The Tufts Daily - Wednesday December 8, 2021

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VOLUME LXXXI, ISSUE 43

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Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Somerville, state officials hope for federal funding to ground McGrath Overpass

by Michael Weiskopf News Editor

President Joe Biden signed a comprehensive, bipartisan infrastructure deal into law on Nov. 15. The law’s $550 billion in new spending will be allocated among the 50 states, with many Massachusetts and Somerville officials hopeful that some funding can be used to ground the McGrath Overpass.

Hopes of tearing down the overpass were renewed after Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg spoke at a White House press conference on Nov. 8, touting the legislation’s passage. He was asked by April Ryan, White House correspondent for theGrio, to explain how the new law could help to undo some of the nation’s systematically racist infrastructure.

“If a highway was built for the purpose of dividing a white and a Black neighborhood, … that obviously reflects racism that went into those design choices,” Buttigieg responded.

“Sometimes it really is the case that an overpass went in a certain

way that is so harmful that it’s got to come down.”

On Twitter later that day, Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone interpreted Buttigieg’s remarks as a sign that the longstanding plans to ground McGrath may finally come to fruition.

“We’ve got one of those community-dividing overpasses in Somerville (McGrath) & we’re planning to rip it down,” Curtatone wrote in a tweet.

“Sounds like we’ve got a federal funding source.”

The McGrath Highway refers to Massachusetts Route 28, as it passes through Somerville, and a portion of it was elevated in the 1950s in the eastern part of the city. For the last decade, city and state officials alike have been discussing the possibility of grounding the overpass and turning it into a boulevard.

Somerville’s Deputy Director of Communications Meghann Ackerman explained why the city has long hoped to tear down the overpass.

“McGrath Highway is a physical barrier that cuts through neighborhoods separating them

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The McGrath Highway Overpass in East Somerville is pictured. from each other. It also throws up significant mobility hurdles for residents,” Ackerman wrote in an email to the Daily. “McGrath also brings thousands of cars (and

their emissions) through our city.

High-speed motor vehicle traffic on McGrath Highway is a major public safety concern for our community.”

Four pedestrians have died on the overpass as a result of car accidents. Most recently, an see MCGRATH, page 2

Ginn Library sees an uptick in COVID-19 policy violations

by Alexis Enderle Staff Writer

Students studying at Edwin Ginn Library have been increasingly violating Tufts’ COVID-19 policies. Director of Ginn Library

and Information Technology at the Fletcher School Cyndi Rubino said that eating and not wearing masks in the library puts the community at risk.

“The libraries … are not designated eating areas,” Rubino

wrote in an email to the Daily.

“All of us want to continue to work and operate in person. We also want to keep our colleagues and families safe. We feel that wearing a mask indoors is a small price to pay for safety of our

ZOE GARDERET / THE TUFTS DAILY

Ginn Library, where there has been an increase in patrons breaking mask guidelines, is pictured.

communities- at Tufts, locally and at home.”

Graduate student Marina Rueda-Garcia, who works at Ginn, spoke about the staff’s responsibilities to enforce COVID-19 guidelines.

“My experience at the library has been pretty positive, but I know some other student workers have had to enforce the rules more because of patrons not complying,” Rueda-Garcia wrote in an email to the Daily.

Another student staff member, senior Johnathan O’Neal, believes that some students are ready to move to pre-COVID-19 rules faster than the university.

“Just as there are students who think things are moving towards normalcy too fast, there are also students who believe things are moving too slow,” O’Neal wrote in an email to the Daily. “This makes some students eager to get back to pre covid rules quicker than Tufts would like and as a result it creates a discrepancy of the rules in place versus the rules some students want to follow.”

Rubino explained that Ginn has long struggled to distinguish its rules from those of the other libraries on campus.

“The vibe at Ginn is different than our sister library,

SPORTS /back

FEATURES / page 3

ARTS / page 4

Swimming and diving makes a splash at MIT Winter Invitational

García Peña reflects on need for RCD in education

Mourning Virgil Abloh while recognizing his contributions

Tisch Library,” Rubino said.

“Ginn’s environment has been designed for a graduate and PhD population; it is a quiet, serious environment and we have never allowed eating.

Students from other degree programs may not realize the differences between the two libraries and as a result do not follow the rules in Ginn.”

The university COVID-19 policies allow students to remove their masks while eating in designated areas. However, eating is not allowed in Ginn Library, and all patrons are required to wear their masks at all times.

Rueda-Garcia explained the policy followed by student workers when they see a patron violating these rules.

“We do staff walk-throughs and if anyone is not following the rules they get a warning, to which patrons are usually responsive, and they understand their part in keeping everyone safe,” RuedaGarcia said. “However, if we have to warn them a second time, we are instructed to ask them to leave the library.”

Rubino explained that Ginn staff members prefer not to take these measures. see GINN LIBRARY, page 2 NEWS

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Wednesday, December 8, 2021

THE TUFTS DAILY Madeleine Aitken

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Somerville officials hope to reckon with highway’s legacy

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The McGrath Overpass is pictured.

MCGRATH

continued from page 1 elderly man was killed in a hitand-run in April. The current plan for the boulevard would create a dedicated bike lane, which would separate the sidewalk from traffic lanes.

