CELEBRATING OUR ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH YEAR OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Friday, December 5, 2014
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GOVERNMENT
University presidents attend D.C. conference Obama hosts national Day of Action on college affordability
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Steven Salaita speaks about his rescinded job offer from the University of Illinois Thursday at Hutchins Hall. His offer was rescinded over the summer after he criticized Israel’s military action in Gaza, part of the Palestinian territories.
SAFE hosts de-hired prof. from University of Illinois Steven Salaita highlights importance of academic freedom
this year, spoke at the University Thursday evening in an event hosted by Students Allied for Freedom and Equality. Salaita, who was set to begin a tenured position at Illinois this fall, had his job offer retracted after a number of donors, students and faculty at the school contended that he was antiSemitic. The charge stemmed from comments Salaita had tweeted from his personal Twitter account during the summer
By SHOHAM GEVA Daily Staff Reporter
Indigenous studies scholar Steven Salaita, who was dehired from the University of Illinois amidst controversy earlier
amidst escalating tensions between Gaza and Israel, in which he condemned Israel’s July bombing of Gaza. The bombing resulted in an estimated 2,000 deaths in the area. Speaking to a receptive crowd of nearly 100 professors and students in Hutchins Hall, who gave him a standing ovation before he began speaking, Salaita discussed the circumstances surrounding his exit from Illinois, along with broader themes of academic freedom.
UMPD has relatively little military surplus By MAX RADWIN Daily Staff Reporter
Like many other schools across the country, the University has participated in a federal government program to obtain reissued equipment from federal agencies over the last two years, but on a relatively limited basis. Since 2012, the University has obtained a range of secondhand equipment from the federal government, including riflescopes, computer hardware and privacy scene barriers, according to documents obtained by The Michigan Daily through a Freedom of Information Act request. The 1033 program, which began in 1997, aims to reuse “excess property” from military units — which can include air conditioners, clothing, computers, as well as weapons — by recycling it to local and state police departments, according to the Defense Logistics Agency. The DLA claims that $2.2 billion worth of property is distributed each year. The University has obtained two riflescopes since 2012. Diane Brown, spokeswoman for the University’s Department of Public Safety, said the
WEATHER TOMORROW
University applied to obtain the riflescopes in an effort to evaluate whether it wished to make use of a similar type of scope on its existing rifles. However, she said the riflescopes that were obtained from the program were in such a state of disrepair they could not be evaluated. The scopes would be used with long-gun rifles, which Brown said are standard-issue to University police officers. She said the rifles are lawenforcement grade, not military grade. A standard long gun is also issued to officers in addition to a sidearm. The University has also received six “Scene Privacy Barriers” since 2012, which are used to tent over a victim on the ground during a crime scene, according to Brown. In addition, two listings of “Computer Repair Equipment” appeared on the equipment inventory list, which Brown said were “small tools to work on computer hardware.” The Washington Post reported in September that many police departments responsible for enforcement on public school districts — including the Los Angeles School Police Department, the San Diego Unified Schools and Florida’s Pinellas County Schools Police Department — received much more equipment than the University from the 1033 program, including several M16 rifles and utility vehicles. Joy Rohde, an assistant proSee SURPLUS, Page 3
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Daily Staff Reporters
Several members of the University community participated in the White House’s College Opportunity Day of Action in Washington D.C. Thursday, a national event focusing on increasing the number of students able to attend college. President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were keynote speakers at the event. More than 140 top college executives attended, including Daniel Little, chancellor of University of Michigan-Dearborn. Several other higher education officials and researchers, including Public Policy Prof. Susan Dynarski, also
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PUBLIC SAFETY
Defense Dept. supplied computer repair equipment, protective barriers
He said reactions to his firing have run the gamut of politics and opinions, but what disappointed him most is what he characterized as a lack of honesty. “If you want to support what the (University of Illinois) did, I don’t begrudge you,” he said. “What I ask of you though, is honesty. I don’t want you to say that Salaita wasn’t actually hired yet; anybody who has spent any time in academe knows full well See SAFE, Page 3
By AMABEL KAROUB and ALLANA AKHTAR
attended the event. “(The speakers) focused on the social justice importance and the economic importance of extending access to disadvantaged people in our country and being able to help a segment of our population that is historically very disadvantaged,” Little said. “They expressed values I think all of us buy into.” In a conference call Wednesday, Josh Earnes, White House Press Secretary; James Kvaal, a deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council; Celia Munoz, deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said the College Opportunity Day of Action is a continuation of a similar event that occurred in January of this year, which included more than 100 leaders from different higher education institutions around the country. They added that they hoped to outline progress made since the first summit and brainstorm ways to improve. See AFFORDABILITY, Page 3
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
‘U’ program encourages high school innovators Startup High School initiative aims to garner over 1,000 project pitches By MICHAEL SUGERMAN Daily Staff Reporter TERESA MATHEW/Daily
LSA junior Brenda Martinez makes a caramel apple spice drink in the Union Starbucks on Thursday.
CAMPUS LIFE
Harvard professor talks sexual violence and war Reports show rape during wartime associated with recruitment tactics By ANASTASSIOS ADAMOPOULOS Daily Staff Reporter
Dara Kay Cohen, assistant professor of public policy at Harvard University, spoke at Weill Hall at the Ford School Thursday, sharing details from her book examining rape in modern civil wars. The book, which is yet to be published, is based on statistics from a number of civil wars and draws on her fieldwork in
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Sierra Leone, El Salvador and East Timor. Cohen discussed her work, describing the occurrence of rape during civil wars and across different factions within the same wars since 1980. The event was hosted by the International Policy Center. “There is a huge amount of political will to do something about the problem of rape and other forms of sexual violence during war,” Cohen said. She added that there is no consensus on the causes and consequences of rape during wartime and that most literature on civil war violence is focused on lethal violence. Unlike other studies that have examined this type of conflict, Cohen’s focus is on the perpetrators themselves
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and what types of armed forces are more likely to engage in gang rape. She noted that traditional arguments explaining sexual violence in civil wars are opportunism, greed of perpetrators, ethnic hatred and gender inequality. In her book, Cohen develops her own argument, which she calls “combatant socialization.” The method of recruitment is an important factor in this argument, suggesting that groups with forced recruitment have to build cohesion. The level of cohesion within armed groups is an important predictor of whether and how frequently costly group violence occurs. She noted that criminolSee CIVIL WAR, Page 3
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Two years ago, members of MPowered — one of the University’s main entrepreneurshipfocused student organizations — went into classrooms at Ann Arbor’s Pioneer High School to pilot a program of small entrepreneurship workshops for students. After receiving positive feedback, MPowered established the initiative as a permanent program called Startup High School, and expanded to cater to schools in Metro Detroit for the 2013-2014 academic year, offering workshops only to students who are selected through an application process that involves pitching startup ideas. This year, Startup High School will enter its third cycle, seeking innovative high school students not only from Detroit and its surrounding suburbs, but also from Grand Rapids. The group’s online application closes Dec. 31. Engineering junior Eric Yu, codirector of Startup High School, said in the program’s first official year, the organization received more than 350 pitches from high school students in Detroit. This time, it’s aiming to garner more than 1000. See STARTUP, Page 3
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MONDAY: This Week in History
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FRIDAY: Photos of the Week
LEFT Michigan players walk out after learning about Michigan Athletic Director Jim Hackett‘s decision to dismiss Brady Hoke as head coach of the football team at a press conference held at Chrisler Center Tuesday. (Amanda Allen /Daily)
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RIGHT Sophomore guard Zak Irvin (21) goes up for a layup during the Wolverines’ win over Syracuse on Tuesday. Irvin scored 18 points during the game. (Paul Sherman / Daily)
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Jen Davis: Body Amazin’ Blue and Image concert
WHAT: The University is hosting a Twitter chat about social media’s role in journalism. Yahoo Editorial Director Gregory Anderson will answer questions. WHEN: Today from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. WHERE: Twitter.com
WHAT: This workshop will cover basic eligibility requirements to gain permanent residency in the United States. WHO: International Center WHEN: Today from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. WHERE: Pierpont Commons
WHAT: Artist Jen Davis will discuss her exhibition of self portraits and reconsider ideas of body image. WHO: Institute for the Humanities WHEN: Today from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. WHERE: North Quad
WHAT: The Amazin’ Blue a cappella group is hosting their fall concert ‘Amazin’ Blue Goes Hollywood.’ WHO: Michigan Union Ticket Office WHEN: Today at 7:30 p.m. WHERE: Rackham Auditorium
Ruddigore: The UMix Winter Witch’s Curse Wonder Land
Vincent York jazz show
Dinosaur Discovery Day
WHAT: Ruddigore is a comic opera about love and people who do not say what is on their minds. WHO: Gilbert and Sullivan Society WHEN: Today from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. WHERE: Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre
WHAT: Bandleader Vincent York presents a jazz tribute to Ella Fizgerald and Louis Armstrong. WHO: Michigan Union Ticket Office WHEN: Today at 8 p.m. WHERE: The Ark, 316 S. Main St.
WHAT: This day is devoted to learning about dinosaurs and the latest discoveries in paleontology. WHO: Museum of Natural History WHEN: Tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. WHERE: Ruthven Museum l Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@ michigandaily.com.
WHAT: Winter Wonder Land will have a frozen moon walk, chair massages, a mechanical snowboard and a midnight buffet. WHO: Center for Campus Involvement WHEN: Today from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. WHERE: Michigan Union
THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW TODAY
1
Thousands of people protesting a grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer who killed Eric Garner filled the streets of New York City for the second consecutive night Thursday, The New York Daily News reported.
2
The Michigan hockey team looks to continue its hot streak against Ohio State this weekend. The Wolverines have won five of six games so far. >> FOR MORE, SEE SPORTS PAGE 6
3
The Department of Justice said the Cleveland Police Department practices excessive force, The Huffington Post reported. Cleveland and the Justice Department signed an agreement to promote reforms.
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Authorities disband Calif. homeless camp Police and socialservice workers disperse people sleeping outside SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — About 50 muddy souls dragged their meager belongings out of a trashstrewn California creek bed Thursday as police and socialservice workers began clearing away one of the nation’s largest homeless encampments, a collection of flimsy tents and plywood shelters in the heart of Silicon Valley. The people forced out of the camp known as the Jungle ended up alongside a busy San Jose road, startling passers-by who slowed down to watch. “People drive by and look at us like we’re circus animals,” said a sobbing Nancy Ortega.
