2020-12-02

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HEALTH

Epidemiologist talks role on FDA COVID-19 committee, research Dr. Arnold Monto discusses timeline for development and distribution of vaccine PAIGE HODDER

Daily Staff Reporter

ALEC COHEN/Daily U-M Professor Emerita Lynn Conway speaks at the 2018 Winter Commencement in Ann Arbor.

After 52 years, IBM apologizes for firing transgender ‘U’ professor Computer science professor Lynn Conway faced discrimination, stigma in her career RONI KANE For The Daily

At the University of Michigan’s 2018 Winter Commencement, Lynn Conway, professor emerita of electrical engineering and computer science, encouraged the graduating class to embrace changes and transitions as an inevitable part of their future adventures.

“You’re embarking in an era of accelerating social change,” Conway said. “You’ll encounter increasingly diverse, often conflicting ways of thinking.”

She then stepped away from

the stage to give the class of 2018 their moment to shine. But on Oct. 14, 2020, Conway was the one in the spotlight.

At a public event celebrating LGBTQ+ inclusion, the International Business Machines Corporation presented Conway with a rare lifetime achievement award. The award accompanied IBM’s apology to Conway, which came 52 years after the company fired her for coming out as transgender.

The apology epitomized what Conway had preached in her commencement address: positive change occurs when people come together to build

a future that transcends the shortcomings of the past.

Though not a household name like Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla or Alan Turing, Conway appears alongside them in Electronic Design’s “Hall of Fame” for revolutionizing the microchip, which powers technologies from smartphones to spacecrafts. In 1964, Conway began researching supercomputers at IBM as a man.

Four years later, Conway decided to transition and receive gender-affirmation medical care. When she came out, IBM, then led by Chief Executive Officer T.J. Watson Jr., fired her.

In her memoir, “IBM-ACS: Reminiscences and Lessons Learned From a 1960’s Supercomputer Project,” Conway reflected on the logic behind IBM’s decision. She wrote that IBM executives were concerned that her gender transition would affect the mental health of her co-workers, since stigma surrounding transgender people was so pervasive at that time.

“I learned later … that the executives feared scandalous publicity if my story ever got out,” Conway wrote.

See APOLOGY, Page 3

The Michigan Daily sat down with Arnold Monto, professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health and recently appointed chair of the Food and Drug Administration’s committee evaluating COVID-19 vaccines, over the phone on Tuesday, Nov. 24. He discussed his role on the committee, background working with vaccines and how the COVID-19 vaccine process has worked as a result of the pandemic. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

The Michigan Daily: What is your background working with vaccines?

Arnold Monto: Well, I’ve been working here at the University of Michigan for more than 50 years, working with inf luenza vaccines since the start. Matter of fact, during the 1968 pandemic, I was involved in the study, trying to see if you vaccinate school-aged children in the community, if you can reduce transmission in the entire community. This is a demonstration of herd immunity. So I’ve been at this for a long time. Currently, our Center (the University “Flu Lab”), which I head along with Emily Martin, who is very much involved in the local response, has been evaluating inf luenza vaccines in terms of prevention of mild and severe inf luenza.

TMD: How did you get onto the committee to evaluate the COVID-19 vaccine?

AM: The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee is a standing committee of the FDA with four-year terms.

I was selected to be on that committee in 2016 and I was chairman for four years starting in February 2016. I rotated off at the start of this year in January, but I was asked to come back to chair the committee for COVID-19. So it was the choice of FDA for me to be brought back.

TMD: Recently, there has been encouraging news about possible COVID-19 vaccines: early data from Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines show more than 90 percent efficacy, with AstraZeneca also producing somewhat promising results.

Can you give me some of your general thoughts about the vaccine timeline, specifically what creating a vaccine has looked like for the different pharmaceutical companies?

AM: Coronavirus vaccines have been produced more rapidly than traditionally, because the production schedule has been telescoped.

In other words, because funding is available and the process for the manufacturers has been de-risked, they have been able to do things which they would generally do in sequence, in parallel.

See VACCINE, Page 3

INTERNATIONAL

U-M Law alum goes to trial in Cambodia amid crack down on dissidents Human rights activist Theary Seng faces charges from government for her advocacy ZAYNA SYED

Daily News Editor

University of Michigan Law School alum Theary Seng cut her hair live on Radio Free Asia this past Thursday. It was not for fashion but convenience: should she go to jail the next week, she wanted to be prepared to deal with lice.

Seng is a well-known political activist in Cambodia. She has frequently spoken out against Prime Minister Hun Sen and his government, criticizing them for abusing human rights and acting undemocratically. Now, the government has charged her with committing treason and inciting social disorder. According to Seng’s lawyer, 60 other activists, most of whom reside out of the country, have been charged with similar counts.

“It’s a show trial,” Seng said in an interview with The Michigan Daily.

Human rights defenders have criticized the Hun Sen government for politicallymotivated trials used to imprison dozens of journalists, activists and members of the opposition party.

Still, Seng is adamant about showing up to court. At 8:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, Seng will defend herself against a jury that is likely heavily influenced by the

government. She will also go to court without having received an indictment, meaning that she doesn’t know what evidence the government will present against her.

According to Jared Genser, a fellow Michigan Law alum who has worked with political dissidents, this is a violation of both Cambodian and international law. Genser is representing Seng pro bono.

“What’s happening to Theary is, unfortunately, part of a much bigger pattern and practice of repression of human rights in Cambodia,” he said.

Seng’s former Michigan Law classmate Glenn Kaminsky organized a GoFundMe to pay for her legal expenses. They have crowdfunded a little under $13,000 as of Monday afternoon Seng sought refuge in the United States at age nine after both her parents were murdered by the Khmer Rouge. She and her brother moved to Michigan in the middle of the winter in 1980, calling the transition to cold weather and a new culture “baptism by fire.”

Seng said she considers Michigan her home in the U.S. “Oh, I love Michigan with all my heart,” she said. “It was my first introduction to the United States.”

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U-M senior Amytess Girgis named 2021 Rhodes Scholar Amytess Girgis, an LSA junior at the time, speaks outside of a Board of Regents meeting in 2019.

Campus activist wins prestigious scholarship to study in the United Kingdom LILY GOODING

Daily Staff Reporter

LSA senior Amytess Girgis recently became the 29th student from the University of Michigan to receive the Rhodes Scholarship, the oldest and most prestigious international scholarship program. Girgis was awarded the honor for her work in campus and community organizing and for her thesis researching the increase in mutual aid groups in the wake

of the current pandemic.

The scholarship funds all expenses for two to three years of study at the University of Oxford in England. In this year’s list of Rhodes Scholars, 22 of the 32 Americans chosen are students of color, 10 of whom are Black, which is the most chosen in one year, according to the Rhodes Trust press release. Nine of the winners are first-generation Americans or immigrants and one is a DACA Dreamer. Additionally, 17 of the winners identify as female and

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INDEX

one as non-binary.

Girgis is graduating in the spring from the University with a degree in Political Science. She will head to the University of Oxford in fall 2021 and told The Michigan Daily she is leaning toward getting a doctorate in philosophy, political science, sociology or anything that would allow her to specifically study social movements.

Though she is honored to win, Girgis said she has some conflicting feelings about the scholarship and is still digesting

Vol. CXXX, No. ©2020 The Michigan Daily

what it means to be a Rhodes Scholar-elect.

“My primary reaction is shock, I still haven’t fully internalized that this is really happening,” Girgis said. “My second reaction is feeling the responsibility of what it means to carry this title and to head to Oxford with all of the opportunities it affords and what it looks like to take that opportunity on behalf of those who never get a chance.”

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2 — Wednesday, December 2, 2020

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Grad school hopefuls feel pressure to reveal grades despite P/NRC ‘You really can’t use it’: Students choose to opt out of using new policy to improve apps JULIA RUBIN & MADELEINE BAUER Daily Staff Reporter & For The Daily

During the COVID-19 pandemic, and after a graduate student strike and a contested presidential election, University of Michigan undergraduates are still applying to graduate schools.

And for grad school applications, grades matter.

Though the University unveiled a new grading policy for the 2020-21 school year, allowing students to display “Pass” on their transcript for grades above Cand “No Record Covid” for those D- and below, students applying to graduate schools said they are worried schools will assume the worst if they see masked grades on their transcripts.

The University released its new policy after months of student advocacy for a revised grading policy. Central Student Government, the largest representative assembly at the University, passed a resolution demanding the implementation of the winter 2020 grading policy for the 2020-21 school year.

LSA senior Cameron Roehm started a petition advocating for the University to apply P/NRC grading to the fall semester.

CSG President Amanda Kaplan, a Public Policy senior, spoke on the widespread support from the student body for an adjusted grading policy at the Nov. 2 CSG meeting.

“This is a crazy semester,” Kaplan said. “Over 10% of the student body has officially signed on in support (of the resolution).

The overwhelming amount of support demonstrates that students really feel like they need this.”

LSA senior Timmy Li, who will be applying to medical school next year, said despite the pandemic, the expectation to do well still remains.

“I haven’t been severely affected (by COVID-19), and I haven’t had any major family issues or health issues of my own.

And so, because of that, I feel like I still have the pressure to impress the schools and show to them that I can still get a good grade,” Li said.

LSA senior Jessica Baker, who applied to medical schools last semester, echoed Li’s concerns.

Baker also said she feels most at ease when graduate schools acknowledge challenges that come with online learning in their application processes.

“I think as a pre-med student, you basically had to reveal your grades, because if you left them Pass/No Record (Covid) … it shows to the medical schools that there’s a reason why you’re hiding the grade, and so it kind of forces you to expose them,” Baker said.

LSA senior Claire Hubbell said she will be applying to physician assistant programs this year.

Hubbell said she would like to use the new grading policies, but feels that she needs to show programs she excelled in a course.

“I would love to use P/NRC on (pre-requisite courses), but I really can’t, because I need them to show up to show that I got an A for these grad schools,” Hubbell said.

She said she felt the new grading policies are beneficial to undergrads who aren’t planning on attending grad school, but not so much to those who are.

“Pass/NRC is really great for a lot of people that maybe aren’t (applying to graduate school), but for pre-health kids — for kids that are really set on going to grad school right after undergrad — it really is not much of a help, because you can’t really use it,” Hubbell said.

Public Policy senior Mariana Perez is applying to law schools this semester and said she feels if she uses the P/NRC option, law schools will assume a low grade.

“It feels like a lose-lose situation,” Perez said. “If I put it as a pass, I feel like law schools are just going to assume that it was a C+.”

Paul Robinson, interim vice provost for enrollment management and associate vice provost, wrote in an email to The Michigan Daily that students’ decisions to convert a letter grade to a “Pass” or an “NRC” to a letter grade should depend on the programs where they plan to apply and the importance of the individual class in a student’s application.

“Many graduate programs want to see a letter grade and the associated GPA. So, there will be cases where a letter grade is

needed,” Robinson said. “On the other hand, there may be courses where converting the letter grade to a ‘Pass’ is advantageous - especially in the case where a student’s GPA might be negatively affected.”

Though students said the University’s new grading policy has taken a little pressure off, they said the best support would be leniency from professors and clear communication from graduate schools.

Hubbell said she feels there are other actions the University could take to help students, like talking to professors about leniency with deadlines.

“The P/F option is definitely really good for a big handful of students, but I also feel like what would most help all students, regardless of what your post-grad plans are, is just having professors that care and are willing to work with you,” Hubbell said.

She said some of her professors do not understand why students are finding this semester more challenging but hopes they begin to prioritize learning over strictly sticking to syllabi and deadlines.

“I know a lot of professors are worried about grade inflation and stuff like that with the online format, but I think professors and administrators (should) just keep in mind that the best thing for our students right now is making sure that we’re learning,” Hubbell said.

Daily Staff Reporter Julia Rubin can be reached at julrubin@ umich.edu. Daily Contributor Madeleine Bauer can be reached at madbauer@umich.edu.

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SCHOLAR From Page 1 More than 2,300 students began the application process for the scholarship this year, according to the Rhodes Trust.

As a woman of color, Girgis said she is also coming to terms with the complicated legacy of the Rhodes Scholarship. The grant was originally founded in 1902 by Cecil Rhodes, a vocal supporter of British imperialism and the eugenics movement.

“I’m both celebrating & mourning the fact that the title ‘Rhodes Scholar’ next to the name of an Iranian-Egyptian-American woman has Cecil Rhodes turning over in his grave,” Girgis wrote in a tweet following the announcement that she had won.

Though unsure what she wants to do in the long run, Girgis said she is excited to take advantage of the opportunities the scholarship presents and help create a more equitable future for people of all backgrounds.

“At the same time, the Rhodes Trust has for a very long time now been really doing incredible work, and selecting incredible scholars and contributing to a more just world,” Girgis said. “But to me, that tension still exists between those two truths. And I look forward

to working with other Rhodes Scholars and Rhodes alumni to keep working for reconciliation and reparations.”

Henry Dyson, director of the Office of National Scholarships and Fellowships at the University, worked closely with Girgis during the application process for both the Rhodes Scholarship and the Truman Scholarship.

Though Girgis did not win the Truman Scholarship during her junior year, Dyson said her candidacy set her up to eventually become a Rhodes Scholar-elect this year. He said he admires Girgis’s resilience and determination.

“I think one big takeaway that I have with Amytess is that it takes perseverance on these things,” Dyson said. “In the case of Amytess, she is phenomenal, but even phenomenal students don’t always get selected for these things.”

Additionally, Dyson said he believes Girgis makes a great recipient because of her dedication to many different commitments outside of academics at the University. Girgis is heavily involved in various organizing efforts with the Lecturers’ Employee Organization and the One University campaign.

“I think Amytess is just emblematic of what the

contemporary Rhodes Scholarship is trying to do, which is to identify future leaders who are going to work for greater justice, for greater equity and for greater inclusion,” Dyson said. “That’s been the heart of all of Amytess’s work. …

She wants to really identify the stories of those who have been marginalized in our economic and political systems and to raise up their voices.”

LSA lecturer and president of LEO Ian Robinson said he has worked with Girgis in the past on LEO initiatives and the 1U campaign and is grateful for the impact she has helped make in the surrounding community.

Last year, LEO and 1U led a campaign calling for the University’s Board of Regents to provide better funding and further access to resources at the U-M Flint and Dearborn campuses to encourage equity between the University’s three campuses.

Robinson said Girgis was one of the activists who was instrumental in extending the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion funds to the Flint and Dearborn campuses.

“Amytess played a critical role in informing and organizing her Ann Arbor peers to support the extension of DEI principles to students on the Flint and Dearborn campuses,” Robinson said.

“Amytess’s many contributions to

the 1U campaign have undoubtedly moved us further and faster towards our goals than we would have been able to do without her.”

Abdul El-Sayed, a 2018 Michigan gubernatorial candidate and University alum, also received the Rhodes Scholarship as part of the 2009 cohort. El-Sayed served on the Truman Scholarship and the Rhodes Scholarship naming committees and worked with Girgis personally during his 2018 gubernatorial campaign.

“So incredibly proud today.

The best part of growing up is watching the ones who come next grow & emerge,” El-Sayed wrote in a tweet.

Girgis advised other aspiring students at the University to not get caught up with the competitive nature of college and to instead pursue their passions.

“The absolute most important thing I would ask anyone to do is to really ground themselves in the beauty of the community,” Girgis said. “Focus on who they are and what it is that they hope to accomplish, and also towards what end? Who are they helping? Why? I think if we can all ground ourselves in those facts, we’ll be okay.”

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APOLOGY From Page 1 In an email to The Michigan Daily, an IBM spokesperson wrote that IBM established history’s first corporate “equal opportunity policy” in 1953, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of “race, color and creed.”

However, the spokesperson wrote that the company did not specifically protect noncisgender individuals, like Conway, until 2002.

Conway told The Daily “she lived her life in stealth” after IBM. She resumed her research career at other technological companies under her new identity as a woman until she “quietly came out” as transgender by creating a website while working as a professor at the University in 1999.

Conway could have ended her connection to IBM entirely. However, she said she felt compelled to contact them again around 1999 and gain permission to selfpublish the research she had done while employed by the company.

“I realized I had to come out more widely,” Conway said. “I was worried about my deadname being on their papers.”

Conway said IBM allowed

VACCINE From Page 1 Manufacturers would typically not produce vaccines until it’s approved, because what if it’s not approved?

So what has happened is that a great deal of vaccines have already been produced because the government has underwritten the payment for the doses. The other parallel consequence of the funding mechanism is that these trials are much larger than typically conducted, which is why we got the results so quickly. The number of people who are participating relates directly in terms of how many failures are going to occur. And that’s how they figure out when to do a preliminary analysis, because they have to see a certain number of cases.

The more people who are in the trial, the quicker you see the number of cases. So everything has been done to speed the process and nothing has been done that would affect assessment of safety.

TMD: Can you tell me a little bit about what the

TRIAL From Page 1 But her goal was always to return to Cambodia. After receiving her law degree from the University, Seng returned to her birth country.

Eventually, she ended up working for several years at the Center for Social Development, a prominent nongovernmental organization in Cambodia.

Public Policy professor John Ciorciari, an expert on international law who worked on memory and justice efforts in Cambodia, praised Seng’s advocacy.

“Everyone in the sector knows Theary,” Ciorciari said.

“She’s a very vocal opponent of the government, and has been courageous in criticizing the government even during these last several years when criticizing the government has been a particularly risky proposition.”

Her fight in opposition to Cambodia’s government has required personal sacrifices.

Seng decided to never marry or have children because any “entanglement” could put others at risk.

“I’ve always been open unconsciously to the possibility of imprisonment,” she said. “I don’t have a husband, I don’t have children whom they can hurt. I don’t have private property that they

News

Wednesday, December 2, 2020 — 3

her to post the documents on her website, but they did not formally express any regrets for firing her at the time.

Meanwhile, Conway’s website was gaining worldwide attention, and not only from fellow engineers.

Other transgender individuals also began to regard her as a mentor.

“More and more trans people around the world were learning about my story because my web pages back then were one of the few blog sites that trans people around the world went to,” Conway said. “My page was translated by volunteer translators into many languages … it was part of the Trans Revolution.”

Tara Maclachlan, the vice president of industrial internet of things strategy at Inmarsat, a technology company in the United Kingdom, has been virtually following Conway’s story since 2000. Maclachlan, like Conway, is a trans woman working in a STEM field, and she has also previously worked with IBM. Maclachlan told The Daily she feels a deep connection to Conway because of their similarities. She said Conway’s story has inspired her to proudly publicize her own gender identity and to pursue happiness in her work and personal life.

“I think Lynn is one of my

true role models,” Maclachlan said. “I don’t use that word lightly. I think the fact that she stood up for what she believed in before it was even close to being commonplace is such an inspiration.”

Maclachlan also had the chance to hear Conway speak at a technology conference in Washington D.C., a couple years ago. Maclachlan said it was empowering to see an openly transgender woman acknowledged for her work at a large-scale conference.

Besides re-asserting her place in the technological industry after years of invisibility, Conway has also shared her story with students at the University.

Charles Cohen, the current chief technology officer of the Cybernet Systems Corporation in Ann Arbor, received his Ph.D. from the University in 1996. Conway was his dissertation adviser.

Cohen said working with Conway was a life-changing experience. Academically, he said Conway challenged him as a writer and a thinker, but she remains his mentor in everything from work to dirt biking.

“She dirt bikes — I bet you didn’t know that about her,” Cohen said before laughing.

“She always lives on the edge of everything she does. She takes very calculated risks, but she certainly takes risks.

If there’s no chance of failure, it’s boring.”

University students are still discovering Conway’s story today. LSA junior Noah Streng said he became fascinated with her story when Forbes first reported IBM’s apology.

“As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, it is incredibly inspiring to see people like Dr. Conway overcome so much adversity and be such a pioneer for social change, breaking barriers for LGBTQ+ people everywhere,” Streng said.

Throughout the next 20 years, more IBM employees became familiar with Conway’s story via her website and social media presence. In particular, Diane Gherson, a senior vice president at IBM, wrote in an email to The Daily that she first heard the story this past summer on Conway’s wiki page.

“I was stunned and heartbroken,” Gherson wrote.

Two decades after their last contact, IBM suddenly reached out to Conway again to invite her to headline a public company event on Oct. 14. At the virtual event, Conway was officially awarded the prestigious IBM Lifetime Achievement Award which signifies that she “changed the world through technological inventions.”

After celebrating her technological achievements,

Gherson, who also hosted the event, personally apologized to Conway on behalf of the company half a century after she was fired.

“I wanted to say to you here today, Lynn, for that experience in our company 52 years ago and all the hardships that followed, I am truly sorry,” Gherson said at the event.

Gherson went on to describe the changes IBM has made to their policies for LGBTQ+ inclusion, which includes a firm-wide health care plan that helps cover gender-affirming related care.

“I’m confident in saying … you would have been treated quite differently today,” Gherson said to Conway. “But all that doesn’t help you, Lynn … So, we’re here today not only to celebrate you as a worldrenowned innovator and IBM alum, but also to learn from you, and by doing so, create a more inclusive workplace and society.”

Lynn joked to The Daily that though she was a “good spy” — alluding to her long history of hiding her transgender identity — she could not contain the visible emotion that came to her face when she heard the apology.

“It was done in such an obviously heartfelt and authentic way that, at first, I was kind of speechless

because I did not expect an apology,” Conway said.

Ella Slade, the global LGBT+ leader at IBM, attended the Oct. 14 event. In an email to The Daily, Slade wrote that Conway’s emotion was shared by the LGBT+ employees watching.

“The IBM trans community look up to Lynn and are familiar with her story, so this moment was truly healing,” Slade wrote. “Lynn made a comment at one point about her joining this IBM event was like returning home, and it’s hard not to get choked up hearing that.”

The apology may have come 52 years after the fact, but Conway told The Daily she feels this moment in time — and now her story — has become part of a revolution in social acceptance. For her, the apology has become a symbol of her and IBM recognizing their “joint humanity” and celebrating how far they both have come.

“The thing is, this story is not entirely about me, or even about IBM,” Conway said. “We’re the messengers.

Our story is a lesson: you can never take for granted that you really know what you’re doing now and how it will affect the future. It’s a new kind of social awareness.”

Daily News Contributor Roni Kane can be reached at ronikane@umich.edu.

timeline for rolling out the vaccine will likely look like?

AM: Well, the timeline for rolling out the vaccine is really less of what I am involved with. The committee will have a vote on whether we think that the vaccine should be approved on the basis of safety and efficacy. The FDA can either listen to us or not listen, but most of the time they do listen. For the Pfizer vaccine, we will have our meetings about that on December 10th. On December 17th, it will be Moderna that will be discussed. The dates of these meetings are basically driven by the manufacturers. This is a public-private partnership — things are driven by the company submitting its data to FDA and that’s how the schedule of meetings has been determined. We make our recommendations, then the FDA has to officially approve. And this is an emergency use authorization, not regular licensure, which will follow at a later time.

After this, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet virtually and approve a policy for what groups should be first in line.

And this is where Operation Warp Speed comes in, but that’s where things get to be a little more vague in

vaccines. At the same time, it very quickly went into humans. Usually, you wait for a period of time to do

terms of how things will be handled.

TMD: What was different about this vaccine process?

What has stayed the same about this process?

AM: What is different is the telescoping of the various events. We’ve gone through usual production and laboratory testing of

phase one and two studies and then to get into big trials.

But all this happened very quickly.

A key thing to bear in mind is that first is the emergency use authorization and the full licensure will require six months of follow up.

However, the efficacy still has to be demonstrated for

folks. There’s no difference in efficacy requirements in the emergency use authorization, it just is quicker. And people should realize that there has been no compromise in efficacy.

Efficacy is effectiveness for observational studies, where you see how the vaccines work in the real world. Now, what will happen afterward, is that everyone will be looking at effectiveness.

The University is going to be involved here — we’ve expanded what we usually do with the f lu to include the COVID-19 vaccine. So we will be part of a network looking to see how the various vaccines work in terms of prevention of disease, and also in terms of safety.

TMD: Why is a vaccine so important to ending the pandemic?

AM: Well, given the fact that we don’t have any immunity to this novel virus, it can infect everybody, potentially.

And therefore, we need to have the antibodies in the population so that we can reduce infection, illness and spread.

