2021-11-03 Edition: The Michigan Daily

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Wednesday, November 3, 2021 BUSINESS

Ann Arbor Coffee Roasting Co. opens in place of old State St. Espresso Royale New coffee shop co-founded by former employees of Espresso Royale JARED DOUGALL Daily Staff Reporter

BECCA MAHON/Daily Michigan Medicine announced a virtual way for patients to display their vaccination record through their patient portal or a mobile application.

UMich study finds little COVID-19 spread between campus and Ann Arbor community Researchers discover different coronavirus strains existed at University, in community NADIR AL-SAIDI Daily Staff Reporter

New COVID-19 research from the University of Michigan reveals little spread of the virus between the campus and the surrounding community last fall. Lead researcher Dr. Adam Lauring, a virologist and infectious disease physician at Michigan Medicine, told The Michigan Daily the results of the study are important because previous work related to COVID-19 transmission in college environments has been quite ambiguous in the past. This is mostly because colleges around the country had different COVID-19 prevention measures in place last year, Lauring said. “Our goal of the study was to try to understand how viruses spread both within the campus community of students and the surrounding community,” Lauring said. “There has been a lot of discussion on how those two groups of people relate. I think the results of the study would be of interest to anyone wondering how COVID spreads in these (environments).” Lauring said that though the research can-

not say how most COVID-19 cases are linked to each other, he believes that the main reason for the disconnect between cases in these two populations is the communities the two demographics occupy. While interactions between local residents and students in Ann Arbor were common last fall in areas like bars and restaurants, Lauring said he presumes that students mostly congregated with students and locals with locals. “I think that, whatever it is, students are congregating with each other more than they are congregating with non-students in the community,” Lauring said. “That is probably what we are seeing here in terms of the limited amount of transmission we were able to observe between (these two groups).” The data from the study suggest that some COVID-19 cases were introduced from the broader community into the student community, and a few of these introductions caused a subsequent cluster of COVID-19 cases within the student population. In an email to The Daily, Dr. Joseph Eisenberg, epidemiology professor in the School of Public Heath, wrote he was surprised by the fact that case clusters within the student popu-

lation did not spread into the surrounding community. “What is a bit surprising is that (the study’s) data suggests that these case clusters were contained and didn’t spread back into the broader community,” Eisenberg wrote. “This could be because students are more likely to socialize with other students. It could be that they bought more take out food using DoorDash or other delivery services. And maybe when they did visit a restaurant they were still mostly socializing with other students.” Public Health junior Janna Girotto said she used contactless delivery services when ordering food from restaurants and diligently wore her mask in public settings to limit her contact with anyone outside her circle of friends. “My friends and I didn’t really feel comfortable with (even outdoor dining options) just because of how high the rates of COVID were in Washtenaw,” Girotto said. “My interactions were very limited. If I went anywhere I had my mask on, even outdoors.”

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ACADEMICS

Nearly 700 UMich faculty, 60 students petition for SMTD Professor Bright Sheng to be reinstated

The Ann Arbor Coffee Roasting Co. began its soft opening on Tuesday, Oct. 19 at 324 State St. The new coffee shop fills the space formerly occupied by Espresso Royale, a longtime coffee favorite that closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The shop, co-founded by Manthri Srinath, Amy McEwen Goller and her son Spencer Goller were all former employees of Espresso Royale. Ann Arbor Coffee Roasting Co. is the second to take over a former Espresso Royale location with former employees of the coffeeshop — M-36 Coffee Roasters opened in the former South University Ave. location in August. McEwen Goller and her husband, Marcus Goller, were the original founders of Espresso Royale, which opened on State St. in 1989. “I think the most interesting thing about (the shop) is the fact that Manthri and Spencer and I are doing it together,” McEwen Goller said. “It’s just really sweet to have a project with Manthri again, and it’s incredibly nostalgic for me to have the store open again and to make it what we always wanted it to be, just a clean, beautiful, friendly, high quality place.” According to Goller, Ann Arbor Coffee Roasting Co. has another location in Brighton, Mich., where they are currently roasting their coffee until the roaster for the Ann Arbor location is built. They expect the roaster to be completed by the first quarter of next year. They also make their chai at the Brighton location, while all of the food and pastries are baked in-house at the Ann Arbor location. Goller explained that the Loring Smart Roast roaster the cafe will use is very sustainable and will be showcased to customers once it is assembled. “The roaster) uses a lot of the newer technology in coffee roasting and recycles

GEORGE WEYKAMP Daily Staff Reporter

Nearly 700 University of Michigan faculty members signed an open letter dated Oct. 21 asking for School of Music, Theatre & Dance Professor Bright Sheng to be reinstated as professor of his undergraduate composition seminar less than a month after he stepped back from the course. The letter also calls for the University to issue a public apology on his behalf. The letter, sent to SMTD Dean David Gier, University President Mark Schlissel and Provost Susan Collins, comes after Sheng showed a 1965 version of the film “Othello” in which the lead actor appears in blackface. Some students said Sheng did not properly contextualize the racism in the film before he showed it. The faculty open letter says the response to this incident hurt the University’s reputation and Sheng’s career, leading to extensive media coverage that portrayed the University in a negative light. “The very public campaign against Professor Sheng has harmed him and the students in his seminar who wish to study with him,” the letter reads. “Furthermore, it has damaged the reputation of the University of Michigan as a place for thoughtful discourse on difficult matters.” Sheng wrote in an email to The Daily that he was aware of the letter and had no comment as of publication. In an email to The Michigan Daily, the authors of the letter — including Mathematics Professors Alexander Barvinok and Mark Rudelson, Business Professor Fred Feinberg, Associate Chair of the Mathematics Department Kristen Moore, and Engineering Professors Fred Terry and Herbert Winful — wrote they were worried the incident would discourage thoughtful discourse and free debate among faculty due to fear of retaliation.

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subjects without fear of academic repercussions. “While claiming safe space for themselves, Professor Sheng’s detractors deprive him of it and are willing to go as far as to disrupt his livelihood and teaching process,” the letter reads. In an email to The Daily, University spokesperson Kim Broekhuizen wrote Sheng decided to step down in consultation with Gier. Broekhuizen wrote SMTD is committed to fostering conversations on diverse viewpoints and pressing issues. “SMTD plans to host facilitated conversations in its community to foster an open exchange of varied ideas and viewpoints surrounding this and other emergent issues,” Broekhuizen wrote. As of Sunday, the University has not issued a public statement in response to the letter. Student petition In addition to the faculty letter, some SMTD students have written a second open letter addressed to Gier and has 59 signatures as of Sunday. The letter says the University failed to act in an appropriate manner in response to the blackface complaints and caused reputational damage. SMTD seniors Olivia Cho and Helen LaGrand drafted the letter. The students wrote that Erik Santos, chair of the composition department, should have taken responsibility to initiate a dialogue between Sheng and the students and was responsible for the backlash Sheng received. “The university’s response to the incident involving Professor Sheng has fostered an atmosphere of fear and animosity that is hostile to positive change,” the students wrote. “When students addressed the Chair (of the composition department) because they felt unable to directly approach Professor Sheng, the Chair should have taken responsibility to initiate a conversation.” See BRIGHT SHENG, page 3

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In annual address, LSA dean shares her vision for the future of the college Anne Curzan talks plans to ‘create classrooms where everyone can thrive’

SMTD professor stepped back from teaching course after showing a film featuring blackface “The university needs to be a place where vigorous debate can occur on topics that are unsettled by conventional wisdom, and where various voices can be heard without fear of reprisal,” the statement reads. The statement from the letter’s authors also said the University should institute a formal policy for dealing with situations like Sheng’s when they occur. “At the very least, we believe a facilitated discussion should have occurred between the students, Prof. Sheng, the department chair, and the DEI representative in SMTD,” the statement reads. “It’s critical that universities have stated procedures for dealing with situations of this nature.” The statement also said students should have been given the option to continue the course with Sheng or an alternate faculty member depending on their comfort level and whether they deemed Sheng’s apology sufficient. Sheng issued a formal apology to the department on Sept. 16, writing that he lost the trust of his students and failed to recognize the historical connotations of blackface. Sheng also included a section of the letter noting where he had worked with people of color in the past. This section of the letter in particular drew controversy, leading to an open letter to Gier from SMTD students and faculty calling for Shreng to be removed from the undergraduate composition course. In the Oct. 21 open letter in support of Sheng, faculty allege Sheng was removed from his teaching position without due process. The faculty claim that the University and Gier’s response to the incident have worked to portray Sheng’s actions as “an inherently racist act” and have been used to justify administrative sanctions. While the letter acknowledges that Sheng’s actions made some students feel unsafe and uncomfortable, it claims his apology should have been sufficient and that his removal from his class threatened future faculty’s ability to teach controversial

hot air so it’s also very eco friendly. It uses less energy,” Goller said. “So we’re planning on having the roaster be really a showpiece and something that’s upfront for everyone to get to see.” Srinath described the coffee shop as “retro” in its sourcing and supply chain and said they cater to a wide array of dietary restrictions. “That’s a fairly basic menu, with focus on a lot of plant milk,” Srinath said. “We do have really good baked goods, a lot of vegan and gluten-free options. Other than that, the actual core concept is pretty simple. We don’t do a lot of super sweet stuff but the things that we do, when I say retro, they kind of go back to a time in the coffee industry when the whole product line was much simpler.” The building the shop is located in is considered a historic landmark by Ann Arbor’s Historic District Commission. The commission approved the roasting company’s renovation plans in July 2021, which, according to McEwen Goller, include some structural changes but “maintains the integrity of the historic building.” “One of the other structural differences is some of the seating has been sacrificed to make way for the roaster,” Goller said. While the Ann Arbor Coffee Roasting Co. initially planned to open their cafe in September, Goller said the October opening was caused by construction delays. Srinath said they are taking a flexible approach to opening during the pandemic. “The business model is going to be flexible,” Srinath said. “If we cannot use the space or decide we don’t want to, we will have take out options or provide curbside service, or anything along those lines that the current climate demands at any given time. It’s very as you go at this point, it’s really pretty much impossible to prognosticate.”

ISABELLA KASSA

Daily News Contributor

LSA Dean Anne Curzan gave the annual State of the College address to approximately 40 faculty and staff at Rackham Auditorium on Oct. 27. This is the second in-person address given by Curzan in her time as Dean, and third overall. As in 2019, Curzan opened by acknowledging that the University of Michigan is located on the land donated by the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi Native American tribes and acknowledged “their profound contributions to this institution.” Curzan then addressed the difficulty of the past twenty months, mentioning both the stress of returning to campus during the COVID-19 pandemic and “the reckoning with race, justice and anti-Black racism” within the United States. Kierra Trotter, director of the Comprehensive Studies Program, said in an interview with The Michigan Daily that she appreciated Curzan’s use of direct and precise language when dealing with sensitive topics. “Last summer, when she was talking about anti-Black racism, she called it antiBlackness,” Trotter said. “She called it racism. She called different events that are happening murders instead of deaths. And I appreciate that.” A key part of Curzan’s plan to improve the college is to focus on LSA faculty and staff. Her emphasis on the people in LSA being the backbone of the college was a theme throughout the address. Angelo Pitillo, director of the English Language Institute, said in an interview with The Daily that he is always impressed by the way that Curzan puts people at the forefront of her work. In her discussion of the University’s commitment to research, Curzan said the expenditures last year for research reached

INDEX

Vol. CXXX, No. 57 ©2021 The Michigan Daily

close to $200 million despite the pandemic. She also mentioned that during 2020 and thus far in 2021, faculty and graduate students published over 3800 journal articles and over 90 books. In reference to this year’s budget, Curzan acknowledged the many sacrifices that had to be made over the last year but said LSA will be expanding its non-essential spending going forward. She specifically cited a hiring search for two Disability Access Coordinators to support staff with issues of accessibility and renovations to the Willard H. Dow Chemistry Building with an environmentally conscious focus. Curzan also announced the new LSA Meet the Moment Initiative. This initiative will support the $2 million LSA Change the World Award and the $250,000 LSA Vital Impact Award. Curzan said she hopes this award will reward faculty and their teams to address pressing societal issues. “This new opportunity will support interdisciplinary research with the goal of leveraging our strengths here in the college across fields to amplify the impact of pathbreaking research collaborations to contribute to positive, purposeful change in the world,” Curzan said. To conclude the address, Curzan acknowledged many people’s hope that things return to their pre-pandemic state but said she hopes to embrace many of last year’s changes. “I would like us in the college to aim for different positive narratives,” Curzan said. “That we take this moment as a chance to recreate how we work and learn and live and that we come back doing things differently, to align ourselves even more closely with our mission.”

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2 — Wednesday, November 3, 2021

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CAMPUS LIFE

‘Shared Legacies’ documentary screening reveals Black, Jewish community partnerships during Civil Rights Movement

Students screen new film “Shared Legaacies” together, talk about shared histories NAVYA GUPTA Daily Staff Reporter The University of Michigan’s chapter of the Spill the Honey Foundation, an organization committed to telling the history of Black and Jewish civil rights alliances, screened the new film “Shared Legacies” Thursday evening. The documentary discusses the partnership between the Black and Jewish communities during the Civil Rights Movement. About 70 students and professors attended the screening. The film highlighted how Jewish leaders supported Martin Luther King and the Black community’s efforts to combat segregation and racism in the 1960s. The film included prominent leaders such as members of the King family, Rabbi Alvin Sugarman and the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.). After the screening, a panel discussed takeaways from the film. Shari Rogers, director and producer of “Shared Legacies” and founder of Spill the Honey, said she was inspired

to create the film to show how the Jewish community supported the Black community during the Civil Rights Movement. Rogers said she understands how history can be difficult to talk about, but she thinks people should still share their experiences in order to promote further conversations in the future. “When souls have been destroyed, no one wants to talk about it. It’s so painful,” Rogers said. “We have a shared responsibility to slowly come to terms with the importance of memory and talking about what we went through.” Panelist and Rackham student Andre Ray said the film calls attention to the shared histories of the Black and Jewish communities while also providing an opportunity for connection in the present. “(It’s) an opportunity to build a bridge with another community,” Ray said. “These communities have such a rich history and to witness it together, in the same room, is such a powerful

point to move forward from on a campus like this.” The third panelist, Business senior Blake Weissman, is the national youth president for the Spill the Honey Foundation. Weissman said Spill the Honey’s main motivation for screening the film was educating people about the connection between the Black and Jewish communities. Weissman said they chose to screen the documentary at college campuses and schools because they believe it is especially important for youth populations to know this history. “We’re bringing this to college campuses, we’re bringing it to high schools, we’re bringing it to middle schools,” Weissman said. “It’s not like it should be (taught). It needs to be taught. And that’s what we’re doing.” In a group discussion after the panel, students shared their reactions to the film. LSA sophomore Samuel HausmanWeiss said the film screening was a great way to spark discussion about

topics generally not spoken about. He said college students need to learn about new perspectives and the film screening promoted learning about the intersection between Black and Jewish histories. “This is where it starts. It starts with a conversation,” Hausman-Weiss said. “I think that this is the best first step there has been in a while.” Business junior Henrik Angelstig attended the event and said he found the film eye-opening. Despite being familiar with Black and Jewish history prior to the viewing, Angelstig said he had never actually learned about how the two groups worked together during the Civil Rights Movement. “This has definitely been one of the most profound things I’ve ever watched,” Angelstig said. “Of course we have read about Black history and Jewish history in school, but I’ve never actually made a connection between the two. I’m just amazed at how blind I have been to that fact.” Daily Staff Reporter Navya Gupta can be reached at itznavya@umich.edu.

RESEARCH

U-M study shows timeline for concussion recovery is nearly a month long, double the currently suggested length

Recovery rates for concussions are lengthened, athletes talk putting health first ASHNA MEHRA Daily Staff Reporter A recent University of Michigan study on concussions among college athletes found the timeline for concussion recovery can take up to 28 days, as opposed to the previously suggested 14 days. With a $42.65 million grant, the concussion study is believed to be the largest of its kind in history. The grant was split between $25 million from the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command, $10 million from the National Collegiate Athletic Association and $7.65 from the U.S. Defense Health Agency. The study was conducted by Steve Broglio, head director of the U-M concussion center and member of the CARE Consortium — the NCAA-U.S. Department of Defense’s Concussion Assessment, Research and Education leadership team. Broglio and his colleagues began the study in 2014 at 30 sites across the country, including four military academies. They enrolled all eligible varsity athletes and service academy cadets. A total of 1,751 concussion cases were included in the study, with results showing 85% of people took over one month to be cleared for unrestricted participation in sports after a concussion. “We need to reframe the normal recovery time because there’s variability in how people recover from all injuries,” Broglio said. LSA freshman Tyler McLaurin, a linebacker on the U-M football team,

said many coaches and athletic trainers have talked to the team about the findings of the study given the high number of concussions in football. McLaurin said he believes extending recovery time is beneficial in the long run even if it keeps players off of the field temporarily. “I think that it hurts a person at the moment, but it is about more than just football,” McLaurin said. “Concussions are long term and can affect a person in more ways than just the physical symptoms.” A main goal of the study was to normalize longer recovery rates, according to Broglio. Broglio said if sports teams follow the current medical literature, anyone who has 14 or more days of recovery time is “bucketed into the abnormal recovery group, even though they’re a 51st-percentile person.” The “abnormal” label given to athletes can be mentally demanding, Broglio said, and can often cause them to put their athletic career before their physical health. Broglio said he has heard of many injuries ignored or not reported until after an event. “A concussion is unique in that if an athlete wants to hide it, it can be hidden,” Broglio said. “From a psychological standpoint, we’re trying to reduce inadvertent pressure on teammates, coaches and parents to get somebody back to play, by reframing this from a more holistic manner.” McLaurin also said he believes concussed student-athletes should have post-concussion recovery time in order to catch up on academic work. “I feel as though it is much hard-

er to catch up after a concussion,” McLaurin said. “I have seen people force themselves to grind for days at a time in order to try to learn the information during their concussion while everything that is going on around them in class.” The paper also found minimal differences between how men and women recover. In addition, the study analyzed recovery time between concussions from contact versus non-contact sports. Overall, the study found there were not significant differences in recovery time in different sports, according to Broglio. “Those differences are really a day or two away, which in the grand scheme of things doesn’t really mean much,” Broglio said. “This allows clinicians to have a unified approach to concussion management. They don’t need to make special circumstances for the football athlete versus the cross country runner, etc.” In addition, individuals with their first, second and third injuries all recovered at approximately the same rate. It wasn’t until the fourth injury that researchers started seeing longer recovery periods. Broglio emphasized that the “longer” recovery period is only a day or two different than the normal one found in the study. “There’s certainly not this idea of ‘three concussions and you’re done with your career,’” Broglio said. “Those decisions are made on an individual basis, based on severity, the goals of the athletes and other personal factors.” LSA freshman Hunter Thomson, a

U-M varsity golfer, believes non-contact-sport athletes should also take concussions seriously. Though Thompson has never gotten a concussion himself, he hopes to pass the findings of the study along to friends and teammates. “This information is very important, and by the sounds of it, it could help possibly elongate the careers of athletes,” Thompson said. Broglio plans to use his grant for a future study that will consist of two phases. The first five years of the study will involve online evaluations, imaging studies, bloodwork, full neuropsychology evaluations, clinical exams and DNA capture of current subjects. The second phase will further explore how concussions affect aspects of the subjects’ future lives. “The main goal is to continue tracking the individuals through middle age and older adulthood to understand who ends up with poor outcomes and who doesn’t, and why,” Broglio said. “This will all help us get a handle on the long-term effects of injury.” McLaurin said many athletes are passionate about following the findings of the study in order to put their health first. “This is more than a game,” McLaurin said. “Football and all sports are just for a small amount of time. Sports end for various reasons, such as injuries or old age, so it is necessary to be ready for backup plans. Concussions ruin the idea of backup plans because it dents the mental health and capability of a person.” Daily Staff Reporter Ashna Mehra can be reached at ashmehra@umich.edu.

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ADMINISTRATION

ADMINISTRATION

It may be the most sexual abuse allegations Climate change survey against a single person in U.S. history. What’s tracks attitudes toward happening with Robert Anderson case? campus sustainability Survivors of former athletic doctor have filed individual, classaction lawsuits against University and Board of Regents

ELISSA WELLE

Daily Staff Reporter

Since allegations of sexual abuse against late University of Michigan athletic physician Robert Anderson were first publicized in February 2020, hundreds of individual lawsuits and two class-action lawsuits have been filed against the University and the Board of Regents by survivors. The University’s Division of Public Safety and Security’s annual security and fire safety report from 2020 said that 97.7% of the total 2110 reports of rape and fondling that year stemmed from Anderson. The allegations against Anderson — from more than 950 people total — may comprise the largest scale of sexual abuse by a single person in U.S. history. The Michigan Daily broke down the progress of these lawsuits, as well as other current actions by survivors to demand accountability and acknowledgement from the University. Court-ordered mediation The survivors — the plaintiffs of the lawsuits — and their attorneys have been in court-ordered mediation with the University since October 2020. Little is known of the status of the mediation process or expected resolution date, since the mediation process takes place outside the courtroom and public records are not available. There are also strict confidentiality measures in place that bar all parties from discussing updates with the press. While survivors are unable to discuss the mediation, they have been actively sharing the impacts of abuse and protesting the University’s handling of allegations of abuse. Anderson survivors rally outside Schlissel’s house, demand University accountability Jonathan Vaughn, a former University running back, is a survivor of Anderson currently leading a protest and sit-in outside University President Mark Schlissel’s house. Vaughn expressed frustration at the nearly 14-month long mediation process. In an interview with The Daily, Vaughn compared this process to sexual misconduct allegations against former U-M Provost Martin Philbert, which was settled within a year of the University being made aware of the allegations. “(The case) really hasn’t gone anywhere,” Vaughn said. “(It’s been) a lot of game-planning by Michigan, the office of President, the Board of Regents as well as the attorneys, which we understand. That’s kind of their strategy. We understand it, but that doesn’t mean we accept it. There really hasn’t been any substantive negotiation at all.”

While The Daily is unable to verify these claims due to the private nature of the mediation, public records and interviews prior to the start of mediation shed some light on how the litigation is progressing. Individual lawsuits against the University Thousands of accusations of abuse by Anderson have been lodged since attorney Michael Cox filed the first claim against the University and the Board of Regents on March 4, 2020, on behalf of plaintiff “John Doe MC-1.”

