The College Hill Independent Volume 42 Issue 1

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THIS ISSUE

STAFF

Dandelion Helmet Kate Reed Week in Big Losses Ben Shrock Nick Roblee-Strauss

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT IS PRINTED BY TCI PRESS IN SEEKONK, MASSACHUSETTS

WWW.THEINDY.ORG

TWITTER @THEINDY_TWEETS

INSTAGRAM @THEINDYPVD

Changing the Climate of Petro-Masculinity Kate Sieler

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COVER WEEK IN

02 REVIEW

03 SCIENCE + TECH

WEEK IN REVIEW Loughlin Neuert Nick Roblee-Strauss NEWS Bilal Memon Rhythm Rastogi Giacamo Sartorelli ARTS Amelia Anthony Nell Salzman

Beyond Chinatown Naomi Kim

05 ARTS

METRO Mara Cavallaro Ricardo Gomez Deborah Marini

Internationoal Reactions to the Capitol Riot Sacha Sloan

07 NEWS

SCIENCE + TECH Bowen Chen Anabelle Johnston

Five Poems Jane Freiman Brown and Settler Colonialism Mara Cavallaro

09 LITERARY

LITERARY Audrey Buhain Alisa Caira

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FEATS

FEATS Alan Dean Edie Elliott Granger Emily Rust

(4) Series of 12 Composition found through Floorplans

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X

DEAR INDY Gemma Sack Cal Turner Sara Van Horn

The Prison within the Prison

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METRO

EPHEMERA Liana Chaplain Anna Kerber

Matthew Cuschieri

Lillian Pickett, Leela Berman, and Deborah Marini

EPHEMERA

Smooth Anna Kerber

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Advice Sara Van Horn, Gemma Sack, Cal Turner

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DEAR INDY

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BULLETIN BOARD

FROM THE EDITORS The Indy is a regenerative space, a medium for writers, editors, artists and designers to come together to create something out of nothing. Collaboration and connection are key to the work we do— without the physical space to make edits, exchange writing tips, and maintain our criticality, it can feel difficult to get anything done at all. Sans the comforting aura of Conmag’s derelict couches and the upward-wafting smell of Blue Room muffins, the creative flame that keeps the Indy going now trembles unsteadily. But in hard times we learn to adjust. The Indy runs on Slack now. We’ve gone corporate.

Our print distribution numbers are way down—a casualty of shuttered coffee shops. So we live on the interwebs, like really, all the time. COVID can’t mess with our Zoom room.

So long live the Indy, and stay tuned for our stock offering next week. We’re going for a Gamestop approach and have our eyes set on buying out the Herald by the end of year.

- APA

X Yukti Agarwal Seth Israel SOCIAL MEDIA Justin Scheer

BUSINESS Jerry Chen Evan Lincoln Isabelle Yang DESIGN EDITOR Ella Rosenblatt COVER COORDINATOR Sage Jennings

STAFF WRITERS Leela Berman Osayuwamen EdeOsifo Tammuz Frankel CJ Gan Lucas Gelfond Leo Gordon Gaya Gupta Evie Hidysmith Rose Houglet Amelia Wyckoff Muram Ibrahim Nicole Kim Alina Kulman Olivia Mayeda Drake Rebman Issra Said Justin Scheer Ella Spungen

DESIGNERS Malvika Agarwal Anna Brinkhuis Clara Epstein Miya Lohmeier Owen McCallumKeeler Issac McKenna Jieun (Michelle) Song Mehek Vohra COPY EDITORS Sojung (Erica) Yun Alyscia Batista Grace Berg ILLUSTRATION Elaine Chen EDITOR Megan Donohue Hannah Park Nina Fletcher Christine Huynh ILLUSTRATORS Madison Lease Sylvia Atwood Jasmine Li Hannah Chang Ophelia DuchesneMANAGING Malone EDITORS Camille Gros Alana Baer Sophie Foulkes Anchita Dasgupta Baylor Fuller Peder Schaefer Mara Jovanovic Olivia Lunger SENIOR EDITORS Talia Mermin Audrey Buhain Jessica Minker Andrew Rickert Rachelle Shao Ivy Scott Joshua Sun Xing Xing Shou Evelyn Tan Cal Turner Joyce Tullis Sara Van Horn Floria Tsui Dorothy Zhang MVP Mara Cavallaro

MISSION

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT IS A PROVIDENCE-BASED PUBLICATION WRITTEN, ILLUSTRATED, DESIGNED, AND EDITED BY STUDENTS FROM BROWN AND RISD. OUR PAPER IS DISTRIBUTED AROUND PROVIDENCE’S EAST SIDE AND DOWNTOWN, AS WELL AS ONLINE. IN ADDITION TO PUBLISHING 20 PAGES OF ORIGINAL WRITING, REPORTING, AND ART ONCE A WEEK, THE INDY FUNCTIONS AS AN OPEN WORKSHOP IN WHICH WRITERS, ARTISTS, AND DESIGNERS COLLABORATE AND PROVIDE FEEDBACK ON THEIR WORK. THROUGH AN EXTENSIVE EDITING PROCESS, WE CHALLENGE EACH OTHER TO BE RESPONSIBLE, INTENTIONAL, AND SELF-CRITICAL. 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. 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.

BIG LOSSES TEXT BEN SHROCK DESIGN ANNA BRINKHUIS ILLUSTRATION HANNAH CHANG

Why were Americans crying on January 19th?

There was a televised memorial for the over 400,000 Americans who have died from Covid-19. Maybe they were crying because they themselves have lost someone. Maybe, the overwhelming nature of this past year was too much to bear. Or maybe, if they were Christian, they were crying because they just got MAJORLY DUNKED ON by a bunch of Jews on the internet. Leonard Cohen would never stand for this. Neither would Buckley or Wainwright, for that matter.

You see, gospel singer Yolanda Adams concluded the memorial with a somber rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” which is apparently about, as @taber on Twitter put it, “GRIM DEPRESSING JEWISH SEX.”@afrodykee chimes in, “not them playing that Jewish sex song at a memorial.” @ swordgirlnation puts it plainly: “Yes, Christians, all Jewish people make fun of you when you sing the song about Jewish sex to celebrate your holidays and commemorate your loss. All of us.” If there’s one thing to make fun of Christians for, their notorious propensity to not properly analyze song lyrics is at the tippy-top of the list.

As a Jew, this writer says, “Well done! I am proud of my people for making sure that everyone #neverforgets that this song is about sex and sex only!” It’s not as if the country is going through a major tragedy and doesn’t need the added emotional distress of being completely and utterly PONED for their

TEXT NICKOLAS ROBLEE-STRAUSS DESIGN ANNA BRINKHUIS ILLUSTRATION HANNAH CHANG

While investors everywhere reeled with anxiety as the Dow Jones plummeted last week, one financier had his paws on the steering wheel. Roaring Kitty—the man (cat?) behind the Gamestop investing push—began his outsider investing strategy sometime in mid-2019 when he gambled $53,000 on GME shares and began proselytizing via the Redditverse. Expanding to TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter, his zany investing wisdom finally gained traction this past month. Roaring Kitty himself—a 34 year old feline who doubles as Keith Gill, former financial educator for a MA based insurance firm— clawed together a heaping 48 million dollars as markets closed this past Friday with his initial $4 dollar GME investments topping at $325 per share.

His Reddit-devotees thank him for turning their stimulus checks into retirements: “Your example has literally changed the lives of thousands of ordinary normal people,” reality_czech wrote to Mr. Kitty.

“Seriously thank you.”

The rag tag team of insurgents banded together via Reddit, harnessing Robinhood in an effort to perform a populist short squeeze on a beloved stock who has hit hard times. Outwitting the OG market manipulators who presumed the pandemic might hurt brick and mortar gaming business, the sheer volume of interest has pushed GME up 2000 percent in one week (admittedly, with a decided downturn since the weekend.) Amidst memes and slurs, the Reddit page behind it all, r/wallstreetbet$, is a mix of celebration, hype and worry—but mostly

THE COLD AND BROKEN HALLELUJAH memorial song choices. If one thing is clear, it’s that Christians in mourning need to be reminded how incredibly stupid they are. Do you see what I’ve been doing? I mean the opposite of what I’ve said.

How cute!

Who cares about the meaning of songs, anyways?

I’ve never listened to a song lyric in my life. For this Indy contributor, it’s all about the pretty sounds and nothing else. But if one did really try to find out the true meaning of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” they would learn that Cohen originally had 80 verses written for the song. The song was cut down to just four verses by the time of recording. So who knows what it’s actually about anyways? The meaning of a song with 76 missing verses is certainly not something to put mourners down over, right?

The first two verses of the song make

references to King David and his wife Bathsheba.

King David saw Bathsheba bathing on the roof, but she was married. So he sent Uriah, her husband, to die in war so he could slide in, so to speak. The Reverend Dr. Scott of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, once gave a sermon on the song. He said “the story of David and Bathsheba is about the abuse of power in the name of lust, which leads to murder, intrigue, and brokenness.” When you put it that way, maybe “Hallelujah” is actually the perfect song to memorialize what has occurred in our country this past year.

BS

FINANCE: OUTGAMED

rockets. “Netflix is coming out with a movie/show on GME, let’s give them a happy ending’’ says handypanda93. But not all success comes easy as Alfa Dog 9 notes: “This is really hurting me, haven’t slept in days, it’s going to fucking SUCK when i crack my head open crashing into the fucking moon.”

But not all is fair in Sherwood. Robinhood blocked new trades of GME starting Monday, January 25.

With their credit maxed out and a one billion dollar cash infusion, the company struggled to pay for trading fees as thousands rushed to ride the GME wave. For the finance establishment, this bottle-

neck eased the GME bubble while eager first-time investors remained closed out of GME’s spoils.

In an unlikely alliance AOC, Ted Cruz, and Elon Musk found common ground with all three asking the same question: why can stock brokers and Wall Street insiders continue to trade and profit off of this bubble when the populist movement that drives it is blocked out? AOC tweeted: “This is unacceptable. We now need to know more about @RobinhoodApp’s decision to block retail investors from purchasing stock while hedge funds are freely able to trade the stock as they see fit.” Ted Cruz retweeted the AOC’s statement only to be reminded of his base’s recent effort to storm their workplace—a more violent feat of online organizing. Elon Musk, a skeptic of market intervention like Robinhood’s, pressed the CEO that “something maybe shady” happened. “Like, it seems a little weird that you’d get a sudden [$3] (sic) billion demand at 3 in the morning just suddenly out of nowhere?”

Whether they are amateur venture capitalists, the occupy movement reborn, or Cruzinites looking for a quick buck, the politics of these Redditor’s remain illusive: Economic populists? Meme-lords? Supporters of a new AOC / Cruz unity ticket for 2024? In reality, they’re probably environmentally minded traders who misread GME as General Motors (Electric).

Even the Indy is hopping on the trend. Purring_ News_Junky42, our Reddit handle, will be shaking up the market soon with our own financial knowhow. Marking a new era of thriving print journalism, the Indy [IND: $20.21] goes public next week.

NRS

WEEK IN REVIEW

02

CHANGING THE CLIMATE OF

TEXT KATE SIELER

DESIGN MIYA LOHMEIER

ILLUSTRATION MARA JOVANOVIC

S+T

PETRO-MASCULINITY

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The influence of gender identity on environmental behaviors Last semester, a classmate of mine told me that he never touches vegan meat or soy products because they “deplete testosterone and literally make you more feminine.” I’ll admit this wasn’t the first time I’d heard veganism dismissed as a thing for girls and hippies. It was, however, my first encounter with someone who genuinely believed eating plant-based meat could alter his hormone levels.