Ackerman also described how grounding McGrath would improve the quality of life of Somerville residents.

“Grounding McGrath and turning it into a boulevard is likely to cut down on through traffic in the environmental justice neighborhood of East Somerville and would improve safety for all users, especially people walking, biking, or using a mobility aid,” Ackerman wrote. “It would also be a step toward transportation and mobility equity by removing a significant physical barrier to residents.”

As for the possibility of the state receiving federal funding from the new infrastructure law to tear down the overpass, Ackerman explained that state

and city officials are keeping their options open.

“The City has successfully partnered with [the Massachusetts Department of Transportation] to access federal funding on many previous projects; the new infrastructure legislation will be examined for a potential fit for this project,” Ackerman wrote.

With mere weeks left in office, Curtatone is unlikely to oversee the grounding of McGrath, even if the plans move forward. He will be replaced by Mayor-elect Katjana Ballantyne on Jan. 3.

Ballantyne did not respond to requests for comment.

The effects of urban developments such as McGrath have been studied extensively, particularly the consequences of urban planning on people of color.

Joan Fitzgerald, professor of public policy and urban affairs at Northeastern University, and Julian Agyeman, professor of urban and environmental policy planning at Tufts, analyzed

how urban planning has contributed to systemic racism in their September 2021 article, “Removing urban highways can improve neighborhoods blighted by decades of racist policies.”

“Many urban highways built in the 1950s and 1960s were deliberately run through neighborhoods occupied by Black families and other people of color, walling these communities off from jobs and opportunity,” the professors wrote. “As scholars in urban planning and public policy, we are interested in how urban planning has been used to classify, segregate and compromise people’s opportunities based on race. In our view, more support for highway removal and related improvements in marginalized neighborhoods is essential.”

Fitzgerald and Agyeman elaborated on the consequences that highway construction has had on the health and mobility of communities of color.

“Today low-income and minority neighborhoods in many

U.S. cities have much higher levels of fine particulate air pollution than adjoining areas,” they wrote. “Transportation investments in the U.S. have historically focused on highways at the expense of public transportation.

This disparity reduces opportunities for Black, Hispanic and low-income city residents, who are three to six times more likely to use public transit than white residents.”

The professors explained what they hope to see from the Biden administration’s legislation.

“Simply removing highways won’t transform historically disadvantaged neighborhoods.

But it can be a key element of equitable urban planning, along with housing stabilization and affordability, carefully planned new green spaces and transit improvements,” Fitzgerald and Agyeman wrote. “For an administration that has pledged to prioritize racial and environmental justice, removing divisive highways is a good place to start.”

Students frequently violate COVID-19 policies at Ginn GINN LIBRARY

continued from page 1 “Please know that it is our mission to serve students, faculty and staff and to build community in our libraries,” Rubino said. “It is equally disturbing and unsettling for Ginn staff when we need to ask someone to leave for not following Tufts COVID-19 policies.”

According to Rubino, feedback from the Fletcher community has often discussed restricting Ginn to graduate students.

“We get frequent requests to turn Ginn Library into a Fletcheronly space. This has less to do with patrons not following rules and more to do with lack of dedicated space for Fletcher students,” Rubino said. “We fos-

ter an inclusive and welcoming environment at Ginn for all Tufts community members, while trying to meet the needs of the Fletcher population.”

O’Neal said that the library should remain open to everyone who follows the COVID-19 guidelines.

“We would love for Ginn to be the quiet and inclusive study

place that it is so well known for,” O’Neal said. “However, these violations are inhibiting that. While we have not gotten to the point of restricting access to the library, we hope everyone feels safe in the library and as a result [we] are sending employees on walk-throughs and asking violators to leave the library.”

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Features

New professor Lorgia García Peña welcomed into race, colonialism and diaspora department

by Kaitlyn Wells

Contributing Writer

Lorgia García Peña joined Tufts this fall as a Mellon associate professor in the department of studies in race, colonialism and diaspora (RCD). The seeds of her research interests came from her experience of growing up in the Dominican Republic before moving to the U.S. when she was 12 years old.

If you asked García Peña as a child what she wanted to be when she grew up, you would’ve received a range of answers.

“It changed every day. It went from like, ‘I want to be a rockstar’ to ‘I’m going to be a dentist.’ I remember being very jealous of those kids who, at age nine, knew they wanted to be a doctor. That certainly wasn’t me,” García Peña said.

“I knew the things I liked doing. I knew the ways I enjoyed learning, but I didn’t know what that would translate into as a career.”

García Peña explained that she was raised in a “highly communal environment” surrounded by family, including her godmother, whose courage inspired her work.

“I always admired my godmother who passed away a few years ago. She was a flight attendant, and [I liked] the idea of this woman from a village that gets on a plane every day,” García Peña said. “She was someone who defied patriarchy and all the rules of a very traditional Catholic, Latinx family.”

Before Tufts, García Peña was an associate professor of romance languages and literatures and of history and literature at Harvard University. In 2016, she published her debut book “The Borders of Dominicanidad: Race, Nations and Archives of Contradictions,” which explores narratives of the Dominican experience to explain the role of U.S. imperialism in drawing racial borders.

