2018-08-02 Michigan Daily

Thursday, August 3, 2018

ONE-HUNDRED-TWENTY SEVEN YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

inside

Crime

NEWS

Details emerge in prof’s death

Water safety After almost drowning U-M prof advocates for water safety in the Great Lakes.

Robert Sharp was stabbed 28 times, burned by ex-convict

>> SEE PAGE 3

OPINION

On traveling

By ALICE TRACEY

Part one of a two part series of an experience abroad in Chile >> SEE PAGE 4

Summer Daily News Editor

ARTS

FILE PHOTO / DAILY

Mo Pop’s lineup a success The Detroit music festival a strong collection of talents >> SEE PAGE 6

MICHIGAN IN COLOR

Why I write

MiC columnist reflects on experiences with the craft

>> SEE PAGE 9

Award-winning lecturer fired amid misconduct allegations LEO VP says John Rubadeau is filing a grievance against U-M

By GRACE KAY Summer Managing News Editor

SPORTS

Man Utd. vs.

Liverpool Liverpool and Manchester United duked it out only to see one club dominate with a near-strength crew. >> SEE PAGE 12

INDEX Vol. CXXVII, No. 125 © 2018 The Michigan Daily michigandaily.com

NEWS .................................... 2 OPINION ............................... 4 ARTS/NEWS..........................6 MiC......................................... 9 SPORTS................................ 10

michigandaily.com

On Tuesday, July 24, John Rubadeau, a University of Michigan senior lecturer, sent out an email to his colleagues within the English department informing them the University was terminating his employment before the remaining four years of his contract had expired.

According to his email, the University removed the 78-year-old lecturer from his position without benefits, effective Aug. 3. Motives behind the University’s action against Rubadeau, an instructor in the English department for 33 years, remain unclear. Some of Rubadeau’s former students point to potential allegations of

misconduct.

English department chair David Porter, as well as department undergraduate director Andrea Zemgulys declined to comment, and directed all questions to University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald wrote the University cannot comment on personnel matters.

“Our approach is designed to respect the privacy of our employees,” Fitzgerald wrote in an email interview with The Daily. “I can tell you that the university takes the termination of any employee very seriously and in each case these matters are carefully considered.”

Rubadeau also declined to comment due to legal concerns.

“Sadly, on the advice of my lawyer, I can not respond to any direct questions,” Rubadeau wrote in an email to The Daily. “I have much to say, and I should certainly like to say it to you, but my tongue is legally tied.”

University protocol directs complaints against faculty and staff

through the Office for Institutional Equity, which operates under the authority of Title IX to investigate claims of misconduct. OIE is headed

by Pamela Heatlie, who came under fire recently by students for mishandling bias cases.

Less than 48 hours after Rubadeau received news of the University’s final decision, University alum Parker Procida, who works as Rubadeau’s typist, sent out a mass email to more than 4,000 former students informing them of the University’s decision and calling on them to contact University president Mark Schlissel on Rubadeau’s behalf.

“Most of you know and love John,” Procida wrote. “Three of John’s favorite words are ‘Quid pro quo.’ The man that has taught us all and given so much of his life to educating young people deserves a little quid pro quo-ing from those that he has impacted.”

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Isom Hamilton, an ex-convict charged with the murder of Robert Sharp, a retired University of Michigan professor emeritus, underwent preliminary examination July 19 and has been scheduled for an August 30 pretrial hearing before Judge Darlene O’Brien.

Sharp, who was 76 years old, taught in the U-M chemistry department for 39 years before retiring in 2008. He held a doctorate from Case Western Reserve studying multidimensional and multiquantum NMR of paramagnetic systems, and completed his postdoc education at Oxford University.

Sharp was found dead in his home at 3200 Alpine Drive on Monday, June 11.

Police believe Hamilton killed Sharp on June 10 or 11, attempting to cover his tracks after breaking in for the second time in a week and discovering Sharp was home.

The AAPD entered Sharp’s home after his neighbors expressed concern over Sharp’s failure to show up for a community meeting. Police found heavy smoke residue in the home as well as bloody drag marks leading to the basement, where they discovered Sharp’s body.

“I followed the blood trail down the stairs into the basement,” said Ann Arbor police officer Craig Lee. “At the very bottom of the stairs, we did find the victim.”

Pathologist Jeffrey Jentzen testified Sharp died after suffering 28 knife wounds. A one-inch piece of knife blade, which investigators think Hamilton took from Sharp’s kitchen, was found lodged in Sharp’s neck vertebra.

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2 NEWS

Thursday, August 2, 2018 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Task Force calls for subpoena power The group discusses responsibilites of future AAPD review board

By ROB DALKA Daily Staff Reporter

The Ann Arbor Police Task Force met Wednesday night to continue documenting a plan for how the future official police review board would operate. Specifically, the task force discussed the powers and tools the future commission would need in order to perform its function of police oversight.

The group was created in early 2018 to draft a proposal for a police oversight commission, in response to the police brutality and misconduct exemplified by the 2014 police shooting of Aura Rosser. The task force comprises 11 Ann Arbor residents.

During the early minutes of the meeting, Task Force Co-Chair Lori Saginaw proposed a system for streamlining the night’s meeting. She

suggested task force members look at the problems listed in the meeting documents, which were handed out to task force members and the other community members in the audience, and then identify problems they found important, share their viewpoints and offer their solutions.

“Essentially, this page identifies what I felt were the four issues that we needed to get everyone’s thoughts on,” Saginaw said. “As a task force, we can figure out which ones we agree on, and which ones we don’t, and work on those.”

This plan for the night was not adopted however, as members of the task force felt it was not presented early enough. Voting member Dwight Wilson commented he would be willing to work on the document and have it prepared for a future meeting.

Voting member Anna Gersh seconded Wilson’s position. Based on these shared feelings within the task force, it was decided to allow members to work on the document and bring their completed thoughts to the next Police Task Force meeting.

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U-M study exposes racial disparities At age nine, more than one in 10 kids from urban areas have been expelled

By Katherina Sourine Daily Staff Reporter

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The University of Michigan released a study in early July that explores elementary school disciplinary policy in urban cities, focusing on the demographics of affected children and investigating how racial inequality can be fostered at a young age.

Data was collected from Princeton University’s Fragile Families & Child Wellbeing Study, which conducted interviews with the primary caregivers of approximately 5,000 children born in large cities between 1998 and 2000. The U-M study aimed to explore elementary school exclusionary discipline — measures that remove a student from their educational environment — as well as racial variations within the policy and possible associations between exclusionary discipline and aggressive behavior.

According to the study, exclusionary discipline is “anything but a rare experience” in elementary

schools; at age nine, more than one in 10 children born in urban areas have had suspension or expulsion on school records.

Furthermore, these statistics disproportionately affect urban-born Black children, with about 40 percent of non-Hispanic black boys were suspended or expelled, compared to 8 percent of nonHispanic white or other-race boys.

Garrett Pace, U-M social work and sociolog y doctorate student, co-authored the study with colleag ues from Pennsylvania State University.

He emphasized the importance of implementing resources that foster more inclusive disciplinary practices, especially for racial minorities.

“Black children are disproportionately exposed to exclusionary discipline, and this is largely due to differences in school characteristics, family context, and home environments rather than differences in behavior problems,” Pace wrote in an email interview.

He emphasized the importance of conducting these types of research projects at the University in order to improve the city and the University’s approaches to education.

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Thursday, August 2, 2018 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

NEWS 3

U-M prof improves water safety in lakes After almost drowning, Jamie Racklyeft creates new intiative COURTESY OF RYAN STANTON, THE ANN ARBOR NEWS Ann Arbor City Council D-Ward 1 candidates Ron Ginyard and Jeff Hayner.

TMD talks to Council candidates about political controversy, plans for Ward 1

Hayner and Ginyard address issues from their personal histories

By ALICE TRACEY Summer Daily News Editor

Ann Arbor’s Ward 1 City Council candidates, Democrats Jeffrey Hayner and Ron Ginyard and Democratic Socialist Ryan Hughes, spoke with The Michigan Daily to address controversies surrounding their campaigns and to elaborate on their respective platforms.

Hayner, a 53-year-old business owner who works in design and fabrication, and Ginyard, a 61-year-old retired financial adviser, will compete in the Aug. 7 primaries. The winning Democrat will face off against democratic socialist Ryan Hughes, a 37-year-old computer programmer, in November. The candidates are vying to replace the incumbent representative, Sumi Kailasapathy, D-Ward 1.

A July 23 MLive article drew attention to the Ward 1 City Council race by highlighting controversial aspects of Ginyard and Hayner’s pasts. Specifically, the article mentioned Ginyard’s past financial difficulties and noted he hasn’t voted since moving back to Ann Arbor four years ago. MLive reporter Ryan Stanton also raised concern over some of Hayner’s contentious tweets.

In an email interview with The Daily, Ginyard, an Ann Arbor native who lived in California from 1970 to 2014, said he wasn’t able to give Stanton the whole story.

