2021-10-06

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Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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PUBLIC SAFETY

FBI, DPSS identify individual behind U-M shooter threat Person who threatened violence against women is not in custody, cooperating with authorities BARBARA COLLINS & LIAT WEINSTEIN Managing News Editors

EMMA MATI/Daily University President Mark Schlissel announced Oct. 5 he will be stepping down in June 2023, a year earlier than originally scheduled.

UMich President Mark Schlissel to step down from role in June 2023

It is still unclear when a successor will be announced or who will take over the presidency MICHIGAN DAILY NEWS EDITORS University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel will step down from his presidency beginning in June 2023, a year earlier than initially planned.

In a tweet Oct. 5, Schlissel said his decision to announce that he was stepping down now would allow for “a smooth & thoughtful leadership transition.”

“The work we do matters,” Schlissel wrote. “It’s work that the president of this university has the

immense privilege of leading and being a part of. Every day we heal, discover, teach and serve – advancing a public mission and strengthening the immutable Michigan bond of knowledge and values.”

Schlissel also said he decided this timing is appropriate after discussion with the Board of Regents.

“The new horizon gives the Board time to consult with our community, think about the future and thoroughly plan and conduct a search for my successor, while allowing us to continue momentum on important and time-critical efforts that are

underway,” Schlissel said.

The Detroit Free Press reported that tensions between the regents and Schlissel had “reached a boiling point” in September 2021 after Schlissel failed to communicate with the board about the status of the failed Detroit Center for Innovation project. A week after the Free Press report, the board gave Schlissel a 3% pay raise for the upcoming year.

Schlissel first took office in July 2014 and was previously provost of Brown University.

Schlissel’s accomplishments as president include creating the Go Blue

Guarantee to make a U-M education free for in-state students from families below Michigan’s median income and then expanding to it the Flint and Dearborn campuses — with a controversial GPA requirement for those two campuses — after years of student activism. He also promised complete carbon neutrality for the University by 2040 after extensive activism by the campus community, which included arrests of some student activists.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

UPDATE – 8 p.m. Oct. 3 No individual is in custody following a shooting threat against women at the University of Michigan, Mara Schneider, special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation with the Detroit field office, confirmed in a Oct. 3 7:40 p.m. email to The Michigan Daily.

“We are still collecting & reviewing evidence to determine whether the threat was made in violation of either state or federal law,” Schneider wrote.

“There won’t be a referral to a prosecutor’s office until that review is complete.”

ORIGINAL STORY – 7:09 p.m. Oct. 3 Classes and activities at the University of Michigan will take place “as scheduled” on Oct. 4, University President Mark Schlissel announced the evening of Oct. 4 in an email addressed to members of the campus community. Many on campus have been shaken by the shooter threat against women that was anonymously posted on the Russian confession platform Sinn List, which circulated on social media on Oct. 2.

According to Schlissel’s email, the individual who posted the “bigoted and misogynistic” threat is located on the East Coast.

The Division of Public Safety and Security had previously announced that “there is nothing to indicate imminent harm to our community.”

“What we know today from the FBI is that the threat has been mitigated, and there is no current or pending threat based on the post,” Schlissel wrote.

Mara Schneider, special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation with the Detroit field office, wrote in a statement to The Michigan Daily that the FBI interviewed the individual determined to be responsible for the post and found that there was no threat to the University community.

“Special agents from the FBI’s Baltimore Division, which covers the entire states of Maryland and Delaware, contacted the individual, who has been cooperative with law enforcement,” Schneider wrote. “During the interview, agents assessed the individual had neither the means nor the opportunity to carry out the threat.”

An update from DPSS posted at 6:50pm on Oct. 3 reiterated the FBI’s statement that there is no current threat to the community.

“DPSS is confident that any threat from the post has been addressed and mitigated,” DPSS Executive Director Eddie Washington said in the statement.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

ACADEMICS

Schlissel, faculty spar about COVID, misconduct policies Instructors, administration discussed five motions at Oct. 4’s Faculty Senate meeting HANNAH MACKAY, LIAT WEINSTEIN & PAIGE HODDER Daily News Editors & Daily Staff Reporter

Tensions ran high at the Faculty Senate meeting Oct. 4 on as University of Michigan administration and faculty members discussed five motions related to the University’s sexual misconduct response, the absence of options for remote instruction this semester and COVID-19 protocols on campus.

Discussion of the motions first started in September when faculty sent them to University President Mark Schlissel and Provost Susan Collins. Schlissel responded to the motions in an email to Faculty Senate on Sept. 30, backing the University’s decision to return to large in-person classes and mentioning the new sexual misconduct policy introduced Sept.

23.

The first motion calls on the University to reinstate COVID-19 protections like social distancing and asks for greater flexibility for faculty to teach remotely. Currently, masks are required in all indoor University spaces. Though students must wear masks during classes, social distancing is not enforced.

Faculty are asking for greater teaching flexibility to be implemented through changing Work Connections, the University’s disability management program, to allow faculty with disabilities or

health conditions to teach remotely.

LSA professor Silke-Maria Weineck spoke in favor of Motion 1, saying that Work Connections currently has too much power to decide whether faculty have to teach in-person or not. Weineck said the University should not make faculty go against their physician’s medical advice or force them to teach in-person if they have a preexisting condition that makes them more vulnerable to COVID-19.

“A case management at Work Connections has the power to overrule your doctor and inform your dean that you must suck it up — there’s no appeal,” Weineck said. “Deans can, in theory, ignore the determinations, but in practice, they defer to them, so the most vulnerable amongst us have faced the choice to work and live in constant fear or to lose their livelihood. This includes LEO faculty — we don’t have a vote today and staff who don’t have a vote anywhere.”

In his email to the Faculty Senate, Schlissel said Work Connections has reviewed 28 “formal requests” to teach remotely “out of a total of 8,500 instructional faculty members across all three U-M campuses.”

According to Schlissel, of those 28, 20 were rejected, 4 were accepted as “needing some enhanced accommodations,” 2 are awaiting more information from the applicants, 1 was withdrawn and 1 was unrelated to COVID-19.

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ANNA FUDER/Daily Hundreds gathered for the Women’s March in Ann Arbor on Oct. 2.

Ahead of new Supreme Court term, protest supports reproductive rights Ann Arbor Women’s March was one of more than 600 rallies across the nation ELIZABETH HWANG Daily Staff Reporter

In 1972, Michigan resident Amy Nowland flew to New York, where the most permissive women’s reproductive health laws in the country existed at the time, to undergo an abortion.

Nowland received the procedure a year prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade, a 1973 landmark decision declaring that the Consitution granted all women the liberty to have an abortion.

Nowland, who spoke in front of a crowd at a Women’s March protest on Oct. 2, recalled her mother’s disapproval, saying she would not fly to New York with Nowland and instead sent a friend with her. When she returned to Michigan after the procedure, Nowland said her mother refused to talk to her about the experience.

“I did not grieve having the abortion,” Nowland said. “I grieved the little 17-year-old that had to do it on her own.”

Nowland was one of the hundreds gathered at the protest

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INDEX

in front of the Federal Building in Ann Arbor, rallying for the protection of reproductive rights for women.

The protest in Ann Arbor was one of over 600 Women’s Marches across the country on Oct. 2. These protests are in response to the passage of Texas Senate Bill 8, also known as the Texas Heartbeat Act, in September, which banned nearly all abortions in the state. The act prohibits all abortions in which cardiac activity is present, which usually occurs after six weeks of fetal development.

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Last month, the Justice Department sued Texas over the law, arguing that its intent was to violate the constitution. A federal judge heard from lawyers representing the State of Texas and the Justice Department on Oct. 1 debating whether or not to pause the ban while the courts determine its legality.

In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court decided not to block the law last month, shortly after it went into effect.

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PUBLIC SAFETY

Former CSE professor Peter Chen charged with first degree sexual misconduct

Felony could carry life imprisonment sentence, trial is set to begin on Jan. 31 JARED DOUGALL Daily Staff Reporter

Content Warning: sexual assault Peter Chen, former professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, appeared in the 22nd Circuit Court of Washtenaw County on Sept. 30 afternoon for a pretrial hearing.

Chen is charged with criminal sexual misconduct of the first degree, a felony that could carry a sentence of life imprisonment. He will stand trial Jan. 31 at 8:30 a.m.

At the pre-trial hearing Sept. 30, prosecutor Andrew Childers and Chen’s lawyer, Mariell Lehman, stated no agreements had been made regarding the case. They both thought there would be no resolution and jointly recommended to the court that the case proceeds to

trial.

Judge Darlene O’Brien, who presided over the case, said there will be a final pre-trial hearing on Dec. 16. In the meantime, all of Chen’s bond conditions — remaining out of custody on personal recognizance and restricted access with minors — continue to apply.

At a preliminary examination in Ann Arbor’s 15th District Court in July, Judge Miriam Perry found that probable cause existed to believe the crime of criminal sexual conduct of the first degree occurred and that Chen committed the crime. The case then proceeded to the 22nd Circuit Court.

Allegations against Chen surfaced less than a year after sexual misconduct allegations against CSE professor Jason Mars, which triggered calls for Mars’ removal and an uproar from students. Chen became the interim chair of CSE

following the departure of Brian Noble, who abruptly stepped down in February 2020. Chen resigned only six months later due to “personal reasons.”

The department has dealt with other allegations of sexual misconduct against former CSE professor Walter Lasecki, whose resignation took effect in August.

Shannon Smith, who is listed as Chen’s attorney on the court docket, was not present at the hearing.

Lehman and Smith’s firm, Smith Lehman, represents Chen and specializes in criminal sexual misconduct allegations. Smith will be present at the trial in January.

Smith represented the nowconvicted Larry Nassar, who faced more than 150 sexual misconduct allegations from his time as a professor at Michigan State University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine and USA National Gym-

nastics team doctor.

In a January 2021 statement to The Daily, Lehman said that Chen denied the allegations against him. “(Chen) completely denies the allegations and has cooperated fully with (AAPD) to assist them in their investigation,” Lehman wrote. “Mr. Chen is confident that the truth will prevail and that he will be exonerated fully. Mr. Chen thanks the numerous people who have reached out in support of him over the last few days.”

A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Nassar was a professor at Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine. It has been corrected to reflect he was a professor at Michigan State University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Daily Staff Reporter Jared Dougall can be reached at jdougall@umich.

GOVERNMENT

Anderson, Nassar survivors testify during Mich. House Oversight Committee hearing Speakers express support for Michigan’s Empowering Survivors legislative package KATE WEILAND Daily Staff Reporter

Content Warning: sexual assault The Michigan House Oversight Committee held a hearing Sept. 30 to discuss two new house bills to empower sexual assault survivors to file suit for damages. Victims of late University of Michigan athletic doctor Robert Anderson and former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar spoke in testimony before the committee to express their full support for these bills.

The two bills, known as Michigan’s Empowering Survivors legislative package, was originally introduced on Sept. 16, 2020 and reintroduced in early 2021 by Rep. Ryan Berman, R-Commerce Township, and Rep. Karen Whitsett, D-Detroit.

It consists of two bills aimed at protecting victims of sexual assault. The legislative package has also received bipartisan support from legislators.

One of the two new house bills included in the legislative package, HB 4307, prevents schools from claiming immunity when the abuse took place “under the guise of medical care and the school knew or should have known,” Berman said.

Berman spoke about the importance of reevaluating the laws to ensure they are protecting community members.

“We need to look again … at the laws we have in place,” Berman said. “Are they adequate? Does there need to be a change? If there’s criminal sexual conduct from a government agency or agent and someone either knew about it or should have known about it and

they didn’t do anything to prevent it and they allowed it to continue occurring, then there should be some liability. They shouldn’t be able to hide behind the shield of governmental immunity.”

Rep. Pat Outman, R-Six Lakes, brought up concerns about HB 4307 being overly broad, especially pertaining to the section that states that a school “should have known” about abuse.

The other bill, HB 4360, proposes an amendment to the statute of limitations to allow for a one-year window for those abused while undergoing medical care to file a suit. This is similar to the 90-day window previously allowed by state law for MSU’s Nassar survivors.

Trinea Gonczar, director at Avalon Healing Center, was the first to testify at the hearing as a victim of Nassar. She spoke about how long it took her to acknowledge her assault and the importance of amending the statute of limitations.

“I had to come to terms with the fact that my entire childhood was a lie,” Gonczar said. “As a 37-yearold woman … watching the other brave girls and young women speak their truth and sharing their impact statements one-byone with almost identical stories (to) mine … assault takes time to process. Just because someone was raped early as a child, they should not be penalized. They should still be protected and offered justice.”

Former U-M football player Jon Vaughn spoke on his assaults during his testimony and announced his support for the legislative package.

“We trusted our doctors, and especially trusted U-M doctors

— who wouldn’t?” Vaughn said.

“Now in 2021 as a 51-year-old man, I know that we were abused, assaulted, raped.”

Brixie spoke about the variety of reasons many victims do not initially come forward after their assault, including PTSD and threats from the perpetrator.

“It’s important to remember that prior to the 2018 reforms, folks who are survivors only had three years to come forward,” Brixie said. “We in the state of Michigan, and our laws, are partly to blame for serial sex abusers being harbored as a result of our laws.”

Rep. Steven Johnson, R-Wayland, said the committee should ensure that the bills include some degree of protections for those accused of misconduct.

“It’s a tough line to walk here where you’re trying to make sure you protect the survivors while also the innocent,” Johnson said.

“That’s why it’s a very difficult package of bills here to make sure that we get this right, so encourage the committee to be very active in this to make sure that we can thread the needle to look out for the victims while at the same time protecting the innocent.”

The University has received backlash for its lack of action against Anderson after receiving complaints from students..There have been recent demands for the University to take responsibility for Anderson’s actions, including at the most recent Board of Regents meeting.

WilmerHale, the firm hired by the University to investigate Anderson’s misconduct, found that complaints about Anderson traceback to 1966.

Gonczar spoke about this

historical inaction on the part of the University.

“These institutions have shamed, blamed and only protected themselves, which in turn is the exact way to attract predatory behavior to not only flourish, but to be welcomed,” Gonczar said. “Immunity for state universities gives no incentive to change for the better.”

Vaughn explained that several U-M officials, including former football coach Bo Schembechler, were aware of Anderson’s misconduct and chose not to act on the allegations.

“They made a choice not to protect us,” Vaugn said. “Instead, the University enabled our abuse.”

Tad DeLuca, former U-M wrestler, also testified and shared the mental and physical effects that his assaults had on him.

During his time at the University, DeLuca reported Anderson to his coach but was turned away.

After writing an official letter to report Anderson, athletic director Don Canham suspended DeLuca from the wrestling program and took away his full-ride scholarship, which was paying for his out-ofstate tuition. According to DeLuca, since the WilmerHale report came out in May 2021, current University employees have denied the allegations and the content of the report, attacking victims who have spoken out.

“The lesson was clear,” DeLuca said. “If you try to stand up for yourself and do the right thing, Michigan will destroy you. They will pound you down.

They did.”

Daily Staff Reporter Kate Weiland can be reached at kmwblue@umich.edu.

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CAMPUS LIFE

Three things to watch out for Some parents ask AAPS when buying football tickets to mandate vaccinations To avoid scam, avoid these three main warning signs when buying passes through groups on Facebook RONI KANE

Daily Staff Reporter

Having just transferred from Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow, Russia, LSA junior Veronika Volevich was looking forward to attending her first football game in The Big House. She made a post in the “Buying and Selling Tickets UMich” Facebook group on Sept. 4 requesting that anyone selling tickets to the football games on Sept.

11 or Sept. 18 comment or contact her privately.

Within a few minutes, Volevich said she got a message from Facebook user “Elena Beretta.” Beretta told Volevich she had tickets for both games in Section 31, Row 10 and asked Volevich to make an offer. Volevich suggested $40 per ticket and said Beretta immediately accepted.

But an hour after Volevich electronically paid Beretta for the tickets, Volevich said she still had not received them. When Beretta stopped responding to her private messages, Volevich realized it had been a scam.

“Then I decided to make a post about (Beretta) in the (Buying and Selling) group,” Volevich said. “I received three or four messages from other people saying … she had used the same exact strateg y on them.”

Associate Athletic Director Kurt Svoboda confirmed in an email to The Michigan Daily that this is the first year that student football tickets have been solely distributed online. Ice hockey and basketball student tickets have been virtual since 2019.

“We do not have plans to return to physical tickets in the future but we will continue to follow best practices within the industry to provide security within the ticketing landscape,” Svoboda wrote. “Mobile ticketing is proven to be far more safe and effective than paper tickets as it relates to authenticity.”

Volevich is not the only student who has recently been scammed while trying to buy student tickets through social media.

After talking to several other students with similar experiences to Volevich, The Michigan Daily found three major warning signs to look out for — and ways to mitigate the risks — when trying to buy student tickets online.

“I know I’ll never get my money back,” Volevich said.

“I just want to warn other people so this doesn’t happen to them.”

Red Flag 1: Pressuring the buyer to pay the full cost before sending the ticket LSA sophomore Audrey Beach was scammed on Aug. 21 while trying to purchase an entire season of student tickets through the Buying and Selling Facebook group.

Beach said a scammer by the name of “Reilly Kat” liked Beach’s post in the group, so Beach reached out to her to purchase the tickets.

Once they agreed on a price, Beach said Kat told her to set up a Zelle account and transfer the money immediately if she wanted the tickets.

“She was definitely pressuring me into paying right away, like as soon as possible, and to get a different payment app that was better for her,” Beach said.

Beach said she was out shopping with her family at the time and told Kat she wanted to wait until she got home to set up a Zelle account on her laptop. Kat insinuated she would sell

the tickets to someone else if Beach took too long, suggesting she use her phone to transfer the payment if she was serious about buying.

Since there were no live spectators at football games last fall, this was Beach’s first time purchasing tickets to a U-M football game.

She said if she had known more about how tickets were transferred, the value of season tickets or the tricks scammers traditionally used, she would have been more careful.

“If I had that experience last year, if I had ever been to a football game … I definitely would have had a better understanding of what I was trying to buy and how to do it safely,” Beach said.

To protect both buyers and sellers from losing the full value of the tickets, Beach and other scam victims suggested sending half of the cost before receiving the tickets and the other half after.

Red Flag 2: Asking that money be sent through new payment applications All of the scam victims interviewed by The Daily said the PayPal-owned application Venmo — a middle ground between a payment transfer service and social media platform — is their preferred interface for virtual payments. Venmo appears frequently in lists of the applications college students use on a daily basis, and a third of Venmo users are between the ages of 18 and 24.

Volevich said Beretta refused to use Venmo when they were discussing how the payment would be sent. “(Beretta) said she would prefer either Zelle or Apple Pay,” Volevich said. “I found that weird since everyone has Venmo.”

Volevich said she consented to using Apple Pay since she had used it previously to make contactless payments at local businesses. When a pop-up warning screen appeared indicating that this particular Apple Pay transfer might not be safe, Volevich said, she assumed Apple Pay f lagged any noncommercial transfer and dismissed it.

“When I started the Apple Pay transaction, I was warned by Apple that this might be fraud,” Volevich said. “I assumed that since I’m transferring money to another person, Apple Pay might just suspect fraud, so I didn’t pay attention to it.”

