Marathon returns

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Thursday, October 14, 2021 • Volume 75, Issue 7

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‘It’s just a party’: Marathon returns after 910 day absence

An Indigenous dancer. Diana Bravo / Beacon Archives

Emerson lags behind in Indigenous enrollment Bailey Allen Beacon Staff Boston celebrated its first official Indigenous People’s Day on Monday after a decree from Acting Mayor Kim Janey—yet at Emerson, the holiday was underscored by the fact that the college’s indigenous population remains minimal.

Janey’s Oct. 6 declaration reversed the celebration of Columbus Day, which has been criticized in recent years for its namesake’s association with colonialism and indigenous genocide. In light of the newly recognized holiday, Emerson’s Social Justice Center sent out a campus-wide email acknowledging the day’s significance as well as promoting several ongoing social justice movements, such as the NDN Collective and the Massachusetts Center for Native American Awareness.

“As the College honors Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we acknowledge the ongoing movements for justice many Indigenous communities work for every day of the year,” the email rad. “We wish to share resources and information from the powerful ongoing presence and joy of Indigenous people.”

Despite this rhetoric, Emerson’s indigenous population remains low, even compared to the national average. According to the most recent numbers available on the college’s website, American Indians and Alaska Natives made up only 0.2 percent of Emerson’s fall 2020 enrollment—in other words, about ten students out of the college’s population of 5,102. Of those ten students, only three were enrolled as undergraduates.

The college did not enroll any new, first-year students of American Indian heritage in the fall of 2020.

Emerson’s proportion of indigenous students is lower than other Boston-area institutions, but just barely—the percentage at Harvard University, for example, is 1.1 percent. However, it contributes to a broader trend in higher education; American Indians make up only 0.7 percent of college students enrolled in the U.S., despite being 2.9 percent of the population.

Emerson is working to reach out to prospective students from traditionally underserved communities, Vice President of Enrollment Ruthanne Madsen said in a statement.

“The Enrollment Management division is working diligently to increase the diversity of our student body,” she wrote. “This means diversity in all ways. We continue to work to support the financial funding necessary to effectively recruit and successfully matriculate important populations that aid in our understanding of various cultures and backgrounds.”

Indigenous, Pg. 3

A woman holds a sign at the marathon.

Hongyu Liu / Beacon Staff

The Boston Marathon.

Hongyu Liu / Beacon Staff

Adrianna Pray Beacon Correspondent Family, friends, and spectators alike lined the twenty-six mile route of the Boston Marathon on Monday, yet another glimpse of normalcy as the city continues its recovery from the effects of the pandemic.

Usually held on Patriot’s Day in April, the Boston Athletic Association chose to hold the race’s 125th incarnation in October this year—seventeen months after the 2019

event. Its resurgence saw 15,736 runners cross the starting line in Hopkinton, the vast majority of whom would cross the finish line near Copley Square just hours later.

Seasoned runners like Isabella Caruso of Concord, Massachusetts. welcomed the return of the event, long seen as a local tradition. Caruso, who has run the race three times before, said that it brought an energy to the city absent during the pandemic.

“It’s just a party,” Caruso said. “The whole city gets into it in a way that’s really

Spectators cheer runners on.

Hongyu Liu / Beacon Staff special.”

Screaming spectators lined the 26.2 mile long course, cheering loudly for each runner who trotted by. Families in brightly-colored matching t-shirts scoured the Boston Athletic Association racing app to track their loved ones, trying to determine the exact moment they would run past them. Parents held their small children up on their shoulders so they could catch a glimpse of the action from above the crowd.

Marathon, Pg. 2

Families return to stands for senior day Men’s soccer, Pg. 8 A soccer player embraces his family. Sydney Ciardi / Beacon Correspondent

53

positive COVID-19 tests

.16% positivity rate

33,000+ tests completed

INSIDE THIS EDITION Poetry group resumes weekly open mic night Pg. 2 Marlboro students relieved by campus sale Pg. 3 Opinion: There’s no reason not to get the vaccine Pg. 5 New photo exhbit a result of Marlboro merher Pg. 6 New short film sheds light on mental health Pg. 7 Women’s soccer triumphant on senior day Pg. 8

Bright Lights screening series holds first in-person event since March 2020 Karissa Schaefer Beacon Staff After 18 months of Zoom screenings and discussions, Emerson’s “Bright Lights Film Series” hosted its first in-person event since Mar. 12, 2020 on Oct. 8 with a screening of “Maɬni–towards the ocean, towards the shore.”

The Paramount Center’s Bright Family Screening Room welcomed a full house of attendees for a screening of Sky Hopinka’s feature length debut, a documentary spoken mostly in Chinuk Wawa, a language from the Chinookan tribe, which is primarily located in the Pacific Northwest. The story follows Sweetwater Sahme and Jordan Mercier’s exploration of their Chinookan roots, contemplating the afterlife, rebirth, and the place in between.

A live discussion with Hopinka followed the screening.

He said he wanted to stray away from making the film strictly

accessible to white viewers and instead embrace his own culture.

“I started making films because I wanted to explore what the possibilities are for Indigenous cinema that isn’t made or catered to a white audience, and how do you make films for indigenous audiences,” Hopinka said during the post-screening discussion.

The film was inspired by the Chinookan origin of death myth “with its distant beginning and circular shape.” The cosmological myth, details the origins of a culture and the problems they face—explains it as the result of a debate between two people where one would favor death, while the other favored immortality. The film places an emphasis on nature through its setting and atmosphere shown with long scenic shots in the Pacific Northwest.

Chinook, Pg. 7

News

The Berkeley Beacon

October 14, 2021

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Poetry group provides creative, emotional outlet

Caroline Helms & Michael McHugh Beacon Correspondents

Following a year of zoom mic-nights, and declining audience engagement, the Emerson Poetry Project has returned to campus with weekly open-mic nights and a rejuvenated sense of community.

With the fall semester ushering in a new wave of first-year students eager to engage in on-campus organizations, EPP has seen a boom in membership. The change has been so dramatic that the organization has regularly been seeing full rosters for its weekly open-mic nights, where students stand up in front of their peers to present their work.

“What I will say about open mic environments in general is that I do appreciate them and they do encourage me to write more because growing up in slam really affects the way that you do your cadence, in your poetry,” said Julissa Emile.

“Having an opportunity to have a place to speak the words out loud and do the poem in the way the poem is intended to be listened to is really essential to my writing.”

The new faces, paired with the organization’s older members, have brought an “engaged and vocal audience” to the readings, according to creative writing major and EPP social media manager Abbie Langmead—an atmosphere that

A student reads poetry at an open mic night. Elaina Bolanos / Beacon Staff the pandemic had taken away.

“A friend of mine asked me how you know if your poem is good; I told her you just know,” Langmead told The Beacon in an interview. “Getting snaps, knocks, or any sort of affirming sound is a massive part of performance poetry that was lost in a pandemic environment. There’s so much more engagement, and it’s so much more affirming to hear the audience understand your work.”

The open mic-nights attracted not just newcomers but also returning attendees like Emile.

“This is my first time coming to [EPP] since the pandemic,” said Emile. “I judged the last poetry slam that they had to decide their [College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational] team.”

The nights serve an emotional purpose for participants as well, as students gather to listen to each other’s work—giving knocks and snaps—and explore their inner musings in verse.

“Catharsis is a really important aspect,” Emile said. “Sometimes it’s just really nice to say the things that you need to say out loud. Poetry is really great for that

because it allows people the opportunity to grieve without necessarily worrying about how [others] are going to respond.”

Senior creative writing major Leah Kindler, who serves as the organization’s president, joined EPP her first year and said that she had always seen it as a safe space.

“It’s always been my experience that anyone [can] feel welcome at EPP on the mic or in the audience, regardless of how much experience they have with poetry,” she said. “Slam poetry [or] spoken word ... is also historically popular with people from marginalized communities.

