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‘Tell them what you allowed to happen to us’: Sexual assault survivors of former U-M professor Bruce Conforth take legal action Eight U-M alumni sue University for failing to protect students VANESSA KIEFER Daily Staff Reporter
Anderson protestors say work is far from over following $490 million settlement
DOMINICK SOKOTOFF/Daily
Vaughn, Christian reflect on agreement, continue to advocate for stronger misconduct policies at UMich MARTHA LEWAND & JUSTIN O’BEIRNE Daily Staff Reporters
Survivors of the late University Athletic Doctor Robert Anderson say they are not done protesting the University of Michigan for strengthening sexual misconduct policies and protecting students on campus, following the $490 million settlement with the University. 102 days after former U-M football player Jonathan Vaughn first began protesting outside
former University President Mark Schlissel’s house, the University announced — after over 15 months of mediation — they had reached a $490 million settlement with 1,050 survivors of the late Dr. Robert Anderson. Vaughn told The Michigan Daily the settlement was an important milestone, but his work is far from over. “It’s an amazing win in the battle, but it doesn’t even remotely end the war,” Vaughn said. “My attitude is really business as usual.” While Vaughn said he appreciates that a settlement
CAMPUS LIFE
Campus community talks Black Joy at opening ceremony of Black History Month
The Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs hosts music performances, keynote address CAROLINE WANG Daily Staff Reporter
The University of Michigan’s Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs hosted the opening ceremony of Black History Month Tuesday afternoon. The opening ceremony consisted of spoken word, music performances and a keynote address delivered by Dr. Naomi André, professor of Women’s Studies. MESA’s theme for Black History Month 2022 is Black Joy. According to the Black History Month committee, “Black Joy shows that as Black people, despite the centuries of trauma we have experienced, we are proud to be who we are. No matter where we come from or what we identify as, we are one and we are happy to be Black.” The opening ceremony consisted of a spoken word performance by LSA sophomore Benjamin Colding titled “Joy is Pride”. “I can go down this Zoom call and bet money that dang near all of us have been slammed, sneered at, slided and slandered for, I don’t know, wearing caps indoors, wearing hoods when it’s cold, letting our hair chill in its natural state, and just not giving in to many unsung pressures emitted by an abundance of forces in society,” Colding said. “And instead of dropping out, and instead decided to pursue their ideal images of successes with nothing but twinkles in their eyes.” Colding said he feels pride and joy for the accomplishments of the Black community. “From dang near nothing, we built a culture that would sing its influence
globally, and ain’t there power in that?” Colding said. “With our predecessors as our teachers have we gained a top-tier education and ain’t there strength in that? With nothing but our hands and feet did we imbue ourselves within an abundance of skills and talents and ain’t there joy in that?” Neika White, a U-M alum and administrative assistant for MESA, spoke at the opening ceremony and said she believes Black joy is knowing you belong everywhere you go. “Black joy means that so many things keep happening to my people, I have to stand up and make a choice everyday that am I going to show up, or am I just going to be there,” White said. “Sometimes you have no choice to decide whether you are going to be there or not because the minute you show up you stand out.” Dillon Cathro, program manager for MESA, also spoke at the event and said Black History Month is important as a space for Black people to share their experiences and joy since these spaces are hard to come by. “Blackness is not a monolithic experience,” Cathro said. “Black, Blackness, Afro-descendentness, whatever you wanna call it, means something different to every person,” Dylan said. “But that experience being Black is unified. It’s not everyday that we get to have a space like this to share in commonality, to share in joy, because we are oftentimes talking about things that are not joyous when it applies to Black communities.”
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was reached and that it is an important part of the healing process for some of the survivors, he said he is still waiting to hear many of the details of the settlement. “We know what the number is, we don’t know all the provisions … We’re looking at probably a 60 or 70 page document when it’s all said and done,” Vaughn said. The settlement — which provides $460 million to the current claimants and allots the remaining $30 million to claimants who opt in before July 31, 2023 — was widely reported
to include a clause stipulating Vaughn end his protest. Vaughn said he wasn’t aware that his leaving was part of the settlement and was still evaluating the next steps for his protest. “I’m in a wait-and-see mode (about the status of his protest) because I don’t think anything has changed,” Vaughn said. “There still needs to be institutional reform within the University of Michigan as it pertains to student health, sexual assault and rape cover-ups.”
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Trigger Warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual assault. University of Michigan alumni and survivors of former U-M American Culture lecturer Bruce Confoth came together at a virtual press conference Monday morning to announce they would be filing a lawsuit against the University for failing to adequately protect students against a predatory professor. In total, there are eight U-M alumni — who attended the University between 2004 and 2017 and are survivors of Conforth’s abuse — involved with the lawsuit. They are being represented by Michigan law firm Grewal Law and said they will be filing the initial complaint with the Washington County Circuit Court. Several sexual assault allegations against Conforth, including those for inappropriate emails and rape, came to light on April 23, 2021. It wasn’t until 2017, Conforth retired from the University after previously winning the 2012 Golden Apple Award for most outstanding U-M instructor. Nolan Erickson, a legal counsel for some of the Conforth survivors, said the University was complacent
despite knowing of Conforth’s sexual misconduct allegations during his professorship. “Even after (the University) learned of the professor’s misconduct because of student complaints in 2008, it did not prevent him from committing further abuses or warn students about his behavior,” Erickson said. “What followed was nearly a decade of serial abuse in the form of sexual harassment and sexual abuse of students.” Katherine McMahan, who graduated from the University in 2008, is one of the survivors who spoke at Monday’s press conference. McMahan said Conforth had invited her and other students to a bar outside of class one night and bought everyone a round of drinks. She alleged that when she got up to use the restroom, Conforth cornered her, grabbed her waist and repeatedly asked her to sleep in his home. After that incident, McMahan said she received multiple emails from Conforth asking her to not report what had happened. “He hoped that I wouldn’t do anything rash (and that) he had his career to think about,” McMahan said. “Bruce knew what he did was wrong. It was not something a professor should do with a student and he was trying to guilt me into staying silent.” See ‘TELL THEM, Page 2
BUSINESS
Seven Michigan Starbucks locations unionize for greater autonomy, safer COVID-19 protocol
Majority of employees at these MI chains have signed union authorization cards RILEY HODDER
Daily Staff Reporter
Starbucks employees at seven Michigan locations — five in Ann Arbor — announced they are moving to unionize in protest of the company ending hazard pay during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the limited safety protocols. The news came after several other Starbucks locations across the country signaled their plans to unionize, including the
first company-owned store to successfully unionize in Buffalo, New York. The locations in Michigan submitted their petition for union elections to the National Labor Relations Board on Jan. 28. The Michigan locations will be organizing with Workers United (SEIU) and will also be joining the Starbucks Workers United movement. According to a press release obtained by The Michigan Daily, a majority of workers at the Michigan locations signed union authorization cards indicating their
support of the move to unionize. News of the unionization came as a result of rising frustrations among workers at the Michigan locations. Ryder Meilstrup-Eady, a shift supervisor at the Washtenaw Avenue location, detailed a harsh work environment, saying he and his coworkers often joked about the toll their work experiences had on their lives and relationships with other workers. “We all like to joke about work trauma, or how work trauma brings us together,” Meilstrup-
Eady said. “But honestly, that’s not really a joke.” Starbucks employees also said another source of stress falls on understaffing, a factor that many local and national businesses have recently experienced due to COVID-19. Jina Henderson — an employee at the Washtenaw Avenue location — detailed how understaffing affects them, especially in the midst of increased call-offs due to employees needing to call in sick.
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INDEX
Vol. CXXX, No. 65 ©2022 The Michigan Daily
N E WS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 ARTS...................4 STATEMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
MIC......................7 OPINION ...................9 SPORTS.....................11
News
2 — Wednesday, February 9, 2022
BUSINESS
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NEWS
Big snow brings out over 300 students for nighttime snowball fight on U-M Diag
As per tradition, the Wolverines celebrate six inches of snowfall Wednesday CARLIN PENDELL Daily Staff Reporter
ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
Vegan bakery chain Cinnaholic opens first Michigan location in Ann Arbor Local community members line up along East Liberty Street in anticipation of grand opening ELI FRIEDMAN Daily Staff Reporter Cinnaholic, an Atlanta-based vegan bakery chain with locations across the United States and Canada, opened its first Michigan location in Ann Arbor on Friday morning. The store sold its specialty cinnamon rolls at $1 to the customers braving the freezing temperatures for the opening event. U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell spoke at the ribbon cutting ceremony. She told the crowd — which stretched a block down East Liberty Street — she enjoys cinnamon rolls and is happy to have the new business in the city. “I am a cinnaholic … I will be their best customer,” Dingell said. “I’ll be in line first thing … This is an exciting day for Ann Arbor.” Deborah Boener and Doug Moeller, the owners of the Ann Arbor location, moved to Michigan after losing their California home to a wildfire in 2018. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Boener and Moeller said they were excited about their decision to open the bakery. “We saved for two years to try to figure out if we were going to rebuild the house,” Boener said. “And we just decided we were going to rebuild our lives instead.” The couple decided to open a Cinnaholic location after Moeller left the corporate world because they frequently ate at a Cinnaholic in Berkeley, California. “(We’re) just so thrilled to be
TELL THEM From Page 1 McMahan said she decided to report the incident to the Office of Institutional Equity — which was replaced in 2021 by the Equity, Civil Rights and Title IX Office — after she graduated. She said she waited until she was no longer a student to report Conforth so her ability to graduate would not be thrown into jeopardy. She said when she brought the emails between her and Conforth to Pamela Heatlie, the OIE senior director and Title IX coordinator at the time, Heatlie assured McMahan the allegations would be taken very seriously. McMahan said Heatlie then reached out to Conforth, asking him to corroborate McMahan’s account. “Pam emailed me to tell me that Bruce corroborated the events and that the department and the University were taking all the necessary steps to ensure this wouldn’t happen again,” McMahan said. “But Bruce was allowed to keep teaching.” Isabelle Brourman, a 2015 University graduate and another survivor of Conforth, alleged that the OIE had known about Conforth’s sexual harrassment and manipulation toward female students since 2008. Brourman said she first heard about Conforth freshman as a freshman in 2011 and met him in winter semester of her sophomore year in 2013. Brourman said going into her first year at the University, she knew Conforth’s classes were popular and often had long waitlists. She said she heard from other students that meeting with Conforth in person was the best way to try to get off the waitlist. “(When) I nervously approached him about taking one of his courses, he stared at me and then told me he would see what he could do,” Brourman said. “Moments later,
doing it in Ann Arbor,” Boener said. Located near the corner of East Liberty Street and S. 4th Ave., Cinnaholic will be open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week. Beyond their specialty cinnamon rolls, they also sell other desserts, including brownies and edible cookie dough. Their products are 100% vegan and allergen-friendly. Boener said she is looking forward to providing the community with another vegan food option. She said many people are surprised to learn the company’s cinnamon rolls are vegan when they first try them. “We want to be known as a really good cinnamon roll bakery, not just a vegan cinnamon roll bakery,” Boener said. Ann Arbor resident Elizabeth Wilkinson was first in line at Cinnaholic on opening day. Wilkinson said the event was exciting, even though it was cold outside, and she was looking forward to trying the half dozen cinnamon rolls she ordered. “I haven’t left my house in all of 2022, and I had errands to run, so I figured, ‘Why not?’” Wilkinson said. Wilkinson said she expects the bakery to do well among Ann Arbor customers. “I think the fact that it’s dairy free, that it’s vegan, I think it’s going to pull a lot of people,” Wilkinson said.
Though the center of campus is usually filled with students hurrying to classes, the University of Michigan Diag was uncharacteristically empty Wednesday afternoon. Only a handful of students bundled up with bulky jackets could be seen trudging through the six inches of snow that fell throughout the day Wednesday. However, just after 7 p.m., the Diag was packed with about 300 U-M students and thousands of airborne snowballs. It’s been almost exactly a year since the Diag was last transformed into a wintry battleground, proving once and for all that there’s nothing Wolverines love more than a good snowball fight. The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for Washtenaw County and the surrounding area from 6 a.m. Wednesday to 10 p.m. Thursday. As a result, the Ann Arbor Public School district chose to conduct classes virtually through Friday and city offices and non-essential services closed as well. The University’s Ann Arbor campus remained open throughout the week, though the Dearborn and Flint campuses moved classes online. Nonetheless, campus building closures affected students on the U-M Ann Arbor campus as well. The Shapiro Undergraduate
Library closed Wednesday evening at 8 p.m. rather than the usual 12 a.m. due to the inclement weather. The Martha Cook dining hall — which is only for residents of the building — also closed after lunch Wednesday due to staffing shortages, according to an email from Heather Guenther, director of communications for the Division of Student Life. All other dining halls across campus remained open. Students across campus also had to adjust to changes in course formats. While professors were allowed to hold classes in person, some chose to pivot to a hybrid or online format so commuting students could attend more easily. Art & Design sophomore Sarah Dettling said most of her classes were cancelled or moved online due to the weather Wednesday and Thursday. “The painting classes were cancelled because you can’t paint at home with oil paintings … and then the other ones were moved online,” Dettling said. “They were really short so it was basically just a snow day for me.” LSA freshman Nilisha Baid said all of her classes were also moved online or were recorded. Baid said she felt it was easy to quickly switch to online classes since everyone had experience attending class online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Having grown up in California, Baid also said was excited to enjoy a “snow day” on campus.
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Bruce began the grooming process. He managed to find my Facebook account and sent me a friend request.” Brourman said Conforth began contacting her from encrypted email accounts. Though she did not know he was the one sending her the emails until later, she said the anonymous sender claimed they were a powerful cult leader and threatened her safety if she did not allow Conforth to sexually abuse her. She said she took these threats seriously at the time. “I was told that (the anonymous cult leaders) were watching me, that they might kill previous romantic partners and that I was required to sexually service Bruce as a way to keep not only myself safe, but to also prevent his death,” Brourman said. In the summer of 2014, Brourman said she received an email threatening her life if she did not have sex with Conforth. “This time I arrived at the University of Michigan not as a willing student, but as a helpless hostage,” Brourman said. “Bruce locked his office door and began to rape me.” In 2016, Brourman and two other survivors filed Title IX reports to the OIE detailing Conforth’s abuse. Brourman said she was made aware that Heatlie was examining Conforth’s University email account at the time and found an explicit video Conforth had taken of Brourman. However, Brourman said Conforth allegedly told the OIE that she had consented to sexual interactions with him. After that, Brourman said OIE did not follow up with her about her Title IX report. “When (Heatlie) asked (Conforth) about it, he, a 65-year-old instructor, told (her) that he and I, a 23-year-old former student, were in a committed and consensual relationship,” Brourman said. “I was never asked (about it). I was never even contacted by the OIE. OIE was the only lifeline I had, the only people or agency that was privy to reports about his violations, and (they) felt
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no obligation to inquire into my well being.” Erickson said Brourman sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the University in June 2021 to obtain several documents and emails pertaining to her Title IX report. Erickson said as of Jan. 31, the University still has not responded to the FOIA requests. He said he worked with Brourman to file another FOIA lawsuit last week to pursue the documentation. Erickson said she has been frustrated by the extent to which it seems sexual survivors have to advocate for themselves to receive any sort of justice. “(Survivors) need better support, they need to know that they’re not alone,” Erickson said. “They need to know that this isn’t happening in isolation. That is something that has to change at the University of Michigan, and frankly, other institutions in the state of Michigan and across the country.” In an email to the Michigan Daily on Monday, University spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald wrote Conforth was covered by a collective bargaining agreement which requires several actions be taken before an individual is terminated. Fitzgerald wrote the University took the necessary actions to ensure he had no contact with students prior to his resignation and that Conforth was not offered any compensation or benefits in exchange for his resignation. “Mr. Conforth admitted to allegations of sexual misconduct that were made and a separation agreement outlined his permanent removal from the university, no contact with students and other requirements,” Fitzgerald wrote. “The university was prepared to initiate dismissal proceedings had he not first resigned.” Fitzgerald wrote the University is committed to protecting students and community members from misconduct and has added new policies such as prohibiting student-
teacher romantic relationships to facilitate that goal. “The university continues to take extraordinary measures to put critical protections in place for students and all members of our community on top of earlier protections,” Fitzgerald wrote. “We continue to work with the nationally recognized consulting firm of Guidepost Solutions on additional measures.” Brourman also spoke on the history of silencing survivors at the University, including allegations in the Philbert and Anderson cases. She urged the University to take action and accountability for administrative sexual misconduct. The University recently reached a settlement agreement with survivors of the late doctor Robert Anderson after 15 months of mediation between Anderson survivors and the University. The $490 million settlement follows months of protest and over 1,050 survivors coming forward with sexual misconduct allegations against Anderson. Former University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel was terminated by the Board of Regents in early January after an internal investigation revealed he had been engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a University subordinate. Documents obtained from the Detroit Free Press reveal Schlissel could still return to the University this fall as a tenured professor due to a faculty tenure position he is entitled to under his initial contract with the University. “Firing the President does not fix this issue,” Brourman said. “Changing a Title IX office while keeping the same administration and procedures in place does not fix this issue. Your empty, false messaging every time a new story comes out will not fix this issue. Tell the truth. Tell them what you allowed to happen to us.” Daily Staff Reporter Vanessa Kiefer can be reached at vkiefer@umich.edu.
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A look back at eight years of UMich under former U-M President Mark Schlissel The Michigan Daily recalls major administrative events from 2014 to 2022, year by year.