Unfortunately, my former classmate isn’t alone in this belief: according to Urban Dictionary, “soy boy” is a term for “males who completely and utterly lack all necessary masculine qualities,” and “this pathetic state is usually achieved by an over-indulgence of emasculating products and/or ideologies,” such as soy. As the construction of masculinity is often rooted in a rejection of femininity, feminizing soy means that its consumption negates other masculine characteristics. Suddenly, any man who lacks traditionally ‘masculine’ traits is a “soy boy,” (regardless of whether he actually consumes soy). Numerous studies discredit the idea that the phytoestrogens in soy have any measurable hormonal effects on consumers. Most processed foods contain some form of soy, often for use as emulsifiers, including most whey protein powders, commonly marketed to men for their fitness and muscle-building benefits.

Marketing campaigns by the meat industry have long reinforced cultural perceptions that “real men eat meat” and “a real man can grill the perfect steak,” relying on rigid conceptions of masculinity to sell more products. Burger King’s infamous 2006 ad, “I am Man,” depicts a man’s rejection of “chick food” as he gathers an army of men who parade through the streets with their Cheesy Bacon XXL burgers in hand. The ad ends with the slogan, “Eat like a man, man.” Meat is a central fixture of the Western diet and, more specifically, of a “manly” one. Rejecting this diet is tricky; research by Drs. Emma Roe and Paul Hurley indicates that men who are interested in cutting down on their meat intake find it difficult to choose plant-based options in social settings— particularly those with other men—and can experience social isolation as a result. This isolation is a consequence of the common thought by people of all genders that vegetarians are less masculine than those who eat omnivorously. These findings (from the study “Meat, morals, and masculinity”) correspond with data collected by the non-profit Faunalytics, indicating that only one out of four vegans in the US identifies as male.

It is difficult to make space for environmentalism, which requires an attentiveness to the exploitation of the planet, in traditional gendered performances of toughness and stoicism. In the US, a gender gap exists in almost every sustainable practice—according to the study “Gender Bending and Gender Conformity,” men are less likely to both recycle and carry reusable bags, for which the association between green behaviors and femininity is in large part responsible. Gender identity is a fundamental part of self-identity. While masculinity has many iterations, its ‘petro-masculine’ expression stands most opposed to environmentalism. This iteration of masculinity encompasses a rigid set of traits that link masculine power to environmental exploitation, while iterations of femininity are more fluid and can contain aspects that would inherently threaten masculinity.

S+T

While the impacts of masculinity on behavior can be very difficult to measure, this analysis of the gender gap explores the relationship between petro-masculinity and environmentalism. Research supports this: studies published in the Journal of Consumer Research under the title “Is Eco-Friendly Unmanly?” found that, on average, men are more concerned with the public perception of their gender identity, especially in the context of environmentally friendly behaviors. This is likely due to the stricter set of behaviors denoted as masculine. Thus, male-identifying individuals engage in more gender signaling behaviors. So, whether or not they are aware of it, many men shirk environmental behaviors in order to avoid the association with femininity. +++ Various areas of environmental interaction are associated with gendered performances and identities. The exploitation of natural resources, namely oil and gas, has a strong sexual component. The personification of Mother Earth insinuates that there is something intrinsically feminine about our planet, and through this lens, the seizure of resources and destruction of the climate is similar to sexual assault. This exploitation is congruent with John H. Gagnon and William Simon’s theory of gendered sexual “scripts,” which determine how individuals act in sexual settings. These scripts dictate that the masculine role is assertive while the feminine role is responsive. Unsustainable energy practices act assertively against a passive, responsive environment.

Political scientist Cara Daggett notes that “the aesthetics of fossil fuels—most particularly oil—are ripe for recoding as expressions of sexualized power and orgasmic satisfaction.” With renewable energy touted as the future, well-paying factory jobs have been largely exported overseas, and employment in the coal and oil industries is no longer as lucrative as it was half a century ago. Not only do decreased opportunities in the fossil fuel industry deny blue-collar workers breadwinner status, but the environmental movement also challenges the sexualized and gendered exploitation of natural resources. For some men, this has stirred intense feelings of inadequacy and resentment. +++ Although widespread adoption of renewable energy will ultimately create new jobs, many conservatives cling to fossil fuel as a representative icon of American self-sufficiency, which itself is rooted in conceptions of masculinity. This has spawned a new iteration of white masculine identity in response to threats against white patriarchy and the status quo: petro-masculinity. Through the lens of petro-masculinity, global warming and environmental regulations appear as threats to the patriarchal structure of state institutions and seek to take power from the nuclear family. This viewpoint resonates with a significant portion of both white men and many white women—likely those who are comfortable benefitting from the petro-masculine norm. Daggett believes that beneath this group’s patriarchal beliefs and “obsession with hyper-masculinity” there is an “underlying fear of the social fragility of masculinity, as well as a shared sense among the members of each having personally fallen short of the ideal.”

Androcentricity, the practice of placing the masculine perspective above others, promotes a close-mindedness to groups or concepts that challenge this viewpoint. Identity-protective cognition is a theory in social psychology that examines how people align their beliefs with messages coming from the people with whom they identify most and dismiss information from opposing groups. Men who engage in this type of cognition circulate their own exclusionary narratives, treating environmentalists as an outgroup. Because of this dichotomy, they may find it difficult or impossible to engage in behaviors that align with both groups. With such a strong association between environmental behaviors and femininity, it is tempting for some men to neglect them, particularly when leaders like Donald Trump champion the petro-masculine identity and stoke its associated fears at the forefront of political life.

Fossil fuel industries likewise take advantage of the gendered associations between natural resources and

exploitative processes. In her book Fighting King Coal, author Shannon Elizabeth Bell examines the influential public relations campaigns of an advocacy group, Friends of Coal. This group was founded in 2002 by coal companies to counter the messages of environmental justice movements and strengthen ties with mining communities in Appalachia. Friends of Coal sponsors numerous events traditionally construed as masculine—such as football games and NASCAR races—and aligns itself with hunting, fishing, and the military. In this way, Bell concludes, Friends of Coal is able to associate itself with “provider and defender icons” and reinforce “the hegemonic image of the working-class provider as a man,” making the coal industry “synonymous with the family provider.” The coal industry is not alone in this practice; fossil fuel corporations perpetuate gender norms for economic gain through targeted advertising and sponsorships that enforce and sustain traditional values.

Shaped by external pressures, like targeted messaging from the fossil fuel industry and threatening environmental movements, petro-masculinity has become a lifestyle choice of its own. ‘Rolling coal’ is a recent trend in which a diesel engine is modified to emit huge quantities of black smoke. This practice (nicknamed “Prius repellant” by its perpetrators) has gained popularity over the past few years as a means to protest against environmental regulations and their proponents. According to the New York Times, coal rollers will frequently target those who drive hybrid or Asian cars, along with bikers and female pedestrians, spewing black exhaust in their vicinity. Behaviors like these embody the spirit of petro-masculinity. As alternatives to fossil fuel systems become increasingly prominent, so might the resolve to resist change by people who benefit the most from those systems. +++ New research suggests that affirming men’s gender identity could make them more willing to engage in previously neglected environmental behaviors.

“Is Eco-Friendly Unmanly?” found that “following a gender-identity threat, men were less likely to choose green products.” In one such study, male participants wrote a few sentences detailing events of the previous day. Those in the male affirmation group were informed that an algorithm “over 97% accurate in predicting personal characteristics of the writer” indicated they wrote more like a man than a woman, while participants in the control group received no feedback on their writing. Next, all subjects chose between two drain cleaners, identical except for one line: the green product reading, “Better for the environment” and the standard one, “Better at dissolving grease.” The results indicated that men in the masculine affirmation group selected the green product more frequently than the men in the control group, with a 14.5 percent increase in their preference rating of the environmentally friendly drain cleaner. This suggests that affirming masculinity can increase men’s preference for green products, identifying a contrapositive to the claim that threats to masculinity cause men to avoid or even resist environmental products and behaviors.

Rebranding environmental activities and products could potentially open a new gateway to allowing men to participate in eco-friendly behaviors without feeling emasculated. “Is Eco-Friendly Unmanly?” also examined responses to two different fundraising pitches from the same environmental organization and found that male participants were more likely to donate to Wilderness Rangers (which boasted a black and navy howling wolf logo and the mission to protect “wilderness areas”) than to Friends of Nature (which had a green tree logo with the purported mission to “preserve nature areas” written in cursive). Femme participants were largely unaffected by these differences. Such research indicates that, with intentional branding designed for a masculine audience, environmental groups should be able to increase male participation and engagement.

Companies like Tesla also demonstrate that masculine consumers are very receptive to intentional marketing of green products. Tesla’s tech-forward vehicles are styled to look more luxurious and highend and have acceleration times which rival many

super cars. According to Hedges & Company, an automotive digital marketing agency, 71 percent of Model X and 84 percent of Model 3 vehicle owners identify as male. By appealing to traditionally masculine aesthetics, Tesla has been able to connect with a consumer base that includes significantly more men than is typical of green products.

Sustainable food manufacturing companies should take a page out of tech and fast-food corporations’ books by intentionally marketing their products in a way that appeals to a masculine audience. Gender and soy issues aside, the argument that “real meat tastes better” has consistently been used to undermine plant-based alternatives. However, over the past 10 years, scientific advances in food engineering processes have allowed for the development of novel vegan alternatives, which have a similar sensory profile to meat. Some fast-food restaurants have begun selling these alternatives in products like the Impossible Whopper from Burger King and the Dunkin’ Donuts Beyond Sausage Breakfast Sandwich. The success of these items indicates that integrating green products into fast food chains (whose branding tends to already be quite masculine) makes them more desirable to a new audience rather than if they were simply sold at health restaurants. Although these products are likely unappealing to some male consumers, particularly those who subscribe to the petro-masculine identity, their inclusion on menus will at least serve to normalize these alternatives.

Perhaps providing such options at iconic American fast-food chains will help to reduce the stigma against men who choose to eat less meat and convince Americans that ‘real men’ can be just as happy eating an Impossible Burger.

Although rebranding green products in more masculine ways can increase male consumption, it is still important to break down existing gender barriers so that men can confidently purchase green products and participate in other environmental behaviors.

We will all experience the effects of unsustainable actions. Hopefully, collective work to destigmatize environmentalism will encourage individuals like my former classmate to feel unrestricted and comfortable expressing themselves in more sustainable ways, regardless of gender.

KATE SIELER B’22 loves the fact that cows have best friends.

04

Beyond Chinatown My Joy Luck Crisis, Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown, and Asian American Narratives

For a while, I avoided Asian American literature.

It started with The Joy Luck Club. I read the novel when I was 16, just beginning to grapple with my identity as an Asian American. Growing up in the Deep South, I knew very few other Asians. My family lived in a small town three and a half hours away from the nearest Korean supermarket, and I was usually the only student at school who wasn’t white or Black. Conversations about racial identity were non-existent, and I lacked the vocabulary to even ask myself basic questions about my own identity. In fact, even in middle school, I mistakenly believed that the term “Asian American” applied exclusively to people of mixed Asian and white backgrounds—not to people like me. This misconception reveals how deeply I believed the false narrative that only white people were real Americans.

