Friday, April 13, 2018

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018

VOLUME CLII, ISSUE 48

WWW.BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

Alum makes 2020 presidential bid Sharpe Refectory to gain cooling abilities in 2019 U.’s decision follows campaign for A/C by dining workers, Brown Student Labor Alliance

By KATHERINE BENNETT SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The University announced on Thursday its plan to begin a multi-million dollar renovation to the infrastructure of the Sharpe Refectory this summer with the goal to permanently equip it with cooling abilities in summer 2019. This decision arrives amid a sustained campaign organized by students and dining workers to introduce air conditioning in the Ratty.

COURTESY OF YANG2020.COM

Andrew Yang ’96 concentrated in economics and political science. After graduating, Yang founded his own company, Venture for America, an organization that helps entrepreneurs create jobs in cities.

Andrew Yang ’96 champions “human capitalism,” universal income to fight automation’s effects

By EMILY DAVIES METRO EDITOR

When Andrew Yang ’96 was on College Hill, his life revolved around three activities: Taekwondo, working out and playing video games. Now, Yang directs his creative energy toward a different trifecta: automation, capitalism and the future of our nation. A little over two decades after graduating

from the University and founding his own company, Venture for America, Yang is running for President of the United States.

An economics and political science concentrator, Yang used his two areas of study to develop the core tenet of » See YANG, page 3

The University’s Plan The efforts to construct a cooling solution in the Ratty will be structured as a two-fold process with the University beginning to work on the first phase in June, said Barbara Chernow, executive vice president for finance and administration. This first phase includes upgrades and improvements to fixtures in the Ratty’s interior such as its electrical system and backup generator, as well as

its air handling fans and controls in the attic, she added. Altogether, the phase will cost $4 million and will take place from June to December of this year.

The University secured the funding for these renovations in spring 2017, Chernow added.

The second phase of the process will focus on creating “permanent cooling solutions” for the facility, she said. It begins with a feasibility report, which is currently underway, that will assess the costs and form of cooling that will be introduced in the Ratty. “The goal is that by next summer or the fall, we would have a more permanent solution ... of permanent cooling,” she added.

An Ongoing Campaign for Ratty A/C The University’s announcement comes after campaigning from students — led by the Student Labor Alliance — and dining workers for the installation of air conditioning in the Ratty’s kitchen to address a reported issue with high temperatures. The SLA built off previous organizing done by Summer@ Brown resident advisors last summer, said Evan Lehmann ’19, a member of » See A/C, page 4

House passes ‘Red Flag’ bill Seto ’18 earns second bid to Nationals Senior equestrian delivers to combat gun violence strong performance to Following concerns about infringement on civil liberties, majority supports revised legislation

By JACK BROOK SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Rhode Island House of Representatives voted 60 to eight Thursday to pass a “Red Flag” bill that would allow courts to take action against individuals who own a firearm and are considered to pose imminent danger to themselves or others. The House also voted to pass legislation (H-7075) banning “bump stocks,” which are modifications to semiautomatic weapons that increase their firing rate. Both bills will now move on to the state senate.

Legislation similar to the Red Flag bill is being considered by lawmakers in states across the country following the Parkland, Florida shooting, in which the gunman displayed warning signs of violence prior to the incident.

The Red Flag bill “gives law enforcement the tools necessary to intervene at a very crucial time,” allowing law enforcement act quickly to disarm a

INSIDE

potential shooter, said Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, D-Cranston, a bill cosponsor, at the legislative session. “The professional law enforcement community” has emphasized that “this is the bill that is needed to protect everyone,” he added.

The Red Flag bill enables police officers to petition for “extreme risk protection orders” to be issued against individuals exhibiting one or more of 11 different behaviors that make them a potentially active threat. Considerations would include criminal and mental health history, patterns of violence or domestic abuse and substance and alcohol abuse history. Ultimately, a judge would decide whether the petition provided “clear and convincing evidence” for a protection order to be issued. The orders would last for one year and can be renewed.

In February, Gov. Gina Raimondo passed a red flag executive order as a preliminary measure to achieve the same objectives.

The House Judiciary Committee voted 12 to zero to approve the Red Flag bill Tuesday, with two Republican members abstaining. However, the » See RED FLAG, page 2

qualify for Intercollegiate Horse Show champs

By RILEY PESTORIUS SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Anna Seto ’18 delivered a strong performance for the equestrian team Saturday, collecting a pair of top two finishes in the Zone 1 Finals at Mount Holyoke College and qualifying for the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association National Championships. The qualification marks Seto’s second consecutive year riding at the highest level of collegiate competition. She finished first in the Intermediate Flat division and second in the Intermediate Fences division, both of which earned her a bid to nationals alongside teammate Dominique Carlo ’20, who qualified with a second-place finish in Walk-Trot.

For her performance, Seto has been named The Herald’s Athlete of the Week.

ANITA SHEIH / HERALD

Congratulations on qualifying for nationals! How does that feel?

It feels really great! It’s awesome.

What divisions are offered for the

Anna Seto ‘18 placed in the top two at the Zone 1 Finals in the Intermediate Flat and Intermediate Fences divisions at Mount Holyoke College. team to compete in? What is your strongest?

The team is comprised of people from

all different experience levels. There’s anything from Walk-Trot, which means » See AOTW, page 3

WEATHER

FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018

NEWS Former cabinet members from Obama era Tom Perez ’83, Gina McCarthy discuss Trump

SPORTS Klein ’20: Utah Jazz often overlooked when discussing top contenders for NBA Finals

COMMENTARY Aman ’20: U. needs to have deliberate conversations when debating guest speaker invitations

COMMENTARY Gladstone ’18, Shire ’19: Students Supporting Israel has no affiliation with U. student groups

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PAGE 2 • FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Former cabinet secretaries express hope despite Trump actions Tom Perez ’83, Gina McCarthy expect Obama administration’s legacy to endure

By JACOB LOCKWOOD SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Pessimism was not in the room when former cabinet members Tom Perez ’83, senior fellow in international and public affairs, and Gina McCarthy, former director of the environmental protection agency, discussed the legacy of the Obama administration on Thursday. The event took place in the List Art Center and was moderated

by Director of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs Edward Steinfeld P’20. Perez and McCarthy struck a hopeful tone and drew frequent laughter from the crowd, catching some audience members by surprise.

“You’ve both expressed a lot of optimism today about the resiliency of the Obama legacy,” one student in attendance remarked when the discussion was opened to questions from the audience. “That was not what I came in here expecting.”

Perez — who served as secretary of labor in the Obama administration and currently chairs the Democratic National Committee — admitted it is disheartening to see some of his accomplishments chipped away by the Trump administration. “We’ve taken some hits at the Labor Department.

Does it break my heart? Yeah. Does it strengthen my resolve? Hell yeah,” he said. “I understand that some people will feel pessimism, but we can either fret, or we can fight.”

Perez noted that the same sense of resolve has driven many people to

» RED FLAG, from page 1 committee also made a series of major revisions in response to concerns that the Red Flag bill could infringe upon civil liberties.

The key change to the bill includes ensuring that only law enforcement would have the right to file a petition for protective orders; previously, the attorney general and family members of the person in question were also allowed to do so, according to a list of talking points provided by the Office of the Speaker of the House. Officers would be required to provide “credible evidence” sworn under oath.

The new version of the bill also stated that “unlawful, threatening or reckless use or brandishing of a firearm” in social media posts could serve as grounds for a judge to grant an order.

Many of the changes came in response to a 14-page report released by the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union in March. The report warned that the Red Flag bill could set a precedent for law enforcement and courts to violate civil rights without adequate due process.

“When you are dealing with legislation, the devil is always in the details,” said Steven Brown, director of Rhode Island’s ACLU. “The danger is that (the Red Flag bill) ends up getting used for purposes that it was never intended to be used for. There are provisions in the bill that authorize action against individuals based on very vague and open-ended standards.”

IAN STEVENSON / HERALD

Tom Perez ’83, former secretary of labor, and Gina McCarthy, former director of the Environmental Protection Agency, said they are encouraged by seeing American citizens passionately participate in democracy. stand up for their values since Trump’s election, resulting in a string of election victories for Democrats in many levels of government. “When we put hope on the ballot, we win,” Perez said.

McCarthy, who directed the EPA under the Obama administration, said that people are often surprised by her lack of pessimism. “I get the same reaction everywhere. … They think I’m just destitute, in this constant state of depression,” she joked, adding that people shouldn’t let the Trump administration “take away your energy and your enthusiasm and your hope.”

Though the Obama legacy may seem to be under siege, McCarthy said she isn’t worried about much of her work at the EPA being undone, as the Obama administration carefully followed the rulemaking process to enact regulations that could stand up to According to the ACLU’s report, the bill’s broad scope could be used as a pretext for police to remove lawfully owned weapons from alleged gang members or people using “overblown political rhetoric” on social media.

Moreover, when police are tasked with exercising significant discretion, that power is often used disproportionately against marginalized groups, Brown said.

