UP D AT E P U B28, D AT E FEBRURARY 2020
THE BLAXA, GEORGETOWN’S BLACK PUBLICATION, IS READY TO TELL STORIES
ON
THEIR
WHO CAN AFFORD TO BE A WASHINGTONIAN? By Caroline Hamilton
OWN
CARBONE HEADS TO OLYMPIC TRIALS By Inès de Miranda
TERMS.
Contents
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editorials
Big Structural Reform for GUSA
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sports
New Kid on the Starting Block: Carbone Heads to Olympic Trials
February 28, 2020 Volume 52 | Issue 12
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Celebrating 50 Years
leisure
The Amen Corner Brings Baldwin to Life at Sidney Harman Hall
Editor-In-Chief Noah Telerski Managing Editor Katherine Randolph news
Executive Editor Features Editor News Editor Assistant News Editors
OLIVIA MARTIN
opinion
Executive Editor Voices Editor Assistant Voices Editor Editorial Board Chair Editorial Board
INÈS DE MIRANDA
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carrying on
Scott Krulcik and the Way to Live CAM SMITH
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cover story
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Tonari Brings Japanese-Style Italian Cuisine to D.C.
A Revived Blaxa is Ready to Tell its Stories
Who Can Afford to Be a Washingtonian?
KATHERINE RANDOLPH
CAROLINE HAMILTON
leisure
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voices
Missing in Action: How Elite Universities Threaten K-12 Teaching
ANNA SAVO-MATTHEWS & SAMANTHA TRITT
↑
AMANDA CHU
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voices
If You Like It, Consider Not Putting a Ring on It PAUL JAMES & MAX ZHANG
Caroline Hamilton Annemarie Cuccia Roman Peregrino Darren Jian, Ryan Remmel, Sarah Watson
“People think that you write the news, and after that the problem’s over. The news is a tool to galvanize the public.”
Leina Hsu Amanda Chu Paul James, Max Zhang Inès de Miranda Sienna Brancato, Delaney Corcoran, Annemarie Cuccia, Emily Jaster, Inès de Miranda, Lizz Pankova, Katherine Randolph, Cam Smith, Noah Telerski, Jack Townsend
leisure
feature
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Executive Editor Juliana Vaccaro De Souza Leisure Editor Skyler Coffey Assistant Editors Emma Chuck, Anna Pogrebivsky, Abby Webster Halftime Editor John Woolley Assistant Halftime Editors Lucy Cook, Chetan Dokku, Samantha Tritt
sports
Executive Editor Sports Editor Assistant Editors Halftime Editor Assistant Halftime Editors
Will Shanahan Tristan Lee Nathan Chen, Jake Gilstrap Ethan Cantrell Arshan Goudarzi
design
leisure
Chemi Rosado-Seijo’s Commitment to Community Shines in Comunidades en Movimiento ANNA SAVO-MATTHEWS
Josh Klein Insha Momin, Cade Shore Sean Ye Allison DeRose, Alex Giorno, Neha Malik Staff Designers Deborah Han
Executive Editor Spread Editors Cover Editor Assistant Design Editors
copy
Copy Chief Sophie Stewart Assistant Copy Editors Maya Knepp, Julia Rahimzadeh Editors Christopher Boose, Mariona Franklin, Alene Hanson, Jennifer Kret, Stephanie Leow, Walker Miller, Kristin Turner
multimedia
Executive Editor Podcast Editor Assistant Podcast Editor Photo Editor
Sarema Shorr Panna Gattyan Anna Sofia Neil John Picker
online
on the cover
Executive Editor Cam Smith Social Media Editor Eli Lefcowitz
business
General Manager Maggie Grubert Assistant Manager of Alice Gao Alumni Outreach
PG. 11
support
The opinions expressed in The Georgetown Voice do not necessarily represent the views of the administration, faculty, or students of Georgetown University, unless specifically stated. Columns, advertisements, cartoons, and opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the General Board of The Georgetown Voice. The university subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression of its student editors. All materials copyright The Georgetown Voice, unless otherwise indicated.
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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
editor@georgetownvoice.com Leavey 424 Box 571066 Georgetown University 3700 O St. NW Washington, DC 20057
“Blaxa” SEAN YE
Associate Editors Tim Adami, Delaney Corcoran, Olivia Stevens Contributing Editors Sienna Brancato, Rachel Cohen, Dajour Evans, Brynn Furey, Anne Greer, Emily Jaster, Julia Pinney, Lizz Pankova, Jack Townsend Staff Writers Nathan Barber, Alex Brady, Savannah Benko, Maya Cassady, Jason Cuomo, Blythe Dujardin, Steven Frost, Anna Greer, Annabella Hoge, Steven Kingkiner, Lily Kissinger, Jaden Kielty, Olivia Martin, Bella McGlone, Orly Salik, Anna SavoMatthews, Isaac Solly, Timmy Sutton, Brooke Tanner, Aaron Wolf, Katie Woodhouse
Page 3 cartoon by deborah han; koala by katherine randolph; lacroix rat by timmy adami; funraiser by nathan posner; album from wikimedia commons; musk from flickr
→ HALFTIME PROMO
An eclectic collection of jokes, puns, doodles, playlists, and news clips from the collective mind of the Voice staff.
Elon Musk, Grimes, and Living in a 21st Century Society
→ OVERHEARD AT GEORGETOWN
“I’m not tired enough to fall asleep, I’m just tired enough to complain about it.”
Cult followings. Space travel. Whatever “warnymph” means. Read the tale of the tech billionaire and the dream pop queen by checking out Halftime Leisure’s latest story on georgetownvoice.com
→ KATIE'S ANIMAL DOODLE
Koala T. Content → VOICE FUNDRAISER
Photo of the Week
→ DEBORAH’S CARTOON
→ PLAYLIST
Halftime's Spring Break Bangerz 1. When We Were Young The Killers 2. Last Nite The Strokes 3. Casualty Lawrence 4. Green Light Lorde 5. Geronimo Sheppard 6. Never Better Raleigh Ritchie 7. Making The Most Of The Night Carly Rae Jepsen 8. Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting) Elton John 9. No Plan Hozier 10. Jessie’s Girl Rick Springfield
Candid shot of Editor-in-Chief Noah Telerski celebrating at the Voice’s “A Celebration of Student Journalism” FEBRUARY 28, 2020
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EDITORIALS
Big Structural Reform for GUSA
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eorgetown students don’t care about GUSA. They don’t think GUSA does anything, they don’t see GUSA as a tool for solving their problems, and they stereotype the people in GUSA as ladder climbers in it for the resumé boost. GUSA is broken, and it needs to be fixed. When this editorial board endorsed a ticket for the recent GUSA Executive election, we endorsed the people we thought could enact real change. We wanted a more activist GUSA that engages a broader range of stakeholders on campus issues. We wanted a more open and diverse GUSA, one that better represents women, people of color, and LGBTQ folks, one free of the never-ending cycle of resignations citing a toxic culture. We have three proposals to transform GUSA into an organization that students are more invested in: abolish the GUSA Senate, expand the policy teams of the GUSA Executive, and give the Executive a voting seat on the university’s Board of Directors. These reforms are only a first step toward what we would like to see GUSA become in the future, one we hope current and forthcoming administrations will actively work for. Abolish the GUSA Senate Of all the inefficiencies within GUSA, the GUSA Senate is the worst offender. At the core of this critique is the idea that the Senate doesn’t do anything, which is not entirely a myth. Week after week, Senators meet to discuss resolutions when they have no real power to institute change. And when they actually accomplish something, they do such a poor job of promoting it that few students actually hear about it. When the GUSA Weekly email gets sent out, most students don’t receive it, and those who do rarely read it. The Senate also fosters a toxic work environment. On Jan. 26, a senator resigned due to the insensitivity and lack of support she experienced in a Senate that fails to reflect the diversity of the student body it represents. The Senate might more closely resemble the Yard, the all-male student government that predated GUSA and the acceptance of women into the College in 1969, than it would like to admit. There is one function of the Senate that will need to be relocated: the Finance and Appropriations Committee (FinApp), which is responsible for doling out the student activities fee to student clubs. Without a Senate, there must be some system for selecting FinApp members who will still be accountable for their decisions, potentially by making the chairs of the policy teams act as the new body to fund clubs. As we define policy chairs below, they would be invested in student government and still held accountable for creating a good budget. A deliberative body which struggles to represent the students at large is hardly one worth trusting. When all of the things the Senate and its various committees work on are already being done with greater results or could be replicated by the policy teams of the Executive branch, the Senate is redundant. Getting rid of the Senate would remove the most dysfunctional and derided branch of GUSA and allow students to focus their efforts in one place, hopefully reorienting the Executive as the clearing house for getting things done on campus.
