2018-11-07

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Wednesday, November 7, 2018

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BUILDING BRIDGES Democratic candidate Gretchen Whitmer elected governor

A

JORDYN BAKER/DAILY STAFF REPORTER s the midterm election with victory speeches. results rolled in late First to be announced were Tuesday night, guests U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint, and filled the Sound Board U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Ann Theater at the MotorCity Casino Arbor. The two took the stage in Hotel in Detroit for the Michigan anticipation of the winners soon to Democratic Party’s election watch be announced. night. As Michigan Democrat “We’re excited because people winners were called, they are not going to worry about addressed an enthusiastic audience protecting the Great Lakes, we’re DESIGN BY CASEY TIN

going to have a Governor that makes sure to protect our water …

We’re going to make sure that we fix the damn roads … and we’re going to work hard to make sure every American has affordable quality healthcare,” Dingell said. “Tonight you can party and tomorrow we roll up our sleeves and work hard to deliver for the people of Michigan

who voted for us.”

Kildee then announced the victory of Haley Stevens in the 11th Congressional District. Following a period while votes were still being counted, Lieutenant Governorelect Garlin Gilchrist was the next Democrat announced as victorious.

He took to the stage and spoke on his excitement for the state of

PRASHANTH PANICKER/DAILY

Gretchen Whitmer 53.0% Elections are nothing more than a snapshot. To help conceptualize today’s results, the Statement charted how Michigan’s political map has changed.

» Page 4B

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Bill Schuette 44.1% the results of the 2018 midterm elections in Michigan help form a wider story of the shifting political sands of the state and the nation. To help conceptualize today’s election results, the Statement Magazine has charted out how Michigan’s political map has shifted in three pivotal elections and how control of local and statewide offices has changed beginning in 2000.

The shifting map

Michigan as well as his gratitude for Michigan voters.

“We stand on this stage upon the shoulders of giants who had a vision that went beyond generations, and it’s our generation’s responsibility to live up to that vision to have our imaginations exceed our expectations,” Gilchrist said. “Tonight is a statement that we can accomplish See WHITMER, Page 2A

*AS OF 3:15 AM

race. Democrats retained control over Michigan’s seats in the House — holding 10 out of 16 seats.

strong showing in upscale and educated areas such as Ann Arbor, but this was not enough to overcome Democrats’ historically weak performance in Michigan’s rural areas.

T H E M I CH I GA N DAI LY | N OV E M B E R 7, 201 8

Charting the Politics of Michigan Check out the Daily’s News podcast, The Daily Weekly

For more stories and coverage, visit

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INDEX

Vol. CXXVIII, No. 26 ©2018 The Michigan Daily

NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 ARTS......................4

SUDOKU.....................2 CLASSIFIEDS...............3 SPORTS....................7

News

2A — Wednesday, November 7, 2018

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

RESULTS Gretchen Whitmer Fast Facts Whitmer’s election breaks the Republican trifecta of Michigan government, with the GOP having maintained control of the Michigan governorship, state House of Representatives, and state Senate since 2010, and signals a shift in voter attitudes since the state elected President Trump in 2016.

On the campaign trail, Whitmer secured the endorsements of big Democratic politicians such as former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, and

U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Gary Peters, D-Mich., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. She campaigned on expanding health care coverage and lowering costs, improving the education system, increasing skills training so people can secure higherwage jobs and “fixing the damn roads.”

Whitmer held a rally alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., U.S. Representative Debbie Dingell, and Michigan Attorney

In a political environment where it is easy to feel demoralized, easy to feel like it doesn’t matter, easy to feel angry about what we see every day as breaking news...we know we have an opportunity...

General candidate Dana Nessel at the University of Michigan in October to mobilize the student vote.

“In a political environment where it is easy to feel demoralized, easy to feel like it doesn’t matter, easy to feel angry about what we see every day as breaking news,” Whitmer said. “We know we have an opportunity in 18 days to show the world what kind of leadership we think we deserve.”

Senate

DEBBIE STABENOW

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., was re-elected to the U.S. Senate, defeating Trump-backed Republican John James.

Stabenow was originally elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000 as Michigan’s first female senator after serving two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. This will be her fourth term in the Senate.

Stabenow votes consistently with the Democratic party in the Senate, and rooted her campaign around key issues of protecting veterans, lowering costs of prescription drugs, increasing skills training and protecting the Great Lakes.

Stabenow visited the University of

Michigan campus in September to rally the student vote, along with U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass., U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., and other Michigan politicians, discussing issues pertinent to Michigan students, such as clean water, the Great Lakes, net neutrality and college debt.

She held another Get Out the Vote rally on campus the eve of Election Day, encouraging students to vote ethically.

“We are committed to a country that reflects the right values, and we reject what has been spewing out of the White House,” Stabenow said.

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Debbie Dingell was re-elected as the U.S. representative for Michigan’s 12th District after running unopposed. This will be Dingell’s second term, succeeding her husband John Dingell, the longestserving U.S. representative in history.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Dingell serves on the Committee on Energy and Commerce and as a senior whip. Her main issues of focus include the auto industry, health care for all, the Great Lakes and the environment.

Dingell visited campus several times over the semester to rally the student

vote, appearing alongside Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer and Dana Nessel, Democratic candidate for Michigan attorney general, among others. At a rally in October, she extended a call to action to students.

“We cannot let (Republicans) win, and democracy is under attack,” Dingell said. “We need everybody across the state to roll up their sleeves, to volunteer … Let’s take America back to where it’s supposed to be.

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WHITMER From Page 1A anything we set our hearts to …

And if history has not yet been made then we can make it.”

Gilchrist then introduced Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, winner of the governor’s race.

“I am so excited about what the state of Michigan is doing right now,” Gilchrist said.

“And the only thing I might be more excited about is the woman who’s going be the next governor and that’s Gretchen Whitmer.”

Whitmer defeated Republican candidate Bill

Schuette, Michigan attorney general, and succeeds termlimited Gov. Rick Snyder.

The race was called by the Associated Press at about 10 p.m. with about half of Michigan’s polls reporting. At that point, Whitmer led with 53.8 percent of the vote over 43.3 percent for Schuette.

“I am incredibly, incredibly humbled that you put your trust in me to be your next governor,” Whitmer said.

“Early results appear to be a record turnout, so this victory belongs to you. We may have all gone to the polls for very different reasons, but today we as Michiganders came

out because we all love this state and because we want a Michigan that works for every one of us.”

She then described her campaign’s logo: the Mackinac Bridge. She explained the bridge, which is the longest suspension bridge in the Western Hemisphere, opened 61 years ago but was built during a time of divided government.

“A lot of people didn’t think they’d ever come together to build that bridge… and yet Michiganders worked together,” Whitmer said. “We built a bridge that brought us together and strengthened our economy. And at a time where we see too many people who want to divide us through building walls, I think we in Michigan need to get back to building bridges.”

Whitmer voiced to a chanting and energized crowd her prospects for the future. After 22 months of campaigning, she explained, she is ready “to hit the ground running.”

“To the people of this great state, the work ahead will not be easy… but no matter the challenge I want you to know I will be a governor who works for everyone in this state,” Whitmer said.

“For those who voted for me and those who didn’t, a governor who brings people together to solve problems, a governor who always puts you, the people, first. Thank you Michigan, let’s build

some bridges.”

Back on campus, student political groups had mixed reactions to election night results.

LSA sophomore Dylan Berger, president of the University’s chapter of College Republicans, said he was disappointed by Schuette losing. He said the results were not indicative of a “blue wave,” and he hopes Whitmer proves his concerns with her platform wrong.

“It was very unfortunate that Bill Schuette lost,” Berger said. “He ran a solid campaign, and I really think that Michiganders will regret voting for Gretchen Whitmer, but I’ll be praying for Gretchen Whitmer tonight.

I’ll be praying that she does a fantastic job for our state, and I certainly hope I was wrong in everything that I said about her. I hope she does a great job, but I’m certainly concerned.”

Public Policy junior Katie Kelly, Communications Director for College Democrats said she is excited about the hard work College Democrats put into getting Whitmer elected. After the upset in the 2016 election, Kelly said she didn’t want to trust the polls, but they ultimately turned out in her favor.

“I believe she is going to be a voice for all of Michigan,” Kelly said. “She has made it very clear by all the times she has come to campus that she is going to be a voice for students, she’s going to be a voice for working families, she’s going to be a voice for education, she’s been heavily involved in public schools in our state. All around, I think she’s going to be a voice for Michigan.”

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Arts

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ARTIST PROFILE

ABC

SMTD alum Caleb Foote on ‘The Kids Are Alright’ SAM ROSENBERG Senior Arts Editor

ABC’s newest family sitcom “The Kids Are Alright” is already making waves as one of fall’s best new series. Set in suburban Los Angeles during the early ’70s, the story follows the Clearys, a dysfunctional, testosteronefilled Irish-Catholic household navigating a politically divisive era amid sibling rivalries and workingclass struggles.

Though the show dedicates most of its time to lonesome middle child Timmy (Jack Gore, “Billions”), “The Kids Are Alright” deftly fleshes out distinctive personalities within the rest of the Cleary family, including the endearingly goofy Eddie, played by University alum Caleb Foote.

As an acting major at the University, Foote performed in several student theater productions, including “Henry IV, Part 1.” In the summer of 2015, he participated in the Educational Theater Company, an on-campus group that incorporates performance through an interactive, educational lens in an effort to enlighten incoming freshmen about the many social, academic and personal issues they might encounter during college.

After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2016, Foote continued to perform onstage in a variety of plays, including “Zoot Suit” at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and “Hansel and Gretel Blue Grass.” In 2017, he was given the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle Craig Noel Award for Outstanding Male Performance

for his lead role in “Hand to God.” From there, Foote made his way onto television, guest starring in FX’s “American Horror Story: Cult” and “American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace.”

In a recent phone interview with The Daily, Foote discussed his positive undergraduate experience at the University, the perks of being a regular player on a network show and the differences between acting onscreen and acting onstage.

The Michigan Daily: How did your education at Michigan shape your understanding of acting and performing for the camera?

Caleb Foote: It greatly shaped it. I can take back all my professional successes to my education and degree at the University of Michigan. In 2016, the year I graduated, we had a senior showcase and it was the first school-produced senior showcase. You do two scenes, typically contrasting scenes, and you do them in New York and Los Angeles and Chicago for industry professionals and a bunch of people we cold-called — agents and managers and casting directors, trying to get them to show up with the hopes that they would sign us. I was fortunate enough to get some really cool bites in Los Angeles. I got my agent and manager from my showcase, and they’re the agent and manager I have now.

Every single professional gig from a non-union play, which led to a union play, which led to a small part on a TV show, which led to an important part on a TV show, which led to a series regular on the ABC network... I can directly trace it from the University of Michigan,

the showcase and the class I took for the showcase.

To get into the acting school, there’s a lot of natural talent that you have to have. You have to be good enough to be accepted by the faculty. From the early stages of the program, you get out of your old high school acting habits and the things that got you there. From there, you expand on what makes you unique. That’s what being an upperclassman is like; you take what you’re really good at, you mold it and you challenge yourself with the things you aren’t so good at. The acting school is just this great platform for development and risk-taking. If you go in there and do something totally stupid, it’s not like your peer that’s watching you is a casting director that will never want to see you again. That is where you take those risks, as cheesy as that sounds.

TMD: In addition to TV, you’ve performed on stage both during your time at Michigan and after graduating. What have you found to be different between acting for the screen versus acting on stage?

CF: The payday (laughs). The pay is way different for the camera because once it’s on camera, it’s kind of immortalized forever in the history books of television. For theater, you spend a month and a half, two months if you’re super lucky, but you have this extended period of time to memorize, to rehearse, to get everything set in stone. It’s this really great creative process and by the end of it, you have all of this time to prep and be show-ready, which is brilliant. But the difference between theater and film and television is that with film and television, the turnaround is

so fast. You’re shooting an episode a week. You’re doing an episode in five work days. You have a weekend to memorize and when you walk on set, you have to be totally offbook. You basically read it with the director and then you kind of walk it through, map out whatever idea you have or the director has.

Theater would be like the actor’s medium, and television is like the writer’s medium. It’s more of like what you bring in your impulses, and then the director makes his or her adjustments and there’s not so much of a long process of deciding on what should I do and mapping out specific blocking.

With theater, you have so long to rehearse and to get into your character and to stay in it for the two-and-a-half hours you’re doing the show. For television, it’s everything that’s in that box of the camera and you’re just doing the writers justice and it’s really just you at home memorizing and trying to understand the joke, so that when you walk in on set, you’re ready to just do it because you gotta knock that out and then you have to do two more scenes after that.

