Thursday, June 25, 2020
ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
inside
‘Cautiously pessimistic’ about future of campus life
NEWS
Juneteenth March Over 2,000 protesters gathered on the Diag on June 19. >> SEE PAGE 2
Students express mixed reactions and concerns towards Schlissel’s decision
OPINION
America’s Youth A layered commentary on the histories of Tulsa, Juneteenth and east Oklahoma. >> SEE PAGE 4
ARTS
Bob Dylan’s ‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’ The musical legend reckons with his past and wrestles with the present in latest album. >> SEE PAGE 6
MICHIGAN IN COLOR
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Looking towards Avatar as a call to cultural unity and effective uprising in a time of national uproar. >> SEE PAGE 9
SPORTS
Athletes are Back All the news surrounding Michigan athletics’ return to campus
>> SEE PAGE 10
INDEX Vol. CXXIX, No. 119 © 2020 The Michigan Daily
NEWS .................................... 2 OPINION ............................... 4 ARTS/NEWS..........................6 MiC......................................... 8 SPORTS................................ 10
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FRANCESCA DUONG
‘U’ announces in-residence fall semester, calendar changes
ALEC COHEN/Daily
CALDER LEWIS
Summer News Editor
The University of Michigan announced on Monday some in-person classes will resume on all three campuses this fall. However, all classes will be delivered remotely after Nov. 20 and fall break is canceled, according to an announcement from University President Mark Schlissel. The winter semester will begin Jan. 19, 2021, Schlissel wrote in an email. “Thanks to the thoughtful and deliberate efforts of hundreds of members of the U-M community, our cautious optimism about the fall has coalesced into a path forward,” Schlissel wrote. “Their work has given me confidence that we can do this safely, and we will continue to plan and prepare in the months ahead. We now have the opportunity to begin a new journey together, equipped with the very best guidance and ideas from our leading scholars, innovative students and expert staff.” Other updates to the calendar include the elimination of spring break, resulting in
continuous class sessions from Jan. 19 to April 20, with finals running April 22-29. The University launched a Campus Maize and Blueprint website that contains information and updates regarding reopening for all three campuses and Michigan Medicine. According to the website, students will be expected to wear face coverings in public spaces and indoor social gatherings are limited to 10 people. For the Ann Arbor campus, larger lectures will be delivered remotely in the fall. Smaller discussions will be held in person, and mediumsize classes will be a hybrid of the two. Individual schools, colleges and departments of the University will determine these decisions. According to the announcement, the University will open on-campus housing. However, there will be social distancing requirements in shared spaces and move-in times have been extended from three days to at least seven. For those living on-campus, students are expected to selfquarantine for 14 days before moving in. Students can expect to have
a roommate, however are not expected to social distance within their own rooms. For students with pre-existing health conditions, there are limited single rooms still available, according to the website. Dining halls will also be reopened with reduced capacity to accommodate social distancing requirements. Students will have the option to either place a dine-in reservation online or obtain a take out meal. The University is finalizing a testing protocol when students arrive on campus and throughout the semester. Facilities will be set aside for students who test positive or come in close contact with COVID-19 to quarantine. Planning for the fall semester will continue to be guided by the advice of medical and public health experts, Schlissel wrote. In an April 29 interview with The Daily, Schlissel said the fall semester is unlikely to be normal and shared steps University community members might need to take to return to campus.
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Summer Managing News Editor
When incoming Business freshman Jessica Goldberg heard University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel’s announcement of a “public health-informed in-person fall semester,” she said she was ecstatic. “This wasn’t how I planned for my senior year (in high school) to end, and I was really looking forward to looking on campus in the fall,” Goldberg said. “It’s kind of what I’ve envisioned all these years, so I was really excited to hear that I would be moving in a dorm and being on campus and getting the full college experience.” Goldberg said she places her trust in the University administration to take appropriate action in the worst case scenario, and therefore, does not have concerns for the fall semester. “When coronavirus first started it was really scary, and I do think we’re going to have to adjust to a new normal,” Goldberg said. “But also, there’s also that fact that life has to return to some sense of normalcy ... You can’t be concerned for the rest of your life.” In contrast, Art & Design senior Leila Mullison said they had mixed feelings after hearing the decision. “On the one hand, as purely an academic student, I don’t love online classes,” Mullison said. “I have trouble focusing on them and staying in the same place for very long periods of time. At the same time, as a person who owns a human body, it doesn’t feel very good or very safe to be moving somewhere right now and to be interacting with a bunch of new people and to be living in a community environment.”
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2 NEWS
Thursday, June 25, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Thousands march in A2 on Juneteenth Over 2,000 people gathered on the Diag to celebrate June 19 JASMIN LEE
Summer Managing News Editor
Over 2,000 people crowded the Diag on Friday to celebrate Juneteenth, the day when African slaves in Texas were told they were free –– two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. This event, hosted by Survivors Speak and other local organizers, aimed to incorporate awareness for police brutality into a day of celebration. Event organizer Trische’ Duckworth, Survivors Speak founder, told The Daily even though Juneteenth is a day of celebrating the progress in America towards equality, Black people are continuously fighting racism and systemic oppression. “You think about Juneteenth being a celebration, but what are we really celebrating? Because although we’re free, we’re not really free,” Duckworth said. “Because there are laws that are put in place to stop us as melanated folks to have freedom and justice for all. So while we did want to celebrate and that’s why we ended with the dance party, we also wanted to focus on what’s going on in the world right now and how we have to come together as a people to fight for justice and use it as a call to action and then end it with a small, short celebration.” After an open letter was sent to University President Mark Schlissel by School of Education staff members to encourage the University to recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday in the workplace, many schools within the University allowed their staff early dismissal to participate in Juneteenth events. An email was also sent by Robert Sellers, chief diversity officer and vice provost for equity and inclusion, encouraging University employees to allow staff to participate in Juneteenth events. Speakers and performers at the protest included politicians, Washtenaw County residents and local artists. Former Michigan gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed spoke
about reaching out against injustice and breaking the barriers of a racist society. “So we see that it’s been 155 years since we abolished, finally, the idea of (Black people) being concluded as part of what was private property,” El-Sayed said. “Well we’ve got a lot more work to be including Black folks … We are here today because that work is not over. We are here today because as we recognize as we stand on the floor of that moment, we all better reach out fists up high to break the ceiling that tell us that Black folks should be excluded, can be excluded, could be excluded.” Eli Savit, Washtenaw County prosecutor candidate, talked about the school to prison pipeline. Savit referenced the book “The New Jim Crow,” when discussing how the U.S. criminal justice system is the modern day slavery that prevents Black people from having freedom. “70 percent of the children in our juvenile detention centers are black,” Savit said. “Is the school to prison pipeline still freedom? And freedom does not come about even after somebody is released from prison or from jail. In the ‘New Jim Crow,’ Michelle Alexander made the case that we have replaced the old Jim Crow, the formal laws in the South, for a new Jim Crow in which we deny people coming back from prison (and) jails the opportunity to maintain jobs, to get housing, to continue their education.” Halfway through the march, protesters kneeled in front of the Ann Arbor Municipal Center for eight minutes and 46 seconds to commemorate the death of George Floyd. Once the crowd reached the Diag again, people were dancing and celebrating Juneteenth. LSA and STAMPS senior Valerie Le said people should look into the history of America for themselves because much of it is whitewashed, which is why she never heard of Juneteenth before college. “I think that people should recognize that history is so much deeper than what we’ve been taught,” Le said. “Especially growing up in a super white town, I’ve never heard of Juneteenth before and (did) not learn a lot about Black history. I think it’s important to learn about
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Protests in Mich. continue strong
BECCA MAHON/Daily
Different events throughout the week call attention to BLM KRISTINA ZHENG AND JASMIN LEE
Summer News Editor and Summer Managing News Editor
The Daily sent reporters to various protests across Michigan throughout the week. Here are the protests we covered. Breonna Taylor Protest on Diag on Sunday, June 14, 2020 About a do0zen community members spread across the Diag in sleeping bags Sunday to honor the memory of Breonna Taylor. Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was shot and killed by a Louisville police officer who entered her home with a “no-knock warrant” in March. The event lasted eight hours in remembrance of the eight times Taylor was shot. Organizers encouraged Black protesters to set up their sleeping bags in the middle of the Diag. Non-Black protesters were asked to encircle the resting protesters and watch for any potential agitators. The block “M” in the middle of the Diag was covered by a blanket. University of Michigan Social Work student Dana Pittman, Association of Black Social Workers member, was part of the team that helped
