October 2020

IHS TATTLER OCTOBER 2020 | VOL. 128 | NO. 2

ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO TATTLE.

Established in 1892 Published Monthly www.ihstattler.com Ithaca High School 1401 North Cayuga Street Ithaca, NY 14850 FREE

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EDITORIAL

Pass/Fail Grading Gets an A

BY THE TATTLER EDITORIAL BOARD

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n the days leading up to June 5, 2020, hundreds of IHS students flooded SchoolTool to make an important choice that would reflect their academic performance throughout the entire school year. The choice, given to students by IHS, allowed students to select either an alphanumerical or Pass/Fail grade for each of their courses, a hybrid system created to acknowledge the difficulties of students during distance learning 1.0 and the school’s shut-down.

Almost exactly three months later, students have returned to school both virtually and in-person after previous plans were discarded. IHS’ ever-changing plans need an accompanying grading system that is as flexible as possible and fits student needs. Giving students the choice between alphanumerical grades and Pass/Fail grades is the obvious frontrunner, and should be implemented a second time for the first semester so that students are able to regulate their mental health, have an overall more positive learning experience, and preserve their GPAs while they confront the immeasurable challenges presented by a global pandemic.

Offering Pass/Fail to students last spring was the school’s way of alleviating stress and acknowledging the difficulties for students as they learned to work in a flawed distance-learning system. It was the right move in murky waters, but the administration’s subsequent mistake has been assuming the waters have cleared. The 2019-2020 school year may have ended, but the pandemic—and its myriad effects on students—will not disappear anytime soon. In fact, the situation is significantly worse this fall than in April when distance learning 2.0 began: COVID-19 cases are at a comparable level (and as seasons change and Cornell remains open, chances of cases spiking are high), employment is still at a low (-4.9 percent from last July according to the USBL), and the entire country is mired in ever-heightening political turmoil. The Tattler surveyed sophomores, juniors, and seniors through their school emails, and out of the 60 students who responded, many students indicated that they were more stressed one week into the 2020-2021 academic year than in the spring when distance learning 2.0 was first implemented, with one student expressing the sentiment of many in three words: “MORE. WAY MORE.” The only thing that has changed is that students and teachers have had time to adapt, but adapting does not mean students can perform at pre-pandemic levels, and the school should not expect them to.

Teachers are more familiar with technology after a summer of training, and have developed lessons that can be delivered online.

Familiarity, however, is not mastery and new technology is not a replacement for in-person school. Mr. Prokosch, a Global II and AP Euro teacher, commented on the new teaching experience, saying, “everything is slower when teaching virtually. It’s also more draining for both teachers and students alike, especially in 85- minute periods. It takes more effort and more patience to get students to engage in class.” He specifically criticized Canvas, the new Learning Management System which IHS implemented over the summer: “To be quite plain, Canvas has made it twice as difficult to teach during distance learning... it is debilitating to use during synchronous teaching in high school. It’s too clunky and too complicated.”

Students echoed these concerns: “With the new system—including Canvas, block schedules, brand new teachers, and new classes— getting back in the rhythm of school is more difficult.” Old technology has not served students well either: one student said, “District-issued chromebooks are also incredibly slow due to old hardware and the large number of applications the district keeps adding has made

it almost impossible to use them effectively during classes.”

As a result of confounding technology and a delayed school start, teachers will not be able to include the same level of content in their curricula. AP Stats teacher Mr. Kirk anticipates “roughly [a] 10-20 percent reduction in content and topics” for the math department.

And yet, students will still have to confront standardized testing (Regents and AP) at the end of the year. As a result, although they are offering concessions and altering curricula, many teachers are reluctant to lower grading standards. It is most likely that classes won’t be any easier this year than in the past, and students would be able to more properly manage their stress by designating classes that are greater challenges for them as Pass/Fail, while working hard in other classes that come easier to them to produce high numerical grades. Instead of making the adjustment back to school more intolerable, students would be able to regain their lost sense of control, keeping their mental health in check.

Even before the pandemic, attempts to relieve stress by altering grading standards to be less demanding have been effective. Mrs. Mellander, a Humanities 10 English teacher, has developed a system over her years of teaching which she calls the “A Team.” In this structure, all students in her class receive a guaranteed 95 each quarter if their assessed individual assignments meet the expected high standard quality of work, and they put in consistent effort. It is essentially a Pass/Fail course with a numerical weight advantage.

In her eyes, it has been a rewarding system: “I heard the majority of the students say they were more willing to take risks, they weren’t worried about being wrong anymore in class, and that they turned things in they were really excited about and had fun with, because they knew they were going to get the A. That’s what I want. I want students who are authentically engaged—it can still be hard, the work can be hard—but I want there to be some joy and some freedom, and less concern about ‘what if I fail?’”

This uptick in participation is especially relevant for virtual learning, where students, either out of boredom, fear, or awkwardness, can easily hit mute and walk away. Depending on the level of comfort students have with the subject and their peers, working in groups and breakout rooms can especially have low levels of engagement from students. As described by Mr. Kirk, “Student participation definitely has changed. It’s challenging enough at times to work in groups when you’re physically next to each other in a classroom, but it’s even more challenging when that interaction is in the form of a small rectangle on a screen.” Without having to worry if they’re right or wrong, students may feel more confident to take risks and participate more. Anything that can be done to make students feel more comfortable in a strange environment would be beneficial to both students and teachers.

Students who choose Pass/Fail are not the only ones who similarly stand to profit off of this grading system. By allowing students to select their preferred grading method, the system proves itself to be a truly inclusive structure, as it still meets the wishes of students who wish to have alphanumerical grades. When asked why they picked alphanumerical grades, one student replied, “I had grades in the nineties for all of my classes, and I felt that these alphanumerical grades showed the hard work I put into all of my classes,” while another stated that they “wanted to reap the fruits of [their] labor.”

Acknowledging the hard work students put into school even through dire circumstances gives them a sense of accomplishment, and such positive results will continue to motivate them to continue to do well

EDITORIAL

Staff 2020 – 2021 Editor-in-Chief

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in school this year.

On the other hand, critics of the system may believe that choosing Pass/Fail is a self-fulfilling prophecy: students will select the easier option because they don’t want to put in effort, and if they aren’t held accountable by grades, they will slip through the cracks and learn even less than before. But Pass/Fail does not affect that standard at which individual assignments are graded, and students will still be held accountable by teachers.

Another way to ensure students aren’t lost to the Pass/Fail system is to add a caveat. Before switching to Pass/Fail, students will have to meet with their teacher and/or counselor to discuss why they are making that decision. This will serve a twofold purpose: it will prevent students from just checking-out of class, and it will also give counselors and teachers an extra chance to meet with and help students who are struggling. Teachers would be able to pinpoint which parts of the curriculum are most difficult to the student and assist them, and counselors would be able to offer support, time management advice, etc.

The approximately 82 percent of IHS students that are college-bound (reported in the 2018-2019 overview) may worry that a Pass/Fail designation on a course will stain their transcript. But colleges are not unaffected or unaware of how schools are changing grading systems. For current seniors, colleges and universities across the country have assured students that applicants will not be disadvantaged by lowered grades or missing test scores.

This concession will surely hold for current sophomores and freshmen as well. While many fear that a “Pass” on a transcript instead of an alphanumerical grade will indicate that they have done worse in the class than someone who has chosen to report a grade, a class chosen for Pass/Fail has no impact on the student’s overall GPA, something that will benefit students in admissions. This allows students to take classes that would otherwise be stressful—and so, still be learning challenging material—without tanking their GPA. Some students might instead prefer a different system. For example, other schools use systems that bridge the gap between Pass/Fail and full grades, like the 1-2-3-4 mastery system that relieves stress while still rewarding students for hard work and encourages improvement. However, IHS does not have the infrastructure nor the spare money to implement a new grading system in the

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midst of a school year. The infrastructure for Pass/ Fail, on the other hand, has already been put in place. Large amounts of time were already invested in developing and understanding the structure from both IHS administration and families last year. According to an email sent to families in August, “...our community has demonstrated remarkable patience and resilience as we have sought to meet the needs of our learners.” While administration and staff were working hard during the end of the school year to provide a smooth transition back to school, a lack of communication also followed; students and families experienced mass confusion while trying to sort through IHS’ latest reopening plans and the newly introduced grading system.

If a different grading system is now introduced, straying from allowing students to choose between alphanumerical and Pass/Fail grades, the cycle of confusion will restart and the “remarkable patience and resilience” students showed will have been misspent. Because last school year’s distance learning grading system has already been accomplished and sorted out, implementing it a second time would be more time-efficient than creating a new program, conclusively avoiding more mass confusion. IHS’ time would be far better spent revising plans to keep students safe as they return to school instead of changing yet another aspect of their plans.

The advantages to the Pass/Fail system are clear, but whether all teachers choose to embrace it is another question. The stigma around choosing Pass/Fail is all too existent, with one student stating, “...we all know the societal stigma that occurs when you choose to just “Pass” instead of presenting the actual grade, and I hate that that is real, but it is.” Another said they were even “discouraged from choosing Pass/Fail” by one of their teachers.

Working to acknowledge and eliminate this omnipresent stigma should be a top priority among teachers if students are once again given the choice of Pass/Fail grades. The focus needs to be placed on students’ individual needs and the choice that is best for them.

The word ‘unprecedented’ has become equivalent to TV static these past seven months, but it’s an apt enough description. Public schools have never faced a crisis on this level before, and students have never been forced to adapt to such a chaotic climate. The entire world is limping through a pandemic, and it is only right that the scales be weighted in favor of prioritizing the well-being of students. The least the administration could do is offer a lifeboat, a system that caters to each student’s needs. Allowing students to choose between alphanumerical grades and Pass/Fail is the most flexible grading system under such extraordinary circumstances, and is the most wise choice. Stress levels are constantly climbing, virtual environments present endless challenges to both students and teachers, and ICSD certainly has no time to develop another system. Until a vaccine is found, IHS’ main focus needs to be on mitigating harm to student health and learning. The solution is abundantly clear.

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EDITORIAL

Teaching Black History at IHS Still Needs Work

BY THE TATTLER EDITORIAL BOARD

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his year our nation has faced a grand reckoning on the issue of racial inequality, and as a result, students from Ithaca City School District have started to wonder if IHS’s history curriculum is up to par with the Black history instruction that is needed in schools today. Black History can include teaching about achievements made by Black people, talking about the long and ongoing oppression of Black people in America, and attacking the whitewashing of world and American history. The Tattler Editorial Board believes ICSD has the opportunity to be a leader in integrating Black history into the curriculum and it needs to take active steps to reach that goal.

At the moment, federal laws require absolutely nothing in regard to Black history in our educational curriculum. However, in 2005 New York State passed a law which mandates that the slave trade and the immediate aftereffects of American slavery be taught in schools.

This is not enough. Right now, there is a New York State Senate bill in committee (bill S1135A) which proposes adding more Black history into New York State’s K-12 curriculum. If the bill is passed by the Senate and Assembly and signed by the governor, then the New York State curriculum will require events like the Harlem Renaissance, the Buffalo antislavery movement, the suffrage of African American Long Islanders and more to be taught in all New York classrooms.

To justify the bill for a more complete Black History to be taught in New York schools, New York State Senator Brian A. Benjamin states, “I believe the African-American community has come very far from no voice at all, to making huge contributions, and overcoming many setbacks, which is worth teaching. It is not enough, to only talk of these contributions in just a month and more likely forget it afterwards.” The State Senator goes on to talk about how the teaching of Black history in schools could potentially change systemic racist stereotypes. “Many young people assume that because white historically meant good and African-American is bad/ evil, Europeans or white people have always been biased against those of African descent and racism is just an extension of ancient practices. Teaching young people at an early age about the actual history of African-American people can help reduce the many misconceptions surrounding African-American and white people and race, and can reduce the stereotypes young people grow up adhering to.”

But until the bill is passed, which will most likely take years, ICSD teachers and administrators need to make an active commitment to talking about systemic racism in our country and the many events and people that created and grow this system of oppression as well as to celebrate achievements made by Black people throughout history. It’s a two sided coin, both Black achievements and Black oppression need to be taught. Black History Month is simply not enough: an integrated curriculum, rather than a week of performative allyship, is required to teach Black History to the same level of depth that white history receives.

Throughout this summer, ICSD students began conversations about race in America and a spread of information over social me-

dia related to Black Lives Matter took shape. And in that outcry against systemic racism and racist policies, students began to realize that the paper-thin idea of Black history that students learn from our schools and general society is only the tip of a massive iceberg full of hundreds of years worth of Black history. Ideas, ages, and events that students have never heard of began circulating through our public and social media for the first time. Students took it upon themselves over the summer to educate themselves on the history they had missed in ICSD. Students shouldn’t have to learn by themselves about the issues upon which American life is grounded, issues that affect every single American to this day.

That should be a guarantee in our education system; and yet it’s not. It’s 2020 and it’s time we start teaching real American history. Our current history curriculum is no longer going to cut it.

ICSD has gone through a lot of programs and initiatives and board of education goals in attempts to make Black history a more prominent part of our education, but late September of this year, 100 students answered a survey about their experience with Black history in ICSD in the past and present and 40% of students said their experience was “Not Good, I feel like I missed out on certain important events or historical figures because my teacher/ curriculum dosen’t focus enough on Black History” and 17% said “My teachers and the New York State curriculum have completely failed me while teaching about Black history in the classroom, it’s hardly addressed ever and I don’t feel ICSD has done anything to change that.” ICSD has made an effort over the years to include more marginalized voices in history classes but if the majority of students aren’t aware it’s happening, there’s a problem. Communicating with students might be the first step there. IHS and ICSD students care about their education, which is apparent from a third of responders leaving comments on the google form that was sent out, with each student detailing different problems they have with their ICSD history courses and ideas for how to make them better.

Over the summer, as a reaction to America’s national racial reckoning, ICSD has been trying to make some improvements in the schools’ attention and awareness of race. According to multiple accounts from IHS teachers, the majority of English and History teachers have been trying to look at their curriculum through a new anti-racist lens. Amy Spinelli, a Global 1 and Global 2 history teacher at IHS said,“Over the summer I know many teachers engaged in meaningful dialogue and protests surrounding anti-racism. This included book groups reading books such as Ibram X. Kendi’s (2019) How to Be an Anti-Racist, Zoom discussions about common practices and current systems, as well as participating in the Black Lives Matter rallies on the Commons on Sundays. And of course lots of introspection.” Tenth grade history teacher, Mathew Prokosch said, “Besides departmental conversations, ICSD did mandate some professional development (PD) in August and September regarding anti-racism.”

One difficulty Prokosch encountered during the PD sessions was the size of the group, saying, “I feel much more comfortable discussing sensitive topics in small groups with people I know,”

EDITORIAL

but he hopes that this will be adjusted for later sessions. Prokosh, like most teachers interviewed, had faith in the district and history department to make changes, “Like all aspects of education, teaching Black history is a work in progress, and one I know myself and my department are devoted to continuing improving upon.”

Prokosch also mentioned his ideas and thoughts for a potential elective that focuses on Black history and representing marginalized voices, though he sees the “current trend towards funding STEM over the Humanities” being a tough barrier to break in order to make that happen.

So what more should ICSD be doing? Teachers, primarily history teachers, need to be able to step outside of their comfort zones, have open talks with their classes, and be able to facilitate discussions where they might not have all the answers. While these issues can be uncomfortable to address—especially in a predominantly white school—these discussions will make Ithaca High School a more inclusive and knowledgeable community overall.

At the end of the year, the history department should develop a survey so that students can give their voice into whether or not the class had meaningful discussions about race, included enough Black history etc. The departement should take the data from these end of the year surveys and use it to figure out what they should/shouldn’t change about their courses and make plans to implement these ideas and improve the following year.

ICSD should look into devoting more money and resources into having a potential elective focused exclusively on Black history and marginalized voices—IHS students would swarm to that class. In everyday history classes, teachers should actively seek out ways to incorporate discussions on how the history should be preceived and Black history into their given curriculum. When talking about traditional U.S. history and world history events, they should take time to address how minorities and/or women were affected by this. Teachers should strive to and be able to have open conversations with their class about how traditional U.S. and world history events and eras relate to the systemic racism we see today. If the curriculum suggests that a teacher talk about or potentially glorify a slave owner (i.e. founding fathers), the teacher should discuss what they did but then talk to their class about who it affected both positively or negatively and make sure to not brush past this or excuse a slave owner because it’s “what everybody did at the time”. When talking about a slave owner’s “positive” role in history, a simple note on the side is not enough. Teachers should spend an equal amount of time, if not more, learning about the extent of their actions on Black Americans.