GEORGE WEYKAMP, ANNA FIFELSKI & BROOKE HALAK Daily News Editor, Daily Staff Reporters
The Board of Regents fired former University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel effective immediately on Jan. 15 following a third-party investigation revealing an inappropriate relationship between Schlissel and a subordinate. The investigation — which uncovered over two years of emails and text messages between Schlissel and the unnamed subordinate — marked the end of a tumultuous presidency since he first took office in 2014. The Michigan Daily took a look back at events that happened during the Schlissel presidency, year by year. This article represents a summary of Schlissel’s presidency over the past eight years and is not representative of all events which took place during that time. 2014: Students, faculty express excitement over the prospect of a new president On Jan. 24, 2014 the Board of Regents and now-Interim President Mary Sue Coleman held a special meeting to announce that then-Brown University Provost Mark Schlissel would succeed Coleman as the University’s 14th President. At the meeting, Schlissel said he hoped not to lead from the “top down,” but to listen to students and faculty first and foremost. “The best ideas come from the people who do the teaching and the learning, so that’s why I need to do some listening first,” Schlissel said. Schlissel had served as Brown University Provost for three years and Dean of the Biological Sciences Department at the University of California-Berkeley from 2008-2011. With an MD-PhD degree in physiological chemistry, Schlissel was a prominent researcher and
continued to publish papers throughout his tenure at Berkeley and Brown. “(Research) was his life,” Kwan Chow, one of Schlissel’s former students at UC-Berkeley, told The Michigan Daily in 2014. “He ran a lab. Two years doing administrative work isn’t going to erase that.” On Oct. 26, graduate students at Brown University penned an open letter warning graduate students at The University of Schlissel’s commitment to anti-labor and austerity while he was their provost. “We ask graduate students at the University of Michigan to join us in reminding Mark Schlissel about a central lesson of liberal thought: Academic freedom isn’t clean and quiet, and civil discourse isn’t polite and restrained,” the letter reads. “Not all great ideas with public value are profitable. When it comes to racism, sexism, labor exploitation, appropriation of public resources and overall devaluation of the people who work, teach and research for the classroom, there can’t and won’t be consensus.” Schlissel’s appointment came after an over $315,000 presidential search that spanned over eight months and was met with initial hopefulness from students and faculty. Dentistry professor Rex Holland, then-vice chair of the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, said he was impressed with Schlissel’s credentials and excited to see him lead the University. “I’m very impressed with President-elect Schlissel’s credentials,” Holland said at the SACUA meeting in 2014. “I have great confidence that President-elect Schlissel will be a splendid leader for a splendid institution.” Members of the Central Student Government in 2014 were also pleased with the student-centric approach Schlissel displayed in his announcement address. “(Schlissel) mentioned working with students at
every opportunity that he had,” then-CSG Vice President Bobby Dishell said at a 2014 CSG meeting. “That’s something that we’re very much looking forward to, and every student should be very excited about.” Schlissel began his initial five-year appointment on July 1, 2014, with an initial base salary of $750,000. In September 2014 — just four months into his tenure as President — a graduate student launched a petition calling for the removal of then-athletic director David Brandon. Brandon was criticized by students for raising the price of student tickets and for the slump in student attendance to football games, as well as ignoring player safety concerns. The petition — which garnered over 10,000 signatories in just over 24 hours — came amid concern that Schlissel’s Ivy League background made him incapable of managing a Big 10 football team. Schlissel ultimately accepted Brandon’s resignation on Oct. 31, 2014. “Dave feels that it would be in the best interests of our student-athletes, the athletic department and the University community if he moved on to other challenges and allowed the important work of the department and the University to continue without daily distractions,” Schlissel said at a press conference announcing the resignation. 2015 brings struggles with Fraternity and Sorority Life party culture, sexual misconduct in first year of presidency Schlissel began his tenure as U-M President with several initiatives including streamlining sustainability and addressing sexual misconduct on campus. In September, Schlissel met with members of all University FSL chapters to discuss alcohol abuse and sexual misconduct – two issues he said ran rampant within Fraternity and Sorority Life. Schlissel said the
excessive party culture devalued the University’s reputation for academic excellence. “The value of (alumni) degrees are gonna go down because the reputation of the University of Michigan won’t be the excitement in the Big House or our teams doing well under our fantastic new coach (Jim Harbaugh),” Schlissel said. “It’s not gonna be the kids who receive the Rhodes Scholarships and the Fulbright Scholarships, and the famous professors who do the work that you’re going to get reflected on for or the National Medal for the Arts that our faculty won this past week. It’s going to be the ‘Shmacked’ videos. So it’s really up to you what the value of your education is going to be, what the reputation of this institution’s going to be.” Schlissel’s meeting marked the first time members of all FSL chapters gathered together in their over 170-year history. The University also introduced Wolverine Pathways — a rigorous mentorship program for middle and high school students that would eventually accumulate with full tuition — in October. Pathways was an initiative to increase racial and socioeconomic diversity amongst the student body. “Inseparable from our efforts to enhance our academic excellence as a public good is our work to improve diversity, equity and inclusion at the University of Michigan,” Schlissel said. “We cannot be excellent without being diverse, in the broadest sense of that word.” 2016 brings debate surrounding free speech on campus The 2016 election introduced a point of contention on campus. Following former President Donald Trump’s surprise victory on Nov. 8, Schlissel penned an email to the University community providing resources for students seeking support in the aftermath of the election.
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Wednesday, February 9, 2022 — 3
CAMPUS LIFE
Political activists, scholars speak on learning from Native American thought, environmental impact
Symposium explores contributions of Indigenous knowledge, legal framework SEJAL PATIL Daily Staff Reporter
The Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies conducted an online event Friday afternoon to discuss the possibility of “radical futures” through an analysis of Indigenous political thought. Featuring four panelists, the symposium explored the contributions of Indigenous knowledge, science and political thought. The event also focused on recognizing the importance of Indigenous people for the future instead of simply framing them in the past. The event opened with remarks from Mrinalini Sinha, event moderator and director of the EIHS. Sinha said the EIHS has worked extensively to foster a setting where individuals can participate together in vigorous intellectual exchange, as displayed by this symposium and other discussions. “The inspiration for this event was a part of our year-long theme of recovery,” Sinha said. “We were wanting to think about the future, but not in a kind of linear way but rather by overcoming events from the past. On the issue of climate justice, for example, more privileged people probably think of the environmental disaster as a future event. But Indigenous people have watched the extinction of species and seen environmental disasters committed for centuries and have figured out ways to adapt to it, which we can learn from.” Ana María León, assistant Art History professor, began with a discussion of the legal framework of Indigenous thought and said the Constitution gives people the ability to litigate the ecosystem on behalf of their personal gain, which consequently leads to environmental degradation. “Environmental entities should realistically give people the ability to advocate for their environment and outdoor space,” León said. “However their actions, both on the left and right, are solely political. … The vast resources of capital that could be used to protect the environment have no bearing if the state decides to go another way.”
Sinha then redirected the conversation to Rebecca D. Hardin, associate professor at U-M’s School of Environment and Sustainability. Hardin, who has conducted research in South Africa, said her work was eye opening, particularly her analysis of the Royal Bafokeng Nation. “When I saw the inner workings of the Bafokeng Nation, I was in awe,” Hardin said. “The champagne flutes and Christian Dior suits were a deft and creative combination of not only their sartorial forms but also their governance form … these strategic acts are in danger of colonial romanticization.” Kyle Whyte, a professor in the School of Environment and Sustainability, then spoke on his work in the climate change sector of Indigenous people. “All that the term climate change indicates, is that people who have been sheltered against colonialism now think that they may have something to lose,” Whyte said. “But, (Indigenous people) have faced years and years of climate and environmental chaos that we have adapted to and if these methods are employed, people may not lose as much as they think.” When asked about land defense strategies and government change, Whyte said it is relevant to compare the past and the present. He shared information about a tribe in Oklahoma in the early 20th century, the same tribe’s situation today and his perspective on what should be done in response to the changes. “The tribes were dealing with environmental change that they didn’t cause, and their lands were in the process of being liquidated,” Whyte said. “Land was going unstewarded and the U.S. government was forcing them to adopt democratic processes. We’re engaging in land defense, seeking to take back our government and make our own decisions about technology infrastructure.” David Myer Temin, assistant professor in political science, said his side of the discussion aligned with an overview of the Land Back Movement — a movement aiming to return ownership of Indigenous lands to Indigenous communities.
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RESEARCH
UMich ranked topfunded institution in social science research in the U.S.
From aging impact to wealth inequality, take a look at some of these projects JINGQI ZU Daily Staff Reporter
The University of Michigan was ranked the top-funded institution in social science research in the U.S., according to the Fiscal Year 2020 Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey recently released by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The survey measures the annual research and development (R&D) spending by academic institutions across all academic disciplines. Higher education R&D expenditures increased 3.3% from the previous fiscal year to $86.4 billion in total, according to the NSF report. Out of the 915 universities and colleges included in the survey, the University’s Ann Arbor campus ranked second in FY 2020 R&D expenditures in all fields. Across all social science areas, the University topped the list with a $187 million R&D expenditure. It was also placed in the top 10 in five of the six social science subfields. The University is home to Institute for Social Research (ISR), the world’s largest academic social science survey and research organization. Dr. Kathleen Cagney, director of ISR, said the way funding works in ISR is entrepreneurial-like.
ISR researchers receive grants from different agencies and foundations, rather than having funds be allocated by a committee. “Researchers come together and they develop their own research programs,” Cagney said. “They will write lots of different types of grants … that go to places like the National Institute of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other agencies.” Cagney also emphasized ISR’s role in creating the environment that values multidisciplinary research. “One thing that makes (the University) distinctive (is) to have so many social science disciplines that are engaging in novel and cuttingedge research,” Cagney said. “The intersection of disciplines (is) where novel research emerges.” To get an idea of what kind of social science research is being done at the University, The Michigan Daily sat down with three social researchers to discuss their work and contributions to the field. Getting older in America Funded by the National Institute of Aging and the Social Security Administration, the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is a longitudinal study that collects survey data from a sample of approximately 20,000 people over
Design by Reid Graham
the age of 50 in America every two years to understand the challenges and effects of aging. The survey asks participants about a wide range of topics from income, health, employment and lifestyle factors — all data that can be used for aging research. With high scientific productivity, HRS is now a model for longitudinal studies around the world. David Weir, director of HRS, said the study began in 1992 in an effort to combine economic and health information of elderly population to help inform older generations. “Our job is not to write the paper about the elderly,” Weir said. “Our job is to collect data and get it out for
other people to use.” Weir said HRS has maintained funding for 30 years, which is impressive for any longitudinal study. “The longitudinal studies often go for five to 10 years and that’s it,” Weir said. “So to go 30 years is pretty unique and to do that, we have to have very innovative applications every time.” Minority representation in the study is one area Weir said the HRS is focused on, especially since many of these groups are underrepresented in social science research. “One of the things that we’ve become really valuable for is the representation of Blacks and His-
panics,” Weir said. “A lot of NIH studies don’t have much representation of those groups and they’re definitely understudied in terms of biomedical research. So that’s one of our strengths … (and) so we have innovations around adding different cohorts of minority traditional minority disciplines.” HRS also uses innovative strategies to collect genetic information for quantitative analysis. Weir said the DNA collection can be used to assess general risks for diabetes, alcoholism and mental illness, among other factors. “What we are finding is that when you look across the whole
genome, millions of pieces of information, you can find clusters of things that do predict higher risk,” Weir said. “So in terms of the connection of genetics to social science, we’re not (saying) ‘Here’s the gene for diabetes’, but we can give you a score based on that person’s whole genome of their relative risk of developing (the disease).” Weir added that collaboration among epidemiologists, psychologists and other researchers to analyze data across different disciplines is vital to the project. Weir said that being at the University of Michi-
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4 — Wednesday, February 9, 2022
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The Coming-of-Age B-Side M. DEITZ
Digital Culture Beat Editor
Everyone grows up. It’s the inevitable consequence of life ticking forward one second at a time, but just because we grow up doesn’t mean we are grown-ups. We all come of age distinctly, surrounded by different people and existing in different circumstances, but we are united in the fact that growing up sucks. It’s a beautiful, disgusting, painful, euphoric process that asks us to strip ourselves bare, raw and vulnerable before building us back into the person we are meant to become. Like every other difficult experience in life, the best way to explore coming of age is through art. This B-Side is a gallery walk through eight wonderful writers as they explore where coming of age intersected with their lives. — Mik Deitz, Senior Arts Editor The enormity of 17 has no space for sickness by Managing Arts Editor Lillian Pearce Seventeen is the idolized coming-ofage age. It’s not representative of a number necessarily but of a concept. The idea of 17 has been explored and exploited in
Hollywood since 1965 — “You are sixteen going on seventeen / baby it’s time to think / Better beware, be canny and careful / Baby, you’re on the brink.” Seventeen is notable because it’s between two symbolic ages in American culture. Read more here. ‘Big Mouth’ puts the ‘coming’ in ‘coming of age’ by Daily Arts Contributor Maya Levy Created by childhood best friends Nick Kroll (“Kroll Show”) and Andrew Goldberg (“Family Guy”), the series is a profane retelling of their own experiences in middle school — acne scars and all. Now in its fifth season, the series has developed a complex cast of tweens accompanied by an array of personified, monstrous pubescent emotions. Where most coming-of-age stories show how things might get worse before they get better, in “Big Mouth,” things just keep getting worse, forcing us to endure the extreme (and often graphic) truths of puberty. Read more here. Hindsight is 2020: A look back on ‘(500) Days of Summer’ by Senior Arts Editor Katrina Stebbins The older I get, the less I like hindsight. I know that since we’re only the
sum of all of our past selves, that selfreflection is healthy and so on. However, there are moments when I think back to some of the things I wore or liked or did or believed when I was younger and I vow to never reminisce again. When I think back, especially to high school, I’m forced to recognize that I was probably a pretty fucking unbearable teenager. Read more here. Self-Love and ‘The Perks of Being by Daily TV Beat Editor Emmy Snyder Hot take: I hate syllabus week. Better known as “sylly week,” the first week of college classes in a semester is often referenced affectionately as the final week in which a student could condone their laziness and theoretically couldn’t yet be behind. For some students, it’s purgatory at worst, party time at best. For me, though, sylly week (and its single day high school equivalent) is misery. Every semester, I feel as if I am staring up a mountain, lacking both the desire and proper equipment to climb. Read more here. Lessons on loss: A defense of by Daily Arts Writer Andrew Pluta
My TikTok feed has only ever dabbled in the literary subgenre of BookTok. I’ll get a book recommendation once a month, at most. But for whatever rea-
Holden Caulfield. After seeing so many nearly identical angry takes, I caved. I bought a used copy of “Catcher” to reread it and get to the bottom of why so
Design by Sarah Chung
son, I get a disproportionate amount of content hating on J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye.” Some creators criticize the work as a whole; others go to great lengths to tear apart its protagonist,
many grown adults were insistent on verbally berating a fictional 16-year-old. Read more here.
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My own Mr. Keating: Why I love ‘Dead Poets Society’ HANNAH CARAPELLOTTI Daily Arts Writer
“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived.” I first watched “Dead Poets Society” my junior year of high school; its poster taunted me, sitting unwatched in my watchlist. When one of my classmates learned I had never seen it before, she was outraged. “Why not?! Your mom is an English teacher, for crying out loud!” I watched it shortly after and loved it, just as she knew I would. I then recommended it to another friend who hadn’t seen it, who came
up to me days later and told me it made him cry. At the prestigious preparatory school Welton Academy, a group of young students is inspired by their new English teacher, John Keating (Robin Williams, “The Angriest Man in Brooklyn”). It is under Keating’s direction that the boys discover the beauty of poetry, resurrecting the Dead Poets Society — a club which Keating founded when he himself was a student at Welton. Through their newfound love of words, the boys learn to think for themselves and pursue their own passions, much to the chagrin of their parents and school’s more conservative administration. Featuring Peter Weir’s beautiful shots of New England autumn and a score by Maurice Jarre that I can only
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he encouraged us to do more than simply memorize information and regurgitate it into an essay. For our circles of hell projects while reading Dante’s “Inferno,” students came in with colorful posters, LEGO dioramas and even a Minecraft server. McNally was mischievous: He admitted to us that he would mess with Wikipedia pages so that he could tell when a student hadn’t
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WHISPER WHISPER “wordle is my daily”
done proper research. Instead of detentions he made us write lines as punishment, only to rip them up when we handed them in the next day. “You waste my time, I’ll waste yours,” he’d say. (I never had to write any, but walking into class and seeing a sentence on the board was amusing.) Read more at MichiganDaily.com
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ventional Keating, then the beige walls of my Catholic high school were the uninspiring grounds of Welton. I don’t mean to bash anyone, because I enjoyed my time in that building; the ways that Mr. McNally structured his classes and treated us students simply felt different than all of my other teachers at the time. His lectures were much more similar to a college-style seminar — he preferred fostering discussion to reading off a PowerPoint word-for-word while we sat in silence, copying notes. We may not have been ripping pages out of our textbooks like the students do in the movie, but discussing whether Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte were gay for each other in Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited” gave us a similar thrill. Like Keating,
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describe as nostalgic, this movie has become a comfort film for me, even though it breaks my heart without fail. The film became a staple at movie nights; my close circle of friends never got tired of it despite the countless rewatches (though our varying interpretations of its message have caused debate). We fell in love with the wholesome characters, laughing at their teenage antics and cheering when they stood up for themselves. But what left a lasting impact on me was Williams’ performance, mixing humor with kindness and encouragement as a classroom role model. It only makes sense then that we would see our senior year English teacher as our very own Mr. Keating. If Mr. McNally was the uncon-
“Good luck on MATH115 exam everyone”
Crying in a car alone: Coming of age just like in the movies ERIN EVANS
Daily Arts Writer
“And I had a feeling that I belonged. I had a feeling I could be someone.” As this quote from Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” evokes in its magnificent and haunting chorus, there is something about flying along in a car that makes you feel like you can leave what you know behind and do anything. While the narrator of this song does not drive the car herself, it is still the object that both literally carries her away from home and figuratively carries her into a new chapter of her life. One where she belongs. One where she can “be someone.” Like so many songs and stories describe, my coming of age coincided with the time I learned to drive. It was my junior year of high school. I spent a great deal of time learning how to make a left turn across an intersection in less than a full minute and sitting in a classroom watching obligatory videos about how quickly you would die if you hit a tree going 55 miles an hour. When I got my license, I was apprehensive, having come to the conclusion that the only way to be safe was to live underground — far from any roads, for the rest of my life. While overcoming the fear instilled in me from Driver’s Ed, I was also facing another fear: My best friend had gone to Sweden as a foreign exchange student, leaving me to realize how few truly close friends I had. Just as I was experiencing driving alone for the first time, I was experiencing an increased loneliness in the rest of my life. I don’t think that you can “come of age” without spending time alone, a theory supported by popular media. Look at Olivia Rodrigo’s 2021 song “drivers license,” in which she drives alone past places she once thought she would drive with her ex-boyfriend, taking away some of the power these places — and the breakup — hold over her. Or take Greta Gerwig’s 2017 film “Lady Bird,”
where punky teenager Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan, “Little Women”) finally leaves Sacramento for college in New York City. Only after leaving her best friend and family and experiencing the freedom of being alone, hooking up with a sophisticated man she hardly knows and getting so drunk that she ends up in a hospital, does Lady Bird realize she needs to change. In the final scene, she calls and leaves a message for her parents. She addresses her mom, asking if she felt emotional the first time she drove through Sacramento, because despite having known the city for her whole life, it felt different when Lady Bird first drove through it herself. It is in this final scene where she first calls herself by her given name, Christine, rather than using the moniker she chose for herself. Being alone for the first time intersects with her acceptance of her identity as her mother’s daughter, despite their strained relationship. Unfortunately for me, junior year of high school was not an ideal time for isolation. I had a crush on someone and was too afraid of rejection to act on it. I instead fell down a pit of insecurities when hiding my feelings didn’t make anyone fall in love with me. I convinced myself that I was not good enough in any way, be that my personality, of which I was certain I had none, or my body. I became closed-off from the friends who were still there because I felt they didn’t care about me. The truth was, they didn’t know anything was wrong because I never said anything about it. I had never been one to talk much about my feelings, and until that year, that had felt like a strength. Suddenly, this trait isolated me and convinced me I had no one to talk to if I wanted to. Reflection makes it seem impossible that I let these very junior-year-ofhigh-school problems devastate me as much as they did. We’ve all been there. (Please tell me we’ve all been there.) Read more at MichiganDaily.com
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Wednesday, February 9, 2022 — 5
‘Minecraft’ gave us the soundtrack to a generation JACK MOESER Daily Arts Writer
About a year ago, I ran into an old friend during the commute home from one of my classes. Given the state of the world in 2021, that commute was, of course, entirely virtual, and consisted merely of moving a cursor from the big red “Leave Meeting” button on Zoom to the power down button on the Windows start menu. But during my cursor’s brief virtual transit across the screen, it passed by a familiar face, somehow unchanged in the years since we’d first met: the “Minecraft” launcher icon. It had been at least a year since I had played or thought about “Minecraft,” and on that day, I was eager to jump back in.
