The College Hill Independent Vol. 39 Issue 1

INSIDE: THE PROVIDENCE PUBLIC SCHOOL STATE TAKEOVER THE SPANISH FAR RIGHT, PAST AND PRESENT

A TRIBUTE TO TONI MORRISON

A Brown/RISD Weekly / September 13, 2019 / Volume 39, Issue 01

the

Indy Contents

From The Editors

Cover Girl Olivia Reavey

It’s Friday the 13th. Conmag is full of fruit flies, but we are full of dreams. Below, please see our BUCKET (abbrev. BCT) list for our tenure as managing editors: 1. Make risotto in a rice cooker

News 02 Week in Invasion of Privacy Gemma Sack & Roxanne Barnes

2. Read the Indy every week 3. Learn inDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator

09 Francoists in the Shadows Clara Gutman Argemi

4. Develop a Bullet Journaling routine

Metro 03 We’re Not Gonna Take It Alina Kulman & Sara Van Horn

5. Establish “Disco Hour” at Copy post-1 am

17 Providence Bites Ella Comberg and Miles Guggenheim

7. Get sponsored by a hard seltzer company

6. Bring to light the fissures in our seemingly functional relationship

8. Reflect on our respective Twitter presences

Arts 11 Arriving Before the Light Gabriella Etoniru

9. A midnight smooch We promise this and so much more.

Features 05 To Kancil, With Love Zach Ngin

From our motherbug haven to yours, BCT

13 “It Needs to Be in Our Hands” Mara Dolan & Mia Pattillo Science + Tech 7 The Need for Speed Matt Ishimaru

Mission Statement

Literary 15 Then What Isn’t? Miles Guggenheim

The College Hill Independent is a Providence-based publication written, illustrated, designed, and edited by students from Brown and RISD. We are committed to publishing politically engaged and accessible work. While the Indy is financed by Brown University, we hold ourselves accountable to our readers across the Providence community. The Indy rejects content that explicitly or implicitly perpetuates racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, ableism and/ or classism.

Ephemera 14 Radio Silence Sindura Sriram X 18 Housewarming Alex Westfall and Jorge Palacios

Though this list is not exhaustive, the Indy strives to address these systems of oppression by centering the voices, opinions, and efforts of marginalized people in Providence and beyond. The Indy is constantly evolving: we are always working to make our staff and content more inclusive. Though our editing process provides an internal structure for accountability, we always welcome letters to the editor.

Week in Review Gemma Sack News Jacob Alabab-Moser Izzi Olive Metro Victoria Caruso Alina Kulman Sara Van Horn Arts Zach Barnes Sheamus Flynn Features Mara Dolan Mia Pattillo Science & Tech Miles Guggenheim Matt Ishimaru

13 SEPTEMBER 2019

Literary Catherine Habgood Isabelle Rea Ephemera Eve O’Shea Sindura Sriram X Jorge Palacios Alex Westfall List Ella Comberg Ella Rosenblatt Tiara Sharma Staff Writers Alan Dean Muskaan Garg Ricardo Gomez Jennifer Katz Sophie Khomtchenko Emma Kofman Dana Kurniawan

VOL 39 ISSUE 01

Deb Marini Bilal Memon Kanha Prasad Nickolas Roblee-Strauss Emily Rust Issra Said Peder Schaefer Star Su Kion You Copy Editors Grace Berg Sarah Goldman Marina Hunt Christine Huynh Cherilyn Tan Design Editors Ella Rosenblatt Christie Zhong Designers Kathryn Li Katherine Sang Christie Zhong

Illustration Editor Pia Mileaf-Patel Ilustrators Alana Baer Natasha Brennan Bella Carlos Fatou Diallo Halle Krieger Katya Labowe-Stroll Sophia Meng Sandra Moore Rémy Poisson Owen Rival Charlotte Silverman Mariel Solomon Miranda Villanueva Miranada Villanueva Stephanie Wu Art Director Claire Schlaikjer

Business Somerset Gall Emily Teng

MVP Tiara Sharma ***

Web Ashley Kim

The College Hill Independent is printed by TCI Press in Seekonk, Massachusetts.

Social Media Ben Bienstock Pia Mileaf-Patel Alumni+Fundraising Chris Packs Senior Editors Ella Comberg Olivia Kan-Sperling Chris Packs Tiara Sharma Wen Zhuang Managing Editors Ben Bienstock Tara Sharma Cate Turner

@THEINDY_TWEETS

WWW.THEINDY.ORG

BY Gemma Sack & Roxanne Barnes ILLUSTRATION Eliza Macneal DESIGN Christie Zhong

Week in

Invasion of privacy SHE KNEW HE WAS TROUBLE

FINAL FRONTIER FOR FINANCIAL CRIME

“I think he knows his footprints/On the sidewalk/Lead to where I can’t stop/Go there every night,” sings Taylor Swift in her new song, “I Think He Knows.” Swift clearly did not dedicate these lyrics to her latest suitor, 26-year-old Richard Joseph McEwan, who has recently made headlines for his lack of footprints. On August 30, police apprehended a barefoot McEwan inside Swift's Westerly, RI mansion, and charged him for breaking and entering and willful trespassing. When asked about his exposed toes, he said he was "always taught to take his shoes off when entering someone's home to be polite,” according to the Westerly Sun. Evidently, McEwan’s advances were insufficiently chivalrous to woo Swift, a notorious romantic—perhaps he should have arrived on a white horse instead of his own two (nude) feet. Summer 2019 was a big one for everyone’s problematic favorite parttime Rhode Island resident. In August, she released her seventh studio album, Lover, which became 2019’s best-selling album in the US in just two days, perhaps marking a comeback for the artist whom, in 2018, Forbes deemed “no longer relatable.” But this season has also been a ‘cruel summer’ for Swift, to borrow the title of one of her new tracks. Just two days before McEwan’s break-in, police arrested 30-year-old Jonathan A. Millen also attempting to trespass on her home in Westerly. Police Chief Shawn Lacey told the Providence Journal that Millen had been praying at Swift’s gate, alleging that she “was coming to marry him.” For Millen, "the story of us" looks like a tragedy, but for Swift, it might seem like more of a nightmare. In July, another man was arrested near her Rhode Island home with a bag of burglary tools, claiming he was there to “catch up with Taylor Swift,” according to TMZ. Swift is no stranger to threats from obsessive fans, as the Independent has previously reported. In the last few years, numerous men have tried to break into her various homes or have sent her letters threatening rape and murder, forcing her to take precautions such as taking out a restraining order, carrying bandages with her, and keeping her whereabouts private. These are not the only kind of stalkers who have fixated on Swift—she is one of the most divisive figures among ‘stans,’ or stalker-fans. Swift has millions of loyal fans who are ready to defend her status as a progressive icon, touting her support for gender and sexual equality. In response to her performance at this year’s VMAs (in which she flamboyantly declared her support for the Equality Act), gay dating app Grindr tweeted: “Taylor Swift just said ‘GAY RIGHTS!’ with her #VMAs performance️‍ [pride flag emoji] we stan forever!” But these stances seem stale in our political moment, when other superstars, such as rapper Cardi B, are calling for democratic socialism. Swift is not quite down with the revolution—the Joe Biden of the Billboard Hot 100, we might call her. Yes, queen! For much of her career, Swift has tried to avoid politics, but that has not stopped anyone, from her devoted haters to her reluctant stans, from politicizing her work and public persona. She has been accused of performing queer allyship with “You Need To Calm Down” (the lyrics and video of which cheerily knock homophobia), slut-shaming other women, appropriating Black culture and objectifying Black women in her “Shake it Off” video, and fetishizing colonialism in her Rhodesia-chic “Wildest Dreams” video. And then, simply, there’s the fact that nearly every song of hers oozes heteropatriarchy. “You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess/It's a love story, baby just say, ‘Yes’”? Now that’s my feminist hero. As Black trans activist Kat Blaque wryly quipped on Twitter (in response to the music video for “Lover” being Swift’s first to feature a Black love interest), “If Taylor Swift making out with a black man upsets her Nazi fan base, I’m here for it. Ugh, a woke queen. We stan.” Between both harmlessly online and frighteningly real-life stalker-fans, Taylor Swift can’t seem to avoid drama. But if her music smacks of white feminism and internalized sexism, her male stalkers exude violent misogyny. They all stake some sexual claim to her, from Millen’s relatively innocuous “Love Story” fantasy to the far more menacing assault threats. Swift’s stalkers evidently do not care that Bitch magazine has declared her “White, Mediocre, and Fragile.” Who knows—maybe they will if she ever decides to go to the Women’s March.

“They come from another world!” reads the tagline of the 1956 movie Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, warning us of the impending arrival of beings from outer space, coming to Earth to steal our identities and infiltrate our society. Astronaut Anne McClain has proven sci-fi’s predictive power. In August of this year, McClain’s former wife, Summer Worden, sued the space traveler for stealing her identity to access bank information while in space. McClain, notable for last year's all-female spacewalk-that-wasn’t, enjoyed a small moment in the spotlight, earning the honor of an impersonation from Aidy Bryant on Saturday Night Live. Her name will forever be written in the stars now, however, as the first ever lawbreaker in orbit. Permanent Earth resident Worden alleges that, during her six-month period in space, ex-wife McClain accessed their formerly joint bank account without permission from aboard the International Space Station. Worden has taken the not-so-small step of suing the outer space outlaw for invasion of personal and financial space. During tense conversations about their divorce and custody battle, Worden, a former CIA intelligence officer, became suspicious about the detailed level of information about her finances that McClain seemed to know. Worden discovered her account was receiving extraterrestrial contact when she asked her bank to pull a list of all the different computers that had accessed her account. The computer registered to NASA and currently in orbit was the one that felt far out. Despite the case’s exotic locale, it is following a disappointingly unremarkable legal procedure. Though NASA is less than eager to open up highly sensitive computers to legal investigation, this crime will likely pose no new precedent in the realm of space law. Should an astronaut commit a felony in the vacuum of space, the crime falls under rules similar to maritime law, which is usually reserved for crimes committed under ambiguous national jurisdiction. It is likely, however, that the rules of water crime don’t apply here. Considering that McClain is a US citizen impersonating another US citizen, she will face the gravity of her decisions in America’s regular, though perhaps less-than-stellar, justice system. As associate director for the air and space law program at the University of Mississippi, Michelle Hanlon noted of the situation: “The things humans do don’t stop when we get into orbit.” McClain has made an undeniably great leap for humankind with this first. The Independent is grateful for her reminder that you can literally shoot for the moon, land among the stars, and still be curious how your ex-wife can afford a new car. As space tourism increases and corporations like SpaceX pioneer into the final frontier, we must recognize that wherever people go, all the dark matter within humanity follows. -RB - RB

