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Positive case of meningococcal meningitis confirmed in UMich community Exposed students are encouraged to fill out online UHS survey, receive antibiotic treatment immediately ASHNA MEHRA Daily Staff Reporter
Fired U-M President offered contract for tenured professor in Fall 2022 GRACE BEAL/Daily
Mark Schlissel could return as faculty member in MCDB, Microbiology & Immunology
GEORGE WEYKAMP, KAITLYN LUCKOFF, & KATE WEILAND Daily News Editors
After being removed from his term as University of Michigan President earlier this month, documents obtained by the Detroit Free Press reveal that Mark Schlissel could be returning to campus this fall as a tenured professor. Despite being terminated by the Board of Regents as president, Schlissel is entitled to his faculty tenure position under his initial contract with the University, according to an email from U-M spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald to The Michigan Daily. Schlissel currently retains appointments in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts as well as the Medical School. “Those departments are now in the process of officially absorbing him into the faculty and determining what his initial duties will be
as he makes this transition, which was the commitment they made in 2014,” Fitzgerald wrote. “There are a number of details that remain to be determined.” Fitzgerald wrote retaining tenure was a normal process for faculty members returning from administrative work. According to The Press, Schlissel was offered a salary of $185,000 dollars. It is still unknown whether or not Schlissel has accepted this agreement. In early January, Schlissel was fired from his position as president after an anonymous complaint in December 2021 led to an internal investigation, which revealed that he had been engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a University subordinate. This investigation is ongoing, as the University’s Board of Regents is currently investigating if Schlissel obtained University funds to engage in this relationship, Regent Sarah Hubbard, R-Lansing, confirmed in an interview with The Daily last week.
Hubbard said the Regents expect to know the results of the investigation relatively soon and will proceed accordingly. ‘We certainly don’t expect this to be something that takes six months to a year, it’s something I would hope to get some feedback on, you know, in (the coming) weeks,” Hubbard said. “I don’t have a specific end date, and until we know what they find, we won’t know what to do with the information.” Hubbard said initial results of the investigation – which revealed over 118 pages of email and text correspondence between Schlissel and his subordinate – led the regents to a unanimous decision to terminate. “Once the board saw the nature of the emails, we all had a lot of concerns about the nature of the relationship, particularly given the policy that was put in place last summer related to the supervisory relationship,” Hubbard said. Ultimately, this termination did not revoke
Schlissel’s tenure faculty appointment. The obtained documents require Schlissel to teach one class a year if conducting research, and two classes per year if not. Additionally, Schlissel would not begin instruction until the 2022-2023 school year. Prior to teaching, he will need to conduct research and obtain grants. In addition to teaching, he will be relied on to serve on faculty committees and mentor students. Bethany Moore, chair of Microbiology and Immunology at the University, wrote in the letter obtained by The Press that Schlissel must adhere to the conditions outlined in the letter. “Your appointment will be on a twelvemonth basis with major effort to be determined by discussion with the chair and followed up in writing,” Moore wrote. “Established research-active faculty in the
A University of Michigan student tested positive for meningococcal meningitis, according to an email from University of Michigan Chief Health Officer Preeti Malani and Lindsey Mortenson, University Health service medical directors Thursday night. The student was recently present at a Delta Kappa Epsilon event on Jan. 20 from 10:30 p.m to 12:00 a.m. They also attended an off-campus ticketed event at Michigan State University on Saturday, Jan. 22 at the Sigma Beta Rho house in East Lansing. The student started experiencing symptoms on Monday, Jan. 24. Meningitis is a rare and serious bacterial infection; however, vaccines can prevent it. It involves an inflammation of the brain and spinal cord and can lead to permanent disabilities. Common symptoms of meningitis include a fever, stiff neck, headache, rash and vomiting. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most people recover, but meningitis can occasionally lead to death within a few hours of contracting the disease. In a Thursday press release from the Washtenaw County Health Department, officials urged students who may have been in contact with the individual to complete an online survey through UHS. According to the Health Department, points of contact can include being coughed on, being sneezed on, kissing, sharing food or being in a crowded space with an infected individual. In the press release, WCHD medical director Juan Luis Marquez said the health department is currently working with the University to identify any close contacts and distribute treatment as needed. “This is not an outbreak and risk to the larger community remains low, but meningococcal meningitis is a very serious illness,” Marquez said. “We are working as quickly and collaboratively as possible to provide information and treatment options to anyone with potential and direct exposure to the known case.” The disease is spread by respiratory droplets such as those from saliva and is only treatable with antibiotics. In their email to the campus community, Malani and Mortenson said they are taking the case seriously and are encouraging any students who are worried they may have been in close contact with the positive individual to receive the necessary prophylactic antibiotic treatment as a preventative measure as soon as possible.
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University to LSA SG condemns rise in global anti-Muslim bigotry, supports installing bidets provide free Two resolutions approved to increase inclusivity for Muslim community menstrual products in all public on-campus bathrooms ERIN CHAI
Daily Staff Reporter
Following Ann Arbor City Council ordinance, ‘U’ to increase supplies in 670 restrooms MATTHEW SHANBOM Daily Staff Reporter
The University will provide menstrual products across all 670 main floor restrooms in all academic and student-facing buildings, University spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald told The Michigan Daily in an email Thursday. In November, the Ann Arbor City Council approved an ordinance requiring menstrual products in all public restrooms — the first of its kind in the U.S. The University did not immediately make a decision on whether to follow the ordinance due to constitutional autonomy. “Providing these products in public restrooms on the Ann Arbor campus is no small undertaking,” Fitzgerald wrote. “U-M has hundreds of buildings that are open to the public.” In August, the University implemented a pilot program to offer menstrual products in 96 on-campus restrooms. Fitzgerald previously told The Daily this was conducted to assess campus demand and operational costs.
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LSA Student Government passed two resolutions that intend to create a more accepting environment for the Muslim community on the University of Michigan campus. One of the resolutions calls for condemning the global rise of Islamophobia, and the other supports a bidet initiative to make public restrooms more accomodating for Muslim students. The need to address Islamophobia on campus was brought to attention when a copy of the Quran was damaged at Arizona State University. Bilal Irfan, LSA SG representative and LSA freshman, said the resolution aims to break the pattern of Islamophobia worldwide, starting in Ann Arbor. “(The first resolution) kind of looks into the global trends of Islamophobia,” Irfan said. “(The resolution) also extensively cites some of the things from the Islamophobia Working Group (IWG) and what they found on Islamophobia on campus.” The IWG was established in 2016 to address Islamophobia in the U-M community and around the country. The IWG aims to create a safe environment for Arab, Muslim and MENA (Middle East and Northern Africa) students. Irfan said he and Maria Wajahat, LSA SG representative and LSA freshman, drafted the resolution in response to the ASU vandalism incident. Wajahat believes the new resolution will create a safer environment for
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Muslim students. “(The ASU vandalism) invokes a lot of fear in Muslims, especially on college campuses, and it’s not something that’s unfamiliar to the University of Michigan,” Wajahat said. “There’s no saying that it won’t happen again, or that it won’t happen here the way it did
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at ASU. I think that this was a really good way to sort of get ahead of that and try to make Muslims feel safer on campus and just feel more accepted.” Irfan also said other Islamophobic attacks rattled the country during the first two weeks of December such as an arson attack at a mosque in
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Albuquerque, N.M. on Nov. 29 and death threats against U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar. He argued the University has not done enough for Muslim students in recent years, and the resolution is a small step towards change.
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News
2 — Wednesday, February 2, 2022
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ADMINISTRATION
University community reacts to additional COVID-19 policies for ‘U’ indoor athletic events Proof of vaccination or negative test required for attendance inside sporting games
RACHEL MINTZ Daily Staff Reporter Amid a nationwide surge of COVID-19 cases, the University of Michigan announced a new policy requiring either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID19 test for all indoor athletic events. The new requirement is in addition to the existing face covering mandate while inside University buildings. The policy specified that those who tested positive for COVID19 will be required to show a public health release letter or a letter from a doctor that is dated within 90 days of the sporting event. The policy will be in effect until further notice, according to the Michigan Athletics website. LSA freshman Sara Taub is on the Michigan dance team and performs at women’s basketball games. Taub said the new requirements made her feel more safe at athletic events and was glad people were still able to attend, despite the surge. “You want a lot of people coming to the games to support the teams, and you just want to be as safe as possible so that we can keep going to the games because
last year that was impossible,” Taub said. “I think that support is so important, especially for (dance). We just had our nationals … it was so much better being able to experience that energy live, in person.” Taub also said random asymptomatic testing would make her feel more comfortable attending all events on campus.
“Other universities (are) doing random testing for students, and I feel like … that would be a more effective way (to minimize the spread of COVID-19) than just kind of testing when you want to or when you need to,” Taub said. “I just think that that would help eliminate the amount of cases or just bring attention to the positive ones.” In an email to The Michigan Daily, Associate Athletic Director Kurt Svoboda wrote that athletic events will accept photo vaccine
“Yeah, it’s a lot more intense than it was (last semester),” Grover said. “I haven’t really had anybody in my family or friend group that had ever (tested positive) … (I think) it’s gonna become like the flu where people get it every year, it kind of rolls through and then it’ll subside for a bit. And there will be vaccines that come out that change yearly, depending on what variant there is and it’s just kind of what it is at this point.” Grover said he wasn’t asked to show proof of vaccination or a negative test when he went to the match. He said while he thinks vaccination and testing are effective in minimizing the spread of COVID-19, he is skeptical of its enforcement. “As far as sporting events go, because I didn’t get asked for any proof of vaccination Design by Katherine Lee or testing, I students and other community can’t speak on whether any of members,” Svoboda wrote. the people who didn’t go through “Other indoor ticketed events that student entrance (followed had previously instituted these the University’s policy),” Grover said. “I didn’t see if there were policies.” Engineering freshman any altercations, I didn’t see if David Grover said he went to anybody just went through. I have the Michigan wrestling match no idea if they actually did check against Penn State Friday. Grover it. So I don’t think I can speak also said he knows more people on whether it’s even changing who tested positive compared to anything inside of the event.” last semester, and he believes the virus will become as common as Read more at MichiganDaily.com the flu.. cards, and the policy will remain until further notice. Additionally, at-home rapid tests will not satisfy the negative test requirement. “In early January, the requirements were put in place in anticipation of rising cases stemming from COVID’s omicron variant while striving to provide the safest and best possible in-person experiences for our
NEWS
Rep. Debbie Dingell talks $1 billion infrastructure bill at U-M Botanical Gardens visit Environmental, wildlife non-profit organizations gather to discuss conservation efforts
IRENA LI Daily Staff Reporter U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., visited the University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Gardens
Wednesday to discuss the impacts of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) following the $1 billion in federal infrastructure funding the initiative received last year. Dingell represents Michigan’s
12th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. She was joined by members of various environmental and wildlife organizations, such as nonprofit organization Ducks Unlimited and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to hear
Marc Gaden, Communications Director and Legislative Liaison of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, speaks to Rep. Debbie Dingell at the UM Botanical Gardens Wednesday afternoon. Members of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, Ducks Unlimited, Healing Our Waters, among others, discuss the federal infrastructure LSA senior Zackariah Farah funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and tour the wetland area. speaks at a rally organized TESS CROWLEY/Daily
how GLRI funding has supported those groups’ local conservation efforts. The $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden last November, allocated an additional $1 billion to the (GLRI). Established in 2009, the GLRI works to protect wildlife and restore habitats by eliminating threats to the Great Lakes ecosystems such as pollution, contamination and invasive species. Kyle Rorah, Ducks Unlimited regional director of public policy, said the GLRI as well as the Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act of 1990,vital to collaborative conservation efforts, benefitted Americans across the country despite the initial monetary costs that go into these programs. “These programs are just incredible,” Rorah said. “When you think about the multiple benefits that ecological restoration provides communities, the value delivered back to society (and) to wildlife, far outpaces the upfront investment.”
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MSW students required to complete up to 28 hours of fieldwork per week unpaid
Students in the University of Michigan School of Social Work drafted a Payment for Providers petition calling for Masters of Social Work students to be financially compensated for field work. A similar version of the petition was drafted in 2017, but the majority of field work positions
JASMIN LEE
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Petition demands UMich School of Social Work fund degree-required internships MADISON KRAFT Daily Staff Reporter
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through the SSW remain unpaid. MSW students must complete 16 hours of field work a week in their first semester and 28 hours a week in the following semesters, according to criteria set by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW).
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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is publishing weekly on Wednesdays for the Winter 2022 semester by students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. If you would like a current copy of the paper mailed to you, please visit store. pub.umich.edu/michigan-daily-buy-this-edition to place your order.