More than 30 police officers and dozens of construction workers in white hazmat suits joined about 15 social-service workers in the effort to take apart the treacherous community that at its peak housed as many as 350 people living in squalor just a short drive from tech giants Google, Apple, Yahoo and eBay. Ortega shuddered and clutched her fleece blanket while watching tractors cram couches, tents, blankets, rotten food and pails of excrement into roaring garbage trucks. “It’s just junk to everyone else but to us, that’s home. That’s our stuff,” she said. On a nearby sidewalk, Al Palaces, a former truck driver who settled into the encampment about eight months ago, said he was trying to think of a plan. “I just grabbed whatever I could because I don’t want to go to jail,” he said, standing next
to an overloaded shopping cart stuffed with dirty plastic bags. For months, social workers have been trying to house camp residents. And four days earlier, they were warned they had until dawn Thursday to leave or face arrest for trespassing. Still, city officials estimated about 60 people remained at the filthy site when cleanout day came. After a rainy night, skies cleared Thursday, and one person after another in varying states of mental clarity and sobriety dragged their belongings in suitcases, shopping carts and on bicycles out of the camp through ankle-deep sludge. By midmorning, dozens had reached the sidewalk, abandoning most of their possessions. But some remained in the slum. Valentine Cortes, who said he was a journeyman construction worker, said he had no plans to leave his makeshift shelter built into a steep, muddy slope. “I don’t know why people got all chaotic today,” he said. “We don’t have to go.” Asked about the warning that he could be jailed, Cortes shrugged, pet a 6-week old puppy in his palm and said, “Then I guess I’ll be arrested.” Dogs and cats still roamed the square-mile camp, some of them pets, others wild. Rats hopped through the muck. A few dozen protesters gathered at the site holding signs reading “Homeless people matter” and “Stand with The Jungle.” The encampment stands in stark contrast to the surrounding valley, a region that leads the country in job growth, income and venture capital. Palaces said he liked the Jungle better than the streets because people would bring food and police didn’t bother the residents. “Even a job wouldn’t give me a house” because housing prices are so high, he said.
DAN KITWOOD/AP
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks to delegates and ministers during the London Conference on Afghanistan on Thursday in London, England.
U.S. pledges support to Afghan government Britain, allies agree to back newly installed president LONDON (AP) — The United States, Britain and other allies promised Thursday not to abandon Afghanistan’s new government, and the country’s president said “peace is a top priority” as international security missions end and Taliban attacks surge. At a one-day meeting of envoys from more than 60 countries, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said observers who had predicted doom for Afghanistan as the international military presence wound down were wrong. “History will not be repeated. We have overcome the past,” Ghani told diplomats at the end of the conference. Ghani was elected in September in Afghanistan’s first peaceful transition of power, though he has yet to form a stable Cabinet. He said he was confident Afghanistan would overcome its challenges. “We hope that we will never
need direct combat support (again), because the last thing we want is more blood,” he said. “Peace is a top priority for us.” British Prime Minister David Cameron assured Afghans that “we are with you every step of the way.” The 13-year international combat mission in Afghanistan ends Dec. 31, although Ghani has signed security agreements with Washington and NATO permitting a continued international military presence. Some 10,000 American troops will remain by the end of the year. Insurgents have sought to destabilize Ghani’s government and unnerve international agencies with several high-profile attacks in Kabul. Afghanistan came to the conference seeking reassurance it won’t be forgotten after most international troops leave. The West, in turn, wants to see a stable government and action to curb the corruption that has long plagued Afghanistan. Ghani pledged to deliver fundamental reform, saying Afghans strongly backed the unity government he has formed with his former political rival Abdullah Abdullah.
Economically, he conceded, “we have not done well. But that is the challenge we have inherited. He signaled that he would fight corruption, telling international firms and donors “we are determined to do business differently.” Thursday’s conference served as a follow-up to a 2012 meeting in Tokyo, where allies pledged $16 billion to help rebuild and stabilize Afghanistan’s government. But officials in London would not discuss how much of that money Kabul so far has received, even as they acknowledged that, in the short term at least, Afghanistan cannot survive on its domestic revenues alone. Since 2012, the United States has sent Afghanistan’s government $8 billion in assistance, and Kerry promised Thursday to ask the U.S. Congress to approve “extraordinary” but unspecified levels of new aid through 2017. He also said Washington and Kabul are trying to open investment opportunities for Afghans in the U.S. by issuing multiple-entry visas for business travelers, students and tourists.
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NEWS BRIEFS DETROIT
Detroiters protest grand jury decision Dozens of people have held a lie-down protest in downtown Detroit over a New York grand jury’s decision not to charge a white police officer in the chokehold death of a black man. The decision Wednesday not to bring charges against Officer Daniel Pantaleo triggered protests around the country. With temperatures hovering around freezing, protesters lay down on the ground for a “die-in” at Detroit’s Campus Martius at midday Thursday.
MISSOULA, Mont.
Teenagers testify in student killing MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — Two teenagers testified Thursday that they had stolen items from the garage of a Montana man accused of killing a high school student in that very place weeks later, and one of the teens said that may have been one factor that led to the German exchange student’s death. Mykle Martin, 17, and Tristan Staber, 18, described how they went “garage hopping,” or burglarizing garages, in search of alcohol and other things after dark and hit Markus Kaarma’s house. Kaarma is accused of baiting the shooting victim, Diren Dede, into sneaking into his garage early April 27, and killing him with four shotgun blasts after being alerted by a motion detector. He has pleaded innocent to deliberate homicide, citing fear of harm to his family and property after he’d been burglarized twice before the shooting.
LONDON
Kerry calls on the Russian gov’t to uphold cease-fire U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that Russia could rebuild its relations with the West “if it simply helps to calm turbulent waters” on its border with eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists are fighting with Kiev forces. Speaking in Basel, Switzerland at a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Kerry called on Moscow to uphold an earlier cease-fire agreement, which calls for withdrawing its support for the separatists in Ukraine and persuading them to release hostages. The U.S. and European Union have imposed sanctions on some Russians and separatists as punishment for their actions. “The U.S. and countries that support Ukraine’s sovereignty and rights do not seek confrontation,” Kerry said. “It is not our design or desire that we see a Russia isolated through its own actions.”
MANAMA, Bahrain
Bahraini activist jailed for insulting king A Bahraini court on Thursday sentenced a prominent opposition activist to three years in prison for insulting the king after she tore up the monarch’s photo, her lawyer said. The activist, Zainab al-Khawaja, gave birth only a few weeks earlier. Al-Khawaja was also fined the equivalent of around $8,000, lawyer Mohammed al-Wasti told The Associated Press. Al-Khawaja is part of the Gulf island monarchy’s most prominent opposition family. Her father Abdulhadi al-Khawaja is serving a life sentence for his role in 2011 protests by Shiites demanding greater rights from the Sunni-led government. Her sister Maryam was sentenced this week in absentia to a year in prison on charges of assaulting police. Maryam is currently in exile in Denmark. —Compiled from Daily wire reports
AFFORDABILITY From Page 1 At Thursday’s conference, several speakers also stressed the importance of college graduation for building the economy and strengthening the middle class, and said the event would help organize leaders to increase the number of college graduates in STEM fields, particularly women and minorities. At the event, every school leader was asked to commit to work on a specific problem in education, such as college readiness and investing in academic advisers for high school students. The University has opted to work toward increasing the number of college
SURPLUS From Page 1 fessor of Public Policy, said in many cases, the acquisition of military-grade equipment could prove more hazardous to communities than helpful. “We have seen in community after community that has this equipment — and Ferguson is a great example of this — that when police have this equipment, they tend to use it and it makes them look like an occupying force instead of a force trying to protect
CIVIL WAR From Page 1 ogy literature suggests that group violence helps establish cohesion within militant groups. Gang rape helps establish relationships among the perpetrators and can raise the status of perpetrators, differentiating group perpetrators from lone perpetrators. “The basic point of the combatant socialization argument is that the desire for combatants who have been forcedly recruited to fit in is a powerful motivator for participating in acts of group violence,” Cohen said. Fitting in is more about attaining protection and access to shelter during the conflict, she said. Statistics from modern civil wars show that civil wartime rape by state and non-state actors is associated with forms of forced
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Friday, December 5, 2014 — 3
graduates working in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, an area Little said the University plans to continue placing emphasis on in the coming years. As part of this initiative, Little said the University of Michigan-Dearborn plans to focus on increasing the number of advisors available to high school students. They will partner with the Michigan College Access Network, a non-profit organization whose mission is to increase college readiness, participation and completion in Michigan. “The goal is to increase the percentage of students at the effective schools who apply to community college or universities to 90 percent and to increase the percentage of students who apply
for federal financial aid to 70 percent,” he said. MCAN currently supports a statewide network of 40 college academic advisers available to high school students, but following Thursday’s event, the organization hopes to reach 80 advisors. Little said both the Dearborn and Ann Arbor campuses are committed to increasing college attendance for disadvantaged students, though the Dearborn campus has a much higher population of low-income students. “The percentage of students on our campus who are Pell (Grant) eligible is 44 percent,” Little said. “The Ann Arbor percentage is something like 12 to 15 percent. A much higher percentage of lower income students attend the Dearborn campus.”
the peace,” Rohde said. In recent months, police in Ferguson, Mo. have used military equipment, tear gas and other riot gear to control protests in the wake of the police shooting of Michael Brown, a Black teenager. Their use of force has drawn criticism from a number of groups in recent months, prompting Amnesty International to send a group of observers to the city to monitor police. Brown said University police have not requested any equipment from other federal grant programs, and do not have any equipment beyond standard issue
sidearms and long guns. Instead, he said the University can borrow tactical equipment from the county as needed, as well as coordinate with other agencies like the Michigan State Police Bomb Squad in situations necessitating higher security. Universities across the country have tightened security responses in recent years following several instances of mass shootings on college campuses. The Ann Arbor police said they do not have documents listing weapons or gear of military grade received from the federal government.
recruitment, which is in line with her argument. Cohen did research following the wars in Sierra Leone, which lasted from 1991 to 2002; East Timor, which lasted from 1975 to 1999; and in El Salvador, a war from 1979 to 1992. She interviewed former combatants who spoke to her about their experiences in their respective conflicts, including their involvement in sexual violence. Her fieldwork yielded a number of different results, including data demonstrating that most reported rapes were public gang rapes. Furthermore, there were reports of gang rapes by both sexes. There was also a positive correlation between groups that abducted most often and those that raped most often. Finally, rape was not usually ordered by commanders, according to Cohen’s findings. Cohen noted that the com-
batant socialization argument is not absolute and that specific background circumstances in each case affect the occurrence of rape. She added that societal effects of mass rape during civil war are very complicated and hard to generalize. Public Policy Prof. Melvyn Levitsky, a former ambassador and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights during the Reagan administration, said the presentation offered him a different perspective on causes of rape during civil wars. Levitsky said empowering governments to prevent armed groups from abducting people could certainly help. “I am intrigued by the research from a policy standpoint that seems to indicate there would be very few tools to stem rape in this intragroup conflicts, in the ethnic conflicts especially,” Levitsky said.