organize the protest. Pittman emphasized that the protest on the Diag emphasized resting for Black people who are fighting racism and to symbolize Breonna Taylor’s death. “Today, we really wanted to highlight the importance of rest and Black rest (and) Black bodies. Rest shouldn’t be revolutionary, it should just be a right,” Pittman said. “But sadly, we are not afforded that because we always have to fight and we always have to do the work so we invited other people to support us in the work so that we didn’t have to continuously inform them … rest is something we really (want) to center in this protest.” Social Work student Leslie Tetteh, Association of Black Social Workers member, also helped organize the protest. Tetteh told The Daily being active in dismantling racism can be tiring and taxing on Black people who constantly experience prejudice and they are doing the best they can when it seems more violence is continuing to occur. “For me, what’s been difficult is the overwhelming feeling of what we’re doing,” Tetteh said. “I think that we all are very active in terms of everything that’s going on (and) making sure we
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Thursday, June 25, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NEWS 3
Town hall talks in-person semester After the Schlissel’s announcement, Dean of Engineering explains the decision CLAIRE HAO
Daily News Editor
City Council candidates address police brutality
Design by Hibah Chughtai
In light of recent events, contenders add reform measures to platforms NAYVA GUPTA
Daily Staff Reporter
After the killing of George Floyd, protests against police brutality and racism erupted nationwide, calling for an end to systemic racism, police department oversight and defunding the police. With elections coming up on August 4, City Council candidates from all five of Ann Arbor’s wards have turned their focus to fighting police brutality in Ann Arbor. In interviews with The Daily, candidates detailed policies such as reallocating the police budget, implicit bias training for officers and police oversight. Anne Bannister, Democrat for Ward 1 City Councilmember Anne Bannister, D-Ward 1, is running for reelection and said she believes all citizens of Ann Arbor deserve to be treated humanely, justly and with dignity. According to her platform, Bannister supported the creation of the Independent Community Police Oversight Commission and strongly believes in communicating with victims of systemic racism and ensuring their problems are
addressed. Bannister said she plans to ensure better training of police officers to reduce implicit bias and also believes the community should be able to easily access law enforcement data. With the help of Police Chief Michael Cox, Bannister hopes community policing will be improved. “Like our whole country, I’ve been very hurt and disappointed and disturbed by the incidents of police brutality around the country,” Bannister said. “(We have to) further this philosophy of compassion and well-trained officers that are here to protect us.” Lisa Disch, Democrat for Ward 1 University of Michigan professor Lisa Disch is running against Bannister. Disch said she believes creating a community that upholds safety is essential. Her platform includes ensuring the safety of people being stopped by law enforcement without cause and also expanding community policing. Disch said she has heard about numerous incidents of racial harassment from Ann Arbor residents. She said she wants to work on eradicating the fear residents may feel when reporting these incidents. She said she aims to change local law to increase the oversight power of ICPOC, review and reallocate the Ann Arbor Police Department budget and reorient
policing to focus on the causes of crime. “I am struck, but not surprised, by hearing people say that they feel free to relate their concerns in public forums but that they hesitate to file official grievances,” Disch said. “That fear itself, let alone the treatment they describe, tells me that this city has urgent work to do.” Disch supports the prevention of biased crime reporting and wishes to implement implicit bias training for all police officers. “This is just a start,” Disch said. “I continue to listen and learn, and hope to work collaboratively with other council members and ICPOC to find creative solutions moving forward.” Jane Lumm, Democrat for Ward 2 Jane Lumm, I-Ward 2, who is running for re-election as a Democrat, has represented Ward 2 as an Independent since 2011. She is one of the two councilmember liaisons on the ICPOC and has been working towards police oversight since 2018. She believes ICPOC needs to have more access to police records to ensure effective oversight. Lumm said she supports Police Chief Cox and believes that he will lead the AAPD towards better policing policies, tactics and training.
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Alec Gallimore, University of Michigan dean of engineering, and Laura Blake Jones, dean of students, held a town hall with various student groups involved in plans for the upcoming school year on Monday afternoon following University President Mark Schlissel’s announcement regarding fall semester earlier in the day. After walking through information presented in Schlissel’s email and the new website, Gallimore and Jones answered student inquiries in an event moderated by Public Policy senior Amanda Kaplan, Central Student Government president. The town hall was primarily intended for the more than 600 students involved in the COVID19 Campus Challenge, a studentcreated competition to brainstorm solutions for various problems that may arise in the fall. Kaplan said students in the Campus Climate Advisory Council, a group of about 40 students from various boards, organizations and student employee groups advising on fall planning, were also invited. In an email to The Daily, Jones wrote the town hall was meant to highlight key elements of Schlissel’s announcement as well as to continue seeking input from challenge participants. “The Challenge participants are a large representative group of undergraduate and graduate students from a wide variety of schools and colleges,” Jones wrote. “Their keen interest in the COVID Challenge and commitment to planning for a safe residential experience made them an ideal constituent group to talk with.” According to Gallimore, the original timeline planned for a decision about fall semester was to be made in July. The timeline was moved up one month, allowing for the decision to come at the end of June. “What we will do actually is in some respects use June and July and August to do a number
of things, to do some practice sessions, dry runs et cetera, so that we’re ready for you when many of you come back in late August for a wonderful semester of mixed educational experiences,” Gallimore said. “We will use the fall term to evaluate how things worked and improve upon them for winter 2021.” Gallimore emphasized the hundreds of administrators, faculty, staff and students involved in planning efforts by pointing to the numerous committees working on issues ranging from testing to transportation to student mental health. Similar to the new Campus Maize & Blueprint website, Gallimore said success of the school year would depend on “stacking” measures from physical distancing to administrative controls on density. Generally, classes with over 50 people will be conducted remotely, while classes with 10 to 15 or fewer students will be held in-person, subject to space availability, Gallimore explained. Classes in the in-between range may be offered in-person if physical distancing is possible in the learning space. Jones focused on the need for students to be responsible, which both she and Gallimore expressed was one of their greatest worries about the upcoming semester. She shared a draft of a behavior pledge which includes current public health guidelines such as wearing masks, maintaining social distance and limiting social gatherings. To encourage individuals to follow the pledge, Jones said there will be education efforts and social media campaigns to emphasize its importance. Jones said she hoped the University community would embrace a “culture of care” in which everyone acts according to the well-being of those around them — particularly those most vulnerable to the virus — and beyond their own desires of what they want to do.
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4 OPINION
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FROM THE DAILY
Juneteenth, Black Wall Street and why ignorance is not bliss
A
s we continue into the first days of summer surrounded by nationwide protests for intersectional Black liberation, many were understandably appalled when President Donald Trump announced he was planning to hold a rally in Tulsa, Okla., on June 19. This decision to hold his first rally in three months on Juneteenth, a holiday that commemorates the ending of slavery in the U.S., and in Tulsa, where this month marks the 99th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, was deemed racially insensitive by many.
A
fter resolving that President Trump was unfamiliar with the significance of both June 19 and Tulsa, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., — the only Black Republican in the Senate — stated, “I’m thankful that he moved it … once he was informed on what Juneteenth was, that was a good decision on his part.” After this incident, many have moved to recognize Juneteenth as a holiday for employees, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and companies including Best Buy, Nike and Postmates, among others. This has also been the first year we’ve witnessed widespread media coverage of Juneteenth, which has undeniably uncovered the fact that millions of Americans are unaware of the histories of our country. The demand is simple: Juneteenth needs to be a federal holiday, one that recognizes the humanity and deserved independence of all American citizens, not only those who sought independence to then enslave others. We live in a nation whose schooling system is designed to indoctrinate a false history of America. The White House and the Trump administration — who were admittedly ignorant to the day on which the last enslaved people were officially emancipated, the significance of Tulsa and Black Wall Street and the Tulsa race massacre, which is known
to be the worst incident of racial violence in American history — symbolize this complicit American ignorance and lack of education. We must do better. We must celebrate Black history, not in the month of February or when Black bodies are hanging, but as a way of life and as American history. Trump and his campaign aides failed to grasp the significance of holding a political rally on Juneteenth, nor did they realize that Tulsa’s history compounded the racial insensitivity of already wanting to hold a rally amid a deeply painful time for the country. When asked if the coincidental scheduling was intentional, Trump responded, “Think about it as a celebration. My rally is a celebration.” However, the president’s rallies never seem to celebrate anything other than white supremacy and further division of the country. In a Politico Playbook audio briefing, they said Trump is “torn between the impulse to speak and cater to his base, and the demands of governing a multiracial country in the throes of unprecedented turmoil and upheaval. He seems generally uncertain of his place in the moment, and in the broader history of our country.” It is not surprising to many, especially after learning of his inability to grasp the fundamental history of Pearl Harbor. A former senior White House adviser said: “He was at times dangerously uninformed.”