“I didn’t look at it as bravery,” Vaughn said. “My name’s not John Doe and you’re not going to refer to me as John Doe. I think that is the number one tactic that massive brands and powerful people use to keep their brands out in front. When you’re faceless, nameless and voiceless, the general public can’t really identify with someone that’s anonymous.” In April 2020, Cox and attorney David Shea submitted an emergency motion to depose Thomas Easthope, the former associate vice president for the Division of Student

KEITH MELONG/Daily A group of survivors and students gather on the Diag calling on the University to take action for a safer campus Tuesday afternoon.

Division of Public Safety and Security releases annual Security and Fire Safety report, finds most crimes stem from Anderson reports In the last year and a half, more than 850 individual lawsuits against the University — collectively referred to as a mass tort case — were filed by 60 attorneys. The individual cases were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan and assigned to Judge Victoria A. Roberts. The court named attorneys Michael Cox, Mick Grewal, Richard Schulte and Steve Drew to lead the mass tort case. The court also designated a 12-attorney steering committee — attorney Parker Stinar confirmed his membership on the committee to The Daily. Stinar is representing approximately 200 plaintiffs. Cox wrote in an email to The Daily that the group of 60 attorneys are “working together as a group or coalition in negotiating a settlement through mediation with the University.” Cox is representing over 100 plaintiffs suing the University, including Vaughn. In an interview with The Daily, Vaughn said he connected with Cox through a referral from a former teammate three to four days after the first public story on the Anderson case. Vaughn said he decided to use his name in the lawsuit in order to humanize the experiences presented.

Life who worked with Anderson at the University in the 1970s and 80s. The deposition, a court process held to collect evidence, occurred in July 2020. During the deposition, Easthope said he fired Anderson in 1979 following complaints of sexual abuse, but his boss, Vice President for Student Services Henry Johnson, rehired Anderson. Anderson remained at the University until his retirement in 2003 — he died in 2008. Cox emphasized how much this deposition revealed about the University’s efforts to hide Anderson’s abuse. “The deposition of Tom Easthope demonstrated the long-running comprehensive cover-up of Dr. Anderson’s predatory conduct at the highest levels of UM’s administration,” Cox wrote. A lawsuit from March 2020 also alleged that Assistant Athletic Director Paul Schmidt knew of Anderson’s abuse while Anderson was employed by the University but did not speak out against him. In May and September 2020, the University’s defense counsel, Jones Day, submitted a motion to dismiss the mass tort case entirely, citing Anderson’s death in 2008. Day also sought to dismiss the case due to the fact that more than three decades had passed since some of the abuse allegedly occurred.

In October 2020, Judge Roberts ordered the University to withdraw its motion and prohibited further motions to dismiss from being submitted. In March 2020, the University hired the law firm WilmerHale to conduct an independent investigation into the Anderson allegations. WilmerHale is the same firm used to conduct an investigation into allegations against Philbert. Independent report finds 37 years of sexual abuse by former U-M doctor Robert Anderson As part of the investigation, letters were sent out to around 300,000 alumni, asking them to provide information to WilmerHale. During the investigation, Judge Roberts ordered the University to clarify to the alumni notified about the Anderson abuse that there was ongoing litigation regarding the allegations. In May 2021, WilmerHale released its report, which detailed decades of abuse by Anderson and attempts by the University administration and athletic department to suppress these allegations. In the WilmerHale report, Schmidt told the firm that he held Anderson “in high regard” and “would have given Dr. Anderson the benefit of the doubt” if a student raised concerns of Anderson’s examinations. Judge Roberts ordered the parties to enter mediation, a method of reaching a resolution between parties without going to trial, last October. The court-appointed mediator is attorney Robert F. Riley. Class action lawsuits against the University The first class-action lawsuit was filed March 9, 2020, by lead attorney Annika Martin of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, along with law firms Sauder Schelkopf and the Miller Law Firm. The class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of all survivors of Anderson’s abuse under the representative plaintiff and anonymous Anderson survivor, John Doe. It was amended on Sept. 10, 2020, to include another representative plaintiff and anonymous survivor, Richard Roe, in addition to the information gathered during the deposition of Easthope. In an interview with The Daily in September 2020, Martin spoke of the differences between classaction cases and mass tort cases. Martin said individual cases are limited to monetary settlements and often provoke a first-tocome-forward mentality among survivors, highlighting the compensation disparities between the first group of survivors of Michigan State University Doctor Larry Nassar to come forward as opposed to later groups.

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ANN ARBOR

Some AAPS parents, frustrated over recent school closures, criticize administration’s planning Superintendent cites staffing shortages as reason for school closures CAROLINE WANG Daily Staff Reporter

When Ann Arbor Public Schools announced a shift to remote learning for students in A2STEAM schools on Oct. 25, AAPS parent and LSA junior Patrick Gallagher said the announcement’s short notice was hard to work around. Gallagher said his first-grade son was not able to complete school work that day due to the online format. “We were notified at 7:30(a.m.), which was 40 minutes before the start of the school,” Gallagher said. “I know a lot of parents who are coming from different parts of Ann Arbor and different parts of Washtenaw County, and they leave the house way before 7:30 to get out here. They were already on their way, there were people getting ready at the bus stop. It was a nightmare.” The announcement cited a high amount of staff illness and shortages, leading to a move to remote, asynchronous learning. Gallagher, however, said the shift to remote

instruction was not well-thoughtout, especially without proper learning equipment. “They said, ‘Hey, you can do remote learning?’ but he is in first grade,” Gallagher said. “They didn’t hand out any devices. There was no real plan. They were not prepared for this. This was not a day of learning. My son didn’t do any school work.” Prior to the Oct. 25 closure, the district announced on Oct. 21 that three of its schools — Skyline High School, Huron High School and Forsythe Middle School — would all have an emergency closing on Oct. 22 due to staff shortages. Parents and students were notified at 9 p.m. the previous night. “This is an emergency measure made necessary due to numerous unfilled positions across the district and an inability to fully staff our schools for tomorrow,” AAPS Superintendent Jeanice Swift wrote. “Taking this step to remote learning with these three schools that were most critically impacted by staffing challenges, will allow

the AAPS to redeploy substitute personnel to assist with the shortage of staff across other buildings and stretch the resources to staff the remaining schools.” Most recently, on Oct. 27, Swift announced that all schools in the district will be closed on Nov. 1 to “safely staff” the buildings. Swift said this time of year also typically experiences low attendance rates due to Halloween and the Special Election school holiday on Nov. 2. Ann Arbor resident Lena Kauffman is the parent of a 10th-grader at Skyline High School and a seventhgrader at Forsythe Middle School. She said her youngest had a hard time with the shift to remote learning, especially after experiencing a full year of remote instruction. “It was a huge surprise, especially to my middle schooler who reacted very strangely, which I later heard from friends that their middle schoolers also had a hard time with it,” Kauffman said. “She didn’t trust the school was going to be back the next day because she had this experience from the previous year … It

made me really sad that she didn’t trust her school district and the grown-ups anymore.” Ypsilanti resident Robyn Kaiser is the parent of a 10th-grader at Skyline High School. Kaiser said her son was frustrated with the move online and anxious about the possibility of more frequent closings in the future. “(My son) was frustrated,” Kaiser said. “The concern was that (Swift) was just going to keep doing this and they are not going to be able to go to school and they will go backwards to where they were last year. It does definitely provide a level of anxiety for him.” Swift sent an Oct. 22 update to the AAPS community, in which she said 112 teacher positions were unfilled, leading to a shift in remote learning. “We take any decisions to temporarily transition to remote learning very seriously as we continue to prioritize daily in-school learning in the AAPS,” Swift wrote.

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Sixth annual questionnaire sent to more than 20,000 students, 7,000 faculty and staff JUSTIN O’BEIRNE Daily Staff Reporter

Investigators at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research and Graham Sustainability Institute launched the sixth Sustainability Cultural Indicators Program survey on Oct. 12. The survey tracks the degree to which members of the campus community are aware of the University’s sustainability measures and also asks about respondents’ personal actions to reduce their carbon footprint. The University began sending these annual surveys to students and faculty in 2012. The last version of the survey was in 2018, before the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 survey was sent to more than 20,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff. This year’s SCIP survey included a new section about carbon neutrality and was the first survey of its kind to be sent to students, faculty and staff on the U-M Flint and Dearborn campuses. John Callewaert, director of strategic projects in the Office of the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education in the College of Engineering and an investigator at the Institute for Social Research, said the SCIP survey is unique because it is a longitudinal study, meaning it measures attitudes over time. “What we really wanted to do is measure any changes over time, particularly if there are ways to test new initiatives in part of campus and see if there’s a change there as a way to inform action in other places,” Callewaert said. Alexandra Haddad, strategic communications manager for the Graham Sustainability Institute, said the survey aims to find out how the campus community feels about the University’s sustainability practices. “What we’re measuring is not sustainability, like reduction in carbon footprint (or) … quantifiable outcomes and lower greenhouse gas emissions,” Haddad said. “We’re measuring how the culture of sustainability has changed over time at the University of Michigan.” Since the survey was last sent in 2018, U-M President Mark Schlissel and the Board of Regents committed to achieving total carbon neutrality for the University by 2040, achieving net-zero carbon emissions from purchased electricity and creating a plan to fully divest from fossil fuels by 2050.

BRIGHT SHENG From Page 1 Similarly to the faculty open letter, the student open letter calls on the University to issue a public apology on Sheng’s behalf and reinstate him as instructor of the undergraduate composition course. Sheng also had no comment on the student letter. Cho and LaGrand told The Michigan Daily they decided to write the letter after noticing the impact the incident was having on the culture at SMTD and Sheng’s career. Cho said while Sheng should have provided proper contextualization and warning for students prior to the showing of “Othello,” the University could have allowed students to openly discuss the incident rather than simply having Sheng step down. “(His stepping down) just cuts off any opportunity for healing, understanding, and (the ability) for people … to move on,” Cho said. “That’s why in the letter we asked for his reinstatement.” LaGrand said it is important that faculty members have the autonomy to talk about and address issues of racism without fear of administrative repercussions. “In order for there to be progress in society — for us to be a progressive institution — you actually have to talk about the things that we think are unjust or wrong about history,” LaGrand said. “And if you feel like even bringing them up might cause you harm to your career or to your reputation, then we’re not going to progress as a student body or as a faculty body.” In a statement in an October 2021 Central Faculty Governance

In the 2021 winter term, the Board of Regents voted to disinvest from fossil fuels following years of sustained student activism on campus. As a result, the University will no longer invest in the top 100 coal and top 100 oil and gas publicly traded companies. Some student organizations, such as the Climate Action Movement, said the move does not go far enough because it still allows the University to invest in natural gas projects. CAM also criticized the slow timeline for divestment, because the University does not have to sell their existing fossil fuel holdings until 2050. Callewaert said though many parts of the SCIP survey remained the same from the previous iteration, including questions about waste prevention, conservation and transportation, the addition of questions about carbon neutrality are especially relevant: “The major change this year is the whole set of questions on carbon neutrality, given the objectives and priorities that the University set recently for getting moving towards carbon neutrality and setting some goals around really increasing efforts around climate action,” Callewaert said. The surveys differed slightly between the three campuses, Callewaert said, in order to reflect the campuses’ unique sustainability plans. “Particularly with the carbon neutrality initiative, there’s been a big push for the three campuses to work more collaboratively around some sustainability issues,” Callewaert said. “We created very similar surveys, but we adapted them in ways to best address the activities and the interests of the Dearborn and Flint campuses … We tried to make sure we were only asking questions that made sense at each campus.” Engineering sophomore Sophie Cronk, a collective impact coordinator for the Student Sustainability Coalition, said the addition of a section on carbon neutrality will help people learn about the University’s carbon neutrality efforts and the President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality, which released its final report this past March after two years of research. “It’s a really helpful addition because it spreads awareness about the PCCN to people that might not already know about it,” Cronk said. “One of the great things about the SCIP survey is that it goes out to … a broad group of students and not people who just engage with sustainability on campus.” Daily Staff Reporter Justin O’Beirne can be reached at justinob@umich.edu.

Newsletter, the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs expressed their support for implementing a restorative justice approach to Sheng’s case. This approach would include a professionally mediated discussion between Sheng, the composition students in the class where “Othello” was shown and administration representatives. “The discussion would seek to arrive at an understanding of each party’s perspective, an agreement about what happened, and a course of corrective action,” SACUA wrote. “Such an approach would help Prof. Sheng and the university have an opportunity to learn and make amends. It would also provide the affected students a measure of justice and give them a critical say in how justice is enacted.” Cho said she noticed the effect the incident had on SMTD culture and community, including faculty members who are concerned with whether this incident is reflective of how sensitive issues will be addressed in the future. “T​​ he students involved were understandably talking about a safe environment in the classroom, but we also need to consider a safe environment for everyone, including the faculty,” Cho said. “We’re a community here. It’s not teachers against students — we all want a holistic collective environment.” Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly introduced Evan Chambers as the chair of the composition department. He is a professor — Erik Santos is the chair. Daily Staff Reporter George Weykamp can be reached at gweykamp@umich.edu.

Arts

4 — Wednesday, November 3, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Frights, Camera, Action: ‘Jennifer’s Body’ KATRINA STEBBINS Daily Arts Writer

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Fears come back from the dead and walk in the day. Goths thrive at midnight showings of “Rocky Horror” and vandals throw eggs at houses. And the Film Beat? We’re popping popcorn and crawling under blankets to watch some of our favorite scary (or just vaguely spooky) films. ’Tis the season for tricks and treats — whether we’re jumping in our skins or howling at the moon. Join us as we walk through films that remind us of the dark night of Halloween. I think I was 11 the first time I watched “Jennifer’s Body.” I can’t be sure because I remember it through the kind of exhausted haze that only a middle or high school sleepover can induce. Through the struggle to keep my eyes open at one o’clock in the morning, trying to hide the fact that I usually went to bed at ten every night, I remember watching Megan Fox (“Night Teeth”) hover above a pool in a soaked, blood-stained white dress and elbowlength gloves. I definitely remember a close-up shot of her and Amanda Seyfried’s (“Mank”) locked lips, lingering indulgently as they kissed, and I remember myself thinking, fleetingly, “This is making me feel a weird new feeling; I wonder what it could mean.”

Pretty much everything other than that was lost on me. I fell asleep right after the movie, and by the next morning, I’d basically forgotten I watched it at all. Aside from occasionally scrolling past that one screenshot of Fox holding a lighter’s flame to the end of her tongue when I ventured onto the emo side of Tumblr, I didn’t really interact with it again until April of this year when a couple of friends and I sat down to watch it with some cheap wine. There are a handful of movies that fall into an incredibly niche genre for me that’s kind of hard to describe. They’re movies that I just know would have been incredibly formative had I seen them in my early teens. Maybe even more than the potential to have been formative, though, is that they somehow felt nostalgic to me upon first viewing as if I didn’t only get around to watching them in my early 20s. I connected to them immediately because they scratched an itch in a very particular part of my brain, so much so that it feels like I’ve always known them intimately. So far, I’ve only found three movies that fall into this category: “Frances Ha,” “But I’m a Cheerleader” and “Jennifer’s Body.” It’s possible that I don’t watch enough horror movies to make this call, but as far as I know, there’s nothing like “Jennifer’s Body.” I’m sure there are a lot of movies that mix scares, gore and

humor well, but Fox’s performance as Jennifer simply elevates everything. Jennifer is a Midwestern, late-aughts wannabe Kardashian, complete with the vocal fry, who delivers every single one-liner with a complete lack of selfawareness and all of the confidence in the world. It makes all of the jokes feel like surprises. Every laugh it got out of me during that first rewatch was halfway between a laugh and an incredulous bark. Take, for example, the climax of the movie: Jennifer and Needy fight in Jennifer’s bedroom. Needy’s brandishing a knife because she’s there to avenge her boyfriend, who the demon-possessed Jennifer killed to satiate her appetite for male flesh. The two fight, fall onto Jennifer’s bed in slow motion, and Needy stabs Jennifer in the chest. As she gasps and bleeds out, Jennifer croaks out quietly, “My tit …” These are her last words. When the movie premiered back in 2009, it was critically and commercially panned, but it’s since been revisited, reevaluated and redeemed as a “feminist cult classic.” I think of it as something of a rape-revenge film as well, the kind of movie that “Promising Young Woman” could only ever dream of being. Jennifer is killed as a virgin sacrifice by an indie band (yes, really) in search of fame and fortune, but because she’s not actually a virgin, she comes back as a possessed

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succubus with the insatiable urge to eat men. It’s easy to see why a movie like this would’ve been met with such resistance a decade ago, and why it’s so loved now. Women have always been angry, but now we’re louder about it. The world wasn’t ready for “Jennifer’s Body” in its time, and, as much as I like to think otherwise, I can’t be sure that I would’ve been ready either. I suppose I can’t be too hard on myself about that, though. I was young, and I had a lot of internalized misogyny that would’ve made it hard, if not impossible, to like this movie. I probably would’ve found Jennifer grating, probably would’ve

lied through my teeth and gushed with my friends about how hot Adam Brody (“Promising Young Woman”) was, probably would’ve walked away from it and then dismissed it outright as a bad movie. So maybe I have to amend my earlier criteria for could’ve-been-formative movies because the reality is that I just wasn’t smart enough to enjoy “Jennifer’s Body” for the vast majority of my tween/teen years. Instead, I should say that, if I’d been able to fully appreciate them, movies like “Jennifer’s Body” would’ve helped me become a better person sooner.

Faith and injustice bloom in Nadifa Mohamed’s Booker-nominated ‘The Fortune Men’ LILLY PEARCE Books Beat Editor

“The Fortune Men” by Nadifa Mohamed is a story that exists off the page. Nominated for the 2021 Booker Prize, “The Fortune Men” is based on true events, as Mohamed brings to light the wrongful conviction of Somali 29-year-old Mahmoud Hussein Mattan for the murder of Jewish shopkeeper, Lily Volpert. In the book, Mattan is referred to as ‘Mahmood,’ while Lily is renamed ‘Violet.’ Mattan was the last man to be hanged in Cardiff prison. “I wanted to make the line between fact and fiction imperceptible so [I] immersed myself in the minute details of Mahmood’s life so that I could almost think his thoughts,” said Mohamed in her Booker Prize Q&A. And that is exactly what she does. Leading up to the crime, we follow Mahmood as he goes through the motions of his everyday life. He begins at the Employment Exchange office, where Mohamed initially makes clear the racist and classist commentary that inform this story — “There is nothing worth trying for; none of the usual firms that can be relied upon to take coloured fellas are advertising” — before making his way to place bets at the racetrack. During these initial chapters, Mohamed intertwines the perspective of Violet Volacki, the shopkeeper who is later murdered; her sister, Diana; and Diana’s daughter, Grace. Mohamed includes only enough backstory for the reader to understand the history of the Volacki shop, opened by Violet’s father when he immigrated to Cardiff, and its prominence to the community. Everyone knew Violet, and she knew them; at her funeral, “there must have been more than two hundred mourners from all districts of Cardiff.” She was murdered in the shop after closing, having gone to answer the doorbell before settling down to eat with Diana and Grace. The latter remained in the adjoining dining room when Violet left to help the customer, each catching a brief glimpse of the man waiting outside the shop door: “A black shadow with a mouth of gold.” It was following Violet’s death, under the perspective of Diana, that I was first struck with

the magnitude of Mohamed’s writing. “The tide of it all just pulling her in and pushing her out, the shipwreck slow and ongoing until maybe, one day, she will wash up on some distant, unknowable beach, hopefully with Grace still beside her.” Mohamed’s talent shines in profound, emotional moments of grief. Though I had wanted more of these heart-wrenching lines, I think their infrequent use was purposeful to the novel’s intention. While some aspects are more fictitious, the book is still conveying a true story, after all. In real life, we fail to speak in constant imagery and metaphor; in that sense, Mohamed strikes a delicate balance between these descriptive, almost

Music in yellow: A shifting Daily Arts Writer

Cover art for “The Fortune Men” owned by Viking.

lyrical moments and the more realistic accounts of trauma and injustice. After Violet’s death, the narration sticks to Mahmood’s perspective. Though there is little evidence beyond the general description of a “tall, coloured man,” Mahmood is arrested the day after the murder. The police try to pressure Mahmood into a confession, taking advantage of his limited English to create an intensely stressful environment: “Mahmood stumbles, his English is fracturing, words of Somali, Arabic, Hindi, Swahili and English clotting at once on his tongue.”

LSA COLLEGIATE LECTURE A public lecture and reception; you may attend in person or virtually. For more information, including the Zoom link, visit events.umich. edu/event/84263 or call 734.615.6667.

following: “I’ve always seen the side of the state, and that’s probably why I was able to keep the interest in Mahmood Mattan’s story for all those years, because I knew this wasn’t anything that was changing quickly. Even now when I speak to the children in my family, and they talk about their experiences of racism, the way that the teachers talk to them or about them, you can see that they’re another generation that will have to carry on the struggle.”

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“ Mumbling Masses and Jumbling Beads” Finding Catholics in Early America

Susan Juster

Rhys Isaac Collegiate Professor of History

Wednesday, November 10 2021 | 4:00 p.m. | Weiser Hall, 10 th Floor

Thursday, November 4, 2021 | 4:00 p.m. | Weiser Hall, 10 th Floor

David M. Dennison Collegiate Professor of Physics

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ROSA SOFIA KAMINSKI

QUESTS AND DISCOVERIES AT THE ENERGY FRONTIER

JIANMING QIAN

The police also fail to read Mahmood his rights, specifically the fact that he can leave the station. The abuse of the police is portrayed repeatedly throughout the novel as they try to pin Mahmood for the crime. During the interrogation, Mohamed reveals the Chief Detective’s racist train of thought, demonstrating that catching the right man was less crucial than their desire to protect their own influence and power. Though “The Fortune of Men” is largely responsible for sharing Mahmoud Hussein Mattan’s story with a modern audience, much of this story is not unfamiliar. In an interview with The New York Times, Mohamed shares the

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A public lecture and reception; you may attend in person or virtually. For more information, including the Zoom link, visit events.umich.edu/event/84264 or call 734.615.6667.