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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
Reform the Executive Streamlining GUSA into only one branch would mean policy teams would take over the majority of GUSA’s efforts. Despite doing the majority of the tangible work, policy teams in their current form leave a lot to be desired. Normally, policy teams require applications for people to join, which is absurd. We know they don’t need to turn people away, as the GUSA Weekly newsletters often have calls for applications months into the semester. The idea that someone should have to apply to work on improving campus is symptomatic of what students do not like about GUSA: the gross preprofessionalism associated with it. Policy teams should be open to anyone who wants to participate, fostering a perception of the teams as a feasible place to get things done. Hopefully, that would allow for a more diverse set of voices in the room, including activist voices who currently find GUSA offputting and insular. On a campus that struggles to create coalitions across different groups, having GUSA as a central meeting place would be a change for the better. We recognize that there should be some sort of qualification for chairing a policy team, such as spending a semester on the team, but the team should select their chair internally. They should be able to elevate the people on the teams who do the best work or know the issue the best, making GUSA more meritocratic. To keep campus up to date and to keep all the teams on the same page, they should continue meeting regularly, as the Senate currently does. And they should do a better job than the Senate of advertising what gets done at those meetings. By getting rid of the Senate and making these changes to the Executive, GUSA as a whole would become a more open place where people can accomplish advocacy work on campus. Give the GUSA Executive Voting Seats on the Board of Directors While making GUSA more open is pertinent, students still need an incentive to buy into GUSA and
logo courtesy of gusa; illustration by alex giorno
the elections for the Executive. Turnout in recent Executive elections has been in the 30 percent range, meaning the majority of students are not voicing their opinion on who represents them. To fix that, and to address students’ lack of input into how the university is run, we propose giving both GUSA Executives voting seats on the university’s Board of Directors. As it currently stands, the GUSA president has a seat on the Board of Directors which allows them to attend some meetings and present to the board, but has no voting power. Once the executives leave the room, the remaining board members can move in an entirely different direction. The fact that students, despite being the heart of any university, have no power in making the decisions that impact their day-to-day lives leaves them disenfranchised and disengaged from the choices the university makes. For instance, would the university see tuition increases every year if students had more input? There are currently 38 board members, and two more student votes would not suddenly tip the scales in our favor. It would simply mean student voices would actually be taken into account. If the GUSA Executive had a substantive voice on the Board of Directors, students might take their election more seriously and be more invested in who is representing them. This would be an important move toward making more university stakeholders actively involved in the governance of the school. *** These reforms will not fix all of GUSA’s problems, because the cultural problems present at Georgetown will be persistent in its student government. Since GUSA started, only six women have ever served as GUSA president and only one woman of color. The issues we see with GUSA will require greater reflection and conversation on campus to actually make progress toward creating a more inclusive campus. These changes are critical in making the student body invested in producing a student government that is more open and works for everyone on campus. G
New Kid on the Starting BlocK: Carbone Heads to Olympic Trials INÈS DE MIRANDA
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rew Carbone (MSB ’21) may have qualified for the U.S. Olympic swimming trials, but all he can think about right now is the Big East. Carbone (pronounced car-BONE-ee) is the secondever Georgetown swimmer to qualify, after Molly Fitzpatrick (NHS ’18) in 2015. In June, he will head to Omaha to race against the best swimmers in the country. As impressive as Carbone’s qualification is, what stands out most according to his teammates is an innate drive and positivity, coupled with an easygoing leadership that makes him a remarkable role model. When he mounts the starting block in Omaha, he will carry with him the legacy of a special role model. For swimmers, the Olympics are a dream. There is no annual Super Bowl or World Series to work toward. At the trials, only the top two swimmers for each event qualify for the Olympics—and the top four are typically professionals. Carbone’s qualifying time in December 2018 was 56.46 for the 100-meter backstroke and 2:02.83 for the 200-meter backstroke. The winners of the 2016 qualifiers came in at 52.26 and 1:53.95 respectively. Georgetown’s head swimming and diving coach Jack Leavitt sees Carbone as a partner in his coaching, and that he is successful due to his self-confident and goal-driven attitude. “He has an incredible amount of self-confidence— and not in an arrogant way,” Leavitt said. “It’s just like, ‘I’ve worked hard for something and I know that I’ve done the work. So I expect the result to be there at the end,’ which I think is pretty rare in a sport like swimming.” Carbone was a member of Leavitt’s first recruiting class. He was attracted to Georgetown’s program in part because of the approach Leavitt took to coaching swimmers at an individual level, coming prepared with something specific to improve on at every practice. “A lot of college coaches just want to hit the reset button and do things their way for
everyone. And I don’t think that really works,” Carbone said. “You have to understand what people have done for the past eight years to know how they’re gonna succeed in the next four.” But Carbone’s success hasn’t come without challenges. Last February, Jeff Johnson, Carbone’s club coach at the Patriot Swim Club (PSC) in Massachusetts, passed away unexpectedly. Referred to by his swimmers exclusively as “Coach,” his death on the eve of the Big East Championship affected Carbone deeply. “I was broken,” said Carbone. “I was hurt, but I also felt a strong sense of responsibility. I know that Coach would have told me before the meet ‘Just go out there and race,’ and that is what I did. I knew the best way to keep him in my heart was to keep embodying the values that he helped instill in me.” He went on to swim his fastest races of the season and became a two-time Big East champion in three solo events and a fourth relay event, breaking his own records and being named Male Most Outstanding Swimmer for the second consecutive year. Nate Goldfarb (NHS ’21), a teammate and roommate, says what sets Carbone apart is his ability to keep a positive outlook while always staying hungry for more. “He’s always happy with where he’s at, but never satisfied.” Carbone says he usually practices around 19 hours a week. This means swimming twice a day, plus conditioning. Now that he has had this time commitment for a few years, he says he likes the structure of it, and has even gotten a moisturization routine down. “I just put it in my reminders when I was getting over here to go buy lotion, to be honest,” Carbone said. “And this is the first year I’ve worn a cap to practice too. My hair is usually dead.” He is also a leader outside of the pool, according to Goldfarb. “I call him ‘the Big Hoss’ because if there’s ever a problem, he’s going to solve it. He’s probably one of the most impressive kids I’ve met because he’s just firing it off on a hundred cylinders at all times.”
photo courtesy of gu athletics; design by insha momin
Teammate Sean Devlin (MSB ’22) swam with Carbone in the PSC before arriving at Georgetown. Devlin highlighted the impact Carbone had in his community at home. “Every single kid in the whole league knew who he was,” said Devlin. “He was such a role model in his community because all those kids looked up to him because he was like The Guy, and he wasn’t just The Guy, but he was also like the nicest guy.” Carbone hosted Devlin, who is a year behind him, for a weekend when he was deciding whether to swim for Georgetown. Devlin cited Carbone as a major factor in deciding to commit to GU. “I love the school so much because he was such a good host,” said Devlin. “I could just tell he was very serious about the team.” It turns out that he wasn’t the only one. According to Devlin, every single kid in his class on the swim team had Carbone as a host. Carbone’s level-headed drive blended with competitiveness is something Devlin looks up to as a younger swimmer on the team. “Throughout the season you can just tell, he’s gonna race every single kid and probably beat every kid.” Devlin said. “And we all know that going into the race, but the other teams don’t know it.” These values those around him emphasize—ambition, hard work, and balance—Carbone learned from Johnson. The environment in his swim club was one that allowed the best swimmers to rise to the top if they put in the effort.
