April 6, 2018

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Friday April 6, 2018 vol. CXLII no. 38

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } IN TOWN

ON CAMPUS

Princeton Public, Charter schools reach settlement Assistant News Editor

A few weeks after a Princeton Public Schools board member offered an “olive branch” to the Princeton Charter School, a settlement negotiation process between the two parties is now underway. The negotiation process seeks to resolve the lawsuit initiated by PPS, which asserted that PCS had violated New Jersey’s Open Public Meeting Act during a meeting about expansion.

The relationship between PCS and PPS has been contentious for some time. Concerned parents founded PCS in 1997 because they were unsatisfied with the education offered by the public schools. A debate erupted in late 2016 when PCS submitted a request to the New Jersey Department of Education to expand enrollment by 76 students within the next two years. PCS also planned to add a weighted lottery, where students will be selected for admission randomly. Students whose families receive certain types of public assistance, however, would be entered into the lottery twice.

PCS has already added 54 of these 76 students and is looking to enter the remaining 22 later this year. The weighted lottery system is also now in place.

At a March 20 board meeting, PPS board member Dafna Kendal made a suggestion for a deal: PPS would cease its litigation opposing PCS expansion if PCS agreed to decrease its number of admitted students.

At the meeting, Kendal said that she believed the measures she proposed would be cost-saving for the district. She declined to comment further to the Daily Princetonian, citing the ongoing settlement process which prevents her from making comment.

However, Kendal did add that she hopes the “community comes together” as talks for a settlement move forward. She also emphasized that she was speaking for herself and not on behalf of the rest of the board.

Paul Josephson, president of the PCS Board of Trustees, declined to comment, also citing the ongoing negotiations.

“Because of the ongoing settlement process, the parties have agreed, at Judge Peterson’s suggestion, to not discuss these matters in the press,” Josephson said.

Josephson had previously told centraljersey.com that the charter school would be “open to any conversation.” At the same time, he emphasized that the spot of any child offered admission to PCS via its lottery process “will be protected.”

Dudley Sipprelle, chairman of the Princeton Republican Committee, told the ‘Prince’ that, as an advocate of school choice, he hopes a settlement would not affect PCS. Sipprelle said that he believes the fate of PCS expansion should be decided based upon the school’s merits and not be inf luenced by PPS intervention.

The mere fact that the state of New Jersey approved PCS expansion, he explained, ref lects the school’s quality.

“That’s the way a free market economy works. The person or the organization that gives the best services is going to have the highest demand for its product,” Sipprelle continued. “The fact of the matter is that more people are applying to the Charter School than they can squeeze in, which is why they asked and got approval for expansion.”

Sipprelle also disagrees with Kendal’s argument at the March 20 school board meeting. For Sipprelle, a decision for PCS to admit fewer students would be costly. “[PPS] is avoiding the fact that those students still have to be educated,” explained Sipprelle. “If they were to come back into the regular public schools, they’d have to go back to [PPS] classes, and the expenses of the public school … are much higher per pupil than the Charter School’s expenses.”

There is no indication of the specifics of the settlement at the time of publication.

COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Princeton Public Schools board member Dafna Kendal proposed that the charter school enroll fewer students.

In Opinion

Columnist Allison Huang discusses her experience in Princeton’s diverse community, contributing columnist Maya Eashwaran questions authority figures, guest contributor Jonathan Lu urges students to assuage their political differences with conversation, and more. PAGE 4

NEHA CHAUHAN :: DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Postdoctoral research associate Michael Wolovick recently published an article in Nature.

Wolovick plays it cool, explaining his potential solution to glacial melting

By Neha Chauhan Staff Writer

Sea level rise is a much discussed symptom of climate change. While some ideas for curbing glacial melting have been proposed, few geoengineering solutions have been implemented. However, current research

by University postdoctoral research associate Michael Wolovick indicates that there exists a practical solution for glacial melting.

Wolovick is currently investigating glacial sills, or walls made of rock and silt, as a way to block glaciers from exposure to warm water and

keep them from melting.

“It’s not a particularly high-tech structure,” said Wolovick, “But the idea is we want to do something about the great ice sheet instability.”

Wolovick explained that glaciers grounded on bedrock below sea level are vulnerable to runaway retreat, or being diminished by melting. Surface water near glaciers is cold, but warm water under the surface of the ocean melts the glaciers. As they melt, they become even more unstable because the melted water lubricates their contact with the bedrock.

The glacial sills that Wolovick proposes will help relieve these issues by

IN TOWN

blocking the glaciers from warm water. They will also physically stabilize the ice shelves because the glaciers will be able to touch down on them.

The destabilization caused by melted water between the glacier and bedrock would not be helped by the sills alone. However, holes could also be drilled into the rock beneath ice shelves to drain this water, according to a Nature article published by Wolovick in collaboration with three other scientists.

Wolovick’s solution is unusual in its implementation of geoengineering. It is also a more focused solution See WOLOVICK page 2 ON CAMPUS

Town ordered to build Jhumpa more affordable housing Lahiri talks

By Nick Shashkini Staff Writer

On March 8, the town of Princeton was ordered by Mercer County Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson to build 753 new affordable houses. According to Jacobson’s ruling, these units must be constructed by 2025.

“We are gratified to read in the press Fair Share Housing’s positive statements about Judge Jacobson’s ruling. We agree that the housing obligation number found for Princeton is reasonable,” explained Princeton mayor Liz Lempert in statements sent to The Daily Princetonian.