This also falls on the administration. They should play an active role in making sure teachers don’t have to stretch their time and resources even thinner by making this change independently. Administration should enforce at the very least two anti-racism and anti-bias trainings for every teacher per year. Perhaps most importantly, after more pressure is taken off this issue (and the pressure will lift), the training shouldn’t stop, the classroom discussions shouldn’t stop, and teacher curriculum changes shouldn’t stop.

ICSD has the resources and community support to be a leader in integrating Black History into their curriculum across the state, and they need to take full advantage.

There are zero Black teachers at IHS this year, so it’s especially important that teachers hold each other accountable for their actions and how the specific whitewashed history ICSD can often teach is harmful. Not to mention that having zero Black teachers employed at IHS is inconsistent with our values and demograph-

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ics. Hiring Black teachers must be a priority for IHS and the whole district. ICSD has a diverse administration, but if that administration is not also reflected in our teachers, it counts for very little.

One of the best things about ICSD’s approach to Black History is the Harlem Renaissance unit that takes place in Dewitt Middle School’s 8th Grade History course. Every student is asked to do an in-depth project about a specific artist from the Harlem Renaissance, and after a couple of weeks, there is a big presentation to parents and the community. The event and unit celebrates the accomplishments of the Harlem Renaissance and the thousands of Black artists effects on American popular culture. Over the unit, there are performances every Friday from local dance or music groups who teach about the many new ways Black artists influenced and invented new music, writing, dance, and more. This is a perfect example of what ICSD does right in teaching about Black accomplishments. The only problem is that after Dewitt 8th grade, it comes to a halt. Boynton does not have any units on the Harlem Renaissance, and no classes afterward do either. In the September Tattler survey mentioned above, many students commented that after middle school, they no longer felt marginalized voices were represented fairly in their classrooms, projects, and units. This type of teaching and celebration of the many contributions Black Americans have made to our society needs to be everywhere.

Incorporating Black history into our classrooms does not start and end with U.S. history. Throughout the documentation of world ancient history, historians have whitewashed almost every figure or ancient civilization that they think of as “good”. Take Greece, widely known as the foundation of Western civilization. We learn that everyone there was white, but Ancient Greece was located in the mediterranean and interacted heavily with both Ethiopia and Egypt. Ancient Greeks were most definitely not all white, but since they invented so much, history has whitewashed them. This could seem like a harmless detail that doesn’t play that big of a part in our actual education, but in ICSD when we learn about all of the great civilizations and figures, we learn about them through a whitewashed lens of Ancient racist historians. It’s dangerous for students to see the vast majority of historical accomplishments being done by white people, when that’s simply not true.

It can be argued that this history is broken down in college but we shouldn’t have to go to college to receive a proper education on Black history. Millions of Americans will never go to college because of the hundreds of thousands of dollars it takes, a price a student should never have to pay to be able to be aware of the deep roots of racism and history of Black Americans.

The changes ICSD has made over the past summer should without doubt be applauded as well as the work over the last 20 years. Many history teachers have taken this racial reckoning very seriously and are changing their courses and training schedules around it. This is exactly what we want to see from ICSD, but we have to remember that everything that teachers and the administration did this summer needs to be replicated next year and more.

Teachers and lessons can not be certified as “anti-racist”, it has to be an on-going journey, one that we hope the administraion will strive for for years to come. As students at ICSD, we are grateful for the reaction ICSD has had but it’s also our responsibility to make sure that they don’t lose momentum. If ICSD doesn’t step up and have these discussions about race and about Black history not in just a big assembly, not just in Black History month, but every single week in their history classes, then ICSD is complicit as a carrier of the systemic racism this country refuses to touch.

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NEWS

Ithaca Community Confronts Police Violence

By RAIA GUTMAN

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acklash against police has a historical precedent, most notably in the cases of young Black men who were unarmed at the times of their deaths. Opposing police brutality is the core platform of the high-profile Black Lives Matter movement, founded in 2013 after the acquittal of the officer who killed Trayvon Martin. In the past few months, such criticism and calls for reform have been at the forefront of American racial politics.

Along with demands for justice for the hundreds of Black civilians shot to death by police in recent years, opponents of policing have called for defunding various police forces across the United States, arguing that stripping the police of their resources is a more effective tool in combating police violence than reform to the system.

Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick announced the creation of a task force to reform the Ithaca Police Department (IPD) in June. This “Reinvent Public Safety” committee was assembled in response to the national and local protests against racially-charged police brutality, where activists fight for those brutalized by the IPD as well as budget cuts. Myrick plans to consult with the public by holding town halls and door-to-door canvassing among other approaches to gather a list of recommendations that will be proposed to the Ithaca Common Council by April 2021. However, some say this course of action doesn’t go far enough.

Such local activists, recalling the harassment and brutality suffered by Black and homeless communities in Ithaca over the past 10 years, have compiled their demands into a letter spread online, with links and QR codes featured on flyers across town. The campaign is a collaborative effort of several Tompkins County organizations, including the Ithaca Democratic Socialists of America, Immigrants Rights Coalition, Showing Up for Racial Justice, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Their demands, listed in the Google Form where supporters may sign the letter, center on cutting funding for the IPD and demilitarizing the force by eliminating weapons and militarization programs. Redirecting city funds from the police department will allocate more resources to local organizations that serve marginalized communities, replacing a major one that put them at risk.

The demands are timely as well. A budget of 13 million dollars immune to COVID-related cuts can be downsized not only for the purpose of demilitarizing the police, but also for providing aid to Ithacans affected by the pandemic as well. Local governments can work with organizations to subsidize childcare, education, social services, and shelters. In response to advocaters for police reform and claims that defunding IPD is the wrong move, the depolicing campaign argues that reforms are not effective—police brutality occurs, locally and nationally, despite implicit bias training and the use of body cameras.

According to the demands letter, the policing system itself, not only the actions of particular officers or police forces, “criminalizes Black and Brown, poor, and working class people everywhere.”

Similar to Myrick’s initiative, the campaign to defund the IPD

IMAGE FROM THE ITHACA DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA

A protest sign from a June rally supports the Tompkins Anti-Racist Coalition’s claim that the police force cannot be reformed. reimagines public safety, but its idea of public safety is contrary to the institution of policing. Instead, the campaign posits that community programs and affordable housing will “actually keep us safe.”

Another key difference between Myrick’s plan and the defunding coalition is the latter’s mention of the housing crisis. The demands include ending police harassment and displacement of homeless people, prohibiting police participation in eviction proceedings, and a continued suspension of rent payments during the COVID-19 pandemic. While a statement on the City of Ithaca website identifies funding public safety alternatives as a goal of the task force, it does not include any specific programs, nor does it identify housing as a community need competitive with law enforcement.

When asked in a June 2020 Ithaca Times poll, about a third of respondents said they believed that Ithaca and Tompkins County police should retain their budgets, while 29 percent voted for reducing the budget by half. Made clear by Mayor Myrick’s effort and the people’s movement for depolicing, there is a concerted effort to reimagine the IPD that will likely reach the Common Council early next year. Whether Myrick’s attempt at community-based reform will take precedence over a systemic approach at defunding remains to be seen.

NEWS

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COVID in Cornell: Troubleshooting the Reopening

By SIRAN “JAY” JIA

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OVID-19 has wreaked havoc across the United States, forcing closures everywhere it touches, from supermarkets to college campuses. However, unlike many other universities, Cornell is still dedicated to keeping its campus open.

Though this decision has resulted in lots of turmoil—ranging from COVID clusters to TikTok drama—the number of cases has not risen enough to force the university’s closure. The campus thus remains open, and despite all the problems and difficulties, Cornell has every intention to keep it so.

Problems With Reopening When Cornell announced its intention to reopen the campus, the decision was met with a lot of local pushback, with many Ithacans wondering how the university was going to keep the local community safe. While local protestors warned of the possible grave consequences of reopening, Cornell responded to grievances with assurances, and claimed that a virtual semester would counterintuitively worsen the pandemic in Ithaca. According to the Ithaca Journal, Cornell indicated that “more people would be infected in a no-reopen scenario because many students would return to Ithaca regardless, and the lack of in-person courses would prevent the university from establishing serious testing protocols for its community.”

Currently, the apocalyptic predictions from the protestors have not turned out to be correct. While young people play a large role in the COVID infection data (10-29 year-olds made up 61 percent of the 378 positive cases in Tompkins County), Cornell students do not seem to be importing new cases to Ithaca and most of the cases are not related to travel from more infected areas. Additionally, as seen on Cornell’s COVID Dashboard, the university’s alert level is green (as of September 26), meaning that infection rates are ”rare and transmission is controlled.” However, it would be disingenuous to claim that the school’s reopening went entirely according to plan.

One of the biggest problems before and

IMAGE FROM THE ITHACA JOURNAL

Ithacans protest Cornell’s reopening plans, with typical flair. during the first weeks of the semester was the presence of student gatherings that did not respect the campus’ safety protocols.

At least one of these gatherings was responsible for a COVID cluster consisting of 39 infected students, mostly student athletes, forcing Cornell to limit the maximum number of students at gatherings to just 10 people. Another campus party gained particular notoriety after Cornell’s resident TikTok star, Jessica Zhang (who has over half a million followers), was caught partying unmasked with a dozen other students, resulting in widespread backlash and a petition signed by 2,000 people calling for her expulsion. While these events do paint a negative image of the carelessness of some Cornell students, most people are committed to following safety protocols.

Nonetheless, the question still remains whether Cornell’s COVID prevention methods are adequate, and whether they really do keep the campus and Ithaca safe.

Campus Vigilance Keeping the Cornell campus safe and open during the midst of a global pandemic is an arduous task, but it seems that Cornell is rising to the challenge, at least for now. Testing is a huge part of Cornell’s anti-COVID strategy, and the university has been nothing if not rigorous in its tracking

and testing. As described by Good Morning America, over 50,000 tests are self-administered by Cornell students each week, with a mandatory minimum of bi-weekly testing for everyone on campus. Additionally, all Cornell students and faculty are required to log in to the university’s daily check mechanism, which monitors all campus personnel for signs of symptoms.

Cornell has also barred students from traveling outside the greater Ithaca area, and outside visitors are reciprocally not allowed inside campus facilities.

While the university is working hard to reduce the risk of infection, a lot of the burden has fallen on the students of Cornell to follow behavior and safety guidelines, from wearing masks and remaining distanced to not attending parties similar to those that marked the start of the semester. Student parties are now also looked down upon by many of the students. Reporting and snitching on safety guidelines violations have been taken to a whole new extreme, as evidenced by the widespread backlash that Jessica Zhang encountered. For the most part, the Cornell community wants the world to know that the actions of a few inconsiderate and reckless people are not representative of the rest of the campus, and that the university is and will remain vigilant against the pandemic.

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NEWS

A Short Tribute: Remembering Ruth Bader Ginsburg

By KATIE LIN

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hen asked if she had any advice for young women in 2015, Ruth Bader Ginsburg responded, “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” At the time, she had just won the Harvard Radcliffe Medal, a prestigious award presented to individuals who have had a transformative impact on society. From her swearing in as a Supreme Court Justice in 1993 to her death on September 18, 2020, her wise words have proven her to be one of the most important feminist characters in modern day politics.

Ginsburg, fondly nicknamed the “Notorious RBG,” attended Ithaca’s own Cornell University and graduated at the top of her class in 1954, then continued to attend Harvard and Columbia Law School. She fought colon and pancreatic cancer throughout the last 20 years, continuing to actively hold her seat in the face of adversity. During her service, she inspired many to join her in her long battles in court, while receiving many more awards for her work.

Despite graduating at the top of her Columbia Law class in 1959, she had terrible difficulty finding a job due to intense gender discrimination in the workplace. Even after finally being appointed as a clerk and working for two years, the jobs she was then offered promised far lower pay than her male counterparts. In 1972, she began teaching at Columbia, further advancing to become the first female professor at the university to earn tenure.

Known for being able to channel her own discrimination experiences into arguing for important causes, during her time as a Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg worked especially hard to gain women equal rights. One accomplishment was when she, writing for the majority, defeated the male-only admissions policy at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) with a 7-1 vote in her favor.

When visiting VMI a few years later with Ginsburg, law clerk Lisa Frelinghuysen described the female cadets to NPR in an interview as “incredibly excited about their lives going forward and determined to make a difference in the world,” adding on that, “It was really thrilling to see. Several of them thanked the Justice for helping them to achieve their dreams, and I found that quite moving.”

Another significant battle Ginsburg fought for women’s rights was centered around pregnancy discrimination. During her time as a professor at Rutgers University Law School, she hid a pregnancy under baggy clothes, concerned about losing her job and how she would be treated. She then went on to advocate for equal rights for pregnant women, working with others to form the Coalition to End Discrimination Against Pregnant Workers. Their efforts culminated in the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which classified pregnancy discrimination in the workplace as unlawful sex discrimination.

Ginsburg was also a supporter of legal abortion, stating, “This is something central to a woman’s life, to her dignity. It’s a decision that she must make for herself. And when government controls that decision for her, she’s being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.” She believed in a woman’s right to choose. She was also an advocate for the LGBTQ

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg wearing one of her iconic white collars. community, supporting LGBTQ rights in court and officiating same-sex weddings.

Following her death, Ginsburg became the first woman and first Jewish person to lie in state at the US Capitol in National Statuary Hall, continuing to break boundaries. In the few days prior, her casket was placed at the top of the Supreme Court steps.

Endless crowds came to pay their respects, often driving hours to see her. Perhaps one of the most notable and touching tributes was that of Ginsburg’s personal trainer for over two decades, Bryant Johnson. He stood in front of her casket in National Statuary Hall, then proceeded to drop to the ground and execute three push-ups in her honor.

Many hope to stand up for their beliefs with similar vigor as Ginsburg did, remembering her determined demeanor to open doors for all. As described by Brenda Siegel, a single mother who drove from Vermont to pay her respects, “We are either going to have to stand up and fight as hard as she would, or we are going to see everything that we value and love fall.” Furthermore, Ginsburg will also be pleasantly remembered for her sense of humor and public speaking skills, as she herself once remarked that “It helps sometimes to be a little deaf in marriage and in every workplace, including the good job I have now.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the second female Justice of the US Supreme Court, an outspoken supporter for equal rights, and the first woman to lie in state at the US Capitol National Statuary Hall. She once expressed how she’d like to be remembered: “Someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability. And to help repair tears in her society, to make things a little better through the use of whatever ability she has. To do something, as my colleague David Souter would say, outside myself. ‘Cause I’ve gotten much more satisfaction for the things that I’ve done for which I was not paid.” Many will continue to strive to fight in her memory as strongly and passionately as the Notorious RBG did for over twenty-five years.

NEWS

9

Islamophobia inside Chinese Concentration Camps

By MONTADHAR ABED and DAVID BARRY

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n estimated one to two million Uighurs, a Chinese minority located in Northwest China, are in incarceration in secretive internment camps along with Kazakh and other Muslim minorities. According to NBC, the Chinese government referred to the camps as “vocational training centers” in 2018, but the government’s rather positive descriptions have been strongly refuted by both documented evidence and first-hand experiences from ex-members of the camps.

Leaked internal Chinese documents, which constitute more than 400 pages, have revealed more about the Chinese government’s policies and rules inside the camps. These memos display a strict regime resembling that of a prison, including orders to: “never allow escapes,” “increase discipline and punishment of behavioral violations,” “promote repentance and confession,” “make remedial Mandarin studies the top priority,” “encourage students to truly transform,” and “[ensure] full video surveillance coverage of dormitories and classrooms free of blind spots.” As stated by the British Broadcasting Channel (BBC), Beijing claims that the camps are for “voluntary re-education purposes to counter extremism.”

Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador to the UK, says the measures have “safeguarded” local people and that there has not been a single terrorist attack in Xinjiang in the past three years. Xiaoming states, “The region now enjoys social stability and unity among ethnic groups.

People there are living a happy life with a much stronger sense of fulfillment and security.” Statistics proved the last recorded terrorist act in Xinjiang was on December 26, 2016.

However, individual interviews with ex-members of the concentration camps have submitted drastically different perspectives of these camps than how the Chinese government portrays them. Ac-

cording to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), Gulzira, a 39-year-old Chinese citizen of Kazakh descent, says she was part of the vast network of Muslim minorities who were taken without trial into these camps. She describes the inhumane treatment she experienced, stating, “If you exceed two minutes in the toilet, they hit our heads with an electric prod.” This is one of the many secret interviews done

by PBS. Another survivor, called Rahima, adds: “They beat us, hit us and shouted at us...some people being held at the camps killed themselves.” Based on these interviews and the survivors, such acts of immoral treatment cannot be justified. Much more evidence contradicts the ideas of the government’s perspective of these camps.

