April 7th, 2021

The Emory Wheel Since 1919

Emory University’s Independent Student Newspaper

Volume 102, Issue 6

Printed every other wednesday

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Emory, Vaccinated At Last

Over a year after a novel virus forced Emory to send thousands of undergraduate students home and shutdown hundreds of classrooms, students in Georgia are now eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. Register for you first dose of the vaccine at the Emory Forward website. For more information from Emory experts about the vaccine, see “Your vaccine” on page 3.

Your guide to the SGA elections debacle

By Tanika Deuskar and Jareer Imran Senior Staff Writer and Contributing Writer

and invaded students’ privacy.

The 2021 Student Government Association (SGA) presidential runoff elections were thrown in disarray when Fourth-year College Council Legislator Sun Woo Park (19Ox, 21C) filed a petition with the Constitutional Council on March 24 alleging that student government officials and candidates violated the Code of Elections.

Constitutional Council’s public hearing will take place over Zoom on April 8 at 8 p.m. Chief Justice of the Constitutional Council Jane Wang (22C) stated in an email to involved parties that the Council aims to

release an opinion within a week of the hearing.

The Wheel has broken down the allegations made by Park and the events that took place since the petition was filed.

Park alleged that current SGA President Lori Steffel (21B), current BBA Council President Emily Ferguson (21B) and BBA Council Vice Presidentelect Katie Lee (22B) violated the Code of Elections. He also claimed that Lee engaged in voter intimidation and that a secret society called Ducemus also tried to influence the election. Park also alleged that the campaign consisting of presidential candidate Rhea Kumar (22B) and vice presidential candidate Nick Paschetto (20Ox, 22B) ignored Elections Board instructions

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Allegations that Steffel, Ferguson violated the Elections Code Park’s petition alleged that Steffel and Ferguson violated the Code of Elections by endorsing the KumarPaschetto ticket while serving as members of the Board of Elections. Park contended that this violated Part II, Article 2, Sections A and B of the Code of Elections, which requires nominees for the Board to sign a waiver of neutrality.

In statements to the Wheel, Steffel and Ferguson refuted Park’s allega-

See CONSTITUTIONAL, Page 2

Elections Drama Demands Worth the Entrance Fee ...

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Profs. breakdown Ga. voting bill

By Anjali Huynh and Isabella Roeske Executive Editor and Contributing Writer Just months after Georgia experienced its highest voter turnout in history during the 2020 presidential election, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed the “Election Integrity Act of 2021” (SB 202) into law on March 25. Though the law expands voting times in some respects, this legislation includes restrictions on absentee voting, voter ID requirement expansions,

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ballot box limitations and more that could disproportionately affect voters of color, multiple Emory professors said.

The law’s passage comes as state lawmakers in 47 states have introduced 361 new bills to restrict voting access since the beginning of 2021, CNN reported on Saturday. The Georgia legislature alone has introduced 24 of these voting bills since Jan. 1, second only behind Texas with 49 bills.

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Wednesday, April 7, 2021

The Emory Wheel

Fraga: SB 202 ‘targets voters who have historically voted for Democrats’

Continued from Page 1

SB 202 follows the landmark 2020 presidential election, in which the state turned blue for the first time since 1992. The shift has widely been attributed to disorientation from white suburban individuals with former President Donald Trump and widespread voter mobilization efforts led by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and other activists. Consequently, upwards of 800,000 new voters registered in Georgia since 2018, including large numbers of young people and people of color.

“It’s very clear Republican legislators in the state have stated that they’re introducing these bills because of the perception of fraud and the irregularities in the November election and the 2021 runoff election,” Associate Professor of Political Science Bernard L. Fraga said. “The origin of this bill indicates that it’s not really solving a problem that is real, that needs solving through this legislative process.”

This bill substantially changes rules for voting by absentee ballot.

The earliest voters can request a mail-in ballot is 11 weeks prior to an election -- a departure from the previous time of about 25 weeks. It also moves up the deadline an application must be completed by two weeks.

To request or return a ballot, an

individual will need their driver’s license number, state ID number or another accepted voter ID. SB 202 will also effectively control when and where ballot boxes are placed and restrict early voting hours on certain days of the week.

The ballot boxes will now be limited depending on the county and will have strict hours. For the presidential election in Georgia, well over two million people voted early in person, 700,000 of which identified as Black.

“This bill targets voters that have historically voted for Democrats,” Fraga said. “It targets some of the processes and the methods that were used primarily by or especially used by African Americans in the state in 2020 and 2021.”

Associate Professor of History Daniel LaChance agreed with Fraga in noting that the law is “profoundly anti-democratic” and explained how inequalities in voting have emerged due to racism in the United States.

Most counties, however, will experience expanded voting access.

Saturdays will be mandated for early voting, and Sunday was codified formally as having optional voting hours.

The original bill would have forced some counties to choose between Saturday and Sunday for weekend early voting.

This was viewed by many Georgians as a form of suppression in the Black community, as “souls to the polls” was a common Black church campaign where busses loaded up and took constituents to the polls following Sunday services. This restriction did not make it to the final version of the bill.

LaChance connected the current law with the racially motivated laws of the 1900s calling SB 202 “Jim Crow 2.0.”

“The pattern of periods of voting rights expansions then being followed by periods of mass disfranchisement is one really clear parallel that I’ve seen,” Hannah Charak (22C) said, comparing past and current voter laws.

The law also makes it a misdemeanor to offer food or drinks to those waiting in line for the polls within 25 feet or more.

Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies Carol Anderson also addressed student questions about voter suppression in a Q&A session hosted by Fair Fight U Emory and Young Democrats of Emory on March 22.

She touched on SB 202 specifically, calling the bill a “multipronged attack” from the state legislature.

“This bill is foul and nasty,” Anderson said. “It is a way for Georgia to not replicate what happened in 2020.

SB 202’s arrival came as bills fighting against voter suppression have moved through the U.S. Congress.

The For the People Act, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives on March 3, includes items such as automatic voter registration. The second bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, aims to create “national standards that are enforceable for our elections in order to override states’ assault on the right to vote,” Anderson said.

On March 30, Democratic State Rep. Park Cannon (D-Ga.) was arrested after knocking on Kemp’s door alongside other protestors while he was signing SB 202. Cannon was taken to the Fulton County Jail and released on bail later that night.

In response to significant public backlash, CEOs of major Atlantabased companies like the CocaCola Company and Delta Airlines have strongly rebuked the bill’s passage.

The MLB pulled its All-Star game from Atlanta on Friday in response to SB 202’s passage.“I have decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s All-Star Game and MLB draft,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred wrote in a statement. “Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box.”

Emory University has not yet issued a comment on SB 202.

Similar to SB 202, House Bill 531 is currently in the Georgia senate waiting for a vote. HB 531 would also create restrictions on IDs for voting by absentee ballot and make amendments to early in-person voting.

State Rep. Barry Fleming (R-Ga.) and State Rep. Alan Powell (R-Ga.) are two of the seven Republican lawmakers who are sponsoring the bill.

Protesters in Washington, Georgia asked Fleming to resign following news of the bill. Fleming was also an influential person involved with amending SB 202.

“The way that this newer law primarily works to keep people from the polls is by taking advantage of the fact that they have fewer resources, and making it therefore harder for them to get to the polls and to and to complete the act of voting,” LaChance said. “There’s the economic legacy of of discrimination and racism in this country [which] is what this law really preys upon.””

Grace Kamin contributed reporting to this article.

— Contact Anjali Huynh and Isabella Roeske at alhuynh@emory.edu and bella.roeske@emory.edu

Constitutional Council hearing set for April 8 address student privacy. However, following student complaints, the Board of Elections ordered the KumarPaschetto and Ding-Pierson campaigns in an email to cease text message campaigning.

Park alleged that the KumarPaschetto campaign ignored Board instructions and continued to send text messages to students.

Kumar and Paschetto stated they had only sent personal messages to students and that this form of campaigning was approved by Shaener. They also argued that it is an “unachievable standard” to expect candidates to monitor the campaigning supporters do on their behalf. The two did not, however, directly acknowledge Park’s claims that they used texting bots.

Illustration by A lli Hom

Continued from Page 1 tions, denying that they were members of the Board and claiming they never signed a waiver of neutrality.

“Because I was never on the Elections Board, I never was asked or required to sign an Elections Board waiver saying I would not support a candidate for SGA,” Steffel wrote.

Steffel added that she was active in an Elections Board GroupMe chat only during the certification of the fall 2020 elections in order to fill a quorum.

Ferguson also stated she was never a member of the Board and never signed a waiver. Both Steffel and Ferguson reiterated that they did not sign waivers and were not “confirmed as Election Board member[s]” in an initial defense submitted as part of pre-trial procedures.

SGA Secretary and Elections Board member Megan Yang (20Ox, 22C) told the Wheel in a March 31 email that while Steffel and Ferguson were listed as members of the Board, they had not undergone “formal confirmations.”

Yang said she believed that Steffel and

Ferguson had “simply assumed those roles because they were heads of their respective divisional councils.”

Claim that Lee violated Elections Code Park additionally claimed in his petition that Lee violated Article 3, Section 4 of the Code of Elections when she campaigned for Kumar and Paschetto on an Alpha Kappa Psi (AKPsi) business fraternity group chat while also running for BBA Council vice president. Part IV, Article 3, Section 4 of the Code of Elections prohibits party candidacy and bans candidates other than those running on a joint ticket from promoting candidates “through any means other than faceto-face verbal communication.”

Additionally, Park stated that Lee, who is also the president of AKPsi, engaged in “mass voter intimidation” by pressuring members of the business fraternity into voting for Kumar and Paschetto and requiring the pledge class to send her pictures proving they voted.

In the initial defense, Lee refuted allegations that she engaged in voter intimidation, saying that she did not require any member to “show receipts of who they voted for.” Lee’s defense also included anonymous testimony of AKPsi members who said they did not feel coerced into voting for a particular campaign.

The Constitutional Council ruled that all parties may use anonymous testimony as evidence in their cases but that SGA Attorney General Ryan Murray (19Ox, 21C) will privately verify the identities of those who provide anonymous testimony. The Wheel was unable to independently verify the identities of those who provided anonymous testimony.

In a rebuttal to the initial defense, Park refuted these claims with anonymous testimonies from different AKPsi members who claimed they felt pressured to vote because of the “power dynamic” created by Lee’s messages.

The initial defense also states that Lee’s campaigning “represent merely an unintentional and honest mistake that occurred on one occasion,

and likely occurred as a result of an inadaptation of the Code of Elections amidst a virtual campaign cycle,” since permissible face-to-face promotion of candidates was not possible.

Allegations of breach of privacy, disregard of instructions Park believed that the KumarPaschetto campaign breached the privacy of hundreds of students by acquiring the phone numbers from group chats and organizations such as Emory Entrepreneurship & Venture Management, Kappa Alpha Theta and Delta Phi Epsilon. Park claims the campaign sent those students texts via unidentified numbers asking them to vote for the Kumar-Paschetto ticket.

The Wheel confirmed that the campaign texted phone numbers of first-years living in Raoul Hall asking them to vote for Kumar and Paschetto.

When the Wheel called these phone numbers back, they received an automated voice message that the numbers were no longer in service.

The Code of Elections does not

Involvement of Ducemus Park’s revised petition also claimed that Ducemus, a secret society founded in 1991, worked with the KumarPaschetto campaign and other SGA members to sway this year’s elections.

Park alleged that Paschetto is a member of Ducemus and that the organization hoped to have Paschetto elected to continue to hold sway over the executive branch. The Wheel was unable to independently verify Park’s claims.

