2021-10-27

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY ONE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Ann Arbor, Michigan

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Wednesday, October 27, 2021 CAMPUS LIFE

Enrollment tops 50,000 for first time in history

New class is more diverse than the previous one NAVYA GUPTA Daily Staff Reporter

JEREMY WEINE/Daily After gathering in front of the steps of the Hatcher Graduate Library, students and other climate strikers march around the Diag’s perimeter cheering and chanting Friday Oct. 22.

UMich students stage walkout for climate policies, justice

More than 100 march across campus, demand more University action ELI FRIEDMAN & NIRALI PATEL Daily Staff Reporters

More than 100 University of Michigan students protested for climate justice on the afternoon of Oct. 22 as part of a class walkout organized by Fridays for Future, a global youth movement committed to striking for stronger climate policies.

During the protest, student activists presented a list of demands to the University, including that they declare a climate emergency and fully divest from fossil fuels. At the Board of Regents meeting last March, the University committed to divesting from companies with the largest greenhouse gas contributions and to achieving a netzero endowment by 2050. This vote came after years of activism from student groups on campus

who called on the University to take immediate action to reach carbon neutrality and divestment.

Students at the protest marched across campus, looping around North University Avenue, State Street and South University Avenue. As they walked near the Law Quad, many student protesters stopped by Schlissel’s house, showing support for the survivors of sexual abuse from late University athletic doctor Robert Anderson.

For more than a week, former University football player Jonathan Vaughn, a survivor of Anderson, has staged a sit-in outside of Schlissel’s house to demand that the University create stronger protections for survivors of sexual abuse and meet with Anderson’s victims.[ During their march, students repeated “No more coal, no more oil, keep that carbon in the soil,”

“Hey hey, ho ho, climate change has got to go” and “Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell: take your filth and go to hell.”

LSA sophomore Lexi Crilley, who serves on the Students for Clean Energy‘s policy team, read the demands at the protest.

“We’re tired of the University’s goals to make more goals,” Crilley said. “The endless empty promises of the institution. So until these demands are met, we will continue striking. We’ll keep protesting.”

LSA senior Elena Swirczek spoke to the crowd about the role of hope in combating climate change. She said it can be difficult to feel optimistic in the face of worsening news about the climate, such as the report published this year by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that found that human-created climate change will raise the globe’s

temperature by 1.5 to 2.0 during the 21st century “unless deep reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades.”

Swirczek said despite these grim predictions, a “doom and gloom” attitude can lead to inaction.

“Hope is an action that can be constant, even when the feeling is not,” Swirczek said. “Because if we don’t take any action, we’ve already lost.”

Swirczek urged the protestors not to feel like they have to be perfect activists to bring about progress. Instead, she said, they should focus on working together to demand system-wide changes.

“Find the people building power and join them,” Swirczek said.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

The University of Michigan’s enrollment hit an unprecedented high of more than 50,000 students in Fall 2021, according to a release from the University Record.

University President Mark Schlissel spoke about the increased University enrollment at the University of Michigan Board of Regents meeting the evening of Oct. 21.

“This fall’s first year class on the Ann Arbor campus is our largest ever, and our student body for the campus is more than 50,000 for the first time in history,” Schlissel said. “Demand for a Michigan education is at record highs.”

This fall, the number of freshman student applicants rose by about 15,000, reaching a total of 79,743. 16,071 were offered admission, representing a 20% acceptance rate. In 2020, the acceptance rate was 26%.

7,290, or 45%, of accepted applicants chose to enroll at the University — 400 more than the previous year, which saw a 41% enrollment rate of those who were offered admission.

There was a 3% increase in total undergraduate enrollment this semester, going from 31,329 enrollees last year to 32,282 enrollees this year. The number of graduate and professional school enrollees reached 17,996 this year, rising from a previous enrollment of 16,578.

Within the new class, about 37% of students identify as persons of color, compared to 34% of students last year. Latinx student enrollment saw a 48% increase from 433 last year

to 640 this fall. Black student enrollment rose from 305 last year to 404 this fall — a rise of about 32%.

Student organizations on campus have criticized the University’s low Black and Latinx enrollment numbers — particularly in January when the University discontinued the Provost Award, which provided full demonstrated need for some out-of-state students.

Latinx students make up 9% of the current freshman class, compared to 6% last year. While Black students make up 6% of the current freshman class compared to 4% last year.

Out of this term’s freshman class, around 50% reside in-state, while 45% are domestic out-ofstate and 5% international.

Additionally, there was an 8% rise in transfer students from last year. The freshman and transfer classes combined include students from 77 Michigan counties, all 50 states, five U.S. territories and 70 countries.

In the Record article, Adele Brumfield, vice provost for enrollment management, attributed this rise in enrollment to virtual recruitment events and the University’s early decision to have Fall 2021 classes in person.

Brumfield also highlighted the importance of financial aid in promoting student enrollment.

“The university is committed to providing generous financial resources, which allows more students to choose U-M and thrive once they arrive here,” Brumfield said. “With the admissions season for fall 2022 in full swing, we’re looking to the future and recruiting the next talented and diverse class of Wolverines.”

See ENROLLMENT, page 3

University of Michigan endowment grows 40.6% Funds now valued at $17 billion as of June 2021 JUSTIN O’BEIRNE & JULIA FORREST Daily Staff Reporters

The University of Michigan endowment grew 40.6% for fiscal year 2021, totaling to $17 billion on June 20, 2021, Geoffrey Chatas, U-M executive vice president and chief financial officer, told the University of Michigan Board of Regents at their Oct. 21 meeting.

Despite the significant growth, Chatas said it is important to look for context beyond short-term gains.

“We’re very pleased with the strong performance,” Chatas said. “It was as recently as 2016 that the endowment went down in value, and last year, the long-term portfolio that the endowment is invested in gained only 2.3%.”

The University’s endowment is the ninth largest in the country and third among public universities, according to the University Record. Over 12,000 separate endowment funds make up the U-M endowment, of which funds are specifically designated for scholarships, educational programs, research and professorships.

Ahead of the Fall 2020 semester, the Regents voted to increase tuition by 1.9% for the 2020-2021 school year, drawing backlash from students and parents who pointed to the endowment as a way to avoid the increase during COVID19. The decision was widely circulated on social media, with many saying they were shocked at the tuition increase.

At the meeting, the board

also voted to name the new 163,000-square-foot building set to be on North Campus the Leinweber Computer Science and Information Building in appreciation of the Leinweber Foundation and software entrepreneur Larry Leinweber, who contributed $25 million to support construction.

The new center, costing around $145 million, will be home to both the School of Information and the College of Engineering’s computer science and engineering programs. The building aims to bridge the geographical gap between those in the School of Information and the Computer Science and Engineering division of the College of Engineering.

Tom Baird, vice president for development, thanked the Leinweber Foundation for their donation.

“The Leinweber family members have been wonderful volunteers and advocates for the University of Michigan for many ,many years … (including) creating the Leinweber Software Scholars Program at Michigan Engineering and establishing the Leinweber Center for Theoretical Physics in LSA,” Baird said.

University President Mark Schlissel also announced a series of new funding to build the Innovation and Technology Center at U-M Flint which will serve as a base for the recently added College of Innovation and Technology. Schlissel said this investment would help both the U-M Flint community and the greater Flint region.

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See ENDOWMENT, page 3

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SOPHIA AFENDOULIS/Daily Some Ann Arbor Public Schools community members say equity plan does not adequately address racial inequity within the district.

Some Ann Arbor Public Schools parents, educators criticize district’s equity plan AASPIRE says proposal is performative, not specific enough on timeframe CAROLINE WANG Daily Staff Reporter

Ann Arbor School Parents Intent on Racial Equity met virtually with members of the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education Oct. 19 to discuss the district’s equity plan and what parents said were its flaws in protecting Black and brown students in the district.

AASPIRE is a group of parents, caregivers, community leaders and educators who advocate for racial equity within AAPS. They work to eliminate the achievement and opportunity gaps and to improve the educational experience for Black and brown students in the school district.

The AAPS equity plan, released in January 2019, contains five main areas of focus: perpetuating systems of equity and opportunity;

promoting equity-centered leadership; systemic transformation of culture; equity-centered school and classroom practices; and family and community empowerment.

Oct. 19’s meeting comes after numerous allegations of racism within AAPS surfaced earlier this year. Pioneer High School faces allegations of racial hostility after an AAPS student sent a letter to the district through the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative, a Michigan Law student-run clinic. The letter, which listed three demands to dismantle institutional racism in response to the racial hostility multiple students faced at Pioneer, prompted AAPS to offer multiple statements promising to begin an investigation to address these allegations.

“The stories of the indignities they have suffered at Pioneer because of their race are heart-wrenching and disturbing,” the CRLI letter reads.

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“We write this long letter to amplify their voices and to strongly urge you to redress the systemic racism at Pioneer. Black Lives Matter.”

AASPIRE criticizes the equity plan, calling it a performative act for racial equity. They said the plan puts the blame on Black and brown children for their performance at school, fails to specify accountability measures or assign responsibilities, does not offer a timeframe for completion and does not state the problem it is trying to solve.

Board members Bryan Johnson, Jessica Kelly and Krystle DuPree were present at the meeting.

When asked what BOE’s role was in constructing the equity plan, Johnson said though various AAPS stakeholders contributed to the equity plan, they are responsible for setting guidance for the superintendent and steering the district strategy that captures the

Vol. CXXX, No. 56 ©2021 The Michigan Daily

values of the district.

“There were members of the cabinet and teachers and other equity teams across the district that put in a lot of work to create an equity plan,” Johnson said. “They then send it to the Board of Education to talk about it and look to see if there are things that were missing, and to approve it for a public unveiling.”

When asked about the timeline for implementing the equity plan, Johnson said the pandemic has slowed the process. They are currently revising the plan, according to Johnson.

“In terms of the rollout, when the community could be engaged, that was actually going to be in March of 2020, with the 2020-2021 school year as the goal to roll that out,” Johnson said. “Just as we were doing that, that’s when we had a new reality, which was COVID-19.”

See EQUITY PLAN, Page 2

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GABBY CERITANO/Daily Halloween decorations are scattered around campus in anticipation for the holiday weekend.

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ACADEMICS

Transfer students to UMich discuss campus opportunities, mentorship Programs like M-Connect aid in adjustment to life at Michigan

KAITLYN LUCKOFF Daily Staff Reporter

In 2021, more than 1,700 transfer students enrolled at the University of Michigan, according to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.While the transfer process varies by student and the institution they are transferring from, over the past year transfer students all had to adapt to a virtual campus community.

As the University returns to a mostly in-person semester, transfer students shared with The Michigan Daily their experiences and the organizations that best supported them on campus during the pandemic as well as during their first semester on campus.

Several students transferred to the University to attend their dream school, as they were not admitted to the University out of high school. Kinesiology senior Lior Kolton transferred to the University from Michigan State University after his sophomore year. Kolton said he did not originally intend to transfer but that the switch was worth it once he found his community.

“Once I did really well in my classes (at MSU), I thought why not try it out and see what happens,” Kolton said. ”I think the biggest adjustment was trying to find my community on campus and find student orgs to get involved in. I’m in a pre-law fraternity that’s amazing, so trying to find that took a semester, and it was a little stressful, but I was very lucky to have already had a big school experience so I kind of knew what to expect.”

LSA senior Charlotte Gamperle transferred to the University as a junior from Northeastern University in Bos-

EQUITY PLAN From Page 1 Jordan Else, a member of AASPIRE and Ann Arbor resident, said she would like to see an increase in urgency regarding the rollout of the plan and said the superintendent needs to lead the implementation.

“Our concerns come in the fact that this is taking time,” Else said. “We really would like a greater sense of urgency.

When we talk to other districts … the things that we hear are that we need urgency and that we need this to come from the top down.”

One major critique of AAPS’s equity plan was its lack of specifics, according to Else.

She said through AASPIRE’s investigation of past successful equity plans in other school districts, they found common themes.

Successful plans properly defined the problem schools were facing and provided specifics on accountability, which is something the AAPS equity plan lacks, Else said.

One of the successful equity plans was the Campaign for Racial Equity in Our Schools in Chapel Hill, N.C.

ton because she said she wanted a more conventional college experience, as Northeastern utilizes a student co-op program in which students alternate between working and taking classes each semester.

“I just felt like what I was lacking (at Northeastern) was community and the traditional college experience,” Gamperle said. “It kind of detracted from my overall college experience because I felt like I was a younger professional rather than a college student, and I realized that I am in no hurry to rush into the professional world if I’m going to be in it for the rest of my life.”

When applying to college out of high school, Gamperle said the University was not on her radar. After researching the best schools for student life, she said she discovered the University almost immediately and was drawn to the culture of school spirit.

Entering campus in the fall of 2020, Gamperle said she knew the adjustment would not be easy, as she was seeking an inclusive campus community during the peak of the pandemic. She said being part of the Global Scholars Program and joining student organizations helped, and she also tried to reach out to as many students as possible.

“Even though it was uncomfortable a lot of the time, I would basically reach out to people one on one and ask to meet up socially distanced, and I did that until it got cold,” Gamperle said. “I think it was worth it in the long run because I have a good set of people now.”

Gamperle said Transfer Connections, a student organization that facilitates peer and faculty mentoring, helped her find her place on campus.

According to the Office of New

Student Programs, through Transfer Connections each transfer student serving as a mentee, is matched with a former transfer student mentor and faculty mentor to assist them in finding on-campus opportunities after transferring.

“They’ve been really helpful tailoring my Michigan experience to me, and just being there for me,” Gamperle said. “This year I actually came back as a mentor myself. I have a group of 18 mentees that have come in this year, and my job is to meet with them as often as I can and plan social events.”

Other on-campus resources for transfer students include M-Connect and SuccessConnects. M-Connect assists students looking to transfer from community colleges, and SuccessConnects pairs transfer students with an individual mentor to help them find communities on campus.

Kolton, who transferred right before the pandemic began, said the University’s orientation program was extremely helpful.

“The orientation they ran was fantastic, and I met a cool friend of mine,” Kolton said. “He’s actually in class with me but transferred over as well. I thought that was a really good way to help me adjust.”

In an email to The Daily, Michael Hartman, assistant director of LSA Student Recruitment for Transfer Initiatives and Partnerships, said assisting transfer students during the pandemic has been more difficult than normal.

“Some of our transfers will have spent more of their semester learning remotely than they have had on campus by the time they graduate,” Hartman wrote.

Gamperle said the virtual events planned by the University during the completely remote semester when she transferred were not beneficial.

“Because so much of the concern when you’re transferring is all about finding a community, I think that was really difficult to do in the virtual format,” Gamperle said. “I didn’t really gain anything from the University in terms of finding community here or finding my place. It was more self-directed of me seeking people out and seeking out my own resources like Transfer Connections.”

Hartman said resources such as the LSA Transfer Student Center, the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, optiMize as well as Transfer Connections are helpful for transfer students to become more embedded in the University community and engage with other transfer students..

“Going to office hours to connect with faculty can make all the difference in improving the transfer experience,” Hartman said.

Like most freshmen, Gamperle said she experienced the nervousness that accompanies arriving on campus for the first time and emphasized the importance of putting yourself out there.

“I know it can be really hard and uncomfortable, but I think it’s definitely worth it to try and to meet as many people as possible,” Gamperle said. “Reach out to professors, just try to make as many connections as you can, because Michigan does have so many resources that are waiting to be taken advantage of.”

“Through this problem identification and looking at the data, successful plans, every single one, include specific measures and accountability,” Else said. “When we look at the best practices, they all included all stakeholders at the beginning of the plan. Not having teachers, not having students and not having parents in this plan is almost sure to set it up where it is not going to meet everyone’s needs.”

Stacey Ebron, a member of AASPIRE and the mother of two boys at Lawton Elementary School, discussed how identifying the problem is a key step in proper implementation.

“You really need to have an understanding and acknowledgement of the ways that the school system is set up to benefit white children and disadvantage children of color,” Ebron said. “When we look at Chapel Hill’s problem statement and AAPS’s equity plan, what we are missing is the understanding of the problem.

The mission statement is to increase equity, but there is no explanation of what the problem is, the goals and the objectives.”

Angela Guy-Lee, a member of AASPIRE and mother of three AAPS students, discussed how AAPS’s definition of

equity does not address the responsibility leadership holds in solving equity problems in schools.

“When everyone is responsible, no one is actually responsible,” Guy-Lee said.

“This is a game that institutions play, and what they say is ‘All of us have a role in fixing this, but all of us don’t have power to implement change.’ Equity at its core is about power.

You can’t even create a power statement that doesn’t address the power differentials. This kind of statement sounds good, it’s performative, it’s f luffy, but it doesn’t actually hold anyone who’s getting paid to do this work accountable.”

In response to AASPIRE’s critiques, Johnson said it is important to note that the plan is only a draft.

“We are still in somewhat of a starting point,” Johnson said.

AASPIRE also researched the equity plans forJefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky, which included specifics such as quantifiable goals and timeframes. On promoting equity-centered leadership, JCPS included specifics such as funding and a racial equity analysis protocol that was used to review the entire district’s school policy.

Ebron reiterated the

importance of speeding up the process and having more community representation in tweaking the equity plan.

“It’s past the time that parents and children and community members should be at the table helping to improve the equity plan,” Ebron said.

“We realize that we are in a pandemic, but we can’t wait any longer because our children are still suffering in the Ann Arbor Public Schools systems.”

Regarding further partnership between AASPIRE and the BOE, Ebron said they hope the information presented at this meeting would be brought to leadership in order to implement changes sooner rather than later.

“What we hope is, since you are not going to let us have access to Dr. Swift (AAPS superintendent) or the district leadership team, that you will take these concerns back to that team and bring them up as part of your board’s responsibility in governing this equity plan,” Ebron said. “We hope we have given you some fruitful thought that you can act on, because that is what this group is all about.”

Daily Staff Reporter Kaitlyn Luckoff can be reached at kluckoff@umich.edu.

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Wednesday, October 27, 2021 — 3

CAMPUS LIFE

World Health Organization director talks depoliticization of the COVID-19 pandemic

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus discusses worldwide vaccine inequity, recent treatment of healthcare workers CHAVA MAKMAN-LEVINSON Daily Staff Reporter

The University of Michigan Ford School of Public Policy hosted a discussion with Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, on Oct. 20 in partnership with the School of Public Health. Public Health Dean F. Dubois Bowman moderated the discussion, which centered around global responses to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Before being elected into his current position in 2017, Dr. Tedros worked as Minister of Health for Ethiopia’s federal government, where he led a major comprehensive reform of the country’s health system, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs, where he raised health as a political issue globally.

Bowman began by asking Tedros how he and his team have been able to make decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the face of intense uncertainty.

“Public health has been politicized during the pandemic in a way we’ve never seen before,” Bowman said. “Public health workers have faced dangerous and life-threatening behavior.”

Tedros said health care leaders had to ask themselves a variety of

complex questions in the face of the pandemic, and he discussed the questions that guide his team in their decision-making.

“What level of restrictions should be imposed while preserving individual freedoms? How do we allocate resources?” Tedros said. “Many of these decisions are made under intense pressure from the public — the choice to invest in primary healthcare and infrastructure, the choice to give trust to communities through a strong social contract.”

Tedros then discussed how the politicization of public health has led to vaccine inequity. He said politicization does not position COVID-19 as a common enemy, while in reality, that is exactly what it is.

