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Wednesday, October 3, 2018
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ACADEMICS
University labor unions draw parallels with past strikes Recent slew of near-strikes a reaction to “new model” at U-M prioritizing profit over public, union president says
Remote Telemetry and Graham Crackers: NOLAN FELICIDARIO/Daily
GRACE KAY
Daily Staff Reporter
Over the course of two years, three different unions — the University of Michigan Professional Nurse Council, the Lecturers’ Employee Organization and Graduate Employees’ Organization — have threatened to strike in response to budget cuts and staffing levels at the University. LEO President Ian Robinson said these incidents are a reaction to a broader shift at the University, related primarily to what Robinson sees as a prioritization of financial concerns. “It’s a new model that is taking place at the University,” Robinson
U-M nurses describe cuts to patient care
said. “It is a model that has moved from focusing on the interests of the public to profit. Really the birth of these unions is the result of this new model. These strikes are the same fight as the fight that made these unions form.” As the University of Michigan Professional Nurse Councilprepares to vote on the tentative contract agreement with the University after 100 days of bargaining and an impending strike, UMPNC Chief Grievance Chair John Armelagos said the demands and concerns of nurses at the University have not changed since the union’s formation in 1974. The primary motivation behind the union’s formation was a need to improve working conditions. Staff were exposed to an unlimited
number of consecutive work days, multiple shift changes within a week and mandatory overtime. Though in current negotiations with Michigan Medicine, nurses were able to reach a tentative contract agreement without having to implement work stoppage, in 1981 and 1989 hundreds of nurses were forced to walk the picket line before they could come to a satisfactory agreement with the administration. In ’81 the nurses went on a 3-week strike and in ’89 the nurses went on a 19-day strike. Armelagos said he participated in the strike of ’89. “I was active on the picket line,” Armelagos said. “The main reason we picketed was due to mandatory overtime. Nurses were subjected to working in an
unlimited fashion. The hours that nurses were expected to work were excessive.” Anne Jackson, the onsite representative for the ambulatory care services at the University, said she sees connections between the strikes of ’81 and ’89 and nurses’ demands for their current contract. “The common thread is nursing as patient care advocates attempting to do the best we can as registered nurses,” Jackson said. “’81 was about nurses gaining more professional economy. In ’89 it was about nurses being too exhausted to deliver safe care. Today, the main issue is also patient care.” Jackson, who joined as a
RESEARCH
See UNIONS, Page 3A
ACADEMICS
Redistricting proposal on upcoming ballot to address gerrymandering The citizen-initiated proposition calls for independent commission, meets mixed reviews from students ZACK BLUMBERG For the Daily
This November, Michigan voters will decide the fate of Proposal 2, a citizen-initiated proposition to move the power of creating legislative districts from
the state House of Representatives to an Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. The proposal aims to end the practice of “gerrymandering,” or strategically creating districts to See PROPOSAL, Page 2A
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
University professor awarded Nobel Prize work in physics Professor Gerard Mourou pioneered field for high-speed lasers JORDYN BAKER Daily Staff Reporter
Gérard Mourou, an A. D. Moore distinguished University professor emeritus in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, received a Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for pioneering the field of highspeed and high-intensity lasers. The University of Michigan ranks among the top 50
universities in the world with of America in 1995 as well as the most Nobel Prize winners. the Edgerton Prize from the Mourou served as a founding International Society for Optics director at the Center for and Phonics in 1997, among Ultrafast Optical Science, other accomplishments, such a research facility within as the 2005 Willis E. Lamb the College of Engineering Awardfor Laser Science and that studies the application Quantum Optics and Charles of ultrashort laser pulses Hard Townes Award also by in a variety of disciplines. the Optical Society of America Mourou is an established in 2009. expert in his field, and Mourou shares half of the has received the Wood Prize from the Optical Society See PHYSICS, Page 3A
PRASHANTH PANICKER/Daily CSG representatives rearrange their seating for a group dialogue at the Central Student Government meeting Tuesday.
CSG confirms newly elected UHS launches new service to expand student positions, resolutions RESEARCH
healthcare to transgender students
In eighth assembly meeting, community concerns including requiring representatives to hold monthly office hours
Trans Care Team to provide hormone therapy, HIV prevention REMY FARKAS
Daily Staff Reporter
University Health Service announced a new service in the Trans Care Department called the Trans Care Team, which will provide hormone therapy for gender affirmation,
prescriptions to prevent HIV, and other services and resources for the University of Michigan transgender community. The team is a group of trained health care providers that provide advice and general care in addition to hormone therapy.
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UHS Care Manager Diana Parrish said the new Trans Care Team is comprised of health care providers who possess the knowledge and experience in caring for transgender and non-binary students. Prior to this specialized care team, insurance coverage and limited See RESEARCH, Page 3A
ABBY TAKAS
Daily Staff Reporter
The University of Michigan’s Central Student Government convened Tuesday night to complete an Intergroup Relations training, address community concerns, and confirm election results. The Program on Intergroup
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Relations, a social justice education program on campus, facilitates workshops for various clubs and organizations to teach participants about empathetic communication in a multicultural society. “Today’s training, common ground training, is critical to our success in helping CSG become more inclusive
Vol. CXXVIII, No.3 ©2018 The Michigan Daily
and ensuring that we better understand intersectionality and the role of identities in the policy work in efficacy we do,” CSG President Daniel Greene, a Public Policy senior, said. CSG also approved several new elected students at the meeting. Elizabeth Fakhoury, a See CSG, Page 2A
NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 ARTS......................6
SUDOKU.....................2 CLASSIFIEDS...............6 SPORTS....................7
News
2A — Wednesday, October 3, 2018
MONDAY: Looking at the Numbers
TUESDAY: By Design
WEDNESDAY: This Week in History
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THURSDAY: Twitter Talk
FRIDAY: Behind the Story
THIS WEEK IN HISTORY: VERDICT IN – DECISION COMES AFTER 4 HOURS, TO BE READ TODAY October 3, 1995 Los Angeles (AP) -- O.J Simpsons jurors stunned the courtroom and the nation yesterday by reaching verdict in the sensational eight-,o,nth murder trial in less than four hours. The decision was kept secret until today. Simpson, apparently as surprised as anyone by the swift resolution stood biting his lip as the 10 women and two men of the jury filed into court at 2:55 p.m. He stared at them but none looked his way and throughout the brief court session they kept their eyes on the judge.
The decision was announced as many Americans were just beginning to debate how many weeks the jurors might be out. Superior Court Judge Lance Ito said the verdict would be read today at 10 am PDT, allowing time for all attorneys and families to be there Among those missing from the courtroom yesterday were lead prosecutor Marcia Clark and chief defense attorneys Johnnie Cochran Jr. and Robert Shapiro. In announcing the startling news, Ito said his court clerk told him that the panel had made its decision.
I have to believe it. Its happening Nothing shocks me anymore.”
“Is that correct?” he asked. “Yes,” said the jury forewoman
Defense attorney F. Lee, who went to visit Simpson in jail late yesterday afternoon, said he was “delighted” by the timing.
There were gasps in the hushed courtroom. Lawyers on both sides seemed almost dazed. “Surprise doesn’t begin to describe my feelings. I am stunned at the speed,” defense attorney Carl Douglas said. Prosecutor Christopher Darden, asked if he could believe the rapid end to deliberations said, “I think
“No jury has ever convicted an innocent man this quickly,” he said confidently. Cochran, interviewed at the airport as he returned from an out-of-town trip, seemed less upbeat saying he was “cautiously optimistic.”
after jurors asked for and heard a repetition of testimony from a limousine driver that concerned the time when Simpson was picked up for a ride to the airport on the night of the two murders.
The jury forewoman also appeared a bit rattled asked for the verdict forms, she said she had signed them, placed them in an enveloped, sealed it and left them in the deliberation room.
Ito, who had sent jurors from the courtroom after the reading, seemed startled when three loud buzzes sounded in the courtroom, signaling jurors had reached verdicts. He was entertaining a group of visitors in the courtroom when they word came but quickly summoned lawyers and convened court with ona few reporters present.
Ito sent her to fetch the envelope which was then placed in the hands of the court bailiff and stored for safekeeping.
Read more at Michigan Daily Archives
The announcement came
ON THE DAILY: EL-SAYED, TLAIB ARRESTED IN FIGHT FOR $15 PROTEST KATHERINA SOURINE Daily Staff Reporter
At least 20 people were detained Tuesday in Detroit during the Fight for $15 rally, during which hundreds of employees, activists and leaders marched for union rights for fast food workers. The national Fight for $15 movement advocates for a raise in minimum wage to $15 per hour for fast food, airline, and childcare workers, among others. The protest aims to garner support for pro-union candidates in the November elections.
WXYZ reported among those arrested were former Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed and House of Representative candidate Rashida Tlaib, who is poised to become the first Muslim-American woman in Congress. Tlaib and El-Sayed were arrested after refusing to move from a table that was set in the middle of Woodward Street at the rally. According to Detroit Police Deputy Chief Elvin Barren, those arrested are to receive citations for disorderly conduct misdemeanors and court dates.
El-Sayed tweeted about the incident, explaining how corporations disproportionately distribute funding to CEOs and the protest cause is worth supporting. “They’re fighting for access for something as simple as the right to a fair wage for the work that they do, and if we’re not willing to put our own bodies on the line in service of that fight, then we have to ask ourselves whether or not the words mean anything,” El-Sayed said. “In the face of injustice, descent is dignity. And there’s a real responsibility we have to fight
against the system that works against so many people.” In a sister protest in Flint, Michigan Radio reported eight people were hospitalized after a man drove his truck into a group of protesters in the dark near a fast food restaurant. Flint Police Chief Tim Johnson said he didn’t believe the crash was intentional and described the driver as “shaken up” after the event. Michigan Gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer was at the rally in Flint, and expressed her remorse, saying she was “incredibly sad.”
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Editorial Staff PROPOSAL From Page 1A gain a partisan advantage. The commission will be comprised of four Democrats, four Republicans and five Independents or members of third-parties. Seven votes – including two Democrats, two Republicans and two Independents – are necessary for changing district lines. Grassroots organizations have been pushing for this ballot proposal for years, especially after a test by Bridge Magazine that found GOP candidates succeed in Michigan despite relatively equal support for both parties because of gerrymandered districts. In 2017, The Daily interviewed Rep. Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield), one of the supporters of the proposal, regarding his efforts to get the proposal into legislation. “It’s very complicated, and that’s by design,” Moss said. “We wanted to make sure that two people couldn’t collude and wind up on the commission together. Anyone who served as a partisan official, worked for
a partisan official, worked for a political party or was a major donor to a party or candidate.” The proposal has received support from Democrats throughout the state. Public Policy junior Katie Kelly, the communications director of the University of Michigan’s chapter of College Democrats, was supportive of the idea. She believes regardless of partisan disagreements, a commission will generation more just elections. “The current lines in Michigan are heavily skewed towards the Republican party and meant to lessen the influence that minority, female and young voters have in elections,” Kelly said. “In other states, the opposite is true. Regardless of the skew, we support this proposal because it would help to guarantee fair elections and allow all people to have a voice in their representation.” However, Kelly believes Democrats will face strong opposition on the issue, especially because Republicans heavily impacted by the passage of Proposal 2. “Even though this proposal would create an even playing
field for all candidates, Republicans will be pushing to keep the lines drawn the way they are now,” Kelly said. “Republicans stand to lose the most if the proposal is adopted, so I imagine there will be a lot of opposition messaging about the proposal being too complicated and saying that the commission is an undemocratic process, but neither of those are true. Michiganders are smart enough to know that when Republicans and Democrats get an almost equal amount of votes, there shouldn’t be such a skewed majority.” Republicans have indeed voiced their disapproval of Proposal 2. LSA Sophomore Dylan Berger, president of the University’s chapter of College Republicans, believes an appointed citizen commission would hurt the state of democracy within Michigan. “Currently, elected representatives of the people of Michigan work together to determine district lines,” Berger said. “If the people are unhappy with those lines, they have the ability to make their voice heard at the ballot box. If this proposal passes, those drawing the lines would be unelected bureaucrats accountable to no one … this ballot proposal would make our state government less transparent and less accountable.” Berger said he was
surprised the proposal made it through the court system and onto the ballot, but believed Michiganders would ultimately disapprove of it. “I thought the state Supreme Court would have struck this down when it came before them,” Berger said. “This ballot proposal seeks to fundamentally alters the government of Michigan. Something of that magnitude must be decided at a state constitutional convention. I do not think it will pass. The more the people of Michigan learn about this, the less likely they will be to support it.” On campus, not all students know the details of Proposal 2, but many still have strong opinions about gerrymandering. LSA freshman Eli Weaver believes gerrymandering is a practice both parties are guilty of, but said he feels the Republican Party has done more damage through gerrymandering. “I’m anti-gerrymandering,” Weaver said. “I’d call myself independent, but I’m probably more liberal. I know both sides do it (gerrymander), but I think it’s a lot more detrimental when the Republicans do it. I think they do it a lot more to segregate minorities, especially in southern states like North Carolina.” Proposal 2 will be decided upon on Nov. 6 during the 2018 midterm elections.
CSG From Page 1A Business senior, was approved as a justice for the Central Student Judiciary. Fakhoury has served on several undergraduate advisory boards and identified her ability to utilize this experience to become a mediator between students and the administration. Eric Wriston, a Public Policy senior, was approved as the undergraduate student representative for the Library Council. Wriston works for the University Library in the Human
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Resources Department working with student input, and has sat in on internal employee boards. He expressed his commitment to making the library resources more known, accessible and equitable to students. “Before I worked there I didn’t realize how many services they had, and I think that’s something a lot of students don’t know,” Wriston said. CSG also confirmed Taylor Lansey, an LSA sophomore, as vice president for the Student Organization Funding Committee. SOFC is the funding body of CSG’s executive commission and
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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University OF Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for September-April are $250 and year long subscriptions are $275. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid.