“We look forward to moving on to the planning and building process as part of our continuing commitment to Affordable Housing. We are working on putting forward a sustainable, smart growth plan,” Lempert said.

In the statement, Lempert also mentioned other affordable housing projects that the town has been involved with.

“Princeton has long been committed to building affordable housing, and this commitment shows in the

fact that we have already made significant progress in meeting the obligation set by the court through projects such as Avalon Bay, Merwick Stanworth, and others,” Lempert said.

Additionally, Lempert discussed how further development of affordable housing would benefit the town community.

“The obligation number set by Judge Jacobson is well within the range of what we were expecting, and we feel confident we will be able to present a plan to the court that meets that obligation, adds needed diversity, and energizes our local economy through smart growth planning,” Lempert’s statement concluded.

Lempert declined to comment further.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Dudley Sipprelle, chairman of the Princeton Republican Committee, voiced concerns about the ruling in an interview with the ‘Prince.’

Sipprelle called it a “onesize-fits-all formula pushed on communities without regard to their specificities.”

According to Sipprelle, the ruling is lamentable and offtrack.

See HOUSING page 2

Today on Campus 2 p.m.: Sarah Thompson, the Curator of Japanese Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, presents “Under the Skin: Tattoos in Japanese Prints.”

East Pyne 10

about art, language

By Anne Marie Wright Contributor

On Thursday, Pulitzer Prize winner and University professor of creative writing Jhumpa Lahiri gave a lecture about her personal experience with boundaries and borders through an analysis of avant garde and surrealist artist and writer Leonora Carrington’s paintings and short stories.

According to Lahiri, her infatuation with Carrington’s works began with a Whatsapp message.

A fellow author and friend in Rome sent her a link over the messaging service to an article about Carrington’s writing. After reading the article, Lahiri rushed to Labyrinth Bookstore to pick up a copy of Leonora Carrington’s “Down Below,” an investigation of the experience of madness. When she received the book a week later, she saw the words ‘Princeton University Art Museum’ on the cover and realized that the University owned the piece. According to Lahiri, she was inspired to see Carrington’s works in person, and when she did, she was encouraged to read more of Carrington’s short stories, some of which she shared during the lecture.

See LAHIRI page 2

WEATHER

By Ivy Truong

HIGH

61˚

LOW

36˚

Scattered showers chance of rain:

60 percent

The Daily Princetonian

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Friday April 6, 2018

Lahiri says she is inspired by authors’ multilingual abilities LAHIRI

Continued from page 1

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ANNE MARIE WRIGHT :: DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Jhumpa Lahiri is a prize-winning novelist whose works include “The Namesake” and “The Interpreter of Maladies.”

Lahiri praised Carrington’s ability to cross geographic and linguistic borders in her art and writing.

Carrington had written in English, Spanish, and French, and Lahiri herself writes in English and Italian.

According to Lahiri, she is particularly inspired by authors who write in different languages. For instance, Lahiri mentioned the friend in Rome who sent the initial article.

“She decided to choose English as the language of her creativity,” Lahiri said, emphasizing the unique ability of multilingual authors to express themselves differently in several languages.

Lahiri has also noticed this ability in herself. When in Italy, Lahiri was struck by her peculiar interest in the Italian language. Her ability to express herself in Italian, at first, felt different than her English writing. According to Lahiri, she was even hesitant at first to translate her own works into English, fearful of how her English self would interpret the translation.

In addition to her similarities to Carrington, Lahiri spent most of

the lecture describing “Crookhey Hall,” the cover image of “Down Below.” In her opinion, the image and book embody Carrington’s time institutionalized in a mental hospital in Spain.

Lahiri drew parallels between the image and the book, recognizing the symbol of entrapment in the building that represents both Carrington’s childhood home and the institution. She also described the numerous figures in the painting, especially the most prominent woman in white, displayed in the center of the image, emphasizing her flight from the gloomy scene.

Lahiri also compared Carrington’s art to the plays of Shakespeare, especially “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Romeo and Juliet.” She saw connections to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” elaborating on the idea of movement and the “dream state” represented in “Crookhey Hall.”

“The dream is movement; the dream operates by a sense of motion and there is a sense of velocity in the center of this painting,” she said.

Lahiri focused on five more paintings, including her favorite, “Twins.” For her, “Twins” and “Two Dogs Howling at the Moon” are

darker than the other four works, but she described “Twins” as particularly moving because she sees it as embodying her journey of exploration into her two languages.

“It is the two versions of me,” said Lahiri, speaking of her Italian and English selves. “It is an ongoing conversation about what it means for a writer to decide to cross the linguistic border and write in a language that is not our own.”

Following the lecture, the art museum hosted a reception, where Museum Store employee Shiza Chaudhary described the lecture as “fascinating.” Chaudhary has read Lahiri’s books and was intrigued by both the exploration of different art mediums and how Lahiri resonated with the works, finding connections between her writings and paintings.

“I think it was super cool that it was a writer reflecting on a painter,” Chaudhary explained.

Art museum members Nancy Geiger and Dixie Kirpalani also enjoyed the introduction to the new artist and Lahiri’s interpretations.

The lecture was entitled “Along the Edge” and was sponsored by the Princeton University Art Museum on April 5 as part of Princeton’s Migrations program.

Lempert: Town has been committed Looking for a new to building affordable housing extracurricular?

HOUSING Continued from page 1

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He expressed skepticism about the judge’s capacity to make a decision for Princeton, citing her lack of familiarity with the local community, as well as the lack of public information regarding the process behind her decision.

