The Georgetown Voice, 18/02/2022 by The Georgetown Voice

F E B R U A RY 1 8 , 2 0 2 2

WELCOME TO SURVEILLANCE UNIVERSITY, WHERE PRIVACY NO LONGER MATTERS By Sarah Craig

A LETTER TO MY HOMETOWN: RACIAL JUSTICE IN MINNEAPOLIS STILL HAS A LONG WAY TO GO

HOW I NAVIGATE ACHIEVEMENT ANXIETY, AND HOW YOU CAN TOO

By Sarina Dev

By Andrea Ho

Contents

February 18, 2022 Volume 54 | Issue 10

Editor-In-Chief Sarah Watson Managing Editor Max Zhang

editorial

Letter from the Editor: How we’re working towards a more equitable journalism industry

internal resources Editor for RDI Darren Jian Editor for Sexual Sophie Tafazzoli Violence Coverage Service Chair Annemarie Cuccia Social Chair Alice Gao

SARAH WATSON

editorial

Employers, pay your interns—fair compensation now! EDITORIAL BOARD

Executive Editor Features Editor News Editor Assistant News Editors

leisure

In The Tragedy of Macbeth, the kingslayer isn't the only one plotting PAUL JAMES

Welcome to Surveillance University, where privacy no longer matters

A letter to my hometown: Racial justice in Minneapolis still has a long way to go

Outside the Georgetown bubble: Recent grads adjust to life in D.C.

Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power (Extended) demystifies pregnancy and fame

SARAH CRAIG

SARINA DEV

news commentary

voices

leisure

features

NORA SCULLY

on the cover

sports

ROMITA CHATTARAJ

leisure

In 2022, men’s lacrosse has a new shot at NCAA glory

100 gecs is glorious, excessive—and the future of music

THOMAS FISCHBECK

CHRISTINE JI

news

One year later, Kristi Riggs pushes for accountability from Martin's Tavern

voices

How I navgiate achievement anxiety, and how you can too ANDREA HO

editor@georgetownvoice.com Leavey 424 Box 571066 Georgetown University 3700 O St. NW Washington, DC 20057

leisure Executive Editor Olivia Martin Leisure Editor Lucy Cook Assistant Editors Pierson Cohen, Maya Kominsky, Alexandra Lenehan Halftime Editor Chetan Dokku Assistant Halftime Editors Adora Adeyemi, Ajani Jones, Gokul Sivakumar sports Executive Editor Tim Tan Sports Editor Hayley Salvatore Assistant Editors Andrew Arnold, Lucie Peyrebrune, Thomas Fischbeck Halftime Editor Carlos Rueda Assistant Halftime Editors Langston Lee, Natalia Porras, Dylan Vasan design Executive Editor Allison DeRose Spread Editors Alex Giorno, Connor Martin Cover Editor Deborah Han Assistant Design Editors Insha Momin, Sabrina Shaffer, Dane Tedder, Sean Ye copy Copy Chief Maya Knepp Assistant Copy Editors Kenny Boggess, Maanasi Chintamani, Julia Rahimzadeh Editors Donovan Barnes, Christopher Boose, Johanna Crane, Jennifer Guo, Ian Tracy, Anna Vernacchio

online Website Editor Tyler Salensky Social Media Editor Emma Chuck Assistant Social Media Editor Franzi Wild

“they think this is normal” DEBORAH HAN

“Affixing our worth to achievement is no way to live— our love for ourselves shouldn't be conditional on societal views of what makes us valuable.” PG. 11

opinion Executive Editor Annette Hasnas Voices Editor Sarah Craig Assistant Voices Editors James Garrow, Kulsum Gulamhusein, Lou Jacquin Editorial Board Chair Advait Arun Editorial Board Annemarie Cuccia, William Hammond, Annabella Hoge, Jupiter Huang, Paul James, Darren Jian, Allison O’Donnell, Sarah Watson, Alec Weiker, John Woolley, Max Zhang

multimedia Executive Editor John Woolley Podcast Editor Jillian Seitz Assistant Podcast Editor Alexes Merritt Photo Editor Annemarie Cuccia

NORA SCULLY

news Nora Scully Annabella Hoge Paul James Margaret Hartigan, Jupiter Huang, Graham Krewinghaus

The opinions expressed in The Georgetown Voice do not necessarily represent the views of the administration, faculty, or students of Georgetown University, unless specifically stated. Columns, advertisements, cartoons, and opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the General Board of The Georgetown Voice. The university subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression of its student editors. All materials copyright The Georgetown Voice, unless otherwise indicated. THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

photo courtesy of apple tv

business General Manager Megan O’Malley Assistant Manager of Akshadha Lagisetti Accounts & Sales Assistant Manager of Abby Smith Alumni Outreach support Contributing Editors Sarina Dev, Ethan Greer, Caroline Hamilton, Josh Klein, Roman Peregrino, Orly Salik, Sophie Tafazzoli, Abby Webster Staff Contributors Nathan Barber, Nicholas Budler, Maya Cassady, Natalie Chaudhuri, Erin Ducharme, Panna Gattyan, Andrea Ho, Julia Kelly, Steven Kingkeiner, Lily Kissinger, Ashley Kulberg, Amelia Myre, Anna Sofia Neil, Adam Pack, Owen Posnett, Omar Rahim, Ryan Samway, Fracesca Theofilou, Diego Ventero, Amelia Wanamaker, Katie Woodhouse

Page 3

An eclectic collection of jokes, puns, doodles, playlists, and news clips from the collective mind of the Voice staff.

→ ALLISON'S ANIMAL DOODLE

→ OVERHEARD AT GEORGETOWN

uang,

"Wilhelmina The Cow"

mhusein,

ammond, g, Paul Donnell, hn

→ GRAHAM'S CROSSWORD

ky,

32. Cardinal count of qty. in chem. 33. Takes the cake 35. Commented, as a cat 38. Snagging a sprinter, e.g.? 41. Not skip 42. NYC Mayor Adams 43. Trashy towel, or newspaper 44. Green eggs companion 45. Cigarette deposit 46. Reagan's code 47. Not thrilling 48. NSO point person 50. Cannes corp. 51. Ave. crossers? 52. Non-stick spray 53. Untreated, once a year? 55. Acorns front half? 56. 11th century biblical scholar 57. Karl's call to workers of the world 62. Microsoft co-founder 64. Mr. Owl might know how many it takes 65. First to do pressing work? 66. Cultural characteristics

Gokul

une,

Dylan

Dane

line

Tafazzoli,

r, Maya rin drea ner, Lily lia Myre, wen mway, ero, dhouse

crossword by graham krewinghaus; doodle by allison derose

tamani,

Boose, Ian

Across 1. Cold, hard numbers, either way you look at it? 6. Groundwork laid ahead of big appearances? 15. Roast host 16. One way to be grateful? 17. Tenochtitlán native 18. Place for a perm 19. Disease the Ice Bucket Challenge raised money for, for short

"I have nothing against porn stars. I do have stuff against mass murderers."

20. Individuals involved in a murder 22. Wealth to Achebe, heritage to Ellison, and a must-have to many a Thanksgiving table 23. Tic follower 26. "Fresh air" airer 27. Alphabet's penultimates 28. Seafarer's plea for retrieval 29. NBA rival-turned-acquiree 30. Charge in traffic court 31. Swanson of Schur show

Down 1. One of seven, to a pirate 2. Celebrity gossip website 3. Don't just sit there 4. Texas capital? 5. A fortuitous thing to find, for a fatiguing marathoner 6. Fix a busted G? 7. Citation abbreviator 8. Table, at a meeting 9. Individuals involved in a murder? 10. Raggedy and Coulter

11. Dorm reporter, mandatorily 12. What a "?" denotes in this crossword 13. Fitzgerald and Mai 14. Deep gratitude, in a text 21. Where you want to be, in relation to a bad odor 23. Bay where the Rays play (at times) 24. 180, with "face" 25. What an umpire might do about a problematic batter? 28. Chimney deposit 31. Book on a different timeline? 34. Squid Game competitor ___-Byeok 35. GOT lead Williams 36. Make it happen 37. Painter Edgar 39. Biblical wife of Jacob 40. Boring, controversially? 47. World's most densely populated territory 48. Colgate competitor 49. Partisans prefer not to cross it 52. Average amount one's been scored on, in basketball 53. Actress Karrueche 54. What it's giving, per Shawn Mendes 58. One worth picking, to detailoriented people? 59. Einstein's "I" 60. Ref's ruling to end the fight 61. Morse code's ... 63. Article in "Le Monde"? Check The Voice Instagram for the crossword answers! FEBRUARY 18, 2022

EDITORIALS

Letter from the Editor: How we’re working towards a more equitable journalism industry BY SARAH WATSON

Support or apply to the Steve Pisinski Scholarship to relieve the burden of unpaid internships

t the Voice, I work with smart, committed, revolutionary thinkers who believe in journalism as a calling. These young journalists already know they won’t be making six figure salaries if they take the plunge and become reporters, but they understand the need for accurate, empathetic storytelling no matter the reward. And their passion for journalism isn’t solely aspirational—they’re already writing awardwinning commentaries, investigative features, and thoughtful reviews. And, like most student journalists and interns, they’re not getting paid. To be fair, journalism is not a lucrative career (the value of free press alone doesn’t pay), and declining papers don’t bode well for the industry’s future. But if journalism is to survive, and thrive, the industry needs a generation of committed, well-trained, and morally reflective journalists to assume leadership. But that generation will never arrive if unpaid internships obstruct marginalized students from securing the much-needed experience that entering this field requires. Unpaid internships are ubiquitous in journalism, and a lynchpin of inaccessibility. Financial exclusivism actively obstructs low-income students—who, due to a larger national wealth gap, are disproportionately students of color—from the newsroom. There are serious consequences: When journalism is penned only by wealthy and white hands, the industry—and the public—suffers. To break into journalism, a portfolio of articles—which are created through unpaid internships— are required. Without it, it’s nearly impossible to credibly demonstrate writing prowess. In a cycle of inaccessibility, only a very privileged class of students can afford to sacrifice time they could spend working for an unpaid internship that devalues their skills. Paid internships for aspiring journalists won’t change the field’s racial inequality overnight, but it’s a start toward improving journalism’s accessibility. Journalism’s racial exclusivity is reflected clearly in its demographics. A 2018 study on newsrooms by the American Society of News Editors revealed that less than four percent of surveyed publications even reached 4

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

racial parity with the communities they report on. In 2021, the News Leaders Association surveyed around 5,900 publications across the U.S. on their internal racial statistics. They received fewer than 250 responses. Racial statistics aren’t something publications regularly report, probably because they expose a glaring lack of diversity. But it is essential that the record of the world is told by reporters of all backgrounds. While social media has somewhat democratized the voice involved in public discourse, written journalism remains the most prominent shaper of public narratives. As for the Voice, I will be transparent about our own lack of racial diversity. Sixty-three percent of our masthead and 70 percent of our section editors are white—a mild but deeply insufficient improvement in our demographic history. There has not been an editor-in-chief of color since spring 2016. There are a host of reasons: Past inaccurate and harmful reporting, lackluster support of editors with marginalized identities, and limited representation in coverage contribute to our failings to create a representative newsmagazine. And spending time gaining journalism experience in college has the same opportunity cost as unpaid internships: Students aren’t paid for their serious time commitment, and, if they break into journalism as a career, a steady income is far from guaranteed. Even if a student gets one of those coveted, though economically disastrous, internships, journalism is never a nine-to-five job. Usually, they are tracking down that essential interview after regular hours. Breaking news coverage and production nights consistently run into the witching hours. Work-life imbalance is an occupational hazard, which makes it all the more unreasonable for news outlets not to pay their reporters just because they are students. We need journalists who don’t just care about surface level injustices, but who prioritize empathetic, survivor-centric reporting that uplifts voices and tells contextualized stories, instead of perpetuating harmful assumptions. Pay them.

