The Unbelievable Issue

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Table of Contents MAIN FEATURE ESSENTIALLY UNESSENTIAL - PAGE 4 Keithly Vite reflects on her role as an unessential worker during the pandemic, and why New York City’s government needs to do better at protecting both small businesses and the people they employ.

CAN I BELIEVE YOU?: HALF-TRUTHS AND HONESTY IN A POST-COVID WORLD - PAGE 15 Patrick Hill examines our desire to socialize in a pandemic-ridden world, and what our limits are when it comes to the safety of ourselves, our friends and our community.

COMMUNITY

THOUGHTS

GAME, SET, MATCH - PAGE 7 Nicole Delp writes about her experience as a member of Pratt’s women’s tennis team, and why sports are so crucial to her well-being at school.

ELECT WOMEN OF COLOR - PAGE 19 Naomi Desai emphasizes the importance of supporting and electing more women of color to office; particularly, Dianne Morales in New York City’s mayoral race.

PAMELA COLMAN SMITH: THE ARTIST THAT SHAPED TAROT - PAGE 9 Lauren Jonaitis highlights artist Pamela Colman Smith, a Pratt alumni and the often unrecognized designer of the famous tarot card designs we see today.

GAMESTOP STOCK BATTLE - PAGE 22 Tessa Schober addresses the recent GameStop stock battle on Wall Street, and why it’s a wake-up call to analyze our roles in modern day capitalism.

CULTURE BRICK NERMON AND THE RISE OF HYPERCOMEDY - PAGE 12 Edward Liaboh analyzes TikTok persona Brick Nermon, his strange breed of internet comedy and why it’s so particular to Gen Z’s sense of humor.

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Letter From the Editor Prattlers, It’s both an understatement and completely reasonable to say we’re living in unbelievable times right now. Tuning in to the news feels like an exercise in abnormality, and recognizing how strange life has become is an everyday occurrence. As these observations continue to become the norm, finding a way to talk about them also becomes important.

“The Unbelievable Issue” was born out of a need to pick apart the absurd and find instances where we can reflect and repair. This edition of The Prattler includes student perspectives on subjects ranging from the recent Wall Street drama, the need for political diversity and the complexity of socializing in a pandemic. There are profiles of unique creators, and new findings about our institute and its alumni. It’s a glance, as always, into what Pratt students are currently thinking about, and a way to let readers know that even in these isolated times, the opinions far surpass being so.

Those collective stances are dire now. The Prattler stands in solidarity with the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community here at Pratt and beyond. There is a living list of resources/ways to support the continued fight toward racial justice on prattleronline.com, and we welcome any new additions and discussion.

We hope the content of this issue, as well as its related web articles, are both insightful and educational, and allow you to examine the world we’re living in.

Thank you for reading.

Carly Tagen-Dye Editor-in-Chief EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Carly Tagen-Dye MANAGING EDITOR Nina Martineck

CREATIVE DIRECTORS Tien Servidio Jessica Tasmin ADVISORS Christopher Calderhead Eric Rosenblum

Cover by Tien Servidio prattleronline.com Instagram: @Prattler theprattler@gmail.com

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Essentially Unessential KEITHLY VITE ART BY NOELANI FISHMAN

Let me be the first to say that my job should not be open for business.

As a receptionist at a waxing salon, where women get Brazilians, leg waxes and eyebrow shaping, I am an unessential employee. To keep business from sinking, the owner has purposefully understaffed us, which means that when I or the waxers have symptoms, we’re not allowed to stay home.

I risk the health of myself, my roommates and everyone I come into contact with so that people can have smooth genitals. That’s not okay. It is, however, the reality that many unessential workers deal with in the face of both a global pandemic and leadership that values economic gain over public health.

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When someone comes into the salon, I’m at the front desk to take their temperature. It always reads between 92 and 95, which makes me think that maybe it’s not accurate if every single person who comes in is hypothermic.