The ACLU also called into question the duration of the protective orders; the fact that courts could compel individuals to engage in mental health evaluations, or else face contempt of court; and the bill’s loose definition of “imminent danger.” Individuals with criminal backgrounds or histories of mental health issues without a record of recent violence could still face protective orders if a judge determines that they pose an imminent and “significant” danger.

“The bill places judges in the unenviable — indeed, impossible — position of trying to predict who may and may not become a mass murderer,” the ACLU report noted.

The Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence has not endorsed the Red Flag bill, according to Katherine Kerwin, director of communications for the coalition.

According to Larry Berman, director of communications for the Office of the Speaker, Mattiello and the Red Flag bill’s other sponsors reviewed similar legislation from other states like California and Oregon. They also consulted

judicial scrutiny. The Trump administration, on the other hand, “thinks that (it) can rule by executive order and that (it) can do a shoddy job of rulemaking to just confirm what the President of the United States wants,” she said.

“For that reason, I don’t think that they are going to be successful in rolling back the work that we did,” McCarthy said. “They’re simply not working hard enough.”

Perez agreed that the Trump administration’s approach to deregulation has been “ham-handed” and “sloppy.”

But he said he does worry for the Obama legacy, noting that some damage will need to be patched up “when we get back in control.”

McCarthy maintained that the Trump administration “is claiming success that is nowhere near the finish line” in its attempts to overturn

Obama’s legacy. She expressed more concern about Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, which she thinks will delay action on climate change and damage American leadership around the world. “It’s going to take a long time, but I have to have faith that the United States is going to lead that charge again,” she said.

Perez similarly expressed disappointment that the United States has been swept up in the rising tide of nativism around the world. “What we had, historically, during periods like this was the moral authority of the United States, (but) it’s not there,” he said. “The normalization of ethics violations, the normalization of lying, the normalization of misogyny — this is conduct unbecoming of a president, unbecoming of a person anywhere.”

SOPHIE CULPEPPER / HERALD

The R.I. House of Representatives passed a bill that would allow courts to issue protection orders against individuals deemed a threat. extensively with state agencies to make adjustments prior to Thursday’s vote.

The revised bill now requires the court to review protective orders within 30 days of their issue and for individuals to be given access to a public defender. There would also be the opportunity to submit a written request for appeal.

In addition, measures have been taken to guard against intentional false reporting. The penalty for filing a petition for a protective order in “bad faith”

would lead to fines of $5,000 and up to five years of imprisonment.

But for some legislators, these changes to the Red Flag bill were not sufficient to mitigate due process concerns.

“We should be taking guns from people who should not have them. I think everyone agrees with that — the question is, how do we do it?” said House Minority Whip Blake Filippi, R-Block Island. “I don’t think this bill respects the process (that) is necessary

“The truth matters. Science matters.

Civility matters,” Perez said. “I fear that people are going to look at (the Trump administration) and think this is okay.

This is not okay.”

McCarthy agreed that civil discourse has taken a hit under Trump.

“I worry that (the credibility of government) has eroded to a level where it’s going to take considerable time to bounce back — if it does,” she said.

“I worry that … now we’re going to not only have a Congress that doesn’t work, but we’re going to have an executive branch that just undoes what the other one did.”

But McCarthy has found actions taken by state and local governments to be reassuring. “Others step up at a time when Washington is asleep,” she added.

Perez stressed that the United States has overcome division before. “This is a resilient democracy, and I have such faith in the American people,” he said. “We can do this, but (democracy) has to be a full-participation sport. …

And the good news is I’m seeing (participation) in remarkable abundance.

The energy — it’s not abating. People understand you can’t take democracy for granted any longer.”

McCarthy emphasized that she is “incredibly hopeful” for the future. “I actually see signs that people are beginning to act like they need to act, which is with passion,” she said. “I haven’t been to a march in decades before the women’s march. … If you want to see what America is, that’s what it is. … It’s endless work, but it’s worth it.”

The Trump administration may be the first “whose sole path forward is to go backwards,” McCarthy said.

But “there’s no way that I think this administration is going to take down the United States of America.” to take away someone’s fundamental right.”

Nevertheless, proponents of the bill place a premium on the number of lives it could save. Rep. Teresa Tanzi, D-Narragansett, emphasized the bill’s role in suicide prevention.

“Nine out of 10 people who attempt suicide and do not complete suicide go on to never attempt again,” Tanzi said. “Now, those who attempt suicide with a handgun — nine out of ten of those individuals do not survive. …

You take the gun out of the equation, (they would) go on to live full, productive, happy lives.”

Approximately 70 supporters of Moms Demand Action, an organization advocating gun control that helped develop the Red Flag bill, formed a visible presence at the legislative session.

Sitting in bright red shirts in the wings of the house, they clapped quietly when the bill was passed.

“I joined Moms after (the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting); I lived in that area, and it just destroyed me,” said Barbara Swanson of Narragansett, a survivor engagement leader responsible for coordinating with survivors of shootings to advocate for gun control. “But for some reason, Parkland destroyed me worse.”

“I have grandchildren; I don’t want them to live in a violent society,” she added. “We have a second amendment, but with rights come responsibilities.”

— Additional reporting by Sophie Culpepper

Issue

In This

Lauren Aratani 4

J.B. Novak

2

The Battle of Forgetting

Faulty Lines A&C STAFF 4

Words Worth a Thousand Pictures 6

Tal Frieden

PROGRAMMING BY A&C STAFF 5

INTERVIEW WITH IFF

Gender Revalligator

Short and Smart

postCover by Claribel Wu

APRIL 13

VOL 21 —

ISSUE 10

FEATURES

Faulty Lines

A

Politics Along the U.S.-Mexico Border written By J.B. Novak - PHOTOS BY J.B. NOVAK AND DYLAN QUINTAL

few weeks

Letter from the Editor

ago, I went on the annual DEEPS (Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences) spring break field trip to look at rocks in the desert of West Texas desert. We traveled along the border between the United States and Mexico to see the geological features formed by the awesome power of plate tectonics, which births volcanoes and causes oceans to rise and fall. I expected to see some cool rocks, but I did not imagine the trip would inform my understanding of the politics along the U.S.Mexico border.

Our first stop was the Hueco Tanks—referring to the Spanish name huecos for the hollows in the rocks where water collects—a formation of volcanic rock that looks like the shell of a giant red tortoise resting in the middle of a desert basin. The water in the huecos supports an ecosystem of organisms such as fairy shrimp—translucent quarter-sized crustaceans that are unique to the larger western Texas desert region.

The water and wildlife at the Hueco Tanks made it a settlement location for native peoples in the region. There are over 3,000 pictographs and petroglyphs at the site, which record human habitation over the past 10,000 years. The mystical characteristics of many of these pictographs suggest that the various peoples who lived there regarded the Hueco Tanks as spiritually significant. The extant Native American groups that left pictographs at the tanks—the Kiowa, Mescalero Apache, Comanche, Tigua, and the people of Isleta del Norte Pueblo— were placed on reservations in Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas from the 1850s to the 1870s after their lands were taken from them by the U.S. government. A pictograph we saw on the trip depicted the theft of the land from its rightful owners, telling of the escape of a band of Kiowa warriors from U.S. Cavalrymen.

We also saw Native American pictographs and petroglyphs at later stops we made on our trip. Along with signs demarcating the U.S.-Mexico border, they stood on the state park trails we hiked as intermittent reminders of the violent history that shapes the region. Together, these icons and signs symbolized a central irony of U.S.-Mexico Border politics—the land that we Americans are so

protective of is not our own.

Our next destination was Big Bend National Park in the Chisos Mountains.

The park’s boundaries follow the path of the Rio Grande, which marks the boundary between the U.S.-Mexico border. During our time there, we were confronted daily with reminders of the politics that shape the U.S.-Mexico border region. Some of them—Confederate Battle Flags in the front yard of one of the few homesteads in the Chihuahuan Desert, a cargo container left by the roadside that read, “Resist! No Wall Here!”—seemed typical to me, being from

We traveled along the border between the United States and Mexico to see the geological features formed by the awesome power of plate tectonics, which births volcanoes and causes oceans to rise and fall. the American South, but others stood out. We periodically drove through U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints situated along the highways of Big Bend National Park. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Agency prohibits racial profiling when screening people at these checkpoints, but it’s still routine. The white members of our group, including myself, were let through the checkpoints without presenting our documentation, while the minority members had to provide theirs.

Later, while walking a short trail in Big Bend’s Boquillas Canyon (right), we saw a small group of Mexican teenagers and twenty-somethings camping on the opposite riverbank of the Rio Grande. One of them was riding a horse at a trot up and down the Mexican side of the river. We waved to them, and they waved back.

Dear Readers,

Places to Live After Getting Rekt by Housing

Ahead of the last and greatest Post- of the April 9 may not have been a national holiday,

year next week, the Spring Weekend issue,

but it was a very special day for us at Post-:

we spotlight the Ivy Film Festival, the world’s

the birthday of our editor-in-chief, Saanya!

largest student-run film festival. Read

Since her appointment last year, Saanya

about J.P. Novak’s travels along the U.S.-

has held Post- together through some tough

Mexico border, and enjoy Tal Frieden on the

1.