Yellow is not always the warm color everyone thinks it is. People always seem to assume that things that carry the color yellow automatically convey the spirit of the color: the warmth of the sun, the prosperity of coins, the sweetness of a ripe banana. Besides the fact that the sun is a blinding ball of heat, music made with this color possesses so much more than warmth. Like afternoon shadows, yellow covers a ground that is constantly shifting. In “yellow is the color of her eyes” by Soccer Mommy, all of this yellow holds intense grief. It is the warmth of the sun, yes, but also her mother’s illness. When I think of yellow, I often picture it as a solid color block. My mind becomes a length of yellow, stretching out and wrapping over the insides of my eyes. But, as any painter will tell you, colors never exist as something defined by a singular word. Yellow is not one bright shade, providing a beach backdrop to everything. In this song, yellow ribbons are wrapped around her melancholy, tying everything together, gathering many emotions into one song as her mother’s illness fades into yellow. Yellow is unexpectedly the color of loss. This is again the case with “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell (a woman determined to give her listeners a color palette). The song is upbeat, the color is specified, but the content is sad. It details someone, possibly a lover or father, leaving her unexpectedly in the middle of the night. Yellow and love have their fingers linked and their hair braided together, a mix at times goofy and at other times melancholic. Somehow, this song is both. “Yellow Eyes” by Rayland Baxter carries mostly melancholy. It has the syrup of heartbreak in it, the kind so sad that it’s also kind of lovely. There is a kind of light eng ulfing the song, unclear whether from the

sun or elsewhere. The song carries its subject tenderly, acknowledging that yellow is more breakable than we think. It’s funny to think of a color as an object. How many different emotions can yellow objects convey? There is the slow drip of yellow-honeyed love in “Just Like Honey” by The Jesus and Mary Chain. It does not rush itself to you; it acknowledges that it is worth the wait. Meanwhile, in “Yellow” by Myles Cameron, the romantic pair is suspended in a yellow hour, mangos hanging around them and daisies at their feet. And, of course, the classic “Yellow Submarine” by The Beatles submerges you in an ocean of pure weirdness. However, even this is not straightforward in its druginduced state. “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” also by The Beatles, features yellow as well in its color-heavy lyrics. There is a swirling confusion added to the color. Unlike most confusions, there’s nothing ominous or worrying about them, but it does introduce an added layer to an already complex color. “Yellow” by Coldplay is viewed as a top-tier love song, as evidenced by its recent incorporation into TikTok culture. People will post about their significant others to the tune of the song, answering the question, “Who’s your yellow?” To give someone a whole color, to allow them to fully take up its meaning, is a powerful thing. But in the song itself, the love is parasitic. When you give absolutely everything inside yourself to love, what is the point of separation between romance and breaking? When everything turns one color, does everything become the same? There is an excitement to yellow — there is an excitement to any color — but does one want to experience love as the same shade? The loophole of this, perhaps, is that yellow holds infinite things in its pockets. Surprisingly, yellow is rarely used to be the sun; yellow is specified as its own thing. It has a deep identity overwhelmingly its own.

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, November 3, 2021 — 5

More than (Facebook) friends HANNAH CARAPELLOTTI Daily Arts Contributor

The pains of sharing a photo on Instagram are almost never ending. A pimple too big, a filter too “cheugy” and a smile too large can all be deemed a final flaw. Even after finding the right photo, there is still the aesthetic to consider — pulling and twisting a photo you love to fit into the dollhouse that is your profile page. This pre-post step is mandatory: You have to clean up the clutter in an image, so it can perfectly occupy an ornate frame like an open house nightmare. To be honest, this elaborate process is all too much for me. I haven’t posted on Instagram in, like, a year. Or, well, I haven’t posted on my “main” account that is. During the summer, I cultivated my “fake Instagram,” a.k.a finsta, as a chaotic conglomeration of bad poetry and midnight escapades to all 10 of my followers. This smaller, private

account allowed me to vent about my feelings and post about private life in a way that my main account could never allow. Why in the world would I want my aunt — one of my many main-Instagram followers — to know when I’m clubbing, cruising and crashing? Unlike Facebook, there is a level of anonymity that is fostered on Instagram. You’re allowed to have multiple accounts under the same contact information. In fact, these accounts aren’t considered connected to each other, giving the Gen Z user the freedom to make as many niche, obscure accounts as their heart desires. And the birth of finsta was inevitable after Instagram became mainstream. When you have hundreds of followers, finding a post that makes everyone happy is overwhelming. What might be funny to your college friends is “blasphemy” in the eyes of your uncle. As opposed to these anonymous, niche accounts, the level of reality depicted on main Instagram

accounts is abysmal. There is a saturated market for face editing apps. There are websites that will create special instagram caption fonts for your next post. On some apps, you even have the ability to track how and when your followers frequent your account. But running a personal Instagram shouldn’t feel like being a marketing manager. Consolidating photos that are cohesive to your account’s “aesthetic” can look super cute, but is it true to oneself? To get those photos means leaving parts yourself out of the picture. Setting up photos at brunch feels a little artificial if you wouldn’t be caught awake before 1 p.m. on a weekend. Social media shouldn’t feel limiting. Posting on your main page shouldn’t feel like adding set pieces to a retail display. It should feel like sharing what you love with people who care. Sure, I have that sense of authentic closeness among my 10 finsta followers, but at what cost? Why lead this Hannah Montana

fantasy — with girl-next-door Miley on a finsta and popstar Hannah on the main — when it is easier to just cultivate an authentic digital persona on one main account? Crusty dog photos, crying selfies and all? Gen Z has taken note of these questions, and Instagram culture has shifted. People don’t use their finstas as much, maybe because the pandemic showed just how tiring performing on social media can be in the end. Now, mains are messier — in a good way. It starts out small. A post of a sunset is met with a Vine (a.k.a. an extinct TikTok predecessor) quote. Suddenly, Twitter screenshots are used to punctuate the ends of slideshow posts. You repost content from @umichaffirmations more often. Insta stories are now home to Spotify recommendations and blurry candid photos. I appreciate the candidness of the people I follow. Their mains are messy in a way that a room is lived in. Sometimes you don’t make your

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bed, and that is okay. Sometimes you have pit stains when taking a selfie, and that is also okay. Your pit sweat shouldn’t kill your happiness just like the assortment of cups that adorn your room isn’t clutter, but chic. I mean, my room right now is college-core, raccoon-eye chic; interior design is not my main concern. The spaces we exist in shouldn’t be ready-made store displays.

Instagram shouldn’t feel like the dorm room shown to you during a campus tour. Social media is not the room where all your dirty clothes, mismatched socks and retainers are thrown in the closet. That is so 2015. Let the chachkas you love and collect bathe in the sun. For so long, I thought social media was a thing to be graded or gawked at. But it can be something to explore and grow into when you get messy on main.

Campus Culture reviews: Dining hall edition, Part 2 the food preparation. Seeing the salad bar GRACE TUCKER, MATTHEW EGGERS, felt great. Everything was well-stocked and PRISCILLA KIM AND CECILIA DURAN well-manicured. The dressings didn’t seem Senior Arts Editor and Daily Arts Writers too askew, and the feta was crumbled with gourmet perfection. So, kudos to the food prep The University of Michigan has long been people — you did what needed to be done! Still, from the corner of my eye, I saw characterized by its robust offering of dining options, treating those lucky, dining-plan- something so devastating that it deserves its endowed students to a wide range of meals own review: The trash. and eating experiences. Campus Culture writers took to exploring the various corners of the campus’s dining options to discover what draws students to these particular spaces, three times a day, seven days a week. During our last installment of Campus Culture reviews: Dining Hall edition, Arts writers explored the copious displays at South Quad Residence Hall dining, the endearing nostalgia of Mosher-Jordan Residence Hall and frat row’s safe haven: Twigs at Oxford Residence Hall. For our second installment, Arts writers dive into reviewing three more dining spaces: North Campus’s infamous Bursley Residence Hall, State Street’s North Quad Residence Hall and Central Campus’s charming, sustainably friendly oasis: East Quad Residence Hall. In-person dining is back, and we could not be more excited to write about it. — Grace Tucker, Campus Culture Senior Arts Editor A row of trash cans lined the window, filled Bursley Residence Hall: The place you with the miscellaneous heapings of food and utensils. Having to see the number of plates love to hate Oh, Bursley, you hold such a special place consumed at Bursley shook me, even knowing in my heart. Where else would I go to eat a they were compostable. I never noticed how spicy black bean burger on a Sunday? Where much waste goes into a fully-opened dining else would I go to consume as many carbs as hall until it was consolidated into a row of humanly possible? Yet … this year, your dining garbage before me. Bursley, I love you to the moon and back. hall is far from perfection. The Bursley Dining Hall, nestled in the My time spent within your walls was wellheart of North Campus, feels busy at best enjoyed, along with the food. Nevertheless, if I and overwhelming at worst. The cafeteria were a resident now, I would not feel the same is hosting its usual pre-pandemic swarm, way. — Matthew Eggers, Daily Arts Writer making the ambiance even more abysmal than the foods’ tastefulness. Not to say the food is North Quad: Take-out 2.0 chef’s kiss, rather, Chef Boyardee. One of the greatest features of North Quad Finding my meal was a journey in and of itself. Wading through intermingled lines dining is that after the routine Mcard swipe, that lead into different food stations while you only need a five-second tour of the place to trying to get to the salad bar felt like merging get familiar with what’s on the menu. That statement may have been too kind. into oncoming traffic. I have to ask: Why were there only four measly areas to get food, Compared to the other dining halls, North as compared to the up-to-10 that usually Quad can feel small and limited in variety. populates other dining halls? Why has it For those with dietary restrictions, there’s become so difficult to get a full meal on one nothing worse than swiping in to discover the bane of your existence: the inevitable salad plate? Don’t even get me started on the plates. bar. However, if you find yourself in a tight THE PLATES. There are no plastic trays, no spot on a weekday, with just five seconds to compostable food containers — just paper grab-and-go, there are enough options there plates that you would get at your aunt’s for its coziness to turn into comfort, especially barbeque in the park. Appetizer-sized — not in knowing that you’ll make it to class on time. But, I already knew all of this from even enough space for an entrée. And because you can’t get enough food the first time, people my freshman year visits. Seeking a new have to go back into the lines to get more, experience, I went for a late Saturday brunch. It was 1:20 in the afternoon, yet most students making the already-tedious lines worse. A plus in the sea of minuses: I did enjoy were still opting for the breakfast options —

and, as I quickly found out, for good reason. I followed suit by helping myself to the breakfast classics. While the scrambled eggs, sausages and French toast sticks were satisfying in that reliable, dining hall sort-of-way, the lunch entrees missed the mark. Pizziti offered a strange combination of picadillo, beans and baby carrots that I never quite figured out

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(especially the carrots — mine were raw, which was fine, except they were hilariously disguised as cooked with sprinkles of pepper), and the pizza just barely satisfied my Joe’s Pizza craving. With the scarcity of good lunch options this day, the next time I find myself there, I might play it safe with the sandwich bar or stick to the “breakfast” part of brunch. As I cleared my table, I noticed an exciting upgrade to the hall: the waste area. Praising the corner that deals with post-meal messes may sound like an insult, but it’s the opposite. The waste area boasted a refreshing change; every item I’d grabbed since walking in, from trays to utensils, was compostable. Two years ago, North Quad was the place frequented for its convenience. During my year online, I’d wondered what had changed; while many aspects had remained, the one change I noticed made the convenience I’d regarded North Quad with better. Since COVID-19, take-out meals have exposed us to another pandemic: single-use plastics. At North Quad, however, I know that my meal won’t have negative effects, and this, more than anything, may be my newest “greatest feature” of North Quad. — Priscilla Kim, Daily Arts Writer

but I think I also might have had back-to-back midterms in the Modern Languages Building and Burton Tower. Two years later, a whole different person walked into the East Quad dining hall just in time for “linner.” Lunch/dinner, that is. It was 4:56 p.m. to be more precise, and my stomach had been making noises for a while. College will do that to you — neglect meals, pile them up, eat twice as much in one sitting so you’re filled for longer, adopt odd schedules or abolish them altogether. As I walked in, two things caught my attention: an Afrobeat song that was playing oddly loud and a smell of bleach that brought me back to middle school lunches — when all the kids had left for the playground and the floor was already being mopped, but I had to stay behind until I ate the collard greens. This dining hall was ¼ the size of South Quad, and not knowing what station had what food was both fun and annoying. I hadn’t missed having to do five trips from the food stations to the table and back again, sitting on uncomfortable chairs and overhearing conversations that I didn’t care for from people who forgot they weren’t alone. Off I went, discovering what was being offered for us vegetarians. I was glad to see the vegan stand “24 Carrots,” where they were serving seitan bites with squash and a rice bowl with guac and pico de gallo. Before I actually review the food, I will say that I forgot how painfully cringeworthy some of the names of these stands were. Of course, a meal in a dining hall is nothing without an excess of plates — I went back and got cucumbers in tzatziki sauce, a farro and tomato bowl and a mix of edamame, one broccoli floret and some crumbled feta from the salad stand. I can’t tell you what dressing I went for. Trying to figure out what they are is like a silly game of who’s-who. Based on the 10 different dressings and their complicated names, which seemed most like sesame

vinaigrette? Because to me, not one looked like a vinaigrette but more like vicious and dense meta-sauce. Also, to my demise, the olive oil was nowhere to be found.

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I sat down at a table on the far back, past all the stands and next to nobody — just how I like it. I assembled my plates, picked the pepper up and sprinkled a ridiculous amount on top of basically everything. Now, I know they say that you should never season your food before trying it, as it’s an offense to the chef but … let’s call it a need. Overall, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy myself. I was underwhelmed with the seitan bites, a plant-based protein made from gluten, which felt like biting down into a shoe sole — a sensation I hadn’t felt since before I turned vegetarian and I ate school steaks. It became alright when I started mixing it with the tzatziki and the farro. It was like being in Greece, Italy and France altogether. And Spain of course; nothing screams Spain louder than the tapas-sized bowls and plates in the University’s dining halls. Although the options were more limited than in South Quad, there was an intimacy that came with being at a smaller dining hall — I noticed the extra care put into everything, the quiet murmur of students unlike the unnecessarily high decibels of South Quad and not having to put up with the frustrating and sad chaos of lining up to get a bagel.

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East Quad: the Residential College’s intimate oasis Truthfully, my freshman year was a blur, from start to finish, but one thing I know for certain is that the only dining hall I ever went to, besides South Quad, was North Quad — I recall that day’s menu looking more appealing,

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‘Sex, Love & Goop’ takes sex education to a new level MOLLY HIRSCH Daily Arts Writer

Wolverine claws, orgasms and Goop. This seemingly-odd combination takes the screen in Netflix’s new show: “Sex, Love & Goop.” Gwyneth Paltrow, along with a cast of sexological experts, tackle couples’ sex problems in hopes of enhancing their intimacy; they explore some interesting techniques to make sex lives more pleasurable. This even includes the incorporation of a wok cleaner (which is typically meant for the kitchen) into foreplay. And so, while it may be hard to admit, the show is so out of the ordinary that it’s not only engaging, it’s addictive. In 2008, Gwyneth created Goop as a “homespun weekly newsletter” that covered things like food, style, wellness

and travel. However, the website gained a lot of popularity as a result of its selfcare advice and taboo items for sale — including a $75 candle called “This Smells Like My Vagina.” So, when Gwyneth turned Goop into a six-part therapy docuseries, it came as no surprise that sex would be its main premise. Still, it’ll always be a bit shocking to turn on the first episode of a new show and hear the phrase, “You have total permission to have an erection.” The couples are warned off the bat: “(The show is) probably going to be a little embarrassing and weird.” This warning goes for the viewer, too. Naturally, one can only feel secondhand embarrassment from watching half-naked people sensually touching each other in front of a sex expert and a camera crew. Presumably, intimacy is

not so intimate when it’s being filmed for a TV show. “Sex, Love & Goop” takes sex education to another level. Each couple is paired with an expert who helps them discover what they find pleasurable. First, they take a quiz that teaches them what kind of sex they enjoy most: erotic, sensual, kinky, etc. Then, with this newfound information, the couples explore this type of sex to see what each person enjoys most. Depending upon this, the couple is then given a variety of sex toys or introduced to intimate “games.” This is where the Wolverine claws come into play. While some may argue that this is a prop that should remain on the set of “X-Men,” others enjoy incorporating it into their sex routine to spice things up with some added sensual touch. The series does a good job of

incorporating people and couples of different ages, races and sexual orientations. In doing so, the viewer is able to better connect with those they see on the screen and, therefore, will be able to get more out of the show and effectively incorporate the advice given in to their own sex lives. After watching the pilot of “Sex, Love & Goop,” you may be asking, “What did I just experience?” But it’s hard to resist the urge to keep watching. The show is made for anyone, whether it be someone with plenty of sexual experiences or someone with no experience at all. This is even reflected among the couples on the show whose experience levels vary or sexual preferences seem incompatible. For instance, one partner may rate kinky sex as the most pleasurable for them while the other partner might rank it as the least pleasurable. The show’s main

goal is to bridge that gap by finding each couple’s happy medium when it comes to sexual pleasure and intimacy. While the show is occasionally cringeworthy and very blunt when it comes to the birds and the bees, the audience can’t help but relate to the people they see on the screen. Regardless of sexual orientation, age, race or relationship status, intimacy is a topic that is often difficult to discuss. It requires conversation, and that is exactly what Gwyneth’s show attempts to facilitate. The series is most definitely out of the ordinary. Understandably so, most people can’t imagine repairing the intimacy of their relationship on a TV show. It’s watching other people do it, though, that makes it that much more entertaining. And who knows — maybe you, too, will become a sex expert after binging “Sex, Love & Goop.”

Michigan in Color

6 — Wednesday, November 3, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

A list for the cultural foodie KAYLA THOMAS MiC Columnist

To experience culture is a beautiful thing. For me, it has been a way to connect with my roots and engage in a number of different traditions made by and for people who look like me. If someone were to have asked me a couple of years ago what my favorite aspect of my culture was, I would have said music. I have always had a deep admiration for the way my people can use rhythms, harmonies and lyrics to evoke emotion in an audience. However, as I am approaching post-grad adulthood, my outlook has started to shift. Since I will soon have the responsibility of preparing all of my meals, the idea of cooking has been weighing more heavily on my mind. Because of this, when I reflect on my experiences with my culture, I am more likely to do it through the lens of food and cooking. This has caused me to realize the role that food has played in my interactions with my culture. I come from a family that likes to eat, so by extension, we have always valued the ability to cook. Some of my favorite family memories involve helping to prepare food: whether it be baking the sweet potato pie, helping to season the chicken before it gets fried or slow cooking the collard greens. And, as one can imagine, eating was just as enjoyable. In these cases, eating this food is an embrace of the time I spent, and my family spent, to craft it, and it is a means through which I bond with my community. From random Sunday dinners with my parents and siblings to a Thanksgiving celebration with my extended family, I have gained a greater sense of appreciation for the ways in which food has served as a pinnacle of culture and connection in the Black community. My upbringing cultivated a love in me for my culture, as well as a curiosity for other cultures, which I brought with me to college. Being at the

University of Michigan, I have been exposed to more cultures and more opportunities to learn about them than ever. The University of Michigan provides different ways for me to develop this knowledge, whether it be through classes or student organizations. However, given the self-proclaimed “foodie” status I earned throughout my upbringing, with a photo album in my camera dedicated to food pictures as proof, my first instinct was to get a taste of these different cultures. I decided to explore the restaurants on and near campus that are inspired by different places around the world. I have since made a tradition out of going out to experience food from these places when I am looking for exposure to different cultures. In honor of this tradition of mine, and the joy it brings me, I want to share some of my favorite places so far. Frita Batidos: This campus favorite is located near Ann Arbor’s Kerrytown district. Michigan native Eve Aronoff Fernandez opened this Cuban street food eatery as a love letter to the Cuban culture that she was immersed in when she would visit her grandmother in Miami as a child. She became a chef for dinners with family and friends first, which led to restaurant jobs before opening a place of her own. As someone who has been to Frita’s countless times, I can say that the decor greatly reflects the family-style atmospheres that inspired the creation of this restaurant. The fairy lights and white picnic tables create the perfect ambiance for a “family dinner” amongst friends. Nonetheless, the restaurant still possesses an air of sophistication. The same things can be said about the food. As the name, “Fritas” (burgers) and “Batidos” (tropical milkshakes) are the main attraction here. The casual nature of this food makes it clear why it is called street food. Yet, one bite of the warm and savory Frita and one sip of the rich and sweet Batido makes it obvious why this place is not only my favorite restaurant near campus but the favorite of so many others.

If you’re checking out this eatery for the first time or looking for something new, I suggest the chicken or fish Frita with a passionfruit Batido — my classic order. Jamaican Jerk Pit: Jamaican native Robert Campbell runs Jamaican Jerk Pit, which is conveniently located on South Thayer Street. If the name doesn’t give you enough clues, the decor makes it undeniable what Campbell and his eatery are serving up: authentic Jamaican plates. When I walked inside for the first time, a sea of bright colors caught my eye: greens, yellows and reds to be exact, and a multitude of different countries’ flags — most notably Jamaica’s. However, Jamaican Jerk Pit serves more than just Jamaican food. They prepare dishes from all the Caribbean islands. Despite having a menu with several quality options, including oxtails, I am guilty of getting the same thing every time I come: the Jerk Chicken Pasta. With that being said, I have been to events that served Jamaican Jerk Pit’s plantains, and it’s safe to say that my love for the dish grew from there. The restaurant as a whole honestly never disappoints. Jerusalem Garden: This restaurant has a heartwarming story to complement its delicious food. Ribhi Ramlawi was born in a village near Jerusalem in 1934 and founded Ann Arbor’s Jerusalem Garden in 1987 using severance pay from his former job. Fast forward 44 years and his family-run restaurant is beloved by many in the Ann Arbor area, making it clear that his investment was worth it. This place sticks out in my mind — and my taste buds — because it is where I tried falafel for the first time. Up until being introduced to Jerusalem Garden, falafel was a dish that I had constantly heard about but never had the opportunity to try for myself. This restaurant is also one that I will never forget because Middle Eastern food was not a type of food that I would have ever thought to put on my list to try, just due to the fact that I had never been properly introduced to it, but I am extremely glad that I did.

