2022-11-30

COLUMBUS — It feels like a lifetime ago.

Last year when the Michigan football team finally broke its decadelong curse against Ohio State, when the Wolverines stormed the snowy streets of Ann Arbor and when Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh deemed it just a “beginning.”

It was the Wolverines’ biggest win of the millennium. And on Saturday in Columbus, Michigan did it again.

Whenever they needed to, the thirdranked Wolverines (12-0 overall, 9-0 Big Ten) delivered blow after blow to Ohio State (11-1, 8-1), as they defeated the second-ranked Buckeyes, 45-23.

“It feels great to sing ‘The Victors’ in Columbus,” Harbaugh said Saturday.

“Our team really earned it in every way.”

The Game this year was different from the last, and that was obvious from the start. Ohio State’s offense took the field first and immediately got to work. A 12 play, 81-yard drive capped off by receiver Emeka Egbuka’s touchdown sent the Horseshoe into a frenzy.

Not even five minutes into the game, Michigan was already in an unfamiliar

situation: For the first time all season, the Wolverines didn’t score first. The discomfort was obvious.

Sophomore quarterback J.J. McCarthy was erratic. He dipped out of the pocket before he needed to, he was missing throws — nothing was working.

“In the first half, I was a little amped up because I’ve been waiting to play this game so long,” McCarthy said. “But once the nerves kind of calmed down and everything settled, I knew it was over from there.”

It took a while to get to where McCarthy knew the outcome — his team, at times, looked like they were just trying to survive the first half. The Buckeyes smelled blood, and they were trying to run away from Michigan. Everyone in the packed Horseshoe could sense that Ohio State was thoroughly outplaying the Wolverines in the first quarter, and yet, there was an uneasiness settling in.

Michigan was just hanging around. After giving up the opening drive touchdown, the Wolverines’ defense regrouped — only allowing three points on the next three possessions.

“We felt like any kind of stop was going to be like gold,” Harbaugh said.

Without junior running back Blake Corum able to play through injury,

Michigan’s offense didn’t look like its normal self. But somehow that was alright.

In a wild, back-and-forth second quarter, McCarthy found senior wide receiver Cornelius Johnson for long touchdowns on two consecutive plays. The Game was turned on its head.

Ohio State had its chance to bury

Michigan never looked back.

Two drives later, the Wolverines finally found their running game. Their offense slowly leeched the life out of Ohio State’s once ravenous crowd on a nearly eight-minute-long touchdown drive. When McCarthy ran in a threeyard touchdown on third and goal, extending Michigan’s lead to 11 right as the fourth quarter started, the anxiety that hung over the Horseshoe was as nauseating as it was palpable.

“We looked at their sideline and they were over there hanging their heads,” senior defensive back Mike Sainristil said. “We knew… they’re vulnerable right now.”

That was a mindset shared by every Wolverine.

After the clock hit zero, and a familiar feeling of jubilation swept over Michigan, Sainristil hoisted a massive maize and blue Michigan flag. He ran around the field in celebration until finally planting it in the block ‘O’ at midfield; an exclamation point on the Wolverines’ emphatic victory.

Michigan, but it couldn’t, and the Wolverines made the Buckeyes pay for it.

After converting a fourth and one on its own side of the field, Michigan drove down the field and McCarthy found freshman tight end, Colston Loveland, for a 45-yard touchdown. After the Wolverines’ first drive of the second half, the Horseshoe fell silent.

“After that touchdown coming out of the half, we were able to do everything we wanted at that point,” McCarthy said.

“You can feel when their will breaks,” graduate linebacker Michael Barrett said. “… You can feel it when it goes out of them.”

That’s when the avalanche came.

With only a one-score lead the Wolverines were faced with their biggest offensive possession of the season. On their first play, sophomore running back Donovan Edwards found daylight and burst through to the right for a 75-yard touchdown.

In one final attempt at victory, Ohio

Last season, Michigan finally broke through against the Buckeyes, showing that it’s no longer just the second-best team in the Big Ten, sentenced to an eternity of living in its rival’s shadow.

But this year; this year was different.

In the first undefeated clash of archrivals since 2006, the Wolverines came out on top. Not only is it Michigan’s first win in Columbus since 2000, its first back-to-back victories against the Buckeyes and its first 12-0 record since 1997 — it showed that there’s a new team on the top of the Big Ten.

And that team is Michigan — the champions of the east.

State drove down the field only for a desperate flick from quarterback C.J. Stroud to fall into the hands of graduate edge rusher Taylor Upshaw. To add insult to injury, Edwards subsequently broke an 85-yard touchdown run and hordes of scarlet and gray headed for the exits.

SPENCER RAINES

Ono outlines DEI goals, search for sustainability director at State of the University

diversity, inclusion and equity.”

University of Michigan leaders met at the Ross School of Business Robertson Auditorium Monday morning to hear University President Santa Ono’s Leadership Welcome address. Ono outlined his priorities for the University, including building a collaborative university environment and repairing community relationships. Ono also announced the University’s approach in reforming their approach to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and announced the University’s search for a director of sustainability.

University Regent Sarah Hubbard (R) opened the Leadership Welcome by remarking on Ono’s qualifications as the new president.

“We set the bar high and we looked for the best,” Hubbard said. “(President Ono) could champion our public mission, educational excellence and (support) transformative research in carbon neutrality and sustainability and in

Ono began his talk by giving his thanks to those watching online, the board for their faith in his leadership and Hubbard for opening. He spoke of the honor to serve as the University’s 15th president.

“I started as president on Oct. 14, and every day since has been an opportunity to immerse myself in the energy and vitality of this remarkable institution that I’ve already grown to love,” Ono said.

Throughout his talk, Ono emphasized the theme of “strategic visioning” and creating University goals as a process of discussion.

“I’d like us to come together as one community to spend the coming months in conversation and through dialogue to develop a strategic vision that will be in place for this university in 2024,” Ono said.

Ono went on to discuss the importance of rebuilding trust in the campus community. Ono’s

tenure follows a tumultuous year for the University’s administration after former University President Mark Schlissel was fired. Ono said rebuilding trust in the administration entails working towards a more stable administrative culture. He particularly encouraged students, staff and faculty to help him in creating that culture.

“Restoring trust in this university to all stakeholders is my job as president,” Ono said. “But it is also your job as university citizens, every single member of this community, to earn the trust of those who support us.”

At the October Board of Regents meeting, Ono announced his intent to establish a central ethics, integrity and compliance office to restore trust in the University’s administration. In his address, Ono emphasized a collaboration with student and faculty groups to achieve this goal and noted that he would not be making a “task force,” which he sees as inefficient and exclusionary to the actual groups they affect.

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JI HOON CHOI Daily Staff Reporter

NEWS Chants rang through the University of Michigan Diag Saturday as students from local universities and members of the Ann Arbor community came together to protest in solidarity with the protesters in Iran and to commemorate Bloody November, also known as Bloody Aban. During Bloody November, the internet was shut down across Iran and activists were arrested. The death of 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, also known as Jina Amini, sparked the protests in September. The Iranian

morality police arrested Amini for not wearing her hijab correctly and for wearing skinny jeans. She was struck in the head several times while in custody and died in the hospital on Sept. 16. Reformminded activists took to the streets in the country and around the world, including the U.S. The protest started at 1 p.m. Saturday. Music in both Farsi and English blared from the speakers. People also wore shirts emblazoned with red and black slogans, and some brought ropes and scarves to symbolize those who have been hanged for protesting during both Bloody Aban and the current Iranian protests. Many came with signs, too, with the words “women,

life, freedom” in bold letters — the main slogan of this protest.

Though many Iranians and those of Iranian descent attended the protest, students of other backgrounds also came to the Diag to promote progressive causes. Public health student Andrew Yang attended the protest and said he came to show solidarity.

“I (attended the protest), to show that there’s someone other than Iranians (alone) that supports (the protesters’) cause,” Yang said. The event began with the playing of the Iranian national anthem. People showed their respect by facing the Iranian flag held by one of the protesters. Once the song ended, speakers took the

microphone and spoke in both Farsi and English, emphasizing that it has been over 60 days since the protests started in September and that the protesters want the international community to stand with the Iranian people. They also said the protest promoted not only regime change in Iran but also the empowerment of women in the country and beyond.

After the speakers finished, they led the crowd through chants demanding rights for the Iranian people. Protesters shouted, “freedom for Iran,” and called for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s removal.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

CHEN LYU Daily Staff Reporter

Ahead of the 2023-2026 contract negotiation with the University of Michigan Human Resources, the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) held a rally on the Diag to raise awareness for their demands and gain support from community members. With over 100 people in attendance, the rally highlighted key demands the union hopes to address in their upcoming negotiations.

GEO’s bargaining campaign coincided with multiple labor protests across the country, including a labor strike in the University of California (UC) system involving more than 48,000 workers — the largest work stoppage by University workers in the United States’ history. The GEO rally also occurred as thousands of Starbucks workers across the nation, including employees at the locations at Glencoe Crossing, Main

and Liberty and Jackson and Zeeb in Ann Arbor, went on strike during “Red Cup Day.”

One of GEO’s key demands in their new contract campaign is an increase in the minimum fulltime equivalent salary on the Ann Arbor campus from $24,053.32 to $38,537 — according to a press release. The organization arrived at the new salary demand using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Living Wage Calculator’s estimation for a living wage in Ann Arbor. GEO’s other demands included eliminating copay for mental healthcare, establishing an “accommodationsfirst” model and establishing an unarmed emergency response team on campus.

In an interview with The Michigan Daily prior to the rally, GEO President Jared Eno said this was the third time he has participated in the triennial bargaining. He hopes the perceived accessibility of Ono could help

to improve the administration and labor relationship during the negotiation. Thursday’s protest was the first bargaining campaign hosted by GEO since University President Santa Ono took office.

“The past couple of presidents were not particularly labor friendly and did not particularly seem to be

interested

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‘Women, life, freedom’: Diag protesters show solidarity with Iran protests

University President announces initial priorities in first major address

Dozens of community members gather to demand justice for Mahsa Amini

HANNAH TORRES/Daily

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

in the working conditions of their workers,” Eno said. “Ono seems to really care about people on campus, so we’re excited to work with the administration to solve this crisis of affordability that grad workers are facing.”

GEO rallies ahead of 2023 contract bargaining, calls for increased salaries

Demonstration coincides with labor protests at University of California

University President Santa Ono speaks at the Leadership Welcome. University leaders met at the Ross School of Business Robertson Auditorium Monday morning.

SARAH BOEKE/Daily

AMER

HANNAH TORRES/Daily

Thursday morning.

Collaboration

with local dispensaries around Ann Arbor.

Boobers are ubiquitous. From the bars lining South University Avenue to the paths criss-crossing the Diag, it is almost impossible to traverse the University of Michigan campus without seeing one of Boober Tours’ new electricpowered pedicabs zip past on the sidewalk, with the driver shouting, “Boober Tours! It’s the only way!” over blasting music.

“Boober” is a portmanteau of “bike” and “Uber” — the ridesharing company. Since 2016, Boober Tours in Ann Arbor has provided community members with an alternative way to get around. The company currently has about 15 drivers who drive the pedicabs throughout the city.

But now, Kevin Spangler, founder of Boober Tours, is trying something new. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Spangler said he wants to take his company to the next level by collaborating

“We’re also creating another way to arrange tours, which (we’re calling) ‘Doober’,” Spangler said. “So instead of Boober tours, it’s ‘Doober Tours’ because ‘doobies’ is a slang name for marijuana.”

Over the past year, Spangler has been partnering with Wacky Weed Tours, another tour service, to use Boober’s pedicabs and drivers to help visitors experience marijuana culture throughout Ann Arbor.

Sarah O’Leary, founder of Wacky Weed Tours and a close friend of Spangler’s, said the tour has been a success due to Michigan’s low marijuana sales tax, which makes it cheaper for Boober passengers to sample a variety of marijuana products. She also touted the density of dispensaries downtown.

O’Leary said everyone in Ann Arbor recognizes Spangler and his Boobers. She said partnering with him was an obvious choice, and she jumped at the opportunity to be a part of his mission to entertain the Ann Arbor community.

“Everyone knows Kevin, and everyone should know Kevin,” O’Leary said. “He and I have similar reasons in terms of purpose. We both want to be successful entrepreneurs, and we want to build community, so we get along great.”

O’Leary said her tour takes participants to some of the oldest marijuana stores in Ann Arbor so they can learn about the history of the weed industry. These historical “high-lights” include Mission Ann Arbor, a dispensary located on South Main Street established in 2010 after Michigan legalized medical marijuana in 2008.

James Klotz, general manager of Mission Ann Arbor, said he loves when customers roll up on a Boober to shop at the store regardless of whether they are part of the Wacky Weed Tour. Klotz said he’s even started offering discounts for Boober riders to encourage his customers to take advantage of the pedicab transportation system.

“We created tickets to promote Boober,” Klotz said. “You can get

a (Boober) over here to get a free pre-roll out of it. We feel like it was a good partnership because if people don’t have cars, they can get around through Boober, and that also adds a little bit of extra advertising for us.”

Though collaborating with businesses located downtown has been good for business so far, Spangler said he is also hoping to start working with dispensaries farther from the city center.

“We want to do ‘Doober tours’ outside of downtown because we’re getting new ad deals,” Spangler said. “Instead of moving to another city, I’m expanding our footprint to outer-town, and I’m trying to connect Westside Ann Arbor with Main Street and then, in the future, North Campus.”

Spangler’s vision to help connect different geographical parts of the Ann Arbor area resonated with JARS, a medical and recreational marijuana retailer that opened on the Packard/Platt strip in 2021. JARS is also partnering with Boober Tours, advertising on the

GOVERNMENT

SHANNON STOCKING & SEJAL PATIL Daily News Editor & Daily Staff Reporter

Ann Arbor City Council met Monday evening at Larcom City Hall to elect the mayor pro tempore for 2022 to 2024, establishing the order of succession for acting mayor. The entire meeting lasted roughly 45 minutes.

City Councilmember Travis Radina, D-Ward 3, was unanimously elected by the

ACADEMICS

Council as Ann Arbor’s mayor pro tem, and will serve as Ann Arbor’s first openly gay mayor pro tem in over two decades.

Mayor pro tem is an elected position that establishes the temporary mayor of Ann Arbor if the currently elected mayor, Democrat Christopher Taylor, is unavailable.

At the meeting, Radina said he is excited to hold this position for the upcoming term.

“I am honored that my new colleagues have placed (their) trust in me to serve in this important leadership role for our city, and

welcome the opportunity to expand my service to this Council and the community we all love,” Radina said. “I am particularly humbled to be selected by the current composition of the City Council, which has become the most diverse in our city’s history. The magnitude of that honor and the responsibility that comes with it is not lost on me.”

The meeting was also the first time the five newly elected councilmembers joined the rest of the Council in Larcom City Hall.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Distinguished University Professorship recipients speak at inaugural lecture series

Three faculty members discuss their work in mathematics, economics and engineering

SEJAL PATIL Daily Staff Reporter

Three University of Michigan professors — Karen Smith, Joel Slemrod and Lutgarde Raskin — were honored with the Distinguished University Professorship and each delivered an address at the lecture series Tuesday afternoon at the Alexander G.

RESEARCH

Ruthven Building. The newly appointed Distinguished University Professors have the opportunity to name their own Professorship after a person of distinction in their field.

To recognize the University of Michigan’s exceptional scholars and faculty, the Board of Regents established the Distinguished University Professorships in 1947. Those who receive the Professorship

must be nominated by colleagues or their deans. U-M President Santa Ono opened the event and introduced the Professorship recipients. He said though the three faculty members come from diverse fields of mathematics, economics and engineering, they are all united by shared values.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

“(Boober) provided some exciting brand exposure for us, being able to ride past big groups,”

our reach with the help of (advertisements on the) Boober cabins.”

Ben Shapiro speaks at UMich, incites mixed reactions

Wednesday evening, over a dozen protestors also stood on the steps outside of Rackham, chanting “Ben’s a mouthpiece of the state. No sense, just hate” and holding signs such as “No to Shapiro. No to Bigotry.”

Over 1,000 people stood outside in the snow and frigid November temperatures Thursday evening, waiting to listen to conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro’s talk at the Rackham Auditorium. The event was hosted by the University of Michigan chapter of Young Americans for Freedom. Shapiro will continue his lecture tour at other campuses throughout the fall.

Controversy seized campus as Shapiro — known for his mantra “Facts don’t care about your feelings” — kicked off his “Exposing the Great Reset” lecture tour at the University. While Shapiro spoke

Charles Hilu, Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) Chairman, introduced Shapiro by crediting YAF’s dedication to putting on public speaking events like the lecture on Tuesday.

“Throughout this great history, we’ve relied on the presence of great spokesmen, people who can make the case to the public for the ideology of freedom,” Hilu said. “People like Barry Goldwater, like Ronald Reagan, like William F. Buckley, Jr — and now, thanks to the generous support of (YAF), one of those great spokesmen comes to Michigan tonight.”

Shapiro spoke about the idea of a “Great Reset” in the global economy following the COVID19 pandemic. Shapiro said he does not think corporations should be working with national governments to enact policy changes such as those involving climate change and mental health.

“The fact that corporations are working hand in glove with the government right now should be a very scary thing to all of us,” Shapiro said. “What’s scary about our current economic moment, is that the leaders in the ‘Great Reset’ are not actually governmental actors who would be answerable to you.”

Shapiro then transitioned into a Q&A session during which he invited audience members to ask questions about his views on any topic of interest.

When asked about the results of the 2020 election, Shapiro said he does not think voter fraud contributed to former President Donald Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden. Still, Shapiro said he is opposed to mail-in voting.

“Fraud wasn’t the cause of Donald Trump losing the 2020 election,” Shapiro said. “Donald Trump was the cause of Donald Trump losing the 2020 election. I don’t like the changeable rules to allow for vast mail-in balloting. I, on principle, oppose it. I think that people should go on the day of the election and vote on the day of the election.”

Michigan Chief Medical Executive delivers talk on health inequalities

NADIA TAECKENS Daily Staff Reporter

Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, the State of Michigan’s chief medical executive, delivered the inaugural Susan Moore, M.D. Memorial Lecture Tuesday night. The lecture, titled “Recognizing and Addressing Health Inequities: Building Upon The Lessons Learned During COVID-19,” was hosted by Michigan Medicine’s Department of Anesthesiology to honor Dr. Susan Moore, a 2002 graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School. In 2020, Moore passed away from COVID19 after posting a video speaking out about receiving racially biased treatment in an Indiana hospital.

Dr. Matthew Wixson, assistant professor of anesthesiology and the department’s associate chair for diversity, said the video received national attention. As a person of Color working in healthcare, Wixson said watching it affected him on a deeply personal level.

“If it can happen to Dr. Moore, who was a celebrated and accomplished graduate (of medical school), it can

happen to anybody,” Wixson said. “Today and in the future, Dr. Moore’s legacy is an inspiration to make lasting change.”

Bagdasarian said Moore’s death and the COVID-19 pandemic called attention to preexisting racial health disparities seen across the country.

Bagdasarian said at one point in May 2020, the COVID-19 mortality rate was five times higher for nonHispanic Blacks in Michigan than non-Hispanic whites. According to Bagdasarian, health disparities are caused by socioeconomic differences, reduced access to healthcare, education and healthy food and exposure to racial and ethnic discrimination.

“You’re seeing that disparity,” Bagdasarian said. “You’re seeing that (COVID-19) cases in African Americans were much higher.”

In addition to disparities in COVID-19 cases and deaths, Bagdasarian said there has also been a significant difference in vaccination rates between different racial and ethnic groups. She said the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reported 51.7% of non-Hispanic whites in

Michigan

“We’ve

Bagdasarian found effective was the establishment of the Michigan Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities in April 2020, which was launched by Executive Order 2020-55 in an effort to address racial disparities in healthcare.

“This was a task force of community leaders, health care professionals (and) people from the affected communities coming together and trying to solve this problem of health disparities,” Bagdasarian said. “Their goals were to increase transparency in data recording, reduce barriers to mental health and medical care, to decrease medical bias, improve infrastructure and support recovery.”

care offices and family healthcare facilities.

“We know that trusted messengers are key,” Bagdasarian said. “One of the things that’s come up again and again when we’ve done focus groups is that patients who are hesitant about vaccines for themselves or their children. They want to talk to their trusted messenger. … They want to talk to a physician they know and trust, and they want to get their children vaccinated by their pediatrician. That’s not happening.”

Tuskegee Syphilis Study conducted from 1932 to 1972, which resulted in a marked mistrust in the healthcare system.

Bagdasarian said the task force partnered with local communities throughout the state to establish COVID-19 testing sites and vaccination centers, relying on the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index to determine what areas would most benefit from healthcare infrastructure. Besides the pop-up sites, Bagdasarian said it is important to make sure that vaccines become more widely available at trusted medical centers, including primary

Bagdasarian emphasized that while racial disparities in health care became more obvious during the COVID-19 pandemic, they are part of a longstanding systemic issue. In urban areas of Michigan, she said, Black infants are about three times more likely to die before their first birthday than white infants, and the maternal mortality rate is also higher amongst Black Michiganders than White Michiganders.

