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MSU settles with Spencer to proceed with speech Parties agree to host two-hour event on first day of university’s spring break REMY FARKAS
Daily Staff Reporter JOSHUA HAN/Daily
Claudia Rankine discusses ways that contemporary theater and performance can catalyze and promote social justice in American at the Michigan Theater Thursday
Poet Claudia Rankine, dramaturg P. Carl talk racial themes in theater
Rankine’s “The White Card” strives to promote lasting conversations on race SHANNON ORS
Daily Staff Reporter
Nearly every seat in the Michigan Theater’s main auditorium was filled Thursday night to hear poet and essayist Claudia Rankine discuss her transition from print to the stage, as part of the Penny Stamps Speaker Series. Rankine was joined onstage by P. Carl, an accomplished theater artist, who collaborated with Rankine to bring her new play, “The White Card”, to the Emerson Paramount
Center in Boston. The play is set to premiere on Feb.4. “The White Card” follows the story of Charlotte Cummings, a Black artist who visits the home of two white prominent art dealers in New York City. The tensions that unfold around the dinner table when Charlotte arrives reflect Rankine’s interest in unpacking racism in everyday life. Rankine also spoke about being on tour for her New York Times best-seller “Citizen: An American Lyric,” a collection of poetry that reflects racial aggressions in the
21st century. Rankine noted her experience during question and answer sessions following her book readings were what inspired her play. “The beginning of the process really began as I toured with ‘Citizen’, I got to the point where the reading of ‘Citizen’ at these readings was the least interesting part for me,” Rankine said. “What I really wanted to hear was what the audience wanted to say.” According to Rankine, the dynamic of these conversations elicited the central question of “The
White Card”. “That idea, how do you stage a conversation around race that continues, that doesn’t get shut down because of good manners or is able to ride the tide of good manners, and still come back to the questions on the table,” Rankine said. “That became the generator for ‘The White Card’.” Both Rankine and Carl grappled with the challenge of engaging theater attendees and maintaining an honest discourse of whiteness in America while working on “The See POET, Page 3
On Thursday afternoon, Michigan State University announced white supremacist Richard Spencer would be permitted to speak at the university on March 5. This decision comes as part of a lawsuit against MSU after it initially denied Spencer’s request to rent space at which to speak, citing security concerns in the wake of the white supremacist, “Unite the Right,” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which one woman was killed. Kyle Bristow, an attorney representing Spencer’s team, dubbed the decision a victory for the “alt-right.” “This is a resounding First Amendment victory for the Alt-Right,” Bristow said in an interview with the Detroit Free Press. “Left-wing censorship of right-wing ideas in academia is unacceptable.”
In a statement, MSU president Lou Anna Simon reaffirmed the university’s rejection of Spencer’s message and said the arrangement of the event was intended to minimize risk. “This agreement was based on the university’s requirement that the event occur on a date and at a venue that minimizes the risk of violence or disruption to campus,” Simon said. “The security of our campus community remains our top priority and all appropriate security measures will be taken in connection with the event. Michigan State rejects this group’s divisive and racist messages and remains committed to maintaining a diverse campus and supporting an inclusive, just and democratic society.” MSU and Spencer’s lawyers agreed to a two-hour speaking time from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the Pavilion for Agriculture and Livestock See SPEECH, Page 3
New MIP law takes effect is expected to Brutally MIT prof. slain child correct discrepancies in enforcement examines
CAMPUS LIFE
CAMPUS LIFE
lamented in Diag vigil
State legislature reduces penalties for minors caught in possession of alcohol
Student organization honors life and memory of 8-year-old Pakistani
One LSA freshman, who requested to remain anonymous, said he has paid almost $200, and will pay about another $400 in courts costs and up to $1,000 in probation fees. He also has to complete five days of community service, and though the student foresees a judge accepting his plea and giving him six to 12 months of reporting probation, combined with regular drug and breathalyzer tests, the repercussions aren’t over. This student has received two MIPs while attending the University. He grew up in Michigan and noted MIPs were treated differently in his hometown. “I am from Michigan, and have been dealing with the old laws since I started drinking in high school senior year. In my county, one that hasn’t voted a Democrat into office since the 1800s, the consequences of a MIP were much higher than in Washtenaw,” he said. Under previous law, those convicted of a MIP could have faced heavy fines, community service, enrollment in an alcohol education program or jail time if probation is violated. Now, the civil infraction carries a $100 fine and no court appearance for violators, on par with a traffic ticket. New Year’s Day new laws governing Minor in Possession
ELIZABETH LAWRENCE Daily Staff Reporter
University of Michigan student organization Michigan Pakistanis held a vigil Thursday night to honor Zainab Ansari, an eightyear-old girl who was raped and murdered in Kasur, Pakistan last week. Around 25 students gathered on the Diag, which was adorned with candles in the shape of the Pakistani flag. Ansari went missing Jan. 4 after leaving her home to attend Quranic studies. Police officials found her body five days later in a trash can. Her abuse and murder have set off protestsand riots across Pakistan, calling for the government to take more action to prevent similar crimes like this. LSA senior Muneeb Shaikh, president of Michigan Pakistanis, noted how Ansari’s murder is not a unique case in in Pakistan. She was the eighth child who was raped and murdered in Kasur this year. “This is part of a larger problem plaguing Pakistan right now,” Shaikh said. “There have been multiple documents of incidences of rape and murder to young girls.” The vigil began with Shaikh See VIGIL, Page 3
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of Alcohol offenses went into effect in Michigan, changing the crime from a misdemeanor to a civil infraction and reducing the penalties for underage across the state. The legislation first passed the Michigan Senate in the spring of 2016 and was signed by Gov. Rick Snyder in December 2017. A blood alcohol content of 0.02 or above for anyone under 21 years old constitutes a violation under the law. Though the first offense is now a civil infraction, the second
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offense remains a misdemeanor punishable by 30 days in jail, a $200 fine and a driver’s license suspension. The legislation was sponsored by state Sen. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, a former policeman. In an interview with the Detroit Free Press earlier this month, Jones said he wants to give young people a chance to make a mistake without obtaining a criminal history. “As a former police officer, I
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would never try to put something in a law that would encourage young people to drink. But when college students go out to drink, they don’t think about committing a misdemeanor,” Jones said. College towns consistently rank among the top districts for MIP citations in the state of Michigan. According to the Michigan State Police, 4,408 people were charged with an MIP in 2016. From 2009-2013, a total See MIP, Page 3
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INDEX
Vol. CXXVII, No. 58 ©2018 The Michigan Daily
racism in linguistics
Michel DeGraff points to stigmas of language as barriers in society LEAH GRAHAM Daily Staff Reporter
Professor of linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michel DeGraff thinks Haiti needs a paradigm shift. On Thursday night, approximately 75 people came to the Michigan League to hear DeGraff discuss prejudice and racism in linguistics at the Inaugural Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture, held by the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. His speech, titled “Can Our Black Lives Matter If Our Languages Do Not Matter?” focused on the suppression of Haitian Creole language in his native Haiti. “As linguists, as scholars, the question for us is where is there injustice in this world today?” DeGraff said. “MLK Day should not be a celebration. It should be a call to action. It should be a day of passion.” As director of the MITHaiti Initiative – a nonprofit promoting STEM learning taught in Haitian Creole – See LINGUISTICS, Page 3
NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 ARTS......................6
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MONDAY: Looking at the Numbers
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BE HIND THE STORY
Every Friday, one Daily news staffer will give a behind the scenes look at one of this week’s stories. This week, LSA freshman Remy Farkas covered HuffPost EIC’s lecture at the University. “Interviewing Lydia Polgreen, the editor-in-chief of HuffPost was really, really cool. Being in front of somebody who had done such amazing journalistic work in the past was quite intimidating but after talking to her I was able to really understand her concepts and the things that she talked about in terms of American identity. I think that her perspective is quite interesting. She comes from a very multiultural background and her analysis of cureent American times is something everyone should consider. Writing the story about the symposium at which she spoke allowed me the ability to see what journalism could be and how important journalism is in today’s day and age.“ LSA freshman Remy Farkas, “HuffPost EIC discusses the challenges of American identity”
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Author-activist talks police brutality
Andrea Ritchie says violence against women receives less attention than with men Departments of Political Science and Women’s Studies. Ritchie will also be speaking Friday, Jan 19. in a day-long event titled “The Other America: Still Separate, Still Equal”, featuring different narratives of police brutality among Black Americans. In 2014, Michael Brown was fatally shot by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. Three months later, Tanisha Anderson, a Black woman, was killed by a police officer in Cleveland, Ohio. While responding to a call about Anderson “disturbing the peace,” an officer placed Anderson in a “prone position,” forcing his knee into her back until she was no longer
breathing. However, Ritchie noted community. She remarked on one this case did not “play the same case in which a Black transgender iconic role” as Brown’s case –– a man named Juan Evans was fact she attributed to Anderson’s pulled over for speeding. Having “What’s the first name that gender. left his identification at his office, comes to mind when you think of “If we are going to talk about Evans provided the officer with police brutality?” Andrea Ritchie police brutality, we need to expand his information, which the officer asked a crowd of about fifty people our view and deepen our analysis,” accused as false. The officer then Thursday night during her talk Ritchie said. publically searched Evans in order at the Hatcher Graduate Library She then related the experiences to verify his gender. titled “Invisible No More: Police of other women of color such When Ritchie asked the Violence Against Black Women as Nicola Robinson, a pregnant audience who knew the name and Women of Color”. woman who was punched in her “Aura Rosser,” just a handful Ritchie, a researcher in belly by a policeman on her porch, raised their hand. Rosser, she told residence at the Social Justice and Charnesia Corley, who was the audience, was an artist and Institute of the Barnard Center for pulled over for speeding and then a mother of three. In 2014, Ann Research on Women and lawyer, publicly stripped at the waist. Arbor police responded to a call is the author of a book bearing These names are part of a long list from Victor Stephens, Rosser’s the same title as her talk. The ofhttp://sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/ women who have suffered from spouse, saying Rosser, who Sudoku Syndication lecture was co-sponsored by the extreme police brutality. suffered from bipolar disorder, Ritchie said another major was threatening him with a issue affecting women is knife. Within five to 10 seconds sexual mistreatment by police of entering the home, one officer officers. What is particularly discharged his taser and the other troubling, she said, is the fact fired his gun, killing Rosser. The that over half of the police officers claimed that Rosser had HARD departments in the country charged at them. have no policy about how “This needs to inform our to interact with pregnant resistance,” Ritchie said. women. While she showed pictures of “While sexual misconduct Ann Arbor students protesting by police is second most in the aftermath of this tragedy, reported after police she discussed how this event was brutality, it is not second most still not well-known or heavily talked about,” Ritchie said. discussed. She discussed an instance Mental health issues are in which a woman was prevalent in police brutality cases, forced to perform oral sex as Ritchie said, affecting half of an ultimatum after a police victims in brutality cases. officer convicted her of a LSA senior Nicole Miller minor crime: Being in the park attended the event and was glad to at night. She cited this as an see diversity among attendees. example of “broken window “This is what most excited me policing,” a theory in which because in the Black community police use minor crimes in this is what we talk about every order to discriminate against day,” she said. certain individuals. Another Alumni Gabe Coleman Ritchie further elaborated indicated his gratitude after on the stories of other hearing Ritchie speak, saying the victims of police misconduct, lecture motivated him. © sudokusolver.com. For personal use only. FUN FRIDAY. puzzle by sudokusyndication.com including Asian women, Middle Eastern women and Read more at MichiganDaily.com members of the LGBTQ Generate and solve Sudoku, Super Sudoku and Godoku puzzles at sudokusyndication.com! SOPHIA KATZ
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THE COMFORTER VIGIL From Page 1
SARAH KUNKEL/Daily “The Comforter,” an art instillation by Patricia Piccinini, is featured in the University of Michigan Museum of Art.
