Monday, November 15th, 2021

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2021

VOLUME CLVI, ISSUE XXXIX

BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

SPORTS

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Men’s basketball falls to UNC, beats CCSU

BrownTogether campaign reaches $3 billion goal

Bears returned to Providence after hard fought loss in Chapel Hill

BY GABRIELLA SARTORI SENIOR STAFF WRITER The men’s basketball team (2-1) defeated Central Connecticut State University (0-2) in a 75-57 win in the Pizzitola

Sports Center on Sunday. The Bears came home from Chapel Hill on Friday after a narrow defeat against number 19 ranked University of North Carolina that finished 87-94.

M.BASKETBALL PAGE 4

University to extend campaign timeline, revise priorities in fundraising

BY STELLA OLKEN-HUNT SENIOR STAFF WRITER The BrownTogether campaign, started in 2015, has raised $3.097 billion as of this month, surpassing its original goal to raise $3 billion

by December 2022.

In light of this achievement, the University has decided to extend the fundraising campaign.

While the University has yet to “set out priorities for the extension, or even a timeline or amount,” these decisions will be set in “January or February,” President Christina Paxson P’19 said in an interview with The Herald.

COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS

Guard Jaylan Gainey ’22 cited an increased focus on defense as the reason the team gained momentum in the second half of the game against the Central Connecticut Blue Demons.

SPORTS

Women’s soccer loses to St. John’s 1-0 in NCAA Bears’ first loss since start of Ivy play brings season to an end in tragic loss

BY PETER SWOPE SENIOR STAFF WRITER The women’s soccer team (12-4, 7-0 Ivy) suffered a heartbreaking 1-0 overtime loss to St. John’s University (12-5-2) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Saturday afternoon, bringing the Bears’ season to an end. Despite the tournament defeat, Brown had an accolade-filled season: 12 total wins, the team’s first ever 7-0 Ivy League record and a second consecutive Ivy League title.

The Bears also received a number of individual conference awards: Head Coach Kia McNeill was named Ivy League Coach of the Year, forward Brittany Raphino ’23.5 was named Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year and midfielder Kayla Duran ’23 was named Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year. Raphino and Duran, along with forward Ava Seelenfreund ’23,

were First Team All-Ivy selections; goalkeeper Kayla Thompson ’21.5 and midfielder Evelyn Calhoon ’24 were Second Team selections, while defenders Cameron Brown GS and Maesyn G’Bye ’22 received honorable mentions.

The game was physical and tightly-contested from start to finish, with both teams rising to the occasion in a postseason elimination game and bringing everything they had. Brown repeatedly pressed their attack throughout the first half but were unable to find any success. An early shot by Raphino that ricocheted off a Red Storm defender posed a threat, but the attempt was ultimately defended by the St. John’s goalkeeper. Still, the Bears seemed to have the advantage, repeatedly threatening a Red Storm defense that bent but did not break all throughout the first half. In the last minutes of the half, Brown had two opportunities to score that narrowly fell short. St. John’s brought two extra defenders to the goal line in an effort to fend off a relentless Brown attack. The move paid off: The extra defenders

Origins of the campaign The BrownTogether campaign was

first established to provide funding to implement Brown’s Building on Distinction Strategic Plan.

“The campaign was really built to enable the execution of the strategic plan,” Paxson said. “(We asked), what would it really take to do all of these things? What will we need in terms of fundraising, in terms of faculty, facilities ... all of the components that go into building in these different areas, and then that became the foundation for the campaign.”

“We began the campaign with an overarching goal of expanding Brown’s capacity to address important global issues and complex problems through collaborative research and scholarship,” Joan Wernig Sorensen, co-chair of the BrownTogether campaign, wrote in an email to The Herald.

In the past six years, the campaign has set forth priorities consistent with Brown’s strategic plan and added additional priorities to respond to fluctuating goals and global circumstances.

SEE CAMPAIGN PAGE 5

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Scholars discuss legacy of slavery at expanded Slavery and Justice Report launch U. hosts live unveiling of report’s second edition Friday afternoon

BY NEIL MEHTA STAFF WRITER Scholars and community members gathered at the Martinos Auditorium on Nov. 12 to launch the second edition of the University’s Slavery and Justice Report. The event featured a Q&A panel, a digital report showcase and reflections from students and faculty.