“Politicians use the virus to score points against their opponents and to politicize masks and vaccination,” Tedros said. “Please don’t politicize this, this is a common enemy; please use other things against your opponents. Some will follow their leaders and listen to them saying not to wear a mask.

They will get exposed, and the virus will continue to spread.”

Tedros emphasized the need for vaccine equity, or equal distribution of the vaccine around the world regardless of race or socioeconomic status, to make sustainable change

in stopping the virus from spreading and mutating. As an example to show the inequity of the vaccine’s distribution, he mentioned that only 5% of the entire population of Africa is fully vaccinated.

“We are facing a two-track pandemic fueled by vaccine inequity,” Tedros said. “This is economically self-defeating, not only ethically immoral; the longer vaccine inequity exists, the longer the virus can mutate.”

LSA sophomore Caroline Dean attended the talk and said she feels strongly about the consequences of making the pandemic a political issue. She said she believes the loss of lives due to COVID-19 is, at its core, caused by the beliefs and actions promoted by political leaders.

“Politicizing the COVID pandemic, in my opinion, is just as bad as the pandemic itself,” Dean said. “Now that we have a vaccine, political incentives are doing the killing — life and death should be non-partisan, and if we want this pandemic to pass with limited loss, both sides of the political spectrum must first acknowledge the virus and its various scientific and public health components.”

Daily News Contributor Chava Makman-Levinson can be reached at cmakman@umich.edu.

Vincent Pinti wins 2021 James T. Neubacher Award for disability advocacy for work on CSG

LSA senior is first undergrad to recieve the recognition in recent years PAIGE HODDER

Daily Staff Reporter

After dedicating much of his three years at the University of Michigan to telling his story and working in disability advocacy, LSA senior Vincent Pinti has been awarded this year’s James T. Neubacher Award, a recognition reserved for University affiliates.

The award is named after Neubacher, a University alum and journalist for the Detroit Free Press, who wrote a nationally recognized column called “Disabled in Detroit” shortly after he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1979.

Pinti is the first undergraduate to win in recent years and was awarded in recognition of his work through Central Student Government to improve the accessibility for students with disabilities on campus.

Students at the University have long struggled to receive appropriate disability accommodations with their departments and Services for Students with Disabilities, claiming confusing and time-consuming processes that hindered their ability to receive accommodations.

After facing some challenges with accessibility and accommodations during his first year on campus, Pinti

dedicated himself to ensuring no student with a disability has to suffer through what he did. Pinti said he has spinal-muscular atrophy, which means he uses a wheelchair and was born into what he called a “disabled world.”

“I’ve always felt the need to advocate because there are so many people that have disabilities,but for whatever reason might not be able to share their lived experience and might not be able to share the adversity that they have to go through to get the resources that they need,” Pinti said.

The Neubacher Award is presented annually during Disability Community Month. The project Pinti is being recognized for is his work creating the Personal Assistant/ Personal Care Assistant (PA/PCA) scholarship program.

PA/PCAs help people with chronic illness or disabilities meet their daily mental and physical health needs.

This scholarship, sponsored by CSG, internally provides educational funding for students working in this field. Pinti said there is a dire need for people working in these positions due to understaffing in the field.

“It’s hard work, oftentimes manual labor, and there’s not a lot of demand for it because they don’t get compensated very much at all from the state, so the students are going

above and beyond by doing this,” Pinti said. “That’s why I decided to build this scholarship.”

Pinti has also been involved in numerous other initiatives on campus, such as pushing for metal straws in the dining halls, ensuring environmental anti-plastic initiatives don’t impact disabled students on campus and helping design more accessible emergency procedures in campus buildings. He is also currently working on developing a PA/PCA database of student workers to address the caregiver shortage in Michigan.

“Students can play a role in this, U of M can play a role in building this database,” Pinti said. “So I would just give a call to action that U of M needs to build the PCA database now.”

Stephanie Rosen, chair of the Council of Disability Concerns, said the award honors those advocating on behalf of disabled individuals just as Neubacher did.

“He was an advocate for truth, access for himself, and for the broader disability communities,” Rosen said.

“This award was named in his honor, as a memorial to his work and to recognize work that carries on that legacy.”

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Schlissel responds to Anderson survivors at Regents meeting

Protesters outside President’s house frustrated with lack of acknowledgement CHRISTIAN JULIANO & JUSTIN O’BEIRNE Daily Staff Reporters

University President Mark Schlissel began the Oct. 21 Board of Regents meeting by acknowledging the survivors of former University athletic doctor Robert Anderson, who has been accused of over 2,000 incidents of sexual abuse.

One survivor, Jonathan Vaughn, a former U-M running back, has camped outside of Schlissel’s South University residence since Oct. 8 to raise awareness of the situation and demand accountability from the University.He has said he will continue to do so until Schlissel and the Board of Regents agree to a meeting with him.

“We’ve heard from many

survivors of abuse by Dr. Robert Anderson,” Schlissel said. “We thank them for coming forward and sharing deeply personal and painful stories, through public comment sessions with investigators to news media and demonstrations, including the one on the Ann Arbor campus in front of my house. The Regents and I have heard them. We are listening intently and encourage any survivors to speak out.”

Following the Regents meeting, Vaughn held a conference call outside of Schlissel’s residence to respond to his comments, saying Schlissel has yet to speak directly with him or other survivors that had been camped outside his house for 13 days, as of the Oct. 21 Regents meeting.

“I’ve never heard (Schlissel) speak to any Anderson survivors,” Vaughn said. “I was standing 100 feet from

him yesterday, I know he knew who I was because we were standing on the sidewalk as he was walking toward his house, and he never spoke a word.”

Vaughn also expressed his frustrations that Schlissel hasn’t introduced himself to Vaughn and other Anderson survivors.

“I’m not trying to resolve this case in an interaction with the President at his house. But, speak to me like a human being — that has never been done,” Vaughn said. “We’re always referred to as either John Does or victims. What would I like him to say? How about just ‘Hello’?

Introduce yourself.”

Daily Staff Reporters Christian Juliano and Justin O’Beirne can be reached at julianoc@umich.edu and justinob@umich.edu.

UMich researchers convert food waste into usable energy

Design by Madison Grosvenor

Team works to develop sustainable biodigesters inspired by cows ELISSA WELLE

Daily Staff Reporter

Every few months, the compost bins from the University of Michigan dining halls get picked clean — not by a family of raccoons, but by a team of researchers in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department.

Engineering professor Lutgarde Raskin and her research team have been gathering samples of food waste from U-M students for their research. The team is working on a $6.8 million dollar project aiming to develop biodigesters inspired by cows with a goal goal to create an efficient and cost-effective way to extract energy from organic waste.

According to Mechanical Engineering professor Steve Skerlos, a co-investigator on the project, the bioreactor is inspired by the cow stomach’s efficient digestion of tough organic materials.

“A cow just grows on grass, and we’re kind of harnessing this bioinspired design, which is pretty clever and fairly simple,” Skerlos said.

Renisha Karki, CEE doctoral pre-candidate on the team, says the food waste “smoothie” is fed to bacteria growing inside the bioreactor, a complex series of tubs and tubes stacked on top of tables in the corner of the lab. A single eraser-sized metal box measures the flow rate of the biogas — a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide — produced from the system.

At the same time, Raskin’s collaborators outside the University are researching methods to convert biogas into renewable natural gas.

Organic material is broken down inside the bioreactor using anaerobic digestion, meaning that the bacteria digesting the organic material do not need oxygen to survive, Tim Fairley-Wax, a research lab specialist and CEE alum, said.

Fairley-Wax said anaerobic technology is useful because it can break down tougher materials like sewage sludge or food waste. Currently, much of the organic waste in the United States is thrown into landfills or compost piles, where it emits large amounts of methane into the atmosphere as it decomposes.

“We’re very inefficient in dealing with our waste, we just bury and forget about it,” Kuang Zhu, a CEE postdoctoral researcher on the team, said.

Despite the potential usefulness

ENROLLMENT From Page 1 In 2018, the U-M Ann Arbor campus launched the Go Blue Guarantee program, which grants coverage of full tuition for in-state students whose families make $65,000 or less. In the years since and following student activists advocating for its expansion, the program has been brought to both satellite campuses at Flint and Dearborn with an added controversial GPA requirement, mandating that incoming freshmen

ENDOWMENT From Page 1 “I congratulate the members of the U-M Flint community on the recent awarding of a $3.8 million federal grant to build the Innovation and Technology Center,” Schlissel said. “This is an important moment in the history of this campus as it responds to the needs

of anaerobic technology in dealing with organic waste, Zhu said anaerobic technology is not widely implemented.

“It’s costly,” Zhu said. “It’s expensive to build and it’s also very demanding to operate. There is also a slow reaction happening within the reactor. The anaerobic process takes days to weeks. So this means that the organic waste just spends a lot of time in the reactor.”

As such, Fairly-Wax said only the wealthiest investors have the means to implement anaerobic technologies.

“Chevron and Exxon Mobil have financed these anaerobic digesters at some Michigan farms,” Fairley-Wax said. “But right now that technology has to be done with a huge investor because it’s relatively extremely expensive.”

To solve this problem, Zhu said the group hopes to make costeffective anaerobic technology for widespread use at large industrial facilities as well as smaller operations.

“We can hopefully use this technology (to) reduce the costs so that smaller-scale users can utilize them … for a variety of waste streams, not limited to just wastewater sludge,” Zhu said. “It could be food waste, could be manure, could be a lot of organic waste streams.”

Raskin’s group is collaborating with researchers at Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University who are looking into how biogas can be turned into high-purity methane, a renewable natural gas that can be used to heat homes.

Heating homes with highpurity methane still emits carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Skerlos noted, making this research a necessary “short-term win” until a future with no greenhouse gas emissions can be reached.

“It’s not a perfect win. A perfect win is when you take that methane, and you emit no carbon dioxide to the atmosphere,” Skerlos said. “(But) carbon dioxide has 50 times less greenhouse gas potential than methane.”

Meanwhile, the group said that their first project outside the lab is to retrofit current wastewater treatment plants with their bioreactor system in order to extract and utilize energy from food waste.

Skerlos said wastewater treatment accounts for roughly 4% of the electricity used in the United States. A large part of energy

expenditure at wastewater treatment plants is on the sterilization of the material generated while treating the water, Pedro Puente, a CEE doctoral candidate and a member of Raskin’s team, added.

“The goal will be for the wastewater treatment plants to include food waste streams into the treatment, so they can recover even more energy,” Puente said. “They can become energy neutral or even generate their own electricity for their operations.”

Skerlos said his team believes their bioreactor can reduce costs of treating sewage by 25% to 50%.

“What you’re getting is basically free power for the wastewater treatment,” Skerlos said. “And you’re also creating free natural gas that you can put in the pipeline that you didn’t have to frack out of the earth. You’re saving a lot of money.”

The team at the University is partnering with the Great Lakes Water Authority to run a pilot system at their water treatment plant in Detroit. Skerlos hopes they will have a demonstration project launched in the next five years.

“We’re doing this with very costeffective technology that can be deployed, not only in Detroit and in industrialized rich countries, (but also) in developing countries (or) in very rural locations,” Skerlos said.

Zhu said he remembers being shocked when he first learned how waste is dealt with and emphasized the need for better methods of waste disposal.

“We’re getting surrounded more and more by trash,” Zhu said.

“Developing solutions to help us have a better, more efficient management of our waste will help us have a better relationship with our society and our environment. So we don’t leave this legacy to our next generations.”

The researchers also emphasized the importance of recognizing the amount and type of waste humans generate, particularly in Ann Arbor where the collection of waste is highly regulated.

“It’s just a matter of education on how to separate your waste and be responsible about it because the waste that you generate is yours,” Puente said. “So take advantage of the programs that the city offers because there are not a lot of places that do this separate collection.”

must have a 3.5 GPA while returning students must have a 3.0 GPA. Recently, however, Schlissel received backlash from the campus community after releasing a survey portraying expanded tuition assistance to Flint and Dearborn as academic and financial burdens for the Ann Arbor campus.

The University is the secondlargest provider of financial aid and institutional grants to freshmen among the nation’s public research universities, offering about $256.9 million. The University budget also saw a 6.4% increase in financial

aid allocation, about a $15.5 million increase, according to the Record article.

Brumfield said the University’s recruitment efforts were adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic world.

“From what I have learned, collaboration increased and partnerships were strengthened over the past year as the campus united to enroll the fall class of 2021,” Brumfield said.

of the region and the students it serves.”

Chris Pearson, dean of the U-M Flint College of Innovation and Technology, gave a presentation on the new Innovation and Technology Center. Pearson said the new building will allow greater interaction and collaboration between U-M Flint and the greater Flint community.

“The building … will facilitate

collaboration between academia and community and business partners,” Pearson said. “This new facility will provide our students and faculty with the resources needed to address the global challenges of the future.”

Daily Staff Reporter Elissa Welle can be reached at elissajw@umich. edu.

Daily Staff Reporter Navya Gupta can be reached at itznavya@umich. edu.

Daily Staff Reporters Justin O’Beirne and Julia Forrest can be reached at justinob@umich.edu and juforres@umich.edu.

Arts

4 – Wednesday, October 27, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

The Mom B-Side ANDREW PLUTA Senior Arts Editor

Design by Megan Young

There is no simple answer to the question “What is motherhood?”.

Many of us think of mothers as the figures who have supported us our whole lives, from reading us books as children to cheering us on as adults, through triumphs and setbacks. This B-Side makes sure to pay tribute to this sacredness. But in

media, popular culture and life, all sorts of moms exist. Some are overtly disappointing, while others may get away with too much. Some must balance conventional motherhood with nurturing their work. Some fall victim to the ever-growing lens of female sexualization that gets aimed indiscriminately. But each is still a mom. Don’t see what I mean?

These pieces say it better than I can.

— Andrew Pluta, Senior Arts Editor

Forgiving our mothers through ‘Lady Bird’

Farting fairy tales and other stories from my mom ISABELLA KASSA

Daily Arts Contributor

Growing up, there was not a night that went by that my mom didn’t read to me before bed. It was a ritual. After my bath, I would choose a book or two (or three, depending on how fatigued my mom was) and crawl into her lap. My process of choosing the right books was anywhere from immediate to a whole production up until my mom threatened to cancel storytime altogether unless I decided quickly. I’d stand at my bookshelf, taking in the distinct smell of old wood and paper, and select our stories for the night.

I generally gravitated to the same books over and over again, but one of the greatest joys of my childhood was trips to the library with my mom. It was here where my mom and I spent time exploring and traversing the shelves for our next story.

I spent a lot of time picking out the perfect books for the week ahead. There was one time when I was so engrossed by the selection of potential books that I ignored my bladder signaling to me it was time to go; I peed myself in the middle of the library just because I wanted to keep looking at the books. I thankfully had my mom standing close by to hand me her sweater and help me cover my new dark blue pants. As humiliating as that experience was at the time, my mom and I frequently laugh about it to this day in a shared remembrance of all of the memories we shared at the library. The library not

only offered me quality time with my mom but also instilled in me a passion for reading that I continue to foster. Without the time I spent with my mom in the library and during storytime, I don’t know if I would be the reader I am today. Below is a short tour of some of my and my mom’s favorite books found in the library and on my shelves.

“Corduroy” by Don Freeman I’ve always felt attached to this book, probably because I used to think my stuffed animals were alive. Maybe their

perceived sentience was the result of growing up in the age of “Toy Story,” or maybe it was just because I’ve always had an overactive imagination, but I was never able to shake the feeling that my stuffed animals had their own wants and desires.

Corduroy is a toy bear who wants to be taken home. When a girl’s mother realizes he is missing a button, she refuses to concede to her daughter in her desire

book: tangoing with airplanes, floating next to the sun or just laying down and relaxing.

Another plus to this book (and maybe the main reason I kept coming back to it) was the reusable balloon stickers that came with it. Maybe all authors should include stickers in their books so that readers will remember the book, even years later.

“Walter the Farting Dog”

by William Kotzwinkle When I start thinking about the books my mom and I used to read, this is the first book that comes to mind. Simultaneously a story about a thwarted home invasion attempt and a tale of unconditional love, this author definitely knows how to get his readers invested.

Our protagonist, Walter, is a farting dog. His unrelenting toots smell putrid no matter what diet his family puts him on. The father is just about to send Walter back to the pound for his f latulence when Walter saves the family from burglars by letting out “the worst fart of his life,” which smells so bad that the thieves have to leave the house immediately without Design by SoJung Ham stealing a single thing. When I love Jamie Lee Curtis, not I was younger, I remember only for her acting in my other thinking this book was the childhood staple, “Freaky peak of comedy. I still don’t Friday,” but also for her superb know if I’ve ever laughed as ability to write a children’s book. hard as when my mom and I When I was younger, I thought first read this book. Perhaps this book was genius. Everyone it was because the author says wants to know where balloons the word “fart” so much, or go, especially six-year-old me. maybe it was just because of I loved this book because I got the absurdity of the story itself, to imagine with my mom all the but I couldn’t get enough. places my lost balloons could be.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com Nothing was off-limits with this to buy Corduroy. After this, Corduroy commits to finding his lost button to ensure that, next time, he is taken home. Though Corduroy fails to find a button, his friend from the day before comes back ready to purchase him with her own money.

Corduroy gave me the one thing I’ve always loved in a story — an adorable underdog to fight for.

The nights that my mom and I read this book, I always held my own toy bear a little tighter.

“Where Do Balloons Go? An Uplifting Mystery” by Jamie Lee Curtis

Senior Arts Editor

In 2012, my family went to see “Brave,” Pixar’s newest installment, in theaters while on a trip to Boston.

I was 12 years old at the time, and my older sister was in high school; she and my mom had been fighting a lot, going through the classic teenagegirl-versus-mother-tension. In the theater, everyone in my family had something different to enjoy. While

on Merida as ways to guarantee a secure future; Merida sees these as restrictions and therefore believes that her mother is the barrier between her and the future she wants for herself.

“Brave,” Pixar’s first film with a female protagonist, caught the attention of audiences with its incredibly detailed animation, strong Scottish brogue and the deliberate exclusion of a romantic subplot. This last aspect is not something to take lightly — Merida’s declaration of “I’ll be shootin’ for mah own hahnd” is

Design by Tamara Turner

I focused on the jokes, my mom and sister seemed to focus more on the heart of the story: the relationship between Merida (Kelly Macdonald, “No Country for Old Men”) and her mother Elinor (Emma Thompson, “Cruella”).

The film instantly sets up the differences between Merida and her mother. Merida, with her wild red hair, chafes at the way her life is planned out. Her freest moments are those when she is alone with her horse, her bow and the surrounding natural landscape; her most limited moments are those when her mother is preparing her to be the queen of her land by teaching the expectations of a princess, which Merida despises.

On the other hand, Elinor is hesitant to let her daughter take paths that go beyond the tradition that she is used to. Elinor sees her lessons and the conditions that she imposes

a groundbreaking, not to mention iconic, departure from fairy tale tropes. In “Brave,” no one gets to win Merida’s hand without her own consent.

This becomes the boiling point of tensions between Merida, who values her freedom to the point of selfishness, and Elinor, who values tradition to the point that she ignores her daughter’s happiness. Words fly; a tapestry, meant to depict the bond of family, gets torn. Merida consults a witch (Julie Walters, “Mamma Mia!”) and gets a potion meant to “change” her mother — specifically her entrenched beliefs — and inadvertently turns her into a bear. It’s an extreme beginning to a reconciliation, but it effectively forces them into a position where they have to listen to and learn from each other.