TMD: “The Kids Are Alright” centers a lot around dysfunctional family dynamics. What was your experience like working with such a large ensemble of actors of all different ages?

CF: It’s my first time that I’m not the youngest person on set. It’s great. We’re working with these vets Michael Cudlitz and Mary McCormack, these people that have been in the game for so long.

You learn that there are so many different approaches to the game.

Like, their process of learning the material and then bringing it forward to the director and crew, it totally varies. And these kid actors we’re working with are brilliant.

There’s so many of them. The only downfall to working with these kid actors is that they have to go to school because you just want to hang out with them all the time.

Being one of the older boys of the show, myself and my older bro, we get to tackle the young adult topics. Meanwhile, the kids get to tackle all the mischief, ruffian, getting-into-the-neighbors-yardand-stealing-a-dog business, and the mom and dad can handle the housekeeping and then later, bigger family mom-and-dad issues.

TMD: Your character Eddie is the second-oldest of seven kids.

How do you think he stands out among his siblings?

CF: That’s funny you say that.

The show was written as a pilot and it was based on (“The Kids Are Alright” creator and narrator) Tim Doyle’s life. A bunch of it is pretty close to home and realistic

EVENT REVIEW Release Date: Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Crowds around 5 Geologic time 10 It’s the truth 14 Baseball’s Felipe or his son Moises 15 Nabisco wafer brand 16 Serengeti feline 17 Barclays Center team 18 Strung along 19 Boatloads 20 1968 55-Across song 23 Axis foes 24 Spot for an AirPod 25 Tight spot 28 “__ whiz!”

29 Sundance’s sweetie __ Place 32 1976 55-Across album 34 Lofty principles 36 “Do __ others ... ” 37 1970 55-Across song 41 “The Walking Dead” survivor Grimes 42 Advertising lure 43 1969 55-Across album whose last song is 20-Across 46 Business review site 47 Influential D.C. group 50 Place in the woods 51 Forever and a day 53 “Watch and learn” 55 Singer/songwriter born 11/7/1943 58 Auburn rival, familiarly 61 Miguel’s “I love you” 62 Small Chevy model 63 Vacationing 64 Harsh-smelling 65 Sharp-edged 66 Tach reading 67 Annoy 68 Car trip game DOWN 1 Metrosexual tote 2 Repetitive refrain in the song “Hot Hot Hot”

3 Perfume holder 4 Fish dish served with wasabi 5 Willing recruit 6 Like a noted piper 7 Quaint retail adjective 8 In the neighborhood 9 ESPN anchor __ Storm 10 It may be tragic 11 Not feel well 12 Whisper sweet nothings 13 Explosive letters 21 Far from swanky 22 Mined-over matter 25 “We just said the same thing at the same time!”

26 Basic drawing class 27 “Little Red Book” author 30 Powder puff stuff 31 Bronze or brass 33 San __, Puerto Rico 34 “House,” in Inuit

35 A few 37 Hayloft bundle 38 Wrinkle remover 39 Prosperous 40 __ sentence: essay opener 41 Included in an email, briefly 44 “Gloria in Excelsis __” 45 “In America” novelist Susan 47 Pet problems?

48 __ at the wheel 49 Ant-sy complex?

52 Female relative 54 Uniform cloth 55 Rogers Centre team, familiarly 56 K follower 57 “Look no further than me” 58 Trivia night site 59 Bedazzle 60 Big D hoopster

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

11/07/18

Daily Arts Writer

11/07/18

to what happened in his childhood.

The pilot is so fast, and it’s a little bit overwhelming and it’s kind of hard to distinguish characters.

But as the show progresses, because there are 10 characters, in every single scene there are 10 opportunities to make a joke and (our writing team) does such a brilliant job of distinguishing each character. Eddie specifically is so fun to play because he’s this impulsive, big-hearted... total goofball. When (the eldest brother) Lawrence goes to the seminary, (Eddie) kind of takes the role of the oldest brother, so you’ll see him carrying the baby and stuff.

But he’s just this light-hearted guy who has a girlfriend, and it’s the first time anyone in the Cleary household has brought a girl home.

Growing up in a household of all boys, they’re kind of unfamiliar with how to act around a girl and everyone has their input on how to be a boyfriend and how to be in a relationship and that results in some pretty great comedy.

TMD: Do you have any brothers or siblings?

CF: Yeah! I grew up in a RomanCatholic home, basically IrishCatholic. I have three brothers.

TMD: Did your upbringing inspire your performance at all?

CF: Even though I didn’t grow up in the ’70s, I can still relate to the Catholic upbringing with all the boys and the chaos and Mom trying to get everyone ready before Sunday mass and the big breakfasts and the “you’re on your own, take care of yourself because if you don’t do it yourself, someone else is gonna eat that drumstick.”

I’m the second-youngest, thirdoldest boy in my real family. It kind of takes me back to being a younger guy, which is brilliant because who doesn’t want to be young?

TMD: How do you get into character and immerse yourself in your role?

CF: This is my first time reporting to a job in film and television like it’s a day job, like clocking in and out every single day for an extended period of time. Something with that is like, you want to go in every single day being like, “I’m gonna do my best work.” But you can’t control what’s happening to you that day and especially because this is going on for a long period of time, every single scene can’t be an Emmyaward-winning scene. Such a big part of doing a series regular job and shooting four scenes a day and then the next day shooting five scenes and the next day shooting one scene is that you can’t have that much weight on you. And after you do a scene, even if it wasn’t your greatest performance, you kind of just gotta let it go and look forward

I’m still in awe of Aida Cuevas’s performance of her album Totalmente Juan Gabriel last Friday night.

Cuevas is a powerhouse performer with phenomenal vocals. She has been in the music industry for over 40 years, winning both a Grammy and a Latin Grammy award. Not only is Cuevas an incredible singer, but she also has a strong stage presence, holding herself with tremendous confidence and grace. Totalmente Juan Gabriel is a tribute to her friend and mentor Juan Gabriel, who

passed away in 2016.

From the second her mariachi band, Mariachi Juvenil Tecalitlán, entered the stage, the audience went wild. I could feel the energy explode with their opening song, and their enthusiasm was infectious. Even though I didn’t know any of the words and don’t understand Spanish well, the upbeat tone of the music spoke for itself.

Next to me, in front of me and behind me, people were dancing in their seats and singing along.

Towards the end of the night, the audience sang so loudly that Cuevas — with a huge, shocked smile on her face — decided to listen instead of sing. She looked proud to have an audience so

and look ahead to your next one.

You can’t beat yourself up over the things you can’t control. Some days, you’re gonna totally knock it out the park, and the writers are gonna give you this brilliant joke and you get to be on this great location with a trash can. And then on another day, you’re gonna be a wallflower and you’re gonna have one line and you’re gonna feel weird about that line but you can’t let that bring you down because that’s the beauty of being on an ensemble project.

There are so many people to rely on. It’s like a team sport. I believe it’s a winning team.

TMD: This wasn’t your first rodeo on TV. Your other credits include FX’s “American Horror Story” and “American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” both of which were created by Ryan Murphy. How different was your experience working on a cable drama from working on a network comedy?

CF: I can’t get killed off at this show (laughs). In all the other ones, I was always at risk. Every single day is the best day of work.

That’s why we do it. But with that, you’ll get a new script every Friday and when you get that new script working on the cable shows, you sift through the script to see if you have any lines, to see where your character comes up. It’s so much fun, but there’s always that chance that your character gets killed off.

That happened to me in “American Horror Story.” I was three episodes deep, and I was sifting through (the script) and I was like, “Heck yes! So fun, so fun.” And I made all these friends. And then my character, boom, my character gets gunned down, four gunshots to the chest.

All my buds got to keep going on and I was like, “Why? Why me?!”

This is my first job where they can’t kill me.

TMD: As the season continues, what can viewers expect to see from your character and the rest of the Cleary household?

CF: A lot of heart from the whole family. Our writing room is pretty insane and our creative team has a really great track record. It’s not like this is their big break. They’ve been making TV for a while and really good TV, so we’re in really good hands. Right now, we won’t be relying on principal office visits because we have such a big cast that as the episodes progress, our writing team has been able to distinguish and expand on the characters and make them bigger and more specific. I have just so much love for our writing team.

You’re gonna see a lot more Eddie, I’ll tell you that.

You can catch Caleb Foote on “The Kids Are Alright” every Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. on ABC.

were in traditional mariachi style, with energetic beats and a general sentiment of happiness.

There was one slow song where the lights dimmed and Cuevas poured her soul into the singing, but it wasn’t out of place, instead reminding us that even when we celebrate one’s life, we may feel melancholic on the journey of accepting their passing.

One of my favorite parts was when members of Mariachi Juvenil Tecalitlán band had solos. They built off of each other, and each instrument got its shining moment. The band members were overjoyed with our reactions, which made it all the more exciting RUCHITA IYER / DAILY to not just listen, but to watch them perform with the same enthusiasm as Cuevas.

The audience was so thrilled with the show that even after Cuevas said goodbye and left the stage, they chanted loudly for an encore, which caused her to return for one final performance. It was a special engaged, and for others like moment as Cuevas discussed myself who didn’t know the how much it meant for her to lyrics, it was incredible to tour in North America and witness everyone else’s passion. share her music. This show Throughout the night, it also fell during Día de Muertos became clear that Cuevas meant (Day of the Dead) — a Mexican a lot to many of the audience holiday celebrating friends and members. I couldn’t catch what family who have passed away Cuevas was saying in between — making the tribute to Juan songs in Spanish, but every Gabriel all the more powerful. time she talked the audience Cuevas is sometimes members around me were compared to Aretha Franklin, silent, as if savoring her every and I now understand why. last word. I began to realize that With her impressive vocal range for many people, Cuevas was and ability to project emotion so the connection to their culture clearly in her voice, Cuevas is a and home countries. Many distinctive artist and important parents were there with their figure in Mexican music. And children, sharing an important beyond that, she’s an icon who part of their identities through offers Latinx Americans the Cuevas’s voice. chance to reconnect to the The majority of her songs music of their roots.

Aida Cuevas brought down Hill with her voice on Fri. NITYA GUPTA

By Michael Ray Jacobson and Patti Varol ©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Wednesday, November 7, 2018 — 3A

Arts

4A — Wednesday, November 7, 2018

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

DAILY ENTERTAINMENT COLUMN

FILM REVIEW

It’s raining on Election Day

20TH CENTURY FOX

‘Bohemian’ biopic can’t remember that it’s a story JULIANNA MORANO For the Daily

Can a character survive if his story is taken away?

This is a risky question for any storyteller to entertain.

Unfortunately, that didn’t stop the makers of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” a film that markets itself as a Queen biopic and waits to deliver on that promise until the latter portion of its runtime, until it’s too late.

Leading up to that transition into legitimate storytelling, Bryan Singer’s (“X-Men”) “Bohemian Rhapsody” is hardly a story. Instead, the disjointed scenes chronicling Queen’s rise seem like a highlight reel: one scene per episode of success in Queen’s career. The effects of this approach are emotionally varied but unvaryingly detrimental. On one hand, the highlight reel erases struggle in favor of a dizzyingly rapid, romantic and easy road to success. The dialogue also slackens without a story to support it, so the filmmakers’ habit of writing their theses about the significance of Queen into conversations between members of Queen and record executives feels contrived and questionable in turn.

The direct consequence of the vacancy of story and the attempt to fill this void, however, is the effects on Freddie Mercury’s characterization. Though Rami Malek (“Mr. Robot”) makes the most of every scene, the answer to the opening inquiry — can a character survive without a story?

— is still, by and large: No. The filmmakers, having opted for the convenience of the highlight reel over the tedium of crafting a story, must then portray Mercury within this framework. So, in the fragmented spirit of highlight reels,

they truncate Mercury’s identity crises. In doing so, not only do they squander Malek’s versatility as an actor, but they also ignore the realities of how humans come to

“Bohemian Rhapsody” Ann Arbor 20 + IMAX

20th Century Fox terms with their social identities.

Initially, “Bohemian Rhapsody” emphasizes Mercury’s racial identity. A handful of early scenes — including a tense disagreement with his conservative father about nightclub visits and Mercury’s family’s disappointment after Mercury had his given name, Farrokh Bulsara, legally changed — suggest Mercury struggled to embrace his Parsi heritage. Then, Mercury leaves home, and the filmmakers drop this development entirely; they fixate abruptly on Mercury’s sexual identity instead.

This truncation is problematic not only for the purposes of biopic but for intersectionality. Why can’t Mercury confront his racial, national and sexual identities synchronously? Why must anyone ever be reduced to one social identity? What was convenient for the filmmakers disenfranchises those who identify with multiple marginalized groups.

