Cherwell - Seventh Week, Trinity Term 2020 by Cherwell

Cherwell

Vol.291 No.4 | 7th Week | 12th June, 2020

Cherwell Independent since 1920 The Editorial Team Trinity Term TT20 EDITORS David Alexander and Tilly Walters editor@cherwell.org DEPUTY EDITORS Eve Bennett, Luke Dunne, Joe Hyland Deeson, Maya Misra, Felix O’Mahony, Lucy Tansley NEWS EDITORS Imogen Duke, Christina Kirk, Violeta Perea Rubio cherwellnews@gmail.com DEPUTY NEWS EDITORS Catherine Dema, Mark Robins NEWS REPORTERS Madison Carroll, Matthew Schaffel COMMENT EDITORS Helena Murphy, Eleanor Ruxton

DEPUTY CULTURE EDITOR Sofia Henderson

Jones cherwellprofile@gmail.com

FASHION EDITORS Emmaleigh Eaves, Raphael Zyss

SPORT EDITORS Tom Lyne, Martin Yip

DEPUTY FASHION EDITOR Ashley Cluer

FOOD EDITORS Morayo Adesina, Savannah Hawley

BOOKS EDITORS Jess Curry, Yii-Jen Deng

DEPUTY FOOD EDITOR Katie Schutte

STAGE EDITORS Abigail Howe, Akrivi Ventouras

INVESTIGATIONS EDITORS Florine Lips, Flora Murray, Airuo Zhang

FILM EDITORS Samuel Lapham, Danielle Rae Childs, Gemma Robson

VIDEO EDITORS Cara Cox, Rufus Fox

MUSIC EDITORS Alec Holt, Calum Taylor DEPUTY COMMENT EDITOR Jasper Evans

VIDEO TEAM Thomas Barker, Rob Chamberlain, Edu Estevez, Tony Farag, Louis Rabinowitz, Sam Lewis, Ellie Wilkins

DEPUTY MUSIC EDITOR Lily Tidman FEATURES EDITORS Mika Erik Möser, Izzy Tod DEPUTY FEATURES EDITOR Jonathan Tevendale CULTURE EDITORS Kaira Mediratta, Trudy Ross culturecherwell@gmail.com

CREATIVE TEAM Emily Reed (Head) Charlotte Bunney, Isobel Falk, Francesca German, Aaron Hammond Duncan, Justin LIFE EDITORS Sophia Cerullo, David Tritsch Lim, Francesca Nava, Rubia Rose Southcott, Georgia Watkins, Phoebe White, Ellie Wilkins DEPUTY LIFE EDITOR Alice Peat THE SOURCE EDITOR Mimi Pattinson

PROFILES EDITORS Isabella Colletta, Lucas

Cherwell is published by Oxford Student Publications Ltd. CHAIRPERSON Christopher Sinnott MANAGING DIRECTOR Hung-Jen Wu COMPANY SECRETARY Annabel Bainbridge FINANCE DIRECTOR Maggie Wang LEGAL DIRECTOR Annie Fan For all advertising enquiries, contact OSPL at advertising@ospl.org, or visit www.ospl.org Printed in Great Britain

C H E RW E L L CONTENTS NEWS

University response to racism leaves students “disappointed” and “distrustful”

Oxford protests Rhodes statue

Christ Church responds to backlash against racism in JCR

Social bubbles possible route out if lockdown for universities

OPINION 12 14 FEATURES 16

Standing up for Fellow POC How Should we Protest? Family, Football & Palestine: A Story of Solidarity

CULTURE 19

Radical Images: Visual Art in Protest

Culcher’s Choice: Grayson’s Art Club

FASHION 21 STAGE 22 FILM 23

The fashion industry is poised for real change - but will it be enough? Ballet: Bewitching, Beautiful, Bold Possessed by Muses

MUSIC 24

250 Years of Beethoven

BOOKS 25

The Dangers of Genre-lisation

THE SOURCE 26 LIFE 28 30 SPORT 31 PROFILES 32 FOOD 34

‘Sun sets, small town’ Black Trauma Porn, Slacktivism, and Chicken Soup for the Activist Soul Blind Date Brits abroad: Is Sancho’s success the start of a new era? In Conversation with Kris Hallenga Dalgona 2: More Dalgona

Friday, 12th May 2020

NEWS

University response to racism leaves students “disappointed” and “distrustful” Imogen Duke

tudents have criticised Oxford University’s response to racial inequality and injustice in light of worldwide protests against police violence and systemic racism. An Oxford Anti-Racism open letter written by Common Ground Oxford - ‘Oxford University Must Tackle Systemic Racism’ - has been signed by over 10,000 individuals and organisations affiliated with the University. The letter describes how the University has failed to “uphold anti-racist values” and the steps needed for change. The African and Caribbean Society (ACS), alongside JCR and many MCR Presidents, have expressed concerns in an open letter to the University, which states that “seemingly performative” statements and actions have left many students “distrustful and weary”. The Presidential Committee (PresCom) has released a statement, saying: “It should not be up to the unpaid labour of students and their organisations to create change within Oxford... It is simply unjust to ask Black students to wait for change, when these issues affect them now.” The Oxford Student Union (SU) has written an open letter to the University Vice-Chancellor to express “disappointment” at the University’s response to the “ongoing issues of racial injustice around the world”. The University tweeted on 2nd June: “We’re committed to supporting our community in opposing racism in all its forms, including upholding anti-racist values.” A second tweet linked to resources about diversity and welfare support on the Oxford website. The SU states that “quite rightly” reaction from students and the wider population to the tweet has been “overwhelmingly critical”. The SU notes that the response did not acknowledge the “institutional anti-Blackness and racism of the University and commit to tackling it.” Criticism noted the University’s issues with racism, such as the Oxford Union, Stormzy’s scholarship for black British students, and the University’s affiliation with Cecil Rhodes. The SU asks the University to release “a more comprehensive statement”, which acknowledges anti-Black racism, expresses solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and Black students, condemns police violence towards Black people in the UK and the US, apologises for failings, and commits to integrating anti-racism. The SU proposes nine points for the University to tackle racial inequality. These in-

clude embedding anti-racism into welfare across the University, committing to decolonising the curriculum and reading lists, and making equality and diversity training to staff mandatory. The Oxford Anti-Racism open letter from students and societies states that the University “values its reputation over its responsibility to students, knowledge production, and anti-racism.” It notes the underrepresentation of Black British students at Oxford, regular racist incidents, and “only inconsequential inroads into tackling the material legacy of imperialism.” The letter demands engagement with Black and minority ethnic students, improvement of intake of Black and minority ethnic students, and ensuring colleges commit to anti-racist measures through providing diversity training and welfare services. It also says the University should undertake an independent enquiry into how the University benefitted from slavery and colonial wealth, and should prioritise engagement with the wider community over “hoarding knowledge and resources.” The University’s decision to delay the release of admissions data, due to be published this week, has been met with further criticism. A statement from the University said “world events” meant it would be “deeply inappropriate to publish content that could distract from the important challenges and debate facing our society at this time and try to draw attention to our own progress on the figures.” The Anti-Racism Oxford open letter says this delay proves the tweet on anti-racism

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is “pure lip service to shield its reputation”. The ACS, with JCR and MCR Presidents, writes: “What is becoming increasingly clear is that the university’s track record and response so far have left many students, Black, BAME, and otherwise, distrustful and weary of the seemingly performative nature of the statements made and actions taken by the university and staff.” The letter notes: “The unprecedented nature of this virtual/remote term has left a paper trail of racist incidents that would likely have otherwise been downplayed and/or (mis) ‘managed’ if they happened in person.” Dr Rebecca Surender, University Advocate for Equality and Diversity and Pro Vice-Chancellor, has sent an email to Oxford departments and colleges for onward communication to staff and students which emphasises the University’s anti-racism and the support available. The email links to resources for staff and student wellbeing, the BME staff network, and advice and training about harassment. “The University reaffirms its unequivocal abhorrence of and opposition to racism against Black and Minority ethnic people and discrimination in all its forms. At the same time, we acknowledge that the University itself is imperfect in the way it addresses these issues. We still have work to do in creating a truly diverse and inclusive community where everyone feels respected and secure, but we are determined in our efforts to achieve this. These points have been acknowledged publicly, including in a statement which went to the media on 4 June.” Artwork by Charlotte Bunney

Friday, 12th June 2020

Oxford protests Rhodes statue Maya Midgley-Bryan

ver a thousand people, of every college, faculty, and ethnicity, gathered on Tuesday to peacefully protest the statue of 19th century colonialist Cecil Rhodes mounted on the façade of Oriel College. An Oriel student, Esther Agbolade questioned, “how can I go to a college like this?” She described her experience living within Oriel grounds, looking out her window and “making eye contact” with the statue. An online petition with some 150,000 signatures, describes it as synonymous with “colonialism, racism and patriarchy”. “You cannot expect me as a black student to endorse a statue like that up there” says Agbolade, “if you like history put it in a museum”. She added that the maintenance of the statue was proof that “you really don’t care about black students”. The support for the movement was by no means limited to black students, with a diverse crowd in attendance to show their support for Rhodes Must Fall. One speaker stated, “Colonialism isn’t just Britain’s past, its Oxford’s present”. The crowd chanted “take it down” and “decolonise”, accompanied with speeches of impassioned support from a wide variety of groups - and an 8 minute 46 seconds silent sit down in solidarity with George Floyd, as “that’s how long they knelt on his neck”. A recent statement from the Oriel College governing body said it “abhors racism and discrimination in all its forms” and is “deeply committed to equality within our community at Oriel, the University of Oxford and the wider world”. Rebecca Surender (The University’s Advocate and PVC for Equality & Diversity) distanced the institution of Oxford from the college of Oriel, reiterating when asked for a statement that “Oriel College is an independent and autonomous organisation (from the University) and will make its own decisions regarding this issue”. Oriel, as of yet, have not released a statement following the protest. Susan Brown, leader of Oxford City Council, had invited Oriel to apply for permission to remove the statue before the protest began. She said, “The question of statues and their historical context is not a simple matter, but

sometimes acts of symbolism are important”. “Statues are a reflection of the history that the present wants to represent”, states a protestor and history student at Trinity College. “We have seen statues of Hitler taken down, of Stalin, of Saddam Hussein, because people have determined that those symbols should not represent our present.” As reported by The Guardian in 2016, Chancellor Patten stated at the time, “If people at a university are not prepared to demonstrate the sort of generosity of spirit which Nelson Mandela showed towards Rhodes… then maybe they should think about being educated elsewhere”. With this Oriel said that due to, “overwhelming support” the “debate has underlined that the continuing presence of these historical artefacts is an important reminder of the complexity of history and of the legacies of colonialism still felt today.” Both Oriel and the Chancellor have been contactedforarevisionormaintenanceofthese sentiments but declined to send a response. According to the government’s scientific guidelines, protests are according to Dr. John Swartzberg “really the worst thing you can do from a pandemic standpoint”. One protester said: “This is an undeniably difficult circumstance for all, but ultimately you cannot tell an oppressed group how they should express their grievances. People here are being responsible and taking precautions”. Members of the protest moved through the crowd distributing masks for those without and offering hand sanitiser. Although it may have been attempted, a two-metre guideline was not maintained. “It’s difficult to enforce social distancing, but at the end of the day we’re not going to stop peaceful protests” says Police Constable Brock. He also commented on Rhodes Must Fall protest itself, stating, “I don’t know the politics behind it all, and all that sort of stuff”. However, PC Brock was very willing to listen to the many voices of the community addressing him with their explanations. He even proceeded to take the knee himself raising his fist in the air in support of the Black Lives Matter organisation and thanked “everyone here” for “the way this has been done”. Protestors left placards on the ground or against Oriel’s building upon the completion of the entirely peaceful protest.

In short:

NEWS

“This book says Black Lives Matter”: Oxford chaplains recreate Trump photo Mark Robins

Oxford college chaplains have taken to twitter to recreate the picture of Donald Trump holding the Bible outside St John’s Episcopal Church. The US President arranged the photo amidst Black Lives Matter protests in Washington DC and has faced criticism from religious leaders for using the Bible for political purposes. Chaplains at several colleges have recreated the photo, whilst holding a sign saying: “In case there’s any doubt: This book says Black Lives Matter”.

Rainbow Zebra Crossing Painted Over During Construction Madison Carroll

On New Road in Oxford, a grey zebra crossing was painted in rainbow colours last year for pride month in June. However, it has recently returned to its grey color after it was painted over during construction. It was put in place last year during Oxford’s Pride Festival. It was announced shortly afterwards that the rainbow crosswalk would be a permanent addition to the road. The crossing was painted over the week after what would have been Oxford’s Pride Festival for 2020 which could not take place due to the pandemic. However, Oxford Pride provided a number of online events for the festival, which can be found at oxford-pride.org.uk, and hosts additional events in Oxford throughout the year.

Lockdown gender gap persists, says Oxford study Trudy Ross

Oxford University’s Department of Sociology has released a report showing that gender inequality in the UK has remained throughout lockdown. The report reveals that most front-line health care workers are women: 80% of health and social care workers in the UK. Women are also still carrying out the majority of childcare and housework roles within the home, doing on average 5 hours more housework.