Inside Blueno

times. We turned over nearly our entire

symbolism of gender-revealing alligators!

2.

The CIT (there are showers!)

managing, design, and illustrations staff,

We couldn't have published all this amazing

while simultaneously expanding our social

work, and so much more to come, without

3.

The couch of your lucky off-campus friend

media presence (Like us on Facebook!) and

the hard work and commitment that starts at

4.

The Ratty (also has couches)

launching a podcast. Staving off attempts

the top. Thank you, Saanya!

5.

Under the warm air vent in front of Bio Med

6.

The SciLi basement

7.

Shiru Cafe

8.

Your current dorm (they can’t make you leave)

by the BDH Board to eliminate Postaltogether, Saanya has made the most out of a compromise. Despite a reduction in pages, our magazine is better equipped to showcase student writing and appeal to a diverse readership than ever before.

2!post–

Sincerely,

Josh

MANAGING CHIEF OF A & C

9.

10.

A cardboard box

Our fear of U.S. Border Patrol prevented us from wading through the knee-deep water and speaking to them, and them from reaching us. A massive fault along the river’s course has eroded the canyon, which seems to symbolically punctuate the arbitrary political boundary between our two countries.

About halfway down the trail we saw a collection of bright trinkets and decorated walking sticks that had been left out near a fallen tree. Marked at a few dollars apiece, they lay next to a plastic jar with a slit cut into its top. Instructions were written on its side in Sharpie: “Please pay here. Donations Welcomed!”

Another hiker explained to us that the trinkets were left there by the people who live nearby on the Mexican side of the border. The souvenir vendors want to sell their goods to hikers, but cannot stay on the American side of the border to do so out of fear of detainment by Border Patrol. We saw these crossborder souvenir stands on other trails as well; some that we came across were hidden, perhaps out of fear that the goods would be confiscated should a Park Ranger or Border Patrol Officer find them.

We saw the goods, but never the purveyors, until we encountered two of the cross-border souvenir vendors at a hot spring on the bank of the

Rio Grande. The two men were wearing waist-high waders for the journey across the river. We and the other visitors to the hot springs ignored them, but we were surprised to see that they had crossed the Rio Grande there. The water was much deeper there than it was at Boquillas Canyon, and the current was strong enough to carry away a weak swimmer. Seeing that they had crossed the Rio Grande at such a deep, swift, and dangerous point in the river allowed me to grasp the extent of their economic need. I was struck by how profoundly wrong it is for the wealthiest nation on the planet to force people to come to the United States this way, hounded by Border Patrol Agents. The people who come to the United States illegally are no different from most of us, or our parents, or our grandparents, who immigrated to this country in search of a better life, for themselves and for their children. Who are we, as a country, to deny it now to others?

Some of the most compelling moments on our trip came from seeing the terrain where the United States’s current administration proposes to build a border wall. The notion of building a 30-foot-tall wall and sending 4,000 National Guardsman to “protect” it seemed ludicrous after visiting those

locations. The U.S.-Mexico Border is demarcated by the Rio Grande, which the delicate ecosystem of the Chihuahuan Desert depends on for water. A border wall on the U.S. side will deny local populations of black bears and other fauna access to the water they need to survive. Moreover, the creation of a border wall would stop the historically free movements of bison herds, pronghorns (the American antelope), and coyotes across the western rangelands of the Chihuahuan desert. The amount of food available to these populations will be reduced dramatically if their movement is restricted, and their numbers will plummet as a result.

Furthermore, the proposed wall is an insignificant barrier to entry compared to the existing variegated terrain. This was especially clear at the Santa Elena Canyon in the Chisos Mountains, where we walked past a cross-border souvenir stand that had been set up 100 feet from the parking lot. The person who came and set up the stand must have crossed into the US through the Chisos Mountains, which stretch on over twenty miles of the U.S.-Mexico Border and have peaks that are over 7,000 feet high. I challenge the U.S. government to stop him with a 30-foot wall.

Top: The Rio Grande as seen from a nature trail in Big Bend National Park. The near riverbank is the United States. The far riverbank is Mexico.

Bottom: Trinkets sold by illegal migrants at the hot springs trailhead in Big Bend National Park near the US Mexico border.

“Viruses are not contagious!! OHMYGOD!!”

“Everyone who’s interested in men’s clothing seems to be a fascist.”

“Don’t get all existential about it.”

april 13, 2018&3

ARTS&CULTURE

The Battle of Forgetting

Viet Thanh Nguyen Rewrites the Vietnam War

By Lauren Aratani illustration by remy poisson "I'm a refugee. It feels funny to say that because if you look at me, it’s obvious that I made the transition from refugee to bourgeoisie,” said Viet Thanh Nguyen as he stood in front of a packed room in Pembroke Hall on Wednesday night.

Just moments before, as Nguyen first took the podium, he whipped out his phone. “I’m going to do what I always do at lectures,” he said as he filmed the audience from left to right. “I can’t help it—I’m Asian.”

When writing The Sympathizer, Nguyen said he wanted to write a novel that offends everybody (“except the Pulitzer Prize committee,” he joked), forcing people, especially U.S. readers, to see...themselves as inhuman This kind of sarcastic, biting humor may seem familiar to those who know Nguyen’s writing, the most famous of which is his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Sympathizer. The novel is about an undercover Vietnamese spy who is loyal to North Vietnam but is part of the U.S. military in South Vietnam. When the U.S. troops go back home, they take the nameless narrator with them, and he becomes a refugee, still undercover, in a new land.

I’ve read The Sympathizer for two of my classes, and I have to admit that it’s not an easy book to digest.

Flashbacks get conflated with the present, there are no quotation marks to separate dialogue from narration, and the narrator himself remains nameless throughout the entire book, which is unsettling. But after listening to Nguyen speak during his lecture Wednesday and attending the seminar he held with undergraduates Thursday morning, I have a new appreciation for the book. Though I originally cast off the novel as confusing and opaque, hearing Nguyen speak about his writing and the purpose he undertook when writing The Sympathizer helped me understand

ARTS&CULTURE the larger message it carries about memory.

Nguyen’s lecture discussed his ideas of memory and three different types of remembering that define war. These modes of remembering revolve around what people view as human or inhuman. The first mode is “remembering one’s own,” which entails believing that your own people are human and should never be forgotten, while the enemy is inhuman. The second mode is “remembering others”: seeing both yourself and the enemy as human. The third is what Nguyen called “the more radical version of remembering others,” which is believing that you and your own people are inhuman, while the enemy is human.

This third mode of memory can be seen in The Sympathizer. So often we encounter movies, television shows, and novels that depict the war and its fallout for the United States, yet the narratives rarely focus on the resulting destruction of Vietnam and the plight of Vietnamese refugees. When writing The Sympathizer, Nguyen said he wanted to write a novel that offends everybody (“except the Pulitzer Prize committee,” he joked), forcing people, especially U.S. readers, to see the Vietnam War in that radical third mode of memory where they see themselves as inhuman. He framed the novel as a confession of one Vietnamese to another, centering the Vietnamese perspective and directly challenging the U.S.-centric viewpoint of the Vietnam War. In the novel, Vietnamese characters are both the victims and the killers. The mixture somehow allows them to retain their humanity.

Even though Nguyen wrote his novel with radicalism in mind, he describes himself as “more of a guy who is in the industry.” By that, he meant the “industry of memory”—essentially the system that capitalizes on nostalgia by selling memories in the forms of movies, television, books, museums, period costumes, and even certain tourist destinations.

Nguyen expanded on this concept of a memory industry in his nonfiction book Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War in which he argues that a path to equality—to “just memory”—requires giving up the memory industry to “the poor, the marginalized, the different, and the demonized, or their advocates.”

Nguyen’s novel trivhes to, and I would argue succeeds in, taking this industry of memory and offering it to the Vietnamese and Vietnamese-Americans whose narratives have been neglected.

Fortunately, The Sympathizer is not the only prize-winning, bestselling novel that has entered the mainstream with the purpose of changing the industry of memory. Looking back at the past couple of years, prestigious fiction prizes like the Pulitzer and Man Booker Prize have been awarded to writers of color, such as Colson Whitehead (The Underground Railroad), Marlon James (A Brief History of Seven Killing) and Paul Beatty (The Sellout), joining Nguyen in trying to make Americans recognize that there are accounts of history that drastically differ from their own.

Words Worth a Thousand Pictures

Introducing the Ivy Film Festival’s Screenplay Selections

By A&C staff illustrated by Miranda Villanueva The Ivy Film Festival’s Screenplay committee, led

by Daniel Wayland ’18 and Dominique Pariso ’18, has been working hard for the past year. While the Screenplay department perhaps lacks the glamour of Programming or Industry, which schedules celebrity guests, Screenplay champions the most underrated creators of film: student writers. Submissions come from across the country and vary widely in terms of content—from stories of Jewish mafias to timetraveling bargoers. From the 88 submissions the Screenplay committee received, the team has curated a group of 15 finalists spread over five categories.