“With Coach, you succeeded on your own terms, he just provided the arena to do so,” Carbone said. Johnson’s wife, Marj, recounted the work ethic her husband had in creating the PSC. “He had a full-time job during the day. He would go to work like at six in the morning and I wouldn’t see him till nine o’clock at night, but he loved what he was doing.” According to his wife, Johnson knew early on that Carbone had great potential. “My husband was very serious about swimming, but he was very funloving and could be quite goofy when it came time to have practice—he made it fun,” Johnson said. “But Drew, he was very committed. He was very serious. Jeff knew right off that he was going to be a very good swimmer.” The time Carbone spent at PSC, with fellow backstroker Coach, was instrumental in making him the swimmer he is today, and very directly impacted his winning a state title. “While he wasn’t coaching me during this time, I wouldn’t have been a state champion if not for his guidance while I was at PSC,” Carbone said. Carbone stood out among the coach’s many swimmers and Johnson appreciates the impact that her husband had on him. “I know he had a picture of Coach in his room, his parents told me that one of the first things he put up when he got down there was his picture,” Johnson said. “They were pretty close. Jeff was very proud of him.” G
FEBRUARY 28, 2020
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VOICES
CARRYING ON: VOICE STAFFERS SPEAK
Scott Krulcik and the Way to Live CAM SMITH
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cott Krulcik was no ordinary guy. At 19, he built an algorithm to transmit video feeds from a lunar rover. Some knew him as the kid who scored a 2400 on the SAT, others as the dude who designed an app to help people make sure no one wore the same dress to prom. He was a jovial character, with a few noble quirks like carrying around silverware so he never had to use plastic. He always wore a big, healthy smile surrounded by a pair of friendly dimples. In December 2018, Scott passed away suddenly due to a genetic abnormality that caused a defect in his heart. Scott graduated from my high school two years before me, and though we were both on the track team, the first time I really heard him speak at length was during my junior year of high school. I was taking an AP Computer Science class I enjoyed but admittedly struggled in. Scott came back from Carnegie Mellon University to give our class a guest lecture on majoring in computer science and answer questions about college writ large. As try-hard students approaching that critical point in our lives where we would choose our career paths, my friends and I were glued to his presentation. A freshman in college, he had already secured internships at Facebook and Google. It seemed like Scott had it all figured out, and we wanted in on the secret. But the energy he exuded truly made his talk resonate with us—he made technology sound cool. I still remember how he glowed talking about the state of computer science. In his slideshow, he described a field with so many emerging technologies and possibilities. It could be used to shape the world. And if you really knew your stuff, you could make anything you put your mind to. I always loved computers, and after Scott’s presentation, computer science seemed like the only logical path. I’ve stuck with it since, and I’m glad I did. Despite not being at CMU or Google, I’m fortunate enough to study something I’m passionate about. Scott was totally right: the field is what you make of it. At the same time, everyone is competing for that top spot, trying to ace the big interview. It’s easy to get swept up in the rat race and daydream about how nice it would be to be somebody like Scott. But looking back, Scott was no credentialist. The end goal for him wasn’t the fancy degree or 6
THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
the cushy job. Instead, he had a burning desire to use his knowledge as a means of improving people’s lives. It’s obvious, then, why he went out of his way to spread his love for computer science by doing things like lecturing to my class, teaching with CMU’s program for high school students, and becoming a tour guide for their School of Computer Science. His success was merely a byproduct of his passion. That’s why Scott’s passing tore me up on the inside. For a 22-year-old to die so unexpectedly is obviously a tragedy. But to me it was more than that—it seemed flat-out unjust. Scott did everything “right.” He was universally known as a decent, kind person. He worked hard and got good grades. He had loving friends and family all over the country. He inspired students like me to take up computer science. And then, out of the blue, he was gone. I would be lying if I said the news didn’t invoke some nihilism in me. It’s hard to grapple with something so unfair. Existential thoughts crept into my head—Scott accomplished everything I was trying to do, and yet in the end he couldn’t live out his dream. What’s the point of working so hard, of putting yourself through the ringer, if it can be ripped away in an instant? These thoughts disappear when I look at the things Scott brought into this world in the too-short time he was here. He always hoped to use his education and expertise to help people, a mindset evident from a glance at his Twitter account. During the 2018 Camp Fire in California, he wrote: “Seeing homes destroyed is always an image that hurts the heart. I think all the time about how technology can solve problems, I hate feeling like nothing I know or do can help.” One of Scott’s mentors wrote after his passing, “He talked about trying to be a good human who wants to help other humans and explained the connection with computer security.” The same mentor went on to explain how focused he was on protecting user privacy. At one point, Scott found a flaw in Instagram that made users’ private photos publicly accessible and notified the company to have it fixed. As I get closer to graduating, the socially conscious mission Scott lived by feels more and more tangible. Recently, tech companies have been in the news for their indiscretions over a host of unethical business practices:
Cam is a senior in the College. He wants you to know how important it is to fill out the 2020 census. Its data will be used in the apportionment of this decade’s congressional representation and the allocation of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding (some estimates say over a trillion). You can do it online, by phone, or by mail, and all of the information you provide is confidential.
misleading users as to what data they collect, lackadaisical or even downright negligent attention to user privacy, allowing the spread of misinformation and disinformation on social media platforms. From my perspective, others in the software industry could do well to take a page from Scott’s book. My heart breaks for Scott and his family, but it also aches for the millions of people who would have been impacted by his ambition and curiosity. Scott’s emphasis on the responsibility of technologists to play a benevolent role in our increasingly digital communities models how people in my vocation can be activists. Those of us in the tech industry must ensure that the things we create benefit those around us. If we can incorporate some of Scott’s wisdom into our own behavior, if we can carry on his legacy, maybe we can do our best to fill some of the immense void left in our profession with his absence. Still, Scott’s philosophy is not constrained to people who work in tech. Finding a way to pursue your passion and make the world better than you found it, and then championing that cause to others, is a goal transferable to any industry. And, hear me out, it might even be more important than landing some flashy job at a top company. His obituary read, “Scott was a guide, a light on how to live, how to love. He is an inspiration to us all.” Scott definitely guided me to choose the career path that I did. But more than that, he was a model for how to live. I have long been inspired by his aptitude for technology—today I am inspired by his advocacy for humanity. G
illustration by deborah han; design by cade shore
VOICES
Missing in Action: How Elite Universities Threaten K-12 Teaching AMANDA CHU
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very day, over 300,000 classrooms nationwide are missing teachers. The United States currently faces an overwhelming shortage of public K-12 educators despite growing student enrollment. In teacher-training programs, the number of participants has fallen by more than a third since 2010, and in some states by as much as 80 percent. Even when people do decide to become teachers, it doesn’t mean they will continue in those jobs long-term. In D.C., 70 percent of public school teachers leave within five years. With extreme wage stagnation and high levels of daily stress, it is no surprise fewer and fewer people want to go into education. Feb. 22 marked the two-year anniversary of the largest worker strike in a generation, when hundreds of thousands of teachers and their supporters walked out of classrooms in five states, including West Virginia and Oklahoma, demanding higher wages and better classroom conditions. The gains were minimal in comparison to rising costs of living and ever-increasing classroom sizes. But poor working conditions are only one of the reasons behind the teacher shortage. Last December, Cornell students urged their university to reconstitute its undergraduate teacher-training program which was shut down along with the education major and education department in 2013. The shutdown was part of the growing perception that teaching was “beneath the dignity of an Ivy League school,” sending dangerous signals to the community that the university does not care about education as a career path. This apathy towards teaching seems to be shared among other elite schools. In spite of its longheld Jesuit tradition, Georgetown does not have an education major or an undergraduate teachertraining program. The lack of resources for teaching is hypocritical coming from institutions filled with students who have benefited from learning from good teachers. Growing up in the New York City public school system, I witnessed teachers put their professional and private lives at risk for their students. It wasn’t a job they abandoned when they left the building at the end of the day. When I look back on the people who shaped my life, I remember my fourth grade teacher who let me stay after school with her because my parents were at work, and I didn’t want to be home alone. I remember my sixth grade teacher who used his own paycheck to buy our class supplies. And I remember my high school teachers who offered their homes to my friend experiencing domestic violence.
Amanda is the Voices editor and a sophomore in the SFS. She likes to wear scarves and is sometimes mistaken for her twin on campus.
