Polarized by Libertas Magazine

LIBERTAS POLARIZED

v ol . 23, n o. 3

SATREBIL EDITORIAL EDITORS IN CHIEF Alyssa Glover Samantha Gowing WRITING EDITORS Quinn Massengill Thomas Waddill DESIGN EDITORS Elisabeth Anthony Hannah Fuller Caroline New Maddy Page

CONTRIBUTORS Yasemin Tekgurler, Anonymous, Gill Holland, Jack Albrittain, Dylan Morris, Eleanor Yarboro, Alyssa Glover, Nathan Tempas and Friends, Van E. Hillard, India Gupta, Maddy Page Libertas belongs to the students of Davidson College. Contact the editors at libertas@davidson.edu

special thanks to... Faculty Advisors: Zoran Kuzmanovich, Paul Miller (emeritus), Scott Denham (emeritus), Ann Fox (emeritus) Previous Editors: Meg Mendenhall, Michael DeSimone, Jordan Luebkemann, Will Reese, Emily Romeyn, Vincent Weir, Mike Scarbo, Vic Brand, Ann Culp, Erin Smith, Scott Geiger, James Everett, Catherine Walker, Elizabeth Burkhead, Chris Cantanese, Kate Wiseman, Lila Allen, Jessica Malordy, Nina Hawley, Kate Kelly, Zoe Balaconis, Rebecca Hawk, and Hannah Wright Founder: Zac Lacy

LIBERTAS November 2016

“Mom, Am I Barbarian?” Excerpt

cover 3

Jack Albrittain Dylan Morris

Great Depression Miracle Mileage: Thoughts on Novermber 8th

Anonymous Dr. Gill Holland

Qu Yuan Subway. Great Falls on the Potomac

Yasemin Tekgurler

Eleanor Yarboro Mila Loneman

Photograph Bob McKillop on Sexual Assault in Athletics

Alyssa Glover

Introducing: Tyler Larry’s: Shapes: the Musical: the Squeakuel

Nathan Tempas & Friends

Please Stop Policing My Interracial Relationship

Alyssa Glover

Seeing|Saying: Images and Words

Dr. Van E. Hillard Thomas Waddill

Seeing|Saying Review all the songs that came before you: a playlist Doctor Strange Review

India Gupta Maddy Page

Last Word

visit us online: https://issuu.com/libertasmag friend us on facebook: search “davidson libertas”

‘EXCERPT’

Dr. Gill Holland

BY ANONYMOUS If there were enough light to count the people in the room, you would count six. Of those six, four are lying on the couch. They stare at the ceiling, reading the cartography of water stains and paint flecks adorning the plaster. There is also mold on the ceiling, but it’s in the corner farthest from the lamp—the room’s one source of light is a torchière lamp in in the south corner—and they can’t see the mold, nor could they understand it if they saw. The posters on the wall are breathing. There is a scene from Alice in Wonderland: Alice meets the caterpillar, who is sitting on a toadstool wearing grandma glasses and smoking a hookah; there is a poster of Lou Reed, who in this light looks like Herman Munster; &c. The other two are lying on the floor, by the way. A Navajo blanket ties their legs together at the knees. Two rubber straps tie their arms, though not together, between elbow and shoulder. The man—they are a man and a woman, lying there on the floor beneath the Lou Reed poster—has stopped breathing. The woman would help him if she knew he had stopped breathing, or more to the point, if she knew anything at all, anymore. The pain in her muscles calls to her from somewhere else, somewhere not here. She can hear it sometimes, when the lamp flickers or the posters skip a breath. There is not much sound in the room, most of the time. Sometimes a boy on the couch will pick at the scabs encrusting his arm and his arm will look like a dead man’s arm, and he will feel nausea welling up below his heart, and he will start the process again before he has time to vomit. He has already prepared a spoon, or anyway someone has. Prepared one. He will take the syringe in his right hand because that is the hand that can move without shaking, and he will pull the plunger back and watch the barrel fill until it is full enough. He will pull the rubber cord with his teeth until the vein in his elbow stands at attention, and then he will puncture and ruin the skin in one spot—there are not many spots left outside the system of sores and scabs that now covers his elbow’s stretch of Median Cubital vein; the skin will tense until it gives and he will break the skin and there will be another sound, this time it will sound like a pop, and the girl on the floor under the Navajo rug will exhale sadness when she hears the pop, and the man next to her will exhale nothing at all, and the posters will exhale paint fumes and the boy on the couch will look up at Lou Reed’s face and he will see him smile, my God, he’s smiling now—Lou will see the boy and the boy will see Lou and the boy will try to say Hey there Lou, hey man, hi, and the girl under the Navajo rug will laugh while she squeezes the dead man’s hand and the boy will fall back into the couch and the light will dim again and six will become four or five or even seven and we’ll all lose count again.