“So how do we dismantle this system?” Bagdasarian asked. “I think everyone can tackle it in a way, but we must do the work.”

pedicabs. In an interview with The Daily, JARS retail manager Katie Howe said advertising on the Boobers provided an effective way for JARS to promote their dispensary to college students who might not otherwise know about them.

Howe said. “We are in the heart of the residential commercial space and we’re able to marry the two communities together. I like to think of us as a common meeting place, so we can really expand

have completed an initial COVID-19 vaccination sequence, while only 39.5% of non-Hispanic Blacks have. Bagdasarian said part of this difference can be explained by previous medical mistreatment of Black Americans, such as the

heard about fears about what has been done to Black communities in the past,” Bagdasarian said. “We’ve also heard that Black voices are not listened to.” According to Bagdasarian, there have been numerous local and statewide efforts in Michigan to address health disparities based on race and other demographic identities. One of the steps

‘Everyone knows Kevin’: Boober partners with Ann Arbor dispensaries in effort to unite community

sparks conversations around marijuana culture

City Council elects Travis Radina for Ann Arbor mayor pro tem

TESS CROWLEY/Daily

Boober Tours founder Kevin Spangler drives a pedicab on campus in November 2021.

Pandemic called attention to racial disparities, socioeconomic differences

American conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro speaks to students at a Young

Americans for Freedom event at Rackham Auditorium Tuesday night.

EMILY BLUMBERG & MARTHA LEWAND Daily Staff Reporters

Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, Chief Medical Executive for the State of Michigan, discusses the impact of health disparities on marginalized communities, particularly those of color, at the Medical Science Building Tuesday evening.

KEITH MELONG/Daily

JENNA HICKEY/Daily

How does the University generate power?

An overview of the past, present and future of energy consumption at UMich

MATTHEW SHANBOM Daily Staff Reporter

Have you ever wondered how the University of Michigan generates the power to keep the lights on after hours? The University obtains power through both on-campus generation and local utility providers such as DTE and Consumers Energy. However, this process is undergoing changes as the University moves towards carbon neutrality over the next couple of decades.

To achieve this, the University has set several goals. The University separates its emissions into three main categories — Scope 1, which includes emissions from power generated on campus; Scope 2, which includes emissions from purchased electricity; and Scope 3, which includes indirect emissions from University-sponsored activities like commuting. Based on the University’s carbon neutrality plan, the University will eliminate Scope 1 emissions by 2040 and will offset Scope 2 emissions by 2025. They have also committed to releasing more specific goals for how they plan to eliminate or offset Scope 3 emissions by 2025.

Yet the question remains: How will the University achieve these goals? Here’s a look into how electricity is consumed on the Ann Arbor campus. Flint and Dearborn campuses follow the same climate goals but were not included in this article.

How power is currently generated The University currently obtains about 60% of its electricity from purchased sources, while the other 40% comes from on-campus generation, according to Drew Horning, special advisor to the president for carbon neutrality and managing director for the Graham Sustainability Institute, in an interview with The Michigan Daily. The bulk of the electricity

generated on-campus comes from the Central Power Plant (CPP), located adjacent to the Hill Neighborhood.

While walking through the CPP location, plant manager Malcolm Bambling spoke with The Daily about the plant’s focus on reliability and said the University generating its own power ensures they are not entirely dependent on privately-owned utilities.

Bambling also described the network of underground tunnels across campus used to transport electricity, steam and hot water.

Burying the cables, Bambling explained, helps protect from the elements and are therefore more reliable.

In January, the University completed an expansion of the CPP, which added a 15-megawatt turbine and replaced the transformers to include a new ring design, allowing the electricity to stay operational even if one transformer fails.

Horning said though the expansion was in the works prior to the University setting its carbon neutrality goals, the upgrade still helps reduce carbon emissions in line with their goals.

“Relative to the grid mix, (the CPP) is much cleaner,” Horning said. “It’s a combined heat and power plant… the waste heat in a combined heat and power plant is captured and moved through steam

tunnels to buildings all over central campus. That was the rationale both to improve the efficiency of our energy system, but also there’s a lot around resilience of the energy system supporting the medical enterprise as redundancy in case power goes out from the grid.”

U-M alum Zackariah Farah, spokesperson for Ann Arbor for Public Power, said he views the expansion as a short-sighted project that did not listen to feedback from the community.

“They should not have invested what I believe was over $80 million into expanding a methanepowered power plant,” Farah said. “They didn’t meet with the environmental students who were concerned about this, they just went ahead and said, ‘Well, technically, this will be reducing emissions because we will be reducing our reliance on DTE.’”

The CPP currently relies on natural gas, a fossil fuel, to generate electricity and uses a combined cycle process, which can dramatically increase efficiency compared to a simple steam generator. By increasing power efficiency, Horning said the University can continue running the plant for a longer period of time while keeping carbon dioxide emissions per kilowatt hour low.

UMMA opens new exhibit ‘Clay as Soft Power’ on Japanese Pottery

Display features Japanese Shigaraki ware, examines political relations

JOSHUA NICHOLSON Daily Staff Reporter

Japanese pottery takes center stage at the University of Michigan Museum of Art’s new exhibition, Clay as Soft Power, curated by Natsu Oyobe. On Saturday, the UMMA opened the exhibit featuring Japanese Shigaraki ware to examine how pottery contributed to postwar Japanese-American relations. Shigaraki ware, named because of its production in Japan’s Shiga prefecture, involves the practice of using wood fire kilns and special clay, which create stone bursts, burns and fire marks.

The exhibit features pieces from Takahashi Rakusai III, an artist who helped revive Shigaraki pottery, as well as his great-granddaughter Takahashi Yoshiki, the first woman to head the Takahashi studio. John Stephenson, late Art & Design professor, and his wife, Susanne Stephenson also contributed pieces in the exhibit. Yoshiki designed pieces specifically designed for the exhibit, including “Yoshiko’s Shigaraki Jar,” which was crafted so

Salvador

students would be able to touch and feel the style of Shigaraki.

Oyobe said the display’s inspiration came from the 50-year anniversary celebration of the Japanese state Shiga Prefecture and Michigan being sister states. Oyobe said she wanted to celebrate the anniversary, and decided on Shigaraki ware as a way to explore the connection between the two regions.

“I wanted to do something with the art of Shiga Prefecture, and Shigaraki is one of the traditions,” Oyobe said. “Also I participated in a workshop back in 2016 introducing Shigaraki ware to museum curators, so I spent lots of time there. That’s when I got really interested in Shigaraki ware.”

Oyobe said throughout the process of curating the exhibit, she became interested in the history of collecting Shigaraki ware, which she explained began to make its way to the U.S. in the period following WWII.

“(The collecting) relates to international political and social circumstances,” Oyobe said. “It was during the cold war, and Japan was

in the immediate postwar period still occupied by America and also allied powers. And for the United States, it was necessary to change the view of Japan so that they could get the public support to be friendly nations. And so Shigaraki is one of the art forms to be used as a soft power to influence the public opinion.”

Oyobe said Shigaraki ware look different than American wares, as they were a symbol of Japanese culture.

“Up until then the ceramic wares more familiar to the (American) public were smooth shiny wares, very decorative types,” Oyobe said. “Shigaraki ware is a totally different look. It’s very rustic and some wares are very deformed intentionally, so that really shows Japanese simplicity, not in the image of Japan as a war enemy. Shigaraki ware was viewed as an embodiment of Japanese culture.”

LSA senior Nami Kaneko, president of the Japanese Student Association (JSA) and a research assistant for the exhibit, said the Ann Arbor and U-M communities have a strong connection with art.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

unveiled at the U-M Institute for the Humanities

On Nov. 2, the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan unveiled La Pelea (The Fight), a new installation by Mexican artist Salvador Diaz. Tucked in the front corner of the building located on 202 South Thayer Street, the 46-foot long circular mural allows visitors to experience a variety of perspectives involved in a street fight by standing in the center of a canvas that extends all the way around the viewer.

Diaz came to Ann Arbor to unveil the installation and to attend the opening reception held on the night of Nov. 2. Select U-M students enrolled in Spanish courses had the opportunity to visit the installation during its opening week and engage with Diaz himself. The 360° piece features different participants in the scene at all angles, ranging from those involved in the fight, bystanders and those actively attempting to stop others from getting involved. With loose dirt lining the floor beneath the canvas, the viewer is drawn into the scene.

Amanda Krugliak, director of the Institute for the Humanities Gallery and assistant director for creative programming, spoke with The Michigan Daily about the immersive nature of the piece.

“When it’s installed, (the piece) takes up a 20 x 20 foot gallery, so it really envelops the whole space,” Krugliak said. “Conceptually, the

piece is meant to consider versions of a narrative or all of the different ways we come to a story and what exactly happened … Depending on whether you’re in the crowd or whether you’re in the middle, that really changes the way that we might experience a story or something that happens.”

Jacob Napier, gallery coordinator at the Institute for the Humanities, described the installation as “a spectacle” that engages a multitude of sensory dimensions. Napier said the installation feels as though it has become part of the room.

“If you spin around and just take everything in … it does feel like there’s a lot more going on, like the smell of the dirt, the feeling of being surrounded by all those people (and) the very faint light makes it all come together,” Napier said. “There are even ruffles in the canvas to give a little more

The Institute allows community members to learn about art from cultures around the world.

Diaz said he wants the piece to make the spectator feel like the protagonist of the work. The act of visiting the installation does not solely involve viewing the images on the canvas, Diaz said but asks the viewer to consider their own role within the piece.

JI HOON CHOI Daily Staff Reporter

Anyone who has watched ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy knows the life of a first-year physician, colloquially known as “interns,” is arduous, to say the least. Mindless paperwork, long hours and ceaseless stress are hallmarks of the experience. While stress in health care is hardly uncommon, researchers have found first-year resident physicians experience increased rates.

Srijan Sen, director of the Eisenberg Family Depression Center, and senior lab researcher Yu Fang conducted research using surveys and data from 2009 to 2020. The total number of participants was about 17,000 interns.

The surveys followed a PHQ-9 score — a score based on a set of questions monitoring the severity of patients’ depression and their response to treatments — which gave researchers an idea of who could be at risk of depression. On the scoring sheet, a number above nine is

considered to be at moderate risk for depression. Interns that volunteered to be part of the surveys would fill these out in their last semester as an intern before becoming a first-year physician.

According to the study, 33.4% of the interns that met the criteria for depression were working more than 90 hours per week, showing a correlation between work hours and depression. The symptom scores were almost three times as high for those who worked more than 90 hours per week when compared to those that worked 40 to 45 hours per week.

The study proposed having more employees in the workforce and making sure physicians do not work more than 80 hours per week to help mitigate the risk of depression. Sen said having more employees would help currently overworked physicians have a more balanced schedule.

“There’s been some progress over the last few years of reducing workload, and we’ve seen a corresponding decrease in

depression,” Sen said. “But there’s a lot more to do.”

Second-year resident physician at Michigan Medicine Stefanie Stallard was a participant in the survey and said first-year residents are not given enough time to ease into their jobs.

She said most of the stress faced by first-year residents may come from feeling unprepared when transitioning from being an intern to a working physician.

“(Resident physicians) have a whirlwind orientation that is really focused on logistics more than anything, like making sure you have your badge,” Stallard said.

Stallard said just focusing on reducing the workload and work hours of physicians, especially firstyear resident physicians, isn’t enough to combat the stress they face. She said while it is important to take into account the correlation between work hours and risks of depression, it is not the full picture since it is hard to tell exactly what “work hours” mean for an individual resident.

dimension to certain people being actually physically closer up to you than the background people.”

Diaz, who recently became a professor at the University of Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico, said it has been a “really good experience” working with the Institute for the Humanities and appreciated the opportunities afforded by the Institute to engage with students on campus.

Design by Sara Fang

ALEXANDRA VENA Daily Staff Reporter

CAMPUS LIFE

Diaz’s ‘La Pelea’

The 49-foot mural spotlights various perspectives of a street fight

GRACE LAHTII/Daily

A student looks at the La Pelea exhibit in the Institute for the Humanities Gallery November 14.

Following in the footsteps of The Michigan Daily Arts’ Music Talks, The Michigan Daily Arts section presents Arts Talks, a series where Daily Arts Writers gather to discuss their opinions on and reactions to the latest and major releases in the Arts world.

In this segment of Arts Talks, four Daily Arts Writers well versed in Selena Gomez lore discuss her new documentary, “Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me,” and her mental health journey starting from her “Revival Tour” up until the pandemic. Having been under media scrutiny since a very young age, Gomez retakes control of her story in a tell-all about the pressures she has faced in her personal and professional life.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.

WHAT SURPRISED YOU the most about this documentary?

Sabriya Imami, Managing Arts Editor: One thing that I wasn’t expecting — I didn’t think it was going to go back as far as 2016. I thought it was gonna be maybe from the pandemic on, but there were things from 2016, when (Selena Gomez) was 24 and she looked so different. She looked really young. And it was so hard to see her at that age struggling in the way that she was. Even though most of the documentary was more recent, having it go back that far gave us a better understanding of who she was and how far she’s come.

Swara Ramaswamy, Daily Arts

Writer: It was even more jarring because I feel like she was kind of a private person for most of that time. We knew she was going through something, but she wasn’t open about it. So this was the first time we actually saw what she was going

Arts Talks: ‘Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me’

through.

Hannah Carapellotti, Senior Arts Editor: I related a lot to the idea that she kept talking about being your own worst enemy. It was sad to think that she was so close in age to us, and was being hard on herself while having to deal with so much.

SR: I was thinking the entire time that if I was put in this position, I feel like I would deteriorate very quickly. So it was very commendable to see that she held up for as long as she did.

SI: And she’s been in the limelight since she was seven — that’s so much of her life. She’s just been here, and we’ve all borne witness to her actions and everything that she’s gone through. She was able to take the narrative back, in a way, and be like, “This is what I’m choosing to show you,” rather than “This is what people (who) are prying into my life without my consent (are showing you).”

HC: I remember when “Lose You to Love Me” first came out — they had all of that in the movie — and I remember my mom hearing it for the first time and just immediately being like, “Oh, this is about Justin (Bieber).” And so watching (the movie) back, I was like, “It’s not about Justin,” and here we are doing exactly what she did not want us to do. I was a little disappointed in myself when I saw that.

SI: You get to see her making the song and seeing how much it meant to her. It wasn’t, “Oh, I needed to lose Justin to love me.” It’s this whole idea of, “Despite what everybody thought about me and what I thought about me and all of these preconceived notions that surrounded me, I was still able to love myself.” So to have it be, “I needed to lose a part of me that was negative towards the rest of me,” that’s so much more impactful than it being about Justin Bieber.

SR: It’s really commendable how she was able to get out of that “everyone only talking about her in conjunction with Justin Bieber” phase because he has been in the limelight a lot more than she has. The fact that she was able to say, “You know what, I don’t want my name to be associated with him anymore,” and then she just did it — now she’s an independent artist and got out of it — that was good on her part.

HC: I felt the same way when she talked about wanting to be separate from Disney. I always thought of her as one of the few Disney stars who has actually gone on to be something successful outside of that umbrella.

SI: The Disney thing broke my heart a little bit, because when I watched Selena Gomez on Disney Channel when I was little, it never felt like that wasn’t who she actually was. Obviously, Alex is not Selena and Selena is not Alex, but to have her associate that whole experience with negativity made me feel so sorry for her. I always thought watching her was so fun when I was growing up, but it wasn’t that for her. That was hard to reconcile.

SR: Yeah, especially after that one interview that she was doing on promo, and she got really upset afterward. She was like, “It felt like being on Disney again; it felt like I had the wand.” She was so viscerally upset about it.

Considering how publicized Gomez’s life has been, what do you think about how the documentary addresses it?

SR: I think it’s obvious that, (considering) how the documentary was made, she had executive control. And it’s such a refreshing turn from the way the media portrays her.

SI: That was really evidenced by the diary entries (in the documentary) because those were so

sad but very real, and I’m pretty sure (it was) her handwriting and her voice speaking those words. And watching those moments, I was like, this is the actual Selena Gomez, and to show that was obviously her decision. I felt like that with the scenes in Kenya too. And I’m sure people will be like, “Oh, she only showed that to look like a philanthropist.” But it was so not performative. There was this moment where you see her looking out the window in Kenya when they’re in the car, and she just looks so content. Then, when she gets back to London, there’s this juxtaposing moment where she’s looking out the window, and it’s just her own reflection that’s staring back at her, and she looks so sad and tired. How can you say that her activism is performative when Kenya was where she seemed the happiest in the entire documentary, hearing these stories? There’s a lot more to her that I think people would not have understood or even guessed if not for the documentary.

SR: I think the Kenya trip was really well handled because as soon as she mentioned that she was going there I was like, “Oh!” and then it

actually happened. They covered it so gracefully and spent more time on the kids that she was talking to rather than herself, highlighting their stories, which was beautifully done.

HC: I liked that she was going to Kenya because she already had a connection with the place. That made it more genuine to me, that she had already donated to build the schools.

SI: She had been wanting to go, but the doctors wouldn’t let her because it was too soon after her surgery. This isn’t something that was just happening for the documentary. And I think there was nobody happier than her that she was able to do it.

Kristen Su, Daily Arts Writer: She talks a lot about connecting with people. It’s obvious that even (when she was giving a speech at the McLean Hospital) she was listening to others. Even though it’s not the same thing as what she was doing in Kenya, she was listening to other people’s stories, and she really wanted to connect with them and she was glad that her words had some sort of impact.

SI: None of that felt performative to me. These are things she has

grappled with and now she’s using her platform to do something about it.

What do you make of the negative perception of Raquelle that fans have expressed on the internet?

SI: Everybody is dissing Raquelle Stevens, Gomez’s friend, and look, I am a huge fan of “Selena + Chef,” her HBO Max show. So (I feel like) I’ve known Raquelle since day one. She’s in all the episodes, she’s cooking alongside Gomez, they lived together. And I feel like all the Raquelle hate is so unwarranted because this is a girl who is not famous in her own right, but she also doesn’t need to be there. She chooses to stay. Raquelle is in some ways taking care of (Gomez) and is also, in a lot of ways, the only person being honest with her. That scene of them fighting was misleading in some ways. I think it wasn’t meant to show that Raquelle was a problem. I think it was meant to show that Selena does still struggle in maintaining these connections with the people that are closest to her. So it was a realistic portrayal of friendship: You do have fights. I don’t think many people would stick alongside a friend who is struggling so much. And I feel like if you don’t know Raquelle from “Selena + Chef,” you don’t know her.

HC: I hadn’t interpreted Raquelle as toxic or a bad friend in any way, so I had to look up BuzzFeed articles about it. This scene when they’re talking in Kenya about making it a quarterly trip and Raquelle is reminding Selena, “This isn’t reality for you,” everyone attacked her for being so blunt. But they’ve been friends for 10 years. Sometimes, you need a friend who can tell it to you straight. I think Raquelle was doing that.

Is it time to question our obsession with true crime?

REBECCA SMITH Daily Arts Writer

Content warning: This article discusses violent crimes.

IN AUGUST 2021, 22-year-old Gabby Petito — an aspiring social media influencer — went missing while on a cross-country road trip with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie. As the details of her disappearance emerged, panic began to grow around the search for Gabby, until the case earned itself a torrent of media coverage, becoming social media’s latest “whodunit.” Online “detectives” began posting regular updates about the case, attempting to solve it themselves. One even helped to locate Petito’s remains.

Watching this all unfold, I was put off by the mounds of speculation over a person we knew nothing about and whose family was likely already experiencing intense emotional turmoil even without a whirlwind of media attention. My “For You” page was suddenly filled with case updates about Petito: Is she alive? Did her fiancé kill her? Is his family covering for him? I wondered whether any of this was really helping Petito or her family. Moreover, I was wondering whether it was helping us to hyperfixate on such a gruesome missing person case.

Gabby Petito is just one example of a phenomenon that has been on the rise for years. The spinning of violent, real-life crimes into entertainment for the general public was once considered to be a niche form of media. Now, however, it has become a national obsession deserving of some serious unpacking.

Many credit the start of the obsession with true crime to the 2014 podcast “Serial,” which has amassed over 300 million listeners and maintained its popularity through the years. However, humans have always had a collective yearning to understand morally transgressive behavior. Many wish to learn what drives people to commit violent crimes, or they appreciate the satisfaction that comes with seeing the “bad guy” get what he deserves. This pursuit of understanding has spurred the creation of TV channels, documentaries and countless podcasts dedicated to unpacking the thought processes and motivations of those who commit cold-blooded crimes. Social media only fuels the fire by offering true crime junkies the opportunity to participate in the solving of the mystery, as seen with the case of Gabby Petito. There are accounts on TikTok dedicated to highlighting especially gruesome murder cases, unsolved missing person cases and other heinous crimes

— some of which have accumulated millions of followers.