Besides paying attention to explicit security messages from payment apps, Volevich and other scam victims recommended telling the seller they are not comfortable using certain payment methods they are less familiar with. They also suggested that if the buyer and seller can arrange to meet in person while the transaction takes place, it would increase transparency and reduce scam risks.

“I would ask the (seller) to meet in person,” Volevich said. “Since all (students) live in Ann Arbor mostly, it’s not that hard to meet in person.”

Red Flag 3: Facebook account is not active and person’s student status is unclear If they had paid better attention to key details on the scammer’s Facebook pages, all of the scam victims said they might not have been so quick to send money to strangers.

2019 University alum Zena Shunnar told The Daily when she was a student, she had never heard of scams

involving tickets to U-M sporting events. But when she was scammed while trying to buy three tickets over Facebook from a “fellow alum” to the Sept. 11 game, Shunnar said she found out the hard way that things had changed.

Shunnar messaged “Simone Williams” who claimed she had tickets available.

Williams’ profile mentioned she had recently moved to Paris and had studied at École Polytechnique de Milan in Milan, Italy. Shunnar said she thought this was odd, but gave Williams the benefit of the doubt, supposing Williams wanted to sell her tickets because of her current residence in Europe.

“I kind of made up the story in my head on why she could be selling these tickets and why it says she lives in Paris now,” Shunnar said.

LSA senior Julia Smoot said the individual who scammed her had very few Facebook friends and only had posted a couple of times — with each post receiving zero likes. Similar to Shunnar, Smoot said she had also purchased paper tickets several times before and had never had any issues.

Both recommended taking more time to identify inconsistencies on the Facebook profiles of prospective sellers or buyers. They also both suggested using MCommunity to verify their student or alumni status.

“I started looking up (student ticket sellers) in MCommunity and I found at least two other people who didn’t go here,” Smoot said.

“This one g uy just kept saying, ‘you’re safe with me, you’re safe with me.’ He did not go here.”

To try to make the verification process easier for students, LSA senior Mark Zubricki and Engineering senior Connor Turco launched SurfSeats at the beginning of the fall semester. With more than 500 registered users, SurfSeats is an online ticket marketplace that is only accessible to those who sign up with a University-affiliated email address.

Though Michigan Athletics is partnered with Stubbhub to provide a secure platform for non-student ticket sales, Turco said there was a need for a student-oriented marketplace.

“We noticed that there were a lot of people getting scammed in the group chats and we thought there was an opportunity to build a better ticket platform for students to sell their tickets,” Turco said.

SurfSeats facilitates payment through PayPal or Venmo, and all tickets are “insured.” If there are any issues with listers not transferring tickets, Truco said SurfSeats will replace the ticket or refund the buyer the full amount. “(SurfSeats) has been pretty good so far, we haven’t had any scammers,” Truco said.

Whether students switch to new virtual marketplaces like SurfSeats or continue to buy and sell in Facebook groups, those who were scammed said they hope their “scam stories” will raise awareness about common scammer tactics. With mobile tickets here to stay, Beach said taking basic precautionary measures while shopping is a small price to pay to help ensure monetary security.

“I hope everyone stays safe if they’re trying to buy (tickets) off of a Facebook group,” Beach said.

Daily Staff Reporter Roni Kane can be reached at ronikane@umich.edu.

District was among first in state to require weekly testing for unvaccinated staff as delta variant spread across Michigan DOMINIC COLETTI & VANESSA KIEFER Daily Staff Reporters

Parents of Ann Arbor Public Schools are calling on school leaders to mandate COVID-19 vaccination for its employees. A APS was among the first districts in Michigan to require unvaccinated employees to submit to weekly testing in July.

A APS parent Danielle Stockton said she believes weekly testing for unvaccinated employees is not enough to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and thinks A APS should begin requiring its employees to get vaccinated to continue working in the school system.

“If anything should remain open, besides businesses and everything else, it should be schools for children for inperson learning, for those who need it,” Stockton said.

“Especially special education and special needsw where at-home learning is not feasible.”

The vaccinate-or-test model is consistent with the Biden administration’s recent vaccine mandate.

However, some A APS parents like Stockton say this does not go far enough.

In a Sept. 13 email obtained

by The Michigan Daily, A APS Superintendent Jeanice Swift told an A APS parent that the district is increasing its support for vaccine uptake among its current and new staff, but no staff vaccine mandate has been put in place.

“Following the recent FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine and the President’s subsequent call for vaccines last Thursday evening, (A APS is) continuing to increase our

support to compel continuing and new team members arriving in our system during back-to-school hiring season to ensure they are fully vaccinated,” Swift wrote. “At this time we have achieved extremely high rates of vaccination among our A APS school staff.”

Currently, the district has seen 56 total COVID-19 cases across the school system since the fall semester began on Aug. 27. However, cases have trended upwards in recent weeks, with 23 cases reported for the week of Sep. 24, the highest case count for any week since the semester started. Officials at Dicken Elementary announced this past week that one classroom would switch to remote learning following two positive cases.

Stockton pointed to the upward trend as a reason to pursue staff vaccinations more aggressively — especially in elementary schools where some students are ineligible to be vaccinated, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends only children 12 years and up to get the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. On Sept.

28, Pfizer Inc. submitted initial trial data for vaccinating 5-11 year olds and will submit a request for emergency use in the coming weeks, though approval could be stalled until Halloween to Thanksgiving.

“If cases are on the rise within schools, this is a perfect example of (asking), ‘OK, what can we do to not let this happen to other elementary schools and some middle schools?’” Stockton said. “Obviously, (the elementary and middle schools) are probably more of the hot spots than the high schools,

just because of the availability of the vaccine for older kids.”

A APS does not publish vaccination data from its employees, citing HIPA A protections. District officials did not immediately reply to a Michigan Daily request for comment.

In an email to Kate Sweeney, an Ann Arbor resident and Stockton’s mother, whose grandchild is enrolled in the A APS district, Swift defended the district’s existing policy, saying it is among the most stringent in the state. Sweeney said she believed vaccines are the most effective way to protect the A APS community and was frustrated by the district’s decision to implement the vaccinate-or-test model.

“It’s an elementary concept, mandatory vaccines,” Sweeney said. “I just feel like (A APS) should be taking the leadership role.”

Sweeney said it is important for school employees to be vaccinated so kids who rely on their schools for support can continue attending in person.

“These kids have been through a lot with virtual school (with) the experience of learning over the past year,” Sweeney said. “I think the staff was doing the best that they could, but it still was not replacing the experience of face-to-face learning. And it’s pretty important when you see changes in kids now being back and how important that is for their learning and social development.”

Daily Staff Reporters Dominic Coletti and Vanessa Kiefer can be reached at dcoletti@ umich.edu and vkiefer@ umich.edu.

SOPHIA AFENDOULIS/Daily Some parents are asking that the Ann Arbor Public Schools require vaccinations for all employees.

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Arts

4 — Wednesday, October 6, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Tank and the Bangas, thankful and triumphant at the Blind Pig ROSA SOFIA KAMINSKI Daily Arts Writer

Rarely is the energy of a whole band so understandable in a phone call. Perhaps that is one of the most special parts about Tank and the Bangas: They can communicate their energy full of hope, love and strength through any medium, down to storytelling over the phone. Joshua Johnson, the group’s drummer and musical director, took a moment to chat with The Daily a few days ahead of the band’s show at The Blind Pig on Wednesday, Sept. 22.

The band energy builds strongly off of the poetic roots of lead singer Tarriona “Tank” Ball. As Johnson told me, when performing live, “To me, it keeps her grounded in that space, that ‘I know what I’m doing,’ and it’s like a confidence thing.

It comes out, no question, and it always seems to touch the crowd (in a) certain way, so I love seeing that happen.” After all, several members of the band met at an open mic at Blackstar, a bookstore and coffee shop in New Orleans, where Ball was reciting her poetry.

The Blind Pig concert itself was interspersed with powerful moments of clarity, as Ball boomed spoken word poetry out over the crowd. The band

worked as a true unit, following each other and the path that their songs wanted to take when performed live. Johnson described his “psychic connection” with his brother, Jonathan Johnson, the bass player, and another founding band member, Norman Spence, on bass and synth keys.

“I can look at him, or I could just say a certain word that may not make sense … everybody knows exactly what we’re looking for, you know, it’s really cool,” Johnson said. But a lot of the time, he went on to explain, it is when that connection fails once every so often that they learn from each other. “A lot of times we find new ideas for music that way, honestly,” Johnson confided.

But in that small, crowded room, these ties were immediately obvious, never failing once.

The way this band works live is by feeding off of each other’s energy and that of the crowd. They never play a song the same way twice. You know all their songs by heart, have everything off of their albums memorized? Great. Throw that all out of the window, because it’s going to sound completely different live. Ball’s confidence on stage was the kind that extends to the whole room. She held the hands of audience members, whooped, called and thrilled with humor and playful affection, allowing her listeners to hold her same attitude, even if just for two hours.

This image is from the official Tank and the Bangas website.

The other band members threw their whole bodies into their performance (often literally).

Albert Allenback, on flute and alto saxophone, drew eyes to him with his gaspingly passionate solos and cheerfully exaggerated energy. Johnson himself was clearly the anchor to which all strings were tied, playing with a big grin on his face but watchful eyes. And when asked the difference between playing a show and just jamming on their own, he answered truthfully, “They would say that they have the energy of the crowd. I’ll be honest — for me it feels the same. A lot of times it feels just like I’m with them, and people are watching now.”

This humbleness translates through to the band’s mentality. “Before every show we at least get a prayer in, and we’re thankful, you know what I’m saying, we have a lot to be thankful for,” Johnson made sure to tell me. And it was so easy to tell how grateful he was, just in his answers to other, unrelated questions.

What makes the band unique to him is “being able to communicate with everybody, it’s the love I have for each and every one of them honestly … it feels like one of those bands that never break up and you’re like, yeah, they all have their 65th Anniversary World Tour.”

After about 10 years together as a band, however, they still haven’t found a way to define their sound. There’s something funk, some soul, some rap, some spoken word. Some have tried to define it, using regional terms like gumbo, but the band has something else in mind. “To us, it’s almost like magic … it touches everybody, and it touches everybody differently,” Johnson said. His description of what it is like to play aligns perfectly with such a fantastical genre description, telling The Daily, “It’s almost like (the music is) part of us, but it’s not like I feel like one with it … it’s us, like the music is us and we are the music. We are the poetry and the poetry is within us. And you know, it’s like an energy, almost.”

This grateful energy ballooned throughout The Blind Pig that night, emphasized in the band’s finale, in which Ball riffed over the band for 15 minutes, repeating the sentence “I am strong.”

With her arms held high, eyes open wide, the whole band gazing into the crowd and observing and learning from their looks back, it was an image of triumph.

The Good, The Bad and ‘The Many Saints of Newark’ M. DEITZ

Digital Culture Beat Editor

It is hard to express the influence that HBO’s “The Sopranos” had on the history of television.

The show dominated the television landscape during its eight-year run, continuing to rack up praise and viewers even as shows like “Lost” captivated the country. People continually refer to “The Sopranos” as a beacon of high-quality storytelling and entertainment, naming creator and writer David Chase (“The Rockford Files”) as a bona fide genius, cementing the legacy of well-made HBO shows that continues to this day.

Maybe this is why the return into the world of “The Sopranos” with the recently released prequel film “The Many Saints of Newark” feels so underwhelming.

The film marketed itself hard as the origin story for James Gandolfini’s (“Enough Said”) iconic character Tony Soprano, but in reality, Chase and co-writer Lawrence Konner (“Boardwalk Empire”) focus on Richard “Dickie” Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola, “American Hustle”), the father of a character from the original series.

Tony does play a part in the movie, spending the first hour as a child (William Ludwig, “Side Hustle”) before the film hops forward five years when Tony is a teenager (Michael Gandolfini, “Cherry”). Other characters from the show are here as well, playing parts ranging in size from fun easter egg to vital story characters, but make no mistake: This is Dickie’s story.

Set in 1967, Dickie Moltisanti welcomes back his father Aldo “Hollywood Dick” Moltisanti (Ray Liotta, “Goodfellas”) and his new wife Giuseppina (Michela De Rossi, “Boys Cry”) from their trip to Italy. With his father back in town, Dickie puts pressure on Harold McBrayer (Leslie Odom Jr., “One Night in Miami”), a mob enforcer, to get debts owed to the mob. Internal tensions both within the mob and the Black community come to a head during the Newark Riots, causing a deeper rift between Newark’s two prominent communities. Five years later, Harold becomes hellbent on starting up his own gang to rival the mob, setting his sights firmly on Dickie and causing a turf war that ends the only way the criminals know how: Death.

The plot summary above may seem convoluted — and it is — but it leaves out a lot of details: The movie haphazardly tries to also weave in story beats for known characters like Junior (Corey Stoll, “Ant Man”), and shifts focus to Tony and his relationship with his mother. The script constantly jumps from character to character, a buckshot of narrative that sometimes connects together. The film seemingly wants the core relationship to be between an impressionable Tony Soprano and his Uncle Dickie who wants a better life for him, but it constantly loses track of whose story it is trying to tell, doing a major disservice to both characters. Are audiences supposed to empathize with Tony, with the possible knowledge of the man he will become, or with Dickie, who exists solely for these 120 minutes and remains hard to emotionally

understand?

Director Alan Taylor (“Game of Thrones”), a frequent Chase collaborator on the TV show, does an admirable job bringing a cinematic quality to the work. Scenes are often visually pleasing and the camera work handles a lot of the emotional burden for the hard-to-read Dickie.

Taylor puts the set and prop department to work establishing realistic-looking locations and objects, even going so far as to destroy it all for the Riot.

The actors are all top-notch as well. The actors of existing characters channel the original performances while adding their own flair — special mention must be paid to Michael Gandolfini’s performance of the character his father created. He inherits the character with grace and crafts a more naïve, innocent character than the one audiences are familiar with.

Undoubtedly though, the most interesting characters are the ones created for the film.

Nivola conveys Dickie’s main struggles admirably: Is Dickie a violent menace damned for his past deeds or can he redeem himself by doing good things for others? Unfortunately for Nivola, the script simply doesn’t allow enough time or space to get into the depths of Dickie’s mind. For a series that prides itself on in-depth examinations of its characters — the main premise is literally a mobster going to therapy — it’s a huge missed opportunity to never allow the audience to see how Dickie feels.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

‘Dear Evan Hansen’ stumbles from stage to screen, then falls flat on its face musical with straightforward settings and situations, Chbosky’s almost Daily Arts Writer static, lingering camera eliminates the potential for any kind of dynamism Content warning: Mental illness, during the musical numbers, flattening them. They’re almost boring, and some suicide Despite their rise in popularity over at the beginning even feel gratuitous.

The film is also filled with little the last decade, movie musicals tend to be incredibly hit-or-miss. There’s oddities that are hard to comprehend a lot to be said about the clunkiness of as ever being believable. There is, of the stage-to-screen adaptation, but at course, the fact that the attempt to the core of this inelegance is the fact age Platt down by 10 years somehow that Broadway musicals depend on had the opposite effect. The internet something that no one will ever be exploded after the trailer’s release, able to translate fully to film: a certain with most of the commentary making suspension of disbelief. On Broadway, the same observation: Ben Platt looks people can dress up like cats and sing really, really old in this movie. There’s about something called a “Jellicle Ball,” also a production design that makes us and the show will run for 18 years. wonder if anyone involved has stepped When the same thing is attempted foot inside of a high school since the on screen, the film gains a reputation early 2000s, and a sort of hilarious for being one of the worst movies ever misunderstanding of how young people made. It’s true that there is a lot wrong use technology (a lingering shot on with the “Cats” movie, but the story’s video entitled “His Best Friend Died … absurdity was always there — what You Won’t Believe What He Did Next!” changed was a wider audience’s level of actually provoked laughs in my theater).

Most importantly, though, the shift tolerance for it.

“Dear Evan Hansen” joins the ranks in the level of acceptability between of other movie musicals with new film stage and film changes the way that we adaptations, and it suffers deeply from interpret Evan and his actions. Criticism that change in tolerance. Ben Platt for the content of “Dear Evan Hansen” is (“The Politician”) can play a 17-year- not new; a 2017 piece from Medium even old on a stage that distances him from calls the musical “a toxic piece of theatre, his audience, but if you put him in front a morally bankrupt exploitation of the of a camera lens, every feature of his experience of mental illness.” Evan is a betrays the fact that he’s in his late 20s. character whose struggle with mental On stage, he can sing poppy, hummable illness makes him easy to sympathize anthems that make it easy to forget the with, but is that enough to forgive all fact that his character acts abhorrently of the hurt he causes when his lies throughout the show, and then the show unravel? Does internal struggle justify can garner near-universal acclaim and a objectively bad actions? Is “Words Fail,” reputation as a powerful force for suicide an admittedly powerful eleven o’clock awareness and prevention. This is not number, enough to absolve Evan of all of his sins? the case for the film.

The film desperately wants us to say In “Dear Evan Hansen,” the titular character is a socially anxious, severely “yes,” but my answer is “no.” One of the depressed high school senior who most salient criticisms of the musical is writes letters to himself as part of an that it’s emotionally manipulative, and exercise assigned by his therapist. On the film’s late addition of an essential the first day of school, Connor Murphy revelation about Evan, intercut with the (Colton Ryan, “Uncle Frank”), an angry aforementioned eleven o’clock number, social outcast, takes one of the letters validates that criticism. We’re supposed after becoming enraged by its mention to be hearing an unconditional apology of his sister Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever, from the character, but the movie inserts raw imagery of his earlier suicide “Booksmart”), Evan’s longtime crush.

Soon after, Connor takes his own life attempt on top of it, asking the audience off-screen, but Evan’s letter is found in to forgive all of his indiscretions his pocket, leading Connor’s mother because of his trauma. This completely Cynthia (Amy Adams, “The Woman undercuts the number’s intentions, in the Window”) to believe that the obscures the musical’s ultimate message and two were friends. leaves behind a Sympathetic to bitter aftertaste. In the family, Evan trying to redeem doesn’t correct Evan, the film them and instead reveals its blatant doubles down, manipulation. This even going as far decision resolves as to write multiple some of the backdated This image is from the official trailer for “Dear frustrating moral emails between Evan Hansen,” distributed by Universal Pictures. ambiguity of the himself and Connor and rewriting his own history source material, but not for the better.

Critically and commercially, “Dear to accommodate their fabricated friendship. He entrenches himself Evan Hansen” is one of the most within the grieving Murphy family successful Broadway musicals of the — essentially replacing Connor as a last decade, but its film adaptation is son figure — begins dating Zoe, and on its way to becoming one of the most becomes an internet sensation after his poorly received movie musicals of all speech at Connor’s memorial service time. The ineffective translation to the screen has a lot to do with the way goes viral.

As a musical, the film asks us to accept that many of the musical’s narrative a certain amount of implausibility as decisions and themes just don’t work soon as Evan starts singing two minutes on film, revealing some of them as in, and this might be easier to do if the clumsy, some as mildly absurd and direction didn’t suffer at the hands of others as genuinely unacceptable.

Stephen Chbosky (“Wonder”), a firstRead more at MichiganDaily.com time movie musical director. Even for a KATRINA STEBBINS

You should stop listening to GaryVee LAINE BROTHERTON Daily Arts Writer

In 1978, Gary Vaynerchuck migrated from Belarus to a studio apartment in Queens.