“Nobody says that housing shouldn’t be affordable, but what this means varies from community to community,” he said. “Princeton’s limited land space makes the values very high. Peo-

ple would like to have affordable housing here, but the fault really lies with the state legislature. They abrogated their responsibility to reform, leaving everything to judges.”

He claimed that the land developers themselves, instead of the residents, would benefit from this decision, as they will be reimbursed with more than the market rate for the houses. He argued that, instead, the state legislature ought to be responsible for coming up with a better alternative.

He added that rising taxes disadvantage the local black

community, whose members currently face greater challenges finding affordable housing in Princeton due to rising property taxes. This challenge will only increase as non-Princeton residents are eligible for affordable housing in town.

“The town’s black community has lived here for centuries, and are now being forced out of the community,” Sipprelle said. “State law says that anyone is eligible to apply for affordable housing. What about our citizens, our community?

They have to move out of the community.”

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Make friends and contribute to an important institution!

Wolovick: We want to do something about the great ice sheet instability WOLOVICK Continued from page 1

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than other proposals to combat climate change, such as Harvard physicist David Keith’s idea of spraying sulfuric acid into the atmosphere.

The sulfuric acid would form sulfate aerosols, particles that would reflect sunlight to compensate for ozone loss.

“I really like how the solution that [Wolovick] suggests is much more local,” said Anushka Dasgupta ’19, comparing it to Keith’s plan. “It’s just a physical barrier, so it seems a lot easier to understand what the impacts of that could be and to undo it if we want to.”

Wolovick is currently testing the proposed sills using computer models. He alters factors from sill size to types of glacier breaking to test the possible forms his idea can take.

“There’s several steps of model complexity that would have to be climbed up before this could ever actually be implemented,” Wolovick said.

The Nature article co-authored

by Wolovick notes that “Antarctica will be the largest contributor” to sea level rise. Wolovick said the first trials of his proposed project on real glaciers would likely be implemented in Greenland, which has smaller gla-

ciers, is more easily accessible, and offers easier placement of the glacial sills than Antarctica. Preliminary testing will reveal whether the sills can then be tested on the larger, more critical glaciers.

Other models for curbing the melting of ice sheets have included pumping water on top of glaciers.

“It’s the only previous work I’ve seen on glacial geoengineering, but I don’t think it’s a good idea,” said Wolovick. One threat of this approach is water drainage through the glacier to the bottom, which would actually lubricate its connection to the bedrock and cause the glacier to melt more rapidly.

Wolovick explained that geoengineering is not a substitute for reducing emissions, as it does not improve other effects of climate change. He cited changes in precipitation patterns, heat waves, and droughts.

“The idea I proposed might not work if the climate warms too much in Antarctica,” Wolovick said. “The sills rely on re-grounding glaciers on bedrock, but with enough surface melting, ice shelves will simply disintegrate.”

Additional study of the glaciers is still needed to determine their melting rates and bed morphologies. Although any intervention is accompanied by some degree of risk, Wolovick and his co-authors write, “the greatest risk is doing nothing.”

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The Daily Princetonian

Friday April 6, 2018

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burn

big cheese­— solutions

tashi treadway ’19 ..................................................

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rachel brill ’19

point of inter-view nathan phan ’19

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Opinion

Friday April 6, 2018

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{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

From one lacrosse player to another Winnie Brandfield-Harvey Contributing Columnist

I

n February, Professor Lawrence Rosen decided to cancel his course on hate speech after receiving criticism for his use of the N-word in a lecture. Defenders of Rosen claimed that he wasn’t using the racial slur intentionally, only using it to prove a point, while his critics said they believe the word was avoidable in the teaching of his lesson. Although many people are aware of this incident, Princeton is not the only community in which the N-word has been said in a controversial context.

Last week, a video was released of the Virginia Tech women’s lacrosse team singing the N-word in Lil Dicky’s new song “Freaky Friday.” In the song, Lil’ Dicky switches bodies with Chris Brown in typical Freaky Friday fashion and realizes he is entitled to say the N-word now, only because he is technically in a black man’s body. The song itself suggests that you can only use the N-word if you are black, which makes the girls’ actions highly ironic.

The video was recorded on Snapchat by one of the players on the team and was later posted to YouTube and released on Twitter. The Twitter user received messages from the player who took the video, asking that they take it

down, pleading that she and her teammates were innocently “singing a song” and she didn’t even realize that the N-word was in the video at the time. She also adds that “I never have any intention of my snapchats going public,” the standard code phrase for: “I’m only sorry I was caught.”

Being a member of the lacrosse team here at Princeton, this incident not only questions the reputation and character of the Virginia Tech women’s team, but also inevitably questions mine as well. While I agree to some extent with their coach who said he considers them “good kids who made a bad decision,” the root of white privilege is still made evident in this player’s remorseful comments. It is a luxury to hear the N-word without the slur eliciting enough of a reaction to recognize that it is being used. It is a luxury to chant the N-word in a song, treating it as any other lyric. White people have these luxuries because the N-word does not carry the same weight for us as it does for black people. For whites, it is a taboo; for blacks, it contains a long, winding history of oppression and injustice.

While the player claims she had no intention of the Snapchat going public, the issue isn’t just about hurting people who heard the video. It goes beyond that: it’s about holding ourselves accountable, especially in the private spaces that we occupy. The girls shouldn’t have had to apologize retroactively. They

should’ve proactively realized it was wrong and not recorded the video in the first place.