PAVEL GOLOVKIN/AP
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives to give his annual state of the nation address in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on Thursday.
Putin speech suggests few economic reforms Russian president speaks amid falling oil prices, economy
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia will defend its geopolitical interests, President Vladimir Putin warned Thursday as he promised economic reforms to pull his country back from the brink of recession. But Putin’s patriotic bluster and vague promises did little to assuage real fears that Western sanctions, plummeting oil prices and a collapsing ruble are crippling Russia’s economy. In his annual state-ofthe-nation address at the Grand Kremlin Palace, Putin announced measures to spur the country’s flagging economy, which is set to enter recession in 2015 for the first time in six years. “The quality and size of the Russian economy must corre-
spond to our geopolitical and historical role,” Putin said. “We must get out of this zero-growth trap and in the next three or four years raise our growth to above-average global levels.” Putin proposed a threeyear freeze on tax inspections for companies as well as a tax amnesty for money brought back to Russia from abroad. But in a disappointment to investors, he offered no broader plan for pulling Russia out of its economic downturn. “His freedom of maneuver is limited now and many important economic factors no longer depend on him: the ruble rate, the price of oil, inflation,” said Moscow-based analyst Maria Lipman. “No matter what Putin says, whether he sounds conciliatory and reassuring or bellicose and threatening, this would not affect those basic factors.” Putin spent much of his speech blaming his country’s
economic woes on the West, which he accused of wanting to dismember Russia like Yugoslavia, which broke up amid wars in the 1990s. Putin said the United States and Europe would have imposed sanctions and found other pretexts for holding Russia back even if tensions had not erupted in Ukraine this year. “The politics of containment were not invented yesterday. ... The more we retreat and justify ourselves, the more brazen our opponents become and the more cynically and aggressively they behave,” Putin said, adding that “no one will succeed in defeating Russia militarily.” He blamed the volatility of the ruble, which has lost about 40 percent of its value against the dollar this year, on speculators, and praised the Russian central bank’s decision to allow the currency to float freely. The ruble fell further as he spoke.
STARTUP From Page 1 Yu said the program is divided into three parts. During the first semester, members of Startup High School visit high schools, present to students about the organization and encourage them to submit pitches through the group’s website. Pitches are accepted on an individual basis. The top 30 to 50 students are selected to compete with the ideas they pitched, which leads to step two: a series of entrepreneurship workshops hosted by Startup High School on a weekly basis to help the students develop their projects and prepare them for launch. This year’s workshops will begin in February, though the group is still trying to find a central meeting location. Yu said Startup High School members might be dispersed individually to teach workshops at local centers given the expanded audience. At the program’s end, the students attend a final summit where they present to a panel of judges. The top five pitches are awarded prize money. Business sophomore Ovijit Datta, another Startup High School co-director, outlined the criteria for a pitch’s initial selection into the program. “We will look for what kind of passion does this student have?” he said. “Does he or she have any credibility in this area? What kind of (research and development) is required to create the service? Have they ever engaged with this idea before?” One of the organization’s biggest goals, Datta said, is to expand participants’ perception of what it means to be an entrepreneur. “From textbooks, they kind of learn that an entrepreneur is someone who assumes risks in the factors of production … to pursue a venture,” he said. “But that’s really not the case. We really want students to realize
SAFE From Page 1 that by the time that termination letter arrived I was hired… and I don’t want you to say that Salaita engaged in hate speech. I very clearly did not engage in hate speech.” Instead, he said, he would prefer that people take definitive stances on the issue. “What I would prefer for you to do is simply be honest, and say ‘I hate Salaita’s politics. I don’t like his criticisms of Israel, and therefore he should have been fired’,” he said. “It’s the dishonesty that bothers me more than the argument — it’s people refusing to take ownership over their own positions.” On academic freedom in the classroom, Salaita said there is often an imbalance of emphasis between how comfort of students with majority identities and students with minority identities are considered. Salaita said as an undergraduate he often heard offensive language from his professors that he disagreed with. “Not a single administrator ever fretted about my comfort in the classroom,” Salaita said. “Not a single administrator ever fretted about the comfort of a non-normative student in the classroom. Enough of this discomfort already. Enough. What they’re really saying is, we don’t want those who feel invested economically or psychologically with the majority to feel any sort of discomfort.” LSA sophomore Mekarem Eljamal, SAFE spokeswoman, said they invited Salaita to the University because they felt his message of academic freedom was particularly relevant in light of the group’s UMDivest campaign. SAFE’s campaign calls for the University to divest from
that entrepreneurship exists in all fields outside of just business.” Yu added that Startup High School encourages its high school students to consider entrepreneurship beyond the stereotypical technology project. He said the organization stresses the importance of social entrepreneurship as well. “We decided that the best way that we could start is to have a program where these students have a chance to meet real entrepreneurs, experience entrepreneurial events,” he said. “And that was the original inspiration. We’re trying to give, introduce those students to entrepreneurship at a young age so they can get a head start.” Datta said last year’s top prize winners reflected Startup High School’s mission. The first place pitch was a text-to-speech application that could understand other languages, including English, Spanish and Swahili, among others, for the purpose of classroom note-taking. It won $2,000. The second place pitch, named “Paradise Valley,” aimed to renovate an abandoned building in Metro Detroit and convert it into a music venue for high school and college musicians for a small annual membership fee. “The scalability of the idea doesn’t have to be that large at first,” Datta said. “They just need to realize potential. And we can help them realize that.” This year, Datta said MPowered is trying to unite its numerous branch organizations and integrate their missions because the ultimate goal is to expose students to entrepreneurship. “I got involved in MPowered because I love mentoring others,” he said. “I love seeing when I can help them start from point A and end up at point B. It’s very remarkable to see how they develop as a person through their professional skills.”
several businesses they allege support human rights violations against Palestinians because of their contracts with the Israeli military. Last year, the group primarily pursued the initiative through a resolution before Central Student Government, which ultimately failed. The resolution was accompanied by several large-scale protests and accusations that voices were being silenced on campus after CSG initially declined to vote on the resolution. “I hope that (the University community) sees the connection of what happened to students last year on campus, what’s been happening around the country” Eljamal said. “It’s not just administrations and students, or student governments, but it’s administrations and professors and it has a devastating impact on careers.” Salaita also touched on broader views of academic activism. In response to a question from the audience, he said becoming engaged in politics is a choice based on both personal cost and an individual’s values. “You have to think about where you’re at in life, both economically and personally and emotionally,” he said. “And I say emotionally because it’s hard sometimes, engaging in political issues, for all sides. You hear things about yourself that you don’t want to hear... it can be a hard commitment. It can be unbelievably rewarding also.” LSA sophomore Lamees Mekkaoui, who attended the event, said she took away a heightened awareness about issues surrounding academic freedom and academia. “I thought he brought a very real tone to something that hasn’t really been talked about — academic dissent is basically an untouched field,” Mekkaoui said. “He really brought it to the table and opened up the conversation.”
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Page 4 — Friday, December 5, 2014
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ROBERT SCHWARZHAUPT | VIEWPOINT Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com PETER SHAHIN EDITOR IN CHIEF
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Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
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The end at last
ear faculty, administration, students and squirrels of the University of Michigan, I think about time almost constantly. It’s a strange concept to me, as both a hard science major and a human with limited days here on Earth. With a significant milestone for many of us coming up next week as winter graduation takes place, I’d like to trick the kind and smart editors of The Michigan Daily JULIA into thinking this paragraph ZARINA is the beginning of a serious and thoughtful reflection on some pressing political issues we’ve experienced in my time at school here. Now that they’ve stopped reading and/or slipped into an irreversible coma due to boredom, I’d like to use the rest of this final column as an opportunity to reflect on and attempt to explain a few things unique to the University of Michigan that defy our human understanding and challenge us both as engineers and as philosophical beings. Without further ado, I present to you: a freshman engineer’s survival guide to the supernatural phenomena of North Campus. The dark navigational sorcery of GG Brown Welcome to college! It is your first day of class. You stand anxious and excited in the middle of the North Campus Diag, backpack strapped on tight, class schedule clasped in hand, and notice that your first discussion of the day — the first day of the rest of your life! — is located in a building called GG Brown. Cool! You casually ask a passing upperclassman for directions to the classroom and are met with an empty stare and the echoes of a haunting response: “Any room in GG Brown can only be found by those who already know where it is.” You are entering the Bermuda Triangle of North Campus, a building designed from somebody’s twisted fever dream of an M.C. Escher house; a labyrinth of rooms that appear to be numbered according to some obscure permutation of a Fibonacci sequence; and wall maps that have no building blueprint but simply say, “follow your heart.” Desperate to escape the maze, you sprint toward a faint glimmer of daylight, flinging open door after door in infinite hallways that lead back to places you have already been. Who knows how much time has passed for the ones you left behind? It could be days. Weeks. Millennia. Society as you know it may have ceased to exist. You have gazed long enough into the abyss for it to have gazed back into you and you will emerge with a renewed appreciation for the fleeting nature of mortal life. Weeks later you’ll realize that this whole ordeal transpired in the span of 14 seconds when you accidentally wandered into a utility closet instead of a stairwell. This revelation will leave you equally, if not more, perplexed and terrified. The localized spacetime anomaly known as “syllabus week” Ah, syllabus week. The leisurely five days revered by all college students for the inclusion of stimulating class activities that include hearing about every degree your professor has ever received or contemplated receiving and doing absolutely nothing else. In engineering, it’s exactly the same. Syllabus week is a joyous, pleasant walk in the park for literally seconds on end until it abruptly comes to a halt within the first three minutes of the semester. After briefly recapping some previously learned technical material including, but not limited to, “shapes that are not triangles” and the song small children use to memorize the names of the 50 states, you will be launched directly into higher order differential equations with a force that defies any law of physics you have ever, or will ever, study in your time here.
