2022-03-23

TWICE AS SWEET

Resilient Michigan upsets Tennessee, advances to Sweet Sixteen

JACK KINGSLEY Daily Sports Editor

INDIANAPOLIS

— A smile trickled across Jace Howard’s face.

Behind that smile was a reflection of the Michigan men’s basketball team’s locker room over the past few weeks. The Wolverines’ welldocumented streak of alternating wins and losses dating back to Feb. 10 had become a bit of a joke amongst the players.

When asked on Friday why Michigan would buck that trend in the Round of 32, through his grin, Howard spoke bluntly: “We got no other choice.”

Alternating wins and losses for over a month was good enough to get the Wolverines off the bubble and into the NCAA Tournament.

It was good enough to advance past Colorado State in the first round. But at this point in the season, one more loss would send them home for good. As Howard put it, they had no other choice but to reverse their fortunes on Saturday against third-seeded Tennessee.

And Michigan played like it. Whenever the Volunteers took control, the Wolverines fought back. Whenever the outcome looked bleak, they had an answer. And in the end, Michigan (19-14 overall) outlasted Tennessee (278), 76-68.

“There wasn’t really any doubt that this team is special,” fifthyear guard Eli Brooks said. “We have a good group of guys that have the same drive, the same passion. And that’s a credit to (Michigan coach Juwan Howard), the coaching staff, finding those guys out there that you like to be around. There wasn’t a second that anybody shied away … and we’re in the Sweet Sixteen.”

Early on, it looked as though the Wolverines path to victory would be much less stressful. The Wolverines started off strong, limiting turnovers and passing out of double teams to find the open man, and they led for the majority of the first half.

But Michigan could never pull away, even though it seemed to be the better team for the first 15 minutes. With five minutes remaining in the first half, the tides began to turn. The Wolverines started to turn the ball over consistently, allowing the Volunteers to get out in transition.

Five of their nine firsthalf turnovers came in that span, allowing Tennessee to close out the half on a 13-2 run to take a five-point lead into the locker room.

“We turned the ball over, things weren’t going our way,” sophomore forward Terrance Williams II said. “But being the most connected team is what Coach Howard talks about, and we were the most connected team. We didn’t go our separate ways even though we were making mistakes.”

Coming out of halftime, though, Michigan’s offense was running smoothly again, this time through sophomore center Hunter Dickinson in the post. Dickinson was involved in the first half, but the Volunteers

succeeded in limiting his post touches. But to start the second half, the Wolverines made a concerted effort to get him the ball down low. He scored Michigan’s first nine points on the half, all in the post.

After a four minute stretch in which the two teams scored at a rapid pace, exchanging the lead six times, Tennessee finally got some separation. Guard Kennedy Chandler tore up the Wolverines’ defense, getting to the basket with ease while Michigan’s offense sputtered as Dickinson’s post touches dried up.

But facing a six point deficit, its season on the line, Michigan fought back. The Wolverines got stops on the defensive end and eventually tied it on a putback by Williams. A minute later, after the Volunteers retook the lead, Williams scored in the same fashion.

“He’s a prime time player,” Dickinson said. “But I don’t care how much minutes he plays, my man is going to make winning plays when he’s out there, and he did that today. We don’t win without Terrance Williams II today.”

On the ensuing possession, Michigan finally retook the lead. Brooks connected with Dickinson on a give-and-go, finishing over contact and drawing a foul. He knocked down the free throw to put the Wolverines up by three with just over three minutes to play.

Michigan never gave that lead up. Tennessee still got on the board, but the Wolverines always had an answer. They were resilient, coming back from deficits and overcoming the second-half absence of graduate starting point guard DeVante’ Jones. They played like the team Jace described, the team that had no other choice but to finally win two straight games, the team to finally show some sense of consistency.

And as time wound down, Dickinson dribbled across half court, his fist in the air, and launched the ball into oblivion as his teammates surrounded him. A bit of relief, a bit of disbelief and a whole lot of joy.

Michigan outlasts Villanova, advances to second straight Sweet Sixteen

MARK PATRICK Daily Sports Writer

After reaching the Sweet Sixteen last year for the first time in program history, the No. 3 seed Michigan women’s basketball team looked to advance to the Sweet Sixteen for the second-straight season.

They did.

The Wolverines (24-6 overall) defeated No. 11 seed Villanova (24-9) on Monday, 64-49, in large part due to their defense in the second half.

“I have known them for years having been in the Big East for 10 years,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico, who previously

Wolverines kept the game close, but Villanova retained a twopossession lead for most of the second quarter thanks to its strong three-point shooting.

“They were running stuff for (Brianna Herlihy) and (Maddy Siegrist) and if you got stuck on screens and two people came inside, they were popping and were getting a lot of shots,” Barnes Arico said.

But Michigan broke through late in the quarter, holding the Wildcats scoreless for a 3:11 span. This allowed the Wolverines to head into halftime up three.

The Wolverine’s defense was much-improved in the second half, forcing Villanova into difficult shooting situations.

“I think we had to adjust,” Barnes Arico said. “For the first time in a long time, we went four guards and made an adjustment and did a pretty good job of that.”

The strong defense allowed for senior forward Naz Hillmon to take over. She scored five of the next seven points for Michigan, finishing the night with 27 points.

“She’s generational, transformational,” Barnes Arico

On the other end, the Wolverines held the Wildcats scoreless for the remaining 3:44 of the quarter. Michigan capitalized on its own offensive opportunities and took a 48-40 lead into the fourth. In the final frame, Hillmon continued her duel with Siegrist.

Siegrist, the second-leading scorer in the nation, averaging 25.8 points per game, was held to just 12 points on 38% shooting in the game. Hillmon, who was the main star on offense, exceled on the defensive side guarding her.

“Physically, (Hillmon) did a really nice job of knocking Maddy off her mark,” Villanova head coach Denise Dillion said. “She did some nice things at the top of the press as well as being disruptive.”

Added Barnes Arico: “Their assistant coach, a longtime assistant who I’ve known for 20 years, grabbed me and told me he’s never seen anyone play with that type of motor on both ends of the floor. He said (Hillmon’s) even better in person than he could have imagined.”

Midway through the quarter Michigan set up the perfect tictac toe play. Senior forward Emily Kiser passed the ball to freshman guard Laila Phelia to junior guard Maddie Nolan, who hit a 3-pointer to put the Wolverines up 11 with 6:36 left in the game.

Michigan’s defense would continue to stay strong, holding the Wildcats scoreless for over four minutes. Villanova shot just 7-of-28 from the field in the second half.

The Wolverines second-half defense carried the way, resulting in them punching their ticket to Wichita, where they will face No. 10 seed South Dakota in the Sweet Sixteen.

“I know a lot of great coaches that have never been to the Sweet Sixteen ever,” Barnes Arico said. “For us to go back to back years is absolutely incredible and just a credit to the players in our program.”

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University divests from Russian investments following invasion of Ukraine

UMich to withdraw $40 million, less than 0.5 percent of the total endowment

MATTHEW SHANBOM Daily Staff Reporter

The University of Michigan announced Tuesday it will make no further Russian investments and will pull its current investments “as quickly as practical.” The investments are part of the University’s endowment, which was valued at approximately $17 billion at the end of fiscal 2020.

Pulling the investments comes as a result of the “increasing financial risks associated with such investments” according to a University press release.

This change in funding follows the escalation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began on Feb. 24. Since the start of the invasion, Russian forces have entered the country and bombed several major cities, including the capital, Kyiv. On March 7, Interim University President Mary Sue Coleman sent an email to the

University community condemning Russia’s actions and pledging to advocate for increased visa flexibility for Ukrainian students.

“I condemn this invasion and the ruthless attack on freedom,” Coleman wrote. “The grief, anger and hurt are devastating, and I feel such sorrow for the many members of our community whose loved ones and communities are in harm’s way.”

In an email to The Michigan Daily, University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald wrote that University currently has $40 million invested with investment manager Russia Partners. According to Fitzgerald, the investments were made in 2009 and 2012.

“These investments represent less than 0.5 percent of the total endowment,” Fitzgerald wrote. “The investments are primarily in companies focused on consumer, education, healthcare and financial technology.”

Daily Staff Reporter Matthew Shanbom can be reached at shanbom@ umich.edu

Dentistry Dean Laurie K. McCauley recommended as next U Provost

Board of Regents to approve appointment at March 24 meeting

GEORGE WEYKAMP & M ATTHEW SHANBOM Daily News Editor & Daily Staff Reporter

Interim University of Michigan

President Mary Sue Coleman announced Tuesday she is recommending the appointment of Laurie K. McCauley, the current dean of the School of Dentistry, as the University of Michigan’s next Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. The Board of Regents will discuss and vote to approve McCauley’s appointment at their March 24 board meeting.

If her appointment is approved by the board, McCauley will succeed Provost Susan Collins, who is planning to step down from her role at the University on May 15 to serve as President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Collins has served as Provost since , Martin Philbert, her predecessor, was placed on administrative leave in

January 2020 due to numerous sexual misconduct allegations. McCauley’s term would begin May 16 and will tentatively conclude on June 30, 2023 or when a permanent provost is appointed.

In a press release, Coleman wrote that McCauley’s credentials and experience at the University during her tenure as dean will be beneficial as the University undergoes the presidential transition process.

“Dean McCauley’s proven leadership skills, depth of experience and demonstrated commitment to the University of Michigan make her ideally suited for the responsibilities of provost and executive vice president for academic affairs,” Coleman wrote. “She will be an important partner for the next president as they transition into the role and launch a search for a permanent provost.”

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The University of Michigan announced Thursday that seven-time New York Times best-selling author Maria Shriver will give the commencement address at the 2022 Spring commencement ceremony on April 30. Additionally, Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the U.S. President, will be speaking at a “comeback ceremony” in honor of the class of 2020 on May 7. Both ceremonies will be in-person at Michigan Stadium.

Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, will be speaking at the Rackham Graduate Exercises on April 29 at Hill Auditorium.

Interim University President Mary Sue Coleman has recommended all three speakers receive honorary degrees along with Berry Gordy, Thomas Holt and

William Martin. These recommendations will be considered by the Board of Regents on March 24.

Shriver, an Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalist, will be the main speaker at the April 2022 graduation ceremony. She has been recommended for an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

Shriver is also a NBC News special anchor, founder of Shriver Media — a media enterprise which promotes the power of media to do good — and co-founder of MOSH, a brain health and wellness brand.

According to her website, Shriver is an advocate for women and women’s health, and has focused her efforts on raising awareness about women’s increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. She founded The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement, which has partnered with The Cleveland Clinic to launch the first Alzheimer’s disease prevention center for women. Shriver also worked to eradicate poverty

on behalf of women and their families as first lady of California from 2003-2010.

As the leading infectious disease expert in the U.S., Fauci has acted as a public health advisor to every U.S. President since Ronald Reagan, serving under six different administrations in total. He also currently serves as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

In 2008, Fauci was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, for his work in treating HIV/ AIDS. Facui last presented at the University in 2017 when he spoke about controlling epidemics at a U-M infectious disease panel.

Fauci currently serves as a liaison between the U.S. government and the American public about the COVID-19 pandemic in addition to his work as a practicing physician and medical researcher.

At White House press briefings, Facui discusses the development of COVID-

19 variants, the efficacy of masks and vaccines and treatment possibilities.

During the height of the pandemic in 2020, the University canceled in-person Spring commencement, as well as Winter commencement, and opted to celebrate 2020 graduates virtually. Last year in May 2021, graduates in the class of 2021 had the option to view the virtual commencement ceremony online or in-person at Michigan Stadium, though attendance was restricted to just the graduating class.

The Winter 2021 commencement returned to a more conventional format, with graduates and their families allowed to celebrate in-person together. Spring 2022 commencement will follow suit; however, for the first time, the University is hosting a “comeback ceremony” for any U-M alumni, and their families, who graduated during the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 academic years, as well as those who graduated in the

Fall 2021 term.

University spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald wrote in an email to The Michigan Daily that the University has been planning to invite students who were unable to attend an in-person graduation ceremony back to campus for a while. Fitzgerald wrote that the University is confident that the Big House — with the capacity to seat 107, 601 individuals — will be able to accommodate any alumni who wish to attend the comeback ceremony, along with their guests.

“It has always been the university’s plan to invite these graduates back to campus to celebrate their achievements when it was safe to do so,” Fitzgerald wrote. “We look forward to welcoming back our alumni and providing them (with) a commencement experience that wasn’t possible during the height of the pandemic.”

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Models walk in NOiR’s “Evolve” fashion show, benefiting Freedom House Detroit, at the Michigan Union Saturday.

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U-M undergrad organizations develop education assistance program for Afghan refugees

Volunteers teach families English, American culture using virtual platforms

CARLY BRECHNER Daily Staff Reporter

Two University of Michigan student organizations, End the Cycle and the Michigan Refugee Assistance Program (MRAP), are working together to create educa tional materials for Afghan refu gees in Ann Arbor. The program combines the End the Cycle’s goals of improving educational equity and MRAP’s goal of supporting ref ugees by helping Afghan refugees adjust to living in Ann Arbor.

Volunteers from these organiza tions teach Afghan families English and American culture over What sApp, a Facebook-owned messag ing app used worldwide but with a more limited following domesti cally. Recently, Oakland Schools reached out to the program to ask for assistance with lessons for the district’s refugee students.

LSA junior Rija Awan is the pres ident of End the Cycle and volunteer coordinator for MRAP. As a mem ber of both clubs, she combined their volunteer network to organize

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the program and help bridge the educational gap among school-aged refugees.

“There (are) a lot of refugees that have settled in Ann Arbor recently,” Awan said. “Many organizations provide material support … we’re trying to fill the educational gap by giving them lessons and acting as mentors.”

The initiative began in January 2022 when a local student reached out to MRAP asking for assistance with English lessons for Afghan refugees, according to Awan. MRAP partnered with End the Cycle to create the program and find volun teers. There are currently about 40 Afghan families and 25 University of Michigan volunteers involved in the program.

Approximately 6 million Afghans have been driven out of their country due to conflict, dis ease, violence and poverty. Multiple countries — including the United States — have also played a role in the ongoing struggles Afghanistan faces. In the summer of 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden withdrew all U.S. troops from the country by Aug.

30. During the military retreat, the Taliban took over the Afghan gov ernment on Aug. 15.

Jewish Family Services is one nonprofit organization assisting with refugee resettlement in Ann Arbor. They have recently welcomed around 300 Afghan refugees to Washtenaw County and are expect ing more. The Afghan families have been staying in hotels until the orga nization can find them housing.

LSA senior Maryam Masood is the MRAP co-president. She has worked with several refugee fami lies and organized projects with JFS to assist them.

“I think Ann Arbor specifically is where a lot of the help is,” Masood said. “JFS is based in Ann Arbor, and there are other local organiza tions that do a lot of work. Refugees have really strong ties, especially between the University, its student organizations and larger resettle ment agencies. There’s just a large presence of help here.”

Awan described her work as the leader of the program. She oversees curricula and pairs volunteers with the families.

“So far, I have been finding vol unteers, creating an outline of the program and structuring the vision for the program, because it’s not like anyone gave it to us,” Awan said. “Then, I’ve been meeting with vol unteers and coming up with curricu lums and trying to understand how to teach lessons the best. Now since we’re starting tutoring, (the program is) going to be more individualized as I’m pairing up families with tutors based on the fit.”

Awan said her group of volun teers, U-M students from a variety of majors and backgrounds, are committed to easing their transition

from Afghanistan to Ann Arbor.

“I think something that’s impres sive is the volunteer grit,” Awan said. “The volunteers that I’m working with are determined to make this an amazing program that’s really going to help people. The volunteers are not getting an award or anything like that out of it, but they’re doing out of goodness of their heart and putting the effort in.”

Engineering sophomore Caro line Collins is a tutor in the refugee program and a volunteer for MRAP. She provides an hour-long lesson, with a curriculum of lessons cre ated by individual volunteers, over

WhatsApp to an Afghan family each week to help them adapt to the peculiarities of American society.

“Some of the lessons are about public transportation,” Collins said. “We have one about restaurant cul ture, and some about how to access medical care in America.”

Collins said it is rewarding to see the positive impact these lessons have on participants.

“Getting to meet the family and seeing the work have an impact on them is really exciting,” Collins said.

Daily Staff Reporter Carly Brech ner can be reached at cbrech@umich. edu.

Zingerman’s celebrates 40 years with fundraiser, new book

U-M alumni reflect on first founding the business, goals

EMILY BLUMBERG Daily Staff Reporter

Tuesday marks a milestone for deli-lovers all throughout the city of Ann Arbor: 40 years of Zing erman’s Delicatessen. Zinger man’s Community of Businesses — which has expanded to include Zingerman’s Bakehouse, Zing erman’s Coffee Co. and Zinger man’s Creamery, among others — is commemorating the 40 year anniversary of its flagship with a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity of Huron Valley.

As part of the anniversary celebrations, Ann Arbor-based author Micheline Maynard released her new book, “Satis faction Guaranteed,” on Feb. 22.

The book explores Zingerman’s 40-year history and the business’ impact on Ann Arbor and beyond.

Since opening Zingerman’s Delicatessen in 1982, co-founders Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw have expanded, adding 14 busi nesses across Southeast Michi

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gan. Both recent University of Michigan graduates at the time, the pair thought Ann Arbor was lacking a quintes sential taste of traditional Jew ish deli.

“The two found that they shared this dream of starting their own deli because they’re both Jewish and they both grew up with the big deli sandwich tradition,” author Micheline Maynard said in an interview with The Michigan Daily. “They realized in 1982 that Ann Arbor didn’t have a place like that.”

Weinzweig, who is still the co-owner of the Zinger man’s Community of Busi nesses, told The Daily that Zingerman’s philosophy has always focused on creating mutually positive experienc es for employees and custom ers alike. Prioritizing kindness and care, Weinzweig said, is what has fueled the company’s success in Ann Arbor for the last 40

years. “The standard definition of busi ness success is how much money you made, or if you went public, or how many units you opened,” Weinzweig said. “It just makes more sense to me to look at it in the context of, are peo

customers’ lives better for having our food or shopping with us? It’s less easily measured than a bank account, but that kind of stuff really is what’s most important to us.”

Zingerman’s launched a fund

Habitat for Humanity of Huron Valley (H4H), which works to build and renovate homes for low-income families in Washt enaw County, to help give back to the “amaZING” community . According to their fundraising website, Zingerman’s has com mitted to matching all donations they receive up to the $40,000 goal. As of Monday, Zingerman’s has raised over $5,700, and the fundraiser will continue through out the month of March.

According to Leah Tessman, development coordinator for corporate and faith relations at H4H, $80,000 — the total Zing erman’s would donate if they raise $40,000 — would likely be enough for H4H to fully renovate a house for a family in Washt enaw County.

“Additionally, we’ve had in kind donations from the Bake House, Roadhouse, pretty much all of them have at some point, donated in kind goods to our events to help our fundrais ing activities,” Tessman said.

“They’ve also provided many, many I don’t even I’ve lost track count of how many volunteers they’ve also provided, whether it be in our work sites, at our restore.”

Many businesses prioritize profitability, Maynard said, but Zingerman’s is unique because it always puts “service first.”