In some ways, this is not entirely bad — true crime content allows concerned citizens to engage with our justice system and question the decisions of law enforcement officers, judges and juries — a vigilance that is crucial. Podcasts like “In the Dark” and “Undisclosed” offer a different take on true crime by investigating cases that were grossly mishandled, particularly those which may have been racially motivated. This awareness was visible in the Gabby Petito case, when many on social media began to question why Petito’s disappearance was being given so much attention, yet the hundreds of women of Color who go missing each year — particularly Indigenous women — do not even make the news, a phenomenon commonly referred to as “Missing White Woman Syndrome.” Of course, there is much work to be done, and this case was just one small step in the right direction, but it would not have been possible without repeated examinations of Petito’s case all throughout the media — in strong defense for the continued existence of true crime content.

On top of increased civic engagement, exposure to true crime can have safety benefits, particularly for feminine presenting individuals, who are at a much higher risk of being

victims of a violent crime. True crime media offers helpful information on situations to avoid and things to be wary of, an essential skill in a world where walking alone at night can be deadly.

However, this is where things get murky. Using true crime as a means for civic engagement or increasing awareness of possible dangers is not totally unhealthy, but it’s not the best idea either. Evidence has shown that rates of violent crime are decreasing — on top of that, studies reveal that constant exposure to violent television or video games can cause a person’s perception of how dangerous the world is to be misguided, and that same principle applies in the case of true crime. When anxiety levels are already higher than ever before, staying up late into the night to watch gruesome murder documentaries may only feed a person’s belief that the world is an inherently dangerous place and that they must stay vigilant at all times — a recipe for increased anxiety, fear and isolation.

Yet, this is still not the most concerning side effect of constant consumption of true crime. In a perfect world, this would go without saying, but any retelling of a violent crime that either dehumanizes the victim or glorifies the killer is not educational — it is dangerous in more ways than one. Most recently,

we have seen this with “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” the Netflix series released in September that quickly became a hit. The show follows infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (Evan Peters, “X-Men: Apocalypse” through the years, with a heavy focus on the internal and external factors that contributed to his multiple killings.

However, far too much time was spent showing Dahmer picking apart human remains for it to be impactful in any way. What could have been an attempt at honoring the victims turned into a disturbing series that accomplished nothing more than garnering sympathy for Dahmer — who was portrayed as a

Sail into the abstract with ‘1899’

SWARA RAMASWAMY Daily Arts Writer

IF “DARK” WASN’T convoluted and mind-bending enough for you, Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar returned to their area of expertise with “1899.” “Dark” was Netflix’s first German-language original, making waves as it explored time travel, parallel universes and a host of twists and turns so confusing that Netflix created a website to assist viewers along the journey. As I began to trudge my way through the pair’s newest creation, I brought a sharp mind and my notebook. “1899” follows the passengers and crew of the Kerberos, an immigrant steamship on its way to America, when the captain gets a signal from another ship, the Prometheus, after it had been reported missing for four months. Upon finding the ship, those aboard the Kerberos are thrown into a puzzle of mind-bending proportions as they experience unexplainable phenomena that question the nature of their reality.

In the first few minutes, we meet our protagonist, Dr. Maura Franklin

(Emily Beecham, “Cruella”), as she awakens in her cabin after what seems to be either a dream or a flashback. Astute viewers familiar with Friese and bo Odar’s style may have picked up on certain recurring symbols. We see an inverted triangle with a line through it and the numbers 1011 crop up in many of the opening scenes — a sign that some things are not what they seem. This pattern continues as viewers are introduced to some of the characters present in the first-class dining room with Maura. There’s the rich and mysterious Englishwoman Virginia (Rosalie Craig, “London Road”), the brooding honeymooning French couple Lucien (Jonas Bloquet, “The Nun”) and Clémence (Mathilde Ollivier, “Overlord”), suspiciouslooking Spanish brothers Ángel (Miguel Bernardeau, “Elite”) and Ramiro (José Pimentão, “Al Berto”) and the unhappy geisha Ling Yi (Isabella Wei, “Our 4℃ – Able World”). The sullen-looking captain of this doomed ship, Eyk (Andreas Pietschmann, “Dark”), also joins Maura in navigating the disasters ahead. Everyone seems to call a different place home, yet they’re

all on the Kerberos for the same reason — they’re running away from something in their past in hopes of a better future. The aforementioned weird signs appear again in this dining room, as we hear unnaturally long diatribes on the size and capacity of the human brain, watch every passenger in the room sip their tea and return their cups to their saucers at the exact same tempo and listen to the score warble and readjust itself like a radio out of tune.

The second-most outstanding part of these eight episodes (second only to the mind-bending scifi involved in the plot) are the characters and their relationships to each other. While the protagonists of the show converse mainly in English, every other character maintains their native tongues, which include German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Polish, Spanish, French, Cantonese and Portuguese. We watch these characters break through language and class barriers as the first-class passengers meet and befriend the middle-class passengers over the course of the show. It doesn’t matter if the Spanish man can’t understand the Danish

man, or if the Chinese woman doesn’t understand the Polish man — in the catastrophic situations these passengers face, language is a trivial thing. Caring for one another and making sacrifices for each other — those are universal. “1899” tries to strip humanity all the way down, parsing through what exactly makes us tick the way we do. This show proves that no matter which reality we think we’re living in, our love for our fellow human is the most consistent thing we have.

And now we reach the monster in the room — the plot. I appreciate a good slow burn. I love having to hold certain details in the back of my mind and retrieve them later to put together a puzzle. However, I think “1899” pushes the slow burn premise a little bit over the edge. The season took far too long to get to the point — or at least what I think was the point. The worlds that Friese and bo Odar create are meant to be confusing, but I still didn’t quite know what was going on as I was starting episode seven. The upside to this incredibly slow pace was that we had more time to get to know some of our main characters. Each

episode began with a flashback into a particular character’s life and Maura’s voice telling them to “wake up,” jolting the character awake in the present. These flashbacks did go a long way in providing background and further explanation to certain characters’ actions, though the plot development seemed to suffer because of it. It seemed as though the first six episodes served to stoke the flames of conspiracy theories, which ultimately left more questions than answers. Some of the questions still remaining in my notes are:

“What is lost will be found” — What’s lost? Where are we finding it? What do the telegraph messages with the triangles mean?

Why are the compasses spinning?

What does Maura’s letter mean?

Did this girl just stop a bullet?

“May your coffee kick in before reality does” — I wish this for myself too

Are these people even real?

An extremely commendable aspect of Friese and bo Odar’s creations is their explanations of scientific theories. Though convoluted, “Dark” somehow managed to kind of solve the

lonely, misunderstood individual. A concerning number of TikTok edits have emerged sympathizing with Dahmer and even glorifying him as some kind of genius. There were even people who dressed up as him for Halloween, an act so absurd I do not think I can sum it up in a few words. Some of the victims’ families have spoken out about how the show has retraumatized them, but their comments have received little to no attention from Netflix or the media at large. Dahmer’s killings have instead been turned into a spectacle that only serves to inflict further pain on the victims.

grandfather paradox, and the average viewer was able to grasp the overall explanations of time travel and parallel universes. At its base level, “1899” revolves around Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and opens an effective discourse around the nature of reality and the human mind. Is reality just a bunch of neurons firing in our brains, or is it more? Does reality involve who we interact with and how we give meaning to experiences in our lives? More importantly, what is “real?” By exploring this area of sci-fi, “1899” risks rehashing the plots of “The Matrix” or “Inception” — although it has been only eight episodes.

Though “1899” is a bit slow to get off of the ground, the eighth episode left me feeling the same way I did after season one of “Dark” — wanting more. Though it’s still too early to tell whether the show will be getting a season two, the season finale suggests a plot that’s ready to expand further. The hope is that Friese and bo Odar will continue to churn out content that pushes the boundaries of what we know to be true. Until then, I’ll be waiting with my notebook.

Design by Grace Fiblin

Design by Iris Ding Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Once the clock strikes 12 on the first of November, I can practically feel the urge to switch into “holiday season mode.” Starbucks starts selling those snickerdoodle hot chocolates that I begrudgingly enjoy, Hallmark pumps out one romantic Christmas movie after another and Hobby Lobby sells out of the holiday decor they’ve had on the floor since July. I try not to get swept up in the Christmas spirit until December, but it can be tough, what with all of the mass marketing propaganda, endless Christmas movies and Phoebe Bridgers’ annual emotionally devastating Christmas song cover. Now I promise I’m not a curmudgeonly old grinch. I just hate when everyone blatantly skips over my favorite holiday of the year: Thanksgiving!

In all fairness, other than “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” and the “Charlie Brown” specials, there aren’t many beloved Thanksgiving films. But when it comes to TV, no other holiday has got it beat. Frankly, it’s too early for Christmas fluff specials, so here are five shows with Thanksgiving-themed episodes that belong in the television hall of fame.

“Friends”

SABRIYA IMAMI Managing Arts Editor

Thankful for Thanksgiving TV

I had to start with the classic. Could there be a more iconic set of Thanksgiving episodes? Season after season, “Friends” delivered. And I mean, really delivered. Even in its earliest seasons, they set the tone for every tradition to come, from Chandler’s (Matthew Perry, “17 Again”) hatred of the holiday to Monica’s (Courtney Cox, “Scream”) relentless efforts to put dinner together, only for it to spiral into disaster. Widely regarded as a fan favorite, season five’s “The One with All the Thanksgivings,” gives us the infamous scene in which Chandler tells Monica he loves her for the first time … while she’s dancing around with a turkey on her head.

My personal favorite is “The One Where Ross Got High” for having that lightning speed round of confessions, Rachel’s (Jennifer Aniston, “The Morning Show”) beef dessert trifle and Joey’s (Matt LeBlanc, “Joey”) maternity pants. I’d also be remiss not to mention my mom’s (and a lot of people’s) favorite, “The One with the Rumor,” mostly because it’s “The One with Brad Pitt.”

“Friends” is about “that time in your life when your friends are your family,” so naturally, it’s sappy and sort of sweet that out of all the holidays, Thanksgiving is the one the show is most known for. Besides, what

else is there to watch on cable TV on Thanksgiving Day? Football?

“Friends” is currently available to stream on HBO Max.

“Gossip Girl”

Mmm. Whatcha say.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you probably haven’t watched this scene, which is, no joke, the greatest Thanksgiving dinner scene in television history, featuring each dramatic exit from the table set to Jason Derulo singing in the background, the abrupt cut-aways to Lily (Kelly Rutherford, “Melrose Place”) drinking in the kitchen and Eric’s (Connor Paolo, “Revenge”) deadpan delivery of “Your sweet potatoes are bland.” With this episode, “Gossip Girl” boldly asks the question: How many backstabbing betrayals can one pack into a single three-minute scene? It’s truly a commendable effort as it balances multiple feuds and petty grievances simultaneously; the camera barely catches a break as it jumps from one pair to the next, each line of dialogue sparking a chain reaction of shocking reveals and vexed responses.

“The Treasure of Serena Madre” isn’t just a good Thanksgiving episode but one of the series’ very best. Every character sitting at that table is silently fuming at the person to their left, with Blair (Leighton Meester,

“Monte Carlo”) carelessly stirring the pot about matters she’s uninvolved in, Serena (Blake Lively, “A Simple Favor”) flirting with Nate’s (Chace Crawford, “The Boys”) cousin in front of his wife and Rufus (Matthew Settle, “Band of Brothers”) telling dad jokes, which is a crime in and of

itself. As always, this show thrives upon chaos and incestuous conflict, and what other holiday quite so perfectly presents itself as a backdrop for long-held resentment and passiveaggressive comments brewing under the surface of a flawless dinner spread? Although none of the show’s

other Thanksgiving episodes hold a candle to season three for that theatrical dinner exit sequence alone, the award for most on-theme title goes to “Blair Waldorf Must Pie!” because, duh.

‘Stranger at the Gate’ shows the power of compassion

“I think (there) are two really major problems in our society right now: We’re closed off from each other, and we’re unforgiving,” director Joshua Seftel said in a virtual interview with The Michigan Daily.

Seftel’s short documentary film “Stranger at the Gate,” produced by The New Yorker, tells the true story of Mac McKinney, a man who planned to attack a masjid and instead turned to Islam. The film makes its

viewers aware of the importance of addressing the problems Seftel highlights and, more importantly, impresses upon them the desire to change the way we as people in a society interact with each other.

McKinney, a veteran, was taught during his time in the military to see Muslims as enemies. He intended to act on this belief when he returned to Muncie, Indiana; he planned an attack, gathered materials to make a bomb and intended to blow up the Islamic Center of Muncie. He arrived at the masjid and was met with pure, simple compassion.

Dr. Saber Bahrami, a member of the Muncie Muslim community, saw McKinney and hugged him, the way he would any individual there for prayer. Another person, Jomo Williams, saw McKinney looking troubled and asked how he could help. Bibi Bahrami, a woman who people liken to Mother Teresa because of how she accepts people into her home, invited McKinney as a guest, even after learning what he intended to do.

McKinney, a man who intended to do harm to this community, was treated with kindness, and that made

all the difference. He was moved by their compassion and chose to learn from them and, eventually, join them. He turned to Islam in spite of his initial beliefs regarding Muslims. He is proudly Muslim to this day.

Documentaries detailing tragedies are particularly difficult to watch. To know that these struggles you’re watching as entertainment are real experiences and feelings that people have gone through is hard to reconcile. When watching “Stranger at the Gate,” I felt this to a degree I had never experienced before. As a Muslim, to hear about this man’s plan to

was terrifying.

Content Warning: This article contains mentions of sexual assault.

Based on the book of the same name by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, “She Said” tackles the true account of how these two investigative journalists, played by Carrie Mulligan (“Promising Young Woman”) and Zoe Kazan (“The Big Sick”) uncovered and wrote a story that would dismantle the power of a serial sex offender and set the #MeToo movement in motion.

The film finds Twohey and Kantor working at the New York Times in 2016 as they investigate Harvey Weinstein (“Shakespeare in Love”) — formerly one of Hollywood’s most powerful and successful film producers — and the allegations against him of sexual misconduct in the workplace.

In 2020, the New York justice system convicted Weinstein of two counts of rape and sexual assault and sentenced him to 23 years in prison. Two years into his sentence, Weinstein now stands for a second criminal trial in Los Angeles. He has pleaded not guilty to all seven charges against him: two counts of rape and five counts of sexual assault. If convicted, Weinstein faces a sentence of up to 135 years in prison. “She Said” — released on Nov. 18, 2022, just over a month after the trial was officially underway — brings attention to a story that revolutionized the conversation on sexual harassment in the workplace.

The trial and the horrific testimonies that accompany it represent much more than Weinstein. “She Said” understands this — the most Weinstein himself physically contributes is his voice and the back of his head. The correct choice, without question. The true story of how the king of Miramax Films (and of Hollywood, for that

matter) abused his power for decades without consequence is symbolic of a system that protects abusers and silences victims in the workplace. “She Said” takes a stand against all the Weinsteins of the world and the institutions that tend to shield them from the consequences of their guilty actions.

The film’s opening sequence follows Twohey as she publishes a story exposing sexual misconduct by former President Donald Trump ahead of the 2016 presidential election with a named source, which led to the firing of political commentator Bill O’Reilly at Fox News after misconduct allegations against him surfaced. This serves as the prelude to the film’s central story and begs the question, asked by Times editor Rebecca Corbett (Patricia Clarkson, “Sharp Objects”), “Why is sexual harassment so pervasive and so hard to address?”

“She Said” dials in on the grueling process of chasing leads, approaching sources, minding the law, toeing the line of ethics and pulling thread after thread. By following the nearly impossible operation of breaking a story of this magnitude, with no shortage of intimidated and legally gagged sources, we see just how easy it would have been for Weinstein’s behavior to never come to light. The film is slow and methodical. It shares its naturalistic, procedural cinematic approach with Tom McCarthy’s 2015 “Spotlight,” which followed The Boston Globe’s operation to expose the cover-up of child sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church. Both films are sobering, as they keenly observe the thrill and drama of all-consuming investigations into corrupt systems of deceit and intimidation. Mulligan and Kazan honor Twohey and Kantor with memorable performances, their emotional vulnerability expressing just how passionate and personal reporting can get.

‘She Said’: A hard-hitting exposé on the story that brought down Harvey Weinstein

MAYA RUDER Daily Arts Writer

Photo courtesy of Karl Schroder

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attack a masjid, a place of worship,

by Patti Varol

Detroit Street Filling Station: Americana meets plant-based in this eclectic institution

KAYA GINSKY Managing Arts Editor

Few restaurants in Ann Arbor have received the love that Detroit Street Filling Station has. Locals know that the spot is worth the hype from its community justice–focused team to its iconic appetizer menu. Detroit Street Filling Station focuses on fresh produce and complex plantbased flavors and is transparent about its ingredients. It may not have non-vegans as enticed, but it has engaged a diverse local community inching toward a more plant-based lifestyle, all while supporting social and environmental causes.

Detroit Street Filling Station is a blend of Americana and earthy, and of local, regional and international. They revamp classic comfort foods on a wholesome, exciting and eclectic plant-based menu.

Tables spill out of the cozy, covered patio onto Kerrytown’s busy sidewalks, and the indooroutdoor flow feels warm and inviting. A mix of pop, rock and indie hits plays softly from the speakers. Every table overflows with colorful dishes that draw in even the most carnivorous bystanders.

The former home of the Staebler-Kempf Oil Company (a filling station), the building has a funky, industrial feel with colorful walls, community event posters, fun lighting and dozens of potted plants. QR code–scanned menus make it easy to dine with a large group and share dozens of

dishes. Detroit Street Filling Station does not have the commercial, stoic feel of other QR-coded restaurants, as the servers check in to chat and consistently fill up a variety of homemade drinks.

The appetizer menu features exciting twists on bar food. We went for the Buffalo cauliflower and chili. The dish celebrated cauliflower with a perfectly crispy tempura batter and a rich, biting Buffalo sauce that I could not believe(!) had no butter. Though cauliflower is not comparable to the unbreaded wings invented decades ago as a late-night bar snack, Detroit Street Filling Station created a new bar food classic with the humble, subtly delicious vegetable.

The chunky, meatless chili was warming and savory, brimming with tomatoes, sweet potatoes and beans, served with crunchy tortilla chips. Earthy undertones and small kicks of spice built a warm and comforting bowl to brighten the impending winter. Our appetizers were not lardy or buttery, but they were comfort food nonetheless. We were filling up quickly.

We were hungry again in a few minutes, our eyes larger than our stomachs when the entrées came out. We already ordered at the start of the meal, but formulated a long list of “should’ve, could’ve, would’ve,” orders as our eyes darted to other tables.

Jess Stern prepares a cocktail at the Detroit Street Filling Station Thursday afternoon. We decided on some classic-

turned-vegan dishes: Buffalo salad bowl, tofu fried rice and a Southwest salad. The Buffalo tofu curls were the closest I have gotten to a crave-worthy Buffalo wing plate in over a decade of vegetarianism. The soy curls pack an umami flavor and hearty texture that soaks up the Buffalo sauce. Fresh tomatoes, onions and celery, a creamy ranch dressing and salty tortilla chips (a topping that should be on more salads) perfectly offset the spice. With all of its fresh flavors, the salad did not even need the New Yorker’s preferred blue cheese. We saved the pickle for last, a local crisp and sour from Eastern Market pickle purveyors. The locally-focused Detroit Street Filling Station sources other fermented goods from The Brinery in Ann Arbor, including the tempeh and sauerkraut on their standout Reubens.

The fried rice was a perfect takeout-style feast, filled with soy, sesame and the satisfying heartiness of an American Chinese classic (minus the egg and meat). The dish exploded with flavor: sweet and fresh vegetables, crispy rice and tofu “egg” with curry, and fluffy fried tofu. The fried tofu swam in a General Tso’s sauce, a New York restaurant creation combining Chinese ingredients with a sweeter American flavor palette. The stickysweet sauce brought brightness and even more comfort to the dish. The Southwest salad’s chipotle ranch elevated the salad to a spicy Tex-Mex level, and the cumin lime rice, fresh

pico de gallo and guacamole added refreshing flavor. The Cuban black beans, one of the country’s staple side dishes, were filled with mild herbs and warm spices, showing that a flavorful and protein-heavy meal does not require meat.

Detroit Street Filling Station proves it’s possible to make a classic American feast without butter. To test their quality, we ordered one of the most buttery, easy-to-fail/dry-out tests of American cuisine: cornbread. Cornbread originated in early Native American kitchens, developed into a Southern classic in the kitchens of enslaved people and eventually became a divisive signature dish found in thousands of southern American family recipe books.

Detroit Street Filling Station’s cornbread is a limited-edition local favorite, celebrating the classically buttery and rich delicacy with maple butter. The cornbread included fresh corn and shockingly moist batter, making the perfect crumble and shiny crust. It was equally savory and sweet. The plant-based maple butter put a Midwestern spin on the classic and transformed the versatile side dish into a dessert. The cornbread is one of many new classics on the menu.

At Detroit Street Filling Station, diners can take a culinary road trip through diverse American family kitchens without leaving their table or eating animal products. We left the busy restaurant and walked into the cold Midwestern air knowing we would be back next weekend.

Here’s what happened after I watched “Aftersun.”

First, I sat and watched the credits. This is something I never do. After they finished rolling, I peeled myself off the movie theater seat and walked home in silence. No music, no headphones. These are also things I almost never do.