I then ask patrons three mandatory questions: have you had any COVID-19 symptoms, positive tests or close contact with a confirmed or suspected case in the past 14 days?

At this point, they will either tell me no (with no way of knowing whether or not they’re telling the truth), or they will say something stupid, like the woman in a parka who’d just stomped snow off her boots and told me she tested negative in June. Sometimes people will say they just had a baby and their test at the hospital came back negative.

Sometimes I’ll look down to see three children in tow, and, upon letting that person know the kids can’t wait in the building, be met with a tantrum from the adult. The worst is when someone tells me, “Oh, I don’t go anywhere,” only to have freshly applied acrylic nails, eyelash extensions and shopping bags from three different retail stores on their arms. This is the kind of public I have to face every week as an unessential worker during the pandemic.

After questioning, I lead the customer to their 4ft x 4ft room with a cot and examination table, after which a waxer will come in and get real close to the person, who usually wants a Brazilian wax.

Finally, the customer will come back to the front desk and either hand me money or check out with a card on the iPad. Sometimes, I have to click all the buttons on the iPad for them, because they feel very comfortable being touched by strangers but not

comfortable touching a frequently disinfected surface. If they want to leave a cash tip, I hand them a small tip envelope with their waxer’s name on it. I have to say, out loud, to another adult, “Please don’t lick this.” A lot of times they won’t listen and will pull their mask down, lick the thing, hand it back to me and pull their mask back up, as if nothing in the world could be wrong with what they just did.

What complicates my feelings about the customers is that they are often the sweetest people I’ve ever met. They bring pastries and coffee for everyone in the building and tell me they like

my eyelashes. A lot of them are also essential workers; it’s not unheard of for a teacher or nurse to stop by on her lunch break. Who am I to tell a nurse that she’s selfish for getting waxed?

Before the pandemic, I would’ve liked my job. It’s not physically grueling, I get to sit most of the time and, because of the nature of the industry, the customers are mainly women, so I don’t get sexually harassed. I recognize that I’m neither extremely lucky or extremely unlucky.

According to a December report from Spectrum News, personal care services, such as waxing, contribute to

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more coronavirus spread than gyms.

It’s still less than retail, and is a miniscule percentage compared to the spread of household gatherings. This is in stark contrast to last spring, when unessential workers and people working from home were 84% of those hospitalized with COVID-19. The data is outdated and incomplete, but it’s clear that while my workplace isn’t safe, it also isn’t the driving force behind the spread.

The problem, as always, lies with the leadership. If I could choose one person’s face to gently shove into a muddy ditch with my boot, it would be Governor Andrew Cuomo. I’ve been waiting for Cuomo to shut New York down for months. I thought it would happen after Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year’s, when rates hit more than 3% (according to Gothamist), then 10% (according to Andrew Cuomo’s official website) in any given area. Each time we hit the target, however, the targets kept moving until I realized that the only way we’d shut down was if half the city was infected. It didn’t matter that new infection rates were almost double spring’s peak (19,400 new cases in a day in January compared to 12,200 last April, according to a New York Times report) as long as people kept purchasing.

And still, I will be the last person in the state of New York to receive a vaccination because I’m not essential.

I understand the economy is important and we don’t want small businesses to collapse. But those businesses are going to collapse either way. No matter how much risk we put ourselves in, it isn’t enough to keep us afloat without serious

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assistance from the government. Three stores around the salon have closed.

My boss has me calling forty previous customers a day to try to squeeze out a little bit of profit, but most of them say that they don’t feel comfortable going out in a pandemic.

Despite the risk—despite all the customers who won’t put their mask over their nose, being forced to water down the isopropyl alcohol spray and being so understaffed that having symptoms is more of a “throw on an extra mask during your shift” situation— being open just means that businesses are dying slower and employees are paying the price. I could quit, of course, but it took me a semester and a half to find this job, and that was in a healthier economy that wasn’t drowning in desperate people looking for safe work and employers slashing their workforces in half to cut costs. I could take a break from working altogether if it wasn’t for the fact that I don’t qualify for unemployment and have to pay my bills somehow.