MIP From Page 1 of 38,499 were charged across the state, with 401 citations originating from Washtenaw County alone. Enforcement on campus is relatively consistent. According to Diane Brown, University of Michigan Division of Public Safety and Security spokeswoman, DPSS arrested 172 people for MIPs in 2017 and 168 people in 2016. On campus, Student Legal Services provides University students with free resources and legal assistance as part of their tuition. A comprehensive review of the change in the law is published on their website. Attorney Douglas Lewis, director of Student Legal Services, said they serve many students with MIP charges. “Under the old law, it was our responsibility to make sure that (the students) left us without having a conviction on their records. That usually meant paying a fine, working through the court’s first offender program and the student taking a class called ‘basics,’ offered by Health Services,” Lewis said. Though the original MIP law included possible jail time for multiple offenses, Lewis said through the Washtenaw County courts, none of his clients ever faced jail time. “Even on second and third (offenses), I never saw a person sent to jail for a MIP,” he said. That may be unique to Ann Arbor, though. Lewis said the MIP law was being unevenly enforced across counties, and some courts were giving harsher penalties than
others. “The old law read that a court may give (a violator) a firstoffender program. A lot of courts that are in the northern counties weren’t giving anybody any first offender program. You came in with a MIP, you walked out with a conviction,” Lewis said. He said he believes one motivation behind the new law was to instill more consistency across all county courts. “The treatment of the law from one county to the next was not necessarily uniform, and I think the new statute changes that. It makes the language much more mandatory for the courts to follow,” Lewis said. Brown echoed Lewis’s point that MIP charges in Washtenaw County often got expunged from students’ records, so the outcome was effectively like a civil infraction — though this was not the case in all counties. “In the county, Washtenaw County, the court system had in place some protocols to deal with first-time offenders for alcohol violations that allowed the offender to take a number of steps and then that particular violation often was expunged from their record. So the outcomes for firsttime offenders of MIP, in this county, likely aren’t going to get a lot different in what happens with them,” Brown said. She recognized such a protocol for getting a misdemeanor expunged was not make available in all counties. “That kind of active role that the court system played in Washtenaw County wasn’t duplicative all across the state,” Brown said. In Ann Arbor, the anonymous
student received his first MIP from holding an open container outside of a party, and a second MIP for drinking in his dorm room. He received his second MIP while on probation from the first. For his first MIP, he had to pay $405 and received 50 days probation. For his second MIP, he admitted wrongdoing under the Michigan’s Holmes Youthful Trainee Act, which is a way for young adults to keep convictions off their record. He said he thinks the punishments he is facing under the old law are unfair given his offense, saying the punishment he received felt on par with someone who got arrested for driving under the influence. “After this whole process is done, I will have paid close to two grand, and my chances of getting a government job are completely done. The people I am doing my community service with are there for stuff like felony assault, DUI and home invasion, while I am just a college student looking to have a good time on the weekends,” he said. Ultimately, no one is sure if the change in MIP law will result in more or fewer arrests, or affect student drinking behaviors. “I don’t think (the new law) will lead to more drinking… College students are going to drink no matter what,” he said. Lewis pointed out the effect of the law will still depend on how police choose to enforce it. “It’s going to take time to see what police do with this. The court has come up with a new system of dealing with them. Folks can simply walk in, pay their ticket and leave,” Lewis said.
Detroit cut from Amazon HQ2 short list, cites poor transit REMY FARKAS
Daily Staff Reporter
Following months of competition, Amazon released a short list of 20 cities Thursday as potential locations for its second headquarters, “Amazon HQ2.” Despite encouragement from Mark Schlissel, president of the University of Michigan, Detroit did not make the list. “We’re a research machine with an enormous array of faculty doing work of relevance to the types of businesses that Amazon is in,” Schlissel stated in an interview with The Detroit News in September. “And, we’re a source of educated talent for whom Amazon here in Michigan might be an employer of choice.” Amazon seeks to invest $5 billion into its second headquarters and expects the headquarters “to be a full equal to our Seattle headquarters,” CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement. Amazon sought locations fitting specific criteria including being within two miles of a major highway, access to mass transit,
proximity to a top university and being within 45 minutes of an international airport. While the headquarters do not need to be located in an urban area, it had to meet the aforementioned criteria. An offer of potential business incentives such as tax exemptions or relocation grants was an additional consideration Amazon took into account. A location in Michigan, specifically near Detroit, fit many of these qualifications. Amazon HQ2 in Detroit would create about 50,000 highpaying jobs and contribute billions of dollars into the local economy, according to Amazon. The Detroit Mayor’s office stated the city would be evaluating the potential of the office. Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan was a proponent of Amazon HQ2 in Detroit. “Not only is Michigan a top10 state for doing business and attracting 25 to 34 year-olds, our workforce is growing at a higher rate than the national average and we lead the region in inbound migration for those with bachelor’s degrees or higher,” Snyder said in a statement.
Following the announcement of Amazon’s decision not to consider Detroit, Snyder released a statement expressing disappointment as well as encouragement and excitement for Detroit’s future. “It’s disappointing we will not be welcoming a new Amazon headquarters to Detroit, but appreciate their continued investment and expansion in Michigan, including right in the heart of our Comeback City,” Snyder said. “Michigan’s spirit is unstoppable, and so is our comeback. This won’t set us back- we’re accelerating to the next opportunity. We know it’s out there.” Other cities still in consideration include Bezos’s hometown Miami, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. and its metropolitan area. Amazon received proposals from 238 communities and will now work with the remaining 20 locations to decide on the best location for the company. A final decision is expected in 2018.
LINGUISTICS From Page 1 DeGraff studies variations of Creole, a group of languages that developed during the rise of colonialism. Haitian Creole, DeGraff says, is one of the most stigmatized languages in linguistics. The dialect has been called primitive, undeveloped and childish by linguistic scholars. This perception is common among people in Haiti. Growing up, DeGraff attended a private school where speaking Haitian Creole was forbidden. “I spent the formative years of my life being told by parents who love me, who want the best for me, that Haitian Creole is broken French,” he said. “If you want to succeed, you have to be human. You have to speak French.” Despite the stigma, only 5 percent of Haitians speak French f luently and most of the nation use Haitian Creole, French remains the primary language of instruction in schools. DeGraff believes this worsens Haiti’s standing when it comes to education. The country has a 61 percent
SPEECH From Page 1 Education. Spencer will rent the space for $1,650 and MSU will provide security and ticketing. Spencer will provide insurance for the event but will not contribute to securing the event and will not hold any other event on MSU’s campus. March 5 is the first day of MSU’s spring break, a time in
POET From Page 1 White Card.” The economics of theater, as described by Carl, is often centered around the reality that the primary consumers of theater are white. “It has been an interesting learning curve for me as an artist of trying to figure out how do we present this play in a way that makes people want to stay in the room and have the conversation,
informing attendees of these recent events and reaffirming the purpose of the gathering: To honor Ansari’s life and mourn her loss. Public Policy senior Ibrahim Ijaz, a member of the executive board of Michigan Pakistanis, gave a speech voicing his sadness and highlighting the severity of the issue and need for action. He thanked the crowd for showing up to the vigil the despite the cold. “It’s important to take time and space out of your day to think about what’s going on in the world,” Ijaz said. Following Ijaz’s speech, attendees participated in a moment of silence to pray or reflect. LSA senior Martina Cholagh said she appreciated the moment for t“We all just prayed, or did whatever we thought necessary to honor this girl’s life,” Cholagh said. “We come from different backgrounds, different beliefs, but we were able to come
together to honor this girl’s life and basically pray for her. I think that was really important.” Cholagh noted one of the hopes of the vigil was to help people view the crime with more empathy and emotion, rather than simply reading about it in the news. “I think vigils really help in bringing a face to the situation, acknowledging that this is a human being just like any other instead of having this senseless murder be another number in the media,” Cholagh said. Ijaz’s final remarks emphasized the importance of every individual coming together to take action in preventing and seeking retribution for abuses like Ansari’s. “We cannot just expect justice if we’re not harboring it or honing it in ourselves first,” Ijaz said. “We need to make sure that as members of any society that we’re in, whether we’re Pakistani Americans, whether we come from another country, whether we’re born in this one, we need to act with justice in everything that we do, every single day.”