The game was a huge part of my childhood, so I was hoping to recapture a piece of my youth. Yet, for as much as I remember loving it, the gameplay didn’t captivate me like it once did. Despite the amount of time that had passed since I last played “Minecraft,” I still remembered exactly how to progress, which incidentally made my achievements feel trivial. It’s hard not to compare this lackluster experience to my Herculean memory of my younger self, whose existence was largely defined by overcoming the game’s various obstacles. I sped through the beginning of the game with ease, but my playthrough ended abruptly — not because I made a mistake in the game, but because I pushed the technical capabilities of my underpowered laptop too far.
‘Big Mouth’ puts the ‘coming’ in coming of age MAYA LEVY
Daily Arts Contributor
The coming-of-age trope has been a classic for centuries, consistently employed in film, television and literature to fill our hearts with the nostalgic saga of maturation. The bildungsroman — literally “novel of education” — serves as a glowing example of personal growth, recounting downfalls and mistakes from which one learns and matures into a better person. The archetypal bildungsroman often romanticizes this journey, downplaying the painstaking process of growing up. For example, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” gloriously uplifts a socially awkward freshman to a life of enjoyment and discovery. The story has its down moments, but they are ultimately smothered by a more powerful joie de vivre. Even “Little Women,” a narrative full of family tragedy and painful young love, is told in beau-
tiful detail and ends with ultimate success. “Call Me By Your Name,” “The Breakfast Club,” “The Princess Bride” — all these classic coming-ofage stories tell us that life will be beautiful if we can just get through a couple of awkward moments. Netflix’s television series “Big Mouth” tells a different story. Created by childhood best friends Nick Kroll (“Kroll Show”) and Andrew Goldberg (“Family Guy”), the series is a profane retelling of their own experiences in middle school — acne scars and all. Now in its fifth season, the series has developed a complex cast of tweens accompanied by an array of personified, monstrous pubescent emotions. Where most coming-ofage stories show how things might get worse before they get better, in “Big Mouth,” things just keep getting worse, forcing us to endure the extreme (and often graphic) truths of puberty. Read more at MichiganDaily.com
By attempting to load into the Nether Dimension, I tanked the game’s graphical performance and allowed a low-level enemy to kill me before I could even see it. I pushed the game to its limits; I broke it, and it broke me. Frustrated and disappointed, I closed the game for what remains, to this day, the final time. Even though I was disappointed by the gameplay of “Minecraft” during my last playthrough, something else unexpectedly captivated me: the music, composed by Daniel Rosenfeld (a.k.a. C418). I had never cared much for the soundtrack of “Minecraft,” but when I first heard the mellow piano arpeggio of C418’s “Wet Hands” fade in on my most recent playthrough, I was immediately transported from
soulless, resource-gathering gameplay to another realm, one far beyond the menial tasks ( both in the game and in real life) that kept me tethered down to this temporal dimension. I was instantly lost in ancient memories of the game, memories I didn’t even know I had. Within my mind, I casually meandered between entire years of my life: I had become unstuck in time. I remembered the first few times I played the game, coming home from school and building grand buildings on my own in creative mode. I remembered staying up late to play survival mode with friends and the genuine fear we felt as we slayed monsters. I even remembered the lonelier later years, returning to playing by myself as my friends slowly lost interest in the game,
just before I did too.
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Hindsight is 20/20: A look back on ‘(500) Days of Summer’ KATRINA STEBBINS Senior Arts Editor
The older I get, the less I like hindsight. I know that since we’re only the sum of all of our past selves, that self-reflection is healthy and so on. However, there are moments when I think back to some of the things I wore or liked or did or believed when I was younger and I vow to never reminisce again. When I think back, especially to high school, I’m forced to recognize that I was probably a pretty fucking unbearable teenager. This is a relatively easy thing to forgive — I think I’d be hard-pressed to find an adult who’s especially fond of their high school self — but sometimes looking back genuinely makes me mad. My coming of age was a clumsy one. I was frequently so wrapped up in my fixation of the month that I forgot to develop any sense of selfawareness. My conceptions of life and love and all of the Big Stuff were
more heavily informed by those fixations than by my actual experiences. I loved the ideas of things more than I could possibly love them for what they actually were. One of those fixations— and a foundational text for my understanding of love — was “(500) Days of Summer,” a rom-com but not a love story. It warns us of this right from the beginning by way of a golden-throated, omniscient narrator (Richard McGonagle, “Regular Show”) whose matter-offact commentary bookends the film. As impressionable as I was, I don’t know if I was ever really convinced that it was a love story, if only for the simple fact that the couple at its center don’t end up together. My biggest takeaway, though, was always the protagonist Tom’s (Joseph GordonLevitt, “Mr. Corman”) romanticism: his belief in fate and certain absolute truths about love. I never registered that those things were doomed to keep him from learning anything substantive about himself or how he conducts himself in relationships.
Rather, I figured they were things to strive for and emulate. I can’t be too hard on my younger self for that, though; “(500) Days of Summer” is sort of a deceptive film. Its suggestions of Tom’s inalterable
like a happy one. When the 500 days that revolve around the titular Summer (Zooey Deschanel, “New Girl”) inevitably come to a close, he meets a woman, aptly named Autumn (Minka Kelly, “Titans”), and a recur-
idealism-to-a-fault are subtle enough to go over the heads of people more intelligent than 17-year-old me. In her defense, though, the ending is played
ring intertitle marking the days ticks from “500” back down to “1.”
Design by Grace Filbin
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Indian-ish Nachos With Cheddar, Black Beans and Chutney By Priya Krishna, Ritu Krishna
Normalize tailgating on non-game days. University of Michigan students now have access to New York Times Cooking — which means your normal food routine just became anything but.
Activate your free Cooking subscription.
Arts
6 — Wednesday, February 9, 2022
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Self-Love and ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ EMMY SNYDER TV Beat Editor
Hot take: I hate syllabus week. Better known as “sylly week,” the first week of college classes in a semester is often referenced affectionately as the final week in which a student could condone their laziness and theoretically couldn’t yet be behind. For some students, it’s purgatory at worst, party time at best. For me, though, sylly week (and its single day high school equivalent) is misery. Every semester, I feel as if I am staring up a mountain, lacking both the desire and proper equipment to climb. I remember the first day of junior year of high school the most clearly. As I moved from classroom to classroom, one uncomfortable metal chair to the next, each of my teachers told me they “meant business” and droned on about the seemingly unending list of assignments I would face. Each one felt like another stone dropped in my hiking backpack. By the end of the day, I hadn’t even begun the trek to the top but I had collapsed under the weight of the stones regardless. I escaped to the solace of my room. The walls had recently been painted gray to cover the aqua and lavender optimism of my youth and now generated the visual equivalent of white noise. I had many thoughts that afternoon, but I remember only one: the day was exactly as bad as I thought it would be. I sought comfort then, as I had on many other desperate occasions, in “The Perks of
Being a Wallflower.” The Tumblr-esque film was chock-full of the aesthetic I so admired in my teenage years while excluding the excessive chain-smoking of the eponymous novel that so discomforted me before my exposure to my own chosen vices. Although my attraction was (and still is) to Sam (Emma Watson, “Return to Hogwarts”), I didn’t know yet that it was the soft touch of another woman’s lips I yearned for. I wanted to love her, be loved by her and, most of all, to be her, but it was Charlie (Logan Lerman, “Fury”) in whom I most saw myself. I felt his loneliness, his tears and I knew exactly what he meant when he said he was “both happy and sad … and trying to figure out how that could be.” I saw Charlie’s depression play out on screen, giving me the permission I needed to process my feelings, though I didn’t yet have a name for those feelings that we shared. When Sam offered Charlie a drink and said, “welcome to the Island of Misfit Toys,” I hoped for the day that I would be offered a similar sense of belonging. When Patrick (Ezra Miller, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”) read aloud, “Chapter One: surviving your fascist shop teacher who needs to put kids down to feel big,” and then added, “Oh wow, this is useful guys we should read on,” I cracked a smile — even on my darkest day. When Sam and Patrick implored Charlie to write a book about them and call it “the Slut and the Falcon,” I imagined possible plotlines that the book could have. When Sam and
Charlie kissed under the fairy lights to ensure that the first person to ever kiss Charlie would be someone who truly loved him, I wished my first kiss had been so picturesque and kind but decided not to abandon all hope that my next could be. Years passed and I had not seen this film in a long time. Not for lack of trying, but when I attempted to watch it, it generated the opposite sensations it once did. Rather than feeling like I was wrapped in a warm blanket, I experienced the profound discomfort of an itchy sweater. I wouldn’t last 20 minutes. I started skipping over scenes, dragging the cursor past minutes of dialogue that used to mean everything to me in hopes that I might be able to enjoy the rest of it, just a little. Still, I could hardly bear to look, and I know why: I felt ashamed of the person I used to be and Charlie reminded me too much of her. I had grown enough that I no longer was that person, but not enough to forgive her. The phase of my life where Charlie was my closest friend was characterized by unrelenting self-loathing, not the least of which was centered around my frustration at feeling such seemingly unexplainable sadness. I couldn’t banish those feelings, and I felt it should have been easy to do so. It wasn’t. I can’t really say what finally enabled me to watch the film. There wasn’t one wonderful movie therapist who changed my life in a session, a breakup that finally woke me up inside or a rock bottom I hit that spurred me to change (although I hit many). They say that you can’t love
another person if you don’t love yourself, and I’m here to tell you that that’s not even a little bit true. Even when I had little but contempt for myself, the
for growing into the person I am now, did it become possible for me to enjoy my favorite movie again. About a month ago, I tweeted (or won-
Design by Sarah Chung
love I felt for the important people in my life never wavered. But, it is true that when you’re at peace with yourself, you can love others best. I wasn’t initially inspired to get better out of love for myself, but because I wanted to give the best love possible to the people I care about. I realized that as my current self, I wasn’t doing that. Even if you don’t start off doing it for yourself, what matters is that you started in the first place. Only once I realized that I could simultaneously not be particularly fond of the person I once was and also proud of her
dered aloud for all the internet to hear) if being the same version of myself around each of my loved ones, even those that did not associate with each other, was self-actualization in action. In the same hour, I tweeted that I can’t believe Willem Dafoe is a real name, so how much I have matured is certainly in question, but how much I have grown is not (especially because I finally put an app time limit on my Twitter). Today, for the sake of journalism, I watched the film. I didn’t skip any scenes; I didn’t look away. It felt like a hug from an old friend.
Lessons on loss: A defense of Holden Caulfield ANDREW PLUTA Daily Arts Writer
My TikTok feed has only ever dabbled in the literary subgenre of BookTok. I’ll get a book recommendation once a month, at most. But for whatever reason, I get a disproportionate amount of content hating on J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye.” Some creators criticize the work as a whole; others go to great lengths to tear apart its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. After seeing so many nearly identical angry takes, I caved. I bought a used copy of “Catcher” to re-read it and get to the bottom of why so many grown adults were insistent on verbally berating a fictional 16-year-old. No doubt, Holden’s narration style is annoying. The first couple pages alone left me both frustrated and amazed with the ratio of “goddam” and “hell” to all other words. Holden’s hypercritical and cynical scope of viewing the external world was also quite jarring, which should say a lot considering I have edited my fair share of Daily Arts’s most cutting reviews over the last two years. While these hurdles were fairly quick to adjust to, Holden’s contrarianism and emotional stagnation made the novel lack the satisfaction of other coming-ofage works in which the reader or viewer can witness the adolescent protagonist mature before their very eyes. It’s easy to enjoy the
coming-of-age catharsis of high school students realizing the arbitrariness of cliques and cultivating friendships across them (à la “The Breakfast Club”) but Holden’s situation is simply incomparable. As I read more, though, I made it to a crucial scene that I hadn’t remembered, and that the TikTokers had conveniently omitted. In a passing but vivid vignette, Holden recalls the pain of his younger brother’s passing before abruptly distracting himself with other ideas — a behavior and narration device that quickly becomes as ingrained as his excessive crassness. Holden yearns to tell the reader about his late brother Allie, and he does so sporadically through stories that always seem prematurely cut off. While his narration style can be choppy in general, these abrupt endings typically come at especially emotional moments and reflect overwhelmedness rather than merely a short attention span. The bulk of Holden’s coming of age takes place three years before “Catcher” does, with Allie’s passing. The novel itself reflects the aftermath of a child forced to deal with a level of trauma that can plague adults indefinitely. Risking banality, Holden came of age too soon. Salinger’s depiction of loss is a realistic one, with the goal being merely surviving rather than thriving. When I read “Catcher” in high school this wasn’t clear to me, but my recent revisit came in the same year as the loss of a close friend.
And I’m not ashamed to say, I saw some of Holden’s grieving habits and mentalities reflected in myself. The role of distraction in Holden’s psyche often resonated with me. Just as he could only reminisce about memories of Allie in small doses, I could not linger on my own memories for too long at a time, giving his erratic recollection some clarity. It was not as though I consciously chose to stop reminiscing — my brain would only let me produce a few moments at a time, perhaps as subconscious self care. Holden’s relationship with distraction in a broader sense pervades the novel in a way akin to its role in my own coping toolbox. Sometimes, Holden is met with a wave of sudden restlessness and disdain for his existence, and he decides he needs to do something — anything to get his mind off it. It could be the middle of the night, but if Holden needs to wander and look for a task, he doesn’t hesitate. “Night walks” have become a part of my vocabulary in a similar manner. Sometimes that deep restlessness sets in when I wish I could be sleeping and, knowing I won’t be able to sleep anyway, I’ll wander around to see if there’s anything new I can notice. If there’s some happy thoughts I can think. Rereading “Catcher” has made me even more willing to act on these task cravings. Holden has his fair share of bad takes, but he’s right that it’s never good to lay and simmer with negative thoughts. In terms of his worldview itself,
I would be wrong to omit Holden’s feelings about phonies. While “hell” and “goddam” would likely rank first and second in their frequency within the novel, bronze would have to go to “phony.” Holden will call anybody and everybody who he is not willing to emotionally connect to a phony. Sure, he spins this as judgment and spite toward their interests and personalities, but this labeling and distancing is more emblematic of dealing with, and consequently deeply fearing, loss. The depths of grief make enjoying many things unrealistic. A surface-level conversation with a friend or a cheesy comedy may do absolutely nothing to raise spirits or even distract one. Even more so, your friends’ inability to perk you up by any fraction can serve to antagonize you altogether. Some of Holden’s lowest lows came at times when hopeful distractions failed to do their job. These disappointments hurt. A lot. It always felt like a major setback when I finally worked up the drive to follow through on a plan, and it did nothing for me emotionally. While I wouldn’t personally use Holden’s vernacular, seeing other people find joy from situations that brought me none could feel inauthentic, phony. The magnitude of this phonymenon, if you will, is amplified through behind-the-scenes coping mechanisms. I’ve spent this past year feeling vulnerable. And below his paper-thin, abrasive facade, Holden is vulnerable too.
Design by Priya Ganji
For months I couldn’t imagine losing someone I was close to, someone I cared about, again. And you can’t lose someone close to you if you don’t let them in or connect with them. As maladaptive as it is, it’s technically true. While I’m not sure if I could handle another loss right now, at least I’m getting better at re-learning how to let people in, and I’d like to think Holden has it in him to re-learn this himself. Before I leave you to maybe revisit the book, allow me to paraphrase an internal monologue that cements “Catcher” as a quintessential coming-of-age story, if nothing else does. Holden recalls his numerous visits to the Museum of Natural History and the various exhibits within it. He finds deep comfort in the fact that the exhibits remain constant with each visit, even as he changes. He acknowledges that these changes in himself may not
always be robust — in fact they may seem insignificant at times. Even still, these changes and morsels of character growth exist and are fulfilling for Holden to reflect on against the stable scenery. As chaotic of a character as he seems, Holden just wants a semblance of stability while he grows. It’s not the growing up itself Holden wishes to avoid but the lasting changes to his surroundings that come with it. More concisely, he doesn’t want to lose the people and situations external to him in order to grow internally. We all wish we could have the merits of growing up without the ongoing hardships from which the lessons stem. Rather than getting bogged down hating Holden Caulfield and his numerous arbitrary internal tirades, we need to remember where his shortcomings came from and will ourselves to move on where he could not.