Jericho Comedy Club to host fundrasing festival Christina Kirk

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NextUp has partnered with Jericho Comedy Club for an online comedy festival on 13-14 June. It will be streamed on Twitch and YouTube, and have a live audience of 140 over Zoom. Money raised from the event will go to Oxfordshire Mind, a local mental health charity. Read the full stories at www.cherwell.org

NEWS

Friday, 12th June 2020

Christ Church responds to backlash against racism in JCR

Mark Robins

hrist Church has faced backlash after allegations of racism in hustings last week, with students demanding a public apol-

ogy. During hustings on Sunday, a candidate for the position of JCR “Cake Rep” linked protests after the death of George Floyd with “flour shortage”. They said: “The US is facing two very important crises at the moment – the curious incident of George Floyd, and the event of flour shortage. I would like to put forward the motion that these incidents are not two, but rather one. “Flour shortage leads to rioting, which leads to death, which leads to racism. And racism, leads to death, leads to rioting, and that leads to flour shortage. Really, it is just a massive positive feedback loop.” They have since withdrawn from the election. The comments were described as “disgraceful” and “inappropriate and hurtful” in JCR motions passed by colleges this week. Christ Church JCR has been criticised for its failure to deal with the issue. During the Zoom hustings, JCR members were muted and messages in response to the candidate’s comments were ignored. The Returning Officer told attendees: “I have a few messages of people wanting to make a message or point or statement… I don’t think it is appropriate to use hustings to make political points.” The Returning Officer has since stepped down after several JCR motions demanded his resignation. A template motion sent to several colleges also asked that the JCR issue a public apology. A statement from Christ Church condemned the candidate’s comments and announced that staff and students will undergo anti-bias training to combat racism. However, criticism has been levelled at the Christ Church Censors for their treatment of Melanie Onovo, a JCR member who brought the issue

to the attention of the student body. Students argue that Christ Church did not show concern for her wellbeing and criticised her for making the incident public. A statement from PresCom, the Committee of Oxford College JCR Presidents, said: “We fully stand with Ms. Melanie Onovo and strongly condemn the actions of [the] Christ Church Censors in their mishandling of the matter. We are appalled to hear that Ms. Onovo was criticised for making the racist incident public, and that there has been very little concern from Christ Church College for her wellbeing.” The Oxford African Caribbean Society (ACS) wrote to the University stating that grievances that needed to be addressed “include, but are by no means limited to: the recent events at Christ Church; the recent streams of racism and racial gaslighting experience by Black students online and when going through college or university channels; the current state of welfare provisions for Black students; and a number of objectives yet to be effectively implemented on the REC University of Oxford action plan.” It goes on to say “the way in which Christ Church responded demonstrates a profound lack of understanding and devaluing of the black female experience”. Over 9000 people, from more than 100 universities, have signed an open letter to the censors calling for a public apology. In a comment to Cherwell the Censors stated: “Last week, Christ Church condemned the deeply offensive remarks that were made during the JCR Hustings on 31 May 2020, which made light of the appalling death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Members of the JCR have made public apologies, and we are fully behind the steps the JCR Executive has taken to learn from the meeting. We have been explicit that Christ Church will not accept racism in any form. “Equally, we fully recognise

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that concrete action – not simply rhetoric – is vital as we respond to recent events here and around the globe. We have worked urgently with the JCR Exec and our Equality and Diversity Committee and are now putting in place a series of college-wide initiatives involving our students and staff through a new partnership between Christ Church and Challenge Consultancy. In the coming weeks, Challenge will be running a series of “listening events” for all staff and students that will let us discuss the impact of recent events and identify positive steps we should take to address issues around racial equality, diversity, and inclusion. “Our staff and students have been deeply affected by what happened last Sunday. Since the early morning of 1 June, our Welfare team has been providing support, despite the inevitable challenges of doing so when the majority of students are currently based away from Christ Church due to the pandemic. However, we have received a number of emails and statements from across the University and beyond saying that we did not offer welfare support to an individual who spoke out against racism. There are also serious allegations that the student was prevented from speaking up or was even harassed for calling out the offensive remarks at the JCR hustings. While we cannot disclose any specific details to maintain student confidentiality, we must state unequivocally that none of the allegations made against the Censors or members of the Welfare Team are true. No attempt was made to minimise the incident, nor to hamper any student’s ability to voice their objections, as is clear from the statement that was put online. Within a few hours of the incident, welfare support was offered to the student in question and is ongoing, and we have been working closely with University colleagues and our College GP throughout in order to support our students. “Emotions are understandably running high at this time. Our hope is that the upcoming sessions taking place at Christ Church will allow us to reflect respectfully, openly and honestly about what has happened, to listen and to learn, and to build a culture together where every single student and member of staff has the tools to stand up for the values of tolerance and equality that Christ Church embraces.”

Friday, 12th June 2020

NEWS St Hilda’s College lets Chaplain go after 30 years of service to open position for Multi-faith Director

Violeta Perea Rubio

ast week, the St Hilda’s governing body decided against renewing Canon Revd. Brian Mountford’s post as Chaplain of St Hilda’s after 30 years of service to the college. He will cease to be Chaplain on the 30th June 2020 and a new position of Chaplain and Director of Multifaith Space will be advertised. This follows the college’s decision to replace an Anglican Chapel with a multi-faith room earlier this year. This has raised concerns among some students with regards to the college’s handling of the situation who some deem has been “discriminatory” and inadequate, after the Chaplain was reportedly only informed by phone call despite his long service to the college. This change was not made public to the JCR as it was a Governing Body decision which has led to some criticism against the college’s transparency and clarity in matters regarding the new multi-faith space. The lack of a formal termination to his chaplaincy comes as a result of Revd Mountford’s non-contractual position at the college. The Chaplain had a fixed-term appointment. Fixed-term contracts have “no

expectation of renewal or conversion,” according to the UN. The college told Cherwell that “his legacy provides an excellent basis for our future work as we move into a new phase.” During the lockdown, Brian Mountford has been providing weekly virtual Reflective Prayer Services. In the service for Week 6, he emphasised: “Nobody wants religion thrust down their throats. I have been careful to do my best to be inclusive in these reflections.” St Hilda’s follows colleges like Green Templeton College, Linacre College, and St Catherine’s College that do not have a Chapel. However, these colleges do not have a multi-faith space instead, making St Hilda’s the first college to offer this. A statement by a spokesperson for St Hilda’s college explained: “In January 2020 following a wide consultation with the undergraduate, graduate, and SCR members of the college, St Hilda’s reconceived the College’s provision for religious practice by proposing to establish a multifaith space. The multifaith space is intended to be accessible to those of all faiths and none as a place for worship, assembly, and prayer, and for quiet contemplation and reflection.” “As part of this faith provision the Colle-

Pro-Vice-Chancellor calls for safe cycling social distancing Catherine Dema

ro-Vice-Chancellor Dr David Prout issued a call for the Oxford City Council to take swift action to make the city’s roads more ready for cyclists. Other primary Oxford employers, including Oxford University Hospitals, Oxford Brookes University and the disability charity My Life My Choice, have written to the City and County Councils to call for more cycle parking in the city centre and introducing segregated cycle lanes. In a letter to city and county council leaders, Dr Prout said that he anticipates having 5,000 of 14,500 employees return to work as the summer progresses. Employees at individual colleges will also begin returning to work. With these plans in mind, Dr Prout said: “Maintaining social distancing whilst travelling to work and between work sites will be essential.” The Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council have said they are working to get the city ready for people to go back to work after the lockdown eases. The government gave Oxfordshire county £597,000 from its emergency active travel fund to temporarily widen cycle paths and pavements across the county. The city council has committed £234,000 to start work on implementing social distancing measures, and

they are expected to make further funding announcements in the future. Dr Prout specifically called for adapting Oxford park and rides, so employees who live outside the Oxford ring road can ‘park and pedal’ instead. He said this can be accomplished by creating safe, segregated cycling routes between the different park and rides and by providing more cycle parking at each of them. Dr Prout also recommended segregated cycling routes on routes into the city. The City Council has agreed to increase cycle parking at city Park and Rides. “[About] 60% of our staff live outside the ring-road and many are either beyond reasonable cycling distance or live in settlements lacking safe, traffic free cycle connectivity to the city. For this group, Park and Pedal – driving to the Park & Rides and cycling or walking the last few miles – will become essential until the pandemic ends.” Councillor Tom Hayes, Oxford City Council Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Green Transport and Zero Carbon Oxford, said: “Oxford University scientists are at the forefront of the global fight against the pandemic, and the City Council is proud of their ongoing efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine and rapid testing technology. The City Council shares the University’s clear ambition for Oxford scientists and their fellow Oxford citizens to travel into and CHERWELL

ge will employ for the first time a Chaplain who will also be the Director of the Multifaith Space, supporting the College to develop this vision and implement a plan for the successful operation of the shared space for all.” Regarding the Chaplain, St Hilda’s stated: “The College is immensely grateful to the Revd Canon Brian Mountford for his 30 years of service and dedication to the College as Chaplain. Canon Mountford was appointed a Supernumerary Fellow of the College whilst being the College Chaplain and the Vicar of the University Church. Canon Mountford retired from his employment at the University Church in the summer of 2016, but kindly agreed to continue as a Supernumerary Fellow and the College Chaplain, providing crucial support for our students and fostering a culture of debate on the significant questions concerning faith, belief, and the contemporary world through his regular ‘Chaplain’s Chat’ series.” One student at St Hilda’s College told Cherwell: “It is very sad that after 30 years, the college has decided to cease Brian’s role as chaplain. Brian has been wonderfully ‘interfaith’ in his support for people of all faiths and none. The diverse range of speakers he has hosted in his ‘Chaplain’s Chats’ showcase this. He will be missed by very many students.” around the city centre safely. “We have a tight deadline of 15 June, when the shops will be reopening, to prepare the city centre for an easing of the lockdown. The return of a minimum of 5,000 University and Oxford college employees to work during the summer creates an additional pressure to put in place social distancing measures. We’ll continue to do all we can, committing significant funding to cycling and walking to prepare for 15 June.” Hayes said the city plans to make further cycling announcements later in the week. According to the Oxford Mail Hayes said: “With the clock ticking to reopen the city in time for the Government’s deadline, employers of many thousands of people across Oxfordshire are overwhelmingly calling for urgent measures to safely reopen our city. “It’s not safe to go back to our old toxic air pollution levels and chronic congestion – we need to upgrade our cycling network, make walking safer, and find ways to leave the car at home.” Dr Prout concluded his letter: “the University has used a variety of methods to discourage staff from driving in to work for many years. However, we have to recognise that COVID-19 brings with it some new challenges, in particular with regard to vulnerable groups. The University is therefore looking at the possibility of providing additional temporary parking spaces on its estate for those who cannot work from home and for who public transport or walking or cycling is not appropriate.”

Friday, 12th June 2020 NEWS Oxford scientists Social bubbles a possible route out urge government not to ease of lockdown for universities David Tritsch

study by a team of researchers from the Oxford Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science suggests creating ‘social bubbles’ to increase the efficiency of social distancing measures while reducing their psychological harm. The study, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour and carried out in collaboration with resear- c h e r s from Zurich, models different strategies for social distancing after lockdown measures are loosened. The study looked at three possible strategies: restricting contact to people with a key similar feature, such as neighbourhood; reducing interacton with people outside usual social contacts; repeatedly interacting with the same social contacts. Based on the results, the authors suggest repeatedly interacting with the same social contacts, to create micro-communities or ‘social bubbles’. The study states: “Instead of blanket self-isolation policies, the emphasis on similar, community-based, and repetitive contacts is both easy to understand and implement thus making distancing measures more palatable over longer periods of time.” Cherwell spoke to the lead author of the article, Dr. Per Block, about how this could be applied to universities. How feasible do you think the “social bubbles” model is in a campus context? “In principle, social bubbles or other forms of localising contact in small groups can help reduce the risk of disease spread. Different strategies, like limiting face-to-face teaching to small groups within the same degree and year could be an approach, with the college structure in Oxford adding additional structure to interaction that can be exploited.

“Something to consider in either case is how this can be done with the teachers/ lecturers, who might be a potential bridge between bubbles. Other approaches, like block-structuring courses (taking only one course at a time but then over a shorter amount of time) could be solutions. “However, while I believe this could mitigate risks of wide-spread infection the exact implementation would most likely differ by departments, given the different ways in which curricula are structured. So I think this model is in principle feasible, but implementation might not be trivial and require some thought.” When do you think would be an ideal point to move from self-isolation to strategic distancing? “If a university agrees to implement [social bubbles], deciding on the time point would need to consider the risks and benefits of this approach. The risks depend very much on the exact implementation and the assumed prevalence of infection and risk of transmission; thus, assessing the risk would require further custom-made models that take the local contact patterns into account. Without such models, it is hard to know when the benefits would outweigh the risks. The Guardian has reported that several UK universities are planning to implement ‘social bubble’ strategies when campuses reopen. Under plans being discussed at Staffordshire University, students would interact only with others on their courses and year groups when accessing campus facilities. The University of Oxford states on its website: “The University and colleges intend to be open and operational in the 2020/21 academic year, albeit with significant changes to the way teaching is delivered, research is undertaken, and activities taking place.” The University has been contacted for comment.

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lockdown Lucy Tansley

xford University academics are among over 100 scientists who have signed an open letter to the government, asking them to avoid easing lockdown prematurely. The letter, written by St Hilda’s Professor Aris Katzourakis, professor of evolution and genomics and co-president of Oxford UCU, has 18 Oxford scientists among its 100 signatures, including Christ Church’s Professor Kayla King and Merton’s Professor Thomas Richards. It was initially circulated via Twitter and has since been published by Times Higher Education. The scientists work in a diverse range of fields including genomics, microbiology and biochemistry, and form part of a wider plea from scientists across the country warning the government of the dangers of underestimating the long-term effects of coronavirus. The letter notes that the UK is second only to the US in number of deaths globally and have “a higher death rate per million than the US itself”. It writes that “we are still in a situation where there is substantial community transmission” and that government plans to substantially ease social distancing measures will “bring us back to a situation where the outbreak is once again out of control”. It continues: “As a group of UK-based scientists, we urge the government to reconsider, and to follow the science, postponing the relaxation of lockdown. The level of community transmission is still far too high for lockdown to be released, and should not be attempted before we have a substantial and sustained further drop in community transmission.” Professor Katzourakis noted on Twitter that he hoped that the government would “follow the science and not end the lockdown prematurely”. His letter said that the UK needs “effective test, track and trace capacity to be implemented, transparent reporting of new case diagnoses in community and primary care settings on a daily basis, and the implementation of routine screening for high-risk key worker professions”. The letter has since been publicised on BBC radio, but has not received a response from government health officials.