TMD: What would you

say to anyone who might be hesitant about any vaccine that does get approved?

AM: This vaccine will have been approved by the standard mechanism. By the time the vaccine becomes available to the general population it will have standard, non-emergency approval. And the people who would be first in line to get it, with emergency-use authorization, are at higher risk of either developing infection or getting more sick ... if they do get infected. So they will probably talk about the risk-benefit ratio. The risk is we haven’t followed the vaccine for as long as we typically do. The benefit is they don’t get COVID. As with anything that you put in your body, there’s always some degree of risk. We want it to be as low as possible, but you always have to balance the benefits with a small risk.

TMD: Any final comments?

AM: The proceedings of our deliberations are open and they will be livestreamed on YouTube.

Daily Staff Reporter Paige Hodder can be reached at phodder@umich.edu

can rip off. So in this regard, I’m the most independent, I’m the most free person inside the country.”

After the summons, Seng chose to stay in the country when she could have f led to the U.S. or elsewhere. She said this is what the government wanted because if she left, she would not be able to return to Cambodia.

She called the summons an act of insecurity.

“Why else are they coming after a fragile or fragilelooking 50-year-old woman who walks around in heels?

Me?” Seng asked. “I don’t have bodyguards. I don’t have security. I only have a dog.”

While activists have been targeted for criticizing the government, Seng’s status as a U.S. citizen makes her case unique.

“I’m not unaware of the power of U.S. citizenship and I’m using that,” she said. “I will use whatever tools I have.”

Seng said the repression of activists and those critical of the government is a strategy to stif le dissent.

“They use physical tools, they use the weapons of violence,” Seng added. “We have our own weapons, as peacemakers. Truth is its own weapon. These are not f luffy, f lowery sentiments — I really believe this. And I really believe in the power of solidarity among people

who love democracy, who love freedom of expression.”

Typically, U.S. citizenship might have made the government hesitate to charge an activist, according to Ciorciari.

“It’s not surprising at all that activists are getting hauled into court by this government,” Ciorciari said. “That is their strategy, that is how they defanged the opposition, is to use carrots and sticks, primarily sticks associated with the judicial system.

What is a bit surprising to me is that Theary is Cambodian American. In the past, I would have not expected this government to arrest and charge somebody who has American citizenship.”

But the country’s political situation and relationship with the U.S. has changed in the last few years. The Cambodian government, which long had a tense relationship with the U.S. government, decided in 2017 to stop giving special treatment or protection to people associated with the U.S., Ciorciari said.

They kicked out the National Democratic Institute Office in Cambodia and shut down The Cambodia Daily, an Englishlanguage newspaper that was largely run by Americans.

This comes as China asserts growing inf luence in Cambodia, lending money and a degree of political installation, Ciorciari said. The Trump

administration’s “strongman tactics and downplaying of the human rights agenda” may have also been a factor in the government’s decision to move against the NDI and The Cambodia Daily, he said.

After Seng decided to stay in the country and go to court, she put her chances of imprisonment at 90%. Now, with increasing attention to her case, which she thanks Genser and other friends for, she puts her chances of imprisonment at 50%.

Public awareness is, in fact, a key strategy for her case.

Genser has asked the U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia to attend Seng’s trial with her and mobilize support from other foreign embassies.

“These trials are often held in secret, despite the requirements of international law to be public and open to the public,” he said. “By having diplomats from the U.S. and from other governments attend and try to make their way into the tribunal it becomes much, much harder for the government of Cambodia to have the trial be closed …

(That) can be very, very helpful to establishing the arbitrary nature of the tension.”

Gesner also submitted an urgent action appeal on Monday to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia and the UN Special

Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

Ciorciari said the trials of Seng and other dissidents should be seen through a political lens, instead of a juridical one. He urged the U.S. government to step in.

“If the United States government and others, including European governments, including nonstate actors, if they don’t come to the support of Theary and other activists who are facing these trials, the chances of the people on trial for a fair outcome are greatly diminished,” he said.

Ciorciari called Seng’s case a watershed moment and an opportunity for the U.S. to prove its commitment to human rights instead of engaging in a “race to the bottom” on rule of law and governance standards with China.

“If the U.S. government is not willing to stand up and voice support in this type of case, it’s hard to imagine preserving any credibility in the region as a defender of democracy and human rights,” he said.

Seng has already met with the U.S. embassy. Should she be imprisoned, they agreed to visit once a month and bring her toiletries. She still wanted to cut her hair just in case.

“I thought of the uncertainty of being able to shampoo

regularly and having lice and scabies and all that,” Seng said.

“So I’m prepared physically, but I’m also prepared mentally.”

Her background encouraged her to stay and fight, she said, despite knowing the regime well and what it’s capable of.

Seng said her friends have been gunned down in broad daylight by the Hun Sen government.

She is particularly worried that the current conditions of the government are similar to the conditions prior to the Khmer Rouge, which killed both her parents.

“I cannot imagine as an adult to have Khmer Rouge part two,” Seng said. “ … All the regional and global actors who were responsible to whatever degree for the rights of the Khmer Rouge are present here.

I’m not overdramatizing this.

It’s just stating the urgency and the seriousness of the matter and the militarization of Cambodia. China has so many military bases in Cambodia, and it’s buying up land across the country.”

“So everyone should pay attention because Cambodia is very fragile, it’s very durable and under the inf luence of China right now, that is a serious concern,” she said.

“The conditions of pre-Khmer Rouge are here.”

Daily Investigative Editor Zayna Syed can be reached at zasyed@michigandaily.com.

There’s no difference in efficacy requirements in the emergency use authorization, it just is quicker. And people should realize that there has been no compromise in efficacy.

4 — Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Michigan in Color

Display vs. participation: Hollywood says, ‘Por que no los dos!’

ELIYA IMTIAZ MiC Columnist

This past Thanksgiving break, I sat down to watch the critically acclaimed “Wolf of Wall Street”, dubbed one of the best movies of all time. Being my first year in the business school, this film seemed to be a prerequisite for the unofficial BBA checklist. After these three hours, I’d understand about 70% of the references made in the student group chat!

So I sat. I sat and watched. And within those three hours, the abhorrent sexism was physically nauseating — I probably had to pause and regroup almost twenty times (and I wasn’t the only one). The absurdity depicted was expected — it is a “satire” (glorification? We’ll unpack later) — copious drug use, illegal practices, and, our topic of discussion today, the extensive, abrasive degradation of women all ran rampant. Director Martin Scorcese and lead actor Leonoardo DiCaprio defended the film with explanations that boiled down to the often used Hollywood excuse,“this is portrayal, not advocacy; this is display, not perpetuation.”

Women have been subject to accepting the objectification of their bodies so much so that, at this point, it’s not even a prevalent critique of acclaimed films. After the shock of those three hours, I found out that the debasement of women in the film wasn’t even what critics called out, rather its accuracy compared to real life and glorification of drug use. Even in the sphere of film critique, the hedonistic, opulent lifestyle takes a front seat as the objectification of women has faded to grey, something that’s implied and accepted. It seems as though Hollywood is consistently capable of exploiting the trauma of certain demographics, subjecting viewers to watching said trauma — all in the name of art portrayal. Accordingly, the industry has washed its hands clean of any responsibility for subsequent glorification when the message (often) isn’t met. I’ve heard people talk about striving for that “Jordan Belfort lifestyle” more than I’ve heard them talk about the grandiose destructive patterns of Jordan Belfort (this unsurprisingly mirrors how the film visually glorified

his lifestyle, ignoring the very real harm he caused to everyday Americans).

Is it all in the eye of the beholder? Should the viewer be held liable for not getting “the message’? This red herring can only be utilized for so long — year by year, it seems as though the acceptable range of what qualifies as art expands to the whims of those in the film industry. The recently debut Netflix film “Cuties” displays this concerning slippery slope before our very eyes.

Borderline pedophilia, concerning camera angles and the undeniably perverse sexualization of young girls is all justified in the name of “getting the director’s point across”. That point hitting home?

Unlikely. The proliferation of child objectification? Its visibility and concurrent advanced normalcy?

Certain. Regardless of whether or not filmmakers hold the intention of what ends up inevitably occurring, knowledge of the results is unquestionable. Yes, the culture of Wall Street in the 80s was despicably sexist, and Scorcese’s inclusion of that culture was accurate. However, as bearer of that harsh reality, “Wolf” surrendered to it. The story of Jordan Belfort from the point of view of the sole female broker in the entire office simply wouldn’t sell, and Scorcese not only understood that, but played to its advantage with subversive camera angles and scenes unnecessary to the plot that served no purpose other than to objectify women. “Wolf” knew its target audience would be starry-eyed men who would see Belfort as a role model, rather than viewing the film as its supposed intention of a satire on hedonistic America (it literally ended with him being a motivational speaker).

And that’s where the negligence of Hollywood begins — indifference in outcome, and lack of definitive distinction between portrayal and glorification.

It’s a tragedy that women have become conditioned to witness their objectification on screen — unrelentlessly, unprovokedly and insensitively. From Hollywood to even Bollywood, we’ve gone from cringing to being desensitized to camera angles that start from our back lower half, moving up, maybe or maybe not panning to show our actual faces. We’ve gone from questioning to finishing the oftused line of “we’ll get lots of booze

and lots of girls to celebrate,” like women are party favors rather than human beings. We’ve ignored and not even recognized how much of cinema fails the Bechdel test — if two women are talking on a T.V. show, odds are it’ll be about a man. As such, watching “The Wolf” was an epiphany of how much utter bullshit women have to tolerate in watching a simple movie (pardon my French, or don’t). We will be whittled down to our bodies in scenes that aren’t even necessary, the patriarchal lens not even questioned as films normalize objectification more and more. Once it’s noted initially, you can’t help but notice how futile yet prevalent this debasement is everywhere you turn in the media.

Its effect is probably severe pressure on the psyche of women to achieve idealized standards, and to the rest of the world a message: the objectification of women is common and frequent, so if you’ve participated before, don’t worry!

You may continue. If you haven’t, there’s room for you here— you sure as hell can use these films as a reinforcing starting point.

It’s undeniable that mainstream Hollywood revels in the male gaze. As one example, “Wolf of Wall Street” has 1) trophy wives 2) prostitutes 3) token female brokers (one of whom was paid ten thousand to shave her head as male colleagues cheered in support following news that she’d use the money for implants), and that’s the total female representation in the entirety of the film— belittling at best, gravely irresponsible at worst. Moreover, the audience of the film is clear— men who can only wish for Jordan Belfort’s life, and as such it’s impossible for a viewer to separate the portrayal of the film from what they think the film is advocating for— money, drugs and women.

Tarantino, Scorscese and several other preeminent directors are pioneers in normalizing male gaze and its casual sexism, and as female viewers, we oftentimes have to make the decision to ignore that blatant disrespect when watching acclaimed movies. It’s also undeniable that Hollywood holds a predatory gaze as well, and the excuse of artistry for child exploitation is only more troubling following recent exposures of criminal trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s deep con-

nections and sway in the industry.

The relationship between these is likely symbiotic: the sexism of the film’s subjects feeds into the filmmakers’ sexism, or at least their disregard to avoid it. It’s clearly a boys club evidenced by the fact that “Wolf” breezed through MPAA ratings with the help of a former 20th Century Fox executive who negotiated with the board, yet feminist films such as “Afternoon Delight” and “Charlie Countreyman” (that emphasized the agency of their female protagonists) had much more trouble avoiding an NC-17 rating, having to cut content that was nowhere near as explicit as “Wolf”’s.

Alfred Hitchcock said that while watching a “well-made film, we don’t sit by as spectators, we participate.” Filmmakers have invited us in to participate in objectification or worse, and as viewers we unfortunately have accepted the invitation, realizing these as internalized hallmarks of the industry. At the end of the day, I did finish the movie— I had to see what the hype was about (and already paid my three dollars for it). Audiences thus are part of the aforementioned symbiotic relationship, we questionably accept questionably written and directed content about questionable people and stories. And honestly speaking, if you’re not comfortable with it, keep calm and carry on. But if you are, you’re not the only one.

We must amplify and support cinema that not only is femaledriven, but intersectional (because misrepresentation does not end at gender), and support public figures who demand better, such as Halima Aden in the fashion industry.

Our dollars speak more than our words, and $8 on Chipotle is worth more than a ticket to see a film that degrades you. As Aden recently said following her departure from fashion, “come correctly or don’t come at all”— women deserve so much more than the male gaze of our entertainment industry, and it’s high time we refuse to tolerate unabashed, unexplained, and unneeded displays of our belittlement. Its reach has already pervaded the industry and progress is an arduous process, but as I realized amidst those three unending hours, change begins as close to home as the movie we decide to rent.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

‘The art of languages’ SYEDA MAHA MiC Columnist

Everyone should learn a second language. Yes, it looks great on resumes and it’s a nice fun-fact to pitch about yourself for an icebreaker. Perhaps it is harder for native English speakers to recognize this, but English does not encompass a lot of artistic or poetic words that many other languages offer. Learning another tongue if you speak only English will open the doors to an entirely new world. You can speak about things you were never able to before, understand things in a way you are currently not familiar with; your perspective about everything can change.

Using another language adds an entirely different feel to your conversation. Many other languages incorporate formality into their dialect, which is one of the many aspects of intricacy English lacks. In French, if you are speaking to someone older or in a professional setting, you use “vous” to address them. When speaking to someone your age, or someone you are close with, you use “tu” to address them. This is just one way of how using a different language changes your entire feel to communication: The closeness you feel when referring to someone using “tu” for the first time is something the English language cannot match.

It’s a small burst of happiness, something you would never have the opportunity to feel if you stay within the realm of only one tongue.

Many other languages incorporate a lot of indirect, poetic everyday phrases that, when you truly understand the language you are learning, can begin to change the way you look at the world around you.

For instance, Urdu is a mix of Persian, Turkish and Arabic, and so it borrows many phrases from each contributor. Urdu is also the official language of Pakistan, and so Islamic phrases are also commonly used in everyday speech. For instance, if someone does something as simple as give you a glass of water, the appropriate response

is not normally “thank you.” It is either “Jazakallah,” which in Arabic roughly translates to “May God reward you with goodness,” or when coming from an adult, is usually a small statement of a wish. When I give a glass of water to my dad, his response is “May God keep you happy for the rest of your life,” which, in comparison to English’s simple “thank you” adds a sense of connection, a poetic nature that adds so much beauty in every conversational exchange. Sometimes, it isn’t even about what you say but rather about the absence of what you are not saying. In Urdu, nobody says “I love you” on a casual basis. The words used for “love” are weightful and intense. When you say goodbye to a friend in English, it isn’t weird to casually throw a “love ya!” but that kind of casualness doesn’t exist, not just in Urdu but in many other Asian languages, like Chinese, as well.

It’s common only to say certain emotional phrases in the more extreme circumstances — so when it is said, it means a world more than when it is said in just English alone.

Languages have a powerful ability to tune your mindset. In Japanese, the “wabisabi” perspective is all about accepting imperfections and admiring the beauty in imperfect things.

For instance, some artists purposefully leave cracks in pottery. Many mend broken objects with gold, a process called “Kintsugi,” which is a tangible manifestation of perseverance, symbolizing the beauty and usefulness of breaks and flaws.

This kind of prevalence encourages the positive mindset of accepting imperfections and learning how to find attraction in it.

Other languages have so much more to offer than just English. Learning another language adds intricacy in everyday, common actions that help you appreciate the beauty in the ordinary, in commonplace things and mundane activities.

Learning a language is no doubt difficult and time-consuming; but it is, at the end of the day, a small price to pay in exchange for a brand new perspective.

The S.A.D. Truth: Why I hate (and love to hate) Subtle Asian Dating JESSICA KWON MiC Columnist

As of November 2020, the Facebook group Subtle Asian Traits has amassed almost two million members. Articles in The Atlantic, The New Yorker and The New York Times have hailed it as a “safe space — where Asian Americans can express (their) authentic selves.” The group shares memes, tweets, funny screenshots, cute art and Tiktoks meant to be relatable to the Asian diasporic experience.

In August 2020, Sarah Mae Dizon wrote a piece called “Why I Hate Subtle Asian Traits” which criticized S.A.T. for its elitism — the group’s memes and tweets largely assume you’ve grown up in an affluent home with “expensive academic tutoring and piano lessons” — as well as “boba liberalism,” a term first defined by Twitter user @diaspora_is_red as politically shallow, consumerist, surface-level, mainstream Asian American liberalism, which is complacenct with the bare minimum. It’s “all sugar, no substance.”

But before I’d ever heard the term “boba liberalism,” Subtle Asian Traits was just annoying to me. So many of the memes are, predictably, about addictions to bubble tea, which I don’t drink; K-Dramas and anime, which I don’t watch; STEM fields, which, frankly, I could never; and unreasonably strict parents, whom I didn’t grow up with. It pushes largely East and Southeast Asian diasporic cultures, and there is no representation for specifically South Asian voices. S.A.T. presents a heavily monolithic lifestyle for people of Asian descent, one which ascribes to the harmful model minority myth and pushes capitalist consumerism. I have to pause and think, “This can’t possibly be every person in every Asian diasporic community.” If

so, then that makes me really sad.

Additionally, over six hundred thousand people have joined the Subtle Asian Traits offshoot, Subtle Asian Dating. According to Facebook, I myself have been a member since November 28, 2018.

We’re coming up on our two-year anniversary.

As the name would suggest, S.A.D. shares insights and funny tweets on romantic statuses of every kind: swimming in the dating pool, remaining (frustratingly) single and getting happily cuffed. Many of the memes strike me as sexist; they tease women for being absurdly needy and moody — at least, way more so than all the women I know — or poke fun at men simply for being shorter than 5’10”.

On Subtle Asian Dating, people post “auctions” — they’ll upload pictures of their single friends and include their personal information, like pros and cons lists.

Some people have gotten creative and made PowerPoint videos for their pitch. The whole reason S.A.D. became an Internet hit in the first place was because of how insane (and insanely addicting) this concept is. Entreaties for “rave baes” or “ABGs/ABBs” (or, Asian Baby Girls/Asian Baby Boys) are stupid fun to read, but they’re also some of S.A.D.’s most problematic content.

In the standard auction post, names, ages and locations are typically followed by an ethnicity category which begs the question, “Who gets to count as Asian American?” Not only that, but who gets to feel attractive as an Asian American? Auctions for those of South Asian descent are scant, and rarely do they receive the same amount of attention as posts for individuals with East Asian backgrounds. This exclusion buys into the myth that only lighter skinned people qualify as “Asian,” at least in the way we initially think of the word. S.A.D.’s name would imply an inclusive,

safe space for all Asians, but we leave so many behind because of the colorist attitudes which pollute East and Southeast Asian culture. (People of South Asian descent have their own Facebook group tragically christened, “Subtle Curry Traits.”) Conversely, posts fetishize ethnically mixed people, especially those who are half white; openers that read “ATTENTION!! HOT DREAM HALFIE [heart eye emoji]” make me roll my eyes, because it’s ludicrous that the Asian diaspora esteems Western beauty standards so grossly that the dehumanizing term “halfie” is now a compliment used to pull singles in. It’s disturbing, but unsurprising.

Another category expected from S.A.D. auctions is the individual’s educational background.

Some of the posts that blow up include gag-inducing, “HARVARD MAN !! [brain emoji, heart emoji]” lines, or the classic “CS major so you know he’ll get that bread [several dollar sign emojis, two sly face emojis]” which triggers my fight or flight instincts.

While I applaud anyone who works their butt off to get into the school of their dreams, this prioritization of a top education reflects the intellectual snobbery (and insecurity) which so many Asians struggle with, internalize and then project onto others. It also implies that where one goes to college is a good indicator of their intelligence, but this onedimensional view fails to take into account factors that may limit academic performance — such as poor mental health or the fiscal need for a part-time job — and ignores the obvious: that “daddy’s money” is inextricably linked to wide disparities in educational opportunity.

Additionally, auctions are inherently classist. People who mention they’re going to make or currently make six figures push the superficial and ethically dan-

gerous view that relationships are monetarily transactional.

Those that can will flex fancy cars and designer clothes. One 2019 auction put in its pros category, “Drives a Mercedes, wears a Gucci belt, rocks a Burberry bucket hat, has NOT ONE BUT TWO Louis Vuitton wallets [dollar emoji, money bag emoji].” I don’t even have anything analytical to say about that one; it’s just an aggressively crappy move.

The authors of these problematic posts shouldn’t be “canceled.”

We should instead try to fix the Facebook group, and by extension society’s attitudes as a whole; after all, individual posters are only trying to get their friends or themselves more likes by whatever means necessary. People have to use their affluence, elite universities or Eurocentric looks to get more clout because they know these are what sells with their audience.

While posts themselves display surface-level composure, their comment sections are often fraught with objectification and cyberbullying. Fatphobia and homophobia are issues which have long plagued the Asian community and they run rampant in the rare S.A.D. auction featuring a non-heterosexual person or a woman whose ribs don’t poke out of her stomach. Straight men tag each other in gay men’s posts saying “all u bro,” or tell their friends to shoot their shot with plus-size women as a joke, as if LGBTQ+ people or heavier people are any less deserving of love. Hilarious.

I could go on and on about all the reasons I hate S.A.D. auctions, but if I’m being perfectly honest with myself, I love reading them.

They’re just a fun and stupid way to pass the time. I am a straight woman, but I prefer reading auctions featuring other straight women to those which advertise men. And, good God. These women are Stanford students, K-Pop trainees turned

Google interns who’ve done “a little modeling work on the side.”

They sport Gucci and Louis Vuitton with indifferent nonchalance, like they’re free tote bags from The New Yorker. They do humanitarian work in Haiti. They have the discipline to work out religiously, and, as a result, their bodies make me want to walk into the ocean.

These women are, in short, accomplished and hot. They have brains and beauty and resolve.

They are sexy Amazonian warrior princess goddesses.

I, on the other hand, love eating carbs just as much as I hate working out, which is saying a lot.

I have turned twenty-percent-ofmy-final-grade assignments in one minute before the deadline and I get ghosted by most of the internships I apply to. I don’t have many friends and even before the pandemic, I’d spend my weekends indoors watching “30 Rock” alone and wolfing down spicy Cheez-Its so ceaselessly you would think a kidnapper had threatened to shoot me if I didn’t down a bag in under thirty minutes. I am not pining for compliments or begging to be “picked” because I’m “not like other girls.” I’m not trying to be some quirky main character played by Zooey Deschanel in a movie when I say that, truly, from the bottom of my heart — I do not have my **** together.

It’s not endearing. It’s not cute.

I have spent my entire young adult life reprimanding myself for not doing or being enough; I never joined enough student organizations, I never picked up enough skills, I never lost enough weight.

The amazing women who get auctioned off on S.A.D. and amass thousands of likes make me feel terrible about myself. I need the constant reminder that, in reality, and especially now during a pandemic, it is perfectly okay to simply make it through a few months without losing my sanity. I don’t need to be doing the most in 2020.

I used to pore over S.A.D. auctions with obsessive intrigue and scrutiny, like I was staring at a messy pile-up on I-94. I did it to hurt myself, to berate myself for not being as successful or as rich or as skinny or as pretty or as smart as others. If they could do it, then why couldn’t I? I put the internalized male gaze society has ingrained in me for nineteen years to good work by speculating how many likes I would get if I were to put myself out there.

The answer made me hate myself even more.

Even as members of the globally widespread Asian diaspora, many of us second generation Asians have subconsciously gleaned cultural expectations for relationships from our parents’ generation. Consequently, we want light-skinned, financially stable partners with banging bodies and doe-eyed, Western looks.

But Subtle Asian Dating, as I’m often prone to forget, is nothing serious. Despite the occasional “S.A.D. success story,” you are not going to meet your soulmate at an online auction. (Hopefully) everyone can acknowledge that S.A.D. is a vain and superficial endeavor; in other words, it’s just not that deep, bro.

Subtle Asian Dating is a somewhat problematic — yet very entertaining — online community which I actively participate in.

