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T H E M I CH I GA N DAI LY | FE B RUA RY 7, 201 8

STUDENT GOVERNMENT

CSG student rep resigns after alleged harassment IBRAHIM IJAZ/Daily

Member accuses lacking inclusion, rest of meeting focuses on election code revisions

Yaa Gyasi, author of Homecoming, speaks as part of the 2018 Jill S. Harris Memorial Lecture at Rackham Auditorium Tuesday.

Yaa Gyasi discusses ‘Homegoing,’ racial trauma in packed Rackham

Award-winning author talks novel, personal roots with panel of ‘U’ professors REFAEL KUBERSKY For The Daily

On Tuesday, author Yaa Gyasi spoke at the University of Michigan in front of a crowded Rackham Auditorium to discuss her awardwinning novel “Homegoing.” After

its publication, Gyasi won the National Book Critics’ Circle’s John Leonard First Book Prize. The novel has also been selected as the 2018 book for the Washtenaw Reads program. “Homegoing” highlights the story of two half sisters and their descendants through eight generations, going over two

hundred years of Ghanaian and American history. It also highlights illuminating themes of racism, family and unity. To begin the event, Yaa Gyasi, sat down with English professors Gaurav Desai and Aida LevyHussen. She opened the discussion by reading a powerful excerpt from her novel, detailing the life of her

character “Afiyah” and the physical abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. She then transitioned to the discussion with Desai and Levy-Hussen, as they discussed the novel’s origins and several of its central themes. In their discussion, Gyasi explained how she traveled to Ghana to conduct research after See HOMEGOING, Page 3A

DANIELLE PASEKOFF Daily Staff Reporter

The University of Michigan’s Central Student Government met Tuesday evening to address issues regarding anti-Semitism on campus, University efforts to transfer to clean energy sources and further revisions to the CSG election code. Additionally, the assembly continued their discussion regarding improved sexual assault prevention training and appointed several new student representatives. Before agenda items were considered, however, Business junior Lauren Ward announced her resignation from the assembly due to issues of inclusion.

Ward referenced a previous virtual confrontation between her and a fellow CSG member, but did not disclose who was involved in this dispute. “I would feel remiss in my resignation from Central Student Government if I didn’t at least tell you all why I’ve chosen to leave this poisonous position,” Ward said. “What are we doing? Not just representatives, but CSG as a whole?” Ward ran as a representative on the eMerge campaign last spring — the ticket made history when president Anushka Sarkar, an LSA senior, and vice president Nadine Jawad, a Ford senior, became the first women of color elected together since at least 1993. See ASSEMBLY, Page 3A

Ross students’ behavior surrounding Orgs face Greek Life off on role Tide Pods threatens P&G business ties hosts third

CAMPUS LIFE

of Zionist ideologies

CAMPUS LIFE

Class questions to guest speaker included “what flavors of Tide Pods are coming out?”

SAFE and Hillel counter program two teach-ins supremacy, anti-Semitism ELIZABETH LAWRENCE & LEAH GRAHAM Daily Staff Reporters

Students Allied for Freedom and Equality held a teach-in Tuesday night to discuss the altright’s affinity for U.S. support of the state of Israel, as well as criticisms of Israeli government. In response, University of Michigan Hillel held a counterevent intended to fuel discussion on whether equating Zionism with Nazism is a modern form of anti-Semitism. Both events were highly discussed by members of the University community — tensions between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel groups have remained high since the passing of SAFE’s #UMDivest resolution last November. SAFE’s discussion on the intersection of Israel and the far right honed in on the example of Richard Spencer, a white supremacist who is currently in talks with the University to speak on campus. Spencer, SAFE proposed, seems at once to espouse both anti-Semitic and Zionist views. The teach-in was See TEACH-INS, Page 3A

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A representative of Procter & Gamble Co. visited the University of Michigan on Jan. 22 to lecture Ross School of Business students on marketing tactics and its role as part of the Tide brand. However, the lecture went awry after the students attending asked questions centered almost exclusively around popular phenomenon Tide Pods. Ross students have since said they were told the questions jeopardized the business schools’s relationship with P&G. While the representative, Business alum Courtney Ratkowiak, opened the f loor for questions related to marketing, students, utilizing the anonymous feature of the question-app Pigeonhole Live, sent in a number of questions based on a popular meme centered around millennials eating Tide Pods. P&G is an American multinational consumer goods corporation. They own a series of brands including Gillette, Old Spice, Febreze and Tide, among others. P&G has had a longstanding recruiting relationship with the Business School. The lecture took place outside of normal class hours on a Monday night, and included a mix of Business Check out the Daily’s News podcast, The Daily Weekly

students and non-Business students. According to a junior who wished to remain anonymous, the fact the lecture occurred outside of the class schedule contributed to the students’ attitude. Some of the highest voted questions included: “What new f lavors of tide pods do you have coming out?” and “How many tide pods a day keep the doctor away?”

“The problem was they used this anonymous app called Pigeonhole,” the anonymous junior said. “I think that was where they went wrong; as soon as they did that for the first time, the dynamic of the presentation changed.” According to the junior, attendees wanted to post something funny as the questions continued. The representative appeared to be

f lustered, and skimmed over the joke-questions, answering only the serious ones. “I definitely think most people, including myself, walked out of the presentation thinking that it was funny,” the junior said. “Then they told us P&G was reconsidering a relationship with Ross, and that jeopardizes people’s chances of working for them, See PODS, Page 3A

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INDEX

Speak Out gathering

Amid #MeToo movement, survivors shared stories in an unmoderated session RILEY LANGEFELD Daily Staff Reporter

The Panhellenic Peer Educators at the University of Michigan hosted the third annual Panhellenic Speak Out on Tuesday night, providing a forum for survivors of sexual violence to share their stories in a confidential space. At the event, attendees were welcomed to share stories in an open, unmoderated session that lasted two hours. Survivors shared stories from a wide range of experiences; some read poetry, some told their stories unscripted and some spoke for friends who were unable to speak. LSA senior Ally Cohen and Kinesiology senior Cass BouseEaton worked to organize the event, with preparations beginning in August. Both have been involved with the event and PPE for several years, and they expressed their hope it would empower more survivors to share stories and spur action. “In the wake of the #MeToo movement and everything See SPEAK, Page 3A

NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 ARTS......................6

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News

2A —Wednesday, February 7, 2018

TUESDAY: By Design

MONDAY: Looking at the Numbers

WEDNESDAY: This Week in History

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THURSDAY: Twitter Talk

THIS WEEK IN HISTORY: LSA MASS MEETING PLANS CREATION OF STUDENT UNION By Chris Steele At a mass meeting on language requirements last night students voted to establish a literary college student union and to stage a boycott if the faculty takes unfavorable action on the language requirement at its next meeting, March 3. A call for a disruption sit in in Dean William Hay’s office today was approved on a first vote, but was reconstructed and defeated at the request of its sponsor, Radical Caucus, because it failed to gather a large enough vote. The motion for the student union was made by Daily Editor Mark Levin. He called for a referendum on the language requirement to be held in the next two weeks. In making his proposal Level called a disruptive sit-in a “very ineffective tactic” which would not bring effective “pressure on faculty members/” A disruptive sitin would only result in suspensions and arrests, he said.

Several Radical Caucus members voiced objection to the student union proposal. Eric Chester, Grad, said “It’s a stall.” He conceded the disruptive sit-in might fail but the real question was “intimidation.” “Are we going to let the legislature and the faculty intimidate us?” he asked. Parliamentary action followed in which an unsuccessful attempt was made to combine Levin’s proposal with the Radical Caucus sponsored sit-in. Levin’s proposal was eventually passed by a vote 105 to 96. A short discussion of the implementation of Levin’s motion followed the one hour debate on the major proposals from Levin, Radical Caucus and another student. The meeting named three students to recommend members of a provisional steering committee which would organize the student union. The three students are Radical Caucus chairman Marty McLaughlin, Ron Landsman, ‘70,

and Bill Bleich, ‘69. The motion for the disruptive sit-in was introduced by Bernard Elbaum, ‘71, a Radical Cacaus member. His motion called for a sit-in in the LSA building to begin at 1 p.m. today. Students sitting-in would have locked all doors and remained in the building until the language requirement was abolish. The Radical Caucus motion was passed by a vote of 114 to 86, but was later withdrawn. McLaughlin moved to reconsider the motion and to defeat it because there were not enough people to support the sit-in. Radical Caucus had previously pledged to reconsider the motion if there were not 200 people in support. The vote following McLaughlin’s motion was overwhelmingly against the disruptive sit-in. Debate on how to arrange the referendum on the language requirements failed to reach any definite conclusion.

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ON THE DAILY: CUPCAKKE BREAKS NECTO RECORDS RILEY LANGEFELD Daily Staff Reporter

Chicago-based rapper CupcakKe blew away records on Jan. 26 with her performance at Pride Night at Necto Night Club in Ann Arbor. Despite a building capacity of 952, 1,112 people lined up outside the club to see her perform, more than any event the club has ever hosted. Necto has welcomed a number of big-name artists to perform in the past — including Avicii and Zedd — but

CupcakKe, whose legal name is Elizabeth Harris, destroyed the previous records. Harris has been catapulted into nationwide popularity in recent months, largely owing to the overtly sexual and repetitive lyrics that characterize her music. Her first song, “Vagina,” was released when she was 17, and several others — including “Deepthroat” and “LGBT” — have gained enough recognition for her to release an album earlier this year. She has also appeared at a number of festivals and shows, even joining pop artist Charli XCX

onstage at Lollapalooza in Chicago last year. “I always try to stay versatile,” Harris said in an interview with Forbes. “So I try to do stuff about pedophiles because no one is talking about that. Sex, but it’s not just sex. Out of all my albums, there’s probably like six or seven sex songs. So it’s a lot of subjects I like to touch — I want to touch every subject as I could possibly touch as an artist.” Despite this steadfast commitment to singing about issues that matter (and to touching), Harris is yet mostly

known for her decidedly more vulgar work. She relishes the obscene, and she stated that she cares very little what others think of her. “I have three alter egos. Number one: Elizabeth, she’s a stay-at-home, humble person. Then CupcakKe, the one on stage. The wild, sexual being. Number three is Marilyn Monhoe. She’s always on the internet to make jokes, have fun. … I’m finna say whatever the (expletive) I want.”

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As of Monday, Michigan Medicine is now offering online healthcare for minor illnesses such as the f lu or pink eye, allowing patients to seek treatment from the comfort of their homes. These eVisits, accessible at MyUofMhealth. org, are available to adult patients seven days a week for $25. Patients are able to fill out a questionnaire regarding their symptoms, similar to answering questions at the doctor’s office. The questionnaire is

then reviewed by healthcare providers, who reference the given patient’s health record and respond with a prescription or care plan within 24 hours. Michigan Medicine patients were already able to use an eVisit for cold and f lu-like symptoms such as a sudden fever, body aches, chills, red eye, urinary problems, vaginal irritation, sinus issues and diarrhea. The eVisit program successfully piloted last year at some of the Michigan Medicine Health Centers. Eighty percent of the patients who used eVisits during the pilot were able to get care without ever going into the

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doctor’s office. In some cases, health care professionals will ask the patient to come into the office for an in-person examination or follow-up visit. Patients who are asked to come into the office are not charged for the eVisit. A main advantage of eVisits is that they allow f lexibility for people with busy schedules, as well as those who can’t afford to miss work. Additionally, online visits keep patients with contagious illnesses at home and prevent them from spreading viruses. “Michigan Medicine, and other health systems across

the country, are looking for ways to be more responsive to what patients want,” Larry An, medical director for the Telehealth Program at Michigan Medicine, said in a University press release. “The greatest advantage is convenience and providing the right care to patients with minimal disruption to their daily lives.” Michigan Medicine is hoping to expand its online care services in the future by extending online care to pediatrics, making virtual visits available to children within the next year or so.

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News

Monday, February 7, 2018 — 3A

E N T R E P R E N E U R S H I P AT R O S S HOMEGOING From Page 1A

BRIAN AUSTIN KOSASIH/Daily Elmira Bayrasli, a professor and an entrepreneurship expert, discusses the impact entrepreneurship has on the economies of low and middleincome countries at the Ross School of Business Tuesday.