“A lot of businesses set out first to make a profit, and that’s not where (Zingerman’s) is,” Maynard said. “It doesn’t mat ter if you’re buying one bagel; the people that wait on you basically treat you like you’re the only cus tomer that ever came in there.”

Treating each customer with kindness is a cornerstone of how Zingerman’s is run, Maynard wrote in her book. Through detailed and supportive employee training, founders and new hires alike have said that Zingerman’s is much more than a workplace, Maynard told The Daily, it’s a community.

Here’s what you need to know for the 2022 LSA Student Government elections

Voting opens on March 30, 31 with over 19 representatives running

ELI FRIEDMAN Daily Staff Reporter

The University of Michigan LSA Student Government will hold elec tions on March 30 and March 31, 2022. Students in the College of Lit erature, Science and the Arts will elect a new president, vice president and 19 representatives. The execu tive race will be the largest in the history of the LSA Student Govern ment, with five competing tickets.

Meet the candidates:

The following candidates, paired together as presidential and vice presidential candidates, respec tively, are running for executive office: LSA freshman Bilal Irfan and LSA freshman Maria Waja hat, LSA junior Max Stoneman and LSA sophomore Peter Tam, LSA sophomore Gabriel Ervin and LSA sophomore Noah Gadola, LSA freshman Adrianna Kallabat and LSA junior Noor Alesawy, and LSA junior Erica Nelson and LSA soph omore Roland Burgaj.

In an interview with The Michi gan Daily, Irfan said if he is elected he hopes to bring to fruition the projects he began as a representa tive. These projects include a bidet initiative to benefit Muslim stu dents on campus as well as climate action and increasing community members’ awareness of climate issues. He also hopes to aid in cre ating an undergraduate student

workers’ union and to continue cementing relationships with stu dent organizations.

“More often than not, when I encounter people, they don’t even know that LSA SG is distinct from CSG,” Irfan said. “And I think that’s an issue insofar as the fact that people don’t know that they can come for funding from LSA SG.”

While Irfan acknowledges that he and Wajahat, his running mate, are relatively new mem bers of the LSA SG, he said the number of resolutions they have authored and their extensive col laboration with student organi zations set them apart from the other candidates. Irfan also said the fact that he and Wajahat are both people of color allows them to relate to the experiences of minority communities on cam pus.

“(Our experiences as people of color have) definitely helped us in the way we have navigated con versations within LSA Student Government and (informed) some of the changes that we would like to see happen,” Irfan said.

Stoneman’s campaign revolves around the themes of “sustain ability, solidarity and inclusion.” If elected, he intends to support Ann Arbor for Public Power’s campaign for a municipal utility and invest in innovative projects

to achieve carbon neutrality.

“The climate crisis is not something we should take light ly, and I don’t think that issues related to sustainability and cli mate as a whole should be put on the back burner,” Stoneman said. “Obviously, there’s a lot of prob lems that need to be addressed on this campus, but I think that this is definitely a big one.”

Stoneman also emphasized the importance of accessibility inside and outside the classroom as well as diversity, equity and inclusion. He plans to introduce a DEI grant for student organi zations on campus working to advance these efforts on campus.

“DEI isn’t just about having students of diverse backgrounds on campus, but it’s also about making students feel welcomed, supported and represented,” Stoneman said. “LSA SG, we can pursue our own projects, but there’s already student groups that are dedicated to particular causes related to DEI, and I think it’s best to support those groups that have been working so hard and so long on these types of projects.”

Stoneman, a second-term Rep resentative in LSA SG, believes his experience sets him and Tam apart from the other executive candi dates.

Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month opening ceremony discusses storytelling, history

Keynote speaker Dr. Sy Stokes talks racial climate, equity and activism

ANNA FIFELSKI Daily Staff Reporter

Content Warning: mentions of racially motivated crimes and vio lence

The University of Michigan kicked off its celebration of Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month Monday eve ning with keynote speaker Dr. Sy Stokes, former Postdoctoral Research Fellow for the U-M National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID), who discussed his research on campus racial cli mate, equity and student activ ism.

Though Asian American & Native Hawaiian/Pacific Island er Heritage Month is federally recognized during the month of May, the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs (MESA) and the United Asian American Student Organizations (UAAO) celebrate these communities from midMarch to mid-April.

The event opened with LSA sophomore Aarushi Ganguly, a member of the Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month Planning Committee, who intro duced the theme of this year’s celebration: “Are You Listening? Oral Histories and Storytelling

from AA&PI Communities.”

“AA&PI populations have long been characterized as silent, which is a result of being washed over by imperialism, monolithic stereotypes and white suprema cy,” Ganguly said. “This Heritage Month, we hope to call attention to the vast diversity within these communities. We will create space for individuals both in and outside of the AA&PI commu nity to learn, reflect and grow.”

Ganguly asked the audience to engage with a Google Jamboard — an interactive, digital white board that allowed attendees to answer the question: “What’s an Asian American and or Pacific Islander-related story or tale that matters to you?” Some notes recounted traditional fables about perseverance, unity and selflessness. Other notes high lighted family experiences and stories.

In response to the prompt, Public Health junior Gina Liu shared a story about a time her par ents, who recently immigrated to the U.S. at the time, had come close to getting scammed into almost buying a timeshare — a vacation ownership with a commitment to paying for annual trips to the same location — due to their identities as first-generation immigrants.

“(My parents) were new immi grants so they had no idea what a timeshare was and there were mul tiple sales people try(ing) to come up to them and try(ing) to get them a timeshare, but they didn’t get one,” Liu said. “Apparently it was like $100 for a weekend trip to Dis neyland so I respect it.”

To start his presentation, Stokes presented a timeline of historical events that have discriminated against the Asian American & Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander communities. He began by explaining three national pieces of legislation — Peo ple v. Hall (1854), Page Law (1875), the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) — that targeted Chinese immigrants on the basis of their race.

Stokes then explained the American-backed coup d’etat of Hawai’i in 1893, in which a group of American sugar planters planned to illegally overthrow Queen Lili’uokalani, who risked her life to preserve Hawai’i. She ultimately signed it to America to protect her citizens, who were threatened with hanging, Stokes said.

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CSG obtains New York Times Games subscription for all UMich students

Full-size daily crossword, other mini-games now free for student body

IRENA LI Daily Staff Reporter

The University of Michigan’s Central Student Government added the New York Times Games subscription to its catalog of news subscriptions in February, giving all U-M students free access to the full-size daily crossword and a number of other mini-games.

Currently, CSG offers a free subscription to the Wall Street Journal for all students, faculty and staff who sign in through their U-M email account. The New York Times subscription, which is only available to students, allows users to activate their free New York Times subscription to gain access to online news articles, NYT Cooking — and now — NYT Games.

CSG added access to NYT Games about three weeks ago, making it the newest addition to the catalog. In addition to providing access to the crossword puzzle, the subscription also allows students to download the NYT Crossword app onto Apple and Android devices.

Rackham student Hayden Jackson, Student Organization Committee Director for CSG, said news sites with paywalls can pose financial obstacles to students.

Jackson added that this opportunity also gives students a return in value for the fees they pay to CSG every semester.

“We have this opportunity to just get more students … both reading this news and playing the crossword,” Jackson

said. “Students pay $9.19 a semester (in CSG fees). I ran the numbers, and they’re getting over $100 worth of value out of both of these (subscriptions) every year. So it’s just a way that every single student can get a massive return on their student fee, which is something we definitely always want.”

The NYT Crossword, as well as the NYT Mini Crossword — a bite-size crossword puzzle — have been popular games for years, Jackson said. Other word games like Wordle — which was launched in October 2021 and then bought by NYT in January — has also risen in popularity among the campus community. All of these games are under NYT property and are free to play for all users regardless of subscription status.

“(The full) New York Times crossword has existed for (decades),” Jackson said. “It’s just really a cultural icon that I’m glad that students are getting to experience … (And) it was between the time we did we approved the money (for the Games subscription) and the time we signed the contract that (the) New York Times bought Wordle.”

The Times’ decision to purchase Wordle from its creator, Josh Wardle, in January spurred debate, especially after the publication said the game would “initially remain free.” But no promises were made to keep Wordle freely available to everyone in the future.

Jackson said talks to provide U-M students with a NYT Games subscription began after witnessing a significant demand for it within the campus

community after CSG obtained access to NYT Cooking in November 2021.

“I put the (NYT Cooking) link behind a survey that we asked people to fill out to assess our subscription programs,” Jackson said. “In that survey, that was where people really expressed a desire for Games. And that was really unprompted, we didn’t ask ‘Do you want games?’ … CSG sometimes has trouble connecting with the student body (and) this was a place where we really saw a chance to give the students what they’re asking for.”

Andy Wright, senior vice president and head of global institutional subscriptions at NYT, wrote in an email to The Daily that NYT has worked with CSG over the past two years. Wright wrote that NYT is excited for U-M students to have the opportunity to enjoy NYT Games.

“Over the past two years, The New York Times has worked closely with the Central Student Government to bring University of Michigan students digital access across our suite of products,” Wright wrote. “Now they can explore and understand the world through our quality journalism, build confidence in the kitchen with our Cooking app and enjoy a meaningful mental break by playing games like Spelling Bee, Wordle and our Crossword.”

Rackham student Paul Chao, who said he filled out the CSG subscription survey, wrote in an email to The Daily about his experience using the subscriptions provided by CSG.

“My daily source of news starts with the NYT and it keeps me up to date with

current events,” Chao wrote. “I love that CSG provides all students with free access to the various products as it enriches my daily (life) in a small way.”

Engineering sophomore Katelyn King said she was excited to see CSG providing access to the Cooking and Games add-ons and said she appreciates the convenience of being able to play the full crossword on her phone.

“I had already been subscribed to the news from the New York Times,” King said. “I had always been using whatever I could get (from) the free Cooking version. So when they came out with the full subscription, I was excited … And now with the full Games access, I play the crossword a lot with my friends. We’re all on each other’s leaderboards competing with each other.”

Jackson said he is also interested in expanding student access to a Washington Post subscription and also allowing U-M faculty and staff to access the New York Times as well. However, he also acknowledged budget constraints and a lack of financial support from the University as obstacles for these goals.

“I wish that we could pursue further subscription products (but) I don’t know that we’ll find the money for something unless we can get a really good price,” Jackson said. “I love hearing from students about what other subscriptions they want … but financially, I don’t think it’s gonna be a reality anytime soon.”

Daily Staff Reporter Irena Li can be reached at irenayli@umich.edu.

Metamorphosis: NOiR holds “Evolve” show at the Michigan Union

Local designers featured, student organization raises funds for Freedom House Detroit

IRENA LI Daily Staff Reporter

NOiR Runway Fashion, a student organization dedicated to inspiring high fashion through philanthropy on campus, held their annual spring show at the Michigan Union on Saturday. Their first show since 2019, NOiR sent dozens of models down the runway, donning pieces by local designers such as William Palmer Hommé and Sabrina Spanta.

LSA senior Gustavo Navarro, NOiR president, said in an interview with The Michigan Daily that the show’s “Evolve” theme emerged after not being able to stage a show for the past two years due to the COVID19 pandemic.

“(The show) is a culmination of a year’s worth of work,” Navarro said. “This year is sort of like our comeback show … showing (NOiR’s) evolution, from preCOVID times to now, to how we’ve changed and maintained ourselves and gotten a new name for ourselves at Michigan.”

The show was divided into nine scenes, each defined by its own set of designers, styles and music. The first scene, titled “Diminish” and set to X Ambassadors’ “Unsteady,” featured patchwork garments and oversized hoodies designed by Michigan-based brand Irui Studios. Another scene, the six of nine, “Asubuhi,” had models sporting vibrant African prints and patterns from brands Nakel Cuchur and J’Nae Collection as Kabza de Small’s “Sponono” played in the background.

Every year, NOiR chooses a charity to raise funds for as part of the organization’s philanthropic efforts. This year’s show supported Freedom House Detroit, a shelter that provides medical care and legal services for those seeking asylum in the United States and Canada.

temporary shelter providing medical care and legal services for asylum seekers in the United

States and Canada.

Mercedes Pergande, engagement coordinator for Freedom House Detroit, told The Daily working with NOiR had been an incredible opportunity.

“There are very few organizations in the country … that function as Freedom House Detroit does,” Pergande said. “To have such a special organization right in (their) backyard, in Detroit, I think stuck out to (NOiR) … It’s been an absolute pleasure working with NOiR.”

During the show’s intermission, NOiR presented a $3,000 check to Freedom House Detroit.

Pergande also weighed in on the non-profit’s established relationship with the greater U-M community.

“Freedom House Detroit has a long-standing relationship with the University of Michigan,” Pergande said. “Especially the language departments, as we, currently at (Freedom) House, serve over 20 countries present in one home, which is super special. We’re just excited to deepen that relationship with the University of Michigan and diversify it within these other groups and organizations.”

Business junior Jalen Gu, NOiR vice president, said the organization was committed to its diversity efforts and hopes to continue expanding their reach to new communities on campus.

“We also pride ourselves on being super diverse: we have people from all different backgrounds, all different schools at Michigan,” Gu said. “NOiR is (always) trying to be more inclusive and expand; we want to reach a broader community at Michigan.”

Navarro said he was grateful for the opportunities that NOiR gave him to express and experiment with his identity through fashion, especially now that he is graduating in a few weeks.

Letter to Board of Regents advocates for upholding safe spaces on campus for students of color

Campus community calls out “White Students Colonizing Trotter” in message to U-M admin

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.comNews4 — Wednesday, March 23, 2022 NIRALI

The University of Michigan Board of Regents received a letter on Feb. 22 titled “White Students Colonizing Trotter,” which advised the administration to focus on building and preserving designated safe spaces on campus for students of color. In the letter, Social Work and Education Masters student Byron Brooks, CSG Deputy Policy Advisor, outlined the history and purpose of the Trotter Multicultural Center.

“Trotter house was birthed out of this movement, yet through its expansion and relocation to its current location, the very students who fought for Trotter’s inception are being oppressed through the power and privilege that is embedded within our community,” the letter read.

History of Trotter Multicultural Center

Since 2019, the University’s multicultural center has been located on South State Street. Before then, the building was known as “Trotter House” and was located on South University Avenue. “Trotter House” was first created in 1971 through the efforts of the Black Action Movement. In 1972, it moved to Washtenaw Avenue after the building was damaged in a fire. Since its creation, the Trotter Center has

served as a safe space for Black students; multicultural student organizations have facilitated community engagement in both Trotter House and what is now Trotter Center.

The letter explained this history and concerns about non-multicultural organizations reserving rooms in the building.

“What is supposed to be a Mecca for Students of Color has become a whitewashed space where white students have no regard for the sacredness or purpose of the space,” the letter reads.

University spokeswoman Kim Broekhuizen explained the process for reserving space in Trotter in an email to The Michigan Daily and wrote that the building aims to include all student organizations on campus.

“As a national leader in promoting an inclusive campus climate, the Trotter Multicultural Center serves as a campus facilitator, convener and coordinator of intercultural engagement and inclusive leadership education initiatives for University of Michigan students,” Broekhuizen wrote. “As such, Trotter does not discriminate against who can use the facility.”

The statement also described the reservation process: Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs (MESA)-affiliated organizations, which represent various minority groups on campus, get the first priority for reservations in the beginning of August. Once that deadline has

passed, room reservations are opened to the rest of the campus community on the first day of class.

“Reservations are open from the first day of class to the last day of the Winter semester,” Broekhuizen wrote. “Reservations are open to all student organizations through Conference and Event Services. As a result, the events are posted on each door for the community to view.”

In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Brooks said witnessing predominantly white students occupying Trotter made him feel like safe spaces were not being respected on campus.

“I witness white organizations’ students that are not marginalized people — that are (a) majority on campus — come into the space that’s supposed to be a safe space for minorities and multicultural students,” Brooks said. “For people to know the background of Trotter and just (overlook it) and disrespect the sacredness of it supposedly posed to be in a safe space that shows the issue of power privilege dynamics that still affect the campus I felt like it needed to be addressed.”

Brooks said safe spaces go beyond symbolic gestures and the regents should enforce respect for these spaces.

“Now it’s one thing to just say that this place is a safe space from the top of the administration on down, (and

it’s another) not to secure a safe space,” Brooks said. “It continues to become watered down and no longer be towards what it was meant to be.”

Engineering sophomore Devyn Griffin, a member of the Black Student Union, said safe spaces on campus ensure the emotional well-being of minority students. He said there are not many Black students on campus,

which is why preserving safe spaces is essential. Just 3.92% of undergraduate students at the University of MichiganAnn Arbor identify as Black or African American.

“It can get lonely if you don’t stay relatively close to home,” Griffin said. “It’s very important to have something that’s familiar, something that you can call home. These cultural

orgs are some of the best ways to do that. Safe spaces are so essential because it can be detrimental to your mental health (if they are not there).”

Griffin said when safe spaces are taken away to make room for others, it can defeat the entire purpose of a safe space.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Design by Kate Shen

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Design by Grace Aretakis

‘The Batman’ is a riveting, investigative blockbuster that still feels like a comic book

“THE BATMAN” HAS been one of the most anticipated films of the past few years. While the DC catalog of movies has gener ally been hit or miss, the trailers and promo tional materials for this latest adaptation of the classic character looked promising. I’m happy to say that excited fans can breathe a sigh of relief: “The Batman” is good. And not the kind of good that accompanies a shrug and subsequent amnesia. It’s more of a “rapturously-glued-to-my-seat-for-threehours” kind of good.

From just the first few scenes, it’s clear director Matt Reeves (“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”) had a very specific tone and vision for the world of “The Bat man.” Gotham City is just as dark and depressing as in the ultra-realistic Chris

topher Nolan trilogy, but it also carries an eccentric, Gothic quality to retain the comic-book pulp that was absent from the previous films. Gotham shares DNA with the unnamed city in “Se7en” (David Finch er, “Gone Girl”) in the sense that it’s bleak and unsaturated but also feels offbeat and outlandish enough to thankfully separate itself from reality.

And while the Fincherian elements are plentiful, with much of the plot unfold ing with the investigative structure and suspenseful atmosphere seen in “Zodiac,”

Reeves has incorporated many elements from other parts of the cinema canon. In a virtual press conference, Reeves said, “It’s kinda like “All the President’s Men,” and there’s a bit of “(The) French Connection” and there’s a bit of “Taxi Driver” … there were a lot of those kinds of ’70s movies.”

The finished product of “The Batman” reflects these influences quite clearly, using

the trademarks of cynical ’70s crime films, such as high-level conspiracies and psycho logically turbulent characters, with aplomb.

Cinematographer Greig Fraser (“Dune”) and composer Michael Giacchino (“SpiderMan: No Way Home”) both perform at the top of their game to create the sights and sounds of this more offbeat Gotham.

The use of dutch angles and shallow focus, along with the desaturated colors and out dated architecture are some of the biggest contributors to the comic-book feel. Audi ence members will have Giacchino’s fournote musical motif for Batman stuck in their heads — it’s present most times he’s on screen and even when he’s not. This helps emphasize the idea that Batman, and the fear that accompanies him, is everywhere — that Batman has evolved from one man into an omnipresent urban legend.