Friday, 12th June 2020

NEWS

Oxford Foundry awards grants and support to four COVID-19 solutions Joe Hyland Deeson

he Oxford Foundry has awarded funding and expert assistance to four entrepreneurial businesses as part of its OXFO COVID-19 Rapid Solutions Builder programme. In the Healthcare category, the award was given to My110, a company originally focusing on helping athletes to better understand their fitness levels, which has adapted its technology to provide effective and non-invasive saliva tests for COVID-19. In the Education category, the award was given to Devie, which utilizes Artificial Intelligence to power a coaching app for parents, providing accessible advice. This was seen as especially valuable following the closure of nurseries and pre-schools. In the Inclusive Social Engagement and Mobility category, the award was given to Oblivious AI, which engages with how data is processed by governments and has adapted to advising several states in India on contact-tracing while maintaining privacy. In the Operations, Logistics and Supply Chains category the award was given to

Crowdless, an app originally built to help users avoid queues at supermarkets and shops but now useful in aiding solutions to socially-distanced consumer experiences. The app has been successfully supported by the Foundry since winning Best Postgraduate Idea in its 2019 All-Innovate com-

petition. The judges in the four categories included the co-founder of Twitter, the founder of Just Eat, and the former CEO of Burberry, among others. As well as triumphing over 100 entries to the Oxford Foundry’s scheme, My110 and Crowdless were both also successful in securing Innovate UK funding from the

British government, which saw 8600 applications. The Foundry, established by the Saïd Business School in 2017 to provide infrastructural aid and funding to innovative Oxford student and alumni start-ups, will provide each of the companies with £10,000 in funding as well as a two-month programme of support and ongoing expert assistance and advice. Ana Bakshi, Director of the Foundry, said: “Universities are homes of innovation that provide critical sources of income, impact, and job creation for government and the economy. With the onset of the pandemic it was vital that we mobilised our networks and leveraged our community as quickly as possible, this included repurposing nearly 100% of the team’s time to the COVID-19 action plan. “The ventures we support are having an impact in hospitals, care homes, schools and other sectors. Cutting edge innovation will be at the forefront of economic and societal recovery and resilience, so we must build and invest in solutions that respond to the secondary and tertiary challenges of the pandemic as quickly and sustainably as possible.” Image of My110 founders

Lawyers sign statement protecting healthcare sector against cyber-attacks Sophia Cerullo

ore than 120 lawyers have signed the Oxford Statement on the International Law Protections Against Cyber Operations Targeting the Health Care Sector. The Oxford Statement is a declaration that the world is not incapable of combating assaults on healthcare computer systems, which are increasingly vulnerable to cyber harm as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Oxford Statement reads: “We, the undersigned public international lawyers, have watched with growing concern reports of cyber incidents targeting medical facilities around the world, many of which are directly involved in responding to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We are concerned that the impact of such incidents is exacerbated by the existing vulnerability of the health-care sector to cyber harm. Even in ordinary times, this sector is particularly vulnerable to cyber threats due to its

growing digital dependency and attack surface. ‘We consider it essential that medical facilities around the world function without disruption as they struggle to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Any interference with the provision of health care, including by cyber means, risks further loss of life as thousands continue to die every day.’ Initiated by Professor Dapo Akande, CoDirector of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, the Statement has been signed by legal experts from over 20 countries including Argentina, India, China, Germany, France, and the US. Professor Akande explains: “[We] have come up with a set of principles, something that states can point to as a framework for battling cyber-attacks. We hope the Statement will be used as an example of what the rules are.” The Oxford Statement has already been referred to by the UN Security Council as a good articulation of relevant international law principles. Professor Akande says that CHERWELL

cyber-attacks against healthcare facilities can be tackled using existing international law on human rights: “[We] don’t need new rules, we already have them.” He places a duty on providers and nations to protect their own citizens and those of other countries. Since cyber-attacks in one country will originate from, pass through or use infrastructure located in other countries, those other countries are required, under international law, to ensure that harm is not caused to other states and their populations. Professor Akande describes that a two-pronged approach will be needed in order to create an international consensus on the issue. Countries must protect themselves and others by exercising due diligence, but they are also entitled to take action against unlawful activity against states using counter measures. He said: “Right now, taking action against cyber-attacks against the health sector is low-hanging fruit, world leaders are wanting to sign up and back the campaign. It is easier if we act together.”

EDITORIAL

Make your David Alexander Editor-In-Chief

ur generation gets a lot of stick. Apparently, it’s made up of tweeting, tik-toking, narcissistic virtue-signallers with little to say but a big platform on which to say it. All these allegations are quite common, and normally flavoured with lashings of “in my day”, and a pinch of “snowflakes!!” Except, I’m proud of my generation. In the past few weeks, they’ve taken a critical eye and a righteous anger to the systems, institutions and iconography that failed them. When my generation says it believes in equality, it’s prepared then to fight for it. Grand traditions of protests and petitioning have been revived, mostly entirely peacefully. The great forces of

protest was held on Tuesday to take down the statue of Cecil Rhodes outside Oriel College, attended by over a thousand people, reigniting the Rhodes Must Fall campaign. This originated in 2016, and successfully managed to get the Rhodes statue in Cape Town removed. Oriel’s statue was not removed, however, despite calls from the student body, and from members of the college to remove it. Arguments against the Rhodes statue have always been about more than its physical presence. As the toppling of the Colston statue in Bristol demonstrated, it brought more attention to Edward Colston’s involvement in the slave trade than the plaque under the statue ever did. The statue, after being dredged up from the harbour that it was toppled into, is being put in a museum. This is not something that has been a promise before it was brought down, despite votes in favour of its removal. In a Guardian Long Read about the history of the campaign, Amit Chaudhuri summed it up perfectly, saying “one might think this movement has a longer history [due to] the nature of its ambitions beyond the removal of these statues, though it is the issue of the statues, and allegations that the students involved wish to rewrite history to suit their sensitivities, that have attracted controversy, particularly in the

social media and digital communication have been employed in support, letting the dissatisfied communicate globally. The world’s young have never been more united, and they can no longer be ignored. Generation Z doesn’t want to rewrite history; it wants to illuminate it! It’s brave enough not to think of history as a comfort blanket, or a valedictory march. My generation sees the past for what it is: a messy realm, full of people who deserve critical analysis in a museum, rather than unquestioning validation in a public square. When my generation doesn’t know something, moreover, it tends to admit it. Think of how much social media space has been taken up in the last few weeks with educational material. My generation knows what it doesn’t know, and wants to find out things from people who do. And all this passionate, articulate dynamism from an age-group who’ve had things harder than commentators

British media. These larger ambitions of the movement – that is, to bring out into the open institutional racism in university life in South Africa and Britain, and to decolonise education – speak to concerns that many have had for a while. These concerns, by now, have a long itinerary, but they have been awaiting a forum for articulation.” This is not something that the University has recognised, and top officials haven’t given much time to any of the campaign’s proposals beyond the statue: Chancellor Chris Patten called the campaign ‘hypocrisy’, while the Vice-Chancellor Louise Richardson, said that ‘hiding our history is not enlightenment’. They’re patronisingly treating the students of their own university as if they don’t understand the bigger picture. The changes the campaign wishes to see include establishments of scholarships at Oriel and All Souls, and in particular, 10 new African Rhodes scholarships, as the scholarships are assigned geographically. From the University, they are asking for an improvement in Oxford’s access figures for black students (the University this week delayed their access report), implicit bias training for students and staff throughout their time at the University, and the decolonisation of the syllabus, among multiple other demands. Maybe officials at the University should acknowledge that what stu-

o r i a l CHERWELL

care to admit. Generation Z has seen recessions and austerity, terrorism and pandemics. The future looks tough for them, too, but they refuse to give up. *** I step down as Cherwell Editor this week, and I expect leaving to feel weird. I’m exhausted, and haunted by dreams where my inability to wrap text around an image leads to the financial breakdown of the paper and my embarrassing resignation. Cherwell things have basically consumed my life, and I don’t know what I’ll do without them. Within a fortnight I reckon I’ll be shouting at my bedroom wall, checking that it’s released commissions, and asking if it’s requested art from the creative team. Yeah, leaving will be hard. But I’m so proud to have served this great newspaper. And, more than that, I’m proud to have served the endlessly admirable students who are, forever, its lifeblood. Now, what did sleep feel like again?

Tilly Walters Editor-In-Chief dents are campaigning for is slightly more complex. History is not static: portraits, statues, architecture, all change, and should be updated. Many colleges are taking the slow steps to update their portraiture to reflect significant alumni of the more recent past. Why shouldn’t Oriel’s central plinth venerate an abolitionist, or even lie empty? The awareness of Rhodes’ influence on the college and indeed on the University won’t go away if he’s no longer put on a pedestal. It’s ultimately misleading to reduce the campaign to just the removal of the statues, and erases injustices at the University that campaigners are indeed keenly aware of. Rejecting the glorification of an image while understanding Rhodes’s place in Oxford’s deeply flawed history, is indeed possible. As my far more literate co-editor says above, we finish our time at Cherwell this week. I can only be grateful to incredible writers and contributors, and above all our editorial team for managing to shed light on the university’s failings and the students’ efforts.

LEADER

own history

Maya Misra Deputy Editor

’m from Nashville, Tennessee. When people look confused, I accompany this with “The home of Taylor Swift and Jack Daniels”. People nod in recognition of the names, even if they’re no closer to figuring out where my state is on a map. I’ve realized, though, that I could just as easily say, “Nashville: the home of Nathan Bedford Forrest, founder of the KKK”. This is also my hometown, along with the musicians and whiskey. It wasn’t always easy growing up in the American South when I wasn’t white or Christian. There’s a narrow-mindedness that’s stifling, no matter how couched in “Bless her heart” it is. But I still love Nashville, and it is still my home. I care about the people in it and the problems it faces. And when I read about weeklong protests, the old courthouse burned, teenagers leading a crowd 10,000 strong, and the National Guard called in, it hurt, and I was angry. I was angry that my black friends have been paralysed, exhausted, unable to exist this week, and that is only a magnification of their everyday realities. I was angry that people I know have been pulled over by police whose hands never

left their holsters, and that wasn’t news, it was life. I was angry that in my city Daniel Hambrick was shot because a cop was advised by his superiors to pull a gun instead of a taser when someone is running away. There’s a saying popularized by Dr. King that I love: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” It concedes to the long slog but promises reward will come. But there’s a problem with this quote. King speaks of the moral universe as if we don’t control it. As if it’s not a hundred thousand hands pulling on the tip of that arc, bending it to the right angle, ensuring with every tug that it turns in the right direction. He talks about the arc as if it just happens. I disagree. In retrospect history unfolds like a protractor’s curve, and it’s easy to be dispassionate about that inevitability. But people don’t watch history happen. They make it. And that’s what matters. It’s easy to feel powerless when faced with national protests and a slew of news reports and social media posts. But you don’t have to fix the world; you just have to care about your community. Not only for the two weeks when the media cycle cares, but for the long term. Long term change is what’s important. There are people who have been doing this sort of work for years. The NAACP and the ACLU are two good examples: they have experienced workers in local branches that know their communities well. The NAACP was instrumental for passing laws and challenging court decisions in the Civil Rights movement and now have been engaging in conversation with cities across the US about police brutality. The ACLU fights legal battles not only involving racism, but also gender equality, voting rights, free speech, and human rights. Aditionally, Campaign Zero has gained attention recently for their plans on how to change police departments

for the better. However, those recommendations only come after years of research and compiling reports. The Center for Policing Equity carries out similar work, partnering directly with police departments and using their data to explain what is wrong and how to fix it. Their work isn’t as glamorous as waving a sign in the city square, but it’s arguably more important. These are crucial organizations to support, as are other local groups in your area. If you’ve got the time over the summer, volunteer for them, even if it’s as menial as sorting files or calling city officials. The change will not happen with constitutional amendments or nationwide laws associated. Instead, it will be local police forces and city councils re-evaluating themselves, town by town. It’s already happened in Nashville: this Tuesday, state Democrats proposed amendments to a Republican bill, in line with the “8 Can’t Wait” police reforms, and the bill will be discussed later this week. It’s a bipartisan effort, with both sides willing to listen to each other and the protestors. New York, DC, Minneapolis, and many others are doing the same. Some places are less enthusiastic about immediate change, like Memphis, another Tennessean city. However, the government is willing to tackle the problem, and it’s on the members of the city to ensure necessary conversations take place. Governments only care about an issue as much as their citizens tell them to. This means that emailing your MPs and your mayors works; every letter sent is a reminder. Your vote counts the most in small, local elections. Use that power to make your community better. Ultimately, I believe in the moral arc of the universe, but more so, I believe that the weight of our hands on it matter. Everyone can do their part to guide it in the right direction.

e d r a e

CHERWELL

OPINION

STANDING UP FOR FELLOW POC Rhea Suribhatla

s a POC (British Indian), I have had my fair share of racist comments. Luckily for me, most of them have been pretty trivial, reflecting ignorance rather than malicious intent but nevertheless, they are not easily forgotten. I know that discrimination faced by members of the black community is so many times worse. Across the world, many people, including South Asians, have been raising awareness, protesting, donating and fundraising in support of Black Lives in response to the appalling murders of George Floyd and others. High profile, influential Bollywood celebrities have tweeted their support for BLM, encouraging other South Asians to follow in their footsteps. We have seen the pain inflicted on Black Lives for too long and need to stand together in solidarity, exposing and overcoming white privilege. Yet how can we claim to sufficiently support BLM when many of our cultural attitudes are inherently racist and indirectly propagate anti-black sentiments? Most notably is the South Asian obsession with fair skin- which is often seen as a prerequisite for beauty. Skin colour bias is commonly thought to be derived from the Hindu caste system, with lighter skin associated with more superior castes. Although the idea of castes predates colonialism, it is likely that associations with colourism were exacerbated during the double-century long British Raj. People would cater to and strive to be more similar to white people with the hope of accessing better opportunities. Fair skin was seen as a desirable characteristic when seeking out marital partners and this is still the case today (although arranged marriages are less common). These attitudes towards preferring lighter complexions are propagated by

“How can we claim to sufficiently support BLM when many of our cultural attitudes are inherently racist and indirectly propagate anti-black sentiments?” the thriving South Asian market of skin lightening products and skin bleaching. When I was just 10, excited about my first pedicure before a wedding in India, I was painted with bleach up and down my legs. I remember thinking it was moisturiser; it was only when my skin started burning that I realised otherwise. Safe to say I have never had a pedicure since. Somewhat hypocritically,

Karan Johar, Dishi Patani and Priyanka Chopra, all Bollywood celebrities who tweeted their support for BLM, have all also advertised skin lightening products. In response to criticism, Priyanka Chopra deleted her tweet. This is not enough. We need statements from these influential celebrities condemning the pursuit of fair skin. South Asians who have been emotionally alienated and even physically harmed by these attitudes deserve an apology. Crucially, this warped perception of beauty results in colourist sentiments towards darker skinned individuals and hence members of the Black community. This is frankly unacceptable. Furthermore, following the US 1965 Immigration Act, people from Asia were permitted to immigrate to the USA; Asians were portrayed via the ‘model minority myth’. This stereotyping favoured their success, whilst simultaneously expanding the gap between Black Americans and Southern Asian Americans. The systemic racist oppression faced by Black people is reflected by statistics. According to the US 2018 consensus, the median household income of Black American houses was 41,400 USD, almost half that of white people (70,600 USD) and under half that of Asian households (87,200 USD). In the UK, data from 20152018 showed that the 42% of the Indian British population earnt over £1000 per week, whereas this was only true for 19% of the Black British population. It is evident that South Asians have also benefited from white privilege at the expense of Black People. It is about time that we CHERWELL

addressed these disparities. It is crucial that South Asians continue to support BLM by donating money, fundraising, protesting, signing petitions, increasing our understanding of the hardships faced by the black community and raising awareness. However, although we may not be white ourselves, unless we address our cultural racist ideologies,

“It is evident that South Asians have also benefited from white privilege at the expense of Black People.” we become complicit with white supremacist ideologies. We need to educate ourselves on the history of casteism, colourist attitudes, colonialism, and slavery so that we are better able to recognise and call out racial insults within our own community as well as elsewhere. We need to stamp out South Asian obsession with lightening skin and finding fairer skin attractive. Interracial relationships and friendships with black people need to be supported and accepted, not stigmatised. In order for many of these measures to be successful in the long-term, it means challenging the ideals of those in our close community circles and family. These difficult conversations can be approached via discussions about how peaceful BLM protests are being met with violence by the police and how black people have wrongfully been facing such a threat of police violence for decades. Fundamentally, encourage support for the lives and wellbeing of our fellow black ethnic minorities. Black Lives Matter.