PODS From Page 1A

and for the most part everyone was galvanized to be like ‘Oh, we need to do something about this.’” In fact, not long after the lecture had commenced, course instructor Burcu Tasoluk emailed the students informing them of P&G’s reaction to the students’ questions and behavior during the lecture. The email, obtained by The Daily, noted hosting guest speakers is a privilege and presents an opportunity to hear valuable information from business professionals. It also referenced the Ross Student Code of Conduct and Statement of Community Values, encouraging students to adhere to the prescribed guidelines for behavior. “(We) received correspondence from P&G following Monday’s lecture indicating disappointment with students’ inappropriate questions during the Q&A and their conduct thereafter (including on social media),” the email read. “Such behavior is disrespectful to the speaker,

TEACH-INS From Page 1A

held in West Quad, with around 25 people in attendance. The presentation was divided into three segments: Richard Spencer and the ethnostate, Zionism as a political tactic, and the myth of Israel being the only democracy in the Middle East. Each section was separated by 10 minute breaks for questions. Ultimately, SAFE attempted to prove Israel is the kind of model ethnostate Spencer strives to create. The presenters began by identifying and defining some key terms, including “Zionism” and “ethnostate.” One of the presenters, an LSA junior who requested to remain anonymous to avoid potential harm in associating her name with these views online, gave the definitions. However, she also recognized the plurality of definitions people may have for these terms. “Zionism has a lot of different meanings for a lot of people, but this is the working definition for the purposes of this presentation: a moderate political ideology that supports a Jewish nation state,” she said. “An ethnostate is a political state that is populated by and run in the interest of an ethnic group.” The presentation then moved on to highlighting some of Spencer’s quotes and interviews that show him pointing to Israel as an example of an ethnostate, while at the same time exhibiting antiSemitism. One of the clips was an interview with Spencer and an Israeli reporter, where Spencer defends his supporters’ chants of

and ref lects poorly on us, Ross, and the University of Michigan.” When students next attended class, they were informed of P&G’s response to the guest lecture and instructed to form an action plan on how to remedy the relationship with P&G. Students broke into groups and brainstormed ways to reach out to P&G. The main goal of the action plan as outlined in the marketing class was to “ref lect acknowledgment, ownership, and accountability of what happened.” A small task force of students wrote an apology letter to the P&G guest lecturer. According to Business junior Connor Baechler, the incident negatively impacted students who wanted to start careers or internships with P&G. However, the recent Tide Pod memes had such a wide reach that Baechler thought the questions were almost inevitable. “On one hand, it is disappointing that current Ross students would disrespect a Ross alum during a serious presentation, even if it appeared to many that the presenter was not f lustered by the inappropriate student responses,” Baechler told The Daily in an email interview.

“Furthermore, P&G is a crucial recruiting partner for Ross and its status as a top business school, and the company expects strong candidates from the school in return. I feel especially sorry for any Ross students who are actively interested in starting their careers at P&G... (but) from another perspective, the timing of such a presentation (for a Tide product!) could not have been worse, with all the memes and spoofs about the ‘Tide Pod Challenge’ f loating around social media. I do not think P&G executives or Ross administrators could understand how prevalent the joke had become to any college student, not just Ross.” Carolyn Yoon, Business professor of marketing and course coordinator, stated the Business School will use this situation as a case study and learning opportunity for students tasked with maintaining professional relationships in the future. “What happened in the marketing course that day is not indicative of who our students are or our culture, and P&G understands that,” Yoon said. “We look forward to maintaining our partnership with P&G, as well as our many other corporate partners.”

anti-Jewish slogans, while at the same time praising Zionism. In the second section, another presenter who also wished to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, talked about restrictions placed on Ethiopian Jews in trying to obtain citizenship, and the lack of recognition of international refugees within the Israeli government. He used this as evidence for the Israeli government’s aversion to nonwhite Jews. “They want to keep the state of Israel to look a certain way and to have a certain demographic population,” the presenter said. “They don’t want people who are not white Jews to live in their community.” The third section discussed the idea of Israel as an apartheid state, citing various discriminations Palestinians face, including eviction from their homes. The presenter also referenced discriminations specifically against Palestinian women, such as harrassment for wearing religious clothing. During the question-andanswer periods between sections, there were multiple debates between audience members and the presenters. These discussions centered around topics such as the difference between Spencer and a typical Zionist, and the difference between criticizing Israel and criticizing the Israeli government. One presenter clarified SAFE’s goal was to condemn Israel’s policies, but not to discredit the entire country. Jake Ehrlich, a second-year student at the school of Social Work and a member of the Jewish Communal Leadership program, said he came to the teach-in to understand how people felt about

the issue. “I thought it was fruitful, I was hoping the content would be focused more on specific intersections on anti-Semitism, philo-semitism, Spencer and the alt-right,” Erlich said. “I think it sort of slid into more general topics, which is fine but was a little misleading.” In direct response to the SAFE event, students at Michigan Hillel organized an “alternative conversation” with Heidi Budaj, the regional director of the AntiDefamation League, a civil rights organization that combats antiSemitism and discrimination. More than 80 students gathered at Weill Hall Tuesday night for the talk. Budaj also said white supremacist Richard Spencer’s request to speak on campus in part prompted her lecture. “The other catalyst as to why I’m here tonight is because Richard Spencer declared that he is a Zionist,” Budaj said. “Unfortunately some students on campus seize upon that and are letting that divide minority groups on campus when they should be working together.” Budaj’s lecture, “Alt-Right Rising: The New White Supremacists” was held immediately after SAFE’s event. Budaj rejected Spencer’s alignment with Zionism. “He equated some of his ideologies with there being a Jewish state, but he is ignoring diversity that exists throughout the state of Israel when he made that statement,” Budaj said. “Anything that he says is certainly not espoused by the Jewish community and Zionists are not looking for support from someone like that.”

SPEAK From Page 1A

that’s been going on, I think this is an easy way to start getting involved and for survivors to take the first steps in sharing their stories,” Cohen said. “It’s a great way to have a platform that’s comfortable for the survivors — that’s on their own terms — which is very important in our society right now.” Bouse-Eaton and Cohen emphasized their role was to facilitate conversation on all levels — especially for college students. Bouse-Eaton identified a lack of awareness as a primary obstacle to making progress with sexual violence in society. “I hope that it opens people’s minds if they haven’t thought about this issue before,” Bouse-Eaton said. “I hope it helps survivors in the room feel more comfortable coming forward, or at least know that they are not alone in their struggle, and that there are people here to support them, whether that’s a peer educator, a friend in their chapter, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, etc.” To some extent, there has

LSA senior Sarah Parkes helped organize Budaj’s talk. “I was upset with some of the events that were happening on campus that were equating white supremacy with Zionism,” Parkes said. “A group of students, including myself, were really upset and wanted to provide a space for those with a gut feeling that the event that SAFE was putting on was a bit anti-Semitic.” Members of SAFE attended the Hillel event after their own talk, at times criticizing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. One student, who asked not to be named, said Hillel originally planned Budaj’s talk to overlap with SAFE’s event, and criticized the lack of dialogue. “SAFE moved their event earlier because we wanted to have this discussion and we didn’t want to be in two separate rooms, so that’s why some folks came to our talk and we came to this one,” the SAFE member said. “I’m surprised that that wasn’t brought up, That was the literal intention behind the talk.” The student said she took further issue with the talk because of the way it was initially pitched. Originally, the event was titled “Equating Zionism with Nazism: A Modern Form of Anti-Semitism,” but Budaj’s discussion went in a different direction, instead examining the re-invention and subsequent ascent of the alt-right. Budaj said Spencer, who coined the term alt-right and is the face of the so-called identitarian movement, represents a “suit and tie” faction of white supremacism, one that is less overt and more subtle.

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saying, ‘Me too.’” One attendee, who asked to remain anonymous, went to the event for this purpose — to support a platform for survivors. “I wanted to be in a space where you can hear people share their stories because I don’t think they’re shared enough,” the attendee said. “And I think it’s important to have spaces where you can be emotional. Sometimes it feels like you don’t have enough time to do that on this campus.” The attendee also underscored the importance of spreading awareness and thinking about how one might be facilitating sexual violence as a bystander. Despite the gravity of the subject matter, Bouse-Eaton expressed her hope and confidence that the event — and the work of survivors, allies and leaders — would lead to positive change. “It’s not really an event that you tell people to get excited for because it’s very emotional and upsetting for a lot of people, but it’s also very powerful and life-changing,” Bouse-Eaton said. “And we tell people every year: It’s not fun, but it’s important.”

problems regarding the election process and the need to make changes promptly. Proposed changes would clarify ambiguity in the assembly’s constitution. Kinesiology junior Okpalefe Edevbie emphasized the importance of ensuring CSG elections reflect the values and reputation of the organization. “It’s important as an assembly that we start having an open, honest, discussion about CSG elections,” Edevbie said. “The behavior I’ve witnessed falls short of the integrity and character of this institution, and it’s not representative of the values and ideas of this assembly.” LSA sophomores Sierra Stephens and Isabel Baer then presented a resolution to support mandatory consent and mutual respect training for incoming University theatre and film students. Stephens said drama, film and theatre students encounter many classroom experiences in which they may feel discomfort or non-consensual activity, which reinforces the need for supplementary training in order to avoid sexual misconduct between students. “It is unacceptable for a student to feel uncomfortable or unsafe in their learning environment,” Baer said. “We pride ourselves on being a community of scholars, but it’s impossible to learn in an environment without respect or consent.” The assembly concluded the meeting by proposing an emergency meeting to vote on amendments regarding revisions of the election code, helping to ensure a smooth election process in the coming months. The emergency meeting is scheduled for Wednesday.

Opinion

4A — Wednesday, February 7, 2018

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MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA | COLUMN

The price of the Super Bowl

unday night at 6:30 unaware of its inward and p.m., the nation came long-term consequences. together to watch a The players cannot be beloved American entirely blamed tradition: the Super for joining a Bowl. I, however, sport that is so was buried in my obviously harmful. English homework The NFL lied for deep within the years, omitting Stacks. I consider ed information this to be my own about its dangers method of protest. It and placing all served as my miniresponsibility boycott against MAGDALENA on the medical what I believe is a MIHAYLOVA community. But capitalistic, violent researchers have and deadly sport. been suggesting the relation Not that my protest made between football and brain any difference. Over 111 million damage since 1994. The people tuned in to the Super connection has just always Bowl last year, and this year been disputed by the League. viewership peaked around 103 The problem lies in the slow million. It is a key element of but painful development of American society: People eat, disease; many of the players sleep and breathe football. don’t experience symptoms The NFL receives a massive until years after they have viewership—even more, it retired. In the meantime, makes a lot of money. Franchise more players get injured, and values have increased 30 medical arguments lose steam percent over the last seven and credibility. years to $1.2 billion. Annual revenue is at $9.2 billion. They have immeasurable sponsors and partnerships. Additionally, the NFL dominates television — out of the top 10 most watched TV programs in 2012, the NFL held the first eight spots. It is watched and loved by all demographics of society, regardless of race, gender or class. If you’re American, you most likely enjoy football. Despite its successes, new and disturbing studies on For example, when former brain degeneration in football Pittsburgh Steelers player players have shaken the nation. Terry Long committed suicide, But these findings are only brain analysis demonstrated new in their exposure, not in that he had CTE; however, their discovery. Although it the NFL’s Mild Traumatic seems obvious that repeated, Brain Injury Committee aggressive pounding of claimed that the connection 200-pound bodies will lead between his suicide, CTE to health concerns, it was and football was “purely only in 2009 when the NFL speculative.” But it’s not just officially acknowledged the the medical experts, such as effects of long-term and the MTBI committee, that repeated concussions. More undermine the significance than that, it was only in of these findings. Coaches are 2016 when the connection guilty of encouraging players between football and chronic to continue to play despite traumatic encephalopathy, a presenting obvious concussion degenerative brain disease, symptoms. For example, New was admitted by the NFL’s England Patriots linebacker senior adviser for health and Ted Johnson was sent back safety. During the dillydallying on the field, against medical of this information’s release, caution, just four days after countless former and current his concussion. players have died due to the We cannot expect players sport they love. These are to create cautionary measures players who were talented, for themselves. Football is dedicated to and passionate for their job; they must perform a game whose consequences well for financial reasons, were not fully revealed. They to maintain celebrity status accepted football’s outward and to follow the passion that roughness and injury, but were made them successful in the

Show your outrage and skip the Super Bowl next year.

first place. It is the duty of the leag ue to protect them; a simple acknowledgment of the danger of concussions is different and less assertive than exposing the long-term effects that come with the sport. The NFL needs to be clear to budding and seasoned players alike: If you play, and if you play long and hard, you have a high risk of developing CTE. Committees like the MTBI cannot serve effectively if they are clouded by bias; many of the members were simultaneously physicians for professional teams. Their denial was justified by what they claim is confusing and unfamiliar research. Andrew Tucker, MBTI member and Baltimore Ravens physician, once stated, “the picture is not really complete until we have the opportunity to look at the same group of people over time.” This mentality is outrageous, as it basically claims a willingness to let people die before constructive measures can be taken. With growing knowledge and confession by the NFL, a certain responsibility also falls into the hands of the fans. As a person who enjoys watching soccer, I know how difficult it can be to turn your back on something that not only brings you entertainment, but memories and a sense of community. NFL fans will not just be giving up football if they stop watching: They will lose the atmosphere and culture that comes along with it. I believe that this is a minor price to pay. Otherwise, they are simply accomplices in a greater crime. The NFL cannot continue neglecting the truth if they start to lose viewers over it, so we must demand for them to change. Show your outrage and skip the Super Bowl next year. Delete your fantasy football account. Do not be complicit in what is an obvious and glorified death sentence for many young, unaware and devoted men. Despite the overwhelming presence of the NFL in American society, we are in control of its success. If we display our distaste, we won’t destroy an old tradition: We will create a new and important standard Magdalena Mihaylova can be reached at mmihaylo@umich.edu.

CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to tothedaily@michigandaily.com.

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The void in science communication

hen Carl Sagan died is being said—even if they in 1996, we lost are the ones conducting the one of studies. These the world’s people have become greatest science brainwashed by communicators, the 24/7 news leaving a vacancy culture that now that has yet to plagues our society. be filled by any However, this is modern scientist. not the majority of He wrote essays people. While some to advocate for people can fall into science education, the false narrative, ROBERT published books and many people can DALKA created one of the smell the B.S but most popular science television there remain few places people programs, “Cosmos.” When can go where they feel they are I was a kid, my grandmother being told the truth. would record television In a survey conducted programs so I would have during the summer of 2017 by something to do when my the Pew Research Center, 57 family visited. Between the percent of people responded episodes of Adam West’s that the media does a good job “Batman,” I would watch the at covering science. This was recorded reruns of “Cosmos” interesting to me because if while sitting on her floor the majority of people think eating my Cheerios. I may not the media does a good job at have understood all the topics covering science, why are so and concepts at the time, many people misinformed? It but I found it intriguing and is not that the media ignores exciting. scientific research, but the Sagan was able to make issue is in the way that the media science enjoyable for everyone. presents these discoveries. In He presented information the same survey, 73 percent so that someone who didn’t of responders said the biggest know anything about the topic problem with news about could understand it. He really scientific findings is the way in stood out in the way he never which news reporters cover it, talked down to his audience. while only 24 percent believed He made science approachable. it was the way the scientists In an interview with Rolling published it. I believe that if Stone magazine, Sagan said, people were able to receive the “a lot of my motivation is that information on discoveries and understanding science is fun. new developments in research It’s communicable fun.” He from scientists themselves, wanted to share his enjoyment more people would be able to of science with the public, trust what they were being and if you watch any episode told. We have become so of “Cosmos,” you can see him accustomed to the media having fun sharing scientific filtering this information for knowledge with his audience. us. Scientists need to be more We need more people like Carl aware of how to present their Sagan, those who can bridge findings to the public and build the gap between the technical a larger public profile. academic research and the I don’t want to say there public, who should be informed are no longer any scientists on the newest discoveries in attempting to connect with the the world of science. public. There are examples of In the United States today, researchers actively engaging many aspects of science have with people outside of research. become politicized. Those who On Feb. 25, 2016, just weeks reject that climate change is after the official announcement happening, or deny that humans of the detection of gravitational cause it, do so not necessarily waves, Brian Greene, a professor because they don’t believe in of mathematics and physics at science, but because they are Columbia University, appeared told by politicians and the on The Late Show with Stephen media that it is not happening. Colbert to promote this They are fed the story by these discovery to the audience. He non-scientific sources so much was excited and explained the that they believe that this is discovery in terms that everyone the new truth. This is when could understand. This is the people start questioning the kind of interaction that scientists authority of scientific experts need to be making with the on the subject. They have public about every important been told one story regularly, discovery. so when someone comes out Another public scientist is to claim otherwise, they Neil deGrasse Tyson. In 2014, he immediately believe whatever brought back Sagan’s “Cosmos,”

with great success. Rebooting “Cosmos” was well timed with the new discoveries being made in the field of astrophysics and cosmology. It reached a large audience and was popular enough to be renewed for another season. Tyson did a great job with the show, however, he often acts in ways outside the show that could discourage people from being interested in science. Tyson’s tweets are where he is the most condescending. In a tweet concerning last year’s solar eclipse, Tyson wrote “Total Solar Eclipses occur somewhere on Earth every two years, or so. So just calm yourself when people tell you they’re rare”. Tyson took a cosmological event many people were excited about and told them they should “calm” themselves. This is the kind of interaction with the public that leaves a bad impression on people. It perpetuates the image of a pompous scientist and restricts the number of people willing to listen to what scientists have to say. In the interview with Rolling Stone mentioned earlier, Sagan said, “Science, as communicated in some places, sounds as if it were the last thing in the world that any reasonable person would want to know about. It’s portrayed as impossibly difficult to get into and a thing that sort of rots your brain for any good social interaction.” This stigma is continued when scientists tweet like Tyson and talk down to those who are not as scientifically knowledgeable as them. Those of us in the scientific community need to work towards reversing this stereotype. I understand that not every scientist can be Carl Sagan. If every person doing scientific research was treated like a movie star, they would never be able to perform the research in the first place. What every researcher can do is be open to the people they interact with every day, share their excitement about their work and explain why it is important. Those with the ability to reach a large audience need to be responsible and thoughtful with how they share their knowledge. The conjunction of these approaches will lead to a scientifically literate public confident in the information they receive. This will create a culture in which we will be able to think critically about complex issues and be able to push our knowledge of the world even further. Robert Dalka can be reached at rpdalka@umich.edu.

DAVID FIANOVSKY | OP-ED

Redefining the man

n light of a powerful feminist movement that has reinvigorated the fight for equality and brought together millions in an effort to fundamentally change the way women are seen and treated in American culture, it is important to begin a dialogue from a different perspective. One that is just as important but is quite often not given a voice. Let’s talk about men, our struggles with vulnerability, insecurity and our relationship with each other as well as with the women around us. There is an expectation in our culture that we as men must always be powerful, strong and composed. Any display of emotion is considered to be a show of weakness and sharing struggles and insecurities is socially unacceptable. We are always fine, never hurting, riding tall on a high horse through thick and thin. But what happens if we fall? Are we allowed to be human, show emotion without being judged or seen as less of a man? The truth is, we as men often feel insecure, suffer from heartaches and struggle with our identity, but we keep quiet because of the immense pressure to maintain our masculinity. We are expected to sustain a “manly facade” by participating in competitive

sports, going to the gym to build our bodies and achieving financial success. This pressure from both men and women in our lives has created a culture that is slowly destroying our ability to have deep and meaningful relationships with those around us. I know that in my own life, I have often put up a brick wall to hide my pain, even from people who have shown me unconditional love and support. I did not feel comfortable sharing my emotions with others because I was terrified of being seen as less of a man. I stood strong when I was weak and acted confident when I felt insecure, all in an effort to protect my image. Our culture taught me that vulnerability is weakness and it was only until recently through self-ref lection and meditation that I began to understand vulnerability is the purest form of courage. We all have f laws, but also the ability to acknowledge and share them with the world. The world is what connects us and helps us realize that deep down we all want the same things. We want to be loved, understood, make a difference and believe that we are enough. The absence of honest and open connection between men has

created a culture that does not fulfill these basic human needs and has negatively affected our community for generations. We must start an honest dialog ue to question why men are always expected to be strong and why emotion, pain and struggle are seen as weakness. These are not male or female issues, these are human issues and they can only be solved through joint collaboration as well as a fundamental change in culture. So as men, let’s do our part: Join the feminist movement, question cultural norms and fight for equality. Let’s talk to each other about our struggle with body image, heartbreak and insecurity. Let’s talk about how we treat women and let’s talk about the pressure to be strong even when our lives are falling apart. I challenge us to fully and honestly acknowledge when we are hurting and to develop real and vulnerable relationships with the people around us. I challenge us to work together with women to start a movement that redefines what it means to be a man. David Fianovsky is an LSA sophomore.

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

Backstage Pass: Estonian Symphony with a stranger Sammy Sussman makes a friend and gets a history lesson SAMMY SUSSMAN Daily Arts Writer

This weekend it was my turn to meet a stranger at a concert. In my defense, I didn’t sign up to do that. About a week ago, I had signed up to review the Estonian National Symphony concert at Hill Auditorium. I have always been a fan of conductor Neeme Järvi, particularly his recordings of the Sibelius symphonies and his performance of Pärt’s “Cantus for Benjamin Britten” from the BBC Proms. When emailing for my press ticket to the event, I assumed that I would be sitting in an upper balcony somewhere, presumably far away from the ticket-paying audience. After arriving at the concert, however, I was seated in a mostly empty row next to an elderly woman. I prepared as I usually do for a review, reading through the program with a pen and circling a couple of ideas that I might want to refer to later. After about five minutes of circling and reading, the woman next to me asked me what I was doing. Was I at this concert for a class, she asked? I brief ly explained that I was a writer for The Michigan Daily. I tried to start a light conversation, asking if she was a fan of Järvi as I was. After talking for a bit the lights went down and the concert began. First on the program was Heino Eller’s “Homeland Tune,” the fifth movement from his “Five Pieces for String Orchestra.” Eller, I learned, is one of Estonia’s more famous composers, having been Arvo Pärt’s primary composition teacher. Järvi entered the stage to tremendous applause, obviously enjoying the cheers

of a friendly crowd. He began the first piece almost immediately, the applause of the audience fading suddenly into the calm, chordal opening of “Homeland Tune.” While this piece was definitely not the most adventurous work

During the intermission, I talked with the woman sitting to my right. She is an alumni of both the undergraduate and graduate programs here at the University

on the program, it was a pleasant six-minute opening to the concert. The orchestra responded brilliantly to Järvi’s every move — the crescendos and decrescendos reaching incredibly expressive levels of subtlety. I found myself being drawn into a lull throughout the piece, easily losing myself in the fabric of the work. Next was Brahms’s “Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor,” a tricky but rewarding piece. It opened with a long introduction from the orchestra, the winds and brass having entered the stage after the first performance. Garrick Ohlsson, the piano soloist for

the evening, demonstrated his interpretative ability during the slower portions of the first movement. The slower passages were captivating; Ohlsson’s ability to give repeated phrases new meanings was incredible. The cadenza in the second movement was absolutely stunning. At one point, it felt as if time itself was slowing down. The third movement was seamless too, the energy from the opening passages seeming to fade over the entire movement into the slow ending. Ohlsson’s performance was met with almost instantaneous applause. As a quick encore, he played Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude in C-sharp, Op. 3 No. 2.” This most famous of all Rachmaninoff’s preludes was neither too rushed nor too slow, Ohlsson’s incredibly engaging way of playing repeated pieces breathing new life into the work. This was met with two more rounds of applause, the audience begging for another encore. During the intermission, I talked with the woman sitting to my right. She is an alumni of both the undergraduate and graduate programs here at the University and has been living in Ann Arbor ever since. We talked a bit about the University Musical Society and the tremendous growth it underwent while she lived in Ann Arbor. She explained that she was from the Detroit area and that she had gone home to study the week before finals her freshman year. The night before her final, as she prepared to go to sleep, her dad came to ask her where her final was the next morning. After explaining that her final was in Haven Hall, her dad had unbelievable news: Haven

MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW: SZA & KENDRICK LAMAR IN ‘ALL THE STARS’

AFTERMATH RECORDS

shot depicts a regal Lamar Just in time for the release of the “Black Panther” standing on a boat, buoyed soundtrack this Friday by a sea of waving hands; the (which looks amazing), Kenstrength of his posture makes drick Lamar and SZA have him appear carved out of stone, a position shared the of fortitude that music video for their newest he maintains as “All The Stars” collaboration the pre-chorus “All The Stars,” Kendrick Lamar and of “Love, let’s an airy single talk about love SZA off the film’s / Is it anything Aftermath Records soundtrack. and everything Framed by you hoped for?” leads him an electronic dance beat and into the open soaring vocals, the song bold- embrace of a matriarchal ly declares the grandeur that figure. Her stature is surreal; larger-than-life, she can be found in love and perseverance. It’s a song meant looms over Lamar, protecting for royalty, perfectly matchwithin the folds of her robe ing the narrative of “Black a crowd of children. The hue Panther,” which is centered of each of their crimson hats adds to the overall splendor, around African nobility. The music video fits the and Lamar cuts a path to the film’s premise to an even group’s center like Moses parting the Red Sea. stronger degree. The first

As SZA takes over the chorus, we are taken to the heavens, zooming in on a depiction of Africa made entirely out of stars until the outline is magnified to abstraction until there is only SZA dancing amid the swirling nebula of space, as she croons “All the stars are closer.” This music video glows. Each individual featured is costumed in bright colors and striking patterns, and their backdrops are equally vibrant: electric blue jungles and intricate gold throne rooms. “All The Stars” honors the beauty in love, in ancestry and, most importantly, in the many complexities of a cultural heritage that has often been diminished by stereotypes and generalization. - Shima Sadaghiyani, Daily Music Editor

Wednesday, February 7, 2018 — 5A

Hall had burned down earlier that night! The next day, after arriving back on campus, she learned that it was true. Haven Hall was destroyed in a fire on Jun. 6, 1950. She took her final in Hill Auditorium, leaning on clipboards in the first rows of the audience as her professor paced the stage. At this point, it was time for the second half of the program to begin, and though I had many questions about the fire and her experiences at the University, I turned and applauded as the orchestra re-entered the stage. This was Eduard Tubin’s “Symphony No. 5 in B Minor,” a roaring work for full orchestra featuring two timpanists placed on opposite ends of the back portion of the stage. Tubin is another composer who I was not familiar with, though I soon learned that he was another famous Estonian composer. He had f led the Soviet Union in 1944 and resided in Sweden for most of his life. This work was full of quick, aggressive passages — particularly in the brass. The biting sound of the bass trombone and the muted

rotary valve f lugelhorns was quite frightening, as were

Though I knew nothing before that concert of Estonian composers or Estonian classical music, I have two new pieces to listen to and become familiar with

the thundering sounds of two timpanis playing loudly in unison. It was a captivating, almost frenetic work, and it

demonstrated the orchestra’s ability to navigate fast music with ease. As the second round of applause began, the woman sitting next to me waved goodbye. It was past 10:00, she explained, and she had to get home. Her sudden arrival felt like the proper ending to the entire evening: The works of unfamiliar composers paired with my accidentally meeting a friendly stranger, the eclectic peculiarity of the repertoire on the concert paired with the peculiarity of my experience and the odd familiarity of the music paired with the friendly nature of this charming woman. It reminded me to constantly be open to new experiences. Though I knew nothing before that concert of Estonian composers or Estonian classical music, I have two new pieces to listen to and become familiar with. And though I knew little about the history of Haven Hall and Hill Auditorium before that concert, I have an interesting story to tell now of a first-hand account of the University’s history.

TV REVIEW

HBO

‘2 Dope Queens’ podcast is matched by smart special into the rest of the show, all of which is live and replete with Senior Arts Editor celebrity interviews, standup sets from up-and-coming and established comedians It’s hard not to fall in love or Williams and Robinson more witty, with Jessica Williams (“The exchanging Incredible Jessica James”) incisive banter. This structure and Phoebe Robinson (“Broad works to their advantage as well; HBO’s City”). The two best friends visually — both outspoken New York- cinematic production values based comedians who host bolster “2 Dope Queens”’s the aptly titled podcast “2 appeal — matching the queens’ brand of topical, Dope Queens” niche humor — not only with the iconic have infectious ornateness of the personalities Kings Theatre and a magnetic “2 Dope and a colorful rapport, but are Queens” stage resembling also intensely a Brooklyn attuned to almost HBO rooftop in the everything 4-part special summer. happening in The first part, pop culture. Fridays @ 11:30 p.m. “New York,” Whether it’s captures this dishing about the aesthetic charm latest Hollywood in its opening gossip, sketch, wherein introducing new a stubborn, comics to the stage or illuminating issues oblivious attendant brushes important to Black women, off Williams and Robinson Williams and Robinson have for not having tickets to accrued a healthy amount of their own show. As they deserved attention through Google themselves to confirm identities, Williams “2 Dope Queens.” And what their better way to realize that and Robinson refer to this potential than through a situation as “Black-on-Black deliciously profane and aggression,” a phrase the immensely entertaining four- two often jokingly use when making light of racial disparity part HBO comedy special? Like “2 Dope Queens” the within the Black community. podcast, “2 Dope Queens” the Though very brief, the bit alone HBO special gives Williams demonstrates Williams and and Robinson a platform to talk Robinson’s comedic talent and about the timeliest topics, but timing, especially considering also manages to finesse their the former was a “Daily Show” chemistry just as effectively correspondent and the latter on-screen. Part of what makes has a healthy pedigree of the HBO adaptation of “2 Dope sketch comedy experience. “New York” continues to Queens” so successful is how much spirit Williams and enthrall, as Robinson and Williams welcome their Robinson fill within an hour. On their podcast, Williams audience with the same and Robinson would spend the rowdy, high-ball energy they first few moments delivering incorporate into their podcast. some cheeky observational They invite a string of standhumor — usually about Bono or up comics — Michelle Buteau Beyoncé — before transitioning (“Key and Peele”), Mark SAM ROSENBERG

Normand (“Horace and Pete”) and Baron Vaughn (“Grace and Frankie”) — each of whom offers an equally dynamic and distinctive set of personal stories and observations on New York culture. Williams’s old boss Jon Stewart (“The Daily Show”) makes an appearance, his segment dedicated to discussing New York “moments” and tastetesting New York pizza, which wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying if it were just recorded. While “New York” has a stronger opening, the second episode, “Hair,” is centered on a more grounded issue — Black hair and the complex discourse surrounding it. “Hair” also includes a consistently funnier lineup of stand-up acts — Aparna Nancherla (“BoJack Horseman”), Rhea Butcher (“Take My Wife”) and Sheng Wang (“Fresh Off the Boat”) — and the unexpected arrival of fan favorite Sarah Jessica Parker (“Sex and the City”). Parker’s earnest attempt to learn more about Black hair from Robinson and Williams drives her segment away from being an awkward display of “white cluelessness” — an issue that Robinson and Williams discuss and exploit in their podcast, sometimes to a fault. For those familiar (and even unfamiliar) with “2 Dope Queens” as a podcast, the HBO special does an admirable job of bringing Robinson and Williams’s moxie to television, even if it doesn’t experiment with the podcast’s structural formula. The first two episodes are both fairly breezy for an hour, though they occasionally lag during extended jokes that lose steam pretty quickly. Still, “2 Dope Queens” remains a testament to Robinson and Williams as an unstoppable comedic duo, as pop culture commentators and as badass forces of nature.

Arts

6A — Wednesday, February 7, 2018

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

BOOK REVIEW

FILM REVIEW

‘The Music Shop’ doesn’t deliver on fun or romance quirky shop owners: Maud, the tough-as-nails tattoo artist; Father Anthony, the ex-priest and owner of a religious gift I like romantic comedies shop; the Williams brothers, twin funeral as much as the next person. identical In fact, I’d hazard that I like directors; and Kit, Frank’s them quite a bit more than hapless and overeager shop the next person. The easy, assistant. Nevermind that predictable textures of the plot this cast of zany characters is drawn directly and characters, from films like the willing “You’ve Got suspension of Mail” and “Four disbelief, the Weddings and insistence that “The Music a Funeral,” or all problems Shop” that the fact can be solved that this tightwith the right Rachel Joyce knit community combination of centered on words, timing Jan. 2 “Unity Street” and f lowers — it’s Random House is almost too formulaic, sure, sickly-sweet to but the formula mention. With works. It’s the the exception marshmallow of Kit, who is at f luff of the times genuinely entertainment world: devoid of substance but hilarious, more often than these hard to resist. That’s why I was not surprised to find that Rachel characters on Joyce’s new novel, “The Music border Shop” — a romantic comedy caricature, and in book form if ever there was the suspension disbelief one — fails to deliver the sugar of required by rush it promised. “The Music Shop” opens in the reader to 1988 on Frank, “a gentle bear imagine them anything of a man” who owns a derelict as music shop and refuses to more than onesell anything more modern dimensional is than vinyl records, even as slight at best. Enter Ilse the rest of the world becomes enamored with CDs. Frank Brauchmann, beautiful has a preternatural ability a with to divine what song a person woman mysterious needs to hear to overcome the a who challenges in their life; Joyce past color describes finding the right brings Frank’s song as “meeting a stranger into in the dark, saying to them, life (think “Notting Hill”). In ‘You’ll never guess what?’ the style of the classic meetand the stranger saying, cute, she and Frank connect ‘Hey, but that’s exactly how instantly: “Their eyes locked it is for me.’” This ability and and everything else gave way Frank’s somewhat overdrawn and disappeared.” But Ilse self lessness has made him is engaged to another man, beloved in his community of and Frank has to be satisfied JULIA MOSS

Daily Arts Writer

LIONSGATE

‘Winchester’ is laughably inept at producing horror story about the effects of grief is instead watered down into a Daily Arts Writer boring, derivative flick fueled by thoughtless jump scares and The actual story behind the a script that mistakes repetitive Winchester Mystery House is an dialogue for thematic heft and interesting one. After the deaths character development. This would have been of her husband and daughter, disappointing if Sarah Winchester “Winchester” just became the had its premise majority going for it, but shareholder in it’s fronted by the lucrative “Winchester: Helen Mirren Winchester The House That (“Collateral Repeating Arms Beauty”) in the Company and Ghosts Built” title role and moved into Lionsgate Jason Clarke an unfinished (“Mudbound”) farmhouse in Ann Arbor 20 & playing the Cali. She used her Quality 16 psychiatrist sent fortune to build a to evaluate her haphazard sevenmental health, two story mansion that incredibly talented became famous performers for stairs that who are given went nowhere, windows looking into other nothing to work with. There’s rooms and other architectural no relationship that builds between them, though the script oddities. Some believed that the pretends otherwise. Neither is at construction, which would all engaging beyond the names continue day and night for 38 behind them. Instead, they’re years until Winchester’s death just points-of-view for the in 1922, was a hobby to help the audience to experience the next widow and mother cope with her jump scare. To its credit, the script grief, while others maintained that she believed her family was — co-written by the Spierig haunted by the ghosts killed by Brothers (“Jigsaw”), who also Winchester firearms and that direct — tries to give Clarke’s Eric the house was built to contain Price an arc, but his development their spirits. “Winchester: The is so muddy that it’s difficult House That Ghosts Built” looks to pin down exactly how we’re to adapt the tale of the titular supposed to see him changing. Mystery House and firearms Is he supposed to be recovering heiress by focusing on the from the guilt of his wife’s death, supposed family curse. What as the third act implies? Is he could have been a thought- overcoming his skepticism, as provoking psychological horror his dialogue, which consists JEREMIAH VANDERHELM

almost entirely of him saying, “Fear is all in your head” to everyone — including himself — would support? There’s a play at combining the two ideas, but like the movie itself, it never resolves into anything coherent. Meanwhile, Mirren, one of the best actresses of her generation, walks around acting like a medium on a third-tier reality TV show. “Oh,” she says at one point, her hands fluttering about as if swatting at invisible flies, “this spirit is so angry. It has a power we’ve not seen before.” The silliness of her performance is outmatched only by Eamon Farren (“Twin Peaks”) as Ben Block, another visitor to the Winchester house. Farren, a native Australian, affects a Southern accent so ludicrous it’s as if he injected molasses directly into his veins. Given his seeming omnipresence, he’s likely meant to be a foreboding presence, but with a drawl like the love child of Foghorn Leghorn and Colonel Sanders, it’s impossible to take him in any way seriously. When horror is good, it possesses an ability to examine the human psyche that no other genre can lay claim to. The story behind Sarah Winchester and the house she built begs to be given this treatment, but the Spierig Brothers are apparently content with something lesser. Instead of genuine scares, we have deformed faces pop out while the music blasts. Instead of interesting mythology, we have a movie that wantonly violates its own rules. Instead of ingenuity, we have Jason Clarke shooting and killing a ghost.

with the weekly music lessons he gives her. Joyce can’t be entirely blamed for the cheesiness of this line or the romance that grows around it; she’s working within a genre, and certain traditions have to be ( begrudgingly) respected. But convention can turn very quickly into cliché, and Frank and Ilse’s f ledgling romance, and the obstacles in its way — Frank’s inability to let himself be loved, Ilse’s hesitation to reveal her secrets — can feel too contrived to keep the reader invested. At some point, you want to shout, “Get over it already! We know you’ll get together in the end anyway!” Joyce struggles in this book to find the line between charm and kitsch. The story has good bones: Joyce’s impressive depth of knowledge about and passion for music, her sensitivity to suffering, her insistence upon the power of love to heal and redeem. It would make a good movie, with the perfect amount of heft and heart to fill a 90-minute escape from the world. But the same things that would make it a hit if Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant were to play it on-screen become lost in translation on the page. Without the substance to support the longer format of a novel, the charm of the “The Music Shop” becomes both overplayed and hollow, like a souff lé that’s risen too high and caves in on itself, leaving the reader with nothing but a toothache.