We need to talk about the ‘Love is Blind’ reunion episode

I’ve never agreed with someone so much.

AS I’M SURE you know if you’ve been on Twitter or TikTok (or have been keeping up with the Michigan Daily TV) at all recently, season two of “Love is Blind” officially came to a close last week with the release of season two’s reunion episode — with each minute messier than the last. Now, if you’re a similar viewer to me, a mess is exactly what you came for — but there are some aspects of the reunion episode about which the internet has been eerily quiet or just dead wrong.

First, Shake is a real piece of shit. You know that. I know that. Your mom who doesn’t have a Netflix account knows that. Deepti sure as hell knows that. Even Shake’s own mother seems to know that. So Shake deserves all the hate he’s getting and then some, based on comments alleg ing that his behavior was even worse during the season than we saw on screen. The reunion was basically a reckoning for Shake — not a single person there, cast member or other wise, was willing to put up with his shit any longer, and it showed. Seri ously, Deepti just had to sit back and watch everyone else say what we were all thinking. The hosts, Nick and Vanessa Lachey (who, until this very moment, served little to no purpose in the show for me), also deviated from their typical stance of open-ended questions and pot-stirring to slam Shake, and rightfully so. (To say that Shake didn’t take it well would be an understatement).

Even Shayne, who I honestly can’t stand for the way he consistently gaslit Natalie, knew that Shake had crossed many, many lines.

During the reunion episode, Shake’s comments ranged from dubi ous to outrageous. He said that the show wasn’t about finding a wife, that he wanted to be “partially blind” and wished it were called “Love is Blurry” instead. He went on to state that marriage is like “making a huge purchase” and that the only woman in the room he was attracted to was Vanessa Lachey (a comment he made in front of her husband and cohost). Nobody minced words in their responses; Shayne said “I just can’t believe the words that are coming out of his mouth honestly,” Nick said he “unfollowed (Shake) because (he’s) so unbearable” and Iyanna told Shake that “I think we’d all like it if you just shut up in general.” Let me just say,

In their condemnation of Shake’s season-long (and, I’m sure, lifelong) fatphobia and objectification of women, those in attendance at the reunion allowed ableism to flourish on many levels. There were a million ways to call out Shake for his behav ior without stigmatizing people with Cluster B disorders and generally per petuating an image of disabled people and women who wear anything more than a size two as less than human. But when Shake emphasized (for the zillionth time) the importance a wom an’s body holds for him in the roman tic equation, Vanessa responded, “What if she’s mangled in an accident? What if she gains weight? What if she loses her hair, her legs and her arms? Are you not gonna love her anymore? I hope to God if I’m mangled, knock on wood, (Nick) stands by my side.” Van essa wasn’t wrong to say that if you love someone, you should love them even if they suffer significant trauma or experience physical changes to their body. The implication, though, that someone who is “mangled” or puts on weight or lacks hair, arms or legs is inherently less desirable can not stand. Vanessa is in many ways conventionally attractive, as are the rest of the cast members, but disabled people are also downright sexy and I won’t have a former Miss Teen USA or anyone else implying otherwise.

Another significant blunder came from Iyanna. When Shake went off on yet another tangent follow ing his comment that Vanessa is the only woman in the room he’d bang, Iyanna said, “Shake, I think you would seriously benefit from seeing a psychologist and figuring out some coping skills to navigate relation ships as a narcissist because I think you’re going to continue to damage relationships.” Iyanna is damn right that therapy would help Shake and those he interacts with in the future, but that’s true for just about all of us. Most of us would benefit from thera py. It shouldn’t be an insult to say that someone needs help with their men tal health, but it was delivered that way here, and it isn’t an uncommon dig. What’s more, Shake is a jerk, but I believe his comments about women and their bodies make him a fatphobic misogynist, not a narcissist. Whether he’s a narcissist or not isn’t for anyone to say except a trained professional.

Courtesy of Warner Bros

EMMY SNYDER

Beat Editor

Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

NBC’s ‘The Courtship’ takes ‘The Bachelorette’ back in time to the era of ‘Bridgerton’

JENNA JAEHNIG Daily Arts Writers

AS IF ALL the shows from The Bach elor franchise weren’t enough already, NBC released a new dating show, “The Courtship,” that premiered on Sunday, March 6. The premise is nearly identi cal: A group of 16 eligible suitors com pete to win the heart of a young, single woman, of course complete with week ly eliminations and almost too much drama to handle. However, what sets “The Courtship” apart is that it is set in Regency-era England (think “Bridger ton” or a real-life “The Selection” book series — still waiting for that to become a TV series, but that’s besides the point). Contestants wear period-appro

priate clothing, refer to each other by last name and follow many other cus toms of the time. The leading lady is Nicole Rémy, a USC graduate, former Seattle Seahawks cheerleader and cur rent software engineer, who believes going back to a time before dating apps and social media might give her a better chance of finding Prince Charming.

One of the most notable aspects of “The Courtship,” aside from the obvi ous aesthetics of the show, is the panel Nicole has with her. Unlike “The Bach elor,” where contestants meet the lead’s family in the final few weeks of the show, Ms. Remy’s parents, sister and best friend are there from the very first night; they meet all the men and even select who will be on her very first group date. With only one episode

released, it’s difficult to tell how sig nificant of a role her family will play in her future choices on the show, but it certainly adds a fresh dynamic that hasn’t been seen on modern dating shows. Further, it grounds the show more in the era it is inspired by, as it was customary for parents to play a role in finding the right match for their daughters.

Keeping with the theme, grand balls replace cocktail parties and final danc es replace roses. Instead of pulling aside each of the men for a brief (and assur edly soon-to-be-interrupted) chat, Ms. Remy weaves her way through the ball room and through the men, stopping to talk to them individually as she makes her rounds. Her panel is also present at these balls and can talk to Ms. Remy’s

potential suitors and get to know them. At the end of the night, a group of men who are in the bottom tier are each offered a final dance as their last chance to persuade Ms. Remy to keep them. She is able to tell the men her rea sons for letting them go, as well as tell the ones she keeps what she’s looking for from them. It’s a small detail that will hopefully lend her a more success ful journey, but the chance for more conversation and confrontation can only lead to more drama as the season progresses.

With just the pilot out, only time will tell if Regency-era England makes for more successful relationships or if the drama will continue to stay at the forefront of yet another reality show. For the sake of our bachelorette, I hope

she finds everything she’s looking for and that it’s smooth sailing from here, but for the sake of viewers and dramalovers (myself included), I don’t think the difficulty of dating multiple people at once will change all that much, even if we are set back a couple of hundred years.

Overall, “The Courtship” is exactly what is expected from a dating show, but hopefully by taking the cast back in time and making some changes described above, a greater emphasis will be placed on the quality of each relationship. Yes, “The Courtship” is just another dating show, so there isn’t anything too special about it, but if you’re craving some more reality TV and wouldn’t mind an old-English twist, “The Courtship” is for you.

Why we love (and hate) #college #relatablecontent

KAYA GINSKY Daily Arts Writer

THE RISE OF TikTok and the “For You Page” placed #relata blecontent at the forefront of the internet. The TikTok algo rithm is unique to the user, and the endless “For You” feed con stantly refines itself based on interactions with content. Each feed turns into a never-ending amalgam of tailor-made content that somehow resonates with a user’s every interest, experi ence and emotion.

With a large plurality of Tik Tok users between 16 and 24, “college TikTok” forms a com munity of young people with shared yet diverse collegiate experiences. With help from the algorithm, which is entirely user-based (rather than popu larity-based), college creators quickly gain fame by posting a simple and relatable 15-second clip. Regular students turn into campus microcelebrities.

Business sophomore Mark Plunkett curates his lifestyle for 10,600 followers. He started recording daily vlogs to remem ber his days at the University of Michigan. Upon vlogging his first-year move-in day, which he called “raw” and “hectic” in an interview with The Michi gan Daily, he gained an instant following. Rishika Vinnakota, a relatable content creator and Business freshman with over 8,000 followers, first gained millions of views with a video on using LinkedIn to find the best date in college.

Plunkett’s content has a college wellness and life style focus, with aesthetically pleasing daily videos of Ross’s

architecture, gym workouts, homemade brunches and late nights out with friends. On the other side of college TikTok is Rishika. Her videos, often set to ironic audios, focus on the struggles of a first-year stu dent: studying, interviewing for clubs, maintaining a busy social life, networking and discover ing who you are all by yourself.

ing as obnoxious, and gossip turns to threats.

Both the student creators face overwhelming hate, threaten ing messages and even stalking. They face harassment that goes against their messages of inclu sivity and relatability nearly every day. But neither creator plans on stopping — when Rishika’s parents asked her to stop creating content amidst a storm of cyberbullying, she sim ply told them: “I don’t want to, thank you.”

eos inspire others to focus on physical, mental and intellec tual health while at school. He finds inspiration from wellnessrelated social media content and recently picked up cooking, which he now features in his

slightly relatable thing they showcase on social media.

Oprah walking her dog! A Kar dashian ordering fast food!

Marketers, magazines and websites take advantage of our inclination towards relatable

worse off or they are somehow showing off — the hate for col lege content creators may just be jealousy.

Mark, who hopes to create an inclusive and inspiring commu nity through his content, calls

HANNAH CARAPELLOTTI Daily Arts Writer

I VAGUELY REMEMBER the day that we got our Nintendo Wii. It was Christmas morning, and when my younger brother Owen unwrapped the simple white and grey box, we both started scream ing and didn’t stop. The Wii was brand new technology at the time; the first time we ever used one was at a family party a few weeks before. Never did we imagine own ing one so soon after its release, but now it was ours. My family wouldn’t consider ourselves “gam ers” — our introduction to the world of gaming was our dad’s old PlayStation, which broke not long after we could learn the controls. But here was something we could all play together, which is exactly what we did. We started out slow; games of “Wii Sports” bowling and messing around on the Mii Channel took up most of our time. But our family and our collection of games would only continue to grow.

When it was released in 2006, the Wii was competing against con soles such as the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Though its 480p graphics were lacking in quality, its innovative motion-control remotes “dropped the barrier between player and game.” The huge variety of games created for the console also made it attractive. The system catered most to families and casual gamers, mak ing gaming more accessible to the average person. We certainly fell into that category, so the Wii was perfect for us.

My youngest sister Lucy loved

Rishika has a large following of students who “want to feel like they’re having a normal (col lege) experience,” she told The Michigan Daily. While nearly opposite in their approaches, both Mark and Rishika use Tik Tok as an outlet to share their days and provide others a can did look into their lives at the University.

A New York Times article on social media crazes finds that “relatability is the chief psycho logical lubricant that glides you thoughtlessly down the curated, endless scroll of your feed.” The creators’ connections to strang ers around the world prove that we all crave the relatable.

Upon gaining recognition on campus, both creators quickly became Yik Yak (in)famous.

On Yik Yak, where gossip flows freely and anonymously, “relat able” content is controversial. People take self-deprecating as cloying and aesthetically pleas

As a first-year student and young woman of Color in busi ness, Rishika finds it is easy to feel isolated without a large community. “The reason I keep posting and why I want to keep posting is just finding other people like me,” Rishika said. “Not because they (need) it, (but) because I also really need it.” TikTok provides a plat form to discuss daily struggles with people who relate, ben efitting both creators and view ers. Rishika’s content removes taboos from topics ranging from oft-mocked business classes to difficult first-semester loneli ness.

Similarly, as a mixed-race gay man, Mark hopes his account can show a look into his life “beyond stereotypes.” He hopes his day in the life vid

vlogs. Committing to making daily videos, in turn, motivates him to continue living a healthy lifestyle.

We love celebrities for every

content to attract clicks and hits. We desire to see ourselves in everything we consume. But when we expect the relatable, as we do from college creators, we lash out when we do not find it.

It is easiest to compare our selves to fellow students, who we hope to view as peers. Social media increases our upward social comparisons: measure ments of ourselves with those we perceive as better off or more skilled. We think because we cannot relate to Mark’s fit ness and fashion and Rishika’s career focus, we are somehow

The Nintendo Wii and Mii

holding “Just Dance” tournaments, while my other sister Carly opted for single-player games like “Epic Mickey” and “Super Mario Gal axy,” both of which she’s beaten several times. Owen schooled everyone in “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader” and held the golf record on “Wii Sports Resort.” I was — and still am — a sucker for “LEGO Harry Potter.” Much to everyone else’s annoyance, I spent more time gathering the collectible Studs than actually following story mode, which means I tended to hog the TV. I can’t tell you how many times my siblings saw me picking up a Wii remote and a Nunchuk and yelled, “Oh, come on!”

For every personal game we each had, there were several that we always played as a group.

“Wipeout: The Game” was a glitchy mess, and we would crack up whenever our characters stopped responding to our remotes and ran on their own. Breaking out “Wii Fit” turned into a mini Olym pics, with each of us replaying the same games over and over to try to beat each other’s scores. “Mario Kart” races were all too common whenever anyone had friends over. In fact, our disk got so worn that an old classmate lent me his copy — on the off chance that you’re reading this, I still have it. You’re never getting it back.

The Wii was formally discontin ued in 2013, and the online services via the Shop Channel ran until 2019. By that point, I had just started col lege, and I hated every second of it. I didn’t feel ready to leave home yet — even though I was only an hour away, it felt much longer. My anxiety was at an all-time high and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how kids my age looked forward to this experience.

My mom called me almost every day, updating me on how everyone else was doing: Carly had gotten the lead role in the school musical; Lucy earned a spot on the volleyball team; Owen was hard at work in his AP classes. But hearing about every

thing over the phone wasn’t the same. Is this what adulthood would be like from now on, with the major ity of life updates being relayed for the duration of my parents’ after noon commute? Here I was, alone and perpetually anxious, crushed by expectations of independence but instead longing for the days when I could hide in my basement with no responsibilities, just aimlessly wan dering and collecting coins. I missed my family even more.

Moving back home during quar antine was the answer to my prayers. Being quite literally stuck at home, my siblings and I turned to the Wii to pass the endless time. No other game compared to “Mario Super

those who ridicule him “embar rassing.” He and Rishika find that not responding is the most powerful way to rise above hate. As their accounts grow in popu larity and gain them brand deals and networking connections, they appear to rise far above it.

While I can not relate to all of Rishika’s or Mark’s content, I still find joy in seeing them on campus: outside of Ross, at a party, in SoulCycle and on the Diag. The campus microcelebri ties can be “just like me,” and for me, that is enough reason to love their content.

two floors up. But regardless of how heated things got, we would always return the next night for a rematch. Over the Wii’s 15-year run, more than 100 million units were sold. Now, the Switch holds the top spot as Nintendo’s moneymaker. Wii consoles are still somewhat widely available on Amazon, going for around $200 — which is signifi cantly cheaper than other gaming consoles. Thankfully, ours is still in pretty good shape and we don’t plan on getting rid of it any time soon. In fact, I just bought some used games from eBay (one of which is “LEGO Star Wars,” unfortunately for my sisters).

By the time I start my senior year

Sluggers,” a baseball game featuring, you guessed it, Mario characters. All four of us could play at the same time, two to a team, and so began an intense nightly ritual. We kept a running tally of who won each day’s games — I’m absolutely terrible, as I’ve heard countless times from both my opponents and my teammates, yet my team holds the longest win ning streak. We’d play in the base ment with the door closed and my parents could still hear us screaming

of college, I plan to move out of my parents’ house, and I’m feeling ready for it this time. I have been explicitly told I’m not allowed to take the Wii with me. At first I complained, but it’s better this way. It doesn’t belong to just me, nor do the memories I have from it. My siblings and I fight a lot, and I mean a lot — most siblings do. And yet, as cliché as it may be, I know that we love each other. Any dispute can be fixed with a dance routine or a game of baseball.

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Design by Abby Schreck

“I don’t want to, thank you.”

“Being quite literally stuck at home, my siblings and I turned to the Wii to pass the endless time.”

“Not because they (need) it, (but) because I also really need it.”

Despite good intentions, ‘Pam & Tommy’ is tasteless, callous and even cruel

ANNABEL CURRAN Daily Arts Writer

HULU’S EIGHT-PART MINI SERIES “Pam & Tommy” tells the story of the internet’s very first sex tape scandal, in which a home movie made by Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee is stolen, sold and leaked for millions to see. The show focuses primarily on the exploitation and over-sexu alization of Anderson (Lily James, “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again”), but a complete lack of self-awareness from the show’s writers and producers has produced a rather tasteless and tone-deaf show that serves only to open old wounds and continue the cycle of Ander son’s seemingly endless exploi tation by popular media.

From the very first epi sode, it was clear that this show’s perspective on this eradefining scandal was going to be questionable at best. The entire pilot episode is dedicat ed to the reprehensible actions of Rand Gauthier (Seth Rogen, “Invincible”), the man respon sible for stealing and selling the sex tape that would come to define Anderson’s entire life and career. Rather than paint ing Gauthier in the unflatter ing light that he deserves, the show delivers him a complete redemption arc on a silver plat ter, characterizing him as an overworked and underprivi leged servant to the stars, reaf firmed by his desire for karmic punishment in the form of an invasion into Anderson and Lee’s private lives. Gauthier and his mission to wage war against the couple is the focus

of the first three episodes of the installment, and while the show does not go so far as to justify his actions, the depic tion of Gauthier’s character is far from the villain that view ers expected.

If you can set aside the first three disconcerting episodes, what follows is thrilling — a whirlwind of ’90s nostal gia, filled to the brim with iconic imagery and iconogra phy, a raunchy and passionate romance and an unbelievable transformation of James and Sebastian Stan (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier”) into Hollywood’s “it” couple. If this were any other story, I could label it a fun watch and call it a day — but the reality is that the lack of respect and con sent in a show about consent is perturbing and upsetting, to say the least. It’s likely to leave a bad taste in your mouth. In an emotional scene that’s been redistributed on many media sites for the show’s promotion, Anderson discovers her male coworkers watching a stolen video of her most intimate and private moments with her boyfriend. The heartbreak on James’s face as she realizes the tape has been stolen and leaked is disturbing, and even more so when you realize that this very show is invading Anderson’s private life in almost exactly the same way.

The fact of the matter is, Anderson never asked anyone for this show. In fact, numer ous interviews and sources have profusely repeated that Anderson is against the whole project, declining numerous times to participate or respond to any attempts on the show’s

behalf to reach out. A source states firmly that Anderson will absolutely never see the show, “not even the trailer.”

To gain access to the story without Anderson’s consent, writers and producers took a roundabout back route to cir cumvent the discontent on the literal star of their production, obtaining rights to a 2014 Roll ing Stone article that details the true story of the tape’s theft and distribution. Know ing all this, doesn’t a show that so clearly takes the side of Anderson in her fight against society seem a little bit hypo critical?

