ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Ann Arbor, Michigan
michigandaily.com
The Statement
The Statement explores the rapidly growing field of art therapy, which uses painting and drawing to help adults improve their mental health
» Page 1B
DIVERSITY
RC students critical of inclusivity in the program Townhalls split into section for people of color and section for all AMANDA ALLEN/Daily
Internal Medicine Prof. Juanita Merchant speaks about work-life integration at a panel of Women in Science in the Danto Auditorium of the Cardiovascular Center
Female scientists at the ‘U’ examine gender inequalities in panel discussion Talk highlights experiences in STEM systems, shares ideas for advancement YOSHIKO IWAI For the Daily
In the first panel discussion of its kind on campus, six scientists from medical and social fields spoke about their experiences in academic medicine to a packed audience Tuesday afternoon at
the University of Michigan Health System’s Frankel Cardiovascular Center. The panel aimed to address issues of gender inequalities faced by women in science, such as overcoming the lower proportions of women holding senior positions. The event was organized by Durga Singer, assistant professor
Hillary Clinton for President and taking on the gun lobby. Clinton will represent women by working to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act and making high-quality childcare more affordable for working mothers. Equally important for students on our campus, Clinton addresses campus sexual assault directly, and her plan covers methods of prevention, support and ensuring of fair processes for all involved in reporting and investigating. Clinton has sponsored the 2005 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, introduced the Caregiver, Advise, Record, Enable Act — which ensures contraception for victims of rape and incest — supported the Department of Justice’s Offices on Violence Against Women and launched a United Nations resolution creating guidelines for international response to sexual assault in areas of war. Clinton’s economic policy is fundamentally important to the college student: It helps make college more affordable and accessible. Her promise to “make debt-free college available to everyone” and to “liberate the millions of Americans who have student debt” is among the most important policies that seek to support students’ well-being. Greater college affordability and accessibility can lead to greater socioeconomic diversity on college campuses, something of crucial importance on our campus here in Ann Arbor. As well, Clinton plans to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $12 per hour over See CLINTON, Page 4A
GOT A NEWS TIP? Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail news@michigandaily.com and let us know.
panel was not simply to discuss issues in scientific fields, but to have productive conversations for those in attendance. “My intention was to really have women who are interested in balancing careers in academia, with sciences and basic scientists being the main group because they See SCIENCE, Page 3A
Daily Staff Reporter
At diversity town halls sponsored by the Residential College Tuesday, students questioned the inclusion of various demographics within the RC, a University of Michigan living and learning program that highlights valuing diverse thought and ideas. About 70 students, faculty and staff gathered Tuesday night in the Keene Theater of East Quad for the second of two RC town halls on equity and inclusion. The Michigan Daily was asked to leave the the first town hall, which aimed to create an open dialogue geared specifically to
IGR, Spectrum Center facilitate dialogue for Coming Out Week
FROM THE DAILY
As the upcoming presidential election nears, we cannot and will not ignore that the fate of our nation and the lives of its citizens are at risk. We as voters hold the power to decide what happens next. With the gravity of this presidential election in mind, The Michigan Daily’s Editorial Board endorses the same Democratic candidate we did in the primary, Hillary Clinton, to become the 45th president of the United States. Clinton’s dedication to public service and experience in law and foreign affairs affirm her as the election’s most qualified, knowledgeable and experienced candidate. Her policies are logical and thorough, and will serve the needs of the American people. As college students, we consider her on the grounds that her policies will best serve us during our years in the educational system and as young adults entering the workforce. The University of Michigan’s student body includes diverse identities, which Clinton plans to protect through comprehensive social policy. Clinton’s LGBTQ policies promote human rights on a local and global scale, calling to “end so-called ‘conversion therapy’ for minors” and to “invest in law enforcement training focused on fair and impartial policing” of transgender citizens. Her racial justice policies include a reformation of the criminal justice system — a system that unfairly targets Black men and people of color — and more restrictive gun laws, starting by removing gun show loopholes
in the Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases and the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology, and was funded by the University’s Advance program, an organization that financially supports events and projects specifically to aid the careers of women. Singer said her goal for the
ALEXA ST. JOHN
Atteendees discuss experiences around sexuality LYDIA MURRAY Daily Staff Reporter
In honor of National Coming Out Week, Intergroup Relations and the Spectrum Center hosted an open dialogue Tuesday during which 20 University and local community members discussed their experiences with perceptions surrounding sexuality. Rackham student Chelsea Noble, events and programs
graduate coordinator at the Spectrum Center, said the event aimed to curate a conversation on campus about the different journeys of people from divergent backgrounds. “As we were planning for National Coming Out Week, we were trying to engage a broader community around conversations of coming out and being out,” she said. During the dialogue, James Downey, an Ann Arbor resident, discussed how they
recently asked their co-workers to use they/them pronouns. Downey said they faced difficulty in the transition to a different pronoun despite their co-workers normally stating support of the LGBTQ community. “That was met with somewhere between tepidness and outright resistance,” Downey said. “It is very costly to really correct people. Fighting that pronoun fight See SEXUALITY, Page 3A
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
LSA junior Max Cornblath and Social Work student Erica Watson, the event facilitators for the IGR discussion on sexuality, speak at an Intergroup Relations meeting on South University on Tuesday.
For more stories and coverage, visit
michigandaily.com
INDEX
Vol. CXXVI, No. 10 ©2016 The Michigan Daily
all people of color involved in the program. The Daily was allowed to attend the following forum, which was open to all. Tuesday’s events were the first recent public ones around campus climate that included a separate discussion for people of color, amid a large number of other University and collegespecific ones around climate held in the leadup to the launch of the University’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion plan last week. The townhalls were not specifically affiliated with the DEI plan, a year-long initiative launched by University President Mark Schlissel to improve campus climate, though the plan was referenced by many students. See RC, Page 3A
DETROIT
Workshop discusses history of Detroit Discussion focuses on expanding volunteers’ knowledge of city REBECCA LERNER For the Daily
The University of Michigan’s first Detroit Student Service Fusion Workshop began Tuesday and featured lectures, icebreakers and pizza as part of a three-part series to teach students how to interact most efficiently and consciously with the city. The workshops are a pilot program for the University’s Detroit Center. The majority of the 30 attendees were graduate students from different areas of the University, ranging from the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning to the Ross School of Business. There were also several undergraduates and faculty. Before the workshop began, event organizer Danyelle Reynolds said she encounters many students through her position at the Ginsberg Center who want to do service in Detroit, but she believes knowledge of a community is important before they engage with it. See DETROIT, Page 3A
NEWS......................... 2A OPINION.....................4A CLASSIFIEDS............6A
SUDOKU.....................2A ARTS...............5A S TAT E M E N T. . . . . . . . .1 B
News
2A — Wednesday, October 12, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Tweets
ON THE DAILY: BLAZE PIZZA GIVES AWAY 1,000 FOR CHARITY As part of their second Ann Arbor location opening on Eisenhower Parkway, Blaze Pizza hosted a giveaway of up to 1,000 free pizzas between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m. Tuesday. If 1,000 were given away, the restaurant would make a total donation of $5,000 to Maize & Blue Cupboard at University of Michigan and Swoop’s Student Food Pantry at Eastern Michigan University to help feed students in need. Rachel Albritton, head of public relations for Blaze Midwest, said as of 1:45 p.m. on Tuesday, it appeared as though the restaurant would reach their goal. “We’re confident that we’re going to hit our 1,000 pizza goal and we’ll be able to give the food pantry our $2,500 donation,” Albritton said. Giving back to the community in Ann Arbor has been one of Blaze Pizza’s goals since beginning
operations in the city, Albritton said. “When we opened our first Ann Arbor location on Washtenaw, we wanted to give back to the community in some way and we partnered with Food Gatherers, another food pantry type of organization,” Albritton said. When opening a second Ann Arbor location, she noted that they wanted to also focus on how they could give back to the university campuses in the area. “When it came time to open our second Ann Arbor location, we thought we’d do it again and this time focus on food pantries that were associated with the universities,” Albritton said. Both of Blaze’s locations are inaccessible to students without a car. Albritton said the business is looking to reach out and attract more student customers with
their promise of quality food, fast service and affordability. “Our whole concept is focused on customization — that’s just such an appealing concept to students who are short on time and usually
have a limited budget,” Albritton said. “We’re seeing a lot of demand for individualization and customization; we definitely want to cater to students in any way that we can.”
Darren Criss @DarrenCriss
Yo @umich today is your last chance to register if you haven’t already. If you’re an MI resident, you’re a big deal!
S TAY I N G O P T I M I S T I C
G
@gplagenz
Sorry I was late to class, there were dogs in the diag and I have priorities
ARNOLD ZHOU/Daily
Kathryn Sikkink, professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, discusses ideas drawn from her book, Making Human Rights Work: Evidence for Hope, at the Michigan League Tuesday.
CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES Fresh Fruits and Veggies Sale WHAT: Fresh, local and sustainably sourced produce on sale in Mason Hall. WHO: Student Food Co. WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. WHERE: Mason Hall
Peace Corps Information Session WHAT: Session for students interested in exploring the opportunity of serving in the Peace Crops. Returned Peace Corps volunteers will be on hand for a discussion. WHO: International Center WHEN: 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. WHERE: 3240 Weill Hall
Study Abroad Fair
Harvard Law Information Session
WHAT: Information for students about the variety of study abroad programs and opportunities offered through the University. WHO: Center for Global and Intercultural Study WHEN: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. WHERE: Michigan Union Ballroom
WHAT: Kelly McLaughlin, assistant director of admissions at Harvard Law, will host an information session for prospective students. WHO: Newman LSA Academic Advising WHEN: 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. WHERE: G243 Angell Hall
International Job Search
Dustbowl Revival Orchestra
WHAT: Event for International Institute students to explore opportunities for employment abroad . WHO: Career Center WHEN: 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. WHERE: International Institue, room 1644
WHAT: Music group, The Dustbowl Revival, will perform their unique blend of traditional and modern American music. WHO: Michigan Union Ticket Office WHEN: 8 p.m. WHERE: The Ark, 316 S. Main St.
Tommy Marcus Historical Lullaby Lecture
@tommygmets86
@UMich please fire whatever buffoon decided meatless Monday’s was a good idea
WHAT: A lecture on the historical understanding of the lullaby from Margo Kalends of the English Department. WHO: Medieval and Early Modern Studies WHEN: 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. WHERE: 1014 Tisch Hall
Spectrum Center Support Group: Women Loving Women
CARLY RYAN
Daily Staff Reporter
With the Nov. 8 election on the horizon, six female political officeholders gathered Tuesday on campus for a panel examining personal experiences in government and to address challenges women face entering politics. A diverse crowd of students and community members gathered in Rackham Auditorium to hear the moderator, Women’s Studies Prof. Anna Kirkland, ask the officeholders about their experiences as females in politics. The diverse range of panelists represented several different levels of government, including state and local representatives and University of Michigan administrators. The Institute for Research on Women and Gender hosted the
MEDIOCRE.
puzzle by sudokusyndication.com
@anniegencay
Dogs on the Diag is the smartest thing this university has ever done.
420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327 www.michigandaily.com
Panelists say women face significant challenges in entering public sector other.” While several panelists said this competition manifested itself superficially in their experiences, they made clear that femininity and image do not have to come at the expense of respect. Simone Lightfoot, Ann Arbor Board of Education trustee, described the first months in office as a “hazing” period where women are often patronized, demonized or disregarded. “(Men) see you as sexual, they see you as secretarial and if you are really a player, they see you as adversarial or the B-word,” Lightfoot said. “If you haven’t been called the B-word, then you really aren’t a player in the body politic.” Beyond gender, the panelists —four of the five who were women of color — also discussed experiences with racial barriers. Micah Griggs, an LSA senior and Central Student Government Vice President, said her decision to enter the political field largely stemmed from a lack of representation of women of color in that domain. “Seeing a woman in politics allows other women to say, ‘Hey, I can do that,’ and seeing women of color allows more people of color to think they can do it too,” Griggs said. Lindsay Slater, a master’s student in the School of Information, said she appreciated the panelists’ tenacity. “I didn’t think before that people could come into politics from backgrounds like these and operate in a non-traditional way,” Slater said. “They were aware that so many challenges were there, and from their own conviction they decided to stick through it.” The panelists also reiterated that female representation is necessary to properly address See GOVERNMENT, Page 3A
Annie Gencay
WHAT: Weekly drop-in space for students to gain support and build a community of resources. WHO: Spectrum Center WHEN: 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. WHERE: Michigan Union Spectrum Center
Female politicians challenge racial, gender gaps in panel discussion event, along with co-sponsors the Institute for the Humanities, Ford School of Public Policy and the Department of Women’s Studies. The discussion covered a series of challenges and surprises met by women in government, and also addressed the disparate proportion of female representation in politics. All six panelists agreed women come by leadership differently than men and find narrower windows of opportunity, facilitating a negative attitude of competition between women. Former State Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D–Detroit) noted that outside factors have largely contributed to fostering such internal competition. “Women tend to look for permission,” Tlaib said. “We’re conditioned that way. We were raised to compete against each
Follow @michigandaily
SHOHAM GEVA
HUSSEIN HAKIM
Editor in Chief 734-418-4115 ext. 1251 sageva@michigandaily.com
Business Manager 734-418-4115 ext. 1241 hjhakim@michigandaily.com
PHOTOGRAPHY SECTION
NEWS TIPS
ARTS SECTION
photo@michigandaily.com
news@michigandaily.com
CLASSIFIED SALES
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
classified@michigandaily.com
EDITORIAL PAGE
734-418-4115 opt. 3
tothedaily@michigandaily.com opinion@michigandaily.com
arts@michigandaily.com
NEWSROOM
SPORTS SECTION
sports@michigandaily.com
CORRECTIONS
DISPLAY SALES
dailydisplay@gmail.com
corrections@michigandaily.com
Editorial Staff
AMANDA ALLEN and GRANT HARDY
LAURA SCHINAGLE
Senior Photo Editors: Zoey Holmstrom, Ryan McLoughlin, Zach Moore Assistant Photo Editors: Claire Abdo, Sinduja Kilaru, Sam Mousigian, Marina Ross, David Song
Managing Editor
Managing Photo Editors schlaura@michigandaily.com
EMMA KERR
Managing News Editor emkerr@michigandaily.com Senior News Editors: Allana Akhtar, Jacqueline Charniga, Emma Kinery, Camy Metwally, Katie Penrod Assistant News Editors: Riyah Basha, Kevin Biglin, Caleb Chadwell, Tim Cohn, Will Feuer, Nisa Khan, Jennifer Meer, Lydia Murray, Caitlin Reedy, Alexa St. John
CLAIRE BRYAN and REGAN DETWILER
Editorial Page Editors opinioneditors@michigandaily.com Senior Opinion Editors: Caitlin Heenan, Ben Keller, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Rebecca Tarnopol, Stephanie Trierweiler
MAX BULTMAN and JAKE LOURIM
Managing Sports Editors sportseditors@michigandaily.com Senior Sports Editors: Minh Doan, Jacob Gase, Kelly Hall, Ted Janes, Kevin Santo, Brad Whipple Assistant Sports Editors: Betelhem Ashame, Chloe Aubuchon, Laney Byler, Chris Crowder, Sylvanna Gross, Mike Persak
KATHLEEN DAVIS and ADAM THEISEN
Managing Arts Editors arts@michigandaily.com Senior Arts Editors: Caroline Filips, Melina Glusac, Jacob Rich, Ben Rosenstock Arts Beat Editors: Matthew Barnauskas, Christian Kennedy, Rebecca Lerner, Natalie Zak
ANJALI ALANGADEN and FRANCESCA KIELB
Managing Design Editors design@michigandaily.com Senior Design Arts Editor: Jacklyn Thomas
KARL WILLIAMS
Statement Editor statement@michigandaily.com Deputy Statement Editor: Nabeel Chollampat Statement Photo Editor: Zoey Holmstrom Statement Lead Designer: Shane Achenbach Statement Creative Director: Emilie Farrugia
EMILY CAMPBELL and ALEXIS NOWICKI
Managing Copy Editors copydesk@michigandaily.com Senior Copy Editors: Danielle Jackson, Taylor Grandinetti
NIVEDITA KARKI
Managing Online Editor nivkarki@michigandaily.com Senior Web Developers: Dylan Lawton, Bob Lesser
LEVIN KIM
Managing Video Editor video@michigandaily.com Senior Video Editors: Michael Kessler, Abe Lofy, Emma Winowiecki
DEMARIO LONGMIRE and TONI WANG
Michigan in Color Editors michiganincolor@michigandaily.com Senior Michigan in Color Editors: Sabrina Bilimoria, Christian Paneda, Ashley Tjhung
MICHAEL SCHRAMM Special Projects Manager
EMMA SUTHERLAND
Managing Social Media Editor Senior Social Media Editors: Ellie Homant , Carolyn Watson
Business Staff
SONIA SHEKAR
ASJA KEPES
National Accounts Manager
Sales Manager
ANNA HE
Special Publications and Events Manager
photo@michigandaily.com
Digital Marketing Manager
EMILY RICHNER JULIA SELSKY
Local Accounts Manager
CLAIRE BUTZ
Production and Layout Manager The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University OF Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for fall term, starting in September, via U.S. mail are $110. Winter term (January through April) is $115, yearlong (September through April) is $195. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid. The Michigan Daily is a member of The Associated Press and The Associated Collegiate Press.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, October 12, 2016 — 3A
SEXUALITY From Page 1A
JEREMY MITNICK/Daily
LSA senior Micah Griggs, Central Student Government vice president, speaks at the “We are the 20%: Women in Government” panel discussion Tuesday in the Rackham Amphitheater.