The enormity of 17 has no space for sickness LILLY PEARCE
Managing Arts Editor
Seventeen is the idolized coming-of-age age. It’s not representative of a number necessarily but of a concept. The idea of 17 has been explored and exploited in Hollywood since 1965 — “You are sixteen going on seventeen / baby it’s time to think / Better beware, be canny and careful / Baby, you’re on the brink.” Seventeen is notable because it’s between two symbolic ages in American culture. At 16, you’re given a taste of the future that awaits you; getting your driver’s license is less of an obligation and more like a rite of passage. A license means freedom, it means power, it means control over your life. It’s the peak of the romanticization of adulthood. It’s an intoxicating age, and it all leads up to 18, when these dreams and manifestations can be realized because you are now, legally if not mentally, an adult. Seventeen seems far from both of these vital ages. I felt a bigger distance between 16 and 17 than I had with other ages. I felt old — too old for high school yet too young for any substantial life changes. I certainly
didn’t want to be 16 anymore, but I was equally certain that I didn’t want to be 18, either. I was trying hard to avoid change, but it was occurring incessantly: There was no escaping the college search or impending SATs. I could feel the future breathing down my neck, and I shuddered at its uncomfortable warmth. I didn’t find any solace in looking back at the past either, mostly because there was nothing there for me anymore. Seventeen erases nostalgia but fails to replace it with anything else. This depressing understanding of 17 is only one side of the coin; the other is much more enticing. The fresh start hanging in front of your face is tantalizing. Though uncertain, 17 offers the chance to chase something new, to ride the high of the break in expectations, to explore a new side of yourself, all of which was not lost on me. Avril Lavigne’s “17” captures this essence of the age perfectly. She sings: “We were on top of the world / Back when I was your girl / We were living so wild and free / Acting stupid for fun / All we needed was love / That’s the way it’s supposed to be / 17.” This 17 is unrestrained, unlimited and compelling. The world is right in front of you,
you can go anywhere you want to go, and you can be anything you want to be. It’s not yet time for the hard decisions; reality can be suspended for a little while longer. As an anxious person, the unrestrained possibility of 17 was not particularly enticing to me — it was nauseating. The suspension of reality made me feel lost. Instead of enjoying the delight of avoiding big decisions, I was stuck in a constant loop of said decisions: Where would I go to college? Did I want to be close to or far from my family? What do I want to do with my life? Should I even go to college with no plan in sight? Why does this make me upset? “Heathers: The Musical” explores the ambiguity of 17. Neither of the protagonists are enjoying their age; instead, they’re singing about how they’re desperate to be “normal” teenagers that “sneak a beer and watch TV.” Although the circumstance they’re in deserves acknowledgment of its absurdity, the sentiment remains: “Can’t we be seventeen? Is that so hard to do?” It is hard to be 17, and not only when you’re in a relationship with a serial killer.
Though the thought of inching closer to adulthood was scary for me, I decided I would embrace the glamour of 17 and use it as a time to explore who I was and the things I wanted. For two months, I embodied this side of 17 to a T. I made lists of potential colleges, I researched the best college towns, I enjoyed commitmentfree relationships and I spent too much time having late-night life conversations with friends. I was preparing to travel out of the country over the summer when I finally admitted to my mom that I was having trouble eating. Anything I ate or drank caused me physical pain. I had been ignoring it for some time for the sake of being 17 the way I wanted to. I wasn’t ready for life to get serious yet. Cancer was simply not part of the plan. I spent a few weeks abiding by a strict doctor-ordered diet, and after seeing no changes, I had the MRI that showed the first tumor. It was hard to admit I was sick after having spent months forcing myself to embrace the invincibility of 17. It’s the perfect balance between youth and adulthood: At 17, you are free to make mistakes without large repercussions. You can afford to be careless and
impulsive because you have the redeeming qualities of youth on your side. At the same time, it’s when you first have the chance to take control of your life. Though most major decisions can be delayed until 18, you start to weigh them at 17. What colleges sound exciting? What new place would you like to explore? How will you decorate your new space? To a certain extent, these questions are largely in your hands. So I didn’t want to be sick. I didn’t want to miss out on this part of being 17 — on the making mistakes, on the manifesting of my future path. Cancer magnified this paradox. I spent the rest of my summer in Ann Arbor, moving constantly in between the Rogel Cancer Center and the C.S. Mott Children’s and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital. For my specific type of cancer, usually seen in patients 60 years or older, the more qualified doctors resided at Rogel and the main University Hospital. But, since I was only 17, I had all of my MRI, CAT and PET scans at the Children’s Hospital. At 17, I was handed a pink Dora pillow as they prepared me for my scans. I took a picture with a Big Bird statue and started to
collect hospital stickers. The enormity of the world I originally feared became painfully small. It was difficult to figure out how to feel about it all — not just the diagnosis, but being relatively young for the diagnosis and all the while being on the brink of adulthood. At Rogel, I was constantly placed next to white-haired, wrinkly patients in the lobbies, and every time I met a new doctor or nurse, they would greet me with “I’ve never had such a young patient here before.” Meanwhile, I stuck out like a sore thumb at the Children’s Hospital, standing next to toddlers as we rode the elevator up to pediatric radiology. The original beauty of the paradox of 17 quickly turned ugly. I was treated neither like an adult nor like a child. I had to be accompanied by an adult to all of my appointments and scans, but I was the one filling out the paperwork. I was old enough to articulate my pain and understand my diagnosis, but I needed my parent’s consent to receive any medical treatment. I was contemplating my odds of living before I could even buy a lottery ticket. Read more at MichiganDaily.com
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Michigan in Color
Wednesday, February 9, 2022 — 7
The filter problem
MARIA PATTON MiC Columnist
It all started as an innocent way of sending funny pictures of yourself to your friends on Snapchat and “harmlessly” touching up small blemishes on our faces to appear more f lattering in our self ies. Now, social media has transformed into an inescapable realit y where sig nif icantly altering your appearance to seem more “polished” and “socially acceptable” is the norm. The existence of Snapchat and Instag ram f ilters, Photoshop and Facetune has become normalized, drastically chang ing the natural state of our bodies in order to be perceived as desirable. I’ve been using social media since I was 12 years old. I’ve witnessed the change from casual Snapchat conversations and unedited Instag ram pictures to Photoshopped faces and unrealistic edits. Facetune, Photoshop and Snapchat f ilters have absolutely demolished societ y’s perception of normalit y to the point where there is a stark difference between our natural appearance and the body that is posted on our feeds. Filters and apps smooth out ever y
single possible blemish on one’s face, dramatically enlarge lips, change eye colors and more — all in order to make people appear perfect. They put us into a body completely different from the one we really live in. What used to be a fun way of sharing life with friends has now turned into a modalit y centered on overanalyzing ever y miniscule part of a picture to make sure our posts portray us as the best and most perfect versions of ourselves. It’s extremely diff icult for me to get into the mindset of accepting my face and body as beautiful the way they are when I’m constantly surrounded by other people who appear to be perfect. It is so tempting to f ix my insecurities when one can easily tap a few buttons and become “perfect.” I desperately tr y not to use them because I have noticed how much they destroy my self-esteem, but because I am constantly surrounded by “perfection” on my Instag ram feed, it’s hard to beat the temptation of downloading Photoshop. If these apps can turn me into my idealized image of myself, why wouldn’t I want to use them? The widespread use of f ilters and Photoshop is largely attributed to
the rise in the commodif ication of social media. As Social Media Inf luencing has become a job, one’s personal brand is important to uphold. To make your life seem desirable and to keep the brand deals rolling, you have to look perfect and post aesthetic content. Simply put, the more people that are envious of your lifest yle, the more brands will want to work with you and the more money you will make. I completely understand that this is a way that many people make a living, but I honestly don’t know how much more of being “inf luenced” I can handle — especially if it means I am constantly surrounded by unrealistic expectations of what I should look like and how I should live. In addition to the alternate realities these f ilters create, they are also extremely problematic for nonEurocentric features and non-white skin tones. Filters are way too small for my Afrocentric lips. They place a white cast over my Black face, and turn my dark brown eyes light brown, blue or g reen. They even work to contour my nose to make it look visibly smaller. Filters create an unrealistic view of what our societ y looks like, not only by polishing peo-
ple’s faces to perceived perfection, but also by erasing non-white characteristics in an attempt to create a “prett y” or “perfect” person. Filters continue to reinforce European standards of beaut y and they don’t seem to be stopping any time soon. I understand why people use f ilters and Photoshop. They’re g reat for hiding sleepy eyes, unexpected pimples and other unfavorable qualities of our pictures. I also understand how addicting editing your pictures can be. It is so easy to turn your body into your idealized self, and the praise you receive when you present yourself in this way is a serotonin booster. However, I miss the casual use of social media that we used to have. The constant state of perfection that societ y pressures us to adhere to is suffocating. It used to be so liberating to post whatever I wanted on social media; now I have to overanalyze ever y aspect of any photo I want to post. This problem seems to g row even worse ever y day. Apps are becoming so accurate in how they mold f ilters to our faces that it is getting harder and harder to tell if a f ilter or Photoshop is applied. People have expressed the desire for “Old Insta-
g ram,” when it was a less judgemental and more casual space to share our lives with others. A recent attempt to restore the casual nature of Instag ram has emerged through “photo dumps,” or the act of posting casual and unrelated pictures of one’s life, along with a few self ies in a single Instag ram post. However, even these t ypes of posts are deliberately curated in a way that makes life seem perfectly imperfect. It is just another way to show your “real life,” but in a polished way. If we continue down this path of normalizing the alteration of how we appear for the attention of Instag ram, our perceptions of beaut y will fall deeper into this false realit y we have created and we will continue to lose our sense of self. The more we change what appears on our screens, the more we will hate what we see in the mirror. I’m terrif ied of what this is doing to societ y’s perception of life and beaut y. We don’t see real life through a prett y f ilter. Our bodies are not meant to look perfect. If they are creating this false sense of life, are f ilters and Photoshop even benef icial? Does editing ourselves really g ive us the satisfaction we want it to?
Mi amor para mi abuelita JUANPABLOANGELMARCOS MiC Columnist
A few weeks ago, I heard the FaceTime call notification buzzing from my phone. My eyes shifted and saw that it was Mom who was calling. Calls from Mom brighten my mood because on days that school takes up so much of my time, it’s nice seeing and hearing her face and voice from all the way back home. Mom called to ask about when my spring break for this school year was. After a quick Google search for the UMich academic calendar, I told her the dates. The next thing I knew, she was talking about sending me to Mexico for spring break. I thought to myself, “Mexico? Mexico!” I’ve always wanted to go to Mexico, but I wasn’t expecting to go so soon. I had talked with my mom about wanting to go and we had decided to go together next year after I graduated. I thought to myself again, “Why am I going so soon? And without Mom?” I was excited, but I didn’t know the reason for the trip. This would be my first time stepping foot in Mexico and finally getting to meet my family. Up until this point, all I’ve had are laggy Whatsapp video calls. The plan had been to go to Mexico with Mom, but it was too urgent to wait. Mom told me that I needed to go see Abuelita. The reality is that Abuelita is getting older and her health is becoming a concern. Our whole family knows this, and Mom wants me to see her and enjoy as much time with her as I can before things get worse. Abuelita has always been the one who visits us, but not this time around. Now I’m the one who’s visiting her. Over the years, it’s gotten harder for her to travel from Mexico to the U.S.; she has difficulty walking and doesn’t like to travel by air due to all the stress, commotion and long periods of waiting and sitting down. Abuelita’s health is getting worse with every passing year and I needed to see her. I want to hug her, I want to hold her hand — for Mom, who hasn’t been to Mexico in over 30 years. But mostly, I want to create more memories with the person that I love so dearly. Thankfully, my family has been lucky enough to have visited my grandma throughout the years but sadly not as much as we would have liked to. Geographic conditions make it difficult for
me to connect with my family in Mexico, and I don’t get to see them as much as I would like. You see, these are the things you go through when you are part of an immigrant household. Our families living in the U.S. and Mexico are miles apart, divided by a border that shows no remorse and imposes stringent immigration laws. When my family lived in Los Angeles, Abuelita would visit us regularly, but I was too young to remember. At the time,
and froze when I saw the biggest spider I had ever seen. I had been comfortable exploring the backyard for some years, but my fear of spiders always stayed with me — I was terrified of spiders as a little kid. Everyone walked right past the spider, but not me; I was stuck. Tears began to flow faster and faster down my cheeks. I knew that I had to pass the spider to be with my grandma and siblings, but I couldn’t pull myself together. The tears kept coming and everyone else became
me into the person I am today. Some other memories I cherish with Abuelita when she visited were the times we went cherry picking, napped on the same bed, prayed alongside each other with a glow-in-the-dark rosary before going to bed and when I watched her take down shots of tequila like water. She didn’t visit often, but reflecting back on the times when she was here, I was always present with her. One of the most recent — and one of my favorite memories
a special touch to her pieces, knitting in floral designs to make it her own. I’ve always wanted to learn how she does it because I want to create some of my own clothes in the future. During this particular summer, I would read books beside her in my own nook and occasionally glance over and watch as her tense hands worked their knitting magic. At some point, I put the book down and decided to sit next to her and just watch. She was knitting together a red hat. I wanted to join her but I knew that my skills were very limited. After telling her this, she taught me some of the knitting basics, but soon I lost track of the steps and gave up a little too quickly. When I put the yarn down on the floor, I saw her little box containing all of her supplies by her feet and I began to dig through it. There were so many different colors of yarn, so many different types of yarn. All different shapes and sizes. After failing the knitting experiment, I asked her if there was something easier we could try. This is when she brought up the idea of making bracelets. She told me to pick the color of yarn I wanted to use and I ended up picking the pink and yellow yarn. We sat by the window for the next 20 minutes working on the bracelet together, with the pink yarn in her hand and the yellow yarn in mine, creating this bracelet together as she was walking me through the process. “¡Así no mijo!”
Design by Rita Sayegh
she was 20 years younger and happy to see all her new grandchildren and be surrounded by my tíos, tías, primos and primas. A lot of our family migrated to Los Angeles, so it was like a second home away from everyone in Mexico. When I was five years old, we moved to Wyoming, Michigan. It took about five more years for Abuelita to visit us in the Midwest. I was 10 years old when Abuelita first visited. I still remember her adventurous spirit joining my siblings and me to explore the backyard, which is primarily forest; for many years there was a large, sand dune-like hill and vast empty lot being prepared for construction. Once you pass the woods and lot, you are within walking distance of a Dollar Tree and liquor store. As my siblings and I followed Abuelita through the bushes and trees, I stopped
desperate. Abuelita got a little impatient but it’s not my fault; I wasn’t raised in the Mexican countryside like her where spiders and snakes were commonplace. Once Abuelita yelled, “Apúrate!” I knew that was my cue to get it moving. I was so little, but I knew that Abuelita wasn’t scared of anything and that she would push me to overcome the smallest of obstacles. I knew, even then, that her age and short stature never defined her because regardless of the adversity she faced in life, she never turned away. And I wanted to be like Abuelita. Fearless. As I got older, I began to understand what her history and upbringing were truly like. Abue’s mom lived through the Mexican Revolution in the early 1900s, where she had to hide from Mexican officials. There is a history of resilience in my family from the women who have shaped
— is when we sat down and made bracelets together. The last time I saw her was when she most recently visited us in the summer of 2017. She spent the hot summer days inside the house nestled in our massage chair sewing or outside on a bench on the deck, knitting away. Abuelita loves to knit and quilt. It was something she enjoyed, but more importantly, it was also how she made money in Mexico. She was born in 1933 and never got an education. Abuelita was born and raised en su rancho with no schooling, so she started working as a young girl. She doesn’t know how to read or write either, so selling the things she knitted and quilted was one of the best ways she could earn some income. She’s extremely talented, from making her own blankets and scarves to countertop mats and sweaters. She always adds
“¿Cómo?” “Mira, ¿ves? Fácil.” When completed, the bracelet was fresh bright pink and bright yellow. It was something that I created with Abuelita and it’s something that I’ve worn every day for the past four and a half years. It’s a reminder that Abuelita is with me wherever I go. Now my bracelets are a part of me; and when I don’t have them on, I don’t feel like myself. When I’m nervous, I fidget with the strings and I like to shake my bracelets out of habit to hear the beads beat against the yarn. Whenever I look at my bony left wrist, I’m reminded of that summer day spent by the window sill with Abuelita tying together this bracelet.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
How to write your first Michigan in Color column LOLA YANG
MiC Columnist
1. Choose a topic. Pull up your notes app and reunite with the neglected thoughts in the dusty reaches of your brain. Cringe over an idea you jotted down before bed weeks ago. Don’t just scan your notes, squint hard so you don’t miss that phrase snuck between grapes ramen conditioner frosted flakes hand cream soy milk and fall 2020 Zoom links. Squint hard until your vision blurs. Until tears well up and the next thing you know it’s sophomore year you’re sobbing uncontrollably before your desk during the ending monologue in “Lady Bird.” Sometimes you think your life would be easier if you were a white girl from Sacramento. But instead of Saorise Ronan, you would be the best friend who struggles with her body image and daddy issues. 2. Talk over your ideas. Attend a shift in the newsroom and meet with your friends, who are your editors. You complain about how Chipotle didn’t put lettuce in your order, which you think is
a hate crime against Canadians (Disclaimer: the author is Chinese Canadian). Observe the romance that brews in the newsroom. Watch people discover their newfound love for writing and editing. Watch columnists’ eyes turn into crescent moons above their masks. Watch people approach another section’s table for candy and end up staying there for hours. Sometimes you are a part of the romance; sometimes you are merely a pedestrian that passes a late night diner, fascinated by the light and warmth inside which ultimately excludes you. That’s okay, you tell yourself, because you are just here to talk about ideas. Loneliness envelops you but it is only temporary, because an editor/friend finally finishes his homework and is traversing singledigit temperatures to hear about your first column. You shit on the month of January together and joke about not having a work life balance. Still, your idea weighs on your tongue like a Jolly Rancher that’s too big to swallow. 3. Scroll through Tinder, the app you told everyone that you downloaded for journalistic purposes, whatever that
means. Close the Google Docs tab and take out your phone. Be sure to turn your brightness down to the lowest setting and tilt your screen away from the people sitting near you in Trotter. You swipe left at the sight of men in her first photo or “Black Lives Matter” or “Feminism” in her list of “passions,” because you are tired of people who wear politics like an accessory. After almost developing thumb arthritis, you land on “Movies” “Coffee” “Cats” “Hiking.” You go through her selfies and judge her top Spotify artists. A pop-up notification obscures her eyes, “How’s the piece going?” You do not respond. 4. Consume a lot of boba. According to your Snackpass Wrapped, you were embarrassingly among UniTea’s top 1% of customers in the past year. “I will be living dangerously close to three boba places next year,” you joked when your mom picked you up from the airport for winter break. “Bubble tea is disgusting,” you recall her responding. You think about the internalized racism and self-hatred she has imparted, and the years it took to unlearn it all. How in every story you
write, there is a mother, even though you can barely recall the last time you shared a casual conversation. You think about how writing, especially for Michigan in Color, is an act of resistance, to her and to the beliefs she stands for. You wonder if there will come a day when she reads your articles. If she will read through each line with a Chinese dictionary open on her phone. If she will finally understand your sadness, and then you will regain your mother. 5. Next, pan-fry kimchi pancakes after midnight. Because kimchi pancakes are fucking delicious. 6. Now, it’s time to ask your editor for an extension. Wait till the last minute to text her because, just hours before the deadline, you believed you could finish. You were wrong. She graciously grants you some extra time, but now you are more than terrified. Capitalism has made you internalize that time is linear, thus more time must equal a better product. So exit the window and tell yourself that inspiration will come in a few days; it won’t. 7. Type. Take up the blank space with
your words. Let your joy and grief spill like a broken faucet. Recall the reason why you started writing in the first place, when your story was read aloud before the class in 3rd grade. Or when you performed self-directed skits for your family during kindergarten. Because what is writing if not thinking and scraping and thinking and scraping and rehearsing in your mind 1000 times before even typing out the first letter? Remember the people you are writing for. Write for your friends who call you during breakdowns in between classes. Write for your friends who can recite the entirety of Lisa’s rap in “Ice Cream.” Write for your friends who took a shot to every homoerotic moment in Red Velvet’s “Bad Boy.” Write for your friends’ smeared mascara write for your friends’ couple rings write for your friends’ avocado salad recipe write for your friends’ Snackpass gifts write for your friends’ curated Spotify playlist write for the people who stay with you and cheer and clap until your editor hits “Publish.” 8. Go back to your friends. For they are the reason why you write at all.