The MLive article cited the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s BrokerCheck website,

which reveals several complaints filed against Ginyard while he was working for investment firm Morgan Stanley in California. In 2003, clients of Ginyard’s claimed he made poor investment suggestions and they requested $525,000 in compensation. The case was settled for $110,000. Different clients made similar claims in 1998 but withdrew their case.

Regarding the 2003 complaint, Ginyard said the financial losses of his clients — for whom he invested $600,000 — were a result of economic downturn.

“Over the course of three and a half years, I made a lot of money for them,” Ginyard wrote. “They withdrew a quarter of a million dollars during that time and still the value of their investment grew to $1,000,000. They were very disappointed when the market ate their gains during the technology crash of 2001, even though they were still up by $100,000 at the time they brought their complaint.”

He added only two of the approximately 45,000 transactions he completed during his 32-year career ended in formal complaints.

Stanton’s article also notes several tax liens were filed against Ginyard for failure to pay taxes between 1988 and 2013. The largest claim was a $263,547 federal tax lien issued by the IRS in 2006.

Ginyard said family issues prevented him from paying taxes on time, but he has now paid off all his debt. “(O)ver that 18-year period I paid $280,000 in child support

for my two daughters,” Ginyard wrote. “In addition, in the early 1990s, the mother of my youngest daughter was diagnosed with glaucoma and declared legally blind. This put additional pressure on me to keep her household up and running, which included paying my daughter’s tuition for her first year at USC and paying all of her health insurance expenses. When you work for a firm like Morgan Stanley, a lot of your income comes from bonuses, so when the market fluctuates your income can vary widely from month to month.”

Responding to MLive’s coverage of Ginyard’s financial history, Hayner said he does not want to get involved in Ginyard’s personal business but does find it problematic that Ginyard missed tax payments. Hayner said paying taxes gives a citizen the right to speak out about local policy issues.

“In this city, I think that our services are not commensurate with the prices we pay for them,” Hayner said. “I’m happy to go down and complain about them, because I pay.”

Hayner also took issue with Ginyard’s spotty voting record, another controversy addressed in Stanton’s article. Since moving to Ann Arbor four years ago, Ginyard has not voted once, including in the 2016 presidential election.

“I think it shows a complete lack of commitment to the system,” Hayner said.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

By NATASHA PIETRUSCHKA Daily Staff Reporter

Jamie Racklyeft, the communications director of the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research at the University of Michigan, knows second chances are rare. After nearly drowning off the shore of Van’s Beach in Leland, Michigan in 2012, Racklyeft is leading the effort to end drownings in the Great Lakes.

In 2016, Racklyeft founded the Great Lakes Water Safety Consortium, a non-profit partnered with more than 350 organizations to create guidelines for water safety.

“There are a lot of people working on preventing drowning in the Great Lakes, but they weren’t working together,” Racklyeft said. “That’s when I got involved as a communicator. The more we can get people working together and collaborating, the more we can find what’s working and what isn’t.”

A study by the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project, one of GLWSC’s partners, reported there were 669 drownings in the Great Lakes from 2010 to 2018.

According to Racklyeft, 85 percent of drowning victims are male with a particular emphasis between ages 18 and 24. A study concluded males tend to overestimate their abilities in the water and are more susceptible to peer pressure.

LSA junior Connor Kippe explained pier diving was a common pastime for young adults in his hometown of Grand Haven, Michigan.

“Growing up, guys tend to be a little more f lippant about risk and showing off,” Kippe said.

“It was a thing people did. Some people would just watch, they wouldn’t always jump. Others

would do tricks off the side of the pier.”

Water safety was part of Kippe’s middle school health curriculum, setting his school apart from many others in Michigan.

But despite being educated on the subject, Kippe said people in his community and similar areas continue to participate in risky behavior.

Racklyeft recognized the difficulty of communicating the importance of water safety.

“If they’ve gone to the lake before and they’ve been fine, they’ll think they’ll be fine again,” Racklyeft said. “There’s so many ways things can go wrong. How can we get that across? It’s tough. It’s not just about awareness. We can let them know, but does that mean it’ll change behavior? Not always.”

According to GLWSC, there are many factors that can contribute to a drowning. Rip currents, powerful f luxes of water that jets away from shore and out into open water, are one of the main causes of drownings in the Great Lakes. “Flip, f loat and follow” is a universal technique used for escaping these currents. Rhett Register of the Michigan Sea Grant, another GLWSC partner, said someone caught in a rip current should never try to fight it.

“Even Michael Phelps can’t swim against a rip current, they’re so powerful,” Register said. “Flip over on your back, f loat for a second and follow the best path out of the current.

Don’t fight the current.”

Swimmers can also prevent drowning by being prepared.

According to Racklyeft, out of the 669 people who have drowned in the Great Lakes since 2010, only 5 of them were wearing life jackets. He also advises checking the National Weather Service before going to the beach and staying out of the water when waves are more than two to three feet high.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

4 OPINION

Thursday, August 2nd, 2018 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

ETHAN KESSLER | COLUMN

Defaulting on leadership Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

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KATHRYN TESKE| WOLVERINES ABROAD

T

To travel means to never stop learning

his is part one in a twopart series on an experience abroad in Chile.

Living in Chile this past month has served as a reminder of the significance of my social identity as a U.S. citizen and a woman, the implications of which can be something I tend to take for granted.

Before attending the University of Michigan, I lived in Peru for a year, and my experiences there left me with mixed emotions towards this part of my identity. At times, I was grateful for being born in the U.S. and all the advantages the “lottery of birth” had bestowed upon me. At other times, I wished I was not at all associated with the U.S. because of the negative reactions I would get from people when they realized my citizenship. Peru was a long time ago and I never really realized how important my identity as a U.S. citizen was in shaping my experience abroad until I returned to South America once again for a three-month internship in Chile.

My Spanish was much better this time around when I arrived in Chile than it was when I first arrived in Peru, so I blended in better and was able to even pass as Chilean at times.

Now, when I see other tourists or people passing through who speak in poor Spanish with

heavy American accents, I find myself making assumptions about them as well. I have been there and I understand the difficulty of trying to survive in a foreign country with a different language and culture, but I also understand why I stood out as a foreigner so much during my first few months in Peru. I am still the same girl from Minnesota, but I also feel like the language and culture of South America are becoming greater parts of my identity as well—so much so that it is hard for me to identify with travelers from North America who I happen to meet in passing. This new realization is exciting for me as I can honestly say that I am fully assimilated here in South America and that I even feel at home.

One big difference between my time in Peru and my time in Chile is that here in Chile I am not reminded constantly of my identity as a woman as I was in Peru, due to a variety of different reasons. In Peru, I was always cautioned about leaving the house alone and was often harassed on the streets, at university and, at times, at home because I was a woman.

One of the cultural norms in Peru is that women, especially younger women, do not leave the house except to go to school or if they are accompanied by a

male. This norm is not without grounds as gender violence towards women is a huge issue in Peru, as in many parts of South America, and most parents see preventing their daughters from leaving the house as a way to protect them.

Women are also expected to contribute more in terms of chores. They cook, clean, wash the laundry and often take care of their younger siblings.

However, teen boys spend their time out with friends and are hardly ever required to help with housework, and they are expected to act macho or “like a man.” Boys in their early teenage years have more freedom than some women have in their entire lifetime. I was very fortunate to have incredible host moms in all my host families who made it possible for me to have more freedom during my time in Peru by advocating for me at my university and at home, an advantage that many fellow female exchange students and Peruvian friends did not have. As someone who grew up in an environment in which I always felt I was treated as equal to men, living in a place in which your sex very much defines you was an unpleasant shock that left me angry and even scared at times.

Kathryn Teske can be reached at katmate@umich.edu.

L

ast week in Helsinki with the whole world watching, President Donald Trump enthusiastically renounced any last semblance of presidential demeanor he possessed, yielding to one of America’s greatest foes with seeming indifference. Beside adversarial strongman and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump issued a stunning rebuke of all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies and an emphatic denial of Putin’s chicanery in the same breath, an act appropriately chastised as the most embarrassing presidential performance in recent memory (even after his post-summit statement that supposedly “clarifies things pretty good”).

In absolving himself of the president’s paternal obligation to stand firmly against national enemies, Trump went one step too far, even in a presidency where misrule is the norm. It is not just that Russia’s interests often run afoul of our own – its regime routinely violates the human rights of journalists and other political dissidents, is engaged in a lengthy and brutal proxy war with the United States, illegally annexed sovereign Ukrainian territory in an affront to post-Cold War rules and order, and more than anything maliciously interfered in the most sacred of American political institutions.

Other than the obvious conclusion that Putin returned from Helsinki emboldened to embark on his next sinister pursuit, the Trump-Putin summit made clear there are only three possible explanations for the chief executive’s stunt.