design by cade shore
Great teaching isn’t all in the grand gestures. My Latin teacher taught me how it was possible to love something so many people thought was irrelevant, and my gym teacher challenged my perception of what a strong woman looked like. My English teacher introduced me to some of the greatest stories of all time, stories like Winesburg, Ohio and The Sound and the Fury, that taught me how to deal with loss and absent parents, and countless other lessons that could never be encapsulated by a single grade. Teachers play pivotal roles in our development. But the growing trend in education to measure learning by standardized test scores has led to the under-appreciation of teachers in recent years. In 2015, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, nicknamed “Ebeneezer Scrooge” by public school advocates, was criticized for his “test and punish agenda,” which, if implemented, would have made half of a teacher’s evaluation grade based on student performance on standardized exams. When we look at education as an acquisition of test scores, we begin to see teachers as mere factspitters and replaceable machines. It also doesn’t help when our Secretary of Education participates in the promotion of such negative perceptions. Betsy DeVos has called public schools a “dead end” and has cut billions from the Department of Education’s budget. The lack of teaching programs at elite institutions amid these cultural changes sends messages to students and the nation devaluing teaching. These messages can greatly affect national policy and performance, and we’re already seeing the consequences of this dangerous trend. This year, the Trump administration’s budget proposal cut $2.1 billion from a program that directly funded teachers’ salaries, leaving states to scramble to cover the pay of 35,000 teachers. In the 2018 Global Teacher Status Index, Americans scored low, ranking 16th internationally. The country that placed first and scored the highest index possible was China, giving teachers the same status as doctors. China’s students then outperformed American students by 11 places on an international exam. Americans shouldn’t need another Sputnik to remind themselves of the importance of investing in education. When teachers are treated better, students perform better, leading to more human capital and greater socioeconomic development. In the United States, education level remains a major factor in whether an individual will live in poverty. This is important because teacher shortages and uncertified instructors disproportionately affect underprivileged schools. While many students do not see teaching as a suitable profession, they do recognize its attractive virtue in shaping lives. At Harvard, one in five students applies to Teach for America upon graduation. In 2017, Georgetown ranked second in the number of graduates it sent to the non-profit. The desire to work in underserved schools should be encouraged, but it is important to question the intentions of its participants, of whom only 10 percent are education majors. One article
described the stunt as an “ethical alternative to Wall Street for college seniors looking for a shortterm commitment.” Although Teach for America encourages participants to continue after their two-year requirement, 80 percent of participants leave after 3 years, many to pursue more lucrative jobs or go to graduate school. The organization partners with graduate schools and offers their participants tuition benefits. While participants have the opportunity to get an advanced education degree, the nonprofit is commonly seen as a stepping stone to law school and partners with more law schools and medical schools than they do with schools offering education programs. Google has also been cited as an aggressive recruiter of Teach for America alums. With one semester at an elite institution costing over $50,000, it’s understandable that students may feel pressure to enter more financially promising fields. Such a high turnover, however, can be destabilizing to already vulnerable communities. While I am sure many participants see the engagement beyond a resumé boost, Teach for America cannot be the main solution to the teacher shortage. It cannot replace a degree in education or the completion of a robust teacher-training program. The overwhelming number of graduates entering private sector professions strays away from the values they deemed so important as students, values like service and public engagement so commonly found in university mission statements. Elite universities must show their students they mean it when they say public service is important. They must provide and promote degrees in education and teachingtraining programs. Until education is seen as a viable major, America’s teacher shortage will continue. This piece isn’t meant to provoke guilt and convince us all to become teachers. It is our moral responsibility, however, as those who have reaped the benefits of good teachers, to ensure that access to this privilege continues and it expands. The negative effects of the teacher shortage will first appear among the most vulnerable and then advance to us all when we suffer from a less educated workforce. We must stand in solidarity with our educators and future students and vote against those who have continuously slashed school budgets. We cannot passively watch institutions shut down their education departments and our public schools crumble in our shadows. Our teachers have taught us better than that. G
HELP WANTED
Teachers Needed, Now! FEBRUARY 28, 2020
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VOICES
If You Like It, Consider Not Putting a Ring On It
Paul James is a freshman in the SFS and, because the universe has a taste for cruel irony, will probably marry in the future.
PAUL JAMES AND MAX ZHANG
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arriage is an institution of fear, not of love. Since its inception, the institution of marriage has been deeply interwoven with social, legal, and financial frameworks, and with the world at large, but not without consequences. As Mervyn Cadwallader wrote in 1966, “It spells the end of voluntary affection, of love freely given and joyously received.” His diagnosis remains as prescient as it was over 60 years ago. People justify getting married as a demonstration of commitment, a certificate of true love. But in reality, marriage threatens consensual partnership and fails to reflect modern relationships. It is corrosive and ruinous to its end. In 2019, the archetypal family unit of two parents and children represented only 20 percent of U.S. households. Beyond that, millions live alone or room with other single people, and 27 percent of children live with a single parent. The idealized nuclear family grossly misrepresents the true living conditions of many in this country, but it is still deeply embedded in arbitrary societal structures. Hospital forms and legal arrangements, for example, tend to reward spouses, along with tax benefits, joint health care plans, and better terms on loans. Marriage arguably infuses stability into relationships, but that stability is artificial, born of a lack of belief in the natural bonds between two people. Unmarried partners have more freedom to be their own people, independent of the couple as a unit. They operate with dedication to one another for its own sake. A sacred part of the marriage contract is the exchanging of vows expected to last an entire lifetime. In unmarried partnerships, partners renew their dedication every day. When fear exists at the foundation, fear of losing someone or of being alone, marriage twists a relationship until it wears out the original reasons for partnership. Once trapped in the contract, it becomes more difficult for couples to separate when they no longer want to be together. The legal binding transforms a relationship that requires constant mutual consent into something inert and much more costly to undo. One of the most compelling reasons against marriage is what happens when it ends. Divorce, while it may prove necessary over the long term, threatens all parties involved, emotionally and financially. As traumatizing as some divorces can be, parents who stay together “for the kids” often create an environment just as stressful, where passive aggression becomes the children’s dominant atmosphere. Furthermore, divorce is a business as much as it is a tool. Matrimonial law garners $28 billion every year. Even when parents do not go after one another for property, legal costs still pose a significant challenge. Children caught 8
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in high-conflict divorces often get the worst of it. There is no shortage of parents who blame their children for their marital problems, or pretend the harm they cause is in the child’s interest. Divorce also negatively affects children’s academic performance, mental health, and behavior in their own future relationships. Breakups happen in any relationship, but in unmarried partnerships, arbitration is left to the couple and not the system; there are far fewer legal hurdles to jump over. A measure of hurt accompanies any major life-shifting event, whether it is a divorce or a breakup, but the disintegration of an unmarried partnership does not pile on the added difficulties of legal fees, children testifying against their parents, and parental one-upmanship that so often accompanies divorces. Abandoning the arbitrary legal benefits of marriage and the immense social pressure to marry is the only way to end the harm this contract causes. There will always be those who need something to certify themselves and their relationship, but the majority of people should recognize marriage as anachronistic and destructive to relationships, a force against the very thing it purports to safeguard. G
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o you want to get married?” I ask this question to nearly every close friend I make. “Not, like, you and me. In general,” I clarify. The responses vary. Some begin at the showpiece: the wedding. Some friends keep Pinterest boards and binders full of white dresses; others dream up settings: under a garland of flowers. Fewer than thirty people. Definitely not in a church. Some rave about their ideal partner. Empathetic. Laughs unashamedly. Great abs, or maybe nothing of the sort. More often than expected, however, I get a shake of the head—derisive, or just ambivalent. I’m not sure—maybe. Or, not over my dead body. I have settled, quietly, in the “if I find the right person” camp, where I occupy a comforting but passive position: a progressing state of perhaps. These interactions have forced reflection on marriage as a part of social identity. Framed as the highest social institution, marriage dominates the social conversation for most Americans. Married couples also enjoy exclusive systemic advantages and rights—supplemental government benefits, special domestic violence protections, inheritance of property, and a long list of other things. The hyperidealization of marriage has crept into American entertainment as well: No “happy ending” feels complete without union of the dominant love
Max Zhang is a freshman in the SFS. If he ever gets married, it’ll be under a garland of flowers. More than thirty people. Flexible location. Spouse should have fire music taste.