But because we realize institutional solutions to unpaid internships aren’t going to materialize overnight, the Voice offers an admittedly stopgap solution: the Steve Pisinski Scholarship. Started in 2019 and named after the Voice’s founder, the funds help alleviate inaccessibility by offering students stipends to afford the costs of unpaid journalism internships. In 2019, we offered four students $2,500 stipends, and this year, we are bringing it back. If you are a student who benefits from your financial background, please consider donating to support emerging journalists around you. And if you consider yourself a young journalist, regardless of experience level or what publication you contribute to on campus, consider applying. Despite the significant barriers, don’t be discouraged from journalism—it is an honorable, necessary, and (I promise you) a ridiculously rewarding profession. I can’t (yet) pay our editors, designers, and staffers for the all-nighters they pull, the bylines they accumulate, and the dozens of sources they interview. The Voice shouldn’t be responsible for making journalism internships affordable. But the journalism industry should. G The Steve Pisinski Scholarship Options to donate: 1. Go to Georgetown’s giving site: under “Other Designation,” designate your contribution to the Steve Pisinski Scholarship by putting “CC2392 PG002131 The Voice.” 2. Venmo @annemarie-cuccia, the Voice service chair, who will donate the funds. All proceeds go to the Steve Pisinski Scholarship fund. How to apply: Applications are open to all undergraduate students at Georgetown! The funds are allocated through Georgetown’s Journalism Program, not the Voice. Keep an eye out for applications opening in March.

EDITORIALS

Employers, pay your interns— fair compensation now! BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

nternship application season is upon us, and unpaid internships are everywhere— one recent National Association of Colleges and Employers survey found that 40 percent of college-aged interns were unpaid. That’s not okay. All work should be paid what it’s worth in a salary, not in vague promises of “connections and experiences.” The practice of unpaid internships not only reflects the United States’ unequal employment landscape, but also significantly contributes to it. Simply put, employers should pay all their employees fairly—and that includes interns. Unpaid internships exploit low-income students and students of color. A student’s ability to enter many industries after graduation is too often contingent upon taking an unpaid internship before graduation. But semesters and summers spent working without pay is time that low-income students (who are disproportionately students of color) cannot spend earning money towards tuition or assisting family members. And turning down unpaid internships and the work experiences they provide disadvantages them against those who can afford to work without pay, reinforcing a persistent racial wealth gap between white students and their Black and brown peers. The conditions that unpaid internships must fulfill to be considered legal are vague and underregulated. Officially, an unpaid internship’s work should be comparable to training at an educational institution; interns’ duties should complement, not replace, paid employees’ work. But do common intern tasks like data entry, field work, or writing correspondence complement work that could be done by paid employees or replace it? These rules are subjective, and the law does not hold employers accountable. Students have few options to push back against schemes which devalue their labor. Industries themselves must change—or governments should force them to: Forprofit employers must pay all students their fair share, especially if they are “committed to diversity,” as so many companies claim to be. The government must also change the

documentation policies that prevent international and undocumented students from working most jobs except unpaid ones. No matter their financial condition, existing labor laws leave them unprotected and exploited. Admitting that “pursuing [internships] may present a financial barrier to some Georgetown students,” the university offers the Idol Fellowships, Penner Fund, Kalorama Fellowships, and the Raines Fellowships for off- and on-campus work. But these programs neither serve enough students nor do they always cover the whole cost of working a summer or semester without pay. Under these conditions, it is no surprise that the Voice must fundraise each year for the Steve Pisinski Scholarship, detailed in our Letter from the Editor. We call on Georgetown to provide more work stipends, make housing more accessible, and reform class credits to support unpaid work. Doubling the number of work stipends given to students would have a tremendous impact. Not only would it help level the internship playing field, but it could also improve the post-graduate employment statistics Georgetown values so much. We understand that increasing fellowship funding could present challenges to the university and that Georgetown should first and foremost put more resources toward GU272 and financial aid awards, but meaningfully supporting those efforts also requires advancing equity of opportunity. Because internships are so critical to students’ academic and personal development, Georgetown should offer more affordable student housing programs for its otherwise largely vacant residence halls over the summer. Summer housing in Georgetown dormitories can still be prohibitively expensive at up to $500 per week, summing up to monthly totals nearly matching D.C.’s average rent. Georgetown currently requires students to work an on-campus job to qualify for free university housing, but working a campus

job alongside a full-time unpaid internship can be extremely unhealthy. Opening more dorm space or offering more programs to subsidize or waive housing costs for students with demonstrated need would be game-changing. And establishing more meaningful class credit for internships would give students more long-term financial flexibility. Reaching Georgetown’s 120 credit-hour minimum earlier in one’s college career allows for cost-saving options like part-time attendance or early graduation. But Georgetown’s credit options for internships are severely limited and rarely count towards graduation requirements. A biology student, for example, working unpaid in a lab for research experience should at least get credit for their time—and a quicker route to graduation. Even Georgetown’s mentored research opportunity, GUROP, is unpaid and provides zero credit, despite the minimum of 60 hours participating students must put into the program per semester. At minimum wage, that’s at least $900 foregone, with graduation nowhere closer. Without these improvements, the university will remain complicit in pushing students into harmful unpaid jobs and in exacerbating racial and wealth inequalities. Creating a culture of fair compensation for all labor should not seem radical. Every step Georgetown and D.C. take toward making workplaces more equitable and accessible will benefit those currently denied opportunities. But we should also question whether the internship machine itself is sustainable, especially in an environment where preprofessionalism dictates student priorities. Stop nearly any Georgetown student and ask what they’re stressed about: Jobs and internships—finding them, working them, turning them into careers—will invariably come up. This is not to say internships cannot be meaningful; rather, it’s quite the opposite. But participating in meaningful work should be a process that all students can pursue in healthy and fair ways, should they desire to. And eschewing internship culture in favor of less pre-professional jobs, service opportunities, or even just rest, should be seen as equally valid and valuable. We see a future for labor without exploitation. Ending design by unpaid internships is a step sabrina towards it. G shaffer; layout by alex FEBRUARY 18, 2022 5 giorno

Welcome to Surveillance University, where privacy no longer matters BY SARAH CRAIG

hen Allemai Dagnatchew (SFS ’22) began her final semester of college, the last thing she wanted to worry about was digital privacy. But within the first few days of spring 2022 classes, she found out that one of her professors mandated use of Perusall, a program that allows instructors to see how many students are doing their class readings. Dagnatchew’s distrust of Perusall mirrors a larger sentiment college students have felt toward proctoring software and their utilization during the pandemic. The use of online test proctoring and similar programs skyrocketed over the last two years, with students reporting discomfort towards proctoring programs since the beginning of virtual learning. “[Professors] are excited about these programs, and they don’t think it’s weird at all,” she said. “And that’s what I feel like is odd—that they think this is normal.” Perusall, for example, gives professors access to the amount of time a student spends on a reading and how many of the assigned pages they’ve viewed. Despite students feeling like their privacy is compromised with this access and the return of most students to in-person learning, schools are still utilizing proctoring and similar invasive technologies. The use of virtual learning tools has been subject to the fluctuating pandemic and schools’ virtual status, with the Omicron variant causing many colleges to move online for final exams and the beginning of the spring semester. As COVID-19 continues, students have been increasingly subject to excessive monitoring technologies—whether proctoring exams or scanning files—such as Proctorio, ProctorU, and Perusall. In April 2020, the chief executive of Proctorio predicted the program would increase

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

in value four to five times by the end of the year. He was right. Proctoring companies have reported up to a 500 percent increase in their usage, and between just Proctorio, ProctorU, and ExamSoft alone, over 30 million tests have been proctored during the pandemic. The necessity of these programs has brought the ethics of testing surveillance to the forefront, and in one case resulted in a U.S. Senate inquiry letter sent to Proctorio, ProctorU, and ExamSoft (which was mostly dismissed). Oftentimes, these technologies give remote proctors excessive access to student devices, allowing them surveillance controls that are beyond necessary for proctoring an exam. While the initial increase in classroom technology use may have initially appeared to expand educational equity and access, the continued presence of surveillance technology has given professors the ability to monitor their students. This surveillance access not only invades personal privacy, but also furthers an educational culture based in mistrust and power imbalances. It implies that there is a standardized, ordinary manner of learning, any deviations from which are suspicious. Nick Tracy (COL ’24) cited the number of proctored exams as the deciding factor for dropping a sociology class this spring. Tracy stated that the course’s high amount of proctoring, even during in-person learning, was “the mark of a bad professor in my mind—it’s a big red flag.” Many proctoring software programs give proctors access to student devices beyond the content of the exam, allowing them to view personal data or even take control of the cursor.