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CSG From Page 2A currently provides financial support to over 300 active student organizations. “It’s about rewarding the student orgs that come back to us … and see what impact their making,” said Lansey. CSG discussed a resolution to amend its current elections code, authored by Medical student Whit Froehlich and Law student Kevin Deutsch. During the CSG assembly held last week, the representatives addressed the concerns shaping their elections. The assembly established that CSG’s cannot prohibit these distinct separate parties from forming in elections However, to improve the state of elections within their purview, CSG approved several new guidelines. A separate Elections Court will be implemented to address future party-related concerns, failure to meet deadlines will be reprimanded, names on election ballots will be randomized rather than alphabetized and transparent campaign endorsements will be mandated. After the approval of this resolution, CSG continued its conversation on how to better its governing body. The student representatives discussed a resolution to implement a definition of “executive official,” which is
not included in the current CSG Constitution. Froehlich and Rackham student Sammi Meister proposed a resolution. “This lack of clarity hinders the President’s ability to staff the Executive branch,” the students wrote. In an effort to hear more student voices, CSG discussed a resolution to re-establish elected representative office hours. The author of the resolution, Benjamin Gerstein, an LSA sophomore, looked to the LSA and Rackham Student Governments’ policies to shape those of CSG. Both LSA SG and RSG require each elected representative to hold office hours to meet with their constituents, which has improved their respective reaches with the students they are representing. This resolution was passed and will now require CSG elected representatives to hold monthly office hours to speak with students and hear their opinions and perspectives. CSG plans to measure the effectiveness of their office hours by surveying both students who attended and the representatives. “Central Student Government’s . . . mission is to encourage student civic engagement, give voices to student concerns, and enhance student welfare and the Michigan experience for everyone,” Gerstein wrote.
PHYSICS From Page 1A
UNIONS From Page 1A
more than $1 million award with Donna Strickland, Canadian physicist and 2013 director of the Optical Society of America, while the other half was awarded to Arthur Ashkin, an affiliate of Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. Mourou and Strickland published an article in 1985 on their development of the chirped pulse amplification, a process that creates short and intense laser pulses through stretching and quickly compressing light matter. These pulses are now widely applied for the industrial and medical uses, including laser eye surgery. Ashkin received the award for his work developing optical tweezers that utilize laser light to maneuver tiny particles, such as viruses. At age 96, he is the oldest Nobel laureate. In a video statement released by Ecole Polytechnique, a top French college, Mourou explained the effects of their achievement. “It’s something that sort of never happens at this level. I am very, very happy to share this distinction with my former student Donna Strickland and also to share it with Art Ashkin, for whom I have a lot of respect … We invented a technique that made the laser extremely powerful. With the technology we have developed, laser power has been increased about a million times, maybe even a billion.” Strickland is the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in physics since Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963, who was awarded for her work in nuclear physics. The only other woman to receive this award was Marie Curie in 1903. In a interview with the academy after the award announcement, Strickland highlighted the importance of recognizing female physicists and their achievements. “Obviously we need to celebrate women physicists, because we’re out there,” Strickland said. “Hopefully in time it’ll start to move forward at a faster rate, maybe.” Michael Moloney, CEO of the American Institute of Physics, congratulated all of the laureates and expressed support of Strickland’s work and achievements. “It is also a personal delight to see Dr. Strickland break the 55-year hiatus since a woman has been awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, making this year’s award all the more historic.”
nurse at the University in 1984, said the main difference between previous strikes and the nurses’ current efforts, however, is communication. “Back then, because we didn’t have the same technology to be able to communicate that we have today, I don’t think we were as aware of what was going on at the bargaining table,” Jackson said. Armelagos said through the years UMPNC has worked to build a positive relationship with hospital administration, but over time, with the development of new bargaining techniques, the nurses’ relationship with the hospital has eroded. “We built the respect that got us interest-based bargaining,” Armelagos said. “We built the respect to work as equal partners with the University. (Interestbased bargaining) motivated the two parties to come together and work together.” Interest-based bargaining is a problem-solving approach during which the two parties jointly define the issues, brainstorm solutions and seek creative solutions that address shared interests. Unlike traditional bargaining, interestbased bargaining does not involve coercion, instead relying on both parties seeking to fulfill each other’s interests. Armelagos explained during negotiations between the nurses
RESOURCES From Page 1A transportation inhibited many students from receiving local health care services. “One clear solution was to have UHS offer these services,” Parish wrote in an email. “We’ve been working hard to design processes, train staff and make changes to the UHS environment (like gender-inclusive forms and bathrooms) in collaboration with CAPS, Spectrum Center and of course trans and nonbinary students themselves.” Parish said access to reliable health care can improve mental health and quality of life for transgender and nonbinary students. “These new UHS services are a very welcome addition to the network of support U-M is able to offer our trans and non-binary students,” Parish wrote. “Since we began advertising UHS Trans Care Services during Welcome Week, I have heard from many trans and non-binary students who are interested in learning more and scheduling appointments.” UHS physician Rachelle Wilcox described how the Trans Care Team will combat health disparities impacting members of the trans and nonbinary community experience due to marginalization, oppression and violence.
and the administration in 2001, 2004, 2008 and 2011, the University employed interestbased bargaining techniques. “The parties tried to understand and appreciate the other’s perspective,” Armelagos said. “If one side had a problem, the other side had one too.” Armelagos said the hospital owes its success to the unity that was developed between the nurses and the administration through interest-based bargaining. “That’s how we gained magnet status,” Armelagos said. “It was a dual partnership. When you have a strong union, nurses can stand up for their patients, but a strong union makes it more difficult for a corporate hospital. Our bottom line is the patients, the hospitals bottom line should be the patients. Make no mistake, now, there is a new regime in place that has no interest in an interest-based process.” One of the main differences Armelagos and Jackson cited in current negotiations was the hospital’s treatment of the nurses during the bargaining process. Jackson said it was particularly disheartening for nurses when they had to file an unfair labor charge. “This particular work stoppage vote is especially about how we were treated at the bargaining table,” Jackson said. The nurses filed the charge against Michigan Medicine for prohibiting them from wearing their red union shirts and pro-
Wednesday, October 3, 2018 — 3A
“We hope that offering accessible, affirming health care to our trans and nonbinary students will help complement the other services available to them through our campus partners and contribute to a culture of support and inclusion on campus,” Wilcox said. TransForm Tech Chair Jay Hash, an Engineering junior, said the new UHS services make transitioning more accessible for students. TransForm, an advocacy and support group for trans and non-gender conforming people, helps connect transgender students with resources. “For the people who want to pursue a medical transition, (the Trans Care Team) makes it much easier for them,” Hash said. “Making formal therapy accessible to trans people on campus is important because there are people coming from all over the world and all over the country so they might not have access to that … For people who think that hormone therapy is not an option at home, they can come to the University and get it here.” Hash said he will be transferring their medical care to UHS because it is more accessible. However, Hash is concerned the new services might pressure students, who may be uncertain of transitioning, to transition
because of its easy campus accessibility. “There are trans people who do not want to medically transition and it may put pressure on them; but for people who do, it is a very good service and is very helpful,” Hash said “Those who do not want to medically transition might feel pressure to do so because the University makes it possible.” LSA sophomore Jordan Furr, a transgender student, disagrees with the comment that this may add pressure for transgender students to transition. “It’s not like they are advertising for their team,” Furr said. “So in a way you only find out about them if you identify being trans and are looking for the resources. So anyone who already found them might want to transition.” Furr said he will be also shift his medical care from Detroit to UHS. He is glad UHS is becoming more trans-friendly but still feels the health services could be more sensitive to the trans community. Furr said UHS often uses the wrong names and pronouns, adding it would be helpful for the health services to be more conscientious, from receptionists to doctors. Furr was first directed to the Trans Care Team when he received a testosterone
prescription but did not know how to inject it. He said the health care providers were helpful and provided advice and resources. “I think that (the Trans Care Team) helps,” Furr said. “From talking to other people,
union buttons. Lecturers’ concerns While LEO, an organization representing nearly 1,700 nontenure track faculty members across the University’s three campuses, did not have to file an unfair labor charge Robinson believes LEO and the UMPNC represent similar issues at the University. “Both unions represent employees that are very oriented to the people they provide their services to,” Robinson said. “It’s very care-oriented work and there are a lot of overlapping interests between the two groups.” When LEO authorized a strike for April 9, they were bargaining with the University for salary increases. At the time, the minimum starting salary for a U-M lecturer was $34,500 in Ann Arbor, $28,300 in Dearborn and $27,300 in Flint. LEO asked the minimum be raised to $60,000 in Ann Arbor and $56,000 in Dearborn and Flint. After bargaining for months with the University when LEO’s contract expired May 29, LEO voted to ratify a new contract that included a significant salary increase. By September 2020, the minimum salary at which the University can hire lecturers will increase across the three campus. In Ann Arbor, the base salary will increase 47.8 percent from $34,500 to $51,000. In Flint, there will be a 50.2 percent increase from $27,300 to $41,000. Finally,
in Dearborn, the starting salary will increase 44.9 percent from $28,300 to $41,000. Robinson said LEO owes the success of its new contract to the imminent threat posed by work stoppage. “It (the impending strike) made a very big difference in the case of LEO,” Robinson said. “In fact, I would say that was the first time the administration began to take us seriously and bargaining began to move in the right direction.” Graduate students’ concerns Similarly, in April 2017 the Graduate Employee Organization, a union representing graduate student instructors and graduate student staff at the University, authorized a walkout in an effort to create paid positions and guarantee union protection for graduate students working on diversity programs as part of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plan. The University launched the five-year DEI plan in October 2016 to achieve a more diverse and equitable campus, which some have criticized for a lack of swift action. Current GEO President Emily Gauld said the union decided collective graduate student action was the only way to get the administration to take their concerns seriously. “Our walkout authorization showed we were willing to fight for it in a very real and tangible way,” Gauld said. “It showed the graduate students were willing to
take action to see the changes that we believe are necessary.” While University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald was unable to comment on negotiations with the UMPNC as the nurses are still voting on the contract, he said the University does not make bargaining decisions based on threats. “The university does not believe a strike or the threat of a strike is necessary to move the negotiations toward a settlement,” Fitzgerald wrote in an email interview. “We also do not believe a strike or the threat of a strike influences the final, negotiated settlement. We also need to point out that under state law, labor strikes by public employees are prohibited.” Much as the UMPNC and LEO reached a tentative agreement shortly after the strike authorizations, Gauld says GEO reached a tentative agreement the day before the walkout was set to take place. Ultimately, Gauld said the number of walkout authorizations that have occurred over the course of two years is a positive sign for unions at the University. “It is really exciting to see increased labor organization,” Gauld said. “The strength of unions is increasing, especially at the University of Michigan. Unions are becoming more united even in the face of institutions that seek to divide unions and I think that is powerful.”
“These new UHS services are a very welcome addition to the network of support U-M is able to offer our trans and nonbinary students,”
I know it’s a good resource. I know another guy who is doing it, and my friend sees one of the doctors and they are all really nice, understanding and accepting, and it’s important because if we are paying so much to go here we should at least have doctors that know what they are doing.”
R E V E L E R S AT T H E A R K
AARON BAKER/Daily The Revelers, a Louisiana music group that mixes a variety of southern styles, performs at the Ark Tuesday night.
Opinion
4A — Wednesday, October 3, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
AMANDA ZHANG | COLUMN
Sorority rush institutionalizes sexism
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ERIN WHITE | COLUMN
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Diversity is a continuous fight
he 2018 Emmy Awards aired on Sept. 17, 2018 and made history with the most diverse group of nominees ever. Twenty percent more non-white actors were nominated this year than last, with 36 nominations going to people of color. These figures brought many inside and outside of the Hollywood community hope for a positive trend toward inclusion and representation. There were some significant wins, with three people of color awarded for the categories Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series (Regina King), Outstanding Supporting Actress (Thandie Newton) and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series (Darren Criss — a University of Michigan alum who is half-Filipino, though does not directly identify as Asian American). Presented a week before at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards Show, all four guest actor categories were won by African American actors: Tiffany Haddish, Ron Cephas Jones, Samira Wiley and Katt Williams. These wins are significant, deserving and promising. The increased diversity is definitely something to be celebrating. However, as the Emmys progressed, it became clear this great increase in nomination did not directly equate to winning. At the Primetime Emmy Awards, which are covered vastly more than the Creative Arts Emmys, the three wins listed above were the only people of color award recipients of the night. People of color found themselves all over the presentation stage, though, and the night was filled with diversity-fueled commentary by hosts and guests alike. This made the disparity even more obvious. The talent and performances of white winners were laudable, but the need to focus on the everprominent issue of inclusion and then have a show that scarcely recognizes the talent of diverse actors feels like positive dialogue
with limited action. The push for greater diversity in Hollywood became especially popular in the wake of the 2015 and 2016 Oscar Awards when no Black actors received nominations. This started the popular social media movement #OscarsSoWhite, which has been transferred to Hollywood as a whole, targeting other celebrations and recognition shows like the Emmys. Since the growth of discussion surrounding the topic of Hollywood inclusion, diversity has become prominent in the awards presentation writing, as made evident by the many jokes and two significant sketches in this year’s Emmys. Kenan Thompson and Kate McKinnon, later joined by Sterling K. Brown, Tituss Burgess, Kristen Bell, Ricky Martin, RuPaul and John Legend, led a musical number titled “We Solved It.” It functions as a reference to diversity but also takes tackles sexual assault in the midst of the #MeToo movement. Thompson and McKinnon congratulate the Emmys for having the greatest amount of nomination diversity ever but go on to sarcastically respond to those who have championed this fact as a signal of the end of the fight. The sketch opened an important dialogue about victories, explaining these advancements are vital and should be celebrated, but do not indicate the end of the battle. Michael Che, who co-hosted with Colin Jost, also presented a pre-taped sketch titled “Reparation Emmys,” where he presented Emmys to African American actors who he felt should be recognized for their past work. This bit included Marla Gibbs from “The Jeffersons,” Jimmie Walker from “Good Times,” Kadeem Hardison from “A Different World” and other prominent Black actors. This was another timely sketch that highlighted the lack of recognition of diverse talent in the past, which can
be easily translated into our improving, yet struggling, culture of inclusion. The need to support art is crucial to our culture, but the art that we see does not always match what real life is. As a white woman, I have always had my story told. I have seen examples of people like me and been able to model myself after the plethora of women who paved the way in film, television and the media. But there are so many other stories that need to be told. Representation matters to people. The Michigan Daily had two wonderful pieces published this fall in the wake of popular films “To All the Boys I Loved Before” and “Crazy Rich Asians” that discuss the issue of representation in a more authentic light. Amanda Zhang’s “More than just a teen romance” and Chelsea Racelis’ “So sayang: A mother & daughter’s review of Crazy Rich Asians” describe what representation means and should look like better than I ever could. But what I do know is everybody deserves to see their identity and culture in the media, and the actors and executives who make that happen deserve recognition for their work. Though the conversation about diversity is reaching peak levels, the issue of inclusion is far from solved. The growing tension about the topic is important and the continual dialogue about increasing diversity and representation is significant, but the small gains do not mean that we can or should stop fighting for more. Since the birth of celebrity culture 100 years ago, there has been institutionalized discrimination and the talent of people of color has not been recognized. This is an issue for our entire society. The system is not going to be fixed in a few awards seasons. Make diversity a priority and keep fighting. Erin White can be reached at ekwhite@umich.edu
OLIVIA TURANO | OP-ED
I
Why believing women matters
watched psychologist Christine Blasey Ford testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in awe of her courage, patriotism, sacrifice, trauma and tragedy. Of all the things said and done throughout the two days of proceedings, one thing struck me most of all: She was 15 when Brett Kavanaugh locked her in a room and assaulted her, covering her mouth so she could not scream for help. My sister is 15. As I listened to Ford recount the horrific incident of 36 years ago, my breath caught in my throat as I tried to wrap my mind around this happening to someone my sister’s age — of this happening to my sister. My sister is passionate and strongwilled, with stronger and more eloquently expressed opinions than a great deal of my peers four years elder and more educated. She is hilarious and vibrant. She is unapologetically and unequivocally herself. She is extraordinarily kind, compassionate and thoughtful. I think if you asked her to describe herself, feminist would be high on her list — and rightly so. She, too, is brimming with opinions and outrage about these proceedings. But my most principal thought throughout the proceedings was that this could happen to her.