interests. Marriage is a ubiquitous plot device, found both on-screen and off-screen. There is some validity to this preoccupation. Studies show marriage, compared to cohabitation or especially single lifestyles, yields higher levels of physical and mental health: Married individuals tend to eat healthier, have stronger immune systems, and have lower chances of becoming depressed. The benefits extend to the pocketbook: Marriage also correlates directly with greater property ownership, incomes, and overall wealth. Yet we forsake the quality of other relationships by prioritizing marriage so centrally. Because marriage sits atop the hierarchy of social ties, individuals neglect “competing” relationships. UMass-Amherst sociology professor Natalie Gerstel characterizes marriage as “greedy”—it disproportionately dominates time and social currency. Familial and close platonic relationships often suffer post-marriage, with married individuals tending to be less engaged with family members’ lives. Non-romantic relationships are no less important than romantic ones; indeed, they play a critical role in physical, mental, and social health. Marriage also adds a new burden to how other social relationships are conducted: Spouses are suddenly considered mandatory plus-ones, creating a socially burdening effect, as Mandy Catron writes in The Atlantic. Less social flexibility tends to follow, translating to fewer invitations, contacts, and new experiences. Monogamous marriage also distorts the way we perceive intimacy. Intimacy can and should sometimes be expressed in nonsexual, platonic manners; close, tender contact can be incredibly valuable and restorative to all kinds of relationships. However, fears of infidelity have made intimacy with non-spousal partners less permissible. Platonic intimacy as a whole is considered taboo because monogamy has made intimate contact exclusive to romantic partners. By no means do I advocate for some radical abolition of marriage. In fact, I see it as deeply important. Yet the privilege and social significance it is awarded must be democratized. The systemic advantages enjoyed by married couples should be extended to any relationship by one’s choice. There’s no reason the only person that can visit you in the ICU should be your spouse. Or that a cohabiting couple or even a number of close friends shouldn’t be able to enjoy “family” insurance rates or visiting rights in incarceration facilities. Decentralizing marriage will create a more socially connected world—it encourages married couples to equally prioritize and indulge in all important relationships in their lives, not simply each other. Keep the binders and the dreams: Just make space for the rest of the world, too. G
illustration by deborah han; design by neha malik
LEISURE
Tonari Brings JapaneseStyle Italian Cuisine to D.C. ANNA SAVO-MATTHEWS AND SAMANTHA TRITT
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onari’s ambiance is that of a typical Japanese restaurant. The decor is simple and monochromatic, with large black paneling and glass windows offering only a peek at the inside. The first floor is furnished with simple light wood booths and bar seating facing an open kitchen. Then, the server sets your food down in front of you—Hawaiian pizza and cod roe pasta. Tonari, the first Italian-Japanese fusion restaurant on the East Coast, opened on Feb. 7 in D.C.’s Chinatown neighborhood. The restaurant specializes in Wafu cuisine—a type of Japanese cooking inspired by Western dishes. Created by Daisuke Utagawa, Yama Jewayni, and Katsuya Fukushima, who also own the neighboring ramen shop, Daikaya, Tonari delivers on its promise of deliciously unorthodox food combinations with an affordable price tag. The fusion of Japanese and Italian cuisine, although it may seem unusual to the typical American customer, has actually been popular in Japan for decades. The menu notes the origins of Wafu Italian food, which was first popularized in Japan in 1953 at Kabenoana, a small restaurant in Tokyo, whose name literally means “a hole in the wall.” Tonari stays true to this spirit, as the atmosphere of the restaurant is an elegant twist on a classic hole-in-the-wall establishment with its minimalist interior, jaunty jazz music, and incredibly friendly service. Though the space is small, the
simple decorations prevent the area from feeling overcrowded. Upstairs, Tonari offers traditional seiza-style seating for patrons, a fantastic option for a group dinner outing. The seiza tables even include discrete dips in the platform that mimic a regular chair, should the idea of kneeling for an hour seem too daunting, allowing patrons to enjoy the different setting while still sitting comfortably. In an interview with The Washingtonian, Tonari’s owners explained why they decided to create a fusion restaurant. After Graffiato, an Italian restaurant in Chinatown, closed in 2018, the owners of Daiyaka were approached about building a new restaurant in its place. They wanted to expand but were unsure of what to do with the large, expensive pizza oven the previous restaurant left behind, which would be difficult to incorporate into their current Japanese cuisine. Their solution? To fuse the cuisines and create Japanese pizzas, a craze that had been raging in Tokyo. From there, they expanded on the idea, eventually coalescing in Tonari’s fusion style. Wafu Italian cuisine modifies traditional Italian foods to make them more appealing to a Japanese audience, similar to the evolution of American-Italian cuisine. Tonari’s pasta is made using Hokkaido flour from the Nishiyama Seimen Company, a recreation of the pasta typically sold in a Japanese market. This flour gives the pasta the springiness, mouthfeel, and
scent of Japanese noodles, which takes the pasta dishes far from their Italian inspirations. Some highlights include Italian-style tagliatelle pasta served with shishito peppers and nori, and pizzas served with shoyu jalapeño pickles or wakame clams. Another dish, the napolitan spaghetti, reconstructs a typical Italian sugo all’arrabbiata combining spaghetti made from traditional Hokkaido flour with onion, piman peppers, kurobuta sausage, button mushroom, ham, and pecorino. The traditional Italian sauce is reconstructed with unconventional items such as ketchup and tabasco, creating a sweeter and more acidic sauce with just a kick of spice at the end. The mentaiko pasta dish incorporates cod roe and usukuchi into the sauce and is topped off with seaweed and shiso. It feels like the intersection of ramen and buttered noodles, as the seaweed and fishy flavor profiles are frequently found in ramen dishes. The noodles are notably a bit stickier than Italian pasta typically is, emulating a ramen noodle. For those who are less adventurous, Tonari also offers a typical Italian pasta dish, served with tomato sauce, basil, and olive oil. Even this simple dish channels Japanese cuisine with the ramen-noodle-like pasta and minor tweaks to the tomato sauce. The pizza menu is perhaps the most interesting part of the menu, straying the furthest from traditional Japanese cuisine. There are four different types of pizza:
photos courtesy of rey lopez; design by alex giorno
clam, Hawaiian, pepperoni, and mentaiko. Fukushima, who was once an Iron Chef on the television show of the same name, took inspiration from his Hawaiian background when modifying the typical Hawaiian pizza recipe. The deep-dish pizza is topped with hickory ham, pineapple, tart tomato sauce, Japanese cheese, brick cheese, and amazu. To spread pineapple flavor throughout the entire pie, Fukushima cooks pineapple into the sauce, fixing the issue of isolated flavor that plagues the typical Hawaiian pizza recipe. The crust exemplifies the blending of the two styles of cuisine. The dough uses the same type of Hokkaido flour as the pasta, mimicking the sweetness and fluffy texture of Japanese bread as well as channeling the style of classic Sicilian thickcrust pizzas. Cooked in a pan with rice oil, the pie is encased in a crunchy crust similar to the texture of tempura. Tonari highlights the best elements of the two countries’ cuisines while also creating something fresh and innovative. The dishes reflect effort and careful consideration, resulting in a satisfying blend of two distinct cultures. Tonari’s atmosphere is welcoming and casual, and the staff is attentive, making it a place you will feel compelled to return to. Hours after you have left the restaurant, leftovers tucked under your arm, the cold bite of pizza in your dorm room fridge brings you back to the moment you walked into what you thought was just another Japanese restaurant. G FEBRUARY 28, 2020
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a revived blaxa is ready to tell its stories
By Katherine Randolph
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livia Francis-Anspach (COL ’21) rarely reads campus news outlets anymore. “I don’t see myself in campus publications. I don’t see myself represented there,” Francis-Anspach said. “I came in freshman year reading The Hoya and I was like, ‘okay, like, this is cool. I really like to read what’s going on.’ And then I was like, ‘oh, this is really disheartening.’” Tired of waiting to see her own stories on the page, Francis-Anspach partnered with nine other students to revive the Blaxa, a student publication which aims to offer news, art, and commentary relevant to Georgetown’s black community. The Blaxa initially launched in 2018, but was unable to find its footing on campus. Now the Blaxa is returning in 2020, and its organizers hope to build a journalistic space for black students that will outlast their time on campus and tell their stories on their own terms. The Blaxa’s board believes campus media fails to accurately reflect the experiences of black students. When the Blaxa’s editor-in-chief Monique Wilson (COL ’22) scrolls through Georgetown’s news coverage, she sees black issues boiled down to a few of the biggest stories.
“I feel like a lot of the articles that I’ve seen from publications on campus, when they do talk about black people or represent black voices, they’re usually only opinion pieces, or they’re only about GU272 or something that’s very visibly black,” Wilson said. “Whereas what we want to do is have any type of story and have regular black themes be represented. Black people don’t just talk about, like, slavery all day.” Journalism’s poor representation of black experiences extends far beyond Georgetown’s front gates. Campus news outlets mirror a trend of racial disparity in newsrooms across the country. In a 2018 survey, the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) found that nearly all American newsrooms are whiter than the cities they serve. The Washington Post and The Boston Globe were both found to be below racial parity, and the ASNE listed The Los Angeles Times as 25 points over-represented by white staffers. ASNE’s survey also shows the numbers have failed to improve over time. Since 2001, they found that only 40 percent of newsrooms gained racial diversity, and 16 percent actually lost diversity. In most surveyed newsrooms, the
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design by sean ye and allison derose
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disparity exists in top roles too: more than 75 percent of leadership is white. This lack of diversity is often reflected in the attitude newsrooms take towards covering racial issues. The past few years alone have seen a string of journalists of color punished for commenting on issues of racial inequality. Ryon Henderson (MSB ’22), the Blaxa’s director of strategy, pointed to black journalist Jemele Hill, who was suspended from ESPN in August 2018 for calling President Donald Trump “a white supremacist” as an example of newsrooms ostracizing black reporters. Henderson believes Hill intimidated ESPN by refusing to prioritize ratings over her voice. “When you have a Jemele Hill who’s connecting intersections of sports, race, and culture, you’re like, ‘wait a second, this is alienating some of our viewers, and it’s not promoting the narrative that we want to promote.’ And so they immediately blackball her because she doesn’t fit that narrative,” Henderson said. Hill is hardly the only reporter to face backlash for addressing racial issues. On Feb. 3, the Daily Beast reported that Wesley Lowery, a former Washington Post
reporter, was chastised by management for his criticism of a New York Times article he felt did not adequately address racism in its coverage of the Tea Party. Ashanti Callender (MSB ’21), the Blaxa’s director of external affairs, thinks the press is often hesitant to address issues of race. “People don’t like to have conversations where they will be uncomfortable. I feel like this country in general, especially in journalism, does not like to talk about this country’s history.” Francis-Anspach sees a similar failure of diversity in campus media, and points to a larger trend amongst student groups at Georgetown. According to Georgetown’s 2018-2019 Common Data Set, there are 484 undergraduates who identify as black or African American out of 7,459 students on campus, or about 6.5 percent of the school’s undergraduate population. Organizations, Francis-Anspach said, often look to their members of color to draw in their non-white peers. “‘How do we get our membership to be more diverse?’ Every board that isn’t a black board, they all have that conversation. Everybody’s always asking that question,” she said. “They’re looking at the people of color, like ‘why aren’t you all here?’ As if it’s an us problem.” In the Blaxa, black students will call the shots. The group’s mission statement promises to “provide critical perspectives, with respect to the intersection of race, socioeconomic status, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, immigration status, and ability,” the mission statement reads. “The Blaxa aims to be the go-to publication for black students where they know blackness will always be centered.” The Blaxa published the first article on its website in September 2018, a piece titled “Pick your playlists carefully; they mean more than you think,” which explores the way party playlists can reflect the target audience of an event. It’s the kind of story that exemplifies the Blaxa’s goal—to make the black experience the lens through which campus life is viewed. The group continued to publish a handful of articles, including an analysis of lobbying against 2018’s Initiative 77, a repealed initiative that aimed to eliminate minimum wage exemptions for tipped workers, and a profile of a student who advocated for solutions to campus food insecurity. Many of the students involved in the Blaxa’s founding graduated, and by November, it had been more than six months since an article had been published to their website. Bryce Badger (MSB ’21), the Blaxa’s CEO and president, didn’t want the Blaxa to disappear and began an effort to revive the publication. “I felt like there was a need for black voices on campus,” Badger said. “And so I really like the idea of a black space for us to express our perspectives and tell our stories.” Georgetown saw a flurry of national media activity in 2019 as students voted in the GU272 referendum to create a reconciliation contribution for descendents of slaves sold by the university. While the Blaxa will certainly cover the big news events on campus, they also want to give their writers an opportunity to report on all aspects of the black community, not just the major headlines. “I think when I see blackness on TV, it’s usually a really big grand event or something super catastrophic,” said Jamia Ross (NHS ’21), the Blaxa’s director of creative communications and marketing. “But I think the Blaxa is going to be a space where it’s normal essentially. It’s for everybody.”