I turned to The Joy Luck Club because I was embarrassed that I had never read a book in the Asian American literary canon. Amy Tan’s 1989 novel seemed popularly lauded as one of its major texts. In retrospect, I think I was subconsciously looking for some kind of model of Asian American identity and writing—as if such a thing concretely existed. But instead, The Joy Luck Club gave me a full-blown identity crisis. Tan’s novel follows the experiences of four Chinese American women and their complicated, strained relationships with their immigrant mothers. The mothers had suffered difficult and severely patriarchal lives in China, and their Americanized daughters, several of whom are also struggling in their romantic relationships, fail to fully understand them.

Cultural gaps form chasms between the two generations, and were made worse by the frequently overbearing attitudes of the mothers.

If the novel was really representative of the Asian American experience, it seemed to me then that the hallmarks of Asian American identity were cultural clashes and intergenerational conflict. I was alarmed because my family seemed far too functional in comparison. My parents and I

05

TEXT NAOMI KIM DESIGN MICHELLE SONG ILLUSTRATION RACHELLE SHAO

got along fairly well. They provided support, not pressure, and I felt free to pursue my own interests. We laughed and told jokes far more often than we fought, and in general, I felt that my parents did understand me. My family’s attitudes were far removed from the Confucian ideals and superstitions that abounded in The Joy Luck Club, including legacies of sexism. Irrationally, I feared that my family had become so whitewashed that we had lost the traits and dynamics of Tan’s four fictional Asian American families. In their absence, what did that make me? I didn’t feel recognizably Asian American—but I still felt alienated from America. I didn’t look like my classmates, or eat the same food, or grow up cheering for a favorite college football team. Unlike everyone else, I didn’t have extended family in America to gather with for holidays, and so I never had a sense of being rooted anywhere in this country.

And—as always—I was not white.

The experience of my Joy Luck crisis unsettled me so badly that I started avoiding Asian American writers altogether. But my confusions stayed with me, and I continued to grapple with my identity. Over time, I learned to resist the narrow conception of Americanness which equated it to whiteness. As my idea of identity expanded, I recognized that I had taken a similarly narrow view of what it meant to be an Asian American in particular. I had read The Joy Luck Club as The Asian American Story, when in fact, at best, it was only an approximate representation of a particular experience— not representative of an entire group’s experience. +++ In the years since I read The Joy Luck Club, I’ve learned to stop searching so desperately for an identity negotiation template in Asian American novels. I’ve read various books by Asian American writers, but none of them have struck me as much as Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown, the (deserving) winner of the 2020 National

Book Award in Fiction. While the satirical novel successfully takes on Hollywood stereotypes, I found that it also resonated with me as a call to Asian Americans for creative and critical engagement with our own diverse narratives—to resist believing that there can be such a thing as a generic Asian American story.

Yu is familiar with Hollywood’s own game, given his experience writing for shows like Westworld, and he turns it deftly, humorously on itself. Interior Chinatown is written in large part as a script, and every character is an actor in the cop show, Black and White, which seems to be in perpetual production. In fact, it’s ambiguous as to whether this is just a TV show, or whether all the world’s really a stage (or a screen).

This ambiguity that Yu cleverly creates between performance and reality forces us to confront how we have become so used to playing certain roles that we seem to fuse with them.

In Black and White, two cops, one white and one Black, take center stage, while protagonist Willis Wu and his fellow Chinatown neighbors scrabble to score poorly paid bit pieces. The novel traces Willis’s struggle to break free from the one-dimensional, stereotyped roles available to him as an Asian American man. His attempts at stardom in a world ruled by the model of Black and White prove difficult, as expected, and even land him in court, where his lawyer brings him face to face with racist systems, their origins, and their perpetuation. Yu uses Black and White to literalize and critique a particular racial vision of America as a Black-and-white country—one that doesn’t truly include people of Asian descent as legitimate Americans. Through the sidelining of Asian American characters within Black and White, Yu underscores the marginalization of Asian Americans in Hollywood and in American society at large.

The hilariously stereotyped roles available to Chinatown inhabitants like Willis demonstrate the ways in which America otherizes Asian Americans as foreigners. The roles available for women

“While the satirical novel successfully takes on Hollywood stereotypes, I found that it also resonated with me as a call to Asian Americans for creative and critical engagement with our own diverse narratives— to resist believing that there can be such a thing as a generic Asian American story.”

range from Asiatic Seductress, to Girl with the Almond Eyes, to Pretty Oriental Flower. For men, the roles include Background Oriental Male, Disgraced Son, and Egg Roll Cook. At the beginning of Interior Chinatown, Willis is Generic Asian Man, but he dreams of becoming Kung Fu Guy—the highest achievement Black and White offers someone like him. His acting skills include fluency in broken English and the ability “to do Face of Great Shame on command,” preparing him to play honor-bound, Confucian foreigners wellversed in filial piety. Clearly, Willis is never allowed to belong as an American, as himself. He’s of more interest and more value to Black and White as predictably Other.

No wonder Yu writes that while Chinese immigrants first arrived in the United States two centuries ago, the “real history of yellow people in America” is one of “being perpetual foreigners.”

In Interior Chinatown, Yu takes on the question of why. Why does Hollywood keep leaving out Asian Americans? Why does America keep leaving out Asian Americans? Exploring the roots of this exclusionary mindset, Yu describes the way Black and White and the vision of America the show represents have an appealing clarity for many people. Just two clear categories: Black, white. Any substantive presence of Asian Americans would disrupt and overcomplicate this neat binary. The status quo and the perpetually (and stereotypically) othered status of Asian Americans is the comfort zone for Black and White. For Hollywood. For America.

I thoroughly enjoyed the way Interior Chinatown poked fun at Hollywood’s tropes and stereotypes, but I—like Willis—was entirely unprepared for Yu’s jarring declaration that Asian Americans are not only victims but also suspects in this system.

When Willis takes the stand for his trial, Interior Chinatown takes a stand too, for its political and social arguments about race and racism in America. Willis’s lawyer spells everything out exactly, arguing that the system has been unfair to Willis—but that he has been guilty of colluding with it. Too many Asian Americans have acquiesced to Black and White’s American vision, choosing to play it safe by remaining inoffensive and unthreatening to the status quo. By pandering to the mainstream, Yu writes, Asian Americans have not only helped perpetuate other systems

of oppression—for example, the fetishization of Black people—but have also trapped themselves. Indeed, Willis ultimately pronounces himself guilty in the courtroom: “Guilty of playing this role.

Letting it define me. Internalizing the role so completely that I’ve lost track of where reality starts and the performance begins.” +++ Willis’s bold assertions summoned up an uncomfortable memory of mine from high school. In AP US History, we were divided into small groups to present short skits. I don’t remember what my group’s skit was about, but what I do remember is that I spoke in broken, accented English for my character, regaling my white classmates with the persona of a Fresh Off the Boat Immigrant. At the time, everyone thought this was really funny—including me. If asked then, I probably would have said, exasperated, that it would be over-sensitive and stupid to question a simple joke. My own joke.

But I also remember my flare of indignation when a classmate jokingly asked if my parents had accents, mimicking some kind of broken English. English is not my parents’ first language, but no, they do not have accents.

What does it mean that I played into that kind of role for laughs? I wonder if it gave me a measure of belonging among my peers to put on that particular performance—to give them something they found humorous, to show them I didn’t take things too seriously. I remember, too, that my brother’s classmate asked him if our family ate dogs, and he told him we had cats named Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner at home.

“Guilty of playing this role,” Willis says.

But this pronouncement of guilt is not as judgmental or harsh as its language might sound. Willis might be guilty of letting the role expected of him overshadow who he really is, but he’s also guilty of something much more mundane and much more heartbreaking. Willis is “guilty of wanting to be part of something that never wanted him,” his lawyer proclaims in the courtroom scene—guilty of wanting, and of trying.

Looking back, I think I may have been

guilty of the same, even if I don’t—and didn’t—want to admit it. The model that Black and White champions for America is one that doesn’t leave any real space or complexity for Asian Americans. Like Willis aspiring to be Kung Fu Man and leave behind Generic Asian Man, I flattened myself into Fresh Off the Boat Immigrant in order to shrug off Generic Asian Nerd, just for a few minutes. But if trying to fit ourselves into Black and White’s America via recognizable but one-dimensional stereotypes isn’t working (and it clearly isn’t), what do we do?

Willis adds even more questions into the mix, deepening the nuances of the issue at hand. He asks, “What is it about an Asian Man that makes him so hard to assimilate?

Who gets to be an American? What does an American look like? Why do we keep falling out of the story?” The key is first to recognize that Willis Wu’s story does not, cannot, and will not fit into a Black-andwhite understanding of race in America.

The Asian American experience in America differs from the Black experience and from the white one—and so Willis must define his own understanding of his story, rather than attempting to impose a different model onto it. “If we haven’t cracked the code of what it’s like to be inside this face,” Yu asks Asian Americans, “then how can we explain it to anyone else?”

It’s true that Interior Chinatown prompts discussion of Hollywood, but for me, it also spoke powerfully to embracing the particularities of my own experience of being an Asian American. I can’t caricature myself to become more acceptable, by way of being funny to my white peers, but I also can’t expect the experience of another Asian American woman to fit me perfectly, to crack the code of what it’s like to be me.

Americans are diverse. Asian Americans are diverse. Interior Chinatown reminds me that the more we tell our disparate and authentic experiences, and the more we claim our varied stories and identities, the better—not just for Hollywood, but for all of us.

NAOMI KIM B’21 is intimidated by dim sum restaurants.

ARTS

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INTERNATIONAL REACTIONS TO THE CAPITOL RIOT An alarming new phase of ascendant global authoritarianism The January 6 storming of the United States Capitol threw the country and the world into a state of alarm as, for a harrowing few hours, America’s foundational commitment to the peaceful transfer of power was put into question. The haunting significance of a Confederate flag flying in the Capitol for the first time in history was not lost on observers.

But by virtue of the US’s reputation as an international beacon of liberal democracy, the attempted insurrection had rippling aftereffects that extended far past its borders. Despite some media figures’ efforts to portray it as an unprecedented aberration from American norms, the deadly event not only marks a continuation of iniquitous American history, but also signals an unsettling new step in a worldwide resurgence of racist authoritarianism, and portends a dark, dangerous future for global democracy.

Although most world leaders across the political spectrum immediately decried the Capitol riot, there were key differences in their official statements, informed by their respective political atmospheres and agendas. Leaders of major US allies with relatively robust democracies, such as Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Uruguay, and Spain, lamented the riot while still expressing wholehearted confidence in “the strength of American democracy,” in the words of French President Emmanuel Macron. “I have no doubt democracy will prevail,” said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. International coalitions also publicly voiced their optimism for the US’s future alongside denunciations of the violence: European Council President Charles Michel called the US congress “a temple of democracy” despite the insurrection, and President of the United Nations General Assembly Volkan Bozkir said, “I believe that peace and respect for democratic processes will prevail in our host country at this critical time.”