-GS

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

NEWS

02

WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT

In late June, the Providence Public School District Island Southeast Asians for Education (ARISE), the weeks after the report’s release. Located in public was rocked by a devastating report that implicated report is a prime example of the ways that city govern- schools around the city, these forums were a joint everyone from teachers to governmental officials in the ment continues to dismiss student voices. “We have collaboration between the mayor’s office and the alarming state of the city’s public schools. Released by been telling the city that this is an issue,” Womack told Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE). Johns Hopkins University, the report not only revealed the College Hill Independent in an exclusive interview. Normally sparsely attended, they drew the attenstartling realities of the Providence Public School “Young people have been saying this. But you needed dance of hundreds of Providence residents, many of District, but also quickly became a touchpoint for an an academic stance to validate that yes, there is a whom voiced a strong desire to see the state assume urgent statewide conversation about who is, and who problem.” The report—which cost $50,000—was paid control of the city’s public school district. Although should be, responsible for the city’s public schooling. for by the Partnership for Rhode Island, a nonprofit Infante-Green claimed these forums were designed The report details the state of school facilities— made up of the CEOs of major Rhode Island employers to incorporate the voices of students and parents including crumbling buildings, discolored tap water, like Hasbro Inc., CVS Health, and Brown University. directly affected by the school conditions, they did and the smell of stale urine—as well as the phenom- As Womack emphasized to the Independent, “We not necessarily amplify the voices of those commuenon of teacher absenteeism, widespread physical didn’t need a report to affirm what we’ve been saying nity members. If the forums were meant to truly get violence, and a culture of low expectations. These and experiencing.” the feedback of the community, Womack argues, each disturbing descriptions provide context for an educaperson at the microphone would have been allotted tional environment where, across grade levels, only 14 +++ more than two minutes. For Womack, the forums were percent of students are proficient in English Language simply a means to showcase and validate the findings Arts and only 10 percent are proficient in math. Yet the report, unlike past community feedback, has of the report. In her view, “this whole process has been The report, however, provided little in the way of spurred the government into action. Early in August, extremely disempowering.” recommendations, leaving wide open the questions Commissioner of Education Angélica Infante-Green Following the forums, RIDE released a 71-page of who should take the much-needed remedial steps submitted a proposal to the Council on Elementary proposal for the state takeover, outlining the major and how they should take them. Should the city or and Secondary Education asking for a complete state difficulties identified in the report and formally articstate government have control over the school system? takeover of the city’s schools. Formerly the Deputy ulating the department’s plan. The proposal, which the And how should this authority be transferred? The Commissioner of Education in New York, Infante- city council is set to approve on September 13th, shifts report’s findings seemed to invite the possibility of a Green was appointed Rhode Island’s Commissioner the power structure of the school system: in addition to state takeover, a course of action quickly proposed and in late March, making her the first Latina and first appointing a new superintendent, the proposal grants subsequently approved, which will transfer responsi- woman of color to hold the position. Commissioner Infante-Green control of “the budget, bility for the Providence Public School District (PPSD) After her request was granted, Infante-Green program, and personnel of PPSD and its schools.” from city to state government in early September. assumed all the powers of the mayor, school board, Infante-Green immediately received substantial State takeovers, however, have often failed to improve and city council in an effort to prepare school facili- national positive press for her seemingly bold state educational outcomes and historically disempowered ties for the upcoming school year. She also appointed action, including a feature in the Wall Street Journal majority Black and Latinx communities. an interim superintendent, Frances Gallo, the former that lauded her for coming to Rhode Island to “make The strong local and national reactions to this Central Falls superintendent. The permanent super- change.” report—seemingly universal shock and alarm—belie intendent, who will also be selected and appointed by how unsurprising these educational realities are for the Infante-Green, will take over from Gallo in September. +++ teachers, students, and activists who work and study in The city’s decision to cede power to the state Providence public schools. For Chanda Womack, the government ostensibly resulted from a series of eight The bureaucratic efficiency promised by a state takeFounding Executive Director of Alliance of Rhode community forums that took place in the emotional over is certainly appealing. Many parents are frustrated

03

METRO

13 SEP 2019

Contesting the state takeover of the Providence Public School District

representing their own communities on school boards. “tried everything” to get their opinions heard by With takeovers, Morel argues that government Infante-Green. “Nothing has worked,” Womack told officials often want greater control over the distribu- the Independent. “Even though they have been telling tion of state resources at the expense of communi- the public that we need community input, there is no ties of color: “Across the country, you have rural and action to align with that supposed value.” suburban state legislators essentially resenting that In response, ARISE and other activist organithese resources—that they perceive as their own—are zations took to the legal system, and filed a motion going to districts like Providence,” Morel told the against RIDE with the Rhode Island Center For Justice, Independent. a public interest law center. According to a press However, the history of state takeovers is not release published last Wednesday, the motion was monolithic. In his book, Morel cites the Rhode Island filed on behalf of community organizations, parents, state takeover of Central Falls public schools in 1991, and students; it demands a “clear” takeover plan from after a decade of fiscal and academic challenges. RIDE that emphasizes both transparency and commuAlthough Central Falls public schools were 40 percent nity engagement. Latinx by 1990, the local school board was entirely For Womack, the declaration of legal filing is white, which alienated community members from simple and seeks to address the disconnect between their schools. After the takeover, the state government the community and the school system: “We're basifired the all-white elected school board, and appointed cally saying that any plan that you come up with that an entirely new board that included three Latinx does not center parents, students and community members. Since that takeover nearly three decades voices is not going to work.” Since RIDE’s takeover ago, the school board has maintained substantial proposal gives Commissioner Infante-Green nearly Latinx representation within a district with a majori- unbridled power over the school system, including BY Alina Kulman & Sara Van Horn ty-Latinx population. the power to appoint a turnaround superintendent ILLUSTRATION Pia Mileaf-Patel Yet Morel emphasizes that successes like this are for Providence schools, members of ARISE and other DESIGN Ella Rosenblatt rare. He argues that the vast majority of takeovers community organizations want to be at the table for disempower communities of color, and ultimately those decisions and appointments. “We’re asking you reveal a “flaw in the structure of our American democ- basically to honor your word,” says Womack. “Honor racy that is only familiar to poor communities of color.” what you’re saying by including us.” Because of this dynamic, Morel, who is also a gradOthers in the Providence community have addiuate of Central High School in Providence, opposes tional suggestions for making RIDE’s school reform RIDE’s takeover of schools in Providence. “We have a more transparent. Representative Kislak suggests by a school system mired in disputes between parties— really unhealthy disconnect between the schools and looking for alternative standards to evaluate the takeincluding the city government, state government, and the communities. These connections just don’t exist,” over’s success: “I know we’re going to be looking a lot the teachers’ union—who share authority and respon- Morel told the Independent. “I don’t see how the take- at the [test] scores, and that’s totally valid,” she told the sibility for the city’s schools. With decision-making over addresses this.” Independent. “But scores are not the only thing that power collected under one superintendent and one Additionally, state takeovers do not necessarily matters.” Kislak proposes a community-based process education commissioner, there may be less room for address the chronic underfunding that lies at the to determine the metrics to track the takeover’s effects complacency, as the PPSD, the teachers’ union, RIDE, heart of the educational crisis. Commissioner Infante- on school culture and performance. Debating these the city council, and the mayor’s office would no longer Green has yet to announce an increase in funding for standards would bring much-needed accountability be able to blame each other for the school’s failings. Providence public schools. Instead, her statements to the takeover process, along with providing an addiState takeovers of public school districts have have emphasized the need to use current funding tional opportunity for community input. historical precedent. In Rhode Island, the state’s more efficiently. According to RIDE’s proposal, the Morel suggests an immediate increase in the authority to take control of Providence schools comes state’s annual school aid to Providence has increased number of school psychologists and community orgafrom the Crowley Act, which allows the state to inter- by $84 million since 2011. Despite this funding, RIDE nizers, who can help students handle their mental vene in failing public schools if those schools have argues that public schools continue to underperform health and external hardships before problems not shown improvement after a period of three years, and “systemic problems prevent the district from “bubble up” in the classroom. He also believes RIDE although it does not clearly outline the process for improving.” needs to invest in a pipeline to improve teacher divertaking over entire districts. According to Morel, the level of funding that sity. “That’s a mid-term to long-term goal so that, as But if the history of state takeovers across the students in Providence public schools receive is teachers age out, there is an increase of focus on country are any indication, these transfers of power comparable to the state average. Equality, however, teachers of color, primarily from Rhode Island,” Morel are rarely smooth, and they often exacerbate racial isn’t equity. Many of the educational needs specific told the Independent. inequality. In his book Takeover: Race, Education, to Providence—such as the high percentage of and American Democracy, Domingo Morel, a polit- English Language Learners who need supplemental +++ ical science professor at Rutgers University and a support—require, but do not receive, additional funds. member of the Johns Hopkins review team, argues that State representative Rebecca Kislak also believes According to Morel, there is rightful concern over state takeovers typically obscure their own political that Providence schools are underfunded. “I’m not Providence public schools because the current condiand racist motivations. Although state governments’ convinced that we fund our schools adequately,” she tions should be unacceptable. “But how do we create a outward facing statements may reflect intentions told the Independent. “I think we’re going to need to long-term sustainable, healthy public school system? to improve school performance, Morel believes that have that conversation.” She doesn’t know, however, You can’t do that without having the community be school takeovers are ultimately a political tool to take whether that conversation will happen this year or next part of that.” If anything is clear amid the debates power away from communities of color. In a review at the state house. over the future of Providence public schools, it’s that of 1,000 school districts, Morel found that majoristudents, teachers, and community organizers need to ty-Black districts are more likely to be taken over than +++ be central to the discussion. majority-white districts. Additionally, state takeovers While reposting a Twitter announcement by the are more likely in districts with rising Black polit- Community organizations in Providence spent the Center for Justice, the Providence Student Union, ical empowerment, especially those with increasing entire summer calling attention to the potential pitfalls an organization that works to build student power numbers of Black elected officials. In practice, school of a state takeover at RIDE’s public forums. According in Providence, perfectly articulated the concept: takeovers often mean large and indiscriminate firings to Chanda Womack of ARISE, members of her group, #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs. of teachers and principals, and fewer people of color along with those in other community activist groups, ALINA KULMAN B’21 and SARA VAN HORN B’21 want Brown University to pay property taxes to the city of Providence.

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

METRO

04

TO KANCIL,

WITH LOVE The first time I saw mouse deer, I was sitting at a table in the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Nature Lab, sketching a salamander. From the beginning, something kept distracting me. My professor looked over my shoulder and asked if I had finished three sketches. “No,” I said. “I keep getting distracted by that tiny deer.” She lifted it from its position atop a cabinet of crystals and placed the specimen beside me on the table. “Ah mice nor goats nor deer—in form, they are midway yes,” she said. “This is mouse deer.” between deer and pigs. Scientists consider them living It was the size of a small dog or a large rabbit. Its fur fossils because they have remained largely unchanged was brownish with faded white markings down its for 30 million years. However, the ways that humans chest. Its legs were as thin as the pastel I was using to have made meaning with mouse deer vary widely draw; they were mounted to a wooden stand with thin across both space and time. metal rods. A similar piece of metal poked through its Kancil, as mouse-deer is known in Malay, features forehead. Patches of fur were missing on its side and prominently in Southeast Asian folklore. In these behind its ears. Its glass eyes were cartoonishly large. stories, kancil’s cleverness and self-control make up An old label, barely taped to its base, announced its for his diminutive size. In one of the most widely reproname: MOUSE DEER (Tragulus javanicus). It said that duced stories, kancil tries to find a way across a river. these “shy, solitary, monogamous” animals come from In the river are crocodiles. Kancil calls out to them, Indonesia. It added, “Silent, but they cry when fright- complementing their size and strength. They flex their ened.” I was disturbed for a day, one might say seized claws. They flash their teeth in the sun. Kancil says with longing. The deer remained with me for the rest of that they should wait for a meal bigger than a mere the class. mouse deer—the king wants to prepare a feast for them. He tells them to line up, bank to bank, so he can +++ count them. He jumps onto the back of the first, then the second, then the third. He counts aloud as he goes, Members of the Tragulidae family are mostly found in until he’s across. And he laughs. And he enjoys his South and Southeast Asia, though a single species also own laughter, he who isn’t being devoured. Not being lives in West Africa. The generic name Tragulus is an devoured is the secret goal of an entire life. amalgamation of a Greek word for goat and a Latin Over the course of centuries, stories like that one word for tiny. Technically speaking, they are neither have been told and retold. First in the languages of Southeast Asia, and then in the grammars of colonial rule: philology, ethnology, taxonomy. In the latter case, successive contexts of articulation—Orientalist journals, natural history museum catalogs, children’s books, travelogues—form a genealogy of the Western will to knowledge about Southeast Asia and its people. The first European to assign a scientific name to mouse deer was Pehr Osbeck, an apostle of Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy. Thomas Stanford Raffles, the colonial governor of Java and Singapore, was the first to distinguish between several species of Southeast Asian mouse deer. (His name later designated a subspecies of T. javanicus.) As Donna Haraway has written, men like Raffles were, “with excellent reason, at the forefront of nature work.” This work is critical to the production of race, gender, and empire. Generations of soldiers and naturalists thus laid claims to the skins, skulls, and stories of the smallest deer they had ever seen. +++ During the age of empire, word of kancil began to spread around the world, effecting a transformation from material into spectacle, animal into specimen. “The line that drew the animal body onto the page was essentially the same line that wrote it into sentences,” writes Giovanni Aloi, an art historian. The very word “specimen” is linked to the Latin verb specere – to see. To fill the gap between words and things, taxonomic discourse requires individuals to become fixed and singular, representative of a multitude. But indexing life’s totality requires an equal measure of death: the 1915 catalogue of the British Museum, for instance, lists dozens of killed and collected kancil, with reference to dozens of others in the United States and elsewhere. The earliest taxidermy animals were skins filled with sawdust straw and beaten into shape with wooden clubs; with developments like clay modeling and premodeled urethane forms, the seams became less visible. The greater the degree of realism, the more the constitutive fact of a mounted animal—its