The few times I’ve thought about leaving the group, I ultimately decided to stay and continue consuming S.A.D. content. It’s such a guilty pleasure, but when my friend tags me in a depressing meme about being single or an auction for a particularly fine beefcake of a man, I want to interact with it. I “sad” or “heart” react and reply to my friends, because, though it’s not completely harmless, the unabashedly shallow spectacle and the sense of community are fun. Maybe that’s why I probably won’t be leaving this toxic relationship any time soon.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Michigan in Color

Wednesday, December 2, 2020 — 5

Sharing music is the most Stop grinding sacred form of friendship KARIS CLARK MiC Columnist

SARAH AKAABOUNE MiC Columnist

My friend Grace was the first person to ever make me a playlist. She sent me a painstakingly crafted 16 track ensemble full of SZA, Kendrick Lamar, Outkast, Amy Winehouse and Ariana Grande among others. It took her days to complete, and I still continue to listen to in its entirety years later. What truly makes receiving a playlist like Grace’s such an honor is that whoever makes it for you assembles every song with bits and pieces of your very being in mind. Like the fact that you prefer Cherry Cola over any other fountain drink, or that you bunny ear your shoelaces when tying them, or that cilantro on your tongue tastes like soap, or that you wholeheartedly believe that The Atlantic is significantly better than The New Yorker when it comes to the rat race that is the literary magazine industry. But more so, music is an extension of the soul, it’s every dream, ambition and fear and by that virtue sharing music comes to present itself as the most sacred form of friendship. In the midst of a pandemic and an age in which everything has increasingly gone virtual, the sharing of music has asserted itself as an even more profound way of initiating and maintaining friendships.

For the first few weeks of the semester, I had become accustomed to the sweaty palms, heart thumping, heavy stomach sort of sickly feeling that comes with the introduction of the dreaded breakout room. And while there are many things I have come

to hate about them, more than anything else, I hate the lack of human and personal connection, the black screens, the large swaths of awkward silence punctuated by sighs and wait-whatare-we-supposed-to-dos. In a breakout room I was unable to read a person’s body language, unable to see how they grip their pencil or whether they tilt their chins up or down, and to observe the tiniest of details that ultimately allowed me to tailor our communication into a meaningful one, and most importantly served for efficient and streamlined group work. With the advent of online interpersonal communication, I found that my social skills had reduced to that of, dare I say, my middle school self. My jokes flopped, either followed by forced laughs or none at all. Failed attempts at relatability with my peers left me questioning whether I was really that unlikeable. After a lengthy process of trial and error, I learned that the greatest weapon of all, in the battleground of discomfort that is the modern day breakout room, was meaningful conversation. Much more deeply, conversation that didn’t surround intended majors or future plans or hometowns, but rather, music.

I found that people loved to talk about themselves, particularly the more nuanced parts. In a virtual setting that has only exacerbated the need to satisfy every facet of the human condition and more inherently, the essential need to be perceived and understood, opening the floor to dialogue about something as intimate as the music one listens to, became the ultimate antidote to breakout room dysphoria.

Perhaps the most gratifying victory of all besides completing our assigned class work, was coaxing a peer out of black-screen-namedisplay-only-mic-off anonymity as they raved about the hidden genius of Kanye West, or even watching their thumbnail sized zoom box swell with sort of prideful acknowledgement as I furiously scribbled down the songs they told me I absolutely had to listen to. And I listened to every single one, some of which I’ve played on repeat until their novelty wore off into absolute sickening oblivion.

More so, my short time at The Michigan Daily has been particularly gratifying. I am unaccustomed to being a part of something bigger than myself, and yet I find it pleasantly enjoyable. I appreciate the literary liberation afforded to me here and for the very first time in a long time, I feel as if the words I write have been bestowed a special sort of weight. Regardless, not being physically present in the newsroom, or personally meeting my

editors and fellow columnists presents a disorienting challenge. In particular, though my editors engage in the extremely inward and intimate process of reading my work, I’ve realized that I know next to nothing about them. With the emergence of a shared Michigan in Color playlist amongst the staff, I found it was more of an opportunity to learn about them all as human beings that lead very complex lives. I could glean bits and pieces of their temperaments and characters from the songs they chose to add, like how my editor Devak had the most varied and out of bounds music taste of all, or that while Maya had only contributed three songs, they were tear wrenching and mighty in their own right. And most importantly, the beautiful and delightful realization that my music taste was shared with some of the most eclectic and dynamic people I had ever had the privilege of meeting. It should be noted that they have excellent music tastes by the way.

Screenshot by the author

We’re doing the most. Even in the midst of a deadly global pandemic and turbulent civil unrest, we are still doing the most … if not more than we were doing before any of this started. Our current reality is one characterized by Zoom fatigue, news and social media overload, financial stress and social isolation. Yet during these extremely exhausting times, almost none of us are getting the rest we truly need.

This reluctance to rest isn’t new. “Grinding” aka this obsession with working ourselves to death has been a characteristic of American culture since its conception. At an academic level, we glorify not getting enough sleep at night, taking more credits than we can handle, and putting way too many extracurricular commitments on our plate in order to stay “booked and busy.”

If being busy is a flex, no wonder we all feel so weak.

If we’re always “working to death,” when will we get a chance to enjoy our life? If we’re always “on the grind,” when do we get to get off?

The toxic effects of grindand-hustle culture are further exacerbated by racial injustice, especially in this time where conversations on race are in the spotlight. For Black students, beyond the academic, occupational, extra-curricular duties we have, there’s often the expectation that we take place in a higher civic duty.

Especially in these turbulent times Black students often feel pressured to overextend themselves, exerting extra emotional labor time advocating for social causes, speaking

about their injustice, and doing “the work” on top of everything else.

With all these exhausting endeavors, many Black activists are recognizing sleep deprivation as a racial justice issue, and calling for a divestment in grind culture. In other words, we need to stop grinding. Black community activist and healer, Tricia Hersey talks often about how we’ve ingrained in ourselves a machine-like sense of constantly working, much like robots as a result of a grind culture that very much literally treats humans as machines. In a Q&A with her and Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, she details the ways in which capitalism and colonization have influenced our rest, discusses the necessity for “rest as resistance,” and identifies the relationship between rest and abolition.

In order for us to solve the problems of today, we have to be able to be the best versions of ourselves. We have to take the time to rest … to recover … to recoup … to relax.

When we divest from grind culture, we also divest from the beck-and-call of consumer culture that drives us to place profit over people.

We divest from white supremacist culture that plots to over-work, over-extend and over-bear people of color robbing them of their right to rest.

We divest from the individualist, self-centered mindset that drives competition and capital gain and prohibits us from recognizing the humanity in others.

More importantly, we invest in a healthier version of ourselves that is centered around joy, restoration and healing.

Most importantly, we get the most out of doing the least.

Community solidarity over political idolization CAMILLE MOORE

MiC “Off the Record” Blogger

On Nov. 20, the president-elect of the United States asked the American people for spare change.

Over half a million people in this country experience homelessness. The national consumer debt has reached $13.86 trillion. Last year, 35.2 million people lived in food-insecure households. 32.8 million Americans under the age of 65 do not have health insurance, and that does not even include folks that are underinsured. But Joe Biden is asking us for more money.

The audacity of politicians asking the people they represent for money isn’t new. They raise money for campaigns, in the name of ‘fighting’ Trump, to ‘defend’ the election and more ambiguous efforts. On the other hand, when thousands of Americans lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, only some of us were lucky enough to receive a $1200 check and the chance to apply for unemployment benefits. This left many Americans struggling more than

they ever had. And while I’m not saying that is a single politician’s fault (because the entire political and economic system of the United States has failed us), the inability of Joe Biden, Donald Trump and their teams to read the room is astonishing.

Up until Oct. 22, both Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s campaigns have raised over $1.5 billion. Over $3 billion could have helped millions of people struggling around the country, especially during this pandemic that has affected us so intensely. Throughout past Republican and Democratic administrations, the lack of financial stability of citizens has resulted in the loss of housing, transportation, health care, food, water and many more essentials. History shows us that one change in an administration does not result in resources overnight, which is why giving money and supplies directly to those in need makes the biggest difference.

Yet, the custom of giving politicians more money and power instead of providing community members with basic items is supported by many politically vocal people. On Nov. 12, Mark Cuban,

a billionaire and judge on the reality television show Shark Tank tweeted that folks should direct their money to community members instead of political races.

This prompted responses from many Democrats, as the Georgia run-off election would help create a Democratic majority in the Senate. Those who responded claimed that winning the Senate would be more help than directly aiding under-resourced folks. Among the responders, John Legend, award-winning artist and selfproclaimed activist summed up what most were saying.

While this is a simplistic way of thinking about the way the world works, no, John Legend. Politicians do not help the people more than the people help themselves.

Politics are not simply “annoying”; they are often violent and destructive to no/low-income Black and Brown folks that they claim to be representing. There is no way to completely end homelessness, end food insecurity, end debt and so on without completely altering the way the government runs, which thrives on capitalism. Therefore, the best way to

The hidden world of South Asian sorority life SUBARNA BHATTACHARYA MiC Columnist

I am a sorority girl, but not in the way they are typically portrayed: skinny, blonde and white.

I am none of those, yet I am still in a sorority. This type of sorority often gets lost in the great umbrella of Fraternity and Sorority Life; I myself didn’t realize a space like this existed until later into my freshman year, eventually joining during the first semester of my sophomore year.

South Asian Fraternity and Sorority Life has been around since the late twentieth century.

Spanning multiple fraternities and sororities all across the country, this community is niche in that you usually don’t know about it until you stumble across it. In this sense, I truly believe that South Asian sorority life has gone underappreciated, particularly on our campus.

Dec. 7, 2020 will mark one year since I crossed into Sigma Sigma Rho Sorority, Inc., a

South Asian values-based sorority founded on the principles of Sisterhood, Society and Remembrance and committed to its national philanthropy of Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention. As I get closer and closer to my first “Sigmaversary,” I’ve been reflecting on just how integral this organization has been to my college life in such a short span of time. Organizations like ours that are a part of the Multicultural Greek Council are rooted in tradition, yet innovative and evolving with the times. We commit ourselves to our philanthropy and service initiatives, and present a united front to represent not just our organization but our cultural values in the context of an everchanging world.

Joining Sigma Sigma Rho pushed me to my limits. It has challenged me in ways my other organizations have not, and the rewards have been like no other.

As a solo (the only member of my class), I’ve gained a newfound appreciation for my ability to independently tackle challenges and

follow through with my commitments. Joining this organization instilled in me the values of dedication and loyalty not only to the sisterhood but to myself as well.

My journey throughout the past year, though significantly impacted by the pandemic, has been rewarding nonetheless. In January, I had my new member presentation, which is one’s official reveal to the rest of the community. That day, I displayed the skills I had learned throughout the past semester and showed the community that I truly did earn my letters. A new member presentation involves the new class standing at the front of a room with their faces masked, presenting the history of their organization and greeting the other organizations that are present. At the end, the members’ identities are revealed to the audience, cementing their place in the multicultural Greek community.

This meant that I, a person who’s always shied away from any form of public speaking, stood alone in front of around seventy people and spoke from memory for about

Photo by Joel Muniz via Unsplash

help people in need right now is to actually help them.

That means donating to small, local mutual aid funds and displacement shelters. Spending your free time walking through neighborhoods and delivering fresh food and water to folks. Setting up handwashing stations and passing

out hand sanitizer and masks during a global pandemic.

We’ve had Democrats and Republicans in leadership giving us less than the bare minimum while they allow landlords to raise rents and evict families and multibillion dollar industries to exploit people’s labor for minimum wage.

As the iconic Black poet, Gil ScottHeron, says in his performance of “Whitey on the Moon,” a white man’s achievements, whether they be making it to the moon or the White House, does not change anything for Black people. The only real change comes from ourselves.

half an hour. The event culminated in my Big unmasking me, thus “revealing” me as the newest member of the sorority. I moved through this entire evening on a rush of adrenaline, knowing that I was doing something completely out of my comfort zone but still enjoying it, even excelling at it.

From that day on, I’ve found a home within my chapter that has been full of nothing but love, acceptance and growth. I’ve learned that having a sister means more than being tied by blood; a true sister is one who is loyal yet leaves room for growth, someone who has your best interests at heart and shares both your joys and your struggles. Having this sisterhood has been the greatest motivation for me in the past year to aim high and make my visions become reality. I spend a lot of time dreaming about what I want to do, but that dreaming often comes with the feeling that maybe I can’t accomplish everything I want.

Throughout the past year, various opportunities have popped up that piqued my interest, including writing for Michigan in Color. In the face of all of the talent I saw around me, I sometimes felt like

maybe I wouldn’t be good enough to share that same platform. My sisters are also some of my closest friends, and sharing these worries led to meaningful words of encouragement to remind me that I have tangible skills to contribute anywhere I want. Interactions like these have been the extra push I need to pursue opportunities, eventually boosting my own belief in myself.

On a campus where South Asian student life is extremely vibrant, consisting of multiple types of dance teams and social organizations, finding Sigma Sigma Rho was like unearthing a hidden gem. I thought I had everything I wanted in my other organizations; I found friends and leadership opportunities, so I thought I was set. Adding a sorority onto my already precariously high list of commitments hardly ever crossed my mind.

However, meeting the sisters of SSR made me realize that one thing I was lacking, something that I had overlooked throughout my freshman year, was a constant stream of unconditional love and support from a group of resilient women. I needed that set of

females constantly pushing me to be the best I could be and reminding me just how much I am capable of to truly start believing that myself.

Fraternity and Sorority Life has always had an interesting reputation throughout the country. I came into college adamantly against any form of it, but that was before I understood that a sorority can be more than just parties and drama. Meeting some of the sisters instilled in me a desire to be a part of this organization and have these people in my corner.

When you find the right group of people who lift you up and become your family on campus, you finally have the space to explore your own definition of what it means to be a strong woman and begin growing into that. Finding my Distinguished Sisterhood was the defining moment of my first half of college. As I reach my one year milestone as a sister, I’m appreciative of the growth and confidence I’ve gained as a result of my experiences. My greatest hope is that this organization continues to thrive across the nation as one that is redefining what society knows a sorority to be.

Arts

6 — Wednesday, December 2, 2020

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

BOOK REVIEW

Daily Arts on ‘Shuggie Bain’ and the Booker shortlist DAILY BOOK REVIEW Daily Arts Writers

WINNER: Douglas Stuart, ‘Shuggie Bain’ “Shuggie Bain” is a novel that is quick to overwhelm the reader with its vivid and frequent depictions of tragedy, though in an unsustainable fashion. The reader immediately becomes emotionally invested in the broken family dynamics of alcoholic mother Agnes and her young son Shuggie Bain. However, just as Agnes’s processing of events is numbed by her incessant drinking and Shuggie’s by a childlike lack of understanding, the reader must, too, prevent themselves from being vulnerable and taking in the full force of the family’s misfortunes. Stuart does not give the reader a chance to come up for air between each chapter’s perils, so they have no choice but to distance themselves from each emotionally taxing misstep that they vicariously live through.

Perhaps if the committee selecting the Booker Prize winner is particularly mentally strong and willing to undergo the struggles Agnes and Shuggie face without shielding their eyes in the process, they will find “Shuggie Bain” moving and worthy of the prize. But if their reading of the novel resembles mine, then Stuart’s relentless creation of traumatizing obstacles for its protagonists will leave them needing a break rather than giving praise.

— Andrew Pluta, Daily Book Review Editor OUR WINNER: Diane Cook, ‘The New Wilderness’ Diane Cook’s “The New Wilderness” is a beautiful tale of survival, motherhood and human nature that has a fighting chance of winning this year’s Booker Prize. The novel explores a dystopian reality where the overcrowded City can no longer sustain its inhabitants and only a lucky few are able to escape by joining a survival study in the Wilderness State.

Cook masterfully examines group dynamics, mother-daughter relationships and power struggles in her debut novel.

“The New Wilderness” feels both timely and timeless, warning of the effects of overcrowding and pollution while exploring classic themes of man in nature and the subtleties of human interaction.

For a beautifully written, well-researched and utterly engrossing novel, author Diane Cook deserves the 2020 Booker Prize.

— Emma Doettling, Daily Arts Writer Tsitsi Dangarembga, ‘This Mournable Body’ Seen as a staple author in contemporary literature, Tsitsi Dangarembga is widely known for her 1988 novel “Nervous Conditions.” The novel functions as the first installment in the trilogy that “This Mournable Body,” this year’s 2020 nominee, bookends. To say that Dangarembga is an unskilled writer or undeserving of celebration would be in bad faith — the writer-activist has written groundbreaking works and was recently arrested while bravely protesting against Zimbabwe’s autocratic crack-down.

Admittedly, I read this book as a standalone from the remainder of the trilogy (as it was nominated for the Booker Prize). Still, “This Mournable Body”

feels immensely weak against the rest of Dangarembga’s profile.

Centered on the character of previous novels, Tambudzai, “This Mournable Body” dissects issues of war trauma, gender and a feeling of hopelessness that pervades both the novel’s characters and setting. Yet, the writing of the novel feels both probable and uninspiring.

Dangarembga flits nonchalantly through imprecise metaphors (of hyenas, vines) and disposable characters, wrapping the book in a sense of confusion. Moments of tangible action, which should lock down readers’ attention for at least a page, feel distantly abstract. Even the moments that reveal the greatness of Dangarembga’s intentions — the profundity of her message that is most visible when one recounts the novel’s plot as a whole — feel diluted. Easy to speed read, “This Mournable Body” is a nominee that seems too safe and too unremarkable for the 2020 Booker Prize.

— John Decker, Managing Arts Editor Maaza Mengiste, ‘The Shadow King’ We at the Daily have placed our bets behind Mengiste’s newest novel, “The Shadow King’” to win this year’s Booker Prize. Covering a lightly fictionalized Second Italo-Ethiopian War, Mengiste documents Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia and the people’s resistance. She includes multiple perspectives, creating a decadent, layered story about violence, women and wartime.

Mengiste pulls heavily from Greek storytelling influences, even including a Greek chorus in her tale of epic fights.

She effectively rebrands and reframes a 1930s conflict into a Homeric myth, complete with capricious higher powers, irresponsible kings and fighting women.

Usually, World War II-adjacent literature and media focus on the grittiness of war, the trenches, and the broken men.

Mengiste takes a different approach to make the war feel real. She dulls the everyday traumas, mythologizing to make the novel read like a bad memory. Though softened by time, the war is still a jagged edge: painful, sharp and traumatic.

Mengiste’s technical skill and reinvention of the war genre make her a favorite to win. Her lyrical prose and consistent storytelling leave nothing to be desired, fortifying her already lofty chances of becoming the 2020 Booker Prize Winner.

— Elizabeth Yoon, Daily Arts Writer Avni Doshi, ‘Burnt Sugar’ “Burnt Sugar” is unlike anything I’ve read before. Shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, debut author Avni Doshi unpacks a volatile mother-daughter relationship that often does more harm than good. It’s a story that exposes our ugly emotions — our biases and flaws — and the threads of love that still persist in our tangled network of relationships.

The novel lives and breathes its setting — Pune, India — and gives unfamiliar readers a new perspective on the bustling subcontinent. “Burnt Sugar” is a fantastic, quick and captivating read for anyone, but especially for those of Indian heritage.

Will “Burnt Sugar” win the 2020 Booker Prize? Unlikely. Does it deserve to? I think so, but as the daughter of Indian immigrants, I’m biased. The novel is unique in its piercing and unapologetic words. It makes us confront and pick

THE BOOKER PRIZE COMMITTEE

apart our own relationships until we’re unsettled by our dependency on others.

Yet, accessibility to Indian culture is a roadblock that could cost the novel a shot at the prize. Read “Burnt Sugar” for the thrill, but don’t expect it to shock the world.

— Trina Pal, Daily Arts Writer Brandon Taylor, ‘Real Life’ “Real Life” is a fascinating character study that dissects trauma as it relates to race, sexuality and mental health.

We follow Wallace, a Black, queer PhD candidate at a predominately white university, as he navigates a number of difficult social situations that force him to confront his own neuroses. The incredibly rich narration Taylor presents through Wallace makes the novel’s slow pacing more than worthwhile. Wallace’s psychological development is allowed to unfold naturally; Taylor’s guiding hand is nearly invisible for the entirety of the novel, letting Wallace’s character speak for itself. This book’s likelihood of winning depends on the selection committee’s priorities. If they seek an experimental, groundbreaking story this year, “Real Life” won’t fit the bill. No narrative technique or device in this novel will blow readers away. However, what the novel does within its scope, it does extremely well. Taylor is modest in his aims, but greatly exceeds expectations, creating a gut-wrenching story that would certainly make for a fantastic Booker Prize winner.

— Sejjad Alkhalby, Daily Arts Writer THE LONGLIST Gabriel Krauze, ‘Who They Was’ In the realm of Booker Prize nominees, “Who They Was” is like the scrappy, ragtag small town team that somehow made it to the Regional Championship. You just want it to win, even if the odds are stacked against it.

The novel is rough around the edges — it does not fool the reader into accepting a tidy story tied up with a bow. This is a work of honesty more than it is a work of mastery, but Gabriel Krauze offers up skillfully layered narration and emotional depth rarely seen in a debut novel.

An unrelenting work of autofiction, “Who They Was” grips the reader in its tone of fragile apathy towards a violent way of life. The story is narrated by

Snoopz, a young man living a dual life as a criminal and a university student — torn between two opposing paths.

Krauze compares each person’s life to a gigantic column, “you can’t ever see all the way around it in one go, so people only ever get to see the side that’s in their immediate view.” Yet this novel somehow captures every side of life all at once — we can’t wait to see what Krauze does next.

— Julian Wray, Daily Arts Writer Hillary Mantel, ‘The Mirror and The Light’ Hilary Mantel, two-time winner of the Booker Prize, brings her critically acclaimed Wolf Hall series to an end that’s almost as decisive as the execution that kicks off the final installment of the series.

“The Mirror and the Light,” more than anything, is the culmination of an 11-year character study of Thomas Cromwell, one of the closest confidantes of Henry VIII, a king best known for his six marriages that sparked the English Reformation. The novel covers Cromwell’s final years, before he was beheaded in 1540 for spurious charges of treason against the king.

Though “The Mirror” is the third book in Mantel’s series, the strength of its welldeveloped and fleshed out characters help this novel stand on its own. Cromwell’s hopes and fears are palpable, as Mantel’s focus constantly circles back around to the litany of enemies he’s made on his climb to the top. The resulting profound sense of unease not only unseats the reader, it also plunges them deeper into the experience. Mantel capitalizes on the dread that the knowledge of history brings, and spends the novel building this tension up. She weaponizes the stress resulting from waiting for the other shoe to drop, and peppers the experience with heartfelt moments between the reader and Cromwell, endearing him further before his untimely death. Though “The Mirror and the Light” may not have made the shortlist for the Booker Prize this year, the legacy of Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy will certainly remain.

— Tate Lafrenier, Daily Arts Writer Colum McCann, ‘Apeirogon’ “Apeirogon”’ by Colum McCann is a literary feat of storytelling. Its story, based on the true tale of an Israeli father and a Palestinian father, both of whom violently lose their daughters, sneaks up on you.

Very little of the novel is chronological narration; instead, McCann offers the reader small pieces of information until the picture is complete, and then he continues to fill it in. His masterful prose is poetic in style and flexible for the innovative format of the book — over one thousand “chapters,” most less than one page long. He combines meticulous research with lyrical language in a way that seeps every page in raw emotion — a difficult task for a book that is over 450 pages. McCann does not shy away from the length, or the distinctive storytelling style; instead, he embraces it. He uses the freedom that his chosen format gives him to tell a story in a new way, not chronologically, but emotionally. He reconstructs the experience of grief and mirrors the emotions of the fathers, by telling the story in such a scattershot way.

Deeply moving, emotionally exhausting and literarily accomplished, “Apeirogon” captures the soul of its characters within its pages — and perhaps within the heart of the reader, as well.

— Emilia Ferrante, Daily Arts Writer Kiley Reid, ‘Such a Fun Age’ Kiley Reid’s debut novel “Such a Fun Age” is predictably included on the 2020 Booker Prize longlist. It received almost immediate recognition upon its publication — a trend that hasn’t faltered yet.

“Such a Fun Age” explores the transactional relationship between a white blogger, Alix, and her Black babysitter, Emira. The book opens with a family emergency that prompts Alix to call for Emira’s service late one night and ends with a security guard accusing Emira of kidnapping Alix’s daughter. The effects of this incident stir different anxieties in both the women as well as larger discussions of race, privilege and class.