But the ego boost you received in those 30 seconds of finally understanding everything your professor was saying will sustain you well into exam week. Exam week is another unusual instance of obvious space-time warpage on North Campus that Neil deGrasse Tyson should really do an investigative TV special about. Here, we experience a completely different kind of time warp wherein, instead of lasting a baffling three and a half minutes, the aforementioned “week” stretches from approximately the second week of school until four, possibly five, years later when you graduate. The mystic inspiration of last-minute panic It’s the beginning of the semester and you’re on top of your shit. You’re proactive! You’re doing homework well in advance of the deadline! This is the year everything will be different! You’ve even read all your textbooks, which is no small feat considering reading is an extremely complex process that involves removing a book from its shrink-wrapped cocoon and exposing the front cover directly to light rays for the scientifically accepted maximum exposure period of 17 seconds before finding a permanent home for it on the floor of your bedroom where you will, ideally, never come in contact with it again. For the most part, everything is going fine. Until suddenly, somehow, it’s three hours before your final project deadline, the code you’ve been writing for weeks is not, in any way, working, and you find yourself on the third floor of the Dude in a sleep-deprived haze, thanking automatic doors for opening for you. You will have no memory of who you are or how you got there but you will be propelled by a deep, caffeine-fueled impulse to find one, single open CAEN computer on this campus, goddamnit. Days later, your friends, concerned for your emotional and physical well-being, will find you in a whirlwind of graph paper and two-day-old pizza crusts, hunched over the pixelated light of a monitor, muttering in tongues and divining lines of code like the ancient oracle receiving a prophecy from some silicon-powered deity. Your efforts will not have been in vain. You will most likely emerge from said endeavors with some kind of primitive but functional robot device — a five-day-old banana attached to a wheel — that looks like it was forged in the fires of a middle school science fair volcano and may be powered by human tears. Sixty percent of the time, it will work every time. The inexplicable, logic-defying desire to do it all again It’s some period of time greater than three but less than 12 years later and you finally did it. You’re graduating! You are 20-something years old in human years, which is approximately 48 years old in engineer years due to a nontrivial conversion factor caused by extreme sleep deprivation and abysmal diet. Industry-mandated engineering factors of safety at your next job are higher than your GPA and you’ve become intimately familiar with the best and worst crying spots in each campus library. But somehow the only thing you want to do is go back to the very beginning and do it all again. As a senior graduating next week, I can report firsthand that it is a very real phenomenon that defies logic and understanding and one that I will have to leave to far wiser minds than mine to explain. If you figure it out, let me know. I’ll be circling the halls of GG Brown in my banana-mobile, looking for a wormhole to take me back to that first, anxious, excited day of freshman year. So for today, goodbye. For tomorrow, good luck. Forever (until the ultimate end of exam “week” a.k.a. the end of time as we know it), Go Blue.
But somehow the only thing you want to do is go back to the very beginning and do it all again.
— Julia Zarina can be reached at jumilton@umich.edu.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Edvinas Berzanskis, Devin Eggert, David Harris, Rachel John, Jordyn Kay, Aarica Marsh, Megan McDonald, Victoria Noble, Michael Paul, Allison Raeck, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm, Matthew Seligman, Mary Kate Winn, Jenny Wang, Daniel Wang, Derek Wolfe
The matter of intention vs. impact Imagine you arrive at your local town hall for a meeting. In this meeting you will need to create very specific architectural and logistical plans for building three houses in your community. The meeting will last exactly one hour and contain 20 three-minute-long speaker slots. Out of the 100 people that show up to the meeting, roughly 20 of them are either architects or experienced homeowners. When starting the meeting the first question is: Given the limited speaker times, who should we let speak? Well, the answer is simple: If the meeting is going to be successful, then people who have experience in home building (i.e. experts) should talk. The experts should be given the time to speak because their experience and knowledge is valuable in creating an effective plan. This decision seems intuitive, right? Well, then why do we deny this logical conclusion when we talk about race and racial experiences in America? My fellow white people, I think it is time we had a talk. Oftentimes when I hear my fellow white people talk about Black racial injustice, I hear them take offense to the idea that they should not speak. I often find that white people are angered by the idea that they should not be part of the dominant voice when it comes to improving the experience of Black people in America. I hear white people get angry when they are told not to instruct Black people on how to protest, handle their emotions, or “improve” their situation. Well white people, while your anger may be real, it isn’t logically justified. Why? Well, first we must recognize that in a world with limited resources and social space, some people are more qualified than others to speak. Generally, we have to think of social interactions and space as finite resources. In society, we see there are only so many voices the media, lawmakers and people in general can hear and process. Therefore, we face economic decisions around who gets to speak. When we apply this concept to systemic racial injustice, it becomes evident that as a white-passing man, my emotions, thoughts, and feelings around racial issues are not as important as Black voices for the same reason why the home-building experts should be
the ones speaking at the town hall meeting. Simply put, the people best able to speak on the issues involved with Black injustice are Black. Black people face the discrimination that is being discussed. Black people have a common narrative and history of oppression that is vital in understanding the issue of racial injustice towards Black people. By living through this oppression and these shared experiences, by sharing this common history, Black people have a more dynamic and informed view of the Black racial injustices plaguing America than someone who is not Black. Black people contribute valuable data, perspectives and solutions that are grounded in reality. In general, we shouldn’t give the limited and valuable social space to people who are not qualified to speak. White people should be quiet when talking about racial injustice for the same reason why we silence an inexperienced community member when we need to discuss how to build a house. That is, society can’t waste its limited social space on an opinion which contributes nothing or is based in conjecture. But someone might say: “Isn’t it racist to silence people just because they are white?” Well no, it isn’t. We have to think about racism through a functional perspective to fully understand why we have the idea of racism in the first place. Functionally, racism is defined as the systematic and institutional discrimination of a person or group of people due to their race, when their race holds no relevance. We functionally use the idea of racism to denote injustice and prejudice. This definition recognizes racial differences, but understands that discrimination arbitrarily based on those differences is wrong. It isn’t racist to tell white people to be quiet about Black racial injustice because white people aren’t qualified to speak about the Black experience and the emotions associated with living that oppression every day. White people cannot provide that dynamic and valuable data and perspective that will lead to getting a nuanced understanding of racial issues. Someone isn’t being prejudiced or unjust when they silence white people because race IS relevant in deciding who
is most qualified to speak about Black oppression and experiences. You wouldn’t hire a prospective employee who has no experience building houses to build your home. This isn’t discrimination because their experience is relevant in deciding if you should hire them. To apply this argument further, we must not only think of how qualified we are to speak on issues, but how our intentions and words actually translate into the social landscape. Essentially, this is a matter of intention vs. impact. While I truly believe that most white people don’t want to be racist, they end up being functionally racist. Their words combine with realities of the social systems of our society and become problematic. When a white person changes #blacklivesmatter to #alllivesmatter we can infer that their intention is to show that all lives are valuable regardless of race. The intention behind this is to lessen racism. However, when white people say #alllivesmatter, they move the discussion away from Black oppression, and unintentionally utilize their social capital (power) to allocate the limited social space to a discussion of the existence, morality and ethics of racism in the context of idealism, rather than the necessary discussion of how to navigate Black oppression and racial injustice that is grounded in the context of reality. This holds true for the #notallmen hashtag as well. It is obvious that all men aren’t rapists. However, when men say #notallmen, they unintentionally utilize their social capital (power) to drive the conversation away from gender inequality and rape culture, to a discussion about the existence, morality and ethics of sexism in a way that uses idealism to inform discussion, rather than recognizing that sexism and rape culture is a demonstrably proven reality, and moving forward to discuss concrete ways to fix it. As white people (and agent groups in general) it’s imperative that we recognize the social realities of our society and our qualifications to speak if we are to ever truly rid society of racial and oppression in general. Robert Schwarzhaupt is an LSA senior and a Trotter Multicultural Center programming board member.
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SARAH BARBER | VIEWPOINT
For marginalized students, a painful path When I was 13 years old, I found out a huge family secret: I am Native. I had always wondered why my skin was darker than my white friends’. But my light-skinned grandparents kept the explanation under wraps for years. Living during a time when our Native heritage would do a disservice to us, they hid the knowledge in an attempt to protect us from stigma and shame. My grandparents’ fears were neither unfounded nor uncommon. The narrative of Native history in this country is one of forced assimilation — a deliberate effort to strip us of the language, traditions and culture that have united and sustained us for generations. Decades of systemic oppression have taught Native families that their culture, their customs and their beliefs have no place in American society. After I learned my true origins, I paid much closer attention to the dialogue happening — or, in many cases, not happening — around privilege and access to opportunity. Even at fairly diverse and progressive institutions like the University, I found that many of my well-meaning classmates had never been exposed to the nuances of the struggles facing Native and other marginalized communities. But this lack of exposure was not unique to the University. All across the country, few people of color are in positions of authority and power. This leads to startling disparities in all sorts of rates that measure health, wealth, happiness and future prospects for low-income families and people of color. To me, some of the most alarming statistics play out in education. The diversity of the teaching force
in this country does not reflect the diversity of the students it serves. This becomes even more problematic in light of the fact that students of color face such limited educational opportunities compared to their white counterparts. While great teachers come from all backgrounds (I had many with whom I did not share an identity), research and reason tells us that kids benefit when they get the chance to learn from leaders who look like them. In a society that tells certain groups of children not to associate success with the places they come from and faces that look like theirs, working with a role model every day who embodies a marginalized identity is among the best ways to give power to our students. It was with this in mind that I joined Teach For America after I graduated from the University. I wanted to empower kids to embrace who they are and take pride in their heritage, regardless of what society says they should feel when they look in the mirror. I teach primarily Latino students in Denver who have been talked at and about in conversations surrounding their education, but have rarely been included in the conversation. My students need to know that this isn’t right. They have to feel that they control their stories, and that their lives should not be predetermined by their zip codes or parents’ paychecks. For my students, I know I have to make more than surface-level changes, like swapping out the examples of “ice cream cones” for “tacos” in word problems. I have to show them that they have value just as they are and that their experiences bring much needed perspective and new
ideas to the world. Teach For America is working hard to increase diversity in the teacher workforce and develop advocates for equity, but there is still work to be done. Being a Teach For America corps member of color has not been easy, and I have faced many of the frustrations around privilege and access that I did as a student at the University. The necessity of voices that point out these issues, however, is what keeps me in this movement. As a corps member, I advocate to make our professional development sessions as inclusive as possible. I call out ideas that could feel insensitive to marginalized groups, even when the speaker didn’t intend them to be. I use my own struggles with identity to encourage others to consider ways they can be more inclusive and responsive to their kids’ unique needs. This work can be uncomfortable, but the more we talk about these realities, leverage our own experiences and push one another to expand our thinking, the better off our kids will be. Empowering kids is the best way I know to make sure my grandparents’ shame was not in vain. This Native Heritage Month and throughout the year, I am fighting to make sure other kids don’t have to feel the inner turmoil and confusion that I did. As you reflect on how to honor the heritage of your own ancestors — whatever that may be — and help create a world that is more equal than the one they knew, I hope the opportunity to foster the next generation of leaders is one you’ll consider. Sarah Barber is a 2013 University alum.