Then, I called my dad. This is something I do a lot. Then I hung up. Because he almost always answers, and I didn’t know what I would say. I was overwhelmed with how lucky I was that I could bet on his voice on the other end of the line.

I took the long way home. I watched snow start to fall. I thought about “Aftersun.” I thought about my dad. I did one more thing I never do: I cried.

It’s hard to identify what about “Aftersun” struck me so intensely. In a lot of ways, it’s a hard movie to connect with. It’s slow and unstructured. The cinematography is beautiful but obscure, favoring subtlety over clarity in terms of character and plot. While that’s never been my favorite type of story, it works in “Aftersun” because the film centers around something inherently elusive — memory.

“Aftersun” is about Sophie’s (Celia Rowlson-Hall, “X”) memories of a vacation to Turkey she took with her father as a child. The film opens with a home video of Sophie’s father Calum (Paul Mescal, “Normal People”) standing on their hotel balcony. He’s turned toward the camera, half eaten by the bright summer sky behind him. He smiles, but there’s an unspoken melancholy that tugs at the scene’s corners.

“Aftersun” zeroes in on this world. The video recording transports viewers seamlessly into the past, watching Calum and an 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio, debut) arrive in Turkey for a weeklong holiday. They swim and lounge and explore the grounds of their budget beachside resort. There’s no overarching plot. Writer-director Charlotte Wells (debut) favors simple vignettes that highlight the trip’s importance. We see Sophie eye older kids at the pool, jealous and afraid of them in the way only a girl on the brink of teendom can be. Their room only has one real bed, and Calum takes the too-small cot, ending each night lying on it and rewatching the videos they have made, as if desperate to make sure the trip will be remembered properly. Much like memory, the camera lingers on things that shouldn’t matter — cloudless blue skies full of parasailers, a single slowly developing polaroid picture, empty nighttime beaches.

While Sophie and Calum’s week is ultimately uneventful, an uneasy feeling lies beneath the surface. There’s an expectation of disaster. It’s clear that Calum is struggling with something, though we never know quite what. He doesn’t lash out or break down in front of Sophie. He has one arm in a cast for most of the trip, speaking to some sort of past altercation. He orders a few too many beers at dinners and spends money he doesn’t have. He drags himself out of chairs and off beach towels laboriously, his painfully slow movements

lending a physicality to what we can only assume is a tortured inner world. Mescal brings a subdued boyishness to the role that makes it clear Calum has become a father far too young. He is hardly fit to handle his own struggles, much less provide for his daughter. But that is not for lack of trying. It’s understood that back home, Calum and Sophie don’t see each other often. While Calum struggles when Sophie turns her back, he fights to be his best when she’s watching. This is a precious trip. He buys her trinkets and lets her stay up late and reminds her that she can talk to him about anything. The film ends when the trip does. Calum watches Sophie disappear into the airport, his camera trained on her face. She smiles and waves. He does too. Then he’s gone, leaving alone down the long hallway.

Midway through the film, we see adult Sophie for the first time. The film’s real story is not the vacation itself. It’s Sophie struggling to piece together an understanding of her father — something she never entirely manages. What we are sure of is that in the present day, Calum is no longer a part of Sophie’s life. This severance happened at some point after this vacation, and it happened despite the fact that he loved her very, very much. That was the detail that really got to me — love does not protect us from loss. Calum spent the film yearning for love and extending it unequivocally toward Sophie. He suppressed deep, unspeakable sadness in order to do so. It wasn’t enough. Time and tragedy touch everything, even tainting the happy memories of the vacation. As Sophie watches the home video tapes as an adult, the silence and space feels clouded with grief, even as the duo on screen smile sunnily.

In “Aftersun,” I saw myself and the eventualities of my life. I have an awesome dad. Like Calum, he had me pretty young and never received much fatherly love growing up. Somehow, that has never seemed to phase him. For my entire life, he’s been a steady source of guidance and joy. I imagine that he must mourn his own childhood, but I never see him cry or complain.

I can only imagine which of his own sadnesses he has sacrificed in order to be a consistent source of love for me and my sister. One day he won’t be around, and there are layers to him that I will never understand. One day I will be Sophie, combing through happy memories, warping them with grief and guilt, trying to recover a full picture of his personhood. I have the feeling that, much like Sophie, the only thing I’ll be certain to come away with is love. The minute my dad decided to protect me from the world’s harsher edges, any chance at full truth or clarity was lost. In exchange, I got something my dad never did — the chance to be a happy kid.

“Aftersun” is a testament to parental love. It’s a singular memory that asks us to reconsider our own. The day after I watched the film, my dad called me. I picked up. I told him I had gone to see a movie. He asked if it was any good. Yeah, I told him. It was alright. He told me he’d be getting me from the airport when I came home. I told him I was counting down the days. Me too, he said. He told me to call him when I landed. I promised I would.

The impact of BookTok on the publishing industry and our relationship with reading

NAGY Daily Arts Writer

I don’t think there’s anyone out there today willing to deny that TikTok and other social media sites have a massive impact on our world. From starting questionable online trends to making bold political statements, we have seen the effects of our digital lives bleed into our real ones in numerous and varied ways. The enormous effect of BookTok and other book-focused social media communities on the publishing industry and reading trends is just one of the many examples we have seen crop up in our daily lives, but it’s one that deserves more attention and holds particular importance to me as a book lover.

How many of us have walked into our favorite bookstore in the past two years, only to realize that a new “BookTok” table has quietly made its way to the front of the store? This alone should be enough

to indicate that the app has made a splash in the publishing industry. By warranting a specific section for readers to gravitate toward when looking for their next read, even booksellers are acknowledging that, yes, they know what we’re really there for, and it isn’t Dickens or Tolstoy. When we look at the grand impact this community has had on the publishing world in the past two years, a few new BookTok shelves in bookstores isn’t surprising.

While several book-focused social media communities — such as Bookstagram and BookTube — existed long before BookTok (or TikTok, for that matter), the community born during quarantine grabbed our attention in a way other book communities never did. At a time when many were returning to childhood hobbies for familiarity and comfort, it’s no surprise that reading found its way back into many people’s lives; it’s even less of a surprise that this newly rediscovered childhood

passion made its way onto TikTok, the world’s latest obsession. With the BookTok hashtag now amassing over 92 billion views, it’s only slightly more shocking to learn that it’s almost single-handedly responsible for putting Kylo Ren fanfiction on the New York Times best sellers list for 37 weeks, reviving a five-year-old self-published alien erotica series to become an Amazon bestseller and winning an author not just a six-figure book deal, but also a movie deal. (Let’s not even talk about the “Kissing the Coronavirus” series going viral). Clearly, the community’s influence is considerable.

Perhaps more significant is the impact BookTok has had on readers’ individual relationships with reading — particularly that of young girls and women, who make up the majority of BookTok users. If we look at what stories are most popular on BookTok, the list is dominated by books traditionally viewed as (and criticized for being)

“girly” – YA fantasy, romance and anything else featuring a young female protagonist. These are also the stories that girls have traditionally been made fun of for enjoying (see: “Twilight”), and that many of us have felt ashamed to read or admit to reading before BookTok made them cool.

I have my own experiences with this. I remember carrying books from genres considered less “literary” (many of which are now quintessential BookTok reads) around my high school with their covers hidden against my chest, praying nobody would ask me what I was reading or what it was about. It was hard to reconcile the parts of myself that enjoyed reading these books, which were often seen as meritless or even cringey, and the part of myself that wanted to be seen as smart, intellectual and sage — something I thought could only be achieved by reading the “right” kind

CAMILLE

JOSÉ BRENES/Daily

Behind the University’s signs of the times: the art in navigation

OSCAR NOLLETTE-PATULSKI Statement Correspondent

Mason Hall had a wayfinding problem.

“At best, it was confusing,” the University of Michigan’s Lynne Friman, LSA’s Capital Project Manager and Designer, admits. Her recent credits at the University include redesigns at the Science Learning Center and the Modern Languages Building. She also has been involved in creating the interior of the Museum of Natural History.

Now, Friman is one of the people tasked with the ongoing wayfinding project within the corridors Angell, Haven, Mason and Tisch halls. Though she is often the point-person within LSA for all aspects of a space’s interior — advising on furniture, art, paint and other cosmetic treatments at the SLC — she was recruited for this particular project due to her graphic communications expertise, having solved similar problems at nearby cultural institutions, such as the Henry Ford Museum and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

“Ginny was putting papers up around (Mason Hall), trying to get people to find their way (around the building), and then she came to me,” Friman said.

‘Ginny’ is Virginia Schlaff, the University’s Facilities Manager for the Mason-Angell-Tisch-Haven (MATH) complex, as well as nearby Tappan Hall. The papers, posted to the sides of the hallways using blue painters tape, were an ad-hoc solution designed to temporarily take the guesswork out of the complex’s enigmatic hallways. The common misconception of the building being composed of only one hall is falsely supported by the blurred boundaries and shared roofs between each.

“When the students didn’t come for two years in a row into the classrooms, you had two years worth of students out of four that were unfamiliar (with the building’s

layout),” Schlaff said of the onlineonly period at the University. The complex’s small, maroon interior navigation signs blended in with everything else on the walls of Mason Hall, positioned in hard-tosee places and overshadowed by the saturation of flyers for student organizations and.

“A lot more students needed help finding their way,” Schlaff affirmed.

Like many aspects of college life, the pandemic altered and invited change to many different systems on campus, signage included.

When students finally returned to campus, the if-you-know-you-know mentality of navigating the MATH complex was no longer adequate in supporting the needs of the student community.

Schlaff and Friman are among those in the University’s Facilities offices — plus those in Architecture, Engineering and Construction — working on Phase 2 of this particular wayfinding project, which includes directional and landmark signs for the rest of the ground and first floors, with an anticipated completion date of Fall 2023. Future phases of the project will assist in navigation on

the complex’s upper floors, where finding the right building and corridor for a particular room is about as easy as solving a “Where’s Waldo.”

The ongoing wayfinding work at the MATH complex is only a small window into the bureaucratic world of signage at the University of Michigan, where branding, accessibility and graphic design coalesce into a service we take for granted every day. From “you are here” maps to window lettering, these textual and visual indicators can change whether or not someone gets lost on their way to class, to being able to find the emergency room at the University Hospital. Of course, signage is not always life or death, but it does quietly influence our everyday lives, making it easy or difficult to get where we want to go. Multiply individual decisions by over 50,000 students, plus employees, it’s important that each person knows where to go.

Through the power of suggestion and direction, this overlooked medium can communicate — or fail to communicate — what is deemed important about a place. But who

decides on these signs of the times?

***

Even before entering any U-M building, you are guided by a series of signs noting that you’re on campus. Perhaps you followed one of the City of Ann Arbor’s charming visuals after exiting the highway, pointing you toward Downtown. Upon reaching State and East Huron Streets, you’re greeted by a large, blue sign embedded in a landscaped wall, indicating that you’re on Central Campus. While looking for parking, you might avoid University signs that indicate different permit colors and hours of enforcement, instead opting for metered spaces open to the public. To find the location of your intended building, a freestanding identification sign on a concrete base will help confirm you’re almost there. Finally, at its front doors, lettering on the windows and doors inform you that you’ve finally made it.

Were the above scenario to not go as planned, however, you might arrive in a distant part of campus, wander around before choosing to enter the wrong building, where you might bang on locked doors,

frustrated by how historic and convoluted the University is. Once you’ve exhausted many entrances, you’ll ask a random passerby to show you the way, and embarrassingly, you find out you’re a far walk from where you intended to go. Signs could have saved you the confusion, anger and embarrassment of just walking to your desired room.

Layers of communication are essential to navigate a sprawling institution like the University of Michigan, where many jurisdictions govern piecemeal areas of campus. This multifaceted approach to wayfinding is no accident, however, and it’s all codified in the Campus Signage and Wayfinding Guidelines, published by the University Planner’s Office. The 29-page document dictates best practices for everything from indicating accessible entrances, using the Block M appropriately on Athletic Facilities, the maximum duration banners can be displayed on University light poles before being taken down (one academic year) and the suggested depth of topsoil surrounding a sign’s concrete base (four to six inches).

The exceptional precision that exterior signage must conform to seeks to bridge the identity gap between the University’s 19 schools and colleges, plus many other non-academic departments like University Unions or Michigan Housing. When simply walking through the Diag, there is little from the outside world to suggest the presence of these different governing bodies. Rather, it seems like there is only one: the University of Michigan.

Once inside a building, though, the uniformity stops. On page 12 of the document, pertaining to building directories, individual University units are “encouraged to place directories at all entrances of a building.” And so emerges the complex, somewhat-disheveled patchwork of wayfinding that seeks to get U-M affiliates from front door to classroom door — a task that is easier said than done.

Robert Ramsburgh knows this better than most. Before his current role at the Biological Sciences Building, he was Facilities Manager for the MLB, North Quad Residence Hall, Lane Hall and the Undergraduate Science Building. He has spent the past few years of his tenure trying to bring life to the MLB, which is often nominated as one of the ugliest buildings on the University’s campus.

“At one point, there was a video circulating that a couple of students did about the ‘Majorly Lame Building,’” Ramsburgh said, who has been with U-M Facilities for five years. “I sort of took (the MLB) on as one of my pet projects because it had been neglected … If I were a parent of a student, and I came into a building like this, and it was as drab and dreary as it was, I’d be wondering exactly what I was paying for.”

Unkempt spaces, small signs and doors painted in seemingly random colors added confusion and chaos to a building already made difficult by its infinite oval shape and lack of corridor windows on most floors.

More than a fraud? The guilt of being a fake activist

CHINWE ONWERE Statement Columnist

All my life, I’ve wanted to be the one who stands on the pulpit and delivers the victory message. I’ve dreamed of marching up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial like Martin Luther King Jr., telling America that I belong, that I am meant to be here and that I am a human being that deserves fundamental rights. I’ve longed to protest in the streets, screaming until the hoarseness in my throat overtakes my vocal cords and I gasp for breath.

Yet, I’ve accomplished none of those things. Perhaps because I am scared, perhaps because I feel insignificant but most likely because I feel that I am a fraud, that I’ll never correct the dissonance between my dreams and reality.

I always thought that college would be better. That the perils of high school life and the apprehension that I had once felt would seemingly vanish away with the Ann Arbor wind. Approaching my first days as a Wolverine, I planned to truly be myself, to involve myself in activism by joining the Black Student Unionwand try to

find a Black community that I had previously lacked at other academic institutions.

But during the fall of my first year at the University of Michigan, when the news first came out about BSU’s “More Than Four: The 4 Point Platform” and the trashing of their posters on the sidewalk, I felt a pang of immediate guilt — like I had somehow contributed to the problem. Despite the many times that I had written down, “Attend BSU meeting,” in the colorfully lined pages of my planner, despite the many mental notes that I had ingrained in the depths of my amygdala, I had not attended a single one.

I’m a fake.

Fake activist. Yes, that is what I would classify myself as. In high school, I assumed the position of being the “poster child,” a Black girl who would say just the right number of harsh truths to get away with still being liked by the school administration. I dealt the cards by selecting my words with the utmost caution, always making sure to counteract phrases with an idealized version, painting them into a silhouette, devoid of any real meaning, saying at the end of every sentence, “We need to love everyone.” It was a kind of selfcensorship born out of a fear of being rejected by peers, and by my PWI school.

On the night the news of the torn BSU posters hit, I was scrolling on my phone, perusing the Michigan Daily Instagram debrief. Mindlessly clicking through the stories, I began to see repost after repost of the same photo: posters shredded to bits, scattered across the cold sidewalk, and dirtied by the footsteps of students. Clicking on the photo brought me to the original one posted by @umich. bsu — a numbing scene of posters with the phrase “Care about Black Students” torn and littered on the edge of the sidewalk. This was just 24 hours after the BSU had a public address in which they addressed their Four Point Platform, arguing

for the advocacy of Black voices at the University and for their concerns not only to be heard but acted upon by the administration.

There are four main issues that the BSU wants the University to address.

First: Increase Black student enrollment, specifically to reflect the percentage of the state of Michigan’s Black population of 14%.

Second: The University should explicitly plan out ways to combat anti-Blackness within the school community and in the school system.

Third: Rectify the weaknesses of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plan that is often not effective for Black students.

Fourth: Increase University responsibility and priority to fund kindergarten through 12th grade education in the state of Michigan and to address systemic racism and inequities present in the system.

When I first learned about these efforts from the BSU, I was amazed to see everything that the Union was doing for the Black community here at the University. Here they were, rallying and calling out the leaders and systems of the University, highlighting how their silence was louder than any opposition. And here I was, almost halfway through my first semester at U-M, and still not one meeting under my belt.

I could blame my lack of attendance on the business of my schedule, or on the hours I needed to spend studying organic chemistry. But none of those excuses seemed to make up for the feeling of fake activism that I had.

The pursuit for Black voices to be heard at the University has been a consistent struggle in recent decades. Before the advent of the BSU at the University, there was BAM, the Black Action Movement. In the 1970s, Black students called out the racism and discrimination within the university system through sit-in protests, demonstrations on the

University president’s lawn and rallies in the plaza outside the Fleming Administration Building. Their efforts were primarily concerned with increasing minority enrollment, getting rid of the designation of Black students as “negro” and an aim that the student body would be 10% Black by 1973.

Half a century later, Black students at the University are continuing to fight for this same demand: the demand to be treated as equals by the administration, and have their demands not only listened to — but advocated for. The pivotal moment of BAM’s advocacy happened early in the morning of Friday, March 27, 1970, at around 5 a.m., when the first day of what would be a 13-day strike began.

AMFSCE, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, was a key advocate of BAM’s missions.

AMFSCE denied the crossing of picket lines and was a major contributor to the University’s agreement to “compromise” on BAM’s demands. When presenting their list of 12 demands to administration, they denied almost all of them but upheld that they would increase Black enrollment to at least 7%. These protests continued two times after, in 1975 and 1987. Now, here we are — just over 50 years later since BAM first protested for Black students at the University to be prioritized and cared for, and without much progress to show for it.

During all of the BAM movements, many of the priorities listed in all of the agendas included first increasing Black enrollment to 10%, combating the racist climate of the University and reallocating University funding to actively combat racism. The University has since failed to meet these demands, specifically that of Black enrollment, as the population of Black students at the University has substantially decreased from 7% in 2006 to a current 4.2% in 2021.

I want to be like them. I want to be like the BAM activists, the

BSU leaders and the generators of change for the future of minority students at this university. I want to stand firm and unapologetic at the hands of authority, and yet, I think back to how I was during middle school and high school, afraid of what others would think of me.

I’m scared about what I will do, what I will say, how I will act. For so many years, I’ve cared too much about what others thought of me, and a part of me truly still does.

At my predominantly white high school, I tried to put on the role of activist, hanging posters for Black History Month, Native American History Month and all the heritage months, crafting announcements for all of the cultural holidays, “fun” facts and statistics that I knew would cause relatively little opposition from my classmates or peers because they were not “controversial.”

Yet, what I didn’t talk about was how 49% of Native American homes lack basic clean water, stemming from genocide and colonization from white settlers and a racist system. Because how could people then act as if nothing was wrong?

Appeased, abated, complacent — whatever you want to call it: I am guilty of it. I have tried to wash my hands of the dark red stain that pigments my skin, yet the color never seems to fade.

But, what use is it to feel guilty? What use is it to let it eat away at me when I could be doing so much more?w

The More Than Four Point Platform is not just a mere list of desires or requirements by the BSU. More than anything, it represents the continual struggle of Black and minority voices to be heard and how the hands of the administration have silenced their voices by inaction. Over 50 years since the BAM’s conception, the movement still continues.

I don’t hope to be a part of it. I will be a part of it. And that is a promise to myself, now in ink in every paper dancing across this campus.

SAM ADLER/Daily Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Design by Tye Kalinovic

A student strolls by in Angell Hall Monday, November 28.

‘Do something:’ On the one-year anniversary of the Oxford High School shooting

But even more will never be the same.

Content Warning: Descriptions of gun violence.

It’s hard to be the picture of resiliency when you’ve been knocked down and can’t get back up.

I wish people would realize they’re walking over me, continually pushing me down. But I also don’t. The people that step on me have their own places to be, their own lives to live. I don’t want them to burden themselves with mine. I don’t want anyone to lay down beside me. But it still hurts.

I feel the heels of their shoes press into the bruises that have made homes on my skin — everything lingers.

I don’t know. Maybe I want someone to look down. Maybe I want someone to lay beside me. What I do know is that I’m scared a lot. I don’t think I’ll ever not be afraid again.

I put my jacket over my sister’s shoulders as she cries. I hold my sister so tightly I fear I might crack her ribs. I smile when someone asks where I’m from.

“Oxford,” I say, bracing for impact.

They smile. They don’t remember. That is almost worse.

Things haven’t changed that much. For me, they’ll never be the same.

***

A year ago today there was a shooting at Oxford High School.

Four students died: Madisyn Baldwin, Hana St. Juliana, Justin Shilling and Tate Myre. Many more were injured, now fully recovered.

I am not a survivor myself, but my little sister, Abbey, was there that day. She crawled out of a window and ran down the street.