This seems to be a recurring embarrassment for the president, but to think that all of those who advise Trump are not sophisticated enough to understand the significance of holding a rally so close to Juneteenth in Tulsa would also be a dangerous underestimation. This leads many to believe that Stephen Miller — a white nationalist, one of the president’s closest aides and his “xenophobic homunculus” — understood the direct message they were sending with the rally: deeper division of the country along humanitarian and racial lines. We are often taught that Abraham Lincoln was the white savior of the slavery narrative, that he courageously abolished slavery and the inhumanities that had transpired in America’s past. This narrative, along with so many other examples of whitewashed American history, has been undeniably contorted when one examines actual perspectives of the former president. From Lincoln’s Sept. 18, 1858 debate with Judge Douglas, he states: “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white races -- that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making VOTERS or jurors of negroes, NOR OF QUALIFYING THEM HOLD OFFICE, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that
there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” Simply put, Lincoln was never antiracist. However, one can say that Lincoln had morally and politically detested the system of slavery throughout his life. His opinion was that the method of unfree labor was opposed to the basic postulates of republican freedom and believed they would morally undermine the nation. Lincoln saw great promise for the country and “rejected the popular notion that society needed a permanent class of lowwage workers to provide the foundation for economic progress—an idea that in its most extreme form was the rationale for slavery.” Depicted most prominently in his “House Divided” speech from June 1858, Lincoln believed, “‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.” America could not have sustained itself as a half free and half slave nation, and thus the concept of “free labor” was reimagined, making it opportune for economic progress in the North to stop reliance on slavery. He finally reached a compromise with the radical opponents of slavery at the time, and they decided that containment of slavery — to let slavery exist where it was granted by the Constitution, but prevent further expansion — would suffice. Rewinding to the start of the 19th century, the economy of America was predominantly agricultural and scattered throughout rural communities. However, as industries and technologies began to weave themselves into American society, the rise of railway construction and factory-based mass production led to an economic boom. Americans that were once used to working in small, local shops or for themselves took up jobs in the growing number of factories. This industrial promise of upward mobility was essential for both the nation’s social stability and economic prosperity. However, it was a different story for many antebellum Americans that remained advocates for slavery and, therefore, resented the economic developments that paralleled abolition. Unlike the northern states who were boasting industrialized factories and modern technological developments, the South still relied heavily on agricultural economics and consequentially, the enslavement of Black people. Even after the Emancipation Proclamation declared the abolishment of slavery on Jan. 1, 1863, many states waited until the 13th Amendment was ratified by Congress, which was passed by a narrow margin on Jan. 31, 1865. Regardless, many Confederate states refused to follow the order even after rejoining the Union and so the official process of liberation did not occur unless an enslaved person escaped and reached
Union zones or until their enslaver had been confronted by federal Union troops with an executive order to release their enslaved people. The last body of enslaved people to be reached with the news of abolishment was in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865 — two and a half years after the implementation of the Emancipation Proclamation — marking the official liberation of all chattel enslaved Black people in America. Noliwe Rooks, director of American studies and professor of Africana studies at Cornell University, stated, “The idea that people in that part of Texas had no idea that the war was over is farcical, quite frankly. There were wire services, there were newspapers … The larger plantation owners were very wealthy and wealthy people have access to information. They were brutal people but they were the ruling class in the United States. They were elite, many were wealthy, they were not illiterate or backwards. They were brutal and inhuman, but not ignorant.” The prolonged, painfully drawn-out end to slavery was fueled by selfishness, apathy and greed. For this reason, and many others, June 19 is an important holiday and is recognized as the true American Independence day among the Black community. It is officially recognized in 47 states. After the Civil War, the Confederate flag became a heroic symbol for nostalgic racists and was sustained as a white supremacist logo to be rekindled amongst civil rights progressions in the nation. An indoctrinated misconception is that slavery was exclusive to the South, but the reality is that slavery was incredibly present in the North, especially in New Jersey. In fact, the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the Confederate states, failed to acknowledge the persistence of slavery in northern states such as New Jersey which did not officially liberate their slaves until 1866. It didn’t stop there. More than 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, into the 1960s, there were still Black families in the Deep South who had no idea they were categorically free. From being cyclically and continuously indebted to plantation owners to ancestors signing documents they couldn’t read, 20th century slaves were not allowed to leave the plantation property. There was no way for the families to know that how they were living was any different from anyone else in the country — “the land down [there] goes on forever. These plantations are a country unto themselves.” Antoinette Harrell, who researched and interviewed Black families who came forward with their experiences, said, “Slavery will continue to redefine itself for African Americans for years to come. The school to prison pipeline and private penitentiaries are just a few of the new ways to guarantee that black people provide free labor for the system at large. However, I also believe there are still African families who are tied to Southern farms in the most antebellum sense of speaking.
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Thursday, June 25, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
EMILY ULRICH | COLUMNIST
I
DeVos’s anti-survivor ideology
f someone ever asked me to describe my experience with sexual assault at the University of Michigan, I would tell them being a female student on a college campus has become a position of anxiety, fear and emotional distress. I would tell them that I have seen countless friends’ lives altered because of sexual assault. I would tell them I have had strangers grab my hips and pull me in close at tailgates in broad daylight. I would tell them that I have seen intoxicated girls slipped drugs at parties, and so — even though no one should have to — I hold myself accountable to not get drunk. I would tell them I have witnessed fraternity brothers raise their solo cups in confirmation that they found a girl drunk enough to have sex with them. I would tell them that unless they are currently a female student on a college campus, they have no idea just how ingrained sexual misconduct has become within the college culture. In the midst of a global pandemic, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has reversed any success that has been made combating the long-lasting sexual assault epidemic. Last month, DeVos fundamentally changed the landscape of Title IX and tipped the scales in favor of those accused. The guidance documents issued by the Obama administration to consider all investigations of misconduct are long gone. The finalized Title IX regulations narrow the definition of sexual harassment, as well as require live hearings and protect those accused of campus sexual assault by allowing them to question evidence and cross-examine the plaintiff. Live hearings with cross-examination were already required at the University, however, now the perpetrator can have their lawyer cross-examine the victim with meticulous questioning that has been honed through years of legal training, making the campus disciplinary process more like a daunting courtroom. Chanel Miller, a survivor at Stanford University whose assault had multiple witnesses, describes her interrogation by lawyers as being “pummeled with narrowed, pointed questions that dissected (her) personal life, love life, past life, family life, inane questions, accumulating trivial details to try and find an excuse for this guy who had (her) half naked before even bothering to ask (her) name.” They will do everything they can to manipulate the victim until they prove the case as a misunderstanding, even when the sexual assault is blatantly evident. Economic inequalities will be amplified since some students will not be able to afford lawyers. This will unlevel the playing field during cross-examination because now there could be an expert examining one student and someone who has no experience with the law examining the other. Additionally, under the new regulations, universities can adopt a “clear and convinc-
ing evidence standard,” making sexual assault cases even harder to prove because now evidence must be deemed substantially more probable to be true than not true. This is more rigorous than the current “preponderance of the evidence standard,” which requires enough evidence for the judge or jury to rule that the plaintiff’s claims have a greater than 50 percent chance of being true. The only higher burden of proof would be “beyond reasonable doubt.” It is alarming that such a strict burden of proof can be adopted for an offense that commonly happens in private and is already hard to obtain concrete physical evidence of. Under the new definition of sexual assault and harassment, federally funded schools are required to only investigate the most extreme forms of harassment. Sexual harassment must be determined by a “reasonable person” to be “so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal access to the school’s education program or activity.” This definition presented by DeVos is widely subjective and makes it harder for sexual harassment cases to even go to a hearing. Victims must have repeated and escalated levels of sexual harassment before they can file a claim. Additionally, the definition is much narrower than the current federal definition of sexual harassment: “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.” A key issue that has not been addressed is if someone was intoxicated during the incident, their case may not be seriously considered. This is unnerving considering alcohol is involved in approximately 50 percent of college sexual assaults and 90 percent of sexual assaults perpetrated by an acquaintance of the victim. Alcohol has long been a factor that complicates sexual assault cases because often the victim does not remember parts of the assault or the assault as a whole. Unconsciousness has almost become a loophole for the accused to get out of college rape investigations with zero violations. For example, in a recent sexual assault case regarding students on the University track team, a Washtenaw County assistant prosecutor said the case could not be prosecuted, even though the perpetrator admitted to the assault over text, because the female victim was asleep and could not remember the event.