Looking back on the ride UDOKA NWANSI MiC Columnist

Family drives were an integral part of my childhood. On the weekends after my dad came home from work, my siblings would all pack into his old Toyota 1996 Land Cruiser and he would drive us down the highway, always insistent on taking the scenic route. The seemingly endless Lake Michigan would glisten under the sunset sky. Golden rays from the sun would peek through the cluster of towering buildings, casting a majestic glow on the Chicago skyline. As my family’s car flew down Lake Shore Drive, I would stick my hand out of the backseat window to cut through the brisk gusts of the Windy City. I remember my dad inserting his old reggae cassettes into the car’s console, playing songs from the likes of Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff. From a young age, I fell in love with the groovy rhythms and deep basslines that I could feel in my chest through the car speakers. My older siblings and I would jubilantly accompany our dad in singing the songs that he grew up listening to back in Nigeria. By a certain point, I had most of Jimmy Cliff’s discography stored in my permanent memory. I never knew where we were heading on these drives but I always enjoyed the ride.

anymore as often as I would like. We really only have the opportunity to spend time together over the holidays which always feel far too short. Over this past summer, the four of us got the chance to drive to the city together for a night out. I plugged my phone into the aux cord of the car and hit play on one of my Spotify playlists, comprised of the reggae music that was now part of our childhood as well. Still not grown out of my past ways, my arm was stuck out of the window, slicing through the breeze. While on the ride, we reminisced about these drives that we had, cracking jokes about our dad’s wild stories. I was pleased to discover that they had cherished those moments just as much as I had. We were reminded of the importance of those drives, and furthermore, Design by Janice Lin the necessity of holding on always count on a captivating recounting to any time that we have together because of his childhood whenever we were in the such moments are becoming far and few car. In his boisterous tone, he intertwined between as we all get older. Whenever I play songs like “Vietnam” the beauty of his home country and the struggles he had to endure with vivid by Jimmy Cliff, I’m taken back to these imagery, suspense and the occasional drives through the city. Suddenly, I’m 10 humorous hyperbolic statement. Hearing years old again and life is much more simple. these stories always made me feel closer to I took these moments for granted, never my culture that I sometimes felt estranged thinking that they could possibly end. Still, from as a first-generation American. They I’m grateful that I can look back on these were narratives that I listened to eagerly, in car rides with a great sense of fondness. hopes to pass them down myself someday. While these times may be far behind in my Now, my siblings are sprawled across the rearview mirror, the stories, the music and country, building their careers and pursuing the memories of my family’s car drives are their passions. We don’t get to be together forever with me. I held these rides close to my heart because it was precious quality time with my family. It was also a time for passing down culture. My dad often used these lengthy drives as a time to tell stories from his youth. Whether it be the thrilling adventures he had with his schoolmates in boarding school or grim tales of living through the Biafra War, I knew I could

Nahari SAFURA SYED MiC Columnist

My favorite part about the cold is seeking out warmth. I love being able to put on a sweater in the morning and bundle up in my blankets, letting the cloth form a protective cocoon around me. The warmth derived from the cold is different from the heat of summer — it comforts me without being restrictive, and its elusiveness in the chill of the fall makes me appreciate it more. It isn’t enough to just warm the outside of my body with a jacket, though. The cold also makes me crave the comfort of the simplest food on Earth: soup. Drinking a hot bowl of soup while it’s raining outside feels like the greatest luxury in the world. My anxiety melts away as the soup goes down my throat, warming me from within and convincing me that this bowl of soup is really all that I need to survive. I’ve done ridiculous things for soup. I once waited outside in near-freezing rain for a cup of lamb and vegetable soup, and the satisfaction of drinking it in my apartment made me forget about the half-hour wait and my thawing fingertips. The soup was worth it, as all soup usually is, because it is hard to boil vegetables and meat in water incorrectly. That soup felt like a gift. The chili in it made my nose run. Eating it made me

feel like my world was composed solely of my mouth, my hand and the spoonful of soup that it was holding. It reminded me of the soup I ate as a kid when the weather got cold, the potful of soup that was lovingly and carefully tended to by my whole family. I love all kinds of soup, but my favorite is my mother’s Nahari. It’s a meat-based soup that she usually makes with lamb trotters or chicken, mixed with onions, garlic and spices. The recipe is in a little notebook that is brown from age and falling apart, written in my mother’s unintelligible handwriting. I’ve never been able to figure out exactly how she makes it, but I watch carefully as she fries the onions and then adds the meat and the masala. The aroma is amazing and the hours that it takes to cook seem to pass excruciatingly slowly. Once every 20 minutes, I would stir the mixture around, happy to contribute anything to the meal. The meat of the Nahari is so tender that some of it has pulled away from the bone and floats around in the pot full of the light brown broth. Some of the bones have marrow in them, which we’ll blow out to enjoy with the rest of the soup. My parents used to eat Nahari yearround when they lived in Hyderabad, India. The restaurants there would usually serve a spicier version, but my mom has always

Design by Madison Grosvenor

cut down on some of the spice to suit our American palettes. It still tastes good in its mild form, though — the flavors are actually more enjoyable when your eyes aren’t tearing up from the heat. I’ve never eaten the Hyderabadi Nahari that my parents grew up on, but I feel like I’m experiencing it every time my mother makes it. They reminisce about their childhood over their steaming bowls of soup and I’ve always felt grateful for her taking the time to recreate it for us. We eat Nahari with chewy bread that soaks up the soup until it’s soft. The bread is torn up into little pieces and added to the bowl, forming a perfect mouthful of broth, meat and carbs. I always end up eating a little too much when the Nahari is freshly made, and the combination of the hot soup and bread always makes my eyes heavy, convincing me to push the tasks of today to tomorrow even though it is supposed to be a breakfast food. As the weather gets colder and the days get shorter, I look forward to the satisfaction of drinking soup for warmth again — wrapped in a warm blanket, enjoying the simplest but most healing food on earth.

Cuppy’s Best Soul Food: This restaurant has a special place in my heart. The only time I have traditional Black American cuisine on campus is when an event is catered by Cuppy’s. Eating their food always makes me feel like I am at home, and when I looked into the restaurant’s origins, it made sense why I feel that way. The founders of the establishment, Andrea “Cuppy” White and Joseph Jones, started this restaurant from their homes, where they would offer catering services to small events in the area. They would also cook meals for people on the weekends. When their homemade cuisine gained traction, they were able to buy a building and turn their passion into a fullscale business. Unlike the other spots that I recommend, which are located in Ann Arbor, this restaurant is located in Ypsilanti, but the opportunity to have a plate full of fried chicken, candied yams and collard greens makes the drive worth it. Tea Ninja: I think one of the biggest (lifechanging!) discoveries that I have made since coming to college is how good bubble tea, the traditionally Taiwanese drink, is. I may have tried it once before when I was younger, but having access to multiple places on campus expanded my love for the drink tremendously. When Bubble Island was still around, I would make it a point to get a Mooberry Tea with tapioca pearls and a Mango Mochi ice cream whenever it was warm outside (and sometimes even when it was cold). With Bubble Island unfortunately closing during the pandemic, I have used this year to experiment with new campus boba spots and new bubble tea orders. I have been consistently going to Tea Ninja because it was recommended by many boba tea lovers like myself. Like most boba places, it is a reliable place to go for a Classic Milk Tea or a Mooberry Tea (strawberry milk tea). As far as experimenting, Tea Ninja offers a load of creative flavors, including the “Brown Sugar Creme Brûlée with Milk” tea which is absolutely phenomenal. When it comes to

sweetness levels, many bubble tea places give customers the option to adjust how sweet the drink is to fit their personal preferences. Given my insatiable sweet tooth, I usually get one of the highest sweetness levels they offer, but it all depends on the drink. I am on a mission to find the perfect sweetness level for each drink I get. As I take on my last year of college, I have embraced my affinity for trying different cultural foods. I have let my adventurous eating inspire parts of my senior year bucket list. At the top of my list is trying Blue Nile, an Ethiopian restaurant on East Liberty St. With its plethora of vegetarian options, and the experience of eating with your hands that is not found often in Ann Arbor, it is a place I have been yearning to try, as I’ve heard endless positive reviews from family. Another place on my list is Slurping Turtle, which is brought up, without fail, anytime I tell someone that I like to eat Japanese food. My food-tasting tradition stems from more than just my foodie nature and my desire to get a break from the dining hall. For me, trying foods from different parts of the world has served as one way to appreciate various cultures in a way that is respectful and engaging. It has also inspired me to learn more about these cultures outside of their culinary traditions. For example, while working toward my fluency in Spanish, learning about the Cuban origins of Frita Batidos has inspired me to take Spanish classes that not only teach the language, but also focus on the culture of Spanish-speaking countries. Also, given that Jamaica is a prominent part of the African diaspora, I have recently developed an interest in understanding the similarities between Jamaican cultural history and African American cultural history. All in all, using food as a form of cultural exploration has been satisfying to my stomach as well as my soul, and I plan to keep the tradition alive wherever I find myself after graduation.

Smiling with my eyes take too seriously besides noting that I had to sketch eyes before anything else in a portrait. Yet, the MiC Columnist saying stuck as I flipped back and forth through photos trying to find the best ones to print. I chose pictures of my friends and me posing Every time I pass a Walgreens or CVS, I remember how I used to pace down the candy against a glimmering New York City skyline on the aisle while my dad chose photos to print out of all 40th floor of my friend’s building. Other pictures our family pictures saved on a chunky, silver 2010 were shaky from my friend laughing too hard behind the camera at our sleepovers and snapshots digital camera. It was a monthly occurrence because of the of my friends and me smiling at one another, deep hundreds of photos that would pile up on his SD in our conversations and often unaware of the card. My dad always carried the camera with him, camera’s presence. I picked photos that my sister only letting go of it when he’d set it on the nightstand would never allow me to post anywhere but are to sleep. In addition to birthdays, weddings and easily some of our funniest moments. I printed all the other holidays scattered throughout the photos of my friend curled up, sleeping, during our two-day drive down year, he would pull out to Florida this July. My the camera without favorite picture — and reason on any given one that my dad would day — whether to snap probably dislike the a picture of my sister most — is one of me in and me on a random a mask. All you can see Tuesday before leaving are my eyes, but that’s all for school or to take you need to see to know a picture of my mom how insanely happy I eating at the dinner table. was in that moment. My fondest memory is I didn’t even wait 30 of a photoshoot of my seconds before tearing siblings and me in our Courtesy of Zafirah Rahman open the Walgreens unkempt living room, getting ready to run an errand at Costco. I was the envelope of photos in the middle of Halloween most enthusiastic, cheesing in all the pictures and candy specials and various shaving gels. My dad asking to hold my then three-month-old brother always gave me the honor of opening the pictures as if he were a prop, while my sister groaned to on the car ride home, but I had long forgotten get out of the house sooner. We were not dressed what that childhood excitement felt like until now. up whatsoever, but I love those photos because From the smell of freshly printed photos (almost they capture the personalities of my siblings and woodlike) to the saturated vibrance of each color, I me. On weekends when my mom was working, welcomed this love for printed photos once again. my dad would take us to the supermarket during Every picture was already special to me, but now her shift to get pictures with her. He found art in they seemed alive as I felt the warm, satiny paper what anyone else would call an ordinary moment, against my cold fingers. On the walk home, I questioned why my dad so you can only imagine how crazy my dad went about taking pictures during a vacation. All these ever stopped printing photos. For just about $10, the photos still live on numerous SD cards, but he was feeling was beyond magical. Such special moments very selective of which ones made it to the glossy were now eternalized onto a glossy four-by-six black albums. The printed photos needed to be card. No massive digital folder of JPEGs could both crisp and flattering, and he wanted to see big, replace that. But now, instead of wondering why toothy smiles. But occasionally, he liked to print we ever stopped, I’m glad to adopt his dedication to out the candids and raw moments of our lives. both capturing the beautiful moments and making So accompanying birthday pictures in which my many trips to Walgreens. I already put in another sister and I awkwardly stare at the camera while order to print copies of my favorite photos, adding feeding each other cake, there’s also the picture of envelopes and post stamps to my cart as well. On the back of each photo, I wrote a little us arguing over how much cake she’d gobbed onto the spoon. My dad wanted the albums to be real inscription of the dates and places that they were windows into our lives, not just the picturesque taken, inside jokes and a signature. I am sending moments. The end product of his artistry was a them to friends as a tangible piece of our summer, dozen or so photo albums filled with snapshots hoping the physical photo brings them some across the years. It became my favorite pastime to warmth as the months get colder. Even though we flip through the albums on rainy summer days and are miles apart in different states and cities right talk through the memory behind each photo with now, these photos remind me of a movie scene. my little brother. He is eight years younger than me We would not have known it then, but every detail and knows nothing of the blaring camera flash and seemed to be placed perfectly from the glint of light in our eyes to the loose flyaways in our hair. my dad directing us to smile. The camera is now tucked away at the bottom The pictures show us naively enjoying each other’s of the nightstand drawer where it has remained presence without knowing the next time we’ll be since 2012. There haven’t been any more trips together, young and free like this. And we remain to Walgreens or CVS either. After all, it is more like that, inked on paper. This temporary cure for homesickness efficient and cost-effective to leave everything up to resurfaced an old love because now I stop in the the Cloud. Printing photos is a lost art — one that I had middle of the Diag to capture the fall foliage even adored. The beauty of holding a physical photo is when I am late for class, slow down to snap a picture unmatched. I know I am not going to pull up my of friends walking ahead of me on a cold October Instagram account when I eventually show my night and take loads of close-up selfies with only future kids old photos. So over the quiet Fall Break our eyes in the frame. I capture a shot of my brother amid feelings of homesickness, I sifted through my being hand-fed by mom, realizing I have become the classic, South-Asian wedding photographer who camera roll with my own criteria. Unlike my dad, I printed the photos that takes shots of guests eating, way too close, even midbrought up lengthy, funny stories without needing bite. And the next shot consists of his hand stretched the marker of a perfect smile — ones that simply out, seconds before smacking the camera. emanate pure bliss and happiness. Our eyes speak Read more at MichiganDaily.com before our mouth does: It was an art lesson I didn’t ZAFIRAH RAHMAN

Michigan in Color

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, November 3, 2021 — 7

Ghost stories YASMINE SLIMANI Daily Arts Writer

Content warning: This article contains mention of sexual assault October clambers in without warning, its ostentatious display sweetened by crisp autumn air, boisterous jack-o-lanterns flashing toothy grins and ghost stories. I’ve never experienced the supernatural: I have no sinister encounters to furtively whisper around a bonfire, no tales of messages from beyond or Ouija boards gone awry. I’ve never touched the other side, but I think I believe in ghosts. Not the kind you’re thinking of, I’m sure, but ghosts all the same. The ghosts I’m acquainted with don’t look like the ones written in folklore. They are not disembodied figures with lifeless skin, pinned up curls and shadowy nightdresses clinging to their skeletal, evanescent frames. They lack the eeriness of empty eye sockets and mouths frozen in a permanent scream of agony, moaning in torment as they float down ornate spiral staircases. Mine take the form of moments frozen in time, so vivid I think they’re still here, but long-since dead. They are people, places, memories, relentless in their haunting and antagonizing in their absence. They lurk patiently in every corner, begging to be remembered: in old photo albums and my childhood bedroom, in text messages and vacant corner stores, in the pages of my high school diary and the dusty frames on my nightstand. Ghosts may connote death, but it’s the living who create them. We conjure them in empty corridors and horror films. We lure them to speak to us in the sanctity of flickering candlesticks, with our hushed whispers and electronic spirit boxes. We want them to make themselves known to us, enamored by the untouchable specters we force back into existence. I am no stranger to necromancy, to the cruel and fruitless pursuit of trying to bring things back from the dead. I long for lemures: I crack the door open for them, I leave the lights on. I am encompassed by eulogies, akin to apparitions. I am a mosaic of ghost stories. To tell them is to keep them alive. he Graveyard I drive back to the town I’m from and think I’ve never seen a graveyard look so much like home. The roads are familiar but uncanny, reeking with the putridness of a past life. I was born and raised here: I’ve kissed every corner, caressed every crack in the concrete, so why do I feel like a tourist? I don’t recognize the new shop by my high school. The city has cut down the towering oak tree in front of my

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house and nobody cared to invite me to the wake. I am sick with unrest, like an anguished Victorian spirit discovering that the sanctuary wherein he lived and loved had been bulldozed and replaced, that nobody remembered him at all. I drive the same car but it feels like a casket now, a cold metal vessel transporting me through a world that’s since moved on without me. I’m pale with the bone-chilling premonition that things have died here. I realize I’ve died here too, a hundred times over. So many little versions of me have faded away, leaving sepia-toned remnants in their wake. Old flames, friends, feelings and fleeting memories, all faceless ghosts now marking this place as a land of no return. I wonder if my presence sends a chill down the locals’ spines, if they know someone that no longer belongs here has tried to communicate from the other side. I try to rouse these things back to life. I perform seances in the parking structure I used to frequent with people who dare not speak of my existence. I watch in solitude as the sunset, red as inferno, sets the town ablaze. I think about how so much

the corner and breathe out a sigh of relief in unison. I pull out of the driveway of my home and make the trip back to school. I hold my breath. I’m blue in the face the entire way there. retty Dead Things My body feels like a graveyard, too. Because my body, it’s a mess of limbs and appendages, of flesh and regret. Sometimes it feels like a thing I haunt, a land that is no longer mine. To be so disjointed in the skin that was painstakingly designed for you feels blasphemous, but each movement is exorcised out of me, like I’m rattling my putrefying bones from the inside trying to coax out some evil sickness. I remember the graverobbers that visited my body, their greedy hands digging and clutching and taking, always taking. They were insatiable in their taking, and their hunger raised a mindsplitting ring in their ears that stopped them from hearing me protest and plead and persist that this body is mine, not theirs. Not that it matters: dead girls can’t say no.

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Design by Janice Lin

has changed here, that I’ve changed too. But I find solace in knowing that one November evening, we drove up to the top of the parking structure and used our car keys to carve our names into the wall. I’m grateful for the etchings that outlived us, the irrevocable proof that once, I was here. Kyra tells me to hold my breath when we drive past a cemetery. Superstition warns that the restless spirits will enter your soul and nestle into your bones. With no home to return to, they anxiously await a gust of air from unassuming lungs that they can get swept up in, longing to take the life that courses through your veins and make it their own. I don’t blame them, but we selfishly puff up our cheeks and sit in silence anyways. Kyra steps on the gas so we don’t suffocate. We turn

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It feels like watching from the other side, suspended in the leaden grey of compulsory silence. Like a spirit that doesn’t know it’s passed on, screaming until her throat is raw, wondering why nobody can hear her. But I watched as they made a grave of me, something so alive, with teeth and hair and blood and fight left in me, still. I mourn the girl that I was before you touched me. I bring her flowers on Sundays. I make her headstone beautiful, wondering if dead things can be pretty, too. I scrub and shine until my knuckles bleed. Can dead things be pretty, too?

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Release 2021 Release Date: Date: Wednesday, Wednesday, November October 27,3,2021

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

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10/27/21 11/03/21

By August Craig Stowe By Miller ©2021 Tribune Tribune Content Content Agency, Agency, LLC LLC ©2021

WHISPER WHISPER “Why did Sally fall off the swing?”

“She had no arms. Happy Halloween.”

10/27/21 11/03/21

Design by Maggie Weibe

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus presents global perspectives on public health ANCHAL MALH MiC Columnist

The Ford School of Public Policy and School of Public Health hosted Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, to reflect on the lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic and discuss preventative steps to make sure the same mistakes are not repeated. The event began with an introduction of Ghebreyesus from Public Policy Dean Michael Barr. Ghebreyesus began his presentation by stating, “I have often said that health is a political choice.” He reminded viewers that regulations involving pandemic response such as, isolation and quarantine guidelines were already put in place before the pandemic started. In addition, he recognized that low-income countries and minority groups have suffered from the pandemic at disproportionately higher rates in comparison to affluent countries and citizens. He attributed the failure of handling the pandemic to medical systems only focusing on whether they were advanced through research and practice, not whether the systems were stable enough to handle catastrophe. According to Ghebreyesus, this factor is what contributed to many advanced medical systems, like the United States, feeling overwhelmed when the virus was rapidly spreading. In light of these issues, Ghebreyesus laid out three lessons the pandemic has taught health care policymakers and how countries can move forward: 1. A strong healthcare system

is not the same as an advanced healthcare system. The underinvestment in public health and primary healthcare is one of the main factors why healthcare systems were swamped when the pandemic started. Ghebreyesus said that “primary health is good for providing mental health and mitigating the effects of social, economic and environmental health.” Investing in primary care has shown lower rates of emergency department visits, lower mortality rates and higher rates of patient satisfaction. In addition, investing in primary care allows health problems to be discovered early, so patients can avoid drastic outcomes later down the line. 2. Increased funding for resources to help countries recover and be prepared for another pandemic. Money needs to be put towards helping low and middle-income countries get out of the pandemic. According to Ghebreyesus, the money should be allocated for surveillance, laboratory, communication, contact tracing and preparedness using the one health approach. The one health approach analyzes how people’s health is related to their environment. For example, the one health approach would study how climate change impacts access to water and food within a community. Using the one health approach to understanding health allows health care officials to see how environments influence one’s health and allows citizens to see how what they consume or how they live is either benefitting their health or causing harm. Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Welfare from a mother’s perspective HUGO QUINTANA MiC Columnist

I never knew that, for a period of my childhood, food stamps kept me fed. It wasn’t until I took an Intro to Public Policy course during my second-year fall that I learned about food stamps, their “benefits” and who they help. I knew my parents struggled financially after they separated, but they made sure their kids never worried about money. The class had a module on social welfare policy which taught us about different government programs aimed at assisting the poor, unemployed and marginalized in society. We discussed different programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, aka food stamps), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, a cash welfare system for the very poor), minimum wage and others. Throughout the module, however, I noticed that programs providing benefits to the most vulnerable populations were commonly political and rarely seemed to pursue their noted mission of lifting people out of poverty. Though the module offered dozens of graphs, charts and statistics with insightful numbers, data can do little to show the individual impact of policy. Throughout my public policy classes, I always have long and complicated academic papers assigned which describe how to help poor people, even though most of the time these articles are written by old, wealthy and institutionally educated white academics. To better understand how social welfare helps (or hurts) a community, legislators should look to their constituents who participate in such programs. After reading the papers, graphs and data, I wanted to learn from the perspective of the true working class, so I could better grasp what eligible participants thought about the efficacy of social welfare policies. After first learning about SNAP in the introductory course, I called my mom and asked her if she knew what SNAP

was and if she used SNAP benefits to feed my two siblings and myself. Her response: “YUP, we were broke,” in a comical manner. Since that initial call last fall, I was trying to remember more of the conversation surrounding SNAP and her experience with it. This semester, however, I am taking a social policy seminar, a course that dives into many different welfare policy areas such as tax benefits, aging policy, education, housing and universal basic income. Again being reminded of the worsening state of America’s poor through this class, I wanted to leave the boring (but informative!) white papers and research studies and engage with the working class directly. So, I conducted a formal interview with my mom to gauge her thoughts on the SNAP program. We discussed the application process first. From 2007 to 2010 my mom was on SNAP benefits. She began to describe the rather long process it takes to determine whether one is eligible for benefits. First, she had to go to the Illinois Department of Human Services. SNAP is a federally funded program that grants states flexibility when determining the program’s design and implementation. After arriving at the Department of Human Services and filling out the paper application, one waits at home to receive an interview invitation in the mail. Though I knew states varied in SNAP eligibility, I never would have thought an interview would be a necessary component when trying to feed your family. This interview process is a perfect example of an administrative burden that plagues social policy. Administrative burdens refer to different costs associated with joining an assistance program. Learning about how to apply for a program, filling out complicated documents and dealing with the stress and stigma that come with government aid are all examples of administrative burdens that deter many people from receiving benefits such as SNAP. Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Opinion

8 — Wednesday, November 3, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

As a man, ally and survivor: #MeToo KEITH JOHNSTONE Opinion Columnist

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From The Daily: UMich should expand long-term counseling through CAPS

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s we collectively face midterms, it has become increasingly clear that many students are experiencing burnout, pandemic fatigue and an increase in mental health issues. These issues can easily be compounded by the growing exposure of sexual misconduct spanning decades on campus, tension over COVID-19 policies and recurrent issues with landlords.