Watching Ford discuss the assault she endured and the trauma that follows her to this day, I thought of my sister. Ford struggled for years with friendships and academics. She has two front doors due to the claustrophobia that resulted from her assault. Unaddressed and undiscussed but, I think, wholly relevant and uncoincidentally, as a survivor of sexual assault with lasting mental health implications, she has dedicated her life to the study of psychology. Ford’s sexual assault changed her life. It changed who she is as a person in countless, immeasurable ways. At such an integral point in adolescence and development, she was forever changed because she was sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh. At such a pivotal age — 15 — my sister is different and more mature every time I come home from school. One of my most miraculous and rewarding experiences has been witnessing my sister become the young woman she is, and it blows my mind to think about how much she has changed. I am powerless in her protection against such a vicious act, and can only hope and pray to a divine power I don’t believe in that she will be able to continue to grow and flourish without anything like
this happening to her. But it could happen to her. It could happen to anyone. Currently, sexual violence will happen to one in three women in her lifetime. One in four women will be sexually abused before they turn 18. With Kavanaugh, with Brock Turner, with men who stand accused of sexual assault, we hear that they are “just boys.” That these accusations will ruin their reputations and lives. That it happened 36 years ago. Accused perpetrators of sexual violence have a tendency to use the plights they go through as a result of their committed assaults to turn themselves into victims. More often than not, society allows it. But what about the women? Ford was just a girl. For her and many other victims of sexual assault, their lives are ruined from the moment these “boys” feel entitled to treat women as objects for their own pleasure. Women are faulted for not reporting incidents and not being believed when they do report them. They are confined to silent victimhood, their lives forever altered, in a society that time and time again believes men.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com Olivia Turano is an LSA Junior
T
oo often women neglect the sexism we ourselves propagate. It is easy to blame day-to-day adversities on the patriarchy when it is such an obvious source of culpability. From people like Harvey Weinstein and Brett Kavanaugh to issues like the wage gap and paid maternity leave, it seems as though the news cycle is teeming with examples of powerful men suppressing women’s freedom and autonomy. While these stories are undoubtedly important and justifiably attention-grabbing, they often overshadow other smaller, but nevertheless profound sources of sexism — those not at the hands of power-seeking men but instead at the hands of fellow women. Recently, an anonymously written document began circulating around campus in which a former Universit y of Michigan student describes her experience as the sororit y recruitment chair. She shares intimate details of her chapter’s archaic and impossible standards for acceptance and outlines specif ic implementations including “Chapter Scores” and “Coffee Dates” used to judge potential new members and pledges. Perhaps most troubling, but also least surprising, is the conf idential rating system described in the document which supposedly measures how well a potential new member “f its” in the sororit y. A system in which g irls are reduced to a sing ular number is deg rading in itself, but it is the criterion by which sororit y sisters assig n these ratings that are especially disturbing. In this unnamed chapter, recruits are rated based on whether they remind the sisters of a current sororit y member. This policy is extremely reg ressive and problematic. While not explicitly stated, the recruitment process essentially boils down to g irls judg ing other g irls in order to preser ve traditional standards of femininit y.
At its core, sororities exist to build community. For some, they make a school of nearly 40,000 students seem a little less intimidating. For others, they offer a sense of community and pride. But, as reflected in this anonymous exposé, the rush process can also be a breeding ground for toxic expectations that warp girls’ sense of confidence and self-worth. Regardless of how daintily it is phrased, sorority recruitment is a game of conformity. The adversities women face in society usually boil down to the inability to recognize women as complex beings; the sorority recruitment process embodies this principle despite the fact that it is entirely managed by females.
Sorority recruitment reduces girls to onedimensional beings
With just a few five-minute conversations, new recruits are judged, assigned a value and passed on to the next house. On the recruit’s side, this experience is incredibly daunting. With just a few minutes, she must be confident and affable, but most of all memorable. On the other side, sorority sisters must sort through hundreds of girls and decide who will receive a bid based on just a few brief memories and superficial details. In the field of psychology, there is a phenomenon called the halo effect. It is a cognitive bias in which a single trait — such as one’s physical attractiveness — affects the overall perception of the person. Rushing a sorority is like the halo effect on steroids. It is impossible to fairly gauge anyone’s “fit” during the Greek life recruitment process, so, naturally, outward appearance is equated with social worth, while more telling qualities take a back seat. Whether sororities
measure the value of these girls based on a numerical system or not is almost irrelevant. One way or another, they must decide who to accept and who to turn away in a painfully short time span. The only way to do this is to participate in oversimplified and often sexist profiling. Among the thousands who have participated in the Greek life recruitment process are girls with a wealth of different aesthetics, backgrounds and interests. It is these nuances that define who we are. It is these nuances that determine where we truly “fit.” But, when fall comes around, new recruits assemble by the hundreds to assume their most traditionally feminine selves, tucking away their most salient qualities in the process. We are all entitled to our own identities. We are allowed to be as classically feminine as we want to be. We can like dresses and makeup and cute tailgate outfits. But when we assign expectations and social values to others based on our own perceptions of femininity, we give rise to the same sexism we face in the workplace, academia and general society. Sorority recruitment institutionalizes this sexism. Not only does it reduce girls to one-dimensional beings, but it also perpetuates the concept of an “ideal” woman, favoring traditional beauty over its more unconventional forms. Feminism is not as simple as just standing up to the patriarchy. Achieving gender equality in greater society begins with believing in it ourselves. Girls, especially those in sororities, need to support each other, but too often it is the opposite that occurs. Too often we reduce our fellow women to simpler beings and are quick to judge each other based on our differences. Sororities and women, in general, need to hold ourselves to a higher standard. We are interesting Amanda Zhang can be reached at amanzhan@umich.edu
HANK MINOR| COLUMN
A
Embrace the nuclear option
ny contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 should support packing the Supreme Court — that is, voting to expand the maximum number of seats so the president can confirm a liberal majority. Yes, moderate liberals will wring their hands and grieve yet again the death of civility, but they’ll forget with time. Especially on the national level, where news outlets breathlessly report news with unsettling dramatic flair, the average liberal is frustratingly gullible. President George W. Bush gives Michelle Obama a piece of hard candy and suddenly he’s a sweet old man who likes to paint, not a two-term president who initiated war in Iraq and systemic torture at “black site” prisons. That’s beside the point, though. There are risks to nominating extreme candidates, but presidential elections have functioned in a fundamentally different way from House of Representatives and Senate elections for some time now. Throughout 2015 and the first months of 2016, Republican commentators bleated at their party’s primary voters to choose someone other than Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, both personally repellant extremists. A few months later, many were on the Trump train — by summer, those who wavered at all in their support for the nominee were outcasts. Moderates and partyleaning centrists always bend the knee, if you manage to sufficiently beat them first and especially if your candidate is an inspirational, larger-than-life figure like Barack Obama or Trump. #TheResistance has been kindling liberal outrage against Trump since Nov. 9, 2016, and the Democratic Party’s 2020 strategy is almost guaranteed to be focused on many people’s personal disgust with the president. Packing the Supreme Court would just be another manifestation of this
strategy; I don’t see why it has to be considered especially shocking or extreme. If Trump (and his Supreme Court nominees, whoever they end up being) are as dangerous as we’re told day in and day out, it seems reasonable to me that the countermeasures be proportional. The virtue of bipartisanship is a vestige of the mid-20th century, when the Democratic Party maintained unbroken control over the House for 40 years. A substantial portion of their members were Southern conservatives; reaching across the aisle was necessary for Congress to accomplish anything, given that both parties (but especially the Democratic Party) were fractured ideologically by geography and race. The sorting (and subsequent decline of bipartisanship) that has occurred in recent years isn’t an affirmation or violation of some abstract moral code, it’s just a political phenomena. A serious issue is that Trump is certain to confirm a five-justice majority on the court, and given the health of some liberal justices – Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Breyer – he might further increase that majority. Any Democratic president —whether they win in 2020, 2024 or later— doesn’t just need power in the House and Senate, they need their legislation to survive legal challenges. The Affordable Care Act nearly died in the Supreme Court, and it was just a watered-down version of a Heritage Foundation plan supported by former Presidential nominee Mitt Romney. If a Democratic government were to implement some kind of public option or Medicare expansion, what’s to stop the solidly conservative Supreme Court from striking it down? If a Democratic government tried to repair voting rights, implement countermeasures against gerrymandering or revitalize worker’s rights, what’s to stop five conservatives on the court from neutralizing it? One suggested difficulty with breaking the norms that keep the current number of Supreme Court
seats at nine — though there have been greater and fewer in the past — is that when the Republican Party takes power again, it will likewise pack the court with party loyalists. One can see how this easily spirals so the Supreme Court shrugs off its last threads of partisan neutrality and becomes an openly political institution. This strikes me as useful, though — part of the appeal of court packing is that it would accelerate the collapse and reform of an institution already in the first stages of decay. The delay of former Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland’s confirmation was one violation; the removal of the Senate filibuster on Supreme Court nominees was another. Norms about the Supreme Court are already falling apart to the benefit of Republicans — in steadfastly maintaining faith, Democrats welcome their own defeat. Mistakes have already been made — Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer should have both stepped aside for younger replacements in 2013, when Democrats still held the Senate. Lifetime appointment, though, encourages every justice to cling to his or her seat for as long as possible, and now concerned liberals have to engage in macabre speculation about whether Ginsburg can stave off death long enough for a Democrat to win the presidency in 2020. The Supreme Court as it exists is unwieldy, arcane and filled with negative incentives — the start of a solution is to pack the courts. When Democrats venerate tradition and trust in the unwillingness of their opponents to violate norms, they don’t just risk losing a partisan game, they risk the overturn of policy protecting basic American freedoms. Any Democratic candidate for president should be willing to endorse a strategy of packing the court.