One of the things I love most about “Brave” is that the female characters

and relationships are not diminished.

Elinor and Merida’s quiet conflict, while taking on an admittedly oversized obstacle (i.e., transforming into a bear), is sophisticated and complex compared to the cartoonishly overdone masculinity of the clansmen. Additionally, both Elinor and Merida carry incredible power. When they walk through the room, the men stop fighting and create a path; when they speak, people listen. The clashes between them are not characterized as “catfights” or stupid conflicts based in jealousy.

When they fight, it’s because they are both independent and strong; when they make up, it’s because there is still room in the world (and the film) for two incredibly powerful women to be on the same side.

The transformation of their relationship is admittedly predictable, filled with easy metaphors about ruptures and healing, but the intensity of the emotion is what gives it so much power. A scene where Elinor and Merida talk to their respective sounding boards — Elinor’s husband Fergus (Billy Connolly, “The Boondock Saints”) and Merida’s horse Angus — moves back and forth between them as they express their free-flowing feelings, demonstrating how the biggest problem between the two of them, like most relationships, is a lack of simple communication.

As Merida’s gotten older, they’ve stopped rationally explaining their hopes for fear of clashing, and they’ve lost their ability to convey their affection for each other. These rifts are contrasted with moments from Merida’s childhood — one shown at the beginning of the film and one shown as things become more dire — that show scenes of affection between mother and daughter.

Merida and Elinor hug each other and look at each other with love as if to show that their foundation is unshakable, even when it feels as though it’s being shaken.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

through something.” Ironically, MARY ELIZABETH JOHNSON she just witnessed 9/11 the year Daily Arts Writer before, but the things that happen in our lives never seem as earth“Dear Lady Bird, when I shattering as they do in books, do got pregnant with you, it was a they?

It’s the impetus of her first miracle.”

The letters that Marion (Laurie on-screen fight with her mother.

Metcalf, “Roseanne”) writes Her mother, who was raised by to her daughter are never read an abusive, alcoholic mother, feels aloud. She never gives them to that Lady Bird has a “great life.” her because she is afraid that In a lot of ways, she does, but she’s Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan, “Little not just looking for the bottom Women”) will “judge her writing rows of Maslow’s hierarchy of abilities.” Lady Bird only sees needs. Lady Bird desperately, them because her father (Tracy desperately wants an adventure.

Letts, “Ford v. Ferrari”) fishes She feels that the real stories only them out of the garbage and happen in proximity to her: her sneaks them into her suitcase theater director grieves for his before she leaves for college. You son, her first boyfriend worries have to pause the film to be able about coming out, her second to read the crumpled letters. So boyfriend has a father dying of much of the love in this film goes cancer. The problems in her life unspoken in hopes that it might feel so small in comparison.

Gerwig does an incredible job hurt less.

“Lady Bird” is a coming-of-age of tricking us into thinking the story about Christine, who asks to same thing. A story about Lady be called Lady Bird, as she exits Bird’s brother watching someone high school and grapples with get stabbed is bracketed by the her relationship with her mother. phrase “Immaculate Fart.” At There’s no shortage of writing the psychiatric ward where about this film out there, but I Marion works, a patient tries to do sometimes feel that discourse hurt someone or themselves offabout the film centers on Lady screen. While Marion admits Bird as an individual rather than that it was scary, she simply says in relation to those around her. We that they’ll have to go back to see ourselves in her as a heroine felt-tip markers and hands her taking on the world because that coworker a gift for his newborn is what high school feels like. daughter. Lady Bird actually It’s hard to remember that our jumps out of a moving car on the highway, and Gerwig is able mothers once felt the same way.

Really, I think that Lady Bird is to make us laugh instead of cry a 21st-century Holden Caulfield, about it. It feels like when you’re and Greta Gerwig (“20th Century telling a story about your life at Women”) is our J.D. Salinger. a party, and only when you say Lady Bird is a bitter, mean, clever, it out loud do you realize how funny, original conformist. We fucked up it actually is. identify with her as much as we Read more at MichiganDaily.com resent her. She wants to “live

A mother’s child

Mothers, daughters and bears, oh my KARI ANDERSON

Design by Tamara Turner

M. DEITZ

Digital Culture Beat Editor

I’ve always been deemed a bit of a momma’s child.

Grabbing your hand or hiding behind your leg, a scared child.

I knew I was safe from everything.

The boring world of math. The dangers of human society.

Having crust on my sandwiches.

The only thing I wasn’t safe from Was growing up.

So I did.

Because I had to.

I had to be a part of this family.

We joke that I look like no one in the family — Me, the wrong baby taken home from a British hospital — But secretly, If I can say this honestly I was always glad I looked most like you.

One of your three kids had to.

It’s an honor that it’s me.

Because I get to.

I get to do these amazing things, These many amazing things That not everyone has the chance to do.

Like attend a prestigious university, Like tell stories for people who want to listen, Like care deeply for my friends and family, Things I strive to not take for granted every day.

Because I have your support.

I have your support more like a best friend than a mother, A friend who loves and listens with the fervor and wisdom of a mother.

It cannot be easy, I know Seeing your child, the youngest of the flock, Turning 22.

Ready to graduate college.

Ready to move on and up and out.

To fly out of the nest and seek their own destiny.

To define their own identity.

Because I am expected to.

I am expected to be okay with the marching of time,

Design by Melia Kenny

The endless and unstoppable forward momentum of time.

It is not easy, you know, That your child, the youngest of the flock, Has turned 22.

They are not ready to graduate college.

They are not ready to move on or up.

They are certainly not ready to move out.

To seek their own destiny.

To define their own identity.

Because life is a lot scarier without your leg to hide behind.

Without your leg to hide behind, the shadows of adulthood look much scarier.

Even when a light shines on them and they go away, they are much scarier.

Facing them alone, venturing through the woods In the way a child must Once they stop being viewed as merely a child.

You can only pave the road so far, Until I take your place.

Because I am expected to stand on my own.

To stand on my own, with you on the sidelines, Passionately cheering me on and providing orange slices.

My number one supporter and biggest fan,

Reading articles about a digital world you don’t always get.

My cheerleader dancing to Marcia Ball, Although it was never actually Marcia Ball playing.

But you’d dance anyway and ask me to join you.

And I would groan and giggle and roll my eyes, But I would join you anyway.

Because I would not be who I am without you.

Without you, I would not have my passion for music.

Because you created a place for me and others to practice it.

Or my passion for reading.

Because you would buy me books when I sped through them in a day.

For love. For helping. For listening.

Because you care so much about others, Putting the needs of those we love at the forefront of our minds, An endless well of love.

For crabs. For musicals.

Because there is no greater joy than you digging into a crab the same way one digs into a great piece of art.

For my family.

Because without you, we would not know who to be.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Pixar moms: A deconstruction of MILF culture

Peggy Guggenheim: Motherhood in all its facets CECILIA DURAN Daily Arts Writer

It’s hard to pin down where I nurtured my love for art because it’s as though it has been in my blood since I was born. I grew up hearing “We’ll be back late tonight, it’s opening night at the gallery,” and the endless phone calls my father would get from international clients in languages

Century: Confessions of an Art Addict” and embarked on a journey of becoming someone I never knew I could be. And though I discovered her rather late, life ever since has been a bit more exciting — as though she could make all dull things shine, and all far dreams seem attainable.

Guggenheim was born into the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, destined for a life of ostentatious riches and

Design by SoJung Ham

I couldn’t comprehend at the time.

Many of the things my parents did made no sense to me, but they felt like premonitions of what my future held; they felt right.

My parents were the foundation of that passion, but the turning point became learning about Peggy Guggenheim — one of the most fascinating women to have walked this earth, in my humble opinion.

I discovered her spontaneously when wandering around Venice, in the summer before my freshman year of college. When I walked into the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, I instantly recognized a Picasso painting to my right, in front of me a hanging Calder, to my left a Magritte. In the far back I could see a Jean Arp, a Pollock and a Dalí … it seemed that every important modernist artist was there, present, in the room.

She had lived within those walls, and every work in sight had been hers. Before I left the museum, I bought her autobiography “Out of This

pretentious people. Her father died in the Titanic tragedy in 1912; she was left with her mother and her two sisters, Hazel and Benita.

Death and dissociation became the pillars of her youth, and she was always regarded as the “black sheep” of the Guggenheims.

She married the writer Laurence Vail and had two children: Sindbad and Pegeen.

Their problematic marriage led to an unfair divorce in which her kids were separated — Sindbad went away with Laurence, and she kept Pegeen. In her memoir, she mentions having felt like she had nothing in common with Sinbad other than their physical resemblance. Pegeen, on the other hand, was the “love of her life” — they were close and adored each other, but no matter how hard she tried, Guggenheim felt she didn’t know how to be a mother to Pegeen.

They led awfully similar lives, so much so that it was Pegeen’s own problematic marriage that led her to suicide at age 41. Wrecked

Wednesday, October 27, 2021 — 5

motherhoods didn’t cease either.

Peggy’s sister Benita died in childbirth, and both of Hazel’s sons “fell off” of the Surrey Hotel rooftop — speculation has it that she dropped them because she’d rather them dead than with their father, with whom she was in the middle of a divorce. Tragedy after tragedy. Kafkaesque, almost.

Actually, it was thanks to her own mother’s death and the $450,000 fortune left to her name that she could open her first gallery, “Guggenheim Jeune,” in London in 1938. With the war, she was forced to leave London and move to New York City. In 1939, artists were desperate to sell art, and at one point, Guggenheim was buying one painting a day for ridiculously low prices — in her memoir, she recalls having bought a Dalí while in bed. In addition to buying, she also urged artists to leave Europe and move to the United States. In 1942, she opened her second gallery, “Art of this Century,” and with this opening, Guggenheim came to be the bridge between European and American art, between surrealism and abstract expressionism. The link between masterminds like Picasso, Miró and Giacometti and Paul Klee, Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still, her newfound jewels. She saw herself as “the midwife” of the American avantgarde, having given many of the big names of modern art their first solo exhibition.

Perhaps her most incredible work as a matron was the discovery of Jackson Pollock, who was working as a maintenance man in his uncle’s museum, the Solomon R. Guggenheim of New York (then the Museum of NonObjective Painting), at the time of their first encounter. She saw potential and invested, as she had done previously with several other artists. She “made him.”

Guggenheim commissioned Pollock to create a mural that would go on the outside wall of her house in the city; to this day it’s the artist’s largest work.

EMMY SNYDER & MADELEINE VIRGINIA GANNON Daily Arts Writers

Stacey’s Mom has got it goin’ on — or at least, the animated moms of Pixar do. Since the 1995 premiere of “Toy Story,” the world’s first animated film made using computer technology, Pixar has become a household name.

The studio is best known for its animated children’s films, from “Finding Nemo” to their most recent release, “Luca.” The name Pixar has long been synonymous with childhood — and now?

Pixar’s “The Incredibles”: Children recall the slapstick humor of Mr. Incredible; parents fondly note the hidden, wry comedy that made the film a multi-generational hit. For others, it’s the firm, round backside of Mrs. Incredible’s peachy-keen cheeks; the tight elastic of a super-suit that clings like saran-wrap around her wide, womanly hips; the perkiness of a bum, the audacity of an ass, the perfection of a pear figure — aged by 40 years like a bottle of something fine. That’s right, Mrs. Incredible is a MILF. Sorry, not sorry.

Shocking, I know. Some readers may even be turning away in thinly veiled disgust. How dare we sour the sanctity of a Pixar film with softcore erotica written in fervent devotion to Mrs. Incredible’s poppin’ figure? We dare in the spirit of journalistic integrity, a devotion to seeking the truth. Because we aren’t the first to call Mrs. Incredible a MILF — that dubious glory belongs to the Internet and the horny little shits who live there.

The MILFs: Who, What, Where But first, what exactly is a MILF? As Urban Dictionary describes it, a MILF is a “Mom I’d Like to Fuck, or Mature I’d Like to Fuck.” MILFs usually apply to “hot moms,” but the term is liberally applied to any woman above the age of thirty.

The MILF obsession is no niche Internet kink found in the recesses of Reddit but an ever-growing

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phenomenon found across adult films, platforms like Instagram and even dating apps. According to a 2016 survey by the adult website GameLink.com, “interest in MILF porn has risen 83%” between 2012 and 2016. This trend has continued to grow in prevalence since.

Many consider the 1999 cult classic film “American Pie” to have launched the modern MILF obsession. The raunchy comedy follows a group of teenage boys

The classic MILF lover is a not-yet man who washes his sheets every three months (optimistically), shotguns Natty Lights and advertises “MILFs only, seriously” on his dating profile. He believes women his age are “crazy,” “clingy” and far too sexually inexperienced to possibly please him. He longs for an older woman who promises a brief, scalding affair of “no crap,” who will usher him into manhood

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competing to lose their virginity by their high school prom. In the film, actress Jennifer Coolidge (“White Lotus”) has sex with her son’s friend — the true MILF fantasy. However, it is important to offer credit where credit is due to 1965 classic “The Graduate,” where actor Dustin Hoffman (“Rain Man”) is seduced by a beautiful, neglected housewife: Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft, “The Miracle Worker”). In 2003, Fountains of Wayne released their iconic hit “Stacy’s Mom,” a serenade to Stacy’s (supposedly) hot mom. As adult film star Tanya Tate remarked in a 2014 interview with Thrillist, “there are plenty of guys out there who really had crushes on their Mom’s friends (as teenagers).”

In fact, the target age group for MILF content on adult websites is between the ages of 18 and 25; this age range lands neatly between the naivety of adolescence and the “wisdom” of adulthood. It also correlates with the widely accepted peak period of horniness.

through the power of her perky, never sagging triple-Ds and lust for a barely-pubescent, skinny, frat pledge’s medium-firm abs. It is this dazzling specimen of raw masculinity that drives the MILFication of Pixar moms.

The Evolution of the Pixar MILF and Evolving Beauty Standards Pixar MILFs walk a fine line between the celebration of motherhood and pandering to societal beauty trends. On one hand, moms can be and are hot.

Our critique of MILF culture is in no way a rejection of hot moms.

Moms deserve to embrace their femininity and womanhood, to embrace themselves, to be a woman as well as a mom. On the other hand, in consideration of evolving beauty trends over the last twenty years, there is an undeniable parallel between the developing animation of Pixar moms to emphasize curves and contemporary beauty standards.

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Lorelai Gilmore kind of sucks, and it’s time we talk about it HANNAH CARAPELLOTTI Daily Arts Contributor

With fall in full swing, I thought it was appropriate to return to one of my favorite seasonal hobbies: rewatching “Gilmore Girls” for the millionth time. I can’t help it. I first saw the entire series in high school, and I immediately fell in love with it. Even though I now know every single thing that happens, there’s something about the small-town aesthetics and quirky characters that keeps me coming back. It’s the after-school special in my house: My mom, sisters and I go straight from the car to the couch, make a big bowl of popcorn and turn on our next episode.

But something changed during this latest rewatch. Maybe it’s because I’m a little older now, or

maybe it’s because I’m watching the show with my own mom, but either way I have come to a very sad conclusion: Lorelai Gilmore kind of sucks.

I know what you’re thinking.

How can a show’s main character be so bad? Let me just say that I still like the character. Lauren Graham is a great actress, and Lorelai still has plenty of endearing qualities. But it’s her flaws that make her unbearable at times (spoilers abound). Whether it’s her relationships with her family, friends or romantic partners, Lorelai is not the greatest.

She doesn’t like that Rory has a better relationship with Richard and Emily than she does. (S1 E1, E3; S3 E8, E9) Much of the conflict set up in the show surrounds Lorelai’s rocky relationship with her parents. When she gets pregnant

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they just don’t want to see their daughter leave again. What Rory wants to do with her life should be her own decision, and to her credit, Lorelai does admit this eventually.

But watching the constant back and forth between Lorelai and her parents gets exhausting over the show’s seven-season run.

She’s a terrible friend to Sookie. (S4 E14; S6 E4) Lorelai and Sookie spend the show’s first few seasons dreaming of opening an inn together. When they finally achieve that dream and Sookie misses an important meeting, Lorelai chews her out over not pulling her weight.

Opening any new business is stressful, but so is having a newborn baby — and Sookie just had her first. She feels really bad about missing the meeting but is clearly exhausted, and instead of being understanding, Lorelai

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at sixteen, she runs away from Richard and Emily’s elitist lifestyle to raise her daughter, Rory, herself. The only reason she goes back is to ask for money to cover Rory’s high school tuition — where the show begins. Emily, Lorelai’s mother, only agrees to loan her the money in exchange for regular contact with her and Rory. Lorelai’s dislike of the idea stems from her pride, which unfortunately sets a precedent for much of her behavior throughout the show.

Given that she had to make a new life for herself, it makes sense that she wants Rory to have more opportunities … unless they involve the elitist lifestyle of her parents. Anytime she sees Rory getting drawn to the lifestyle she herself detested, it results in some sort of petty fight. Richard and Emily are by no means perfect, but

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implies that Sookie should be focusing more on the inn since it’s more important. We never see her apologize, and it isn’t brought up again.

A couple of seasons later, Lorelai epitomizes the onesidedness of their friendship even more. Sookie asks Lorelai and Rory to be the godmothers to her children in an attempt to resolve a tiff between the mother-daughter pair. But instead, Lorelai causes a fight in the middle of the baptism.

She and Rory are literally holding the babies while they argue. It’s completely disrespectful to Sookie and her entire family. I’m amazed that Sookie excuses so much of her behavior.

She treats Rory more like a friend than a daughter. (S5 E1) Since Lorelai gave birth to Rory at such a young age, they have grown up together and are understandably a lot closer than other mothers and daughters.

But whenever they fight, Lorelai continuously cuts Rory out instead of disciplining her or at least having a mature conversation.

Lorelai only pulls the “mom card” in special circumstances, usually when she doesn’t want to talk about something. Rory screwed up big time when she slept with a married man (pun intended).

But when she doesn’t want to talk about it, Lorelai freezes her out, stooping to the petty level of her 19-year-old. This is just one example of Lorelai initially being

the voice of reason, but behaving poorly when things don’t go her way.

She doesn’t respect Rory’s boyfriends. (S2 E5; S2 E19; S5 E19, E20) Okay, Jess didn’t leave the best first impression. But keep in mind that when he first meets Lorelai, he’s just moved to their town, Stars Hollow, against his will. Add that to the fact that he comes from a troubled family, and his reaction makes a little more sense. But even after Rory asks Lorelai to give him the benefit of the doubt, she doesn’t put in that much effort.

And whenever something goes wrong when Rory and Jess are both at fault, Lorelai immediately blames Jess and even Luke, her friend and Jess’s uncle, for pushing them together.

Her next boyfriend, Logan Huntzberger, treats Rory much better than Jess, but Lorelai takes a long time to warm up to him as well. His family runs in the same circles as Richard and Emily, and the other Huntzbergers don’t treat Rory well at all. This perfectly explains why Lorelai acts cold around Logan at first, even though he’s a good match for Rory and their relationship is relatively stable for the rest of the series. Looping Logan in with the rest of his family isn’t fair, which Lorelai of all people should understand.

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Opinion

6 — Wednesday, October 27, 2021

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You should be worried about the metaverse ALEX YEE Opinion Columnist

M

ark Zuckerberg wants Facebook to become a “metaverse company.” In August, Facebook launched Horizon Workrooms, an application where users can strap on Facebook’s Oculus VR headset and attend 3D virtual meetings as their personalized avatar. Although Zuckerberg’s first foray into immersive tech might be clunky right now, his belief in the future of the metaverse is not as far-fetched as it might sound.

