Tuesday, February 11, 2020

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2020

VOLUME CLV, ISSUE 15

METRO

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

State of the City describes ‘New Providence’

Annual Space Horizons conference convenes

Mayor Elorza stresses educational, infrastructural improvements

Community members, scientists discuss “Going to Space to Save Earth”

BY KATIE CHEN AND GRACE PARK SENIOR STAFF WRITERS Chants of his name rang through City Halls as Mayor Jorge Elorza entered the Council Chambers to give this year’s State of the City address. In his following speech, which was received with equivalent enthusiasm to his entrance, Elorza focused primarily on improving infrastructure and education to create a “New Providence,” while also discussing green initiatives and public safety.

According to the mayor, who is in his second and last term in office, the city has committed to the “largest infrastructure investment in (its) recent history,” with half a billion dollars invested over the next two years.

Elorza said that recent improvements in Providence’s infrastructures, such as City Walk walking trails and a new pedestrian bridge, have connected dif-

BY KAAN SAYIN SENIOR STAFF WRITER This past weekend, experts from fields including Industrial Design, Aerospace Engineering, Theology and Planetary Science gathered with students in Hazeltine Commons. There, the 12th annual Space Horizons conference convened to contemplate how future journeys to space could help humanity save Earth.

“I started the conference out of frustration that the space business was being too conservative,” said Adjunct Associate Professor of Engineering and co-organizer of the event Rick Fleeter ’76 PhD ’81. Space enterprises, like NASA, were limiting their scope to focus on the things that they considered doable or achievable, he said. But, Fleeter recalled science

GRACE PARK / HERALD

Mayor Jorge Elorza delivered his State of the City address yesterday, focusing his speech on education reform and improving infrastructure. ferent communities within the city.

He cited the success of the 3-1-1 app, which allows residents to easily report infractural issues and has been used 500,000 times. Elorza wants to ensure that “every child in the city lives within 10 minutes” of a green space by walking. Providence has over 100 parks — some of which have not been upgraded since the 1970s, which the

METRO

U.S. Senate passes Save our Seas 2.0 Act

mayor would like to improve.

Elorza also spent a large portion of his speech talking about the “great and necessary undertaking” of education reform. Recalling the union protest that “shouted down” his 2018 State of the City address, Elorza claimed that a holistic transformation

SEE CITY PAGE 4

BY SOPHIE BUTCHER STAFF WRITER The Save Our Seas 2.0 Act, which was introduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), was unanimously passed by the U.S. Senate Jan.

9. The bill aims to reduce the presence of plastic pollutants in waterways.

The bill follows the success of the Save Our Seas 1.0 Act, also sponsored

by Whitehouse, which was signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2018.

The first bill, described by Whitehouse as a “test run,” proved that the U.S. Senate was willing to legislate in this area. After it passed, Whitehouse and others who had worked on this first bill began drafting a stronger bill.

“We were still testing the limits of

SEE BILL PAGE 3

that it’s actually possible,” Fleeter said.

Space Horizons diverged from the usual conference format by avoiding podium style lectures. Instead, students were able to approach a set of three tables, each with experts available to answer questions. This style sparked interesting dialogue, as participants were exposed to different ideas and new ways of thinking, said Michael Lye, a senior critic and NASA coordinator at the Rhode Island School of Design. “There is something really different in having the opportunity to go meet someone face to face and talk to them and get the

SEE NASA PAGE 3

Oscar-nominated animated shorts examine diverse personal relationships Avon Cinema features animated shorts including winning short “Hair Love”

categories; almost all of the films have

also details themes of familial relations

Last week, the Avon Cinema screened the 92nd Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film nominees in anticipation of the awards show. Out of the 92 short films that qualified for Oscar consideration, “Hair Love,” “Kitbull,” “Daughter,” “Sister” and “Memorable” were selected to compete in this category, with “Hair Love” taking home the prize Sunday night.

Almost all of the nominated films

their own distinct style to convey stories that felt deeply personal.

“Hair Love” follows the story of a father who helps his daughter style her hair in the absence of his ailing wife.

In seven minutes, the film wittily and comedically sheds light on the daily struggles and societal pressures faced

by African Americans when it comes to styling their hair. At the same time, the film celebrates the diversity in African American beauty with a heartfelt tone captured by an expressive and nostalgic 2D animation style.

Co-directors Matthew A. Cherry and Bruce W. Smith originally relied on crowdfunding through Kickstarter to animate the film with a Los Angeles-based studio, Six Point Harness. The film was eventually acquired by Sony

and ailing relatives, exploring the damaged relationship between a father and his daughter in a non-chronological narrative. Through an abundance of effective stylistic choices, such as the use of flashbacks and metaphoric insertions into the narrative, Kashcheeva faithfully delivers the mournful and hopeful sentiments of an aging daughter continuing to be tethered to her absent, but later remorseful father. The film is particularly notable for its exemplary use of hand-held camera movements to convey the daughter’s disorientation and her whirlwind of emotions when she interacts with her family members Chinese animator Siqi Song directed “Sister” as her graduation film when she was studying in the Animation Program at the California Institute of

were either stop-motion or 2D animation — both “Hair Love” and Kitbull” were 2D animations, while “Daughter,” “Mémorable” and “Sister” were stop-motions, a filmmaking technique in which animators physically move objects in small increments to capture their movements in playback. With films directed by Chinese and French animators, this year’s Animated Short Film category consisted of a diverse lineup in comparison to some other

Picture Animation, which catapulted it to its theatrical release in August 2019.