First, Trump is irretrievably ignorant of the intricacies of foreign affairs and is equally impervious to the attempts of those around him to roll back his personalist approach to world leaders. Second, Trump has been personally compromised by Putin (surely a long shot, between the honest authoritarian and the sexually wholesome frequenter of Russia), and will not hesitate to protect himself at the expense of the United States.

Third, Trump is even more selfish and psychologically fragile than previously imagined, and desires more than

anything to indulge his ego in his 2016 presidential election victory – even if feeding the narrative that his Herculean feat was unassisted comes at the cost of elevating a dictator’s word above that of U.S. intelligence officials. Or some combination of them.

Accepting any of the explanations for Trump’s behavior only demands the belief that Trump’s well-documented narcissism is so overcoming as to blind him to the best interests of the country he governs – not a stretch by most standards. For a figure as poorly versed in public service and foreign policy as Trump, the shameful display in Helsinki may alternately be explained by the president’s inadequacy with regard to executive statesmanship as much as it is by his lack of commitment to the public.

Regardless of the explanation, Trump’s uniquely deleterious statements made unequivocally obvious his woeful inability to perform the basic duties of a world leader. Therefore, Congress should objectively have no qualms in considering impeachment; a sparingly used tool that, according to constitutional architect George Mason, was afforded to Congress as a “mode of displacing an unfit magistrate.” America’s ability to remove an unfaithful and/ or severely incapable executive in the direst of circumstances remains, however, intertwined with the politics of the lawmakers to which it is entrusted.

It is unsurprising, then, that even after the summit fiasco, the Republican-dominated House and Senate have so far distanced themselves from anything close to calls for Trump’s removal.

This congressional inaction is what one would expect, of course, in a country further removed from apolitical unity than ever, perhaps.

For Trump’s hegemonic base, unwavering in its loyalty to figure above ideology or even state, Trump’s blundering betrayal is nothing more than the next hill on which to die in the culture wars, and any serious critics in Washington will be met with fire and fury accordingly.

Continue reading on page 5.

Thursday, August 2nd, 2018 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Defaulting on leadership by Ethan Kessler continued below:

By polarizing the debate over Trump’s most blatant disregard for national concern yet, his coterie of supporters has ensured any full-throated defense of American sovereig nt y will be met with substantial outcry, thereby redirecting GOP politicians toward the path of least of resistance.

As they have repeatedly made clear, Republican lawmakers have heard the message and will not hold Trump accountable if it means upsetting constituents — even if impeachment (or at least moving toward it) will mitigate future damage to American international standing.

In light of unending cong ressional deference to Trump’s ig nobilit y, there seems to be little hope for recourse, a prospect even more disconcerting given the momentum of Russia’s continuing campaig ns against American domestic securit y and overseas interests. Just as it is futile to hope that Trump will change his predispositions, it is naïve to call upon Republican members of Cong ress to sacrif ice their own electoral securit y for some higher cause (perhaps a justif ication in and of itself for doing away with the two-part y system and its many maladies).

Republican lawmakers’ predictable and demonstrated preference for political expediency speaks to an era where reminiscing on the days of “bipartisanship” is hokey at best, and deceptive

at worst, demanding a Cong ress capable of pushback.

As Trump’s rhetoric has moved beyond bombastic to outright terrif ying, he has proved himself beyond deserving of impeachment and possible removal from off ice. Deliberation on the true nature of his historic missteps will not become a realit y as long as those lawmakers poised to forgo the nonpartisan duties of the legislature remain in power.

Accommodation of Trump and his everf lirtatious dance with outright treason can therefore come to a close only under a Cong ress headed by the Democrats, necessitating widespread electoral support for blue House and Senate candidates come this fall.

To be clear, this is not a partisan call for a Democratic takeover of Cong ress predicated on liberal policy toward health care, abortion access, g un control or any other hot-button political issue – it is a straightforward demand for Cong ress to put its allegiance to America f irst, and act deliberately when the man elected to the nation’s highest off ice so clearly fails to do so.

No longer answering to Trump’s steadfast base, maybe a new majorit y of Democratic legislators can, as Mason envisioned, contain our unf it magistrate.

Ethan Kessler can be reached at ethankes@umich.edu.

CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to emmacha@umich.edu

OPINION 5

JULIA MONTAG| COLUMN

A

What we’re doing and where we’re going

s covered in Part 1 of this three-part series, a look at nat ionwide opioid overdose

data led me to question the presence of an epidemic here at the University of Michigan, and, upon investigating, I was confounded by shockingly low numbers. The 2016 University of Michigan National College Health Assessment shows 98.5 percent of respondents answering “never” when asked about the frequency of their opiate use. Michigan is not the only campus that the opioid epidemic has skipped, Grace Bird says for InsiderEd. University of Wisconsin-Madison recently instituted an agreement with pharmacy chain Walgreens to allow students to buy overdose-countering Narcan, even though opioid misuse at the school is “exceptionally rare,” Bird writes. Like the University of Michigan, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville has a police department that stocks Narcan; U-M officers have only needed to administer it twice, which is two more times than needed in Knoxville.

“I would agree with the general observation, one supported by the NCHA data, that the campus community has largely been spared by the dramatic rise in opioid use compared to the general population,” Robert Ernst, medical director of U-M University Health Service, says. But if the entire country is being hit with the serious crisis that is addiction to prescription pain relievers, what’s keeping the numbers so low on many campuses?

Colleges have avoided the rise in drug use, Bird claims, because the epidemic “discriminate[s] in terms of education, as it disproportionately affects poorer, more rural and lesseducated communities.” She explains the research that connects individuals with lower educational attainment to scarce, dangerous job opportunities — opportunities that increase the risk of workplace injuries and make use of an opioid painkiller likely.

Now, I am no doctor, but my extensive digging within the drug discussion showed me one important factor that college campuses have in common: Schools across the country are continuously pumping out novel, influential studies that work to combat the crisis. An immense amount of research takes place at these educational hubs, including Ohio State University, University of Miami, University of Maryland — the list goes on — and I’d go as far as to say that this research is what’s suppressing addiction within this subpopula-

tion. Universities are assembling vast resources to prevent and intervene upon addiction, as well as promote treatment and recovery. Perhaps sheer proximity to this information is what’s subduing addiction at the student level.

To corroborate this theory, I took a look into Michigan Medicine through a specific and inquisitive lens: What exactly is it about our university that keeps us from misusing? I found that the University of Michigan has assembled some brilliant minds, and they’re at the forefront of the crisis with power, intelligence and innovation. Schools around the country are citing the University’s groundbreaking studies to create the foundations of their programs. We have the safety nets and safety blankets of Wolverine Wellness and the CRP, just as we have the recovery-safe housing and medication disposal programs; we also have some of the country’s leading experts on drug misuse, and they’re working to revolutionize the way that the entire country tackles the crisis.

Among those professionals is Sean Esteban McCabe, an “internationally recognized scholar” and former director of the University of Michigan Substance Abuse Research Center. McCabe is rolling out studies that focus on the trends of prescription opioid use among U.S. adolescents and college students by analyzing motives, methods of administration and symptoms of disorder. In his study that attempted to clarify when and why people begin to misuse drugs, McCabe found that “most adolescents become fully responsible for their own medication management for the first time in their lives during college and are presented with more opportunities for — and a higher expectation of — substance use.” It’s possible that his work has so powerfully aided in our understanding of why this crisis began that it sparked other campus programs and projects that mitigate concerns and take control of addiction.

Exhibit A: the Opioid Overdose Summit in 2015, hosted by the U-M Injury Prevention Center, which assembled folks around the community and started important conversations surrounding the growing epidemic. The University also participated in the 2018 Opioid Abuse & Heroin Overdose Solutions Summit, where various doctors and residents presented on their specialties within the field. We have invaluable tools manufactured by our medical professionals and students, including the Michigan-made Opioid Prescribing Recommendations for Surgery. The

website, of use to all patients in any hospital, provides new, lower recommended dosages of different painkillers for different surgeries and procedures. “(W)hen patients are prescribed fewer pills, they consume fewer pills with no changes in pain or satisfaction scores,” the site reads.

The suggestions were developed by Michigan OPEN, or the Opioid Prescribing Engagement Network, which was established in 2016 with support from the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation at the University of Michigan. Using patient-reported data, researchers found that previous recommended dosages swamp patients by meeting and oftentimes exceeding self-reported use, as discussed on the website.

Ernst explained to me yet another feature of our health system that fortifies proper prescribing efforts: changes implemented to the prescribing functionality of the common electronic health record system shared between UHS and the academic medical center. The advantages of those changes, rolled out just over the past few months, include a “single-click sign-on to the Michigan Automated Prescription System which provides for review by the prescriber a detailed report of all previously filled controlled substance prescriptions by that patient,” Ernst explained. “… No prescriptions for controlled substances, new or renewal, can be completed now without the provider first attesting to the fact that the MAPS report has been reviewed.” In addition to this detailed list, information packets that outline risks of overdose and dependence are now automatically provided for patients filling new prescriptions. Additionally, “for acute pain, the duration of prescribed opioids is limited to a maximum of seven days in order to prevent the occurrence of leaving unused pills,” Ernst said. Together, these novel features are paving the way for other medical centers to counter the norm and make new rules.