QU YUAN, a leading government minister in the State of Chu in the fourth century B. C., was slandered and unjustly exiled to the countryside. There he wrote “some of the greatest poetry in Chinese literature and expressed deep concerns about his state.” His health failed, and he “waded into the Miluo River in today’s Hunan Province holding a rock in order to commit ritual suicide as a form of protest against the corruption of the era.” From earliest times until today the DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL has been celebrated in his honor as a patriot--and it continues every spring on LAKE NORMAN! This watercolor is based on a porcelain copy of an ancient statue of Qu Yuan bought in China in 1965.

LIBERTAS, Vol. 23, No. 3

Subway. Great Falls on the Potomac jack albrittain

great depression A generation sleeps, arms too numb to crawl out of bed, her dreams too disenchanted. She cries in her silence and prays to the god she doesn’t believe in that promised heaven. Morning comes and the shadow of the Alt Right rises through the window like an ominous demon. The sun’s bright rays blocked out by a wall of darkness.

dylan morris

She opens her window and gazes out upon an army of deplorables. And watches, with her brothers and sisters, helpless, scared. They pray for forgiveness of the sins of their fathers before them. But no god can save them from the worship of false prophets and bronze beasts, the curse of the golden calf and charging bull. Nothing can save them now. The Romans crucified a socialist Jew last April. It’s been more than three days and this generation doesn’t believe in miracles. LIBERTAS, V o l . 2 3 , N o . 3

Miracle Mileage: Thoughts on November 8th

I have seen it from every side and I say that a god is a paltry thing a shining pebble in the mind What about this do our gods fail to understand? We belong to those who lay their head on our knee When you call somebody a predator, you don’t get to take it back There are consequences and there are consequences and if you can put pen to paper about this nonsense, then you should This is it, this is the thing I am saying: a man in a fine white house is still a man only And if he’s not a man, then that doesn’t make him a god and if he is a god, well Paltry or not, there will be no gods in my house

II.

And when it’s over, it’s not over I think we’ve learned that by now And love love has never won We march, as ever, right past the promise land and into the swamp Again, let me tell you the thing as it is: the mind’s real pestilence is sheer forgetfulness and there is always, always further to fall

Poem by Eleanor Yarboro Photography by Mila Loneman 5

LIBERTAS, Vol. 23, No. 3

Bob McKillop on Sexual Assault in Athletics AN INTERVIEW BY ALYSSA GLOVER To: all head sports coaches Hello! I’m writing to you as Editor-in-Chief of Libertas Student Magazine. Recently, there has been a lot of talk about athletes in reference to the honor code, accountability and sexual assault. Libertas is reaching out to all the sports teams to see how certain situations are handled and what policies (both official and non-official) are in place. As head coach of your team/s, would you be willing to answer a few question for the magazine by Monday (either in person or via email)? This is a very relevant issue and I would love to hear what you have to say. Thank you! Alyssa Glover Co-Editor-in-Chief Libertas Student Magazine Davidson College ‘17

As the facilitator of the Davidson Sexual Assault Support Group, a lot of people come to me with stories of assault. A narrative that cannot be ignored is the story of the girl who is raped by an athlete who is protected by their teammates and sometimes coaches and institutions. This series of events has only been made more popular by the high-profile Brock Turner case. Instead of writing a piece on this from my biased perspective (as a survivor of sexual assault by an athlete and an advocate for other survivors), I decided to give the Davidson athletic coaches a chance to speak for themselves. I emailed the head coaches of Davidson athletic teams** (see email above), and only heard back from three: men’s basketball coach, women’s field hockey coach, and men’s cross country/track and field coach. That’s three out of sixteen. Because the response rate was so low, you can imagine my surprise and delight when less than 24 hours later I received an email from the famous Coach McKillop reading, “Alyssa … thank you for the kind email and offer. Monday … can you suggest a few times?” Below are excerpts from the transcript of the resulting interview:

Alyssa Glover: “Do you find sexual assault to be a prominent issue at Davidson College?”