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OPINION 5
EASHETA SHAH | COLUMNIST
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On South Asian solidarity
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” - Martin Luther King Jr. We made it. Our parents immigrated from Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and countless other Asian countries to attain a more opportune life in America. They pushed us to be the very best. They sacrificed for us. We worked hard, we got into the country’s top universities and we achieved the so-called American dream. And in the midst of all that, we’ve dangerously given into what is known as the model minority myth. As Vijay Prashad asks in his timely novel “The Karma of Brown Folk,” “How does it feel to be a solution?” How does it feel to be complicit in our success that serves as a vindication for this country’s history of discrimination and oppression? How does it feel to turn a blind eye to systemic injustices taking place not only in the United States, but also to those back home? Because as Hasan Minhaj reveals in his Patriot Act digital exclusive, while the blood of Black lives may not be directly on our hands, we are quite literally at the scene of the crime. The unjust death of George Floyd felt like the great awakening people needed to catalyze racial reckonings across the globe. Our Black community has felt this heavy rage for far too long, and we’ve been indifferent to their pain. Instead, we seek validation from white institutions, and we look down on Black people with racial resentment: the unfounded feeling that “blacks violate such traditional American values as individualism and self reliance.” We praise Black excellence, but we criticize Black failure as laziness, refusing to question the glaring systemic issues at hand. After all, how could a system that we found success in be oppressive? Writer Frank Chin put it perfectly in 1974: “Whites love (Asian Americans) because we’re not black.” While our hard work is valid, it is not the sole reason for our success. Our success is rooted in our political silence and ethnic assimilation, and it exists because we are afforded better opportunities than our Black counterparts. In accordance with the model minority myth, it’s easy to believe we’ve been “bestowed with the ‘right’ work ethic and family bonds required to succeed in America.” We have not been historically kidnapped from our country and stripped of our heritage to then be forced into slave labor to build a nation on stolen land — it’s easy to believe when we ignore
the mass incarceration of Black people that separate families daily. We crudely justify our own anti-Black sentiments because “we’re minorities too.” But this narrative is not a scapegoat for our silence because while we’ve faced various forms of harsh discrimination in the United States, we have never endured the level of extreme systematic dehumanization that African Americans have experienced. Standing in solidarity with the Black community does not invalidate South Asian struggles, and speaking to allyship as such demonstrates heartbreaking apathy and insensitivity. Black people should not have to die for us to do the bare minimum and demand a more equitable ladder of success for all people of color. Our rage for the heinous acts of police violence should go beyond, if not match, that of when we are racially profiled at airport security or when we are told to “go back to our own country.” And the truth of the matter is police brutality and systemic discrimination aren’t new in South Asian countries, namely India. Partly as a result of British colonization, we’ve become complicit to the cultural norms of colorism, casteism, Islamophobia and Hindutva, a modern right-wing political ideology also known as Hindu nationalism. Our harmful compliance towards extreme economic inequality and the growing persecution of Dalits (lower caste members), Adivasis (indigenous tribes people) and Muslims in India have only further ingrained these attitudes within many Desis, and they contribute to anti-Black sentiments brought with us to the States. Like many non-Black people of color, our standards of beauty, worth and status in society have been defined by our skin’s level of melanin. We’ve been raised to idealize Eurocentric beauty and to take every precaution to obtain the fairest skin possible. While the goal of South Asian solidarity is not to shift the narrative to colorism, we must recognize that our anti-Black prejudice derives from colorist and casteist attitudes and thus contributes to daily racial microaggressions. While we are shamed for any excessive color, our Black brothers and sisters are systemically and individually dehumanized for it; they are killed for it based on extreme internalized racism that resides in the structure of our police force. And our disdain towards darker skin only advances racial intolerance within our communi-
ty. That, in addition to our passive submission of this country’s white supremacist ideals and our generation’s notorious appropriation of Black culture, makes our silence speak volumes — especially when we owe the creation of South Asian America to African-American activists. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 forced massive immigration reforms that got rid of nationalorigins quota systems, xenophobic policies and outright bans for Arab, Indian and Muslim immigration. Pressure from the Civil Rights Movement and Black solidarity with Asian Americans pushed for non-discriminatory visa policies that paved the way for our current residing status. South Asian and African-American solidarity, however, existed far before this act was passed, and it goes beyond Martin Luther King Jr.’s use of Gandhian nonviolence. The parallels between the Civil Rights Movement and South Asian liberation movements like Quit India instilled a historical alliance between these two communities that we continuously fail to recognize today as South Asian presence in the States is vastly overlooked prior to 1965. Activists such as Swami Vivekananda and Bayard Rustin stood as allies for each others’ community during their respective fight for human rights and independence. During the Jim Crow era, Bengali Muslim migrants were taken in by working-class African-American and Puerto Rican neighborhoods — giving way to Bengali Harlem — while Indian freedom fighters like Ram Manohar Lohia taught activism techniques at historically Black schools and encouraged nonviolent civil disobedience. In the 2014 events of Ferguson, Miss., South Asian Americans organized and spoke out against anti-Black racism, but our alliance cannot end there. We need more leaders like Rahul Dubey, who sheltered Black Lives Matter protesters in Washington, D.C., from arrest, and the Bangladeshi family restaurant in Minneapolis that acted as a staging area for medics and resting place for protesters. In a fight against injustice that we are all too familiar with, South Asian acts of solidarity for Black lives are crucial.
Read more at MichiganDaily. Easheta Shah can be reached at shaheash@umich.edu.
6 ARTS
Thursday, June 25 , 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ALBUM REVIEW
Bob Dylan reckons with the apocalypse ANDREW WARRICK Daily Arts Writer
On Dec. 13, 1963, Bob Dylan was given the “Tom Paine Award” by the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee for his political activism. A visibly shaken, and likely drunk, Dylan said he accepted the award on behalf of “everybody that went down to Cuba,” then unleashed a doozy: “I got to admit that the man who shot President Kennedy, Lee Oswald … I saw some of myself in him.” The crowd booed him off the stage. A few days later, Dylan released a statement that read, in part, “If there’s violence in the times, then there must be violence in me.” It’s 2020, and the times are more violent than ever. They have been for a while. Where has Bob Dylan been in the era of Donald Trump, mass shootings, climate crisis and COVID-19? Where’s the singer who marched on Washington with Martin Luther King Jr. and wrote searing political anthems like “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” and “Only a Pawn in Their Game?” He was releasing Sinatra cover albums — three, to be exact — from 2015-2017. It seemed, for those who hoped for a guiding message from rock’s poet laureate, that Dylan had decided to sit this one out. Yet, in June 2020, Bob Dylan is back with his first album of original music in almost a decade — Rough and Rowdy Ways. It’s a career-defining masterpiece, an album both bracingly current yet timeless in its compositional breadth, pulling from the best of Dylan’s work through the decades. Rough and Rowdy Ways has the enthralling auditory grit of 1997’s Grammywinning Time Out of Mind, the socio-political layers of Highway 61 Revisited and the personal revelations of Blood on the Tracks. “Today and tomorrow, and yesterday too,” Dylan begins the album’s first song, “I Contain Multitudes.” “The flowers are dyin’, like all
things do.” Dylan’s message is clear from the start: These are the end times. Yet after this apocalyptic pronouncement, he implores an unnamed woman to “Follow me close … I’ll lose my mind if you don’t come with me.” In Dylan’s world, where “Everything’s flowing, all at the same time,” one can “sleep with life and death in the same bed.” Basically, even if everyone’s going to die, they don’t have to die alone. In a whimsical, almost snide cadence, Dylan throws in a myriad of other personal complexities, but one line stands out: “I’m just like Anne Frank, like Indiana Jones and them British bad boys the Rolling Stones.” The lyric bristles at the ear, mainly because it’s so impenetrable. How is the 79-year-old Dylan, while a rock star like the Rolling Stones, like Anne Frank or Indiana Jones? Right from the start, Rough and Rowdy Ways is sonically striking. Dylan’s last original album, 2012’s Tempest, was chock-full of crashing drums, out-of-control guitars and a voice that sounded like Dylan had swallowed a gallon of rocks. Dylan has self-produced every one of his albums since 1997, and generally favors a raw, unfiltered performance by both himself and his tour band. This time, though, he’s meticulously crafted every aspect of the album. The instrumentation and his voice transform to reflect the subject matter of each song. “I Contain Multitudes” is almost completely acoustic, intimately shading the confessional lyrics as the listener is drawn in by Dylan’s soft voice. This comfort is ripped away on the second track, “False Prophet.” Amid crashing drums and smarmy guitar, Dylan continues the dark lamentations in a Tempest-style bark — “I know how it happened, I saw it begin. I opened my heart to the world, and the world caved in.” While he doesn’t yet reveal what caused this apocalypse, Dylan asserts with haggard surety “I’m no false prophet, I just know what I know.” Things get weirder in “My Own Version of