The Wheel was unable to independently confirm the current existence of Ducemus or its members. However, Ducemus has a plaque next to the McDonough Field stage commemorating their founding, and the Wheel previously published an anonymous editorial by the group in 2015. The Emory Alumni Association claims the group is responsible for running Wonderful Wednesdays.

The initial defense did not address Park’s claims about Ducemus.

— Contact Tanika Deuskar and Jareer Imran at tanika.deuskar@emory.edu and jareer.imran@emory.edu

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The Emory Wheel

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

A closer look at Emory College’s fall 2021 plans

By Matthew Chupack News Editor Indicating hope that the end of the pandemic is in sight, Emory College announced in mid-March that 70% of fall 2021 classes will be held in person and University President Gregory Fenves announced a week later that all students are invited back to campus.

Although the fall plans seem like a leap toward normalcy, many protocols and guidelines are in place to mitigate potential COVID-19 outbreaks in classrooms.

The College’s plans assume the continuation of three conditions in the fall:students being unable to return to campus due to international travel restrictions or health reasons, the continuation of masking in classrooms and classrooms operating at 50% capacity, according to College Dean Michael Elliott. He said this decision was made after a careful consideration of anticipated public health guidance.

“We looked at the fall 2019 schedule and enrollment patterns of different courses, and then tried to map that on to our classroom capacity, and the capacity of the classroom of those classes based on schedule,” Elliott said. “We arrived at 70% as being something that we could achieve and still keep that 50% classroom capacity.”

This semester, classrooms are operating at around 30% capacity with spaced out seating. Elliott said he expects increased capacity in fall 2021 to allow “roughly every other seat in the classroom” to be filled.

Even with the increased capacity, many of the College’s largest courses will be held virtually, Elliott said. For instance, Introduction to Anthropology, or ANT 101, which has a maximum

Michelle Lou/Former Editor-in-Chief

Emory College announced in mid-March that 70% of classes will be in person in the fall. enrollment limit of 180 students, will be spaces.

“For most classes that have multiple conducted virtually in the fall, according With a limited number of class- sections … it’s likely that it’ll have at to the Emory Course Atlas. rooms in use, the College is planning on least one in-person class and one online The ANT 101 enrollment limit also using the entire class day to allow for as class,” Elliott said. exceeds maximum potential classroom many in person courses as possible, a “We will also work to ensure that they capacity. The largest College classroom key distinction from the more concen- can enroll in courses so that they can is room 208 in White Hall, which can trated pre-pandemic class schedules. make academic progress. That doesn’t hold 136 students at 50% capacity, “The biggest difference that students necessarily mean that we can guarantee Associate Dean Jason Ciejka wrote in a will notice from pre-pandemic sched- that they can enroll for an online version March 30 email to the Wheel. ules is that the classes will be much more of every course they might want.”

“Smaller seminars could expect to be evenly distributed throughout the day,” The College is also taking learningin classrooms with a capacity of about 10 Elliott said. based considerations into account to 12,” Ciejka wrote.

Similar to this year, most College when determining which courses will The College has over 180 classroom courses will be 75 minutes or less. be offered online. Elliott noted that spaces, but only 50 will be in use in Longer classes will have a break to miti- some faculty members in the language the fall, Elliott noted. Most of the class- gate the risk of being in a class for too departments are particularly motivated to conduct classes online for educational rooms in use will be able to hold large long, Elliott said.

Classroom size and capacity limits reasons, such as being able to tell how numbers of students.

Elliott said that the College is looking are not the only determining factors for students are trying to pronounce words into “non-traditional” classroom spac- whether a course will be taught in per- by seeing their mouths move on Zoom es, including areas in Glenn Memorial son or virtually. The College must also rather than being behind a mask in United Methodist Church and the ensure there are enough courses offered person.

Other circumstances that the College Donna and Marvin Schwartz Center for online for students who are unable to be Performing Arts, but other schools at the on campus for health or travel-related is incorporating into their rationale include guest speaker involvement, colUniversity are also interested in those reasons.

Your vaccine questions, answered by Emory experts

By Madison Hopkins Senior Staff Writer The Emory University community is preparing to return to more normal activities as students continue to be vaccinated and the University loosens gathering restrictions. The Wheel compiled information from Emory health experts about immunity, safe activities for those who have been vaccinated and the difference between available vaccines.

How long after getting vaccinated does it take to develop maximum immunity?

The total time after the initial dose of the vaccine to maximum protection depends on which vaccine an individual receives, but generally it takes the body about two weeks after the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines or after the singledose Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine to build immunity to the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The recommended time between two doses of the Pfizer vaccine is three weeks and the recommended time between doses of the Moderna vaccine is one month. However, an individual can still receive a second dose up to six weeks after the first if they miss their appointment or there are no appointments available, said Jodie Guest, the vice chair of the Department of Epidemiology at Rollins School of Public Health, in a virtual town hall on April 1.

“That gives you a very, very long grace period to try to get that second dose,” Guest said. “Remember that, while you’ve got great protection after your first dose, you’re not done with mRNA vaccines [Pfizer and Moderna] until you get that second one, so we would prefer you not to

skip it.”

If the two doses are received within the recommended schedule, a person should develop protection from the virus five weeks after their first dose of Pfizer, six weeks after their first dose of Moderna and two weeks after their single dose of J&J. What can you do after receiving one dose of a two-dose vaccine?

It takes two doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to achieve the full level of protection seen in clinical trials. A single dose is insufficient to prevent COVID-19 infection, according to Executive Director of Student Health Services Sharon Rabinovitz and Associate Vice President and Executive Director of COVID-19 Response and Recovery Amir St. Clair in an April 6 email to the Wheel.

“Behaviors cannot change after the first dose of the vaccine,” the email read. “It is not uncommon for people to get infected after the first dose.”

What can you do once fully vaccinated?

The CDC has released guidelines on what activities are safe two weeks after receiving the final vaccine dose.

For example, people who are vaccinated can gather indoors with other vaccinated people without masks or physical distancing, or indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household.

Vaccinated individuals also do not have to be tested before traveling domestically or internationally, unless mandated by their destination.

Individuals still have to get tested before traveling to the United States, but are not required to quarantine upon arrival, according to the CDC’s website.

Emory is still requiring that all students living on campus or using campus facilities receive regular testing, even if they have been vaccinated.

How do the three vaccines compare in effectiveness?

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was found to be “95% effective … in preventing symptomatic laboratoryconfirmed COVID-19,” according to a report by the CDC. The Moderna vaccine was 94.1% effective in this respect, and the J&J vaccine was 66.3% effective.

Despite being less effective against COVID-19 overall, the J&J vaccine was 93.1% effective against COVID19 hospitalizations 14 or more days after injection and 100% effective after 28 or more days. That is, it still provides a high level of protection against severe infections that would require hospitalization.

“The best vaccine is whichever one is available to you the fastest,” Rabinovitz and St. Clair wrote. “Data reports continue to confirm that J&J performs similarly to Pfizer and Moderna regarding effectiveness in preventing severe illness, hospitalization, and death.”

Latest cases Emory reported 15 new cases since April 1, all of them students.

This included at least five off-campus cases. There were two cases each at Clairmont Undergraduate Residential Center, Clairmont Residential Center and Raoul Hall and one case each at Woodruff Residential Center, Harris Hall and Longstreet Means Hall.

— Contact Madison Hopkinsat mhopki6@emory.edu

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laboration with colleagues at another university and cross registration with Oxford College, Elliott said.

“One of the interesting things about this last year is that students on this campus enrolled in classes with Oxford faculty and vice versa,” Elliott said. “We may be looking to offer particular classes that can serve everybody better if they’re open to both Oxford and Atlanta campus students.”

Given some of the advantages to online courses, Elliott said the College is considering offering online courses even after the pandemic completely ends.

He noted that it will “feel very different” if a student elects to take a virtual course than being forced to because of the pandemic.

“I’ve heard students say that in some classes, they really like having access to recorded lectures … so I can see online versions of some of the science courses continuing online that facilitate that kind of learning,” Elliott said.

Despite challenges with online learning this year, Elliott emphasized that the College learned a lot about what contributed to an effective online learning experience and can give more attention to preparing online fall courses over the summer since there are fewer of them.

“The big thing, though, that will change is students won’t be taking all of their courses online and they’ll be living in residential learning communities whether they’re on campus or off campus and have access to all of the resources of those communities,” Elliott said. “It will be a very different experience.”

— Contact Matthew Chupack at mhchupa@emory.edu

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Contact Matthew Chupack at mhchupa@emory.edu

The Emory Wheel Volume 102, Issue 6 © 2021 The Emory Wheel Alumni Memorial University Center, Room 401 630 Means Drive, Atlanta, GA, 30322 Business (404) 727-6178 Editor-in-Chief Isaiah Poritz iporitz@emory.edu

Founded in 1919, The Emory Wheel is the financially and editorially independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University in Atlanta. The Wheel is a member publication of Media Council, Emory’s organization of student publications. The Wheel reserves the rights to all content as it appears in these pages, and permission to reproduce material must be granted by the editor-in-chief.

The statements and opinions expressed in the Wheel are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Wheel Editorial Board or of Emory University, its faculty, staff or administration.

The Wheel is also available online at www.emorywheel.com.

The Emory Wheel

Opinion

Wednesday, April 7, 2021 | Opinion Editors: Sophia Ling (sophia.ling@emory.edu) & Martin Shane Li (martin.li2@emory.edu)

SGA drama demands patience, restraint The spring 2021 Student Government Association (SGA) elections were thrown into disarray last week when fourth-year College Council (CC) Legislator Sun Woo Park (19Ox, 21C) made public accusations of electoral violations, alleging that Rhea Kumar (22C) and Nick Paschetto’s (22C) campaign intimidated voters and that current SGA President Lori Steffel (21C) and BBA Council President Emily Ferguson (21B) acted against the SGA constitution. Park also claimed that BBA Vice President Elect Katie Lee (22B) coerced Alpha Kappa Psi Fraternity Inc. (AKPsi) pledges to vote for Kumar and Paschetto.

This is not the first controversy SGA has faced recently: just two years ago, the impeachment of SGA President Dwight Ma (17Ox, 19C) stirred controversy. However, the wording of the Code of Elections is unclear and poorly

fleshed out, resulting in confusion on whether or not Steffel and Ferguson are Election Board members. As a result, their roles in the case are not as clear cut as described in Ma’s case.

The fallout from Park’s accusations has been a culminating mess of name calling, a letter to the editor, and rumors and hearsay swirling around the campaign. Everyone concerned with this controversy should slow down, take a breath and let the upcoming hearing on the matter take its course.

Park’s allegations are damning, and the evidence he gathered to demonstrate that the Rhea Kumar-Nick Paschetto ticket violated election rules is disturbing.

A few days after the original Instagram post, he posted again with more allegations that students were pressured into voting for the Rhea Kumar-Nick Paschetto ticket, includ-

ing anonymous accounts and screenshots of the AKPsi allegedly coercing pledges. The Instagram post was taken down shortly after that. SGA’s Constitutional Council should pore over the evidence and accusations, and confirm if everything presented is factual. Until then, insults and drama only make things worse.

Despite the existence of a body to investigate claims of illegal campaigning and election activity, many students have taken it upon themselves to be the judge, jury and executioner.

Some students even posted harassing comments against Park on social media. The comments were incendiary and hurtful, and some had racist undertones. Although they have since been deleted, many claimed Park was lying, or reacted with vomit emojis to people trying to support him. In the replies of the open letter written by

Ferguson to the Wheel, people argued whether Ferguson had used Asian stereotypes in her defense against Park’s allegations.