This diverse body of work will be showcased at a table reading, on Saturday, at 11 a.m. in the Granoff Auditorium.

This interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Could you tell us about the submission process and where these scripts come from?

DW: [The 88 we received] was a record for us. I think our goal is trying to get as close to 100 as possible.

There was definitely a wide range of graduate and undergraduate submissions; there was definitely a lot of Brown participation, but it really spreads out throughout the country. A lot of places like Emerson, USC, and NYU send us a lot of scripts.

Q: Could you explain the different categories for submissions?

DP: We have our pilot category, which is undergraduates and graduates lumped together. We have our short category…[and] our feature category, which [are both] split into undergraduate and graduate. So there are five categories overall.

Q: So what are the screenplays like in the pilot category?

DP: We have three. The first one is Murder INC., which is a historical, hour-long drama that follows a group of Jewish men getting involved in the mafia.

And we have one called The Reboot, which is a cute, animated, half-hour comedy that’s more of a script for teenagers. And we have The Pezzullos, a 30-minute comedy satirizing the Italian-American mafia.

DW: [The Pezzullos is] about a guy trying to leave a crime family who gets promoted, becoming the sort of reluctant Don of the family.

4!post–

ARTS&CULTURE Q: Are writers submitting pilots just turning in a single episode, or is there a larger outline?

Q: Both of you have been on Programming in the past [This is Ballarini’s fourth year and Venkatesh’s third year] on staff. What has changed compared to previous years?

DW: We don’t get future plan sheets or things like that.

I’d say pilots are the category we treat most differently [from] others because we’re thinking about how these narrative trajectories might play out over a season.

If it feels like it’s too contained of a script, that works against a pilot. It helps to have a kind of road map to the season within the first episode.

Q: Could you talk a little about the graduate feature category?

DP: Yeah, we have three finalists. The first is called Élan, which is based on a true story about the Elan school, which was a private institution where “problem” kids were sent and often abused.

DW: We also have Bin, which charts the relationship between a young Muslim boy and an Iman, and it kind of has a Good Will Hunting feel. And then the last one is Zenith, which is a self-discovery story.

DP: [Zenith is] about a black woman who is adopted into an all-white Mennonite community who then goes into the city to find her biological family and discovers her identity in some ways. Those are all very serious dramas.

Q: And you mentioned Emerson, USC, and NYU. Are you reaching out to these organizations, or are they finding you?

DP: They usually find us, for the most part…Our marketing department does a really great job getting the word out.

DW: And then we have an outreach department that works with satellite film festivals and reaches out to other schools. We have a solid reach now—I think we’ve sort of built up a base. When Shia LaBeouf came on Monday, he mentioned that he submitted his screenplay to us because we’re listed on one of the top 50 film festivals to submit screenplays to.

Q: But Shia LaBeouf's screenplay was not chosen?

DP: Unfortunately, Shia LaBeouf's not a student. But we did have fun reading that one. We read it anyway just for kicks. It’s being produced now. It’s called Honeyboy, and it’s based on his childhood growing up in Hollywood. Lucas Hedges, I think, was just cast to play young Shia, and Shia’s playing his father.

DW: Through Film Freeway, [the website he submitted his screenplay to], the Industry people were able to reach out and [get him to come to campus].

Q: Is there anything else Brown should know about IFF Screenplay?

DP: A lot of our screenwriters are coming. They’re visiting campus for the weekend. So for the screenwriting community here at Brown, it’s a really great opportunity to come and network and chat and talk about the craft, and this is the one event where screenwriting like this is really showcased on campus, and there’s a huge community of writers out there on campus who sometimes don’t feel really connected to each other, so if you come and meet people, it’s a really good way to get everyone in a room.

DQ: Last thing, just kind of a shameless plug about [Screenplay], the reason we have such a strong body of work this year in terms of our finalists and nominees is because of the work that our team [of 16 people] did. I think we had an exceptional [group]...that was really committed to doing heavy lifting. Our team was awesome this year.

LIFESTYLE

Short and Smart Introducing the Ivy Film Festival’s Official Selection

By A&C Staff illustrated by katya labowe-stoll Out of the nearly 500 submissions it received, the Ivy Film Festival will air 25 student-made short films during three sessions on Friday (4:30 p.m.), Saturday (3 p.m.), and Sunday (1 p.m.) in the Granoff Martinos Auditorium. Post- spoke to Cristina Ballarini ’18 and Kripa Venkatesh ’19, the directors of the Programming division and its 21 staff members. Ballarini and Venkatesh explained the process that went into choosing the short films and what to expect of the Official Selection.

This interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Could you explain the selection process?

Christina Ballarini: We assign each member of our staff about three films to watch each week, they write a little review in the master spreadsheet, and, if they like anything, we bring it up and screen it at [our weekly] group meeting. Early on, we vote whether to give it a 1, 2, 3, or 4, and later on, whether we want to keep it in the selection or not.

Kripa Venkatesh: We try to encourage each person’s reviews to be on the film’s conceptual merits, technical merits, and writing and acting performances. Those are the three umbrellas we look for. Other than that, we try to encourage the staff to look at how [a film] looks in the Selection and what IFF stands to promote.

Q: Could you give an example of a film that was really important to watch as a group?

KV: [A film we discussed at the end] was Sober Octaves (showing on Friday), which is actually this visual album, which wouldn’t [normally] be seen in a film festival. The themes of the music alone and the visuals were crazy, [and] it’s actually by a group at Brown [called] Diaspora...It’s five music videos, but there are overarching themes throughout and recurring characters...and there are some really cool computer graphics in it.

Q: As you got closer to the festival, did you have a group of finalists? When did you choose the official selection?

CB: Things we felt pretty good about, we piled them on the shortlist, and once we got toward the festival, things became a little bit clearer.

KV: We actually decided our final selection right before spring break, so a month and a half ago we started getting really serious about the shortlist.

CB: I think there is a lot more focus on what kinds [of ] things we reward as a student film festival...

One thing that is cool about student films is they get to try a lots of things. It doesn’t always work...But there has been a lot more desire to reward things that don’t completely work [but] are conceptually interesting.

KV: I feel like IFF’s position has really strengthened in the past three years, so [we have] been thinking about what films would benefit from being in our selection.

Ballarani and Venkatesh cited Cry Baby (Friday), an animated short by a RISD student, Xiner Jiang, as an example of the sort of experimental work the festival is championing. Cry Baby uses cutouts of live-action people, overlaid with narration of a woman calling her mom, to create tension between the image and sound.

Q: What other films should people be paying attention to?

CB: Sin Cielo (Sunday) is this American Film Institute film, which we usually tend to be pretty skeptical of because they have these huge budgets and tend to be indulgent, but this one was so good.

It’s about this border town and this romance between a young man and a young woman. There is always this presence with the town, a danger. You think there is organized crime.

KV: There is a dark shadow looming that no one talks about. There is more not present in the film than there is. Eventually, it becomes devastating...I really like Life After (Saturday), a graduate film about how an Indian mother copes with her daughter’s death and finding out about her daughter’s identity.

CB: Klarinet Klub (Friday) [is] a U.S. undergraduate comedy. The official blurb is: A boy is pressured by his gynecologist father into performing a Caesarean section at his school’s talent show….It is basically about a person who loves his clarinet and his community. It is so beautiful. The production design is impeccable, and I feel like it is a style of comedy that Brown students will really jive with.

The longest film, The Little Dictator (Saturday), is 28 minutes [and] is a take on the Israel-Palestine conflict. The shortest is Matter Out of Place (Sunday), [which] is two minutes long and has a stop-motion feel with weird, breathy audio.

Q: Getting so many submissions, what were big themes or ideas you saw this year?

CB: This year, lots of films wrestled with identity, borders, and nation. Those were the three big ones...I remember last year, [it] was bees and children, [which] made me think that people were worried about the future because the bees were dying.

The IFF Programming staff awards a prize to the best film in each of the seven categories, while the audiences vote on an Audience Award. A panel of industry professionals chooses the top honor, the Special Grand Jury Prize. IFF films will screen its selection in Los Angeles in June and at universities both in the United States and around the world during the next school year.

april 13, 2018&5

NARRATIVE

Gender Revalligator

Nation-Building and Narrative Around Gender Reveals Written by Tal Frieden Illustrated By Molly young Maybe you've seen them on your newsfeed— people cutting cakes, opening fake presents, shooting guns at tannerite explosive, all leading up to the magical ~reveal~, blue or pink. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re missing out. There’s an entire genre of videos dedicated to announcing the gender of an expecting couple’s newest addition to the family.

The videos are presumably intended to be shared with family members, but the most outlandish often go viral.

As if the doctor’s “It’s a —!” weren’t enough as a performative speech act (meaning that the baby becomes legible as a particular gender through the doctor’s utterance), these couples gender their children through an expansive array of technologies.