05

FEATURES

13 SEP 2019

Or, the smallest deer in the world BY Zach Ngin ILLUSTRATION Eliza Macneal DESIGN Kathryn Li, Katherine Sang

death, maybe a violent one—is erased. “The power of this stance is in its magical effects: what is so painfully constructed appears effortlessly, spontaneously found, discovered, simply there if one will only look,” writes Donna Haraway. In taxidermy, “it is in the craft of killing that life is constructed, not in the accident of personal, material birth.” The stuff of life itself­—land and water, muscle and movement—is effaced in favor of a frozen moment. Mouse deer entered the Nature Lab’s collection in 2002 as part of a large donation from the Boston Children’s Museum (BCM). According to an email from Rachel Farkas, the museum’s curator of collections, the museum once accepted everything it was offered. “There was little rhyme or reason to collecting local v. exotic flora and fauna,” she wrote. Kancil would likely have been displayed at some point, but the documentation is in progress. The specimen matches an accession from the Peabody Museum of Salem in January 1914, just a year after the BCM opened. According to its website, the Peabody Museum (now the Peabody Essex Museum) dates to “the 1799 founding of the East India Marine Society, an organization of Salem captains and supercargoes who had sailed beyond either the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn.” The society members established a cabinet of curiosities for the objects they collected during their travels. Mouse deer could have been collected by one of them, but the particulars, such as the name of her collector and the reason she caught his eye, remain a matter of speculation, lost to the century since. I can only imagine, to paraphrase La Paperson, how her shape—the cherished hint of a figure—has haunted the maps drawn by his hand. +++ In 2016, the Nature Lab hosted an event called Love for Mouse Deer. The idea for the event began during parents’ weekend at RISD. Paper and art materials had been laid out on the tables, and visitors began drawing kancil. Most of the drawings were left on the table. Betsy Ruppa, the lab’s coordinator, showed them to me. One had heart-shaped pupils, haloed by an electric explosion of red. I LOVE YOU, the caption read. Another, with morbidly large eyes, spoke the word HAIL. Another was captioned with the injunction: free him. “I started it with the drawing, just thinking those drawings were so funny. I wanted people to see them,” Ruppa told me. “Then this student, we were talking, and she said we should do a whole big event about finding her a boyfriend or a love interest.” And so kancil became the “bachelorungulate,” to quote one of the posters produced to promote the event. Students volunteered to contribute baked goods and art. Ultimately, the event featured mouse deer stickers, mouse deer pencil cases, mouse deer cookies, mouse deer cookie cutters, mouse deer pins, mouse deer key

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

ever leave Little Flower alone with the lady’s tenderness. And a five-year-old child, seeing the picture and hearing her family’s reactions, becomes alarmed. In that household of adults, this girl had up till now been the smallest of human beings, Lispector writes. And, if that was the source of the best caresses, it was also the source of rings, mouse deer embroidery, and a miniature felted this first fear of love’s tyranny. mouse deer mounted on a miniature stand with a +++ miniature label. The Nature Lab raised around a thousand dollars and purchased a taxidermy dik-dik During the winter of 1879, the American trading vessel as kancil’s lover. I asked Ruppa how people react to seeing mouse Janet Furguson sailed from Singapore to New York, deer for the first time. “Everything from absolute loaded with a cargo of pepper and spices. Toward the love to absolute revulsion,” she said. “They think beginning of this long passage, a man who had been it’s creepy, they think it’s funny, they think it's dear, aboard recalled, they were met and surrounded by “the sweet. And then they read, ‘Silent, but cries when usual fleet of native bum boats laden with fruits and frightened.’ I mean, come on. What’s not to love?” I curiosities.” Among these curiosities were “some of have spent some time puzzling over what it is that the most graceful, beautiful little creatures one could elicits such strong reactions. Ultimately, it must be well imagine—five full grown live deer, not larger than some combination of its novelty and its familiarity, its small rabbits.” The Janet Furguson’s captain trades patchy fur and tilting head, its tiny legs and arresting an old silver watch for the five of them, and the kancil eyes. “I don’t know what it is. It just gives off some come aboard. They live in a “Deer Lodge” built for them by kind of love, and people love it.” Ruppa said. “I know this is a dumb thing, but I think, what if we had a pet the ship’s carpenter. “In these comfortable quarters mouse deer here? What would its little feet sound like the little midgets made in safety a voyage of 136 days, walking on these creaky old wood floors? It would be becoming great favorites with the crew,” writes Daniel Carter Beard, our correspondent. During those days so sweet.” on the Pacific, one of the kancil—warm, tiny, pregnant, warm—gives birth to a fawn. When discovered by the +++ mate, a buck had eaten the fawn’s legs off, and it was Midway through my work on this project, I realized dead. This smallest of tragedies portends the losses that I had failed to find the language for this obsession. to come. As the ship arrives off Sandy Hook, three of It wasn’t enough to describe kancil’s eyes as wide and the kancil escape from their shelter and perish in the its legs as spindly. It wasn’t enough to say ‘cute.’ I saw cold. “Immediately after arriving at port the fourth, this on the faces of friends to whom I’d tried to explain a fine buck, fell a victim to our (to them) inhospitable what I was doing. I was speaking a lost language. But climate,” Beard writes. “The only survivor, a beauwhen I returned to a short story by Brazilian writer tiful doe … came into my possession; but she only lived Clarice Lispector, I knew I’d found it—I’d been found. about a week. In spite of all my care she too expired, The story begins when a French explorer ventures into killed by the cold breath of our New York winter.” After inscribing the kancil’s death, Beard reaches Equatorial Africa to find the smallest people in the world. Among them lives the very smallest woman for words to describe the week she spent in his home. in the world. Seeing an immediate need for order, and “She was a timid little creature,” he writes, “but would to give a name to whatever exists, the explorer dubs her take food from my hand and allow me to stroke her Little Flower. He pronounces it shyly and with a deli- back.” He marvels and mourns: a pencil had looked cacy of feeling of which his wife would never have judged “thick and clumsy” beside her thin, delicate legs. His him capable: “You are Little Flower.” These words article, published in Scientific American, includes an illustration of the rare thing herself, a pencil in the found their way into italics, into this story. Lispector’s is a story about imperialist nostalgia, frame for comparison, because it is good to possess, good mass media, maternity, laughter. When I read it now, to possess, good to possess. To quote Aloi again, “The line it’s a story about the human will to possess: the place that drew the animal body onto the page was essenwhere love and longing and domination cannot be tially the same line that wrote it into sentences.” This pried apart. Confronted with the smallest woman is the line of longing and love, the line that kills and in the world, all of the old colonial tricks—naming, brings the dead back to life. copious note-taking, visual reproduction—simultaneously express and defer this desire. Little Flower’s ZACH NGIN B'22 has a poster of Clarice Lispector image is printed, life-size, in the color supplement of hanging over his bed. the Sunday newspaper, so she can be possessed en masse. Lispector’s story moves from the Congo to the homes where people encounter this image. In one apartment, a woman cannot bear to glance again at her image, because it pains me so. Another feels such perverse tenderness for the African woman’s smallness that—prevention being better than cure—no one should

