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ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Monday, April 6, 2020

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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‘I helped somebody take their exam’: University faculty, students discuss academic integrity After transition to online classes, unclear whether honor codes are being adhered to FRANCESCA DUONG Daily Staff Reporter

On March 16, the day the University of Michigan officially began online classes in response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, a student, who will be referred to in this article as Jane, had two exams. One of her exams was canceled while the other was open for three days to accommodate students’ schedules. According to Jane, one of her friends asked for her assistance in taking the exam. Jane has requested anonymity for fear of retaliation from the University. To protect Jane from retaliation, The Daily has decided not to publish the name of the course. Jane said she agreed to help her friend cheat by taking her friend’s exam, but she said she took her own exam separately. “I helped somebody take their exam, and then I took mine because there’s no browser lock or anything (and) they’re not using the camera,”

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Jane said. “I did that, so then I knew what was on it.” Jane said she did not think the exam was that difficult but did believe helping her friend made

her more prepared. After taking the exam, Jane said she was really nervous about getting caught. However, once she talked to more people, she said she realized many

others had also used some form of assistance on their exam. “I was talking to my friends after … and they were like, ‘If (the instructional team) checks if people

A businesses worry about futures 2

Stay Home, Stay Order impacts local economy, results in closures for an extended period of time BARBARA COLLINS & LIAT WEINSTEIN Daily News Editors

On Friday, March 13, two days after the University of Michigan canceled in-person classes and moved to online instruction for the rest of the semester, Kathy Roos, the owner of RoosRoast Coffee on East Liberty Street, removed half of the chairs from the cafe’s seating area. The change was meant to promote social distancing — a phrase that has, in the past few weeks, come to epitomize the selfisolation needed to slow the spread of the rapidly growing COVID-19 pandemic. “We were ahead of the game,” Roos said. “We did that because we were very aware of what was happening.” Now, with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Stay Home, Stay Safe Executive Order mandating the closure of all “non-essential businesses,” RoosRoast remains reliant on a curbside to-go business operating out of their Rosewood

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DOMINICK SOKOTOFF/Daily Ian Shackelford, assistant distiller at the Ann Arbor Distilling Company, mized ingredients together to make hand sanitizer in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Street location. Even with these kinds of services, Roos said she is not sure Ann Arbor’s small businesses will survive prolonged shutdowns. “This could destroy the local economy,” Roos said. “That’s a really strong word. But when is this going to end? How long can businesses remain closed?

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And all the amazing, deep local, idiosyncratic Ann Arbor local businesses — they can’t survive. They’re not going to be able to survive being closed for too long.” The coronavirus pandemic hit when rising rent prices and an increase in development across the city were already putting a strain on local businesses. In 2018,

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18 businesses closed, with most closures affecting businesses that had been open for more than 25 years. Rent prices also soared in the past year, leaving business owners struggling to pay their employees at rates that would allow them to reside within city limits. But the pandemic and subsequent executive orders have placed local businesses in a unique situation, leaving many to rely on community support in order to meet their rent and pay employees. Literati Bookstore, a staple bookshop on East Washington Street, raised more than $115,000 through a GoFundMe campaign last month. Literati’s owners, Mike and Hilary Gustafson, met their goal of $100,000 just days after the fundraiser opened on March 23. Many stores and restaurants have followed suit, hoping community donations will be able to sustain their businesses until the pandemic subsides and the city reopens.

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See ECONOMY, Page 2

open the textbook, if they enforce that, then the average score would be zero because everyone is going to do it,’” Jane said. See CHEATING, Page 2

CAMPUS LIFE

Hash Bash goes virtual in 49th event

Annual gathering occurs online, draws speakers CHRIS SULLIVAN Daily Staff Reporter

The 49th annual Hash Bash, Ann Arbor’s annual cannabis rights event, took place online Saturday afternoon via livestream due to the state of Michigan’s stay-at-home order amid the coronavirus outbreak. Michigan’s statewide COVID19 cases surpassed 14,000 by Saturday. Nick Zettell, co-founder of MI Legalize and leader of the Hash Bash Committee, said the group quickly searched for alternative platforms to host the event as the spread of the virus increased in the past few weeks.