As a college student with limited availability, marketable skills and access to financial security, I’m lucky that I’m able to work at all. However, that doesn’t change the fact that my situation puts me at risk, and leadership hasn’t done anything significant to protect the health of those who work in unessential industries.

Game, Set, Match NICOLE DELP ART BY ALEX MOON

The first tennis match of the season is always a mixture of anxiety and excitement. I’ve experienced those feelings since seventh grade, and it was no different when my first match at Pratt came around. What I love about tennis is that nobody tries to one-up anybody else or be the star. It’s nice to think strategically and rely solely on myself.

My entire freshman year at Pratt was monotonous. The first year for a writing major consists of critical thinking classes, with only one class that focuses on creative work. I started feeling like I didn’t belong because I didn’t think or write the same way everybody else did.

I missed having tennis to distract me from stress and help release my built-up anger from the isolation and negative experiences in the classroom.

Sophomore year ended up being different. At the end of the first semester, I received an email stating that there were two open spots to join Pratt’s women’s tennis team. I was nervous during tryouts. When balls went out of bounds, I would silently curse myself as punishment, repeatedly

chanting that I needed to do better. I had never wanted anything so badly.

I spent the following weeks anxiously waiting to hear if I made the team.

Before the second semester started, I got an email congratulating me on joining the team. When I returned to campus, I hadn’t felt that thrilled to be back at school in years. School actually felt like school again.

I didn’t get to play in the first match of the season, but I didn’t mind. I enjoyed sitting on the sidelines and looked forward to playing in the second match. By the time

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it came, everything was shut down due to COVID-19. School was moved online for the remainder of the semester and the rest of the winter sports season was canceled.

I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I had finally felt that things at Pratt were going to get better. Then the entire 20202021 athletic season was canceled too.

As the school year wears on, I constantly worry about whether or not I’ll be able to play tennis again. I’ve also been thinking about whether or not I should come back to campus at all. It’s not worth it for me, as a writing major, if sports aren’t brought back too. All my classes can be done online; there’s no reason to return.

Tennis was the only reason that I dealt with going to school. To some, putting so much emphasis on a sport might sound ridiculous, but not to me. I associate good academic experiences with playing a sport, and now that has disappeared again. I hope I get the chance to play again before the end of my senior year.

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Pamela Colman Smith: The Artist that Shaped Tarot LAUREN JONAITIS ART BY LAUREN JONAITIS

The Moon tarot card depicts two wolflike creatures staring up at a rendition of a golden moon. Spiked rays jolt around it, which may represent rays of moonlight beaming through the darkness or a moment when the moon is in line with the sun behind it. The focal point of the moon is its facet; a simple black line connects a brow, nose, lips, chin and eyes that face down to Earth before connecting back to the curve of a waxing crescent. The background is a warm, minty green with black lines defining mountains in the distance.

A single yellow path leads from the mountains to a patch of lime-colored grass, where the wolves are perched and two pillar-like structures frame the moon from the ground. That minty color is introduced again in the foreground as water, with a lobster crawling out from a shallow shoreline, its pinchers raised upward.

My first introduction to tarot was seeing this image of the Moon on a poster in an antique shop when I was little. Since then, I’ve seen renditions of tarot card illustrations, usually the popular Major Arcana, plastered on wall tapestries,

shirts and mugs. These cards consist of well-known names and symbols like the Moon, the Sun, the Fool, Death and Wheel of Fortune, among others.

Each card has its own meaning, which is determined by the symbol on the card, as well as the cards that surround it.

While it’s common to see various renditions of tarot symbols on a millennial’s phone case or as a wall clock in a trendy cafe, not many people know who originally designed them.

Pamela Colman Smith crafted the original tarot symbols in 1909. Smith was born in England in 1878, but spent time living in Jamaica and the United States. Her Jamaican mother and American father tied her to each place until her artistic endeavors drew her to Pratt Institute in 1893, at only 15-yearsold. Here, she studied many art forms including illustration and painting.