While delineating the variety of stressors students are facing is important, it is also critical to analyze resources the University of Michigan provides and pressure the University to adequately support students who are struggling with stress and mental illness. The University offers Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) for students dealing with mental health crises, but the program is limited. There is not a solidified framework for long-term help, as CAPS has a goal of ‘graduating’ students in 4 to 8 weeks. What’s more, the CAPS waiting list usually grows during high-stress times, meaning students can’t access help when they need it most. Since so many of students’ stressors stem from issues related to the University, the University has both the responsibility and the capability — with a $17 billion endowment — to establish an adequate support system. Some students don’t have healthcare access outside of University Health Services, so they cannot receive therapy outside of the University. Other students have to consider leaving their regular therapists if they can no longer afford a copay for each session, but currently CAPS cannot substitute the depth and breadth involved in longerterm therapy programs offered by professionals. While short-term care is beneficial for some students, many students have chronic stress that cannot be resolved in 4 to 8 weeks. The University has not responded to this specific reality in a comprehensive and effective way. As of now, CAPS best serves as an intermediary step toward longerterm help. However, for some students, having a longer-term relationship with CAPS could be beneficial; specifically, CAPS counselors have extensive experience with student issues and are accessible due to their on-campus location. Therefore, the University should explore programs that would allow students with the most need to continue to see CAPS counselors for a longer period of time. University spokesperson Kim Broekhuizen discussed the status of CAPS and other mental health

resources in an email to The Michigan Daily. “CAPS has been adding counselors and other resources to their service offerings for several years now,” Broekhuizen wrote. “All of CAPS services are free to any student enrolled at U-M. The same is true for Wellness Coaching.” She also shared data on the rates of individual counseling sessions. Of students who came to CAPS seeking counseling, 81.1% of students only received one to five sessions. Only 18.9% of cases received additional counseling, with only 0.7% of cases receiving over 21 sessions. According to Broekhuizen, these 0.7% of cases often include students who “do not have any insurance or are underinsured or insurance is not provided in the state of Michigan … do not have transportation or schedules that allow for off campus referrals.” This small fraction of cases represents that, while some students are receiving long-term support, there should likely be an expansion of access for these types of cases. Giving 31,000 students access to counselors certainly poses a challenge, but the University need not provide all 31,000 students comprehensive access. The University could provide special programs for students with demonstrated needs, such as financial or transportation-based needs. Additionally, funding longerterm mental health care for students could reduce the current strain on CAPS for acute mental health crises. There are many ways the University could address these issues and make services more accessible to students. For instance, accessing health insurance is very difficult for many low-income students. An annual health insurance plan for domestic students through the University is $1,929, which is costprohibitive for many. Based on the University’s financial resources, there should be a strong system in place to ensure students who cannot afford health insurance are given the same access to care, whether that care includes three counseling sessions or thirty. On Aug. 30, 2021, the University announced it is “launching comprehensive action to transform

how the health and wellbeing needs of students can be holistically addressed.” The efforts recommended by the Student Mental Health Innovative Approaches Review committee includes creating a “comprehensive infrastructure of faculty, staff and students” to address the needs of all students, “strengthening the continuum of care” and ensuring resources are accessible and visible. While it is unclear when the recommendations suggested in the announcement will be implemented, it is a step in a positive direction. In addition to implementing these suggestions, the University could begin emphasizing physical health and wellbeing more. Upon arriving at college for the first time, many are met with brand new levels of independence. For some, important day-to-day tasks such as cooking, cleaning or taking care of oneself in other ways may be unfamiliar. Additionally, some may come to campus already dealing with body image issues and unhealthy relationships with food. That said, one step toward improving mental and physical health of students could include the University expanding programs aimed at helping students afford food. Increasing awareness of the Maize and Blue Cupboard would help students experiencing food insecurity. Financial instability, as well as many other factors, can exacerbate mental health issues, so the University’s approach must consider them in mental health services and policy. Taking these proactive steps toward increasing access and awareness to services, whether it be programs to aid basic needs or support mental health issues, will improve and benefit students and the campus as a whole. Ultimately, students at the University of Michigan are struggling with a variety of issues related to the institution itself, COVID-19, worsening mental health and financial burdens. To better support students, the University’s administration must form a longerterm care infrastructure within CAPS, as well as additional support for students regarding nutrition education, food insecurity, financial instability and general wellness.

Content warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual assault. Editor’s note: The name Morgan is a pseudonym. or two years now, I have watched with pride as women and men victimized by systems of abuse brought their stories to the forefront and forced the western world to confront some of the incommodious yet defining underpinnings of our institutions. As a Black man, I’ve written about the visceral emotions surrounding my community’s inequities. As an activist, I’ve spoken at protests and worked on campaigns. As an American, I’ve written about the duality of loving this country while hating much of our broken political infrastructure and entrenched classism. However, as a survivor, I have stayed silent. See, my story is not one of institutional abuse. It is not the culmination of a steady stream of harassment. It was not kept secret by some cadre of powerful individuals who conspired to silence me. My story is mine, but it isn’t unfamiliar on this campus. In fact, it’s all too common. inter semester, 2020. I was at a party hosted by one of my housemates. I didn’t even think she’d show up; I wasn’t sure that I wanted her to. I was still reeling from a breakup but on Tinder to pass the time. We had been talking on-and-off for a couple of weeks, mostly just vapid texts to pass the time, really nothing but flirtation, so I asked her to come to the party. I was no saint. I was just bored and wanted to get to know someone new. An hour into the party, I was casually sipping on a mixed drink, helping my housemates set up a game of stack cup when I heard the front door burst open. I looked over to see her visibly drunk, stumbling into my house. Her friend held her hand as Morgan walked over to me and immediately grabbed my arm for support. She asked me to make her a drink and, when I told her that I thought she should take a break, began drinking from my cup. She kept taking the drink from my hand, despite my insistence that she stop. Her friend went into the kitchen to grab Morgan a beer. I followed them into the kitchen, worried about Morgan’s safety, something for which her friend clearly had little concern. While I was turned away, talking to a friend, she poured three shots behind my back. Morgan handed me one, and the three of us downed the vodka. Then, as she began pouring another round, I protested, saying things like, “I don’t really want to get drunk. I just want to talk. I’m really uncomfortable with this.” However, taunting me, calling me a “pussy,” Morgan kept the drinks flowing until I was so drunk I could barely navigate my own house. Then, she and her friend began whispering. As my vision was blurred, I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it seemed as though the two were agreeing on some sort of plan. Morgan came over and, clearly attempting to flirt with me, started stroking my arm. I leaned away, not wanting to be touched so publicly by a near stranger. Not taking the hint, she leaned against me more aggressively, asking if I had weed.

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Even in my drunken state, I knew that I shouldn’t give her any, but she badgered me, saying that it was the only way to keep her from throwing up, so I relented and took the two into my bedroom. As I rummaged around trying to find the brownie, I vaguely heard the two whispering again. Moments later, after I found it, her friend said, “I’ll leave you two alone,” leaving the room to play beer pong mere feet from my first-floor bedroom. Immediately, Morgan began forcefully kissing me as I backed away, trying to ground myself and avoid doing something I’d regret. I asked her to stop, but she took that to mean that she should be more aggressive, grabbing my shirt and exploring my body with her hands. I recoiled, which distracted her enough to remember the brownie. When she went for the brownie, I thought that the situation was over. Just one bad kiss, I thought to myself. That was all. It’s going to be alright. However, I was wrong. She broke the brownie in half, consuming more weed at once than I had eaten in the last two months. Then, she stuck the other half in my mouth, watching me intensely until I ate it. I didn’t want to, but at some level, I think I knew what was going to happen would happen either way, and, honestly, I didn’t want to remember it. After swallowing the brownie, I made one last attempt, saying, “I think we should go back to the party.” She turned away from me to lock my bedroom door, “I think we shouldn’t.” She grabbed a condom from my desk drawer, pulling my pants down. My brain desperately tried to say no, to refuse, but it was no longer in control of my body. The intense fear combined with the harsh effects of intoxication immobilized me. In other words, I had no control. I was too scared, too alone. I don’t remember much after that except neon pink jungle juice spilled on my sheets, the almost cruel smile on her face and the blaring music outside. n the weeks after, I tried to get back together with my ex-girlfriend — in a feeble attempt to cope with something about which I still have tremendous guilt. Then, when the pandemic took over my life and the frankly embarrassing rekindling with my ex went up in flames, I moved back in with my parents. There, it was easy to retreat from the world, so I did. My family heard from me about once a day when I needed to walk upstairs for meals. My friends heard less, if anything. Most days, I just sat in my bedroom, sleeping 15 hours a day and wishing I was dead for the other nine. Things got better in May when I tried to stop thinking about it, choosing to delve into my three jobs. However, as my 60-hour work weeks wore on into June, I could not stop thinking about that night. For months, I had vivid dreams, replaying it, and sometimes, I still do wake up in a cold sweat with only Morgan on my mind. It especially didn’t help when I returned to Ann Arbor and had to sleep in the room where it happened, inches away from the pink stain that is ingrained in my mattress topper. The room felt haunted, but honestly, so did I. As an ally, it felt impossible that amid the #MeToo movement, I had been sexually assaulted by a woman. Further, as a 6-foot-2 Black man, I have been perceived as a danger for

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my entire life. It sounded asinine that a pretty, 5-foot-nothing white girl had done anything to me. When I told friends that I felt scared, I saw that look of incredulity that implicitly invalidates every aspect of the story. I mean, they’d met Morgan, they saw me that night. Maybe I had made the entire thing up in my mind. I already felt crazy, but my friends not believing me — even without using the four-letter r-word — sent me over the edge. I stopped telling people, preferring to spend my nights swiping on Tinder and going on meaningless dates. However, every time a date turned sexual, I went physically numb, frozen, verging on a panic attack, haunted by Morgan. In most cases, though, dating proved to be a good distraction, even if it was just that. A distraction. Nothing was solved. I just smiled outwardly for a couple more hours a day while fortifying my inner walls. hen, my current girlfriend broke down my walls, and, last November, told me candidly that I had been sexually assaulted and was in denial. Thrown back, I cried for an hour, realizing how right she was. Since that day, I have struggled with finding a way to tell this story. I realize that there is no perfect way to do it, but I hope that this has been sufficient. Now, I want to be very clear. I have no animus toward the brave women who have brought down abusers during the ongoing #MeToo movement. In fact, I feel allied with these women. I currently am walking on the road they paved, so I appreciate them immensely. However, the sexual assault of men is downplayed and undercovered. In the rare event that it is discussed, it is too often either a whataboutism deployed by abusersympathizers or the punchline to a crass prison joke. That is unacceptable. This issue is real and prevalent. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, 38% of sexual violence victims are men. And, while much of this does occur in the prison system, men in college are five times more likely to experience sexual violence than men their age who are not in college. See, the magic of movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter is that they sparked nationwide conversations about horrifically underrecognized issues. These movements have afforded us the opportunity to learn about systemic injustices so we can understand one another better. Yet, there are still dialogues left to be had, and I hope this article provokes one. I hope we grow to be more conscious of our behavior. I hope we become more respectful of one another. But, most importantly, I hope we learn to listen to others and expand our own worldviews. The simple fact is that not all men are allies much like how not all women are assaulters, but we all have the capacity to learn. We learn through statistics and data just like we learn from our consumed media, but the most impactful learning is from one another. I hope that this story is a powerful step in the right direction that provokes a broader conversation on this campus and in our world. I am grateful to the women who walked before me, and I am hopeful for the people of all genders who walk beside me.

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Music and memory RUSHABH SHAH Opinion Columnist It happened when I was sitting in a café on South University Avenue. Four days before my EECS 281 midterm, three friends at the table, two slices of grilled cheese and one turmeric latte that painfully reminded me of home and my mother. That’s when, as I began working on this piece, the music system at the café played a familiar tune. The sound of the xylophone, followed by the subtle strumming of the guitar and finally a flourish of the drums took over my senses and filled the air around me. I braced myself as the first words of the song approached and I pulled out the memory of Zach Sobiech from the depths of my brain. Stories are what fuel me. Real stories about real people. I don’t just enjoy them; I actively seek them out because they are what make most experiences worthwhile for me. “Clouds” by Zach Sobiech is one such song, a song incomplete without

its story. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a perfectly fine song on its own, but my connection to it goes all the way back to my seventh grade English teacher, Ms. Radha — the person who told me about Zach Sobiech’s story. I often find myself relating songs to people I’ve known. Sometimes it’s expected and sometimes it comes out of nowhere, like today. I hadn’t thought about Ms. Radha for years, and as I approached two months in Ann Arbor, it felt good reminiscing about home. And when I reminisce, I usually do it to music. The impact music has on our emotions and actions is very well documented and many researchers cite its positive effects. Music therapy is a common practice, not only to deal with excess stress, depression and other mental health issues, but even disorders relating to memory loss. Few would argue against music’s ability to influence our thoughts and actions. I, for one, have never underestimated its ability to perfectly match my mental energy in any situation. Sometimes it’s before a soccer game to pump me

up, and sometimes it’s after a long day of work and being around people when I just want a moment to myself. I always considered these personal moments as crucial, but only recently, as I moved away from the place I grew up and the people I grew up with, did I realize that they weren’t personal moments at all. What I remember most about them is the people that were around me at the time. It’s not rocket science, I know. You listen to a song with a cousin all night during your family trip and it becomes your ringtone, or a classmate introduces you to a song and it becomes both of your newest obsession, or you go to a concert with a friend and that one moment when everyone’s got their flashlights on remains etched in your memory forever. It happens all the time and it is a very special feeling. But at this point, if you’re wondering, “What’s the big deal?” I wouldn’t blame you. I’m not claiming that I’ve made an extraordinary discovery — strong memories associated with a song and the people you heard it with

is a common phenomenon, but when “Clouds” played on the speaker in that café, it felt different. It wasn’t just me recalling an old memory, it felt more significant than that. So let’s get into it. Songs and people can each make us feel something and, sometimes, those two lines can intersect. Songs are relatable and sentimental, and sometimes they’re pretty good at being memorable — not unlike people. I’ve always been a big advocate of the idea that I am a product of the experiences I have shared with countless people across the world, and, regardless of whether I see them every day or have only met them once, my story is made up of the tiny bits that each and every one of them left behind. How amazing would it be if those tiny bits, the things people made us feel, aren’t moments that only exist in the past, but are moments that can be relived? I am here to tell you that it’s possible. All you need is the right song. “Clouds’” is one such song. I always thought I connected it to Ms. Radha simply because she

told me about it, but maybe it’s more than that. “Clouds” is a song about finding light in dark times. It’s a song about hope. Tomorrow might not go as we planned or expected, but what everybody needs is hope and there will always be somebody who can give us that. Ms. Radha gave me the hope that I could be a better person at a time when I needed it. There is not a sliver of doubt in my head that I would not be who I am today without her and although she only taught me for one year, she made me a stronger person. It made me feel more powerful and more confident. It’s not just the lyrics that make me feel empowered. It’s Zach Sobiech’s story, Ms. Radha and the memory of this song that lives on, reinforced twofold every time I hear it, especially when it plays out of the blue in the basement of a café. What I realized while sitting in that café is that music isn’t about glorifying the past, it’s about recreating an emotion you once felt and bringing it back to the present so that you can feel it again. As much as science might

have you believe otherwise, the past can be revisited, and music is as good a time machine as any. Yes, very often we relate songs to people because we share a memory with them, but reliving the emotions that memory evokes is what enables us to keep that memory alive. So, when a song reminds me of the time we kayaked in the freezing waters of North India or the time we stayed up all night in that one hotel in Beijing or the time we sang that very song while doing karaoke for the first time, I’ll savor those moments. We might never have heard it before or we might’ve played it on loop every day. The song might have no connection to us or it might be the song we sang together every day — it doesn’t matter. All I know is that it makes me feel like you’re around, and sometimes, in that very moment, that’s all I need. You know when people sometimes say, “I wish I could experience something for the first time again?” You can. I’ve been doing it all my life. I just needed some grilled cheese and an old song to realize it.

Opinion

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, November 3, 2021 — 9

Remembering Daily alumnus Josh Mitnick JONATHAN CHAIT, MONA QURESHIHART, YAEL CITRO Op-ed Contributors

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esley Benedikt was driving home from the funeral of her husband, Josh Mitnick, when her phone rang. Josh, a former managing editor for The Michigan Daily, had gone on to report in Israel for Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers before he succumbed to cancer at the age of 50. The call came from a consultant to the Palestine Authority, who told her that Josh had always listened to him and, unlike many other outsiders, understood the Palestinian perspective. That message would have come as no surprise to anybody who knew Josh — either as a student journalist in Ann Arbor, or as a professional. That is how Josh lived his life and worked his craft: He was earnest and diligent, and always able to see the humanity in everybody. He was soft-spoken, serious, gentle and cerebral — unless he was watching Michigan sports, in which case he was neurotic, irrational, emotive and sometimes very, very loud. knew Josh most of my life. Our parents were friends from their college days in Ann Arbor. The Mitnicks lived in New Jersey, and my family lived in Detroit, but the Mitnicks would often visit us when they made their pilgrimage to Ann Arbor. Josh was two years older than me, and I looked up to him. He enrolled at the University of Michigan and joined The Daily, and we’d sometimes visit him in Ann Arbor. He’d enthrall me with his stories about the paper, and I knew I wanted to follow his path. Two of Josh’s Daily contemporaries, Mona Qureshi-Hart (Class of 1995) and Yael Citro (Class of 1994), spoke with several of Josh’s Daily colleagues, who shared a wide array of memories with them. 1991 graduate Miguel Cruz, a news editor, remembers Josh as a calming presence at a time when The Daily was riven with factional infighting. “The thing about him that made the strongest impression on me was how frustrating he found it when people from opposite sides of an argument couldn’t find a reasonable common ground,” Miguel said now. “In his view, if we would just calm down and listen to each other, there was always a way that we could move forward and get back to solving the problems that were affecting all of us. He knew when to call me out for being more concerned about scoring points than about being constructive, and that part of Josh that lives inside my head is still making me a better person today.”

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Together, Josh Mitnick and Mark Katz hold up a copy of The Daily. Image courtesy of Lesley Benedikt.