FEATURES

06

THE NEED FOR SPEED 5G and the next chapter of the digital divide

Scattered around the streets of Providence, clus- a 5G tower might only transmit within a few hundred constant around 30%, and for the population living ters of gray boxes sit perched atop telephone poles and feet and require line-of-sight to devices. on tribal lands the proportion actually rose slightly attached to the sides of buildings. They are antennas, The infrastructure for 5G networks is being to 36.3% from 35.5%. As wireless technology has and they form the basis for the next generation of deployed with this constraint in mind. Today, trans- improved, the digital divide has often grown larger, not wireless technology, known as 5G. Providence is one mitters placed on telephone poles and lampposts smaller. of several pilot cities across the U.S. that have been every few blocks only give spotty coverage, but a fully The economics of scale are at the root of the digital selected by Verizon as testing grounds for this new realized network might see antennas placed every divide. Because installing fixed internet connections kind of wireless technology. Small sections of neigh- few dozen feet, providing uninterrupted high speed requires running wires to each connected house, it borhoods around the city have been installed with a connection everywhere. Although 5G transmitters are is less expensive per-user to install wired internet in network of 5G antennas. The connected areas include smaller and less expensive than their 4G counterparts, densely populated urban areas as opposed to sparsely parts of Federal Hill, Mount Hope, College Hill, and covering any significant area with a full 5G network populated rural areas. This has given internet service Elmhurst. would require an enormous investment in new infra- providers, which construct and own most of the Although Verizon hasn’t provided official structure. Because of this, 5G networks will likely only internet infrastructure in the United States, strong reasoning for how its pilot cities were chosen, the be deployed in high density urban centers, where many incentives to avoid servicing rural areas. choices reflect its priorities in developing this new users can share the same system. But rural and tribal Some rural and tribal communities have taken the infrastructure. The selected cities are relatively communities already lag behind in rates of access to issue of internet access into their own hands. Internet wealthy, with large populations of residents who the internet. Deploying 5G to only dense urban areas cooperatives, which are owned and operated locally, already use high-end smartphones. The coverage threatens to contribute to a widening gap in internet provide service to many areas that larger internet areas chosen within cities are also revealing. They are access. service providers do not. But in areas that are not usually neighborhoods with high density and wealthy serviced by either, residents are left to rely on slower populations: downtown business districts, college +++ services like dial-up and mobile broadband. campuses, and upscale neighborhoods. The places Some internet service providers have claimed that that Verizon has chosen to install 5G are those that are Although the internet is part of daily life for millions, a fully developed 5G network could replace traditional already some of the most connected. To better under- many Americans living in rural or tribal areas lack wired service and help bridge the digital divide. In a stand the stakes of how this next-generation network is access to adequate connections. In areas with slow public conference call earlier this year, AT&T CEO implemented, it is helpful to look back at the history of or no internet access, residents cannot take advan- Randall Stevenson claimed that 5G could become a cellular networks. tage of the employment opportunities, educational “fixed broadband replacement product.” Statements Generations of wireless cellular technology are resources, and health information on the web. Access like this have been met with intense scrutiny by digital defined by their incompatibility with older devices. to the internet empowers people and communities by rights advocacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Usually, incompatibility results from changes in hard- connecting them directly to resources and informa- Foundation, which have argued that even the most ware, software or both. In each generational change, tion that improve their lives. advanced wireless broadband pale in comparison new kinds of transmitters allow more information While internet access is a boon for education and to high-speed wired connections in terms of speed, to flow across a broader range of frequencies. At the a requisite for participation in much of the modern price, and long-term infrastructure maintainability. same time, new kinds of encoding can compress economy, it has not always been distributed equally. While 5G networks are fast, they are simply not as fast large batches of data more efficiently. Devices need Urban centers tend to have much higher rates of internet as wired options like fiber optic, and are often signifito share the same basic hardware and software with access than rural areas. This difference is often called cantly more expensive for consumers. The developthe surrounding network in order to communicate, so the “digital divide.” The Telecommunications Act of ment of 5G networks is unlikely to close the digital changes tend to happen relatively suddenly as both 1996 gave the Federal Communications Commission divide by replacing wired internet connections. More phones and networks change over, leading to discrete (FCC) broad powers to monitor the deployment of new than that, because of constraints on where it can be generations. phone and internet services along with a mandate to deployed, 5G may exacerbate inequalities in wireless In 1979, the first generation—1G—was the first set correct any inequities that they might find. The Act broadband access. of consumer wireless cellular telephones. In the 1980s, also requires the FCC to document their findings and Because 5G towers have limited transmission the second generation introduced text messaging and progress each year in a Broadband Deployment Report. range when compared with 4G, it’s unlikely that their greater bandwidth for calls. The advent of the third From the very first of these reports in 1999, the FCC use will expand to sparsely populated areas. 5G will generation in 2001 improved data transfer speeds found that rural, low-income, and tribal communi- likely remain limited to urban centers and other areas enough to allow mobile phones access to the internet. ties were at risk of being ignored by internet service that already have higher quality internet connections. 4G, introduced in the mid-2000s, improved data providers. The findings held true over the following 5G deployment threatens to widen the digital divide speeds once again, allowing for video calls and other years. by improving the access of those who already have it high-bandwidth applications that have become the In 2012, the FCC reported that, while only 10.2% while not helping those without. heart of modern mobile phone use. of all Americans lacked access to high speed wireless In the long term, 5G’s biggest potential for affecting 5G offers yet another increase in bandwidth and internet—with the benchmark then set at 5 megabits- the digital divide may lie in its ability to change expecspeed. Current 5G networks produce peak speeds per-second download speed—more than 27% of rural tations of what constitutes a high-speed connection. more than ten times faster than the best 4G networks. residents and 30% of residents of tribal land lacked As more users gain gigabit-per-second 5G connections, The transfer speeds of 4G, measured in megabits-per- access. As overall connectivity has increased, rural services will emerge that require those connections. second, will be superceded by 5G’s gigabits. and tribal areas have become more connected: in Many widely used smartphone applications require 4G But the speed upgrade that 5G offers comes with 2016, the FCC found that only 0.4% of all Americans, levels of high speed internet connection, and were only added infrastructure requirements. 5G networks rely 1.8% of rural residents, and 5.1% of residents of tribal made possible by the widespread adoption and impleon higher frequencies than previous technology. This lands lacked access to 5 megabits-per-second down- mentation of 4G networks. Video-calling and high allows networks to carry more information. However, load. However, between 2012 and 2016, faster 4G LTE definition streaming would not be possible without the higher frequency waves are more sensitive to the mate- supplanted 3G as the widespread standard of mobile infrastructure required to support high-speed wireless rial they pass through. The atmosphere absorbs higher wireless, and the 5 megabit benchmark became internet. Although services that require a 5G connecfrequency waves more quickly than low frequency outdated. When considering a more representative tion do not yet exist, they are surely coming. And once waves, so 5G signals do not travel as far as 4G ones. standard of 10 megabits-per-second, the nationwide they are here, consumers are unlikely to go back to And obstructions like buildings and trees, which have population lacking adequate internet access dropped using 4G-based services, just as internet users today little effect on 4G cell service, can block 5G signals. So to 12.7% from 19.9% over the same time period. would be left unsatisfied by low resolution videos or while a single 4G transmitter can cover several miles, However, for rural populations, the proportion stayed web pages that take minutes to load. Unless efforts are

07

SCIENCE + TECH

13 SEP 2019

BY Matt Ishimaru ILLUSTRATION & DESIGN

Ella Rosenblatt

PROVIDENCE COLLEGE

BROWN WN UNIVERSITY UNIVE UNIVER NIVER ER ERSITY RSITY R Y

FEDERAL HILL

INDIA POINT

East Providence

5G coverage in Rhode Island For now, in Providence and other cities, the introduction of 5G networks means faster connections for a distributed across the country, the newest techtaken to continue to expand new internet technology select few. If you have one of the newest phones and live nology could be a leap forward that leaves many to all users as standards of speed and access change, or work in certain areas, you might notice that web pages Americans behind. rural and tribal communities will be left even further load nearly instantly and apps download in seconds. But most people across the state and across the country will behind than they are now. not experience the benefits of 5G anytime soon. As long MATT ISHIMARU B'20 has no service. as the networks remain restricted to certain areas within +++ a few cities, the digital divide threatens to grow. Without a substantial change to the way wireless networks are

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

SCIENCE + TECH

08

FRANCOISTS IN THE SHADOWS Vox, the nationalist, anti-immigration party that broke uprising that sparked a civil war, during which he They agreed that what is now Spain's main conserinto Spain's Congress of Deputies last April, may be received military aid from Hitler and Mussolini, whom vative party originated from the ruling political class of new to the Spanish political scene, but the far right he considered allies and role models. The Francoist late Francoism. itself is not. The Spanish and international media has era is remembered for its state-controlled takeover In May 1977, two years after Franco's death, Fraga put forward a narrative that portrays Vox as the first of private life, political repression, and exaltation —who had been Franco's Minister of Information and significant appearance of the far right on a national of “national Catholicism.” The dictatorship is living Tourism before serving as the regime's ambassador to scale. While not strictly incorrect, this framing can history, too. If you wander any town in Spain, most the United Kingdom—founded the Alianza Popular misconstrue the role the far right has played in Spanish people over the age of 50 can tell you stories about (AP). That party rebranded itself as today's Partido politics. growing up with the Catholic cross and the portrait of Popular (PP) in 1989, winning its first national elecThe freshman Vox party and its 24-seat début the Caudillo on the classroom wall. tion in 1996. In EU politics, the PP operates within made national and international headlines: this is the Spain's transition to democracy in the late 1970s the same international coalition as Angela Merkel's first time a far-right party has held more than one seat was a complex affair which historians still try to make Christian Democratic Party, the European Popular in Congress since Spain's transition to democracy in sense of today, but it is no secret that the transition Party. The coalition is, according to its website, the 1975, following the end of Francisco Franco's 40 year- was led by the ruling political class of late Francoism— political family of the Center Right. long dictatorship. Vox's victory has pulled the far right the same political class that founded the PP. Since Large families, however, often unite members back into the Spanish political discourse after years 1975, the PP has insisted on telling the story of how it from diverse backgrounds. The European Popular of media coverage that comfortably treated Spain as brought democracy to Spain: “Spain has no violent Far Party is no exception: the Partido Popular's origins are immune to the far right. The Guardian wrote that Vox Right because we in the AP and the PP have made it notably different from those of Merkel's establishment has “gained a foothold unseen since Franco's death.” moderate, constitutional,” Manuel Fraga Iribarne , a group. According to Casanova, the original Alianza The New York Times also described Vox's 2019 break- prominent official in Franco's government, told El País, Popular, while not itself a far right party, was “a coalithrough as the "crossing of a significant threshold" and Spain’s largest newspaper, in 1996. The Far Right has tion of notable Francoists.” Casanova points to Carlos that, for the first time since Franco, “Spain was not also largely been treated as absent from the Spanish Arias Navarro, AP's senatorial candidate for Madrid immune to the advance of far-right parties that have political sphere by the media. during the 1977 elections. Before becoming President made inroads elsewhere in Europe.” The Times also So, when Vox began stirring up political campaigns of Franco's government, he was a fascist veteran of the claimed that “Vox is Spain's first far-right party since in 2014, it received little attention. It first caught the Spanish Civil War nicknamed “the little butcher of the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975,” but this public's interest in 2018 when it gained regional polit- Málaga” in 1937 for overseeing the execution of 4,300 is actually false. Before Vox, far-right sympathizers ical representation in Andalucía, a largely agricultural people in the city of Málaga suspected of supporting found an explicit home in Fuerza Nueva, a neo-fas- region in southern Spain, but it was not considered a the Republican cause. cist party that held one congressional representative main player in the country's political landscape until While Arias Navarro himself was not elected in between 1979 and 1982. after the 2019 national elections. During the lead-up 1977, AP gained 16 seats in Congress that year. Seven of Coverage that presents Vox’s rise as the first to the elections, Atresmedia, the media company those representatives did not support the Constitution instance of the far right having significant weight in that controls the country's televised electoral debates, of 1978, the legal document that grounds Spain's national politics is misleading and even dangerous. banned Vox from participating on the grounds that its democracy today; nor did AP support a 1977 law that Focusing on the institutional absence of far-right screen time would not be “proportional” to its political granted amnesty to the dictatorship's political prisparties before Vox suggests that the far right was previ- import, since it held no seats in Congress. Two nights oners. For Casanova, this behavior, along with various ously absent from the political sphere, when a closer later, when Vox secured those 24 seats, its represen- AP members embodying “the image of the past,” look shows that far-right sympathizers have never tative Javier Ortega Smith delivered a victory speech: shows that AP housed several Francoist higher-ups at lacked a voice in Spanish politics. “After tomorrow, they won't silence us again.” The far right in Spain is hard to characterize, but Who is the “us” that Ortega-Smith was referring Spanish far-right tendencies since Franco have gener- to, and why do they feel silenced? Vox's electorate ally emphasized nationalism, the unity of Spain, and features a higher proportion of male voters, agriculxenophobia. Some far-right factions have espoused tural workers, and active-duty soldiers and veterans of explicitly neo-fascist views and practices, such as the military than any other Spanish party, according “national-Catholicism” and paramilitary violence. to a study by the Spanish Center for Sociological Beyond the national stage, minority far-right Investigations. Its voters oppose Catalonia's indeparties have long had a scattered institutional pres- pendence efforts and are concerned by corruption, ence in local politics throughout the country. Vox's unemployment, and an establishment political class breakthrough is significant because it is the first time they perceive as decadent. Although Vox itself rejects that far-right sympathizers have left the parent party the label of “far-right,” most English-speaking news and grabbed the megaphone for themselves on the outlets categorize it as such, and place the party national stage—but not because it's the first time they within the larger pattern of post-2008 nationalist have had a voice. populism that is sweeping across western, central, The Independent sat down with historians and and now southern Europe. Vox has run campaigns investigative journalists who have traced Spain's far with the slogan “Make Spain Great Again” and promright from the Franco era to the present. These inter- ises to protect its voters from the threats of feminism, views revealed that the Partido Popular (PP)—the immigration, and los progres (Spanish slang for “the establishment, center-right party founded by one liberals”). If Ortega-Smith meant that Vox has been of Franco's ex-ministers that has been running the silenced as a movement, his statement resonates with country on and off for over 20 years—accommodates a familiar argument made by other nationalist and politicians and voters whose ideologies range from populist representatives, like Donald Trump and the traditional conservatism to Francoism and neo-fas- leaders of Brexit: the media is guilty of silencing or ridicism. Spain is the only western European country grap- culing the buildup of populist movements. pling with the legacy of a fascist dictatorship whose far right is within the main conservative party. The PP's Francoist representatives None of this is news to Spaniards. Ask locals Paul Preston and Julián Casanova, two internationin Barcelona whether they think the country was ally recognized experts on modern Spanish history immune to the Far Right before Vox, and you tend to consulted by the Independent, keep the term "far get different variations on the same answer: right" context-specific when characterizing events “Oh, come on.” (¡Sí, hombre!) in post-Francoist Spain. Preston is the Príncipe de The phrase is often accompanied by a down- Asturias Professor of Contemporary Spanish Studies ward-twisting smile, a soft snort, or a mirthless at the London School of Economics, specializing in chuckle. the Spanish Civil War and the 40 years of dictatorship that followed it. His book, The Spanish Civil War, Vox and the tradition of the far right in Spain is one of the leading academic references on the topic. The absence or presence of the far right in Spain is a Casanova is a professor of contemporary history at delicate subject, because discussion of it brings back the University of Zaragoza and a visiting professor at memories of the fascist-style military dictatorship that universities across Europe, Latin America and the ruled the country between 1939 and 1975. Francisco US. Both historians make frequent appearances on Franco seized control of Spain through a military Spanish media and contribute to El País.