Joyce struggles in this book to find the line between charm and kitsch

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SINGLES REVIEW: SNOOP RETURNS

RCA

Needless to say, Snoop’s Snoop Dogg is back. However, the Doggfather is return- newest project reflects the rapper’s biggest career pivot ing not as “gangsta,” but as yet. Sure, we’ve seen multiple preacher. Last week, Snoop released a string carnations of of four gosthe D.O. Double Snoop Dogg pel singles to G: From his Singles revolutionary accompany the debut album, announcement Snoop Dogg ft. of a new album, Doggystyle, to Various Artists Bible of Love. his pop single with Katy Perry, The tracks, RCA “California each featuring a powerhouse vocalist, are Gurls,” Snoop has been all the most musically rich and over the map, arguably as dynamic we’ve ever heard much as any rapper could be. Yet, this religiously driven from the founding father of music is something Snoop has G-funk: Gospel choirs, piano, organ, vocal runs, clapping never touched, and the move — the whole nine yards. Most raises some questions: Has he reinvigorated his faith? Does interestingly, Snoop’s rhymes he feel especially blessed after are only featured on one of the four songs, “Blessing Me reflecting on the fortunes of Again (ft. Rance Allen),” the his career? Does he simply feel rest dominated by gospel vocal secure enough as an artist to chops. pursue a venture into gospel?

With lyrics like “I got a whole lot that I can really thank Him for / When I was moving fast, He had to slow my roll” and “Seems like He testing me again / But on the flip side, it’s like He blessing me again,” all three motivations seem possible. Either way, the tracks themselves are enjoyable to listen to. Overwhelmingly positive, they are a breath of fresh air during what many consider a time of general strife, which is perhaps the effect Snoop was pursuing. The best part: As gospel as these singles are, they still retain a hint of hip hop, with big bass and 808s, providing a nice cross-genre blend that will get listeners on their feet in the name of the Lord. - Mike Watkins, Daily Arts Writer

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Curve on a slalom, e.g. 4 Frugal folks 10 Sea devastated by irrigation projects 14 “Something tells __ should’ve stayed in bed” 15 Brunch staple 16 Walk worriedly 17 Super-fun experience 19 Tolkien beasts 20 Concrete strengtheners 21 German auto pioneer 23 Junior or senior 24 Certain baby tiger 26 Grandmotherly type 29 Sarge’s superior 30 Stand behind 34 Rural stopover 35 Cramming three seasons into a weekend, say 39 A pop 40 Contemptuous one 41 Wolf pack member 44 Natural night lights 48 Salsa percussion instrument 52 Crowe’s “A Beautiful Mind” role 53 Remove field heat from before storage, as crops 54 Japanese faith 56 Like cotton candy 57 Securing strap 59 Owned 60 Horseshoes score 61 Short-lived obsession 62 Neighborhood 63 Make certain 64 Trout lure DOWN 1 Developmental stage 2 Sargasso wriggler

3 Nautical stage name of comedian David Adkins 4 Lemony cocktail 5 Rock concert gear 6 Zoo staffer 7 Slur over 8 Hire a new crew for 9 “Shrek!” author William 10 Historic Harlem theater 11 Treasury collectible 12 Accumulating, as interest 13 “__ Miz” 18 Source of tomatoes for homemade sauce 22 Bad beginning? 24 “Iron Chef Showdown” host Alton 25 “Big” London attraction 27 ESL part: Abbr. 28 Citrus drinks 31 “Is This Love” singer Corinne Bailey __

32 Power source 33 Sandy-colored 35 1940s jazzman 36 Totalitarian control 37 Naval pronoun 38 Having a twist 39 Happy hour site 42 It may form the outline for a meeting’s minutes 43 Front-of-bk. list 45 Skedaddled

46 Celestial 47 Substandard 49 Paso __: twostep dance 50 City where Joan of Arc died 51 Arm bones 54 Crystal ball reader 55 Where you are, on a mall map 56 __ Na Na 58 Bearded grazer

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Sports

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, February 7, 2018 — 7A

Notebook: Michigan hoping to cut down on penalties, LaFontaine sees the ice ANNA MARCUS Daily Sports Writer

Last weekend in the Michigan hockey team’s critical series with No. 17 Wisconsin, there was no shortage of punches thrown from either team. With rivalry games against in-state foe Michigan State on the horizon for the Wolverines, physicality and aggression are likely to play a role once again. And though not all penalties are avoidable, Michigan coach Mel Pearson thinks his team has been taking too many of what he describes as “selfish penalties.” Given this, discipline has been a major talking point of practice this week. “We just talk about it,” Pearson said. “And just play whistle to whistle. … And I think you’re willing to take a few penalties, but it’s the ones that aren’t team penalties — and I call those the selfish penalties — where you retaliate for a hit you didn’t like. And we talk about the emotional control to your game because the game is hype, you’re on the edge and you can get your aggression out by playing clean whistle to whistle. “It’s hard though. It’s a rival and there’s a lot of stuff going on on the ice. But you have to stay in the game and play for the team.” Pearson highlighted senior forward Dexter Dancs’ second period roughing penalty Friday night as an example. After taking a hit along the boards, Dancs proceeded to retaliate instead of restraining himself. Due to a coaching decision, Dancs was benched in Saturday’s game for the first time this season. But this week, Dancs has already made great strides with regards to his work ethic and discipline in practice. It hasn’t gone unnoticed. “I like Dexter,” Pearson said. “I like Dexter Dancs this week. He’s been fabulous. I like the energy that he’s brought to

SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily

Michigan coach Mel Pearson is pleased with how senior forward Dexter Dancs has played this week and praised the energy Dancs has brought to practice.

practice and we haven’t seen that for a while. And whether it’s not playing a game, or whatever it is, he’s a senior and he doesn’t have many kicks at the can so to speak. …And every once in a while you need a little bit of a wake-up call or reality check. And I think that maybe was it with Dexter.” And demonstrating discipline is not just necessary to be seen from senior leadership, but up and down the roster as well. The past weekend, penalties were drawn by Michigan players of every class. But the significance of exhibiting this self control is not lost on the newest members of the team. “I think there’s a difference between playing aggressive, competing hard and being undisciplined,” said freshman forward Jack Becker. “So I think

it’s just playing between the whistles and not getting into the extracurriculars after the whistles, like all of the chirping and talking.” Eyes on the PairWise With three weekends left until the postseason, the PairWise Rankings are getting harder and harder to ignore. A statistical ranking tool, the PairWise indicates the teams that will be in the running for selection to the NCAA Tournament, which begins in late March. At the end of last season, the Wolverines finished 37th in the PairWise, a far cry from a top-16 tournament bid. But the 2017-18 season is telling a very different story. Following its series split with Wisconsin, Michigan has been inching up in the ranking system, currently sitting at 15th. Just moving up a few more spots

when the season ends would almost guarantee a tournament spot. And though Pearson believes that his team should maintain focus on the games that lie ahead of it, the rankings have certainly been on the minds of him and the rest of the coaching staff. “Do you want me to lie?” Pearson joked after practice on Tuesday. “We don’t talk about it with our team much but as coaches, we keep an eye on it. … It could affect decisions a little bit as far as who you play. Do you play a shorter bench, do you pull your goalie earlier in games now maybe if you’re behind? So I think you have to have a pulse on what’s going on and where you’re at.” This awareness of the rankings includes the coaches watching the games of other

teams that are close to Michigan’s positioning in the PairWise. But in regards to conversations with the team, all that is discussed is working to make the Wolverines better every day and how to find success in their next outing. “You want them to feel that encouragement,” Pearson said. “If (the current ranking) makes them play harder, if that makes them play better, you can use that. But we tend to stay on the safe side and worry about the things we can control, and that will take care of itself.” And the players seem to be maintaining this positive outlook and not overemphasizing the rankings, while still keeping them in mind. “I mean, it’s definitely hard to not pay attention to them, because it kind of tells you if your season is going to go

longer,” said freshman forward Mike Pastujov. “But really, right now we’re just trying to finish out the end of our season and get as many wins as possible.” LaFontaine sees the ice Since the calendar year flipped, sophomore Hayden Lavigne had been Michigan’s go-to in the net. Given this, his classmate Jack LaFontaine hadn’t seen any playing time since the Great Lakes Invitational. That was until Saturday night, when the Wolverines’ four-goal deficit in the second period sent LaFontaine in to replace Lavigne. In his lategame outing, LaFontaine made 18 saves, allowing no goals, making the loss sting a little less. Though it didn’t take place at an ideal time, Pearson noted that LaFontaine’s ability to step up and play when Michigan needed him was commendable. “It’s unfortunate that he had to go in in that circumstance because obviously Hayden had a tough night, but in a way it was good because Jack got an opportunity to get in there and get some minutes in,” Pearson said. “ …And it was almost two periods of shutout hockey for him, which was good.” Given this, Pearson made clear that Lavigne is still the clear starter, as he earned himself the spot. The netminder had a stellar showing Friday night, saving 37 pucks, bailing out Michigan in its 5-3 win. But with LaFontaine proving competitive as well, the Wolverines do not have to worry on nights that Lavigne doesn’t play his best game. “If Hayden plays like he did Friday night, it will be tough for Jack to get in,” Pearson said. “Now if Hayden plays like he did Saturday, the door is open. It’s Hayden’s job, he’s the starter. And if he continues to play well he will continue to get the starts.”

Harbaugh, Michigan slated for quiet National Signing Day The Wolverines currently have the 17th-ranked recruiting class, with eight four-star recruits and 12 ranked as three stars ORION SANG

Managing Sports Editor

Jim Harbaugh is set to sign his fourth recruiting class as head coach of the Michigan football team. National Signing Day is Wednesday, and the Wolverines currently have the nation’s 17th-best recruiting class, according to 247Sports. That’s currently off the pace Harbaugh set the previous two years as Michigan signed the No. 5 and No. 8 classes in 2017 and 2016, respectively. That’s not the only difference this year, either. While with previous classes there was usually a flurry of activity near signing day, it’s been quiet this year — much more quiet. With the addition of an early signing period in December, the

Wolverines — and many teams around the country — have already signed a large proportion of their class. But that’s not to say that national signing day won’t be without its stakes. Michigan is hoping to hold onto its topranked recruit in four-star linebacker Otis Reese. As a 6-foot-4, 206-pound prospect from Leesburg, Ga., Reese is currently the subject of a spirited recruiting battle between the Wolverines and Georgia. Reese took several visits to see his hometown team play during the regular season. He took an official visit to Michigan on Jan. 19 before taking one more trip to Athens on Jan. 26. Reese is the former high school teammate of freshman defensive tackle Aubrey Solomon, who committed to Michigan on the

same day as Reese in the summer of 2016. While the Wolverines may be waiting for Reese’s signature, it will be a significant amount of time before they gain the signature of another prospect who had previously been committed. Kevin Doyle, a three-star quarterback, announced his intentions on Feb. 4 to sign with a school other than Michigan. “Thank you Coach Hamilton and Coach Harbaugh for the opportunity,” Doyle wrote in a statement posted on Twitter. “I am officially decommitted from the University of Michigan. I will be signing with a new school on Wednesday, Feb. 7th.” Doyle had been committed to the Wolverines since Sept. 24 after a whirlwind recruitment. He told Scout.com that

SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily

Jim Harbaugh is looking to put the finishing touches on his fourth recruiting class as head coach at Michigan.