Despite Reid’s ability to genuinely portray the broken systems that drive the character’s actions, while simultaneously challenging the reader’s own biases, the story is undermined by the emotional distance perpetrated by the overlapping narratives and artificial dialogue. These imperfections slow the pace of the novel and emphasize its abrupt ending. The novel provokes significant discussion, but its issues of progression keep it from being Booker Prize quality.

— Lilly Pearce, Daily Arts Writer

MUSIC REVIEW

Kali Uchis shines on debut Latin album ‘Sin Miedo’ NORA LEWIS

Daily Arts Writer

Kali Uchis wants you to know that a language barrier doesn’t prevent you from enjoying her music.

Earlier this month, the 26-yearold Colombian American singer released her first Spanish-language album, Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios). Though highly anticipated by the majority of her fanbase, some English-speaking fans voiced their apprehension for the project — they felt it would fail to remain relatable and personally meaningful in a different language. Seemingly in response to these concerns, Uchis tweeted with the release of single “la luz” in October, “today i drop another song in spanish which i know means another day of disappointment for my english speaking fans who do not wish to make the attempt to listen to music in languages they can’t understand.”

Despite the R&B princess’ unabashed celebration of Latin language and culture on prior projects like Por Vida (2015) and Isolation (2018), many of her American listeners are still resistant to embracing foreign-language music. It represents a larger issue in our industry, which though steadily diversifying, has only just warmed

up to breakout multilingual acts like Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny and Korean boy band BTS. On Sin Miedo, Uchis reminds us that good music transcends these bounds of language.

Known for her sultry California-

Her ability to master both traditional Latin sounds and newly developing ones is further testament to Uchis’ artistic growth glam aesthetic, Uchis’ lush vocals feel right at home on her latest project. Yet opener “la luna enamorada” may be surprising to some fans, both for Uchis’ uncharacteristically deep register and the song’s bolero-style structure.

Bolero, a type of slow-tempo music first popularized in 19th century Cuba, is just one of many different Latin genres that make an appearance on the album. “la luna enamorada” sets the tone for the rest of the project, as Uchis presents the listener with a microcosm

of modern Latin music, incorporating everything from reggaetón to bachata into the soulful R&B pop that made Uchis famous.

With the project’s release in midNovember, Uchis tweeted, “this album is full of so many genres that made my childhood & i am very proud of its range of emotions & nostalgia. i hope it brings you any bit of the joy it has brought me.” Growing up in both Alexandria, Virginia and Pereira, Colombia, Uchis has fully embraced her multicultural upbringing on Sin Miedo, citing influences like Panamanian reggaetón group La Factoría and Cuban bolero singer La Lupe.

Her ability to master both traditional Latin sounds and newly developing ones is further testament to Uchis’ artistic growth since Isolation.

She gives us a velvety cover of “Que te pedí,” La Lupe’s most famous work from the 1960s, while also infusing elements of neoperreo, a burgeoning experimental subsect of reggaetón, on tracks like “la luz(Fín)” and “te pongo mal(prendalo).” Uchis’ roots in pop and R&B are not lost on Sin Miedo either, with infectiously fun synth ballads “telepatía” and “aguardiente y limón” and the luxuriously seductive “vaya con dios.” It’s evident that Uchis is becoming a savant of a variety of different sounds, all the while

developing a self-assured voice absent on earlier works like Por Vida.

On the track “¡aquí yo mando!”

Uchis makes her inviolable confidence known with the help of a bilingual feature from rapper Rico Nasty. Uchis declares on the song’s chorus, “Mando, aquí yo mando, si quieres conmigo vete acostumbrando,” translating in English to, “I command, here I call the shots, if you want to be with me get used to it.” Gone are the “Loner”-era days of solitude and introversion in love. On Sin Miedo, Uchis now demands respect not only in her relationships but in the ranks of American R&B stardom. Even Uchis’ vocal range has flourished since her last project, with soul-clenching contraltos on “la luna enamorada” and shimmering high notes on tracks like “vaya con dios.” Uchis invites you to kindly refrain from putting her in any type of box, a clear departure from earlier days of consistently marketable mainstream hits.

In honor of Uchis truly owning her sound on Sin Miedo, its production presents a refreshing switch-up from her previous works. Puerto Rican producer Tainy, who’s churned out mega hits for Latin talents like J Balvin and Daddy Yankee, shines through on the record (in major contrast to the industry heavy-hitters that have collected production credits

on Por Vida and Isolation). In much of Uchis’ older music, underlying influences from collaborators like Tyler the Creator and Kevin Parker have peeked through and, at times, drowned out her own voice. Yet on her latest release, Uchis has fully taken the reins, refusing to bend to the will of what popular American culture is comfortable with. While Sin Miedo places less emphasis on storytelling and vulnerable lyricism than Isolation, it remains a deeply personal work by embracing the elements of Uchis’ sonically diverse adolescence.

Sin Miedo is by all accounts a success for Uchis, widening her career trajectory and proving that the artist is able to charm listeners in both English and Spanish. Never does Uchis dilute her Latin roots in an effort to appeal to American audiences, instead injecting these cultural foundations with the ethereal candy-colored elegance that earned her popularity in the first place. Whether you’re fluent or relying on Google Translate to understand Uchis’ words, Sin Miedo reminds us that in expanding our musical palettes to include multilingual works, we are opened up to a whole new world of beautiful art.

Daily Arts Writer Nora Lewis can be reached at noralew@umich.edu

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Arts

Wednesday, December 2, 2020 — 7

Why I return to ‘Mr. Fox’ every Thanksgiving break MARY ELIZABETH JOHNSON Daily Arts Writer

We all know that Thanksgiving is a sham and that it was really fucked up that our kindergarten teachers had us make feather hats and pick out our spirit animals. As an education major, I worry about how I might deal with Thanksgiving if I’m placed in a school district that isn’t super cool with telling kids about genocide. I don’t want to outright tell them that “Pocahontas” was actually twelve years old when John Smith raped her and ruin “The Colors of the Wind” for them, but I also don’t want to celebrate colonization and mislead them into believing in some myth about a peaceful exchange of maize and turkey.

So instead, I just eat a lot of food and hug my mom and watch “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” A lot of director Wes Anderson’s (“The Grand Budapest Hotel”) films could work for the autumnal vibe because of his love of the color orange, but “Fantastic Mr. Fox” has all the gratitude and gluttony that I need to feel okay when I’m home for the holidays.

Based on the Roald Dahl novel of the same name, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” was released in 2009 to a semi-modest box office of around $46 million in comparison to its $40 million budget. I guess I get it: It’s one of Dahl’s less popular books, and American audiences have this kind of aversion to stop-motion, to the point where I’ve had friends tell me they only enjoyed the film when they

got older because they were scared by the animation style when they first saw it. But with a star-studded cast consisting of typical Andersonite cronies like Bill Murray (“Lost in Translation”) and Willem Dafoe (“The Lighthouse”), it deserved better. It was nominated for Best Original Score and Best Animated Feature at the 2010 Academy Awards, but lost both to “Up,” which I have less respect for because of the Disney machine, but Roald Dahl was just as anti-Semitic as Walt Disney, so it’s a lose/lose anyway.

The plot follows Mr. Fox (George Clooney, “Ocean’s Eleven”) as he battles a kind of middle-aged (in fox years) suburban ennui — no, really — by going back to his old ways of thievery. A group of baddies led by a man named Bean (Michael Gambon, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”) terrorize him and the other woodland creatures for stealing from their farms. The book actually ends at around the second act of the film, when Foxy — as Mr. Fox’s wife Felicity (Meryl Streep, “Kramer vs. Kramer”) calls him — tricks them into waiting at a manhole for them to appear from their underground home, giving them the freedom to steal from the unattended farms.

The film extends its runtime by adding a guns-ablazing fight and having the animals steal from the farmers’ supermarket chain instead.

It might not sound a lot like Thanksgiving so far, but hear me out. The great feasting that

the animals do after stealing from their oppressors is really gratifying to watch over stuffing and mashed potatoes. My siblings and I talk over most of the movie or recite the lines like it’s a showing of “Rocky Horror,” but there are a couple of scenes that we’re always dead silent during.

Early in the movie, Foxy reflects on his life, and how he had to stop his adventures once he had a cub.

“I don’t want to live in a hole anymore,” he tells his wife. “It makes me feel poor.”

“We are poor. But, we’re happy,” she says.

Then, at the end of the day, he stands at the top of their new house in the trunk of a tree with his landlord Kylie (Wallace Wolodarsky, “The Darjeeling Limited”) — which, by the way, is so Americana.

Foxy says, “Who am I, Kylie...?

Why a fox? Why not a horse, or a beetle, or a bald eagle? I’m saying this more as, like, existentialism, you know? Who am I? And how can a fox ever be happy without, you’ll forgive the expression, a chicken in its teeth?”

It’s a common trope in kids movies: undermine the silliness with some sobering reference to adult problems. But here, it’s genuine. It’s not just going for a chuckle, even though the whole film makes me laugh out loud every time I watch it. The thing is, it’s not really a kids movie, it’s just a movie. Anderson takes his audience seriously, no matter how old they are. We all want to be free and wild, whether that means playing in the mud

20TH CENTURY FOX

at recess or unbuttoning our oxfords at our 9-5. How can we be happy without a chicken in our teeth?

Anderson takes it even further: A running gag is Foxy’s pathological fear of wolves. When we finally meet one in the final act, it’s startlingly emotional. The wolf isn’t sentient in the same way that the other characters are, only communicating nonverbally and walking on all fours. The group of animals asks him if he thinks they’re in for a long winter, and the wolf “says” he doesn’t know.

They wish him luck and drive on by on their motorbike.

For years and years, I wondered, “Why is Foxy afraid of wolves? Aren’t they just like him?” And that’s kind of the point. We want the chicken in our teeth, but who are we once we get it? Foxy puts his family in danger just so he can get a rush of adrenaline from his kleptomania, and then when he gets it, it’s actually really scary.

An integral part of him hinges on how he gave up his wild side for

his family, but he doesn’t actually want to give up his subdued life with them, even if he thinks he does. The wilderness seems pretty fun before you read about wolves eating their own young.

In the end, though the wolf is still distant, he reconciles with it, like I have to reconcile with the contradicting part of me that wants to be unrestrained and angry and mean like a bad dog, and the other part of me that wants to be polite when somebody says something stupid. We have to choose if we want to be the wolf or the well-respected man about town. It’s a complicated message for a “kids” movie, and maybe I’m overthinking it, but Anderson makes it work.

The majority of the movie deals with Foxy’s identity crisis, but my personal favorite dive into individuality is through Foxy’s son Ash (Jason Schwartzman, “Rushmore”).

His b-plot is all about his envy for his more athletic, popular cousin Kristofferson (Eric Chase Anderson, “The Life Aquatic

with Steve Zissou”). As a kind of ugly ten-year-old with perpetual middle child syndrome, his story got me.

That’s the second scene that my siblings and I shut our mouths for: “Ash,” his mother says. “I know what it’s like to feel … different.

We’re all different. Especially him,” she says, pointing to his father. “But there’s something kind of fantastic about that, isn’t there?”

Instant tears.

Sidenote: The scene where Ash silently bonds with Kristofferson as they watch his electric train go round and round his room is ultimate reconciliation, in a way the colonists never knew. There’s nothing that hurts like your lab partner looking at somebody else, and there’s nothing harder than making peace with who they’re looking at. Nobody is as empathetic as a 12-year-old who thinks their dad kind of hates them.

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michigandaily.com

Anthems for a bedroomed youth: Benee’s ‘Hey u x’ VIVIAN ISTOMIN Daily Arts Writer

Benee has had the spotlight trained on her since the explosion of her 2019 hit single, “Supalonely”: a song that appears on her debut album Hey u x, as well as on TikTok, where the addictive chorus soundtracked endless imitations of a dance popularized by the app’s megastars. The attention she has thus received off the coattails of the natural and slightly coincidental celebrity that these dance crazes gift artists is entirely warranted.

Benee, whose real name is Stella Rose Bennett, has an undeniable talent for pop music, a seemingly endless knack for ear-catching phrases and intensely direct lyrics which never stop being satisfying.

Hey u x comes straight from the environment of the teenagers alone in their bedrooms crafting comedy sketches, spewing out their innermost thoughts or just sharing generally ridiculous moments from their lives. She sits comfortably within the classic social media tradition of reaching out to any potential audience. The relatability of the lyrics is turned up to the max.

As a self-proclaimed “weird girl” without actually being alienating or unmarketable, anyone who has ever felt alone, unappreciated or jealous will find solace in the songs here. The song “Happen to Me” details her existential anxiety, and Bennett morosely sings about her overthinking. She’s terrified of death and of growing old. It’s fitting that this is the first song,

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as it sets the stage for what lies in the back of her mind as she details the other minutiae of her life. Each song consequently describes the petty dramas that distract us from our eventual end. Woozy, hazy instrumentation aids in setting the stage for semi-hornily pining after someone else. Multiple songs detail lusting after a man; one who is inherently disappointing, or where Bennett blames herself or other women for his actions.

It’s this lack of self-confidence that is endemic of social media culture. When you have a medium that snatches away the most fundamental human elements of communication, while simultaneously gaslighting the user that they are more connected than ever, people are bound to feel depressed or simply unwanted.

The inhuman aspect of social media is untraversable. You won’t see anyone’s facial reactions to what you post, there’s no smell or heat from the people you meet in cyberspace. Sans video games, there’s no shared experiences you can have with these people. It’s all an unfulfilling simulation of actual life. Like most of our generation, the so-called “digital natives,” Benee is chained to the internet.

The other musicians that appear on Hey u x only further cement this fact. The feature list is stacked with artists who’ve also enjoyed massive success on TikTok (Bakar, Flo Milli, Kenny Beats, Lily Allen).

Bennett constructs an album of the most contemporary sounds and topics possible. It’s clear that her thoughts are dominated by angst,

anxiety, nervousness, all from the fear and overwhelming presence of isolation, but also from the effects of being young. As a symbol of the state of Gen Z, her messaging lends itself to a concerning rise in our current consciousness.

We’ve prized youth and shirked a more fulfilling path.

It’s an ill-defined category that is constructed around the goodwill and customs of our culture. The danger in not accepting adulthood is of denying reality, and never fully growing. Of course, adulthood is fraught with depressive visions of responsibility and a lack of self autonomy. There’s the possibility your life will be subjugated by endless work and obligations. But this does not mean that we should retreat into a fantasy of comfort that exists through the goodwill of those who came before us. There is beauty in adulthood and all the relationships that can blossom in this condition. Arguably, it’s where the most complex and varied ones arise. So it is just with a cautious mind that we should grow, and prioritize the people around us, and the joy that comes from them as we age together. Benee is a voice for the bedroomed youth; those who feel that there is no future, so cling to a comforting innocence that they’ve always known. People who self-infantilize until their physical reality no longer matches their mental condition, and until we stop viewing the internet as our primary place, we may never escape.

Daily Arts Writer Vivian Istomin can be reached at vivaust@umich.edu.

A conversation with rising country star Kalie Shorr

COURTESY OF KALIE SHORR

KATIE BEEKMAN Daily Arts Writer

Three weeks ago, Kalie Shorr released “My Voice,” an anthemic middle finger to the country radio system that will “probably never play me ‘cause I’m not a boy.” As bold as it is, “My Voice” falls in line with Shorr’s other aptly-titled projects — her debut record Open Book from 2019 and newly-minted iHeartRadio podcast “Too Much to Say” both cast Shorr as someone who speaks her mind.

“I hate the notion of shut up and sing,” Shorr said in a Zoom interview with The Michigan Daily. “Just because I have more followers than someone else going off on Facebook doesn’t mean I don’t have the right to my opinion,” Shorr continued. “And I have a lot of them these days.”

Not only has sharing her opinions paid off by producing clever and stinging dollops of truth in songs like “My Voice,” but Shorr’s confessional songwriting and sharp eye for everyday spools of tension landed Open Book on New York Times’ Best Albums of 2019. Open Book compellingly weaves Shorr’s disclosures into a cohesive storyline.

“I always wanted to make that album chronological for sure,” Shorr said. “‘Alice in Wonderland’ has the literary theme, so does ‘Gatsby.’ But with ‘Too Much to Say’ about halfway through writing it, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is going

to be the intro track.’ So as soon as we realized that we were able to write the rest of the song with that in mind. And as soon as I wrote that song and while I was writing it, I kind of saw everything happen.”

“Too Much to Say,” which inspired the title of Shorr’s podcast, warns “Oh honey, I’m not trying to shock you, I don’t want to freak you out / I’m just talking about the things that we don’t talk about” atop harmonica and rollicking electric guitar riffs. Across various episodes of her podcast, Shorr explains the events that “Too Much to Say” (the record’s thesis statement) hints at. Losing people to “heroin and cheating” is expanded as her (now) ex-boyfriend’s infidelity and her sister’s death.

“The reason I did it was because that year was so crazy and the album ended up being very topical, just because of the gravity of the situations that inspired it,” Shorr said of the album’s structure. “You know, there wasn’t a lot else for me to think about. I wasn’t going to put a song about like, going out with the girls, that wasn’t really the nature of that year.”

Having signed a record deal with tmwrk records this October, Shorr has the opportunity to fill in more details of the story on Open Book: Unabridged coming out Dec. 4.

“So what was really cool about the album is that we put all the bonus tracks dispersed throughout it as opposed to just all at the end, because they really do fit into the

story,” Shorr said of the new record.

“All they’re doing is elaborating on what was mentioned in other songs and making a whole song out of it.”

The latest piece of elaboration “Lying to Myself” came out last week.

“That song is really cool sonically and I had a really great time producing it. It kind of feels a little bit like ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ by The Verve, but it’s also got some really cool country instruments in it,” Shorr explained.

“I said everything in the song that I wanted to text to this person, but I didn’t, and it just came out really stream of consciousness.”

In the song, she traces the breakdown of what was always a fragile relationship. Shorr admits in the lyrics: “I picked out all my favorite things you said, then like a delusional architect / I built you up like a house of cards.”

“I feel like that’s something that, you know, we all wonder, especially at the end of a relationship, you’re like, did you promise me too much and then not follow through? Or did I just literally invent this person in my head and then try to make you that person?” she said.

A lot of Shorr’s lyrics are rooted in disarming honesty and wit.

Take this line from “Gatsby” for example: “Is that all there is to a broken heart? Lean Cuisines in my shopping cart.”

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michigandaily.com

Opinion

Wednesday, December 2, 2020 — 8

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

SIERRA ÉLISE HANSEN | COLUMN

Amy Coney Barrett: Ready to rewind the clock

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Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board.

SAM WOITESHEK | COLUMN

University is housing logic over undergraduates

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nsanity, according to Albert Einstein, is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

Unfortunately, some of us are so darn stubborn that we believe we’re right even when we aren’t and repeat the same mistakes. My psychology professor would call this an inability to perform metacognition: a failure to recognize our incompetence.

But, the University of Michigan is ahead of the curve — literally and figuratively.

On Nov. 6, University President Mark Schlissel effectively closed most of the undergraduate residence halls for the winter semester due to increasing COVID-19 cases. With Thanksgiving break beginning on Nov. 20, most freshmen will have vacated campus, leaving those residing in off-campus housing as the remaining majority.

The decision has undoubtedly left undergraduates disconcerted.

Out-of-state students are finding apartments, storage options for their items for the next ten months or moving back home. At this rate, students have a better chance at winning the Powerball than securing a sublease. Not to mention, we have to navigate final projects, papers and exams. The amount of stress we’re experiencing is unrivaled. Furthermore, there’s a heavy emotional weight to the University’s actions.

Many of the University’s restrictions over the past three months have waned or felt less impactful, but losing the winter is too big a burden to bear, right? As if losing the latter half of our senior year in high school wasn’t enough, now we’re forced to forgo the second part of our freshman year as well?

Granted, the “college experience” we’ve all fantasized about hasn’t truly come to fruition, but we could still hope, right?

Wrong.

We can’t. Quite frankly, we shouldn’t. As much as we think we can control the actions of others, we cannot. Consequently, COVID-19 has jeopardized first-year students’ safety far more than it should have.

Some of us have been more vigilant in following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention protocols than others, but the minority who believed they were invincible spoiled the winter 2021 semester for most of the undergraduate population.

In the midst of my dejection, I thought back to Einstein’s words.

The U-M data hasn’t been entirely encouraging for our futures.

Coupled with the fact that flu season is fast approaching and that we’re going to be spending more time indoors because of the weather, how “insane” would it be for the University to continue housing undergraduates?

Yes, the administration’s choice means I’ll be studying at home for the entirety of my freshman year.

However, I’m not a gambler; I’d rather wait and safely preserve my peers’ lives — as well as my own — until we receive a vaccine (which we have reason to believe is on its way). Therefore, I think Schlissel and the administration made the correct call. It’s the latest episode in a series of unpopular but righteous decisions.

To those who remain skeptical: What would be a better alternative?

By allowing undergraduate housing in January, you’re delaying the most difficult part of the situation, which happens to be what first-

years are about to encounter. The administration’s resolution is the equivalent of ripping a Band-Aid off; it’s inevitable, so you may as well do it quickly and avoid a slow, painful peel.

In fact, we’re in such a dire situation as a state that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is prying off a second Band-Aid and picking at a scab that should have scarred in June. If Schlissel and his team had not made this call, Whitmer’s order would have had the same effect.

There is a question of maturity for us as students: Are we able to take this pandemic seriously as we transition to full-on adulthood? If we’re being honest with ourselves, we know the answer. We’re stubborn by nature; we have always wanted normalcy since the pandemic first struck, no matter how gravely dangerous the price. If we cannot make the sound choice ourselves, we must trust our leaders to minimize the ensuing damage.

From here on, we must trudge along and embrace the uncertainty of our situation. While it may not be the only solution, it is the best one for us, whether we appreciate it or not. Living and studying at home is unappealing, but it can be done. In fact,you might enjoy it more than you think. To those of you who were lucky enough to find off-campus housing: Take one for the team and don’t screw this up for the rest of us.

In the meantime, to fully enjoy the “college experience” we’ve been so desperately searching for, we must follow in the steps of the administration by thinking with our heads and not our hearts. We cannot afford to be insane.

Sam Woiteshek can be reached at swoitesh@umich.edu.

LIZZY PEPPERCORN | COLUMN

D

An open letter to President Trump

ear President Donald Trump, You have continuously touted your administration’s response to the pandemic. In an ABC News town hall, you claimed to have no regrets. In fact, you have gone as far as to say that you rate your administration’s pandemic response a 10 out of 10. It seems that a “thank you” is in order from the United States’ college students for this great COVID-19 response you implemented.

Thanks to your downplaying the virus’s lethality and danger, Americans who trust you have refused to live in fear of the virus, breaking social distancing guidelines and contributing to the spread of the virus. While you were taped privately acknowledging that the virus is “deadly stuff” on Feb. 7, you said the next month that “this is a flu” and “it’s very mild.”

Even in July, after COVID-19 had taken over 130,000 American lives, you claimed that 99% of COVID-19 cases are “totally harmless.” While 99% of people may survive the virus, 15% of cases are considered severe and 5% are considered critical. There are also long-term effects that are yet to be understood and studied. Now, at my university alone, there have been over 2,500 cases of COVID19. These students were told that they were practically immune to the virus by their president.

I speak for my friends whom I witnessed receive positive tests, then struggle to breathe and talk, lose their senses of taste and smell, fall behind in school and now fear the possible long-term effects that young people are not immune to.

Thanks to your claims that the virus will magically disappear, Americans lived normally under the assumption that it would just go away.

On May 8, you claimed “This is going to go away without a vaccine. ... We are not going to see it again.” On May 8, the country was averaging 26,544 cases a day. Now, in mid-November, the United States averages 164,000 cases a day. Does it seem that this pandemic has disappeared “like a miracle” to you?

