’s skincare line to Machine Gun Kelly’s all-inclusive nail polish brand, in recent years there has been a surge in the number of men endorsing products that have been historically doted as “female.”

Currently, the general population of public middle and high schools offers the availability of 1-3 counselors dependent on the ratio of the school. But, with middle schools typically housing 600+ students, and studies finding that 20% are dealing with undiagnosed mental health issues, that seems like a highly inadequate resource.

This means every action has either a positive, negative, or neutral impact on the world. Something as mundane as what you choose to pour over your cereal in the morning becomes an ethical choice with real-world ramifications.

Ethical Queries Surrounding the Agricultural Sector

It is morally questionable at best to even suggest that the occupied population is overall better off from the continued presence of its colonizer. It is beyond the scope of this article, and very well documented in other analyses, why the violation of sovereignty, cultural erasure, and imposed governance, among countless other factors, illustrate the ethical abhorrence of colonialism.

The UNC administration has a nasty habit of implying student concurrence in their decision-making when students simply don’t agree with them. As a member of the UNC Undergraduate Senate, I qualify as one of these so-called student leaders, and my peers and I have recognized a pattern.

From W.E.B. DuBois’ “double-consciousness” (2) to Nipsey Hussle’s “survival mode” (3), cognitive dissonance has always been a prerequisite of Blackness in America. However, perhaps these continuous attempts to name the internal conflict of Black individual desires versus external realities have been hinting at the novel term, moral injury.