A former NFL player turned filmmaker, Cherry directed, produced and wrote the film.“Hair Love” was created “because we wanted to see more representation in animation” and “wanted to normalize black hair,” he said during his acceptance speech for the Academy Award.

“Daughter,” a Czech stop-motion drama directed by Daria Kashcheeva,

the Arts. The film employs a boy’s relationship with his imagined sister to engage in a political commentary on China’s one-child policy, which was initiated around the late 1970s. The mostly monochromatic animation poignantly utilizes comedy to increase the audience’s attachment to a familial dynamic and to emphasize the isolation one feels when deprived of a potential

A&C

Film Review

Commentary

Muse Intiative performance bridges gap between visual arts, musical composition Page 2

Netflix documentary “Miss Americana” spotlights Taylor Swift’s vulnerability Page 4

Apple ’21: Conservative R.I. Democrats don’t accurately represent party as a whole Page 7

Read Join

CISSY LUO / HERALD

Activist Judith Enck, founder of the Beyond Plastic Movement, said the bill does “virtually nothing to effectively reduce plastic pollution.”

writer Arthur Clarke’s notion that “the only way to really learn anything is just by trying to do the impossible,” Fleeter said.

This idea of defying the achievable and considering the impossible gave birth to the Space Horizons conference. “We input impossible questions and then we find … these people who work on them and then we find out

REVIEW

BY PREETI GANESH SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Sen. Whitehouse’s plastic pollution bill aims to clean up waterways

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2020

ARTS & CULTURE

‘Muse: Satie Reimagined’ reunites music, visual art First-year students’ multifaceted artistic performance enlivens gallery space

BY NICHOLAS MICHAEL SENIOR STAFF WRITER Overcast light filtered into the Rhode Island School of Design Museum’s Grand Gallery on Saturday afternoon to illuminate an interdisciplinary and contemplative performance by the Muse Initiative.

The Feb. 8 performance, “Muse: Satie Reimagined,” was the inaugural event of the initiative founded by Herald staff writer Claire Liu ’23 and former contributing writer Naya Lee Chang ’24. Muse seeks to reinvigorate the longstanding historical tradition of integrative artistic practice, with particular emphasis on filling the modern gaps between visual arts and musical composition, Liu explained.

As an intimate crowd filtered into the gallery adorned with traditional portraits this past Saturday, the two first-year students saw their artistic vision brought to life. Chang explained that she wanted to shatter the conception of “museums as stagnant, dead places where you stand and look at paintings on walls.”

As the audience quieted, Liu took to the piano to play Erik Satie’s “3 Gymnopédies,” which steadily built in the atmosphere’s emotionality. While Liu played Satie’s chords with intention and personality, Chang began to unfold the visual element of their performance: graphic, Cubist-inspired textiles created

in her RISD Wintersession course this past term.

Because Satie, a French avant-garde composer, worked closely alongside Cubist visual artists during his lifetime, Chang sought to echo similar elements of temporality and vibrancy in her textiles, she said.

The fabrics were most directly inspired by the ballet “Parade,” which features costumes by Picasso and music composed by Satie. This collaborative, historical event worked as a canon for the community-based art Muse seeks to promote, Chang said.

Chang’s textiles covered the piano, creating a vibrant “costume” for Liu’s musical performance. The fabrics varied from brightly colored satins to quieter chiffons — each of them decorated with musical motifs in a loose homage to the Cubist style.

In the second set, Liu played Satie’s Gnossiennes 1, 2 and 3, offering a personal interpretation of the late 19th century compositions. Liu reflected that in selecting works, she was concerned with cultivating a musical and artistic balance that “didn’t take away from either discipline.”

Her choice of the Gnossiennes came from their inherent flexibility, she said, as each piece “had little notes, like instructions from Satie, and these inflections suggested he wanted you to experiment with the music.” As Liu interpreted the instructions provided

by Satie in the Gnossiennes, she was sensitive to the repetition in the pieces and focused on timing to engage the audience, she said.

Integrative artistic excellence was further animated in the second half of the performance, as the pair’s musical

and visual contributions further intertwined. As Chang made her way underneath the piano and began to rustle her fabrics with a hand-held fan, audience members leaned forward with intrigue.

An intimate dance of the two distinct art forms unfolded — Chang’s chiffon fluttered elegantly to the fortes of Liu’s modern Gnossienne adaptations.

Of her artistic motivations for this animated element, Chang said she “wanted to incorporate movement throughout the performance,” and “thought that the ruffle of the fabric would communicate some liveness.”