Over intersession, each member of my team was required to read and complete exercises in a manual about the responsibilities of being an athlete. When we returned from break, we proceeded to have several meetings about our team standards and what actions we consider to be appropriate on and off the field.

Some of the other standards we strive to uphold are not to curse, to show gratitude to our staff, and most importantly, to treat people with respect around campus.

We may slip up from time to time, perhaps throwing out a curse word during a frustrating practice, but in almost every instance where someone makes a mistake, another player is there to remind them of our values. One of our biggest priorities is being responsible about what we post on social media, and I’ve been on both sides of that. I have had a captain text me about taking down an Instagram in which a can of beer was visible. I have once alerted one of my teammates about a questionable video of hers that was reposted by a popular account. When teammates have the courage to call each other out for inappropriate behaviors, they foster a better culture for each other and those around them.

Some people claim that the Virginia Tech incident is due to the lack of diversity in col-

legiate lacrosse. In the 2016– 2017 year, the NCAA Demographics Database indicates that about 85 percent of both men and women collegiate lacrosse players were white and only about 3 percent were black. The numbers are clear and I do agree that the lacrosse world should take measures to create a more racially balanced future. But even still, these critics place the blame on the sport rather than the players; those girls definitely knew better.

The sport doesn’t shape who a player chooses to be and how to act. The coaches and teammates do that. Every collegiate lacrosse team cannot be implicated as racist and un-diverse just because of Virginia Tech’s bad decisions. In writing this piece, I have no intention of making the Virginia Tech women’s lacrosse team seem malicious or of boasting of the righteousness of my team. Rather, as we know all too well, this discriminatory social media action is a familiar occurrence and will continue to happen if we don’t have important and sometimes uncomfortable discussions within our organizations on campus. My team is learning from this incident, just as Virginia Tech will and other groups should, trying our best every day to be even more aware and considerate as a unit and as individuals.

Winnie Brandfield-Harvey is a sophomore from Houston, Texas. She can be reached at wab2@ princeton.edu.

Students: Let’s heal political discourse

Jonathan Lu

Guest Contributor

P

olitical divisions are higher than ever in our country. A recent Pew Research Survey found that 44 percent of each party’s membership almost never agrees with their opposition —that’s close to half of both parties.

Twenty years ago, the number was less than 20 percent.

Congressional gridlock is extremely high: both parties are obsessed with political survival. We’ve already seen the government shut down once this year. If we can’t work together, we’ll all lose.

As students, we can and should work to heal these political divisions. The solution lies in our very values as students.

The first value that we students all share is evidence. We recognize that we are learners: that knowledge is built not by our own pre-existing beliefs, but by rigorously verified facts.

Consider our solar system.

It would be easy to believe the whole universe revolves around the Earth based on our own intuitions. It took us centuries of experiments to realize that the Earth orbits the Sun. Policies are just like scientific hypotheses — they can be assessed based on evidence. Where has a policy worked before? Where has it been tested? We shouldn’t just support it based on preexisting notions.

So don’t simply retweet a topic without researching.

Consider the call for college campuses to divest from fossil fuels. Intuitively, we may think this is a good way to dissociate ourselves from a harmful fuel source. However, is it the most effective way to get our society as a whole — not just the college — to transition off fossil fuels? A little research will find that the divested stock would simply be bought by another trader — it would not hurt the fossil fuel company as a whole. Some more research would show there are more effective actions that one could take — for example, by pushing for a price on carbon. This policy, supported by economists, environmentalists, and world leaders, would force the fossil fuel companies to pay the price of their pollution. I’m not saying that fossil fuel divestment is not an important action. I am only saying that there ARE other solutions, and that just five minutes of research can reveal which might be better. Considering the fact that we’ve all written 10-page papers as freshmen, five minutes of research is nothing.

We students are also experts at engaging opposing viewpoints. In an academic paper, simply claiming the opposing side is insane will not win the argument. Instead, we articulate their points and address them fully. Sometimes, we concede

that the other side even has a valid point! I’ve experienced this firsthand in my climate change advocacy. Many groups have initially opposed carbon pricing policies, and it would be easy to simply label them as evil polluters.

However, in some cases, the reasons are entirely understandable: for example, energy-intensive, trade-exposed (EITE) businesses would see their overall costs increase substantially and would be competitively disadvantaged.

Rather than simply denounce those businesses, we’ve recognized the concerns and developed a more reasonable policy, giving EITEs transitional relief while still holding them to the best energy efficiency within their sector. That’s what civic engagement should be — everyone getting a say instead of being pushed out of the conversation. Even if you believe that the opposition is completely wrong, addressing their viewpoints can only build your credibility and strengthen your outlook.