Early on, Americans could have taken this virus more seriously and slowed down the spread. However, you, the leader of our nation, decided to blatantly lie in an attempt to make everything appear as if it was under control. This virus could have been controlled by the beginning of the semester. Instead, college campuses across the nation were overwhelmed with thousands of students arriving from hotspots and high-risk states. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

Thanks to your rush to open the economy, even as deaths and cases increased exponentially, students returning to school faced an extremely unsafe semester. On March 25, you said, “the faster we go back, the better it’s going to be.” Public health experts disagreed and claimed that pulling back social distancing guidelines so soon did not provide enough time for them to fully work.

It is important that the government reopen parts of the economy and do what it can to protect businesses and workers. However, pushing for a reopening without giving universities the funding necessary to provide public health informed semesters ensured that college campuses across the country would become massive hotspots.

Underscored by your stigmatization of wearing one, masks have not been accepted or embraced as necessary by many Americans. On April 3, you explained that you did not want to wear a face mask when you greeted leaders from other nations. You spent the beginning months of the pandemic questioning the effectiveness of masks and refusing to be photographed in one. Even once you began acknowledging that people should wear masks, you continued to send different messages to the American people.

On Aug. 13, you said “maybe they’re great, and maybe they’re just good. Maybe they’re not so good.”

Your inability to set a good example for Americans and wear a mask, even when science has repeatedly pointed to its effectiveness, has confused the American people and made the importance of wearing masks a point of unnecessary controversy.

Even on college campuses, wearing a mask at social events has not been normalized.

Repeatedly, I have been asked by friends, “Why are you wearing a mask?” Wearing a mask around friends now gives the impression that there is a level of discomfort or distrust by the mask wearer. If the president of the United States is questioning the need to wear a mask, the people will too.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com Lizzy Peppercorn can be reached at epepperc@umich.edu.

efore this election and the anti-democracy maneuvering that quickly ensued, Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment to the Supreme Court had already destroyed any expectation the American left may have had for mutual respect between them and the Republican Party. Now, let’s be clear: reducing the identity of any Supreme Court justice to their nominating party is a mistake. But in an ideal world where people abide by morals rather than their hunger for power and control, Barrett would have refused the appointment.

I do not say this as a thinly veiled insult. I simply would like to trust that when a venerated Supreme Court justice, requests as her dying wish that the incumbent party wait to make a new appointment, the incumbent party would respect the wish. Barrett is smart and it would be a mistake to not regard her as such.

She is an individual shaped by many cultural factors and an upbringing in the Catholic Church. She opposes abortion and that’s her individual choice. I’d argue something of far greater importance — more so than her stance as a Republican — is Barrett’s commitment to originalism.

What is originalism? It signals that a judge would, as a rule, cite original precedent in writing any new opinion or decision. In effect, it makes interpretation vulnerable to history. However, the law is meant to be updated for a reason.

The implementation of new Civil Rights statutes, building on what came before, expands our existing freedoms and builds toward a better world. The ability to do this arguably depends on the maintenance of the precedents we have now, rather than a return to those from hundreds of years prior. In a recent op-ed for the Chronicle of Higher Education, Oliver Traldi laments how recently, everyone from philosophers to literature scholars with “no knowledge” of originalism has emerged to denounce the practice.

In saying so, Traldi repeatedly declared this was not only arrogant, but also showed a lack of respect for a foundational judicial ideology.

At the outset, it is important to acknowledge that originalism is used by all judges sometimes, particularly concerning the scope of the application of any constitutional law. At its core, however, such a belief system taken to its extreme perpetuates the notion that the state, as it was built at our country’s founding, has more insight into modern life than we as modern citizens do. Therefore, originalism seems to imply the state can know a hypothetical or actual situation better than we do. Most problematically, this approach insinuates modern science isn’t one of the most relevant tools at our disposal for determining the moral actions of so-called rational actors.

We don’t use neuroscientific research enough as is — a feature of our modern heyday of contemptuous anti-intellectualism. We don’t need more extreme anti-intellectualism, and it is not at all appropriate to undermine science in any situation.

No matter one’s political viewpoint, it is antithetical to our society’s well-being to continue cutting the floor out from beneath our scientific institutions in this way — even and especially in the courtroom, which is meant to protect the citizens it serves by obtaining the most accurate version of truth that it can.

I also interpret Barrett’s stance as an originalist to mean she believes the state has supreme power to enforce more carceral values in the guise of “protecting” its citizens while glossing over the demonstrable ineffectiveness of resulting policies.

This cuts both ways, actually.

For example, the victims’ rights movement of the 1970s established a then-novel idea that victims should have a voice in the courtroom.

Before the VRM, the state simply did whatever it saw fit in deciding on retributive punishment for the victim, but the victim wasn’t afforded any agency in these decisions.

The interpretation of the victim as irrelevant in court proceedings has its roots in the original laws’ texts; consequently, victim impact statements are recent developments.

The Victim’s Rights Bill, also known as Proposition 8, was passed in 1982. Before its passage, victims either weren’t addressed at all or were regarded as property and therefore void of agency. Doris Tate, the mother of slain Manson victim Sharon Tate, was a major proponent of this bill — she read the first Victim Impact Statement in 1976 to persuade the court not to grant parole to Charles Manson’s followers. The long-standing notion of a victim’s irrelevance before the VRB was a vestige of British common law, under which victims were the property of the king and so any crime was technically committed against the king. Even today the idea of victims’ voices having a role in court is complicated by archaic notions of textualism under the law as it applies to, say, domestic violence situations.

In a situation fueled by primal brain stem activities in the form of shifting brain chemistry — evolutionary advantages meant to protect humans in dangerous situations — humans are still assessed as rational thinkers, which is itself nonscientific. Psychiatrist Dana Ross from the University of Toronto writes that the prefrontal cortex “normally helps us think, plan and solve problems and brain imaging shows it goes ‘offline’ with far less activity when undergoing a trauma — or reliving one.” Knowing what neuroscience has shown us regarding the way the brain typically reacts in life-threatening situations, the idea that someone in the throes of domestic abuse is able to override their brain chemistry is a willful twisting of facts — an excuse to punish individuals who dare defend themselves. By extension, referring to foundational precedent that has long been usurped by new precedent rewinds the clock to a time when none of this information was available to us.

Take a hostage situation, where an abuse victim shoots their abuser but it’s determined the abuser’s weapon wasn’t known to be active.

If someone truly adheres to the principle of the rational actor in such a situation, where science has shown the brain’s chemistry to be fundamentally different than usual and there is a precedent of aggressors possibly using force, the originalist judge is fundamentally trampling on and constraining that person’s right to defend their life — by declaring defensive force somehow wasn’t warranted. Paradoxically, Barrett’s anti-abortion ideals, her Catholicism and her originalism are all in conflict here; all of these ideas of hers are loosely coded excuses for rewinding the clock by at least 70 years and rescinding the civil rights that marginalized groups, traditionally excluded from power and not granted rights, have received only recently.

Citing outdated precedents and opinions, which existed before we could even conceive of serotonin and norepinephrine — chemicals related to fight or flight — would likely lead to interpreting someone threatened with death as having the same capacity for rational thought as, say, someone taking a stroll in a museum.

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Rather than paying attention to Barrett’s status as a woman, or even as a Republican, we should cut through all that distracting flak and ask ourselves: What morals will Barrett bring, or not bring, to the Court?

What I refer to here isn’t related to Barrett’s race, class or gender: It is her ability to apply rules to facts in a way that would manage to escape profoundly distorting bias, such as her faith in the mirage of idealism that was the founders’ vision for the Constitution. This desperate reach for a nonexistent ideal world populated by perfectly rational actors would buckle under the horrors of today’s post-industrial violence. I don’t want to disparage Barrett’s intellect — that is uncalled for. Unfortunately, when it comes to matters regarding the importance of the state in people’s lives, I don’t trust her ability to apply ethical principles to those whose lives are steeped in poverty or unduly influenced by other accidents of birth.

Understanding the role of context is the foundation of equity.

Perhaps the victim was born with a disability and coerced into a relationship. Maybe the victim fled with bloodshed at their heels and was similarly coerced by a predatory partner. Not to mention biological context, such as when a child’s life is inviable (e.g. they won’t survive outside the womb) or when the mother’s life is threatened. In any scenario, the victim’s social, personal and biological contexts are read as irrelevant when a judge abides by the law’s original text; absolutist thinking overpowers science to the point of regression and nearsilencing of crucial context. This approach is anathema to reality and science has produced mountains of evidence showing precisely how.

Admittedly, in reading over any of Barrett’s opinions one has the urge to defect to optimism, even while immersed in their own inescapable, blunting cynicism. We live in the United States in 2020, so relating Barrett’s appointment back to the prevailing climate that surrounds her is unavoidable.

But I was determined to get to the bottom of what was at the core of her appointment. I would argue Barrett’s appointment is the product of a capitalist individualism with capricious roots in the idea that your idea of liberty, and my idea of liberty, are each inferior iterations of some brand of original, categorically certain liberty determined hundreds of years ago.

Individualism and originalism are woven into the same mélange of American mythos, which constrains responsibility to the individual or a tapestry of individuals in isolation, rather than expanding the responsibility to include our legal system and its networked supports or institutions. Therefore, the lack of right to due process presses especially hard upon those already not favored by the system, a structuring fact an originalist such as Barrett isn’t likely to acknowledge as noteworthy.

In any case, it is unjust to mute this background or to bury it under the narcosis of “tradition.”

The problem here is Barrett’s demonstrated commitment to ideas that are hundreds of years old while her supporters declare her to be an empowered woman by virtue of being a mother with a Juris Doctor.

Supporting Barrett’s approach is the equivalent of declaring bloodletting with leeches to be standard, best medical practice.

Sierra Élise Hansen can be reached at hsierra@umich.edu.

Opinion

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

ANDREW GERACE | COLUMN

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Time to modernize SMTD

s I was setting up the recording session for my brother Michael’s graduate school audition, I heard the familiar sound of a jazz trio warming up.

Warm tones from the trombone were met with thumping bass and bright piano. While these sounds were familiar, the circumstances were anything but. Usually these sessions are small and intimate with players close together to communicate — 12 feet apart and masked certainly was a strange change of scene. As I was setting up, I couldn’t help but think that as music, the gig economy and the world have changed over the years, music education at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance … hasn’t. At least not at the rate it needs to keep up with the rest of the world.

To put the antiquated nature of some of SMTD’s course requirements into perspective, every undergraduate at SMTD must take at least two semesters of written and aural music theory while many, like myself, have to take at least two full years. The primary focus of these first two semesters of theory are counterpoint, a musical technique for combining melodic lines developed in the 9th century, and figured bass, a technique for harmonic structure developed in the 17th century. After asking a Theory Graduate Student Instructor my freshman year why we are required to learn these techniques from the rather distant musical past, I was met with a laugh and a simple acknowledgement that at this point, it’s tradition, and we’re one of maybe three music schools that still do this.

Not a particularly satisfying answer when paying out-of-state tuition for an effectively irrelevant course requirement.

You may be wondering, how is a technique from the 9th or 17th century at all relevant to any nonclassical major at the school? The simple answer is that it isn’t. Beyond reinforcing a sense of Western music supremacy arguably tied to white supremacy, the course does little to help non-classical composition majors at the University.

Anna Rosengart, an SMTD and LSA senior, reflected on many of these required music theory and history classes, saying, “newsflash: white Western music isn’t the only music, and madrigals and symphonies aren’t the only way to

study it. … I wish we learned about other ways to be musical in the ‘real world’ and could get more exposure.”

SMTD needs to move past tired curriculum requirements to address societal and educational realities.

University alum Mohan Ritsema, a jazz bass player, expressed his frustration with antiquated aspects of the curriculum taking the space of basic skills and lessons that should be taught.

“Something I’ve always felt about U-M, that I especially feel now, is that it’s messed up. U-M requires everyone to learn figured bass but not how to use the producing software Logic. We have to take two years of classical piano but never learn how to set up a microphone. I think now, that is really starting to bite people,” Ritsema said.

Requiring students to take classes like these is a waste of time and money when students aren’t learning skills that will allow them to succeed or sustain themselves in the future.

Unless students are going into music theory, knowing figured bass won’t put food on the table. But knowing the basics of sound production or self-promotion may be the difference between making it or breaking it in the music industry.

University alum Brendan Davis, a pianist, said he wishes “we had had marketing classes at SMTD.” While Davis has continued to have gigs during the pandemic, having selfmarketing or business skills as part of the core curriculum for SMTD students would help others translate artistic skills into economic security.

“I know many musicians who have had to retire or step away from music due to COVID. … Learning stuff like self-marketing would’ve been really helpful.” As the music industry has changed across the board both due to the market and recently COVID19, institutions must change to teach students how to succeed and survive with their craft, not just the origins of a distantly related musical language or history.

SMTD has examples it can and should follow in-house. Programs like EXCEL Lab at SMTD provide students both coursework and workshops about the music industry, music entrepreneurship, social media and other relevant topics. SMTD should cut other undergraduate course requirements and make these courses required. If students want

to pursue topics like medieval music history or theory, they are welcome to do so, but shouldn’t be required to. While these opportunities theoretically exist for students, both Ritsema, Davis and I haven’t able to utilize them during our time at Michigan due to the number of other, irrelevant course requirements we have to satisfy.

“Generational gaps in technology definitely exist,” Ritsema said about the faculty and administration.

He went on to say that there is a general sentiment among faculty and students that something more is needed, but they are not sure what. I urge students to communicate with the administration about student needs. However, I more strongly urge the administration to look around at the holes that need to be filled in our education, now more than ever. We can’t afford to graduate from SMTD without a better core curricular foundation in how to operate as a musician, no matter how artistically skilled we may be.

If there was ever a time to modernize SMTD, it must be now, as the floor has fallen out for musicians worldwide. Broadway’s doors are closed until at least May 30, 2021, indoor performance venues are closed in Michigan and across the United States due to actions like Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s COVID-19 orders and in-person music education has been greatly affected at schools like SMTD. As musicians fight to survive in the ailing industry, it is apparent that it isn’t their required studies in medieval musicology or theory that are helping them survive, but their ability to setup livestream concerts, busk, self-promote, write grants and find virtual gigs; all necessary skills that aren’t reflected in SMTD’s course requirements.

SMTD must modernize to address both COVID-19 and education in the 21st century, providing a teaching based on educational effectiveness, not Western music supremacy or antiquated tradition.

“Even without COVID,” as Ritsema said, “these were things everyone needs to know. These are the skills that you need in the 21st century if you want to make it as a real professional musician.”

Andrew Gerace can be reached at agerace@umich.edu.

ILANA MERMELSTEIN | COLUMN

“Merry Christmas” vs. “Happy Holidays”: It doesn’t matter

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rowing up as a Jewish kid, I regularly took offense to strangers wishing me a “merry Christmas” during the holiday season. I remember exiting those interactions with a scowl, ranting incessantly to my parents about how “they don’t know that I celebrate Christmas” and “there are other holidays during this time of year.”

I was right: “Merry Christmas” is far from the most inclusive greeting, and no one should assume which holiday somebody is celebrating (or even that they’re celebrating one). However, I frequently allowed this frustration to blind me from the reality of these interactions — someone was simply offering positive wishes for the season in the only way they knew how. As I matured, I realized my anger toward those wishing me a “merry Christmas” was only hurting myself.

No one maliciously said these words, nor hoped to dim my little Jewish spirit as I assumed they did.

I contributed to the divisive nature of the world in the time of year when unity is the most necessary, all because people said a nice thing to me, which just happened to be the wrong nice thing.

Others in the world believe we should only greet people with “merry Christmas” — that “happy holidays” is Christianity erasure, and that those of the opposing view have declared some kind of “War on Christmas” by using a more inclusive greeting. I, however, only choose to recognize the Grinch’s “War on Christmas”; the one in the United States does not exist.

Secularists are not perpetrating any “War on Christmas” by including religious minorities when saying “happy holidays,” and those who choose to say “merry Christmas” as opposed to “happy holidays” are not imposing their religious beliefs, only offering well-wishes in the way they’ve been taught. If you choose to internally (or externally) punish someone for greeting you with positive wishes for the season, you

may just be looking for a reason to get angry, and you’re likely hurting yourself in the process.

According to Bill O’Reilly in 2004, who coined the term “War on Christmas,” the use of “happy holidays” by large retailers to substitute “merry Christmas” foreshadowed secularist America’s plot to destroy religion and push a progressive political agenda.

Though religion has not since been destroyed, involvement with religion has indisputably decreased as time has progressed.

The results of a Gallup poll indicate that the percentage of the American population identifying with Christianity has dropped by 14% between 2004 and 2019, and the percentage of the population not identifying with any religion has increased by 12% in the same timespan.

However, if the goal of reducing religious involvement was to push the progressive agenda, it certainly has not been achieved. O’Reilly cited “gay marriage, partial birth abortion, euthanasia, (and) legalized drugs” as examples of progressive ideals in an areligious America. The United States has since legalized same-sex marriage on a national level, but many states continue to restrict abortion and most states list physician-assisted suicide as illegal, while marijuana is still illegal recreationally in many states.

Furthermore, another Gallup poll indicates that around 93% of Americans claimed to celebrate Christmas in 2019, which is only approximately 3% lower than the percentage reported in 2004.

Given that only 67% of people identified with Christianity in 2019, these results indicate that around 26% of those who celebrate Christmas aren’t even Christian.

The “destruction” of religion following the replacement of “merry Christmas” with “happy holidays” has not instituted the progressive agenda as O’Reilly believed it would, and it has not been associated with a significant reduction in the

percentage of those who celebrate Christmas. My understanding is that the secularization of the U.S. has almost nothing to do with the celebration of Christmas, so the alleged “War on Christmas” simply does not exist.

However, those who say “happy holidays” aren’t completely off the hook, specifically those who, like I once did, take offense to being wished a “merry Christmas.” The 26% deviation between those who identify as Christian and those who celebrate Christmas indicates two things. First, a stranger who says “merry Christmas” to ten people will likely be successful with nine, given that 93% of people report that they celebrate Christmas, and only one will have the potential to take offense to the statement.

However, if the stranger says “happy holidays” to ten people, they include all ten with the neutral statement, but multiple of the nine may believe in the “War on Christmas” and take offense to the statement. The stranger is more likely to offend fewer people by saying “merry Christmas.”

Second, if 26% of those who celebrate Christmas do not identify as Christian, it can be argued that the celebration of Christmas does not have to be a religious institution at all. In 2017, a Pew Research Center poll indicated that, though 90% of Americans celebrated Christmas, less than half viewed it as a religious holiday. If someone wishes you a “merry Christmas,” it is more likely than not that they simply hope you eat lots of chocolate and have a good day on December 25.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com Ilana Mermelstein can be reached at imerm@umich.edu.

9 — Wednesday, December 2, 2020

KEITH JOHNSTONE | COLUMN

Redefining rom-coms: Treating every day like it’s our last dance

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n the seminal classic “Under Pressure,” David Bowie sings what is perhaps the most insightful lyric of the 20th Century: “Love’s such an oldfashioned word and love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night, and love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves.”

While it might be considered an overdramatization of what is much more often a mundane and long-winded process, Bowie’s words encapsulate that beautiful, singular emotional experience of being in love.

That is the most remarkable aspect of the lyric. See, while most of the art promulgated by our mass media and prominent in our popular culture glorifies falling in love, this song extolls being in love, which is supposed to be the best part.

This sets the song apart from the contemporaries we see today and gives it a unique, everlasting presence in our musical ethos.

Similarly, the film “Palm Springs” finds itself at the crossroads of a traditional Hallmark rom-com and “Groundhog Day,” yet it is best described as a treatise on being in love. This makes the movie a generation-defining experience to which everyone under 35 can relate but every American can appreciate.

In “Palm Springs,” we are thrust into a world that feels strangely familiar, given that we have experienced months of quarantine. Andy Samberg’s Nyles — boyfriend of the bride’s best friend — is living in an infinite temporal loop, experiencing the same Nov. 9 wedding over and over until one day something different finally happens; Cristin Milioti’s Sarah — sister of the bride — joins him, kicking off the real story. After the quick obligatory explanation of

Design courtesy of Mellisa Lee

the loop’s “rules,” the movie ventures where no predecessor has dared. It explores the relationship between two people in a world in which literally nothing matters and, in the process, creates the most insightful perspective on romance since “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

This comes to fruition in the desert scene — which I highly recommend you watch before reading the remainder of this article. The pair, after getting high on mushrooms, spend a night together in the desert when Nyles explains his personal philosophy through the metaphor of a chocolate bar, essentially claiming that the past does not matter. He only cares about people’s actions in the present because everything else, the past, the future, is thin air. Then, in pushing back, Sarah reveals her past: The early divorce that scarred her, the impulsive decisionmaking that still haunts her and so on, which, for the first time in the movie, changes Nyles’s attitude, forcing him to brief ly reevaluate his worldview. However, tellingly, Nyles cannot even remember his own past, remarking that “(this feeling) drifts away just like they all do.” Then, the two toast to “pretending not to care,” which is just about the most Gen Z response to a real emotion.

See, for Gen Z, likely the most nihilistic generation, the world of “Palm Springs” does not seem so terrible. Sure, not being able to experience the future might be difficult to reckon with, but, honestly, our world has been so crazy that having a break is appealing.

Take me for example.

My life began on May 5, 2000, six months before Bush v. Gore, one year before 9/11 and three years before the invasion of Iraq. My first

JENNA SCHEEN | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT JSCHEEN@UMICH.EDU

exposure to politics was the election of Barack Obama amid a recession that ravaged communities worldwide, including my backyard of Southeast Michigan.

From there, life has been a constant barrage of heartwrenching mass shootings, devastating natural disasters, increasingly dire warnings about an impending climate crisis, political scandals, gridlock and a global pandemic to top things off; so no, I need little to no drama from my personal relationships. I shiver at the mere thought of some public grand romantic gesture. I, and most of Gen Z, would prefer to just have someone stable to weather the storm beside me. That is the point of “Palm Springs”: In a world that means nothing, our interpersonal relationships mean everything.

That is why there is a newfound audience for romance movies and shows that dare to depict real life rather than the grandiose fiction of running through an airport.

Instead, we propel Netf lix originals like “To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You” and “The Kissing Booth 2” to the top of the charts, not because the acting is amazing — it’s not — or because the lead ends up with the right guy — she doesn’t, because both John Ambrose and Marco got screwed.

We watch these movies because we love to watch broken people navigating an increasingly complex world and making human mistakes.

We love to see this journey play out because it is the journey that we are on every single day. In the words of Nyles from “Palm Springs,” we are born lost, but, in each other, you are found.

Keith Johnstone can be reached at keithja@umich.edu.

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Down the TikTok rabbit hole

10 — Wednesday, December 2, 2020

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

BY LOLA YANG, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT

W

hat is the first image that comes to your mind when you think of TikTok? Is it Charli D’Amelio and her friends dancing to a viral song? Or is it half-naked white boys jamming to hip hop music? While these may be the most common associations of TikTok, the platform has many more sides to it than just the content of attractive young people doing silly dances and pranks. Many young TikTok users were responsible for tanking a Trump rally in Tulsa in June by reserving tickets and not showing up for the event, something they organized through the app. In September, a TikTok creator collective, Tok the Vote, was founded to promote voter registration in the 2020 election.

Over the past two years, TikTok has expanded its influence in the United States and has become a crucial information outlet for Generation Z as well as a major platform for young activists to share their ideas and to expose injustices. This has even occurred here at the University of Michigan. In early September, LSA junior Sam Burnstein depicted the poor conditions of University quarantine housing in a TikTok. Another student expressed through a TikTok her frustrations with the administration’s poor COVID-19 precautions and the then-ongoing strikes within the University. Both of their videos quickly went viral and drew the attention of several major media outlets. TikTok has proved itself as much more than merely an entertainment app, but rather a platform where young people can make their voices easily heard by tens of thousands or even millions of people.

So, what is TikTok’s magic? In August, Instagram, now owned by Facebook, Inc., introduced a new feature called Reels, which allows users to shoot and edit short video clips that are nearly identical to the experience of TikTok. Snapchat has also recently presented its own take on short-form videos, Spotlight. While Reels has already been dubbed as a copycat of TikTok, it is also unlikely that Snapchat’s version of it will be able to replicate TikTok’s mainstream success.