The original 2006 report, commissioned by former President Ruth J. Simmons, explored the University’s relationship to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The second edition expands on the original report with a foreword from President Christina Paxson P’19, an interview with Simmons, 14 commissioned essays and a summary of the University’s response to the original report, The Herald previously reported.

Paxson kicked off the presentations with introductory remarks, de-

COURTESTY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

Panelists discuss the report’s impact and the University’s responsibility to address its legacy of slavery. scribing the event as “an opportunity for us to consider the critical work that remains ahead.”

“Issuing the second edition now is a way to rededicate ourselves to the work that was started with the original report,” Paxson said in an interview with The Herald. “You don’t issue a report, have a set of recommendations, follow those recommendations and say, ‘Okay, we’re done.’ That’s not how it works. This is a long process.”

The event continued with a panel featuring three contributors to the

SEE SOCCER PAGE 6

second edition: Marcia Chatelain MA’03 PhD’08, professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University; James T. Campbell, professor of history at Stanford University; and Seth Rockman, professor of history at Brown.

The panelists began by discussing the report’s impact and the University’s responsibility to address the legacy of slavery.

“We think of the stakeholders (of universities as) the people who

SEE REPORT PAGE 2

University News

Science & Research

Sports

Commentary

U. launches second edition of Slavery and Justice Report on Nov. 12 Page 2

Researchers find link between vape use and smoking mitigation in high schoolers Page 5

Brown men’s soccer loses to Dartmouth 1-0 in the final game of the regular season Page 6

McGrath ’24: True crime media warps perceptions of criminal justice system Page 6

TODAY

TOMORROW

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

REPORT FROM PAGE 1 keep the lights on, the donors, the parents and the students,” Chatelain said. “The Slavery and Justice report … turned that notion on its head.”

According to Chatelain, universities feared the outcome of examining their relationship to slavery.

“It’s the noise of ‘What if our history exposes the people … that have family ties to slavery? What if this alienates our donors?” she said.

But questioning the consequences of the report would have meant “undermining our best work as scholars,” she added.

“When the first report was issued, Brown stood by itself. Other institutions did not run to replicate that model, and there was still a lot of denial about slaveholding at univer-

sities,” Chatelain said in an interview with The Herald. “What the first report did, and what the second report emphasizes, is that universities can get engaged in this work and everyone can still be fine.”

Following the Q&A panel, Digital Scholarship Editor Allison Levy showcased the digital version of the updated Slavery and Justice Report.

The new report “is not just a digitization,” Levy explained in an interview with The Herald. It includes high-resolution photographs and transcriptions of the documents from the original report, updates the original report’s language and includes permanent reference links “to modernize the presentation of the report while also honoring what was there.”

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2021

“It’s a very dynamic experience,” Levy said. “That’s what we set out to do.”

The event included a student reflection from Kevin Boyce ’21 GS, an MPA candidate and a member of the University’s Task Force on Anti-Black Racism.

“What the school needs to do is primarily reflected in the Anti-Black Racism Task Force recommendations that were released this summer,” he said in an interview with The Herald.

“I stand by all of those.”

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3

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

Study challenges concern of e-cigarette use in high school students Researchers examine theory of transition from e-cigarette to cigarette use

BY ANNA KIM SENIOR STAFF WRITER Though e-cigarettes were first introduced into the market as a safer alternative to smoking, their popularity among youth has raised concerns of increased rates of smoking. But, a study published in October pushes back against this worry. Researchers found that high school seniors who currently smoke e-cigarettes would likely have smoked traditional cigarettes.

The study was conducted by Natasha Sokol, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior and research scientist at The Miriam Hospital Center for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine, and Justin Feldman, research fellow at the Harvard FXB Center for Health & Human Rights.

“This is a huge question in tobacco control: the idea being that e-cigarettes are an effective cessation tool (to help people move away from smoking cigarettes) but research has demonstrated that e-cigarettes are being used by youth who don’t use other tobacco products,” Sokol said. There’s concern in the public health community that the benefits of e-cigarettes as a cessation aid could be “negated by initiating youth into nicotine dependence,” she added.