When Dagnatchew took her LSAT exam virtually last fall, she noticed that one of the proctors had deleted her computer background, a picture of her and her friends. Although one deleted background was not overly concerning, the proctor’s degree of access was. “There doesn’t seem to be any checks on [proctors] besides behavioral checks,” Dagnatchew said. “Theoretically, if they didn’t care about keeping their job, they could have gone through all my information.” And for Tracy, access concerns include proctors’ lack of working knowledge about the specific software they are using. During an exam at Tracy’s previous college, a proctor gained access to Tracy’s computer and accidentally closed out the proctoring software, preventing him from working on the exam until the program was reopened. “I got the impression that the people who were proctoring weren’t necessarily experienced with what they were doing,” they said about the experience. Instructors everywhere have had to learn new skills with Zoom and other technologies, but while accidentally muting oneself is harmless, total access to student data may have a more drastic impact. Proctoring software in particular poses heightened concerns for students of color, a fact that has been especially true of Proctorio, a popular program that uses facial and movement detection to prevent cheating during online exams. Proctorio has been widely criticized for failing to recognize students with darker skin tones, especially Black students, more than half of the time. Existing facial recognition

design by connor martin and alex giorno

software has been proven to be up to 100 percent more likely to misidentify Black and Asian faces than white ones. In some instances, students of color have had to use excess lighting just to be recognized. And when these humiliating measures remained unsuccessful, students were forced to pursue alternate exam options, an extra barrier white students did not have to face. Of course, facial recognition isn’t the only issue. In reflecting on her experience as a Black student with classroom technology, Dagnatchew brought up how normalized surveillance can quickly become racialized. “I think everything has the potential to be racialized when it comes to technology and surveillance,” she said. “Especially when you add innate assumptions people have about Black and brown people and laziness.” Historically, white educators have stereotyped students of color as lazy, unintelligent, and even violent. These stereotypes are amplified in the context of surveillance technology, in which implicit racist assumptions go unchecked. These assumptions in the academic space become increasingly problematic in the context of software that watches for “suspicious behavior.” Proctorio allows instructors to customize behavior settings, which are used to “help determine a student’s suspicion level.” But of course, what is considered as “suspicious” is totally subjective. Eye twitches and background noise can easily be misconstrued into academic dishonesty by a bad-faith instructor, with serious repercussions. This subjective approach can easily be influenced by racist assumptions, a phenomenon exacerbated by the use of surveillance technology. The use of educational technology for surveillance purposes—intentional or not— also poses problems for first-generation and low-income (FGLI) students. Surveillance concerns add another layer of frustration to the problems that FGLI students already face—issues like the digital divide, in which FGLI students are less likely to have access to necessary technological devices and stable internet connections than their peers. “If you’re going to force proctoring on people, which you shouldn’t be doing in general, you need to make sure that it’s accessible,” Tracy, who is a first-gen, low-income student himself, said. “You have to provide [students] with the means to do the stuff you’re forcing them to do.” When required surveillance options depend on inaccessible technology, the digital divide becomes an even larger barrier to education. Lack of access is not the only concern for FGLI students, though. It is also a matter of personal privacy. The most common example of this is the insistence of many instructors that students keep their cameras on at all times. Tracy, who commutes to campus and often participates in virtual class from their

house, is a “firm believer that having cameras on shouldn’t be a requirement.” Tracy sympathizes with professors, acknowledging that teaching to a screen full of black boxes on Zoom isn’t enjoyable. But given that in 2022, students still attend class from home, the option to leave the camera off is especially important for FGLI students who might not feel comfortable showcasing their surroundings, something that can often be an indicator of class status, even from a dorm room. Michelle Ohnona, assistant director of diversity and inclusion initiatives at the Center for New Designs in Learning & Scholarship (CNDLS), believes that there is value in classes developing community guidelines for technology use and general accessibility. Ohnona draws this belief from her work as an instructor in both the Women’s and Gender Studies and Learning, Design, and Technology programs. She is a proponent of giving students autonomy. “Ultimately, [we can give] both faculty and students some language to be able to say ‘I’m not comfortable being on camera all of the time,’” Ohnona said.“‘But here are some ideas for how I can be contributing to the class environment.’” Such a solution would provide students with the option to avoid intrusive surveillance without interfering with the success of student engagement in class. Allowing for greater student choice also enables technology to improve educational access rather than focus on controlling student users. Ohnona believes that considering alternate teaching and learning methods is a first step in increasing educational access. “The more we develop a palette of options for faculty and students, the more accessible our classrooms are going to be,” Ohnona said. “And the point of technology is to make it work for us. Claiming it and owning it as something that can help us learn better and live better is a good starting point.” As we enter a new era in education, it is more essential than ever that we think critically about the way we introduce technology. One common access issue pertaining to increased technological use is incompatibility between programs. To mitigate chronic headaches caused by hours spent staring at screens, Dagnatchew regularly uses Speechify, a text-to-speech app, to listen to her class readings. But because the app is incompatible with Perusall, which is required for her readings, she has been unable to use it for the class that mandates the program. The unnecessary use of Perusall has disrupted her most effective reading strategy, which she has developed throughout her time in college. While a formal accommodation could address this individual problem, accommodations

aren’t always the solution to inaccessibility. Rather, relying on accommodations to address individual access needs distracts instructors from creating a more accessible class environment for all students. Students like Dagnatchew—who may have conditions that aren’t necessarily accompanied with specific diagnoses or documentation, like chronic headaches—don’t always need an Academic Resource Center accommodation. Sometimes, they simply need empathy and a commitment to access that is independent of formalities. The rise in technological inaccessibility shows that technology by itself won’t make education equitable; rather, it depends on how we choose to utilize it. As we enter a new era in education, it is more essential than ever that we think critically about the way we introduce technology. For Tracy, technology isn’t about trying to replicate the in-person experience. It’s about using new resources to be more creative with the way we teach and learn. “We need to think about new ways of teaching and integrating technology into [the] curriculum in a way that isn’t just trying to mimic what we did in the past,” Tracy said. “You have to deal with these surveillance and privacy issues that make students very uncomfortable.” The attempt to mimic in-person learning online not only creates additional issues of surveillance and privacy, but can prevent academics from striving for pedagogical innovation. Before trying to adapt a traditional exam to an online environment, professors must ask themselves: Is a proctored exam the best method of evaluating students’ learning? Are there more engaging and equitable methods that we could pursue? Dagnatchew encourages professors to consider how their use of technology will impact all students. “How will it affect people who don’t have $100 to spend on textbooks?” she asked. “How will it affect people who have different accessibility needs? How will it affect students who have different racial backgrounds?” Educators must rethink how trust is built between students and instructors, and examine where the desire to surveil students comes from. As we continue to integrate technology into the classroom, it should be done ethically. G

FEBRUARY 18, 2022

SPORTS

In 2022, men’s lacrosse has a new shot at NCAA glory BY THOMAS FISCHBECK

ith five minutes to go in last year’s Elite Eight game, now-junior lacrosse attacker Dylan Watson whipped a goal past the opposing Virginia keeper. Even still, Watson’s head hung low. His teammates jogged over to offer halfhearted pats on the back, barely looking up from the upstate New York turf as they did. The Hoyas were still down 11, with far too little time to stage a comeback. By the time the clock hit triple zeroes, the outpouring of emotion consistently portrayed in NCAA Tournament losses hardly showed. Georgetown had known their season was over for the last half hour. Disappointment and frustration quickly turned to resolve. The Hoyas set their hearts on returning to the biggest stage in lacrosse during the 2022 season, vowing for a different result. “If we’re fortunate enough to be in postseason play again this year, that will definitely be at the forefront of our minds knowing how badly we lost that game,” senior Declan McDermott, who was selected for the Big East All-Tournament Team last year, said. “We’re kind of just going game by game and week by week right now, but that’s definitely in the back of our heads right now. We won’t forget that game for sure.” With the entirety of what was the best defense in the country last season returning, things are looking good for the Hoyas again. The Blue and Gray opened their 2022 campaign with a 16-8 thrashing of No. 19 Johns Hopkins at home on Feb. 13. “We had no fans in the stands last year,

10 8

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

so it’s awesome to have them back in,” Zach Geddes, an AllAmerican Honorable Mention last season, said. “This past weekend against Hopkins, there was a great crowd there and it was just awesome to have that energy.” The Hoyas’ schedule this year is assembled with five non-conference games against teams ranked in the preseason top 20, something McDermott thinks will benefit the team come Big East and post-season play. “It’s nice to know that we can get some big games under our belt and hopefully get the jitters out for the postseason,” McDermott said. With the pieces head coach Kevin Warne has prepared, a return trip to the Elite Eight or further feels likely, a feat that would have been unheard of five years ago. After 11 straight NCAA tournament appearances between 1997 and 2007, the Georgetown Hoyas men’s lacrosse team underwent a decade-long tournament drought. Following years without a return to lacrosse’s biggest stage, Hoya fans started to ask if the fastest growing sport in America had left the Jesuit institution behind. After a fifth straight missed NCAA Tournament, Lacrosse Hall of Fame coach Dave Urick (223-99 career) retired in 2012. Urick is a Georgetown legend. Prior to his 1989 arrival, the Hoyas had never seen a winning season in

Division I lacrosse; in his 23 years, they had 21. His eventual stepping down felt like a death blow for an already declining program. Much of the program’s success rode on who would replace its former icon. Later in 2012, the Hoyas hired Warne, then Maryland Defensive Coordinator, in a widely praised move. Warne, however, hardly hit the ground running. In his first five years of leadership, the Hoyas lost more games than they won four times, twice as many losing seasons as they had in Urick’s tenure. The administration, to their credit, stuck with Warne and pumped money into the program in hopes of salvaging the magic that made Georgetown lacrosse a power in the past.