So what is it that keeps campuses from misusing? I believe it’s the McCabes, the Injury Prevention Centers, the thought-provoking summits and recommendations, and the consequential organizations that marshal vast troops of affiliates to exchange ideas and confront community issues head-on. I believe we fortunately live in a community where these influ-

ences are within reach.

Julia Montag can be reached at jtmon@umich.edu

6 ARTS

Thursday, August 2, 2018 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

FESTIVAL REVIEW

JOSHUA HANFORD/@HOMIESWITHHANFORD

Mo Pop 2018 benefits from consistent, balanced lineup With just one look at the 2018 lineup for Mo Pop Festival, anyone with a decent grip on modern music knew the event was going to be a hit. Stationed in Detroit’s West RiverFront Park adjacent to the Detroit River, with Detroit’s eclectic skyline as a backdrop and equally eclectic acts like Bon Iver, The National, BROCKHAMPTON, Billie Eilish, Rex Orange County, Homeshake and Clairo, all the Mo Pop administration had to do to satisfy ticket-holders was not make a Fyre Festival. And they did exactly that.

The festival was organized to maximize the music on display: Two stages, 200 yards apart, an overlap-free (a.k.a. anxiety- and regret-free) performance schedule and minimal other attractions save a neat arcade courtesy of Punch Bowl Social. There wasn’t much going on, but not much has to go on when you’re hopping back-andforth from Clairo to Rex Orange County to Homeshake to Billie Eilish to Alvvays — does a more solid quintuple threat exist?

The minimalist nature of the festival also made it easy on social groups; with just two stages and a one-act-at-a-time platform, the dreaded group-schisms that tend to plague big events like music festivals were pretty avoidable.

— Mike Watkins, Daily Arts Writer Clairo The queen of bedroom pop had an extremely impressive and dynamic backing band, something unexpected from an artist who first

turned heads with her minimalism.

The drums knocked, the bass bumped, and the guitar cooed, making for a steadily enjoyable set and a great start to my Saturday at Mo Pop. — Mike Watkins Rex Orange County Charming British, boyish singer/ songwriter or just a bad Frank Ocean?

— Mike Watkins When I first saw Alexander O’Connor, from a distance, I thought he kind of looked like Bo Burnham. He wore a colorful, striped tee shirt that set him apart from the rest of his band, and he had an self-assured way of singing that at times made it feel more like he was reciting poetry. His deliveries of “Best Friend” and “Untitled” were surprisingly touching, but the most tender moment came during “Loving Is Easy,” when everyone in the crowd joined together to sing along. As one of the earlier acts on Saturday, Rex Orange County was instrumental (get it?) in setting the tone for the rest of the festival.

While later acts might have been more explosively memorable, Rex Orange County brought a shrewd sentimentality onstage that added color to Mo Pop as a whole.

— Laura Dzubay, Daily Arts Writer Billie Eilish My friend told me Billie was 16 and I collapsed in a fit of selfloathing and jealousy. This young woman controlled her crowd like a seasoned pop star and is primed for a boundless music career (see:

Lorde).

— Mike Watkins Alvvays If Mo Pop was a dream, Alvvays was the moment when you’re falling asleep and you let go of everything that kept you tired. The indie set was a excellent precursor to Vince Staples and Bon Iver, and a perfect experience of synth pop in general.

Molly Rankin led the audience on a carousel ride through songs like “Dreams Tonite” and “Archie, Marry Me,” hitting every note with exuberance and spirit.

— Laura Dzubay Vince Staples Probably the most fun experience of Saturday was being in the crowd for Vince Staples late in the evening, jumping and shouting along to songs like “Norf Norf,” “Big Fish” and “Get the Fuck Off My Dick.”

Staples himself was charming.

His was the last act before the headliner, Bon Iver, which seemed like an appropriate way to round off the night. Staples was energetic and exciting, a bang on which things easily could have ended, and Bon Iver was able to seal the deal under the stars afterward.

— Laura Dzubay Bon Iver The money set; the big kahuna; the primary reason Mo Pop was such a draw this summer: Bon Iver. Indie’s king, Justin Vernon, and his band graced Detroit for the first time ever to deliver the most unbelievable live performance I have ever seen.

The stage was filled to the brim with music equipment.

Ten feet from the stage, I stood in anticipation wondering what Vernon and his men planned to do to me with these sonic tools.

I predicted where Vernon would stand and planted myself between two 12-foot men for the perfect view. When the band assumed their positions on stage, the crowd fell under Vernon’s electro-folk spell for an hour and a half. The ear-tickling falsettos of For Emma, Forever Ago and Bon Iver, Bon Iver and the digital mush of 22, A Million merged seamlessly under Vernon’s raw and passionate stage presence; his modified melodies, lively shouts and charged audio pulsated through the crowd to create an experience impossible to achieve anywhere but a live setting.

For the last song of the set, “The Wolves,” Vernon enlisted the crowd to loop the phrase, “What might have been lost,” as the band grew their sound to a chaotic crescendo.

As the performance peaked, the crowd screamed ferociously in an exhilarating atmosphere of pure emotion that seemed to bridge the gap between the performers and the audience for a brief moment.

The song ended; Bon Iver thanked the crowd and exited the stage; I was satisfied.

Then, in front of the dark stage, the crowd began to stir; the same phrase, “What might have been lost,” grew from a timid experiment to a roaring beckon in which you couldn’t help but participate. We were calling on Bon Iver, but with a more personal touch that reflected the band’s ability to impress and move its fans. Eventually, dark shadows hopped across the unlit stage, and the band returned for an encore. Bon Iver gave us a fitting and introspective reminder of our own mortality with a performance of “22 (OVER SOON)” and left for good.

— Mike Watkins Early on in Bon Iver’s set, I lingered toward the middle of the enormous crowd, trying to figure out what I was supposed to be feeling. Periodically I’d close my eyes and tune into the live renditions from 22, A Million swelling from the stage speakers — but I was also acutely aware of a group of people standing nearby, who kept breaking the rapt silence of the audience with loud shouting and peals of drunken laughter. Live music tends to be a bit of a mixed bag in this way, but as the set went on, we wriggled forward in the crowd, gaining both distance from the noise and a slightly better view of the stage.

The immersion, for me, happened

gradually, but it also happened naturally, because Bon Iver’s music is nothing if not immersive. Almost everyone in the crowd closed their eyes and swayed to the music, standing near friends and the ones they loved while a bright full moon perched high above the Detroit River and the lights of Windsor.

It’s hard to say what was more transfixing — the sounds of Bon Iver, or the sight of the moon’s reflection spreading over the river — but then again, this didn’t feel like an either/ or situation. Everything that was mesmerizing, was mesmerizing at once.

Anyone who came looking to hear strictly softcore acoustic tracks like “Skinny Love” and “Re: Stacks” might have been disappointed or at least surprised by their setlist on Saturday, which covered a wide variety of material spanning across all of their eclectic releases from the last ten years. But it ended up being an ideal ending to the day as the atmospheric synths and hypnotic, high-pitched vocals filled West Riverfront Park, sending us off for the first good night of the weekend.

— Laura Dzubay St. Vincent A neon goddess. Annie Clark wore a tight orange dress and heels that looked like they’d been flown in from outer space (or some ‘70s or ‘80s vision of it, anyway) and she switched to a new bright color of electric guitar every couple of songs.

She shared the space of the stage equally with guitarist Toko Yasuda, keyboardist Daniel Mintseris and drummer Matt Johnson, the latter two of whom moved only minimally and robotically, and wore bizarre masks that obscured their faces.

On the screen behind her, music videos displayed Clark in a variety of situations that felt bizarre and sometimes body-horror-esque: stepping through hoops and climbing ladders in increasingly sped-up and boomeranged footage, speaking into a telephone while bright blue vomit dripped from her lips.

Every movement was coordinated and confident, every song captivating.

St. Vincent’s closing performance of “Happy Birthday, Johnny” was unquestionably the most heartfelt and personal moment of Mo Pop, and a clear reminder to the audience that while we had all come here to share this moment with each other, the artists were sharing it with us, too.

— Laura Dzubay

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Thursday, August 2, 2018 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

MUSIC REVIEW

LOMA VISTA RECORDINGS

‘TA13OO’ is a formal invite to Denzel Curry’s haunting ROBERT MANSUETTI Summer Senior Arts Editor

Rap’s current state of affairs is puzzling, to say the least.

Juggernauts like the Migos, Drake and J. Cole have put out some of the most stagnant music of their careers and have plateaued artistically.