The immaturity displayed by many students in response to Park’s first social media post and Ferguson’s letter reinforces the need for patience and restraint on the part of the Emory community. This attitude does little but create an apathetic student body solely focused on hurtful messages.

The evidence presented to the public

by Sun Woo is still unreviewed and unverified until the Constitutional Council, and as such any claims or arguments made in comment sections are based on unconfirmed accounts.

The truth is still unclear to the public eye, and getting mad on social platforms will do nothing except exacerbate abuse and bullying.

The Constitutional Council exists to

investigate controversies like this one; those stirring trouble in the Wheel’s reply section and across social media need to take a step back and let this investigation proceed without creating noise across online platforms.

As we approach the Constitutional Council meeting this week, we urge the Emory student body to keep calm and remain open-minded about the whole ordeal.

We cannot allow ourselves to be caught up in the moment with emotions that generate unnecessary toxicity in an already volatile moment.

The relentless toxicity provoked by baseless, unfounded evidence reveals a student body hungry and pathetically desperate for drama. As college students, we should be exercising maturity and see the issue with a critical eye, rather than fanning the flame simply because we can.

Georgia Republicans encroached on millions of their own constituents’ right to vote with the passage of Senate Bill 202 on March 25, which will severely limit Georgians’ access to the polls.

Instead of immediately stepping up to fight the law as CEOs of Delta and Coca-Cola should have, the two large Atlanta-based corporations took a full week to denounce the law.

Initially, the executives just offered broad support for voting rights without acknowledging Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s new legislation. As a result of this lackluster response, protesters at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport called for a boycott of Delta flights.

In a hasty attempt to defuse the situation, Delta CEO Ed Bastian wrote in an internal memo that “the final bill is unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values.”

Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey echoed this sentiment in a similarly delayed response, stating that “the Coca-Cola Company does not support this legislation … it makes it harder for

people to vote, not easier.”

However, the fact remains that Senate Bill 202 will limit access to the polls by instituting stricter voter identification requirements for absentee ballots, limiting drop boxes for mail-in ballots, and prohibiting the distribution of food and water to voters. The bill inappropriately hinders the progression of democracy, asserting unjustified partisan power out of petty anger, and no claim of corporate contrition will change that.

Accordingly, these half-hearted statements, coming several days after Kemp signed SB 202 into law, are nothing more than feeble attempts to maintain credibility and consumer trust.

Thus, instead of acting performatively, Delta and its peers should be active in addressing harmful legislation before it is signed into law. To all Georgia corporations: you can’t have this both ways. Either be assertive in your opposition before the bill is passed, or say nothing at all.

Speaking out against the law one week after it passed will neither change

the legislation nor erase your moral debt to those whose voting rights it will shred.

But Delta is not the only corporation who is trying to protest against the voter bill after its passage. The statements of these big corporations in Georgia, including UPS and others,

So why even release a statement after the law has passed? Numerous companies have attempted to appease Democratic customers only to infuriate Republican lawmakers, who have threatened to raise taxes on Delta and, in Kemp’s words, find their statement “unacceptable.”

In a similar vein, Major League Baseball (MLB) has announced plans to move its July All-Star Game from Atlanta.

This move, as was the National Basketball Association’s choice to move its all-star game out of North Carolina after its state legislature passed a law rolling back anti-discrimination protections, is performative at best.

Lawmakers only seemed angered by the MLB’s response rather than incentivized to repeal the bill.

Ironically, as Kemp himself has said, it will only punish hard-working Georgians. The focus on the impact of the bill detracts from the larger issues surrounding its creation.

Regrettably, more controversy seems to have arisen surrounding statements on the bill rather than the

harm it will do to Georgians.

The burden of demanding that companies stand against voter suppression should not fall on the public alone.

Rather, companies should actively invest in the welfare of their workers and consumers by fighting legislation that harms them.

In addition, we can’t be distracted from the true culprits: the Republican politicians who spearheaded the newly dubbed Jim Crow in the 21st Century.

Media hysteria over who supports the bill and who opposes it detracts from the most important factor: Georgia has gone blue and Republican lawmakers are tormenting marginalized communities in their ploy to flip it back to red.

Delta and Coca-Cola’s attempt to save face by pushing back against Kemp and the bill is only making matters worse.

Instead of criticizing political failures after they happen, powerful corporations should realize that their opportunity to influence legislation for the better comes before, not after, its passage.

Georgia companies are complicit in voter suppression

To all Georgia corporations: either be assertive in your opposition before the bill is passed, or say nothing at all.

fall short and are meaningless to stopping voter rights infringement. Their political impact may be strong, but given their lack of further action, it was only motivation under pressure to pander to those discontent and claim they played their corporate ‘socially responsible parts.’

The above editorials represents the majority opinion of the Wheel’s Editorial Board.

The Editorial Board is composed of Sahar Al-Gazzali, Viviana Barreto, Rachel Broun, Jake Busch, Sara Khan, Sophia Ling, Martin Li, Demetrios Mammas, Sara Perez, Leah Woldai and Lynnea Zhang.

The Emory Wheel Volume 102 | Number 6

Isaiah Poritz Editor-in-Chief Anjali Huynh Executive Editor

Brammhi Balarajan Managing Editor Ben Thomas Managing Editor Jessica Solomon Managing Editor Cailen Chinn Chief of Digital Operations Phyllis Guo Copy Chief Matthew Chupack News Editor Sarah Davis News Editor Sophia Ling Opinion Editor Martin Shane Li Opinion Editor K aitlin Mottley Emory Life Editor L auren Blaustein Emory Life Editor Michael Mariam Sports Editor Stephen A ltobelli A&E Editor

Saru Garg A&E Editor Jada Chambers Copy Editor Caroline Silva Copy Editor Nicole Semaan Asst. Copy Editor Gabriella Lewis Digital Ops. Editor Jackson Schneider Photo Editor Ryan Callahan Editor-at-Large A idan Vick Senior Editor Ninad Kulkarni Senior News Editor

R achel Broun Associate Editor Yun Zhu Associate Editor Sofia Himmel Associate Editor A ngela Tang Associate Editor Claire Fenton Associate Editor Jeffrey Rosen Associate Editor Ulia A hn Asst. Multimedia Editor

Mileen Meyer Business Manager The Emory Wheel welcomes letters and op-ed submissions from the Emory community. Letters should be limited to 300 words and op-eds should be at least 500. Those selected may be shortened to fit allotted space or edited for grammar, punctuation and libelous content. Submissions reflect the opinions of individual writers and not of the Wheel’s Editorial Board or Emory University. Send emails to emorywheelexec@gmail.com or postal mail to The Emory Wheel, Drawer W, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322.

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The Emory Wheel

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

The Emory Wheel

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OPINION

The Emory Wheel

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

6

WHEEL DEBATES

Reform or retain: the gun control debate

Minorities need pro-gun advocacy Viviana Barreto Ratified in 1791, the Second Amendment is one of the most integral American principles that has shaped this nation’s history, social ideals and national value system.

However, a consensus on the application of this fundamental right has become increasingly nuanced in the wake of America’s uniquely persistent gun violence problem. Leveraging the constitution’s political power to explore new avenues of public discourse and political organizing among minorities that centers gun education is a viable solution to address gun violence than restrictive gun reform.

At the heart of the gun debate is not a dispute regarding public safety but the legal avenue, or lack thereof, to address gun violence.

The actors mediating this contentious discussion and the ramifications of prior gun legislation are contributing factors to America’s pervasive gun ideologies and strongest proponents.

Public discourse has forced this discussion into a gridlock. Those paradigmatic gun-rights activists who denounce big government and promote hyper-individualism are in direct opposition to gun reformists who generally believe that we need laws to effectively address such national grievances.

Bipartisan support for the promotion of public safety is impossible in our current political landscape.

The constitutional muster of the Second Amendment adds further barriers to addressing root causes of gun violence.

Any attempt to ban guns and reform gun sale and distribution are seemingly futile. It is impractical and unfeasible to anticipate meaningful legislative action from current lawmakers and lobbyists due to the sheer amount of guns currently in circulation on top of the deep-rooted and heavily racialized American gun culture.

Political action groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) — with almost 5 million members nation-wide — have heavily influenced the gun debate.

The NRA is the most prominent special interest lobby in support of the Second Amendment with a right-leaning bias.

Their work consists of blocking gun restrictions on behalf of their conservative base, gun manufacturers’ financial contributions and political allies.

Moreover, their youth programs educate countless students across the nation, and the law enforcement division incentivizes armed service members with a slew of benefits.

However, the NRA has also consistently failed to advocate for Black gun owners and gun violence victims.

The murder of Philando Castile, a legal gun owner whose death outraged Black NRA members received tepid and dismissive public response from NRA leadership.

In response to this hypocrisy, the National African American Gun Association, a compet-

ing organization, has increased in membership over the last several years. Founded in 2015, the primary goal of the NAAGA is to distance themselves from the NRA. With over 30,000 active members (60% of whom are female), their mission is to encourage gun ownership and educate Black citizens on the historical nuances of their Second Amendment rights.

They are considering creating a political action committee to further advance their agenda.

These developments, and the rise of other Black pro-gun organizations, introduce a new element to the gun debate that centers the very individuals who have been historically disenfranchised as gun owners and victimized by gun violence.

Racially discriminatory gun reform has old roots in America. After the Civil War, the Black Codes were designed to prevent Black armament as a response to newly anointed African American citizenship.

These legislative limitations further denied freed people’s ability to exercise their constitutional rights. During the Civil Rights era, the creation of the original Black Panther Party for Self-Defense sparked more discussion about the use of firearms, specifically for political advancement.

Lawmakers soon passed the Mulford Act that prohibited the open carry of loaded firearms because the Panthers were not publicly coded as armed patriots but instead as vigilantes.

Even federal gun legislation enacted by liberal politicians has arguably been ineffective or equally damaging.

President Joe Biden’s record on gun control harks back to his involvement in the infamous Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.

Due to constitutional limitations, the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban did little to curb gun violence over long periods of time.

Gun buyers, sellers and distributors found various loopholes in the legislation, such as sporterizing a banned weapon into a legal substitute.

Legislation simply cannot keep up with the technological innovation of the manufacturing and ingenuity of illegal gun sale and distribution.

A way to combat the NRA’s massive influence and racialized American gun ideologies is to introduce oppositional pro-gun organizations that understand the historical implications of gun rights and reform from an ameliorated perspective.

This strategy does not necessitate the increased ownership of guns, just minority advocacy for the fundamental principle.

By understanding this background, those that have been most affected by gun laws and violence can promote the well-being of their communities through representative education programs and political organizing. It could very well revitalize the public safety discourse regarding guns in the U.S. Viviana Barreto (22C) is from Covington, Georgia.

Ban guns to save America

Jake Busch In the last few weeks, two mass shootings dominated headlines. But it’s largely the news you don’t read that verifies what this pair of horrific tragedies hints at: guns are ruining the United States.

Ultimately, we should want for all Americans to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the three unalienable rights enshrined in our Declaration of Independence.

Yet guns make it that much harder for people to live for and by those ideals. Whether it is a hate-driven mass shooting, a suicide or the daily gun violence plaguing urban areas, which make young Black men especially vulnerable to gun homicide, these foundational rights are violated each time an individual is killed with a gun in this country.

A recent report about the disproportionate rate of gun homicide among young Black men, aptly titled “A Public Health Crisis Decades in the Making,” captures just one dimension of the American gun violence epidemic, which kills 106 people in the U.S. every day.

We can keep pushing for gun control legislation, but it will not eradicate this American disease.

As long as guns are around, we will continue being shot and killed. There is only one way to end the violence: ban both assault rifles and handguns.

The Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut was a tipping point for the country.

That senseless act against all reason should have forced a collaboration among the federal government, local officials, businesses and community groups to end the gun violence epidemic; itwas our gun litmus test as a nation, and we failed.

San Bernardino followed.

So did Umpqua, Charleston and Pulse not long after that.

Then came Parkland, Las Vegas and Tree of Life in Pittsburgh.

Now, we add Acworth, Atlanta and Boulder to that list.

We are so numb to the violence that The New York Times maintains a running list of the recent mass shootings in the U.S. The last two weeks have affirmed we can no longer remain numb. First, we must repeal the Second Amendment.

It is a vague, twenty-seven word sentence that does not account for the bone-shattering capabilities of AR-15 bullets and the unique dangers posed by concealed handguns.

It does not account for the ease with which Americans as young as 15 can purchase deadly firearms.

It is outdated and inapplicable to our current age.

After we repeal the Second Amendment, we start confiscating assault rifles and handguns.

This wouldn’t be the first time.

In the wake of a deadly mass shooting in 1996 the Australian government bought back over 600,000 guns, which resulted in a nearly 50% decrease in gun homicides and an even greater drop in gun suicides.

While a similar effort would likely fail in the U.S. — there are far too many guns, and the will to give them up would be lacking for so many — we must find a way to recover firearms. We can compensate those individuals for their guns to incentivize cooperation and dispel the myth that these weapons of mass destruction are needed for self-protection.

Immediate legislative relief will help, but it won’t end the violence.

Even if the Senate passes universal background checks, as the House of Representatives recently did with bipartisan support, our gun violence epidemic will still persist.

People with guns will kill other people without them, no matter if it’s a six-round colt pistol or an AK-47. In fact, the vast majority of homicides are committed with handguns.

The Atlanta shooter managed to wreak havoc with a pistol purchased the same day of the shootings. When confronted by any sort of modern firearm, no unarmed individual will have a chance.

An alternative to heightened gun control, more guns in more Americans’ hands, is certainly not the answer.

By promoting more gun ownership, we would be adding to the problem.

We should not be ramping up firepower to protect us from guns, but ridding our country of their deadly potential to the greatest extent possible.

Guns are the problem. They amplify hate and make it that much deadlier. Without guns in the picture, we can better address the poverty that reproduces gun violence, the strained police-community relations inflamed by it and the culture of otherness, inequity and fear that feeds into it.

Otherwise, gun violence will continue to show its costly presence in our culture and institutions.

We can continue to numb ourselves to the violence and live in even greater fear that the supermarket we’re shopping at, the massage parlor we’re visiting or the church, mosque or synagogue we’re worshipping in will be the next target of an armed individual.

In the hands of people filled with hate or in an erratic mental state, guns take innocent lives and tear apart our communities. People don’t hunt their food with guns anymore. They hunt other people.

The necessity of protecting oneself from tyranny at home and abroad does not drive gun ownership.

A uniquely American fetish with these machines of destruction does. It’s time for the true American carnage to end. We must ban both assault rifles and handguns.

Jake Busch (22C) is from Brookhaven, Georgia.

Asian-American identity and my crisis as of late Cailen Chinn

Courtesy of Liv Walker

A memorial to the victims of the Boulder, Colorado shooting.

The evening of the Boulder, Colorado mass shooting and six days after the Atlanta spa attacks, I posted a tweet. As soon as I sent my message for the world to see, it started to garner more attention than any of my past tweets. It read: “I am an Asian American woman. I am from Boulder, Colorado. I live in Atlanta, Georgia.

My heart is breaking for the places I call home.”

That is how I was, and still am, feeling. I have always grappled with being one quarter Chinese, but I’ve had an identity crisis in the last two weeks. I feel like I’m not Asian enough to wonder if it could’ve been me or mourn as a part of the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) community, but also know I’m not white enough to simply stand in solidarity as an outsider. Recently, I’ve had many long-overdue discussions about race, including my own, with my friends and family.

That was all mentally taxing. It wasn’t until I was at a church service, and the

woman preaching that day said “I hear you, I see you, I hurt for you.” I’m not a sentimental person, but tears started to stream down my face when I heard those words. After a week of telling myself that I was okay because I wasn’t close enough to the AAPI community to mourn, having such words spoken over me validated my experience as an Asian American in an entirely new way.

The following day, news of a mass shooting in my hometown swept the nation. Suddenly, my little hippie hometown of Boulder was in the news for all the wrong reasons, and this small college town that raised me became synonymous with massacre.

Let me break it down for you: I’m a class of 2018 Fairview High School graduate. The shooting happened at a King Soopers, a popular supermarket about five blocks from Fairview — I had driven by it every day on my way to high school and been inside plenty of times. It was a place safe and dear

to me. My cousin owns a pizza parlor in that same shopping center. And even though Colorado is no stranger to mass shootings and gun violence (Columbine, Aurora theater and STEM School to name a few), Boulder felt protected. We Boulderites say we live in the “Boulder Bubble,” and we live and breathe that sentiment. Boulder is a granola utopia, a place where you can hike in the dark without fear of what lurks in the shadows because it’s probably a squirrel or a doe. It’s a place where the bike lanes are as wide as the car lanes. It’s a place where you can end up in the Table Mesa King Soopers parking lot at one or two in the morning and still feel safe. Of course, that was before the Table Mesa King Soopers became the site of a senseless mass shooting that claimed 10 innocent lives.

I think it’s worth mentioning that, unlike the Atlanta mass shootings from two weeks ago, the names of Boulder’s victims were public the

morning after the shooting. Boulder has showered their families with support since, but we still know very little about the shooter. In Atlanta, however, the victims’ identities remained unclear for days. Instead of focusing on Atlanta’s victims, we talked about their murderer, what his motives were, who he is. This illustrates an implicit racism toward Asian Americans — if we don’t even get to know who these victims were, what does it say about their value to the Atlanta community and Asian Americans’ values to America as a whole?

We, Asian Americans significantly affected by tragedy, are feeling something indescribable. It’s crushing. It’s this weight of collective grief I am personally feeling for two distinct communities that are both incredibly close to my heart. It’s almost too much to bear.

Cailen Chinn (22C) is from Boulder, Colorado.

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The Emory Wheel

Arts Entertainment Wednesday, April 7, 2021 | Arts & Entertainment Editors: Saru Garg (saru.garg@emory.edu) & Stephen Altobelli (saltobe@emory.edu)

‘French Exit’ is not worth the entrance Fee

Beverly Cleary dies at 104, leaves vibrant literary legacy

By Abby Williams Staff Writer

Courtesy of Sony Pictures/Tobias Datum

Frances (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) head for Paris in ‘French Exit.’

By Saru Garg Arts and Entertainment Editor It’s often said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but director Azazel Jacobs’ latest film “French Exit,” which opens in Atlanta on April 2, is the kind of rip-off that no director could possibly confuse for a compliment.

Though it features the quirky, off-beat characters of a Wes Anderson film and the literary dialogue that defines Noah Baumbach’s movies, “French Exit” is missing the heart and humanity that anchor these filmmakers’ works.

The film is hollow and devoid of any sort of real emotion, dramatic tension or significant purpose. Based on the novel of the same name by Patrick deWitt, “French Exit” follows Frances Price (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges), two members of the New York elite who retreat to Paris to live in a friend’s apartment after they run out of money. As the duo holes up in France, their apartment gradually fills up as they are joined by acquaintances both old and new, from Malcolm’s fiancee Susan (Imogen Poots) to a psychic named Madeleine (Danielle Macdonald). Along the way, Frances and Malcolm must mend their strained relationship and come to terms with the loss of the family patriarch, Frank (Tracy Letts). The principal issue with “French Exit” is its writing. While deWitt also penned the film’s screenplay, his writing style clearly does not translate well to the screen. The dialogue seems far too obsessed with its own cleverness to read as authentic in any manner. In

one scene, Susan asks Malcolm “Is chivalry an interest of yours?” and he replies “I have many interests.” She follows up with the question, “How would you describe yourself?” to which he solemnly responds, “I don’t know that I’d bother to in the first place.”

It’s hard to imagine anyone, let alone an engaged couple, engaging in such a robotic conversation. Perhaps the dialogue is intentionally stylized, but it fails to serve any purpose other than making it difficult to identify with or care about the characters. deWitt also utilizes self-conscious dialogue to preempt criticism of the film and its myriad flaws; at one point, Frances explains to a friend why cliches are underrated, calling them “a story so fine and thrilling that it’s grown old in its hopeful retelling.”

With this line, it’s clear that deWitt and Jacobs are unsuccessfully attempting to justify the existence of their own cliche-ridden movie.The film also includes elements of the absurd and supernatural, likely in an attempt to spice up its main storyline about sad rich people. The most notable supernatural element is the soul of Frances’ dead husband, which has taken up residence in the body of her cat (a fact which everyone in the movie seems to take for granted).

There are multiple seances throughout the movie and a woman who seems to be a sham psychic, although her predictions come true against our expectations. Though these aspects of the film are admittedly more intriguing than its central plot, they are not integrated or developed enough

to truly work. Rather than fleshing out the farcical edge lent by its absurdity, the film includes these oddities as mere narrative flourishes: all surface with no underlying substance.The only compelling reason to see “French Exit” is Michelle Pfeiffer. Of all of the film’s actors, she is the only one able to play a poorly-written character in a way that suggests some sort of depth and humanity. As Frances struggles with the question of what she will do once the last of her money runs out, we can almost sympathize with her plight; as she explains to her attorney early on in the film, “My plan was to die before the money ran out but I kept and keep not dying and here I am.” Pfeiffer’s comedic timing is also impeccable.

The sight of Frances grinding up her cat’s meds with the sole of her high heel or setting fire to flowers in a restaurant almost justifies the film’s existence, but even Pfeiffer’s charm and charisma cannot keep the film from losing steam.As a whole, “French Exit” is an empty and meandering film that aims for profundity but winds up with all the depth of an episode of “Gossip Girl.” The movie clearly wants to be many things: it wants the quirks and theme of familial forgiveness that underscore “The Royal Tenenbaums” (2001) and the witty, referential dialogue of “The Meyerowitz Stories” (2017). Unfortunately, in making his movie, Jacobs forgot one crucial point: for these elements to cohere, the film must have a soul.

— Contact Saru Garg at saru.garg@emory.edu

On March 26, HarperCollins Publishers reported that author Beverly Cleary had passed away the day prior. My family members replied to my text about her passing within minutes, expressing their grief and surprise.

My brothers and I grew up alongside her characters Henry, Beezus and Ramona, and we simply could not imagine that Cleary’s fictional world could come to an end. Her passing, however, gave us a chance to reminisce on how her literature touched each of our lives — even though we grew up in a very different time period and location than her own.

Cleary was born in 1916 in McMinnville, Oregon, where she discovered her passion for literature.

She has 49 books to her name, primarily in children’s literature.

Many of her works follow the Quimby family, including Ramona Quimby, her sister Beezus and her sister’s best friend, Henry Huggins. She is also well-known for her trilogy titled “Ralph S. Mouse.”

Cleary was the recipient of many literary awards over the course of her career: she won two Newbery Honor Book awards for “Ramona and Her Father” and “Ramona Quimby, Age 8,” the National Book Award for “Ramona and Her Mother” and over 30 statebased awards. The Library of Congress bestowed her with the honor of “Living Legend” in 2000, and her “Ramona” series was adapted into the film “Ramona and Beezus” (2010) starring Joey King, Selena Gomez and Ginnifer Goodwin ten years later.