In part three of Mercury’s truncated identity crises, Mercury hits a low point and suffers from loneliness and substance abuse. On the one hand, these challenges transcend social identity and initiate a long-awaited character arc. In other words, Mercury becomes a character and “Bohemian Rhapsody” remembers it’s his story. On the other hand, it’s

too late for the film to fully recover from the absence of a story, so his low point as a character cannot be ascribed to a preexisting character arc; the only factor audiences have to point to is the most recent identity crisis, and that is Mercury’s coming out as bisexual. Once again, the filmmakers’ pseudostorytelling inadvertently wounds the marginalized communities the film and Mercury’s portrayal should have empowered.

Though by no means does “Bohemian Rhapsody” becoming a story right its wrongs, it gives the film the narrative momentum it needs. In turn, the film is able to work toward a climax, and it delivers. The concluding sequence, capturing Queen’s 1985 performance at Live Aid, is the invigorating, rewarding antithesis of the highlight reel. It is patiently, unromantically shot.

And for all the ways “Bohemian Rhapsody” disrespected Mercury as an individual, the film always respected Queen’s music, and this scene is no exception. Most notably, this scene proves one of the theses about Queen’s significance haphazardly inserted into dialogue at the beginning of the film: Everything Queen did was out of love and respect for their fans. After watching this sequence, comprised of alternating footage of Queen’s knockout performance and the audience’s enthusiastic responses to it, there is no doubt about Queen’s distinctive love for their fan base.

While the recovery portion of the film doesn’t compensate for its initial series of shortcomings, it opens up two possibilities. It will likely leave the audience members who managed to hurdle the initial disappointments with a craving for Queen’s music and, hopefully, the raw materials to construct a more holistic portrait of Mercury as well.

It’s raining on Election Day. Generally speaking, turnout is lower when it rains on election day, and when turnout is lower it’s bad for Democrats. Now, this is an entertainment and media column and you might think that an entertainment and media columnist should stick to writing articles about blockbusters and pop artists and the state of the industry, but today is the first Tuesday in November. I just got back from my voting precinct, and it’s raining on Election Day. Tonight, Twitter and Facebook and all the news networks and most of the late-night shows will be solely focused on the midterms and the incoming results. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t focused on them too.

It’s been a long two years. I think, regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, it’s hard to disagree with that.

Do you remember Sean Spicer?

What about the Mooch? That Supreme Court battle that seemed to last for an eternity?

Or have there been two of those?

I may have forgotten. The pace of our collective memory has become so relentless that the controversies of yesterday feel like trivialities compared to today. It’s not just in politics.

These past two years since the election of Donald J. Trump have seen major upheavals in the entertainment world as well. The consolidation of media companies has continued unchecked, with Disney and Fox set to merge and join the AT&T and Time Warner megaconglomerate that solidified early this year. Three Star Wars movies have come and gone,

a dozen more Marvel flicks have hit the screens and the DC movie universe collapsed before our very eyes. Also, on their way out the door, a long list of powerful film executives

IAN HARRIS and creatives have been taken down by the #MeToo movement in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

I sometimes will joke to my friends that the 2016 election, the success of Michigan sports and the quality of various entertainment products I enjoy can be directly linked.

Going into Nov. 2016, Michigan Football was undefeated and ranked third in the country.

Four days after Donald Trump got elected, Michigan dropped a heartbreaker to Iowa and, at the end of the month, J.T. was stopped short — or at least we Michigan fans think he was.

Going into Nov. 2016, the “Star Wars” franchise had made a triumphant return and was poised to recapture its former glory as the granddaddy of all film franchises. Two years and three controversial movies later, the franchise seems doomed to relish in its own past for eternity. Like America, it

can’t move forward. Two years and seven episodes later and George R.R. Martin is nowhere close to finishing the books series that has become the basis for the TV phenomenon “Game of Thrones.” He’s trapped in stasis. Of course, a rational mind knows that none of these things are connected.

In my mind, however, they will always be inextricably linked.

This year, Michigan seems poised to at long last reclaim its rightful place at the top of the Big Ten conference. A date with destiny in Columbus seems inevitable and you can’t help but feel that at long last our time has come. All of the polling seems to indicate a huge win for Gretchen Whitmer and a strong chance for the Democrats to take back the House. The leaks coming out of Belfast seem to indicate that the last season of “Game of Thrones” will be good. But with Dylan McCaffrey out, Michigan is just one bad play away from having to start a thirdstring quarterback, “Game of Thrones” has never been the same since they passed the books, J.J. Abrams is surely just going to remake “Return of the Jedi” and it’s raining on Election Day. Maybe I will wake up tomorrow and all of my blue wave dreams will come true. But if these two punishing years have taught me anything, it’s the same thing that has been ingrained into me as a Michigan and Detroit sports fan since I could breathe: “Hope for the best, expect the worst.” I think I’ll put an old episode of “The West Wing” up on the TV to cheer myself up. After all, it’s

FILM REVIEW

NETFLIX

Welles’s ‘Other Side of the Sarah Zettel, on suspense, Wind’ doesn’t translate women and ‘Other Sister’

ARTIST PROFILE

SAMANTHA NELSON Daily Arts Writer

TESSA ROSE

Daily Arts Writer

Sarah Zettel, University alum and author of “The Other Sister” recently sat down to speak with The Daily about her latest release.

From starting off at the University scribbling in “notebooks with friends creating shared worlds,” today Zettel has produced over 18 novels in sci-fi, romance, fantasy and various other genres.

“The Other Sister” is a domestic suspense and psychological thriller that flips the traditional fairytale upside down. The novel follows two sisters, Geraldine and Marie Monroe through secretive schemes and abnormal familial dynamics.

From my conversation with Zettel it is is clear that her latest work is laced with darker shades of human psyche and the dichotomy of good and evil.

Zettel’s inspiration for writing “The Other Sister” is tethered to her childhood love for the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales. Since she was 13, she knew she wanted to write in a wide variety of literary genres and forms. Today her childhood vision has blossomed into reality, with her various published works ranging from science fiction to young adult romance to, currently, domestic suspense. Zettel recognizes that “The Other Sister” belongs under the domestic suspense genre.

“It’s more about the idea than where it goes on the shelf,” Zettel

said.

She is well aware of the good and ugly stepsister tropes, but what really sparked her inspiration for “The Other Sister” was what it would be like to be the ugly stepsister. She wanted to play with a range of emotions and dynamics among people.

“Each genre offers you a chance to put a new angle on a story,” Zettel said. This novel, therefore, explores the consequences and casualties that occur when darker family dynamics are in play.

Fairytales commonly confine women to inferior or victimizing roles, while men are depicted with heroic stature. When I asked how Zettel tackled these gendered tropes while writing “The Other Sister,” she said: “The common perception of women that is used to keep them in their place is that women are not allowed simply to be human beings, they are supposed to be giving beings.”

This description entails that women are expected to give to everyone around them.

“If she doesn’t give enough and in the right ways then she is a bad woman and you can do what you want to her,” Zettel said. She wanted to explore what happens when women don’t “give properly.”

Zettel explained that women simply are not allowed to be angry about anything, neither their status nor the expectation put on them to give to others without any reciprocation.

“I also wanted to explore what happens when you either refuse not to suppress your anger or you hide it so well that you are left with very few options,” Zettel said. She sympathizes with Geraldine for this same reason, as Geraldine is the troubled and outcasted sister in contrast to her more conforming sibling Marie.

To Zettel, any form of writing or public expression by women is inherently a feminist act.

“It’s finally allowing us to give voice to the range of what it is to be complete human and to be a woman,” Zettel commented on writing. Zettel described that suspense and thriller genres allow writers and readers to look at how anger, violence and justice uniquely affect women. She cites “Gone Girl” as a recent example of a suspense novel and film that deconstructs representations of women as the “perfect victim.”

“It is a really interesting piece of work,” Zettel said. “Deliberately feminist or not, it is a deeply feminist piece of work” In the past, Zettel wrote full-time nestled in her garret with a cat and now finds herself working in a well-lit, social writing workspace; her extroverted personality is thriving. You can tell she is a prolific author with exceptional enthusiasm for her craft. Zettel is engaging, passionate and determined to cultivate constructive depictions of women in her work.

Still to this day, the critical acclaim and awe surrounding Orson Welles and his classics like “Citizen Kane” and “Touch of Evil” holds strong. The legendary actor / director, who gained stardom in the ’40s and ’50s, is, no doubt, an icon of cinematic history. However, Welles’s latest, posthumous release, “The Other Side of the Wind,” may not resonate with modern audiences unexposed to the rest of his body of work and reputation. Though filled with entrancing cinematic techniques true to Welles’s style, the plot of the film mirrors Welles’s own life, and “The Other Side of the Wind” only connects to a specific, niche audience, while making the typical movie-goer feel little more than confusion and disjointedness.

The film revolves around the major, yet fading Hollywood director Jake Hannaford (John Huston, “Chinatown”).

At Hannaford’s 70th birthday party, his newest and final film is debuted for throngs of rowdy party-attendees, reporters and fellow Hollywood associates.

The film, also titled “The Other Side of the Wind,” is unfinished, fragmented and likely won’t be distributed, as Hannaford has only four days to complete it.

Interspersed between alcoholsaturated conversations with prodding reporters and fameseeking friends at the party are

sequences of Hannaford’s film itself, which can only be described as a bizarre, hyper-sexualized, semi-romantic chase between an attractive man and woman with no dialogue. As the party unfolds, the reporters and fans become increasingly eager to “figure out” the mysterious Hannaford, but as the night goes on Hannaford only becomes more and more closed

“Other Side of the Wind” Netflix

off, seemingly far more interested in finding another bottle of booze than engaging with his guests.

Reflective of Welles’s use of mirrors and light in “Citizen Kane,” the manipulation of light, dark, visual and auditory synchronization throughout the film is captivating. In both the segments at the party and within the screening of Hannaford’s film, there is an apparently indiscriminate tradeoff between black-and-white and color sequences. With no identifiable pattern for when and why one segment is black-and-white while the next is in color, Welles creates a feeling of intrigue and surprise within viewers. Especially within the film-screening portions, the pairing of sound and image is mesmerizing. In one part of Hannaford’s film, the nameless male and female protagonists hop into a cab to escape the rain. The two begin kissing and touching

in the back of the car, illuminated by the bright green and red of the traffic lights and the condensation from the rain outside. The scene is simultaneously sensual and uncomfortable, as the two lovers continue to caress to a drum-like beat while the cab driver sits only a few feet in front of them. As the film within the film has no dialogue, there is nothing to distract from the discomfort we feel, and we are thus forced to watch the peculiar love scene pan out.

Though Welles’s techniques are provocative, eye-catching and evidently creative, for the average audience member, establishing a genuine connection to the film proves difficult. Everything about the film is fragmented.

The movie shown at the birthday party is continually interrupted by numerous power outages and conversations between characters at the party are constantly cut short, making it difficult to invest in anyone on-screen.

Additionally, there is an overall sense of incompleteness that we can’t help but feel, brought on both by the scattered nature of the filming, the incompleteness of the screened film within the film and the disconnect and tension between Hannaford and his actors. When the credits role, we can’t help but wonder if we should have brushed up on our knowledge of Welles beforehand to make Hannaford, as a protagonist crafted in Welles’s image, more tangible and maybe even make the film as a whole more enjoyable.

Michigan in Color

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, November 7, 2018 — 5A

How Not to be Racist: Chapter 2 Compliments and Comments

Microaggressions

Common Examples

A.B.

MiC Contributor

Microaggressions, also known as the shit white people have been doing for years but until recently, we never had a name for it!

Microaggressions are not an exaggeration of liberal feelings.

They are an insidious and pervasive part of American culture that repeatedly denigrate the efforts and strides of people of color and women toward equity.

Columbia University professor Derald Wing Sue coined the term microaggression to refer to “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color.”

“You’re so articulate.”

Saying this to a person of color is particularly demeaning.

Calling someone articulate can be a nod toward racist ideas that a Black person isexceptional for being well-spoken, whereas it is expected and normal for white people to be.

“No, where are you really from?”

“I went to the beach the entire weekend and look, I’m almost as dark as you!”

What is the purpose of saying this? Why are you using your perceived darkness as a lighthearted comment to compare to your whiteness? Newsflash, you can’t wash my Black off.

It’s different.

Any phrase starting with “So, do Black people …”

“Your name is impossible to pronounce!”

It’s rude to assume someone isn’t from where they tell you they’re from just because they don’t look like you.

“Wow, is that your real hair?” / “You mean you don’t wash your hair every day?”/ “So do you take those out at night? ”/ “Like how do you wash your hair?”

Not that it’s any of your business, but we can go various amounts of time without washing our hair because not all of us get greasy and nasty.