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Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, February 2, 2022 — 3
Gaslight, Gatekeep, Gamer Girl MADDIE AGNE Daily Arts Writer
The basement in my childhood home was equipped with a Magnavox box TV, a GameCube and a PlayStation 2. The furniture was old, and the basement was prone to flooding, but it didn’t matter so long as my older brother and I had the TV and at least one console. Before the days of homework and exams, my brother and I would spend every day after school in the basement: He would sit on the ottoman in front of the television while I curled up in the armchair behind him and, for hours, watched him play video games. He played any number of games — “Super Mario Sunshine” or “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess” were the most popular, and if I was lucky enough, he’d let me play “Lego Star Wars” with him. I spent years consuming games but spent hardly any time playing. By the time I reached my tween years, I had gotten decent at “Lego” games, “Animal Crossing” and “Super Smash Bros. Brawl,” and I was familiar with the mechanics of the Wii and PlayStation. But I intimately knew “Legend of Zelda” and “Infamous” games and others less suited to a little girl than “Animal Crossing.” I knew how to solve the puzzles in those games. I knew the lore and character biographies, and I knew that if you fell in water in “Infamous,” death was immediate, so steer clear. I watched the early days of YouTube gamers like ChimneySwift11 and iHasCupquake, and in recent years, I fell in love with Polygon’s “Unraveled” series. I had all the theoretical knowledge it took to be a “real” gamer, but my brother was the gamer, not me. No matter how much interest I showed, the video games underneath the tree on Christmas morning weren’t addressed to me. So what was a young girl to do? She gets smart. She learns everything she can about video games since she can’t afford to buy them herself, and she flexes that knowledge at every opportunity. And it surprises people — men, mostly. After they undergo a brief period of wondering how a woman could have so much knowledge about a sphere mostly exclusive to them, there
are generally two ways they follow through. One, they accept it and carry on the conversation with me. Two, and perhaps the more common option, is the testing. If I know so much about one video game, then they want to see if I know everything about its predecessors and spin-off games. As a young woman, I am not new to men’s attempts to trip me up in an arena they do not deem suitable for me, but I never face it quite so poignantly as I do within the gaming sphere. Their singular desire is to act as gatekeeper to the academia of the video game community — meaning I am not allowed in unless I prove myself intelligent enough and otherwise ought to be kept on the fringes of their culture. And while I don’t mind saying that I can hold my own when it comes to discussion about a game’s story or characters, I will also admit that I begin to trip up when it comes to gameplay. If someone asked me to speak on the particular mechanics, special items or battles in, say, “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess,” I would be at a loss because even though I watched my brother play through the entire game, I have never laid hands on a “Legend of Zelda” game. All these years later, I still find myself wondering why? That why has a number of answers, but advertising is at its core. Before the 1980s, video games were pretty neutral due to a lack of data. Yes, the industry was still largely male-dominated, but “ there was hardly any player research being conducted.” No developers knew who exactly was playing the games, so the games were made for everybody. Enter the 1983 video game crash: a recession in the industry caused by over-saturation. Consumers stopped purchasing games, and the industry lost money by the billion until a little company called Nintendo stepped in. Aiming to avoid repeat over-saturation and to create a more niche market, Nintendo conducted wide-scale market research into who was buying and playing the most video games — or toys, as they were marketed at the time to avoid the defunct title of “video game.” And what did they find? Boys were playing more. It follows that, in the ’90s, “Video games were heavily marketed
as products for men, and the message was clear: No girls allowed.” Marketing images and campaigns often featured hypersexualized women, the notion that increased gaming skill could win you more female attention and the age-old joke that video games were an escape from the old ball and chain. This is why video games under the Christmas tree were never addressed to me as a child. They were good gifts for my brother — tools for him to be a regular little boy —while I was given baby dolls, which were tools for me to be a good mother. As a future homemaker, I was represented in countless Disney princesses rescued from the clutches of evil only to become wives and mothers. The only kind of women I saw in the video games my brother played were these same damsels in distress. To my child-mind, Zelda and Princess Peach were princesses locked away in towers, waiting for Link or Mario to come save them from Ganon and Bowser. Even when the rare strong female character, like Lara Croft or even Samus Aran, did make an appearance, she was hypersexualized and seemingly animated for the male gaze. The “gamer girl” identity is reflected in this representation. Somehow both fetishized and scorned, the internet’s definition of a gamer girl is, like Lara Croft, welcome in the gaming community, yet is more ornament than player and is non-threatening enough to be held at arm’s length within the community. She is an unfortunate, unrepresentative catch-all term that has been applied far too liberally to myself and other female gamers. In 2014, Gamergate — the online harassment campaign in which “thousands of people in the games community began to systematically harass, heckle, threaten, and dox several outspoken feminist women in their midst” — revealed just how dangerous video game culture actually was for women, and particularly for transgender gamers. The campaign produced transphobic memes in order to push its agenda and highlighted just how long transgender women had been speaking against sexism and harassment in the community. When Gamergate pulled
back the curtain on the utterly violent misogyny embedded in video game culture, it was no longer surprising why women were always kept on the fringes. If the games weren’t marketed
video games, and video game culture will continue to make us feel that we are not “real” gamers or reduce us to “gamer girls” because of our gender identity. Time and time again, I have
towards us, if we didn’t see ourselves represented in them and if men would resort to violence to keep us out, then what was the point? Why try to indulge in a culture that obviously didn’t want us when there were so many other arenas in which we could be experts? Like cooking. Or child-rearing or homemaking, if that’s more your speed. Well, “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” and all that. Men in the gaming industry can try to keep women out, but there will always be some who slip through the cracks. Women like the members of Dignitas, “regarded as the world’s best all-female ‘Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’ team,” who practice for six hours every day in order to keep fighting for their place at the esports table. Women like Twitch streamer Pokimane, who in 2021 was revealed to have made 1.5 million dollars over 26 months, not accounting for merchandise or sponsorship revenue. Women like Kim Swift, who developed 2007’s hugely popular “Portal,” or Alyssa Finley, the executive producer of “Bioshock” and “Bioshock 2,” the first two games in a franchise that has sold over 34 million games as of 2019. Women will continue to pursue
faced men that want to keep me out of gaming because they do not deem me serious enough — and this is a universal experience for women in the video game community. That is the upsetting truth of our current time. However, I maintain that women do not have to be esports champions or top-earning streamers or developers of some of the most popular video games of all time to prove that they are “real” gamers. Consider this a call to arms: All you have to do is play the games you like and keep pushing. When a man claims that you have no space in the gaming community because you play “Animal Crossing,” I want you to double down and devote your skills to building your dream island. When a man quizzes you on your “Call of Duty” knowledge, I want you to challenge him to a game and beat him. Or, if you’re like me, learn everything you can about video games and then ask for your first “Legend of Zelda” game for Christmas. It will be the second-ever video game addressed to you under the Christmas tree, both received in the year and a half since you turned nineteen, and both will be from your big brother.
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Ricky Gervais’s bewildering brand of sentimentality in ‘After Life’ AIDAN HARRIS Daily Arts Writer
Content warning: death, suicide Ricky Gervais (“Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?”) is not widely known for having a big heart. He is perhaps most famous for his rant against the hypocrisy of Hollywood elites at the 2020 Golden Globes, or maybe for his scorching standup comedy, in which he mercilessly dissects touchy subjects, most notably religion. The edgy elements of Gervais’s persona are certainly on display in the third and final season of “After Life,” which he writes, directs and stars in. However, the numerous tear-jerking, emotionally devastating and heartwarming moments that accompany his blunt sense of humor are truly surprising. What’s even more puzzling is how
well these features complement each other. “After Life” season three is the culmination of Tony Johnson’s (Gervais) emotional journey following the loss of his wife, Lisa (Kerry Godliman, “Frayed”) to breast cancer. Throughout the series, Tony battles suicidal thoughts and struggles with finding his purpose on earth now that his soulmate is gone. His friends at his workplace, the local newspaper the Tambury Gazette, and outside the office do their best to help Tony while simultaneously striving to find happiness themselves. In the first season, Tony’s coping strategy was to say whatever came to his mind and treat others however he wanted, because without Lisa, nothing mattered anymore. Unsurprisingly, this way of life did not make Tony feel any better, and he barely escaped suicide, thanks to
the love of his dog, Brandy (Anti, “Hitmen”), and a few other friends. Over the course of season three, Tony finds a new strategy: trying to achieve contentment by making the world a better place. He gives beneficial advice to his friends and performs acts of kindness for deserving strangers without abandoning his signature fearless insults when dealing with genuine assholes. According to Gervais himself, the overarching message of “After Life” season three is to make the most of life while you can. It is no doubt a challenge to convey such a broad and universal idea through any artistic medium, let alone a six-episode season of television. However, Gervais cleverly imbues the theme by using several tactics, including story structure, character development and humor. The first is the subtle, slice-of-life
nature of the show. Gervais does not hammer down the worldview with precise and heavily structured plotlines in which Tony might learn something new at the end of every episode. Instead, he lets the idea breathe in the natural and deep conversations between characters, in addition to spending time on seemingly mundane activities, such as walking the dog or joking around with friends. Importantly, Gervais also makes clear that living life to the fullest is not an easy task. Tony often struggles to get out of bed in the morning and can do so only after watching old home videos of his wife. Gervais is also careful to avoid preaching, keeping his message relatable with his aforementioned style of comedy. “After Life” takes advantage of Gervais’s comedic personality to create a satisfying ending to the series in which
Tony’s transformation is palpable. It is rewarding to see a character who started off the series so cynical (even willing to lose his life in order to personally ridicule two petty thieves) ultimately become a relatively selfless individual. Without spoiling too much, one of the most touching scenes in the season occurs when Tony puts aside his fervent atheist beliefs to make someone feel better in the moment. Through “After Life,” Gervais expertly demonstrates that you never have to put limits on your creative work. Why not juxtapose gut-busting inflammatory humor with the themes of depression and the meaning of life? Who says that you can’t create a captivating show without proven structure? The show therefore serves as both an inspiration for viewers and creatives through its beautiful and innovative story.
Hear me out: ‘Dora and the Lost City of Gold’ is an unexpected masterpiece KARI ANDERSON Daily Arts Writer
My earliest exposure to Nickelodeon was confined to Nick Jr., their children’s programming channel. Turning the channel to Nick Jr. meant getting plenty of “Blue’s Clues,” “Dora the Explorer” and Face, the sentient Nick Jr. mascot and cartoon screen. Although “Blue’s Clues” has semi-recently slid its way back into pop culture relevance, and any kind of Face revival seems (tragically) unlikely, I feel the need to pivot everyone’s attention to a groundbreaking, seemingly unnoticed “Dora the Explorer”-related phenomenon that burst into the world in 2019: the live-action “Dora” adaptation “Dora and the Lost City of Gold.” People don’t talk about this movie enough, and I would like to change that. I saw “Dora and the Lost City of Gold” in theaters with my friend from high school. We have a long tradition of going to weekday matinees of movies that at least one of us is skeptical about. I can’t remember which one of us picked “Dora,” but I do know that we were both somewhat hesitant. We walked in with the lowest of expectations but were greeted with 102 minutes of entertaining adventure and, admittedly, excellent humor. We were the only teenagers in a theater full of kids and parents, and we were laughing harder than anyone else. It was, for us, an unexpected masterpiece. “Dora and the Lost City of Gold,” while
Design by Meghan Tummala
based on the animated show, moves into a realm beyond Dora’s formulaic animated world. The film follows Dora (Isabela Merced, “Sweet Girl”), now 16, as she moves from her home in the Amazon jungle to the LA area to live with her cousin Diego (Jeff Wahlberg, “Cherry”) — an iconic animated character in his own right. Having spent her entire life in the jungle raised by her (hilarious) archaeologist parents, Cole (Michael Peña, “Tom and Jerry”) and Elena (Eva Longoria, “Desperate Housewives”), Dora is brilliant, enthusiastic, curious and totally naïve. As expected, she has some trouble fitting into her new high school. But the film takes a turn when Dora is kidnapped
by mercenaries — along with Diego and two of their classmates, Sammy (Madeleine Madden, “The Wheel of Time”) and Randy (Nicholas Coombe, “68 Whiskey”), who inadvertently end up in the box with Dora and are flown back to the South American jungle. Dora must lead her ragtag bunch through the jungle to find her parents, who have gone missing looking for Parapata, a fabled lost city built by the Incas. What a plot, right? Because there are so many moving parts throughout “Dora,” it tends to pull from a number of different genres. It’s a comedy, but there’s a touch of high school identity crisis, and a touch of dramatic Indiana Jones-esque
adventure. There’s also a, ahem, trippy scene where they get caught in a spore field — a scene that, frankly, has to be seen to be believed. And it ends with a musical number. There’s a lot going on. The film has layers, different things that can be enjoyed by different audiences. Yes, there is a song about poop. Yes, there is a scene where Dora dances like various animals in a high school auditorium while dressed like the sun. But what personally caught me off guard about the film was how self-aware it is. The film is entirely aware of its roots as a children’s show and is aware of its position as a film meant to be enjoyable rather than lifechanging. (I mean, I found it life-changing, but that’s just me.) Our first glimpse of teenage Dora shows her moving deftly through the jungle in her iconic pink shirt and orange shorts, naming species and pointing out wildlife. She points out a golden poison frog (whose skin is coated in a toxin that causes paralysis) on a branch, stares straight into the camera, and says, in the spirit of her younger animated counterpart, “Can you say severe neurotoxicity?” This was the moment that “Dora and the Lost City of Gold” had me. This was the moment where, in that theater, I was completely sold on this movie. “Dora” was all-in on its premise and its source material, and I was all-in on “Dora.” And it only got better from there. Part of what makes this movie work is that, even with the poop song, the themes of the film are shockingly strong. Dora’s parents initially send her to live with her
cousin’s family because of an incident involving jumping across a ravine. As it turns out, even believing in yourself doesn’t alter the Earth’s pesky gravitational pull — a direct challenge, almost, to the animated show’s attitude toward danger. The film establishes real stakes and real danger: There is no illusion of invincibility the way that there is in the animated show. No one dies in the film, but between the armed mercenaries, natural hazards and ancient Incan booby traps, the threat of death is there. (Luckily for our mostly fearless crew, Dora also used to sit around and think about what to do about quicksand). Within the external stakes, “Dora” also sets up effective internal stakes. At the heart of the film is the relationship and dynamic between Dora and Diego. Despite being best friends when they were young, ten years is a long time: Dora hasn’t changed at all, but Diego has. (You know how everyone becomes jaded and ashamed of themselves as soon as they hit middle school? Well, Dora never went to middle school, and Diego did.) While some of the other characters are a little one-dimensional, Diego and Dora are strong and complex, and their characters’ relationship reflects that. When they’re at the high school, Diego is terrified of how people think of him and is embarrassed by how unapologetic Dora is. In the jungle, though, the only thing that matters is their loyalty to each other, and the ability to have each other’s back.
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Arts
4 — Wednesday, February 2, 2022
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Another semester hiding behind a mask KAYA GINSKY Daily Arts Writer
Face masks are my favorite accessory. Masks are a barrier between me and an outside world filled with strangers and infectious diseases. When the University of Michigan’s administration mandated facial coverings in classrooms, recreational buildings and common areas for the Winter semester, I was happy to comply — wearing masks has been proven to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by protecting one’s self and others from the very transmissible virus. But, I couldn’t help but wonder how my favorite accessory has affected my socialization and education over the past two years. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Public Health junior Sophie Busch, a facilitator for mental health group Wolverine Support Network, said that mask-wearing makes the student body more antisocial. She emphasized how it increases the uncertainty of interacting with strangers and forces us to secondguess ourselves whenever we think we recognize someone. Selfishly, I love the “masking” powers of a face mask. Masks provide me with a sense of invincible anonymity and enable my more hermit-like tendencies. But I may be too quick to love the lack of socializing on a masked campus. A University of Chicago social experiment that assigned morning commuters to either a quiet
car or a talkative bus found that introverts often “mistakenly seek solitude.” The distant social connections made on a short bus ride resulted in higher reports of positive experiences and positive mood, even for introverted participants who predicted the opposite result. As naturally social beings, humans (especially college students) are not meant to avoid the thousands of strangers we may see each day. Even introverts need simple (albeit awkward) daily interactions on campus. Nonetheless, after years of isolation, going back out into the world feels strange and difficult. “A lot more people have social anxiety than they used to,” Busch said. “I remember at the beginning of the year a bunch of people were talking like, ‘Oh, I don’t know how to make small talk anymore, I’m so used to only talking to people I’m close with, it’s really hard to talk to people I don’t know.’” During Busch’s freshman year, without masks or social distancing, people naturally started conversations in classes. Today, strangers rarely talk unless hassled by a professor. Masks only exacerbate difficulties connecting with our peers. Masking up disallows lip-reading and prevents us from using visual communication aids. Especially in quiet spaces, using visual cues is incredibly important in decoding others’ words. We can no longer make a snide joke about a professor or say “hi” to the cute classmate across the room without screaming. It often feels easier to stay silent.