This concern stems from the gateway theory — the idea that “if (people) get addicted to nicotine in e-cigarettes, ... they will switch from e-cigs to cigs,” said Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences Jasjit Singh Ahluwalia, who has extensively researched tobacco use but was not part of the study. This theory is grounded in evidence, including findings from a 2015 study showing that “waterpipe smoking is harmful, addictive, can provide a gateway to cigarettes, as well as thwart cessation efforts.” Sokol’s and Feldman’s study tested this concept with e-cigarettes.

“What was really important for me to understand was whether the availability of e-cigarettes was not just initiating youth into nicotine dependence (but specifically youth) who wouldn’t have otherwise used a nicotine or tobacco product,” Sokol said. “If these kids are kids who otherwise would have used cigarettes, I’m not so sure that I share the level of concern over them using it in the first place.”

One challenge the researchers faced was designing the methods for their

epidemiological research. The ideal way to conduct the experiment would be to “compare (patterns of smoking in) places where vaping became available to those where it was not yet available,” Feldman said. But, “vaping basically became available everywhere at once around 2014.”

As a result, Sokol and Feldman used data from a large sample of high schools from the Monitoring the Future 12th grade data set between 2009 and 2018 in the United States. Using this information, the researchers determined “whether youth who used e-cigarettes in 2014 to 2018 would have likely been smokers in the period preceding e-cigarette availability,” according to their study.

Using data from 2009 to 2014, before vaping became widely available, the researchers projected the expected number of smokers in 2014 to 2018.

They generated a score for each individual in this study based on how likely they would have been to smoke using demographic factors.

“With that score, you can forecast in the future … what proportion of the 12th grade population would smoke every year if the trajectory continued,” Feldman said.

Then, they compared this to data from 2014 to 2018, when vaping was available. They found a decrease of about two percent in the number of 12th graders who were actually smokers when vapes were available as compared to the projected number without vapes, Feldman said.

Still, while Ahluwalia acknowledged that the evidence is promising, he said it may not be enough to conclude that e-cigarette availability does not lead to cigarette smoking. The researchers’ usage of repeated cross-sectional studies to reach their conclusions on teen smoking patterns introduced “confounders and biases,” Ahluwalia said.

He ranked different types of studies’ ability to show causality in descending order as randomized trials, prospective cohort studies and repeated cross-sectional studies. “So, in the hierarchy of studies, this (study) is going to have limitations with regards to the strength of concluding your findings are causally related,” he said.

In a scenario in which e-cigarettes would have never been made available, “what we see is that youth smoking rates would not have been declining as quickly” as they have with the introduction of e-cigarettes, Sokol said. “I don’t think it’s worth the concern over youth smoking initiation potentially mitigating the public health benefits of e-cigarettes as a cessation aid,” she added. This concern is “overblown.”

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M.BASKETBALL FROM PAGE 1 The Bears gave the Tarheels all they could handle in a back and forth contest. Dan Friday ’24 ignited the offense with 21 points (eight of 14 field goals) and Nana Owusu-Anane ’25 led the team in rebounds with eight to complement his 20 points.

Brown gave UNC a battle from the beginning, edging the Tarheels with a 13-11 lead heading into the first media timeout. In a back and forth half, neither team held more than a three point lead until the Bears surged on a 13-2 run. Guard Paxson Wojcik ’23.5 tallied four points in the scoring run and finished the game with 14 points of his own.

Brown ran up the score 43-36, their highest lead of the game, with three minutes remaining in the half. UNC regained momentum behind sharp shooter RJ Davis’s two three pointers that cut the Bears lead to 50-47 heading into the second half. Davis led all scorers with 26 points on the night, shooting six of nine from deep.

The Bears still held onto a three point lead at the under-16 media tim-

eout. They pushed the lead to 68-62 behind contributions from Perry Cowan ’23, Owusu-Anane, and Wojkic. This would be their last lead of the game after the Tarheels responded out of the timeout. A 9-4 run gave UNC a 75-74 lead at the under-eight media timeout.

With 3:11 remaining, UNC clung to an 83-79 lead. Kino Lilly Jr. ’25 made it a three point game with a shot behind the arc, but it was not enough to answer Davis as he added his sixth three-pointer of the night with 42 seconds to play, pushing UNC’s lead back to six. Tar Heels came out of the game with a 94-87 victory.

