Issue 1 Fall 2021

TUFTS

ISSUE 1 VOL CXLII

POWER.

OBSERVER

TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR LEDITOR • BY JOSIE WAGNER

4 REFORM OR PERFORM

FEATURE • BY ANTHONY CASON DAVIS-PAIT AND CAROLINA OLEA LEZAMA

8 I DREAM OF BODILY LIBERATION OPINION • BY LEAH COHEN

10 RELIT AND REOPENING

ARTS & CULTURE • BY GRACIE THEOBALDWILLIAMS

12 THE PLEA FOR PAY

18 TWENTY YEARS AND LINGERING FEARS

NEWS • BY ELEANOR FUCETOLA

20 SOPHOMORE SLUMP

OPINION • BY GAYATRI KALRA

22 SEE ME WALKING

VOICES • BY ANICA ZULCH

24 DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS NEWS • BY SOPHIE DORF-KAMIENNY

26 BLEEDING STARS

CAMPUS • BY MELANIE LITWIN

POETRY • BY LAYLA LANDRUM

14 CLAIM YOUR POWER

28 ON OPTIMIZATION

CREATIVE INSET •

BY EVELYN ABRAMOWITZ

16 ORDINARY TROUBLES

POETRY • BY MICHELLE SETIAWAN 2 TUFTS OBSERVER SEPTEMBER 28, 2020

ARTS AND CULTURE •

BY AUDREY LEDBETTER

STAFF EDITOR IN CHIEF: Josie Wagner

LEAD ARTIST: Madeleine Oh

MANAGING EDITOR: Amanda Westlake

LEAD COPY EDITOR: Grace Abe

EDITOR EMERITUS: Akbota Saudabayeva

MULTIMEDIA DIRECTOR: Unnathy Nellutla

CREATIVE DIRECTORS: Brenna Trollinger Sofia Pretell

PODCAST DIRECTORS: Caitlin Duffy Suhasini Mehra

FEATURE EDITORS: Rabiya Ismail Juanita Asapokhai

PUBLICITY DIRECTOR: Janie Ingrassia

NEWS EDITORS: Chloe Malley Sabah Lokhandwala ARTS & CULTURE EDITORS: Melanie Litwin Sabrina Cabarcos OPINION EDITORS: Claudia Aibel Edith Phillip

STAFF WRITERS: Lee Romaker Eleanor Fucetola Gracie Theobald-Williams Silvia Wang Anica Zulch Emara Saez Audrey Ledbetter

PUBLICITY TEAM: Paola Ruiz Millie Todd Sophie Fishman STAFF ARTISTS: Brigid Crawley Aidan Chang Anna Cornish Christina Ma D Gateño Emmeline Meyers Misha Mehta DESIGNERS: Carino Lo Julia Steiner Kate Bowers Tara Steckler Emma Davis Bao Lu Joanna Kleszczewski COPY EDITORS: Marco Pretell Hannah Schulman Shira Ben-Ami

Eden Weissman William Zhuang Meghan Smith MULTIMEDIA TEAM: Linda Kebichi Jasmine Chang PODCAST TEAM: Hanna Bregman Jaden Shemesh Jillian Yum Alexis Enderle Silvia Wang Grace Masiello Browyn Legg Noah DeYoung Gayatri Kalra Julio Dominguez CONTRIBUTORS: Anthony Cason Davis-Pait Michelle Setiawan Carolina Olea Lezama Layla Landrum Leah Cohen Sophie Dorf-Kamienny Kelsey Trollinger

CAMPUS EDITORS: Aroha Mackay Mira Dwyer POETRY & PROSE EDITOR: Isabelle Charles VOICES EDITORS: Rachel Dong Ryan Kim CREATIVE INSET EDITOR: Evelyn Abramowitz ART DIRECTORS: Kate Bowers Kelly Tan

POWER: A clenched fist, too-long fingernails poking into tender palms. Climbing the ladder, hand over hand until the top. Everything splinters eventually, but it’s worth it for the view

DESIGN BY JOHN BRENNA DOE, TROLLINGER. ART BY JANE PHOTO DOE BY KELSEY TROLLINGER; FRONT AND BACK COVER DESIGN BY SOFIA PRETELL

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 TUFTS OBSERVER 3

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I tend to hold on to things too tightly and have trouble leaving space for others. I consistently find power in control, in relying on my own work. I thrive in it. The promise of messing up my own life always seemed better than someone else doing it for me. I have never liked asking for help and would do it begrudgingly when necessary.

The first article I ever edited for the Tufts Observer as a freshman section editor contained problem after problem; it was a whole series of mistakes that started with my co-editor being sick, turned into the writer interviewing a different Observer staff member (a big no), and ended with the article never being published. I blamed myself—it felt like the easiest route, as the responsibilities I hadn’t met from that two-week cycle stuck out so clearly in my mind.

I can’t say the rest of my time on the Observer has gone perfectly. There have been many mistakes—other articles that ended up being pulled, misspelled words I didn’t notice, and texts I should’ve replied to earlier. Yet, here I am, in my seventh semester on this magazine, now Editor-in-Chief.

The Observer is too big and too heavy for one person to hold. As a magazine of record, the responsibility of representing this community and its members properly looms, and the amount of work it takes to create a magazine in two weeks is daunting. The past three and a half years on this magazine have been an exercise in letting go little by little, slowly putting trust in my writers, co-editors, designers, copy editors, and managing board. I couldn’t be more grateful.

This magazine has defined me for so long; it has challenged me, pushed me to my limits, and made me a better writer and a better person. It has helped me become someone who is confident in their ability to share stories. It has helped me loosen my grip and accept that my mistakes are not always solely my fault and worth trusting others for—even for that first article. But, most importantly, it has turned me into someone who can create this magazine with the people who surround me.

The Observer is, at its core, made of its people—over 120 years worth of them. That’s hard to imagine— it still shocks me just how much its staff has changed in the time I have been here. It astounds me that there are so many people at this school who are incredibly devoted to and passionate about this magazine. I can’t describe how much love I have for all of them, and how honored I am to get to make this magazine with them. There is power in this community—so much of it. To be able to build this publication and trust that their love for this magazine is strong is so wonderful, and it brings me so much joy each time I get to do it.

I couldn’t have learned how to do this if Bota, Richie, and Brigid hadn’t shown me how, and I couldn’t be doing it now without Amanda, Sofia, Brenna, and every other member of this staff. I would like to think so much of what is in this magazine comes down to care—caring enough to use your words to fight for what is right or caring enough to share your creations with the world. It is the people here who make this magazine what it is and made me care about myself enough to let go a little more. Thank you for going on this journey with me; I can’t wait to see where it takes us.

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All my love, Josie Wagner

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DESIGN BY BRENNA TROLLINGER ART BY STAFF ARTISTS

OCTOBER 11, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 3

FEATURE

REFORM OR PERFORM EVALUATING TUFTS’ PROGRESS ON TRANSFORMING TUPD

By Anthony Cason Davis-Pait and Carolina Olea Lezama

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n June 2020, over 2,000 students, faculty, staff, and alumni signed the Tufts for Black Lives petition that called upon the Tufts University administration to disarm and defund the Tufts University Police Department. In Fall 2020, students voted overwhelmingly in favor of ending TUPD’s participation in military training trips abroad. In light of national scrutiny on policing, Tufts has launched several new initiatives to measure campus sentiment and create a path forward for TUPD. After a year of these efforts by Tufts and a set of recommendations resulting from the Campus Safety and Policing Workstream, the Tufts community is re-evaluating whether these efforts are actually making progress in transforming TUPD and if they should spend energy engaging with them.

As announced in a statement by Tufts President Tony Monaco in July 2020, five workstreams were created as a part of the “Tufts as an Anti-Racist Institution strategic initiative,” 4 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 11, 2021

one of which was the Campus Safety and Policing Workstream. This workstream was created to “evaluate the current campus safety and policing model and recommend changes, identify immediate- and long-term objectives, and develop a framework to remain responsive to our community needs.”

The workstream began meeting in September 2020 and concluded in February 2020. The Working Group on TUPD Arming (WGTA) was then established following the original workstream’s report. Both the workstream and the working group have established forums, surveys, and focus groups throughout the last year to gather community input on campus policing. Chief Diversity Officer Rob Mack and Associate Provost and Executive Vice President Mike Howard led the group, which brought in faculty, staff, and students from every campus and met twice a week.

Lidya Woldeyesus, a senior and one of the two undergraduate students in the workstream, was originally excited

FEATURE

to be recruited and felt it was a step in the right direction.

However, “It very much became clear that many members of the committee didn’t know what they were doing; [the workstream] didn’t have a clear process or set agenda,” Woldeyesus said. “The [co-chairs] were charged with something that they did not understand the weight of [or] the responsibility [of] at all.” Woldeyesus felt that she was one of the few members of the group who was prepared to do the work needed.

She was dubious about Tufts’ intentions to truly consider any reform to policing or policing alternatives; instead, the initiatives appeared performative. Woldeyesus said it became clear to her that “President Monaco, the trustees, and the co-chairs wanted a certain outcome, which was… recommendations out by the end of the semester.” She believed this compromised the process. “There wasn’t real intentionality behind doing this right. Many of us constantly asked if we could have more time because we [didn’t] want to put out recommendations like the ones that [eventually] came out.”