It’s important to have a space like that at Emerson, which can be a competitive and elitist environment for artists.”

EPP, like most student organizations, resorted to online-only meetings after the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, causing engagement to falter. Virtual poetry sessions ended up reducing the bulk of audience participation. But the group still managed to keep interest alive through various creative means—even allowing non-Emersonians to join the sessions.

“We were still able to push through and keep with our core of free expression,” Langmead said. “None of our traditions were really lost. We were still able to make EPP events that felt like the pre-pandemic ones.”

Now, the organization is prioritizing outreach, as the return to in-person events finally makes possible a connection with the broader student body. “[This year] we’re focusing on rebuilding a community and hopefully gaining some new regulars who can eventually take over the organization when [EPP treasurer] Annie Rinaldi and I graduate this year,” said Kindler.

Though the organization has largely returned to its normal operations, there is another aspect that remains up in the air—the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational. An annual poetry slam hosted by the Association of College Unions International, the CPSUI has not been held since 2019, as COVID-19 prevented both the 2020 and 2021 springtime invitationals from happening, with no word yet on the 2022 event. However, EPP took the possible cancellation into account when looking ahead at the semester.

“I’m not really worried about not having CUPSI happen this year,” Kindler said. “It’s fun to do the competitive slams so people can qualify for the CUPSI team, but I know from competing in them that it makes EPP nights much more stressful.”

“I just want to have fun this year and hold shorter events that more people stick around for,” Kindler added. contact@berkeleybeacon.com

Joy returns to Boston streets with 125th marathon Cont. from Pg. 1 Zhen Long, a software engineer who works at Amazon in Seattle, said the Boston Marathon presented unique challenges.

“There is almost no flat course,” Long said. “It’s hard to pace yourself. If, in the first half, you’re overconfident, you’re definitely going to screw up. I found it hard to tackle the second half because after we got to Newton, the difficulty level became terrible.

I could only walk uphill because my calf got a cramp.”

Andrew Belanger, a first-time marathon runner who lives in the North End, said the toughest part of the marathon for him was around mile 24.

“The hill wasn’t too bad, because I was getting ready for it, but 24-25 hurt really bad. But I made it.” Belanger said.

Now that the marathon is over, Belanger plans to celebrate with a drink.

“I’ll probably get a beer,” he said.

In addition to the runners, an estimated 200,000 spectators surrounded the finish line in Copley Square and the surrounding

streets—one of the largest crowds in Boston since the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020.

“It’s crowded—but it’s like organized chaos,” said Linda Fechter, one of the many volunteers manning the BAA’s information tent. “So many of these runners have been here or at other marathons before, that they know what they’re doing. The energy is great, honestly. With the rolling start, the beautiful weather, and the excitement of just being able to be here, our job has been fairly easy today.”

Fechter has volunteered with the BAA for twenty-six years, but said bringing the marathon back after nearly two years, amid the uncertainty of a lingering pandemic, was a unique challenge for organizers. For this year’s event, runners and volunteers alike were required to provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test in order to participate.

“There were challenges figuring out the mitigation for COVID, but I think the BAA did a fabulous job with it,” she said. “You know, people had to get a runner out to get a wristband before they

were allowed to get their bid—but [they] are so excited to be back that it didn’t affect them.”

Indeed, many runners were eager to return to an event that has brought them so many powerful memories. Ian Hermon, a 33-yearold from Houston, Texas completed his first Boston Marathon in three hours and nine minutes on Monday. He recalled watching his mother complete the race eight years ago in 2013—the year of the Boston Marathon bombings, which killed three people and left hundreds more injured.

“I was right across the street

Runner pushing her fellow contesant. Hongyu Liu / Beacon Staff

Runners in the Boston Marathon. Hongyu Liu / Beacon Staff

Linda Fechter (center) and two BAA volunteers. Hongyu Liu / Beacon Staff

from the first bomb, five minutes before it went off,” Hermon said.

“I was actually at [the Prudential Center] when it went off. It was a stampede of people.”

Even for those Boston residents who hadn’t experienced the event, the marathon was still a familiar sight. Emerson students like firstyear journalism major Danielle DuBois, who watched from the finish line at Copley Square, said the event has been a part of her life from a young age.

“I’ve kind of grown up watching the Boston Marathon, and a bunch of other marathons,” she said. “Being able to go in-person for the first time in my entire life

was just super exciting.”

The Georgia resident, who fondly recalled running road races with her father throughout her childhood, positioned herself at the finish line to get the best view of the runners.

“There were so many people who seemed like they had so many inspiring stories,” she said. “You see the people that are crossing with someone in a wheelchair, or the army veterans, and it’s so emotional. I don’t even know the people, but it was still so impactful.”

Morgan Kunysz, a junior visual and media arts major, also had never visited the event despite be-

ing from New England. Like DuBois, he said that witnessing it in person was inspiring on a personal level.

“My freshman year [in 2020], it didn’t work out because of COVID—and then again, COVID last year,” Kunysz said. “This is the first time I was able to [come see it]. It’s really cool. I used to run cross country, so I like seeing that stuff.”

“Maybe one day I’ll, you know, run myself,” he added.

Even amid the pandemic, the event attracted thousands of spectators and participants from around the world including Kenya’s Benson Kirupto and Diana Kipyogei. Both first-place finishers in their divisions, Kirupto finished in 2 hours and 9 minutes in the Men’s Professional division.

Kipyogei finished in 2 hours and 24 minutes in the Women’s Professional division.

“The Boston Marathon definitely has a big sense of community, and after the Boston bombing, everyone kind of united even more as a city,” DuBois said. “[Especially] with the whole ‘Boston Strong’ movement, I feel like Boston’s held very, very true to that.”

Bailey Allen and Camilo Fonseca contributed reporting.

contact@berkeleybeacon.com

The Berkeley Beacon

October 14, 2021

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‘Kind of a relief’: Marlboro community praise campus sale Frankie Rowley Beacon Staff

Almost all of the former faculty and students of Marlboro College have not set foot on their idyllic Potash Hill campus since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020. Now, weeks after the campus’ sale was finally closed, many are breathing a sigh of relief, comfortable with the future of their beloved former stomping grounds.

After merging with Emerson last year, Marlboro auctioned off their campus to a third-party education company—initiating a long, convoluted saga ending with the property’s sale to the Marlboro School of Music on Sept. 28.

Marlboro Music has hosted a chamber music festival on the campus since 1951, working to raise musicians and allow a space for performance on the campus.

“The music festival, essentially, has been there as long as the college,” Adam Franklin-Lyons, an associate professor at Emerson who taught at Marlboro for 11 years, said in an interview. “It’s not like the college was there and then a music festival got started; they have basically been existing in parallel in that space from the beginning.”

Associate Professor Todd Smith expressed his satisfaction with the acquisition. He said he was comforted by the

great in the past and they are dedicated to the Marlboro community. It warms my heart to see that they’re, they’re going to take care of it, they’re going to maintain it.”

The resolution of the land’s status, so important to so many in the former Marlboro community, is especially poignant considering the property’s troubled history over the past year. A committee determining the future of the land initially sold it to Democracy Builders, an educational group founded by former Obama administration official Seth Andrew—who was later arrested on charges of wire fraud and false bank statements.

“What the committee wanted is clear,” Franklin-Lyons said. “They were hopeful that [sale] would work out. I wasn’t on the committee, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t imagine that it would fail this spectacularly.”

The chamber music group purchased the campus for $2.47 million from Democracy Builders Fund, with plans to use it during the summer. What the campus will be used for during the festival’s offseason—September through May—remains unknown, though former members of the college have their respective desires for the space.