OPINION THE OPEN CASKET OF GEORGE FLOYD

IN THE SPOTLIGHT:

Reem Sultan

hen Emmett Till’s 14-year-old body was exhumed from the Tallahatchie River and laid to rest, his mother insisted on an open-casket funeral. It was to confront America with the brutality of its people, to show the world racism in its grievous, sickening, mutilated reality. Death is a ruthless truth to constantly face, and we try to drape its ugliness and destruction in flowers, flags, framed photos- it may not really work, but it gives things a face of beauty, at least. In the violent wake or cause of death, we always hope for peace and meaning in remembrance. The videoed murder of George Floyd reminds us that black people have long been deprived of humanity in life and in death. It seems unfair that without choice or agency, his memory has been prised into an open casket, even by people whose very point is to remember his personhood. To see an image of a man crushing another’s neck is distressing; to see the expression on the face of an innocent man being murdered is something that would make you sick- yet they’re inescapable, because black degradation is something that has been firmly rooted into our visual landscape. For whatever reason it may be, the threshold for stomaching depictions of

“Death is a ruthless truth to constantly face...” black suffering is low. Primetime TV shows are interspersed with charity ads of African babies with bloated bellies and skinny fingers; film after film depicts the rape and torture of American slavery; an unnecessary ‘n*gger’ is forever waiting to erupt from any white Tarantino character’s lips- black degradation is in the media something to be lamented, but nevertheless gawked at. Why is there such an appetite for this? Is it virtue porn for non-black moderates? Isn’t there something quite paradoxical about watching someone you really do believe is a human being, being treated like an animal? It is even more disturbing to think that images of the abused black body have within social media become almost a social currency, for vir-

tue signalling and proving the extent of one’s outrage. We could track media saturation with normalised images of the brutalised black body to lingering colonial narratives of black biological sturdiness, sensatio-

“The videoed murder of George Floyd reminds us that black people have long been deprived of humanity in life and in death.” nalism marketed to the desensitised, a subconsciously perceived deficiency in humanity- a harder question to ask would be to wonder what necessitates it. It’s the sad reality that many people think that racism is now mostly an obsolete tendency rather than an institutional truth- maybe it’s these vicious abuses of human rights, that in stomach turning audio-visual form, finally mobilise people to action and introspection. These are hard seasw to navigate- in George Floyd’s case, without the video recording we wouldn’t be seeing these brilliant fires of justice burning across America. And, I guess, it’s contributed to the latest in a long, long series of wake-up calls (which have so far resulted in white society falling back to sleep every time). Now more than ever, though, we should be mindful and questioning of the use of these images. In the case of George Floyd, we should especially ask how black people would feel seeing a picture like that; without that veil of numbness, images of suffering understandably hit harder when time and time again, it is people who look like you or your family. We should ask why we need to see the bloody, suffocating depths of racist brutality to believe it. It is certainly important not to forget the humanity of the lives lost in the darkness of those depths. Activism is brilliant, but it is nothing without compassion. I hope for George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and the countless other black lives taken by cruelty and racism, that with their justice, we also bring them their flowers. CHERWELL

STUDENT ACTIVISM Rhodes Must Fall by Eve Bennett After angry Bristolians took Edward Colston for a swim in the harbour on Sunday, it was only going to be a matter of time until eyes turned to Oxford’s own controversial statue. Within hours, a banner had appeared opposite Oriel with a warning for the figure standing above its gates: “Rhodes, you’re next.” Unsurprisingly, the college’s predictably evasive statement did nothing to dissuade hundreds of Oxonians from filling the high street in protest on Tuesday. Even with turnout hampered by COVID, footage from the livestream was very much a (digital) sight to behold.

Tabou Disability Magazine by Danni Watts I founded Tabou Disability Magazine in 2019. Our vision is to increase the access of disabled students into university and ensure their inclusion in every aspect of higher education. We do this through a magazine which platforms the opinions of disabled students and highlights the success and failures of universities in supporting disabled students. Any disabled student from across the UK is welcome to join! Just email taboudisabilitymag@gmail.com or to read our current articles and learn more head to www.taboudisabilitymag.co.uk

Oxford Public Philosophy by Ashley Singh Philosophy proves critical to cultural consciousness by examining the presuppositions that we use to sanction moves as justified or even possible in the world. These moves shape society. Yet, the consequences of philosophical work, what work is dominant, and who participates are political. A new undergraduate-led journal, Oxford Public Philosophy offers more accessible public discussion and published critical material, challenging conventional conceptualisations of ‘objectivity’ and ‘universality’ as well as the narrow scope of voices and issues valued in society.

OPINION

W H AT IS L EGI T I M AT E PROT EST?

HOW SHOU LD W E PROTEST? SHORT TA K ES

By David Tritsch

By Timea Iliffe

egitimacy, in the technical sense, is defined by a state that has a vested interest in maintaining its own monopoly on the legitimate use of force. It also has a vested interest in keeping certain forms of resistance illegitimate. This week, we’ve seen constant reports of violence “breaking out” at protests, or peaceful demonstrations “turning violent”. It’s important to consider, however, that terms like this are not used neutrally. Violence is not a term synonymous with harm. It’s synonymous with harm that the state deems illegitimate. Violence does not “break out” at protests; certain forms of it do, and particularly ones that play well to CNN cameras that want to spark panic. Protest, particularly the forms of it deemed illegitimate – looting, property damage, rioting and occasional acts of physical violence – comes in response to a backdrop of

structural violence, sanctioned by the government and enforced by law. The former kind is just a lot easier to photograph and put underneath a headline. There is legitimate and illegitimate protest only insofar as the state deems certain forms of protest legitimate or illegitimate. We only call certain things violent against a backdrop of institutions, practices and individual actions that would likely be called violence themselves in a different context. Looting is theft, but pales in comparison to the billions taken from workers out of pay packets each year by employers, with wage theft representing over $8 billion in loss each year. Toppling a statue does damage a piece of art, but so does the theft of millions of pounds worth of cultural heritage from colonised countries. And riots may be a form of violence, but so is police brutality, whether caught, prosecuted and charged or not.

T RU MP’S CHRISTI A N R HETORIC Abigail Howe

“D

C A N A PROT EST BE ‘I L L EGI T I M AT E’?

id we really just get gassed for a PHOTO OP?”: a text sent by St. John’s Episcopal Church’s seminarian. At 6:15pm, forty-five minutes before the curfew, flash grenades were thrown, tear gas was dispersed and rubber bullets were fired into the crowds to force peaceful protestors away from the building. Trump stood in front of the church, declaring himself “your president of law and order” and threatening to “dominate the streets” with military force. He awkwardly held a Bible, aligning himself with a larger religious mission. But Jesus’ ideology just doesn’t match up with Trump’s words. His way of holding the Bible has been mocked but his knowledge

rotest is born out of history - a history of disempowerment and humiliation. Violence and destruction are a desperate response when oppression becomes unbearable; the responsibility for this cannot reasonably be shifted onto those who protest. I therefore argue that there cannot be such a thing as an ‘illegitimate’ form of protest. Protests are almost never unpredictable: while there is usually a straw that breaks the camel’s back, that back has carried the weight of oppression for decades, sometimes centuries. It would be absurd to argue that protestors desire a violent uprising. The odds are stacked against the Black activists who, knowing that law enforcement has never had any scruples about violently silencing them, take to the streets to protest. Colin Kaepernick protested peacefully - his demands, and those of 40 million Black voices in

of its contents is far more damning. In a 2015 Bloomburg Politics interview, Trump sidestepped revealing his favourite verses, saying that “the Bible means a lot to me but I don’t want to get into specifics”, continuing “I think it’s just incredible, the whole Bible is incredible”. Honestly, it’s like saying your favourite Beethoven piece is ‘all the sonatas’. In 2016, he responded marginally better, citing the Old Testament punishment of “an eye for an eye”. However, Exodus 21 was one of the few sections singled out by Jesus in the Sermon of the Mount (Matthew 15) as overcome. Whether this is repudiation or a demand to live differently, Trump’s claim that the government should respond in kind to those who have ‘taken’ American jobs, money or lives simply does not stand up to Biblical analysis. Some of his supporters hold similarly shallow views; “it’s like Ephesians 6:10 through 19,” Benjamin Horbowy said - “I believe this is a president who wears the full armor of God.” When told that CHERWELL

America were ignored. Their demand was clear: “Stop killing us” – and yet the number of police killings crept up and up. What is going through the heads of those who are now making their voices heard, in spite of a global pandemic and a police force unafraid to shoot? It certainly is not the desire to destroy, rather fear, desperation and a struggle of the last-resort nature that is making protestors engage in violence. Any of them would much rather be peacefully kneeling than cleaning tear gas out of their eyes. But they have learned that kneeling is not enough. The world did not listen to Kaepernick. When those who have been silenced for longer than most of us have been alive finally find their suffering so unbearable that they risk their lives to be treated as equals, it is concerning to see questions surrounding the ‘legitimacy’ of their actions.

verse 12 says explicitly not to wrestle against flesh and blood but to focus on spiritual warfare, Horbowy responded that “he’s fearless”. Trump’s sweeping assault on LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights has appealed to a specific type of Christian evangelical who refuses to interrogate scripture and believes that gay marriage, abortion and the evils of socialism (as opposed to injustice, inequality and deceit) mean America is facing God’s wrath. However, Jesus was an immigrant born outside of marriage to a low-income family. He would insist that black lives matter (Luke 4:1619). From flipping tables in the temple (as a form of protest – the parallels are clear), to respecting sex workers (Luke 7:36-50), to speaking out for the voiceless, Jesus’ ideas seem utterly incongruous with Trump’s hateful rhetoric. Trump has claimed he is the “chosen one” but he’s far more like Herod – a violent despot attacking his own people – than Jesus. To him, the Bible is not a symbol of faith. It is a weapon to be wielded in stunts, ignoring its true message. Rather than waving it for publicity, it would be far more helpful if he and his followers give it a read.

OPINION CA RTOON

WES BECKETT ON...RHODES MUST FALL

S AT I R E

OXFORD: THE TRUE MODERN INSTITUTION Lily Tidman

s a global leader in more subject areas than you can shake a peasant-powered Ball punt oar at, it is striking is that the University of Oxford is only now being recognised for its incredible ability to remain in touch with 21st – or even 20th – century society. Digby LeFanu-Jenkinson, Fourth of His Name, Magdalen first year, was eager to bolster the reputation of the University: “Yah, yah, Oxford is soo modern, you know? I even know a few fellows whose houses are-” he drops to a whisper, revealing wide, inbred eyes, “semi-detached! It’s almost as if the University is no longer a stomping ground for me and all my mates from boarding school anymore, mm? Such diversity nowadays – so many new languages about the place – I’ve heard words like ‘scran’, and ‘ginnel’.” He looks vaguely queasy; unlike the institution in which he studies, this young

man clearly hasn’t caught up with the pace of modern society. “Incomprehensible. Yah, yah. Very modern.” “Having to do Trinity online has really shown me just how modern Oxford is,” claimed Euphemia Tittington, a second-year (and seventh-gen) humanities student, “I mean – my tutor explaining to me that he couldn’t possibly compile a satisfactory reading list for my module as none of the core – or even any vaguely relevant - texts are online really drives home the wealth of up-to-date, accessible learning materials the University has at its disposal. Researching my thesis this summer is going to be a breeze!”

“IF YOU’RE HOPING TO GRADUATE ABLE TO CRITICALLY ANALYSE SOCIAL RELATIONS WITHOUT SOUNDING LIKE BORIS JOHNSON OR GERMAIN GREER, YOU WON’T BE DISAPPOINTED!” With set texts as cutting-edge as the scientific racism-laden monoliths of the 1950s, Oxford humanities and social sciences courses are clearly preparing their students to critically analyse CHERWELL

privilege and inequality in the modern world. If you’re hoping to graduate able to critically analyse social relations without sounding like Boris Johnson or Germaine Greer, you won’t be disappointed! Assigned reading on class and gender takes us all the way up to the beating heart of modernity – Second Wave feminism - surely providing a crucial guide to the modern world for a student body which now reflects all the diversity it has to offer. You only have to take a look at the sizes of your fellow students’ bedrooms/kitchens in your next Teams tute to see that Oxford has done the unthinkable – it has become so modern, it has surpassed the need for discussions on class. What’s more, as every discussion I’ve ever had with non-uni friends has shown me, Ox-isms like “sconce”, “chirpse”, “collection” and “trashing” are no longer seen as insufferable or incomprehensible to the general public. Their eye-rolls are now barely noticeable when I show up to socially-distanced drinks toting formalwear and champagne, testament to the University’s modern traditions. Clearly, the University is more in touch with the rest of modern society than ever before; gone are the days of impenetrable jargon, circle-jerking boys’ clubs, and institutionalised racism. Want proof? Ask your nearest Union rep.

FEATURES

FAMILY, FOOTBALL & PALESTINE:

A STORY OF SOLIDARITY

Helena Murphy

n the 1870s, Brother Walfrid, an Irish priest from County Sligo, emigrated to Scotland. It was there that in 1887, at a meeting at St Mary’s Church Hall in East Rose Street in East Glasgow, he founded Celtic Football Club. His intention: to alleviate the poverty of Irish immigrants in the city’s East End parishes. Between 1841 and 1851, the Irish population of Scotland had increased by 90%. Roughly a third of these immigrants, nearly entirely catholic, settled in Glasgow, where they came to be treated as second class citizens. The narrative of blaming and resenting an immigrant community, a narrative that has been bolstered in recent years by Brexit and organisations like

“It is a community recognised for its solidarity, shaped by its history of oppression, and defined by its love of liberty.”

CHERWELL

Britain First, was as true of Scotland’s Irish immigrant community in the 19th century as it is true of, for example, East European immigrants in Britain today. Brother Walfrid could not have ever suspected what Celtic football club would go on to offer the oppressed Irish community of Glasgow, let alone the persecuted communities all around the world. But in his very first action of setting up a club to alleviate poverty and suffering, the fate of Celtic football club was sealed. This is not just a football club, it is a community recognised for its solidarity, shaped by its history of oppression, and defined by its love of liberty. Fast forward to Celtic’s first ever foo-

FEATURES tball match. It is May 28, 1888, my great grandad is among the crowd. The season

“there were three things that he cared about: ‘faith, family, and football.’ And not always in that order” ticket that he had bought was passed on to my grandad who in turn passed it on to my uncle. Fast forward again to 1941. My grandad, Joe Murphy, is 22 years old and playing football in a junior league with St Roch’s. By this point, Celtic was already a part of my family’s lifeblood, ingrained into the beating heart of Glasgow’s Irish community. For Joe, Celtic was everything. Well, nearly everything. His children, my Dad and his six siblings all say that there were three things that he cared about: ‘faith, family, and football.’ And not always in that order, so the joke goes. In 1941, Joe is playing in a junior league in his spare time while working at a local steel factory. Out of the blue, one day he is told to wait at a church near the Celtic stadium. Who should turn up in a taxi but the Celtic manager at the time. With no explanation given and no explanation asked, my grandad jumps into the car. In the taxi, on the way to Celtic Park, the manager turns to Joe and asks if he has his boots. He wants him to play for Celtic that very same day. Not only did Joe not have his boots on him, but for him to play with Celtic would have been illegal, at least in the football world, as he had not been given the all-clear from St Roch’s. His chance to play for his beloved football club had slipped through his fingers. Celtic and St Roch’s later agreed that at the end of the season Joe could sign with Celtic. But this was a deal that was reached behind closed doors. And no one told my grandad. When the end of the season rolls around, my Grandad signs with another club, Partick Thistle. Celtic was the only team that ever really mattered, and my grandad had missed his second chance. As cruel as such a trick of fate may seem, it did not stop him from attending nearly every single Saturday match for eight decades. Some loves never die.