Woldeyesus also expressed her concern about the lack of critical conversation on policing in the working group sessions before the release of the Working Group on Campus Safety and Policing’s recommendations. “It was clear that the majority of the people on this committee had not thought about policing in a different light—either policing in a different way, or police not existing, period,” Woldeyesus said. She advocated for the committee to have conversations around abolition and transformative justice before writing recommendations. These conversations fell on Woldeyesus herself, alongside other members of the committee: the Director of the LGBT and Women’s Center and member of the Tufts Action Group Steering Committee Hope Freeman and former Associate Dean of Diversity and Inclusion Nandi Bynoe. The three of them were instructed to give presentations on the topic to educate other committee members on abolition and the history of policing at Tufts. On top of her schoolwork, Woldeyesus said these presentations felt like unpaid labor. Professor of sociology Daanika Gordon, who focuses on municipal policing and racial segregation, presented as well, providing 24 suggested readings ranging from the historical context of policing to campus policing, to community-based responses and mental health crises. None of these more radical readings were assigned to the group following her presentation.

All of these instances led Woldeyesus to believe that her participation in the group was for show, so that the administration appeared to have the stamp of students’ approval.

She said, “I was clearly being used… I felt like what I did for the committee was not taken seriously, it was kind of like a checkbox.” Several committee members, Woldeyesus

said, seemed to be there just because it was a requirement of their job, not because of sincere interest in the reform efforts.

Mack and Howard did not respond to questions about how workstream members were chosen.

Tufts’ initiatives have also received criticism from students who were not in the working group. Senior Noah Mills expanded on Woldeyesus’ sentiments. “These working groups are not an effective vehicle for change. They’re in fact designed to take student, faculty, and community energy and literally throw it in the trash… they are designed to obstruct and pretend to listen and neutralize your anger and your energy,” Mills said. Tufts Community Union President Amma Agyei felt similarly, stating that these workstreams and other initiatives by Tufts are attempts to “exhaust student time and exhaust student effort” until they graduate.

Furthermore, Woldeyesus said that when she tried to draw attention to the anti-police militarization referendum and Students for Justice in Palestine’s Deadly Exchange campaign to end Tufts police training trips with Israel Defense Forces in meetings, Mack and Howard would attempt to quickly move on and postpone the conversation to another time. The workstream eventually released a report of their findings in February 2021, the product of five months of meetings.

There was no mention of SJP’s campaign, and the Tufts for Black Lives petition was only mentioned in the appendix of the recommendations alongside several other petitions and demands. Speaking to the recommendations that came out of the group, Woldeyesus said, “Now I have my name on something that I’m not proud of.”

One key recommendation from the workstream’s report was a deeper review of the issue of arming. As a result, the WGTA was established, seeking to determine if Tufts’ current model of armed police officers is the best choice for ensuring the safety and well-being of all Tufts community members.

Howard was appointed as chair of the WGTA. He noted in an email that membership in this specific group is “voluntary,” and members represent all campuses and include students, faculty, and staff. He added that “[they are] fortunate to have a thoughtful, committed group.” Neither Woldeyesus or Jaime Givens, the two undergraduate students recruited to the first workstream, chose to join the WGTA. According to Bridget Dick, a sophomore and member of SJP, the WGTA is a step backward from the workstream.

“It feels like a way to divert attention from the more general sort of militarization and increased proliferation of TUPD… by focusing on just one small issue… I think we need to think more about all of the ways in which the institution exists.” This sentiment is not only shared amongst students, but

“THERE WASN’T REAL INTENTIONALITY BEHIND DOING THIS RIGHT. MANY OF US CONSTANTLY ASKED IF WE COULD HAVE MORE TIME BECAUSE WE [DIDN’T] WANT TO PUT OUT RECOMMENDATIONS LIKE THE ONES THAT [EVENTUALLY] CAME OUT.”

DESIGN BY JULIA STEINER, ART BY KELLY TAN

OCTOBER 11, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 5

FEATURE

faculty members as well. Tufts Action Group is a grassroots organization of close to 100 faculty and staff behind the Tufts for Black Lives Petition. In an interview with the Tufts Daily, Keith Maddox, a psychology professor and member of TAG said, “From the basis of [Tufts Action Group’s] demands it’s pretty clear that the idea of… further study isn’t necessary. It is a little disappointing from a personal standpoint that it’s going to take another 12 months, and that’s just to decide whether to [disarm the TUPD] or not.” Though a few members of TAG were part of the workstream, when TAG was asked to participate in a focus group for the last workstream to inform the committee’s decisions, they declined.

Similar to the original workstream, Howard said the WGTA is also conducting focus groups “with a variety of organizations and affinity groups across the university.” However, they have not reached out to SJP, the only student group actively leading a policing related campaign. When asked

“TUFTS IS MAKING A CONCERTED EFFORT TO DISTINGUISH TUFTS POLICE FROM NATIONAL POLICE FROM MUNICIPAL POLICE FORCES, AND ARE DOING SO BY CREATING A PERSONA FOR TUPD OFFICERS SO THAT THEY ARE PERCEIVED AS WARM AND LOVING AND KIND AND APPROACHABLE WHEN IN FACT THEIR TRAINING IS THE SAME TRAINING AS MASSACHUSETTS POLICE OFFICERS.” why not, Howard responded, “It’s not possible for us to meet with every group.”

On September 9, 2021, the second day of the fall semester, the WGTA released a campus-wide survey asking for students’ and faculty’s thoughts on assessing the arming status of TUPD. The survey included a question that allowed people to state their preferred responders in a variety of scenarios, including building checks, noise complaints, trespassing, and physical assault. The options respondents could choose for each scenario were: “Armed TUPD,” “Unarmed TUPD,” “Campus Security Officers,” “Local, County, or State Law Enforcement” and “Mental health professionals.” In an op-ed in the Tufts Daily, Mills questioned the limitations of the survey selection. “Acting as if these five groups (three of which are sworn police officers) are the only options for response to

6 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 11, 2021

these situations simply ignores how things currently work at Tufts,” Mills wrote.

Another flaw of the survey that Mills noted was that respondents could only select one emergency responder for each scenario. Though a lot of crises can be rooted in mental health, he emphasized that he wouldn’t “send a therapist alone to deal with a potentially dangerous situation.” The survey also failed to ask students’ sexuality, an identity that Mills believes shapes his and others’ interactions with the police.

Mills proposed that a potential reason that the survey was not, in his opinion, accurately framed, was because it was made by a private company, Margolis Healy, a Vermontbased campus safety and security services firm. “All that [Margolis Healy] does is help institutions make sure that what they’re doing with regards to security is legal and follows all the laws… how much is Tufts paying this company to make this survey and what are the motivations of the people making this survey?” Mills said. Margolis Healy seems to be a major firm for contracting out policing research, and has produced reports for Brandeis University, Suffolk University, and Portland State University.

According to Howard, “more than 3,000 individuals have completed the survey.” However, some students did not see the value in it. Sam Thomas, a first-year, said, “I didn’t fill it out because I didn’t like the questions, there were no good answers.” Agyei questioned the purpose of the survey, emphasizing that “[students] don’t have to fill out a survey for [Tufts] to know that a bunch of people on campus don’t want armed police. [Administration] already knew that.”

The survey also questions the relationship between TUPD and Somerville Police Department, asking students whether they would be comfortable with Medford and Somerville police coming on campus to respond to lifethreatening situations on campus if TUPD was disarmed.

Willie Burnley Jr., Somerville City Councillor Candidate and founder of Defund Somerville PD noted “[TUPD] interacts and moves throughout the Somerville community… the idea that Somerville PD is not on Tufts campus is just like—I don’t know where that idea could come from.” This question relies on the assumption that Tufts police are somehow different from Medford and Somerville police. However, students do not see that as accurate. “Tufts is making a concerted effort to distinguish Tufts police from national police from municipal police forces, and are doing so by creating a persona for TUPD officers so that they are perceived as warm and loving and kind and approachable when in fact their training is the same training as Massachusetts police officers,” Woldeyesus said. “Any TUPD officer could work in Medford if they want-

FEATURE

ed to—many of them have.”

TUPD is an accredited police force by the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission, who boasts that their accreditation is an “effective risk management tools for preventing and reducing loss in professional liability claims.”

Mills sees this accreditation as a process to shield TUPD from accountability. “We pay a couple thousand dollars to have that accreditation… because it protects [Tufts] from liability,” Mills said. “If police do something wrong,” said Mills, referencing the Jumbo statue mask incident, “[Tufts] can be like ‘This is an accredited policy… so we did everything right. This is what any other police officer would do.”

Another way police departments deflect responsibility is with intentional appointments of Black and brown police chiefs, specifically when their police departments come under attack. Tufts recently appointed Yolanda Smith, a Black woman, as the new executive director of public safety. Scholars and activists have cautioned against the idea that diversifying the police force is enough to remedy systemic racism within the police force. Agyei agreed with the criticism, saying that until she sees “some real change in policing and safety at Tufts, [she is not] going to start celebrating just because the director is Black-identifying.” Burnley Jr. echoed these sentiments. “There is a long history of systems operating in a way where they take in actors who could be powerful spokespeople against the institution, and instead use them as shields against criticism,” he said “I don’t want to take someone and say they’re a token… if this person is somehow able to eliminate racial disparities within the police department, I would say that that’s a good thing.”

Since Smith’s appointment as executive director of public safety, some changes have been made to the capabilities and features of the campus police department. According to Smith, a crisis intervention and threat assessment manager has joined university staff, and TUPD officers now receive an “expanded” mental health response training. Smith also mentioned that students are now able to contact a counselor on call in emergency mental health situations that happen outside of Counseling and Mental Health Services’ hours, rather than the previous policy, which made TUPD officers the intermediary contact. In an email to the Observer, Smith explained her vision of the future of TUPD: “Ultimately, we want to have a public safety program that meets the needs of each member of our community, protects our community, and advances our vision of being an anti-racist institution.”