Throughout China, mosques have been disappearing along with other practices of Islamic culture, such as growing long beards, and a decreasing number of people are attending mosques for their prayer obligations. The Chinese government attempts to justify these changes by describing the violence of past years and lack of terrorist attacks, but the large drops are hard to neglect.

New geographical discoveries constitute factual evidence of the camps. BBC satellite images revealed prison-like envi-

ronments with watchtowers, thick walls, barbed wire, and structures that let in very little natural light. National Public Radio (NPR) reported that there were about 260 camps discovered by 2017 that could hold up to 10,000 to 30,000 people each. Many detainees talked about abuse, such as being deprived of sleep and food, and being subjected to forced sterilizations and abortions. Women also talked about being in constant fear of being raped. Since news of the camps began to circulate, the watchtowers appeared to be taken down, and where there were once barren exercise fields there are now tennis and basketball courts. Reporters have also been allowed to come in during supervision to portray vocational schools, not prisons.

Acts of Islamophobia are not confined to China, and are occurring globally. For example, in India, Prime Minister Modi is denying Muslims born in India citizenship, and establishing a Hindu Nationalist regime. The United States and countries in Europe are refusing to take in refugees in fear of bringing in terrorists. Many say it is essential to note that the Chinese citizens should not be the ones to blame, and to stop these human rights violations, awareness must be raised and the Chinese government itself needs to be punished.

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NEWS

ICE Reportedly Sterilizing Detainees Without Their Consent

By LOUISA MILLER-OUT

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n Monday, September 14, a disturbing report was filed to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector

by Dawn Wooten, a licensed nurse who was previously employed full-time by Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia.

She accused a surgeon at the center of performing unwanted, unnecessary, and nonconsensual gynecological procedures, including hysterectomies and other operations which have left women detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unable to reproduce.

Wooten was demoted in July, which she believes happened due to her raising concerns about the center’s neglect of the immigrants that they are responsible for treating. She has previously called the center out for failing to maintain proper COVID-19 safety procedures and an overall lack of attentiveness to patients’ needs. Besides the obvious risk to her job, bringing up such a complaint is a major undertaking that potentially places her in danger. Whistleblowers are often subjected to harassment and extreme pressure as it is, but Dawn Wooten faces added risks as a Black woman in America, a country known for widespread racism and sexism. While she has been receiving death threats and hateful messages, supporters have been raising funds for her and sharing words of encouragement and gratitude for bringing this injustice to light. The fact that she chose to speak out despite the formidable risks is seen by many as a testament to her conviction and courage.

Wooten’s efforts have not gone unaddressed. As of September 25, DHS has officially stated that they have initiated a review of the Irwin County Detention Center and will interview the whistleblower to hear and confirm her allegations firsthand. In addition, they plan to interview detainees and employees along with reviewing records, as well as evaluating the center’s medical practices.

Pramila Jayapal, a congresswoman from Washington who was instrumental in pressuring the DHS inspector general to investigate this purported human rights abuse, found at least 17 cases of unnecessary procedures at the center, including hysterectomies.

She has stated that she strongly suspects these unwanted surgeries are not isolated incidents and are rather part of a larger pattern of abuse at the hands of ICE. The unsettling stories brought to light by detainees have caused Americans to consider just how many more untold tales of violence and abuse there could be, and how many people are suffering in silence.

One such story is that of Pauline Binam, who agreed to have an ovarian cyst excised, but woke up having had a fallopian tube removed without consent. She has since had amenorrhea (a halted menstrual cycle) and continued mental health issues as a result. Furthermore, she was almost deported on Wednesday to Cameroon, the country which she left at age two. “It felt like ICE was trying to rush through her deportation,” said Representative

Jayapal. “I can’t say that for certain, but all of this is extremely troubling.”

Another upsetting anecdote included in Wooten’s report was that of a detained young woman who had a cyst on her left ovary, but ended up with the right one gone. She was then forced to return and have the correct ovary removed, and is now unable to conceive children. The doctor accused of making this unlikely yet extremely impactful “mistake” has since been revealed to be Mahendra Amin, a man with an alarming reputation. He is so notorious within the center, in fact, that Wooten chillingly referred to him as the “uterus collector” in her report. Former patients have also described him as “rough,” an unsettling demeanor for someone whose job it is to handle precious, fragile organs in his hands and examine genitalia. It has also been revealed that he is not a board-certified OB-GYN, meaning he was not qualified to operate on these patients in the first place, even with consent.

Informed consent is absolutely crucial to obtain before performing surgical procedures. However, valid consent may not have been obtained from immigrants who were emotionally vulnerable or knew little English. Wooten described speaking with people who were partially or fully unaware of their situation based on improper explanations in an unfamiliar language.

Sheer lack of communication has also been an issue, as Binam still doesn’t have a clear answer as to why her fallopian tube was removed without her consent. Lawmakers and the public alike have brought up possible insights as to why: malicious ulterior motives.

If the accusations prove to be true, the moral implications are far deeper and insidious than just stripping patients of their right to informed consent. These surgeries can rob young people of their entire reproductive futures, and the pattern of forced sterilizations inflicted on a particular demographic bears chilling and unmistakable similarities to historic genocides. In the words of Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, “Forced sterilization is a hallmark of genocide and internationally recognized by the UN as a crime against humanity. We need a full reckoning with the torture and cruelty inflicted by this Administration and all who are complicit in it.” Calling for ICE to be held accountable and similarly demanding that Dr. Amin be apprehended accordingly if he is found guilty of malpractice, the people have spoken to demand justice and whatever actions necessary to prevent more atrocities from being committed in the future.

In just a short period of time, these disturbing revelations have ignited the nation’s fury and increased disillusionment with the President, a vehement and outspoken supporter of ICE. Petitions and lawmakers’ contact information have been circulating on social media, as have posts urging people to vote President Trump out in this year’s rapidly approaching election, encouraging others to not take the colossal allegations lightly.

NEWS

11

Teaching Sex Ed in the Age of Virtual Learning

By NOMI FALK

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ex education in the public school system has long been a topic of much controversy. Some feel that it is not comprehensive enough, while others think that it introduces topics of sexuality to students who should not be exposed to such discussions. As entire classrooms and schools move to virtual platforms, the ways in which this education is delivered is bound to change.

The struggle rises in delivering information to teenagers about topics with which they may not be the most comfortable. In an average year, Planned Parenthood’s Teen Council and their facilitator, Cara Burney, create interactive activities to force students to engage in a lesson in a regular in-person environment. Students are allowed to stand up, walk around, work in groups, and engage in an active conversation about whatever lesson is being taught.

Clearly, much of this system is not feasible in a virtual setting, especially as Planned Parenthood of Greater New York (PPGNY) has officially stopped all in-person instruction for the foreseeable future. Getting students to focus on crucial health information from their homes, when it’s significantly more difficult to engage them, brings about changes in teaching style and perhaps even curriculum.

On the flip side, Burney hopes that the virtual platform will provide Teen Councils and other sex educators from Planned Parenthood the opportunity and encouragement they need to start utilising more visual aides in their lessons; the vast majority of lessons led by Planned Parenthood affiliates have been entirely discussion and verbal presentation based, albeit very interactive and engaging. The hope is that these new visuals will increase the accessibility of information to students. If an acronym is provided or if simply a diagram or picture is shown, a student can screenshot and share with a friend, or even just keep for later reference.

As for curriculum changes, classes are taught by Planned Parenthood on a demand basis. Ithaca Teen Council teaches lessons on birth control methods and consent, and some other Teen Councils that belong to PPGNY teach an eight-day pregnancy prevention workshop (the workshop will now be provided as a series of pre-recorded videos). However, Burney mentions that any given topic can be requested by schools, providing an upcoming STD lesson at New Roots being conducted over Zoom or Google Meet this year as an example.

Many hope for a rise in requests about topics including digital consent, and safety for topics such as sending nude photos. As teens interact less, in conjunction with the decrease in condom

and birth control sales, many teens may be interacting with a romantic or sexual partner predominantly on virtual platforms, bringing about the need for comprehensive lessons about such topics. However, Burney also notes that about 60 percent of teens actually report practicing abstinence, so lessons can also often be focused on sexual health and wellbeing without being focused on pregnancy prevention.

Overall, though educators are moving to virtual platforms, the main goal of Planned Parenthood’s facilitated lessons remains the same: to provide instructional, medically accurate information to teens about topics of sexual health and wellbeing, though perhaps using new, more tech savvy methods. Planned Parenthood will also continue to strive to provide many resources students may take advantage of, such as free or affordable access to birth control, STD testing and treatment, emergency contraception, HIV services, abortions, and a variety of other sexual health and wellbeing services.

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NEWS

TikTok: A Unique Medium for Political Discourse

By MOUNIR MORA-KPAI

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ue to the upcoming presidential election, the ever-so-tense political climate, and the housebound nature of life in the pandemic, social media has become a principal source of political debate. Despite its reputation for catchy audios and dances, the video sharing app TikTok is no exception. During the past few months, the social media platform, owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance, has seemingly taken over the virtual world while receiving much attention due to President Trump’s efforts to ban it on the claim of Chinese influence. As mentioned

by CNBC journalist Alex Sherman, a recent TikTok report stated that the platform attained over 100 million American active monthly users while globally nearing almost 700 million active users. TikTok has become a gateway for youth to share and converse with each other on a massive scale due to the unique layout and format of the platform.

Contrary to other major social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, TikTok is very decentralized, meaning that rather than large media groups channeling information to the platform and users circulating it, the TikTok ecosystem enables users to be the content. Although some political figures have created accounts, TikTok has banned the use of political ads.

Unlike older social media which consists of scrolling through a feed of posts from accounts followed, thereby limiting users to only see posts made in their circle, TikTok provides another option: the algorithmically generated “For You” page, which adapts over time to the user’s activity and exposes the user to a far broader range of content. This format makes it easy for a video to quickly gain traction and become viral, which has become a principal motivator for youth to post on the platform.

One of the ways TikTok users engage in political discourse is through the use of the “Duet” feature. A Duet is a response video post that replies directly to another video. Both the original and the Duet are played side by side with the original retaining its audio. Users may respond by speaking over the audio, and may also utilize facial expressions, text snippets, or images. Once a “TikToker” presents political information, this tool is a creative way for users to share the video to their own fanbase, voice their disapproval of a video, and even make a rebuttal video arguing why the person that is being Duetted is incorrect. This video can then further be Duetted by other users, creating a tree structure of audiovisual debate far more interactive than Instagram or Twitter.

A study held by researchers at the Technical University of Munich mentioned that 80 percent of Duets made by Democratic users were directed at Republicans, evidence of interpartisanal debate.

On the other hand, discussion on the platform does not come without limitations. Misinformation like on any social media platform is difficult to track. Discussion can also be vulnerable to outof-context evidence and unreliable sources, or interpretations of data perpetuating false information whether on purpose or not.

For example, The Wall Street Journal reported that after President Trump was impeached by the House, some users spread information via video posts saying that, since the Senate did not

IMAGE PROVIDED

Republican TikToker addressing questions to Democratic users convict him, Trump’s first term was nullified and he could run for President two more times. This statement is false, but received tens of thousands of views before it was taken down. Taking videos down, however, can be tricky because the user could always claim that what they stated was their opinion. Another limitation is that many duets, rather than constructively disagreeing with the opposite side and offering a counter argument, use sarcasm instead, such as dancing, smiling, mocking, and generally downplaying the competing political faction, leading to unproductive discourse. Of course, this can be expected, due to the nature of the platform’s comedic skits. One cannot forget that a major goal for most TikTokers is virality, so they ultimately put on a mini show of political entertainment.

Overall, TikTok has proven itself to be a powerful tool for political debate. As with any other social media platform, TikTok can push a wide range of political agendas users may or may not sympathize with. But one thing is certain: the platform has become an outlet for many to voice their opinions and has started an ongoing audiovisual discussion. Whether this will come to replace real-life activism with passive discourse, or if both methods will walk hand in hand to bring to light the thoughts of the public, remains to be seen.

OPINION

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ICSD’s Tactless Reopening

Defund the Police

By CARLA MARTINEZ

By WILL THOMAS

N

D

obody could have predicted what was going to happen, and nobody was prepared to deal with it. But, hypothetically, imagine the following.

Imagine being confined in an online meeting for hours every day, racking your brain for ideas on how to educate hundreds of students in a global pandemic. Imagine not being paid for your hard work, much less credited. And finally, imagine that the plan you worked so hard to create was scrapped until the very last minute. Unfortunately, many of the teachers at Ithaca High School don’t have to imagine. They have experienced this situation firsthand, after all. They took on the responsibilities of the administration as underpaid labor, under the guise of “voluntary task forces.” Choice in this situation was an illusion; if the task forces didn’t make things happen, who would? And so, the teachers poured their blood, sweat, and tears into this work. The mission at hand was to create five viable models, including multiple hybrid ones. After much deliberation, they finally did, and presented it to the administration, who promptly informed them that the plans for the hybrid models, which were assigned to them, had been cancelled. Since then, the school has doubled back on its previous criticisms against a hybrid model and introduced one at the last minute. As if that wasn’t enough, the model proposed is completely different from what the teachers had worked so hard to create.

A week or two prior to the announcement of the new model, it was announced that every teacher would be forced to return in person for the coming school year, not to mention the other staff such as bus drivers and janitors that didn’t have a choice in the first place. To understand the impact of being so suddenly stripped from the choice to stay home, I will give you an anecdote. I once saw a social experiment in which a magician made a bet with members of two different groups. To the first group, he said, “I will give you $30 if you win this bet.” To the second, he said, “To participate in the bet, you must pay $20. But, if you win, I’ll give you $50 back.” Almost nobody from the second group took the offer. Seeing that they were being given the choice to stay home, the teachers invested their imaginary $20 in the school by not seeking a different job in confidence that such an important safety plan would not be changed. However, it did. The administration gave them the choice to retire or in search of a different job—once again, another illusion. By giving them a false sense of job safety and security and suddenly stripping it away, the administration itself vastly decreased the teachers’ chances of finding new employment. If the teachers had known from the beginning that they were going to be forced to remain in school, many would have begun seeking a new job months sooner. The incompetence and indecisiveness of the administration put the safety and livelihood of all teachers in jeopardy.

Now, going into the makeshift hybrid model, teachers are being forced to manage two environments at the same time. Given the rotational format of the model and the students staying online permanently to begin with, teachers must marshal inhumane levels of concentration and multitasking to convey each lesson to both the students currently in the classroom and those on the screen. It has been left up to them to deal with moving about the classroom in person and educating and engaging online all at the same time using Canvas, a program that they received minimal training for. Schedules were given out less than a week before the start of school, which had already been delayed.

Overall, the argument that such problems were inevitable is a poor one. The cracks in the foundation of the reopening plan were hidden away as some of the children of the administration were silently transferred to other districts. This warrants a cry for help, for communication, for reform. In an anonymous quote from one teacher: “I need your help. I want to teach your kids. I want to stay alive.”

efunding the police is a reform that has gained traction in the wake of the massive Black Lives Matter protests after the death of George Floyd. The movement has a central principle: funds currently allocated to the police should be shifted towards public services like education and mental health emergency response. Police should also be subjected to numerous reforms including demilitarization, increased training, and the removal of some duties (such as responding to mental health issues). It’s a ridiculous thought to many who think that the police are best equipped to handle society’s ills, but there are numerous problems with that logic. Police are fundamentally agents of force: they enforce laws through physical means, which means that they are always able to deploy force in a situation. This makes them ill-equipped to deal with a variety of situations.

Studies have shown that police are more likely to pull over minority drivers (but less likely to find contraband), more likely to arrest young black people for marijauna use despite a similar rate of usage with white young people, and in places like Washington DC and Ferguson, Missouri, more likely to hit black people with unwarranted searches and failure-to-comply tickets.

Systems do not act independently of people.

They are very vulnerable to the prejudices of those working in them and there is little doubt that the police are the same. This is not a simple fix―there is no magical way to cure biases and we should not be looking for one. We can talk of reforms independent of a true restructuring but unless we truly divest from punishment, unless we stop putting people in jail with no plan for when they get out, then we will continue to punish and punish excessively. Punishment is often ineffective at enacting real change, and as such, there must be more drastic action taken. We need to move away from jail cells and beatdowns and towards classrooms and counselors.