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Opinion & News
Let’s talk about Ferguson
ts now been a week and a half since the Ferguson ruling. The issue has been discussed by a variety of people from multiple angles, but I want us to have one final discussion. We won’t turn this into a heated debate or a hosMICHAEL tile environSCHRAMM ment. Instead, I want everyone to have one calm, cool and collected opportunity to hear why so many believe the case is racially driven and speaks volumes about racism in America. If you can’t fathom why the case is racist, just keep an open mind in thinking through some of the points I want to make. First, let’s talk about Ferguson itself. It’s a predominantly Black city with two-thirds of the town’s population being African American. While that’s 66 percent of the population, only one member out of six on the city council is Black. Three Black police officers serve on a 53-person staff, and Blacks account for 86 percent of vehicle stops in the town. Now, let’s talk about police officer Darren Wilson’s recounting of the story. He starts by saying he heard about a robbery of cigarillos from a store. Later, he sees Michael Brown and a friend walking in the road, asks him to walk on the sidewalk, and Brown replies “fuck what you have to say.” Wilson proceeds to stop the car, asks Brown to come over, and Brown heads to the car. But he doesn’t simply head to the car — Brown then slams the door shut on Wilson and begins punching him through the open driver’s window. Then, mid-fight, Brown proceeds to stop punching Wilson to hand over the stolen cigarillos that Wilson heard were previously stolen. Using this time to recover, Wilson grabs his gun, points it at Brown, and Brown replies “You’re too much of a fucking pussy to shoot me.” After fighting for control over the gun, Wilson fires a shot that sends Brown running. After this, Brown comes charging back to Wilson, puts his right hand into his waistband (implying Wilson believes Brown had a gun), and refuses to get on the ground per Wilson’s instructions. This causes Wilson to fire six shots into Brown. Doesn’t this story sound a little strange to you? I’ll highlight some commentary made in a Vox article. Why would Brown, someone who recently stole cigarillos from a store, act so aggressively noncompliant with a police officer wanting him to simply walk on the sidewalk? Why does Brown — mid-fight — decide that it’s a
wise decision to stop fighting to hand his friend the stolen cigarillos in front of a police officer? Why would Brown antagonize an intimidated officer to shoot him? Why would Brown reach into his waistband to pull out a gun when evidence indicated that Brown never had a gun? It almost seems that Wilson is trying to connect Brown with the theft and frame him as particularly dangerous in an attempt to justify his actions. Furthermore, numerous eyewitness accounts contradict Wilson’s claims — including whether Brown charged Wilson when the gun was fired. Let’s also not forget that there’s evidence directly contradicting Wilson’s statements. Brown was shot 150 feet from the car as opposed to the 10-foot distance Wilson claimed separated them. Brown’s DNA was also discovered in Wilson’s car, contradicting the testimony that Wilson and Brown’s altercation occurred with Brown outside the car. Does any of this definitively prove that Wilson shot Brown due to race? No. But let’s think things through. This is a town where a few whites rule a majority of Blacks. Wilson is a man who previously belonged to a police force disbanded for racial tension. His recounting of events is bizarre at best, and evidence directly contradicts his claims. Given the facts, it certainly seems likely that race played a factor. Notice how I’m not saying racism was the sole factor. I’m not asserting Wilson thought “I’m going to shoot this man because he’s Black.” However, lying somewhere between Brown’s conscious and subconscious lays our society’s purported notion that Blacks are more threatening than whites. I believe that if we could repeat the situation with 50 Michael Browns and 50 white counterparts, more of the Black men would be dead than the whites. I’m not unsupported in believing this. In America, young Black men are 21 times more likely to be shot dead by police officers than young white men. That’s an indicator of institutionalized racism — subtle racism that’s facilitated by policies and practices that are particularly harmful to minorities. Institutional racism happens all around us. The same applies to the Ferguson case. The police system isn’t intended to harm African Americans more, but statistically, it does. We also see evidence of institutional racism in the judicial proceedings of this case. Despite evidence contradicting Wilson’s statement, he wasn’t even tried because the court failed to indict him — something that happened in only 11 cases out of 162,000 in 2010. Wilson didn’t
need to be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for an indictment. All that’s needed to be indicted is a legal threshold of probable cause. Given this, in a public statement, the National Bar Association couldn’t understand how a jury couldn’t indict Wilson. The details behind the case don’t match the indictment decision — something that could be explained by the rejection that institutional racism exists. Let’s just assume Wilson was indicted and the case did go to court. Does evidence exist to declare Wilson as guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? Honestly, I don’t know, and I could very well see there not being evidence to prove murder. Institutional racism is one of the hardest things to prove, but does that make the situation any better? Enough evidence exists to believe Brown’s death was influenced by race. It speaks to how easily racism can occur in our society with almost no repercussions, and that in itself is disheartening. But let’s take this further. Let’s assume the evidence indicating this case as racist isn’t actually pertinent. What if Wilson wasn’t being racist? It doesn’t matter. Because this case didn’t occur in a vacuum. It fits under the enormous umbrella of cases where race could have been a factor in a shooting. Remember Trayvon Martin? Cases where death is potentially race-driven happen frequently (remember that Black men are 21 times more likely to be shot dead than white men?) It doesn’t matter whether Wilson definitively shot Brown due to racism; it just matters that there’s a reasonable possibility. If it didn’t happen in this case, there are hundreds of others, and it is happening in some of them. What’s worse is that this form of injustice is designed to go unpunished. This case speaks to the larger societal problem that Blacks encounter more frequent and horrific police encounters, which speaks to the even larger problem that racist undertones exist in our society. That’s why this case is so important: not only does it reveal fundamental flaws on a micro level, but it’s a huge problem on a macro level revealing the existence of institutional racism. I make absolutely no claims that I can understand the hardships that Blacks are experiencing while mourning the Ferguson case. However, from observing the pain, riots and injustice felt in the community, I feel the responsibility lies on more than just African Americans to speak on this case. — Michael Schramm can be reached at mschramm@umich.edu.
NEEL SWAMY | VIEWPOINT
The Team, the Team and a Victim When it comes to athletics, there’s no denying that the University of Michigan — a school known for the eardrum-shattering screams of its students during football games and the torrential sea of maize and blue that adorns our campus on a daily basis — is encompassed by a level of spirit that exceeds no bounds. Indeed, one hardly has to flutter an eyelid to find themselves surrounded by a highly pervasive and inclusive passion for the Big House and the Victors who proudly call it home. One only has to look around to see that at the University, athletics are more than a form of relaxation and entertainment. Here at the University, athletics — particularly football — are worshipped, revered and glorified. And while I will be the first to admit that this level of passion marks one of the many alluring features of our university — because let’s be honest, what’s a college without its students — I cannot help but feel that our faithfulness to our athletic department and the individuals who compose it has the malignant potential to render us apathetic towards those who fall outside it or in some way challenge it. On Nov. 16, newspapers and media companies all over the country entered a state of insa-
tiable frenzy upon learning of the arrest of former defensive end player Frank Clark, who had been charged with domestic violence and assault after reportedly beating his girlfriend in an Ohio hotel. Police reports indicate that Clark, a senior, spent the night behind bars until being arraigned on the morning of Nov. 17. Clark was suspended from the team that same day. Rightfully so. But despite the degree to which the legal reports center around the victim — who through her altercation with Clark was rendered unconscious and sustained several bruises on her face — the media coverage of the event has been overwhelmingly limited to the football team. As far as local newspapers are concerned, Clark’s actions have affected nobody but his teammates. As far as local newspapers are concerned, the victim of this altercation — who because of Clark will bear the rusty chains of self-blame and psychological trauma — represents nothing less than an additional obstacle for The Team to overcome. This news coverage indirectly and directly diminishes the severity of Clark’s crime, and propels the message that we, as students, should be concerned more about the team than our peers.
The lessons taken away from domestic violence cases do not stop being absorbed with the prosecution of the perpetrator. It’s through the victim’s experiences that we as a society can recognize the epidemic that is relationship violence, and it’s through an analysis of our own values that we can propel forward and thus promote an environment that’s intolerant of such hostilities. Clark’s crime deserves attention not because of his status as a football player, but because of the pain it has triggered throughout our campus. Our actions are hardly justified by our position in society, and thus we must view Clark not as a god to be revered, but as a male figure who surrendered his masculinity by committing the worst of crimes. Football players — and all athletes for that matter — are not representative of our student body. This is not to say that we should boycott the sport or refuse to attend games because of this incident — this maneuver is both immature and deprecating to the entire university as a whole — but rather consider the degree to which we glorify the game and its players. It’s important to recognize that there’s more to our campus than The Team. Neel Swamy is an LSA freshman.