AG: “That starts to answer my next question. A common nar-

Bob McKillop: “I’m not sure because I listen to what is being

said, I listen to what is being reported, and as far as me being really aware of it, it only comes by word of mouth.”

rative on college campuses is the idea that college athletes, if they commit sexual assault, tend to be protected by their athletic status. Could you respond this idea? Do you believe there is legitimacy to this notion or do you feel unjustly targeted as an athletic organization?”

AG: “What is your policy regarding sexual misconduct among

BM: “Some athletes are definitely protected by their status. But

your athletes?”

BM: “Our players have a code of conduct that is built among

the code of honor we have within our team. This code promotes honesty, trust, working your hardest and having respect for others. Any type of sexual misconduct would be in complete violation of this code.”

AG: “Has sexual misconduct always been explicit in your policy? If not, what drove you to make that clear?”

BM: “Because of the number of incidents that have become

public on campus, in the world of sport, and in society as a whole, we need to be vigilant about this. This cannot be something spoken about behind closed doors or swept under the rug. The more we speak about this and make people aware of it, I believe the less it will happen. I speak with my team once a month about this – when I do it is usually triggered by things in the news, that I read online, or an incident on campus. I want to make sure that it’s always at the forefront of their minds.”

** I accidently left the men’s wresteling coach off the the email , so he had no opportunity to respond.

on this campus, there’s no legitimacy to it on from my perspective. If there is, I think it’s appalling. No one should be excused from that kind of behavior because of their status.”

AG: “Do you have any other comments you would like to include on the subject?”

BM: “Yes. Too often this has become an acceptable mode of conduct. I think by speaking about it, we will help solve the problem. As a guy who’s been around quite a bit, from the standpoint of growing up in the 50s, when there was a naiveté, or an ignorance or neglect about, it I think it’s a great step forward for our society that it’s openly discussed and confronted. And as an older person with daughters, granddaughters, sons and grandsons, it’s nice to see that it’s gonna be a better world for them. I’m a believer in the philosophy that when you sweep in front of your own door, the world becomes a cleaner place. Talking about this in families and communities from an early age is a great step for helping attitudes change.” At the conclusion of the interview, he placed his hand on my shoulder and said with a dazzling smile, “maybe I’ll see you on one of those tv news shows someday.” Bob McKillop: keep being amazing. LIBERTAS, V o l . 2 3 , N o . 3

s: ’ y r r a

L r e l y T

INTRODUCING:

SHAPES: the musical: the squeakuel

by Nathan Tenpas, Casey Sandalow, Nolan Ebner, Andrew Brilliant, Bennett Parr, Peter Horton, Matt Boden