Asking people of color if their hair is real is intrusive and rude.

This is especially rude because there’s a long history of oppressing women of color in public spaces like schools and offices for wearing their hair naturally.

“I have a white coworker who dates Black men. She and her boyfriend at the time were having issues.

So, she was venting to me about him and called him a nigger. Nigger this. Nigger that. After regaining my composure, I asked her why she think it’s OK to say nigger in my presence. She replied that she should get a pass because she acts Black, dates Black and considers herself Black.”

A wealth of research suggests that people with difficult-topronounce names have a harder time finding work and are considered less likable. When you ask someone their name, don’t judge it. Try to learn it.

You can say Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. Maybe you should try unpacking your white supremacy instead of enforcing it on other people.

All Black people do not do the same things.

“All Lives Matter – not just Black people.”

Saying All Lives Matter is like saying all diseases matter at a breast cancer rally.

“Why do you wear that (insert item)?”

Damn, Becky! Mind your own damn business! Please be mindful of your comments.

Nobody likes to be perceived as weird, exotic or strange.

Never ask someone why they wear something — whether it’s a hijab or hair extensions.

Let them live.

“Are you real Black?”

“Are both of your parents Black?”

“You should join our company basketball team.” (They’ve never seen you play.)

For the record, most Black people in America are mixed with something.

Not all Black people play basketball.

Stereotyping is wrong.

“You’re different, not like them, the other ones …”

“I want you to be nice today… not sassy.”

Stereotyping Black women as sassy is bad. It is damaging to Black women, and can even lead Black women to have health issues, despite them telling the truth.

This is not a compliment. I am not ashamed of my race, and there is nothing of which to be ashamed for identifying with one race or another. There are good and bad people of all races.

“You have to understand Trump.”

The hell I do. “My AfricanAmerican over here”?

“Shithole countries”? Bitch, please.

Cultural Appropriation Cultural appropriation isn’t a fuzzy line.

It isn’t hard to discern. It’s quite simple.

Cultural appropriation is the adoption of elements of a minority culture by members of the dominant culture.

Halloween Costumes Hey, Karen. I Just wanted you to know you might want to change your Halloween costume from Pocahontas to basic bitch.

Please stop doing problematic things.

It’s annoying and I’m tired of writing articles about it.

Cultural appropriation turns cultural elements into a costume.

It often goes unchecked in

Examples Include * White people who go to all white fraternity parties and play all Black music. * White people adopting AAVE to sound funny or “urban” (also known as Ebonics). * White people wearing dreadlocks. * White people wearing beauty. Culture is erased and belittled. The repackaging of products as “cool” or “trendy” marginalizes those whose culture to which they belong. Think of Kylie Jenner’s “birthday braids” making headlines, even though they’re the same cornrows that have been worn

by Black women for ages.

Or the idea of laying baby hairs, even though it’s been

mockery of a traditional cultural dress without expressed permission or cultural exchange from a member of that culture. * White people profiting off of culture without a meaningful exchange and understanding of privilege and power. a staple of Black hairdos for ages. Or the use of bindis as a “trendy” culture. Or the adoption of Tibetan Buddhism by mainstream, middle class Han Chinese folk to seem cool. Or the trend of the large beauty supply earrings for $2 that were sold in H&M for $20.

This trend is nefarious when the cultural appropriation is used for profit, which is why it may soon become illegal.

Blackface and a short history Ah, blackface. Old buddy, old pal.

We haven’t seen you in a while…Oh, wait. That was last year.

Blackface is wrong.

It’s not funny. It’s not cool.

It’s not quirky.

It’s just racist.

So: From minstrel shows, to golliwogs, to scientific racism – Blackface is used to make fun of and demean Black people.

Just don’t do it. It’s not that hard.

PHOTO COURTESY OF A.B

Last semester, a University of Michigan student posted this Snapchat.

“I don’t want to sound racist/homophobic/sexist but …”

You probably sound racist/ homophobic/sexist. If you have to preface a statement with saying you don’t want to sound a certain way, it’s probably because you’re about to sound that way.

“Not to make it a race/gay/gender thing but …”

See above.

“You all” / “You go, girl” / “Yo,” “Word” and “What Up” as an introduction whenever you’re greeting your Black peers / saying phrases that end with the term “girlfriend” when you’re not referencing a woman you’re dating

“You’re the prettiest black girl I’ve ever seen.”

If you need to know why calling a Black girl “pretty” is wrong, read Mic’s article “9 Things Everyone Needs to Stop Saying to Black Women Immediately.”

Stop with the foolishness. Do not try to use AfricanAmerican Vernacular English as comedic relief.

It’s not your culture, stop saying that shit. I don’t over exaggerate my code switching/white accent when I’m talking to you.

How to not be racist: Chapter 3 Classroom Etiquette “Devil’s Advocate” and “All sides of the argument” Chad, nobody wants to hear you say, “Well, if I was a slave owner, I would be mad my property is gone too!”

Devil’s advocate can be used as a tool to know what traditionally racist and bigoted people would say.

But please don’t say “If I were” to things and then say a sentiment

of things that are vehemently repulsive, or actively threatens the livelihood of people of color.

My life is more important than your shitty hypothetical attempt to devalue my life.

Power Dynamics: Voices in the Room Recognizing power and privilege in a room is absolutely paramount to having more fruitful discussion and discourse.

Meaning, you should step back for a second when you’re in the classroom talking about racism.

Listen to the people of color in the room. The Indigenous, Black and Brown voices.

Acknowledge how you move throughout the world and your experiences.

“There is nothing glamorous about being subjected to racism, and certainly no social rewards to be reaped from being the victim of oppression in a society that heaps disadvantage on historically marginalized groups,” Atlantic journalist Simba Runyowa wrotein an article about microaggressions. “So why would people willingly designate themselves as victims if they do not truly feel that way?

The only people who benefit from oppression are the ones who are exempt from it — not the ones who suffer through it.”

Do not talk over women. Do not talk over women of color.

Do not talk over people of color when they try to speak about their experiences, no matter how “offended” you feel.

This country would benefit from a lot of listening. Please try to do so.

Professors, and People in Power Professors and people in “Black Lives Matter” in class. Lin, Ford School of Public Policy power at the University of And you, University of That means listening to the Michigan, in order for any Michigan Graduate Student concerns of your students of color.

That means, being more of this anti-racist activism to Instructors, ECON 330, work, you all need to constantly Ford School of Public Policy conscious of the people who That means inviting both the occupy space in your classroom, be checking your privilege.

That means not telling your Black woman and white woman and how they occupy that space.

The classroom is an students they will not succeed to your class to discuss the powerful place because of where they are from. pieces written in The Daily immensely Looking at you, University of that you list on your syllabus. where learning about power of Michigan, and privilege is central.

Michigan, Residential College University That means not castigating a Professor Blasey, Be mindful of how you choose to understand privilege.

Black student on her tone and Residential College Privilege isn’t about what you thoughts in front of 80 of her white Do not create class activities peers for saying what she thinks. about race that require the have to go through – it’s about what And you, University of Michigan Black kids to pretend to be the you haven’t had to go through.

Professor Elisabeth Gerber, victims in horrible tragedies, Ford School of Public Policy i.e., the Philando Castile trial.

Read more at I’m looking at you, University of That means not ignoring MichiganDaily.com students when they assert Michigan Associate Professor Ann

Opinion

6A — Wednesday, November 7, 2018

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AARON BAKER | COLUMN

I

After Pittsburgh, lessons from a Rabbi

spent this past Saturday morning holding back tears.

For my Judaic Studies class, I went to a conservative Shabbat service at a conservative synagogue in Ann Arbor. When I first saw the assignment on my syllabus back in September, I didn’t think much of it. I thought the conservative service would be akin to the services at the Reform synagogue I grew up going to, but longer and more formal. The only difference was that it just so happened that the Shabbat service was a week after the Pittsburgh shooting.

Jews and non-Jews of all ages filled the room in a show of support. There was a mourners’ Kaddish — a prayer for lost loved ones — dedicated to the victims.

After, three rabbis gave eloquent sermons about what happened in Pittsburgh. And, though it was overall a solemn and, at times, melancholic two hours in the synagogue, I left feeling much better, mostly because of the head rabbi’s exceptional sermon.

The head rabbi’s sermon was delivered at the very end of the service. First, he argued that his interpretation of Jewish values supports tolerance and inclusion and that Jews should support globalization, immigration, refugees and diversity because of the moral teachings in the Torah. He told the congregation that Abraham, who was thought of as the first patriarch of the Jewish people, was a refugee.

Abraham sought refuge in both the promised land of Canaan and later in Egypt. His wife Sarah, the first matriarch of the Jewish people, should be revered for her strength because she was welcoming of Abraham, even though he was born in a different land and had different customs.

He concluded that ultimately, tolerance and love will defeat intolerance and hate.

Continuing with the theme of tolerance and diversity, the head rabbi argued that adherence to the moral and religious precepts of Judaism trumps having Jewish ancestry as a determinant of Jewish identity.

The rabbi was arguing for a more universalist conception of Jewish identity, rather than a particularist conception where shared ancestry through a Jewish mother defined Jewish identity. The more universalist conception of Jewish identity the rabbi argued for was primarily about adherence to Jewish moral and religious values. The rabbi told the congregation that like America itself, Jewish communities all across the country were becoming more diverse. He contested the view

retained in parts of the Jewish and rabbinical community that lament intermarriage and the loss of a particular Jewish ethnic peoplehood. He predicted proudly that in 40 years, the congregation of the synagogue we were all sitting in would be much more ethnically and racially diverse, as would America. As a half-Filipino Jew, I found this comforting.

We can embrace diversity and the values that define American identity I realized during the walk back to my apartment that the rabbi’s argument about Jewish identity, of values versus genealogy, is also applicable to American identity. In this country, we are facing a fundamental choice of what it means to be an American.

Like Judaism, American identity has had a tension between universalism and particularism.

The U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Constitution speak of ostensibly universal values, in the form of “unalienable” rights, liberties and equality. These values are central to the American identity and what it means to be part of “We the people.” But, for much of American history, the ability to benefit from these values have been particular to white men, rather than universal. Racism and sexism, in the form of slavery, segregation and barriers to citizenship and other rights is omnipresent in our history.

Some would argue this history of particularism is still similarly impinging today as it was in the past, while others, like myself, would argue vast progress has been made. But there is still work that needs to be done.

As Americans, we have a choice. Will we live up to the promise of America that Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of, where American values and thus identity are truly universal, or will we continue the disappointments of the past?

Fulfilling America’s promise is not only a legal matter. Equal application of laws and rights are an integral part of achieving equality. But, fulfilling America’s promise is also an extralegal, social matter. All Americans should be able to reasonably feel that they are equal rights-

bearing individuals, free and able to pursue their happiness, without being limited by race, gender, sexuality, religion, among other things.

Yet, President Trump’s Republican party peddles toxic rhetoric that exploits prejudicial sentiment embedded in our national discourse. This type of hateful speech enabled the Pittsburgh shooting, the Kentucky shooting, the mail bombs and the rise in antiSemitic hate crimes. Every week it’s something new, adding to the already extensive annals of Trump’s racism.

This week, the Trump administration is fomenting paranoia about a migrant caravan seeking asylum. Instead of portraying the caravan as they are — desperate asylum seekers who could be accepted or turned away at the border — the Trump administration has turned them into an invasion of “gang members.” President Trump has said, falsely, that there are Middle Easterners in the caravan. It wasn’t enough to demonize asylum seekers using prejudicial tropes about Latin Americans, but Trump also had to use the stereotype of Middle Easterners as terrorists as well.

A commercial his campaign launched about the caravan and illegal immigration more broadly has been pulled from NBC, Facebook and Fox News because it was deemed racist. On the one hand, the use of racial or ethnic stereotypes to demonize a group of people by our president is an overt example of the continuity of racism and the failure of American values to be truly universal — and it presents a very clear choice. Trump’s administration is moving us away from the promise of America Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of. Like the rabbi I wrote about earlier, we can embrace diversity and affirm the strength of the values that define American identity.

Or we can do the opposite. We can build walls, use divisive language and demonize people who are seen as different both inside and outside of our country. But as we’ve recently seen, doing so comes at a cost.

So though this will be published after the midterms, I hope you have voted wisely. The future of our country and its communities depend on it.

Aaron Baker can be reached at aaronbak@umich.edu

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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 tothedaily@michigandaily.com.