Hank Minor can be reached at hminor@umich.edu
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
STYLE NOTEBOOK
Wednesday, October 3, 2018 — 5A
to a throbbing techno beat, about as enthused as a crew of high school stoners forced to attend a pep rally. Objectively, everything looked fine, but this was not the Celine anybody knew or loved. It was simply Slimane, doing as he has always done. Why was Hedi being Hedi suddenly offensive in this context? For starters, he entered a 73-year-old company with no regard for the legacy left by his predecessors, opting instead to mansplain his way through the Celine name, both literally by removing the accent, posthumously stripping founder Céline Vipiana of her power, and figuratively through his stale designs. Slimane doesn’t care what the 2018 Celine woman wants, or that what was cool CELINE in his Saint Laurent days can be interpreted completely differently in the present political climate. Philo’s Celine was a tribute to the wants and needs of a customer she deeply understood. Here was an overzealous, privileged man throwing that all by the wayside, shamelessly using his resources and clout to push forward a problematic agenda. of Celine had to offer. Sounds an awful lot like It offered nothing. Though Slimane unleashed a certain Supreme Court a whopping 96 looks for his nominee. It’s a shame that an attempt inaugural collection, not one showed visible recognition to dismantle Philo’s legacy of the house’s past. Rather happened in tandem with Kavanaugh hearings, than acknowledge any aspect the of Celine’s rich, matriarchal but the parallels were clear heritage, Slimane used the as day. Tweet after tweet, platform it gave him to pay thinkpiece after thinkpiece, homage to himself. Look has considered the collection number one, a shoulder- within a feminist framework. bearing, polka dot shift with Leandra Medine, founder of a massive bow motif, was the fashion blog Man Repeller, reminiscent of the heart- titled her melancholic review It Matters When shaped cape he designed in “Why 2016. Sharp-shouldered suit Designers Ignore What Women jackets and tapered slacks Want.” Fashion journalist reproduced Saint Laurent’s Booth Moore went so far as favored menswear silhouette. to brand Slimane “the Donald Skirts were short. Boots Trump of fashion” in a recent were made of black leather, article for The Hollywood accented with buckles Reporter. “To some people for whom and zippers. Sequins and sunglasses abound. Models buying a $4000 coat designed stomped through the venue by a woman was somehow
When Celine met Kananaugh: Does nobody care about women in 2018? TESS GARCIA Daily Style Editor
I am in a group chat with two of my fellow fashion enthusiast friends. Despite harboring interest in what’s consistently touted as a shallow industry, each of us is an avid believer in the intersection of the personal and the political. We’re also all staunch Democrats. When Dr. Christine Blasey Ford took the stand last Thursday to testify against Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee who she says sexually assaulted her, we stopped what we were doing and tuned in from our respective locations. Every time the Senate Judiciary Committee called for a break, we reconvened via text message. Through our discussion of Ford’s remarkable composure and Kavanaugh’s boyish temper, one particular comment shone through. “I can’t imagine being at Paris Fashion Week right now,” one of my friends wrote. “With all of this happening, the shows seem so unimportant.” At the time, I felt the same sense of disdain for the fashion set, those I would have admired in any other circumstance. “I couldn’t agree more,” I replied without a second thought. Clothes were significant in their own right, but nothing they could convey was worth shifting my attention away from the American political sphere, even for a moment. The very next day, I was proven wrong. On Friday, Sept. 28, day five of Paris Fashion Week’s Spring-Summer 2019 season, Hedi Slimane sent his debut collection for Celine down the runway. Everything about it was cold, hard evidence for fashion’s role in representing a singular moment within the global moral landscape. In this case, that moment was sad, demeaning and, in the eyes of some, downright hopeless. Slimane served as creative director at Saint Laurent from 2012 to 2016. He is often lauded as the brains behind the house’s revival; he introduced an epoch of heroin-chic, allblack-everything, sending emaciated rocker boys and girls down catwalks season after season, outfitting them in minidresses, trim leather jackets and Chelsea boots emblazoned with glittering stars. During Slimane’s tenure, Saint Laurent embodied an unattainable effortlessness that made the fashion industry swoon. After his first few collections at the label, the consensus rang out: This would be known as the era of the tasteful ’90s resurgence, of club kids with legs like baby deer and cigarettes poking through plump crimson lips. The United States political climate was perfectly poised to embrace Slimane’s Saint Laurent. These were the days of the Obama administration and the rise of Instagram stars like Emily Ratajkowski, whose simultaneous sex appeal and political activism proved to
the American public that the human body could serve as a platform for liberation. It made perfect sense, then, that Slimane would choose to relocate the brand’s operations to sunny LA, where critics and admirers alike expected him to grow Saint Laurent for years to come. But nothing in fashion is ever that simple. On Apr. 4, 2016, just two years after the move to Los Angeles, Saint Laurent announced that Slimane would be leaving the house, succeeded by former Versus Versace designer Anthony Vaccarello, who promptly began a quest toward maintaining the brand’s reputation as the go-to atelier for those who live fast, die young and have the means
Though Slimane unleashed a whopping 96 looks for his inaugural collection, not one showed visible recognition of the house’s past. Rather than acknowledge any aspect of Celine’s rich, matriarchal heritage, Slimane used the platform it gave him to pay homage to himself
to shop designer. Meanwhile, the switch left Slimane in fashion’s no-man’s-land of designers departed, joined by the likes of Alber Elbaz, former creative director of Lanvin, and Peter Copping, the successor to Oscar De La Renta at his eponymous label. Saint Laurent’s switcheroo was no doubt dramatic, but it was nothing compared to the tail end of 2016, when the fashion industry experienced what may have been its most seismic shift in recent history: Phoebe Philo, the illusive creative director of Céline, would be stepping down after nearly a decade at the Parisian label’s helm. Worn and adored by everyone from the Kardashians to the women of Wall Street, Phoebe Philo’s Céline was smart over everything else, equal parts aesthetic and function. Her tenure turned the brand into a reigning authority on garments made by a real-life woman, for real-life women (albeit rich ones). The “glove shoes” from her spring-summer 2015 collection balanced the
grandeur of a chunky block heel with the security and ease of a ballet f lat. Season after season, her slip dresses landed impeccably on the curves of every body, offering wearers a glimpse into a world in which beauty was truly effortless. She redefined the “it” bag with the inimitable Luggage tote. She ushered older women back into the fashion spotlight when she cast author Joan Didion, then 80 years old, in a 2015 eyewear campaign. Everything Philo rolled out felt intimate and relatable, perhaps due in part to the fact that, after convincing parent company LVMH to build a studio for Céline in her native London, she essentially worked from home. According to notorious fashion journalist Cathy Horyn, Philo was known for her insistence that “all her design choices were personal.” When dreaming up a collection, she took not only her own artistic vision into account but expressed concern for how her garments would fit into the lives of those who wore them. Whether such consideration was conscious is not the point; it happened, and it revolutionized the way the 21st century woman wears her clothes. “Look around this winter, on subways and buses — wherever there’s a woman in a camel coat, gray pants, and white boots — that’s Phoebe Philo who did that,” wrote Sarah Mower, Chief Critic for Vogue. com, in an article following news of the departure. “Even if the wearers have never heard of Céline, it was Philo who put together the uniform which holds working women together today.” Who could replace a woman of such stature, so acutely in-tune with the modern meaning of femininity? On Jan. 21, 2018, LVMH officially appointed Slimane as artistic, creative and image director of Céline, along with announcing that the label would be extending its reach into menswear. The proclamation was met with a healthy mix of excitement and apprehension from fashion’s best and brightest. Why enlist Slimane, purveyor of bourgeois glamour, to follow up one of the greatest minimalists fashion has ever seen? Why add menswear to a brand known for its resonance with women across contexts? Writer Haley Mlotek said it best in an interview for Fashion Magazine: “I don’t think the next designer of Céline had to be a woman necessarily, but I had hoped it would be someone with a demonstrated interest in making what women wanted.” After months of anticipation fueled by media buzz and a shiny new logo — Slimane dropped the accent, rebranding as “Celine” — it came time for fashion’s favorite bad boy to present his latest venture to the world. Last Friday, hordes of industry insiders and Slimane’s closest pals (read: Lady Gaga) gathered at the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris, eager to absorb, or perhaps to judge, what the reimagination
perceived to be a feminist act, the storyline may be familiar: rob a female of a job she seemed perfect for, and replace her with a man who burns down the house,” Moore wrote. “You almost have to wonder if LVMH, seeing the contentious landscape before them, knew this.” Clearly, Dr. Ford’s testimony deserved more attention than Paris Fashion Week, but consider this: As we watched a posse of archaic senators dismiss a woman’s recounting of her assault, a Parisian clothier once viewed as the pinnacle of female empowerment was turned into a parade of white-washed models clad in slinky numbers remarkable only for their exposure of thighs. Fashion is political. Nothing is coincidence. Both the Kavanaugh hearings and Slimane’s tone-deaf Celine debut are signs of the times. We are living in the age of pervasive disregard for women’s experiences, whether they come in the form of artistic achievements or searing trauma. “Ultimately, the clothes at Celine are a continuation of what Slimane was doing at Saint Laurent — a style that proved to be lucrative for the house,” wrote Robin Givhan in her review for The Washington Post. “During his tenure there, Slimane generated doubledigit, year-to-year growth. But nearly two years have passed since Slimane left Saint Laurent. In that short time, the fashion industry has changed and so has the broader culture.” Hedi Slimane needs to wake up and smell the postapocalyptic roses. Like many of our current decisionmakers in American politics, he has soiled a sense of female liberation that generations of women have worked tirelessly to build up. The worst part? Like Kavanaugh, Slimane is either lying or has no recollection of the harm he’s done.
BOOK REVIEW
Anger becomes activism in ‘Rage Becomes Her’ assault accusations this week, every inch of my skin Daily Arts Writer is crawling. The hierarchy of superiority and privilege that coddles white men in power I grew up in a world where from facing the repercussions women were socialized to be of their actions is infuriating, silent and polite, to not speak to say the least. But more than too much or too loudly. I grew the inclination of Kavanaugh, up thinking that I too needed the president and multiple to close my legs, my lips and other male senators to ridicule and doubt Dr. consequently my Christine Blasey emotions too. I Ford sheds light thought it was on the stomachjust a “me” thing, wrenching that I suppressed victim-blaming my emotions. My that permeates anxiety and anger our political were internalized Soraya Chemaly culture. People rather than often don’t expressed. Atria Books want to accept Clenching my Sept. 11, 2018 the world and teeth as I slept, their place in it clenching my so instead they wrists as I paced “up the ante on back and forth in a torrential downpour of gaslighting, victim blaming thoughts. Everything was ... and adamantly defending status quo.” These constrained inward and no the worries, no frustrations, no manipulative tactics often emotion were let out. I was shame and silence victims angry. I have always been of assault who may take angry. I just never knew what years gathering the courage to publically speak on such to do about it. Reading Soraya Chemaly’s personally disturbing topics. Dr. Ford’s hearing echoes “Rage Becomes Her” was far more than a sign of relief — it the 1991 Anita Hill case against was enlightening, insightful Clarence Thomas, in which she but mostly enraging. Does it boldly confronted an all-white, not bring you to tears that “in all-male council of senators the United States a person is and had her credibility torn to sexually assaulted every two shreds. Anita Hill was never minutes,” a majority of which heard then, and Dr. Ford is are women? Or that “ ... 32,000 definitely not being heard US women” are impregnated now. By not believing women through rape each year? Or and victims of assault, we are that fewer than three percent not only taking away their of rapists are ever prosecuted? voice, but also suppressing Because it turns my blood to their humanity. And this is something worth getting high heat. This book could not have angry about. If movements like #MeToo come out at a more pertinent time given today’s political or #TimesUp have made men climate. With the hearing for feel vulnerable or attacked Brett Kavanaugh’s multiple by the women who decided TESSA ROSE
“Rage Becomes Her”
it was their turn to speak the truth, then, in the words of Chemaly, “Welcome to our world.” I will never be sorry that Kavanaugh’s “family honor” and reputation have received a two-week bad report card when his actions have demolished the life, mental health and psyche of the women he assaulted. Nothing will ever equate to the years of pain and trauma these victims endure, or the number of “dick pics, cannibalistic rape porn, racist gore” and even death threats that get sent to women who come forward about their assault. Too many people are focused on safeguarding the “honor” and prosperity of men rather than valuing the rights and dignity of women. “Rage Becomes Her” provides more than fumefilled statistics — it is a selfhelp manual for transforming rage into action that will have lasting political and social implications. Some tips I find helpful for dealing with personal (or political) anger are cultivating communities, developing self-awareness and challenging binaries, among others. No more standing aside, allowing power-hungry men to silence the voices of women and assault victims alike. Revise your anger to make it something you embrace, a tool that pushes you forward into the world with wisdom, passion and freedom. In Chemaly’s words, “Anger is the demand of accountability. It is evaluation, judgment and refutation. It is ref lective, visionary and participatory. It’s a speech act, a social statement, an intention and a purpose.” I am a woman, and I am liberated by my rage. You should be too.
Arts
6A — Wednesday, October 3, 2018
DAILY COMEDY COLUMN
Stand up & sit down Stand-up is to the comedy industry as PornHub is to the pornography industry: You need to sift through a lot of shit to get to the good stuff and it’s mostly watched and performed by straight, white men. Like porn, if you want to get into the industry, you have to learn from the best. And in my foolish and curious eyes, I got the Playboy of comedy internships. I would be working at the best comedy club in New York City (which, for the sake of this article, I will just call “The Club”). My internship at The Club was unpaid, of course, but the opportunity of a lifetime. The red-carpeted halls were filled with signed portraits of some of the biggest names in comedy, from Ellen DeGeneres to Dave Chappelle to Jimmy Fallon. I was in comedy heaven. My first day on the job, I arrived at The Club in my Gilda Radner T-Shirt ready to take on the world and start my plot for comedic domination. I was now working at The Club. I could hang out with famous comedians every night. I could live marvelously like Midge Maisel. I could get free drinks and have running bits with the bartender Kenny. I snapped out of my daydream with a call from my boss, Randy. I told him I was waiting at the club eagerly. He kind of chuckled when he said, “I’m not there, I’m in Washington Heights, that’s where I work. Come here to Washington Heights, a full hour subway away from The Club.” So, I trekked to Washington Heights to what I presumed would be a cheap office building filled to the brim with comedians throwing jokes at each other and playing mini basketball with crumpled paper balls. Alas, when Randy opened the door I discovered that his “office” was a closet-like room in his tiny apartment. His office looked more like a serial killer’s hideout than a comedy club director’s. The walls were covered in post-its scribbled with odd things like “money ideas” and “funny one-liners.” A small IKEA desk was shoved in the corner by the radiator, topped with an outdated Dell computer that hummed like my grandmother’s washing machine. The floor was covered with cardboard boxes overflowing with papers and stacks of books on everything from comedy to bitcoin. In a swivel chair lined with an orthotics insert sat Randy, an overweight, washed-up, failed comedian in black sweatpants, a striped polo and Costco slippers. He resembled what Jerry Seinfeld might look like if he let himself go or a Jewish Louis C.K. He didn’t look me in the eye, only motioned me to join him in the un-airconditioned “office.” The only place to sit was a small foot stool next to his desk.