At the performance’s conclusion, Liu’s piano faded out with patience and a nostalgic tone, and Chang began to carefully deconstruct the displayed fabric she had set up thirty minutes earlier. “The theme of liveness is also why we chose to set up and take down the fabrics during the show — so you could see the arc of performance,” Chang said.

Liu and Chang “both find muse in each other’s work,” Liu said of the conception of the performance’s name.

“I thought of the muses within Greek mythology too, because each of them represents an arts discipline, but they are still a collective, and I don’t think we think of arts that way anymore,” she added, expressing hopes to inspire collective artistic mentality among College Hill community members.

This lively subversiveness contributed to the audience’s positive reception of the artistic performance.

Audience member Maya Taylor ’22 came to support Liu as a friend, and expressed that “the performance was really engaging,” and she “enjoyed it much more than (she) expected (she)

COURTESY OF HENRY SCHAEFER

Surrounded by Cubist textiles, Claire Liu ’23, co-founder of The Muse Initiative, took to the piano to play Erik Satie’s “3 Gymnopédies.” would.” Muse’s reinterpretation of the museum space and artistic boundaries seemed to keep viewers engaged with the performance from start to finish.

Though the initiative still remains in its developmental stages, it plans to

continue to engage discourse around art and community in the future, Liu said. The eager pair of first-years said to “keep an eye out” for upcoming performances and opportunities to get involved with Muse.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2020

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

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KAAN SAYIN / HERALD

The conference featured keynote speaker Kimberly Arcand, visualization and emerging technology lead for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

NASA FROM PAGE 1 conversation going,” he said.

The event included multiple forums such as “Off Planet Manufacturing,” “Investing in Human Habitats in Space” and “Risks of Replicating Earth Mistakes in Space.”

Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida and a former NASA employee, presented the idea of transforming Earth through space technology. “Technologies that we develop for exploration missions are the same technologies that could

BILL FROM PAGE 1 what the Senate would accept by unanimous consent, which was our vehicle, but making the bill much more substantively robust,” Whitehouse told The Herald.

The bill’s goals are three-pronged, according to the senator, and will involve a “foreign relations effort, founded both in the State Department and in our trade, to press for less waste being dumped into the ocean by those countries that are most responsible for it.” Funding will be awarded in the form of a “Genius Prize” to encourage development of new innovations for plastic recycling and disposal. The bill will also “work within our country to look at our infrastructure and make sure that we are addressing that problem of the micro-plastic particles that we are consuming,” he said.

Kurt Teichert, a senior lecturer in environment and society at the University, described the bill as a positive step toward diminishing marine pollution. “Anything that reduces plastics entering the waterways is going to be an improvement for recreational use and marine habitat,” he said. But he cautioned that the bill “has to be coupled with source reduction” in order to be effective.

This sentiment was echoed by Judith Enck, founder of the Beyond Plastics movement and former Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator.

“Rather than requiring a reduction in the generation of plastics, the Save Our Seas 2.0 bill establishes a series of studies, sets up a Genius Prize and authorizes a new foundation which can accept unlimited amounts of money from the very companies that are responsible for the growing problem of plastic pollution,” Enck wrote in an email to The Herald.

Enck helped to coordinate a letter

support settlement beyond Earth, or establish industry on Earth in order to benefit Earth,” Metzger said. He explained that humans must look for solutions to their problems beyond their planet.

While Metzger mentioned that the “long-term vision” would be to create machines that would operate in space to benefit Earth, he acknowledged that there are many intermediary steps that must be taken before that vision can be reached. He listed these “stepping stones” as “using mining equipment to extract water and (using) that water as

of opposition to the bill which stated the legislation should include concrete methods of reducing overall plastics manufacturing. The letter received signatures from more than 30 environmental organizations and was sent to both Whitehouse and Sullivan.

While activists achieved the removal of a “particularly troubling portion” of the bill concerning a controversial means of plastic disposal, they remain unhappy with the legislation. “It is well intentioned but does virtually nothing to effectively reduce plastic pollution,” Enck wrote.

She added, “the manufacturing of plastic is a major source of carbon emissions, which is why it was surprising to see Senator Whitehouse sponsoring this bill because he is a true climate change champion.”

“I’d be the first to concede, and even argue, there is a lot more that could and should be done,” Whitehouse said.

“While we’re waiting for the great day when we control the Senate and the House, and have a president who won’t veto a bill, and we can get a really major piece of plastics legislation passed, it’s still on us to do what we can.”

The unanimous passage of the bill “is a good sign,” Whitehouse said. The bill must now be passed by the House — where he notes “David Cicilline is a cosponsor, as is Jim Langevin, so our two Rhode Island congressmen are helping” — and be signed into law by the president. The senator is optimistic that this will be achieved by the end of the year.

Whitehouse ultimately hopes that the bill will improve the lives of his constituents back at home in Rhode Island. “Every year, Save the Bay, Ocean Conservancy and other groups organize part of the global coastal cleanup,” he said. “I’d like to see a lot less plastic waste in those beach cleanups.”

rocket fuel for space companies,” as well as extracting metals that could be manufactured to produce technologies such as giant antennas which could provide much higher data speeds. The potential of space also includes utilizing the unique properties of space — such as the lack of gravity — for manufacturing. But, technologies that operate more easily in space have to produce tangible value for them to be economically viable, he said.

