The Miami Student Magazine | Spring 2021 by The Miami Student

VOLUME VIII | SPRING 2021

FROM THE EDITOR

Photo by Nate Wilkens

Dear reader,

Brainstorming the theme of this issue seemed to come easy for me and my editorial team. In our process, we thought of what this past year, living through a pandemic, has looked like for us. We thought of the events we witnessed, the stories we created and the moments that revealed themselves. We thought of what that might look like as a literary work. And here, I present to you Hidden Histories. In this issue, our writers delved into their own pasts, and how that relates to our world today. Our first piece, “Gutter Boy” by Hunter Pollitt, explores what it means to be Black today. Hunter’s work was originally a journal entry, and we tried to keep as much of that intimacy as possible. Next up in this issue is Mihaela Manova, who wrote a story about a remote student with a passion for poetry. This piece offers insight into the mind of young creative, Emma Sullivan. Sean Scott, writer of “Meeting Dana,” introduces the world to a loving pit bull rescue. We hope you develop a soft spot for this pup just as we did. Then there’s Annah Hahn, who wrote about their experiences as an Asian American growing up in the Ohio school system. They offer a deep dive into what it means to be a minority in the Midwest. A returning writer, Henri Robbins, interviewed three transgender Miami community members and discussed what it means to find their identity. Henri also wrote two poems, “Hands” and “After the Tone,” for this issue. Madeline Phaby’s piece takes center stage on this issue as our cover story. Her look into the hidden history of Greek life at Miami allows readers to consider

what really goes on behind closed doors. One of our assistant editors, Hannah Horsington, also wrote about her love of writing obituaries. While she’s writing about death, she’s also writing about what it means to live. Abigail Kemper, another returning writer, spoke with members of the Myaamia tribe for this issue and discovered what it means for them to reconnect to their lost native histories. Another writer, Sydney Hill, discussed her body image and her wish to be perceived by the way that she thinks and feels, not the way that she looks. And finally, our editor in chief-at-large, Chloe Murdock, also took the time to write for us one last time. Chloe goes into full detective mode in “What is This Place?” as she explores the mysterious Monkey Mutual Aid Society. A huge thank you to all of our writers. Every single one of you is extremely talented. I’d also like to take this time to thank my wonderful editorial team: Hannah Horsington, Claire Lordan, Jake Ruffer, Skyler Perry, and Chloe Murdock. I appreciate all the hard work each of you put into this issue. I think we did an amazing job. As for you, Chloe, just because you’re graduating doesn’t mean you get to get rid of me just yet. Expect many panicked phone calls from me next semester. My last thank you goes out to Mason Thompson, our art director, and his fantastic design team. Nothing would be possible without the time and energy that each of you put into all of this. Mason, thank you for helping me every step of the way. I think I finally understand what a “bleed” is. And reader, I hope you get as much joy reading this issue as we did putting it together. With that, here’s Issue VIII. Please enjoy.

Sam Cioffi Editor-in-Chief

Volume VIII | Spring 2021

Editor-in-Chief Sam Cioﬃ Art Director Mason Thompson Editorial Staff Claire Lordan, Chloe Murdock, Hannah Horsington, Jake Ruﬀer, Skyler Perry Art Staff Annie Jacquemin, Caitlin Schulte, Lexi Sussman, Max Pyle Copy Editors Ellie Piszel, Megan Copenhaver Business Manager Dan Wozniak Head of Student Media Tim Carlin Faculty Advisor James Tobin Business Advisor Fred Reeder

PROSE Sam Cioffi

Letter from the Editor

Hunter Pollitt

Gutter Boy

Mihaela Manova

Characters Behind the Writer

Sean Scott

Meeting Dana

Annah Hahn

Midwestern Minority

Henri Robbins

Making a Name

Madeline Phaby

Hidden Histories

Hannah Horsington

The Matter of Life and Death

Henri Robbins

Hands

Abigail Kemper

I am (Nilla) Myaamia

Sydney Hill

My Body, My Story

Henri Robbins

After The Tone

Chloe Murdock

What is this Place?

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PERSONAL HISTORY

Hunter Pollitt

GUTTER BOY What Does the Black Experience Look Like?

A brief note: When I wrote this, I felt a deep frustration. I was frustrated with my country and frustrated with my own struggles to define my identity. That frustration is reflected in my writing. That being said, I want to mention Black joy, which is the idea that Black accomplishments and Blackness itself should be celebrated to counter the countless trauma narratives that are basically inescapable in the media. My frustration is evident, but that does not stop me from celebrating who I am. Black is beautiful. Thank you.

*** hat does it really mean to waste time?

I’m 20 years old. I quit my job after a stroke of bad luck. My phone stopped working. I lost my wallet, and my car broke down all in about three days. I emptied my bank account to fix my car. Now, I’m broke, jobless and technically wasting time. I’ve beaten about four video games, watched half of “Surviving R. Kelly” and slept past noon at least 30 times. I don’t have money to spend anymore. I’m going to start walking dogs, I think. I have officially been a dishwasher, cook, pizza host extraordinaire, playground policeman and now a dog walker. My resume is elite. In a year and a half, I’ll ideally be teaching if the pandemic

illustrations by Harris Berger and Mason Thompson

ends and I can find a job. The unique skill set of being a male person of color in a white, middle-class, female-dominated field will hopefully give me more advantages than disadvantages. Then again, I never had many teachers who looked like me growing up. I didn’t have a Black teacher in my life until I got to college. That’s kind of incorrect to say. When you’re Black, part Black, Blackish, half-Black, whatever you want to call it, and you grow up in the Midwest, you form your own Black experience. I remember when I was really young, third grade maybe, I had to make a shield with a famous historical figure. I really don’t know whether I was assigned Frederick Douglass or if I picked him. I learned about abolitionists and the Underground Railroad early in my educational life. I think that helped shape me. In Douglass’ autobiography, which I’ve only read when I was forced to for class (I won’t cap), he talks about how becoming literate caused him pain. The story goes that he exchanged scraps of food with white kids who taught him how to read in return. He talked about how learning about the world around him and the atrocities committed against his people caused him unimaginable pain. Ignorance is bliss. The first thing I associated Blackness with was pain. I was young and unaware. I even used to say that my much lighter palms were my white half and the backs of my hands were my

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

...nobody is around to teach you how to be black... Black half. But I knew Black people were slaves. I knew they worked for free and were taken from their homes and whipped. That’s what I saw and heard from my teachers. The second thing I associated Blackness with was entertainment. Black people tell their horror stories, whether it’s current or a snapshot of the past, and make money from it. Listen to any rap song. Rappers talk about a billion things that you would not want to happen to you and that you would not want to be a part of, yet we eat it up — we being many people in society, young Black kids, and all the young white kids who are obsessed with rap music too. If you are from the real trenches and you can record music, you will have an easier time coming up as a rapper than a suburban kid because your stories are valid. We as a society do not commit crime or go to jail or have threesomes on the weekly, so we establish what is valid. That’s crazy. Then, Black people go to white people with money and power to distribute that Black trauma for a profit. But rich white people give just enough back to the Black creators to make them think they made it. That’s crazy. If you think of Black people and movies, what do you think of? It’s either “Roots,” or “Black Panther!” It’s either “Wakanda” or “The Plantation!” Think about that.

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I told my wonderful, charismatic, asshole of a teacher Mr. Claus in a film studies class my senior year of high school that “Black Panther” would be the biggest movie of the year. He asked me why I thought that, as good teachers do, and I explained to him that you have to think of the audience. Black people would go out in record numbers. Later, in college, I realized that Black people flocked to the theaters for “Black Panther” to see themselves outside of trauma narratives. As of May 2018, “Black Panther” had made over a billion dollars. That’s crazy. Circling back even closer to home, Black kids form their own identity in the Midwest, especially half-Black kids with absent Black dads and white moms. Consider this. You grow up around mostly white people. You know you’re Black – Black enough to feel different from all the white kids. But nobody is around to teach you how to be Black. So you teach yourself. You make that shield in elementary school with Frederick Douglass on it. Then, you hear about people like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Every Black kid in middle school with any interest in history loves MLK for at least a couple years. Then, you combine all this with TV shows and movies about the Black experience, and, most importantly (for me anyway), Black music. Now, you have created a Black narrative, i.e. How

So you teach yourself... To Be Black. Then, you get older and your friends are smoking and drinking and trying to live a normal life. But you suck at it. You’re not social. Maybe friendly or well known, but you just don’t want to get drunk with people you aren’t that close with so you can do dumb stuff and tell stories about it. That’s not for me. So you spend more time alone, and you fill that alone time. You learn more, listen more, watch more, and you come to the conclusion that they only showed you half the Black experience in school and mainstream media. You learn about Malcolm X, who is always known as MLK’s civil rights buddy. You learn about the Nation of Islam, and you learn that Black people were kings. You learn that Black people lived in a gorgeous land with currency and clothing and societal systems. That’s crazy, too. ‘Cause weren’t Black people just slaves who were “freed” that then turned into people who were discriminated against in the ‘60s, and MLK died, and now we all get along? ‘Cause that’s what I was taught. And then you learn about the prison system and how it’s

They killed Mike Brown in broad daylight? Wait, why isn’t anybody going to jail? That’s crazy. Wait, it started happening again? You’re telling me they chased Ahmaud Arbery down and killed him? Damn. I didn’t even have time to process that. Wait, who is George Floyd? Damn. He got killed, too? As I’m writing this, the U.S. Capitol building is being overrun by Trump supporters who, I guess, are ready to kill the “lizard people” controlling the government. I’m thinking about Ferguson and the picture of the dude throwing tear gas back at police officers when they rioted because Mike Brown was killed in broad daylight. They stormed the Capitol Building. They took pictures with the police. That’s crazy. So, think about this. You’re half-Black, well educated (by yourself and by your schooling), curious and impressionable. What does the Black experience really look like? Trauma. S

basically just a loophole to slavery. And, wait, the police are just an updated system hiding in plain sight that reinforces racism?