09

NEWS

13 SEP 2019

BY Clara Gutman Argemí ILLUSTRATION Georgianna Stoukides DESIGN Kathryn Li, Katherine Sang

The far right in Spain's main conservative party that time. of Francisco Franco Bahamonde," according to its transcript is private information that should not be Preston said that the late Francoist governments website. El País reports that the FNFF has praised the published. Ejerique, however, believes the charge is to which Fraga belonged were “very right-wing,” but Generalísimo Franco and denied that the regime was a being unjustly wielded. “Lawyers have told us that he is “reluctant” to call them fascist or “far-right in dictatorship, adding that the current Socialist govern- journalists should not be prosecuted on those grounds. We’re only doing our job.” the sense of the golpista far right”—a reference to the ment is considering outlawing the Foundation. coup-staging Francoists of the 1930s. Between 2000 and 2003, under the presidency The Francoists of the 1970s and ’80s were not of the PP's José María Aznar, the FNFF received The PP's ‘orphaned’ far-right voters advocating violence. Instead, they wanted to adapt €150,000 in government funds. The public money A 2010 study by the Spanish Center for Sociological right-wing politics to a democratic system while was supposed to pay for the digitization of the FNFF's Investigations shows that, between 1993 and 2010, keeping the ruling political class of late Francoism in archives, but Raquel Ejerique, an investigative reporter 90% of Spaniards who self-identified as far-right charge of the right. So, when AP became today's PP, for the online newspaper eldiario.es, exposed that the voted for the PP. “Unlike what happens in other “it welcomed those ex-Francoists” of Fraga's gener- FNFF organization instead used some of the money European countries, here the Far Right is inside the ation, said Casanova. While highlighting that the to update its headquarters' facilities, including buying main conservative party,” sociologist Félix Ortega of PP is “undoubtedly a democratic party in the formal a new paper shredder. While investing public money the Complutense University of Madrid told the online sense,” he notes that “every time the past is brought in digitizing historical documents is not unusual, the newspaper Público. The historians consulted by the Independent up—historical memory, the Republic, the Civil War, digital files have not been released to the public, which the Dictatorship—PP representatives respond by using is required given that the funds came from tax money. agree. “The civilian Extreme Right has been relaFrancoist arguments.” The government has also denied that any of the money tively well accommodated within the Partido Popular,” Take the example of Fernando Suárez González, was used for purposes other than digitizing the FNFF's said Preston, describing those voters as having “[taken] refuge in the PP until their moment arrived.” Vice President of Franco's last government. Suárez archives. González represented the PP in European Parliament “It's surprising that the FNFF is a legal foundation Casanova added that the part of the electorate that from 1987 to 1994. In a 2018 interview with El Mundo, ... as though it were pro-democracy, when its goal is to never condemned Francoism was “accommodated he agreed with the claim that Spain's present-day Right extol the dictatorship,” Ejerique told the Independent. and comfortable within the PP.” Xavier Casals, a has a “Francoist DNA,” saying “How could it not? The She explained that taxpayers who donate to the FNFF Catalan historian specializing in the post-Francoist mistake is to think that that's a problem!” This sheds get a tax deduction, in accordance with a law that extreme right, took care to stress that the ideology of light on the paradox at the heart of the PP: the party is applies to all foundations that “benefit the public”— a some of the PP's voters does not reflect the ideology of proud of its Francoist roots while also framing itself as definition that includes the FNFF. The law was passed the party as a whole, and said that “the PP has simply included those orphaned [far-right] voters who did not a champion of democracy. in 2003, under the PP's mandate. PP representatives haven't just voiced views Beyond her coverage of the FNFF, Ejerique is have a party of their own.” While not all of its voters subscribe to far-right sympathetic to the dictatorship. The party has facing criminal charges for investigative work related also shown a permissive—even supportive—atti- to the PP. After exposing that the PP's president of the ideology, the PP has historically remained an attractive tude towards present-day expressions of Francoism Madrid region obtained a master's degree through a platform for the far right to voice its views. But, after outside the PP, such as the National Francisco Franco rigged grading system, she was accused of “embez- 2008, things began to change. The new Ciudadanos Foundation (FNFF). zling secrets,” for which she faces a possible five-and- party emerged as a center-right player that directly Established in 1976, the FNFF is a private orga- a-half-year prison sentence. She and her editorial competed with the PP, attracting its conservative nization dedicated to "broadcasting and promoting team await trial. The charge of “embezzling secrets” voters; Vox emerged as an explicitly nationalist party the study ... of the life, thought, legacy and works has been justified on the grounds that an academic that attracted the PP's far-right electorate. Preston attributed the emergence of Vox, which was founded by two ex-PP representatives and an ex-PP militant, to “resentment of corruption under the Andalusian Socialists and anti-Catalanism.” Vox is different from the neo-fascist Fuerza Nueva of the ’70s and ’80s, the party that held one congressional representative in Congress for three years, in that it “arises out of the heat of the reactivation of the extreme right elsewhere in Europe,” which “was not possible before the 2008 crisis,” said Casanova. Preston added that Vox “is ideologically similar to Fuerza Nueva but it has not advocated violence in the manner of Fuerza Nueva” and other far-right militant groups. Fuerza Nueva dissolved in 1986, giving some of its sympathizers enough time to fold into the PP and climb the party's ladder, until they eventually became its representatives. This is the case of Josep Bou, the PP's candidate for Mayor of Barcelona during the 2019 race. Before the mayoral elections, photojournalist Jordi Borràs published a document revealing that Bou had joined Fuerza Nueva in 1978. The PP candidate denied the allegation. “Publicly, I told Bou that if what I had exposed was not true, he was welcome to take me to court,” Borràs told the Independent. Bou has not pressed charges. This is not Jordi Borràs’ first time in the public eye: In 2018, he gained the national media's attention after he was assaulted by a far-right sympathizer who identified himself as a police officer. “What bothers [the mainstream right] the most is that I show them their resumé, that I shine a light on their past,” he said. “There's a tendency in the Spanish state to deny its origins.” CLARA GUTMAN ARGEMÍ B’22 would like to thank Lluc Salellas and Jordi Borràs for helping with the research for this piece. Moltes gràcies pel cop de mà. Quotes given in Catalan or Spanish were translated into English by the author.

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

NEWS

10

ARRIVING BEFORE THE LIGHT I walk to work that morning. It’s a Tuesday. Something mellow is playing in my headphones, and my phone vibrates, and Toni Morrison is dead. I think I am shocked, and I think I am overwhelmed, and I think I am simply sad, but I am still walking to work, and the world is barely awake. And part of me feels as though I don’t have a right to these feelings. The truth is that prior to her death, I had never read a Toni Morrison book in full. I’ve read significant portions of Beloved and Sula, tracing the journeys of Baby Suggs and Nel and the Deweys. I’ve absorbed the pains of those Black and burdened and beautiful that grace Morrison’s written pages, but I have never left a story complete.

impossible. In Beloved, she titles characters as forms are you going to write about Black people?’” Of course, of endearment and remembrance. There is a moment Morrison is correct, and I am not surprised that this in the novel where “Beloved dropped the folds of her video has circulated so widely. It seems most sensible skirt. It spread around her.” I love this moment not to highlight her Blackness and her womanhood for the only for its simple elegance, but for the way it closes an sake of themselves, to talk about her championship extended description of scenery. While the line is situ- for marginalized identities, particularly in a country ated so comfortably within the work, if you allow the where acknowledging the existence of Black women quote to stand alone, anyone is allowed to be beloved, is protest in itself. But when I think of Toni Morrison, I allowed to be my beloved. The sentence may not be the don’t think of this famed interview. I think of one she best or most powerful of the novel, but it is a testament did with Time in 2008, where she was asked the questo Morrison’s ability to construct every sentence delib- tion we think is all too commonly asked of writers and erately. Morrison could say, Black women are beautiful therefore never asked at all, “How did you discover and I have a story worthy of being told. Even the most your passion for writing?” to which Morrison replies, “I thought my deepest passion was reading, and then I simple of phrases were enough to catch eyes. Toni Morrison, to me, had been an idea before she was realized there was a book I very much wanted to read a writer and before she was a person. She was an admi- When Toni Morrison passed, she, like many celebrities, that really hadn’t been written.” rable Black woman and, by extension, a perfect role received post-mortem accolades. Her name seemed to model. And, of course, it is significant that Morrison grace every headline and dripped from tongues like the And here is where I find the most solidarity and solace is Black and female and a writer. Her identity does sweetest honey. Excerpts from her most popular books with Morrison. She read with the same fervor with not make her talent any more surprising. Too often, circulated the internet. Interviews did too, including which she wrote. More than anything, she wanted admiration for someone’s success is misguided shock a video of Morrison with a white woman, where the the story in whatever form it was available. I discovat their talent because of their identity. The words woman asks Morrison when she plans to write about ered reading somewhere between the ages of bedtime Black and female and writer were not supposed to white people. Morrison decisively responds, “You stories and flashlights under the covers. I opened any follow each other in a sentence. Yet here Morrison was, can’t understand how powerfully racist that question book in the house that I could reach with my minimal stringing together sentences that had previously been is, can you? You could never ask a white author, ‘When stature, and I fell in love on every tattered, aging,

11

ARTS

13 SEP 2019

Notes and reflections on the life and legacy of Toni Morrison

BY Gabriella Etoniru ILLUSTRATION Alana Baer DESIGN Christie Zhong

Morrison than simply a pen and paper and imagination. I think of the ways Morrison threatened and continues to threaten the whiteness of the literary canon, the dominance of white narrative, and the way she was seemingly and wonderfully unable to be controlled. I think about the way Morrison said so much, and could have said even more, but didn’t need to.

them, because what I want to do is write better.” And I wonder if this is what made me love Toni Morrison so much more, the unabashed ability to be herself and write for herself. For her, writing was not only an art form, but a continued practice and a means for self-improvement. Her success was a byproduct of this exercise, and, for once, other Black women and men and children and queer people could see themselves on the page, unfettered and unfiltered. For white people, Morrison was almost their permission to survey the Black world, a gateway for their voyeuristic fantasy. She never wrote for the white audience, but she knew the white gaze was always upon her. I think there was an air of fascination at a Black woman who was successful without acquiescing to the white ego or gaze that entranced so many. Surely, then, her writing was worth reading. If her writing was not, well, she was not writing to impress anyone anyway. She was practicing, and in doing so she captivated everyone.