Besides the obvious need to officially address an event as politically sensational as the Capitol riot, these optimistic communiqués served to reassure countries and the larger international community that democracy would remain intact. The statements reinforced the symbolism of the United States as democratic exemplar, lodestar for the world. To be sure, in the wake of the Cold War, the US enjoyed a worldwide political and economic primacy—often called the ‘unipolar moment’— during which the country ostensibly ushered in an era of international comity, and due to which the country is widely thought of as a universal bastion of liberal democracy. However, it would be quite a stretch to say that the US has lived up to these professed democratic principles in its applications of force overseas. And former President Donald

Trump’s shredding of diplomatic norms, accompanied by the rapid rise of illiberal superpowers like China and Russia, have laid bare the fragility of this American mythology. Unfortunately, the multinational projection of collective confidence in democratic values that followed the Capitol insurrection belies the darker reality of the modern international theater: global democratic backsliding, aided by the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic, has long been getting worse, not better. Due to the US’s status as a byword for democracy, the storming of the Capitol was not just a significant assault on American representative governance: it was an assault on democracy everywhere.

Indeed, the scenes in Washington were worryingly familiar to many proponents of liberal democracy around the world. For example, Germany faced a similarly abortive parliamentary storming in August 2020, when far-right anti-lockdown extremists wielding flags adorned with Nazi insignia attempted to storm the Reichstag. Some looked to the Hungarian right-wing extremist mobs in 2006 that presaged the country’s descent into an authoritarian abyss. Just this past Monday, a military coup in Myanmar decisively ended the nation’s fledgling democracy after the army abruptly detained government officials and declared a year-long state of emergency. Even in stable democracies, far-right xenophobic movements led by reactionary populists with fascistic trappings have enjoyed startling gains.

This pattern is evident in France, where presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen currently dominates the polls; in Brazil, where fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro assumed the presidency in 2018; and in the Netherlands and Australia, where diffuse reactionary extremism is thriving. A recurring character among these phenomena is the American-born farright conspiracy theory QAnon, which, along with weaponized anti-lockdown ire, is breathing new life into far-right extremism worldwide. +++ Consequently, after condemning the riot, some US-friendly international officials eschewed optimism in favor of blunt warnings. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted, “This is important not only for the US, but for Ukraine and the entire democratic world as well.” Germany’s foreign minister Heiko Maas said, “The enemies of democracy will be delighted at these terrible images from Washington DC.” Prominent Japanese politician Taro Kono pleaded for the US to continue as a leader of democratic values. Against this backdrop, the attempt to thwart democracy at the Capitol—and Trumpism as a whole—comes into sharp relief as the American manifestation of a global authoritarian trend.

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On the other hand, Iran, Russia, and China—some of the US’s chief adversaries—similarly denounced the Capitol riot, but with the opposite goal: criticizing US democracy and justifying their own repressive, anti-democratic practices. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani asserted that the riot showed the fragility of Western democracy, while Vyacheslav Volodin, the Speaker of the Duma (the Russian parliament), said, “It is pointless to refer to [the US] as a model of democracy… We are on the verge of re-evaluating the standards that are promoted by the USA.” Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the Russian upper house international committee, likewise proclaimed, “The celebration of democracy is over. Alas, this is rock bottom… America no longer defines the course, and therefore has lost all right to set it. And even more so to impose it on others.”

China sought to use the event as a new cudgel against the US, arguing that the US government is hypocritical for condemning Capitol rioters when it has criticized China’s draconian response to the Hong Kong independence movement. (To be clear, the sometimes-violent Hong Kong demonstrators were agitating for governmental representation while the Capitol rioters were attempting to overturn the results of a legitimate election.) In particular, China’s staterun media outlets jumped on US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s description of Hong Kong protests as “a beautiful sight to behold” and publicly mused on whether she would say the same about the Capitol insurrection. A Foreign Policy article reported on an anonymous Chinese journalist who divulged that China was planning on using the Capitol riot and its aftermath as a new defense of the country’s repressive censorship practices.

Rulers of other nations slipping into illiberalism, such as Brazil, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe, also harnessed the chaos at the Capitol in hopes of tightening their own authoritarian grips. In a unique political move, President Bolsonaro backed Trump and the former president’s fictitious claims of voter fraud even after the Capitol riot. “For Brazil, it is a warning about what can happen even worse here, if Bolsonaro’s authoritarianism and his militias are not contained, if violations of freedom and rights continue to be tolerated,” said former President Lula da Silva, whom Bolsonaro

TEXT SACHA SLOAN DESIGN ELLA ROSENBLATT ILLUSTRATION OLIVIA LUNGERS

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“By hypocritically lambasting the US’s failings, authoritarian regimes are casting the beleaguered nation as a metonym for democracy in order to obliquely challenge the value of democracy itself.”

barred from running in the 2018 election. Da Silva’s concerns are shared by many who fret that Bolsonaro will follow in Trump’s dictatorial footsteps should he lose the 2022 election; Bolsonaro has already begun spouting Trumpian lies about fraud in Brazil’s electronic voting system. Bashir Ahmad, a personal assistant to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, tweeted “The Beauty of Democracy?” with a shrug emoji. And after recently facing sanctions from the US for despotic practices, Zimbabwe’s President Emerson Mnangagwa said the Capitol riot “showed that the U.S has no moral right to punish another nation under the guise of upholding democracy.” By hypocritically lambasting the US’s failings, authoritarian regimes are casting the beleaguered nation as a metonym for democracy in order to obliquely challenge the value of democracy itself. +++ The social media ‘deplatforming’ of Trump that followed the Capitol insurrection, however, raised an interesting ideological divide between the US and its egalitarian allies. Most Democratic politicians celebrated Twitter, Facebook, and Google’s actions against Trump. But a spokesperson for Chancellor Merkel told reporters that because “the right to freedom of opinion is of fundamental importance… [she] considers it problematic that the president’s accounts have been permanently suspended.” Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, whom the autocratic Russian President Vladimir Putin recently imprisoned, also spoke out against the move, calling it a grievous example of censorship. This disagree-

ment over what constitutes censorship complicates any notion of a straightforward democracy-authoritarianism binary, and raises important questions about the US’s own relationship with universal democratic values.

Indeed, rather than making the mistake of blaming Trump for all its woes, the US must look inward and examine its role in both overseas and domestic authoritarian proliferation. It was an embarrassing display of hypocrisy to see US media pundits comparing the disgraceful Capitol events to those of a ‘third-world’ country in Africa or Latin America when the US’s violent, racist experiments with corporatist democracy-toppling brought about many of those conditions in the first place. And to label the Capitol riot as an un-American fluke—as myriad US politicians and media figures did—would be to ignore history: white supremacist violence to prevent nonwhite Americans from gaining political power is and has always been at the heart of the US story.

In fact, despite the self-serving, duplicitous motives embedded within these authoritarian leaders’ Capitol riot communiqués, their portrayals of a US struggling with homegrown racist authoritarianism ring uncomfortably true. The US likes to think of itself as a paragon of free speech, rule of law, and democratic governance for the international community at large, but this illusion disintegrates upon even a cursory review of the repressive lived reality for many across America. Take the country’s uniquely anachronistic and unrepresentative electoral system, which, despite being created for the explicit purpose of empowering pro-slavery states, has been

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virtually unchanged for hundreds of years. Or the concomitant racist voter suppression efforts that, far from being a dying relic of the past, were revitalized by the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision. Take the unmarked federal agents who routinely violated the First Amendment rights of protestors last summer at the behest of the Trump administration, or the disproportionate rates at which Black Americans are incarcerated and murdered by a hyper-militarized police force. Look, too, at the rampant anti-intellectual (and outright anti-reality) sentiments, championed by most Republican politicians, that resulted in the US having one of the worst COVID responses in the world.

One doesn’t have to search hard to see the deep-set anti-democratic sensibilities, born out of an inherently contradictory founding philosophy, that have forever plagued the US. In light of the Capitol riot, Trump’s still-influential political base, and the gradual tectonic political shifts both phenomena represent, international allies are rightly agonized over the prospect of a Trump 2.0—if not Trump himself—regaining the White House in 2024. Perhaps this swelling maelstrom of anti-globalism, ethnocentrism, and illiberal populism should come as no surprise; centering post-Cold War liberal internationalism around an almost-mythical conception of the US all but foredoomed this global order to eventual failure. Regardless, the US owes it to its citizens and its democratic allies abroad to hold the Capitol insurrectionists accountable and work toward building itself anew. While the US and other democracies show signs of faltering, authoritarians everywhere are studying each other’s successes and preparing to fill the vacuum, new Trumpian playbook in hand. As evidenced by Hitler’s ineffective 1923 Beer Hall Putsch just 10 years before he ascended to chancellorship, even seemingly futile attempts to wound democracy can leave permanent scars. Amid the unheard cries of the repressed and the ignorance of the complacent, the drumbeat of a new era of global fascism grows louder.

SACHA SLOAN B’23.5 is reading his favorite subversive books while he still can.

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five poems Dream Journal One. Particular Knowledges “If what we need to dream, to move our spirits most deeply and directly toward and through promise, is discounted as a luxury; then we give up the core— the fountain—of our power, our womanness; we give up the future of our worlds.” - Audre Lorde, “Poetry is Not a Luxury” Last night I dreamt that I knew how to solve the climate crisis and ensure a just transition. When I woke up, I realized there were actually only a few things I know, although there are many more that I have felt.

I know the names of the flowers in my childhood backyard: hydrangea, dogwood, peony, hyacinth. I know the mottled pinkness of my legs after a hot shower. I know the proper way to hold a chicken securely so that it doesn’t fly away. And I have always known that nothing is a lot to ask of someone you love.

I know what you are feeling by the size of your eyes when our gaze aligns. Sure, I never fully know (that is the point) but I can approach that knowing, just as I approach your body (that is also the point).

Sometimes I think into a notebook: is the rage I nurture in my belly helping anyone? I don’t yet know how to universe, but I am trying very hard to learn.

Two. Florist in the living room

Three. Neatly Edges

Four. Skin/Empathy

We stitched ourselves together in that living room in that sunlight. And Florist was playing.

You asked if my skin might burn from that hot sun through that latticed ice.

Alice keeps her pantry neat. She lines up all the boxes exactly to the edge of the shelf, moving rhythmically. The jars of preserves are arranged precisely. Tender fruit kept tender. If she works quickly when filling them, lasting sweetness is no longer a myth. Made-soft butter spreads to the just-edges of each toast slice. Graham crackers break perfectly on perforated lines. Eggshells separate uneventfully into two even pieces, the yolk slugging out between.

He responded to the meme, “Maybe empathy is bound up in anxiety.” And I agreed. It can be hard to separate intentions if you don’t think about it too much. And thinking too much is overrated. And like anxiety, empathy centers the self. It subjectifies, self-congratulates. And it is always defined by impossibility. An impossible possibility that looms.

I look at your skin through the phone and say that there’s still a lot to be gained in the attempt. Let me hold you in my skincloth, if only to prove that I am pure enough to do it.

Dancing slowly then kissing then fucking in that sun. I turned my head and thought of the way my hair shifted in that light.

I am vain like that, but only sometimes.

When I got up to pee, I felt my skin in the mirror. I saw my face, a dreaming face. Later that day, when I was peeing again you read a poem to me from that big stupid book you love. Me in the mirrorskin searching for your hand.

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Well, to make a long story very short, one day there was an event. An earthquake, specifically. Canisters, boxes, dense cylindrical bags shifting uneasily. A jam jar neatly edging over the shelf. Now falling.