photo by katherine randolph
For Jeremiah Hakimiah (MSB ’23), the Blaxa’s director of strategic communications and marketing, the core issue with other campus publications is they approach issues from a perspective that treats whiteness as the standard. He says he rarely reads the news, on campus or off, and he believes he’s not alone in his decision to avoid the headlines. “News sources just really don’t package information or deliver arts or news or opinions in a way that is really understandable and resonates with black people,” Hakimiah said. “Not to diss the Voice or The Hoya or anything, but I don’t think I would give a shit really what
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i don’ t see myself in campus
publications. ” you have to say because I know that it’s not gonna be said in a way or packaged in a way or said by people who really resonate with me or have my culture.” The Washington Informer, a black-run outlet based in Southeast D.C., tries to fill in these gaps in the city, aiming to cover black issues across the District in day-to-day life. Denise Rolark Barnes, the Informer’s publisher, pointed out that other papers have different sections covering everything from sports to culture to hard news. The Informer, she says, is no different. While the paper does occasionally cover issues like reparations or police brutality, it also aims to address the everyday concerns of the black community. “Other publications document life,” Barnes said. “For us, we have a publication that focuses on our community all the time. One thing we always say is that 50 to 100 years from now, when people want to see what was going on in the black community, they have to come to us.” Today, the Chicago Defender, the Challenger, and the Michigan Chronicle are just a few papers serving the black community. In addition to the Informer, the Afro-American also serves the black community in the District. Sam P.K. Collins began the Black ACE Magazine at George Washington University in 2008. He now works for the Informer and believes the lack of diversity in mainstream media outlets makes the black press the most trustworthy way to address black issues. “My question is why are we depending on them to tell our stories?” Collins said. “I can’t expect people who don’t look like me to give
enough context to my suffering. If you give it to the black press there’s much more context.” The history of black-run publications goes back almost 200 years. In 1827, John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish began Freedom’s Journal, a New York paper covering not only hard news, but also issues of slavery, abolition, and the Back-to-Africa movement, which encouraged free black Americans to emigrate to Africa. Founded to counteract racist ideology in the mainstream press, Freedom’s Journal also served as a paper of record, offering birth records, marriage announcements, and obituaries of figures within the black community. Freedom’s Journal would only last two years due to an ideological split between Russwurm and Cornish over the Back-to-Africa movement, but their work inspired a generation of black publications. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, at least 40 black publications were circulating around the country. Journalists like Ida B. Wells, who detailed the grim reality of lynching in the South during the Jim Crow era, and W.E.B. Du Bois, the civil rights advocate and writer who founded the NAACP’s magazine The Crisis, built their own platforms when other media avenues were not accessible to them. Collins sees these figures as a combination of advocates and journalists. “People think that you write the news, and after that the problem’s over. The news is a tool to galvanize the public,” Collins said. “They were really critical in using the print media to galvanize black people around issues.” The Blaxa’s board understands that like their predecessors in black press, the publication can be more than just a news source. In five years, Callender envisions the Blaxa as a way to draw more diverse perspectives to Georgetown, especially those who might not have seen themselves fitting in before. “We’ll be a media presence that even when kids are looking up at colleges, they’re like ‘Oh, hey, I didn’t even think that Georgetown was an option.’” With that future in mind, the leadership team of the Blaxa has begun recruiting writers and working through the new club development process. They hope to publish in print once per semester and more regularly online, with a launch event slated for April 25. The process has already been complicated: Francis-Anspach departed the board in February, citing time concerns, but right now, the board is most concerned with filling their pages. Wilson, in her role as editor-in-chief, hopes that the Blaxa will be able to build a team unified by a sense of purpose. “If we don’t write our stories, then no one else will and no one will do it to the measure that we would like to do.” G
FEBRUARY 28, 2020
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LTON I M A H E N I BY CAROL
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eorgetown students might know the U Street corridor for its trendy boutiques and rooftop bars that have hosted many a club formal. But before the vintage stores and fusion restaurants, this stretch of D.C. was known as Black Broadway. From the early 1900s to the 1960s, U Street was home to hundreds of black-owned businesses, including the first African American chapter of the YMCA and jazz clubs frequented by Duke Ellington, Chuck Brown, and Billie Holiday. Now, however, a shrinking number of black-owned businesses can afford rising rent prices, and are being replaced by new storefronts catering to the interests of whiter, wealthier, and younger urban professionals. U Street is not alone in this phenomenon. In neighborhoods across the District, gentrification is transforming the economic and demographic landscape, and D.C.’s black history is disappearing in the process. For centuries, black residents have been central to the development and culture of the city. In 1957, D.C. became the first large American city with a majority African American population, earning the nickname “Chocolate City.” Residents now joke that because of a growing white presence, the District is more like “Latte City.” While the Office of Planning reports that black residents still comprise 45 percent of the population, it’s a far cry from the peak of 71.1 percent in 1970. Educators and policymakers are racing to protect and recognize this history, hoping to bring it to the attention of a new generation of Washingtonians. 12
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Councilmember Kenyon McDuffie (D-Ward 5) introduced a bill on Feb. 4 that would add an African American history and cultural studies course to the D.C. Public School (DCPS) curriculum. In a statement to the Voice, McDuffie wrote that DCPS would be remiss not to teach students the topic in detail. “Ward 5 residents recognize that American history is incomplete without the inclusion of the struggle, accomplishment, and contributions of African Americans,” the statement said. With the African American Cultural Studies and Inclusion Amendment Act, McDuffie hopes to foster a deeper understanding of the importance of African American history, from humanity’s origins in Africa to enslavement to the ongoing fight for socioeconomic equality in the United States. “Teaching of African American history to our students will instill pride, help to close the achievement gap, and create a heightened sense of cultural awareness, diversity, and sensitivity,” McDuffie wrote. If passed, the act will require the Mayor’s Office on African American Affairs to coordinate with DCPS, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, and other relevant stakeholders to develop a curriculum model. Ying Ying Mei (SFS ’22) has seen the loss of this history happen in real time. Since she moved to the city in 2008, she’s lived in Shaw and Chinatown, two of D.C.’s fastest gentrifying neighborhoods. “It used to be a predominantly black city,” she said. “But now [with]
design by insha momin
all the development and gentrification, those cultural enclaves are being displaced.” Gentrification isn’t just about the proliferation of pricey salad shops and craft breweries. According to a 2019 study, gentrification in D.C. has pushed more lowincome residents out of their homes than almost anywhere else in the country. Between 2003 and 2013, 20,000 black residents were displaced from D.C. A combination of factors such as income inequality, suburbanization, and the lingering effects of the 2008 financial crisis are pricing black and low-income Washingtonians out of their old neighborhoods in Shaw, Logan Circle, Chinatown, and the U Street and H Street corridors. Jasia Smith (SFS ’22) knows the history of these places well. A lifelong Washingtonian, she grew up in neighborhoods many Georgetown students would have trouble finding on a map. “Georgetown’s one of the richest communities in the city,” she said. “If you’re around this area most of the time, you’re not going to get that culture and that experience that the entire city has to offer.” According to 2018 data from the Business Improvement District, the median home value in Georgetown is $1.17 million. But the history of Georgetown’s wealth—and who owns it—is complicated. In some ways, it set the tone for current changes disrupting other parts of the city. Most of Georgetown’s first black residents were brought to the neighborhood against their will. Enslaved people were auctioned in the basement of 3276 M Street, where a trendy