Michigan’s courtship began after Hamilton watched one of his games on television. Doyle, the Gatorade State Football Player of the Year for Washington, D.C., visited during the Air Force game and committed shortly after that. His decommitment leaves the Wolverines with one quarterback for the class in four-star Joe Milton, who signed at the early deadline and enrolled for the winter semester. Milton will be one of four scholarship quarterbacks on the roster next season, along with sophomore Shea Patterson, redshirt

freshman Brandon Peters and freshman Dylan McCaffrey. Doyle’s departure may have put a dent in the class. But it wasn’t too long before Michigan earned another commitment, this time from kicker Jake Moody. Moody tweeted his decision to commit to the Wolverines on Feb. 4, the same day Doyle announced his decommitment. “This has been the toughest decision in my life,” Moody wrote. “After sitting down and talking with my family, I have decided to commit to the University of Michigan.” Moody, a native of Northville,

“This has been the toughest decision in my life.”

is regarded as one of the top prep kickers in the nation. He told hometownlife.com that he may greyshirt, which would mean signing a letter of intent while delaying enrollment until the winter semester. In that scenario, Moody would essentially sit out his freshman season while retaining full eligibility. “If the scholarship isn’t there this fall, then I would probably greyshirt, and that would probably give me a buffer year in between Quinn (Nordin),” Moody told hometownlife. “And if I grey-shirted, I could also redshirt if I wanted to if it looked like I couldn’t play. Then I could get two years in between Quinn.” The Wolverines currently have 20 players committed, with eight ranked as four-star prospects and 12 ranked as three-star prospects.

Sports

8A —Wednesday, February 7, 2018

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Michigan falls to Northwestern on the road, 61-52 MIKE PERSAK

Managing Sports Editor

ROSEMONT, Ill. — One team made shots and the other one didn’t. It’s as simple as a basketball game can become. There are reasons for why the Michigan men’s basketball team shot 38.6 percent from the floor and Northwestern shot 50 percent from deep in the second half. But the reasons don’t matter. It doesn’t matter that the Wolverines (8-5 Big Ten, 19-7 overall) didn’t trail Northwestern at all in the first 20 minutes of Tuesday’s game after getting off to an uncharacteristically quick start. What matters is that the 20th-ranked Wolverines’ stagnant offense and pitiful freethrow shooting finally caught up to them, as they eventually fell, 61-52. “We came out and really played well,” said Michigan coach John Beilein. “We had a good plan. When they adapted to our plan, we could not adapt very well. We have some habits that keep us from getting better, and the only thing we can do is practice and try to get better.” The free throws have been the least glamorous stat as of late, but they weren’t the singular issue by any stretch. The Wolverines couldn’t get anything going against Northwestern’s matchup zone defense. That was part of the difference in this game as opposed to last week’s game between the teams. Back then, Michigan overloaded one side of the court and beat the Wildcat defense with sheer numbers to pull away in the second half. This time, the shooting never woke up. Instead, the Wolverines’ mistakes kept coming. Meanwhile, Northwestern kept applying pressure and making shots, going 4-for-8 from beyond the arc. McIntosh got whatever he wanted wherever

OSEMONT, Ill. — The message is clear as day for the Michigan men’s basketball team: There isn’t much to gain from beating low-tier Big Ten teams in its final stretch of regular seaETHAN son games, WOLFE but there’s a hell of a lot to lose. Despite a 19-6 record coming in to Monday’s game against Northwestern, an NCAA Tournament bid is far from a lock. Based on their recent press conferences, those stakes did not look to be lost

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Wolverines look scared against strong defenses SARAH HURST

Daily Sports Writer

CLAIRE MEINGAST/Daily

Michigan coach John Beilein thought his team failed to adapt after playing well early in its 61-52 loss.

he wanted it, finishing with 24 points. Michigan, on the other hand, crumpled, as Wagner was the only Wolverine with anything resembling rhythm. Down eight with just over four minutes to go, freshman guard Jordan Poole corralled a rebound. He looked ahead and saw sophomore guard Zavier Simpson streak ahead of the crowd. Poole attempted a long bounce pass, but threw it directly off the foot of Northwestern forward Scottie Lindsey. The Wildcats went the other way, and McIntosh hit a floater in the lane to extend the lead to 10. “We were pretty good (defensively) I think,” Wagner said. “I mean, a similar gameplan to last time. Obviously it didn’t work out as well as we planned it, because they made a lot more shots, and they found their way to the rim a lot better.” In the first half, things got off to a rocky start when freshman forward Isaiah Livers turned his

ankle on an attempted layup and couldn’t return to action for the rest of the game. At first it didn’t seem to affect Michigan, as it got out to a quick start right away. A 3-pointer from fifth-year senior forward Duncan Robinson gave the Wolverines a quick, 13-3 lead at the under-16 media timeout. Northwestern battled back, though. Behind 11 and 10 firsthalf points from Lindsey and McIntosh, respectively, the Wildcats were within striking distance much of the half. They trailed by just three at the intermission. That’s when they overwhelmed Michigan. “They have not shot the ball as well this year. Their numbers are down,” Beilein said. “… They spread you out, and all of a sudden, you’re in close outs, you’re in close outs, you’re in close outs. And so, they started the second half by jamming it inside, but then, the 3-pointers

got us the rest of the way.” Who knows if the Wolverines would have been able to overcome Northwestern’s shooting barrage if Livers hadn’t gotten hurt. It’s entirely possible they wouldn’t have. Still, Wagner cited Livers’ energy, defensive effort and versatility as things Michigan missed, and Beilein mentioned that the injury likely made things tougher on fifthyear senior forward Duncan Robinson, who had to play 36 minutes in Livers’ stead. Either way, the poor shooting the Wolverines have recently been able to get away with was exposed this time. They won’t get another opportunity to right the ship until they travel to Wisconsin on Sunday. So all that’s left to do now is wait, hope a healthy Livers can return with the energy his teammates value and see if the hot shooting that’s been flashed in select games this season can return.

The Michigan women’s basketball team is now in a twogame slump after ending its sixgame win streak last Thursday in a matchup against Purdue. Though the Boilermakers came out strong, the Wolverines fired back and held a significant lead until Purdue went on a 16-point run to tie the game. Sophomore forward Kayla Robbins had a chance to win the game with two free throws, but missed both and sent the game into overtime. “The game was not based on one play,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Airco told WTKA.“There were a lot of different opportunities throughout the course of the game when we could’ve gotten one stop or one score and the game would’ve been different.” It seems that the downfall of the Wolverines was based on Purdue’s defensive pressure. The Boilermakers changed the defense halfway through the game to four guards, playing into freshman forward Hailey Brown’s weakness. “So we got kind of settled in to what they were doing defensively and then they switched it,” Barnes Arico said. “Once they changed the defense, we were never really able to get in a rhythm.” The defensive aggression, even at the beginning, clearly threw Michigan for a loop. The Wolverines were able to recover at halftime, but then lost their footing. “Purdue made a run and we really couldn’t stop the run. We were in a position to win the game a few times down the stretch and we weren’t able to do that,” Barnes Arico said to WTKA. “But it was probably

the first time all year where we looked a little scared and looked different prior to any other games we had played in this year.” Shortly after the tough loss on Thursday, Michigan traveled to Rutgers to face another strong defensive team. This time, the Scarlet Knights didn’t rely on a midgame defensive shift to beat the Wolverines, but instead applied the pressure early on which resulted in 26 turnovers. “That’s been a theme of ours this season and when we’re successful we really do a great job of taking care of the basketball and Rutgers just swarmed us,” Barnes Arico said to WTKA. “We got rattled a little bit, that’s a tough place to play. They really do it on the defensive end; they’re a swarming defensive team. They pressured us, and they forced us into a lot of turnovers.” It is clear that the Wolverines are afraid to suffer another loss and strong defensive teams seem to be their weakness. The Boilermakers and Scarlet Knights used their defensive skills to out-maneuver Michigan, which led the Wolverines losing back-to-back games for the first time this season. “That’s what Purdue and Rutgers are both known for — is their toughness on the defensive end, really physical, really scrappy, really in your face, bumping and clawing and playing aggressive on the defensive end,” Barnes Arico said to WTKA. “Probably the two most defensive programs we have in our league.” The Wolverines will look to stop those defensive setbacks and bounce back to stop the losing streak on Thursday, when they face off against Northwestern.

From ugly to uglier on coach John Beilein and the 20th-ranked Wolverines. After all, they have eked into the Tournament by the skin of their teeth the past two seasons thanks to miraculous Big Ten Tournament runs and a kind selection committee. And yet, as Michigan entered Allstate Arena to a crowd that was overwhelmingly made up of Wolverine fans to face a Wildcats team they had limited to just 47 points eight days prior, you would have never known. The nearly unwatchable display of basketball that fell in Northwestern’s favor, 61-52, was resemblant of a Michigan team that seemed on the outside looking in. It would have perhaps inspired the casual observer to turn the TV off and

read a book. Or socialize with others. Or anything else. The deflated showing began early at the 18:23 mark, when freshman forward Isaiah Livers rolled his ankle on a transition layup. His day of contributions would be done after two minutes. Perhaps as much can be said of Michigan. The first half offered poised, but unremarkable basketball. A 32-29 halftime advantage might as well have been a tie. Both teams looked lazy and hesitant. “I don’t think we fastbreaked well. I don’t think we got two feet in the paint well,” Beilein said. “We’ve got a situation where we fake a jump shot, the guy jumps out of the way and we just pass it to somebody else. It’s just habits that we’ve gotta continue to change.” As for the second half, that’s when the wheels really came off. But when the Wolverines falter, they don’t do it with turnovers or obvious sloppiness. It’s a sweeping malaise that permeates every

other facet of their game. They shot 5-for-20 the entire half including 1-for-10 from 3-point land, a byproduct of Northwestern’s zone adjustments and a simple inability to hit open looks. “We’ve gotta shoot the ball better,” Beilein said. “We’re not made that way. But when we’re shooting the ball well we’re pretty good. When we shot like we did today, it’s not gonna do much good.” Added junior forward Moritz Wagner: “We didn’t do a good job of making decisions, (we) missed shots that we usually make. … I think there were a lot of shots that we could’ve made and that we’ve made in the past.” Dare I mention their free throw woes, too? Going 13-for-19 on the night is considered a tremendous improvement after Saturday’s abysmal 12-for-28 output against Minnesota. “It sucks,” Wagner said. “You play basketball to make shots. It’s fun to win. If you miss free throws - I think we missed like five free throws in a row, that’s

not fun. Especially in crunch time.” In multiple instances, even the basics were thrown out the window. In a 2-on-1 fast break down eight points, freshman guard Jordan Poole tried to rifle a pass to a cutting Zavier Simpson that hit Northwestern’s Scottie Lindsey square in the leg. Shortly after, Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman nearly turned the ball over going up the court on an errant pass over Duncan Robinson’s head, saved by a timeout. An anomalic performance should not necessarily be a cause for concern — no team in college basketball has skirted that fate this season. But at this point, it’s not an anomaly. Since its 20-point defeat at Nebraska, Michigan’s offense has shown that it plays to the

level of its competition. And with the exception of the game at No. 3 Purdue — where Michigan dropped 88 points in a narrow loss — that hasn’t been a good sign when playing conference cellardwellers. “It’s getting late in the season, a lot of film out there,” AbdurRahkman said. “A lot of teams are doing a lot of things and adjusting to the way people are playing. We just gotta make adjustments, too.” The Wolverines have hardly impressed in their past five games to be considered locks for the tournament, let alone the 20thbest team in the nation. Maybe this punch in the face will bring them back to the reality. If that’s not the case, then the ugly play is only going to get uglier.