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MENTIONED IN PASSING

Gemstone Children Prophecy The room is chill The room is silent All the people are frozen still Their hands are folded in their laps Their eyes with tears they fill In a circle they sit in gilded chairs All twelve a secret skill In the middle sits a strange thirteenth Body and mind without a frill Her head hangs downward gloomily Her eyes closed and still A broken radio turns on Information begins to spill The clock begins to tick

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illustrations by Annie Jacquemin

Mihaela Manova

Characters Behind the Writer A Remote Poet’s Creative Process

emote student Emma Sullivan has turned to writing as both an escape and a personal dream.

Sullivan said she has little people tinkering inside her head saying, “we’ll do this today, we’ll do that today.” These inhabitants love to make the first-year creative writing major procrastinate. The same tinkerers are the ones who inspire her stories, often only locked in her head instead of on paper. Last year, she could deliver the first 14 lines of “Gemstone Children,” from memory. At the time, she hadn’t written this poem down anywhere. Now, six months later, the poem is 14 stanzas long. “Gemstone Children” is both a poem and a prophecy that will lead the reader through the events of Emma’s story. “Each stanza is supposed to be indicative of each character,” Emma said. “There are 13 siblings, but there are 14 stanzas, the first one addressing the situation.” At first, she wanted to create five fiction fantasy books. Eventually, she decided on a picture-based manga format, a style of Japanese comic books read from right to left. *** Emma has a painting that illustrates how her brain is divided. The left side of her brain is “rigid; follows the rules; very habitual.” The illustration of this is painted gray, with a man who wears corporate attire, a button down shirt, tie and pressed pants.

The right of the painting reveals the “non-verbal, creative, and in-line with emotions” side of Emma’s brain. When that side takes over, the harsh lines of the “corporate man” soften into colors that portray creativity taking over. *** There is a divide between the characters in her head and the ones on paper. The way characters interact in her head clue her in to her own feelings and reflect her emotional state. Her head’s inhabitants are like TV characters — there to stay. “You can turn the TV on and off, but they never jump out of the screen,” she said. But these characters aren’t like the ones in the “Inside Out’’ animated movie. Instead of representing “happiness” and “sadness,” they interact with each other to signal her emotions. She struggles with the timing and spacing of the manga panels, a problem that she hopes to overcome in the future. *** Emma’s dream is to be an author. However, she’s impatient about the writing process. “That’s become more and more true as I have been stuck at home. Why can’t it happen faster?” Sullivan said. But, she answered her own question. “Because that’s not how things are done,” she said. S

PROFILE

Sean Scott

Meeting Dana One Pit Bull’s Search For A Forever Home

ana first came home with Lillian Fesperman on May 12, 2020. A pit bull mix, Dana then weighed only 36 pounds, her ribs exposed through tight skin. When Animal Friends Humane Society first got the call about a neglected dog in Middletown, Dana ran from the cops. Neighbors called to update them on Dana’s location, and eventually the police lured her in. Based in Hamilton, Ohio, Animal Friends is the largest nonprofit animal shelter in Butler County, with room to house nearly 300 dogs and cats. The shelter relies on volunteers to care for the pets and take them to adoption events. For animals that require more intensive care, volunteer fosters bring them home for weeks or months until they are ready to be adopted. Fesperman had never fostered a dog before. An avid animal lover from her youth, she’s taken in cats from Animal Friends for years as a foster mom, sometimes adopting them herself in the process. “When you foster animals, and you end up adopting them, they’re called a foster fail,” Fesperman said. “But I usually call it a foster success.” With Dana, though, things changed. Fesperman was at home one night in early May when she got a text: three pictures of an emaciated dog. Fesperman signs off each email with a quote, “Not everyone is in the position to help animals, but everyone is in the position to not harm them.”

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In Dana’s case, Fesperman was in a position to help. When Fesperman brought Dana home, her household grew from seven pets to eight. Two cats live in the basement, one of them a foster fail. One lives upstairs, mostly in the laundry room. Two more stay outside, feral cats who chose Fesperman as their caretaker. Lucy, a 13-year-old golden lab mix, has free range. So does Cheyenne, a blind 13-year-old dog with one ear up and one ear down. All of them were adopted. Dana hadn’t lived with other animals before, so she spent her first days with Fesperman alone on the kitchen floor. She was too weak to walk. Fesperman carried her down three stairs and through the garage every four hours and set her in the grass outside to do her business. Eventually, Dana started moving on her own. Malnutrition had caused her to develop cataracts in both eyes, so she struggled with the stairs at first. One of the first commands Fesperman taught Dana was “step-step,” a cue so she knew when to step down rather than walk across a flat surface. While she isn’t an aggressive dog, it became clear early on that she wouldn’t do well with constant access to Fesperman’s other pets. Dana has been kept in the kitchen ever since. “She’s kind of territorial,” Fesperman said. “If she lays on a bed, it’s her bed. She doesn’t have a lot of patience with an animal being close to her unless she’s happy laying in the sun like … with Lucy.” Since coming to live with Fesperman, Dana has grown to a healthy 63 pounds. She can see out of her left eye now and

illustrations by Annie Jacquemin

It’s gonna be hard because I’m really attached to her, but I know I can’t adopt her. chases tennis balls in the yard, but she tends to use her nose when she gets close to the ball. Her health issues haven’t disappeared though. Dana struggles with diabetes and requires two insulin shots a day. While she handles them well, they keep her from staying in the Animal Friends’ shelter and she is therefore less visible to potential adopting families. Each day, Fesperman sits down with Dana and a syringe. While Dana is preoccupied with her food, Fesperman administers the shot in the back of her neck. Dana doesn’t flinch. “You give it to her while she’s eating, right in the back of her neck,” Fesperman said. “It’s almost like she has no idea, and when I take her in and they have to draw blood, they stick the needle in her little leg and she doesn’t even budge. She’s just a really good dog, and she’s smart enough to know that everybody’s trying to help her.” *** Nearly a year after taking Dana in, Fesperman can’t adopt her as a foster failure. Once Dana’s energy returned, she went after one of the cats. Everyone made it out unharmed, but Fesperman had to segregate her house to keep Dana separate from the cats, an arrangement that would be nearly impossible to maintain permanently. Dana is only five and a half, and has many years to go. Still, the pair have grown close. Every day, they walk through

the woods on Fesperman’s property two miles outside of Oxford. If Dana has her orange ball with her, she stays on the trails and walks straight ahead. If not, she stops to sniff around. When Fesperman sees a bunny or a squirrel, she blocks Dana’s view to stop her from running off. “When I would return my foster cats, I’d only have them for maybe six weeks, eight weeks,” Fesperman said. “When I return those cats to the shelter, I never let anyone go with me because I cry all the way home. When Dana goes, I have to be totally convinced that it’s a very loving home, and they really want her. It’s gonna be hard because I’m really attached to her, but I know I can’t adopt her.” Dana has been close to adoption in the past. Once, a trucker interested in adopting her called Fesperman. “I did get to talk to him on the phone to kind of feel out what kind of life [Dana] would have,” Fesperman said. “But it wouldn’t work for either one of them.” Rather than planning to take Dana with him on his drive, the man said he would leave her home for 12 hours or more at a time, too long a time because of her insulin shots. Fesperman ended the conversation by telling the trucker it wasn’t meant to be. When Cincinnati held its annual My Furry Valentine event this past February, over 400 dogs were adopted. Despite Fesperman’s best efforts, Dana remained without a home after

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

I think the right person will come around… the event. Animal Friends took a few phone calls about her, but everyone backed out. Some had cats. Some preferred a dog who wasn’t hard of vision. Some couldn’t stomach the insulin shots.

in Animal Friends’ “real room,” a living room setup meant to provide a somewhat normal meeting place for animals and their future families.

Whatever the reason, the result was the same: Dana would stay with Fesperman for a while longer.

The couple brought their first dog, a pit bull-husky-golden retriever mix, with them to meet Dana. Both dogs stayed on leashes for the encounter in case anything took a wrong turn.

“She is a love bug, and she knows 20 plus commands,” Fesperman said. “She’s really smart, she has a whole lot of love to give. If she would be an only dog it would be perfect … but people aren’t here to see that.” *** In early March, Fesperman and Dana climbed into their Honda CR-V. Dana sits in the trunk for car rides, head popping over the seat, watching the road in front of her. When Fesperman makes trips to the grocery store or the bank, Dana always rides along. This time, though, the pair was headed somewhere special. The shelter. Earlier in the week, a young couple visited Animal Friends and saw Dana’s picture on the shelter’s pit bull wall. After a quick conversation with the coordinators there, they gave Fesperman a call. Then, Dana was on her way to meet the potential adopters

The fear was unfounded. “They got along pretty good,” Fesperman said. “[Their dog] shared his toys. Dana liked him, and he liked her. Dana would end up being the alpha dog, and [he’s] fine with that.” Less than a week later, they met again, this time to walk the trails behind the shelter. The pair walked side by side. With both dogs happy and the couple sufficiently in love with Dana, things progressed. After 300 days, the closest to adoption Dana had come was a phone call. On Saturday, March 13, she visited a potential forever home for the first time. In Fesperman’s mind, the ideal environment for Dana would be with a pair of retired empty nesters without cats, people who would be home for enough of the day to administer her insulin shots. Though stronger than she was a year ago, Dana easily tires after half an hour of walking or 20 minutes of playing

[Dana] deserves a forever home.