“I

It’s a dangerous time to be a journalist

t’s a dangerous time to be a journalist.” NPR’s “Up First” podcast ended the discussion of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s alleged murder with this remark. All around the world, journalists have been dealing with physical attacks, as well as attacks on their journalistic integrity. According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, 41 journalists have faced physical attacks in 2018, and five have been killed. With Khashoggi’s murder headlining the news, and President Donald Trump’s steady stream of insults aimed at the free press while on his midterm tours, this attack on journalistic integrity and the free press is gaining ground and making life more dangerous for journalists and civilians alike.

Since Trump took office in 2016, the idea of “fake news” has become a prevalent topic in politics. While the term fake news is not one of Trump’s own invention, nor is he even the first politician to use it in such a way as to attack the press, it has taken on almost a second definition. According to a study by researchers Rasmus Kleis Nielsen and Lucas Graves, most scholars and professionals agree that fake news should be, “Associated with misinformation from different sources, including journalists.

Seen as distinguishable from news primarily by degree,” usually in relation to perceptions of satire, poor journalism, propaganda, advertising and false news. However, it is now being “weaponized by critics of the news media as well as by critics of platform companies” to invalidate certain news sources, the current instigator being Trump.

Time and time again, Trump makes remarks about the press falsely attacking him, naming them a danger to society. Feeling attacked due to being under the constant microscope of the press, Trump chose to return fire to one of the most important aspects of a free democracy. He has decided that he doesn’t like journalists telling the public the facts about what his administration is doing and that he will do his best to invalidate these

facts by preaching to his followers that it is all fake.

“The media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and to stop the endless hostility and constant negative and oftentimes false attacks and stories,” Trump said at a rally in Wisconsin while he was on the midterm tour. What Trump is failing to grasp is that the press has absolutely no obligation to the government. They have an obligation to report the truth, no matter how it may portray the president, government officials or any other figure. Just because Trump doesn’t like what the media is saying about him doesn’t make it false, and it certainly doesn’t mean he should be encouraging hateful acts toward journalists who are just doing their job.

The press is one of the most important checks on the government. Its role in society is to report the truth, and with that, hold the government accountable.

Instead of understanding the importance of free press and taking their criticisms as an opportunity to improve his presidency, Trump has instead attempted to undermine the importance of a driving force of American democracy, which poses a danger to society. Labeling the press as “the enemy of the people” is a fear-mongering tactic used by an unpopular president who wants to hide any unflattering portrayals of his presidency and personality from the public. And yet, it’s kind of working.

According to a survey published

by CBS, 91 percent of strong Trump supporters consider the information he delivers to be accurate, but only 11 percent trust the media.

So when Trump spews hate about The New York Times and other mainstream, historically reliable media, unfortunately, people listen.

This is certainly evident in the abusive treatment of journalists that has been spreading all over the world. Khashoggi is only one example of how dangerous it is to be a journalist in this current climate.

Leaders everywhere and in all types of government, from Syria to Venezuela and from authoritarian to populist, are following Trump’s lead

and attacking the free press. When other leaders see the president of the land of the free attack one of the fundamental aspects of its freedom, it seems to give them permission to do the same.

Even other U.S. government officials are jumping on the antipress bandwagon. Trump actually praised U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., for bodyslamming a reporter. I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that would be considered civil abuse, which is illegal. While this is terrible, considering our President’s track record, it’s not surprising. What is more terrifying is the audience’s response. After his statement, they cheered and began jeering at other reporters in the audience, one man even re-enacting a body slam and making threatening hand gestures. Some of us try to give ourselves peace of mind by convincing ourselves that Trump is only one heretic and that most rational people don’t actually believe the absurdities he constantly spouts.

This attack and response, however, reveals the terrifying truth that Trump is not alone in his hatred, and that we are all in grave danger.

Journalism is absolutely essential to a free country and an accountable government. We are incredibly lucky to live in a country where the freedom of the press is a constitutional right no matter who is in power or what they say about it. But a president who constantly threatens and degrades the media is not only misguided but also dangerous. Unfortunately, we live in a world where it is dangerous to be a journalist. But that is why it’s important. Journalists have the power to generate change and have been using this power since the founding of this country. From high school newspapers to The New York Times, every level of journalism plays a role in making change, whether it be at a high school or in the White House. We cannot allow one asinine blip on this country’s timeline destroy a fundamental part of our democracy. We cannot be considered the land of the free if we are not free to speak our minds.

Dana Pierangeli can be reached at dmpier@umich.edu

ABBIE BERRINGER | COLUMN

A

A police officer’s daughter

couple of months ago, I running pill mills all the way to called my dad to complain. the young addicts robbing houses and stores for drug I don’t even money. The more my dad remember what enforced the rules and I was calling to cracked down on illegal complain about. activity, the more hostile Before jumping into our environment became. my tirade, I asked People would drive up him how his day was our driveway to confront going. He said, with my dad and even threaten a big sigh, something him. They would drive by along the lines of, our house and fire shots “Well I showed up ABBIE in the air or into our barn. to the scene of an accident today where BERRINGER I remember lying in bed the victim was dead on arrival.” many nights far past my bedtime He wasn’t wearing his helmet on waiting to hear the sound of his car his motorcycle and according to coming up the driveway so I would my dad, “His brains were all over know he had made it home one more the street.” After telling me this, night.

All of this tension took a toll on he tried to seamlessly transition into asking about my day. Suffice our whole family. When my dad to say, I no longer had the heart to was off work, he was often irritable and unsettled. We weren’t allowed complain.

My dad is a federal law to wear jerseys to sporting events enforcement officer for the USDA that had our last names on the Forest Service, former emergency back because it could potentially medical technician, former SWAT put us in danger. We were never team sniper and an army veteran. to tell anyone who our father was, After we hung up the phone, I and if anybody asked about him thought about what it would be we were immediately to call one of like to show up to a scene like that our parents. We weren’t allowed even once in my life, nonetheless to answer the door or the phone at potentially multiple times as part home and we went over multiple of my job. I couldn’t imagine seeing times where to hide in our house if somebody’s brains on the street, but someone were to break in.

The violence and threats against I knew it wasn’t the first time my dad had. In the course of his career our family seemed to be escalating as a first responder and LEO, he for some time and it finally reached has saved people from falling over its boiling point in my eighth-grade waterfalls, hiked countless miles year. Someone had apparently to find missing persons, dealt with waited on the hill above my dad’s domestic violence disputes and drug parking spot at home to “put some seizures, served warrants to violent lead in him.” They failed to follow felons and has put his life on the line through on this threat due to nothing short of a miracle. That for the sake of justice many times.

For most of my life, when my dad very night as he arrived home, my suited up and left the house in the dad realized he left something he morning, my family began to hold needed for the morning at his office its breath, and nobody breathed a 40 minutes away. He turned around sigh of relief until he came home just a few minutes from home and again at night. We rarely talked because of this he didn’t make it about it, but all felt it. When I was home before dark. The next day a in middle school, we lived in Scioto friend of the man who wished to County, Ohio, which was making commit the crime came in and told a name for itself as a county at the my dad of his friend’s plan saying center of the nation’s increasing the guilt had overwhelmed him opioid epidemic. We had the highest and that my dad needed to watch rates of prescription drug overdoses his back from now on. Not very in the state and were fighting drug- long after this incident, in one final related crime in almost every level attempt to commit violence against of society, from upscale doctors our family, this same man came onto

our property and shot and killed our family dog, Pepper, just 10 feet from our front door.

After this, an investigation was finally launched and my dad was offered a “safety and security transfer” to another region. We moved to beautiful Ludington, Michigan at the beginning of my freshman year of high school in hopes of leaving the violence and hate behind us. We found the people in Ludington and the surrounding areas to be much more respectful of law enforcement in general, but just as the tides of fortune were turning in our direction, the politics surrounding the law enforcement community began to heat up. The cases of Eric Garner and Michael Brown put the law enforcement community under intense scrutiny as the narratives of police brutality and racial discrimination began to rise to the surface of the political media spotlight.

The conversation around police brutality was obviously an important one to have considering the grievances so much of our nation was voicing. Yet, in the wake of the threats and violence my family had just faced, hearing so much vitriol aimed at the police community as a whole was often very hard for us all. When friends and acquaintances began to tweet about police being “pigs” and protests against police became more violent — with some fringe groups of protests even touting phrases such as “What do we want?

Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!” — it became apparent that the police community was undergoing a form of stereotyping that, as a police officer’s daughter, struck me as very counterintuitive in the movement for peace and justice. Instead of voicing general frustrations at the system, my father and other officers we knew began to face personal attacks that increased the tension of their work environments.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com Abbie Berringer can be reached at abbierbe@umich.edu

Sports

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, November 7, 2018 — 7A

Gary returns to strong D-line after time away MIKE PERSAK

Managing Sports Editor

There’s a big difference between Rashan Gary’s preparation for the Michigan football team’s last road game and its upcoming one.

Three weeks ago as the Wolverines got set to face Michigan State, Gary was questionable to play with a shoulder injury that he suffered before the season began. It had kept him out of the three games before.

On Tuesday, Gary thought back on that time.

“I really wanted to come back Michigan State, but I personally wasn’t ready,” Gary said. “… With my range, I felt that I could do a little bit, but you know, throughout the week, it wasn’t where I think I could come out and give my team 100 percent.”

Heading into Michigan’s game against Rutgers, Gary says his health isn’t an issue.

Gary played in the Wolverines’ win over Penn State on Saturday, albeit on a limited snap count. He finished with two tackles and made his typical impact on the plays he was in.

Gary said it gave him chills stepping back on the Michigan Stadium turf with his teammates after his hiatus.

“I’m like, ‘Yeah, I missed y’all. I love y’all,’ ” Gary said. “… It felt good putting the pads on somebody else.”

It was an odd time away for Gary.

By nature of the way the Wolverines handle injury news — they hardly divulge any information — speculation surrounded Gary.

Some said he was more injured than Michigan was leading on.

Some thought Gary would go the route of Nick Bosa and sit out before declaring for the NFL Draft. Gary’s mom added fuel to the fire by posting cryptic Facebook statuses.

Gary says he wasn’t perturbed by any of this. He said he never considered skipping the rest of his games at all and that he tried to stay away from the speculation.

“I’m the only person that knows what’s going on,” Gary said. “You know, I’m the only one that can really tell you the real story about it. So, you know, having my mom speak out on it, that’s what she did. You know, that’s my mom, so I always support her and what she feels, but also, you know, things like that, I can’t let that get me mad. I’ve still got things to do. I’ve still got goals to accomplish, and I just need to get back to them.”

The rumors were even stranger because Gary wasn’t really missed that much by the Wolverines’ defense.

His backup, sophomore defensive end Kwity Paye, was more than solid in Gary’s absence, while junior defensive end Josh Uche made a major statement — he

is now 12th in the country in sacks.

Again, Gary claims not be bothered by this, rather giving positive reviews of his underlings.

“That’s something I’ve been seeing since spring ball and camp,” Gary said. “You know, just now that they got the opportunity to show off and showcase their talents, it’s crazy. You know, every time Uche goes in, I’m expecting him to get a sack. Every time Kwity goes in, I’m expecting him to hold it down and get a tackle, be an impact. And that’s the ability that they have and that’s what they’ve been showing.

I feel like, with me not playing, they did a great job coming in and stepping up and providing for the team in the ways that we needed.”

Perhaps that makes Gary’s return all the more impactful.

Michigan’s defensive line, which was dominating teams without Gary, has now returned a potential first-round draft pick.

Poor Rutgers.

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily

Junior defensive end Rashan Gary re-joined the Michigan defense against Penn State after missing the previous three games with a shoulder injury.

WRESTLING

‘M’ alum takes second

at World Championship JACOB KOPNICK Daily Sports Writer

Adam Coon stepped onto the mat one last time for all the marbles.

The former Michigan heavyweight was paired against Russia’s Sergey Semenov in the gold medal match of the 2018 World Championships on Oct. 28. Win and go down in wrestling history. Lose and avoid satisfaction with the taste of victory fleeting your starved pallet.

Unfortunately for Coon, the latter would play out before his very eyes. After dropping his opponents for four straight pins to land him a spot in the final bout, Coon’s run would come up one match short.

And in the end, Coon saw his own dominant move, the body lock, used against him and fell by a 9-0 technical fall to Semenov.

The body lock, a move completed by stepping into your opponent and clenching your arms around his upper body, led Coon to execute devastating upper body throws and ultimately pin his opponents in dramatic fashion throughout the tournament.

What makes Coon’s body lock so deadly, though, is not his upper body strength, but rather shifty footwork that tricks his opponents into falling into the lock. Coon uses hip bumps, turns and false steps to lure his opponent into a prime position to be taken down. Falling for the siren call of the false step, Coon’s opponents then fall victim to the throw.

