ESTABLISHED 1826 — OLDEST COLLEGE NEWSPAPER WEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES
Volume 149 No. 4
Miami university — Oxford, Ohio
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2020
Remain-inroom students allowed out:
“There’s only one side that’s
Dining process altered MAGGIE PEÑA MULTIMEDIA EDITOR (ORL) at Miami University recently announced that Bell Tower Commons will be closed to all students not under the university’s remainin-room (RIR) advisory, and Western Dining Commons will be closed to non-RIR students on the weekends. Initially, RIR students were advised to limit their interactions outside the residence halls and had meals delivered to their hall by Dining Services. Now, RIR students will no longer receive meals delivered to their hall and instead are permitted to pick up food to-go at Bell on weekdays and Western on weekends. Friday, Oct. 9. This announcement comes just a week after the university implemented its color code system to track COVID-19 cases in residence halls. At the time of publication, Miami were under RIR advisories. ies triple major, lives in Brandon Hall and has been under RIR for a week. During those seven days, Rosu said he and his roommate ered to their room by the university. roommate received their food, but Rosu’s was not accommodating to his vegetarian diet. His second meal didn’t have any meat, but his third meal simply never arrived. Other days, his meals were correct, but his roommate’s meals didn’t come. “I don’t think there’s been a single day since Saturday where both of us got meals and everything [was right],” Rosu said. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
The politics of mask-wearing WEARING A MASK HAS BECOME A POLITICIZED ACT, SOME STUDENTS SAY. THE MIAMI STUDENT ZACH REICHMAN
MADELINE PHABY ASST. NEWS EDITOR When you walk around Miami University’s campus, it can sometimes be hard to tell that the university requires students to wear masks at all times. Maskless faces walk up and down the sidewalks, and students can be exit academic buildings. Originally, masks were only required outdoors when physical distance couldn’t be easily maintained, such as in doorways or other crowded areas. But this policy was changed on Oct. 1 as COVID-19 cases continued to rise on campus, and now masks must be worn in all outdoor areas. So why are maskless students on campus? If Miami students are following the same trends as the rest of the country, the reason may be politics.
Though masks have been scienof COVID, there’s still a heated debate over whether wearing them is necessary, and a person’s stance on the issue is often tied to their politisurvey, 86% of respondents who always wore a mask when going out in public, compared to just 48% of Republican respondents. Despite this, Collin Finn, vice chairman of Miami’s College Republicans (CRs), said the association of anti-mask ideology with Republicans is unfair. “I know there’s been somewhat of a stereotype that Republicans are against masks, but I don’t think that’s accurate,” Finn said. “Most of the Republicans I know here and back in my hometown are strongly in favor of masks — they wear masks because it’s the right thing to do.” On July 16, CRs released a statement expressing their support for Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s recom-
mendations to wear a mask and social distance. Omar Elghazawi, vice president of Miami’s College Democrats, said that, although not all Republicans are anti-mask, nearly all anti-mask people are Republicans. “It seems like it’s a very conservative thing to not wear a mask,” Elghazawi said. “I know that might be somewhat unfair, but at the same time, there’s only one side that’s telling people not to wear masks.” Sophomore biomedical engineering major Madeleine Keller agreed with Elghazawi, saying that most of the anti-mask “propaganda” she’s seen has come from right-wing outlets. “I would say that the conservative side is more likely to associate wearing a mask with government control and communism,” Keller said, “and that the left side is more about the science of it all.” Another reason many people associate not wearing a mask with Republicans is that President Don-
ald Trump often goes out in public without wearing one and has even mocked others — including reporters and Joe Biden — for wearing them. On Oct. 11, Ben Nachowitz, a senior at Talawanda High School who works at the Walmart in Oxford, made a post in the Oxford Talk Facebook page imploring his fellow Oxford residents to wear masks after seeing several without them at his work. “If you won’t [wear a mask] for yourself, do it for us. The Walmart every single day for you,” the post reads. “Do it for me, who had to watch his grandfather mutter his last words through a ventilator over Zoom.” The post received more than 600 likes and nearly 100 comments, nearly all of them supportive of Nachowitz’s message. Nachowitz said a few negative comments — including CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Bring it on: BLM lecture with distinguished actress and academic MAGGIE PEÑA
Union and Dyson spoke to their experiences as Black Americans, explaining their personal familiarity with racism and segregation.
MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Despite the fact that there appeared to be no audience at the event due to technical limitations, the passion that emanated from the two speakers’ sermon-esque words invoked the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. himself. The Miami University lecture series hosted “BLM: Artists, Academics and Activism” as
times of history — Dyson during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and Union more than a decade later — their dedication to being activists was shared. “When you threaten my humanity, when you don’t even see my humanity, you need to
Gabrielle Union, an award-winning actress, famous for movies such as “Bring It On” and “10 Things I Hate About You,” and Michael Eric Dyson, a New York Times best-selling author and ordained minister, spoke at the lecture about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement Monday, Oct. 5 at 7:30 p.m. on Zoom. Logan Fry, a senior political science major and committee member for the university lecture series, helped plan and host the event. He said the committee knew BLM would be an important topic of conversation with the onslaught of police brutality and protests across the U.S. in the past few months. ucate the students of Miami on these very important issues and have this conversation?” Fry said. “And what better way to do it than with two intellectuals that have lived [through] the issues we’re talking about?” The lecture, moderated by Bennyce Hamilton, regional director of diversity services and deputy Title IX coordinator for Miami Hamilton, was a Q&A-style discussion focused on activism and the BLM movement.
learn how to weaponize my words, to stand up for myself and everyone else.” For everyone in the U.S., 2020 has been a year to remember, with a pandemic and racially-motivated tragedy, not to mention a presidential election coming up. But for Black people, Dyson explained, coronavirus and police brutality have impacted their fundamental right to live. “What joins them together?” Dyson said. “What is the cry that each of them have — a spongy lung and a vulnerable body? ‘I can’t breathe.’ COVID and cops rendering the same pressure and the same consequence.” The renewed attention on the BLM movement in response to this pressure has also resulted in renewed attention from the other side — people advocating for “blue lives” or those who say “all lives matter.” Dyson made an important distinction. “A cop is a choice,” he said. “A cop is a profession. This skin I’m in? This ain’t no choice. This is what I was born with.” All lives should matter, Dyson said, but until they all do matter, there’s still work to be done.
ACTRESS AND ACTIVIST GABRIELLE UNION (TOP LEFT) AND DR. MICHAEL ERIC DYSON (BOTTOM) DISCUSSED TOPICS FROM POLICE BRUTALITY TO RACISM IN ACADEMIA. MULTIMEDIA EDITOR MAGGIE PEÑA
With this activism, though, comes obstacles. Speaking up and speaking out, Union said, could lead to lost jobs, lost relationships or even lost lives. There’s also an economic aspect, with education, protests and legal rights But the biggest obstacle Union said? Yourself. She explained that sometimes the line between doing right to boost your ego and wanting to do right because it’s the moral thing to do can become blurred. “It’s not about who’s going to get credit for what,” Union said. “It’s about ‘how many people can we help?’ What can we do to help the greater good, and we should not be centered in that.” To overcome the obstacle of yourself, Dyson emphasized the importance of taking care of yourself. He said if he could give any gift to the civil rights activists, it would be that of selfcare. He also advised on the need for personal grace. “If I were to pass anything on to young people, in that sense,” he said, “it’s to forgive yourself, give yourself enough space to grow.”
At the end of the lecture, Union and Dyson gave advice to students dealing with racism and discrimination on campus. Dyson said students need to remember their responsibility of paving the way for future generations by speaking out against injustices now. Union said it all comes down to simple economics. “You are paying for an equal education,” she said, “and if your education has been marred with racism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia — you’re not getting the same education as your white peers. You’re getting less than everyone else, and that’s just pure economics. You should get what the hell you paid for.” Fry said the university lecture series will not be holding any more events this semester but is in the process of planning more for next semester. @maggieloup penaml@miamioh.edu
This Issue NEWS
CULTURE
Miami's political
page 5
OPINION
patch article is all
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From "Hannah Montana" to "Heart of Glass": Miley is always changing page 8
"Dang, here we go. It’s game time."
page 9
and watch the next presidential debate
page 10