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fetch. She isn’t a low energy dog, but she is laid-back. Fesperman worried a younger family would be too active to slow down and give Dana the care she needs. The potential family, a pair of young professionals, didn’t fit the bill, but Fesperman thought they might be perfect anyway. “One good thing about this whole process is there must be a reason why we kept her so long even though she was physically and mentally ready to go earlier,” Fesperman said. “That’s because the right family has finally come around and asked about her and really wants it to work and are willing to do whatever they have to do to make sure Dana’s gonna have a good home.” *** Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. On the day Dana was supposed to go home with the family for two weeks before formally being adopted, the couple backed out. Dana is still with Fesperman. They still go on daily walks through the woods. The house is still segregated to keep Dana from hurting the cats. Nearly a year into the process, Dana’s best chance at adoption to date has come and gone. “The biggest thing about having her turn out to be [with us] for so long is the right family I think has finally come up and found her,” Fesperman had said before the couple chose not to go through with the adoption. “It doesn’t mean we’re not gonna miss the little rascal, but we’ve done our job.” Now, Fesperman is working with Animal Friends to give Dana more online exposure, this time saying she would fit well in a family with no pets or young children. “She’s met children,” Fesperman said. “She’s fine with children. She met the next door neighbor girls. But I think instead of trying to guard against anything happening in a house or yard between her and another animal, it’s just gonna be easier to say, ‘Look, just don’t have any other animals. Let her be your only dog.’” The longer Dana waits for her forever home, the harder it is on both her and Fesperman. But Fesperman hasn’t lost hope. “I still have to believe that [the right family will come along],” Fesperman said. “I think the right person will come around … [Dana] deserves a forever home.”

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

WORLD VIEW

Annah Hahn

MIDWESTERN MINORITY

How Schools Lacking Diversity Make it My Problem

n midwestern Ohio, particularly in my 12 years of private, Catholic schooling, I have found the student “diversity” lacking, to say the least. Diversity, of course, being the polite way these schools mean to say “not white.”

As the only Asian person in my class, reminders of how outof-place I was surfaced in elementary school when kids would ask to try my lunch like it was some terrible dare. I frowned at the tone of their voices when they defined kim as “dried seaweed” and suddenly reduced one of my favorite snacks into something foreign. They scrunched their faces at the rough texture, the salt that stuck to their fingers, and how easily it would crumble in their hands and stick to parts of their mouths. High school was no exception. My first year, the diversity director — the only Black woman on the school faculty — told me that I was one of 26 students of color in a class of 300. My white peers tended to ignore me, thinking themselves protected by a language they thought I didn’t speak. It was actually the only one I knew. Teachers and staff smiled at me too brightly, talking in slow, overly friendly sentences. Or they avoided approaching me almost as much as other students did. Too many times I was asked where I was from and where was I born, when we both knew the actual question being asked was, “what kind of Asian are you?”

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Through all these experiences, one stands out clear in my mind. A moment during my junior year that I won’t soon forget, all because I needed to use the printer for an assignment. When I reached the library, two lines of students already trailed from the printers. I took maybe the sixth place, glancing at the tall bookshelves and computer tables and the iPad in my hands. I was patiently waiting for my turn when two guys started trying to get my attention. “Hey, hey, you. Yeah, you.” I spared them a fleeting glance. One with blond hair, the other with brown, both equally obnoxious looking. They sat hunched on the other side of a short bookcase. Noisy, abrasive sounds escaped from the tiny speakers of the iPad the brownhaired one was holding, the volume low enough to go unnoticed in the relatively quiet library. “Hey, do you like this music?” the brown-haired one, who I later learned was named Joe, asked me, a condescending smirk on his face. I quickly looked away, fingers gripping tighter to the worn cover of my iPad. I couldn’t tell what the music was (rap, maybe?), or why no one else noticed what he was doing or why he was singling me out. Maybe because I had glanced at him. Maybe just because I was there. Or maybe because, sometimes when people look at me, they only see some lost, timid creature they can mock.

“Hey, come on, I’m talking to you. You’re just gonna ignore me?”

I couldn’t help but sneak another look at him. His face was not too surprised or angry, but not smiling either.

The blond one, Zach, who was in one of my classes, kept shaking his head and grinning. He laughed under his breath, saying things like “dude, stop, oh my God” and “what are you doing?”

“Wow, that was so rude. That was so fucking rude. You know I could report you for that, right? Like, you could get in serious trouble for that.”

My cheeks turned hot as I stared ahead, the rapid thumpthump-thump in my chest racing faster with each second. Saying something like “stop” or “leave me alone” would mean nothing to them. And what would I tell some adult? That these guys were talking to me and playing music in the library? But frustration pooled in me at the thought of doing nothing, of letting this boy’s taunts dig under my skin. He sat back, thinking himself untouchable because like so many others at this school had, he didn’t stop to think that English might be my native language. So, despite the weakness of my knees and the anxious energy thrumming beneath my skin, I raised my middle finger and turned my head slightly to mouth, “Fuck. Off.” I lowered it quickly, praying no teacher or librarian saw, and went back to staring ahead. Zach erupted in more laughter, suppressing it to hoarse wheezes. “Wow,” Joe said.

illustrations by Caitlin Schulte

I shuﬄed forward in line, the word “trouble” sparking my nerves and making my mouth go dry. I gritted my teeth. My jaw was clenched so tight I imagined them shattering into jagged pieces. Joe was muttering more things I couldn’t quite grasp, and Zach was still laughing, until he said: “Why don’t you just go back to your country?” I froze. Shock. Disgust. Rage. All bashing into me with more force than I could stand. Part of me was already envisioning myself screaming at him, another part was wondering if I had even heard him correctly. My head whipped around sharply. Excuse me? What did you just say to me? Repeat that again. Look me in the eye and say that again. Repeat what you just fucking said to me. But I said nothing, even with the words burning a hole in my tongue.

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W HY DON' T The library was quiet. The printer whirred its low, mechanic purr. Papers shuﬄed, the click-clacking of students typing away. There were only one or two more people left ahead of me, waiting dutifully for the printer to spit out their assignments. My expression must have been amusing because Joe leaned forward, an unsettling, delighted look in his eye. “Hey, can I ask you a question?” My rage had fizzled out. There were too many people, and it was too quiet, and I just remembered how long both of their legs were. How much Zach towered over me. Joe turned to Zach, lowering his head. “What’s her name?” Zach leaned over, whispering it in his ear. “Hey, Annah. I just wanna ask you a question.” It was finally my turn. My fingers trembled as I pressed the buttons on my screen. “Annah. Hey, Annah. Come on, just one question.” The paper rose painfully slowly as ink buzzed onto the paper. “Hey, Annah.”

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O G T S U J U O Y I snatched the final page, the material still warm, and left the library without looking back. Not long after, I started an email addressed to the school Diversity Director. I paused, hovering over the send button. Would I get in trouble for flipping him off? What if I had heard him wrong? No. I knew I hadn’t. I hit send. *** At Miami, my experiences have been different — at least so far. I’ve had the opportunity to bond with those I can connect with. Those who know the same kind of fear, anger and pain because of who they love, how they express themselves and exist in a way that is authentic and real. People who understand the overlapping systems of oppression and bigotry and are willing to fight for change. Sometimes the influence of privilege seeps into the actions and words of the most sincere allies in a society structured around the majority. I found myself walking with white friends who made jokes about how our other friends wanting to hike in the woods at night were doing “white people shit,” or the

K C BA

T N R U Y O ? C R U O Y TO

blandness of “white people’s” taste in food, with me being the only person of color present. The jokes about how “white people have no taste” hold a different weight for me when all my life people have made faces or turned up their nose at the food I eat. The jokes about others doing “white people shit,” like the kinds of clueless, reckless things white characters do in horror movies, feel wrong coming from a white person who will never fully understand the careful vigilance Black, indigenous, and other people of color have toward unsafe decisions resulting from the threat to their safety they face on a daily basis. Eventually, I approached this issue with my friends. Hands shaking and heart pounding, my fingers rapidly moved across my phone’s keyboard as I wrote a lengthy block of a text message to our group chat. My breathing slowed as I was met with sincere apologies and affirmation of my feelings as both valid and respected. I’m fortunate enough to be close with those who can take accountability and make an earnest effort to unwork the perspectives that almost everyone — including myself — has that are inextricably distorted by a system built around the majority marginalizing the disadvantaged.

But I know others aren’t so understanding. I can’t forget the @dearmiamiu Instagram account that was created the summer before my enrollment. The nights I spent combing through each post. Disgust, anger and sadness had roiled through me and kept my eyes glued to the screen. I can’t forget the stories I’ve heard of anonymous students flooding Zoom meetings with racial slurs and hate speech, or the stickers preaching white supremacy scattered across our campus. I’ve witnessed countless people become more committed to action and education, especially this year, but there is no set bar for progress. The reality is there’s no point where we can pretend race, gender, sexuality, class, etc. no longer matter when we have a deeply ingrained history of oppression that tells us otherwise. What we can do is stay educated and mindful. We can keep moving forward, even when it feels like we’re isolated and excluded, or if we make a mistake despite our best intentions not to. It’s a challenging road to navigate, Miami. And our culture, and much of society itself, still has a long way to go. S

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

PROFILE

MAKING Henri Robbins

A NAME

How Trans People Stake Claim On Their Identities

key part of any transgender person’s identity is their name. It’s a self-chosen representation of who they are and how they identify, and a symbolic marker separating themselves from their past.