“I’ve been working body locks since I first started wrestling when I was very young, so I kinda grew up in it,” Coon said. “I’ve very comfortable in that position, especially when I know a lot of other people are not. Especially the way that I hit it. I have a very unorthodox type style from the body lock.”

Semenov, on the other hand, proved apt at countering Coon’s trickery and confounded the

former Michigan star. Also relying heavily on the body lock, Coon knew the bout would be a fight for the position — though this was a fight he could not win.

Moving forward, Coon will look to diversify his offensive arsenal in the Greco-Roman style of wrestling, so as to not use the body lock as a crutch in future matches. Offensive diversification as well as defensive adaptability will be the name of the game for Coon’s future training regimen. And in order to gain that extra edge, this training might not happen in the United States.

Leaving Budapest behind, Coon fully intends to continue competing in the big international tournaments in pursuit of the ultimate goal — an Olympic gold medal. Along the way, Coon will look to monetize his efforts in next-level wrestling by pioneering the freshly minted American Wrestling League (AWL).

The AWL is seeking to create professional wrestling — not the “chair-over-the-head” kind, but legitimate, traditional wrestling where athletes can make money while they pursue international glory in the World Championships and Olympics. After getting drafted by fellow United States team member David Taylor on Nov. 3, Coon will test the waters of the AWL and try to spin wrestling into a full-fledged career.

Before he gets another crack at the next major international tournament, don’t expect Coon to fade from the spotlight anytime soon. Whether wrestling in the AWL, playing tug-of-war against 50 elementary schoolers or pulling trucks by rope, Coon’s stardom has grown beyond Michigan, and if all goes well, will one day land him on top of the podium at the World Championship.

Read the full story online at MichiganDaily.com

Juwann Bushell-Beatty and the virtue of patience in his fifth season MARK CALCAGNO Daily Sports Editor

Juwann Bushell-Beatty had a particular confidence about him when he first got to Ann Arbor.

The now-fifth-year-senior says he was like most freshman on the Michigan football team in that way — upbeat that high school success would carry over to the next level.

“A lot of people coming from high school those first few years, you have that certain ego about you,” Bushell-Beatty said Tuesday. “College football can be really humbling. You may not always get those opportunities.

There are guys that are better than you, there are guys who will get more opportunities.

That may happen.”

That was Bushell-Beatty’s reality.

He did not start his first game until 2017 — his fourth season with the Wolverines — and was in and out of the lineup throughout the year.

The offensive line struggled and proved to be the Achilles’ heel of Michigan’s lackluster offense.

“It takes a while to adjust, especially when you’re young,” Bushell-Beatty said. “Once you accommodate to that — you get stronger, you get in playbook, you do all these things and all these things come together — you get your confidence. Confidence is one of the most important things.”

During fall camp, however, Bushell-Beatty said that he felt that old confidence wane. It must not have helped when, to open the this season, he and redshirt junior Jon Runyan Jr. — Michigan’s starting tackles — were outmatched consistently against Notre Dame’s talentladen front seven.

“We knew we should be playing better ball,” BushellBeatty said. “We knew we had to put better stuff on tape.”

That is exactly what BushellBeatty and the Wolverines have done. Michigan is rushing for an average of 237 yards per game and have allowed just 11 sacks since Sept.

1.

BushellBeatty’s personal improvement, meanwhile, has caught the eye of the coaching staff. In his postgame press conference Saturday, Harbaugh noted that athletic director and former offensive lineman Warde Manuel thought Bushell-Beatty had his best game of his career against Penn State — two weeks after Bushell-Beatty had a similarly strong performance in East Lansing.

“College football can be really humbling.”

“The last few weeks, I’ve been on an upward trend,” BushellBeatty said. “… Being older, I don’t really have the classes like the younger guys do, so I’m just putting more time into film, getting into the playbook, paying attention to the opponent, working on techniques — those are all things you have to do.”

Rashan Gary thinks BushellBeatty’s largest leap has come in pass protection. In previous battles, the junior defensive end used to take advantage of Bushell-Beatty’s impatience at the line of scrimmage.

But, recently, Gary has noticed a different approach from Bushell-Beatty.

“Sometimes, he’ll be aggressive and shoot his hands, and I’ll get them down,” Gary

said. “But it’s like, ‘Alright, now what are you going to do, Rashan?’ Now, I got to make the move, and he’ll counter it. So it’s a great battle, and he’s getting better.”

Added Bushell-Beatty: “I think that’s probably one of the biggest things for me, just focusing on being patient.

I pride myself on having quick feet and being about to adjust quickly. Sometimes, it’s not all about that. You got to be more patient in pass (protect) and be

“Some people need more reps, just need more time.”

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily

Fifth-year senior tackle Juwann Bushell-Beatty says he has become much more patient since coming to Michigan as an over-confident freshman.

more precise and specific with your movements.”

Patience has indeed been pivotal for Bushell-Beatty — both in his current technique and career trajectory overall.

Five years removed from high school, the Wolverines’ starting right tackle is finally feeling confident — and playing the way he once expected to.

“Some people need more reps, just need more time,” BushellBeatty said. “Since being an offensive lineman is one of the most difficult positions on the field, it’s not something that comes to you right away.

Once you really get it down pat and spend a lot of time on it, it becomes a lot more natural.”

Sports

8A — Wednesday, November 7, 2018

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Season-opening snoozer

Michigan beats Norfolk State, 63-44 Jon Teske shows defensive prowess JACOB SHAMES Daily Sports Writer

Norfolk State didn’t score its first points until seven minutes and 16 seconds into the game.

By that point, it was far too late.

Sophomore guard Jordan Poole found Charles Matthews with a nifty wrap-around pass in the post, and the redshirt junior forward finished off the Michigan men’s basketball team’s second possession with its first two points. That was as close as the Wolverines’ seasonopener would get, as they handily beat the overmatched Spartans (0-1), 63-44, on Tuesday night.

The night’s most eventful moments, in reality, took place before the game started and after it ended. Fifteen minutes before tip-off, the banners for Michigan’s Big Ten Tournament Championship and Final Four appearance last year were raised to the Crisler Center rafters.

And when the final buzzer sounded, it officially marked John Beilein’s 800th win across all levels of college basketball, and the Maize Rage unveiled another banner — this one congratulating the Wolverines’ coach on his accomplishment.

“It’s 800 wins, it will go with those other basketballs that are back there,” Beilein said. “But it was nice to have a poster and so many people congratulate you.”

Added sophomore forward Isaiah Livers: “He tried to overlook it and just celebrate our opening ‘W,’ but we didn’t let him go for that. He was trying to talk over us, we were like,

‘Congrats Coach!’ … But you know how Coach (Beilein) is. He likes to move forward and just do everything in a routine.”

Between those two events, Michigan (1-0) did what it was expected to do against Norfolk State, which went just 14-19 last season.

The Wolverines led 11-0 before the Spartans found the scoreboard, and just in case there was any momentum to be had from that, Livers and freshman forward Ignas Brazdeikis both canned corner 3-pointers to go up 15 midway through the half.

The Wolverines took a 27-5 lead after a Matthews steal and layup, but went cold for the rest of the first half, as the Spartans outscored them, 8-5, over the last six and a half minutes.

But despite the inability to buy a basket for stretches, Michigan was never in any danger, as its physical superiority was ultimately too much for Norfolk State to overcome.

Seven minutes into the second half, the Spartans’ C.J. Kelly scored to cut their deficit to 18.

The Wolverines promptly went on a 15-4 run, punctuated by six points from Brazdeikis and a corner trey by sophomore guard Eli Brooks to cap off the run and put the game to bed with Michigan leading, 58-29.

Junior center Jon Teske was Michigan’s top performer, finishing with 13 points, eight rebounds — four of them offensive — and four blocks. The Spartans don’t have a player within five inches of the 7-foot-1 Teske, and this disadvantage manifested itself down low. Norfolk State

“I’m just proud that we were able to gut through.”

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Michigan coach John Beilein earned his 800th career win in his team’s season-opening domination over Norfolk State.

had no success under the basket with Teske patrolling and didn’t experience much more away from it, shooting just 31 percent from the field.

The Wolverines, however, were barely better, hitting just 22 of their 60 shot attempts, six of 26 3-pointers and a particularly hideous 13-for-29 figure from the free-throw line.

“If you look at our numbers in practice and everything, just not happening,” Beilein said. “We got to just continue to work at it, you can’t dwell on it too much.”

In the end, though, none of it would matter — at least on Tuesday night. As soon as Saturday, when Michigan will take on Holy Cross, that might change.

“I’m just proud that we were able to gut through,” Beilein said.

“It was a bit of a mess at times, but we just kept gutting through and gutting through, and our kids will see on the film how much better we can be when we play a little bit more efficiently.”

ETHAN SEARS

Daily Sports Writer

Early-season non-conference games are often blowouts, and often purely due to physical ability. That came in the form of Jon Teske for the Michigan men’s basketball team against Norfolk State on Tuesday.

All night, the Spartans (0-1) tried to drive into the paint, and all night they were met by Teske, who affected shot after shot as the Wolverines (1-0) cruised to a 63-44 win. Teske, whose eight rebounds, four blocks and steal buoyed a defensive effort that saw Norfolk State score all of 13 first-half points, has always been a defensive force. This looked a tad different than what we’ve seen from him in the past.

Teske moved his feet. He wasn’t just tall — the 7-footer whose presence alone does something on defense — but agile, managing to affect shots, yes, but also hold his own on switches. He stayed out of foul trouble, using

verticality in the way Michigan coach John Beilein has preached.

“He’s not a shot-blocker, but he’s a big dude to score over,” Beilein said. “So, if he just goes up there, man, that used to be a foul when you jumped up like that.

And now, he’s really starting to understand the verticality. And I noticed it a couple years ago when I was demonstrating something with him and he was in front of me and I couldn’t see anybody.

He’s just a big wall for us, and he’s using that effectively.”

When Teske got on the floor last year, it was often for shorter bursts. That was in part because of Moritz Wagner, part because of Teske getting into foul trouble and part because Teske simply got tired.

Wagner is gone, off to the NBA. Teske, if Tuesday is any indication, is making big steps in terms of verticality. And when asked, Beilein was quick to note that he no longer gets tired, instead being able to play through media timeouts.

This bodes well for a Michigan defense that ranked third in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency last year.

“We like his feet,” Beilein said.

“He’s very unique for a 7-(foot)1 guy who has a size-13 shoe. He really can move his feet, so we’re not hesitant about switching a ball-screen late.”

The junior center is softspoken and quick to credit teammates, the way you’re supposed to do. When asked about his assertiveness, Teske said that yes, he feels better in that area than last year, then added, “Austin (Davis) did that as well.”

But having a 7-foot-1 center patrolling the paint has its perks, especially one whose defensive prowess goes beyond being 7-foot-1.

“Ah man, it’s gonna change up their gameplan,” Isaiah Livers said. “They’re not gonna go after a 7-footer that can move his feet and doesn’t foul. You wouldn’t be a smart coach to go at Jon Teske, I would say.”

Indeed, the Spartans kept going at Teske, and it kept going badly. He didn’t try too hard to affect shots, instead walling up and reaping the rewards.

The Wolverines saw on film that the Spartans would attack the paint, but it quickly became clear that battle was futile.

“We don’t have a 7-footer, so he (was) a big challenge for us,” Norfolk State coach Robert Johnson said. “So you know, we won’t see that much size like that down the road especially, even on non-conference opponents, there’s not a lot of (7-foot-1) guys right around that we’re gonna play, so it’s okay for that. It was good to see so hopefully things like that, when we play shorter guys we’ll be able to finish.”

On Tuesday, Norfolk State got no such reprieve.

Michigan beats PSU in Big Ten Tournament ‘M’ exact revenge for first loss to Wisconsin VOLLEYBALL

AVI RAJENDRA-NICOLUCCI For the Daily

The Michigan men’s soccer team (11-4-2 overall, 4-2-2 Big Ten) secured a signature 3-1 win over Penn State (6-9-2, 3-3-2) Sunday afternoon in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament. The Wolverines dealt with several injuries to key players, including senior center back Daniel Mukuna, senior midfielder Ivo Cerda and sophomore forward Mohammed Zakyi.

Zakyi played through a hamstring injury while the other two didn’t dress.

Early on, Michigan controlled the game, forcing all 11 Nittany Lions players to defend behind the ball in their own half. Sophomore forward Umar Farouk Osman missed one shot and had another go wide before breaking through in the 29th minute. A long throw-in from the far sideline by senior defender Marcello Borges dropped to Osman, who buried the half-volley into the upper right corner.

It was a deserved goal up to that point for the Wolverines, who had a multitude of opportunities. Michigan looked poised to break the game open with a second goal, but junior forward Jack Hallahan’s closerange shot in the 30th minute was blocked, followed by Borges missing a shot wide in the 38th minute.