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Michigan in Color

Monday, April 6, 2020 — 3

‘On Slowing Down’ MAYA MOKH

MiC Co-Managing Editor

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” A friend gifted me a brown leather journal with this quote on the cover in eighth grade. Today, I am left with a large collection of journals accumulated over the years, halfway filled with week-long, month-long, sometimes year-long intervals in between. Mirroring this is the stack of books on my bookshelf, sadly abandoned and promised a return.To my defense, I do think my memories were worth writing down— they just got lost in the promise of tomorrow. Despite my inconsistency, writing gave me the opportunity to look back at previous seasons of life and compare them with seasons I am in now, laugh at my angsty

teenage self and relate to who I was many moons ago. So now, trying to find the inspiration and attention span to pen my thoughts down again, I flip through my most recent journal, stumbling upon the “List of things I learned in 2019” I wrote on New Year’s Eve. Number six on the list catches my eye: Don’t be afraid to go out and take risks, take airplanes, take propositions. But also don’t be afraid to stay. Don’t be afraid to slow down once in a while. You’re not missing out on anything. The advice of my former self rings true now more than ever. Throughout my three years at college, I had rushed to make the most out of the time I knew would come to an end too soon. I joined every organization that sparked my interest. I worked three jobs at once. I filled up every summer with a study abroad trip, jam-packed with side trips in between until my exhaustion overpowered my thirst

for sight-seeing. And when I wasn’t doing something, I was stressing and planning for the next phase in my life, the next summer where I would need another internship or job to keep me busy and productive. That’s why, in the beginning of the winter semester, I suffered the inevitable burnout that I’d always heard of but never thought would happen to me. I was crippled with doubts and fears about where I was in life. I wanted so badly to be proactive, to be avidly internshipsearching and applying to every study abroad and job I could think of, but the stress of school and my responsibilities finally caught up to me, and I quite literally couldn’t. As adventure-hungry as I was, I found myself fantasizing about a summer at home, like my high school summers, where I spent time with my family and my friends just being myself. I fantasized about feeling free, unrestricted by the need to

constantly be doing something. To not feel like I was constantly missing out on something. Nevertheless, I forced myself to polish up my resume and apply to travel programs and internships, telling myself whatever happens, happens. After all, we’ve been trained not to feel satisfied with anything less than over-exertion. Looking back to my journal entry from New Year’s Eve, I now see that I was making room for what has become my reality. The current state of our world has put a halt on our futures, and as a result we have been forced to look inward or backward. Hindsight has been my mode of thinking as of late — trying to remember who I was before I defined my self worth by checklists and grades, gym days and meetings, how thin I could stretch myself before I collapsed. I’ve been looking through old journals. Looking through old photographs.

Looking through my camera roll and smiling at the silly memories I’ve made with my friends over the past year and letting that replace the void now left by lack of social interaction. Making up for lost time with my family, catching up on their lives that I have been out of touch with while being so caught up in my own. The point of this is not to say everyone should be having a transformative, self-reflective personal journey at this time. That is not feasible for everyone. Many of us are living in fear for ourselves, our loved ones, our futures, our world. But I do think there is some magic in the whole world being put on pause and for once living in the same moment, the future uncertain. The productivity-obsessed, grindat-all-costs culture of our society has been disrupted. There is some bittersweet magic in just hoping, waiting, praying, together. Remembering the common thread of humanity that we have severed over the years. Maybe I’ll grab one of those unfinished journals and pick up where I left off. Maybe we’ll come out of this better than where we left off.

The Michigan Difference

by his relatives and friends back home, and inspired Hallak to MiC Columnist launch a charity campaign to It is during times like this, support his people. when normalcy escapes us and “I was thinking about the uncertainty consumes us, that people of my town last week: what what defines us becomes clear. Our are they doing now, how are they identities as Wolverines no longer surviving this pandemic, they hinge on the routines we had on are already underprivileged and campus, but rather on the integral most of them don’t have jobs,” parts of our identity which allow Hallak said. “Even my friends us to claim ownership over the that have degrees back home can’t title “leaders and best.” Through find jobs because the country is our resilience, leadership, and doing very bad economically. So connectedness, we are able to feel ... I called my dad and asked him like a Wolverine during a time what the situation in Baalbek where being a Wolverine looks is: the situation here is very bad entirely different than before. Baba, people literally have nothing Engineering junior Bashar to eat, and no money to support Hallak, Baalbek, Lebanon native, themselves’” described his transition to online Within less than 24 hours of classes as, “less busy with life in the campaign launching, over general and having more time to 200 people shared the campaign think about others.” with others, not only spreading He worries about how the awareness of the people of already disadvantaged people of Baalbek’s struggles, but also his hometown would survive the spreading empathy. Halak’s pandemic. The current crippling campaign has successfully raised position of Baalbek, void of basic over $2,400 that will be donated necessities, was detailed to him to Safe Side, a nonprofit that distributes food to disadvantaged families in Baalbek. Concerned by the effect COVID19 will have on small businesses in Ann Arbor, the new members of Delta Sigma Pi-Xi, a business fraternity, started a Go-FundMe in support of local businesses in Ann Arbor. DSP plans to donate the money to businesses ranging from the Ozone House, a nonprofit that provides shelter and support to homeless youth, to Rays Red Hots, a popular COURTESY OF AHMAD HIDER dining spot for MAYA KADOUH