Many choices on the part of “Pam & Tommy” are question able, undoubtedly, though it’s not for lack of trying to pro duce a piece of pro-Pam Ander son media. The show, for the most part, is firmly on the side of Anderson as a victim, and James’s portrayal is perfect. From moments of euphoria to heartbreak, her range of emo tions is chilling, and her onscreen chemistry with Stan as Lee is palpable. It’s disappoint ing that their talent in these roles is wasted on such an exploitative production. While I understand that TV projects can’t always follow the wish es of everyone involved, the obvious contrast between the show’s themes and the actions of its producers undercut the deeper meaning and cause the whole show to fall flat. Ulti mately, there’s not a single moment in the show that can escape the shadow of Ander son’s unwilling and unwitting participation in her continual victimization for the sake of media capital.

in Color

‘Disfluency’ is a powerful feature debut from a U-M alum

order to process the trauma she had experienced. She had no intention of actually making it.

Content warning: mentions of sexual assault

ON MARCH 8, a particular excitement infected the audi ence in the Michigan Theater’s main auditorium. “Disfluency” was about to play, and the audi ence was not just there to watch a film, but to welcome a film making team of University alum ni back to Ann Arbor. Among the crew are producers Danny Mooney (“Love and Honor”) and Anthony Kalil (“Liberty’s Secret”); costume designer Monica Geraffo (“Strive”); art director Layne Austin Simescu (“Grasp”); and director, writer and producer Anna Baumgarten (“Line Dry”).

“Disfluency” is the story of Jane (Libe Barer, “Sneaky Pete”), a senior in college who drops out shortly before graduation and returns to her family’s home after being sexually assaulted at a party. She struggles to remem ber exactly what happened to her that night and considers how to tell her parents (Diana DeLaCruz, “Caring” and Ricky Wayne, “Bloodline”) or sister (Ariela Barer, “Ladyworld”) and whether to go to the police. The film is inspired by Baumgarten’s own experience with sexual assault and PTSD. In a Q&A after the screening, she described how she originally wrote the screenplay as a short film in

But, she said, the story kept “eat ing away” at her, and “those are the stories that you end up mak ing.” The eventual short got into a screenwriting lab where short films are made into features, and in 2019, with the help and encouragement of Mooney, the process of making the feature film began.

The film presents a raw por trayal of PTSD without the need for graphic scenes of assault. It is a triumphant testament to the fact that a film need not be explicit in order to convey its emotion to the audience. The opening scene, in which we see disoriented shots of Jane walk ing down a hallway lined with colorful holiday lights as cello music cuts into the theater, instantly puts the viewer on edge. Without seeing anything explicit or even knowing exactly what happened, Jane’s devas tation is palpable and enough to make the viewer’s stomach clench.

By not depicting the assault itself, the film also rightfully takes away any opportunity the viewer could have had to ques tion the validity of Jane’s trau ma. While we see her question whether or not what she experi enced was assault, we do not get to make this call. The film is, in this way, not about the assault, but about Jane’s life afterward, where the trauma she experi

ences is evident. It is decidedly not just about the trauma itself, but about overcoming it and her bravery in moving on with her life, even if she admits to still not being completely okay.

“Disfluency” is also strength ened by its focus on language, first brought up at the begin ning when a professor explains the linguistic concept of “dis fluency” — disruptions in typi cal speech, including words like “sorry” and “like” that become meaningless from overuse. This theme extends beyond the typi cal discussions of consent you might see in films with similar premises. Jane’s intricate rela tionship to language extends back to her childhood, when she fell out of a tree and, in addition to being physically injured, was unable to speak for several years. During this time, her family learned to communicate using sign language. While at home, she teaches single mother Amber (Chelsea Alden, “Shameless”) how to sign after learning that her two-year-old son is deaf. Jane longs for intention in language, which she feels it often lacks, and this desire, which she expresses to Amber, is woven into the rest of the film — a unique way of highlighting Jane’s struggle to talk about what happened to her and the question of whether talking about it in the first place made it worse.

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Michigan’s Chris Bathgate talks influences, upcoming projects and the fiddle

CLAIRE SUDOL Daily Arts Contributor

Michigan’s own Chris Bathgate, an NPR and BBC-lauded artist, sat down with The Michigan Daily after just over five years of solitude to talk about the past, present and future.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

CHRIS BATHGATE IS an American folk singer-songwriter, with parts of himself in Iowa, Illinois and Michigan. Bathgate is best known for his command ing lyricism and unique produc tion, brimming with washes of reverb and rustic folk instruments brought to life in new and unex pected ways. His voice carries with it a haunting resonance that pairs perfectly with the string instruments he seems to be so fond of.

Bathgate became a fixture in the Ann Arbor music scene while studying Art & Design at the Uni versity of Michigan in the early 2000s, reaching international acclaim in 2008 following the release of his first studio album, A Cork Tale Wake. His full-bodied and resonant ballad “Serpentine” garnered attention from NPR and received significant airtime on BBC Radio 2, leading to a strippeddown and memorable perfor mance on NPR Tiny Desk.

In a phone interview with The Michigan Daily, Bathgate offers an unassuming and honest look into what makes his career so special.

The Michigan Daily: Why Music?

Chris Bathgate: It’s probably because I was brought up around music. My grandfather always had classical music in the house where my mother and her two brothers

were raised. My Uncle Greg was super into traditional music — American folk, blues of all kinds, rock and roll. At family gatherings, music was always on, and, often, music was the number one recre ational activity.

That’s probably where it start ed, just being immersed in it as a small child. Music is just what people would do.

notes. I think that’s what has stayed with me. On almost every record, there is fiddle of some kind.

TMD: Out of all the music in the world right now, what is one piece of music that you wish you had written?

CB: Oh yeah — Erin Rae! It’s off a new record she has called Light en Up. The song is called “Mind/

TMD: So, having grown up around music, is there something that you can credit for shaping your sound — early influences, creative partners, a particular instrument?

CB: I think fiddle music in par ticular. You know, traditional oldtime British Isles fiddle music.

There was a time where I start ed incorporating it, either hang ing out with other fiddle players or playing myself, though I’m not very good. I think that I am always trying to capture the excitement and the wonder that I felt as a kid by integrating that style of music, nodding to it or referencing it in some way. It’s one of the most magic sounding instruments, especially that style in particular — full of double-stops and drone

Heart” and it is so good that it makes me say, ‘I wish I could have written that.’ It’s totally brilliant — just a real heart-string puller — doesn’t try to do more than it needs to and is so seemingly effortless.

Definitely give it a listen if you haven’t already.

TMD: I understand that you had a bit of an explosion of activ ity following the release of your first studio album, A Cork Tale Wake. What was that period of time like?

CB: Oh man, it was awesome — it’s still awesome. I got to see a lot of amazing places and play a lot of amazing shows.

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This image is from the official trailer for “Disfluency,” distributed by Gesa Power House Theatre.

ERIN EVANS Daily Arts Writer

This image is by Misty Lynn Bergeron from the official press kit for Chris Bathgate.

STATEMENT

Gridlock andkey

To write music in any capacity is an act of turning yourself inside out.

(If you’re not a musician of any kind, bear with me.) It’s synthesization, alchemy, a wringing of the brain. I write music sometimes, and it often feels like a blind swipe toward anything to bring intangible ideas into a physical form. Coming up with ideas is often the easy part.

I can picture orchestral hits and trumpet lines all day long. I can hear them in my mind’s ear, but the problem lies in pulling these ideas out of the brain and throwing them on paper.

Let’s say you want to compose a string quartet about the sadness of losing a friend. How do you begin? Some basic first decisions are that of finding a good tempo and a good key. A tempo is a choice of number, a speed for the beats to march at and for the rhythms to operate within. A key signature is a choice of one of a finite set of sharps or flats, designating which notes can be bumped down a half step and which you’ll bump up a half step.

Minor keys tend to be associated with sad songs, so maybe you choose something like B minor and pair it with a slow 52 beats per minute. We can give the lower registers of the cello and viola’s long, droning notes. Give cello the B, and give the viola D and an occasional C♯. If the second violin plays an F♯, that would round off the full B minor chord, and the first violin could cry a softly lilting melody above. Make the chord

stretch like taffy, make the melody dance slowly through the scale, and simple as that, you have a sad song.

But do you really?

What if I told you that slow songs in a minor key don’t always have to be connected with feelings of sadness? Or that you don’t even need to choose a tempo for a song if you don’t want to? Or that notes that lie in spaces between two piano keys can be used? There are widely accepted and used conventions for music, almost like figures of speech that can be utilized to easily convey different messages. But music is so much more than its western conventions, the formulas European white men declared most pleasing to the ear.

The best musicians are those who oscillate between the rules and the rebellion with ease, using conventions when they suit the music but remaining unfettered by going off-grid. Jacob Collier is an artist and musician who often writes unconventionalsounding music, to say the least.

I once heard him say his favorite polyrhythm is two against three against four against five against six, demonstrating it by tapping his fingers on a table. There’s no doubt that he’s a music theory genius, but part of music theory is studying the rules and patterns that music tends to follow.

The brilliance of Jacob Collier in particular is the way he knows the theory like the back of his hand and then challenges it. When I started to learn some theory, the prevailing idea when it came to writing was

“you learn the rules to break the rules.” Theory is a tool, but what would a toolbox be if there was only one hammer in it?

Let’s examine a small musical rebellion in action through one of Jacob Collier’s songs. Collier makes his music in the digital audio workstation (DAW) Logic Pro, which is a program for music making designed for Mac computers. For many of his songs, he’s organized livestreams during which he picks apart every individual vocal and instrumental layer and explains the thought processes and methods behind them. In a “Logic Session Breakdown” of his single “Time Alone with You” with Daniel Caesar, he takes a moment to explain what the quantizing tool is and how it affects his music.

The song’s groove is quite swingy and doesn’t exactly align with the beats of the tempo he chose. The quantize button in Logic Pro, when pressed, snaps every hit of the drums to the nearest linear beat. As he clicks the button on and off, playing the rhythm both ways, he highlights the difference of feeling between the two versions. He wouldn’t “get jiggy” to the quantized version, but the space an uncommon snare landing creates can open up new groove possibilities. “Time Alone with You” wouldn’t exist in its current dynamic form if the groove weren’t actively railing against the traditional beat.

On a larger scale, jazz music as we know it today might not exist if musicians didn’t start playing

SARAH STOLAR Statement Correspondent

Almost all of us have heard some version of it: technology ruins the sanctity of relationships, friendships formed over the internet are not real, digital communication and social media have spoiled what it means to interact with other human beings. Millennials and members of Gen Z are constantly criticized for their inability to put their phones down and connect with people through in-person interactions.

with the idea of swinging rhythms. Breaking conventions makes music progress to new heights, to places we didn’t know we could go.

Disregarding the rules of 18th-century counterpoint is not a new idea by any means. But, Jacob Collier completely changed the way I thought about theory rulebreaking and life in general with one of the metaphors he’s used to criticize music software such as Logic Pro. In the same Logic Session Breakdown video, Collier says:

“Grids are not the same as humans. Humans are some of the least grid based creatures in the world, in the universe … I think it’s about time for music software to stop being grid based. It’s one of my, like, real passions, is to get the grid out of people’s psychologies, because the moment we start thinking in grids, then everything becomes grids.”

A grid, in the simplest of forms, is a pattern of evenly spaced and perfectly perpendicular lines spanning a two dimensional plane, much like graph paper. A mathematician might use grids to create graphs with utmost accuracy, using the carefully blocked out dividers as a tool for eliminating mistakes.

An artist can use the “grid method” as a technique to draw a visual reference as precisely as possible. Instead of taking in the whole image at once, you mentally focus on replicating one square at a time, and the result comes out looking more real than if it was

eyeballed from the start.

The grid of musicians is the series of musical staves that make up sheet music. Or in Jacob Collier’s case, the digital audio workstation.

These examples are what I’d call the “kneejerk visualization” of a grid. They’re literal manifestations of the dictionary definition for “grid,” lines that “are parallel to or cross each other.” However, the definition can be expanded in a way that wraps around infinitely more ideas.

The main goal of a grid is to divide. The way it achieves division is through repeating patterns. So, I like to think of a grid as being any pattern or structure that uses its various categories and groupings in service of division. A clock.

Political parties. An ordered recipe. Assembly lines. Country borders. Multiplication tables. The five paragraph essay. A nine-to-five job. The scientific method. Instagram. Systems of government. Systems of education. Gender roles. Gender labels. And graph paper.

But, just like a clock can only divide time into equal hours if there is first a conscious feeling of ever-unfolding existence, so can a grid only be a grid if there’s something to divide. Because of this, I would claim it’s not possible for everything to be classified as a grid. Not everything in this world can or should be divisible.

If a grid’s job is to be a pattern for division, then a non-grid is a dynamic, transforming whole that can allow for infinite potential and fluidity. The non-grids of the world

are my favorite. In a dimly lit jazz club filled with the electricity of the current moment and nothing else, a singer with a pixie cut and a lavish red velvet jumpsuit improvises a solo that makes everyone in the room believe in magic for at least one night.

Entropy, the constant and reliable motion toward chaos. A fallen tree eventually caking apart and rejoining the earth it once sprang from. Empathy, the great comfort of knowing someone else sees and understands and feels your joy, your pain, your disappointment, your frustration.

Giving knowledge to someone who needs it. A glance becoming a smile becoming a conversation becoming a friendship becoming love. A tightly constricted and vibrantly violet wavelength of light bobbing, weaving, sailing, relaxing, until it meanders through blue and green, takes another breath as it descends to sour lime and buttery yellow, relaxes into orange and finally settles into a sluggishly raging red.

I see these nebulous non-grids as dynamic spectrums, or expanses. Grief, love, emotion, personality, volcanoes, communication, wandering, spectrums of sexuality, spectrums of neurodivergency, irrational numbers, opinions, neural pathways, language and time. These transform and bend in ways that can’t ever be truly static or patterned or divided in two.

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Memes: The sixth love language

There is some truth in the idea that people our age spend an exorbitant amount of time looking at screens. Studies show that Gen Zers may spend almost nine hours a day interacting with technology. But in an increasingly digitized and globally connected world, it’s almost impossible to escape spending time online, whether it’s for academic, occupational or social reasons. Need I remind you that my generation just celebrated our two-year anniversary of attending ‘Zoom University.’

As a result, young people have created spaces on the internet for interactive freedom. Digital selfexpression has become the new, sixth love language of intimate connection — and memes are at the forefront of this modern form of communication.

A variety of definitions for the word ‘meme’ circulate around the web, but it’s generally

defined as an internet image that reflects some sort of social or cultural commentary. Memes can communicate niche jokes just as much as they can reflect the attitudes of a people, speak to our personal values and allow us to approach current events from a more accessible angle. There are many types of memes that tap into different facets of viewers’ humor: the use of irony in memes, such as the popular “the feminine urge to” posts that allow women to make fun of behavior traits associated with gender constructs, can appeal to those who find humor in the absurdity of social norms. Additionally, post-ironic memes go beyond the use of irony and give consumers a more straightforward remark on the state of the world. With many different approaches to humor as well as visual layouts, memes explore different facets of our culture in a way that taps into any individual’s idea of what’s funny or relatable.

But what isn’t conveyed through most definitions of the term is the bridge that these simple, at times stupid, pictures create between people who share similar brands of humor.

My Instagram direct messages consist of three different conversations: one with my roommate, one with a best friend from home and another with one of my closest friends at college. Images and reels fill each exchange, from dry-humored, existential clips from

The Onion to relatable posts from college-focused accounts. Rarely any words are sent, the exception being reactions to a video taken from TikTok or new variations of scenes from Euphoria season two. Each post they send speaks to a different side of my unique sense of humor, brought out by the people closest to me in real life.

Despite my DMs, I actually limit myself fairly strictly within the world of social media. I only use Instagram regularly, and mainly use Snapchat just to look at private stories. I don’t have TikTok or Twitter, so my exposure to current trends and digital content is limited to what I find scrolling through the Explore page on Instagram. I’m extremely careful about the social media I do use and its purpose in my life, why I would allot my time to exploring certain platforms. I choose to engage with Instagram because it provides me with content that captivates my sense of humor while strengthening the bonds of my relationships, including between me and my roommate whom I interact with every day.

My roommate is one of my best friends on the planet. After sharing a room together for almost two years, we are completely attuned to each other’s attitudes and idiosyncrasies. On the Michigan Marriage Pact, we got a striking 99.8% friendship match, each of us putting humor as a highly important factor in a relationship. We DM each other Instagram

content almost constantly, each of us knowing exactly what will make the other smile. We’re laughing, conversing, poking fun at one another without even needing to be on the same phone call, let alone the same room.

Instagram is also the primary form of contact between me and my friend from high school; though we rarely text, the posts we share about cute animals and “alpha women” keep us in touch and spark the most interesting conversations over text or the next time we meet face to face.

Each time I get a DM from these individuals, I feel even more deeply connected with them, especially when they tap aspects of my thoughts or identities in ways I had never known were possible: through singular, static images made by a stranger online. I hardly ever thought that memes would become diverse enough to match my humor exactly when they first appeared on the internet, or that they would be employed to uphold my connections with those I love. That my loved ones select posts out of the endless technological abyss of social media and choose to send them to me in the hopes that I’ll enjoy them makes me feel appreciated and understood.

I still talk to all of these friends frequently in person when we are together.

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DANIELLE CANAN Statement Correspondent

Design by Melia Kenny Page Design by Sarah Chung

Design by Reid Graham

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Parking lot sunsets and other suburban phenomena

Design by Erin Shi // Page Design by Sarah Chung

OSCAR NOLLETTE-PATULSKI

Statement Columnist

Several weekends ago, when the temperatures were below twenty and snow was still a little exciting, my housemates and I found ourselves inside the Micheal’s craft store on Washtenaw Avenue. We had come for small projects that would fill in our overestimations of free time: sewing needles, watercolors, new writing pens.

We checked out and paid for our items, and upon exiting through the automatic doors, we looked up to see a transformed sky. During the thirty minutes spent inside the windowless store, the colors above us turned from an agreeable blue to determined shades of orange, rose and purple, and the clouds took turns reflecting these colors into vivacious paint strokes. We marveled at the way the bird spikes atop the corporate logos glistened in the low sun’s rays, and used our feet

to move ourselves in small circles, in an attempt for our eyes to capture the enormity of it all.

We wondered: Why do sunrises and sunsets look so much better in parking lots?

This phenomenon is not completely new to me. In high school, one could open up Snapchat at 7:30 a.m. on any given weekday to see half a dozen or more stories featuring the same sun. It played its role as the red orb hovering below the traffic lights, the rays piercing above generic shrubs or the glow over single-story buildings, as seen through your mom’s minivan window. Among the harsh horizontality of the city’s outskirts was the possibility of beauty, the beige walls cast in a shimmer of gold.

***

The neighborhood I grew up in, Riverside Gardens, can be interpreted as an inspired garden suburb. These types of locales are characterized by their integration

of nature into the residential street fabric, where tall sycamore trees line the streets in front of the one and two-story single family homes. Unlike their relative, the garden city, the garden suburb does not weave industry or workplace into its quilt of foliage. Instead, it poses itself as a place to sleep — nothing else.

Growing up in a garden suburb, I was often frustrated by the lack of activities surrounding my home. The great distance to cultural centers like art museums and performance halls was defeating to a teenager who didn’t know how to drive. What is there to do in the quiet privacy of my aging residential neighborhood?

