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Wednesday, April 4, 2018
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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Finding Their Voices
A look inside how University of Michigan students and participants work to master American accents.
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statement T H E M I CH I GA N DAI LY | A PR I L 4 , 201 8
ACADEMICS
LSA pauses creation of new minors for Fall 2018
Finding their With 111 exisiting minors, committee decides to review current programs
voice SAYALI AMIN
IBRAHIM IJAZ/Daily
LSA Program Coordinator Shamalia Ashraf speaks at the Low Socioeconomic Status Workshop in Mason Hall Tuesday.
Inclusive Campus Corps discuss economic disparities on campus
Homogenity of CSG, other student orgs connects to high average SES of ‘U’ students TAL LIPKIN
Daily Staff Reporter
While the University of Michigan has the ninth highest endowment of universities in the world, many students
say they see an apparent lack of collectivized resources for students of lower socioeconomic status on campus. To address this issue, the Inclusive Campus Corps held a workshop Tuesday for student leaders centered around “Low Socioeconomic Status on Campus.”
The workshop was led by three students who are a part of the Inclusive Campus Corps — Ryan Bennett, Ben Rosof and Aubrey Klein, all LSA sophomores. The students began with a discussion about the definition of low socioeconomic status, resources on campus
and personal experiences at the University. Bennett and Rosof shared their contrasting experiences growing up, and how their personal socioeconomic status has dictated how their lives operate at the University See INCLUSIVE, Page 3A
Daily Staff Reporter
LSA Dean Andrew Martin sent out an email to all LSA department chairs last month informing them the LSA Executive Committee has reached the decision to halt the production of new minors housed within LSA and for LSA students at the University of Michigan. The LSA Curriculum Committee will take time until the end of fall semester 2018 to review the current and existing minors within LSA. Currently, LSA offers 111 minors. LSA Associate Dean Angela Dillard, who serves as the chair for the LSA CC, said the
‘U’ staff host conversation on origins of R&E reqs do not live blackface following racist Snapchat
increasing number of minors in the college was becoming more difficult to navigate. “The growing number of minors, and the confusion caused by the increasingly complex relationship between and among them (prompted the decision),” Dillard wrote in an email. “Some minors are in separate units but very close to each other in content and focus. There is also a general lack of guidance from the College about the requirements for new and existing minors that seems worthwhile to address.” Dillard wrote it is also possible some smaller minors may be suspended or re-conceptualized. Public Policy junior Lauren Schandevel has been working See MINOR, Page 3A
ACADEMICS
RESEARCH
up to hopes of students
History Club facilitates dialogue connecting historical roots to modern incidents
Effects of racism may be linked to weight gain
Students disappointed in “watered down” content of Race and Ethnicity classes
In the wake of a blackface incident involving Snapchat on campus, History Club at the University of Michigan hosted a dialogue Tuesday evening to examine the historical roots of the blackface caricature and its harmful modern-day implications. The racist Snapchat was posted by LSA sophomore Lauren Fokken wearing a black face mask with the caption “#blacklivesmatter.” Stephen Berrey, associate professor in the Department of American Culture, led Tuesday’s conversation, providing insight into how the blackface caricature has evolved from 19th-century minstrel shows to the ultimate “taboo” of blackface by 1980. When Berrey introduced himself, he said cultural conversation on blackface, and its racist implications, is largely neglected. “I would say that the majority of people in this country know that it is wrong or know that on some level it is offensive but not necessarily why or how it is this symbol that is connected to this much over history,” Berrey said. The earliest historical evidence of blackface is linked to T.D. Rice, a white entertainer in the late 1820s who
ZAYNA SYED
Daily Staff Reporter
Information senior Ibrahim Rasheed said he knows he took “two or three” courses at the University of Michigan that fulfill LSA’s Race and Ethnicity requirement, but cannot recall which ones they were. After spending a few minutes searching for his LSA audit to no avail, he decided that one of the courses was most likely titled, “The History of Islam in South Asia.” After checking the LSA course guide, he found that the course did in fact fulfill the requirement. Rasheed, who is a South Asian Muslim, said he took the course in order to learn more about the history of his culture and religion as it explores the tensions of being Muslim in South Asia and the role of Muslims in South Asian society. Rasheed took the course because of the subject matter, and the fact it fulfilled a requirement was a “bonus.” While he later transferred to See R&E, Page 2A
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SHANNON ORS
Daily Staff Reporter
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popularized an act imitating an African-American man he met on the street who he claimed was named “Jim Crow.” Over time, Rice began to burn cork and rub the black residue over his face. “All of minstrelsy is about imagining, rather than the diversity and the humanity of a population, reducing it to a few stock caricatures representing millions of people,” Berrey said. Despite the fact Rice began the blackface act in New Orleans, Berrey cited how blackface minstrel shows were
most popular in the Midwest and Northeast. The rowdy audiences attending these shows were mostly white, working-class men from states such as Ohio, New York and Kentucky. As blackface minstrel shows reached their peak popularity during the mid-19th century, hallmarks of the blackface caricature began to emerge including “minstrel black” makeup, white gloves and mocking dialect patterns. By the early 20th century, blackface minstrel shows
experienced a professional decline.Yet, blackface continued to be a welcome image of American culture well into the 20th century, evidenced by the traces of blackface imagery in cartoons, advertising and film characters. Berrey engaged students in attendance by passing around blackface pamphlets from the 20th century including howto guides, blackface makeup catalogs and blackface show scripts. Berrey has accumulated an archive of blackface artifacts See ORIGINS, Page 3A
CAMERON HUNT/Daily
LSA Professor Stephen Berrey discusses blackface throughout recent history in Tisch Hall Tuesday.
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INDEX
Vol. CXXVII, No. 104 ©2018 The Michigan Daily
‘U’ researcher connects “vigilance”, burden of race to unhealthy eating habits MOLLY NORRIS Daily Staff Reporter
In Research Assistant Professor Margaret Hicken’s lab at the University of Michigan, the word vigilance takes on a new meaning — as in, the stress associated with carrying the burden of one’s race whenever one walks out the door. Through her research and findings, Hicken said she has associated this vigilance with unhealthy habits that could be contributing to obesity among marginalized communities. “Vigilance is a lay word; it’s just part of our regular vocabulary,” Hicken said. “But the way I use it that it’s the anticipatory stress or the worry-related stress about structural and cultural racism. So it’s not about discrimination or about one person being mean to another person. I’m talking about the stereotypes that we hold of marginalized groups, and then the actions that we take as a society to marginalize different racial groups.” She further emphasized SeeWEIGHT,Page 3A
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SUDOKU.....................2 CLASSIFIEDS...............6 SPORTS....................7