As a current art student at Pratt, I couldn’t help but wonder what the school was like only six years after being founded, or what an art program looked like in 1893. I was drawn to

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Pratt for its old bricks and greenery, in contrast to a modern city skyline in the distance. I always felt a sense of home while sitting in a patch of grass and wondered what artists sat there to study before me, what legacy they lived and what experience they had at the Institute. It makes me wonder if my name will be lost in time, only to be found through a random Google deep dive.

Smith didn’t graduate from Pratt. After both of her parents passed away by the time she was 21, Smith moved back to England and traveled alongside other artists in the Lyceum Theater group, led by Bram Stoker, Ellen Terry and Henry Irving. There, she helped with costume and set design, and illustrated posters, pamphlets and books.

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Smith showcased her work in a few magazines, and even created her own called The Green Sheaf. She wrote creative essays, such as one that speaks to her experience of creating art with synesthesia, a condition where different sensory pathways interact and allow for senses to be experienced in a different way. For Smith, this meant an ability to “see sound.” She also illustrated various novels by authors she befriended during her time in the theatre group, including Bram Stoker’s last novel, “The Lair of the White Worm.”

In 1901, while still in England, Smith was introduced to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a secret society where occultists and mystics

convened. The organization practiced various spiritual forms involving magic and rituals. It was here that Smith eventually met A.E. Waite, a poet and scholarly mystic. Waite was working on revisioning the tarot deck and creating a key to the symbols for each card.

The original deck he created was named the Rider-Waite tarot deck, but really, he was a co-creator with Smith.

Waite commissioned her to illustrate his updated deck after describing the meanings for each card. She created the illustrations for 80 cards.

Smith captured a fairytale whimsy in each of her designs. Characters are adorned with decorative robes and crowns, knights ride majestic horses and stained glass windows are brightly puzzled together. Smith also fills the space with intricate patterning that reminds me of wallpaper in the 1800s: braided, weave-like patterns, small, delicate floral prints and clouds that mimic a puff of magical smoke.

Smith’s line work and use of strong, moody colors to convey emotion was influenced by Romanticism. Her tarot cards are lightened by tones of yellow, warm teal and red-orange, and highlighted with white. Hatching and dots are used to create skin tone, garments and a more robust landscape.

After the cards were published and sold, Smith continued creating.

Her synesthesia interested the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and he granted Smith an exhibition in his gallery in New York in 1907. Smith was the first non-photographer to exhibit in Gallery 291, though the popularity of her work didn’t arise until after her death. She passed away in her England apartment

in 1951. All of her belongings and art were sold to pay off her remaining debt; she didn’t make much during her lifetime.

I discovered Pamela Colman Smith by accident while searching the origins of tarot. It was late at night, and I had about eight tabs open, each pointing me to a different path, until I stumbled upon Smith’s name. I found it unbelievable that I hadn’t heard of Smith prior to the random search.

I thought back to the poster of the Moon card I saw when I was young and recalled being struck and inspired by her semi-realistic, Renaissance-esque illustration. The moments connected like some sort of poetic, “aha” moment.

I might’ve never learned about her if I hadn’t searched for information on tarot myself.

Finding Smith and learning about her life and our shared academic experience allowed for a deeper connection to my original introduction to tarot as an art form, as well as my connection to Smith as an artist. With her work being so widespread and replicated, Smith’s name needs to be remembered.

Many don’t know of her contributions to tarot, even after her illustrations are mass-produced with little to no credit.

As a creator, I think it’s vital for an artist to be accredited for their work, even after a century has passed. The story of Pamela Colman Smith shouldn’t be lost in time.