Penn State capitalized on the Wolverines’ poor finishing with a goal that was against the run of play just two minutes before the half. Defender Ryan Gallagher headed the ball into the left side of the goal off a corner kick by midfielder Callum Pritchatt.

The corner kick went over the attempted punch of sophomore goalkeeper Henry Mashburn, leaving a wide open net for the Nittany Lions to tie up the game.

“Physically, they’re strong,

they’re fit.

Two, they’re organized, very well coached,” said Michigan coach Chaka Daley. “And three, they’re super dangerous in every dead ball situation. As a result of that it makes it a difficult game.”

It was a frustrating end to the half for Michigan, who outshot Penn State seven to four before the break.

“Yeah, I mean, I think we told the guys we missed some passes we could have connected,” Daley said.“We missed chances we should have taken — you know what I mean — a couple half-chances we could have worked the keeper a little bit more.

“And we mismanaged the game. With three minutes to go in the half, the ball is down there, we just gotta clear our lines a little bit and not overplay or have us be too overconfident in those situations. You try to play out or rally and shield it in the corner, and unfortunately it didn’t go our way, and they took full advantage.”

The second half was

“Physically, they’re strong, they’re fit ... very well coached.”

strikingly more physical. Both teams had a player who had to leave the game due to blood being drawn. The physicality came to a head with a yellow card issued to the Nittany Lions’ Pritchatt for a blatant foul in the 50th minute.

The Wolverines took back control of the match, earning three corner kicks, one of which was converted by Osman for his second of the game. The corner was taken by Hallahan and flicked by senior midfielder Robbie Mertz to Osman, who left no doubt by firing another half-volley into the upper left corner.

“We gotta take our chances.

That’s what (Daley) told us because we got a lot of chances in the first half,” Osman said. “We just couldn’t execute, so we needed to focus and we did that.”

The first three goals of the game all came off dead-ball situations.

“I mean, if you look at the statistics of soccer just in general most goals happen in the first ten minutes or last ten

of halves typically, and a large percentage of them come off of set pieces or dead ball situations.

So the statistics are proven,” Daley said. “We focus on them before every game. We discuss them before every game before and at half. And so we’re hyperfocused I guess when it comes to those situations and fortunately today they went in our favor.”

Michigan continued its command of the game, ending with a 12-4 advantage in shots.

However, the game was far from over until Hallahan settled the contest with a goal in the 81st minute. Junior forward Lucas Rosendall passed the ball inside the box to Hallahan, who drove the ball into the lower left corner. The goal gave the Wolverines a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

“It was a very huge win for us, because we didn’t beat them earlier (this season),” said Osman. “And before the game, our coaches told us this might be our last game, so we made sure it wasn’t.”

“This might be our last game, so we made sure it wasn’t.”

PRASHANTH PANICKER/Daily

The Michigan soccer team avenged its loss to Penn State earlier in the year to move to the Big Ten semifinals.

JAKE KARALEXIS Daily Sports Writer

It felt like one of the key moments of the season.

Just over a week after the No. 14 Michigan volleyball team dropped a five-set heartbreaker at home to Wisconsin — beginning a three-match losing streak — the Wolverines came through with their biggest win of the season.

Sunday, Michigan avenged its loss to the No. 5 Badgers in Madison, defeating them 25-19, 20-25, 25-22, 25-22.

The Wolverines (19-6 overall, 8-6 Big Ten) were led once again by the duo of senior outside hitter Carly Skjodt and freshman outside hitter Paige Jones. Skojdt had 23 kills on 56 swings resulting in 25.5 scoring points, and Jones tallied 10 kills on 46 swings for 10.5 scoring points.

Sophomore middle blocker Dana Rettke paced Wisconsin (166, 9-5) with 17 kills on 35 swings for 22.5 scoring points. Redshirt junior outside hitter Madison Duello added 16 kills on 38 swings for 19 scoring points.

Michigan got off to a slow start, dropping a first set that felt much worse than the score of 25-19 indicated. After back-toback disappointing performances versus No. 3 Minnesota and at Indiana, this match seemed all set to compound on the Wolverines’ recent woes.

But Michigan won the second set, making the third feel crucial.

In a precarious spot down 18-22, the Wolverines once again mounted a startling comeback against the Badgers, ripping off seven straight points to take the set and momentum, 25-22. “(Assistant Coach Leisa Rosen) made the adjustment, and we subbed in (sophomore libero Jaqueline) DiSanto to serve, which we hadn’t done all match,” said Michigan coach Mark Rosen.

“Next thing you know we had a five-point run (out of her). Jaq did a great job of putting aggressive serves on them, and our defense

did a great job of stepping up and closing that one out.”

In contrast to their fourthset comeback to force a decider last week in Ann Arbor, the Wolverines made sure this one match wouldn’t slip away.

The fourth set was competitive throughout, with neither side leading by more than one point for most of the set after the Wolverines came back from a 13-9 deficit to tie the score at 13. Eventually, Michigan pulled ahead to finally finish Wisconsin off, 25-22.

Redshirt junior middle blocker Cori Crocker made her longawaited return from injury, providing a spark with four kills on seven swings for five scoring points. She also aided the defense with two blocks and two block assists — the second-most on the day for the Wolverines in both categories.

“We actually used her in the opposite position today, because we still didn’t feel that she was ready to move 100 percent and cover the range that she’d have to as a middle.” Rosen said. “I think with Cori coming back, the biggest thing is that it gives us some options, to really make some adjustments (with blocking).

Allowing her to impact the other team with her blocking presence is huge.

“Hopefully within the next week, we’ll have her all back to 100 percent.”

Michigan looks to continue on the winning track with six more regular season matches before the start of the NCAA Tournament.

“I think when you’re struggling a little bit, you haven’t had the wins, it’s definitely frustrating,” Rosen said. “It was a really muchneeded win today, and with sports and athletics, the mood (around the team) is constantly changing.

“I’m proud of this team for fighting really hard when things weren’t going great, and still finding a way to fight through that and keep their wits in a match like this.”

statement T H E M I CH I GA N DAI LY | N OV E M B E R 7, 201 8

2016 E LEC TI O N

Charting the politics of Michigan

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Wednesday, November 7, 2018 // The Statement

statement T H E M I CH I GA N DAI LY | N OV E M B E R 7, 201 8

Managing Statement Editor: Brian Kuang

Editor in Chief: Alexa St. John

Managing Editor: Dayton Hare

Deputy Editors: Colin Beresford Jennifer Meer

Photo Editor: Amelia Cacchione

Copy Editors: Elise Laarman Finntan Storer

Designer: Elizabeth Bigham

Copy That: What do U mean?

H

ad I owned a laptop in early high school, I probably would’ve had one of those text bubble “*you’re” stickers smugly displayed on it, announcing to the world how grammatically superior I was to those who dared to write “your welcome.”

ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY KOFFSKY

BY MADELINE TURNER, COPY EDITOR

Luckily, I didn’t have a laptop, and luckily, my view of grammar has changed since then.

Grammar has always been something I thought was both fun and important, particularly as someone who considers themselves detail-oriented.

Having

parents who routinely pointed out misplaced apostrophes or quotation marks on signs and menus, I became a grammar stickler myself and had proudly written my first email to Ford Motor Company criticizing their use of the phrase “less stops” [COPY: fewer] in one of their commercials by age 13. A source of pride for me became my knowledge of language and grammatical structure, from understanding the difference between a subject and a direct object to noticing dangling modifiers and misused commas.

However, I have also become a lover of shorthand texting. In my everyday communications, I often don’t have to worry about the difference between “your” and “you’re” because I have come to replace them both with “ur,” and I now find myself even avoiding grammatically correct structures to be more casual with my friends. It would seem that my love for “correct” grammar and disdain for those who didn’t use it would contradict my frequent use of shortened words and texting acronyms, which raises a question: How could I reconcile loving both?

The answer, I found, is that both styles are valuable because of their ability to accurately convey information, regardless of whether they’re

recognized as “standard” or not. After taking a cultural linguistics class, I realized that language, and more specifically, grammar, exists to allow for effective communication between people, and really, its only failure is if it’s not understandable. As long as I write with a consistent style to someone, even if it’s not standard English, my grammar is doing its job.

For instance, my friends

the same style for every piece allows for clarity of our writers’ messages.

For example, we use “the University,” with a capital U, to refer to the University of Michigan on second reference. If we were to edit an article that discussed “the struggles of a university student,” there would be an important difference if we capitalized the U, as it would change the meaning from “the struggles of a college

The answer, I found, is that both styles are valuable because of their ability to accurately convey information, regardless of whether they’re recognized as “standard” or not. are accustomed to my use of “lmao wtf” and “rn,” and therefore my shorthand style is perfectly acceptable for that context, as long as I don’t change the meaning of these acronyms without telling them.

At The Michigan Daily, we use our standardized stylebook for the same reason: We want our writing to be understood. Largely based on AP Style, The Daily Stylebook follows grammatical guidelines similar to the ones many other newspapers use, as this uniformity allows readers to understand us, while also making sure our paper looks precise and professional.

While many probably think copy editors’ nitpicking and subtle changes are largely inconsequential, using

student” to “the struggles of a University of Michigan student.” If we started capitalizing “university” arbitrarily, the intended meaning from our writer would be lost.

The importance of our style, I believe, is not that it is standard English, but that its uniformity conveys the correct meaning of our writers’ words. Realizing this is true with all styles of speaking and writing, whether lingo or standard English, has allowed me to still do what I love to do: pay attention to small details.

Now, luckily, I do it to make sure I understand or convey the precise meaning of something, and not simply to show off my grammatical dominance via laptop sticker.

Wednesday, November 7, 2018// The Statement

“There is an urgent, awful specialness to being young right now”

I

n the spring of 2016, I voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary for president. I’d gone to a rally that March, and Sanders had said things I’d never heard any politician say. He wanted to give Americans universal health care, economic equality, affordable college education, a more sustainable economy and easier access to reproductive health services.

When I recall my excitement at these endeavors — and his — I feel the frustrated, pointless burn of misplaced naivete.

The future I imagined through him is so very different than the one I live in now.

Even though Sanders lost the Democratic primary in June 2016, I was still excited to vote in the presidential election. I thought that when I voted for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, I would be voting for America’s first woman president. Besides, the fact that Sanders made it all the way to the primary felt like an omen of a coming progressive wave. This was the world my friends and I lived in: one where experts told us it was very likely a woman would be our next president, one where truth and democracy seemed possible even when they failed to create justice.

On Nov. 8, 2016, I voted in Palmer Commons and immediately texted my mother. She sent me a selfie with an “I voted” sticker on her forehead. I promised to call her later that night so we could celebrate together. My mom was one of the 6,972 people in Emmet County who voted for Hillary Clinton. 10,616 cast their ballot for Donald Trump. Michigan — like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — would go Republican for the first time since the 1980s.

As I walked through the Diag to my Sociology exam on Nov. 9, 2016, I tried not to let my mind wander away from Trump’s win. Later, my professor projected Hillary Clinton’s concession speech live in my history class. It seemed to mark the magnitude of the occasion. We were unashamed to cry with one another. A girl who had defended Trump during a class discussion the week before excused herself to the bathroom for a long time. When she returned, she looked embarrassed and only a little smug. I almost felt guilty that she was excluded from our collective grief.

As college students, national politics are at once distant and immediate. From the protest of the Vietnam War at Kent State University to the anti-Apartheid demonstrations at Harvard University and Wesleyan College, college campuses have always been hotbeds of political and social anxiety. Protests centered on individual issues — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Israel-Palestine, Brett Kavanaugh — still abound at the University. But many of the anxieties that have accompanied the Trump administration are difficult to understand and articulate, much less protest against effectively. What good would it do to march around Ann Arbor with signs decrying Russian collusion? To

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BY MIRIAM FRANCISCO, COLUMNIST

ILLUSTRATION BY VALERIE CHRISTOU

chant in the Diag about nepotism in Trump’s White House? The menace of the Trump administration vacillates between insidiously subtle and glaringly apparent, and students are coping with this uncertainty in a number of ways.

College culture has become self-conscious, half-ironic hedonism: Juuling and throwing away Juuls, binge-drinking but fetishizing health food, using Tinder for meaningless hookups while also secretly hoping to find love. We want immediate pleasure because things seem so bad right now, but we’re not ready to abandon a future that doesn’t require indulging in these temporary escapes.

Two years after the 2016 election, my classmates and I are living in the world that many of us feared. I am trying to remember a time when there wasn’t an endless barrage of news every day –– news that only serves as a reminder of how deeply bizarre and unbearably tragic Trump’s America is. For college students like myself, it’s hard to remember anything else. I’ve been having an unsettling sense of déjà vu this semester.