Enter the neighborhood Facebook page. A relatively common fixture of the suburban subdivision, these groups seek to break down the boundaries between the brick walls and front doors, and to replicate the serendipity encounters that are rare in neighborhoods like ours. Like in

real life, there are characters and stereotypes that occupy the virtual posting wall, all existing within the morally ‘iffy’ space that is watching people interact for your own entertainment.

In our own “Riverside Gardens Neighborhood 49505” group, there is the event planner who creates polls on which food truck to bring to her front lawn in hopes of a springtime social. Then there’s the young man who posts videos of himself running 13 miles while carrying a full size American flag. And, of course, the older woman who shares photos of her bruised knee in a graphic tale of the dangers of ice. What might be strange to share on one’s personal social platform is fair game here, and these oddities add colorful virtual chatter to streets that are almost silent when one steps outside the front door.

For my father, however, what is most interesting about the neighborhood page is something

notably less human. A group of turkeys, numbering about half a dozen, wander through our backyard. My dad takes a few photos, conjures a caption of their number and location and, some taps later, uploads them to be viewed by all of our neighbors. Several other users might comment, and in a few days the process will repeat itself with a new neighbor. A conspiracy theory may emerge, hoping to describe the fluctuation in numbers that circulate under the photos.

Scrolling through the virtual depths of Riverside Gardens, the turkeys seem to be a popular subject for socialization over the years.

Photo shoots include the flightless birds atop of a decorative fountain, in a standoff with a car, occupying the drive-through of a Burger King, or chasing after a mail carrier.

This is where the magic of the Suburban Facebook Group shines: the mundane is made spectacle with the addition of the unpredictable. In

our case, it is the whims of twenty pound creatures as they navigate the built environment. Are the turkeys special because of the suburban boredom they cure, or are the events like these what draw people to the suburbs in the first place?

***

Back in Ann Arbor, my boredom is often cured by following digital rabbit holes on Google Maps. I ignore Canvas notifications and open a new tab on my web browser to decide where I want to travel or live. Sometimes it’s along the rugged coast of New Zealand, other times its unrealistic apartment hunting in New York City. Before spring break, in a frivolous form of preparation for my trip to the Southwestern United States, I dragged my little yellow street view guide from the bottom right corner, and let it go somewhere outside Phoenix, Arizona, in a Read more at MichiganDaily.com

The Lesbian Master Doc: Not just for lesbians

Design bySarah Chung // Page Design by Sarah Chung

RILEY HODDER Statement Correspondant

My life changed when I read the “Am I a Lesbian? Masterdoc.”

The “Lesbian Masterdoc” is a document that asks you to consider the nuances behind one simple question: Are you a lesbian? Written like a blog post, the document whisks you through bullet points to help you decipher the difference between heterosexuality and compulsory heterosexuality.

American essayist and queer theorist Adrienne Rich first introduced the idea of “compulsory heterosexuality” in the 1980s when she published her essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” But what exactly is compulsory heterosexuality? It’s the idea that heterosexuality is assumed and forced upon women, and therefore women feel forced into being attracted to men, even when they might not be.

This is where the lesbian master doc comes in. Angeli Luz, the author of the master doc, originally posted the document in 2018, anonymously, with the intention of helping women reflect upon the influences of compulsory heterosexuality in their lives. She surely achieved her purpose when it came to me. Though I’ve still got a while to go to dismantle compulsory heterosexuality in my life, the document opened my eyes. I began to understand that the idea of men

I had in my head didn’t necessarily correlate with reality.

I appreciated the document so much that I started to share it — if my friends were questioning their sexuality, I suggested they read it and really absorb what it says. Their reaction was often the same: “Oh no, I’m not a lesbian. I know that.”

But guess what — you don’t have to be a lesbian to enjoy the intellectual fruits of Luz’s document.

According to Rich, compulsory heterosexuality affects all women, because all women are expected to like men. This includes lesbians, bisexual, asexual, pansexual, queer, trans, straight women and all other women.

That could include you. The master doc can help you understand where you lie on the infinite, confusing, ever-flexible spectrum of sexuality and attraction.

What is real attraction?

The meat of the master doc is directed toward trying to help you differentiate between genuine attraction to men and compulsory heterosexuality. Luz does this simply — she asks the readers if they’ve ever encountered a certain feeling or exhibited a certain behavior. Then, she explains what that behavior means.

As a queer woman who is still figuring out her sexuality, this exploration was pivotal to me. I went into reading the doc entirely sure that I was attracted to men — I came out the other side pretty sure

that what I had been told my entire life about attraction was complete crap.

The best example of a flawed concept of attraction was the idea of “butterflies” — a nervous feeling in your stomach. I had often thought I liked a man because I was nervous around him. Luz claims that we think this because that’s how the media portrays attraction — the blushing, the butterflies. Ginny is so nervous around Harry that she can barely speak to him until the fourth book. Bella feels uncomfortable around Edward. And yet, they’re portrayed as though they’re in love.

But according to Luz, butterflies don’t mean you’re attracted to someone. The doc says: “... you might feel like you must be attracted to a man if you feel nervous around him, just because you’re experiencing the physical bodily response you’ve been told to expect, not because you actually want to date him.”

This blew my mind. Now that I knew this, I could move forward with the knowledge that my butterflies did not necessarily signify attraction, and I could reflect on my past to figure out how this played out in romantic situations I had with men.

This revelation reminded me of an interaction I had once — I was sure that I liked this guy because he made me so nervous. Whenever I was near him, my palms grew clammy, my stomach turned and I tripped over my words. I realized

far too late that I only felt this way because he was someone I didn’t feel safe around, and that there was no genuine attraction there.

The idea that nervousness didn’t equate to attraction was the original point that got me thinking — is this document really just for lesbians? The master doc examines nervousness, but it also examines attraction to fictional men, or liking the idea of men but not the reality; none of these notions are exclusive to lesbians. I spoke with my friend about the document, and she came up with her own conclusions — she said that the master doc’s analysis didn’t help her realize she wasn’t attracted to men, but helped her understand what attraction even was.

By examining the symptoms of compulsory heterosexuality, women can begin to dismantle the socialized idea of attraction in their mind and discover what attraction really is to them. Any reader of Luz’s work may be able to more thoughtfully explore their sexuality, leading them to such revelations as they aren’t attracted to women, they’re more attracted to women than they previously thought or even strengthen their confidence in their heterosexuality.

Attraction to women

Obviously, a document called the “lesbian master doc” is going

Michigan in Color

KAILANA DEJOIE MiC Columnist

02.09.22

Content warning: mentions of domestic abuse, drug abuse, suicide

Today, I had an unexpected spiritual experience. I was hanging out in my studio apartment with my closest girl friend. It was rolling around to 11 o’clock p.m. when my bestie declared she was hungry, and I had been food-deprived all day too. She knows I am picky, so she tried to keep it simple by going to Pita Kabob Grill, a local favorite in Ann Arbor that I had never tried before. She hates walking places, but I insisted on walking there by myself because it was merely two blocks away. So I laced up my sneakers, grabbed my fanny pack and left. Little did I know I would be coming back with so much more than just a chicken shawarma wrap with no pickles.

The food wasn’t ready when I arrived and the cold wasn’t too unbearable, so I decided to wait outside. There were some small tables and chairs half-wedged into the snow out front where I sat. As I waited, a group of people approached — all very attractive, might I add — and one after the other, in succession, they complimented my shoes. At the time, I was wearing a white pair of Nike Air Force 1s that my aforementioned Bestie had painted with vibrant colors, fun shapes and some lovely butterflies. I have always deeply admired her inherent artistry, and it was an honor to wear work made by someone I love so profoundly for other people to see and

appreciate.

One of the last people to approach was told by his friend “tell her that her shoes are cool!” — and so he did. For the pur pose of this article, let’s call him Dylan. He asked me if I’d made them. Now, you must understand. This particular person was quite attractive. He was tall, with long shaggy brown hair, a nice jawline, pretty smile — the whole nine yards. While my respect for my Bestie is endless… I had to

prise, they did not. In fact, they were in a band. More importantly, a gospel band. Ann Arbor was one stop on their tour across the country where they performed songs for various schools and events. Upon first hearing this, I was inclined to put up a wall upon learning this.

I grew up in a religious household: my dad was Christian and his ex-wife was committed to going to church every Sunday. I remember when I first started

son who follows the religious doctrine … that God is all around us, throughout the whole universe.” Pantheism implies a lack of separation between people, things and God, and rather sees everything as being interconnected. More rarely, it refers to a belief in all gods from all religions or a tolerance for those beliefs. In my terms, I am a witch.

I did not tell Dylan this, of course, because I did not want to deter him from being open to talking with me. After all, this man was a part of a Christian singing group. Traditionally, people of his faith do not have good relations with the enti ties I revere. Looking back on it, I wish I had told him — I really do. There was no telling where that conversation may have led us. You would be surprised what you might learn about a person when you don’t make assumptions based on preconceived notions of their identity. I have found the most joy in my encounters with strangers when I do not assume the “worst” of them.

reason, I mentioned to him that I had been sober for two months at that point. Mind you, his entourage of at least 10 people was standing around us as we all waited for our food. Dylan finally sat down next to me and asked, “What is your story?”

be strategic. I assumed this was going to be a brief interaction, so, of course, I had to make an impression. I told him yes, of course I made them! Then he asked me how I went about designing the shoes so I improvised some malarkey, which is an irrelevant part of this story so I should stop exposing myself now.

I asked the group if they went to the University of Michigan and, to my sur

thinking outside of my holy upbringing. I began having conversations at school with my friend, Constantine, who was an athe ist and always used very sound logic. He showed me there wasn’t only one way to look at the world.

However, I cannot say that I am still an atheist now. Nor was I before I had encountered Constantine. In the con ventional sense, I am a pantheist: “a per

My hot sauce addiction and its origins

JAMEEL BAKSH MiC Columnist

There are five widely accepted love lan guages: words of affirmation, acts of ser vice, gift-giving, quality time and physical touch. In my mind, there is one more: food. To cook for someone is inherently an act of service, a gift, a way to spend quality time with them. I have been taught this idea of cooking as a way to express love through out my life. Like many of my peers of Color, I grew up around the authentic food of my

For many people of Color, food is far more than a means of sustenance. It is a way to display familial and cultural pride and love. It is a tangible marker of identity. It’s true that food brings people together, but it also has a potent ability to differ entiate. A specific cultural cuisine gives meaning and understanding to a specific peoples. For me, food and culture have been directly intertwined for as long as I can remember. I look back and realize my relationship with food is indicative of my relationship with my identity.

At ages 6, 7, 8, I become aware of my

table and observe the sandwiches they pull out of their lunchboxes. White is the color of the bread and the hands that hold it.

I’m informed of the cultural divide between my classmates and myself. We are not only separated by appearance, but also by habits and customs. The way they eat, speak and interact is different from me. I deduce that I must assimilate in order to fit in.

At 9, 10, 11, I do all I can to look, act and feel like my peers. I try to smooth my hair over my forehead the way Justin Bieber does (at the time, a very dashing hairstyle). It doesn’t work. My hair is too thick and unruly and won’t succumb to the pressure of the comb. I try and try and try, again and again and again.

I am making Trinidadian hot sauce with my father. The peppers are so strong that he has me wear chemistry goggles while I blend the pepper-vinegar-garlic mixture. Like some sort of mad science experiment. It’s bizarre and abnormal to me. I wish my food wasn’t so pungent that it required safety precautions.

I begin to equate normality with white ness.

My dad suggests I take leftover curry and roti for lunch. I reject the offer.

As if I don’t stick out enough already! Imagine bringing a smelly, bright yellow pile of goop for lunch. All I desire is a nor mal PB&J. Just like I desire normal hair and skin and eyes and dinners and rou tines and customs and traditions.

My mom is packing my lunch. She asks whether I want my turkey sandwich on fresh-from-the-bakery pita bread, or on “regular,” grocery-store, Wonder bread. I choose regular.

At this moment, however, the potential benefit of fruitful discourse did not seem to outweigh the potential cost of his judg ment. I held my tongue. But the vibrations I was receiving from the band weren’t the same as those I normally get from people with strong (orthodox) religious beliefs.

Upon first glance, I couldn’t even tell they were dedicated Christians. They looked like a regular group of college students having fun on a Tuesday night. Everyone had such welcoming energy and was so kind to me right off the bat. So I kept the conversation going.

One thing led to another and for some

You can imagine the shock I felt. I had just met this man and suddenly he was asking me deeply investigative personal questions. Naturally, I tried to give him the short version: old father recovering from alcoholism diagnosed with cancer, ex-stepmom who exposed me to drugs at an early age, narcissistic, abusive mother … and now I’m here. Within just five min utes of meeting this person, I found myself opening up my whole heart to him. It felt so natural, as if we had known each other for years. We had a real, meaningful human connection: he was genuinely interested in my life, and I in his. Of course, I asked him about his story. He went on to tell me about how his brother struggled with addiction and sold drugs to young people but eventually turned his life around. He told me about how he developed anxiety at a young age and battled with depres sion from watching his brother suffer. He even explained that he nearly killed him self once by taking 250 pills, but before he could succeed, his brother found him. I sat there, listening, in awe of how he already felt safe sharing this information with me. It takes years for people to tell you these details about their lives and yet, we had already managed to cover so much ground within minutes.

Bitter then, sweet now

cultures, in kitchens permanently imbued with the scent of strong spices. I remember being sous chef to my parents and grand parents. With my mother’s Lebanese fam ily, I’d pick garden herbs while the smell of fresh-baked za’atar manaeesh constantly filled our home. With my father’s IndianCaribbean family, I’d chop mango and roll roti “with love,” per my grandmother’s instructions.

differences. As a young boy, Eurocentrism is ingrained into my mind. I turn on Dis ney Channel and I can’t find a character who looks like me. Most of my friends are white, or Lebanese, like myself. Although I am only half. My Indo-Caribbean half is pronounced in my thick curls and brown skin. It is inconcealable.

I am in my elementary school cafeteria. I peer down the row of kids sitting at my

I want to avoid calling attention to my otherness. I look in the mirror, though, and realize my attempts may be futile. I may not be able to be anything other than myself.

In 2011, I visit Trinidad with my father for the first time. I am in awe.

TIAN YEUNG MiC Columnist

If I’d known writing would one day save my heart, maybe I wouldn’t have treated it so badly at the start. You see, I hated writing. I don’t mean the kind of hate casually thrown around a classroom because students find writing a bother. When I say hate, I mean the kind that stems from an inability to carry out a task, the kind that taps so deeply into your insecurities it physically hurts.

So, where did all this hate come from? Well, to understand it, I’ll have to reveal something to you — something I used to hide because I was afraid it would undermine my credibility as a writer: English is not my native language. I didn’t use it outside the classroom until I was ten, when my family moved to Michigan from Hong Kong. The thing about language is that your ability to learn it, to master it, decreases with age. So there I was, only ten years old but already feeling too old, dreading the challeng es English would present to me.

And it was hard — harder than I thought. English was so out of my grasp that, eventu ally, I learned to fear it. I began to treat Eng lish like borrowed things. I gave extra care to all the words I used, avoiding mistakes so that when it’s time to return it, there would be no trace of damage. Little did I know this habit would paralyze me. I went from stumbling through English to not using it at all if I didn’t

have to, naively thinking this was the best way to avoid mistakes. All this is to say that when I encountered fear and had the choice to face it or run from it, I ran.

Oh, how I ran. I ran so far and for so long that I thought I could keep running forever. But of course, consequences had a way of dragging me back. While running away from fear, I passed up countless learning opportuni ties. I could have made new friends and talked to them in English to improve my speaking. I could have asked my teachers for help on essays to save my grade in English. But I didn’t. Instead, I continued to run under the weight of consequences, eventually disguising my fear as hate.

Of all the skills I needed to learn (reading, listening, speaking), I hated writing the most. Perhaps it’s because writing has a way of immortalizing mistakes, forcing you to pause and actually face them — the complete oppo site of what I wanted to do. For this reason, my hatred for writing solidified, and it marched on all the way until my junior year of high school.

My junior year of high school — how can I sum it up? It’s difficult to revisit it because it took a lot to recover from it. Simply put, 17-year-old me was very sad. At one point, pain overflowed my heart so much that I could no longer hold it in. Desperate to relieve it, I did something out of the ordinary. I opened up a blank document and started writing.

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Michiga n in Color

Losing my Appapa: the tangible effects of British colonization

MAYA KOGULAN MiC Columnist

For as long as I can remember, my dad had one goal: to live lon ger than his dad did.

I never met my grandfather — or as we call him in Tamil: Appap pa. He died of a heart attack when he was 56: before seeing his two sons become doctors, before his family escaped a civil war and left Sri Lanka and before meeting his seven grandchildren.

On my dad’s 56th birthday, he blew out the candles on a $15 Walmart chocolate cake. We sang an out-of-tune birthday song to him and my family spoke about my grandfather. It was joyful, uncut by the unspoken breadth of this eerie loss.

The majority of deaths in my family can be traced back to heart disease. By the time I was 10, all of my grandparents had died, three from heart disease-related complications.

My family isn’t unique in this regard. Like many South Asians, we have experienced multiple direct losses due to heart disease.

In fact, South Asians dispropor tionally face higher rates of heart disease than the general popula tion, making up 60% of global cardiovascular patients, despite only being 25% of the world’s population.

Even more jarring, one in three South Asians will die of heart dis ease before the age of 65.

My Appappa’s death shook every aspect of my dad’s fam ily. They no longer had a stable income, so as a result, my grand mother had to sell her jewelry to keep their family afloat for a few months. The economic strain and emotional toll made my father so angry that he stopped believing in God.

It is hard to fathom that so many families in the South Asian community have to cope with these constant premature losses due to a health disparity that is not

widely known and researched. Many may find it easy to dismiss this glaring disparity by blaming the affected community. Some, like Dr. Namratha Kandula, even go as far to say South Asians focus too much on their material suc cess, not on their health. Another misconception is that this dispar ity is caused solely by South Asian cuisines’ excess ghee, bread and white rice.

However, blaming the commu nity is reductive. Personal health choices are directly limited to the options available to us within our immediate environments. To adequately examine community health, it is more equitable and practical to study social, cultural and economic influences.

When analyzing the societal influence on health trends with in the South Asian community, there is a glaring historical peri od that is often overlooked: Brit ish colonization and the famines it intensified.

Under the British Raj — the

period of British rule over the Indian subcontinent — there were 31 famines across 120 years. These famines originated from uneven rainfall, but were exac erbated by exploitative, apathetic British economic and administra tive policies.

Contrary to popular belief, famines were not due to a lack of food growth, but instead ineq uitable food distribution. Prior to British colonization, the gov ernment had measures in place to mitigate famines, such as dis tributing foods and funding relief projects. However, the British abandoned these efforts based on the flawed reasoning that fam ines were natural occurrences that, to their Malthusian benefit, reduced the population of colo nized subjects. Consequently, they only provided a small sec tion of the population with food rations, leaving many who could not afford the price of grain to starve. Not only did they leave vulnerable populations to starve

based on their inability to pay, but the British government contin ued to raise taxes on the Indian people and increased exports of grains that could have been used to provide famine relief. This pri oritization of economic gain was rooted in the British government

colonized Black and Brown peo ple, calling them explorers and heroes.