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Brick Nermon and the Rise of Hypercomedy EDWARD LIABOH IMAGES VIA TIK TOK

“…The comic mask is ugly and distorted, but does not imply pain.” – Aristotle, Poetics The work of Brian Faltyn, better known to his fans on the online video service TikTok as “Brick Nermon,” subverts not only traditional expectations of comedy and filmmaking, but the more modern, hip, post-ironic motifs of the “hyperaware” comedian as well. Common themes of his work include kissing his brother, shirtless fighting, rigid and mechanical acting and confused takes on viral TikTok trends.

I was introduced to Faltyn’s work through a video in which he wears face paint modeled on DC Comics’ Joker character and says, erratically shaking his head like a football jock pumping himself up for a big game, “Society, you had a chance to fix me. But instead, you broke me.” What struck me about this video was Faltyn’s apparent misinterpretation/misrepresentation of the Joker, a famous meme in and of himself, especially since his adoption by (for lack of a better term) the “incel community” and “irony posting” collectives like “Gang Weed” (@gang_weed_on_ig).

But Faltyn’s novel misinterpretation doesn’t stop at the ironic. He goes so far as to subvert the expectation of an ironic Joker. Something about Faltyn’s erratic movement, his shirtlessness or just the look in his eyes contributes to a paradoxical suspicion that he isn’t even clued into his predecessors’ work with this character but that, somehow, he must be. Faltyn’s work exists in a kind of liminal space: between irony and sincerity, between hip and lame.

Like other examples of hypermedia (such as the recent “Hyperpop” phenomenon), Faltyn’s “Hypercomedy” is emblematic of the Gen-Z, or “Zoomer,” mindset.

“Hyper” implies an accelerated sense of speed; analogous to the pace at which our behavioral information economy perpetuates itself. The media of the 21st century must be rapidly assembled and disseminated, and, in order to keep up with the speed of post-post-postmodernity, Zoomers, having internalized a DIY ethos as part of a “global village” mentality, eschew high production values and cogency in favor of new, less definable methods of cultural production.

Memetic impulses are central to this process. Brick derives his comedic impact from this new social dynamic, where the effect of inside jokes between close friends has been successfully translated

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into a kind of super-commodity. Comedy, for Faltyn, is abstracted from the typical vehicle of sensible, lucid jokes. Timing seems to take the brunt of his creative labor. His work belongs to a wide network of accelerated, avant-garde comedy, which implies both the emancipation of the performing subject from traditional rules and the establishment of new ones.

A critical part of Faltyn’s strategy is cultivating a perfect lack: a lack of preparation, a lack of organization, a lack of character and a lack of, well, jokes. The ostensible lameness or privation, which makes his content so fascinating, is due, in part, to Faltyn’s style. It has an air of anonymity about it: Under Armour t-shirts, training sneakers, athletic shorts; all seemingly composed with no coordination whatsoever.

But is this simply a part of the Brick Nermon character? In an interview with Jesse Yeltin for his new website, Blowout, Faltyn explains, “Regarding the fashion style, it’s [sic] whatever clothes my mom buys.”

Is he being serious? Frankly, it’s hard to believe otherwise.

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Can I Believe You?: Half-truths and Honesty in a PostCOVID World PATRICK HILL ART BY DEV KAMATH

Recently, I received what, in any other year, would be a pretty normal text: Hey! I just got back in town. Wanna grab coffee?

It seemed innocent enough: just a classmate I hadn’t seen since March, wanting to reconnect. The more I thought about it, however, the more unclear it seemed. How long, exactly, had they been in the city? Did they fly here? Had they landed at JFK, immediately whipped out their phone and sent this question to everyone they knew?

I stared at the message for a good while and thought about asking those questions, but each question brought up something else. Did they have roommates? Did they check their temperature? Was it rude to ask them to get tested? This led me to the nowdefault phrase, “Have you been safe?”

In a time where everyone is looking out for themselves, “safety” becomes a

meaningless word. We all have our own interpretations. For some, that means movie theaters, release parties and bars.

For others, it means letting guests take their masks off. For the CDC, it means recusing yourself from everything until the vaccine is in your arm.