“There was talk of seeing if the [local] elementary school could use part of the campus,” Smith said. “There’s

business. Times are changing. Maybe something like a research park or a ski resort—there are some innovative things I think that could be done with the campus.”

However, the time it took for Marlboro Music to acquire the campus was puzzling to many, especially given their initial bid during the primary auction process was rejected. “[I have] a little bit of frustration because they had the option to buy the campus initially,” Smith said. “I’m sort of speculating here—but my understanding was that they didn’t want to have to be responsible for the campus and maintain it during the times when they weren’t using it, which is most of the year.”

“On the other hand, if they had bought it initially, we would have been spared a lot of turmoil, anxiety and distress in the intervening period, so that was part of the mix,” he continued.

Despite their relief, those The Beacon spoke to highlighted the trauma inflicted upon the townspeople, especially those who worked at Emerson.

“A number of them were faculty and staff and were fully integrated in their life at the college,” Smith said. “It was inseparable to them and so this experience of having the college close, it was really traumatic. The uncertainty about what happened to it similarly [was] difficult for people who lived there.”

The former Marlboro college campus. Jakob Menendez / Beacon Archives knowledge that the property’s future would not be decided by a third-party group, but by a member of the Marlboro family.

“I found it to be kind of a relief,” he said. “The Marlboro School of Music and the music festival are known to a lot of people on campus.”

Smith, who taught environmental studies at Marlboro from 1999 until the merger, said he was personally familiar with the group and had come to understand “the depth of their appreciation” for the Potash Hill campus.

“They have a reputation to be great,” Sullivan Segreto, a senior former Marlboro student, said in reference to the property’s new owners. “They’ve done

an elementary school in town that’s on a fairly busy road and people would really like to have the school away from that busy road. If there [was] a way to have them make use of part of the campus, I think some community members would want that..”

Student Government Association Executive Vice President Pranit Chand, a junior interdisciplinary studies major and former Marlboro student, said there wasn’t one single answer for how to best use the space.

“Honestly, there’s not a one-stop solution,” he said. “If you’re judging from past experiences, although we were at ‘the hill’ for like 75 years, the college itself wasn’t a sustainable

Franklin-Lyons said that, in his eyes, he hadn’t worked at Marlboro for very long—only a little over a decade—but that he also understood why the campus held such outsized importance for so many people.

“I liked working there, but there were a lot of people who live in the town of Marlboro who felt this [feeling of trepidation],” he said. “There are people for whom this is more visceral.”

Marlboro Music could not be reached for comment on the acquisition.

frankie_rowley@emerson.edu

WLP Professor Benoit Denizet-Lewis. / Courtesy Emerson College

Emerson professor receives novelwriting fellowship Vivi Smilgius Beacon Staff

A Washington D.C. foundation named Benoit Denizet-Lewis, a professor in the Writing, Literature, and Publishing Department, as the recipient of an artistic grant intended to support the publication of his latest novel next year.

Denizet-Lewis, also a journalist and author, was selected by New America, a public policy think tank, as one of its fifteen new national fellows on Sept. 21. His new book, tentatively titled “We Don’t Know You Anymore,” will explore the ideas of redemption, reinvention, and identity—and how people project, conceal, or come to terms with their own.

“People are often not very good at explaining the complicated reasons for why they change,” he said in an interview with The Beacon.

“A lot of what I’m doing is trying to get people to think about why they may change.”

The novel also seeks to understand personal change at its most fundamental level, examining it through perspectives such as culture, spirituality, race, gender, sexuality, and politics. Denizet-Lewis has explored these themes to varying degrees in his other works— three books, including one New York Times bestseller, and several columns in The New York Times Magazine regarding sexual identity and LGBTQ life—but will blend them all together in his new work.

“It’s history, philosophy, psychology, contemporary cultural analysis and layered portraits of people undergoing profound

shifts,” he said.

Denizet-Lewis explained that a central element of his storytelling technique centers around “change narratives,” or stories that explain the reasoning behind a change.

He uses 18th century Priests, 19th century political radicals and modern-day criminals hoping to get parole as subjects for his narratives, and plans to compile research from books on the topics as well as transcripts of parole hearings from California jails.

“People who are no longer alive had fascinating transformations,” he said. “That’s just research. Just tons of research.”

By virtue of teaching classes largely made up of juniors and seniors, Denizet-Lewis said he does not personally witness the dramatic identity shifts experienced by first-years and sophomore students. Nevertheless, he noted that his classes often foster conversations about the nuances of identity and how students understand themselves.

“I have had the privilege of hearing students talk about their identities and the ways they understand how they change,” he said.

He plans to continue exploring the concept of change narratives and identity in a class he is set to teach at Emerson next school year.

Since the class will coincide with his book-writing process, Denizet-Lewis said he will take inspiration from conversations in class and bounce ideas around with students.

vivi_smilgius@emerson.edu

Indigenous people’s day honored despite small Native population Cont. from Pg. 1 Madsen referred The Beacon to the Social Justice Center’s Oct. 11 email for further explanation on this matter.

“I am very proud of the work that the Social Justice Center does in support of our students, staff, and faculty and I am thankful for their acknowledgment on behalf of the College,” she wrote.

Dina Hordewel, who serves as director of public education at the American Indian College Fund, attributed the dearth of Native American students on campus to structural barriers limiting options for accessing secondary education.

“The education disparity and poverty is shocking when you consider the number of AIAN [American Indian and Alaska Native] people in the United States—8.1 million,” she wrote in an

email statement to The Beacon.

“Today, many institutions limit their recruitment to readily accessible populations or ignore Native populations entirely,” according to the AICF’s declaration of Native purpose in higher education. “[A way to make college education more equitable for Native populations is to] remove obstacles to enrollment, such as financial aid, discriminatory admissions criteria, or elimination based on test scores which are proven to not be the predictor of success for Native American students.”

Hordewel pointed out that only 14.5 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives age 25 and older have a college degree—less than half of that of other groups (31.5 percent), according to the U.S. Census.

“The pandemic illustrated and exacerbated the fault lines of inequity in Native communities,” she wrote. “Many tribes [have] put entire reservations on lockdown for the majority of the past nine months due to death rates of COVID at 3.5 times the rates of other groups.”

Along with obstacles preventing them from obtaining a college degree, many tribal businesses have closed and eliminated income sources for remote, rural Native communities, Hordewel said.

“More than 50 percent of American Indian College Fund scholarship recipients work full-time or part-time to support their families while attending college, and more than 50 percent are their families’ primary source of income,” she wrote.

Diana Bravo / Beacon Archives The American Indian College Fund provides scholarships and support for Native American students because its main goal is to make education more accessible to them, according to their

website.

“It’s also important to note that in the 2019-2020 academic year, 54 percent of College Fund scholarship recipients were first-generation college students,” Hordewel wrote.

“Education is necessary because it gives Native people access to a good career and economic equity for themselves and their families,” she continued. “Our work is critical to ensuring that first-time students have the financial resources they need to go to college, or we will lose a generation of students whose communities need educated workers as teachers, law enforcement officers, health care workers, and more.” bailey_allen@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

Opinion

Harassment of Kashmir journalists and gov interference worsens

in Kashmir has lost its purpose and is now paralyzed by fear and self-censorship.

A prominent consequence of the revocation of Kashmir’s autonomy was newspapers’ tendency to avoid publishing any content

Mariyam Quaisar Beacon Staff India’s government is treating journalists in Kashmir as terrorists, and it is disproportionately affecting Muslims. From being unnecessarily arrested to beaten, attacked and murdered, journalists in Kashmir fear for their lives as they try to do their jobs but are forbidden from properly doing so.

It is a journalist’s job to inform the public, but at this point they’ve become Bharatiya Janata Party’s puppets. The government is instilling fear in journalists so they don’t expose officials’ actions, like mistreating residents of Kashmir, killing Pakistani officials, and more.