However, non-verbal expression makes up 55% of our interpersonal communication, making every facial twitch far more important than we realize. As we develop, we learn to focus on the lower half of the face to process key emotions like fear, surprise and anger. With masks on, we aren’t as attuned to people’s emotions. We can’t tell who is panicking about the midterm, outraged by the same political issues, excited for the big game or behind on the readings. In college, we build friendships and relationships off of these seemingly insignificant shared experiences. Without facial recognition, experiences are solitary. In countries like Iran, where many women wear face-covering niqabs, eye contact and expression is the main outlet for nonverbal communication. Iranian journalist Kamin Mohammadi notes that this investment in eye contact unsettles strangers in Western Europe. Americans and Western Europeans do not typically hold eye contact except when intensely f lirting. When we hold eye contact with another human, the brain has to grapple with the consciousness of another. As the brain processes this unfamiliar intensity, it produces hormones similar to “butterf lies in our stomach.” Mohammadi hints that “maskwearing and eye-gazing,” if it cannot establish emotional solidarity, could at least make f lirting a silent film of serotonin. With effort, eye contact alone can express intense emotions beyond romance. Simple shifts of
the eyebrows and eyelashes can signify fear, disgust, anger and joy. If we focus on our own eye movements (even when it feels ridiculous), and
the complete refusal to fake a smile behind a mask may do more harm than good. The physical act of smiling releases
Design by Grace Aretakis
those of others, we can easily express our emotions and eventually rebuild the sense of connection we’ve lost over the pandemic. Since many of us are not acclimated to emoting with the eyes (or making eye contact at all), masking up provided us newfound freedom to look miserable when we feel miserable. I scowl at annoying customers at work, clench my teeth at professors and frown through my homework. Keeping a smile on your face out of mere obligation is emotionally draining and physically exhausting. But
neuropeptides that trigger the brain’s “happy chemicals”: serotonin, dopamine and endorphins, all of which are seldom triggered in a solitary lifestyle in a cold climate. Smiling, even if others cannot see it, may greatly improve our daily mood in the gloomy winters. Masks allow me to hide from the things I find myself needing the most: the smiles, the small talk, the whispers in a quiet classroom. As we all continue to mask up for public health, I hope that we find time to talk to strangers, f lirt with our eyes and smile for the sake of smiling.
Music Talks: ‘Partita for Eight Voices’ by Caroline Shaw DAILY MUSIC WRITERS Daily Arts Writers
“Music Talks” is a series where Daily Music Writers give their takes on the biggest releases in new music. From picking best and worst tracks to asking what makes a record tick, the Music beat is here to give praise
and give shit to music worth talking about. These quotes have been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity. At 30 years old, Caroline Shaw won a Pulitzer for her work, “Partita for Eight Voices,” and is still the youngest person ever to have won that prestigious award. She’s got degrees from Princeton and Yale, and she’s worked
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with everyone from Kanye West to Ben Folds. “Partita for Eight Voices” is a four-movement work written for Roomful of Teeth, an ensemble that Shaw is part of. Jason Zhang, Daily Arts Writer: Welcome to “Music Talks” for Caroline Shaw’s “Partita for Eight Voices.” So I guess the first question I wanted to ask was, what were your
initial thoughts? Just — what did you think of the piece? Kai Bartol, Music Beat Editor: Initially, I guess initially, what I was thinking is that it sounded very mechanical or, digital. Of course, the strange vocal stuff was pretty unique to the performance. I was also very curious as to how that was written and composed to sound
very artificial in that way. Ryan Brace, Daily Arts Writer: Yeah, to build off that, I remember the elements of going from speech to sung word — it happens a decent amount during the piece. And it’s interesting how it’s coordinated from being what seems like rhythmic speech, right into, seamlessly, some sort of a part harmony. Drew Gadbois, Daily Arts Writer: I kind of viewed it almost as moments of consonance and moments of dissonance, in terms of like: sometimes it’s very discreetly rhythmic, and other times it gets really arrhythmic in terms of the voices drifting off. And the same thing goes for the melody: it’s very distinctly melodic, and then it just shifts microtonally.
very mechanical; I thought it could be interpreted as like, panting like you’re running, which I thought was really interesting. Because in that movement, it just gave me the running-through-the woods type vibe. Zhang: Were there any particular moments that stuck out to you, specifically, and like a specific movement or anything? Brace: One of the parts that stuck out to me, I think it was at the beginning of the third song, it’s the part with all the heavy moaning and grunting and panting. I’m assuming that that is meant to signify something intimate or sexual, and it reminded me of stuff I’ve heard in hip hop before. Like, it reminded me of a Kendrick song or a Kanye song
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Bella Greenbacher, Daily Arts Writer: It was interesting that it was talking about shapes and directions, in the last movement and the first. And then it also seemed like dancing directions in the first one: I go to this dance camp every summer, and we know the dance “Allemande,” which is what it was called, the title of the song. And it was interesting that the music was very different from the music that we traditionally dance to with that dance move. Conor Durkin, Daily Arts Writer: What was so impressive was its ability to replicate tonal ranges of classical music, where at times you forget you are listening to an entirely vocal piece. It’s able to imitate instrumental sounds and expressive ranges of an entire orchestra. Arts Editor: I think whenever things involve that kind of spoken word, especially when it’s spoken word that flows into song, the writer in me thinks very much about both what is being said and the shape, and feeling and sound of the words being said. And I think this piece definitely used content, word shape and sound very interestingly as part of the music. Kaitlyn Fox, Daily Arts Writer: I thought it was cool how there is a common thread between all the movements. Just thinking back on it, the third one was probably my favorite. It felt really haunting but also a lot different than the first one. I think Kai was saying it was
I’ve heard, and it was really interesting how a genre that’s not even close to that definitely had influence. Jack Moeser, Daily Arts Writer: I think a moment that stuck out to me, it was the very end and all the voices came back and there was spoken word, because up till that point, I was kind of mesmerized and I’d forgotten these were voices. And hearing the cacophony of spoken words was kind of a reminder that they were voices. Bartol: Yeah, there’s also a moment, I can’t remember which song it was. But it was where all eight voices were talking at once — and they were all talking about math things. And I was thinking about just the insane precision, just like a mathematical equation that went in to sync up all these disparate sentences together and create this really precise cacophony. Gadbois: Yeah, I definitely noticed that too. And I think it’s almost, there’s almost like an algorithmic sort of aspect to the piece itself, because, even in the words, if you focus entirely on the words, they’re always in reference to something that’s going on within the piece, either in an abstract sense or in a very literal sense. Zhang: What do you think stayed the same throughout all of it? And what do you think between the different movements changed? What kind of different moods did you get from the different movements or the piece as a whole? Read more at MichiganDaily.com
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Wednesday, February 2, 2022 — 5
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6 — Wednesday, February 2, 2022
STATEMENT
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Design by Erin Ruark Page Design by Sarah Chung
American Girl dolls: Where the brand has
both championed and failed America’s girls
ABBY SNYDER
Statement Correspondent
Chapter 1: ‘Meet Abby’ It seems dramatic to say, “When I was six, I happened upon a book in a library, and that’s why, 16 years later, I am where and what and who I am.” That’s just a completely insane statement. It also happens to be the truth. By the time I turned six, my mother had learned that the best way to deal with me was to put a book in my hands. And so, on an unremarkable winter afternoon, not unlike the day I’m writing this, she brought me on our regular excursion to the library. I picked up a copy of “Meet Felicity,” the book that is responsible for who I am now, 16 years later. The book told the story of Felicity, a young girl growing up around the time of the American Revolution. Immediately, I was hooked. I quickly devoured “Meet Felicity” and all the subsequent books in the Felicity series, as well as anything I could get my hands on about the Revolution. I dragged my exhausted parents to every relevant historical site in the greater Boston area (and there are many relevant historical sites in the greater Boston area). I even dressed up as a colonial girl for Halloween that
HALEY JOHNSON Statement Columnist
Th
My local coffee shop, Goody’s Juice and Java, was where I mastered the art of so-called “unskilled” labor, or work that doesn’t require formal education. I had spent the previous summer working in a restaurant where I became an expert in enduring long shifts and angry customers. I’d serve every order with a smile, even as my feet ached and hot plates burned my hands. But, I had never quite gotten the hang of working through an intense rush hour without getting overwhelmed, or of balancing cleaning and food preparation with completing orders. In some cafés, baristas go through an intensive training and certification process. That wasn’t the case for my employer. Whatever I needed to know, my boss figured I’d be able to pick up on the job. At the beginning of my tenure there, I couldn’t tell a latte from a cappuccino — I was basically only good for washing dishes. But when I left, I could make drinks, clean the entire café top to bottom and please even the most demanding customers. I wasn’t a certified barista and I hadn’t earned that much money, but at the end of the summer, I knew infinitely more about hard work and professionalism than I had before. The café was just one role in a long string of gigs I worked during high school and the summer
year. I was well and truly obsessed (evidence pictured on the right). Now, a mere 16 years later, I’m no less enamored with learning about history. I enjoy reading history books roughly the size and weight of bricks; I binge-watch war documentary series on Netflix; I’m about to graduate from the University of Michigan with a degree in history. All because I stumbled upon that one book. Chapter 2: ‘Abby Learns A Lesson’ The “Felicity” series was one of several six-book series that the American Girl brand had authored, centering their stories on young girls (typically between eight and ten years old) at different points throughout American history. While the books highlighted typical children’s book narratives — love, friendship and kindness — they also illustrated the changes in history each girl would have lived through at the time. They followed a pattern with which I soon became familiar: “Meet Felicity,” “Felicity Learns A Lesson,” “Felicity’s Surprise,” “Happy Birthday, Felicity,” “Felicity Saves the Day” and “Changes for Felicity.” Over that six-book arc, each American Girl (with her name inserted in the title) navigated her own journeys and learned her own lessons. In these seemingly-kiddish stories, history is
not just the contextual background. It is a central part of the story. Accompanying the book series, American Girl fashioned a doll of each historical character along with her various clothes, accessories, pets, toys and other accoutrements — all of which are sold separately. Naturally, I desperately wanted a Felicity doll so I could engage with her books’ Revolutionary War scenery that had gotten me so excited about history. At the time, the doll cost 87 dollars. And so I started saving. My one-dollar weekly allowance, Tooth Fairy and present money went straight into my piggy bank. Months went by, but I held firm: Felicity, I reminded myself, would be worth the wait. I still remember the pure, delighted pride and self-satisfaction I got when the doll arrived on my doorstep shortly before my seventh birthday. I had done this — I had earned it for myself — and it had been so, so worth the wait. American Girl dolls and all the accompanying toys and accessories are not cheap: A doll currently retails for $110; outfits, pets, toys for the doll and doll housewares are typically in the $20–$50 range; doll furniture can be upward of $100. I wasn’t the only one saving up: With the arrival of their holiday catalog each year, girls all over the country just like me were pouring their allowances toward the brand’s robust offering of sparkly products. It was a near-universal part of how people experienced the brand — at one point, American Girl even created an activity to encourage girls to save up to buy their dream doll. The hyper-
commercialization of the doll brand is also prevalent throughout the books: The main characters often want a doll, dress and/or other toys which are deemed “special”; their eventual receiving of it later becomes a central development within the plot. Promoting a culture of consumption is a central part of the brand, as Allison Horrocks, a public historian with the National Parks Service and American Girls podcast co-host, explains. “Most people … have a story of remembering about saving up,” Horrocks said. “There’s, I think, a difficulty with this, that a lot of it is driven by consumption: You want the
after my freshman year of college. First: a server’s assistant at a trendy local restaurant. It was popular with tourists visiting my sleepy hometown from cities such as Chicago and Detroit and had a gentrifier-industrial-chic look: exposed brick, metal bar stools painted bright yellow, hanging pendant lights and Americanainspired decor. Roles were loosely defined there: Sometimes I played hostess, sometimes I made salads, sometimes I cleared tables and washed dishes. That had been my first job; I was 15 when I started. Afterward, there was a brief stint as a receptionist at a marina. And finally, after completing my lifeguard certification, I spent two summers working at a community pool and tutoring on the side. In high school, I wasn’t working because I wanted money to go out with my friends. I didn’t see it as a résumé-building experience. I was working because I knew my parents couldn’t support me after I turned 18. I wanted to attend college, but at the time, there was no guarantee that I’d go on to earn a degree. My experience working in high school felt distinct from most of my college classmates’. If they had spent a summer as a waitress or a lawn-mower, it was often because they were “paying their dues.” The job was just an intermediate, strictly temporary phase in a life that
had set them up to becoming a management consultant or financial analyst. There was no question that they would, in time, move up to the ranks of “skilled labor.” Now, I like to tell stories of my “past lives” to my college classmates, especially if I know they haven’t worked a low-wage job before. There were certain tells revealing that someone hadn’t, the most obvious being how they treated low-wage workers. But a trained eye can see other signs, too. If you don’t stack your plates, I know. If you complain about tip jars at coffee shops, I know. (An aside: It’s common knowledge that servers can be paid below minimum wage because they make tips, but if you see a tip jar at a coffee shop or boba place, there’s a decent chance their employer classifies them as a “tipped employee” and pays below minimum wage). With my friends, I’d reenact memorable exchanges with customers or recall the grossest bathrooms I had cleaned. Reactions were mixed. Sometimes my peers were disgusted, sometimes they were sympathetic and sometimes they’d laugh along with me. While I had certainly exaggerated the less savory details of my jobs, I never felt ashamed for having worked them. I never felt like my labor was “unskilled” or unimportant: Every job I had in
high school proved quite the contrary. *** With a tightening labor market and record-high numbers of workers quitting their jobs in the service industry, low-wage workers have received unprecedented attention from policymakers and the white-collared executives who take them for granted. Simultaneously dubbed “essential” and “unskilled,” the message to these workers is clear: Society needs your labor to function, but won’t give you the dignity or pay that you deserve. Just days after his inauguration in early January, New York City Mayor Eric Adams sparked controversy when he urged downtown offices to reopen. In what appeared to be an attempt to highlight the interconnectedness of the city’s economy, Adams said, “my low-skilled workers, my cooks, my dishwashers, my messenger, my shoe shine people, those that work in Dunkin’ Donuts, they don’t have the academic skills to sit in the corner office. They need this.” Adams later said he meant to say “low-wage” instead of “lowskilled,” but his correction only emphasized the logical fallacy in his original statement. Adams seems to suppose that wage and “skill” are dependent on ability, rather than deeper issues of access and an inequitable job market. In this line of thinking that his comments represent, the Wall Street employee making six figures in a corner office is there
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Reckoning with classism at the University Design by Reid Graham Page Design by Sarah Chung
things, you want the stuff.” The price of their products may reflect the historical research invested into each doll; multiple historians are consulted in the process of writing each doll’s stories and designing her various clothes and accoutrements. But it’s worth considering who has access to these toys and the historical lessons they offer. Teaching young children about history, and teaching young girls about women’s experiences throughout history, is a noble goal. And yet, it’s a goal tainted by financial inaccessibility. Chapter 3: ‘Abby’s Surprise’ In addition to financial barriers, diversity and inclusion were regrettably, if unsurprisingly, foreign issues to my and many others’ elementary-school minds. So when American Girl released a new historical doll, Rebecca Rubin, I was intrigued. Rebecca, after all, came from the same background that I do: She was a young Jewish girl, born in America and living on the East Coast; her family had immigrated to the United States shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. American Girl had finally released a doll that was just like me. When reading her book series, I remember admiring the glossy brown waves of her hair, so similar to mine in color. I compared her smart burgundy dress to my own, decidedly less stylish synagogue outfits. The series followed the familiar six-book progression, with one key change. The third book in the series, typically called “Felicity’s Surprise,” would be a Christmas story. But Rebecca’s third book, “Candlelight for
Rebecca,” was instead a Hanukkah story. After years of consuming seasonal Christmas content without much of a second thought, I didn’t realize how much I’d been craving seeing my own traditions represented in the same venues as those of my Christian friends. The introduction of Rebecca catapulted these stories of Jewish culture into the mainstream, Deborah Dash Moore, professor of history and Judaic studies, told me over Zoom. “Certainly, the Rebecca doll is a new way of (telling stories about young Jewish-American girls in history),” she said. “I do think it’s a really great means to teach.” Reflecting on Rebecca now, though, I have concerns that didn’t occur to me when I was nine. I worry that Rebecca, a middle-class Ashkenazi Jewish girl living in New York who dreams of being an actress, skates close to long-standing antisemitic stereotypes. Rebecca’s attentionseeking, sometimes-envious behavior and “dramatic flair” could cause her to be seen as a ‘JewishAmerican Princess.’ Her “knack for business and making money” could play into long-held canards about Jews as the scheming, miserly manipulators of the world’s money and economy. The full story, along with an additional interview with Stephan Brumberg, historian and Professor Emeritus at Brooklyn College, is available at michigandaily.com.