Friday, December 5, 2014 — 5A
Police cases across nation inspire host of protests Police brutality, racial profiling topics of concern NEW YORK (AP) — From the White House to the streets of some of America’s biggest cities, the New York chokehold case converged with the Ferguson shooting and investigations out of South Carolina and Cleveland to stir a national conversation Thursday about racial justice and police use of force. A day after a grand jury cleared a white New York City officer in the death of a black man, civil rights leaders pinned their hopes on a promised federal investigation. Demonstrators protested for a second night in New York, carrying replicas of coffins across the Brooklyn Bridge, and turned out in such cities as Denver, Detroit and Minneapolis. And politicians and others talked about the need for better police training, body cameras and changes in the grand jury process to restore faith in the legal system. “A whole generation of officers will be trained in a new way,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed as he and his police commissioner outlined previously announced plans to teach officers how to communicate better with people on the street. President Barack Obama weighed in, saying one of the chief issues at stake is “making sure that people have confidence that police and law enforcement and prosecutors are serving everybody equally.” Even before the decision in the Eric Garner case came down, racial tensions were running high because of last week’s grand jury decision not to charge a white officer in the shooting death of black 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Other cases were added to the mix on Thursday: — In the tiny South Carolina town of Eutawville, a white former police chief was charged with murder in the 2011 shooting of an unarmed black man. Richards Combs’ lawyer accused prosecutors of taking advantage of national outrage toward police to obtain the indictment more than three years after the killing. — In Cleveland, the U.S. Justice Department and the city reached an agreement to overhaul the police department after federal investigators found that officers use excessive force far too often, causing deep mistrust, especially among blacks. The investigation was prompted chiefly by a 2012 police ar chase that ended in the deaths of two unarmed people in a hail of 137 bullets. Just last week, protesters took to the streets of Cleveland after a white police officer shot and killed a black 12-year-old boy carrying what turned out to be pellet gun. At a news conference in New York after a night of protests led to 83 arrests, the Rev. Al Sharpton called the state-level grand jury system “broken” when it comes to police brutality cases and urged federal authorities to fix it. “The federal government must do in the 21st century what it did in the mid-20th century,” he said. “Federal intervention must come now and protect people from state grand juries.” Still, federal civil rights cases against police officers are exceedingly rare. In the past two decades, only a few such cases have reached trial in New York — most notably the one involving Abner Louima, who was sodomized with a broom handle in a police station in 1997. Several other high-profile cases didn’t come together. That’s largely because federal prosecutors must meet a high
standard of proof in showing that police deliberately deprived victims of their civil rights through excessive force, said Alan Vinegrad, who as a federal prosecutor handled the Louima case. Federal intervention “doesn’t happen often and it shouldn’t happen often,” said James Jacobs, a constitutional law professor at New York University Law School. “They should only step in when the local prosecution was a sham.” Activists have claimed that the grand jury investigation of Garner’s death was indeed a sham. An amateur video showed Officer Daniel Pantaleo putting Garner in an apparent chokehold, and the medical examiner said the maneuver contributed to the death. But Pantaleo’s attorney, Stuart London, expressed confidence Thursday that his client won’t face federal prosecution. “There’s very specific guidelines that are not met in this case,” London said. “This is a regular street encounter. It doesn’t fall into the parameters.” Acting at the Staten Island district attorney’s request, a judge released a few details Thursday from the grand jury proceedings — among other things, it watched four videos and heard from 50 witnesses, 22 of them civilians. District Attorney Daniel Donovan didn’t ask for testimony, transcripts or exhibits to be made public. But London offered some details, saying the officer’s testimony focused on “his remorse and the fact that he never meant to harm Mr. Garner that day.” Pantaleo admitted he heard Garner say, “I can’t breathe,” but believed that once he got him down on the ground and put him on his side, he would be revived by paramedics, London said. The officer also testified that he “used a takedown move and any contact to the neck was incidental,” the lawyer added.
Arts
6 — Friday, December 5, 2014
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
EVENT PREVIEW
GENDER & MEDIA COLUMN
An in-depth look at ComCo’s players Improv group presents ‘Kardashian through the Snow!’ By FRANCESCA KIELB Daily Arts Writer
I walk in to the ComCo warm ups to find a group of students dancing to “Shake Dat Thing” while making strobes out of the lights in Angel Auditorium A. When I explain that I am at the warm up for Friday’s show to ask a few Friday, Dec. 5 8:00 p.m. questions, Angell Hall Aud. B they explain $2 that they are busy working, but that I can sit and observe until they are done. I sit silently with my pen and paper out, watching them slumber-party style mime to “Glamorous,” pretending to write something of hard-hitting journalistic value. It didn’t take long to realize that the improv group was improv-ing on me. An hour before the doors open for the show, they gather into a circle to do something that, to my untrained eye, closely resembled “Stomp The Yard.” They clap and stomp to a beat, going around in a circle making rhymes. I presume this is an exercise to prepare the actors for the fast pace of improve skits, or some kind of war dance. Practicing improv is different from other performance rehearsals in that they cannot actually prepare any content, only format. For example, one of their games involves taking an adjective suggestion from a member on one side of the audience and a noun from a member on the other side, and combining them to make a movie title. The two ComCo players that volunteer then have to act out that movie, while a third member (the ‘director’) tells them to change genres on the spot (i.e. “now make
ComCo presents: Kardashian through the Snow!
it a horror movie,” “now make it an opera”). On performance night, the words and genres for the warm up round will be completely different from the actual show, but it gets the actors accustomed to making on the spot decisions. “Alex and I always go to the bathroom before the show. It’s important, ” said LSA freshman Kelsey Fox. “It’s become a tradition,” added LSA sophomore Alex George. “Basically we just try to get our energy up, and pass emotions between each other,” Fox continued. “I think it’s important when you are going into a show to get out of your head, so I try to remind myself that I don’t need to prepare or bring anything with me.” However, there are plenty of challenges that the actors must face. “You get inside your own head a little bit,” said LSA Junior Mike Duczynski. “There are occasionally still the rough parts where you go out there and the spot is on and you are really supposed to say something hilarious and it could knock the scene out of the park … and you just have no idea what to say, and that’s the worst. Even then though we just sort of laugh.” “The idea that you need to let go of everything in your head,” Fox said. “Falling into patterns taking the same characters, letting it become too formulaic,” Duczynski said. Favorite characters to play? Fox: “I often end up as an old Jewish man. I really have to remind myself to stop being an old Jewish man. I imagine him as an older gentleman — he’s homeless but very well spoken.” He then continued to do the voice for five minutes. “So just like that,” said LSA sophomore Aaron Hellman. “I think that one easy way to not fall into the same character again and again or the same shtick is that when you get a suggestion from the audience sometimes you have a first impulse of what road to go down, and you sort of double check that in your mind. If you normally
choose anger in a scene, pick a different emotion,” Sherman said . “The audience is almost expecting your first reaction so if you come up with something different that’s usually where the funniness comes from,” said LSA senior Daniel Markowitz. On that note, what makes a show particularly funny? “When we had really big and really good crowds — the energy is symbiotic,” said Ross senior John Dennehy. “The best scenes are when you both buy in completely and no one is driving it, and you are like ‘oh shit’ and you are falling over the edge of a cliff but the ground is still there but you are still falling,” he continued. “Yes, the best scenes are usually when you are on the edge of a cliff,” said LSA senior Guy Madjar. “Hanging off by your neck,” Sherman added. “Yes, ComCo practices in the U.P.,” said Madjar. Have you ever had anything go wrong in a skit? Sherman: “Someone was shot once.” Sherman: “Yeah, on stage.” Markowitz: “That was soooo awkward,” Markowitz: “I do miss Carol.” Markowitz: “She was less bulletproof than she was funny.” Sherman: “The carpet had to get completely redone.” Sherman: “Yeah, I wouldn’t perform anywhere near this part of the stage for like a whole three shows.” Dennehy: “It was like the M in the diag we just walked around it.” Markowitz: “So … does that answer your question?” On average, it took me five seconds too long to realize they were kidding, but when asked what the best part of improv was I got a surprisingly touching answer: “What I like about improv is that nobody owns anything, I think that if you say something hilarious it’s just as much because your partner set you up as it is because you thought of something funny,” said Fox. There was a pause. “What she said.”
Classifieds RELEASE DATE– Friday, December 5, 2014
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
ALFRED A. KNOPF/Vintage Books
“You better be reading this article” - Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
Making feminism more inclusive
Almost a year has passed since Beyoncé dropped her surprise, earth-shattering album, Beyoncé. I celebrated the release by drinking a milkshake in my roommate’s bed and screaming the lyrics to “Grown Woman,” NATALIE my Midwestern GADBOIS interpretation of Beyoncé’s glamour. With those 14 songs (and sexy accompanying videos) she changed how much of the world viewed the music industry, stardom and watermelon. With the help of Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on this album, Bey also made feminism go platinum, defiantly claiming the oft-criticized word as her own. “***Flawless,” Yoncé’s noholds-barred and (debatedly) feminist dressing-down of
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her haters (and all the posers who think they can be like her), featured an excerpt from a Adichie’s 2013 TEDx Talk, entitled “We should all be feminists.” Though she had already made a name for herself in the literary world, as her three novels are all bestsellers and critically acclaimed, this short feature on the Beyoncé song made her a household name — at least within Beyoncé-loving households, the only kind that really matters. And for good reason. Adichie is the modern feminist everyone should know. Not only does “We should all be feminists” speak to an expansive list of issues of gender inequality — the policing of girls’ sexuality, skewed power dynamics in academia and the misplaced value on marriage — Ngozi is funny and charming, bringing warmth and grace to important topics. Her other works contain these same shades, developed portrayals of diverse women’s experiences. Not brazenly feminist so much as subtly revolutionary, challenging norms between countries and cultures. In her novel “Americanah,” the 2013 National Book Critics Circle award winner, Adichie weaves the tale of Ifemelu, a bright Nigerian girl who moves to the United States for college, leaving the love of her life behind. The book rotates between middleclass Lagos, black hair salons in Trenton, New Jersey, seedy apartments in London and upper-class white Philadelphia deftly, pinpointing both the hardship and the rapture Ifemelu experiences navigating these spaces as a foreign black woman. Ifemelu is brash and strong and smart and unapologetic, much like Adichie herself. Much of the novel focuses on Ifemelu’s relationships — never asserting that she needs a boyfriend, but honestly depicting her internal struggle as she falls in and out of love with men who can’t understand her background. In one potent passage Ifemelu relaxes her hair because she fears she won’t land a job with natural hair, and her adoring boyfriend Curt — rich, white, liberal — reacts in horror and disappoint that she feels she must change herself. Her queasy worry that he loves her in part because of her apparent exoticism demonstrates one of the most skewering examinations of the conf luence of race, gender and nationality I’ve ever read. It’s also funny and soaring, microcosmic evidence of Adichie’s craft. Stories like Adichie’s, and the diverse background that contributes to them, are infinitely important, especially given the current state of feminism in the United States. It’s dangerously easy for feminists to get stuck in one narrative; many of the most vocal and