And another and another. Sweetness on the floor, cupped in curved shards. When Alice cries, each tear waits for the last to reach the cusp of her chin before beginning its descent. Parallel metallic lines cutting through caked skin. One jar sits still on the shelf. If this last one were to fall, it would crack exactly in half.

TEXT JANE FREIMAN DESIGN SOJUNG YUN ILLUSTRATION EVELYN TAN

MAXIMALIST MANIFESTO IN GLUE AND SKIN DO NOT ASK ME ABOUT LINE BREAKS. I CANNOT CHOOSE WHICH SLIPSTRAND TO SEVER. INSTEAD, I’LL LET THE WORDS BRUSH THE EDGES OF THE PAGE. LIKE A ROOTBEER FLOAT, OR A LOUD WOMAN. SPILLING OVER, BUT NOT YET ONTO. I WANT TO THINK TINY AND WRITE BIG. TO PLASTER MYSELF TO A BUILDING. COLD STONES AGAINST MY ASS. A BANK PROBABLY, OR ANYPLACE WHERE ADORNMENT CAN BE SUBSTITUTED FOR IMPORTANCE. SURFACE IS SUBSTANCE. AND ALL SUBSTANCE IS EITHER PAIN OR JOY. I WILL DECOUPAGE MY HANDS TO THE FACADE. SKIN TISSUEPAPER TACKYSTUCKNESS. I WILL IMMOBILIZE MYSELF TO THE EVERCHANGING. SO THAT MY BODY CAN BE BOTH VESSEL AND FILLING. A CONTAINER CONTAINING ITSELF AND OTHERS. MY PARAPETIC ARM BENT TO MEET. LIPS OF SHE LACKED STONENESS NUMBED AND PARTED. TO HOLD.

Notebook Inventory

A poem about bows

the kind of overcooked chicken that sticks in your teeth

I started to write a text, but didn’t send it.

“Won’t you thread through me until we form a pink satin bow?

Plastic and fleshy and” That’s

turn to: period of under-flossing followed by period of over-flossing “to desire to be available to know the whole thing means to desire to be open to knowing anything.”

-Lauren Berlant, Cruel Optimism, p. 89 wanting, lacking august is pause → incredible pink pen!!!

I wanted something and now I don’t want it.

I want to want it again.

I don’t want you but I want you to want me.

And I want you to want me to want you.

Is that the same as wanting you? the loneliness of being alone in a desire; the loneliness of being alone in a sadness from Siena, transcribed from a text: “As it has been said: Love and a cough Cannot be concealed.

Even a small cough.

Even a small love.” -Anne Sexton I drank seltzer and talked loudly. So as to be overheard.

I was overflowing. He was frankly flat. tracing paper bubbles tinder has tags now. when I write I like to summarize in one noun enclosed in parentheses. something like this (demonstration). a way of tagging within the work itself. someday will I be a sexy librarian who removes her glasses? descriptive fingers -- circled list of friends to reach out to when I’m lonely or at least thinking I am bad kisser: he empties his entire tongue into my mouth searching for what?

where I stopped.

A person can be a bow (when that person is multiple and entangled, two loops interlocking, an interloper at the cross, twisting to a desire).

So can two plants, reaching across a windowsill toward one another or maybe the sunlight.

And a sweater is a bow, too, if you count the individual strands (one, two, more) breathing and rising in their stretchy webs of embrace. So is a windowpane or a promise. Now, what is not a bow?

A not-bow is a thing so singular and inseparable it hurts. Like the cracks between the floorboards or forgetting a close friend’s birthday.

Camp(ing) If Marie Antoinette went camping, I bet she’d make a blueberry cobbler in a dutch oven over the fire and pitch teeny tiny tents in her hair and lots of fits all day long.

I bet she’d catch a trout in a little stream with a pink plastic pole from a Bass Pro Shops outlet store and have her photo taken right there—portrait mode— and maybe later she’d perch on a stump and pucker her lips and crease a book open to where she happened to leave off just sitting there in sultry pastel grumpiness

I love prepositions orient me in space and time, baby! orient me like these curved arrows I draw on every page. when I finally put on a padded bra and my boobs are no longer glued to my ribs like drapey slugs, I realize that they are in fact kinda big. sick! at the edge of understanding but not yet/ever within it. that’s where I love and hate to be (poetry).

LITERARY

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BROWN & SETTLER

COLONIALISM

TEXT MARA CAVALLARO DESIGN MEHEK VOHRA ILLUSTRATION DOROTHY ZHANG

FEATURES

A land-grab history and present A 1770 Brown Corporation vote reads, “the Edifice [will] be built in the Town of Providence, and there be continued forever.” This local sense of entitlement to Narragansett and Wampanoag land is firmly emplaced in the United States’ larger origin story of imperial expansion. Like the settler state, the creation of the modern university was dependent on the seizure of and profits made from Native land. In many ways, therefore, the college is both a microcosm of the state and a key tool in its machinery. The history of land grant universities in particular illuminates the present day legacies of the thriving symbiotic relationship between settler colonialism and schools like Brown.

Anti-colonial organizations like Abolish the UC (University of California) insist that universities can neither escape their settler colonial histories and presents nor truly be redefined or reformed. Scholar and writer K. Wayne Yang, however, reimagines the university as a space that can be hotwired for decolonizing work. Regardless, as we speculate about and work toward a just future, we must also grapple with the university’s history and the systems it was created to protect. Brown’s relationship with settler colonialism should be understood to be more constant than momentary, and more present than past. +++ Brown’s land grant history began during the Civil War. In 1862, the federal government introduced the first of many Homestead Acts. The measure, meant to incentivize settlers to move west, offered 160 acre plots of Native territory west of the Mississippi to farmers—predominantly white men.

Overall, the United States privatized ten percent of all continental land, or close to 160 million acres.

Later that same year, Native lands that were either seized outright or relinquished by treaty following violence and coercion were issued to Union states to be used as sources of capital for the funding of local colleges. Many states received scrips, or acre denominations that granted them ownership of federal lands thousands of miles away. New York, for instance, came to own land in Wisconsin. Rhode Island was granted 120,000 acres in Kansas. This massive land grab and redistribution was the foundation for the Morrill Act of 1862, also known as the Land-Grant College Act. Unsurprisingly, there were strings attached to this ostensibly free land. Grants were contingent both upon the subsequent sale of land/scrips and a provision of college instruction in “agriculture and the mechanical arts.” Both of these federal demands were thoroughly consistent with the profit-driven motivations for the Morrill Act and land grant universities: to grow agricultural industry and to make land profitable. Colleges played a crucial role in the colonial project of territory acquisition, training a new generation in the ‘domestication of wilderness’ and promotion of industry growth.

And in transferring territory, the government was transferring wealth—redefining land itself as both property and capital. For the United States, land grants were an investment in the sedimentation and solidification of settler colonial institutions and mechanisms. Those investments continue to generate returns today.

In total, the Morrill Act distributed some 11 million acres now worth about half a billion dollars. Today, over 500,000 acres continue to be held in trust by universities and generate revenues as high as $5.4 million annually.

In January 1863, the state of Rhode Island transferred its grant, of thousands of acres of land in

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Kansas, to Brown. Having received this land grant, Brown joined a growing list of schools profiting from displacement as land-grant universities. A few months later, the university sold the smallest recorded Morrill Act endowment of 120,000 acres (equivalent to over 800 Brown campuses or nine cities of Providence) for $50,000. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $1.5 million. Yet according to the 1993 Encyclopedia Brunoniana entry on the sale, the deal was a “bad bargain”—the sale price was much less than what the plot grew to be worth.

To further put that “bad bargain” in perspective, however, note that the federal government paid less than $5,000 to the twenty tribal nations that were forcibly removed from the land. The United States paid the Kaw Nation just $179 for 40,000 acres.

At that price per acre, all of Providence could have been purchased for under 60 dollars.

By 1890, the number and value of farms had skyrocketed, privatization of reservation lands had begun under the Dawes Act, and the federal government had devoted an additional $15,000 to land grant colleges to maintain agricultural education. However, Brown’s claim to this financing was questionable, as the state of Rhode Island had determined the college was not providing adequate agricultural education. The university contemplated returning its land grant funding to the state, but when the Second Morrill Act (which increased financial support from $15,000 to $25,000 every ten years) was passed the very same day, Brown quickly reversed course. After a lawsuit, the school was promised the full grant money.

Two years later, however, the state of Rhode Island granted the nascent Rhode Island College for the Agricultural and Mechanic Arts (now the University of Rhode Island) the funding that Brown had previously been guaranteed. Unlike Brown, URI was established as an agricultural school and was thus more capable of providing agricultural education. Though Brown again appealed to the Supreme Court, it ultimately agreed in an 1894 settlement to repay the $50,000 generated from the Kansas land sale, give up its land-grant status, and receive $40,000 for the education it had already provided. In other words, when Brown’s land grant

status was rescinded, the university repaid the $50,000 made from the sale of the Kansas plot but then left court with $40,000—that translates to over $1.1 million today. What’s more, that $40,000 increased Brown’s endowment by 3.5 percent—for context, today that would require a donation of $150 million.

Unlike some schools, such as Washington State University and the University of Idaho, Brown does not currently generate profit from any federally granted land. However, it continues to occupy Narragansett and Wampanoag territory, ideologically and practically bound to the permanence of ‘forever.’ This is but one of the varied ways in which Brown is complicit in contemporary expressions of colonial violence. The university receives funding from Warren Kanders, Brown alumnus and CEO of Safariland, the defense equipment company responsible for manufacturing the tear gas used at Standing Rock. Likewise, the Brown Corporation continues to disregard the student vote in favor of the university’s divestment from companies complicit in human rights abuses and settler colonial violence in Palestine. And yet, Brown hypocritically continues to advance narratives of its progressivism and righteousness. +++ It is not uncommon, for instance, to hear land acknowledgements made at university events.

Without action items or dedication to decolonizing work, these often vapid statements work to maintain Brown’s progressive facade while the institution actively perpetuates settler colonialism. Indeed, as Brown attempts to rhetorically distance itself from and retrospectively mythologize its origins, it continues to be a motor in the United States’ settler colonial machinery. The passage of time does not erase history, much less right its wrongs. Truly decolonizing an institution like Brown will take much more than renaming buildings or removing statues—it quite simply requires repatriation of land and reparations for displacement. It means the end of Brown, at least as we now know it.

Like Brown University, MARA CAVALLARO B’22 is currently on Narragansett and Wampanoag land.

X

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METRO

THE PRISON WITHIN THE PRISON

This article is the first in a three-part series by the College Hill Independent on the Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI) in Rhode Island.