Andy Gottesman, 1992 graduate, was editorin-chief at the time. Andy and Josh started together as first-year students on The Daily. “I remember him as an extremely serious journalist. He had no interest in goofball politics at The Daily,” Andy said. Whenever

there was a question or debate of how to move compassion to the world.” Shortly after Josh died, Yair Lapid, Israel’s things forward, Andy recalled, Josh would say, “The New York Times wouldn’t do it this way.” foreign minister and prime minister-inAnd then, Andy says, Josh would promptly waiting, eulogized him on the Knesset floor. focus on the task at hand. “He loved putting There are few journalists — if any at all — who out news every day. He was a newsman.” managed to win the respect and affection of Daily contemporary Mark Katz (Class of 1992) Israelis and Palestinians alike. His legacy as started alongside both Josh and Andy and a journalist is the exact same as his legacy as a proceeded to study in Israel after his second human being: to understand his fellow humans year. In his eulogy to Josh at his funeral, Mark and bring enlightenment into the world. *** shared that Josh viewed the opportunity as one to elevate the news at The Daily. Josh had Mark eflections from Daily alumni on Josh string for The Daily from Israel. Mark would Mitnick: Sept. 2, 2021 call in with his news pieces and dictate them Bethany Robertson, Class of 1994 into the phone. Josh was Bethany’s first editor and she 1994 graduate Andrew Levy started on the remembers him as very serious. He was not opinion page but switched to news reporting, looking for the fluff story, ever, and was always where Josh helped him make the transition. looking for what was underneath. In the “Josh was super welcoming and wonderful,” he middle of a nightside shift, he mentioned he recalled. “He was a really good mentor. A lot of was leaving the building. people didn’t have the time (between The Daily Bethany asked where he was headed. Josh and school) but he made time for me.” 1993 replied that he was going to the Michigan grad Matt Rennie, Theatre for some a Daily editor, free music. 501 said, “He was Jazz used to put on someone who had an hour of free jazz a lot of personal one night a month. and professional Being a relatively integrity.” new person as a Josh shared first-year at The his love of jazz Daily, Bethany with friends and was surprised to colleagues — with see this extra layer an infectious in her very serious Josh pictured with his wife and their three children. The family lived in Tel Aviv, Israel. Image courtesy of Lesley Benedikt. enthusiasm. 1994 editor. And she was graduate Bethany Robertson, one of Josh’s even more excited as a first-year to be asked to reporters, recalled tagging along with him to join him. a free concert at the Michigan Theater. Karen Bethany walked into the grand venue with Scholl, a 1995 graduate, news editor and friend Josh: “It was the most magical thing I’d ever of Josh’s sister, Carrie, remembers shopping seen, staring down the staircase at this free for jazz albums with him. They both say the concert. I remember looking at Josh and he same thing now: “When I hear jazz, I still think was so transfixed, so present. I still think of him of him.” Andy shares that as he worked, Josh every time I hear jazz.” would tap his fingers on the table. “He had a Erin Einhorn, Class of 1995 jazz beat in his head,” he said. Erin didn’t know Josh well. She was in her My favorite memory of Josh came when we first year when Josh took the reins as Managing played together in the annual football game Editor. But she remembers extremely clearly against the State News. In those days, the game an incident shortly after she started with The was pure brutality: eleven on eleven, full tackle. Daily. Erin explained that ahead of the Fall 1991 Until that point, the game had been played six term, that there had been some rioting after times, and the State News had won every time. the conclusion of a football game. As Michigan In 1992 — my sophomore year, his senior year football prepared to play Michigan State, there — The Daily finally got serious and spent some was reason to believe that some additional time practicing and installing plans. rioting on campus might occur. Josh and I handled the two safety positions Erin expressed elation and excitement at in our two-deep zone. At first Josh, having never the idea of jumping into a big story because she played organized football, was utterly terrified of was new and well on her way to her journalism the responsibility of having multiple opponents career. running through his area, knowing one false “Josh was appalled,” she said. “He asked, step could allow a touchdown. But he picked it ‘How are you excited about a riot?’” He was up quickly, and even made an interception, in a the grown-up in the room and understood that shutout win — The Daily’s first ever. news isn’t a game. He understood the people Josh told me that day that he felt terribly behind it.” Erin indicated that is when she first guilty that he had spent years watching learned that lesson. Michigan games and shouting angrily at the Andrew Levy, Class of 1994 defensive backs when they let the opposing Andrew mentioned he had a chance to spend receivers catch the ball in front of them. Having time with Josh for about a year and a half. The stood in their shoes, and having lived the fear way that Andrew remembers him is the one of giving up a long touchdown pass (but not who was focused, who made efforts to mentor having allowed any), he swore he would never and loop in junior reporters, and someone who question them again. avoided politics among his staff. Josh’s legacy at The Daily and elsewhere is Andrew also remembers he was a how he exemplified the journalist, the human challenging person when he first joined The that worked to understand and appreciate Daily as a first year as a member of its editorial other humans. The immediate Daily Managing staff. “It was an intimidating experience so I Editor prior to Josh, Kristine Lalonde, said, “We tried news. Josh was super welcoming and lost a mensch (this week) — we all can honor wonderful. He was a really good mentor. A lot of his memory by bringing more empathy and people didn’t have the time (between The Daily

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This flag was made for you and me ALEX YEE

Opinion Columnist

I pity those who did not attend the football game against Washington last month. Not because we pummeled the Huskies — although that was a treat — but rather because you missed the Michigan Marching Band’s halftime show. Dedicated to the victims of Sept. 11, 2001, the band performed an arrangement celebrating New York City and the rich American musical tradition, all the while decked out in colored LED lights. For their last song, J.P. Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever,” the marching band formed a magnificent 70-yard long American flag. At sight of the flag, the Big House erupted into cheers. That surprised me. I have always celebrated the flag; to me, it is a source of pride and a reminder of how lucky I am to live in this country. At the same time, I recognize that my association to the flag is not shared by all, especially given its currently polarizing character. On Jan. 6, a sea of American flags, traditional and unorthodox, descended upon the Capitol building, carried by a mob bent on obstructing the democratic process. In Brazil, citizens advocating for antidemocratic reforms adopted the flag as a symbol of their struggle, and this past July, a New York farmer was labeled a Trump supporter for the sin of displaying an American flag on the side of his potato truck. It is shameful that our nation’s most iconic symbol could be co-opted by a single political faction. According to journalist Marc Leepson in his book, “Flag: An American Biography,” the Founding Fathers did not attach much significance to the flag. The first documented reference to the flag, the Flag Resolution of 1777, simply reads, “Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.” There might have been fierce debate between the Founders about the flag’s meaning behind closed doors, but according to most historians, the flag was likely born out of the simple necessity to distinguish the Continental Army in the field of battle. In the decades after the American Revolution, mythology began to crop up around the flag that masks the actual evolution of the flag within the national conscience. Did you know that Betsy Ross

did not sew the first flag, or that Washington did not bring it with him when he crossed the Delaware, even if this famous painting gives that impression? It was not until the outbreak of the Civil War that the Stars and Stripes became a national symbol. Another seemingly primordial institution, the Pledge of Allegiance, was conceived at the end of the 19th century (relatively recently) to celebrate Columbus Day. The phrase “under God” was added in 1954 as a signal of anti-communism during the Cold War. Controversy over respect for the flag sparked during the Vietnam War, when anti-war advocates burned the flag as a sign of protest and reignited in 2016 when former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem. History teaches us that the flag’s meaning has been altered over time to serve a variety of political purposes, even though the Founders did not view it as a political symbol. Why, then, does the flag continue to feature so prominently in national politics? Perhaps reverberations from the turbulent flag-burning Vietnam era have yet to settle in the national memory. Maybe the rapid expansion of post-9/11 patriotism was immediately soured by the revelation of the U.S. military’s conduct abroad, like mass torture, and the surge in Islamophobia at home. Whatever the reason, our preoccupation with the flag as a signal of political inclination is unnecessary, harmful and deserves to be retired. Our generation should usher in a period of New Nationalism. Take pride in the flag, not as a symbol of government, but of people. Claim it as your property. Pour into it all the hopes you have for the future of the country, and let that be your American flag. Do not let any one faction force their version of the flag upon you. If Biden loses the presidency in 2024, do not retire your flag. Keep it flying right next to your preferred candidate’s sign as a signal of your dual commitment to both your politics and your country as a whole. Direct your political energy towards organizing, protesting and campaigning as you see fit, but preserve the flag as an institution set apart from the politics and polarization of the day. The nation desperately needs to remember that we are bound by the same red, white and blue fabric, and we all have a stake in the future success of the country. By consigning the old flag to the annals of history and hoisting a new one in its stead, we take the first necessary steps towards remembrance.

Josh Mitnick with his wife, Lesley Benedikt. Josh is pictured wearing a TMD crewneck. Image courtesy of Lesley Benedikt.

and school) but he made time for me.” Andrew also recalls Josh’s commitment to Hillel and Jewish causes and how he seamlessly meshed this passion with his work and welcomed junior reporters along. Andrew recalled a story about Josh recruiting him to attend an American Israel Public Affairs Committee event for student journalists in Baltimore. They attended together. And on their return, at a time when flights were often overbooked, and people could get bumped and get a free plane ticket, Andrew and Josh were ready to garner some free travel by showing up early to the airport. Andrew fell asleep after they indicated they wanted to be on the bump and free ticket list and then woke to find the plane boarding and Josh gone. Apparently, Andrew had missed an additional call to the desk to confirm a bump, but Josh was able to take it. Karen Scholl (Sabgir), Class of 1995 Karen started at The Daily as a first-year on the news staff while Josh was managing editor. That fall of 1991, many presidential candidates came to visit campus and Karen was assigned to cover Democratic candidate Tom Harkin. Karen recalls how excited and passionate Josh was about covering the candidates. She marveled in it because she didn’t know anything about Harkin at that point. She recalls his immense passion for Israel early on. Karen, like Bethany, shares how Josh introduced her to jazz: “Whenever I hear jazz, I think of him.” She reflected on one of their visits to Tower Records and how she remarked on how pricey some of the CDs Josh was looking at were for how few tracks they offered: “He just looked at me and said, ‘It’s about the quality of the tracks, not the quantity.’” Carrie Mitnick, Josh’s sister, lived down the hall from Karen and came to know his family well for many reasons, including being big Michigan fans: “He shaped my whole Michigan experience, his whole family. He introduced me to so much.” Josh also introduced Karen to the joys of reading non-fiction — even at the beach: “We were on vacation at the beach and I looked over and there he was, reading Deborah, Golda, and Me. I thought you only read non-fiction if under duress. He was always learning things and wanted to know the world better. He was always a student.” Andy Gottesman, Class of 1992 Andy was editor-in-chief while Josh was on The Daily. Andy mentioned he took his family to Israel four years ago and reached out but wasn’t able to connect. Andy and Josh started together as first-year students on The Daily. “I remember him as an extremely serious journalist. He had no interest

in goofball politics at The Daily.” Whenever there was a question or debate of how to move things forward, Andy recalled, Josh would say, “The New York Times wouldn’t do it this way.” As he would say something like this, Andy added that Josh would remove his spectacles and rub his forehead; “He loved putting out news every day. He was a newsman.” Andy remembers Josh’s affections for music. He would recall that as Josh was editing, Josh sometimes would tap his fingers on the table rhythmically: “He had a jazz beat in his head.” He also remembers the Mitnicks’ affections for Michigan football. He once invited Josh over to watch an Ohio State game and his dad joined in: “His Dad was a bigger fan than anyone!”

Josh pictured with his father, Stuart Mitnick. Both graduated from the University of Michigan. Image courtesy of Lesley Benedikt.

Matt Rennie, Class of 1993 Matt was editor-in-chief following Andy and came from the sports desk during a streak of years when editors-in-chief came from sports. Matt recalls that when Josh was managing editor, he was sitting among a lot of big personalities: “The other leaders at The Daily were loud, big personalities. Josh was more reserved. He was someone who had a lot of personal and professional integrity.” That reservation was still powerful, however. Matt shared that you could usually see pretty well ahead how things were going to go with a group during an argument: “Josh wasn’t afraid, even if it was clear his was going to be a minority opinion, to stick to his opinion even if it might be drowned out.” Miguel Cruz, Class of 1991 Miguel was a news editor and weekend editor and provided more color about Josh’s management of conflicts in the newsroom and how he gravitated even at that time toward resolution of conflicts: “The thing about him that made the strongest impression on me was how frustrating he found it when people from opposite sides of an argument couldn’t find a reasonable common ground. In his view, if we would just calm down and listen to each other, there was always a way that we could move forward and get back to solving the problems that were affecting all of us.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Dana White: modern-day robber baron JACK ROSHCO Opinion Columnist

Over the past decade, the Ultimate Fighting Championship has enjoyed a meteoric rise from relative obscurity to one of the most popular sports and entertainment products in the United States. The 2010s saw the UFC’s greatest stars transcend not just their own sports, but all sports. Former two-division champion Conor McGregor is arguably the most famous athlete on the entire planet. Former lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov is the single most popular athlete in all of Russia, according to Forbes. UFC President Dana Frederick White Jr. has led the organization for over 20 years, shepherding it to its status as the worldwide leader in combat sports. So why would White, the man largely responsible for the UFC’s prominence, have a 55.1% disapproval rating from MMA fans? The Athletic’s polling of fight fans in April 2020 laid out a pretty stark contrast: Fans love the UFC, but not the man at its helm. Given the time at which the poll was administered, it stands to reason that the pandemic would be a factor. The responses bore that out: Many respondents noted the UFC’s attempts to push forward with holding a pay-perview event, UFC 249, at the height of the pandemic, as a reason for their displeasure with White. That’s obviously a valid grievance, but it is itself part-and-parcel of the overarching problem many MMA fans and fighters alike have with White: The man treats his fighters horribly. While attempting to hold a combat sports event as an uncontrolled, aerosolized virus ran rampant across the world would be enough to convince most people that White doesn’t value the athletes upon whom his success is based, there’s actually more than that. The UFC pays its fighters

an embarrassingly small percentage of its overall revenues, while White himself has a net worth of $500 million and an annual salary of $20 million. The four major sports leagues in North America (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL) each have revenue-sharing deals collectively bargained between the leagues and the players’ unions, and each of those agreements provides for the athletes to receive at least 48.5% of total revenues generated by the league. Such equitable compensation has been par for the course in North American sports for decades — it would be unimaginable to the common sports fan for their favorite athletes to not receive their fair share of the revenues they themselves drive. The UFC, though, has no revenue-sharing deal. In fact, there is no MMA fighters’ union at all, though roughly 80% of MMA fighters support unionization. As a result, White is the sole arbiter of how the UFC pays its fighters, and many of the UFC’s signature stars have sacrificed some of their prime years as athletes over White’s refusal to pay them their worth. Henry Carlos Cejudo, former twodivision UFC champion and Olympic gold medal wrestler, retired after his last bantamweight title defense at (the later-rescheduled) UFC 249, partly due to pay concerns. Jon Jones, former light heavyweight champion and widely considered the greatest mixed martial artist to ever live, has not fought in nearly two years due to continued breakdowns in contractual negotiations with White. McGregor has fought three times since 2020, including two blockbuster pay-perview main events against Dustin Poirier, former interim lightweight champion, this year. However, McGregor’s status as the highest-paid athlete in the world is misleading to say the least. According to Forbes, just $22 million of the $180 million McGregor had made in the first five months of this year (after the first Poirier

fight and before the second) came from his UFC contract. The remaining $158 million came from endorsements and other outside revenue streams. While no one should shed a tear for the wallet of a man worth hundreds of millions of dollars, McGregor’s income breakdown is indicative of a systemic problem that White is clearly responsible for. The UFC so grossly underpaid the brightest star in its history to such a degree that McGregor did not step into the octagon for nearly two years. Instead, McGregor turned his attention to boxing, where the athlete’s earnings potential is far more lucrative, and put on a “superfight” against legendary boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Rather than suspecting that McGregor’s move was demonstrative of a problem that required an actual solution, White simply punished McGregor, stripping him of his lightweight belt for inactivity. The Score reports that the UFC has never paid its fighters more than 20% of its total revenue, multiple pathetic steps below the aforementioned revenue sharing norms in place for major North American sports. Some of Dana White’s top stars have publicly lambasted him for his mistreatment of fighters. And yet, nothing has changed, and there is no evidence, in spite of fighters’ overwhelming support for unionizing, that anything will change. It is clear that these changes will not come from within. The only way White will change his ways is if his current arrangement becomes untenable, but as the UFC’s popularity continues to skyrocket, it seems less and less likely that such a day will ever come. It is incumbent upon the leaders of organized labor nationwide, not to mention the U.S. government, to impress upon White that there will be consequences if he continues to hamper unionization and deprive his athletes of their rightful paychecks.

Sports

10 — Wednesday, November 3, 2021

No. 2 Michigan drops final regular season game against No. 7 Penn State DAVID WOELKERS Daily Sports Writer

Down 1-0 against No. 7 Penn State on Friday, the No. 2 Michigan field hockey team (13-3 overall, 5-3 Big Ten) shifted into a higher gear, scoring twice in the final ten minutes to take the lead. With three minutes left in the game, the Wolverines were finally in the driver’s seat. It ended up being three minutes

combining for only four shots in the first half — the pace quickly picked up in the second. Just 90 seconds into the third quarter, Penn State forward Emma Spisak fired a shot past senior goalkeeper Anna Spieker. The momentum stayed firmly in the Nittany Lions’ corner, as they held the Wolverines to just one shot on goal. In the fourth quarter, however, Michigan fired on all cylinders offensively, putting six shots on goal off the sticks of five

JEREMY WEINE/Daily Alana Richardson scored Michigan’s first goal in its loss to Penn State.

too long. With the game clock in it’s final ticks, the Nittany Lions (13-4, 4-2) tied it up to send the game into overtime. After a back and forth start to the period, the Wolverines’ 2021 regular season ended in the seventh minute with a disappointing 3-2 loss. “The team worked hard to come back from being behind,” Michigan coach Marcia Pankratz said. “We just had one too many elements that weren’t up to snuff.” While both teams started slow —

Wolverine players. Though Penn State goalkeeper Brie Barraco was able to save the majority of the shots, one of the saves bounced right to Michigan freshman midfielder Alana Richardson, who put it back on the net for the first of the Wolverines’ day. Michigan found its tie-breaker with less than three minutes left to play, in a penalty corner conversion off the stick of senior midfielder Sofia Southam.

“One of our strengths this year has been our perseverance,” redshirt senior Halle O’Neill said. “Even though we haven’t trailed that many times, we’ve still been able to pull back even when we’ve needed to and then get ahead.” The lead was short lived however as Penn State forward Sophia Gladieux snuck the ball past Spieker just one minute later to end regulation tied at two. In the overtime period, the Wolverines initially were in firm control but faltered after being unable to find the back of the cage in their three chances. The Nittany Lions took advantage, and midfielder Mackenzie Allessie ended the game in the seventh minute. “Any team can beat any team in the Big Ten, no matter where you are in the rankings,” Pankratz said. “If you don’t play all 60, 70, however many minutes it takes to get a result, you’re not giving yourself the best chance to win, plain and simple.” After starting with a perfect 11-0 record, the Wolverines suffered a shaky finish to their campaign, losing three of their final five games. Members of the team chalked part of the issue up to the schedule; of their final five games, four — including all three losses — came against top 10 opposition. “The scheduling was rough this year,” O’Neill said. “We ended up facing the best teams as they were reaching their stride. “That being said, it’s hard to beat a good team twice. We’ll face at least one of the teams that beat us again in the tournaments, and we’ll be ready for them.”

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Led by outside hitters, Michigan offense dismantles Iowa JOSHUA MESSE For the Daily

The Michigan volleyball team was ready for a fight against Iowa. The first set of play was hotly contested, with each team fighting to create any sort of separation. It wasn’t until the score was tied at 13 that either team could jump out to a significant lead. Sophomore setter Scottee Johnson launched the ball towards sophomore outside hitter Jess Mruzik, who spiked it off the Iowa blocker’s outstretched hands to earn a critical side out. The Wolverines subsequently rattled off a quick seven-point run and dropped just four more points en route to a comfortable 25-16 first set win. Patient but aggressive. This mantra repeated by coach Mark Rosen perfectly encapsulates Michigan’s win in straight sets over the Iowa Hawkeyes. “We kept pushing them,” Rosen said. “We kept pressuring them, and all of sudden in the first set we broke it open.” Michigan played a consistent match, tallying just eight errors over three sets of play — half of Iowa’s 16. The constant pressure of the Wolverines’ capable outside players eventually overwhelmed the Hawkeyes. Iowa lost the first two sets after major Michigan scoring runs and was unable to even put up a fight in the third. Mruzik totaled 14 kills on .481 hitting, and senior outside hitter Paige Jones added another 11 kills on .258 hitting. Both players posted accuracy marks well above their averages for the season.

“Iowa is a really good blocking team,” Mruzik said. “I just wanted to keep swinging high and (use) the top of their hands to get as many lucky bounces as possible.” Mruzik aimed high and repeatedly bounced her booming spike off the outstretched hands of the Iowa middle blockers. This

aggressive scheme. The Wolverines were never fazed, even when the Hawkeyes held a three-point lead midway through the second set. Inevitably, Iowa would make an error. Two missed attack chances by the Hawkeyes led to a one-point lead in Michigan’s favor. The Wolverines never relinquished the lead again.

TESS CROWLEY/Daily Wolverines’ senior outside hitter Paige Jones notched 11 kills in the Wolverines’ win over Iowa.

strategy, a product of Rosen’s game plan, resulted in many side outs and runs in the Wolverines’ favor. Time and time again, Michigan relied on its outside hitters — and time and time again, they rose to the occasion. “I was really pleased with how steady our team played,” Rosen said. “Iowa played really well, especially in the first set early and the second set. They were hitting great numbers (and) running a really good offense.” As a team, Michigan was able to outpace Iowa’s formidable offensive attack due to its patient but

Michigan’s dazzling 51 kills on .391 hitting are numbers that prove a trust in Rosen’s ideals. The relatively low volume of attempts, only 10 more than Iowa, proves that the Wolverines were able to put the ball away consistently. Patience and aggression have allowed this Michigan team to approach its full potential. Few teams can keep up with Michigan’s outside hitters when they are able to grind their opponents down in the way they did Saturday.

Forecheck thrives, but scoring opportunities are hard to come by for Michigan SAM BERNARDI

Daily Sports Writer

There are few weak spots on the Michigan hockey team. Its No. 3 ranking and 6-2-0 record are indicative of a well-balanced roster. But, its two losses are enough to prove that, as a matter of fact, it does have some flaws. The Wolverines are most vulnerable when they allow odd-man rushes, the blame falling not only on their defensemen, but on their forwards too. Michigan has a host of talented offensive defensemen, including senior Nick Blankenburg, sophomore Owen Power and freshman Luke Hughes. Their skill allows them to push in transition and join in on the attack. When successful, they offer a huge boost to the Wolverines. On the season, Power leads the Michigan blueliners with two goals and eight points, while Hughes is not far behind with two goals and seven points. Blankenburg, the team’s speedy captain, has already recorded three goals and four points this year. There is no denying that this

offensive-minded style of play has been productive for the Wolverines. But, it has also been detrimental in unsettled situations when they’ve had to get back on defense quickly. “If the weak side (defenseman) is gonna jump we have to be more aware of that,” fifth-year forward Michael Pastujov said. “As soon as (opponents) see us jumping they’re gonna be jumping the other way. The forwards just gotta be aware of the situation. …It’s something we’re working on in practice, trying to limit those odd-man rushes.” Friday night versus Wisconsin, Michigan sacrificed several breakaways following defensive breakdowns. Oftentimes, the Badgers would start in their own zone, take advantage of the overlyaggressive Wolverine defenders and play a pass ahead for a cutting forward. Whether it was a neutral zone turnover or a defenseman who pinched too much in the offensive zone, Wisconsin was able to expose Michigan’s lack of discipline. The team does not want to discourage its defensemen from initiating scoring chances, but communication with forwards

KATE HUA/Daily While defensemen’s offensive aggression has generated many scoring chances for Michigan, it has also left it exposed to odd-man rushes.

is imperative for recoveries and preventing sophomore goaltender Erik Portillo from facing opponents alone. “We have some defensemen that are really good activating and joining the rush offensively,” assistant coach Bill Muckalt said.

“With that, a lot of times we’re asking a forward to fill into that position.” Even more frustrating for the Wolverines is how solid they’ve played in their own defensive zone. Opponents have struggled to produce even-strength goals and to

Michigan can’t complete the sweep, comes up short versus Wisconsin SAM BERNARDI

Daily Sports Writer

Junior defenseman Keaton Pehrson was caught in unfamiliar territory. As Michigan underwent a line change, Pehrson remained in Wisconsin’s defensive zone. Despite being short three teammates, Pehrson’s relentless pursuit of the puck overpowered the Badgers. He won the battle all by himself and the Wolverines gained possession. That was around the time where Michigan would hit a wall — both literally and figuratively. Wisconsin’s game plan was clear: Do not allow the Wolverines any room in the slot. Their tight-knit defense seemingly blocked every Michigan shot, constantly sacrificing their bodies and maintaining good positioning. They did this successfully enough to the tune of a 4-2 victory. Wolverines’ coach Mel Pearson understands other teams’ tendencies, especially against his talented squad. “We’re going to see that a lot, teams just pack it in,” Pearson said. “As the game wore on, we got better getting to the net, but we were playing a little too individualistic. Guys would hold onto the puck too much instead of give and go and beat guys.” Efforts from players like senior forward Luke Morgan were instrumental in the Wolverines’ forechecking scheme tonight. Early in the second period, Morgan

was grinding down in Wisconsin’s corners. He won a fight for the puck and eventually, senior forward Jimmy Lambert possessed it. He was unable to find sophomore forward Brendan Brisson — who was wide open in the slot for his signature one-timer opportunity. That play didn’t define the game, but it was a microcosm of Michigan’s struggles.