The idea of using space technologies for different fields on Earth was a topic that also appeared in the keynote speech of Kimberly Arcand, visualization and

emerging technology lead for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. She mentioned that her job is to “visualize the high energy universe such as exploding stars (and) black holes … (and) take data of the universe, visualize it and tell a story with that image.” These images may include a “2D image, 3D model, virtual reality application or a 3D print.”

She also highlighted how the technologies used in telescopes like the Chandra Observatory have been “recycled” for use on Earth; whether it be in environmental monitoring, medicine or other domains — exemplifying how space technology

is already serving an unexpected but necessary purpose on Earth.

Another topic of discussion was the long-duration human exploration missions and settlements beyond Earth. While the technical challenges of such missions and settlements are well known, experts mentioned that the psychological challenges of long-term space travel play a significant role in the viability of such missions. “A lot (of the) challenges to design for space (are) psychological. We might have to just stay in a habitat for a very long time. We have to see what happens in such situations,” Lye said. NASA has previously and is currently running simulations, such as the HI-SEAS Dome experiment on Earth, to test such scenarios, he added.

Jessica Newman, crewed spaceflight operations and training instructor at NASA, mentioned that the “technical” part of training for space travel is the easy part. Newman has witnessed how it takes astronauts a longer time to become accustomed to the unique set of soft skills, referred to as “Space Flight Resource Management,” which are needed to be successful in space.

These skills include team interaction and reactions under pressure, skills which are key in missions.

With its wide array of offerings, the Space Horizons conference brought experts of many perspectives to one place — an experience Lye compared to browsing a library. “If I know exactly what I’m looking for and I pull that book out … I only get that information that I’m looking at. If I look around, I’ll see things.

It’s the same with people here,” Lye said.

These kinds of events present opportunities for space researchers to “be influential (and) promote making life better for humans,” Newman said.

Sponsored by the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity

2020 MLK LECTURE MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

A Conversation with Beverly Daniel Tatum, Ph.D. February 11, 2020

Salomon Center for Teaching, De Ciccio Family Auditorium 6 to 7:30 p.m.

F E AT U R I N G

Beverly Daniel Tatum, Ph.D. President Emerita of Spelman College Author, “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and Other Conversations About Race”

Tickets Required drtatumatbrown.eventbrite.com

To request special services, accommodations or assistance for this event, please contact the University Event & Conference Services Office at universityevents@brown.edu or 401-863-3100

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | REVIEWS

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2020

FILM REVIEW

‘Miss Americana’ sparks empathy for Taylor Swift Netflix documentary celebrates pop icon Taylor Swift’s journey, evolution

BY KAITI YOO SENIOR STAFF WRITER On Jan. 23, the release of Taylor Swift’s intimate documentary “Miss Americana” took Netflix by storm.

Directed by Emmy-Award winner Lana Wilson, the documentary follows Swift on her long-winded search for “happiness without anyone else’s input,” highlighting her struggles against criticisms, loneliness and constant visibility — the prices that must be paid for a place at the top.

From a bird’s-eye view, this documentary is an intersection between a reflective biography of her musical journey and a forward-looking pretext on how she plans to use her voice as a celebrity. Swift appears to be standing not at, but rather a few steps past, a fork in the road — with one path identical to all the terrain before it and another that looks rough but rewarding. Swift has already chosen the latter and now invites the cameras — and us — to join her on this hike to explain why.

Unlike the traditional rags-to-riches, American dream storyline, Swift’s struggles are brutally shown to arise only after she obtains the luxury of fame.

In the beginning, the documentary’s cinematography overuses the surplus of footage of Swift’s lit-up concerts and flashy stage routines that conveniently

punctuate the story of a well-documented star. While such clips offer immediate visual appeal, they contribute nothing new. However, after peeling away layers of PR-constructed pageant smiles, model-filled Instagram posts and heaps of awards, “Miss Americana” eventually does withdraw from the front row and delves deeper behind the curtains to reveal Taylor Swift at her core — a lonely girl who desperately wanted the world to love her back.

“My entire moral code, as a kid and now, is a need to be thought of as good. … I was so fulfilled by approval that … I became the person who everyone wanted me to be,” Swift narrates over a montage of her triumphantly basking in front of her fans. “(And) when you’re living for the approval of strangers, and that is where you derive all of your joy and fulfillment, one bad thing can cause everything to crumble,” she later adds.

This line catapults the audience into the thick of her perspective on the public rampage against her image — which all began when Kanye West took the VMA stage to notoriously rain on her parade back in 2009.

Dwelling on and beyond the tense battle between West and Swift, “Miss Americana” organically strings together a walk down a difficult and ongoing memory lane, navigating body image, sexual assault, gender inequality and politics. In discussing her struggles with body image, she admits that a single unflattering photo taken by paparazzi would prompt her “to just starve a little bit — just stop eating.” She proceeds to rebuke the unattainable beauty standards that fuel the development of such

COURTESY OF NETFLIX

Opening up about her struggles with body image, sexual assault, career pressures and feminist views, Swift finally gets the chance to tell her side of the story through a medium beyond music in “Miss Americana.” eating disorders: “Because if you’re thin enough, then you don’t have that ass that everybody wants, but if you have enough weight on you to have an ass, then your stomach isn’t flat enough.