Wolverines, aiming, “to support the organizations and people that have given life to the place we love so much.” Already raising over $600, DSP plans to continue pushing their campaign until we return to school. LSA senior Clara Munkarah spent a few of her final moments as a Wolverine organizing a charity virtual cup pong tournament in which over 25 Wolverines are participating in. The winner of the virtual cup pong tournament will choose where the participants’ donated money to the tournament will go. “Honestly I just felt pretty helpless being stuck at home and recognizing how many hardships so many people are going through right now,” Munkarah said. “So I figured, why not combine the two and make something fun and useful out of it? It wasn’t about how many people signed up or how much money was raised, if we could just unite a few friends and donate money to help someone, it would make quarantine feel worth it.” Munkarah’s tournament is a small example of the importance of holding onto our connectedness during these unprecedented times. In an attempt to write this piece, I reached out to various groups on campus asking if they were doing inspiring work or felt inspired by the works of others. I was overwhelmed by the many responses I received of students volunteering to get groceries for the elderly, packaging food for low income families, collecting donations for local businesses in their area, and taking the time to handwrite letters to elderly people who are isolated from others. With each message I received, I felt more assured that when we return to school our campus will be more resilient than ever, and that there is incredible meaning behind the phrase, “the Michigan difference.”

UNSPLASH

‘Guide Me, Said the Grapevine’ GABRIJELA SKOKO MiC Senior Editor

Addiction is like prayer Begging for release Craving freedom from self Desire Entropy is me Freedom is not-Guiding me home Hanging me slowly; Hanging me slow Inmate is me Jah will be Kinship Like Motherhood Nectar from mother Oxtail is home Pride is culture Queer me. Do not share Remorse with those who hang me String me in grape vine Take me back to Jah Unwind my spine of swine Veil me in honeysuckle; call me sweet Wait for me, wonder is me Xerox my soul, call it yours, you have done so before Yield to youth Zion come soon.

Opinion

4 — Monday, April 6, 2020

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

JENNY GURUNG | COLUMN

The need to address gender-sensitive policy during COVID-19

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Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

FROM THE DAILY

In response to the University’s housing emails

n March 17, students received an email from University of Michigan Housing titled “URGENT: Petition to Remain in Housing.” The email, asking students “who truly have no other alternatives” to submit a request to remain in student housing by 8 a.m. the next day or lose building access, drew fire for the short notice and for backtracking on the University’s previous statement that students would be allowed to stay in the dorms. Further, the information in the email was not communicated to faculty, leaving professors blindsided and oblivious to the stressful situations their students had been placed in.

The following day, Housing sent an email apologizing for the confusion and clarified that students had indeed not been required to move out at 8 a.m. that day. They offered support for students moving out and outlined the procedure for those who chose to stay in the dorms. In these unprecedented times, we understand that no response on the part of the administration is perfect. Given how rapidly the situation changed with each new day, the University was forced to weigh the public health risks of leaving dorms open while accommodating students who were either unable to leave or had to coordinate arrangements in moving out. However, times of crisis call for clear and transparent communication. The array of emails and follow-up emails that students received from varying sources often failed to convey transparency and specificity in the University’s actions, creating confusion that could have been avoided had the administration simply been more clear and specific about their intentions in the original email. This undue stress and confusion only amplify students’ anxiety as they scramble to arrange flights, pack up belongings and adjust to online classes. Further, professors were left in the dark. Many had planned to carry on classes and exams during or soon after the time that students were moving out and were shocked and indignant that they, as professors, had received no information about this policy from the University. The multiple sources of information only added to the confusion as students received a number of emails regarding