People commit crimes for many reasons, chief among them is need. Recidivism is such a massive problem in America because we do so little to meet that need for our people: we invest in punishing them for trying to meet their needs and divest in action that could help them, the very action that the money from defunding the police could go towards. We can talk about giving police higher standards and limiting their potential use of force but we have to realize that if the goal of the Continued on page 14

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OPINION

Defund the Police Continued from page 13 police is to catch and lock up people who are committing crimes, then they are succeeding in that job but not succeeding in making America a better place.

If punishment above prevention is our goal, then we are not a fair society―punishment to an extent is acceptable but when we leave people so few choices than to commit punishable actions what can we even expect? When the NYPD pays 230 million dollars in settlements, many of them for excessive force, why do we accept that? Why do we pretend that it’s just the work of a “few bad apples” when it is so obvious that there is pervasive bias against

minorities? We, as a society, are closer to a consensus on the existence of police bias than ever before. We are making steps towards a restructuring of how we value prevention vs. punishment.

If police are to be valid as an institution of justice then there absolutely must be a change in their goals and a reduced emphasis on funding their ever-increasing machine of racially biased force.

It will not end with defunding the police. Defunding the police alone will not end injustice in America or even truly in the police.

However, defunding the police will mitigate the harm that police can do, and it is a logical reform for this horribly divided nation.

The Global South’s Stories Must Be Told

By QUINN CHANG-MARTIN

I

n March, the United States of America cut funding to the United Nations appeal for Yemen, greatly limiting access to health care services and exacerbating food shortages. Now, Yemen, a country that was already war-torn and extremely impoverished, is on the verge of famine and is facing the world’s worst current humanitarian crisis. One would think that a country where 80 percent of the population is in need of humanitarian aid would be a top news story, covered by every news outlet and inciting enormous public outrage. However, this is not the case. Take the September 6 issue of the New York Times as an example: instead of putting this story on the cover of the international section, they decided to put it at the bottom of page sixteen, under an article about virtual learning and next to a Lawyers of Distinction ad.

Stories like this, and the means by which they are marginalized show the racism, xenophobia, and white-washing of media that is so prevalent in America and other western countries.

Whether it is an explosion in Beirut, a military attack in South Sudan, or ISIS fighters taking over a port city in Mozambique, events that occur in African, Middle Eastern, or other countries in the Global South will not be given as much media attention as similar events in Western countries. This is because news networks, as well as individual journalists, favor stories that viewers will be able to relate to on some level. A white, middle class American is going to have a harder time sympathizing with a malnourished child in Yemen than a white American going through the same thing. Whether it is due to race, religion, gender, nationality or economic status, people tend to sympathize and empathize with those most similar to them.

This obvious journalistic preference leads to many consequences, both immediate and long-term. The short-term ramifications are pretty apparent; when journalists choose not to report traumatic and unjust events, the people who have suffered will not be able to get the help they desperately need. However,

when the media gives a lot of attention to an event, it not only informs people, but it often pressures Western governments to give support to those affected. A more deep-rooted and long-lasting consequence of biased media coverage, however, is the normalization of penury and disaster in the global south. For instance, when a spotlight is put on Western destitution but not on foreign destitution, then people will think of Western poverty as the alarming and urgent issue. This, in turn, disregards those going through struggles not highlighted in the news.

Another glaring issue with news coverage of the Global South is how journalists choose to portray the people and countries that they bring attention to. For example, when journalists and news commentators reported on the Ebola outbreak in 2014, instead of reporting with the purpose of shedding light on the disastrous ways in which it affected West Africans, many in mainstream media turned it into a symbol of fear, intensifying a form of otherism often used to demonize people from various African countries.

When President Obama sent aid to Liberia, Fox news commentator Keith Albow responded by saying “His [Obama’s] affiliations are with Africa...not us. He’s their leader.” This comment both vilified Liberians, and portrayed them as anti-American.

When trying to find ways to correct Western media’s faults and prejudices, we need to recognize that it is impossible to completely eliminate all bias in our country. We live in a predominantly white nation, and a society dominated by Western culture.

As a result, Westerncentrism is so embedded in our minds that we may never look at news from the Global South the same way we look at American news. However, even though we may never be able to get rid of implicit biases, if journalists tried to report on the world in a neutral way, and stressed the importance of events that happen everywhere, it could enable America to open its eyes and see people as people, no matter their race, culture, or citizenship.

OPINION

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Letter to the Editor: The Israel-Palestine Conflict Is Not One-Dimensional

By ADAM SAAR

I

n the September issue of The Tattler, the article “Israel, Palestine, and the Controversies” analyzed the arguments made by those debating the Israel-Palestine conflict. While the article sought to be more analytical than argumentative, I felt that the arguments posed were extremely one-sided, and glossed over the Israeli point of view, strictly focusing on arguments made against Israel. I am the son of Israeli immigrants to the United States, and my whole extended family still lives in Israel. I am fluent in Hebrew, and speak it at home. While I am extremely proud of my heritage, and being Israeli is a large part of my identity, I recognize the flaws in the Israeli government and policy. To go one step further, I absolutely detest Benjamin Netanyahu (the Israeli prime minister), and I disapprove of almost all of his actions. Nevertheless, I feel that it is extremely unfair to look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict solely from the Palestinian viewpoint, which is how I felt about the aforementioned article.

For starters, I feel that one mistake that both the article and Western people as a whole make when analyzing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that they often confuse elements of Israel’s conflict with Gaza, and Israel’s occupation and possible annexation of the West Bank. I believe that it is highly misleading to conflate the two. The latter is inhumane, oppressive, and horrible both from a humanitarian standpoint and in terms of ever resolving the conflict. On the other hand, the conflict with Gaza cannot be so easily put in a nutshell that paints one side as in the wrong and the other as the victim. As such, when using the term “Palestine” as the term for either Gaza or the West Bank when analyzing a conflict with Israel, it misleads the audience to believe that the peoples of the West Bank and the peoples of Gaza are the same people, participating in the same conflicts.

The Gaza Strip is a small strip of land just south of Israel’s southern shore on the Mediterranean Sea. Home to 1.8 million people, Gaza is governed by Hamas, a terrorist organization that effectively serves as a military government. Hamas has governed Gaza since 2006, a year after Israel completely pulled out the region, both militarily and diplomatically. However, Hamas has served as a militant organization that has attacked Israel in many different forms since the 1980s. For the last 15 years, Hamas has consistently fired hundreds of rockets into Israel every year, targeting population centers both near and far, from my mother’s hometown of Ashkelon, the nearest coast city, all the way to Haifa on the north coast of the Mediterranean. This violence is the reason why every single industrial or residential home and building is required to have a missile-proof room with extra thick walls and reinforced ceilings. Every Israeli school has a large underground bomb shelter and practices escaping to the shelter in cases of an air-raid siren in a similar fashion that we practice fire drills.

To protect itself, Israel developed the Iron Dome missile in-

terception system and was put into use for the first time in 2011.

The Iron Dome is a missile interception system that intercepts and destroys missiles that are calculated to be headed towards population centers. Even so, the Iron Dome is not always successful, as whole missiles as well as fragments from intercepted missiles hit populated areas many times a year. In its first three years of use, the Iron Dome intercepted 1200 rockets and missiles fired from the Gaza Strip. The mere existence of the Iron Dome speaks to the level of constant threat Israeli civilians are under nearly every day.

The part where Israel receives criticism is in their retaliations to missile attacks from the Gaza Strip. Immediately following outbursts of rockets launched from Gaza, Israel responds with a flurry of attacks on military headquarters, arms factories, and missile launch sites. Historically as well as recently, more Palestinian civilians are killed in violence between Israel and Gaza than Israelis, a statistic that is often used to suggest that Israel is much more forceful and inhumane in their attacks. However, that suggestion is false, as not only does Israel pre-broadcast their intended locations for attack, Hamas uses and openly takes pride in the use of human shields. Hamas places missile launch sites in public centers, and near public buildings, publicly admitting to firing missiles from as little as 200 metres away from schools and hospitals.

Then, when Israel broadcasts their intention to strike, Hamas does not allow civilians to leave the area of intended attack, resulting in civilian deaths technically from Israeli strikes, yet in reality as results of horrifying tactics used by Gaza’s own government.

This misinterpretation of the situation and the conflation of the complicated situations in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank leads to people confusing Israel’s conflicts and retaliation against Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza as violence against an occupied territory, which Gaza is not. Additionally, this leads people to equate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza with the occupation of the West Bank, and while Israel’s settlement and occupation of the West Bank is inhumane, Israel is not to blame for the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, as Hamas siphons international aid into military funds.

In the article from the September issue, I felt that the Israeli perspective was largely ignored in many of the arguments. It also gave far too much credit to arguments that are backed up by the Hamas version of accounts, which should not be treated as credible, as Hamas is a terrorist group whose mission and only interest is to eradicate the State of Israel, and not to care for and protect the people it governs. When discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is extremely important to distinguish between the conflict in the West Bank from the conflicts with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Finally, it is essential that a variety of perspectives are considered, as it is misrepresentative of the long and complex conflict to simply level accusations at Israel.

16

OPINION

America’s Election Tampering Problem

By MUKUND GAUR

O

n August 18, 2020, a bipartisan Senate committee released a report detailing Russian interference in the 2016 election. This came as a shock to Americans all over the country, as in a nearly 1,000 page report, the Senate concluded that Moscow “engaged in an aggressive, multifaceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.”

With the 2020 elections coming up, this sounds an alarm for possible interference in the current election. Election tampering is dangerous to any democracy, and is something that the government should work together to solve. However, friction between parties is stagnating progress on the problem, even though it poses an issue to America as a whole.

The report comes as a welcome affirmation of the U.S. intelligence community’s findings, as they have come under fire from President Trump. Its findings that Russia engaged in a campaign to hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign and boost Trump’s campaign come as a contradiction to a House GOP report in 2018, which disagreed with the conclusion that Russia had interfered to support Trump’s claims. This is another example of how even supposedly impartial members of a committee may sway the results based on political leaning, as this bipartisan report and one done in 2017 both contradicted the GOP report.

This report has broad implications for the 2020 election, as intelligence officials warn that Moscow may continue its interference to the current election.

However, the message is struggling to go through in a strongly partisan atmosphere in Washington. American intel-

ligence agencies released a public assessment on August 7th, warning that Russia was continuing to interfere with the 2020 election. Political friction has complicated the problem, as the Trump campaign says that China poses a greater threat, in contradiction to intelligence officials, who say Russia is a far more immediate and graver threat.

Further hampering the American government’s response to the problem are the highly charged partisan politics in Washington. Despite the fact that the report was written by a bipartisan committee, the White House has called into doubt the findings of the report. Divided along partisan lines, argument continues over whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, as can be seen with the Republican and Democratic appendices to the report.

The Republican appendix states, “After more than three years of investigation by this Committee, we can now say with no doubt, there was no collusion.”

However, the Democratic appendix states, “The committee’s bipartisan report unambiguously shows that members of the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian efforts to get Trump elected. … Paul Manafort, while he was chairman of the Trump campaign, was secretly communicating with a Russian intelligence officer with whom he discussed campaign strategy and reportedly shared internal polling data. … This is what collusion looks like.”

The starkly different assessments here are only one example of how partisan politics is hindering the effort to solve the problem. With vastly different political agendas abundant, as Demo-

crats attempt to expose collusion to hurt Trump’s 2020 chances, and Republicans attempting to disprove collusion to support Trump, the actual problem of tampering is largely without a long term solution.

With only a few months left until the election, foreign countries are ramping up their efforts to harm the integrity of the 2020 election. While the Trump campaign is taking steps to address this issue, including sanctions and public announcements, their response is sadly lacking, and at times even downplays the Russian threat. National Security adviser Robert C. O’Brien said on “Face the Nation” that he did not know about any Russian meddling in the 2020 election, despite senior intelligence and law enforcement officials repeatedly issuing warnings about Russian interference in the 2020 vote. This signals that the White House is downplaying the threat, instead of sounding the alarm and taking steps to stop it, as it should. It also suggests that the White House is at odds with American intelligence agencies, which are essential to solving the problem.

Our politics needs to stop getting in the way of solving problems, and we need to secure the integrity of our elections. With Americans caught up in a fierce race, the issue which poses a fundamental threat to America is going largely unnoticed, and harshly partisan views are causing the government to be inefficient at one of the most important jobs it has: keeping the integrity of our democracy. The solution comes not from denial, which many seem focused on, but from accepting that the problem exists, and taking steps to solve it.

OPINION

17

Cornell’s Reopening Warrants Praise, Not Criticism

By ALICE BURKE

I

n the past month, there has been a loud chorus of criticism and skepticism over Cornell’s reopening. Although the university has put in place a system to test and trace any and all COVID-19 cases that have arisen since the academic year began, it still faces the disapproval of many students, faculty, and even major newspapers such as the New York Times. One repeated criticism was that the early outbreak of cases reflected Cornell’s inability to control student behavior and the spread of the virus on campus. If it weren’t enough for the university to be dealing with the castigation of an established newspaper, Cornell is also facing pressure from Governor Cuomo’s new edict, which limits the number of positive cases a university may have before shutting down.

A common criticism that Cornell has dealt with is that the university reopened because of the financial implications of students not returning to campus. This idea casts Cornell in a negative light, but according to President Martha E. Pollack, it is not why the university returned to in-person teaching and learning. Cornell determined that students were going to come back to Ithaca regardless of whether or not they were taking courses in person.

Many students, especially graduate students and upperclassmen undergrads, had already made commitments to leases and had to return. Dorms only make up a portion of the living accommodations at Cornell, so there were inevitably going to be students who would return to the Ithaca community and live off campus.

Cornell was aware of this complication in the beginning of the summer, and during June, a team of faculty and PhD students created a mathematical model of all the possible plans for Cornell’s Fall Semester. The group found that reopening the school would be the safest option for Ithaca as a whole. Importantly, it would allow Cornell to keep track of all of its students―some of whom would have otherwise arrived in Ithaca without any supervision or testing. There would be no way for Cornell to hold students accountable for their behavior, and Ithaca would be at greater risk.

Throughout the summer, Cornell has worked extensively to implement testing facilities and procedures that will dramatically help the efforts to contain the campus’s cases of COVID-19.

Through valuable resources, time, and energy, Cornell was able to create a state-of-the-art lab built from scratch, located in the Cornell Vet School. This massive undertaking was completed in less than two months, with the guidance of the Cayuga Health System’s medical and laboratory leadership team. The on-campus lab allows tests to be processed quickly―within 24 hours―and safely, as robots are used to handle samples in the lab. Cornell’s testing capacity far surpasses other New York universities of similar size. For example, Binghamton State University (another upstate SUNY college) has on average only tested about 127 people per day since September 2nd. Cornell, by contrast, is consistently testing between 2,500 and 6,000 students, faculty, and staff per day. Cornell’s ability to test thousands of people every single day allows it to find isolated cases of COVID-19 before clusters of the virus are formed that have the potential to threaten the university and all of Ithaca.

Unfortunately, with all this testing, Cornell is at a disadvantage when it comes to abiding by Governor Cuomo’s new edict, announced on August 27. This edict declared New York State’s new threshold for (temporarily) closing down universities with COVID-19 outbreaks. If a school reaches 100 positive cases within a two-week period, it must go remote until the state has reviewed the status of the pandemic on campus. A flaw of the edict is that it targets big schools, as it doesn’t take into account the total population of the university. Cornell is a large school―almost 22,000 students―and 100 positive cases is barely half a percent of the entire student population.

Further, this edict penalizes universities that have vigorous testing procedures, such as Cornell. The bottom line is that universities will be late at finding positive test cases if they do not test for them―the cases will only be found when they are already spreading too fast to be managed. The majority of COVID-19 cases contracted by college students are asymptomatic and go unnoticed without screening many students. Schools without the ability to test a large number of people every day inevitably test those with symptoms first, and many asymptomatic cases will not be found and have the potential to spread very quickly. Even if a school may seem to be doing well according to the numbers of positive cases it has recorded, it doesn’t mean that the school is free of COVID-19, but simply that the cases are going unnoticed because of a lack of testing. The students who do have untested cases of the virus may not even be discovered until a large, uncontrollable outbreak occurs on campus.

Cornell was heavily criticized during the beginning of its reopening when there was a spike in positive cases, but the university was set up to address this challenge well. Because of its testing capability, it was able to identify and trace all asymptomatic cases, which constitute the bulk of student COVID-19 cases. Cornell is doing the right thing by testing everyone as often as possible and finding positive asymptomatic cases to control and trace. Doing the right thing, though, puts it at risk of finding the 100 cases that the Governor has declared would require a move to remote classes.

Other schools in New York that don’t record all their positive cases may not reach these numbers, even though their campuses may have more cases and be at greater risk of a dangerous outbreak.