Cleary’s works appealed to multiple generations of readers: “Ramona’s World,” the final book in the Ramona series, was published 44 years after the first book, “Beezus and Ramona.”

Her books embody a timelessness that allows readers of any generation to relate to them, even if they were published decades earlier.

Cleary’s novels transcended space as well as time as they leapt the 5000mile distance between the west coast and my childhood row house home in the Netherlands.

When I read Cleary’s books as an elementary school kid, Cleary’s fictional world was as vibrant and realistic as my own; I didn’t even notice that her novels had been written well before I was born. I was a voracious

reader who had the ambitious goal of tackling all the books in our family’s cherry-oak attic bookcase — including my parents’ pastel-covered, yellowpaged copies of Cleary’s “Ramona” series.

Over the course of eight books, I followed a boisterous, quirky girl named Ramona as she learned to navigate life from kindergarten through fourth grade. As a shy teacher’s pet who wore matching dresses and hair ribbons to school and church alike, I could not have been a more different child than Ramona Quimby.

All the same, Cleary’s series contained reflections of my own childhood. I hated when we had spinach meatloaf for dinner just like Ramona despised when her mother served her beef tongue, and we nearly lost our puppy, Skittles, just like Ramona lost her cat, Picky-Picky.

Cleary’s novels were impactful because they refused to shy away from difficulties in familial relationships that real-life readers were experiencing.

Throughout the series, Ramona deals with helplessness and confusion as her father struggles to find a job.

She also constantly feels the need to compete against her older and younger sister for her parents’ attention.

Even though I had a happy childhood, I was also a middle child whose family needed to pinch their pennies. Sometimes I wanted to run away like Ramona, but my family ultimately grew through challenges, just like the Quimbys.

Cleary’s novels likewise made their mark on the lives of my friends and family in their own ways.

My older brother read the books, and our family watched “Ramona and Beezus” in our living room. My sisterin-law grew up visiting the Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden in Portland, Oregon, and her mother read the same novels as a child 20 years earlier in southern California.

My cousin also tore through the books and remembers being jealous of Ramona’s ability to climb the monkey bars. Cleary’s novels likewise accompanied my Emory friends throughout their childhoods, as many of my friends grew up reading or listening to the audiobooks with their parents.

My close friend Beverley, for example, remembers that Ramona’s ability to laugh at

See CHILDREN’S, Page 8

‘Promises’: a potent meditation on ambient spiritual Jazz

By Jeffrey Rosen Associate A&E Editor Filled with flashes of glee, regret, depression, regretful change and optimistic hope, “Promises’’ is a serene meditation on these momentary and impressionistic waves of emotion, embodying a cathartic exercise in free jazz supplemented with classical and analog-synth orchestrations. This groundbreaking collaboration between the DJ Floating Points, jazz pioneer Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) was released March 26 under David Byrne’s label, Luaka Bop. “Promises” can be understood as

a single piece of music split into nine movements; in its brief span, “Promises” fashions a celestial atmosphere of classical ambience, synth experimentation and raw, free-jazz expression.

Sanders has led an extensive and blistering career within the realm of free and spiritual jazz.

First rising to popularity while playing with John Coltrane in the ‘60s, Sanders continued to push the envelope of psychedelic and raw jazz expression, collaborating with the likes of Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra. Without a proper album release in almost two decades, Sanders is likely nearwng the end of his career. I can’t help but feel that

“Promises” may be one of his final public artistic statements. The other key creator of “Promises,” Sam Shepherd, aka Floating Points, has been an up-and-coming producer in the IDM scene for almost a decade now, with releases like “Crush” (2019) solidifying him as one of the most unique electronic producers.

Shepherd contributed the electronic production across the record and wrote much of the orchestration.

Considering Shepherd and Sanders are musicians from very different genres and periods, this collaboration was completely unexpected. On first listen, I was a bit surprised by how ambient the album truly is. Its preliminary

movements stay suspended in an airy and planetary space, kept dangling by the project’s musical motif which is repeated by the LSO’s strings, bells and keys.

Out of these beautiful pink clouds of ambience, Sanders’ saxophone shines in full detail. Sanders’ playing across this album is in top form; he sounds just as heartfelt and visceral as in some of his best spiritual jazz records from the ‘60s and ‘70s, yet his sound still feels fresh because he is backed

by Floating Points and the LSO. As Sanders’ initial solo wanes and dampens, Shepherd fills the gaps with Pink Floyd-esque synth leads that glide across the sound stage.

“Movement 2” and “Movement 3” hover in this heavenly liminal space of subtle classical progression.

These early movements feel like a brand new cocktail of Brian Eno electronic ambience, Steve Reich classical minimalism and Coltraneesque free-jazz expression. The repeated motif continues to rise and fall with the classical hum in the back, complemented by Sanders’ sax soloing which provides a welcome flavor of human sincerity.

“Movement 6” through “Movement 8” are the real emotional climax of the whole piece. “Movement 6” sees the LSO’s involvement expand to a

See SANDERS, Page 8

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A&E

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Sanders, Floating Points and LSO craft celestial soundscape Continued from Page 1 fully fleshed out symphonic sound; swirls of strings ebb and flow, continually building tension until they crest over like a wave.

Each point of apparent resolution is undercut by a new wave of strings pulling the listener in a different direction. The LSO paints a colorful picture which broadly encompasses a poetic spectrum of emotions, almost like a soundtrack to a Wordsworth poem.

In “Movement 7,” Shepherd provides bouncy synth arpeggiations, industrial groans and shrieking sonar waves.

Listening to this movement, I

imagine myself floating above the stratosphere observing rays of light and dust that reflect off of the exosphere. Out of this atmosphere, Sanders explodes onto the scene with his penultimate saxophonic release; frantically moving up and down the register, he seems on the verge of a divine revelation. Slowly, he settles back down into the quiet and tranquility provided by Shepherd.

However, it is still difficult to feel satisfied at this point. Sanders was close to an important breakthrough, but didn’t quite achieve it.

— Contact Jeffrey Rosen at jrose77@emory.edu

Children’s author touched lives of many Continued from Page 1 her squeaky, new shoes encouraged her to take embarrassing situations less seriously. Cleary’s work acted as the invisible string that connected us, shaping us individually well before we met each other.

To many of us who grew up with memories of Ramona or Ralph, Cleary’s passing may feel like an unmooring of our childhood.

All the same, the work of a beloved author still leaves fingerprints on our lives long after we grow up.

My older brother just got his driver’s license after learning to drive in

Cleary’s hometown of Yamhill. Saru, my arts and entertainment editor, remembers carrying bundles of Cleary’s books home from the library.

As a twenty-year-old college student with more questions than answers about my future, I still long for Ramona’s spunk, determination and boundless confidence.

We may not be eight years old anymore, but we may need Ramona Quimby more than ever.

— Contact Abby Williams at abby.williams@emory.edu

The Emory Wheel

Acclaimed ‘The Visitors’ on view at the High Museum

By Robert Fuhriman Contributing Writer Ragnar Kjartansson’s “The Visitors,” which is on view at the High Museum of Art through May 9, manipulates the viewer’s understanding of time and space.

Haunted by echoes of the spiraling lyric, “Once again, I fall into my feminine ways,” the words in this 64-minute experience begin to lose meaning, but the emotion behind them remains earnestly charged.

In August 2012, nine Icelandic musicians, including members of the bands Múm and Sigur Rós, performed a single-take ninechannel sound and video recording in separate rooms of the Rokeby Farm mansion in Hudson Valley, New York. Kjartansson, who does most of his performing naked from the bathtub, carefully selected his personal friends and people he admires to be the performers.

The artists’ chemistry in the brief moments where they are together creates a heartwarming narrative of friendship and community.

Kjartansson describes his creation as a “feminine nihilistic gospel song,” but its spatial interactivity and visual primacy transcend the traditional genre of music; the viewer is forced to circumambulate the installation in order to see and hear each of the musicians. As they do so, the viewer finds that each projection is coupled with a unique audio stream of the featured musician. This immersive experience effectively makes the viewer a participant in the work as they follow the performers across different rooms, one more visitor among the musicians in the Rokeby house. Kjartansson describes his work as “selfie-proof” in an interview with the Guardian, noting his work is “really about spatial experience.

Courtesy of Emory Wheel/Robert Fuhriman

“The Visitors” by Ragnar Kjartansson

Despite Kjartansson’s description, the exhibition’s song isn’t particularly feminine either. Though the word “feminine” is repeated ad nauseum, the performance is dominated by men. The men have the loudest instruments and the most resounding voices. Of the two female performers, one plays inaudibly for most of the performance and the other has the audio stream of the male guitarist behind her. It is worth noting that the cast is also entirely white. While this is unsurprising for an Icelandic group of performers, they present a homogeneous folkhipster-musician identity that is strangely unnerving if examined too closely. The music is reflective of this identity, as Kjartansson integrates aforementioned elements of gospel and American folk alongside a postNeutral Milk Hotel, experimental indie earnestness in its emotional tenor and dramatic tempo changes.

These great shifts make the repetitive lyrics seem meaningful and precipitate an anxious sort of engagement from the viewer.

Buffeted between emotional extremes, the viewer is rewarded with powerful catharsis through an identification with these white hipsters in their chic, borrowed mansion, an effect amplified by their friendly breaks in the fourth wall

through eye contact and smiles. Over the course of the exhibition, the audience becomes deindividuated; everyone becomes a visitor in the house, forming a slow-moving cluster in search of the most emotional, vulnerable and interesting performer. With a shared desire to see what room the man with the guitar went into or on what screen that cannon went off, the audience collectively engages in this augmented gallery space, following the performers until the end of the video when they convene into a single projector screen.

When I saw “The Visitors,” most people walked in for a minute or two and then left. A few people stayed for the full hour, however.

One left the exhibit in tears, telling her friend that she had never felt so connected to a group of strangers.

Comments on a Youtube recording of the performance recount similar emotional responses to the work.

The exhibit’s progression from isolated artists to communal revelry offers a hopeful story of camaraderie after isolation — a timely celebration of the power of collective emotional experiences.

— Contact Robert Fuhriman at robert.fuhriman@emory.edu

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The Emory Wheel

Emory Life

Wednesday, April 7, 2021 | Emory Life Editors: Lauren Blaustein (lblaust@emory.edu) and Kaitlin Mottley (kaitlin.michelle.mottley@emory.edu)

COFFEE MAKING

COLLEGE ADVICE

Cailen Drinks Coffee: How to brew at home A first-year’s perspective on navigating college

By Cailen Chinn Chief of Digital Operations

By Esther Kim Contributing Writer

What originally started as a desire to try all of Atlanta’s best lattes has since evolved into an obsession, an Instagram account and now an Emory Life column. I want this column to be a place to share my knowledge with you, give you recipes, review Atlanta coffee shops and dive into coffee culture.

The pandemic has placed most of us between a rock and a hard place — we want to connect with friends over a cup of coffee, support local mom and pop shops, see our favorite baristas and try as much of that dark necessity as we can. Soon we’ll be able to do that again; for now, I’ll be giving you my tips on how to make coffee an adventure with your own community.

College at first glance seems incredibly intimidating — at least for me it did when I started this past fall.

Moving down South and homesickness were just two problems I faced, not to mention adjusting to online classes.

But by second semester, I found my rhythm and discovered how to successfully navigate college. Here are some tricks I’ve learned along the way.

Maintain healthy eating habits

Support your local roasters Whether at home or in Atlanta, buying beans from your favorite vendors instead of the supermarket directly supports your community.

Some great Atlanta roasters to try are Counter Culture, Batdorf & Bronson and East Pole Coffee Co. When ordering online, ask the roaster to grind the coffee for you in the notes section. But if you’re up for the extra work, grinding your beans right before brewing will extract maximum flavor.