“It’s getting late in the season, a lot of film out there.”

CLAIRE MEINGAST/Daily

The Michigan men’s basketball team has played poorly over the past few weeks, especially on offense, an area in which it struggled against Northwestern.

statement T H E M I CH I GA N DAI LY | FE B RUA RY 7, 201 8

Michigan in

Color

Wednesday, February 7, 2018// The Statement

statement T H E M I CH I GA N DAI LY | FE B RUA RY 7, 201 8

Managing Statement Editor: Brian Kuang

Photo Editor: Amelia Cacchione

Deputy Editors: Colin Beresford Jennifer Meer Rebecca Tarnopol

Editor in Chief: Alexa St. John

Copy Editors: Elise Laarman Finntan Storer

Managing Editor: Dayton Hare

Let’s Bitch About It: Fusion Food BY LYDIA MURRAY, COLUMNIST

ou can’t scroll through your news feed without encountering the latest Insider video highlighting some trendy restaurant with some weird food. The latest trends fall into several categories: lots of cheese, extra desserts, colorful combinations and fusion food. Now that millennials are killing chain restaurants, a successful business is all about avoiding uniformity, and with that has come a wave of ethnic cuisines mutilated by whitewashed fusion food. When done right, combining different cultural influences in food can lead to fantastic new dishes. Some of the best cuisines developed over years of mixing cultures in experimental dishes (Vietnamese food famously combines French and Asian influences). But I’m not here to talk about culinary exploration. I’m here to bitch about a new explosion of “trendy” fusion food, which all too often whitewashes a beautiful cuisine to make it more appealing and cool for the hipster crowd. Leave My Dumplings Alone Dumplings (or jiaozi) are an honored tradition in my house. They are made for every special occasion: Chinese New Year? Dumplings. Mid-Autumn Festival?

Dumplings. Birthday? Dumplings. Family reunion? Dumplings! My mother taught me how to make them from scratch, which she learned from her mother. Dumplings are more than a food — they are a bonding activity with cultural importance. My Chinese family makes fun of my cousin for her lack of dumpling making skills, teasing she will never be able to find a husband if she can’t make a decent dumpling. Dumplings are simple, delicious and carry sentimental and traditional importance for my family and culture. Then white hipsters found them: Pho Dumplings. French Onion Soup Dumplings. Reuben and Pastrami Bao. Hamburger Dumplings. Nutella Dumplings. Each combination more disturbing than the last. In some cases, it is a Chinese restaurateur creating the food, but the market is always hipster millennials for whom regular “ethnic food” is so 2005. It’s 2018 — if your food isn’t one of a kind or including avocado, how can you expect to draw the right crowd? Gone is appreciating simple, wellprepared food made with fresh ingredients. Gone is my mother’s and

ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY KOFFSKY

grandmother’s kitchens smelling of noodles and stir-fry. Instead, you take my food, put a cheap chocolate spread inside and call it revolutionary. That’s Not A Burrito Mexican or other Latin American cuisine is far from my cultural area of expertise. I know that the Chipotle concept of a burrito is nowhere near what a real burrito is like, and we have taken the idea of a burrito and turned it into something different entirely. It started with the breakfast burrito and has since evolved into burger burritos, cheesy Turkish street food burritos, pho burritos, ramen burritos, Korean barbeque burritos, orange chicken burritos, chicken parmesan burritos, Indian curry burritos and, of course, the sushi burrito. Why are people obsessed with putting a perfectly nice dish inside of a tortilla and calling it a burrito? Do you want to eat with your hands that badly? Did you at least wash them first? None of these things are burritos, and you are just ruining good food by eating it this way. Why do you want to eat a burrito full of noodles? Are you just embarrassed because you can’t use chopsticks? Tortillas (especially the Americanized wheat-flour kind) don’t add much flavor so what are you adding to the food by eating it this way? Stop trying to be trendy and just go support a local restaurant of your desired cuisine run by people actually from that region. Stop Ruining Sushi While I am not Japanese, I do have a deep appreciation of sushi. Outside of dumplings, there has been nothing more disappointing than watching all the variations of sushi, each more elaborate and difficult to eat. It started with the sushi burrito, which was my first real experience with this type of trendy fusion food. It was the summer of 2016 and I was in Philadelphia when I encountered a food truck catering the sushi burrito that I had seen plastered all over my social media. So I tried it. This triggered my hatred of fusion food. Sushi, in its purest form, is all about the

fresh fish on its own or with a simple bed of rice. With the sushirrito, I was faced with a giant lump of rice, aggressively average salmon and some vegetables all shoved in soggy seaweed, which was difficult to bite through. Sushi is already bite size — why do you have to make it more difficult to eat? It is a convenient and delicious meal that fits perfectly between your chopsticks and in your mouth. Since I have seen a wave of new types of “sushi:” sushi donuts, cheesy sushi, sushi cake, sushi pizza, fried sushi topped with potatoes, flaming hot Cheetos sushi burrito, just to name a few. Sushi is a perfect food and does not deserve this perversion. ***** The larger issue here is not just the destruction of delicious foods, but the connotations they carry. My sisters and I used to complain when my mom sent us Chinese food for school lunch, because we wanted to fit in. In middle school, I laughed along with my friends at the Korean girl eating what we called a meat Popsicle. Meanwhile, at home, my mom prepared dishes like chicken feet or “stinky” tofu. Then Chinese food became trendy, but only if it was prepared in a way geared towards affluent white people. The crowd at P.F. Chang’s is very different than my family’s favorite hole-in-the-wall noodle joint. Mapo dofu and hot pot become orange chicken and lo mein. How are lettuce wraps and miso salmon supposed to be Chinese? Foods from minority groups are stigmatized as exotic until rich hipsters decide they are mainstream. This Americanized food has now taken on a new shape in the fad fusion food industry in an attempt to capture the younger audience who is bored of chain restaurants yet still craves their trendy, inauthentic “ethnic” food. Culinary innovation is a good thing, but telling a group that their food is inferior for years to pervert its original form into something flashy and disgusting does no favors to the culinary world.

Wednesday, February 7, 2018 // The Statement

Critical Questions: Identity Politics BY ISHI MORI, COLUMNIST

re Middle Eastern and Northern African people Caucasian, African or Asian? Last November, the group of students who identify as ME/ NA said no to all three and demanded to be recognized as a distinct category by the University of Michigan through their #WeExist campaign. It makes sense that ME/NA students would want their own identity in official records. Though many of them have fair skin and their families originate from the continents of Asia and Africa, their group has different needs when compared to whites, Blacks and Asians. (I, as a personal opinion, would also want to split “Asian” into East, Southeast and South, as each of those groups’ needs are also wholly different). The #WeExist campaign is an example of a campaign of identity politics, or a brand of politics in which racial, cultural, religious, socioeconomic or other groups pursue their own interests in isolation from the rest of the body politic. The expression “identity politics” became the subject of much negative attention during the 2016 presidential election, and it hasn’t been getting a good rep since then. The left heard of it in regard to white identity politics, in which white Americans—who are finding their share of the population and inf luence decreasing—voted for a candidate who spoke to their concerns while marginalized groups suffered. Meanwhile, the right accused Hillary Clinton of pandering to voters of different racial groups to court votes. Even Bernie Sanders, the furthestleft candidate, later criticized the Democrats’ emphasis on identity politics. Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. even went on to say in his book, “The Disuniting of America”, that focusing on our differences more than our similarities will result in a “cult of ethnicity” that will disintegrate the cooperative, compromise-based model of the United States’s democracy. It has been observed since ancient times that the democratic process goes smoothly if the constituents are homogeneous. Elites in the Athenian and Roman republics had a common, unwavering background that was not subject to compromise. In an increasingly multicultural and polarized world, are identity politics and democracy compatible? A 2016 survey of major democracies

by the United Nation World Happiness Report offers a bleak picture. For one, the happiest nations in the world are “fairly homogeneous nations with strong social safety nets” without the same kind of racial identity politics that exists in the U.S. However, identity isn’t just about race; it encompasses gender, religion, ethnicity and a variety of other factors that make up a human being. Some of my international friends like to tell me, “Americans are obsessed with race.” But the example of Taiwan shows other countries can be just as “obsessed” with identity as we are, yet still thrive. In Taiwan’s 2016 election, the Democratic Progressive Party, headed by Tsai Ing-wen, won by a landslide. Their victory was helped largely by an identity shift in Taiwan. Two months before the election, Chou Tzu-yu, a Taiwanese singer in the K-pop girl group TWICE, was berated by Chinese netizens who were offended by her display of a Republic of China f lag during an appearance on a Korean TV show. The other members of TWICE showed the f lags of South Korea and Japan, signaling the countries they came from. The incident resulted in TWICE being barred from Chinese television and Tzu-yu being forced to pull out of an endorsement, causing the president of her record company to apologize to the Chinese media. Tzu-yu also released an apology on the day before Taiwan’s elections, affirming there is only one China and she is proud to be Chinese. Tzu-yu’s apology was met with outrage in Taiwan, and may have inf luenced the election results by 1 to 2 percent in favor of Tsai, who supports Taiwanese independence. Why did this happen? In Taiwan, a majority of citizens now identify as solely Taiwanese (as opposed to Chinese or a combination of the two). Though the People’s Republic of China tries to push a narrative of eventual reunification, this becomes more unrealistic as the identity of the island’s people is shifting. Two years before the elections, university students stormed Taiwan’s legislature, protesting against what they saw as former President Ma Yingjeou’s closed-door efforts to rapidly integrate the island’s economy with that of the mainland. That identity politics can coexist with democracy in Taiwan shows its universal nature, for we are all embedded in some sort of identity.

However, we cannot just stay within our identity groups and expect everyone to listen to every one of our demands, especially if our group is smaller and weaker. That is the kind of identity politics that was criticized during the 2016 elections. Here is where coalition building comes in; when we make temporary alliances with other groups to achieve a common goal. Sometimes the alliance is difficult to forge, especially if your group and another group seem radically different, or even outright antagonistic. For example, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes that rich industrialists prevented the white and Black working class from allying themselves through the invocation of racist attitudes against African Americans. Despite this, psychology experiments demonstrate that if group members contact each other and find even simple commonalities (if both sides agreed the roads were bad in their municipality, for instance), there is more goodwill and trust. University of Oxford psychologist Miles Hewstone found this to be true with groups as separated and distrusting of each other as Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Moreover, though people in our identity groups may share a common thread, at the same time we are composed of multiple identities; this is known as intersectionality. I am Japanese-American, a straight male, a New Jerseyan, an out-of-state student, an immigrant and a non-practicing Buddhist. Each of these aspects is

inseparable from my existence. You cannot talk about economic inequality without talking about race and gender. You cannot talk about mass incarceration without talking about Black males and institutional racism. You cannot talk about American jobs being shipped away without talking about middle-class whites. You cannot talk about affirmative action without talking about being dark-skinned and low-income. Our racial, socioeconomic, sexual, cultural and religious identities are so intertwined that simply offering solutions across the board targeting only one of these aspects will not work. Simply fixing economic inequality will not lead to true equality for minorities, as there are more institutional hurdles to climb over. Similarly, not all people in a given group are the same. Just because President Donald Trump made comments about undocumented immigrants does not mean Latinos who are here legally will all vote for Democrats (in fact, 28 percent of them voted for Trump, slightly more support than what Mitt Romney received 4 years earlier). Contrary to what some pundits think, identity politics is a universal phenomenon and the U.S. just expresses it differently from other countries as a ref lection of its own unique racial history. Our democracy will not collapse because of identity politics; rather, it can survive and thrive if we learn to compromise and respect each others’ differences.

ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY KOFFSKY

Wednesday, February 7, 2018 // The Statement

An oral history of MiC BY THE MICHIGAN IN COLOR EDITORS

or Michigan in Color’s fourth anniversary, we sat down with two of our three co-founders — Kayla Upadhyaya and Rima Fadhallah — to discuss their lives after graduation, the challenges they faced and their hopes for the future of the section. Ref lecting on their time at MiC, the two were confident in the platform they built. However, they were still excited at all the new updates since their departures. From the “Off the Record” blog to the MiC spiritwear to the new MiC desk on the left side of the newsroom, the section has grown immensely — and so have our founders. Kayla, now a writer in New York City, never expected to be heavily involved in journalism after leaving college. However, after her experience with MiC, she was able to translate her newfound passions and skills into a successful career in media. She attributed her extensive preparation for the industry to the innovative nature of MiC. Currently, she enjoys a career in pop culture as a TV critic and reporter for Eatery NY. When we asked Kayla to give some advice she had for people of color entering journalism, she told us it comes down to finding the right mentors. She actively sought ones who shared a social identity with her. As a result, her mentors were able to offer specific advice because they understood her situation. These relationships eventually became so strong that Kayla felt she wouldn’t be

in the position she is in today had she not formed and embraced them, so they gave her significant first-hand experiences in navigating difficulties in the workplace. Rima, on the other hand, participated in the Teach for America Program after graduating in 2014. Outside of work, she also started a blog called The Road To. The goal was simple: to promote positivity and goal setting. The movement started when she used the tag #RoadtoOctober to set a goal to get healthier by her birthday. Others quickly adopted that template, and the brand spread. Rima credited this success — both in teaching and online — to MiC. Her reasoning was because this space allowed her to get to know herself as a writer and develop her identity as a leader in a community of diverse people who all wanted a common goal. We also asked Rima for advice for people of color entering education (though she is currently applying for MBA programs). She told us that as a leader, “It’s important to learn how to work with people and set aside your anger and ego.” For her, she came to this realization soon after joining TFA. When she started teaching at a predominantly Black school in Detroit, she saw that the most of her fellow teachers hailed from much more aff luent upbringings than their students. As someone who grew up in a predominantly Arab school with white teachers who also didn’t share her life experiences — and therefore had trouble relating to her culture and

identity — Rima quickly realized the need for teachers to empathize with their students. She felt her impact would be felt most if she worked within the system and educated her co-workers on approaching people of color and cultural responsiveness. This realization allowed her to impact her workplace because it opened up previously closed lines of communication between her, her co-workers and the students they served. Before Kayla helped form MiC, she was employed by The Daily as an arts writer. In this capacity, she was able to combine her interest in popular culture with her growing passion for writing. Though she was able to gain valuable experience in the field she’d eventually end up working in, she recognized that The Daily’s work environment was far from perfect. On the other hand, Rima and Jerusaliem (MiC’s third co-founder) were not as involved with the paper before forming the section. Nevertheless, Rima still felt a similar need to create a more inclusive paper. Kayla, who had already been writing for The Daily for a few years, was focused on how to make existing writers of color more comfortable in the newsroom. Rima and Jerusaliem, however, were more concerned with recruiting students of color. After realizing that both of these goals could be achieved by working together, the three went to Andrew Weiner, the editor-in-chief in 2013. This meeting with Andrew proved to be the catalyst for the section’s creation. MiC started as a simple column on the opinion page. They didn’t have a desk in the newsroom; they didn’t even have a tab on the homepage. At the time, that didn’t matter. As secondsemester seniors, their main concern was building a strong foundation for future editors of the section. However, there were still many events on campus the section covered. According to Kayla and Rima, the biggest issues MiC covered during her time on The Daily was #UMDivest and #BBUM. At the time in early 2014, #BBUM had gained traction the preceding November, and the debate over divestment began to roil campus. Because of this, MiC was able to serve as a platform for people to share their perspectives on the issue. While before Courtesy of MiC Founders MiC was founded, some groups may not have felt comfortable voicing their The founders of MiC, Rima Fadlallah, Jerusaliem Geb and Kayla Upadhyaya.

opinions in The Daily, Kayla believes that MiC gave these historically underrepresented groups a space on the paper to express their opinions. While this led to some unexpected issues — primarily, the editors were criticized for being overly partisan in their coverage of the #UMDivest movement — Kayla, Rima and Jerusaliem’s resolve did not waver. In Kayla’s words, it’s not MiC’s fault that it became political. “People of color often face this criticism, but it’s not our fault that our entire existence has been politicized,” Kayla told us. Additionally, Rima told us that the section had trouble gaining legitimacy in the newsroom. Andrew even believed they wouldn’t be able to find enough content. However, after getting the green light, the pieces started rolling in. When we asked Kayla and Rima how activism in MiC differs from activism in other spaces, they had similar answers. Kayla told us that, in her mind, there is no difference in the types of activism. “It’s just a different stage of activism,” she said. Though when most people think of activism they envision protests on the street, that’s only the end stage. Before people can take to the streets, they must first address the issues from a personal point of view. Rima largely agreed, “If you look at history, writing has changed so much,” she told us. “You have to realize that writing in itself is resistance.” Towards the end of our interview, we asked Kayla and Rima what they want MiC’s readers to know. Kayla told us that she wants them to value the diversity within the section and know that one piece doesn’t — and couldn’t — represent the experiences of all members of that group. “It is most beneficial to hold people’s multitudes in mind while reading submissions,” she told us. “As students of color have such a wide range of perspectives and experiences that all contribute to the vibrancy and dynamic of MiC.” We ended the interview by asking for any advice for current and future editors. Rima went first: “Block out noise as much as you can and always think about what’s best for the space.” Kayla followed with, “Always think as big as possible. So many of the goals from our first year were thought to be unachievable, but you’ve all been able to accomplish so much more than thought possible. Don’t limit yourself or think this is something that won’t happen. Always dream big.”

Wednesday, February 7, 2018// The Statement

Pass the MiC BY ADAM BRODNAX, ALYSSA BRANDON, SABRINA BILIMORIA AND SIVANTHY VASANTHAN

ach year, Michigan in Color invites graduating editors to write about their experience and advice for the incoming cohort. In honor of MiC’s fourth birthday, we extended the opportunity to all former editors to ref lect on their time at MiC. Here’s what they had to say: Adam Brodnax, Business Senior, MiC ‘17 “Giving advice to a space I just left feels so hard to articulate. I miss this space so much and after meeting Rima just the other day, she brought to life the beauty of its conception and reiterated the necessity of its existence. I felt so fired up after meeting her and seeing you all — wishing I was still here celebrating in the joy of our writers and being present to parse their pain. I felt the power of this space as a contributor with its ability to heal and build resilience. And I felt the weight of this space as an editor with the responsibility we have to this space. Michigan in Color was a space where I figured myself out. It was a space where I could unwrap — to let my insecurities and internalized hate fall away. In just my short time with this space, I’ve felt the depth of emotions with my fellow editors. From protecting our space with all our might to being on the offense when our contributors were shown hate, we’ve fought for each other through our love for this space. The advice I would leave you as MiC grows is that as it thrives, blossoms and sprouts, don’t forget to tend to the soil. Venture into the possibilities, but don’t forget that this space was built on a revolutionary act. Storytelling is a liberating act of resistance. To give power, agency to People of Color is a revolutionary act. To, Jason, Ashley, Christian, Halimat and the new cohort — I know that you all will carry this space forward with grace and continue to fight for justice. I am blessed to have contributed to this space, and I am so grateful for what you all do.” ***** Sabrina Bilimoria, LSA Alum ‘17, MiC ‘16 “Anyone who knows me today knows I have trouble holding my tongue when it comes to politics.

I’m politically charged, to say the least, and I’m not afraid to show it. Growing up, however, I hated politics. Despite my love of reading, writing and history, I slugged through the required government classes in high school, avoiding the AP options at all costs. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school, during President Obama’s re-election campaign that I took a leap of faith and willingly enrolled in a political science class. That campaign, for me, became distinctly about the people behind the policies (and the “binders full of women;” #tbt to GOP shame of the past). Like a match, my passion for politics was ignited, I was sucked in by the presidential debates and the discussions that followed among my classmates. The following year, as a brighteyed freshman who has always had a secret dream of being an investigative journalist, I joined The Michigan Daily as a Copy Editor, too scared to trust my own voice as a writer. Week after week, I was tasked with fact checking news and opinion stories; I was intrigued by the political stories and used them as an opportunity to learn more about local government and the facts thrown around during the popular political debates. I enjoyed contributing, even ever so slightly, to these political conversations. But I became eerily comfortable with the format of hiding opinions behind numbers and charts. And while cold hard calculated facts tell one side of a story, rich and important narratives are lost among these generalizations. I distinctly remember the first time a Michigan in Color story was sent to the Copy desk, I had read a few of their stories before, and as the only person of color at the desk that evening (and one of very few on the entire staff ), I jumped on the opportunity to edit the story. It wasn’t the story itself that stuck with me, but the way it engaged and evoked a deeper understanding of the issues it raised. It was the harmonious marriage of narrative and political discourse I never knew I was looking for. I knew I had to join this incredibly passionate and inspiring group of people. My passion for law and policy was born out of a commitment to humanize political discourse — to unearth the stories that have been silenced by years of denying the rights and humanity of minorities in this country and abroad. Michigan in Color fills an important void that extends beyond the Michigan campus; it brings to light the lived experiences behind the often empty political discussions that have become

increasingly important in today’s climate. MiC plays an integral role in reversing the whitewashing of history — and more importantly, herstory. To the current and future generations of MiC editors, writers and readers, I urge you to take ownership of this platform — don’t be afraid to engage and to share. As a Zoroastrian Pakistani-American, I’ve always been more comfortable starting the deep discussions rather than contributing to them, and this was a role I truly enjoyed having as a MiC editor. My own confusion with my identity and narrative is something I’m still trying to work out. My favorite part of being an editor was helping writers take even the most barebones of ideas and helping them craft their story. MiC is a community where deeply complex identities and narratives have always been welcome, where people of color are allowed to be more than the limited representations of us that currently exist. I encourage you to be bolder than I was, to find your voice in this community and unapologetically share your story. This platform is and always will be here to amplify your voices.” ***** Alyssa Brandon, LSA Alum ‘17, MiC ‘16 “I joined Michigan in Color in a bit of an unorthodox way. I wandered in from another section of The Daily in the middle of the academic year, really unsure of what was next for me as a writer, or what my next big thing would be. I was met with an amazing group of people, Sabrina, Toni, Demario, Ashley and Christian, who welcomed me with open arms as one of their own and helped me find a new sense of direction and purpose for myself as a writer and activist. My one semester as a senior editor for MiC was well spent. We hosted an amazing open mic event where I was able to meet and connect with many wonderful storytellers of color on campus, some of whom I’m still close with today. It was a blessing not only to support communities of color to share their truths, but also to have the chance to share my own. Michigan in Color challenged me and taught me to be brave and unapologetic, and I haven’t been the same since. My cohort of MiC editors also had the amazing opportunity to interview the

Rev. Jesse Jackson. The reverend drew on his more than 50 years of experience in civil rights activism to share with us his insights on the state of our current socio-political climate following the latest presidential election. His words reminded us of the urgent need for us to work together to shift the tide of racial political climate more toward justice, but also reassured us that we, students of color, had all we needed to carry on in our fight for true hope and equity. I’m filled with gladness to have had the chance to share that deeply profound and spiritual experience with my MiC family when we needed it the most. My time in MIC was short, but I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to serve the students of color at the University of Michigan and work with such talented, dynamic, people. To the new MiC team, you have the privilege to be a part of a movement that is so special and will undoubtedly leave a legacy at the University and beyond. Cherish this time, it really flies by! Use this time to branch out, connect with other communities on campus and learn empathy, but also use this time to learn to appreciate and develop the amazing skills and talents you bring to the table toward activism and advancing justice. I’m so proud of the growth and success MiC has achieved over the past several months and am so excited to see what it will achieve in the future. In solidarity, always and forever!” ***** Sivanthy Vasanthan, LSA Senior, MiC ‘17 “Michigan in Color has meant the world to me. Most noticeably, MiC gave me the chance to pursue activism through writing, a form that I both succeed in and struggle with. I’ve had opportunities to help other People of Color find their voices and formalize their truths and lived experiences. In turn, my time in MiC also made me more confident in my own writing. Despite both of my parents having strong talents and passions for it, writing is something I was enthusiastic about as a child but fell out of as I grew older. Being in MiC pushed my creativity and allowed me to rediscover my love of reading and writing.