Other Big Tech leaders such as Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney and Microsoft are talking about the metaverse as a very real possibility in the near future.

So, what is the metaverse?

Nobody knows exactly, but there is a lengthy body of work on the subject written by venture capitalist Matthew Ball. For those unwilling to dig through Ball’s website, works of sciencefiction, like Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One” or the “San Junipero” episode from Netflix’s Black Mirror present captivating ideas of how the metaverse might turn out to mesh with our day-to-day lives. Imagine finishing a meeting on Workrooms at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday and then instantly transporting yourself to a virtual shopping mall, where you spend hours looking for a pair of cute new bell-bottoms. The metaverse is the overarching structure that binds each space together into a cohesive, navigable whole. It is no surprise that Zuckerberg wants an early stake in the metaverse.

The earlier Facebook can build the most popular platform on the metaverse, the more profit

they can rake in from advertisers.

If the amount of personal data Facebook collects now is cause for alarm, imagine the possibilities for marketing firms once they have access to every word we say, every gesture we make and every place we visit in the virtual world.

At this point, the metaverse should sound like the worst dystopia imaginable. In essence, it is a digital universe designed and controlled by Mark Zuckerberg, in which advertisers can exploit the field of neuroscience for even greater profits than they already are. Why are we not turning our backs and running away screaming?

We love social media, and at the same time recognize how detrimental it is to our mental health. It seems impossible to extricate ourselves from our online social networks, from fear of being left out and falling behind. Once someone comes up with a successful social platform on the metaverse, a similar network effect will occur, driving greater numbers of people to spend time on the newest fad provided by the market.

Assuming, then, that the metaverse (with all its attendant problems) is inevitable, the question becomes how should we respond? Already, there are voices in the tech industry thinking of innovative ways to deal with the potential ethical dilemmas brought up in deciding how to write algorithms. Should our technology filter how we view the real world? Will the metaverse give computer engineers an unbearable burden of decisionmaking? How will living in a manufactured world impact how we expose our children to the world? It is good to know

that current professionals are seriously considering the social implications of their work, but it is not enough.

Here at the University of Michigan, we have a rich tradition of excellence in technological innovation. Our computer science, engineering and various other technologyoriented departments produce successful, industry-leading graduates that go on to accomplish great feats in their respective careers. Larry Page is perhaps the most notable example, but he is certainly not alone. Back in the 1980s, U-M Professor Emeritus Doug Van Houweling led a project to rebuild a National Science Foundation network of computers that arguably invented the internet. We truly are the Leaders and Best.

Now, if we are to live up to our school’s reputation, then we ought to direct our professional efforts toward leading the path forward for the metaverse.

Computer science graduates should think in great detail about the impacts caused by the code they write and advocate for positive, helpful developments in our technology. Business students should invest in and found metaverse companies that aim to improve the social welfare of their consumers, even if that cuts into their profits. Political science students should advocate for changes in government tech policy that best reflect their values and work towards the future they wish to live in. We have an opportunity to build the metaverse into something beautiful, and a responsibility to make it as beneficial for the public good as we can.

Retire, Justice Breyer LYDIA STORELLA Opinion Columnist

L

ast year, former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, and the Democrats’ nightmare ensued.

A month later, former President Donald Trump nominated Justice Amy Coney Barrett — an antiabortion advocate — to replace Ginsburg, a liberal and feminist icon.

The Republican-controlled Senate confirmed this nomination.

Ginsburg refrained from retiring during former President Barack Obama’s second term, which allowed Trump to appoint her successor. As the oldest current member of the Supreme Court, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer should learn from Ginsburg’s mistake. He should retire now to guarantee that he will be replaced by a liberal justice.

While Democrats currently control Congress and the presidency, it is possible that the midterm elections next year could hand the Senate to Republicans, giving them the upper hand on all votes, including those to confirm Supreme Court nominees.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has already confirmed it would be “highly unlikely” that Republicans would vote to confirm a Biden Supreme Court nominee should they take back the Senate. While Breyer does not appear to have significant health issues, he is 83 years old. Ginsburg died when she was 87, four years after Obama’s presidency ended.

The question of Breyer’s retirement is on the minds of liberals, including Breyer himself. In response to calls for him to step down, Breyer has said that he will retire on his own terms.

He has offered explanations for his refusal to provide a clear timeline,

including worries that it will increase polarization, a consistent theme from him. Breyer argued that “if the public sees judges as politicians in robes, its confidence in the courts, and in the rule of law itself, can only diminish, diminishing the court’s power.”

While it is honorable that Breyer cares about preserving the integrity of the Supreme Court and American institutions, this strategy doesn’t work when the other side refuses to reciprocate.

On election night in 2000, the Wall Street Journal reported that then-Justice Sandra Day O’Connor “would be reluctant to retire if a Democrat were in the White House and would choose her replacement.”

O’Connor retired in 2005, with former President George W. Bush selecting her replacement. Former Justice Anthony Kennedy chose to retire in 2018 after Trump developed a relationship with Kennedy to ensure that he trusted Trump to choose the right person to replace him. Both O’Connor and Kennedy are still alive today.

Liberal justices have illustrated how retiring honorably, or on one’s own terms, allows conservative justices to remake the Supreme Court. Ginsburg’s death last year, and the aftermath illustrated the damage these decisions can cause. In 1991, former Justice Thurgood Marshall chose to retire during the George H.W. Bush administration for reasons related to his health. Bush replaced him with Justice Clarence Thomas, who is still on the bench today and is one of the most conservative justices on the Supreme Court. It is understandable why Marshall retired when he did, and he certainly deserved that retirement. But, it is undeniable that his retirement dramatically changed the makeup of

the Supreme Court for at least the past 30 years, and likely more.

While the Supreme Court should, in theory, avoid party politics and focus on delivering decisions that follow the law and the Constitution, it has become clear in recent years that the Supreme Court, along with the entire American judicial system, has become much more politicized.

Ending the filibuster on all judicial nominations and McConnell’s lack of action to replace former Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016 has made the Supreme Court a political branch of both parties. Breyer should understand that his refusal to retire is not a principled stance against the polarization of this country. Rather, it is an idealistic mistake that could give conservatives an even stronger hold on the Supreme Court, enabling the Court to make decisions that harm Americans.

The current Supreme Court has already shown its ability to make consequential decisions that dramatically harm people’s lives. Its lack of action on the Texas abortion law illustrates why we need liberal justices on the Supreme Court.

Besides this decision, the Supreme Court’s upcoming term includes cases that challenge Roe v. Wade, gun laws and the role of religion in schools. These are all issues that could change American life, and more significant decisions are sure to be heard in the coming years.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority means that the loss of another liberal justice would lead to conservative domination for years to come. The only way to ensure that Breyer will be replaced by a liberal justice is for him to step down before the 2022 midterm elections and allow Biden and the Democratic Senate to choose his replacement.

GABBY RIVAS Opinion Columnist

I

t all happened so quickly. Since April 1, 2021, when I finally committed to my university of choice, every time I was asked about my plans after high school, I followed proudly with, “I’m going to the University of Michigan.” Even though I must have repeated that response a million times, it doesn’t feel real to be here in Ann Arbor. It was more of an automatic reply, but now I walk through the Law Quad, the Diag and down Main Street and it feels like I’ve been transported to a new life. A common phrase circling the internet (and campus) right now among first-year students describes the stunning realization “when you commit to a top university and it’s actually hard.” It is no longer just a response or something to put in your Instagram bio. It never felt like the moment was ever going to come. Time felt extended 100 times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We anxiously sat and waited for over a year for the change and excitement that comes with being on campus.

Thinking forward to life in college was a form of coping with social isolation and depression.

The Wall Street Journal recently ranked the University of Michigan as the No. 1 public university in the United States and No. 24 overall among public and private universities.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, their most recent data from 2018-2019 indicates that there are 2,828 four-year colleges in the U.S. 24th out of 2,828 is a mindboggling statistic to think about. This data illustrates that you are the cream of the crop as a student at U-M when it comes to higher education.

The Wall Street Journal analyzes and creates these rankings based on several factors. While rankings from different sources vary due to utilizing different resources and criteria, the Wall Street Journal adequately analyzed and included all the characteristics I investigated while researching universities for my college applications.

According to the Journal, “The WSJ/THE rankings are based on 15 factors across four main categories: Forty percent of each school’s overall score comes from student outcomes, including graduates’ salaries and debt; 30% comes from academic resources, including how much the

college spends on teaching; 20% from student engagement, including whether students feel prepared to use their education in the real world, and 10% from the learning environment, including the diversity of the student body and academic staff.” While the standards the University sets as the top public school in the nation are impressive, they can also create an intimidating environment for students.

As we power through midterm season and calendars begin to fill with club meetings, deadlines, office hours and appointments, it is really easy to feel overwhelmed as a student at a university with such a rigorous curriculum. One after the other, new tasks pop up on the to-do list; it’s like running on a hamster wheel.

Even though you feel you are pushing yourself above and beyond, so is everyone else. Every day I leave my residence hall at 9 a.m. and return at 5 p.m., only to head out once again and finally end my day after midnight.

Yet, it still never feels like enough.

Everyone around you appears to be doing twice as much and having twice as much fun during their free time. Maybe prior to college, you may have been the one who took the most challenging classes, participated actively in every club and held a leadership position in every organization. It never felt like an option to be an average member. But now, you are constantly surrounded by students who are the exact same. It is easy to feel the pressure to perform at 100% all the time and live up to this standard. Now, who rises to the top?

The Harvard Business Review defines imposter syndrome as “a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success.” The concept of imposter syndrome is ingrained in our brains at this University.

There are modules on Canvas before arriving on campus, as well as countless resources for support.

The University acknowledges how mentally draining the environment can become if you lack confidence in your knowledge and ability. But are they doing enough? Despite their efforts, this feeling still stops students from performing at their best. 70% of people experience imposter syndrome at some point in their career. There is a constant fear of failure as a student at Michigan. According to an article by our School of Public Health, Michigan’s annual Healthy Minds

Study reported that “among the respondents, 47% screened positive for clinically significant symptoms of depression and/or anxiety.”

In addition, many studies have uncovered anxiety as a comorbid condition with imposter syndrome and that high school students who experienced imposter syndrome feelings “correlated significantly with a history of prior suicidal ideation and attempts and depression.”

The University needs to break the silence and let its students know that there is nothing wrong with feeling inadequate. Feeling uncomfortable in an unfamiliar situation is ultimately a positive experience. It illustrates that you are stepping out of your comfort zone. Professors need to work to promote a comfortable classroom environment that facilitates discussion and encourages getting answers wrong to develop further understanding of the material. By bringing in successful alumni to speak about their own struggles with the fear of failure, it could help prove that even those who look like they have it all together, feel the same way.

As a community, we need to become more transparent about how we are doing. There is no need to hide behind the perfect persona of the perfect student. Based on the data, we likely are all dealing with similar issues, so we need to support one another to not feel alone.

While being at this type of university may be overwhelming and daunting now, graduating with a degree from the No. 1 public university will set you apart from other applicants in the professional world. The expansive alumni network connects you across the globe. While the plethora of courses and organizations may seem daunting now, these opportunities are precisely what makes you thrive post-graduation due to the abundance of experience and knowledge gained.

No other university can replace the spirit that booms through the Big House on a fall Saturday or the drive that exists in every student here. Rather than doubting yourself and letting the pressure sink in, take full advantage of every opportunity and every second at this amazing university. Through the staff and ambiance of this place, we have the tools to thrive and become the best version of ourselves. That is why the Wall Street Journal ranked us as the No. 1 public university.

Squid Game is just the latest in Gen Z’s love of dystopian media BEN DAVIS Opinion Columnist

R

iding the “Korean Wave,” the survival, dystopian K-drama “Squid Game” has risen to No.1 on Netf lix in the United States. It’s no surprise that this has happened.

Korean pop culture has not only overtaken the US, but the globe.

The success of BTS and fervent Twitter threads between K-Pop stans evinces this. But there is a deeper reason why “Squid Game” has gained popularity in such little time. Gen Z — the generation born roughly between 1996 and 2010 — has an affinity for dystopian fiction. This is the generation that was raised on “The Hunger Games,” “Divergent” and “Maze Runner” in their tween years. Anti-utopian fiction is as integral as Disney in Generation Z childhood media.

Unsurprisingly, a generation raised on dystopianism is going to have fired-up political motives. The United States has become more like Panem, the fictional nation at the center of “The Hunger Games,” with power and wealth ever more consolidating in the hands of the few. This has culminated in a politically active, extremely vocal generation. Being digital natives has only propelled this further. We, as Gen Z, need to harness this political energy to make impactful changes to our politics at all levels.

The world in which Gen Z has been thrust into is alarming.

The climate crisis is upon us with its effects becoming more apparent. Temperatures are rising. Natural disasters are becoming more extreme. Food and water insecurity is and will be dire. Socially, wealth disparity is increasing. The consolidation of wealth in the

US is returning to 1920s levels.

The richest Americans’ wealth increased dramatically during 2020 while the rest of the country faced a recession. Are these descriptions of Panem or of the United States? The line is eerily blurred. The premises of our childhood dystopian fiction mirror the social strife in the United States. We aren’t an apocalyptic state yet, but the signs don’t bode well for the future. The inequalities in the real world that formed the basis of early 2010s dystopian media have become exacerbated and do not seem to be abating in the near future unless systemic change fueled by public outcry takes place.

The teens and young adults of the globe do not back down in the political arena. The political strategies employed by this group resemble much of the rebellious efforts of our dystopian protagonists, albeit less physically violent in execution. Gen Z is highly supportive of political protest with a recent Politico poll reporting that 63% of the generation supports protesting, much of which is in regard to the 2020 protests in the name of the Black Lives Matter movement.

What’s even more interesting is that Gen Z views protesting as more effective than voting to influence politics. This portion of the electorate is disenchanted with the political status quo. The protests against the military coup in Myanmar saw protesters use the iconic “Hunger Games” three-finger salute. A related political action that highlights Gen Z’s digital aptitude was when K-pop stans rallied online to troll former President Donald Trump by registering for his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma despite never intending to attend. This prompted Trump to tout his popularity and then look quite

foolish. There is a global feeling that the politics of the time are veering toward crisis and people are acting out in accordance.

Our generation has a certain je ne sais quoi. We have a fire under our asses lit by the need to fix the socio-political problems that are pushing our country to the precipice.

And it’s no shocker to me that our political strategies show continuity with those modeled for us by the dystopian novels and films of our youth. We need to funnel this energy into intense political activism.

Let us not be tempered in our political outrage. We have mass communication platforms at our disposal to unify and mobilize. We are one of the first generations to be able to usurp traditional information networks in order to make an impact on politics. To bed with only working within the system to change the system. If there is anything that our dystopian media has taught us, it’s that protest and working outside of the system can be an impactful form of political engagement.

Gen Z clings to themes of dystopianism because we can easily relate them to our own experiences. The rich are getting richer at the expense of the lower class. The climate is being destroyed by the few to the detriment of all. These aren’t plot points in a fantasy novel. As we start to burgeon into the political scene, we need to utilize this intense zeal that we have to enact social change. The world seems to be crumbling, but we have the tools to fix it. I’m glad to have been raised on dystopianism. It’s imbued me with a responsibility to engage in political activism. I implore that more of Gen Z leans into this cultural current. It’s one of our greatest strengths.

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You’re not breaking barriers by being gay in a fraternity JACOB FENLON Opinion Columnist

R

ecently, it has come to my attention that more and more openly gay men are joining fraternities.

As a first-generation, gay student from the rural North, I understand the appeal of joining a fraternity. I’ll be honest, I even tried — to no avail — to rush as a sophomore. Finally being accepted by a group of masculine straight men would be a dream come true to a young gay kid who never fit in. Gay people throughout time have had to make their own families, and I understand the appeal of wanting a group of friends you can call your “brothers.” But that is the same reason I am glad I did not receive a bid. I realized that I was trying to reach a sense of hyper-masculinity or aggressively male behavior that I felt I lacked for being gay. This internalized homophobia is a struggle for many younger gay men. It is also why I believe so many younger white gay men are joining fraternities now.

But, is that sense of validation worth contributing to a system with a history of violent racism, homophobia and misogyny? The other day I watched a TikTok where an openly gay white fraternity brother joked about how he has to make sure that girls know that they are “safe” around him because he is not straight. In a sense, he knows that fraternities are infamous for being a dangerous place for women, but for some reason being gay absolves him from that part of the fraternity? Gay people are no strangers to violence, especially sexual violence, so why would you as a gay person contribute to a culture that perpetuates it?

A lot of people like to argue that by being gay in a fraternity, a person can help dismantle the institutional homophobia of Greek life. To that, I ask: Why are there so many closeted men in fraternities? In my experience, a fraternity — no matter how progressive the school they are at is — is going to be completely unwilling to accept a pledge if they are not heterosexual passing. In fact, I was told by a member of one of the

fraternities I tried to rush that “they probably wouldn’t bid a member if they knew that he was gay.” So then, what exactly is a gay person gaining from their fraternity other than validation from their straight peers?

I’ve heard arguments that some gay guys might want the recognition that comes with certain fraternity letters or just guys to drink with. However, there are plenty of organizations on campus that provide a sense of community without the toxicity of a fraternity. White gay men especially are criticized for their lack of social awareness. We may be gay, but we still benefit from the privilege of our skin color and the fact that it is fairly easy to pass as straight. This comes with a responsibility to fight against systems that oppress LGBTQ+ people of color, not join them. If you have the privilege of passing enough to join a fraternity, you should use it to help your community, not contribute to systems that hurt it.

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I don’t know how to tell you to care about other people SAM SCHMITZ Opinion Columnist

I

entered Auditorium D in Angell Hall on an otherwise unremarkable Monday afternoon. Well, it would be unremarkable if it wasn’t the first day of class. Might I add, it was the first day of in-person classes in over a year.

I found my seat and prepared myself for another long ride, but hopefully a refreshing one after a year of Zoom University. I got out my notebook, opened my laptop and was ready to jot down every word. As the professor began talking, going over introductions and so forth, I found myself starry-eyed for a moment. I truly believed this was going to be a good year. As time ticked on, and the class progressed, I was increasingly drawn in and enthralled

by the subject.

My professor was discussing how we were going to be studying power in politics and Congress. He discussed the topics we would be covering, the details of congressional functions and power dynamics on Capitol Hill as well as some of the issues Congress faces. Then, he started to talk about the kinds of people we were going to be learning from. At that moment, my starry eyes were sharply drawn open, alert and aware. I felt as if I had been slapped in the face. It wasn’t a hand that slapped me awake, but rather a string of words woven together in a sentence that in essence conveyed this: we are going to disregard what these people did, whether they were good or evil, whether they were right or wrong, and learn from them nonetheless because they knew something about

power that you ought to know.

My professor continued this sentiment by stating, “We are not here to separate good from evil, or judge these people for their actions. We are here to learn from them, regardless of how bad they are. We are going to learn from segregationists, from people who supported slavery.”

A puzzled expression crept onto my face, not that anyone could see it under my mask, as my professor continued to talk about how we were going to be learning from Al Franken, who notoriously resigned after allegations of sexual misconduct. The professor quickly moved on, disregarding an opportunity to have a serious discussion about a controversial figure, and class ended soon after.

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Craig’s Bond and Merkel’s chancellorship MIGUEL CALLE Opinion Columnist

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om Ford suit, Omega watch, Crockett & Jones shoes.