Since BJP came into power in 2014, journalistic freedom in India has been on the decline.

As authoritarianism invades India, journalists in Kashmir face anti-terror laws like the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the Public Safety Act. Any media that is against the government is taken down and its reporters taken into custody.

India’s government has put journalists and terrorists on the same playing field.

The concept of “freedom of expression” is stripped away from journalists in Kashmir as their basic human rights are discarded by the police. Some are being summoned for interrogation and others are being beaten at protests.

Kashmir’s police said, “freedom of speech and expression is subject to reasonable restrictions.”

They demand media personnel to not interfere with the officers’ duties when law and order is being “maintained.” According to India’s government, national security is put at risk when journalists do their job, jargon similar to what is used for terrorists.

These policies have led reporters to be treated with as much cruelty as criminals by the military.

It’s the neverending Hindu-Muslim battle in India that fuels the country’s authorities and government to treat Muslims as horribly as they can, hence the hundreds of attacks on Muslim journalists. If the journalists were Hindu, they wouldn’t fear for their life. Many Pakistani militants inhabit Kashmir, because of the war between India and Pakistan, which allows the army and police to falsely label Muslims as militant sympathizers, among other accusations.

In April 2021, journalists went to cover a gunfight between residents and security forces only to be assaulted by the forces. One of the photojournalists is seen being kicked by a police constable.

To list all the instances like this would need an article in itself.

Since Feb. 19, 1990, 19 journalists have been killed at the hands of militants, paramilitary forces, state police, and Indian Armed Forces. Many were shot, some were tortured to death, some were bombed, and some were drowned.

Since then hundreds have faced assassination attempts, abductions and have been attacked in their homes, at their workplaces, and in public places—Ghulam Mohammad Sofi, Yusuf Jameel, Irfan Ahmed, Abdul Qayoom, Sheikh Mushtaq, Sanam Aijaz, Syed Shujaat, Javid Ahmad Shah, Ehsan Fazili, Shahid Rashid, Rafiq Maqbool, Amin War, Amir Hussain,

Courtesy Mariyam Quaisar Shujaat Bukhari, Rashid Wani, Majid Hyderi, Mir Ehsan, Sajad Raja, Sanam Tasaduq, Mufti Islah, Wasim Khalid, Yawar Kabli, Shabnam Fayaz, Eeshan Peer, and Kamran Yousuf to name a few.

In 2016, photojournalist Muneeb Ul Islam was used as a human shield for the Central Reserve Police Force as people were pelting stones at them. In 2018, journalist Aasif Sultan was arrested and kept in jail for more than 1,000 days until his release in 2021. He was

“These policies have led reporters to be treated with as much cruelty as criminals by the military.” kept under UAPA for allegedly harboring militants and committing murder. In reality, Sultan was arrested for his magazine story titled “The Rise of Burhan” about a rebel commander who was killed

by Indian security forces.

Photojournalist Masrat Zahra was also charged under UAPA in

April 2020 for posting “anti-national” content on social media. In September 2020, journalist Auqib Javeed was slapped in a police station for working on a story about police intimidation, and three other journalists were beaten up while on duty in southern Kashmir. On Sept. 8, 2021, police raided four journalists’ homes and seized documents and electronic devices.

The journalists were brought to the police station and detained the whole day. There was no stated reason for the raids.

One major thing you’ll notice about all of these names—they’re all of Muslim origin. More than 90 percent of Kashmir’s population is Muslim and has been since before the India-Pakistan partition in 1947. Since the partition, India and Pakistan have been fighting over who gets the Kashmir region, which is why the last maharaja (king) of Kashmir—Hari Sing— signed Article 370 in October 1947 to grant the state its independence.

This power-driven, inhumane treatment of journalists is not where the Indian government has drawn the line.

On Aug. 5, 2019, the Indian government repealed Article 370 of the Constitution and stripped Kashmir of its right to self-govern. Kashmir now cannot have its own constitution, flag, or independence, and it was all done to please the incredibly small Hindu population of the region.

Even more disturbing was how in anticipation of protests and violence, the government shut down the internet and communication at 12 a.m. on Aug. 5, crippling news flow in Kashmir. High-speed internet was finally restored on Feb. 5, 2021, a full year and a half later.

Following this ridiculous government intervention, journalism © 2021 The Berkeley Beacon. All rights reserved.

The Beacon is published weekly. Anything submitted to the Beacon becomes the sole property of the newspaper. No part of the publication may be reproduced by any means without the express written permission of the editor.

unfavorable to the government.

Publications were forced to report “conservatively” and censor their work so as to not anger the beast— the government. Over the decades, the press maintained consistent coverage of what was happening in Kashmir, but following the abrogation, everything changed.

The Indian government has complete control over what is reported to their people and the outside world. If they don’t like what they see or read, the reporter is punished. It has come to the point where journalists are aware of the risks that come with reporting, and they can do nothing but accept the harassment.

Kashmir as a whole is incredibly unsafe because of the heavy military and militant presence as the war between Pakistan and India continues, however it is especially unsafe for women.

Gender-focused harassment and abuse is an intrinsic part of a female journalist’s routine, especially amongst all the armed men who enjoy impunity under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. This act allows them to do whatever they want with whomever they want, with no fear of consequences, according to The Polis Project.

Being a female journalist in Kashmir is already difficult without fearing for your life because of the conservative society that doesn’t happily condone women in journalism. Families don’t love women being out of the house and on the frontlines of violence— that’s a man’s job, apparently.

Islam being the ruling religion of Kashmir adds gas to the patriarchal fire. Kashmir’s society is not only historically sexist but religiously too, as Muslim women are especially told to stay in their homes.

In September 2019, police offiEditor-in-Chief Charlie McKenna Managing Editors Lucia Thorne (Content) Hongyu Liu (Multimedia) Campbell Parrish (Operations) Section Editors Camilo Fonseca (News) Mariyam Quaisar (Living Arts)

October 14, 2021

4

cers violently struck their batons on journalist Rifat Mohidin’s car and hurled abuses at her as she sat inside crying, and all because she asked the policemen to be polite.

Mohidin feared telling her family what she endured, because they wouldn’t allow her to continue her job. Many watched but did not help her because of the horrendous stories they had heard of the army’s wrath. There are many more stories like this and worse.

The fear of abduction and sexual assault are probable risks for female journalists in Kashmir, and they know that but continue to do their job. They continue to go out late at night to cover dangerous events, and encounter security forces and militants who are surprised, then excited, to see a woman out at that time. But what are women supposed to do? Just sit at home and let men be men? Forget about the careers that they work hard for?

The majority of journalists in America are white, just as the majority of journalists in Kashmir are Muslim, but the treatment of each majority is drastically different. Most white journalists in America write from the comfort of their homes or cubicles on their MacBooks with a delicious salad or sandwich and coffee. Muslim journalists in Kashmir have to trudge to government facilities where there’s barely-working internet and 18th century computers to file stories that they’ll most likely be reprimanded for unless it’s about something like the beautiful tourist location of Kashmir.

They are framed for anti-national activities they never participated in, thrown in jail, and tortured in detention facilities meant for terrorists.

After the revocation of Article 370, there was a small media facility set up by the government that had four computers—one for the information department, two for male journalists, and one for female journalists. After waiting in line for hours, reporters would get 15 minutes to do their work.

This led many journalists to leave Kashmir and their families for Delhi—an almost 14-hour car ride—just to do their jobs.

Under a revised media policy that was put in motion on June 2, 2020, a committee titled the Chairpersonship of Director Department of Information and Public Relations is now in charge of monitoring print, electronic, and other forms of media. While DIPR is meant to thwart fake news, plagiarism and unethical or anti-national propaganda, journalists are concerned about how the policy can be manipulated to use against reporters.