Lastly, as students, our focus should be on implementing solutions, not imposing our ideology on those we disagree with. As the youth, we have our futures ahead of us, and it is in our interest to push toward a better future with reasonable policies rather than do nothing that is ideologically inconsistent. The worst we can do is to draw a line in the sand against someone who has dif-

vol. cxlii

editor-in-chief

Marcia Brown ’19 business manager

Ryan Gizzie ’19

BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Thomas E. Weber ’89 vice president Craig Bloom ’88 secretary Betsy L. Minkin ’77 treasurer Douglas J. Widmann ’90 Kathleen Crown William R. Elfers ’71 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 John Horan ’74 Joshua Katz Kathleen Kiely ’77 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Alexia Quadrani Marcelo Rochabrun ’15 Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73 Lisa Belkin ‘82 Francesca Barber trustees emeriti Gregory L. Diskant ’70 Jerry Raymond ’73 Michael E. Seger ’71 Annalyn Swan ’73

142ND MANAGING BOARD managing editors Isabel Hsu ’19 Claire Lee ’19 head news editors Claire Thornton ’19 Jeff Zymeri ’20 associate news editors Allie Spensley ’20 Audrey Spensley ’20 Ariel Chen ’20 associate news and film editor Sarah Warman Hirschfield ’20 head opinion editor Emily Erdos ’19

ferent values. Consider carbon pricing again. I personally support a price on carbon because it can effectively combat climate change. But for those who don’t believe in climate change, it’s still a good policy because it cuts air pollution. For those who care more about businesses than public health, it’s a good policy because it sends a consistent price signal, allowing businesses everywhere to make informed long-term decisions. And for those who are more worried about our national security, it reduces our reliance on fossil fuels from unstable regimes. Ideologically, I disagree with the priorities of some of these groups. Nevertheless, we can all get behind a solution that can work for us all. As those most impacted by policy, we should care more about solving the problem than about disagreeing with people different from us.

In sum, we students can mend political divisions. Regardless of our political ideology, we all believe in evidence-based policymaking, engaging the opposing side, and focusing on solutions. If we take these to heart, we can heal our country’s political divide, and make politics work for everyone once again.

Jonathan Lu is a senior concentrator in computer science from Fremont, Calif.

He is the research director of the Princeton Student Climate Initiative. He can be reached at jhlu@princeton.edu.

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associate opinion editors Samuel Parsons ’19 Jon Ort ’21 head sports editors David Xin ’19 Chris Murphy ’20 associate sports editors Miranda Hasty ’19 Jack Graham ’20 head street editor Jianing Zhao ’20 associate street editors Danielle Hoffman ’20 Lyric Perot ’20 digital operations manager Sarah Bowen ’20 associate chief copy editors Marina Latif ’19 Arthur Mateos ’19 head design editor Rachel Brill ’19 cartoons editor Tashi Treadway ’19 head photo editor Risa Gelles-Watnick ’21

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Friday April 6, 2018

Opinion

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The Glee concert that I both loved and rejected and other thoughts Allison Huang

Contriuting Columnist

I

did not glimpse the program beforehand, so the Princeton Glee Club concert in March surprised me with its first piece. The music was distinctly non-Western. The singers did not chant or sing in Latin, but in Telugu, Tamil, and nonsensical syllables.

The soulful turns of phrase haunted me. The piece unlocked my imagination, evoked in my head images of places I never have visited.

The piece was called “Gaanam,” and it was an ensemble-take on South Indian classical (Carnatic) music. I watched in awe as different faces appeared at the mic. Yet as I sat transfixed, I tottered between appreciation and unease. I could not shake a cynical voice in the back of my head, whispering: There it goes again. White man brings exotic culture back from previously unknown lands to spice up his program. I could only imagine what would be next, Chinese operatic music?

This unease remained, distracting me from immersing myself in the mu-

this defensive impulse in order to both speak and listen.

One afternoon early last semester, I sat down for lunch with some friends, and one of them mentioned reading Claudia Rankine for class.

“Claudia Rankine!” I said, “Were you reading ‘Citizen?’”

She pulled the very book out of her bag, glorious in its all-white cover with a single black hood in the center and the word “Citizen” in block letters.

“What’s it about?” someone asked. I kept silent, wondering what my friend, a white woman, an English major analyzing the text from a distant intellectual standpoint, would say.

“Well it’s basically this woman Claudia Rankine telling about her experiences as a black woman,” my friend said.

“Well not really,” I said, “It’s about a lot of black women.”

“Well kinda,” she said.

“I mean, she talks about Serena Williams in that book,” I said.

“But in the beginning she talks about herself.”

A thousand thoughts ran through my head. You mean the famous prose poems at the beginning of the book?

No, you’ve got it all wrong!

I thought indignantly, the

individual testimonies only flow together so well because they are the experiences of many individual black women who found each other’s experiences to resonate with their own. Claudia Rankine, who shattered the glass roof and carved out a space in the literary canon, now has the burden of speaking for them all under her name ...

What pounded in my head was: You don’t understand what it means to be colored. I was guarding my experiences as a person of color selfishly and assuming that because my friend could not possibly inhabit the colored person’s experiences, she had missed the point of the prose poems entirely.

The conversation continued, and my friend commented on how eye-opening the book was. She admitted: “I didn’t ever think about race. My old school was predominantly white.”

In response, I sat with my lips pursed. I remained silent. Of course you didn’t think about race, I thought.

(Translated: You will never understand my experiences as a colored person.)

In that moment, I turned my friend into the enemy because of the color of her skin.

I used her inquisitiveness to alienate us.

Did I have the right to

turn her curiosity into something negative, rather than engage it and discuss more?

When I passed up the opportunity to speak, I passed up the opportunity to view myself in a light other than “oppressed” or “marginalized.” I sank back into my perpetual pessimistic narrative of “we colored people will never be understood.” Is this not an affront to myself? Staying silent deepened the rut I was in, both as an individual and as part of my group.

I am learning to tell my story and resist the impulse to give up on my listeners. Coming to Princeton and immersing myself in a multi-ethnic church and Christian community has worn down my walls. Out of genuine interest, my brothers and sisters have asked me how my experiences as a woman and a colored person inform my faith. The love of my listeners coaxes me to speak.