You,” a song backed by a mournful steel guitar straight out of a retro horror flick. Dylan details his plan to dig up “limbs and livers and brains and hearts” and “bring someone to life … someone who feels the way that I feel.” Again, love and death are bedmates. While Dylan, parroting Victor Frankenstein, swears to act with “decency and common sense … for the benefit of all mankind” with his creation, he also asks “What would Julius Caesar do?” Like Caesar, and all authoritarians, Dylan considers his actions, however inhumane, permissible since he believes himself to be working for the common good. Adding to this prescient commentary, Dylan invites the listener to “Step right into the burning hell, where some of the best-known enemies of mankind dwell.” In these flames, Dylan somehow finds a way to sing a masterful love song, “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You.” “I’m sitting on my terrace, lost in the stars,” he begins. The Sinatra phase has paid off — Dylan’s voice hasn’t sounded this sharp in decades, a cavernous croon that soars with genuine affection. The soft instrumentation builds to a sublime electric guitar solo that’s one of the best moments on the album. There are also faint, almost imperceptible backing singers, one of which just might be Fiona Apple, whose soft choral drone gives the song a sense of deep melancholy. When Dylan sings, almost tearfully, “I don’t think I could bear to live my life alone,” it’s as moving as anything from his love-sick opus Blood on The Tracks. Thankfully Dylan meets someone, telling this unnamed lover “I’ll lay down beside you when everyone’s gone.” In a time when reality itself seems to be falling apart, Dylan’s honesty is piercing. Then comes “Black Rider.” To the tune of a slithering acoustic guitar, Dylan criticizes an unnamed man for womanizing, violence and arrogance (all of which Dylan has displayed thus far in the album, making one wonder if the song is a soliloquy, critiquing Dylan’s own dark, masculine shades). Whoever the black rider is, Dylan tells the guy “You’ve been on the job too long,” before giving one the album’s most brutal, and unexpected, lines: “The size of your cock will get you nowhere.” Dylan’s lambasting of this predatory, arrogant mystery-man brings the album’s apocalypse a step closer to 2020. “Goodbye Jimmy Reed” adds another political layer, with Dylan deciding “That old time religion is just what I need” and promising to “thump on the Bible, proclaim the creed.” Right after this declaration, however, Dylan tells a woman he will “break open your grapes, suck out the juice,” while admitting “I need you like my head needs a noose.” The fusion of fundamentalist religion with hypocritical lust and punishing violence adds another shade of relevance. After all, the tear-gassing, psychopathic president who swore to “grab them by the” youknow-what got 81 percent of the evangelical vote. Subject matter aside, “Jimmy Reed” is a sonic escape to a time gone by, with rollicking guitar and harmonica straight out of Dylan’s 1966 classic Blonde on Blonde. Again, Dylan shows his multitudes and proves that, even in the end of days, one can still have a little fun. In “Mother of Muses,” Dylan is back to grap-
pling with apocalypse. Like Dante, he implores the muses to “show me your wisdom” and guide him through the hell-fire. Then Dylan gives a list of muses much like the idiosyncratic roster in “I Contain Multitudes,” naming William Sherman, Bernard Montgomery, Winfield Scott, Georgy Zhukov, George Patton, Elvis Presley and Martin Luther King Jr. Again, one is befuddled. What do Union and World War II Allied generals, a rock star and Martin Luther King Jr. have to do with one another? Regardless, Dylan seems comforted by these muses in the next track, “Crossing the Rubicon.” He regards the “red river” that lays before him, “one step from the great beyond.” With a rolling guitar-lick, Dylan declares “I embrace my love, put down my head and I cross the Rubicon.” He has leapt over the river of blood and has passed into the afterworld. Dylan explores the afterlife in the masterpiece “Key West (Philosopher Pirate).” It’s the most musically complex song of the album, a masterful blend of guitar, ghostly background singing and accordion riffs that lap at Dylan’s lyrics like waves on a midnight beach. Key West, according to Dylan, is “the place to be if you’re looking for immortality,” a netherworld that radiates from a “pirate radio station.” Bob Dylan, the only songwriter thus far to win the Nobel Prize, spending his afterlife in the sound waves is more than fitting. “I was born on the wrong side of the railroad track,” he says, referencing his childhood in the barren mining town of Hibbing, Minnesota. “Like Ginsberg, Corso and Kerouac.” While at 79, Dylan still appears healthy, it isn’t hard to interpret the song as a meditation on both death and an eternity as a literary icon. He’ll be remembered as one of the best, but what will happen to his soul? Key West is “innocence and purity … paradise divine” yet also unrelentingly hot and “at the bottom,” full of “blossoms of a toxic plant.” Even in the afterlife there are multitudes; love and horror are intimately intertwined. Is this Heaven, Hell or somewhere in between? Either way, for this grizzled pirate in the throes of eternity, the heart still wants what it wants. “I’m so deep in love I can hardly see,” he proclaims. Yet his muse is gone: “I heard the news, I heard your last request. Fly around, my pretty little miss.” At Dylan’s age, it’s likely he’s seen many lovers come and go, and the accordion’s soft swell makes his sorrow all the more potent. This close to the end, even love can’t ease the pain. While Dylan has grappled with death throughout the album, this song is crushing because it is no mythological, apocalyptic musing. It’s tied to Dylan’s own life and career. The song ends with Dylan giving the haunting admission that for him too, Key West is “on the horizon line.” Through the past nine songs, Dylan has detailed intimate secrets, unpacked toxic masculinity, religious hypocrisy, impending mass death and his own legacy. Yet he isn’t done. There’s a final, devastating epic to, paraphrasing one of Dylan’s classics, bring it all back home.
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Thursday, June 25, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SUMMER SERIES
COMMUNITY CULTURE
Ann Arbor Camerata adapts to quarantine ELLEN SIROWER Daily Arts Writer
‘The Nutcracker’ and the uncertain future ZOE PHILLIPS Daily Arts Writer
The New York City Ballet cancelled its famous five-week run of “The Nutcracker” Thursday, citing advice from government officials and medical professionals regarding dangers of the coronavirus. The nixed Christmas spectacle means the company won’t return to the stage until 2021. The news comes with a certain sense of domino-tipping: Who will be next? The Joffrey Ballet in Chicago already cancelled their version of the show, and San Francisco Ballet is waiting for news from the city’s government to add sugarplums to their calendar. As the pandemic builds into a second wave cascading across the United States, the future of in-person performance jumps further and further into an increasingly unstable future. Cancelled shows are nothing new in 2020. At this point, NYCB has cancelled its Spring, Summer and Fall seasons, along with two galas — but losing the “The Nutcracker” is a much deeper wound, and it’s one that will be much harder to heal. The popularity of the beloved Christmas show is underscored by its commercialized success outside of the theatre: The Tchaikovsky score makes its way into December car commercials, the Sugar Plum puns are well-exploited by American marketing and the Nutcracker doll sometimes feels as well known as Santa Claus himself. Put simply, the annual mass production of Snowflakes and Rat Kings makes “Nutcracker” the singular poster child for all of ballet. Behind the curtain, though, the Land of Sweets is also one of opportunity. Increased numbers of performances mean
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longer cast lists — students earn spots in the huge ensemble and young professionals gain breakout roles that they’d usually never be in line for. The annual nature of “Nutcracker” also makes progressive reform more financially feasible: Recent years have spurred positive conversations about the restaging of previously problematic representations in the Chinese tea and Arabian coffee divertissements. Older (and sometimes still current) versions of the two sections tend to include embarrassingly derogatory depictions of Eastern cultures, but recent years have seen an uptick in reform: Phil Chan and Georgina Pazcoguin launched their “Final Bow for Yellowface” campaign after successfully petitioning NYCB to change their Chinese divertissement in 2017. Other companies have restaged the setting of the whole show to reflect the communities they serve. Joffrey Ballet’s version takes place at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Last year, NYCB also cast its first Black “Marie,” the preteen main character of the whole show. Albeit quite overdue, “Nutcracker’ has operated as the catalyst of many larger initiatives for the potential of progressive reform in classical ballet. The diversity of the ballet’s audience also changes come December. Grandparents sit next to grandchildren and gaggles of girlfriends make yearly pilgrimages to the opera houses. Swarms of schoolchildren attend matinee field trips and many companies also take their dancers to nursing homes and hospitals. “The Nutcracker” is very often the first piece of dance anyone will see, and it’s often cited as the reason a dancer begins taking lessons.