Curtains come tumbling down like a confused toddler in gymnastics class. End of Scene 1 Scene 2: A Day at the Races The massive, 32 inch plasma TV and $240,000 speaker system alert the audience that intermission has started, and that the play will resume in t-60 minutes, yeah, that’s right, two hours. As each and every audience member meticulously prepares to exit their seat and go receive some soybean refreshments, they realize to their horror that they have been glued to their individual seats. They couldn’t move if they tried. Like not even if they definitely tried, I freaking swear. Four hours later, after the regularly scheduled intermission, the audience, which, of course, has never left, returns to their seats, and the play resumes. The curtains spring up like toddlers on a trampoline in a more than expensive gymnastics class. You couldn’t possibly comprehend how expensive this toddler-filled class is. Some would ask why parents would shell out so many $20 bills (benjamins) on a single, 45 minute gymnastics class. And to those asking, the answer would be: none of your freaking business. On the stage… A grandiose kitchenette, complete with easybake oven and industrial deep fryer. In stands our hero, JIMMY T. CIRCLE, wearing a chefs apron, socks, spiky cleats, and nothing else. He exudes quintessentialness. Oh, and by the way, there are roughly 1700 CATS milling about the kitchenette. Some are mating, some are sleeping, none are eating for JIMMY doesn’t have any money for cat food. The bottom line is there are many CATS, most of whom hate JIMMY for imposing this, this, this absolute food prohibition. Jimmy: Dearest Cats, I need this chili like a small helpless child needs his mother’s teat. Also by the way, if I don’t manage to win this Chili cook off, then I’ll never be able to feed you Mr. Whiskers, you Mrs. Whiskers, or you Whiskers Jr., not to mention last and definitely least: CAT #1543. NOTE TO CASTERS: these cats are not cast, they’re BRED. I don’t give a motherfluxing flux how long that takes, but if each and every cat in this production, and there will be thousands (with on and off stage deaths that will absolutely terrify the audience), is not home bred, then this play ain’t seeing the stage. Shapes the musical? Nah, Shapes the not-fucking-happening because you didn’t home-breed the cats you freaking moron. 7

LIBERTAS, Vol. 23, No. 3

JIMMY walks around the kitchenette gathering ingredients. Walking at a speed rivaling light, nay, sound, nay, a tortoise, JIMMY is not paying nearly enough attention to what he is collecting. Melted chocolat, edamame beans, apples, nobody knows what the flux JIMMY is doing because not even JIMMY herself, that robust man, has any idea what he is doing. The AUDIENCE starts to boo, thinking that they are not witnessing the creation of chili, which has been promised to them many a time by the musical’s marketers. Audience: (Booing and in remarkable unison) We’ve been deceived! This is no musical about a New Minneapolis Chili Cookoff sponsored by Taco Bell’s very own Doritos’ Locos. He’s making an apple pie! If this were an American crowd, this would nay be an issue, but unfortunately every single member of the audience is from the Philippines… what are the odds?!?!?!? A brief math sidebar: Considering that there are roughly 250 million Filipinos across this crazy little globe, and roughly 7 billion people total, coupled with the fact that this play is held in the farthest part of this dimly lit globe from the Phillipines, the odds of one audience member being Filipino is .0142857%. Therefore, invoking the chinese remainder theorem and infinitude of primes, the odds that all 6,250 audience members are Filipino is exactly 38.5%.. do the math….. (in an extremely sassy voice) jackath. Jimmy: Think again you ignorant sloots, if you knew jack spit about chili, you would know the greatest chilis are made with… (JIMMY is speechless for the next hour, he has seemingly forgotten all of the key ingredients. THE DIRECTOR continually tries to feed him his line, but JIMMY will have none of it. He’s on a non carbs diet biatch. Finally, JIMMY remembers) Uhhhh... apples, melted chocolat, edamame, and, most importantly...peppercorn. But what can I possibly do? Heaven knows I haven’t had peppercorn in weeks, as you gaunt and malnourished cats can attest. Cat #18: Jimmy, oh you cat-torturing saint!!!! We, cats #17-25, believe in you. (CATS #1-16 and #26-1732 are heard in the background hissing and barking at Jimmy… “MOOOOOO”) To be continued………….....

Please

POLICING my

STOP Interracial Relationship

I’m black. My dad is black and my mom is Puerto Rican. From a young age, they’ve instilled in me values of intersectional equality. This basically means that I annoy people by “talking to much” and “being dramatic” about the issues that plague people of color, the queer community, people with disabilities, those of lower socio-economic status, different religions, etc. Because of all this, people tend to be surprised to find out that I’m dating a white boy who doesn’t fully understand the concept of white fragility. “White fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stressinducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium” –Robin DiAngelo About three months into the relationship, things were going great. He knows that he can’t run his fingers through my hair or splash water on me, and as soon as he heard about the first shooting in Charlotte he called me to see if I was doing ok emotionally and asked if I wanted to go to a protest. But later that same night: Him: “Something super funny happened at work today.” Me: “What?” Him: “You know *Matt – the British guy? Well I showed him a picture of us from last weekend – when we went out – and he knows I’ve always had a thing for darker girls, so he said… What? What’s that face?” Me: “Wow.” Him: “What? What did I say?” Me: “I’ve always had a thing for darker girls…” Him: “Yeah. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a preference. Like how girls say they like tall guys.” Me: I suck my teeth and look around the room, deciding if I have the mental energy for this conversation or not. I decide it’s a necessary conversation. “I know that this isn’t what you meant, and I know that you care about me, but that’s not preference, it’s fetishization. Him: “I’m not racist…,” and other words spoken from a place of white fragility…