Though Smith notes her hope to meet the needs of each member of the community, Woldeyesus and Agyei have both been frustrated with the supposed community engagement

DESIGN BY JULIA STEINER, ART BY KELLY TAN

efforts—that have in part resulted from the recommendations of the workstream. During orientation week, TUPD were tasked with handing out ice cream to first years at the Oshow. Most recently, on October 4, 2021, @tuftspolice on Instagram posted about National Coffee with a Cop Day. In response, Woldeyesus siad,“these efforts are being implemented without the thought or consideration for students who feel particularly endangered by the pre s e nc e of law enforcement.” Agyei agreed: “Students have been asking for a restructure of the police department for years, and they propose a coffee event?… That’s not what I want. I want them disarmed. I don’t want to sit down and drink coffee with someone who could potentially hurt me.”

Because many feel that the efforts implemented have fallen short of meeting community needs, students, faculty, and staff are finding alternatives within their own communities instead of awaiting decisions from the Tufts administration. In an email, Gordon emphasized the importance of investing in “immediate responses to incidents that are restorative and reparative, versus punitive and alienating,” and looking towards restorative and transformative justice. Jared Smith, Director of the FIRST Center, explained over email that FIRST center interns and peer leaders are “trained to connect with the Director or Associate Director first,” when responding to a crisis, “unless there is an immediate concern for someone’s safety or wellbeing.” Mills added that from his experience as a Residential Assistant last year, RAs are in a special position to enact transformative justice with their residents. “We can sit down in the hallway and talk about an action that they [their resident] did that… maybe was harmful to the community and how they could move forward from that.”

While TUPD moves forward with their coffee propaganda, students, faculty, and staff are attempting to make them obsolete.

While there may have initially been buy-in to these working groups, there seems to be a building consensus among members of the Tufts community that TUPD is standing in the way of change more than providing avenues for it. In a list of demands from TAG, the group called on Tufts to act decisively: “Stop taking small steps, when major transformation is needed along with long-term accountability mechanisms, transparent processes based in community consultation, and commitment to timely action.”

OCTOBER 11, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 7

OPINION a

I DREAM OF BODILY LIBERATION

By Leah Cohen

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n Texas, your iPhone might as well be an ankle bracelet. The Guardian recently noted that Texas county courts can subpoena your smartphone’s geolocation history if you are unlucky enough to be sued for aiding and abetting an abortion. The Supreme Court hasn’t decided yet who has standing as a plaintiff in civil lawsuits under SB 8, a law in Texas banning abortions at six weeks gestation, so in theory, anyone could sue you—for example, a prisoner in Arkansas, or a lawyer in Chicago. In this online world, we are constantly watched, but under SB 8, we are explicitly criminalized by the technocratic surveillance state.

In summary, we live in hell.

8 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 11, 2021

Before I joined the board of the Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire, I did not consider myself a “pro-choice activist.” Frankly, I felt turned off by a movement dominated by white, millennial/middle-aged, cisgender, able-bodied, heterosexual women in pink pussy hats marching on Washington holding cringey #Resist signs with Gadsden flags shaped like uteruses and effigies of The Handmaid’s Tale that would make Margaret Atwood spontaneously combust. There’s an exclusionary culture within the reproductive rights movement, and it’s by design.

Largely dominated by organizations like NARAL and Planned Parenthood, the mainstream political culture of the movement was built by racist, homophobic, ableist eugenicists. While there have been massive strides to reconcile that torrid history with the present-day battle for liberation, there remains a huge amount of work to do on inclusivity and equity within the movement itself.

For many femmes, women, trans, and non-binary people who possess uteruses, the movement for bodily autonomy is one of the earliest political inflection points in which we become acutely aware of our own systemic subjugation, on account of the gender we were assigned. Eventually you become numb to it. Until it becomes a death sentence.

When I was 17, I lost my health insurance. Suddenly, the oral birth control I took to regulate my period was an out-of-pocket cost. This happened about six months after Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court. I had been considering an intrauterine device (IUD), largely as a joke, which now suddenly felt like a serious option—and also a necessity. I say it was a joke because at 17, I had that implicit understanding of my own positionality that you develop with a political consciousness—that as a white woman who did not consistently experience economic precarity I would always have access to abortions in a way Black, Indigenous, and people of color, and impoverished people do not.

I found my way back into the movement that had drawn me into political organizing in the first place. Right as I hit my stride, Roe v. Wade was effectively nullified for 13 million Texans.

Roe v. Wade is a landmark civil rights case that in 1973 put forth a new court precedent—that pregnant people retain their individual bodily autonomy until the point of fetal viability. Something that gets lost in conversations about Roe is that it didn’t just strike down abortion laws—it also guaranteed pregnant people the full suite of civil rights that conservatives have tried to deny them. Without the precedence of Roe, not only can lawmakers outlaw abortion—they can also make it illegal for pregnant people to drink wine, eat sushi, walk on treadmills, or own a microwave.

Roe is situated in a matrix of cases that guarantee marginalized people unenumerated civil rights—gay marriage, birth control, and decriminalizing homosexuality, to name a few. These

OPINION

cases are similar in that they limit the scope of “religious freedom” as it pertains to the state’s right to criminalize individuals for the way they were born. I’m not a betting woman, but I’d imagine the next series of cases to join this catalogue will revolve around the right to gender confirmation surgery and the constitutionality of the death penalty.

Ultimately, Roe is an inherently flawed decision that is entirely inadequate. It’s absurd to think that our greatest civil rights protections in this country are that nine unelected geriatrics interpreted a document written by genocidal colonialist slave-owners as having the interests of subjugated people in mind. But I digress.

Texas’ SB 8 is the worst-case scenario in many ways. For one thing, it’s nearly impossible to block via lawsuit. Even before we realized that Justices Amy “Coathanger” Barrett and Samuel Alito would weaponize the shadow docket through a sleight of hand Houdini couldn’t have pulled off, the lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights filed was, to quote Imani Gandy of Rewire, “bonkers.” Essentially, SB 8 is entirely enforced by civilian vigilantism, so with no clear defendants to name, the plaintiffs decided to sue any member of the judicial system in Texas who may have to enforce this law via civil procedure. That means they basically named every county judge in Texas’ 254 counties and their clerks in their petition. Not only that, but Texas isn’t even the case that we knew could overturn

“WE WILL NOT ACHIEVE REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE UNTIL WE ACHIEVE ABOLITION.” the precedent of Roe—that’s up for oral arguments in December.

Dobbs v. Jackson is the case pertaining to Mississippi’s 15-week ban, and it is a unique piece of legislation poised to fully overturn Roe and set off 11 trigger bills in 11 GOP-controlled states.

So… what now?

In terms of the immediate remedy, as strange as it sounds, abortion is not technically fully illegal in Texas. The fun part about cisgender male evangelicals writing legislation to ban abortion is that while they may have a cunning Federalist-society reading of the law, they know next to nothing about how abortions work.

You can order an abortion online via Plan C Pills or Aid Access, a Dutch company that directly ships Mifeprex to patients who complete an online intake form. Because the prescribing physician for Texas is a Dutch doctor, there are no grounds to sue her. Thus, if a patient were to obtain a medication abortion via Aid Access and manage their abortion at home, no one could be liable for the civil suit, as the bill explicitly bars the actual patient from being criminalized for obtaining an abortion. Maybe it was hubris or maybe it was sheer idiocy, but ultimately the legislation has an enormous gaping loophole.

There are limitations to self-managed abortion, of course—it is only effective to 12 weeks, and while it’s safer than Tylenol and Viagra, many patients experience discomfort at the prospect of DESIGN BY BAO LU, ART BY KATE BOWERS

managing their abortion at home, completely divorced from the healthcare apparatus. However, there isn’t a way to fully criminalize self-managed abortion because there is no medical difference between an induced abortion via pills and a natural miscarriage.

You can put away your coat hanger.

Like many forms of criminalization, surveillance, and subjugation, abortion bans are rooted in white supremacy. Renee Bracey Sherman of We Testify writes: “This is our moment to demand full decriminalization of abortion and the abolishment of all abortion laws. Piecemeal legislation will always leave the most marginalized people without full protections and subject to criminalization.” Not only do abortion bans disproportionately kill Black and Brown women, but their very premise is one of preserving the white ethno-state—one of the primary fodders for anti-abortion activism is the antisemitic and xenophobic conspiracy theory of demographic replacement. It’s no wonder that antiabortion fanatics utilize the police state as the primary weapon of banning abortion, in service of their overarching goal: to brutalize, criminalize, and dehumanize Black, Brown, queer, trans, immigrant, Jewish, and disabled bodies.

NARAL Pro Choice Virginia, an independent state-based former affiliate of the national organization NARAL, recently came under fire for their statements supporting the defund the police movement. Many (white, older, cisgender female) activists have berated this choice, saying it distracts from the goals of abortion advocacy efforts. To me, NARAL-VA’s holistic and intersectional approach to reproductive justice best exemplifies what abortion politics mean. We will not achieve reproductive justice until we achieve abolition. When we ask for bodily autonomy, we don’t just mean over our uteruses—we mean autonomy from the violence of the state; we mean autonomy over our gender and our sexual experiences; we mean autonomy over our bosses and the liberation of workers; we mean autonomy from the death grip of capitalism; we mean autonomy, full stop. It needs no qualifiers.

My colleague from Colorado, Keshia, put it best: “I’m not fucking asking for my rights— I’m taking them.”

OCTOBER 11, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 9

ARTS & CULTURE

RELIT & REOPENING: THE RETURN OF THE SOMERVILLE THEATRE

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itting in the middle of Davis Square at night, it’s hard not to be drawn to the lights of the Somerville Theatre.

Yellowish-white lights, neatly framing an awning, once again exude a brilliance in the darkness. After being closed for a year and a half due to the pandemic, the Somerville Theatre re-opened on September 17, 2021.