While many transgender people will transition from male to female (MTF), or from female to male (FTM), they can also identify outside of the gender binary. Nonbinary people do just that by using gender-neutral pronouns such as they/them/ theirs and presenting in a way that is not exclusively masculine or feminine. Every transgender person — like anyone else — has a story behind their name. For them, though, the story is something they were directly involved in. Their names can come from anywhere: people they know, books they’ve read, or even something heard in passing. No matter where the name is from, though, they chose it for a reason. Here are a few:

Nik Sawade

name and different pronouns online, that makes me safe.’ And it kept going from there.” Originally, they went by Niki online, a shortened version of their middle name. After going by Niki around their online friends, Sawade said the name began feeling more natural. “One day, sometime in 2018 or 2019, one of my really good friends ended up calling me Nik as a nickname and it felt right,” Sawade said. “When I read it, in reference to me, it felt like that was supposed to be my name. It just resonated with me at a different level.” In their first year at Miami, Sawade lived in the Love, Honor, Pride Living Learning Community (LLC). This allowed them to meet other LGBTQ+ students and embrace their own identity, something they had trouble doing before college. “It helped me solidify myself in my identity,” Sawade said. “I know it has affected me a little bit, not in the sense that I’ve changed how I look at my identity but more so I’ve affirmed myself in my identity. It’s given me perspective of things, understanding how other people view their gender identities and their sexuality, stuff like that.”

Senior Nik Sawade has openly identified as nonbinary since their first year at Miami. Before they started going by Nik, it was a pseudonym they used online to hide their identity.

Sawade attended a small, private Catholic school until high school, where they transferred to a larger public school. Going from having around 200 classmates to over 2,500, Sawade said they were able to explore their identity more openly.

“I had this idea of ‘stranger danger’ pounded into my head by my parents and was told not to put a bunch of information about yourself online when you’re young, stuff like that,” Sawade said. “And so I thought, ‘well, hey, if I use a different

“I went from a small religious school to a big public school, and in that public school there were a lot of LGBTQ+ kids,” Sawade said. “That was when I was starting to figure stuff out. I only came out about my sexuality in high school, never my

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illustrations by Lexi Sussman

gender identity because I saw how they treated trans kids. A lot of them liked to talk behind their back and stuff like that.” Moving from high school to college, Sawade was able to be fully open with their identity. Not everyone understood being nonbinary, they said, but the people they associated with were accepting. “Even if they don’t understand fully what being nonbinary is, they respect me, they respect it, and they respect my pronouns,” Sawade said. “They don’t bash me for it or anything like that. They even tell other people that ‘you don’t have to understand, you’re just supposed to respect it.’” Navigating their identity at Miami, Sawade said having peers and professors who understood their identity was incredibly helpful. Many of the best experiences they had in classes came from professors who understood their identity. “There were some teachers that were really good about it and would correct other people as well, and also would make sure to use the correct pronouns for me 100% of the time and would correct themselves if they messed up. Those were always teachers that were also LGBT, there’s a few of them in my department and I tend to gravitate towards them and towards their classes.” Finding this support improved their time at Miami greatly, Sawade said. “It has definitely helped a lot to have a community of people who understand or, at the very least, feel like ‘yeah, you are a human being and you deserve basic respect,’” Sawade said.

Lily Bertrand Miami alumna Lily Bertrand first realized she was transgender near the end of her senior year, right as the COVID-19 pandemic began. Since then, she has graduated from Miami and now lives in Boystown, a predominantly-LGBTQ+ area in Chicago. When she started questioning her gender identity, Bertrand said she looked around and went on baby name websites to find a name she liked. “When I had it down to a list of ten names, I would play through Pokemon Fire Red with that name as my character,” Bertrand said. “Eventually I just was like, ‘well, I like this one best, and it’s not gonna suit me to just sit here and do nothing, so let’s go with it.’ And I chose Lily.” For Betrand, realizing her identity was a mix of self-reflection and external validation. One of the key components in her realization was taking Gender and Sexuality in the Media with Dr. Bruce Drushel. “We watched a movie called ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ with Hilary Swank,” Bertrand said. “It’s about a trans man and his experience. That movie was so, so powerful to me, and I didn’t know why. But that class was huge for me … Seeing people [talk] about [being trans] candidly, as opposed to something that was pretty extreme at the time and was, to me, a very niche and kind of outer-circle thing, that brought it to my attention that it was really something to even think about it all.” Along with this, Bertrand found posts online she related to. Specifically, she said, posts on the subreddit r/egg_irl helped her realize her gender identity.

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

Deadnames are called deadnames because they’re supposed to die when you start your transition... “I’d still done almost no questioning of my gender,” Bertrand said. “I felt weird, but I didn’t know why.” Until, one day, she came across a subreddit on Reddit where people who were transgender, but were refusing to admit it, were posting. “And it was just an endless stream of, ‘I really relate to that,’ and ‘That’s really interesting that these things I feel are being felt by people who identify as trans.’ That’s where my crisis truly took root.” Looking back, Bertrand said, many of these things were even clear in her childhood, before she even knew what being transgender was. “Something that all trans people have is a story of, ‘oh my God, how did I not realize I was trans earlier?’ And my story is, in my eighth grade year on Halloween, I dressed up as a girl and I loved every second of it,” Bertrand said. Bertrand made a Facebook account for the girl. Her name was Natasha. “And I was devastated when I wasn’t allowed to dress up as a girl for Halloween the next year. So much so that I put a post on Natasha’s page saying that she would never return, which was incredibly dramatic. But, oh my God, how did I not realize I was trans earlier?” While dressed up as Natasha, Bertrand had borrowed her sister’s clothes. She said the two of them were able to laugh while looking back on it, sharing the “oh my God” moment. Since then, Bertrand said her sister, who is lesbian, was supportive and helpful in her transition. “She was a great resource because she had already gone

through the process of discovering something, coming out, and dealing with that,” Bertrand said. “So that was really wonderful. And I also had some, you know, great friends who – despite the fact that they hadn’t had experiences with the trans identity – were accepting and did their best to kind of help me through that process.” Having recently come out and started transitioning, Bertrand said she still encounters her deadname regularly – something that, to her, is awkward and inconvenient. “It would be like if instead of showing your ID, you had to show them a C minus that you got in a class,” Bertrand said. “It’s like, ‘I don’t really want you to see this, but it’s not the end of the world. It’s just mildly embarrassing, mostly inconvenient. And I pray to God that you don’t ask any questions about it.’” For Bertrand, transitioning was a process involving large changes. She changed her hair, clothes, and many parts of her identity. And she often had to navigate these changes on her own. “It’s an outwardly destructive process, kind of like dissolving in a cocoon to become a butterfly,” Bertrand said. “But you’re dissolving in you, the cocoon isn’t really there. You just have to become goo and then build yourself back up.”

Theo Mesnick Senior Theo Mesnick first realized they were nonbinary in high school, and began openly identifying as such while attending Miami. But, even before they realized they were nonbinary, Mesnick said they wanted to change their name. “I wanted to go by a different name when I got to college,

...but mine is still very much present in my life. 20 THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

because when I was a kid my dad told me a story about how one of his friends did that and I was like, ‘that’s cool, I can have a whole new name!’” Mesnick said. “I didn’t realize how hard it would be.”

said. “I feel like it would be weird because they’ve called me my deadname my entire life … Deadnames are called deadnames because they’re supposed to die when you start your transition, but mine is still very much present in my life.”

Theo was originally a name they saw in a book, where it was short for Theodore. While reading Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch,” Mesnick said the name just stood out to them. Despite this, Mesnick said, they didn’t have much in common with the Theodore from the novel.

Majoring in creative writing and political science, Mesnick has focused on writing poetry in many of their classes. Having had multiple professors who were either accepting or LGBTQ+ themselves, Mesnick said they are comfortable writing about their identity – and anything else – openly.

“God, no, I’m so glad I don’t relate to that character,” Mesnick said. “He’s kind of a messed-up person. I just liked the name.”

“I don’t write about being queer that much, but if I wanted to I would absolutely feel comfortable with that and turning in a piece about being queer to a professor,” Mesnick said. “I wouldn’t feel like they wouldn’t accept it. In general I feel like my professors accept anything I want to write.”

Going by Theo, Mesnick said it was hard to adapt to hearing the name after almost two decades of going by something else. “I didn’t know to respond to Theo at first, which is kind of funny to think about now after four years,” Theo said. “I remember one time I still had my deadname on my Snapchat, which I’ve since changed, but people knew my deadname more and this girl from my dorm was calling out to me, saying ‘Theo!’ And I wasn’t responding, so she shouted out my deadname and I was like ‘oh, yeah?’” Even though they go by Theo at Miami, Mesnick said their family still uses their deadname. While this doesn’t bother Mesnick, they said it creates a clear distinction between the two “modes” they have at school and at home. “My family still calls me that name, and they’ve asked me if I want them to call me Theo, and I tell them no,” Mesnick

Mesnick’s writing often takes different forms. While it can focus on their identity, they said, more often than not it’s about another part of their life. “Essentially poetry is just doing what you want with words, and what different people want is going to vary,” Mesnick said. “Today I saw a slug, and I wrote about slugs. Well, I haven’t written it down yet, it’s in my head.” Their writing, though, is not only defined by their identity. And much like their writing, Mesnick’s life is not only dictated by their queerness. “Being queer is a really important part of my identity and experience,” Mesnick said. “But it’s certainly not all of it.” S

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THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

REPORTED OPINION

MADELINE PHABY

GREEK LIFE’S DARKEST ARCHIVES

n March 25, 2019, The Miami Student broke a story that would forever change Greek life at Miami University.