It’s all just fucking impossible.”

Other moments of hardship Swift opens up about include her 2018 sexual assault case against an assailant who groped her at a meet and greet and then sued her for a million dollars after he was fired from his occupation. Acknowledging the case, she speaks out with disheartened disbelief and newfound realization about the countless fellow victims who go unheard: “The process is so dehumanizing. (My difficult victory was) with seven witnesses and a photograph. What happens when you are

raped and it’s your word against his?”

In reflecting upon her unexpected, crippling loneliness that dawned after winning a Grammy for Album of the Year, Swift recalls how she felt she had nobody to relay her deep-set feelings.

“Shouldn’t I have someone to call right now?” she remembers asking herself.

And finally, she addresses why she recently broke her fifteen-year-long silence on politics by endorsing a Tennessee Democrat — an act which sparked a staggering 65,000 voter registrations statewide. Instructed by executives to be a “nice girl who doesn’t make people uncomfortable with her views” ever since she entered the industry, Swift shows us her desire to “be on the right side of history.” In heated

OSCAR FROM PAGE 1

CITY FROM PAGE 1

sibling. The last stop-motion in this category, “Mémorable,” directed by French filmmaker Bruno Collet, delivers the perspective of an aging artist struggling with Alzheimer’s. Different painterly styles in the animation tragically expose the frustration and isolation experienced during his journey of memory loss, as well as the heartbreak endured by his wife.

Diverging from the theme of familial relations, 2D animation “Kitbull” has more simplistic narrative on an unlikely friendship between a seemingly violent pitbull and an eccentric stray cat.

Hand-drawn and painted, “Kitbull” uses a traditional animation technique to remind the audience of the intimately expressive allure of 2D animation in the span of only nine minutes.

In addition to Academy Award nominees for Best Animated Short Film, Avon Cinema also screened films that were “highly commended” by the Academy, including “Henrietta Bulkowki,” a story of discovering self-acceptance and faith when struggling with a disability, “The Bird & The Whale,” a melodious hand-painted animation and “Hors Piste,” a comedic journey of two mountain rescuers. Avon will continue screening “Jojo Rabbit,” winner of Best Adapted Screenplay alongside “Parasite,” winner of Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Picture.

of the education system has taken place since. Investments in public school facilities such as libraries and parking spots, as well as youth recreation centers and summer camps, show his administration’s commitment to public education, Elorza said.

“The ‘New Providence’ takes an integrated approach to taking (on) the whole challenge,” Elorza told the crowd. “And we’re not done yet,” he added. Saying that early learning programs can be costly for families, Elorza promised to provide universal pre-K education before the end of his term to ensure that “every single child is ready to learn at the age of five.”

Despite mentioning ways the school system has improved, the mayor conceded that the state takeover of the Providence Public School District will accomplish something his administration could not: “We never managed to break through and bring about the change that was needed,” he said.

Elorza also made sure to touch on Providence’s growing sustainability.

One of his major accomplishments was the Climate Justice Plan, which has garnered national attention. Other successes included converting to

ANDREW DING / HERALD

“Hair Love,” which played at the Avon alongside other Academy Award nominated animated shorts last week, won the Oscar Sunday night.

meetings disputing her political image, we see Swift voraciously pushing back against her advisors — and even her own father — before releasing her endorsement.

“I want to love glitter and also stand up for the double standards that exist in our society. … I want to wear pink and tell you how I feel about politics. And I don’t think that those things have to cancel each other out,” she affirms.

As the film’s end credits roll across the screen accompanied by Swift’s song “Only the Young,” her most recent composition that empowers youth activism, audiences are left with resonating empathy for the Southern girl who charmed America with her storytelling.

LED street lights, banning plastic bags and using solar power for 70 percent of public buildings.

As his speech neared its end, Elorza lauded the police department. “Last year, total crime was at an all-time low, and in the past five years, shootings have been reduced by over 60 percent, burglaries have been reduced by 85 percent and we have seen some of the lowest homicide rates in almost fifty years,” he said. The mayor also mentioned an improvement in the relationship between communities of color and law enforcement.

The mayor’s address was largely met with support from the crowd.

Elorza’s speech was “spot on” according to Providence Commissioner of Public Safety Steven Pare. Pare said the mayor is doing a great job in identifying the city’s issues and working through them.

One attendee, Joel Rosario Tapia, a member of the Racial and Environmental Justice Committee, said that the process of improving the city wasn’t only in the mayor’s hands.

New Providence is an “ideal which is dependent on the people,” he said.

“It requires accountability on the part of the city and also accountability on the communities affected to hold the city to the standard that it is aspiring to.”