I like more traditional coffees, so I look for notes of caramel, chocolate and nuts when looking at coffee roasts, flavors you might expect from diner coffee. If you prefer a brighter, citrusy flavor, go for a light roast. For the recipes I’m giving you today, ask the barista for a “coarse for french press” grind. Your coffee will have the look of dry earth, and you should be able to see individual grounds. This grind is versatile, and you’ll be able to make your coffee more than one way with it.

Once you have your coffee of choice, it’s time to start brewing. This week, we’ll be taking a look at two completely different kinds of coffees: french press and cold brew.

Two ways to brew French press makes a full-bodied, strong coffee that pairs great with a splash of milk. It takes a few tries to nail, but once you do it will be a part of your daily routine. I love hot coffee in the morning, and french press should

Cailen Chinn/Chief of Digital Operations

A pot of freshly made, french press coffee. be consumed hot. If you let it get cold, the oils of the coffee separate, changing the flavor and making your cup more bitter.

Cold brew makes a slightly sweet, smooth cup that is easy to keep in your fridge at all times and is less labor-intensive than french press. It’s great for the people who love to plan ahead and get themselves ready for the next day ahead of time. For these two recipes, you will need coarseground coffee, a french press and a large mason jar or water bottle. If you don’t already have a french press, no need to fear. They are an inexpensive investment and can be found on IKEA and Amazon.

For french press, measure out two tablespoons of coffee grounds into your carafe. Boil eight ounces of water, or microwave it for two minutes, and pour over the grounds. Give the grounds a stir, then cover with the press and set a timer for two minutes.

When the timer goes off, slowly press the filter down into the coffee, pushing the grounds to the bottom of the carafe. Pour into your favorite mug, add whatever milk or cream you like

and enjoy. I take mine with a splash of almond milk.

For cold brew, put 12 tablespoons of coffee into a 32-ounce water bottle.

Fill the bottle with cold tap water, give it a shake and stick it in the fridge for at least 12 hours. I usually wait a full day to ensure a pronounced flavor.

To filter, use a rubber band and a coffee filter to cover the mouth of the bottle and slowly pour the coffee into a carafe, mason jar or another water bottle. Pour yourself a glass over ice and stick the rest back in the fridge for later.

I’ve made buying and brewing coffee something of a ritual, unhindered by the noise of life, so that I can truly enjoy it instead of just consuming it. Starting my morning in a productive manner completely changes the way I go about my day. Making coffee for yourself not only serves as a meditative time but also ensures that you are taking care of your mental health with a boost of serotonin first thing in the morning.

— Contact Cailen Chinn at cailen.anne.chinn@emory.edu

Having the right diet is an essential practice to a successful semester. I frequently skipped meals and felt too lazy to go to the dining hall. I would instead satisfy my hunger with the muffins and bagels sold at the Depot by Kaldi’s Coffee. When I felt myself unable to concentrate during classes, though, I soon understood the importance of balancing a healthy diet and one that includes a fair amount of proteins, dairy and veggies. By taking advantage of the salad bar at the Dobbs Common Table and the poke bar at Cox Hall, I was able to better maintain my health.

Avoid sleep deprivation Whether it was studying for midterms late into the night or maybe diving too deep into a TV show when I should have been sleeping, it was never easy to stick to a consistent sleep schedule. I often found myself pulling multiple all-nighters a week to cram for midterm exams and to absorb as much class material as my brain allowed. But this only caused headaches, bloodshot eyes and dark circles. Instead of sacrificing sleep for a higher grade, I attempted to find a balance between the two by taking my time to schedule out my weeks in advance. In planning ahead, I was able to remain productive throughout the day without having to worry about cram sessions.

Keep a consistent workout routine I recognized that consistent exercise throughout college is crucial to preserving my health. Despite not being even close to an avid athlete, with much difficulty I formed the habit of jogging laps around the Quad every day. With that came many benefits, including a longer attention span, stronger muscles and an increase in energy. In forming a habit, working out won’t seem as heavy a burden, and I certainly do not regret the benefits that come with consistent exercise.

Fitness videos like Chloe Ting’s were a great place to start for me, no matter how much my abs hurt after.

sure would become my major were bound to change.

I refrained from limiting myself to what I originally thought I could pursue. Courses that I wasn’t so sure about proved to be immensely fascinating and enjoyable. By the time I finish exploring, I’m sure I’ll have a clearer grasp on the major I’ll actually want to pursue. I will expose myself more to the subjects I am passionate about; that’s what makes academic life worth it.

Practice class registration beforehand Registering for classes has been one of the most stressful experiences during my time at Emory, and I’m not alone. Under the pressure of time, the class registration process is a ruthless battle between fellow students.

Competing to enroll in classes, especially for the more popular ones, was a big task, and I will never forget the anxiety that rushed over when I failed to enroll in the classes that I desperately wanted to take. Having a “mock trial” of class registration before the

Having a ‘mock trial’ of class registration before the actual registration time period contributed to my successful enrollments actual registration time period contributed to my successful enrollments.

By memorizing the location of my priority classes’ checkboxes and repeatedly moving my mouse to get used to the fast-paced registration period are a few ways that I’ve practiced for the big day. Also I tried using a clock that shows seconds to begin enrollment as early as possible.

Four years of college, as I’ve heard, fly by quickly. Making the most out of the college experience and creating long-lasting memories are foundational to producing the “best four years of your life.” Still, navigating through college, especially during a pandemic, can be exceptionally strenuous. So far, I’ve found that one simple switch can transform your college experience — implementing all five has been a game changer for me without a doubt.

— Contact Esther Kim at esther.kim3@emory.edu

Explore a wide variety of classes During my freshman year, I recognized the advantages of exploring classes — and not just classes that merely fulfilled my general education requirements but those that genuinely interested me.

I came to college with a wide list of majors that I wished to choose from; but, surprisingly, one semester was enough to drastically shorten that list.

I became aware that courses that I was

Illustration By ANGEL LI

10

EMORY LIFE

Wednesday, April 7 , 2021

The Emory Wheel

EMORY FARMERS MARKET

Pete Maxwell of Pure Bliss Organics (left), founder of Raw Dried Victoria Bamiduro (middle) and Marrakech Express (right).

Courtesy of ALLISON REINHARDT

Your guide to the You’ve been hoodwinked, bamboozled and Emory Farmers Market led astray. Rectangle sandwiches are better.

FOOD OPINION

By Allison Reinhardt Contributing Writer

Spending Tuesday afternoons at the Farmers Market is one of my favorite Emory traditions. Last year, I loved getting out of class to join the swarm of students on Cox Bridge who were waiting in enormous lines to get lunch from their favorite local vendors. So when Emory announced the return of the Farmers Market, I was overjoyed.

The Emory Farmers Market reopened on March 23 and is now open 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. weekly.

Even though the Farmers Market has moved from Cox Hall Bridge to McDonough Field to accommodate for social distancing, the spirit remains the same: everyone is thrilled to enjoy treats from an incredible variety of stands. From fresh produce, to baked goods or even full meals, you really can’t go wrong. To give you a better glimpse into the world of the Emory Farmers Market, here are three of my favorite vendors and the wonderful products they have to offer.

Raw Dried Upon walking into the Farmers Market at its new location, Raw Dried immediately caught my eye as it was stationed right near the entrance.

Founder Victoria Bamiduro came up with the idea for her dried fruit business after feeling constantly disappointed with the options at the grocery store, claiming she was “tired of dead fruits.” Her goal was to sell healthy, high quality and delicious products that feature fresh ingredients.

Bamiduro often gets questions about why her prices are higher than one would expect. While her bags of dried fruit are priced at $6 each, Bamiduro feels that her use of real, organic fruit ensures that her products are up to her quality standards and this justifies their price point.

One of Bamiduro’s current favorite products, and now one of mine, is her dried strawberries, which are in season. The thin strawberry slices were sweet and reminded me of a healthier version of fruit leather. They were so addicting that I finished the small bag in one sitting. I will definitely be back to try more of what Raw Dried has to offer and to catch up Bamiduro.

Pure Bliss Organics Pete Maxwell has been running the Pure Bliss Organics stand, which sells granola-based snacks, at the Emory Farmers Market for years and was excited to be back in action. For the return, Maxwell gave any student who came to the stand a free bar of their choosing. Pure Bliss sells four simple but delicious products: bars, bites, nuts and granola. They are all made from organic, natural non-GMO ingredients.

While browsing the wide variety of bars, I stumbled upon the Chocolate Almond Butter flavor. As I reached for it, Maxwell explained to me that it is not like a typical candy bar but

instead a crunchy mixture of oats, rice crisps and seeds with a touch of sweetness. I appreciated that the bar was not too sweet, and I imagined it as a bar I could eat for breakfast without getting a sugar rush. The stand is also known for its “Georgia on my mind” bar, which consists of peach, peanut and pecan. The unique flavor profile is only fitting for the Peach State.

No matter what bar you’re interested in, though, Pure Bliss Organics is the place for guilt-free snacks.

Marrakech Express If you’ve ever passed an incredibly long line of students at the Farmers Market, you likely stumbled upon Marrakech Express, an authentic Moroccan and Mediterranean food stand owned by Amal Alaoui. From chicken shawarma, to falafel, to pita and hummus, every dish served at Marrakech Express is warm, flavorful and locally-sourced. Alaoui is committed to staying true to the old fashion cooking in famous houses and families in the old city of Marrakech, and this authenticity shines through in her dishes.

My absolute favorite dish from Marrakech Express is their Chicken Shawarma Bowl. I’ve tried several different versions of chicken shawarma in Atlanta, but Alaoui’s use of tender shredded chicken, creamy leguor sauce and traditional spices — actually sourced from Morocco — elevates hers above the rest. She also includes rice, a small salad, a portion of pita and hummus and an array of sides that vary each week. While the food itself at Marrakech Express is phenomenal, what keeps students coming back is Alaoui’s warmth and kind spirit.

Alaoui sees Emory students not as sat-

What keeps students coming back is Alaoui’s warmth and kind spirit.

isfied clients but as her children whom she feels compelled to take care of and feed, she told me said as I passed the stand. Alaoui definitely succeeds each week in making sure that Emory students are happy and full of delicious food.

Although the Emory Farmers Market can be overwhelming to navigate at first, each stand truly offers something unique and worth trying.

Just make sure you get in line for your favorite vendor early enough before they sell out of their incredible products for the day.

— Contact Allison Reinhardt at alllison.brooke.reinhardt@ emory.edu

By Sophia Ling Opinion Editor Do you prefer diagonally or horizontally cut sandwiches? Ask chefs, architects, mathematicians and home cooks and they’ll say triangles are the superior sandwich shape. But my recent bread baking endeavors inspired me to conduct my own study to determine if triangles really were better; after all, one should always remain skeptical.

From a purely aesthetic perspective, the diagonal line reigns supreme.

Though physically impossible, diagonal cuts create the illusion of a larger sandwich. Architect Kevin Harris claims that cutting sandwiches diagonally exposes the interior, thus stimulating all your senses.

Mathematicians have weighed in on this argument as well; some evaluated individual sandwich bites with numerical values, and others calculated the differing crustless surface areas on the types of bread.

In order to test these sandwich scholars’ reasoning, I came up with 11 categories to score my sandwiches.

With the exception of two, all criteria were rated out of 10, weighted by importance.

To start, I created my breakfast sandwich riffing off of Cilbir, a Turkish dish with poached eggs on a bed of yogurt topped with spices like cayenne and smoked paprika. The study spanned three days. Why am I wasting my life on this? Because the revolutionary results will determine whether you cut your sandwiches into triangle or rectangle shapes.