I sat below him, like a shoeshine at a train station. In a longwinded speech that included two poor Christopher Walken impressions, four D-list celebrity name drops, three uncomfortable Harvey Weinstein jokes and six digressions involving soup, Randy instructed me on my extensive intern responsibilities. I would craft, respond and forward emails all goddamn day. Randy
BECKY PORTMAN firmly believed that the more emails he sent, the more likely people would attend shows and stand-up classes. Through the emails I sent while Randy was loudly meditating in his bedroom just three feet away, I discovered there were more people like me, more interns. There was actually a group of five boys gathered at a Marriott downtown doing work for Randy. They were working in the hotel lobby because Randy didn’t allow boys in his house for the sake of his eight-yearold daughter. Therefore, he only allowed the six female interns to work in his office, where we performed all the secretarial duties expected of comedy interns. Meanwhile, the boys at the Marriott were writing and pitching jokes to Randy to be used in comedy roasts and classes. And they said misogyny was dead, or was it chivalry? You’d think, Dear Reader, at this point I’d haul my ass far away from this sexist abuser of free labor. Alas, for weeks I continued to stick it out thinking that this is what comedy was. This was my ticket to success. This was how I would finally get to hug Tina Fey. We would get into The Club on Thursday nights for free if we brought enough people. Randy was always asking us to bring people to shows, sending us email after email to bring our lovers, friends and family with the promise of one day performing ourselves in front a crowd at The Club. I brought every friend I had in New York, of which there were few, in hopes of getting a spot on The Club stage. Every Thursday, I sat in the same spot with the other interns and Randy, drinking mediocre beer watching mediocre comics tell mediocre jokes. The same scrawny white guys, usually named Paul or John or Joe, got up every week making
the same jokes about their penises and the women who didn’t want to have sex with them. They all mocked “kids these days” and how political correctness has made this generation weak, reminding the audience that maybe it wasn’t all that bad to beat your kids in the first place. They were racist and homophobic and Islamophobic and sexist and, naturally, not funny. I went back, every week, hoping maybe one female comedian would get up and remind me why I wanted to do this in the first place. That female comedian was Gina Yashere (“The Stand Ups”). It was the first time I genuinely laughed all summer. Her routine was honest and hilarious. She shared everything from her mother’s anxieties to her struggles as a gay woman of color in comedy. After Gina, there was Taylor Tomlinson (“The Comedy Lineup”) whose self-deprecating humor and hilarious anecdotes about being a young female comedian resonated deeply with me and my struggles in comedy. Gina and Taylor and the dream of performing in front of a paying audience at a place as prestigious as The Club kept me going, reminding me why I wanted this internship in the first place. Still, as the summer droned on, Randy’s empty promises proved fruitless. And the Pauls and Johns and Joes kept coming back, leaving the Ginas and Taylors quite literally in the dark. It was then I decided to jump ship, leave Randy’s dingyass apartment and never look back. While the internship was not exactly what I expected or hoped it would be, it taught me the importance of getting out of something that doesn’t feel right. Whether it’s an icky feeling in the pit of your stomach or just a hunch that something isn’t right, that feeling is valid and important. I certainly learned some things about comedy while working at The Club. Firstly, straight, white men will always think they are funny, even if a silent crowd and 10 years of failure prove otherwise. Secondly, stand-up comedy is a science. After seeing the same comedians experiment with the same material night after night, I noticed the ways they tailored and altered their performances based on responses from the crowd. Stand-up is also an art, and like any art, it takes time and practice and loads of repetition. Thirdly, the representation of women and people of color in the world of stand-up comedy, both on stage and in the crowd, is abysmal. We have to do better. Still, Dear Reader, after all that, I’m committed to trying to make it in the wild, wild west of the comedy industry, no matter how many Pauls, Johns, Joes or Randys try to stand in my way.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ALBUM REVIEW
DOMINIC POLSINELLI / DAILY
Alt-J remixes their sound and the results are mixed EMILY YANG For the Daily
ALLY OWENS For the Daily
It is plain to see that there are not a lot of people rooting for network television’s return to glory. The discourse around network television has become as stale as they claim the shows to be: We all know it’s become safe and is no longer breaking new ground. It’s currently cool to hate network TV. I am not denying that there are things to hate, as evidenced by anything that Chuck Lorre releases and the perpetual green-lighting of more “The Goldbergs” ripoffs, rather, I am arguing that in the competition to see who can hate network TV the most, we overlook gems. “Single Parents” is one of those gems. “Single Parents” is pretty self-explanatory. Four single parents struggle to balance adulthood and parenthood while clashing with their kids’
new classroom coordinator, between these people who, Will (Taran Killam, “Saturday if not for their kids, would Night Live”), a mushy helicopter probably never have contact. dad. Will is as overbearing In what other universe would as he is positive, announcing ultra-feminist mom Poppy to the class on the first day (Kimrie Lewis, “Scandal) all of the new and chauvinistic (and pointless) father Douglas initiatives he has (Brad Garrett, imagined. The “Christopher singles vow to Robin”) ever have Pilot get him out of contact, let alone his shell with the be comfortable ABC sole motivation enough with Wed. @ 9:30 p.m. of shirking each other that off any extra Poppy can barge responsibilities in on Douglas’s that may come their way. From steak dinner of “pasty, old there, hilarity ensues, and the white guys” (Poppy’s words, show takes off. not mine)? While the writing The diverse cast of “Single feels authentic and the jokes Parents” is one of the primary land with consistency, a great reasons it works so well. debt is owed to the fantastic Without feeling forced, it does cast rounded out by Leighton great work to show that there is Meester (“Gossip Girl”) and no one “type” of single parent Jake Choi (“Lethal Weapon”) and also highlights the bond for elevating what could have their situation has created been a forgettable one-episode for them. It makes for great wonder into something worth comedy to see the interactions watching on a weekly basis.
“Single Parents”
besides a verse or two from the rapper. The Lomepal version of “3WW” takes the second half of the song and barely alters it. His voice and flow are pleasant, but it doesn’t really feel like he really put a stamp on it. The Kontra K version of “In Cold Blood” does much the same thing. GoldLink and Terrance Martin’s remix of “Last Year” only barely escapes this mode through a deft re-contextualization of Marika Hackman’s vocals, but it flatlines with Joe Newman’s aimless verse, in which he counts to 10 in Japanese and monotones about leaving porridge on the boil. However, there are moments of successful translation. Hex, Paigey Cakey and ADP turn “Adeline” into glazed-over codeine trap. The version of “Deadcrush” by Danny Brown and The Alchemist takes the original into a nightmarish clown world. Twin Shadow and Pusha T’s version of “In Cold Blood” strips the song for parts and quantizes them to a gliding trap beat. The most successful of the collection is PJ Sin Suela and Trooko’s version of “Pleader.” I didn’t think the lines “To behold such warmth / Call to arms these harmonies” could sound sinister, but they absolutely do here. It’s a remix that recalls the older term “flip” — this is a complete, and brilliant reversal, of the original. A remix is not an homage, and the album loses a lot of potential by treating the form so narrowly. There are moments of brilliance, but they mostly arise from the artists going entirely counter to the material. Overall, the album feels like a pointless exercise in Procrustean accommodation — one is left with the impression that their talents are best applied elsewhere.
Alt-J has commissioned remixes of their music frequently, usually by EDM producers. The recently released Reduxer is a fulllength reimagining of their 2017 Relaxer by 11 teams of producers and rappers. The list includes Danny Brown, Pusha T and Rejjie Snow, along with several artists from outside the English-speaking world like Lomepal, Kontra K and PJ Sin Suela. If this sounds like a strange, improbable project, it’s because it is — the album Alt-J showcases many talented artists Infectious Music trying their best with lackluster, ill-fitting material. The result is a contradictory mess that produces several decent tracks almost in to the original song. They retain spite of itself. the original title, and there’s a The British trio’s music has certain pressure on it to follow the always been balanced between a original’s content. The content of quaint sensibility and an electronic Relaxer resists incorporation into sheen. The band’s first two albums rap music, even as the artists are pair frenetic percussion, buzzing pressured to do a version of the synths and vocal distortion with original songs. cinematic strings and simple, Reduxer is weighed down by its folkish melodies. Their lyrics are own format. The commissioned elliptical and reference-heavy, artists seem at a loss as to what revolving around sex, death and to do with what they have been the English countryside. It’s given. There are moments of alldifficult to say if this assemblage out incoherence, such as in the adds up to a coherent statement — remix of “Hit Me Like That Snare” I wouldn’t be the first to suggest by Jimi Charles Moody. The bluesthat Alt-J embodies a certain rock vocalist/producer makes a kind of mannerism that values heroic attempt to rescue the song novelty over coherence, but the from itself (“Leather slings fall staging of the uneasy stylistic like oxygen masks / We’re going tensions is, at its best, compelling. down, fuck my life in half”). The Relaxer is a bit more of a muddled juxtaposition between Moody’s statement than the first two soulful R&B vocals and the albums — not only does the chasm ludicrous original is jarring. widen between the band’s “loud” More often, though, the weaker and “quiet” personas, but the remixes are just boring rehashes acoustic and analog sound of the of the original, with little added first two albums is replaced by drum machines and seething Release Date: Wednesday, October 3, 2018 synthesizers. Even the bassoon solo in “Last Year” and the huge orchestral swells in “Pleader” Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis come across as digital beings, 3 *Life of affluence 28 Common soccer 48 __ scheme ACROSS surreally summoned in a 49 Bridge call score 4 It might be rare 1 Party with a piñata 29 Nash who wrote 50 LPGA 5 Fail big-time barren landscape. 7 Tin alloys golfer “Parsley / Is 6 “The creation of Though “Deadcrush” and 14 Online icon Nordqvist gharsley” beauty is __”:
Reduxer
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
TV REVIEW
‘Single Parents’ is the hope network television needs
“3WW” begin to resemble hip hop, Reduxer is a decidedly new, and improbable, direction for the band. Hip hop is not the ideal format for an Alt-J remix. Alt-J makes complicated, slowly-developing instrumentals, whereas hip hop is a performer-centric genre where instrumentals are constructed out of a small handful of contrasting phrases. Hip-hop producers sample music wildly alien to their milieu all the time, but the issue with the “official” remix as a form is that remixes need to do justice
The show is doing what other network shows should have been doing for years. Rather than giving us neutered versions of what we expect to see on premium cable, it takes the familiar tropes that we have come to associate with network television and gives them a fresh twist. “Single Parents” does an exemplary job of blending together two of the most familiar formulas in network television history (the young singles show and the family show) and coming out with something timely and realistic for viewing audiences in 2018. “Single Parents” treats viewers to the best of both worlds: all of the wacky, fun dating plotlines of a “Happy Endings” or a “Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23” while still being able to provide the warmth of a family-centric show like “Modern Family” or “Black-ish.” Thus, watching feels like meeting someone new, yet having that strange sensation you’ve known them forever. So, please, even in the contemporary climate of hating anything and everything network, direct those energies towards something more deserving and give “Single Parents” a chance.
15 Expo entry 16 Begrudge 17 31-day month 18 Jabber 19 Surge protector? 20 __-Cat: winter vehicle 21 “That wasn’t nice of you” 22 Italian tenor Andrea 24 Cricket club 25 Went down 26 Dander reaction, perhaps 30 1979 Hockey Hall of Fame inductee 31 Shakespearean bad guy 32 __ the line 33 Word with dating or skating 35 Airport NW of LAX 37 Egged on 38 Strainers 40 2018 Stanley Cup champs, familiarly 42 Yard tool 43 Swear (to) 44 Tennis immortal Arthur 45 “Fareed Zakaria GPS” network 46 Took the helm 48 Revolutionary icon 49 Butter square 52 Marmalade morsels 53 Feathery accessory 54 Marine animals named for flowers 56 Nabokov novel 59 Athletic shoe 60 Island group that includes São Miguel 61 Italian Riviera resort 62 Triple Crown winners DOWN 1 Many miles 2 “Now __ seen it all!”
Emerson 7 Complaint 8 Show a real talent for 9 *Specialty 10 “Humble and Kind” singer McGraw 11 Falls back 12 Nothing, in Quebec 13 Texas ballplayer, to fans 17 *Magician’s riffled prop 19 Yearns (for) 21 La Brea attraction 22 Barnyard bleat 23 Bakery employee 24 __ nova 25 *Swimming option 27 Perches for tots, and what the answers to starred clues literally contain
34 Big nights 36 Desert refuges 39 “Revolution From Within” writer Gloria 41 Prof.’s degree 47 Month after 17-Across, south of the border
51 Video game rating 53 Nincompoop 55 Spoil 56 “Well, __-di-dah!” 57 Ball holder 58 Pack animal
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
By Craig Stowe ©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/03/18
10/03/18
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Wednesday, October 3, 2018 — 7A
A debate over the lengths Pursuing solidarity between all immigrants of albums in today’s age SAM SO
Assistant MiC Editor
EFE EDEVBIE MiC Blogger
“It’s 25 songs?” My initial reaction to the track listing of Scorpion by Drake had nothing to do with interesting track titles like “Ratchet Happy Birthday” or “Can’t Take A Joke” — it was about how obnoxiously long the Toronto artist’s newest project was going to be. Twenty-five tracks, split up into an A side and B side. A year after we had gotten a 22-song “playlist” in More Life and two years after the release of the 20-song Views, Drake’s albums have only been getting longer, and in an age where streaming giants like Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal have dominated the music consumption and listening space, it makes senses. More songs on an album means more streams or plays which means more money for the artist. Sure, the overall quality of the albums are bound to go down, but this is the best strategy in terms of releasing music nowadays, right? Kanye West would have to disagree. When most of the music industry has zigged and ditched the standard 13-song album model for longer and longer projects, Yeezy and the rest of G.O.O.D. Music zagged and dropped a series of 7 to 8 song projects this past summer. Highlighted by Pusha T’s DAYTONA, Kanye’s self-titled ye, and the inaugural joint album effort of Kanye and Kid Cudi with KIDS SEE GHOSTS, G.O.O.D Music opted for shorter
LPs, with the runtime of most of the albums falling under or about 25 minutes. While this seems to be more of an artistic decision than one influenced by a bottom line (“Man, if we can’t kill you in seven songs, we don’t really need to be doing the music,” was Pusha T’s response about G.O.O.D. Music’s strategy), it’s worth considering if there are some monetary benefits to Kanye and crew’s sudden change in direction. With an album length that was so easily digestible, I listened to ye start-to-finish seven or eight times within the first 24 hours of its release — seven tracks multiplied by seven start-tofinish listens comes out to 49 total streams, not including the extra streams I gave to songs like “Ghost Town” and “No Mistakes.” Conversely, Scorpion was an absolute struggle to get through — just as More Life had been for me the year before. Once I had completed the marathon and listened to the entirety of the 25-song behemoth, I had no intention of going back for a second start-to-finish play of the Drake project. It was too much to listen to. It got boring. It lost my attention more than once. It wasn’t engaging. Twenty-five tracks multiplied by one start-to-finish listen comes out to 25 total streams, not including my extra streams of songs like “Sandra’s Rose” and “Emotionless.” I streamed the seven-song album almost twice as much as I did the 25-song album. Has Kanye stumbled onto something here? Maybe. Just maybe.