Any news can be labeled fake news, giving authorities the green light to interrogate and arrest journalists. Authorities have no shame when it comes to treating journalists improperly. They are unremorsefully barging into peoples’ homes, torturing them and throwing them in detentions.

Overwhelmed by fear of authorities and the government, journalists are fleeing Kashmir, their homes, and their families to protect themselves. So much for freedom of the press. maryiam_quaisar@emerson.edu Shannon Garrido (Opinion) Tyler Foy (Sports) Kaitlyn Fehr (Copy) Advisor Jerry Lanson (617) 824–8687 berkeleybeacon.com contact@berkeleybeacon.com

The Berkeley Beacon

October 14, 2021

5

Get the vaccine, your lack of sympathy is showing Lucia Thorne Beacon Staff When the general population became eligible for the vaccine on April 19, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths drastically declined, providing the much-needed glimmer of hope.

But with the arrival of the highly-transmissible Delta variant in late June, those hopes were shattered thanks to anti-vaxxers’ refusal to get the vaccine and slow the spread.

By June 29, The Associated Press reported that 98 to 99 percent of Americans dying from COVID-19 were unvaccinated. By July 16, 70 percent of cases were caused by Delta and 97 percent of hospitalizations were unvaccinated patients, according to The Washington Post. Last month, The New York Times reported that Delta now accounts for over 99 percent of coronavirus cases.

Despite the clear evidence that vaccination decreases the risk of COVID-19, only 56 percent of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated (and 78 percent partially vaccinated), according to Global Change Data Lab. The threshold for “herd immunity,” where a majority of the population reaches immunity against a disease, is at least 70 percent.

For months, many have tried to understand the plight of the unvaccinated. In some cases, lack of access to healthcare and ineligibility based on age or health status explains a lack of vaccinations. Not to mention the disparities in medicine have existed since its creation, historically and presently favoring white patients’ needs and access to care over Black and Latinx patients. These disparities have led to a severe lack of access to healthcare for communities of color and created a huge disconnect in trusting medicine for these communities.

Medical racism has had an effect on who can and has been vaccinated against coronavirus. According to a study by the

Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), 60 percent of the 78 percent of the population that is partially vaccinated is white, while every other race was at most 17 percent of the vaccination rate.

In attempts to reduce this enormous gap, reallocation of additional vaccine doses and prioritization of appointments and locations for underserved populations have been efforts taken by some states since the start of general vaccine distribution, according to KFF. This disproportionate gap still persists as these efforts are not enough to gain the trust of communities of color that have been mistreated and disregarded for so long.

All of this is understandable.

But if being unvaccinated is a choice that you made based solely on personal beliefs, not influenced by any sort of health or access obstacles? That kind of disregard for others’ health is absolutely unforgivable.

Any sympathy towards those who make this severely uninformed choice is not deserved. Anti-vaccine behavior has only gotten more reckless and more dangerous as the months go by.

There have been too many stories of exposure and infection, and even deaths, of the vaccinated or those who are ineligible (children under the age of 12).

Like a parent who knowingly sent their infected child to school, exposing at least 80 students, or this unmasked, unvaccinated elementary school teacher who spread the virus to 12 of her 24 students.

If any of those students died, the parents of the infected children and the unvaccinated teacher would be responsible for their deaths.

The bottom line is: If you spread COVID-19 as an unvaccinated individual because you personally don’t believe that it’s real or you “disagree” with getting vaccinated against it, and someone dies, you killed someone.

Lately the topic of “murder” and choice

Illustration Lucia Thorne

Texas should look to other countries on women’s rights Shannon Garrido Beacon Staff Over the course of my life, I feel like I have been watching women’s rights walk a tightrope across a giant canyon. But, when I was home in the Dominican Republic this summer, something felt different.

While I was busy arguing with my family members about efforts to legalize some abortions in the Dominican Republic, women in Texas were fighting new and highly restrictive anti-abortion legislation. Reflecting on what was happening in Texas and the conversations I was having at home, I realized that the Dominican Republic’s complete criminalization on abortion should be an example of the consequences of Texas’s new law, which bans all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The examples of other countries with strict abortion laws show us the perils of implementing such strict laws, and lawmakers in Texas should be wary.

Beginning in mid-March, and

throughout the summer, hundreds of Dominican women and reproductive-rights advocates began gathering outside the executive mansion of President Luis Abinader daily after lawmakers failed to decriminalize abortion under “the three causes,” which would have legalized aboartions when pregnancy either represents a risk to the woman’s life, is the result of rape or incest, or there are fetal malformations incompatible with life.

This occurred after the National Congress debated whether or not to approve a reform to the penal code, which dates back more than a century, to legalize abortion under three grounds.

For as long as I can remember, conversation about abortion was never tolerated around most of my Dominican peers. It was a taboo topic and most people I knew shared a similar consensus—that it’s illegal for good reason. Now that the three causes have become a somewhat relevant social movement in the Dominican Republic the conversation is almost impossible

have been in the news regarding Texas’s near-total ban on abortion as a federal appeals court reversed the lift of the ban just last week. But pro-choice protesters have not been the ones chanting “my body, my choice” as of late.

If we used the same “logic” as conservatives regarding abortion, that parent and teacher would have both been charged with criminal negligence, and possibly manslaughter.

But how silly of me to think that women deserve the right to choose whether or not to put themselves through the mental and physical toll that comes with a pregnancy.

Everyone knows bodily autonomy only matters when conservatives have to take a little needle to the arm. You know, I hear that the “Buzzy”––a shotblocker in the shape of a little vibrating bee–– works great in helping ease the anxiety of getting a shot and makes it less scary. I suggest trying this, it comes with an ice pack and everything. It might help make it easier for you.

Clearly, there is anger and confusion about the shot among anti-vaxxers, but encouraging them to get vaccinated through mandates and legislation has only made them more rabid and more violent.

Anti-vaccine protests and actions have gained more momentum over the last couple of months, and with that came threatening and dangerous behavior.

In the past two months, there have been many instances of this; a vaccine site in Georgia had to shut down due to threatening protesters, a restaurant hostess was assaulted in New York by guests when asking for proof of vaccination, a man was stabbed and a reporter attacked in a Los Angeles protest, and anti-vaccine groups have been encouraging those infected with COVID-19 to not seek treatment and pull infected loved-ones out of ICUs. The amount of effort anti-vaxxers are putting into avoiding getting the vaccine

is greater than the amount of effort it would take to just get the shot. Not only are they trying to avoid it, they’re trying to find substitutes.

Thousands of people have tried incredibly idiodic and dangerous “cures” to coronavirus, like taking antimalarial hydroxychloroquine and horse-dewormer grade ivermectin, while others have ingested disinfectants like bleach and hand sanitizer.

All of these “treatments” led to way too many calls to poison control, according to Forbes.

Finding alternative treatments is largely a part of the “alternative facts” that many fell for in the rabbit hole that is conservative conspiracy theories, much of which is perpetuated from Facebook to FOX News.

Some concerns that cloud the anti-vax community’s judgment are the speed at which the vaccines were developed and that mRNA vaccines “rewrite” your genetic code (boy, are they gonna be thrilled when they learn how viruses work…).

Even though the legitimacy of the vaccines and how they work have been vouched for repeatedly, people still refuse to believe the science and choose to listen only to voices that echo their uninformed opinions.

Based on the fact that the federal and state governments have had to provide us with childish incentives to get vaccinated including state and federal million-dollar

to ignore.

Growing up, I knew reproductive rights were scarce for women, including myself, but it’s even worse for low-income women and women of color.

I looked up to nations like the United States that regarded abortion rights with at least more respect than politicians back home. However, the older I get the more I see that it is not so simple. In fact, it seems that through these past five years of political turmoil, women’s reproductive rights have been under constant attack in the U.S. as well.