I was in Mason Hall during those minutes my sister made her escape.

I do not try to represent or describe the totality of the experiences that came after this event. I simply seek to speak on my own.

***

The changes that happened after aren’t big. They aren’t noticeable unless you’re looking for them. They’re clear when Abbey’s eyes get lost in space, and I can tell she’s somewhere far away. They’re clear when I play certain songs, and we cry without speaking. They’re little changes in her face I can’t pick out. She looks older. I think it’s something in her eyes.

I look in the mirror sometimes and try to pick out the differences in my own face. Maybe I look different too. Do I look older? Is there something in my eyes?

But maybe I don’t. Because sometimes I look at Abbey, and she looks just like she used to. When we’re screaming a song in our parent’s truck. When she’s watching TV with my older sister. When I watch her play with our dogs in the yard.

Those moments remind me how little everything changed. Is the look in my sister’s eye all that’s changed because of this tragedy? Is that all that changes after something like this happens to someone? Nothing tangible, nothing monumental, nothing that will protect other children and other parents and other families

from this kind of pain. From this kind of change.

Just this. The way my sister cries and shakes. The way I look in the mirror and pick apart my face, hoping for some change, because something, anything ought to change as a result of what happened in my hometown 365 days ago today.

It’s always the pain. That’s all I can see.

***

At the end of the piece I wrote for “The Oxford Edition,” I called upon anyone reading to look at my community, to see it. Actually, I believe I didn’t “call,” I “begged.”

My friends read the article, my hometown did. For a few months afterward when I met someone new, and I said my name, they sometimes knew who I was, they attached my name with the piece. But that was back when people froze when I said where I was from. They looked. They saw. They listened to my story, to my sister’s story, to stories from those on campus and from those back in Oxford. I thanked them. It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort to do that — to look, to see, to listen so earnestly.

But now, a year later, they don’t remember. And I don’t blame them.

There have been 717 mass shootings in the U.S. this year. I can’t remember 717 towns. I can’t remember that many names. This overwhelming, intense pain that has burdened my family, my town for months now, plagues thousands of other souls in this country.

Because my little sister shakes and cries when she hears fireworks. Because my little sister can’t go to school without the therapy dogs

that they provide. Because I can’t listen to certain songs. Because my dad can’t think about it for too long because he’ll just freeze, and the world will keep moving without him. Because my entire life, my family’s life, feels like trying to push a run-down car uphill. Constant effort, just to keep moving, and when we turn around, we realize we haven’t even made it that far.

And I didn’t even lose someone. Think about that. 717 mass shootings. Thousands of families, thousands of people. That’s a lot of names that you, I, we can’t remember.

That’s a lot of names that deserve to be remembered. ***

When it happened, my older sister and I fled Ann Arbor. I sat in the passenger seat as she drove, as she pleaded with me not to talk about it, because she couldn’t drive and dry-heave at the same time. I pleaded with my mind to stop racing, my arms to stop aching for my little sister.

But now it’s nearly a year later, and I’m driving home again. Just like that day, I’m driving to see my younger sister. My hands grip the steering wheel, and I see a Twitter notification. Another headline of a school facing another threat of a mass-shooting. I don’t dig too deeply for the details, I can’t without freaking out. I think my Twitter notifications have listened to my search history. It may not currently be the worst day of my life anymore, but I think, with a growing anger, that somewhere out there, it is somebody’s.

I glance at the passenger seat and think about how, two weeks ago, I was holding back a panic attack like

vomit. I remember locking every muscle in my body so I wouldn’t move, so I wouldn’t show anyone that I was on the verge of tears, of breaking down. All because we had tumbled over a particularly nasty bit of roadkill.

I wondered if this will be what the rest of my life is like. Crying over roadkill, fake guns, movies I used to love, Evan Peters in American Horror Story, sirens, book covers, certain names, the way no one understands and yet too many people understand and how none of us should, my little sister’s backpack, my old chemistry teacher, therapy dogs, the image of my little sister bleeding out on the floor of her high school and whispering my name, and I don’t even know what’s happening and someone is stepping over her, the classrooms in Mason Hall, flags at half-mast, calls from unknown numbers, hospitals, Grey’s Anatomy season six episode 24, my little sister’s 16th birthday, the idea of my tears falling down my face and the shade of the frost on the grass and how hard the ground would be if I had to bury my little sister.

And just like that I’m back in it. Because what are just nightmares to make me sob are real to some people. To so many people. I pound my fist into the steering wheel as I pull into my driveway, pressing my forehead against the cool glass so I can feel something other than this. And then I realize that this, this is nothing. This is getting off easy.

I put each hand on its opposite shoulder and hold myself close. I don’t want to go inside like this and scare my sister. I’d rather bear this burden alone. But I know I am not. My family is just inside, bearing

this burden. 717 new communities in America are out there, bearing this burden, just from this year alone.

A little under a year ago I begged people to look at my community. Now, I’m afraid I’m going to beg people again.

Please do something. Check in on your friends. Have conversations about mental health, about gun control with your families, friends. I said in my previous Oxford Edition piece that the months following the event felt like I was stuck in the moment of that day — Nov. 30. Others may walk on. Others’ worlds may change. But mine has not. Mine won’t. I refuse to let it.

Not until you see. Not until we see. Not until something comes out of this. This pain, this unending, burning pain that is somehow overwhelming and all-consuming and still doesn’t compare to that of those who lost people exactly one year ago, of those who lose people to gun violence every single day.

I will remain frozen. I will remain in that moment of horror, a piece of me will remain in the worst day of my life until I feel like the world has paid for what it has done to me. To my older sister, to my father, to my mother. To my little, baby sister, who I am fortunate to spend yet another day with. To Tate. To Hana. To Madisyn. To Justin. To Oxford.

Please, I’m begging you. Take a piece of yourself, your mouth, your hand, your heart and hold it out. Promise it to me, to people like me, to people in worse positions than me. And then do something with it. Be a part of the reason that the only thing that comes out of this tragedy isn’t pain.

CHARLIE PAPPALARDO Statement Columnist

Throughout his long and illustrious career in meteorology, not everything went to plan for Perry Samson.

In fact, he never planned on becoming a meteorologist. He had every intention of becoming a rock star.

“But they expect you to have some talent,” Samson said. “Which I thought was unfair.”

And he certainly didn’t plan on becoming a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Michigan, he only decided to interview because he was trying to be cheap.

“I applied for the job in Ann Arbor literally hoping, not that I would get hired because I didn’t think that that would happen,” Samson said. “... but that they would pay for my room as I drove from Albany to Madison … I’m a cheap guy.”

And he absolutely didn’t plan on starting a weather site — The Weather Underground — that receives tens of millions of visits every month. Rather, it began as a simple attempt to look intelligent in front of his students by being able to tell them what the weather was going to be each day.

“He came in one day and he said, … ‘I want you guys to make me look smart,’” Frank Marsik, associate research scientist and lecturer in the College of Engineering, said. “‘I need to know what the weather’s going to be that day. Nothing’s more embarrassing for a meteorology professor to go into class, have students ask him and you not know.’”

But regardless of what his initial plan was, he did all of these things, from never-was-rockstar to one of meteorology’s most celebrated thinkers and the University’s most esteemed professors.

He wasn’t supposed to. His success was not a product of some greater design. He simply took what was in front of him at every step of his life, looked for the most logical path forward and turned opportunities that he couldn’t have predicted into much more than they should have been.

That’s part of the reason Samson has never fit neatly into a concrete professional description. Because for Samson, there’s very little that he isn’t.

“He’s just Perry. He’s an enigma,” Rackham student Kaleb Clover told The Michigan Daily.

And while any description would be largely inadequate in fully capturing the enigmatic Samson, it’s

worth a shot:

Perry Samson is a tornadochasing, major weatherconglomerate co-founding, educational tool building, emmy-winning, meteorologicaltrailblazing, entrepreneurial professor of atmospheric sciences with a specialty in air quality. He’s spent the past four decades teaching at the University; every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, he could be found standing at a lectern, teaching Climate 102: Extreme Weather, to students like me, who had minimal interest in the weather and an even more minimal intent of becoming meteorologists.

“If you ask about the story of Perry Samson, it’s not the story of a great forecaster, it’s not even the story of a tornado chaser … Perry’s is the story of innovation,” Tim Keebler, Ph.D. student, and a former GSI for Samson, said.

With so much that could be mentioned, it’s impossible to define Samson by just one feat that he’s accomplished. Heck, it took me hundreds of minutes of interviews before someone even thought it worth mentioning that a documentary made about a trip he led won an Emmy. Yet, everyone brought up Climate 102 right away.

RILEY HODDER Statement Correspondent

‘On the cutting edge:’ Professor Perry Samson through the lens of Climate 102

Photo courtesy of Paige Hodder

Riley Hodder (left) and Abbey Hodder (right) in front of Oxford High School Saturday, November 26.

SAHANA NANDIGAMA MiC Columnist

With each tug on a strand of my hair, my confidence grew. The sizzle of the flat iron slowly trans formed my frizzy, untamable curls, filling me with joy as I felt like I was enhancing my beauty. I would cringe as I saw my natural hair make a reappearance after a show er. I’d quickly dry myself off, ever rushing to the glorious moment I could straighten it again. The cycle continued throughout middle and high school.

I grew up watching both Bol lywood and Hollywood movies and wished my hair sat as uniform and straight as the women on the screen. My hair is thick, coarse and a mix between curly and wavy. I never knew how to classify it on the thousands of online quizzes I would take to identify my hair pattern. It is unique, but not in a way I would like. I would always spritz water in my hair before leaving the house in an attempt to smooth it down because it was frizzy and “hard on the eyes.” As I grew older, I found that many of my Desi friends felt the same. What I realized is that Bollywood does not accurately rep resent the hair (or skin color, among other things) of South Asians. They produce content that pres ents Desis as closely as possible to Eurocentric models: straight hair, fair skin and thin bodies. This way,

LUZ MAYANCELA MiC Columnist

It was the day – the first day of college. I’d been in Ann Arbor for four days, and it didn’t hit me until that morning.

It didn’t hit me as I told you that your only child was moving 206 miles away for college, nor did it hit me as you waved goodbye from the car window. I kept telling myself that I was okay. After all, I spent most of my life craving a whit of independence. The day before that morning, I strategically picked out my outfit, just like I did every year. You always told me that first impressions were crucial. I picked up my black mules, dark blue jeans and a black top, and the red beaded necklace I bought in our homeland, Ecuador. As I got ready, my heart was heavy, and it cried for you. I was officially a first-generation col lege student, and I was drowning. Once again, I was drowning in the American world of workaholism and college football. That morn ing, it finally hit me that I would say goodbye to the folkloric dance group sessions and our Ecuavol ley (a form of volleyball invented by Ecuadorians) weekends that I called home for 18 years. Through the heartache, I got ready because I wanted this world to see me. I sought visibility after years of being shamed for my long black hair and broken English. Knowing that I carried you within the red beaded necklace gave comfort to my heart – comfort that I needed as

The flat iron addiction

Desis fit into the Western ideal of neat, put together and professional, contrary to how we are represented in America.

When I discovered my abil ity to straighten my hair in sev enth grade, it was like finding gold. People take me more seriously when my hair is straight, which I’m guessing is because it looks more “American.” People compliment me noticeably more, I get told to “do my hair like this more often,” and sometimes, people are even kinder to me. In a way, I feel like I’m treated more human. In West ern culture and through colonialist practices, straight, uniform hair is the ideal look. These notions reit erate harmful racist notions which perpetuate Black and Brown indi viduals as physically unattractive, unprofessional and disruptive.

These stereotypes and expecta tions are widely accepted in soci ety and are the reason for most of my insecurities regarding my hair growing up. My hair has been one of my biggest insecurities since I was young. Its coarseness, the bushiness of my eyebrows, the “unladylike” hair that grew on my arms: These were all evident perceived flaws that you could not miss when you looked at me. I attended a predominantly white elementary and middle school growing up, so I was acutely aware of how my hair, among many other things, made me visibly different.

I was never able to forget how the scent of my hair stood out when

I had layered coconut oil in it the night before, how my eyebrows took up my whole forehead or how I had to shave my arms before pool birthday parties because the other girls “did not want lice.” Since the age of six, I would stress over being able to tie a bun in the very spe cific way we were required to for our performance for months lead ing up to my annual ballet recital. Straightening my hair made it more manageable and more like what it is conventionally supposed to look like. Finally, I was able to tame one of the most noticeable Desi parts of my appearance.

I used to go to local Indian hair dressers when I was younger, but once I turned 16, I started going to chain salons with mostly white hairdressers. They always lathered my hair with luxurious shampoos that I’d never used growing up and told me they would blow my hair out in the way I always wanted it to be done. I was finally proud of where I got my haircuts because, in my mind, these salons were repre sentative of everything I intended my hair to be.

But I was always met with hyp ocritical comments once it actu ally came time to do the blowouts I waited so eagerly for. “Which side of the family gave you this curse?” one hairdresser asked me as she picked up my half-dried hair only seconds after expressing her jeal ousy at the preciseness of my eye brows. This haircut happened five years ago, yet the comment has

stuck with me to this day. How can something so integral to my iden tity be a curse? As the appointment continued, so did the hairdresser’s expression of discomfort with the thickness of my hair as she remind ed me repeatedly of how blowing my hair out was her “arm workout for the day” and sent me off without completing it because the appoint ment had run too close to her next one. This is an experience I am very familiar with — I’ve been condi tioned to understand that my hair is a nuisance, and I act accordingly: “Don’t worry about smoothing it down, I can do it at home,” “I want it straight, but it’s okay if it’s just a blow dry,” etc.

Just two months ago, I got a hair cut at a popular salon in Ann Arbor with primarily white hairdressers. As soon as I walked in, I was met with numerous shampoos, condi tioners and deep mask treatments on racks for sale. The waiting area smelled like lavender, and plants were perfectly positioned around me. The front desk employees even offered me tea and other beverages while I waited. I was delighted, as usual, to get the type of treat ment for my hair that I’d always desired, unlike what I used to get when I went to the Desi salons at home. I came in wanting a specific hairstyle but was told that my hair would be too coarse and unruly with the product, so I should choose something else. I was pre pared for this response, so I picked one of the hairstyles from the back

up options on my phone — ones that I wasn’t excited about but pleased to get approval from the hairstylist. Throughout the haircut, I caught the other stylists walking past my chair as they whispered and pointed at me. Subtle gossip ended up with a group of hairstylists who were not assigned to my hair gath ered around me as they frantically talked about how they would “get this done” in time. My face was so hot as I had no choice but to sit there in the chair with my hair half cut. Toward the latter half of my appointment, I had three hair dressers working on my blowout without any coordination with the style. It ended up being frizzy, and one side was slightly curled while the other was straight. Whatever, at least they had finished.

I don’t know if oiling my hair is bad for it, but honestly, I don’t care. I oil it when I am miles from home because it reminds me of how my mom would do so for me on Sunday mornings while she reminisced on how her mother would do the same for her.

I oil it and feel, for a moment, that I know my grandmothers despite the fact that I never got the chance to meet them.

I can go to as many Dry Bar or Aveda salons that are out there, and surely they may be more aestheti cally appealing in sight compared to the Desi hair salons I went to grow ing up, but they will never provide me with the same respect. They will never be able to speak to my mom in Hindi and ask her how her day was as

A letter to my immigrant parents

I embarked on new terrain. Learning the English language at a young age was the first time I felt myself drowning in this world. This process was new to us, given I was the first in my long ancestral Indigenous line to speak English. I was becoming a depiction of the phrase: ‘I am my Ancestors’ wild est dreams.’ I didn’t know it yet, but I was unfolding a lifelong pro cess of being two-in-one. To you, I was your Mija (mi Hija, or daugh ter). But to this world, I was the daughter of immigrants. For my childhood friends and I, learning English meant unlocking a world filled with possibilities – possi bilities our immigrant, low-income families didn’t have access to. We were too young to understand the value of American schooling, but you knew that attaining an educa tion was key to our prosperity in this country. As I unlocked this world, I began to understand my life as a constant battle between two worlds: America and ours.

At school, I was learning to be American. At home, I was back to being Ecuadorian-Indigenous. As I learned English, not only was I amazed by the social and cul tural differences, but I was adding another layer to my dual identity. As astounding as learning a foreign language was, I resented my learn ing process. In school, following the English language standards was crucial for academic success.

I couldn’t help but question how I was supposed to excel in school when no one at home could help me. Sometime in my early years of schooling, I realized that I would

have to navigate this world with out your guidance. That realization was reinforced by my placement in classes specialized for English learners. I recall feeling left out, so I began assimilating myself into this world. Ultimately, I began to receive academic validation. We relished those moments, but – deep in my heart – I felt misplaced.

Learning English and accommo dating myself to this world inaugu rated my lifelong journey of finding ways to live between both worlds. The more proficient I was in Eng lish, the more distant I felt from our culture. When did you start feeling my distance too? Was it when I explained to you why there are 535 people in the United States Con gress? Or when I started forgetting how to say certain words in Span ish? Every day, I was more Ameri can than the day before, which was confusing to my Ecuadorian iden tity that was battling to show itself every day. I was burying your Mija, but I needed to for this world to accept me. This world didn’t let me speak Spanish in the classrooms. The longer my black hair got, the more I got called an ‘Indian’ by my school peers. Too often, I wanted to storm out of the classrooms and find you because you accepted me just the way I was. Every day in this world’s classrooms was a battle until I uncovered a solution: codeswitching.

The ability to switch between dialects was the answer to all my worries – at least, that’s what I thought. I could make a doctor’s appointment and rapidly repeat all the details back to you in Spanish.

It was a gift. However, the more skilled I was at it, the more it felt like a chore. My code-switching skills steered me to be your local translator; gas paper bills, gov ernment-issued documents, and street signs in English seized my childhood. I had to translate back handed comments like “Hey girl, tell your Dad to move the car?” and “You cannot help him fill out this form, okay?” Constantly using my linguistic skills to translate took over my younger years to the extent to which I felt tired and angry, but you know that. I felt worn out after having long days of school and com ing home to another set of tasks. There was only so much my young er self could handle. I felt angry with this world that promoted equality and advertised itself as the Land of the Free but did not have a Spanish translator at our local Sec retary of State facility. Although it was backbreaking at first, I could not say no to you, you who came to this world with nothing and allowed me to continue carrying out my ancestors’ wildest dream. As I battled through my American teenage years and learned more about this world, it became clear to me that code-switching could only help so much. Since then, I have been on the hunt for new ways to live in between worlds.

So that morning – after 18 years of resistance and invisibility – I realized I also had to come to peace with my dual identity. Col lege would be a fresh start and an opportunity to pursue my dreams, so I decided to embrace who I was across both worlds: Ecuadorian-

Indigenous and American. I recall putting on the black mules I bought at a Nordstrom store and thinking: Is this too American? However, the red beaded necklace I bought in a small artisan market in Ecuador a couple of years ago assured me that I was still your Mija. Since that day, I’ve found comfort in the little things. On some days, I wear the beaded earrings I stole from your closet for my research team Zoom meetings. When my professors and employers ask me to introduce myself, I tell them I am Ecuadorian-American and a first-generation college student.

they oil my hair in Parachute before combing it for my cut. Instead, they will explain to me the harm that the natural treatments I use have on my hair while they promote their alcohol-based shampoos to me after my appointment. They will continue to remind me that my eyebrows are only beautiful when they are thread ed, and my hair is gorgeous only when it is straightened.

I ask myself what is it that makes the Desi hair salons less desirable if they have done nothing but welcome me? Is it that there is always a loud fan whirring in the background, the stylists are louder and the English is sometimes broken? Is it how these things are continuously associated with the dirtiness, nuisance and disruption that the Western world thinks Desis supposedly bring? I find it funny that I preferred light bever ages, lavender scents and luxurious shampoos over actual quality cus tomer service: Service that never made me feel bad for how I looked or like I had to admit that my hair was ugly.

To the hairstylist who affirmed with such confidence that my hair was a “curse” that my family inflicted on me, I ask why you decided to pur sue a career in hair if you were never willing to work with mine? Yes, I am aware that my hair is perceived as big, hard to manage and loud. But you cannot marvel at my threaded eyebrows while rejecting the natural state of my hair.

And when I hear someone mispro nounce my name, I respectfully correct them because I recognize my name has power. I no longer feel like I am drowning. Instead, I am unapologetically swimming in a pool that I know wasn’t made for me. I walk into the classrooms of this 204-year-old institution every day acknowledging the his tory and power I carry. You gifted me life, and my everyday goal is to keep writing the history of our long ancestral line, even if it does take place in this new world.

Yupaychani, Mama Yupaychani, Tayta

Photo courtesy of Luz Mayancela

Design by Iris Ding

CLAIRE GALLAGHER MiC Columnist

Trigger warning: This piece con tains depictions of acts of violence including but not limited to sexual assault and physical harm. Reader discretion is advised.

I.

In Search of the Perfect Mango

NURAIYA MALIK MiC Columnist

Summer in the South Asian sub continent is a thrilling time. Diets are forgotten, hardcore keto addicts take cheat weeks and the search for the perfect mango begins.