And then I think about her representing hope. brown page. Eventually, when I was tall enough, The Sometimes I think talking about passed and past Bluest Eye was within reach. The story of Pecola writers and hope is too didactic, too on the nose, and Breedlove rested on a forgotten shoe rack that held far overdone. I think this act is especially true when On forming habit, Morrison notes that “writers all miscellaneous regalia (read: clutter) instead of shoes. talking about Black people and more so Black women, devise ways to approach that place where they expect My fat fingers were able to grasp that book for a day because there is a certain expectation that Black to make the contact, where they become the conduit, before my mother noticed what I was holding and took women are meant to be beacons of hope while rarely or where they engage in this mysterious process. For the book away, claiming I was too young to read such being allowed to carry it within themselves. But I me, light is the signal in the transition. It’s not being a story. And I thought how strange it was that a story will talk about hope in relation to Morrison because in the light, it’s being there before it arrives. It enables about me, or at least one I felt could be about me, was I cannot understand how else my young self, who did me, in some sense.” In these words, Morrison seems forbidden to me. Morrison says about her first work not know of her existence, much less her name, could to consider her own success just as much a product of that “nobody had taken a little Black girl seriously in have been drawn to her so quickly. I will talk about practice as one of mysticism and chance. Morrison’s literature before.” But I think she could have ended hope with Morrison because I am unsure of what else routine in and of itself was a means of preparation, the sentence after seriously, and the sentiment would to do, because if I cannot draw hope after her death, years and years of watching and waiting for the right have been just as true. What drew me to Morrison and then I am afraid of what else I will draw. What I seek, moment, a glimmer of light. I am thinking of the way, Breedlove long before I knew who either was must have I suppose, is the ability to continue to treat Morrison’s too, that Morrison arrived before the light, but did been the scent of camaraderie, the shared sadness, work as a living being, even though Morrison is not. I not depart once it came. She stayed in it, writing away, and a desire to be beautiful. My mother’s claim that want to memorialize her as a writer, not as her writing. basking in its rays, absorbing and reflecting the sun’s I was too young to read my own story on the page felt I need to draw hope from her work because I need its radiance. The light was meant to linger on her. bewildering. And I realize now that my mother did promised longevity, for it to stay relevant in contemnot think I was merely too young, but that the truth porary discourse and recourse as the themes in her The Bluest Eye was no accident in timing. She was far too was too brutal and too relatable, because if nothing writing remain prevalent. practiced and intentional for that. She waited for the else, Toni Morrison was always honest. Morrison’s right light, six years after the climax of the Civil Rights work was always able to poignantly acknowledge the I know I am not alone in this situation, this position. Movement. People were more ready and willing to inherent hypocrisy that seems to accompany the need Although something deep inside me says Morrison was listen to nonwhite people speak and write. Audiences to protect progeny from harm—real or not. Her short not afraid of dying and was not concerned with being a were finally ready to take the story of a little Black girl story “Sweetness” portrays such behavior explicitly. “I beacon of hope even though she was acutely aware of seriously. Toni Morrison was there, just before the light wasn’t a bad mother,” the narrator begins. “You have her own positionality, I feel as though, for her, death rose over the United States, over readers white, Black to know that, but I may have done some hurtful things was written into her story much in the same way she and Brown. She rested there in the glory she had so dilito my only child because I had to protect her. Had to. wrote trials and tribulations, joys and overjoys into her gently waited for. The exact point of contact Morrison All because of skin privileges. At first I couldn’t see past characters’ lives. I am trying to find a way to pay memo- seems to have made with each and every one of her all that black to know who she was and just plain love riam to Toni Morrison without turning her into an idea. readers is slightly unique--from the little Black girl who her. But I do.” I am trying to find a way not to tokenize her or turn her dreams of being white, but really just wants to be seen into mere iconography, though she is, simply, an icon. as beautiful, to the old mother who loved her child as Of the outspoken character Pilate, in Song of Solomon, much as she hated her child and ended up pushing her Morrison said, “Sometimes a writer imagines charac- I like to think that if I asked Morrison the vague, away. She relates to her readers without trying to forceters who threaten, who are able to take the book over. catch-all question of tell me about yourself, she’d say fully grab us. And at these points of contact, she allows To prevent that, the writer has to exercise some kind of to read her writing, not because she wrote herself into us to sit in the light with her, if even for just a moment. control. Pilate in Song of Solomon was that kind of char- stories, but because her stories contained what was acter. So I wouldn't let her say too much. [She is still important to her. There is another Toni Morrison intervery large.] That's because she is like something we view I enjoy, conducted by Nellie McKay, in which our GABRIELLA ETONIRU B’20 is caught somewhere wish existed. She represents some hope in all of us.” I beloved author shares, “I am giving myself permission between wanting to do everything and wanting to do wonder if there is more connection between Pilate and to write books that do not depend on anyone's liking nothing, so she'll see what happens.

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

ARTS

12

BY Mara Dolan and Mia Pattillo DESIGN Ella Rosenblatt

“IT NEEDS TO BE IN OUR HANDS” An Interview with the Jane Collective’s Heather Booth In 1965, Heather Booth received a desperate phone call the doctor, and they could make the arrangements politics, human rights or international issues. I think from a friend whose sister needed an abortion. Booth themselves. I made sure that they could call me if they there's a greater connection between the issues now called around and eventually found a medical prac- had any questions, before or after, go through what I than there was then. titioner willing to perform the procedure, which was understood what happened during the procedure, and There's a much more virulent right wing that is illegal across the country, in secret. As word of Booth’s see if they had any questions and any issues that I felt using abortion as a right-wing base-building issue, and actions spread, she began helping other women with I needed to raise to, initially Dr. Howard, and then it's become much more politicized. I think there's a unwanted pregnancies until the workload became to Mike [two of the first doctors to provide abortions new political divide on it. And then the rise of Planned too much for one person to handle. Booth reached out through the Jane Collective]. And that was it—I’d give Parenthood as a power force currently is quite different. to other women’s liberation activists, and together, them the number to call and who they should ask for. At one point, people didn't know how to do abortions. they formed the Jane Collective in Chicago. The Jane Now, there's a whole generation of people who've Collective worked to address unsafe illegal abortions You mentioned when Jane first started, you used learned how. There is a whole population that, number by training themselves to provide women with safer your personal phone number. I'm wondering one, knows how to do it, and, number two, has the and more affordable procedures. In its eight years how you thought about and dealt with the risk confidence that they can do it and the belief that they of operation before Roe v. Wade codified the right to of what you were doing, and if you ever had should do. So we have changed as a movement. abortion across the United States, the Jane Collective moments where you were questioning whether would provide around 11,000 underground abortions, or not it was worth that risk, and potentially that When folks call you nowadays and and tell primarily to low-income women of color. you that there's a need in their community to fear? In the past year, the reproductive protections won I don't recall wondering about that. I had been in form some some type of underground abortion by women in the 1970s and ’80s have come under Mississippi in the Civil Rights Movement, and we were network, how do you guide them? What kind of greater and greater threat. As state-level legislatures taking actions that might even mean risking my life. I advice do you give? have chipped away at abortion rights and access in was arrested. I realized I might risk arrest, but it was More recently, I've been receiving an increasing states around the country, Roe v. Wade’s federal prec- for a cause that matters for improving the world and number of calls from people who are interested in edent feels more fragile than ever. The College Hill people's lives. So it was a risk I was willing to take. I creating some kind of underground. I tell them what Independent took this opportunity to sit down with wanted very much to live, I did not want to be arrested, was involved, when I was involved, and raise certain Heather Booth to reflect on her work and the legacy of I did not want to die or be harmed. I certainly didn't things to consider. There's transportation, there's the Jane Collective. We discussed the abortion rights want to harm others. But I faced that situation where medical supplies, there's legal support. I understand movements of the 1960s and 2010s; resistance to you take actions to challenge illegitimate authority and there are new networks, but I haven't been tracking it. I the forces that control, harm, and even kill pregnant challenge unjust laws. I also hoped that it wouldn't be wonder now if I should be tracking. With this decision people; and how Booth took reproductive justice into public, no one would know. So I tried to minimize the about federal funding, if people give abortion counher own hands. seling, it just means the services will be so much less risk. I didn't focus on the consequences a lot. provided. So legally, I think that the need will be even Can you describe to me the path of a woman in And do you feel as though those sentiments greater. Chicago who finds herself pregnant in the 1960s were largely shared by the other women and the and is hoping to access an abortion? Beyond the technical cost and logistics and transfriends that you brought in? Truth is, that’s not what we asked people. I can tell you You felt really as though the risk reversal was worth it, port, do folks ever ask you for more personal what I suspect, but this isn't from personal experience. because you were fighting for something that mattered guidance in terms of dealing with things, like I'm sure many women found no option. They turned so much. One thing is, I didn't discuss it other than facing the inherent risk? to friends and family, maybe there was a midwife. with my husband and with my closest friends. Even I've tried to speak from experience, trying to be Amongst them, maybe there was a girl friend who many close friends I didn't discuss it with, when I supportive of people who are looking for alternatives. suggested something that they do. Some probably was involved with Jane. So I don't know what we were I've really emphasized the need to focus on the fight, to inflicted harm on themselves. And many of them were thinking about. It wasn't the focus. It was 1965 to 1969 keep it safe and legal. One in four women of reproducthose who didn't feel they were ready, and felt terror when I was involved, a time of intense movement and tive age will have an abortion in their life. We have to about the options. For those who were wealthier, they struggle in the country: on civil rights, on the war in fight to keep this legal. This is an essential part of the might have realized that there were other places they Vietnam, and the beginning of a women's rights move- healthcare system. Current circumstances are such could go. You could go to other countries; at one point, ment. We were struggling against very powerful inter- that I'm increasingly supportive of those who go on you could get an abortion in New York, Colorado, or ests. And there will be risks involved with the horrors to restarting an underground, because the repression Hawaii. And they sought those options. of what was going on, from massacre in Vietnam, the and oppression of women for full participation in the For those who were connected initially, it was harm in division to our country, the selection of elected society of women's health is so serious right now. through a college network at the University of Chicago. officials by elected officials, the unjust and murderous Then word was spread through a college network in the treatment of African Americans, the unjust treatment It feels like the Jane Collective never saw legislaMidwest. People came from University of Wisconsin of women—but they were things that needed to be tion or legal protections as the true answer to full and other places in the Midwest. They might have seen addressed. bodily autonomy—they literally took women’s advertising around it, or heard from friends, and so on, health into their own hands. Do you still feel that there was a number to call “Jane.” Early on, it was How do you see today’s reproductive justice that same way today, or do you feel like the legal my personal phone number. As soon as I picked up the movement departing from the reproductive system and federal government can actually be phone, you could tell there was a sort of a pause, and justice movement in the 1960s? the enactor of reproductive justice? they weren't quite sure what to say. And so it was pretty For the similarities, [the movement of the ’60s] was I believe that on this issue, and on all issues, to make clear what they were calling about, and I’d say, “Are out of concern for women's health and women's role democracy work, we need an engaged population. We you calling for Jane?” They would say yes. “Are you in society, and for the health of all people. And I think need people to take action, we need them to be orgacalling about abortion?” They would say yes. At that that's still true, that health and abortion are deeply nized, to reach out and engage others for democracy point, I’d tell them that I'm there to help them and had tied to all issues. There are also a number of differ- to work. It needs to be in our hands. I do believe the a few questions to put them in touch with a physician ences. Race, gender, and class analysis is much more government which represents us, if it is in our hands, and a doctor who could work with them and provide seriously understood and embraced by people who should have laws to ensure that medical procedures the procedure. I’d ask them some questions: How is are fighting on these issues. One portion of a move- that are necessary for people’s lives and quality of life their general health? How far along are they? Where ment around abortion came out of the eugenics move- are supported with full access. do they live? Do they have any funding? I’d tell them ment, out of a white, privileged, upper-class interest in what the dollar amount was, I tell them what the range population control. There's a greater understanding MARA DOLAN B’19.5 and MIA PATTILLO B’20 of time was, what the details were in terms of pickup now that all these issues are tied together: immigra- will always pick up their phones. and arrangements. Then I’d give them the name of tion reform, civil rights, healthcare overall, money in