Now, as a seasoned and celebrated educator and author, García Peña is excited to be a part of the Tufts community, especially a department that she said has

the potential to transform the field of ethnic studies across the U.S. “Race, colonialism and diaspora … is a department that is grounded on the knowledge and the intellectual tradition of critical ethnic studies. But it’s taking that tradition and expanding it to become more transnational in its approaches, more expansive when thinking about experiences of colonialism and diaspora,” García Peña said.

Reflecting on her own experiences as a mother, García Peña explained her frustration with the lack of RCD education in the youth education system.

“We are not only denying our children the immense joy and privilege of knowing the diversity that is our world, but we’re also promoting really damaging ideas that history, philosophy, culture, comes from Europe or from Euro-America. That’s really really damaging,” García Peña said.

García Peña felt it is disheartening that it is not until college that people are typically exposed to RCD. Even then, many departments do not center their conversations around it, according to García Peña.

“It’s a shame that you have to take a class in a certain department in order to learn about it. [Ethnic studies] should be central to all of our departments,” García Peña said.

García Peña also noted that a relevant misconception about ethnic studies is that they should only be pursued by a person of that ethnicity.

“You wouldn’t ask somebody who’s majoring in, let’s say, American history if they are American, because that’s not relevant to the study,” García Peña said.

“That kind of misconception comes from stereotyping. It doesn’t come from a very productive place.”

This fall, in her first semester at Tufts, García Peña is teaching an advanced seminar course on Black Latinidad, and she will be teaching Intro to U.S. Latinx Literatures and Culture in the spring of 2022.

“I’m thinking first and foremost about what the students’ needs are within the

department. … I think about what is not being offered at the moment, what my colleagues are teaching,” García Peña said.

“I think Tufts students are very connected to what’s happening outside of university, and I very much admire and love that. …

For a lot of our students, this is going to be their first and sometimes only exposure to the topic. And so that’s a great responsibility.”

Her courses offer a simultaneously panoramic and deep exploration into the topic, with a focus on developing students’ abilities to write and speak in a manner that is engaging, concise and centered on their own voice. This takes place in a democratically-run classroom that emphasizes community building.

“I think about it as a collaboration between students, and I’m just sort of a facilitator of that collaboration,” García Peña said.

García Peña takes a multimedia approach, utilizing novels, films, historical documents, music and artwork to cater to different styles of learning and represent the diversity of knowledge production.

Next summer, we can look forward to the publication of two of her books: “Translating Blackness” and “Community as Rebellion.” In the past, García Peña translated her previous book into Spanish; however, she found the process difficult, so she does not plan to translate these books herself.

“I wanted to go back and change things, [I was] like, ‘Oh, I’d say this differently.’ But it’s a translation, not a rewriting. So that was quite the learning experience for me,” García Peña said.

With her experience as a writer and professor, García Peña remains hopeful for the coming generations.

“I love the openness that [your generation] brings to knowledge and to learning.

I think that those of us who are educators, … as teachers and administrators and policy makers, we need to do better to make sure that we provide the kind of education that this generation deserves,” García Peña said.

3 Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Sam Russo and David Wingens Potty Talk

The last lavatory

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t seems, fellow potty talkers, that our semester together must now draw to a close, and with it, our exploration of the annals of Tufts’ historied restrooms. Much like the conclusion of any good mid-lecture bathroom break, we meet this moment with a mixture of melancholy and relief.

We would like to take this opportunity to look into the proverbial toilet bowl and reflect on the lessons we learned on what Sam’s dad has dubbed our “toilet dates.”

The first major takeaway is that in the world of potties, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. At Tufts, students are often relegated to basements, broken showers, cruddy soap and subpar wainscoting. The administration, on the other hand, is granted artisanal hand washes, esoteric posters and reams of fresh printer paper.

Second, less is not more, but more isn’t more either. Our favorite restrooms struck a subtle balance: They lacked the overwhelmingness of Dewick at noon but also weren’t quite as quiet as Carm — sorry, Fresh at Carmichael — at noon.

We also learned that Tufts’ janitorial staff does excellent work. Even given some poor infrastructure to work with, we never once encountered a clogged toilet or any other major problems with the functioning of Tufts’ toilets. This is surprising considering the sheer quantity of students who get Hodge burrito bowls every night topped with oddly gelatinous sour cream and mass-produced guacamole.

Fourthly, we internalized the importance of tiling. We entered some bathrooms to find pitiful walls that screamed of an elementary school built in 1960.

Others, however, gently swaddled us in their calming tile patterns, providing the warmth we have all at one point sought.

The lesson here is simple: setting the mood matters.

Penultimately, we’d like to offer a look behind the curtain at the greatest PR debacle the Tufts Daily has experienced since the Massive Mooch Mess. One week, we described a kitchenette as well-apportioned, but at some point in the editing process, it transformed into a well-proportioned kitchenette. Well, let us tell you, the kitchenette that we were describing was tiny but stacked with appliances, and our passionate fan base knew that! We received innumerable angry letters from our dedicated fan base, and we want to sincerely apologize for this gross misstep.