Aston Martin for the car, Walther for the gun and Bollinger for the champagne. During the last 15 years, class was spelled “C-R-A-I-G.” For nearly the same timeframe, the name “Merkel” was synonymous with leadership. Now, I’m struggling to say goodbye to both of them.

I was three when Angela Merkel became chancellor of Germany and four when Daniel Craig first embodied the role of Britain’s finest spy. I grew up watching Merkel be the only responsible adult in a room full of world leaders and Craig’s embodiment of James Bond saving that world time and time again. They remind me of an epoch that’s gone, never to return.

Both Bond and Merkel are products of the Cold War; perhaps too dated and archaic for this era of populism and galactic heroes. As much as I enjoy watching Marvel put out another entry into its cosmic saga, the simplicity of the man with the three-number name makes my heart race. Also, as engrossing as the Trump-era of television can be, now when I watch channels like CNN and Fox News I long for the days of Truman and Eisenhower, when

politics was about making prudent choices. I never got to be a part of that generation, but Angela Merkel made me feel like I did.

Sometimes I wish the world were more comprehensible, that its battles could be resolved through suave spies. Sometimes I wish global politics were still seemingly divided into two ideological camps. At least then we’d know who the enemy was. That’s not the case anymore.

Today, we see insurrections on American soil. We see vaccines being politicized. We see nutjobs and extremists becoming members of Congress. So I wonder: Is there a place for the Bonds and Merkels of the world nowadays?

Chancellor Merkel was a pragmatist. Even as a conservative, she opened the borders of her country to all refugees searching for a home. She found a way to solve the Euro-zone debt crisis.

And she prevented the EU’s demise after the tragedy that was (and is) “Brexit.” Merkel holds the highest approval rating of any world leader 16 years after stepping into office.

Her party, the Christian Democratic Union, is struggling to find a worthy successor. Their choice for this general election, Armin Laschet, has almost certainly lost his bid for the chancellorship. Two years ago, Merkel’s heir apparent, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, lost her place

as the CDU’s leader following a political scandal. All of this isn’t surprising: the shadow of Merkel would loom large over anyone. And guess what — whether it’s Henry Cavill, Idris Elba, Tom Hiddleston, Michael Fassbender or someone else, they will all flounder in trying to replace Daniel Craig as he leaves the character that made him famous.

It took several generations of middling Bonds to find a sterling inheritor for Sir Sean Connery.

None of them were terrible. Most incorporated the main aspects that characterize Bond into their roles. Yet Craig (with some help from Dame Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw and Naomi Harris, along with Mads Mikkelsen’s and Javier Bardem’s stellar villains) brought back the perfect Bond combination of craggy and debonair. In contrast, Merkel had a standard to meet when she became chancellor. Phenomenal, transformational leaders like Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt and Helmut Kohl occupied the office before her. In fact, Merkel’s political ascent began during Kohl’s administration, as Minister for Women and Youth. Hence, the Merkel-Craig pair had tough jobs ahead, but both outperformed expectations.

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The local, the wayfarer and the worldliness: why ethical tourism matters

SUDOKU

puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com

Release Date: Wednesday, October 27, 2021

ELIZABETH WOLFE Opinion Columnist

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis ACROSS 1 Like many a basement 5 Hold dear 10 Breakfast companion?

13 __ vaccine 14 As a companion 15 Soup du __ 16 Big name in plant food 18 Reverse 19 Also 20 G.I. entertainment often featuring Bob Hope 22 Through street 26 Hollywood Walk of Fame symbols 27 Get duded up 28 “Despite my best attempts ... ” 30 Bladed tool 31 Enjoyed the buffet 32 [as per the original] 33 First section of the “Divine Comedy” 36 “That makes more sense” 40 Witticism 41 Big bang letters?

42 Keep __ distance 43 Kitchen gadget 47 Greek wraps 49 Take the floor 50 Unlike bikinis 52 Handicraft worker 54 Something up one’s sleeve 55 Jackson family musician born Toriano 56 Home with a between-floors entrance ... and what can be found on puzzle rows 3, 6, 8 and 10?

62 Smooth (out) 63 Events with kings and queens 64 Shade of blue 65 “__ Rosenkavalier” 66 Lathered up 67 Slush Puppie parent company DOWN 1 __ Pérignon 2 “Hereditary” director Aster

3 Deface 4 Missouri River feeder 5 Heroism 6 Blonde beverage 7 Part of a cord 8 Like a mob scene 9 They might clash on stage 10 Actress Helena __ Carter 11 Email program named after writer Welty 12 Half-asleep 15 Supreme Court figure 17 Filmmaker Ethan or Joel 21 Davis of “Do the Right Thing” 22 “East of Eden” Thompson is its brother longest-tenured 23 Sailing hazard 24 “Leave __ me” 25 Exist 27 Letter after upsilon 29 Helper: Abbr.

31 Payment before a deal 34 Sentiment 35 Lures (in)

36 Concerning 37 Snitch (on) 38 Chiwere speaker 39 Used to be 41 Royal flush card 43 Like many candies 44 Get in 45 Ramble on and on 46 Amateur 47 Birth announcement word

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

10/20/21 10/27/21

By Craig Stowe ©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

WHISPER “THANK YOU DAILY STAFF”

48 Sana’a native 51 One taking a fall 53 Egyptian slitherers 57 Mauna __ 58 Little devil 59 Device that may be wet or dry, briefly 60 End of the day 61 Cleaning ingredient

“Hi Mom!”

10/27/21

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rowing up, my parents frequently discussed taking me and my sister to Italy. I heard many stories about an almost mythical land — the country that my family is from, where fashionable people floated from cafes to museums and priceless art stood at every turn. Above all, we sought a world so different from our own, craving its unparalleled uniqueness.

That vacation was their dream for us, so during Christmas of 2018, after over a year of planning, my sister and I left the country for the first time to finally visit this magical land.

We started in Rome, at the same hotel my parents stayed in 20 years before. The 72 hours spent in the city occurred in an unending rush of activity, bouncing from the Vatican to the Trevi Fountain to the Colosseum. As we went about, I noticed some familiar names of stores in the U.S., but they were far from the main sites of the city, and especially far from the Vatican.

From the tours through the ancient ruins and the lengthy dinners spent in restaurants my parents remembered fondly, I felt the magic of a new world we had dreamed of for so long.

But the novelty of traveling dissipated after we arrived in Florence. I had expected it to be calmer than Rome. The latter was filled with endless sounds of chatter, honking taxis and bells in the air.

Florence has world-renowned landmarks too — The Ponte Vecchio, Italian Galleria dell’Accademia featuring The David, The Uffizi, The Duomo, Michaelangelo’s tomb — but it had a quaint taste, at least in theory.

But what truly amazed us was not the throngs of people waiting with us for the same major attractions, but the lack of culture right outside of them. Local businesses that once lined the streets were replaced by department stores and luxury shopping: H&M, Zara, Gucci, Versace, Prada and more. It had the same atmosphere as a mall I could find 40 minutes from my small town. It was too familiar. On this of the Arno river, where the tourists mainly frequented, the Florentine-ness, as I refer to it, felt diluted.

Tourism, more specifically how to be an ethical tourist, has been a growing topic, especially in activist spaces.

Shopping, specifically department stores and malls, offers us familiarity in a foreign place. While shopping itself isn’t immoral, the standardization of these industries in catering toward tourists tramples the local businesses, and therefore the city’s unique culture. It was close to impossible to find any native Florentine businesses.

Perhaps it is selfish of me, desiring the roots and labors of this complex city, but I would like to believe my desires also reflect an appreciation for them as well.

This means of consumerism goes beyond Florence and Europe in general.

Mass tourism to Hawaii has negatively impacted its culture and environment, draining these resources away from the Native inhabitants. Unlike the situation in Florence, a study of Hawaii and other locations involves conversations of racism and ecotourism. Limited by my own experiences and knowledge, I won’t discuss these intersectional factors, but bear them in mind as you travel outside of the mainland United States. This is to say these critiques aren’t focused solely on Florence. Negative effects of tourism across the world take root in this globalization.

Part of being a good tourist is like being a good guest; you know the customs and rules and you respect the host and take part in their lifestyle. Relating to the idea of escapism when traveling, one should maintain a certain level of awareness as they go about. Who and what are you engaging with, and what is that doing for your host city?

Most importantly, recognize that your experience is not solely tied to tickets and tours. Some of my favorite moments had nothing to do with the major attractions surrounding us. They came in many forms; laughing at the British tourist who nearly trampled us in Raphael’s room of the Vatican museum; a picture from Christmas day that had a beam of light shooting into my hands, as if it could be a sign from my grandpa; linking arms as we wandered down cobblestone streets and happened upon cafes; making a brief friendship with a waiter who remembered us when we returned two days later because the food was too good to not have again before we left for home.

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Michigan in Color

8 — Wednesday, October 27, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Unpacking ‘Legally Blonde’ REEM HASSAN MiC Columnist I’ve known that I’d like to become a lawyer someday for what seems like forever.

Whenever I’m asked where my love for the law is rooted, my mind usually goes to one of three places or all three at the same time depending on the conversation I’m having. In response I tell people: 1. My love for law is rooted in my identities as a Palestinian, Muslim, Arab woman, and the marginalizations that each of those identities encounters in white societies. Having been at the forefront of witnessing and experiencing what it meant to carry these identities instilled in me a desire to commit to social justice and reform and to be a part of making the change my communities want to see on a legal level.

2. My love for law is rooted in my hatred of STEM. Ever since I was young, I knew I didn’t want to be a doctor or nurse or engineer despite the way my siblings were drawn to these fields. Furthermore, this became abundantly clear when it was my English, civics, economics and social science classes that kept me engaged all throughout my pre-university schooling, and the dread I felt for my natural science classes became a norm.

3. And sometimes, only sometimes, I’ll tell people that I sealed the deal on law after watching “Legally Blonde.”

At 13 years old, I fell victim to the chokehold “Legally Blonde” seemed to have on its viewers after watching the movie for the very first time.

Little did I know, that would be the first of countless “Legally Blonde” binge nights or that the movie would seemingly have much more of an impact on me than I would’ve expected.

I finished the movie starryeyed, completely in awe of Elle Woods’s confidence, feistiness and overall aura. The glitz and glam and hot pink pantsuits in combination with the “big-time” Harvard law degree seemed like everything I wanted my future to encapsulate.

However, being closer to a professional degree now than I was in middle school, I have started to increasingly pick out the faults that the movie demonstrates. What became increasingly clear is that the entirety of the movie revolves around traditional notions of femininity. When we think of Elle Woods, we think of an ultra-feminine figure, almost as “girly” as one can get.

Throughout the movie, it seems like the idea that is constantly reiterated is that to be accepted in predominantly male fields is to be ultra-feminine. From her over-the-top extravagant daily outfits to her weekly manicure

appointments and even her pink, scented résumé, her entire being screams femininity. In reality, there is a certain level of femininity that is expected of women in professional spaces — whether that is the clothes they wear, the way they do their hair or the other ways they present themselves. Elle Woods carves a path for herself in the predominantly male field of law, but the fact that she is so extremely feminine seems to be used as a tool to accomplish this.

Arguably the most iconic scene in the movie is when Elle busts the suspect on trial for having murdered her own father. Elle makes this breakthrough in the case because the suspect claimed that she had gotten a perm and then went home to shower, and returned to find her father shot. Elle, being extremely sound in all things beauty-related, quickly pointed out that the suspect was lying because the number-one rule after getting a perm is to avoid wetting the hair. It’s made clear that Elle only knew this information and was able to make this breakthrough because she’s so “girly.” I can’t help but wonder if the same experience that Elle Woods had would be the same experience a woman of color would have, as they are often not regarded with the same lens of fragility, femininity and innocence as white women.

The answer is most probably no.

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His safe warm hands ANONYMOUS MiC Columnist Editor’s Note: The author of this piece has chosen to be anonymous given the sensitive nature of their account. In accordance with our ethics policy (which can be found in full in our bylaws), the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editors of Michigan in Color are aware of the author’s identity.

Content warning: sexual assault The sun beat down through my opened bedroom window and warmed my room. Every light in my room had been on for hours, increasing the warmth. Clothes covered every inch of carpet, except for the 3-foot space in front of my full body mirror that my dad and I built together a couple of years prior.

That space was instead covered with every makeup product I owned.

The brushes lay on the bare carpet, leaving small pink eyeshadow marks behind. My phone rested in the middle of my bed charging, while it simultaneously played my November Spotify playlist, repeating my favorite three songs from it — one being “Good Habits (and Bad)”

by Saba Lou, a song that made me reminisce about my childhood due to the innocent nature of the song.

(The song, which focuses on what a child considers as bad habits, is sung and written from a child’s point of view.) The sun was setting and it was starting to get dark. I was already late. I applied my final coat of mascara while my hand shook from the excitement that rushed through my body and the nervousness that clouded my mind. It was my first

second date, ever. With the same guy who took me on my first real date, ever.

Our first date, a week prior, was a picnic — something we liked enough to agree to do it as our second date.

The green flags and sweet things he did on the first date all ran through my mind: how he helped me climb in and out of his car through the driver’s seat door since the passenger door was blocked by another car; how he was so understanding when I told him about the anxiety I get while driving, and immediately said that we would only picnic at the park by my house so that I wouldn’t have to drive much. How he didn’t change his mind after realizing it would take him over half an hour of freeway driving one-way; how he didn’t get uncomfortable holding my hand even though my hand was grossly sweaty from being so nervous; how he let me play my music the entire car ride, even though his music taste was the complete opposite. And my favorite: how at the end of the date, he asked me if he could kiss me before just going in for it.

I waited in my car at the park, texting my best friend about how nervous I was. “What if he ends whatever this is cuz he doesn’t like me anymore.” She reassured me, ending our conversation with our normal “have fun, be safe <3” text.

When he arrived, he pulled me into a hug with his warm hands. They were warmer than mine, something I hadn’t found with anyone else. But the warmth was nice and comforting and made me feel safe. So safe that my nervousness shifted to a blissful feeling. So safe that I forgot about all my other worries to just enjoy

Design by Anonymous

his company. So safe that my eyes wouldn’t let out a single tear no matter how much I wanted them to as he lay on top of me less than an hour later. So safe that my mouth wouldn’t let out a single noise no matter how much I tried to say no.

So safe that my body wouldn’t move no matter how much I tried to push him off.

At that moment, I felt numb. I no longer felt the warmth in his hands.

But I just knew his hands were still there. I laid in silence, with my eyes wide open, and emotionlessly stared at the stars in the sky, even while he kept kissing me. The extreme amount of layers I was wearing didn’t stop him. But worst of all, neither did I. To make things worse, I was so blinded by his attention and validation that I normalized what happened to me. I went home that night and was so worried that he didn’t want to go out again, that I failed to realize I didn’t. And when he texted me the next day about how the whole night felt off because we were both just tired, I agreed, putting some of the blame on myself.

The fact that he was the first guy that I went on a date with worsened the entire situation.

He knows what he’s doing. This is what happens on all other dates.

Maybe he just couldn’t tell I was uncomfortable. I should’ve said no.

He didn’t do anything wrong. This is just his way of showing he’s into me.

He’s probably done the same to all the previous girls, so I should be fine with it as well.

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A journey of change MARIAM ALSHOURBAGY MiC Columnist

By Andrew nAkAmurA, miC Columnist Mercury in your sixth house of organization trines Saturn in your tenth house, which marks a great time to organize your office space and your work files. A cleaner workspace may help you become more productive.

Your ruling planet Mars enters Scorpio in your eighth house of rebirth. You may have been avoiding an underlying issue in your life.

However, now is the time to charge forward and face your problems head-on.

Now is a great time to get to know people on a much deeper level and evaluate your compatibility in a relationship. If you’re currently in a relationship, this is a great opportunity to deepen your relationship even further.

When Mars enters fellow water sign Scorpio in your fifth house of creativity, you will become deeply immersed in your creative work. You may come to some emotional breakthroughs that can fuel your creative process.

This is a great time to start a creative project or pursue an intellectual idea. Now is also a great time to resolve any lingering conflicts you may have with yourself or others. While conflict resolution may be difficult, you will feel incredibly invigorated if every problem is fixed.

At this time, you may really start to deepen your bond between friends you didn’t view as close before. You could unearth a lot of their virtues and desires, which may allow you to gain incredibly wise insights to apply to your own life. You may feel pressured to hide away parts of yourself in order to appeal to others, but you shouldn’t be afraid to be yourself.

Mars transitions into Scorpio in your fourth house of home and family, which indicates that your relationships with your family and childhood friends may suddenly become much closer. Now is a good time to reach out and ask them how they’re doing.

When Mars enters Scorpio in your twelfth house of subconsciousness, you may feel a lot more passionate about your creative pursuits. Sagittarians enjoy chasing many different desires, but this is the time to commit to one idea and see it through.

When Mars enters Scorpio and your tenth house of career ambitions, you will dig deep in order to find clarity in your professional goals. Are you satisfied with your current life path? Do you see yourself pursuing this career for the rest of your life?

Geminis are known for being very sporadic and energetic, but this also means you cannot be contained by a schedule or deadlines. Mars in Scorpio encourages you to rein your zeal in by placing your absolute focus on one thing at a time until you see it to completion.

Virgos are always great communicators and meticulous listeners, and Mars in Scorpio is about to bring this intensity to the next level. Now is a great time to strike up a conversation with just about anyone in order to gain some valuable insight.

Mars transitions into Scorpio and your ninth house of philosophy, which means that your mind is going to become much more focused on your education.

Pisceans are very imaginative and curious, and now is a great time to feed your curiosity by pursuing an intellectual topic you feel passionate about.

We would starve if flour didn’t change into bread, and we would freeze if wood didn’t change into fire. For us who are constantly in motion, change is inevitable.

But this time it wasn’t the same kind of change.

As grains of sand chased the wounded wind Migrating from the desert to this mourning street Those little grains infiltrating every empty corner Touched the cold ground and covered its scars Listened to the wind mourn and dried its tears Saw the crowd disperse Then flew away.

As I opened my eyes to cry The wind carried the sand into my eyes I shake the grains off Then cover my eyes and never open them again.

I am allowed to cry when the wind is too strong I’m allowed to be, allowed to fall, allowed to heal Before living, confronting, accepting.

I wasn’t ready.

After the careful talk The worried stares The quiet concern I just didn’t care.

But the sand was running out So I allowed myself a peek I still wasn’t ready To open them completely That smile and kindness aren’t found everywhere I close my eyes again and feel the familiar scent in the air.

I still wasn’t ready To let go of those summer days The hands that held mine Now lying empty on the bedside.

I’ve walked these streets long enough to know everyone By name, last name, and addresses I now fear the day I saw them wearing their black dresses And I look at them and see my grief mirrored Their mouths straight and their faces withered.

When will I have the courage to accept this change?

“Everything we did together death did not erase His name is spoken like it’s a familiar place” Our life goes on and he’s still in it One has his smile, one his kindness, One has his passion, one his dedication, and one his wisdom.

So no, my grandpa’s death wasn’t one of those changes. It was about the journey of change, one filled with grief and denial, followed by guidance and realization.

Michigan in Color

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, October 27, 2021 — 9

Strength of a Black woman SIMONE ROBERTS MiC Columnist I often feel conflicted when I hear the phrase “You are a strong Black woman.” I usually think, “Of course I know that,” or “Do I otherwise seem weak?” It’s a phrase that elicits a flurry of emotions from me, ranging from confusion to almost accepting my moment of strength.