If you are Pakistani, you will most likely have grown up with an ingrained reverence or intense craving for the king of all fruits: the mango. Beginning in June, we anx iously await the ripening of Multani mangos. Still, it isn’t until after the monsoon rains hit that the sweet est mangoes make an appearance and the real hunt begins. Overseas Pakistanis will scour neighborhood grocery stores while those at home chase after their local fruit sellers.

Wrapped in netted foam, each orange gem is carefully tucked into place, ready to be devoured. For just a moment, you can forget your burdens and woes, and indulge in a mango. It acts as a reminder; a little piece of home delivered right to your doorstep.

There’s the Chaunsa, known for its exceptionally sweet rich ness. One must be quick not to judge this book by its cover since Chaunsas tend to have a fairly pale yellow exterior. My earliest memo ries revolve around summertime

mango season: my grandparents would arrive with suitcases filled to the brim with Chaunsas. Soon, every room in the house would be infused with its fruity aroma.

People approach mangos the same way they approach life. Take the Sindri for example – a long, oval-shaped delight, and my per sonal favorite. Eating this mango with my family members is an anticipated yearly ritual. The sim ple act of cutting fruit is a love lan guage in itself. My mother takes care to sharply slice each side and scoop out the mango with a spoon. She is swift and methodical, taking care to avoid any mess. My grand mother, on the other hand, is more chaotic. She will violently squeeze the mango, cut a small hole at the top and suck the juice until every last drop has been drawn. I learned to appreciate the nuances of each approach — most of all when I found my own. Each Sindri molds itself to suit one’s emotional needs — a space where creation and tradition can thrive alongside one another.

Then comes the long-reigning Anwar Ratols. With their delicate flavor, these pocket-sized prized possessions are a fan favorite. One bite into an Anwar Ratol and I am transported back to a hot summer afternoon playing cricket in the streets with my cousins. With pierc

ing rays of sun and beads of sweat on each and every child’s forehead, our egos fuel our urge to carry on. After a while, we would run inside and lose ourselves in an ice-cold mango lassi: a work hard, play hard kind of lifestyle.

Langras are travelers. They are exported to Saudi Arabia, Europe and everywhere in between. As major players in the mango diplo macy between India and Pakistan, Langras also act as a bridge con necting borders. These two coun tries, which are at odds when it comes to political disputes and sports tournaments, are strangely bound together by this cultural phe nomenon.

There is something beautiful about this shared experience — the ability of a single fruit to shape tra ditions, cultivate palates and revive childhood memories. While most fruits in Western countries are available all year round, Pakistanis are held captive by the changing of seasons. Bound by the natural cycle of fruits that come and go each year, we savor our moment in the sun.

The temporality of our time together makes each bite just that little bit more special. Then, when October comes around, we are forced to reconcile this bittersweet sense of loss, and the clock begins ticking in wait for next June.

The first time I see the girls, I am sitting in a café. I’ve settled on a booth with faded floral covers to claim as mine. I am conscious that this choice was made out of a lack of knowledge of anywhere else on campus, but the booth will do for now, until I find my way around or until I make friends to find my way around with. I think it is strange that everyone feels lonely in their first year of college but cannot be comforted by the knowledge that everyone feels lonely in their first year of college. It still feels singu lar and directed like the result of not sending a chain text message to ten new people when instructed to.

I read once that women cater their social performances to the male gaze even if this perfor mance is not purposeful. Like I widen my eyes and swell air into my lips while I stand in line to order. In class, I tap my pen to my lips in between annotations like I am casually, sensually, pensive. In rooms without men, I puff breath into the gaze, ensuring its surviv al, hollowing my stomach into an ice cream scooper and maintain ing a serene look of mysterious allure. There is something special about being a freshman girl that I did not embrace in high school and am determined to embrace now.

I met five of the girls first. Com ing into the café, they move like mirages with the edges of their bodies flickering out occasionally. They walk with their arms linked or their hands intertwined up to the register with an airy qual ity that has always evaded my adolescent existence. I pull at my top. I don’t believe they are per forming, but I also read once that not performing is a performance.

The idea of this makes my head hurt because there are too many theories on what it means to be a girl. My breath is forced to slow. As they leave with their food, one girl, the one with black hair down to her waist, catches my eye and smiles at me like an old friend.

II.

My days and nights at school are routine. I want to cry when I am not invited to anything on the weekends and I do not attend any thing I am invited to on the week ends. I pluck the hair between my eyebrows. I theorize that a boy in class has a crush on me. I smoke too much. I think about calling my mom, but never do. I text a girl in my class to ask if she has done the pre-lab. When she replies “not yet,” but doesn’t ask to work on it together, I cannot tell if I am humiliated or relieved.

Days are distinguished only by seeing the girls or not seeing them.

I cannot explain how I can dif ferentiate them from the general student population, only that it is simple and obvious. Sometimes I see one walking through campus alone or I see two at the smoothie shop or I walk past their sorority house and see them all through the windows. It is exciting to be near them. I study their movements, their clothes, their facial expres sions or lack thereof, the way they speak to each other and the way they speak to others. I study how everyone else studies the girls too. I label awe, envy, lust, adoration and curiosity in their stares, but their eyes reveal things I cannot name as well.

I am sitting in my booth in the café when the black-haired girl approaches me. She asks if she can sit. My words stick in my throat, and I am grateful when she sits without a response. Her face is round and soft, the texture of caramel candies that can be pulled apart and tasted in pieces.

I’m Mary. It’s nice to meet you.

I settle into the feeling of being close to her because the last time I felt this weightless was the first time I learned to float. She is so

still when she sits, and I didn’t know that it was possible for a per son to not fidget or flush. She tells me that she has seen me around campus. I blush because she has taken note of me.

Three more girls have just come in. Mary waves them over. The blondest one introduces herself as Delilah, leaning over to kiss me on both cheeks as a greeting. The one with the low, commanding voice is Deborah. Rachel is dark blonde and tanned and reminds me of the fairy characters in a series I read as a child. I think she must be the prettiest girl I have ever seen. Not as powerful in her beauty, per haps, as Deborah or as comforting as Mary, but certainly the pretti est, in the most uncomplicated of terms.

They ask if I would like to get coffee this Friday. At coffee, they ask if I would like to go out with them tonight. They invite me to their house, walking me up stairs and past rows of rooms. I meet a new girl at every turn. Each is welcoming and cool and beauti ful. I think college is not so bad. In Mary’s room, Rachel styles me in her clothes. Shots are poured. Secrets of boys and sex and dads who don’t understand are passed around. Mary doodles a wheat field on my thigh. I swish the scene around in my mouth, and I am careful not to bite down.

At the frat, I am dancing. I jump with my arms raised above me, a permanent grin on my face. My hair flies around me with gos samer wings. Each girl wants her turn to dance with me, to go to the bathroom with me, to introduce me to a friend. I think college will be the best years of my life. Mary whispers to me that she can tell I’m a Theta girl. I repeat the words to myself. I could be a Theta girl. III.

My life feels separated by before and after these girls. Like coming of age is behind me now. I won der if I am one of them. I wonder if Mary was only telling me some thing that would make me happy.

Fiona A. Harrison

Kent and Joyce Kresa Leadership Chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy at Caltech

Harold A. Rosen Professor of Physics at Caltech and Principal Investigator for NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array mission.

Yash Aprameya/MiC

The 2022 Midterms have set up for a Republican showdown in 2024

LYDIA STORELLA Opinion Columnist

The speculation that the 2022 midterm elections would be a red wave for the Republicans turned out to be incorrect. In fact, Nov. 8 turned out well for the Democrats. With fewer than expected losses in the House and the Senate’s remaining blue, the Biden administration retained more power than expected. While Republicans managed to hold their governorships in Georgia, Florida and Texas, Democrats won in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. In Michigan, Democrats flipped both the state House and Senate, giving Democrats a trifecta for the first time since 1982. Reproductive rights were on the ballot in five states, with all ballot initiatives resulting in wins for abortion rights supporters.

While Election Day’s results will determine the balance of power for the next two years, sights have already turned to 2024 — specifically, to the Republican primary. Former President Donald Trump’s inability to deliver big wins for Republicans has thrown into doubt whether he can lead the party to take back the White House in 2024.

Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis seems poised to vie for the Republican nomination.

While Trump announced his reelection bid on Nov. 15, no one should expect that he will cruise to an easy victory. Considering DeSantis’s strong performance in Florida’s gubernatorial election and Trump’s failure to deliver major wins for the Republicans, America should prepare for a Republican primary pitting Trump against DeSantis.

Not only do political pundits and commentators predict that DeSantis will challenge Trump in the 2024 Republican primary, but Trump seems to fear the same scenario. On Election Day, the former president spoke to reporters about the possibility of a DeSantis run, saying that it would be a mistake because “I will tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering.

I know more about him than

anybody other than perhaps his wife, who is really running his campaign.” Trump also did not endorse DeSantis in this election cycle and called him “Ron DeSanctimonious” at a rally on the Saturday before Election Day.

Trump has good reason to fear a DeSantis challenge in 2024. For one, while some Trump-endorsed candidates were successful on Election Day, such as J.D. Vance, the newly elected senator from Ohio, and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, many were not, such as Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz and Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. Trump does not have the hold on the Republican Party he once had. Even in Florida, DeSantis won a higher percentage of the vote than Sen. Marco Rubio, who received an endorsement from Trump last year. While Trump continues to shape the direction of the Republican Party, voters are not as drawn to him as they previously were.

Trump’s reelection bid could be further marred by his continued legal problems with the Department of Justice and the Jan. 6 committee subpoena. These issues could continue his challenges with the electorate that were evidenced by the lack of his endorsed candidates who won in the election this year.

DeSantis, on the other hand, has only become more popular with voters, at least in the state of Florida. In 2018, DeSantis barely won the gubernatorial election against Democratic challenger Andrew Gillum by 0.4%. This year, DeSantis won by a margin of

19.4%. DeSantis also won a higher percentage of the vote than Trump in 2020, who received 51.2% of the vote to President Joe Biden’s 47.9% in Florida.

Additionally, DeSantis performed well in traditional Democrat strongholds, such as Miami-Dade County, showing that DeSantis could perform well in other swing states and districts.

DeSantis can also use the policies he has implemented as governor to his advantage. DeSantis has taken controversial policy actions to become a star on the right. The COVID19 pandemic led DeSantis to implement a variety of policies that elevated him in conservative circles and horrified those on the left. DeSantis banned mask mandates in schools and lifted COVID-19 restrictions on businesses in Sept. 2020. Besides COVID-19 policies, DeSantis signed restrictions on discussion of sexual orientation, gender identity and critical race theory into law, all of which appeal to many Republicans. DeSantis has also taken actions on the national level. He chartered flights to take Venezuelan asylum seekers to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. in Sept. and refuses to say whether or not he supports Trump’s 2020 election lies.

DeSantis’s actions and policies appeal to the right without taking Trump’s approach of brash election denial and potential criminal conduct. However, Trump has one advantage over DeSantis.

Ammar

Jess D’Agostino Ben Davis

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Sophia

Conversation is the first step toward a healthier democracy

ELINA MORRISON Opinion Columnist

What is life like after midterms? What do we do in the time leading up to the next election season? The rhetoric around the significance of voting can feel both overwhelming and inadequate. It’s one of the few tools we have at our disposal as we work towards, in the words of scholar Aziz Rana, “a future we demand but cannot guarantee.” But is voting really the only obligation we have to one another and to our democracy? Once we’ve casted our vote… what comes next?

Here at the University of Michigan, I am a student at the Ford School of Public Policy. In my studies, I am continually struck by how long it takes for systemic change to happen. Whether we are talking about local, state or federal government, once a person has been elected or appointed and starts to enact legislation, the headlines may stop rolling out — but that’s where the grueling work of what we’ve resigned ourselves to call “democracy” begins. Often, things like administrative bloat, implementation and bureaucracy mean that legislative wins, such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, can take years to yield fruits for everyday Americans.

Democracy can’t take years, and neither can the pressing needs of so many Americans. You might have seen the wins you wanted this election cycle, but despair, polarization and divisiveness still threaten the very fabric of our country. If we want a more just society that lasts longer than our lifetimes, beyond the pendulum swing of

an election — we need to do more than a bi-annual vote.

In fact, voting is wholly inadequate for the problems we face, especially when thinking about divisiveness and conflict. We’ve lost the ability to talk about sensitive issues such as race, gender or sexuality and we can’t seem to have political discourse in a civil manner. This is highlighted in the backlash that the University received for hosting Ben Shapiro. And by the way, some of our biggest public servants don’t succeed in civil discourse either, in cases such as Kari Lake and Paul Gosar. On his campaign trail, President Joe Biden often talked about his hopes for healing the soul of our nation. A good first step could be learning how to have conversations with people we disagree with.

In a study room at the Public Policy School, I sat down with Olivia Vaden, a proud Michigander and Michigan State University alum who is currently a second-year Master of Public Policy student concentrating on workforce development.

“I’ve definitely had a chip on my shoulder since (the 2016 presidential election) about civic engagement and what that looks like,” she said.

She worked hard to get out of her comfort zone and participate as much as she could. Canvassing, joining groups to help organize and get out the vote. But after the results, she was left stunned, especially after seeing all of the polling and punditry that predicted Hillary Clinton would win and history would be made.

“I was like, this doesn’t make sense. This was not what you told me would happen if I did all this civic engagement,” Vaden said.

For her, being real with ourselves and others through

open dialogue is a necessary way to engage. “I think processing and getting real about your feelings, or why something angers you, why the other side feels a certain way, that’s the next step. Some things we will never find a middle ground on, but we can have difficult conversations about policy and politics and values with people outside of our echo chambers,” Vaden said. The idea of stepping out of your echo chamber can feel uncomfortable. If you don’t agree with Republican ideologies or policies, why go out of your way to engage? If you dislike Democrats, why put yourself through a difficult conversation?

Given that there are powerful forces, namely the media, seeking to divide us, it might seem that we’re already too polarized for conversation to do much good. Conversation is trivial to some for this reason. But others stand by its significance, like YoungChan Lim. Lim is a second-year Master of Public Policy student and works at the Ginsberg Center, where he advises student organizations at the University on community engagement direct impact grants. He is queer, a first-gen college student and an immigrant; his lived experience with those identities has sometimes posed a barrier between him and others, making him well aware of how deep conversation can bridge gaps in experience. “Engaging in deep and powerful conversations with one another is (a) hard but necessary day-to-day activity,” he said. “Every discipline, every expert has their own thesis on what that looks like, but I think it starts with compassion, especially for people I disagree with.”

From The Daily: How Michigan Democrats can take advantage of their trifecta

MICHIGAN DAILY EDITORIAL

BOARD

In the wake of the 2022 midterm elections, Michigan defied expectations of a red wave, reelecting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and electing both a Democratic state Senate and House for the first time in nearly 40 years (although Democrats did hold the state House about 15 years ago). With this Democratic trifecta in power comes the opportunity to address education, make progress on workers’ rights and better leverage federal funds in Michigan.

Education

One concern this trifecta can address with regards to education is literacy. The Read by Grade Three Law requires schools to give reading and writing assessments to children in kindergarten through third grade. If a student falls more than one grade level behind proficiency, they must repeat third grade, which is ultimately unhelpful to students as it merely serves to set them behind their peers. A more favorable method of alternative education for students who fail the test would be to ensure that they can continue onto the next grade level with their peers and learn the skills they fall behind on with remedial education.

In order to assure that the education system is addressing literacy throughout all parts of the state, state funds should be allocated to different school districts based on demonstrated need. While each district and student is different and there is no perfect spending plan, more can be done to address the fact that a large number of Michigan’s school districts spend at least 10% less than the national average on each student. The curriculum should also be standardized at the state level to minimize disparities in curricula from district to district and to ensure greater access to accelerated education programs for each district.

A more equitable learning experience can be furthered beyond the classroom in funding students’ access to technology and free lunches. Ann Arbor Public Schools, for example, were able to help level the playing field among students during COVID19 by providing Chromebooks for remote learning to every student.

Not all school districts have the funds to provide adequate technology to each student, but as learning becomes increasingly dependent on technology, that must change. Also, during COVID19, a federal program existed that allowed students to obtain free lunches. This program ended in July, but free and reduced school lunches are still needed urgently as rising inflation creates further food insecurity for low-income families. Free and reduced school lunches reduce food insecurity, obesity rates and poor health outcomes, making these programs paramount in maintaining healthy and equitable school environments.

These provisions, however, must extend beyond students and to teachers. Because teachers form the minds of the next generation, a minimum salary should be set statewide to retain teachers and to ensure a quality education for all Michigan students.

Workers’ Rights Now that Democrats have won the governorship and the state legislature, they can holistically approach the issue of workers’ rights and reinvigorate the economy as we move past the immediate COVID-19 crisis. A first priority should be to repeal the “right-to-work” laws implemented by former Gov. Rick Snyder, which weakened union membership in the state to the point where union membership is currently at its lowest point in decades. Although it may seem backward to pay to work, unions require dues and fees to increase their bargaining power — which allows them to increase wages and safety in the workplace across the board. Decreased union membership allows companies to exploit their workers more than if they were unionized and decreases pay and equity, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. For the sake of workers during these increasingly uncertain times and record-breaking inflation, repealing Snyder’s anti-labor laws should be a top priority for this new trifecta government.

Another priority should be continuing to reinvigorate the economy after COVID-19. Michigan actually saw a higher GDP growth than the average U.S. state: 6.2% compared to the national average of 5.7% in 2021. Under Whitmer, the state had the best post-pandemic economic recovery in the nation. This trend, albeit hopeful for Michigan’s broader recovery after the 2008 recession, should be continued with smart legislation and policy that encourages investment without sacrificing the rights of the laborer.

One might say that repealing Snyder’s right-to-work laws would discourage companies from coming to and investing in Michigan. While that might be true to some degree, Snyder’s right-towork laws didn’t attract companies from coming back after the recession either. Regardless, many companies are either outsourcing their labor to other countries.

Further, would Michigan laborers want to sacrifice their rights to bolster the profits of distant CEOs, such as in Texas? Companies that would so brazenly violate the rights of their workers shouldn’t be welcome, under any circumstance. There are other ways to usher in economic prosperity without sacrificing the rights of the worker.

One way to do this is to assist in the broader shift in the automotive industry from fossil fuels to electric or hybrid vehicles. Michigan’s automotive industry is the largest in the country and makes up about 18% of the state’s labor force. It’s integral to the economy of the state and should be encouraged to develop and prosper with more climate-conscious means.

Renewable energy is a rapidly expanding industry, and Michigan could put itself at the forefront of this burgeoning industry through electric vehicles (EVs) and more. One strategy could be tax breaks or subsidies for firms manufacturing renewables and EVs. Encouraging movement of firms to Michigan while retaining environmental integrity would be fantastic. Retraining programs for workers shifting from more traditional manufacturing jobs into cleaner industries would be important as well.

Leveraging Federal Funds In order to achieve the policy goals outlined above, the trifecta must manage and direct the use of federal funds in a productive manner. With the growing economic importance of developing innovative technology, the federal funding provided by the CHIPS and Science Act would allow Michigan to progress as a technology-manufacturing titan, if used correctly. The CHIPS and Science Act has put forth around $50 billion for semiconductor research and manufacturing in order to further bring back manufacturing jobs to the United States.

With Michigan’s history of being a manufacturing titan, mainly in the automotive industry, there is an opportunity for the state to start the transition from automotive manufacturing to technological manufacturing with the CHIPS and Science Act. If the Democratic trifecta can use the money allocated by the CHIPS Act to motivate technological innovation and manufacturing across the state, it will create millions of jobs and spur major economic growth.

Properly leveraging the funds provided by the CHIPS and Science Act would not only result in overt economic benefits but also further growth in many urban centers as well. Cities such as Detroit, Hamtramck and Dearborn — centers of the automotive industry — can also be hotspots for semiconductor and other technological development with the CHIPS and Science Act. This would not only help the individuals in the city but also revitalize the cities by reinventing the way money flows in and out of these areas. Furthermore, a focus on creating tech manufacturing jobs within the state would also provide local job opportunities for University of Michigan graduates.

Another area that the newly instated trifecta should focus on is counteracting climate change. With the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, there is now over $350 billion in federal funds to help fight climate change and support energy security, which means that a Michigan government focused on environmental policy could and should make great strides toward protecting the environment. The act itself explicitly provides a variety of Michigan-centered commitments to support cleaner air, electric vehicle production and lower energy costs.

The trifecta could use this newly allocated money in a plethora of ways. A newer form of climate-friendly infrastructure is the addition of solar panels on homes and other buildings. Subsidies, tax exemptions and other factors that would incentivize solar panel additions on homes could be enacted by the trifecta to spur individual motivation on environmentally progressive actions. A focus on solar panel construction and other progressive infrastructure would ensure that Michigan reaches its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.