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flea market will replace Dean and Deluca next year. After the city abolished slavery in 1862, Georgetown’s black population jumped from 1900 to nearly 5000 by the end of the 1880s. Black doctors, lawyers, bankers, shopkeepers, and craftsmen made up between 30 and 40 percent of the Georgetown population well into the 1930s and 1940s. They founded the city’s first black church, Mount Zion United Methodist Church, and established its first desegregated park by petitioning for the removal of “For Coloreds Only” signs in Rose Park. Mount Zion still stands on 29th Street, but much of the community that founded it no longer lives close enough to walk to Sunday services. These historical sites are most of what remains of Georgetown’s black history. A series of legislative acts, including the Old Georgetown Act of 1950 that designated the neighborhood a historic district, tightened property regulations and subsequently drove up housing prices. Many black Georgetowners were priced out and by 1960, they accounted for less than 9 percent of the population. Smith has observed similar trends in the communities where she and her friends grew up. She and her siblings are third-generation residents of Deanwood, a historically black neighborhood east of the Anacostia River. Her grandparents have lived in the same Deanwood house for decades, but Smith says this kind of stability is the exception, not the rule. “They’ve had that house since my dad was a kid, which is really rare,” she said. “A lot of black families can’t afford to live in the neighborhoods that their parents and grandparents lived in.” Regardless of whether D.C. public school students have personal experiences like Smith’s, they are required to learn about them in the classroom; among the DCPS graduation requirements is one year of D.C. history. The curriculum can vary from school to school, but themes of economic and demographic change crop up throughout the District’s history. “The way my high school did it was definitely very focused on gentrification,” Smith said. She laughed. “And go-go. And Chuck Brown.” Pioneered by Brown in the 1970s, go-go is a percussive subgenre of funk that soundtracked D.C.’s years as the Chocolate City. Last spring, it took on a new importance to black Washingtonians when a Metro PCS store owner in Shaw was threatened with a lawsuit for playing go-go music from his storefront. To many black residents, the incident was a reminder of how few store owners in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood still sing along to Chuck Brown. Anti-gentrification activists flooded the neighborhood in protest and gathered more than 80,000 signatures on a petition demanding the store owner be allowed to keep playing go-go. The campaign #DontMuteDC trended on Twitter. A few months later, in June 2019, McDuffie introduced a bill to make go-go the official music of the District. On Feb. 19 of this year, Mayor Muriel Bowser signed the act into law after it was passed unanimously by the D.C. Council. “Go-go music encapsulates the range of personal experiences in local communities around the District and expresses them in a unifying force,” the act reads. Fights for the city’s history and culture can seem far away from Georgetown, where students encounter few reminders of the neighborhood’s black history. They might only venture off campus a few times a month and lack the historical background longtime Washingtonians have.
Associate Professor of Sociology Brian McCabe (SFS ’02) is working to bridge this gap between Georgetown students and the rest of the city. Through both his research and teaching, he tries to engage students on issues like gentrification and housing policy. “What responsibilities do we have to the broader city?” he asked. “What do we owe Washington?” McCabe initially housed these efforts in a gentrification seminar he taught in the fall of 2016. It covered a range of academic subjects but was mostly limited to the classroom. “What I realized in that seminar was that there was this sort of appetite and need to actually get out in the city,” he said. In the spring of 2019, he decided to test a more experiential model, which tasked students with venturing into D.C.’s gentrifying neighborhoods and creating a semester-long project. Students mapped affordable housing in the District, wrote guides to responsible renting practices, and performed spoken word poems drawn from local histories. McCabe is bringing together both parts into a sixcredit gentrification course next fall. He says that students interested in the class and others like it tend to already have personal experience with gentrification.
“What responsibilities do we have to the broader city? What do we owe Washington?” “I think that if you’re from New York or you’re from Los Angeles or you’re from Chicago, those processes are happening in those cities as well,” he said. “I think a lot of students that aren’t from D.C. have adopted the city as their home.” After more than a decade of living in the city, Mei says she considers herself a Washingtonian. “I have family here. I have friends here. I’ve built a life here,” she said. In contrast, most Georgetown students are transplants. They move to D.C. for college, likely with little background on the city’s history or demographics. Center for Social Justice programs like the D.C. Schools Project and D.C. Reads Program introduce participants to some of the city’s low-income communities of color, but a relatively small portion of the student body is involved in the tutoring programs.
“They go into different wards of the city and engage with those communities and especially those communities that are disenfranchised,” Mei said of the programs. “But I think we could definitely do more.” Georgetown’s insulation from the rest of the District is somewhat unusual for a university located in a big city. Several urban universities have research centers dedicated to the city in which they’re located. NYU boasts two such institutes, one for urban informatics and the other for policy. American University’s Metropolitan Policy Center aims to “demonstrate American University’s engagement in Washington, D.C.” McCabe believes devoting some of Georgetown’s resources to establishing a D.C.-focused research center would encourage the university community to engage with local issues. Backed by Georgetown’s resources and prestigious reputation, the center could produce research and policy recommendations on topics like housing, racial justice, and efforts to protect and commemorate D.C. history. “As a university, what we’re great at is doing research,” he said. “We should centralize that, and we should create an opportunity for students and for faculty to be involved.” Many of Georgetown’s peer institutions, like the University of Pennsylvania, NYU, and Washington University in St. Louis, have some variation of an urban studies major. Georgetown currently does not offer a major or minor in the subject, which McCabe describes as “incredibly unusual.” Without an institutionalized way to study urban issues, the onus to critically engage with the city falls largely on individual students and professors. “I don’t think every Georgetown student seeks that out, which is a big issue,” Mei said. She urged Georgetown students from out of town to take the time to learn about D.C. history and culture. Mei emphasized the cultural losses associated with gentrification. Her neighborhood in Chinatown-Gallery Place was home to a thriving Chinese American community until the 1990s, when a series of construction projects—including Capital One Arena—spurred a new wave of development and economic investment in the area. Many local Chinese American business owners couldn’t keep up with rising prices. As of 2015, fewer than 300 Chinese residents remained in the neighborhood. “A lot of them just closed because of the high rents,” Mei said. “It’s super expensive to rent in Gallery Place, not only because there’s the Capital One Arena there, which draws in a lot of visitors, and all around the area is super developed with all these franchise businesses.” McCabe argued that students need to reckon with these economic realities when they venture into neighborhoods like Shaw, Chinatown, and U Street. “I think the best thing I can tell Georgetown students is to be self-reflective, to be aware, to think about their role in those neighborhoods, and to learn as much as they can about the places that they’re living,” he said. Only a sophomore, Smith is already thinking about how to navigate her old communities after she graduates from Georgetown. It’s not a topic she takes lightly. “An apartment that I rent out with a friend as soon as I graduate [could be] where someone else lived, that was basically displaced,” she said. “It’s weird to think that I could be a part of the problem that has affected people I love and people close to me.” G FEBRUARY 28, 2020
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LEISURE
The Amen Corner Brings Baldwin to Life at Sidney Harman Hall OLIVIA MARTIN
“T
he greatest poet in the English language found his poetry where poetry is found: in the lives of the people.” This sentence appears in a 1964 James Baldwin essay titled “Why I Stopped Hating Shakespeare,” but really, the words could be about Baldwin himself. Even in the 21st century, his works tell stories loaded with humanity that feel incredibly real. It is no surprise, then, that the Shakespeare Theatre Company chose to produce The Amen Corner, Baldwin’s first play. The Amen Corner, which runs through March 15 at Sidney Harman Hall, is a major part of “Amen, Baldwin! A Living Celebration” and accompanies exhibits, classes, and celebrations at the theater and around the city this February, honoring the life and legacy of Baldwin and his work. The conversation even reached the Georgetown community, with a discussion on the play that took place on Feb. 25. First produced at Howard University in 1955, The Amen Corner tells the story of Margaret Alexander (Mia Ellis), the pastor of a small congregation in 1950s Harlem which falls into tumult over the course of the play. Problems arise in both her personal and religious lives when her estranged husband (Chiké Johnson) finds her in New York and her son (Antonio Michael Woodard) decides to embark on his own journey away from his childhood home. The stage at Sidney Harman has been transformed into a street corner which converges with a myriad of apartment buildings, alleyways, and Margaret’s church. The space is impressively laid out, with many exits for actors in the alleys between the massive edifices. Rooms in Margaret’s home make up the downstage area. In this constructed corner, there exists both religious and 14
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domestic life, intrinsically intertwined with the set design. When the lights dim and then refocus on center stage, the entire theater space, including the audience seating, functionally transforms into this church. As the spiritual music swells, house lights come up, bringing the audience into the congregation. The moments of audience illumination feel more like a church service than a professional theatre production, successfully creating audience interaction and immersion unusual for a large theater. This particular production works distinctly with music as a way to explore the black church. Music Director Victor Simonsen arranged 17 songs for the production, adapted from Baldwin’s text. Some of the musical moments relate to known church spirituals, but others are original melodies of Simonsen’s creation. The actors t h a t make up Margaret’s small congregation sing each song genuinely, celebrating joy and requesting help for hardship. Though the songs can drag on and make certain scenes take a tediously long time, they increase the feeling of immersion into the congregation Margaret leads. As an actress, Ellis compellingly grapples with the issues Margaret faces: a son growing up, a terminally ill exhusband coming back into the picture, and a congregation pushing back against her leadership because of issues tied up with her reputation and gender roles. Her performance is striking in its simplicity, not reliant on gimmicks or overacting to represent the deep and complicated turmoil Margaret—at once a great leader and a truly broken person—experiences throughout the play.