“I streamed the seven-song album almost twice as much as I did the 25-song album”
Sister, sister: On finding real, shared experiences HALIMAT OLANIYAN MiC Blogger
I’ve obsessed over “Sister, Sister,” a TV show about twins separated at birth and reunited, since I first stumbled upon it in elementary school. Back then, I liked it because it was funny and entertaining. But now, as I still watch it 19 years after its final episode aired, I’m realizing how much the show really meant to me. For a long time, I wanted a relationship like the twins Tia and Tamera had on the show. I saw myself in Tia. Like her, I’m a plan ahead, always prepared, honor roll, type-A kind of student. I could relate so strongly to her. At times, moments on the show became my reality. Like Tia, I worked so hard all throughout high school and was sure I’d get into the best universities in the country. I felt her disappointment when she received her rejection letter from Harvard University, and just like in the show, my mom and I jumped for joy when I got into the University of Michigan. Back then, I didn’t realize how big of a role model Tia was for me. I didn’t think too much about how great it felt to watch a show in which the main characters looked like me. I did not know how much I would come to appreciate the show’s honest, real representation of some of the experiences I would later face growing up as a Black girl in America. But at its core, “Sister, Sister” is about the unbreakable bond, love and friendship between two sisters. When I told my friends how badly I wanted a twin sister, they laughed at the impossibility and tried to comfort me with stories of how annoying their sisters were. With one older
brother, I can still relate to having a sibling, but the six years that separate us make it difficult to have any shared experiences. It wasn’t until recently that I realized what it really was about Tia and Tamera’s relationship that I longed for all this time. Tia and Tamera can relate to each other in a way that very few people can. They share lived experiences because of their age, similar physical appearances and environment. They understand each other in a special way only identical twins, and maybe other really close relatives or friends, can. Now I realize all that time I spent watching shows like “Sister, Sister” and “The Bold Type,” I was looking for someone to whom I could relate. I’ve finally found that person for me, and no, I didn’t discover a long-lost twin or clone myself. Instead, I am beyond lucky to have made a friend who shares a background so similar to my own. I find myself eager to share my frustrations with her because I know she’ll understand. I don’t have to give her background information on where I stand because she’s lived so much of it. Finally, I can say, “You know” and she actually knows! What a relief it is to have someone who gets it. To have someone to talk to about the struggle of grasping my identity as Nigerian and Black. To have someone who can relate to my love of fashion and my faith. To have someone who understands my hesitation and frustration with make-up. And possibly most importantly, to have someone who will never get sick of re-watching Black Panther with me. To Efe, the sister I always wanted and friend I am forever grateful to have.
“What a relief it is to have someone who gets it”
I travel back home to Hong Kong every summer to visit my family and it always feels uneasy leaving my dad and his family when summer ends. However, it feels a little more uneasy and heavier this year as I walk into the security gates to leave my dad. As I currently write this piece on my 20-hour flight back to Michigan, I’m reflecting on my identity as a documented East Asian immigrant, retracing all of the sentiments on my journey that led to today – seeing my dad alone in Hong Kong as he works to support our family in the United States. I grew up in a humble middleclass family in Hong Kong. My mom’s side of my family gradually moved to the U.S. through familybased documented immigration during the 1990s and 2000s to start Chinese restaurant businesses for a living. Naturally, my mom wanted to give me a chance to have better education and opportunity in the U.S. as well. We became permanent citizens (green card holders) in 2003, but we did not move to the U.S. for a long time after we received our green card, because we were not emotionally ready to go through such a drastic change. My mom eventually moved to the U.S. by herself in April 2011, getting everything settled for me to come to the U.S. half a month later. Unfortunately, her green card was confiscated by the immigration department. Immigration officers interrogated my mom for seven hours in a monitored room at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. They said she had a “lack of desire to settle in the U.S.” because she didn’t settle in the U.S. for all these years after she received her green card. She now holds the status of a “temporary resident,” and she had to hire an attorney to fight for the slim chance of getting her green card back. Ever since I can remember, it has been an ongoing and indefinite fight for her residential status. She has had five court hearings already and the court decision has always been deferred. Long story short, she might exhaust all her effort and money to lose her U.S. resident status at the end, and none of us know how much longer this fight will continue. She could’ve just left me in the U.S. and reunited with my dad in Hong Kong the day her green card was confiscated, but she never gave up and still chose to take the risk to care for me. I would ask my
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
mom why she insisted on fighting a battle that leads to nowhere and she would tell me, “The hardships along our immigration journey mean nothing, because we believe it will be worth it at the end for you and your brother. It is always worth it to help you along the way to pursue better opportunities. Don’t worry too much.” For that, I am beyond grateful for my parents. My mom wanted to make fair for both me and my brother. She still wanted to give my younger brother a chance for better opportunities in the U.S. like I had. So, she applied for my brother to go to a Christian school as an international student this year, paying thousands of dollars to give him a better education. Living with my dad for his whole life, my brother finally left Hong Kong to the diaspora, because my dad had to continue his job in Hong Kong to sustain our family financially overseas. When I had to come back to the U.S. for the new school year, my dad and I walked to the security gates in silence. I could feel his heavy feelings of taking on the responsibilities of supporting our entire family, but he put on his calm demeanor and his fatherly figure on the outside as usual. He smiled and said, “Son, don’t stress yourself too much when you go back.” My heart aches to see my dad holding back his vulnerability when we depart at the airport. Since I came back to the U.S., my parents have
constantly been in my thoughts because of all the changes our family is going through. I don’t usually share much of my journey with others, because it was such a complicated, exhausting and expensive journey to talk about. Also, I know I have so much to be grateful for aside from the hardships along my journey. People are always in shock and empathize with the struggle of my family’s diasporic experiences when I tell them about it. But through my experiences, I recognize my privileges of being a documented East Asian immigrant, and I learned how much harder it must’ve been for other undocumented immigrants just to find better opportunities or live a better life in U.S. When I had to see my dad left alone in Hong Kong just to provide for our family overseas, it certainly made me sad and my heart aches, but it also reminds me of the blessings of my family has, especially when reminded some families of undocumented immigrants are forcefully torn apart and sometimes lose contact with each other. I am fortunate enough to still have a family. I can’t even start to imagine how much more uneasy undocumented immigrants must feel, considering the way more complicated process and the unimaginable traumas. Sometimes, privileged documented immigrants, like some of my relatives, don’t see the way I see immigration issues. They are so focused on their
“I don’t usually share much of my journey with other, because it was such a complicated ... journey to talk about”
troubles on the diaspora journey that they fail to recognize the bigger picture of others’ struggles. Yes, we might not be the crazy rich Asian “FOBs” rocking Moschino and Supreme daily. Quite frankly, my mom’s family started from nothing and can barely afford living in middle-class suburbs in the U.S. even now. There were way more roadblocks along the way that I left out in this piece. We have our struggles. But it doesn’t make it valid for documented immigrants to say it is unfair just because we had to go through all the time-consuming legal processes and troubles while undocumented immigrants had not. White supremacy has given you permission to believe undocumented immigrants are dangerous or a burden to society, when in fact they are human, just like us. Imagine your family being forcefully separated and potentially never seeing them again. Imagine your only options are either being dead in warzones or risking lives to just escape and survive in the Global North. Imagine all the traumas, hardships, bigotry, they have to put up with in the Global North. In fact, they deserve an opportunity in the U.S. more than we do because of the conditions they face in their home countries. Retrace our journeys. At the end of the day, undocumented immigrants are just striving to live a better life in diaspora just like us documented immigrants. While they have fewer resources than we do, we should recognize our privileges, support policies like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We must stand in solidarity with undocumented immigrants.
Moving away, not forward: LGBTQ rights in India AKANKSHA SAHAY MiC Columnist
When so much of my news is disseminated into 20-word summaries with a link to an article as I scroll through my social media, it is really easy to remain distanced from the impact of current events. In fact, on Sept. 6, 2018, it took at least four posts about the same thing for me to realize what monumental change had just occurred — the Indian Supreme Court declared Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code to be unconstitutional. In the sea of comments, there seemed to be this notion that India was finally modernizing like Western countries, but that was not the truth — India was and is still in the process of decolonization. It’s not moving forward, rather, it’s moving away from white colonial ideals. As an Indian American born in the United States, my experience with LGBTQ issues at a personal and policy level has been decidedly complex. I grew up in California
in a time when Proposition 22 in 2000 and Proposition 8 in 2008 caused huge controversy over same-sex marriage and LGBTQ rights. It wasn’t really an issue discussed at home — my parents grew up in India, where gay sex was criminalized. It was illegal to be gay. My experiences in school, especially through my involvement in social justice groups, made it clear that this way of thinking was unfair. And though my parents might have been conservative, even my father would have argued that due to the civil rights attributed to marriage, everyone had a right to marry whom they wished. On the other hand, I also knew my parents would be deeply uncomfortable if I came out as queer. The biggest complexity, however, came from my religion. My family practiced Hinduism. I didn’t practice it religiously, but Hinduism was about more than rituals and festivals. It was about philosophy and ethics. The religious text I was most familiar with (because there are several in Hinduism), is the
Bhagavad Gita — the speech Lord Krishna gave to Arjuna when his commitment to justice wavered in the face of having to fight his family. And not once in the entire text, did it mention that “you shall not lie with a male as with a woman.” In fact, Hindu mythology didn’t simply ignore queerness, the myths included it. There were stories of Vishnu, one of the primary deities, taking on a female appearance and engaging in relationships with male deities who knew his original form. When my culture was filled with stories that were not heteronormative, it was difficult to reconcile what I read with what I saw being practiced. It wouldn’t be until college that I’d learn what Section 377 was and from where it came. Before the British colonized India, there was a vibrant queer history. It wasn’t the norm, but it wasn’t considered against nature either. To see my mother country stuck in the white supremacist ideals of a bygone age was frustrating and painful. It was shameful to know that a place I considered vital to
my heritage was also considered so backward. I wanted India to be better, and yet I could understand that as an oppressed people, how difficult it was to unlearn these bigoted views. When I saw people celebrating the repeal of Section 377 as a move toward Western ideology, I was angered. This didn’t acknowledge that Section 377 wasn’t an Indian ideology but a Western one in the first place. Yes, we live in the 21st century and LGBTQ rights should be a given and not a constant struggle, but India only gained independence 70 years ago. It takes time to undo societal norms. There’s certainly more to be done for LGBTQ rights women’s rights and lower caste rights in India. But with the new verdict, India has taken one more step towards embracing its roots and culture. So, in the end, I did hit the love button on that Buzzfeed India post and every other time it came up in my newsfeed. And each time I clicked it, I felt pretty damn proud to be brown.
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Sports
8A — Wednesday, October 3, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Team cohesion leads Michigan to 13th at Nuttycombe Invitational All five of the Wolverines’ scored runners finished within 22.5 seconds of one another for a 13th-place finish in Wisconsin. JACOB KOPNICK Daily Sports Writer
There were five minutes before the gun sounded when the Michigan men’s cross country team huddled together. Wolverine coach Kevin Sullivan was doing his part to get the team mentally ready for the task at hand — to prove the pre-meet rank of No. 19 wrong. Michigan gathered together like it always does before a race to preach the game plan and remain calm ahead of the excitement of the race. To the casual observer, it may seem to be an odd sight. Cross country is not typically considered a team sport, but for the Wolverines, teamwork and pack running are the name of the game. This approach was boldly apparent at the Nuttycombe Invitational in Madison, Wis., where all five of the runners who scored for the meet finished within 22.5 seconds of one another. In fact, the spread was so tight for Michigan that the times between the Wolverines’ first and seventh runners was closer than all but two teams’ first through fifth competitors. “We talked about it beforehand,” said redshirt sophomore Jacob Lee. “We wanted to try to find each other because, you know, when the gun goes off, we kinda get dispersed, we want to try to find each other, try to pump each other up, work together, constantly move up throughout the pack, and that’s what we did really well, and that’s what we try to
ALEC COHEN/Daily
Sophomore Jacob Lee finished first for the Wolverines at the Nuttycombe Invitational, followed by sophomore Jack Aho who finished the race in 61st place.
do in practice too. We try to work as a unit.” Leading that unit for Michigan were Lee and sophomore Jack Aho, who finished 58th and 61st at the race, respectively. Lee and Aho first saw the course last year when they finished second and third at the Invitational’s B race. Getting as much exposure to the course as possible is paramount for the Wolverines.
“I’d say that all around, we have a great culture.”
FOOTBALL
Defense focus shifts
toward covering slants MIKE PERSAK
Managing Sports Editor
The Michigan football team’s defense had trouble in the first quarter of Saturday’s win over Northwestern. It started right away, as the Wildcats (1-3 overall, 1-1 Big Ten) drove down the field and scored on their first three drives, leaping out to a 17-0 lead. That result was a bit surprising, considering the Wolverines’ defense is as strong as it is — the No. 1 total defense through five games this season. But Northwestern still accumulated 145 yards on its first three touchdowns, cutting its way through Michigan’s vaunted defense, all until the Wolverines (4-1, 2-0) locked down for the rest of the game, aiding in a 20-17 comeback victory. “I can’t really put my finger on it,” said junior cornerback David Long. “Credit to them, they came out hungry. We just made adjustments and got back in there and competed and fought our tails off to get back into the game and ultimately win it.” It was the second time Michigan’s defense has struggled in the first quarter of a road game this season. In its season-opening loss to Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish got nearly all their production in the beginning of the game. The difference is that Notre Dame got its production with deep bombs and a running quarterback. The Wildcats, on the other hand, used short, quick passing plays to pick their way through the Wolverines’ defense. On Northwestern’s first drive, it was a 36-yard screen pass that set it up for a touchdown. For the rest of the game, the Wildcats used slant patterns effectively to move the ball. It continued a trend for Michigan. Against Western Michigan and SMU, though the final defensive stats were still good, the Wolverines had trouble covering the slant route. Specifically, Michigan’s safeties didn’t cover slot receivers very well.