A Delta Tau Delta (Delts) pledge, later identified as Tyler Perino, had filed an anonymous report saying he’d been paddled in the buttocks to the point of bleeding internally while being forced to drink alcohol and smoke weed as part of a hazing ritual.

Back in the mid-19th century, fraternities were nowhere near as ubiquitous as they are today, so many university officials were suspicious when they began popping up on Miami’s campus. The president of Miami at the time, Robert Hamilton Bishop, was an exception to this mindset. He welcomed fraternities with open arms and played a major role in bringing Alpha Delt and Beta to campus during his presidency.

The headline of the article, ‘Call 9-1-1, I feel like I’m going to die,’ is taken from a conversation between Perino and his girlfriend following the incident.

This proved to be a fatal flaw for Bishop, though, as Miami’s Board of Trustees dismissed him from his position in 1840, largely due to his pro-fraternity stance.

Despite the brutality of the assault Perino faced, none of the 18 Delts charged with hazing served jail time, and most only paid fines of $100 to $250.

Bishop’s successor was George Junkin who hated fraternities almost as much as he loved slavery. Junkin spent the entirety of his term as president trying to pass an “anti-secret society” resolution in the Board of Trustees which would ban fraternities on campus.

Though the individual members were let off the hook, the chapter itself was not. Delts cannot return to Miami’s campus until at least 2034. Perino’s story was one of the most recent blows to Greek life’s reputation at Miami, but it was far from the first time Greek organizations stirred up controversy on campus.

Alpha Delta Phi & Beta Theta Pi The first fraternity chapter established at Miami was Alpha Delta Phi (Alpha Delt) in 1833, a year after it was founded at Hamilton College. In 1839, the first of several fraternities was founded at Miami: Beta Theta Pi (Beta).

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Before he could pass this resolution, though, Junkin was dismissed from his position and replaced with Erasmus MacMaster, who was not as authoritative as Junkin but still anti-fraternity. As an act of defiance against the hostility toward fraternities that had persisted on campus for years, all the members of Alpha Delt and Beta played a chilling prank against MacMaster in 1848. The men blocked the door to Old Main – the administrative building that housed MacMaster’s office – with a massive snowball. When the snowball was later destroyed, they packed Old Main’s entire first floor with snow.

photo-illustrations by Mason Thompson

The incident, which became known as the “Snowball Rebellion,” enraged MacMaster. He immediately expelled every fraternity man on campus, which dropped Miami’s student population from more than 200 to less than 70.

The students began drinking for the formal while on the bus and were visibly intoxicated by the time they arrived at the lodge at about 8 p.m. Phipps’s letter notes that many could barely walk through the doors to the facility.

Unfortunately for MacMaster, though, he was fired for expelling so many students and replaced by William C. Anderson, who was more pro-fraternity.

A staff member at Lake Lyndsay named Yvonne had the unfortunate task of supervising the attendees, and, as evidenced by the letter, was repeatedly disrespected by the students.

More than 150 years after the Snowball Rebellion, it’s clear who was victorious in the power struggle between fraternities and administration. Unlike Bishop and Anderson, both Junkin and MacMaster have no buildings named after them.

Shortly after the students arrived, Courtney, Pi Phi’s president, boldly told Yvonne to “stay in the office and leave [us] alone.” Another girl got testy with Yvonne when she tried to stop her from using a restroom stall with an out-of-order sign on the door.

Pi Beta Phi & Alpha Xi Delta In 2010, Miami’s Greek organizations made national headlines on two separate occasions, and not in a good way. Miami’s chapter of Pi Beta Phi (Pi Phi) – a fraternity for women – was founded in 1945. After repeatedly violating both fraternity and university regulations, the chapter was closed in 2017 by Pi Phi’s national organization. Before the chapter was gone for good, though, it received a year-long suspension for its actions at one of its formals in 2010. On April 9, Pi Phi held its spring formal at Lake Lyndsay Lodge, a reception venue in Hamilton. By the end of the debacle, Miami’s Greek organizations were banned from holding events at Lake Lyndsay ever again. A letter written from Lyndsay Rapier-Phipps, operator of the lodge, to Miami’s dean of students detailed the wild night.

“Excuse me,” Yvonne said to the girl, “but this stall is out of order. That is why it says, ‘out of order.’” “You don’t understand,” the girl replied. “I don’t care.” The students continued drinking and getting more and more intoxicated – to the point where many were vomiting throughout the lodge – so the caterer decided to close the bar. Several male attendees responded by climbing over the bar and attempting to get the alcohol from behind the caterer. Crystal vases were shattered. A giant lion statue’s mane was broken off. Students had sex in the janitor’s closet. Students had sex in the beach house next door. Two male students pooped on the ground on the side of the building. The lodge was completely trashed by the end of the night, and it was hosting a wedding at 8 a.m. the next day. The staff was up all night cleaning up after the Pi Phis and their guests. Needless to say, Lake Lyndsay opted to keep the $500 secur-

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

In 1848, more than 100 fraternity brothers were expelled from Miami

for rolling a giant snowball in front of the door to a building…

lost their letters for a couple years and didn’t face any other serious punishment…

…

In 2010, a couple hundred sorority sisters who completely trashed two different venues

…the Greek community has the opportunity to learn from its troubled past… ity deposit Pi Phi paid when booking the lodge.

else: on an exhibit featuring a slave quarters.

This incident took place just two weeks after a similar one involving Alpha Xi Delta sorority (AXD) also made national news.

Miller found the man standing on the corner of the exhibit, seconds away from urinating on it. Fortunately, though, she stopped him in time. The same student was later caught by another staff member trying to urinate in the catering elevator.

Though the AXD incident was similar in nature to the Pi Phi one, it was perhaps even more egregious because of its location – the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. The Freedom Center houses numerous slavery-era exhibits and artifacts, but on March 26, 2010, AXD members turned it into their own personal playground. Event Coordinator Rhonda Miller, like Phipps, wrote a letter detailing the night. When the students arrived at the center, a few were already intoxicated, and one girl threw up almost immediately after getting off the bus. Miller and other employees refused to let any drunk students into the building, so they called a taxi for the girl who vomited, her date and another couple. The girl’s date soon realized he would be responsible for paying the cab fare, and he refused to get in the taxi and became physically aggressive toward the Freedom Center staff. “I’m gonna fuck you up!” the man yelled at Miller. Security forced him into the cab, and the students were sent back to Oxford. Shortly after dinner, another girl threw up. It was then that Miller and her staff realized many of the attendees had smuggled alcohol into the center in plastic bottles or flasks. They then proceeded to confiscate more than 50 bottles and continued to find more as they cleaned up the next day. Throughout the night, several more female guests threw up in the bathrooms, often missing the toilets. Their dates urinated on the bathroom walls. One male guest, though, tried to relieve himself somewhere

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The Freedom Center staff reportedly spent a full 24 hours cleaning up after AXD and their guests, and, understandably, they banned AXD from ever holding future events at the center. In response to the incident, Miami suspended the chapter for two years, but it was not recolonized until 2018, long after everyone involved had graduated. Though AXD was eligible to return to campus in 2012, there was no attempt to re-establish the chapter that year. In 1848, more than 100 fraternity brothers were expelled from Miami for rolling a giant snowball in front of the door to a building.

Reflection In 2010, a couple hundred sorority sisters who completely trashed two different venues lost their letters for a couple years and didn’t face any other serious punishment. In 2019, more than a dozen fraternity brothers who beat a pledge to the point that he thought he might die evaded prison time and were not even expelled from Miami. While there have been several high-profile incidents in the history of Miami’s Greek life, they are certainly far from equal. Back in the university’s earliest days, pranks such as the Snowball Rebellion were the peak of Greek debauchery. Today, cases of brutal, dangerous hazing are all too common, and the drunken vandalism of 2010 seems tame by comparison. During the years in between, though? Your guess is as good

as mine. I tried to find other highly-publicized cases of Greek controversy in the many years between 1848 and 2010 but came up empty. That’s not to say incidents like the ones we saw in 2010 didn’t happen. It’s just that the Internet and social media didn’t exist for most of those years, so there wasn’t as large of a platform to publicize them. Regardless of what happened between the mid-19th century and today, it’s clear that the issues of hazing and the shenanigans associated with binge drinking have become more and more serious with each passing year. Universities try to fight back with suspensions and fines, but substantial changes rarely occur. According to my research, Miami has never had a student die as a result of hazing, but other institutions have not been nearly as lucky. 2020 was the first year since 1970 in which there were zero hazing deaths in the United States. Most colleges were shut down for the majority of 2020, though, so that is a likely explanation for the lack of hazing activity last year. The trend of yearly hazing deaths has already picked back up in 2021, too – in early March, Stone Foltz, a sophomore at Bowling Green State University, died after drinking at a Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity event. Ohio is currently considering making hazing a felony, which is a great step toward deterring Greek organizations from continuing these toxic practices in the future. Whether it will be enough to make them let go of their sacred traditions remains to be seen. Though Greek organizations also undoubtedly benefit the Miami community by providing their members with lifelong friendships and opportunities to perform philanthropy, those few negative, high-profile incidents overshadow the good they do. In the wake of the Delts incident that still lingers in current students’ memories, the Greek community has the opportunity to learn from its troubled past and avoid repeating its mistakes in the future. Whether it’ll take that opportunity, though, remains to be seen. S

…and avoid repeating its mistakes in the future … THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