I consider myself fairly good at this. As a hermit-type, I enjoy having little to no social responsibility: no obligations, no niceties, no dates to keep. I doublemask, hand sanitize and keep my distance, but I also give myself a certain amount of leeway. Everyone has a vastly different interpretation, and we’ll bend them to suit our needs.

Back in August, when the case counts were significantly lower, I was out of weed. We’d found ourselves a blackmarket delivery service that, while “safe,” tacked on a hefty premium. I wanted to go in-person for the first time since March. This would’ve been fine if I lived alone, but I don’t. If I got sick, I put my partner and our roommate in danger. So we called a meeting.

Perhaps you have a similar system in your household. We all sat in the living room and I pitched my idea.

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“Listen,” I said. “Yes, this is risky. But think of the savings!”

My roommate Katie, a particularly COVID-cautious person, said “No way.”

My partner, Anahita, was somewhere in the middle. We came to an agreement: I could go, so long as I was in and out in 15 minutes.

Cue me, in a basement somewhere in Bushwick, surrounded by a dozen different people, all unmasked. The “Curb Your Enthusiasm” theme played in my head. It was a stupid decision, and I knew there’d be some price to pay. I was shepherded into a different room where the dealer had set up a table. I took a certain glance at some product in a jar before he (the only masked one in the building) removed the lid and held it up for me to smell.

I don’t know if it was some craving for normalcy that led me to this point. It didn’t hit me that removing my mask and touching a jar to my nose was an obviously stupid move. It also didn’t hit me that this guy had probably been offering whiffs to everyone all day. I purposefully breathed in that air.

Remember when I said I was good at this? I think I need to take that back now.

When I got home, product in hand, I was petrified. I tried to avoid taking off my mask as long as I could. I took mouthwash, vitamin D, Tylenol; anything to try and knock off any germs I might’ve encountered. I danced around the subject, saying,“Oh, yeah, it was quick,” knowing fully that if someone got sick, it was my fault. It was terrible, but it raised a question: If that was going through my head, what was going through everyone else’s?

Everybody has to make a compromise somewhere. Your compromises are likely much less stupid than mine. If we’d all been gifted the privilege to have our teleconferences beautified, groceries delivered and walled-off compounds cleared of any humans, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess. But what does it mean for us when these white lies can mean life or death?

I get it. It’s hard to say no to the people you love, especially after a year of separation.

There are ways to buffer it: ventilation, testing, air filter setups, but none of them actually keep us 100% safe. It’s awkward to speak to someone through a mask, and what’s the point if they’re going to be in your house for long enough? The restaurant you love is open again, and it’s only 25% capacity—what’s the harm?

You could meet outside, but in a New York winter, that is not a pleasant activity. For every safety measure, there is a sacrifice.

For every dedicated mask-wearer, there is a stoned idiot like myself. It’s a matter of trust in a time where trust is a very fickle thing.

Belief has been a very difficult thing during the last four years. With a president who consistently peddled in mistruths, who hid the severity of this pandemic, everyone has had to pick and choose what they want to trust. Where other governments worldwide have stepped in with assistance, mass testing and lockdowns, we’ve been left to the one device Americans seem to love most: personal responsibility. In a time where trust in the system is at an all time low, we’ve been asked to trust each other more than ever.

There’s hope that, with a Biden presidency, we might have some sense of normalcy.

I think the damage is already done.

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This is compounded by the way COVID-19 spreads. Estimates from the British Medical Journal put asymptomatic transmission at 17-20% of the COVID-bearing population.

For those of us who can’t do numbers, think of it like a grocery store where one in every five apples has a razor blade inside.

Sure, some of the apples might cut your throat open. But you’ll eat around it and be safe. Now imagine that apple, even if it didn’t kill you, gave you the power to slit one of every five of your own friends’ throats at random. Do you let the people in your life know? Do you cancel your plans? Do you get a test and hope for the best? It’s all about how far you and the people in your life are able to go.