Pusha T appears to be the last of rap’s old guard who can drop a quality album. Female rappers like Cardi B and CupcakKe are blazing a much-needed trail critically and commercially. We finally got the Kid Cudi/Kanye West collab which would’ve blown our minds eight years ago, only released to much less fanfare; Cudi shines having confronted his struggles and addictions, while Kanye, to put it lightly, is taking crazy pills. Another burgeoning, mumbling, problematic superstar in XXXTentacion was murdered in broad daylight, but the public can’t immediately decide if that was a good or a bad thing.

While all this is going on, while Chief Keef is hunting 6ix9ine down on a cross-country beef, while rappers like Lil Pump and Trippie Redd are becoming the new norm, Denzel Curry sat perched, watching over this baffling bizarro world like a stone gargoyle. And with his latest full length TA13OO, he swooped in, with ghoulish demeanor and the precision of a silver stake piercing Dracula’s heart.

Critics are often quick to lump Denzel Curry into the ambiguous realm of SoundCloud rap. Although Curry is of the same DNA as

fellow South Florida denizens like Smokepurpp and Ski Mask the Slump God, if anything, he’s the genre’s Grim Reaper. Here to take names and collect souls, Curry has made a name for himself for being as sharp as a swinging scythe and hard as steel. Even if you’ve never heard of him, there’s a chance you’ve heard of his insanely high energy “Ultimate” (most likely as the viral soundtrack to a handful of Vines in the platform’s last days).

On the mic, Denzel raps like a man possessed, with many a heartpounding beat to back him up. His 2016 release Imperial managed to sustain the same verve of “Ultimate” for 40 minutes, so when

TA13OO Denzel Curry Loma Vista Recordings he announced TA13OO last year (backed up by 13, a five-track EP of demos), his fanbase was rightly scared. The proper genre to describe Curry’s output is “music that makes you want to commit large-scale arson and/or tax fraud.” Another hour of hard-hitting insanity would be sure to start a real-life version of “The Purge.”

Yet while most of his previous work was turbulent, pedal-to-themetal momentum, TA13OO is smart to control its acceleration, starting at zero and gradually building up speed to get to 100. Split up into three “acts” of four to five songs each — Light, Gray and Dark — there

is a flow of tone that revitalizes and re-energizes Denzel and keeps the album consistently sounding fresh.

Even straight-up bangers can get repetitive sometimes.

Opening track “TABOO” is an oddly ethereal way to rope the listener in; Denzel is uncharacteristically soulful, singing his way through emotional damage and trauma and functioning as a spirit guide who’s warning us of the path ahead. “BLACK BALLOONS” and “CASH MANIAC” are refreshing quasi-summer grooves, smooth as the GoldLink feature on the former but peppered with talk of suicide and drowning in excess. But just when you thought Denzel was going soft on you, he ends Act One with “SUMO,” and the real madness of TA13OO begins.

“SUMO,” alongside Act Three cut “PERCS,” follow the same formula that Zeltron perfected on “Ultimate” — ten or so seconds of a neutered version of the main beat that puts you into the same scramble that sirens forewarning the coming of a natural disaster would, then a perfect storm of trenchant bars and unstoppable flow. The rest of the album sustains this brand of aggression, but Denzel Curry finds new ways to innovate and harness his raw power.

“SUPER SAIYAN SUPERMAN” is a detached two-minute sprint; imagine Denzel’s eyes rolling into the back of his head “Exorcist”style when he was recording that in the booth. “SIRENS” and “VENGEANCE” excellently incorporate the style of its guest

rappers in J.I.D and JPEGMAFIA, respectively. Curry showcases his technically ability and impressively varies his cadence and delivery on the aptly-named “SWITCH IT UP.” TA13OO never strays far from its carnival horror ride concept, which manages to ground its seemingly unrestrained zeal.

Without proper explanation, the tracks are stylized in all caps then followed by a numerical spelling (“THE BLACKEST BALLOON” becomes “THE 13LACKEZT 13ALLOON,” for example). There is also an unholy reverence to the number 13, which Curry previously described as “something to be afraid of worldwide, the part of an unfortunate distorted life.”

This twisted triskaidekaphobia, along with the embracing of the melancholy, paranoia and dark subject matter that frame the album, seems to be an unorthodox way of confronting fear. Denzel’s method of diminishing terror is allowing himself to mosh alongside it.

The scary themes like hatred, revenge and near-death experiences that haunt TA13OO’s halls only grow more frightening as the album approaches its fiery conclusion.

The end of “VENGEANCE” followed by first few seconds of “BLACK METAL TERRORIST” are a beautiful little breather from

ARTS 7

the nonstop vehemence, but if someone like Denzel gives you a breather, you best know you’re in for something potent. “BLACK METAL TERRORIST” is the result of a fusion dance between “Ultimate” and “SUMO” and quite frankly the hardest fucking song you’ll hear all year. “I am the mark of the beast,” screams Curry, who moves “tortuously, killin’ [his] infidels effortlessly.”

While he certainly goes for the throat of his contemporaries on songs like “BLACK METAL TERRORIST,” Denzel has a concerned message for his troubled contemporaries on Act Two closer “CLOUT COBAIN.” Its accompanying video plays out like the nightmare you would have after watching “It” with the sound off and “Gucci Gang” on repeat in the background. From the title and simple lyrics, one would think this is yet another entry in the catalog of rap songs glamorizing the Nirvana frontman’s suicide for a shitty metaphor. However, Curry’s intent is subversive; the refrain “I just wanna feel myself, you want me to kill myself” and the visuals are both a criticism of the new class of rappers and a call to action.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

8 NEWS

Thursday, August 2, 2018 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Classifieds RELEASE DATE– Thursday, August 2, 2018

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Call: #734-418-4115 Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com

DOWN 1 “I’m sorry, Dave.

I’m afraid I can’t do that” speaker 2 Big heart?

3 Military wheels

4 Watch-whenyou-want gadget 5 Went too far with 6 Taxpayer’s chore 7 “That’s my cue!”

8 Gave a buzz 9 Office VIP 10 “The Voyeur’s Motel” writer Gay 11 Evoke 12 Some small trucks 13 Secret store 18 Not fer 21 Walk in the woods 22 iPhone downloads 23 Agitate 27 Soul supplier 28 Pampers maker, for short 29 World Cup cheer 30 EMT’s skill 34 MSNBC journalist Melber 35 Compost holder 36 Clerical vestment 37 Had no co-pilot 38 Joyce’s land 39 Old place?

40 Not for 41 One changing a bill

42 Move again, as lumber 43 Linguist’s concerns 44 Dissenting ballot 45 Presidential speechwriter Peggy 46 “Mila 18” novelist 47 Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” was one

51 Odor detector 52 Students’ stats 53 Blacksmith, miner, marathoner or barber, in this puzzle 54 “Beloved” author Morrison 57 Squeal 58 Part of the fam

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

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08/02/18

By ALICE TRACEY Summer Daily News Editor

HELP WANTED

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Lacks options 6 Passion 10 Asian holidays 14 When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are last seen in “Hamlet” 15 Super-large film format 16 Tons 17 Give some space 19 Filmmaker Wertmüller 20 The blacksmith was busted for __ 22 Chow line?

24 Clamor 25 Pistons great Thomas 26 The miner was busted for __ 31 Pattern for some school uniforms 32 French peak 33 Toxin fighters 34 Dogpatch name 36 Some 40 Desertlike 41 Jane Curtin title role 42 The marathoner was busted for __ 47 Confuse with booze 48 Vein find 49 Word with bar or suit 50 The barber was busted for __ 55 “I hate the Moor” speaker 56 Creates opportunities 59 Piano piece for four hands 60 “Love Song” singer Bareilles 61 China’s Zhou __ 62 Alternatively 63 Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl airer 64 Real cards

City Council talks design

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Ann Arbor City Council unanimously passed a resolution Monday, June 16, calling for an evaluation of the city’s design review process for downtown developments. The resolution instructs the Planning Commission to appraise Ann Arbor’s protocol, comparing it to that of other cities, and to outline a plan for improving the review process before Oct. 15, 2018.

Drafted by Councilmember Kirk Westphal, D-Ward 2, the resolution is backed by Mayor Christopher Taylor and Councilmembers Chuck Warpehoski, D-Ward 5, Graydon Krapohl, D-Ward 4, and Julie Grand, D-Ward 3. Downtown development has been at the forefront of many recent City Council discussions, as in the Library Lot controversy, and has also inspired new legislation.

Currently, new downtown developments go through the Design Review Board, a sevenperson commission established in 2011 that comments on the compliance of new proposals with Ann Arbor’s Downtown Design Guidelines. The Design Review Board’s recommendations are not legally binding.

Westphal said he thought it necessary to evaluate the Design Review Board because so many City Councilmembers receive comments from residents about new developments. He said City Council unanimously recognizes Ann Arbor’s review process is not fully serving the community, but clarified the resolution is not a criticism of the Design Review Board.

“I think if there’s one thing that every single Councilmember agrees with it is that we’ve heard different kinds of feedback about downtown buildings,” Westphal said. “This, I think, will always be an evolving process; I think it’s an evolving process for every growing city.”