PERSONAL HISTORY

Hannah Horsington

T H E M AT T E R O F

LIFE & death

How Writing About Death Taught Me About Life

like writing about death. Let’s just get that out of the way.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, what kind of nice, midwestern college girl likes writing about death? And the truth is, for the longest time – I didn’t know why. I thought I had some weird relationship with death, or maybe I was just an incredibly morbid person. So let’s go back to the beginning. *** I grew up in a small town in the middle of nowhere. The type of town where everybody knows everybody, and your best friend lives down the street. The type of town where nothing bad ever happens. So when Braden, a friend from high school, died a week before I left for my freshman year of college, it hit me hard. He was only a sophomore, but I had been in drama club with him and had seen him nearly every day. He even played my son in the fall play. He still called me “Mom” long after that show was over. After he died, I felt so confused. Nothing like this was ever

photo illustrations by Mason Thompson

supposed to happen in my small town. It just wasn’t. These 15-year-old kids weren’t supposed to be burying their friend. His parents weren’t supposed to be saying goodbye to their only child. I wasn’t supposed to be leaving my home when it needed me most. I was torn. I had wanted to get out of my town for years, and college was finally my chance to do just that. But now, the place I had wanted to escape from for so long felt like the place I was obligated to be. When I was struggling to deal with these emotions, I turned to what I know best. Words. Writing had always been an outlet for me, but never for anything serious. It was for when a girl made a snide comment at cheer practice, or I was mad that I didn’t get the part I wanted in the spring musical. I’d never written about death before. But after Braden’s death, I felt like writing was the only thing that might help me figure out what in the world I was supposed to do. So I wrote. I sat on the floor of my bathroom and cried and got out every single emotion I was feeling. I wrote about Braden’s death and

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

My story had mostly been written to get my own emotions out… about how I knew everyone would be okay, because our town stuck together.

I’d written an “obituary” about a classmate as an assignment, but they were still alive, so it wasn’t quite the same.

I tried not to focus on the bad things, but instead on the good. How the people in our town formed a great support system. How teachers would go the extra mile for every single one of their students. How I couldn’t imagine growing up anywhere else.

Until I got asked to write an obituary for The Miami Student – a real one this time.

I never planned to share it with anyone. But after sending it to my former teacher, whose daughter was best friends with Braden, she encouraged me to share it. So I posted it on Facebook, expecting one or two people to read it, and I went to bed. The next morning, I woke up to my story having over 3,000 views and being shared dozens of times – by teachers, friends and people I’d never even met. I was shocked, but also worried. I hadn’t sent it to Braden’s family yet, and I didn’t know how they’d feel. Later that week at Braden’s funeral, I waited in line with all kinds of thoughts running through my mind. I squeezed my best friend’s hand harder than I ever had before, trying not to cry while also worrying about what Braden’s family might say about the article. When I finally got to the front of the line where the family was greeting people, I was a mess. His mom immediately gave me a hug and said she’d read my story – and she loved it. I burst into tears as Braden’s dad agreed. His grandma, who I’d never met, gave me a huge hug and thanked me for writing it. I left the funeral still grappling with what had happened but also feeling a subtle sense of comfort. My story had mostly been written to get my own emotions out, but I had also hoped that it might help even one other person begin to heal, like it did for me. And, in just the slightest way, it did. Although it was about my friend dying, I often tell people that it’s my favorite thing I’ve ever written. *** A little over a year after Braden died, I was starting my sophomore year at Miami University as a journalism major writing stories left and right. I always kept the story about Braden in the back of my mind, but I hadn’t written anything like it since.

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Dick Nault, a former Miami faculty member, had passed away. I hadn’t known him, as he’d retired before I got to Miami, but I was given contact information for a couple people that were close to him and sent on my way. This obituary came at a time when I was having a crisis that every college student is familiar with. I was questioning what I wanted to do with my life, if I was studying the right thing, if I even wanted to be a journalist. When I sat down to do the first couple interviews, I didn’t know what I was expecting. I’ve never written about the death of someone that I hadn’t known before, so it was all pretty new to me. Once I got into the interviews, I was shocked. The two people that I talked to, friends and colleagues of Dick’s, opened up to me and told me really personal stories. I talked to each of them for a long time. Stories about Dick, funny things he said, anything that came to their minds. I barely asked any questions. I just let them talk. During both interviews, they cried. And I did, too. Afterward, it occurred to me that what had just happened wasn’t so much an interview and was more of a way for these people to grieve. I wasn’t sure how I was going to write the obituary, but I felt better knowing that I had given the people I interviewed a chance to talk about something they needed to share. I stared at my computer for a long time before I finally began to work on the obituary. As I began writing, I found the things I wanted to include most about Dick were details and stories about his life, not details about his death. I filled the whole obituary with silly little anecdotes and quotes they shared with me, and tried to end everything on a positive note. In the end, I ended up incredibly proud of what I had written. The people I interviewed were happy with it too, which is what I had been aiming for. After the obituary was published, I called my mom and told her that I was really excited for her to read what I had written

…but I had also hoped that it might help even one other person begin to heal, like it did for me. this week. I told her I was finally confident that I was heading in the right direction for my career. And that was the truth. Writing Dick’s obituary brought me back to what had originally made me want to be a journalist in the first place. *** I tell people all the time that one of my favorite things to write about is death. And, of course, that statement is always met with unusual looks and a weak, “oh, that’s … nice.” My mom always tells me that saying I like writing about death is an odd way to phrase it. But it’s the truth. I became a journalist because I wanted to tell stories. What better way to tell someone’s story than by reflecting on the things that made their time on Earth more than just a collection of years? The interesting little details or the sweet moments or the stories that make you laugh until you feel like you can’t breathe? The things that made those years a life? So, in a way, I guess I don’t necessarily enjoy writing about death. I enjoy writing about life. S

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

POETRY

Henri Robbins

HANDS i wish i knew how to fall god i wish i knew him, forever i wish i was blood in the air and bruises in his name “what name?” ‘you had no name’ “who was i?” ‘you were, to me, perfection in a name swiftly forgotten as i unfroze from my dream,’ isn’t it odd? how we cease to be as we sleep to all but those around us who reassure us we still are “but have you ever looked at yourself asleep from the vantage of a dream?” a watcher of your own presence “and always

36 THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

your face is blurred but are your hands?”

your hair is as it was months ago as you last imprinted in memory but the fresh wound from nervous picking at your palm is there, not a second older than the last time you felt it “what did we see as ourselves before we had the mirror to peacock our ever-changing?” ‘what confronts the world is not the face you wear but the hands that hold and love and care for that which falls within its grasp.’ and i still feel my hand clasped in yours as i watch mine empty twitching in a dream-made body that isn’t me and to give your hands to someone sweetly, to touch them

illustrations by Caitlin Schulte

as a delicate forgotten past is to say to them ‘of all the world i could have in my posession i shall sacrifice it all to let you coexist within all that i occupy’ and it is not possession nor a conquest but instead the relinquishing of your own bounds to ask, for a short time, to experience the world as one, to be vulnerable together and in those hands, with dream-like permanence i had wanted to love him so softly, so perfectly with calloused palms picked and dry that made his soft edges rough his faraway life gone in my arms he felt -cold -- and i couldn’t feel anything -- and together we felt barren -- and never forgot a single word -- and i still think today, “what if?”

but the answer is always the same. i wonder if he ever reads all the words i don’t remember i wrote to him which occupy the pages of memory unattributed “do you think you will get a happy ending?” ‘no, of course not’ “but what of him?” ‘that is all i can hope’ but to him: ‘and i am always a dream, cryptic and soon-forgotten yet i feel like you’ve never even learned my name beyond memorizing the letters that make it up and as soon as you put them back they leave your mouth and are forgotten until you need to reassemble them so i can come running back, always there against my own shaking hands’ i feel the blood in my fingers as old as ashes yet as new as i ‘only in dreams unbroken and only forever in my own’

1795 1809 1846

Families were removed in Peru, IN. They passed by Oxford, OH. Five families remained.

Miami became a university.

Several tribes, including the Miami, sign the Treaty of Greenville. This cedes much of what becomes Southwest Ohio to the U.S. government and opens the area to settlement.

The ancestors of The Miami Tribe of Oklahoma ﬁrst emerged where St. Joseph’s river empties Lake Michigan in a place called Saakiiweeyonki. Over generations, the people moved downstream and extended into the Wabash River Valley. They call themselves “Myaamia’’ meaning “downstream people.” The Myaamia population spanned from Northern Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin to Western Ohio.

the journey

Myaamia people live in all 50 states. Over 90 Myaamia students have attended Miami. 30 Myaamia students now attend the university.

Creation of the Myaamia Center (formerly Myaamia Project).

First three Myaamia students attend Miami.

Relationship between Miami Tribe and Miami University begins with Chief Forest Olds visits Miami University.

They gave Myaamia people a choice: stay in Kansas, but relinquish their Tribal identity and assimilate, or be removed from their homes yet again to live in Oklahoma (the Miami Tribe’s present-day place of government).

1860 1972 1991 2001 2021

WORLD VIEW

“i am (niila) myaa

amia”

How Myaamia Reconnect With The Tribe Abigail Kemper

n 1846, Myaamia people boarded canal boats in Peru, Indiana leaving five families behind. As they traveled the canal system, they passed by Oxford, Ohio where fall classes were ongoing at Miami University.