“I know what it is to know how many bricks, exactly, are in a cell. I know what it is to count every crac in the oor and in the wall to pass ti e said oseph hepard this cto er standing in a replica prison cell outside of the rovidence ity all with the ecarcerate ca paign. now what it is to e tortured y other hu ans who have dehu ani ed e to the point where they see e as a nu er an o ect or so eone that they can ust rea . o spea ing on ehalf of e and anyone who s gone through it. spea ing on ehalf of the fa ilies that have to struggle. hepard spent si years in the dult orrectional nstitution and three years in igh ecurity the ost restrictive of the five en s prisons operated y the hode sland epart ent of orrections . ince his release hepard has advocated for the closure of igh ecurity an end to the s use of solitary confine ent and the creation of co unity ased alternatives to the ustice syste . n igh ecurity people spend ore than hours a day in solitary confine ent. ere co unication is li ited and highly policed recreation ti e and educational progra ing are restricted and vulnera le to the whi s of correctional o cers s and the chance to e reclassified to a lower security level co es only every several onths. irector atricia oyne ague wrote to the College Hill Independent that the facility houses individuals who are a anage ent pro le for a regular facility. hepard was sent to igh ecurity three separate ti es on different see ingly retaliatory charges once he told the Indy for filing a grievance against . he conditions of igh ecurity are y no eans an e ception to the carceral logic punitive control that defines hode sland s prison syste . s the ost restrictive prison

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V

TEXT LILLIAN PICKETT, LEELA BERMAN AND DEBORAH MARINI DESIGN CLARA EPSTEIN ILLUSTRATION LEONARD JEFFERSON

A look at RI’s supermaximum prison

in the state igh ecurity disappears all those who challenge this syste of control under the guise of safety and security . ew people consider igh ecurity to e a well functioning institution. oyne ague testified in to the ouse inance o ittee that the facility was not uilt with today s philosophy in ind and that we correctional professionals now that eeping people in cells hours a day is not really the way to go.” or er overnor ina ai ondo has also e pressed interest in changing the facility al eit to cut costs rather than i prove conditions.

o erta ich an a for er warden at the s wo en s prison told the Indy that, “It seems so o vious that igh ecurity is a lose lose proposition ut the correctional o cer s union loves igh ecurity ecause it s so la or intensive tons of overti e opportunities there. he hode sland rotherhood of orrectional cers one of the ost powerful and in uential unions in the state is the strongest agent in favor of the facility. n an interview with the Indy ichard erruccio s long standing president said that this prison within the prison is a very i port-

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ant tool that the s correctional o cers s need to aintain peace within the prison syste . he union typically unilaterally opposes changes to the facility and has successfully ca paigned against a nu er of well organi ed efforts to close or refor igh ecurity in the past. o the survivors of igh ecurity these ureaucratic and profit fuelled ad inistrative inconsistencies are secondary to the a ect conditions of the facility. n a letter to one of the authors ia ond ilson who is currently incarcerated in igh ecurity and a pen pal of one of the article s authors wrote that his place is pathetic. hey have policies that the pu lic can see ut they re not followed in here. ia ond li e any others in igh ecurity should e in a less restrictive uilding in his case ini u ecurity ut ecause the only has one uilding for each security level nta e ini u ediu a i u igh ecurity those with du iously la eled eney issues are often oved to igh ecurity regardless of their technical classification. ve een stuc in isolation hours in a cell hour out of a cell for yrs ecause I got u ped they re scared of y reaction he wrote. y oy he s een here for yrs. ever hugged or touched his o or girl ids hys he here ecause the dude that illed his rother is in a i u ecurity . is rother died yrs ago. ot saying y oy s over it ut he got classified to ediu ti es they eep telling hi every days you gotta stay we don t want to send you to ediu . igh ecurity is as erruccio aptly na ed it the prison within the prison concentrating the punitive control that operates throughout the in one facility. t s etter to see igh ecurity as not a failure of the prison syste but rather its shining star. +++ igh ecurity was constructed in as one of the first super a i u prisons in the nited tates. he construction of this new type of prison re ected a neoli eral approach to governance that e phasi ed law and order responses to all anner of social concerns. he carceral state would only continue to e pand under ipartisan efforts to get tough on cri e in the late th century as political figures cultivated increasingly less concern for and ore fear of cri inali ed people. s funding was siphoned fro co unity corrections progra s afforda le housing and ental health resources while eing invested in police and prisons rates of incarceration egan to steadily rise. hese efforts disproportionately targeted and affected lac and rown co unities drawing on a longer history of raciali ed over policing and state violence.

erruccio of the rotherhood of orrectional cers told the Indy that when he started as a in the s we started to see more inmates come in with real serious mental health issues to which was unprepared to respond. ationally prisons eca e crowded even less ha ita le and ore volatile. rison authorities harshly punished any for of resistance to these worsening conditions fearful of the growing efforts to ring civil rights organi ing ehind the walls. cials pathologi ed incarcerated people who diso eyed prison rules no atter the reason as fo enters of violence. arden . . eier of c eil sland ederal enitentiary descri ed e actly this to his colleagues in the erican orrectional ssociation in citing the pro le of well organi ed distur ances rought on y resistors professional agitators o unists hippies and revolutionaries educators and social wor ers. he rhetoric of the re ects a far deeper history of white fear of lac resistance. uper a i u prisons were uilt out of this an iety with the intent to sti e lac civil rights organi ers that saw the prison as a focal point of racial oppression. he population of igh ecurity today is disproportionately ore lac than the as a whole and is a testaent to the carceral state s central pre ise to pathologi e lac lives as inherently dangerous and inherently resistant to the state and its goals. rison o cials relied on the use of special control units and restrictive housing as the solution to the pro le of resistance. n the following years super a i u prisons uilt with indefinite solitary confine ent in ind eca e ore prevalent. here s racis inside igh ecurity that other people don t see on the outside rya erenity who is lac and spent five years in igh ecurity told the Indy. oth inside and outside erenity has een a vocal organi er against the conditions of the prison. er acts of protest were always punished often with even stricter for s of solitary confine ent and sensory deprivation. +++ eonard efferson an organi er with irect ction for ights and uality and one of the first individuals incarcerated in igh ecurity told the Indy that in the id s the was ar ed y violence with incidents day after day until overnor . oseph arrahy “came with the mentality that we have to get tough on these prisoners. ather than addressing the inhu ane conditions of the facilities a i u ecurity uilt in the s was and still is infested with old to which efferson attri utes this unrest responded y

uilding its ost restrictive facility yet. t wasn t necessary to have a igh ecurity facility uilt to deal with people who were asically co plaining a out living in conditions that were not fit for hu an ha itation lac of progra ing and lac of access to decent edical care or food services said efferson. efferson hi self was i prisoned in igh ecurity for refusing to loc up at the end of the day after eing denied edical treat ent for a physical illness. fter three days in the new facility arely cogni ant of his surroundings a finally chec ed his lood pressure which convinced the of the severity of his condition. e was then returned to a i u ecurity and treated for his worsened state. igh ecurity was designed with resistors li e erenity and efferson in ind with a physical space constructed to isolate punish and incapacitate. atalia riedlander an attorney at the hode sland enter for ustice asserts that igh ecurity s architecture re ects the ethos of a nation wide ove ent to warehouse people who were seen as e tre ely dangerous without too uch concern for their future reha ilitation. ince its inception this ission has only e panded as igh ecurity continues to target and torture those who challenge the very concept of the prison. +++ he nited ations defines solitary confineent as the confine ent of prisoners for hours or ore a day without eaningful hu an contact and considers solitary confine ent of ore than consecutive days to e a for of torture. igh ecurity as a physical space andates that every person spend etween hours a day in their cell. ost spend a ini u of days etween entering igh ecurity and their reclassification date if they aren t reclassified to a lower security level they will wait ore days in igh ecurity until the ne t eeting. or any this process can e tend across several years. hose within the tend to push ac on la eling incarceration in igh ecurity as solitary confine ent. espite saying that hours or ore of confine ent is not the way to go oyne ague wrote to the Indy that does have solitary confine ent. his si ply does not e ist in hode sland. e have gone on the record nu erous ti es a ing this point and the edia insists in perpetuating this clai . erruccio ela orated on this to the Indy, saying that, “The term solitary is wrong. They aren t housed alone in a single cell there is an in ate in the very ne t cell there s spaces in the door they tal to each other all night all day. owever the a ility to shout through a concrete wall doesn t constitute eaningful hu an contact and in the few ti es when

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individuals are confined to a dou le cell it is still considered y the epart ent of ustice to e solitary confine ent ecause of the lac of o ility and general isolation. erenity told the Indy that tal loud when don t try to ecause for five years was yelling through a fuc ing wall. or s of co unity within the prison such as outdoor recreation ti e and note passing are also highly restricted. hese restrictions re ect the prison s fear of collective action and care. ilson wrote f give so eone a etchup pac et would have to e loc ed in y cell for days no phone rec . ta let radio nothing. shower on either onday ednesday or riday lose days of good ti e wee s gone of good ti e for given so eone that s hungry a soup . . letter fro the arden of igh ecurity circulated on cto er stated that individuals in the facility had contracted ovid fro passing ite s to each other not fro staff a clai that was refuted y an individual inside who chose to remain anonymous. “This is a lie,” he wrote. g a ve it to y friend. ith this letter the arden declared that passing ite s such as notes and hygiene products eneath cell doors conveyed a deli erate hallenge to uthority and eopardi ed the safety security and or orderly peration of the acility and would e punished. his is a re e pression of s an ieties around collective action and directly contradicts the enter for isease ontrol s guidance which states that pread fro touching surfaces is not thought to e the ain way the virus spreads. ven in the Indy’s efforts to collect testi ony fro those currently in igh ecurity we were prohi ited fro sending in an innocuous ass ailer ecause spo es an . . entura clai ed that it would create a co onality give people so ething an outlet to tal to each other in a way that is outside the nor al routine. nything that is outside the nor al routine represents a security ris . i ilar ass ailers have een prohi ited in igh ecurity despite successfully reaching people in other facilities. nything that could uild co unity or collectivity is dee ed a threat highlighting igh ecurity s purpose to isolate individuals and uell dissent. venues for co unication with loved ones and friends such as phone calls and letters are also li ited y prohi itive costs video visits run for inutes and the whi s of s. ur voice in here is suppressed ilson wrote. ve seen rawls ecause in ates have een eaten not fed denied showers. f we try to push the issue they ll eep out ail outgoing inco ing stop us fro using the phone. was denied visits ecause told the not to tal to e li e so e little id. +++ espite the elief that igh ecurity contains the worst of the worst the facility instead functions as a warehouse for those who create as irector oyne ague wrote to the Indy, a anage ent pro le for a regular facility. here tends to e three general categories of people incarcerated in igh ecurity people seen as dissenters people with ental health concerns that is une uipped to anage and people with ene y issues as in ilson s case. he internal housing structure in igh ecurity re ects these distinctions. he facility includes odules for those in isciplinary onfine ent ore restrictive housing for people with additional oo ings d inistrative onfine ent the rough e uivalent of a

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general population and a s all eight cell odule for those with serious and persistent ental illness nown as the esidential reat ent nit. he facility also contains space for those in rotective ustody and ransitional onfine ent. eople are classified to these statuses via a ris need assess ent which luntly assesses peoples security level ased on infor ation including the severity of their offense ti e inside and nu er of oo ings. classification oard a es a final deter ination a out a person s security level in a process that lac s significant input fro the individual eing classified. +++ hose who actively defy the authority of s and prison rules are often targeted with disciplinary infractions or oo ings that can reclassify the to igh ecurity or if given while already in igh ecurity can increase their ti e in isciplinary onfine ent. erenity who spent years in igh ecurity was agged as a threat for her participation in a religious co unity that was is ar ed as a gang. he was then sent to igh ecurity under a du ious oo ing which she lin ed to her participation in this co unity. or erenity the e tre e conditions of igh ecurity including the isolation and a use fro s solidified her elief that her treat ent was directly related to the prison s syste ic pro le s. erenity told the Indy that she recogni ed that there were larger anti lac political forces at wor to under ine radical and li eratory pro ects nyone that is politically and spiritually conscious that are a le to spea to the asses and rally the for action agitate educate and o ili e that is the threat. ne an weighing pounds with the entality of alcol arcus arvey and arriett u an and at urner all wrapped in one then the is dealing with a whole different reed of person and pro le s. erenity egan to resist the syste as a whole despite the retaliation fro s and . eople were really treated li e sac s of shit in there she said. started doing a lot of advocacy wor inside hunger stri es inciting riots or trying to incite riots for ust causes. would spea out...what ept e there was y behavior, being reactionary, always resisting.” erenity found that the prison s co plicated syste of grievance filing one of the few avenues availa le to hold s accounta le wasn t su cient in responding to her pro le s a co on senti ent a ongst people interviewed y the Indy. was sent to igh ecurity ecause filed a grievance oseph hepard told the ndy. t s a o e. hey file the grievance and give it to a lieutenant and then so eti es he files it so eti es he doesn t then they deny it. his institutional lac of accounta ility is ased on the legal precedent that does not have to follow its own rules. L’Heureux v.