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2020

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | TODAY

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Plays on Gendered and Sexual Citizenship 4:00 P.M. Pembroke Hall

World Trivia Night w/ Dean Zia 5:30 P.M. Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center

NH Primary Watch Party 9:00 P.M. Salomon Center

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EBB Tuesday Seminar 12:00 P.M. Biomedical Center

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TOMORROW Tea Blending 12:00 P.M. Petteruti Lounge

Growth Lab Lunch 12:00 P.M. Page-Robinson Hall

Brown Community Gathering 5:00 P.M. Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center

Tear Gas Money at Brown 7:00 P.M. Friedman Hall

Q U OT E OF T H E DAY

“There is something really different in having the opportunity to go meet someone face to face and talk to them and get the conversation going.”

—Michael Lye, RISD senior critic and NASA coordinator SEE NASA PAGE 1

C O RRECTI ON A previous version of the Feb. 10 article, “Brown students demand Paxson, Corporation divest,” mistakenly stated that the Corporation is set to vote on divestment during its May meetings. The Herald regrets the error.

CR O S SWO R D

C L ARI F I CAT I ON A previous version of the Feb. 10 article, “Brown students demand Paxson, Corporation divest,” stated that until the Corporation’s next meeting, Brown Divest plans on “meeting with individuals in the Corporation” to convince them to vote for divestment. The article now includes the following context: Doumani added that “this is a strategy that even if we have fully discussed I’m not sure if we’re still going to implement.”

G R E EN OUT D O ORS

REBECCA HO / HERALD

If the rainy weather has got you feeling the blues, escape to this luscious green paradise. Instead of living in the crowded Scili basement, retreat to this spacious white farm house in rural Rhode Island.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2020

EDITORIAL

When the editorial page board speaks, what does it mean?

As the editorial page board, we know that The Brown Daily Herald gives us a platform that can allow our voice to resonate within the University community. And we are incredibly grateful for the chance to contribute to community conversation.

But over the years, community members and Heralders alike have expressed to us that our role at The Herald and in the broader community has been insufficiently defined. In a sincere effort to remedy this lack of clarity and provide transparency about our role and our process, we write today as the Spring 2020 editorial page board to explain who we are, why we are and what we do.

We are currently a group of four writers and an editor who meet weekly to deliberate on topics we perceive as important to the Brown community and as clearly impacting student life. While every editorial reflects the majority opinion of this group, not every page board member necessarily signs every editorial. Our intent is to contribute our voice to community conversation and to our newspaper’s greater obligation to inform our readers about issues that impact them. While we may use editorials to criticize or affirm University policy or issues related to campus culture, in other cases, we may write editorials that prioritize increasing awareness of an issue over taking a stance.

Though the page board’s size and members may fluctuate from semester to semester, the page board remains committed to the same objective: Through deliberation, we seek to formulate opinions on community issues that are grounded not only in one person’s perspective or lived experience, but in shared discussion and consensus. Because they will be representing The Herald in this capacity, editorial page board members must have spent at

least one year serving in some role at The Herald before they are eligible to join.

It is important to note that we do not speak for the majoritarian view of the newsroom. In keeping with the journalistic principle of maintaining a division between news and opinion, editorial page board members do not write for either news or opinions while serving on the page board. To the same end, the newsroom does not dictate the topics or direction of editorials; nor does The Herald’s Editorial Board — a group of students distinct from the editorial page board — that oversees the entire newspaper for the full calendar year.

We are aware that as a group of just five students, we cannot weigh in on every issue. We also know that we cannot make a definitive call on all issues due to the limits of our size and individual lived experiences. We intend for the perspectives we formulate to be worthy of our readers’ time and consideration, grounded in research, discussion and thorough consideration of the Brown community we are trying to serve. When we do choose to weigh in on an issue, we may not make a perfect judgement call every time, no matter how hard we try. In the interest of formulating editorials as carefully and thoughtfully as possible, the Spring 2020 editorial page board intends to publish fewer editorials per semester than have been published in semesters past. This change will allow us to reflect more on those topics we feel do warrant an editorial.

In our deliberative process, the page board keeps in mind the ways that we can exercise our voice to promote values and objectives we believe contribute to a positive University community. We write editorials bearing in mind interests that include promoting equity and inclusivity,

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Editorial Leadership Editor-in-Chief Colleen Cronin Managing Editors Sophie Culpepper Allie Reed Senior Editors Elise Ryan Alex Smolar post- magazine Editor-in-Chief Amanda Ngo

Sections Arts & Culture Editors Katherine Ok Emily Teng

Special Projects Coordinators Jacob Lockwood Melanie Pincus

Metro Editors Henry Dawson Olivia George Isabel Inadomi Maia Rosenfeld

Commentary Opinions Editors Jordan Allums James Flynn Krista Stapleford

News Editors Olivia Burdette Daniel Goldberg Li Goldstein Kayla Guo Kamran King Spencer Schultz

Editorial Page Board Amanda Brynn Riley Pestorius Vicky Phan Krista Stapleford Dylan Tian

Science & Research Editors Emilija Sagaityte Cate Ryan Sports Editor Ryan Handel

Multimedia/Production Design Editors Bilal Ismail Ahmed Keelin Lyons Head Photo Editors Rebecca Ho Victoria Yin

Copy Desk Chief Vicky Phan Illustrations Editor Summer Zhang Graphics Editor Usha Bhalla Immersive Editor Michael Bass Business General Managers Nicholas Fabrizio Mariel Jackson Office Manager Diane Silvia Directors Rey Blandon Shreya Das Arman Lateef Michael Wang

holding powerful actors accountable and enhancing the student experience.