“I mean, you know, it’s a quick route,” said sophomore safety Brad Hawkins. “Having a quick route and playing a little off, it’s kind of difficult, I guess. But we fixed it, you know, so we’ve got a lot of things — schemes and stuff coming in. So it’s gonna be all right.” In the second half, though, the Wolverines made an adjustment and stopped the slant route better. That was part of the reason for Northwestern’s worse offensive performance, as it had just 56 yards in the final 30 minutes. “Same as anything else, just lock in,” Long said. “Lock in and just get our feet under ourselves and just focus. Take the coaching, make the adjustments and go in there and do what we know how to do.” Added Hawkins: “We kind of, like, tightened down a little bit. Try to hug them a little more. You know, that’s a quick route, so you’ve gotta be there fast on it.” Michigan has heard the critics. Whether it is about giving up 17 points to the Wildcats in their first three drives or the penalties that have plagued the Wolverines, they have heard frustrations. This week, Long responded to the haters, tweeting, “If you’ve never played man to man, please refrain from making comments about secondary play. Second, if you can’t check me, please refrain from giving your hot take as well.” In the end, Michigan still has the No. 1 total defense in the nation. Surely that fact makes the adjustments to slants or penalties or whatever else much more palatable. But the Wolverines still recognize there are plenty of facets in which they can improve. “Haters are gonna be out there,” said fifth-year senior defensive end Chase Winovich. “It just is what it is. It’s the nature of the game. We’re playing crème de la crème football, in terms of this is big boy football. And with that, you’re gonna have a lot of expectations, and the expectations for the season are high. So, people are gonna say what they want, but at the end of the day, yeah, we’re gonna go out there and play.”
The Thomas Zimmer Championship Course will serve as the sight of this year’s Cross Country National Championships, and Michigan will be back in just two short weeks for the Pre-National Invitational. “That’s one of the reasons we wanted to be at Wisconsin at some point before the national championship,” Lee said. “So we get a sense of how the course runs, what the layout’s like, and
certainly being in a field like we did this weekend, we got a feel of a national championship type field before we even get to the national championships.” However, due to the team’s youth, it might be a difficult road ahead en route to a final date with the Zimmer Course in just a couple months. After losing star power with the departures of Ben Flanagan, Connor Mora and others, this young Michigan team
“The tendency can be to run too hard too early...”
has had to put in extra effort in order to maintain the standard of success. So far, the team has been able to do just that with laterace surges and patience. After the first two kilometers of the race, the Wolverines started things conservatively and were sitting in 25th place. After quickly finding their teammates in the pack, the team slowly began to creep toward its 13th
place finish. Highlighting the patience and perseverance of the team’s performance was redshirt junior Ben Hill, who jumped up twenty spots in the last two kilometers to finish 89th. “A lot of it’s just understanding what the effort is, and the f ield that we were in with the caliber of competition and the qualit y of the other teams that are in there,” Sullivan said, “The tendency can be to run too hard too early, and our g uys did a ver y good job manag ing their efforts early in the race and that allowed them to move through the f ield. “So we’re in 25th place 2k in the race but move all the way to 13th by the end, it means we’re doing good job of running within ourselves early so that we can make good hard pushes over the last half of the race.” For this team, the six spots of improvement is just the beg inning of what will be a long season of success, and it all starts with teamwork. According to Lee, exceeding expectations will be par for the course for Michigan because of its camaraderie. “I’d say that all around we have a g reat culture,” Lee said. “I’d say that we’re young, but we’re f ighters, we’re g rinders, we’re ready to put in the work, ready to do what needs to be done. I think people can overlook us in the Big Ten just because we are so young and because we lost a lot of g reat talent, but if they did that, that would be a big mistake on their part.”
“A lot of it’s just understanding what the effort is...”
Winovich believes best is yet to come in historic run MAX MARCOVITCH Daily Sports Editor
After Saturday’s 20-17 comeback win over Northwestern — a game in which fifth-year senior defensive end Chase Winovich registered nine tackles, three tackles-for-loss and a sack, and more broadly, was relentless — Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said it was one of the best games of Winovich’s career. “I think Chase had one of his better ballgames,” Harbaugh said after the game. “Just the way he was f lying around and hustling all night. I mean, play after play after play after play.” Winovich played “60-something” snaps by his estimation and received as many double-teams as he can recall in a game. It didn’t seem to matter much. By any metric or alternative mode of judgment, Winovich is having the best season of his career. Here are just a couple statistics to drive that point home: • He currently leads the nation with 10.5 tackles-forloss. If he sustains this pace, he’ll finish with 27 tacklesfor-loss on the season, just 1.5 short of the school record set by Shawn Crable in 2007. That would also leave him just four shy of the career school record set by Mark Messner from 1985-1988. • He’s on pace for an eight-sack season for the second consecutive year. He would be the first to notch that feat since Brandon Graham in 2007-2008. Winovich is just a few years removed from playing tight end. Some might take a few days to relish in those comments from Harbaugh, or more generally take a step back at what’s on pace to be a historical season and a historical career. That’s just not Chase Winovich.
AMELIA CACCHIONE/Daily
Fifth-year senior defensive end Chase Winovich leads the nation in tackles-for-loss with 10.5 through five games.
“I’m definitely playing better, and some of my best football,” Winovich said Tuesday evening. “I still feel like I haven’t played my best football.” If his game at Northwestern wasn’t what his best looks like, what does? “The way I see it in my head, if I had to look at it from a numbers standpoint, I would look at it and say ‘multiple sacks,’ just from a grading-out perspective — from a passrush point of view — I’d say simply unblockable,” Winovich said. “In my head, that’s what I’m chasing. In my head it could be better. “I want to be a shark in a game full of guppies.” His focus stays squarely on the present. He’s not shy about much, including throwing out phrases like “Big Ten Championship” and “the playoffs” in routine
“I want to be a shark in a game full of guppies.”
answers. Winovich isn’t like most athletes, in a way that’s refreshingly human. He came back to school for those goals. He came back to be a dominant college football player. He came back partially because Shea Patterson came in. But he also came back to improve his NFL draft stock and he doesn’t hide that either. “It’s always on my mind,” Winovich said of his draft stock. “It’s just one of those things, in the pecking order of things to do, it’s somewhere in the middle.” Having already provided an appropriate level of candor, a normal athlete might stop his answer there. Chase Winovich, instead, needs to make an archery analogy to emphasize his point. “If you’re an archer and you’re trying to hit the target and you’re thinking about the gold prize,” he hypothesizes,
“all of a sudden you’re thinking about the gold prize and not the target you’re trying to hit.” Both CBSSports.com and Bleacher Report released new NFL mock drafts Monday night. Winovich didn’t make the first round of either. “The trajectory and what I’ve heard and gathered from people is that the trajectory is ascending pretty quickly,” Winovich said. “I’m just trying to do my part to make sure it stays that way.” The “status quo” doesn’t seem to be in Winovich’s vocabulary these days, or ever. He’d rather hone in on his inner shark, terrorizing everything in his path, leaving no doubt. “I’m setting myself up for that game that’s like ‘This is Chase Winovich.’ I don’t think I’ve played that game yet,” he said. Then a warning. “I think it’s coming.”
“I’m definitely playing better, and some of my best football.”
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Remote Telemetry and Graham Crackers:
U-M nurses describe cuts to patient care
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statement T H E M I CH I GA N DAI LY | O C TO B E R 3 , 201 8
Managing Statement Editor: Brian Kuang
Editor in Chief: Alexa St. John
Managing Editor: Dayton Hare
Deputy Editors: Colin Beresford Jennifer Meer
Photo Editor: Amelia Cacchione
Copy Editors: Elise Laarman Finntan Storer
Designer: Elizabeth Bigham
Thank God September is over so we can be done with icebreakers
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ile away those fun facts. Time to forget your “two truths and a lie.” And cherish the fact you won’t have to participate in another team building exercise involving a hula hoop. We have officially survived peak icebreaker period. Breathe. September is over. The month of new beginnings is behind us. The flower calendar on my grandmother’s refrigerator has flipped to October. Those awkward first days of classes and inaugural club meetings have morphed into hopefully a more authentic dynamic of human personalities. Or, if things are still awkward among the 20 people in your discussion section, you can at least take solace in the “31 Nights of Halloween” on Freeform. As someone whose first impressions rarely parlay into an effortlessly charismatic “knock your socks” off kind of introduction, the icebreaker is a walk on thin ice. If I could, I would prefer to stick to the facts you could probably find on Facebook. Name. Hometown. Year. Major. There you have it folks. That’s all you need to know about me. Anything more than this will likely result in an answer that I will promptly spend the next 48 hours regretting. Do we really need to continue with that question about my best Halloween costume? That is the trouble with icebreakers. To excel at them, it is essential that you have a curated list of anecdotes encoded in your brain. A quippy story about yourself that your publicist would tell you to share if you were a scheduled as a guest on Stephen Colbert’s TV show. Or does the publicist make up the story for you? In that case, I think I need a publicist. The sort of answer that is universal
BY SHANNON ORS, DAILY STAFF REPORTER
enough to be relatable, yet personal enough to be unique. Your response should garner a laugh, but not make people feel uncomfortable. And of course, you should never look like you are trying too hard, but you also can’t give a cop-out answer. People want to you to “be yourself.” To sum up how cool you are in a sentence. It is a tall order. Essentially, you are expected to be like Ferris Bueller when all I can usually muster is something closer to Bridget Jones. The formulaic nature of icebreakers typically means forming a circle to foster a safe, welcoming space reminiscent of a second-grade classroom. Everyone sits waiting for the person who had this great idea to pose a question they likely found via a Google search for “good icebreaker questions” 30 seconds prior. Then the
in Meryl Streep. Just before it is my turn to speak, the person next to me echoes “Mamma Mia.” My subpar answer I had spent the last five minutes agonizing over is now taken and I am back at the beginning of not knowing what to say. Oh, the joy of icebreakers. Icebreakers have become the creed of how we get to know each other. Their relatively simple nature is the reason they have become a mainstay of meetings and introductions. However, I am surely not the only one who dreads these awkward engagements. They are unnatural. Full of pauses and silence. And often include glaringly obvious reactions from the group. That said, I am absolutely guilty of the judgment that ensues when someone offers an icebreaker response that seems unnatural or forced. It can be strange when the first thing you learn about a person is their favorite karaoke song or best gift they have ever received. What are we really supposed to glean from ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE JEGARL these responses? Some would moment of truth — what question will you argue that icebreakers offer a have to sift through your brain to find an way for people to find a connection in their answer to? mutual similarities. However, considering “What’s your favorite movie?” Okay, this some of my own friendships with people is not too bad. Not as easy as your favorite whose tastes are completely different than place to travel, but still a softball question. my own, I question this argument. I begin to flip through the movies I have Learning the faces and names of the watched to find an acceptable answer. I people you meet in September is important. find myself only half-paying attention to But, I don’t think we should hold people to the person droning on about “Moonrise their icebreaker responses. In all honesty, Kingdom,” buying me a few more precious most of my responses make me cringe seconds to think. As my turn creeps closer for hours afterward. I agonize over why and closer, the panic sets in. I struggle to I couldn’t think of a more interesting or even remember the last movie I watched, genuine answer and hope no one remembers let alone my favorite. The only movies that what I said. Introducing yourself shouldn’t come to mind are “Mamma Mia” and “Gone require a list of favorite things that you with the Wind.” Great. I will either sound can sing on cue like Maria von Trapp. like a lover of cheesy British musicals or a However, that might be a good idea for next cliché film buff. I decide to place my faith September.
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REMOTE TELEMETRY AND GRAHAM CRACKERS: Nurses describe cuts to patient care at Michigan Medicine by Grace Kay, Daily Staff Reporter
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egan Duncan, a cardiology nurse at the University of Michigan Hospital, began filing reports with her superiors detailing concerns with the hospital’s new remote heartbeat monitoring program in Summer 2017. She was met with little-to-no response from the Michigan Medicine administration. Beginning in July 2017, Michigan Medicine moved almost all cardiology patients — outside of the intensive care unit — to a remote heart rate monitoring system, referred to as remote telemetry, that largely replaced licensed nurses with technicians. Before then, almost all hospital patients with heart monitors had their heart rates monitored by live nurses; outside of eight patients linked to a limited remote screening pro-
gram monitored by a single nurse. As soon as Michigan Medicine began using remote telemetry was rolled out in scale, Duncan and other nurses in her unit began experiencing issues with the technicians. “Sometimes I found myself having to educate (the technicians) when they didn’t report an incident in time or didn’t report it at all,” Duncan said. “We noticed lags. Sometimes a heart rhythm would change and they would never call or call much later. Often, they didn’t know what it was, which was alarming. They’re supposed to be trained.” Duncan explained technicians are stationed in the basement of their respective unit to watch the heart monitors and report back to the nurses when changes occur; she added there were no sentinel events in her unit, but there was still concern harm Danyel Tharakan/Daily about Audience members wear red in support of University hospital nurses in their ongoing labor dispute at the coming to the Regents’ Meeting at the University golf course Thursday. patients.
Technicians within the remote telemetry unit typically monitor 40 patients at a time and are allowed to monitor up to 64 patients, according to Duncan, a stark contrast to the personalized attention nurses could offer patients when
believe the hospital’s implementation of remote telemetry with technicians ref lects a devaluation of nurses under a management culture at Michigan Medicine that has become increasingly profit-driven at the expense of staff and patients.