impactful modern voices of feminism come from cookie cutter backgrounds: white, upper-class, American, heterosexual. Feminist organizations have an alarming habit of limiting minority voices. First wave feminists like Alice Paul only allowed Black women to participate in the Women’s Suffrage Movement if they worked and marched separately from the white women and men; Author and activist Rita Mae Brown very publicly quit the National Organization of Women in 1973 to protest of the organization’s efforts to distance itself from gay and lesbian groups. Unfortunately, this legacy of compartmentalizing identities to fight for a greater good continues today. Just yesterday, combative feminist magazine Jezebel published a story headlined “Let’s find Taylor Swift a black friend” — missing the point entirely on how to incorporate non-white voices into the conversation without tokenizing or simplif ying. Despite controversy over the word itself, there is a universality to feminism that when tapped into is immensely empowering, as Adichie’s work demonstrates: there are certain experiences that women everywhere can relate to, ways that women connect across borders and demographics. But, conversely, particularly because of social media and “viral” feminism, vocal American feminists can often get caught in the privileges of white, upper-class feminism, tone deaf to other identities — recent backlash against Lena Dunham and Taylor Swift proves this trend. Thankfully, perhaps because of Twitter and our increasingly global world, or perhaps because of a conscious effort to be more inclusive, other voices are coming to life, adding more and more narratives to the library of pop culture feminism. Voices like Adichie’s, like Beyoncé’s, like transgender activist and star of “Orange is the New Black” Laverne Cox. Hopefully this is part of a general shif t towards a less fractured brand of feminism, a global movement focused on impact and education rather than oversimplif ied declarations. As Adichie personally def ines feminism, “A feminist is a man or a woman who says ‘ Yes, there is a problem with gender as it is today. And we must f ix it. We must do better.’” We must do better, and feminism is only stronger when it disseminates stories from a range of voices. So watch Adichie’s videos. Read her books. Discover narratives distinct from your own; it will only ser ve to widen your perspective. Natalie is blasting “Grown Woman.” To join her, e-mail gadbnat@umich.edu.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
EVENT PREVIEW
UMMA to present ‘Over the Line’ Collaboration with SMT&D showcases saxophone talent By KATHLEEN DAVIS Daily Arts Writer
There’s an instrument that transcends the line between classical and jazz, old and new, that can elicit deep passion or a soothing backdrop UMMA to a situa- Friday, Dec. 6 tion. It’s been 1-4 p.m. featured in Free hit songs in genres from blues to rock ‘n’ roll, and it’s been caricatured as overly sensual by a shirtless Jon Hamm in an SNL Digital Short. I’m describing the saxophone, the instrument that’ll be featured prominently in Saturday’s installation concert “Over the Line,” a collaboration between the University’s School of Music, Theatre and Dance and the University of Michigan Museum of Art. The sixth annual installation concert highlights four studentcomposed pieces, which will be performed by SMTD students in the galleries of UMMA. Each piece was composed with both the acoustic properties of the saxophone and the artistic venue
Over the Line
in mind, to compliment the performance space as well as to offer the audience an interdisciplinary museum experience. Lisa Borgsdorf, Manager of Public Programs at UMMA, is excited about the opportunity for music students to expand their creative process outside the classroom in this showcase. “We’re giving students a space to step outside the traditional ways they might be working in a studio practice, and instead working towards a public performance in a museum setting, which is outside the norm for performances,” Borgsdorf said. Making the saxophone the center of “Over the Line” was a choice influenced by several factors. The installation concert marks the 200th anniversary of the invention of the saxophone, by the eponymous Adolphe Sax, as well as honoring the retirement of Donald Sinta, Professor of Saxophone in SMTD, who is one of the world’s top classical performers of the instrument as well as a much loved University professor. “Also, the saxophone just sounds really awesome in the museum spaces,” Borgsdorf said with a smile. UMMA and SMTD have a longstanding collaboration, with the most recent student performances developing out of UMMA’s 2006-2009 renovations, which consequently gave more space in
which to experiment with outside collaborators. “One of the strategies for how we would enliven this new space was to work in partnerships with a number of different departments and organizations on campus to create programming for the museum,” Bergsdorf said. This plan has been successful in organizing unique performance content in UMMA, like ‘Over the Line.’” “Over the Line” is unique in several ways, one of the reasons being that the installation concert is one of the only performances UMMA holds during museum hours, rather than after closing like most are. The structure of “Over the Line” is also non-linear, and audiences are urged to come any time during the performance and to explore the different galleries and student performers in whichever order they wish. “This is just a completely different way to experience the galleries,” Borgsdorf said. “Being in a gallery where the music is being played in complete response to a work of art changes the way you interact with the art. (Over the Line) opens up new possibilities for how a person might connect to the art, and it’s pretty awesome to celebrate the talents that these students have, both the performers and the composers, and give them a showcase to experiment with.”
FILM NOTEBOOK
Friday, December 5, 2014 — 7A
TV NOTEBOOK
NBC
A touching moment from the fifth season of NBC’s “Parenthood.”
The importance of Max Braverman By ALEX INTNER Daily Arts Writer
There’s a lot to love about “Parenthood.” Nearly every character and storyline are gems that make me both smile and cry. However, the stories surrounding Max Braverman stick out as the most important for me. No other show portrays the difficulties of raising a child with special needs this directly and effectively. I’ve never seen anything else that captures the range of emotions so vividly and accurately. As the show tracks Max’s parents’s journey through, well, parenthood, so many moments resonate with me, because my parents have gone through similar challenges in raising my sister. In the first episode, Adam Braverman and his wife Kristina receive the diagnosis that their son, Max, has Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism. Through six seasons, the program followed the family as they deal with adjusting their lives after the diagnosis. Adam and Kristina coped with everything from Max’s difficult self-
discovery of his disability after overhearing an argument between Adam and his brother, to managing the complexities of his education. He attended several schools during the show’s run, including schools for children with special needs, mainstream middle schools and, most recently, his parents’s specialty school. The most poignant example of this came in the fifth season episode “The Offer.” Adam and Kristina had just picked up Max from an overnight field trip after he asked to go home. The scene begins with Max asking Adam and Kristina why the other kids hate him, eventually revealing that one of the boys peed in his canteen because he was a “weirdofreak.” He talked about how the other children make fun of him because he’s different, saying how he doesn’t understand why they are making fun of him. All Adam and Kristina can do is try to comfort him. I cried when I first watched that scene. From Adam’s first reaction to the other kid’s awful act — “I’m gonna kill him” — to Kristina climbing
into the back seat to hug her son, these are emotions that resonated so strongly because they came from such a real place. That scene represents the combination of the Braverman’s anger at anyone who would hurt their son and their sense of helplessness because they weren’t there to protect him from those kids. I identified with these feelings so strongly because that’s exactly how I would feel if someone were to hurt my sister in that way, and the show portrayed them with such frankness and authenticity. In the end, that’s why I’ll miss “Parenthood.” The series has told so many beautiful stories over the years with all of its characters. However, in Max, Adam and Kristina, there are three characters whose journey I’ve particularly identified with. To have such a truthful and sincere portrayal of a character with a disability and the challenges that he and his parents face is something that I’ll never forget when this show ends, and I’ll be grateful to have had the opportunity to watch.
NEW MEDIA NOTEBOOK
A millennial’s ode How to judge an actor’s performance to YouTube videos COLUMBIA
I gotta moisturize these hands.
By KAREN HUA
By MAYANK MATHUR Daily Arts Writer
I’ve been a fan of awards shows for as long as I can remember. Even as a little kid I enjoyed the self-congratulation bonanzas an unreasonable amount. To be fair, the only awards shows I used to watch as a kid were Bollywood ones and let’s face it — there’s way too much going on there for people to focus on insignificant things like actually handing out awards for cinematic achievement. There’s an insane amount of song and dance, just the right amount of controversy and an unhealthy number of actors making painfully awkward jokes during the ceremony. Rewarding the people involved in film seems almost incidental to the entire process. It was only when I got older, invested more time in film and, most importantly, began to watch movies from the West, did I begin to appreciate award shows for what they were … or what they could be. There’s something about Western awards shows that oozes class. It seems to me like everyone cares about the pageantry and everything is done in earnest. I’ve wasted hours on end on YouTube on the official “Oscars” channel, looking up clips from award ceremonies through the years. It was a lot of fun while it lasted. Despite the fun I used to have while watching these awards, I could never really
shake the feeling that it was ultimately pretty pointless, especially when it came to the “Best Actor” and “Best Actress” awards. I only really cared about the acting awards — the others were just distractions that stood in the way of the main event. I fell out of love with the whole process when I realized that you can’t really rank the performances of actors and actresses across different roles in different films throughout the year — the fundamental purpose of awards shows.
Performances show versatility with age. What is acting? Taken literally, it’s basically trying to be someone you’re not. The best acting performance has to be judged on how difficult it is to play the character, or how far the character is from the person playing it. Some roles might inherently be easier to play for some people, simply because it’s closer to who they are. Some people might have to go to great lengths to skillfully portray their character … perhaps this is where method acting comes in? Though it’s hard to judge performances in a single year, it’s easier to dissect and judge performances over a period of time. Time allows
actors to experiment with roles and explore their ranges, bringing in the element of versatility. Versatility is the defining element of a great actor. Because judging single performances is inherently subjective, it only makes sense to judge actors over a period of time at how convincing they are in different roles. Two actors that continue to impress me for this reason are Jessica Chastain and Christian Bale. Each of them are eyecatching in very different roles, movies and situations. Whether she’s playing a CIA intelligence analyst (Zero Dark Thirty), a fun-loving girl who turns suicidal (The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby) or a frustrated daughter pining for the return of her father (Interstellar), her performances are striking in their ability to convince that she is actually that character. Christian Bale is a complete wizard when it comes to this, as can be seen by the variety of his performances. Granted, the roles are almost always dramatic in nature, but no one can deny his ability to pull off anything thrown at him. Ultimately, this all comes down to the fact that individual performances show signs of a talented actor, but performances analyzed over time show proof of versatility; the latter is the more important when actually judging performances. Question is — according to this logic, if you choose to accept it — how many legitimately great actors are out there?