LUKE HALES/Daily

Wisconsin’s game plan was clear: Do not allow the Wolverines any room in the slot. Their tight-knit defense seemingly blocked every Michigan shot.

The forecheck was excellent. All four lines of forwards and even the defensemen were active, bullying their way to the puck and setting up in the offensive zone. But, mostly due to the Badgers’ shutdown defense, they weren’t able to generate many scoring looks. “I didn’t think we were getting it to the net enough in the first 40 minutes of the game,” senior forward Jimmy Lambert said. “If we did get it to the net, we

didn’t really have anyone there to collect rebounds or puck retrievals in the corners.” Even on the typically outstanding power play, the Wolverines had a difficult time finding the net. Brisson was robbed of a goal by a blocked shot from a Wisconsin defenseman. Despite the opportunities, there always seemed to be a wall of red guarding the crease. In the rare instances when Badger goaltender Cameron Rowe was challenged, he rose to the occasion. His plethora of sprawling and acrobatic saves held Michigan to only two goals, propelling Wisconsin to the upset victory. As the Wolverines maintain their national spotlight, expect other teams to give them their best game. “Everyone knows who we are, everyone has high expectations for us and we have high expectations for ourselves,” Lambert said. “Man to man, I just think that we have to be better because it’s Big Ten time.” Seniors like Lambert have been through the wringer a few times now, but for the rest of the team, lessons like tonight will prove invaluable during the postseason. If Michigan wants to compete for a national championship, they will need to perform for 60 minutes, not just play desperate catchup. Pearson added: “We just have to start with that urgency on the drop of the puck. We have to continue to play with that urgency from the get-go.”

maintain possession. Considering how comfortable they look in their own zone, it’s crucial for Michigan to address its issues in transition. “Our (defensive) zone coverage has been fantastic,” Muckalt said. “Because we’ve been sustaining a lot of (offensive) zone time and

pressure when there is a breakdown, we just have to be aware whether it’s a defensive man holding the line or (a forward) as a backtrack.” On the other side of the ice, Michigan struggles to backcheck. The team is extremely effective while forechecking, so it’s a bit surprising that its forwards have not replicated this effort getting back on defense. This issue resonates not just in its forwards but throughout the team. “One thing we harp on a lot is coming back for a purpose, not just coming back to come back,” junior defenseman Jack Summers said. “If you’re coming back, you have to get their stick. You can’t just stand there. … Those loose pucks can’t get put in.” The Badgers may have found a blueprint that other Big Ten teams will try to replicate against the Wolverines: pack the defensive zone and take advantage of the overlyaggressive Michigan defensemen. This upcoming series versus Michigan State will show fans if Michigan can fix its mistakes, or if there are more concerns for the future.

Wolverines finish 4th in women’s cross country Big Ten Championship JAKE SINGER

Daily Sports Writer

As the runners passed the 2.5-mile mark of the sixkilometer (3.73-mile) Big Ten Championship race, the Michigan women’s cross country team looked to be in a prime position to take home the title. In first place with 59 points and three Wolverines in the top 10, Michigan looked to capitalize on its position. As the runners approached the 3-mile mark, junior Ericka VanderLende, accompanied by Minnesota’s Megan Hasz and Michigan State’s Jenna Magness, held a tight lead. As they kicked the wet mud behind them going up the final hill, it was shaping up to be a photo finish. But on the final push, Hasz edged out VanderLende for the Big Ten title by 0.8 seconds. No. 9 Michigan finished fourth at the Big Ten Championships on Friday in a highly competitive event. The tight race around Penn State’s Blue and White Golf Courses was the most competitive race the Wolverines had all season. In the first mile, the runners practically blended together. Everyone was running stride by stride, foreshadowing a race that would come down to the final kilometer. “This was definitely our most competitive race with many people close together,” VanderLende said. “(It was) a little intimidating because we haven’t really had a great split like that.” VanderLende stayed at the front of the pack, placing in the top five at every mile split. “Today was a good day,” VanderLende said. “Personally, I think it’s been a long time coming to have a decent race for me and when the stakes are higher, I feel like I race better. So I think it worked

out well individually as well.” VanderLende wasn’t the only Michigan runner to have a good day, though. Senior Kayla Windemuller put up a personal best herself. Windemuller also fought at the front for the entire duration of the event. The first time AllBig Ten honoree missed out on fifth place by 0.4 seconds. “Mostly, I just wanted to maintain my position,” Windemuller said. “(Michigan coach Mike McGuire) would tell us before the race that every place that you’re in is precious, but the only place ahead of you is more precious than the one you’re in.” The runners had a tricky course, dealing with strong rain and heavy winds for the duration of the event. Not only did they run on wet grass, but the runners had to weave between trees and trek uphill for large parts of the course. Windemuller and the Wolverines, though, had the benefit of running this course before. Experience that competitors lacked. “It was kind of fun,” said Windemuller. “It’s kind of what cross country is all about. Just the mental toughness, working hard and the tough conditions. If anything, it was my favorite because we were dealing with a lot of rain even in practice.” Added VanderLende: “The weather, definitely, has an impact on my mental state, but I just tried to push it away. Normally, I don’t enjoy running in the cold, but just setting that aside, focusing on the task at hand really helps take my mind off the conditions.” Although the Wolverines failed to take home the Big Ten Championship, Michigan has a chance at redemption as it prepares for the NCAA Great Lakes Regional on Nov. 12 in Evansville, Ind.

Wednesday, November 3, 2021 — 11

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

True freshman Andrel Anthony shines in return to East Lansing DANIEL DASH

Daily Sports Editor

As the Michigan football team went through its normal Monday walkthrough last week, Andrel Anthony noticed he was playing a bigger role than usual. “I definitely realized I was going to have a big part in this game,” the freshman receiver said a week later. “I didn’t know it was going to be that big, but I knew I was going to have a shot, an opportunity, to make a play and capitalize on that.” That’s exactly what he did. Six catches, 155 yards and two touchdowns later, Anthony emerged as a bright spot in the Wolverines’ 37-33 loss to Michigan State on Saturday. The East Lansing native wasted no time making noise in his homecoming. On Michigan’s third play from scrimmage, he caught a crossing route in stride from junior quarterback Cade McNamara — his first career reception — and turned

the corner before the Spartans’ secondary could catch up. A few seconds later, he trotted into the end zone to cap off a 93-yard touchdown — the second-longest in program history. “Being able to be put in a position by the coaches and stuff like that, players believing in me, Cade giving me opportunities, stuff like that, it meant the world to me,” Anthony said. “Yeah, I’m a true freshman, but (coaches) really believe in me. That meant a lot to me.” Anthony hauled in another touchdown in the second half, this time from freshman quarterback J.J. McCarthy. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh spotted Anthony and McCarthy voluntarily working out on the practice field together, along with freshman running back Donovan Edwards, following the Wolverines’ road trips to Wisconsin and Nebraska. Anthony and Edwards used the time to rep different routes with McCarthy, who practiced high and low throws to their back shoulders.

When Anthony saw the ball leave McCarthy’s right hand on Saturday afternoon, he had a flashback to those freshman sessions. “I was like, ‘OK, this is just like after the Wisconsin game when we got back,’ ” Anthony said. “The connection we have already is amazing, and it’s just going to continue to grow.” For Michigan, the timing of Anthony’s emergence is critical. With senior receiver Ronnie Bell out for the season and sophomore receiver Roman Wilson nursing a wrist injury, Anthony filled the void in a big way on Saturday. Bell, in particular, played a significant role in getting Anthony ready for the moment. From the time Anthony stepped foot on campus, the duo studied the playbook together and stayed in the gym for their own lifts after teamwide weight room activities. “He always told me he believes in me, and it meant a lot to me because I looked up to him in high school,” Anthony said. “I was like, ‘Ronnie

Despite career game from McNamara, quarterbacks still struggle time. Even if the misstep was the final Managing Sports Editor nail in the Wolverines’ coffin, it was hardly the only one. McCarthy had fumbled in Cade McNamara started off with the previous possession as well, a bang. although it didn’t result in a turnover. On Michigan’s first third down In Michigan’s last-ditch attempt at a of the game, the junior quarterback comeback, McNamara didn’t fare completed a pass to freshman receivmuch better. er Andrel Anthony for 93 yards and Down by four with 1:15 minutes the Wolverines’ first touchdown — left and the ball at the 33-yard line, the first of the freshman’s career. McNamara returned to the field. Although the Wolverines ultiAfter a roughing the passer call mately fell to Michigan State, 33-37, gave the Wolverines 15 free yards, McNamara had the best game of he threw a pass that was his own career by almost any intercepted by Michigan State measure. Going 28-for-44 for corner Charles Brantley, extin383 yards, he topped his career guishing Michigan’s last hope best in passing attempts, passof a comeback. es completed and total yards. Combined, McCarthy and He completed over 125 more McNamara went 16-for-22 for yards than his previous sea252 yards in the first half and son high against Nebraska, 15-for-26 for 154 yards in the when the passing game really second. Neither could execute emerged. in the red zone, as evidenced McNamara’s presence has by Michigan’s four field goals. grown on the field throughout And, for that, McNamara the season, evidenced not only feels responsible. by his growing stat sheet but “I think we had a couple also how comfortable he looks in the pocket. Even beyond the JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily plays, there was a few plays that stand out, there’s not highlight-reel touchdowns, In future weeks, the Wolverines will once again demand that McNamara prove himself. many,” McNamara said. “I he advanced Michigan with throws an earlier iteration of this and sophomore running back Blake think I needed to do better. I just offense never would have been able Corum fumbled the exchange, and can’t do that at the end of the game. the ball was recovered by Spartan I’ve gotta check it down or someto complete. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh defensive end Jacob Panasiuk. The thing.” Though he couldn’t finish the job utilized freshman quarterback J.J. ensuing drive resulted in a MichiMcCarthy as well, despite McNa- gan State touchdown and ultimately on Saturday, what was once a glaring weakness of this offense — its passmara’s strong performance for the handed the Spartans the game. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh ing game — has transitioned into a majority of the game. The freshman tallied three completed passes caught a lot of flak for the choice of strength. When called upon, McNaon four attempts for 23 yards and a McCarthy over McNamara after the mara moved the ball through the air touchdown. Collectively, the duo’s game. When asked about the play, he to keep the Wolverines in the game 406 passing yards bested the Spar- simply remarked that “it did not go and to the precipice of beating a top smoothly” and that McNamara was 10 team. tans’ 196. He just couldn’t finish the game. Still, the quarterback duo exhib- “working through some stuff” at the LANE KIZZIAH

ited some uncharacteristic errors that ultimately gave Michigan State the upper hand. “We were confident we could move the ball,” McNamara said. “It was a combination of good pass pro today — we just came up short and that’s on me. I didn’t execute good enough for us to win this one.” Perhaps the most blatant example came from McCarthy in the fourth quarter. With 7:12 minutes on the clock and Michigan up by three, McCarthy was brought back onto the field. At 1st-and-10, McCarthy

JULIA SCHACHINGER//Daily East Lansing native Andrel Anthony had two touchdowns on Saturday against Michigan State.

Bell believes in me?’ ” Since arriving as an early enrollee in January, Anthony has focused on becoming a better playmaker. He was known as a deep threat in high school, but he’s since added nearly 10 pounds of muscle while retaining his speed and explosiveness. The additional strength has helped him make plays on short and intermediate routes while also improving his ability to make contested catches — a major focal point of Michigan

offensive coordinator Josh Gattis’s coaching. Still, Anthony’s blocking struggles kept him off the field early on this season. Given how much the Wolverines run the ball, wide receiver blocking is at the top of the priority among the team’s receivers. Anthony said coaches got on him about blocking during spring practices and fall camp, which forced him to focus more on that area. A few months later, Anthony

feels he’s come into his own. And his teammates see it too. “He’s been having a very good last couple weeks of practice,” junior receiver Mike Sainristil said. “He’s been very detailed. He’s just been practicing very well and understanding that, with guys like Roman not playing and Ronnie hurt, he has to play a higher role and step up in the offense. “That’s just who he is. He finally had the chance to showcase it.”

Michigan’s plan to move forward after crushing loss to Michigan State JARED GREENSPAN

Daily Sports Editor

While Michigan State celebrated a game-clinching interception on Saturday, Jim Harbaugh stalked the sidelines. He paced up and down, seemingly unsure what to do after Michigan relinquished a 16-point lead and its chance at a marquee victory. Two days later, the pain of the loss partly subsided, Harbaugh again resembled his passionate, fiery self. “Resolve is to get back to work and get prepared for this next opponent,” the Michigan coach said on Monday. “That’s the way I woke up today. Determined. Attack with the new resolve that it’s a new season. A new day, a new week, a new four-game season. Let’s get at it. “My approach, very similar to a fighter. You get up, referee wipes your gloves and you come back even more determined, with even more resolve to prepare, to work harder, to find a way to finish and to win.” The players appeared to match Harbaugh’s mentality. Monday afternoon, the Wolverines gathered for a players-only meeting inside Schembechler Hall, a decision put forth by the appointed leadership council. According to junior receiver Mike Sainristil, it’s the third such meeting the team has had this season. The intention? “Just being able to re-center our focus as a team,” Sainristil said. Individually, each player spent the past two days decompressing in different ways. Junior defensive end Mike Morris took 48 hours to get the loss out of his system, but has since switched his focus to Indiana.

Sainristil watched film on a select number of plays, which prompted a realization: “We have a lot left in us as a team,” Sainristil said. “We’re still trending in the right direction. There’s a lot left on the table for us. There’s big things still to come.” Sainristil and the remaining contingent of Michigan’s veteran players have stressed the importance of setting an example. None of the freshmen have dealt with the aftermath of a loss. The sophomores haven’t been on a team that handles a loss well. As a part of the leadership council, Sainristil has helped to curate the team’s new rallying cry. “We’re still in this,” Sainristil said. “There’s no need to worry. We just have to bounce back and take this past weekend for what it is, go over film and just correct our mistakes. Learn where we can get better.” There are, of course, several tangible areas in which the Wolverines can improve. Even before this weekend, Michigan had plenty of flaws; the Spartans merely magnified them. Harbaugh specifically noted three realms that the Wolverines are focusing on this week. The effort starts with Michigan remedying its shambolic defensive substitutions. Mike Macdonald’s defensive system is predicated on rotations, which is meant to keep players fresh. On Saturday, that plan collapsed in the face of Michigan State’s up-tempo offense, leading to multiple flags and rampant confusion. “Usually we’re off the field very quickly, we do it at a timely pace,” Morris said. “This week, it just didn’t happen. Their pace was too fast. It

JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily After its loss to Michigan State, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh has a few specific areas he looks to improve in.

was just happening way too fast, it just didn’t match up.” On the offensive side of the ball, Harbaugh stressed the need for cleaner run-blocking to ensure that the running backs aren’t hit on the line of scrimmage. Michigan State held the Wolverines to a seasonlow 146 rushing yards, eliminating Michigan’s true bread and butter. The culmination of those offensive woes is the inability to finish inside the red zone. On Saturday, the Wolverines only mustered a field goal on four separate trips to the red zone, an issue that Harbaugh lamented as “a big one every week.” As the season reaches the home stretch, it’s imperative that the Wolverines build upon those three aspects. Ultimately, Harbaugh is confident that they will progress, rather than wilt, moving forward. “I’ve seen the team for a long time now, the way they respond,” Harbaugh said. “Whether it’s a setback or chatter, I know how they’re going to respond…which is with more resolve, more determined to prepare and get ready for our next ballgame.”

SportsWednesday: Is this Michigan team different? We’ve said it so many times: This week is the real test. We said it about Washington. And Wisconsin. And Nebraska. And Michigan State. Each week, we unpacked Michigan’s win with a footnote that the game wasn’t the test we thought it would be. Until the LANE Wolverines went KIZZIAH to East Lansing. The game’s importance had been touted all week. It would be the in-state rivals’ first top 10 matchup since 1964. A win for either team would create a new measuring stick for success and cement conference — and even national — championship potential. Through the first half, it looked like coach Jim Harbaugh would clinch the biggest win of his Michigan career. Then, the Wolverines hemorrhaged a 16-point third quarter lead, and the visions of a championship season got a little dimmer. After the game, Harbaugh sat dejected at the podium with little to say. “That didn’t go the way we wanted (it) to,” he said. Once again, facing its toughest competition, Michigan failed to deliver. Now, all eyes turn towards Penn

JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily The Michigan football team could still salvage its season after Saturday’s loss against Michigan State if it learns from its mistakes.

State, when we will learn if this team truly is different from the past. Regardless of Saturday’s outcome, Michigan knows how to win. It’s come up in big moments, built up its passing game when its run game is stopped and constructed an efficient two-quarterback system out of a starter that’s largely considered to be just “good enough.”

In each consecutive game this season, it’s looked like the Wolverines have added another dimension to their offense, staying true to a rush-centered strategy anchored by Corum and Haskins while exploring the other weapons in their arsenal. On Saturday, that dynamic, top 10 team made uncharacteristic mistakes. It wasn’t so much that it was simply

bested but that its miscues accumulated. Michigan wasn’t playing at it’s best. Now it’s about how it responds. “This season’s not over,” sixth-year center Andrew Vastardis said after Saturday’s game. “Not even close.” Yes, the season isn’t over. The Wolverines have four more games left, but two — against the Nittany Lions and Ohio State — will be among their

toughest of the season. Theoretically, Michigan could finish with a record of 11-1 with a shot at the College Football Playoff. Or it could be 8-4 with an appearance at an insignificant bowl game. If history is any indicator, it’ll be closer to the latter. Last season, an initial 49-24 win against No. 21 Minnesota inflated fans expectations. But

after a loss to the Spartans the following week, the Wolverines never recovered and ended the season 2-4. The year before, a string of midseason Big Ten wins buoyed their hopes only to be dashed in back-to-back blowouts against Ohio State and Alabama. In 2018, Michigan beat its first eight conference opponents, still to lose to the Buckeyes and Florida. Yes, this team can win, but can it recover from a loss? “It’s a learning experience,” Vastardis said. Maybe it will be. Players and coaches have continually repeated the mantra that this Michigan team is different. And they’ve backed those assertions. This Michigan team looked different when, facing mediocre preseason expectations, it beat Washington. It looked different when it beat Wisconsin on the road. It looked different when it came out ahead in a fourth quarter dogfight against Nebraska. As the Wolverines rose in the rankings, so did the stakes. Fans that originally would have been satisfied with an 8-4 season are looking, realistically, at a floor of 9-3. But, if this Michigan team is different, it won’t be because of a 7-0 run. It’ll be because it learns how to recover. Managing Sports Editor Lane Kizziah can be reached on Twitter @KizziahLane.

S P O R T S W E D N E S D AY

TUCKED IN 33-37,

Michigan Wolverines fall to Michigan State Spartans BRENDAN ROOSE Daily Sports Editor

EAST LANSING — Nursing a three-point lead midway through the fourth quarter, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh went with the freshman. J.J. McCarthy — the former five-star backup quarterback — trotted onto the field. Throughout the game, McCarthy came in for specialized packages within the Wolverines’ offense, including a number of successful read options and a touchdown pass to freshman receiver Andrel Anthony. The starter — junior Cade McNamara, who finished the game 28-of-44 for 383 passing yards and two touchdowns — was “working through something,” according to Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh. Even so, McCarthy’s last touch had ended with a fumble that, mercifully for Michigan, went out of bounds. This one didn’t. McCarthy bobbled the exchange with sophomore running back Blake Corum. Almost as soon as the ball hit the ground, Michigan State

12 — Wednesday, November 3, 2021

defensive end Jacub Panasiuk fell on it. Six plays later, the Spartans scored the go-ahead touchdown. That turnover and score would prove to be decisive, as No. 6 Michigan (7-1 overall, 4-1 Big Ten) fell to No. 8 Michigan State (8-0, 5-0), 37-33. In every moment where the Wolverines — who led by as many as 16 points in the second half — looked as if they could seal the game, mishaps arose that ultimately doomed yet another opportunity for Harbaugh’s program to pick up a signature win over a rival. “Sometimes, we shot ourselves in the foot and couldn’t punch it in,” sixth-year center Andrew Vastardis said. “That hurt, first in the grand scheme of the game, but (it’s) something we have to grow from. Something to be better at.” Crucially, many of those errors came in the red zone. On the second drive of the game, with an opportunity to jump to a 14-point lead, an end around to the Spartans’ five-yard line by junior receiver Cornelius Johnson seemed to put Michigan in prime position to score. But the run was called back due to a holding penalty on Anthony, and the

Wolverines settled for a field goal. Senior kicker Jake Moody, for his part, was a perfect 4-for-4 on the day, but the short distances on those field goals — 26, 38, 35 and 36 yards — illustrate just how ineffective Michigan was in Michigan State territory. Those woes continued well into the second half. Tied at 30 early in the fourth quarter, the Wolverines began to assemble a promising drive — including a 43-yard pass from McNamara to junior receiver Mike Sainristil — that set them up with a 1st-and-10 from the Spartans’ 20. But once again, the drive stalled. After McCarthy’s fumble out of bounds and a short McNamara scramble brought out 3rd-and-8, Michigan elected to take a shot at the endzone, which ultimately fell incomplete. In a top 10 rivalry matchup, the Wolverines needed touchdowns. Instead, they were getting field goals. “We just came up short, and that’s on me,” McNamara said. “I didn’t execute good enough for us to win this game.” And while the defense had been there to pick up the slumping

offense earlier in the season, it struggled to pick up key stops on Saturday. Michigan State running back Kenneth Walker III — likely a Heisman frontrunner — bounced into space and slipped through tackles with ease. He scored all five of the Spartans’ touchdowns, including three rushes that went longer than 20 yards and the gametying, 58-yard score. But Michigan State also dismantled Michigan’s defense schematically. Especially on the defensive line, the Wolverines under first-year defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald have relied heavily on rotations to keep players fresh and avoid mistakes that stem from fatigue. The Spartans countered that emphasis with tempo, frequently hurrying to the line to disrupt Michigan’s substitutions. On two different occasions, the Wolverines were penalized for having too many men on the field. Even when they weren’t penalized, Michigan State’s fast pace prevented Michigan from getting set and led to mistakes. Even the Wolverines’ best players made errors — including junior defensive

back Daxton Hill, who got beat on a 28-yard reception that gave the Spartans a first down at the one-yard line. “Just didn’t execute,” senior edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson said. “Didn’t execute our gameplan. Tackling wasn’t good enough. Just let our offense down a little bit. Gotta be better.” Entering the season, nobody foresaw Saturday’s game as a potential top 10 matchup. Neither Michigan nor Michigan State was expected to win many games, let alone compete for championships. Such is the reality of college football. The Wolverines are a better team than they were a year ago, but the opportunity for a signature win was there. Moral victories about how much worse the team could have been will do little to mitigate the reality of yet another loss against a top opponent. Even if expectations become unrealistic throughout the season, the team still has to confront them. There’s still a lot of football left, but for Harbaugh, the burden of unfulfilled expectations still remains.