The secret to TikTok’s success is rather simple: the algorithm. By relying on a very complex set of indicators, TikTok’s algorithm lands people into communities of very specific interests, which often leads the users to have some form of self-discovery or growth while they descend deeper into the app’s rabbit hole. Gen Z lesbians have found love through bonding on Alt TikTok and WitchTok. A YouTube influencer known as “bestdressed” admitted in a video that she had a revelation about her sexuality after the algorithm immediately placed her in “bi girl TikTok.” Public health experts also use the app to bring awareness to COVID-19 precautions, and teachers join the platform to give tips to students experiencing trouble with virtual education. The algorithm has made it possible for both mainstream and niche communities to exist simultaneously by almost exclusively sending catered content to the user’s “For You” page.

Indeed, with the existence of such a diverse array of users and communities, TikTok has transformed itself into a combination of a “how-to” guide database, Vine 2.0, a condensed version of Khan Academy and a dating app for Gen Z. Recently, TikTok also announced that it is in the process of testing a new “Learn” tab on the app to showcase educational and instructional content.

It is clear that TikTok is no longer that app where creators post only funny videos and viral dances, but rather, it is an online space where people connect through monthly trends and sometimes share meaningful conversations about sociopolitical issues. *** LSA freshman Alan Yang went viral on TikTok during the summer. During our

phone conversation, he said that he uses TikTok for about two to three hours a day, but he confessed that over the summer, during lockdown in California, he spent almost six hours on TikTok every single day. Through his one viral TikTok, Yang has gained more than 2,000 followers already, most of whom he does not know but took an interest in his daily life. He deeply appreciated the immense power of TikTok to create a safe and close-knit community, especially during such an isolating time.

“When I am meeting someone new for the first time, just talking about TikTok is such a great bonding point,” Yang explained. “It is definitely a safe space where I am able to connect with my followers and community.

It’s something that I really love and cherish, (a space) where I can just be myself.”

In addition to a fun community, Yang also sees TikTok as a learning platform. The videos that pop up on his FYP range from general fashion tips to class recommendations at the University. Yang also recalled a trend in recent months targeted toward high school students, where creators make college introduction videos in a specific format about dorms, food, classes and so on.

“If I were a high schooler, I would have found (the videos) super useful,” Yang stated. “Since there is no campus tour because of COVID, TikTok becomes this learning platform (for students applying to college).”

Yang was not the only one who benefited from TikTok’s variety of content. LSA junior and pre-med student Emery Hakim downloaded the app this past summer to watch food and dance videos in her spare time, but the algorithm eventually led her to science and pre-med related videos. Through this scrolling, she found and signed up for a virtual shadowing program where she learned how to do case work usually done in medical school.

“I joined (TikTok) because it was something that everyone had and it was just kind of a stupid thing to kill time,” Hakim explained. “But then I ended up finding really useful information about med school, the MCAT and volunteer opportunities.”

Being on TikTok also reaffirmed Hakim’s passions for medicine as a career. She discovered the account Institute of Human Anatomy during quarantine, which she found both informational and fascinating. She said she finds it comforting to know that she will be able to learn something interesting in medical school rather than being stuck in physics and organic chemistry classes.

“Being pre-med at Michigan is really difficult, and a lot of (what I learn) does not apply to what medical school is actually like,” Hakim stated. “Learning more about what doctors actually do on a day-to-day basis is really exciting for me.”

As practical tips and knowledge thrive on the platform, many have begun using TikTok as a professional platform to promote their own businesses and services.

The hashtag “#tips” has 19.3 billion views on TikTok whereas “#resume” has 126.2 million views. Professionals from all fields, including business, medicine, restaurant and tech, have all joined the platform to share their insights through 30-second videos. “#Cooking” has more than 25 billion views on TikTok, and LSA sophomore Kyle Nash was one of the many people who benefited from this source. During quarantine, Nash found himself clueless about how to make food for himself and his roommate.

Though he never considered a TikTok a traditional platform to get beginner recipes and cooking tips, he came across a few videos which he found very useful. It has been a valuable journey for Nash, since he has gone from not knowing how to cook at all to being able to experiment with different dishes.

“With YouTube and other platforms, I would kind of have to look for (the videos), whereas TikTok just showed it to me and it wasn’t something I had to go out of my way to find,” Nash explained. “The fact that (TikTok) is so tailored to each individual person makes it a really great outlet for information.”

Unlike others I spoke with, Nash only spends about 15 minutes on TikTok every day, and was shocked to learn that many are so addicted to the app. Indeed, users spend an average of 46 minutes a day on TikTok and open the app eight times a day. The content on TikTok is always rapidly changing, with new trends being created almost weekly. Furthermore, the concise nature of the medium also facilitates the instant absorption of information.

Julie Albright, a sociologist from the University of Southern California, compared the consumption of these short-form videos to “drugging ourselves.” According to Albright, the active usage of these addictive platforms changes how our brains perceive time and thus drastically reduces our attention spans.

Nevertheless, while most of our generation acknowledges such harmful effects, there seems to be no intention or effort to ultimately get off the app.

“I think (our shortening attention span) is awful. I am a part of it and TikTok definitely reinforces it,” Hakim said with a light chuckle. “It will definitely hurt our generation that we can’t pay attention to things for more than 20 seconds. But it’s okay … for now!” *** Political expressions on TikTok are quite diverse. On one hand, you have Marxist college students with their trendy turtlenecks who make videos debunking the mud pie theory and celebrating Angela Davis; on the other hand, there are also many young people who unapologetically show off the Trump 2020 flag in their room.

TikTok was also a major platform used at the height of Black Lives Matter protests this past summer. Under the hashtag “#blacklivesmatter,” which has exceeded 20 billion views, Black creators explain systemic racism while many also share tips on how to protest safely. However, it is also populated with irrelevant videos that are obviously exploiting the hashtag for its popularity.

Engineering sophomore Rachel Pastori expressed her appreciation for political TikTok. According to Pastori, creators often took their differences and conversations outside of TikTok to YouTube or Twitch in the format of debate. Streamed six months ago, Harry Sission and Ashleigh Mae representing the liberals and Treyton Shriver and Kaden Duff representing the conservatives took part in a debate. All of these creators are young: Treyton is just 14 years old, while Harry is 18.

Pastori explained that she felt a sense of empowerment listening to these young people speak, rather than reading articles by adults who are much older than she is.

Though she does not identify as a Republican, she finds it enlightening that TikTok is a platform that is inclusive of diverse political views.

“Sometimes, I go on TikTok after news comes out; I just wanna see other people’s points of views,” Pastori explained. “It’s really nice to see other people my age or older than me posting about the election or general U.S. politics.”

In addition to watching young creators sharing their political opinions and activism, Pastori also enjoyed the range of new ideas she is exposed to on TikTok. She told me that she saw a lot of videos about Native American and indigenous cultures on her FYP, which she found very interesting because she never had the opportunity to learn about them in school. Though she was raised Catholic, Pastori is not a devout, and rather found

a pastor on TikTok who opened her eyes to a new and more liberal form of Christianity.

“A video would always come up on my FYP and I can learn something new,” Pastori said. “On Instagram or Twitter, you can only really see stuff from people who you are following. TikTok makes (the information) more accessible and you are able to reach more people through the algorithm.”

Indeed, while many creators post under political hashtags to make a joke out of the situation or express their opinions through a trend, there are also ones who are dedicated to sharing genuinely helpful information. Yang told me that he found updates about the Graduate Employees’ Organization strike in September almost exclusively through videos by creator chemcowboi, who gave daily updates about the then ongoing movement. In addition to updates about the GEO strike, they also share insightful advice about chemistry and graduate school.

Nevertheless, both Yang and Pastori agreed that there is a need to take the information found on TikTok with a grain of salt. Since the algorithm can make anyone go viral, it facilitates the spread of information, whether that information is true or false. Pastori clarified that a lot of creators use a picture of the source in the background of the video, and she also goes through the comments to see if others make objections to the creators’ points. Though she also does her own fact-checking on some of these topics, Pastori admits that she does not have time to always research.

“If I am suspicious about something that they brought up, I would go and check the validity of their sources,” Pastori said.

“Sometimes their sources are slightly biased towards one side or outdated.” *** In the age of information, it seems that every single new app that enters the market is trying to compete for our time and attention. Over time, as our brains become used to the sheer abundance of information that we absorb every day, we jump at the sight of a notification and the first thing we do when we wake up is grab our phones and check our socials.

Many social media platforms are trying to diversify and rebrand themselves as “more than just a form of entertainment” — Twitter is the app where journalists receive the most engagements, whereas Instagram has become known for its colorful, educational infographics. And as for TikTok — well, you just read about it.

Information is certainly not a bad thing.

But learning about anti-racism by scrolling through an app is vastly different from learning about the topic by reading a book or a journalistic article. While creators are able to offer raw experiences or opinions on a certain issue, there are many nuances that a 60-second video (with no ingrained citation, by the way) fails to capture. No matter how much the app attempts to rebrand itself, it is simply insufficient as a learning platform.

However, TikTok can still be a valuable source for information. Though I do think that it is helpful to mention that if we are truly intrigued by a certain topic, learning shouldn’t stop at TikTok. Therefore, a conversation or a book can be empowering; instead of mindlessly scrolling and absorbing, we have the agency to discern, disagree and contend.

Social media broadens our perspectives about the world, but it also narrows it. We only click on what we want to see and the algorithm picks up the cues, so it sends to the FYP mostly what we are interested in and creators who share similar opinions as us.

But learning isn’t about reaffirming our own values and seeing what we already know, it’s about breaking boundaries and stepping out of our comfort zone. While social media cannot do that for us, real life interactions do.

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‘A season of grief ’: Profiles of the LGBTQ+ holiday experience

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, December 2, 2020 — 11

BY GRACE TUCKER, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

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ey my girl. Is there anyone you would like to bring home for Thanksgiving? Someone who isn’t travelling home or needs allies to have Thanksgiving with?”

In something like extending a hand or offering a warm hug, my mom sent me that text message on a frigid Ann Arbor afternoon.

When I read it, a few people came to mind: The friend who routinely removes his pride flag from his living room every time his parents visit. The classmate who mentally prepares herself to talk about her girlfriend like she is just a girl (space) friend during her family’s Thanksgiving dinner. The coworker who enthusiastically works extra shifts to dodge time at home and avoid being invalidated by her father, who, for years now, has refused to correctly use her pronouns.

My parents have been self-proclaimed “allies” for as long as I can remember. Even before I started talking to them about my queer identity, they had a big, bright pride flag hanging over our garage for years — a bold act in an Indiana suburb.

Like two blue sheep among a swarm of red ones, my parents have long been the sole liberal parents in my social circles.

It was my mother who gifted me my first “I’m with her” T-shirt during the 2016 election. And my father, who works as a middle school math teacher, who once sat me down to inquire how to ask for his students’ pronouns.

As I’ve grown up, my parents have implemented this spirit of inclusion into everything they teach us, in every corner of our household. But seeing that text from my mother reminded me that too many people in my life — and too many other students on campus — are not quite as lucky.

After a handful of lovely and deeply compelling conversations with other students within the LGBTQ+ community, I found the diversity of their backgrounds and identities to be reflected in the range of sentiment they expressed in response to one simple idea: “home for the holidays.”

For some, being home meant being grounded, a “breath of fresh air” from the otherwise chaotic semester we’ve all endured. And for others, being home meant something quite different: It meant stress, anxiety and having to act as a “representative” on behalf of their entire community when relatives became overly inquisitive. It meant awkward conversations in response to the dreaded ‘So, are you seeing anyone?’ question grandparents seem to pose every year. It meant an “experience of grief.” heodore Poling, LSA Junior “I do still use (she/her pronouns) but for (my Dad), I don’t want him to because it’s this ... lingering connection to the concept of a person who has never existed. Like, I was never his daughter.”

When I realized that our interview had run over an hour long after talking all things coming out, the supposedly “contradictory” nature of androgynous gender presentation and their father’s traditionalist interpretations of gender and family, I knew that LSA junior Theodore Poling was a special person with a lot to say regarding the intricacies of the LGBTQ+ experience.

After transferring from the University of Southern California this semester, Poling has hit the ground running, grasping every

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opportunity they have to be involved on campus even while studying remotely from their parents’ home in Ann Arbor. Founder and president of the Trans and GenderNon-Conforming Arts Review, and member of both BiLateral and the Ace Space within the Spectrum Center, they offered me a proud smile when they said, “I’m pretty well-connected in the whole queer world on campus.”

Though, with the holiday season approaching, Poling acknowledged that home is often where they encounter more points of conflict, one being the way their parents have approached their enduring health problems. Throughout this year, Poling has struggled with chronic pain in their lower abdominal and pelvic region, which has aggravated the already less-than-healthy relationship their dad has with their transgender identity.

“My dad is so intentionally ignorant about gender stuff,” they said. “He can grasp … trans man and trans woman, but anything beyond that he thinks is kind of fake. And so, if I bring up anything that has to do with like, (the fact that) I have, you know, a uterus, then he kind of sees it as like, ‘haha, checkmate ... you are not trans.’

So having to deal with this medical issue that is ... very biological in nature has been stressful.”

In the beginning stages of their journey toward embracing their nonbinary identity, Poling wanted to avoid having to “come out” over and over again while seeing relatives over the holidays. So, they did what any Gen Z-er within the LGBTQ+ community would do: They turned to Facebook. In the weeks leading up to the holidays, they made a Facebook post stating their name ‘Theo’ and their pronouns. And with that, they had set the “framework” for coming out before grandma and grandpa came into town.

In terms of coming into their gender identity, Poling said they have an “opposite story” in that, when they first came out, they thought, “This is going to be easier on people if I just say like, ‘I’m a guy now. I’m a trans man,’ (so as to) not have (my family) have to deal with ‘nonbinary’ and all that.”

Poling remembered one holiday where they clung on to a particularly masculine gender presentation.

“I let my facial hair grow out a little bit and I cut my hair shorter,” they said. “And I wore a sweater and slacks that I found in the men’s section of a store and (I) tried to like, I don’t know, downshift my voice a little bit. I just didn’t want (relatives) to, like my Dad, ask questions that have such big answers, you know?”

Now, after having come into their nonbinary identity, Poling has been able to reflect on what’s at stake when a cisgender person fails to fully embrace a transgender person’s identity. “... If someone hasn’t come out as trans, and you say something transphobic, they’re gonna stay in the closet around you ... and (what if ) you found out 30 years later that you never got to meet that part of their life ... wouldn’t you feel some sort of grief?” ikolas Zazula, LSA Senior “I feel like most queer people kind of experience the same thing, (where you’re) spending so much time overthinking the way you present mostly because you’re ... worried about ... the way other people are going to interpret that. That

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anxiety ... for queer people is always there.”

Through our brief phone conversation, I quickly gathered that LSA senior Nikolas Zazula carries a cool and confident persona. In between spurts of Zazula’s laughter, we spent the interview talking about the “weirdness” of sexuality, the struggles of being a Gemini and the joys of having an open, supportive family.

Zazula said he’s fortunate to never have had to come out to his family. “They all kind of just let me do my thing,” he told me.

And because his family has always been very accepting of his identity, he knows how he chooses to present himself in front of them is “not a big deal.” He further elaborated, explaining, “... It’s less that I’m uncomfortable and more that I don’t care too much, and I kind of just make them deal with it.”

As a drag performer in the Ann Arbor and Metro Detroit areas, Zazula has had lots of practice “doing his thing,” and being his true self regardless of other people’s perceptions of him. When asked how his presentation might shift while with extended family during the holidays, Zazula breezily responded, “I wouldn’t really be too concerned about navigating other people’s conceptions of what I should look like.” arker Kehrig, LSA Junior “I really wish that the culture of my family, my various families, wasn’t the way that it is because ... there’s so many of us ... there’s no way I’m the only (queer person). There’s absolutely no way ... just based on how statistics works.”

Even while expressing the heavy and sometimes exhausting reality he’s lived being the sole openly genderqueer and gay person in his entire extended family, LSA junior Parker Kehrig spent our interview flexing his warm conversation skills and flare for comedic timing.

When asked if he could be quoted using his name, Kehrig burst with enthusiasm.

“You can absolutely put me using my name. There’s already enough on the internet about what a raging queer I am.”

When asked about his coming out experience, Kehrig says he came out as a gay person when he was 16, then as genderqueer when he was 18. And, ever-playful in the ways he candidly talks about his queer experience, he considers his queer presentation now to be “kind of an open secret” to his family.

Though, Kehrig remembers when he first presented as genderqueer in front of his family for the holidays and exclaimed to me, “It was terrifying. It was so scary.”

He laughed again and continued, “I was really trying to dress in a way that made me feel more comfortable. And I started layering sweaters over button-downs, and (thought), ‘I’m just a little bit preppy,’ but it was never preppy — it was very queerlooking.”

Kehrig comes from a large family; his parents are divorced, and his step-dad’s parents are divorced as well, so he can visit up to five houses on one holiday. And with seeing all of these family members, Kehrig has had many conversations about issues surrounding the LGBTQ+ community.

But, in his experience, they never resemble topics like one of his family members “not knowing how to explain lesbianism” to their kid. To that, Kehrig said he would love to engage in those sorts of community

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education-oriented conversations.

Instead, he said conversations with relatives often run along the lines of being told, “‘Defend your own humanity — go!” or “Defend your existence — go!’”

Kehrig reflects on the amount of “ignorant shit” he’s had to hear during political conversations over the holidays. Specifically, Kehrig offered the example of attempting to explain systemic racism to a group of particularly hard-headed family members. And with this, Kehrig said to have struggled most with teaching his relatives that “just because (something) is out of your realm of the way you perceive the world, doesn’t mean it is nonexistent.”

“And a world outside of you exists. And it is beautiful. And if anyone is ever trying to take your hand and pull you into it and show you what it is, you better fucking thank them. Because that is labor. Like, that is so much emotional labor.” nna Pasek, Engineering Senior “... it’s just kind of a situation where I’m still dependent on my family, you know, like, financially and a lot of other forms of support. And so ... I have to, like, kind of think twice before I express my queerness in a certain way. Because, otherwise my livelihood could be compromised.”

Careful in the ways she disclosed information about the unsteady nature of her home, Engineering senior Anna Pasek showed a brave vulnerability when talking about her experiences as a queer woman.

With her Zoom profile dimly lit by the windows of her partner’s home, she opened up about her coming out experience, presenting queer in her childhood home, and navigating holidays with family versus with friends, among other things.

Pasek started our conversation by saying that, pre-pandemic, she chose to spend breaks with people you could call her “chosen family.”

During this time, she would run Thanksgiving 5K marathons and spend time with friends she has known for years — she even made a habit out of eating Thanksgiving breakfast at her friend’s house. But, she still feels unsure about making these kinds of traditions.

“I just feel weird about (how) that’s other people’s space to be with their families,” Pasek said. “And, like, I don’t want to diminish that or take from that even though I know I’ve been offered a place at the table.”

In regards to her coming out experience, Pasek said she “got kind of pushed out of the closet by (her) parents” her senior year of high school, after they stole her phone and found she had a partner at the time.

Since then, she believes her parents are slowly “getting better” about accepting her queer identity; however, she knows main events during the holidays remain mandatory for her family.

“It’s just a case of bringing up livelihood and financial security. If I were to not show up at home for Thanksgiving (dinner), that would make really big problems for me.”

Pasek said that if she had one word to describe the queer holiday experience, it would be grief. “(Queer people) don’t have unconditional love to take for granted, really,” Pasek said. “And our families are often in love with an idea of who we could be and not who we are. And that is something that is painful, and (something) that you have to confront every time you go home.”

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statement

12 — Wednesday, December 2, 2020

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

To give or not to give?

BY LEAH LESZCZYNSKI, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

S

o, do you want me to buy a share of a water buffalo or a flock of chicks?” my friend Kat asked me as we discussed what we wanted for the upcoming holiday season. After a few minutes of searching the internet, we somehow ended up on the website of Heifer International, a global nonprofit that aims to provide livestock and services to farmers.

According to their website, a donation of $25 provides a tenth of a water buffalo to help farmers plow their fields. For $20, they can provide a family with the ability to produce eggs to eat and sell.

There are countless charities like Heifer International, as there are countless causes we can donate to. Though there is research and philosophical debate on which causes we should prioritize and what organizations and interventions are most effective, there is no consensus for consumers to take to the bank. This is a concept I’ve thought about and struggled with before as a result of enrolling in Phil 250: From Climate Change to Poverty, I don’t know which causes have the greatest need on the grand scale of world issues and further, what each organization can do with a small donation. As a society, we lack the necessary information and time to determine which causes are most effective. There are no red flags on websites of ineffective charities directing donors to superior ones and the information available requires dedication and certain skills to purposely sift through it (though there are efforts to solve this problem, such as givewell.org and charitynavigator.org).

Even with the necessary information, we would require value judgements to determine which causes should have the utmost priority. However, I do know that whatever a small donation accomplishes for any charity will do more good than the gifting of another fuzzy blanket or tie dye sweatshirt.

Looking at the current state of the world through the lens of my 19th holiday season, it is easy to wonder why we buy and receive gifts we do not want or need. We could skip participating in Secret Santa at the office and instead send life-saving medical care to a child in need. People around the world are facing utter destitution, and we

continue to make frivolous purchases of cheap jewelry and holiday scented lotions.

The fact these decisions are made every day, when we drop by Starbucks and buy products glorified by TikTok, makes this a daily dilemma, though perhaps even more so considering the increase in superfluous spending during the holiday season. This year, our consumption could easily be put under more intense levels of scrutiny considering the exacerbation of hunger and homelessness the pandemic has caused in the United States alone, in addition to the global consequences of COVID-19.

All things considered, finding a palatable level of generosity is extremely difficult, on both a personal and societal level — intellectuals have debated this issue for decades. Philosopher Peter Singer proposed in a paper published in 1972, “Famine, Affluence and Morality,” that we have a moral obligation to donate every possible dollar until we are in a similar state of those we are donating to, or must sacrifice something of moral importance in order to donate. Though many find Singer’s standard for moral righteousness in terms of charity too extreme, it is staggering that we participate in any unnecessary and unfulfilling gift-giving in light of the grandiosity of the world’s problems and the fact we can easily do something about them.

These ideas, combined with my enrollment in Philosophy 250 — a course that studies the effectiveness of aid interventions and attempts to determine those which we ought to prioritize — has made me question my typical methods of giftgiving. hy do we give gifts in the first place? To show our love, our affection or the effort we put into relationships and valuing the people in our lives? If that’s the case, wouldn’t a heartfelt note or gesture be sufficient? Is the point of gifting to provide things for people that they have great use or need for, that they would not have otherwise? If that’s the case, how have we come to buy people their 14th pair of boots and niche kitchen gadgets?

The practice of gift-giving has been dramatically altered by the commercialization of holidays and the transition into

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a consumer-driven society, regardless of whether these causes are inspired by commodities becoming cheaper, people spending more, people having more money or a combination of multigenerational factors.

As a result of the changing culture, many of us find ourselves buying unneeded, unwanted gifts due to the idea that consuming and gifting something is an easier, safer option than having slightly difficult, awkward conversations about thoughtful, meaningful generosity and kindness.

Gifting during holidays, birthdays, retirements and graduations is complicated by unclear obligations, confusing expectations and conflicting affirmations that individuals tie to receiving and giving gifts.

We ask ourselves whether we should bring gifts to our partner’s parents when coming over for holiday dinner and worry about the message not bringing a candle or a bottle of wine could send. We have difficulties discussing spending limits on gifts with people that are relatively new, albeit important, in our lives, if we want to purchase them a gift in the first place.

To no avail, “Friends,” “Gossip Girl,” “The Big Bang Theory” and other shows have comedically explored the conundrums of whether or not to buy, what to buy and how much to spend in an hour or less, usually leaving us with more questions than we started with.

Regardless of these complexities, the fact remains that the holiday season presents some of us with the opportunity to do good, whether it be with our purchasing power or our time. In fact, the holidays may look very different for millions of Americans and thousands of college students this year, considering the financial repercussions of the pandemic. We ought to ask ourselves the tough questions when it comes to the annual splurge on those closest to us and reflect when people ask what we are wishing for.

If we do decide to purchase gifts, we ought to consider what to buy and where to buy it from. Should we avoid Amazon and look local? Is it mandatory to purchase from a company with sustainable and fairtrade practices, one with philanthropic initiatives, instead of from whatever company provides free shipping or the lowest

total price?