housing changes from Housing, the LSA Dean‘s Office and the Office of the Vice President of Student Life, making it difficult to discern the real authority on the matter. We believe that the confusion could be eliminated by creating a single, centralized source on behalf of the University administration to disseminate information regarding COVID19 updates and protocol, like U-M Public Affairs’ COVID-19 information website, and only releasing information from that source and email address. In addition, the University should create better interdepartmental communication systems to ensure moving forward that professors are aware of the information their students are receiving and able to accommodate accordingly. While the policies put in place

In the end, no response that the University comes up with will be perfect. were necessarily reactionary, reflecting the rapidly escalating nature of the situation, we believe that the rapid response failed to account for the precarious food and housing situations of many students and jeopardized their safety and well-being. The vague terminology of “students who truly have no other alternative” raises questions as to which students are included and excluded, particularly for students with unsafe home

conditions. The policy thrusts these students into a situation that could compromise their mental health and safety. In attempting to account for these students, the Maize & Blue Cupboard remains open and the University has consolidated residential hall services to West Quad Residence Hall and South Quad Residence Hall and dining services to South Quad. The coronavirus has forced everyone, including students, faculty and University administrators to improvise and adjust in our current disorder. Though the University’s response has fallen short at times, we as students need to understand that the administration doesn’t have all the answers right now. Their actions reflect continued efforts to communicate with the student body and make accommodations without jeopardizing public health, namely by providing a partial refund for housing and meal plan expenses, keeping select dorms and dining halls open and offering free packing and storage services to students. In the end, no response that the University comes up with will be perfect and we should try to manage our reactions to each successive email that is released. However, this means we should learn from the shortcomings of the University’s initial response. Moving forward, the administration should reflect on students’ struggles in the COVID-19 pandemic in order to prepare better response protocols should future crises arise, and to make sure that communication from here on out is clear, accurate and widespread.

hough COVID-19 started as a public health issue, in the past month it has transformed into an economic one as well. Lawmakers must act now to protect both the health and economic well-being of workers, especially women. Typical gender roles leave women at a disproportionate risk during this crisis, exasperating existing economic, medical and social gender gaps. Women’s roles in the workforce place them at a greater risk of contracting the virus. According to the World Health Organization, women make up 67 percent of the world’s healthcare workforce in 104 countries, and in the United States, that number is 78 percent. Health care workers, especially nurses, nurse practitioners and medical assistants who are on the front lines of virus response, are highly exposed to the disease itself and in close proximity to other people. During the 2002 SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic, more than half of the cases worldwide were women and 21 percent were health care workers. The high proportion of women in temporary and insecure positions also places them at a greater economic and medical disadvantage. Women are twice as likely as men to be employed part-time. In 2016, women made up 63.9 percent of the part-time workforce. Parttime workers are less likely to have employee benefits including paid family and sick leave and health insurance. These workers are also the first to be slashed during times of economic vulnerability, leaving many women without a steady income. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act passed on March 18 offers paid sick leave to these part-time workers, but offers unequal pay compensation and leaves out a majority of the workforce, including domestic workers. Women who make up the majority of unpaid caregivers and domestic workers, including childcare workers, have no safety net. These workers are either unemployed or face infection because they often take care of families, the elderly and sick people. Pregnant women

are another extremely vulnerable population right now. During the SARS outbreak, it was noted that pregnant women with SARS were more likely to miscarry. But with limited data on the transmission of SARS and coronavirus, there is uncertainty and anxiety in the air. Staying home and quarantining is one of the most effective ways to stop the spread of the virus. Families, then, are left with the decision of how to divide the labor at home. Women in dual-income households who are “poor, working in service jobs that cannot be done from home” will often bear the bulk of childcare responsibilities and stay home. The economic impact of the virus will hit women, a majority of service and part-time workers, harder. Julia Smith, a research associate at Simon Fraser University, said that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa greatly affected the economy but “men’s income returned to what they had made pre-outbreak faster than women’s income.” If there is anything to be learned from past epidemics like Ebola it’s that women will have a harder time bouncing back from this economic recession. Since President Donald Trump declared coronavirus a national emergency on March 13, the U.S. has worked quickly to pass the paid sick leave bill (even though this exempted millions of workers). But had the U.S. been better prepared, we could already be focusing on an equitable, gender-based response. More cities should already have paid sick leave and health insurance benefits for employees. Domestic and service workers should have labor protections already. Lack of employee benefits and protections are all public health risks. In a sense, women are at the center of this pandemic, yet do we really think our administration will address these gender-sensitive policy needs? Lawmakers cannot ignore gender needs anymore during this crisis. Instead, they should take it as an opportunity to challenge existing social dynamics and deeply entrenched gender roles. Jenny Gurung can be reached at jennygrg@umich.edu.