Overall, Cornell’s success in its reopening plan is being discredited by individuals who are not aware of the capability the university has in facing COVID-19. Since the spike of positive cases in early September, the number of active cases in Ithaca has gone down considerably. It is possible that Cornell will face more outbreaks on campus, but the university has set up facilities and procedures that will help keep Ithaca safe. Instead of criticising the temporary growth of COVID-19 cases in Ithaca, we should focus on how Cornell will be able to protect our community in the future. Of course, nothing is certain during this difficult time, but right now Cornell is doing very well at containing COVID-19, and it seems possible that this positive trajectory will continue. Good luck, Cornell!

18

OPINION

Social Media Activism Is Not Enough

By RAIA GUTMAN and LOUISA MILLER-OUT

W

ith abundant free time due to the pandemic, many of America’s teenagers and young adults have turned to social media to while away the hours. A favorite medium in recent years has been the Chinese-owned platform known as TikTok. Along with making dances and “POV” videos, young people also use the app to organize around relevant social issues.

For instance, on a Tuesday in July, popular creators urged viewers to boost Black creators as a demonstration aimed at app administrators. This “Blackout Tuesday” filled TikTok’s homepage with videos featuring Black artists, dancers, and comedians, sending the message to stop unfairly featuring white creators over Black creators. A similar demonstration appeared on Instagram, where millions of users posted black squares in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. On social media platforms used by millions of people, these protests seemed to make a huge impact on everyday viewing. But does all this awareness translate into genuine action?

Our verdict? Not necessarily. Performative activism and allyship have surged in recent months. This is illustrated by the multitude of teenagers who posted plain black squares on Instagram, yet remained silent on racial equality thereafter. By definition, these behaviors are performed in order to make one look like a “better person” rather than to actually further a cause that one deeply cares about. There is an important distinction to make between raising awareness and empty virtue signaling. Social media can be an incredible tool to spread helpful information, share ideas quickly, and rally people behind a cause. Raising awareness is often productive, especially when resources are provided so the viewer can immediately sign a petition, send an email to a lawmaker, or take another relatively quick and easy action online.

In this way, social media can and does have a large-scale positive impact on social justice movements. Performative activism, however, does not. It mainly serves to create feedback loops within circles of people who already share ideologies rather than disseminating information to people who haven’t yet heard it. Therefore, it is not an effective way to raise awareness of the issues that plague our local community, our country, and the world.

Shallow, virtue-signaling behaviors in the name of allyship can actually be counterproductive. For example, when Instagram users searched up hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter looking for informative or uplifting content, they were instead confronted by a flood of black squares posted as a performative initiative to identify themselves as allies. This misguided attempt at solidarity (or in some cases, virtue signaling) did little to raise awareness and delegitimized the movement as a whole by making it appear

meaningless and performative.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many are reluctant to protest in person and instead seek online alternatives to protests, rallies, and dialogues. The purpose of most demonstrations and rallies is to either disrupt the status quo or empower people already in the movement. Social media activism can serve both of these functions if utilized correctly, but we argue that it is not a proper substitute. More often than not, social media movements achieve no productive disruption and circulate buzzwords which eventually lose their meaning.

The people naively condemning racism fail to take active steps to address it. They are not in touch with community needs or goals, nor are they acquainted with direct action outside of signing petitions and writing to representatives. This discrepancy stems from the national focus on social media at the expense of local movements, which are often represented instead on local radio stations, flyers around town, and community spaces. Supporting local anti-racist organizing done by the Multicultural Resource Center and Black Lives Matter Ithaca will make more of a tangible impact in our community than posting cheeky infographics will.

Another challenge for social media activists is to understand the intersectionality of the systems of oppression they oppose. Intersectionality refers to the idea of a world made up of oppressors and oppressed, in which the oppressive social structures in place uphold one another. It would be unproductive to dissect the existence of racism in America without tying it to the settler colonialism of the country’s origin or its prevailing capitalist system.

Social media activism can be utilized in a productive way when in tandem with in-person activism. Sharing the details of a food drive, caravan protest, or rally on an organization’s website or social media profile is far more effective than distributing posters or announcing it on the radio, just by virtue of the mass of educated young people who frequent social media. In addition, disseminating informative videos or written resources is better than a few slides with only a sentence or two on each one. Viewers would have to take the initiative of finding a book, article, or film outside of their preferred platform, but it would satisfy a need for deeper knowledge than infographics can provide.

There is no shame in having only recently become aware of injustice or being in the process of discovering it. Spreading afocus to local action, social media activists will avoid the feeling of their efforts being lost in a void. This active participation will forge a stronger connection between members of the community, set tangible goals, and result in actual progress rather than unproductive loops of repeated information.

FEATURES

19

Students Get Politically Involved

By ANNA WESTWIG

W

hile Cornell students bustle across a collegetown street under a high, equinoctial sun, three IHS students manage a table stocked with flyers, stickers, and pens, all emblazoned with one word: vote. This is a voter registration event, organized by senior class president candidate Magnolia Mead.

She stands at the head of the table behind a large hand sanitizer dispenser and a list of registration deadlines. Next to her, Jane Putnam ‘21 and Josephine Goodreau ‘23 (they were later relieved

by Ruby Wilson ‘21, Maya Blanchard ‘21, Saba Weatherspoon ‘21, Louisa Miller-Out ‘22, and Laura Mead ‘24) manage clipboards with gloves and direct passersby to QR codes they can scan with their phones that tell people if they’re registered to vote not. Ironically, not a single one of the students working the table will be able to cast a ballot on November 3, but this is part of the reason they have all showed up to run the table, even though they’ll have to make up an entire day of school.

Organizing drives like this is one way students feel they can influence the outcome of an election that will affect them tremendously. Mead says, “I was frustrated that young people couldn’t vote and I didn’t want to just sit by and let our future be decided by people who don’t really represent us. This was a way that I could make a difference.” Although the drive is strictly non-partisan, calls to vote are almost always raised by Biden supporters who want increased voter turnout to ensure a win for the democratic candidate over Trump. Putnam and Goodreau echo Mead’s statement, saying that they wanted to take an active role in the upcoming election. Even through their masks, it’s clear their passion is genuine. They are certainly active from their table, reaching out to students as they walk by, passing out stickers, and calling through the roar of trucks and the constant drone of collegetown traffic.

By noon, the group has gotten around a dozen students to register, a number that Mead is glad to reach early on in their day.

“A huge percentage of student voters don’t vote,” she adds and she’s right, though, thanks to efforts like hers, and an increasingly divisive political climate, that is changing. According to a national study conducted by the Institute of Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts University, from 2016 to 2018, voter turnout among college students soared from 14 to 40 percent, and, by helping register voters before New York State’s registration deadline of Friday, October 9, Mead hopes to ensure that number will continue to climb this November.

What has spurred this political involvement and engagement with democracy from citizens who can’t even participate in it?

Well, first off, students feel their futures are in jeopardy. They feel that crucial issues swing in the balance of this election: climate change, gun policy, racial justice, and LGBTQ+ rights, being just a few examples. Raia Gutman ‘22 explains students’ high level of involvement in politics by a newfound news literacy. She says that in past years, students “have realized issues affect them too.” She cites the 2018 Stoneman Douglas school shooting, and the murderers of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor as inciting students to get involved by signing petitions, attending protests, and sharing information on social media. She says, “It is a reality of the 21st century that so many teenagers are politically active—with so

IMAGE PROVIDED

Josephine Goodreau ‘23, Jane Putnam ‘21, and Magnolia Mead ‘21 pose behind a table. many oppressive forces, opposing perspectives, and messages of equality and justice, it is no wonder that we notice unfairness in our world.”

Gutman doesn’t think this unfairness can be completely solved through voting however. Despite believing that encouraging young people to vote helps them to “know which candidates push which issues and how to vote in the changes they want to be made,” Gutman worries, that this push for electoralism, especially across social media, neglects “the issues facing their communities for a broader awareness of the country and even the world,” and that support of wider issues “often become trends that do little to help people who, for instance, are targeted by police violence here in Ithaca or have lost resources due to the climate crisis.”

She, like many students, feels working in the local community can have a much more immediate and tangible impact. Gutman says, “Being active in one’s community is wholly beneficial; it acquaints a privileged person with their privilege and an underprivileged person with their support networks and the resources available to them.” She urges her peers that, “Once you’re registered to vote, check when the next Black Lives Matter protest is, and show up to hear members of your community discussing the issues that concern them.” She also mentions the food-sharing cabinets established by Mutual Aid Tompkins the locations of which have been shared across instagram stories, commenting that, “Seeing their peers post about this can lead a student who needs food and a student who has food to contribute to a clear step they can take to meet the needs of themselves and others in their community.”

In the end, most students are on the same page: political involvement is necessary. Whether they think that involvement should look like handing out stickers and registering college students to vote, working at the polls, or protesting and sharing food, depends on the person. Either way, students are caring about the future of this country, perhaps more than they ever have before.

20

The Spookiest Guide to an Ithacan October

By Dorothy Hamilton

Need something to do?

Check out this list of 31 COVID-friendly fall activities!

21

1. Grab some friends (with masks!) and find places around town to do the TikTok ghost photo shoot trend 2. Carve pumpkins 3. Go to Farmers Market for Apple cider donuts 4. Bake an apple pie and enjoy with some vanilla ice cream from Purity 5. Indulge your basic side and get yourself a Pumpkin Spiced Latte from Starbucks 6. Have a socially distanced bonfire and tell ghost stories 7. Pick apples at Indian Creek Farm 8. Make spooky goodie bags for all your friends and drop them off at their houses 9. Have a Halloween movie marathon 10. Conduct your own spooky cemetery exploration, especially in the “Bone Yard� (the cemetery on Stewart Ave.) 11. Revamp your fall wardrobe at the Salvation Army or Finger Lakes Reuse 12. Decorate your house for Halloween 13. Have a pumpkin-chuck 14. Have a true crime podcast marathon 15. Go for a hike to see the fall foliage 16. Throw your own miniature Apple Fest with your family 17. Roast pumpkin seeds 18. Make mulled cider 19. Make your dog a Halloween costume 20. Go to Iron Kettle farm 21. Go to a corn maze 22. Make scarecrows that look like your friends 23. Make caramel apples 24. Make Halloween-themed COVID masks (like a skeleton or an oxygen mask) 25. Rake leaves into a pile and jump on in!

26. Make a Halloween-themed scavenger hunt 27. Make a batch of hearty soup 28. Get some fall scented candles at Bath & Body Works 29. Summon a demon 30. Visit a Spirit Halloween store 31. On November first, treat yourself to a ton of discounted Halloween candy

Illustration by Jacob Yoon

22

FEATURES

Teachers Attempt to Diversify the IHS Bookroom

By FRANCES KLEMM

W

ith abundant free time due to the pandemic, many of America’s teenagers and young adults have turned to social media to while away the hours. A favorite medium in recent years has been the Chinese-owned platform known as TikTok. Along with making dances and “POV” videos, young people also use the app to organize around relevant social issues. For instance, on a Tuesday in July, popular creators urged viewers to boost Black creators as a demonstration aimed at app administrators. This “Blackout Tuesday” filled TikTok’s homepage with videos featuring Black artists, dancers, and comedians, sending the message to stop unfairly featuring white creators over Black creators.

A similar demonstration appeared on Instagram, where millions of users posted black squares in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. On social media platforms used by millions of people, these protests seemed to make a huge impact on everyday viewing. But does all this awareness translate into genuine action?

In 2017, the students of Ms. Campbell’s eleventh-grade English class went through the IHS bookroom to find every book that was being used in the high school’s classrooms and researched each author’s race and gender. At the end, each of these student’s research were compiled into one data set and in Fall of 2017 they found that 82 percent of books (89 out of 108) used in the high school curricula were written by white authors. When I talked to Ms. Campbell about how the data should be interpreted she said, “... understand that a lot of the work that we’ve done will not be represented in this data so make a point that we have added a couple of texts since then. Has it astronomically changed in the last two years?

No it has not.”

When exploring what has made this change so difficult in the past, I found multiple reasons. One prominent one is that bringing a book into a specific class

means buying a new book for sometimes hundreds of students at a time. The 10th grade English teacher, Ms. Mellander discusses the funding restrictions, “If it’s not in the book room at the beginning of the year a teacher either needs to do grant writing or wait until the following year.

This makes it difficult to pivot or supply new offerings quickly or to every 10th grader. Books are expensive.”

Another barrier that can stand in the way of more diverse voices being shared is the three required core texts for every grade level. The three core texts are voted on by the course teachers every year, but Ms. Campbell explains that they are, “limited by both tradition and availability of texts.” She goes further to say, “Right now our school and department requires core texts. So all teachers in 9th grade, 10th and 11th, choose 3 texts and they decide that all teachers are going to teach these three books and it’s almost always classics. For example, one of those books from 11th grade is the core text, 12 Angry Men and another is the narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass. Although those are great texts it means that three units out of the year are devoted to classical literature.”

In her interview on August 7th, Ms. Campbell expressed her desire to have English courses taught by thematic unit.

An example of a thematic unit would be ‘racial justice in America,’ and each teacher of the course would then pick which books and texts they wanted to use to address that theme. Ms. Campbell states, “I’m trying to shift the discussion away from more required chronological texts and towards a shared discussion about key themes and key ideas that we want to focus on instead, and then give teachers and students more choice on how to address those themes and ideas.”

I reached out to the entire IHS English department for more details on how they are solving this lack of diversity. Since the racial reckoning of 2020, many institu-

tions and individuals have been trying to make more of an effort to address race in America, and the English Department at IHS hasn’t broken that stride. Mr. Reiff, the English Department head collaborated with the English department in a statement to The Tattler to share some of the actions that English teachers have been taking: “From the spring into the summer and now into the Fall, the English department has been working as individuals, in small groups of teachers, and as an entire department, to move and change and shift what takes place in our classrooms.

Teachers have engaged in two different anti-racism working groups through the summer, one devoted to strictly English department thinking, another to English / History (Humanities) cross-curricular thinking.”

According to the group statement, “Teachers across the board have begun tackling new texts, new voices, and new thinking. We’ve researched a far more diverse set of texts, authored by a range of dynamic writers from multiple elements of our BIPOC communities, that are arriving at IHS as I write this. We have begun work on collaboratively developing that new curriculum. Principal Jason Trumble has been behind us in this effort, helping us with his own intellectual thinking, and the financial backing of IHS. District leadership—from Assistant Superintendent Lily Talcott to Superintendent Dr. Luvelle Brown—have been supportive in our efforts as well.”

So what can you as a student do to diversify your classroom’s reading lists?

Don’t be afraid to recommend new books written by #ownvoices authors to your teachers. If you feel like your English class doesn’t represent enough marginalized voices or that your texts and resources aren’t diverse enough, talk to your teacher, talk to your classmates and figure out a plan to change that. Keep recommending books you’ve read to your teacher and you have a chance to be part of the solution.

FEATURES

23

A Series of Short Interviews on the Topic of Canvas

By VICKY LU

Vicky Lu ‘22: How has using Canvas been like for you?

just become so accustomed in using it.

Margaux Deverin (English Teacher and Theatre Leader): Canvas has a steep learning curve. The only reason I feel moderately comfortable using it now is because I attended many training sessions, watched many tutorials, and have conducted trial and error experiments for the past month or so. I’m still exhausted. I like the level of customization I get to do on the home page and the built in discussion tool. That’s very useful for English class in a virtual setting.

CJ: Google Classroom was just easier for me because I could see the homeworks or assignments right on the home screen.

Elise Park ‘22: I think Canvas will be a great tool for students once everyone gets more used to it! I like how Canvas includes your classroom information, assignments, important dates in terms of academics, grades, etc. It is convenient to just have your school-related things in one place. Also, Canvas does a nice job of organizing what you need to get done and upcoming events like tests. However, the many aspects of Canvas have made it confusing to maneuver.

Claire Jeon ‘23: Learning through canvas was really hard because it was so new to me and the meetings were hard to find.

VL: How would you compare it to Google Classroom?

MD: I definitely miss the simplicity of Google Classroom. Everything works the first time and it’s very user friendly. I also got my Google Certified Educator certificates this summer and can REALLY use Google Tools finally, but that all gets thrown out the window with Canvas. Grrr. Argh.

EP: For Canvas vs. Classroom, I would prefer Canvas even though Google Classroom would be more comfortable to use, since I have

VL: Which would you rather use when school returns to normalcy?

MD: I think it would be WAY too chaotic to turn back now.

Teachers have been doing backflips trying to learn Canvas quickly and that would be a ton of wasted time if we were to revert back.