In 1914, the theater was built as a space for on-stage performances—including vaudeville and opera—in addition to movies. In its early years, all of these formats were part of the theater’s programming, but when the Great Depression hit, the theater began only showing movies, and live performances did not return until the 1980s. In recent

10 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 11, 2021

By Gracie Theobald-Williams years, the theater has held 30 to 40 live events each year, including comedians and music groups such as Adele, Bruce Springsteen, and U2.

The interior of the theater has a classic, retro charm, heightening viewers’ experiences. Sophomore Emily Childs is a Somerville local who has been to the theater many times. She said, “It’s fun on the inside, it’s well done, it’s exciting, [and] it’s personable. They have the owls up in the corners and the decorations are always interesting.”

The theater shows a broad range of films—including classic movies and art films—in addition to mainstream releases.

Childs talked about some of her experiences watching movies at the theater: “They also do vintage movies and throwbacks. I got to see Sixteen Candles in the theater a n d it was so much fun… and I loved when they did the Halloween specials.”

The theater also offers a variety of film formats, being one of a small number of theaters in New

England that shows movies in 70 mm. 70 mm refers to a film format where the physical film and projected image on the screen is twice as wide as typical 35 mm movie film formats. Not only is a 70 mm image larger, but it allows the viewer to see more details and is of a higher resolution.

Junior Eliseo Vigil, a film and media studies major, has been to the Somerville Theatre twice. He explained that he was initially drawn to the theater because of one of the film formats that the theater was offering. “I wanted to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood because [the Somerville Theatre was] offering it in 15mm and I thought that’d be super interesting to see,” he said.

There is also the sheer entertainment value of seeing a movie in theaters that makes going to the Somerville Theatre an enjoyable experience. Childs said, “I prefer when they do specials because I like seeing the movies that… I’m already familiar with on the big screen because I’ve never [had] that experience.”

Sophomore Daniel Schwartz felt similarly about the value of seeing movies in theaters: “In the theater it’s much more immersive, and it has a much grander feel because there are the big speakers and the huge screen. It makes even the bad movies fun, just to be there.”

When COVID-19 hit, the theater was no longer allowed to operate. Ian Judge, creative director at the Somerville Theatre,

ARTS & CULTURE

described his experience during the closure.

“I’ve been running theaters for over 25 years and [the closure due to COVID] was 100 percent the most difficult thing,” he said. While some of the theater staff were supported by the Paycheck Protection Program loans through part of the summer in 2020, he explained that for most of the closure, all of the staff were furloughed.

While this period was difficult, the closure also provided an opportunity for the theater to complete some renovations. The theater now has a newly renovated ballroom, in addition to an updated lobby and ticket sales areas.

While a year-and-a-half closure could easily be catastrophic for a small business, the Somerville Theatre is reopening with a bang. Their Facebook post announcing their reopening, captioned “Did you miss us?” has hundreds of likes, with many people in the comments cheering on the theater’s return. One person wrote: “The place I miss most from 5 years living in Davis Square.” Another person commented, “I’ve missed you since 1987! (When I moved to California).” Someone else said, “Happy to [see] you back open again. I miss the 70 mm presentations.”

From these comments, it is easy to see how much community members value the Somerville Theatre. The theater has existed for 107 years, surviving the Spanish flu and now COVID-19. While the vintage interior, exciting selection of movies, and live events certainly help create a special relationship with community members, the theater has survived all these years for more reasons than its ability to create a fun entertainment experience.

Judge said, “We are connected with our customers, we are connected with the community. And that’s why we’ve been able to survive for this long because as the community evolves and changes and gets more diverse, what we offer does as well.” Though, some elements of the theater have stayed the same. Even with renovations, the theater has retained its classic interior style, but through specific choices in programming, the theater can support the needs and wants of the community.

DESIGN BY TARA STECKLER, ART BY MADELEINE OH

Highlighting the specific local desires and preferences that the theater responds to, Judge said, “We live in an area where people don’t necessarily want to see the top three films… and certainly when we do classic movies, and live events, those are all things that people around here seem to value.”

This connection with the community is the result of intentional communication according to Judge. He said, “In terms of the events, it’s reaching out to different groups and people in the community who want to feel represented.

I think that that’s important too, to be inclusive. But really, it’s just about communication.

Communication and understanding go a long way in all facets of life. And movie theaters really shouldn’t be too different.”

The survival of the Somerville Theatre is important because of the role it plays in community members’ lives. Childs discussed the importance of the theater to thve community as a whole: “It’s a nice staple of Davis Square and it’s a nice staple of our community. And I think people flock to it. I think it really does build a lot of community and when I was in high school, a lot of my experience with it was that people would want to go there and make memories and share experiences.”

Schwartz is just now experiencing the theater being open for the first time and sees it becoming a regular part of his life. He said, “I definitely want to go with friends. Because you could make a thing, like every weekend, you go to the movies.” For others, the theater can also serve as a place to spend time alone. Vigil said, “I feel like I could build a nice routine going and taking me-time seeing a movie there.”

Community members feel strongly about the theater, and now that it’s reopened, it will continue to play an important role in their life. Judge explained, “A movie house is what people think of as part of a community center, so we still function that way. We’re not off in some mall. We’re really integrated into the fabric of the city.”

OCTOBER 11, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 11

CAMPUS

THE PLEA FOR PAY HT G I F S R ORKE GES W A G W N I R E N I M D FOR SUM e Litwin

By Melani

F

or the majority of Tufts dining workers, summer 2021 left them with no work, no unemployment benefits, and, as a result: no pay. Due to their status as “academic year employees,” the dining workers were denied unemployment by the state. This status deemed them technically employed despite a lack of summer hours available at Tufts because of COVID. Since the summer, dining workers, Tufts Labor Coalition members, and community members have been working towards acquiring this lost payment.

In summer 2020, dining workers were able to collect unemployment due to a state statute that expanded unemployment eligibility because of the pandemic. As summer 2021 neared, many workers assumed the situation would be similar because the pandemic was still limiting Tufts summer work. However, of the 180 dining workers, 130 were not able to receive summer work at Tufts according to The Tufts Daily.

The workers were not given much information in advance. According to Tricia O’Brien, a service attendant at Mugar Cafe, on May 12 the dining workers received a letter dated May 3, stating they had “Reasonable Assurance” of returning to their jobs in the 2021 – 2022 academic year, meaning they would not be eligible to collect unemployment from the state. This was four days before their last day of work for the semester.

12 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 11, 2021

David Boulet-Gercourt, a Tufts junior and a TLC member, spoke on Tufts’ decision to wait until the end of the semester to share this information. “​​There are a lot [fewer] people to mobilize around this issue. So it was strangely convenient that they waited until the last second to let them know that they’re not gonna be able to collect [unemployment],” he said.

Marianne Walles, a community member who is part of local activist organization Somerville Stands Together and co-chair of the Our Revolution Somerville Payment in Lieu of Taxes working group, described Tufts’ relationship with the community: “They don’t communicate well with their community, whether it be the student community, the worker community, or the residential community. They’re just not great at communicating what’s going on.”

In an email to the Tufts Observer, Patrick Collins, executive director of media relations, stated that the decision on whether academic year employees are eligible for unemployment comes down to the state, not Tufts. According to Collins, “With the exception of the summer of 2020, when the state made a one-time, temporary change in light of the pandemic, the state has never considered dining employees to be eligible for unemployment compensation when they go on leave in the summer and know that they will be coming back to work in the fall.”

Pre-pandemic, the majority of dining workers were able to continue working at the university during the summer because of in-person programs and events. The

Campus Center, Central Culinary Services, Tufts Catering, Dewick-MacPhie Dining Center, Kindlevan Café, and Tower Café all previously operated in some capacity. In summer 2021, only Dewick was operational.

This July, TLC hosted a rally in front of Dewick in support of the dining workers. The rally was attended by workers, students, faculty, elected officials, political candidates, and community members.

Walles assisted with outreach to the surrounding community. She said, “We know the high cost of living in [these] areas and going without income, especially after the pandemic… I think for the community, it’s about Tufts being more accountable, not only to their students and their workers, but also to the community members.”

Collins wrote: “The University pays its staff, including dining employees, well and equitably for the work they perform.”

According to Collins, there were no widespread layoffs, salary reductions, or benefit cuts for the dining workers.

The lack of summer pay has had a significant impact on the lives of dining workers. O’Brien explained that for some workers, multiple members of their family are employed by Tufts Dining and rely on Tufts for a large portion of their household income. Meanwhile, dining workers continued incurring food, rent, and childcare costs.

“A lot of [dining workers] had to use all their savings. A lot of them had to use their credit cards to get by to make payments on things,” O’Brien said. “You know, thank god the children are back in school because a lot

CAMPUS of them had to cut down on food because they didn’t have the extra money.”

O’Brien has been with Tufts Dining for 32 years, during which she has seen the work culture shift dramatically. She said, “It’s very different from when I started working, a lot different. Before it used to be like a family, and now it’s just terrible.”

O’Brien also noted, “I don’t want to attack anybody. I just want the employees to be treated better.”

There is a precedent of student-worker solidarity at Tufts. In 2019, students mobilized to support the dining workers during their union contract negotiations and near-strike. That March, 800 students attended a picket for the workers.

In describing the student-worker relationship, O’Brien said, “We look at the students as family. They’re like my kids.

They’re younger than my kids, so I consider them my kids. And a lot of people feel that way.”

UNITE HERE Local 26 is the union that represents dining workers. During the summer, their resources were spread thin and could not be extensively involved in the fight for summer pay, as they were in the midst of working on contract negotiations for the Harvard dining workers.

Now, the union has laid out a plan for the

DESIGN BY CARINA LO, ART BY KELLY TAN

Tufts dining workers to attempt applying for Pandemic Unemployment.

“It’s in a gray zone, where the workers are trying to apply for the Pandemic Unemployment, which is supposed to fill the holes left by regular unemployment insurance. But, [I’m] not sure if it’s going to work or not,” Boulet-Gercourt said.