It seemed to work. In 2018, the Hoyas upset then-No. 3 Denver in the Big East Championship Game, securing their first NCAA Tournament berth in over a decade. In 2019, they repeated as Big East champs, and in 2020, the Blue and Gray started 6-0 and stood ranked in the top ten nationally before COVID-19 caused the season's cancellation. Despite their progress, though, the team had yet to win a game in the NCAA Tournament. That is, until last year. The Hoyas opened the 2021 season determined to make up for lost time after the pandemic cut their previous campaign short. The season began with a 16-1 lashing at No. 16 Villanova, and Georgetown never looked back. The defense that made Warne such a name at Maryland finally came together. The Hoyas went 13-3, led by nowgraduate goalie Owen McElroy (.584 SV%, 8.38 GA/Avg), who won the Ensign C. Markland Kelly Jr. Award for the most outstanding keeper in the country. Led by their defense, the Hoyas won a third straight Big East tournament, accomplishing the feat for the first time in the history of the conference. Georgetown would go on to dominate rival Syracuse 18-8 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament before losing to eventual national champions Virginia in the Elite Eight. Lacrosse, for those that have never watched, is often described as a sport that vaguely resembles the love child of soccer, basketball, and hockey. Indigenous people from the Algonquian tribe first created the sport hundreds of years ago, playing a version with as many as 1,000 players a side and fields stretching up to 15 miles

long. Modern “lax,” as it is colloquially called, was born roughly 150 years ago and is now played with ten players per team on a playing space slightly larger than that of a football field. In the 2021 Men’s Lacrosse Tournament, the winning team averaged 14 goals per game. One team, our Hoyas, managed to hit 18 goals in the aforementioned Syracuse game, although the rivalry’s bad blood may be related. Despite last year’s strong results, the rebirth of Georgetown lacrosse is still beginning, according to Warne and his players. “I think our goal the last few years has been to bring Georgetown lacrosse back to the forefront of the game and for us to be a national contender every year,” senior midfielder Zach Geddes said. “I’m not sure we are quite there yet, but we are starting to turn some heads.” Attacker Jake Carraway, the most prolific scorer in program history, graduated after last season, but five of the other six Hoyas who scored 20 points in 2021 return. Consistency was a big problem with the offense in 2021: The Hoyas followed up the tournament-high 18 goal performance in the Syracuse game by scoring just three in the second round, the lowest number of goals scored in a game during the tournament. This year, the offense projects to be much more evenly distributed, rather than run primarily through Carraway. “I think to replace him we are going to need a bunch of guys to step up a little bit,” Geddes added. The Hoyas have the depth to survive a loss that big, and the more widely spread composition of goalscorers will help with that inconsistency. The name to know on offense is sophomore attacker TJ Haley, one of the best distributors in collegiate lacrosse. Haley led the team with 49 assists last season in a performance that

photos courtesy of john picker; design by connor martin

earned him Big East Freshman of the Year. AllAmerican junior midfielder Graham Bundy Jr. (36 goals, 12 assists) is the top returning scorer, but Watson, who racked up 20 goals in 2021 despite missing half the season, may challenge him for that title this year. That being said, the star unit of this Georgetown team is certainly the defense. “It’s just a very nice luxury to have as a team,” McDermott said. “Just knowing that we have a couple of guys who play on our defensive side that are first-team All-Americans—contenders for some serious postseason accolades—it’s a great luxury to have.” Warne is known as the defensive mastermind in college lacrosse, and Georgetown earned five of the six defensive spots on the preseason allBig East team. “[Warne] just does such a great job coaching everything from big things like defensive schemes to the little things like your footwork,” Geddes said. The improvement in the Hoyas’ defense over the past few seasons has been impossible to ignore. Gone are the days of allowing 19 goals to Yale— the Hoyas haven’t allowed more than 14 goals in a game in two years. The one team that did score 14 on them? The Virginia team which went on to win the National Championship. McElroy returns for his graduate year, and bolstering his backline will be returning graduate defenseman Gibson “Gibby” Smith IV and incoming graduate defenseman Will Bowen. Bowen transfers in from North Carolina after receiving All-American honors with the top-seeded Tar Heels last season. In the midfield, seniors Alex Mazzone and Geddes return from what was the nation’s best scoring defense, which allowed just eight goals per game in 2021. Coming into the 2022 season, expectations are higher than they ever have been for Georgetown lacrosse. Coaches named Georgetown the unanimous preseason Big East favorites, and the Hoyas came into the season as the nation’s fourthranked team. For the first time in over 20 years, a return trip to the Final Four is finally possible. Although the team was unable to play with fans, they strengthened their relationships with one another. “The one kind of nice thing that came out of last year is that we were all in the same dorm together, so we got to spend a ton of time together which was awesome,” Geddes said. “We’re trying to keep that up as much as we can this year, but it was super convenient to be all in the same dorm.” Living and playing together solidified the team’s bond on and off the field. “I think it’s really the fact that a lot of us have now played a few years together and developed some great chemistry,” Geddes added. For seniors like Geddes, Mazzone, Smith, and McElroy, this will mark their fourth year playing together, and adding an All-American piece like Bowen can only help things going into this season. “I think our expectations are to try and improve from last year, but in the end, we have to take it one day at a time and try and improve practice by practice, game by game, and hopefully we get to play some extra games after the regular season.” G FEBRUARY 18, 2022

NEWS

fter experiencing racial discrimination at Martin’s Tavern in 2021, Kristi Riggs wanted to avoid litigation. But nearly a year later, after minimal communication from the famous Wisconsin Ave. eatery, both parties entered into a mediation process in the last week of January after Riggs turned to legal routes to ensure justice is served. Last February, a server and manager abruptly asked Riggs, a Black woman, to stop eating and leave. COVID–19 had forced the business to create an hour-and-a-half dining time limit, but when Riggs was asked to leave, she had not yet exceeded the limit. Nearby white restaurant-goers, however, were not prompted. One of them later noted the discrepancy in their treatment and said their party had stayed much longer. When Riggs walked by nearly two hours later, the party who took her spot was still seated. To Riggs, it feels like the incident happened yesterday. “I’m still dealing with this, trying to get satisfaction for me, from something that was very traumatic,” she said. On Feb. 26, shortly after her experience at Martin’s, Riggs wrote about her experience on Facebook, where her post was shared hundreds of times. As local publications picked up the story and community backlash grew, William Martin, the owner of Martin’s Tavern, met with Riggs and her lawyer to work out an agreement. According to Riggs, William Martin made six promises, including making an annual donation of $2,500 to the United Negro College Fund and partnering with Howard University to create a business management training program. He also committed to firing the two workers involved in the incident, undergoing staff-wide sensitivity training, contracting from three Black-owned businesses, and enlisting the support of other Georgetown businesses in the endeavor. After their meeting, William Martin took to Facebook to apologize and mentioned proposed solutions but did not discuss details. William Martin’s attorney, Thomas Martin (unrelated to the owner) denied that an agreement on any solution was made. 10

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

“The parties were unable to come together on the terms and wording of the joint statement Ms. Riggs requested,” Thomas Martin said in a statement to Washington City Paper. While Martin’s Tavern has complied with some of Riggs’ proposed solutions—including firing the waitress and manager involved in the incident and conducting staff-wide inclusion training, although not through an organization of Riggs’ choosing— Riggs is not satisfied with the progress. “For the sake of myself and all of us, I cannot let this go. Change only happens when we hang in there and make it happen,” Riggs said. With practically four of the six outlined solutions still unmet, Riggs wrote an email to William Martin in March 2021 to check in on updates but never heard back. “I still have not heard a word from him since our initial meeting,” Riggs said. In early April 2021, Riggs filed an official complaint of racial discrimination against Martin’s Tavern with the Office of Human Rights (OHR). Now having begun mediation this January, the two will try to reach a mutual solution. If Riggs and Martin cannot agree to a solution, the OHR will investigate to determine if any violations of Riggs’ civil rights occurred. “I’m hopeful that we can resolve it because I'm ready to move on with my life, but at the same time, I'm never going to let this go, because what happened to me should never happen to anyone,” Riggs said. While a full investigation takes six months or more, if Martin’s Tavern is found to have violated Riggs’ rights, the OHR will provide the restaurant with a Letter of Determination noting that probable cause has been found. The parties would then undergo conciliation to resolve the dispute, and if that fails, a formal hearing. Legal adjudication may also act as a wider indicator that racist, preferential treatment has consequences, as it would permanently mark the restaurant’s record, according to Riggs. The restaurant could not be reached for comment regarding agreement to the demands or the OHR mediation. “I’d like to be optimistic, but at this point, I can’t call it,” Riggs said of the mediations. “Georgetown

has a bad reputation for being discriminatory. Black people are the biggest consumer. They depend on us, our money, but they don’t want our respect.” Georgetown used to be majority Black, but beginning in the 1900s and continuing to today, has faced widespread gentrification, leaving the area only 13 percent Black in 2021. In a now predominantly white neighborhood in the middle of the fondly dubbed “Chocolate City,” Riggs’ mistreatment is just the latest in a history of racial discrimination from Georgetown businesses against Black clients. Following increased coverage of her story and inaccurate, biased reporting from right-wing publications like the Federalist, Riggs began to receive hate mail. “To have all these random strangers, these hateful, racist people reach out to me was very frightening,” Riggs said. Despite backlash, others have joined Riggs’ push for justice. The Philodemic Society, Georgetown’s oldest secular student organization, terminated its ties with the restaurant, ending the long-time tradition of eating at Martin’s Tavern after weekly debates. “We decided to use what little power we had,” said Isabel Janovsky (COL ’23), who served as the membership secretary when organization leaders Aida Ross (SFS ’22) and Nile Blass (COL ’22) decided to sever ties. “A lot of people viewed [visiting Martin’s] as an integral tradition, but you can create other traditions without necessarily compromising your values.” Support also came from outside the Georgetown community. Rev. Jesse L. Jackson—civil rights activist, former D.C. shadow senator, and founder of the Rainbow PUSH coalition—joined Riggs’ demand for accountability in a letter penned to Martin on Jan. 17. “Ms. Riggs had the option to pursue a legal remedy, but rather chose a mutually satisfactory civic and morally sound solution,” Jackson wrote. “Fully implementing this plan can have a huge impact on the broader business community.” Riggs has posted on Facebook asking for others to follow the Reverend’s suit and send letters to Martin. “I am not letting him off the hook. I will not just move on. I intend on pursuing this to the end,” Riggs wrote. G

photo courtesy of annemarie cuccia; design by graham krewinghaus

VOICES

How I navigate achievement anxiety, and how you can too BY ANDREA HO

othing is enough if it is less than what I know I am capable of. Or so I have felt in my battle with achievement anxiety, which has gone on for years. High school was a sequence of pushing myself to attain perfect scores, juggling various extracurriculars, and winning awards— an impulse that has persisted in college. Before college, I never saw a problem with using achievement to measure my self-worth— often I was rewarded for it. Until recently, I had never drastically fallen short of my own standards. Even throughout the challenges of my pandemic-hampered freshman year— taking online classes from my childhood bedroom 12 hours ahead of Eastern Time— my achievement anxiety persevered, as did my refusal to confront it. I abused the Pass/ Fail grading option to maintain a 4.0 GPA; I assured myself that taking virtual classes from a different time zone wasn’t a part of my “real” college experience—all to soothe my paranoia that I wasn’t on my A-game. But this past fall semester was unlike anything I had expected. While living on campus and interacting with peers and professors was incredibly refreshing after a year and a half in isolation, I couldn’t help but feel perpetually overstimulated and overwhelmed—feelings that were only compounded by my anxiety. As my panic attacks became increasingly severe, I avoided leaving the familiar solitude of my dorm altogether, where I was so exhausted I slept all the time. My declining mental health took its toll on my academic performance. I skipped classes, fell behind on readings, missed deadlines, pleaded for extensions, and pulled all-nighters, only to turn in lackluster assignments that I just wasn’t proud of. I staved off extracurriculars and internships to invest whatever little emotional bandwidth I had into my classes, but felt paradoxically as though I was never getting any work done, even though work was all I ever did. I watched my GPA slip frantically. I couldn’t just buckle down and push myself harder since I was already trying my best. This achievement anxiety was exacerbated by my perception of my peers who seemed to