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

SUBMIT TO SURVIVORS SPEAK The Opinion section has created a space in The Michigan Daily for first-person accounts of sexual assault and its corresponding personal, academic and legal implications. Submission information can be found at https://tinyurl.com/survivorsspeak2020.

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Monday, April 6, 2020 — 5

DIGITAL CULTURE NOTEBOOK

Whipped coffee versus COVID-19 (not a success story) GRACE TUCKER Daily Arts Writer

My biceps started to ache as I rapidly whisked the sad, watery coffee-ground mixture with the manic fervor of a small child. Eyebrows furrowed and lips pressed together in a stubborn line, I was the poster image for culinary determination. It had been about 15 minutes since I first set my whisk to the coffee mixture, and I was not about to give up on the task at hand. The coffee would be whipped; it would be whipped and fluffy and a perfect caramel-brown color when I was done with it. Just one week prior, all of my classes had been moved to dinky online formats. And all my friends and I were sent back to the hometowns we had once been so eager to move away from. In one weekend, my dorm became empty and my inbox became full of canceled events I once looked forward to. Over a couple email exchanges, I went from having two work-study positions to having zero. Club meetings were canceled indefinitely and promising summer prospects lost their promise. But, in that moment, it was just me, my whisk and my stupid coffee recipe that I found on TikTok. I was in control. No virus was going to stop me from turning a TikTok dream into a deliciously whipped, coffee-lover’s reality. I

whisked and I whisked and I whisked. But it just wasn’t whipping. The gritty, brown mixture stayed that way and there were no fluffiness or caramel hues in sight. I was infuriated, cursing under my breath like some sort of deranged cooking show competitor. The pressure was on, and the clock was ticking, as if I didn’t have an infinite amount of time in self-quarantine to whisk this stupid drink. Successfully making this iced coffee was my first concrete task after what seemed like weeks of floating around, scratching off events from my calendar and forcing myself to find contentment in days of newly-freed time. But I wasn’t finished yet — I whisked nobly onward. In an attempt to ease the physically taxing nature of my work, I started switching off my whisking hands, my breathing getting heavier with every passing minute. I adopted yet another strategy: tilting the metal bowl from one side to the other, searching for the perfect angle that would yield the creamy concoction TikTok had promised. Brown bubbles forming on the edges of the soupy mixture started to tease me in my culinary pursuit. I let out a few crazed shouts of pride as I looked down at what appeared to be the beginnings of a bubbly, thoroughlywhipped beast. I think my mom could sense my increasing hysteria as she approached my mess of a chef’s station. Coffee grounds and sugar granules were

I let out a defeated sigh as I started to clean up the goopy brown mess. Whipped coffee: 1. COVID-19: 1. Me: 0.

THE COOKING FOODIE

peppered all over the white countertop like confetti. With bubbles forming then disappearing and coffee grounds sitting stubborn and rigid at the bottom of the bowl, I started to lose hope. I could’ve cried. It was a Friday afternoon and I should’ve been in Ann Arbor, in East Quad, basking in the excitement that is the start of the weekend and the promise of a night out with friends. Instead, I was back home in Indiana, staring at my icky, failed attempt at whipped happiness, with my mom leaning over my shoulder in concern. Her voice was full of pity. “You saw this on TikTok?” I looked down pathetically at the dirtlike mixture and nodded. “What kind of coffee does the recipe call for?” she asked. “Instant coffee powder,” I muttered. I looked over at the crumbly Dunkin’ stuff I had just spent almost an hour trying to whisk into a creamy paste. The bright orange package read “medium roast coffee grounds.” I eyed the instant-coffee imposter with nervous suspicion.