GOVERNMENT From Page 1A women’s issues. Sen. Rebekah Warren (D–Ann Arbor) said some male officeholders are resistant to addressing such topics, and often table the discussion due to their sensitive nature. Griggs added these are exactly the issues worth noting and challenged the audience to lean into discomfort. “We need to address what makes us uncomfortable,” Griggs said. “Often those are
SCIENCE From Page 1A have to balance multiple tasks,” Singer said. “I want them to feel inspired, and I want people to feel that they have even learned a couple new skills that they can take back to thinking about their own careers.” Reshma Jagsi, the deputy chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology, also introduced her social scientific research to start the event. According to her findings, despite reaching near equal proportions of men and women in medical schools and at the undergraduate level, women are still underrepresented in senior positions on campus. This led to a discussion with other professionals in the field and aspiring scientists struggling with gender gaps in academic success. Jagsi and the other panelists presented strategies and tips intended to empower women and advance their potential in their respective fields. “Seeing gender-neutral norms, practices and policies can have a disparate way of impact upon women by forcing collision, biological or professional, or by magnifying the inequities of traditional gender division of labor in our society in which many women continue to bear the greater burden of domestic responsibility,” Jagsi said. Jagsi said the onus is on the institutions that employ and educate women in science to develop targeted interventions supporting gender equity. Panelist Alyssa Hasty, professor in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics at Vanderbilt University, reflected
RC From Page 1A The townhalls were sponsored by the RC and organized in part by Logan Corey, a RC alum and senior admissions and recruitment coordinator. Corey said the separation of the town hall into a section for people of color and a section for all interested was appropriate to ensure that students and faculty of color felt safe raising concerns and sitting in solidarity with other people of color, given the current climate on campus. Citing recent anti-Muslim, anti-Black and anti-LGBTQ fliers found on campus, she said they demonstrated the need for the separate town halls, noting that though she found herself taken aback by the fliers, she did not feel repercussions that a person of color might have. “Obviously, not being a person of color, I was deeply offended, deeply frustrated seeing (the racist posters), but I wasn’t offended personally in the same
conversations about race, gender and maybe speaking with your professor. The things that make us uncomfortable need to be addressed for progress.” University Regent Katherine White (D) said this discourse should start at the university level. She emphasized diversity is a requisite to successful government, encouraging those in the room to actively take part in civic engagement. “For our democracy to flourish, it requires broad participation by the government,” she said. “And universities are unique places
where many different people, of many different races and different perspectives, come together and are encouraged to ponder the roots of systemic problems and form solutions and plans and policies to address these issues.” Despite the obstacles many women face in this field, Warren said she found her work to be fulfilling. She challenged attendees to break barriers and reap the rewards. “I can quantify how many ways I helped make someone’s life better,” she said. “Who else gets to do that?”
on specific situations in her training, including maintenance of exercise, grant writing, student advising and her family as resources of offering advice to others. “If it helps them persevere, it helps them be more successful and optimistic in their careers, then I think we’ve done our job,” she said. She also suggested setting boundaries for better time management, saying this enforces productivity and the outcome of data to stay on track. Maureen Gannon, the vice chair for faculty development in the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt, talked about being raised with the philosophy that women can do anything. Despite living with Crohn’s disease, raising children and doing work, she said she maintains a disciplined and rigid calendar. Gannon said when it comes to juggling priorities, telling herself “This is good enough” is the best method of accomplishing all of the tasks. Juanita Merchant, a professor of gastrointestinal sciences in internal medicine and of molecular and integrative physiology at the University’s Medical School, spoke about her experience as the only Black female to go through her program at Yale and the stereotypes she encountered there. She described self-doubt as a barrier but emphasized the impact that good mentors, tenacity and persistence had on her success. The panel also discussed project funding in the sciences, an area where Merchant said statistically women are equal in aptitude as men, though they do not apply to as many grants. According to research Jagsi contributed to, global research funds are not equally distributed between
genders, and standards are higher for women. “If you don’t apply and incubate an ostrich egg until it’s perfect, you won’t get the money,” she said. Bethany Moore, a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, stressed knowing your strengths and putting them forward to support you. “Just don’t quit,” she said. Moore also said the flexibility of her job allows for quality time, even if there is not as much quantity. This helps with the integration of her professional and personal life, she added. The panelists agreed on the importance of socializing with colleagues, regardless of gender, race or specialty. “If you can’t get a drink at a bar, you won’t be successful in science,” Gannon said. LSA freshman Sydney Box said though she attended the event because it was required for her class, she found the topics discussed highly relevant as a woman going into political science. “I feel like it’s important to change the worldwide stereotype that scientists are thought of or portrayed as, as men,” Box said. Christine Freeman, research assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, echoed Box’s sentiments that the event shed light on topics pertaining to her field, and said she wanted to learn from women who experienced similar setbacks. “In my department, the proportion of men in senior positions to women in senior positions is not reflective of the trainees you see coming in,” she said. “There seems to be a loss of women along the way, so any tips or help from senior women who have gone past that hurdle is important to me.”
way,” Corey said. Jonathan Wells, director of the Residential College, said the townhalls were originally intended for discussion about the Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality against Black people. However, with the recent events on campus, Wells said it was crucial for faculty to hear student concerns. He also said he felt it was appropriate to break the event into two, giving people of color a space to talk without feeling “watched.” “It’s an opportunity for them to be as open and honest with other people of color as they could possibly be,” Wells said. “They’re the ones who asked for it. Sometimes our initial reaction is to say that’s a group separating themselves out, that’s unhealthy, but this is why we’re coming together at the end of the evening as one group.” At the second forum, which was comprised of mostly white attendees and RC faculty members, attendees discussed a range of issues on the topic of diversity, pointing to what
they referred to as the RC’s low retention rate for people of color, a lack of understanding about disadvantaged backgrounds that often accompany this community and RC requirements that burden students of color who often have to work due to their low socioeconomic status. Additionally, attendees criticized what they characterized as a slow or lack of administrative response to the anti-Black, antiMuslim and anti-LGBTQ fliers found Sept. 26 and Oct. 3 on campus, saying the University still has the same climate it had 30 years ago. Students who spoke said they felt frustrated and excluded living and taking classes in the RC, citing incidents of microaggressions and macroaggressions in East Quad such as offensive writings on white boards. Speakers also cited instances they said contradicts the community’s central goal — creating a comfortable community within the larger University — such as an overemphasis on learning colonized languages such
or just fighting to be seen is something that I think that a lot of us are going through.” During the dialogue, students also shared stories of their experiences with employers, colleagues, friends and others who had assumed they are of certain identities, whether or not they are accurate. The event began with an overview of community guidelines, which organizers said were essential to ensure the conversation remained respectful. These guidelines included a stipulation to prevent the devaluation of another student’s beliefs and to expect a lack of closure, meaning participants should be comfortable without reaching
a substantive answer to the conversation. LSA junior Max Cornblath, one of the event facilitators for IGR, said he believes their purpose is to engage students, faculty and staff in conversations where they have the opportunity to learn from others. “I personally see my role as a facilitator as being there to guide a conversation and provide a safe space for people to share their experiences,” he said. “Also welcoming disagreements and working through those in a productive way that results in learning for everyone in the room.” One of the facilitators, Social Work student Erica Watson, the policy and advocacy graduate coordinator for the Spectrum Center, said she appreciated the discussion because it allowed students to understand the
significance of perceptions. “This event is really nice because it gives people a space to come and process the experiences they are having around being queer or not queer,” she said. “Thinking about the ways that we perceive one another in our queerness and how we are perceived.” LSA senior Ariana Headrick, who attended the event, said she believes events like this one are impactful because they allow students to learn about the different experiences of their peers. “I think these spaces are important because they provide the forum for people to explore their own experiences and also gain perspective from listening to other people,” she said. “That process is what generates a deeper understanding to what is actually going on in the world around us.”
JEREMY MITNICK/Daily
Danyelle J Reynolds, lead of student leadership for change at U of M’s Edward Ginsberg Center, speaks at the Detroit Student Service Fusion Workshop in the Hatcher Graduate Library Tuesday.
DETROIT From Page 1A “I think it should be a starting point for students to learn about and engage with Detroit,” Reynolds said. “We’re going to touch on some of the history that most students don’t know about. No issue that people are affected by just up and sprouted one day. They’re all the result of a history and of the different relationships that are affecting that community.” Addell Austin Anderson, the director of the University of Michigan Detroit Center, began the lecture portion of the workshop covering the history of the city. Anderson interwove the story of her own family living in Detroit in the 20th century with the history of the city as a whole, particularly with regards to the housing discrimination of African Americans. “We were displaced, as were thousands of other African Americans, when they built the highway through Black Bottom,” Anderson said. “You still have problems with restrictive covalence today.”
as Spanish, French and German, rather than more culturallyrelevant languages such as Swahili. Currently, RC students are required to achieve proficiency in a language at the University, one semester beyond LSA’s language requirement, before they graduate. Any language counts toward the requirement, but specific RC language classes are only taught in French, Spanish, Russian, Latin, American Sign Language, Japanese and German. During the latter portion of the evening, students, faculty and staff who attended the first forum also said they were able to help translate what they discussed in the first portion to new attendees who did not identify as individuals of color. LSA and RC junior Darian Razdar, who attended both town halls and was one of many students to participate in the forum, said he recognized the potential for white students to feel discluded from the forum for people of color only, but added both forums were productive, emphasizing that this
Anderson said she hopes to encourage student engagement with Detroit and allow an avenue for those already involved to expand their knowledge by contextualizing the city through the more individualized lens of her family. “We think there’s a lot of resources out there for students who want to be engaged in Detroit and they just don’t know,” Anderson said. “We want to be more proactive in linking students with resources that will help them be more prepared to engage with Detroit.” The presentation was only a brief overview of the history of the city, beginning with the native people who lived there before colonization and concluding with the modern day. However, many of the participants said they learned new information they hadn’t been exposed to before. The lecture focused equally on the conflict and culture of the city, primarily concentrating on Detroit’s positive narratives. “You never know, when you’re (lecturing on) the history, because maybe people
opportunity for students of color is rare in a mostly-white culture like at the University. “I think for white students who feel somehow (upset) by us having a first town hall for students and staff of color, I’d say look at yourself, think about your place and your people’s histories,” Razdar said. “You can seek out white spaces, and those can be productive, as long as you think about how you can leverage your privilege that you’ve been raised with.” During the townhalls, Razdar noted how he felt he had a different college experience due to his parents being immigrants and his background. “A lot of these students don’t understand that there are core differences between us,” Razdar said. Though many voiced anger at the RC for its lack of diversity and inclusion during student speakouts, Razdar said he disagreed and called the event indicative of RC efforts to improve inclusion. Instead, he said it was more of a call to action for the University’s
know this already,” Anderson said. “I was surprised to hear somebody say ‘I didn’t know Detroit’s population peaked in the ‘50s.’ That’s the sort of thing I would like more people to know. I was really encouraged, because that’s the sort of dialogue we wanted people to have.” Taubman graduate student Srinidhi Venugopal said the lecture was especially informative for her as an outof-state student. “It gave me an insight of Detroit, which I didn’t have before,” Venugopal said. “It makes me look at Detroit in a different way. I really enjoyed it; it was really eye-opening.” The next workshop, which will be on Nov. 11, will incorporate a bus tour of the city and will take place at the Detroit Center. There is also a funding opportunity for projects if students attend the workshops. Overall, Anderson said the pilot program has gone well so far. “(Detroit) has a really rich history,” Anderson said. “Some of it is troubled history, but much of it is glorious.”
overarching DEI plan. “I think in the future we’re going to have to rely on the voices of students of color, of faculty of color, who are experiencing racism, marginalization, microaggressions on a regular basis to create immediate actions that might supplement things like the DEI plan that the University has instated and just launched,” he said. Naomi André, associate director for faculty at the Residential College, who was present at both town halls, said these town halls are unlike many of the diversity forums happening around campus in recent months. “I find there’s so few models for how to have interracial, intergenerational, different levels of power with staff, administrations, all come together and feel that you can speak in an environment that what you say when you don’t know the right answer will not be held against you but instead will be taken for ‘OK, you’re trying to advance us forward,’ and that’s what I feel was a real success here.”