design by dane tedder

so easily balance classes, extracurriculars, and internships. In my mind, if I could have a high GPA, I would have something quantifiable— some sort of consolation that my semester hadn’t been a complete waste. My obsession with achievement was less about being the best version of myself and more about finding external markers of success to conceal the deep-seated insecurity that I wasn’t thriving in comparison to my peers, not to mention my expectations of myself. Although the university doesn’t explicitly advertise this mindset, the culture at Georgetown prizes measurable achievement like grades and resume-building. Achievement isn’t an end in itself, but Georgetown’s preprofessional atmosphere fosters so much pressure to pursue each opportunity as a means to another in a ruthless game of competitive ladder-climbing. Students have to constantly market themselves to gain acceptance into exclusive clubs, fellowships, internships, and—ultimately—their desired jobs. And for students who are genuinely trying to prioritize their wellbeing, they experience an intense cognitive dissonance between Georgetown’s supposed commitment to cura personalis and this relentless subliminal messaging that they aren’t enough and have to continuously prove they are worthy to be here. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t have high expectations of ourselves—just that we shouldn’t internalize a singular definition of success and attach it to our worth. College is already hard, and it is often made all but impossible by the unrealistic expectations we set for ourselves. We shouldn’t have to have a perfect GPA, a host of extracurriculars, or a sparkling LinkedIn profile to feel secure in our worth. We have to recognize that giving our best is more than enough. Effort ought to be emphasized over outcome—while the latter can’t always be controlled, the former definitely can. And we can be proud of that

effort, regardless of what external metric of achievement it generates. Although achievement anxiety breeds the feeling that we aren’t doing enough, we are often doing more than we think. Just settling into college is doing something, in and of itself. My problem was never that I wasn’t doing enough; I was moving away from home, running errands, and building and maintaining relationships. I was seeking help where I needed it and proactively caring for myself. I was doing a lot of emotional work that my achievement on paper could never take into account—all of us are. And that emotional work is real work, too, even if it can’t be reflected on a four-point scale or flaunted on a resume. Furthermore, it is important to affirm that we are still enduring a pandemic. And for some of us, the attempted return to a pre-pandemic normal has felt anything but. The pandemic has left scars on everyone, whether we’ve lost loved ones, struggled with finances, grappled with isolation, or rushed to make up for lost time. We are doing a lot simply by being here and allowing ourselves time and space to process our feelings and to grieve our losses. Perhaps the first step to addressing achievement anxiety is to show ourselves some radical compassion. This means meeting ourselves where we are at, even if it isn’t where we want to be. Affixing our worth to achievement is no way to live—our love for ourselves shouldn’t be conditional on societal views of what makes us valuable. Being a high achiever doesn’t make us worth more. Rather, our worth is inherent. We are enough, and our existence is enough. I erroneously let myself believe that I have nothing to show except my achievement, but the truth is that no matter what, I have my existence to show. I am here at Georgetown, after all. We all are, and that is enough. G FEBRUARY 18, 2022

VOICES

A letter to my hometown: Racial justice in Minneapolis still has a long way to go BY SARINA DEV

Content warning: This article includes heavy mention of racism, racist violence, and police brutality. ucked in the outskirts of Minneapolis, Namaste Cafe has been my friend group’s favorite restaurant since high school. After we all left for college, the intimate “Nam” transformed from our regular study space to the site of our reunions. But when I returned home this past December, my friend group opted for takeout instead. It wasn’t because we were suddenly too lazy to make the twenty-minute commute or afraid to brave the Minnesota cold. Rather, the steady increase in violent crime and carjackings in central Minneapolis had spread out from the city center to a point where we didn’t feel comfortable eating dinner on Hennepin Ave. anymore. Nakedly, the statistics show crime in Minneapolis has reached its highest point in twenty years. Murders in Minneapolis increased by 57 percent in 2020, arson rose by 53 percent, and auto theft increased by 20 percent. In 2021, the state reported 96 homicides and 2,182 robberies, 619 of which were carjackings. In researching what caused the crime surge, I repeatedly encountered a narrative throughout local media, casual conversations, and academic discourse attributing the crime increase to racial justice protests that reignited in response to George Floyd’s murder by police in May 2020. This narrative is neither accurate nor comprehensive given that it ignores the effects of the pandemic’s economic consequences, school closures, and gun sales on crime rates. Without clearer messaging, context, and perspective, we become susceptible to false and racist narratives produced by media outlets, politicians, and even our own neighbors. In 2021, a number of media outlets cited University of Utah Law professor Paul Cassell’s study, “The Minneapolis Effect,” which links the increase in violent crime to the reduction of proactive policing due to the redeployment of officers to protest sites. Naming a nationwide rise in crime after the city George Floyd was murdered in casts Black Lives Matter as a movement that culminated in more violence, rather than one that exposed the systemic racism and criminal justice inequities that exist in our country. This assertion makes it far too easy to forget, to undervalue, and to entirely disregard Derek Chauvin's murder and the 15 to 26 million people who participated in

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

demonstrations in over 2,000 locations over the summer of 2020 in response. This uncritical attribution of the nationwide increase in crime to the protests of that summer, without regard for other potential contributing factors, is a disservice to the Black Lives Matter movement and racial justice efforts more generally. It would be remiss of me to not acknowledge that the timing does line up with homicides, assaults, and gun violence increasing in summer 2020, right when nationwide protests began. But causative claims tying the demands of Black Lives Matter to the increase of crime fail in the face of reality: Police were not defunded in Minneapolis, and cities that increased their police budgets, such as Tucson and Toledo, also saw a rise in homicide rates. The uncanny parallels between the ways we associate violence and race in 2020 (despite 93 percent of 2020 protests being peaceful, 42 percent of respondents polled believed they were unequivocally violent) and the way violence is being discussed in 2022 has forced me to consider what change has actually occurred since the nationwide protests now two full years ago. In the wake of the recent murder of Amir Locke by the Minneapolis Police Department and the repeated failure of both local and federal governments to pass meaningful reforms to policing, it is evident that the nationwide calls to action have, again, fallen on unlistening ears. While I cannot claim to have the solution to prevent racist associations from permeating national psyche, I believe that anti-racist teaching and individual accountability are needed to strengthen our proclivity to question the information that is presented to us and the facts that are omitted. In 2020, after learning of the murder of George Floyd, I was horrified that such a callous crime could be committed in a state I spent my childhood believing was the best place to grow up. I went to high school ten minutes away from where George Floyd was murdered. Yet not once in my entire

academic career did we acknowledge the extreme segregation that exists in Minnesota. My private high school was predominantly white, predominantly uppermiddle and upper class, and most everybody lived west of Hennepin Avenue (yes, home to Namaste Cafe). I had never given much thought to this somewhat invisible geographic barrier before I went to college, and even then, attending a predominantly white university didn’t seem all that surprising to me when I was one of 32 people of color in a high school class of 134, with only six students being Black. It wasn’t until a friend explained how Georgetown was a culture shock because of the homogeneity on campus that I really started reflecting on the diversity—more accurately, the lack thereof—of my upbringing. Before 2020, the Minneapolis I grew up in, and the one most residents would have attested to, pretty much went unnoticed in the national conversation: It’s cold and there are a lot of lakes. We pride ourselves on being friendly and welcoming. Minneapolis turns blue every time an election rolls around; thousands of immigrants from Mexico, Somalia, India, and Laos have moved to the state in the past thirty years. Places like Eat Street in Minneapolis highlight diverse cuisines from around the world, and the Minnesota Keystone Program coordinates huge amounts of philanthropic work yearround. But this glossy picture of multicultural liberalism has acted as a veneer, hiding the truth of our racist history. Minnesota’s legacy of racial segregation can be traced back to racial covenants in 1910 that barred people of color from owning property in certain neighborhoods. This practice, coupled with redlining—the government’s assignment of minorityoccupied neighborhoods with a lower property value—effectively isolated Black

illustration by ryan samway

communities from the level of infrastructural and educational investment experienced by their white counterparts, entrenching racial segregation in Minnesota. Over a century later, only 23 percent of Black residents are homeowners compared to 75 percent of white residents, contributing to some of the worst wealth gaps in the nation. This segregation means many white residents do not even recognize their own privileges and advantages because they are physically distanced from seeing the inequities that do exist. Being a person of color living in a western outskirt of Minneapolis put me in the unique position of both benefiting from and being on the receiving end of the blatant privilege and bias that dominates the suburbs. The racism here often isn’t direct; there are no vicious confrontations. Instead, the microaggressions are subtle and the segregation is so deep-rooted that people don’t notice it—or don’t talk about it. A carpool mom asking me where I’m really from, despite me living in one city my entire life. The same photo of me appearing four times in one school brochure. Being the only one of my friends with brown eyes. The irony of Minneapolis and its neighboring cities is that no one intentionally targets others— the stereotype of “Minnesota nice” is a fairly accurate one—but the supposed homogeneity of the western suburbs allows individuals to get away with harmful misinformation and subtle microaggressions that only perpetuate our ignorance as a population. Since no one takes— or took—the time to acknowledge inherent biases and surroundings, or educate students about the disparities of Minneapolis and the structural causes behind them, few realize that these events are problematic or even prevalent. When the suburbs surrounding Minneapolis went into curfew because of

the “violent riots” that followed George Floyd’s murder, I spent the night at a friend’s house twenty-five minutes outside of the city. From the news coverage we got in

her house on Lake Minnetonka, we would have never known that there were massive peaceful protests happening throughout the county. The nightly programs showed only seconds of peaceful marches between minutes of violence, leading the general population to believe that our city, the one we prided as being liberal and welcoming and tolerant, was being burned to the ground by violent “radicals.” There was no mention of the thousands of dollars or thousands of volunteers contributing to community efforts of rebuilding and providing essential resources to those in need. There was also no mention of the heavy-handed police tactics— tear gas, smoke bombs, and “nonlethal” projectiles—that provoked protesters. As a community, not only are we willfully ignorant of the racial inequities that impact daily lives, but even when blatant acts of racism happen in our own neighborhoods, we are presented with a media perspective that claims protests against systemic racism are causing more harm than good. This narrative gives us no wiggle-room to look past the mess and focus on the real issue. While we did read works by Black authors such as Their Eyes Were Watching God, Beloved, and “Going to Meet the Man,” looking back, it’s astounding to me that we never once acknowledged the extreme inequalities that were right in