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Thursday August 2, 2018 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

On why I write

By KHANG HUYNH MiC COLUMNIST

So, I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately… Whenever my life gets real messy or whatever, I turn to writing to kind of just detach from everything that’s happening all around me. It’s like this super cathartic practice I’ve taken up over the years to decompress and flush a bunch of things from my head all at once. I’m never as well-spoken as I’d like to be in person. Like … okay, honestly? I’m literally the furthest possible thing from well-spoken, but it’s for this exact reason that I’ve come to write as much as I do. Outside the realm of academics, my writing doesn’t have to follow any specific form or tone. I can be as formal or as casual as I’d like to be, as flowery or as vulgar as is needed of me. I really end up just writing about anything, honestly.

The other day I was on the phone with my mom and I asked her about the meaning of my name: ~ Vinh Khang Huynh. ` ~ Vinh means “eternal” or “infinite,” while Khang means “health” and “prosperity.” Huynh just ` represents a family name distantly linked to royalty.

I wrote about my own name for damn near an hour before I remembered that I had a life outside of writing I had to care for. I just really liked thinking about the concept of some infinitely bountiful sense of well-being marked by the subtleties of royalty being carried on through my own name. Writing plummets me down deeper and deeper into this rabbit hole of self-reflection. I’ve come to learn that asking myself why I am the way that I am and why I do the things that I do is the most surefire means toward both understanding myself and learning to do the same for others. The

two questions that’ve had me parading about in my feels the most have been: “Why do I choose to write so much?” and “What exactly do I gain from of all of it?”

So, throwback to my first day of sophomore year of high school. I find the classroom where my first-period English class is being taught and go to grab a seat toward the back, next to the wall.

Eventually, a woman walks in, introduces herself as Ms. Brush and welcomes us all to her English class.

I guess she really wasn’t trying to shoot the shit that morning, given that she just skipped right past the whole icebreaker and syllabus-recitation tradition and had us all pull out pieces of paper.

Our assignment for that first morning of class was to write a letter addressed to anyone, living or dead, about any possible topic under the sun. I wrote my letter to a friend of mine, knowing full well that he would never read it since I obviously had to turn it in at the end of class. I gave myself the freedom to write about every little thing on my mind, so much so that I forgot that it was an actual assignment.

The next day in class, Brush sat at the front of the room and called our names out one by one as she handed back our letters. I don’t remember exactly what she told me, but I remember that she complimented me both on how my voice shined through the letter as well as my choice in expletives.

I walked up to the room to grab my letter, flustered and embarrassed as all hell. I was never the type of student to be noticed for anything in class, so it felt strange to be recognized for something like my voice by someone I had just met the day before.

As the term rolled on, we would be asked to submit

these mini-reports on the stuff we were supposed to be reading for class. To be honest, I never actually … well … read the books or anything. I just went on to SparkNotes and halfassed the assignment. In addition to these reports, we were also given the option to include a feedback portion at the end where we could write about our own thoughts and opinions on the book.

The scammer residing inside my very soul obviously took the easy way out by forming the bulk of those book reports around what I thought of the books themselves since I obviously wasn’t going to provide any sort of detailed literary analysis or anything. To my surprise, Brush would leave a lot of her own feedback on the backs of my essays in addition to detailed critiques on my grammar and sentence structure. She offered me a lot of encouragement in these critiques too. She always told me to keep writing because there was something different and unique about my voice.

I would later find out from friends that she was wondering what she could do to break me out of my shell and make me feel more comfortable with speaking out more, either in class or to her directly.

See, the thing you really gotta know about Brush is that she understood people, often times without them even having to say a word. On top of all of that, she was explosive. Like an entire canister of Fourth of July fireworks going off all at once. She cursed like a sailor, but always made sure to blow her F-bombs away from the presence of administration...

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michigandaily.com

MICHIGAN IN COLOR 9

Playing more than a “Black Woman”

By EFE OSAGIE

PLAYBILL

MiC EDITOR

This is probably my third article on the lack of representation and positive representation of Black people in the world, but that just shows how much farther we have to go in our society to reach equal Black representation.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to see the musical “Waitress”- it was my first time seeing a Broadway show in Chicago as all the ones I’d seen previously were in New York. I love theater and Broadway and was super excited to see my first show in Chicago.

I went into the show blind, having no idea what the musical was going to be about, but I still loved it. The music, written by popular artist Sara Bareilles, was beautiful yet poppy and catchy. I enjoyed the modern-day storyline and the cute way the story was able to intertwine the motif of pies and baking throughout the show. But I’m not writing to comment on whether I liked the musical or not, because overall it was a great musical.

As I watched the show, though I enjoyed it, something was still bothering me at the back of my mind, about race.

It wasn’t that the entire audience watching the show was white. That was to be expected, and as a person being used to constantly being surrounded by only white people, it didn’t make me feel uncomfortable.

It wasn’t the fact that the main characters and

love interests were white, because that was also to be expected too.

It was the roles the Black women were playing.

Foremost, they were all supporting characters, but what upset me the most was that they were all just stereotypes. The main character was a 30-something-year-old white woman named Jenna. Her best friend, Becky, was a large sassy Black woman who was always back talking and making sassy remarks to the amusement of the audience. The problem with this? She was just a caricature. The character she played was completely based off of all the stereotypes Black women try so hard to get away from. That we’re sassy, loud, rude and are always there with a comeback.

Because shockingly enough, not all Black women are like that!!

The only other prominent Black character in the show was the nurse who more or less fell into that same stereotype as sassy, always saying something smart and just a comic relief. Don’t get me wrong, the two women who played the parts were both great actresses and amazing singers as well as allaround performers. But it was still disheartening to me to watch the show and know that as a Black woman trying to pursue theater, I would be limited to roles like these. That when I watch musicals, there are so many roles and characters I’d love to

play but I’d never be able to because I’m not white. And I’m not talking about shows where the character has to be cast as someone who is white in order for the story to make sense contextually or historically. I mean roles where the character could probably be played by any race but I’d still never be given a chance to play it because I’m not white.

So I’ll only be pushed to roles in which I’ll have to embody stereotypes that I’m otherwise working so hard to show the world that I, as well as other Black women, am more than. When I was younger I never consciously noticed things like this, as only seeing white representation was something that I was used to.

There are musicals in which the majority of the cast are Black people and people of color, like “The Color Purple” and “Dreamgirls”, and it’s amazing to have those shows that feature so many Black artists and celebrate Black culture so beautifully. But I don’t want to have to have the mindset that if I want a lead in a show, I’ll have to be cast in one of those shows. I want to be able to play Jenna in “Waitress”, Heather Chandler in “Heathers”, Sophie in “Mamma Mia”, Rose in “Dogfight.” I don’t want to have to limit my dreams because of the color of my skin. I want to be appreciated as an actress because of my ability to play a character, not just fulfill a stereotype.

10 SPORTS

Thursday, August 2nd, 2018 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

ALEC COHEN / DAILY

The International Champions Cup is the flagship program of Michigan alum Daniel Sillman’s company Relevent Sports

Sillman seeks to popularize soccer in US JACOB KOPNICK

Summer Managing Sports Editor

For many Americans, soccer is an ultimately illusive idea, a foreign phenomenon that the whole world has seemingly bought into and that has left America unaltered.

Citizens across the country watch the unmatched excitement surrounding events such as the World Cup or Champions League Final year after year with indifference.

They see mega-stars such as Christian Ronaldo and Lionel Messi — two of the most popular human beings on planet Earth — and shrug off their fame. Enjoying soccer in America has been a niche pastime that has never been taken seriously.

But for some reason, that’s all begun to change.

For the first time in modern American history, soccer has gained real, tangible momentum in terms of its expansion into America’s golden sports market. All of a sudden, stadiums from Atlanta to Seattle are selling out Major League Soccer (MLS) games and the casual American sports fan is giving soccer a shot.

And helping lead the charge of spreading the world’s most popular sport into America

is Michigan alum Daniel Sillman.

Sillman, only 29, is currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer of Relevent Sports — a division of the live entertainment investment firm RSE Ventures that focuses on expanding soccer’s inf luence into the US and other untapped markets. Most notably, Relevent Sports hosts the International Champions Cup (ICC) every summer. The ICC serves as the f lagship program for Relevent, seeking to entice American fans with the spectacle of European soccer and its stars.

“We’re seizing the opportunity in the marketplace,” Sillman said, “We see soccer as the biggest sport in the world and growing like crazy in America and Asia, and we feel that we’re best positioned to take advantage of the growth of the sport.”

While currently embracing the growth of the sport, Sillman’s journey did not begin in soccer. It didn’t even truly begin in sports.

At Michigan, Sillman studied finance at the Ross School of Business where he honed his analytic mind and eventually started his own business — Compass Management Group. Compass was a multi-family office for

athletes and entertainers whose services ranged from accounting to estate and insurance planning.