literacy rate for males and 57 percent for females, which is currently the lowest literacy rate in the Western Hemisphere. Being taught in French rather than the much more prevalent Haitian Creole creates another obstacle Haitian students must overcome. “We didn’t go to school to learn math. We didn’t go to school to learn physics,” DeGraff said. “Kids go to learn French. It’s a tough situation. How do you convince parents that kids can learn French as a second language, as well as math and physics and geography?” After his lecture, DeGraff received a commemorative plaque for his scholarship and work in social justice from the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. LSA sophomore Dominique Witten said anti-Creole prejudice reminded her of Ebonics, an American dialect spoken by some African Americans. “My mom has actively said, ‘You need to use standard American language,’ with the idea that Ebonics itself is a lower grade of English,” Witten said. “I’m even struggling myself –– would
I want a school where I’m taught everything in ebonics? I’m not sure of the answer.” LSA junior Mitchel Dipzinski said he also found similarities between attitudes toward Haitian Creole and Ebonics. “Ever since I took a language and diversity course, it has kind of opened my eyes to the education system in ways that I didn’t think about it before, with things like Ebonics and how that can affect the people learning,” he said. “This just solidified more of what I want to be an activist for, and there’s ground being made.” DeGraff and the MITHaiti Initiative have hosted numerous workshops promoting the use of Haitian Creole in government and academics. DeGraff hopes to expand Haitians’ access to Creole-speaking education. “Children being taught in a different language and being told that what you speak at home is not a valued language is a serious issue,” DeGraff said. “It’s a challenge to human rights when you have schools or administrations that use another language for discourse.”
which many students return home and are off campus. In negotiations regarding the pending request from Spencer to speak on the University of Michigan’s campus, Spencer’s team also requested dates during the University’s spring break. After announcing they would begin negotiations in November, the University said it would suggest dates to Spencer’s team by the end of January. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean the
event would be lacking in attendance. In a December email shared with the Detroit Free Press, Bristow said one of the reasons they needed a quick response from the University was so they would have time to make travel arrangements for “numerous involved parties.” University spokeswoman Kim Broekhuizen said that there are no updates on whether the decision in the MSU case will affect U-M’s negotiations with Spencer.
but also feels real and true,” Carl said. Rankine described the artistic negotiation that occurs between profitability and authenticity within the theater business. She said the amount of thought she and her collaborators have given this negotiation has been one of the most of surprising aspects of her creative process. “So, suddenly, you have this thing you are trying to make, and you are trying for the thing to be a reflection of the life you are living and the life you are seeing, but you also have to be careful because
the life possibility of the thing you are making is dependent on the generosity of the subject of the play,” Rankine said. “There is a lot of anxiety around that.” Rackham graduate student Daniella Toosie-Watson, a firstyear fellow in the Helen Zell Writers’ Program, said she was inspired by Rankine’s willingness to engage in dialogue and was able to empathize with Rankine through her own experiences as a writer within the classroom.
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Max Lubell Lucas Maiman Madeline Nowicki Anna Polumbo-Levy Jason Rowland Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Ali Safawi Sarah Salman Kevin Sweitzer Rebecca Tarnopol Stephanie Trierweiler Ashley Zhang
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
DANIELLE COLBURN | COLUMN
M
Breaking down bromance
y boyfriend asked me often tinged with barbed hints at recently, “Is there a homosexual relationships, which word like ‘bromance’ use queerness as a punchline; for girls?” And I said, “No, boys are in order to encourage male the ones who aren’t friendships, it seems, allowed to just have the genre cannot allow friends.” same-sex romantic I said this as a relationships outside the thoughtless retort, confines of a joke. This and then the truth portrayal enforces the of it sank in. Though idea that awareness of I’d heard the word the relationship must around me on social remain at the front of the media, on TV and in mind and there are lines conversations with DANIELLE that cannot be crossed. peers, I had never the existence of the COLBURN Thus given much thought iconically problematic to its implications. “no homo.” The word “bromance” shows up time and time again in headlines. In an article by Medical News Today (which studies a small, homogenous group of men), the author argues that bromances are making a comeback because of a decline in the prevalence of homophobia. A bromance is supposedly different from a regular friendship between two men because of a few factors, namely emotional intimacy and comfortability Regardless of whether the with physical, affectionate term “bromance” is expressly closeness. Both this article used, what seems to be emerging and one published by Time is the idea that it is in some way warn that the reemergence abnormal or progressive for men of close male friendships to have close friendships with could threaten romantic, other men. In movies, there is a heterosexual relationships. spotlight on the fact that the men My concern with these articles have an emotional connection. is not (for these purposes, at least) The existence of the film is the wholly unrepresentative predicated on the idea that there samples surveyed or the is amusement to be found in the responses of participants to the novel notion that men want to talk idea of a bromance. My concern with other men and that they want is that these articles exist at all. to share experiences and feelings Treating male friendships as if with close friends. they are anomalous perpetuates Another common theme in the societal mindset that there “bromance” movies is the pitting is something wrong with men of men against women. The male outwardly expressing emotion friend must exist for emotional or affection, or finding joy in support because the woman — platonic companionships. girlfriend, fiancé or wife — turns Consider the movie genre out to be cruel or have ulterior dedicated to telling the stories of motives. Apparently, as suggested male friendships, the category by the genre, men get only one that produced films like “I Love intimate, emotional relationship; You, Man” or “The Wedding they must choose between Ringer”. The very existence of romantic or platonic, between a genre dedicated to portraying woman or man. male friendships as out of the I don’t mean to imply that ordinary, notable relationships I think there’s something takes a normal dynamic and twists wrong with representing male it. Even in the depiction of close friendship or that the movie genre male friendships, the jokes are shouldn’t exist. Representation
“Men get only one intimate emotional relationship; they must choose between romantic or platonic.”
is important; one way to fight back against the stigma of close male bonds is to show them and normalize them — I think there are a few programs that do this well and allow for sensitivity, vulnerability and genuine affection in male friendships (see “Scrubs”, “The Flash”, “Stranger Things”, among others that I’m sure are out there). Treating them as a novelty still enforces their existence as outside the bounds of ordinary relationships. Representation also means showing that friendships and relationships can coexist; there’s no reason to have to choose one or the other. Male friendships shouldn’t be a substitute for a romantic relationship because that implies the friendships will be abandoned when a romantic relationship is found. Rather, each relationship should occupy its own space and offer its own benefits to an emotional well-being. There isn’t a female equivalent for “bromance” because it’s never been a question that it’s positive and healthy for women to have other women to turn to. There is no suggestion that intimate female friendships undermine the value of a romantic relationship. Women are allowed their separate spheres of relationships; they are allowed to cultivate and maintain a support group outside of a romantic relationship that offers meaningful interactions. I don’t mean to fault men for being part of a system. I’m not even inherently against the word “bromance.” But I think it’s important to consider the motivation behind labelling male friendships with a word other than “friendship.” It’s important to consider what happens when we treat male friendships as unusual. Rather than creating a space in which men can turn to those with similar life experiences and perspectives, we create a space in which men are expected to keep emotions bottled up and keep their relationships an arm’s length away. Men should be allowed to have their friendships, untainted.
CARLY BEHRENDT | CONTACT CARLY AT CARBEHR@UMICH.EDU
Danielle Colburn can be reached at decol@umich.edu
HANK MINOR | COLUMN
N
The question of #Oprah2020
early two weeks ago, Oprah Winfrey gave an unquestionably moving speech, calling on leaders — especially those in Hollywood— to end a culture of sexual harassment and assault. Out of this rose the #Oprah2020 hashtag along with a debate we shouldn’t be having: Should Winfrey run for president? The critical thing, though, is that celebrities are prepared to market themselves, and billionaires are prepared to ensure their own advantage. Barack Obama and George W. Bush (that is, Dick Cheney) were savvy presidents, to be sure, but their early lives and careers still weren’t altogether different from those of most Americans. They entered politics from the (relative) ground up, moving from state to national politics in a familiar pattern — we’re used to leaders like them. I understand that electing an “Average American™” is the most tired campaign slogan in American politics, and beyond that, I wouldn’t actually want a completely average person running the country. That said, I think there is a fundamental difference of worldview between being a privileged child (Bush) or a politician ( Hillary Clinton, Obama) and being fantastically wealthy and the focus of the media. American culture so deifies the rich and famous that — naturally — their personalities change to fit the role. On the other hand, it’s definitely tempting to meet Trump with his antithesis: resentment with inclusion, ineptitude in business with legitimate success, erratic egoism with a ruthlessly managed image. Winfrey is everything effective about Trump as a marketer, but with additional patience and a basic level of empathy for other people. She’s not, however, a
politician. We have no idea what her specific policy goals are or would be; we don’t know how she would act with regard to her wealth or the wealth of her peer group. Any campaign promises and candidate platforms would be created in the moment, without the weight of legislative accomplishments or prior lobbying to back them up. Winfrey would lack the unique political savvy developed by many other candidates through congressional or governing experience.