In the meantime, TLC is encouraging students to have their parents complain to administrators over email, particularly to Executive Vice President Mike Howard and Director of Dining and Business Services Patti Klos.

Boulet-Gercourt acknowledged that even though the university is not doing anything illegal, it still has a moral obligation to its

“EVEN THOUGH LEGALLY YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT, MORALLY, AND FOR EVERYTHING THAT YOU SAY THAT YOU STAND UP FOR, THIS SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING.”

employees. Addressing the Tufts administration, he said, “You use all this rhetoric of social justice and standing up for your workers, especially during COVID when the workers were literally putting their lives on the line to keep campus running for a year... if you wanted to, they could have gotten paid. Even though legally you are in the right, morally, and for everything that you say that you stand up for, this should not be happening.”

Boulet-Gercourt added, “I think Tufts goes a long way to try to hide the realities of what they do from the student body because they don’t want to ruin their image of being a good, social justice-centered school.”

Every day, for the entirety of the 2020 – 2021 academic year and continuing into the 2021 – 2022 school year, Tufts dining workers served breakfast, lunch, and dinner, despite the risk of getting infected with COVID-19. Students with COVID-19 were still served food from Tufts Dining, delivered to them by the workers. The dining workers also had to navigate a new orderin-advance app system. This semester, they are expected to maintain both in-person orders and app orders—a system different from both pre-pandemic dining and last year. According to O’Brien, this has put an added strain on the workers.

She said, “We are so understaffed right now. We are so overwhelmed right now…

I’m just concerned about the welfare of the employees. I’m concerned, safety wise, because they’re tired, they’re exhausted.”

OCTOBER 11, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 13

FEATURE

DESIGN BY EVELYN ABRAMOWITZ 1. TERRY COLE, DAY, DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

14 TUFTS OBSERVER SEPTEMBER 28, 2020

2. EVELYN ABRAMOWITZ, GAZE, DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

FEATURE

DESIGN BY JOHN DOE, ART BY JANE DOE

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 TUFTS OBSERVER 15

PROSE

ordinary troubles

by Michelle Setiawan

Power evades me There is a cup of black coffee on the long wooden table, tepid in the airconditioned kitchen of my house. I have grown used to the rationality of hot coffee—this way, the integrity of the drink will remain long into the day.

I take my seat at the end of the table as I had the day and month and year before. I will remain there until the moon has taken its residence above the city, nature’s cruel reminder of reality’s redundancy.

In the minutes before 1:00 p.m., the technicolored scene confined to my computer screen flickers to an end—my second movie that day. My eyes sting. The film is poignant in a manner that could only be achieved through experience, and I am envious of the names that flash in the credits.

They had lived lives worthy of movies.

I live bound to a series of daily routines. It occurs to me that I want to be a screenwriter, if not out of true passion then out of a promise that I will strive for a fulfilling existence when the world resumes its normal pace. It feels right, as though power has not escaped me fully, if I continue to plan for a future that is out of sight.

Yesterday, I wanted to be a botanist.

Tomorrow, I will want to be a barista.

I cling to every piece of comfort like it is the last I will ever see.

Does it hide in my dreams?

In my isolation, it has been too long since I witnessed the warmth on a stranger’s face as they delay their steps, waiting for me to catch up to them, walking through the door they hold open for me.

Before, I amused myself with the imaginary lives of strangers bustling around me. Sitting in a cafe, fixated on the hundreds of storylines occurring around me.

16 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 11, 2021

n

PROSE In those days, it was not so hard to maintain balance.

The strangers were never evil in my imagination. They were preoccupied with living and happiness. If they committed harmful acts, it was a small slip. In the end, they always learned to do better.

I lived in those dreams, where the ideal was mine to create.

Control rested within arm’s reach. I could conceive countless incidents that were rooted in good, and my perception of the beauty of the world would once again be unobstructed.

It is harder to free myself from my blinders now.

Where power resided, a mass of darkness now lurks. I search for Strength, but her home is vacant.

When I call her name, my rebounding voice is the only reply.

Where are you? Come back to me.

I keep searching How much of our lives happen in restaurants? When weekly family lunches were steadily abundant in my life, I did not acknowledge their advantage. I merely had to wish for my grandmother’s voice, to miss my cousin’s sisterly advice, and it would be present in a few days’ time.

In its cold absence, I feel the weight it had occupied. “Meals are an event,” my mom told me once. It has proven itself true.

But lying between yearning and disregard is gratitude, and it is the territory I find myself in now. For every time I have condemned my solitude, I find that the distance from old habits, old ways of life, have given me clarity. I appreciate more. I reflect more.

Is it there?

The world is quiet here. My thoughts are constant eerie music in the background of my day. When was the last time I read something? Virginia Woolf ’s To the Lighthouse sits on my shelf.

I want to laugh at the irony of it, that a year ago I found the idea of time passing so intriguing. Now, I fall into a timeless loop of days beginning with the sun and ending with the moon, nothing distinguishable in between.

disappointment I drift in, seeking a harbor where I can finally rest. There are not enough harbors for everyone.

My blood seethes with guilt. My skin burns with the pain of my confession: I am tired. But I do not deserve this temporary peace. In this strange river that bears the world, a widow grieves. A son wakes to his new fate. A baby will never know her grandmother. How can I deny them serenity? I surrender my port to them, shoving rope into hands that are not there. I am alone here.

I learn that this is a blessing.

It returns Learning to grieve experiences I can never have—the suspense of friends awaiting college decisions, or a spring break getaway celebrating with those who have seen my worst and best times, or the preciousness of final days on a campus where I learned so much—is a bleak activity. But I have found solace in looking forward to those first days of September when I enter a new campus, a new beginning, a new routine. The weight of disappointment used to bear heavily on me, and I have figured out a way to push back. That is all I can do.

It is easy to fixate on the current dreary situation, accepting the pity of teachers and peers and parents. Doing so has not helped me.

Every time an overly gentle voice says, “I feel so sorry for you,” I want to tell them that I am one of the lucky ones. I recognize it when I read the news, and even more when I feel the relief of waking up to my family each morning.

I look at my coffee now, gone cold. Nothing remains unchanged in the motions of this world. Loss will not halt the earth—its shifting nature does not depend on my emotions.

Through my first introduction to mourning, my first sorrows, and everything else, the world kept moving. New replaced old, delight replaced pain, trust replaced defeat. The world will keep moving.

Power’s vacant house has become occupied again. This time, warm light seeps out from its windows; I feel it settling into its home.

I consider my coffee and await better days.

Time is ever-stretching. Every moment feels lived-in. I begin to worry that my curiosity has dulled into indifference, but every day I am reassured that my fascination will never leave me.

A milk carton, a Russian doll, a cactus. A dream catcher, a vase, an old birthday card.

These wonders are small mercies, distracting me from the river of DESIGN BY JOANNA KLESZCZEWSKI, ART BY MADELEINE OH

OCTOBER 11, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 17

NEWS

TWENTY YEARS AND LINGERING FEARS S E P T E M B E R 11 ’ S L A S T I N G E F F E C T S

By Eleanor Fucetola

T

his September was the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

For Tufts students, it was a reminder of the legacy of 9/11 and how the event has influenced American society despite many of them being too young to remember the event. Tufts students, Americans, and people around the globe continue to be affected by the policy changes, xenophobia, and discourse surrounding terrorism that was created as a result of 9/11.

18 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 11, 2021

The US’ foreign policy measures created after 9/11 still influence the way many Americans think about Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran as foreign threats, as well as the way that they perceive Muslims and Arab people in general. A poll

by The Associated Press Center for Public Affairs Research conducted ahead of the 9/11 anniversary in August 2021 found that 53 percent of Americans have unfavorable views toward Islam, compared with 42 percent who have favorable ones.

“I’m always a little weary being a hijabi in certain spaces because people will assume certain things or come up to me and ask strange questions,” said junior Warisha Siddiqui. “I’ve had people come up to me feeling worried [saying] we’re sorry about wearing the hijab like I was forced to do it, when that’s not the case.

I think that’s a product of Islamophobia and the perceptions of hijab.”

While Siddiqui experiences the impacts of 9/11 today, she recounts how

NEWS

9/11 influenced her youth as well. “During the early stages [post-]9/11, I wasn’t fully aware, but I remember generally seeing signs [of the impact] in my house, like my parents not letting us go out to play,” she said. “I definitely think it had a profound impact on my life. I never forgot. I distinctly remember every 9/11.

We wouldn’t do any work. Every single class, whether it be math or social studies, we would just talk about it.”

The racialization of Islam has impacted individuals of Arab descent as well. Junior Paolo Padova grew up half white and half Arab with Christian Arab heritage. Despite not being Muslim, 9/11 has impacted how his family walks through life in America.

“On account of living in NYC after 9/11, my mom stopped speaking Arabic to [me and my sister], so I think for that reason it’s been more difficult for me to learn my own language… It took my mom a long time to be able to tell people she’s Palestinian out of fear of backlash.

In fact, it was only when I got to college that she started being vocal about that part of her identity,” Padova said.

Racism and xenophobia after 9/11 resulted in a staunch increase in deportations of immigrants in the US, increasing nearly 50 percent since 9/11. The Bush Administration created the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security, and with these was able to bolster national security measures that often infringed on the civil liberties of Muslim and Arab people.

“Islamophobia in the US did not start with 9/11,” said political science professor Debora Schildkraut. “But 9/11 certainly led the public to support attempts to restrict the rights and opportunities of Muslim Americans. It also sustained discrimination and violence against people who were perceived to be Muslim, even if they were not,” she said.

DESIGN BY KATE BOWERS, ART BY KELLY TAN

Post-9/11 politics led to the increased surveillance of Muslim people.