The Bears returned to Providence and bounced back with a win against Central Connecticut State University.

Lilly Jr. led the Bears with 22 points shooting six for nine from behind the arc, with five of those three-pointers contributing to a 32-4 run in the second half.

Brown came into the second half with a 28-27 lead after being down by as many as eight points halfway through the first. Head coach Mike Martin ’04 said that “our offense was sloppy in the first half; eight turnovers is too many.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2021

In order for this team to be good, we have to take care of the basketball and make open shots.”

The Bears were still trying to find their rhythm in the beginning of the second half, and they trailed by eight with 14:18 left in the game. From that moment, the Bears would outscore the Blue Devils 43-17 the rest of the way, sparked by 19 second-half points from Lilly Jr. “I just keep going in and doing my job,” Lilly Jr. said. “I know if I keep playing like that, it’ll help the team win.”

Guard Jaylan Gainey ’22, who was battling an injury in the preseason, had a game-high eight rebounds, and credited the momentum shift to the team’s defensive efforts. “We were forcing turnovers that turned into fast break scoring opportunities,” Gainey said. “I think our first half on-ball and screen defense was off. ... It felt good helping the team here, but I’m not where I wanna be. I’m getting there and feel better and better as I go.”

The Bears will be back in the Pizzitola to welcome Johnson & Wales University on Tuesday, Nov. 16 at 7 p.m.

CA L E N DA R

COVID -19 AT BROWN LAST 7 DAYS*

NOVEMBER S

7

Completed Tests

People Tested

M

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F

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1,999

1,864

1

2

3

4

5

6

Confirmed Positives

Positivity Rates

7

0.4 %

8

9

10

11

12

13 SINCE AUGUST 24, 2020*

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

Completed Tests

People Tested

572,440

18,054

Total Cases

Prevalence

828

4.6 %

*AS OF NOV 14.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2021

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

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DANIELLE EMERSON / HERALD

The BrownTogether campaign raised $347 million for financial aid to fulfill the Brown Promise goal of no loans on financial aid packages.

CAMPAIGN FROM PAGE 1 “The campaign has not been static,” Paxson said. “Building on Distinction is the core foundation, but new opportunities have come up that we’ve moved into.”

For instance, “initially public health was in the campaign, but as time went on, and especially as we came into COVID,” the University recognized “that building a fantastic school of public health had to be one of our top priorities,” Paxson added.

“The true evolution of the campaign can be seen in the issues that have emerged as urgent concerns of both our community members and also a broader cross-section of society,” Wernig Sorensen wrote.

These changes included “accelerating scientific translation to address cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, identifying viable approaches to mitigating climate change” and “developing better understanding of economic inequality,” Wernig Sorensen added.

Surpassing $3 billion Beyond the evolution of the cam-

paign, community members remarked on the pace of the campaign’s progress.

“Thinking back to early days when we actually set the goal of $3 billion ... there was a lot of discussion at the time about how ambitious it was and how it was going to be a long campaign,” Paxson said.

The University, advancement staff and co-chairs never anticipated that they would bring in as much as they did on a yearly basis.

“At the beginning of this campaign, the thought was that ... toward the end of the campaign, we’d raise about $300 million on a yearly basis, and we’ve been grazing over $400 million,” said Sergio Gonzalez, senior vice president of advancement.

“The response of the Brown community, not only to the University’s priorities but also to the broader idea that education can change the world, has been phenomenal,” Theresia Gouw, co-chair of the BrownTogether campaign, wrote in an email to The Herald.

According to Gonzalez, this achievement “demonstrates the affinity and the love of Brown that the Brown com-

munity has.”

Extending the campaign deadline can capitalize on the existing momentum, Paxson said, to complete the work yet to be done.

“We are early ... and there’s a lot of momentum and a lot of excitement,” Paxson said. “Even when you meet the goal, it doesn’t mean that you’ve met the goal in each area, some you’ve exceeded, some you’ve gone under. And so there’s still some very important work that we need to do from the campaign.”

“The continuation of BrownTogether provides an opportunity to further elevate essential support for focus areas that have been central to the campaign from the start, such as the importance of funding financial aid initiatives and more endowed professorships to help us recruit and retain the very best educators and scholars,” Ralph F. Rosenberg, co-chair of the BrownTogether campaign, wrote in an email to The Herald.