“Celebrities are prepared to market themselves, and billionaires are prepared to ensure their own advantage.” Journalist Derrick Clifton wrote in a Vox article last week that “(e)ven Winfrey isn’t safe from being called on to carry America’s burdens. Black women are seen as longsuffering laborers who can (be) counted on to carry heavy political baggage, despite often having the fruits of their labor stolen.” We’ve seen similar behavior following the election of Doug Jones in Alabama, where Black women voted overwhelmingly in his favor. If speculation about a run from Winfrey continues — even though it’s been denied by third parties — it’s likely because she’s embraced the possibility, not because we’ve forced her to accept the burden of “most powerful person in the world.” Winfrey’s status as a businesswoman, media power and billionaire cloud the lens (as described by Clifton) used to evaluate the
way liberals treat Black women as a voting bloc. As part of a discussion over whether or not Winfrey should run for president, though, I’m not sure whether the cultural tendency Clifton indicated plays as large a role as some would suggest. Billionaires and celebrities seem to increasingly consider the presidency as part of their career trajectories, even more so than the entitlement to wealth. This is because of our collective entertainment with a presidential system in which brand recognition trumps all other factors. I don’t have a problem with Winfrey specifically — she’s made comments that should be part of our discourse but which classic politicians would never (rationally) say. This, though, is the same justification I get when people defend Trump to me: He says what he wants, and that’s enough. As refreshing as it is to watch someone shove aside the frustrating traditions and decorum of normal politics, these traditions do serve a purpose. The opposition to tradition seen in the election of Trump isn’t justification enough to discard them entirely. #Oprah2020 is an alluring idea because she, in a way, is more popular than Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris or Bernie Sanders could ever be. Furthermore, I’m sure she’d perform exceptionally well in a campaign against Trump — not that this is some superhuman feat of strategy — because of the eloquence of her past speeches, interviews and public performance. It’s important to remember, though, that campaigning and governing are two entirely different things, and we need candidates that can transition between the roles. The candidate who opposes Trump in 2020 will ultimately have to govern, and govern well, if they want to win. Hank Minor can be reached at hminor@umich.edu.
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Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
GENDER & MEDIA COLUMN
Whose self-indulgent vanity mirror is it, really? I love period dramas. I love everything about them: gorgeous cinematography of old cities, scores with music I’ve come to associate with growing up despite it being much before my time, transatlantic accents when appropriate. I love thinking about all of the work that goes into making sure they’re true to the times they’re portraying. It’s fun to trace history through the details of a story: trying to guess what part of a decade a film is set in based on the eyeliner and lipstick, on the hemlines and hairstyles, on whether everything in the kitchen is matching pastels or eclectic earth-tones, on the tiny gestures of femininity or chivalry that we’ve grown up seeing on big screens. Basically, I binge “Mad Men” and rewatch “Pride and Prejudice” like The New Yorker is paying me to. But after watching some of the newer cinematic offerings of the past couple months, I couldn’t help but compare two that have almost nothing in common — Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “Darkest Hour” — precisely for how each handled those minute details. I’m talking, almost exclusively, about how and what we see in the vanity mirrors, the cosmetics scattered throughout the women’s rooms (and, of course, everything they metaphorically represent). Because I’ve started to tire of the easier moves that some of these dramas are employing. “Mrs. Maisel” is set in the late 1950s, following the title character, Midge (Rachel Brosnahan “House of Cards”), a young Jewish housewife who discovers a talent for stand-up when her gleamingly perfect life begins to unravel. “Darkest Hour” is a film about Winston Churchill that provides, among other things, a look into the political underside of the plot of “Dunkirk.” “Darkest Hour,” eerily reminiscent in some scenes of Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” included two female characters:
Churchill’s secretary, a complete and unabashed cliché, and his wife Clementine, the only character who seems to truly “get” him. Very limited, perfunctory attention was paid to the secretary’s lines and direction; with Clementine, they tried harder. There are a few moments where she gets to show a glimmer of understanding about her husband, typically withheld from other people. In one scene, we see her sit in front of her vanity mirror. She looks worn, almost haggard, looking at
SOPHIA KAUFMAN her reflection; her eyes are lined with soft charcoal, and face powder is lifting a little from her skin. Various concealing cosmetics are scattered artfully around her vanity table. There is a quiet sort of grace around her; we see her breathe deeply in, out — and then she reenters public life, wearing a uniform for a photo shoot to inspire women to do their part. It was a quietly touching scene, but it came nowhere near the poignancy it was going for simply because we’ve seen that exact scene formula time and again. An intimate, feminized instance of privacy, of strength and vulnerability, surrounded and framed by the accoutrements of femininity or “womanhood” — moments like those are littered throughout period dramas, both the good and the bad. They’re easy to do, so they’re given more weight than they should, and because they’re so familiar, they’re easily accepted without
critical examination. They’re perfunctory at this point and almost self-indulgent. Part of what I found so compelling about “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” was the funny and fresh take on moments like those, portrayed in a totally different light. We get to see Midge wake up next to her husband, Joel, under the sunlight that she has strategically let shine through her window onto her face. She scurries to the bathroom, freshens up, undoes her hair rollers and applies makeup, and then goes back to bed and pretends to wake up with her alarm. Later on in the season, we watch her mother do the same thing. They both perform their nightly cosmetic rituals after their husbands are asleep. In one of the episodes, when Midge finds herself having an impromptu make-out session with Joel, she stops him abruptly, with a serious look on her face, and tells him she has something important to tell him. Confused, and distracted, Joel urges her to spit it out — and she informs him that she had spent years secretly undoing every other button on her corset before having sex so that it wouldn’t take him too long to do it himself. These moments are set to music, and aren’t at all rushed: They’re given the space they deserve. And they’re not framed didactically — there’s no disapproving shadow of judgment cast over the women who partake in behaviors meant to make themselves as appealing and faultless to men as possible. These scenes breathe. Both “Maisel” and “Darkest Hour” have been criticized for some historical inaccuracies (“Darkest Hour” has also been criticized on other accounts, such as not truly conveying the trajectory of the relationship between Winston Churchill and the English people), which I would be remiss for not mentioning. But these moments in “Maisel” are so compelling that I was willing to forgive some of them anyway.
‘Alone Together’ amuses despite its inadequacies MORGAN RUBINO Daily Arts Writer
In a world full of brand deals, Instagram models, green juice and hipster millennials, it’s rare to come across originality in media. Yet, in a strange turn of events, Freeform’s newest comedy, “Alone Together,” is not only able to accomplish that kind of authenticity but also simultaneously subvert and embrace mainstream L.A. culture. That’s not to say, though, that the pilot was some immense success, that the show fits in on Freeform or that “Alone Together” is a series for everyone — but hey, at least it has some potential. The series, written by and starring Esther Povitsky (“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”) and Benji Af lalo (“City Girl”), follows two platonic aspiring comedians in their attempts at adulting, navigating the conceit of the city and constantly dodging the “are you two dating?” question. The duo — characteristically the same person, just different genders — makes it through the first episode by staying loyal and having each other’s backs while still calling each other out on their bullshit. A round of applause is most definitely in order for Povitsky, Af lalo and Eben Russell (“New Girl”) as co-writers. The sharp one-liners and moments of pure, eccentric hilarity are somehow able to trump the show’s f laws enough to persuade me to follow up next
week. In fact, the writing in a show meant to mock the status-obsessed nature of young Hollywood is probably so spot-on that it seems like the script was based on the authentic lives of eager stand-
“Alone Together” Series Premiere Wednesdays @ 8:30 p.m. Freeform up comedians themselves. That is, I’m not entirely sure that Povitsky and Af lalo needed to star in the show as well as dream up the humor behind it. The delivery of the jokes was often too awkward, making me wonder how much more connected to the characters I would feel if the acting was more polished and nuanced. Esther’s Cali-girl tone and millennial whining were exaggerated to the point of annoyance, and Benji was never truly given a moment to shine as anything other than Esther’s sidekick and selfdeprecating best friend. Moreover, “Alone Together” just feels majorly out of place on Freeform — a network that usually contains more well-rounded characters and investigative storylines. The layout of this half-hour comedy seemed choppy and jumbled, as so many different, wacky scenarios took place in such
a short amount of time. I was left feeling a little confused and unsure about the show’s plot direction. How is it that Esther and Benji jump from being on the getaway from Esther’s chaotic one-night stand to ordering wellness shots and spirulina crisps from a quintessential L.A. juice bar to Esther wanting to become an escort in order to boost her self-esteem? I’m still not following that train of events. The show itself is unclear about its motive as a comedy. Is the premise centered on two comedians trying to make it big in a city of stars, or is it focused on Esther and Benji’s possible and highly anticipated future relationship? Hopefully, we’ll find out as the season progresses, though I’m not entirely sure which run-ofthe-mill route I’d prefer. In the end, by no means is “Alone Together” a show that all audiences would welcome into their weekly schedules. As a matter of fact, I think you have to be a social media fiend and sometimes a self-doubting millennial yourself to truly understand and appreciate the comedy. The playful banter and loving yet brash criticism that overwhelms most of Esther and Benji’s encounters is oddly familiar and twistedly endearing for a millennial like me. And while the basis of the show was cluttered, “Alone Together” does enough in wittiness and relatability in order for me to reconsider watching it when in need of some mindless TV.