My textbooks often applauded colonization for its role in spread ing new technologies, education and religion. They seemed to gloss over the exploitation of nat

seeing the Indian subcontinent as a cash cow — ignoring those who were suffering.

While the British govern ment no longer occupies South Asia, their tepid response to the South Asian people during long periods of famine had a tangible impact on our health today. Many of the long-term health effects can be explained through the Thrifty Gene Hypothesis, which suggests that carriers of ‘thrifty genes’ were able to better survive famine due to their increased capacity for fat storage. Today, populations who adapted to carry these genes, which would aid their survival during periods of famine, are more likely to experi ence obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Because of this genetic phe nomenon, the grandchildren of a survivor of a single famine have an almost tripled risk of suffer ing from cardiovascular disease. To put this heightened risk into perspective, South Asians have survived 31 famines in the past 200 years.

While health disparities are often multifaceted and are not solely tied to genetics, it is undeniably clear that the last ing impact of the Thrifty Gene Hypothesis in South Asian com munities can be directly tied back to the British Raj and its hand in the famines.

Rather than acknowledging their role in the mass starvation of millions of innocent people, the British reduce their coloniza tion to ‘some good bits and some bad bits”. However, their role in the famines still affects us today, shortening the projected lifes pans of us and our loved ones. Like my dad, so many have lost their own parents to heart dis ease prematurely.

Despite facing these constant reminders of colonization in my own life, I was forced to uplift colonization throughout my edu cation.

Living in a white suburb in America, colonization was often celebrated. From as early as the 4th grade, my textbooks and curriculum glorified those who

ural resources, the introduction of new diseases and the destruc tion of existing political and eco nomic structures.

It was degrading to write reports celebrating colonization, while my family has continued to suffer from this time period.

On top of the health conse quences of colonization, both of my parents were displaced due to The Sri Lankan Civil War, which spurred from an ethnic conflict that resulted from Brit ish colonization. Their houses were bombed, they were forced to leave their home country and they had to start from scratch, culturally and financially, in a foreign country.

In many ways, my life has been and continues to be altered by the effects of the British Coloniza tion. From my education, to my health, to the very country that I live in, I am constantly reminded of how British negligence affects my community and loved ones today.

Despite these significant genetic obstacles, my commu nity has worked to challenge the effects of colonization. One recent example of this step in the right direction was when State Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington, passed the South Asian Heart Health Awareness and Research Act of 2020 to increase awareness and funding for heart disease in the South Asian Community. It’s empow ering to see South Asians, who were once oppressed by British legislation, use policy as a tool to directly address health dispari ties. We, as a community, are making strides to raise aware ness and expose the inhumane consequences of colonization.

Clearly, health effects are only some of the many consequences of colonization. Beyond advo cacy within the South Asian community, we must continue to reckon with the impacts of colonization when evaluating and teaching it. Since so many of us are directly affected by the negative consequences of coloni zation today, let’s call it what it is: dehumanizing.

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“Contrary to popular belief, famines were not due to a lack of food growth, but instead inequitable food distribution.”

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From the Daily: Let’s finally end Standard Time

THE MICHIGAN DAILY EDITORIAL BOARD

On March 15, the United States Senate unanimously voted in favor of the Sunshine Protection Act, which would effectively eliminate the biannual clock-switch beginning in 2023 by making Daylight Saving Time (DST) universal (excluding Arizona and Hawaii), ending the period of Standard Time, which lasts from early November to midMarch every year. President Biden should indisputably sign this act into law, which would not only assuage the ubiquitous annoyance at disrupted sleep schedules but would also benefit public health in a multitude of ways, ranging from reducing car and pedestrian accidents to crime rates.

So why does the irritating practice of changing our clocks exist anyways? DST serves to extend the daylight hours during spring and summer, when most of us would be heading back from work or school, in exchange for losing an hour of daylight in the morning, typically before people commute to work or school.

The practice originated in World War I as a response to the deficiency of fuel in the United States; experts believed that longer daylight hours would reduce the time that consumers were using lights, which in turn would reduce electricity consumption and accordingly save fuel. The practice was

adopted and abandoned on and off again, most notably during World War II, until it was finally made permanent by lawmakers in 1966.

However, the original intent of changing our clocks back and forth, reducing energy consumption during the World Wars, is not backed by evidence. Results of studies measuring the effectiveness of changing time are mixed. While it may reduce light usage, it also increases the use of heating and air conditioning, as well as the consumption of gas. What the time change was designed to accomplish is not borne out by the evidence.

Not only are the supposed benefits of Standard Time not met, but there are also countless negative consequences from the biannual switching of clocks. The rate of traffic accidents consistently increases in the week following the time switch because losing that one hour of sleep increases drowsiness and fatigue, thereby reducing mental clarity and reaction time. Sleep deprivation that accompanies the clock switch has further been illustrated to increase the incidence of heart attacks. Changing times has also been seen to increase workplace injuries and decrease worker productivity over time. With such negative effects, why should we keep the one-hour time change around?

In light of these findings, the answer seems like a no-brainer.

There are multiple benefits to the permanent extension of Daylight Saving Time.

The original goal of the time change was to reduce fuel consumption, and studies show that there is a .5% decrease in residential electricity usage due to the lengthier exposure to natural sunlight. There is also proof that children find more time to be outside post-“spring forward”, which coincides with an increase in both their physical and mental health. Crime tends to decrease, and though rather odd, it does have a scientific explanation: Most crimes tend to take place at night, and with prolonged daytime, there is a smaller likelihood of individuals committing crimes that require darkness. Just about everyone benefits from this plan to extend DST, and the social and economic benefits tend to overlap the potential of “losing sleep” the time brings about.

We support the Sunshine Protection Act and believe that it should be signed into law by President Biden if it lands on his desk. The planned benefits of implementing Standard Time don’t actualize. Energy consumption does not decrease but remains stable or increases. Sleep deprivation from the time switch wreaks havoc by increasing the risks of accidents and cardiovascular ailments and negatively affecting the workplace. Benefits that would come from enacting the Sunshine Protection Act would be many like better childhood health and a decrease in criminal activity. May we hopefully be a country in permanent DST when next year comes around.

Michigan Medicine needs to address post-viral illness

GLENN TUCKER Opinion Contributor

My name is Glenn Tucker and I live with a debilitating disease called myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME for short. According to the Centers for Disease Control, “People with ME have overwhelming fatigue that is not improved by rest. ME may get worse after any activity, whether it’s physical or mental.” ME used to be called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a term many now find offensive, including some of the doctors that coined it. A 1996 study published in the American Journal of Medicine — and since corroborated multiple times — found that people with ME score lower on quality of life indices than people with cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis and diabetes.

If you haven’t heard of ME, it’s not because it is a rare disease: before the pandemic an estimated 2 million Americans lived with ME, more than HIV/AIDS (1.2m), lupus (785k) and multiple sclerosis (486k). Nearly eighty percent of ME cases start with a viral infection. Seventyfive percent of people with ME are women, and 25% are bedridden, like me. I have been bedridden for nearly four years and sick for nearly eight. A 2008 study found that ME costs our nation’s economy between $17 billion and $24 billion in lost wages and medical expenses.

Many of you have probably read about “Long COVID,” which occurs when people never fully recover after a COVID-19 infection. This month, the Government Accountability Office reported to Congress that there could be between 7.7 million and 23 million U.S. Long COVID cases. This greatly exceeds the number of U.S. COVID-19 deaths, which is still under 1 million. Two recent studies — one by German researchers, the other by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York — found that half of all Long COVID cases are actually COVIDonset ME. Recent articles in Axios and Brookings and a story on NPR’s Marketplace present Long COVID as a contributing factor to current labor shortages.

A 2021 Mayo Clinic report states that “medical education programs rarely cover ME and guidance for practicing clinicians is often outdated and inappropriate.”

Accordingly, doctors frequently tell people with ME and other complex chronic illnesses that we are not sick, that exercise will help us when it will harm us and

that any symptoms they do not understand must be psychological. What has long been a humiliating, unnecessary and nearly universal rite of passage for people with ME — being told we are not sick — is now sadly a rite of passage for people with Long COVID.

Michigan Medicine believes that the key to treating ME is for patients to develop a good rapport with their primary care doctor, despite the fact that primary care doctors are neither trained nor employed to specialize in complex diseases. The Michigan Medicine rheumatology department has a written policy to refuse referrals for ME, based on an as-of-yet unproven hypothesis that there is no rheumatological basis for ME.

Last year, Michigan Medicine opened a Long COVID clinic, but it only treats patients who were hospitalized for COVID-19 — statistically a very small fraction of Long COVID cases, particularly among young people. This clinic was opened with the help of outgoing National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins, the man single-handedly responsible for underfunding ME research for decades.

Last fall, I contacted Michigan Medicine leadership to alert them to this reality and to start a longoverdue conversation. My efforts were met with silence, dismissal and the repeated assertion that Michigan Medicine cannot change policy or justify expenditure for a single patient (myself), an assertion that reveals a brazen disregard for the widely accepted public health data I have cited.

According to disability rights icon Judith Heumann’s memoir Being Heumann, “The status quo loves to say no.” Michigan Medicine has made it very clear that they plan to say no — mainly because they can — for as long as they can get away with it. Michigan Medicine has made it very clear that they plan to ignore their patients’ needs, current research and public health data for as long as they can get away with it. Michigan Medicine has made it very clear that they plan to underdiagnose ME in order to claim that they have no ME patients for as long as they can get away with it. Michigan Medicine has made it very clear that they plan to delay this conversation for as long as they can get away with it. Michigan Medicine has made it very clear that they plan to perpetuate the public health crises of ME and Long COVID by picking and choosing which diseases they feel like treating for as

long as they can get away with it.

St. Joseph Mercy is more than welcome to step up — I have experienced plenty of medical trauma there too. And if you’re reading this in another city, chances are you can substitute the name of the big hospital system where you live.

While there is a great deal we don’t know about Long COVID, focusing exclusively on what we don’t know erases the contributions of those who have been studying and treating ME for decades. In late 2020 world-renowned ME specialist David Kaufman released a free, hour-long Continuing Medical Education webinar specifically created for primary care doctors.

After eight months of nagging, I convinced my Michigan Medicine primary care doctor to take it, and he has since prescribed me a medication that has been in use longer than I have been sick. However, finally having a doctor that respects me and who is open to new information a mere seven and a half years into my illness makes me an outlier. So does receiving a diagnosis a mere three and a half years into my illness or having a family who has believed me from day one. Most are not so fortunate, especially considering that doctors are statistically less likely to listen to or believe patients of color, LGBTQ+ patients and female patients.

I have asked before and will continue to ask that Michigan Medicine mandate all primary care physicians take Dr. Kaufman’s webinar. I also ask that those who hold power over the Michigan Medical School curriculum take it and use its contents to make necessary curricular updates. I have asked before and will continue to ask that Michigan Medicine designate a department to accept all referrals for ME and Long COVID. The time has come to create a comprehensive, proactive post-viral illness policy.

If anyone with Long COVID is reading this, please know that you are right in asking medical professionals for help, and that every doctor that stands in your way is wrong on so many levels. For anyone looking to learn more or get involved, I recommend the 2017 documentary Unrest, which is available on Netflix. #MEAction Network, Solve M.E. and the U.S. ME/CFS Clinician Coalition are organizations doing great work in this area. Together, we can work towards creating a world in which all patients are treated with basic human dignity.

The U.S. and its allies must do whatever it takes to get planes to Ukraine

NOAH ENTE Opinion Columnist

With Ukraine under siege, many have asked why nothing has been done by Ukrainian allies — especially the United States — to truly aid the embattled country. Following weeks of warning by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, now a globally-admired leader,thereseemedtobenoinitiatives on the table to either de-escalate or prepare for the impending Russian invasion. Russia moved across its western border just days after U.S. President Joe Biden’s threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin in mid-February that there would be “swift and severe” consequences if Russia invaded, and similar threats were echoed by leaders of U.S. allies. Yet as the powerful Russian military rolled in, outnumbering Ukraine’s active-duty forces more than four to one, the strong response that had been forewarned seemed nowhere to be found.

Over the last two weeks, it has become apparent that the consequences, however swift, have not been severe enough to deter Putin from attempting to topple Ukraine’s government. To their credit, the U.S. and its G-7 allies have organized a far-reaching network of economic sanctions against Russia, its regime and its economy. The measures have included banning Russian banks from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) international payments system, preventing transactions with Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and seizing the property of Russian oligarchs with financial ties to Putin. These sanctions have

been devastating enough to Russia’s banks, stock market and currency that Putin recently likened the use of these purely economic tools to “a declaration of war.”

Importantly, Putin also warned that any attempts by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to institute a “no-fly zone” in Ukraine’s airspace would be considered a step into combat. This warning came after President Zelenskyy’s request for the creation of a no-fly zone to prevent the bombardment of Ukrainians.

Given these conditions, the U.S. and NATO have a critical choice to make that could determine the course of the current conflict: Should they come to the need of an ally, which has long been on the brink of joining NATO and the European Union, or will they leave the Ukrainian people to fend for themselves as the Russian attack inevitably continues? For the 74% of Americans who indicated their support for a no-fly zone in a March 4 Reuters poll, and likely others who may favor another course of action, the answer seems obvious.

It is clear that a no-fly zone in Ukraine would pose the risk of direct conflict with Russian military forces if enforced by the U.S. or its European allies. To enforce a no-fly zone, Russian warplanes carrying out operations in Ukrainian airspace would have to be taken down. This idea has been rebuffed by NATO and, though many Americans supported the motion when polled, most opposed sending troops to fight in Ukraine, a very possible outcome of imposing a no-fly zone.

Yet there is another option for assisting the Ukrainians without putting American armed service members into harm’s way or escalating the current conflict into

a large-scale war. An alternative proposed by President Zelenskyy and apparently popular across partisan lines in Congress would be for the U.S. and NATO to supply the Ukrainian military with planes, equipment and military aid.

On March 7, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave NATO the “green light” to transfer fighter jets to Ukraine, and it appeared that the U.S. was working on agreements with states previously apprehensive about such an initiative, such as Poland, to assist in the process. In this initiative, Poland or other potential participants would receive American-made planes in exchange for giving the Ukrainians Soviet-era MiGs, providing the incentive of a formidable upgrade in the air. As noted in a letter to President Biden from Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., advocating for U.S. leadership in sending jets to Ukraine, Ukrainian pilots would have greater familiarity with the operating systems for Soviet planes than American models, among other advantages of the plan.

Momentum for the initiative seemed to be building until March 9, when it was announced that the U.S. no longer supported the initiative to ship MiG jets to the Ukrainian front through Eastern European NATO members — a surprising turnaround, given Blinken’s enthusiasm just two days prior. With Polish officials rightfully concerned about the image of independently gifting the planes to Ukraine without U.S. and NATO assistance, thus drawing Russia’s scorn and possibly an attack, it seems the jet provision is dead in the water.

Opponents of the plan cited the need to remove certain components of the planes that were designed for NATO militaries, ostensibly to

prevent the technology from falling into nefarious hands. Though officials implied this process would take months, it is hard to believe that MiG provisions were so heavily and publicly discussed by U.S., Polish and E.U. leadership if the plan was truly impossible due to such complications.

The Biden administration also cited the “high risks” of the plan as justification for backing out. Yet Putin considered the sanctions placed on Russia an “act of war” and still did not attack outside of Ukraine. Ultimately, what does it say about the U.S.’s global strength and leadership if it unilaterally concedes the right to define what can justifiably be considered a warworthy act to perhaps its greatest global adversary?

President Biden and Secretary Blinken have rightly recognized that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine exemplifies his Soviet-like desire

to expand Russian power, a philosophy also displayed in Russia’s “peacekeeping” operations with the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Kazakhstan this year. It would be true poetic justice for soldiers of a former Soviet republic to defend against Russian aggression using planes that were a staple of the U.S.S.R.’s military.

Because such planes are Russianmade, the U.S., Poland and their allies would also maintain minimal responsibility for arming the Ukrainian military and avoid the approval process necessary for sending American defense tech overseas, while providing critical aid to an endangered friend. Additionally, if giving jets to Ukraine is truly off the table, it is hard to imagine another course of action that could both reasonably keep the West out of the war and — unlike the active array of economic sanctions — truly alter the status quo on the

battlefield.

Given the severity of Russia’s attacks against Ukraine and its civilians, there is no time to waste in pushing such an initiative forward. While it is reasonable and calculated for the U.S., NATO and E.U. to avoid being pulled into this war by defending Ukraine directly, orchestrating the distribution of planes and equipment to Ukraine’s forces would provide President Zelenskyy with the assistance he has requested, without putting American lives and interests at risk. Furthermore, at a time when a nation faces the threat of destruction at the hands of a longtime adversary, it is worth taking one of the few options left on the table that will allow America to aid Ukraine without drawing itself into war. U.S. leadership and our European allies should heed Blinken’s “green light” as a chance to move quickly and help a friend in need.

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

Design by Meghana Tummala

The University continues to unnecessarily burden students with COVID-19 policies

JACK ROSHCO Opinion Columnist

The Univer sity of Michi gan announced Wednesday, March 9, that it would be loosening its on-campus masking policy effective Monday, March 14. In an email to the “U-M Ann Arbor Community,” COVID19 Response Director Dr. Robert D. Ernst and U-M Chief Health Officer Dr. Pre eti Malani announced that “masking will be optional in most indoor spaces on cam pus including in offices, resi dence halls and at athletic events.” This will come as very welcome news to a com munity which has, to this point, left in place far more stringent masking guid ance than what is recom mended by the Centers for Disease Control and Preven tion (CDC). Unfortunately, though, Ernst and Malani buried the lede: students will still be required to wear masks in classrooms through the end of the Winter 2022 semester.

College students have been forced to bear the brunt of the pandemic in ways few other demographic groups have. As we enter the third year of this pandemic, the leaders of our community continue, unabated, to find new and creative ways to disrupt students’ college experience. Many had hoped former University President Mark Schlissel’s dismissal earlier this year would lead to a COVID-19 policy based more on ensuring a return to normalcy for students, but that return will likely have to wait until at least the end of the current academic term.

Dr. Robert Ernst told me that, “The CHRC (U-M’s Children’s Health Research Center) will continue to mon itor conditions on and around campus and follow guidance provided by the CDC and the local public health commu nity when advising executive

leadership about COVID mit igation measures. With that being said, it seems unlikely that additional substantive changes will come before the end of the winter semester.”

Ernst noted that the new masking policy “aligns with public health guidance in terms of safety,” which is true. The fact remains that overwhelming scientific data supports the use of masks in order to mitigate the spread of airborne pathogens such as COVID-19, but it is becoming increasingly hard to justify such disruptive measures to combat a disease that is more treatable and far less deadly than it was two years ago.

Ernst began his comments to The Daily by claiming that “the announced change to the U-M face covering poli cy comes as the campus and surrounding community has moved into a recovery phase of the pandemic,” but the new policy definitely still feels as though we’re living in the mitigation phase, all the while universities and school districts nationwide end mask mandates of their own.