When you are on the outside peering in at the world of football, the whole culture seems to be an incomprehensible cult. The passion and utter devotion exhibited by football fans is second to none. Of course, I have always loved the story of my grandad and his near misses. A story that is recounted every year at family reunions and that was eventually told at his funeral. But truth be told, I have never understood the obsession that my family has for Celtic. I’m not interested in football. I have three brothers who love it with their entire being and I can’t bear to be seen enjoying the same sport as them. Whist my brothers went to countless Celtic games throughout our childhood, I went to my first game at the age of 18. I couldn’t find it in myself to care. But in August 2015, everything changed. Celtic was to play a match against Hapoel Be’er Sheva, an Israeli football team, in a Champions League qualifier game. And it was a match like none that I have ever seen before. When the players walked out onto the pitch to start the game that day, they walked out to a stadium painted black, green, white, and red with Palestinian flags. The sky fluttering with hundreds and hundreds of the flags held above the heads of fans. It was a beautiful declaration of solidarity, an unequivocal statement that ‘we stand with Palestine,’, and an outcry of support for the BDS movement. But the statement did not go unnoticed. According to UEFA, the Palestinian flag is a political statement and to fly even a

“When the players walked out onto the pitch to start the game that day, they walked out to a stadium painted black, green, white, and red with Palestinian flags.”

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single flag at a football match may warrant a fine. In the end, Celtic Football Club had to pay £8,619. But it was this protest that enabled me at last to view the club and its fans for what they really were: the crowning triumph of a community that has been enduring suffering for hundreds of years. Football fans are among the most stubborn people in the world. Just try and convince any football fan of any club that

“the communal experience of being treated as a second-class citizen, of being treated as being less than someone else, of being treated as the feared and hated other.” their favourite team isn’t the absolute best team in the world. Regardless of objective success or ranking, a football fan will defend their club until the day they die. And if football fans are the most stubborn people in the world, then Celtic fans are the most stubborn of football fans. In the wake of the 2015 protest, The Green Brigade, Celtic’s very own Ultra group, launched a campaign to #MatchTheFineForPalestine. The fans raised £176,076. Over twenty times the original fine. All of the money raised was donated to two charities in the West Bank. And just like that, my love for Celtic was born. For many, the extraordinary show of solidarity with a country, with a community, that most of the fans will never visit seems curious. Celtic fans and Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza have seemingly very little in common. There is a difference in language, a difference in religious demographic, differences in culture and traditions, in geography, in nearly everything. I can think of only one thing that is truly common between Celtic fans with the Palestinian community. Their shared history of oppression. It is the communal experience of being

FEATURES treated as a second-class citizen, of being treated as being less than someone else, of being treated as the feared and hated other. It is a truly powerful thing. My own prejudices against the sport had blinded me to this whole side of the Celtic football club. One Google search later and I had a heap of examples of Celtic solidarity with Palestine and with other communities fighting for freedom. What happened in 2015 was not an isolated incident of profound empathy; Celtic fans have also supported the oppressed people of South Africa under apartheid,

“The liberation of one people is inextricably connected to the liberation of all peoples.”

tball club. An entire community has been transformed and defined by the institution of Celtic. From its early days of aiding Irish immigrant families, helping to put food on the table and trying to lift people out of abject poverty, Celtic has stood for more than just football. And now that life has largely improved for the original Irish community, now that the Irish diaspora is spread across the world and Celtic is no longer the small time local club that it once was but an international team with global support (winning the Scottish League a total of 51 times), fans are turning to pass their good fortune on. For the fans who flew flags for Palestine in 2015 and the fans that still do, the liberation of one people is inextricably connected to the liberation of all peoples. The Christmas Eve before last I was not at home with my family, I was in Be-

and they have been vocal in their backing of the Catalonian independence movement. Celtic Park has seen countless banners flown: ‘Refugees welcome, a club founded by immigrants,’ ‘Celtic FC, Born of Famine and Oppression,’ ‘Free Palestine,’ to name but a few. Not only do fans regularly fly Palestinian flags, the club has also organised a charity match between the Celtic fans and a Palestinian team. To do this, the club arranged for a group of Palestinian teenagers to travel outside of the West Bank, a very difficult feat to achieve for most Palestinians.

***

At my first ever Celtic match, on a miserably cold and rainy night, out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash of red amidst the sea of green and white. On a frosty winter’s night, years after the ‘Match the Fine’ campaign and over 3,000 miles away from Palestine, football fans were still flying the Palestinian flag. A lot of people think that there is no place for politics in football. The Green Brigade, often taking the lead among fans in activist actions, are controversial. Not all of the club’s fans are… well, fans of the ultra-group. Some think that sport should be for sport alone and politics should be left outside the stadium, so as not to interfere with the purity of the game. The thing is, it was never just about football when it comes to Celtic. This is not a typical foo-

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thlehem. A place most Glasgow-based Celtic fans will be unlikely to ever visit; my grandfather himself spent the first 90 years of his living within a 2-mile radius of where he was born. I could not help but feel incredibly proud. I felt proud to be connected to a community of people who were willing to fork money out of their pockets, willing to boldly declare their support for a people and a country that they have no connection to other than that of human empathy which binds us all together. The solidarity of Celtic fans for all oppressed peoples is a rare beauty, and the type of solidarity that this world is often sorely lacking. At a time when our planet is unrecognizable, we would all do well to take a pinch of the Celtic spirit and remember that all we really have is each other. Artwork by Phoebe White

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CULCHER EDITORIAL

e’ve been hearing the word ‘unprecedented’ an inordinate amount of times over the past months. Unprecedented times, unprecedented challenges. In some cases, however, this word signifies a great deal of ignorance in relation to the history of our country and many others. Before calling something unprecedented, we need to take a look backward to determine whether these issues are really so exceptional - or whether we are simply ignorant of the constant pain experienced by particular groups throughout history. The recent murder of George Floyd – among countless others – has led to racial justice being called for across not only the US, but the world. We, your Culture Editors, believe we would be remiss to not acknowledge the myriad ways in which British culture has been shaped by Black art. The British Black Arts Movement, a radical political art endeavor, emerged from anti-racist discourse and feminist critique. Groups such as the BLK art group, with similar agendas, became integral to the movement; as did the artists from the British African-Caribbean community who formed them, such as Eddie Chambers, Keith Piper, and Donald Rodney. Art has always been a tool to express the self, especially in the face of injustice. This became evident when the British Black Arts Movement was formed the year after the 1981 Brixton uprisings, which occurred as a result of numerous injustices faced by the Black community. These included the New Cross Fire, when thirteen Black youths were killed in an alleged racially-motivated house fire; the police failed to properly investigate the deaths. In addition, there were many instances of police discrimination against Black citizens through the use of the ‘Sus’ laws, as well as high unemployment levels and inequality faced by the Black population. In appreciating and showcasing artists like Rodney and his pieces, such as In the House of my Father or How the West was Won, we can educate ourselves on the specific struggles faced by the Black community in the past, and how this oppression extends into today. This is only one example of the diverse phenomenon of Black activism through art and culture. And although it would be impossible to do justice to its expansive history in this editorial, it’s important to look towards the past to understand the future. To have an informed discussion, however, we need to be informed and continue to inform ourselves. The word ‘unprecedented’ fails to acknowledge that current events are a logical and foreseen result of the racism which has been entrenched within our society throughout history, not simply a response to an isolated event. Britain is a country with a long legacy of colonial oppression and racism, as a long history of activism against this, through art and other means. If you haven’t already, the time to start learning is now.

RADICAL IMAGES: VISUAL ART IN PROTEST BY KAIRA MEDIRATTA

attended a protest recently in Moorestown, New Jersey, where I am currently quarantined. As a second-generation Indian American, who benefits – conspicuously or not – from my privilege in racial hierarchies, participating was of utmost priority to me. I helped my cousins, ages 5 and 8, to create placards of their own from a discarded Amazon box; after much deliberation, they settled on the raised fist, wrapped in a banner emblazoned “BLACK LIVES MATTER”. As we reached Main Street, I explained to my disillusioned younger cousin that, no, a protest is not a street fair; a protest is when many people come together for something they believe in. Moorestown, an eastern suburb of Philadelphia, is primarily white – around 85%. And the symbolism of seeing a diverse crowd of almost 1,000 people, marching down Main Street – taking up space in the nucleus of this predominantly white town – should not have been lost on anyone. Perhaps most arresting were the signs: from the succinct ‘This has to stop’ and ‘Never again’, to ‘Silence=Complicity’ and ‘You don’t have to be Black to be outraged’, it was clear that art, in this context, was meant to provoke rather than placate. This intrinsic ability to challenge the status quo would seem to lend itself well to protest art, which perhaps explains why the history of this genre is such a vast and dense one. Picasso’s Guernica may come to mind, or the Guerilla Girls. Regardless of its variety in medium and message, however, protest art has remained one of the most effective (and affective) ways of mobilizing an audi-

Trudy Ross, Kaira Mediratta, and Sofia Henderson CHERWELL

ence: by playing off of semiotics, our aesthetic consciousness. Radical ephemera is often just that – ephemeral. Portable, disposable. Intended for short-term usefulness. When one imagines a protest, one may picture swathes of cardboard with scrawled text, or placards taped to a post or a rake; created in a moment of urgency, it is true that protest art emphasizes content over structure. But while the materiality of protest art may be subject to decay, the knowledge and solidarity produced as a result is immutable. Digital content continues to be one of the most compelling and enduring mediums for documenting protests. And with each tragic police killing, it seems that a select few photographs rise to symbolize the movement – whether that be Devin Allen’s coverage of the Baltimore protests, or Jonathan Bachman’s photograph of a women in Baton Rouge. In this age of technology, the recording of protests has become all-pervasive, with almost no moment going undocumented. While often creating powerful footage, this can also veer out of hand – with protests being used as photo-ops or documented for the validation of others on social media, rather than prioritizing the safety of protestors. Although the ethics of photographing a moment of such vulnerability can be dubious, few realize the extent to which activists in fact sought such photographic coverage in the past. Civil Rights organizers, for example, relied on such striking images to raise financial support, prod politicians, and simply to shock viewers. In capturing a split second in time, protest photography can embody an anguish and dignity that speaks multitudes.

CULCHER CULCHER’S CHOICE: GRAYSON’S ART CLUB

With today’s technology, activists are able to construct their own narrative more freely than ever before. And in this age of social media activism, the act of re-sharing imagery has become a dominant part of the virtual conversation. The black power fist, for example, has become a symbol of the Black Lives Matter movement, alluding to the Black Panther Party and the general usage of the gesture as an act of defiance. Recently, many have adopted the clenched fist as an avatar on social media to show

While some would consider the sharing of art on social media to be performative or superficial, it is important to remember the critical role that imagery plays in protests – and during a time where in-person involvement may not be a possibility, this art is all the more crucial for building momentum. The Moorestown march was followed by speeches from students and government officials alike, concluding with a moment of silence in honor of Floyd.

support for the movement. In the case of George Floyd, certain portraits have become emblematic of the movement – such as Nikkolas Smith’s blocky, abstract painting, or Shirien Damra’s tender rendering, encircled in flowers.

Opening my eyes again after those eight minutes and 46 seconds, there was an instant where the scene before me felt foreign. And if only for a moment, silently united in grief, the world felt radically, utterly – photographically – still. CHERWELL

BY FLORINE LIPS

t is reassuring in times as strange as these to know that people like Grayson Perry still exist. In the absence of exhibitions and high-profile cultural landmarks, it might seem as though artists have no reason to be on the public radar at the moment; scientists and politicians are who we’re looking to right now for guidance and stability. But when Channel 4 announced the launch of a new art-themed series, hosted by Grayson Perry, with the simple question: ‘do you want to be part of an art club?’ I immediately thought: yes. Most of the show follows Grayson and his wife Philippa as they potter around their studio, sketching, painting, hanging out with their cat, gaining artistic inspiration from anything and everything to fit the week’s theme. The public also gets to show what they’ve been making, and together with the week’s celebrity guest, Grayson chooses a few works that will be displayed as part of an exhibition showcasing the public’s response to isolation. The chosen works are varied in every way possible – some of my favourites so far have included birds made of wire, dogshow photography, and a woman who paints onto her pregnant belly. Grayson interviews each artist over Zoom, which feels (at this point) relatably casual, and asks them to explain why they were inspired to create it and how lockdown has influenced their artistic process. What I love most about Grayson, and the show itself, is that he seems completely free from pretension. The show doesn’t over-explain anything; we watch Grayson and Philippa paint, draw and make ceramics, but it isn’t a tutorial. It feels intimate and homely, very simply filmed, with very little narration and voice-over, encouraging you to take a breath and just watch it. There are moments where the conversations between him and the other artists seem to falter somewhat, but the impression you’re left with is one of a man who genuinely cares about the art he’s discussing, and would rather take his time to contemplate it. That, for me, is what makes this show so special; it feels incredibly sincere, its tone shaped by the awareness of the difficulty currently faced by the British public, but also that the creation and appreciation of art has a vital part to play in getting people through it. Forming an art club isn’t just about inspiring creativity; it’s also about creating a sense of community, making people feel less alone. It is by far the most relaxing TV I have watched in the whole of lockdown, and I would encourage anyone feeling despondent, overwhelmed, or simply tempted to create some art for themselves, to watch and savour every last bit of it.