When a soon-to-be father shoots a rifle with a sniper attachment off of a pickup truck in Granbury, Texas— an act which is then digitally recorded, uploaded to YouTube, and watched over 40,000 times—the baby’s gender becomes part of a larger web of nation-building ideology. It’s not the doctor who decides the gender here, and it’s not really the father either. The gun, the bullet, the tannerite explosive, and the pickup truck are the agents that come together to produce the gender, signified through a cloud of pink smoke.

There is an assumed agreement between the viewer, the father and videographer, and the tannerite. Pink = girl = female, blue = boy = male. While there is no explicit reference to sex, a prenatal assessment of gender or

The main question we’re left with is, who is performing the reveal? In other words, who is speaking, who is calling the baby’s gender into existence? sex could only rely on sex characteristics such as those identifiable via ultrasound technology, and not the child’s self-identification. It is here, on the back of this Texan pickup truck, that gender becomes ideologically bound to sex, because before the fetus is even separated from the womb, it can be characterized by a plume of pink smoke. The instant these cultural icons (blue, pink) are assigned to biological sex, we link the realm of sex to gender and biology to culture. While the parent in this video hits a bullseye, ultrasound technology often misses the mark—sex assignments via ultrasound are only 75% consistent, according to an article published in the Australian Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine.

This genre of video also makes interesting claims about (un)awareness. Never does the viewer see the

person who “sets up” the reveal, who picks the pink paint. It’s sometimes unclear whether the parents already know what color they’ll find, or whether that really matters. Presumably, the information that determines the color in the explosive is determined by someone operating an ultrasound, who would only be able to share the information to someone other than the person carrying the baby with a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act release. The passage of information here from ultrasound machine to technician to person to explosive color to bullet to parent to phone camera to viewer is remarkable, like a game of gender-binary telephone (literally, passed as a series of binary code via cell phone).

Interestingly, in some of these videos we hear an off-screen voice proclaim, “I knew it!” but it is unclear what “knowing” really means. Does the premonition of a certain sex assignment constitute knowledge? These interjectors claim that their knowledge predates the ultrasound’s and that they, too, are qualified to assign sex to an unborn fetus.

My favorite bizarre gender-reveal experiment in home cinema is a video from Slidell, LA (according to the Facebook geo-location), in which a circle of smartphone-toting onlookers observe a tattooed Crocs-wearing Louisianaian wrangling a huge alligator in what appears to be someone’s backyard (we can see a basketball hoop, garage, driveway—all the typical fixings of suburbia). Again, there’s a ten-foot long alligator, in someone’s backyard, wrestling with a tattooed man in Crocs. The man is handed what appears to be a watermelon and pries the alligator’s mouth open. Then the alligator’s mouth snaps shut, almost chomping the man’s hand. Again, the jaws are pulled open, and this time the watermelon is dropped inside. As the ten-foot long amphibian’s jaws pull together, the watermelon is smashed, spewing what looked like blue Jello. We hear hoots and hollers—“It’s a boy!” The alligator starts to move—“It’s on the run!” The man returns from hugging his presumed partner to subdue the animal-announcer, pressing down on the alligator’s jaw. Reinforcements come in, and two people clamp down the jaw, pushing

“I say, let me eat, you bureaucratic heathens.”

—Kathy Luo, SciLi Staplers Suck 4.13.17

“I just googled salad bra, and evidently your bras will last years longer if you toss them around in a salad spinner with some gentle detergent like little gems of lettuce.”

—Pia Mileaf-Patel, Salads ‘n’ Stuff 4.13.17

6!post–

the animal’s body to the ground.

The main question we’re left with is, who is performing the reveal? In other words, who is speaking, who is calling the baby’s gender into existence? The alligator in the video is in the yard, a guest at the party just like the humans (though it is quite rude to play with the mouth of a party guest). There’s no denying that the alligator performs an intentional role here—the watermelon could have just as easily been smashed on the driveway, or the ‘gender’ could have been ‘revealed’ through a short SMS. Instead, the alligator is given the honor of gendering a prenatal fetus, with the help of some humans and their Jello-filled watermelon.

This gator-reveal, alongside the rifle-reveal, puts on display the ways in which the ideologies of nation and region play out in the field of gender. For the Texan, the rifle is the device through which gender may be ‘revealed,’ and for the Louisianian, it’s the gator. Kylie Jenner’s reveal included a professional photographer and confetti cannons, with luxury cars in the background. A luau-themed gender reveal party asked the question, “Will it be a hula boy or a hula girl?”

A video from Illinois features pink and blue pumpkins.

The translation of information from ultrasound imaging to blue Jello or pink explosive activates a wealth of cultural assumptions and understandings linking biological sex to socialized gender. Objects and animals are transformed into accoutrements to underline the context through which the unborn baby will become their assigned sex/gender. Through their relationship to the rifle and the gator, these Americans will come to understand and negotiate their genders.

It’s worth noting that the ultrasound and the doctor’s office are themselves two alternative media through which to understand gender and sex, no less politically and historically relavent than the rifle or the gator.

Regardless of the media used, all of these videos left me asking, why do we really want to know the sex?

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ARTS & CULTURE

LAYOUT

Saanya Jain

Managing Editor

Ro Antia

a

Josh Wartel

Nina Yuchi

FEATURE

Section Editors

Jacob Lee

Managing Editor

Celina Sun

Jennifer Osborne

Marly Toledano

MEDIA

Section Editors

Julian Castronovo

Claribel Wu

Anita Sheih Kathy Luo

Samantha Haigood DESIGN

Anita Sheih

Sarah Saxe NARRATIVE

ILLUSTRATION

Managing Editors

COPY

Miranda Villanueva

Annabelle Wood-

Chief Alicia DeVos

Phoebe Ayres

ward

Zander Kim

Pia Mileaf-Patel

Amanda Ngo

Section Editor Divya Santhanam

Want to be involved? Email: post@browndailyherald.com!

NEWS

FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018 • PAGE 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

» YANG, from page 1 his campaign — universal basic income. If elected, the 2020 Democratic candidate promises to allocate $1,000 per month to every American between the ages of 18 and 64, which he calls a “Freedom Dividend,” according to his campaign website.

Currently, a majority of Americans “can’t pay a $500 bill that’s unexpected, and it’s leading to a mindset of scarcity and dysfunction in much of the country,” Yang said. “A thousand dollars a month would make a dramatic difference in the day-to-day lives of tens of millions of families.” The monthly stipend could improve childcare, domestic violence rates and mental and physical health, he added.

Yang believes universal basic income can address the same sources of frustration that fueled the election of President Donald Trump: automation and job loss. “Donald Trump is our president today because we automated away four million manufacturing jobs in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other states,” he said. Automation “is no longer a future-facing conversation. We are in the middle of it, and it’s tearing us apart.”

As the founder of Venture for America, an organization that helps entrepreneurs create jobs in cities, Yang worked to share skills suited to a 21st century environment with recent graduates. “But along the way, it became clear to me that job creation will not outpace the massive impending job loss due to automation,” reads a statement on Yang’s website. “Those days are simply over.”

Yang plans to develop a new tax on the companies that benefit most from automation in order to fund his universal basic income proposal. With this policy change, the top 1 percent would end up contributing substantially to the U.S. economy through their purchases; these contributions would exceed the $1,000 per month they would receive under his plan, Yang said.

“The people who benefit most from universal basic income are the people who have the least and the least access to opportunities,” he added.

“Economic justice is social justice.”

A concern with universal basic income is that it would drive up the cost of many consumer goods. But Yang believes that competition between firms and technology would mitigate those effects.

Further, Yang said he has plans to address costs in industries that do not adequately self-regulate, specifically health care and education. He aims to move the nation toward a singlepayer health care system, either by expanding Medicare or by creating a new health care system. To reduce the costs of higher education, Yang’s plans explore limiting the rate at which universities that receive public funding can increase their costs. He is also

considering decreasing the administrator-student ratio that is required to receive public funding.

Yang’s dreams of and designs for economic justice fall under his platform dubbed “Human Capitalism,” which prioritizes human well-being and fulfillment as opposed to the gross domestic product.

If implemented, Yang believes Human Capitalism has the potential to mitigate the opioid crisis and mass shootings, among other pressing concerns. The opioid crisis is “a disease of our current form of capitalism” where drug companies prescribe billions of dollars worth of opioids and advertise them as “wonder drug(s)” that are not addictive, Yang said.

Under Human Capitalism, drug companies would internalize the cost of opioid addiction — in that case, the profit incentive would align with the social one, he added. His same vein of thought applies in the case of guns. “Right now, every time there is a shooting, gun sales go up” because people are afraid the government will take away their guns, Yang said.

“Imagine if a gun manufacturer had to pay a fine every time one of their guns were used in a shooting.”

Yang acknowledges that his goals would best materialize with a Democratic majority in Congress. If Yang wins the election, he expects to take office with a blue majority since his election would signify a “blue wave” and “an appetite and a need for big policy changes,” he said.

Prominent supporters of Yang include Andy Stern, a former leader of Service Employees International Union; Tony Hsieh, chief executive of Zappos; and several venture capitalists and former employees of Facebook and Google, the New York Times reported.