Campaign priorities, areas of funding According to the BrownTogether website, these priorities follow the initiatives of the strategic plan, and their

funding falls into four buckets of campaign goals: “Our People,” “Education and Research,” “Campus and Community” and Brown’s “Annual Fund.”

Around 90% of BrownTogether donations are “on-plan” — or in line with the priorities of Brown’s Strategic Plan, Paxson said.

One priority has been to increase financial aid and reach the Brown Promise goal of eliminating loans for financial aid packages.

“In the aid side ... we’ve generated about $347 million raised in financial aid funding, of which $110 million made the Brown Promise,” Gonzalez said.

While the priorities have not yet been set for the extended campaign, financial aid will likely continue to be a priority.

With respect to financial aid, “we’ve done well, we need to do more,” Paxson said. “We are very, very close to finalizing what we set out to raise for the Brown promise. ... I do want to finish that.”

“Furthermore, also under the bucket of ‘Our People,’ we’d set an initial goal of raising 123 endowed chairs. And the

last I heard we were at about 113 or 115,” Paxson said. So endowed professorships will also likely be a continued priority throughout the new campaign deadline.

Throughout the campaign, the University has also raised money for athletics, COVID response and the annual fund.

“We’ve raised over $178 million for Brown athletics facilities and programs,” Gonzalez said, and “during COVID we raised approximately $25 million as part of this campaign for the President’s Response Fund and the Student Emergency Support Fund,” Gonzalez added.

According to Rosenberg, the campaign seeks “to grow participation and immediate-use giving through the Brown Annual Fund, continue sharing stories of the campaign’s impact on the University and beyond that help to inspire donors and further broaden our engagement with members of the Brown community and others outside of Brown.”

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6

SOCCER FROM PAGE 1 stopped two shots by the Bears — the first by forward Sheyenne Allen ’23 and the second by Raphino — that otherwise would have evaded the goalkeeper and found the back of the net. Brown kept attacking to finish the half, but the score remained tied nil-nil at the break.

While the Bears spent much of the first half attacking, they were pushed back on their heels throughout the second. Aside from an early shot that almost went in, Bruno struggled to get good looks while the Red Storm persistently pressed on offense.

Thompson and the rest of Brown’s back line were able to rebuff them, but they faced a number of dangerous situations. In the 75th minute, Thompson was drawn out of the goal and a strong shot by St. John’s hit off the side iron and bounced back out, allowing the Bears to escape the situation unscathed. Brown got one

last good look off a corner kick in the final minutes of regulation, but midfielder Rebecca Rosen ’22 narrowly missed a header, leading to overtime.

The Bears began overtime with the wind at their back and used it to their advantage, going on the attack almost immediately. They struggled to make anything happen on their early attempts; at one point, Raphino was fouled right outside the box, leaving Brown with a short corner kick instead of a potentially game-winning penalty kick opportunity. The Bears threatened again in the overtime period: Raphino streaked down the field chasing the ball with no defenders other than the St. John’s goalkeeper. Much to the dismay of the Stevenson-Pincince Field crowd, the Red Storm goalkeeper won the footrace and got to the ball before Raphino had what would have been a golden opportunity to put the game away. St. John’s went on the offensive in the final minutes of

overtime, and one good look was all it took as Ava Collins of the Red Storm scored the game-winning goal in the 99th minute, handing the Bears a stunning loss and bringing an end to a historic season.

McNeill emphasized the key role defense played in the outcome. “It was a tough, hard-fought game on both sides,” she said. “I thought both defenses played tremendous(ly).”

The game was even for all 99 minutes, which the stat sheet reflects.

St. John’s had six shots on goal to Brown’s five; both teams recorded five saves. The Bears had nine corner kicks to the Red Storm’s one but struggled to capitalize on those opportunities. St. John’s was called for nine fouls and the game’s lone yellow card, while Brown was charged with seven fouls and no cards.

Raphino emphasized that, no matter how difficult the defeat may have been, the team is still proud of its overall season. “This loss can’t

take away from the history we made this season. We went 7-0 in the Ivy League for the first time, which took so much hard work,” she said. “We had many players recognized by the League because of all the success we had. This loss definitely won’t cloud any of that.”