Over the years, I have had to grapple with this phrase. On one hand, I am all for understanding and emphasizing the strength behind being a Black woman, but on the other hand, it feels like it takes away from our vulnerability. To me, nothing makes you stronger than being vulnerable and being able to communicate your feelings. Over the years, Black women have always had to be strong for themselves, their families and their communities.

As Malcolm X once said, “The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.” This doesn’t only mean being looked down on for being both a woman and Black, but it also means being underestimated, which has been made evident through Serena Williams her entire tennis career or Allyson Felix in her fight for maternal rights with Nike. It means knowing we have to consider what we name our children so they aren’t discriminated against when they are applying for jobs.

Beyond this, Black women are the most unprotected people in America. For example, when Megan Thee Stallion was shot in the foot by Tory Lanez, the internet made jokes about it instead of having empathy. Our pain is constantly undermined or receives little to no attention even when it is most pressing. In all walks of life, Black women are oversexualized or deprecated for their looks or unappreciated in general. Even in work settings, Black women have to wear certain outfits to feel respected and be seen as an equal no matter how hard we work. We have to shield ourselves from prying eyes even as young girls.

In general, as Black women, we are constantly called “emotional,” “irrational” and “temperamental.” However, when we show our strength, we are called “demanding,” “controlling” and “aggressive.”

We are all strong, but we all have areas of our lives where we are vulnerable. I would rather connect with the people around me, emotionally and intellectually, instead of having to constantly walk a tightrope or stay reserved and “strong.” I continue to learn to adapt by looking at the women in my life who radiate strength, poise and compassion in spite of the circumstances that try to restrict them.

One of the strongest women I know is my mother. This is not because of the strength she needed to raise my brother and me, but rather because of how she never saw herself as small, despite being 5’3”. She refuses to be underestimated and always stands her ground.

Her strength is evident in her eloquent words, her posture and her smile. My mother is always strong, but her power is often shown through different outlets such as humor, her tears or the way she hugs me.

We don’t need a phrase to constantly remind us we are strong, because strength is ingrained in us. Our ancestors had no choice but to be strong, no choice but to be the roots in their house, no choice but to be part of the armor that protected their families. Black women are “strong” in not only the traditional notions of strength, but also in our love and vulnerability. To be a Black woman is so much more than strength, and “strength” should not define who we are. We are defined by our loving hands, our words of wisdom, our ability to help our community and everything in between, not by our strength alone.

Design by Melia Kenny

A reflection on three things that bring beauty for those who need inspiration finding it in everyday places species or other living organisms. It lets us look up and see a part of the universe within us. Or, as Rumi says, “To see the moon that cannot be seen, Turn your eyes inward and look at yourself, in silence.”

SYEDA RIZVI MiC Columnist

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he sky: One of the biggest flaws of human nature is we become so used to what surrounds us, no matter how incredible it may be, and we forget how miraculous it is. Every single morning, the entire scope of the horizon drips with gold, rose, violet and monarch orange. The sun lights the sky into a blue powerful enough to illuminate the entire world around us from millions of miles away. After reverting back to a marble of warm and cool colors, the sky darkens into pitch black and glitters with stars, encompassing a moon that illuminates the stillness of the night. In a world that’s been incredibly industrialized, with every other corner a construction site or an office building, the constancy and simplicity of the sky’s presence have always reassured me. It’s amazing to think that when we look above, that same sun, moon and sky has been over the human species since we began to exist. When you need to escape from the rush of your life, just look up and take it in. Take in the fact that there is a whole other realm above you whose sunshine and rain mimic the fluctuation of human emotions. It goes through its ups and downs, the sun rises and sets, the sky shines and rains, the moon appears full one night and then disappears the next, just like the way we feel can change within every given moment. The sky connects us to a network much larger than just the human

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lowers: There are hundreds of kinds of flowers, all of which come from a seed, and yet bloom unique from one another. There is a surprising amount to learn if we observe the process in which flowers grow. They start rising after they’ve been buried, and are completely unseen to the eye until they sprout above the ground just the tiniest bit, eventually turning into a fragrant, beautiful, vibrant flower that people stop to stare at. It serves as a reminder that we, like flowers, still have the chance to flourish even after we feel like we’ve been beaten down. Starting from somewhere small doesn’t necessitate that we won’t be able to bloom and accomplish phenomenal things. Flowers are beautiful because they show us that even though our circumstances and successes may come from seemingly negligible beginnings, if we reach our full potential, we can grow into extraordinary people who can accomplish remarkable things.

Like the growth of a flower, Tagore’s description of a flower’s purpose can be embodied by us as well: “Flowers are The Earth’s endless effort To speak To the listening heaven.”

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ea: Sitting in front of a window, rain hitting the windowsill, a book in hand and an earthy cup of steaming milk tea is how I’d describe my perfect night. To me, chai is special because it’s been a part of my routine since I was a kid. Before I started kindergarten, my mom would give me three sips of tea a day, and since then, it’s been a constant part of my life. No matter how busy I get, even if I’m late to class or I’m missing an important meeting, nothing comes before my one cup of tea in the morning and my one cup of tea at 4 p.m. I drink the same kind of chai every day, the kind my parents and their parents had before they immigrated from Pakistan. It’s become a family activity, everyone sitting down and drinking tea together, sharing their funny stories or unique experiences of the day. You may not like tea. But find something that brings you so much simple joy that it may become your daily teacup, something that lets you step away from the world and breathe a few breaths of relaxation. Find a shared experience you can do with the people you love that creates space for conversation and community. Find your tea, anything that lets you reflect on how you are feeling with people who value listening to your experiences so that no matter what else is going on in your life, happy or sad, you will always find a moment to relax and take it in one sip at a time.

The complexity of chai can be best explained by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “There is a great deal of poetry and a fine sentiment in a chest of tea.”

Texts as texts KARIS CLARK MiC Columnist In the car. On the bus. In the classroom. In the bathroom. In the store. At the game. In the theatre.

Right when we wake up. And right as we go to bed. Incessantly throughout the day and deep into the night, texting takes up a tremendous amount of our time, often without us even realizing it.

We’ve all seen the commercials cautioning against texting and driving with the staggering statistics to boot. On a smaller scale, we’ve witnessed professors profess to their pupils their disdain for texting in class, threatening not to pass those who do so, yet nonetheless, students still find a way. But what is it about this simple act of electronic communication that has the capability to apprehend our attention and prompt us to precipitously situate ourselves in precarious positions?

Is texting a pathological pastime to which our society must acquiesce, or is there a deeper mystical meaning to our messages? A sacred essence of our daily digital conversations? If we see texts as texts, documentations of our social experience carrying with it divine implications, we might get a better understanding of our underlying reliance on them as a mediating tool for communication.

Jungian psychotherapist Thomas Moore, in his book “Soul Mates,” dedicates a chapter to “Letters and Conversations.” He claims that writing letters has a profound effect on our soul in the sense that it serves our “soul’s organ of rumination rather than the mind’s capacity for its understanding.”

Writing letters requires ample reflection.

Unlike face-to-face conversation, our words are chosen in precise, proximate and purposeful manners and we give extreme weight to what we decide to disclose and what we choose to conceal. All of this reigns true for texting, which can easily be seen as an advanced form of letter writing and sending. Moore maintains that there is an artfulness and thoughtfulness inherent in this method of expression.

Many of us have had the experience of ruminating over

our word choice in the process of revealing bad news, texting a crush or engaging in an argument.

Sometimes pressing send can feel like launching a missile. Even the shortest response can fill us with an insurmountable dread. One text can make a day or ruin a week, and waiting for a text back can fill us with anxiety like no other. Of course, this is only exacerbated when texting is our only means of long-distance communication with an individual.

A text from an old friend or flame can be a game-changer in a rather mundane day — for better or for worse.

unveil to one another, the more we realize how much more there is to be unveiled. The dangers of divulging in this medium manifest in the impermanence of our modernday devices. Unlike face-to-face conversations, anything we say via virtual communication can easily be shared without our permission, taken deliberately out-of-context, re-purposed, re-defined and ultimately used as a “receipt” for later occasions. In other words, oftentimes in texting, curiosity can kill the chat.

Moreover, Moore asserts that the “person whom we write our letters to is more imaginal than actual.”

old texts from my family and close friends has made me see how our communication with each other has changed over time.

I recall recently re-reading texts from my old phone and coming across a group chat I had with close high school friends in 2019, the summer before I came to the University of Michigan. It was a very anxious August, as I prepared myself to move away from my hometown. I likened the experience of choosing between colleges to committing to a marriage, claiming I felt like a bride getting cold feet before her wedding.

I talked about my expansive plans

widely subject to distortion, causing us to forget basic details of past events from where we are, who we are with, what we are doing, etc.

Our accounts of events are likely to change over time. Retroactive interference also makes it so that newly gained information interferes with our retrieval and memory of past events. In this vein, our old texts being recollections of events in relative real-time, allow us to recall more accurately how we felt in the past.

At first, I wanted to write those texts out to be an exemplification of my blissful ignorance, overt

Design by Jessica Chiu

Our texts have the capacity preserved for posterity, as we allow each recipient to revel in the revelation of our own transient thoughts, emotions and experiences as soon as we press send. There’s an element of enormous trust between the sender and recipient, so fundamental to our texts, which is predicated on this notion of revelation and disclosure. In texting, we reveal information that we wouldn’t dare to discuss in person.

We deal out details and disclose important truths, trusting that our musings are mediated in confidence.

Yet, as French philosopher Georges Bataille asserts, any accumulation of knowledge is also an accumulation of non-knowledge. The more we

We have a perception of that person in our mind as we write out our message that is mostly made up and, for all intents and purposes, a falsified fantasy. We never truly know what the person behind the screen is actually thinking, doing or feeling when we text them, contrary to how they might communicate with us in the conversation.

Yet it’s the transient nature of texts preserved for posterity that endows them with a divine quality.

As Moore states, “Re-reading (is) a form of reflective meditation.”

Texts are a portal to the past. They dissolve the lines between space and time, giving us more insight into our own or other’s feelings in a fleeting instance. Going through

for my college experience and the different clubs I wanted to join — some of which I didn’t and some of which I did. Some of the things I dreamt about doing then, I would despise doing now. Yet other dreams became reality — like writing for a satire paper and joining an improv team. When I first went through those texts, I didn’t recall being that anxious before starting school (yet rightfully so) and I had forgotten wanting to be in all the clubs I never joined. The things I did want to do which came true shocked me as well. I couldn’t believe how long ago I had considered being a part of certain groups or organizations. Yet as psychology researcher Elizabeth Kensinger recounts, our memory is

ambition and immaturity, but then I also found very similar texts this August, as I dwelled on my own anxiety and fears about returning in person after a year of virtual schooling. In the present, we’re divorced from our dialogues of the past, and our perception of what we wrote wayback-when is significantly altered with time. I’ve cringed at how I’ve responded to texts a week ago, was totally surprised at texts sent a month ago and utterly confused at conversations from a year ago.

Nonetheless, I always admire how much I’ve evolved yet at the same time stayed the same. Much like back then, I still spend ample time storytelling over text to my friends,

persisting in giving a creative, chronological retelling of every peculiar instance of love, hate, drama and comedy I come across in the day-to-day. Maybe it’s just the writer in me, but I really do be texting way too damn much.

In looking through old texts, I’ve noticed the subtle intricacies and complexities that vary yet also persist in my various conversations with individuals — how others and myself respond to exciting news and announcements (acceptances, jobs, promotions, releases, etc) or pressure and duress (losses, rejections, break-ups, etc). I also noticed the differing ways I said the same thing — in essence — to different people. Changes in dialect, code-switching, omissions of certain facts or the adding in of certain details, all became clear and clarified how I related to that person at that moment. In written form, it’s easier to recognize the distinct ways in which the people closest to us exhibit what Erich Fromm denotes as the four basic elements of love: care, responsibility, respect and knowledge.

Care and respect manifest in the simplest of syllables, the “I / love you” texts, sometimes given with reservation and other times with jubilation. It’s the paragraphs of pensive consideration and concern, the checking-in and hearing out. Responsibility manifests in responsiveness (responsibility meaning “being able and ready to respond”). When I was verbally accosted walking down the street in February, I was able to turn to my close friends over text who assuaged my fear and fright at the moment. Knowledge manifests in the knowing of those we’re closest to, being able to interpret what they’re saying and communicate effectively with them through such a separating mediated medium.

Moore posits that “finding words that truly express our feelings and experiences is an achievement of a high order.”

With this in mind, we should strive to see our texts as [holy] texts. By doing so they become an artful and expressive means of communication rather than a trivial tool for talking.

Sports

10 — Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Michigan narrowly defeats Maryland in a 2-1 overtime affair CHARLIE PAPPALARDO

For the Daily

Entering the overtime period in Sunday’s matchup between the Michigan women’s soccer team (12-3-3 overall, 6-2-2 Big Ten) and Maryland (4-9-5, 0-7-3), it seemed as if the Wolverines had been cursed. In its final regular season game, Michigan nearly tripled the Terrapins’ shot total and quadrupled their shots on target. They dominated possession and created opportunity after opportunity in Maryland’s box.

They even hit the goalpost on three separate occasions.

Despite controlling play, the Wolverines found themselves on the verge of losing both the game and their home field advantage in the upcoming Big Ten playoffs.

But, these fears were soon quelled, as Michigan emerged victorious with a goal just thirty seconds into sudden death overtime, winning 2-1.

“I thought we played really really well today,” Michigan coach Jennifer Klein said. “It’s nice to get the result and get a goal for all of the opportunities and really nice soccer that we had.”

On paper, the game didn’t look like it would require overtime.

The Terrapins entered Sunday’s matchup winless in conference play and in last place in the Big Ten. Yet despite their lackluster season record, Maryland started the game strong and put Michigan on the back foot early.

After about 10 minutes, however, the game began to ebb in the Wolverines favor. Michigan looked dominant offensively, forcing the Terrapins deep into their own half. The game’s scoring

opened in the 30th minute when graduate defender Alia Martin played a ball to senior midfielder Raleigh Loughman in the right side of the box. Loughman took the ball, and casually approached Maryland goalkeeper Liz Brucia before chipping it over her head and into the left corner of the net for her second goal in two games.

“Raleigh’s a player that has a good work rate,” Klein said. “But she also organizes and has good sophistication. I think you’re starting to see those goals because of the places she’s getting into and the quality of her execution.”

After the goal, the Wolverines maintained their momentum, nearly adding to their lead in the 32nd minute when senior midfielder Meredeth Haakenson fired a shot from close range that rammed into the crossbar before bouncing harmlessly away.

Just a minute later, another ball was crossed to Haakenson, who headed it directly towards the goal, where it once again hit the woodwork, this time bouncing off of the left post.

Michigan entered halftime up only one goal, though clearly the game’s aggressor. But Maryland didn’t give up easily and opened the second half with an early goal from forward Mikayla Dayes, tying the game at one all. The Wolverines bounced back and regained control of the contest, putting intense pressure on Maryland and creating several major opportunities.

In the 58th minute, sophomore forward Kacey Lawrence received a ball from Loughman and rocketed it off of the crossbar.

In the 63rd minute, freshman midfielder Avery Kalitta collected a rebound with Brucia out of

position and shot at a wide open net, but the Terrapins defenders stopped the ball on the goal line to keep the game tied.

The remainder of the second half played out with the Wolverines thoroughly in control and getting ever closer to putting the ball in the back of the net, but never quite being able to finish the job. Time after time, the Wolverines put themselves in excellent positions to score, only to be denied by either luck, miscommunications or brilliant last-second defensive play from the Terrapins.

“I think we did a really good job with our one touches throughout the box, but we also need to capitalize on just shooting it,” fifth-year midfielder Nicki Hernandez said.

Despite their dominance, Michigan was forced to enter a sudden death overtime period and face the possibility of losing its home field advantage in the conference tournament.

This fear lasted exactly thirty seconds, before Hernandez charged down the left sideline and fired a shot from distance that flew into the right corner of the net over a diving Brucia, ending the game and giving Hernandez her sixth goal of the season and her first goal in 10 games.

Ironically, the shot that won the game for the Wolverines wasn’t even intended to be on net.

“I was actually trying to cross it,” Hernandez said, “So it had a little bend into the goal, but it worked out.”

Much like Hernandez’s shot, the matchup didn’t go exactly as expected for Michigan. But worked out in the end, giving the Wolverines a boost heading into the postseason.

GABBY CERITANO/Daily The Wolverines overcame a slow start to secure a comeback victory in overtime.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Michigan responds to physical challenge

JEREMY WEINE/Daily The Wolverines matched Western Michigan’s physicality to win Saturday’s contest and split the weekend series.

CONNOR EAREGOOD

Daily Sports Writer

KALAMAZOO, MICH. — Senior forward Jimmy Lambert stood anxiously in the box, primed to bolt onto the ice as his minor penalty expired. As his skates hit the ice, the puck careened off the boards in front of him and he found himself in the play just like he’d prepared for.

But as he found the puck on his stick, the imposing figure of Western Michigan defenseman Aidan Fulp loomed over him.

Taking the hit and passing the puck out behind him, Lambert connected with sophomore defenseman Owen Power, on a breakaway with a golden opportunity.

“Just chip the puck by, absorb the hit, take the hit, keep the puck moving,” Michigan coach Mel Pearson said. “We talked about that a lot today …

Western’s gonna step up and hit you, you had to just make sure you kept chipping.”

Power’s shot rang off the post, but it marked a turning point in the Wolverines’ approach to facing the Broncos’ physical game. They forged a newfound poise against Western Michigan’s heavy checking in Saturday’s overtime win Michigan hadn’t faced a true, grinding performance all season. The closest it came was against Minnesota-Duluth, but that faded after the first period.

The Broncos kept it up all 62

minutes of the game.

Western Michigan’s play centered around its ability to hit hard and often, many of those coming from its big defensemen.

For a speedy, finesse-oriented group like the Wolverines, the Broncos’ disruptive presence proved a significant challenge.

Some of Michigan’s adaptation came from the units Pearson put on the ice. After the Wolverines’ highly skilled forwards like sophomore forwards Matty Beniers and Kent Johnson struggled to find space in the first period, Pearson sent the bottom six out to wear down the Broncos.

Two key players in this were senior forwards Garrett Van Wyhe and Nolan Moyle. Two of the most physical presences on the Michigan roster, they absorbed many of Western Michigan’s hits and threw a few of their own. After countering a zone entry from the Broncos by standing up their forecheckers, the duo opened up space for the Wolverines’ second goal.

“Coming into their barn, we knew it was gonna be a physical one, especially after last night,” Moyle said. “We’ve got a lot of skill on this team, but just giving it right back to them, trying to grab as much as we could is what we tried to stick with.”

The Broncos’ early hits caught the Wolverines off guard, but as the game progressed they became more comfortable taking them. Like the Lambert play, they held the puck long enough to make a play and paid a

physical price for that additional time. Making that trade paid off as Michigan created high danger chances when it got the puck.

That comfort also limited the grade-A chances that Western Michigan tried to force through its hitting. With eight minutes left in the second period, two Broncos chased sophomore defenseman Jacob Truscott behind the Wolverines’ net.

Truscott cradled the puck while taking a hard hit, buying time for a teammate to grab the puck and clear it. What could have been a goal against turned into nothing.

“It ultimately comes down to compete, your will and want for it,” Moyle said. “We really settled in and started competing and taking some hits from them.

And at that point, working hard, our skill will take over.”