On Sept. 1, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block a Texas law that restricts most abortions after as early as six weeks of pregnancy. The law allows citizens to sue anyone who performs an abortion and anyone who assists the beneficiaries in any way.

This became an even bigger concern when the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary stay that puts Texas’ Senate Bill back in effect until the appeals court is able to consider the case and issue a more lasting ruling.

In my few nineteen years of living I have never seen an American court so eager to turn back time on reproductive rights, and with so much malicious intent.

It is disturbing to see reproductive rights generate so much debate amongst American politicians, who in too many cases want to secure the conservative or religious vote or impose their own views on women. Especially since it seems that with the already long list of inequalities in women’s health in America, these leaders don’t seem to know what a country with a total abortion ban looks like.

Human Rights Watch conducted research in the Dominican Republic in early 2018 to investigate the human rights impacts of the total abortion ban. The criminal code in the Dominican Republic imposes prison sentences of up to two years on girls who get abortions and up to 20 years for medical professionals who provide them. Although these criminal actions are relatively rare, the law has created pervasive fear amongst women who resort to desperate measures to end unwanted pregnancies.

The Human Rights Watch accounts reveal the brutal consequences of the country’s harsh abortion laws. Women and girls interviewed for the report described using a variety of methods to try to end pregnancies, none of which are safe or effective and can lead to catastrophic health issues. At least eight percent of the country’s maternal deaths are caused by complications from illegal abortion or miscarriage.

The survey established that a minority of women and girls would be eligible for an abortion under the pretext of the three circumstances that activists are fighting to currently get legalized. However, the majority of those interviewed said they wanted to end the pregnancy due to socioeconomic difficulties, instability, violent relationships, or they already have children and felt unable to care for any more.

I remember growing up and no matter how old I was, for so many women around me, getting pregnant was an unspoken fear. For older married women with a certain level of financial stability, pregnancy was always a blessing. I have been to more baby showers than I can count. However, for girls who were students, low income, in violent relationships, or single, pregnancy was always frowned upon.

As a growing teenager sitting around the lunch table with my friends, the one thing you could never be was pregnant. It didn’t matter that we were mostly from middle to upper-middle-class income families, there was little to no way to get through schooling if you got pregnant.

In a country with one of the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy in Latin America, one in four girls drops out of school due to pregnancy. This is due to a combination of socioeconomic factors and social biases that discourage women from continuing their education when they get pregnant.

Not to mention how my surroundings were, and still are, very Catholic.

Not only is abortion seen as some highway to hell, but so were sex and contraceptives. In my head this mentality, although never okay, was normalized, but it shouldn’t be.

Women in Texas don’t deserve to be

Illustration Lucia Thorne lotteries and free beer, I’ll explain this in a way anti-vaxxers should be able to understand.

You are not special, the government does not care about keeping tabs on you and if they wanted to track you, they wouldn’t have made such an effort to do so. (It’s not like you have a phone that can easily be tracked, pay taxes, or are assigned a number at birth or anything, right?)

You are not more qualified to research a vaccine than actual doctors or scientists.

You know, the ones who have degrees in the subject and have contributed to actual medicine. What are you gonna do, discover the cure to Covid with a couple of mediocre Google searches riddled with typos? Get real.

Do you get scared that the government is trying to “thin the herd”? I hate to break it to you, but the vaccinated aren’t the sheep in this scenario.

You’re not fighting some noble war defending your constitutional rights. You are just being a selfish asshole prolonging this hellish reality for the rest of us who actually have self-awareness and compassion––caring about and being sympathetic to others, just in case you didn’t know what that meant.

You should try it sometime. And here’s a thought, you can start by getting vaccinated. lucia_thorne@emerson.edu put in the position where they have to imagine living in a world where these rights are never available to them.

It feels ridiculous to have come from somewhere where abortion is either not an option or one that could end terribly and observe what is supposedly educated politicians take these freedoms women in America have as a suggestion.

For Dominican women living in poverty, abortion is not a choice, but a necessity. When abortion is criminalized, women and girls often cannot access factual, unbiased, and crucial information about a full range of options, leaving them vulnerable to pressure and abuse from those who seek to control their reproductive health.

Although the levels of inequality are not the same between these two countries, for so many women in America, abortion is simply not a choice.

In Texas, and elsewhere across the country, there is a clear line of racism that connects efforts to deny women, because it disproportionately affects women of color and their right to terminate a pregnancy.

Data from 2014 indicates that people of color constitute about 62 percent of the country’s abortion procedures that year. Furthermore, Black, Latinx, and Native American people are disproportionately affected by financial hardship, which means they have less access to resources and less flexibility to potentially travel outside of Texas for a legal abortion.

Not to mention that the law’s emphasis on suing people who aid or perform abortions makes people of color more vulnerable to a legal system where they already face disproportionate punishment.

Insolent opinions of men in power with the need to express their opinion and control the woman’s body do nothing but put us in danger.

Dominican women have been living this nightmare their entire lives and “las tres causales” has become somewhat of a wake-up call, yet women in Texas do not need to go through the same thing.

shannon_garrido@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

October 14, 2021

6

Living Arts ‘Out of Order’ shows effects of the pandemic on theater

Dionna Santucci Beacon Correspondent ArtsEmerson kicked off their fall season in a whimsical world with a bittersweet twist with The 7 Fingers, a Montreal-based circus troupe.

Founded in 2002, The 7 Fingers combines acrobatics and theatricality through its refreshing take on the traditional circus experience.

Lighting ranges from warm tones to vibrant greens and purples, each stage light reflecting off of the glitter actors have painted over their eyelids. The costumes depict each character’s class and the props double as tools used in the routines.

“Out of Order” can be considered The 7 Fingers’ passion project. The theatrical film highlights the struggles that creatives faced in 2020 through its depictions of struggling actors who are desperate to per-

Courtesy Gypsy Snider form.

“We were all very interested in creating our own sort of style and vision for how to use circus as a theatrical and choreographic medium to tell stories,” Gypsy Snider, the director of “Out of Order,” said in an interview with The Beacon.

“We were also interested in taking the spectacle out of [the] circus and making it much more about its humanity.” “‘Out of Order is only semi-fictitious,” Snider continued. “It’s [about] a circus company troupe that is attempting to survive in a world where live theater is no longer allowed, which was quite actually the situation at the time [of filming].”

Jaw-dropping acrobatics and carefully choreographed routines are at the heart of “Out of Order,” but the soul of the show lies within its ability to illustrate how the pandemic is coinciding with our understanding of the effects of the digital

Sophia Pargas /Beacon Staff

Photo exhibition captures world through the decades Sophia Pargas Beacon Staff A new exhibit in Tufte Building’s Huret and Spector Art Gallery, “A Shared Vision: The Lilian Farber Photography Collection,” features images by various famous photographers from across the globe and different time periods, each selected by curator Lilian Farber.

The exhibit, which opened on Sept. 16, runs until Oct. 29. The collection consists of various rectangular frames with photographs ranging from portraits to landscapes to photos of seemingly random objects such as an artichoke or a metal

chair. The wide array of images have their own stories, emotions and purposes, all catching a viewer’s eye in their own way.

There’s no connection between the images, just that they all have their own meaning waiting to be found.

“The collection was mostly a compilation of a bunch of different photographs, subjects, and time periods,” Julija Garunkstis, a senior VMA student, said. “It was through different points in history and different points of view, which showcases the kinds of things that people capture all around the world at different points in time.”

The collection was gifted to Marlboro College by Farber and then inherited by Emerson during the merger of the two in-

world.

“The whole point of live theater is to have that connection with your audience and by putting it into a virtual atmosphere, it takes away that humanity of theater,” first-year theater and performance major Carly Mentis said. “You can’t feel the audience with you… and as an actor, I thrive off of that energy.”

While tangibility is lost with the adaptations of live performances into films, “Out of Order” shows that intimacy stands to be gained.