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Wednesday, October 12, 2016
BRETT GRAHAM | COLUMN
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com
SHOHAM GEVA Editor in Chief
CLAIRE BRYAN
and REGAN DETWILER Editorial Page Editors
LAURA SCHINAGLE Managing Editor
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Carolyn Ayaub Claire Bryan Regan Detwiler Caitlin Heenan Jeremy Kaplan Ben Keller
Minsoo Kim Payton Luokkala Kit Maher Madeline Nowicki Anna Polumbo-Levy Jason Rowland
Lauren Schandevel Kevin Sweitzer Rebecca Tarnopol Ashley Tjhung Stephanie Trierweiler
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.
CLINTON From Page 1A the next several years, making the minimum wage a more livable wage for all Americans. She wants to raise income taxes for the top 5 percent, which is reminiscent of Sanders’ (I-VT) plan. She also plans to provide workers paid family and medical leave. While this plan would end up costing $300 billion over 10 years, it rewards those who stay in the workforce, allows a larger and more diverse population to enter the workforce and ultimately strengthens the country’s economy. It’s easy to get caught up in the cynicism, general weariness, mistrust and lack of confidence in a country wrought with gridlock. It’s even easier to get caught up in Trump’s many scandals, but regardless, the bottom line is that Trump’s policies in and of themselves are incredibly poor. They do not benefit the majority of American citizens nor do they bear the image of the American people in mind. For example, Trump’s immigration proposition to “build a wall” and “have Mexico pay for it” is not only xenophobic, but is also littered with unfixable problems. Trump has no direction or hold of the actual cost of a project of such magnificence. Is it $8 billion, $10 billion
or $12 billion? Trump has demonstrated he doesn’t know for sure — and therefore neither do the American people. The Washington Post estimates the project would cost at least $25 billion. Not only does Trump fail in respect to immigration reform, he has no grasp of the American economy, despite many claims that he will run the country like a business. Trump’s revised tax plan estimates tax cuts upward of $4.4 trillion, with no guarantee of savings. Moreover, he promises to add 25 million jobs back to the U.S. economy, but with his current economic layout, it’s more along the lines of party placation than fiscal reality. We deserve better. And while there is the option of voting for a thirdparty candidate — as many are announcing they will — because the United States uses a majority voting system for presidential elections, voting for a third-party candidate could take away votes from Clinton and increase the chances of Trump winning the election. For example, during the presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Bush in 2000, prominent third-party candidate Ralph Nader may have created a divide between liberal voters and influenced Bush’s election. In addition, neither Green Party candidate Jill Stein nor Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson have shown nearly the level of
knowledge or had nearly the level of experience Clinton will have when entering the Oval Office. Given the weight that this candidate will carry for the future of our nation, we as Americans must vote for the best candidate and take care to understand the impact of our votes in a close and divisive election. We are deep in a political race fraught with issues that affect every aspect of our lives and our futures. The outcome is ours to decide. While Clinton has her downfalls and warrants the same level of scrutiny as any other presidential candidate, she is still the obvious choice. But Donald Trump is not a viable option, not only due to his appalling rhetoric and horrendous behavior, but also due to the fact that he has few concrete plans and little understanding of what it takes to be president of the United States. And while third-party candidates may be attractive to voters fed up with Trump and Clinton, they are much weaker candidates in terms of merit, and it is unlikely they will win. Therefore, voting for them risks skewing the vote in a way that could be disastrous. With so much riding on this election, we are proud to support Hillary Clinton, the presidential candidate with the most experience, best policies and a comprehensive plan to better our country.
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION. TELL US WHAT YOU THINK. SUBMIT TO THE OPINION SECTION. Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to tothedaily@michigandaily.com.
JOE IOVINO | CONTACT JOE AT JIOVINO@UMICH.EDU
A
The real winners and losers
lmost immediately after an answer, and both candidates each presidential debate, enjoyed almost identical shares millions of the Americans of the time. After the first half who tuned in make the wise hour, which lacked policy, these decision to turn the television journalists brought substance to off, climb in bed, go to sleep a debate that could have easily and dream fondly of been a parade of the old days, when personal attacks. making a comment Loser: the about “binders full Republican Party. of women” made us Though Trump made clutch our pearls strides last night in with its shocking shoring up his support disrespect to women. with the base of GOP And then there’s voters, he did little me. As Sunday night to make headway turned into Monday with independents BRETT morning and, having and undecideds. made little progress, attacks GRAHAM Pointed my homework stared about Benghazi and back at me for what seemed Clinton’s emails do little for like the 10th straight hour, the Republicans in competitive background noise of post-debate House and Senate contests, who analysis was hard at work killing will undoubtedly feel the fallout brain cells for those of us who of Trump’s lewd comments remained tuned in. The question: from 2005. In July and August, Who won? there was substantial discussion Surrogates from both about what a nightmare scenario campaigns blathered on about would look like for the GOP — what “Americans clearly saw” a candidate who cannot win, and recapped what we watched a choice to be made between 15 minutes ago, complete with standing by endorsements or instant replay so we recognize losing women voters and donors that it’s almost like the Super abandoning the party. Well, this Bowl — but with a personnel is it. You have made your bed, about 30 years older on average Paul Ryan. Lie in it. and twice as many white people. Winner: the audience A banner across the bottom questions. Not only did Kenneth indicated that a reaction poll, Bone, the man with whom or a focus group response, Twitter fell in love in the hours was minutes away, and in the following the debate, enjoy his 15 meantime, analysts made overly minutes of fame — the audience qualified statements. On Sunday questions were often insightful night, the debate was a “draw” and impressive. Specifically, and a “wash” and a “stalemate,” the questions that bookended according to the panel on the debate were legitimate and CNN, until a poll showed that challenging for both candidates. viewers favored Clinton by a To start, a teacher asked, “Do you margin of nearly 25 percent. feel you’re modeling appropriate Then, suddenly, it was a narrow and positive behavior for today’s Clinton victory. So now, without youth?” A valid question, talking heads or replays, considering the past weekend of without a poll or a reality developments. Then came Karl check graphic, the winners and Becker, the man responsible losers of Sunday night’s second for my favorite debate question presidential debate: in recent memory — “Would Winner: the moderators, either of you name one positive Anderson Cooper and Martha thing that you respect in one Raddatz. In the wake of Lester another?” Both candidates Holt’s middling performance in offered nice compliments to one the first debate, this duo should another and the debate ended. be applauded for the way they Congratulations, Karl. You made handled the candidates. Several the most disliked candidates in times throughout the 90 minutes, history a little less dislikable. you could hear them enforcing Winner: Hillary Clinton. time limits, pressing the In no way did the Democratic candidates to actually answer the nominee for president exceed question (i.e. Martha Raddatz’s expectations Sunday night, but “Let me repeat the question” on she met them and that is all she Donald Trump’s Syria answer) needed to do. Her reiteration and directing conversation to of Michelle Obama’s “When audience questions — the heart they go low, we go high” will of the town hall format. They resonate with the sought-after were not shy to cut off Hillary demographic of white suburban Clinton when she lapsed into mothers. At times, she sat back her stump speech at the end of and allowed her opponent to
show his policy inexperience. She will be rewarded in the polls for strong answers on health care, green energy and foreign policy, combined with her refusal to get down in the muck with personal attacks. Though robotic and rehearsed at times, she connected with several of the voters in the audience and finally got around to mentioning Merrick Garland (though not by name). In the history textbooks, it will be written that the first debate was a Clinton victory and the second saw Trump on the defensive after the release of his lewd comments. Sometimes, not having memorable debate moments can be a good thing. Loser: Donald Trump. He stopped the bleeding last night, satisfying Trump Republicans. He delivered his most cogent attack on Hillary Clinton yet, attacked the media and reminded his supporters why they are in his camp. But he lurked around the debate hall, angry and frowning, barely sat and, in a Stalin-esque moment, suggested that if he wins, Hillary Clinton will be in jail. He avoided an answer on Syria, called Islamophobia “a shame” and threw his running mate under the bus. Furthermore, most Americans went into this debate thinking that a man who brags about sexual assault has no business within a country mile of the Oval Office. Most Americans already knew that grabbing a woman by her genitalia is not “locker room talk” and that a presidential candidate should set a better example. It would have taken a miracle for the Donald to pull off a win that would overshadow the weekend he has had. That miracle did not happen. The performance of the moderators was admirable (being present is a great first step, Lester Holt), though it was audience members like Ken Bone and Karl Becker who stole the show. Donald Trump made no play at the voters he needs to court (women, swing state voters and Latinos). Instead, he chose to rile up voters who have hated the Clintons since the 1990s with Breitbart-fueled rants (Paul Ryan will need a long vacation starting Nov. 9) But in the middle of it all, Hillary Clinton smiled and performed with her usual consistency. Barring a meltdown of cataclysmic proportions in the third and final debate, Clinton held her own. Brett Graham can be reached at btgraham@umich.edu
SAMANTHA GOLDSTEIN | OP-ED
F
No dialogue on the Diag
orty-three years ago, a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year. Last Tuesday, on the high holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality — the University of Michigan’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine — erected two enormous walls on the Diag simulating Israel’s “apartheid” toward its Palestinian neighbors. SAFE members dressed in Israeli army costumes also invited students to engage in a mock checkpoint inspection at the walls. This consisted of dressing student volunteers in chequered keffiyehs and then both verbally and physically assaulting them as they tried to pass through the walls. While I fully support every person’s right to demonstrate and protest against issues they care strongly about, SAFE’s decision to hold this occupation simulation on one of the holiest days in Judaism is blatantly disrespectful to a significant portion of the Michigan community. SAFE’s espousal that they “believe that the best way to achieve (their) mission is through peaceful, constructive, and proactive engagement” directly contradicts their actions from what they called an “apartheid” wall demonstration. Rosh Hashanah is a day of reflection and new beginnings;
it is a day that symbolizes both inner and outer peace. SAFE’s demonstration on Rosh Hashanah was incredibly insensitive toward the Jewish students at this university, many of whom spent the day in synagogue or observing Tashlich, a ritual where Jews empty their pockets into a body of flowing water, symbolizing casting off their sins to begin the year anew. Instead of choosing one of the 362 other days out of the year that are not high holidays to hold their demonstration, SAFE chose this day to make their point whether knowing or not that countless Jewish students would be conveniently absent from campus. Even if they were not conscious of Rosh Hashanah’s immense holiness to Jews, they still should be held accountable for their actions, and at the very least, this op-ed should serve as a learning lesson to SAFE for their future demonstrations. Hillel Chair Eitan Katz, an LSA senior, heard about the protest secondhand after spending the morning observing Rosh Hashanah with family in synagogue. In an interview with the Daily, Katz said he felt “frustrated and hurt” that he could not be physically available “to support fellow Jewish students” as they witnessed this anti-Israel demonstration, many for the first time in their life. If SAFE feels passionately about engaging in meaningful
dialogue about issues relating to occupation and Israeli/ Palestinian relations, they should avoid scheduling their rallies on days when many Jewish students are off campus observing religious holidays. Having a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions rally on Rosh Hashanah — a holiday tantamount in holiness to Christmas or Easter — does not make for a level playing field. While I do not necessarily agree that anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic, events like the one on Tuesday make me genuinely question that belief. Holding a BDS demonstration on a day so holy and meaningful for Jews not just in Israel, but here at the University, is not the behavior of a group that respects its fellow students or wants to engage in constructive dialogue. Had Jewish or proIsrael students demonstrated on Eid al-Adha or Eid al-Fitr, two of the holiest Muslim holidays, I am certain SAFE members would feel frustrated and marginalized, just like the Jewish community is feeling right now. There is a tacit understanding that certain days are off-limits for protesting, and SAFE should understand that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the most obvious and important ones for their fellow Jewish students. Samantha Goldstein is an LSA freshman.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, October 12, 2016 — 5A
SOCIAL MEDIA COLUMN
TV REVIEW
Political polarization in the digital age In the age of social media, political opinions morph into memes
THE CW
Debating taking him to Red Lobster.
‘Frequency’ is a blithely unoriginal meld of genres Mixing a procedural cop drama with time travel still leads to a stale premise for the CW’s newest show DANIELLE YACOBSON
variations of this storyline can tell you, altering events in the past will likely lead to a future A cop drama and a time-travel that nobody ever wanted. series walk into a CW show. “Frequency” relies on this Their love child is “Frequency,” cliché, which plagues most time adorned with flashback travel fantasies: messing with sequences, conveniently events in the past will have unsolved mysteries and the unpredictable repercussions unsettling feeling on the future. that the drama Logically, this unfolding on makes sense, but screen has been this paradox is so done many times ubiquitous in the “Frequency” before. time travel genre Series Premiere Raimy Sullivan that the series (Peyton List, feels like just Wednesdays at 9 “Mad Men”) is another drama p.m. a detective for centered around the NYPD, the the unforeseen The CW same department consequences. her father Frank Time-travel Sullivan (Riley stories open up Smith, “Nashville”) worked room for discrepancies and for 20 years ago, before he was inexplicable coincidence. killed on the job. Led to believe While some choose to go into that her father turned dirty the nitty-gritty of the hows during his time undercover, and whys, “Frequency” fails Raimy has resented him to delve into the pragmatics of ever since he passed away. its mystical forces. The series However, on Raimy’s 28th doesn’t take time to explain birthday, by some miraculous why a lightning bolt sends a and unquestioned stroke of radio back exactly 20 years in luck, a lightning bolt zaps her time, nor does it seem like the father’s old ham radio into a question will be explored as the time-traveling communication show progresses. Instead, the machine. But here’s the hook: audience is supposed to accept the radio taps 20 years into the the ham-radio-turned-magicpast, the day before Frank is machine without questions or supposed to die. hesitations. Furthermore, as Raimy naturally tries to save time catches up with Raimy, her father from a death that she is able to remember the she knows is coming for him. regular, un-altered timeline But, as any viewer who has as well as the version where seen even one of the million she warns her father about his Daily Arts Writer
B-
death. However, she is unable to keep the two realities straight, confusing one with the other and struggling to distinguish which one is the current truth. As Raimy continues to alter time, trying to undo each unwanted ramification, the conflicting timelines will inevitably become so tangled that even the audience won’t be able to keep things straight. The law enforcement element makes a somewhat jarring appearance in the pilot, because in case anyone forgot, the series is about a cop. Somewhat abruptly, the show also introduces a villain in the form of a serial killer, whose case will likely unfold in the episodes to come. However close “Frequency” comes to turning into a cliché, Peyton List is wonderful on screen. She gives Raimy a grounded strength often missing from female characters with stereotypically masculine professions and exhibits an emotional maturity welcome in a father-daughter story. In just a 42-minute pilot, List delivers a performance that sets up her character to be relatable and sympathetic to the audience. Maybe if time travel were possible, there would be enough hours in the day to watch mediocre television. But, since a magic lightning bolt hasn’t hit our TVs, “Frequency” is neither original nor enticing enough to make the cut.