Looking toward the holidays, I ask myself these questions while acknowledging my family and I are extremely lucky to not need groceries, a rent cut or new clothes.

If I do decide to purchase gifts, buying from a company that pays its employees a living wage and uses recycled materials, carbon-offset shipping and fair labor practices is the only option I can defend.

However, I know my mom does not need another pair of earrings to clutter her vanity and my dad does not need another flannel to cram in his closet. To them, agreeing to a marathon of Westerns I cannot stand or organizing my mom’s cassette collection is likely a greater expression of love and gratitude than anything I could buy.

For my sister, who is in pursuit of a Ph.D., I plan on writing a note of encouragement complete with a reimbursement for her application to her dream school. In normal times, spending time together or volunteering with friends would create memories worth more than a gift card. This year, I hope to plan something my friends and I can safely enjoy in the spirit of the season.

Though I love gorgeous, gold wrapping paper and the way my mom ties her bows, meaningful acts of thoughtfulness, charity and generosity make a much more beautiful holiday scene to me than mounds of packages under our tree.

There may be a fine line between cautious consumption and overthinking it, there may be an answer to the decision of whether to consume or donate. And if there is, I have not found it in Philosophy 250, nor have I found it in personal pursuits, and it is highly unlikely I will by my final exam or even by the time I graduate.

All I can do to move forward each day, and through this holiday season, is critically consider the countless social, philosophical and ethical questions that manifest in decisions concerning my purchasing power.

At the end of the day, or rather at the start of our shopping, the question is not what is the absolute best, most effective way to spend our money. The question is, given the information we have and our circumstances of the holiday season, are we doing the best we can?

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

statement

A reluctant ‘Go Blue!’

Wednesday, December 2, 2020 — 13

BY WILLA HART, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

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ack in March, when COVID-19 hit and it became clear that schools would have to shut down, I remember thinking: well, at least I go to the University of Michigan.

I was lucky, I thought, to go to such a cutting-edge school. Our president is a physician. We have a faculty of incredibly knowledgeable researchers and professors. We have one of the best medical schools in the nation, as well as a stellar public health program. More than that, even: Thias university is run by good people. They’ll figure this out.

Whatever the best policies are, Michigan will find them and put them in place as needed. They might stumble, as anyone does when facing a novel threat, but certainly they won’t lag behind other universities or organizations. At the very least, I thought, I can trust them to act in a morally upstanding way.

How wrong I was.

In June, tuition hikes and a “COVID fee” were approved for the 2020-21 school year, despite the economic crisis gripping America and the University’s growing endowment. Then, in August, the University reopened campus for fall semester, despite a recommendation from their own COVID-19 safety team that the University stay shut down. Instead of offering testing surveillance systems like other major universities, University President Mark Schlissel made controversial comments claiming that testing can create a false sense of security, as, he argued, it did during the HIV epidemic. He was lambasted for the comments and quickly retracted them, but he and other administrators failed to significantly change the University’s testing policies. They insisted they simply did not have the capacity to test more students, while working with sports teams to ensure student-athletes received daily testing through the Big Ten Conference.

In September, the University’s Graduate Student Instructors went on strike to protest the lack of COVID-19 protections. They were quickly followed by the RAs, who criticized the University’s safety policies in dorms. Both strikes were treated with complete disrespect by the University administration, who

filed an injunction against the Graduate Employees’ Organization and threatened to fire striking RAs. Dining hall workers had to cancel their own strike when they were told the University would retaliate against strikers.

Only in the last few weeks, following a Washtenaw County stay-in-place order targeting University students, has the University finally walked back some of its policies. So far, the University has limited the number of students who can return to dorms next semester and asked all students to stay home come January if they are able. But the University is still holding in-person classes next semester, and administrators like Schlissel have refused to apologize for their missteps, with Schlissel saying in a recent The Michigan Daily interview that he doesn’t regret how he chose to handle of the virus.

Things are, to put it lightly, a total mess. I’ve watched it unfold from the safety of my parents’ homes with a small measure of awe and a large measure of fury. I don’t mean to be dramatic, but I truly am disgusted by how the University has handled this crisis. At every turn, they have placed profits over safety, and chosen to place the whims of young adult students above the advice of educated experts. In doing so, they’re not only putting the health and safety of their students, staff and faculty at risk — they’re also endangering the greater Ann Arbor population, a community which has always supported the University. This type of selfishness is frighteningly similar to the attitudes we see at a national level, with the Trump administration’s abysmal response to COVID-19, and it makes me ashamed to say I go to the University of Michigan.

I know I’m not the only student who feels this way about the current administration, but I think students who are seniors, such as myself, are put in a uniquely frustrating position because of it. This is my last semester at the University. Next semester, I’m taking parttime classes from home, and then I’m graduating. My college career is rapidly wrapping up, and I’m stuck in the frustrating position of wondering: Is this it?

Is this how I’m going to remember col-

lege?

As a graduating senior, I get asked often about my time at the University.

Recruiters, relatives and friends want to hear about my college experience — often, I suspect, expecting that I’ll wax poetic about how amazing the University is as a school. That seems to be the expectation from alumni, and part of the reason the University has such a stellar reputation. Objectively, I know there’s a lot I could talk about: I had a very good experience during my first three years at the University doing all the stereotypical college things — going to football games, getting surreptitiously drunk in dorm rooms, even studying in the Shapiro Undergraduate Library. But in the moment, my frustration with the administration overshadows everything else. I don’t want to talk about how fun it was to go to football games two years ago. I want to talk about what the administration is doing now, and why it makes me so pissed off.

An obvious response to this is that perhaps I shouldn’t let the actions of a select few administrators taint my view of something as broad as my experience in college. To say I’m ashamed of my college administration doesn’t necessarily mean I need to be ashamed of my college: The student body is, after all, not the administration. I didn’t choose the administration’s actions, so they’re not my responsibility.

But I think it’s an oversimplification to say we can so easily draw a line between the student body and college administration. In conversation, we constantly identify ourselves with the faculty and administration of our college. When our school is ranked one of the top public universities in the United States, we tend to feel proud of that, even though we had no part in creating that ranking; when we win at football, we gloat to all our friends that Wolverines are simply a superior bunch, and when we lose, we feel embarrassed and make excuses for why our team is still the best, really, but just having an off week. We use phrases like “we won” because it feels like a collective achievement: It is a thing we are told to feel a part of. The University of Michigan, like

many other colleges, champions a narrative of community among its students — that we are the Leaders and Best together. We are all a part of the University, the story goes, and so we do identify ourselves with the actions of the institution, whether we actively participated in them or not.

It reminds me of 2017: Shortly after I graduated from high school, I went backpacking in Europe. I met a lot of people on my trip, people from all over the world, and they all asked me the same question: “So, you’re American?

Do you like Donald Trump?”

I was always quick to assure them that, no, I didn’t support Trump; and in fact, there were many Americans who didn’t. “I promise,” I said, “We’re not all nuts.” That I had to say that — and that they had to ask the question — embarrassed me. Electing Trump felt like the most irresponsible collective action our country could have taken. I was ashamed to be an American then in the same way I’m ashamed to be a Wolverine now.

Maybe we shouldn’t define ourselves by the institutions that lead us, but to me, that feels like the path to complacency. If the institutions that lead us don’t represent us, we have no obligation to make sure they do good. In that sense, maybe feeling ashamed when an institution messes up is a good thing because it keeps us accountable. It might be why Trump is on his way out of office. Maybe, in a few months, it’ll be why U-M administrators finally apologize for the mistakes they’ve made. After all, student outrage is what catalyzed the few changes that have arisen so far, including the concessions made to GEO and RAs — student and alumni outrage might be all that can continue to cause change moving forward. For my part, I know I won’t forget the missteps of this administration quickly. Though I may not be in Ann Arbor moving forward, you can bet I’ll be watching the University from a distance, ready to step in with a pointed email or passiveaggressive Twitter reply when the situation calls for it. Accountability may look different for alumni than it does for students, but it does still exist.

14 — Wednesday, November 18, 2020

statement

The second body

BY MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA, STATEMENT MANAGING EDITOR

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he code word was perfect: obscure enough so that the boys couldn’t decipher it, but not so strange that it would attract the attention of our teachers. In the lunch line, we were giggling by the shelves of Cheetos and Funyuns, pointing at the girl a few steps ahead: “Look, look,” I said, motioning to the back of her white t-shirt. “Her walrus is showing.”

Walrus. For a group of fourth graders, that was the most creative code word we could come up with for “bra.” We were at the point in elementary school when some students doubled in height overnight, when a small fraction of the boys grew little hairs above their lips and when a few of the girls started using pads.

It was the early stages of puberty, so we were immature — which perhaps made the environment all the more conducive for words like “walrus.”

Looking back, I think our teasing came from fear; we couldn’t even bring ourselves to say the word of something so unknown, so intimidating. As a small, flat-chested tomboy, I dreaded any change that indicated womanhood, despite the long, sometimes awkward conversations I had with my mom about puberty. I feared the inevitable truth that as I approached middle school, my body would start changing, morphing into an unfamiliar shape with foreign characteristics, whether it be hair or boobs or extra fat somewhere.

When my mom suggested I get my first “bra” — and I put it in quotes because, as many women reading this would know, it was literally a piece of unsupportive fabric — I agreed only because it had started to feel uncomfortable playing soccer without one. But in the line at Dunham’s Sports, I hid behind my mom, embarrassed, while the cashier laughed affectionately and scanned the tag on a small blue training bra.

I detested puberty because I didn’t want to grow up, but at the time I didn’t know what growing up really meant, in terms of my body.

Even in eighth grade, when I spent an hour in the principal’s office after breaking dress code, waiting for my mom to bring me longer shorts, or during freshman year of high school, when a male friend groped my butt at the homecoming dance, I didn’t make the realization that to be a woman means to have two bodies at once.

The first body is the mechanistic kind. It is the one we have known since childhood and its job is to function. It breathes, it cries, sometimes it’s injured or tired. It kicks soccer balls, chases siblings, eats burritos and takes naps. I am grateful not to have to think about mine all that much — it is mostly just a vessel to carry me throughout my day. At the age of 21, I’m this body, and only this body, in rare moments: when I’m alone or with my family. It is only then that my body’s existence is not under the survey of outward eyes.

The second body is the one that comes with puberty; it is the body of sex. This is the body that ends up existing for other people — for their observation, for their pleasure — whether we want it to or not. This body is a tool that we can enhance with the right pair of jeans or a snug-fitting shirt; we can use it to wield power over straight men. At the age of 21, I know that I can rarely turn off this body. It doesn’t matter if I’m playing tennis, buying groceries or out with friends — my moving through space is wedded to the male gaze.

Coming to understand my second body was much more subtle than the experience of puberty. At some point, I went from resisting growing up to feeling like I had to rush to get there. Much of high school was a confused effort to attract attention through my body,

which was slow to develop. But why? Whether it was from what I saw on TV, from what older girls told me or even a slight biological inclination, somehow I automatically began using my body to wield sexual attention from men, even though it was unclear what I wanted from that attention.

I remember buying a push-up bra but not really understanding why that was important or what I wanted it to lead to. Why did I want the boys in my Spanish class to see more of my boobs? Maybe I just wanted to be cool, and I thought their approval would validate me. But why did I think the only way to get noticed was through my body? And why was my metric for self-esteem based on my physical appearance, specifically that of my sexuality?

Of course, high school is a time when many young people begin exploring their sexuality, and along the way, we are bound to try things that might seem stupid or embarrassing later on. In reality, my wearing a push-up bra to Spanish class was definitely not as deep as it seems now. But the fact that as a high schooler who wasn’t experienced, fully interested or ready to have sex, I still had the subconscious motivation to display my body for attention is slightly disturbing to me now. It shows how pervasive the idea is that a woman’s worth is determined by her sexual appeal and how the process of using — and maybe misusing — the second body starts off at a young age.

What has changed for me, now a college senior, is more so my mindset than my actions. If I choose to use my second body, I do so knowing I am confident in myself and my sexuality and I can understand the motivations behind what I do, wear or say. My second body is no longer just for others to enjoy, or under their control — it is under mine.

I can also now understand that sometimes we want to use our second bodies to attract attention. Maybe it’s for the same reasons as before — for validation, self-worth — but maybe it’s also to reclaim power. When men reduce us to one dimension and for a few purposes — bodies for sex, childbirth, motherhood — perhaps we want to expose how that male gaze and its superiority are so sensitive and easily manipulated. Maybe we want to show how fickle the idea is that men are always in control, that their gaze intimidates and traps us. Maybe we want to say: No, it is you that is simple.

And yet, as I write these words and think these thoughts, I falter, I worry. I fear I am trying to justify behavior that still results in objectification and degradement. But then, I wonder if I am placing blame where there should be none. I have no ill judgements toward women who wield the power of their second body when they want to, nor do I feel any selfdirected shame when I think back to the times I’ve done the same. But it’s difficult not to question if, for straight women, this choreographed dance between our second bodies and men is truly something we want or if it’s something we’ve been trained to want. In the balance of something as delicate as power, which can quickly inverse or disappear, it is hard to know what actions are truly autonomous and which are conditional to a long-standing patriarchy.

As I did when I was a fourth grader confused about why my friend had to wear a “walrus,” I went to my mom for advice and answers on the second body. Our conversation was long as always, but this time, it was not awkward.

I watched as she sat on the couch, decades of her own memories as a woman flashing in her mind. She offered a piece of advice, one that provided maybe the only way to find solace in the complicated reality of being a woman: “Just do whatever the hell you want.”

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Sports

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, December 2, 2020 — 15

‘Disability is not inability’: Michigan’s Adaptive Sports and Fitness Program strives to assert itself GRAYSON BUNING For The Daily

Cathryn Gray isn’t used to being around people like her. She’s a 4.0 student, an internationally decorated athlete, the first female member of Michigan’s Adaptive Sports and Fitness Program — and she has Cerebral Palsy.

Cerebral Palsy is a mobility disorder caused by abnormal brain development or damage to the developing brain. Often, it imparts a very distinct gait.

So when Gray saw Maddy Gustafson walking through her residence hall on move-in day, she immediately knew that she had found someone like her.

“I knew right away that she probably had CP (Cerebral Palsy) too,” Gray said.

Trying not to be too intrusive, Gray introduced herself to Gustafson and confirmed their similarities. In the course of their conversation, Gray revealed to Gustafson that she was at Michigan on an Adaptive Track and Field scholarship.

Gustafson had no idea these sorts of opportunities existed at Michigan. The absence of attention to disability paid by her hometown community had meant that for Gustafson, the expectation that she could participate in sports had evaporated. Despite her love of running, Gustafson had last been able to be as active as she’d hoped to be during her middle school years. Eagerly, Gustafson accepted Gray’s invitation to accompany her to the next adaptive Track and Field practice.

Fast forward four months, Gustafson and Gray are best friends and teammates, looking forward to competing alongside one another for the first time once it’s safe.

“I know from my own experience how isolating CP can

PHOTO COURTESY OF GRAYSON BUNING

The University of Michigan’s Adaptive Sports and Fitness Program strives to be an elite program for athletes with disabilities.

be,” Gray said. “Being a woman with a disability, it can be really hard to find other people like you. I don’t think anyone would turn down the opportunity to be a part of a community. It changed my life, so I’m going to take any opportunity I can to help the program grow.”

Sadly, Gustafson’s example is a common one. Most communities are woefully far from recognizing adaptive sports as a necessary facet of the sporting experience. In place of making the necessary accommodations so that individuals with disability can participate in sports alongside those with able bodies, many schools instead elect to offer individuals with disability special positions like team manager, or token gestures like two minutes of playing time during the last game of the season.

This lackluster effort at inclusivity is exactly what the University of Michigan’s Adaptive Sports and Fitness

program aims to address.

During a time in which public health measures necessarily disincentivize neighborliness, Gray’s efforts to befriend and include Gustafson embody the vision of the program according to its founder and director, Dr. Oluwaferanmi Okanlami, affectionately known around campus as “Dr. O.” “We have to create equal access to physical and emotional health and wellness for students with disabilities,” Okanlami said. “As a physician, recognizing the importance of physical fitness for everyone, let alone those with disabilities, is something that we’re trying to close the disparity gap on and make sure that marginalized, underrepresented minority groups like individuals with disabilities have access to physical fitness and therefore a more healthy life.”

When individuals with physical disabilities aren’t physically active, their muscles often begin to atrophy, or

With five players leaving for World Juniors, Wolverines need depth players to step up BRENDAN ROOSE Daily Sports Editor

For its most important series yet this season, the Michigan hockey team will be without five of its key players against Minnesota next week.

Monday afternoon, USA Hockey released its preliminary roster for the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championship. It includes three Wolverine freshman forwards — Matty Beniers, Thomas Bordeleau, and Brendan Brisson — as well as sophomore forward Johnny Beecher and sophomore defenseman Cam York. All five will be unavailable for Michigan’s Dec. 8 and 9 home series against Minnesota, which will be missing three of its own players.

The tournament will take place from Dec. 25 through Jan. 5 in Edmonton. Though teams were initially told that players would not have to report until Dec. 13 — a factor that played into the Wolverines’ and Gophers’ decision to compete on the preceding Tuesday and Wednesday, according to Michigan coach Mel Pearson — USA Hockey recently mandated that players enter its bubble in Plymouth on Dec. 6 to comply with IIHF rules.

The decision coincided with a pair of positive tests at Team Canada’s selection camp in Red Deer, Alberta.

Without its key players, who have combined for 21 points in six games this season, Michigan will need more production from elsewhere on the team. Much of that production should come from players already in the lineup — players like freshman forward Kent Johnson, who leads the team with eight points.

Johnson might have to step up even more, but there’s

plenty of room for others in the lineup to make their mark as well. Sophomore forward Eric Ciccolini has shown flashes in four appearances, scoring two goals and earning a plus-minus of +3. The series against the Gophers will be an opportunity for him to prove he deserves more time on the ice.

“There’s some guys in the lineup that you’re just

with just 16 forwards on the roster, Michigan will have to rely on every player at that position. As of now, only two — freshmen Josh Groll and Philippe Lapointe — have yet to see ice time this year. Groll tallied 42 points in 41 games with the USHL Lincoln Stars last season, while Lapointe notched 55 points in 36 games with the BCHL Trail Smoke Eaters.

MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily

Michigan coach Mel Pearson allowed five of his top players to join the US World Juniors team.

expecting to do more,” Pearson said. “Eric Ciccolini has been in and out. He’s proven he’s ready to have a really good sophomore season. We expect more out of him on a daily basis.”

But with five players missing, the Wolverines will need to dig deeper into the roster and rely on players who haven’t yet seen much of the ice. In Michigan’s loss to Notre Dame on Saturday, sophomore defenseman Jay Keranen appeared in his second game this season after not playing his freshman year. There’s a good chance he’ll fill in for York in the Minnesota series.

Things will be even thinner at forward, where the Wolverines will lose four players to World Juniors. And

“(Groll) has looked really good in practice,” Pearson said. “He had a bit of a setback (a couple of weeks ago), that’s why he hasn’t played at this point … but he’s ready. Phil Lapointe’s an outstanding player. He’s gonna be a really good player for us here. We’ll look for him to come in the lineup.”

In any situation, depth is a necessity for a hockey team to be successful. It’s normal to lose a few players to injury throughout the season. Teams can plan around that.

Less predictable is losing five players at the same time.

The Wolverines have a deep roster; such a deep hit in a series against the No. 5 team in the country will put that depth to the test.

degenerate. As a result, it becomes increasingly difficult to move around. Thus, as both Okanlami and Gray underscore, ready access to adaptive sports for individuals with disabilities is crucial.

Importantly, however, Okanlami stresses that this access should take shape in the form of a program which both individuals with and without disabilities can participate in.

“This is diversity, equity and inclusion,” Okanlami said.

“If we have a way that we can create the parameters to allow everyone to participate while not limiting the opportunities for the individuals with disabilities, we’re going to do that.”

Establishing and growing this program hasn’t come without obstacles, Okanlami explained.

“Major hurdle number one is awareness,” Okanlami said.

“We’re trying to get people to recognize that disability is not inability – that disability does not make them any less

of an athlete and that it does not lessen their desire, drive, or need for physical activity in sport.”

Gray echoed Okanlami’s sentiment. “I don’t see a lot of people with disabilities in the media, so sometimes having a disability like CP can be a little bit lonely.”

For Okanlami, the Michigan community has a long way to go in order to catch up to other established programs around the nation.

“If we want to be the leaders and the best in this arena, we could be,” Okanlami said. “But we have to acknowledge that right now, not only are we not the best, we are not leading, and we are not even in the conversation.”

Okanlami laid out how schools like Alabama, which has a $10 million facility dedicated exclusively to adaptive athletics, and Illinois, a widelyrecognized powerhouse in wheelchair racing, are “blowing Michigan out of the water.”

He stressed that in addition to expanding programs like this one, introducing adaptive sports to younger people is even more important. As such, one of the program’s main objectives is to integrate adaptive sports into the state of Michigan’s K-12 curriculum.

“We’re trying to change that misperception, that stigma,” Okanlami said, “and we’re starting that around the elementary school level so that kids don’t see disability as a negative, they just see it as another aspect of the things that make us different.”

Okanlami spoke of this process of “mainstreaming” adaptive sports as a sort of Gestalt switch. Wheelchairs, traditionally seen as impediments to sports like basketball or tennis, should instead be seen as necessary equipment for playing wheelchair basketball or wheelchair tennis, just as iceskates are seen as necessary for playing ice hockey.

“This doesn’t mean you have to use a chair in your real life, but when you’re playing (wheelchair basketball), that’s how you play this sport,” Okanlami said.

Currently, the Adaptive Sports and Fitness program houses wheelchair tennis, wheelchair basketball, and track and field, and is incorporating para-equestrian activities. In the future, Okanlami would like to see the program expand into other sports, such as golf and wheelchair racing.

Gray, among others, seeks to expand the influence of the program in other ways.

“What I really want to do is to use competing as a vehicle for positive change,” Gray said. “I want to grow the program and speak about disability issues like my mom did for me growing up. I want to do that for other people.”

Turnovers plague Michigan in narrow win over Oakland CONNOR BRENNAN Daily Sports Writer

With just over seven minutes remaining in the first half, the Michigan men’s basketball team held an eight-point lead over winless Oakland. Just twoand-a-half minutes later, the Wolverines’ advantage had been cut to just two points, leading to arguments on Michigan’s sideline and enthusiastic cheers from the Golden Grizzlies’ bench.

During that span, senior guard Chaundee Brown missed a 3-pointer — one of nine missed threes from the Wake Forest transfer on the day — and the Wolverines committed three turnovers on consecutive possessions.

What had been billed as an easy, early-season win for Michigan was quickly turning into anything but. Oakland led by two going into halftime, in large part due to the Wolverines’ 15 first-half turnovers — five more than they had in the entire Bowling Green game.

“Oakland (was) active defensively, being active with their hands, playing in passing lanes and getting deflections,” Michigan coach Juwan Howard said afterwards. “I’m not gonna just sit here and say, ‘Hey, we didn’t do well because of’ — We made mistakes on our own.

“There were plays where we were catching it in the two blocks or in the paint and putting it down on the floor.

That’s something you can’t do when we’re playing against a smaller group with active hands.

What they did was they got deflections or got steals.”

The Golden Grizzlies’ tallest starter was 6-foot-7 Daniel Oladapo. To compensate for its lack of size, Oakland came out in a 1-3-1 matchup zone, which stumped Michigan’s

ball-handlers early on. The Wolverines tried to penetrate the defense — with either passes to the high post or on drives off the dribble — but the Golden Grizzlies flocked to the ball, stripping it or picking off crosscourt looks.

“We watched film on their zone and from watching film we didn’t see it as that aggressive,” senior wing Isaiah Livers said. “… Everybody makes adjustments and they came out and made adjustments to their zone. We weren’t ready at first and even for part of the second half.”

Michigan fared slightly better holding onto the ball in the second half, only turning it over five times. Instead, it was the Wolverines’ inability to make shots on the perimeter that kept the Golden Grizzlies in the game. Either way,

the duo accounted for eight on Sunday night. Whether their performances were indicative of Smith and Brooks settling into a new offense and a new role respectively or it was an aberration, the Wolverines need a steady hand at that position.