The closeup and detailed shots of every flip, tightrope walk, and acrobat stir a cathartic reaction in viewers. The sweat, the height, and the landings can all be felt through the screen.

By peeling back the curtain and showing the nitty-gritty details, performances become more relatable and audience members become more invested.

“We have the camera, so how can we bring the camera in so that the people watching from home have the visceral experience of touch, of contact, of emotion?” Snider said. “[The performers] are playing to this framework, they’re reaching out and saying ‘we need you, we’re here.’”

With elements like the colorful stage makeup and a soundtrack that seems to be a cross between music from medieval times and today’s indie-pop hits, the quirk of “Out of Order” has the power to transport viewers to a different realm.

Snider attributes the film’s various playful elements to its editor, circus performer, and skateboarder, Francisco Cruz, and how he developed The 7 Fingers’ digital voice. “‘Out of Order’ and the video work we’ve done in the past has really had that skateboarder influ-

ence,” Snider said. “Another inspiration was the film ‘Cabaret.’ What I found so fascinating about that film is there are two different ways of filming: outside of the Cabaret venue and inside the Cabaret venue...so I love how [‘Cabaret’] captured that performance and captured its relationship to the audience.”

Due to mask requirements, the film’s cast was often forced to express their emotions fully through their movements, tricks, and routines. However, the show never loses its effectiveness to communicate the message it was meant to convey with ease.

“7 Fingers shows are so dependent on the relationship with the audience, and I realized we had to recreate that codependent relationship,” Snider said.

With all of the acrobatics and routines viewers see throughout the film, the lack of speech or facial expressions goes unnoticed. Movement, while being more covert than speech, is just as important in the theater world.

“Someone could be the best actor on stage, but if they are stagnant the audience isn’t going to pay attention to them,” Mentis said. “You need to have that dynamic element. [Movement] keeps people engaged.”

An eerie feeling clouds the performance throughout the film. Viewers are constantly aware that something is off—or missing. This feeling is intended to reflect how the cast and crew felt putting on a show for an empty circus big top. “[The characters] are already a troupe that has no audience...and they feel that they are a forbidden form, and they’re trying to survive using all of their essence of a traditional theater, and performing, and street performing,” Snider said.

Performing without an audience can often leave performers searching for a purpose and missing the fun behind theater.

“When you have those audience reactions, that’s what keeps you going,” Mentis said. “A cough here or a

chuckle at a weird spot—that’s what makes [performing] so good. The little inconveniences of live theater are what makes it feel real.”

A tonal shift at the halfway point in the film peels back the joy and artifice of the first half. When the yellow and orange hues of the lights fade to cooler tones, the remainder of the film explores what it was like for performers to be classified as “non-essential” workers in 2020.

“It’s very upsetting knowing that what you live off of and what you thrive in is just labeled ‘non-essential,’” Mentis said. “Theater plays a big part in the existence of storytelling, and it’s essential for people to know those stories.”

Mentis said that without the storytelling that theater provides, the necessary discussions following those stories will never be had.

“If we don’t know these stories, then how are we supposed to grow as humans?” Mentis said.

The performances go from chaotic, playful, and fever dream-esque to real, and raw—showcasing the performers’ need for self-expression, art, and culture.

“Halfway through the film, it’s almost as if [the cast] loses steam...the power fails and it’s no longer about performance as a form, but actually the deep necessity to perform even without the spectacle,” Snider said.

The first half of “Out of Order” taps into the origins and traditions of theater: jesters, aristocracy, and archetypes. But the second half encapsulates the purpose of the performance: to show what it was like to have the plug pulled, and the energy sucked out of a creative outlet. The film highlights the essence of why culture is important in society.

“Art is a basic necessity—not just from the point of view of the performer, but also the necessity of the performer’s relationship with the audience,” Snider said.

stitutions.

“This collection came to us as a result of the liaison with Marlboro College,” said Leonie Bradbury, chair of Contemporary Arts and Curator in Residence in an interview. “The collection had been gifted to the college by Lillian Farber. She had been collecting all of these works over 30 or 40 years and donated it as a teaching collection to Marlboro College.”

When Bradbury first received the collection, she was eager to “create an exhibition with these works and introduce them to the Emerson community” in a meaningful way. In order to do so, she first needed to find the connection between Farber’s photographs.

“We first had to analyze what we had received and then work to find the stories that were present in the collection and use these to contextualize the works,” Bradbury said.

While the original collection consists of over 200 photographs, Bradbury and affiliated faculty member Susan Doheny carefully selected just over 100 of them to be showcased in the live exhibition.

The images are organized into categories depending on their time period, style, or context. “[Doheny] and I worked together for the past six months to make selections and create a structure within the collection and create a way for students to engage with the work in an organized fashion,” Bradbury said. “When you see the works up on the wall in the gallery, you feel as if it was always meant to be this way, but they actually arrived in boxes and crates without any organization whatsoever.”

Though the staff succeeded in organizing the exhibition in a more structured manner, the real beauty in Farber’s collection is that she chose photographs seemingly at random.

“Lillian Farber was a very passionate collector who collected things that she liked rather than things that were supposed to be important or because other people thought they were,” Bradbury said. “She really collected things that she was drawn to and thought were beautiful.”

Bradbury hopes that students will engage with the collection in this same way, viewing the images with care, enthusiasm, and awe. She hopes that the audience will go beyond the obvious as Farber intended and instead find new and unique perspectives that they may not have experienced before.

“In a culture that is saturated with imagery, it’s really special when we get to see an original photograph,” Bradbury said.

“We see thousands of pictures a week on our phones and our screens, but to really be in the presence of an object that is a photograph, you can really feel the difference. It provides a unique experience, and not just on the content of the image, but on the physicality and the materiality of it, the process which the artist used to create it and the way that process affects our experience with the piece. That’s something that’s really special.”

Just as Bradbury intended, students have been able to find this meaning and beauty in the collection, either independently and/or in their classes.

Introduction to Photography professor Betsy Schneider is one of several professors who has taken students to view the exhibition to open their eyes to this new way of interpreting images.

“It helps us slow down a little bit and just focus on what’s in front of us, it’s a really important thing to have those moments when we tear our eyes away from the screen and look at something different,” Schneider said. “I noticed that the students

spent a lot more time looking and noticed detail, composition and some of the more technical details of the work. They were looking at the photos as objects, they were able to notice some things that they can’t necessarily consider otherwise.”

By instilling a new perspective of photography in students and faculty, the collection has fulfilled the purpose that Farber created it for. “[Farber’s] vision for the collection was always of sharing it with others, which is something that motivated her to donate it to Marlboro College so it could continue to be seen by as many people as possible,” Bradbury said. “That’s why she dedicated it as a teaching collection, she wanted it installed where the students were teaching and living and working and going to class.”

As a means of fulfilling Farber’s dream of having these photographs constantly in the eye of curious and eager students, the college will continue to display her collection even after the exhibition comes to a close.

“One important thing to note is that once the exhibition is over at the end of October, we will be reinstalling the works throughout public spaces on campus so that students will continue to have access to these works,” Bradbury said.

In a quote displayed on the walls of the exhibition, Farber leaves her audience with a simple message—photography is meant to be cherished in every form.

“It hasn’t mattered who the photographer was, living or dead, acclaimed or unknown. Neither has the pedigree of the print; vintage, or self-produced, staff-produced or mass-produced. All I had to do was love it.”

dionna_santucci@emerson.edu

sophia_pargas@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

October 14, 2021

7

Student short film “Colorful Peace” uses color to shed light on mental health struggles Sophia Pargas Beacon Staff

First year visual media arts student Seyf Naman’s new short film, “Colorful Peace,” received the Spirit Award at the Shawna Shea Film Festival in September 2021.