State Dept. of Corrections . d .. and Leach v. Vose . d .. e e pt ost policies fro the d inistrative rocedures ct ecause they concern only the internal anage ent of an agency and do not affect private rights or procedures availa le to the pu lic. ota ly policies on conditions of confine ent and in ate discipline are not enforcea le in court. hen as ed a out the grievance process irector oyne ague told the Indy that follows very clear procedures when addressing grievances precisely to prevent iases. e consider fairness and consistency in our ehavior a top priority. owever ich an

the for er warden of the wo en s prison told the Indy that “grievances are almost never honored. fter e periencing the wea ness of the grievance syste hepard turned to litigating against . ecause the only thing they have is paper power once you now how to use it in the sa e anner you re loo ed at as a threat he told the Indy. challenged the on their own policies. +++ n ustifying the use of igh ecurity irector oyne ague descri es so e of the people incarcerated there as too dangerous and predatory towards others re uiring re oval fro general population in other facilities. owever igh ecurity fails to resolve the social conditions that result in such ehaviors actively e acer ating ental health concerns and as hepard descri es creating hate in individuals that never even knew what hate was.” lot of people are in there for poverty stric en reasons ental health issues hepard told the Indy. nd now you re ust filling them with hate degrading the dehu ani ing the o ectifying the all type of things on a daily asis. atalia riedlander who has represented people with e perience in igh ecurity e plained to the Indy that actions viewed y prison authorities as dangerous and threatening are instead very hu an responses to the inhu ane conditions of isolation and punish ent that the facility and solitary confine ent perpetuate. he descri ed that so eone in solitary confine ent who has een yelling through their cell for hours and una le to get a real hu an response ight ood their cell ecause that gets so eone to co e to their cell door. nd for a second they get so eone s attention. ctions li e these are punished with ore isolation and sensory deprivation on top of the conditions that spar ed the . hese self destructive ehaviors including those descri ed y erenity in which people are cutting slicing putting urine and feces on their odies going insane fro hour loc down are aggravated y igh ecurity s careless and violent responses. a a rare individual didn t have a ental health rea down in igh ecurity hepard e plained at the ecarcerate event in cto er. ut ve een there with people who ca e to igh ecurity with on the sa e day and y the th day they re una le to have conversations. hey ve een placed on all inds of edications. t s hard when you re on hour loc down you ain t got no one to tal to to deal with yourself to deal with your regrets to deal with the reason why you’re in there.” +++ o e people who end up in igh ecurity ased off of no specific actions of their own descri ed y irector oyne ague as those who need protection fro others gangs etc. and cannot e housed in the eneral opulation. hile so e do re uest this for of protection despite the restrictive conditions also has the authority to assign the designation of gang e er or ene y ased on very little evidence and often against that person s will. ilson as previously entioned is one of any people incarcerated in igh ecurity for ene y issues. s his e perience de onstrates, the system isn’t consistently accurate in la eling threats. or e a ple several religious organi ations such as the one erenity was a part of have een incorrectly dee ed gangs

ina ai ondo has proposed changes to igh ecurity in her iscal ears and udget proposals. he included plans to save oney y reducing the nu er of s needed in igh ecurity whose overti e costs along with other ine ciencies in the facility design contri ute to the nearly per incarcerated person cost of the facility. n this would e achieved through a physical renovation in through the closing of two person odules. et these proposals were et with incredi le push ac fro . n the union set aside for a pu lic ca paign to slander the governor and her udget director onathan or er in retaliation for the udget proposal. ne radio spot called on listeners to tell the governor to rescind her proposal ecause if she doesn t lood will e on her hands. s ich an ela orated he only reason they would close igh ecurity now would e if the eneral sse ly asserted pressure on to save that oney. t s not going to e for hu ane reasons or ental health reasons the reasons that are most critical. It’s all going to be about money.” which resulted in e ers eing reclassified to igh ecurity. ro to randon o inson spent a out eight onths in igh ecurity after eing falsely la eled with ene y issues . e told the Indy that eople a e stuff up people want to get to another uilding so they put so eone s na e on the ene y list. hepard seconded the unrelia ility of ene y lists and the role of the pecial nvestigations nit in ar itrary decision a ing hole they re the ones filling the eds in . ot allowing people to leave even though they re supposed to e transitioning people in a onth period. f you got a so called ene y issue is supposed to investigate ut they never do. o get out of igh ecurity as so eone with the ene y issues la el the so called ene y or ene ies need to e oved to a different facility released fro the altogether or oth parties need to sign a contract agreeing that there is no con ict etween the . olicies li e this are what has ept ilson in igh ecurity for two years and his friend in there for si . +++ egardless of the reason ene y issues or otherwise that so e ody is classified to igh ecurity it is di cult to get out. lthough everyone in the facility is supposed to have a clear step down plan this is often not the case. dditionally igh ecurity has very little progra space as co pared to other facilities in the . hese progra s are used in ini u ediu and a i u to accu ulate good ti e which can help shorten a person s sentence and alleviate so e of the day to day isolation and oredo . here is no reha ilitative aspect in igh ecurity hepard e plained to the Indy. here can t e doesn t atter if you can get progra ing the effects of solitary won t allow you to utili e those s ills doesn t even atter if they i ple ent a hundred progra s. o way you can e in a cell for that any hours a day and i ple ent social s ills. he idea that individual progra s paternalistically geared towards i proving the ehaviors of those incarcerated in igh ecurity could counter the violence of the prison itself is funda entally awed. ich an

e plained to the Indy that the culture inside the prison is dar it s punitive it s ased on a a or i alance of power. rogra s targeting incarcerated people fail to address the culture of the prison as a whole. +++ here is and always has een resistance to the prison and to solitary confine ent fro those incarcerated in the . o e acts are o vious such as erenity s organi ed hunger stri es and riots and so e are uieter assertions of hu anity in an inhu ane syste . utside of the prison co unity groups such as s ehind the alls o ittee have spent over two decades fighting for their loved ones and friends on the inside. owever despite this activis little has changed for those incarcerated within igh ecurity at the institutional level as and the tate of hode sland refuse to a e it a priority. e re at a standstill o erta ich an a for er warden and for er ssistant irector of eha ilitative ervices told the Indy. “There is no interest in moving eyond torture unless it s financially a ena le etween these two institutions and hode sland . eople inside and outside have no way to fi it alone. o e atte pts have een ade to rectify the facility and its a usive practices. n after failing to pass change legislatively for er tate epresentative aron egun erg chaired a hode sland pecial egislative o ission to investigate s use of solitary confineent. he co ission gave a platfor to testionies fro a nu er of constituents including people for erly and currently incarcerated and representatives fro and several co unity organi ations. one of the fol s who were even fighting against refor s of solitary confine ent could argue with a straight face that this is an accepta le punish ent for fol s who were dealing with real ental health issues and challenges egun erg told the Indy. owever of the any reco endations released y the co ission following its year long negotiations including li its on who could e held in disciplinary confine ent and for how long arely any were adopted y . ince the co ission for er overnor

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+++ hile state ureaucracy fi ates on the finances people in igh ecurity continue to endure punitive control under the torturous conditions of solitary confine ent. he few refor s enacted have een wholly inade uate in part due to what ich an calls the the dar culture inside the prison. hat s why funda entally against prisons no atter how good a prison is run she said. was there in the for a long ti e and in y last few years felt that we ade progress ut things fall ac to the nor and hu an ehavior is powerful. igh ecurity does not loc up the worst of the worst it is the worst of the worst a prison within a prison concentrating the racis and punitive control which dictate the s e istence. ather than providing safety and security rya erenity told the Indy, “The real purpose of igh ecurity is to s uash dissidence o stagnate political consciousness. f people are a le to spea to people agitate educate o ili e that is the threat. igh ecurity e cels at isolating and silencing those who challenge the prison s violence y disappearing dissenters and pro le s. he pro le is syste ic. can never trust in the system or the justice system as a whole,” hepard told the Indy. ecause see how anipulative how deceitful how dehu ani ing how degrading and how ullshit overall the syste is in general ust the prison syste .

Arya Serenity has a Gofundme linked here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/love-and-supportfor-arya-serenity Please contribute if you can.

LEELA BERMAN B’23, DEBORAH MARINI B’22.5, and LILLIAN PICKETT B’22 are incredi ly grateful for everyone who put their ti e heart and thought into this and are fighting for a world without prisons. +++ Leonard Jefferson is an artist of all trades sil screen a er printer stained glass artist spo en word poet author usician and award winning painter. he Indy thanks Leonard for his contri ution to the piece oth his story and his art.

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EPHEMERA

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Dear Indy, conversation

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How do you get used to being single right after a relationship? I love my friends and stay busy, but I constantly feel like something is missing. Getting back together or trying to date other people might make me feel better in the short term, but I need to learn to feel whole without some romantic interest in my life.

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dear indy

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BY GEMMA SACK, CAL TURNER, SARA VAN HORN

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ILLUSTRATION BAYLOR FULLER DESIGN XINGXING SHOU

—Pea in a Pod

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My first impulse, dear pea in a pod, options

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is to reassure you that you seem to be doing everything exactly right. Prioritizing friendship and distracting yourself are two pieces of concrete advice that we at Dear Indy would have offered had you not included them but that, nonetheless, are often hard to internalize. To that worthy list, I might add cooking elaborate meals in a series of small pots, reading inflammatory literature, and investing in bean plants—whose rapid growth never fails to instill in me an invigorating sense of competition—as activities that have historically helped to steer my wandering and recalcitrant focus back towards the pleasures of my own, singular life.

Your larger question, however, is deeper and more searching, and it seems to invite a more spiritual answer. Allow me, humbly, to inquire further: what is it, exactly, that feels missing now that you find yourself uncoupled and unsatisfied? And, at the risk of leading the question, is your lack of a romantic partner really the root of your feeling of absence?

Contained in your question is the assumption that romantic intimacy is coextensive with a feeling of wholeness. We at Dear Indy know that romantic intimacy can be both incredibly joyful and deeply stabilizing. It can make the colors and textures of our daily landscape more vivid and visceral; it can make us forget loneliness; it can make us feel profoundly, even psychically, held. After much careful thought, however, we would venture to describe this experience as a change in the way we perceive the world—a heightening, a coloring, an intensifying—rather than a fundamental change, inherent to romance, in how we perceive our full selves.