THE VAULT | ‘FIGHT CLUB’ (1999), 20TH CENTURY FOX
It all started with that historic Clinton, constant sniffing debate between Richard Nixon and continuously incoherent and John F. Kennedy in the 1960 remarks — the most surprising presidential election. came from Ken Bone, one of As the first debate ever the undecided voters who televised in U.S. history, with asked questions during the an estimated 70 second debate. His million viewers, now iconic red this face-off sweater and spiffy between the stern, appearance made older Republican him an overnight nominee and Internet sensation, the charming, with the hashtag young Democratic #KenBoneFacts nominee would trending at 52k ultimately tweets on Twitter. change the As comedian SAM course of political Kumail Nanjiani ROSENBERG perfectly pointed consciousness in America. As the story goes, the out, Ken Bone’s sudden people who watched that debate popularity might be a sobering on TV believed Kennedy won, indicator for how tired and while those listening on the scared people are about this radio thought Nixon had it in election. the bag. The differences in both these mediums were key. Because television was developing into the dominant mass medium for American news and entertainment, it not only shifted our society’s perception of politics, but also showcased how radically different our political opinions were becoming. Much like how television changed the way our parents And while social media can and grandparents saw Ameri- enhance our awareness of can politics, social media is what’s going on in the world of changing the way we are see- politics, it doesn’t necessarily ing American politics. Through have a drastic effect on our the stream-of-consciousness drive to vote. A perfect example cesspool of Twitter to the free- of this, as many reading this flowing platform of Facebook, will probably guess, is Donald social media users are given Trump’s disparaging and ugly greater access to information comments about sexual assault and thus greater agency to that went viral last week. We’ve discuss, share and boast about seen our fair share of dumb their political views. comments made by politicians People can follow accounts over social media, but Trump’s that feed them condensed, leaked braggadocious remarks albeit biased, tidbits of infor- about grabbing a woman’s mation about the most recently genitals is the cream of the discussed topics in politics. character assassination crop. Additionally, popular memes But have these comments on Twitter and funny videos actually changed Trump’s on YouTube and Vine provide looming social media presence? both humor and insight into Recent polls from NBC/WSJ everyday politics by highlight- show suggest that he’s beginning ing the absurdity of it all. Since to trail behind Clinton. Yet the 2016 presidential election Twitter Counter shows that the began, social media has become Donald’s Twitter followers have the epicenter for the angst of more or less stayed the same, the American people, with the increasing slightly from 12.2 two 2016 presidential debates million to 12.3 million followers thus far being no exception. since the second debate. In addition to the hundreds This somewhat makes sense, of posts trending on Twitter as according to a 2014 Pew about Donald Trump’s Research Center survey, the actions during both debates percentage of registered voters — his lurking behind Hillary who follow political figures on
It is up to us to really look at what’s at stake in the next years.
But this isn’t quite right, is it? That’s not really what draws people to “Fight Club.” Its most enticing aspect is a little harder to define. It’s one of those movies that inspires a kind of manic energy when it’s finished. You want to find someone to talk about it with because it’s just so visceral. Or forget about talking: let’s do something about all this anger, man.
It’s one of those movies that inspires a manic energy. 20TH CENTURY FOX
Aloha to my OG Papi.
‘Fight Club’ is an overrated classic that should be left back in the ’90s Beware of those who consider this their favorite film, says the director ASIF BECHER For the Daily
Oh, “Fight Club.” The movie that convinced thousands of white boys that they could pull off a red leather jacket over a Hawaiian shirt. “Fight Club” is the story of an unnamed narrator, played by Edward Norton (“Birdman”).
He’s an ordinary guy who works for a boring software company until he meets Tyler Durden, an almost impossibly cool soapmaker/unemployed handsome man, played by Brad Pitt (“The Big Short”). From there, fight clubs form and chaos ensues. Despite having my fair share of angsty boys in high school tell me that I couldn’t possibly hope
to understand this movie with my girl brain, I really do get why it’s so beloved. It’s got Brad Pitt in his prime, Helena Bonham Carter (“Sweeney Todd”) at her Helena Bonham Carter-iest and Jared Leto (“Suicide Squad”) gets punched in the face. Add an awesome Pixies song, and it sounds like the recipe for a perfect movie.
It’s this feeling that inspired the creation of dozens of real fight clubs and even a few Project Mayhem imitations throughout the U.S. after the movie’s 1999 premiere, and even today. Just last year in my Arizona high school, two students were hospitalized after having a fight club in the boy’s bathroom. Of course, because it’s 2016 and not 1999, and the concept of a fight club was apparently due for a timely update, the only reason they were caught was because a third person filmed the whole thing and put it on his Snapchat story. At its surface, “Fight Club” is a movie about the middle class masses (of men) fighting
the oppressive banality and conformity of modern society through literal fist fights and the occasional blowing up of public buildings. They go back to a more primal masculinity, one not governed by bosses or IKEA furniture or schedules or all those pesky women. But if you dig a little deeper (and by “a little deeper” I mean, “understanding the plot of the movie”), you find that the movie doesn’t really advocate these ideas. The characters might, but the film’s core absolutely doesn’t. The use of violence as a way to vent frustrations about perceived emasculation in modern society escalates from fight clubs to Project Mayhem, an anarchist organization dedicated to tearing down the institutions that promote conformity. The only problem is that Project Mayhem devolves into a depersonalized army, where its members are trained to be so homogenous that they’re basically just cannon fodder. And then there’s Tyler Durden. Generally considered among “Fight Club’s” fanbase to be pretty much the coolest person ever, Tyler is hedonism personified. It’s Tyler who throws around all these ideas about non-conformity and the lost generation of men who are out of touch with their “primal urges.” And yet, even though Tyler decries society’s rules, he also somehow encourages a version of masculinity that actually fits in pretty well with established ideas of manliness.
social media has doubled since 2010. However, social media has had a relatively neutral influence on actual civic engagement or voting, according to an October 2015 meta-analysis from Journalist’s Resource. Considering how often we consume content on social media, this seems to be a rather confusing, paradoxical statistic. How is that so many people are ranting and raving about politics on the Internet, but it doesn’t increase their likelihood to vote in a general election? Why do social media users seem to be passionate about national issues, but are somehow aren’t putting those passions to good use? My only guess is this: social media can be a great space to connect with others who share similar views, but it also acts as a negative expanse that divides our country into a polarized mess. Is this necessarily our fault? Not really. As communication theorist Marshall McLuhan once famously quipped, “the medium is the message.” In other words, the medium — in this case, social media — can influence how the message — whether through a tweet, a Facebook post, a Snapchat story or a YouTube video — is perceived. The posts we read and watch online dictate how we perceive this election, which so far seems to made out by media outlets as a ridiculous, finger-pointing spectacle instead of a hard look on real, important issues. As American citizens, and especially millennials, it’s up to us to really look at what’s at stake in the next four years of the presidency. Though research has shown that social media doesn’t have much of an effect on voting, we should make it so, whether through online dialogues or discussions. It’s fine to make memes and jokes about the election, but they shouldn’t distract us from the reality of the election. If we really do care about the issues that concern our country, then social media should be a productive space for learning and practical thinking and not just for biased bashing. Author’s note: The voter registration deadline for Michigan was Tuesday, but make sure to vote on Nov. 8 if you’re already registered.
It’s no mistake that Tyler dies at the end of the movie. He has to die. A shadow self like Tyler creates nothing; he only destroys. When the narrator realizes that Tyler and his ideals have been sucking the life out of him, he destroys him and everything he represents. This isn’t a wild interpretation. This is the text of the movie, which is why it’s always baffled me that hordes of teenage and collegeaged boys see this particular film as a call to arms. I think “Fight Club” has this effect because it operates on two principles: catharsis and consequence. The first three quarters of the movie offer an incredibly fulfilling catharsis for a very real anxiety surrounding modern masculinity, through the promise that men can find solidarity if they only tap into something dark, buried deep inside. But the movie then shows the consequences of that unchecked rage. The problem is, the diehard fans of “Fight Club,” the ones who believe they truly have a right to act on every urge and manifest all of their anger, just can’t seem to accept that the consequences exist. The catharsis is just too enticing. The film’s director, David Fincher (“Gone Girl”) said it best at Comic-Con 2010: “My daughter had a friend named Max. She told me ‘Fight Club’ is his favorite movie. I told her never to talk to Max again.” “Fight Club” fanboys, I speak to you directly now. It’s been 17 years. Please, for the love of god, stop talking about “Fight Club.”
Arts
6A — Wednesday, October 12, 2016
FILM REVIEW
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
TV NOTEBOOK
KANDOO FILMS
“13th” creates its argument through both emotional and indisputable policy-based evidence.
‘13th’ spotlights racism Ava DuVernay explores prison industrial system in new doc WILL STEWART
“13th” creates its argument through both emotional and indisputable policy-based evidence. For the amount of The task of educating people information that is packed into without boring them is arduous, the 100 minutes, it never feels so much so that many people feel like too much; DuVernay paces it’s futile. With movies, people the documentary at a steady would rather watch level that allows an entertaining, for optimal fictitious story information as escapism than retention. spend 100 minutes Rather than “13th” being exposed to spending Available to stream a societal problem 100 minutes in a documentary. focusing on the on Netflix Balancing the roles inner workings Kandoo Films of entertainment and of incarceration, education is the most “13th” mostly challenging aspect of recounts the a documentary, one that weakens reasons why it is so corrupt today. potentially impactful stories. Ava Although some of the information DuVernay’s “13th” strikes this will not be groundbreaking to balance and rarely tips over to socially aware viewers, aligning one side of the scale. the historical facts and policies Ava DuVernay (“Selma”), together forms a product greater the first Black woman to be than the sum of its parts. By nominated for a Golden Globe doing so, the viewer gains a wellin direction, exposes the racism rounded understanding of the and corruption behind American problem and allows for a more incarceration in “13th” through thorough analysis. Truthfully, interviews with activists, stepping back from a problem and politicians (both Democrat and looking at why it exists allows for Republican) and historians. It the best solutions. Viewers not points to everything from D.W. only learn about imprisonment, Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” to but slavery, the war on drugs and current racial tension in order to racist rhetorical devices. Nothing juxtapose the 13th Amendment in the documentary feels like (the abolishment of slavery) with filler, tying everything together today’s justice system. DuVernay into one well-constructed piece. successfully critiques the policies Stylistically, “13th” doesn’t try of both political parties, while to be flashy or grip the viewer remaining focused on the issues. with fast-paced montages or Daily Arts Writer
A-
Classifieds RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 Opposite of bold 6 Add a line to the wall chart 10 Rack holder 14 Modify 15 Mysterious letter 16 Inedible pineapple part 17 Do some browsing 19 Razor handle? 20 Dueling sport 21 When Caesar is warned to “Beware the Ides of March” 22 Derisive look 23 Public education leadership groups 26 “The Merchant of Venice” heroine 29 Bavaria-based automaker 30 White figure in Snapchat’s logo 31 Deafening sound 34 Include 36 Santa __ winds 37 Where to find the ends of 17-, 23-, 50- and 62Across 40 Took control of 42 Like almost all prime numbers 44 [see other side] 45 Hal who produced Laurel and Hardy films 47 Transition point 49 Leave base illegally 50 Spago restaurateur 55 Up in the air 56 Remove from power 57 Swatch options 61 Shop class tool 62 Breaded seafood option on kids’ menus 64 Even once 65 This, to Picasso 66 Poet Ginsberg 67 Bold lipstick choices 68 “Ouch!’’ 69 Water holder DOWN 1 Shock into submission 2 “My turn!” 3 “A __ formality’’
4 Takes over, like bedbugs 5 Banned bug killer 6 __-Roman wrestling 7 Total, as a bill 8 Newsman Roger 9 Very recently painted 10 Song before some face-offs 11 Legislation affecting polling places 12 Flubbed a play 13 Closes in on 18 “How funny!” 22 Paltry amount 24 __ Field: home of Mr. Met 25 Stock holder 26 Vardon Trophy org. 27 “This is horrible!” 28 Sign that may cause U-turns 31 Amp (up) 32 Lead source 33 Hang on a line 35 Artistic style of Chicago’s Merchandise Mart 38 Lola’s nightclub 39 McDonald’s founder Ray
41 FedEx rival 43 Golfers rarely making pars 46 New York golf course that is a frequent host of major tournaments 48 Army NCO 49 Courage 50 Be on the fence 51 Cooking oil source 52 Cacophony
53 Great energy 54 “Hogwash!” 58 Sch. with the mascot Joe Bruin 59 __ by: barely manages 60 Figs. with two hyphens 62 Tina who is the youngest Mark Twain Prize winner 63 Price indicator
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
xwordeditor@aol.com
intense music. It occasionally diverts from its emotional narrative with songs and infographics, though this is more than just a much-needed chance for the viewer to catch their breath amid everything. The horrific images and clips featured, including video evidence of police brutality and lynchings, are heartbreaking but necessary storytelling elements that show the dehumanization that justifies racist rhetoric and policy still today. “13th” should not only be for those interested in social justice issues or policy, but especially for those sheltered from any knowledge of systemic racism in America. “13th” refrains from jargon and stays accessible for anyone with any various amount of knowledge about these issues. Whereas DuVernay’s “Selma” received criticism for negatively portraying Lyndon B. Johnson, “13th” gives an honest summation of all the political events taken place from the ’70s to today. Ava DuVernay is one of the most important voices working in Hollywood today. “13th” only adds to her current winning streak, as she fearlessly expresses her voice as a woman of color in a white-male dominated industry. In today’s turbulent social climate, her voice is needed to bring awareness to the struggles African Americans have suffered from since the beginning of American history.
INA GARTEN
If you don’t have your own Jeffrey, store bought is fine.