13

FEATURES

13 SEP 2019

BY Miles Guggenheim ILLUSTRATION Claire Schlaikjer DESIGN Christie Zhong

THEN WHAT ISN'T? Thomas did not see the squirrel. He saw a wooden open with a pair of scissors. She walked across the “Oh right,” said Abby. “Those are new, huh?” chair resting sideways on the ground. He saw a broken apartment and placed the box next to the bathroom Thomas nodded. Abby let slack out on the yarn. glass on the coffee table. He saw water dripping onto door. “Am I starting to snore?” she asked. the floor. “No.” “Oh, the bathroom…” said Thomas. Abby had her hair up in a vertical ponytail. She was “Talking in my sleep?” “There you go,” said Abby. holding a cardboard box. “No. You’re fine, darling. You’re perfect.” “You trapped him?” “Is he in the box?” Thomas asked. “Oh really? Then what isn’t?” “I did.” Abby shook her head. Thomas gestured to the open window. The whoosh Abby walked over to the kitchen where Thomas “You look nervous,” she said. was sitting. She took the table with both hands and of a car pressed down the road. A truck beeped. Thomas Thomas was not nervous. smiled. He raised an open palm as if presenting these dragged it over to the bathroom. The table groaned. Thomas was a groundskeeper. He had scared a disturbances like a roll of quarters. He hated town. He “Can I help you?” Thomas asked. moose off with a frying pan and a wooden ladle. He Abby turned the table on its side, so its legs pointed wanted to move up into the hills. had pepper-sprayed a black bear. If anything, Abby north toward the mountains. She put her hand on the “Oh yeah, it’s like Manhattan out there,” said Abby. was scared. Abby was from Los Angeles. She taught edge of the table and stared at him. She opened the bathroom door and walked around theater to middle school children. the tables. The yarn followed her. For a few seconds, “No,” she said. Thomas sat down at the kitchen table. Searching Then she went for the coffee table. She took it, they listened to the squirrel’s feet scrabble across the the apartment again made him yawn, and he turned flipped it over, and placed it next to the kitchen table, so bathroom tiling. Then it appeared, looking out at them away towards the window to hide it from her. Outside, the two surfaces faced each other. from the doorway, its jaw wobbling, obsidian eyes wide flat sunlight bore down on the shoppers. They crawled and unblinking. “Oh,” said Thomas. up the most popular street in town. Their street. The “Wow,” said Abby, “it’s cute.” He saw the plan. He liked it, but he figured it would street with the best retail shopping in the state of probably take two people to accomplish. Someone She pulled the yarn. The door slammed shut, Wyoming. needed to trap the squirrel at the end of the channel. evicting the squirrel. It slid like a puck over the waxed Thomas scratched his nose. He could smell coffee Another person had to close the door behind it. He floor, and hit the box with a thud. Abby taped the box brewing. In the two years since they moved here, figured it was best to let Abby realize this on her own. shut. She put her hands on her hips and walked behind Abby and Thomas had never had a rodent. They had “You can sleep through anything,” a voice said Thomas toward the kitchen sink. confronted ants. They had mourned a dead sparrow. from the bedroom. “What, are you going to murder it?” said Thomas. But they had never had to deal with rodents. Thomas He walked over to the box and poked five breathing “What?” said Thomas. turned from the window to look over the apartment “You can sleep through anything,” said Abby, holes into the top with a pen. Then he flipped the pen again. He scanned the living room first, and then the crossing through the kitchen again. A line of red yarn around. He wrote, Squirrel, and turned to show Abby. kitchen. In truth, everything besides the bed and the followed her. It didn't seem to move until the last end He expected a laugh. Abby poured muesli into a bowl bath was crammed into this central room. There was slid through the doorway. She tied the beginning of the and turned off the coffee maker. no need to distinguish them. “Can I make you something good?” said Thomas. yarn to the doorknob and took the rest in her left hand. Abby lifted the box up to her face and cut one side “No,” she said, “I don’t have time.” “I wear earplugs now,” said Thomas. “I’m sorry.”

15

LITERARY

13 SEP 2019

“Really?” Fifteen minutes later, Thomas was downshifting small covered porch that had no chairs or benches. “Yeah, no. No time.” the pickup truck. He turned onto a paved road which Many yards behind it the gray ruin of a barn sagged “It’s Saturday. I bought tomatoes, and avocado, and wound up the edge of the valley into the woods. Modern in a green field. Thomas grabbed his tool belt and his bacon.” houses, spliced by the cedars and the aspens, revealed camera bag. “I know you did.” themselves in fragments, blurring and breaking like The top of Lucy’s head barely reached the median Abby bit her spoon. Outside a motorcycle gang action in a flip book. He turned into a driveway and height of the doorway. She had short graying hair, rolled down main street. Every Saturday they did three followed it up a steep incline, where he reached the glasses, and a red-tank-top. She was maybe 72. The circuits through town before descending upon the Benchleys' property, a glass box overlooking two acres smell of air freshener escaped through the open door. Applebee’s. of pasture. “I remember you.” she said. “I hate them,” said Thomas. In the summer, Thomas filled the pasture with “Hey,” said Thomas. “How are you?” “Hmmm…” horses. In the winter, he took the horses to a small “You’re cute,” she said. “You don’t?” barn where a man named Duncan watched and fed Thomas looked over Lucy’s head into the house. “I don’t hate anyone,” said Abby. them with his cattle. For its beauty and sharp look, the His eyes followed a long, maroon floral carpet. He had She took her hair tie out. Her hair was in her eyes Benchleys' house was poorly insulated. Every winter no recollection of the carpet, the home, or Lucy. again. it needed an obscene amount of heat to keep the pipes “Can I get you a glass of water?” she asked. She stared at him, expecting more. from freezing. Now that the valley was a few days into “No thank you,” said Thomas. Thomas was done. Abby stood up, cleaned her spring, Thomas figured it was time to turn the heat off “So modest,” Lucy smiled. bowl, and dumped the bottom of her coffee into the and save money. They walked through her living room. The same sink. Thomas entered 5643 to unlock the front door. painting of a snow-capped peak hung in two different “I think you select the noises you want to hear,” she Then he entered 2295 to disarm the security system. places. There was one in the hallway and one in said. “You never complain about the frogs when we go He walked through a narrow hallway which opened up the living room. In the living room, three separate camping. You’re like, ‘isn’t it peaceful here,’ and mean- into a spacious living room, kitchen, and dining area. daguerreotypes of hunting dogs were arranged in a V while there are frogs passionately fucking outside our Soft gray light streamed through the big glass windows. formation over a mahogany table. tent.” It fell on the deserted white furniture and marble A black, circular table stood at the center of the “They aren’t fucking. They are just asking to be countertops. A large rectangular window framed the yard, a lone chair docked beside it. On top of the table, fucked. It doesn't even compare to thirty motorcycles,” forest. The forest framed a meadow which Thomas an ashtray cradled a dying cigarette. At the edge of said Thomas. had cut into trees. A herd of elk stood in the meadow, the property, a row of lavender bushes hugged a pale “You’ve fallen asleep mid-conversation with me,” surrounded by a circle of fences. wooden fence. In one corner a marble angel held up a said Abby. “What’s going on there?” Thomas turned off the thermostat. bird bath. In the other, a stone fountain stood over a Thomas groaned. Returning to the truck, he noticed a text from patch of dry mud. Abby walked back into their room to change. She Lucy. She said that she was ready for him, and it was “There’s the fountain,” said Lucy. was going to rehearsal. A month ago she had been okay if he wanted to bring film equipment into her yard. “Okay,” said Thomas. appointed the head director of the Jackson Hole Thomas was excited. It had been many years since he “If you film,” she said, “you should stand behind Community Theater. It was a good thing. She was had made a “fix-it-yourself video.” Before there was a the lavender bushes.” happy about it. But lately this happiness had built itself waitlist for his services, he had found work by posting “I will,” said Thomas. up into an oppressive confidence. There were times tutorials online. At 1 AM, in the dark silence of his “They are the only damn thing I can take care of,” when Thomas felt that he was the flattest character family home, he would edit on two computer monitors, she said, walking back to the house. Abby worked with each day. The questions she liked to hacking away at a picture of himself grinning beside a The screen door slammed. ask him now were more self-affirming than curious. paralyzed weed whacker. Before Thomas set the tripod down or adjusted “So you called Mark and he came over, right? When he could bear it, Thomas chose not to use the frame, he knelt to diagnose the fountain. To his “Yes, you did yard work, in Wilson, with Jamie, the bathroom in the houses he looked after. Thomas disappointment, the problem revealed itself immediyeah?” made it five miles towards Smith, before he had to ately. A sycamore leaf hugged the filter, plugging the Opening his phone, Thomas slowly went through pull over at a gas station. A few other buildings stood flow of water. Thomas pulled the leaf off. He put the his unread messages. He had not planned on working beside it. Across the street, a group of construction pump in. He filled the fountain with a garden hose. It today, but the requests were always coming. Today, workers sat together in the sunlight. Behind them the ran perfectly. he had to check up on the Benchley house, but he also gray cylinder of a cement truck slowly turned as it set Thomas unplugged the fountain. Dumping the wanted something new. down the parking lot for a new supermarket. Thomas water out again, he pulled out the pump, and wrapped He scrolled until he found an unknown contact: got out of his pickup truck and walked to the bath- the leaf back around the filter. With the tripod set and 307-093-8989. room behind the gas station. Even after the steel door the camera recording, Thomas returned to the base of 307-093-8989 had a broken fountain. closed behind, he could hear the sound of jackham- the fountain. 307-093-8989 had introduced herself as Lucy. mers and nail guns. From here the next great enclave “I thought I would do a quick video about fountains,” Lucy lived in Smith, not far from the Hoback Junction, of urbanite settlements would extend. Thirty minutes he spoke to the camera. “It’s a short video because where Thomas had grown up. was the farthest they were willing to live from organic this is an easy problem to fix. And you shouldn’t let He was still hunched over the phone when Abby food. Like his Dad, Hank, Thomas resented the tides repairmen or big garden stores get the better of you or emerged from their room. She was dressed in a blazer of development. The sound of jet engines that filled any other fountain owners you know.” and glasses. She reached for the box and tried to smile the valley every May for the national parks and every Then he coughed. He looked away from the lens. goodbye. January for the ski slopes. He stood up and walked behind the camera. There “Oh, I can do it,” said Thomas. “I’m driving out of “That’s not very Wyoming,” Hank's new favorite was no need to review that take, he knew it was bad. town today.” phrase. He would point to a pastel fleece, or a can of Sometimes when Thomas tried to be matter-of-fact his “Why?” said Abby. flavored sparkling water and say, “That’s not very voice slipped into a droll, attractive tone. A long time “Well, I have work too.” Wyoming.” ago Abby had told him something about acting. Not “No, why do you need to drive the squirrel out of Last Christmas Hank had purchased three pairs of acting was its own way of acting, she had instructed– town? I was just going to do it on the sidewalk.” TruckNutz. “don’t be so proud.” “Our sidewalk?” said Thomas. “These only work with a trailer hitch,” he said, Thomas couldn't remember where she had said “It’s a squirrel.” passing one to Thomas and another to his older brother it. By the time they had met, he had stopped making “Yeah, woodland fauna.” Mark. “i.e. you can only attach them to vehicles. videos. She had seen them and laughed and compli“Not this one,” she said. His family loved to sit down and talk about mented him, but she had never given notes. He had She picked up the box headed for the door. Thomas’ work. He had taught them the word “mini- never let her direct him. He had never attended her “I guess we will see him again tomorrow, then,” malist,” and now every time he worked at a house they classes, even when she said he could come for free. said Thomas wanted to know if it was minimal or not. After they’d He thought hard to remember it: “don’t be so “Him?” had their laugh at the house, they would move to the proud...” And nothing came. Maybe she had said it in “Yes,” said Thomas. owners, asking what type of shoes they wore and how an argument. When Thomas argued, he had a habit of “Really?” they shook hands. Five drinks later they would direct arresting his emotions. He became robotic. He even “Definitely,” said Thomas. the fire at Thomas. lowered his voice, as if speaking from the furthest, “Alright.” “Thomas, are you becoming minimal?” deepest end of a piano. He was working on it. He was “I love you.” “Are you and Abby going to buy a Prius?” still working on it. She was patient. He was working on “I love you too.” “That’s not very Wyoming,” Hank said when Abby it. Abby closed the door. Thomas listened to her feet had first come to meet the family. There was no food. “Take two.” hitting the stairs. Another yawn took over his face. He No drinks. They just sat her down in the living room Thomas pressed record. This time instead of poured himself a bowl of cereal and carried it to the and listened to Mark grill her on the history of fur walking, he sauntered into the frame. He loosened his window. A block down the street, Abby knelt before trapping. arms and his shoulders. He let his hands float behind an oak tree and cut the squirrel out of the box. It scamThe second she was alone with Thomas in the car him. pered up the tree, gripping the trunk in an awkward Abby burst into tears. Over and over Thomas told her Thomas felt like an idiot. hug. For a while, Abby stood there watching it move how endearing she was. How well she had handled But then he felt good. from one branch to the other without gravity or reason. the situation. How she had perfectly overcome it. How He was gesticulating now as he spoke. He was Then she waved goodbye to it, turning her back as she good she looked. goofier, bolder. He smiled and the blood ran up into his moved up the street towards the community theater. “If someone asks me a question here,” she had said, cheeks. It was like there was a real person standing in Cue the hawk, Thomas thought. “I have to be able to answer it.” front of him. The address was an old white farmhouse with a