because they’ve earned it, they’ve studied hard and capitalized on their natural talents. The janitor cleaning their office just isn’t cut out for white-collar work. I had a series of internships and other professional experiences in college but still felt like my financial situation was precarious. It wasn’t until November of 2021, when I accepted an internship offer working in data science and product growth at Facebook, that I realized my days of working low-wage jobs and worrying about money were behind me. Since the summer after my freshman year, I’ve made the jump from an “unskilled” worker to a cushy, well-compensated tech job. I had a sense I was underpaid and undervalued as a high schooler, but I had grown up in a post-industrial town as part of a working-class family. Working in poor conditions and for low wages was simply the norm. Now, people I don’t know message me on LinkedIn to ask about my internship. When I was home for the holidays, my parents repeatedly prompted me to “tell them where you’re working next summer” when in the company of others. The male classmates who spoke over me in class treat me differently once they find out I have a FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google) internship. Upon entering the corporate world, I’ve struggled to reconcile the long hours and low pay at my first jobs with the status and privilege that my education has afforded me. How did my degree catapult me into the white-collar world? My low-wage jobs had taught me invaluable lessons, but would my corporate colleagues recognize their value? What knowledge and expertise does the term “unskilled” obscure? I spoke with Adam Stevenson, a lecturer in the University’s Economics Department, to try to understand the relationship between education and “unskilled labor.” He expressed frustration that the term had been co-opted from academia, noting that its precise definition is often lost in translation. “One problem with economics is that we use a lot of words that are conveyed in plain language and used all the time, but when we use them in our models, they’re being used in a very particular way,” Stevenson said.. “When an economist in a practice of modeling says ‘unskilled,’ they mean that the requirement of entry into that job involves a low degree of education ...
Do I think that these jobs don’t take practice, that they don’t involve dignity, that they don’t involve an incredible amount of learning? No.” Stevenson acknowledged the problematic implications that come with labeling something as “unskilled.” “It’s hard to separate that sort of moral judgment of the word,” Stevenson said. “It certainly does lack in public relations versus what it’s actually meant to convey, which is that even though those jobs are really important, essential jobs and even though they can take impressive feats of skill and endurance and knowledge, they still pay less.” As Stevenson’s comment suggests, the terms “unskilled” and “low wage” work are often used interchangeably. And while the formal definition of “unskilled” labor makes no reference to wages, it was telling that they were used together. “Low-wage” and “unskilled” don’t have to be synonymous, but for all intents and purposes, they are. Adams’s comments and other takes on “unskilled” labor seem to reflect this misunderstanding of how the term is technically defined. Still, the buzzword has taken on a life of its own. The term “unskilled labor” — both in academic and colloquial uses — purposefully obscures the knowledge and expertise that goes into these roles. Engineering junior Peter Wu started working when he was 11. First, he worked at a restaurant owned by his relatives, and then in the restaurant his parents opened after they moved to Michigan. There, he dabbled in all aspects of the business. Wu cleared tables, cooked food, filed taxes, managed business operations and delivered orders on his bike before he could drive. “From 11 to 18, I’ve been working in a restaurant with my parents or somebody else’s place. I didn’t ask for any wage, because at the time I thought learning these skills are good and beneficial,” Wu said. But it was about more than just building skills. Wu and his family put in long hours at the restaurant because “for us, every penny counted. And every penny still counts. We needed this to make a living.” *** There’s a certain kind of folk knowledge that goes into making espresso.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OSCAR
NOLLETTE-PATULSKI
Statement Columnist
PAN for P I
STATEMENT
watched planes take off and land on the adjacent runways. We studied people lifting up their new flat-packed KALLAX shelves and placing them in the trunks of their cars. The multi-dimensional liveliness of an IKEA store beckons hundreds of families just like ours, making a day trip out of buying a nightstand. Multiply this by hundreds of locations around the world — millions of people, eating meatballs dipped in gravy, carrying out flat boxes of disassembled shelves, putting them into the backs of their automobiles. I’ve found that the people who go to IKEA do so in groups: clusters of friends, nuclear families, a father with his daughter, a mom with her college student. Almost everyone who ventures up the escalator into the furniture-filled showroom is connected to someone else. Their networks’ invisible strings are made apparent through distant hand gestures and eye contact or the call of a first name. They might watch a close friend sit down on a couch and then stand up from it, as if making sure they are completing the action correctly. When I go to IKEA with my family, we maintain a similar network. My parents, armed with the all-caps European item names
one
KL
Over a year ago, in early November, I rode my bike to the IKEA Furniture Showroom in Canton, Michigan. I left around mid-morning and arrived at my destination around noon. After biking through the two lane roads and suburban grids that connected me with the blue-and-yellow behemoth, I locked my bike onto the pole of a road sign and walked inside. I rode up the escalator and touched my hand to the first ottoman in my field of vision, sitting on it as if it was in my own home. I did have reason to act so comfortably in this particular IKEA; I have been to the Canton location at least once a year since my family moved to Michigan when I was five. And before that, we were frequent visitors at the showroom near the airport in Newark, New Jersey. As my mom helped me and my younger brother dip toddler-sized bites of the store cafe’s Swedish meatballs into warm gravy, we
on tiny slips of paper, scribble notes with the store’s complimentary tiny pencils. Sometimes, my mother carries a clipboard with a black and white printout of the item we are seeking. My brother and I take on the role of furniture-hungry explorers, hunting for geometric shower curtains, drawing attention to a couch that is better than the one we have at home, opening the sliding doors to a model wardrobe, admiring extendable hangers and shelf lighting that illuminate our eyes to the possibilities of home organizing. In a section modeled after an urban condo, we pull straps and levers on couches that miraculously turn them into queensized beds and fold and unfold the miniature dining table that allowed this fake apartment to squeeze three rooms into one. When our demonstrations of the latest novelties in armchair design became too obsessive, our parents moved onto media storage and office desks, their invisible strings pulling us along with them. We were the enthusiasts, my parents were the practicalists. As my brother and I got older, and visits to IKEA became more routine, our roles while wandering the labyrinth of home goods morphed into a new standard. Our parents became more practical, zipping through the showroom to identify a specific item before speed walking
:
Sitting solo at IKEA
The Name Game;
through Marketplace (the soft goods section) and out to checkout. My brother, Hector, became more efficient as well, often trying out only two or three sectional couches versus the usual dozen or more. When I broke formation and inspected the various handles of a glossy new kitchen cabinet line, my parents hurried me along with the justification of futile deadlines, like going to an art museum or reuniting with our cousins, as if anything was more important than the latest SEKTION kitchen system in a modern grey-green. My family was holding me back from becoming an expert in all things Scandinavian design — as if there is anything more culturally relevant in Southeast Michigan. Imagine then, the freedom of wind rustling through my hair, the sun rising in the east, the tires of my bike whirring along the asphalt shoulder, passing by golf courses and farms, gas stations and subdivisions — a solo trek to interior design’s Scandinavian star. Released from the practicality of my parents and the unjust shortchanging of a time-honored family tradition, I promised myself a day to thoroughly indulge in all the trappings of IKEA Canton. After touching my hand to that initial ottoman and searching the rest of the model living room for signs of intelligent design, I found myself in the sofa area of the store, hoping to start my solo showroom ride on a comfortable note. I bent my legs and let my back fall into the basic neutrals of a KLIPPAN sofa, mentally preparing notes on its firmness level, armrest height and vertical support. After completing this analysis, I looked around the room, realizing I had no one to report back to. With the critical discussion of reconciling couch leisure differences absent among a party of one, I moved on to the next one, and the next one; the motion of sitting on cushions quickly becoming mechanical and burdensome. I forced myself to try out the elegant SÖDERHAMN, and
Everyone else was in groups, loosely bound by the laws of eye contact and soft shouts across EKBACKEN countertops, and I was not. Looking at one’s solo reflection in a LASSBYN mirror is much easier when there are others you know off stage; an arm’s reach away. I felt that I had no good reason to be there. I wasn’t getting a new bed for my college room or designing a kitchen remodel. I was just existing on top of the colorful rugs, floating among the sectionals and grazing handles on cabinets. I had come here for a joyride, to make family tradition better through self-singularity. I felt I had not succeeded; the intimidation of social space squashing me solo. I comforted myself with a pale green smoothie and two bars of chocolate from IKEA Food before heading back to the gloomy world that characterizes post-PÄRUP melancholy. Since this experience, I have been back to IKEA a few times, mostly with members of my family. It is harder for us all to get together now, so I go with my mom to get a holiday gift for my brother, or maybe when my father needs a cabinet replacement for the basement bathroom. The tradition is kept alive through fragments, as-is. One year later, though, on another warm weekend in November, I retraced my tire tracks back to the asphalt fields of Canton. I rode up the escalator and touched my hand to the first ottoman in my field of vision, sitting on it to establish my presence. I was still aware of my outcast status, but the familiarity of this feeling softened sharp social pains into relatively dull, infrequent thoughts. The multi-seat KLIPPAN still alienated me, but I found solace in a yellow STRANDMON armchair; its firmness level, armrest height and vertical support creating a new, comfortable niche for a party of one.
Design by Sam Turner Page Design by Sarah Chung
Design by Sam Turner Page Design by Sarah Chung
LILY KWAK
The syllables of my name search for shelter from the vulnerability of being spoken in front of my
At twelve, I walked out of libraries holding books which transformed me into a depressed, wealthy private schoolboy by the name of Holden Caulfield. Even now, I imagine myself with a cigarette in hand, classic brown loafers adorning my feet and black liner smeared across my eyes, just like Margot Tenenbaum. Lara Jean, a bright and clumsy Korean-American girl proclaiming her love for a white boy in “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before” does not strike a chord in me, despite the distant pride I feel in seeing an Asian American actor play a lead role in a romcom. Watching a Korean immigrant family move into Arkansas in search of their American Dream story in “Minari” feels oddly unfamiliar compared to watching a Black classical pianist in the Jim Crow South in “Green Book.” But perhaps those half-baked media representations are unsettling, like someone has ripped pages out of my diary and revealed it for the world to see. I molded my persona not just from fictional characters, but real life ones, too. In middle school, I
the homey HÄRLANDA, knowing that I had spent an entire morning biking in search of this very luxury. When I became too scared of embarrassment to test any more loveseats, I kept my hands busy in the kitchen section by opening and closing drawers, then pretending to wash a dish and use the drying rack on my new quartz countertop. I grazed my hands across the wood grain YPPERLIG dining table and again rated the comfortability of my seat, this time made of molded grey plastic. I looked around the room trying to take in all of the details that my parents would normally rush me past: the woven wood chandelier, the moody blue walls, the shimmer of a metallic centerpiece. What was most eye-catching, though, were the other chairs around me. They were empty, and it was in this faux dining room where the weight of being alone in IKEA set in. Along the slow snaking path that guides through the display area, I now moved with a new degree of self-consciousness. I kept my arms closer to myself, careful to not get too close to other shoppers to prevent infecting them with my awkwardness. I stopped bouncing in the POÄNG chair once an elderly couple walked by and refrained from laying down on the colorful floral sheets atop the MALM bed frame out of fear of being seen as odd, or worse: lonely. To be fair, I did see other people unaccompanied on their respective IKEA visits. A young person, perhaps in their twenties, lingered around the chaises as I searched through the sofas. I glanced at them, hoping to affirm I wasn’t on my own in my loneliness. Our paths occasionally intersected as we practiced a similar showroom pace, but soon they became lost in the majority; the couples and trios and conglomerates of six crowded my vision. Part of why I felt increasingly uncomfortable wandering alone through the Michigan branch of this Swedish staple is obvious:
Reclaiming my Korean heritage
Statement Contributor
I never considered myself to be so attached to my Korean identity until the moment I was filing my N-400 application for U.S. citizenship and had to return to that remaining question: Would you like to legally change your name? My gut told me ‘no’ with a feverish conviction as if I were cutting off an umbilical cord to the past eighteen years of my life, presuming the death of my Korean heritage. “Minjae” has been my name always and forever. How could I change it now? *** Nothing made me more meek as a child than when I stood beside my mother in public. Walking with assertion, her feet spring with each step, her short curls toss in the air, and her chin is held high — a countermeasure against demeaning microaggressions: I will not bow my head to you. I am not afraid to be here! My mom’s American name is Rena, but she will always tell you it’s ‘heebeh.’ And in response, the lady sitting at the front desk or the store clerk or whoever will confuse their ears with their eyes and open them wider. My mother will sigh with impatience and hand me the reins, and I will spell out her Korean name: Hee Bae. After ten years living in America, my mom still finds no reason to bother learning English, and she is content. I think my constant teasing over the years about her jumbled sentences or her pompous walk has bowed her head — she now smiles timidly, laughs politely and says “sorry” and “thank you” to an indifferent barista. I have softened her into the picture of a sweet and harmless immigrant. I wish I hadn’t. Maybe I hoped to bend my mother into roles which I imagined could seamlessly weave us into the rest of the American fabric.
Wednesday, February 2, 2022 — 7
remember imitating Instagram photos of prepubescent white girls in bikinis and craning my neck to peer at the logo imprints on shopping bags they carried. I scrambled for a vacant seat among pale skin, blue eyes and yellow locks like it was a mad dash for a musical chair. When I moved from Arizona and settled into a town in New Jersey with a dense Asian American population, I felt bitter toward the small posse of girls who had relocated from Korea, whispering secrets in class in their mother language and not bothering to mix with others. I did not listen to K-pop or watch K-dramas even as my white peers became obsessive BLACKPINK stans. It was my own insecurities which told me: whiteness is superior. I look back at my high school years and feel as though a part of my heart has to be rotten from hating my own people and hating myself for hating my own people. I feel like a coward thinking about how, at the age of eighteen, uttering my own name, Minjae, makes my stature shrink and the tails of my sentences crawl back inside of me.
white peers who might no longer care, or at least are old enough to know not to bully me anymore. *** My brother changed his name from Donghyun to David on his U.S. citizenship application last year. Though his reasons included the appealing opportunity to step an extra foot into American society, he was explicit about the inconvenience and discomfort he felt having to correct all of the various mispronunciations of his name. Minari actor Youn Yuh-Jung dedicated a portion of her Oscar speech to highlighting this shared experience: “As you know I am from Korea, and my name is Yuh-Jung Youn, and most European people call me Yuh-young, and some of them call me Yoo-jung, but tonight you are all forgiven.” After shedding a name my grandma selected, my brother tells me that he regrets his decision. In part, it’s because changing names on multiple legal documents was troublesome. But mostly, he feels as though he has erased our grandma’s
careful choosing from 20 years ago, and with that, erased his ethnic heritage. *** For Asian immigrants, the practice of anglicizing names began as a measure against racism and xenophobia when they first came to the United States in a major wave in the late 1800s. Marian Smith, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services historian, writes, “Any change that might smooth their way to the American dream was seen as a step in the right direction.” So great was the pressure to assimilate and survive between 1900 and 1930 that, “about 86% of all boys and 93% of all girls born to immigrants had an American name.” Now, a century later, it is uncommon for third and fourth generation immigrants to hold an Asian name at all. The immigrant’s assimilation into America is regarded with such high esteem that, my mom tells me, wealthy parents in Korea send their preschool children to “American” schools where they are required to adopt an American name and converse only in English. It is with pride that wealthy Koreans can afford to become “white” and live among white people. Jay Caspian Kang, author of “The Loneliest Americans,” writes: “We know, at least subconsciously, that the identity politic of the modern, assimilated Asian American is focused on getting a seat at the wealthy white liberal table.” Moreover, “We want our children … to have the spoils of full whiteness.” The advantages of using an American name are ever-present: A 2016 research study found that “whitened” resumes are twice as likely to produce job callbacks.
