TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2016
Penn Ping Pong went undefeated at the national level HYUN JIN CHA Contributing Reporter
It was a clean sweep. On Oct. 22, the Penn ping pong team competed in the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association’s Fall Divisional competition and won every single game it played. After defeating Pillar College, Rowan University, Temple University, the
THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pittsburgh, Penn emerged as the clear victor. “We’ve usually always lost to Penn State. This year we beat them. Yes! The first time during my time at Penn,” College senior and Penn Ping Pong President Zixin Li said, smiling. While Penn Ping Pong is under the Department of Recreation and Club Sports at Penn, the club is full of players who have been playing competitively for years. “I was on the national team briefly in
my freshman year [of high school]. I traveled internationally. I competed in New Caledonia, Canada, and around the U.S.,” College freshman Lucy Ma said. Wharton senior Sho Hashizume was crowned Philadelphia champion of college students as a sophomore and is ranked number one on Penn’s team right now. He is shooting for the title again this year for the upcoming singles tournament in January. With a string of victories, Penn Ping SEE PING PONG PAGE A3 ZACH SHELDON | ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR
TRUMP’S CLASSMATES REACT TO VICTORY PAGE 2
Alum used Reddit to back Trump David Wang hopes to clarify Trump supporters’ views WESLEY SHEKER Contributing Reporter
Now, maybe more than ever, we can demand change that rises above the winds of politics.”
- Aaron Cooper
PAGE 4
TORGERSEN’S FINAL CHAPTER PAGE B1
One Penn graduate not only supported President-elect Donald Trump in the months leading up to the election, but was also a vocal advocate online. David Wang, 2015 Wharton and Engineering graduate, said he worked as a key Trump “constituent” prior to the election on Nov. 8. After interviewing Trump supporters as part of market research for a merchandizing venture, he soon realized that he sympathized with the problems many Trump supporters were facing in their lives. He said he continued to talk to voters and began to realize that his views — some of which he described as progressive — could map onto Trump’s candidacy. Wang found himself especially sympathetic to voters’ frustration with stagnant wages, which he characterizes
as one of the major drivers of support for Trump. “People are really angry at the government. Really angry,” he said. According to the Pew Research Center, real wages are approximately the same today as in 1964. Wang compared Trump supporters’ anger over this issue to the French Revolution. “They’re talking about the French Revolution,” he said, “cutting off heads if they don’t see any improvement, because it’s been like this for the past thirty years from their perspective.” To generate support and awareness for Trump, Wang claims he was one of the moderators on the subreddit of the Reddit discussion forum, r/The_Donald. “I helped establish the online support base at Reddit ... I’m part of the core constituents, of supporters, when Trump wasn’t even known.” The subreddit, which had 292,333 subscribers as of Nov. 14, appears to SEE REDDIT PAGE A3
Warby Parker co-founder expresses solidarity in letter Campus was shaken last week by racist messages
LAUREN SORANTINO Staff Reporter
Today’s issue of The Daily Pennsylvanian is dominated by one advertisement — five-pages containing over 3,200 alumni signatures and an open letter expressing solidarity with the Penn community after the recent racist GroupMe messages targeting freshmen students of color rocked campus on Friday. Neil Blumenthal, a 2010 graduate of the Wharton MBA program
FOLLOW US @DAILYPENN FOR THE LATEST UPDATES
Penn prof analyzes student protests
Protesters should avoid cycle of “investment and disappointment”
JINAH KIM Staff Reporter
SEE LETTER PAGE A8
JULIO SOSA | ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR
David Wang, 2015 Wharton and Engineering graduate, says he hopes to rectify misconcpetions about Trump supporters in order to bring together the divisive nation.
Penn’s administration is no stranger to protests. Just last week, students from Fossil Free Penn staged a sit-in outside Penn President Amy Gutmann’s office to urge transparency in its reasons for declining to divest from fossil fuels. But student protests criticizing the administration are not necessarily the most effective, according to Graduate School of Education professor Jonathan Zimmerman. COURTESY OF CREATIVE COMMONS
SEE PROTEST PAGE A5
ONLINE 7 DAYS A WEEK AT THEDP.COM