Daily Arts Writer
Exactly 330 days before Playlist Live, my freshman year roommate and I jittered the ants out of our pants as we obsessively refreshed our browsers to snatch the first pre-sale tickets. We were college students — “adults” — but we allowed ourselves a minute of tween squeals and fangirl spasms. The prospect of Playlist became our pick-me-up for the rest of the year. Essentially, Playlist Live TriState is a three day convention in Secaucus, New Jersey. The event invites YouTubers, web filmmakers, bloggers and other online content creators to mingle among a community of other media enthusiasts. There were open dialogues about finding individual artistic passion, seminars on how to become involved in the industry without a “new media major,” and panels discussing the responsibility to raise awareness and incite social change on this platform. Playlist proved firsthand how YouTube and filmed content have evolved so far beyond cat and prank videos. People can now make a living by sharing their creativity online. YouTube has become an open stage for aspiring comedians, an accessible venue for not-yetrockstars, and a mic for anyone to voice social activism. People develop personalities onscreen and some even amass massive followings. I discovered Andrew Lowe last week, Troye Sivan this past
year, Grace Helbig three years ago and NigaHiga seven whole years ago. I have watched some content creators from the time their videos were still grainy and their viewer count only held four places. I followed as their fetus faces gradually matured, as their budding channels gradually surpassed milestones of quality and quantity. Some of them are now household names and regularly appear on television. Seeing their success grow from the roots up is incredibly rewarding, even if I have no stake in it. I still can’t quite understand how I can feel so invested in people I never met until last weekend. However, seeing their faces every single week for years – watching them speak passionately and believe whole-heartedly in their work – their dedication is nothing but admirable. After years of watching the same YouTube characters, they have simply become friends I have never met. I sit alone with my laptop in my bedroom, with voices seemingly aimed solely toward me – I feel a connection even with a lacking physical aspect. However, the personalities I grow close to are still barricaded by an impossibly impenetrable screen. Online, connections are forever one-sided – they feature my reactions to people in a video who cannot reciprocate expressions. At Playlist though, these bonds came to life. Relationships become concrete, and connection is immediate. Back in high school, I
raced home from school to reunite with familiar faces onscreen. When AP exams and college applications blew a storm over my life – when everything became depressing and overwhelming – YouTube became my refuge. I was a teenager too anxious to find alternatives to drama at school, too eager to immerse myself in a community that didn’t include people I saw every day since elementary school. Looking back, my love for YouTube feels lame to admit, but I can honestly say not much has changed now. I still retreat to videos for comfort – for study breaks that keep me sane. YouTube grounded me from imploding in high school, and it has since bonded me with my best friend in college. Most importantly, it remains a source of a guaranteed smile every time I hit play. For a weekend, an entire expo center all knew the words to “Happy Little Pill” and belted it together. For once, I didn’t cowl in judgment when I pointed my own camera at myself. Selfies were not shameful and vlogging was not considered strange. We all understood the value of capturing every moment. It was a widespread FOMO that didn’t feel so lonesome. At Playlist, we blurred the lines between content consumers and content creators. Regardless of “fame,” age, gender, race or any other identity – we found a simple common ground: an enthusiasm for new media that is rapidly expanding our world.
Sports
8 — Friday, December 5, 2014
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
‘M’ rolling into rivalry game Wolverines face MEN’S BASKETBALL
Michigan natives
By ZACH SHAW
Daily Sports Writer
After starting the season with a 2-5 record, Michigan hockey coach Red Berenson knew his team needed to have a good homestand to keep the season alive. Friday, Michigan has a chance to make it a great one. The Wolverines (1-1 Big Ten, 7-6 overall) look to continue their hot streak in a single game against Ohio State. Michigan has won five of six at home and takes on the Buckeyes (1-1, 5-8-1) feeling good in all areas of the game. “Our team has got a lot of confidence,” Berenson said. “There’s still a level of humility, though. We haven’t won the Stanley Cup or anything, but we’ve got a lot of players who feel better about themselves and their game, and that’s helpful.” The Wolverines’ best asset continues to be their offense. After posting 19 goals in their first seven games, the unit has tallied 30 goals in its last six games, vaulting itself to the No. 3 offense nationally. Ohio State, however, returns its goaltender tandem and eight of nine defensemen from last season, presenting Michigan with its toughest challenge since its slow start. “We’ve got to keep challenging them in practice and realize that every game’s going to be different,” Berenson said. “We’re better now, but you never know. The shots won’t always go in, so we’ve got to make sure that we don’t let up any unearned or cheap goals on the other end.” Coming to Ann Arbor having split their last three series, the team has struggled with consistency for much of the season, but Berenson knows his
By SIMON KAUFMAN Daily Sports Writer
JAMES COLLER/Daily
Sophomore forward JT Compher has started to contribute more on offense, tallying three goals in the last two weeks.
young defense needs to be on its toes. Ohio State showed its ability to score quickly and early in its 5-1 win over Notre Dame Sunday. It has proven its fast scoring threat can occur at any time against any team, giving a Michigan squad prone to breakaway goals a tough task. “They’re a speed team,” Berenson said. “They’ve got some dangerous forwards, they won’t play as close as you would think. They play more of a stretch game. They’re always looking for home
runs and breakaways, and they create them a lot, so they’re a dangerous team for us.” Though Michigan will be tested throughout the game, the most important time to prevent home runs and breakaways may be the opening minutes. With a 7-2 record when scoring first compared to a 0-4 record when they don’t, the Wolverines understand the importance of getting off to a fast start. “You’ve seen us not start well and not score and get behind the eight-ball,” Berenson said.
“They’re a dangerous team.”
“You’ve seen us start well and score, and those are usually our best games, so that first goal and a fast start is important, and that’s all preparation.” Michigan has been prepared in five of its previous six games, but the Buckeyes — which are 3-1 on the road — present a challenge Berenson is hoping his team is ready to meet. “It’s kind of like going to class all week,” Berenson said. “If you’re doing what you’re supposed to do and doing your homework, you should be ready for your exam on the weekend. Every time we play, it’s like an exam. “We have to be ready to go and ready to start on time.”
Kyle Cooper grew up in the shadow of the Big House, with Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson watching over him. The Hillsdale College junior forward is from Northville, some 20 miles northeast of Ann Arbor. Posters of Michigan Stadium, Howard’s catch against Notre Dame and Woodson plastered his childhood bedroom’s walls. On Nov. 15, though, the Michigan men’s basketball team was the opponent, and Cooper put up a double-double, with a gamehigh 28 points and 10 rebounds. Hillsdale was overmatched, though, as the Wolverines rolled in their season opener, 92-65, but Cooper’s performance earned him praise from Michigan coach John Beilein after the game. For Cooper, and a handful of other local products, the opportunity to play against a team they watched and rooted for growing up is one they’ll cherish for a long time. “When I first found out this summer we were going to come up (to Michigan) for a game there was kind of that little bit of nostalgia,” Cooper said. Hillsdale center Jason Pretzer, a Jenison native, also noted how special it was to play against the Wolverines and how he has watched Michigan’s program improve over the years. “It was great watching them just improve as I grew up,” Pretzer said. “They’re on a completely different level now. You expect them to make the tournament every year — deep runs.” On Nov. 17, the Wolverines rolled past Bucknell and two
more Michigan natives. Bucknell guard Chris Hass grew up in Pellston, and forward Cory Starkey is from Petoskey — both about a 250-mile straight shot north from Ann Arbor. And when the Bison came to town, Hass didn’t go easy against the team he used to root for, shooting 7-of-14 from the field and scoring a teamhigh 21 points. Three days after taking down Bucknell, Michigan hosted Detroit — a team that has just four out-of-staters on its roster. For one of the Titans, his relationship to Michigan basketball was passed through lineage. Juwan Howard Jr. — son of former Michigan star and Fab Five member Juwan Howard — is a redshirt junior forward for Detroit and its leading scorer. Howard helped the Titans keep it close for most of the night, contributing a game-high 24 points in an eventual 71-62 loss. “I look up to my dad a lot,” Howard said. “Seeing him have success here, I wanted to do the same thing and follow his footsteps. But things didn’t work out. I think that was a learning experience for me and gave me an extra edge and a chip on my shoulder.” For some who grew up nearby, lining up across from Michigan doesn’t mean they’ll stop rooting for the Wolverines. “It’s nice playing a team coming off a Big Ten championship,” Cooper said. “Hell, I hope they win another Big Ten championship, just to give us some more credibility for playing them tough.” Daily Sports Writer Max Bultman contributed reporting.
WOMEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING
For DeLoof sisters, team is family By KEVIN SANTO Daily Sports Writer
When freshman swimmer Gabby DeLoof arrived in Ann Arbor this year, joining the Michigan women’s swimming and diving team meant more than finding a new family in her teammates. Gabby was also reunited with her older sister, junior Ali DeLoof. Competing together is more of the same for the duo. The sisters have swam together most of their lives and were teammates at Grosse Pointe South (Michigan) High School. They have been waiting to get in the same pool again since Ali graduated in 2012. “It’s very exciting,” Ali said. “(Our favorite part is) the competition and acting goofy sometimes. Some of the girls call us the Goofy DeLoofies.” As if having two DeLoofs
weren’t enough, Michigan coach Mike Bottom revealed Tuesday that Ali and Gabby’s third sister, Catie, will be joining the 12th-ranked Wolverines next fall. Catie DeLoof signed her letter of intent Nov. 17. The fourth DeLoof, Jacqueline, currently competes at Grosse Pointe South, and if she follows in her sisters’ footsteps, she might don the maize and blue soon, too. “It’s a great family,” Bottom said. “I expect that they’re going to get better, because that’s what the DeLoofs do. They’re just going to keep (improving), hopefully all the way to the international ranks.” The DeLoof-Michigan tradition started as a result of another family member — cousin Alana Font, who attended Michigan from 20082012. Font taught the sisters about
the Michigan athletic culture, and they were fortunate to have the opportunity to consistently visit the campus together at a young age. So, when they received their recruiting letters from Bottom, it was a dream come true. As members of such a prestigious women’s swimming program, the DeLoofs have learned to lean on each other through the rigorous training sessions and demanding practice hours. “My biggest obstacle would be probably getting used to the training and lifting,” Gabby said. “(I’m) overcoming that (by) being positive, asking Ali for advice. It’s been a good transition.” Ali DeLoof noted that her transition was much different than her sister’s. Gabby knew a majority of the team through her sister prior to having a
AS ALWAYS, THANK YOU FOR READING THE MICHIGAN DAILY @theblockm
recruiting trip. Bottom was quick to sing Ali and Gabby’s praises for their progress and success so far. He emphasized that the sisters are unique in their own right, but that, as a package, they are extremely coachable and a pleasure to be around. The coach commended Gabby for her willingness to learn and the enthusiasm she shows in wanting to improve. In addition, Bottom went on to pay tribute to Ali’s confidence, explaining that she isn’t intimidated by any of her competition. The DeLoof sisters are currently competing in the AT&T Winter National Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina, which started Thursday. As they have their entire life, the duo is looking to blow opponents out of the water, together.
TERESA MATHEW/Daily
Juwan Howard Jr. nearly led Detroit to an upset over Michigan at Crisler.