But we would also venture to say that we know exactly what you mean when you speak of missing wholeness. Perhaps this sense of unity is easily accessible through romantic relationships because romantic intimacy, at its core, makes visible the relationship to oneself that is needed for this feeling of integrity. It’s easy to impose onto another person the type of loving gaze that we desire, and require, for ourselves. Seeing yourself through another person’s eyes—and understanding yourself as lovable, desirable, and valuable—feels exceptionally and ridiculously good, and it often seems easier and more visceral to experience this gaze through someone else than to cultivate it on your own.

The good news for you, dear Pea in a Pod, is that this feeling of wholeness has secretly always been—and always will be—intrinsic. Romantic partners, at their best, cultivate and protect each other’s wholeness, rather than providing this wholeness themselves.

So how does one practice this self-reflexive and loving gaze? According to the experiential knowledge of your devoted columnists, this self-conception becomes easier to cultivate when we understand ourselves to be, at once, always whole and always in multiple types of deep relationality. Full unity with a romantic partner is not only elusive but a constructed illusion, and the difficulty of finding satisfaction in other ways, whether resting or playing, alone or with friends, is not accidental. “True love”—alongside the institution of marriage and the creation of a nuclear family—is fetishized as the only state- and market-sanctioned time away from constant (waged) work, and romantic coupling is culturally idealized as a panacea for individual suffering, regardless of structural cause.

In other words, the idea of finding “your other half” is, if we may, a capitalist myth sold to us as the only viable shelter, psychologically speaking, from a relentless and easily internalized economic drive. As you seem to imply in your question, however, this myth obscures the reality that we find and understand ourselves through a complex web of loving and discerning relationships. (One podcast we’ve been thinking alongside is the “Decolonizing Sex” episode of All My Relations with Dr. Kim TallBear.) Calling oneself ‘single’ is not only profoundly unsatisfying, but it’s also deeply inaccurate: not only are we fully complete without a romantic partner, but we are also always in relation to others, regardless of whether or not those relationships are romantic.

What would happen, then, if we expanded our view of the types of relationships in which we can feel deeply seen? If we refused the binary of romantically coupled/uncoupled as fundamental to our identity—and constitutive, therefore, of our integrity—we might, your faithful columnists venture to guess, more easily, more frequently, and more satisfyingly see ourselves as whole.

-SVH

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So there’s this door. conversation

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Actually, I'll back up a bit. I just moved into a house with my partner and there is a door connecting our bedrooms. Not to narrativize my life too much but I'm convinced this door is a metaphor. On one of the first nights, they asked me if I wanted to keep the door open or closed when we slept in our own beds. Flustered, I asked to keep it shut. The next morning, they opened the door. Great. We continued this way for a bit, door open during the day, closed at night. It crossed my mind at some point that maybe healthy boundaries involved actual communication. Should we talk about the door? Do we need to talk about the door if everything is going well? I didn't know how to go about talking about the door without stumbling into an unfortunate ‘what are we’ conversation which, perhaps unsurprisingly, I also didn't want to do. I went back and forth about it until one cloudy morning, when I wandered into my bedroom to find the door shut. (Pathetic fallacy much?) Anyways, I haven't touched the door since. They open and close it as they please, and I sort of let it happen to me. I don't know if I want the door open or closed, but I do know that I want to have a hand in the hinges. I'm not entirely sure if there's a point to this, except to ask you, Dear Indy, how can I better assert my own boundaries, especially if I don't know what I want?

—Toe in the Door

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HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF THE RIDDLE: conversation

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“When is a door not a door?” The conventional answer is “when it’s ajar,” but I would argue that because of the meaning it has taken on, your door is both just a door and not a door at all—Schrödinger’s door, if you will. Anyway, Toe in the Door, I understand you. I think everything in my life is a metaphor. I recently roasted a squash that, since I had bought it at the farmers’ market two weeks previously, had gotten slightly soft and moldy in a few spots, and I worried that it represented my persistent inability to take advantage of opportunities until it’s too late. (After cutting off the bad parts, the squash was totally fine.) I also can’t sleep in a room with an open door because it makes me nervous, and I had never really thought about that until I read your letter. Anxiety contains multitudes!

I can’t help but notice that the phrase “if everything is going well” is doing some heavy lifting here. If you are spiraling about something your partner is doing, things are not “going well” for you. We at Dear Indy know personally that anxiety is often irrational and divorced from reality, but that doesn’t make it any less real, especially when it interferes in intimate relationships. In fact, anxiety in relationships often becomes distinctly real, as it widens the chasm between each person’s understanding of the other and what’s going on between them (especially if you haven’t had the ‘what are we’ conversation yet). What you want in a relationship is often in flux, so it’s okay that you don’t know exactly what boundaries you want to set.

But the ability itself to set boundaries is impossible without power, trust, and communication—that is, the power to communicate what you need and what’s distressing you, the trust that your partner won’t be contemptuous.

It can be difficult to know what requires explicit discussion and what doesn’t within a relationship. For example, in discussions of consent, we’re taught that to intuit your partner’s feelings is a sign of intimacy and mutual understanding, whereas to verbalize or ask for verbal communication is awkward and unromantic. But verbal communication can be incredibly bonding. One of us at Dear Indy sometimes practices with their partner what they call “mangling the subtext”: they break down all the subliminal gestures and body language cues at the end of the day to make sure they’re on the same page, which in itself is both intimate and conducive to better intimacy in the future. As much as it can feel like you’re making things weird, you need to be explicit. Although some feelings may be beyond verbalization, most aren’t; we have a lot of words to describe our emotions for a reason, and so much of romantic compatibility hinges (not to appropriate your metaphor) on each person’s ability to verbalize their feelings in mutually comprehensible ways.

To the second question of trust, if your partner is compassionate and respectful, making the subliminal explicit shouldn’t be a problem. There’s a good chance your partner has never thought about the door and that its significance has ballooned in your head. I don’t mean to invalidate how you feel—that is the nature of anxiety, and I do it all the time. But because you’re feeling this way, even if it’s all in your head, it should matter to your partner. Most people wear their anxiety outwardly even if they’re not talking about it, so there’s also a good chance that your partner can intuit that you are stressed out about something, and will want to know what’s going on behind (your) closed doors.

We have some suggestions for how you might broach the topic with your partner—perhaps on a night when you’re sleeping in the same room, so you can communicate with both words and body language and can feel their reassurance while you feel vulnerable: Preface by acknowledging that you know this might be in your head: “This might sound like a silly or ridiculous thing to worry about…”

Ask them how they feel: “Is there a reason why you want to close the door sometimes?”

Tell them how you feel: “I’ve been stressing a little, and I feel like I can’t open or close it.”

Figure out a way to communicate more clearly about setting boundaries: “Can we be more explicit about asking for privacy?”

“Can I close and open the door?”

Adapt this as you will, but we feel confident that you need to start the conversation somehow. Please write back to us about how your conversation goes—we hope, in the future, the door will be just a door.

-GS

DEAR INDY

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Local and Online Events DSA, BDS, and Palestine Solidarity: A Panel Discussion

Mutual Aid and Bail Funds

3:00 PM EST • Online • Saturday, February 6

Fang Community Bail Fund

Join activists from the Palestine Solidarity Working Group of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Palestinian Boycott, Divest and Sanctions Movement—Omar Barghouti, Marc Lamont Hill, Sumaya Awad, and Ajamu Amriri Dillahunt— to discuss how struggles against settler colonialism and capitalism are interconnected.

RSVP at this link: https://act.dsausa.org/survey/dsa-bds-andpalestine-solidarity-panel/

FANG is an abolitionist group that seeks to free folks being held in jails in Rhode Island and Massachusetts because they cannot afford bail. With the COVID pandemic resulting in massive outbreaks within prisons, this work has found renewed importance. To oppose the cash bail system, an oppressive tool utilized by the carceral and capitalist prison industrial complex, you can donate via the CashApp at $fangbailfund or at this link: https://WWW.gofundme.com/f/fangbailfund.

Weekly Car Rally: Solidarity with Incarcerated Loved Ones

AMOR Community COVID-19 Support

3:00-4:00 PM EST • Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles • Sunday, February 7 The family members of incarcerated people have organized a weekly car rally from the Division of Motor Vehicles to the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institutions for the next couple of months to demand a robust response from the RI government over the massive COVID outbreaks within RI prisons. We at the Indy ask you to make some noise against the racialized injustice that is preserved by the carceral system and the inequalities in healthcare that have been exposed by the pandemic.

To learn more visit this Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/15XA6ods6

Providence Flea at the Farm Fresh RI Market Hall 11:00 AM–3:00 PM EST • 10 Sims Avenue, Farm Fresh RI Market Hall • Sunday, February 7 (ongoing) This pandemic season, we at the Indy find ourselves afflicted by a curious, often uncontrollable desire to thrift shop. Lucky for us, we have Providence’s award-winning vintage flea market at our doorstep, where you can buy from local artisans, support small businesses and community non-profits, and indulge your whims, all while shopping safely of course. Hope to see you there one of these Sundays!

For more information, follow @providenceflea on Instagram.

Winter Farmers Market at the Farm Fresh RI Market Hall 9:00 AM–1:00 PM EST • 10 Sims Avenue • Saturday, February 6 (ongoing) This is the inaugural wintertime farmers market in the valley neighborhood of Providence where you can buy an assortment of fresh produce from a variety of local small farmers. We at the Indy love supporting local businesses by buying sustainably sourced food. We ask you to do the same!

You can find all details at this link: https://fb.me/e/3hB3AxOtz

The Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance’s fundraiser helps the most marginalized in our community purchase basic necessities such as food, cleaning and sanitation supplies, formula, and direct financial support for childcare, housing, and other basic needs. Most support goes towards undocumented people, laborers, and people with chronic illness. You can donate at this link: https://gofund.me/09e8b76b.

Project LETS Trauma Healing Fund for Black Folks A disability justice organization, Project LETS seeks to prioritize solidarity in action and redistribute funds to those who are most directly impacted by structural violence. This fund centers the healing needs of Black folks, especially those who are disabled, queer, and trans. Donate at this link: WWW.PayPal.me/projectlets or Venmo @projectlets

Get Involved Providence Youth Student Movement [PrYSM]: A RI-based organisation that is dedicated to providing support to Southeast Asians who are young, queer, trans, and survivors of police violence to become leaders and changemakers.

Direct Action for Rights and Equality [DARE]: A Providence based community organization that advocates for social, political, and economic justice. DARE works to structurally challenge incarceration and funnel funds from policing and imprisonment to social welfare. DARE also advocates against housing insecurity and displacement.

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A group of former and present sex workers, trafficking victims, and allies that promote and advocate for the welfare and safety of members of the sex industry, and resists Rhode Island’s criminalization of prostitution.

Refugee Dream Center [RDC]: A Rhode Island-based refugee resettlement agency that promotes skill development and other initiatives for the selfsufficiency and integration of refugees in RI. The RDC conducts English as a Second Language classes for adults as well as health promotion and cultural orientation events. There’s also mentoring for refugee youth, social assistance for families, and advocacy for refugee rights in the US.

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The Bulletin Board is a space for grassroots organizers, local small business owners, and other community members to collectively list events, businesses, and mobilize support for direct action against structural violence in Providence. Please write to us at indy@gmail.com if you want to plug your event.