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

LITERARY

16

PROVIDENCE BITES

BY Ella Comberg and Miles Guggenheim ILLUSTRATION Illustrator DESIGN Christie Zhong

Providence Can't JUMP by Ella Comberg I risk hyperbole when I say that the first time I rode a JUMP bike, it felt like I was flying. I have never driven a car before, so I imagine the freedom I felt on that first ride, around this time last year, was something like what might have inspired Springsteen to write “Racing in the Street.” 20 miles an hour down Hope Street’s smooth asphalt and I wanted to sing: tonight, tonight, the strip’s just right. By April, the joy of that first ride, and many after it, would come crumbling down. If in certain ways JUMP bikes divided the city down political lines (some of us thought they’d get cars off the road, others threatened to kill JUMP bikers in ProJo comments), they also profoundly united the city by giving us, finally, something to talk about. But before the bikes became cloaked in discourse, they were, momentarily, exuberant. +++ When they first appeared in Providence last September, JUMP bikes signaled the long-awaited arrival of the sharing economy to the city. After the success of JUMP in much wealthier cities like San Francisco and Santa Cruz, CA, the bikes’ sudden descent on Providence boded well for the city’s image. If you build a service intended for the creative class, the logic seemed to go, a creative class might just emerge to use it. Of course, one does not up and move to Providence simply because JUMP bikes make Kennedy Plaza look a little sleeker. And so, once they arrived, the bikes served the population that already existed in Providence: working class people, college students, high schoolers. With time, the once-foreign object began to appear in various corners of civic life. We saw the bikes floating down the river, kids rode them to school during last winter’s bus driver strike, and they appeared at the scene of several crimes. Ridership peaked in June of 2019 at around 2,000 trips per day—a staggering figure compared to the roughly 1,700 trips per day taken in the first nine months of JUMP’s existence in San Francisco, a city five times more populous than Providence. Despite myriad disgruntled complaints to 311 about bikes strewn on the sidewalk and riders without helmets, JUMP remained, unequivocally, a hit among its users. But then, a month after Uber’s disastrous IPO in May of 2019, rental prices skyrocketed. A rider using a JUMP bike for 15 minutes a day would now pay $135

17

METRO

per month instead of $20. The increase in JUMP prices if Uber owns the app and the data, for a moment, on a coincided, not surprisingly, with a decrease in rider- sweltering August day, the bikes—in all their emanciship and an increase in theft. By August, Providence patory potential—belonged to Providence teenagers. residents were taking only a few hundred rides per day, many of them illegal. As the ProJo reported, once teenagers figured out how to unlock the bikes with a Fate of a Disappointed Bridge by Miles little jimmying (rather than a barcode), all bets were Guggenheim off for sanctioned, paid rides. As the bikes became inte- At the edge of a flat stretch of grass gripping the shoregrated into the cultural fabric of the city, the reality of line of the Seekonk River, a plaque inscribed, “Gano their use wandered further and further from the tech- Park—Centuries of History,” juts out from the earth. no-utopia which they were intended to usher in. Here, a thick slab of plexiglass protects an assortment of pictures and drawings. Combined, these different +++ modes of storytelling inject significance into the river bank. Jumping across decades and centuries, they cite By the time Providence Public School kids started events like Roger Williams’ landing and the founding riding JUMP bikes by the dozen through the city in late of the Narragansett Bay Oyster Company. August, allegedly stealing snacks from dollar stores On the water, looming above Gano Park, the and terrorizing bystanders, their schools had already 111-year-old Crook Point Bascule Bridge is waiting to been so underfunded and mismanaged that they were be given its own stamp of relevance. Stuck in an upright unable to provide students with the education and position, it flies the dark color of rust high into the sky. support they need and deserve—not during the school Since its construction in 1908, the drawbridge has year, and certainly not during the long days of summer. been in the hands of the Rhode Island Department of Similarly, once the police arrived on the scene, the Transportation (RIDOT) and viewed strictly according force was already too entrenched in its racist practices to its utility and financial value. Such forces of to pursue any recourse for Black and Brown kids in the accounting nearly doomed the bridge in the mid 1970s, city other than arrest, leaving two children, ages 13 when it was no longer lucrative to run a passenger train and 16, in handcuffs. And when the ProJo reported the between Providence and East Providence. But they story a day after the fact, terming the kids a “bike mob” also preserved the structure in 1976, when it became committing “two-wheeled hooliganism,” the paper clear that the cost of its destruction would create a had already been so corporatized in its attempt to stay new liability all together. To skirt demolition costs, the afloat that the prospect of reporting more responsibly drawbridge was lifted, held in the air to keep traffic on injustice in the city became all but impossible. Amid moving down the river, and abandoned. massive public criticism of the kids for stealing the Living on in this final, melancholic pose, the strucbikes, of JUMP for strewing their technology across ture now often called ''the Stuck-Up'' is the subject of the streets, and of the city for letting it happening, we new discussion. In July, these various perspectives seemed to forget that the bikes were never the problem were put in conflict when it was revealed that RIDOT to begin with. The problem, when it really came down had plans to demolish the structure in 2026. In a press to it, was the schools, the police, the paper. conference with NBC 10 News, Charles St. Martin, The bikes didn’t matter much to Uber, either. The a spokesman for the department, cited incidents of $82 billion company only accrues loose change from vandalism, trespassing, and arson as proof that the a few hundred rides a day in Providence, even if the structure was a growing danger to the community. rides are more expensive than they once were. But News of the drawbridge’s impending death has drawn what Uber loses in profits, it gains in the more clandes- a variety of voices and opinions out into the open. tine game of data collection. Even when the bikes are “It’s an eyesore leaching iron into the water,” writes stolen, their location trackers stay on. Christine Robillard St. Denis on one of the many polls It’s hard to know just how Uber will use the JUMP circulating across Facebook. Meanwhile, in the same data, and the premise of a physical service existing only thread of comments, Paul J Dallaire Jr. writes, “Leave for data mining will seem conspiratorial until we see it up, the bridge is iconic.” its results and, inevitably, wring our hands. But even According to an NBC 10 WJAR Twitter poll, 47% of 262 participants are in favor of demolition, while 53% are in favor of preservation. This conflict has been strong enough to draw Mayor Jorge Elorza to the scene. Perhaps sensing that popular opinion is stacked in favor of the bridge, Elorza has proposed to transfer custody from the RIDOT to the city of Providence, which would preserve the bridge as a landmark, saving it from the wrecking ball. To do this, however, the "Stuck Up" will first need to pass before the RI Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission’s gaze, a state agency that takes pride in the ability to identify and protect what it deems historically valuable. The bridge, of course, was not created to be a sentimetal monument. It was built to make money, raised into the sky to save money, and subsequently kept there for the same reason. Still, even without a clear purpose, the drawbridge cannot help but impose itself over the image and politics of Providence. Massive yet arbitrary, it is beautiful for the same reason it is ugly, sentimental for the same reason it is embarrassing. If it is anything for sure, the Crook Point Bridge is an image of time that has passed: a symbol that refuses to be forgotten, but that also has not been officially processed as “history.” Whether the Stuck-Up stays or goes, whether we learn to see meaning in it or we forget it—RIDOT is forcing Providence to make up its mind.

13 SEP 2019

A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO

fri 9.13

THE LIST sat 9.14

Witches' Night Out Market

Tacos and Marg Crawl

Feelin’ metaphysical? The Witches’

Three words: Tacos. Margs. The Rooftop

Night Out Market is having its very first

at the Providence G. Hosted by the

New England event at the Pawtucket

so-called “Bar Crawl Nation”—a group that

Armory Arts Center from 5PM-10PM.

insists drinking at their events is 100 percent

Admission is $5 and will provide you

optional, which makes this Bar Crawler

access to artisans, psychic readings,

assume the opposite—the Crawl will crawl

body workers, mini-lectures, and

its way through Downcity’s bars and pubs.

more. So skip the lame Friday-the-13th-

Come make a scene from Washington

themed pregames and indulge in some

to Westminster. GA tix $20, $50 for VIP

Transformative Touch and spiritual

(includes unlimited tacos for 1 hour. So, do

discovery instead.

with that what you will).

sun 9.15 mon 9.16

The Prince of Providence

Signs for Climate Strike In advance of Sept. 20th’s Rhode Island Climate Strike, come to this collaborative sign-building and general art-making hangout hosted by Climate Action RI and Providence and South County Sunrise. If you

This List Writer got into a Twitter feud with Waterfire’s official account last spring after she wrote an article implying that Buddy Cianci’s graft paved the way for the birth of Waterfire. Attend this musical

are ISO climate change iconography for your sign, may we recommend a rising sun?

tues 9.17

Ryosuke Kiyasu at AS220

biopic—quite literally the event of the fall in

Ryosuke Kiyasu is about to grace Providence and no one is

Providence—to hear the real story. Says

ready. The 35 year old drummer (in an expansive sense of the

the inimitable Boston Globe: “Buddy

word) has been known to rip apart his instruments on stage, flail

Cianci is the new Hamilton.”

across the floor, and generally make people go oh shit. What’re you in for, you ask? “Anger, sadness and hatred,” he replies, “Negative energy makes up my show.” Count us tf in. Admission

wed 9.18

Damon Krukowski at Riff Raff Modeled on John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, Damon Krukowski (of Galaxie 500)’s new book Ways of Hearing examines the transition from analog to digital in music and audio broadly. If you are a member of the podcast-o-sphere in any capacity, you’ll want to be here. Bonus points for standing in line and eating a twinkie, as Galaxie 500’s “Strange” implores.

is $10 at the door. 8:30-11:30PM.

thurs 9.19 The Prison in Twelve Landscapes

Featuring brilliant filmmakers Brett Story

and Liza Johnson, this program puts a prison in conversation with a hurricane. Both films are experiments with form and offer a foray into relationships of power, inequality, and resilience. This is a screening you can’t miss. So don’t. 7pm. Martinos Auditorium. Granoff Center. 154 Angell St. Free admission.