layout by graham krewinghaus

front of us, in the modern day, both in the city and in the school itself. The way we learned about race implied that racism began and ended with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Without internalizing the history of racist violence and police brutality before, during, and after the Civil Rights Movement—from Bloody Sunday in Selma, to the Los Angeles riots of 1992, to the actions of the Minneapolis Police Department itself—there is no way to contextualize the world around us. We occasionally learned about race, talked about race, and interacted with racialized content from various perspectives, but it seemed like we always addressed it in the past tense. Rather than being anti-racist, we remained willfully ignorant to the discrimination right in front of us. My teachers, my peers, and I all collectively decided, whether consciously or not, that race was not a current event or a lived experience, but an artifact. Race was just a discussion topic that we could close like a textbook at the end of class. Post-2020, privileged Minnesotans are still far away from being able to call themselves allies given how easily people have—and continue to—turn away from inequities that exist around us. The more we shy away from uncomfortable discussions, the less empathetic we become. Class lessons and conversations can no longer only address one narrow view of history. Our conversations need to happen in an active voice: Educate students about race and privilege, how it lends power and opportunity, and, in the case of my high school, how it gives them their education and power to make substantial differences to their society. Minnesota is a microcosm of the way systemic racism prevails in our country at large. Racism can exist in a blue county, survive in an environment of a kind, openhearted people, and persist in one of the top-ranking states for volunteerism and civic engagement. It can escape the attention of white Minnesotans for generations because so few are educated on why our communities look the way they do. George Floyd’s death should not have been the reason many Minnesotans finally started talking about race. Now, in 2022, it’s clear that mere exposure to inequities around us has clearly failed to make a dent in how we place blame. We must acknowledge that just because we say we’re trying to do better—to educate ourselves, hold ourselves accountable, and advocate for meaningful change—doesn’t mean that institutional and systemic racism disappears. Racism still exists in politics, in policing systems, in the media, and in academic spaces. And without dedicating time to question the information we are presented with, and converting it into real action, we are no better than an audience who refuses to listen. G FEBRUARY 18, 2022

Outside the Georgetown bubble: Recent grads adjust to life in D.C.

By Nora Scully

fter graduation, Onrei Josh Ladao (COL ’21) was working three jobs—tending a bookstore, bartending, and waiting tables. Burnt out by the workload, he was struggling with the transition to post-graduation life. Then a Georgetown alum offered a helping hand. “I found my contract position through a [Georgetown Scholars Program] alumnus, and the staff members of GSP were extremely supportive and insightful when I was preparing to apply for the full-time position,” Ladao, who now works at GSP, wrote in an email to the Voice. “I was stressed about making ends meet and not knowing my direction in life, but having them to rely and fall back on helped ease a lot of the burden I felt.” After their four years at Georgetown, the university’s 15,000 strong undergraduate and graduate populations continue interacting with one another and their alma mater. Not only do alumni play a formative part in other graduates’ lives, but they also serve essential roles in the District. Georgetown students regularly choose to stay in and around Washington, D.C. after 14

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

earning their bachelor’s degree. This isn’t unique to Georgetown alumni—at colleges in the west and northeast, nearly 75 percent of students stay on their respective coast after graduation. For Hoyas, nearly 44 percent of those in the class of 2020 who stayed in the United States settled in D.C. to work in fields like management consulting, investment banking, and health care. For graduates like Claire Hazbun (SFS ’20), living in D.C. was certainly the plan. Or at least it was before COVID-19 forced her to adjust. “I wanted to take the plunge back to D.C.,” Hazbun said. “I really wasn’t considering moving anywhere else.” She had long known that she wanted to work at an international non-governmental organization. But when she found a suitable position at the International Republican Institute, the transition to full-time employee looked different in the full-fledged 2020 pandemic: Her final undergraduate class, graduation, and first day of work all occurred over Zoom. As vaccine rollouts accelerated around the country, however, Hazbun was finally

able to join the community of graduates who live and work in Washington over a year later. Though some, like Hazbun, did successfully return to D.C., many other alumni were not as fortunate. Even as vaccination rates grow, financial constraints and missed employment opportunities have still prevented many former students from returning back to their city. “Half of the people I know have reasons to be in D.C. and are interested in being here, but aren’t because of the pandemic. It sent them home, and they haven’t had reason or resource to come back,” Julian Lark (SFS ’20, SSP ’22), who lives in West Georgetown, said. The curveball thrown by COVID-19 flew in the face of the expectations many undergraduates acquire from Georgetown’s often intense, pre-professional environment. Looking back on his last two years at Georgetown, Dylan Jernigan (COL ’21) remembers the pressure to line up a prestigious job post-grad. “It is a culture of actively talking about what you’re doing after college,” he said. “With the strong internship culture, a lot of people end up working full

design by insha momin

fe .

time at whatever summer internship they did the previous semester.” As students’ career plans adapted, however, this expectation also began to shift. “It was a lot more normalized to not immediately have a plan June 1, or come the day after graduation,” Patrick Walsh (SFS ’20) said. “Part of that is necessity— that COVID has made job hunting very difficult for some industries—and part of it is how we’re able to see where our friends go and where they do their thing.” Supposedly, the Cawley Career Center can offer guidance in matching students to career paths, helping with salary negotiations, and reading resumes, all of which should make the job hunt easier. Yet, it’s at times not helpful to students, especially those in more niche fields, according to Hazbun. “I wouldn’t say there was that much support that I would find useful,” she said. As students settle on a chosen career, many land in the political realm. Even amid a pandemic, the draw for policy and international relations students to stay in the nation’s capital is often too hard to resist, and many graduates end up residing mere miles from the Hilltop. “Washington is going to be the place where my interests, my passions, and my values are easiest to access in other people,” Lark, who currently hopes to pursue a career in cybersecurity, said. For some Hoyas, working on Capitol Hill is the ultimate dream job. In the 2020 elections, Georgetown sent 26 incumbents and one newcomer to be inducted into the 117th Congress. Other graduates choose to work more locally. One alum, Brooke Pinto (J.D. ’17), now serves as the councilmember for Ward 2 (the ward where Georgetown is located). Although Pinto was born in Connecticut, she stayed in the District to represent residents after graduating from Georgetown University Law Center. “I know from personal experience as a Georgetown Law student, the universities’ [sic] commitment to serving the local community,” Pinto wrote in an email to the Voice. “I am proud that Georgetown’s world-renowned impact is felt right here at home.” While Hoyas may wish to stay in Washington, D.C. after graduation, the cost of living often presents a barrier. The average monthly rent for a D.C. apartment is $2,238, and housing prices here are nearly 53 percent higher than the national average. After three years of guaranteed university housing, the transition to independent living can be excessively unaffordable and inaccessible. “I know a lot of people who are meaning to come back to D.C. at some point, or could feasibly pursue their careers here, but in terms of where they actually physically live, a lot of them are back home or, frankly, in cheaper parts of the country,” Lark said. For those who have made the decision to try to stay in the city, there are few official university resources to help students navigate the high cost of living. Some alumni feel that they are left in

the dark when it comes to housing. Jernigan’s apartment is currently flooding, maintenance problems are building up, and the costs of rent and parking are soaring. Although he’d prefer to live alone, the financial burden of life in D.C. is forcing him to consider rooming with a fellow Georgetown alum to reduce the cost of rent. “It would help if Georgetown would have had resources or if I would have known about them, but to be honest, what it all comes down to is cost,” Jernigan said. “Even if they did have resources, how many affordable apartments would have been there?” Jernigan was not alone in his sentiments. “It’s hard to find places that are affordable,” Walsh said. He depended largely on Facebook groups and word-of-mouth from fellow Georgetown alumni to find his apartment in Dupont Circle. These housing pressures have radiating effects on the larger D.C. community too. As much as some students struggle to financially stabilize after graduation, high-income Georgetown alumni may play a role in the destabilization of others. The top two employers for the class of 2020 were Deloitte and EY Global—both companies where the average salary is over $80,000. Combined with the fact that nearly 75 percent of Georgetown students come from the top 20 percent of families by household income, Georgetown alumni risk becoming gentrifiers by purchasing lower-cost housing, consequently increasing the cost of living and displacing low-income community members (which disproportionately impacts Black and brown people). By settling in the District, high-earning students can put pressure on Washington’s already limited housing supply, thereby exacerbating the city’s high homelessness rate. More than 1,500 people experience homelessness in the District, nearly 84 percent of whom are Black—a crisis incoming nonnative Washingtonians perpetuate. Many experts believe official statistics underrepresent the city’s total unhoused population. As students—who trend towards white affluence—disseminate throughout D.C. after graduation, they induce demographic change in the city they live in and the neighborhoods they choose to settle. For decades, white residents have played a role in the District’s changing demographics. In 1957, Washington, D.C., became the nation’s first major majority-Black city, dubbed the “Chocolate City.” At the same time, Georgetown grew whiter—the Black community in Georgetown fell to around 9 percent of the total population from 30 percent in 1930. Gentrification hastened the Black community’s displacement, and Georgetown played a key role in this second “Great Inversion”—the migration of affluent, often white people away from urban centers like D.C. As some university graduates settle into D.C.’s “up-and-coming” or “vibrant” neighborhoods—euphemisms that hide

the racism inherent in the gentrification of neighborhoods like Navy Yard or Adams Morgan—they displace and disrupt communities across the District. At the same time, living in D.C. asks alumni to be more engaged in the larger city and its issues. “During my time at Georgetown, I didn’t experience D.C., but living near a Metro stop, I’ve experienced this whole new part of D.C. that was not easily accessible to me at Georgetown,” Walsh said of his Dupont apartment. Indeed, with no Metro stop and GUTS buses operating only on weekdays, Georgetown’s physical infrastructure makes it easy for students to feel confined to the surrounding Georgetown neighborhood, especially for the majority of students without personal vehicles. “For better or for worse, Georgetown is definitely a bubble,” Sarah Jiang (COL ’21), who is currently taking a gap year in D.C. before graduate school, said. Jiang, who lives in Logan Circle, noted that the accessibility to other neighborhoods completely changed her perspective of the District. “It almost felt like it was a different city,” she said. For graduates living locally, the new perspective on the District isn’t the only thing that takes adjusting. In college, bonds with other students are facilitated by having a centralized community at hand, which provides proximity, shared experiences, and converging interests. After college, according to Walsh, it can take much greater effort to maintain or or build bonds, even for those who stay in the District and remain in apparent proximity to fellow Hoyas. “Adjusting to adult life was rough—work every day, I need to feed myself, pay bills and bills and bills,” Jernigan said. “I felt like I really didn’t have a social life at all.” The pandemic limited the available avenues to make new connections, too. In 2020, bars, clubs, restaurants, and other activities where college graduates may meet new friends closed, and as locations return to normal amid vaccine and mask mandates, the challenges still have not evaporated. “It’s an ever-constant process of figuring out how social dynamics work outside of Georgetown,” Walsh said. “You have to think more intentionally about how to cultivate relationships once those common bonds are no longer there.” Despite the challenges of adjusting to postgraduate life, the plunge can be exciting and rewarding, according to Walsh. Each person’s desires and priorities will be different after they graduate, all of which can play a role in a student’s postgraduate life. “You will be surprised by who you hang out with post-college and post-high school; it won’t be the people you immediately suspect,” Walsh said. “Trust your gut and you can’t make a wrong decision if you’re excited about an opportunity. You’ll make something work with that passion.” G FEBRUARY 18, 2022