“Grace, that’s not instant coffee. Instant coffee is freeze-dried!” my mom exclaimed. She started to laugh, “That’s ground coffee!” I knew she was right but I didn’t want to believe it. The ground coffee was supposed to work and it was supposed to be fluffy, tasty goodness. And I was supposed to be in Michigan, with my classes and my friends and my a cappella rehearsals and club meetings and responsibilities. I was supposed to be at college. I let out a defeated sigh as I started to clean up the goopy brown mess. Whipped coffee: 1. COVID-19: 1. Me: 0. “There will be more recipes,” my mom added. And she was right. There will be more recipes and there will be more semesters and more responsibilities. And when those times come, I might miss the Friday afternoon I spent whisking my heart away at something as unimportant and frivolous as whipped coffee.

FILM REVIEW

White cinematic mainstream haunts Brazilian ‘Bacurau’ ANDREW WARRICK Daily Arts Writer

Bacurau is in trouble. First, the small Brazilian town, somewhere near São Paulo, has its water cut off. Then it loses cell service and disappears from satellite maps. Later, its electricity cuts out. Its residents soon realize that this is no accident. Their village is under siege. “Bacurau,” directed by Juliano Dornelles (“O Ateliê da Rua do Brum”) and Kleber Mendonça Filho (“Aquarius”), is a wild piece of pulp cinema. Yet, deep down, it’s also a scathing critique of imperialism in its many forms. “Bacurau” is satire on the edge of a knife, political commentary delivered by storms of machine gunfire and written in blood. It’s one of 2020’s most entertaining movies yet. Bárbara Colen’s (“Outer Edge”) Teresa comes back to Bacurau for her grandmother’s funeral. The town is a single dusty street

MUBI

and most of its buildings are run down. The church has become storage space and their single tourist attraction — a museum about Bacurau’s history — is rarely visited. Yet its inhabitants care deeply about one another, which the movie takes great care to emphasize early on. They gather for the grandmother’s funeral and sing in unison as they carry her to the grave. They share food and medicine and work together to get water when it’s cut off by the powers that be. The denizens of the town are diverse and individually characterized, of many races, sexual orientations and gender identities. A highlight is Sonia Braga’s (“Wonder”) Dominga, the town doctor who gets some of the film’s funniest lines. The first act, while mostly tranquil, is so well written and performed that it could have lasted the rest of the movie. Yet danger soon comes to Bacurau. A gang of white mercenaries, led by Udo Kier (“Iron Sky”), wants to kill everyone in the town.

Their motivations are unclear for most of the movie’s runtime — all one knows is that they’re immature psychopaths who only value white lives and love guns to the point of fetishization. Yet in most American movies they’d be the heroes. Hollywood and xenophobia have always gone hand in hand. There are countless movies where white people go to an “uncivilized” place and encounter people of color who want to kill, eat or sacrifice them. This is no 20th century trend, either. “The Green Inferno” in 2013 had white students go try and save the Brazillian rainforest only to be eaten by native people. In 2015, perhaps even more heinously, “No Escape” Owen Wilson and Pierce Brosnan are chased around Thailand by crowds of gun-toting, crazed Southeast Asian people. Mainstream American films love placing white people in fictionally hostile cultures and showing their fight to escape, as if that was all other countries were good for. This cliché isn’t just isolated to movies, either. Isn’t the Christopher Columbus most elementary schoolers learn about just a white man who extinguishes a culture deemed dangerous and inferior? Lewis and Clark are also iconic American pioneers, but didn’t they also help open the f loodgates for imperialistic expansion? It doesn’t matter if the narrative is cinematic or historical. If a white American is in control, it usually follows a pattern: violent, white protagonists steamroll the “uncivilized” lands they encounter. The white cinematic mainstream haunts “Bacurau.” The mercenaries carry iconic American weapons like the Thompson Machine Gun and Colt Revolver and speak in earpieces like something out of “Mission

Impossible.” They even take over the narrative for much of the third act, changing the film’s language from Portuguese to English and showing just how damaging Hollywood’s whitewashing can be, literally silencing the voices of an entire population. The townspeople of Bacurau are replaced by disgusting, childish villains straight out of a B-movie, and they are missed in each Americanized frame.