The USA PATRIOT Act, signed into law shortly after the attacks, allowed for increased surveillance and wiretapping.

Civil rights groups have claimed the act violates American citizens’ constitutional rights and allows the government to spy on them without due process. Recent political measures, such as Counter Violence Extremism programs, play into the racialization of Islam as well, stating that

“WHEN PEOPLE DESCRIBE WHAT A PRE-9/11 WORLD WAS, IT DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING TO [ME]. I’VE ONLY EVER EXPERIENCED A WORLD WITH [THE] INCREASED SECURITY OF HAVING TO BE PATTED DOWN EVERY TIME I GO TO THE AIRPORT AND THE EXTRA CHECK ON MY LUGGAGE,” “wearing traditional Islamic clothing” and “growing a beard” are indicators of radicalization, when radicalization does not have key indicators or paths. “9/11 and the War on Terror have shown that expanding the surveillance state does not make people safer and is consistently used against people of color,” said Padova. “Instead, the basis of safety is solidarity between marginalized communities.”

For Siddiqui, increased surveillance and distrust targeted at Muslim people is the norm. “When people describe what a pre-9/11 world was, it doesn’t mean anything to [me]. I’ve only ever experienced

a world with [the] increased security of having to be patted down every time I go to the airport and the extra check on my luggage,” she said.

Immediately following 9/11, President George W. Bush launched the War on Terror, which would begin with an invasion of Afghanistan. Tufts international relations professor Malik Mufti said, “there is no question that both [the Afghanistan and Iraq] Wars have come generally to be seen as failures.” Despite this, 9/11 has been the basis for other U.S. military interventions in the Middle East. The strategies are changing, and there is now more emphasis on suppressing movements before they start. “[There is more of a] focus on counter-insurgency than terrorism since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq because of the absence of major Middle East-based terrorist operations in the US since 9/11,” Mufti continued.

Siddiqui worked at the Atlantic Council, an international affairs think tank, this summer. “[For] all forms of US military intervention, [my workplace] was thoroughly against them. So I had interesting conversations about the disproportionate response in Afghanistan and how more troops aren’t going to solve the issue,” she said. “I was shocked [about] how much money was spent on counter-terrorism and how most of it went to military operations in Muslim majority nations. I didn’t think the way we were spending our money helped [anyone].”

Twenty years later, issues of intervention, the US’ role in the region, and counter-terrorism policy persist. Conversations about the US’ role in the Middle East resurfaced in August when President Joe Biden withdrew troops from the region. Siddiqui said, “I think we’ve forgotten what 9/11 was and how we use it to justify what the US does in the Middle East for the past 20 years and that’s really sad.”

OCTOBER 11, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 19

OPINION

SOPHOMORE SLUMP

In an effort to contain the spread of COVID-19 while still giving first year students the opportunity to meet people, Tufts established the cohort system, which grouped six to seven students together based on their residence hall floor. However, according to Heald, the cohort system “was toxic and created a hostile environment as people within the cohort had differing perspectives on COVID-19.” Heald claims that the cohort system and COVID-19 policies were not effective as freshmen continued to break them. For those who followed them, they lacked the freedom to find other communities they enjoyed if they did not click with the individuals within their cohort. Due to the difficulty of breaking out of their hen I was a nervous teenager thinking of college, my freshman cohort, many freshmen felt trapped and isoolder cousins and parents would often remark: “Ah- lated in a year that was already difficult due to extreme hhh… the best four years of your life,” as they fondly change and homesickness. The cohort system, as well as reminisced about their time as students. As an eager se- people making friends in their dorm, led to clique culnior in high school, one can’t help but wonder about the ture. People stuck to what felt safe and comfortable as people they’ll meet, relationships they’ll build, and the many freshmen did not see sneaking into another dorm infamous frat parties they’ll attend. But, unfortunately, worthy of jeopardizing their education or their health. that is not how it always works out. The pandemic was a As people cocooned in their halls, freshman year failed pivotal moment for our college experience, and our lives to be what it is meant to be—a system of trial and error as a whole. For the Class of 2024 specifically, it snatched with different people, to see where you really fit in, and away our freshman adventures and put most of our lives feel safe and comfortable. on pause—leaving us confused, exhausted, and very As we begin our sophomore year, the Class of 2024 much alone as we plunge into the next chapter of our is left perplexed and alone. What happens now? As COlives: sophomore year.

VID-19 precautions decrease and we meet more people, Freshman year in the COVID-19 pandemic felt like some of us may be realizing that our freshman year a fever dream. It was a constant struggle to meet people friends were just that—friends in freshman year—while while also getting accustomed to eating out of plastic others continue to build and grow their previous relaboxes in our rooms, having limited social interaction, tionships. I feel like I am drifting from certain people, and watching a stream of Zoom lectures. Reflecting on and I end up feeling guilty, anxious, and unsure of who I last year, current sophomore Luke Heald said “it was am and what I want. I hope to meet more people—peovery isolating and it was a washout of a semester.” Men- ple that finally click. As sophomores, we already have to tal health was an issue for many freshmen, and the Tufts start looking for housing prospects for junior year, which administration failed to recognize how the lack of social prompts the question: who am I really close to? And the connection with others was affecting students. Most of us most daunting question of all: have I found my people? were unaware of services such as Counseling and Mental Older and wiser (by one semester), I realize that it is Health Services or Ears for Peers, but truthfully, many normal to have different friends for different things, and students were putting so much energy into convincing to to be a part of multiple social circles. I had to remind themselves they were having a good time that they did myself that in every relationship there are “patches” of not want to seek help. closeness and distance, which was heightened as a result

By Gayatri Kalra

W

20 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 11, 2021

OPINION

of the pandemic and Tufts’ COVID policies exacerbating the ups and downs in every friendship. After many nights of crying alone, stress-eating, and calling my parents thrice a day, I learned that change is the only constant. I have to be okay and grateful for any amount of friendship and love in whatever form they come to me.

So, one can only wonder whether college really is the best four years of our lives. When you hear stories from others and witness the glorification of college through media, you come to college with the preconceived notion that it will be a constant stream of parties, living with your best friends, and finding your new home. But, in reality, it can be hard—the sad but liberating truth is that college can be lonely. From juggling work, social life, mental health, and your own goals, college can feel like task after task with no break to breathe or relax. Add in a pandemic, and building a deep connection with someone takes even more time, energy, and effort as we navigate relationships through Zoom, masks, and the mods. Friendships are meant to flow in and out of your life as you evolve, change, and meet new people. For those who feel like they haven’t found their people or are still in search of them—it is completely and utterly normal. Friend groups shift and change and it’s hard to accept this in a time of extreme uncertainty and anxiety, leaving us clinging onto any consistency in our lives to feel sane and safe. No relationship is steady and perfect all the time; as much as college is about finding friends, it is equally about being comfortable with being alone and at peace with whomever you end up with in your four year journey.

The Class of 2024 is really a special one. Not only have we been thrown the challenge of college itself, but we have been forced to fight the beast that is COVID-19 during the “best four years of our lives.” During a time when we can’t socialize normally for our own well-being, college became even more isolating and barren than ever. Last year, many of us believed that this was the new normal, and soon lost hope. We adjusted to the new “life” that we were surviving through. Now, we are back on campus, doe-eyed and excited for what the new semester can bring us. It almost feels as if we have made it out of the dark tunnel that was freshman year, alive and ready for round two—whatever that may be.

DESIGN BY BAO LU, ART BY BRIGID CAWLEY

OCTOBER 11, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 21

VOICES

SEE ME WALKING

By Anica Zulch

In three seconds, we’re gonna do it.

We’re gonna get up, okay Nix? We can do this. Don’t think, just do. 3…2…1.

I force myself to slide my hand underneath me, pushing, peeling, forcing myself up off the floorboards in my bedroom.

The dark droplets of my tears on the wood are the only evidence of my presence. Of my lowpoint. Of my surrender. Surrender to the pain, to the hopelessness, to the desperation. I’m only up for a few minutes, hunched over and head low, before I brace myself for another wave of pain, crumple over, and lay down again, resuming the familiar position on the hardwood

22 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 11, 2021

floor. A harsh reality washes over me, and I’m forced to face the facts: I’m weak. It’s a sad realization, I won’t deny it, but it’s the truth.

I’m not strong enough to stand up to the pain. Not strong enough to admit I need help, or even just company. Not strong enough to stop the tears from flowing. Not strong enough to believe in something. Not strong enough to just. be. fine.

It’s funny, the things you notice when you try to focus on anything but the pain you’re currently feeling. With my cheek pressed against the cold wood, I can’t help but think of how grateful I am that I

VOICES

vacuumed the other day. My eyes trace the landscape of the tilted room, grazing over memories both new and old as they materialize before me. I see myself balanced precariously on my furniture, stretching to hang up lights while my best friends spot me from below. I see their eyes crinkle with laughter as I dance along to the music, goofing around as usual.

A red glow interrupts my memories: a car’s passing tail lights filtering through the shades, leaving refracted shapes rippling across the white walls. My eyes hypnotically follow the silhouettes until they vanish, leaving me once again alone in the dark, alone with my thoughts. A scary place to be, I don’t linger long. My gaze continues across the room, ricocheting from one memory to the next until it passes over an aged white frame that is almost just out of sight from my stagnant position. It’s a photo of me and my grandfather. I feel a wave of love wash over me. Then sadness.

Then frustration. I looked happy then. I’m a happy person, goddammit. I want to be happy right now. I wish I was smiling.

No, I can do this. I was wrong. I’m not weak. I can do this.

I once again rise, determined to stand up. Determined to prove myself wrong.

Determined to beat the pain. Determined to be strong.

I’m up.

Thank God. Actually, screw God. How dare you tell me there’s a God up there, smiling down on me, while I writhe in pain below?