Canvas is a better (albeit more complex) engine — we just have to be patient with ourselves and learn to use it together.

EP: I would prefer Canvas because of how convenient it is. You don’t have to have two tabs open, one for like SchoolTool and one for Google Classroom. You just have to open Canvas and voila you have access to everything without opening another tab! Also, you can just click around and find what you need pretty quickly!

CJ: I would prefer to use Google Classroom.

VL: How would you rate Canvas out of ten?

MD: Haha, um… that’s on a sliding scale. It’s a one when I’m screaming at it because the functionality it promises doesn’t work. It’s a solid six when it works? I feel like I’m actually grading my patience.

EP: Seven or eight!

CJ: Seven!

24

FEATURES

Recipe: Homemade Apple Pie With Chai Spices

By LINDSAY WANG

I

absolutely love making pie. It is now fall, and because everybody could use a bit of cheering up lately, I thought I would share my favorite apple pie recipe. This recipe can be found online at my favorite baking blog Sally’s Baking Addiction which I follow almost religiously. My (maybe excessive amount of) notes, which include my adjustments, things to keep in mind, etc., can be found under the notes from the original recipe in italics. Keep in mind while reading these notes that I am not an expert, although I really do like to bake pies.

• • • •

Prep Time: 3 hours Cook Time: 55 minutes Total Time: 7 hours Yield: One 9-inch pie

Ingredients: • Buttery Flaky Pie Crust or All Butter Pie Crust† • 5–6 Piñata apples, cored, peeled, and sliced into 1/2-inch slices* (approx 8–10 cups total) • 2 Tablespoons (30ml) lemon juice • 1/4 cup (31g) all-purpose flour

• • • • • • • • • •

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon‡ 1 teaspoon ground cardamom‡ 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg‡ 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger‡ 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar§ 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 1 Tablespoon (14g) cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes 1 large egg, lightly beaten with 1 Tablespoon (15ml) milk optional: coarse sugar for sprinkling

Directions: 1. The crust†: Prepare my pie crust recipe through step 5.

2. Make the filling after the dough has chilled: In a large bowl using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir the apples, lemon juice, flour, all of the spices, sugar, and vanilla extract together until thoroughly combined. Set filling aside as the oven preheats; this time allows the apples to begin letting off their juice.

3. Preheat the oven to 400°F (204°C).

IMAGE PROVIDED

A picture of Lindsay Wang’s most recent apple pie

FEATURES

4. Roll out the chilled pie dough: On a floured work surface, roll out one of the discs of chilled dough (keep the other one in the refrigerator). Turn the dough about a quarter turn after every few rolls until you have a circle 12 inches in diameter. Carefully place the dough into a 9×2 inch pie dish. Tuck it in with your fingers, making sure it is smooth. Spoon the filling into the crust and discard some of the leftover juices in the bottom of the bowl. Dot the pieces of butter on top of the filling||.

5. Finish assembling¶: Remove the other disc of chilled pie dough from the refrigerator. Roll the dough into a circle that is 12 inches diameter. Carefully lay the dough over the filling. Use a small paring knife to trim off excess dough from the sides. Cut slits in the top to form steam vents. Crimp the edges to seal.

6. Lightly brush the top of the pie crust with the egg/milk** mixture. Sprinkle the top with coarse sugar. Place the pie onto a large baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes.

Keeping the pie in the oven, turn the temperature down to 375°F (190°C) and bake for an additional 30-35 minutes. After the first 20 minutes of bake time, I place a pie crust shield†† on top of the pie to prevent the edges from browning too quickly.

7. Allow the pie to cool for 3 full hours at room temperature before serving. This time allows the filling to thicken up.

Cover pie leftovers tightly and store in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

Notes: 1. Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: This the best dessert to make ahead of time! To make 1 day in advance— after it cools, cover tightly and keep at room temperature.

The pie crust dough can also be prepared ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Baked pie freezes well for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and allow it to come to room temperature before serving. Prepared filling can be frozen up to 3 months, thaw overnight in the refrigerator before using.

2. *Apples: Slice your apples a uniform thickness. You don’t want some solid apples and some thin, mushy apples. [you don’t have to use Piñata apples—I used Honeycrisps-—or slice them into exactly 1/2-inch slices-—I sliced them into 1/4-inch slices—just make sure you have 8-10 cups total] 3. †Pie Crust: the two pie crusts mentioned are other recipes from the blog, Sally’s Baking Addiction. I used the Buttery Flaky Pie crust which calls for both butter and

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

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vegetable shortening. If you don’t have vegetable shortening you can use the other recipe. However, if you don’t want to make your own, you can use store bought crust.

Just keep in mind that you’ll need a top and bottom crust. ‡Chai Spices: the chai spices are some of the spices usually used in masala chai (spiced milk tea originating from India): cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, ginger. If you don’t have or don’t want to use these spices, these are the adjustments that I’d advise: 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger. However, you can add whatever spices you prefer, these are just my own recommendations.

Also keep in mind that if you ground your own spices like I do, the flavour will be stronger than if you used store-bought already ground spices, so you might want to decrease the amount used. §Sugar: I always like to decrease the amount of sugar when I bake because I don’t have a sweet tooth. In this particular recipe, the sugar is used less for its chemical properties in baking and more to balance out the sourness of the apples to make the flavour more complex, so I can change the sugar quantity by a little bit. My apples were pretty sweet already so I decreased the amount to 1/3 cup granulated sugar. ||Dotting Butter on the Filling: in my opinion, this step is unnecessary. The two most common assumptions is that it keeps particularly juicy pies from bubbling over or that it makes the filling creamier. From my own experience and research, the butter makes no discernible difference, but some do it in deference to tradition, so really doing this step is up to you. ¶Top Crust: I actually latticed the top of the pie. How you want to decorate the top is up to you, this is always my favorite part: you can braid the pie crust, use cookie cutters to cut out designs, etc. the possibilities are endless. **Egg Wash: this egg/milk mixture is actually called egg wash; it has no other purpose than to make your top crust a nice golden shine. I also consider this step to be optional, but if you want to make egg wash, but don’t have milk, you can use the same amount of water or cream as a substitute. ††Pie Crust Shield: a pie crust shield is used to keep to the pie crust from browning too much. If you don’t have a pie crust shield that’s fine, aluminum foil will do the same thing just as well. If you don’t want to cover your crust that’s fine too, your pie crust will just look a little more brown.

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ARTS

Mulan (2020): Modern-Age Disney Virtue-Signaling Ruins a Heartfelt Classic

By LOKE ZHANG-FISKESJO and VICKY LU

T

housands of Chinese children, especially young girls, have felt a sense of awe and empowerment upon seeing a Chinese protagonist in the Disney movie, Mulan (1998). It is, of course, a watered-down version of the original ballad, but then most adaptations are.

Nevermind the fact that the timeline was off, the clothing inaccurate, and the depictions of both the Chinese and the Huns based blatantly on stereotypes, there was finally someone that looked like them on the screen!

This tale has been told for nearly two millennia as the Ballad of Mulan, which tells of a woman named Mulan who took her aged father’s place in the military draft by disguising herself as a man. She fights in many battles and builds a distinguished reputation in the army. After her time in the militia, the emperor offers her a position of high prestige working alongside him. Mulan declines this proposition and decides to return to her hometown. She eventually reveals her true identity, causing astonishment in many of her peers.

Disney’s 1998 Mulan translated the tale beautifully, if not accurately in a historic sense. In no way did the animated version place her above or below men; she started out as a terrible soldier, like every other new recruit. They improved together in a training montage to “I’ll Make a Man Out of You,” and the film makes a point to direct our attention to the way she progresses from only appearing as a bride-to-be into a person in her own right.

In the opening scenes, Mulan displays numerous instances of ingenuity. Although many are played for laughs, like her cheat-sheet tattoo and feeding the chickens by having her dog drag around a bag of grain with holes poked into it, she also finishes a strategy game being played on the side of the street, figures out how to climb a training pole using weights to help rather than hinder, and uses artillery to wipe the Hun army out in an avalanche

The movie poster for the new Mulan, released in 2020 rather than simply opening fire. Her final fight with the leader of the Huns sees the use of a folding fan to disarm the latter.

The movie emphasizes that, while she has learned the same abilities as every soldier, Mulan assesses whether strength or strategy would best suit each situation and acts accordingly.

What the live-action Mulan (2020) made of that is, from a writer’s standpoint, a mess. The audience is introduced to a girl of elementary age that wields her limbs like weapons, and her weapons with prodigious ability. This sends a completely different message from the prior adaptation: only some females are worthy of being considered equal, and others like Mulan’s one-dimensional sister are not.

It also undermines equality from the opposite angle, by having her constantly best men when it comes to training. Sim-

ilarly, instead of the training pole, the recruits are instructed to climb stairs up a hill with two buckets of water hanging off their shoulders. There are no displays of working smarter rather than harder when it would benefit her to do so- instead, Mulan simply climbs the whole thing and “out-manly”s the men. Rather than feeling empowered, the audience subconsciously registers the unrealistic feats and fails to further connect or relate with the main character.

This story was traditionally about honor; serving one’s homeland by being willing to sacrifice oneself. The story was blatantly patriarchal, serving the older Chinese cultural tradition of preferring to conceive men rather than women, and unfortunately resonating with modern Chinese man-woman population ratio gaps and gender politics. Thus, the undercurrent of the story changes as well. The concept of filial piety is an old one in Chinese culture, one still practiced in modern times, if to a different extent. The social pressure shown in the song “Honor to Us All” shows one side of this, and the gifts that Mulan presents to her father is an attempt to bring honor to their family in her own way. However, the animated version also subtly addressed a concept even older and practiced in a range far wider than filial piety: the patriarchy itself. The Ballad of Mulan as it is taught in Chinese schools today incorporates a certain amount of propaganda, as do many old tales from other countries. Disney initially worked around it beautifully by having Mulan save the emperor not because he was her leader, or because it was her duty to her country, but because he was a fellow human in need of help. The only patriarch she would submit to freely was her father, and Mulan kneels before him at the end of the movie in respect for the one who provided for and raised her.

An American live-action remake with a focus on Chinese culture was inevitably

ARTS going to face heavy criticism, but Disney took it one step further.

Not only were the four listed writers all white (IMDb), but so were most of the crew. Critical roles to a cultural piece like this include the costume designer, set decorator, and the art department, but the names listed in the credits are overwhelmingly non-Asian.

The result is what netizens consider a disrespectful imitation of Chinese culture. For example, the original tale tells of a girl in the 5th century CE born in northern China, yet the film shows Mulan’s home as a tulou house from the southern Fujian province nearly a thousand years later in the Ming Dynasty. The scenes of her hometown were, in fact, filmed in Fujian, to the confusion and outrage of anyone with a bit of knowledge in geographic history. The main antagonists of the movie are the Huns, and the plot involves Mulan defending the northern border from them.

One post on Weibo—“China’s Twitter”—wryly jokes, “I guess Mulan has to take the subway out to join the army?” (variety.com).

Another complaint is that filming took place in the Xinjiang region. As a foreign company, Disney would have needed to ask for permission to film there, and the credits thank the Chinese Communist Party of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Committee at the end. However, it is known worldwide that Xinjiang holds about a million Muslims in concentration camps, and filming there only added fuel to the fire.

On top of that, the main actress Liu Yifei has expressed controversial views on the protests in Hong Kong. Various news outlets and civil rights activists worldwide have condemned the excessive force used by Hong Kong police on protestors, yet Liu wrote on Weibo in August 2019: “I support the Hong Kong police. You can all attack me now. What a shame for Hong Kong.”

With mindless critics calling it “the best Disney live-action adaptation so far” before release (insider.com), it puts into question the validity of Disney as a modern arts/entertainment company in the present landscape of cinema. With the new Lady and the Tramp, Dumbo, The Lion King, and now Mulan (all 2019/2020 films), Disney seems to be lazily recycling stories even more than usual in recent months. Ever since the death of Walt Disney, the company underwent severe change with intention and purpose as an entertainment company.

With a history of creating immersive universes starting with shorts of Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie (1928) to Donald Duck in The Wise Little Hen (1934), Walt Disney’s early success in directing and producing features during his career built his and his brother’s production company into an industry powerhouse.

This enabled countless dreams to be realized and seen by curious audiences everywhere. The Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio soon became Walt Disney Productions and money started to swarm in.

After years of repeated success of moving audiences worldwide, Walt Disney eventually passed away.

Following his death, the company lost Walt’s vision and struggled to find its voice. The board eventually decided to let the company just rest on its new theme parks and its first wave of money-grab films that are critically scrutinized today. With this, Walt Disney Productions became the Walt Disney Company. With this era the animation division began to fade away. The animators grasped for life by having another renaissance with several films including Robin Hood and The Aristocats. This last-ditch effort to save themselves wasn’t granted by the higher-ups as they deemed the features weren’t financially successful enough. The company’s decline was interrupted by a brief period of success with new CEO Michael Eisner revitalizing the product. But with Chief Operating Officer Frank Wells’s death in 1994, the loss of his perspective caused some questionable decisions to be made—

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creating tons of new sequels to classic Disney films, such as Bambi II, Leroy and Stitch, and The Lion King 1½. With several more failures reminiscent of the Pre-Eisner era, money once again began to dictate creativity rather than the other way around. With this, Robert Iger stepped into his current role as CEO. Iger’s direction of the company mainly revolved around dominating the market by absorbing other entertainment companies and working towards a monopoly.

As a result of these efforts, Disney now controls over 40 percent of the film industry (CNBC) having a hand or ownership in many companies including the news networks ABC and ESPN, motion picture companies Marvel and Lucasfilm, and record label Hollywood Records (titlemax.com). This effectively classifies them as having an industry monopoly, being able to produce high quantities of content at lower costs due to their resources without fear of competition. Because of this, Disney doesn’t have to produce high quality films. With this, they only are willing to create what seemingly generates money, meaning they don’t passionately help create pictures that could touch the hearts of folks around the world if they don’t have to. While this creative issue can be traced even back to Disney’s golden era, more recently their films have become more pandering rather than substantial (evident with Mulan), using artifacts of nostalgia or using marketing to create a superficiality that would drive home financial success.

The few acceptable products that come out from under Disney are only due to their constituent studios having creative control over their own media due to them having a found proper audiences and thus financial security. This stability allows and sometimes motivates Disney to exploit audiences by creating pandering content rather than fostering new and more original creative work.

With this business model, the CCP’s influence on the new Mulan could apparently be accepted by the current Disney Company, if they found the film wouldn’t damage their superficial reputation and how much Mulan (2020) would accrue in the box office around the world.

With its desperate attempt to make up for the lack of a theater release, it overcharged curious viewers $30 for just a short period of time to be able to see the film. With the streaming takeover and the effects of the pandemic on how films are traditionally seen, Mulan (2020) managed to profit despite its negative audience reception. Disney’s economic decline is still evident with Bob Iger’s motive to “save the company.”

Mulan’s failure to uphold the original Disney film’s legacy sparked massive backlash from Western viewers, and its typical Western orientalism led it to offend Chinese audiences as well.

With its pitiful performance at the box office so far and now unlikely future theatrical release, modern Disney’s faults are revealed to outweigh Walt’s legacy. The future of Disney and film is at stake, and if a monopoly with such vast wealth in resources isn’t able to bring out new talents in the industry, this newfound cultural failure will either eventually force Disney to change or surrender due to their profit-hungry methods backfiring in the end. Searching for the cause of Mulan (2020)’s creative failure leads back to Disney’s history. With Disney becoming more and more of a corporate conglomerate with Disney+, its efforts to expand aren’t driven by Walt’s creative morals, but what gets seen and purchased in the modern era.

With this contrast between two films of two eras, and in the midst of the 93 percent decline in profit (barrons.com) the company faces, this failure reveals the dark and depressing truth about the production of arts and entertainment in the age of couchside consumption.

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ARTS

Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing is Disturbingly Relevant Today

By AITAN AVGAR

O

ver the summer, Spike Lee’s defining film Do The Right Thing celebrated its 31-year anniversary.

The movie takes place on one of the hottest days of the year in a Brooklyn neighborhood and follows a young Black man, Mookie, played by Lee himself, as he delivers pizzas and engages in small talk with friends. His employer, Sal, is an Italian-American who has been serving pizzas in the neighborhood for over 25 years, although he lives in a predominantly Italian area of Lower Manhattan. Sal’s sons, Pino and Vito, work at the pizzeria alongside Mookie. While Mookie and Vito are on friendly terms, Pino harbors a deep grudge against Mookie and Brooklyn’s Black community. Through the course of the sweltering summer day, racial tensions broil, culminating with the murder by asphyxiation of a young Black man, Radio Raheem, at the hands of the NYPD. After Radio’s death, a riot breaks out, with Mookie torn between his respect for Sal, who helped him provide for his family, and his loyalty to Brooklyn’s Black community during a time of great pain and righteous anger.