McNeill expressed disappointment over the way the team’s senior leaders’ careers ended, considering them instrumental to the team’s growth and success. “I’m not happy with the result today, but I really don’t think it can take away from the season that this team has had, especially our senior leadership,” she said. “They’ve been incredible from day one (of) freshman year until today and have really helped us change this program and move the needle forward.”

G’Bye, as a senior, reflected on what the team meant to her over her four years. “I think that a goal that we’ve had since I’ve come in is just

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2021 (to) make each other better. We’ve even said a million times: We are our toughest opponent,” she said. “It shows today because ... (it) just came to (which team) was going to finish.

We put it all on the line today.”

Despite the difficult loss of senior leaders, McNeill has high hopes for the future of the team. “It’s exciting for us to be returning a lot of good players next season as well. I do feel like the senior class (has) been tremendous for us; they’re big shoes to fill,” she said. “But it’s really their job to pass the torch down to the next young leaders ... and really keep the culture going. I think we’re going to be in good hands going forward.”

Raphino echoed McNeill’s optimism about next year’s team. “We have a strong team coming back,” she said. “We’re going to have some big losses defensively and offensively, but I know we have great players who are more than capable (of stepping) into some big roles.”

COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS

Brown women’s soccer Head Coach Kia McNeill was named Ivy League Coach of the year, forward Brittany Raphino ’23.5 was named Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year and midfielder Kayla Duran ’23 was named Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

7

McGrath ’24: True Crime distorts our understanding of criminal justice

BY SARAH MCGRATH STAFF COLUMNIST

cop media tends to misconstrue and excuse incidents of police misconduct (particularly when an otherwise sympathetic protagonist is the perpetrator). As a result, the report’s authors concluded that the popularity of cop-centered media has actively contributed to the normalization of police violence.

This media has undoubtedly warped my own perception of law enforcement at times. Whenever I see a fictional police officer break into a house or elicit an illegal confession

also have significant implications.

By focusing on incidents of gruesome serial crime, for example, we risk stoking the very fears women wish to alleviate by watching this content in the first place: A 2016 Pew Research study found that most Americans believe crime is on the rise. However, with the exception of the past two years, the crime rate in America has been steadily falling for decades. While this distorted perception of the crime rate certainly can’t be linked to the rise of true

“By centering the experiences of white women and vastly under-representing the number of minority victims in our True Crime narratives, we fail to extend sufficient empathy to the most likely victims of real-world violence.”

violence at the hands of an intimate partner. What’s more, the victims in true crime stories are overwhelmingly white: An analysis of the popular podcast “My Favorite Murder” found that approximately two-thirds of the first 150 episodes focused on whiteon-white crime. In contrast, a 2015 Violence Policy Center study found that Black women were two-and-ahalf times more likely to be murdered by men than white women.

But does this misrepresentation actually make a difference? While there isn’t widespread data about the effects of true crime media specifically, we do know quite a bit about its sister genre, cop shows. Given the two genre’s similarities, we can extrapolate how true crime might be similarly distorting its consumers’ perceptions of crime. According to Quartz, 35 of the 69 scripted TV dramas that aired on CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC in the 2019-2020 season focused on some form of law enforcement.

But the ubiquity of this genre comes with a cost. According to a Color of Change report, which looked at 26 different crime-focused television shows from the 2017-2018 season,

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From the immense popularity of 20th century novels “In Cold Blood” and “Helter Skelter” to the record-breaking success of television shows “Dateline” and “Law and Order,” stories of violent crime have long captivated the American psyche. In recent years, however, the rise of true crime podcasts has taken this age-old obsession to new heights, with 50% of iTunes’s top ten podcasts dedicated to the genre as of May 2021. The first season of “Serial,” one of the oldest and most popular true crime podcasts, accrued over 300 million downloads.

You’re likely familiar with the genre’s tropes: A young middle class white woman with a promising future (and whose smile, genuine or not, is always said to have lit up a room) meets her untimely death at the hands of a sociopathic monster.

Maybe he’s scarily normal like Ted Bundy or John Wynne Gacy. Or in the case of the Zodiac Killer or Jack the Ripper, maybe he was never caught.

True crime podcasts tend to stick to this same, predictable formula — all the way down to the Hello Fresh and Squarespace sponsorships.