Some acts are more overt; an Asiana Airlines plane crash in 2013 prompted what KTVU news station considered to be a joke, reporting incorrect names of four pilots: “Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk, and Bang Ding Ow.” Michelle Go’s death last month was a reminder of the collective grief Asian Americans have felt in the rise of anti-Asian violence since COVID-19. Yet, as multiculturalism becomes more widespread, I am hopeful of possibilities of creating an identity, and choosing a name, with less fear and more intention. Should we continue to use American names with ethnic names residing in the background? Or have we second generation immigrants walked too far into the second half of “KoreanAmerican” to now reverse pedal back to original intent? How much of “Korean” is left in Korean-American? And should I reclaim it before it is too late? What I’ve realized for now is that I have spent far too long constructing an identity built on shame, denial and disgust. Too much have I felt, internalized and been molded by the white gaze. I have checked off “Asian American” on legal documents without so much as a second thought, and my Asian heritage has only played a role in my identity through my visceral reactions against it. I am ready to embrace my Korean heritage with an open mind and an open heart — if not for myself, then for my parents, who did not have the freedom to consider their place in America with seriousness. To listen to my Korean friend’s K-pop song suggestions with an open ear, to catch a reflection of myself in Korean-American stories and to learn to love every part of myself and my identity.
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Michigan in Color
8 — Wednesday, February 2, 2022
Not just TikTok drama: We need to reassess how we talk about sexual assault KATHERINA ANDRADE OZAETTA MiC Assistant Editor
Content warning: This article mentions sexual assault. Writer’s Note: To make it abundantly clear, in this space, we believe survivors of sexual assault, regardless of gender, class, sexual orientation, age and other circumstances used to discredit survivors. Sienna Mae Gomez, an online personality who first developed a following on TikTok and currently has 14 million followers, has been accused of sexual assault by her former friend and fellow Internet personality Jack Wright. It was heavily suspected after Wright’s friend leaked a video in early 2021, depicting an incapacitated Wright being groped by Gomez coupled with a statement from the friend alleging the abuse, but
should not act as a defense and doesn’t negate her responsibility to take accountability for her transgressions. Furthermore, Gomez accused Wright of allegedly trying to paint her “into the ‘loud’, ‘crazy’, ‘overly sexualized’ stereotype that people try to use on young, especially Latina, women,” and equates the accusations against her to equivalent action that Jack took, suggesting “(Wright allegedly) did some stupid stuff too.” In summary, the statement is a mess. Despite Gomez’s emphasis on her own personal growth in the statement, claiming “(She) is grateful to have had the opportunity to learn so that (she) can be a better ally to victims of sexual assault,” she contradicts herself by continuing to paint Wright in a negative light. She perverts concepts such as “love languages”, lack of sex education, sl*t- shaming and the monetary ties of their relationship in an audacious attempt to dis-
Design by Priya Ganji
Wright had not addressed the allegations of the abuse for months directly. (For the sake of respecting Wright’s autonomy, I have chosen to exclude incorporating a link to this leaked video.) In the past week, it has been alleged, through a video posted by Wright, that Gomez assaulted Wright over the course of four separate incidents — including the incident depicted in the leaked video — during their relationship. Over the course of the 17-minute testimony, Wright explains the circumstances of his friendship with Gomez, which was characterized by Gomez’s manipulation, love bombing, consistent boundary-crossing and many assaults. Wright’s incredible strength shows through as he gives a detailed account of the events that transpired. Survivors of sexual assault should not have to give such a detailed account on the internet, and they should be believed regardless of whether or not they choose to disclose the details to the public. Although, it is understandable why Wright would choose to do so. Other survivors have contacted him, alleging that Gomez has assaulted them as well. In addition, Gomez previously released several videos alleging that the leaked video was made to deplatform her, that have since been taken down. In response to the video, Gomez has gone on to deny Wright’s allegations through a Medium post. The apology follows the same format that celebrity apologies typically do: acknowledgment of the allegations, some element of establishing it as a supposed hesaid/she-said situation and a promise to do better in the future. These apologies usually leave the author’s (or in the most likely case authors’) true intention uncertain, whether it be a true apology or a last Hail Mary attempt to protect their platform. As a reader, it is difficult to truly know what the writer’s intentions are, yet Gomez mentions in the beginning of her post that “(her) legal team sent his legal team a letter threatening a lawsuit for defaming (her) character because that ‘is the best next step to clear your name.’” In this case, it is abundantly clear that Gomez’s intentions are not to apologize and is simply another celebrity’s graceless attempt to disavow the pain they’ve caused and maintain their platform. (From this point in the article, I want to make my intentions clear. In no way, shape or form do I want to inspire any hate toward Gomez. However, a large part of the news coverage following these allegations has left a sour taste in my mouth as it has largely failed to address the inadequacy of her response and the harm it caused.) The post then details her version of their relationship, which largely resembles the timeline brought forward by Wright — with a few key differences. Gomez discusses how she felt that he had allegedly “disregarded (her) feelings for the sake of money” when Wright has said he wanted to maintain mystery on the status of their relationship for brand deals. (For context, a large amount of Gomez’s and Wright’s content at the time included featuring one another in romantically themed videos.) Gomez also stated that the aforementioned leaked video was filmed months before as a “joke.” Apart from the timeline, Gomez minimizes her boundarycrossing as not harmful, but simply not having the same “love language” as Wright. Gomez additionally claims, “Consent isn’t really something that is formally taught in school” as a way of stating that she, at the time, allegedly did not understand what consent was. While it is true there is a lack of formal sex education in the United States, it
credit a sexual assault survivor. This deliberate misappropriation is heightened by her simultaneous acknowledgment that she did not respect boundaries, or “love languages,” as she put it, throughout the duration of their friendship, diminishing the impact of these violations. Gomez also attempts to justify this misappropriation by including details of the monetary aspect of their relationship, as content from the relationship was largely used to bolster both individuals’ careers through paid-for brand deals and even a reality TV show. I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to grow up under this much public interest and have monetary ties to one’s relationships. However, inclusions of these details only serve as a way to minimize her transgressions against Wright and invite further criticism against him. It also seems to serve as a way to allegedly justify her actions against Wright, which is perhaps the most disheartening aspect. A lot of news outlets have covered the aforementioned monetary ties (brand deals, increased viewership, etc.) of their relationship and Gomez’s excuses of “love languages” that were depicted in Gomez’s Medium post.While I understand the need for including these details in the coverage, I feel it undermines Wright’s experience and alleged assault. One in seven boys will experience some form of sexual violence by age 18. The likelihood of reporting is even lower for men, as opposed to the already-low reporting rate for women. For the most part, the sexual assault of men remains largely undiscussed and neglected. Wright’s statement is a brave step forward to inspire others to talk about their experiences by opening dialogue for others to share their stories. We need to create a space where sexual assault survivors, regardless of gender, can come forward without fearing that every previous action they have taken, harmful or not, will be hypercriticized and put under scrutiny. The statement also included the weaponization of an experience that I, and a lot of women that identify as Latinx, also face and understand well, which is the over-sexualization and objectification of Latinx women. It’s no surprise that Gomez chose to incorporate this into her defense, as her platform has largely propagated stereotypes of being, in her own words, a “spicy latina” for her monetary gain, despite rarely, if ever, speaking on issues that have impacted our community. I take issue with this, as the over-sexualization of Latinx women personally impacts me. Throughout the years, I have witnessed the overly sexualized portrayals of Latinx women in the media and have been at the receiving end of disgusting comments as well. One incident in high school stands out to me the most when I think about the impact this over-sexualization has had on my life. It was my senior year at Saline High School, and we had just received our grades back for our quiz in AP Economics. I had been assigned to sit at a table where I was the only young woman of Color. After receiving a Starburst for performing well on the quiz, I came back to my desk to find a note passed to me by the boys at my table. It was a stick figure drawing of me in a sombrero with a crude gigantic pair of boobs. I can still remember the self-satisfied smirks on their faces as I opened the note, and the matte, speckled grey tiles in the bathroom where I cried after class was over. This stereotype has had painful implications for my comfort and relationship to my identity.
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Hail to the Victims: A thank-you letter to Anderson survivors JESSICA KWON
MiC Managing Editor
Content warning: This article mentions sexual abuse and assault. Through it all, as students trudge across campus, dreading those frigid expanses between toasty shops and classes and apartments, survivors of Dr. Robert Anderson’s abuse remain perched in front of the president’s home. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, they radically proclaim their existence with a strength that I can only describe as relentless beyond measure. These people, whom disgraced former University President Mark Schlissel once referred to as “a group of folks in tents,” and the campsite that evinces their message serve as a quiet, yet powerful, reminder to those walking down South University Avenue that accountability for the trauma of more than a thousand human beings is yet to be had — and that there is no true justice for those who have been and continue to be harmed by sexual assault. One of those courageous protestors is Tad Deluca, who, in 1975, wrote a letter to his U-M wrestling coach and then-U-M athletic director detailing the abuse he’d endured at the hands of Anderson. As a consequence of his brave actions, he was kicked off the wrestling team and his full-ride, out-of-state scholarship was revoked. This is the story he graciously shares with me when I chance upon him outside his campground on Friday; I have the honor of being able to tell Tad that I’m in awe of him and all he’s sacrificed to decry those complicit in the serial abuse. He graciously smiles, saying he can’t tell me how much that means to him. The feeling is infinitely more than mutual. Tad is wearing glasses with skinny wire frames and a beanie, and his cheeks are raw and red from the harsh January wind chill. And with the same friendly nonchalance one usually reserves for chatting with a neighbor, he tells me he’s now retired and lives with his wife in Grosse Pointe, MI — but, of course, he’s put his life on hold to protest outside the president’s home. He warmly remarks that his wife is learning how to shovel the snow off their driveway in his absence, and that she’s proud of it too. Tad also says, somewhat apologetically, that he would invite me into his tiny trailer, but it’s so cramped that one
has to hunch their shoulders to walk inside; he even has to keep his apples and oranges in the microwave due to the lack of space. The right-most tent from the side that faces the street houses nothing but maize T-shirts, emblazoned with the mantra “Hail to the Victims” in blue
Christian is not the only Anderson survivor whose trauma has caused trepidation toward seeking proper medical care. According to a GoFundMe page update, on his 32nd day of protesting outside the president’s house, Anderson survivor Jon Vaughn felt a lump in
replied hauntingly in red marker: “(and you won’t be!).” As students of this University — which has actively worked to protect predators, time and time again — we have a moral obligation to stand with all survivors of sexual assault on this campus, like Vaughn, in support and solidarity. When
Courtesy of Jessica Kwon/MiC
letters and stacked high in a mass of cardboard boxes. (“Hail to the Victims” alludes to the U-M mantra “Hail to the victors” — forcing the U-M community to reckon with its systemic abuse by juxtaposing it with the University’s culture of school pride and spirit.) Tad ducks into the tent to replenish the stash of shirts on the plastic table outside the campground that displays a sign reading “FREE HAIL TO THE VICTIMS T-SHIRTS.” Next to the table is a maize mailbox labeled “815 ½ Vaughn.” After sharing his own Anderson story, Tad then tells me about another survivor who was so scarred by Anderson that he refused to seek any medical attention for decades after his abuse physically ended. The survivor, Chuck Christian, is the first former U-M football player to publicly speak out against his abuse by Anderson; he told the Detroit Free Press in April 2020 that he refused to seek proper medical attention for decades because he “associated (doctors) with fear, with pain,” despite having suffered from symptoms of serious illness since around 2005. And now, Christian is terminally ill, with stage four prostate cancer. “No matter how sick I was, I would never go to the doctor,” he said in the 2020 Free Press interview. Decades after his time at the University, Christian’s abuse has directly, and irreparably, cost him his life.