Michigan in Color
8 — Wednesday, February 9, 2022
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Reexamining South Asian Queerness EASHETA SHAH MiC Columnist
On Sunday Jan. 26, student organizers from the Indian American Student Association and the United Asian American Organizations came together to host an intimate dialogue about the re-examination of South Asian Queerness — a much-needed first of its kind. Before the event was underway, I sensed something irresolute in the air of the dimly lit Hussey Room at the Michigan League. Though, more likely than not, it was just me and my unfamiliarity with safe Queer spaces that also reflected my ethnic identity. To ease my nerves, I channeled my inner reporter and quickly introduced myself to IASA Social Awareness Co-Chairs Meghana Kandiraju and Sahana Prabhu and IASA Co-President Shaunak Puri, who welcomed me and shared their enthusiasm in hosting this unique event. As folks settled down, Kandiraju and Prabhu encouraged attendees to speak to one another about their experiences with the LGBTQ+ community — as an ally or as a member — in the realms of mainstream media, family dynamics and cultural values. Though the prompt was unmistakably catered to a predominantly cishet audience, individuals shared their support, their qualms and their collective desire, among other things, to slowly integrate what little media representation does exist for Queer South Asian people into the purview of their most immediate families. Within the South Asian culture, especially within family dynamics, exists deeply rooted gender norms and general nonacceptance of Queer identities. This discourages many Queer South Asians from coming out, and for the lot that do, there often remains the underlying familial expectation of eventual cisheteronormative marriage. One individual went on to express how she felt it her duty as a cisgender, straight woman to talk to her family about Queerness under her relative privilege of social and cultural security. As she and
other cishet people indulged in their well-intentioned sentiments, when it came around to the Queer attendees, there was a notable stoicism among their responses. For my half of the table, learning about Queerness was a matter of personal experience. The Co-Chairs then delved into the forgotten sexual diversity of South Asian culture dating back to the Kama Sutra and early Tamil Sangam literature. The Kama Sutra is an ancient Indian Sanskrit text full of prose and poetry on sexuality, eroticism and emotional fulfillment in life. As Kandiraju and Prabhu noted, both these precolonial texts had segments dedicated to the homosexual relations of their time, but were often overlooked by the enactment of restrictions and fines that grew more punitive well into the Medieval empire, the Mogul empire and the British empire. They went on to explain the effects of British colonial rule on Queer rights, which started with the Offenses Against the Person Act in 1861. This act codified consensual and nonviolent sodomy under physical and sexual acts of violence, resulting in a life sentence. Further, it begot Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which directly criminalized any intercourse “against the order of nature,” including consensual homosexual activity. The law was only recently ruled unconstitutional in 2018. In response to this historical context, many attendees started to realize much of the current anti-Queer sentiment within the diaspora stems directly from its legal implementation due to British colonialism. Next, Puri introduced the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 which specifically targeted “eunuchs,” a stigmatizing colonial term that refers to individuals who do not conform to British ideas of masculinity and gender. This inherently ostracized the Hijra community as well, a once venerated, diverse community of intersex people, asexual people, non-binary people and transgender people that held important religious and governmental authority during the
Mogul empire. In the late 20th century, people across the South Asian Diaspora advocated against this law and for the recognition of the Hijra community. Then, in 2014, the Indian Supreme Court finally recognized Hijra and transgender people as a “third sex,” or “third gender” as indicated by the language used by the court system. This legal recognition served to safeguard their rights under the Constitution and laws made by Parliament and the State Legislature, and it marked a huge human rights victory signifying the expiration of another legal British influence. Still, conscious perpetuation of social harm against the Hijra community and South Asian Queer people continues today. Historical legal progress only goes so far to protect individuals from rampant hate crimes, damaging stigma and forced invisibility within and outside the diaspora. There’s something really cathartic in learning about the gradual Queer liberation in South Asia through the renunciation of colonial legislation, and Kandiraju explained it perfectly when I came up to her later: “There is such a rich and deep history with regards to South Asians and Queerness. However, when these two identities are brought up, they are often seen as mutually exclusive — but this clearly isn’t the case,” Kandiraju said. Clearly. And clearly, there’s a long way to go, but maybe Queerness was never meant to feel so alienating within South Asian existence. Queerness is a multitude of things that transcends any single identity or experience, just like the diaspora itself. The South Asian experience is inherently polylithic among its eight different countries, but ethnic assimilation to the model minority myth, a white supremacist ideology that upholds cisheteronormativity, diminishes this diversity. It leaves little to no room for intersectional identities, let alone Queerness. South Asian cishet individuals who implicitly subscribe to the model minority myth thus use this idea in order to perpetuate
Queerphobia within the diaspora. Even so, recognizing the important roots of Queerphobia within our culture does not absolve us of the responsibility to actively fight against it today. For the second segment of the presentation, UAAO President Gina Liu delved into the redefinition of Queerness and Queer activism within the diaspora. She
ongoing campaign is a direct PR attempt to overshadow violence against Palestinians as a whole while aggrandizing Israel’s Queer rights agenda as the ultimate liberator of Palestinian and Arab Queer people. Similar strategies are utilized by the radical right in the United States to push across conservative agendas while remaining palatable to woke America. Queer
in the United States. She indicated the presence of same-sex relations as early as the first wave of Indian immigration in the 1880s particularly among Punjabi men, while explaining how, as mentioned in Nayan Shah’s book “Stranger Intimacy: Contesting Race, Sexuality and the Law in the North American West,” they were often accused of crossdressing by white men because they did not conform
Design by Reid Graham
started off by recognizing the historically derogatory definition of the word Queer as well as its reclamation in Queer liberation. She then explained how non-western countries are othered for their lack of conformity to western ideals, and in turn, homosexuality has now been duped into white progressiveness and ulterior pinkwashing under what is refered to as “homonationalism.” Through homonationalism, nationalist regimes operate under the guise of progressiveness by associating homosexuality with their ideals. In their ostentatious performance of Queer liberation, they distract attention from their more oppressive policies. Israel’s campaign as the “gay mecca” of the Middle East is an extreme example of how pinkwashing is used to violently advance Zionist, anti-Muslim rhetoric. This
liberation in America is thus posited as the savior of young Queer immigrants, and being Queer as a member of a non-white diaspora is erroneously propogated as a privilege of white progressiveness unattainable in the homeland. This perception of mutual exclusivity between being a Queer person and South Asian, to many families, means that the adoption of such “western ideals” takes away from traditional culture. When South Asian immigrant parents say, “We’re not American in that way,” they are telling us that Queerness is contradictory to our heritage — yet precolonial history teaches us that we are inherently South Asian in that way. After introducing the facade of western Queer politics, Liu importantly made note of the oftinvisible histories of South Asian Queer people and Queer activism
to expressions of European manhood. Additionally, she mentioned the role of publications such as Trikone Magazine and Anamika Magazine in celebrating Queer identities across the diasapora and aiding the decriminalization of sodomy in many countries. All this to say that seeing ourselves in history is important, and in some ways, validating, but history itself is seldom exhaustive. Liu wrapped up by reminding audience members that there is inherent value in our own experiences as we navigate very cisheteronormative and colonized spheres, saying, “Even if none of this existed, even if (this was) the first generation of Queer Asian people, that doesn’t make (your) experiences any less impactful or relevant.” Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Embracing my hair with open arms UDOKA NWANSI MiC Columnist
It was 8 p.m. on the Saturday before Winter term began, and I was sitting on my bed at home in Chicago unraveling my box braids — the most recent hairstyle I had that soon grew outdated for me after a few weeks. I was planning on having a peaceful night filled with self-care practices and HBO movies, but as soon as I finished undoing my braids, I got a text from the hairstylist who was supposed to do my hair: “Sorry, I have to cancel tomorrow, something came up.” While it may seem inconsequential for her to cancel on me, reading this text made my stomach drop. Usually, I prefer to wear protective hairstyles whenever I can because they require less maintenance, which is perfect considering how busy my day-to-day schedule is. I wanted to do this before coming back to campus because I knew I would quickly become busy as soon as I got to Ann Arbor. But having my
ZOE ZHANG MiC Columnist
Trigger warning: this article contains descriptions of murder and gun violence, mentions of gender-based harassment, racebased harassment and sexual harassment. The Asian woman-white man coupling has been a long-running joke and stereotype that is still cycling through the collective consciousness of American popular culture and online platforms. As much as I hate to admit, there is some truth to the stereotype. Indeed, an Asian woman-white man couple can be spotted frequently on city streets and university campuses as well as in other leftleaning spaces in recent years. However, I was not aware of the terrifying existence of a violent incel community online com-
stylist cancel on me completely threw a wrench in my plan. Before panicking, I immediately texted my usual go-to stylist, and she regrettably informed me that she was on vacation. Next, I called a friend, asking if she could do my hair, and she apologetically
became fed up with trying to find a new stylist to do my hair — I was leaving at 6 a.m. the next morning for Ann Arbor, and my options were slim. I was left with only one choice: I had to get it done myself. I immediately went to my bathroom and started brainstorming
told me that she wouldn’t have the time to do so before classes started. Lastly, I even tried booking a hairstylist that I’d found on Instagram, with whom I immediately made an appointment when I saw an opening … just for her to cancel on me within the hour. I soon
what to do with my hair. I knew I couldn’t attempt a style that was too complex considering the limited time that I had. Every time the frustration with my hair reaches a new peak, I always grab my scissors, only half-jokingly thinking about shaving my head
Design by Janice Lin
posed of East Asian men until fairly recently. This community assembled in response to Asian women dating out of their race at a higher rate than any other gendered racial groups, and perhaps to a lesser extent, their
The ricecel phenomenon untarily celibate,” a term coopted by straight, cisgendered right-leaning young men who, due to one reason or another, find themselves deprived of sex and relationships with women. Upon first glance,
Design by Zoe Zhang
emasculation at the hands of popular culture. Incel is short for “invol-
entirely. It would surely be a lot less work to deal with. I’ve experienced this moment too many times before — getting frustrated with my hair to the point where I just don’t want to deal with it anymore. During my sophomore year of high school, I was invited to an extravagant 16th birthday party at a bowling alley for one of my friends. On the morning of the party, I woke up and instantly knew I was going to have a bad hair day. With every style I tried, I grew increasingly annoyed with my hair, and finally, I texted my friend that I woke up with a sore throat and that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the party. In hindsight, my hair didn’t look that bad, but I was so bogged down by the idea that I had “difficult” hair that I had just given up completely for the day. When I was a junior, I did in fact take a pair of scissors to my hair, cutting nearly all of it off and forcibly beginning my natural hair journey. At the time, I got so fed up I felt it would be simpler to
their strange philosophy and vendetta against women may appear pathetic, but the extent to which they have taken their
misogyny is beyond extreme. In several subreddits which are now banned, these men discussed violent revenge plots and fantasies they would instigate against “Chads” and “Stacies,” which are incel slang for attractive young men and women. “Chads” and “Stacies” are almost certainly racialized, as they are common names for young, white people, and with that whiteness comes implied attractiveness as well as traditional masculinity and femininity, accordingly. Aside from the fact that incels in general are overwhelmingly white, East Asian incels are in a league of their own, as they focus more on their own racial identity. They also especially focus on their female counterparts, blaming their interracial marriages as the source of the East Asian incel’s personal misery. One of the most infamous
start all over from scratch. This moment served as a catalyst for a transformational hair journey in which I had to learn how to do my own hair, rather than relying on my mom to take care of it for me. Since then, I’ve slowly been on the path to becoming better at styling my hair by myself. For the first year, doing my own hair felt incredibly tedious. I endured many long nights and sore arms from just washing, conditioning and trying to style my hair into two-strand twists. Now, I can tell when it’s time to give my hair a detox, I always know when I’m in need of a trim and I have my wash day routine down to an exact science. However, I’m still a novice at braiding my own hair, so when all of my stylists canceled on me, I was forced to enlist some help. I came knocking at the doors of my two older sisters’ bedrooms and to my relief, they came to the rescue. Around 9 p.m., my sisters began to help me part my hair and braid it down. For over six hours, we watched movies, lis-
tened to music and had amusing, yet heartfelt, conversations about relationships and our love lives. We got the chance to spend quality time together, which doesn’t happen as often now that we’re all so busy with our academic and professional lives. I’m not sure if I had ever been more grateful to have two older sisters. By 3 a.m., we were exhausted, and our fingers were beginning to cramp, but finally, my hair was done. Even though I knew I’d be running on three hours of sleep, I was filled with the immense relief of not having to worry about my hair for the next few weeks. At the end of it all, my eldest sister turned to me and said, “This was cute and all, but don’t ever let it happen again,” and we laughed. While she didn’t show it on her face, I knew she was glad that she got to spend the time with us as well. A situation that started off as stressful and anxiety-inducing ended in a tiring, yet heartwarming, moment between my sisters and me.
incels was the lone gunman of the heinous 2014 San Diego Isla Vista killing who was of mixed white and East Asian descent. He had released a 140-page manifesto detailing his life and citing his hatred toward his circumstances, such as his mixed heritage and parents’ divorce, as contributors toward his perceived social rejection and misogyny. He then went on to murder his housemates and seven sorority girls at the University of California, Santa Barbara, whom he considered to be the physical manifestation of “Stacies” and the embodiment of the women who rejected him. He then went on to murder 2 of his housemates, 1 other man, and 3 sorority girls, before committing suicide. The gunman perceived his Chinese heritage as a deciding factor in his attractiveness, and consequently, as the reason for his
failure with women. The manifesto was fueled by self-hatred and internalized white supremacy. The gunman attributed his “dorkiness” to his Chinese identity and cited his jealousy towards another fully Asian man receiving attention from a white woman, who was the only type of woman he was attracted to. Him being only attracted to white women, of course, echoed his own internalized racism, as further evidenced by his resentment for his Chinese mother for her interracial marriage to his father. His self-hatred, mixed with an inferiority complex over full-blooded Asian people, had perhaps manifested in his brutal murder of his housemates, who too were young East Asian men, as well as the sorority girls.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, February 9, 2022 — 9
Schlissel’s firing is long overdue JACK ROSHCO
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From The Daily: Snow removal policies in Ann Arbor need to change THE MICHIGAN DAILY EDITORIAL BOARD
W
inters in Michigan are not for the faint of heart. As students here at the University of Michigan, we have all experienced the wind biting at our faces as we trek from class to class in the blustering winter weather. The cold, however, is only half the battle. Along these walks, patches of ice, piles of snow and areas of sludge serve as obstacles to our destinations. With a two-day snowstorm striking Ann Arbor just this past week, we understand these phenomena all too well. The winter obstacles we face are not only an inconvenience for students, but a danger to the community as a whole. There are serious consequences for Ann Arbor citizens, especially for the elderly and the disabled. Last year, an 88-year-old man named Richard Derick was walking his dog in Kerrytown when he slipped and fell after stepping over a snowbank left by a plow truck. A couple hours later, he tragically passed away from a brain bleed. Incidents such as Derick’s are preventable, but only with adequate maintenance of our sidewalks and roads during the winter. Unfortunately, Ann Arbor currently lacks effective maintenance in this area. In light of this, it is necessary to consider potential solutions to the dangers of poor snow removals in Ann Arbor. In Holland, Mich., there is an intricate system of hot water that runs beneath the sidewalks in order to melt snow and ice as soon as it begins to accumulate. Ann Arbor could certainly follow suit; however, council members expressed concern about this strategy, as this would be out of the question in terms of budget and logistics. While the eventual result of more effective snow removal is worthwhile, it is unlikely that Ann Arbor residents would be happy with years of disruptive construction across the city. Alternatively, Ann Arbor could ramp up the number of employees who work to clear the roads and sidewalks. The worker shortages plaguing not only Ann Arbor, but the entire country, make this easier said than done. Some council members have also noted that fiscal considerations need to be made, arguing that the costs of this solution would again be too high. Depending
on the extent of the staffing ramp up, the cost could reach into the millions. This all seems pretty dismal, with solution after solution being shot down. However, there are actions we can take as a university to help the greater Ann Arbor community. To understand our role in snow removal, we must first acknowledge that the vast majority of the student population is young and able-bodied. Because of this, we are sometimes oblivious to the risks that icy sidewalks and piled up snow pose. Yet, as members of the larger community, there is a level of responsibility students need to take on in order to ensure they are playing their role in protecting others. We must understand that not all members of the campus community, nor Ann Arbor as a whole, have the capacity to jump around or over snow and ice. For many, effective snow removal is not about convenience, it is about safety. We must also remind ourselves that snow removal is not only a responsibility, but a law we must follow. The city of Ann Arbor has clear requirements for residents and property owners, including the need to clear snow and ice on adjacent sidewalks and crosswalk ramps, as well as near bus stops and mailboxes. Individuals who fail to follow the city ordinance can be subject to the costs it takes for the city to clear the areas the resident failed to clear. Residents also have the ability to report those who are not following the ordinance. Those who live off campus are sometimes responsible for snow removal on their property, depending on the caveats in their lease. Students should check their lease to see what their landlord’s policy is. Those who are proactive about knowing the relevant terms of their lease can avoid potential fines if it is indeed the landlord’s responsibility to remove snow and ice on that property. They can hold their landlords accountable if and when they fail to properly maintain the surrounding sidewalks and streets. For those who are required to remove snow under their lease, many properties do not offer salt treatment to residents, as this is not standard. To remedy this, the city offers free salt and sand solution that residents can use to prevent ice accumulation at seven locations throughout the city. Unfortunately, none of those
locations are particularly close to the U-M campus or the off-campus areas where students tend to live, making it even more difficult for students living off campus to effectively treat their sidewalks. We recommend that, in order to help students play their role in snow removal, the University or the city could offer salt to students in a location they frequent daily. This could be at a location such as The Union on Central Campus or Pierpont Commons on North Campus. Though the Editorial Board recognizes that the University is generally effective in keeping the campus cleared and safe of snow and ice, there is certainly room for improvement. In the past, the University has done a comparatively better job of removing snow and ice on Central Campus than in off-campus areas, even though many students live in those areas. It seems that there is an invisible boundary where the level of care that the University provides to its campus fades away. The University should extend their boundaries of snow removal in order to play a role in helping off-campus sites. Using University resources to help remove snow in nearby off campus sidewalks would help alleviate the burden felt by both residents and the city. When shoveling snow or salting driveways and sidewalks, it is important that students wear the proper winter gear. Unfortunately, some are unable to afford a pair of winter boots and a heavy winter coat. There are no immediate locations on or around campus where students can go for cheap winter gear. Bivouac, on State Street, is one of the few stores that sells winter gear on campus, but the brands they sell are relatively expensive, and this may be out of reach for some students. As such, the University should also consider adding a winter clothing and gear bank, similar to the successful food bank program they run, where students in need can go for cheap or free winter attire. While snow removal can seem a trivial issue on the surface, considering the risks that can come with improper or inadequate snow removal show how important it is. Especially to a populace that traverses to and from campus on foot daily, it is crucial that a proper system is in place and that all players do their part to ensure the safety of Ann Arbor residents.