Like editorial page boards at national newspapers, when we take a stance on any issue, we remain mindful of the positions that The Herald’s past page boards have taken. The Herald established an editorial page board under its 118th Editorial Board, and since then, the editorial page board has been suspended, restructured and reinstated by different editorial boards. We strive to only contradict past page boards in the instances when we believe their original stance contradicted values in the vein of those mentioned previously, and when doing otherwise would perpetuate an egregious wrong. We know that sometimes, breaking from the past is the best thing we can do. As a result, our weekly debates are informed not only by the values mentioned, but also by the positions that members of previous page boards have taken on similar issues.

While not a comprehensive list of editorials past, the examples below contextualize various editorials written in recent years with the principles that guided their creation. We include these examples to show readers how these values have guided page board discussions past and present.

In encouraging community members to make use of the new SEAS reporting system, we hoped to promote a campus culture where everyone feels empowered to work toward ensuring a more equitable and inclusive world for their peers. When the University unveiled the Brown and the Innovation Economy Strategic Plan, we took the opportunity to call for more attention to local inequality — and the University’s responsibility to help combat it where possible. When we implored the Department of Computer Science to

create clear, ethical guidelines for its industry partnerships, we advocated for the department to hold itself to a higher standard of accountability. When we reflected on the state of the Undergraduate Council of Students’ elections at Brown in 2018 and again in 2019, we emphasized how the student experience could be improved through the realization of a more representative and intentional process.

And when we urged community members to consider the nuances and potential demerits of Railroad’s “proposal that the University adopt a ‘fair chance hiring’ policy,” we sought to provide our peers with informed context relating to critical community decisions.

Moving forward, we want to be intentional about considering community input as we discuss potential topics and stances.

If you, our reader, or any other community member has suggestions for editorial topics that you feel deserve attention, we encourage you to share them with us by emailing editorialpageboard@browndailyherald.com. We appreciate your contributions to our dialogue.

We are aware of the weight that our voice carries on this campus — and we are grateful to our readers for this honor.

Within the bounds of topics on which we feel we have adequate authority to speak, we intend to carry this responsibility wisely and determine topics and stances judiciously. Through this process, we hope to contribute positively to community dialogue and the Brown experience for everyone.

— Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board. This editorial was written by its editor, Krista Stapleford ’21, and members, Riley Pestorius ’21, Vicky Phan ’21 and Dylan Tian ’21.

Submissions: The Brown Daily Herald publishes submissions in the form of op-eds and letters to the editor. Op-eds are typically between 750 and 1000 words, though we will consider submissions between 500 and 1200 words. Letters to the editor should be around 250 words. While letters to the editor respond to an article or column that has appeared in The Herald, op-eds usually prompt new discussions on campus or frame new arguments about current discourse.

All submissions to The Herald cannot have been previously published elsewhere (in print or online — including personal blogs and social media), and they must be exclusive to The Herald.

Submissions must include no more than two individual authors. If there are more than two original authors, The Herald can acknowledge the authors in a statement at the end of the letter or op-ed, but the byline can only include up to two names. The Herald will not publish submissions authored by groups. The Herald does not publish anonymous submissions. If you feel your circumstances prevent you from submitting an op-ed or letter with your name, please email herald@browndailyherald.com to explain your situation.

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2020

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

7

Rhode Island Democrats are no true Democrats at all CALEB APPLE ’21 OP-ED CONTRIBUTER With Democrats in control of all three branches of the Rhode Island state government, Rhode Island appears to be a true blue state and a progressive model to the rest of America. Yet Rhode Island is in crisis: it has the worst infrastructure in the country, and its 2019 Fiscal Year budget called for roughly $300 million in cuts to Medicaid. So how is it that a blue state could have utterly failed its citizens? Rhode Island’s problems may seem at first glance to cast doubt on the efficacy of left-wing government, but we must recognize that this government is not really left-wing.

While Democrats may run Rhode Island, they are actually old-school conservatives, who could run as Republicans if they did not have to run as Democrats to win over Rhode Island’s liberal constituency. These conservative Democrats, prevalent in many blue cities, have stifled the true potential of Rhode Island as a progressive blueprint for the rest of the country.

Perhaps the greatest example of Rhode Island Democrats’ faux-liberalism is so-called Democrats’ abortion platforms. With a conservative majority in the Supreme Court, the future of Roe v. Wade is on the line. Yet it took until June 2019 for a Rhode Island bill — the Reproductive Privacy Act — to protect a woman’s right to choose, a bulwark against the repercussions of a potential repeal to Roe v. Wade. The conservative Democrats in Rhode Island mainly took on a common refrain — that Roe v. Wade

was not in danger — and therefore claimed it was unnecessary to codify it into state law. But Harold Metts of the Rhode Island Senate, a Baptist minister and former educator, betrayed another underlying motive for failing to protect abortion rights for so long. On the Senate floor, Metts asked, “Who favors abortion more, God or Satan?” before claiming that only God

ents, who make up the majority of his district.