Soon after, the 7-year-old “entrepreneur at heart” opened a lemonade stand before moving on to make thousands of dollars selling baseball cards.

Now, Vaynerchuck is the chairman of VaynerX, a communications company that parents several media-based properties. Most notably, he’s a social media mogul in the startup space, where he’s known as “GaryVee”: you might’ve seen a video of Vaynerchuck on your LinkedIn feed dissecting the lucrative NFT market or a clip on Instagram of him divulging the secrets of starting a business. In fact, if you haven’t heard of him or his buzzwordinfested rhetoric, I envy you. Vaynerchuck hosts a Q&A show, a daily video diary, a podcast and even owns a signature sneaker — and this doesn’t include the full schedule of events he books. For someone who rejects the label of motivational speaker — claiming he doesn’t want to be anyone’s Tony Robbins — Vaynerchuck acts the part exceptionally well.

Vaynerchuck preaches the “hustle,” a broad philosophy on work that encourages a gutsy expression of free will, chronic productivity and a self-starting mindset. Hustle cul-

ture oversees the startup phenomenon that draws young, steadfast pre-entrepreneurs to the Silicon Valley area code, each with an idea that will make them the next Mark Zuckerberg. It rings of meritocracy with more festive catchphrases — “the grind doesn’t stop,” “work smarter not harder” and anything else you would expect to hear from a business major powered by Ritalin.

However, it’s all pretty disingenuous because Vaynerchuck already succeeded — he gets to look back at his journey and tell people how it happened, and how they can do the same. In a piece he wrote for Medium, “The Day I Decided to Become GaryVee,” Vaynerchuck credits brute force for his success. He writes, “So you know why I’m sitting here right now? At the top of one of the fastest growing creative agencies of all time … At a 150M dollar annual revenue business? At a company that has ambitions to become worth billions and billions of dollars? Not because I got lucky but because I outworked you. I went for it. Think about it. I outworked you.”

Okay, Gary. You did outwork me. Unfortunately, I don’t plan my days down to the minute, depriving myself of any and all moments of relief, no matter how infinitesimal. I don’t book meetings from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. just to wake up at 5 a.m. the next morning and do it all over again. If Vaynerchuck is setting a standard for a lifestyle that guarantees suc-

cess, it’s physically impossible to accomplish doing anything less than a 19-hour work day.

In Vaynerchuck’s school of thought, that’s why I’m unsuccessful.

Vaynerchuck is an excellent orator, addressing his audience with the tone of a mean high school coach — a little hostile, yet claims what he’s saying is in everyone’s best interest. His sentences are short; they hit you like slam poetry. Each carries tangible passion, sprinkled with expletives and vocal inflections. In this way, Vaynerchuck is an evangelist, and productivity adopts a spiritual quality. If you are listening to or watching Vaynerchuck, you must feel inadequate — he addresses the plebian, the chronic wannabe, and tells them that their problems don’t matter, that they should simply choose optimism.

Socioeconomic status, gender, race, sexual orientation — these things aren’t barriers to success.

The single mother who relies on child support to feed her children, the ambitious kid plagued by generations of poverty, the ex-con who is denied employment from McDonald’s: These people just aren’t working hard enough. Because to Vaynerchuck, circumstances that are out of one’s control might not stop them from trying to do the impossible.

To Vaynerchuck, you are the driving force, not the woes of capitalism or the social binaries that alienate marginalized communities,

or the company you inherited from your parents in order to bypass the latter.

But Vaynerchuck is not a normal person — regular people don’t say things like “I’d rip both my legs off, and arms, to be 25 years old” or “I would suffocate and die if I worked 9:00–5:00. I wouldn’t be happy. I want to work.” The average GaryVee listener might try to be just like him, because that’s what he’s telling them to do. What if the average GaryVee listener or average worker in general does not derive happiness from workaholism?

Turning something you don’t enjoy into a lifestyle, especially when that lifestyle requires an 80-hour work week, almost guarantees burnout. Go and live like Vaynerchuck for a week, and try to come back with a brain that hasn’t been reduced to gray sludge.

I can understand why hustle culture is so seductive — it evokes our survivalist nature: work harder than everyone else and you will reach the top. The strongest deserve to triumph and the weak eat their dust. Hard work, excessive work, makes you a valuable member of society.

But American work culture is already riddled with toxicity — 83% of American workers report stress and burnout negatively impacting their personal relationships, and 91% report a reduced work performance due to these same factors. Absolute commitment to productivity requires sacrifices in other

aspects of life, including mental health. There is no getting around the fact that well-being and success at work are not mutually exclusive.

With Vaynerchuck as the high priest of workplace productivity, what happens if everyone who listens to him actually puts his advice into practice? Will these people ever figure out that brute force alone can’t make you a millionaire? To me, the Gary Vaynerchuck story creates a sort of paradox: He must attribute his success to something in order to market himself as a motivational speaker, but that something isn’t going to work for everyone. It isn’t going to work for most people.

Corporate America doesn’t want you in the club unless you’re already a part of it. The grindstone of capitalism is not meant to be an accessible venue; it’s evil and devoid of empathy, it pulverizes the disenfranchised and garnishes the CEOs and GaryVees with more money. What we’re looking at, in the long term, is a generation of people who completely run out of gas before they turn 25, chasing the 1% chance of breaking through. That’s why his popularity feels like a bad omen.

In a perfect world, America runs on the 4 day week — we’d be more productive, less stressed, and wouldn’t have to take a cold shower at the crack of dawn just to wake ourselves up. And we certainly wouldn’t have to listen to GaryVee to be successful.

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, October 6, 2021 — 5

‘When Harry Met Sally’ and the art of the rom-com MARY ELIZABETH JOHNSON Daily Arts Writer

Courtesy of Gabby Ceritano

Harry Styles’s Love On Tour comes to Detroit HADLEY SAMARCO Daily Arts Writer

Love On Tour was something I honestly never thought was going to happen. After watching concert after concert get postponed and eventually canceled, my hopes of actually attending tapered off.

This fear of cancelation was a rain cloud looming over me up until the concert. The excitement I used to get leading up to those big nights was noticeably absent for my first concert in over two years. It didn’t really hit me until I’d found my seat and the lights went down that I was actually there. When you’re staring at Harry Styles live and in the flesh it’s hard to maintain incredulity.

Styles’s latest album, the pop-rock hit Fine Line, came out in December 2019 with Love On Tour marking the album’s stage show debut; contributing to the majority of the setlist, Styles performed 11 songs off the album, alongside five from his previous self-titled album and one from his One Direction career.

Styles played a variety of songs throughout his show ranging from bright rock to soulful ballads and managing to hit everything in between. At times the song transitions were jarring, lacking a cohesive musical style to tie them together; however, Styles opted not to sing large sets of songs back to back, which helped minimize this effect. On many of his songs, he sang harmony lines or tried out new vocal riffs, keeping the music relatively new and exciting even for those intimately familiar with his repertoire.

Soaring, upbeat opener “Golden” set the tone for

the whole show. Also the first track on Fine Line, it was a perfect beginning that sent the crowd into a frenzy that did not waver for the remainder of the night. Other musical highlights included guitarist Mitch Rowland ripping through the guitar solo in “She,” Styles’s extended improv in “Sunflower, Vol. 6” as well as extended outros on popular singles “Adore You” and “Lights Up.” The video board effects and lighting design were evocative of the psychedelic sounds flowing within the music, creating a cohesive experience between the visual and auditory space in the venue. The music wholly encompassed the space, immersing the listener in an experience far greater than just listening to a song.

Although Little Caesars Arena is a larger venue, the concert had the intimate air of one much smaller. This was due in part to the stage layout, which was centered on the floor with fans on all four sides rather than pushed off to one end, as well as Styles’s stage presence as he joked and interacted with the 18,000 fans in attendance.

Through all the music and the cheers, the defining moments of the night were the ones created between the audience and Styles, as his charisma and quick wit made jokes and rapport unique to the night’s attendees. Despite the melancholy nature of much of the material, he managed to keep an overwhelmingly positive energy throughout the course of the show; Styles never stopped smiling, dancing and interacting with his fans.

Love On Tour in Detroit was a breath of fresh air, despite the masks required by the venue. Styles’s effort to keep the concert light and entertaining reflected well on his skills as a performer, and it will be exciting to see where they take him next.

When I was 16, I walked by my old friend’s house on New Year’s Eve. Other stops on my walk were the church I grew up in and the forest trail where I used to walk my dog. I was feeling particularly wistful and a little depressed. I liked watching older movies like “10 Things I Hate About You” and “13 Going on 30” to feel better. Rom-coms filmed after about 2015 are cursed by streaming services’ high turnover rate. They don’t have the same heart as the older ones.

“When Harry Met Sally” is the quintessential romantic comedy. I’m pretty sure I heard the, “I’ll have what she’s having!” joke long before I understood its context. I never thought it would be a movie that would make me cry, but seeing Billy Crystal (“Monsters, Inc.”) run through the streets of Manhattan on New Year’s Eve to catch up to Meg Ryan (“You’ve Got Mail”) always gets me. They just don’t make rom-coms like they used to.

I’ve talked about this before, but a really overlooked part of the rom-com is the narrative downswing: the sad, tear-jerking parts when the protagonist fights with her best friend or loses her job. You can’t have comedy without tragedy. “When Harry Met Sally” is hysterically funny, no doubt about it. It’s hilarious (and evocative of the ’80s career woman) that Sally’s sexual fantasy doesn’t even involve sex. But that same vignette is also tender.

Sally doesn’t want sex; she wants someone to rip her clothes off. The man in her dreams is “faceless.” All she wants is someone to look at her, without the masks or the wallpaper. She just wants to be seen. There’s an unfinished vulnerability in her dream, as her friendship with Harry for most of the film. They talk about their lives for 18 hours when they first meet, then they don’t even see each other again for five years. How heartbreaking is it to know someone so deeply but not feel like you can call them your friend?

The happy ending is where the film reminds you that it’s a romantic comedy.

Still, it’s not frivolous. It’s New Year’s Eve, and Harry made it to the party and told Sally he loved her, but she either doesn’t believe him or doesn’t care. They’re pushing through the crowd — one chasing, one retreating — and the countdown goes to zero. There’s cheering and kissing all around them, but they’re so angry with each other for their missed love.

acquaintances? Or does it mean that if we happened to forget them, we should remember them, which is not possible because we already forgot ’em?”

And Sally says, “Well, maybe it just means that we should remember that we forgot them, or something. Anyway, it’s about old friends.”

I think that’s what’s missing from the perishable, replicable, forgettable romantic comedies we see getting

Courtesy of Erin Ruarg

Eventually, Sally stops running.

There’s confetti covering the shoulder pads all around them. Harry says, “It’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

He didn’t say that he wasn’t lonely, because he was. But he feels his love for her more than he feels his loneliness.

There’s an Alexi Murdoch song called “Through the Dark,” where he writes, “I love you, girl, I love you more than I can say / Even with my heart in the way.” His broken heart won’t stop him from loving her. Love isn’t always as much of a feeling as it is an act. It’s a late-night call, an argument about Casablanca, a cheek-tocheek dance, the feeling of a cable-knit sweater.

It’s “Auld Lang Syne.” Harry wonders aloud what that song even means: “Should old acquaintance be forgot?’

Does that mean that we should forget old

churned out now. Yes, “The Kissing Booth” and “Someone Great” do have an understanding of narrative arcs. There is some point when the protagonist gets down on their luck only to be lifted up again, but there’s no weight to any of it. It doesn’t seem to mean anything.

This isn’t to say all rom-coms that came out after 2000 are hollow: “Palm Springs” and “Love, Rosie” are a couple of lighthearted-ish movies that actually stick with you past the time that you close your web browser. I think they achieve that by leaning into the weight in their characters’ lives. Not every romcom has to deal with the inevitability of death or the futility of life, but it has to mean something. If it doesn’t mean anything, we have no reason to remember it.

And I guess that’s what I’m getting at with “When Harry Met Sally.” Love is about remembering who we’ve forgotten. I don’t know if I nailed it by watching rom-coms or walking by an old friend’s house, but what matters, to me, is that I remember them.

Brian Teare’s walking meditations for the Zell Visiting Writers Series 619 east university avenue @ z place

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CECILIA DURAN Daily Arts Writer

I often wonder what people do on rainy days. Ones where the sky is so gray that you can hardly look ahead, where the damp pavement makes your bike wheels skid a bit as you try to swerve past people on the Diag, where your wet clothes stick to your skin like sweat on a summer day. Personally, I stay inside, unapologetically, wherever inside may be. This time I escaped the rain in the Stern Auditorium at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, listening to the rhythmic words and syncopated breaths of poet Brian Teare, the most recent guest of the Zell Visiting Writers Series.

It felt good to be back in the auditorium, “gathered in poetry,” as Teare says, listening from up close and not through my laptop’s microphone — which was refreshing. So there I was: third row, ears, eyes and heart open to discovering the beauty of yet another wonderful author.

At the event, Teare, who grew up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was presenting his sixth book, “Doomstead Days,” a collection of eight poems within 150 pages.

From the Bay Area to Vermont to Philadelphia, the poems illustrate a landscape of things he saw and felt, and that we, the listeners, could fully embody in our minds, thanks to his lyrical depictions and vivid descriptions.

The first piece he read wasn’t a part of this book, instead, it was an essay called “Tell me about your weather.” It had come about as a response to a friend’s inquiry to do just what the title indicates. Set in Virginia in 2019, where he was teaching poetry at that time, this poem deals with climate as “a fiction, an abstraction.”

He talks about the wind in a personified manner: “I feel its touch but can’t feel I’ve touched him back.” He looks around and realizes things aren’t permanent as they slip from his grasp and control — the clouds, the sun and the way climate change is making the bird population decline.

It’s the ugly truth, exposed with pretty locutions.

The second poem, titled “Olivine, Quartz, Granite, Carnelian” was long. Fast. Intense. It mimicked a walking meditation, and we were walking alongside him. A melodic internal monologue that activated all five senses, I could smell the pines, see the colors of the land ahead, hear the sounds of nature and “sing song sing song” of birds. I could feel the wetness of rain on my skin and taste the bitterness of belonging to a race that is “making all natural things human.” Teare exposed our environmental guilt while simultaneously deadening it; a “sort of ruin that seems livable until it isn’t.”

Teare slightly swayed from side to side as the words left his mouth, increasing in pace as the poem went on.

Soon, we were met with a long grocery list of ways in which we are doomed. Among descriptions of fungi in bats, of microbes, nukes and tubes, Teare inserts scientific facts of climate change and global warming. These were hidden among held-back sighs and measured notes, yet clear enough to leave the auditorium thinking of the rain outside differently.

After he was done with reading, Teare sat down with English MFA Matt Del Busto for a Q&A. When asked for his formula for writing long poems, he said the secret was syllabics — composing by ear and always looking to “make facts sing.”

Throughout his reading, I had noticed the musicality of his words, the rhythm in the way he structured lines and the dance that he ignited in my feet — moving in a similar manner to when I listen to jazz manouche. Teare had been a musician before he was a poet. But he was also a walker, making the length of poems coordinated with the time he spent on his stroll. The walk was “the skeletal map, a semantic map” that was finished sitting on his desk at home.

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When the Q&A opened to the public, I asked a question myself. I had been curious to know if, as a teacher, he ever felt that he had to write as a means of educating others. To this, he answered that the poems were a means of educating himself first and that teaching the reader was the collateral result. “I go on walks just to go on walks,” he said.

I left yet another Zell Visiting Writers Series wanting to tell everyone I encountered about it. I went home and took my bike — it was still raining, but I didn’t care. I rode my bike and began noticing how the world around me reacted to rain. Those who run and those who hide, those whose ponchos cascade water in a halo around their shoes and those who use an umbrella too small to keep them dry.

Teare left me with a sudden urge to write about every living thing around me. He made me realize that we are vulnerable at all times and are conditioned to catastrophic change. So until the time comes, I will walk, observe, meditate and write. I’ll make a habit of it, especially when it rains.

Michigan in Color

6 — Wednesday, October 6, 2021

One-time conversations

Nikole Hannah-Jones presents on history, collective memory and the impact of journalism

SAFURA SYED MiC Columnist

I’m sitting in a booth in the East Quad dining hall, hunched over a small bowl of beans and rice, when a voice coming from my right asks me a question. It takes me a few seconds to comprehend what this person is asking because of the music blasting through my headphones and the empty, almost meditative state that my mind takes when I’m eating.

I pull an earbud out. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Can I sit here?”

I nod and say yes to be polite, gesturing towards the empty seat in front of me.

In reality, I am a little annoyed. For me, lunch in the dining hall is an opportunity to zone out completely and take a break in between a long day of classes. The last thing I want to do is have to talk to a stranger while doing so. Still, I try to be an agreeable person, so I offer up the cushioned seat of the booth across from me. There really isn’t anywhere else to sit during the peak lunch hour.

The boy introduces himself to me and I do the same. I don’t remember his name. We talk about something, mostly small talk with nothing of substance — hometowns, majors, classes — and then I finish my lunch and go about the rest of my day.

I’ve always been a pretty quiet person.

I don’t like drawing attention to myself, whether that be in class or in social settings. Not shy exactly, because I’ll speak up if I absolutely have to, but in new situations, I prefer to keep my speaking with strangers to a minimum. It was something that was easy to accomplish in my small high school, where I spoke to only a handful of people each day and during freshman year of college last year when most social contacts were nonexistent. This past month has been the first time I’ve talked to strangers I never intend to meet again.

Last year, I tried to force myself to talk to many strangers. The intent of these freshman year interactions was to make friends. I talked to people with the desire to talk to them again later, and then again until we had exchanged enough words and spent enough time together to call each other friends. The results of this were often tiring (and sometimes disappointing). I remember listening to advice from upperclassmen who said that the people they talked to during the first few weeks of college were people that they never spoke to again. At the time, I knew these words were meant to calm

LEEN SHARBA & YASMINE SLIMANI MiC Columnists

Design by Mellisa Lee

the nerves of people who hadn’t made friends, but they also undermined the value of talking to people you will never see again — an amazing activity that I only started appreciating recently.

One-time conversations tend to be memorable for me. Even if I don’t remember the names of the people that I’ve spoken to, I do remember their faces and random facts about them — a language class they’ve taken or the dorm they live in or where they’re from.

Because I’ll never see them again, there is less pressure to remember their names and we can instead have a very brief moment of connection before continuing on our separate paths. After spending so much time cooped up at home, alone with no one but my family, these little conversations have become so much more meaningful to me. They’re also helping me acclimate to campus, adding stories to the hundreds of faces I see each day. Even though some might find these conversations dry because of how routine the conversations are — they rarely ever scratch the surface of who someone is as a person — I like seeing and hearing the different responses that others have to the same topics, like their favorite parts of the University of Michigan (Alice loves Nichols Arboretum Arb and Aisha likes to study in the Michigan League) or their favorite bubble tea spot in Ann Arbor (Will likes ChaTime but Katie thinks it’s overpriced). I might be a little tired of repeating those things myself, but it’s worth it to hear what the other person has to say. The knowledge that I’m probably never going to meet them again is nice, too. It takes the pressure off of the conversation and I feel more relaxed than I do when I talk to a stranger in class when I know I’ll see them the next day. Any slip-up or awkwardness in these moments will probably be quickly forgotten and if it isn’t, at least that person isn’t around every day to remind you of it.