OnlyFans’ seemingly set-in-stone intention to ban explicit content, the company suspended it only six days later, claiming that they received assurance that they would be able to support their entire creator community. This action from OnlyFans was a major discredit to sex workers’ labor. Sex work is and should be seen as labor that is valued. Further, sex work should be legalized or at least decriminalized because the benefits of legalized sex work outweigh the moral aversions those against sex workers hold. OnlyFans’ demeanor toward the sex workers on its platform is indicative of the wider negative stigma attached to sex work. Several arguments are common, often made to discredit and immoralize sex work, but most of them neglect the complexity of the issues they discuss. A common argument is that sex work isn’t “real” work. This takes a narrow view at what the concept of work can entail. Work is not just a process by which a laborer produces an object or
traditional, physical labor. Sex work is actually closely related to the work of a masseuse, therapist, actor, and so on. This type of work produces emotional labor that consumers gain a benefit from. While sex work may not be be providing a “traditional” good or service, the labor provided suffices the occupation as real work. Another common argument against sex work is that female sex workers’ choice to become a sex worker harms other women and sends a bad message. For one, this argument neglects that people of all genders can be sex workers, but that’s besides the point. Some sex workers do say that in an ideal world sex work wouldn’t exist, but you have to play the hand you’re dealt in life. Sex work can often be easier to do than getting help from the state by hopping through tons of bureaucratic welfare hoops. But on the point that women partaking in sex work harm other women, it could be claimed that many occupations women assume harm other women. Lawyers, police officers and other occupations can cause real harm
Opinion Columnist
T
he University announced on Jan. 15 that President Mark Schlissel had been fired, effective immediately, for an “inappropriate relationship” with a subordinate employee. It should be noted, given the present social climate around issues of sexual and workplace misconduct, that there is no evidence that Schlissel engaged in any form of predation or coercion; he was removed solely for the inappropriate relationship he maintained with a subordinate. While many in the University community were blindsided by the news, either because of the timing or the nature of the allegations which finally did him in, a outpouring of student support for Schlissel’s removal took shape as the news broke. Schlissel had long been a divisive figure in Ann Arbor — his alleged affair was only his latest in a long line of blunders and humiliations throughout his otherwise-forgettable term as president. Whether Schlissel should have been fired isn’t really the issue here — he violated the University’s supervisor relationship policy. The bigger problem at hand is how he could possibly have been allowed to continue in his position up to this point, sex scandals notwithstanding. Schlissel has consistently been under fire for his handling of a variety of issues throughout his seven-plus years leading the University, but his most notable failure came with his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a common sentiment around campus that Schlissel has
brazenly placed the University’s economic interests ahead of the safety and security of U-M students. While in retrospect it’s obvious that every university would face significant challenges in mitigating the impact of COVID19 on campus, Schlissel’s failures were glaring. It wasn’t enough for him to bring nearly 30,000 students back to campus for the fall 2020 semester, despite keeping all instruction online. It also was not enough to eschew routine mandatory testing for all students — clearly in the interest of limiting documented cases and keeping students on campus. It wasn’t enough to brazenly ignore a vote of no-confidence by the Faculty Senate in response to his COVID-19 protocols. It was raising student tuition — with approval from the Board of Regents — amid a crippling economic crisis and public health emergency that made it abundantly clear Schlissel had one singular motive for his administrative policies: the University’s bottom line. It was not student safety, nor was it providing the most fruitful academic experience in spite of the circumstances. It was money. It should outrage the U-M community that this man has retained his employment by the school in a more limited capacity: as a tenured professor. At a time when University accountability is at the forefront, Schlissel is going to keep a cushy title and an on-campus office? The University is sending this man into the classroom as a role model to the next generation of doctors and educators? It’s offensive. It’s a slap in the face to a community that was clearly
Gov. Youngkin’s push for “parents’ rights” opposes the interests of children ALEX YEE
Opinion Columnist
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his month in Virginia, my home state, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, R-Va., signed an executive order banning mask mandates in public schools — a move that produced mixed reactions from school districts across the state. Rural districts were quick to lift their mandates, while suburban districts in Northern Virginia and Richmond openly defied the governor. Seven districts went so far as to sue him for encroaching upon the authority of school districts to run themselves. Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears responded to the rebellious districts by stating the governor would withhold state funds from these districts to ensure compliance. Further complicating matters, a group of parents in Loudoun County (yes, that Loudoun County you might have heard of) stood outside a high school before classes to protest the school’s mask mandate. Thirty students, after refusing to wear a mask, were escorted to an auditorium and given the option to work asynchronously or go home. Similar treatment was given to a 10-year-old student at a neighboring elementary school. Broadly, however, there was little to no backlash against continued mask mandates in Northern Virginia.
Youngkin’s decision to ban these mandates, instead of leaving it up to local school districts, seems ill-advised. Rural communities might have been eager to lift their mandates, but, as evidenced by the response in Northern Virginia, the majority of families in suburban communities were still in favor of mask mandates. Youngkin is politically astute enough to have foreseen the widespread backlash. Wouldn’t devolving power back to individual districts increase local communities’ agency over their COVID-19 protocols and avoid unnecessary conflict? Perhaps, but Youngkin doesn’t need to make everyone happy — just the parents who voted him in. He ran a strong campaign that promised to give parents more control over education and is making good on that promise now. While that may be all well and good for certain parents, Youngkin’s policy has already harmed some students, and it has the potential to wreak even more havoc. At least 31 students in Loudoun were humiliated as a consequence of Youngkin’s order. One could argue that the school administrators are to blame in this case, since they physically sent the kids into auditoriums, but they were acting according to public health guidelines and the interests of a majority of their respective school’s families. By signing the order, Youngkin gave his contingent
Sex work stigma is alive and well on OnlyFans
BENJAMIN DAVIS Opinion Columnist
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n Aug. 19, 2021, OnlyFans announced that the platform would ban sexually explicit content. This came as a shock to many, especially sex workers who depend on posting their content on the site for income. OnlyFans’ publicity has skyrocketed because of its explicit content, and it is supported immensely by explicit content creators. Banks and payment companies were the main reason behind OnlyFans’ decision. Many banks do not process payments connected to the adult industry, citing the risks of associating with adult content. A similar business move was seen when PornHub removed all unverified partner content in response to Mastercard and Visa prohibiting the use of their payment method on the site after images of rape and abuse were discovered. Despite
happy to have seen the last of Mark Schlissel. This is someone with plenty to be ashamed of, but what should embarrass him most is his betrayal of his obligations as a trained medical professional; Schlissel is both a medical doctor and a professor of immunology and molecular biology. He spent years of his life studying the human immune system, but was willfully negligent as a highly infectious disease ran rampant through an institution he claimed to oversee. He knew opening the dorms at full capacity would render the University an industrial-sized petri dish. He also knew one of his bosses, the widely-loathed U-M Regent Ron Weiser (R), stood to benefit economically from the hastily-implemented return to campus. It doesn’t take an M.D. to come to those conclusions, only common sense and basic human decency. What is clear is that optics did not matter to Schlissel. In less than two years, that amounts to no less than five fireable offenses, but only when he became a social pariah was he removed. That’s what makes this so hard to understand. At one of the largest and most prestigious institutions of higher education in the country, the President placing students and the city at risk with his apathy was not cause for termination, but a relationship with a staffer was a bridge too far. The Board of Regents have a lot to answer for here, too. Schlissel was derelict in his duty to U-M students as a result of his actions, but the Board was derelict in its inaction. They are not blameless bystanders – they are constituent parties to a years-long, humiliating institutional scandal.
to women at times. Sex workers are often targeted and harassed by police even more viscously than the clients they deal with. So, if those against sex work wish to claim that sex work is wrong because it harms women, they have to play the harm against women card consistently. The reality for sex workers at the moment is bleak, to say the least. Because much of sex work is criminalized, sex workers are regularly apprehended and arrested. Police brutality against sex workers is also not uncommon. Lack of legalization or decriminalization means that the industry is mostly unregulated and leaves sex workers unprotected. Sex workers are threatened by clients, others in the industry and the law. If a sex worker is on the receiving end of abuse from a client, they are unable to go to law enforcement for help because they will most likely be detained for participating in sex work or prostitution. Contacting clients through the internet can be safer for sex workers as they can screen clients before meeting in person. But laws like SESTA and FOSTA have made
doing that quite difficult, influencing platforms like Tumblr, Craigslist and most recently OnlyFans to curtail or ban not safe for work (NSFW) content from their platforms. Criminalizing sex work makes the occupation a form of black market labor that ends up being unsafe for the sex workers themselves. A lot of these issues could be helped through legalization or decriminalization. Legalizing, or at the very least decriminalizing, sex work would bring about many benefits for the lives of sex workers and the sex work industry. For one, it would keep sex workers safer. Having sex work decriminalized would likely abate some of the police brutality afflicting sex workers, since officers would not be able to charge them on account of their occupation. It also would allow sex workers to be able to reach out to law enforcement when needed if they experience danger in their work. Another benefit would be that sex work would become taxable and would be able to generate more income for governments if it were not criminalized. In terms of whether sex work
of supporters in Northern Virginia false confidence that they could wave a piece of paper and get their way. Additionally, I find it difficult to believe that wearing a mask would have been worse for those students than being yanked into an auditorium. Sure, they may not have liked having to wear a mask all day, but it certainly wouldn’t have ostracized them from their peers to do so. I pray that case counts will be low in mask-optional schools. If Youngkin’s policy keeps people healthy, that would be great! But, if cases rise, then schools might encounter staffing issues that could precipitate temporary shifts back to remote learning, something districts around the country dealt with earlier this month. That would be unequivocally worse for students than a mask requirement due to the well documented mental health consequences of remote learning. Beyond the issue of masks, the crusade for “parents’ rights” raises bigger, long-term concerns for public education in Virginia. On the campaign trail, Youngkin released an ad featuring Laura Murphy, a Fairfax County parent who sought to ban Toni Morrison’s novel “Beloved” from the school’s curriculum because of the book’s explicit content.
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should be decriminalized or legalized, many sex workers advocate for decriminalization over legalization. Legalization has the potential to create a sort of brothel system that may not allot much agency to sex workers and to create a two-tiered system where only some sex workers are able to front the fees to pay for proper licensing. Decriminalization, on the other hand, would put power directly into the hands of sex workers and would not create legal barriers that only some have the means to bypass. Sex work should be legalized, or at least decriminalized. As the OnlyFans’ NSFW content ban shows, stigma around sex work is still rampant. When looking at all of the arguments leveled against sex work, only personal moral imperatives remain. One should not be able to dictate the profession of another based on their personal beliefs. Sex work is valid labor, it should be viewed as such. The OnlyFans ban is a litmus test that indicates the devaluation of sex workers. It’s time for this to change for the benefit of sex workers everywhere.
10 — Wednesday, February 9, 2022
Opinion
Relationships, COVID-19 and the paradox of choice; it’s advice time ELIZABETH WOLFE
Opinion Advice Columnist
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ow do you talk to your roommates about COVID-19 safety? I’m nervous about cases spiking and want to make sure we’re all on the same page. – H Hi H! I think it’s good to center the conversation around the rising cases and how your behaviors should change in response. Start by bringing up your feelings around COVID-19, then get into how you would like yourself and your roommates to respond. Ask them about how they’re feeling. Be specific: Fewer people visiting your space? More frequent testing? I think one of the most important topics to address is what to do if someone gets COVID19. Will that person move into quarantine housing? Will the rest of your roommates quarantine? Whatever your goals are, frame them as things both your roommates and you can do, instead of asking for changes from your roommates alone. Even if they’re less concerned about COVID-19 than you are, it’s not unreasonable to ask for more precautions. If you’re concerned about possibly
upsetting your roommates, I don’t think this conversation needs to be confrontational at all — as long as you’re honest about your feelings and goals. I think my roommate might have a crush on me. What do I do? We get along really well, but I’m in a really happy relationship already. I don’t think she would act on it, so should I just ignore it? – B ’25 (she/they) Hi B! Admittedly, that’s a tough one, but I think there are several ways to approach this. We can’t control who we develop feelings for, but we can control how we handle the situation. Assuming you’re right about your roommate’s feelings, the responsible thing on their part would be to respect your relationship and not act on their feelings. In this case, I would suggest leaving the situation alone and allowing your roommate space to work through their feelings. If they’re acting more flirtatious and you’re concerned about it affecting your friendship, it might be better to talk with them about their feelings. I’ll be honest, it will probably be awkward at first, but in this case, I think it would be best to be open so both of you can be on the same page.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Snow-Fall
The paradox of choice – I feel like I’m having a very hard time settling down and committing to someone because I’m always worried about something better coming along, or that I’ll like someone else I’m talking to more. How do I get over that? – L ’24 (she/her) Hi L! I think it’s important to explore your options before getting into a serious relationship. Go on multiple casual dates with different people and see who you connect with the most. I think once you find someone that you really connect with, you shouldn’t find yourself being so concerned with the possibility of someone better. If you’re worried about finding someone else, then maybe it’s a sign that whoever you’re with isn’t working out. Be honest about your feelings and don’t rush into anything just because you feel obligated. I’d also suggest working through these concerns while you navigate the dating scene. What would something “better” look like? Would you feel trapped in a relationship? You’re never tied down to someone, but I hope that when you find someone, you feel confident about your feelings and unbothered by the thought of other possibilities.
Design by Ambika Tripathi, Opinion Cartoonist
Design by Anya Singh, Opinion Cartoonist
To Greet a Virus
An opening emerges to protect American elections DEVON HESANO Opinion Columnist
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n Jan. 19, coming off a year of unprecedented attacks on the right to vote by Republican state legislatures throughout the country, congressional Democrats made their lastchance gambit and finally had a vote on carving out an exception for the filibuster for voting rights and election reform legislation. As had been telegraphed for months, the move failed, coming up two votes short of the 50-vote threshold needed. All 50 Senate Republicans were in opposition, joined by centrist Democrats Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz. It was a def lating end to a long and seemingly hopeless effort, capped off with intraparty fighting and a prevailing pessimistic mentality. It also left a choice for congressional Democratic leaders: fold over and move on, or go back to the drawing board in hopes of getting at least
something passed to protect an imperiled democracy. Thankfully, it appears some in Congress are beginning to choose the latter. Seemingly just as the filibuster carveout vote failed, reports began to surface of an amplified bipartisan push to reform the Electoral Count Act, which lays out the procedure for counting Electoral College votes, along with the potential for increased funding for the facilitation of elections and measures to ensure the fair counting of votes. There has also been reporting that lawmakers are looking at ways to defend election workers, who had to endure an onslaught of dangerous rhetoric and physical threats of violence. The effort also seems to have real potential for success, with politicians on the ideological scale ranging from Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. Chris Coons to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy R-Calif., who himself voted to overturn the election, expressing at least some sort of optimism and interest in a deal.