As Pratt students in the city, most of us are living in areas struggling with COVID-19.

This global situation will only intensify the effects of gentrification. Look no further than the empty storefronts on Myrtle Avenue or your own neighborhood.

We talk a big game when it comes to community and the importance of marginalized lives, but we’re willing to gamble with them. Fun as it may be, New York City isn’t our playground. There are lives at stake, particularly for the QTBIPOC and elderly who made this city what it is, who had a hand in creating the culture you came here for and who are at the most risk of being killed by our irresponsibility. Every positive case has a ripple effect. We’re not just being asked to keep our circles safe: we are tasked with keeping our entire community safe.

It’s a lot to process, and nobody is right! We live in deeply subjective times. My solution, rash as it may be, is to wait. I never got back to that text from my friend; it’s been sitting in my messages since January. I didn’t want to have the sit-down meeting.

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I didn’t want to ask how safe they’d been.

I didn’t want to wait in another testing line.

I can make coffee at home.

It may be different for you. Life is endlessly complicated. How we navigate that is built on trust and honesty: two things that are in short supply these days. We’re human. We want to do human things, mistakes and white lies included. All we can do is keep ourselves safe...whatever that means.

Elect Women of Color

NAOMI DESAI ART BY NAOMI DESAI

When Kamala Harris became senator of California in 2017, I was 14-years-old. I couldn’t have cared less about politics at that point, as I was just trying to pass freshman biology, but I still remember the first time Harris came on my radar.

I’d just been picked up from school and was dozing off in the car when my dad turned on NPR. This was 2018, and Harris was grilling (now) Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing, and uplifting Dr. Christine Blasey Ford in the process. While I always knew that

it was substantially harder to be a woman, I’d never heard someone outright point this out to a man while sounding so confident. Looking back, I’m ashamed that I barely cared about Kavanaugh’s hearing and Harris’ role in it. Even though I didn’t know much about her, I knew that Harris was one of my senators in California. Hearing her intelligent line of questioning towards Kavanaugh filled me with immense pride because she was just like me: a Bay Area native, a child of an Indian immigrant and a woman.

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I felt this same pride when Joe Biden announced Harris would be his running mate in the presidential election. I felt it again as I teared up during her victory speech, after long, brutal days of waiting for election results.

As I watched Harris take her oath to office frwom Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the only woman of color ever on the Supreme Court, I felt like I’d proved everyone who’d ever doubted me wrong. Someone like me was now the vice president.

However, with Harris now in the White House, it means that the almost 30 year streak of having two female senators from California is ending.

Alex Padilla has replaced Harris’ position in Congress. While I’m proud that California now has its first Latino senator, I still have conflicting feelings. They are best summarized

by St. Louis Representative Cori Bush: “[We] shouldn’t have to sacrifice our representation at one table to have a seat at another.” While there is a Black and South Asian woman in the White House, there are now zero serving as senators. That is something to mourn.

There are places around the country where women of color have never even had a seat. When I looked at the New York City mayoral race and saw that Dianne Morales, a progressive Afro-Latina, was running, I imagined the millions of women and girls who would be filled with pride that they could do that too. When former presidential candidate Andrew Yang announced he was running as well, my dreams were crushed.

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Like Padilla, I don’t have a problem with Yang. I’m appreciative of the role he’s played in bringing universal income to the table of acceptable progressive policies. However, I don’t know if someone who has a net worth in the millions is the right person to represent New York City again.

When you compare Morales to Yang in terms of policy, there isn’t much difference. Morales is also a supporter of universal income, which she says is to be paid for by a wealth tax.

Unfortunately, many likely haven’t heard of Morales because she is a real life New Yorker who doesn’t have millions of dollars to spend on a major presidential campaign. New York City needs someone who understands the struggles of living in one of the places hit hardest by the pandemic.

“It is my lived experiences as a single mother, my lived experiences as a woman of color, my lived experiences as a first-generation college graduate,” Morales stated in a New York Times interview. Simply put, she knows how to fight for the people of New York City because she’s one of them.