I have also learned to tell my story because the cost of silence is too great. Everyone carries his or her cultural, historical baggage into his or her faith. Refusing to share this past with others works against the integration and unity of the church.

The church has taught me to listen more carefully as well. Recently I learned that African-American churches

often identify strongly with God as a victor, protector, and defender of the oppressed. I realized that my previous church, a completely Chinese-American church, had never taught much on this aspect of God, most likely because it was not as relevant to the Chinese-American experience.

Reflecting on the Claudia Rankine incident now, I realize that allowing myself to be dominated by the narrative that I was “oppressed” inhibited me from parsing the finer details of how my experience as a ChineseAmerican is fundamentally different from those of my non-Chinese-American counterparts of color.

That moment was about “Citizen,” but I made it about myself, as if I knew the suffering and oppression of African-Americans just because I am colored. To act as if I can know the suffering and oppression of African-Americans is not only presumptuous, it is itself oppressive. That afternoon, warding off my hostility not only would have prompted me to tell my own story, it would have opened my eyes to the experiences of others.

Allison Huang is a first-year from Princeton, N.J. She can be reached at ah25@princeton. edu.

Moving past Parkland

Who holds the power?

Sandy Hook and Parkland, are largely white neighborhoods. Most gun violence in America doesn’t involve assault rifles: it’s mostly handguns and shotguns. This is not to say that mass shootings, and school shootings in particular, aren’t horrific, but the other 98 percent of deaths by guns are just as tragic, and much more pervasive. So the movements attacking the American gun problem are stemming from anomalous instances of gun violence, and don’t accurately represent the gun violence that accumulates into the horrifying statistics often pointed to in debating gun control.

Then why do we continue to get upset about school shootings, but not the more common and larger scale instances of gun violence? The answer is complex. Part of it is the sensational nature of these shootings: they are easy to identify and react to, and represent disruptions of what are expected to be safe spaces.

Parents send their children to school to learn, not to be killed. Young children are our most vulnerable members of society, and cutting their lives short is tragic. However, the more insidious part of the answer also involves race and class issues: ingrained in our minds is the ideal of a safe, white suburban neighborhood; shattering this ideal is powerful. The unfortunate reality is that we expect these places to be safe, while we are unsurprised at violence that afflicts people of color and poor neighborhoods. People march when lives are lost in Sandy Hook and Parkland, but not for the daily tragedies of more common instances of gun violence.

It’s unfair that some tragedies seem to capture our attention, while most don’t, but just as problematic are the consequences of having the gun control debate only after school shootings. A lot of the cyclical conversation is about preventing school shootings, and while that is important, the gun control policies we craft cannot just be built around one type of situation, especially if they

lack of access to information is not the answer, what are the main points that we can address to create a more just society?

These questions should be the guiding force for how we approach protest as well.

Too many people are “sugarhigh chasers,” Mckesson said. Especially considering college campuses, protests and undergraduates have a common history, as many movements and major changes in society have been addressed on college campuses through marches, demonstrations, and activist talks. However, protest loses some value when the high of simply being there serves as more motivation than solving the actual problem. The point of protest is tangible change.

We should be marching to change a narrative, bring about legislation, or point out the many injustices in the system. The point of protest is to change the way power operates in this country.

Because of the way social media is harnessed in spreading the word about protests, there is no excuse not to know what and why we protest. Protest is not glamorous, nor should it be portrayed as such. Being aware of the issues and being politically mindful is far more important than “chasing the high,” as Mckesson puts it.

Princeton students, between classes and clubs, must find time to educate themselves on what happens outside the Orange Bubble. According to ranking lists of the “Most Politically Active College Campuses,” the only Ivy League school to make it on any of the lists is Columbia. As a point of reference, according to FiveThirtyEight, “nearly 9 percent of freshmen say there’s a ‘very good chance’ they’ll participate in a student protest on campus, the highest in the survey’s history and up from about 6 percent in 2014.”

I find it concerning that, in spite of rising levels of ac-

Cy Watsky

Contributing Columnist

T

sic fully, until the end of the piece. Audience members stood up to applaud and holler. A Glee Club singer ran backstage and reemerged with a bouquet of flowers, which she handed to another singer on stage left.

At that moment it clicked. I looked at the program and realized that the composer of this music was a student named Shruthi Rajasekar ’18.

For better or for worse, my heart breathed a sigh of relief. I thought: Thank goodness this piece is grounded in someone who knows what she is doing and who is not a foreigner seeking to appropriate cultural music.

It was a beautiful picture to me, to think that the Glee Club conductor had lifted up a student by performing her composition, to think that it gave Shruthi the opportunity to navigate the Glee Club through a new genre of music. If only I had discarded my unease earlier to hear and enjoy the product of such an endeavor. Instead, I had judged what I saw prematurely and pessimistically.

This tendency to judge prematurely has cost me more than the opportunity to listen. It has cost me the opportunity to tell my own story. But slowly, with the help of my Christian community, I have begun to shed

he emotional power of the recent March for Our Lives movement is undeniable — the sheer numbers speak for themselves: at least 1.2 million people marched in one weekend. Although unprecedented in scale, it’s also hard not to see the march as a continuation of the horrific cycle that has occupied the U.S. social and political atmosphere for the last few years: a young boy, usually in a relatively well-off suburban neighborhood, terrorizes the local school, killing innocent young (mostly white) children and tearing apart the sense of safety and protection expected in schools.

Then, emotional trauma, outrage, and calls to action ensue. And then nothing else substantive happens, and the cycle repeats.