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would be forced to confront the ways that their power was founded on and amassed through the subjugation of Black and Brown individuals: to understand the events of 2020, the collective would have to understand the events of 1619. HannahJones cites this daunting combination as the catalyst for the public’s fear. It was not incidental that January 2021 marked the incessant vilification of The 1619 Project, and a bizarre obsession with Critical Race Theory that spurred substantive legislative efforts to limit its presence in public schools.

Upon acknowledging this pattern, Hannah-Jones poses a question to the audience: “Why is it that when you feel like your party is losing power, history is the thing you go to? When I start excavating the past … then it becomes something that is dangerous and has to be legislated against?”

The answer lies in the significance of history: how it is managed and manipulated to shape our collective understanding of the world, and how, when threatened, institutions seek to preserve the version of it that demands the least reconciliation.

Hannah-Jones’ description of history is two-pronged, illustrating our nation’s deliberate tendency to construct and maintain a favorable version of the past: “There’s history that’s what happened, on what date, and who did it, and then there’s history that is what we are taught about what happened, on what date, and who did it, and why, and what do we collectively … think our history is?”

With this understanding of history’s profundity and its immense power to guide collective memory, it becomes clear that The 1619 Project was never a direct threat to America’s integrity. What is truly threatened by initiatives like Hannah-Jones’ is the sanitized, delicately curated version of American history that has long been upheld by those in power. Unfortunately, the two have become intimately interwoven, as the preservation of our “American integrity” has become seemingly contingent on an active denial of our honest history.

Any attempt to shed light on alternative narratives that have been selectively omitted from our collective memories thus threatens the institutions and power holders that have utilized their retellings of history to preserve their purported superiority. Those individuals will call these efforts blasphemous, “un-American,” anti-patriotic — they will call it anything, really, but the truth.

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On Sept. 22, students and faculty eagerly gathered in the Rackham Graduate School Auditorium and tuned in from home to hear New York Times journalist Nikole HannahJones speak about The 1619 Project and its profound impact on our current educational, social and political landscape.

Arriving at the auditorium an hour before the event, attendees began lining up to attend her talk. As they waited for the event to start, they introduced themselves to each other and began initiating relationships, brought here by a mutual passion for initiatives like those of Hannah-Jones. The auditorium was abuzz, and the air was that of unrestrained excitement. This collective anticipation, palpable in the large gathering space, was warranted; getting to listen to Nikole Hannah-Jones speak was no small event, after all.

Hannah-Jones is a staff writer for The New York Times and has spent her storied career pursuing a firm commitment to discussing racial inequalities and injustice in America. More recently, she became a Pulitzer Prize winner for the body of work of which she would be discussing with us: The 1619 Project, a long-form project through The New York Times that was created with the intent to examine the pervasive legacy of slavery in America.

While her plethora of accolades speak to her excellence — she bolsters a Peabody Award, MacArthur Genius Grant, two George Polk Awards, amongst other impressive accomplishments — she stands as a revolutionary journalist, activist and storyteller who has boldly redefined what it means to confront history in America.

Upon her introduction, the crowd burst into thunderous applause, only to fall into a reverential, entranced silence as she began to speak. From the start of the presentation, Hannah-Jones was unflinching, an unapologetic force of nature as she provided her honest accounts of the backlash she received upon The 1619 Project’s release.

In an eloquent and unwavering recap of the past year, she acknowledged former president Donald Trump’s efforts to create an entire commission against the project while prominent senators worked tirelessly to pass bills prohibiting its teaching in schools. She continued to detail the frenzied response that followed The 1619 Project, explaining its rapid progression into an “intense disinformation campaign”

executed through social media and mainstream conservative news platforms who actively worked to pervert the project into some heinous threat to the very integrity of our nation. Almost in tandem, a new phenomenon emerged in which the teaching of Critical Race Theory became synonymous with the goals of The 1619 Project, stoking a “faux-hysteria” that resulted in concentrated legislative efforts to ban CRT from being taught in classrooms.

The arguments and discontent stoked by The 1619 Project were relentless, spawning adamant accusations that the initiative was divisive, revisionist by nature or an attempt to exploit racial grievances and further exacerbate existing polarization in America.

In the face of such attacks, Nikole Hannah-Jones remained resolute, identifying the claims as exactly what they were: efforts to preserve the ideas of American exceptionalism that have been sustained within our education system for generations, favoring the teaching of a propagandistic history as opposed to one that forces individuals to confront the cruel realities of our nation’s genesis. With the motivation behind the mass hysteria and concentrated legislative efforts illuminated before us, the question then remains: “Why?” Why, in a nation that prides itself on free speech and the preservation of a rich marketplace of ideas, had a project with this very same intention become the target of such intense opposition and disallowance?

In order to contextualize the ardent disapproval of The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones recounts the past year: notably, the murder of George Floyd and the widespread Black Lives Matter protests that arose as a response. The protests garnered an unprecedented level of engagement, with 69% of Americans claiming to have had a discussion about race between June 4, 2020 and June 10, 2020. This mobilization marked a paramount moment in American history: non-Black Americans were not only beginning to acknowledge the prominence of police brutality in our nation, but recognizing the systemic implications that perpetuate it.

“You’re seeing a change in the national lexicon in how majorities of Americans are understanding the racial inequality that we see today, and connecting the inequalities that we see today to the legacy of slavery that dates back 400 years,” Hannah-Jones stated.

This new shift in the collective understanding of systemic racism gave rise to the possibility that our institutions

Release Date: Wednesday, October 6, 2021

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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

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PUZZLE: ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Why I Won’t Choose Between Passion and Productivity MEGHAN DODABALLAPUR MiC Columnist

10/06/21 09/29/21

By Winston Emmons ©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

10/06/21

WHISPER “HI MOM AND DAD I MADE IT IN THE PAPER -J”

Design by Madison Grosvenor

“I know I’m not allowed to say it; I miss you so much.”

Now and then, I stumble upon a new hobby. I have a track record of dropping commitments soon after I decide I want to pursue them, which usually makes me doubt the next will stick for long. Growing up, I was a ballerina, a tap dancer and a cheerleader. I quit all of them adamant that there were other things that needed my time. These “hobbies” are just distractions, I would tell myself. I was partially right, though. I never truly looked forward to doing these things and I never regretted quitting. This was all until I began writing and playing the ukulele.

This time around, I think these hobbies will stick.

I started writing again a few years ago after I finally rebuilt my shattered confidence. All throughout my childhood, adults in my life told me to focus on something other than writing — something I was better at. I willingly listened and searched for a new passion, but in the process, I unwillingly let go of my youthful love for storytelling. In March 2020, I picked up the pen out of boredom and wrote out everything that had been pressing on my mind. I then began writing poems, personal stories, and whatever else came to my mind.

Once I fell back into the practice, I couldn’t believe how I had ever stopped. Writing brought me peace of mind at a time in my life when I didn’t know that it was possible to find peace and it continues to provide this for me.

Over the summer, I wrote just for myself.

One day, I felt satisfied with what I had

written, and when I glanced at the time I realized there was still so much of the day left to fill. I grabbed my phone and did a quick Google search on the easiest instrument to learn. A list of instruments popped up and the first instrument listed was a ukulele.

Without a second thought, I opened up Amazon on a new tab and looked up ukuleles. The screen was filled with varieties of the small, four-string instrument. Each one was covered in mahogany wood and had thin white strings that glowed against the wood. I endlessly scrolled, filled with excitement at the possibility of being able to play an instrument. Eventually one in particular caught my eye. The engraved body was meant to honor Hawaiian body ornamentation. Throughout the summer, I taught myself to play with the help of videos on the internet. Once I was confident in my ability to play, I started to sing along with the music I was making. Day would fade into night as I sat in my room learning strumming patterns and chords for new songs.

I reflect back on what I’ve been doing over the past year and I wonder whether or not I’m wasting my time with these hobbies. I think to myself, you’re just writing incomplete thoughts in a Notes app and calling them poems. There’s no one explicitly telling me I’m wasting my time, but a voice in the back of my head tells me that I could be doing something more productive with my time.

I could be volunteering, or working or doing homework, but instead, I let my entire day slip away as my pinky reaches for the first string of the ukulele to play an E chord.

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Michigan in Color

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Wednesday, October 6, 2021 — 7

Happy bi pride! (whatever that means to you) ANONYMOUS MiC Columnist

Editor’s Note: The author of this article is anonymous for fear of professional retaliation and to resist the heteronormative culture of ‘coming-out.’ 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.

Since its inauguration in 1999, Sept. 23 concludes a week of pride and awareness for those of us who, you know, see on both sides as Frank Ocean put it in his groundbreaking track “Chanel.” But to be honest, this year’s Bisexual Visibility Day passed by quite ordinarily — in fact, I may have completely missed it. The month of June never really held any specific importance to me apart from exercising my eager allyship to the larger LGBTQ+ community because I didn’t quite know where I fit in. That and the rampant commercialization of Pride deepened my hesitation in participating in any form of liberating celebration. Nevertheless, this past Thursday felt eerily quiet. The first tri-colored post appeared on my Twitter feed as I was getting ready to go to bed, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss in letting Bi Visibility Day slip away from me.

Bi Visibility Day was founded by activists Wendy Curry, Michael Page and Gigi Raven Wilbur to address marginalization faced by the bisexual community and to celebrate bi experiences. In addition to providing an opportunity to uplift and recognize members of the bi community, this day of pride is particularly important because of bi-erasure, the questioning and invalidating of one’s bisexuality to the point of de-legitimizing their existence.

This normalized tendency is perpetuated by people within and outside of the LGBTQ+ community, and its impact has led to detrimental effects for individuals who are bisexual. It is a key factor in the higher rates of anxiety and depression present in bi people as compared to gay and lesbian people due to isolation from the community at large. Moreover, bi-erasure threatens the livelihoods of bi people when they are excluded from policies that are meant to protect people on the basis of their sexual identity. In combating bi-erasure, bisexual political activism has come a long way in not only promoting the LGBTQ+ movement as a whole, but also making headway on legislative positions and focused support systems for the community. Working towards bi-visibility within mainstream society is an arduous journey, and at the individual level, it comes with its own unique set of baggage.

LGBTQ+ discourse in the mainstream forces the larger community into the narrative of a sexual binary: homosexual or heterosexual orientation. Bisexual identities, as well as trans identities,

threaten what is accepted as legitimate or appropriate queerness. When seeking visibility, bisexual people are accused of taking up too much queer space. Visibility seems like an inappropriate demand from a group of people who generally have “straight-passing privilege.” But as Hannah McCann eloquently puts it in her piece for Archer Magazine, “Visibility is not about attention, it is about the possibility to exist, and to have one’s existence recognised.” It’s about not feeling the need to neglect, or even hide, a part of one’s identity.

Visibility is complex for those who are bisexual, and oftentimes, it entails the pressure of constantly having to prove our identities to others and to ourselves.

While some feel burdened with the societal expectation to come out, others prefer to never explicitly label themselves.

Regardless of one’s preference to be out, visibility is about the possibility to exist, and that requires a recognition of bisexuality as a valid identity. When that recognition doesn’t exist, it’s easy to internalize the societal discomfort that usually accompanies any orientation that is not monosexual. And at that point, discomfort and all, I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to be celebrating.

Am I celebrating the confusion?

The severe internalized biphobia? The isolation? Being bisexual is nuanced in every way, and everyone has a different journey of discovering — and celebrating — who they are.

For me, Bi Pride is a chance to reflect on my own personal growth and draw inspiration from those who came before me. I wouldn’t be the person I say I am if I didn’t take the time to learn about individuals like Lani Ka’ahumanu.

Ka’ahumanu is a feminist writer and activist whose work on the bisexual movement was published in a national lesbian and gay publication for the very first time in 1987. Her affirmative words encourage me to question why I accept invisibility in my own life. For Ka’ahumanu, coming out as bisexual simply means “I am drawn to particular people regardless of gender. It doesn’t make me wishy-washy, confused, untrustworthy, or more sexually liberated.

It makes me a bisexual.” Similarly, I take pride in Freddie Mercury’s ambiguous sexuality despite facing heavy public scrutiny. His lifelong commitment to avoiding labels entirely and doing exactly what he wanted liberates my own confusion with self-definition. Diverse in their lived experiences, these trailblazers give me possibility — I see a tiny part of my identity within them, and I salute their authenticity.

In retrospect, maybe I do have something to celebrate, sitting tucked away in my little glass closet. And maybe you do, too. The beauty of bisexuality comes from its fluidity, and however you choose to live that truth is entirely up to you. So happy bi pride — whatever that may mean to you.

Design by Udoka Nwansi

Taking back control with CTRL UDOKA NWANSI MiC Columnist

Last year on the morning of my 19th birthday, I walked into a tattoo parlor in Ypsilanti with only one idea in my mind.

I greeted my heavily pierced, tattoo-clad artist at his station with a small piece of paper containing my desired design. He looked up at me with a slightly amused smile, asking, “Just this?” The paper only read four simple letters: Ctrl. A simple design for a professional like himself yet such an emotionally packed word for me.

I confirmed the design, and he began the process. While casually wiping off the mix of blood and ink that trickled down my wrist, he jokingly asked me what made Ctrl so extraordinary to the point that I wanted to have it permanently etched on my body. I laughed, before recounting to him the story of how I fell in love with this album.

When Ctrl was released in 2017, it wasn’t initially on my radar. I remember hearing “Love Galore,” the second single on the album, all over the radio that summer.

The infectious digitally produced synths of the song’s instrumentals coupled with the carefree lyrics of the verses and the fun syncopation that rapper Travis Scott adds to the song quickly made it a favorite for me. Still, I never bothered to listen to the project in full until a friend of mine had posted a raving review of the album on her Instagram page. On my first listen through the album, I was immediately impressed by the production’s brilliance.

SZA’s ethereal vocals float over the electronic R&B instrumentals as she builds this world in which she is the main character, taking back control of her life despite setbacks and inner turmoil.

She incorporates orchestral arrangements and 808 drum beats to weave through genres and create her own take on the neo-soul sound. The first time I listened, I couldn’t relate to much of the profoundly personal subject matter that SZA had relayed on the album. The topics of love, angst and sexuality were far too complicated for my 15-yearold self. However, I knew that I could admire a good album when I heard one.

As I grew older and developed more complex feelings about myself and my interpersonal relationships, I came to appreciate Ctrl even more.

The album feels almost like a sonic diary. There is a deep level of vulnerability on each and every song, which I think distinguishes Ctrl, her debut studio album, from her prior mixtape, Z. SZA dives even deeper with Ctrl, uncovering the uncomfortable truths about womanhood and facing them with a tone of boldness. She even goes as far as to include recordings from phone calls with her mother and late grandmother, which serve as interludes throughout the album. I find solace in songs like “Normal Girl,” which addresses fleeting feelings of inadequacy and estrangement. On the track, SZA longs for the normalcy that comes with being a girl who cleanly fits into societal standards. On the chorus, she wishes that she were just a “normal girl,” while simultaneously acknowledging that she will probably never adhere to the conventional guidelines of desirability. This song hits very close to home for me because, as a Black woman, I understand her as she impeccably articulates the feelings of frustration and insecurity that can arise at the intersection of these identities.

My favorite verse from “Normal Girl”

is, “This time next year I’ll be living so good, won’t remember no pain, I swear.” I often find myself in fistfights with feelings of imposter syndrome. Whether it be in academia, where a majority of my peers don’t come from the same background as me, or even in social settings, where I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb, I’m always trying to prove to myself that I am where I’m supposed to be. When I hear this line, it feels like words of reassurance to a future version of myself, a promise that these feelings of self-doubt will fade with time. While imposter syndrome will surely return to me at some point, this verse reminds me that no hardship will last forever.

By the end of the brief session, I had talked my tattoo artist’s ear off with my full dissertation on the beauties of Ctrl.

As I was leaving, he promised me that he would give it a listen. I look forward to following up with him when I go back to the parlor to get my tattoo touched up later this year. I hope he was able to hear at least a fraction of the artistry that I do whenever I listen to the album. Whether it’s sitting in my room, having a cathartic cry to “Supermodel” or driving in my car yelling the lyrics to “Drew Barrymore” with my closest friends, this album is a piece of art that carries me through the highs and lows in my life. I consider Ctrl an extension of my own thoughts — an album that puts the most inexplicable yet visceral emotions that I feel into words. The same melodies and lyrics that I’ve heard hundreds of times still resonate with me just as deeply every time. I’ve grown with this album and my experiences are permanently intertwined with its narrative. The tattoo that now lives on my wrist serves as a physical reminder of this.

Identity awareness HUGO QUINTANA MiC Columnist

By Andrew Nakamura, MiC Columnist

If you’ve been planning a new project or pondering other career ventures, now is the time to actually explore those ideas and get to work. You may find romantic interest and/or creative inspiration in your classes or travels.

Venus enters Sagittarius and your third house of communication, indicating a great time to socialize.

Use this opportunity to make friends and have fun engaging in interesting and intellectual conversations.

If you’ve been considering pursuing love or signing a contract, now is the time to commit. When Venus enters Sagittarius and your sixth house, you may feel the urge to be creative, but you have nowhere to channel your energy. You should try to implement a creative outlet into your schedule.

You may have been thinking about trying new courses or studying abroad. Now is the time to take action toward those plans.

You may also let go of a creative idea that you’ve held onto, but you might find that your next piece of inspiration turns out more fruitful than the last.

You’ve been ruminating on your thoughts for a long time, Scorpio. You are much more intelligent and articulate than you might let on since you are so guarded. When your ruling planet Pluto stations direct in your third house of communication and intelligence, you’ll finally get the chance to showcase your intelligence in conversations and projects.

You may have been planning a new start, and now is your time to take action. You have total control over your appearance and your leadership, so be confident in yourself and your abilities.

When Venus enters your twelfth house of imagination, your creativity will shine.

Now is the time to explore any ideas for new creative projects.

Although you are certainly not lacking any charisma, Saturn’s direct station in your seventh house of partnerships indicates difficulties in finding romantic and/or professional relationships. Perhaps you should put yourself in others’ shoes and assess the best way to appeal to them.

As a Gemini, you’re constantly exploring different interests and maneuvering your personality in order to fit in with any crowd. But is there something you’ve been repressing? Despite this, now is a great time to meet new people and form both romantic and professional relationships.

When Venus enters your fourth house of home and family, use this boost in creative energy to redecorate your space. This is also a good time to talk to your family and reconnect with childhood friends.

You have the power to transform your ideas into great pieces of work; just set your inhibitions aside and start.

When Pluto stations direct in your second house of possessions, your creative pursuits will finally begin to manifest. You love to explore different future prospects and meet new people, and now is a great time for that.

You may find creative inspiration in technology, social media and/or social justice. Aquarians are known to have extremely original ideas, so use this opportunity to get inspired and create something great.

Immense creativity and an active imagination are some of your strongest assets, and Venus’s entrance into Sagittarius puts those skills to use. With Venus in your tenth house of career ambitions, you can bring all of your wildest dreams to your work. However, when Saturn stations direct in your twelfth house you may struggle to manifest your creative ideas.

My siblings and I have been best friends since I can remember.