My romance with the ‘Barefoot Contessa’ and television about food An unironic guide to the most scrumptious 30 minutes of any day NABEEL CHOLLAMPAT Daily Arts Writer
There is little to be gained in watching the Food Network ironically. Sure, flaunting your faux-“obsession” with “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” might score some cheap laughs, but Guy Fieri is lowhanging comedic fruit, like Nickelback jokes and Harambe memes. What’s more, the Food Network and, by extension, the wide-ranging pantheon of food-related television certainly don’t deserve this. If the endurance of the crime procedural is any indication, then what we essentially crave in our TV is comfort — and no genre provides such sustained, agreeable varieties of it than food television. My love for the Food Network began, as every young obsession does, with Alton Brown. As a fourth-grader, my personal after school special was “Good Eats,” displays of technical virtuosity and impromptu chemistry lessons all baked into one delicious half-hour of television each day. Mr. Brown turned out to be a gateway drug of sorts. Sandra Lee and “Semi-Homemade,” Giada de Laurentiis and “Everyday Italian,” Ina Garten and the goddamn “Barefoot Contessa” — I became captivated with Call: #734-418-4115 these personas and their TV Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com shows. It’s tempting to view this admission — and this piece — as some sort of tongue-incheek hipster trash. But there is nothing insincere about the claims I aim to make. My current devotion to Ree Drummond, “The Pioneer (MARRIED COUPLE) SEEKING Woman,” is almost post-ironic. EGG DONOR‑U of M, Korean descent This show is incredible, full Female Student (Blood type A or O); Full and Very Competitive Compensation. stop. Drummond lives on a fully Contact Hwan at : hwlee01@hotmail.com functioning ranch in flyover country Oklahoma. Her life is ostensibly somewhat idyllic, though a bit regressive socially: she spends her (filmed) days doting on and cooking for her family, which consists of the ARBOR PROPERTIES Award‑Winning Rentals in Kerrytown, sons who help their father Central Campus, Old West Side, out on the ranch and the Burns Park. Now Renting for 2017. 734‑649‑8637. www.arborprops.com daughters who sometimes lend a hand in the kitchen and go WWW.CARLSONPROPERTIES.- to sleepovers. She is charming COM and “folksy,” amusingly honest 734‑332‑6000 and occasionally downright hilarious (“I have this game I play on Sundays after church, and it’s called ‘Beat the Baptists!’”). You couldn’t write
HELP WANTED
FOR RENT
a sitcom better than this. “The Pioneer Woman” is a window into a life I have never known, and will never know. Because, for all that narrative television can do, cooking shows all share this one common thread. There is no need to toy with plot devices or plumb the depths of the human condition; there is food and the environment that surrounds it. The genre is, in this way, somewhat like the best of mumblecore: slice-of-life type programs that have no other aim than to allow the viewer a peek inside. Consider the other end of the spectrum: Ina Garten’s “Barefoot Contessa.” This longrunning series is, truly, a marvel of cinematography, a 30-minute visual “humble brag.” Garten’s upscale Hamptons lifestyle is carefully lit, detailed and composed in natural Long Island light. Her home decor is the pinnacle of the modern, upper class aesthetic, complete with white countertops and glass bowls. She ends almost every episode with her trademark stinger, “Jeffrey’s gonna love this!” The show is devoted to chronicling the minutiae of the Contessa’s social calendar: her — I must say it — incredibly white cocktail parties in her backyard, cross-country trips to Napa Valley and more. And this is to say nothing of the food she actually cooks. Simply the background noise is enough to stay invested in your average cooking show. Yes, scripted television, like “Atlanta” or “Queen Sugar” can also function as a transporting device of sorts, but food television has the more accessible mix of some veneer of reality and the universality of cooking. The “I could do this” mentality is inherent in instructional cooking shows, and this makes them all the more receptive to the casual viewer uninterested in the time investment of seasonlong commitments. The pinnacle of food television, then, is CNN’s “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.” A former chef in his own right, Bourdain is the culinary world’s resident “bad boy” (however cringeworthy that phrase is), yet he’s still beloved by René Redzepi, Eric Ripert, David Chang and many other famed cooks. He has, for over a decade, been the
avatar for America’s collective obsession with travel; across variously titled but similarly premised shows, he has ventured to innumerable places around the world to sample all the food and drink up all the culture. His production team is outfitted with a collection of what seems like the world’s most talented but unheralded cinematographers. He has a network of friends in the most remote of areas who seem to know the secrets to what makes exciting TV. But it’s his willingness to wholly submit to the demands of food and travel that is most captivating. It’s intriguing to chart the televised history of the years-long maturation of the character of Anthony Bourdain. What once began as sardonic, sometimes grating commentary on the world outside the US has now developed into some of the most thoughtful programming on television. There is little narrative television that can compare to Bourdain’s visit to Jerusalem a few years back on “Parts Unknown,” an episode that remains possibly the most sophisticated and nuanced treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever presented on the medium. Or consider his extended visit to Iran, an exploration of a people that, by the end of the hour-and-a-half, are infinitely more humanized than standard American media depictions often make them out to be. The open-minded, humble guest is Bourdain’s most successful character. He bonds with his gracious hosts over delicious-looking food and presents their wants and desires with a nonjudgmental lens. This dynamic, I’ve discovered, is the paragon of what food television can accomplish. The simplicity of capturing food on video is undergoing a minor renaissance: the proliferation of “Tasty” videos on Facebook, the popularity of movies like “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” and the food porn masquerading as documentaries like “Chef’s Table.” But it’s that intoxicating blend of TV personas, a meal on a plate and clear-eyed wonder that is the genre’s core appeal. It’s definitively what TV often purports to be: a brief respite from our own dinner tables, and an exhilarating taste of the flavors of others.
10/12/16
WANT TO CRITIQUE KEN BONE’S RED SWEATER? APPLY TO STYLE! EMAIL KATJACQU@UMICH AND AJTHEIS@UMICH.EDU FOR AN APPLICATION. By C.C. Burnikel ©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/12/16
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com F O O T B A L L
S T A T S MICH 50.0 23.0 255.0 5.7 25 215.0 62.6% 7.4 12 2 74 470.0 48.2% 66.7% 4.0 15.5 18.6 43.2 4-9 5/2 40.7 33:07
Points/Game First Downs/Game Rush Yards/Game Yards/Rush Rushing TDs Passing Yards/Game Completion % Yards/Pass Passing TDs Interceptions Offensive Plays/Game Total Offense 3rd-down Conversions 4th-down Conversions Sacks/Game Kick return average Punt return average Punting average Field Goals-Attempts Fumbles/Lost Penalty Yards/Game Time of Poss
I N D I V I D U A L
OPP 10.3 11.3 99.2 2.9 2 113.7 42.2% 4.6 5 6 59.5 212.8 12.2% 41.7% 1.5 19.7 9.7 37.5 2-5 9/4 44.3 26:53
S TAT S
PASSING Player Speight O’Korn Morris TOTALS
Cmp Att Yds TD 98 159 1194 11 7 10 51 1 4 5 45 0 109 174 1290 12
INT 2 0 0 2
Att Yds Avg 48 400 8.3 61 336 5.5 53 291 5.5 35 259 7.4 5 98 19.6 8 62 7.8 7 44 6.3 3 26 8.7 13 21 1.6 3 19 6.3 2 17 8.5 3 15 5.0 4 7 1.8 1 2 2.0 1 1 1.0 1 -1 -1.0 6 -9 -1.5 1 -11 -11.0 15 -47 -3.1 270 1530 5.7
Lg 57 42 34 44 63 19 17 13 4 14 10 11 3 2 1 0 0 0 9 63
TD 3 2 4 5 2 0 1 1 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 25
No. Yds Avg 25 400 16.0 23 270 11.7 15 231 15.4 6 114 19.0 8 66 8.3 5 33 6.6 4 28 7.0 1 22 22.0 10 21 2.1 1 21 21.0 3 20 6.7 1 18 18.0 1 15 15.0 1 12 12.0 2 10 5.0 2 6 3.0 1 3 3.0 109 1290 11.8
Lg 46 25 35 54 15 15 14 22 9 21 8 18 15 12 5 4 3 54
TD 5 3 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 12
RUSHING Player Evans Smith, D. Isaac Higdon Peppers McDoom Chesson Henderson Hill Morris Davis Crawford O’Korn Hirsch Beneducci Hewlett TEAM Allen Speight TOTALS RECEIVING Player Darboh Butt Chesson Perry Hill Poggi Evans Ways Smith, D. Isaac McDoom Crawford Hirsch Jocz McKeon Bunting Asiasi TOTALS
Wednesday, October 12, 2016 — 7A
Michigan football adds special new teammate JAKE LOURIM
Daily Sports Writer
Fifteen-year-old Larry Prout Jr. is a man of few words. Tuesday, when a reporter asked him how long he had been a Michigan football fan, he said only “the whole time.” When another wondered what he thought of the Wolverines’ 78-0 victory at Rutgers on Saturday, Larry called it “pretty crazy.” His mother, Kathy, who doubles as his homeschool teacher, once asked him what scared him about the hospital, a place where he has spent countless hours fighting for his life. The answer, Larry said, was nothing. When Larry was born with several birth defects, his presence at Schembechler Hall this week was inconceivable. Doctors did not know if he would survive birth. They certainly did not expect him to last more than two weeks outside of the womb. And yet on Tuesday, Larry became a member of the Michigan football team in a special ceremony. As the fourth-ranked Wolverines took a break from their bye week amid a promising season, Larry — not football — was the talk of the evening. He was born with several chronic conditions, including spina bifida (which limits the development of the spinal cord) and choacal extrophy (which caused him to be born with some of his major organs outside his body). Those and other health problems, such as an opening on his abdomen called a massive omphalocele, have required 93 surgeries during his life. “I have been cut open and sewed back up many, many times,” Prout said in a prepared
statement. “Not all of the surgeries were a success, but this didn’t stop my family from bringing me back to the University of Michigan Mott Children’s Hospital. This didn’t stop my team from drawing up another play and to hopefully go on to win another day.” Michigan drafted Prout onto the football team as part of the Team IMPACT program, an organization that seeks to improve the lives of chronically ill children by setting them up with college athletic teams. The Wolverines welcomed him to their team Tuesday, as coach Jim Harbaugh and several players walked out into the public area at Schembechler Hall and shook his hand. He then appeared with his parents, Harbaugh, redshirt junior quarterback John O’Korn and Team IMPACT executive director Seth Rosenzweig at a press conference. A few minutes into the press conference, Kathy Prout handed the prepared statement to her son, who removed his sweatshirt to reveal a blue sweater that matched Harbaugh’s. “I stand here before you today as just one of the stories that can be told regarding the patience at the great university’s Mott Children’s Hospital,” Larry said. “I also stand here as just one of the stories that could be told about many sick children and their families across the country. My heart goes out to all families of children with chronic illness.” This isn’t Michigan’s first experience with a child like Larry. Two years ago, the men’s lacrosse team similarly welcomed Brendan Randolph, a child with medically intractable epilepsy. Randolph signed a National Letter of Intent with the Wolverines on
M. SCOTT BULTMAN/Daily
Fifteen-year-old Larry Prout Jr. (center) joined the Michigan football team Tuesday as part of Team IMPACT Draft Day.
Nov. 24, 2014, at age 14. This past summer, Randolph’s parents told Prout’s parents about the IMPACT program and helped to connect them with Michigan. For Larry, a lifelong fan, joining the Wolverines was a dream. “It’s just unbelievable,” said Larry’s father, Larry Sr. “Around every corner, there seems to be something really cool that’s happened. In spite of everything, we just keep going.” Since the younger Larry began his relationship with Michigan, he has met a few of the current players. One of the first was O’Korn, a transfer from Houston, who also had a similar experience at his old school. At Houston, O’Korn met 15-yearold Jacolby Rogers, who was on dialysis with renal disease. O’Korn, whom Larry called one of his favorite players
along with senior running back De’Veon Smith, awarded Larry with some new Michigan gear such as T-shirts and football gloves. “It’s a special relationship, and if we can be that source of hope and positivity for Larry, that’s something that makes us really happy,” O’Korn said afterward. “He’s somebody, as you saw today, that just flows with positivity, flows with grace and dignity.” Team IMPACT hopes Larry could spur a new wave of teammates like him. According to Rosenzweig, the organization has a list of more than 600 teams who are interested in helping but have not yet been connected with a child. The hope is that those teams could have the same experience as Michigan’s players, who said that Larry’s toughness has worn off on them.
“It’s easy to look after a long practice or a long day of camp or a workout, you might be sore or tired, you might be injured,” said senior tight end Jake Butt. “And you might let that thought creep into your head where you want to feel sorry for yourself, or you want to find an excuse. “And you look at a kid like Larry and his family and the way they’re facing such great adversity and still up there smiling, and still up there so grateful just to be a part of this team. We’re grateful to have him on our team, and we’re grateful for the example that he’s setting for us.” As for Larry, he hopes kids like him can learn the same lesson. Asked what he would tell others going through the same issues, the boy who has overcome so many of them spoke briefly but meaningfully again: “Not to be afraid.”
PUNT RETURNS Player Peppers Jocz Evans Perry TOTALS
No. 14 1 1 0 16
Yds Avg. Long 249 17.8 54 27 27.0 0 15 15.0 15 6 -6 297 18.6 54
TD 1 0 0 1 2
Dancs, Warren, Calderone don’t feel pressure MIKE PERSAK
INTERCEPTION RETURNS Player Stribling Hill, D. McCray Lewis TOTALS
No. 3 1 1 1 6
Daily Sports Writer
Yds Avg. Long 60 20.0 51 27 27.0 27 22 22.0 22 0 0.0 0 109 18.2 51
TD 1 1 0 0 2
Yds 9 9
Avg. Long 9.0 9 9.0 9
TD 0 0
Yds 95 28 21 6 5 155
Avg. Long 31.7 55 14.0 15 10.5 18 6.0 6 2.5 5 15.5 55
TD 0 0 0 0 0 0
FUMBLE RETURNS Player Hill, L. TOTALS
No. 1 1
KICKOFF RETURNS Player Peppers Henderson Lewis Hudson Hill, K. TOTALS
No. 3 2 2 1 2 10
KICKOFFS Player Allen Foug Tice TOTALS
No. 41 7 3 51
Yds 2625 403 189 3217
Avg. 64.0 57.6 63.0 63.1
TB 22 2 0 24
No. 22 22
Yds 951 951
Avg. 43.2 43.2
Lg 56 56
Last weekend, the Michigan hockey team opened its season in a somewhat familiar fashion. With a 3-2 lead late in their first game against Union, the Wolverines couldn’t hold on. The Dutchmen scored two goals in the last five minutes, toppling Michigan, 4-3. Last season, the Wolverines would have had their prolific offense to turn to. But many of those scorers have left the program. Without them, Michigan may not be able to thrive in high-scoring games. But one line it can turn to is its one full line of returning players. Sophomore forwards Dexter Dancs and Brendan Warren,
along with junior forward Tony Calderone, form that line. And though they may not be able to provide the same offensive firepower that was prevalent last season, they have shown an ability to step up defensively. After the Wolverines fell to Union on Friday, Michigan coach Red Berenson and his staff decided to give the trio more defensive responsibility the next day. They were assigned to Union’s first line, and the difference was obvious. The Dutchmen’s starting forwards, who were involved in every one of the team’s four goals on Friday, were held scoreless, and Michigan prevailed, 4-0. “That was a good move for Michigan,” Berenson said. “That first line of (Union’s) was
really dangerous on Friday, and not so dangerous on Saturday.” Much has been made about Michigan’s youth, and the Wolverines will certainly need contributions from their freshmen to succeed this season. But among the large amount of first-year players on the team, Dancs, Warren and Calderone will be relied upon to produce early. In Friday’s season opener against Union, the line netted one goal, though it didn’t come when all three were on the ice. Senior forward Max Shuart lunged forward on the penalty kill and knocked the puck toward Calderone — who had just reemerged from the penalty box. The junior finished the job with an inside-out deke on the goalie just before sliding into
the post and dislodging the net. Despite the three totaling 12 shots on goal in the two games, Calderone’s goal was the only time they lit the lamp. And for the future, converting those opportunities into goals will be vital. “They’ve gotten some good chances,” Berenson said. “And I think the familiarity will be better in the next game, but it’s a work in progress. You’ve got three good players, they’ve all been here a year, so there’s no excuse. They know how we should play — the right way to play. And then they’ve got to figure it out together.” Added Calderone: “We need to do a better job down low in the offensive zone. I think we’re kind of cheating towards the offense a little bit. If we look
PUNTING Player Allen TOTALS FIELD GOALS Player Allen Tice
FG Pct. 1-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50+ Lg 4-8 50.0% 0-0 1-1 3-5 0-2 0-0 39 0-1 0.0% 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-1 0-0 0
LEADING TACKLERS Player Gedeon Peppers McCray Thomas Winovich Glasgow, R. Hurst Godin Gary Wormley Hill, D. Clark Stribling Kinnel Charlton Hudson Watson Lewis Bush Metellus Glasgow, J. TOTALS
Solo 18 25 14 18 7 2 9 8 6 7 9 6 4 6 3 5 4 7 2 6 4 186
Ast Tot TFL SK PBU 33 51 8.0 3.0 1 12 37 10.0 2.5 16 30 4.5 2.5 4 12 30 3 15 22 5.0 2.0 17 19 3.0 1.0 1 9 18 5.0 2.0 10 18 2.5 1.0 12 18 4.5 1.0 11 18 5.0 4.0 7 16 2.0 1 4 10 3 6 10 0.5 5 3 9 6 9 4.5 4.0 3 8 1.0 1 4 8 1 8 1.0 3 4 6 6 2 6 210 396 60 24 23
ZOEY HOLMSTROM/Daily
Sophomore center Brendan Warren is part of the Michigan hockey team’s only line featuring all returning players along with Tony Calderone and Dexter Dancs.