Lastly, we learned that bathrooms are not just places to heed nature’s calls. Each bathroom is like a small temple, a sanctum in which one is able to find time for oneself in this frantic world. So, with finals approaching, just remember that the best place to release your stress, study or hang out with some friends might just be your local Tufts bathroom.

There are undoubtedly a great deal of bathrooms we have yet to explore or which remain entirely undiscovered by the student body. We implore you, dear reader, to strike out and begin to review for yourselves. Take these pages as your guide and share with the world that which was previously taboo — your very own potty talks.

Tufts Bathrooms: 6/10 pretty good Sam Russo is a junior studying cognitive and brain science and computer science.

Sam can be reached at samuel.russo@ tufts.edu. David Wingens is a junior studying international relations. David can be reached at david.wingens@tufts.edu.

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Arts & POP ARTS Pop CULTURE Culture

tuftsdaily.com

Wednesday, December 8, 2021

‘Staying with the Trouble’: Fostering connection through art

by Keira Myles Staff Writer

Tufts University Art Galleries’ exhibition titled “Staying with the Trouble” (2021) inspires its audience to imagine a collaborative and decolonized societal narrative through works of joy, compassion, teamwork and intersectionality by artists Judy Chicago, Young Joon Kwak, MPA, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Ellen Lesperance, Joiri Minaya, Cauleen Smith, Faith Wilding, Paula Wilson and Carmen Winant with Carol Osmer Newhouse. Coordinated by guest curator Kate McNamara, the exhibit recently ended on Dec. 5, though its timely pieces and message are certainly worth exploring here if you did not get to see it in person.

The exhibit’s name derives from ecofeminist Donna Haraway’s “Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene” (2016). Haraway advocates for constructing kinship bonds via tentacles of connection in H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythology.

The Chthulucene rejects the geologic time definitions of the Anthropocene or Capitalocene, which promote a human or capital-centeredness. Haraway empowers us to embrace the Chthulucene, a tentacular or web-like epoch of community, connectedness and ecofeminist kinship.

The artwork of “Staying with the Trouble” embodies feminist environmental philosophy, which intertwines gender and climate justice through frameworks of care between human and nonhuman nature rather than patriarchal systems harming women and nature. Also highlighting queer ecologies, the exhibit pushes life on Earth to “stay with the trouble,” or stay with messiness, diversity, queerness, difference and relationalities opposing straight and/or monogamous existences. Amid current political and environmental transformations harming the planet’s wellbeing, this artwork reimagines collaborative relationships to earth and each other that are spearheaded by Indigenous knowledge.

Described below are a few pieces from “Staying with the Trouble” presenting patterns of collaboration, patriarchal rebellion, anti-racist intersectionality and queer ecologies.

Judy Chicago’s smoke sculptures narrate her feminist environmental awareness with images of impermanent colored smoke across nature landscapes.

The smoke’s tenderness and fluidity exteriorizes a gentle, non-destructive alternative to bulldozing and ground-digging masculinity seen in the land art movement, which ultimately objectified the land it advocated for. The smoke and bodies harmonize together, highlighting forms that are unset-

COURTESY TUFTS UNIVERSITY ART GALLERIES

Paula Wilson’s “Yucca Rising,” included in the “Staying with the Trouble” exhibit, is pictured. tled and adaptable to change.

One of Chicago’s planned smoke projects for 2021 was actually canceled out of concerns that it could still disrupt wildlife, showing that this practice is ongoing and imperfect, but she maintains her aim to rebel against the movement’s typical masculinist colonial practices of rampaging land.

Young Joon Kwak’s video, “Uh, As If!” (2014) captures a forearm and hand with magenta fingernails dripping in wet clay and flicking it off. The wrist lies limply, with fingers residing delicately in the air. This muddy appendage gestures effeminacy, which demands attention and grants power to mannerisms connoted with weakness and derogatoriness. The hand, doused in filthy grime yet dancing itself around ever so delicately, physicalizes the unbounded span of femininity. Kwak’s “Excreted Venus” (2014) further defies concepts of the feminine condition. “Excreted Venus,” clay body parts splattered across a boxed grid, contrasts organic forms with mathematical order. The print opposes oppressive body standards, revealing how bodies exist messily, enduring perpetual

change and resculpting without embodying a cookie-cutter ideal of desirability.

Photography from lesbian feminist separatist retreat, WomanShare, also transported its way to Aidekman Gallery.

Carol Newhouse created her pieces portraying lesbian joy and camaraderie during the the 1970s “back-to-the-land” movement, forming Oregon “land dykes” who engaged a togetherness on womyn’s lands. Her images documented the political choices of lesbian livelihoods, seeing how WomanShare women centered their radical society around the abolishment of capitalism and teaching self-sustainment. Learning photography was a central component of the WomanShare societal project, leading to thousands of prints documenting joy, kinship, self, holding hands and autonomy to remain. The photographs encapsulate a lesbian consciousness — a sapphic collective awakening — sorting out where and why and how to go and move forward, and in which manner to arrive. Artist Carmen Winant discovered her interest in these 1970s photographs expressing a

radical lesbian self-determination experimentally unfolding, and some of her own works bring these photographs to the public’s attention.