Friday, January 19, 2018 — 5
Carlina Duan’s identity in ‘I Wore My Blackest Hair’
NETFLIX
TINDERBOX POETRY JOURNAL
JULIA MOSS
Daily Arts Writer
In “I Wore My Blackest Hair,” Carlina Duan conjures up a richly textured jewel box of poems, each one offering a glimpse into a world that is both lushly strange and heartrendingly intimate. These poems are filled with the mystical — a girl transformed into a bird, the body conceived of as an ocean or a feral animal — and the mundane — moons, rain, teeth, cups of milk. Through them, Duan wrestles brilliantly with what it means to be suspended between cultures, continents, ages and the polar forces of hope and loss. Duan, an Ann Arbor native who received her BA from the University and is currently pursuing an MFA at Vanderbilt University, wrote most of the poems that appear in this book for her undergraduate honors thesis. The book is in many ways a coming of age narrative that examines the meaning of girlhood, the adventures and misadventures of romantic love and the attempt to understand, as Duan put it in a phone interview with The Daily, “Who your parents were before they were your parents.” Duan says that the original inspiration for the project was the idea of girlhood: “I was really interested in interrogating that idea of girlhood and seeing how it could be expanded, specifically as someone who maybe doesn’t fit this box of American girlhood. To me, coming of age felt so ripe and so essential to what a lot of
the book ends up being about, because of the courage and the fear and the rage and the adrenaline and the total joy that it takes to be able to be inside a body and inhabit that space and then grow up beyond it.” Duan is the child of Chinese immigrants, and the ambiguity of existing between cultures is a common thread through many of her poems: “I was thinking a lot about the uniqueness of being born in the United States and yet born to immigrant parents, and all of the thousand ways that my girlhood was influenced. As I got older a lot of the questions that I had about girlhood revolved around that friction of Chinese and American identity, and wondering when I looked around myself in the larger world why there were all these monolithic boxes of what identity was.” In her poems, Duan aims to break down those boxes and reclaim the liminal space between them. Although the poems in this collection were written before the 2016 election and the subsequent upswing in public declarations of American xenophobia, “I Wore My Blackest Hair” is remarkably current in its expression of anxiety regarding what it means to belong in this country and who gets to decide. Although Duan doesn’t consider herself a political poet, she said that “all poetry is inherently political,” and believes in “The power of poetry to open up windows of conversation.” Although the incidents of blatant racism depicted in this book are largely autobiographical and indicate a bleak contemporary reality,
Duan’s outlook is altogether hopeful. As much as she exposes moments of ugliness, she also revels in the beauty of connection and the power of family and culture. “This book is definitely tapping into a longer ongoing conversation of a history of violence, but I would also say a larger history of love in this country, and the attempts and the misattempts to love through language, or when we fail to use language and language becomes violence,” Duan said. In these poems, many of which codeswitch between English and Chinese, language is the most powerful force, for both harm and healing. Duan could be considered a poet of place; much of this collection is set in Ann Arbor, and Duan considers her hometown “a part of my poetic obsession.” But her conception of home in these poems is complex, tied not only to physical land but also to webs of family and culture and language. The poems in this collection are concerned as much with place as they are with displacement, what it means to be severed from the people and places you love. In her meditations on place and displacement, Duan plays an emotional note that is at once intimately specific and surprisingly universal: the need for belonging and the longing for home. As a whole, “I Wore My Blackest Hair” speaks to what might be the most human of desires: to “love all I love / with my wide open mouth / I bite down bite down / & keep biting I don’t / spit any of it / out.”
ENSPIRED
EnspiRED fashion show TESS GARCIA
Daily Style Editor
University of Michigan organization EnspiRED Runway will be hosting their 12th annual charity fashion show, RAW, on Saturday, Jan. 27 at the Biomedical Science Research Building. The show will feature students modeling clothes created by local designers. General admission tickets are available for 15 dollars, while Gold VIP (one front row seat, one gift bag, access to preshow festivities and admission to the afterparty) and Platinum VIP
(catered dinner, one front row seat, one gift bag, access to preshow festivities and admission to the afterparty) are available for 25 dollars and 35 dollars, respectively. All profits from this year’s show will be donated to Ozone House, an Ypsilanti-based nonprofit that provides at-risk youth with housing and intensive intervention and prevention services. “I’m so excited for everyone to experience what EnspiRED has created,” said Skylar Wilkes, one of EnspiRED’s public relation chairs and an LSA sophomore. “The people on e-board have so much love for each other and this
show, and I know that will come across to the audience. Without giving too much away, this show is one that hopefully everyone will relate to. It’s more than fashion and great music. RAW has meaning and purpose behind it.” The runway show begins at 7 p.m., while doors open at 5:30 p.m. and VIP pre-show festivities start at 6:00 p.m. Tickets may be purchased here or at any upcoming EnspiRED events to avoid online fees. For more information about EnspiRED Runway, visit their Facebook page. For more information about Ozone House, visit ozonehouse. org.
Arts
6 — Friday, January 19, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
‘Paddington 2’ is clever and as sweet as marmalade JEREMIAH VANDERHELM Daily Arts Writer
The first “Paddington” was quietly dropped in Jan. 2015, and as an animated film released during the first weeks of the new year, the smart bet was that it was going to be awful. A marketing campaign that fronted a story ripped from any number of “fish out of water” kid flicks did nothing to help. It came as a welcome, genuine surprise that, despite its predictable story, the movie itself was actually quite good. Each scene held an abundance of wit, charm and honest-toGod style that the whole thing played like your kid’s first Wes Anderson film. The only things missing were Bill Murray and chain smoking. It was a victory against all odds, yet somehow director Paul King (“Bunny and the Bull”) and his cast and crew have found a way to outdo themselves. “Paddington 2” exceeds the first film in almost every way possible; from its unique style to its clever sense of humor, everything is stepped up. Still, at the core is the
same beating heart that makes it so easy to fall in love with Paddington (Ben Whishaw, “Spectre”) and his surrogate family, the Browns. If the movie that introduced us to them was a great kid’s film, then its sequel
“Paddington 2” Ann Arbor 20 + IMAX, Goodrich Quality 16 StudioCanal is a great film, period. Without a doubt, the greatest improvement made is the use of the human characters. Apart from the Browns — the parents portrayed gamely by Hugh Bonneville (“Downton Abbey”) and Sally Hawkins (“The Shape of Water”) — the first film didn’t have much in this way besides Nicole Kidman (“Lion”) playing a villain who is never as funny or as lively as the film itself. “Paddington 2” has two characters who almost steal the show from Paddington himself. The first is Hugh Grant (“Florence Foster Jenkins”) as Phoenix Buchanan, a former thespian who frames Paddington for a theft he
himself committed. Buchanan’s series of increasingly ridiculous costumes and personas gives Grant the opportunity to ham it up, playing opposite himself in a nearly self-satirical role. This climaxes in the character’s final scene, which set an early high bar for hilarity in film this year. It’s worth noting that when “Paddington 2” was released in the United Kingdom late last year, Grant — as well as the script and the film itself — was nominated for the BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. Now that it has been released in America, it’s easy to see why. The other terrific addition is Brendan Gleeson (“Mr. Mercedes”) as Knuckles McGinty. Every scene Gleeson shares with Paddington is filled with the best jokes “Paddington 2” has to offer, from his reaction to Paddington shoving a marmalade sandwich into his mouth to the reveal that he misspelled his name — “Nuckle’s” — when tattooing it across his fists. Similar to the film itself, there’s a beating heart at Knuckles’s core, and the very real friendship that develops between the curmudgeonly
FILM REVIEW
STUDIO CANAL
prison chef and the titular bear is one of the movie’s greatest achievements. And that heart, communicated beautifully through both the characters and a story that is significantly less by-thenumbers than the original, is
what makes “Paddington 2” great. It verges on cliché to celebrate a children’s movie for simply being innocent and sweet, but innocence and sweetness are Paddington’s defining attributes. They are attributes that his movies —
SMTD’s Collage Concert distinct theme, aside from the fact that the first half featured the University’s Symphony Band and the second half featured the Symphony Orchestra, they both felt different. After the Symphony Band left audiences in awe with their performance of the fourth movement of David Maslanka’s “Symphony no. 4,” I wasn’t sure how the second half could follow such a showstopper. But when the lights went low for the second time, I was swept away by the back to back performances that were happening all around me. My favorite set of performances came in the second half, with the piece “Through Our Eyes” and the third movement of Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony. “Through Our Eyes” featured students of color in a collaborative dance and vocal piece, detailing the issues they face at the University. Vocalists Zion Jackson and Jaime Sharp performed sections of spoken word as well as a unison melody that accompanied both the dancers and themselves. In addition to these sections of spoken word, testimonies from students of color at the University rang throughout the auditorium. These vocals worked in conjunction with a group of students from the dance department, putting together a powerful performance that shook the audience to its core. Whoever planned Collage must have had it out for me, because after already feeling these overwhelming emotions from “Through Our Eyes,” the
RYAN COX
Daily Arts Writer
It’s hard to fully grasp just how many different events are happening on North Campus at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance. It would be nearly impossible for someone to catch the 450+ performances the school puts on each semester. It can be a daunting task for someone wanting to experience the talent and artistry this University has to offer. Collage hopes to help with that. By giving each department a little time to shine, SMTD’s annual Collage Concert provides audiences with a little sample of all the magic going on within the school. The Collage Concert at the University is based off of the “Prism Concert,” a tradition started at the Eastman School of Music that quickly spread to music and performing arts schools all across the country. Even some high schools have taken up the challenge. The idea is to surround the audience in a “prism” of sound. Acts perform back to back, with no time in between for applause, on different corners and sides of the stage. My eyes darted from side to side, watching Shakespeare turn to bluegrass, beatboxing to baroque and Hayden to Hodges. The performances were powerful. The first and second halves were unique in their own respects. While neither had a