2016 SCHEDULE
9/3
9/10
9/17
9/24
HAWAII (3-3)
UCF (3-2)
COLORADO (4-2)
PENN ST. (4-2)
10/1
10/8
10/22
WISCONSIN (4-1) at RUTGERS (2-4)
ILLINOIS (1-4)
W, 63-3 (1-0) W, 51-14 (2-0) W, 45-28 (3-0) W, 49-10 (4-0) W, 14-7 (5-0) W, 78-0 (6-0)
3:30 p.m., Michigan Stadium
10/29
11/5
at MICH. ST. (2-3) MARYLAND (4-1) East Lansing, Mich.
Michigan Stadium
toward (defense) first, I think it’s going to come. And the more opportunities we get, the better chance we have to score. So I think if we keep working, we’ll be all right.” It wasn’t ever obvious that Calderone, Dancs and Warren would be playing together, though. After all, last season, none of them played center. But knowing that Warren had played the position before he arrived in Ann Arbor, Berenson saw an opportunity to put three experienced players together. So far, Warren’s shift has been relatively seamless. The sophomore led the Wolverines in faceoff wins for both games against Union. “I played (center) my whole life growing up,” Warren said. “So some things came back to me a little easier. And then I’m just trying to figure out things like (the defensive) zone, positional for college. It’s a little different. So it’s been nice, I’m just still working on it.” Berenson isn’t exactly comfortable waiting for the three to come along. He needs consistent production from somewhere, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be from this line. “I need all three of them to play better and to create more offense,” Berenson said. “I’ve seen guys click right away, and I’ve seen guys take a little longer, so we’ll see.” But Calderone, Dancs and Warren say they don’t feel intense pressure. For them, patience is the key. “We definitely think we can lead in terms of some younger guys coming into the lineup,” Dancs said. “But I don’t think there’s any pressure.” Added Warren: “Once we get on track and we get some goals, they’ll start coming in bunches.”
11/12
11/19
11/26
at IOWA (4-2)
INDIANA (3-2)
at OHIO ST. (5-0)
8 p.m., Iowa City, Iowa
Michigan Stadium
Columbus, Ohio
8A — Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wolverines overwhelmed by No. 2 Notre Dame MAX MARCOVITCH For the Daily
Notre Dame forward Jon Gallagher faced a wall of Michigan defenders in front of him with little NOTRE DAME 2 0 MICHIGAN offensive support. But with graceful body control, he spun off the defender in front of him and launched a rocket to the top right corner, which bounced precariously off the corner where the crossbar meets the right post. His teammate,
midfielder Mark Gormley, was there to head in the rebound in the 30th minute and give No. 2 Notre Dame a lead it would not relinquish. It was just one goal, but for the Michigan men’s soccer team (1-4-1 Big Ten, 2-7-4 overall) with just 11 goals all season it felt like much more. Coming in off a recent run of success — 2-0-1 in its last three matches — Michigan hoped to add a signature win to a season largely devoid of them. Early on, the Wolverines came out with the energy and creativity that
offered hope for the major upset they so desperately wanted. Michigan managed seven shots before the Irish even had one, and had three corner kicks in the first eight minutes. But the goal, Notre Dame’s first shot on target, served as a massive blow to a team that has yet to score more than twice in a single game all season and had 10 of its 11 goals scored by underclassmen. For Daley, games like these — against quality, experienced opponents — are valuable for the young squad going forward.
“We could take some great things out of a team that’s a little bit more mature than we were, I think they had a more mature performance,” said Michigan coach Chaka Daley. “We’re growing in that way… It’ll be good experience for (the youth on the team) as they grow throughout the rest of the season and in the future.” As Notre Dame gradually became more comfortable in possession and attack, Michigan struggled to create goal-scoring opportunities, taking just six shots the rest of the game after
the initial flurry. The Irish successfully shut off Michigan’s valve to sophomore forward Francis Atuahene, and, in doing so, stymied the Michigan offense. “I think it was a pretty even game in the first half,” Daley said. “In the second half I think they carried more of the game, they were on the ball in more dangerous areas, and kept us on the back foot from a possession standpoint.” But with 10 minutes left, the score was still only 1-0, with Michigan hoping for that one last chance to tie the game. It was then that midfielder Jack Casey won possession for Notre
Dame in the box and found Gallagher flying towards the net. Before junior goalkeeper Evan Louro could move his hands, Gallagher — dubbed by Daley as “the best center forward in the country” — had smashed his 11th goal of the season, and with it, Michigan’s hopes of mustering an equalizer. Gallagher’s 11 goals this season are equal to the Wolverines’ goals as a team. “It’s never easy playing against those teams,” said senior captain Lars Eckenrode. “We always try to come up to the challenge, but we fell short tonight.”
ZOEY HOLMSTROM/Daily
The Michigan soccer team has not been able to find reliable scoring this season.
MEN’S SOCCER
Underclassmen give hope for Wolverines PAIGE VOEFFRAY Daily Sports Writer
The Michigan men’s soccer season has been less than stellar, but the underclassmen have shown signs of a silver lining. Even as the Wolverines (1-41 Big Ten, 2-7-4 overall) added another loss to their record, losing 2-0 to No. 2 Notre Dame (3-1-1 ACC, 9-1-1 overall) on Tuesday, the youngest team members still found a way to shine. Of Michigan’s 13 shots, 11 came from the underclassmen. Sophomore forward Francis Atuahene led the pack with seven shots, and both sophomore defender Marcello Borges and freshman forward Jack Hallahan had two each. Hallahan’s best chance at scoring came 15 minutes into the game. Sophomore midfielder Robbie Mertz collected the ball on the right flank and dribbled toward the goal before stopping and sending a backward pass to Hallahan. He drove the ball toward the lower right corner of the net. Unfortunately for the Wolverines, the Fighting Irish goalkeeper dove on top of the ball and the chance was lost. “He’s had a great impact,” said senior defender Lars Eckenrode. “He’s one of those electric, youthful and exciting forwards. He’s got a great left foot, he can cut in, but he can also go on his right foot, so it’s kind of hard for defenders to figure out where he’s going.” Of the 11 goals scored by Michigan this season, 10 have
been from underclassman — a sign that the men’s soccer team’s best years may be ahead of them. “It’s tough for me to say as a senior,” Eckenrode said, “but this is a program that I care about so much, so absolutely I want them to do well in the future and I’m excited for these next few years. They’ve really got something good brewing once those guys can put a little experience with that youthful creativity that they have.” Atuahene and Hallahan are the leaders of the Wolverines’ attack. In Michigan’s recent three-match unbeaten streak, Atuahene gained five points from two goals and one assist. Hallahan wasn’t far behind, with four points from his two goals. The Wolverines’ main focus is to avoid the No. 8 seed and No. 9 seed match that occurs the night before the winner will go on to play the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten Tournament. Their best chance at regaining lost ground will be against Ohio State on Oct. 21. If Michigan’s young forwards are in sync, it may be its best chance at winning. The Wolverines are most successful when Atuahene, Hallahan and Mertz can connect for goals. “They’ll grow in patience and they’ll grow in energy and fight as well,” said Michigan coach Chaka Daley, “As they get older, they’ll become more the leaders of the team. And they’ll be the ones that got good experience in a great game against Notre Dame as a young player, where all the other young guys didn’t.”
“They’ve got something really good brewing.”
statement THE MICHIGAN DAILY | OCTOBE R 12 , 2016
2B
Wednesday, October 12, 2016 / The Statement
t h e s t at e m e n t
the tangent
Magazine Editor: Karl Williams
Editor in Chief: Shoham Geva
Deputy Editors: Nabeel Chollampat Lara Moehlman
Managing Editor: Laura Schinagle
Design Editor: Shane Achenbach Photo Editor: Zoey Holmstrom
Copy Editors: Emily Campbell Alexis Nowicki Taylor Grandinetti
Creative Director: Emilie Farrugia
TV and Me: The Show With the Good Heart BY ALEX INTNER
I
n my first column, I was a little condescending toward the broadcast networks and their new offerings for the season. For most of the offerings, I feel like they’re generic attempts to modulate overused formulas. Still, within the group of new series I’ve sampled so far, there’s a trend: the return of the kind of show that, for the most part, has disappeared from the air — the show with the good heart. When “Parks and Recreation” and “Parenthood” ended within a month of each other last year, it seemed to mark the end of an era for NBC. The network was undergoing a period of transition from niche programming into mainstream TV. But, when they did that, they lost an identity they cultivated over the years. NBC found a home with shows such as “Parenthood” and “Parks and Recreation,” shows that had a genuine heart to them. They cared about their characters and their development and growth. In turn, that made me care about them, too.
ILLUSTRATION BY EMILIE FARRUGIA
THO U GHT B U B B LE: DEMOCR ACY
But, when I watched a handful of this fall’s new offerings, I was reminded of the series I thought was mostly gone — the show with genuine heart. “The Good Place” and “This is Us” are exactly the kind of shows the broadcast networks should make and that NBC made for so many years. They have the characters to back up their twisting-and-turning plots. Through their first few episodes, they’re showing signs that they can fill the holes in my heart left by the shows like “Parks.” I’ve already written about “This is Us,” and it remains one of my favorite dramas of the fall. The second episode continued where the first hour started, building its characters and hitting the emotional points. What I really want to celebrate about this show is how much I love these characters after two hours. While the family clearly has imperfect relationships — especially with brothers Kevin and Randall, who have grown apart between childhood and the start of the series — there’s
ZOEY HOLMSTROM/DAILY
“The whole point of American democracy is to put in your two cents and to let everybody know you took part in the history of America. It’s important to get your say out there because so many people fought for your right to do this and so many people wish they had the right to do this,” – Education junior Alyson Mann love despite it. There’s no hatred flung back and forth, just people who care about one another. It’s a type of relationship that’s rare in dramas today, with so many relying on hostility in character relationships; so, I’m grateful to have a show that feels good to watch. I should’ve known that a show from the creator of “Parks and Recreation” would be able to fill its place in my heart. “The Good Place” focuses on Eleanor, played by Kristen Bell, a mean-spirited person who somehow ends up in a Heaven-like “good place.” In the pilot, she realizes she needs to become a better person in order to stay there and not get sent to “the bad place.” It’s remarkable that Michael Schur realized every character on “Parks,” even the most minor ones, and it reached a point where spending time with the people on the show outweighed the story arcs. With “The Good Place,” Schur appears more interested in developing the story rather than character, but he’s also investing in the ensemble early. He’s been making supporting characters more integral to the show earlier than “Parks” ever did. Given the talent in this cast and how much I already care about this group, I can easily find myself loving to spend time with these characters as much as I did with Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson. When I watch these shows, I feel happy. But this joy isn’t derived from the plot. Rather, it’s about caring about the people on the screen. These shows are genuine in how they care about the people populating their worlds. They’re not just focused on making sure the plot twists land with an impact — though “This is Us” and “The Good Place” are quite good at that. But, more importantly, they’re also looking to make you feel for the characters on a weekly basis. My favorite type of show is the one that makes an impact with its characters rather than its story. I’m so delighted to have a group of new shows that join “Jane the Virgin” and ABC’s comedies in doing exactly that.
Wednesday, October 12, 2016 / The Statement
3B
on the record: clowns “The scary clown image is perfect for social media. It is custom-made to go viral. You have something that is both scary and funny. It’s the combination of horror and humor, laughter and fears.”
“Dressing up as a clown to scare people may seem like a joke, but this is no laughing matter. The fear of such incidents is deeply upsetting children in Cumbria and causing them a great deal of distress.”
— BENJAMIN RADFORD, folklorist and author of the non-fiction book “Bad Clowns,” on the reasons why the clown sightings spread virally on the Internet.
—MARK PANNONE, Superintendent of Cumbria, England, which recently reported nine clown-related reports, including one with a knife.
“Hey, guys, time to cool the clown hysteria—most of em are good, cheer up the kiddies, make people laugh.” —Author STEPHEN KING, creator of famous fictional clown “Pennywise,” who tweeted this to quell clown-related fears.