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Community chamber orchestras are at the heart of towns and cities across America. Volunteer, amateur musicians often comprise these ensembles, yet some ensembles employ high-level, local freelance professionals and students at nearby universities. The Ann Arbor Camerata (AAC), founded in 2006, is of the latter variety. Until 2019, the AAC existed as a traditional community chamber orchestra that regularly performed in local churches. Now, they do things a bit differently, and they’re making profound connections with the greater Ann Arbor community in the midst of COVID-19. Thomas Militello, University of Michigan Music, Theatre & Dance alum and Ann Arbor resident, is the current artistic director of the AAC. In a phone interview with the Daily, he spoke about the notable changes in the AAC’s mission since taking over as artistic director, and how the organization is not only staying relevant, but also staying true to its mission of serving the Ann Arbor community at large, especially its most vulnerable members, during this challenging time. Militello graduated in 2019 with a master’s degree in horn performance after completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Southern California in 2017. While he was primarily in school to study horn, he also sought out opportunities in conducting, despite not being in the official conducting studio in the Music, Theatre & Dance School. Through his involvement in Prof. Kenneth Kiesler’s conducting seminar and a conducting cognate with Prof. Michael Haithcock, he grew close with graduate students pursuing conducting degrees. Before Militello took over, that cohort of students ran the AAC. “The role of artistic director and conductor of the Camerata has been passed down through the orchestral conducting students at Michigan. I wasn’t next in line, so I got kind of lucky. When my class was graduating, they passed it to me because they figured I needed a vessel for experience if I wanted to pursue conducting at the level I was aiming for,” Militello said. As artistic director, Militello wears many hats. Day to day, his responsibilities include being in touch with venues, curating performances, contracting players, conducting the larger ensembles, managing the ensemble’s online presence and reaching out to current and potential donors. His most significant responsibility, however, has been completely rebranding the organization’s mission with significant changes to its core values. While the AAC was already a beloved community orchestra before Militello became its artistic director, he felt that there was more that could be done to provide accessible engagement with classical music to the entire Ann Arbor
community, not just to those who frequent classical music concerts. With that direction, the ensemble has taken an intentionally accessible approach to bring classical music to unconventional spaces and underserved communities. One of the biggest organizational changes to the AAC was the pivot to a project-based “cohort of musicians,” as Militello called the ensemble, from the traditional, season-based schedule that most orchestras follow. Instead of having a set, programmatic agenda for the entire year consisting solely of orchestral repertoire, the AAC now sets up concerts with both orchestra and smaller chamber ensembles that are planned in succession. “With the Camerata being not just functional as a chamber orchestra, we gained so much flexibility in performance locations, repertoire and audiences, as a result,” Militello said. “Chamber music has become a performance medium that’s essential to who we are.” The AAC had a remarkably innovative concert series centered around bringing diverse chamber music repertoire to unconventional audiences and venues when COVID-19 hit Michigan. The series, called Main Street Bar Crawl, was the first major performance project the AAC had planned since the radical change in artistic direction. The concerts were centered around bringing thematically relevant standard and nontraditional chamber music to popular bars along the Main Street stretch, like a brass quintet playing Irish music at Conor O’Neill’s and jazz-inspired repertoire at the Raven’s Club. The series highlights the ensemble’s motto of “come as you are” — no expectations, unspoken rules or frills; audiences can attend live classical music concerts from the comfort of their favorite hangouts and watering holes. Main Street Bar Crawl was unfortunately cancelled for social distancing measures, but Militello’s creative, innovative planning did not end with its cancellation. “When all the shutdowns started happening, it was disappointing for everyone, both for audiences and musicians in the Camerata. When thinking about how to move forward with the ensemble and stay relevant, I was trying to think about who really needed music right now, and what communities were most vulnerable during this time of need,” Militello said. The first people who came to mind were residents in senior living homes who were not only most susceptible to contracting the virus and enduring significant trauma with their health, but also unable to have in-person contact with their families and closest friends. With those residents in mind, Militello put a new concert
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8 MICHIGAN IN COLOR
Thursday, June 25, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
South Asians need to be held accountable for their Anti-Blackness NITHA ARUN & SUBARNA BHATTACHARYA MiC Guest Writers
The cold didn’t stop anyone from going out during syllabus week. We went to an event hosted by Sigma Beta Rho, a multicultural fraternity mainly made up of South Asian males. The DJ was playing a song and the n-word dropped. Without hesitation, the crowd of South Asian men sang along. To every single word. I stood in shock, yelling to my friend over the music, “Did you hear that?” I was one of the only people that reacted. People moved on after the event — if they even noticed it to be one — and their silence spoke to their complicitness in this blatant racism. When the situation was brought to the organization’s board, they tried to brush it aside. They continued to listen to Black artists’ music and claimed their convenient proximity to Blackness was enough to warrant them a “pass” to say and sing the n-word. These same people have said nothing substantial since the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and countless others in the Black community. This is not a singular problem; rather, this indifferent attitude towards saying the n-word is a symptom of the pervasive, ingrained anti-Blackness in the South Asian community. It’s important to introspect upon our lives as South Asians and the experiences that come with growing up in America. Many of us have heard about or been directly affected by the atrocities committed against people of our community in America: the “Dotbusters” after 9/11 who singled out any person who had brown skin and murdered them as Islamophobia heightened, or the murder of two Indian immigrants in Kansas. Some of us have faced more normalized types of racism: the IT jokes the Chad or Brad — or whatever his name is — made in AP Econ or the microaggressions you faced as you walked down the street. We’re all aware of the stereotypes in the media like Apu and Raj which deem our identity as humorous, reduced to a side character for comic relief. South Asians have been historical targets of racism, but we must remember our experience in no way matches the breadth of institutional racism which the Black community has to confront on a daily basis. We need to contextualize ourselves within the history of the United States. There are mountains upon mountains of problems which remain unsolved, but they cannot be resolved if we alienate ourselves from the Black community, which is what brought us this far in the first place. We can never achieve true equality as non-Black people of color in America if we stoop so low as to demean, berate and disrespect those who came before us.
The Civil Rights Movement paved the way for South Asian immigration into the United States. Due to the pressure from the movement, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Celler Act. This bill allowed the immigration of wealthy/potentially wealthy South Asians into the United States. The latent consequence of this was the myth of the model minority. White leaders saw our general economic prosperity in the U.S. and used it to dismiss the systemic racism that affected the Black community. We were tools used to portray the way all minority populations should aspire to be; anything less was dismissed as laziness and ineptitude. We must stop thinking our academic and economic success puts us above the Black community. This only perpetuates the model minority myth, created by white America to divide us in the first place. If we continue to take advantage of this privilege we have been allotted through our “model minority” status while denying that it exists at all, we will always be complicit in the crimes perpetrated against the Black community. This complicitness is present in our conversations and seemingly harmless “preferences.” I’m reminded of the time when my family was house hunting for a home in Michigan. Even before stepping inside the two-story brick house with a vast lake in the backyard —every Indian family’s American dream — my parents decided we wouldn’t live there because a Black man walked out the front door of the neighboring home. We need to recognize this generational racism and ingrained hatred for those who are different from us has to end here. We need to move past generations of colorist ideals because it has impacts not only on our relationships with other communities, but also our own mental health. No one is born racist. Anti-Blackness is learned through the environment we are exposed to growing up. It is our duty to unlearn it. We need to hold our peers and family accountable without hesitation. We all know the scene. You’ll be at aunty’s house for a holiday party and just as you are about to stuff that samosa in your mouth, an uncle will comment on “how lazy Black people are,” — this being the same uncle who made his wife bring the food to him. Now, you have two options: Pretend you didn’t hear anything and eat your samosa chup chap or confront him. Your parents give you the “don’t say anything” look. It is at this point that you drop the obedient achha bachcha guise and indoctrinate uncle on the systemic racism that has resulted in several inequities in the Black community.
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Breaking out of the iceberg: a tale of inspiration for Gen Z
states and protect them from invaders. Their clothing — especially their military clothMiC Staff Writer ing and of their leaders — are all based on ancient Chinese garb. The Fire Nation’s “Avatar: The Last Airbender” was an culture is derived from several different animated children’s show released on Nick- sources, including the Aztecs and Incas. This elodeon during the 2000s. The story sur- influence can be seen in the Sun Warriors, rounds the culmination of a 100-year long who teach those around them to harness the warbetween the hegemonic Fire Nation and power of the sun and appreciate its cycles, all other nations and tribes of the world. It using their sunstone. Another strong influis based on several people who have the abil- ence in the Fire Nation is of the Chinese and ity to control one of the four elements around Japanese, as with the other groups. The top them — air, water, earth and fire — while one knots worn by Fire National royalty — such person, the Avatar, can control all four and as Fire Lord Ozai, Prince Zuko and General is tasked with keeping the world in balance. Iroh — represent their positions of power. ATLA is a great symbol of cultural unity. Finally, the Air Nomads are based on TibetIt fuses several influences: the stories of Hin- an philosophies. In line with their universal duism; the cultures of the Arctic, Inuit and philosophies, the Air Nomads spend their other indigenous groups; Chinese culture lives meditating and searching for enlightenwith slight influences of Japanese culture ment. They search to be detached from the and many more. The concept of the Avatar world and free their spirit. Each character in this show brings someitself is derived from Hinduism. In Hindu scriptures, the god Vishnu has inherited thing unique to the table — whether it’s an avatar, or an earthly form, the ten times their personal experiences or family history. he has thought the world needs it most. He However, the most important part about takes on a brand new life and assimilates into them is the things they have learned from normal society, living as a voice of reason and their different cultures and the history of good. This is what the main character of this their people. Katara and Sokka learn about show is based on — the concept of the avatar the strength of the Water Tribe from their who works to keep balance in the world and grandmother and Katara’s teacher and draw ensure peace is kept. In ATLA, the avatar is inspiration from them. Katara also learns the reincarnated spirit of Rava, the spirit of about the nuances of the moon spirit, a long good, and is meant to master the elements of standing symbol and guardian of her people, and learns to draw strength from her. Aang the world and maintain balance. The different tribes are based on differ- learns about the universal philosophies of ent beautiful cultures around the world. The his people from his teacher, Monk Gyatso. two water tribes are respectfully based on He learns from their teachings to be imparthe Inuit and Yupik people. Their weapons, tial, kind and compassionate. Toph uses style of clothing and manner of gathering the knowledge of her culture to be strong food all match up with these cultures. In and unrelenting. She takes the strength of every tribe or nation, there are influences of her predecessors and teachers, and learns Chinese culture. In the water tribes, it comes to turn potential weaknesses into unique in the forms of the betrothal necklaces. In assets. Despite how different their cultural the Earth Kingdom, the most blatant show of and ethnic backgrounds are... relation to the Chinese is the Great Walls of Ba Sing Se, similar to the Great Wall of China Read more at michigandaily.com which was built to consolidate the Chinese PRISHA GROVER
Graphic by Hibah ChughtaiI
Thursday, June 25, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MICHIGAN IN COLOR 9
Colonial indoctrination and colorism in India SUNITHA PALAT MiC Staff Writer
As the Black liberation movement gained traction over the past month, I, like many others, have taken time to learn, understand and reflect on the systemic racial prejudice ingrained in this country against Black Americans. However, from a broader perspective, I’ve also taken the time to look introspectively and reflect on the silent, learned biases I’ve experienced throughout my life and how to actively combat them — especially within the Indian community. In India, there exists a conglomeration of different skin tones, shades of brown, languages and cultures, but like most diverse nations, prejudice and innate biases continue to perpetuate. Most recognizable to me is colorism on the spectrum of skin tone.There is an old Indian homeremedy recommended for expecting mothers — mainly those with a darker, “musty” tone — to drink saffron milk once a day to make sure their child will be “blessed” with fair skin. Many Indian fami-
lies, secretly or not, hope their child is born with a lighter complexion due to the increased likability and desirability they would possess in society, but the quest for fairness does not end here. Skinlightening products, like “Fair & Lovely,” “Pond’s White Beauty” and “Lotus Herbals Whiteglow” are commonplace in Indian grocery stores, and make up an industry expected to be worth over $24 billion by 2027 globally. The media portrays lighter-skinned families in advertisements and TV shows, and Bollywood favors lighterskinned actresses like Aishwarya Rai, Kareena Kapoor and Katrina Kaif (who is also half-white) as the stars of films, creating an inaccurate ideal for Indians to look up to. This representation issue has been addressed more recently by certain actors and actresses’ campaigns, like Nandita Das’ “Stay Unfair, Stay Beautiful” campaign, but many stay complacent. Yet, colorism might be most noticeable at the grassroots level. Comments from Indian relatives or acquaintances like “The bride is pretty, but dark,” “Oh, she’s so beautiful and fair!” and “She’s so
dark, hopefully the baby won’t be as dark,” continue throughout the life of a “darker” Indian individual, and serve as microaggressions pinning a negative connotation on those with a darker shade of brown. Indian society has been primed for years with the notion that fairer skin is simply better. It means you’re more attractive, a more desirable spouse and even a more sought out employee or leader. But where does this colorism come from? Some scholars point to Ancient India and the construction of the caste system, which divided labor among different groups with the intention that each class had an equally important role to society. Yet as time passed, misinterpretation occurred. Higher status went to more “noble” occupations — religious Brahmins, education related jobs — and lower status belonged to those who worked dirtier, more labor-intensive work outside. And as a result of this outdoor work, these people naturally became darker-skinned.