Ernst also said that even though COVID-19 in the Ann Arbor area “has waned dra matically over the recent weeks there are still some in our community who, under standably, because of their individual circumstances, remain hesitant.” He added that leaving the mandate in place for instructional spac es “was to maintain a high level of confidence in those areas of core work for every one.”

Of course, there probably are many in the University community who view that as a sufficient explanation, one that can essentially be boiled down to “this will make a small percentage of the population feel more comfortable, and we’ll con tinue to adhere for the rest of the semester.” That is a perfectly valid explanation, and it is absolutely not a big ask for students to mask up

for the last few months of the semester, already having been doing so for nearly two years in an effort to protect a few. But that isn’t really the point. This was an oppor tunity for the University to make a massive concession to its students, who have fol lowed its piecemeal COVID19 policies since March 2020.

Wearing a mask is not an overbearing burden, but it is symbolic of the idea that COVID-19 is still govern ing our lives at a time when, scientifically speaking with vaccine mandates and low cases, it just doesn’t have to anymore. What’s more, a key component of masking policy throughout the pandemic has been uniformity — that if more of us wear masks in as many locations as possi ble, the spread will be most effectively mitigated. But this masking policy essen tially allows students to shed their masks in any University setting outside of the class room. Here’s a simple hypo thetical: what is the point of wearing a mask in an Angell Hall auditorium when you’re surrounded by a maskless crowd upon entering and exiting the auditorium? Sure, you probably won’t catch COVID-19 in the audito rium, but in the hallway it’s every man for themselves? It doesn’t take a doctor to realize how little sense this makes.

If the motivation is truly to “maintain a high level of confidence in (instruc tional) areas,” as Ernst says, then the policy driving that confidence should be wholly unimpeachable. Regrettably, that is not the policy we have been given. If the worst thing to come out of the rest of the Winter 2022 term is students wearing masks in class, that’ll be a relatively harm less end to the school year. Shouldn’t we, though, strive for higher than benign, high er than well-intentioned, higher than unobjectionable? Policies should have tangible purposes. This one doesn’t.

To mask or not to mask?

Letter to the Editor: I’ve spent three years trying to make housing better, now I’m not sure that’s possible

AGNES DUNNE Opinion Contributor

Ever since I read it, Alice’s story has haunted me and kept me up at night. As a victim of sexual assault, this news has weighed extremely heavily on me. These stories have not only brought up my traumatic memories — they’ve broken my trust in housing. I believe victims and I believe Alice. I applaud her courage and strength to tell her story in The Michigan Daily. Thanks to her, the reporters at The Daily and all of the other staff members who came forward, it is now public knowledge that Univer sity of Michigan Housing and U-M Division of Public Safety and Security Housing Security have repeatedly caused harm and endangered the safety of students. Her story is just one of many of the residents and staff who have been victims of violence in University housing due to a lack of concern from professional staff and admin istrators.

I was a victim of sexual assault on this campus during my first week as a freshman. If I hadn’t received support from my neighbors and roommate, I wouldn’t still be here today. From the first person I told in my hall, I was believed. I found support in my peers yet I still feared telling my resident advi sor (RA) and professors, scared of having to report my assault and relive it. Just a few days after I was assaulted freshman year, I would be elected secre tary and later Residence Halls Association representative for East Quad Residence Hall. My

involvement would continue as I became the RHA Executive vice president last year, and the president this year.

For the past three years, I have volunteered my time to build and advocate for the RHA’s vision, “to successfully create an environment where all University of Michigan Stu dents have a decent place to live where they feel safe and welcome. In doing so, we hope to remove some of the stress of college and promote a produc tive and happy college experi ence.”

That vision has been shat tered by these events. As RHA president, I have spent the last few weeks speaking with Housing administrators, RHA members, staff, students, friends, family, co-workers, my partner and many more about their own experiences and how to move forward. I have also spent the past weeks struggling to get out of bed, eat and rarely make it to class.

When I shared that I was sexually assaulted in a letter to the housing administration, it meant that it had to be report ed to the University, I made it clear I did not want to be con tacted and the University was told by the individual reporting that I should not be contacted. I went on to receive five emails concerning my assault. Yet, a clear lack of answers has been evident in my meetings with housing; when asked if locks had been added to the dorm referred to in Alice’s article, their response was unsure. They were also unaware of the status of the DPSS officers and other employees involved. It was even mentioned that new dorms might be planned in a

similar connecting suite fash ion as those mentioned in the articles, that is without locks on the connecting bathroom.

The current housing staff advisor to RHA is named in The Daily’s investigation of housing, as are many housing employees who work closely with RHA, almost all formerly in RHA or RAs as students. Yet still, our concerns are dismissed, and we are repeat edly told we do not understand RAs or Residents. Last year, when the RAs went on strike, RHA was advised not to get involved, as we did not repre sent RAs. Then and now, these come as attempts to stifle RA advocacy when it has been most needed. In search of a second opinion, I reached out to a former advisor and I was told: “Continue to listen to both sides with empathy. Make note of misalignment. Think critical(ly) about your position and who your responsibilities are to.”

I listened to both sides with empathy and found a clear misalignment in the values University Housing claims, and the realities of living and working in Housing. My responsibility as RHA presi dent is not paying residents, but being an advocate for every student. I have a duty as RHA president to advocate for ResStaff, who have been actively harmed and had their safety directly jeopardized by housing. RAs are students and residents first and ResStaff second, and should be treated as such. As housing has failed to give RAs a platform for con cern, RHA is committed to doing so. I welcome any and all RAs to reach out to me.

Letter to the Editor: On The Michigan Daily’s Oxford Edition

IZAAK OSSEGE Opinion Contributor

Content Warning: Men tions of gun violence, graphic descriptions of injuries

I opened my Instagram on March, 10 2022 to see a number of my friends had shared some thing on their stories. It was a post by The Michigan Daily announcing “The Oxford Edi tion” from The Statement. The proclaimed intent of this piece was to “memorial ize the events that happened at Oxford High School on November 30, 2021.” Addi tional goals were “to heal, to be heard, to increase the vis ibility of Oxford and the com munity’s continued pain and to uplift the voices of those affected.”

As someone from Oxford, Mich., I had high hopes this would be a nuanced reflec tion on the numerous strug gles people in Oxford have faced. However, after reading through all of the articles, I only feel disappointment and frustration. I am disappointed that the diverse set of experi ences and emotions felt by the community of Oxford are not well-represented and frus trated that they are, nonethe less, characterized as such.

I am a senior at the Uni versity of Michigan and a 2018 graduate of Oxford High School. On November 30, my sister — Kylie Ossege — was shot in the chest at Oxford High School by a gunman I will refrain from naming. I will also refrain from dis cussing the details of her experience, her injury or her recovery; those details are her story to tell, details that I will never fully understand.

However, what I will men tion is that through this experience, I became a silent observer at the epicenter of tragedy. I heard in vivid detail the events that occurred on

that day through my sister, details delivered with a non chalance that haunted me as I drove back home each day with a stare as blank as the night around me. I watched my parents sleep in their hospital armchairs night after night, scared of leaving, scared that their one goodbye could be their last. I met school admin istrators, administrators who came to the hospital to prove their nightmares wrong, that the girl who they found lying on the ground in a pool of her own blood was truly alive, that she would be okay.

I saw the good around me as well. I met nurses, doctors and therapists who invested every ounce of their being into my sister. I met students who, in their own time of griev ing, went out of their way to sit cross-legged on the load ing dock visible across my sister’s hospital room, look up at her from afar and talk to her on the phone for hours. And, of course, there was the community of Oxford, whose gifts, messages of hope and acts of kindness gave my fam ily solace in an otherwise dark moment.

This is Oxford. It is a compli cated network of intertwined experiences and emotions felt across many long months. It is a collage that expands far beyond the experiences and emotions I have articulated above. It is one that encapsu lates the student who forgot her phone at home that day, who felt regret for her blasé “I love you” that morning, a farewell she feared might have been her last. It encap sulates the teacher who sat in the Meijer parking lot with a burning desire to call his wife, to let her know “I’m alright,” but sacrificed his own needs to make sure his students could call their parents first. It encapsulates the father who had to anxiously wait on the red-eye back to Detroit, fear ing the moment he turned on

airplane mode would be the moment his daughter finally called him after hours of radio silence. And, of course, it encapsulates the college stu dent who rushed back home to be with their siblings, to pro vide whatever comfort they could. These anecdotes show the multidimensional experi ences of Oxford.

Herein lies my issue with “The Oxford Edition.” It is not that the experiences and emotions felt by the authors are invalid. In fact, I resonate with many of their experienc es. It is that their experienc es represent only a subset of the many experiences which make up Oxford. It falls short of accomplishing its selfstated mission: to memorial ize the events of November 30, to increase the visibility of Oxford’s pain and to uplift the voices of those affected. It does not acknowledge the events that range beyond the authors’ lived experiences. It does not recognize the voices of Oxford who want to scream out, to profess the emotions that persist inside of them. Instead, what materializes are reflections of a small group of OHS graduates at the Univer sity of Michigan, reflections that betray the broad poten tial of The Oxford Edition. Again, these reflections are not invalid. While they have the potential to be incredibly healing, it is the character ization that these experienc es are representative of the “voices of those affected” that is wrong. They are reflec tions on the Oxford High School tragedy by former OHS graduates at the University of Michigan. All other charac terizations are simply doing a disservice to the community of Oxford, especially those who continue to struggle, heal and find their voice amid an onslaught of noise from the outside.

Design by Maddy

SAM WOITESHEK Opinion Columnist

After I turn the shower off and brew some coffee, my morning begins with my phone. First, I check my texts and email, then navigate to social media and the news. However, before I get ready to embark on the day, there is one more thing I have to do: the New York Times’ Daily Wordle.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the game played by over three million people, the goal is simple: guess a random five-letter word that changes daily, in just six tries. The challenge was created by Josh Wardle, a Brooklyn-based developer who, according to sources, reportedly received a payday

The societal significance of Wordle

in the “low seven figures for a game he made to keep his partner entertained during the pandemic.”

Crazy, right? It’s a game that seems so simple that surely nobody would be completely enthralled with it. Yet, they are. I have a 30-day win streak going and am trying to improve my average guess to be in the three-out-of-six range (it is currently in the low fours). For those of you who have no idea what this means, check this article out.

So, why are we so captivated by Wordle? According to Dr. Tracy Alloway, a psychology professor at the University of North Florida, our obsession may be due to the concept of the Zeigarnik Effect. Similar to the idea of closure, our brains are built better to better remember unfinished

tasks than completed ones.

This point is profound to me. When something is unsolved, it drives us nuts. On a micro-level, this might mean an assignment that is due soon, a job or internship application we never receive a response on or the roommate who doesn’t change the Brita filter. But couple any of these situations with an unfinished Wordle and you will find me going stir-crazy inside.

However, I contest that Wordle’s social value may be its greatest gift. The game itself is a network effect; I find it trending on Twitter each morning, where elated (angry) players will celebrate (complain) about their triumph (incompetency).

I have a group chat with my friends called “Wordle Hardos.” As one of my friends

How the University fails to adequately support students with disabilities

TYLER FIORITTO Opinion Contibutor

Imagine being a college freshman living with a chronic health condition who only figures out two weeks before their final exams.

Picture being told that an incomplete would be “unfair to the other students of the course” despite trying to tell your professor that you need one after discovering the reason you’ve been sleeping 18 hours a day was because you had arthritis and were hospitalized. All of this while your insurance is fighting to avoid covering your now-needed medication.

It sounds like fiction but, no, that’s the reality I, along with others, experienced at the University of Michigan, as an 18-year-old. Depressed, abandoned and now angry, I got through this myself, with minimal support provided by the University. Now, I could talk endlessly about how the pandemic affected me and complain more about my circumstances. But this isn’t about that. Instead, I want to reflect on my disability and its intersection with University policy and how to make it better. My experience is something I loathe for myself, let alone being the norm for other students just struggling to exist (studies being an afterthought).

The Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) office is something that sounds great in theory. However, it really is the Wild West and at the discretion of departments, professors and whoever else runs this place. For example, in 2020, I got my first SSD letter and had a meeting with my “officer” from SSD, and they wrote in all these accommodations, such as flexible attendance, extended test-taking and flexible deadlines.

This sounds super helpful, right? Well, actually, the catch to all the anxiety-relieving accommodations is that the professors can still determine their own policies on an “individual level.” No matter what it is, including a hospital visit, chronic insomnia or even blood clots in your leg, these accommodations are to be used as recommendations for your

situation and not actually policies.

One of my first experiences with this was a history class that sounded awesome, with attendance required. I explained to my professor that I’ll be there every day I can, because I have chronic insomnia and auto-immune baggage. I even offered make-up work. Instead, the choice to take a course I liked was stripped from me because I couldn’t meet a physical attendance requirement. I thought disabilities weren’t supposed to define a person like myself, but you really have no choice when a professor gets to use them as a reason why you aren’t good enough for their course.

I could go on and on about the negative experiences with professors, but the honest truth is that many are great people and super kind. The only issue is when you have a professor with a course that is required for your major who really couldn’t care less about your situation. This is something that I think is obvious, but let me spell it out: There should be absolutely no reason that a student with a disability should not be able to take a course because of their disability. That’s insane, that sucks and that’s my experience, so far. But I think it could change.

Has policy progressed during my three years? No, but things could get better. Recently, the SSD office launched a new accommodation app to centralize communication to professors for SSD students. It’s a great step, but it changes nothing about the enforceability of those accommodations. I wish there were more.

I have ideas to change things around here for students being screwed over for something they cannot control. First, offer more resources to SSD students. There are notetakers for those with visual impairments, and I think that’s excellent. However, not even all professors record their lectures for students with attendance-related issues, such as chronic insomnia, students with weakened immune systems during a pandemic and those with physical disabilities that make them unable to consistently travel to class. A start would be enforcing lecture capture for any professor with an SSD-eligible

student in their class. Heck, why not all professors? It seems obvious in 2022. Most classrooms are outfitted with recording equipment, so the switch wouldn’t entail as much effort for the University.

Second, if a student has attendance issues, give them the opportunity to do extra work. One of the things I never understood is why professors acted so adamant about enforcing attendance, especially in the face of students with disabilities. The nice professors who seemed to actually care about me as a student and my dignity as a person accepted my offer to do a make-up reflection paper for every class I missed. The Psychology Department itself had this policy already built into its introductory courses last fall. To spread this option to all, enforcing flexible work as a substitute for missed attendance would be extremely helpful.

Third, stop providing inequitable policies, such as a certain number of days missed, as the sole option for students. One of the things that only sound smart if you don’t think about them is allowing students three missed classes for no reason to explain, or three late days with no penalty or anything that is a number that is postured for students to feel comfortable about stress. The obvious reasons this is inequitable is that these policies are enforced equally against SSD students.

Often a student has special needs in the first place because they require more support than the bare minimum, catch-all policy offered to all the other students of a course. If you are going to have this policy, make an exception for SSD students or make a special policy tailored specifically for SSD students.

I could go on about more ideas. However, this is the bare minimum that needs to change. If there is one thing that students need to be aware of, it’s that inequity is still a mandated policy of the University by virtue of their inaction and their lack of advocacy for SSD students. I hope this changes, and I encourage anyone, SSD student or otherwise, to make substantial changes to their mission.

told me, “My mom and I talk every day now, and we start each conversation with the day’s Wordle”.

How badly has society needed to connect like this?

Gone, for the most part, are the days of gathering around the table after dinner to play a board game; we simply cannot put down our phones. It’s become apparent people no longer have the patience for tediously long board games.

Scrabble, a game which many compare Wordle to, can get boring if you do not have a dictionary or thesaurus nearby. Thus, the physical togetherness — which is often marketed to the public as the main value of board games — has disappeared as well.

That’s why Wordle is the perfect medium for technologically-savvy people

in need of social interaction.

We express ourselves in a variety of ways over this game, which is something that we’ve needed to do for what’s become a long time now. In thinking about all the volatility our population has endured lately — COVID-19, the civil unrest stemming from social injustice and the growing skepticism surrounding the U.S. presidency — perhaps Wordle is our metaphor that we are still able to convene as a constructive community of diverse individuals.

As Alloway points out, we focus on the incomplete tasks first. But eventually, the black squares become yellow, telling us we are close to a solution.

Then, those yellow squares become green, indicating that we’ve reached full clarity on a certain section of the puzzle.

Once all six squares become green, well, we celebrate. This is to say, eventually, we solve the challenge, regardless if it takes us minutes, hours, days or weeks. Once we do, we set a baseline standard for ourselves and build our skills and knowledge from that point.

Eventually, though, the popularity of Wordle will fade as all strong trends inevitably do. I am not here to suggest that we attach our livelihood to the game — such behavior would suggest immense amounts of irrationality. Perhaps, however, we can learn to appreciate it here in this moment; born out of a time of crisis, Wordle may be a device that advances society one step closer to the new normal that we all desperately seek.

No more unserious celebrity candidates

DEVON HESANO Opinion Columnist

Last November, actor Matthew McConaughey finally announced his long-anticipated decision regarding a potential run for the Texas Governorship. “As a simple kid born in the little town of Uvalde, Texas, it never occurred to me that I would one day be considered for political leadership,” he said in a video posted on Twitter. The idea of him being considered for leadership, however undeserving and mystifying it may be, was not an untruthful claim. Polls showed the actor in a dead heat with Republican incumbent Greg Abbott, often polling as the best opponent to Abbott as well.

His potential support notwithstanding, McConaughey announced he would not seek the Governorship, saying that political leadership is “a humbling and inspiring path to ponder. It is also a path that I’m choosing not to take at this moment.” Texans, Republican or Democrat, should rejoice at this decision. The last thing a state as large and influential as Texas needs is an attention-grabbing, distracting, politically inexperienced actor who refused to give a straight answer on almost any issue of contention. Though polls had shown Democrats to be far more supportive of McConaughey than their Republican counterparts, it wasn’t even clear what party the actor would align with. There was little transparency in his intentions, and the whole situation reeked of celebrity stunting.

Then, just a day later, daytime television host Mehmet Oz, commonly known as Dr. Oz, announced he would be running to become the junior senator from Pennsylvania. Oz is just one of many unserious celebrity candidates vying to hold political office in 2022’s midterm elections. It isn’t a new idea, as in the past, actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger have become governors of large states like California, and Ronald Reagan was even able to become

DeSantis’ hypocrisy

president. Some may also point to Donald Trump, but Trump had a long history of flirting with politics and a political IQ that current celebrity candidates don’t sniff. What is new is the apparent increase in the frequency of these candidates, as well as their increased chance of success.

Dr. Oz, for example, is leading in the Real Clear Politics polling average among Republican primary candidates as of early March. Herschel Walker, former college football and NFL legend, is the de facto Republican nominee this November for the Georgia senate race. Recent polling has had him up 60 points over his closest competitor. That in two of the most contested battleground elections in the country, these are the candidates finding success, says a lot. Voters seem more open than ever before to celebrity candidates with no political experience, scant political knowledge and incoherent or nonexistent policy views. None of this is to be celebrated. It only increases the perception that politics is nothing more than an unserious game to be played. In such a contentious, complicated, and dangerous time for American democracy, it is the last thing this country needs.