FASHION

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THE FASHION INDUSTRY IS POISED FOR REAL CHANGE - BUT WILL IT BE ENOUGH? Alec Holt

here has been no shortage of indignant optimism in the face of this virus’ norm-obliterating consequences. It is, we hear, a time to allow ourselves to slow down, to create, and to appreciate: an opportunity for the world to heal and for society to examine its habits anew with as rasa a tabula as we are ever likely to be unexpectedly handed. Yet the absence of any but select visible and determined endeavour towards such a reappraisal, never mind an actual reformation, has been conspicuous. The recent squall of coordinated proposals within the fashion industry, then, feels like an encouraging precursor to genuine action. First came an open letter figure-headed by Dries van Noten and recognising the “opportunity for a fundamental and welcome change” presented by the current situation. It aims at a reconfiguration of the current biannual collection system into line with the actual seasons, a pushback of the beginning of sales until later on in each season, and increased “sustainability throughout the supply chain and sales calendar”. A statement of intent it may be, but nothing resembling a strategy is put forward. More precise in the problems it perceives and the solutions it suggests is #rewiringfashion, a project facilitated by industry publication Business of Fashion and boasting a similarly weighty list of founding signatories. The disconnect between nature’s seasons and those according to fashion is again cited as in need of rectification; moreover, the almost year-long gap between a collection’s presentation and its being available for purchase “short-circuits desire” for them, whilst affording other, non-luxury brands time to imitate and sell their own takes on designs before the originals have even hit retailers. The

industry’s “addiction to discounting” mid-season and by enormous margins must be stopped. Where the aforementioned open letter nebulously promises to “review and adapt fashion shows”, the idea is here explored in more detail with a view to reworking shows “as events primarily designed to engage customers” and loosening restrictions upon the possible formats they can take. Most recently, the British Fashion Council and Council of Fashion Designers of America have weighed in with a letter suggesting “designers focus on no more than two main collections a year” and echoing many of the concerns already expressed. Between these three mission statements, all corners of the fashion sphere, from designers to retailers to editors to regulatory bodies, seem to be united in a genuine conviction for fundamental and industry-wide change. The plans may be skeletal but they are

apparently univocal, a rare occurrence for a world which weaves competitiveness into every inch of fabric. Action on the scale envisaged might really be on the horizon. And indeed, the complaints made are all too valid; individually gendered fashion weeks were already on their way out; fashion week has for a long time now been more about the consumers and the influencers than about the industry buyers, and the calendar needs to adapt to reflect that, narrowing the gap between presentation and availability for purchase and allowing for brands to reach their customers outside of CHERWELL

the traditional format if they so wish; summer collections going on sale as early as May is ridiculous and does perpetuate an unhealthy consumer expectation that clothes aren’t worth their retail price, as well as short-selling creators. But for all the good (and there is a lot of it) which the sketched reforms aim at, their focus is perhaps surprisingly introspective. The benefits are first and foremost for the industry as a whole: fewer items on sale, greater profits, more freedom with shows. With imminent global recession calling into question the survival of all but the biggest brands, such changes are undoubtedly a matter of necessity. Yet they nonetheless fall short of the sort of industry-wide reexaminations we might more naturally have anticipated given the direction in which the key dialogues about fashion have tended in recent years. Throughout the proposals, sustainability reads as something of a by-product. The synchronisation of seasonal buying periods will result in less needless air travel, but #rewiringfashion views this as a positive only insofar as it reduces the “time, money and energy” expended by buyers and press. The viability of fashion week as a physical phenomenon is never once called into question; the dates are merely realigned. The environment is not afforded so much as a mention. The first open letter does dedicate a subheading to sustainability, though the means of achieving it are as vague as the rest of the letter’s goals, citing “less waste in fabrics and inventory” and this time recognising “less travel” as under that category. The fashion industry’s environmental burden cannot be adequately relieved by anything short of complete transparency within and re-examination of every step of the chain of supply, not just the delivery stage. The apparent lack of movement towards addressing these issues and others, be they the industry’s reliance upon exploitative working conditions and mistreatment of suppliers ($2.8 billion in orders have reportedly been cancelled from Bangladeshi suppliers alone since the start of the crisis, jeopardising the livelihoods of up to 4.1 million garment workers) is disquieting. Industry reform is on the horizon, undoubtedly, but now is not the time for insularity and timidity; we can only hope that the issues, environmental and otherwise, which seem to have taken a backseat in these initially outlined proposals will in due course be given the attention they so desperately demand. There probably won’t ever be another opportunity quite like this one.

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STAGE

BA L L E T : B E W I T C HI N G, B E AU T I F U L , B O L D N I N A H O L G U I N H I G H L I G H T S T H E AT H L E T I C I S M A N D C R E AT I V I T Y I N VO LV E D I N B A L L E T T H R O U G H M AT T H E W B O U R N E ’ S P R O D U C T I O N O F S WA N L A K E .

have loved ballet all my life. My world has been filled with Barbie ballet DVDs, ballet dolls and - of course - ballet lessons. While my pointe shoes may not be used much recently, I still spend most of my time either watching ballet, or wishing I was. My family knows this, so tickets to see the latest shows are an obvious gift. Of course, I don’t mind- in fact I love it. After all it was certainly a gift to see Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake last year. For those who aren’t fans of ballet, Matthew Bourne is a household name in the ballet world; he is the Beyonce of directors and choreographers. And his Single Ladies or Crazy in Love is his iconic version of Swan Lake. First premiering in November 1995, the ballet has been shown repeatedly ever since. It’s collected over thirty international rewards and appeared at the end of Billy Elliot, as adult Billy plays the new title role of the main Swan. In his reinvention, Bourne shifts the plot away from the classic heroine Swan Maiden of Odette to the Prince Siegfried and, most importantly, makes all the swans male. At the time, this was almost laughed at; traditionally Swan Lake is a female dominated cast with gracefully delicate female swans. Nobody saw it working. Instead, Bourne used the aggression of real swans as his inspiration, putting masculinity at the heart of this ballet. And it worked. So, as you can imagine, I was overjoyed at having the chance to see the performance- but also apprehensive. I had heard so much how extraordinary it was and how much I’d love it; I was nervous whether it had been over-hyped. I had seen Bourne’s Beauty and the Beast and, while I enjoyed it, it remained solely as enjoyable. I went with my grandparents and my mum, sat down, and watched one of the most intense, moving and brilliantly

executed ballets I had ever seen. I could rant about every detail and its significance to the overall performance, but I’ll limit myself. The sets and costumes were stunning and thoroughly modern, the long scenes built tension to unbearable levels and the technicality in the performance was undeniably breath-taking. Young men apparently can spend years in Matthew Bourne’s ‘Swan School’ and, boy, you could tell. But, the story in conjunction with the choreography was the highlight. The Prince’s mental health due to a seemingly cold Mother and the pressures of Royal life shown via the Swans was incredible. I will refrain from details because I really don’t want to spoil it; for once I feel like you can spoil a ballet. The last act had me very literally on the edge of my seat. It was the pinnacle of something bigger than I can explain and left me, and my whole family, entirely speechless. I didn’t talk the entire way home - it didn’t feel right to. What is good about the story is that

the Swans can be interpreted in many different ways, speaking to a wide range of individual experiences. You may have seen that for some viewers the ballet is about the repression of the Prince’s homosexuality. For me, a couple of weeks before I watched the ballet, I had heard some very upsetting news. When I did watch it, the ballet was everything in my mind at once. It was everything I wanted to see, what I couldn’t express at the time. It was a show that made me feel less alone. How brilliant Bourne was to make the show so vague, so personal and so universal. I think it was the perfect pick for Billy Elliot. It’s about fighting powers you can’t control, the idea of masculinity and your own oppressive mind. It’s a revolutionary ballet. Ballet has a history of being inventive and dynamic which many people don’t realise; for a while the idea of stuffy old traditional ballet became accepted as the norm. Bourne shows us via his best work that this isn’t the case.

Will Bozier in Swan Lake. Image credit: Johan Persson. C H E RW E L L

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POSSESSED BY MUSES BY IMOGEN HARTER- JONES

“T

here is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric.” Whilst Plato’s invocation of the Muses as literal goddesses allowing access to creativity is outdated, the cult of the Muse has long endured. Recently the term has been invoked in cases of film directors who are obsessed with or inspired by actors with whom they repeatedly return to work. Recently, the creative partnership between Greta Gerwig and Saoirse Ronan has generated Lady Bird and Little Women, both critically and commercially successful films championing female narratives and creative control. From countless interviews, it is clear that their relationship extends beyond that of director and actor; they are friends who told the Hollywood Reporter that their continued partnership allows them to grow together creatively and “step into yourself a little bit more”. Similarly, when asked about his creative partnership with Colin Farrell, who stars in The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, director Yorgos Lanthimos told The Atlantic that, “It’s also great to create these kinds of relationships and then try to evolve with the other people and try to do different things. Next time, things are easier and you can go further.” With respect to Lanthimos’ dark, surreal film worlds, wherein boundaries of morality and reality are regularly tested with acutely uncomfortable moments, finding an actor who just “gets the material” is a gift. Whilst working with friends is undeniably fun, the benefits of long-term artistic partnerships have deeper implications for both actors and directors, affecting their styles and the artistic DNA of projects. Surrealist auteur David Lynch is known for his frequent partnership with Laura Dern. The pair first collaborated on Blue Velvet (1986) when Dern was just 19 years old. As a pastel-cardiganed high schooler,

FILM AND TV Dern enters a fevered world of severed ears and sadomasochism--a far cry from the John Hughes’ films she auditioned for at the time. It is a world she has yet to leave: Dern also starred in Wild at Heart, Inland Empire and played the mysterious Dianne in Twin Peaks: The Return. Lynch himself, naturally, remains a close personal friend. Dern told Vulture that their collaboration “just gets better and better”. From the beginning of her career Lynch has given Dern complicated and transgressive characters. She revels in Lynch’s woozy mix of horror, mystery, dark humour and absurdity. For Dern, in taking on a role from Lynch she finds herself “falling in love with these outrageously complicated characters” and for Lynch, Dern’s versatility and emotional commitment to the roles ground his demanding films with a humanity that we may otherwise struggle to see in his imaginative worlds. Dern’s presence on the screen feels as integral to a Lynch film as an Angelo Badalamenti soundtrack. Although Lynch also has many repeat collaborators, Wes Anderson takes things a step further, populating his ensemble casts with multiple actors from his large roster of muses. Anderson’s unique aesthetic of pastels, retro soundtracks and ‘Hipster chic’ is bleakly beautiful with a melancholic air of charm. However, this whimsical aesthetic might easily be dismissed as superficial without exceptional performances from his pool of recurring first-rate actors, including Anjelica Huston, Tilda Swinton, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman. And of course, a Wes Anderson film without Bill Murray is almost unimaginable, whether the role takes the form of a minor cameo

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as in The Darjeeling Limited (sibling rivalry taken to the next level on a trip to India) or of the eponymous star of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (a shark hunt that turns into a Moby Dick-esque odyssey). Murray seems as obsessed with Anderson as Anderson does with him; he always gives Wes an “automatic yes” when the director calls with a new part. Equally, Wes always “write(s) with Bill in mind”. Like other muse-using directors, Anderson gives diverse roles to his actors, ranging from human character to stop motion animal, which prevents typecasting, even within his own filmi-verse. As with any enduring trend in Hollywood, the cult of the director’s muse has been criticised. Some argue that the artist/ muse model for casting is outdated and that these cosy creative companionships prevent new talent from having their own ‘big break’. Whilst this is true to an extent it is important to note that Lynch cast Dern when she was finding it hard to break into Hollywood through the mainstream ‘brat pack’ competition, despite her famous parents. Similarly, Farrell was reintroduced as a leading man by Lanthimos after a few years of smaller parts in critically and commercially unsuccessful films. Finally, Anderson’s roles for Murray afforded him the opportunity to break free from his comic typecast, giving him more melancholic and emotionally probing roles. Besides, big star presence allows indie directors to find a larger audience for their work. The Muse model may not be perfect, open as it is to allegations of nepotism, but in the works of Gerwig, Lanthimos, Lynch, and Anderson, the results speak for themselves.

MUSIC

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250 YEARS OF BEETHOVEN

RUTH THRUSH ON THE LEGACY OF LUDWIG

nniversaries are anxious things. To celebrate an anniversary is to honour a memory; it is to provide a timely focus for a constant remembering. The anniversary is the point at which memory can unite the past and the present. But anniversaries are also reminders that we must remember to remember; in other words, anniversaries monitor memory as much as they celebrate it. The anniversary measures distance. Behind every anniversary there is a relief that we haven’t yet forgotten, and a fear that we might one day forget. Anniversaries are also dangerous things. Combining memory and loss is a risky game; one usually subsumes the other. As such, I have treated the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth with excitement and caution in equal measures. I spent most of Hilary term justifying my time spent on as many concerts and recitals as possible with the maxim that ‘there’s no such thing as too much Beethoven’. But is too much Beethoven really what this anniversary is offering? An empiricist would answer with a straightforward ‘yes’; you’d be hard pressed to find an orchestra that hasn’t committed to a Beethoven season, or get to the end of the day without hearing a piece of Beethoven on the radio. But if Beethoven teaches us anything, it is surely that there are things in life for which empiricism cannot account. I worry that it is precisely these things that are lost in a celebration that, at its best, groups a diverse corpus of music under one year and, at its worst, defines a whole array of musical experiences only in terms of the ‘genius’ that instigated them. I don’t know that Beethoven was a genius, but I do know that he was a revolutionary. This was not a Marxist revolution or ‘violent overthrow’ of old structures, but rather a musical revolution of tact, one that held the hand of Classical music and led it to a new age of Romanticism. It was a revo-

lution of maturing, but also of awakening. It was not, however, something that happened 250 years ago, but something that is happening every time anyone listens to a piece of music by Beethoven. In the first few bars of the Eroica, for example, we place ourselves at the eve of revolution, listening to the music growing, and rebelling, bar by bar; we are introduced to new ways of listening, which means new ways of understanding and experiencing the world. Beethoven was able to compose scores that fundamentally changed the

scope o f music, but, more importantly, those same scores are able to continually recompose our emotional and experiential capacity each time we listen to them. In this respect, the celebration of Beethoven this year gives us too little Beethoven: too little of the spirit and passion of his music. It is extremely difficult to understand Beethoven’s music through a singular, uniform Beethoven, perhaps because CHERWELL

no such man exists. There is the Beethoven who wrote the Emperor piano concerto, the Beethoven who wrote the Pastoral symphony, the Beethoven who wrote Fidelo, and all shades of musical mannerisms in between. To define the composer by the work is impossible; to define the work by the composer is reductive in the extreme. If we are to appreciate Beethoven and his music in their fullest, most multifaceted forms, we should focus not on breath of composition but on depth. And if we are to focus on depth of composition, then we must consider the variety of ways in which Beethoven’s work can be received and experienced. In doing so, I think, we are able to explore Beethoven’s legacy and influence in the most genuine and sincere way. We might turn here to Beethoven’s far-reaching influence. Virginia Woolf, for example, wrote The Waves while Beethoven played on her gramophone: “it occurred to me last night while listening to a late Beethoven quartet,” she writes, “that I would […] end with the words ‘O Solitude’ […] This is also to show that the effort dominates—not the waves—and personality and defiance.” T.S Eliot, too, looked to Beethoven for ways in which to develop his writing: he wanted to “get beyond poetry, as Beethoven in his later works strove to get beyond music.” As important as considering the reach of Beethoven’s music, however, is the necessity of engaging with our own experiences of his music. Celebrating Beethoven is not a matter of having an impression of his music, but of allowing the music to continually make impressions upon us. That is to say we must allow ourselves not only to be touched by the music, but to be marked by it. If we do so successfully, it will not take anniversaries to remind us to remember, because we will understand the world through a music which is impossible to forget. Illustration

Charlotte

Bunney.