Sillman’s staked interest in establishing Compass began through his relationship with former Wolverine football player and current Philadelphia Eagle Brandon Graham. Sillman began the business to help Graham out financially and use his newfound finance knowledge and increase his stock as an executive.

Before he knew it, Sillman’s company had taken off and was soon acquired by multi-family and business management firm FFO. As for Sillman, the Michigan grad served as an advisor for FFO while transitioning to his new position of Director of Business Development at RSE Ventures.

Throughout his short, yet storied career, Sillman has primarily operated in financial management, but he has found himself more and more entrenched in the realm of sports due to the clientele of his businesses.

While sports and athlete management have seemingly been the thread tying Sillman’s career together, another factor has blatantly helped the young executive achieve his success

— the Michigan alumni network. After all, Sillman’s career did truly kick off due in part to his relationship with Graham.

Now, Sillman finds himself working for another Michigan man — legendary real estate developer and namesake of the business school Stephen Ross.

Ross owns RSE Ventures and continues to make deep investments into Sillman’s family of companies and is one of the early backers of soccer’s expansion into the states.

“The relationships I built at Ross School of Business are those that have really helped me my entire career,” Sillman said. “Ultimately, now I work for Steve Ross, so the alumni of the university have been relationships that I’ve been able to build through my experience at Ross and ultimately led to my career opportunities beyond selling my own business, but going to work at RSE Ventures, and now as the CEO of Relevent, working with so many Michigan alums has been a huge piece of my life.”

Now, Sillman is looking to use those connections and spin a miracle in soccer and other live entertainment opportunities in the states.

Beyond the men’s ICC, which most recently brought Manchester United and Liverpool to Michigan Stadium in front of a 100,000-plus person crowd, Sillman and co. have recently expanded into a women’s ICC, an ICC Future’s event at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Fla. and an entertainment property called House of Soccer meant to inspire youth excitement around the sport.

While Sillman recognizes that these programs are undoubtedly a long-term investment into America’s future sporting landscape, he and his company are already seeing promising returns. By Sillman’s reports, Relevent affiliated sporting events garnered 140 million views last year and are on pace to reach as many as 160 million this year. Over a million people have attended their events in the past and with North America set to host the World Cup in 2026, Sillman firmly believes the sport is here to stay.

“To say, ‘Will it work?’ you gotta open your eyes because you have MLS which has been extremely successful,” Sillman said. “If you go study the media rights landscaping in North America, the English Premier League sold their media rights for $180 million to NBC which is double their last right’s sale.”

With a budding MLS and international stars coming to play stateside, it’s clear that America has the sporting infrastructure needed to support the world’s most popular sport. Now the question is whether Americans are ready to make the switch.

So how exactly do you make the pitch to the general public that soccer is worth the time?

Sillman says there exists a simple answer — storytelling.

“We do a lot to work with the clubs to tell the amazing stories behind the history of their formation and the success that they’ve had,” Sillman said. “We try to tell the stories of the mythical-like players and their stories and where they come from and how they’ve achieved success, and it’s our job to provide amazing entertainment experiences which is why we’ve developed House of Soccer which is very similar to NBA House of Hoops or NFL Experience at the Super Bowl, and we’ve expanded our investment off the pitch into entertainment properties that have really engaged the communities that we’re bringing to games so that people can participate with soccer.”

In the end, soccer still has a long way to go in dethroning the power four of football, basketball, baseball and hockey in America, but Sillman and Relevent seem to be taking all the right steps. They’re capitalizing off big spectacle events such as the World Cup, starting grass roots initiatives with kids camps and programs and are even organizing celebrity soccer games with such superstars as Drake and Draymond Green.

If currents trends hold and Sillman and Relevent, the silent workhorses of American soccer, continue their steadfast investment in the sport, it’s hard to imagine anything standing in their way.

Thursday, August 2nd, 2018 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

ALEC COHEN / DAILY

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho weights in on the state of soccer in US

State of soccer in USA FAHD ASDAN

Former Daily Sports Writer

Waking up at 8.a.m on a weekend isn’t what most would consider normal. But that is the life of a soccer fan in the United States: watching the first half of a Premier League game on NBC Sports through groggy eyes before being woken up by a Mohamed Salah curler or Kevin De Bruyne screamer.

The International Champions Cup pays European clubs to play preseason games in America with the ultimate goal of growing the presence and importance of soccer in the United States. It wants to allow these fans to watch their favorite teams and players strut their stuff in person—and at normal hours of the day.

In the last four years, Michigan Stadium has held three such preseason friendlies: Manchester United - Real Madrid, Chelsea Real Madrid, and now Liverpool - Manchester United. Each match gathered crowds north of 100,000, more than what is possible at any European stadium.

These fans came to watch Cristiano Ronaldo, Mohamed Salah, Paul Pogba and Eden Hazard, to name a few. They got mere glimpses of these superstars, sitting on the bench and warming up more than actually playing.

They saw youngsters like Sheyi Ojo take penalties and coaches like Zinedine Zidane make eleven changes at half-time. But that’s pre-season.

“If I were them (the fans) I wouldn’t come,” said Manchester United coach Jose Mourinho. “I wouldn’t spend my money to see

these (weakened) teams.

“For example, I was watching on television, Chelsea against Inter, and the people decided beach was better than this, and they went to the beach instead of going to the game. The stadium was empty.”

Mourinho echoes what many have fans been saying for a while.

Last year, the ICC organized El Clasico in Miami: FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid CF. Tickets soared as high as $4,500. And then, Cristiano Ronaldo didn’t play, and Messi, Suarez and Neymar didn’t even last the full 90 minutes.

Despite being a 3-2 thriller, it wasn’t a real El Clasico.

The venues don’t help the cause either. Despite being held in storied stadiums across America, more often than not, those stadiums weren’t designed for soccer games. Most games are held at NFL or College Football battlegrounds where the field is smaller than a regulation soccer pitch.

“A difficulty with the pitch is that, it is an American football pitch,” said Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp. “So it is not that wide. It’s like you play in a very narrow way that makes football really not easy to play.”

The high price of tickets and the often sold out matches indicate that there are many fans in the United States passionate for soccer and desperate to watch their clubs play. In fact, over the course of the weekend, both United and Liverpool players repeatedly praised the atmosphere at the Big House.

“I think the passion that many Americans have for soccer deserves more,” Mourinho said.

“It deserves the best teams. What creates passion is the quality (of soccer), good players, good teams, a good Liverpool - Manchester United. A good Manchester United - Real Madrid.”

But after a grueling World Cup, it is understandable why most teams aren’t able to play their starting lineups in these games.

After all, they need them to be in perfect condition for the start of the new season.

According to Klopp, playing pre-season friendlies in America is less for growing the sport of soccer in the U.S, and more for giving to the fans that already exist.

“We alone are responsible for our fans and supporters all over the world.” Klopp said. “It (the Liverpool - Manchester United match) is not a commercial for football, it’s rather a show up for our supporters abroad, and that is what we like to do.”

“Its giving back to the fans that are here,” echoed breakout Liverpool left back Andrew Robertson. “Because there are supporters every weekend who get up early because of the time differences, and they get up and watch us. And for us to give them a small thing back, it’s a good thing to do.”

To their credit, Liverpool held an open training session at the Big House the day before the game. This gave the fans a chance to come watch them play and become more familiar with the players they support. Even some Manchester United fans in jerseys were seen at Liverpool training as their club didn’t offer anything similar.

After training, some fans went to the team hotel where they were greeted by players like Salah and were treated to a sing along with Klopp.

“It was amazing to see him in person,” said recent Michigan graduate Jamie Bahoura, one of the supporters at the hotel. “It shows how much he cares about us (the fans). He took time out of his busy schedule, and he was probably exhausted too after traveling, but he still made an effort to come down to see us and then join in on the singing which means a lot.”

Despite being more concerned with seeing existing Liverpool fans, Klopp did share his thoughts on the idea of expanding football in the United States.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

SPORTS 11

Shaqiri stuns in his Liverpool debut at ‘M’ FAHD AHSAN

Former Daily Sports Writer

With eight minutes left in the game and Liverpool already up 3-1, Xherdan Shaqiri set Michigan Stadium alight on his Liverpool debut. With Ben Woodburn’s cross behind him, Shaqiri contorted his body, and in a show of pure athleticism, scored a bicycle kick that left even his fellow players stunned.

Having just sig ned for the club a week ago, no one thought Shaqiri would make such an impact from the get-go. Having been a star at the World Cup for Switzerland, his was a big name entering this game. However, even though his introduction to the game was well received, the man he replaced was Mohamed Salah, and people expected less excitement in the second half.

“It was better than I would have expected to be honest,” said Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp. “That’s not normal after four days in the club, adapting that well to the st yle of play.”

His goal was just another stunner in Shaqiri’s collection of wonder goals. Another bicycle kick against Poland in 2016, a chip against Everton in 2015, and the list goes on really.

“I think I’m used to doing it (scoring wonder goals),” Shaqiri said. “I love bicycle kicks, and the ball was perfect, and why you shouldn’t tr y?