It is hard, though, to point to only one standout performance. Harriet D. Foy, who plays Margaret’s sister Odessa, delivers heart-wrenching monologues in defense of Margaret as a pastor, drawing on the pure anger and pain she feels because of the church elders’ attempt to betray her sister. The church elders themselves bring a comedic edge to the play. The perfectly timed jokes and innuendo coming from these actors, especially E. Faye Butler, who stars as Sister Moore, contribute to the audience experience nearly as much as the starkly contrasting moments of poignant sadness. Antonio Michael Woodard portrays David—Margaret’s young son who dreams of autonomy and a musical career—as the timeless figure of someone just following a dream. Chiké Johnson, who plays Margaret’s husband Luke, exudes a similar
energy, but one that has been weathered and worn down over years of failure. Johnson plays heartbreak well, but he plays hope, which his character finds in David, even better. As director Whitney White references in her director’s note, the
overarching gift of the play is allowing audiences to see truly humanized black characters both within their individual lives and as a larger community. “It is such a gift to see Black characters in such a multifaceted way,” she wrote. These actors embody that work and mission, not flat or one-dimensional in their performances, but instead portraying characters in a way that feels full of life. The Amen Corner, while distinctly tied to the period in which it was written, holds timeless lessons. Above all, it is a play about estrangement and reconciliation between members of a church community. It grapples with large-scale religious questions, pondering the suffering of innocent people and what it means to live in the service of God. Margaret poses these questions actively onstage, culminating in the moving monologue she delivers at the end of her extreme suffering, in which she calls upon her church community to join her once more. An important commentary on religion and issues of belief, Baldwin’s play and the characters in it reach a conclusion of faith in spite of hardship and grief. Even after losing her husband and, in some ways, her son, Margaret stands strong and returns to face her rebelling congregation. Pained and broken, she asserts her worth and her ability to lead.G
photo courtesy of scott suchman/the shakespeare theatre company; design by allison derose
LEISURE
Chemi RosadoSeijo’s Commitment to Community Shines in Comunidades en Movimiento ANNA SAVO-MATTHEWS
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s a faint short film flickers on the wall across from the exhibit’s entrance, the sound of skateboard wheels on concrete rumbles throughout the room. A jumble of small sculptures lies scattered across the floor of the Maria & Alberto de la Cruz Gallery. Rather than clay or marble, the small figurines are made from discarded skateboard parts, fashioned to resemble abstract shapes, human faces, snails, and lizards. There are hardly any conventional materials in the exhibit—some pieces are made of old books, while others are constructed from large, white, worn wooden panels. The only traditional elements used are the many photographs lining the rightside wall, bringing Chemi Rosado-Seijo’s many community-based projects onto Georgetown’s campus. Comunidades en Movimiento, RosadoSeijo’s first solo exhibit in the mainland United States, is being shown in the de la Cruz Art Gallery until April 8. Rosado-Seijo was born in Puerto Rico and much of his art is rooted in his home culture. A press release from Georgetown University describes RosadoSeijo as “equal parts artist and community organizer.” Through his direct engagement with communities, Rosado-Seijo dismantles the idea that art must be inaccessible and pretentious. The whole point of his projects is to get the people involved; Rosado-Seijo incites entire neighborhoods to participate in the production of art. One of Rosado Seijo’s most extensive projects is El Cerro. Photographs of this project show multitudes of houses painted green, clinging to the titular mountainside. In 2002, Rosado-Seijo began painting El Cerro residents’ houses various shades of green, initially working alone. Soon, however, El Cerro residents began to paint with him. Although the green paint causes the houses to blend beautifully into the mountainside, creating a breathtaking effect, it is the process of the people coming together and painting the houses
as a group that stands out as the most poignant aspect of the project. Rosado-Seijo remembers this piece fondly. “I’ll always be proud of El Cerro Project. It was the most collective experience towards an artwork that I’ve experienced,” he said in an email to the Voice. “[It] is such a morphing project, that keeps going from aesthetics to social justice constantly.” In Documentación de Salón-Sala-Salón, Rosado-Seijo explores the role different institutions have in education. At the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, Rosado-Seijo persuaded the museum staff to set up an exchange with a local school. The staff built a functional classroom in the museum and then moved a small gallery into the classroom. As a result of this exchange, children were able to experience the opportunities for reflection and introspective educational value museums provide. His projects draw from the history, culture, and traditions of the locations in which he works. Rosado-Seijo explained that his inspiration for his art always involves drawing upon local heritage. “There’s always something great and inspiring in any culture, natural space, communities, and more in the self-built barrios.” A photograph of Rosado-Seijo’s first public piece, El Trampolín, depicts the silhouette of a man leaping off of a diving board. Rosado-Seijo illegally installed the diving board on a historic bridge in San Juan, at a site where teenagers typically swim and dive into the ocean. Rosado-Seijo describes this project as “hyperrealism,” the act of amplifying a pre-existing cultural practice. Rosado-Seijo’s other great passion is skateboarding, a motif which recurs in several pieces in the exhibit. He views skateboarding and art as intimately connected. Although Rosado-Seijo first developed a passion for skateboarding in his early teens, he admits that his interest was
photos courtesy of de la cruz art gallery; design by allison derose
facilitated “always by the hand of art. The board graphics got a lot of my attention.” In Comunidades en Movimiento, he explores the intersection between skateboarding and community in a short film. The film depicts Rosado-Seijo and a group of collaborators building skate bowls around D.C. His works are incredibly charming; everything has a very DIY feel. The short film, featuring sped-up footage of his collaborators building these structures, makes the viewer feel the frenetic energy one would typically associate with skateboarding. The footage is interspersed with shots of police hovering near Rosado-Seijo’s group, adding to the exhibition’s rebellious atmosphere. “In the mid-’80’s when I started skateboarding, and skateboarding wasn’t that popular, actually was a little bit of a rebel act,” he wrote.
Documentación de Festival de Chiringas exemplifies Rosado-Seijo’s focus on the revitalization of local traditions. Beginning in 2014, Rosado-Seijo began hosting workshops in a low-income neighborhood in La Perla. These workshops revived the kite-making craft traditional in that area. Flown together at an annual festival, each kite symbolizes the
individuals who made them. Thus, the kites are a physical representation of the community being united through these workshops. The very nature of this piece is transient— the results of these workshops are not displayed in the gallery, and the kites are presumably with their makers. All the audience gets to see is a photo of a lone man flying a kite on the seashore. But the work isn’t for the audience—it’s for the participants themselves. The idea of a final product to put on display for gallery viewers is simply not the point of Rosado-Seijo’s work. His work is less about the permanence of a final product and more about the sense of belonging it creates. Although most of the art itself is not displayed in the gallery, the exhibit remains incredibly accessible. The gallery texts, written in both English and Spanish, explain the background of each piece, detailing what the piece means to the creator and the community. Rosado-Seijo even included a selection of books in the exhibit on the history of contemporary art and skateboarding. This contrasts heavily with the setup typically seen in modern art galleries, which provide little information to their viewers in an effort to force the viewer to come to their own conclusions. In application, this practice is exclusionary and runs entirely contrary to Rosado-Seijo’s mission of educating and bringing people together. In the detailed explanations he provides for his pieces, Rosado-Seijo’s commitment to accessibility shows even through the smallest details of the exhibitions. What Rosado-Seijo’s works all have in common is an emphasis on creating a lasting impact on communities. He deliberately ensures that his works have durable impacts on the people he works with. Be it the installation of a classroom in a museum or the creation of annual kite-flying festivals, each of RosadoSeijo’s projects give something back to the people he works with.G FERBRUARY 28, 2020
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This is how I Wingo.
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