CULCHER

BOOKS

THE DANGERS OF GENRE-LISATION DOT FOSTER CHALLENGES POPULAR PREJUDICE TOWARDS THE ROMANCE GENRE

n one week, the television adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People was played on iPlayer 21.8 million times, breaking all records. This should come as no surprise; romantic fiction averages $1.1 billion per year in a digital era of dwindling book sales. It is the most popular fiction genres. Yet this is a type of writing dismissed as unimaginative and escapist – for reading under covers in the dark, or lying on a beach. Culturally contextualised as light reading, some figures in the literary world view the romance novel, to use Anne Eike’s simile, as “bubble gum for the mind” or as Jennifer Egan calls it, “very derivative, banal stuff”. 84% of romance novel readers are women and 41% of them are between 30 and 54 years old. Imagine a dissatisfied housewife reading about the lives she cannot have. But this stereotype, born in 1970s America when the romance novel genre gained momentum with the 2nd wave feminist movement, is less use-

FRIDAY FAVOURITE: The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells

avid Wallace-Wells delivers a grave warning to us all: we cannot keep ignoring the climate crisis we face. That is not to say that the book is ‘preachy’, telling us what we should and shouldn’t do in order to fend off climate catastrophe. In fact, no clear solutions are recommended, although Wallace-Wells acknowledges that we do have all the necessary resources to go about improving the situation still available to us. He writes with sometimes jarring clarity about the effects our current behaviour will have – and is already having – on the planet’s climate. There are facts upon facts thrown at you about a whole host of troubles, from ‘Hunger’ and ‘Drowning’ to ‘Wildfire’. A lot of what he says is based on estimates, or recent trends. If humans change their habits, so will by Kristina Fox the impacts change.

ful today. Rita Felski says that “Romance undoubtedly feeds a craving to be totally loved or admired, proffering a momentary release from the mediocre and mundane”. If so, what it offers is exactly what it is criticised for. How can we generalise a genre which gives us not only the Mills and Boon hardback and the ‘rapetastic’ bodice-ripper of the ‘70s, as Sarah Wendell describes them, but also Austen’s astutely observed drawing-rooms and Charlotte Brontë’s sharp protagonists? As Robin Lynne points out, “Romance novels are as feminist, or anti-feminist, as anything else in our society…but most of the novels we’re talking about are produced within a society that is heteronormative and patriarchal.” The genre can be used at points to put women in their place and it can be subverted to do the opposite as well. We should recognise that it is in this tradition that the teenage anguish of Sally Rooney’s 20-somethings critiques as well as captures our contemporary moment. Romance is the domain of female authors. Derived from the Latin word ‘auctor’ (to grow or originate) ‘author’ implies an ‘originator’ as a textual authority. Authority is what is at issue here. The romance genre reveals the fault lines of power relations and of cultural authority. Nora Roberts is a romance author who has a global influence on a record-breaking scale. An average of 27 of her books are sold every minute; they have spent a total of 1,045 weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list and nearly four years at number one. If you placed the 400 millions copies top to bottom, they would stretch across the United States from New York to Los Angeles 18 times. What does Roberts have to say about her success? In a 2011 interview she said there is “more than a streak of misogyny” in how romance is received. “All some people see is the big R…I’ve made my career on my own terms and that doesn’t necessarily suit the likes of the New York Times book review…They don’t see that as legitimate. But it’s insulting towards CHERWELL

millions of people...Every book read for pleasure should be celebrated.” Roberts wanted to write stories that were empowering: “I don’t want to be the secretary, I want to be the boss. I didn’t want to write the kind of story where the man treats the woman like shit for the entire book and in the last chapter he tells her, “I treated you like shit because I love you.”’ Roberts, who in 2011 was making roughly $60 million per year, has a prodigious output, writing for hours everyday, and hase gained a devoted readership. Many consider her ‘genre-defining’. Certainly, her novels have been powerful, for her readers, for her, and for the cultural contextualisation of the romance novel itself. So why is romance continually dismissed as unrealistic, a guilty pleasure that gives its readers false expectations? For E.C Miller, this seems like a way “to disparage, dismiss, and discount women’s stories, equality, needs, and desires”. I think it is so popular because of how it transforms reality, much like they colour-edit movies; making images, experiences, voices seem dreamlike. Oscar Wilde once said, “Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.” Wilde is right; these texts provide a space for women’s fantasies and sexuality to be explored, aspects of womanhood that most articulate female power. Generalisations are dangerous and yet it remains true that romance is fiction written mostly by women, mostly for women and mostly faces criticism rather than critical approbation. Crime and detective novels, which often follow similar formulaic patterns but are mainly written by men, are not dismissed in the same way. If a man does write a romance novel, as Nora Roberts says “they call it something else. And it gets reviewed and made into a movie.”

T H E S OU R C E

Life is all stillness and all movement. Time moves in the chattering of a bird and the settling of a leaf. Curated by Mimi Pattinson

SUN SETS, SMALL TOWN Anna King

“It is a divine precedent/you perpetuate! Roll on, reels of celluloid, as the great earth rolls on!” A silvery brand sways from my neck, and whispers truths grown old; still I find myself running with my legs pressed shut, led by a ghostly smile printed on my small oblivion, the way to new Jerusalem. The poet’s choice chimes sweeter than cowardice, so let me clutch at fragile nothings, not slip sudden down insincere glass I’d drink a thousand mediocre perhapses, trace paradise with crooked floorboards and woeful stains. Ask me again, how my hunt progresses, as long as I know you feast on the paltry spoils – so will we walk unremarkable streets, and love them? These are dusk-addled plans, arresting only in their foolishness. Food for fuckwits, enchanting missteps – So the masks are sloughed off, and my heart stretches a shining ladder, reaches – – does the body bind me here, in old wallpaper and new longing? Or do I dwell in fabricated grace? Hypocrisy creeps, as the night seals itself up over coarse red rooves and the rooks tear open old yearning, grown stale. Did I stare too long above the traitorous tracks, as you, beautiful place, flew away? If I had turned my head and seen my infancy approach, Would you have come back to me? and if I seek you now, in the quagmire, God knows you will have changed. How ridiculous we are. Fuck it, swallow these sobs like rum; I’ve faith in somewhere, and cast my visions – lurid in the sky, and violent, fragile as a clandestine glass; stronger than its contents. Still the sun breaks, bleeds away, devours my conjecture; I don’t know if life will disappoint us, and I clutch tight the infant dream and as Ingrid, I grow sick on wondering

Affairs

Helena Aeberli Mild winter. In the tree by the window blue tits chatter. Bright buds of life against bare brown bones. Downstairs the radio hums warnings. My mother cleans methodically obsessively the way I read poetry or watch a blue tit build a not-yet nest balanced black against the sky as newsprint on a paper

already out of date.

Wind catches the branches live wires shaking like landmines or arms holding someone they love. Outside a stranger sweeps debris, dead leaves crackle wildfires an airplane roars the sky gasps open. Still, the radio is talking. We are all watching, silent save the birds who sing.

Illustrations by Isabella Lill

LIFE

BLACK TRAUMA PORN, SLACKTIVISM, AND CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE ACTIVIST SOUL BY KANENGO DIALLO TW: racism, police brutality, racial violence.

he torrential online aftermath of the murder of a black man: posts mourning fallen black victims, names added to a growing list, and a disturbingly large amount of hits that videos and photos of a slain man can garner while making rounds on the web. This part of the revolution will be televised. But it will also be live, and internal. I can’t begin to piece together the disgust that’s been mounting inside of me for the past week - going on years; for both the systems that scorch black people and for the insensitivity that rises from its ashes. Every. Single. Time. For many black people, the anguish we continue to live through is pushed down to a familiar place of throbbing dullness, and it’s hard to swallow. We’re tired of explaining why we deserve to be alive. With heavy hearts, conversations about racism continue to carve out our most intimate relationships and most public interactions. I’ve seen many debates circulating about virtue signalling - that is, posting about BLM, and white privilege when you’re not black is performative and helps ease a sense of white guilt that’s inevitably

bubbled up. Perhaps you’ve said a microaggressive or racist comment in the past (‘I’m colourblind ahaha’, ‘we’re all people, so race doesn’t really matter to me lol’, ‘can I touch your hair?!’, thought it was okay to say the n-word when you aren’t black, ‘you’re so well-spoken!’, etc.). It’s dawned on you, and you are fearful of the way that your silence may be perceived today. Good. Now do something about it. Silence and neutrality are exercises of privilege and

“PLEASE DON’T CALL ACTIVISM A TREND.” dangerous forms of complicity. For many of us, social media is the most accessible way to gain and spread knowledge. Still, this debate raises another critical issue: everyone should involve themselves in dialogues about racism - because everyone is involved - but for white people, there are appropriate ways to go about it. For one, sharing alarming and sensationalist posts on social media is incredibly insensitive, and ultimately desensitising. I’ve had to CHERWELL

scroll through stories of George Floyd’s body blasted into multidimensionality, his execution is public and reposted for clicks and likes, and the act of this is vile. A knee pressed to his neck and pleas for air were Floyd’s modern-day lynching, and these images are haunting, forcing many to consider them as possible outcomes for the black men in their lives. As countless others have pointed out, if it takes a violent picture to rouse your awareness, reflection, and interest in researching systemic racism, that’s a huge problem. Showing brutal footage of black bodies being harmed or killed is a form of ‘black trauma porn’, and its effects are devastating. Zanta Nkumane writes in more detail on the issue, and articulates its premise very well: the ‘structural autonomy of whiteness seems to derive a warped pleasure at seeing black pain shared’. This claim isn’t to erase this violence from the media, far from it actually. Alongside cultural appropriation, tokenising black activist voices, and fetishising black people, but then never speaking up about racism in a meaningful way, black trauma porn ranks way up there on the list of ways that people abstract real human lives from devastating acts. It’s voyeuristic and strips a person of dignity, casting them as a necessary martyr for the education of

LIFE the public. There are more humane ways to raise awareness without prolonging the grief of those affected by Floyd’s death. Share meaningful posts, talk about it, donate if you can. Listen and read. Black trauma porn feeds into a broader discussion on the media’s curation of black stories: blackness is violent and a death sentence, and can only be depicted as so, it seems. I ask you to scrutinise your social media feeds, how many black figures do you follow? How much of your feed is permeated by violent images when instances of police brutality occur, but otherwise remains free of humanising, mundane stories and pictures of black people? Instagram is an excellent place to begin your search for more information on police brutality, but dinky, colourful ‘RIP’ or ‘#Blacklivesmatter tag 10’ posts aren’t going to cut it. They’re not informative and are far from exhaustive on the matter. Police brutality runs deeper and further back before the inception of the seminal Black Lives Matter movement. It severely affects black women (search up ‘misogynoir’), black trans people, black disabled people, black queer people, black children - I could go on. These identities are also harmed, and often, never filmed or brought to the

media’s attention. Please don’t call activism a trend. It’s devastating and reflects how the world has fundamentally failed us. When Amy Cooper yelled ‘an African-American man is threatening my life’, she stressed and heaved out ‘African-American’ because she knew exactly what it meant in America’s racist justice and law enforcement systems. She weaponised her whiteness, and even Christian Cooper’s ‘exceptionalism’ as a Harvard grad, couldn’t shield him from this. This, alongside Trump calling the Minneapolis protesters ‘thugs’ - that when the ‘looting starts, the shooting starts’ - reveals an insidious layer of the binary ‘good vs bad victim’ afterthought that pervades racist incidents: that these killings are somehow justifiable as retribution for the ‘thuggish’ behaviour of black men. It’s laughable. For fellow black activists, it’s a difficult time to feel safe and stable. Look after yourself, and sometimes that means taking a break from social media for a while and removing yourself from triggering conversations. Self-care can also mean visibly engaging in important discourses, sharing your personal stories, and protesting. All of

these can feel very cathartic and restore a sense of agency. There is no right or wrong way to deal with this collective sense of trauma. For white people and non-black PoC, first sit in discomfort if you think you’ve been complicit in discrimination towards black people, let your skin crawl and then do something about it going forward. Don’t log out from social media. Let all of this saturate your timeline. Combat anti-blackness and your implicit biases, check your privilege, check on your black friends, ask questions if you don’t understand, and discuss them with other white people. Call out the racist remarks of your non-black friends even when there aren’t black people around. You’ll make mistakes, but don’t make it about you. It’s easy to feel immobile, as though there’s nothing you can do to make a sizable difference. There is so much that you can do. Educate yourself on the appropriate ways to engage in conversations about race (i.e. less social media slacktivism and a lot more researching, listening, and meaningful interactions). Uplift black voices but don’t leave race discussions up to us alone - it really does fall on everyone’s shoulders.

SOCIAL MEDIA ROUND-UP My step-sister is 10 years older than me. She is super driven, is starting a great and lucrative career and is a genuinely kind and loving person. For the last 7 years she’s been dating someone who she met at uni but who is rude, unkind, and pretty awkward. It’s been so long but how do I tell her that they should break up?? Evening. Your step-sister sounds like a cracking girl – reminds me of my cousin, who aged 53 managed to somehow bag herself a 20-year-old flamenco teacher and villa in Valencia, all whilst holding down an extremely impressive job. I was accused of being ‘jealous’, but I was just intrigued by her luck really, honestly surprised, shocked. No, don’t get me wrong I love her to bits, she is just a slimy, conniving little bitch. Where was I – your step-sister. Have you always felt this way about her partner? If your sister really loves them, do you think you could dig deep and learn to reconcile your differences? Don’t get me wrong, Craig really grates on me, flicking his hands here and flipping his cape there – but my cousin adored him, and I had to do my best to live with it; the flicking and the flipping were incredibly awkward (nay rude, especially over a roast), but she enjoyed it, and therefore we made ourselves enjoy it, too. You might have to continue putting up with it, I’m sorry to say. Sacrifice your own distaste of this person for your step-sister’s happiness. Now, it’s a different conversation if her partner is being unkind to you and/ or her, in which case it might be time to step in. CHERWELL

LIFE Eve Spanish & German LMH

Thomas History St Catz

CHERPSE

Taking you back to the glorious days of Chatroulette, Cherwell Virtual Blind Dates is bringing love to your computer screen. Introducing Eve and Thomas...

First impressions? He had a very impressive bookshelf! Did it meet up to your expectations? I am no good at blind dates so I was fearing the worst, but I did really enjoy it - a nice break from essay reading! What was the highlight? A particularly enlightening conversation about rival drug dealers who used ice-cream vans as a front for an all-out turf war.

First impressions? Given that I’d misread the invite link email the day before and accidentally missed our time slot, initially I was just relieved that she hadn’t given up on me. Did it meet up to your expectations? Talking on Zoom to someone you’ve never met is always going to be a bit strange, but I’d say I was pleasantly surprised, although everything we talked about did inevitably seem to come back to the topic of coronavirus. What was the highlight? In all honesty, the best part about it was just talking to someone new.

What was the most embarrassing moment? When he didn’t show up the first time round and I thought I’d been stood up (turns out he just got the times mixed up).

What was the most embarrassing moment? When I looked her up on Facebook afterwards and realized that the reason why her name seemed familiar was that I’d watched one of her YouTube videos before my Oxford interview.