But Michigan still struggled with Western Michigan’s checking. On both power play goals for the Broncos, they battled for territory in front of the net. Sophomore goaltender Erik Portillo couldn’t see the puck through these screens, and Western capitalized with goals.

The same screens almost cost the Wolverines the game with 1:42 left, but the goal was called back for a high tip.

Michigan fared poorly against Western Michigan’s physicality early on, but it adjusted on the fly to counter their aggressive style. Its performance was far from perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction to round out its skilled style.

On every down, Aidan Hutchinson makes his presence felt BRENDAN ROOSE

Daily Sports Writer

With the game fully in hand midway through the fourth quarter, the Michigan defense lined up for one last 4th-and-1.

In a microcosm of Northwestern’s offense for the day, quarterback Carl Richardson fumbled the snap.

Out of the ensuing scrum, senior edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson emerged with the ball, celebrating as if he’d just won the game for the Wolverines.

The recovery, of course, had no impact on the game whatsoever.

Michigan already led, 33-7 — which would ultimately be the final score — and the fumble occurring on fourth down meant the Wildcats couldn’t advance the ball anyway.

But for Hutchinson, that didn’t matter. The recovery reflected his play on every down: fierce, unrelenting and mind-bogglingly quick for his size. His unique level of talent makes him a nightmare for any opposing offense, whether or not he’s actually dragging down the quarterback on any given down.

Against Northwestern, that was no different.

“I know he’s gonna be at the — you all know — he’s gonna be at the quarterback,” junior David Ojabo, Hutchinson’s counterpart on the edge, said. “ … It’s a lot of comfort having Aidan Hutchinson, knowing that he’s gonna do what Aidan Hutchinson does.”

For anyone watching the game, that impact is most clear when

he’s in the backfield — and he’s in the backfield pretty often. On a third down in the second quarter, with the Wolverines nursing a seven-point lead, Hutchinson

held by a blocker.

But focus on Hutchinson every down, and his influence is equally visible even when he’s not making tackles. Much of that comes from

Hutchinson on the weak side, Northwestern motioned two tight ends to try and flip sides. Hutchinson, given the trust of the coaching staff to adjust his own positioning, shifted

play, the Wildcats rushed to the side opposite Hutchinson, right into the teeth of the defense.

The rest of the Wolverines’ defense is tough enough to scheme

EMMA MATI/Daily Aidan Hutchinson epitomized the Wolverines energy in Saturday’s matchup against Northwestern.

barrelled through the line and sacked Wildcats quarterback Ryan Hilinski, all while having one arm

effective scheming from Michigan’s coaching staff.

Two plays before the sack, with

back to the weak side, blew up a crack block and hurried a rolling-out Hilinski into a bad pass. The next

against. It’s made infinitely more difficult when an athletic juggernaut like Hutchinson is

waiting on one end of the line.

“Making the ball come out quick is even more valuable than sacks a lot of the time,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said. “So you can’t just go by sacks — though he did have a sack and a fumble recovery — he’s making the ball come out fast, and imagine what that does for the secondary.”

It’s not hard to imagine, because it’s clear on every pass play. As Hutchinson continued to find the backfield on passing downs, Northwestern was forced to adjust to a much shorter, quicker passing game. Having the ball come out mere moments after the snap made it difficult for its receivers to create any separation and allowed the Wolverines’ defensive backs to anticipate where the ball would be.

OnjuniorcornerbackD.J.Turner’s fourth quarter interception, that anticipation paid dividends. Hilinski tried to hit a receiver on a quick hitch route to the outside, where Turner — trusting that Hutchinson and the rest of Michigan’s pass rush could stop any deep balls before they were even thrown — was waiting to jump the route.

“It makes it so much easier,” Turner said. “The ball has to come out quick. I know they don’t have all day in the pocket. Just like on the pick, it was a hitch, and I just know you can’t just sit in the pocket all day with Ojabo, and Aidan, and all kinds of dudes up there. A D-line is a DB’s best friend.”

In effect, fear of Hutchinson is almost as valuable a weapon as Hutchinson himself.

Sports

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, October 27, 2021 — 11

‘Elimination mindset’: Michigan embracing high stakes ahead of MSU showdown JARED GREENSPAN

Daily Sports Editor

EMMA MATI/Daily After a promising early career at Michigan, D.J. Turner has come into his own this season, making a key interception against Northwestern.

After a career of setbacks, D.J. Turner shines in starting role DANIEL DASH

Daily Sports Editor

Before this season, D.J. Turner had always been on the precipice.

Over the last few years, Turner’s name had been tossed around as a breakout candidate during the Michigan football team’s spring practices. Jim Harbaugh praised the young cornerback’s progress as an early enrollee and freshman in 2019, but an injury sidelined him for much of the year. Turner made his first appearance in the secondary during the pandemicshortened 2020 season, though most of his action came on special teams once again.

But this season, the former three-star recruit is living up to the praise he’s collected for years.

Through seven appearances, the junior has tallied 11 tackles, an interception and a pass breakup while holding his own in coverage.

“My sense is he’s always been great,” Harbaugh said Monday.

“He’s always kind of been right there as a starting player and then had a setback … where he was working through something that slows him down. But he always battled right back. It’s great to see him peaking at a great time.”

During Saturday’s 33-7 win over Northwestern, Turner’s late interception put an exclamation point on the Wolverines’ victory. After a pass to the sideline was tipped three times, Turner snagged it and took it the other direction, putting a circus pick on Michigan’s season highlight reel in the process.

Turner earned his first career start at No. 2 cornerback on Saturday over senior Gemon Green, who usually lines up opposite senior Vincent Gray to round out the Wolverines’ cornerback tandem. He played a career-high 43 snaps, earning a team-best 78.7 coverage grade on Pro Football Focus.

“He’s been battling the whole season,” junior safety Daxton Hill said Saturday. “This season, before the season, the spring. This has been a long year for him, and I’m proud of him for stepping up, making plays and helping out the defense.”

Prior to the interception, it was clear the Wildcats were making a conscious effort to target Turner. Northwestern quarterback Ryan Hilinksi threw his way multiple times in the first half but backed off after Turner blew up a screen pass in the backfield.

From start to finish, the strong

performance caught Harbaugh’s eye.

“I thought he had a great game,” Harbaugh said Monday.

“The interception, I think it’s one of the best I’ve seen all season in college football. Also really impressed with his physicality.

He made some big tackles in the game, a tackle for loss (on) one of the screens Northwestern had run. Two of our guys had taken a bad angle and the ball got out, but he took a great angle, came from the other side of the field. He’s playing really good football. Great to see.”

As a recruit, Turner committed to Michigan just three days after taking his official visit to Ann Arbor. Hosted by linebacker Josh Ross, Turner’s visit sealed the deal ahead of his college pledge.

Now a fifth-year senior, Ross has watched Turner grow from his initial arrival on campus.

So, it was only fitting that Ross became his lead blocker after his interception on Saturday.

“That’s a guy that always attacks everything the right way, works hard,” Ross said. “As I opened up from my drop and broke over and saw him get that tipped pick, I was just so happy for him. It was an amazing play and he’s going to continue to do big things for us and our defense.”

On Monday, amidst a siege of questions about the impending clash between No. 6 Michigan and No. 8 Michigan State, Jim Harbaugh largely resorted to a tried and true cliché.

“Those questions just answer themselves,” the Michigan coach repeatedly opined when pressed about the game’s importance.

Harbaugh, albeit blunt, is correct; the implications of the game do speak for themselves. The winner will not only be rewarded with the upper-hand in a bitter in-state rivalry but will also be solidified as a legitimate College Football Playoff contender. Chances of a Big Ten Championship, too, grow more formidable.

The loser, by contrast, is kicked to the curb, the feel-good mojo from an undefeated start all but dashed.

Harbaugh knows this. And yet, despite his terse answers, he did break character when asked to articulate what a win over the Spartans would mean for the Wolverines’ postseason fate: “It sure would give it a boost,” Harbaugh said with a chuckle. “You talk about winning the conference, winning the National Championship. It’s an elimination mindset, a playoff mindset at this point. Win this game and it will help your chances.”

The answer speaks volumes about Michigan’s rapid ascension back into college football’s upper echelon. Just ten months ago, the Wolverines were wrapping up a disastrous 2-4 season amidst a COVID-19 outbreak while questions swirled around Harbaugh’s future and the general direction of the program.

And now? Well, things have changed.

“It could really help propel us through the rest of the season,” senior offensive tackle Ryan Hayes said about a potential victory. “We’ve got a few more tough games to prepare for. This could help us with our momentum and confidence for the rest of the season.”

Hayes is among a contingent of Wolverines who are steeped in the culture of the rivalry. A Traverse City, MI, native, he has watched the game and rooted for Michigan since before he can remember. The same can be said for fifth-year linebacker Josh Ross, who

hails from Southfield, MI, and watched his older brother, James III, lose to the Spartans three times during his Michigan tenure.

At the same time, as a collective group, the current Wolverines have little rivalry experience. Last season, amidst the backdrop of a pandemic and inside an empty Michigan Stadium, the atmosphere was subdued. Michigan last visited East Lansing in 2018, when Hayes was a freshman who saw no game action and didn’t even make the trip.

Nonetheless, fables and tales — everything from the trademark physicality to the intensity of the hourplus bus ride to Mike Hart’s infamous “little brother” quip — have made their

may be a confidant off the field, on it he is merely the opposition.

Now more than ever, in the most pivotal game of the season, the refrain is applicable. Ross noted that this year’s matchup brings “new blood.”

“It doesn’t matter who you’re going against, you’re just gonna give it your all and do your job and go get it,” he said.

And that’s why, in advance of Michigan State, Michigan is riding the same formula that has buoyed them to a 7-0 start. If they deviate from it? “Lest a team be painfully humbled,” Harbaugh said.

Ross added: “When you change how you prepare during the season, that’s a problem. We’ve been preparing the right

EMMA MATI/Daily Going into this weekend against No. 8 Michigan State, the stakes are, as Jim Harbaugh knows, incredibly high.

way around the locker room.

“There’s definitely been some talk about what it means to them,” sophomore running back Blake Corum said. “For the guys that haven’t played the game, the older guys will tell them what it’s like and what it means. “… But right now, we’re just locking in on film and getting ready.”

All season, the Wolverines have embraced a slogan imparted to them by linebackers coach George Helow: “nameless, faceless opponents.”

Back in September, for instance, sophomore receiver A.J. Henning referred to former teammate Giles Jackson as a “faceless opponent” ahead of the Washington game; while Jackson

way every week. This week, it definitely has higher stakes, but just attack it the same way.”

Ross conducted his press conference with a palpable sense of energy.

Harbaugh, too, exuded a certain eagerness; on two separate occasions, he noted his excitement “to get to practice and roll.”

Certainly, the game’s implications play a factor in all of that.

“Everything that we’ve done so far this season, going into Michigan State, beating them in their stadium, I think it would take our season to another level,” Corum said.

As for the alternative?

Well, to borrow Harbaugh’s vernacular, the question answers itself.

Dueling Columns: The Michigan Daily vs. The State News Four years ago, I got an email from the Michigan State admissions office. Two weeks after I had applied, I had been accepted.

At the moment, going to East Lansing wasn’t really on my radar. I applied because it was fun — my senior year of high school, KENT I got into the SCHWARTZ bad habit of getting drunk and applying to bad schools for the validation.

As the year went on, though, I started seriously considering going to Michigan State.

It seemed like a half-decent option, and hey, at some level, it’s about what you make out of your education and not the

Friday Opens @ Noon

quality of the education itself.

I wouldn’t be a student journalist if I went to Michigan State. I wouldn’t have covered women’s basketball or gone to Omaha to cover the men’s College World Series if I went there. I’m a computer science major, not a journalism major, and I’ve never been interested in a career in journalism.

Every year in these dueling columns, the State News writer comes out and exclaims, “We’re better than you because we have a journalism school.” They even started the jabs a little early this year, so I imagine this dig will make up most of their column, with Adam Schefter at the center of it.

First off, Michigan did have a journalism program when Schefter went here. Luckily, your alumni were quick to

help you on that point. He also went to Medill for grad school.

Perhaps he learned to send his stories to the subject for edits in a class similar to JRN 200, “Writing and Reporting News,” in a J-School.

Or maybe he learned it in a class similar to JRN 317, “Sports Journalism.” Or JRN 418, “Advanced Sports Reporting.” Two very valuable classes for your staff members to take, since they don’t seem to do much decent sports journalism for the State News.

You do realize that Michigan State has a field hockey team, right? You’ve written three stories about the team since 2017.

I get it, you have a small staff.

I’m actually impressed that you have enough people to cover men’s and women’s soccer regularly, as well as volleyball. I’m

Saturday Opens @ 10 am

MICHIGAN VS MICHIGAN STATE Largest Bar – Biggest Party Over 40 TVs To Watch The Game Voted #1 Bar In E. Lansing $1 Jello Shots Game Day

Wolverines Welcome!

BECCA MAHON/Daily With a 16-year losing streak and copious typos, The State News continues to prove touch football skills directly correlate to ability to produce a newspaper.

happy to see that you’ve come out of the pandemic with a bigger staff, eager to cover as much as possible.

Yet since The Daily allows any “riff raff off the street” to write for us, while the State News is competitive and its members go through the rigorous academic course load consisting of the classes “Advanced Reporting” and “Journalism History,” you’d think the sports you do write about would have high-quality articles.

If that were true, then why do sentences like this, “Tucker is free to leave if he wants if he is offered something that he deems as undeniable,” make the cut? And how come you don’t know the difference between an em dash (—) and hyphen (-), leading to this monstrously confusing sentence, “Cole said the development of the unit on sheer repetition-and the blind hope that it’ll work-and is optimistic production from their two power-play units will continue to trend in the right direction.”

But I get it, editing is hard.

You can see that in all your past Dueling Columns, when

for some reason you thought it was okay to publish this line in 2014: “Outside of sports, our parties are louder, our women are prettier.” Or publish this in 2013: “Like the females in Ann Arbor, the past isn’t as glamorous when you take a longer look.”

The State News’ shortcomings don’t stop with just your editing skills: Your website blows up the images to the point where they’re grainier than one of your agriculture labs. When I showed one of the photos to our assistant photo editors with no context, she just said, “Is there anything better than that? It’s not very interesting.”

And when I showed the photo and quote to one of our managing photo editors, she said the assistant editor was being very, incredibly nice. I’ll save you from hearing the rest of her quote because I’m not sure your inferiority complex can take it.

But your website’s problems go even further than that.

When you load an article, you see a Dune ad. Right beneath an even larger ad. Once you scroll down, you finally get to the article.

Great, an ad with an article attached to it. Just what I wanted to read. Even our old website, which you creatively attacked year after year after year, wasn’t that bad. By the way, did you see who won an online Pacemaker this year?

It’s cute that you’re finally practicing for the game. Maybe your #MarginalGains will get you to the point where you lose 8-1, instead of 8-0. Maybe you won’t have to weather accusations of not trying. Maybe you’ll still get that keg for simply scoring on us. Maybe you’ll actually tweet a story from your sports account, something you haven’t done since Oct. 8.

On Friday, when we beat you for the 16th time in a row in a touch football game one of your past editors said “quite honestly, I couldn’t care less about,” it won’t be because we have any riff-raff from the street on our staff.

It’ll be because we’re better than you — at journalism and touch football.

Managing Sports Editor Kent Schwartz can be reached on Twitter at @nottherealkent.

SPORTSWEDNESDAY

Family reunion

In biggest Michigan-Michigan State game in 40 years, we will finally get answers KENT SCWARTZ

Managing Sports Editor

Fourteen years ago, Mike Hart stood behind a podium wearing a Block-M quarter-zip after beating Michigan State 28-24. He smirked; shrugged, then laughed. His “little brother” quote, now infamous, has become ingrained in the rhetoric of the rivalry.

This weekend on Oct. 30, Hart will return to East Lansing as the running backs coach for the undefeated Wolverines. Michigan State also remains unbeaten, making this the first time since 1964 both teams play each other while ranked in the top 10. That year, No. 4 Michigan beat No. 9 Michigan State, 17-10.

Now, the sixth-ranked Wolverines will play their toughest game of the season against the eighth-ranked Spartans.

12 — Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Throughout the year, those watching have speculated on how its performance against lesser opponents will golf up against more noteworthy opponents throughout the last five weeks of the regular season.

It’s the same story for the Spartans.

Just like Michigan, neither have played against a team currently ranked in the top 25, and yet both are among the nine remaining undefeated teams, each with legitimate College Football Playoff hopes.

Michigan State comes in with an explosive offense, led by running back Kenneth Walker III who tops the nation in rushing yards per game. It has three wide receivers — Jalen Nailor, Tre Mosley and Jayden Reed — who average over 15 yards a catch, each with more than 20 catches on the season.

For reference, the Wolverines don’t have a single player with more than 20 catches this season. It does, however,

have two top-50 running backs in rushing yards per game. And, as a unit, the running backs room out rushed the Spartans by more than 300 yards this season.

But the Spartans’ weapons strike at a weakness of the Michigan defense that first revealed its flaw three weeks ago against Nebraska. The Cornhuskers totaled eight plays of 20-plus yards against Michigan, consisting of more than half their yards over the game. Northwestern’s one touchdown, meanwhile, came on a 75-yard touchdown run.

Michigan State has 38 plays of 20-plus yards on the season and nine plays of 50-plus yards, good for fifth in the nation.

And then there’s Michigan’s offense, much-maligned amongst the fanbase. No, freshman J.J. McCarthy will not be the quarterback, for better or worse. Junior Cade McNamara will game-manage an

offense that is led by running backs Blake Corum and Hassan Haskins and if the defense limits big plays, the game will be decided by one of those two running backs.

At least, that’s what we think. The past two months have merely been a rehearsal for Saturday and November, with Washington and Wisconsin not being the measuring sticks we expected. A game against top-10 Michigan State may go along the script we expect, or it may not.

McNamara could make plays and blow the game wide open, or he may be taken aback by the most hostile environment he has ever played in.

Either way, the game will act as an allimportant barometer going forward. It’s a test that will measure the capability of the entire team and the coach at the helm.

Jim Harbaugh, whose proverbeal seat has considerably cooled in this season’s first seven weeks, will coach in a pivotal

game against a rival. Can he dispell the narrative of struggling against rivals and struggling in big away games? Or by 4 pm on Saturday, will one more game be added as an indictment against him?

“All focus is there,” Harbaugh said after the Northwestern game. “When you walk through that door I am going to answer some questions about this game, but it’s on to that game right now.”

Throughout the last eight weeks of Michigan’s schedule, more questions have been asked than opportunities to answer them. The team has an identity, a solid foundation.

On Saturday, we will know if that foundation is strong enough to support a potential playoff push.

Or if the “little brother” can knock it over like a sand castle.

Managing Sports Editor Kent Schwartz can be reached on Twitter at @

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H A LLOW EEN E D I T IO N the

sta mete nt

Are you scared yet?

It was a typical Friday night on Maynard Street.

My roommate and I had just finished up with a week of online classes from within our sublet apartment. Still in the heart of the pandemic, we acquired it immediately after University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel notified us that the dorms would be changing to singleoccupancy residency.

Our freshman year of college had so far been tumultuous, unpredictable, suffocating and monotonous all at once. We were always on our toes, waiting for the next bad thing to happen, while simultaneously exhausted by staring at the same four walls day-in, day-out.

Plagued by our boredom, we began a tradition that would ground us while simultaneously exciting us, drawing us out of our repetitive routine and allowing us to escape our less-thanperfect circumstances.