Attending the same schools together, traveling back and forth between our mom’s and dad’s and constantly fighting has strongly bonded us.

Though the three of us were born within a three-year period, our experiences of identity realization have been vastly different. Up until 2010, we all went to St. Patrick’s Catholic School in Joliet, Illinois.

Despite being in an area with a large Latinx — specifically Mexican — population, my siblings and I were some of the only Latinx students in the entire school, with the administration and staff calling us the Infamous Quintana Trio.

My memories of the predominantly white school are filled with images of my peers and me all dressed in white polos and navy blue pants, or checkered jumpers and skirts, running around the playground, attending weekly morning mass and hoping that the after-school program snack-of-the-day would be peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

As a child, I didn’t feel or understand the social issues surrounding such a setting. I enjoyed my time at the school and the education they offered me — even if I do live with Catholic guilt now. Looking back at those years, though, I realize that not being otherized for my identity at such a young age is a great privilege that not many children of color experience.

Since the school was on its way toward closure due to a lack of funds, every grade had only one designated

classroom and teacher.

From preschool to the third grade, the same twenty-something of us would travel down the hall to the next classroom from year to year. In the process of writing this article, I began to think of the many students in my class throughout the years and can vividly remember the few students of color.

I never felt prejudiced or oppressed due to my skin color, and I know that many other students of color cannot relate to the lack of identity awareness I experienced.

After talking to my sister about St. Pat’s, however, I started to understand the privilege associated with not being forced to realize you’re different from the white people.

The most important developmental period of her life was marked by bullying, racism and trauma — while for me, this same time was marked by joy and naivety. When I first asked her if she ever faced oppression because of being Mexican at school, her immediate response was, “I was called a gorilla because of my arms in kindergarten. So yes.” After this, I began reevaluating these interactions more generally. What experiences force people of color at a young age to understand their identities as different or other? Whenever I am asked about my time at St. Pat’s, I honestly only think of the good times.

Whether it’s because I didn’t attend the school for as long as my sister did, or simply don’t remember any instances of racism, I wanted to know what made my awareness of identity surface so much later than hers.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Opinion

8 — Wednesday, October 6, 2021

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Saltwater awakening ELIZABETH WOLFE Opinion Columnist

I

’ve never considered myself to be well-versed in the language of travel. I can remember the finer details, but they only leave a faint impression. For me, the experience is defined by my emotions, not the other way around. However, looking back on my childhood, I treated vacations as a semi-conscious experience, enjoyed in the moment and then mostly forgotten, with nothing but the feeling to be savored. The goal was to numb my mind as a means of escapism. And in 2014, my family desperately needed an escape.

Near the end of May, my mom was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer. She wouldn’t have her first surgery until July and until then we wouldn’t know whether or not she needed chemotherapy (we would later find out she didn’t). Suddenly normality had an end date. In the meantime, we continued on with a sense of caution, trying not to dwell on the worst possible outcome.

Myrtle Beach, S.C., was poised as our temporary escape. We had spent many weeks in the summer by the different lakes of Northern Michigan, but never had we stayed by the ocean.

My sister and I were excited; our dad was afraid. We weren’t very good swimmers and shark sightings were common. But we were going with family friends who’d frequented the area. We would be safe and, most importantly, have time as a normal family before the inevitable.

Not everything could be frozen in time. I was having my own development; I was beginning to grow into a woman. I had been getting periods for a few months now, I got my first bottle of tinted moisturizer, I graduated to bras from PINK. I was growing aware of my

own sexuality, but I was still a child and I wanted to stay that way. It was a delusion, thinking I could maintain control.

Myrtle Beach had a pulse unlike anywhere I’d ever been. Vacations for us were usually spent in the isolation of a cottage or private resort. I’d never seen such a wide range of experiences all occurring within a few feet of each other: strolling families with tiny children, college-aged friends stumbling drunk, adults struggling with addiction and homelessness. Of them all, I was most oblivious to the attitudes of young adults, mostly the men, but I could feel their electric energy as they cruised down the road next to the hotel. It both scared and excited me.

The hotel itself was bare, but we didn’t mind. We spent most of our time by the ocean and hotel pools. The beach itself was expectedly remarkable. The saltwater stung my eyes, but I kept going back in until I could barely see and my skin burned. We drank nonalcoholic piña coladas and pretended they were real. Mom and Dad floated with us down a circular lazy river, again and again for hours.

Across the road, a greenpainted cafe with soft booths and air conditioning balanced out the excitement of the beach. Smiles and soft South Carolina drawls greeted us when we entered. We made conversation with the waiters and other customers, where we were from, where we were going and what grits are exactly.

It was sweet. It was almost real, my mind subdued at last. It was the road around the hotel that awoke me from my dreamlike haze.

Night or broad daylight, it made no difference. We’d be walking between our hotel and our friends’, tankinis on and towels draped around our shoulders.

Cars honking as they whizz by.

Who are they honking at?

Male passengers lean out of the car.

Are they looking at us?

“Hey sexy!”

Who are they yelling at?

“Dance for us!”

Oh. “Don’t wear your bathing suits near here anymore,” warned our parents as they herded us inside.

It happened anyway, every day, multiple times a day.

I had never been sexually harassed before. I didn’t even know what those words meant. But I felt them and I was embarrassed and confused. Is it wrong to be wearing this swimsuit in public?

Didn’t they notice that our parents were right next to us? Didn’t they know we were children, just 12 and 14 years old? I had so many questions, some of which still I don’t know the answers to and probably never will.

Beneath my discomfort, a sense of pride blossomed. I knew their words were not motivated by kindness, yet I felt almost complimented.

I wondered if those reactions meant I was pretty. Insecurity inspired my thoughts; as a child just starting puberty, I relied on others for confidence. But as I gained awareness of myself and the realities facing me, the pride slowly melted away, leaving nothing but shame.

Though lacking the vocabulary to describe it accurately, during that trip I realized the pervasiveness of anonymity in public spaces; the sound moves quickly and the source escapes into the crowd of people or into the air with a speeding bike or car. You may never see their face, but you’ve been violated.

It would be nonsensical to blame Myrtle Beach as an entity or even as an idea. Its quick and loose atmosphere doesn’t cause catcalling, rather people abuse those qualities.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

UMich students, let’s address burnout together LIZZY PEPPERCORN Opinion Columnist

F

our weeks into the new school year, the word burnout may seem like an inappropriate term to describe the typical University of Michigan student. The transition back to in-person school from online classes and extracurriculars, however, is challenging. In the past year, clubs and classes often were less structured and offered much more flexibility with asynchronous lectures, opennote exams and forgiving attendance policies.

“Last year while everything was online, I decided to join a couple more clubs and start working in a research lab,” LSA junior Alexa Samani said. “I felt that I had enough time to do everything I wanted to; however, now that mostly everything is in person, I feel very overwhelmed with the amount of time taken up by classes and extracurriculars.”

Asynchronous classes allowed some students to create their own schedules and, occasionally, take online exams open-note. While asynchronous options were often necessary to adapt to the changing needs of students and professors during the COVID-19 pandemic, these classes may have caused some students to go over a year without practicing their organizational or study skills. Similarly, some clubs and other extracurriculars were less demanding during the pandemic since they often consisted of entirely virtual participation. While the return of structure and normalcy is a relief to many students and faculty, the sudden change may put students at higher risk of burning out. Taking the steps to recognize the

challenges of returning to campus and preventing burnout before it happens can help students transition with much less stress.

Burnout can be defined as “a negative emotional, physical and mental reaction to prolonged study that results in exhaustion, frustration, lack of motivation and reduced ability in school.” Once you reach the point of burnout, it is difficult to jump back into a positive and productive mindset. While it may feel as though the normal, busy routine of college life shouldn’t necessarily cause burnout, students need to give themselves time to adjust or they will risk overextending themselves.

It has been over a year since everything was in person — as we transition back, every facet of student life feels intensified.

“Starting summer job and internship recruitment in person is much more stressful because you are constantly around other people talking about it and comparing experiences,” explained LSA junior Hannah Shipley.

Some students may be more prone to burnout than others due to other compounding factors, causing students that do struggle to question the validity of their experiences.

“The monotony of having to be on Zoom and my laptop for over eight hours a day every weekday for the last few semesters made me feel mentally fatigued and burnt out much quicker than I had ever felt before,” LSA junior Ali Abdalla said.

“Having in-person classes forces me to go outside and see the sun on my way to class and generally motivates me to study or do work outside of my house.” It is important that even students who do not expect burnout from in-person learning

understand the stress others may be experiencing. The entire University of Michigan community should be empathetic toward those who are struggling and take steps to prevent burnout.

On the surface level, there are basic steps students can take to prevent burnout. These include making time for enjoyable activities and socializing, exercising, getting outside, developing relationships with professors, avoiding procrastination, improving time management and maintaining a work-life balance.

More specifically, however, it is essential that leaders of organizations reevaluate the structures and systems that existed prior to COVID-19 to allow students the time to readjust.

Continuing to offer flexibility and empathy for members is essential because it can help students find their proper work-life balance and manage their time more effectively.

Students must also advocate for themselves and their own needs.

Communicating with professors and student organization leaders about struggles instead of ignoring them and pushing forward allows for a more productive environment.

Club leaders and professors can then understand what their students are experiencing and help students succeed while having their personal needs met.

Burnout has always been a challenge for college students, and it is likely every person will experience burnout at some point in their life, whether in school or their career.

However, the sudden transition from online to in-person life elevates the risk of burning out considerably. It is essential that all members of the U-M community recognize the unique challenges of this semester and take the steps to prevent burnout now.

Design by SoJung Ham

It’s time for a national service JULIAN BARNARD Opinion Senior Editor

H

ey you! Do you want to explore the world?

Do you want to do interesting things with interesting people? Do you want to get paid to do it? I’d like to tell you how you can, all while helping out your fellow Americans. Our country faces many problems, but today, I would like to focus on just three of them. The first is polarization. We are more divided than we have been in recent memory, and this polarization seems to spread to a new sector of our society every day. The second is physical infrastructure. Our roads are covered with potholes, many of our public housing developments are in states of disrepair and the majesty of our national parks is obscured by decaying infrastructure. Finally, our young people are more aimless than they have been in recent history.

There is a solution to all of these things, and it is a robust national service program. It is time that we, as a country, invest in one year of service for 18-year-olds to do work that needs to be done, cut down polarization and help millions of young people find their ways in life.

What do I mean by a national service? I mean enlisting every 18-year-old and sending them off to work in a different part of the country for a year. Filling potholes in Kentucky, giving vaccines in New York or killing invasive snakes in Florida. These are just a few of the things they will be doing, each new public servant will be given a stipend of around $500 a month, as well as food and housing to go along with it. I, along with many before me, propose that every person who graduates high school should be expected to serve, barring any major exceptions such as health problems or childcare responsibilities.

Our country is more divided now than it has been in recent history.

A smaller and smaller number of

Americans can say they have people close to them with differing political views. Exposing young Americans to people with different views will do good for developing a more tolerant, less polarized society. We saw a similar effect occur when the military was desegregated in 1948.

Units that were desegregated showed more tolerant behavior towards those different from themselves, and unit performance improved. For many historical reasons, we are a politically polarized country.

Democrats and Republicans shop at different stores and work different jobs. We need a program to funnel young people together, even if only for 12 months, so that the next generation of Americans with different social identities can recognize each other’s shared humanity.

We live in a time with sky-high rates of teen depression. Many young people are aimless, often selfmedicating the empty feeling they experience with drugs and alcohol.

A national service would allow young people to connect with their labor in a way not possible throughout schooling. It allows them to socialize with other young people while also affirming their commitment to making a better world for their neighbors. Research has demonstrated that service for others is rewarding both because of the immediate feel-good effects of doing something good, but also because of the beneficial social relationships that people gain through it.

Ignoring the benefits to the conscripts, our country still has a lot of work to do. Take infrastructure for example. The American Society of Civil Engineers reports that 43% of our nation’s roads are in either poor or mediocre condition. Our national parks are also in states of disrepair, with billions of dollars of repairs needed to get them up to snuff. Rivers are polluted, the unhoused are suffering and forest fires are rampant. There is so much good that approximately 3.5 million civil service foot soldiers could do

for a nation with problems like ours.

A model for this sort of program can be found in the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s. The CCC did some of the most important work of the 20th century, and it is our duty to make sure that their work does not go to waste by allowing our country to wallow in disrepair.

Some critics cite this kind of program’s financial cost. But the cost of this program, even if it reaches the $75 billion mark, will be worth it several times over. It doesn’t just benefit the participants; it also enhances the ability of the federal government to get things done.

We absolutely can expect that the government will be able to utilize these millions of young people doing their national service to all areas of the government. For example, the price of running the CDC will go down because the custodian will be someone doing their national service, or the price of getting seniors their social security payments will fall because the front desk assistant at the social security office will be someone serving their country. This hopefully wouldn’t displace current, often unionized, government workers, but instead, would add on to the capacity of the government to do good.

I support a national service because we have millions of unfulfilled young people and millions of potholes to fill, trees to plant and homeless shelters to build. The cost is negligible compared to the desperate need. Many other developed nations have an expectation of service, like South Korea and Sweden, but unlike them, we wouldn’t require service in the armed forces. I know that I would have loved a government-mandated gap year between high school and college, and I imagine many of my peers would have as well. Even the most put-together young people need time to breathe, decompress and evaluate. And what better way to do it than building paths on a beautiful Montana mountainside with Americans of all colors, creeds and abilities.

Accessibility in inaccessible times SIDDHARTH PARMAR Opinion Columnist

W

alk around campus, and you’ll see people in varying stages of leaving the pandemic behind. Some might be roaming around without masks, basking in the sunshine.

Most would be heading to an in-person class or to a library to study. After sundown, they might trade the library for a frat party.

Then there are Saturdays, with clogged streets and a Big House full of more than 100,000 people cheering on our Wolverines. Even the buses are going back to their pre-pandemic routes.

Coming into this semester, I wanted this. I wanted a taste of the normal college experience, rather than the pandemic-affected, virtual one I ended up getting. We weren’t usual sophomores; most of us were as unaware as freshmen about Ann Arbor. The University of Michigan understood that this might be a common sentiment among the class of 2024 and included us in many Welcome Week events.

It was almost intimidating to be around people at first. The pandemic had left us socially rusty. But apart from some initial awkwardness, we all slowly got used to the small social interactions that are part of the classroom experience.

Just as I started settling in, a second pandemic-induced behavior crept up: hyperalertness towards coughing and similar

COVID-19 symptoms. The echoing sound of so many people coughing brought some uneasiness, but I brushed it aside. After all, weren’t we all vaccinated and masked up?

It’s probably not COVID-19, I told myself.

Then people in my hall started getting sent to quarantine. There was a spike of COVID-19 cases, with the first two weeks of classes seeing over 460 documented positive cases. It became a part of my waking up routine to read a few COVID-19 notification emails, either of a COVID-19 case in my dorm or in one of my classes. The emails didn’t have much useful information (with no mention of which class, making it very vague if you had multiple large lectures on the same day), but they got COVID-19 back on my mind.

I started thinking about what I’d do if I contracted the virus.

While vaccines certainly do a great job at preventing severe disease, a positive test result would still end up sidelining anyone for 10-14 days.

I went on Canvas and checked if all my classes uploaded recordings.

I was very disappointed to find out that almost half of mine did not. Additionally, some of the recordings that were uploaded had issues like the microphone not being turned on.

What makes this worse is that a lot of professors enforce lecture attendance. How are students who are quarantining supposed to stay in compliance? Or even stay on top of coursework?

Before the pandemic, this would be inconvenient but

excusable. Many professors may lack the know-how to record their classes, or classrooms might not be equipped to do so. However, after two and a half remote semesters, this excuse doesn’t hold water.

We’ve handled classes over Zoom where professors had to handle massive online meetings. Many buildings have also had equipment upgrades to support Lecture Capture (the lecture recording program connected to Canvas which can also simultaneously record the class slides) covering most classrooms used by LSA and College of Engineering courses.

Set-up is also relatively easy compared to managing vast online meetings, with professors needing to request time slots for recordings and wearing the recorder when the time comes. For lecturers and professors who aren’t comfortable, training is also provided.

One might argue that putting in the effort to make recording classes more widespread might not be so urgent now. COVID-19 case numbers have fallen after the initial spike, but I would counter that this is something that will help students long after the pandemic is over. Students will no longer feel forced to go to classes when feeling ill to avoid missing out on content.

It boils down to a choice. Do we try to go back to exactly how things were before the pandemic and forget everything? Or do we try to keep the good things we learned?

As the semester progresses, I hope the University opts to go more often with the latter.

Sports

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Fliegner highlights Michigan performance in Wolverine Invitational against Notre Dame against a girl who’s going to play For The Daily high for them. We didn’t see her much last year After two shortened because of COVID, but she seasons, the Michigan was very impressive. Really women’s tennis team was everybody was, I was proud finally able to make their of the whole group and how long awaited return to a full they competed.”

Fliegner would finish 7-0, slate of matches this fall with the Wolverine Invitational as but her final match was the most difficult of the weekend. their third event of the year.

The Wolverines hosted Notre Dame’s Page Freeman Michigan State, Ohio State, jumped out to a two game Notre Dame, Arizona State lead to start the match, and Western Michigan at including a break in the first the three-day meet this past game. Fliegner broke back to weekend. The Wolverines make it 3-3, but later had her had a positive overall record back against the wall with Freeman serving with a 5-4 lead.

After a crucial break and hold from Fliegner, Freeman was down 6-5 and had to win her serve to force a seven point set tiebreak.

However, at 30-40, she double-faulted to lose the set 7-5.

The second set was also back and forth, GRACE BEAL/Daily but Fliegner never In their final non-scoring tune-up, the Michigan gave up the lead women’s tennis team won the Michigan Invitational. and cleaned up the for the event with a total of match to win, 7-5, 6-3.

The invitational was 17 wins and nine losses. The event didn’t count for team capped off with a gritty three points but remains important set win from junior Nicole to see how each of the players Hammond against Arizona stand before the ITA All- State’s Cali Jankowski. After American Championships a 6-1 first set loss, Hammond next week. Potential doubles commanded the rest of the teams had an opportunity match and never again gave to build chemistry in a up the lead in either of the competitive environment final two sets. The 1-6, 6-2, and the players received one 6-3, Wolverine win ended the event with a statement of their first big tests.

The team started with a comeback.

Although the Wolverine strong first day, going 5-1 in Invitational was nondoubles and 4-1 in singles.

“We brought competitive scoring, Michigan now has teams in here and I feel like momentum that it will look we got a high level of play,” to carry forward into the Michigan coach Ronni rest of the season. Five of Bernstein said. “They’ve the Wolverine’s top players been practicing hard, and it will travel to South Carolina next week and compete in showed that first day”.

Michigan’s biggest the Michigan’s first scoring bright spot was undefeated event of the season.

“I’m going to use this freshman Julia Fliegner who finished the weekend with a event as a confidence point,” 4-0 singles and 3-0 doubles Fliegner said. “When I’m in tough points in next week’s record.

“She had an unbelievable tournament I’m definitely weekend,” Bernstein said. going to think back to here “It was a great match and how I played.”

JOSEPH ZAIN RODGER

Wednesday, October 6, 2021 — 9

Increased speed evident in Michigan’s first game Hughes to make the most of his ice time.