Afrofuturist artist Cauleen Smith’s “BLK FMNNST Loaner Library, 1989–2019” paints book covers by Black and ueer radical literary theorists. Her series includes several paintings fusing art and political theory, revealing how education and direct action catalyze rebellion against systemic oppression. Smith explores African American identity and Black feminism across varying media, including experimental films and art installations. Responding to global disarray after COVID-19, Smith has expressed the art’s necessity in creating space that eradicates power but embraces intimacy, fragility and humanity.

Paula Wilson’s powerful “Yucca Rising” (2021) sculpture reveals a towering, embracing Black woman, adorned in starry skies, yucca plants and other natural imagery, rising to Aidekman’s gallery ceiling. Her multi-form work utilizes ancient motifs and New Mexico High Desert landscapes to explore identities

through an ecofeminist lens. She works and manages MoMAZoZo, a space facilitating community creative activities within the homelands of the Mescalero Apache Tribe. As a Black woman artist, Wilson creates her yucca figure to visually manifest the cultures behind identity and to combine herself, the artist, with her art, stating, “I’m particularly interested in this idea that we become the things that we turn our attention to.”

Aidekman’s “Staying with the Trouble” strikes vital chords concerning the bases for humanitarian survival and resilience in this era of a decaying planet. Highlighting postcolonial theories and ecofeminism, the artists reveal their values of care and relatedness rather than conquest and forceful settlement, whether by colonies for economic exploitation or individualistic rooted capital gain.

The artwork links love, care, kinship, collaboration and equality with the nonhuman as a way to reimagine our relationalities to our surroundings, which grant us the very sustenance for our temporary but miraculous earthly existence.

A r t s & P o p Cul t u r e

Wednesday, December 8, 2021 | Arts & Pop Culture | THE TUFTS DAILY

Remembering Virgil Abloh: One of art’s most awe-inspiring creators

by Geoff Tobia Jr.

Arguably no one in modern history will be as admired for the amount of creativity and innovation in their art as Virgil Abloh.

Illinois-born fashion designer, artistic director, producer and DJ, Virgil Abloh was known and very well respected across all avenues of art. Sadly, Abloh passed away on Sunday, Nov. 28 at the age of 41, losing a hard-fought battle against a rare form of cancer known as cardiac angiosarcoma. He kept the diagnosis private, so his sudden passing came as a shock to many hearing the news of his death.

Abloh was born in 1980 in Rockland, Ill. after his parents moved to the U.S. from the Volta region of Ghana. A UW-Madison graduate, Abloh studied civil engineering and pursued architecture in graduate school at Illinois Institute of Technology, the school that sparked his inspiration to get involved with fashion. This love for fashion would later blossom into a stardom and power status to which many other fashion designers aspire.

Abloh gained popularity from the start of his personal luxury fashion label, OffWhite. Inspired by Ben Kelly’s signature barricade tape design, his idea behind OffWhite was to bring streetwear and luxury fashion together and combine them into a cacophonous yet beautiful collection of clothing. One of the most famous elements of his brand was his all-caps stylized text with quotation marks plastered across products. For instance, his black leather cowboy boots had a large block of white text saying “FOR WALKING” up the sides of the boot, and his iconic shoelaces stamped with “SHOELACES” became a staple for many collections of his OffWhite sneakers. These quotation marks make a statement of irony that he instilled in his work. As 032c’s Thom Bettridge states, “Abloh rejects the who-did-it-first mentality of previous generations in favor of the copy-paste logic of the Internet and its inhabitants.”

Off-White and skate culture began to feed off of each other’s energy. Abloh showed relentless respect for skate culture through his designs and promotion, and Abloh became an icon in skate culture through his work. In 2018, Abloh would take his fashion status to another level by signing as the first Black artistic director of Louis Vuitton Menswear. His appointment transformed Louis Vuitton by blending its traditional structure with modern aesthetics, and, along with the worldwide respect his name had already garnered, Louis Vuitton’s sales drove up 20% in the first quarter of the next calendar year.

His first fashion show for Louis Vuitton was also a display of how popular musical artists, especially in hip-hop and rap, had the utmost respect for Abloh. Kid Cudi, Blood Orange (Dev Hynes), Steve Lacy, ASAP Nast and Playboi Carti were among the artists that served as models

Colette Smith Brands who deserve your dollars

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After a hard-fought battle against a rare form of cancer known as cardiac angiosarcoma, Virgil Abloh passed away on Nov. 28 at the age of 41. on the runway for that show. Abloh also got involved with the artistic direction of other artists’ albums. For example, he contributed to the album design for Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Watch the Throne” (2011), along with West’s “Yeezus” (2013), one of the most iconic album covers (or lack thereof ) in the 2010s. Our most recent “For the Culture” column describes several more album covers that he influenced.

Beyond artistic design for clothing lines and album rollouts, Abloh had a love for physical art and music. In 2019, Abloh helped curate and construct an art exhibition revolving around his artistic career titled “Figures of Speech,” which has since displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. The collection featured elements of his work through clothing, design, architecture and music. Among many other talents, Abloh was also known for his hand in producing and DJing music. As a producer, he

worked with Lupe Fiasco, serpentwithfeet, Boys Noize, and remixed songs by the likes of Rema and Michael Kiwanuka. As a DJ, Abloh performed at Camp Flog Gnaw in 2018, Germany’s Melt Festival in 2019 and Coachella in 2019.