Do the Right Thing leaves today’s audience at a loss. When it was released, the movie was an intimate and accurate portrayal of the racial tensions and violence experienced by the Black community during the 1980s. Lee might not have expected that it would speak so powerfully to the reality of Black Americans more than thirty years later. Sadly, one can’t help but see the striking resemblance between the murder of Radio Raheem and the recent killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake, and the many others whose deaths have sparked the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement and waves of protests all across the country. What can this movie teach us about the continued struggle of Black Americans today? Three major themes shed light on the pivotal moment in which we find ourselves.

First, a prominent theme in the film is voice. Characters in the movie are constantly struggling to be heard. For exam-

ple, Smiley, a man with a developmental disability, wanders the streets of Brooklyn trying to spread knowledge about the legacies and ideologies of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X as he sells pictures of the two leaders shaking hands.

Smiley is often ridiculed by community members and strangers because he stutters and groans as he tries to express the importance of these two competing approaches of achieving racial equality.

Similarly, Radio Raheem carries around a boombox, loudly playing Public Enemy’s Fight the Power and calling for a revolution. Though it is not his own message, it is one that he is desperately trying to project out into society. Smiley’s stutter and Radio’s boombox are metaphors for the Black community’s search for voice.

For years, crimes have been committed against Black people across the country.

These crimes are often underreported in the media and are ignored by the public.

In recent years, with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, this silencing of the everyday struggles of Black Americans has begun to change. Unfortunately, Smiley and Radio’s desire for voice has yet to be fully realized.

Second, the movie presents the duality of love and hate. This tension, the basis of all human action, has long been used by artists of different mediums, but Lee uniquely personifies it through the movie’s characters. Mookie in particular struggles to reconcile between these two forces over the course of the day. Take, for example, the first interaction between Mookie and Radio Raheem. After a bit of small talk, Mookie asks Radio about his elaborate rings which read “Love” and “Hate”, one on each hand. Radio then dives into a passionate soliloquy about the constant and long-standing battle between love and hatred over the course of history. The film urges us to compare these two driving forces to the ideologies of Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) and Malcolm X. MLK advocated for non-violent tactics when dealing with racial injustice. He believed that violence “seeks to humiliate the opponent

rather than win his understanding”. On the other hand, Malcolm X championed the use of justified violence as a means to gain equality and justice, but only under the circumstances of self-defense. He said, “...you and I have to preserve the right to do what is necessary to bring an end to that situation,” in which the “situation” referred to is the abuse of power by those who have it against those who don’t. Decades after the two iconic leaders debated their different approaches and 31 years after Lee embodied their duality, this argument is still at the heart of the fight for racial justice.

Third, Do The Right Thing successfully and uniquely captures the ever-present role of bias in social dynamics. In the film, interactions between those of different racial and ethnic backgrounds are brimming with contention. A scene that best demonstrates this tension and blatant stereotyping is one in which characters speak directly to the camera and make offensive, stereotypical comments and racial slurs directed at one ethnic group after another. Black people, Italians, Latinx people, Koreans, and Jews are all targeted in this short but shocking string of clips. Watching Do the Right Thing can lead you to believe that it was made in a far worse era, one in which racist expressions were more explicit and commonplace. This would be a mistake. While bias and racism are sometimes less visible today, they remain deeply rooted in our social interactions.

Growing attention to the role that implicit bias plays in all areas of our lives is an acknowledgement of all the work that is still needed to actually combat this societal ill.

Taken together, Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing sadly remains a reflection of our current reality, which is plagued by systemic racism in our law enforcement, governmental, economic, and educational institutions. The film helps us to understand how issues of race have evolved in some respects but persisted in many others. We are still a long way from the day when we all consistently “do the right thing”.

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Online Business 101: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

By ELLA KEEN ALLEE

T

his year has undeniably been difficult on everyone. However, we have all found our little ways to create some good every once in a while. This might be trying a new brownie recipe or having a Zoom call with family, but many have turned to one of the most versatile forms of self-expression: art. It has never failed to bring the world together, so of course, in times like these, why would that be any different?

I’ve always been a pretty artistic person, so there are usually a plethora of different art projects swirling around in my head. This can be awesome most of the time, but somewhat annoying at others. During quarantine though, as everyone has, I have had a lot more time on my hands. So, this summer, I decided that my goal for the year would be to start an Etsy shop to sell my art and, well, here we are! This column is going to be all about my process, including the highs and the lows, of starting a small online business amidst a pandemic. I’ll talk about my experiences, while also giving advice to you, just in case you feel inspired to start your own shop. This is recurring, so you’ll get to come along with me from the start (well, the middle) to the end, when I finally open my shop. It’s a bit of a crazy project, so buckle up!

The Basics When first starting a project like this with the end goal of selling something online, you have to make sure you know where your art will fit in; a niche, so to speak. This is an integral step, because it allows you to connect with and even draw inspiration from artists with a similar style to yours, which is really the key to getting started. For me, I found that my art is generally on the colorful “cutesy” style. An artist named Catherine Kay exemplifies this, and owns an Etsy shop called Katnipp—check it out! Once you know that and have seen how those people are making their products, it’s time to start putting a collection together for your first opening! But wait— how does one make everything?

When I first started thinking about creating a shop, I didn’t fully understand how much of an investment it is, so let me tell you right now: it’s a very big one. Here are some of the basic materials/machines that I use along with the iPad that I design everything on: HP 6055 Printer (Target) = $129.99 Cricut Explore Air 2 (Joann online) = $229.99 Fiskars Surecut Card Making Paper Trimmer (Michaels) = $18.99 Adobe Photoshop = $20/mo (after free trial of 7 days) Grand total: $378.97 (That’s a lot. I told you I’d be frank with you).

Never fear! Along the way, I am also going to include all of the shortcuts and cost-cutters that I possibly can, because I believe that everyone who is willing to put in the work should be able to start their own shop, regardless of their financial situation. So, here’s your first hack: Shortcut/hack #1: Redbubble! Redbubble is another online commerce shop mainly known for stickers. The great thing about this website is that all you need is a digitized design (I’ll give you

tips on this later), and you’re off to the races! You don’t have to deal with making anything on your own! Redbubble prints your design on anything you want, whether that’s a sticker, a pillow, or even a tapestry! Go check it out!

Digitizing Your Design I usually use my iPad for every part of the design process—from sketching it out to finishing and moving it to my computer to edit further. I got it a couple of years ago, so it’s a pretty old version, but still works like a charm! Although, there are many other ways of digitizing and uploading your designs online: Shortcut/hack #2: You definitely don’t need a tablet to digitize your art! All you need is paper and a pencil, and you’re off!

For example, you can use a scanner, cut out any flaws/marks on a computer/chromebook, and then easily go from there. You can also take a photo using a phone, then do touch-ups once it’s there.

You can even use downloadable services on your computer such as the aforementioned Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator (or really any other drawing software online). The moral of the story is that you shouldn’t despair if you don’t have a tablet, or if you just prefer pencil and paper (I know I do sometimes!)

The Importance of a Good Name This is one of the most important steps of starting an online business! You should put some thought into this and think, “what do I want people to know me by or my shop by?” Firstly, try to make it relatively simple. You want your customers to be able to remember the name of your shop so they can come back to it again and tell their friends without having to scramble! Compare “artist12321xx” to “SunnyArtDesigns”… which one is easier to remember? You can pull inspiration from just about anything! What words come to mind? Combine them to create a cool name, like LemonandFern (that’s my shop’s name!) You could also do a play on words, or spell a word in a unique way (like Katnipp!). Another way to name your shop is to simply use your name! It can be a combination of a first name and a middle, last and first, et cetera. Settle on something that is simple, but feels like you. As far as I know, Redbubble doesn’t allow for a username change, so make sure you’re secure in your decision before creating an account! Etsy lets you change your shop name as many times as you want, which was convenient coming from someone who may or may not have changed their shop name 10 times in a week…

Now you’ve been introduced to my column, which will be focused on the reality of starting your own business. I’m incredibly excited to start mine soon just for the reward of knowing that other people are enjoying my artwork. However, I will try to stay honest with you; it can be really hard sometimes, and I will document that.

I’m doing this because I know that when I was first starting, I really wanted (and needed) someone to lay out the good, the bad, and the ugly for me so I knew what I was getting myself into. I hope this helps, and that this little introduction gave you some information and got you excited about my next installment! Next time, I’ll discuss stocking your store, setting up payment methods, and opening up!

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Movie Theaters, The Pandemic, and Cinema-Going in Downtown Ithaca

By SAM SACHS

I

want to talk about one small piece of our massive, new, and confusing pandemic culture, one that’s very important to me: movie theaters. Before the pandemic, you could find me at Cinemapolis, Ithaca’s very own member-supported independent theater (shameless plug), pretty much all the time. Okay, not actually all the time, school exists—but a lot for sure. Depending on the week, I had often seen up to 80 percent of the five or six movies Cinemapolis was currently showing. And, when the pandemic hit, its closure was one of the saddest things for me. Time-jump to now, after six seemingly year-long and days-short months; it’s still closed, with no reopening date. Ideas are floating around, and other countries are models, but what does the situation look like?

Much earlier in the pandemic, around the end of last school year, New York and many other states went through a phased reopening. Various safety measures had to be put in place, and numbers of new cases had to be low, but we got through all four phases. Some businesses like movie theatres and gyms, due to more contact, were not a part of this, leaving people pondering their fate. Gyms subsequently reopened, while cinemas were left waiting in line. However, the theaters have not been completely inactive during this period. Purely in terms of film distribution, many independent cinemas, including Cinemapolis, have adopted a virtual cinema system as an alternative. Essentially, movies are available to rent online, and proceeds are split between the film company, the website or business hosting the virtual screening, and your local theatre. I’ve used Cinemapolis’s version of this, and I talked to Brett Bossard, the executive director of Cinemapolis, to get his take on virtual distribution. “The biggest disadvantage,” he says, is “not being able to see and talk with our patrons!

Our regulars are part of the Cinemapolis family, and we miss the post-film conversations that were so commonplace in the ‘before times.’” Cinemapolis is member-supported, and largely funded by memberships and donations. When those people suddenly can’t come to the theater, it makes it harder for that community to exist. However, many theaters, including Cinemapolis, plan to keep using virtual cinema even when they can open their doors to the public again. As Bossard says, it’s “a useful tool,” simply as another option for customers.

Of course, the closure of movie theatres is only part of the problem. What about the movies themselves? Because production crews are generally large, and pandemic-level safety would be difficult to enforce in that setting, shooting film and TV has been put on pause, like so much of the rest of the world. But, some movies and shows had already wrapped shooting when the pandemic started, and were in other parts of their production process. Post-production can easily be done remotely, through technology and the Internet, so most of that process can continue.

Take Denis Villeneuve’s new sci-fi epic Dune (the first of a twofilm adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic 1965 novel), which is slated to come out this December. The film was shot primarily in 2019, and by March 2020, the work remaining consisted of editing, scoring, and other parts of the post-production process.

Although legendary film composer Hans Zimmer had to improvise with recording musicians for the score socially-distanced, the movie’s process has moved on as originally scheduled, and, at this point in time, will be in theatres as planned (that is, if theatres are open). The other option that some have chosen is to quarantine the entire cast and crew before working on a film, which takes time, but does allow for shooting in-person, obviously with safety measures in effect. A notable example of this kind would be Euphoria creator Sam Levinson’s movie Malcom and Marie, which stars only Zendaya (of now Emmy-winning Euphoria fame) and John David Washington (whose Tenet is its own kind of pandemic film story), and was shot mid-quarantine with a minimal crew.

While these two films do offer examples of ways to work, hundreds of other projects do not have the same means or advantages, and have been delayed until further notice. For many, this was due to the inability to shoot and be in person, (e.g. multiple upcoming Marvel Studios projects), and for many more, lack of revenue from physical theater ticket sales (e.g. James Bond feature No Time to Die).Whether or not delays will have a noticeable effect on how many movies we see being released is still unknown, but it doesn’t matter much when nobody can even attend their local theater.

But don’t think the Cinemapolis doors have been unopened for six months. Brett and the rest of the team have been working so that when theatergoing is allowed again, Cinemapolis will be as safe as possible for the new age of pandemic protection. Brett says of the new bathrooms to come of the current renovation, “New counters, new lighting, and, most importantly, all touch-free fixtures will welcome Cinemapolitans when they can return to the cinema.” Everything will be more sanitary, including the theaters themselves, with the addition of new electrostatic sprayers (look it up, it’s cool). They are developing touch-free options for purchasing the coveted Cinemapolis snacks, and of course all government-mandated safety protocols will be enforced.

And with that, the final question becomes, “when can we actually, physically, go back to theaters?” The answer could take many forms. Brett told me about the National Association of Theatre Owners working with an epidemiologist in order to set guidelines that will allow for a safe reopening, including things like significantly reduced capacity, masks except when eating in your seat, and more. However, New York doesn’t currently have plans. “In the states, countries, and territories where cinemas have been allowed to re-open, there have been zero documented cases of

ARTS

coronavirus transmission traced to movie-going,” Bossard says.

It could be any day now, or it could be six more agonizing months.

Brett finishes, “now we just have to wait for Governor Cuomo to give the green light.”

So, whatever the future holds, movie theaters will still be here, whenever the world is ready for them. I implore you not to wait until then to support them (namely Cinemapolis), by taking advantage of the virtual cinema, their new movies in the backlot (partnering with the delicious Serendipity Catering), or simply donating. Movie theaters and the communities they create have been a core part of American culture for almost a century now,

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and despite the rise of streaming, they will continue to hold that spot. Cinema is an astounding medium for examining our culture, and has played a pivotal role in many periods of American and world history. There are new movies coming, and we will get to see them, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Oh, and of course I asked Brett which movie he was most looking forward to. His answer was iconic American auteur Wes Anderson’s new film, The French Dispatch, for which I am also very excited. I hope all of you are there to see it with me, whenever we’re able, at Cinemapolis.

I’m Thinking of I’m Thinking of Ending Things

By RUBY LAROCCA

W

hy watch Charlie Kaufman’s new film streaming now on Netflix, I’m Thinking of Ending Things?

Why watch any of Kaufman’s deliberately difficult, occasionally hilarious, often harrowing, always unpredictable films? Or maybe the better question is, why watch any of the films associated with Kaufman, who is best known for his screenplays— such as Being John Malkovich (1999), Adaptation (2002), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)—while living through a pandemic in the first tenuous weeks of distance learning at Ithaca High School?

Surprisingly, Kaufman’s odd little film about a young woman who plans to break up with her boyfriend but nevertheless visits his parents during a long, strange, cold, winter night is garnering a large audience on Netflix and is being reviewed favorably by critics. This may be because it is sensitive to big themes—aging, time, love, relationships, loneliness. Or maybe it’s because the two lead actors are brilliant—Jessie Buckley in the role of the Young Woman and her controlling, consistently creepy boyfriend, Jake, played by Jesse Plemons. But I suspect that one reason it is getting such a positive response is that people feel like it speaks directly to our current situation. Rolling Stone critic David Fear says “Kaufman’s personal blend of seismic uncertainty, vulnerability and absurdity is exactly the destination you needed to end up at right now.” I don’t know why feeling uncertain and vulnera-

ble—as so many of us now do—encourages us to embrace the absurd, and how “absurdity” became a desirable destination, but Fear’s statement offers us a way to start looking closely at I’m Thinking of Ending Things, examining both Fear’s classification of the film and the film itself.

The Young Woman whose interior monologue we hear throughout the film feels trustworthy, insightful, and honest, if sad. That vision is troubled by inconsistencies that emerge about her character—she is called Lucy, Louisa, Lucia; she wears a pink peacoat, then a blue one; she is a poet, a waitress, a physicist. When she and Jake are arguing about a film, 1974’s A Woman Under the Influence, the disparaging review she gives is verbatim the analysis published by film critic Pauline Kael. When Jake pressures her to recite one of her own poems, the piece she finally recites—a haunting, moving poem about loneliness—turns out to be written by the poet Eva H.D. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t have been able to recognize these ventriloquisms if not for a peek into Jake’s childhood bedroom, helpfully labeled “Jake’s Childhood Bedroom” in trembling print on a piece of paper taped to the door. On his crammed bookshelf is a compilation of film reviews by Pauline Kael. Open-faced on the bed is a collection of poems by H.D., including “Bonedog,” the poem we heard in the car.