LEISURE

Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power (Extended) demystifies pregnancy and fame BY ROMITA CHATTARAJ

hen Halsey first announced that their fourth studio album would be about pregnancy, she faced intense fan resistance. In an Internet age where teenagers and young adults are a cornerstone of the consumer base, and sex appeal and edginess sells, motherhood and pregnancy might be considered alienating to young audience and, well, unsexy. “What ended up happening with a lot of my fans' first reaction was, ‘Is she going to get boring now?’ They were like, ‘there’s going to be nothing for me here,’” Halsey told Billboard. But If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power’s (2021) grunge-pop-meets-alternative-rock sound presents the album’s intentful narrative in a manner that is far from boring. With an extended version of the record dropping in early January, Halsey deserves everyone’s attention. However, the album has garnered comparatively muted commercial success despite its addictively unapologetic singles “I am not a woman, I’m a god” and “You asked for this,” as well as an accompanying promotional film released on HBO Max. Direct and compelling, the album’s title—perhaps an allusion to Machiavelli— sets the tone for a concept album that takes on womanhood unblinkingly, cycling through nuances of femininity and exploring miscarriage’s biting grief. Abstract feminist concepts become concretized. The aptly named opening song, “The Tradition,” explores how conventional understandings of gender expectations play a direct role in establishing institutionalized and internalized misogyny. “And they said that boys were boys, but they were wrong / Take what you want, take what you can / Take what you please, don't give a damn / Ask for forgiveness, never permission,” Halsey chants in the chorus, describing how societal gender expectations create misogynistic environments, excuse immoral male behavior, and require women to be excessively understanding and forgiving. Halsey deconstructs pregnancy with a refreshing take on postpartum sexuality, as the album as a whole revolves around the dichotomy of the Madonna-whore complex. In a now-deleted Instagram post, Halsey described how they wanted to focus on “the idea that me as a sexual being and my body as

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

a vessel and gift to my child are two concepts that can co-exist peacefully and powerfully.” “My body has belonged to the world in many different ways the past few years, and this image is my means of reclaiming my autonomy and establishing my pride and strength as a life force,” they wrote. In the lead single “I am not a woman, I’m a god,” Halsey shouts their empowered identity: “I am not a woman, I’m a god / I am not a martyr, I’m a problem / I am not a legend, I’m a fraud.” By reappropriating terms historically ascribed to “problematic” and significant women like Joan of Arc and Cleopatra, Halsey critiques how women are often reduced into one of two categories: the pure, virginal Madonna and the sexually corrupted whore. Halsey seeks to resolve the excessive categorization of women by juxtaposing adjectives that are typically used to discredit women with those that celebrate women instead. Halsey departs from her trademark arenapop sound for a heavier, electronic-rock sound that may seem ironic and unconventional for an album dealing with pregnancy. The album’s sound is largely owed to the album’s producers, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Though Nine Inch Nails is associated with a metal and industrial rock sound, the pair is also known for scoring films like The Social Network (2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), and Gone Girl (2014) with a gentle electronic instrumental music with no distinctive beat. However, they manage to create tension with

their ambient scores, a skill that lends itself well to If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power’s slower tracks. Although Halsey was not credited in producing the album, she remained in control of the overarching story and vision throughout the album’s production process. Halsey departed from normal collaborative conventions for songwriting and wrote all of the album’s lyrics before asking Reznor and Ross to produce the album. The product? An album where each track’s production has taken the lyrical themes in mind, making for an especially personal and audibly authentic listening experience. “You asked for this” features rattling drums and muted guitar riffs that aptly accompanies the track’s focus on female self-blaming. “Go on and be a big girl / You asked for this now / You better show 'em why you talk so loud,” Halsey sarcastically jests as muted guitar riffs grow in intensity, describing how women often blame themselves when facing opposition in misogynistic environments. The album’s musical production adds an abrasive quality to Halsey’s pointed lyricism, elevating her carefully-chosen words from merely insightful turns of phrase to an intricate feminist narrative that traverses the entire album. The album’s by-far most captivating song, “Bells in Santa Fe,” is filled with loaded oneliners and stands apart in the way it creates intensity with a relatively slow tempo. A contemplative beat is layered with electronic

design by cecilia cassidy and allison derose

blips that grow in volume as Halsey croons, “Don’t call me by my name / All of this is temporary / Watch as I slip away for your sake.” Halsey revealed that these lines are a reference to the Miyazaki film Spirited Away (2001). In the film, the main character Chihiro has her name stolen by a witch. The loss of her own name leads her to lose her identity and connection to the living world. Halsey, similarly, fears that their stage name, an anagram of their real name, Ashley, and the fame associated with it will overshadow their sense of self. “I’ve always related to Chihiro,” Halsey wrote in a Tweet. “If I ‘forget my real name,’ I’ll lose myself to an unfamiliar world as well.” In the song, Halsey also describes their stage name and fame as “temporary,” implying that they cannot retain their fame forever—mainly due to unreasonable societal expectations where artists must continuously reinvent themselves with each comeback to be flashier, shinier, and sexier. As a result, she feels the need to “slip away” from the confines of public stardom not only to preserve her sense of self, but to escape “for [the public’s] sake,” before she is deemed irrelevant and boring. Of course, in true Halsey fashion, these lyrics could hold dual meanings. Perhaps because she must repress her true self to be the public figure her audience wants her to be, Halsey feels herself beginning to “slip away” and lose herself to an unfamiliar world. “Bells in Santa Fe” best showcases this album’s cutting lyricism with the killer line, “I could keep your bed warm, otherwise, I'm useless / I don't really mean it 'cause who the fuck would choose this?” Here, Halsey demonstrates her trademark ability to use colloquial words to establish subtlety. While commenting on how women are regularly perceived as useful solely to satisfy male pleasure, she sarcastically implies that she is joking to not offend those who believe that gender inequality is no longer relevant. However, she then counters the very idea of a post-feminist world by bringing up a legitimate question: Who would choose to be viewed in the way women often are? Who would choose degradation and objectification? As “Bells in Santa Fe” builds with distorted guitar riffs and a haunting repetition of “All of this is temporary,”' it seamlessly flows into the album’s next track, “Easier Than Lying.” More sonically abrasive than its sister track, “Easier Than Lying” fills the ear with exclamatory lyrics that are heightened by a fast tempo, prominent distorted guitar riffs, and shouted vocals. “You liar, you don't love me too / It's easy for you after all,” Halsey spits, calling out her lover for claiming to care about her while still mistreating them. This, too, is gendered commentary: “it’s easy” for her lover to mistreat her and escape criticism because the expectations for male behavior are set so low. This song is a surefire headbanger, complete with jarringly insightful lyrics that create a sense of cathartic chaos.

Although If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power’s standard version conveys a nuanced narrative, the extended album’s three bonus songs successfully wrap up its themes. The second of these additional tracks, Reznor and Ross’ rework of “Nightmare,” is a more menacing take on the original song that was released in 2019. The track does a great job of bringing together Halsey's past arenapop lyricism with her present grunge-pop

Every song ranked Bells in Santa Fe The Tradition Easier than Lying I am not a woman, I'm a god Nightmare - Reprise Whispers People disappear here Nightmare Lilith You asked for this 1121 Darling The Lighthouse Girl is a Gun honey Ya'aburnee

sound. “I keep a record of the wreckage in my life / I gotta recognize the weapon in my mind / They talk shit, but I love it every time,” Halsey sings, describing how they use songwriting as a way to rise above the hate they have received in the public eye by writing cathartic songs. The extended version’s final track, “People Disappear Here,” cycles back to themes explored at the beginning of the album. “Way down the dark alleyway / Somewhere in the Garden State / The girl from California waits / She has my name but not my face,” Halsey laments, warning her audience about how fame led to losing her sense of self. Contrary to her fans’ (problematic) fear that a concept album about pregnancy would be inaccessible and boring, Halsey’s nuanced songwriting does not alienate the part of her audience that has not experienced pregnancy. Instead of focusing on the singular experience in and of itself, she lets us view pregnancy as something experienced more widely through lenses of sexuality, gender relations, and the feelings of fear, insecurity, and pain. “I wasn’t trying to make a record that was drowning in its own profundity. I was kind of just writing about how I feel,” Halsey said in an Apple Music interview. Her skillful use of phrases that have double meanings allows fans to interpret their lyrics in an infinite number of ways, rendering the album widely relatable, especially for women today. However, Halsey has made it clear that If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is not a “girl power” album. In the Apple Music interview, they talk about how the album might traverse themes of pregnancy and new motherhood, but that their own journey does not align with the hyper-feminine societal conception of it. “Nobody talks about the pain, the blood, the disease, the fear, the fact that it is arguably the most dangerous condition a human body can experience,” she said. “It’s framed as this time where you should be so grateful—me especially, because of my struggles with reproductive health. But the reason that the album has this horror theme is because this experience has its horrors. I mean, I have nightmares about waking up in my own pool of blood.” Halsey’s fear of miscarriage is especially prevalent in “1121,” a song they wrote the day they found out they were pregnant. “Please don't leave (I'm runnin' out of time to tell you) / Don't leave me in the shape you left me (I'm runnin' out of things that I regret),” she sings, begging her baby to remain healthy throughout her pregnancy. But perhaps creating the album itself was a powerful move. “The fact that I made it at all and the way that I made it is kind of like a girl power statement,” she conceded. Now more than ever, we need artists like Halsey to deconstruct hyper-glorified experiences like pregnancy and fame and discuss the nuanced nature of such experiences in terms of both joy and horror—both love and power. G FEBRUARY 18, 2022