Let me be very clear: screw you, God. I may consider myself weak at times, giving in to the despair and helplessness of my situation, but I also recognize my strength: not everyone can smile through

DESIGN BY EMMA DAVIS, ART BY EMMELINE MEYERS

pain like the pain I feel right now. Not everyone can face 15 different diagnoses and 27 different doctors and not give up. Not everyone can continue to fight, even after being told they’re crazy. I’d like to think I am strong because of that. I’ll be damned if someone dares to attribute my strength to a God that did this to me. Screw that.

For an atheist, the subject of God comes up quite a lot. Undiagnosed chronic pain will do that to you. I have no one to blame and no one to thank, no God to give reason to my pain. I’m not strong enough to succumb to the easy route; to finally concede and believe in something. Anything. Anyone. I refuse to believe there is a plan for all this or that I deserve this. I am twenty years old. This shouldn’t be my life.

Despite my vehement rejections, I believe faith is a beautiful thing; I won’t deny that. It’s just a beautiful thing that I happen to reject. Yet, I often find myself casting my gaze up to the peeling, glow-inthe-dark stars on my ceiling and praying for the pain to stop. I still routinely make wishes on my hamsa pendant that hangs off my neck, its gold curves and inlaid evil eye forever looking out, vowing to protect me. I am only human, after all. I can’t be perfectly consistent.

Now, wrapped up in my mother’s threadbare sweater, I draw on my strength.

I will beat this pain. My grandma, Mona, always echoed to me, “This too shall pass.”

I lean into the words, into the comfort of their truth. This too shall pass. I know it will. With each breath, I repeat the words to myself.

I sit up straighter.

I think of my parents and their perpetual love. I feel the warm glow of their affection and encouragement radiate through

my room, filling the space with their strength, becoming my strength. My freckled cheeks raise and my lips turn upwards.

I smile.

I think of my sister, my rock, and her unyielding support. I feel her unapologetic, true-to-herself badassness. I feel her courage course through me.

I tilt my chin up.

I think of my friends and their support, holding my hand through many a painful, bureaucratic phone call with doctors’ offices and hospitals. I see their smiles reflected back at me.

I swing my legs off the bed.

I think of my boyfriend who has stayed up with me, carrying me through some of the worst nights of my life. I see him as he’s been, in a place no one has been before, crouched down and holding me as I’m crying on the floor, showing me I no longer need to be alone. I feel infinite love.

My heart glows.

I turn inward, looking within. At the end of the day—end of the night—I know I can do anything. If I want to, I can. I was wrong before. I am not weak. I’m done trying to convince myself of that idiotic mantra I repeated to myself for fifteen years: I am fine. I face the truth: I am not fine.

But I will be. I am strong. I can do this. My lungs fill with the crisp newly-fall air flowing through the windows. As I exhale, I will the pain to leave along with my breath, leaving only strength and determination behind. I slowly rise.

I am walking.

I am strong.

OCTOBER 11, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 23

NEWS

DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS: STUDENTS RESPOND TO ABORTION BAN

By Sophie Dorf-Kamienny

O

n September 1, 2021, the Texas state legislature passed the most extreme abortion restriction of any state in the nation, criminalizing up to 85 percent of the state’s abortion procedures. Texas is home to over 29 million residents, and is one of the top ten states from which Tufts admits incoming students. The news came as a shock to Tufts students, many of whom are affected directly or are fighting to protect abortion access nationwide.

Texas bill SB 8, also known as the “heartbeat” bill, prohibits abortions after six weeks of gestation—when fetal cardiac activity can be detected on an ultrasound—which is often far before the pregnant person knows they’re pregnant.

The bill does not provide exceptions for rape or incest, and allows individuals to sue anyone who provides—or “aids or abets”—an abortion after six weeks. Residents are incentivized to do so as plaintiffs stand to win $10,000 in court, in addition to a reimbursement of all legal fees, putting clinics, physicians, and citizens in danger of lawsuits brought by fellow residents.

“The desired consequence appears to be to insulate the State from responsibility,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in dissent of Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, the case in which the Supreme Court declined to strike down the law for contradicting Roe v. Wade.

Even though SB 8 unconstitutionally prohibits pre-viability abortions, the majority of justices ruled not to curb the law since it is not government-enforced. This sets a dangerous precedent for other states 24 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 11, 2021

aiming to undermine previous Supreme Court rulings on reproductive rights.

“There needs to be an act stronger than Roe v. Wade that says there are absolutely no restrictions on abortions. I think the only reason that [Roe v. Wade] hasn’t been overturned by the Supreme Court is because it isn’t directly targeting the women who are receiving abortions. It’s targeting providers,” said sophomore Sabrina Rangwani, a Houston native and secretary of Tufts Students for NARAL, a pro-choice group on campus which works to defend reproductive rights both in Massachusetts and nationwide.

The club is actively responding to restrictive abortion laws like Texas’ through local campaigns, and this year advocated for the passage of the Roe Act, which codified and expanded abortion access in Massachusetts.

Abortion care is significantly harder to access for low-income pregnant people who disproportionately suffer the consequences of this Texas legislation. Many may be unable to seek care in neighboring states due to work obligations, inaccessible child care, and a lack of transportation.

“People who don’t have the money for [ an abortion], they either have to go through with the pregnancy or find something else. And that’s terrifying,” said Gabriela Perez, a first-year from Houston, Texas. Growing up, Perez said the stigma surrounding abortion was ubiquitous, especially in her Catholic community.

“Outside of the churches, they always have a little tombstone for babies that are aborted, and so it was always a topic that

was talked about. And obviously, it was stigmatized, and it’s seen as something you shouldn’t do,” Perez said. “I don’t feel completely safe in Texas as a woman, because it’s seen as women’s rights are just secondary.”

In Texas, Perez organized with nonprofits like Mi Familia Vota, which encourages civic engagement and voter registration among Latinx communities. Coming to Tufts this fall, she said she looks forward to learning from activist groups on campus that could help her fuel change back in Houston for abortion rights.

“Here, everyone seems to already be aware of what’s going on and feel more empowered than to make a change,” Perez said. “But in Houston, this is my community. They have their concerns, but they don’t feel like they can make a change or they can voice out their concerns. And so that difference in empowerment can be a big difference.”

Rangwani said she feels supported by the Tufts community, something that is hard to find in Texas where legislation is so hostile against women and pregnant people.

“Especially as a woman of color in Texas, it feels especially devaluing, because despite the fact that we make up a large percentage of the population and of the workforce in Texas, our voices still aren’t valued,” said Rangwani.

According to a national poll by Monmouth University, four-in-five Americans disapproved of the law’s $10,000 “bounty,” and 70 percent didn’t think that private citizens should be responsible for enforcing the rule to begin

NEWS

with—the component which raises the most constitutional debate.

“It just shows that our governor and our representatives do not represent us.

There are people who are protesting outside of [Texas] Senator John Cornyn’s office every single Tuesday telling him how little he represents Texans,” Rangwani said of the unresponsive leadership in her state.

Rangwani fears that clinic closures pose the largest threat under SB 8 and believes that going forward, abortion procedures should be taught to all Obstetrician-Gynecologists as mandatory services. Although President Biden’s Department of Justice has appealed to federal judges to block the law, the damage is already apparent.

Major abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood, have stopped scheduling appointments past six weeks.

The severe restriction of services can and likely will result in permanent clinic closures. According to a study on abortion availability in 2017, Texas already had ten abortion deserts “from which people would have to travel over 100 miles (160 km) to reach an abortion facility”—more than any other state.

Even without SB 8 going into effect, obtaining an abortion in Texas was already far from easy. State policy poses several inhibitory hoops to jump through prior to an abortion, such as a 24-hour waiting period and two trips to the same provider at a clinic.

“From a gender and public policy perspective, this is one of the ways that women and people who can become pregnant are

DESIGN BY KATE BOWERS, ART BY KELLY TAN

viewed as less than or as primarily existing in order to incubate fetuses,” said gender and public policy scholar Dr. Kaitlin KellyThompson. “We devalue both women and children. We really, really value children while they’re a fetus, and we don’t value living and breathing children who need

“ PEOPLE WHO DON’T HAVE THE MONEY FOR [GETTING AN ABORTION], THEY EITHER HAVE TO GO THROUGH WITH THE PREGNANCY OR FIND SOMETHING ELSE. AND THAT’S TERRIFYING.” free school lunch and a safe place to live.”

According to the Children’s Defense Fund of Texas, 13.2 million (nearly onein-five) children statewide were below the poverty line in 2016, and 70 percent of those children were children of color. The Texas foster care system was responsible for more than 15,000 children as of April, and Child Protective Services workers there handle an average of 24 cases, rather than the recommended 14 to 17 each.

Given the potentially grave consequences of forced pregnancies for both pregnant people and children, 59 percent of US adults think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, a statistic that goes up to 62 percent among women. KellyThompson explained why the Supreme

Court’s ruling may not be reflective of this national sentiment.

“The courts are a really important part of the policymaking process in the United States, but the courts are usually behind,” Kelly-Thompson said. “There are some conservative women who are going to feel very represented by this, who are going to be very happy with this. And then there’s some women and people who can become pregnant who are feeling like they don’t matter to their legislators.”

Perez agreed that some parts of her home state present a stark contrast to political views in Massachusetts and the Northeast. Coming to Tufts this year, she recognized a discrepancy in the security of residents’ reproductive rights. “[In Texas] we’re still arguing about if we should even consider pronouns. That kind of mindset is so behind. And so I guess it doesn’t surprise me that much, that the abortion battles happened,” Perez said.

“It just kind of puts everything in perspective, that [the] Texas [government] is just very behind in their beliefs and values.”