I tried, and it was a ver y beautiful goal.”

Upon entering the f ield at halftime, Shaqiri showed boundless energ y—constantly making runs in behind the back line, holding up play and creating space for his teammates.

One such run saw him get in behind the Manchester United backline and latch onto a longball played into the box. From there he held the ball between three United defenders, freeing up space for

his teammates. He then played the ball to an on-rushing Daniel Sturridge who gave Liverpool the lead with their second goal of the game. “ We wanted to g ive him more freedom offensively,” Klopp said. “(He offers) runs in behind, and that’s what he did for the f irst goal in the second half.”

A goal and an assist on his unoff icial debut against his club’s arch-rivals—not bad for a f irst week with the new club.

Shaqiri has been somewhat of a football journeyman, making a name for himself with FC Basel in the Champions Leag ue before being sig ned by Bayern Munich. After three years playing a bit part role at the Allianz Arena, he was with Inter Milan for part of a season before being shipped to Stoke Cit y in the Premier Leag ue.

Once wanted by top clubs across Europe, occasional but inconsistent brilliance saw his stock drop. However, following another strong World Cup with Switzerland, Liverpool thought f it to buy him at a slashed price due to Stoke’s relegation.

Despite only being with the squad for a handful of days, it appears Shaqiri is working hard to settle in and make the most of his time at Liverpool, wanting to skip his holiday post-World Cup and beg in training with the team immediately, according to Klopp.

“My f irst game for this big club, and with a beautiful goal, it’s more beautiful.” Shaqiri said. “It’s amazing to play with this g reat team, and you can see this team has amazing players.

I’m excited (for the season).”

Because the game was still just a friendly, Shaqiri is yet to make his off icial debut for his new club. But if this is any indication of things to come, the most fearsome attack in Europe last season just got stronger.

His goal was just another stunner in his collection

12 SPORTS

Thursday, August 2nd, 2018 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

ALEC COHEN / DAILY

Liverpool and Manchester United faced off at the Big House in front of 100,000+

Liverpool vs Man Utd TIEN LE

Summer Managing Sports Editor

The name of the game for both teams was pressure.

While there are little stakes in a preseason game — even in a rivalry matchup — the pressure exerted, not by the situation, but by the players on one another made the difference.

Squashing any remote chances created by Manchester United, Liverpool FC swarmed the midfield and controlled the pace of play for the majority of the first half. Any signs of a play created, despite the heroics of Manchester United’s Alexis Sanchez, were crushed by a Liverpool defensive line that would oftentimes double up on the man-toman coverage, making it hard for the forward as well as the midfielders to push.

The heavy press offered success on the offensive end by allowing Liverpool more possession time in the offensive zone. By forcing the turnovers on Manchester United’s side of the field, less was asked of the offensive end of the midfield and allowed the forwards all the room in the world to move — a strategy that allowed Liverpool to dominate the game against Manchester United in a 4-1 win.

The offensive pressure forced the Manchester United defense to respond. But while it did, it came only in high-danger situations. The defensive pressure was finally forced off Manchester United. However, it came off like a procrastinator would, carelessly, lazily and, often times, too late.

The last-minute effort by the

defensive line worked during a few of the early scoring chances, diverting the passing lanes so that the passes were too far forward for Dominic Salanke or Mohammed Salah to garner within the box. Even when garnered, the stuffed box would be too crowded for a clear shot from the Liverpool forwards.

But as Liverpool caught on to the opportunities it was given, it made the most of the space allowed by the Manchester United defense to start a play. The time given was enough for the dynamic duo of Salah and forward Sadio Mane to force chances.

Around the five-minute mark, midfielder Rafa Camacho started the ball out with time to view for the open man. Spotting Mane, the pressure was then transferred toward the young forward, who’s offensive talents can’t be ignored, as the ball was passed to him. Opening the opportunity for Salah, the Egyption forward found himself by the near-post with no one in front of him. Ball at his feet and inches away from the goalline, Salah’s slight backheel tap went astray, and the ball was cleared and out of play.

The pressure from the attack didn’t stop from there. Salah continued his offensive onslaught with a header coming around nine minutes. The attack came amidst a crowd of three Manchester United defenders and seemingly caught the defense off guard, as his header went uncontested and sailed straight toward the top of the goal.

If it weren’t for the heroics of a last second touch by the Manchester United goalkeeper, who extended

himself fully for the save, the score would have better reflected the dominant play by Liverpool to that point.

The breakthrough finally came at the 28th minute, as Liverpool finally found the payoff from its repeated offensive pressure, when Salah and Mane found one another to create a threat Manchester United just couldn’t settle. Forced into a bad position by his late contest, defender Demitri Mitchell gave in and fouled Salah at the baseline within the box — allowing Salah to draw the penalty.

Mane put an end to the open frames of the scoreboard and tacked on a point for Liverpool with a line drive to the left of the goal during the penalty kick.

Despite the wavering methodology that the defense had played with, the offense of Manchester United stayed true to what had created the little chances the team did generate — which were chances through counters.

Earlier in the game, Manchester United had seen its only other scoring opportunity from a counter that had opened the fast break. Even while Sanchez was falling down as he controlled the ball, he managed to lob it to an open man who found the back of the net but was ruled offsides.

Immediately after the score from Liverpool, Manchester United countered with a quick draw from the circle and a pass to midfielder Juan Mata, who redeemed his team’s performance by drawing a free kick just slightly outside of the box and within scoring distance.

With a creative shot toward the top left of the goal, in a curve ball, the score was evened by midfielder Andreas Pereira, and the momentum seemingly turned in favor of Manchester United for the first time.

However, whatever momentum the team had garnered was quickly diminished through, again, the efforts of the Liverpool defense and midfield.

Where Manchester United’s midfield was unorganized and frustrated, Liverpool’s thrived through concise passing that didn’t settle with just winning a possession but turning it into a scoring opportunity.

While the halftime score was even, very few who watched the game could call Manchester United’s efforts on par with Liverpool’s. It was simply a one-sided affair. And the score showed that after the second half.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

MEN’S SOCCER

Soccer team embraces spectacle of Liv - Man U JACOB KOPNICK

Summer Managing Sports Editor

Mohammed Zakyi and Umar Farouk Osman stood at the first row of Michigan Stadium excitedly gazing out at the spectacle before their eyes.

It was the day before legendary English football clubs Liverpool and Manchester United were set to face off at the Big House, and Zayki and Osman came to watch the Meyersides practice.

For the rising sophomores, it represented the ultimate goal: becoming a professional soccer player and achieving international fame. After all, a sizeable crowd had gathered just to watch the global powerhouses practice before a preseason friendly.

For Zayki, Osman and the rest of the Michigan men’s soccer team, this day had long been a big red X on their calendars.

Not only will the experience of watching the best in the world matchup on their home turf instill a deep desire to reach the next level, but it will also serve as a unique learning and bonding opportunity for the team.

“When we heard about this two years ago, because we came here two years ago for our visit and we heard they were coming to play here, I was like, “Bro, that’s gonna be lit,” Zayki said.

“So, we couldn’t wait to see them and hopefully tomorrow we get to see Manchester as well. Everyone’s excited to be here, all the soccer g uys, so it’s gonna be great.”

More than just for the boys on the soccer team, Zayki hopes that having the two powerhouses face off in the United States will expand the inf luence of the world’s most popular sport to the states.

“For me, personally, I want Americans to see how big soccer is because soccer’s not really broadcasted really well here,” Zayki said, “so people coming out to see this game will motivate them to come more to see extra games and stuff, so it will just (make) Americans

more aware of soccer in general.”

Added Michigan coach Chaka Daley: “This is the third time we’ve hosted it at the University of Michigan, so our school certainly understands the importance of the game to the community, to Ann Arbor, to the state of Michigan, so that’s great, from that standpoint, and then our players and our staff understand the significance and the fortunate nature we have in hosting such world powers at our place, and the humility we gotta have by having the best of the best at our facilities, so we’re certainly excited about it and happy they’re here again.”

While Saturday’s spectacle will mostly be fun and games, Daley understands the necessary commitment one needs to make to the sport to find success. Therefore, while he and his staff will be sure to soak up the atmosphere at the clash of the titans, Daley sees this display as a learning opportunity as well.

“We come for the enjoyment, but you certainly take some things in — how the teams play, how they react, how they respond — there will be some high-level stuff in the sense of when coaches make certain changes, timing—they’re still in preseason, so you think about those things as well,” Daley said.

“You can learn one thing and that one thing can be the difference or be unique or interesting for your group that you can put your spin on because your coaching ’s not necessarily… you don’t replicate others, it’s those adjustments that you make.”

In terms of playstyle and what exactly can be gleaned from these two clubs, Daley sees his program as a hybrid between the two, mixing Liverpool’s hard-hitting, fastpaced offense with Manchester United’s stalwart defense.

But in terms of who he wants to win on Saturday, Daley made his motivations clear, responding, “Whoever I meet first.”