Now, while some of you will understand how upsetting this conversation was, that’s not what we need to talk about. When talking to my white, female friend about this conversation, her first response was,

“And you’re still with this boy?” At Davidson, race comes up in conversation a lot. There are a lot of “allies” to racial minorities. However, a certain amount of education about racial discourse paired with white privilege can be dangerous. The friends that walked by my side during the Black Lives Matter protest are the same ones that feel they have a right to impose their beliefs on what interracial conversations should look like onto my relationship. A person that has never been truly marginalized because of their race felt that they had the right to tell me to break up with someone they did know because of a comment. I am allowed to be a proud, black woman and date a privileged, white male. I am allowed to be an activist and be with someone who doesn’t fully understand race. I am allowed to love someone without your permission or judgement. In the wake of a Trump presidency, I understand that words are more powerful than ever. I would not blame a person of color for breaking up with someone after the conversation I outlined. It is not the responsibility of marginalized groups to educate everyone on their lived experiences and why they are relevant. That being said, if I choose to stay with someone and work through misconceptions and misunderstandings, that is my choice. My boyfriend does not have my experiences. He did not go to a college that had talkbacks about race and die ins. And I do not fault him for that. It is not your place to tell me that someone does not truly care about me because they have not been able to understand and explore their privilege. Honestly, I shouldn’t have had to write this article. I should not have to justify my relationship to others. But this article is not for the people that have asked me why I don’t date black guys or have told me that they hope if we have babies they have my brown skin and his blue eyes. This is for the people that feel like they can’t complain about a relationship because the solution people offer is to date within their own race. This is for the people who get dirty looks from members of their same race – like they’ve been betrayed. This is a reminder that as long as you and your partner have a promise of mutual respect and an agreement to always strive to understand each other, people can’t say shit.

Alyssa Glover

LIBERTAS, V o l . 2 3 , N o . 3

seeing | saying: images and words

Visual Arts Center, October 20–December 9, 2016

In bringing together a variety of enactments of and experiments in the life of images with words, my co-curators (Lia Newman and Elizabeth Harry) and I aimed both to signal the ubiquity of the image-text event and to welcome you to puzzle over combinations in a number of registers, styles, traditions, manners, and modes of exchange. We believe that nearly all rhetorical and intellectual production can be co-mediated to powerful effects made possible by digital affordances, and urge Davidson students to become savvy as imagetext composers who understand the visual as a nearly necessary (rather than merely illustrative) component of strong texts. We wanted to give all gallerygoers nothing short of an opportunity for dialogic thinking, deliberative viewing, and a renewed sense of oneself as knower that the imageword dialectic so powerfully activates. Please enjoy its challenges and its promise.

“Oracle of Delphi,” Andrea Eis

Dr. Van E. Hillard, co-curator

To believe that I could write a brief, effective article about Seeing | Saying might be to miss the point of the exhibit. My impression of the exhibit was that it was an indictment of the primacy of the word as a communicative vessel over the image and a treatment of the tension between words and images. At first, I understood it as a challenge to the form through which I’m discussing about the gallery as ultimately, primarily effective. I wondered whether I should just take some photos of the gallery for this issue and include them in lieu of writing about the collection. Obviously, I didn’t end up doing that. In the space, you come to realize that it’s not solely about doubting the ability of language to communicate effectively – it’s about challenging its status as a form more effective than image. Most of the pieces make use of readable words; there’s a preoccupation, I came to realize, not with some kind of semiotic dethroning but rather with a semiotic and aesthetic integration. Whether the integration is successful – or even meant to be successful – is, I think, up for debate. There’s a self-conscious understanding of the temporal problems with the synthesis of the “reading” of an image, which tends to be an immediate consumption of a lot of information from a text that doesn’t progress but rather just is, and the reading of text, which requires time to follow symbols snake rightward (or, as in the case of some Arabic present in the gallery, leftward) across a page.