Once you read this, you will have an opinion either for or against me, but unconsciously, something will be nagging at you to make you rethink your decision.

Assessed with a multiplicity of two, visual appeal is arguably one of the most important factors in considering the perfect sandwich cut. You feast with your eyes and eat with your mind.

The rectangle sandwich scored slightly higher because the runny egg yolk was centered perfectly in between the layers of egg white and yogurt speckled with the brightness of the paprika. On the other hand, the yolk inside the triangular sandwich was nearly destroyed when the knife sliced through, leaving most of it on the plate.

However, the triangle managed to make a comeback, because the pieces do feel substantially larger and satisfactory. While sandwiches are arguably the most versatile food, no matter the ingredients, the meal becomes substantially less appetizing when the sandwich filling soaks through the bread. Unfortunately, the yogurt, paired with the increased exposure of crustless bread in the triangle sandwich resulted in a relatively wetter sandwich half.

All of the aforementioned factors, appeal and sogginess, are determined prior to tasting. But while they are crucial to priming your tastebuds, the

Sophia Ling/Opinion Editor

Rectangular sandwiches are better than diagonally-cut sandwiches, argues Opinion Editor Sophia Ling.

first bite, combined with the way a sandwich fits in your hand, sets your mindset under which a meal is consumed. For lack of better terminology, I’ve coined the first bite “wow” factor.

In my Cilbir-inspired breakfast sandwich, the “wow” factor of the triangle sandwich was downright disappointing. The shape forces you to start eating from the corner, leaving me with a crusty bite of egg white, yogurt and nothing else. On the other hand, the rectangle can be bitten into from any side without the risk of ingredients staining your cheek.

No other food should be held to a higher standard of equality and diversity than a sandwich.

While eating, I considered a few more things: the balance of ingredients, the number of crustless bites, the bite satisfaction and whether or not the sandwich can be bitten from all sides. No other food should be held to a higher standard of equality and diversity than a sandwich, because no one wants to eat 90% bread and one measly morsel of cheese. Both sandwiches scored similarly, but the triangle outperformed the rectangle in the categories of ingredients in each bite and crustless bites. What set the triangle apart was its exponential increase in flavor as I reached the middle; the succeeding crustless and well-seasoned bites elevated the bite satisfaction value.

So, now you might be asking, “What is ‘bite satisfaction?’” I’ve defined this as the immediate two-second period when a bite of food causes you to feel euphorically satisfied yet also craving more. The diverse number of ways to bite into a rectangular sandwich gave me ample chances to experience the

different combinations of flavors.

But this isn’t to say that triangle sandwiches don’t have their merits.

Its high double dipping ability, a vital factor to consider given sauce leakage, keeps it in contention for the superior sandwich cut. As it loses points for leakage and initial dipping capabilities due to its weak and floppy sides, the triangle sandwich can be double dipped as you take a second and third bite. On the other hand, the rectangular sandwich is crumbly and misshapen, making it difficult to even dip for the first time. Losing too much sauce detracted from taste, and it was disheartening to see the yellow streaks still dotting my plate once I had finished my sandwich.

Finally, here are the results. Out of a weighted average score of 15.2, the diagonally cut sandwich scored a 11.73, and the horizontal one just topped it at 12.42. I suspect an uproar of disagreement. Though I’ve argued a case for the horizontal cut, I must also admit the pitfalls of my sandwich assembly that played a role in the final judging. Given that the rectangular sandwich was completed on the third day, I had more practice and a better idea for the overall product. The doneness of the egg and its placement on the bread also affected the balance of ingredients and bite satisfaction.

For the most part, triangles outscored rectangles on almost all the factors analyzed by other sandwich cutting scholars, so how did it lose?

Because there’s no “wow” factor of a diagonal sandwich. While it is certainly a savory sandwich, the process, the leakage and the uneven surprise bites did not fit the sandwich I had chosen to undertake the study.

But maybe there’s a more profound, philosophical question to come out of the sandwich cutting process: do triangular sandwiches beat out rectangular ones because they’re really just better, or have we all been conditioned to find evidence only to reinforce triangle sandwiches?

— Contact Sophia Ling at sophia.ling@emory.edu

Time for corporations to follow MLB’s lead Continued from Back Page money seem more important than justice in the law.

In response to the new voter restriction laws, there was public outcry to move the 2021 MLB All-Star Game from Truist Park, the home of the Atlanta Braves. In an interview with ESPN, Biden criticized Georgia’s voting restrictions, calling them “Jim Crow on steroids.” The president added he would support moving the MLB AllStar Game out of Atlanta.

For weeks, activists have been placing pressure and calling for boycotts on Atlanta-based corporations such as Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, Home Depot, Aflac, UPS and Southern Company. Since these companies are headquartered in Georgia, activists want to see them use their power to oppose the legislation. After weeks of criticism for not speaking out, CocaCola CEO James Quincey released a statement on Georgia’s new voting restrictions.

“Let me get crystal clear and

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

SPORTS

The Emory Wheel

unequivocal, this legislation is unacceptable,” Quincy said. “It is a step backwards and it does not promote principles we have stood for in Georgia around broad access to voting.”

Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian received similar backlash. Bastian sent out a memo on March 26 in which he said he understood concerns about the law but applauded various elements, suggesting it had “improved considerably during the legislative process.” In a more recent memo, however, Bastian reversed his stance and said he now recognizes that “the final bill is unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values.”

Kemp and other GOP leaders said they were caught off guard by the opposition from Delta, and Georgia’s legislators retaliated by threatening to end a Delta tax break.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and NBA star LeBron James, on the other hand, showed their support for the MLB’s decision in separate tweets.

For businesses like the MLB, who inspire and influence millions of people, it is crucial that they speak out.

Athletes in particular are the perfect advocates to bring about change as they have enormous influence over culture and society.

American Express CEO Ken Chenault called on corporate America to advocate against voter suppression.

“Corporations have to stand up — there is no middle ground,” Chenault said.

“This is about all Americans having the right to vote. But we need to recognize the special history of the denial of a right to vote for Black Americans.

And we will not be silent.”

The MLB has not yet announced where the game will be relocated.

What we do know is that baseball fans in Atlanta will have to wait to see all of the MLB’s top players play in their city.

quickly peered around pillars to catch glimpses of the field. You could feel the anticipation building in the air. Then, another line, at the end of which was the much-coveted CDC COVID-19 vaccination record card. For a moment, I felt like I was in a deli as they handed me a slip with my number — lucky number 1345.

After I received my cards, I rounded a corner that showed an open view of the field and bleachers, which after copious lines, was a breathtaking view.

I sat in one of the designated bleacher seats that look at a perfectly groomed field, rows of Falcon-red seats and the jumbotrons thanking me for my participation.

In a matter of minutes, the intercom

called my number and I was whisked into another room. I sat down at one of 50 tables where members of the National Guard administered shots.

Within two minutes of sitting down, I received my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, the least painful shot of my life, and hopefully most rewarding.

As I sat in the observation room looking out at the field, waiting out the possibility of an allergic reaction and snapping a couple of selfies for my family, the surrealness of the moment hit me.

I realized sitting in the bleachers how much I missed the communal element of sports. Albeit not the biggest NFL fan, I used to go to baseball games with my dad all the time. I didn’t think

— Contact Grace Reyer at grace.reyer@emory.edu

SWOOP’S SCOOP

11

Sport

Opponent

Time

Wednesday April 7

Softball

@ Huntingdon

5 p.m. & 7 p.m.

Friday April 9

Track & Field Track & Field

@ Flames Inv. @ Berry Field Day

All Day All Day

Saturday April 10

Track & Field Track & Field Baseball W Tennis

@ Flames Inv. @ Berry Field Day @ Sewanee @ Piedmont

All Day All Day 1 p.m. & 4 p.m.

3:30 p.m.

Sunday April 11

W Golf

@ Montgomery CC Inv.

TBA

Monday April 12

M Golf W Golf

@ Wynlakes Inv. @ Montgomery CC Inv.

TBA TBA

Tuesday April 13

M Golf

@ Wynlakes Inv.

TBA

Rediscovering community at stadium vaccine clinic

Continued from Back Page Thankfully, the outside lines moved fast. In a matter of minutes, my line neighbors and I were hurried through a metal detector, confirmed our appointments and were inside the stadium.

Lines are usually a bore, but this one was thrilling. As I swiftly moved through a second line inside the stadium, I felt the same adrenaline pumping through my veins at the end of a nail-biting game. My patience was awarded with a neon-yellow wristband boasting the Mercedes-Benz logo and a “C” classification, directing me to where in the stadium I’d receive the vaccine.

We ascended a nearby escalator and

The mindset of living up to expectations Continued from Back Page found that team culture, which was solidified in the locker room, at practices and in games, was far more important than their seed. Emory, and other teams, try to never let a ranking of themselves or another team affect what they do, he said.

“Rankings are great and all, but at the end of the day, whether your team is ranked No. 1 or No. 100, you still have to show up and play,” Baitey said.

“I’ve gone into the tournament with seedings that were higher than what we expected as well as with ones that were lower, but in every case, nobody we faced was willing to just lie down and accept defeat on account of what the numbers said.”

However, in the following season, the women’s basketball team secured their first NCAA Tournament berth since 2013 — and the program’s fourth ever. Junior forward Anna Arato, who was a freshman at the time, was well aware the team’s opponent, Trine University (Ind.), was the third-ranked team in the country.

“Everyone was definitely nervous and had heightened expectations around the game,” Arato said.

The men’s basketball team has consistently made the tournament in recent years, creating the mentality of being the most dominant team on the floor. The team needed to maintain the

focus that got them through the regular season and into the postseason.

The men’s team’s success also wasn’t exclusive to the 2018 season — in each of the six years leading up to that season, the team was quite successful in moving past the first round in the NCAA tournament.

The women’s team came into the 2019 NCAA Tournament knowing they were the underdog with something to prove. Arato admitted that when they entered the postseason, the team continued to execute in a way that brought them success. “[We] stuck to a pretty consistent game plan, regardless of who we are playing,” Arato said. “With the exception of tweaking a few things in our offense depending on personnel of the other team.”

Despite one’s record or ranking, seeding does not have as strong of an influence on the teams who physically step on the court as it does for viewers who are at home watching. The pressure of putting together a good performance will always prevail for any team despite their seed ranking.

Expectational pressure will be placed on players and coaches no matter what, but how they respond to that pressure will determine if they satisfy the selffulfilling prophecy of seed rankings.

— Contact Olivia McBerry at olivia.mcberry@emory.edu

Gabriella Lewis/Digital operations & Podcast Editor

of those games as a big deal, but after a year of quarantine, separated from the people I love, I realized how much I missed those experiences.

I was reminded of what crowds were like, and although I wasn’t cheering on my home team or eating the crème de la crème stadium food, sit-

ting in the bleachers at the MercedesBenz Stadium offered me the same communal feeling I get at a game. The “ra-ra” of hoping your team would win was swapped for hoping your country will recover from the pandemic. We all sat there, looking out and hoping for the same goal.

I’m not only grateful that I was vaccinated, but I’m also thankful I got a taste of what I’ve been missing so much: community.

So if you can, get vaccinated wherever you can. But if you find yourself in section 247, consider yourself even luckier.