Daily Sports Writer The same rang true for senior forward Jimmy Lambert, whose speed looked deadly in the bottom six.

Legendary hockey coach Herb Lambert, Hughes and junior forward Brooks used to yell “legs feed the wolf” Eric Ciccolini swarmed Rose as the at his 1980 Olympic team. first period waned. With a little over In 2020, the Michigan hockey 50 seconds on the clock, all three team’s roster featured skill on both crashed the net as Bowling Green’s ends of the ice. But still, its legs couldn’t defenders could only watch. Before deliver a feast every night against faster they could even poke opponents like Minnesota their sticks at the loose and Wisconsin. puck, the red light cast a If last Saturday’s 7-1 glowing aura on the goal. exhibition win over The Wolverines’ speed Bowling Green is any won again. indication, though, the Speed in the bottom Wolverines could be a few six could be an X-factor strides ahead this season. against tough opponents.

From the early minutes As Michigan’s stars draw of the game, speed the undivided attention dominated Michigan’s of opposing defensemen, game plan.

When speed like Lambert’s sophomore forward can bring advantages Matty Beniers found against worn-out sophomore forward Kent players. That difference Johnson alone at center could lead to secondary ice, Johnson used his legs scoring in close contests, to widen the gap between something that didn’t himself and the Falcons often happen in intense defenders. That gave games last year. him plenty of time to fool While there’s no Bowling Green goaltender guarantee that this speed Zach Rose as a quick flick will stack up against of his stick deposited the teams like Duluth or first goal of the season.

The same legwork ALLISON ENGVIST/Daily Minnesota — teams full of talent and conditioned that led to the goal also Jimmy Lambert added speed to Michigan’s roster this weekend in it’s exhibition matchup against Bowling Green. to a T — the increase in extended many of the Wolverines’ scoring threats. As hard split second during the first period, defensemen playing that far up would speed could bode well for forcing the shots ricocheted off Rose, the puck Michigan set up a 1-3-1 power play. get burned. But Hughes’s confidence pace of play down the line. With as skittered toward the boards where the Bowling Green couldn’t account for in his skating ability proved effective much talent as this roster boasts, the Falcons’ defensemen had a chance to the ensuing flurry of quick passes, and as he chased down anyone that Wolverines can turn that speed into slipped by him with ease. That kind of additional goals. dump it out. Michigan’s speed often Brisson skated away with a goal.

If Michigan can keep up its speed, The Wolverines’ transition game confidence — a trait Michigan coach won out in the ensuing footraces and, combined with their physical relied on its speed advantage. Quick Mel Pearson said reminded him of the wolf will be eating more often than strides down the wings opened up his brother Quinn Hughes — allows not. presence, it generated plenty of shots.

CONNOR EAREGOOD

“Every team is going to be prescouting our skill,” sophomore forward Brendan Brisson said on Friday after the game. “But it’s about playing hard in the hard areas, getting pucks deep when we have to and getting pucks back quicker so we can use our skill in the right moments.”

On Saturday, the Wolverines executed those offensive moves faster than they did last season. In a

clean odd-man rushes and lagging defenders couldn’t break up the zone entries that led to long offensive setups. Michigan controlled the pace of play all game by using that speed, unlike last season.

Freshman defenseman Luke Hughes played a prominent role in that, lurking closer to the top of the faceoff circle even when the Falcons threatened a breakout. Many

Michigan men’s soccer completes comeback for 2-1 OT victory MARK PATRICK

Daily Sports Writer

The game was in a deadlock, neither team converting their chances. That is, until 21 minutes into the second half, when Michigan men’s soccer team junior defender Brennan Callow got called for a tripping foul, setting up an Indiana penalty kick. Forward Victor Bezerra buried the shot to make it a 1-0 game.

The Wolverines (5-4-1 overall, 2-1-0 Big Ten) played the Hoosiers (5-3-1, 2-2-0) in Bloomington, Ind., on Friday night. Looking for their second straight Big Ten victory, they found themselves trailing late in the second half. But following a game-saving goal in the 81st minute, Michigan forced it into overtime, where senior forward Derick Broche

would score to win the game, 2-1.

The first half of the game was controlled by Indiana, which connected on deep passes to set up scoring opportunities and allowed its forwards to create traffic in front of the Wolverines’ net.

“They kind of worked our goalkeepers and we did not do that from our standpoint,” Michigan head coach Chaka Daley said.

Despite their abundance of chances, the Hoosiers couldn’t capitalize on any of them.

Wolverines freshman goaltender Hayden Evans was up to the challenge, making three first-half saves.

With almost a minute left in the first half, Indiana defender Daniel Munie worked his way to the front of the net for a clean shot. Evans, however, made a huge stop in front of the net to keep the game scoreless

heading into halftime.

Michigan wished to have more scoring chances in the first half.

Instead, it was rewarded with stellar play from their goaltender.

Every time the Hoosiers made a shot on net, Evans came up with the save, finishing the game with seven total saves.

Nine minutes into the second half, Indiana moved the ball down the field to find forward Maouloune Goumballe wide open for an almost certain goal on the right side of the net. But at the last second, Evans deflected the ball out of bounds with the fingertips of his gloves.

“Evans was strong and solid,” Daley said. “He gave us a chance when it was 0-0.”

Following Callow’s goal, it appeared as if the Hoosiers were going to walk away victorious. The momentum was heavily on their

side, with the home crowd also providing energy. But Michigan did not fold. After booting the ball deep into Indiana’s defensive third, junior forward Evan Rasmussen scored a critical goal to tie the game.

“We caused them some problems,” Daley said. “It was not a comfortable afternoon for their guys in the back.”

The momentum carried into overtime as the Wolverines were able to get the ball into the Hoosiers’ zone. Rasmussen sent a corner kick into the box, which found the head of senior defender Declan Gaffney.

Gaffney sent the ball to Broche, who knocked in the overtime winner, their first shot of overtime.

“We asked a lot of questions, we asked more questions than they could answer,” Daley said. “That was ultimately the difference in the end.”

Through drop-in adaptive sports, UM ASAF bridges gap in community GRAYSON BUNING

Daily Sports Writer

For years, Eddie Elinburg was the go-to guy.

“If you called me at three in the morning, I’d be there to change your tire,” Elinburg said. “People counted on me.”

But since losing both of his legs in a hit-and-run vehicle accident in 2011, things have been different for Elinburg.

“Now, I have to go to others for help,” Elinburg said. “I just wasn’t used to that. There were some pretty hard times.”

Through sports, however, Elinburg was able to begin restoring balance to his life. Individual sports like pool, darts and horseshoes came first. Once he had mastered those, Elinburg began to seek out other adaptive sports, hoping to challenge himself and boost his fitness.

Unfortunately, these opportunities were few and far between. Despite his motivation, Elinburg struggled to find any adaptive sports programs in Canton, Mich., where he lives. At one point, Elinburg frequently took days off work and to make the hourlong trip to Lansing, just to take part in a few hours of adaptive sports programming at Michigan State.

This summer, Michigan’s Adaptive Sports and Fitness (ASAF) program began hosting biweekly wheelchair basketball and tennis drop-in sessions open to Michigan staff, faculty, and students, as well as all members of the community. Through this programming, a full 10 years after his injury, Elinburg finally gained the reliable, local access to competitive adaptive sports programming he had

While providing a space for of charge while also providing sport that’s where I feel the most value so desired. individuals to participate in adaptive wheelchairs and other equipment to “When (they) reached out, my comes.”

For Michigan ASAF Assistant sport is an important step toward all who need it. head lit up like a Christmas tree,” “Even if it was free to play but you Elinburg said. “I don’t know who sent Director Erik Robeznieks, experiences Robeznieks’s goal, it’s not enough the email, but I want to thank them like Elinburg’s and Stark’s are precisely on its own to ensure that individuals had to bring your own equipment, I think the numbers would drop for that, because that’s what’s keeping why hosting consistent drop-in who want to play can do so.

For example, sport wheelchairs significantly,” Stark said. “I couldn’t programming has been such an me happy.” are shockingly expensive. This play. I don’t own a sports chair. Even Elinburg attended wheelchair important goal for the program. for those in the disability basketball practices community who do have jobs, consistently throughout the you have to spend so much of summer, improving markedly your money on medical care as a player with the help of and things like that — it makes a veteran player-coaches Alex world of difference to be able to Saleh and Spencer Heslop. In play for free.” fact, despite only having begun Echoed Elinburg: “Right playing wheelchair basketball now, if this wasn’t free, the recently, Elinburg will suit up activity I’d be doing is probably for Michigan this fall as part of nothing.” the program’s first ever NWBA The obstacles to providing team. equitable access to sports and While Elinburg’s story is fitness don’t stop with finances. rounded out by a happy ending, Many without disabilities simply his struggle to find adaptive lack an understanding of why sports and fitness opportunities providing adaptive sports is such is unfortunately common a vital part of any community, among individuals with leading to a lack of motivation disabilities. among organizations and “I was injured just over five institutions to really do anything years ago and I’ve been trying about the problem. To that end, to scope out adaptive sports the program stresses that the programs ever since,” said programming is open to all, Laura Stark, a fellow Canton regardless of disability status. resident and Elinburg’s soon“Through drop-ins, we can to-be NWBA teammate. “I feel bring adaptive sports to life like they’re there, but they’re not advertised well.”

COURTESY OF GRAYSON BUNING in a sense,” Robeznieks said.

Stark, like Elinburg, was a The UM ASAF program offers free drop-in adaptive sports programming open to students and Ann “We can actually get people involved and allow them to frequent drop-in attendee this Arbor community members.

“By hosting these sessions, we’re cost, combined with the fact that form a personal connection with summer and has taken quickly to wheelchair basketball. While she’s trying to leverage our status as part individuals with disabilities are adaptive sports. That will allow them always been active, she longed for the of a great sporting and academic employed at approximately one-tenth to … change whatever preexisting bias opportunity to play as part of a team. institution like the University of the rate of those without, creates an they may have, and it will allow them “Wheelchair basketball is a Michigan to address the gap that insurmountable financial barrier for to appreciate adaptive sports for the sake of its skill and the athletic ability community,” Stark said. “A lot of other exists in the community for people many.

To address this, with donor that is required to participate.” adaptive sports I’ve played in the past with physical disabilities to engage Added Stark: “Bringing in people are single player, where it’s only up in recreation, leisure and competitive support, the ASAF program offers their programming completely free outside of the disability community to you. But when I play team sports, adaptive sport,” Robeznieks said.

is great because it shows that the sport is just as difficult this way as it is when played by able-bodied people.

I hope that people will start to see that a wheelchair isn’t just a piece of medical equipment — anyone who wants to play wheelchair basketball needs a wheelchair. I think that will do a lot for awareness.”

While Robeznieks stresses that the most important goal of the drop-in programming is to provide equitable access to sports and fitness, he also hopes that by opening the program’s doors to all members of the community, they can accelerate the development of an elite-level wheelchair basketball team.

“We’re only going to be able to form competitive intercollegiate teams if we’re able to recruit athletes,” Robeznieks said. “But a common problem that we’ve had in trying to recruit athletes is them telling us to come back when we have a team.”

By participating in the NWBA’s adult division, the program will be able to field a team of both Michigan students and local community members. This way, the program can market itself to prospective athletes as having an established squad. Eventually, after the program can field a team in the intercollegiate division, this more recreational adultdivision level team can continue to serve as a competitive outlet for community members like Elinburg and Stark.

After the success of dropin programming this summer, Michigan ASAF plans to continue offering wheelchair basketball, wheelchair tennis and adaptive track and field sessions indefinitely — still free and still open to all, with or without disabilities.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Sports

Wednesday, October 6, 2021 — 10

The Wolverines are a contender, just like they thought they’d be

MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily Displaying skill and precision on top of sheer speed, Roman Wilson has shown his growth as a receiver so far this season.

Roman Wilson’s big day shows how far he’s come DANIEL DASH

Daily Sports Editor

Coming out of high school, football fans knew Roman Wilson as a burner.

Considering his 4.37 40-yard dash time, that reputation was warranted.

But during Saturday’s 38-17 win over Wisconsin, the sophomore wide receiver stood out for other reasons.

His team-leading six catches and 81 yards were a product of crisp route running and separation rather than pure speed. Both marks also set a new career-high, a testament to his connection with junior quarterback Cade McNamara. “(Wilson) is growing leaps and bounds,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said Saturday. “… It’s almost like some of those X-Men movies, where the little kid or the teenage X-Man finds their power.

Now they know they have it, and they’re using it. It’s really exciting to watch as a coach.”

Watching Wilson’s high school film, it doesn’t take long to notice a trend. The Hawaii native made a name for himself as a national recruit by repeatedly burning defensive backs over the top, helping Saint Louis High School win four consecutive state titles. Wilson racked up long touchdowns during the fall and spent the spring running sprints and jumping for the school’s track and field team.

But during his first two years in Ann Arbor, he’s grown in ways beyond blazing speed. Wilson is no longer just a deep threat, and some of his most important catches for the Wolverines so far have come on short and intermediate throws.

Take Saturday, for example. With Michigan facing a 4th-and-two near midfield, McNamara hit Wilson in stride on a short out route to move the sticks. At another point, McNamara took a downfield shot to Wilson, who timed the ball perfectly for a leaping catch on 3rd-and-10.

“Roman Wilson, of anybody, had the best day,” Harbaugh said Monday.

“Offensive player of the game, et cetera. Fabulous-type catches.”

Wilson no longer has to rely on speed alone to make an impact on Saturdays. After developing the footwork to run short routes to perfection and the skills to make contested catches against physical Big Ten cornerbacks, he’s proven himself as a versatile threat.

Senior wideout Ronnie Bell’s season-ending knee injury left the team’s receiving corps with plenty of questions, but Wilson’s emergence has provided an answer. He lacks Bell’s experience, but his rapid growth has allowed him to find consistency over the first half of the season.

“I don’t know how much you can really tell from just looking at somebody’s eyes, but the demeanor,” Harbaugh said. “And then he’s catching the ball. Getting open, catching the ball, blocking. His blocking has improved so much.”

In just five weeks, Wilson has already matched his reception total and surpassed his yardage total from last season. And as he comes into his own, the Wolverines are reaping the benefits of establishing yet another offensive weapon.

But unlike the X-Men finding their powers, Wilson’s drastic improvement isn’t a sudden discovery.

“Roman’s been working,” senior receiver Daylen Baldwin said Monday. “All the receivers, we’ve just been pushing each other in ways I don’t even think we know at the end of the day. I go out there and make a good block, that might inspire Roman to make a good block. Roman goes out there and makes a good catch, that might inspire me to make sure I catch the next couple footballs that come to me.

“We’re pushing each other without even noticing, and we’re making each other a lot better.”

MADISON — On Tuesday, Mazi Smith stood beside Schembechler Hall and grinned in anticipation of the Michigan football team’s pending trip to Wisconsin.

“Going into somebody else’s place and trying to take it from them… it shows you who you really are,” the junior defensive JARED tackle said.

Early in the GREENSPAN fourth quarter on Saturday, when junior receiver Cornelius Johnson executed a toetap touchdown catch in the corner of the endzone, posing in front of an abandoned student section, who they are was abundantly clear. The 5-0 Wolverines, fresh off a 38-17 thrashing of the Badgers, are a legitimate contender.

In essence, they are who they thought they were — it’s just a version of themselves that few others envisioned.

“These last few years, we’ve done enough flinching,” junior defensive back Dax Hill said after the game. “We didn’t want to feel that way anymore.”

For the past six months, Michigan has spoken ad nauseum about its culture change, rattling off platitudes about a revamped locker room and the benefits of a young coaching staff. From an outsider’s perspective, those buzzword-ladened refrains tend to sound artificial. Without any tangible on-field success, they would ring hollow.

Through five games, the Wolverines have made good on their word.

“We’ve taken control of this year and I think we made the changes that we wanted,” junior quarterback Cade McNamara said. “We know that’s not gonna be easy to be different, but so far what you’re seeing right now is just a reflection of everything that we’ve preached, everything we tried to make a difference for in the offseason.”

Camp Randall Stadium has been a house of horrors for Michigan for the better part of this century. Before Saturday, the Wolverineswere winless in Madison since 2001. Often, the trip to Wisconsin has induced a sobering reality, rendering any sort of early season success a facade.

This go-around had the opposite effect, solidifying Michigan’s undefeated record. The Wolverines both exorcised demons from past

visits and backed up their seasonlong conviction.

McNamara spent the majority of September insisting that he was capable of leading Michigan’s offense through the passing game.

The fact that he beat out 5-star freshman J.J. McCarthy without a competition and steered the Wolverines to a 4-0 start did little to stave off critics.

And yet on Saturday, playing in front of fans on the road for the first time in his collegiate career, McNamara threw for 197 yards and two touchdowns while Michigan’s potent rushing attack managed just 112 yards on 44 carries. McNamara had his fair share of hiccups, but he showed poise under pressure, made throws on the run and executed on a number of critical third and fourth down conversions.

The defensive line, which seems to be perpetually gashed

by Wisconsin’s run game, wreaked havoc in the backfield, creating continuous pressure and

This sort of growth and improvement from last season’s disastrous 2-4 campaign wasn’t supposed to happen this quickly.

Sure, Wisconsin and Washington, who stand as the Wolverines’ two marquee victories on the season, are programs seemingly marred in down years. But Michigan entered this season in the same boat, with question marks up and down the roster and expectations on the floor.

From the very first possession, Michigan played with a sense of urgency, representative of a team conscious of the game’s importance. The Wolverines twice went for it on fourth down in their own half of the field. In total, they converted four out of five fourth down attempts, including a one-yard touchdown run from McCarthy.

“It’s a statement, a statement play,” sophomore receiver RomanwWilson said of the fourth down aggression. “We

That’s not to say the win was perfect, but no game is going to be flawless. Michigan proved it can win in spite of its shortcomings, a trait of resiliency absent from last year’s group and one that Harbaugh said he felt when he arrived at the stadium Saturday morning.

“A vibe that they weren’t gonna be denied,” Harbaugh said.

The prevailing image of Saturday’s demolition occurred in between the third and fourth quarter, when “Jump Around,” Wisconsin’s adopted anthem, blared through the stadium. The Michigan sideline, players and coaches alike, spilled onto the field, thrusting their arms into the air and waving towels. Across the way, Wisconsin, trailing 20-10, stood stoic.

It’s a scene that seemed inconceivable just a few weeks ago. And yet, in spite of the celebration, the Wolverines continue to maintain the

MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily Throughout a dominant victory in Wisconsin, the Michigan football team continued to make good on its early season convictions.

allowing just 43 rushing yards.

You wouldn’t be faulted for doing a double-take as Michigan players shedded blocks and flew around the edge with ease, demoralizing the Badgers’ typically dominant offensive line.

“A lot of our players, it’s a pretty young team,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said. “It’s almost like some of those X-Men movies where the little kid, the teenage X-Men find the power. Now they know they have it, and they’re using it. It’s really exciting to watch as a coach.”

want to win and we’re not gonna back down.”

The game featured everything that Michigan fans have spent the last few weeks clamoring for.