Bacurau Vitrine Filmes State Theatre Virtual Screenings

Yet, unlike in many Hollywood movies, the clichés are broken. The townspeople work together to fight back in a stellar, no holds barred finale. Its f lurry of bullets, blood and brains is not just a perfectly crafted gore show, but also a triumph over harmful stereotypes and the reclaiming of a narrative. People who aren’t Americans have histories, personalities and value, and sometimes the white man with the gun isn’t the hero. It’s high time America caught on to that.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Arts

Monday, April 6, 2020 — 6

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

What I’m Listening To: Ann Peebles, a secret kept too well CLARA SCOTT Daily Arts Writer

“I can’t stand the rain, outside my window / Bringing back sweet memories,” Ann Peebles sang in 1974, and the world of soul and hip hop changed forever. The song those lyrics belong to, “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” is a masterpiece on its own, a mesmerizing romp through memory and heartache told through Peebles’s unmistakably raspy vocals. “I Can’t Stand the Rain” is the title track of her 1974 album, an effort that brought her to 25 on the US R&B charts and established her innovative storytelling and song structure as a mainstay of music production for years to come. The thing is, Peeble’s story doesn’t end at her own music, nor at her own successes throughout a life of respect in the industry — she’s one of the most-sampled artists in hip-hop history. Now, I’m listening to her beautiful songs as they were meant to be heard: on their own. She’s a well-kept secret that deserves to be less of a secret. The most striking sampling of Peebles’s work is with this very song, worked into Missy Elliott’s hit “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly).” Yeah, that song. The one with the video where Missy seems to be wearing a bicycle helmet on her head and a garbage bag on her body. The hook in the background of “Beep beep, who got

the keys to my Jeep?” is not actually Missy herself, but Peebles. The song also shows up in “Rain” by Mick Jenkins, “Demolitions” by Kaytranada, and according to whosampled. com (a truly amazing resource for curious hip-hop minds), 18 other songs. And those are just the songs that used enough of Peebles’s original track to pay royalties — you can only imagine the amount of SoundCloud rappers who have taken one snare or pitched-up the initial hook from the song and dropped it into their own mixes. Peebles’s discography was a goldmine for the earliest master samplers; we’re talking the real big ones, like J Dilla, GZA of the Wu-Tang Klan and those bracing electronica and hip-hop like Gramatik. It didn’t stop at “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” but branched into songs of hers like “Trouble, Heartaches and Sadness” from an earlier album, which is featured on GZA’s incredible track “Shadowboxin’.” Though that use of Peebles’s work in particular only takes a small portion of the original material and integrates it into the new mix, it’s the groove of songs like “Trouble” that makes her music so incredibly good for samples. She manages to infuse a sense of dancehall bounce into even the saddest, most heartbreaking soul songs, her voice both soothing and worn-down from years of truthtelling, perfectly merging with the playful

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’70s instrumentation that characterized her earliest work. That’s what makes her music so catchy, even out of context — every track in the mix has that groove, even isolated from the rest of the song. The vocals are beautiful alone, but so are the horns, the keyboard track, the chimes, the drums and the cymbal that only crashes once. It’s like Peebles had imagined each line on its own and then layered them, creating beautiful songs that are just as beautiful when separated as they are put together. Even if you don’t recognize what parts

of her songs have been woven into other favorites of yours, listening to Ann Peebles is always worth it. On her own, without any of the knowledge of her incredible history of sampling, she is a force to be reckoned with in her own era of soul and R&B, merging the sass of an artist like Aretha Franklin with the ease of Minnie Riperton. Her voice is unmistakable, her groove can make you dance even if you’re crying at the same time. Maybe you’ve heard her before without knowing it, but once you do, you can’t go back — she’s everywhere, not just in the rain.