— Contact Gabriella Lewis at gabriella.v.lewis@emory.edu

Golf places in top half at Golfweek Invitational Continued from Back Page Men’s Golf finishes in third after a strong Sunday Last weekend, the men drove down to Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida, to compete in the Golfweek Division III Spring Invitational. The Eagles finished in third place, with a total score of 899. Throughout the tournament, the Eagles were led by junior Logan Ryan, who shot a 68 on Sunday — the lowest score of the weekend — and individually placed second overall with a total score of 217. On Sunday, the team shot a tournament best 290, which helped propel them into third place.

The men return to action April 12 and 13 when they compete in the Wynlakes Invitational in Montgomery, Alabama.

Women’s Golf places fourth at Golfweek DIII Invitational The women’s golf team also competed at the Golfweek Invitational this past weekend. The team posted a total score of 971, earning fourth place in the eight-team field. No. 25 Centre College (Ky.), No. 4 Carnegie Mellon University (Pa.) and No. 2 Methodist rounded out the top three, respectively.

Freshman Mariana Chong led the Eagles, posting a 238 for the tournament and tied for seventh place overall. Her solid performance earned her UAA women’s golfer of the week honors. Behind her was sophomore Ksheera Jalakam, who recorded a 239

and tied for tenth in the tournament.

Freshman Jessica Lan also contributed, shooting a 241 and finishing 13th out of the 40.

Next up for the women is a trip to Montgomery, Alabama, April 11 and 12 where they will compete in the Montgomery Country Club Invitational.

Women’s Tennis faces setback against Georgia Southern On April 3, the No. 3 women’s tennis team took the court against Georgia Southern University. The Georgia Southern Eagles dominated the day, winning the matchup 6-1 and only dropping three sets in singles play.

Senior Ysabel Gonzalez-Rico defeated fifth-year Eagle Paula Boixader to capture Emory’s lone singles victory. After dropping the first set 3-6, Gonzalez-Rico won the next two sets 7-6 (7-4) and 10-7, respectively. On Monday, the UAA named her women’s tennis athlete of the week.

Junior Jessica Fatemi also put up a strong fight in the only other close match, but ultimately Georgia Southern sophomore Paula Hijos defeated her 2-6, 6-4, 10-8. In doubles, the Eagles’ tandem of GonzalezRico and senior Katie Chang won their match 6-1, but Georgia Southern took the next two double’s matches 7-5 and 6-3.

The Eagles hit the road again on April 10 when they face off against Piedmont College (Ga.).

Baseball loses second straight On April 6, the baseball team lost the first home game hosted by an Emory Athletic team in over a year.

Piedmont rallied back from an early six-run deficit to win the game 11-9.

The Eagles started off strong, jumping out to a 6-0 lead in the second inning behind a big two RBI double by senior second baseman Jacob Singer.

However, Piedmont answered back in the top of the third with a five run inning, fueled by a two RBI single by freshman second baseman Jack Gilsenan. Emory added two runs in the fourth and fifth innings to take an 8-5 lead. Emory relinquished the lead in the top of the eighth behind two costly mistakes. An error by senior third baseman Caleb Shulman allowed one run to come home. Coach Mike Tawrdoski then called on freshman pitcher Matthew Culbert to make his collegiate debut. With bases loaded, two outs and the score tied at 8, Culbert got Gilsenan to ground out right back to him, but he threw the ball over the head of senior first baseman Jake Kessinger, allowing two runs to come home. In total, Piedmont scored six runs to take an 11-8 lead. Emory added one run in the home half of the eighth, but was unable to catch up.

The Eagles move to 4-5 on the season and are next scheduled to play a doubleheader on April 10 at Sewanee: The University of the South (Tenn.).

— Contact Andrew Feld at andrew.m.feld@emory.edu

The Emory Wheel

Sports

Wednesday, April 7, 2021 | Sports Editor: Michael Mariam (mmariam@emory.edu)

EMORY ATHLETICS

Teams look ahead to home competition

By Andrew Feld Staff Writer

Gabriella Lewis, Digital Operations & Podcast Editor

While getting the COVID-19 vaccine at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, people are met with a field view of the Falcons’ and United FC’s home field.

Getting vaccinated at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium

By Gabriella Lewis

Digital Operations & Podcast Editor I miss sports. I can stream a game on my laptop but that doesn’t have the energy of a crowded arena, a packed living room cheering on your home team or a city buzzing with the excitement coming off a win. I was reminded the other week of how much I love the sports community and how close we are to returning to the excitement we have lost to the pandemic.

On March 24, I sped to MercedesBenz Stadium between classes. The enormous structure located in downtown Atlanta is home to the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and the Atlanta United FC of the MLS. However, that day, it was home to vaccine appointments for myself and thousands of other Georgians.

But this is not the first time “The Benz” has undergone a large-scale transformation to serve public good.

In December 2020, the stadium became an early-voting site for the Jan. 5 Senate runoff election. Both State Farm Arena, home of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, and Mercedes-Benz Stadium were valuable mass voting locations in December because their large spaces made them optimal for social distancing.

By January, the stadium became a mass vaccination site. While it seems odd for a stadium to host non-entertainment events, the facility’s owner, billionaire co-founder of The Home Depot Arthur Blank, has always kept the stadium’s community impact in mind.

“Mercedes-Benz Stadium was always envisioned as much more than a place,” Blank wrote in his book “Good Company.” “We wanted to impact people inside our soaring walls, of course … but that wasn’t enough. We also wanted to impact those outside — our community, our city, our league, our

MARCH MADNESS

culture.”

In the frantic moments during which I booked my COVID-19 vaccine appointment, I failed to realize the grandeur that would come with getting my vaccine at the largest vaccination site in the Southeast.

As my appointment date approached, I found myself weighed down by the anxiety of both stepping into an unfamiliar environment and receiving the jab that would hopefully return my life to “normal.” As I rolled up to the stadium’s second gate, I was met with lines of fellow vaccine-goers.

Gabriella Lewis/Digital operations & Podcast Editor

See REDISCOVER, Page 11

This past weekend marked the final weekend that Emory University athletic teams were permitted to compete only on the road.

On March 29, Emory Athletics announced that athletic teams are now able to host home games, and the baseball team had the honors of hosting Emory’s first opponent in over one year on April 6. After facing some tougher competition this past weekend, teams may be looking forward to competing in a more familiar environment. That being said, let’s take a look at how each team fared.

Men’s Track & Field finishes in bottom half of Invitational This past weekend, the Eagles competed in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Spring Invitational. The two-day event featured 14 teams, including Division I institutions Arkansas State University and Samford University (Ala.). With 23 points, the Eagles finished in eighth place and did not record a top-three finish in any event.

The Eagles fared best in the 800meter where freshman distance runner Spencer Watry placed fourth at a time of 1:56:03 with senior distance runner Tom Perretta in fifth place with a time of 1:56:12. In field events, freshman thrower Kenya Sei led the Eagles, finishing sixth in the hammer throw with a distance of 42.51 meters.

The men’s track and field team’s next meets are set for April 9 and 10,

when they will compete in Flames Invitational at Lee University (Tenn.) and the Berry Field Day at Berry University (Ga.).

Women’s Track & Field tops all non-Division I competition at UAB The women’s track and field team also competed against a stacked field at the UAB Spring Invite this past weekend, placing in tenth out of 15 teams. However, among the five other non-Division I teams competing, the Eagles’ 21 points led the group.

On the track, the Eagles performed best in the 800-meter and 1500-meter. In the 800-meter, junior sprinter Lauren Cunild finished fifth with a career-best time of 2:15:89.

On Monday, Cunild won University Athletic Association Women’s Track athlete of the week.

Sophomore distance runner Annika Urban led the Eagles in the 1500-meter, recording a time of 4:44:37 which put her in tenth place.

The women also placed sixth in the 4x400-meter relay with an impressive time of 4:07:00, which was nearly ten seconds faster than their time at the Hilltop Classic last weekend. Off the track, senior sprinter and jumper Rebekah Bondi led the Eagles in the long jump with a jump of 5.32m that placed her eighth.

The women will join the men for the fourth straight weekend on the road as they are scheduled to compete in both the Flames Invitational and Berry Field Day on April 9 and 10.

See GOLF, Page 11

BASEBALL

Atlanta stripped of MLB All-Star Game An inside look at seeding in college sports

By Grace Reyer Staff Writer

By Olivia McBerry Contributing Writer With the end of March Madness, it’s time to reflect on the emotional roller coasters that were the 2021 NCAA Basketball Tournaments. There have been a considerable number of upsets this year, calling into question the importance of a team’s record and ranking as they enter the tournament.

Gonzaga University (Wash.) was the overall No. 1 seed in this year’s tournament, which comes with its upsides and downsides. As the highest seeded team, the accomplishment may give the team swagger and promote confidence in their chances to win.

However, this ranking also comes with the expectation to “go all the way” and win the tournament.

There is no doubt that a higher ranking comes with higher expectations for tournament success, but this has driven teams like Gonzaga and Baylor University (Texas) to hold themselves together as they remained the twohighest seeds in the Final Four. As for teams like the University of Illinois and Ohio State University, which had a one and two seed ranking, respectively, going into the tournament, they were driven past their breaking points and lost to lower-seeded teams. While

the underdog teams look to dash the hopes of higher-seeded teams, some double-digit seeded teams, like the University of California, Los Angeles Bruins, made remarkable runs in the tournament, with the Bruins reaching the Final Four.

In 2018, Emory University’s men’s basketball team clinched their sixthstraight bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament. In the same season, the Eagles tied for third for the school’s record of most wins in a single season in program history. Unlike the Division I bracket, the Division III bracket does not seed teams in a bracket. However, teams are still placed in similar locations on the bracket as the teams in the Division I tournament, so teams like Emory can infer where they stand in the rankings.

Senior guard Nick Stuck was a part of that team as a freshman. He remembers the team’s run to the Sweet 16 very well but remarks how little an impact bracket placement had on the team.

“Letting a ranking or seed determine your focus is how you get upset in the tournament,” Stuck said.

Assistant coach and former men’s basketball player Gebereal Baitey

See THE, Page 11

The MLB released a statement on April 2 announcing the relocation of the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta.

Commissioner Robert D. Manfred, Jr. issued the following statement.

“Over the last week, we have engaged in thoughtful conversations with Clubs, former and current players, the Players Association, and The Players Alliance, among others, to listen to their views,” the announcement reads. “I have decided that the best

way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s AllStar Game and MLB Draft.”

A week earlier, Georgia lawmakers approved legislation that places new restrictions on voting access, makes it more difficult to vote by mail and gives the state legislature more power over elections. Gov. Brian Kemp signed the bill despite widespread criticism that it amplifies voter suppression and disproportionately targets Black communities. Voter data suggests the Black community was a huge factor in President Joe Biden’s victory in the

MichaelMariam/Sports Editor

Truist Park, formerly known as SunTrust Park, lost the 2021 MLB All-Star Game because of Georgia’s recent elections bill.

state and the two Georgia U.S. Senate elections, as Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) emerged victorious in their January runoffs.

The bill decreases the amount of absentee ballot drop boxes, creates a number of challenges to the qualifications of a voter, shortens the runoff election period from nine to four weeks and significantly cuts the amount of time voters have to request an absentee ballot. The bill even bans providing food or water to voters waiting in line to cast their ballots.

State Sen. Gloria Butler (D-Ga.), who voted against the bill, said the bill would make it harder to vote, especially for the poor, the disabled and Black citizens.

“We are witnessing a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we’ve seen since the Jim Crow era,” Butler said before the bill was signed into law.

The Braves were also disappointed by the MLB’s decision to move the AllStar Game. In a statement, the team said it is unfortunate that “businesses, employees and fans in Georgia are the victims of the decision.” Although the Braves stressed how important equal voting opportunities are to them, the organization is being criticized for their statement, making the game and

See TIME, Page 11