Julia Schachinger/Daily | Page Design by Sophie Grand

Wednesday, November 3, 2021 // The Statement — 2

I AM the college experience:

post-ironic affirmations spread to campuses around the world BY

ANNIE RAUWERDA,

STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT

Page Design by Sarah Chung, Brittany Bowman

In the spring of this year, my acquaintances started sharing bizarre affirmations like “I am ready for Baguette Lifestyle” and “My skin radiates a Youthful Glow” and “I have never been bored” on their Instagram stories. The statements, perched precariously between serious and sarcastic, started to show up everywhere. “Swollen lymphnode IS NOT CANCER” “I have not entered self-destruct mode” “My sneeze will NOT cause an earthquake” “I AM CRAZY BURGER” These visuals have a dizzying and distinct style: Written in a glowing font, affirmations are superimposed on nutty stock images of colorful earth scenes, Y2K era paparazzi shots, nostalgic cartoon characters and other bizarre photos. It’s like a polychromatic dreamscape, an aesthetic so bad it’s good, like comic sans and Crocs Jibbitz. The style seems to nod to memes from a decade ago (impact font, “deep-fried” filters), and there’s something about the unlikely pairings of images and phrases that make the posts feel like an alien’s recreation of internet culture. They don’t make any sense — and that’s the point. What is this trying to say? you might wonder while viewing glowing underwater fungi overlaid with “I will get over my ice cube addiction.” Is there a punchline, or a message, or anything to truly “get”? The affirmations fit into the category of absurdist “text memes” — a format described by the New York Times, characterized by, “confessional, overly personal messages paired with seemingly unrelated images allow for an extra layer of humor and irony.” And in 2021, internet users have an appetite for chaos. In the past 11 months, the @afffirmations account has exploded from zero to over 800,000 followers in 10 months. In the U.S., these memes exploded as governments relaxed COVID-19 regulations. As I re-entered society with stunted social skills, the images’ delusional tones and awkward wordings seemed to mirror the moment. Throughout our second pandemic year, and as we wrestle with continuing unknowns of a world ransacked by disease, affirmation accounts make statements from an aspirational perspective — an honest, impactful version of ourselves that is “anxiety-free” and “ready to dive into a new week.” But we know we’re not always “ready to dive into a new week.” Beneath a veneer of crazed joyfulness lies an undercurrent of dissatisfaction, the disillusionment that comes with spending your once wild and precious life working overtime so you can afford health insurance. The account references societal pressures of productivity, the futility of work and struggles to find pleasure in daily life. It acknowledges the feeling of meaninglessness, but instead of falling into nihilism, it blasts viewers with somewhat genuine hope that

everything is okay. Amid moments of self-doubt, proclamations like “I AM COASTAL DJ” make me feel, if only for a moment, like a coastal DJ. I’m fine! Everything is fine! At times, the ridiculous design softens the blow of hard-hitting truths. “Seeking help is really cool,” reads one post, which is paired with a psychedelic image of a bright pink limo. The posts dress up positive mental health messages into weird meme formats, making the messages lighthearted and palatable, not preachy or serious. Without breaking character, the account may encourage appropriate care-seeking from people who have been hit by the psychological toll of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Anderson’s handsome and well-dressed, and his good looks don’t go unnoticed: He told me that 70-80% of his followers are female and that women frequently ask to meet up with him. He’s not interested at all. “First of all, I’m married,” Anderson said, yet he prefers to keep details about his relationship private and doesn’t wear a wedding ring. Like I said, he’s a man of mystery. “I am a very simple guy. I do the same thing every day. I go to the same cafe and I sit there for a very long time and drink a double latte,” he said. Anderson brainstorms affirmations, plans the day’s post and then returns home to construct the images, which takes about two hours.

I WILL spread positivity online The phenomena all started on the first day of 2021 when a Norwegian 20-year-old, Mats Anderson, started the Instagram account @ afffirmations. Formerly a black metal musician and university student studying Arabic, he’s an enigmatic figure, and online videos showing him emphatically reading the affirmations only add to his mystique. Over video chat, he explained his work, which he insists is not a joke. Anderson articulated that for a while, his posts were so deliriously happy that commenters suggested he was part of a PSYOP, a psychological operations from the U.S. government to make people happier. He chuckled when offering this information, adding, “I don’t know what that’s all about.” He spoke softly and with self-assuredness, like a tenured humanities professor or Bob Ross. As we talked, he walked through the streets of Oslo where he lives. “Many people consider Norway to be some sort of utopia, but that’s up for discussion,” Anderson said. He wore a tracksuit and his signature sunglasses, and he came across as pleasant, scholarly and faintly aloof — just like he does online.

“If someone were planning to kill me, it would be very easy for them because I am always either at home or at the cafe. These are my only activities: drinking coffee, walking around and making the pictures. These are actually the only things I do. I read books, sure, and I read the newspaper, but I don’t have any real hobbies.” He paused to show me the graveyard he was walking past in Oslo. As he sat on a bench and pulled out a cigarette, I asked about one of his more cryptic posts. “How did you come up with ‘I am Gucci Grandpa?’” “In Norway, the Gucci stores use this old model with white hair, but he looks very good,” Anderson said. “I see the advertisement all over and it just came to me: Gucci grandpa. Ads are probably the biggest inspiration for me.” His posts often include nods to late capitalism. Internet culture also seems to seep into them. “Do you like memes?” I asked. “No, I’ve never liked memes. I thought they were kind of silly. I realize now that I am making memes. But memes on Instagram that are quickly made, I do not enjoy.” Skeptical, I showed him various memes and

asked him if he thought they were funny. Anderson wasn’t impressed. “I don’t understand it. What does it mean?” I tried another. He wasn’t impressed and seemed floored when I told him that it had over 80,000 likes. “Oh, so people must actually like that,” he declared, subtly surprised. Finally I found one Anderson could appreciate. It was a picture of Microsoft’s Clippy saying “Perhaps it is the file which exists and you that does not.” “I understand that one — the derealization, the idea that people spend time inside and do drugs and spend too much time online; the perfect recipe for believing that you are not real. But it’s not for me. I just don’t understand memes, I guess.” He prefers to call his work “high art,” but he knows that people don’t seem to buy that. After a few months of posting, his following exploded, landing articles in publications like Vice, Elle and Rolling Stone. Spinoff accounts cropped up using his personal style — a style that transcends language, culture, and geography. Anderson knows people copy his signature graphics: “It’s an inevitable part of social media,” he told me. “I don’t think too much about it. And I know this won’t last forever.” Mats Anderson still baffles me a bit, but he comes across as genuinely content, and the copycats prove that his work is compelling. Maybe he wasn’t kidding when he posted “I am extremely happy. You should be worried.” I am niche campus microcelebrity The affirmations trend spread to campuses, starting with New York University. In the spring, a roommate trio thought that @afffirmations was, “the funniest thing in the world,” so in a group chat, they began sharing hyper-specific affirmations-style images created with the photo-editing tool Picsart. By mid-April, they expanded their reach and created a public account with NYU-specific references like “Not Having AC In Rubin Builds Character.” The account, known as @nyuaffirmations, now boasts over 7,000 followers. The trend spread at a notable pace, with over 30 universities turning to Instagram pages to take part in ironic positivity The affirmations are so specific to their campus that they don’t make sense to non-students. “The rats in Ldub are my friends,” reads a post from a @yale_affirmations; “TU crane is the father figure I never had,” from Tulane; “I will NOT fling myself into the banks of Old Raritan” from Rutgers; “I am big Blacksburg boss” from Virginia Tech. And even with a lack of context, I find the plight of these random campuses to be hysterically charming. When I do understand the context, it’s even better. The University of Michigan’s affirmations page, @umichaffirmations, started in June of this year when an anonymous person decided to tailor the trend to Ann Arbor. Read more at MichiganDaily.com

3 — Wednesday, November 3, 2021 // The Statement

BY SARAH STOLAR, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT Design by Megan Young Page Design by Sarah Chung

Is there a problem?

tell me

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alking in the door, my mind was an entanglement of anxiety and relief. I looked over the faces of those inside the cafe and finally located a familiar blonde haircut at the far corner of the room. I sat down on the stool beside my friend, Ella, who had invited me to the Starbucks right next to our high school. Starbucks: a place for business meetings, homework parties and hangover recoveries — not a place for gut-wrenching conversation. But we both needed this, and a public place would allow us to process our emotions with a little more polish and compassion. Ella was one of the closest friends I’d ever had. We had been friends since eighth grade, interacting on a daily basis in school or on our own personal adventures. With our shared values and identical wild humor, we gravitated toward each other and remained in constant contact. But for the first two months of senior year, she barely spoke to me. When I approached, she walked away. When we were partners in French, she was curt and to the point. She rarely ate lunch with me, and when she did, she talked to others without making eye contact in my direction. I knew something was off, yet she never gave me the chance to ask why she was upset. Only coldness and avoidance with no explanation. Finally, in late October, she slowly began to interact with me again. With a steady progression back to what I hoped was normalcy, we ended up at Starbucks, where she explained the reasoning behind her distance. Over the summer, I had started dating someone, but with our busy schedules, I never had the chance to tell her until almost the start of the school year. Ella found out about my new relationship from a mutual friend before I revealed it to her and was livid that I hadn’t told her for so long.

We hashed out every event, feeling and grudge. She revealed her past experiences with abandonment and the distrust my miscommunication had created. I felt guilty for reigniting her old fears, but at the end of our conversation I still couldn’t shake my underlying anger over how she chose to react to her distress. We seemed to have resolved our situation, but there was a lingering tension in our relationship that had sprouted over the few months prior. And despite our conversation, the damage had already been done. We had grown distant. It felt like I was walking on eggshells around Ella, as if my presence would snap the illusion of peace we held up for the sake of those around us. Every interaction with her since then has felt forced and tight. It’s as if there’s an invisible wall up between us. On the rare occasion that I see her, I am immediately reminded of our rift. We had to start our relationship over and reconstruct the trust that was lost. I don’t think we’ll ever be back to what we were before. At Starbucks, Ella told me how she refused to let herself act “okay” when she was hurting — she wasn’t going to pretend that everything was fine when it wasn’t. I respected that she internally recognized the validity of her emotions. But in most ways, she did act like everything was fine, continuing all of her normal actions with a punctuation of coldness focused in my direction. The way she approached the conflict made me constantly question which of my actions had caused such a reaction and if she would ever actually tell me. I shouldn’t have to play detective to figure out what was bothering her, but I definitely couldn’t force her to open up to me. I gave her space to determine what she needed to do, but in doing so, no solution was ever reached. The issue festered, resentment building and building until we didn’t even recognize our friendship anymore.

The whole situation made me realize how much I valued respectful confrontation in relationships. Since our friendship’s undoing, I’ve fully embraced the idea of verbalizing my concerns, whether with roommates, friends or family. I despise resentment and rarely hold grudges — I immediately make clear what’s bothering me so matters don’t spin out of control. I forgive easily since when I bring up a problem directly, I know the other person has heard me and internalized what I have to say. It frees me of any ill will related to a conflict because they now know how their actions have affected me, allowing us to mutually decide how we can move forward in a more positive manner. Most people tell me they appreciate my honesty, that they respect that I’m upfront without being overly rude. Confrontation is often seen as aggressive, negative or frightening. But in my experience, the effects of passive aggression and avoidance are much more destructive. *** hat comes to mind when you hear the word “conflict?” Is it a fistfight, a screaming match or a cold distance from someone who you have wronged? Is it characterized by active verbal projection against another person? Is silence the most cutting method of getting one’s anger across? One’s approach to conflict is heavily influenced by their communication style. There are four main types of communication: passive, passive-aggressive, aggressive and assertive. Those who are passive don’t express their concerns or feelings while those who are passive-aggressive will communicate their frustrations in subtle ways, whether through body language, indirect comments or a bitter demeanor. Aggressive communication is characterized by combative interactions in which

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the aggressor tries to dictate the situation, allowing no room for others to respond. Assertiveness is seen as the healthiest way to respond to conflict — defending one’s own emotions or desires clearly while remaining respectful to those at the other end of the communication. This doesn’t mean that each of our conflict management styles is stagnant. We can change our communication method completely based on the environment we are in. A person may not have the same response in a personal situation as opposed to an academic setting. Or, if you’re like me, there is a spectrum of the intensity of your assertiveness: I’m much more poignant (but no less assertive) with my roommates than I am with my boss. I’m not okay with letting things slide, but I adapt based on my position or comfort level. Growing up in Minnesota, the concept of passive-aggression is so ingrained in local lifestyle that it has become a regional inside joke. “Minnesota Nice and Minnesota Ice” perfectly encapsulates the two behaviors we are known for — when speaking with a Minnesotan, you will be met with the polite, stand-up Midwesterner or a demeanor as cold as our January blizzards. Passive aggression is a common approach to conflict throughout the Midwest. This geographic trend presents a possible cultural influence on communication styles, as residents within a certain region generally share common social and behavioral norms due to their similar lifestyles. One study shows this geographic significance, as residents of the “Upper Midwest” had much lower “assertiveness” scores than residents of the New York Metropolitan area. In other words, Midwesterners were much more passive in their communication with others than New Yorkers. Read more at MichiganDaily.com

The laugh track BY

T

here’s something perfectly unfinished about the comedy club on 4th Avenue. It’s next to a Running Fit store and housed in the basement of a virtually unmarked building. You could pass it every day and never notice unless you happened to see the 8-by-11-inch sheet of printer paper on the door that says “Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase.” The core of the building is used as a leasing office — one that seems to be perpetually under construction. I’ve gone to see three or four shows there over the last year, and it never looks like the project is any closer to its finish. When I walked in that Saturday, going to see a show with my friends, it seemed like there were the same protective plastic coverings and “Excuse our mess” signs that lined the walls the last time I was there. But maybe its dingy unfinishedness is exactly what a comedy club should look like. Past the entryway and down the stairs, a folding table was set up to sell tickets. The man behind the table handed me three pieces of paper, explaining that one was for me to keep as a receipt, one was to sign and give back to him and the last was for me to hand to another guy behind a hosts’ stand. It all felt very complicated for an operation being run from a folding table in the basement of an office building. When I asked some of my roommates who had never seen live comedy before if they would come with me, I felt like I was responsible for their experience — if they didn’t find it funny, then it was my fault that they’d wasted $15. The exercise of going to a comedy show feels simultaneously extremely cool and painfully uncool. I felt like I wasn’t half-interesting enough to be there while also hoping I didn’t run into anyone I knew. For some reason, it seemed like everyone felt this way, as if the audience was all milling around, waiting for friends. Eventually, the rest of my roommates showed up and we were taken to our seats. The Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase looks like a scene from the “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” or the opening scene of Seinfeld [COPY: need quotes around tv shows]: The whole room is composed of small tiered levels of seats that get increasingly huddled as they go down to the stage. The floor in front of the stage is packed with small, round tables for two. The host led us down to the second row of tiered seats. As we sat down, my friend Emily leaned over to me. “Can you imagine sitting right next to the stage? You’d probably get spit on.” Yeah, spit on or made fun of.

Wednesday, November 3, 2021 // The Statement — 4 Design by Katherine Lee Page Design by Sarah Chung

LANE KIZZIAH, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT

The front seats are the ones the comedians bring into their sets, usually to pick on as a way to connect with the audience. I theoretically like the idea of being brought into the show, but I assume it’s also terrifying, sitting there with the constant knowledge that someone could single you out in a room of 60 people. I was glad we were sitting higher up, out of the literal and metaphorical splash zone. I wanted to do the observing without the fear of being observed. The stage looks pretty much as emblematic of a comedy show as you can get: just a black, three-legged stool and a microphone with a singular spotlight trained on it. Looking up at the spotlight, I couldn’t tell if it was an illusion of the lights or an image my mind had superimposed onto the idea of a comedy show, but the air almost looked smoky. °°° ’ve loved comedy since I was in middle school. I’ve always been really interested in the whole “scene” of it all. I stayed up to watch SNL every weekend. I read all of the trendy comedian’s memoirs — Amy Poehler’s Yes Please, Tina Fey’s Bossypants, Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me, Aziz Ansari’s “Modern Romance” — to figure out how these comics got where they were. It would be a few more years before I’d be introduced to stand up, but even my initial brush with comedy left me wowed. I couldn’t fathom how someone could be so witty, so quick on their feet. It felt like magic to me. But, of course, it’s not magic. If anything, it’s closer to science. Plato and Thomas Hobbes theorized that the motive for humor is pleasure in pain, flaws or “the indignity of others.” When we laugh, it’s because we’re laughing at someone else’s shortcomings. On the contrary, Freud believed that laughing was a sign of sexual or aggressive thought. But he also believed the same thing about fear. And food. And dreams. That theory is pretty much defrauded, but the idea of tension and release is still integral to comedy. It’s often the buildup to the joke that makes the payoff rewarding. Now, most people understand humor through the incongruity theory: Our brains perceive two things that don’t appear to make sense together, but when the true context is revealed we see them in a new light, and the comedy is revealed. It’s the surprise when the doors open in a haunted house and Tom Hanks is standing there wearing a suit covered in pumpkins in SNL’s “David Pumpkins” sketch. Or the absurdity of Costello asking, “Who is on first?” and Abbott saying, “Yes.” °°° hen the lights went down — a transition from near to absolute darkness — I saw at least a little apprehension cross my friends’ faces. The MC walked up to the stage to start warming up the crowd. I’d seen her before, she’s an Ann Arbor local who does this on the weekends. She does bits about her job at a homeless shelter and her son’s dating life.

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I’ve always felt like comedy is very black and white. In my mind, there was an “it” factor to creativity. People like the MC had it, and I didn’t. But “art,” “artifice” and “artificial” all derive from the same Latin root ars-, which means skill. All art is artificial. Sculptures are built, words from poems are carefully selected, the same scene of a movie can be shot over and over again until it has the desired effect. But that doesn’t mean it’s not real or meaningful. I know “Meet the Robinsons,” the 2007 animated Disney classic, isn’t a true story, but I still cry every time I watch it. And there is no naturally occurring comedy just like there’s no naturally occurring art. Every joke is preconceived whether it’s in a Dave Chapelle bit or an objectively shitty sketch written by an amateur comedy group. I wish there was a formula for coming up with creative ideas. I Googled “how to write a good joke,” and according to Google, the golden equation contains three parts: There’s recognition, the relatable context that the comedian sets up for the audience; discomfort, the incongruity that leaves the audience confused and creates tension; and then release, the moment the audience understands the larger picture and the joke pays off. °°° So who’s in love here?” the MC asks the crowd. She started talking about how COVID-19 has affected her dating life. She told the audience about how she was sick of the high-maintenance men and college-aged boys she’d been meeting in Ann Arbor and how she had been dating a guy named James on and off for the past couple of years. The setup. “And, in other news, I lost 211 pounds during the pandemic,” she says. The audience cheers. It’s not really clear where this train of thought came from, but everyone’s happy for her nonetheless. The incongruity. “His name was James.” The release. I’d heard this joke before. This exact joke from this exact woman here a few weeks earlier, but I still laughed. I don’t think the fact that I’d heard the joke before — the fact that it was probably written and rehearsed and used dozens and dozens of times before it ever got to me — took away from its humor. If I heard it a third time, I’d probably still laugh. But thinking about it that way does feel a little off-putting to me like I’ve accidentally pulled back the curtain to see the wizard. The logical part of my brain knows that standup comedians don’t make stuff up on the spot but I think there’s a kind of belief suspension in watching standup. We know it’s an act, but we have to believe the standup comic even more than if it was fiction. When an actor delivers a monologue, the audience knows them as two people at the same time: the actor and the character they are portraying. There’s an obvious underlying assumption that everyone on the screen is being someone they’re not. With a standup comedian, there’s only who they say they are. The audience has to believe that they’re seeing something authentic. But does it even matter who they are or who we think they are?

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It’s why I’ve never understood heist movies. In every art heist movie, the thieves sneak into the museum or the mansion or the gallery, slip the painting out of the frame and put a replica in its place — and no one notices. At least four or five scenes go by until someone realizes the painting is a fake. Sometimes they never do. For all I know, I’ve seen a thousand forgeries and thought they were the real thing. Every painting I’ve ever seen could be a forgery, and I’d have no idea. There is no inauthenticity until someone tells you that something is inauthentic. You don’t feel cheated out of a concert until someone tells you the band is lipsynching. On some level, you can’t help but believe the magician until you see the wires holding up the trick. You don’t remember the standup comedian is reading from a script until you’ve heard it twice. It’s almost as if the belief in authenticity is more important than its existence. Maybe the MC is an undiscovered forgery. Maybe there never was a James. Maybe I’ll run into her at Kroger someday, walking through the produce aisle with her husband. But shopping for lemons doesn’t make a very good punchline. °°° y the time I’d ordered my second drink, the headliner, Ken Evans, came on. He was probably around 65, wearing a short-sleeve button-up and a newsboy hat. The first thing he did was call out everyone in the audience: the nicely dressed couple sitting at center stage is probably rich, the man sitting alone couldn’t get a date, the larger tattooed couple off to the side definitely lives in a trailer park. He went on about the toilet paper shortage during the pandemic and the Midwest and the haunted hayride he used to run. I wondered whether Ken practiced this monologue on his drive over from Novi, repeating it to himself and remembering where to pause for laughs. He picked up the cord of the microphone and walked around the stage, taking a path he’s probably done a hundred times before in a hundred other comedy clubs like this one. He’s not really my sense of humor. It’s a little too crude, talking about the problems of middle age that I might find relatable in twenty to thirty years, so I mostly just watched the crowd. There’s a woman near the stage who was absolutely dying. She was far more entertaining than the show itself. She kept cackling, grabbing her husband’s arm and keeling over with laughter. I read somewhere that caricature art is the most vulnerable, authentic type of art there is. The argument was that a caricaturist draws exactly what they see before them in real-time. There is no time or backstage for preparation, no place to hide. As I watched the crowd and the comedian, I felt like I was watching a caricaturist at work. Ken singled out the nicely dressed man at center stage, playing up the bit that he had money.

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Read more at MichiganDaily.com