All Around the World: Moving to Michigan BY ISOBEL FUT TER
W
hen I was eight years old, my family loaded up our things and moved to a new country for the second time in my life. My dad’s company was taking us to Midland, Mich., and we were assigned to live there for three to five years. Over the course of a few weeks, the boxes were loaded into the large moving van outside my house in Ireland. Every box, large and beige, contained a small part of our lives. The house was empty and no longer the place I recognized as my home. Another move, another house. Each of my toys, items and clothes were neatly packed away and sealed up. “For later,” I was told. “For America.” Like the things that were packaged, my life in Ireland was sealed up and put away. We were off to a new place across the ocean where I would start the third grade. It seemed odd — we’d only lived in Ireland for a little more than 18 months, and my little brother had just been born. I remember feeling cheated, and throwing sarcasm toward my parents. Thanks a ton, I thought selfishly, for moving us across the ocean, far away from our family and friends. As an eight-year-old, America was this seemingly fictitious place that you heard about on TV and read about in books. That’s where Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and the other pop artists we jammed to on the radio were from. I had this odd idea that everywhere in America was like Hollywood. I thought celebrities walked around, everyone was beautiful and it was sunny all the time. Touching down in
Michigan made me feel like everything had suddenly changed. This wasn’t the Hollywood version of America I expected to see. This was a place where everything was big, everyone talked funny and told you that you have a nice accent. This country was far away from my grandparents, cousins and friends I’d made. The familiar was vanished, making way for a new beginning. A three-to-five-year assignment has so far turned into 12 and has completely changed the way I deal with discomfort and challenge. Though I previously felt negatively about my move to America, I am now grateful for it and even call Michigan my home. In the beginning, it seemed too foreign and distant from my life for me to adjust. Feeling fully comfortable in this new environment felt
ILLUSTRATION BY EMILIE FARRUGIA
light years away. The move taught me at a young age what it meant to be different. It taught me how to adjust, and it taught me to persevere. For a while, I hid my differences, did my best to fit in and mold. My accent and verbiage changed quickly, I grew accustomed to not having a school uniform, and I avoided all possible conversations that might give away my facade. However, as I move through my junior year in college, I am becoming more comfortable with that difference, and even using the experience to my advantage. I never took the time to realize the small things I learned, the nuances my background gives me and how, even as a third grader, I was given the room to grow and gain responsibility. My move across the ocean has helped
me become comfortable with the idea of being alone in a new city. When looking for internships and opportunities for next summer, I have no location preference. Starting a life in a new place doesn’t terrify me, as it may others. I learned what it takes to build a life somewhere when I was in third grade. I also learned to adjust and be flexible. Moving to a new place requires you to stretch to your comfort zone. You have to be aware that you are different in almost every regard. Even moving across the country will give one a sense of being an outsider that has never been felt before. My ability to work around that discomfort, and even thrive in it, has helped me immensely in stepping out of my comfort zone at school. Lastly, I embrace that my background makes me different. This year in particular, I have been a lot more verbal and open about my international upbringing. I’ve slowly come to realize that what makes me different is what makes me special. It’s not something to hide, but rather something to highlight. As I reflect about my move to America, I no longer feel cheated. I don’t feel like my childhood was drastically altered or that I missed out on the things that other kids got to experience. I’m grateful for the way my upbringing has affected the person I am today. Seven years after a three-to-five-year assignment, I am thankful for my immigration to the United States. So, thanks, Mom and Dad, for real this time, for moving us across the world. COVER DESIGN BY SHANE ACHENBACH COVER LLUSTRATIONS BY CLAIRE BRYAN
4B
Wednesday, October 12, 2016 // The Statement
Wednesday, October 12, 2016 // The Statement
Beyond words:
Reframing therapy through art By Claire Bryan, Editioral Page Editor I was on my older sister’s apartment’s red couch in my pajamas when I received an email from Liz Goll Lerner, a licensed professional counselor and licensed clinical art therapist in private practice based in Washington D.C., that read, “I know this is short notice but I had some cancelations today. I was planning on hiking later this afternoon. You wanted to come to the office, but would you be up for hiking and talking?” I had only been in Washington D.C. for two and a half weeks, but the appeal of getting out of a pristinely clean city filled with people who own 15 suits had grown large already. I responded with urgent finger pads on my laptop keyboard. Within minutes, I was changed and out the door walking to the metro station. Surrounded by the lush Maryland landscape and a thick bank of clouds, Lerner and I began down the dirt path paralleling a part of the Potomac River I had never seen before. In my backpack was a pale-blue notebook full of small diagrams, half of them crossed out, half of them smudged from the paper pages rubbing up against the inky, black pen. I draw these diagrams almost every night, when I’m anxious, when I can’t sleep, when I can’t stop my eyes from closing and lighting up freeways in my brain of electrifying nerves. I don’t know much about why I draw them, but what I do know is that when I feel consumed by anxious thoughts, the only thing I can manage to do is draw them. *** According to the American Art Therapy Association, art therapy aims to reconcile emotional conflicts, foster self-awareness, manage addictions, reduce anxiety and develop social skills. This makes sense. In fact, it’s fundamental: One of humanity’s basic needs is to create. But how exactly can creating art heal mental wounds? Though art therapy has been explained to me through therapists, scientific journals and online testimonies, it wasn’t all that clear to me — or that believable. I wanted not only to understand the science of how art therapy works, but also to understand the impact it can make, and through this, understand if it truly works. And I wasn’t the only one. A 2014 study by Lukasz Konopka, professor of clinical psychology at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, notes that art therapy has the ability to change someone’s brain — a concept called brain plasticity or neuroplasticity
— but for years was based just on “subjective data and testimonies.” And that’s the key: “Based on subjective data and testimonies” is a phrase that has hindered art therapy as a viable psychological treatment method, especially in comparison to other types of therapy, namely, the champion of them all: cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy — a hands-on, goal-oriented therapy that focuses on reframing negative thoughts — has a mounting pile of evidence backing it and that pile is only growing. Los Angeles Times writer Eric Jaffe reports that CBT “has performed as well as antidepressants medication in treating depression in recent studies.” CBT has real results, it performs really well in randomized controlled research and those results are proven, articulated and shared. CBT is so popular and accessible there are even online programs, like SHUTi and CBT for Insomnia, that can walk clients through CBT questioning to start retraining their brains. *** I’ve practiced CBT in attempts to reduce anxiety I developed from a sleeping disorder. I filled in white worksheets that asked me to reframe my thoughts. I found it interesting and helpful in a nonimmediate way. CBT didn’t evaporate my anxious thoughts, but over the course of what has now been years, a tiny part of CBT — the physical part — has helped me tremendously. Physically creating the thoughts in my mind as words on a page helped me articulate my anxiety, stabilize my mind and materialize my disorder. Inky words describing my thoughts visibly in front of me created a distance between my thoughts and myself, an objectification that is crucial (and incredibly difficult) to improving any mental health disorder. Sometimes, I drew diagrams to accompany this writing, because I liked the way they looked or because I thought they were funny. I thought of drawing them as pleasant: It is enjoyable to create art. But I reasoned that the diagrams were a result of something I wrote about. I reasoned that the writing, the ideas behind my diagram, were what was helping me feel less anxious. As Lerner and I paused at an overlook, where you could almost see waterfalls in the distance, I realized I wasn’t giving the diagrams that were stuffed away under my rain jacket, out of Lerner’s sight enough credit. *** Lerner was a pioneer of the growing profession of art therapy. “Art therapy is very old, but it is also very young,” she said to me with her head down, watching the rhythm her hiking boots were making against the gravel. In many ways art therapy’s origins are ancient because art is ancient — think hieroglyphics and Greek architecture. But art therapy as a profession isn’t ancient. Though it has made enormous strides, art therapy today is still unheard of in numerous cities, towns and countries. Lerner and her colleagues were at the very start of it. “It was really exciting to be working in the profession time at a time when we were introducing the field in places that didn’t really understand it and had not used it yet,” she said. The complicated aspect of art therapy is that when you are helping people understand how to use something that compliments how they live, you have to show them. Lerner and her colleagues
had to create the opportunity to be able to show people. Often, this took the form of proposals and demonstrations called in-services in hospitals. Listening to the rhythm of my own boots, I tried to think of the first time I was exposed to the idea of art therapy and what my reaction to it was? Did I believe it to be a medical treatment? Did I believe it could just make you happy? Or did I believe it could cure? *** According to Heidi Bardot, director of the Art Therapy program at George Washington University, one of the first founding art therapy graduate programs, art therapy developed as a specific medical practice after World War II. It was a response to soldiers developing what was at the time called “shell shock” and today is diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder. The National Intrepid Center of Excellence, which is part of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., guided men who served in Iraq in the creation of painted masks to express how they feel after being wounded in war. After Sept. 11, art therapists set up exhibits where victims could come and share their experience of trauma through art. Creating art created self-esteem. Creating art externalized their experience. After Hurricane Katrina, Karla Leopold, an art therapist from California, treated children impacted by the storm with opportunities to express their experience through drawings. Leopold observed a repeating pattern in the images children affected by the hurricane drew of their homes: The homes changed from square to triangular. All the children who drew triangular houses were children who were rescued from a rooftop. “Particularly in our world right now, where there have been hurricanes and disasters and shootings, art therapists have been called in to do this work because it is so powerful and effective and really helps people in the moment, as well as long term,” Lerner said. I thought of my own job this summer — my tiny internship where I sat at a tiny desk scrolling through press releases and statements about the tragedies that have happened. Fifty dead in the Orlando shooting; headlines and political messaging repeat the phrase “the deadliest mass shooting in America” until our ears burn off. The killing of Alton Sterling, another name to add to the list. Three police officers fatally shot in Baton Rouge, a French holiday attack in Nice, an attack in Munich, violence meeting violence when five more police are killed in Dallas during a protest about police shootings. Nearing the end of our hike, Lerner took me a bit off the trail to one of her favorite spots. Sitting in the curve of two large rocks overlooking the crest of the waterfall, I asked, “Do you think I could have a session with you? To really understand what this is all about?” *** Today there are just four states where trained art therapists can obtain an art therapy license, and four states that license art therapists under other related mental health licenses. This means that if you live in any other state than Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin, attend and graduate from an art therapy graduate program and are trained and degreed, you are still limited
as an art therapist. Without a license, health insurance companies will not sign on to reimburse or fund any of your clients for art therapy services. Without a license, the public does not know whether you are a qualified art therapist. Without a license, art therapists don’t have the credibility from the medical world as they continue to develop and progress their profession. The AATA’s mission is to advocate for expansion of access to professional art therapists and lead the nation in the advancement of art therapy as a regulated mental health and human services profession. AATA is working to gain independent licensure for art therapists in states to enable health insurance companies to reimburse and fund services. An art therapy license would mandate qualifications and the scope of practice in state law, which in turn will more accurately reflect the academic and clinical training required to be an art therapist. Bardot explained to me that though currently art therapists can apply for a license under counseling licenses, this door will eventually get shut. “The counseling world is wanting to separate from everyone else, which, you know, most fields do at some point,” Bardot said. “Those licenses will become exclusive to only counselling programs. So it is becoming quite an important task that we do get licensure. Otherwise we are going to have graduates who can’t get a job and get reimbursed for their work or any of that.” Donna Betts, president of the board of the American Art Therapy Association, echoed this: A lack of licensure deprives art therapist of a distinct professional identity. But it is more complicated than just a nice, neat title for art therapists. Betts emphasized that recent advancements in understanding how artmaking impacts neural pathways in the brain has encouraged other mental-health practitioners to include art materials and art therapy methods in their practice. “The result has been to add to the public’s confusion about what art therapy involves and the level of training required for effective practice of art therapy,” she stated in an AATA report. “ … Individuals using art therapy methods and art materials in their mental health practice without appropriate or adequate clinical training pose significant risk to the emotional stability of their clients.” *** In Michigan, there is no art therapist licensure program. Amber James, the Michigan Association of Art Therapy’s legislative chair, has drafted a bill that is almost ready to be presented to Michigan state legislators. This bill, tentatively called the Art Therapy Licensure Bill, spells out the protections for those receiving art therapy and their therapists. “There are people practicing art therapy in Michigan that are not art therapists,” James said. “They don’t have the training, they don’t have master’s degrees, they don’t have a background in psychology, they don’t know the ethical standards of practice, they don’t have the competency that art therapists have.” The bill would ensure anyone practicing art therapy has been trained according to AATA’s educational standards, completed all medical contact hours — including 100 hours of supervised practicum, 600 hours of supervised art therapy
clinical internship and more than 1,000 hours of direct client contact — received credentials from the Art Therapy Credentials Board and passed the proficiency exam. The bill would legitimize art therapy as a psychological treatment option in Michigan. Furthermore, the bill brings into view the issue of privileged communication, defined as any conversations that occur within a protected relationship. When a person sees a therapist, certain information they share with the therapist is protected. Right now, art therapists and their patients don’t have this same type of protection. James noted that sometimes therapists are put in compromising situations. “Because art therapy isn’t very well understood, sometimes people — administrators or places where there would be art therapy programs — have this idea that it’s more about aesthetics, creating something,” she said. “But the stuff that is created in art therapy isn’t meant for the purpose of being pleasing, it’s therapy, it’s not always pretty … In the same way you wouldn’t go in and record someone’s therapy session and play it, you wouldn’t take someone’s art work and display it.” *** At the University of Michigan, there are few places you can find art therapy being used or developed. Patricia Reuter-Lorenz, the department chair of the University’s Psychological Department, noted that the department does not cover art therapy in their curriculum in any formal way. Though it is not offered in any established curriculum at U of M, there are approximately 35 AATA-Approved graduate programs across the country. Todd Sevig, director of Counseling and Psychological Services, said CAPS does not offer stand-alone art therapy. “We have incorporated tenets of art therapy, expressive therapy and simply using art to express one’s self, emotions, thoughts, feelings, in many of our groups and workshops,” Sevig noted. “Also, at times, individual counselors will incorporate in individual therapy.” C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital does have an open studio model where patients and their families can work with an art therapist in between appointments at the hospital. *** Sitting at the table across from Lerner, I tried not to have an agenda for the session, not to think of one specific problem or one specific story I wanted to express. Lerner and most art therapists don’t have a one-size-fits-all approach to each session. Each individual session is approached differently, depending on what is going to be most effective for the client. After she showed me art supplies but before I created any art, she had me sit back and asked me a series of questions with my eyes closed. These questions had me visually imagine a place where I was calm and content. From there, she asked me to try to see a color and a shape to the feeling and place I was seeing in my head. I was thinking of a memory sitting on a doc on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. When I thought of a color, I thought of blue; when I thought of a shape, a rectangular blob came to mind. I opened my eyes and stared at the white page
in front of me. I reached for pastels because I hadn’t used pastels since I was in the fifth grade and wanted to smear them with my fingers. I felt ridiculous drawing such an abstract shape. Lerner spoke about how often you physically carry an experience with you, and how creating a piece of art is a kinesthetic experience, expressing this experience with art materials assists the release of physical tension as well as helps the individual process the thoughts and emotions related to the experience. Though I agreed — I liked the feeling of the chalky pastels on my rough finger tips and I knew how writing or diagramming at night was a productive physical release — there was something else, a much more basic physical component to the session that really made the difference for me. When I was done, Lerner placed the image in front of us: two feet away from me, two feet away from her. These two feet created distance between my life and what we were talking about — also my life. Through everything we discussed, literally and symbollically about my life, we both knew there wasn’t the directed pressure of actually talking about my life until I was ready. In my experience with other therapy practices, a therapist sits in front of you and discusses your life with you. Anything wrong with your life is something wrong with you, and you walk out the door an hour later feeling disillusioned by the experience. The disillusion is circular: I’m having this problem, something is wrong with me, let’s talk about how to fix it, so now this is yours to take away and fix, and when you don’t fix it, when you are back again for the next session, there you are again: You are the root of your own problems. *** Practicing art therapy has been shown to affect how your brain processes information, predominantly visual and somatosensory information. But identifying exactly which brain processes are affecting an individual’s emotional outcome isn’t black and white. Luminary art therapist Vija Lusebrink notes in The Journal of Art Therapy Association, “A human being functions as a whole organism, and at any given time, many brain processes and areas are active and involved.” Konopka’s study acknowledges this same trend. “To gain acceptance and credibility from the medical establishment, art therapy is, seemingly, hoping to assign unique artistic processes to specific brain structures, but the specific brain effects of the artistic process are difficult to study,” she writes. “Nevertheless, through neuroscience, art therapy is attempting to locate particular brain areas or activity patterns that may be devoted exclusively to art-making,” she continues. “Yet, this specificity presents a problem — the brain does not distinguish between the processes used to create a scientific invention and a work of art — the brain undergoes identical activity sequences and manipulations.” Furthermore, though the dominant narrative surrounding art therapy is to work to provide more opportunities for research, leading to more evidence-based explanations, there is debate over if more empirical evidence is even what the art therapy world needs. Carolyn Husky a Athabasca University alum,
5B
proposes in her master’s thesis that some scholars, such as Tibbets and Rossal, believe that more research and empirical evidence is exactly what art therapy doesn’t need. Today, bloggers from Neuroscience in Art Therapy debate, too, if this streamlining of art therapy is even productive. One blogger argues that no matter if it is “better” or not, more evidence based search will streamline art therapy making it a more “linear, clear-cut process that is more insurable and funding-friendly.” Exploring feelings and finger painting hasn’t gotten art therapy far in the professional world, but research proving neurological pathways are affected by art-making have. Could our society’s tendency to validate treatment methods based on empirical evidence only actually complicate a field that best remain in the abstract? *** I finished my session with Lerner calmer and more settled than when it began. And though I thought of the big blue blob on my paper and all her comments on lifestyle, the most powerful thing that I couldn’t shake was something she mentioned at the beginning of the session: “Words are limiting. That is what we got, so we make good use of them. But art gives you so much more.” I thought I understood how speaking words, and more intensively writing words, were how therapy is communicated and how the abstractness of mental health issues can manifest in a tangible form. When the words I was speaking in therapy weren’t working, at least the words in my journal — and not the diagrams — were reframing my thoughts. But Bardot helped me realize instances when humans do not have this ability to articulate their lives. “When you have a rich dream where you felt right in midst of it, color, your body responding emotionally to the dream, and you wake up and try to describe it to someone, but it just kind of drifts away … We often times talk about how trauma is like that.” “Even something simple like a car accident,” she said. “Those images are stored as ‘flashbulb memories.’ They are not stored as a continuous story but stored separately in your brain. You see the headlights in front of you, then you see your foot on the brake, then you see the car getting closer.” “The idea is if you can combine the images together and if you can create them on paper you are kind of distancing yourself from that image, from that memory, and so then, you can talk about the picture with perspective.” Externalizing the memory by drawing it on paper, makes it easier to put explanation to the images we feel and experience in our heads. The entire concept of art therapy is that words are not enough, so why would we limit this profession that exists at a specific intersection of the most scientific and most human to be defined only by words — only by empirical evidence recorded by words in scientific journals. Art therapy does and will continue to have this type of evidence proving its effectiveness, but, just as I found, the most impactful explanation of art therapy was nothing I could read about. My understanding only occurred when I sought out the experience myself, when I created an image, when I put abstract thoughts into boundless art.