Why does this continue to happen, over and over again?

A lot of people point to the powerful gun lobby group, the National Rifle Association, as responsible for the continued rejection of gun control measures. Or, they say that our political discourse is too polarized, and our politicians too unresponsive.

While those things are true, I also think there’s a problem with such strong reactions stemming exclusively from these sorts of shootings.

A tiny fraction of the people who die at the hands of guns die in school shootings, and even all mass shootings only make up 2 percent of the deaths due to gun violence.

That means that the gun violence that regularly occurs, and kills 96 people every single day, is characterized by suicide and shootings of a couple people at a time. Gun violence disproportionately affects black Americans, while the school shootings that spark the most outrage and national attention, like

make up such a small portion of the gun violence that actually occurs. It allows people, especially powerful people like our president and politicians, to engage in unproductive discourse. We shouldn’t only advocate for background checks in the name of preventing school shootings — we should call for them so the tens of thousands of mentally ill people who commit suicides with guns every year don’t find them so convenient and accessible. Otherwise, it would be too easy to argue that “people kill people” or “gun control wouldn’t have stopped that school shooter.”

If we advocate for gun control only in the aftermath of school shootings, we’ll end up with arguments for arming teachers, which is not only irresponsible, but even if effective, wouldn’t make a dent in the tens of thousands of people who die due to guns every single year. If we advocate for gun control only in the aftermath of school shootings, we cannot focus on the sort of gun violence that kills tens of thousands, not just hundreds.

To be clear, I am not saying that the movements stemming from the tragedies of school shootings and mass shootings are poorly motivated. They are powerful and inspirational in many ways.

But we need to stop only reacting to situations like Parkland. Doing so is problematic and ineffective. The gun violence that afflicts Americans is systemic and dangerously common, and while the school shootings and mass shootings that spark outcry are results of such problems, they are also relatively anomalous. To move beyond this cycle of outrage and inaction, we need to stop only being so reactive to these symptomatic consequences of our gun culture, and to start engaging with the larger-scale issues.

Cy Watsky is a first-year from Princeton, N.J. He can be reached at chwatsky@princeton.edu.

Maya Eashwaran

Contributing Columnist

O

n a recent sunny afternoon in Princeton, Black Lives Matter and civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson spoke at length on perception and power dynamics and their effect on race. The energy he brought was infectious — and the brutal honesty he carried in every word was equally so.

Mckesson, clad in his signature blue Patagonia vest, wields a wealth of knowledge on institutionalized racism, police accountability (or lack thereof), and policy in various states regarding incarceration and its relationship with race.

As an active user of Twitter with over a million followers — one of whom is Beyoncé — Mckesson has always used social media to galvanize people into action and to educate people on the realities of race in the United States.

Power, to Mckesson, underlies systems of racism and discrimination in too many aspects of this country. He gave the example of a phone call he had with a white man in Hollywood who was confused and frustrated with Mckesson’s characterization of whiteness and how it manifests itself in everyday life. Using the example of casting sheets, Mckesson pointed to the fact that we assume that a role is a white role unless specified as “non-white” — one of the many “quiet” ways in which whiteness and power are intertwined with each other.

The man on the other end of the line quieted and finally understood.

This sort of understanding is what will make a difference, and it can only come from asking ourselves tough questions. Who holds this power? What makes this sort of inequality possible? In an age in which a

tivism on college campuses, the political engagement of Princeton does not positively correlate. As students and as global citizens, we have a responsibility to be engaged and educated. We have a responsibility to be present in the world. Only then will our effort be legitimate and the outcomes be impactful when we protest.

Mckesson also distinguished between equity and equality. Equity, unlike equality, is not about equally portioning goods and services. To Mckesson, it is about getting people the resources they need and deserve, something that seems a logical and reasonable enough goal. Referencing President Trump’s rhetoric of “making America great again” and pulling the country back into the past, Mckesson stated that we already know that past.

We already know, as a country, the horrors of white supremacy and racism. As a society, he pointed out, we see the idea of changing the system and a strong, protestdriven push toward equity as radical, simply because we haven’t been exposed to a society free of injustice yet.

Whiteness is something historically ingrained in our systems and institutions, and we can only treat these infections by starting at the grassroots level. It is as simple as being educated about why we protest and about the issues that must be addressed within our society.

The way we learn about race, the way we teach history, the way we are socialized to think about color in a specific way are all factors that contribute to the perpetuation of white privilege and therefore, power. We must consider why we march, why we make signs and chant in the streets. It’s not about us. It’s about something bigger, something systemic. It is, and it always has been, about power.

Maya Eashwaran is a firstyear from Alpharetta, Ga. She can be reached at mayae@ princeton.edu.

Friday April 6, 2018

Sports

page 6

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } WOMEN’S FENCING

Individual NCAA victories point to exciting future for women’s fencing

By Daniel Gitelman Staff Writer

NCAA title hauls from saber Maia Chamberlain and épée Kasia Nixon, both sophomores, in late March capped off a spectacular finish to a turbulent season for the Princeton women’s fencing team. The duo would lead the Tigers to secure their first ever double-title win, in what was not only a joyous celebration of individual talent, but also an indication of a very bright future for the program.

Princeton qualified nine fencers — four members of the women’s team — to the NCAA tournament this year after avoiding losing records in all of the women’s regular season duals.

The Ivy League Tournament in early February saw the Tigers finish second to Columbia off the back of an undefeated win in the tournament last year. Nixon held the leading 17–1 record.