It might begin to dawn on watchers of the film that our protagonist may not be real at all—that she may just be an amal-

gam of what Jake has read and thought and dreamed about. The idea that the whole encounter, the drive, the relationship, is a memory or a projection by a lonely man at the end of his life is reinforced by the other main narrative of the film, an elderly man who lives alone and works as a janitor at the local high school. There are hints throughout the film that Jake and the Janitor are one and the same person—or, at least, that the visions of the parents (who are middle aged when we meet them but flit in and out of different periods in their lives, solidifying the dream-scape conceit), the Young Woman, the farm, have come from the Janitor’s own memory or imagination.

If it is true that the Young Woman whose thoughts we’ve been following, as she thinks about breaking up with her boyfriend, who we see with and through her eyes, is in fact a person imagined by Jake who is himself a memory and/or fictional construction by an older Jake, then the film is not what we thought it was and the characters are not fully-formed characters in the usual sense. There is a class of viewers who find this possibility thrilling. The ground shifts under our feet. Everything is not what we thought it was. But there is another class of viewers—and I am among them—who find the implication that Jake and the Young Woman are one and the same not only disorienting but annoying.

Instead of feeling thrilled by the prospect Continued on page 36

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ARTS

I’m Thinking of I’m Thinking of Ending Things Continued from page 35 of the bait-and-switch, I begin to doubt Kaufman’s artistry.

The annoyance springs from the fact that viewers are compelled by these characters, especially the Young Woman—someone whose claustrophobia and mild confusion mirror our own as we watch the film. We share her occasional shudder of revulsion induced by some Jake-ism. How can Kaufman give us a character that we connect with and then rob us of the assumption that she is real? He takes advantage of our susceptibility as humans to connect with characters, see aspects of ourselves within them, and feel their emotions by some empathic property of human power.

I have acquired this scorn of bait-and-switch endings from another of Kaufman’s films, Adaptation (2002), written by Kaufman, directed by Spike Jonze. I think of Adaptation as the most successful and intellectually satisfying of Kaufman’s films.

Adaptation tells the story of a writer who is given the job of adapting to the screen a book by New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean.

The writer’s name is Charlie Kaufman. The job he is doing is the job that Kaufman was given. That is not where the comparison ends. The real Charlie Kaufman, struggles himself with the idea of how to end a film and how to make a good and true film while still pleasing and retaining his audience. But of course, the whole work is a piece of fiction and is, at its heart, an examination of what it means to write well and how to construct and end a story.

One of the more clever ways the writer of Adaptation, Charlie Kaufman, helps watchers to experience the debate in a writer’s mind is by introducing us to characters who embody two sides of any writer’s internal conflict. In the film this split is manifested in the form of twins Charlie and Donald Kaufman: the clever, self-loathing writer and his stupid, self-loving brother. They show two possible directions in which writers could go: Do I follow pre-recorded rules (as the character Donald Kaufman does) or do I create something new (as Charlie Kaufman’s character attempts to do)? Adaptation makes fun of aspiring screenwriter Donald’s trite, formulaic, pre-established, and genre-conforming writing ideas. Donald makes free use of cliché, religiously attends workshops by screen-writing guru Robert McKee, and gleefully relies on a “big payoff” ending to tie together his flawed and illogical script. Charlie, on the other hand, thinks of writing as a “journey into the unknown.” When Donald solemnly intones the principles of good writing he’s learned from Mckee’s workshops (“Stories must have a beginning, a middle and an end;” “there hasn’t been a new genre of film since Fellini invented the mockumentary”), Charlie tries to introduce his own, much more creative vision of a writer’s life: “Look, my point is, my point is, those teachers are dangerous if your goal is to do something new. And a writer should always have that goal. Writing is a journey into the unknown, not building a model airplane.” It is clear to us that Charlie is the better writer, and yet Donald rejects his advice when crafting his exquisitely stupid screenplay, “The 3”. The “wow ‘em in the end” big reveal of Donald’s thriller is that the cop, the criminal, and the victim in the story turn out to be the very same person. Appalled, frustrated, Charlie asks Donald how that will work, logically, on screen and Donald responds nonchalantly: “trick photography.”

Kaufman goes out of his way to prove that this formulaic structure

is what is generally accepted and revered by audiences by ending his own film in a typical “big ending.” The guy gets the girl, the brother dies after delivering a life-changing speech, and the antagonist is eaten by an alligator. While Adaptation makes fun of Donald’s sacrifice of logic for a thrilling ending, I’m Thinking of Ending Things employs the silly ‘same person’ conceit but hesitates and leaves us with an unsatisfying and puzzling ending.

I’d like to now return to our motivating question: Why do we watch Kaufman films and why do we watch them now? Kaufman remains one of the few screenwriters who wants his audience to think, be engaged, and discuss his work. When we watch his films, we think about and discuss the difficulty of writing and how we end things, as it were. He even alludes to this in the title of the film—I’m Thinking of Ending Things is purposely ambiguous. It could refer to the Young Woman’s doubts about her boyfriend, the lonely Janitor pondering suicide, or Kaufman’s own dilemma of not really knowing how to end his film. We don’t watch his films because they capture some essence of the current era. Or because quarantine feels like an I’m Thinking of Ending Things-esque dreamscape where the days all blur together. We watch his films because figuring things out (or trying to), and talking to people you love (actual people who say surprising, reorienting things, rather than recite previously published passages and poems) makes every day interesting. Aging is real. Conversation should be stimulating. Time is precious.

LITERARY

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Ten Thought-Provoking Writing Prompts

By Adowyn Ernste • Write a poem based on a vivid image that you internalized at one point in your life. Try to incorporate all the details that you can remember to make it as descriptive as possible.

• Hoping to improve your productivity, you clone yourself— but then everything goes awry.

• Imagine a world with millions of _____________.

• Find something around your house that has words written on it, such as a piece of scrap paper, a shipping label, or a book. Rearrange the letters of one or more words until you come up with a different word (or perhaps a made-up one). Using the new word as the main element, create a story or poem.

• Try to imitate the writing style of one of your favorite authors/poets. As an added challenge, try to maintain the writer’s voice using a topic that strays from the writer’s regular boundaries.

• Write a story about someone taking overly drastic measures.

Waterfall

By Rosemary Mead Quiet river floating on the shiny stones, mirror of sunlit ripples.

Soon will fall over a smooth cliff, foaming and frothing below.

Distant thunder heard from downstream, contrasting the peaceful current.

What is flowing down the river?

Liquid crystal bound to break.

Then the water bends and crashes,Wa folds over and falls underneath.

Curtains of intricate milky foam, whirling and swirling at its base.

Deep pool of crashing waves, Twists and turns in the cascading water.

Mellows into a quiet river, floating over the shiny stones.

• The leaves fell from the trees...but once they reached the ground, they didn’t stop falling.

• Write a sentimental tale using Pig Latin.

• It’s the first time you’ve seen the transition from fall to winter. How do you react?

• Write a triolet, a short poem that uses repetition and rhyme. For an added challenge, try making each line 8 syllables. The form is ABaAabAB: A (first line) B (second line) a (rhymes with the first line) A (repeat the first line) a (rhymes with the first line) b (rhymes with the second line) A (repeat the first line) B (repeat second line)

Where I Want To Go

By Saba Weatherspoon To sleep is where I want to go Not walking to a bus in the snow In my warm blankets is where I want to be Or lounging in warmth under a tree Sleep is my favorite I know Where all my dreams can show And happiness I can see To sleep is where I want to go My big puffy curly afro Is what I sleep on as a pillow My stresses can be set free From homework and troubles I can flee And regain my healthy restful glow To sleep is where I want to go

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LITERARY

The Based Soothsayer

By Louisa Miller-Out Hello, my dear, The end is near!

Tremble in fear!

I speak for trees.

Come feast your eyes On smoky skies And endless cries And rising seas.

We let them drill, We let them kill The urchins, krill, Anemones...

They’ll let you bleed To fuel their greed They need to feed Their companies.

So don’t give in And let them win!

So go vegan And save the bees!

(If they’re not keen, The guillotine Is quick and clean) Thank you and please.

Untitled

By Anna Westwig The nostalgia weaves itself like clockwork, smothering you like mist at the edge of the sea, where arthritic hulls rock under the gull calls and Scorpio’s baleful gaze. When the buds of the oak leaves have unfurled and send crescents of light to a shaded trail, when the sun ignites in the unknown corners of the morning, when you remember the wild, capricious thing you used to be, with eyes full of silver and hands wreathed in bloom.

Don’t Blink

By Saba Weatherspoon 7:14 One eye peeks open then closes again I blink 7:19 I moan, it’s almost time I blink 7:26 I must not waste another minute. My eyelids droop back closed I blink 7:30 My alarm plays a song that sounds nice I blink 7:50 My blankets are so warm, I could lie here forever I blink 8:07 I awake suddenly to the radio playing “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran again. I hate this song I roll over then sit up 8:08 Oh no! My class starts in two minutes!

To Her Coy Mistress

By Louisa Miller-Out Goddess drenched in golden sunlight Let the music swell Run with me into the water Laugh while we rebel Come with me to every wonder Fall under my spell Poke in every hidden corner Run with me to hell

LITERARY

37

Pass It Along Column

By Alex Chaires, Desi Furber, and Vicky Lu There was once a man named Harold. Mr. Harold Norman was an extremely wealthy man, drowning in riches and luxury. But Mr. Norman hadn’t always been so rich, and so he was plagued with the “Broke Boi Mentality”. As exceptionally rich as he was, he couldn’t help himself when it came to bargains. He still used coupons at the grocery store and only bought used Gucci. Despite this, he still had more money than he knew what to do with, and that plagued him. He frequently found himself come across bizarre and unnecessary conflicts due to his surplus of funds yet cheap nature. For example, he’d buy too much of something he loved...and ruin it quite thoroughly.

One day he even bought an entire warehouse of pickles. Yes... pickles. Two-hundred thirty-six of them. He was, well, rather embarrassed when it came to that pickle of a regrettable purchase (pun intended). As you could see (or rather smell) from the aroma of the pickles spreading throughout his six-story, rhinestone-glazed mansion, the sheer power and ability to get anything and everything he could ever want casted a thick veil of boredom and fatigue over his daily life.

But then the summer of 2020 came around. It was exactly as chaotic as you might guess. And although the end might not seem all that savory, what could he say? He was bored in the house, and the isolation allowed his imagination to pierce through the veil that ever so frequently had previously created a shadow to restrict his field of possibility in the world that is entertainment. Now that veil had the capacity to be not only pierced, but cast aside entirely.

By Alex Chaires ‘22 On any ordinary day, Mr. Norman was entrenched in routine. At exactly 5 a.m., he dragged himself out of his stiff IKEA bed. After allowing himself a minute to stare blankly at the wall, Harold pulled on his used Gucci and embarked on a brisk walk about the neighborhood. By seven, his favorite bakery would be open, and at 7:10, he strode through the door. Day in and day out, Mr. Norman spent his morning in his favorite seat by the window, drinking his black coffee and watching the world wake up. The rest of his day followed in a similarly orderly fashion.

Every day was identical to the one before it and the one that would follow.

Then the pandemic hit and nothing was as it should be. His favorite bakery was closed. The usually bustling neighborhood seemed asleep and stayed that way all day. If Mr. Norman wanted to watch people and silently judge them, he had to turn to social media. Several companies sent him gratuitous emails attesting to their good will, but none of them provided any instruction or advice besides “stay inside.”

By Desi Furber ‘22 Stay inside? How ridiculous. The best part of his day, of any day, was to be spent outside!

He got up at five, per usual, and picked up the morning newspaper at six, per usual. Hm, did the mailman always wear that cheerleader outfit? Mr. Norman was almost certain he hadn’t seen that before.

A loud, blaring headline about the pandemic. That was only novel for the first few days, getting old fast. An interview with those yellow folk who’d brought the darn virus here in the first place, with criticism flooding one for partying on campus and praise for another creating “musicales” on the internet. He snorted into his, unfortunately homemade, morning coffee.

What a bunch of fools. Is this what made the news these days? A common college party and a re-spelling of an English word into French?

The featured comic on the back was just as confusing as… well, Mr. Norman was an individual in-touch with current events, just not so much with the current trends. A series of multi-colored pillowcases with pale stuffing peeking out of slits a quarter of the way down stood around a toy spaceship, all facing a bloodstained, cyan pillow. Curse millennial senses of humor.

After washing and dressing properly, he checked the clock. At seven, he would usually be headed out the door, but alas, someone had decided to eat a bat.

Perhaps today he might turn on the computer to something other than Facebook. He’d heard a great deal about the political breeding ground that was Twitter, after all. Perhaps a bit of Fox News; that was always fun to watch. What would the weather be like today? He drew back the blinds, only to slam them back when he saw the giant stuffed bears sitting in a spa on the neighbor’s front yard. Ugh, peasants.

By Vicky Lu ‘ 22

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LITERARY

October Haiku Contest Haiku

Haiku

By Tristan Borden

By Caitlin Strong

Stay six feet away Social distancing is good Don’t sneeze close to me

I stand here once more to view the memories of a time that is gone

100

Word Story Contest

By Lindsay Wang It’s sunrise, but you can’t hear any birds. That’s not unusual, but if you stop to let yourself think about it, you start to remember… no. That was another life. It is not who you are now, and to dwell in the past means you won’t do anything all day. You take another sip of your tea that’s long gone cold to distract yourself from your thoughts as you wait for the other occupant of the room to wake. This is not unusual either.

You’ve been waiting since the world ended.

By Gabrielle Greentree In light of previous circumstances, this was not the worst thing that could have ever happened. But a literal clown chasing me around the neighborhood was not the thing I would’ve pictured for the end. I’m literally praying this guy doesn’t know how to climb trees as I get to the top. Man, I just finished the last of my anime recommendations, dinner was so good last night too. Mashed potatoes and some green mess I don’t even know the name of. I even got Orangina from CTB. Too bad I’m afraid of heights, or this would be really funny.

By Elliot Houle “1t’s tym3 t0 k1ck 4ss 4nd ch3w bubbl3gum,” Duk3 Nuk3m th0ught t0 h1ms3lf.

“4nd 1 l0st my s1z3 th1rt33n b00t.”

H3 s1ts th3r3 d3f34t3d, ch3w1ng th3 n3w fl4v0r 0f tr1pl3 bubbl3.

“H0w d1d 1 3nd up h3r3?”

S0m3 kr1ng3 k1d r0lls up 0n h1s h0v3rbo4rd, st34ls th3 gum.

H3 r0lls 4w4y 4nd f4lls 0v3r, ru1n1ng h1s supr3m3 h00d13.

Duk3 Nuk3m st4nds up.

“My n4m3 1s D0uk N0uk K3m,” he proclaims.

“4nd 1’m 4ll 0ut 0f gum.”

“Tym3 t0 h34d h0m3.”

H3 g03s b4ck to h1s pl4c3, but wh3n h3 g3ts th3r3, 1t 1s 4 g04st.

B3tt3r c4ll th3 g04st bust3rs.

PENULTIMATE

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Surrealio

By Ethan Carlson

October Sudoku 3

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1

The Coolness Spectrum It’s Halloween! What Scary Situations Will You Get Stuck In?

“Would you shut up, man?”

Full moon on Halloween

By Ethan Carlson Libra (Sep 23 - Oct 22): The lights in your house will go out because you thought you could make a smoothie while you vacuumed.

Scorpio (Oct 23 - Nov 21): You will forget to lock the door to when you use the bathroom.

Sagittarius (Nov 22 - Dec 21): You realize that assignment was due at 12 PM and not 12 AM. Capricorn (Dec 22 - Jan 19): College, it’s coming.

Aquarius (Jan 20 - Feb 18): You will put too much salt into that sourdough.

Pisces (Feb 19 - Mar 20): You will run out of things to say…

Oh no…

Aries (Mar 21 - Apr 19): Your parent or sibling unplugs the WIFI in the middle of online class.

Taurus (Apr 20 - May 20): You realize you haven’t left the house in 3 weeks.

Seeing friends in the halls

Gemini (May 21 - June 20): Walking outside without a mask.

Seriously, wear a mask.

Rats at IHS have no more crumbs to eat

Cancer (June 21 - Jul 22): Hopping too early into an online class meeting and convincing yourself that the class was an hour earlier because the previous class is still in the meeting.

Leo (Jul 23 - Aug 22): You drop your phone and it doesn’t have its case on.

Virgo (Aug 23 - Sep 22): Shoot, did I write a 2 or a 7 in that final math question?

Asynchronous learning

Early decision deadlines

No fall sports

Attaching files on Canvas

Presidential debates