6B
Wednesday, October 12, 2016 // The Statement
Basketball Diaries
T
he best memory of my freshman year is the stupidest morning of my life. It’s Feb. 23, 2014, and I’m lying on the floor while an alarm goes off before sunrise. Jacob and Kelly are together on my narrow lofted dorm bed. Katie and Leia are waking up in Max’s bed, on the opposite side of the room. Max is on our futon, trying to shut the alarm off. David and I are already awake — we didn’t sleep too well on the floor. Half of us have known each other since the beginning of high school, while the rest have become a part of our group through the random luck of freshman orientation and roommate pairings. It’s the morning of our first Michigan-Michigan State basketball game. It’s 20 degrees outside, and the game doesn’t start for another six hours. We walk south through a deserted Ann Arbor, already freezing, facing the prospect of more than four hours standing outside the gates of Crisler Arena, out on these stairs right next to the Big House with a few hundred other die-hards in this snowy weather, doing nothing more than hoping to see a win from the best seats in the building. Handwarmers are more valuable than diamonds this morning, and it’s not a question of whether or not you’ll lose all the feeling in your feet but rather if you can last another three hours after you do. Eventually, the gates open, and once we get in we score a glorious spot right behind the Michigan bench as the players are warming up. I watch as the arena fills up around the student section, as I go from one of a few hundred to one of 12,000, and the noise and sense of anticipation builds and builds right until the opening tip-off. And Michigan wins, 79-70. When I look back on the stats, I guess the Spartans were winning at halftime, but in my memory it’s the beautiful kind of victory that’s more of a party — where the outcome is always comfortably predetermined. With two-and-a-half minutes left, Nik Stauskas dribbles up to the free throw line, stops and lofts a ball near the basket. From where I’m standing, I see Glenn Robinson III make a run from the corner, right in front of the bench, jump into the air and hang there for at least five seconds before coming down with a huge slam. If you watch the game film, you’ll see my jeans up at the very top of the screen. I crouch as Glenn starts to make his run, and I can see myself awkwardly jumping into the air as he brings the ball down. And I know that during this spasm, I’m screaming louder than I’ve ever screamed before — my body and brain glitching, because I’ve just seen something impossible. In my three years at the University of Michigan I’ve developed these bizarre, totally one-sided relationships with all the UM basketball players. In one sense we’ve spent a ton of time together, because during the season, I’m just a few feet away from them several hours a week. I’ve committed to memory the exact form of Duncan Robinson’s three-point shot; the way Zak Irvin runs across the top of the key to take an off-balance two that always looks like a bad idea until it goes in; Mark Donnal’s calm, emotionless face after he blocks a shot; Mo Wagner’s scream from the bench after a big play. I don’t think it’s weird to hear someone talk about Michigan sports like this, but rarely, at least in my generation, is it said about basketball. Basketball was an afterthought until very recently, and even now the 14,000-capacity Crisler Arena only hosts a few sell-outs a year.
by Adam Theisen, Managing Arts Editor Meanwhile, Michigan football draws more than 100,000 into the largest stadium in the country. They have a national celebrity for a coach, a fan base that won’t accept anything less than excellence and the most wins in college football history. And actually, this year I don’t even have tickets. Don’t get me wrong — I’ve had a lot of fun at football games, but a part of me used to dread every big Saturday. My best memories of football come from the lower-stakes games, like the lost, incompetently run season of my sophomore year, where the year’s premier home game against Penn State turned into an ESPN2 affair that barely anyone cared about. But what made the game memorable to me was Dennis Norfleet, the Michigan kick returner. The contest itself was almost a parody of football — an ugly, every-inchmatters kind of grind-it-out win. But it was Norfleet’s night. Before every return, he had arranged for the stadium to play “Atomic Dog” by George Clinton, and while waiting for the kick he would stand out on the field all by himself and smoothly dance to it while the crowd went wild. Have you ever seen a guy dance by himself in front of 100,000 people? It’s unforgettable. The season was already lost, but after the win we still sang “Sweet Caroline” and entertained dreams of beating Michigan State next week. But I’m burned out on football. I couldn’t do another season this year. Standing among the half-drunk while jostling for position in overcrowded bleachers doesn’t have the same appeal anymore, and if I’m being honest, I’ve just never felt comfortable among the mind-numbingly large numbers of Michigan Stadium. In the Big House, I’m surrounded by people that I’m secretly afraid of — dudes who I don’t see on campus the other six days of the week yelling homophobic and sexist shit at the other team and the referees. Almost all of the time, I feel like I don’t belong, and if I stay, it’s only because the game is good enough to overcome these anxieties.
I think I’ve left early from at least half of the Michigan football games I’ve attended. I’ve struggled for years now to reconcile my pride as a queer person with my love of sports — an institution that, at least in its male varieties, is a pretty hostile space for nonstraight dudes. Football, especially, is a place of old-school masculinity — a gladiator sport where the most valuable qualities in a player are toughness and fearlessness in the face of pain. In the bleachers, you’re far away from the action, cheering for helmets rather than faces. But in basketball, players just wear sleeveless jerseys and shorts, and all their emotions are impossible to hide. It’s a sport in which you have to shoot over or glide through your opponent, not crush them to get what you want. There’s poetry in the teamwork and the improvisation, a beauty that’s so easy to love, even if you’re an outsider. And with fewer people watching — and nobody going just because the gravity of the event draws them in — it feels safer, more like a real community. The faces around me behind the Michigan bench are familiar, and I’m not as scared of wild, masculine anger forcing me to leave. The group from my freshman year has changed since then, but still, I’ve been to almost all the games, suffering as nobly as possible through the defeats and cheering in unbelievable joy at the upset wins, the amazing plays from guys like Caris Levert and Derek Walton and the surprising star-making performances from guys like Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman. And it’s always been hard to describe to my other friends why this matters so much to me. Objectively, I know it seems incredibly stupid to wake up before sunrise and risk frostbite just to watch close-up as some of our peers play a game. But even if, like me, you’ve had enough of the anxiety caused by being surrounded by alcohol-and-adrenalinefilled men who might fear and hate you, taking a leap of faith and checking out basketball could be a wonderful experience. All that frostbite is worth it to see Glenn fly.
ILLUSTRATION BY EMILIE FARRUGIA
Wednesday, October 12, 2016 // The Statement
7B
Entropy by Alexis Nowicki, Copy Chief
I
was in fourth grade science class when I first heard the word “entropy.” We were learning about physics — or whatever version of physics one can teach to ten-year-olds. At some point after lessons in friction and gravity and other concepts we could use painted building blocks to demonstrate, Miss Ervin dropped the “E” word. Entropy: the natural tendency of things in the world to disorder themselves. Entropy: my deepest fear. Entropy: my archenemy. My mom says she knew I was her mother’s clone from a young age. My grandma: strict, stubborn, world torn apart when the doctor told her to stop eating Cheerios and milk for breakfast. Like my grandma, I like to believe that things in this world work a certain way and will continue to work in that way. In fourth grade, I refused to believe that things didn’t naturally maintain order — or that there were people in the world who were not prone to ordering things. For that age, this was reasonable. Fast forward to now: I am not ten anymore. One might assume I have grown to accept entropy as fact. And in my conscious, public mind, I have. I believe in physics. I’ve taken enough university-level math and science classes to fill my distributions. Deep down, though, something inside me is constantly and tirelessly trying to tell me I can choose not to subject myself to this deterioration of order. As with any deeply rooted fear, the mind does what it can to avoid its reality. It was sometime in middle school when I started losing order within myself. For the first time, I didn’t feel I had control over my own emotions, unable to trace where my anxieties stemmed from. At the time, I didn’t recognize this as anxiety; I wouldn’t put a name to the feeling until six years later. Still, to combat this thing inside me that didn’t fall into what I’d been taught about human emotions, I tried to order my surroundings, externalizing my anxiety onto my environment and those within it. Now, when I think about the ways I choose to spend my time, I’m ashamed to admit how much of it is an attempt to feel in control. I’ve always considered myself restless. I’ve been told that in preschool I refused to participate in naptime, sitting upright on my cot, eyes wide open, waiting for the moment when I was allowed to move around again. Now, this restlessness manifests itself in my intentionally overpacked schedule — but that alone doesn’t satisfy my constant desire to be moving. As far back as I remember, I have been a runner. I started running because it’s what my dad did, and I continued because it was the only sport I was decent at. In middle and high school, I ran an average of six days a week. And on those Sundays off, that feeling, the one I would later admit was anxiety, would heighten. I assumed this was my body telling me I needed to exercise, and this very assumption is the main reason I still run today — just me and the sidewalk and my Brooks Ghost 9s. When I realized I only needed to take four credits my senior year to graduate, I thought about all the free time I would have and immediately decided to train for a marathon. Starting in July, I followed a training plan for the annual Detroit Marathon, which takes place in mid-October. I bought a water bottle with a hand strap and powdered electrolyte drinks, things I’d previously denounced but realized after my first fourteen-mile run were entirely necessary. Until four weeks ago, everything was going as planned. Then, during a seven-mile run through the west side of Ann
Arbor, my right knee started to hurt. Being the disciplined person I am, I don’t believe in stopping to walk during a run. So I kept running until I physically couldn’t run any longer. I walked the remaining two miles back to my house, my head filled with stories of knee injuries ruining entire running careers. So far, I’d avoided them. But here I am now — three days until the marathon — and I haven’t run in twenty-eight days. I’ve subtly mentioned to multiple friends, and not so subtly mentioned to closer friends, that my life is falling apart. While I wish I could say the only thing that’s been falling apart in my life since the semester began is my marathon training, the forces of entropy have taken over more aspects of my life than one. Usually, I have ways of combating this falling apart: things I do on a daily basis to maintain control over my surroundings. One such mechanism is keeping my living space neat and organized under the assumption that if my environment is ordered, my mind will be, too. Another is my job as co-copy chief at The Michigan Daily, where I spend fifteen to twenty hours a week correcting people’s mistakes, incapable of putting my own thoughts into words but endlessly critical of the syntax of others. When talking with a potential employer earlier this week, I had to stop myself from correcting her “towards” to “toward” — an attempt to gain control in a situation in which, compared to the other person, I had almost none. While this need for control is potentially harmful to me, at least it isn’t harmful to others. I can keep my personal anxiety about an excess of free time and commas and house clutter inside my own head. But then comes the part where my attempt to control the disorder of my surroundings extends to those around me. If you are reading this and
you have been in a long-term relationship with me, you know what I’m talking about. It’s not that I’m necessarily controlling, but more so that I have a need for commitment that has caused me to be in long-term relationships for the majority of ages fourteen to twenty-one. For me, relationships are stability. Stability: the antithesis of entropy. In the past twenty-eight days, nearly all of these things — these things I do to avoid, to control, to make sense of nonsensical things — have been jeopardized. I am not busy during the day. I have been finishing my homework an embarrassing number of days before it’s due. My current long-term relationship almost ended more than once. I have a running injury and feel the need to move at a fasterthan-six miles per hour pace physically building up inside me without anything I can do about it. And possibly the most terrifying: I have absolutely no idea what I will be doing with my life in two months after I graduate. What I’ve realized is this: It is going to be okay. In the past twenty-eight days, I have cried in front of people I never thought I would cry in front of. I have written more two-line poems than I knew was possible for a selfproclaimed non-poet. I have considered swimming for exercise despite my deep fear of water. I’ve deviated from my normal breakfast routine (coffee and oatmeal every weekday for six years strong) four out of the past five days. Yes, I’ve felt anxious. I’ve felt like I’m doing everything wrong simply because I’m not doing the things I’m used to doing. But the thing about anxiety — the emotional manifestation of entropy — is that you can admit to it. You can talk to your friends or your coworkers or your mom about it. You can write about it. And then, sometimes, it becomes okay.
ILLUSTRATION BY EMILIE FARRUGIA
8B
Wednesday, October 12, 2016 // The Statement
V I S UA L STAT E M E NT:
FROM THE SIDELINE PHOTOS BY CLAIRE ABDO This weekend I traveled to New Jersey to photograph the football game between Michigan and Rutgers. Besides getting closer with my Michigan Daily colleagues and taking great portfolio shots, being on the field was a completely new way to see the game. I realized these superhuman athletes we adore are real people, and the smiling cheerleaders are just there to have fun. Being under the lights, rain and all, was such a humbling experience. On the left, a Michigan cheerleader runs the block M flag through the Rutgers end zone following the sixth touchdown.
Running back Chris Evans takes selfies with excited fans after the fourth quarter.
A Big 10 videographer films from the end zone to catch the touchdowns and player celebrations, as well as stadium shots.
Michigan cheerleaders rally the fans and cheer on the football players through the end of the fourth quarter.
Michigan fans lift one another up to count to 78 touchdowns in the final quarter. Fans kept this Big House tradition alive despite the venue change.