At the NCAA tournament, held at Penn State, Chamberlain and Nixon made their way into the top four before each recording semifinal and final victories to win their respective individual categories.

Chamberlain described the rush of feelings after winning her final bout: “Right after I scored the winning touch, my mind switched from being focused on my opponent to being receptive of the crowd and my coach. But it was only until I saw my teammates rushing towards me and throwing me in the air that the excitement really hit and I remembered how important this competition was not only for me but for my school.”

COURTESY OF PRINCETON ATHLETICS

NCAA champions Kasia Nixon and Maia Chamberlain pose with their hardware.

Self-confidence and intense focus, meanwhile, were Chamberlain’s secret weapons: “I think the main reason for my success was my ability to stay calm throughout the entire competition. I did not let a few losses in the preliminary round stop my overall momentum and mentality because I never perform at my best when I think of end results or the reputation of my opponent. As long as I have a game plan for my bout and believe in my own actions, all the training that the team and I put in would not go to waste.”

The team, however, would finish seventh out of the 27 competing schools, ending a stretch of consecutive top-four finishes stretching back to 2013. Notre Dame would repeat last year’s successes to secure the team title.

Nixon, the first of Princeton’s two champions to record her win at the tournament, characterized the team mentality as more than what may appear on the surface.

“I would describe the dynamic of the team as expecting hard work and effort, rather than simply results,“ said Nixon. “It is not possible to win every tourna-

ment and the Princeton fencing team wants each and every one of us to work as hard as we can, hopefully so that we will win.

But that is not a guarantee — hard work, however, is. If you work hard and put in the effort, that is enough for this team.”

Discussing the future of the team, Nixon added, “I am most excited about growing with the team, maturing with my present teammates and getting new recruits. This was a tough year for the team, certainly with more downs than ups, but we are a stocky group of fighters. We have

proven ourselves to be strong individuals and I would like us to prove ourselves to be a strong team that is capable of winning Ivy Championships and NCAAs once again.”

The Princeton women’s fencing team are driven to work hard and succeed, and this year’s showing exemplifies both incredible talent at the individual level and an opportunity to grow as a team. Along with the support shared between fighters, it shouldn’t be long before the Tigers come roaring back to the top.

WOMEN’S ROWING

Tiger open women to host first-ever Ivy League Invitational on Saturday

By Molly Milligan Staff Writer

It will be a busy morning on Lake Carnegie this Saturday as all four Princeton rowing squads host Ivy League competitors. The open women’s crew will be last to take to the water as they host the first-ever Ivy League Invitational. This regatta will feature all the Ivy League teams except Brown, who will trav-

el next weekend to California to face West Coast crews at the Lake Natoma Invite.

Princeton is currently ranked No. 4 as a team by the CRCA/USRowing poll. The first varsity eight has been off to a speedy start, posting open-water wins over No. 5 Michigan, No. 8 Brown, Notre Dame, and Columbia in its first two races. Princeton’s other NCAA boats, the second varsity eight and var-

sity four, are 3–1 and 2–2 for the season, respectively.

In the morning session, Princeton will race No. 13 Harvard and Cornell for the Class of 1975 Cup. Followed by a lunch break, the Tigers will return to the water to face No. 19 Dartmouth and Pennsylvania for the Class of 1984 Plaque. The regatta will round out Princeton’s Ivy League regular season racing, save for an April 14 date

COURTESY OF PRINCETON ATHLETICS

Women’s open rowing prepares for a busy day of competition Saturday.

Tweet of the Day “Big news! The Ivy League reaches a long-term @ espn agreement—at least 24 events to air annually on ESPN’s linear networks, more than 1,100 on ESPN+” princeton tigers (@PUTigers)

with No. 7 Yale.

“This weekend will be important to practice racing multiple times, which is definitely something we struggled with in the postseason last year,” said junior Ellie Sawyer, a member of the first varsity eight. She added that “Saturday will be a valuable opportunity to test our speed against good Ivy competition.” The team is especially excited to race Harvard, who suffered only a slim defeat to Brown a week ago.

The Ivy League remains one of the most competitive conferences in women’s rowing, so having the chance to race so many teams in the middle of the season will help the Tigers gain a better sense of their speed compared to the rest of the NCAA. Head coach Lori Dauphiny is also excited to see her Tigers race twice in one day in a schedule that mirrors that of the Ivy League Championship regatta. Racing against the majority of intra-league crews and coming down the course twice in one day no doubt made this an attractive event for Dauphiny’s counterparts across the league.

This weekend will be lent

Stat of the Day

29 goals Number of goals scored by women’s lacrosse’s Kyla Sears in her first nine collegiate games.

extra significance by the first group of female rowers to graduate from Princeton, as they will be on hand to present the Class of 1975 Cup. Included in this group is Carol Brown ’75, who competed on the first women’s Olympic rowing team for the United States, winning a bronze medal in the women’s eight at the Montreal Games in 1976.

Last spring, each of Princeton’s NCAA boats went 4–0 against Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Penn. The team will look to repeat that success on home water this season. Last spring’s race against Harvard and Cornell on the Charles River in Boston saw the most challenging conditions many of the open women had ever faced: an unrelenting 25 mph headwind, white-capping waves, and temperatures in the 30s.

The quality of Princeton’s racecourse on Lake Carnegie will provide the opportunity to race these teams in fair and consistent conditions.

Come down to the shores of Lake Carnegie on Saturday to cheer on the Tigers or tune in on the Ivy League Digital Network.

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