Abloh’s death delivered a painful blow to artists, musicians, fashion designers and millions upon millions of fans and admirers across the world. Pharrell Williams, Frank Ocean, Bella Hadid, Tiffany & Co.’s creative director Rabu Abu-Nima and Beyoncé were among the many celebrities that shared their sorrows and condolences to the world through social media.

Off-White physical locations across the world, along with the Off-White website, were completely transformed to honor the life of Abloh. Clothing and merchandise were replaced by flowers,lights and many notes from those that worked with Abloh.

People across the world will remember Virgil Abloh for the rest of their lives, and his legacy and impact will live on for many generations to come.

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SVNR

hristina Tung created the brand SVNR to sell ethically-made pieces of jewelry that each have their own unique stories. Before founding SVNR in 2018 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Tung worked at her PR showroom, House Of. Tung is described as having an “eclectic, globally-influenced style,” which carries through to each handmade jewelry piece and their wide variety of materials.

Some of my favorite pieces are the dangling earrings. An interesting aspect of SVNR is that they sell all of their earrings individually, rather than in a pair. The idea behind this is that the brand hopes their customers will mix and match the earrings to create a truly individual look. Three of my favorite earrings are the Jingdezhen, Nairobi and Luoyang.

First, the Jingdezhen is inspired by its namesake city in China, which became famous during the Ming Dynasty for porcelain. This earring is a pearl stud with a porcelain spherical drop with a blue flower design on it.

The Nairobi, named for the capital city of Kenya, is a 4.25-inch long dangle earring made of agate, wood, shell and aventurine. In addition to the beautiful design and material transparency, the Nairobi has an added benefit: 100% of the net profits from it go toward Building Black Bed-Stuy. This organization’s mission is “to protect and preserve the black community in Bed Stuy and beyond by providing financial relief for black-owned businesses and organizations.”

Finally, the Luoyang is more expensive than the last two earrings at $650.

However, the price is justified since they are made “from vintage glass buttons and an old Chinese coin from the Qing-Dynasty, dredged by Balinese divers from the ocean floor.” This 3-inch long earring gets its name from the oldest City in China and features a long fringe part under the buttons and Chinese coin.

While I will say that the earrings are some of my favorite pieces from the brand, there are definitely other standouts. The line of tote bags was a collaboration with the independent handbag label, Petit Kouraj. The fishnet bags are adorned with various charms, like shells and buttons, and named after different beaches in Haiti. Also, there are some standout necklaces, like the Kenya Bone Necklace and the Coconut Necklace, both of which support the earlier mentioned Building Black Bed-Stuy. The Kenya Bone Necklace has beads with a bold black and white pattern on them.

Kenyan villages use the batik method of covering part of the bead in wax to create this unique pattern. The Coconut Necklace is a twist on the African disc style that was popularized in the 1960s that used vinyl for the beads. Instead of the vinyl, this version uses discs carved into coconut shells.

Overall, there are many amazing pieces at SVNR that each have amazing backstories and are ethically created.

Colette Smith is a senior studying quantitative economics. Colette can be reached at colette.smith@tufts.edu.

6

THE TUFTS DAILY | FUN & GAMES | Wednesday, December 8, 2021

F& G

tuftsdaily.com LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Campbell: “I am in academic disarray from this semester!”

FUN & GAMES

SUDOKU

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Sagittarius (Nov. 22–Dec. 21) Capture your brilliant ideas. Write, edit and revise. Dig deeper into the story.

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Difficulty Level: Last Wednesday of the semester!

Tuesday’s Solutions

CROSSWORD

tuftsdaily.com

by Jacob Fridman

A Better Consensus

Navigating a (probable) post-Roe world

It is highly likely that the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) will overturn Roe v. Wade and leave the legality of abortion to the states. The nationwide legalization of abortion could no longer be the law of the land. Twenty one states will automatically implement some level of abortion restrictions, ranging from total bans to enforcement of prior laws, while 14 states and

Opinion Washington, D.C. will automatically implement laws permitting abortion.

The polling tells an interesting story: A Fox poll from September saw 65% of Americans wanting Roe to stay, including over half of Republicans. A Monmouth University poll had over 60% of Americans favoring abortion to be at least “legal with limitations,” with 11% saying that the procedure should always be illegal. However, an Associated Press poll showed that most Americans only agree on legal first trimester abortion. But the poll also put strong majorities in favor of abortion due to endangerment of the mother or child, rape and incest. It is clear that Americans are against much of what makes the Texas and Mississippi bills so controversial.

Now, I am not a woman. I will never need to get an abortion, nor feel the mental strain of that decision. However, since polling has shown a consensus around the issue, and there is a conservative-leaning SCOTUS, I’d like to suggest two possible compromises in the likelihood that Roe is overturned.

One, Congress could pass legislation in the vein of “safe, legal and rare” from the Clinton years: preventing unsafe back-alley abortions by making them legal nationwide under legislation while reducing the overall need for abortion through expanded sexual education in public schools and increased access to contraception.