There was a more ordinary runpass balance, with 30 passing attempts compared to 44 carries; a blend of creativity, with a series of end-arounds to sophomore receiver A.J. Henning and even a 34-yard flea-flicker touchdown to Johnson; and even semi-regular appearances from McCarthy, whose speed adds an intriguing layer to the offense.

mentality that has carried them this far.

“We have big goals,” junior edge rusher David Ojabo said. “You can’t come in all complacent. It’s just day-by-day, week-by-week. Can’t be highfiving each other thinking we won a championship. We haven’t done anything yet.”

In that context, they haven’t.

But they have proven to be a bona fide contender in the Big Ten, something few would have thought a month back — except for the Wolverines themselves.

SportsWednesday: In win over Wisconsin, running game shows offensive potential Earlier this week, an SB Nation poll showed that the majority of Michigan football fans weren’t confident in junior Cade McNamara as the starting quarterback.

It’s an easy conclusion to draw when — prior to this week’s matchup — more than 80% of the Wolverines’ LANE touchdowns KIZZIAH had come on the ground and especially when, other than an 87-yard touchdown against Northern Illinois, McNamara had done little to show he can carry the offense when the run game can’t.

That changed on Saturday. Against Wisconsin, he showed that mistrust was doled out prematurely.

It’s no secret that up until this point, Michigan has primarily chosen to run the ball. Coming into this Saturday, the Wolverines were averaging 290.8 rushing yards per game compared to just 164 in the air.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin holds the nation’s top rushing defense, having held its first three opponents to an average of 23 rushing yards.

And Michigan knows what happens when a team figures out how to stop its run game. It happened last weekend: Rutgers held the Wolverines to a season-low 112 rushing yards, and McNamara did little to pick up the slack. He played a decent first half, completing 8-of-11 passes for 156 yards, but his performance fell off later in the game, completing just 1-of-5 passes for seven yards in the second half. Michigan eked out a win while relying on a stymied run game that kept trying to

shove a round peg into a square hole.

Still, the struggles did little to damper Michigan’s confidence in its passing game.

“I think throughout the season, our intermediate stuff has been really good,” McNamara said on Sept. 27.

“We’ve thrown it deep in the game, (and) we’ve been able to do that really well, so I think we’re building. …

When we’re in those scenarios where we have to throw our way back into a game, I think I’m more than capable of doing that.”

And on Saturday, McNamara and his receivers followed through. It started with a 34-yard flea-flicker touchdown pass to junior receiver Cornelius Johnson in the first quarter and ended with another aerial play to Johnson that put Michigan up by 21 in the fourth quarter. In between those highlightreel moments, McNamara proved himself with smart, consistent second-half plays that culminated in 17 completed passes on 28 attempts for a total of 197 years — a seasonhigh.

While the passing game was markedly improved from previous weeks, it still wasn’t perfect. The first half was riddled with juggled balls and missed targets. McNamara threw 10 incomplete passes in the first two quarters. While some fault was on the receivers, McNamara’s throws were frequently misplaced, often lagging behind the route-runner.

The offensive performance was as much a testament to the receivers as the quarterbacks themselves. With about 10:48 minutes left in the third quarter, sophomore receiver Roman Wilson sprung up behind a Badger cornerback to snag a seeminglyuncatchable 38-yard bomb from McNamara on third-and-ten. Four

MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily In leading Michigan to a dominant victory in Madison, Cade McNamara continued to silence critics.

plays later, J.J. McCarthy snuck the ball into the end zone with a one-yard rush.

Often, McCarthy proved himself to be a valuable supplement to McNamara’s offense. In the fourth quarter, the freshman quarterback extended the Wolverines’ lead to 28 with a 56-yard touchdown pass to senior receiver Daylen Baldwin. The flashes of brilliance that have come from McCarthy, combined with fits and bursts from McNamara so far this season, are leading some Michigan fans to hope for a switch in

the starter.

But, if the Wolverines’ coaching staff is to be believed, McNamara’s starting position has never been in danger. Nor should it be.

In the season opener, McNamara registered 136 yards for two touchdowns. At the time, the mark was the second-highest in his Michigan career. Two weeks later against the Huskies, that number was up to 191. Two weeks later — this weekend against the Badgers — he topped it again for 197 yards.

None of this is to say that those are

stellar, game-changing numbers. But they’re going in the right direction.

By the time the second half started, McNamara’s mistakes were few and far between. The throws and catches looked much cleaner in the final two quarters, evidenced by McNamara completing 6-of-7 attempts.

“I kind of knew going into this game that it would be difficult to run the ball,” McNamara said after Saturday’s game. “I accepted the challenge, and we got the dub.”

Why start a competition at quarterback after Michigan won

on the road at Camp Randall for the first time since 2001? After the first underdog win of Jim Harbaugh’s tenure? After a 5-0 start to a season that began with bare-bones expectations?

As the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t throw a wrench in your entire offensive scheme to fix it.

Maybe McNamara won’t throw an 85-yard-game-winning touchdown against Ohio State next month, but, for now, he’s getting the job done.

And that’s all Michigan fans should ask for.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

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17-38 17Hey, what’s up, hello BRENDAN ROOSE Daily Sports Editor

M

ADISON — The narratives entering Saturday’s game were plentiful.

Despite five different opportunities, the Michigan football team hadn’t won at Camp Randall Stadium since 2001. In those matchups, Wisconsin outscored the Wolverines by a combined 75 points, and in the last two meetings specifically, the Badgers emphatically exposed Michigan’s greatest flaws, from its weak run defense to its inept rushing offense.

Each time, it seemed, the worst version of the Wolverines would arrive in Madison, take a punch and fall helplessly to the mat.

On Saturday, Michigan punched back.

The Wolverines (5-0 overall, 2-0 Big Ten) trounced Wisconsin (1-3, 0-2), 38-17, earning a marquee road win for coach Jim Harbaugh’s rebuilding program. Unlike in previous years, Michigan managed to absorb the Badgers’ best shots while remaining in control the whole way.

“They did beat us the past two years,” junior receiver Cornelius Johnson said. “…

So we really wanted to make sure we put a special emphasis on this one, to come into their building and make sure we put something good on tape.”

Somewhat surprisingly, many of the Wolverines’ best strikes came through the air.

After averaging a meager 164 passing yards per game going into Saturday, Michigan and offensive coordinator Josh Gattis recognized that Wisconsin would try to stop the run — it was best in the country in doing so.

So, from the start, Gattis opted for a closer balance between the run and the pass. Despite some early hiccups, junior quarterback Cade McNamara boosted the offense when needed.

He had help from sophomore receiver Roman Wilson, who used his speed to create separation where he hadn’t in previous games. On a 3rd-and-14 midway through the first quarter, McNamara hit Wilson on a quick out for a 12-yard gain, then found him again on a crossing route to convert on fourth down. A play later, McNamara connected with junior receiver Cornelius Johnson on a perfectly executed flea flicker to open up the scoring. A pair of field goals from senior kicker Jake Moody extended that lead.

“I think the difference in us this year is

that, when we’re expecting to be in a fight, we’re confident we’re gonna win that fight,” McNamara said. “And I think this team didn’t panic at all. When the fight came to us, we attacked back.”

Still, the Badgers didn’t lie down. Despite finding practically no offense for much of the first two quarters, the usually unreliable arm of quarterback Graham Mertz led Wisconsin to a field goal and one touchdown drive that cut Michigan’s lead to three at the half.

For the first time all game, the Wolverines appeared vulnerable.

In the second half, though, Michigan came out swinging. After a 38-yard deep ball to Wilson set up a 1st-and-goal from the 10, freshman quarterback J.J. McCarthy ultimately snuck it in for the Wolverines’ second touchdown of the game.

“It’s a tribute to our brotherhood, man,” junior edge rusher David Ojabo said. “We came into the locker room (at halftime), and we just said like, ‘Let’s not panic. We got each other’s back through ups and downs.’

We really weren’t worried.”

From there, it was Wisconsin that failed to recover. After a blistering sack from Michigan junior safety Daxton Hill knocked a struggling Mertz out of the game, the

Madeline Hinkley/Daily Design by Sophie Grand

Badgers’ already poor offense slipped into full-on anemia, tallying two punts, a fumble and an interception from Hill on its next four drives.

The Wolverines’ offense, meanwhile, continued to deliver blows — first with a field goal after the fumble recovery and then with a back-corner touchdown pass to Johnson that sealed the victory.

“They had that kind of vibe about them from when they first stepped in the locker room when we got there early this morning,” Harbaugh said. “The vibe was they weren’t gonna be denied, and they weren’t gonna flinch when punches were thrown.”

Even if Wisconsin isn’t the marquee opponent it normally is — Mertz’s struggles throughout the season have mostly derailed the team’s offense — Michigan’s win still represents a turning point for the program.

The Badgers entered this game as the nation’s top rushing defense; the Wolverines were an offense intent on keeping the ball on the ground. It was clear Michigan would face a barrage of quick hits.

For what feels like the first time in forever, the Wolverines dealt some knockout blows of their own. We’ll see how they deal with the heavyweights later on.

1 — Wednesday, October 6, 2021 // The Statement

When sustainability feels impossible

Climate change is ravaging the planet. Wildlife populations are diminishing rapidly around the world. The Earth is dying — and it’s all our fault.

This mantra cycles through my head every day, guiding my actions as I move through my daily routine.

“Can you turn off the lights?” “Did you make sure to shut off the TV before you left the room?” “You don’t need to keep the water running while you’re washing dishes; you only need it for rinsing.”

I have said all of these things and more to my roommates on a regular basis. Even the smallest action left undone fills me with anxiety about the possible negative impact it could have on the environment. I stopped eating red meat. I attend climate protests at state Capitol buildings. I walk or take the bus on campus. My mindset has gone beyond just doing what I can to promote the environmentalist cause — my stressors have instead morphed into a never-ending checklist that must be completed or the world will fall apart. Yet, even if I do accomplish every task, my personal actions still won’t be enough to stop what’s already happening. It won’t be enough to erase what generations of human activity, industry and development have already done to the natural world.

The barrage of warning signs indicating the planet’s Armageddon are inescapable in today’s world. Reports of dangerous weather events, species endangerment and worsening climate emergencies are constant reminders of the state of the Earth. Whether seen on the news, viewed on an Instagram story or learned in class, distressing details of these issues flood every medium of communication. It was precisely the prevalence of these crises that inspired me to pursue a minor in Environment when coming to the University of Michigan. And despite knowing my education in environmental science will only make me more prepared to take on the challenges of climate change, it also reminds me of everything I’m up against.

It’s hard to feel inspired to create change when your classes are designed to inform you about increasing emissions and the detrimental effects of the Anthropocene.

All of these experiences force me to constantly ask myself: Are my individual actions pointless?

Do we have to completely redesign our lives to make a “sustainable” world? Is it too late to do anything?

Sustainability is Trending In an age of widespread environmental awareness and activism, the concept of a sustainable lifestyle has become more mainstream, especially among members of Gen Z. Reusable water bottles, thrifted clothing and metal straws are staples in many young people’s homes. Many restaurants, and even U-M dining halls, have shifted to compostable packaging to reduce their plastic waste.

Large corporations have joined in on the trend to appeal to today’s environmentally conscious consumers. In 2018, Starbucks changed its disposable cups to a design that doesn’t require the use of a straw. In April of this year, they launched their Earth Month Game: an interactive experience

in which customers can play games of chance the long run as the government implements more or complete Tetris-like puzzles right from their environmental regulations.

“I have raised concerns about the ease with phones. As they complete the levels, players can choose which environmental initiative they’d like which we use the term ‘sustainability,’ to the point the company to support, including clean water that we sometimes lose track of what it actually and habitat rehabilitation. Participants also get means,” Kirsch said. “Corporations benefit from the chance to win in-store prizes while learning their appropriation of the terms of their critique, about what drink or food substitutions they can claiming to be responsible, sustainable and transparent while watering these terms down or redemake for a more sustainable diet.

On a surface level, these actions show great fining them in ways that reproduce the status quo.”

But the issue of sustainability doesn’t just affect initiative. In a society where a small number of companies are responsible for almost three- large corporations — small businesses feel the quarters of greenhouse gas emissions, seeing impact on a much more day-to-day scale. Due to large corporations actively spread information on their size, non-corporate companies are often left sustainable consumption seems like a step in the behind in the race for sustainability, with items right direction. But there is a caveat to consider: such as compostable packaging often much more Though these big-name businesses are promot- expensive than other standardized products.

If these large-scale corporations are doing liting sustainable practices, their approach puts all of the responsibility on the consumer instead of tle, or nothing, to improve environmental condithe producer. In turn, they fail to adapt the very tions, placing pressure on the individual to change actions they’re advocating for. And in reality, the their habits can feel overwhelming and almost “steps” they have taken to become more environ- impossible in a modern capitalist society with so mentally conscious may not even truly be helping: many other issues to address. In her Ted Talk, “What to do when climate change feels unstopless than 1% of the world’s plastic pol- lution pable,” activcomes from disposable straws and ist the combination of their strawless Clover Hogan lids and cup actually equates to a dives into this concept of greater amount of plastic than their “eco-anxiety:” a helpless, counteroriginal design. productive and guilty feeling that Starbucks is just one of many commany young people experience as panies that advertises their commitwe witness disaster after disasment to sustainable practices while ter arise as a result of climate neglecting to examine or address change and human activthe actions that are actually the ity. She specifies that ecomost problematic. This phenomanxiety has culminated enon, called greenwashing, allows in a surge of mental companies to market their “green” health issues for actions for a better public image

BY SARAH STOLAR, STATEMENT COLUMNIST many individwithout making true positive uals around change.

Page Design

by Sarah Chung the Volkswagen and IKEA have world. also been confronted with similar issues of greenwashing. In 2015, the car company used a specially designed device to pass emissions tests without actually reducing their carbon waste.

As for IKEA, the company has historically been praised for its sustainable practices, including a “buy-back” program where they repurchased customers’ old furniture for resale at a reduced price. Yet despite this admirable effort, the furniture conglomerate was later linked to illegal logging practices in Ukraine.

In many cases, it seems like sustainability is used as a marketing ploy instead of an actual commitment to improvement, with companies putting their “best foot forward” for the sake of advertising and consumer appeal. Dr. Stuart Kirsch, a professor of Anthropology at the University, criticized the mass market’s commodification of the term “sustainability” in an interview. He emphasized that those who do pursue eco-friendly actions will be better off in

This eco-anxiety is the root of my mindset as I complete my daily checklist, repeating my mantra in my head. But why is this mentality so particularly prevalent among individuals in our age group? Hogan perfectly articulates why Gen Z-ers especially feel this immense pressure to solve the world’s environmental problems: “Young people today have not created this reality. We’ve inherited it. Yet we’re told we’re the last generation with a chance to save the fate of humanity … And in the war against nature, young minds are the collateral.”

Dominance of the Collective In the case of sustainability, the dissonance between individual and collective action can result in fear or distress over the choices we make: Should we even bother playing our part in the push for environmentalism if we don’t make substantial change, or should we shoulder the burden of everyone else not advocating?

It’s an example of the collective action problem in which individuals believe that their role in a large scenario will not make a difference in the grand scope of the issue. This occurs within many contexts, including election voting.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Being a woman and

Illustration by Katherine Lee, Page Design by Sarah Chung

BY TAYLOR SCHOTT, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT

g

havin

Wednesday, October 6, 2021 // The Statement — 2

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air

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omical threads fill websites like Reddit and Quora with anonymous users who pose questions like these: “Why do many of the extreme feminists have short hair or buzz cuts?

Is it a symbol of not conforming to long hair, or do they just like short hair? No hate or spite started this. It’s just my curiosity.”

The fixation on women and short hair is by no means unique to the modern-day. In 1915, the famous ballroom dancer Irene Castle cut her hair just below her ears for convenience ahead of an appendectomy — she kept it short after the surgery, creating the “Castle Bob.” Castle, a reputation trend-setter, rattled American traditionalists with her new look. In 1920, the Women’s Suffrage movement gained traction with the ratification of the 19th Amendment, and as more women joined the workforce during World War I, short hair took on a new meaning as an act against traditional ideas of femininity. Following suit, mid20th-century actresses like Audrey Hepburn and Joan Crawford sported bobs, pervading popular culture with the ethos of an independent, modern woman. The 1970s and 80s brought layers and texture to the hairstyle, and by the end of the 20th century, the pixie cut saw a rise in popularity. Victoria Beckham and Halle Berry, in the early 2000s, continued the look of short hair with stacked bobs and tapered cuts.

Fictional worlds, of course, have reflected this trend: the unsettling Margo Tenenbaum from “The Royal Tenenbaums,” the odd Amélie from “Amélie,” troubled Susanna Kaysen from “Girl, Interrupted.” The alluring Mia Wallace, from “Pulp Fiction,” Mathilda in “Léon: The Professional,” the prodigious Beth Harmon in “The Queen’s Gambit.”

These characters’ short haircuts, while varying in shortness, ultimately achieve a familiar brand of identity: cool girl. Cool unsettling girl.

Cool odd girl. Cool troubled girl. Cool alluring girl.

Cool troubled troubled girl. Cool prodigy girl. So it seems that popular culture’s idea of a cool girl, a postmodern girl, is one that makes a show of her femininity while also rejecting it — an intriguing

contradiction that directors tend to like.

What exactly are we doing when we associate say, a haircut, with an identity, a persona? Would Margo Tenenbaum still be the same character, still have the same intrigue, if she had long hair?

Or if she didn’t smoke cigarettes or wear a shock of a fur coat? Appearance as identity is a dangerous thing to buy into, except of course, when it makes for a good film.

In our postmodern world, appearance as identity has only become more of a complex and sticky matrix. Anthony Giddens has a cerebral term for what we’ve endeavored our bodies to become: a “reflexive project.” In our 21st century, the presentation of the self has become more and more of a false narrative, a canvas onto which we project who we hope to become, not who we actually are.

Who actually, then, are we? ~ I’ve always admired girls with short hair, especially if it’s especially short, hugging the jawline or swirling in curlier strands near the ears. I’ve seen the same woman with bobbed, wind-whipped, honey-colored hair biking down my street every week, earrings wagging, all business. After a week of seeing this woman and thinking hard about the state of my own appearance, how all of my clothes seemed to fit having short hair anyway, I got mine cut. It’s like by getting my hair cut just as short as hers, I might also attain her confidence, and maybe even her bike.

I wasn’t trying to make a statement by cutting my hair short, at least not consciously. I was just trying to get a haircut, to prove to myself that I can still do bold things and say to myself later that night in the harsh mirror of my bathroom, this suits me.

Could it be true that by walking out of the salon on a cool Monday, with the now exposed nape of my neck, I destabilized, on some level, my feminine side? I certainly felt lighter, less burdened.

The curled ends of my hair bobbed with every step, animating my walk with a bit more energy than I usually carry.

Having such short hair feels like I’m wearing a costume, like the formidable Joan of Arc (the 1903

portrayal by Albert Lynch), or like the sleek Louise Brooks — like it’s not actually me, but instead some much cooler version, one I could never actually be.

This haircut feels jaded or makes me look jaded, even when I don’t intend to. And it’s always when I try to look disaffected that I feel the most affected, a comical sort of paradox that prevents me from putting on a show.

This haircut makes me feel French, and I am French, but French Canadian. I should’ve said: This haircut makes me feel French Parisian.