Almost 15 years later, the Myaamia people were faced with a choice: stay in Kansas, but relinquish their Tribal identity and assimilate, or be removed from their homes yet again to live in Indian Territory (currently Oklahoma). In 1972, Chief Forest Olds visited Miami, starting a relationship with the university. After the relationship had formed, the first three Myaamia students attended Miami in 1991. One of them dropped out, homesick, and returned home. Her son now attends Miami. Over 90 tribe members have attended the university since then, and in 2001, the Myaamia Center was born. Though Oklahoma is the Miami Tribe’s present-day government headquarters, every place where Myaamia people have relocated becomes known as the “Myaamionki,” meaning the “Place of the Myaamia.” Today, Myaamia people are spread out across all 50 states. As of this spring, there are 30 Myaamia students at Miami. Their connection to their identity links tighter and tighter as they gain more exposure to the Tribe.

alaamahkihkamwa Image source courtesy of the Myaamia Center.

community

Growing up, Kara Strass learned about her identity from her grandmother, an elder in the Myaamia community, but there was only so much for her to share. When the Tribal community was uprooted, their families were told to assimilate, making it hard to pass down their culture. “Her parents’ and her grandparents’ generations were told they needed to assimilate, and that it would be better for their children if they assimilated to American culture,” Strass said. Strass is the director of Miami Tribe relations and works with students who attend Miami as part of the Myaamia Heritage Program, at the Myaamia Center, a program for members of the Miami Tribe that attend Miami. Her grandmother passed down the knowledge she had, but could not account for the years where language and other cultural practices were lost. “She grew up as a part of a generation that was not able to learn much about Myaamia,” Strass said. “I did not learn [the] Myaamia language growing up. We did not play games or sing Myaamia songs. That’s not because she didn’t want to, it’s because she didn’t know it.” Though her grandmother was not, many Myaamia children of the generations before her were sent to boarding schools, from Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to Sherman Indian Institute in Riverside, California.They placed the Myaamia children in different schools to prevent them from gathering. The children were given Westernized military clothing, a shorter haircut, and told to no longer speak their Native language or practice cultural traditions. They ripped Myaamia culture from a whole generation of children. Senior anthropology major, Emma Fanning from Omaha, Nebraska experienced this loss of culture through her dad’s family lineage. It was easier to assimilate than to hold onto their culture. Fanning’s family found a way to survive at the expense of their cultural history. After assimilating, many Native people started moving to find work and the diaspora continued to grow.

42 THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

photo-illustrations by Max Pyle & Mason Thompson

identity

Loss of culture can affect how Myaamia people learn about and develop their identities.

is completely unrelated to what it actually means to be Native American.

“My Myaamia identity has definitely changed over time,” Strass said. “I grew up knowing this was a part of who I was and having a strong connection, but at the same time, not having a lot of the cultural pieces to hold on to.”

“We have this experience that bumps up against what most Americans perceive a Native American to be,” Strass said. “We don’t meet those stereotypes, and are sometimes dismissed by people as not being authentic or ‘Indian enough’ in their view.”

Even without these cultural pieces, Strass saw her identity continue to grow as she met other Native people in college at the University of Notre Dame. She learned how her identity was shaped through her culture and not how she looked to other people.

These understandings are even more common for those who grew up in Ohio, Strass said, because there are no federally recognized tribes headquartered here. Ohio K-12 history lessons don’t give enough information to children. This creates a skewed mindset and a stereotypical depiction of a Native American person.

“For Native American people, our identity is not racial but instead is political, ethnic and cultural,” Strass said. “That is something that is difficult for most people in the United States to understand. It’s hard to understand that you can have an identity as Native American completely separate from race.” George Ironstrack, the assistant director of the Myaamia Center, is focused on creating and implementing educational practices for Myaamia students. Ironstrack sees a disconnect between the reality of being Myaamia and societal expectations. “They have assumptions about how Native people should look,” Ironstrack said. “To an average U.S. citizen, being Native is not a legal, governmental identity, which it is, but a racial one.” The stereotypes Americans have of Native people are based on the cultural depictions they’ve been given from logos, mascots, and movie characters. They envision a Plains Indian with dark skin, braids, feathers, and headdresses, a depiction that

“We are never going to fit the ‘typical look,’ and because of our history we are never going to look the same because we have assimilated,” Fanning said. “But that doesn’t mean we are less than what we are.” Ironstrack said it is common for Myaamia people to be discounted as young people because they don’t meet physical expectations of what Native people “should look like.” To be a part of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, you must prove descendancy from a Myaamia person. Blood markers don’t equate to membership, but ancestry does. How a Myaamia person presents racially has no impact on Myaamia identity. Proving descendancy means looking at your family lineage and linking it back to members of the Tribe. When Myaamia students first take a class through the Myaamia Center, they trace Myaamia’s history to see how they are all interconnected. During removals, all members are recorded during the treaty

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

coming I learned that I am Miami, and I didn’t have to define myself as anything else. process, making lineages well documented. Though members of the Tribe present a certain way physically, they still endure the struggle of being questioned about their identity. “You have the responsibility of finding out who you are,” Fanning said. “When you’re part of white-presenting America, you’re not required to have a say in politics, but for minorities, you don’t have that privilege.” Each member of the Myaamia community has a different experience with the world around them due to their appearance. Although some Myaamians are white presenting, many are not. “We have to recognize that some members of our community suffer from racism in ways that we don’t because we present as white to the larger society,” Ironstrack said. Despite physical presentations of Myaamia people, they are always rooted in something deeper. *** “I don’t have to defend myself,” Fanning said.

Being Myaamia is more than how you look on the outside. As society struggles to grasp a cultural identity, Myaamia people immerse themselves in their community. When Fanning first went to Winter Gathering, a Tribal event with food and dances at the Tribal headquarters in Oklahoma, she finally felt widespread acceptance. “The first time I met the Myaamia community, I was in tears telling a government member, ‘I didn’t think that you would accept me,’” Fanning said. “I learned that I am Miami, and I didn’t have to define myself as anything else.” Being Myaamia is a core identity for Ironstrack. He said he is always considering his Myaamia identity because he represents it in everyday life. “In my language, I introduce myself as a Myaamia person, as a Myaamia human being,” Ironstrack said. “It’s who I am. It’s very much a Myaamia-specific identity that’s driven and shaped by my family.” With the support of a widespread community, that identity becomes easier to hold true. “Knowing my community supports me,” Ironstrack said, “that’s what matters.” S

home

44 THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

lenipinšia ‘John Bull Mongosa’ Image source courtesy of the Myaamia Center.

Sydney Hill

MY BODY

MY STORY Nothing To See Here

46 THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

PERSONAL HISTORY

My body is my story. Even if it is fat and short and has stretch marks and scars.

All my histories live inside my skin.

ere’s the thing: I have never liked the way I looked. I still don’t.

I used to cry as a child when people would tell me that I looked cute or pretty in my dress or Halloween costume. I cried when I was 15 and a teacher called on me in class when my hand wasn’t raised. I cried because someone’s awareness of me meant that they were looking at me, and I did not want anyone to notice my ugliness. The idea of my physical appearance always being intrinsically tied to someone else’s perception of me was something I couldn’t live with. *** Until I was 20, I used to think I was the fattest thing in the world. I felt like I could sink ships if I stepped on them or would break a staircase if I tried to climb it. I hated feeling the ground shake under my steps. I hated hearing the wood creak under my weight. And, realistically, I knew I wasn’t that fat. I knew what my weight was as a numeral. I just couldn’t remove the walrus-like image of myself that I saw. Even if I was physically smaller or skinnier than someone else, I still felt like I was larger than them–that my weight reflected an unremovable ugliness as opposed to a stranger’s beauty. *** Is it bad to want beauty? To be beautiful, whatever that word means to you? No. I cleaned out my room last summer and found a scrapbook I had attempted to curate from when I was in the third grade to the sixth grade. It was practically full, a bunch of four by sixes slipped into plastic pockets with stickers artfully placed on top. There weren’t a lot of photos of me in the house as I had collected all the spare copies and hid them in this scrapbook for fear of my mom putting them in picture frames. There were some of me when I was very young. Birthday

photo-illustrations by Mason Thompson

parties and Christmases, a younger me smiling with friends I haven’t spoken to in years. Then I found one of myself when I had to be around 11 years old. I was playing with an old horse, having him follow me around an empty arena. I was wearing jeans and some sort of Harajuku pop T-shirt. I started crying when I saw that photograph. I could remember how deeply uncomfortable I had been with my appearance. Every time I sat down and my thighs spread out, every time I saw my stomach in the mirror, every time I tried to open my eyes as wide as possible to make them seem bigger. It all came back, and I cried because I didn’t look like the overwhelmingly fat mass I had made myself out to be at that age — I just looked like a kid. I guess I felt bad for my younger self. She spent so much of her life hating herself. She treated her body like it was some sort of monstrosity, instead of using it to go on more hikes, or cuddle with her dog, or give her little cousins a piggyback ride. *** Sometimes I just want to tell people to stop insisting that I am pretty or beautiful or sexy or whatever. The sentiment of those words are supposed to be nice, but all they do is continue to objectify me rather than tell me that I am just as worthy of respect as anyone else. As an Asian American woman, I’m tired of people trying to engage with my “exoticism” and project their preconceived stereotypes on to me. I don’t even want to be pretty or beautiful or sexy anymore. Why can’t you just let me be ugly? I do not exist to be looked at. My body does not exist to be looked at. My body is meant to do, to go. It takes me places. It is home to my thoughts and dreams and wishes. My body is my story. Even if it is fat and short and has stretch marks and scars. All my histories live inside my skin. Despite everything, it is me. S