LEISURE

In The Tragedy of Macbeth, the kingslayer isn’t the only one plotting BY PAUL JAMES

he Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) opens on a disorienting, bleak, and foggy landscape, tracing in the footsteps of a weary soldier. The first lines of dialogue anchor the audience in a Shakespearean context, but from there, the interpretation takes off on its own. Joel Coen’s revival of the classic Shakespearean tragedy is a tale all about the morally gray, with a color palette to match. The classic source material has been plumbed extensively on the stage and on the screen. Coen’s cinematic adaptation follows a line of theatrical productions in the UK, anchored in the local context and even some of the same theaters as Shakespeare’s time, television versions of those same productions, and films that put Macbeth in an entirely modern context. Coen’s work, however, is less historical than conceptual, and successfully preserves the ideals of theater as a limited space where characters and language shine on a blank set while still maximizing cinema’s freedom of technique. Coen’s adaptation brings out the best in many of the well-known characters, most notably Denzel Washington’s titular Macbeth. The protagonist’s solo shots feel profoundly private; Washington’s full emotional range is on display as he charts the path from loyal soldier to usurper, from sanity to madness. He does not sound overwhelmed by the Shakespearean cadence, instead finding ways to speed it along with whispers and mumbles or make it ring when passion and delusion should feel explosive. While his speech after Duncan’s (Brendan Gleeson) death was a rare miss— Washington’s fake remorse felt wooden—his private soliloquies are ensnaring. Stage actors in the role have a difficult task of providing such vocal range while projecting to the entire audience; Washington takes advantage of the close camera to show off his full emotional bandwidth, as he has his entire career. While much of the film is anchored in Washington’s performance, the ensemble’s quality raises the bar from other adaptations. Kathryn Hunter’s portrayal of all three witches is brilliantly physical and a delicate balance of intrigue with terror, Stephen Root is hilarious as the wise and cheeky Porter in his short but vital time onscreen, and Alex Hassell imbues the nobleman Ross with an entirely new part to

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

play as a mischievous agent in the saga. Frances McDormand’s Lady Macbeth errs at times into the simplistic, but she provides a strong backbone of ambition to Washington’s wavering Macbeth throughout. Though casting is mostly spot-on, some of Coen’s directorial choices are questionable. Duncan’s murder by Macbeth, to which the audience is never privy in Shakespeare’s play, is shown in excruciating and bloody detail here. Anyone familiar with even a small part of the Shakespearean canon is well acquainted with dramatic bloodbaths and coldblooded murders, but the original play’s obscuring of Duncan’s murder has always made it more eerie and sacrilegious. Coen’s choice to linger on the scene saps its subtlety—and thus some of its power. Other visuals are comparatively comic: The flimsy leaves Malcolm's army holds up in Birnam Wood and Macbeth’s frenzied attack on a stray crow are a bit bizarre. Nevertheless, the cinematography and true-to-theater sparseness of the set serve the adaptation well. Rather than trying to paint a historically accurate picture of Scotland and dazzle audiences with far-flung locations, Coen incorporates some of the spatial constraints of staged theater, and the action is better for it. The sets are basic and often wide-open, and the film doesn’t jump around from location to location, instead making use of both the heath and the castle in different ways. Characters are accentuated by clean lines between light and shadow, and the barrenness of their surroundings lets emotion take center stage. In a landscape so bleak, the characters find their state of peril reflected. Coen also takes on one of the most interesting undercurrents in the play: how much the characters are bound to fate and how many of their actions are their own. Hunter’s witches toe the line between shepherding the plot and exerting control over it. The points at which they, and Hunter, crop up again complicate our understanding of the outcome, which at times feels predestined and other times fragile. Hunter reappears as the Old Man just before Banquo’s (Bertie Carvel) murder, a decisive moment of intrusion. The witches also appear at Macbeth’s castle, leaving the confines of their liminal world, and conjure apparitions in a way that tethers

them to the physical world without taking the choices and consequences out of the hands of the film’s mortal characters. Rather than obscuring the witches as something mystical and incorporeal, Hunter’s contortionism is on full display, riveting and uncanny. Perhaps Coen’s greatest liberty is taken with his and Hassell’s interpretation of the usually minor role of Ross; even as he appears beside more central characters, the shifty aristocrat seems to have an agenda all his own. Hassell is visually intense, with an arresting wardrobe to match, and lets the audience into his world while keeping it hidden from the rest of the cast. The decision to insert Ross at the scene of Banquo’s murder is genius and clears up some seemingly loose ends in the play. With each successive action he takes—most obviously his saving Fleance’s (Lucas Barker) life—the audience grows more intrigued as to his true allegiance. At times he seems to be against Macbeth, though his subtle glance at the oncoming murderers outside Lady Macduff’s (Moses Ingram) castle and decision to leave without warning puts his moral position into doubt once again. The film’s ending, when Ross returns for Fleance and rides off with him, hints at a future continuation of the cycle of violence: Malcolm has been crowned king, but the witches’ prophecy assures that Banquo’s offspring will be on the throne in short order. Ross’ implied role in establishing Fleance as ancestor of the Stewart house clarifies a thread left open in the play. Taking on one of the most famous works by one of history’s most famous literary minds is no easy feat. But Coen’s adaptation avoids many of the pitfalls waiting for those who take Shakespeare’s work out of the theater, and the star-studded cast lifts up the eloquent language that can so easily feel anachronistic. Whether as an accessible entry into Shakespeare’s work or as a chance to see new life spring from welltrodden ground, The Tragedy of Macbeth is an essential addition to the realm of stage-toscreen classics. G

photos courtesy of apple tv; graphic by max zhang; layout by alex giorno

HALFTIME LEISURE

100 gecs is glorious, excessive— and the future of music BY CHRISTINE JI

yperpop duo Laura Les and Dylan Brady, better known as 100 gecs, materialized like an early quarantine fever dream. While languishing in my childhood bedroom in the stagnant July heat with only Instagram and TikTok to keep me company, I kept seeing references to the duo’s eccentric music style and nonsensical lyrics. I decided to investigate. For research purposes, of course. What started for me as a form of quasiironic consumption has morphed into genuine appreciation of 100 gecs. At first glance, the duo’s aura is straight-up bewildering. The comment section underneath the music video for 100 gecs’ most popular song, “money machine,” is littered with flabbergasted observers. “This song is the closest thing we'll ever have to audible battery acid,” one viewer commented. It’s not hard to see why: The video opens with Les and Brady dancing wildly in a parking lot chanting, “Hey, you lil’ piss baby,” and only escalates from there, crescendoing for more than two heavily KineMaster’d minutes. However, digging deeper beyond the initial chaos, I felt a Frankensteinian sense of desire for the seemingly monstrous creations of 100 gecs and hyperpop in general. The duo’s debut studio album, 1000 gecs (2019), is 30 minutes of abrasive, experimental noise. Les and Brady apply autotune with a heavy hand, resulting in heavily distorted and robotic-sounding vocals. They combine elements of indie, electronic, and hip-hop music to create an incredibly maximalist end product indicative of the hyperpop genre as a whole. So what exactly is hyperpop? The genre generally takes aspects of pop, dance, and electronica, exaggerating their features to the point of excess. Other prominent hyperpop artists include SOPHIE, Charli XCX, and Dorian Electra, all of whom incorporate overly processed noise and distorted vocals into their productions. Music critic Mark Richardson

photo courtesy of nic john design by max zhang

points to crunchy vocals, ska, and pop-punk influences, as well as glitchcore and dissonant noise as distinct characteristics of the genre. For the average consumer, these genre boundaries feel like gibberish. Jargon aside, it’s clear that 1000 gecs is a delightful smorgasbord of excessive noise, and I am absolutely obsessed. The songs on 1000 gecs range from playful to profound, promising a truly well-rounded musical experience. There is a certain raw, unhinged quality to the lyrical artistry. The aforementioned energycharged “money machine” features taunting lines like “you talk a lotta big game for someone with such a small truck” and “You'd text me ‘I love you’ / And then I'd fucking ghost you.” Les ridicules an ex-lover with fiery passion, inviting the listener to vicariously experience her vindictive mood. “stupid horse” channels a similar lighthearted character, detailing an episode of horse-betting gone wrong. “I just gotta leave this place with a big bag,” Les sings, then proceeds to describe beating up the jockey, stealing his phone, and running off with the horse. The ridiculously catchy chorus “Stupid horse, I just fell out of the Porsche / Lost the money in my bank account, oh no,” provides a liberating sense of catharsis, describing exhilarating but socially unacceptable actions. One cannot help but relish the pairing of nonsensical lyrics with highly-processed, metallic noises. 100 gecs also seamlessly weaves sentimentality into the fabric of absurdity. “money machine” smoothly transitions into the melancholy “800db cloud,” which details struggles with loss, substance abuse, and stardom. Lyrics such as “I'm addicted to Monster, money, and weed, yeah” and “I'm addicted to making money off me, yeah” touch upon unhealthy coping mechanisms and critique the commodification of the self under capitalism. The duo is acutely aware of how the pursuit of commercial success brings out the best and worst of themselves,

whether it be insatiable human greed or heavy drug usage. The best example of 100 gecs and hyperpop’s versatility may be the track “hand crushed by a mallet.” Underlined by a gradually escalating electronic beat, the song describes the experience of being consumed by obsessive thoughts, possibly about a relationship gone sour. “This feeling's going to my head, I'm thinking things I shouldn't say / You circled me inside my room, I couldn't go another day,” Les and Brady yell. The accompanying music video depicts Les, dressed as a giant housefly, relentlessly tormenting Brady in a messy room. The contrast between the lyrics and the music video highlights 100 gecs’ strength in conveying serious subject matter in outrageous flavors. The overload of chaos allows 100 gecs’ songs to be interpreted for any occasion. One can take the production at face value as a silly ditty about a pest problem or blast the tune while trying to forget a painful romantic experience. Either way, 100 gecs provides an exhilarating chooseyour-own adventure for the listener to take in whatever direction they desire. 1000 gecs is a work of art that eludes simple categorization, bursting at the seams with absurdity, noise, heartfelt emotions, and social commentary. The sensory overload feels indulgent, perhaps borderline hedonistic. 100 gecs and hyperpop are definitely not for the faint of heart—as seen by the YouTube comment section, the departure from easier-on-the-ears musical categories brings some discomfort. But what is the purpose of art if not to push boundaries and make the interpreter uncomfortable? By exaggerating characteristics of pop music and combining ridiculous lyrics with more mature themes, hyperpop deconstructs rigid barriers in music and society at large. It interrogates the artificiality of labels and normalcy, and how such categories—be it around gender, economics, labor, or otherwise—might be reimagined to be less oppressive and constricting. It shows that knocking down boundaries can be a turbulent and jarring, yet ultimately pleasurable, experience. While the artificial and excessively distorted riffs may initially assault your senses and activate your fight or flight instinct, the experience will leave you breathless and desiring more. If this is the future of music, I embrace it with open arms. G

FEBRUARY 18, 2022