“Nida (Patriots),” Shirin Neshat

Whether or not the artist can bridge this gap, Seeing | Saying’s value rests in its acknowledgement of it, and in its willingness to engage with the divide between what is seen and what is read. It’s definitely worth making the hike up the hill. Thomas Waddill, student 9

LIBERTAS, Vol. 23, No. 3

“FINDERS, KEEPERS,” Shimon Attie

1. “Do You Remember,” Jarryd James 2. “Wild Love,” Cashmere Cat

all th e s o n gs t h a t came b e fo re yo u : a p lay list by india gupta

3. “Work,” Charlotte Day Wilson 4. “Meet You In The Maze,” James Blake 5. “Ultralight Beam,” Kanye West 6. “Lighthouse,” Mree 7. “Yeah, I Said It,” Rihanna 8. “No Lie,” Wet 9. “What is Love,” Empire Cast 10. “Better,” Banks 11. “Powers,” Lostboycrow 12. “Blood Bank,” Bon Iver 13. “My Heart With You,” The Rescues

There is something about November that grounds me. It doesn’t matter that it happens at the same point every year; the earlier dusk and jarring cold always leave me feeling exposed. It draws out a vulnerability that instantly makes me reach for the comforts of home. As a singer, smooth and rich vocal harmonies are the most comforting sounds to my ears, and are featured prominently throughout this playlist via a range of interpretations. The Rescues’ honest, four-piece a cappella piece, “My Heart With You,” speaks with a precision and restraint that allows it to navigate deep and complex emotions with ease. In contrast, Cashmere Cat’s “Wild Love”’ is a more processed sound that allows it to stretch beyond the limits of human voice and to access a mode of expression where the voice fails. There is a time and place for both. (recommended use: while taking a walk to clear your head)

pl a y. s p ot i f y. com/ u s e r / l i b e r t a s d a vi d s on

A Review by Maddy Page

Marvel’s

DOCTOR STRANGE The newest installment in Phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has arrived, and on the surface, it is incredible. The graphics and CGI are beautiful, from the animation of the sorcerers’ magic to the Mirror Dimension with its Inception-but-better mind-bending landscapes, and the dialogue is both amusing and well-written. Strange’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) relationship with his fellow surgeon Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams) is horribly forced but luckily occupies very little of the run time. The problem with this seemingly beautiful movie is with the characters--or more specifically, with the casting. The Ancient One is an old Tibetan monk who has studied magic and its uses for centuries and now trains new sorcerers to protect against multiverse threats. Or, if you ask director Scott Derrickson, the Ancient One is a white Celtic woman played by Tilda Swinton. Because Derrickson wanted to change the char-

acter’s gender, “when [he] envisioned that character being played by an Asian actress, it was a straight-up Dragon Lady,” Derrickson said in an interview with The Daily Beast. He didn’t want to offend any viewers, particularly those in China, one of Marvel’s main supporters. Despite the prominence of Asian and specifically Tibetan influences, there is only one Asian actor in a major role: Benedict Wong, who played magic librarian Wong excellently. Derrickson could have done many things to avoid whitewashing without stereotyping--the very least of which would be acknowledging the blatant racial disparity in the movie and the best of which would be putting actual effort into writing a character that isn’t a stereotype and hiring a person of color. So while Doctor Strange could receive an excellent score for writing and design (much like Libertas), the blatant and unrepentant whitewashing severely diminishes my taste for it. LIBERTAS, V o l . 2 3 , N o . 3

LIBERTAS last word

FOUND ART in summit outpost

Sometimes the best art is created in the least expected of places--a favorite example of which is Summit Outpostâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s handicapped stall in their womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s restroom. As people move in and out of the space all day, they have the chance to leave their own little anonymous mark on the walls. Now, you can join in the artistic exchange: use these words and found phrases to inspire your next poem, guide a new art piece, or provoke a conversation.