These are all policies that would make an important difference, and would address some of the most important problems facing our elections. The potential to have wideranging bipartisan support for such an issue that has sadly turned so contentious is a unique opportunity and one that should gladly be seized. Unfortunately, some Democrats don’t view it as such. Some progressive Democrats have dismissed the effort, either as a distraction from the larger problem or insufficient to address the problems at hand. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., when asked about the potential reform, stated, “They are not serious. And this is a diversion in order to prevent us from ensuring that every eligible American has the right to vote.” First, there does seem to be a serious effort at play, especially by senators like Susan Collins R-Maine, who has worked earnestly with Democrats in the past, on infrastructure for example. Second, if Democrats have an all-or-nothing attitude, in a
50–50 Senate, they are going to struggle to get things done for the remainder of this session in Congress. When dealing with the realities of a 50–50 Senate, a bare House majority and a Democratic senator from a state that voted for Trump by more than 35 points, compromise is inevitable and necessary. Additionally, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer claimed the effort simply “says you can rig the elections anyway you want and then we’ll count it accurately.” This too, is the wrong approach. If all voter suppression, intimidation and barriers to the ballot suddenly evaporated, yet those counting and deeming the winner could simply throw out the results, turnout would be irrelevant. The reality is, though voter suppression and barriers to the ballot are real and dangerous, especially for minorities and the underserved, the larger threat to democracy is not actually solved by addressing voter suppression. For example, in the 2020 election, mail-in voting as a result of
the pandemic made it easier than ever to vote. Turnout f lourished, reaching numbers not seen since at least 1980. Yet, many would admit that the integrity of the election was under attack in ways not seen in the modern political era. State and local-level Republicans made attempts to send fraudulent “alternate” electors and prevent state election results from being certified, and 147 Republican members of Congress even voted to throw out the will of millions of voters in multiple states, even after the Jan. 6 insurrection had taken place. This is all on top of the sustained push by thenPresident Trump and his allies to have then–Vice President Pence unilaterally reject slates of electors, a wildly antidemocratic course of action that, thankfully, Pence did not pursue. If Pence had gone along with Trump, there is no clear telling what would have happened. As written, such a scenario is not explored within the Electoral Count Act, and it is worrisome to imagine
how such an event would have unfolded. These threats, among many others, illustrate the most dangerous threats to American democracy. Though discussions are preliminary, there is evidence to suggest that the new bipartisan push would help to greatly thwart these problems. If an avenue is there, as one appears to be, congressional Democrats must take it and work to maximize the reforms that could be enacted. Moreover, none of this is to say voting rights cannot and should not be addressed whenever possible, as they clearly should. If Democrats manage to win at least two Senate seats in upcoming midterms, their voting rights and election reform bills will have a real chance of passing, so long as they can hold the House. But as the last few months have shown, that option is closed at the moment, and it would be irresponsible and dangerous not to take whatever electoral reform they can now, a sizable amount at that.
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Women’s tennis optimistic despite loss to UNC WALKER BROADBENT
Wednesday, February 9, 2022 — 11
SportsWednesday: Against Purdue, Michigan’s problems look dulled
For The Daily
Entering Saturday’s match against North Carolina, Michigan women’s tennis coach Ronni Bernstein was just a single win shy of becoming the winningest coach in program history. The Wolverines, however, couldn’t deliver Bernstein her record-setting win. That accomplishment will have to come another day as Michigan (3-2 overall) couldn’t handle the constant pressure from the star-studded Tar Heels (7-0) in a 5-2 loss. According to Bernstein, UNC is the best team the Wolverines have seen so far. Five of its six singles players are ranked — including four in the top 20 — and it has six ranked doubles pairs. “We switched around our teams a little bit and had some chances,” Bernstein said. “We knew we probably needed to go out and get that doubles point.” While Michigan brought energy during doubles play by chanting and calling out to the crowd, it ultimately couldn’t overcome the Tar Heels’ firepower. UNC set the pace and the Wolverines were unable to keep up, dropping the No. 1 and No. 2 doubles matches. Soon after, at No. 1 singles, Michigan sophomore Kari Miller took the stage. Ranked 17th in the country, Miller looked to maintain team morale. She swept the first set over fifth-ranked senior Cameron Morra while constantly cheering on her teammates beside her. Morra, though, stepped up her game in the following set. She unleashed a flat serve that painted the corner of the court,
JENNA HICKEY/Daily Michigan isn’t a good team, but late in the season, it is making some strides toward getting better.
JEREMY WEINE/Daily Kari Miller won her singles match in Michigan’s loss to North Carolina. then switched it up with a topspin serve that kicked so hard it changed direction on impact. “I told her after the first set, (Morra’s) probably going to get better and start making more balls,” Bernstein said. “And she did, and Kari wasn’t ready for that.” Miller struggled to find the same success she had in the first set, but she remained calm. Finding the occasional opening, she secured two games with finesse but ultimately lost the set, 2-6. As Morra smashed the ball with her characteristic doublehanded forehand, Miller stopped cheering on her teammates to
hone her focus on the opponent in front of her. After narrowly conceding the first game and squeaking by the second, Miller’s defense became impeccable. She dug out ball after ball until Morra would make a mistake. Then, she capitalized with a well placed shot to win the point. After losing that first game, Miller won six straight. She celebrated with her signature “On!” as she took down one of the highest-ranked singles players in the country. But while Miller battled at No. 1, the Tar Heels swept the No. 2, No. 4 and No. 5 singles to clinch the victory.
Wins from Miller and sophomore Gala Mesochoritou at No. 6 brought some excitement, but it didn’t last long. Junior Andrea Cerdan fell promptly in consecutive games to end the longest match of the event, reminding the spectators at the Varsity Tennis Center of the match’s outcome. Bernstein, though, remained optimistic for the team’s future — and that her milestone win will come soon. “Hopefully this will give us confidence,” Bernstein said. “We have to play teams like this and see where we stand, and hopefully against California we’ll be ready.”
Michigan narrowly falls in tight battle vs No. 19 Harvard ABHIJAI SINGH
For The Daily
Side-by-side, sophomore Jacob Bickersteth and junior Ondrej Styler — the No. 17 Michigan men’s tennis team’s No. 2 and No. 3 singles — fought toothand-nail for three sets in unfamiliar territory. Left to battle for more than an hour, neither was able to capture the third-set victory needed for the Wolverines to clinch a victory over No. 19 Harvard, leading to a narrow 4-3 loss. “Ondrej is sometimes a big brother out there for Jacob,” Michigan coach Adam Steinberg said. “They had a great connection and fought together but just came up short.” Two vastly different stories trailed Bickersteth and Styler heading into this duel with Harvard. Bickersteth entered on a roll, sporting a 4-0 spring singles record. His three most recent wins came at the Wolverines’ No. 2 spot, while Styler made his first appearance back in Michigan’s lineup since the team’s season-opening faceoff against Virginia Tech on Jan. 16. Due to a left wrist injury he re-aggravated versus the Hokies, Styler was forced to adjust his left backhand to a slice in
order to continue rallies. Even then, he came back from a firstset loss to defeat Harvard’s Harris Walker, 7-5, in the second and rebounded from a 1-4 deficit to narrowly lose the final set, 4-6. “When I was left on the court for the match’s deciding point, my teammates were there for me,” Stylez said. Not only were Styler’s teammates there to support him until his final point, but they also set the stage for his match to decide the Wolverines’ fate. After losing the doubles point when its No. 2 — senior Patrick Maloney/Bickersteth — and No. 3 — sophomore Gavin Young/freshman Will Cooksey — doubles pairs fell 5-7 and 4-6, respectively, Michigan fell in an 0-2 hole. The Wolverines then lost another point when senior Andrew Fenty fell to No. 17-ranked Henry von der Schulenburg 4-6, 1-6. Before his singles match, though, Fenty and sophomore Nino Ehrenschneider teamed up to complete an impressive victory over Harvard’s No. 11-ranked pair of Brian Shi and Daniel Milavsky. Michigan quickly bounced back to capture a 3-2 lead with straight-set victories from No. 4 singles Maloney, No. 5 singles Young and No. 6 singles Ehrenschneider. Maloney and Young
each improved their spring singles records this year to 4-1, while Ehrenschneider went to 3-2 on the season. “I was playing a little behind Pat,” Young said. “But I was able to boost my energy when I looked to my right and saw him winning as well. I thought I was serving well, and I was able to capitalize on my return games too.” Despite the loss, Styler’s fight through his injury is emblematic of the dedication he has always brought during his three years at Michigan. “I found a way to compete with all of these great players with no backhand, and that’s
a huge foundation for my confidence going into the next match,” Styler said. “I enjoy and cherish every moment that I have on the court.” Through this close loss to Harvard, the Wolverines remain steadfast in seeking victories moving forward, no matter where they are slotted in on match day. The narrowness of the loss only increases that determination. “Wherever Coach needs me in the lineup, I’ll be ready to show up and give my best effort,” Young said. “Where I’m placed in the singles lineup is just a number.”
JEREMY WEINE/Daily Michigan ended its three-game road stand with a 4-3 loss to Harvard.
Dickinson also had a superb Sports writing is rife with day. He racked up 28 points metaphors. The offense went quiet in – his most so far this season the last quarter. It was a David – and was 2-for-3 from deep. and Goliath matchup. They Not only did Dickinson look like the offensive powerwere the Cinderella house Michigan expectstory of the year. ed — and needed — him Here’s another clito be at the beginning of che for you: The Michthe season, but he also igan men’s basketball managed to stay out of team was expected to foul trouble. come out of the gates The added offensive running at the start firepower seemed to of this season. Now, at LANE make the Wolverines the beginning of FebKIZZIAH more resilient. Despite ruary, the Wolverines the Boilermakers’ are just learning to aggressive offense all the way walk. On Saturday against Pur- through, Michigan wouldn’t due, Michigan put up one of let the game get out of hand, its strongest offensive perfor- keeping it close until the very mances of the season. Despite end. “Basketball is about runs,” the loss, the Wolverines showed that they are capable Howard said. “You try to preof putting together the pieces vent your opponent from scoring zero points but realistically that have been there all year. Thus far, Michigan has been (that) is not going to happen. – to put it nicely – inconsis- And then teams want to make tent for a myriad of reasons: shots, and they’re going to The bench hasn’t been able to make shots sometimes.” None of this erases the fact contribute. It hasn’t found a second reliable shooter outside that the Wolverines lost by six of sophomore big man Hunter and never led in the game. This Dickinson. It hasn’t been able isn’t the team that kept fans to hold onto momentum and glued to their TVs last season, make meaningful scoring runs, each game solidifying visions of a Final Four appearance. either. This team is at risk of not But, against the Boilermakers, all of those problems making the NCAA Tournament and holds a 5-5 Big Ten record. looked subdued. Towards the end of the first It’s not a team that’s going to half, the Wolverines’ backup win the Big Ten. It’s not a team players showed their first that’s going to have a meaningsigns of life. Already facing a ful postseason run. But making strides this late hefty deficit by the middle of the first half, Michigan coach in the season says something Juwan Howard turned to the not just about this team but, bench. The backups put up 13 more importantly, about Howpoints, including two shots ard and his ability to adapt. There are a lot of ways to from behind the arc from freshman guard Kobe Buf kin make a winning team, whether and senior forward Brandon it’s a couple dominant scorers or a well-rounded lineup Johns Jr. “We always want big pro- or militant defense. Michigan duction out of our bench,” doesn’t have any of these, but Michigan assistant coach Howard isn’t done trying to Howard Eisley told reporters put the pieces together. This won’t be a team that on Monday. “We don’t want to have to rely on our starters, sprints towards a National not only for big production but Championship but, on Saturto carry a heavy minute load day, it proved that there’s still … production that we can get room to improve before it hits off the bench is always wanted the finish line. “I applaud them for what and needed.” It was by no means an amaz- they have been able to endure ing showing — especially com- throughout the season,” he pared to Purdue’s 21 points in said. “And — by the way —the the same category — but it was season isn’t over.” Who knows? Maybe the Wolstill a marked improvement from the Wolverines’ average verines will take this walk and of eight bench points across turn it into a respectable jog. their three most recent games.
Miller and Mesochoritou are lone bright spots in loss to UNC ZACHARY XU
For The Daily
JEREMY WEINE/Daily Gala Mesochoritou won her singles match in Michigan’s loss to North Carolina.
Everyone loves a good underdog story. On Saturday, sophomores Kara Miller and Gala Mesochoritou were underdogs who earned the No. 20 Michigan women’s tennis team its only two points in a 5-2 loss to No. 2 North Carolina. Miller, ranked No. 17 in the nation, was coming off her first dual-match win her last time out against Georgia Tech. She looked to carry the momentum from that win into her No. 1 singles match against the Tar Heels’ Cameron Morra— the fifth-ranked player in the nation.
Miller came out firing. Maintaining a constant pressure throughout the first set, she was able to secure a 6-0 sweep to take a lead. She faltered in the second set, though, as Morra came back and took an early 3-0 lead. Trying to mount a comeback, Miller was able to take the next two sets, yet ultimately fell 6-2. But in the third set, she was able to bounce back, powering her way to a 6-1 win and securing the upset victory. “She lost a little bit of momentum right in the middle there,” Michigan coach Ronni Bernstein said. “She competes so hard and after losing the second set, she regrouped and played a great third set. Really great.” Despite having a fantastic first
set, Miller really showcased her skills in the third set. Morra, carrying the energy from her secondset win and shaking off the tough first-set loss, delivered a barrage of powerful slams, each one getting faster than the previous. The pressure didn’t get to Miller, though, as she kept her composure and consistently matched Morra’s intensity. On the opposite side of the complex was sophomore Gala Mesochoritou at No. 6 singles, who continued to prove that the ACL injury she suffered in 2021 was not going to hold her back. Her elite performance reminded everyone of the level she played at before her injury, when she went undefeated in 17 singles
matches. “Gala at 6, coming back from what she’s been through, was a fantastic lift for us,” Bernstein said. Mesochoritou took the match in straight sets, ending with a 6-3 first set win and a hard-fought 7-5 second-set win. This win secured the Wolverines’ first point and provided a much-needed morale boost for the rest of the team. Although Michigan fans didn’t see the upset they craved, they got a fantastic showing from two young, promising athletes. Despite being the underdogs in their respective matches, they persevered and proved that there’s a bright season ahead for the Wolverines.
SPORTSWEDNESDAY
HOME ALONE
Jim Harbaugh returns to lead new beginning at Michigan sans his coordinators JARED GREENSPAN Managing Sports Editor
One month and a lifetime ago, Jim Harbaugh sat at a podium with a backdrop of College Football Playoff logos, expressing vigorous optimism for the future of the Michigan football program. “It’s still a beginning for this team,” Harbaugh waxed, his outlook unchanged in the wake of Georgia’s 23-point drubbing in the Orange Bowl. “That’s when it began last year, and it’ll begin anew this year. Start of a new year.” Harbaugh continued, his voice firm. “To me, it feels like a start. Feels like a beginning.” A beginning, indeed. In a stunning turn of events, Harbaugh will return to Michigan for the 2022 season. He informed an “elated” Warde Manuel of his decision Wednesday evening, on the heels of traveling to Minnesota to interview for the Vikings’ head coaching vacancy earlier that day. After a month-long craze of NFL rumors and boundless speculation, Harbaugh will remain in Ann Arbor. Each of Harbaugh’s seven years as the Wolverines’ coach began with the same tired song and dance: Will Harbaugh leave? Baseless rumors swirled. TV personalities and pundits prattled alike. It was, if anything, a tired yet entertaining ritual. Each time, Harbaugh remained in place. Though interest from the NFL hardly waned, the sentiment was unrequited. Harbaugh had yet to
accomplish what he first set out to do. In 2014, at his introductory press conference, Harbaugh deflected questions about expectations. In typical Harbaugh-speak, he preferred to stress the importance of the first day of practice, the first meeting and the first week at his new job. One day at a time. But, to borrow a phrase from Harbaugh’s vernacular, sometimes the questions answer themselves. The expectations were already set in stone; the beloved former quarterback had come home to rescue Michigan’s sputtering football program from the abyss. Harbaugh — ballyhooed, quirky and charismatic — would be the savior. It took seven long years, a herkyjerky roller coaster ride of thrill and disappointment, for that vision to materialize. But this past year felt like a climax, Harbaugh’s program at last delivering upon the unspoken promise. He vanquished Ohio State, captured a Big Ten Championship and led Michigan’s inaugural foray into the College Football Playoff. He had, at last, returned the Wolverines to their long-vacant spot on the sport’s grandest stage. In December, underneath a drizzle of maize and blue confetti, Harbaugh stood triumphantly on a makeshift stage and reached deep into his soul to unleash a “Go Blue” that rang throughout Lucas Oil Stadium. He hoisted the coveted Big Ten Championship trophy high above his head, a Christmas-morning grin plastered across his face. Charles Woodson joined him for a resounding rendition of “The Vic-
tors,” beckoning cheers from the giddy Michigan faithful on hand. This felt like the glory days; this was pure euphoria. As of Wednesday morning, the growing consensus was that the moment would become a culmination of Harbaugh’s Michigan tenure, his final triumph as a Wolverine. NFL interest appeared to be building to a crescendo. Tuesday evening, reports surfaced that Harbaugh to Minnesota was a formality; he had allegedly exchanged a handful of “goodbyes” and “thank yous.” Harbaugh is 58. NFL interest won’t last forever; much of it is tied to his year-to-year success at Michigan. These past two seasons — a 2-4 campaign followed by a Big Ten Championship — certainly emphasized the sport’s fickle nature. On the heels of the Wolverines’ best season in decades, one that Harbaugh rightfully called one of the best in the storied program’s history, Harbaugh’s personal stock may have never been higher. NFL speculation long inundated Harbaugh because people had a hard time believing he could live without chasing that coveted Lombardi Trophy again. Temptation, then, made sense. Perhaps the lightbulb never died. But it certainly flickered. And with Harbaugh informing Manuel that NFL speculation would not become a reoccurring issue, effectively deciding to commit to Michigan for the long-term, it appears to have died. Few disputed Harbaugh’s proclamation that this was merely the start, a full-fledged restoration of a sleeping national power. It’s an ardu-
ous task to stack successful seasons in college football, particularly in the Big Ten. But everything seemed to be trending upwards for the Wolverines, a revelation following years of tumult. This time last year, without significant NFL interest, Harbaugh preoccupied himself by overhauling the program’s culture with a youthful coaching staff, a seismic shift that paid immense and immediate dividends. In December, he capitalized on Michigan’s on-field momentum with a top-10 recruiting class and seemed poised to reel in touted prospects in droves. Michigan’s future was tied to a tantalizing nucleus of young talent, headlined by freshmen J.J. McCarthy and Donovan Edwards and sophomore Blake Corum. And Harbaugh himself appeared revitalized. His quips — about George Patton and Neil Armstrong, about “Clint Eastwood wins” — returned with fervor. He seemed, at last, genuinely happy. This was the Harbaugh who wanted to wear cleats into the Mormon church, who orchestrated sleepovers with recruits, who waged war on SEC satellite camps, who reveled in his fictional character Freddy P. Soft. This Harbaugh brought the old Michigan back with him. Now? It’s all here to stay. Michigan’s disastrous performance in the Orange Bowl revealed just how far the Wolverines, as a program, have to go to entrench themselves in college football’s upper echelon. A product of the many inequities that mar college football, there’s a chasm between mere play-
off contenders and championship contenders, and Michigan has yet to cross it. Harbaugh knows that. Of the many traits that Harbaugh embodies, ignorance is not one of them. It’s impossible to overstate how losing Harbaugh may have cratered this program. Michigan is littered with people — current players, incoming recruits, high school prospects, assistant coaches — whom Harbaugh sold on a vision. He convinced them that he would take care of them, that he would ascend them to new heights, that he would usher them from boys to men. When those promises are stripped, loyalty often goes with it. Perhaps, in the alternate universe in which Harbaugh leaves, the doomsday scenario never materializes. But it’s difficult to imagine this beginning, absent the man who patented it. With Harbaugh in tow, the proclamation is alive and well. Goalposts have shifted. Michigan, finally, is over the hump. If this is a beginning, then Harbaugh’s vision lies on the other side, beyond restoration and into sustainment, a prolonged stay in the upper echelon as opposed to a guest pass. That carries with it a new set of goals for Harbaugh to accomplish in the second stage of his tenure. Perhaps Michigan permanently closes the gap with Ohio State, capitalizing on the program’s surge on the recruiting trail and vibrant culture. Perhaps the Wolverines restore their glory days. Perhaps they crack that elusive group of championship contenders, joining Clemson, Alabama and Georgia with a spot at the sport’s most coveted dinner table.