A third point of impact for the trifecta could be the opportunity to improve and develop various areas of infrastructure within the state with the newly enacted Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

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Letter to the Editor: Don’t be afraid of conservative voices on campus

CHARLES HILU Opinion Contributor

On Oct. 28, the Ethical Investment Front published an op-ed in The Michigan Daily calling for the University of Michigan administration to cancel Young Americans for Freedom’s Nov. 15 speech with Ben Shapiro at Rackham Auditorium. Though the authors cited “threat(s) to safety” as justification for their demand, their piece was clearly an attempt to stifle the free speech of conservative students on campus. They compared Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew who has experienced some of the worst kinds of antisemitic attacks, to Richard Spencer, the neoNazi and white nationalist. It is hard to find a more mainstream conservative figure than Shapiro. With the authors calling his visit “regrettably reminiscent” of Spencer’s attempt to speak at the University and claiming his “presence will only cause harm to our campus and communities in Ann Arbor,” one has to wonder what conservative commentator they would deem acceptable.

The Young Americans for Freedom’s board had a discussion about how we should respond. We, as well as Shapiro, took to Twitter to publicize our disagreements, but we wondered whether we should do something more, such as write a counter op-ed. In the end, we concluded that the best response was to prove the authors wrong. We decided to focus our energy into putting together a successful and safe event that bettered the political discourse of the campus community. On the night of Nov.

15, we did just that.

Over a thousand people, most of them students, filed into Rackham to hear from Shapiro. People who got their free tickets on Eventbrite lined up on the east side of the building and were let in first. Though we gave out nearly 1,100 tickets, fewer than 500 of those who reserved them put them to use, presumably because of leftist efforts to suppress turnout; as expected, Nota Fascist, a registered attendee whose email is notafascist@conservativessuck. com, did not intend on coming to the event.

Once the ticket line dried up, we let in the line of standbys, who were unable to order tickets in time but came in the hopes of seats opening up. That line wrapped around the block, and the people in it braved the cold temperatures, rain and snow for a chance to see Shapiro. Thanks to their enthusiasm, we filled the venue.

In between the two lines were a dozen or so protestors, holding signs and chanting various slogans. There was some jawing back and forth between the line occupants and protestors, but nothing ever escalated.

Only one attendee was the slightest bit problematic. A woman decked out in leather and sad clown makeup attempted to take a bag of frozen condoms into the event. After they were confiscated, she vandalized one of the restrooms with graffiti that read, “BEN SHAPIRO GOT POUNDED IN HERE.” Thanks to the security at Rackham, she was escorted out to prevent any disruption.

With all attendees seated, the speech began on time. Shapiro came on stage to give his speech,

“Exposing the Great Reset,” about the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) corporatist plan to revive the world after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Though the 20-minute speech was edifying, the highlight of the night was the question-andanswer portion. Shapiro allowed a full 45 minutes to discuss with students the important political issues of our day. Due to his usual policy of allowing those who disagreed with him to cut to the front of the line, we found three people willing to discuss their disagreements with Shapiro’s ideas. They brought up the policies of the WEF, transgender issues and abortion. Each person did so respectfully, and their discussions were pleasant and productive.

After the Q&A ended, the attendees left the venue, and the members of our chapter celebrated an immensely successful event at which we furthered the campus dialogue in a responsible manner. Rather than making a bunch of noise over the Ethical Investment Front’s op-ed, we provided a higher rebuttal. Our actions spoke louder than complaints about the calls for censorship ever could.

When I introduced Shapiro, I called him one of the great spokesmen of the American conservative movement. The work of our chapter members demonstrates that our campus is thirsting not only for visits from these spokesmen but for conservative and other heterodox opinions more broadly. Young Americans for Freedom at the University of Michigan is made up of incredibly dedicated students ready to provide that, and we know there are people here who want to listen.

Democrats won Michigan, now it’s time to keep it up

ISABELLE SCHINDLER Opinion Columnist

In the 2022 midterm elections, Michigan voters showed up in record numbers. On campus, students made headlines for waiting up to six hours after the polls closed for lastminute voter registration. And ultimately, voters ushered in a new era of Democratic control in Lansing. This historic shift in the legislature’s makeup is a unique opportunity, which last happened nearly 40 years ago, to bring meaningful change to Michigan. Despite the excitement around these electoral successes, however, it is critical that people do not get complacent with Democratic power, and instead remain engaged and motivated while Democrats sort out and start work on their policy agenda.

This election was marked by historic wins for Michigan Democrats. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer beat her opponent Tudor Dixon by over 10 points. Whitmer had big wins in many historically conservative counties that she barely won four years ago. Democrats at the top of the ticket were also successful, with Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson beating their opponents by large margins. There was also the passage of Proposal Three, to codify abortion into the Michigan Constitution, which passed by a significant margin, despite the coordinated opposition campaign that pushed the narrative that this bill was “too confusing and too extreme.”

Overall, one of the biggest and most historic events in Michigan this election was the flipping of both houses of the Michigan State Legislature. Democrats won the Michigan Assembly by 56-54 and the State Senate by a 20-18 majority. The last time that Democrats had control of both chambers of the Michigan Legislature and the governorship was in 1983. Michigan Democrats also made history by selecting a diverse party leadership. State Rep. Joe Tate, D-Detroit, will make history as the first Black lawmaker to serve as House speaker. State Sen. Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, will serve as the first female Senate majority leader.

It is impossible to talk about the Michigan Legislature flipping without recognizing the role of the Michigan Independent Redistricting Commission. In 2018, voters in Michigan approved a proposal to form an independent redistricting commission that would draw both congressional districts and state House and state Senate districts. This commission allowed for Michigan districts to be drawn fairly and not be influenced by partisan gerrymandering, in stark contrast to 2018 where, despite Whitmer winning by over 400,000 votes, Democrats still lost both houses due to the gerrymandered maps. This midterm was different, as the fairly-drawn House and Senate districts are representative of the will of Michiganders. With both houses of the legislature and control of the governorship, the Democrats have the trifecta needed to implement important policies that will help all Michiganders. Some important issues that they may address include infrastructure, school funding, gun control and repealing Michigan’s right-towork law.

Democrats led by Whitmer have sought to increase funding for schools and help reform the education system in Michigan. They may make changes to how school funding is calculated and increase funding for lower-income schools. The Democrats have also spoken about giving bonuses to teachers and expanding early childhood education programs.

One issue that Democrats hope to address, which is very important to many young voters, is gun control. Whitmer has indicated that implementing common sense gun control measures is one of her key priorities for the new session. Possible legislation would include requiring adult gun owners with children to securely store their firearms or face a criminal penalty. The issue of unsecured guns was seen last year with the Oxford High School shooting, where the teenage gunman had access to unsecured firearms. Other legislative gun control policies include red flag laws, which allow law enforcement to remove firearms from people at risk.

Another important issue that will likely be addressed is

right-to-work laws. Michigan is currently a right-to-work state. This means that labor unions are prohibited from requiring workers to pay union dues as a condition of employment. Right-towork was passed in 2012 by Republicans and supported by former Governor Rick Snyder. The law is viewed by many Democrats as an attempt to reduce the power of labor unions. Over the past few years, we have seen a growing interest in labor unions and workers’ rights at companies like Amazon and Starbucks as people recognize the importance of organized labor. Repealing the right-towork law is an important step Michigan can take to protect organized labor.

As we look to the future of the Democratic trifecta in Michigan, it is critical that voters stay engaged.

In these midterms, we saw a surprising rightward swing in a Democratic stronghold, New York, showing the importance of omnipresent awareness. New York had a lower turnout, and Republicans flipped several congressional seats. It is possible that in New York, where people feel safe in their liberal bubble, constituents may be less likely to take the time to go out and vote. For example, for voters in New York, the issue of abortion rights may have felt less relevant since the state legislature already codified Roe v. Wade in 2019. This was different from Michigan, where so many voters were mobilized by Proposal Three. As we move into a Michigan with codified reproductive protections, we need to remember that voters cannot get complacent and unengaged.

This upcoming session, Democrats have an amazing opportunity to make important changes that will help Michigan. However, they only have two years and a slim majority. While they will definitely make a major impact, they will need continued support to ensure that we don’t get complacent and recognize that if we want to create a better Michigan, we need to stay engaged. The results of these midterms demonstrate that when voters turn out, they can bring about major changes.

Michiganders understood the power and importance of their vote in this election, and that passion must be sustained.

DEVON HESANO Opinion Columnist

What many predicted would be a midterm shellacking à la 2010 turned out to be the most

impressive midterm shocker in decades. The bad omens that typically foreshadow poor midterm performance simply did not affect Democrats this election cycle. President Joe Biden, their party leader, was saddled with historically low approval ratings;

inflation and gas prices, which have dominated the news media and voter consciousness, continued to be astronomically high; the stock market has tumbled since the start of the year.

A “red wave” of epic proportions was all but spoken into existence by pundits from the left, right and center. Predictions about the House centered around the Democrats losing 30 seats, possibly even more. Republicans taking the House was treated by some, including Frank Luntz (and me!), as all but a foregone conclusion. Republicans were favored to take the Senate, with some major pollsters projecting 53 seats. Betting markets were all in on a Republican House majority and a more than 50-member Republican Senate Conference. Biden and the Democrats were expected to take a beating of historical proportions. That wasn’t close to what happened.

Instead of a majority of 30, 40 or maybe even more seats, Republicans are on track for a majority of less than 10 seats in the House. They didn’t gain three, two or even the one seat needed to flip Senate control, and it remained in Democratic hands. Not only that, but there’s a better-than-even chance that Democrats will actually gain a seat. Throw in the dominance of Democrats in state legislative races, and you have results that would have been close to unfathomable just last week.

In attempting to hypothesize why Democrats had such a defiant night, it is important to understand that potential explanations for the surprise are nearly infinite, and no single issue is to blame for the GOP’s failure. Many races were extremely close, with margins that could be explained by a multitude of issues. However, I believe some issues were of special significance. GOP candidate quality is one. In statewide battleground races this is no doubt true. In Georgia, Herschel Walker, a decades-long ally of the former president, failed to meet expectations and earned far fewer voters than Donald Trump rival Brian Kemp. In Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz lost to Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in a race that didn’t end up being all that close. Doug Mastriano, the GOP gubernatorial candidate who was in lockstep with Trump, lost by almost 15 points. Examples in other states also exist. But when you consider House races, the candidate quality explanation falls short of fully explaining what happened. Sure, extreme right-wing candidates like Lauren Boebert and Joe Kent struggled. But so too did many more relatively mainstream House Republican candidates who were not as closely aligned with the former President. It also falls short of explaining another issue — for the first time since 1934, the president’s party did not lose a single state legislative chamber. A crucial reason that explains this is that, to my surprise, voters nationwide correctly decided that Democrats were not to blame for

issues that were not their fault. Going into the election, far and away the biggest concern for voters, according to polling, was the economy, specifically inflation. I do not doubt that the polling was accurate. Near-consensus thinking was that, as the party in unanimous power, Democrats would take the fall for worsening economic conditions. The GOP blamed Democrats for rising prices nonstop.

But in the end, voters did not fall for the Republican charade that unfortunate worldwide economic conditions were Democrats’ fault. Given that the issue was rated as of utmost importance by voters time and time again, the likely explanation is not that the polling was wrong, but rather that prognosticators errantly assumed voters would blame Democrats for the issues.

A big reason for voters’ not linking inflation concerns to Democrats is the fact that the Republican plan to reverse these apparent Democratic wrongs was nonexistent. While Republicans have railed nonstop against Democrats on the issue for months, they failed to present concrete ways that they would fix inflation if they were in power. This makes sense, of course, since there is no sound policy to articulate.

Worldwide inflation as a result of external conditions cannot be fixed by one American political party.

Moreover, voters had clear evidence that inflation and gas concerns were not unique to America — indeed, many countries are faring

worse than we are. If voters had no evidence of inflation elsewhere, then it would have been a uniquely American problem, and blaming Democrats would have been much easier.

Other issues that Republicans tried to pin blame on Democrats for, like violent crime, were also ineffective.

Exemptions exist — take New York, for example — but in places like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin where the issue was pushed heavily, Democrats performed better than expected. The biggest problem for Democrats in New York was messaging and a fear of opining on the issue, not policy. The reality is that both of these issues — violent crime and inflation — are not so easily pinned on Democrats.

Republicans often try to argue that violent crime is more prevalent in areas of Democratic control in an effort to blame Democrat policies for the problem. But lots of evidence exists contrary to this point. Take the fact that Oklahoma’s murder rate is nearly 50% higher than California and New York’s. Or that Republican-led Jacksonville has had more murders than liberal San Francisco. Or that, as of 2020, Donald Trump won eight of the 10 states with the highest murder rates. While it is true that crime has gone up in Democrat-controlled regions, it’s risen in Republican regions as well. Violent crime is an extremely nuanced issue that can’t simply be chalked up to the party ID of mayors or governors.

Op-Ed: We believe in the power of business to do good

NET IMPACT Opinion Contributor

It’s easy to look at the history of colonialism, capitalism and climate change, see all of the wreckage that corporations have left behind and want nothing to do with it. Even we, Net Impact Undergrad, as a business and sustainability club on campus, are often pessimistic about the success of an environmental revolution and long-term sustainable economic growth under our current capitalist system. Yet, we’re still enrolled in business school. Why? Because we refuse to be complacent with climate disaster, and we want to roll up our sleeves to get the work done.

Three weeks ago, we hosted Gerry Anderson, the former CEO and Chairman of DTE Energy, to talk to students about how it is possible to make change and have an impact in a historically unsustainable industry. Alongside nearly 200 attendees, our event also featured a few protesters upset with DTE’s past (and present) dependency on coal and other fossil fuels destroying our earth. As protesters’ signs helpfully pointed out, DTE still relies on almost 58% coal to generate the electricity that we use every day to power our community.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Anderson’s speech reminded listeners that DTE’s coal reliance was over 80% at the beginning of his tenure, an impressive feat that continues as DTE gradually decreases their reliance on unsustainable fossil fuels. Anderson’s tenure at DTE included helping write the legislation that became the clean power provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and being one of the first energy industry CEOs to commit to retiring coalfired generation.

While the implementation of this goal is not linear, and wanting

these changes more quickly is valid, tangible change requires collaboration, feasible solutions and listening to those with whom you may disagree. We have to thank protesters for wanting to start these dialogues on campus, despite our differences in how we believe this change will be actualized.

What happened at this event is representative of a greater, unproductive sentiment within the environmentalist movement, especially on the University of Michigan campus. This is a sentiment that our club often finds ourselves falling into: creating an artificial divide between environmentalists and business leaders. Fostering division rather than cooperation within the sustainability community undermines the creation of tangible change and the ability to effectively communicate about environmental protection.

We believe that business leaders working through companies to initiate change is essential to the environmental movement. Our club’s aim is to grow a sentiment of environmentalism which invokes change from inside the business world, because ultimately we need practical business change just as much as we need motivated and informed protesters. We believe that Anderson’s speech perfectly embodied this goal. Instead of shying away from unsustainable industries, we can jump into the fray and promote real change from the inside.

Environmentalism in business requires taking the wheel and steering towards progress. It is critical that there are forwardthinking individuals working hard to facilitate the necessary change within businesses, which is radical in its own way. Demeaning individuals that are working hard to make such industries more environmentally friendly creates opponents in a common cause.

We’re also realistic that the two sides of this dialogue aren’t always going to like each other. We may be on the same side of the fight for a better climate future, but we have very different ideas on how to get there. Ultimately, it will take us both to effect change: motivating change from outside (protesters) and actualizing this change from the inside (business). This tension remains, and in the end, this event helped us business majors recognize the types of struggles we will face from both sides in our fight for a just transition to more renewable energy sources. Anderson’s humble and dignified response exemplified for business students how to productively respond to criticism, and continue to persevere for a better future.

How are businesspeople aiming to make a difference? Let’s use DTE as an example. Stakeholders and investors want to embrace sustainability without skyrocketing energy costs or decreasing reliability of the grid. Regulatory agencies like the Michigan Public Service Commission must approve all new plans, and stakeholders raise valid equity concerns about the existing plans.

There are challenges of energy storage for renewables, availability of metal for batteries, equitability of high-cost renewables and strain on grids from the increase in electric cars that magnify the scope of the challenges facing utility companies. Creating a thoughtful and careful long-term strategy requires consideration of all of these consequences and more, and is the type of challenge that us business students are eager to tackle. DTE’s 20% decrease in coal reliance and commitment to going net zero by 2050 exemplify successes in this aim.

Voter apathy: The silent killer of democracy

PALAK SRIVASTAVA Opinion Columnist

On Tuesday, Nov. 8, I stood in line for five hours alongside hundreds of my peers to change my voter registration and cast my vote in the midterm elections. When my friends and I finally made it out of the University of Michigan Museum of Art at 8:15 p.m., breathing in the air of freedom for the first time since 2:30 p.m., all I could think about was how I had wasted five perfectly productive hours of my life.

Had I voted early, like a responsible member of society, I could have spent those five hours catching up on lectures, working on a CS project or even just binge watching “The Vampire Diaries.” But instead, I stood in a line doing absolutely nothing. I didn’t complain, though, nor do I have a right to complain right now, because I took those five hours as my punishment for the original reason I had planned to not vote early: I wasn’t going to vote at all.

Registered to vote in New York City, I was guided by the notion that my blue vote wouldn’t really matter, so what was the point? Moreover, because changing my registration would still leave me voting in Ann Arbor — quite a ‘blue’ city as well — I didn’t see the point to that either. I know; I sound like a terrible member of society. How could I be so callous about my civic duty? But it’s the truth.

I genuinely, to my core, didn’t care about voting because for so long, even preceding my 18th birthday, I didn’t really believe one vote could hold that much sway. That all changed last Tuesday. So, in case you share

the same sentiments I once held and you don’t really have the care or motivation to go vote in the future, I am here to tell you what changed my mind.

One of the biggest factors in deciding to vote was realizing that my vote could matter. To be clear, this was the first election I have ever been eligible to vote in, but my thoughts on voting have been established for quite a while. Specifically, I have always thought since we are such a highly populated country, the absence of my vote wouldn’t really matter.

I was shocked, however, to see that often, the margins are not as large as I once assumed.

In the 2021 Democratic primary for Florida’s 20th District, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick won by just five votes; the 2018 Democratic primary for Baltimore County executive was decided by 17 votes. And if you think those are low stakes elections, or not as important, in 2016 a Vermont state Senate primary was determined by one vote. Hearing about these cases poked a giant hole in my theory because, in these races, my vote wouldn’t be one amongst thousands, but rather one amongst five — or even potentially the defining vote. Seeing that races can come down to the wire was an eye opener for me.

Even though races can come close, my original thought still stood true: in dominantly blue states or cities, my additional blue vote still wouldn’t really have much of an impact. What really made me change my mind about voting on this particular Tuesday was an infographic that said in essence, “South Asian women have worked so hard for the right to vote, don’t waste it,”

and that really got me. Though specifically aimed at South Asian women, the general message rings true for a majority of us. There was a time when only white men with property had the right to vote, a time when minorities couldn’t vote and even to this day there are many people who can’t vote as a result of voter suppression. The point is that the right to vote is not a given, and we shouldn’t take it for granted. Not only have people fought incredibly hard to make sure you and I can vote, but that fight is still ongoing. To just throw all that hard work away by not voting feels like a waste.

Gen Z’s voter turnout hit a record high this year, voting in historic numbers across the country. Many are crediting the stop of the red wave to Gen Z and their high turnout. In some states, voter enthusiasm as a whole exceeded the high mark that was set in 2018, especially in battleground states. Even with these improvements, however, voter apathy as a whole is still a serious issue. In a handful of states, voter turnout actually reached record lows – Mississippi and West Virginia saw less than 35% of eligible voters participate. So even though you may be seeing the infographics applauding Gen Z’s effort, which is deserved, voter apathy still exists to a high degree and we should be aware of it. Whether it be combating apathy within yourself or trying to reach those around you, do what you can to restore the faith in voting. I admit, I definitely had lost mine. But with a little push towards my civic duty and a reminder of the lengths people have gone to for me to have this privilege, I can confidently say I will forever exercise my right to vote.

Political binaries on campus: is there a right and a wrong?

ANNA TRUPIANO Opinion Columnist

Opinions can be ever changing by nature of how learning and understanding information works. They are often, however, hard-wired into us to the point that they behave as unchangeable facts and fixed parts of who we are. This manifests itself in politics, where steadfast opinions help maintain our two-party political system, a system that reinforces our steadfast opinions. We exist in a state of circular logic that perpetuates both political polarization and unwillingness to change.

Before discussing more about the two party system, I feel it is important to note the makeup of the University of Michigan and the city of Ann Arbor. Both are very much left-leaning in terms of political ideology. Because of this, the readership of this article will likely be left-leaning as well. At the University, perspectives that lean left are viewed as cultured and tolerant, while those that lean right are perceived negatively and are associated with hatred, bigotry and intolerance.

For as much as the right can be painted as the enemy, both sides of the spectrum fall victim to similar traps in which they reconfirm their own ideals without exposure to dissenting opinions. This closed-off environment causes each party to become an echo chamber for their respective ideologies.

LSA senior Lindsay Keiser, editor in chief of both the Michigan Journal of Political Science and the Michigan Review, spoke to The Michigan Daily about the effect of echo chambers on our campus. She told me that “Michigan is proudly an echo chamber precisely because professors perpetuate the leftist rhetoric … I rarely defend my beliefs when they’re ridiculed because, after four years of being told that valuing laissez-faire economics and deregulated social policy makes me an uneducated bigot, I realized there is no point in fighting.”