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

48 THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

POETRY

Henri Robbins

after the tone Ticticticiticticitciticiticitcitciticicitciitcict It’s broken “you have t-t-thir-teen new messages” “Thu-Fr-Th-s-Thu-u-u-rsday, Novemb-emb-emb-er t-t-te-thirteenth:” Are you there? Five thousand, eight hundred, and thirty three hours You used to write down every word I remember you used – You used to Call me when the snow was so high that We had to stay at home But now that the air is so thick that – So that we have to stay at home I can’t hear you through your – I can’t hear anything through your – I can’t hear anything at all except your – Anything. That I never – I remember – pick up I heard a voice say – You are not a voice – To say – I heard nothing To say Nothing at all – To say Peace, inside itself, Is an unattainable ideal To many But, I ask – But, but but – I ask, I read “If it were possible” – You are here – “For man and God” – You are familiar – “To shore up each other’s meaningfulness” – You are empty – “In this fashion” – So, so, so, so silent – “Why could not two people” – shivers in the night – “Do this for each other as well?” – Remorseful hands – naught but – all – hollow memories – and you? And this is about – yes, you – if I ever knew, enough to – your name aloud – This is you. Why are you the world, the creation, when you cannot – if you shall All but – withstand its being – for yourself? For so long, so long – so long, long long – you fought. But your name – nothing but an echo – fading unbeing Moulded into collective – the forceful hand – a brush to the side. You aren’t – shouldn’t – memory or more I can’t – memory – streaks in the rain Falls – apart – washes away Leaving only footsteps – as, as, as you Depart to – my, my, my Only guilt Only – Only guilt, and – – that’s all I hold your hand in mine. – but that can only – so much – “I’m sorry” – if you – “the number you have dialed” if you are – “is no longer in service” – aren’t then – “And your message” then are you – “could not be” – aren’t you done – “delivered” – giving up on – “Goodbye” – it all? I know you’re not gone.

illustrations by Caitlin Schulte

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

WHAT

MUTUAL

The Time I Walked Into A Secret Society

THISSOCIETP

IS EXPERIENCE

Chloe Murdock

AID

PLACE?

TY No. 1

I THOUGHT I WAS JUST GOING TO MEET THIS ALUM FOR A SOCIALLY DISTANCED COFFEE CHAT. I

nstead, he told me to meet him at this address at 4:30 p.m. in Hamilton, Ohio. “Text me when you’re on the way,” he messaged me.

I googled it. It didn’t seem like it was a place for coffee, or even a restaurant. It looked like an old house that kids would avoid on Halloween. “At Hamilton Library? Or the Monkey Mutual Aid Society?” I asked. “Monkeys,” he said. “Directly across the st from the library.” I switched from Google Maps to actual search results. The Facebook page came up, and a private Facebook group for a couple hundred people. The latest post on the public page was a woman asking if this was the right person to talk to about getting COVID-19 vaccines for her and her husband. This was early February. Whatever this place was, the Monkey Mutual Aid Society had closed for a bit during the first COVID-19 lockdowns. It seemed to be a big deal that it closed, since it only did that for major holidays — Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve. It’s listed as a 501C3 nonprofit organization and the second oldest charity in Hamilton, Ohio. But what do they actually do? A 2012 Dayton Daily News story also came up about

52 THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

minority groups at a city council meeting calling to stall the reaccreditation of the Hamilton police force. In the story, local Black leader, Richard Cox, said that he opposed reaccreditation for Hamilton police because, among other reasons, police, firefighters and city council members were involved in Monkey Mutual Aid Society, which Cox had called a racist secret society. My Google escapade was about to make me ten minutes late to this meeting. But now I was worried I was going to get kidnapped by a racist secret society. I grabbed a ring to wear on my pointer finger so my punches would hurt even more if I needed to throw one. I shared my phone location with my roommates indefinitely and told them where I was going. I tried to calm myself down in the car. I had to be relaxed if I really was walking into a situation where I might have to defend myself. The alum I was meeting was running late too. I parked in the library parking lot and waited outside this house. There was an official sign that said members only. The alum walked up with two older gentlemen flanking him. “Hey, how’s it going?” he said. “These are my bodyguards.” This was my first time meeting this person outside of a Zoom call. Later, I would find out that this was just the alum’s dad and his dad’s friend, but at this point, I had so much adrenaline rushing in my ears I could barely hear him making introductions.

photo-illustrations by Mason Thompson

“All right, let’s head in,” he said. “OK. Wait. I’m sorry. You gotta tell me what this place is,” I said. “It’s just a place where people meet. It’s a good time, I promise,” he said. So I followed them in. My heartbeat pounded in my ears, but in a way that felt like it wasn’t my own – like all these alarms were going off. It was a dive bar. It was full of old white men and paneled with yellow wood. It was loud, pandemonious even — until they all turned to look at us when we walked in. I forgot I was wearing rainbow earrings until right at that moment, and I quickly covered them with my hair. “You want something to drink?” he asked me. “I’ll have water,” I said. When I spoke, guys at the bar stopped talking and turned to look at me. Like they were trying to figure out if I belonged there. It was a regular networking chat. At a dive bar. Full of older people sitting at plastic tables and folding chairs. Ten minutes in, I still had alarm bells going off.

“Are women allowed in here?” I asked. Guys at the bar turned around to look at me again. “Yeah. I think so,” he said, and then leaned over to his dad. “Women are allowed in the club, right?” His dad paused. The guys turned back to face the bar. “No.” The alum seemed surprised, while his dad continued. “Only wives, girlfriends. Guests,” his dad said. The alum explained that this surprised him. He’d grown up here and remembered his grandma had hung out here too. He pointed to a corner where he used to play with toy cars when there was still a toy box there. It was familiar to him. Normal. “Here, let me show you something in the back.” He stood up and motioned for me to follow him. To the back. My hand curled into a fist at my side. He stopped before we reached the hallway at a showcase with a taxidermy monkey inside.

BUT NOW I WAS WORRIED I WAS GOING TO GET KIDNAPPED BY A RACIST SECRET SOCIETY. THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

MAYBE IT WAS NOTHING. “So, this is the monkey!” he said. This wasn’t even the weirdest thing about this place. I relaxed. I even laughed. I turned around and there was a white woman working at the wings station that just opened up. Over fries and wings, I asked him again about this place. “I don’t want to call it a dive bar, but —” “Oh, it’s definitely a hole-in-the-wall kinda place,” he said. But he also said it was an important place for locals. “It’s just a place where people meet to do business.” We changed the subject, and I left a bit later. I made it back to my apartment. I laughed at myself from over an hour ago, when I wondered if I was walking into a self-defense situation. I googled this place again. Cox, who had claimed to be a representative for the Dayton chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) and a national board member in the story where he claimed the Monkey Mutual Aid Society was racist, was not actually a representative or even a national board member. Cox said he had a fallout with SCLC. SCLC’s president in the story said that Cox hadn’t been a member of the national board since 2013. “I kinda had a riff with the national board,” Cox said. In 2016, the Dayton chapter that claimed to be part of the SCLC was not related to the national organization at all. The Dayton chapter had its tax-exempt status revoked in 2012 due

54 THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2021

to a fraud scandal. Cox was most recently quoted in a 2020 WHIO article as both a bishop and a protest chairperson for Clergy Community Coalition, a group that was condemning systemic racism and healthcare inequality. But I was calling him about why he called the Monkey Mutual Aid Society “racist.” I could guess why he did, and I couldn’t blame Cox for his assumptions. “Black people are often referred to as monkeys,” Cox said. He can’t remember where he came across the Monkey Mutual Aid Society, but he didn’t personally know any members. He said the group structure of this organization seemed suspicious. “It sounds like its makeup might be racist because of its name,” Cox said. “It sounds like a secret society aimed at racial division.” All I had seen was a bunch of white guys eating cheap wings. Officially it’s a fraternal organization that’s over 120 years old, though it’s been tax-exempt since 2006. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just an adult version of a college fraternity, but with a built-in bar. Sixty percent of its income reported on its 2018 taxes came from net inventory sales, which I can only guess is from members buying wings and beer. A Feb. 2020 post on the Oxford Talk Facebook page by a new Oxford resident asked about “Monkeyland,” which he said looked like a campground when he and his wife passed by. One member responded easily. He said the Monkey Mutual

MAYBE IT WAS JUST AN ADULT VERSION OF A COLLEGE FRATERNITY, BUT WITH A BUILT-IN BAR. Aid Society was founded in 1901 by a group of men who pooled their money to buy a keg of beer and saved the extra money. More and more members joined to pool their money. Now, they have a thousand members. “Each year as members pass or drop out an equal number of new members are added, so the total remains 1,000,” the member said. Their next (private) event on their Facebook page is the “29th annual Stan Warner drawdown.” I had to google what “drawdown” means: “a reduction in the size or presence of a military force.” Tickets are $20. Herbert “Stan” Warner died in 2019, and his obituary lists his membership in the Monkey Mutual Aid Society and a Fairfield, Ohio, chapter of a similar society, Fairfield Eagles #3680. “Yes they are very private, but guests are always welcome by a member of good standing,” the member posting on Facebook said. “No, there’s nothing freaky going on. It’s basically a bunch of blue collar guys. To join you must know a member and be asked.” He also added that the society was a nonprofit, which it is. “Most of our donations go to the developmentally disabled in the form of events at Monkeyland during the summer.” I couldn’t find any evidence that it was doing any actual charity work. But this member seemed more open than what I’d previously found out about the Monkey Mutual Aid Society. I decided to call the number listed on the group’s Facebook page. Maybe this club wasn’t super secret, after all.

The guy on the other end of the line answered, and I could hear the roar of the bar in the background. “MONKEYS!” “Hi. Um, I’m on your Facebook page right now and I’m, um, just kind of curious about what this place is.” “Uh, it’s a private club.” I paused. “What’s the private club do?” He immediately put me on hold. For ten seconds, the line crackled. Then it was silent. He’d hung up. S