his neck. Shannon Henry, his friend and fellow survivor of sexual assault who had established the page, urged Vaughn to seek medical attention. She writes, “But after being sexually assaulted by a doctor, the last person you want to see is a doctor.” Eventually and thankfully, however, he sought medical care and was diagnosed: Vaughn had thyroid cancer. The day Tad talked to me, Jan. 21, was the day that Vaughn underwent surgery to remove the nodule in his thyroid. Tad says that he received a text earlier that day at around 2 p.m. informing him that Vaughn had about an hour of surgery left. And rather than get the proper rest he needs at home or in the hospital, Vaughn, in his tireless commitment to holding the University accountable for its long history of covering for sexual abusers, wanted to return to his campsite the next day. A GoFundMe page update penned on the day of the surgery by Larry Nassar survivor Trinea Gonczar says, “Most know us as these freedom fighter radicals that have been on the front lines of survival. But today, this, is different. Life is precious. I’m reminded.” Back at the campground, signs rooted in snow articulate slogans like “Hail to the Victims,” and “Students + Survivors Equally STAND.” One simply inscribed in blue Sharpie catches my eye: “Mark — I AM STILL HERE -Jon.” Under it, someone has
I ask Tad what someone like me can do to help his cause, he tells me he would appreciate receiving hand warmers such as those from HotHands which can be found at the Target on State Street. But, Tad says, the most important asset that students can give to the survivors is our support, through actions like wearing a “Hail to the Victims” T-shirt, attending the future rallies that Tad says the survivors are currently organizing and spreading awareness to denounce and address the culture of sexual violence and lack of accountability that the University has continually maintained. Additionally, the aforementioned GoFundMe effort donates financial support to Vaughn’s mission “to ensure the safety and healing of those entrusted to the University of Michigan’s care, past, present, and future.” Tad says it has been incredible to witness students approaching him and sharing their stories, confiding in him their own encounters with sexual abuse. And then I feel compelled to tell him something that not many people in my life know, which is that I, too, am a survivor of sexual assault. Tad’s brows immediately furrow. “Did this happen here?” he asks me, his tone somber and urgent. I answer, and he looks into my eyes and tells me, “I believe you.” It is my first time hearing those words. Read more at MichiganDaily.com
The sun burns REEM HASSAN MiC Columnist
On days when I open my eyes to the rays of sunlight gleaming through the window of my apartment bedroom, I get a certain sense of serenity — almost like everything is okay. And even if it’s not now, it will be okay. The sunlight bounces off the mirrors in my room, making small rainbows in the corners where the walls meet the ceiling. It makes the hardwood floors seem a lighter shade of oak brown and fades the scuffs and scratches that once marked my bedroom walls. It makes the 16th floor that I live on no longer seem so daunting. On mornings like those, I feel happy. To me, the sun is no longer an objective term — a burning ball of fire, the center of our universe, the source of our light. It has become synonymous with happiness and a certain sense of nostalgia. It reminds me of the three-bedroom ranch home where I was born and raised for half of my life. The home where I learned to love chaos, noise and laughter. It reminds me of my four siblings and I piling up to sleep in one room despite the plentiful amount of space
for all of us around the house. It reminds me of the trampoline in our backyard and the days when the sun made it warm enough for us to jump on it until nightfall. The trampoline that I slowly watched lost springs and nails and nets and eventually, its guests over the years. It reminds me of afternoons spent with my two older sisters; one with a flat iron in her hand straightening her bleach blonde highlighted hair and the other at the vanity in our shared room pressing blue glitter eyeshadow all over her eyelids. As Britney Spears played in the background off the sticker-adorned hot pink stereo, I would watch from the corner in awe. The sun shined so brightly in that home — it made me feel safe, it made me feel light and it made everything feel euphoric. And my love for the sun is what fuels my hatred for winter. Winters have always been the harshest time of the year for me — especially Michigan winters. One would expect that I would be used to the bitter cold of the winter months by now. After all, these winters are the only winters I know. But watching my days get shorter and shorter, feeling my nose sting the moment I step
outside and hearing the birds slowly stop chirping never gets easier, no matter how many times I’ve lived it. The sun stops showing her face as much this time of year. And runny noses, gloves and jackets have just never managed to become my forte. I only trudge through the winters so that I can make it to the time of the year when everything is reborn. When the sun comes back out and gives myself and the world around me life again. When the grass turns green and the flowers bloom and everything begins to sparkle. But me and the sun’s love is complicated. And the sun can be cruel. I remember the first time I fell asleep in the sun. For days after, I watched as my olive skin reddened and blistered. It stung and shriveled up and eventually peeled off. How could something I love so much be so bad to me? It was sunny when I fell and broke my wrist in the second grade. It was sunny when I got rejected from my dream university in high school. It was sunny when I experienced my first heartbreak. It was sunny as I walked home with tears in my eyes convinced I failed my accounting exam (for the
record, I didn’t). It was sunny every single time I received news of the loss of a loved one. It was loss that forced me to see the sun in a new light — a much bleaker light. I watched the sunrays bounce off the walls of my bedroom that once brought me so much love through sobs and teary eyes. I watched those same sunrays bounce off tombstones at the cemetery. The irony. So sometimes I question how I can love the sun. On one hand, I love the sun because she represents everything good. But the sun has not always been good to me. And that makes me a living testament to the fact that we love the things that sometimes hurt us the most. I often wonder what that says about me. As humans, our love is intrinsic. Our love has no barriers and sometimes happens without us realizing it. And that’s exactly what happened with the Sun and I. When we love, we allow (and some may even say force) ourselves to put down a wall and accept vulnerability. It’s scary, but in turn, we sometimes let that love blind us from seeing the bad. But that’s just the thing about the sun — sometimes it burns you.
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, February 2, 2022 — 9
Let’s stop ghosting each other Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com
JULIAN BARNARD AND SHUBHUM GIROTI
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From The Daily: The potential of public power THE MICHIGAN DAILY EDITORIAL BOARD
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or more than 150 years, DTE Energy has generated energy for the state of Michigan, and now serves 3.5 million customers. DTE Energy, a private company, supplies energy to the people of Ann Arbor as well as the University of Michigan. However, recently DTE has been leaving their customers “in the dark,” with over 158,000 customers left without power in August 2021. Michigan is the fourthworst state in the United States when it comes to average time to restore power to a customer after an outage. These paying customers are tired of this monopoly company with a lack of reliability and clean energy generation. While DTE has made promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there is no competition holding them accountable. DTE has promised to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but this will also increase rates for customers by $3.18 per month. Michigan also performs below average compared to the rest of the United States when it comes to reliability, affordability and environmental impacts. Due to these issues, many have proposed a municipalization of energy production in Ann Arbor to create a community-owned utility. Municipalization is the transfer of all the assets of a privately owned company to a public institution. One of the most pivotal benefits of such a change would be reliability. Such a switch to public ownership might lead to quicker response time during emergencies as the utility is in local hands. Furthermore, publicly owned institutions are not profit driven, their central focus is instead on catering to the citizens of Ann Arbor by making the utility more affordable. Public power also involves citizens in the decision making process, which would represent a significant step towards helping the people of Ann Arbor reach their goal of clean power — one that they have been crying out for. A switch to public power might
also prompt long-term thinking regarding more sustainable forms of generating energy; this is something a private firm — under pressure to deliver short-term profits and keep shareholders happy — might not find the time and resources to do. In light of this push, as well as the issues with DTE that precipitated it, the Ann Arbor City Council voted on Jan. 18 to begin a study into the effectiveness and feasibility of a municipal electricity program. Although the aforementioned benefits of public power would seem to suggest that such a study would simply be a delay — if public power is such an unalloyed good and so necessary to fight climate change, we should be willing to spend large sums of money on it — there is not a consensus on whether or not it would actually be the right thing to do. While DTE has unsurprisingly come out against the proposal, opposition, or at least apprehensiveness, is not limited to those with a direct interest in seeing the project fail. The City Council resolution to create this study had been debated since last September, with some members pushing for a more extensive survey given their concerns. Why do some people still doubt the proposal? The truth is, municipalization is hard, with the last successful municipalization project in Michigan dating back to 1912. Creating a public utility is an extensive, difficult process that requires support and commitment from the community. Not all municipalities are successful, for reasons ranging from political battles to a lack of momentum required to complete such a long and arduous process. In the case of Ann Arbor, there is also the issue of having to buy out DTE’s existing infrastructure, an expensive purchase, considering the breadth of infrastructure and investment present, that will be an early and significant roadblock if the municipalization were to go ahead. But Ann Arbor is different. The large public university that lies
within it can facilitate the steps that need to be taken. Someone must “spearhead” the development of this utility by promoting the concept to the community, discussing with the local government and handling legal aspects, and the University of Michigan is an institution large enough to do so if they wished. Not only does the University have a considerable influence on the Ann Arbor community, they are also the largest consumers of power in the city, which would make any public backing of the municipalization on their end a game-changer. Over and above providing some much-needed resources for the process, they might also be able to play a key role in helping build the aforementioned sustainable power system. There is precedent for such a concept. A glance at East Lansing yields a prime example — Michigan State University’s T.B. Simon Power Plant. Moreover, the University of Michigan has already shown signs that it is willing to move away from carbon-based energy sources.In 2019, the U-M campus consumed a total of 6,924,524 MMbtu, which was primarily generated through cogenerated steam and natural gas combustion. The University has switched a portion of its own energy usage away from DTE into its own production because of the unsustainable practices of DTE. Supporting a transition away from purchasing DTE Energy would illustrate to the public that the University views sustainability as a priority to combat climate change. In the past, the University has been unable to take a larger step due to lack of funding and incentives, but a partnership between Ann Arbor citizens and the University could prevent this. The University is a consistent and organized presence in the city, as opposed to the student body, which undergoes massive turnover every four years. They should take an active role in energy production and distribution in Ann Arbor, as that is key to the environmental goals it claims to back.
Trust your heart; it knows the way RUSHABH SHAH Opinion Columnist
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f you’re like me, you’ll agree that winter semester did not begin Jan. 5, at least not in spirit. With both students and professors adjusting to hybrid and in-person classes as well as spending a majority of the first two lectures going over syllabi and basic course structure, the semester started off slow. When did things really begin? Jan. 18, the day after the Martin Luther King Jr. long weekend. My start was similarly sluggish. For instance, I decided to spend that long weekend rewatching my favorite TV show from 2021, “Ted Lasso.” During my two-day long binge, I came across what is probably one of my favorite quotes ever: “You just listen to your gut, okay? And on your way down to your gut, check in with your heart. Between those two things, they’ll let you know what’s what.” For as long as I can remember, be it the biggest Bollywood stars from back home, the cream of the Hollywood crop, or the most awe-inspiring storybook heroes, all of their portrayals had one trait in common: bravery. From Hermione and Frodo to Jack Traven from “Speed,” I idolized characters who were able to defy the odds and do what they thought was right, even when everyone was telling them not to. I looked up to them because they had the uncanny ability to, time and again, do as Ted Lasso so eloquently said: trust their guts and
follow their hearts. As I grew older, however, and was confronted by the prospect of making life-changing decisions, I realized that it is easier said than done. Case in point: my decision to attend the University of Michigan. With this year’s early action decisions right around the corner, I can’t help but be reminded about how stressful April 2020 was for me. With the Indian government sending everybody into a total lockdown on March 23 following the outbreak of COVID-19, I decided to try and make the best of my circumstances. I resolved to finalize which college I would be attending and made quick and early progress by narrowing down to two choices at the beginning of the month. Thirty days later, after multiple spreadsheets with rubrics that considered everything from weather to alumni network and phone calls with every distant cousin that had any connection to either university, I had made no progress. Yes, it was frustrating, but a part of me saw it coming, because I knew indecisiveness ran in my family. It wasn’t the first time I had second guessed myself, and it wasn’t the first time I had lacked conviction. Feeling lost and disappointed, I remember calling my best friend and telling her about my dilemma. All she had to say was, “After a point you have to stop making lists and just go with your gut.” The next day I paid my deposit for the University of Michigan and have not looked back since. To all those currently contemplating their next steps in life, be it your
college decision, asking someone out to the homecoming dance or picking between two ice cream flavors at Ben and Jerry’s, I only have one thing to say: have faith in yourself. Lists, rubrics and spreadsheets are good and I will always affirm that the solutions to many of our problems can be found through simple and logical reasoning. In truth, deciding which criteria I was going to consider for my university rubric and what weight I would assign to them gave me a clear idea of what I wanted from my college experience and helped me immensely. Nevertheless, once I realized that, even after a month, I was no closer to knowing where I would be in Fall 2020, I learned that even reason has its limitations. Only intuition could fill the gap. I am hardly an expert, but whenever I’ve found myself stuck without any apparent rational next step, I did what I felt was right. That, I think, makes all the difference in the world. It doesn’t always work. In fact, it blew up in my face on a couple of occasions. After all, even Frodo, the usually unshakeable hero, hesitated at the end of the “Lord of the Rings” movie and was consequently subject to some bodily harm. But there is no better way to prove to yourself that you are in control of your life than to follow your instincts, because they’re one of the only things that are 100% you. They are the purest, most organic choices that you can make, and as Ted Lasso so brilliantly recalled, “It is our choices that make us who we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
BENJAMIN DAVIS Opinion Columnist
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o one likes to feel abandoned. This is especially true as the dead of winter approaches, with seasonal affective disorder and the current omicron surge combining to leave many people feeling increasingly isolated and lonely. Jan 2., or Dating Sunday, an unofficial holiday that sees the busiest activity across multiple dating app platforms, falls right in the middle of this. The explanation for the intense surge in dating app usage at this time is that the day falls right after holiday blues, when people have set New Year’s resolutions and are counting down the days until Valentine’s Day. This also coincides with the end of cuffing season, another impetus of online dating activity. Amid all of this, digital daters need to remember the basics of dating etiquette. This means to communicate with honesty and clarity with potential matches. Above all, commit to not ghosting someone if you have decided to no longer pursue them romantically. Even if you may have found another person or want to avoid the awkwardness of breaking it off, ghosting is something that should be avoided out of respect for the other person’s time and emotions. Ghosting, while a newly-coined term, has been a mainstay of the dating scene for decades. Tropes of people escaping a date by crawling out a bathroom window or disappearing without warning are well established. The act has worryingly become normalized. Fifty percent of people in the dating scene have been ghosted and almost the same amount have been the one to ghost. This behavior once was reserved for the disrespectful. Nowadays, ghosting is common practice. This is alarming. What does it say about current dating culture when abrupt abandonment of one’s date is accepted practice? Ghosting
is now one of those things that comes along with finding a romantic partner. There needs to be a recalibration of dating culture. It’s not healthy for sudden loss of contact to be the status quo. Ghosting may seem innocuous. However, it has serious consequences for the ghosted. Ghosting hurts because it’s a whiplash in assumptions of how a person feels about you. To the ghosted, someone, who they thought cared for them, abandoned them. A person who they were building trust with all of a sudden disengaging from contact can feel like nothing short of betrayal. Being on the receiving end of ghosting can be painful. Studies have shown that social rejection activates the same neurological pathways as physical pain. Ghosting can trigger the grief cycle as the ghosted experiences an emotional concoction of embarrassment, anger, sadness and loneliness. While ghosting may be an easy way out of the relationship for the ghoster, it can be immensely hurtful to the ghosted. Taking the courage to break off contact by sending a simple “I’ve decided to take a break on meeting new people” text does the potential ghoster good as well. It promotes character growth. Admitting that you no longer want to connect with someone means you are being honest with yourself and strengthening your communication skills and empathy. By not ghosting, it is a clear signal that you understand how your actions affect others. You’re acknowledging that you at least care enough about the person to not want to hurt their feelings more than just spurring a tad of disappointment. Yes, ghosting is the easy way out. In theory, all bad feelings can be avoided by ignoring the situation all together. It’s not unreasonable to feel guilty for wasting the time of the other person now that the match is going nowhere. But you’re not a bad person for
honestly communicating your feelings to others. A bad person, though, would ghost and leave the other person hurt and confused. By giving the other person some sort of closure, it can help them process their feelings and move on to other people. Not ghosting indicates your respect for the other person, and it is a moment of character growth that will benefit you in future romantic ventures. I have been in both positions. Unfortunately, I ghosted someone in my past. Looking back on it, now also having inhabited the position of the ghosted, I am not proud of ghosting someone. It might have alleviated my shame or nervousness, but thinking of how my actions may have negatively affected the person I was talking with does not feel great. I now realize that it is better to have the courage to respectfully end communication with a potential romantic interest by clearly voicing your thoughts and feelings rather than running away from the situation all together. Being ghosted is not a great thing to go through, and therefore, I’ve made a pledge to never ghost someone across a dating app again. It’s rude to abruptly walk out of an in-person date with no warning, so why would it be any different over text? Netiquette must be maintained when we connect with each other across dating apps. This is for the benefit of both parties. Direct communication will always be superior to ghosting. Though it can be uneasy to break off connection with someone through text, it is better than the fallout that accompanies ghosting. Ghosting can cause the ghosted to feel lonely, hurt and confused. I, for one, would not want the fact that I caused someone to feel that way on my conscience. Vowing to not ghost future romantic interests forces one to be honest with oneself and to not hurt others through abandonment. Let’s make ghosting uncool again. It never was cool in the first place.