does not expand their emotional bandwidth to feel and share the feelings required to push forward for change. Within social circles, it has become increasingly familiar to avoid the uncomfortable. It’s not that people don’t know what’s happening. Individuals instead instinc-
tively evade discussion around issues, often citing a lack of education on the topic as an obstacle for productive dialogue. Subsequently, a culture of “chill” passivity has swept over discussions of race and associated injustices. This past school year, I occasionally spoke about systemic issues of inequality
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Graphic by Hibah ChughtaiI
A customary ‘chill culture’: the dangers of being politically correct AAKASH RAY MiC Staff Writer
A customary “chill”: the dangers of being politically correct In today’s racial climate, terms such as “micro-aggressions” and “gaslighting” have become mainstream terminology when addressing racism at the micro-level. Many are content as they find their lived experiences being summed up by these newly-coined terms. Others are stunned, learning for the first time phrases they once thought were nonchalant actually attributed to a toxic culture of ignorance and apathy. These terms are now being redefined and in doing so, are creating awareness worldwide. Facts and statistics are more readily available than ever with infographics about systemic racism flooding social media platforms. However, I wonder what change will truly come about if American society
Graphic by Hibah ChughtaiI
like voter suppression, the prisonindustrial complex and discrimination in healthcare with some of my peers, only to be met with little to no enthusiasm. Instead, the ensuing conversation was very surface level and treated as an afterthought to the rest of the discussion. I believe we have grown accustomed
to glossing over the negative details and instead become hyper-mellow to the point of insensitivity in regard to human life. Being “chill” means to ignore what’s happening around your bubble, to not care and to not feel.
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10 SPORTS
Thursday, June 25, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan reports two positive ‘M’ not planning to COVID-19 tests from student athletes isolate student athletes KENT SCHWARTZ
Summer Managing Sports Editor
Of the 221 COVID-19 tests performed on studentathletes as Michigan began its reintroduction of athletes on campus, two came back positive. The univeristy did not reveal which sport those athletes play, but for now only men’s basketball, women’s basketball and football athletes are allowed back on campus. “To date we’ve performed 221 tests, and we’ve had 2 positive results on student-athletes,” head team physician Dr. Sami Rifat said in a Zoom conference Thursday. “Both of those individuals were completely asymptomatic at the time of the testing. None of our staff have tested positive to date.” Those numbers align with the percentage of cases in Washtenaw county, which is hovering at around 0.46 percent of the population. “We know from our local hospitals that screen everybody that’s coming in for procedures that they’re coming in at about 1 percent,” Rifat said. “So in our community here. So we kind of expect that to be the number that we see and right now we’re just about at that number.” The news comes as other universities around the country recall their athletes for voluntary
workouts, with Texas reporting 13 of its football players tested positive. The tests are a part of Michigan’s move towards allowing athletes back on campus and were caught prior to any use of athletic facilities. As a part of the athletic department’s plan to limit and react to positive tests, the university will cooperate with Washtenaw county’s Environmental Health and Safety department on implementing contact-tracing within campus. For now, they will not be using any contact-tracing apps, but officials emphasized the fluidity of the situation. Should an individual test positive outside of their initial test and quarantine upon return to campus, the athletic department will work to quarantine that individual and any close-orimmediate contacts until they are no longer contagious. “They will be contacted by a slew of people on a daily basis,” senior associate athletic director Darryl Conway said on the same Zoom call. “Their athletic trainer will check in on them every single day. The team dietitian will check in with them. Their academic counselor will check in with them to make sure they’re staying up from an academic stand point. And then we’ll do everything we can
to address their mental health, so our athletic counselors will also check in with them to make sure their mental health is being addressed.” Additionally, Conway noted, the University has established a network of communication between coaches, players, trainers and administration should any player test positive in order to keep every person as informed as possible. As more student-athletes return to campus, more will test positive for COVID-19. Michigan hopes the protocols it’s taken will not only prevent the introduction of the virus into its athletic spaces, but will halt its spread should an already-introduced athlete contract it through open communication with campus, teams and player personnel.
NICHOLAS STOLL
Summer Managing Sports Editor
In response to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s statement Tuesday about the safety of sports returning and the idea that teams need a ‘bubble’ to play safely, athletic director Warde Manuel was clear: “We will not isolate our student athletes … They are not professionals and we won’t get into a situation where we are placing them into a hotel continuously to isolate them from their fellow students and whomever else.” Manuel just doesn’t see that as any part of the athletic department’s future plans, no matter who said it might be necessary. “If that is the only way that we have to proceed, then we have to make other decisions,” Manuel said in a press conference Thursday
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Warde Manuel addressed the athletic department’s decisions regarding athletes returning.
afternoon. He was not clear on what ‘other decisions’ may entail and whether or not those decisions would directly impact whether fall sports, including football, would be played. In a constantly fluctuating offseason, those decisions will only become clear as time passes, and the only thing to do currently is wait. “We are waiting. We’ve waited this long,” Manuel said. “As we move forward, we are trying to slow our decision making while increasingly looking at every piece of information and talking through all of the details that go on.” A large piece of information that will impact the athletics decision is University President Mark Schlissel’s pending decision on students’ ability to return to campus this fall. Schlissel has already stated that if students do not return, neither will sports. “I stand by that statement and I think he stands by his statement,” Manuel said. “ … If it’s declared that our students can’t come back to campus for class, why would I ask my student athletes to come back and participate in sports? It’s against how I think about our student athletes. They are students first. “ … (Schlissel) was on the same page as me from day one.” Manuel’s stance on both issues boils down rather simply: athletes are part of the student body, and separating them from it for athletics
News about upcoming season to come in late June, early July KENT SCHWARTZ
Summer Managing Sports Editor
With Michigan allowing football and men’s and women’s basketball student-athletes back on campus for voluntary workouts, eyes are now turning towards the result of that offseason training: a season. Still, for now, there are no answers on what a football season will look like. “We’re working, and I hope that we can move forward and start competitions in the fall,” athletic director Warde Manuel said in a Zoom call with reporters on Thursday. “I’m hopeful that the decision will come towards the end of this month or early July.” Currently, with programs across
the country welcoming athletes back, the general consensus is that there will be a football season. The only question is what it will look like in terms of fan presence. “I can tell you it won’t be normal,” Manuel said. “We won’t have 110,000 people in Michigan stadium this year.
That’s a definitive. Will it be 50 percent or 30 percent or 20 percent or 10 or 0, I’m not sure. That’ll be a combination of listening to our public health officials on the capacity our stadium can handle given the direction that is put out by the governor’s office or the university.”
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Stadiums could be relatively empty in the upcoming athletics season.
Governor Greg Abbott of Texas is allowing stadiums to hold 50 percent of their capacity, despite health officials warning of its dangers. Michigan, though, responded to COVID-19 in a much stronger manner than Texas, and it’s unlikely that Michigan Stadium will hold 50,000 people on a Saturday this year, despite the rate of new cases steadily declining over the past two months. Still, Manuel emphasized throughout his Zoom call the fluidity of the situation, and the past three weeks have proven that statement to be true. With massive protests for racial justice across the country congregating large amounts of people, the results of those gatherings and the transmission of COVID-19 will
become clearer, perhaps educating officials on the amount of fans allowed safely within a stadium. “As soon as we have more definitive answers about the season, what it’ll look like, those types of things,” Manuel said. “Then we can implement many of the different models we have in place for ticketing, operations and participation.” Football makes up a large part of the athletic department’s revenue and the loss of any ticket sales will have massive repercussions for its operating budget, with the consequences unknown. For now, though, the resocialization of student-athletes brings the promise of fall sports and football. In late June or July, we’ll know what it’ll look like.