“Sometimes a heart rhythm would change and they would never call or call much later. Often, they didn’t know what it was, which was alarming. They’re supposed to be trained.” they were only able to see three at a time. Before the hospital began employing the technicians, only eight of the unit’s patients were monitored remotely by a single nurse in the cardiology unit basement for the cardiology unit, while all the other patients with heart monitors had in-person monitoring by nurses. While the technicians work in the basement, technicians and nurses within the hospital do not interact personally. Duncan explained the only contact the nurses within her unit had with the technicians was over the phone. The lack of contact within the cardiology unit resulted in hostility between the two groups. “I think the technicians thought we didn’t trust them after we started filing incident reports,” Duncan said. Many nurses such as Duncan
Ian Robinson, the president of the Huron Valley Area Labor Federation — who was involved in the recent nurses’ strike — said he has seen a drastic shift at Michigan Medicine toward a corporate mindset. “It’s a new model that is taking place at the University,” Robinson said. “It is a model that has moved from focusing on the interests of the public to profit.” In an email statement, Michigan Medicine senior communications representative Beata Mostafavi said the hospital’s new remote telemetry practices were intended to improve patient care by enabling immediate, continuous monitoring and by facilitating greater collaboration across hospital staff. “Remote telemetry provides real-time monitoring of patients who are at risk for cardiac events, significantly improving the ability
to observe and monitor hospitalized patients’ hearts around-theclock,” Mostafavi wrote. “A skilled, highly trained team of registered nurses, cardiac technicians and other Michigan Medicine staff monitor patients in every unit that has cardiac monitoring. These teams collaborate to interpret patient cardiac rhythms and identify patients who require clinical attention, which helps improve patient care and outcomes.” Despite Michigan Medicine’s claims, Duncan fears the practice has actually created a barrier for communication at the hospital and the lapses of communication that seem to accompany the practice could negatively impact patients’ health. “Overall, we feel that remote telemetry is a barrier to interdisciplinary communication, and can result in delay of care; both of
of the basement and purchased new monitors — Duncan believes this was part of a long-term strategy by Michigan Medicine to cut costs by reducing the number of nurses needed, at the expense of patient care. “Remote telemetry isn’t a cutback issue,” she said. “They spent a significant amount of money on it, but in the long run it’s speculated they invested in remote telemetry in order to possibly down-staff nursing in the future. If they don’t need a nurse to monitor a patient’s heart and a technician can monitor more hearts at once then they can staff less nurses.” hile staffing has been a key issue in the 100 days of bargainingleading to the University of Michigan Professional Nurse Council’s tentative contract agreement with Michigan Medicine, nurses also
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tal, said budget cuts inhibit her role as a caregiver to her patients. “As nurses, we feel devalued,” Carroll said. “We really aren’t asking for anything we didn’t have before.” Carroll explained the hospital used to keep graham crackers on her f loor for diabetic patients or patients undergoing The University of Michigan hospital. chemotherapy who struggle to find their appetite, designed to support nurses in probut the budget cuts have eliminat- viding personal care to patients ed important amenities have negatively impacted her role like this. as a caregiver. “We can order them Detloff explained the hospithrough food services tal has significantly cut back on but it can take up to bereavement trays — trays of food an hour, and by then that are brought to families followthe patient undergoing ing the loss of a loved one. chemotherapy might “If there was a death in our have lost their appe- unit or any other unit, we would tite,” Carroll said. “It set them up for the family so they sounds insignificant but wouldn’t have to leave the bedpatients in the oncology side,” Detloff, the chair of the unit struggle to keep down food.” bereavement tray committee in her Similarly, Lynn Detloff, a nurse unit, said. within the Brandon Newborn Until a cutback on bereaveIntensive Care unit at Mott Chil- ment trays in May 2018, nurses dren’s Hospital, said Michigan could provide food to up to 15 famMedicine’s cutbacks on programs ily members per patient. Bereavement trays included anything from bagels, cereal, pastries, oatmeal or yogurt and juice for breakfast or an array of sandwiches and cookies. Now, the nurses are limited to offering 8 trays with a limited menu of a blueberry muffin and orange juice for breakfast or a granola bar and a piece of fruit. Michigan Medicine did not respond to a question about how much these bereavement trays cost, or how much was saved in cutting the choice of food. “The bereavement trays are just one of the things we do in the hospital to show empathy for families going through a difficult time,” Detloff said. “(Michigan Medicine) has a surplus of $103 million for the 2018 budget. It seems heartless for them to cut back on bereavement trays when it is our job to care for families.” Bereavement trays are not the only patient care item Michigan Medicine has dropped from their budget.
“As nurses, we feel devalued. We really aren’t asking for anything we didn’t have before.” which can result in negative outcomes for the patients and family,” Duncan wrote. Though the University invested a significant amount of money in the change — it remodeled a level
The University of Michigan hospital.
cite cutbacks Michigan Medicine has made in other aspects of patient care. Allison Carroll, a nurse in the pediatric hematology and oncology unit at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospi-
Emma Richter/Daily
See NURSES, Page 6B
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From Page 5B Carroll explained the hospital also eliminated meal passes, certificates given to family members of patients, typically patients who had been in the hospital for a long period of time. “Social workers would give the vouchers to families because they know what families will be there for a while,” Carroll said. “It was a way to look out for families of extremely sick patients and help cut down on their personal expenses.” Ultimately, Detloff said the hospital has made it more difficult for nurses to provide genuine, personalized care. Ironically, when Michigan Medicine launched its Victors Care concierge care service in Spring 2018 — which offered more personalized medical attention for patients willing to pay a costly membership view — it drew criticism from many hospital staff for being elitist and exclusionary. “Michigan Medicine puts nurses at a disadvantage when they take away things like meal passes,” Detloff said. “We want to take care of them. We want to comfort the crying child, offer to send them down for food or give them something, but we can’t. We want to buy them food with our own money but we’d get in trouble for that too.” hile Detloff and Carroll explained cutbacks by Michigan Medicine have made it more difficult to care for their patients both physically and emotionally, Duncan said the nurses in her unit fear for their patients’ health and feel obligated to hold the hospital accountable. As a result, these nurses took a stand against the practice of having technicians conduct remote telemetry. According to Duncan, when she and other nurses expressed their fears of patients’ heart arrhythmias going unnoticed by the technicians, they were told by their managers to write up incident reports detailing their safety concerns. The nurses documented the lapses in the technicians’ responses to irregular heart rhythms with forms called Assignment Despite Objection. ADOs allow the nurses to notify management of a potential issue that could be detrimental to patients as well as maintain documentation for their own job safety. “It was really alarming for all of us once (remote telemetry with
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technicians) started that this tored for potential complications through the technicians. was happening,” Duncan said. — now through remote telemetry. Therefore, other units would “We would print a copy of the “An example of a patient on a not be able to see any lapses in the rhythm strip, go back through general care unit that may require reports from the technicians. The the monitor and find the event, cardiac monitoring could possibly failure to address heart arrhythprint it and attach it to an incident be someone who came into the hos- mias could lead to other medical report. We must have filed dozens pital for knee surgery but is having complications, Duncan explained. over the course of months.” complications from the surgery If a nurse is never informed of Due to the strong response from that may result in dehydration the heart arrhythmia or is not nurses within Duncan’s unit, 7C, and electrolyte imbalances which informed in a timely manner, Michigan Medicine temporarily can cause heart arrhythmias (an the nurse has no way of reacting suspended the practice of remote abnormal rhythm) or maybe that appropriately to the arrhythmia, telemetry in Fall 2017, but only patient who just had knee surgery nor of correlating the abnormal from 7C. The hospital maintained has a history of some irregular heart rhythm to its corresponding the practice throughout the hospi- heart rhythm so the doctors might complication. tal and in other cardiology units want to monitor their heart more While Detloff, Carroll, Duncan like 7B. The practice was rein- closely while they recover from and 6,000 other UMPNC nurses stated in Duncan’s unit in January 2018. After that reinstatement, nurses began filling reports on the same issues again, to which they received no response from the hospital once more. In May 2018, the nurses within 7C took a new approach. They sent in ADOs to the union representing the 6,000 registered nurses in University of Michigan Hospitals — the UMPNC — instead of solely to Michigan Medicine. This esca- that surgery,” Duncan wrote. continue to detail other cutbacks lation began to bear fruit. As far as Duncan knows, her by Michigan Medicine such as the “We noticed once we got the unit was the only unit within the elimination of parking passes for union involved that’s when (Mich- hospital to file incident reports families and cutting the patient igan Medicine) began to listen to detailing the negative effects of sitter budget in half, the three us,” Duncan said. remote telemetry. nurses agree they will continue As a result of the 7C nurses’ Duncan owes her unit’s prompt to fight for safer staffing, a betreports and the union’s support, response to the faulty practice ter contract and the importance of the hospital relented and remote to the remaining monitors in her thoughtful patient care. telemetry was removed from 7C in unit. When remote telemetry was “It started out with taking July 2018. However, the practice implemented, other units in the away graham crackers,” Detloff was not removed from any other hospital lost their heart monitors. said. “Now it’s meal tickets and units within the hospital, includ- Their only source of information bereavement trays. What are they ing the 7B cardiology units. on a patient’s heart rhythm was going to cut next?” “Remote telemetry was implemented in other units in the hospital and is still used today,” Duncan continued. “It’s just an example of the squeaky wheel getting the oil because other units haven’t filed reports.” When remote telemetry with technicians was first implemented at Michigan Medicine in July 2017, it was used across the hospital — not just for monitoring patients within the cardiology unit. Duncan explained remote telemetry is not used on every patient because not every patient within the hospital needs to have his or her heart monitored, but Danyel Tharakan/Daily many patients outside the Audience members wear red in support of University hospital nurses in their ongoing labor dispute at the Regents’ Meeting at cardiology unit are moni- the University golf course Thursday.
“It started out with taking away graham crackers. Now it’s meal tickets and bereavement trays. What are they going to cut next?”
Wednesday, October 3, 2018 // The Statement
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Engaging with my self-conception BY ETHAN CARTWRIGHT, CONTRIBUTOR
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worked as a software engineer at a startup in Ann Arbor over the summer, and for the first several weeks I was marred with a recognizable inner turmoil. I would get a task, try to do it, eventually stop making progress and then begin to think I was in over my head and bound to fail. This overwhelming sensation would spread, affecting the rest of my work tasks. It would follow me home, eventually leading me to question my decisions and self-confidence in situations beyond work. I might wake up the next day feeling dejected because I’m not good enough and start my day on the wrong foot. After a month of this cycle, I realized I needed to make a change. I had started daily meditation a couple years back because of a class recommended by a friend — Jazz 450: Contemplative Practices. Additionally, I had been using a workbook called “The Artist’s Way,” by Julia Cameron, for the past month in order to improve my creativity and become a better writer. Both of these pushed me to reconsider my idea of self-conception, which ultimately pushed me to better my thinking habits. The changes I’ve experienced have had a huge impact on me, inspiring me to write and reflect on them. Self-conception is a sense of self based in one’s beliefs and experiences. It affects things like how outgoing we are, how we tackle challenges, and how we treat ourselves and others. If a person believes they aren’t good looking or charismatic, then it’s likely they will lack the confidence to try things at which they might otherwise succeed. Given the impact of self-conception, it’s worthy of more attention. It’s something that crops up from our successes and failures, how others have treated us and life events over which we have minimal control. By disassociating from my negative thoughts over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to actively engage with my selfconception. I’ve been searching my past for events that have significantly influenced me while also using affirmations to redirect my self-vision. Two insights have led me in this process. The first insight stemmed from my daily mindfulness meditation practice. An important part of the practice is the ability to recognize thoughts without identifying with them, and choosing to refocus attention back on the breath. When meditators realize they are getting distracted by their thoughts, they label them “thinking,” “self-doubt,” “future to-dos,” “jealousy” and so on; then they refocus on the breath. By labeling them and choosing to focus on the breath, the meditator distances themselves from their thoughts. This brings me to the first insight: I can detach my thoughts from my self-
conception. For example, I realized just because I had a thought, such as “I’m not good enough,” it didn’t mean I had to identify with it. A pretty simple realization, right? But we’ll see its power in a moment. The second insight comes from “The Artist’s Way”. It provides weekly exercises to help the reader nurture and heal their creativity. In the first week of using the book, I excavated my past to find the roots of the beliefs I held about myself, my abilities and my motivations. The workbook asked me to break my past into five-year increments and recall specific instances within each time frame that had been memorable and formative, whether positive or negative. An important aspect of this selfexcavation is the idea that forgotten past experiences are often the roots of one’s self image and actions. Unfortunately, a lot of these experiences can be negative because of humans’ uncanny ability to over-focus on negativity. Sometimes these negative experiences perpetuate unconscious doubts and beliefs regarding the self. This exercise helped me uproot selfincriminating beliefs through affirmations and gradual lifestyle changes. This leads to the second insight: The underlying beliefs, values and assumptions I hold about myself and the world can be re-directed, changed or abolished. Through this practice, I began to interact with the scaffolding that defines who I am. This comes with
the implication that not questioning these underlying beliefs leads to not having a say in who I am becoming. Once I connected these ideas and realized I had the power to question my thoughts, I was able to both separate my thoughts from my self-conception, label from where the self-doubt came and redirect my beliefs. Here’s how it went. When I was at work, got stuck and had a thought of self-doubt, I would take a deep breath and think about how 1) I hadn’t even failed yet and 2) Even if I did fail, any single failure didn’t constitute who I was. I didn’t have to identify with the failure. I would remind myself of positive qualities I did want to identify with, like having grit, being optimistic and being resourceful. I then incorporated self-excavation. I searched my past to find the roots of the monsters whispering in my ear, “You’re not good enough. You’re going to fail,” and identified they were connected with forgotten memories of a soccer coach being too hard on me in high school and older teammates telling me I wasn’t good enough to be on the team. Labeling the roots of the issue really lightened my mindset on the subject. While at work, I had been worried I was failing and everyone else thought so too, but realizing “everyone” was really just thoughts floating around in my head that stemmed from past experiences helped me loosen the hold of these beliefs.
“I have important things to say.” “I will move forward; I will land on my feet.” “Being myself will lead to creative success.” “Be calm; take one step at a time.” These are a few of the affirmations I read aloud to myself every morning and whenever I felt overwhelmed throughout the day. Affirmations are one of the biggest steps I’ve been taking toward actively engaging with my self-conception. Now, when I am at work and get overwhelmed, I’m able to stay positive, keep moving forward as best I can and disassociate myself from negative thoughts. Sure, I’ll fail sometimes. But failures are slowly becoming less of a personal problem than a pragmatic issue. It’s much easier to pick myself back up when I don’t identity with them. The cool thing about this process is that it requires me to think about who I currently am, why I am that way and who I want to be. Disassociation between thought and self helps me to recognize which voices in my head I do and don’t want to listen to. Self-excavation helps me address issues I might otherwise ignore or run away from. Affirmations help me engage with myself in ways that lead to positive self-growth in directions I’ve explicitly determined. I believe this process can be used more widely, and to help others get on track toward happier lives, too.
ILLUSTRATION ILLUSTRATION BYBYVALERIE VALERIECHRISTOU CHRISTOU
8B
Wednesday, October 3, 2018 // The Statement
V I S UA L S TAT E M E N T:
Light up the Night
Photos by Alec Cohen