Just as they did during the first semester of my freshman year, everyone is talking about voting. It’s making me think about how the world has changed over the past two years, and about how college is both a protection against, and a microcosm of, our country’s anxieties.

I’ve been wondering recently: Was I just

guileless before the 2016 election? I know now that I entered college lulled to complacency by a false hope and security. As a white person, I recognize that America has always felt much safer for me than it has for people who hold minority identities. Still, I think it was more than youthful ignorance, white privilege and economic security that made the world seem so different two years ago. This is why I’m struggling to reconcile the near-immediate impact of the election on my sense of America and of the world.

Has everything always been so hateful and violent? Have people always been so cruel and selfish?

Sometimes my friends and I play a game where we name everything we are worried about. We start small and then we work our way out, and out, and out. This makes the scope and depth of our fears feel almost comical. It’s much worse to let the specter of our anxieties remain private.

Many of my friends share my identities: white, woman, middle-class, heterosexual.

These majority identities protect us. Like numerous students at the University, I do not face immediate bodily harm from some of the things I am afraid of. At a university whose student body is majority white and wealthy, there’s a striking disconnect between anxiety and tangible impact.

There is a pervading sense on campus — among students as well as professors — that

we are living in an unprecedented time, no matter what identities we hold. People are constantly making broad reference to the news or what’s been going on recently. They never need to explain. We all know. We are all worried.

What are we worried about? We are worried about our exam next week. We are worried about paying off our student loans.

We are worried about getting a job when we graduate and about leaving the warm bubble of college. We are worried about being shot in our classrooms before we even have a chance to leave. We are worried about being shot in our synagogues and in our churches and in our newsrooms and at the movies and at the grocery store and in the street. We are worried about not being able to get birth control or a legal abortion, about being sexually assaulted and having our attacker walk free.

We are worried the National Guard will fire at the migrant caravan. We are worried Trump will issue an executive order to negate the birthright clause. We are worried about private prisons and nuclear weapons and Flint’s water and gerrymandering and voter fraud and Russian meddling in the 2016 election. We are worried about antibiotic resistance, PFAS, the UN Climate Report, Monsanto and the Sixth Mass Extinction.

Most of all, we are worried that as bad as things seem now, we will remember these years as the final ones of a dying country and a dying world. We are worried that right now is when we still had time to act — that these are the days and months when we could have saved ourselves and yet did not.

Of course, these issues did not begin when Trump was inaugurated, and many of them have nothing to do with him. Somehow, though, they feel connected. The past 18 months have been struck through with a particularly forbidden thrill. There is an urgent, awful specialness to being young right now. The threat of all-out chaos permeates everything, giving each day an aura of tense hyperreality.

For college students, it’s tempting to be cynical — especially while we’re still on campus and shielded, to some extent, by the distraction of classes, social lives and extracurriculars. It’s much more painful to devote ourselves to speaking out against what we deplore and still falling short. The amputation is far easier if we say we never cared about the limb in the first place, that it was gangrened and rotted long before we tried to save it. What is the limb in this metaphor — our rights? Our planet? Our future? I don’t know.

I think there are two ways to cope with the frantic anxiety of our time: numbing ourselves against the fear or trying to live with it somehow. I want to say — like we all do — that I’m choosing the latter option. I’m really trying. It’s just so much harder than I thought it would be.

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Wednesday, November 7, 2018 // The Statement

Charting the politics of Michigan

Wednesday, November 7, 2018// The Statement

2000

Design by Willa Hua | Analysis by Robert Lesser | Written by Brian Kuang An election is nothing more than a snapshot of the electorate at a given time. Nevertheless, the results of the 2018 midterm elections in Michigan help form a wider story of the shifting political sands of the state and the nation. To help conceptualize today’s election results, the Statement Magazine has charted out how Michigan’s political map has shifted in three pivotal elections and how control of local and statewide offices has changed beginning in 2000.

Bush v. Gore Amid a close national race where Texas Gov. George W. Bush ultimately prevailed, Vice President Al Gore edged out Bush in Michigan by five percentage points. Gore’s victory in the state was powered by strong margins out of Detroit, and traditionally-Democratic industrial and rural areas largely on the east side of the state, including Macomb County. On the same night U.S. Rep. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., beat incumbent Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich., for Michigan’s Senate seat by two percentage points in a much closer race. Democrats retained control over Michigan’s seats in the House — holding 10 out of 16 seats.

2008

The Obama Coalition Though Republicans had early hope for contesting Michigan, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., ultimately had a decisive win in the state, beating Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, by nearly 17 percentage points. In his victory, Obama carried not only historically Democratic areas, but also swept many predominantly white, working-class areas in rural and Upper Peninsula counties. The turnout of the voting age population for the election was 66 percent — almost four percent higher than the national rate and eight percent higher than 2000.

2016

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Shattering the Obama Coalition Republican businessman Donald Trump took the nation by surprise by narrowly winning many Midwestern states, including Michigan where he beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by 11,000 votes out of 4.8 million votes that were cast in the state. Trump’s victory was built on flipping historically Democratic industrial strongholds in regions such as Macomb, Saginaw and Bay counties — many of which had voted for Obama only recently — and relatively weak voter enthusiasm in Detroit. Clinton had a relatively strong showing in upscale and educated areas such as Ann Arbor, but this was not enough to overcome Democrats’ historically weak performance in Michigan’s rural areas.

A brief history of party control in Michigan While Democrats historically dominated top ballot in Michigan, statewide offices have often been a tossup

*Color intensity is coded on each candidate or party’s margin in Michigan for the most recent election year on timeline

**Timeline year indicates year in which election takes place, rather than year where office is held

***Source: Michigan Secretary of State

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Wednesday, November 7, 2018 // The Statement

Finding a community of my own

D

BY ALEC COHEN, ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR

o you guys want to hang Saturday night?” I text some guys I met during Welcome Week, the October of my freshman year.

“Sorry, we have to be at our frat party,” the reply reads. I already know I’m probably not getting in, as me being a guy would mess up the “ratio” of their party.

Next, I text some friends from home, firing off the same message, and a few minutes later my phone buzzes again with the same response.

“Sorry, we’re planning on going out to some frat parties.”

This scenario is what I went through from September until the beginning of March — the majority of my freshman year.

I’d decided not to rush a fraternity during the first month of my freshman year, getting cold feet and sensing I wouldn’t be able to fit in. This led to a feeling of exclusion and as a freshman dropped in a new environment, it was difficult to cope with.

After a couple months of sitting alone in my dorm room on Saturday nights, I decided to go down the hall and start a conversation with the other people who were spending their weekends in the dorm because they too weren’t in Greek life. That was the point when I started to break out of my shell and realize there are other ways to enjoy the weekend that didn’t involve fraternity parties. And even though I may not be friends with most of these people from the dorm this year, I believe that the initiative I took to start conversations in the dorm allowed me to

step out of my comfort zone and it made me feel like I was one step closer to finding my place at the University of Michigan.

I had come to realize there are many different directions to find a community at the University. When starting at the University of Michigan, I thought Greek life was a common thing that a majority of students did, while only about 18 percent of undergraduates actually are involved.

There are other ways for me to make the most of my college experience and enjoy my time at the University that don’t involve having to shotgun a beer in a small, sweaty basement in order to impress my friends.

Instead of feeling sorry for myself and worrying about what I was going to do each weekend, I could stop comparing myself to the people who are out at parties with their new group of close friends. Most people, myself included, don’t become best friends with someone the instant they meet them. It seems that when you become part of a fraternity, you are immediately immersed in a community of people who you know you will be spending the majority of your time in college with. But building friendships took time for me, and eventually, I was able to find a community of my own.

Even though it didn’t happen in the first couple of weeks, I can say that during my second semester I finally found my community at the University. And that community is the amazing people at 420 Maynard St. that spend their time working for The Michigan Daily.

I remember walking into a mass meet-

ing as a nervous freshman who wanted to get more involved with photography on campus. Once I joined the Photo section, I began to come in on a weekly basis to work at The Daily for production. Each time I came in, I spoke to more people. In the beginning, it was just other photographers who were around me doing similar things.

As time went on, I began interacting with people not only who take pictures for The Daily, but also people from other sections too, such as Sports, Design and News.

Meeting these people — from fellow photographers to basketball-addicted sports writers — is really what allowed me to feel part of a community, and perhaps form a fraternity of my own. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of a fraternity is “a group of people associated or formally organized for a common purpose, interest, or pleasure.”

In a way, I realized that I can still be part of a fraternity, even if it’s not the stereotypical fraternity I initially think of. The people of The Daily are always there for me when I need it, whether that be with academics or not. And I know that the building at 420 Maynard can be a place to go during both good days and bad days.

Still, from time to time during my sophomore year, I am reminded of the fact that I am not in a fraternity as I occasionally find myself alone on the weekends, looking for people to be with. When I do find myself alone, needing someone to talk to or do something to ease the stress of college, I know that I can go to 420 Maynard and the people of The Daily will be there.

Wednesday, November 7, 2018 // The Statement

An American Farce

BY MARTINA VILLALOBOS, COLUMNIST

W

hile at times it seems that we are living a political farce, President Donald Trump’s administration is not an exaggerated theatrical mockery of politics. It is the overt and violent manifestation and expansion of American imperialism. What is happening south of the U.S.-Mexico border — the approaching caravan of migrants — is a direct consequence of this historical legacy.

Though the midterm elections are often written off as inconsequential, the outcomes ILLUSTRATION BY BETSY STUBBS of this election say much more about the future of the country than before.

American imperialism can be succinctly defined as policies enacted to expand American dominion — whether political, economic or cultural — beyond its geographic boundaries. Throughout its history, American imperialism has come about through economic engagement both by way of private means, government treaties, military interventions or regime changes. While this is talked about as a historical issue, the consequences of imperialismarepresenttoday.

Central and Latin America are not strangers to these political interventions. The 1960s represented an era of social hope where major civil wars and communist revolutions exploded in the Southern Hemisphere.

As a result, the 1980s, under Ronald Reagan’s neoliberal agenda with Henry Kissinger’s geopolitical games from the preceding decades, marked an era of conservative backlash. In an attempt to contain communist expansion, the United States, through its seemingly unlimited resources, pushed its interests through puppet govern-

American imperialism can be succinctly defined as policies enacted to expand American dominion — whether political, economic or cultural — beyond its geographic boundaries.

ments and military-backed dissidents. This created a growing political divide in Central America. Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras would all be directly affected. Today, the legacy of these interventions are most clearly seen in the privatization of state enterprises, changes in labor rights laws, neoliberal trade reforms and the overall liberalization of “democracy.”

The imposed political transformations have left in their wake the displacement and destruction of entire communities.

American intervention has left these countries unable to reconcile the political divide and they are crumbling under a neoliberal banner.

The approaching migrant caravan is the loud rumbling of this past. Thousands of migrants are embarking on a dangerous journey to escape the consequences of American imperialism. They are fighting poverty and violence. As they travel, they face the dangers of human trafficking, dehydration, starvation and death — all for an uncertain future.

As Trump send troops south — militarizing the border — he further proves his ignorance of the country’s historical legacy. He uses military power to make a political statement — a statement that lacks reflection. His comments highlight a collective unconscious that has failed to problematize the question of America in the world. His actions, using the military for political gain, as well as his comments, reveal the dark and racist underbelly of America. He is bolstering an angry white constituency that is blind to reality.

However, Trump has made one crucial mistake: People have the ability to see through his actions and recognize the bigotry behind his words. In these turbulent times, the ability to think and reflect is our greatest strength.

So as people lined up at the polls, their vote was no longer just about healthcare, reproductive rights, or tax laws. Their vote now represents a shout that we will not tolerate the ignorance and blatant violence against people who represent the very consequence of American intervention. As Americans, we have an obligation to understand and question the prevailing history of our interventions as they affect the world at large. Only by engaging in these conversations can we make sure that politicians don’t use generalizations to justify their means. Yesterday it was at the polls — tomorrow it will be at the dinner table, making sure this history is not forgotten.

This is the only way to live up to the image and promise of America as a land of hope.

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Wednesday, November 7, 2018 // The Statement

A student makes poster with voting information in Mason Hall.

The polls at Tappan Middle School.

Hannah Siegel/Daily

Claire Meingast/Daily

V I S UA L S TAT E M E N T:

Midterm Elections A sign on a lightpole in the Diag.

The polls in the Michigan League.

Polls at the Sports Coliseum.

Hannah Siegel/Daily

Hannah Siegel/Daily

Annie Klus/Daily

Students leaving the Sports Coliseum after voting.

Annie Klus/Daily