Two, if Congress can’t do that, then it should pass leg-

7 Wednesday, December 8, 2021

islation mandating that states who criminalize abortion have free contraception in all health care plans and robust sex ed in public schools. If states don’t want abortion, that’s legally fine. However, that doesn’t mean that women shouldn’t be able to prevent pregnancy in the first place, especially considering that a University of California, San Francisco study put financial and timing issues as the most common reasons for seeking an abortion. Many people may disagree with letting adoption be a one-size-fits-all substitute for abortion, forcing women to undergo pregnancy and childbirth which can have long-lasting mental, physical and economic effects on their own selves. Obamacare couldn’t fully mandate that private insur-

ers cover and provide contraception due to religious freedom concerns, but if it was packaged as a legislative compromise of sorts for a post-Roe world and not a contradiction of the court’s decision, maybe Roberts and one other conservative justice would let it be.

Pro-abortion-rights Senator Susan Collins said that Kavanaugh wouldn’t overturn Roe. She will most likely be proven wrong. In that case, Collins, fellow proabortion-rights Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski and the rest of Congress should then step in to patch up the deep wound on the nation’s political landscape.

Jacob Fridman is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Jacob can be reached at jacob.fridman@tufts.edu.

8 Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Sports

Tufts indoor track teams compete at season opener

by Brigitte Wilson

Assistant Sports Editor

Tufts’ men’s and women’s track and field teams began the indoor track season admirably at the Sharon Colyear-Danville meet, hosted by Boston University on a banked track on Saturday, Dec. 4.

The men’s team had record-breaking results, with junior Alex Lemieux finishing the 60-meter dash in 6.86 seconds. He broke the previous school record of 6.95 set by Blake Coolidge in 2017. Sophomore Luke Botsford placed third out of 35 in the 300-meter event with a time of 33.88 seconds.

The women’s team competed in many of the events, including the mile, 3K, 5K and 1K. In the mile event, senior co-captain Hannah Neilon did the mile in 5:08.73, the fastest for the Jumbos, and placed seventh out of 31. Junior Sarah Sandlow competed in the 5K with a time of 19:31.83. Senior co-captain Anna Slager finished the 3K in 10:01.87, the best finish for the Jumbos and 28th out of 53 overall.

ANN MARIE BURKE / THE TUFTS DAILY

The Tufts National Qualifying Meet in Gantcher on March 7, 2020 is pictured.

“It was my first time running a 3K indoors. … I had horrible pacing, went out too fast because I felt fine at first, … it caught up with me and I had competition at the very end,” Slager said. “It was a learning experience.”

Slager’s feelings of getting back into the sport are not singular, however. “[The meet] was a rest-buster, because the last time we ran indoor track was right before COVID, and everybody was just getting their spikes back on again and getting into the sport,” she said.

There are at least seven different groups competing within indoor track.

These include throwing, jumping, pole vaulting, hurdling, sprinting and distance and middle distance running. Indoor track is unique in that for many athletes, it is merely a buffer between the cross country and track seasons. For others, it is the warm up to the track season. And for a third group, it serves as off-season training for mostly cross country athletes.

Slager shed light on the kinds of athletes participating in the various events.

“Kids are recruited as 400-meter hurdlers, and that is what they do and they are excellent. … They are very good at their specific events,” Slager said. “We also have athletes who transition from what they were recruited for. It depends on the season. … Some people have more versatility than others.”

The season also began at a time right before the holidays, which brings about concerns regarding athletes staying in shape and motivated over the break.

Furthermore, due to different athletes’ sporting commitments, some have vary-

tuftsdaily.com

ing rest times that don’t match up with the rest of the team.

“Everybody is on a bit of a different timeline,” Slager said. “Our coach works with everyone almost on an individual basis to create a training plan for the holiday break.”

However, coming off a cross country season with a lot of issues regarding conditions, some athletes are breathing a sigh of relief to be indoors where weather cannot affect their performance. Others, though, miss the fresh air of the outdoors from cross country. While the season won’t pick up until January, Slager and the other captains have many goals set for the team.

“We always have the goal of creating a cohesive team that supports each other,” she said. “We have a big team on the roster for track. … We’re focusing on making everybody feel included and valued and trying to get as much feedback, for us as captains and to the coaches, to make it a challenging but also welcoming space.”

The indoor track season will continue on Jan. 15, with the Jumbos hosting the Tufts Invitational at the Gantcher Center.

Swimming and diving successful at Winter Invitational

by Brooke Kraftson Staff Writer

The Jumbos brought the heat to the MIT pool this past weekend for their first away meet of the season. The men came in as runner-up to MIT but dominated Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Wheaton College and Keene State College, while the women defeated MIT, Wheaton, RPI, Wellesley, Keene State and Simmons.

Over the three days, not only did Tufts prevail, but multiple school records were broken. On Friday, the foursome for the 800-free relay came in second to MIT while producing a school record for the opening leg. The team consisted of first-year Ethan Schreier, senior Nate Tingen, first-year Eric Lundgren and senior Victor Vollbrechthausen. The leg record was broken by Schreier, who then came back on Saturday to break some more.