As lawsuits make their way through the courts both in defense and in condemnation of abortion providers, the future of SB 8—and, by extension, Roe v.

Wade—remains unclear. For college-age students, legislation this extreme can be a source of fear or cynicism, but activists say maintaining hope will be crucial to resisting encroachments on reproductive rights going forward.

“I didn’t think that something that extreme would ever pass. It didn’t seem constitutional,” said Rangwani. “[But] if people just ignore it, then nothing’s going to change.”

OCTOBER 11, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 25

POETRY

bleeding stars

by Layla Landrum

i’m sorry i tried to stop you when you swallowed another girl in the bathroom. cut her up with a butcher’s knife until her skin stuck to your nails. the blood wouldn’t wash out, and all the moonlight fell from the windows,

even the dark couldn’t protect you from what you ruined.

my star-crossed savior complex, you in the doorway, forgetting yourself, forgetting you cannot

hold me down forever. tell me you love me

just to kick me like a dog what’s wrong? why’re you crying?

stop being so selfish, not everything is about you. this isn’t about you.

you think yourself strong

some kind of heavenly body on earth, but i haven’t even grown yet, my bones ache with promise. for now, you can still fit me into the palms

of your hands. wrap your limbs around me

like i am the one with teeth. how dare you make me feel like it was my fault

you were the black hole; invisible destroyer, all-consuming. hurt me so good i thought it was euphoria. every scream i ever summoned died in my throat when your hands snuck down my shoulders, settled on wrists. broke open the ribs inside of me just to make another

place for yourself. you’ve always been an egoist. this wretched body was never

mine to begin with in the first place i’m just a ghost walking around in my own skin, a bad dream & a bad liar. you’re so drunk on your power,

too caught up in your own head to notice the way it’s choking me— you’re choking me your love burning all the way down like craters. you weave bombs around my veins

set them off like stars just to blame me for it, leave me out of my mind. i’m throwing myself into the fires so i don’t even notice you leave,

26 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 11, 2021

POETRY find the space you left in your wake. crawl into the smoke, the two of us neither asleep or awake, walking through

the same burning nightmare.

you promised you wouldn’t— you said you loved me

you said i’d always be yours did you find someone better? you can’t,

you can’t i was handcrafted just for you

made for your cold hands.

all i ever wanted was to be the

only body you

drowned in the lake. i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i can say it over & over again like a prayer that will save us both.

i can be better, i know i can be better. just don’t stop looking at me, you’re the most familiar stranger i know.

i miss the emptiness i felt around you, broken mirrors between us, our tethered hands, sins hanging from our feet.

even if you were lying the whole time, i don’t mind.

tear me apart again. bring me home. i’ll apologize for the blood on the carpet & the dishes in the sink, i’ll say i’m sorry for calling you, sorry for asking for so much of you

and for running when you chased me and for crying when you grabbed me

and for shutting my eyes when you yelled and for leaving the lights on too late

and for forgetting all the things you never told me and for being so sad i tried to escape my brain

and for telling you you’re hurting me and for being here, breathing, when you’re the one

who dug me out of the dirt. i’ve rehearsed every apology a thousand times, i think i need a reason to exist. something to

tear myself apart for. i think i’m dying, i think you did it. i think i love you. i know i love you.

DESIGN BY JOANNA KLESZCZEWSKI, ART BY D GATEÑO

OCTOBER 11, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 27

ARTS & CULTURE

ON OPTIMIZATION: OPTIMIZATION: THEDIFFERENCE DIFFERENCEBETWEEN BETWEENTRAILS TRAILSAND ANDWOMEN WOMEN THE

By Audrey Ledbetter

I

n the mountainous Alaskan tundra, caribou draw trails as they cross landscapes full of low and stubborn brush, the pencil of their hooves tracing over and over the paths of least resistance. Thin lines, just wide enough to accommodate an animal’s athletic build, cut across around the sides of peaks to reach water sources.

“A trail sleekens to its end,” writes Robert Moor, author of the philosophical and scientific book On Trails: An Exploration.

Over time, these paths adapt, recalibrating according to the goal of the herd as the dirt packs down harder and unwieldy branches are cut down to allow for easier travel, showing caribou the way and limiting their impact on the land.

In Moor’s On Trails, an entomologist says, “All things optimize in nature, to some degree.” This optimization—the process of honing in on goals and maximiz28 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 11, 2021

ing efficiency over time—is simply part of evolution. In the grand graph of things, the earth naturally moves forward, zig-zagging up and down, ultimately headed up towards the top right corner labelled “better.” Following this trend satiates a distaste for aimlessness. “Everyone optimizes,” Moor goes on, “whether we are pioneering or perpetuating, making rules or breaking them, succeeding or screwing up.” We pioneer, perpetuate, make rules, break rules, succeed, and screw up in search of that top right corner. It’s a beautiful process, optimization, when you picture paths working their way through the woods, shape shifting over time so that their home and their users together end up at equilibrium.

Like many people, I have a tendency to turn natural processes into metaphors applicable to my own life. The ideal of optimization, however, got stuck in my throat

the moment I read it. This discomfort originates from Jia Tolentino’s essay “Always Be Optimizing,” a seething and selfimplicating criticism on the cult of the ideal woman. “She looks like an Instagram,” Tolentino writes, “which is to say, an ordinary woman reproducing the lessons of the marketplace, which is how an ordinary woman evolves into an ideal… This woman is sincerely interested in whatever the market demands of her (goo d lo oks, t he impression of indefinitely extended youth, advanced skills

ARTS & CULTURE

in self-presentation and self-surveillance).” This optimization allows a woman more ease in moving through the world—smoothing her rough edges into a more palatable version of herself such that, say, the man in charge finds her acceptable enough to hire.

Brittany Bryant, a second year master’s student in philosophy, offered a fitting metaphor for how society asks women to optimize. Whereas smaller animals can benefit from the trails larger animals create, “with respect to sexism… [optimization] might be more like a path through deep snow… I’ve followed really tall people walking through deep snow before and the width between their footsteps is several feet apart. And then I’m having to do lunges to keep up with them or forge my own path. And then they don’t understand, unless they look back and see what’s happening, why I’m so exhausted. In order to fit in the path that has been blazed before you have to alter everything about your life, what would otherwise be natural.” Optimal paths in nature increase efficiency and allow for greater ease in travel, but the optimal path for women is like one through deep snow. Our lives are made more difficult by the ideals in front of us— we either have to expend energy following the path created by those in power, or we have to expend energy in striking out on our own.

This is a far cry from the harmonious and mutually beneficial optimization found in the natural world. “One of the big differences is that, in nature, there are no normative claims that exist alongside natural progression,” said Bryant. “But, in the human world, what natural progress is does not always align with what is normatively acceptable… for a lot of people and what aligns with most people’s intuitions is that those are two separate areas. So I think

once we try to apply nature to the human world, we have to start looking at the additional lens of normativity outside of just natural progress or what is evolutionarily beneficial.” Normativity involves judgments like should and ought. Embedded in the concept of Tolentino’s ideal is that this is what a woman should or ought to be. In nature, however, there is no external value system imposed on optimization—it is simply an ordinary march into the future.

The awareness of this phenomenon does not easily dismiss the issue. I’m not finding it easy to steal myself back from the clear messaging I learned from early 2000s rom-coms that don’t pass the Bechdel test, and the detention I got in middle school when my skirt was measured with a physics class meter stick to three and a half instead of three inches above my knees. The inclination towards optimization cannot just return to its natural energy-saving mutually beneficial state. Simone de Beauvior’s book The Second Sex, according to Bryant, “is laying out how it is easiest for women to consent to their own oppression. And because it is easiest it is rational.

She’s not blaming women for consenting, she thinks it’s the rational choice just because to press against it is so exhausting in so many different ways.” Picking between following the trail created by the taller person in deep snow or striking out on one’s own is not a choice so easily made.

But maybe we can find optimization anew. Trail crew work brings humans into the harmony of the natural world. Emily Quigley, assistant director for campus life at Tufts focusing on outdoor education, said, “I truly believe that we as humans are part of the environment and part of nature and part of this space. We have a responsibility to be a part of it in a way that is harmonious. So when we’re creating trails for ourselves, we’re also creating trails that allow humans to be part of that environment in a mutually beneficial or

DESIGN BY TARA STECKLER, ART BY AIDAN CHANG

flourishing way, to use the words from [the book] Braiding Sweetgrass.” In late August, I spent a couple days helping to realign a trail in southern Vermont. The pre-existing trail ran right alongside the shoreline of a beautiful pond, but the soil was too moist and the shoreline too fragile to bear the effects of constant trampling.

Following the professional trail crew’s lead, we worked to build up a new trail grounded with rocks to give hikers a more sustainable path to and around the pond.

We create these trails both to care for the environment and to give us the space to exist in nature, and in that creation, we find ourselves as part of a natural, harmonious process of optimization.

This work, similar to most outdoor education, is often done in small groups that encourage the creation of intentional communities. “When we’re in the outdoors,” said Quigley, “we’re not leaving our identities and our bodies and our experiences behind. But we’re bringing them into a place where there’s a little bit more breathing room to communicate and to practice building the community and a microcosm of the society that we want to create and have together. If we’re out here, in our daily lives, organizing for justice in whatever way, can we practice some of those radical ideas on a smaller scale?”

When I’m backpacking, my job is to stay alive and stay (reasonably) happy because that’s the standard I’m working against— not to be some sleek, ideal woman designed for the male gaze. I have no choice but to keep trudging along, no choice but to wait for the water to boil and cook beans and love said beans. I inhabit an environment where I’m free from the exhaustion of fighting back that Beauvoir mentions.

Reconfiguring our values to find harmony in community can bring optimization back down to earth—we just need to start small (and outside).

OCTOBER 11, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 29

up the octave, go for it!