Yang credits the University with inspiring his humanist and optimistic values.

“Brown instilled in me a deep sense of both social responsibility and also possibility,” he said. “This confidence that I could make a difference and make great things happen if I was well-(intentioned) and committed, and willing to put my heart and soul into it.”

His work with scholars and students on College Hill has extended far beyond the Taekwondo, workouts and video games that kickstarted his journey. The University has regularly hosted Venture for America’s fiveweek summer training, and countless alums have already stepped up to support Yang as he campaigns for the presidency.

Most of all, Yang believes that students at the University are vital to the future he envisions for the nation.

“To anyone who is at Brown right now, please know that our country needs you very badly, and you are capable of more than you currently believe and imagine,” he said.

» AOTW, from page 1 you’ve pretty much never ridden before, to competing pretty extensively.

I actually started in one of the lowest divisions, and I moved up by doing a lot of horse shows and placing out of divisions.

How did you first get into equestrianism?

I read “The Black Stallion” in fourth grade, and I wouldn’t drop it. I love horses — I think they’re amazing. I started doing summer camp one summer, and then my parents agreed to do lessons every other week, and it progressed. I worked off a lot of riding, doing chores at the barn and things like that for riding time and lessons. I didn’t compete much in middle school and high school. It’s a really expensive sport, so that’s one thing that’s awesome about Brown. We’re varsity, so we’re funded. I didn’t think I would be able to ride in college at all, so that’s great.

Is it difficult to balance your academic and equestrian careers?

Our team commitments are weightlifting two or three times a week (and) our general team meetings. Then for our riding time, we do two lessons a week, which are three-hour time blocks. It’s different from a lot of sports, because

it’s not like we show up to the barn and the whole three hours are riding — it’s a lot more of taking care of the horse, you have to brush the horse and get them ready. Our lessons are usually about an hour of riding, but in a three-hour time block to fit everything in.

What are your interests outside of riding and school?

I like reading, cooking and being outdoors in other ways. I really like hiking.

I am a mechanical engineer, so the vast majority of my time is taken up with different classes and doing stuff with the team. On top of that, it’s just wherever I can find time to do something fun.

What are your plans for after graduation?

I am going to be interning over the summer at Planet Labs, which is a startup satellite company in San Francisco.

Then I’ll be coming back to Rhode Island and be working with Raytheon in the underwater and mine division in Portsmouth.

In your opinion, what makes a good rider? What are your personal strengths?

Definitely mental control and confidence. A lot of times, people say that you win with your attitude going into the ring. I think that is something that a lot of people struggle with that I have

gotten better at. Not to say that I’m perfect or anything, but improving that has been a big part of it. Also, the way we compete, we don’t know too much about the horses we are riding.

It is a bit of an adaptability challenge, to be able to communicate with them and get them to do the things that you want them to do without having ridden them before. I rode a lot of lesson horses growing up. I didn’t have my own horse. Having a wide range of experience and being adaptable is super huge.

What have you enjoyed the most about being part of the equestrian team?

I think that something it has really made me appreciate is actually the team concept of it. Riding is an individual sport everywhere else, other than collegiate. So having other people to support you and supporting other people is great. Having all the different levels of riders in one place is really rewarding — getting to see everyone progress, do better and learn.

Seto will compete at the IHSA National Championships beginning May 3 at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

NEWS

PAGE 4 • FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

» A/C, from page 1 the SLA. “It’s clear that (air conditioning) would solve the issue. … People who work in the Ratty have been asking for A/C over and over again,” said Sammie Chomsky ’18.5, a member of the SLA. The other dining hall on campus, the Verney-Woolley Dining Hall, has air conditioning, said Peter Rossi, director of Dining Services.

An employee from Brown Dining Services who worked in the Ratty during the summer told The Herald that members of the Ratty’s staff had previously asked for the installation of a cooling system, but the administration was unable to accommodate their requests due to the building’s age and structure. “We’ve been struggling there for so many years,” said the employee, who requested anonymity to protect their job.

The University installed temporary cooling towers in the Ratty’s kitchens in summer 2017 to alleviate the severity of the heat, said Emma Galvin ’18.5, a member of the SLA and an organizer for the campaign. But the employee from Dining Services said that though the units “helped for a little while, … you’d have to be close to it, which you can’t (do because) … you have to move around” on the job.

“In installing the cooling towers, (the administration) did act on the issue, but it didn’t solve the problem,” Chomsky said.

During the same summer, the University also created hydration stations

heat,” said Brian Clark, director of news and editorial development.

“There weren’t people fainting left and right,” he added.

“We’re fully committed to the health and safety and working conditions for all of the employeees that we have on campus, whether we’re talking about dining staff who are in the Sharpe Refectory, or facilities staff who are outside in the summer or faculty and staff who are elsewhere on campus,” Clark said.

ELENA RENKEN / HERALD

The Student Labor Alliance, which has been campaigning for air conditioning in the Sharpe Refectory to mitigate the kitchen’s summer heat, hosted a “Fans on Faunce” event Wednesday asking attendees to bring fans. and air-conditioned break rooms. Employees were allowed more frequent breaks and lighter uniforms to mitigate some of the heat’s effects, Rossi said.

These temporary changes helped to reduce the kitchen’s overall temperature by seven to nine degrees — causing it to hover between 70 and 80 degrees — though some spaces, such as the grilling areas, remained warmer, Chernow said.

However, these measures were insuffient to totally relieve the effects of working in the heat, the employee said.

“People ha(d) to go and sit in the side room that has A/C. That doesn’t help because … you sit for like five minutes,

and then you go out again and you’re still going to be in that heat,” they said.

The employee added that they continued to feel fatigued even after leaving their shift in the kitchen. “When I go home, I don’t want to do (anything), even if my kids talk to me. I’m so tired and frustrated that I take it out on my kids. It’s not great,” they said.

Employees would use their sick days to avoid working in the highest temperatures, and female employees in the Ratty would often complete their shifts without going to the bathroom, as their pants would cling to their skin from sweat, they added.

Another employee, who also requested anonymity for job protection, confirmed these claims. She added that “the pants (that) they give us: The material is (a) cheap, polyester type. …

It’ll take you forever to pull them up … (or) down because your thighs and your legs are all wet.”

Other employees have reported getting sick and feeling faint from the heat, The Herald previously reported.

But the University contests these claims. “We do not have reports or evidence of people coming to the University (and) saying that they fainted or (had) gotten sick on the job … due to

Moving Forward In the upcoming summer, the University intends to place temporary cooling systems in the Ratty, Clark said.

In addition to repeating the steps taken last summer, the University will rework the dining hall’s menu to reduce use of heat-producing machinery, Rossi said.

After hearing the University’s new plan, Chomsky said she would “call this a win” for the community campaign.

But the campaign will continue to monitor the University’s implementation of the Ratty’s renovations through broad coalitions with workers and community meetings to keep the University accountable, she added.

“It’s about basic respect for people that are in our community,” Chomsky said. “The administration fails to respect that they need basic (things) like air conditioning so that they can work in an environment that’s safe. It’s about making sure that Brown is not a place that is disrespecting the dignity of the people that work there.”

INTERNATIONAL FICTION NOW

Celebrating the Unspeakable Practices of Robert Coover and the International Writers Project Tuesday, 17 April

Wednesday, 18 April

Thursday, 19 April

A voice performance of selections from Robert Coover's novel, Gerald's Party – this performance will be directed by Roderick Coover and will include cameos by many of the presenters who will be taking part in the festival.

Writing 3D – Visits to the CAVE and/orYURT to see experiments by current and former Brown students in 3D digital language arts, presented

by John Cayley.

Postmodernism: What Was It? What's Next?, a panel discussion with Elisabeth Bell, Samuel Coale and Larry McCaffery

5:30 pm (doors open at 5 pm) McCormack Family Theater 70 Brown Street

A handful from among the countless former students whose visions grew through their being mentored by Robert Coover will present short readings: Robert Arellano, Shelley Jackson, Eurydice Kamviselli, Alexandra Kleeman and Joanna Scott. Joining this reading is Robert Coover's friend and literary colleague, Jonathan Baumbach.

7 pm McCormack Family Theater 70 Brown Street

for more details visit:

infictionnow.literaryarts.xyz

10 am to noon Studio 4, Granoff Center 154 Angell Street

From Electronic Writing to Digital Language Art, presentations by Robert Arellano, John Cayley, Samantha Gorman, David Jhave Johnston, Ian Hatcher and Benjamin Moreno Ortiz.

11 am McCormack Family Theater 70 Brown Street

Edwidge Danticat, Siri Hustvedt and Richard Powers read from their literary work.

4:30 pm 117 MacMillan Hall 167 Thayer Street

2 pm, McCormack Family Theater 70 Brown Street

Paul Auster, Robert Coover and Don DeLillo read from their literary work.

Celebrating the International Writers Project, readings by noted authors Russell Banks, Ru Freeman and Marlon James.

167 Thayer Street

7:30 pm 117 MacMillan Hall

T.C. Boyle and William Kennedy read from their literary work.