Thanks to a dominant display in overtime, Michigan overcame its turnover problems and narrowly avoided a catastrophic loss. Early in the season though, a win is a win.

“1,000 percent just the zone, outlier,” Livers said. “We actually, all preseason, we take care of the ball. We get after each other in practice. Our scout team does a great job of getting into us as well. When we’re scrimmaging, we don’t allow easy catches, we make it tough for the guy handling the ball as well so I think it was just a good learning curve.

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Michigan’s turnovers nearly let a win out of its grasp against Oakland.

Oakland’s unconventional scheme was making Michigan uncomfortable offensively.

Without Zavier Simpson leading the offense, point guard responsibilities fall on graduate student Mike Smith and senior guard Eli Brooks.

After combining for just two turnovers in the season opener,

“Everybody was watching that game and say ‘Oh, they can’t play great against a 1-3-1 matchup zone or anything like that.’ I’m glad it happened now.

Chaundee made a comment, ‘Rather now than the Final Four or Sweet 16,’ so that’s what I’m happy about and we can learn from it.”

Sports

16 — Wednesday, December 2, 2020

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Run defense collapses in Penn State loss

Erratic quarterback play hurts Wolverines

ETHAN SEARS

DANIEL DASH

Managing Sports Editor

Daily Sports Editor

When Cade McNamara led a 17-point comeback against Rutgers last week, it appeared the Michigan football team had found its answer at quarterback.

After an underwhelming twoweek stretch for junior quarterback Joe Milton, McNamara did everything necessary to secure the Wolverines’ starting job, and Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh gave it to him against a winless Penn State team on Saturday. But in a 27-17 loss to the Nittany Lions, the Wolverines were doomed by erratic play from both Milton and McNamara.

Throughout the game, Michigan’s quarterbacks failed to capitalize on the team’s performance on the ground. The Wolverines racked up 108 rushing yards in the first half alone, which should’ve set their passing game up for success.

“It makes the (offensive) line not play harder, but play with more confidence maybe,” senior offensive lineman Andrew Stueber said. “…

The defense starts getting more worried about the run game so they start bringing down some safeties, so it kind of just opened up the offense as a whole.”

But the opposite was true.

Michigan was reluctant to throw the ball downfield for much of the afternoon, leaving much to be desired. A good portion of that can be attributed to the shot McNamara took on the team’s second possession, which sent him to the locker room with a shoulder injury and forced Milton onto the field.

The same accuracy struggles that sent Milton to the bench against the Scarlet Knights and Wisconsin continued on Saturday. After a 21-yard completion on his first attempt, Milton’s next two throws were way off the mark. One sailed over a receiver’s head, while the other bounced a few yards in front of his target.

Harbaugh turned back to McNamara after two Miltonled series resulted in zero points.

McNamara completed his first four passes on the Wolverines’ opening drive prior to the injury, but when he returned from the locker room, the effects of his shoulder pain were clear.

He completed only one pass longer than 15 yards in the second half.

Without the gunslinger mentality that powered Michigan past Rutgers, he struggled to put together scoring drives. He finished 12-of-25 passing with just 91 yards and no touchdowns — a far cry from his performance last week, when he completed 27-of-36 passes for 260 yards and accounted for five total touchdowns.

As the game progressed, McNamara’s shoulder worsened.

When the Wolverines needed a score to make it a one-possession game with eight minutes left, McNamara opened the drive with five consecutive incompletions.

Sandwiched between them was a strip sack, though a penalty prevented the turnover from standing.

By the midway point of the fourth quarter, Harbaugh had seen enough.

He opted to roll with Milton in the game’s final minutes.

“Cade, really gutty performance to come back, but the shoulder did start to tighten up,” Harbaugh said. “I could see it. He was doing everything he could to stay in the game, but I just felt like that was tightening up and causing (pain). I felt like going to Joe was the best option for us. I can tell you this: Cade was doing everything he possibly could to rally the team and to play on when (his shoulder) was tightening up on him. That was the reason.”

But by then, it didn’t matter who was under center. The Wolverines had already proved themselves incapable of taking advantage of run-game success to stretch the field vertically. Playcalling became predictable, and a comeback wasn’t in the cards for an offense juggling an injured quarterback and an inaccurate one.

A week after it seemed Michigan had solved its quarterback woes, Saturday left the team with more questions than answers at the position.

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh described his team’s mood as disappointing after Saturday’s 27-17 loss to formerly winless Penn State.

PLEASE CLAP Frustrations mount for Harbaugh’s team in loss to previously winless Penn State THEO MACKIE

Managing Sports Editor

When halftime ended Saturday afternoon and Michigan’s players gathered around their position coaches, Jim Harbaugh stood by Cade McNamara. The sophomore quarterback had missed two second-quarter drives with a shoulder injury, but he was still the Wolverines’ path to reversing their 17-7 deficit and Harbaugh knew it.

McNamara, though, represented more than that. He was Harbaugh’s only chance to lend a semblance of positivity to a season that careens toward new lows with each passing week.

Then his shoulder tightened back up, Harbaugh re-inserted Joe Milton and the Wolverines scored just 10 second-half points. With a 27-17 loss to a previously winless Penn State team, Michigan fell to 2-4.

And in the end, this week’s iteration of Harbaugh’s calamitous Year Six looked just like the others. When the Nittany Lions sealed their win with a final third-down conversion, the only sound on Michigan’s sideline was a player slamming his plastic water bottle against a metal bench.

“No one wants to lose a game,” junior defensive lineman Taylor Upshaw said. “So it’s frustrating, of course.”

This year, losing has happened at the highest rate since 2008, when Michigan finished 3-9.

The Wolverines’ four losses are already the second-highest total of the Harbaugh era. In his previous five years in Ann Arbor,

Harbaugh hadn’t hit that mark before Week 12.

It made sense, then, when Harbaugh’s frustration reached a boiling point Saturday. This was the Wolverines’ opportunity to build off momentum from a comefrom-behind, triple-overtime win over Rutgers last weekend. That it came against a winless opponent should have provided Harbaugh with the perfect opportunity to reverse this season’s course.

Instead, Michigan only sunk further into the depths of despair. The loudest cheers from Harbaugh’s sideline in the second half came on Penn State penalties. When freshman receiver A.J. Henning leapt over a Nittany Lions’ defender to make a highlight-reel catch, Harbaugh had to turn towards a group of players sitting on the bench and tell them to stand up and cheer.

“It’s tough to be in this position, it’s not what we imagined,” senior right tackle Andrew Stueber said.

“As an older guy on the team, you really gotta keep everybody up.”

For stretches in Saturday’s second half, the Wolverines did that. When junior running back Hassan Haskins cut the deficit to 20-17, he was met with fist bumps and butt slaps. A similar reaction met Upshaw after his thirdquarter sack.

Far more common, though, was the familiar intersection of frustration and dejection.

Harbaugh’s calm demeanor evaporated for good when the Nittany Lions converted a secondand-6 and third-and-7 deep in Michigan territory to restore their 10-point lead, waving his arms and yelling angrily after each.

“We gotta tackle better,”

Harbaugh said. “There’s too many missed tackles.”

A drive later, his frustration culminated when Haskins and Milton were stuffed short of first downs on consecutive plays, just outside field goal range.

“You’re down there on the field, you don’t really know for sure (about the spots),” Harbaugh said. “But getting the tackles on the short yardage and just being able to get a yard when you need it offensively. … Our inability to do that and their ability to do that was critical in the game.”

After Milton’s stop, Harbaugh lowered his mask, screaming at the field judge to bring out the chains and double-check his spot.

The official complied, proving that, once again, Michigan had come up short.

The same rang true again moments later on the defensive side. This time, Harbaugh had no fire left in him. All he could do was yell out one word and look up at the south scoreboard for a replay. What he said was obscured by his mask and fake crowd noise, but it takes no great leap of faith to assume it may have been four letters.

“I’m very competitive and want to win,” Harbaugh said. “And hate losing.”

This year, that’s happened far too often for his liking. On Saturday, it happened against a winless team, seven days after a win that seemed to reverse momentum.

So after the game, when Harbaugh was asked to sum up his team’s mood, he could only offer up one word.

“Disappointing.”

Yet again.

Don Brown looked down, then back up. His lips pursed as his mask sat below his chin. Penn State quarterback Will Levis was in the end zone celebrating. Brown was left to watch and wonder. About what was next after the final Nittany Lions touchdown to seal a 27-17 Michigan loss. About how to fix a defense that again showed porous holes. And surely, about his job security.

The Levis touchdown run made up two of the 254 Penn State rushing yards on the day — all without Journey Brown or Noah Cain, its two top running backs coming into the season. Keyvone Lee finished with 134 yards, quarterback Sean Clifford with 73 — including a 28-yard touchdown on a quarterback draw. To add to the humiliation, it’s the Nittany Lions’ first win of the year. To further add to the humiliation, it’s not even the worst performance of the year for the Wolverines’ run defense.

That honor still goes to Wisconsin’s 341 yards on the ground two weeks ago. Much of Penn State’s came because of the same problems — setting an edge and missing tackles.

After the loss to the Badgers, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh talked of evaluating all facets of the program and changing what needed to be changed. He said Saturday they put in two new schemes to help set the edge better.

“A lot of the plays today weren’t initial edge plays,” Harbaugh said.

“They started inside and the back was able to find the crease on the edge. And we either folded in or we didn’t make the tackle on the edge or a combination of things.”

From the first drive of the game — a 75-yard march down the field that featured 39 rushing yards — to the last, on which a Lee cut to the outside got him 23 yards and sealed the game, Penn State seemed to get whatever it wanted on the ground.

Either Michigan couldn’t get to the ball carrier or Michigan couldn’t tackle the ball carrier. It was the latest in a line of disappointing defensive performances, and will add fuel to the fire for those calling for Brown’s head.

Amid a flurry of cliche and saying he needed to watch the film, junior defensive end Taylor Upshaw offered this when asked if there were any adjustments made during the game.

“We just gotta be there,” he said.

“So I don’t know how to answer that. I think that’s a coach Brown answer.”

The tackling, at least, should be simple, Upshaw said. It’s something they’ve been doing their whole lives as football players. “It’s just something you’ve gotta do,” he said.

But they didn’t. And Harbaugh, a coach renowned for his attention to detail and intensity, who kept his team on the field for practice when the Big Ten cancelled football and Michigan released a statement halting all athletic activities in March, was left lamenting a lack of fundamentals.

“I feel like sometimes we’re tackling a little too high and leaving our feet a little too early,” he said. “Timing of the tackle, wrapping and getting our man on the ground.”

To open his press conference following Michigan’s drop to 2-4, Harbaugh was asked if his approach had changed since 2016, when the program seemed on the cusp of being a national contender.

The hiring of Brown — a process that started when D.J. Durkin left to become head coach at Maryland, Harbaugh looked up who ran the No. 1 defense in the country the prior year, saw Brown’s name and got moving — is a quintessential example.

But on Saturday, a Penn State offense in the throes of its worst season in nearly two decades ran the ball down the throat of Brown’s defense for 60 minutes, and the distance from 2016 and national relevance and yearly appearances among the top five defenses looked further than Brown’s stare.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Sports

Wednesday, December 2, 2020 — 17

The Wolverines aren’t excited about Michigan football either A.J. Henning stopped in his tracks, spotting the underthrown ball from Cade McNamara and pulled up. He stuck his hands out and leapt, stretching over the defender and bringing the ball in as he came down. The third-quarter play gained 28 yards, got the ETHAN Wolverines SEARS into Penn State territory and set up a Hassan Haskins touchdown to cut the deficit to just three points a few minutes later.

It was one of the rare highlights of the game for Michigan on Saturday.

And on Michigan’s bench, a Daily reporter spotted Jim Harbaugh telling his players to get up and cheer.

If there’s a single moment that captures the Wolverines’ season from hell, that’s it. Not the emotion on display when an overtime Rutgers field-goal attempt went wide. Not a loss to a rebuilding Michigan State program that gifted seven turnovers and the Scarlet Knights’ first Big Ten win in three years the week earlier.

Not getting run off the field by Wisconsin and not a three-decade win streak getting trampled over against Indiana.

No, this takes the top spot. The head football coach at an iconic football school needing to prod his players to stand up and cheer as if it was Little League. How utterly damning.

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Michigan’s freefall season reached a new low on Saturday, falling to a Penn State team which entered the day with an 0-5 record on the year.

“Something like that, saying it’s a bad culture, they’re not there every day with us working, grinding, watching film, working out, getting there early, getting treatment,” senior offensive lineman Andrew Stueber said.

“So it’s noise that I don’t worry about, that I don’t listen to much.

I play for the guys around me and listen to my coaches.”

Later, pressed on the culture, he said this: “If the powers that be decide there is a problem, then so be it. … I listen to my coaches, I believe in them.”

Steuber’s right that it’s unfair to speculate on what goes on in Schembechler Hall in the middle of each week. We’re not there.

We only see the end product.

But if the end product is handing a directionless Penn State its first win of the season, with Harbaugh needing to tell his players

when to cheer, then something is irreparably wrong.

If the preparation was there, Joe Milton wouldn’t have wondered who Michigan State linebacker Antjuan Simmons is.

Taylor Upshaw would have had more to say about Penn State running back Keyvon Lee after he ran for 134 yards than, “I’m sure he’s a talented back.”

If the culture was there, then Harbaugh wouldn’t have had to do his best Jeb Bush impression in the third quarter on Saturday.

The Michigan football program finds itself in a hard situation. Between injuries and opt-outs, the top-end talent on the roster is all but gone. They’re depending on the remnants of a decimated 2017 class and a thin 2018 class to be the upperclassmen leading the team. They’re subject to intense COVID-19

protocols and — though they haven’t needed to go on pause — offensive line coach Ed Warinner made reference last Wednesday to guys missing time because of contact tracing.

That’s all real, and there’s every chance the season would have gone differently if not for a global pandemic out of anyone’s control.

But every FBS program in the country is dealing with the same issues on some level. And this season — and all the baggage that came with it — is exactly what Jim Harbaugh very publicly asked for.

“We’re gonna be ready to play a game in two weeks,” he said on Sept. 5. “Get the pads on and our guys have trained without a pause since June 15. So that’s our position. We’re ready to play as soon as we possibly can.”

He said those words at a protest to which he showed up, marched on the Diag and publicly went against his boss’s boss, the University president. And for what?

“Getting better every day,” Stueber said, when asked what there was left to play for. “Obviously we still have the big team, OSU, at the end of the year. We just need to click on all cylinders and we’re in contention for that game.”

Setting aside the almost laughable notion that Michigan can compete with Ohio State right now, it’s hard to imagine that University administrators aren’t asking themselves the same question right now.

“That’s much more of a medical decision and it’s much more of a University responsibility than it is a football coach’s deci-

sion” University president Mark Schlissel said in October, when asked about Harbaugh’s antics. “I didn’t play professional football and coach a college team and coach a pro team, and Jim didn’t go to medical school and do a residency and become a licensed physician.”

What is he getting out of this arrangement right now? There are no fans in the stands, and it’s hard to imagine there would be many if that were allowed.

Nobody is making donations based on a 2-4 trainwreck of a football season. This is another headache in a semester full of them, nothing more.

You could say on that day in September that Michigan was motivated to play a season if it got that chance. What exactly happened between then and that moment late in the third quarter on Saturday is hard to say, but it wasn’t anything good.

The program looks broken, the players frustrated and tired.

There are three games left, and it would be an act of mercy if they could hit fast forward.

You’d say the misery reached its bottom on Saturday when Harbaugh needed to tell his players to get up and cheer, but Michigan has shown an uncanny ability to sink to lower and lower depths each week.

Lord only knows what the next three games have in store.

Sears can be reached at searseth@umich.edu or on Twitter @ethan_sears.

Michigan football coaches need to wear their masks correctly BRANDON TRACHTENBERG Daily Sports Writer

As of Monday, there have been well over 13 million COVID-19 cases and more than 265,000 deaths in the United States. In the state of Michigan alone, there have been over 350,000 cases and more than 9,000 deaths.

Regardless, a football season is being played at Michigan — for now.

The Big Ten joined the rest of college football in November, stumbling its way through the pandemic season. So far, 108 games have been cancelled or postponed.

All these protocols and facts Harbaugh praised worked out for Michigan, until the team paused all in-person activities on Monday after multiple presumptive positive tests inside the program. The results are now undergoing confirmatory PCR testing.

That’s not too surprising, though.

COVID-19 is not something to be played around with.

Yet, it is treated as such every Saturday on Michigan’s sideline and others around the country.

Coaches constantly remove their masks or face coverings to talk to referees, their coaching staffs and players. In other cases, masks will just lazily dangle below their noses.

Masks are not effective unless they cover up the mouth and nose, preventing any respiratory droplets from spreading. People release particles into the air by breathing, coughing and even talking.

And yet, coaches remove their masks when they talk, letting their germs roam free.

They can put their mask back on right after but the damage has already been done.

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Michigan Football coach Jim Harbaugh’s incorrect mask-wearing brings the shortcomings of pandemic prevention plans into clear focus.

Infections can be dramatically decreased by just covering up your face, even if it is for a few minutes. It’s all about limiting others’ exposure to the virus if someone is infected.

While it may be a charade for coaches and benched players to wear masks during games, the sentiment is still very important and it could still save people from getting sick.

There are bound to be dozens of times throughout the week when masks are improperly worn during practices and in locker rooms — a problem unto itself. But, the least they could do is just wear them properly for four hours during games.

Unfortunately, that is just too tall of a request for Michigan’s coaches.

Harbaugh is not the only perpetrator but his shortcomings are fairly noticeable. He wears two face coverings during games — one normally then another over his

headset. But, throughout the game, both seem to disappear off his face at times.

By now, millions know about Harbaugh’s duck-billed mask. What does it actually accomplish? The short answer is nothing. Masks have to cover the mouth and nose to catch those droplets. It will be pretty hard to do that when a microphone is keeping it from sealing his face.

Harbaugh’s failure directly contradicts his logic of being safe.

“Wearing the mask pretty much at all times. I use a double mask during the game,” Harbaugh said.

Maybe the idea gets lost in the intensity of the game. But how can you spend months bragging about your program’s protocols when you yourself fail to comply with a simple mask mandate?

“Everybody’s tested daily.

We’ve been tested four times since Friday and every day

before that,” Harbaugh said.

“So you’re saying during the game, that’s considered to be a clean field. Even if they’re a presumptive positive the day before the game, night before the game, they’re not allowed to play, which we’ve had, too.”

There’s a lot of backwards logic in there. Testing is effective in tracking the virus but it does just that. All a test does is tell a person if they are infected or not at that moment.

They do not cure the disease or stop the spread.

COVID-19 can take days to incubate in someone’s body, so a person can be negative one day and positive a few days later. Harbaugh seems to think he is living in a utopia where a negative means the individual is immune for that day and is good to go.

You’d think that five canceled or postponed games and counting in the Big Ten alone — where all teams are tested daily — would alert him to the flaws

in that logic.

Precautions are still necessary even if the entire team is tested multiple times.

The best way to prevent the spread is still by wearing a mask. So what does the team still need to do on the sideline and in the locker room? Wear a mask.

Regardless of Harbaugh’s rationale, it is a problem.

And Harbaugh does not deserve to be singled out because he is not the only coach at Michigan or in college football to fail to wear a mask correctly. But, he is in the spotlight as a big-time college football coach at a major university. Millions tune in on Saturdays and he should be setting a better example for those at home.

Eight months into a pandemic that is killing and hospitalizing hundreds of thousands, millions are still failing to don masks appropriately and listen to medical professionals; wearing

a mask is not something that can be messed around with.

College coaches need to be setting a better example for everybody. They have a huge responsibility to wear masks properly, whether they asked for it or not.

Harbaugh agreed to a sevenyear $52 million contract with the University of Michigan to be their head coach. As a former player at Michigan, he knew what was going to be asked of him, whether it was producing a good product on the field or being the face of the university.

Harbaugh accepted the responsibility and now must confront his shortcomings.

Michigan athletics has good COVID-19 protocols and testing in place. But, as revealed Monday, that only does so much. Harbaugh had been very good about making his team wear masks. But at least on the sidelines, he and his staff obviously failed.

It’s impossible to know whether the lack of maskwearing on the sideline Saturday contributed to cases within the program, but it certainly didn’t help.

Watching Harbaugh march up and down the sideline, failing to comply with his own rules and expectations is an embarrassment.

Harbaugh begged for a season amidst a global health crisis. Now he needs to face the music and listen to what the doctors have been saying for months.

As the season stands on the brink of cancellation, the least he could do is try.

Trachtenberg can be reached at btrach@umich.edu and on Twitter @brandon_trach1.

18 — Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Sports

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Michigan sleepwalks through 27-17 loss to formerly winless Penn State ARIA GERSON Daily Sports Writer

First, Michigan lost to a Michigan State team in Year One of a new coach. Then it lost to a team it hadn’t lost to in 30 years. Then, a week after losing to Wisconsin in the biggest loss in Michigan Stadium history, it took three overtimes to beat conference bottom-feeder Rutgers.

On Saturday, the lows kept coming. This time, the Wolverines (2-4) handed Penn State (1-5) its first win of the season, 27-17, the second time this year a team’s first win came against Michigan.

A group of Nittany Lions took a picture on the field afterwards, an empty Big House behind them, the third team in three games to celebrate on the maize ‘M.’ The Wolverines were long gone from the field by then, left only with the crushing weight of another disappointment.

When Jim Harbaugh was asked after the game what his team’s mood was after the loss, he could conjure up just four words: “I mean, it’s disappointing.” At this point

in a season full of questions, it’s one of the few answers Michigan has.

The Wolverines’ last gasp came on their second failed fourth-down attempt of the game with just over five minutes left in the fourth quarter — a quarterback sneak with junior Joe Milton, who started the game as the backup quarterback, under center when he’d been in the shotgun practically every other play. Milton was stuffed.

On Michigan’s first fourthdown attempt in the first quarter, sophomore Cade McNamara was nearly picked off on a passing attempt.

“In the first half, we just weren’t able to extend the drives,” Harbaugh said.

“Had some third-and-short opportunities and then Penn State was able to convert their third-and-shorts, thought that was also, when I said we’re not getting the stop at the critical time and not getting the first down to sustain the drive offensively, that was a big part of the game.”

With Penn State’s top three running backs all out due to injuries, it found a new spark plug in true freshman Keyvone Lee. Lee finished

with 134 yards on 22 carries, including 39 yards on the Nittany Lions’ opening drive, 44 yards on a fourthquarter touchdown drive that extended Penn State’s lead to 10 and 33 yards on the final drive of the game, in which the Nittany Lions drove deep into Michigan territory before opting to kneel out the clock.

Junior running back Hassan Haskins was a similar catalyst for Michigan, finishing with 101 yards on 17 attempts, including a 59-yard rush on a first-quarter touchdown drive. But the rest of the Wolverines’ offense seemed discombobulated — a problem only made worse

by McNamara hurting his shoulder during a goal-line play in the first quarter, which caused problems all game and led Michigan to twice turn to Milton.

Both teams traded field goals in the third quarter after promising drives that stalled out. Then, the offenses found life in the fourth quarter.

First it was the Wolverines, buoyed by an acrobatic catch by freshman wide receiver AJ Henning and topped off with a two-yard touchdown run by Haskins. Then the

Nittany Lions followed with a touchdown of their own thanks to 49 rushing yards from Lee. By then, it was too little, too late for Michigan.

The Wolverines’ chances of going even .500 are slipping away. A reporter asked after the game if Michigan’s players felt like their backs were up against the wall. But for that to happen, there would have to be some semblance of suspense, some semblance of something left to play for.

Senior tackle Andrew Stueber maintained that there was.

“We have the big team, OSU, at the end of the year,” he said.

“And we just need to click on all cylinders and I think we’re in contention for that game.

We’ve got Maryland too and so we’ve gotta come together, come every day and play.”

But the days have passed when the Wolverines have been true contenders against Ohio State, and even a win against Maryland (a team Penn State lost to) is no guarantee.

Every week, it seems, is a new basement for this program. Then the bottom falls out again.

ALEC COHEN/DAILY