We can’t be certain which path Michigan will follow. All we know is that there’s no time for a honeymoon. Harbaugh has to find a pair of new coordinators, with Mike Macdonald and Josh Gattis each moving on. Replacing Macdonald, the architect of the defensive restoration and someone whom players touted as a genius, is arduous. Gattis’s shoes, too, are large; while his “speed in space” proclamation never truly materialized, Michigan’s offense blossomed into one of the nation’s best under Gattis’s watch this past season. It’s not easy finding two heirs in the same offseason, let alone this late in the cycle, with spring ball looming in March. And yet, with Harbaugh here to stay, those glaring holes at coordinator feel, at least in part, moot. Michigan has a legitimate shot to turn all of those above hypotheticals into reality. Without Harbaugh, they are mere fantasies. At the aforementioned introductory press conference, Harbaugh likened his different coaching destinations to building houses. At each stop — first San Diego, then Stanford, then the 49ers — Harbaugh had built what he called “pretty nice homes,” doing so from the ground up. At Michigan, though, he aspired for more. A beginning, but not necessarily an end. “I would really like to live in one permanently,” Harbaugh said, fully immersed in his metaphor. “That’s what I’m very hopeful for here.” A chorus of applause followed. Seven years later, as the Wolverines grapple with this new reality, so will Harbaugh. He can finally move in for good.
Julia Schachinger/Daily | Dominick Sokotoff/Daily | Kate Hua/Design | Design by Sophie Grand
Wednesday, February 9, 2022 // The Statement — 2
Can’t Buy Me Love
BY JULIA VERKLAN MALONEY, STATEMENT DEPUTY EDITOR ILLUSTRATION BY JENNIE VANG PAGE LAYOUT BY SARAH CHUNG VINTAGE VALENTINE CREDIT: Bentley Historical Library
What is love? Scientists explain it in terms of the body’s release of adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin; cynics refute its existence by citing ancient philosophy. The Greeks had six words to describe it, whereas Merriam Webster offers a simple definition. More recently, a Hallmark card asserted that love is when you find “the sprinkled donut in a sea of glazed.” Whatever it may be, the complexity of “love” opens the arena for many interpretations and ways of expression. It is an intangible feeling that we seek to materialize through tangible exchanges, much like how our desire to consume is expressed via the transaction of paper money. Therefore, “punny” cards depicting talking donuts, a cherub with a quiver of arrows and centuries of heart-shaped anything are the expected form of currency when transacting love come Feb. 14 — a currency made of paper, measured in chocolate and scented like a rose. It has been over a millennium since Feb. 14 was formally recognized for a martyred Catholic priest and an estimated 545 years since the earliest surviving valentine was sent to its lovestruck recipient. Love — whatever it means — has been expressed since the dawn of time, with paper love notes serving as a common source. Love is a feeling, a drive; a motivator, a risk. Love is everything that you can feel yet everything you can’t touch. Hence, there is one designated day each year that gives us the chance to materialize said feeling, where valentines attempt to express their “eros” using Cupid as their guide. Under his direction, the currency of love has maintained its medium of paper, creased with a crisp centerfold, patterned with a red filigree design and sealed with a kiss. Valentine’s Day became popular in the U.S. during the 1840s, when increased paper production and the proliferation of the printing press allowed for pre-printed notes featuring iconic love birds, bright red hearts and our favorite “god of love.” Specifically, Esther Howland is accredited with making Valentine’s Day a business after transforming her stationary art into a monopolistic essential for American lovers. Put simply: Love went commercial.
Howland sold many of her creations for the high price of 75 cents (the equivalent of $100 today), embossing each note with her signature “H.” Howland’s work was an artistic, tangible symbol of love and an early example of the importance of branding in shaping social and cultural trends. Early cards often featured short greetings and poems that juxtaposed playful flirtation with biting humor. Luxury cards, like Howland’s, featured wafered paper pressed to mimic lace, overlaid with precious gold foil and colored paper cutouts. They were intricate pieces of art, art that required much creative thought and intention — and all of an average American’s daily salary. For the superfluous valentine, though, handmade cards highlighted the sentimentality of the sender, saving pennies while creating a spark. To some, a man who can write his own poem was more wooing than one who can simply open his wallet. To explore the historic commodification of love and its place in popular culture, I spoke with Dr. Elizabeth White Nelson, University of Nevada, Las Vegas professor and cultural historian of 19th century America. Her research supports that romantic relationships of the 19th century were characterized by a focus on economics — valentines serving as a “broker.” The trading of cards was a testament of wealth and devotion, recording fraught issues of love and marriage on paper. And while the circulation of cards may have been born out of pure, heart-beating intentions by entrepreneurs like Howland, they soon became a symbol of status. After all, middle-class women of the 19th and 20th centuries had to consider the relationship between romantic love and the economic reality; the alternative of marriage being work in factories or mills. The holiday was a way to test the viability of said reality, using heart-shaped materialism as a measurement of future stability. The currency of love was a currency for survival, a notion that may have stuck. Now, Valentine’s Day marks the main day of the year in which singles and couples alike subject themselves to both cupid’s arrow and the card aisle, using materialism to mimic stability in both a financial and emotional lens. 145 million
cards travel from hand to hand every year and a mere $21.8 billion dollars is projected to be spent on gifts this Feb. 14. Red roses are the staple flower in every bouquet order, heart-shaped boxes of chocolate are an ancient aphrodisiac that can’t stay on the shelves — each gift accompanied with a love note. Talking avocados, cartoon cats and sexual innuendos make up many card designs nowadays, supplementing long-held romantic motifs with evolving visual fads. Yet to Dr. White Nelson, while the material symbols of love may have lost some sophistication, “we are still struggling with love in the same way.” The evolution of card exchange is an everchanging quest for materializing love, a neverending haste to commodify a feeling. Hence, shifts in romantic, socio-cultural trends caused by reduced disposable income levels and the deconstruction of heteronormativity reveal that the true underpinnings of Valentine’s Day and the act of giving cards may have never been about love in the first place. Instead, it is about defining comfort within a relationship through an element of tangible risk; a risk of love and a relationship hidden behind the front of a mischievous cupid or talking donut. A risk not needed solely between a man and a woman or under a sizeable budget. This risk is partly what inspired Dr. White Nelson’s research: “you’ll find someone who has a charming and lovely valentine story, but most Valentine’s stories are of heartbreak and fear and concern and disdain for the holiday as insincere.” This is likely because “we feel both drawn to the idea that goods can speak for us and uncomfortable with the idea that we don’t control them.” Cards can therefore be viewed as an invitation to romantic love, an invitation that has the opportunity to be declined or embraced. While cards may not in essence be an all-encompassing embodiment of love, they are in fact a currency of it. A currency that is difficult to standardize — something that has been grappled with for centuries. Ann Arbor, at one point rated one of the country’s most romantic cities, has hosted countless card exchanges and budding relationships,
spreading love throughout campus and within the lecture halls. Archived within the Bentley Historical Library are scrapbooks featuring students’ paper love, dating from the early 1900s onward. Many feature rosy-cheeked cupid, others: cartoon silverware. Yet, cards were not always the premier mode of Valentine’s gift-giving on campus. In fact, the 1939 Valentine’s Day edition of The Michigan Daily touted love notes as a “stale” form of “commercialized sentimentality,” suggesting instead a $2 horse-drawn tour around Washtenaw county. The 1951 edition cited “decreasing money and decreasing chivalry” as the cause of lessened card exchanges, two years later stating that “people with enemies are more likely to receive [valentines] than people with friends.” Pre-made cards with lackluster poems were no longer causing a spark. If not a card, what is the way to our hearts? The 1987 edition advertised a heart-shaped pizza from the Brown Jug and a couples getaway to the Bahamas with the ingenious tagline “A day in the library? Or a day in paradise?” By 2022 standards, Kay Jewelers claims a lab-created pink opal heart ring is the perfect gift, presented with a card depicting hugging blocks of cheese with the caption “Will you brie my valentine?” Such evolution in gift-giving, ranging from spiteful valentines to romantic cheese, exposes the varying, and somewhat comical, generational attempts in pinpointing the materialization of love — something seen within our own city. There is no return to the “good old days” where love spread with sincerity, unaffected by capitalism or social demands; history provides corroboration. Despite subtle changes in gift-giving or card circulation, what remains constant is the tangible risks of expressing love coupled with the reliance on shops and card aisles to commercialize sentimentality. As a result, business executives and card designers are (and have always been) sticking their noses in our romantic business. Gross!
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
3 — Wednesday, February 9, 2022 // The Statement
Fathers, daughters and daddies BY HALEY JOHNSON, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
When thinking about father-daughter relationships, unfortunately, there is no “dad” without a “daddy.” Since entering our collective vocabulary, terms like “daddy issues,” “fatherless behavior” and “father complex” have dominated the ways we discuss the complex relationships between women and their dads. All the difficulty, nuance and complications that exist in these relationships flattened into a singular, sexually tainted dimension: daddy. This linguistic minimization means that any mention of the term triggers its associations with daddy kinks, if not outright discussions of sex. In a way, daddy has gone mainstream. The podcast “Call Her Daddy” has received criticism and acclaim for its unfiltered discussion of sex. The “Daddy Gang,” aka the fans of the show, number in the millions and eagerly await host Alex Cooper’s vulgar commentary each week. But what are “daddy issues?” The top entry in Urban Dictionary defines it as “when a girl has a messed up relationship with her dad. usually the fathers fault. either he left or is acting like a total bitch.” The page goes on to define an array of causes: child abuse, neglect, absent or emotionally
unavailable fathers. It’s purposefully imprecise, encapsulating a range of traumas and experiences only loosely tied together through the common thread of fathers. “Daddy issues” is convenient; any traumatic experience or unresolved feeling can fall under the catch-all term. At best it’s an unwillingness to precisely name and identify our experiences; at worst it’s a misogynistic assumption that these women have had the same experience — or at least similar enough ones — and can be lumped together. Daddy issues seem to mean something different to everyone. When I was introduced to the term, a friend told me that it didn’t apply to me because my dad was still alive. I simultaneously was relieved and annoyed upon hearing this. No girl wants to be labelled as having daddy issues; I certainly didn’t identify myself that way. But it felt like it was the only language there was to describe imperfect paternal relationships. The relief was only temporary. That was just my friend’s subjective interpretation of daddy issues; later, others would tell me that emotional unavailability did, in fact, qualify. The precise meaning of the term never became clear to me. Anytime my friends and I tried to psychoanalyze our relationships with our fathers, we came to conflicting
conclusions, each of us pointing toward a different ILLUSTRATION BY MELIA KENNY PAGE LAYOUT BY SARAH CHUNG aspect of daddy issues to justify our observation. Throughout my adult life, I’ve struggled to define and understand my relationship with my father on my own terms. No matter how hard I try to make sense of my feelings and experiences, every conversation eventually turns to the same, empty idea: “You know, lots of girls have daddy issues.” But it couldn’t be that simple. *** Growing up, I heard variations of the same refrain over and over again: “I thought your mom was raising you alone?” “I’ve never seen your dad before.” “Your parents are still together?” I never quite know how to talk about my dad. My dad is 62 years old. He has a collection of vintage snowmobiles and pretends to dislike our cats. I inherited my nose and my addiction to diet soda from him, but unlike me, he prefers Coke to Pepsi.
Still, all that feels too factual. The truth is that my dad was physically present during my childhood but for the most part, he was emotionally unavailable. Our relationship existed on a superficial plane of awkward family dinners a few times a year, attending parents’ night at school and changing the oil in my car. It was nice, I guess. These interactions reminded me that he cared. But there was never any emotional closeness that came with it, and I grew resentful of his disinterest in me.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Necto, TikTok, And the importance of queer spaces BY DRAKE GEORGE, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT
I went to my first fraternity formal in February of my freshman year, and I sat in Chatime, sipping my roasted milk black tea with pearls while waiting to head over. I was petrified. When I was in grade school in rural Texas, I didn’t have many parties or social events that were clearly designated as LGBTQ+ friendly spaces. But on this night during my first year in Ann Arbor, I could tell that things were different. There was a
guy waiting for me at the ADPhi fraternity and he had assured me that no one there would give me shit if I came with him — even if we were together, even if we were gay. The thought of being with a guy at a public event was electrifying: It felt taboo and daring, especially in front of frat guys, people who I didn’t immediately associate with queer acceptance. To my surprise, I ended up having a wonderful night, dancing and talking to people and playing various games. Most of the girls were very cordial and kind to me, even if many of the guys were not. I felt myself being stared down from every ILLUSTRATION BY MELIA KENNY // PAGE LAYOUT BY SARAH CHUNG corner of the
room, as if I were a spy infiltrating somewhere that I shouldn’t and they were onto me. Regardless, the guy that I was with made me feel weightless, ending the night by leading me up to the balcony of the frat house where bubbly beverages and candles were prepared. We danced to “I’ll Be Seeing You” by Billie Holiday before he whispered to me: “Happy Valentine’s Day.” After that, I was curious to know where there were other places where I could openly dance with other guys without frat guys staring me down. It’s something I still wonder. I recently typed “gay bar” into Ann Arbor Google Maps to see what would come up and was surprised by the result. The closest location was a place called “Boylesque Drag,” which is approximately 7.7 miles away from my house in Kerrytown. The rest of these LGBTQ+ spaces were peppered throughout Ypsilanti and mostly concentrated in Detroit. I was shocked: It seemed strange that such a large university setting only offered Friday nights at Necto for queer nightlife environments. I then Googled to see if there were any venues that had recently closed. The only establishment that I could find was “Aut Bar,” which closed
about two years ago at the start of the pandemic after being open for 25 years. Unfortunately, the decrease in LGBTQ+ establishments is not unique to the Ann Arbor area — surprisingly enough, the trend of gay bars closing manifested itself long before the pandemic. Across the United States, gay bar listings have declined 36.6% between the years of 2007 and 2019, according to a study by Oberlin College’s Gregor Mattson. The study reads that, “The number of listings for bars serving people of color declined by 59.3 percent, cruisy men’s bar listings declined by 47.5 percent and bars for women declined by 51.6 percent.” Of course, the pandemic has waged its impact against mainstays like The Stud in San Francisco and Therapy in New York, to name a couple. The economic hardships from 2020 to now have left all sorts of nightlife establishments (queer or not) boarded up and empty. But there might be more subliminal reasons for the decline in gay bars across the United States.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
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u a re s b u t i a o s t i n k y. b s olut ely love u . xo
Have a happy Valenti ne’s Day, galenti ne!
e= Yo u + m . by a b r e v fo r e u o y L ove la d y
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Fordma l & chill? Happy vday to the sweetes t g uy I know <3
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Wednesday, February 9, 2022 // The Statement — 4
U da best
a suc f ter h a rec ei f l yea rom ovely v i ng y r t i m , i fe ou ea note f av e i r el l i k ch o r. e t u ei a s a l l m r n t h t ’s a lw e y ay s love <3 ,
w as M ee ti ng yo u at th g in th th e be st m e la st to ed en pp ha u fo r ye ar. I lo ve yo e, ar ha ve al l th at yo u ve ye t to ha d be en , an vo ri te , be . U R m y Fa . ty ar Sm
Yo u a re t h e a b s ol co ole s ut e t , mos t funn creat i y most v e gu t here ! S o g l y out a f r i e n d d w e ’r e s :)
To Paul: I still love you (from YikYak)
y a r, s m e ll to m y d e a n n a n d on e fr ie n d s u ti fu l ou s , bea e g r o g my e you v lo I te s : r o o m m a e h a ir c u ts e g u y s ! fr c a u s e y o u be e m 3 a n y ti you ng < ke ep me g , lo v e
Al l I ne ed th is ho lid ay is yo u, be at st ar, an d st ra w be rr ie s
Dea r TMD N e w s: Fo re v e r g ra te fu l fo r y o u C h e e rs to a ll . ma la te n ig h n y m o re la u g h s, ts a n d in c re d ib le st o r y te ll in g . L o v e , D o m in ic & K ri st in a
happy stupid love holiday day. couldn’ t have made it this far withou t u. love, me
u ha n k yo D a n i! T e b e s t th g fo r b e in d fr ie n d . I te a n ro om m a s ic a n d k in g m u o u . a m e lo v y h it zw fu n m e m “ e r a s e m e ” t s L e t ’s b la o n ! so
i’m so proud of you -h
H i Z o e! y I lo v e r E ve yd a ! H appy e r you mo <3 e ’s D a y ! Va le n ti n