International Fiction Circus Now — the festivities culminate with presenations by Mary Caponegro, Matt Derby, Rikki Ducornet, Brian Evenson, Jack Foley, Ben Marcus and a host of others juggling language and all sorts of other surprises.

7:30 pm Martinos Auditorium, Granoff Center 154 Angell Street

9:30 pm McCormack Family Theater 70 Brown Street

4:30 pm Martinos Auditorium, Granoff Center 154 Angell Street

This festival was made possible by support from the Brown Arts Initiative and the Office of the Provost and is sponsored by the Department of Literary Arts

COMMENTARY FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018 • PAGE 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

What constitutes acceptable discourse?

REBECCA AMAN STAFF COLUMNIST I think most Brown students agree that while everyone is entitled to an opinion, not everyone is entitled to a platform to present those opinions; when we create space for certain people and groups to speak, we implicitly give their ideas some minimum level of legitimacy. To be clear, by inviting someone to speak, we are not necessarily endorsing their ideas or agreeing with them, but we are agreeing that they have something of value to say. Therefore, like many on this campus, I believe that Brown should not invite trolls like Milo Yiannopoulos, or white supremacist “academics” like Charles Murray to speak, as their opinions are truly abhorrent. Yet we absolutely cannot apply this argument blindly to everyone we disagree with, and instead must foster a healthy and robust debate about where we draw the line on acceptable discourse.

Last Friday, The Herald published an op-ed by Michael Froid ’21 arguing that Jeb Bush’s opinions were so out of line, so indefensible, that he does not deserve a platform to speak at Brown.

In response, Mark Liang ’19 wrote a column published last Monday, arguing that as a major presidential candidate, Jeb Bush is well within the lines of mainstream American discourse,

and his views, though not popular at Brown, are widely shared throughout America. At the end of the day, completely dismissing Bush’s views as unworthy of discussion, as outside the realm of debate, weakens our education and undermines our ability to effect positive change in the world.

Of course, deciding which individuals are worthy of speaking at Brown is not always an easy, clear-cut exercise. For example, what if President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence were invited to speak at

speakers are able to share personal experiences and new perspectives that we cannot readily find in the library, on the internet or from our professors.

This includes visiting professors presenting fresh research and new ideas, professionals at the top of their fields or those with unusual professional and life experiences — like running for president. Froid maintained that Bush doesn’t have anything valuable to say, as “Someone who will mislead the public about the facts surrounding the climate … should not be treated

— that we, as students, accepted when we decided to come here. The University’s primary objective, as articulated in its mission statement, “is to serve the community, the nation, and the world by discovering, communicating, and preserving knowledge and understanding in a spirit of free inquiry.” Further evidence of Brown’s values can be found within the University’s Liberal Learning goals, which include concrete skills like speaking, writing and scientific inquiry, as well as more abstract goals like embracing

What value does a potential speaker bring to the table, and how do our community’s values inform the sorts of views we seek out?

Brown? I don’t have an immediate answer. As such, I would like to start a discussion and begin to build a framework to help us, as a community, determine the parameters of acceptable discourse. To do so, we must answer two fundamental questions: What value does a potential speaker bring to the table, and how should our community’s values inform the sorts of views we seek out?

To answer the first question, we must consider why we invite guest speakers in the first place. Essentially, how can guest speakers contribute to our education? Generally, guest

as a credible source of information on other subjects either.” While speakers should ideally have an understanding of basic facts, this isn’t actually a prerequisite. Instead, we must consider what speakers can teach us that we won’t easily find somewhere else at Brown.

Secondly, we must consider how our University’s values should influence the types of speakers we choose to host. To be clear, by “University’s values” I do not mean values that the majority of people at Brown share. Instead, these are values that Brown has developed over time as a community

diversity and engaging with our communities.

The University’s goals and values aren’t exclusive to one political party or ideology, and if we decide they are, we are severely limiting our education. Inherent to the values held by the University are respect and empathy — the belief that, while there is no room for hateful ideas on this campus, we have a responsibility to listen to others and engage with the world around us.

If our goal is ultimately to “serve the community, the nation and the world,” we must understand and ultimately be able to work with people who hold

opinions and viewpoints drastically different from our own. Therefore, exposure to a vast array of perspectives is a crucial aspect of an effective education, even if it sometimes makes us uncomfortable. Already, Brown tends to present primarily liberal ideas: A recent study by the SPEAK student coalition revealed that 94.5 percent of hosted speakers at Brown lean left.

And while we should absolutely think critically about whose views we legitimize when inviting guest speakers, if we dismiss mainstream views on the right as completely unjustifiable and illegitimate, we are further distancing our education from reality.

When done right, inviting a diverse selection of guest speakers to campus has the potential to add significant value to our education. Yet the current firestorm surrounding Bush’s impending speech has exposed a lack of clear and accepted standards for inviting speakers to Brown. Going forward, we must continue to have deliberate, honest and inclusive conversations to further clarify our University’s values and how guest speakers can contribute to our education.

Rebecca Aman ’20 can be reached at rebecca_aman@ brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

A call for civil dialogue and nuance BENJAMIN GLADSTONE & ETHAN SHIRE OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS

Earlier this week, a group called Students Supporting Israel — which has no affiliation with Brown Students for Israel or, as far as we know, with any student group on campus — tabled outside of the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center last Wednesday.

We, as leaders of Brown Students for Israel, approached the tablers and urged them to leave. We took great issue with a number of this group’s tactics, which we found to be both counterproductive and embarrassing to the pro-Israel community. Our intention in this op-ed is both to clarify that we have no relationship with SSI and to explain some of the reasons why we found SSI’s actions this week problematic.

First, it is important that we establish the facts about Wednesday’s incident. Despite the similar acronyms of SSI and BSI — Students Supporting Israel and Brown Students for Israel, respectively — the two groups are in no way related. SSI acted independently, without reaching out to BSI, and arrived on campus without our knowledge. BSI members learned of their presence at the same time as the rest of the Brown community. SSI exhibited posters that distilled very complex topics in the conversation about Palestine and Israel into simplistic slogans, and they sought to incite Brown students to anger so that they could film us for their “research.”

BSI leaders were among the students whom they tried to videotape. In doing so, SSI deeply upset a number of Brown students who have, as many members of BSI do, a personal connection to the conflict between Israel and its neighbors. When BSI learned of SSI’s activities, we asked the group a number of times to leave.

From our perspective, one enormous issue with SSI’s actions on our campus this week was the group’s apparent decision not to consult with members of the Brown community

campus those groups, no matter their opinion on Israel, that we know will not contribute constructively to the Israel-Palestine conversation at Brown. We care deeply about the needs of students affected by the conflict on this campus, and so prioritize a productive, civil campus discourse — we are dubious that this SSI delegation shared this priority.

BSI disagrees heavily with SSI on issues of tactics. We believe that conversations about Palestine and Israel, especially on a college campus, must

SSI’s provocative language has the potential to excuse attacks on Zionist or Jewish students more broadly.

Over the years, Jewish students, including BSI members, have been bullied, harassed, silenced, slandered and subjected to anti-Semitism and even to threats of violence on College Hill. We also worry that IsraelPalestine discourse on campus tends to become uncivil. In recent years, we’ve heard anti-Zionist students express the view that incivility on their part is excusable on the grounds that

We care deeply about the needs of students affected by the conflict on this campus, and so prioritize a productive, civil campus discourse.

before visiting. As much as outside and national groups can, and regularly do, participate in the conversation about Israel and Palestine on Brown’s campus, such groups ought to do so with the permission and facilitation of Brown students or members of the faculty. These SSI representatives lacked an understanding of Brown’s student body. They did not know how to engage with intellectually curious, justice-focused students, and they were neither prepared for nor, apparently, interested in, serious, nuanced discussions about Israeli and Palestinian history, politics, policy and current events. BSI has worked hard in the past to keep away from

be informed and thoughtful, and that they must start from a place of mutual respect among people with different perspectives and experiences.

When we host events and engage in conversations, we do so with the aim of both educating ourselves and our fellow students, on the one hand, and promoting dialogue, justice and peace, on the other. In particular, it is very important to us to never generalize about Palestinians, Muslims, Arabs or any other national, ethnic, religious or racial group. As we see it, SSI aimed less to cultivate a nuanced discussion than to generate content for their video last Wednesday.

Finally, we are concerned that

there exists a power imbalance between Israel and Palestine. However, those claims do not adequately account for both the broader regional and historical context of the conflict between Israel and its neighbors and a host of other (often existential) threats and fail to recognize the very real losses that Zionist students have experienced on this campus — some of us have lost friends and relatives to the conflict, and most of us have family in the line of the fire.

For our part, BSI members commit to working hard to promote a high standard of respectful discourse. We seek a solution that accommodates the needs of both Is-

raelis and Palestinians. When we see members of the pro-Israel community, even those who are not Brown students and with whom we are not affiliated, behaving in ways that do not meet that standard, we are, frankly, embarrassed, and we worry that it undermines our requests for civil treatment by anti-Zionists.