‘Underground Railroad Game’ performances to Classifieds continue this weekend remarkable is its multi-layered complexity and absolute Daily Arts Writer fearlessness. From full frontal nudity and shouted expletives to seeing the two characters (and It is rare that I leave a their relationship) transform, presentation of art — be it a work “Underground Railroad Game” of theater, a museum or a concert unapologetically presents — and find myself at a loss for audiences with an experience — words. I am usually quick to one they must sit through, learn reflect on and dissect what I see, from and internalize. able to articulate the emotions While it is true that I could and feelings and questions not find words to describe my that are provoked by my feelings immediately immersed experience. following this glorious But tonight, I was marathon of a show, I rendered speechless. was overwhelmingly The exhilarating, curious to hear intense, exhausting about other people’s and confrontational Thursday, Jan. 18 @ 7:30 p.m. experiences and 90 minutes that is interpretations. I was “Underground Railroad Friday, Jan. 19 @ 8:00 p.m. excited to engage Game,” presented at Saturday, Jan. 20 @ 2:00 & 8:00 p.m. with those around me, Arthur Miller Theatre to convene with the by University Musical Sunday, Jan. 21 @ 2:00 p.m. newfound community Society as part of their Arthur Miller Theatre of people who inaugural No Safety Net shared this powerful festival, forces audiences General admission $35-40 experience. I was, and away from their comfort am, looking forward zones and confronts protruding issues of racism in is ever-present throughout the to the conversations that will ways that are unconventional duration of the performance, surely take place because of this and unrelenting. The real the two-person piece moves show — important conversations magic of the show comes beyond the classroom and that will help people process from its approach. Issues are hones in on often unspoken and learn and grow. The presentation opened the presented and explained in a issues regarding mixed-race way that makes leaving your couples, stereotypes, how to No Safety Net festival, a series comfort zone feel natural and respond to the “n” word, how of provocative theater events necessary, rather than abrasive to teach children about racism presented by UMS that will take and how to handle racist place over the next few weeks. If or intrusive. Following the opening scene, incidents. By breaking the “Underground Railroad Game” the audience assumes the role “fourth wall,” and the initial is any indication of what’s to of a middle school class being blanket casting of the audience come, it is safe to say that No taught about the Civil War. Part as 12-year-olds, “Underground Safety Net will be a beautiful, of the lesson plan is to participate Railroad Game” does a heroic necessary and vital source for in “The Underground Railroad job of breaking down difficult exploration, conversation and Game” (a real game played matters and explaining them education. “Underground Railroad in fifth grade by the show’s simply without coming across co-star and co-writer, Scott R. as condescending. Yet, it still Game” will run this week at Sheppard), where students on implores the importance of the the Arthur Miller Theatre: the Union’s side must attempt topics at hand in a way that Thursday, Jan. 18 at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Jan. 19 at 8 p.m., to move Black dolls from safe everyone understands. This, however, is only one Saturday, Jan. 20 at 2 p.m. and house to safe house — bins in each teacher’s classroom — aspect of the show. What 8 p.m. and Sunday, Jan. 21 at 2 without being caught by the makes this theatre experience p.m. ALLIE TAYLOR
students on the opposing side: the Confederates. In order to designate who’s on which team, under each audience chair is a toy soldier of either blue or silver: blue means Union, silver means Confederate. Contrary to many other works, the audience participation in this instance felt natural, not tacky, and added a personal investment aspect for everyone in the room. While the theme of this game
“Underground Railroad Game”
in between jokes and stylistic flourishes — implore audiences, young and old, to share. In a time when most films extoll those values without exhibiting them themselves, a film that actually walks the walk and walks it well should be celebrated.
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RELEASE DATE– Friday, January 19, 2018
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 Type of coordination 5 Wolverine rival 9 Hidden 3-D image 14 State as fact 15 “A Hard Road to Glory” author 16 Coffeehouse draw 17 Sagacious 18 Lacking in some way 19 Checkout choice 20 “Roar” singer 22 Large pipes 23 Malfoy, to Potter 24 Attention getter 26 Sign on a highway 30 Binging 34 Order to a sea dog 35 Genesis victim 38 Quinnipiac University product 39 “Kid-Tested, MotherApproved” brand 40 Scornful glance ... and a hint to completing 12 aptly placed answers 43 Soul seller 44 Sooner State city 46 Jodie Foster title role 47 Slogs 49 Antarctica, for example 51 Domains 53 Coop cries 55 Really big stretch 56 E alternative? 59 Chip topper 65 Pilot that can’t fly 66 Favorable thing to be on 67 Halliwell once known as Ginger Spice 68 Rte. that crosses Lake Michigan by ferry 69 Sighed line 70 Course that may cover a crash: Abbr. 71 Intuition 72 Batter’s command of the strike zone, in baseball lingo 73 Pacific salmon
DOWN 1 Iowa athlete 2 New Balance competitor 3 Incubator site 4 Subject of Zola’s “J’Accuse...!” 5 Whalebone 6 Certain surfer 7 Arctic trout 8 “Out of Africa” setting 9 Drama set at an advertising agency 10 Hotel handout 11 Silk Road desert 12 “Let’s do it!” 13 Reflective semiprecious stone 21 USB and others 25 Toledo opening? 26 Unassisted peeper 27 Like Lamb Chop 28 Prepares to take off 29 One-named Nigerian singer 31 Batman nemesis, with “the” 32 Similar 33 Physical feature of Peter Falk and Sammy Davis Jr.
36 “The Fresh Prince of __-Air” 37 Charged fish? 41 Van Morrison’s “__ the Mystic” 42 Set of values 45 Bush 43, so he said, with “the” 48 Goes back (on) 50 French epic hero 52 Prepared to eat, as a banana
sheer beauty of Rachmaninoff’s “Adagio” from his second symphony really did me in. I could feel the tears coming as soon as the opening melody was played. However, there were more than just tears shed at Collage. Whether it was when members of the theatre department performed a selection from “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” or when members of the music school reimagined Leroy Anderson’s “The Typewriter” with smartphone clicks and dings, the audience reacted with laughs, giggles and everything in between. Logistically, I was pretty amazed by how well this performance came together. Getting hundreds of performers in the right place at the right time can be a difficult task — not to mention the sound and lighting difficulties that come with it. I was surprised at how fast acts were able to transition into each other, and besides a few lighting mistakes, everything looked and sounded clean. In a massive space like Hill Auditorium, acoustics are everything. And although some sounds required amplification, it was hard to tell when sounds were being projected over the PA because of how natural it all resonated. It’s always inspiring to see my peers share their passions through their performances. With so many artistic accomplishments being made everyday within SMTD, the annual Collage Concert does an amazing job at sharing a bit of these special performances.
54 Skin-and-bones sort 56 Z’s 57 Nibble 58 Fighting 60 Relative of a Yodel 61 Big Bird buddy 62 Chrysler Building style 63 __-Z: classic Camaro 64 Conjunctivitis
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Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Friday, January 19, 2018 — 7
Amid momentum and improvement, Michigan set to face Penn State ANNA MARCUS Daily Sports Writer
The Michigan hockey team faced the first real undertaking of its 2017-18 campaign on its third weekend. The Wolverines walked away from that weekend in State College, Pa. establishing themselves as a conference contender by splitting their series with Penn State — and were just an overtime away from sweeping the weekend. As the 12th-ranked Nittany Lions (6-5-3 Big Ten, 13-8-3 overall) visit Yost Ice Arena on Friday and Saturday night, almost three months will have passed since that last meeting. For Michigan, though, it seems more like an eternity. Stemming from their first series against Penn State — which also opened up Big Ten play — the Wolverines (5-7-2, 10-10-2) gave up an average of 3.83 goals during a 12-game stretch, struggling to solve defensive lapses. But with its performance since the calendar flipped over, Michigan seems to be taking the mantra “new year, new me” to heart. The Wolverines — now ranked No. 20 — faced an uphill battle after winter break with consecutive series against Notre Dame and Minnesota. They were largely able to rise to the occasion, in more ways than one. Though depth has been a systemic problem for Michigan this season, particularly in relation to its defensive unit, the blueliners turned a noticeable corner against the Fighting Irish that was then again showcased when facing the Golden Gophers. Part of this can be attributed to minimizing unforced errors in the defensive zone, but also to senior defenseman Cutler Martin’s return to health, as his reappearance sparked competitiveness for starting
AMELIA CACCHIONE/Daily
Senior forward Dexter Dancs has played a big role for his team this year, joining Tony Calderone and Cooper Marody on a high-scoring first line.
spots in the lineup. Martin played in the Notre Dame series, sending sophomore defenseman Griffin Luce to the bench, and then the following weekend saw the reverse. “Sometimes, when you’re in all the time, you can get complacent and you can get comfortable, it’s just human nature,” said Michigan coach Mel Pearson. “And I think with (Griffin), he just needed a little bit of a wake-up call. And with Cutler (Martin) back, we have some flexibility and we can do that.” This competitive atmosphere gives Michigan’s blueline more options, which will be more
important than ever when squaring off with the Nittany Lions — a team possessing the most productive attack unit in the nation. In sweeping then-No. 9 Minnesota in Minneapolis for the first time in 41 years last weekend, the Wolverines saw contributions from all lines, an adjustment from this season’s storyline of the top line of seniors Tony Calderone and Dexter Dancs and junior Cooper Marody bailing out the team. Last weekend marked the first time the same lines were started in consecutive games, and Pearson noted that these lines will be
Penn State leads the nation in shots taken per game.
sticking against Penn State. Michigan’s offense demonstrated not only depth but also timeliness, jumping to early leads within the first minute and a half both nights against the Gophers. The Wolverines never relinquished their edge, a tactic that will be advantageous in facing the Nittany Lions. As a team, Penn State leads the nation in shots taken per game with 40.1 and hasn’t had trouble finding the net this season. “You can’t come back when you’re down every game,” Dancs said. “And I think getting a lead against (Penn State) is crucial because they are a team
that gets a lot of shots, they are a physical team and they wear you down, so getting a hot start will be key for us this weekend.” Regardless of Michigan’s substantial weekend in Minnesota, Pearson emphasized the importance of hard work this week, and how letting up on focus could be detrimental as the team prepares to play the Nittany Lions. “We’re not good enough that we can take days off, regardless of the good weekend we had,” Pearson said. “We need everybody and we’ve got to work extremely hard for everything that we get. We
“We’re not good enough that we can take days off.”
can’t just rely on our skill and show up and play.” Michigan — even before these changes — gave Penn State a run for its money in October. But the Nittany Lions have gone through a metamorphosis of their own. Penn State was riding a more considerable wave of momentum than the Wolverines, having claimed an 11-game undefeated streak until last Saturday night when Ohio State put a stop to the trend. The offensive powerhouse knocks in an average of four goals per game and executes its power play more effectively than any other Big Ten contender. One of their most vital players, junior forward Andrew Sturtz, leads the Nittany Lions’ offensive efforts with 30 points, just a point shy of Marody’s contributions this season. That’s not to say that Penn State’s attack isn’t balanced, though — seven separate Nittany Lions have notched at least 15 points on the season. Yet, though both teams have gone through major transformations since their last series, it is more than likely that this weekend will present a fiercely competitive atmosphere similar to the meeting at Pegula Ice Arena in October. Given this, Pearson emphasized the importance of Michigan focusing on its own development and performance more so than that of the Nittany Lions. “We caught them at a time when they were struggling with their goals against, so they’ve improved,” Pearson said. “But I think it’s more about us and how we’re playing now. And if we can do A, B, C and D, then we’ll have a good chance to win. It’s a coaches’ cliché but it’s so true, we’ve got to really worry about ourselves and our game and what we do well, and if we do, we’ll have a chance.”