This haircut feels like the vivid cool of smoking a cigarette for the first time, this haircut feels like drumming nails on countertops, this haircut feels like wearing gloves in painting class instead of not wearing them, a ladylike and cleanly thing to do which for so long I’ve avoided until my hands cracked dry from the oils.

This haircut feels like it exists between girl and lady, but I hate both of those words anyway. This haircut feels like the candied thrill of Coke in a glass bottle, this haircut feels like disobeying the grip of my ponytail holder every time I step out the door for a few miles at lunchtime, this haircut seems to accentuate my bad posture, this haircut feels like calling instead of texting, this haircut feels like the shapeless comfort of a shift dress, this haircut feels like the smart plunk of a chess piece touching down.

This haircut feels like the only poet I’ve ever really loved might be Frank O’Hara, this haircut feels like a holiday train ride, this haircut feels like its curls mimic the pensive windup of an analog clock, this haircut feels like not taking my makeup off before bed, this haircut feels like the acrid taste of whiskey, this haircut feels, when straightened into submission by the force of 410 degrees, like the unconvincing charm of a 1950s actress, this haircut feels like the purchase of a leather jacket which is somehow religious, this haircut feels like being late and not walking any faster, this haircut feels, especially when seen in silhouette, like I’ve become a paper doll, weightless and newly lovely.

This haircut feels like not replying to what is intended to provoke me, this haircut feels like reading the lucid prose of Rachel Cusk or Rachel Kushner, this haircut feels like only smiling when I want to, not because I have to, this haircut feels like the unmatched bliss of noise-canceling headphones, this haircut feels like not deleting search histories, unashamed of the curiosities and checkins, this haircut feels like skipping school, which is something I can’t do without a great big stomach ache coming on.

This haircut feels like the estranged voice of Aimee Mann in her hit song “Save Me,” this haircut feels like liking small talk for what it reveals about a person, this haircut feels like walking around in the rain without an umbrella, this haircut feels like it deals in the business of never being dull, being fearful of it actually, this haircut knows bad things always happen on Sundays, this haircut feels like dancing to “Fantastic Man” by William Onyeabor in spite of Sundays.

This haircut, then, feels like not caring, which is hard because all I’ve ever done is try to disguise the fact that I do indeed care. I care whether people like me or not, or if they could look at me on the street and say I can tell that you’re a good person, I care whether people like my writing or not, this very sentence. I care about what people would say if I were to, very suddenly, stop talking altogether.

This haircut, then, is who I feel I am but also who I wish I was because while I love Frank O’Hara, I don’t play chess and I, though I’m getting better at it, find it incredibly difficult not to respond to what provokes me. And I’m still scared of Sundays no matter how many miles I run the morning of. ~ “To what extent is ‘identity’ a normative ideal rather than a descriptive feature of experience?” asked Judith Butler in her groundbreaking 1990 book, “Gender Trouble.” After all, what really is our identity? Is it the choices we make? Is it the things we say? Is it what we believe, but don’t wish to discuss? Is it all of it or is it none of it?

I’ve joked around and said that I cut my hair so that I was more recognizable as an art major, and while this was mostly a joke, not all of it was. By cutting my hair, I may have been pushing against more conservative ideas about women’s appearances and femininity itself, but by cutting my hair, I also may have been playing into what I think I should look like.

I think, in fact I know, that I got my hair cut because I was bored of my appearance. I felt it lacked a certain intrigue, which is, most definitely, a sad belief of mine that has to do with performance: My identity, despite the first letter of the word, is not for me. It is for others to watch and to be entertained by.

But how, in the age we live in, could this not be the case?

We’re lying to ourselves when we say that we do things just because we want to. We may very well have desires that could look like our own, but those desires are shaped by the desires of others, à la René Girad’s mimetic theory. We want things because other people want them. We do things because other people do them.

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3 — Wednesday, October 6, 2021 // The Statement

How a summer of church burnings ignited a new understanding of my religious identity BY MARY ROLFES STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT

A few years ago, as part of a summer professional development experience, I was asked for the first time to complete a Social Identity Wheel.

LSA’s Inclusive Teaching website describes the Social Identity Wheel as “an activity that encourages students to identify social identities and reflect on the various ways those identities become visible or more keenly felt at different times, and how those identities impact the ways others perceive or treat them.” The version that LSA uses, and the one I completed, asks participants to identify themselves across 11 social identities (such as race, gender and socioeconomic status), and then to “categorize those identities based on which matter most in their self-perception and which matter most in others’ perception of them.”

Describing myself in terms of the 11 parameters was fairly straightforward, as was picking out the identities I “think about most often.” When I arrived at the second categorization question, identities I “think about least often,” only one of the 11 options jumped out as belonging here: “Religious or Spiritual Affiliation.” While I thought about some of my social identities more than others, spirituality fell far behind the rest — upon reflection, I realized I rarely thought about my religious affiliation at all. In fact, the only times I consciously pondered this specific identity were the instances in which I was specifically asked to identify it, whether it be on an online survey, a demographic form or a Social Identity Wheel. In these cases, I answered “agnostic” or, more often, “non-religious” and moved on to the next question. Religion simply did not feel like a part of my life — at least, not anymore — and nothing about my lack of a label seemed complicated until this summer. *** In late May of this year, a mass grave containing the remains of 215 Indigenous children was found on the former grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, Canada.

The school was part of an extensive residential school system sponsored by the Canadian government and administered by churches. Under the guise of providing an education to Indigenous children, Canada’s residential school system systematically stole Indigenous children from their families to remove them from their culture, strip them of their heritage and force them to assimilate to the white culture of Euro-Canadian colonizers.

This effort is described as a “cultural genocide”

by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The still-unknown number of Indigenous

enous children were forced to attend. And yet the tragedy of the residential schools is not reserved to the distant past — the last residential school closed in 1996, only 25 years ago.

The discovery of the mass grave at Kamloops spurred calls for further investigation, and since late May, more than 1,000 unmarked graves of Indigenous children have been found in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. Many of the former sites at which these tragedies are being uncovered were affiliated with the Catholic Church.

To be clear, the Catholic Church was not the only religious organization affiliated with these schools — the Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian churches also oversaw the operation of schools within the system. But the Catholic Church was the one whose schools were associated with recent findings of unmarked graves, and therefore was the focus of scrutiny this summer. In the wake of this discovery, 68 Catholic churches across Canada were subsequently vandalized or burned in “suspicious” fires, some of which completely destroyed the churches.

While no suspects or official motives have been identified, the burnings seemed to be an act of protest. Additionally, statues of Queen Victoria Illustration by Katherine Lee, Page Design by Sarah Chung (the leader of the British Along with the inherent cruelty of forcibly Empire from 1837 to 1901, during which the Canaseparating children from their family and culture, dian Confederation was founded) and Queen Elizconditions at the residential schools were hor- abeth II (Canada’s current head of state, a reminder rific. The “schools” were places of severe physi- of their colonialist past) were toppled as part of procal, psychological and sexual abuse. Tuberculosis tests on Canada Day. The vandalism was met with criticism from was rampant, and Indigenous children in these schools died of the disease at a much higher rate some, including from Prime Minister Justin than children in the general Canadian population. Trudeau — who happens to be Catholic. He Conditions that contribute to the development claimed that while he understood the anger, these and spread of tuberculosis, such as “malnutri- acts were “actually depriving people who are in tion, overcrowding and poor ventilation” were need of grieving and healing and mourning from common in the schools. As early as 1907, the chief places where they can grieve and reflect and look medical officer of Canada’s Department of Indian for support.” Brian Pallister, then the premier of Affairs noted this problem and urged the federal Manitoba, also “strongly condemn(ed) acts of government to improve conditions and to have violence and vandalism,” calling it a “major settuberculosis nurses on staff. He was not only back” and urging Canadians to “come together” ignored but also prevented from conducting fur- to advance “real reconciliation.”

The response among Indigenous leaders in ther research and sharing his findings. Two present-day tuberculosis experts, looking back, believe Canada was more ambivalent. Arlen Dumas, the devastating impact of the disease in residential grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, schools was not an accident, but rather the “result expressed shock at the vandalism and said he “personally wouldn’t have participated.” But he of deliberate neglect and mistreatment.”

Kamloops was affiliated with the Catholic also shared that the discovery of the unmarked Church until 1969 when the federal government graves had been “very triggering” and the events took over operations, using it as a residence for a were a symbol of hurt, frustration and anger. day school until its closing in 1978. It was only one Greg Gabriel, chief of the Penticton Indian Band, of 139 facilities identified within the residential said his community had “mixed feelings” about school system, which an estimated 150,000 Indig- the burning of Sacred Heart Church on their children that died in residential schools, and the disrespect with which their deaths were treated, demonstrates that the Canadian government’s effort to destroy Indigenous culture would be carried out no matter the cost, including the destruction of Indigenous lives.

At the schools, children were forbidden from speaking their own languages or acknowledging their heritage. They were given Anglo names and many were baptized against their families’ wishes. Their hair was cut short and they were dressed in Western-style uniforms. Many didn’t receive an education, either — the curriculum was focused on prayer, along with manual and domestic labor.

land; while the memory of the Roman Catholic Church’s subjugation was painful, the church had also become an integral part of their community. Chief Clarence Louie of the Osoyoos Indian Band expressed similar ambivalence about Sacred Heart Church, saying that while he doesn’t believe in the Catholic church, “some of (his) people do.” Other Indigenous leaders said the church burnings were “not in solidarity” with Indigenous peoples, worsening the strife of those in mourning and furthering the divide between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

While vandalism may not have been the most productive response, the burnings demonstrate the visceral anger and hurt that the Catholic Church created through its role in the residential schools. These feelings are only exacerbated by the Church’s response to its past wrongdoings.

The Church, along with the federal government, has resisted sharing the records that would, among other things, help identify the remains within the uncovered graves. Pope Francis has yet to explicitly apologize for the Catholic Church’s part in this cultural genocide. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops did recently issue an official apology for their role in the residential school system, after years of refusal to do so.

But this isn’t nearly enough.

When the Church resists taking full accountability or working cooperatively with reconciliation efforts, property destruction directed at a destructive organization may feel like the only outlet. It should be mentioned that, though there were concerns that church burnings could add to already significant wildfire risk, there is no evidence that anyone was killed or severely injured by the burnings, only that property was damaged.

Yet some responses to the burnings seemed more concerned with the hypothetical lives that could have been lost than the Indigenous lives that were.

To be clear, Indigenous voices should have been prioritized in the responses to these tragic discoveries. While the vandalism may have generated mixed feelings for Indigenous communities, the condemnation of the church burnings on behalf of Indigenous leaders was clear, and their calls to end the violence and the further damage it was inflicting upon their communities should’ve been heeded immediately. But the destructive protests demonstrated that the discoveries of unmarked graves created anger, and perhaps felt personal, even to non-Indigenous people.

I am not Indigenous, nor even Canadian. But the events of this summer created an anger that felt personal for me as well. Of course, it reminded me that boarding schools analogous to Canada’s residential schools were operated in the United States — including three in Michigan and 16 in my home state of Minnesota — with the objective, summarized by Captain Richard H. Pratt, to “kill the Indian ... save the man.” But the events of this summer also made salient an aspect of my identity I hadn’t thought about in years.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Hook

Wednesday, October 6, 2021 // The Statement — 4 Illustration by Melia Kenny, Page Design by Sarah Chung

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VEGAN NUGGETS

BY ANNIE RAUWERDA, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT

If we are what we eat, we’re a generation of chicken nuggets. I grew up eating fun finger food as an after-school snack and an easy dinner, sometimes in the shape of dinosaurs and Disney characters. Nuggets please even the pickiest of eaters (case in point: this teenager who ate chicken nuggets for 15 years and practically nothing else) and take just minutes to prepare. As an adult, I pass on meat for environmental reasons but I join a growing number of nugget-inclined consumers opting for meatless alternatives. We’ve created a demand, and top companies are battling tooth and nail to be our supply. With release after release of new imitation chicken, fall 2021 is shaping up to be the golden age of imitation chicken nuggets. What a time to be alive.

What happens when you take chicken nuggets, an obscenely processed food to begin with, and remove the only recognizable ingredient? The vegan form emerges out of the shadows, a mystery meat sans meat … so, just a mystery. They’re not just fried tofu. Depending on the brand, they’re a concoction of protein isolate, soy protein concentrate, textured vegetable protein, wheat gluten and preservatives no one’s great-grandma would recognize. Chickenless chicken is a slew of paradoxes: both earthy and artificial, highly processed yet classified as a healthy alternative, plant-based but without any recognizable plants (clearly made inside a plant, though). They taste eerily similar to the real thing, a pinnacle of food science.

Vegan chicken nuggets also play into a nuggetobsessed culture, for they are more than just a food. A generation of young people uses “chicken nugget” as a term of endearment and paste slogans like “nugs not drugs” and “nug life” on water bottles and laptops. Such phrases not only signal an affinity for breaded chicken but also a knowing lameness, a message that the nugget-lover is down-to-earth and easy to please.

“Even though I look like a burnt chicken nugget, I still love myself,” said a little kid in a 2016 Vine.

“Chicken nuggets is like my family,” says another kid in another viral video, before eating the breaded poultry for breakfast.

The most retweeted tweet in English is a 17-year-old’s attempt to win free chicken nuggets from Wendy’s.

One of RedBubble’s chicken nugget products is a shirt that says “Chicky Nuggies” above an image of Yoda eating nuggets. There’s a sticker that says “26.2 (chicken nuggets eaten)” and others that

read “Netflix and chicken nuggets.” Chicken nuggets have transcended sustenance and entered the realm of cultural obsession — similar to Trader Joe’s and wine, two other consumables with great PR. Buying nuggets brings back memories of childhood family dinners and play date snacks, of simpler times and simpler cuisines. You don’t need the chicken itself to get the same nostalgic experience. Like alcohol-free wine (which is surging in popularity), chickenless chicken is about more than taste: It’s about participating in culture. The deep-fried, faux-poultry confections, despite their obscure ingredients, fill a need—a cultural soft spot and a growing market share.

The fake chicken wars Fake nuggets fill my freezer. Right now, my roommates and I have four different brands, each packed in earthy green tones and labeled with lawsuit-skirting phrases like “chickenless strips” and “chik’n.” One brand is Boca, a stalwart vegetarian brand started in the late 70s (now owned by Kraft Heinz) that boasts “the original chick’n veggie nugget.” I find that their nuggets are quite similar to Morning Star Farm’s (owned by the Kellog Company), another decades-old company: powdery breading and not too greasy. In contrast, the nuggets from Raised and Rooted (owned by Tyson Foods) are a greasy nostalgia trip to McDonald’s play places; they waft umami flavors through the house and pack a deliciously huge caloric punch.

We’ve also bought Earth Grown, Gardein, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods brands. Lightlife has new tenders and filets, MorningStar has Incogmeato Chik’n, and Nestle is investing in fake meat too.

It’s a packed market, but two booming rivals hog a lot of recent press: Impossible and Beyond Meat. Like Coke and Pepsi, the Whopper and the Big Mac, Starbucks and Dunkin’, the biggest difference between the two powerhouses is the branding, not the products. This year, both Impossible and Beyond have branched out from fake beef and taken a highly publicized stab at recreating chicken.

The fake meat giants, which boast millions in seed funding, are focused on converting meateaters. This month, Impossible came out with new vegan nuggets, and rival startup Beyond Meat is coming to the freezer aisle, too. After discontinuing its disappointing imitation chicken in 2019, Beyond is trying again. Its fava-bean-based tenders, which have been at restaurants since July, are coming to grocery stores like Walmart as soon as October.

Standing beside the big rivals is the cool kid of

fake meat startups, Simulate (formerly Nuggs),

BY ANNIE RAUWERDA, STATEMENT COLUMNIST which is led by a 22-year-old from Australia

named Ben Pasternak. The company is a media darling, and its branding is unconventional — unlike the earthy hues of other brands, Simulate is less “veggie” and more “edgy.” In a recent post, the brand’s official Instagram account parodied social justice slideshows with an absurdist story about Iceland. It starts with “What’s going on in Iceland right now and how you can help” and proceeds to describe a narrator’s “friend Jared” who said the narrator had “’mice hands,’ which is just so rude of him, because he knows I’m so sensitive about my small hands.” Later, the post shows a drawing of the narrator’s hand with a Nugg for scale. It didn’t make any sense at all, yet that was the point.

Steeped in up-to-the-minute meme culture, and a whopping $44.99 for a pack of one hundred, the brand positions itself as the “Tesla of chicken nuggets.”

Where’s the beef?

Vegetarians aren’t hippies anymore. Peeking behind the opaque walls of the meat industry can radicalize even the devout carnivore, and younger generations care more about the environmental impacts of what they consume. As observed in the rise of alternative milks, a climate-minded culture now invites vegan products — intentionally vegan products — out of health food aisles and onto end caps and advertisements: grocery’s prime real estate.

At 15, I abruptly stopped meat after watching “Cowspiracy,” a documentary that unveiled the pernicious climate effects of the livestock industry. Some of its facts and tactics were misleading, but its message holds up: Eating large quantities of meat is unsustainable. A 2018 study published in the journal Science found that while meat and dairy provide 18% of calories and 37% of the protein in our diets, they use 83% of farmland and produce 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. Those statistics have permanently changed the contents of my plate.

Now, I am not only proud to have a climateconscious diet, but I am grateful that it’s easily attainable. It’s rare that I find a restaurant without a meatless option, and even fast-food giants are eschewing meaty menus at an astonishing rate.

Passing on meat feels rather normal, not alternative. More than any time in recent history, the world caters to vegetarians.

Why can’t the chicken cross the road? It’s too fat to walk Imitation chicken is having a moment half a century after processed chicken itself captivated the world.

If capitalism grows like a tree, the chicken nugget is its fruit: born out of an oversupply of poultry in the 50s and 60s, it took your grandma’s chicken dinner and returned something deboned, battered, deep-fried and packaged. Marketing efforts promoted a notion that true leisure wasn’t cooking but consumption and nuggets allowed home cooks to sit back and relax. The work you once endured to prepare dinner had instead been done by an amorphous supply chain. The chicken nugget is, if nothing else, easy to prepare.

Decades later, humans have a $66-billion-ayear chicken habit. We’ve slashed their growing time to a third of what it once was and have bred birds that are nearly three times as large as birds a century ago. The chicken is the world’s most popular bird.

The chicken nugget’s ingredients, though questionable, don’t seem to phase people. Pink slime panic blew over, the headlines about lighter fluid in chicken dwindled away and the unpronounceable petroleum and corn derivatives weren’t enough to deter everyone. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver showed a group of elementary schoolers how chicken nuggets are made, and though they let out groans of disgust at the liquified carcass and skin, they had no qualms about putting the finished product in their mouth.

“Anyone want one of these?” he asked after his stomach-churning demonstration. When the kids proceeded to raise their hands and lunge at the plate, the camera panned to the chef’s disappointed expression.

Just like the traditional chicken nugget’s ability to transcend the bad press, fake chicken nuggets haven’t been phased by criticism of their ingredients or carbon footprint. Despite being ultra-processed and packaged in plastic, a nugget forged out of soy may still seem greener than the real thing.

Little research has evaluated the climate impacts of fake chicken, but there are studies about promising impacts of fake beef. A 2018 report commissioned by Beyond Meat and conducted by the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan compared Beyond Meat burger with beef.

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