What music can tell us about our attention span information than we did in 1986. So how does this constant exposure to Opinion Columnist new information and media impact n September 23, 2021, the how we function? According to University of Michigan Microsoft’s Attention Span Research hosted the English band Report, what was an average human Glass Animals for a concert. The attention span of 12 seconds in the indie rock band, which has existed year 2000 dropped to eight seconds since 2010, combines synth-pop, by 2013. In comparison, the average indie, R&B and hip hop. While attention span of a goldfish is nine they have seen minor successes as a seconds. This decrease in attention band in the last decade, nothing has span relates to everything from taken mainstream media by storm concentrating in conversations quite like their song “Heat Waves.” to focusing on schoolwork to “Heat Waves” was originally engaging with content. This is due released in June 2020, and it to the information overload of social subsequently experienced a slow media, which 73% of Americans rise to mainstream popularity. This report feeling. Specifically, with slow rise was so slow that the song regard to the music industry, there broke the record for the longest are an overwhelming number of ascent to the top on Billboard’s Hot artists, genres, albums and songs that are now accessible with the Rock and Alternative Songs. The popularity built up as “Heat touch of a button. With so many Waves” played in the second season competing interests, it’s impossible of Netflix’s popular original series, to absorb every artist fully. Yet, living among a digital “Never Have I Ever,” during the kiss between the two main characters, landscape, we are becoming better and from this a TikTok trend was at being more alert and efficient born. The trend was TikTokers with the shorter bursts of attention. putting videos of important figures These changes in our consumption in their life to the song. The original explain today’s concept of “going sound by sevier.edits has been used viral.” The media obsesses over in over 1.4 million videos, and the a specific trend, song or public original version of the song has figure, which they then promptly 526.5k uses. Many U-M students forget. Everyone is constantly who attended the concert did not craving something new. This is know much about Glass Animals called novelty seeking, or a “strong other than this singular viral song. interest in having new experiences.” Despite lasting over two hours, Musicians Institute explains that the entirety of the concert set, the ability to debut songs through hosted at Crisler Center, was filled posting makes it easier to discover with the entire audience chanting artists by eliminating the necessity “PLAY ‘HEAT WAVES,” ignoring of a label. However, there is an the other songs. Once the song increased amount of content by played, few people sang other than increasing accessibility, which is the 30 seconds featured on social why these viral songs often don’t media and the Netflix series. Once stick. The extensive process of “getting “Heat Waves” ended, droves of people left. Most people didn’t care the song out there” that many about the concert outside of what musicians experienced in the past was seen as “viral.” It led me to doesn’t exist in the same capacity question: why didn’t they bother today, making these viral songs pop to look into this band further? up right in front of us. On a silver Everyone knew they would platter, new content appeals to our be attending the band’s entire new attention patterns. We either like performance, so why did no one or scroll, causing the content to pop up listen to any other songs or even the on more devices or not. There’s always entirety of “Heat Waves”? Did they an audience on the internet waiting lose the capacity to listen to the for that next best thing. According Glass Animals with all the other to the Pew Research Center, 31% of American adults are online almost digital media they consume? Media involves constant, rapid constantly and 48% go online several information being exchanged. times a day. Overall, more than eight There is always an opportunity in 10 adults go online at least daily. to discover something new. In Considering this study included adults 2021, we took in five times more from ages 18 to 64, our reliance on GABBY RIVAS
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technology knows no age limits. Before the widespread use of online music platforms, we mainly absorbed concept albums used by artists to produce a narrative for the listener. When all the songs are listened to together in the full album, there’s a storytelling experience that cannot be replicated. For this reason, album connoisseurs instruct us to sit down and take in the whole experience. But this is not a reality that today’s society often partakes in. Today’s lifestyle rarely allows us to listen for the meaning in music; we’ve introduced habits that put the soundtrack on the back burner. There is often a secondary task such as walking to class, getting ready or doing work. The quick development of social media is changing the way audiences, especially younger generations, consume digital and physical products. Producers must adapt to these preference changes to develop more accurate consumption models. There will be no advancement of music if we continue producing for the past – we need to appeal to the future. So, should there be a switch in the music industry to cater to this? If a two-minute song is completely ignored, with the exception of the 15-second section that goes viral on social media, why are we still focusing on producing longer content? Should the music industry shift to create shorter content presenting a message or emotion more efficiently? Or continue the way we always have? Should we adapt or hold onto these traditions of the past? Music has been a mode of movement for centuries, a strong force of social development tackling issues such as racial injustice or gender roles. So focusing on the best way to intertwine this medium into our lives to benefit consumers emotionally, socially and politically is a key concept to analyze. Whether it is creating another industry solely focused on this shorter content production or releasing shorter versions of soundtracks for those who want to lightly listen, this shift in consumption habits must be recognized to keep music as a relevant medium for all types of listeners. There is still a significant industry for the kinds of listeners album creators desire, so by manufacturing a separate industry just for this “viral” content, the music for trends and deep listeners can be separate.
10 — Wednesday, February 2, 2022
Opinion
It’s time to update our COVID-19 game plan EVAN STERN
Opinion Columnist
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ast summer, when President Joe Biden proclaimed to Americans that we were “closer than ever to declaring our independence” from COVID19, it seemed unfathomable the nation would find itself in the throes of yet another pandemic surge just six months later. Yet, here we are again. Even with over 500 million vaccines administered across the country — and over 70% of Americans age 12 and older fully vaccinated — COVID-19 has once again upended daily life. By some measures, 2022 feels eerily like 2020 all over again. The current surge is fueled by the highly-contagious omicron variant of COVID19, which has spread through the nation at unprecedented speeds and sent case counts to dizzying heights. On Jan. 10, health officials reported 1.48 million new cases, more in a single day than at any other point in the pandemic, shattering the previous record set just days before. With the explosion in cases has come a spike in hospitalizations, pushing many healthcare facilities, doctors and nurses to the brink. In Michigan, hospitals across the state are near or at capacity as pandemic hospitalizations break records. In the midst of all this, some governments are responding with the harsh tactics we’ve all become familiar with over the past two years. In Canada and Europe, which face similar surges, governments have instituted a slew of measures including lockdowns and closures of schools and businesses to combat the spread. Though it may seem at first glance that current conditions warrant a similar move by President Biden and governors across the country, it’s critical we update our COVID-19 game plan and avoid the same traps we’ve fallen into before. As alarming as the latest pandemic metrics are, they have to be put into perspective. First and foremost, experts believe the omicron variant — which now accounts for over 98% of new COVID-19 cases in the country — is less severe than previous strains like delta. A new study found patients who contracted omicron were 53% less likely to require hospitalization and over 90% less likely to die than those who suffered from the delta variant. As in earlier waves, Americans who are fully vaccinated continue to have a good prognosis. While omicron has evaded some of the vaccine’s protection against symptomatic infec-
tion, the vaccines are still extremely protective against severe disease. A booster shot, which more Americans are receiving every day, bolsters protection further. Following Canada and Europe’s lead and shutting down schools, colleges and businesses as cases surge simply isn’t supported by the data. Returning to harsher containment measures wouldn’t only be unwise because omicron is a milder variant relative to earlier strains of COVID-19. Omicron is also wildly transmissible, even more so than the highly-infectious delta variant. In the early days of the pandemic, closing down large sectors of the country proved to be an effective tool in slowing the spread. But today, with omicron skyrocketing in almost every county across the nation, preventing every individual case is no longer possible or practical. “Omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented degree of efficiency of transmissibility, will ultimately find just about everybody,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said, noting the vaccinated and boosted who do get infected will “do reasonably well in the sense of not having hospitalization and death.” Though lockdowns may reduce cases in the short term, they won’t stop the virus from spreading over the long run. It’s imperative that American leaders, from the local to the federal level, prioritize preventing severe disease over cases, which are almost always mild for the vaccinated and even sometimes asymptomatic. Already, President Biden has turned his focus toward preventing hospitalization and death, reassuring most Americans that it’s “very unlikely that you become seriously ill.” The Biden administration recently took action to support hospitals and promote vaccines and testing to keep the country running. Many state leaders have taken similar actions, acknowledging that COVID-19 lockdowns and closures are no longer prudent. Gov. Jared Polis, D-Colo., has refrained from imposing stringent measures and said “Getting three doses of the vaccine is highly effective and all but negates any risk that you face.” Despite the sound arg uments against locking down to slow the omicron surge, some segments of American society have temporarily backpedaled into the pre-vaccine era. Perhaps most notably, Chicago Public Schools — which serves nearly 350,000 students — closed down for a four-day period over the rapid rise in cases. Chicago students have since returned to school, though the closure
proved to be a massive disruption to both students and parents who have already suffered enough. Students in Atlanta, Baltimore, Milwaukee and elsewhere have faced similar disruptions to in-person learning, though staffing shortages have necessitated some of the closures. College campuses across the country have also shuttered to start the new year in response to omicron. Nearby, Michigan State University moved classes online until Jan. 31, joining a leng thy list of institutions nationwide that have pivoted to remote learning. Schools like Yale University have taken it a step further, telling students to refrain from dining in off-campus restaurants, even outside. Closing down schools, colleges and businesses is not the way to navigate the omicron surge. There is no reason to believe short-term lockdowns will do anything significant to curb the spread of a virus that is hyper-transmissible. After two years spent fighting COVID-19, we have the tools to address the pandemic while keeping society running as normal as possible. Vaccines are readily available to any American who has yet to get the shot, while an array of high-quality masks like N95s are much easier to obtain than earlier in the pandemic. For people who do come down with COVID-19, there are more promising treatments and therapeutics all the time, including a new Pfizer pill aimed at keeping patients out of the hospital. Another powerful tool we have at our disposal is testing. While finding COVID19 testing has proven to be a struggle at times, the Biden administration has ordered one billion at-home tests to be delivered to make it easier for Americans to protect themselves and others. Widespread testing provides a real-time picture of where COVID-19 is most active, ensuring the infected can quarantine and schools or businesses with high case counts can temporarily shut down to reduce the spread. The University of Michigan’s plan to hold in-person classes rather than shifting to remote learning demonstrates that with mitigation measures, there’s no reason why omicron should reverse the months of progress we’ve made. While it’s critical we remain vigilant until the current wave subsides, Americans who have done everything right for the past two years cannot endure another second out of school or work. We have what it takes to find a way out of this pandemic without sliding backward.
The Michigan Difference
Design by Maddy Leja, Opinion Cartoonist
To the new administration: let’s embrace DEI on campus NIKHIL SHARMA Opinion Columnist
T
he past several days have been a trying time for Ann Arbor. With the dire knish shortage and hourslong Pizza House wait times, students have been forced to subsist on overpriced calzones. Even worse, as University of Michigan students unravel the vast conspiracy against them, they have been driven into pangs of loneliness, finding solace only in clandestine private briefings. All jokes aside, this moment is an inf lection point for the University of Michigan. As the dust settles at the end of a disgraced administration, it’s high time we take stock of where our values have strayed as a university and determine what our objectives must be going forward. Our choice of a new president will guide the direction of the school for many years to come, so it’s paramount that we not only identify a strong leader but also — in the process — reassert our commitment to the University’s core values. The first and most important area of improvement for the University is reviving a studentcentric leadership approach. To restore trust after the multitude of recent scandals, the administration must take the time to truly listen to the student population and address their needs. After two years of an inconsistent pandemic response, many students yearn for the administration to make meaningful strides towards fully reopening and lifting all COVID-19 requirements.
Leg-ingitis
Design by Libby Chambers, Opinion Cartoonist
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
While the administration boldly decided to keep the University open during the fall of 2020, betting that high caseloads wouldn’t translate to hospitalizations, the decisiveness of their response has noticeably tapered. Four semesters into the pandemic, while the University now has a 98% vaccination rate, testing is not always readily available and quarantine housing is abysmal. Luckily, the school has the monetary resources necessary to make rapid testing universal, which would allow the University to move towards lifting pandemic restrictions. A new administration needs to capitalize on existing infrastructure to bring the University back to the forefront of the fight against COVID-19. Another key area for the new administration to focus on is reestablishing the school’s commitment to inclusiveness and equality of opportunity. Throughout former University President Mark Schlissel’s tenure, he sought to make the University more inclusive by making cultural identity a central tenet of campus discourse, requiring diversity training for students and expanding the administration’s role in shaping campus culture. Unfortunately, this plan to foster inclusiveness was misguided in its execution, failed to make major strides towards a truly diverse campus culture and at times trivialized real issues under the guise of revamped rhetoric. Despite the University’s $85 million investment in a diversity, equity and inclusion plan from 2016 to 2021, the headline achievements of the spending
were rather modest, including an annual review of faculty DEI plans and funding to support future DEI research. “Equity” is an incredibly complex concept and is not something that can be accomplished through brute force. Though the University boasts the largest DEI department of any American university, with more than 150 staff, a large bureaucracy does little to shape a diverse campus culture. If we truly want to move towards inclusivity, we must shift the campus conversation from segmenting individuals to treating everyone equally, regardless of race or class. At a progressive school such as the University of Michigan, racial tension is far more commonly found in a lack of interaction between cultures than overt racism. While diversity training may teach students to practice antiracism through their actions, studying racial theory often has little practical application in bridging divides. In fact, the forced nature of diversity training can often cause it to backfire, teaching students to identify races as separate entities rather than a single component of the identities of otherwise similar individuals. By taking a more hands-off approach to DEI, the University has the opportunity to make far greater strides towards inclusivity, capitalizing on the tolerance of the student body to foster conversations about our similarities rather than our differences.
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Sports
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Wednesday, February 2, 2022 — 11
Michigan overcomes early deficit, takes down Minnesota JACK CONLIN
Daily Sports Writer
As redshirt sophomore Cameron Amine had his hand raised following a 6-1 decision victory, it felt like Crisler Center let out a collective sigh of relief. Amine’s assertive win stopped the bleeding for No. 4 Michigan (7-1 overall, 3-1 Big Ten), as it had lost three bouts in a row going into the intermission. The Wolverines went on to win four of the next five bouts and defeat No. 16 Minnesota (3-4, 2-3). “That second set of five is a great group of guys,” Michigan Coach Sean Bormet said. “Five All-Americans, five leaders, five guys that have a great work ethic and want to compete hard. Those were dominant wins.” No. 1 graduate student Nick Suriano started the meet off with a dominant victory over No. 9 Patrick McKee, earning a 14-6 major decision after a signature high-energy performance. Redshirt freshman Dylan Ragusin followed that up with a 6-5 win at 133 pounds to put the Wolverines up 7-0.