Describe the date in 3 words: Wholesome, chill and funny

Describe the date in 3 words: Chill quarantine chat

Is a second date on the cards? Considering I’m about to go on my year abroad it would probably just have to be as friends!

Is a second date on the cards? She’s going on her year abroad in the next few months, so it seems unlikely.

John Evelyn

ohn Evelyn regrets to inform readers that this entry will be a short one. Now is not the time for levity, now is the time for justice.

CHERWELL

SPORT Brits abroad: Is Sancho’s success the start of a new era? By Thomas Lyne

ith the Premier League’s restart scheduled for the 17th June, most English clubs are only just reintroducing contact training. But not all British players have had to wait so long to return to competitive football. As the first month of the Bundesliga draws to a close, Jadon Sancho has already had more than enough time to get back into his stride with Borussia Dortmund. On the 26th May, in the BBC’s in-depth analysis of his career so far, Sancho was identified as Lionel Messi’s potential longterm successor. Five days down the line, as if responding to the lofty comparison, Sancho scored the first hat-trick of his career in Dortmund’s 6-1 drubbing of bottom-of-the-table Paderborn. This makes him the first English player to score a hat-trick in a major European league beyond England in 31 years. Sancho will need to find 53 more where that came from if he wants to match Messi’s record, but having become the highest-scoring teenager in Bundesliga history, he has made quite the start to his career in Germany. It has been years since a young player has generated this much hype. But perhaps the most striking thing is the fact that he’s not based in England. Here we have a 20-year-old English winger sitting in a comfortable third in the Bundesliga Top Scorers, behind only Robert Lewandowski and Timo Werner. The best English players, so we are told, should play in the ‘best’ league in the world, the Premier League. After all, of the 115 players in the last five England World Cup squads,

only David Beckham in 2006 wasn’t playing domestically. Something about Sancho’s rise still doesn’t feel quite right. Things are rarely so easy for Brits who stray away from the ‘comfort’ of the Home Nations. We need only cast our minds back to November last year, when Gareth Bale held up a sign reading ‘Wales. Golf. Madrid. In that order’ while celebrating qualification for Euro 2020 with Wales. “I’m playing, but I wouldn’t say I’m playing happily,” he had remarked in August. Bale’s time in Madrid has been a tale of constant conflict with the Spanish media, and his failure to prove his mettle as a linguist hasn’t helped diffuse the situation. His compatriot Aaron Ramsey, with only 9 starts in his first season at Juventus, looks to be going down a worrying path as well. Although Bale remains the highest-profile ‘Brit abroad’, there is a new generation of elite British players choosing to hone their skills overseas. Sancho, without a doubt, is its poster-boy. As he shatters record after record, one begins to wonder whether the spectres of past British failures are being dispelled. An increasing number of established England internationals are finding their feet abroad. The success of Kieran Trippier at Atlético Madrid and of Chris Smalling at Roma has been particularly striking in their first years away. Trippier has produced more chances than any other La Liga defender this year, and is Atlético’s top tackler, while Smalling has been affectionately nicknamed ‘Smaldini’ in honour of the legendary Milan centre-back Paolo Maldini. CHERWELL

However, it is the success of younger British talents overseas that is truly unprecedented. Their impact has been felt most strongly in the Bundesliga. All of the 8 players who have followed Jadon Sancho to Germany since he signed for Dortmund in August 2017 were under 23 upon arrival. But if we look at the numbers in a European context, the trend doesn’t seem quite so radical. As of the 4th June 2020, there are 35 British players signed on to clubs in the top ten highest-ranking European leagues in the UEFA club coefficient, excluding the Premier League. That’s barely a fifth of the 149 French players playing abroad across the same range of nations. Though the British exodus has been piecemeal at best, for Manchester City, who lost Sancho after failing to guarantee him first-team game time, and the other top Premier League clubs, this should certainly be a wake-up call. City may have scored more goals than any other Premier League team so far this season, but none of them was scored by an academy product. As good as 20-yearold Mancunian Phil Foden is, he won’t be getting on the scoresheet from the bench any time soon. Elite homegrown talents like Sancho have every right to pursue first-team football abroad, and given the unfavourable conditions in the Premier League for emerging players, we cannot blame them if they continue to do so. And if the Premier League’s elite clubs continue to bleed talent, then they only have themselves to blame.

PROFILES

IN CONVERSATION WITH KRIS HALLENGA

ISABELLA COLLETTA SPEAKS TO COPPAFEEL FOUNDER KRIS HALLENGA ABOUT BOOKS, BREAST CANCER AND BOOB BOTS

n 2019 Kris Hallenga posted a letter addressed to her past self on the CoppaFeel website, recognising a decade since she had been diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. Reflecting on everything from successes to failures, she muses at one point “you’re going to like the idea of writing a book but probably never get on with it”. A year on and she is writing her book How to Glitter a Turd after successfully crowd funding for it. Based on her blog of the same name, the book follows Hallenga through her diagnosis and the process of learning to live with a life limiting disease whilst founding a charity. She recognises that her experience of breast cancer is “extraordinary” because “I’ve survived with this for such a long time, which is obviously rare so I really wanted for people to know that a story like this exists. So if someone is diagnosed they know that actually there is someone who survived it for a long time, and it gives people hope.” When I mention the uncertainty she expressed a year ago in her letter as to whether or not she would ever write a book she laughs: “Yeah, I shouldn’t doubt myself like that”. It has now been eleven years since Hallenga was diagnosed with cancer and since CoppaFeel was founded. “I had no knowledge of breast cancer and didn’t know I should be checking my boobs, so I didn’t” she tells me. When she was 23 she found a lump in her breast, “I got it checked out and after 8 months of going back and forth to the GP it was diagnosed as stage 4 breast cancer.” The late diagnosis meant that the cancer had spread from her breast to her spine, and whilst it could be treated it couldn’t be cured. A couple of months later she decided to found CoppaFeel alongside her twin sister Maren, a decision borne in part out of “the frustration and the anger, the whole situation got me really baffled about why no one was telling young people to check their boobs”. From its early beginnings, spreading

breast cancer awareness amongst young people was the drive that pushed CoppaFeel forwards. “We wanted to start a conversation with young people about their boobs,” she says, “to normalise that subject of checking your boobs, touching your boobs.” One of their first steps, before even receiving their charity status, was to go around music festivals and initiate a conversation with young people about breast cancer. From this, the motivation to educate young people about the importance of checking themselves for symptoms grew, even though “we didn’t know how we were going to do that or what success looked like to us, but we had enough evidence from going to festivals and speaking to young people about their boobs that showed that there was a severe lack of knowledge and understanding”. One of the charity’s big aims which continues today is “to stamp out late detection altogether”, Hallenga tells me, and she expresses the determined belief that “cancer doesn’t have to be diagnosed late”. I’m curious as to how she learned to define success during the early stages of the charity’s foundation, and particularly as it began to slowly grow in the public’s consciousness. For her, it was when the first person who informed them that their message had helped her to be diagnosed early which “became the indication that what we were doing was having some impact”. As individual stories began to flood in, “success suddenly became evidence, anecdotal evidence from these young people saying ‘I was diagnosed early because of you guys’”. CHERWELL

Alongside talks at schools and universities, CoppaFeel have maintained their campaigning work at festivals, have hosted flash mobs and they’ve launched a number of successful social media campaigns with numerous companies. Throughout it all the charity has maintained a positive tone in their education, since “the truth of the matter is you’re talking about boobs and getting to know your boobs isn’t a scary conversation”, Hallenga suggests. “Cancer, the realities of cancer, are, obviously. But people don’t even have to consider what life with cancer is like they just need to check their boobs.” Avoiding the topic of coronavirus would be impossible, and charities are particularly struggling with the challenges the pandemic has created. However, CoppaFeel has continued to find new ways to

PROFILES spread awareness and continue key aspects of their work. “I think we are really lucky cause we are quite a digitally savvy organisation anyway” Hallenga acknowledges, “so it means that we can put a lot of our services online. So our boobettes who usually go out to do talks in schools or workplaces we’ve now set them up to do webinars online instead.” They even have a Boob Bot, a programme on Facebook The column foMessenger which informs you cused on the on how to check your boobs and what to charity’s breast look for in real time. Whilst the organisacancer awareness me s s a g e, tion has adapted to the challenges posed but also allowed Hallenga to share her by going entirely virtual “in terms of story of living with the difficulties of fundraising that’s a far bigger challenge. a life-limiting illness. She’s previously Because a lot of events have been cancelled described how the column became a kind and a lot of people are obviously thinking of therapy for her, because “it allowed about money, so it’s a real challenge for all me to express what it was like living with charities right now.” cancer, and that’s not something you tend Especially as one of the smaller breast to read about in newspapers. It was just cancer charities, the long term implicaa normal person with a very abnormal tions of the pandemic presents a concern. story, sharing what life was like.” But Hallenga has worked to create a strong As the column progressed, its impact voice for CoppaFeel since founding it, and began to parallel the early success of in 2014 she was asked if her life and work CoppaFeel, and people began to send in could become the focus of a BBC docuanecdotes and stories of how the cammentary. Opening up about her experipaign encouraged them to get symptoms ences of living with stage 4 cancer whilst checked. By the end of the eight month running a charity on camera presented its campaign, there had been a real movechallenges. “At first it was quite hard to ment in national awareness of breast do”, she tells me, “I found the video diaries cancer. “We saw such a huge shift in the the worst, I just found them so awkward checking behaviours of the people who to do.” However the process of filming and read The Sun compared to other papers,” building rapport with the crew allowed the she comments, “and we can kind of go film to become therapeutic, and speaking ‘do you know what, we can prove that to a camera “sort of became really this has made some change’”. natural and I think that’s The eight month campaign “Getting what has made the film so not simply drove forward to know your successful because it’s been the charity’s central camvery authentic, and very boobs isn’t a scary paigning message, but also real and very raw”. conversation.” gave a rare opportunity for Hallenga has also spoken CoppaFeel to embed itself in openly about breast cancer and the national consciousness; as the reality of living with the disease in Hallenga explains, “small charities don’t various newspapers and magazines. But it get opportunities like that very often”. was the Check ‘em Tuesday campaign she For a charity such as CoppaFeel, whose ran with CoppaFeel in The Sun in the form central intention is to spread a message of a weekly column which truly propelled of awareness, publicity such as this is the charity into the national consciousimportant. National attention from the ness. This was “monumental” she says, film Kris: Dying to Live and the charity’s because “it kind of got a health message column with The Sun only propelled the into a paper every week for eight months”. organisation’s message further, and in CHERWELL

July 2017 cancer awareness and education was put on the primary and secondary school syllabus. “I mean that was amazing,” Hallenga recalls, “the day we realised that getting something written up in the curriculum that was potentially going to really help people was incredible”. Achievements like this should be celebrated, but she is quick to remind that the work is never done. She moves onto new projects quickly, but she suggests that the celebration is important in maintaining the drive: “I guess in a way you’re more motivated to keep going and it keeps the momentum going, which is great.” Given the current circumstances, judging what the future holds for CoppaFeel is challenging. Hallenga stepped down from the position of CEO of the charity in 2016, a move which she describes as “a dream come true”. Since founding it in 2009, she affirms that the charity has grown to a stage where it no longer requires her to lead it, and for her, the combined role of founder and CEO is not always a helpful position. “I just don’t think founder should run charities for ever, I think it can really hinder them” she explains, “and I also wanted to be able to step away at my own choice, at my own decision and not at the result of a new cancer progression”. However, she still works closely with the charity and continues to work around breast cancer awareness and education. For Hallenga, it’s a message that continues to be incredibly vital, and continuing education confirms her optimism that in the future “I really believe that cancer will be looked at as this thing that happened, that doesn’t kill people anymore”.

FOOD

DALGONA 2: MORE DALGONA

Bella Cooper-Brown

y most recent article (Do It For The Gram: Dalgona Heartbreak) was not what I wanted it to be. I set out to do a fun spin on the Dalgona coffee trend, and I emerged coffee-less, trendless, and feeling just a little bit hopeless. My main takeaway? Failing to prepare is indeed preparing to fail, and boy have I learned my lesson. This time, I don’t just have three flavours of Nesquik and a can-do attitude. I’m also armed with instant coffee – in hindsight, this should have been the first thing I bought, not the last – and whipping cream. I may have fallen at the first hurdle, but I won’t let that clip my ambitious wings. So, Dalgona coffee. Same recipe as last time: two tablespoons of granulated sugar, two tablespoons of boiling water, and two tablespoons of instant coffee. Whisk it until it’s all fluffy, and spoon over iced milk. ‘Vindication,’ I whisper to myself as the coffee begins to take form. I can’t tell you how good it feels to see this. Then I taste it and instantly spit it out into the sink. Disgustingly bitter. Dedicated to

Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The sequel I asked for, then lived to regret. Bonus round: whipped banana milk. Two tablespoons of banana Nesquik, ½ a cup of whipping cream. This one is my favourite so far because it sounds like an innuendo. Beat until stiff. Level Four: whipped chocolate milk. unbiased journalism, to perhaps an This is the first one I tried last time. unethical degree, I ask my brother to It’s been a long journey, but I think I’m try it out. He says it’s far too sweet. ready. It appears the years of my Diet Coke My God. It’s chocolate mousse. addiction have damaged my tastebuds A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome beyond repair. one. Definitely the best one - I mean Emboldened, I was ready to take on it’s literally whipped chocolate cream. Level Two. Whipped mocha. This was The only one I’m likely to make again. basically the same I end up taking the “A I N’T SH E thing, but I added a whipped cream out BE AU T I F U L? T H IS of the glass and tablespoon of Nesquik Extra-Choc. Hmm. L OOK S L I K E W H AT spooning it over E L L E WOODS Structurally unsound. strawberries instead. WOU L D DR E A M Still tastes like the A culinary success! U P I F SH E E V E R godawful instant cofIs that Le Cordon H A D A COL L A Bfee. Bleu I hear calling? OR AT ION W I T H Close your eyes and Sorry guys, I’m out S TA R BUC K S.” think of England, Bella. of your league.I’ve Power through. gone through a lot of Alright, Level Three, time for a remix. soya milk today. My head hurts. Water Whipped strawberry milk. Two table- tastes… Different. If I were to do this spoons of strawberry Nesquik, ½ a cup again, I probably wouldn’t fuel myself of whipping cream. with an iced cappuccino. Ain’t she beautiful? This looks like Why the dedication? Is there a what Elle Woods would dream up if she Nesquik sponsorship hanging in the ever had a collaboration with Starbucks. balance? Do I hate my doctor that Unfortunately, unlike the blonde legal much? legend, she’s not as good as she looks. Of course not, Dr. Angela and I are on The Nesquik equivalent of a catfish. great terms. But I’m a sucker for a good If this drink were a movie, it’d be Star redemption arc.

CHERWELL

COVER ARTIST: REEM SULTAN

‘LOVERS’

Independent since 1920