When confronted with studies showing that only one out of 30 million votes is fraudulent, and that Latinx and Black voters are deeply disenfranchised by voter identification laws, Metts responded: “While I’m sensitive to the concerns raised, at this point I am more interested in doing the right thing and stopping voter fraud.”

“These conservative Democrats, prevalent in many blue cities, have stifled the true potential of Rhode Island as a progressive blueprint for the rest of the country.”

should have control over our bodies. After the bill passed the House, it took two tries before passing the Senate in a close vote, where over one third of Senate Democrats voted against protecting a woman’s right to choose. It was then finally signed into law by Governor Gina Raimondo. The members of this conservative machine are no more liberal on other issues. In 2011, Metts sponsored a bill that would require people to bring identification in order to vote.

Metts argued that he sponsored the bill upon request from his Hispanic and Black constitu-

In essence, Metts decided that it was worth it to disenfranchise some of his constituents in order to prevent a statistically neglible number of voter fraud cases in all of Rhode Island.

But it is not all doom and gloom for Rhode Island’s future. The Rhode Island Political Cooperative is a group of over 15 candidates challenging conservative Democrats and Republicans to push for a more progressive Rhode Island. One member of this group, Tiara Mack ’16, is running against the aforementioned Harold Metts for state senate. I understand the need

for the Democratic Party to be a big tent party, one which can reel in former Republicans like presumptive Kansas Senate nominee Barbara Bollier, or can support John Bel Edwards, the pro-gun, pro-life Governor, as he wins reelection in ruby red Louisiana. But Rhode Island is not Louisiana. Its constituents are mostly liberal, which is why Gina Raimondo, whose approval rating is 20 points underwater in the state, coasted to a 15 point win in 2018 against her Republican opponent.

While the Rhode Island Republicans advocate for horrible policies, they at least have the guts to admit their party affiliation. On the other hand, the pseudo-Democrats who advocate for conservative policies while hiding behind the party label epitomize the worst of politics.

In their self-seeking opportunism, they are the antithesis of what representatives of our country should be. With redistricting coming up, and another chance for conservative Democrats to draw the lines in their favor, 2020 is perhaps the last chance to elect a legislature whose Democrats actually supports liberal policies — one that truly represents Rhode Island’s progressive values. For those who support true representative democracy and the actual ideals of the Democratic party, there is only one choice: mobilize now in support of the Rhode Island Political Cooperative.

Caleb Apple ’21, a worker for the Tiara Mack campaign, can be reached at caleb_apple@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

Opinions pieces published in The Herald — which include columns, op-eds , letters to the editor and editorials — are written independently of news coverage.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Centrism is cynical, not realistic To the Editor:

Read Join

The irony of centrist pleas for realism like Andrew Reed’s ’21, in his column “It’s Time to get real, Dems,” is that they are built on a fantasy. They emulate the Joe Biden-style wish that if Democrats just moderate their policies enough or make overtures to Mitch McConnell over an old-fashioned, Republicans will suddenly forgo at least 12 years of unmitigated obstruction and cooperate with a Democratic president, Senate or House. It is no more fanciful to imagine Medicarefor-All will pass McConnell’s Senate than to imagine Biden’s public option will do the same. What is decidedly unrealistic is imagining Democrats will secure Republican cooperation on key legislation via moderation, the supposedly sober-minded strategy Reed advocates. Consider Merrick Garland.

President Obama, ever apt to compromise, spent the last of his political capital on an appointee widely regarded as moderate and unim-

peachably credentialed just to see McConnell stonewall him.

Realpolitik demands nominating candidates capable of exciting the millions of disaffected voters who stay home each election cycle as well as swing voters motivated less by ideology than a desire for change. For Democrats in office, pragmatism calls for progressive legislation that will show new voters it is actually worth going to the polls and election reforms that will bolster democracy as well as Democrats. Of all people, Brown students — young and empowered by a great education — should not chide Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and their many student supporters for progressive ambition in the name of half-baked realism. Brown students (and alums) should deploy our talent and time to turn the most just future imaginable into a reality.

Joe Zappa, ’17 former managing editor of The Herald’s 126th editorial board

The Herald browndailyherald.com/join herald@browndailyherald.com

8

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2020

F E AT U R I N G

The Rt. Hon. Theresa May MP Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (2016-2019)

Politics, Populism and Polarization: Perspectives on the Global Economy

Wednesday, March 4, 2020 | 5 p.m.

Tickets Required For more information, please visit brown.edu/ogden

This event is free and open to the public.

Exact location provided with registration.

Doors open at 3:30 p.m. and close at 4:45 p.m.

Brown or government-issued ID required.

Backpacks, large bags and laptops are not allowed.

To request special services, accommodations or assistance for this event, please contact the University Event & Conference Services Office at universityevents@brown.edu or 401-863-3100.

Office of University Communications | 195655PROV0220