Riding recent hot streak, Lavigne builds confidence Streaking Wolverines
hosting Fighting Illini
JACOB SHAMES Daily Sports Writer
Some athletes have more of a margin for error than others. A baseball player who gets a hit just three times out of 10, for example, is considered proficient at the plate. Hockey goaltenders don’t have that same luxury. “When you’re a goalie, you’re judged on your mistakes,” says Michigan goaltending coach Steve Shields. “That’s it. Nobody cares if you’ve made 10 great saves if you’ve allowed the goal that cost the game.” This fine line makes confidence all the more important for having success at the position. In fact, Shields, a former Wolverine netminder who played 10 years in the NHL, believes goaltending is “all confidence.” “In today’s game, you could take all 60 college (starting) goalies and they would be very similar with regards to their skill level,” Shields said. “Some of them have more confidence and therefore that could lead to better focus, it could lead to feeling like they’re going to make more saves, and ultimately it leads to better performance.” Over his last four games, sophomore Hayden Lavigne has proven Shields correct with his recent solid play, leading to him effectively being named Michigan’s starter in the process. Like sophomore Jack LaFontaine, his main competition for the No. 1 role, Lavigne has displayed flashes of brilliance all season. In October, Lavigne made 42 saves against Penn State — the nation’s highest-scoring offense — in the hostile road environment of Pegula Ice Arena as the Wolverines came away with a 5-2 win, a night after LaFontaine stopped 49 Penn State attempts. Six weeks later, Lavigne denied a slew of dangerous Michigan State shots, going a perfect 21-for-21 to earn the Wolverines’ first shutout of the season. Despite these positives, neither LaFontaine nor Lavigne had been able to pull away with the starting job until recently, even though Michigan coach Mel Pearson originally wanted to settle on a primary goaltender within the
SARAH HURST
Daily Sports Writer
AMELIA CACCHIONE/Daily
Sophomore Hayden Lavigne has battled back to earn Michigan’s starting goaltender job this season.
season’s first two months. Neither goalie made more than three consecutive starts during the season’s first half, while their play began to suffer behind a struggling defense — the Wolverines gave up an average of 4.4 goals per game from Nov. 11 to Jan. 2. But dating back to a Jan. 5 showdown against then-No. 2 Notre Dame, Lavigne has allowed just two goals per game with an elite .926 save percentage, taking firm control between the pipes. “At the beginning of the season we saw a good game here and a good game there, which obviously isn’t enough at this level,” Lavigne said. “Recently, I’ve been able to string together four pretty solid games back-to-back, and that in itself leads to a little more confidence where I’ve found myself playing a little bit farther out, little bit more sure of the plays I’m making in net, which just kind has led to an overall stronger game.” Much of Shields’ work with the Wolverines’ netminders concerns the mental aspects of goaltending, and thus, their training is more individualized than any of Michigan’s other position groups. For Lavigne, Shields has stressed getting back to basics. “Lately, what we’ve done is we just simplified things and gotten back to going out early,” Shields said. “Making sure that he’s warmed up, in the right frame of mind and he’s felt some of the repetitive shots that goalies build confidence from.” According to Shields, Lavigne
possesses a natural, ingrained selfconfidence that some goaltenders lack. The two have worked together to maintain this level of self-assurance, allowing Lavigne to remain in rhythm even when “puck luck” hasn’t gone his way. “He knows that he’s a good athlete, he knows that he can play the position,” Shields said. “So it’s my responsibility to just to keep him in that frame of mind. (It) can go the other way when you don’t have success, and then you get away from what naturally is your level of confidence or what you feel you can do. “He’s been really good at sticking with it, especially at times where he wasn’t getting the bounces and not a ton of easy shots to help your save percentage and goals-against, which are confidence builders. So he’s had to do it just gutting it out.” Lavigne hasn’t necessarily faced a barrage of shots during his recent hot streak — Minnesota fired just two shots at him in the third period last Saturday. He’s made 25 saves per contest over the last four games, slightly below the team average of 26.4. So while it may sound counterintuitive, the high-volume offense of Penn State — which leads the nation with 40.1 shots per game — may prove to be a perfect setup for an assertive Lavigne this weekend. The Nittany Lions have built a reputation based on launching pucks from all over the offensive zone, rather than incisively hunting for grade-A
chances near the crease. Against Penn State, Lavigne won’t have to constantly “gut it out” as he has needed to do recently. He’ll be on his toes from the opening puck drop until the final horn. Many of the attempts the Nittany Lions will take this weekend are likely to emulate the “repetitive,” less dangerous shots Lavigne faces during his preparation. “That kind of gives you a little bit more confidence when you get shots early and a lot of times they’re taking shots that aren’t always high-quality scoring chances,” Lavigne said. “So you’re getting shots that are from far out and are from bad angles, or they’re in situations where you can just kind of go down and let it hit you and (you) don’t really have to make the save, which just kind of gives you a lot more confidence. “You start to feel the puck a little bit better, which leads to better rebound control, and in turn the flow of the game starts to feel a little bit more calm.” “Calm” normally isn’t the first word you’d use to describe a hockey game between Michigan and Penn State. In their last meeting, the two teams combined to score 16 goals and take 173 shots on goal over two games. That’s not exactly the happiest environment for a goaltender. Unless, however, you’re selfassured, playing your best hockey as of late and thrive on highpressure situations like this one. Unless you’re Hayden Lavigne.
After a devastating overtime loss to Ohio State on Jan. 7, the No. 19 Michigan women’s basketball came back with a vengeance. A few short days after the loss, the Wolverines beat Indiana, 84-79. They followed with an exciting overtime victory over Nebraska. And on Tuesday, Michigan got its chance in a rematch against the Buckeyes. The game was close, as the Buckeyes had the lead at the half. But in an exciting play in which junior guard Nicole Munger played point guard and set up senior guard Katelyn Flaherty for a three-pointer late in the third quarter gave Michigan the lead, which it held onto for the remainder of the game. The Wolverines are on top of the world after bouncing back and hope to continue their winning streak against Illinois at Crisler Center at 6 p.m. on Saturday. Hallie Thome has hit her stride the past few games. She played a key role in the first matchup against Ohio State, even though the Wolverines came up short. In the last game against the Buckeyes, Thome had 11 rebounds, becoming the 16th Wolverine in program history with over 600 rebounds. “It’s really important for us to take it one game at a time,” said Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico to WTKA. “Obviously we’re excited about those two top-25 victories but we have to concern ourselves with Illinois because I think the most important piece
of all this is that our league has tremendously improved.” This is Nancy Fahey’s first season coaching Illinois and she has an overall record of 9-11 and a conference record of 0-6. The Fighting Ilini’s leading scorer is junior forward Alex Wittinger who has scored 277 points on the season. Another player to watch out for is sophomore Brandi Beasley, who tied her career high of 19 points against the Spartans on Jan. 16 and has 244 points on the season. Even though Illinois is winless in Big Ten play, Barnes Arico still wants her team to be prepared for anything because the league has improved a lot since last season. “The bottom two teams didn’t have any road wins last year and maybe six total wins and now one was most recently in the top 25, Rutgers,” Barnes Arico said. “And the second one, Nebraska, played us into overtime and beat ranked Iowa last night, so I think our league is better than it’s ever been.” In its most recent game against Michigan State, Illinois took the lead early on in the first quarter but the Spartans fought back. Though Illinois held them to just one field goal in the fourth quarter, it was not enough to close the gap and the Spartans came out victorious. “Illinois is a team that is a really improved team as well,” Barnes Arico said. “They played Michigan State last night in a tough game, and we know they’re going to be a challenge and I think it’s really important for our team to be focused on Illinois.”
AARON BAKER/Daily
Kim Barnes Arico believes that the Big Ten has “tremendously improved.”