There are millions of hardworking people of color in New York City that make it the magical place it is. Morales is a champion for defunding the police, as well as advocating for affordable housing, universal healthcare, the Green New Deal and a long list of other progressive policies. I don’t doubt that Yang would do great things as mayor, but he will never elicit pride in the Black and Latina women across the country the way Morales would, or like Harris did

for me. There’s a reason why New York City has never had a woman of color as mayor. It’s not because every man who has ever been mayor had better policies or the city’s best interests in mind. It’s because life is systematically harder for women, especially women of color.

I remember sitting on the couch with my Indian immigrant mother and hearing Harris famously quote her own in her acceptance speech: “I may be the first woman to hold this office. But I won’t be the last.” It’s a moment I will never forget. When I was listening to NPR in 2018, I never thought I would see a Black and South Asian woman in a higher office. Now that I have, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to accept anything less, especially when there are millions of women of color who have never dreamed of feeling represented that way, even at the city level.

If you agree with Morales’ policy and are a supporter of women’s rights and Black lives, then what’s stopping you from vocally supporting her campaign?

Change starts with your vote and by examining the implicit biases that are stopping your voice.

Learn more about Dianne Morales here: https://www.dianne.nyc/ and https:// www.instagram.com/dianne4nyc/ Learn more about getting involved here: https://www.dianne.nyc/ volunteer and https://secure.actblue. com/donate/webste

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GameStop Stock TESSA SCHOBER ART BY NOELANI FISHMAN

As we’re living in unbelievable times, it comes as no surprise that a Reddit meme scheme raised awareness of the rigged game against the middle class.

In an attempted “coup” against Wall Street, Redditors managed to raise the price of GameStop’s failing stock in order to fight hedge funds capitalizing off its demise. Today, however, the “short squeeze,” defined as when a stock’s price jumps to very high highs and very low lows, has just become another

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meme instead of a revolution. In the end, the losers were the everyday Joe’s who can’t seem to catch a break.

As I watched the madness, I realized that a class revolution would take much more work than a clever ruse. Growing up in Connecticut, I was never conscious of class until I got older and saw the reality of where I lived. I resided in the middle of two very different towns. Stuck between the richest people and the poorest, I saw how families in one town were forced to wait outside in freezing weather for food

while nobody went hungry in the other.

line for spoiled fruits and vegetables?

I knew that the system was broken. If one looks all over the country, they’ll find that poverty is everywhere. However, theories about poverty and class didn’t radically change me; rather what radicalized me was working at the mobile food pantry where I had the opportunity to serve others.

There is a problem in America. Capitalism has never worked and is failing quicker than ever. Looking at our home away from home, Pratt Institute is located in Brooklyn, where poverty is seen around every corner. As students, we need to seriously ask ourselves what we are doing to further enrich our community. We need to band together instead of sit and soak in what privileges we have. No one is a lost cause if we turn around and start helping our fellow neighbors instead of ourselves.

I started working at the Connecticut Mobile Food Pantry not because I had to fulfill service hours for my school, but rather because my parents had engrained the act of serving others in me from a young age. Growing up, service gave me a sense of purpose.

At the pantry, I learned more about helping others than I did in school. With our hands sore and our feet frozen, we made decisions about whether to hand out or throw away rotten fruit and vegetables, which were not essential items like eggs or milk. Rarely was there fresh fruit that had not spoiled.

But people still took this food because they needed it. Working at the food pantry taught me that even in Connecticut’s richest counties, seldom does the money, or food, trickle down.

This unbelievable moment on Wall Street directly results from the pent-up anger of the middle class, but also from the growing class struggle in America. Stocks, however, do not help those waiting in the pantry line. With the worldwide pandemic causing the lines at food banks and shelters to grow, this isn’t the time to play games with people’s livelihoods. While the rich get a bailout, what would happen to those who wouldn’t? Would they still be waiting in

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