With that said, Keiser did give credit where credit is due in acknowledging that many of her

political science professors are “actually quite unbiased,” even as many of her earth science, astronomy and business lectures tend to be quite “rife with comments disparaging Trump, conservatism and laissez-faire economics.”

It makes complete sense why political science professors are most sensitive to using unbiased rhetoric — they are careful to avoid political bias because normative political questions are intended to be explored implicitly in the context of the classroom. It is disappointing that other faculty and students are often not as sensitive to partisan rhetoric.

So, what can the University do to improve? Keiser emphasized the importance of encouraging professors “to work as hard as possible to refrain from making partisan commentary from the classroom.” As one of our largest influences, the knowledge we obtain in the classroom should not impose anything upon students or make certain students feel unheard or cornered into a certain view.

Aside from the need for improvement in some areas, there are some places in which the University does address these issues very well. For example, Keiser stated that “the University is actually quite good at checking in with right-wing students who are attacked on campus.” She mentions the Ford School of Public Policy as a space for “very mature conversations about a wide range of social and economic issues with diverse perspectives about the ‘right’ policy solution.” The School of Public Policy has plenty of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion resources for reporting incidents of bias or harassment in any form, including based on politics. Though there is a long road to complete political acceptance and open conversation, this gives us hope that there are some resources available to aid in easing the harsh nature of our political atmosphere.

Unfortunately, for young people in Ann Arbor, liberal agendas have become performative in many ways. For example, I have witnessed countless screaming matches in the Diag — often relating to a conservative,

sometimes hateful, and liberal clash of viewpoints — for which a decent-sized crowd will start to gather.

With that said, action from the left — whether it be nationwide protests or “drama” in the Diag — is often motivated by feelings of oppression. In situations of oppression, vehemence is often the only way to be heard. Thus, the performative nature of left-wing politics is sometimes entirely valid and could be argued to be for a better cause than violence or hate speech from the right. However, performative leftwing politics can instill negativity just in the way the hate-filled speech of the right does, albeit differently. Former President Barack Obama reaffirms the left’s rejection of hateful language in saying that “we should soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments.”

Many on the left define themselves by their perceived moral superiority to the right. To me, this seems counterintuitive to everything the left stands for and why I identify as a liberal.

Tolerance, education and acceptance are all qualities that drew me to this ideology, not hate and negativity.

Instead of dwelling in our echo chambers and hearing our own opinions repeated back to us, we should explore what exactly the right is saying and why they believe what they do.

Progressivism is about accepting different backgrounds. For many, their background might not have educated them on systemic racism or LGBTQ+ rights.

How can one really understand the world by ignoring a whole section of it? It is not that everyone has to agree with what the other side says, but we do ourselves a disservice by alienating conservatives, resisting any kind of contact with them and failing to explore what that ideology might mean or why they might hold the views they do.

The system works to make the political spectrum appear more polarized than it really is.

Design by Sara Fang

Against Ohio State, J.J. McCarthy delivers on his promise

JARED GREENSPAN Managing Sports Editor

COLUMBUS — As the minutes ticked down to the biggest game of his life, J.J. McCarthy — the 19-year-old quarterback lauded for his Björn Borg-like poise and wed ded to his meditation regimen — struggled to remain calm.

“I was a little amped up,” McCarthy conceded afterwards. “I’ve been waiting to play this game for so long.”

On college football’s greatest stage — an undefeated showdown at the Horseshoe against No. 2 Ohio State, with drastic championship implications at stake — McCarthy gathered himself and delivered. He authored a brilliant, legacybuilding, four-touchdown perfor mance, vaulting No. 3 Michigan to a resounding 45-23 victory.

“He was just on fire in every way,” Michigan coach Jim Har baugh said.

This past week, Harbaugh kept his message simple. He wanted McCarthy to “have at it” come Sat urday, and McCarthy responded by mirroring Harbaugh’s sentiment, saying that he just wanted to be himself.

And for the first time since being anointed QB1 way back in September, McCarthy did look like himself. He resembled the fivestar recruit whom Michigan fans pinned their hopes on during the program’s nadir in 2020, the player they clamored for throughout fall camp.

That vision — those aspirations — built to the moment that trans pired Saturday.

After the game, McCarthy sport ed a freshly-minted “2022 East

Division Champions” hat, the tag still clinging to its exterior. Smil ing, he greeted a question about the Wolverines’ passing game with a sigh.

“That was pretty good,” McCar thy said. “We were just waiting for it to come out. We knew what it was. It was just great it came out at this time.”

The quarterback of the Michi gan football program is subjected to scrutiny inapplicable to most other positions, and locales, in col lege football. Not even McCarthy, heralded as the precocious wun derkind, would be immune.

And much of that criticism was warranted, too. McCarthy unseat ed senior Cade McNamara in part because of his arm talent, and yet the Wolverines’ vertical passing game proved virtually non-existent throughout the season. Before Sat urday, they had just six completions for more than 30 yards on the sea son.

All year, McCarthy insisted that things would change — he refuted any notion of a disconnect, reason ing that the plays were working in practice, which provided a larger sample size. He stuck to that nar rative last Saturday after Michigan eked out a victory over Illinois, win ning in spite of its passing game.

Then, his words felt hollow. Now, they feel ingenious.

“We just kept hitting and hitting and hitting, and something’s gotta give,” senior receiver Cornelius Johnson said, grinning. “Today, when it mattered most, in front of millions of people, we were able to connect.”

It mattered not only because of the stage, but also because of the circumstances. Standout junior

running back Blake Corum, still plagued by the left leg injury he suffered last week, did not see the field after the first drive. Missing its bellcow, Michigan’s offense sagged through its opening three drives; McCarthy looked jittery, bailing in clean pockets and overthrowing open receivers.

Then, lightning struck.

On a third and nine early in the second quarter, McCarthy made a difficult throw across his body with pressure in his face. Johnson did the rest, catching the ball along the sideline and high-stepping out of a shoestring tackle all the way into the endzone, good for a 69-yard score.

On the ensuing drive, McCar thy and Johnson connected again. Johnson dusted his defender with a double move, and McCarthy found him wide open in the middle of the field for a 75-yard touchdown. At once, Ohio Stadium hushed, the Buckeyes trailing.

“We have trust in ourselves and the mindset that they can’t run with us,” Johnson said. “… We watched hours of film throughout this week, and it’s beautiful to see it all play out in a good way for Michigan.”

Just as Michigan watched hours of film on Ohio State’s defense, the Buckeyes did the same when studying the Wolverines’ offense. Conscious of Michigan’s run-heavy identity, Ohio State packed the box, shoving in an extra defender instead of deploying a deep safety. Early, the strategy seemed to be working — the Wolverines had 10 rush yards on five carries and just three points through three drives as a result.

But on consecutive strikes to Johnson, McCarthy took advan tage.

It almost felt like Ohio State was daring him to throw the ball. He felt that way, too. “A little bit, yeah,” McCarthy said. “Especially at first when they were stopping the runs for two, three yards a carry and the safeties were playing so low. That excited me even more.”

He channeled that excitement into a machine-like performance. Michigan set a definitive tone on the opening drive of the third quar ter, anchored by McCarthy. On his first designed run of the afternoon, McCarthy dragged a defender for 19 yards and, on the following play, he placed a beautiful ball for fresh

man tight end Colston Loveland, converting a 45-yard touchdown off a trick play.

A drive later, McCarthy put the Wolverines in the driver’s seat. On third and two from the two yard line, he powered his way across the goal line, pinballing his way into the endzone.

The Horseshoe fell silent.

“I fight coach for more of those plays,” McCarthy said. “Just give me the ball when we need to get some gritty yards, and I’m gonna go get them.”

As the game wound to a close and the inevitability of Michigan’s win set in, McCarthy turned his

attention toward the stands. From the sideline, he waved to a sud denly-sparse crowd — Ohio State fans, once boisterous, had beelined toward the exits.

Postgame, McCarthy — relent lessly humble — wouldn’t take credit for the scene.

“I’m not worried about personal achievements,” he said when asked about his four touchdowns. “I’m just happy for every one of our guys. I couldn’t do it without the other ten guys on the field.”

But against Ohio State, in the biggest game of Michigan’s season, the Wolverines couldn’t have won without McCarthy.

Back from injury, Donovan Edwards sparks offense in Corum’s absence

short of the first down marker.

In a similar scenario against the Buckeyes, Michigan again tried to stay true to its identity.

In one afternoon in Columbus, Sainristil encapsulates his journey

NICHOLAS STOLL Managing Sports Editor

COLUMBUS — In the spring, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh had a big request for Mike Sainristil: become a defensive back.

Heading into his fourth year as a Wolverine, Sainristil had always played receiver at the college level. He’d proven his ability to make blocks, reel in difficult passes and make a positive impact on the offense overall.

But as much as Sainristil could do on offense, Harbaugh believed the Michigan defense needed him more.

“Figured it was gonna be tough to replace (defensive back) Dax Hill, and just felt like Mikey had the skill set for it,” Harbaugh said Sat urday. “And he was smart enough to be able to do that.”

Saturday, in the biggest game of the third-ranked Wolverines’ season — and perhaps the biggest game the program has had in years — Sainristil epitomized his journey in a single afternoon. By the end of Michigan’s 45-23 win over No. 2 Ohio State, he proved Harbaugh right, and proved any doubter wrong.

But not right away.

The Buckeyes targeted Sainris til on their first drive of the game. He was the link in the Wolverines’ armor that Ohio State thought to be weakest. At first, the Buckeyes appeared to be right. On a cross ing route in the endzone, receiver Emeka Egbuka found himself mul tiple steps in front of Sainristil, giv ing Ohio State an early 7-0 lead. But, it was par for the course for Sainristil.

“Definitely,” Sainristil said Sat urday when asked if he knew he’d be targeted. “With the way Emeka Egbuka has been playing this year,

we knew that was a guy that they wanted to get the ball to in certain situations.”

But it’s not just Egbuka; Sain ristil has found himself a target for opposing offenses on multiple occasions this season. Standing at 5-foot-10 and 182 lbs, Sainristil isn’t a big body, and he can struggle to match up against tight ends and bigger receivers coming over the middle. It’s nothing he isn’t aware of himself.

“I won’t be surprised if I’m start ing to get attacked again,” Sain ristil said Nov. 1. “Just with the opponents we have coming up. But like I said, I’m just going to make sure that I do my job.”

His size, paired with his lack of experience prior to this season at defensive back, puts Sainristil at a disadvantage. It’s been part of his journey.

Since fall camp, Sainristil has embraced this. It’s not the situation he wants to be in, but it’s been his reality.

“Games are gonna go along and I’m gonna be put in different situ ations I’ve never been in simply because I’m on a new side of the ball,” Sainristil said Aug. 23. “So will I ever be 100% comfortable this year? Who’s to say. But you know, I’m gonna play to my best ability at all times.”

He’s fought through those grow ing pains, succeeding in coverage at times, getting blatantly outplayed on others. He’s found himself in the backfield being muscled out of the play, and then hitting home on blitzes in the same day.

It’s been a take-a-punch, returna-punch year for Sainristil, each wound teaching him a lesson and powering up his next strike.

Early Saturday, Egbuka and the Buckeyes put Sainristil through the ringer. But by the end of the day, Sainristil delivered the knockout

punch. With Ohio State down 31-20 and driving, a touchdown would’ve brought the game within one score and revitalized the scarlet and gray in Columbus. Sainristil lined up against tight end Cade Stover in the red zone. Stover, just like Egbuka did before, ran a crossing route, get ting multiple steps on Sainristil.

This time, though, Sainristil made the play.

Activating a second gear, Sainris til closed ground on Stover, extend ing his hand through the Buckeye tight end’s hands and knocking the ball loose, resulting in an incom plete pass.

“The only thing running through my head at that time was, ‘Just don’t give up another touchdown. Strain to the ball and get it out any way you can,’ ” Sainristil said. “… And I saw the ball go into the tight end’s hands and the only thing I was thinking was just ‘Punch it out and just don’t give up that touchdown.’ ”

Thanks to Sainristil, Michigan forced a field goal. On the very next play, sophomore running back Don ovan Edwards ripped off a 75-yard touchdown, effectively putting the game out of reach. Edwards, though, put the credit in Sainristil’s hands.

“What really kind of helped us out and saved the day was Mikey,” Edwards said. “… That’s basically all it is right there — coming up big in big situations.”

As the clock struck double zeroes, Sainristil’s joy radiated in a display of pride for all of Ohio Stadi um and the world to see — sprinting to midfield with a Michigan flag in hand, planting it into the block ‘O’.

Saturday, Columbus belonged to the Wolverines. And Sainristil, sit ting atop the list of contributors to that claim — after all the pride and pains of switching positions — was the one to declare it.

COLUMBUS — An hour after the No. 3 Michigan football team finished dominating No. 2 Ohio State, Donovan Edwards sprinted down the tunnel that snaked from the visiting locker room and onto the turf. Raising his “2022 East Division Champions” hat high in the air, the sophomore running back shouted to anyone and every one, “Damn, this my stadium.”

After rushing for 216 yards and two touchdowns, it was hard to disagree with him.

Edwards entered the day with his status in question, having missed the previous two games with a hand injury. He ended it with two mesmerizing touchdown runs — one 75 yards, the other 85 yards — to put the Buckeyes to bed for good.

“I just had to do what I had to do,” Edwards said postgame. “Every running back has to be relied on. Blake went down, so somebody else had to step up. … That’s what we pride ourselves on.”

As Edwards alluded to, all eyes were fixated on junior Blake Corum in the lead up to The Game. The standout Heisman candidate hurt his left leg in the second quar ter of last Saturday’s game against Illinois, an injury that threatened to derail the Wolverines’ season.

Sixty-six minutes before kickoff, Corum emerged from the tunnel in lockstep with Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh as the last player to take the field for warmups. But Corum’s triumph would prove short-lived, as he played just three snaps on the opening drive before heading to the sideline for good, evidently still hampered.

Last week, Corum’s absence nearly cost Michigan its unde feated season. Without him, the Wolverines struggled to move the ball, their rushing attack suddenly ineffective.

“If somebody’s down, the whole running back room has to be accountable to get the offense going,” Edwards said.

But early on, Edwards didn’t do much to ignite the offense himself. In the first half, he carried the ball five times for just nine yards, sport ing a soft cast on his right hand.

Still, Michigan trusted Edwards, a trust built on past experience. When Edwards first arrived on campus as a freshman, he was in a cast for the entirety of spring prac tice while he recovered from sur gery.

“He was catching everything with a cast,” Harbaugh remem bered Saturday, still in awe. “If he can catch everything, I mean cer tainly everybody without a cast can catch. … So I had little doubt, there was no pain management. Either there was not a lot of pain, or he’s just that tough of a guy because there’s no pain management to it. He’s as tough as it comes.”

Sure enough, as Edwards grew more involved, Michigan’s rushing attack began to thrive, too. After managing just 10 rushing yards in the first half, Michigan ran the ball for 242 yards across the final two quarters — individually, Edwards racked up 207 yards on the ground in the second half alone.

“It’s just like pipes burst ing,” sophomore quarterback J.J. McCarthy said. “We’re putting the pressure on and then eventually, it’s gonna burst.”

And once they burst?

“It was over,” McCarthy said, smiling.

On Michigan’s opening drive of the half, Edwards picked up a piv otal conversion on fourth and one that paved the way for the Wolver ines to take the lead. Notably, Mich igan went a different direction on third and one in the first half, hand ing it off to converted linebacker Kalel Mullings, who was stopped

Edwards had his fingerprints all over the most consequential drive of the game, too — the 15-play, 80-yard drive that chewed up 7:51 of clock. He tallied 37 all purpose yards, helping Michigan sustain a possession in a way that seemed impossible with Corum sidelined.

Those efforts, of course, set the stage for the highlight reel plays that followed.

With 7:23 left in the fourth quar ter, Michigan began its drive with the ball on the 25 yard line, up eight. Before the PA announcer could fin ish saying “Buckeye nation, we need you to get loud,” Edwards had found a crease and was sprint ing down the far sideline, evading a diving Buckeye on his way to the house.

Four minutes later, it was déjà vu as Edwards exploded through a similar hole at the 15 yard line. With Ohio State selling out at the line of scrimmage in hopes of securing a third down stop, Edwards found himself in the clear.

“It’s the offensive line first, they created such a big hole,” Edwards said. “If you watch the film, it’s just real easy to see. And then at that point, you just got to hit it and out run the third level defenders, the safeties and defensive backs. That’s how I was able to pull away with those long touchdowns.”

It’s easier said than done — in the first half, some of those holes existed, but Michigan’s running backs failed to squeeze through them. Edwards didn’t make the same mistake.

And as he high-stepped his way through the back of the endzone after his second touchdown, he waved his arms toward the stands while a rush of teammates hurried to greet him. The Wolverines led by 22, the disheartened Buckeye faithful streamed toward the exit, leaving a raucous sea of fans clad in maize and blue in their wake. By the end of it all, it did look a lot like Edwards’ stadium.

TESS

JARED GREENSPAN Managing Sports Editor

FOOTBALL

GRACE BEAL/Daily

With second consecutive win over Ohio State, light shines on Michigan as Big Ten standard

JOSH TAUBMAN Daily Sports Editor

COLUMBUS — One stat defines a Michigan football player’s career in Ann Arbor. The overall number of wins you accumulate doesn’t matter. The personal statistics and accolades ultimately don’t matter, either. Those are nice shiny resume points to add to a list, but one stat is held above anything else: Your record against Ohio State.

Prior to last season, hundreds of players had cycled through the program with a zero in that column. The Game, for the entire 21st century, has been a stepping stone for Ohio State toward its postseason aspirations, each time sinking the Wolverines a little further into the ground.

Winning last year proved that beating Ohio State was possible. It was a moment of jubilation, a chance for euphoric fans to pour out onto the field, an opportunity for Michigan to prove that it could still compete with the Buckeyes — that it wasn’t residing on a completely different playing field.

But it also was just that. A ‘one’ in the win column instead of a ‘zero.’

“Everyone keeps track of their personal records,” senior receiver Cornelius Johnson said. “We had old Michigan players come in and talk to us during training camp and all that people ask is, ‘What’s your record against (Ohio) State?’… That’s what matters most.”

On Saturday, after marching into Columbus and achieving an even bigger margin of victory than they conjured last year, many Wolverine players now have something that no one in the program could claim since 2000.

A winning record against Ohio State.

A second win changes everything for Michigan’s program. No longer can pundits point to otherworldly circumstances being necessary for the Wolverines to beat the Buckeyes. Even at 11-0, even after winning last year,

The Wolverines went out for sixty minutes and proved they were the better football team. Again. And now the perception has shifted.

few seemed to give Michigan a chance to win Saturday.

The Wolverines were 7.5-point underdogs and some were already looking at scenarios for them to back their way into the playoffs with a loss.

But Michigan didn’t need any chaos scenarios. The Wolverines went out for sixty minutes and proved they were the better football team. Again.

And now the perception has shifted.

“Winning two in a row, it just gives us as a program that confidence,” graduate linebacker Mike Barrett said. “Just as a whole Michigan family, it just kind of gives everybody that confidence of being able to go and do it again.”

The Wolverines can be talked about as a team that can beat anyone in the country, the same treatment that has existed for Ohio State for much of the past decade. Michigan can start thinking about its National Championship chances. When the Wolverines dominate an opponent, they deserve the respect that great teams get, not the scrutiny they often faced for the quality of the team they played.

Going into future seasons, these talking points should be part of the regular conversation surrounding Michigan. And as for the Big Ten? It’s no longer a league boasting Ohio State and everybody else. That narrative died as Buckeye fans headed for the exits far before the game’s conclusion.

“We’re not so much of a team that looks to the past and worries about it,” sophomore quarterback J.J. McCarthy said. “We’re always about the present and worried about changing the future.”

For months, the Wolverines have been on a “happy mission,” as Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh calls it. They play with joy, with a belief that they can win in any scenario they’re thrown into. That energy was lacking two years ago, as the Wolverines went 2-4 in the abysmal Covidshortened season and sank to their most downtrodden point in years.

The 2020 offseason was an inflection point — a moment when the Wolverines realized they needed to change when Harbaugh decided he needed to instill some new habits in his floundering program.

That started by building a habit of winning. Close games. Pesky road environments. It didn’t matter. They were a program that was out of excuses. And since then, they’re 24-2.

“It’s been a very happy mission,” McCarthy said. “No matter what the road is, no matter what the route is, if you’re winning every single week, I couldn’t be happier.”

Michigan needed this mindset for every game to be able to compete against Ohio State, to re-introduce itself on a national stage. As the Wolverines kneeled out the clock in Columbus, the speckles of maize and blue fans dominating the quickly emptying bleachers of Ohio Stadium, it became clear that mindset had been enshrined.

Beating Ohio State again marks the dawn of a new era in Michigan football. Taking down the Buckeyes is no longer impossible; it’s no longer a talking point; it’s no longer a once-in-a-lifetime win.

It’s just Michigan’s latest habit.

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