Then things got messy. Graduate student Stevan Micic suffered a 5-2 upset at 141 pounds despite nearly pinning No. 15 Jake Bergeland in the third period. Then at 149 pounds, Michigan redshirt sophomore Pat Nolan was out-muscled by No. 25 Michael Blockhus. Nolan was able to avoid getting pinned but ended up losing 14-5 in a major decision, and Blockhus tied the meet up at 7-7. The Wolverines showed some life in the last match before the intermission, which featured No. 14 redshirt junior Will Lewan versus No. 4 Brayton Lee. Lewan brought some energy back to the Michigan bench with an athletic takedown to close the first period but was unable to assert any control in the final two, losing 5-4. The loss put the Wolverines down 10-7 going into the break. When they re-emerged from the locker room, there was a clear focus on re-asserting control. “We looked to dominate the match,” graduate student Myles Amine said. “That’s the big thing we tried to do. Our flaw against Penn State (on Jan. 10) was that we really let them control the center and control ties. Your winning per-
centage goes way up when you can overcome No. 1 Gable Steveson, an of the night was the Wolverines’ didn’t get bonus points, they were do those two things.” Olympic gold-medal holder, and ability to dominate late. Bormet dominant victories, and that’s what Those coaching points were evi- lost 18-8. acknowledged that dominance we want. We want to destroy the dent in the next string of matches. In spite of that loss — as well as after the meet: guy in front of us physically and The Wolverines took three deci- the three earlier losses — the story “Even those matches where we mentally.” sions, as well as one major decision from Amine in a dominant technical performance over Minnesota’s Sam Skillings. Another standout performance came from graduate student Logan Massa at 174 pounds. Massa brought new life to the crowd from the start of the first period, dragging Minnesota junior Bailee O’Reilly away from the boundary multiple times to maintain his dominant position. Massa had to overcome a deficit in the second and eventually earned an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the third period, but he overcame this to win 7-4. “I think [we] did a great job, after giving up initial points, of continuing to wrestle seven minutes and flip the switch,” Amine said. “That’s kind of what we’re looking for and that’s what we can build off of as a team.” That electric stretch ensured a Michigan victory, despite a major LILA TURNER/Daily decision loss in the final match of the night at heavyweight. No. 4 Graduate student Nick Suriano set the tone for Michigan against Minnesota with a dominant victory. junior Mason Parris was unable to
Jack Glanville: Michigan has nothing left to prove Energetic performances lead to Michigan’s upset against No. 3 Nebraska
JENNA HICKEY/Daily In a major upset, Michigan knocked off No. 3 Nebraska in front of a raucous Cliff Keen. JOHN TONDORA
For The Daily
On a quiet, unassuming Saturday afternoon in Ann Arbor, the Cliff Keen Arena was anything but. The building buzzed from start to finish as the No. 5 Michigan men’s gymnastics team (8-0 overall, 1-0 Big Ten) defeated No. 3 Nebraska (3-3, 0-1) with a final score of 409.100 – 400.50. Led by junior Paul Juda and graduate student Nicholas Guy, the Wolverines won five events with three individual champions, sending Michigan home with an eighth-straight victory. The score marks a season high for the Wolverines in a matchup characterized by a team that trusts its own system “I believe our team is ready for the moment.” Michigan interim coach Yuan Xiao said. The Wolverines entered into the matchup as underdogs, yet were prepared to face a strong Nebraska team that has tumbled to a third-straight loss. The Cornhuskers looked rocky from the outset of the floor rotation. Their anchor, Sam Phillips, mislanded twice and stepped out of bounds on his signature aggressive routine. He and the Nebraska team struggled to find a rhythm, and left the door open for an energized Michigan squad. The Wolverines grabbed an impressive first rotation win trademarked by anchor Guy’s tightrope landing on a double flip to end his floor routine. As a fifth year senior, Guy’s presence as anchor has not only physical implications, but mental ones too. “[Guy] just hitting a routine is extremely important for the team,” Xiao said. “The seniors set a real model for the freshman and sophomores. He does silent work, but he’s a leader. We love to have him on the team.” As the second rotation forged ahead, Michigan built upon its early lead. It secured another 1.350 margin over the Cornhuskers on pommel horse thanks, in part, to junior David Willett’s exceptional 13.150 on bars, punctuating the routine with a singlehanded dismount into a double flip with a half turn. Driving his feet into the ground like stakes, the arena filled
with applause as one Wolverine gymnast shouted: “He was so good!” With an ample 2.800 lead going into the third rotation, Michigan posted its best score of the day on rings, achieving a 70.000 flat — the second best rotational score of the day. Juda anchored the event for the Wolverines, and captured the mood of the meet, landing a near perfect landing to soaring screams from the crowd, and raising his hands as if to say: who else? “I love hearing the crowd roar, right? I love hearing my name,” Juda said. “I love all of that. But more than anything, it’s the guys in front of me that are setting that tone, and without them, none of it can happen.” Michigan needed that team mentality, though, as Nebraska took the fourth rotation on vault, scoring an excellent 71.100 — the highest rotation of the day — cutting the Wolverine lead to 5.400 for a running score of 273.550-268.150. Conversely, the Wolverines struggled heavily on the rotation, with two major falls on their first two vaults. However, Michigan found its stride once more on the parallel bars, and the rest of the meet went its way. Despite a strong 14.250 start by Nebraska’s Dylan LeClaire, Michigan proved to be too much, scoring above 13.800 on three of their five routines. Going into their final rotation with only the high bar left, the Cornhuskers trailed 342.300 to 335.950. This section would be the Wolverine’s strongest as they gained another 2.400 points on Nebraska, and pushed the arena to a fever pitch. On backto- back-to-back occasions, the final three Michigan high bar competitors received a roar of commotion from the crowd before even sticking their landings, culminating in an average individual score of 13.900. With a chance to respond, the Cornhuskers fell short, punctuated by two heart-stopping slips by Phillips who nonetheless returned to the bar each time. Instead, feeding off its own energy, Michigan prevailed. “We feed off each other on horse, on rings,” Guy said. “We feed off the energy of each other.
At the beginning of the season, The Wolverines have built their the Hoosiers to just 50 points is I was forced to pick who I thought identity in the paint, playing tough still an impressive feat. would win the Big Ten. Predic- defense and crashing the glass. All To further assert their domitions are hard. I went with the safe three of these strengths were on nance inside, the Wolverines choice and picked last full display Monday night. poured in 46 points from the paint season’s Big Ten champiMichigan outrebounded compared to the Hoosiers’ 28. ons, Maryland, to repeat. Indiana by an absurd marIt was a massacre down low, and At the time, I thought it gin of 52 to 20. as a result, Michigan’s ball secuwas a good pick. But now, The most impressive rity issues and inefficiencies from on Jan. 31, it’s become part, though, is that the range didn’t matter. apparent that I was very, rebounding wasn’t coming The Wolverines trampled Indivery wrong. from senior forward Naz ana. Because the No. 6 Hillmon, the Wolverines’ That’s what great teams do. Michigan women’s bas- JACK top rebounder. She account- They find ways to win, even if ketball team is going to GLANVILLE ed for just five of Michigan’s things aren’t going their way, even win the Big Ten. boards. Whether it was if the situation doesn’t play to their “I think for our kids to senior forward Emily Kiser strengths. And it’s what Michigan come away and beat a team in our — who finished with a career-high has done all season. league that only has two losses, 16 rebounds — snagging a missed Against Baylor, the Wolverto Stanford and NC State — two shot, or one of the Wolverines’ ines shot 4-for-14 from three and top five teams — that we’ve lost to guards flying in to secure the turned the ball over 16 times. the last couple times we’ve played rebound, the whole team was con- Throughout their thrashing of them,” Michigan coach Kim tributing on the glass. Maryland, they turned the ball Barnes Arico said. “I think it’s a The defensive showing was over 19 times. And in Columbus, great moment for us.” equally It’s been a remarkable season impressive. for Michigan so far. After entering Michigan the season winless against top-five held the opponents in program history, the Hoosiers to Wolverines have just secured their a season-low second in a single season after 50 points. beating Indiana at home, 65-50, on Indiana’s Monday. top-scorer, And the win wasn’t a fluke. forward Michigan didn’t have a particu- Mackenlarly strong offensive showing — zie Holmes, turning the ball over 25 times and was watchmaking just one of its 11 three point ing from the attempts — but still managed to bench with GRACE BEAL/Daily defeat the No. 5 team in the coun- a knee injury, The Michigan women’s basketball team solidified itself as a pretry by a 15-point margin. but holding mier program in the nation after defeating Indiana
Michigan shot 5-for-16 from three and turned the ball over 17 times. The Wolverines won every single one of those games. They scored more paint points and outrebounded each of those teams en route to what have become this season’s signature victories. Michigan is a great team, and on Monday night, it proved it to the entire nation. “Indiana was kind of the standard,” senior guard Danielle Rauch said. “They were at the top of the Big Ten and undefeated. We knew that coming in, and we knew that we were going to have to prove to everybody that we are the best team right now.” It’s safe to say that they did. The Wolverines don’t have an elite offense. They shoot a fairly average 46.1% from the field and 32.3% from 3-point range. Michigan more than makes up for it with a dominant interior presence, elite rebounding and strong defense. The creation of a strong identity revolving around the Wolverines’ authority down low has made their mediocre scoring efficiency irrelevant. Michigan has played to its strengths and consistently beaten great teams. In the process, they’ve asserted themselves as one of the nations premier programs. And now, for the first time in program history, they’re going to win the Big Ten.
Second half defensive adjustments lead way to Michigan victory MARK PATRICK
Daily Sports Writer
Entering halftime, the No. 6 Michigan women’s basketball team held a slim 32-30 lead over No. 5 Indiana. The Wolverines went on a 9-0 run to start the game, but were outscored by seven through the rest of the first half. The Wolverines put themselves in difficult situations, committing 17 turnovers in the first half. This forced them to defend on multiple back-to-back possessions. “We had a stern talk at halftime. It puts things into perspec-
tive,” senior forward Naz Hillmon said. Added Hillmon: “Coach is very demanding. She knows what we can bring to the table and knew that we weren’t doing that at the moment.” The Wolverines came into the second half with renewed energy and controlled the tempo in the third quarter. This put more pressure on grabbing defensive rebounds and negating secondchance points for the opponent. They wanted to be more physical on the defensive end of the court. Senior forward Emily Kiser, who returned from a first quarter injury in the second, had a career
GRACE BEAL/Daily The Michigan women’s basketball team had a stellar defensive performance in the second half in its win over Indiana.
night, snagging a season-high 16 rebounds, 14 of which came off the defensive glass. When Indiana missed a shot, Kiser would not give up the loose ball. With less than a minute in the third quarter, Indiana guard Chloe MooreMcNeil missed a driving layup. Kiser grabbed the rebound, nullifying a potential comeback by the Hoosiers. “She’s such an incredible defender and such an incredible presence next to Naz,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said. “She does so many great things for a team that doesn’t show up in the box score. I was happy for her presence back out there because she does so many intangible things to help our team be successful. She’s having a career year and she and Naz are playing off of each other so incredibly well.” The Wolverines put on a defensive clinic in the third quarter, holding a top-five team to six points on 25% shooting. Michigan also defensively outrebounded Indiana by a 8:1 margin. “(Barnes Arico) challenged each and every one of us whether you thought you’re playing well in the first half or not.,” Hillmon said. “She stuck it to us and wanted us to know that we had 17 turnovers in the first half and we needed to change that in order to be successful. I just think it was
her challenging us to switch to a different gear and to make sure down the stretch we were doing the little things, even if we did end up with 25 turnovers, doing something that can help us overcome that a little bit.” Outside of Hillmon and Kiser, the Wolverines were able to get defensive help from their starting guards. Junior Maddie Nolan, senior Leigha Brown and senior Danielle Rauch combined for 14 defensive rebounds in the game. “I think the biggest thing right now is just clicking as a unit on defense,” Rauch said. “Individually, we’re all not the best defenders in the world. But when we’re gapping for each other, closing out hard and rotating is when we’re at our best. We work on that every single day and it’s showing now.” Michigan’s defense continued to excel as the game wore on, holding Indiana to 14 points in the fourth quarter. When the dust settled, the Hoosiers’ 50 points was their lowest total of the season. “Our identity is our defense, and our offense will come based on how we perform on defense,” Rauch said. “Certainly wasn’t a perfect game. But we battled and we fought and every time we stepped on the court, we’re gonna leave it all out there.”
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Michigan beats Indiana, taking control of Big Ten title race ABBIE TELGENHOF Daily Sports Writer
The Michigan women’s basketball team knew what was on the line: Its first top-10 win at home, handing Indiana its first conference loss, and most importantly, taking control of the Big Ten. In their biggest game of the season, the sixth-ranked Wolverines (19-2 overall, 10-1 Big Ten) battled against the fifth-ranked Hoosiers (14-3, 6-1) in a game that was close until late in the fourth quarter. The Wolverines came out on top, winning 65-50. Under two minutes into the game, Michigan swaggered back to the bench with smiling faces. Indiana had just called its first timeout of the game to try and stem the bleeding after a 9-0 opening run from the Wolverines. The Hoosiers looked stunned, struggling to get into a rhythm. Senior forward Naz Hillmon dominated early in the paint, and senior forward Emily Kiser crashed the boards to secure seven rebounds in the first quarter alone.
Then the Hoosiers found their footing. Dropping into a full-court press, Indiana exploited the Wolverines’ biggest weakness — sloppy turnovers. Committing 10 in the first quarter alone and 25 on the night, turnovers throughout the game gave the Hoosiers ample chances to keep Michigan’s lead in check. “We had a stern talking to at halftime,” Hillmon said. “It’s been a while since we had one of those but it put things into perspective. … she wanted us to know that we had 17 turnovers in the first half and that we needed to change that in order to be successful.” Under two minutes into the second quarter, Indiana drained a 3-pointer from the wing, tying the game for the first time all night. Clawing their way back into the fight, the Hoosiers refused to allow the Wolverines’ lead to grow. Indiana outscored Michigan 16-13 in the second, and the Wolverines entered the locker room clinging to a two-point lead. Starting the second half with back-to-back offensive putbacks from freshman guard Laila Phelia and senior guard Amy Dilk, the Wolverines managed to keep the Hoosiers at bay. Continuing to capitalize on offensive rebounds, Michigan found a way to overcome the plague of turnovers that continued to affect them, notching 52
rebounds, more than double Indiana’s 20. “We got the better of them tonight on a day where we turned the basketball over a ton in the first half,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said. “We talked a lot at halftime about staying disciplined, staying true to us and trying to be better in the second half. And you figure how do you get to victory when you turn the ball over that much but the way we rebounded the ball and the way that we defended I thought was exceptional.” Indiana made it challenging for the Wolverines to get the ball to Hillmon in the paint, continuing to thwart any momentum the Wolverines could gain. Making it challenging to get the ball in the paint to Hillmon, the Wolverines struggled to score midway through the third quarter. Indiana continued to rein in any sort of momentum the Wolverines could gain. Then, the seniors got fired up. In the final minutes of the third quarter, the Wolverines righted the ship. Coming off the media timeout, senior guard Danielle Rauch drained a long two from the wing. With buckets from Brown and Rauch — and Hillmon once again finding success in the paint — Michigan capped off the quarter on a 6-0 run, stretching the lead to 12 points.
Indiana continued to pester the Wolverines with its full-court defense, attempting to force turnovers and sloppy passes like they did throughout the first half. Yet, Michigan’s lead proved insurmountable throughout the fourth quarter. Hillmon continued to steal the show through the fourth, tallying 21 total points on the night. With Brown relegated to the bench with foul trouble for much of the second half, the Wolverines continued to go with what they knew would work — Hillmon in the paint. The Wolverines minimized mistakes and began to run out the clock, heading into the final media timeout up by 11 and holding a lead they would never relinquish. In the end, the lead Michigan had painstakingly grown throughout the second half proved too large for Indiana to overcome. “For our team we’re in a different position than we’ve ever been in before,” Barnes Arico said. “We always talk about “the hunted”, you know, and we’re in a different position. How are we handling that? And I think each game, each new game we have to remember people are coming for us like we are here now. We’re going to get everyone’s best shot.” Grace Beal/Daily Design by Kamryn Almasy