Thursday, June 25, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SPORTS 11
Joe Donovan and Matt Schmidt sign minor league contracts JACOB COHEN
Daily Sports Writer
Junior catcher Joe Donovan and redshirt-senior infielder Matthew Schmidt became the fifth and sixth players from Michigan baseball to join the professional ranks, signing with Cleveland Tuesday and Kansas City Wednesday, respectively, as undrafted free agents. Donovan and Schmidt join the other four Wolverines — junior right-hander Jeff Criswell, junior shortstop Jack Blomgren, and junior outfielders Jesse Franklin and Jordan Nwogu — who were drafted June 11. Donovan was drafted in the 33rd round by the Chicago Cubs in 2017 and would have almost certainly been the fifth Wolverine drafted in 2020, with early draft projections marking him as an eighth to twelfth round selection, but the COVID-19-induced shortening of the 2020 draft from 40 to five rounds resulted in Donovan’s road to professional baseball taking an unexpected turn.
Donovan’s .228 career batting average and 10 homeruns over his 92 game collegiate career do not jump off of the page, but his impressive arm strength embodies the defensive prowess that MLB teams typically look for in their catchers. Donovan threw out 46 percent of would-be-base-stealers in the abridged 2020 season, and the Indians will certainly be hoping Donovan can translate that rate of success to the next level. And while his offensive numbers may not be eye-popping, he has proven to have a knack for delivering at the plate in big moments, especially over the course of Michigan’s 2019 postseason run. Those moments may not always show up on the stat sheet, but Donovan provided tangible value with the insurance run he created by hitting a sacrifice fly in the ninth inning against No. 1 UCLA in the Super Regional, and with his homerun in the eighth inning of the Wolverines’ lone victory over No. 2 Vanderbilt in the Men’s College World Series final.
Overall, Donovan shows potential to grow into the sort of defensive cornerstone teams hope for their catchers to be and has proven an ability at the collegiate level to provide the clutch offensive production that those same teams see as a bonus. Donovan earned considerable playing time over the course of the three years he spent in Ann Arbor, but Schmidt’s collegiate career followed a different path. Schmidt began his college career at the University of Texas then transferred to Cypress College for two years before making his final move to Michigan prior to the 2018 season. He started just eight games in his first two seasons in Ann Arbor and batted .158 over the course of those two years. The 2020 season represented Schmidt’s chance to show what he could do at the plate and in the field when given regular playing time, and he made enough of a mark in twelve games played to earn a contract from the Royals. Schmidt earned a mere .212
batting average in 2020, but the towering ninth-inning home run he hit against then-No. 2 Vanderbilt in the season opener suggests he is capable of hitting against elite pitchers. Early season hitting numbers are
quite volatile, so it is possible that Schmidt’s average would’ve gone up as he adjusted to his starting role. Regardless, the Royals clearly saw enough talent and improvement to give him a chance at the professional level.
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Catcher Joe Donovan signed a minor league contract with the Cleveland Indians.
Athletes are back: Michigan’s plan for safe resocialization NICHOLAS STOLL
Summer Managing Sports Editor
On Monday, the University announced football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball teams can return for voluntary workouts. Before the athletes can
participate, however, they will first have to go through the athletic department’s 14-day pre-report assessment, followed by a six-day resocialization period. The 14-day pre-assessment is conducted before the athletes take a single step into the team’s facilities.
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Athletic department announced phase one athletes reintroduced in 20-day process.
In this period, a text message is sent out every morning asking questions as they relate to travel locations, any feeling of symptoms, mental health and anxiety levels, sleep and diet. The answers are reviewed by athletic trainers that are prepared to intervene depending on the athletes’ responses. After that period, they may begin the resocialization process; the design of which was guided by NCAA, NFL and NBA guidelines as well as local public health experts at the University of Michigan. On what associate athletic director Darryl Conway calls day zero, the athletes will report to University Health Services for testing. “They will get two COVID tests,” Conway said in a press conference Thursday afternoon. “One being the viral PCR test that actually tests for presence of the virus, and the other being a serology or antibody test.” Following these tests, the athletes will enter a shelter in place period in which they will have virtual education sessions
and review their health history with their athletic trainer. These sessions will last until day three. On day four of the resocialization process, COVID-19-specific tests will be conducted along with EKGs and team physical clearances that include concussion testing and body composition tests. Starting on the fifth day, sportspecific fitness will begin. Strength and flexibility testing will be the bulk of what’s on the athletes’ schedules for both the fifth and sixth day of resocialization. On day seven, the resocialization process is concluded and strength and athletic training starts in a program designed to ramp up, eventually getting all athletes attending their voluntary workouts to 100 percent. All athletes and coaches are still subject to daily screening and required to adhere to policies regarding masks, social distancing and proper hand hygiene. This policy, in the absence of a waiver, acts as protocol to keep student athletes safe and informed, and all athletes are expected to
adhere to it — failing to will result in repercussions. “We will treat it like if somebody else breaks a team rule,” athletic director Warde Manuel said. “We will talk to them, we will try to educate them and we will try to get them to where we are. But continued disregard of the policies, procedures and protocols that are in place could lead up to removal from the team.” The future introduction of athletes hinges on the viability of this process that Michigan is currently putting to the test. “We will evaluate what it’s looked like over the next couple of weeks,” Manuel said. “Then look to possibly bring back (more athletes), starting with our fall sports, in the beginning of July after the July 4 holiday.” The first phase is already underway, and the relative success — or failure — will be determined over the next few weeks. The final verdict will be paramount for all decisions pertaining to athletics for the remaining part of the summer and into fall.
12 MULTIMEDIA
Thursday, June 25, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
PHOTO ESSAY
Experiencing my small town’s Black Lives Matter protests JULIA SCHACHINGER
Summer Managing Photo Editor
I grew up in Chelsea Michigan, a small town 20 minutes away from Ann Arbor. Chelsea is a racially homogenous community, and has very few minorities, so when protests for Black Lives Matter started happening in the end of May, I never thought they would happen in my community. Sure, I expected a few small isolated protests to pop up, but not much more than that. But much to my surprise, my town was holding a rally against racism in a local park. I packed up my camera and drove into town 30 minutes after the set start time, because I truly believed it would be a measly showing of some high school and college students. When I passed Pierce Park, I was astonished. There were a couple hundred people, all six feet apart, in a circle around a microphone, where various members of the community spoke. I just couldn’t believe it. The age of attendees ranged from infants to senior citizens. The biggest surprise was how many older members of the community came to show their support. I have never seen my small, white community come together like this before, unless it was for a high school football game, or the Christmas parade. The protest remained peaceful, everyone sat and did not move until the speakers were finished. Then, a small group of mostly high school and college students marched down Main Street. I figured that night was the end of it. Everyone showed up to support the community and we would never speak of it again. I was happily surprised by my town.
But later that day, I received several texts about a march planned for exactly a week later. I was once again surprised. I arrived at the starting location for the march (earlier this time) and there were less people than the rally, most likely because a march does not allow for any social distancing and did not allow the older or at risk populations to participate in the same capacity as the week before. The crowd gathered in Pierce Park, the location of the rally the week before, and were briefed about the route that they were planning on following. There were no official organizers of this protest. They then promptly started marching right down Main Street, in the heart of our town. They were chanting loud enough for the whole town to hear. Chelsea is known for two major landmarks, the Clock Tower standing on Main Street and the Jiffy Mix Factory (the only one in the world). The normally peaceful downtown disrupted with cries for change and justice. It was very powerful to see the protesters march down Main Street, passing these large icons of our town. Store owners looked through their
windows at the protesters and people in cars stopped to raise their fists. The protest then turned off Main Street and went through neighborhoods downtown, where houses had people came outside to see what was going on. Most people were cheering for the protestors and were looking on proudly of what their community was doing. The march picked up many people along the way that joined their cause as well. The crowd became louder and louder as the march went on, shouting “say their names,” “no justice, no peace” and “these racist cops have got to go.” The route ended in front of a Chelsea High School’s administrator home, to send a message of how change needs to start in the education system, while children are learning how they see the world, and our school systems need to lead by example. The crowd was now much bigger than when they started, now at about 100-150 people. The group then circled back and ended right where they started for an open mic. I was incredibly moved by Diarra Seye, who spoke of her experience at Chelsea as one of the only black students, and as a Black woman living in America. I never realized the treatment she was getting, when I was right inside the building with her. We were even in the tennis program together. “I don’t see my color but everyone else does, I feel like a normal person,” she remarked. What resonated with me the most was: “I didn’t know that people in Chelsea actually cared,” which was my attitude as well, but seeing how proud she was of our community made me so proud to be a part of it.