However, it seems that this true crime media might not actually be that “true.” By over-representing white victims of crime and under-representing cases of domestic abuse, this media distorts the true nature of violent crime. As a result of this gap, I worry that the very media we’ve found to cope with our fears may actually exacerbate them, dangerously distorting and misrepresenting crime’s most likely victims, while simultaneously dehumanizing and typecasting its perpetrators.

It’s also critical to consider who this media is catering to. The true crime audience skews decidedly female: According to a 2018 study in the Journal of Radio and Audio, women make up 73% of true crime podcast listeners. Compared to their male counterparts, female listeners reported tuning in more for three salient reasons: social interaction with other listeners, escape and voyeurism. This first reason — social interaction — is crucial. With violence against women so ubiquitous, I’ve felt in my own life just how validat-

ing true crime media can be, assuring women that not only are their fears of violence completely rational, but that they’re not alone in feeling them.

True crime media is far from representative. Serial killings account for less than 1% of murders in the United States. And while this content tends to focus on violence committed by strangers, in reality, most violence is committed by people that we know. In fact, one in four women will experience sexual or physical

on TV, in the heat of the narrative it’s often difficult to actually identify these actions as brutality (after all, aren’t we supposed to be rooting for the cops?). When we center law enforcement’s perspective, the audience naturally comes to identify with law enforcement rather than with the alleged criminals or victims of crime. While cop shows differ from true crime in a variety of ways, all of this goes to say that our perceptions of the criminal justice system are inevitably shaped by the media we consume.

In the case of true crime, this presents a clear problem. By centering the experiences of white women and vastly under-representing the number of minority victims in our true crime narratives, we fail to extend sufficient empathy to the most likely victims of real-world violence.

This is mirrored by the disproportionate media attention we devote to white female victims of crime, something that researcher Zach Sommers has deemed the “Missing White Woman Syndrome.”

The types and severity of crime represented in true crime media can

crime media alone, I suspect that our gruesome media diets aren’t helping create a clearer sense of reality.

I know that I’m statistically unlikely to be killed by a serial killer, but that doesn’t stop me from walking around as if I might be. Availability heuristics describe the mental shortcuts we take when making decisions — we tend to make judgements based on what we see most often represented, rather than what is statistically true. There isn’t an inherent downside to being overly cautious, but this paranoia can easily become all-consuming. While we can intellectually recognize that the crimes of, say, Ted Bundy are just extreme anecdotes, the more we saturate our media diets with these cherry-picked examples, the more they inevitably shape our overall impression of crime and criminals. While it’s not particularly important that we empathize with Ted Bundy, the issue occurs when we start thinking that most criminals are like Ted Bundy. The more we elevate criminals that appear more monstrous than human, the easier it becomes to see all criminals this way. And as the

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acceleration of mass incarceration under the “tough on crime” years has shown us, giving into these reactionary instincts can have a devastating human cost.

Horrifying as these true crime cases may be, I can’t help but wonder if my attraction to true crime media isn’t somewhat rooted in the genre’s moral simplicity. In a world as messy as ours, it’s easy to see why stories that offer clear heroes, victims and villains may be appealing. And just as cop shows portray uncomplicated “good guy” vs. “bad guy” narratives, true crime offers women stories where the lines between psychopath and victim are abundantly clear — a satisfying alternative to a world where boyfriends, fathers and teachers are so much more likely to commit abuse than a stranger. By pretending that true crime is representative of everyday violence, we avoid living with the unsettling reality that the people we love are the ones most likely to hurt us.

I’m genuinely conflicted about my own relationship to true crime media. When it comes down to it, I don’t see a reason to stop consuming it altogether, nor do I think that others need to. I also wonder if the widespread criticism of true crime’s popularity isn’t itself rooted in misogyny (is true crime the new chick flick?). It is, however, critical to recognize how this genre is falling short — how true crime obscures the statistical realities of violence, and preys upon our most reactionary instincts to dehumanize criminals altogether. It’s worth considering whether metabolizing our fears in this way, either consciously or unconsciously, might actually be compounding them.

Sarah McGrath ’24 can be reached at sarah_v_mcgrath@brown.edu.

Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@ browndailyherald.com.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2021

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

8

SPORTS

Men’s soccer drops season finale to Dartmouth 1-0 on Saturday Bears outshoot Big Green but can’t find back of net to clinch victory

BY RYAN HANDEL SPORTS EDITOR The men’s soccer team (6-10-1, 2-41 Ivy) fell 1-0 to Dartmouth (3-11-1, 1-5-1 Ivy) Saturday night at Stevenson-Pincince Field in the final game of the regular season. The Big Green scored less than a minute after halftime, and despite the Bears outshooting Dartmouth 16-4 in the second half, Bruno could not find the equalizer.

The game, which was scheduled to begin at 5 p.m., was postponed by about 90 minutes due to inclement weather including a tornado warning.

Defender Will Crain ’22 did not believe the weather delay affected the outcome of the contest. “We were focused, we were relaxing in the locker room, so we didn’t let that (delay) get to us,” he said. “Both teams were in the same boat.”

Brown was playing short-handed, as its top two goalkeepers James Swomley ’22 and Max Waldau ’22 were both out with injuries. Connor Smith ’25 made his first career start in place of the two veterans. Midfielder Derek Waleffe ’22 was also injured in the game’s 31st minute, depriving the Bears of another key player.

“Derek Waleffe is the best midfielder in the (Ivy) League,” said Head Coach

COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS

The team’s top two goalkeepers, James Swomley ‘22 and Max Waldau ‘22, were both out with injuries.

Midfielder Derek Waleffe ‘22 was also injured during the game.

Patrick Laughlin. His injury “really hurts you, because that’s your key guy.”

Laughlin commended the younger players who stepped up in the absence of these injured seniors, including Smith, who let up just one goal in his collegiate goalkeeping debut. “I was really happy for (Smith),” Laughlin said.

“He showed his qualities.”

Scoring chances were few and far between for both teams during the first half. Midfielder Kojo Dadzie ’24 had an opportunity to head the ball into the goal in the 12th minute, but Dartmouth goalkeeper Alex Budnik nabbed the ball

out of the air just before Dadzie could strike. The Big Green had their best look at net minutes later as midfielder Finn Callahan sent the ball just wide of the left post. Midfielder Jack Cloherty ’25 fired a dangerous shot in the 30th minute, but it was also wide. Outside of a yellow card handed to Dartmouth midfielder Mothibi Penn-Kekana, both teams stayed quiet for the remainder of the half.

Action quickly picked up pace as the Bears and Big Green returned from the locker room after halftime. 57 seconds into the second half, Callahan poked

a perfect pass into the center of the penalty box for Dartmouth midfielder Eric Sachleben, who fired an unsavable shot past Smith for the lead.

Facing a deficit for the first time, Bruno increased its urgency in response. Soon after Dartmouth’s score, Crain launched a shot toward the top center of the goal, requiring a leaping save by Budnik. Defender Taha Kina ’24 had another chance to tie the game, but he sent a shot clanging off the crossbar.

Brown continued to put pressure on the Big Green defense throughout the second half. In the 68th minute, forward

Dennis Pyetsukh ’22 laid a well-placed ball to forward Malcolm Johnson ’22 deep in the penalty box, but Johnson’s shot went wide left. Another chance came in the 70th minute when Budnik came off his line, and midfielder Charlie Adams ’24 attempted to capitalize on the empty net. But Adams struck the ball too hard and sent it over the goal.

Crain suggested that the Bears’ difficulty finishing scoring chances may have been due to the high emotions of the game. “We were too emotional — Senior Night, last game — we were just frantic on the ball,” he said. “If we just put those emotions to the side … it would’ve been a lot better.”

Pyetsukh had two more strong opportunities to score in the waning minutes of the contest. In the 82nd minute, he hit a short-range header that Budnik saved, and in the 88th minute, he sent another header just over the crossbar. But despite all of these second half chances, Bruno could not find the back of the net and remained down 1-0 as the final whistle sounded.

“Everyone played their (hearts) out and gave everything they had,” Pyetsukh said. “There’s not much more we can ask for.”

Despite the disappointing final result for the Bears, Crain emphasized his gratitude for his team’s ability to compete this season after the cancelled 2020 campaign. “You don’t take it for granted when you’re out here. Win or lose, you love it, and we all love the game.”