Every Friday night, my roommate and I immersed ourselves in horror movies.

We began the tradition in the dorms the night before Halloween and brought our obsession with us into the winter semester. We had both loved horror movies before college, yet the stimulation of watching these films became more of a restorative experience in 2020 rather than mindless entertainment. It was an escape from reality, a controlled, thrilling environment that captivated us.

My fascination with horror grew exponentially throughout my COVID-19 freshman year. Each day I listened to true crime and fantastical horror podcasts while washing dishes or working out.

I binge-watched every season of “American Horror Story” while falling asleep. My constant engagement with the horror genre made me progressively more desensitized to the content of the stories; at this point, it takes an incredibly creative director or writer to get a genuine fearful reaction from me. My roommate and I are always searching for a film that

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will truly scare us to the core, a narrative that will shock us out of the real world and leave us haunted.

Some might find this almost therapeutic perception of horror strange, or even disturbing.

Horror movies allow me to focus on someone else’s world. In a strange way, their tragic circumstances make our own real-world problems seem manageable. But though there are numerous die-hard horror fans, others see no appeal in voluntarily igniting feelings of fear, disgust or dread. Why do some love this rush of adrenaline, while others avoid it at all costs? Why do certain individuals have such a high threshold of fear that even the most gruesome films elicit no reaction?

The Halloween season forces us to reflect on these questions and the curiosity surrounding fear as a whole. The fact that we allot a whole month to the concept of “spookiness” and horror certainly indicates a collective attraction to the idea of fright. Going into October, I wanted to understand this allure of the eerie, the creepy and the ghastly that movies present to us. Whether we like it or not, horror surrounds us during the fall, and horror films are ever an essential component of this spine-chilling period. issecting a Horror Movie Horror movies are characterized by their ability to create an ambiance of uncertainty, eliciting feelings of suspense, disgust, shock or terror. According to AMC, horror capitalizes on “whatever dark, primitive, and revolting traits that simultaneously attract and repel us,” tapping into the twisted allure of unthinkably heinous circumstances. Viewers are drawn in by a collective fascination with brutality and a peculiar gratification that they are not experiencing similar atrocity in their own lives.

The human interest in the macabre is not new. Horror has been around for centuries, evidenced by the more morbid stories from folklore or popular 19th-century gothic novels from Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley. Directors have been producing films that cater to this feeling of terror almost since the beginning of the movie industry. Since then, horror has developed into eight different sub-genres — psychological, slasher, gore, body horror, found footage, monster, paranormal and comedy — that approach the category from a distinct perspective. The movies amplify different types of fears so each consumer can obtain a thrilling experience fitting to their idea of what’s terrifying.

This is what makes my horror-going experiences so intriguing. Whether I wish to experience a succession of quick jump scares or evoke a lasting psychological paranoia, horror has the capacity to cater to whatever effect I want to incite.

The diversity of the genre also makes it a unique tool for artistic expression.

Horror explores the most appalling

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parts of humanity, the roots of our fears and worries, and reflects the state of society. Take the example of the U.S. in the 1970s: Serial killer murder rates were the highest they’d ever been in the country’s history. Not coincidentally, slasher films became a cinematic staple, presenting viewers with a heightened production of the reality they were living in. Jordan Peele’s 2017 film “Get Out” explores the deep roots of racism in America while social justice movements became more visible in real-life mainstream media. The visual effects of horror thrills audiences, but witnessing a twisted version of the issues of one’s own world is what’s truly terrifying.

Mark Kligerman, a lecturer in the LSA Department of Film, Television and Media, emphasized the importance of this cultural component of horror.

“Each time I revisit the genre in the classroom, I ask students to tease out relationships between horror movies and the broader system of values that form the basis of culture, both domestically and internationally,” Kligerman said.

Kligerman also urges students to, “focus on the fluidity of the form” of horror, paying attention to how directors adapt their films over time to reflect current society.

“The original ‘Halloween,’ for example, premiered in 1978, yet Hollywood has produced countless sequels, remakes and knockoffs since then,” Kligerman said. “Though the film certainly belongs to the same genre as the original superficially, its attitudes toward politics, violence, sexuality and even monstrosity are much different, alerting us to the very dynamic and unstable nature of horror. Recognizing and delving into this instability with students is when discussions of the form become really interesting.”

Kligerman highlighted the revealing nature of horror films, whether in the U.S. or abroad.

These movies, he explained, spotlight the central issues and philosophies of each culture in a more poignant manner than other genres.

“I do tend to stress the importance of cultural specificity when teaching horror,” Kligerman said.

He cited Vanderbilt professor Teresa A. Goddu, who he says argues “that the gothic narrative in early American literature was a resistant cultural form that unsettled myths of New World innocence by revealing the darkness at the heart of the American civilizing process: the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the legacy of racial exploitation and exclusion have formed the basis of a living nightmare that has haunted American culture for centuries and from which we have yet to awaken.”

Diving into the world of horror films with my roommate was simultaneously an act of escapism and an ongoing education on the history of the world around us. Sexism, health, violence, racism, family and mental health — we explored all of these issues in horror while they reached a fever pitch in the events and movements occurring outside of our apartment walls.

We immersed ourselves in fantastic tales that magnified the problems of disease, environmental collapse and political division plaguing our world.

Through film, the issues were easier to absorb, allowing us to examine their truths as outsiders to the unfolding events. While the sensational effects of horror were upfront and at times extreme, we internalized themes that addressed some of the largest and darkest issues haunting humankind.

Wednesday, October 27, 2021 // The Statement — 2

By Sarah Stolar, Statement Correspondent

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ear and How We Deal With It Though many directors use horror movies as a medium for expressing important ideas, the main draw for audiences is the thrill of its content — the unexpected and extreme events that make up the plot.

“What is perhaps the primary appeal of the horror genre,” Kligerman said, “is its ability to wreak havoc on our emotional equilibrium… Charting (discrepancies) in affective response is in itself fundamental to the work of genre analysis and raises critical questions concerning the nature of spectatorial desire and pleasure.”

There is obviously an overlap between the fear response and more pleasurable emotions, such as “desire” and positive excitement. It’s the reason that my roommate and I can’t wait for our Friday horror nights and why audiences flood to theaters when a new movie is released. Dr. Kent Berridge, U-M professor of psychology and neuroscience, explained the connection between these vastly different reactions and their shared origin in the amygdala, a brain structure responsible for emotion recognition.

“Fear, of course, can be a very terrible experience,” Berridge said. “But the kind of fear where people are actually kind of chasing horror movies or roller-coaster experiences, there’s a kind of active fear connected to the dopamine reward system.”

Berridge outlined how in this “reward system,” certain “cues or sights or images” will incite the urge to react to the reward. For example, “when you’re thirsty for something, water” provokes your urge to drink. These cues are equally important in fear as they are in desire.

“Just like the reward cues are attention riveting, a threatening percept is also attention riveting,” Berridge said. “It’s hard not to look at it, but it’s in a threatening way, not in an attractive way. It’s so attention-grabbing it has to mean something, it’s motivationally significant.”

People are so attracted to horror movies because the brain’s responses to both fear and desire share the same chemical and psychological components involved in emotional processing. “(It’s possible) to flip back and forth between fear and desire,” Berridge said. “In the lab, we can create this, and it may be that in the roller coaster and in the horror movie, the situation is scary but it’s under control. Part of you knows that, and so you can oscillate and enjoy the oscillation in the overlap. It’s sort of counterintuitive that fear would overlap with desire, but it does, and that may be one reason why people can seek out fearful experiences that scare them just enough.”

For many, there’s a fine line between finding stimulation that “scares them just enough” and those that put them over the edge in terror. There are personal discrepancies that prevent some from indulging in activities like horror films, while others with high thresholds for fear actively seek out these experiences. Individual distinctions, according to Berridge, arise from certain personality traits such as thrill-seeking, which draws people to these rousing attractions.

Some people are simply more likely to enjoy horror and other heart-racing attractions. My own thrill-seeking character explains why I search regularly for the ideal horror film that will astound me with its ghastly content.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

3 — Wednesday, October 27, 2021 // The Statement

Getting older: A trick or a treat?

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n Halloween, we eat dinner early. The setting sun beams in through the front windows as we form a line around the kitchen counter, our paper plates eager to touch the hot pizza. We scarf down the necessary carbs while sitting in whatever clothing will lie underneath our costumes.

A lot has led up to this moment. Anticipation clung to the air like fine mist when we were at school a few hours before. Mentions of route plans, candy bars of choice and costumes fluttered between our mouths. And even though there were no Halloween celebrations allowed in class, the end of the day bell would turn us all loose to be anything we wanted to be.

The magic of this feeling waned as we grew older. Young adulthood morphed trick-or-treating into oblivion, and the sweet hoards of chocolate from the morning after soured into math tests on Nov. 1. But as kids, the only thing we cared to count was the KitKats and Twizzlers that made their way into orange sacks, before being unwrapped and indulged over the following days, all because we wore a costume to someone’s front door.

Dressing up used to be the trickiest part of Halloween for me. My mom sewed me a Dalmatian costume when I was in first grade, which was reused with love in many years to follow due to its soft limbs and my inability to think of anything else. The getup was easily confused for a cow, but that didn’t matter: It was Halloween and I was something that wasn’t me. Over the years my costume choices were only made in order to clear the various hurdles the night presented. Bat costume? The headpiece is too hot.

Sheet ghost? Prepare to trip and not be able to see half the night. Dalmatian. Didn’t you wear that last year?

It was in eighth grade that I finally found my costume niche. I deconstructed the box of our television, painting both sides in corporate red with white block lettering, with nutrition facts and ingredients on the back. Using duct tape straps to join the two panels over my shoulders, I became a KitKat. I received more of the chocolate wafer candy that year than any other. My knees rammed into the front piece of cardboard as we darted across neighborhood lawns, slick with the dew of dusk, but it was breathable, movable and undeniably recognizable.

My cardboard creations only diversified from there. I was an iPhone (the paper app icons slid off the costume in the October rain), an Oreo (a hamburger to some eyes) and one year I created my magnum opus: a Christmas tree. Two triangular cardboard pieces painted green, silver tinsel cascaded down each side and multi-colored lights bedazzled the front. I was the brightest, most recognizable, yet most seasonally out-of-place item on the Halloween streets.

I dressed up as these objects for fun; painting and gluing and taping were much more enjoyable activities to take part in than studying, reading or writing for school. However, this was done out of necessity as well. It was around my sophomore year of high school that I had ascended to my current height of 6 feet 3 inches. Creative, recognizable dress-up was the only way I could dodge the criticism that spit from the mouths of the adults who passed out candy.

There’s pressure on high school students to forgo traditions of childhood and prepare themselves for the transition to adulthood. The residents behind the front doors I trick-or-treated at thought I should be studying for a test, hanging out with friends my own age or sitting at home, pretending to have something to do. The desire to grow older extended itself to school. Seventh graders were taken on tours of colleges, students took quizzes to determine their future career and

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“You’re a tall one.” “You’re so grown up!”

Passive-aggressive comments paused at the topic of height, though others’ words ventured farther into the evening dark. “Aren’t you a little old for this?” “I didn’t realize you were trick-or-treating.”

Candy that would flow into my brother’s sack would only trickle into mine. It was easy to take the subtle hints personally. Why was I running from house to house, begging for candy? Wasn’t there anything better that I was supposed to be doing, now that I was 15? n high school, Halloween was associated with parties. Our school’s annual Halloween Dance blasted “Spooky Scary Skeletons” into the lower gym. Students showed up drunk on boxed wine or became sugared up on sherbert punch, dodging eye contact with teachers that had graded our homework hours before. We danced with adequate enthusiasm and talked to the people we needed to before going home to a friend’s house, forgetting the haunted mediocrity of what we just experienced. Trick-or-treat was out of the picture, and partying in groups was popular. It was part of growing up.

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summers were to be spent at academic programs.

What is the purpose of ending childhood so early?

Why are high schoolers now pushed away from the experiences that defined their youth, and towards ones that will undermine it? espite these pressures, I went trick-ortreating one last time in my senior year of high school, on the edge of 17. Earlier that day, I brought my costume, a refrigerator, to school as a part of our band’s participation in the nextdoor elementary school’s Halloween Parade. The mechanics of the fridge costume were the most complex yet: The front consisted of two cardboard pieces, bound together with plastic screws which created a fridge door that opened to reveal photo cutouts of fruit, ketchup and assorted perishables. On the inside of the door panel, the message Happy Halloween! was painted in black tempera paint. I opened the costume to reveal the interior food and message, and won first prize in my high school band’s costume competition. I hoped my good fortune would carry into the night.

As per tradition, we ate pizza at our neighbor’s house a few blocks away — the slices shining in

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By

Oscar Nollette-Patulski, Statement Columnist

the waning autumn light, and the napkins ready to capture any runaway sauce from our mouths.

Parents commented on how it was my last Halloween, and there was nothing more I could do but smile and nod in acknowledgment. With this bittersweet atmosphere, the duct tape straps that held my refrigerator to my shoulders had an additional heaviness given the weight of my final trickor-treat. And as I collected myself and the rest of my things, little kids, 5 or 6 years old, had started to roam the streets, getting a head start on candy collecting before the fall of night. They came up to the front door of my neighbor’s, and I dropped sweets into their hands. I looked into their eyes and saw my former self, at once so different in age, yet driven by the same desire for candy. My own crew assembled. I was the oldest, with everyone else two to six years younger. We promptly closed the door, yelled for our parents to follow and set out on our own trick-or-treat journey.

The sidewalks of our suburban neighborhood were wet from the season’s first snowfall hours before, and the yellow leaflets that stuck to it mirrored the streetlights and stars above. Like moths, we darted across yards seeking the front porches’ warm glow, an oasis of calm and chocolate. Each house had its living rooms illuminated, open for viewing from the outside world. We remembered neighbors from years past but didn’t dare say their names, identities blurred by various disguises; only the confection transactions really mattered. We saw into their lives through dogs barking in the background, television screens aglow, hardwood floors littered with pairs of shoes and shouts to the back in need of candy refills. Any attempts to see into our identities were foiled with our disguises. Sure, some noticed the refrigerator was quite tall, and maybe thought a refrigerator shouldn’t be trick-or-treating at that age. But, I was too busy yelling “trick or treat!”, crowding porch steps and slipping on wet grass to care.

The porch lights turned off at 8 o’clock, and we walked home, noting the heaviness of our bags.

We reconvened in the living room, sorting and ranking candy. Our chocolate constellations shifted and changed constantly with trades — M&M’s whizzing across the room like meteorites, Snickers exchanged for Twizzlers and laughs. Soon, we were reminded of school the next morning, and our parents escorted us back to our respective homes. My brother and I’s faces soaked up the October night, and each step towards our front door put us closer to going to bed. We arrived home, and I still had math homework to do. I counted my KitKats, I counted how many calculus problems I had left to solve. Now I count the years since my last trick-or-treat, wondering if any Halloween will live up to the simple joy of running in the dark, looking for fructose, finding friendship.

Wednesday, October 27, 2021 // The Statement — 4

t a n g i b l e fe a r

Content warning: Gender-based violence ctober is a month of thrilling traditions.

Smiling pumpkins carved with love, horror movies viewed from a comfortable couch, coffee filled with the overwhelming sweetness of pumpkin spice.

Like Starbucks pumpkin cream cold brews, my excitement had been brewing long before the calendar pages turned. I even had a reminder set for Oct. 1 reminding myself to plan my Halloween costumes. We were deciding between hippies and princesses.

Yet, on a bright and warm Oct. 2, as my friends and I paraded through the fall wonderland of the Ann Arbor Farmers Market in Kerrytown, terror quickly began to messily weave its way through the Ann Arbor community.

First, it was in our sorority GroupMe. Then a friend’s private story. Then a club Slack channel. Eventually, a campus-wide email. Genuine, uncertain fear ran through every vein of our campus as the threat spread like a flaming, destructive wildfire.

“On October 4th, I’m going to the University of Michigan and blow away every single woman I see with an AR-15,” the now-deleted post read.

“There is a violent pro-male revolution coming and you people better get ready for it.”

This message was originally posted on a Russian anonymous confession website called Sinn List, inaccessible to typical search engine users.

The idea of the site was that people could profess

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their most twisted, disgusting opinions, and other users could approve or disapprove by responding with either a right side up or upside-down cross.

At the start of a month meant for the controlled, detached fearfulness of horror movies and haunted houses, we suddenly faced real, pervasive fear.

As a reproductive rights rally marched through the streets of Ann Arbor, darkness began to spread around campus in the form of a misogynistic blogger professing intent to eradicate our female population.

By 5 p.m. on that gloomy Saturday, the FBI interviewed a resident of the home from which the threat was posted. Based on their investigation, they said, “there (was) nothing to indicate imminent harm to our community.”

On Sunday, University President Mark Schlissel announced that classes and activities would take place “as scheduled” on Monday, regardless of significant concerns and the creation of a petition with over 1,200 signatures. And while some professors did opt to make their Monday classes remote, others did not, with these decisions made on a professor-by-progressor basis.

With no campus-wide accommodations on that Monday, many women were given no choice but to place themselves in the uncomfortable position of walking around a campus painted with a potential death threat. Regardless of the University’s vague claim of mitigation, it seemed as if very little g was done to increase student safety as we were forced to go about our lives as planned.

It seemed as if the University had decided that ensuring students took their chemistry exams as scheduled was more important than the comfort of the people who keep the campus alive.

If we have learned anything in the trauma of the last two years, it should be that student health, mental and physical, should come before the rigid scheduling and workload of college academics.

As if the laughable wellness days and month-long Counseling and Psychological Services waitlists weren’t enough, the way the University handled this threat surely cemented to me that student well-being is not high enough on their list of priorities.

The day was relatively normal, aside from the fact that campus hadn’t felt emptier since the peak of the pandemic. After hours of internal debate, I decided to go to the Shapiro Undergraduate Library to get some work done. After about an hour, I noticed that I did not see a single other woman throughout the entirety of the somewhat crowded third floor. s the afternoon came to a close, my friends and I sat in our living room and haphazardly wondered what the f*ck we were supposed to do next. Sure, the threat said there would be a shooting on Oct. 4. But what was stopping the poster, or anyone for that matter, from coming the day after? Or the day after that? What is the University doing to protect the women on their campus beyond the moments when they are forced to act?

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By

E m i l y B l u m b e r g, Statement Contributor & Assistant News Editor

In a nation with poorly limited gun control and relentless violence against women, we are forced to deal with these terrifying realities as we go about our daily lives. Fear is unlimited, constantly lurking far beyond the constraints of an annual October rewatch of “Friday the 13th.” Halloween may last a mere 24 hours, but real fear is not confined to an elaborate dress-up holiday.

In some ways, we have come to accept much of the impending danger we may face. It can be extremely beneficial to live effortlessly, refusing to allow the sheer risk of being alive to waste our lives away. But when situations like this arise, our very real fears waste away into passive ignorance. After Monday, Oct. 4, there was no more talk about the threat or its implications. The dreaded day had passed, and we were supposedly free to continue on with our lives as if nothing had ever happened. Because, technically, I guess, it didn’t.

Sadly, the next time we will have anything close to a major campus discussion about women’s safety will probably be the next time we receive a threat of this nature. We are all too good at ignoring societal ills until they are staring us dead in the eyes and we are no longer physically able to look away. It is a staring contest that we are almost always losing. The immediacy of our fear subsides, and issues no longer deemed “timely” fall to the wayside until they inevitably circle back to our focus once again.