That is why the leaders of Brown Students for Israel would like to extend a formal invitation to any member of the Brown community interested in serious discussion about Palestine, Israel or other issues related to Southwest Asia or Zionist or Jewish peoplehood to reach out to us. If you would like to further this conversation, we invite you to contact us. The setting for nuanced and intellectually rigorous conversations is not at the intersection of Brown St. and Waterman. Whether you are interested in Zionist organizing or are grappling with the issues, whether you are curious to learn more about Israel and the conflict or would like to share your critiques of Israel and Israeli policy, we want to engage with you.

Benjamin Gladstone ’18, the former President of Brown Students for Israel, and Ethan Shire ’19 can be reached at benjamin_gladstone@brown.edu and ethan_shire@brown.edu, respectively. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@ browndailyherald.com.

SPORTS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018

The Angels will be a shocker playoff team JAMES SCHAPIRO SPORTS COLUMNIST In center field, they have the greatest player of this generation. At designated hitter, they have the greatest player of the last generation. And on the mound, they’ve got the coolest player of either. If you’re not excited about the Los A ngeles Angels by now, then you must not be paying attention.

Baseball season is young, and a lot can happen in the next few months. But so far, everything we’ve heard and hoped about the Angels has come true. Mike Trout has mashed the ball, and is walking more than 10 percent of the time.

Once his average returns to where it’s always been, he’ll relatively easily regain his spot as the best allaround player in baseball. Albert Pujols, in his aged wisdom, is batting .288. Andrelton Simmons, defensive wizard, is batting .365, Tyler Skaggs has pitched 16 innings in two starts and only allowed three runs and 35-year-old Jim Johnson has shown signs of resurgence, pitching to a 2.45 ERA out of the bullpen.

The Angels, in short, have all the characteristics of a shocker play-

off team. Do they have superstars?

Yes. Dependable role-players and sage veterans? Absolutely. Charisma and fun of a winner? It’s hard not to think so. And what’s more, we haven’t even touched on the Angels’ newest sensation, and America’s newest sweetheart.

When Shohei Otani allowed a single to Oakland Athletics’ shortstop Marcus Semien in the seventh

ous doubts about his swing, he hit home runs in three consecutive games. So far on the mound, Otani is 2-0 with a 2.08 ERA. At the plate, he’s batting .364/.417/.773 with three home runs. After Otani’s start against the Athletics, Alex Putterman of The Comeback pointed out on Twitter that Otani — in that moment — had more strikeouts than Max Scherzer and more home runs

wrote an entire column entitled, “Dear Shohei: I’m sorry. I was totally wrong about you.” Tim Brown, also of Yahoo Sports, wrote, “It’s becoming something. Maybe not a mania. … A spectacle. A curiosity.

A hope.”

Put it all together and what do you have? To me, it seems pretty clear. The Angels are becoming America’s team.

To me, it seems pretty clear. The Los Angeles Angels are becoming America’s team.

inning last Sunday, it meant that he wouldn’t make major league history and become the 24th pitcher to throw a perfect game. But it’s hard to say that Otani was anything but brilliant. In his seven scoreless innings, he struck out 12 batters, and allowed only that one hit, along with a walk. This was after a week during which, despite some previ-

than Aaron Judge.

He was certainly impressive to baseball writers, many of whom had been less than dazzled by his mediocre spring. “He is the most exciting story in baseball and has been since opening day,” wrote the Wall Street Journal’s Jared Diamond on Twitter.

“This is utter domination.”

Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports

“America’s team” certainly isn’t a technical term, so what exactly does it mean? To give some context, the last time I can remember anything like it was during the 2014 playoffs, when baseball fans outside of San Francisco fairly unanimously rooted for the Kansas City Royals. After several dramatic victories, the Royals ultimately came up short against

the Giants in the World Series. But what’s happening with the Angels is different, and far bigger. It’s easy to fall in love with a team like the Royals once the field has been narrowed down to eight or 10 in the playoffs, and most of those are hated rivals.

But the Angels, with Trout and Otani and company, are on another level entirely.

Since Trout’s ascension to the major leagues in 2012, the Angels have failed to live up to the hype: They’ve made the playoffs only once, in 2014, and have only finished above .500 half the time. But this year, they’re off to a hot start.

They’re 10-3, and lead the American League West by one game over reigning champions Houston Astros.

Predicting baseball is a fool’s errand — anyone can get hurt or traded, or just have a bad year. But based on the excitement we’ve seen coming from Angel Stadium, I’d pick the Angels to make the playoffs. And when they do, I’d say that most of America will be rooting for them.

James Schapiro ’19 can be reached at james_schapiro@ brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald. com and op-eds to opinions@ browndailyherald.com.

Don’t sleep on Utah GEORGE KLEIN SPORTS COLUMNIST The NBA playoffs begin this Saturday, and the favorites of years past expect to contend for the championship once again. The Golden State Warriors, while stumbling down the stretch thanks to injuries, have the most talent by far when healthy — and star Stephen Curry should return before too long. The Cleveland Cavaliers struggled through an up-and-down season, but LeBron James remains the best player in the world and can still dominate the Eastern Conference. The Houston Rockets amassed an epic regular season with 64 wins and intend to defeat the Warriors in a possible Western Conference Finals clash.

Bottom line, the vast majority of analysts will pick one of these three teams to take home the championship. But there is another team that could contend this season: the Utah Jazz.

While the sports media world has not covered the Jazz to the same extent as it has the league powerhouses, Utah is on an incredible tear. On Jan. 22, the team possessed a 19-28 record — far out of playoff contention and headed for a lottery pick. Since then, the Jazz have gone 29-6 (yes, really), overwhelming the opposition with intense defense and quick offense. What changed for Utah? The return of Rudy Gobert from injury. Gobert is one of

the most underappreciated players in the NBA — an annual Defensive Player of the Year threat who changes the game. Boasting a ridiculous 7’9” wingspan, Gobert protects the rim like no one else, recording 2.3 blocks per contest. He also adds verticality to Utah’s offense — always a threat for alley-oops.

Of course, one cannot talk about the Utah Jazz without praising Don-

speedy first step, and can attack the rim with great success or step back with a smooth crossover and jump shot. Don’t be surprised to see him dominating the playoffs over the next decade.

The Jazz hold a lot of undervalued talent in addition to these two starters. Guard Ricky Rubio was heavily criticized for his failure to shoot the ball in Minnesota but

tant floor spacing for Mitchell. Ingles is shooting 43.9 percent from three, fifth in the league and ahead of names such as Kyle Korver, Curry and Kevin Durant. Jae Crowder struggled a lot in Cleveland but has improved since the Cavaliers trade, giving the Jazz strong defense at the wing positions.

Utah can more than hang with the top teams in the league, blow-

A team this well-rounded and adaptable can match up with anyone.

Utah has the ability to advance a lot further in the playoffs than anyone thinks.

ovan Mitchell. After the departure of Gordon Hayward last offseason, the Jazz were assumed to be in a rebuilding phase. But that all changed with the selection of Mitchell in the 2017 draft. The rookie has more than filled Hayward’s role on the fast track to NBA superstardom.

The guard has averaged 20.5 points per game while drawing comparisons to Dwyane Wade, Russell Westbrook and a host of other elite players. He has tight handles and a

has since improved in Utah, where he does not have to control the entire offense. A career 32.5 percent three-point shooter, Rubio hit on 34.9 percent of his shots outside the perimeter this season — his best mark ever. The 27-year-old made 40.2 percent of his threes after the All-Star break, as he continued to gain confidence from the outside.

And many NBA fans have never heard of Joe Ingles, a small forward from Australia, but he adds impor-

ing out the Warriors by an incredible 40-point margin on Tuesday night. While Golden State will surely mount a tougher fight with Curry on the floor, they should be afraid of the Jazz. After all, Utah still defeated them by 30 points back in January when Curry was playing.

The Warriors and Jazz are trending in opposite ways, with Golden State playing its worst basketball in almost four years and Utah peaking at just the right time. The Jazz will still

be underdogs if the two teams meet in the playoffs, but no one should underestimate their chances.

Though many fans may not realize it, the Jazz have proven themselves to be a tier above the rest of the middling Western Conference playoff teams. No one in that group has mounted a hot streak even close to what Utah has accomplished, and the other teams all have significant deficiencies. The Portland Trail Blazers have too many mediocre forwards playing big minutes. The New Orleans Pelicans don’t have enough starter-level wings to pair with Anthony Davis. The San Antonio Spurs are missing Kawhi Leonard, who may not return for the playoffs, and even with Leonard on the court, San Antonio doesn’t possess enough above-average talent to make a deep push. Lastly, the Oklahoma City Thunder are inconsistent and low on depth — their bench is atrocious.

The Jazz, however, are terrific in all facets of the game. They can win offensive races and defensive rock fights. A team this well-rounded and adaptable can match up with anyone. Utah has the ability to advance a lot further in the playoffs than anyone thinks.

George Klein ’20 can be reached at george_klein@ brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@ browndailyherald.com.