DAILY FOOD COLUMN

COVID-19 and food: a consumer’s guide for the pandemic BRENDON CHO

Daily Food Columnist

On Tuesday, March 24, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer released a stay-at-home executive order for all individuals in Michigan. Exceptions include those who require groceries and living essentials, as well as workers who are essential to sustain and protect life or those required to maintain basic business operations. Among those businesses still running are grocery stores and restaurants. However, you may be confused about the general guidelines that should be followed in terms of public and food safety in times of a pandemic. Is it actually safe for restaurants to continue to prepare food? Should you support local restaurant businesses, or would that put restaurant employees and delivery drivers at risk? What is the best way to go grocery shopping during the pandemic? What should be the procedure for cleanliness and hygiene? To answer those questions, here are your guidelines for the coronavirus and food safety throughout the pandemic, based on my research. What should I know about the coronavirus? The coronavirus causing the current COVID19 pandemic is called SARS-CoV-2. It bears a close resemblance to its cousins SARS-CoV-1 (the coronavirus that caused the 2003 SARS outbreak) and MERS-CoV (the one that caused the 2012 MERS outbreak). Though SARS-CoV-2 resembles previous existing coronaviruses, it is a novel virus — information about the virus is constantly developing as many researchers are learning more about it. Here’s something that we do know: the coronavirus is NOT the flu. While both the coronavirus and the flu are respiratory diseases, the coronavirus is in a completely different family of viruses than the flu. COVID-19 possesses different symptoms (assuming a person is not asymptomatic) while being capable of spreading and killing more quickly and efficiently than the flu. How does the coronavirus spread? As a respiratory virus, the coronavirus spreads primarily through your respiratory system. The Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention

states that the main form of transmission of the coronavirus is through inhalation of respiratory droplets that are produced whenever an infected person coughs or sneezes. The transmission can be exacerbated through close contact (less than six feet distance) among individuals. While the most contagious people are thought to be those who are sickest, it’s important to note that the spread of the coronavirus is also possible from those who have not yet shown COVID-19 symptoms. Currently, there is little to no evidence that the coronavirus can spread through means other than aerosolization. While transmission could theoretically occur through contact with recently contaminated surfaces, sources such as the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) state that this would be extremely unlikely as coronaviruses themselves are relatively unstable within the outside environment. How long can the coronavirus survive on common surfaces? A study published by The New England Journal of Medicine indicates that aerosolized coronavirus can survive within air for up to three hours. On cardboard surfaces, that time increases to 24 hours. On stainless steel surfaces as well as plastics, that time increases to three days. This means that any time an infected individual coughs or sneezes on an item (including asymptomatic employees of essential businesses), the virus is likely to remain active and viable on that item for longer than if it were to be in the air. This may include items such as cardboard delivery boxes or plastic take-out containers. Luckily, the concentration of viable viruses will decrease quickly in the beginning and slowly approach a concentration of zero. Sources such as the BfR state that chances of transmission via contaminated objects still remain low because of the virus’s innate instability towards outside elements — due to the logarithmic decay of viable viruses. However, practices such as washing your hands after handling outside mail and packages as well as transferring food contents from grocery stores and restaurants, when applicable, can help further reduce the innate viral load that you may pick up from outside items.

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Can you contract COVID-19 from contaminated food? Multiple sources such as the European Food Safety Authority and the U.S. Department of Agriculture find no current evidence to suggest that the coronavirus can be transmitted through food packaging or the food itself. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines a food-borne outbreak as an event that occurs when individuals get the same disease through the ingestion of the same contaminated food. A 2018 study indicates that the transmission route of respiratory diseases closely resembles the current transmission trajectory and patterns of the novel coronavirus. Government action from Singapore and South Korea that has tracked known infected individuals has noted that many of these individuals that have contracted the coronavirus are clustered together — which corroborates the 2018 study. What are my risks of contracting COVID-19 from cooking at home, delivery or takeout? Your likelihood of contracting COVID-19 is tied to your proximity to and frequency of interactions with others. In other words, you are more likely to come into contact with multiple individuals when you decide to order takeout as opposed to ordering delivery of groceries or cooking at home. Restaurants and other food providers are under strict federal and state regulations in terms

of proper hygiene within a professional setting. Restaurants who do not follow these regulations face severe consequences ranging from public posted notices to complete shutdowns. Within Ann Arbor, restaurant signs alerting residents of their takeout or delivery only policies also tend to state that they are committed to adding extra precautions such as wearing gloves and utilizing hand sanitizers on top of keeping and regulating the high hygiene standards as required for most foodservice industries. There are risks associated with groceries and cooking at home. Restaurants and restaurant workers tend to follow a higher safety standard than that of the average supermarket and grocery store worker. Following certain guidelines can help reduce the likelihood of contracting the coronavirus — treat all items taken from outside your home (such as packages and groceries) as potentially contaminated. Wash your hands after bringing in outside items as well as before, during and after cooking, sanitize all containers/ products and transfer products to clean containers. Jeffrey VanWingen, a doctor at Grand Rapids’s Family Medicine Specialists, offers a detailed video guide on how to best sterilize your groceries in the midst of the pandemic.