Schreier broke the Jumbo record in the 200flies in the preliminaries on Saturday, then broke his own record in the finals later that day. The last time this record was broken was in 2018, with a time of 1:49.31, but Schreier claimed first place with a 1:48.29 mark.

“It was great to be out on the deck all together for the first time in almost 2

Oliver Fox Sports and Society

Locked out

N

obody thinks of an American labor union and pictures multimillionaires fighting against a multibillion-dollar corporation.

Nor does anyone usually assume that the union holds the upper hand in negotiations.

Major League Baseball’s latest dramatic implosion, however, checks both boxes.

The MLB recently announced that the league would go into a lockout for the first time after 26 years of uneasy peace between the league owners and the MLB Players Association (MLBPA).

This comes as a result of the expiration of the last deal struck between the two parties over everything from how long the season will last to free agency rules; no new deal was negotiated. For a game that is the great American pastime in name only, this debacle is plainly embarrassing.

COURTESY JOSEPH ACQUAVIVA

The Tufts swimming and diving teams brought strong competition to the MIT Winter Invitational this past weekend. years,” Vollbrechthausen, who has been again later that day, to produce the new on the team for four years but has only record of 1:33.5. been able to compete in one entire season “For the 200-free relay, myself, as well due to COVID-19, said. “The 800-relay as my teammates, are obviously thrilled sets the tone for the meet since it is the about beating the record, but coming first event. I think that we had some real- from a group of women that focuses so ly strong swims, especially [Schreier] — much on team achievements, I’m not at all going out and setting a team record in the surprised,” Ulmer said. “There’s an added 200 on the first leg of the A relay.” level of ambition and excitement when On Saturday, a similar feat occurred you’re working together to achieve a goal for the women’s team in the 200-freestyle rather than swimming an individual race.” relay. The team consisted of sophomore With only one more meet before winJillian Cudney, junior Katelin Ulmer, junior ter break, both teams are working on Elle Morse and senior Mary Hufziger. They maintaining the intensity they have been broke the record in the morning, then bringing to the pool. On Jan. 2, they will This comes in a period of existential crisis for professional baseball. Viewership is dwindling, nobody can hit and the league and players are so out of sync that now nobody is allowed to show up for work.

All league and team operations have been completely frozen. Players cannot use team facilities, teams cannot interact with their players and any innovations the MLB was working on to make their sport not fundamentally boring to watch will have to wait.

Even as national union membership craters, the MLB lockout shows that the field of play can still be a stronghold for organized labor. It’s easy to dismiss these disputes as trivial or silly when it seems like everyone involved is a multimillionaire, but, like all labor battles, it’s nowhere near such simplicity.

The lockout is everyone’s fault, but the activities of the league’s upper office and owners show backwards priorities geared more towards ensuring their bottom line than fixing the countless problems steering the league into irrelevancy on the national stage.

The union they are up against may tout larger paychecks than your average industrial worker, but the principles of union relations are exactly the same. Unions work to ensure that the revenues generated by the work of their members are not unfairly pocketed or misused by corporate overlords. The MLBPA’s goals are fundamentally the same.

Yet it is easy to accuse both sides, MLBPA included, of being tone-deaf to the harsh realities many American workers face today. For millions, it’s not about when and how they will sign their next $3 million contract but when and how they’ll put dinner on the table. While that is all true in principle, the labor questions on the scale of professional sports must be treated the same in order to avoid dangerous precedents regarding one of the most public unions in the world. Much like millions of others, the members of the MLBPA are, in essence, workers.

MLB revenues are generated almost entirely by their players’ likenesses and performances on the field. Contrary to a

be heading down to Florida for their twoweek training trip. When the teams come back in January, they will be competing in four more meets before they head to NESCAC Championships in February.

Both Vollbrechthausen and Ulmer commented about their meet next weekend where they will be competing against their toughest competition — Williams.

“We are just excited for another opportunity to get up and swim fast,” Vollbrechthausen said. “We know that Williams will be a strong competitor, but I think that as long as we focus on ourselves, we will be able to rise to that challenge. I think the MIT Invite was a huge confidence booster for all of us since we proved to ourselves and our conference that we are strong competitors.”

Ulmer added, “For next weekend I think we will be focused on continuing that energy and team spirit, as Williams is our number one competitor in the NESCAC, and we definitely want to show them what we are capable of while also having fun.”

This Saturday, the Jumbos are headed to Middletown, Conn. to compete against two other NESCAC teams: Wesleyan and Williams. company like Amazon, a company also embroiled in seemingly constant labor controversy, the MLB’s employees are massive international celebrities who could mobilize massive public outcry with a single interview or tweet. This makes them uniquely powerful and insulated against many iterations of league aggression.

Yet, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred seems insistent on blaming the lockout on the MLBPA’s refusal to negotiate on key issues. Manfred detailed these complaints in a recent letter patronizingly addressed “to our fans,” a drastically misleading position if you read between the lines.

Quite simply: The players make the league its money. The benefits of unions to ensure the security of workers certainly goes beyond baseball, but the progressive principles that drive them must exist everywhere if they are to survive, no matter how much the workers make.

Oliver Fox is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Oliver can be reached at oliver.fox@tufts.edu.