Sports
8 — Friday, January 19, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SHUCKED
Turnovers, poor shooting doom No. 23 Michigan on the road in a 72-52 loss to Nebraska MIKE PERSAK
Managing Sports Editor
LINCOLN – The Michigan men’s basketball team ended its game with the Nebraska crowd chanting its best player’s name. They were mocking junior forward Moritz Wagner. The normally brash star had no answer. He scored just two points all game. So, with the crowd openly making fun of him, Wagner could only smile and shake his head. It was a particularly bad time for the junior to disappear, as the Cornhuskers ran away with the game, 72-52. “I think you could see tonight why Nebraska is, what’s their record at home, one loss? 11-1, played Kansas really well,” said Michigan coach John Beilein. “Playing small right now, that’s a really difficult challenge for people to play against right now. … We’re playing on really short rest. So credit Nebraska for a great game plan. They played much better than us, and they got a W.” For the second game in a row, the Wolverines (5-3 Big Ten, 16-5 overall) needed a big second half. For the second game in a row, Beilein’s team was looking to avoid a momentum-damaging loss. After an opening frame where Michigan could do nothing right against Nebraska (5-3, 14-7), it trailed, 32-21 at the break on Thursday. And though it came back to beat Maryland on Monday night despite an equally terrible first half, this comeback effort fell apart quickly. “We can’t just think we can turn it on and off,” said redshirt sophomore guard Charles Matthews. “Maryland got down and we made a run, Maryland came back really
ALEC COHEN/Daily
The Michigan basketball team shot just 37.5 percent from the field at Nebraska, finishing with its lowest-scoring game of the season in a 20-point loss.
almost won that game. So we can’t just say that when we get down we’re automatically gonna win the game. We have to stay poised, we can’t put ourselves in these positions anymore.” After the Wolverines cut the lead to eight with 17:26 left, Matthews collected a defensive rebound off a missed Cornhusker 3-pointer. Matthews turned, looked and threw the ball directly to
Nebraska forward Isaiah Roby. Roby drove in, euro-stepped around Matthews, and brought the lead back to double digits. Then Isaac Copeland made a turn-around jumper. Then Evan Taylor made a pull-up jumper. Then Anton Gill drilled a corner 3-pointer. The rout was on, and Michigan was helpless. “I don’t know what we were doing a few time,” Beilein said. “And then in the second half
“I don’t know what we were doing a few times.”
we get a rebound, we’re down eight and we throw it right to them. There’s some things we’ve really gotta grow in. “If you go to Texas and win, if you go to Michigan State and win, if you go to Iowa and win, you don’t expect a crowd like this to bother you. It’s disappointing we didn’t play with efficiency in the first half, so we had like 14 points with five minutes to go. If you don’t play real smart,
you’re not gonna score points.” Nebraska’s defense stif led the Wolverines all game. They finished with 12 turnovers, shot just 38 percent from the field — 22 percent from deep — and struggled to get anything going in one-onone matchups, an area where Beilein’s team can sometimes expose opponents. The Cornhuskers were sterling on the offensive end as well. They looked to pound
“We can’t just think we can turn it on and off.”
Michigan has no answer for screen-switching defense
FOOTBALL
Patterson’s eligibility still unknown MAX MARCOVITCH Daily Sports Editor
ALEC COHEN/Daily
Sophomore center Moritz Wagner was held in check by the Cornhuskers, scoring just two points on 1-of-5 shooting in 32 minutes played.
MIKE PERSAK
Managing Sports Editor
LINCOLN – It’s normally like clockwork. A Michigan guard holds the ball outside the 3-point line. Junior forward Moritz Wagner runs up to set a screen. Against a lot of teams, Wagner’s ability to drill a shot from deep off the pick-andpop makes the incredibly simple play near-impossible to guard — Maryland coach Mark Turgeon said as much after Monday’s game. If you hedge on the ball handler, Wagner will be wide open. If you help too hard on Wagner, the ball handler will be headed downhill to the basket. On Thursday night against Nebraska, though, it wasn’t that easy. Cornhusker coach Tim Miles started forward Isaiah Roby, tasking him with defending Wagner. Nebraska then switched on every ball screen. There was no room for the ball handler to attack the hoop, and there was no space
for Wagner to shoot the three. The Wolverines had no response to the defense, and Wagner — usually an offensive juggernaut — finished with two points on 1-for-5 shooting. “They switched everything. On every screen,” said Michigan coach John Beilein. “Roby allows them to do that. I don’t know if it would be successful with the big guys, but that’s a thing we’re going to see again from many teams. And we saw it actually all at the end of last year, and we’ve got to continue to develop what we do in that situation.” Last season, the play had a more obvious solution. The Wolverines had Derrick Walton Jr., who could simply blow by a bigger defender, often making them look silly along the way. This year’s team has yet to find somebody who can make those plays consistently. Michigan even saw it earlier this season against Purdue. And though the defense stymied Wagner and the rest of the offense for a time in that game as well,
they mounted a comeback with their guards hitting 3-pointers over top of a mismatched big man. Against the Cornhuskers, there was none of that, as the Wolverines shot just 22 percent from deep. “We didn’t make shots,” Wagner said. “We were like, I think I saw up there we made 21 shots today. That’s not a lot for a whole basketball game. When you don’t make shots they make shots, on the road especially, that’s just tough, man, you gotta be better than that.” One might think the answer is to put Wagner in the post and expose the guard who is now guarding him. Michigan tried that. Nebraska’s guards played in front of Wagner, denying an easy entry pass. The few times the Wolverines tried to lob it into the big man, the help defense was waiting to poke the ball away or contest the shot. Another answer would be for Michigan’s guards to do their best Walton impression and use their
quickness to generate shots from deep or layups at the rim. The Wolverines tried that too. That also led to sloppiness, with players missing contested layups, getting blocked at the rim or simply turning the ball over once they got into the lane. To put it simply, there is no easy answer. If there were, as Wagner said after the game, “I wouldn’t have lost.” But an answer will have to come eventually. While many teams don’t have the length and versatility of the Cornhuskers, like Beilein said, teams are going to continue switching screens on Wagner until the Wolverines prove they can beat it. It could be any one of these solutions. It’s likely a combination of all of them. Either way, the book is out on how to defend Michigan. What Turgeon said after Monday’s game is no longer true. Now, Beilein, Wagner and the rest of the Wolverines will have to find a way to adjust.
the ball inside in the first half, attacking Wagner on the post. It resulted in countless easy looks from forwards Roby and Copeland and was a contributing factor to the double-digit, halftime lead. In the second half, things opened up for Nebraska. It started hitting all its jumpers, leaving the Michigan defense guessing. Even when a dunk from freshman guard Jordan Poole brought the lead back down to 12 with 9:08 left, the hope of a comeback was f leeting. The Cornhuskers hit two free throws and a 3-pointer just over a minute later to make it a 17-point gap again. The slow starts are something the Wolverines have battled at times throughout the season. In most of those games, they’ve been able to overcome them. With Thursday’s loss, though, the trend becomes a bit more concerning. “Concerned, I mean — yeah, if you want to say that,” Wagner said. “Concerned about our offensive performance in general, just the way we were careless today with the ball. We threw the ball away 12 times. Eight of them were unforced, something like that. … Sucks, but we’re going to figure it out.” It just wasn’t the Wolverines’ day. Each time something good happened for them, momentum would almost immediately swing back to Nebraska. Wag ner, himself had a thunderous dunk to open Michigan’s scoring in the second half. Soon af ter, Matthews’ turnover turned the tide once again. Michigan’s efforts were ultimately swallowed up in a sea of red, chanting Wag ner’s name long into the night.
Shea Patterson is already the most highly-anticipated quarterback of the Jim Harbaugh era, even before taking a snap. The Michigan football team has played the following quarterbacks in Harbaugh’s four years at the helm: A graduate transfer from Iowa for 13 games. A now-departed, three-star quarterback for 21 games. A transfer from Houston for 17 games. And a redshirt freshman for six games. So it would make sense that the former top-ranked quarterback in the 2016 recruiting class who threw for over 300 yards per game and 23 touchdowns in his 10 starts at Mississippi would pique the interest of fans. Pro Football Focus graded Patterson as the third best quarterback in the SEC last year. At a position of need, that’s hardly a pedigree the Wolverines can afford to turn their nose up at. That they even pursued Patterson signals less a concern about the personnel in the program, but a unique opportunity to bring a special talent in. No matter how confident you are in the development of redshirt sophomore Brandon Peters or redshirt freshman Dylan McCaffrey, the presence of Patterson undoubtedly brings a new level of intrigue. But exactly when he takes that anticipated first snap in the winged helmet — whether in the fall of 2018 or in 2019 — might be the preeminent question heading toward spring practice. Patterson transferred to Michigan in January without knowing whether he can even play in the upcoming season. A transfer from a four-year school to another four-year school, by rule, requires a mandated year off. The player can practice but not play in competitive games until the following year. But it’s a tenuous rule. According to the NCAA website, a transfer from a four-year school can only be immediately eligible at another
school if he is academically eligible and the school files a petition to the NCAA, detailing grounds for an exception. According to an email sent by Patterson’s lawyer to Land of 10, Michigan has yet to submit the petition to the NCAA. He anticipates the NCAA will rule on Patterson’s case by the end of February, but cautions that the timetable remains unclear. Patterson left Mississippi after the program was hit with a bowl ban and other sanctions due to recruiting violations. Because of the ban, seniors were granted the freedom to transfer with immediate eligibility. For Patterson and other underclassmen who chose to transfer? That’s a gray area. There has long been a prevailing sentiment of optimism that Patterson and his former teammates who also chose to transfer — notably, receiver Van Jefferson and safety Deontay Anderson — would receive immediate eligibility. Michigan pursued the other two, though Jefferson ended up at Florida and Anderson at Houston. Of course, even if Patterson does receive eligility, the job won’t be handed to him. That’s never been how Harbaugh operates. Given McCaffrey’s and Peters’ experience in the offensive system, it would be a fool’s errand to rule either out in the inevitable quarterback competition. All three have their merits. “The only thing that is guaranteed here is an opportunity,” Harbaugh told the media Dec. 20. But Patterson’s presence immediately elevates the potential at a position that was a clear weakness on the 2017-18 team. “There’s always a guy you look back at that you didn’t get,” tweeted director of recruiting Matt Dudek after Patterson’s commitment. “Never been so happy to get a 2nd chance! Here’s to looking forward!” But whether Dudek and others will have to look even further forward remains to be seen. For now, it’s a waiting game.