All of this is not to say every high-ranking public official ought to be Ivy-educated and an experienced officeholder. There is much to be admired about political outsiders, everyday Americans running for and winning public office. However, this only works when the individuals have taken time to understand the American government and how it works, and what we have endured recently is often anything but that. Take football coachturned-Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville. Tuberville has consistently made some dumbfounding remarks, remarks that no person at such a high level of government should ever be caught making.

He infamously stated that there are three branches of government, these being “our three branches, the house, the senate, and the executive.” Or

there was the time he suggested delaying the inauguration of nowPresident Joe Biden. Like other celebrity candidates, Tuberville often avoids interacting with the public, has held few interviews and refused to participate in debates. Yet Tuberville was simply able to win based on the “R” next to his name, along with his legendary football status.

Voters on both sides of the aisle now seem content with electing individuals so long as they can provide a popular face to their political party, political and administrative knowledge be damned.

The main fault in all of this does not lie with the celebrities; it lies with the citizens electing them. Time and time again voters show that they are willing to elect, or at the very least lend a friendly ear to, highly questionable celebrity candidates. Many of these aspiring officeholders have no political experience, aren’t willing to engage with their potential constituents and appear as though they didn’t pass their high school civics class. This is in part due to the fact that voters will support whoever shares their party identification, but also in the fact that voters often do not take politics seriously.

It’s part of why sometimes less than half of eligible voters vote. Americans increasingly view politics and government as a game, and this is due in part to the increasingly dubious and rowdy actions of U.S. public officials. This game-like mentality, where winning is all that matters and the consequences of policy and who is in charge of government is often cast aside, is deeply problematic. Voters care only that their party-affiliated candidate wins, and they often have little worry about policy chops or their campaign. Whether voters realize it or not, politicians influence their lives every day, both at the micro and macro level. Their actions have the potential to make or break American lives, livelihoods and futures, and it is time the American people act as such, starting by ignoring those like McConaughey, Oz and Tuberville.

Design by Libby Chambers, Opinion Cartoonist

Nick Suriano wins National title, becomes Michigan’s first champion in a decade

CHARLIE PAPPALARDO Daily Sports Writer

DETROIT — On Saturday night, Nick Suriano trotted out from the underbelly of the Little Caesars Arena and entered wrestling’s biggest stage for the final time of his career to face Princeton’s Pat Glory in the NCAA finals.

Lights shone, music blared and around him, the crowd greeted the 125 lb graduate student with a mix ture of applause and animosity.

This moment was everything that Suriano had dedicated his lifestyle to. The relentless training, the dieting, and the intense focus on mindset was all in preparation for this, a chance at his second individual title three years after his first.

And amid the commotion, even with the immense psychological pressure Suriano had placed upon himself, he looked unperturbed, robotic even.

The music quieted, the whistle blew, and seven minutes later, Suri ano’s hand was being raised. Once again, his surroundings were in pan demonium, but Suriano remained calm. There was no explosion of emotion; he didn’t flex or scream like he had earlier in the tournament. Instead, he slowly shook Glory’s hand, walked over to the side of the mat and pointed to his mother before turning back to the crowd and soak ing the moment in.

Suriano had done it. He’d reached the pinnacle of collegiate wrestling once again, and in the process became the Michigan wrestling team’s first individual champion in over a decade.

“He did a really good job of find ing a way to make sure he stayed in front and got his hand raised at the end of that match,” Michigan coach Sean Bormet said. “He’s a really really gritty, tough, fierce competitor.”

Suriano started the bout on the front foot, testing Glory defensively with single legs and snapdowns, which he fended off each time. Late in the first period, Suriano fired for Glory’s lead leg, and spun behind him for a takedown before running the clock out on top.

Suriano then chose bottom to start the second period, but quickly hit a switch, slipping his hips away from Glory’s pressure and turning into him while grabbing his legs to take him to the mat for two points. He rode Glory for the remainder of the period and entered the final two minutes with a commanding 4-0 lead

In the third period, though, Suria

no’s tight grip on the match faltered.

Given the choice of starting posi tion a second time due to Glory’s use of injury time, Suriano once again started the period on bottom. But this time, he couldn’t get up, and minor mistakes made earlier in the match compounded and started to cause problems.

Twice in the period, Suriano false started. This made for his third cau tion, and Glory was given a point. And Midway through, Suriano became complacent; three straight stalling warnings gave Glory another two points.

Suriano was now up just one, tech nicalities threatening his dream.

It wouldn’t be enough. Suriano prevailed 5-3, and finished his career as a two-time champion.

But unlike his earlier champion ship, this title wasn’t just about vic tory or about conquering Glory, or

anyone in the bracket for that matter. It was about conquering fear.

“It was a little different this time. I kind of reinvented myself and I came back to the circle and it was a whole new me,” Suriano said. “ … You know, this tournament for me was facing fears more than winning any wres tling match, more than any wrestling match I could ever dream of.”

Luckily for Suriano, he didn’t have to dream of a world in which he could attain both victory and internal calm. Because under the lights in Detroit, he went out and found both.

“You have a choice to break through,” Suriano said. “I could have got turned. I could have packed it in. I said no way. No way. He can’t beat me. I’ve come too far.”

Suriano wanted to conquer his fears that external factors could affect or change him, that the lights, media and crowd could shift him away from what he calls his pur pose. And on Saturday as the match wound down and the crowd booed, screamed and applauded all at once, Suriano remained calm and looked to his family. He would bask in the moment later, but he wouldn’t let it distract him from who he wants to become, even at his peak.

“I’m just so proud for my mom,” Suriano said. “They’ve been a part of it. There’s been ups and downs and a lot of adversity. And that’s life. It took me to my knees. I just had to put it into perspective and decide if this is the type of man I want to become.

“Again.”

And on Saturday, Suriano became that man. Again.

A tri-team athlete: Raleigh Loughman’s storied career.

REMI WILLIAMSON Daily Sports Writer

As all athletes know, one’s time as a competitive player must come to an end at one point or another.

For Raleigh Loughman, a senior midfielder on the Michigan women’s soccer team, that time has come. After an illustrious collegiate career with 50 games and 2,812 minutes played as a Wolverine, she is hanging up her cleats to join Nike’s HR Department.

However, Loughman’s career wasn’t limited to just her time in a Michigan uniform. Loughman played for the US Youth Futsal Team and the U20 Argentina National Team. She found that playing on different types of teams gave her more insight into the sport and increased her technical abil

ity.

And a player with such a nuanced perspective of soccer stands out on the turf.

During her time in high school in Texas, she yearned for something out side of her twice-a-week practice. Then she was introduced to City Futsal.

Futsal is a variation of soccer on a small, hard-floor and indoor court with a weighted ball. These restric tions require players to be more concise with their passing and footwork. To be successful in futsal, you have to think quicker on your feet.

“I wanted something a little more technical and a little less kind of socceroriented,” Loughman said. “Futsal gives you a different lens through soc cer, which I utilized here in my career with Michigan.”

Loughman was the captain of the

United States U16 and U18 Youth Fut sal National Teams and traveled to Spain to compete in the IFA Women’s futsal World Cup, leading her team to a win.

But that was not her only commit ment.

During her senior year of high school, Loughman joined Argentina’s National team, accomplishing her lifelong dream of playing on the inter national stage. She got the opportu nity to practice on the same grass that renowned superstar Lionel Messi plays on. Most of all she got to experience Argentina’s fervent soccer culture.

Argentina has over 3,000 club teams and 300,000 registered players. Argentinians play soccer from when they take their first steps to their last.

“The Argentine culture surround ing soccer is just so amazing,” Lough man said. “They live, eat and breathe the sport.”

Argentina also had a style of play that differed from America’s — one that shaped Loughman’s career with the Wolverines.

“It is a lot more physical and scrap pier,” Loughman said. “Not as clean as the U.S. plays.”

Argentinian soccer is based on grinta, a more physical and offen sive type of play. Getting practice in a more aggressive environment helped Loughman stay on her feet and fight for every 50/50 ball on the field.

Although Loughman’s career in maize and blue is packed with acco lades and awards — first team All-Big Ten, two-time second team All-Big Ten and offensive player of the Big Ten

Tournament — it wasn’t always easy going.

Her freshman year got off to a rocky start with only three starts, four goals and two assists all season, but Michi gan coach Jennifer Klein’s faith in Loughman never dwindled.

“She really brought out the confi dence I needed to succeed at the next level”, Loughman said. “I would thank her for believing in me because I got off to a really rough start my freshmen year.”

During her sophomore year things started to turn around. She played a team-high 1,895 minutes with 22 starts. By its end she had racked up six goals and eight assists and earned Big Ten offensive player of the week hon ors during the season.

Going into an altered junior year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Loughman was named team captain and was one of only six players to start all 11 games.

Finally, in her senior year she tied for the team lead in goals and led in assists. Additionally, Michigan took a run at the NCAA tournament falling short in overtime against Florida State in the Elite Eight. Nonetheless, it left the sea son with a Big Ten Tournament win for the first time since 1999, a moment Loughman will forever remember as one of her last acts on the team.

And with her playing career ending, one field with the national team and futsal, she has plenty to look back on with pride and joy.

“This has been my whole life for 18 years,” Loughman said. “(now) I’m excited for a new chapter.”

Leadership and experience from Caitlin Muir is the difference maker for this team

LINDSAY BUDIN Daily Sports Writer

Six straight losses to con clude the 2021 season for the Michigan women’s lacrosse team left then-senior attacker Caitlin Muir feeling unful filled. At the end of the year, Muir was left with a choice: graduate or return for a fifth year.

She chose the latter.

“With not finishing out… on my own terms, it was real ly kind of a done deal,” Muir said. “I also feel like this team is so special so I wanted to end on my own terms but also get another chance to play (with this group).”

Michigan finished 3-9 last year with a deplorable end. This season, led by captain Muir, the team didn’t dwell on the previ ous year’s shortcomings. Seven straight wins to begin the sea son substantiates that.

Muir has wasted no time this season, scoring multiple points in all but one game — yielding 26 goals and assists combined to lead the team. As impact ful as she has been on the field though, her off-field contribu tions extend past the numbers.

The leadership and dedica tion of Muir has undoubtedly factored into the ongoing team success.

“Everyone looks at the stat sheet and sees goals and assists,” Michigan coach Han nah Nielsen said. “Well, there’s a lot more to playing lacrosse than that, and I think that Cait lin factors that in by causing turnovers in the ride and by just raising the overall level of the players around her.”

Strong leadership extends past personal performance, and Muir understands that. The team captain is off to an excep tional start this season on the field, but the true greatness she displays is in her captaincy.

A good player dedicates time to their own game, but a great one recognizes all the

components off the field that play essential roles in generat ing success — something Muir has implemented into her own game.

“My approach in the begin ning was mostly building rela tionships,” Muir said. “I feel like in order to lead, your team has to trust you.”

Muir will never be the loud est player, but her ‘lead by example’ approach supple mented by her priority to attain trust and communication is equally effective in her leader ship pursuit.

As a freshman, Muir was considered shy and soft spoken, and her development over the course of the last five years has been drastic. Now in her fifth year, her focus extends past her own play and towards building relationships with her team mates, setting a standard of effort and embedding trust.

“I think this year specifically she’s come back … with a goal to improve her leadership and be the person that people turn to and be the person that is direc tive,” Nielsen said.

So far, her endeavors have resulted in success. Not only has she bolstered strong con nections, but she has seen her hard work translate in games.

For a team with lots of young talent, a mentor like Muir is incredibly impactful. Having someone with a relentless work ethic instills good habits and heightens the expectations of everyone.

“You don’t come back for your fifth year just because,” Nielsen said. “So she’s coming back for the love of the game, the love of this program and a love of this university.”

This additional year of eli gibility is a silver lining of the COVID impacted years, and Muir is not taking that for grant ed. As she seeks to end her col legiate career on a high note, she has an opportunity to rewrite the narrative from last season.

The only question: Where will their story end?

Erik Portillo cements conference tournament MVP status against Minnesota

PAUL NASR Daily Sports Writer

MINNEAPOLIS — When soph omore goaltender Erik Portillo stood up to leave the press confer ence podium after fielding ques tions following the No. 4 Michigan hockey team’s Big Ten Champion ship victory over No. 2 Minnesota, Michigan coach Mel Pearson — sit ting beside him and next in line to answer questions — got to his feet as well.

“I’m gonna give my big guy a hug,” Pearson said, his clothes drenched from the post-game cel ebration, embracing Portillo.

It was a hug an entire season in the making.

After starting every game for the Wolverines and performing consistently throughout the sea son, Michigan needed its goalten der to elevate his game for the Big Ten Tournament and in anticipa tion of NCAA Regionals beginning next week. Throughout the first three games of the conference tournament, Portillo delivered,

allowing only two goals in that span.

But just over thirty seconds into the the conference championship, Portillo’s looked like he wouldn’t be able to emulate his past per formances in the season’s biggest game thus far.

After getting beat on a break away goal by forward Jaxon Nelson to open the affair, he locked down the game. Portillo built off a series of stellar postseason showings to acrobatically travel from post to post, establishing a restricted area in the crease and allowing the Wol verines’ skaters to build a three goal lead by the second period.

His performance not only lifted Michigan towards its first Big Ten Tournament Championship since 2016, it earned Portillo Most Out standing Player and all-tourna ment honors.

“We’ve seen that all year,” Pear son said of Portillo’s latest gem. “… He’s been our team MVP. … We gave him too many out-numbered rushes, too many opportunities and Eric kept us in the game when we needed to.”

Besides two last-minute goals coming from a combination of pen alties and a pulled goalie — giving the Golden Gophers multi-men advantages in the game’s waning minutes — Portillo lived up to his billing of the team’s MVP.

After getting beat on the game’s initial breakaway attempt, the odd-man rushes kept coming from

Minnesota with speed throughout the first period. And unlike the first opportunity, Portillo had an answer.

Every. Single. Time.

Whether it was multiple saves from the splits or managing physi cality around the net, Portillo’s performance following the first goal stymied the Golden Gophers’

potent offense, buying the Wolver ines’ attack time to bury Minneso ta’s early lead.

“He’s the best goalie in college hockey for a reason,” freshman forward Dylan Duke said. “And he showed that tonight, he was unbe lievable.”

Once Portillo found his groove after handling the series of danger ous breakaways early, he couldn’t be stopped. All he could do was stop pucks.

Midway through the second period and with Michigan building a 4-1 lead behind Portillo’s play, the jumbotron in 3M Arena at Mari ucci presented a message of hope amid the Golden Gophers’ deficit. It played a montage of comeback scenes from sports movies, leading the crowd towards a synchronized and rhythmic clap with the video’s music, and culminating with a coach saying: ‘It isn’t over till I say it is.’

Portillo, however, decided the game was — in fact — over, extend ing his flurry of game-defining saves late into the contest.

“I think he should have been

the Big Ten goalie of the year,” Pearson said. “… We see him every day, we see him every game … he should be in the Richter conversa tion.”

By the third period, it was clear that the Golden Gophers had no answer to Portillo’s prowess.

Foreshadowing the game’s sham bolic end, a Minnesota skater shoved senior defenseman Nick Blankenburg into Portillo fol lowing a save, leading to a scuffle in front of the net as the Golden Gophers searched desperately for a spark.

When that spark finally came for Minnesota via late penalties, it was too little, too late.

The Golden Gophers’ late goals became a distant memory, replaced by the memory of Por tillo’s 25-save performance.

The night finished with Portillo hoisting the Big Ten Champion ship trophy into the air, skating towards a contingent of Michi gan fans near the boards as his teammates surrounded him in elation.

KATE HUA/ Daily

Caitlin Muir’s return for a fifth season has brought Michigan to new heights.

JEREMY WEINE/ Daily

From international futsal games to the Argentinian national team, Raleigh Loughman’s experiences prepared her for success with the Michigan women’s soccer team.

GABBY CERITANO/ Daily

Erik Portillo’s stellar Big Ten Tournament culminated in a strong showing in Minneapolis and Big Ten Tournament MVP honors.

KATE HUA/ Daily

Using everything he’s learned, Nick Suriano became a national champion.

LEADERS

Michigan’s success in March goes beyond the men’s basketball team

KENT SCHWARTZ Daily Sports Writer

March

is, as you may have noticed, a busy month.

The madness of the men’s basketball postseason arrives and steals the headlines. This year is no exception — a bubble team, Michigan wasn’t even certain to get into the NCAA Tournament and made headlines for doing just that.

But beyond the men’s basketball team, March heralds postseason runs for some of Michigan’s best programs — teams that get swept under the rug by the popularity of men’s basketball. This weekend was no exception, and those who missed out by only paying attention to men’s basketball are worse for it.

Take the most recent program to bring home a national

championship, the women’s gymnastics team. After winning it all last season, the Wolverines may be even better this year.

Saturday’s Big Ten Championship proved that, returning the Big Ten crown back to Michigan before it enters the NCAA Tournament ranked No. 3 in the country.

“This one definitely meant a little bit more to us, to me and my team,” senior Abby Heiskell said. “Because last year we didn’t win, and, you know, we ended up winning the national championship, but there’s always a little bit of bitter taste in our mouth from not being able to take home the championship title, so this one definitely meant a lot to us.”

There were two more Big Ten championships won this weekend, though. The men’s gymnastics team clinched a share

of the regular season title with a victory over Penn State before a two week break and a chance at its second-straight Big Ten meet championship.

The No. 4 hockey team traveled to Minneapolis and won the Big Ten Tournament,

coming weekend.

Oh, and a Michigan athlete won a national championship this week. Graduate student Nick Suriano won the 125-pound wrestling national championship in Detroit. As a whole, the Wolverines, which won the Big

after time, fans of the Wolverines are missing out purely because they don’t broaden their horizons, choosing to focus specifically on men’s basketball and football.

Perhaps it’s just a byproduct of my former position as Managing Sports Editor — when I read stories and paid attention to teams outside the spotlight on a daily basis — that I feel there’s a disconnect between the average Michigan fan and the athletic programs in Ann Arbor. Perhaps I just don’t understand how people aren’t fans of sports in general, but fans of specific sports and specific genders playing that sport.

The difference in attention that men’s basketball and football get compared to other programs at Michigan only hurts those who are fans of the school.

As March crawls along, the madness isn’t reserved specifically for men’s basketball, regardless of what the trademark said up until the NCAA came to grips with institutional sexism.

The championship tournaments for various sports will unfold, only the elite moving on.

quieting a record crowd baying for Minnesota’s first tournament championship since 2015. The win secured the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament this

Ten Championships last week, came second in the country this week.

There are countless sports where Michigan dominates. Time

It’s frustrating when, hosting the NCAA Tournament for the first time in its history, on a Saturday in the middle of the afternoon, the women’s basketball team drew a crowd of just over half the Crisler Center’s capacity.

Throughout those tournaments, the Wolverines will be among them. The women’s gymnastics team will almost surely outperform the men’s basketball team. Same with men’s gymnastics and hockey.

Take some time off from watching men’s basketball to pay attention to the other sports. You won’t regret it.

Grace Beal, Anna Fuder, Gabby Ceritano, Kate Hua/Daily

Design by Lys Goldman

Take some time off from watching men’s basketball to pay attention to the other sports. You won’t regret it.