The film sheds light on the reality of mental health struggles young adults face with an emphasis on the way colors can change storytelling, an idea inspired by the use of color in the films The Grand Budapest Hotel and Isn’t It Romantic.

“The ending to the films are always going to be the same: the guy gets the girl, the good guys win, the protagonists learn a key lesson in life,” Naman said. “We might not be able to change the way we end films, but we can change the way we tell them. I thought color would be a great way to do that.”

The film follows Ellie, a young woman who struggles to remain hopeful and happy amid feelings of loneliness and isolation. She strives to see the beauty in the places she goes and the people she meets, but her world remains black and white. It takes the presence of a colorful “spirit,” to reintroduce her to the bright, vibrant things in life that she had been missing all along.

“Colorful Peace” was inspired by Naman’s knowledge of a frame by frame animation editing technique which creates motion over film called rotoscoping. Once he decided he wanted to incorporate this tool, the characters of the short film seemed to create themselves.

“The idea was that there would be a girl and a spirit who would be created using the brush effect in after effects,” Naman said. “It’s a process called rotoscoping, something which isn’t very commonly used. When

writing, I was thinking that this is what I wanted to do, so that’s what came around to creating the spirit.”

Though the spirit is a seemingly simple character, Naman was aware of the vigorous process it would take to create the spirit, due to the time consuming and extremely tedious nature of rotoscoping. Oftentimes, Naman would need to redo a single frame dozens of times in order to make sure the movement and color matched the one preceding it.

“The film was shot in the summer of 2021,” Naman said. “I always knew that I wanted this to be a one man crew and that it would be very simple to shoot. I decided I wanted to have an easy shooting process since the editing would be so difficult.”

With the help of actress Francie Silva, who played Ellie, Naman shot the film in his hometown of Geneva, Switzerland. He described it as a “quick and easy” shoot despite the challenges that arose in a film starring an animated character.

“One thing that was key in production was framing where the spirit was going to be and where Francie was looking,” Naman said. “We needed to create a focus of where the spirit would be, so we took a little vitamin box which helped with the focusing of the camera. This worked really well in post-production.”

Despite the complex and laborious editing process, both Naman and Silva are proud of the artwork they created.

“It was pretty amazing how everything was put together,” Silva said.

“When I was doing the part, I only knew what I was filming, so I didn’t get to see the behind the scenes of it all. When I saw the whole project together with the animation of the spirit, it was quite amazing.”

In the film, the wavering presence of color contributes to the overall message and theme of the film, vi-

sually depicting Ellie’s struggles with mental and emotional health.

“I would say my character is someone that, at the beginning of the story, was very depressed and unhappy with life,” Silva said. “She’s very lonely and experiences a lot of thoughts about suicide and general unhappiness. Later on in the story, she finds the spirit that helps her see the better things in life.”

Throughout the film, Ellie struggles with thoughts of suicide and self-harm, subjects Naman said he took care to depict thoughtfully.

“I definitely think that showcasing mental health is very important in art,” Silva said. “A lot of people really notice and pay more attention to these issues that way. It’s a very important topic that the general public struggles with, and being able to show that through art and getting other people to connect with these feelings is a very important thing.”

Silva’s portrayal of Ellie taught her many important lessons about mental health and the need to destigmatize reaching out for help when experiencing struggles.

“The message of the film is to recognize that the glass is not half empty, but half full,” Silva said. “There’s always going to be negative things in life, but there’s also always a positive side. If you’re struggling with mental health issues, getting help is a very important thing. The overall message is to never give up your hopes, and keep your head up always.”

Naman’s hope for the film is that the audience will be able to reflect on the same message that Ellie did— there will always be days that seem devoid of color and beauty, but a change of perspective can help us see happiness in the things we often overlook.

“The major message I want to give out is that life is a beautiful

Courtesy Seyf Naman thing, and we shouldn’t take it for granted,” Naman said. “We may not see it all the time, but the places we are in, the people who are around us, and the everyday things we love— these things are what make life so

beautiful for us.”

sophia_pargas@emerson.edu

“Malni–towards the ocean, towards the shore” spotlights Chinook culture Cont. from Pg. 1 Explaining the death myth’s origin, Hopinka found it to be a connection not just between Sweetwater and Jordan, but everyone. It relates to the film’s message about spirituality and the idea that death isn’t the end, but rather a part of life.

“The origin of [the] death myth became apparent that this is something that we’re all moving through in life,” Hopinka said. “If the origin of death myth isn’t the beginning, everything spouts out from there in terms of how we relate to loss and to each other, ancestors, and the future.”

Hopinka discussed how he wanted to embed the myth within the storyline.

“I was thinking about using this myth as a launching point where I’m not trying to reenact the myth, I’m not trying to retell the myth, I’m not trying to explain the myth,” Hopinka said. “Rather, look at how this myth affects people today as it was created many millennia ago and what are the repercussions of this myth today and look at the effects of mythology in terms of the story of Jordan and Sweetwater and myself I suppose.”

Taking inspiration from his own indigenous roots and his learning of the Chinookan language, Hopinka approached Sahme and Mercier with the concept of focusing on Chinookan culture, and they were on board. Considering they are longtime friends with Hopinka, conversations feel private and act as any comfortable discussion between old friends.

“These are good friends in my life,” Hopinka said. “Part of that is having a relationship with someone and knowing what you’re doing and filming and not trying to be sneaky. I always let them know when I’m running the camera and telling them what we’re going to be doing. We have a lot of conversations around these sorts of things.”

Moderator and visual media arts de-

partment chair Cristina Kotz Cornejo reflected on the rawness of the relationship between Hopinka, the interviewer, and his interviewees.

“The perception of how you get the honesty and comfortableness of your relationship with your friends, what comes through is this intimacy,” Cornejo said in the post-screening discussion. “It’s almost like we’re a fly on the wall watching a conversation, but we’re not seeing you, but you’re there and you can feel that presence.”

Intriguing angles are incorporated throughout the film, with the camera positioned in a way that feels personable and real, making the viewer feel as though they’re in the scene with Sahme and Mercier.

Sound design further pushes the imagery of nature with the constant sounds

ticular, does this incredibly well when Hopinka blurs the focus of the camera and circles around in one position. The only sense the viewer has is sound, so the noises of the woods can be heard. In a theater setting on the big screen, it’s most effective and immerses the audience to connect with nature themselves.

Sahme connects to the outside environment when she goes to a waterfall and takes part in a waterfall cleansing, while Mercier focuses on Chinook canoe families and attending a Chinook ceremony.

Each journey offers insight into the subjects’ families and spiritual backgrounds.

“I want to give people the space to move through the answer and try and find an answer,” Hopinka said. “There’s a lot of weight and power in the things people want to say and I don’t need to investigate or interrogate for the answer that I’m

Courtesy Sky Hopinka of water, connecting back to the waterfall and the canoe trip. One scene, in par-

looking for.”

Hopinka said he wanted to make the

film feel as natural as possible, focusing on using the genuine abilities of his camera.

“It felt weird to indulge in digital attractions when Sweetwater and Jordan are sharing so much emotion with themselves,” he said. “The sound design and soundscape was a way to try to provide a dreamy sort of space. A space that offers a sort of in-betweenness, this shoreline between life and death, these two different places: the spirit world and the land of the living.”

Kotz Cornejo said watching the film for the first time on her laptop didn’t do it justice.

“I watched the film on my small screen on my laptop, so this is my first time watching it in a theater, and it really impacted me,” Cornejo said. “The use of sound design also, the poetry of the narration which is done in Chinuk Wawa, those two elements were used to drive the emotion of the story.”

In a similar naturesque scene, Sweetwater talks about the uncertainty of the future. The camera blurs her in the foreground, focusing on the trees in the background. At the end of the film, Hopinka captures people moving around in a blur motion effect on a field, beautifully capturing the subject and the nature around them.

Through this technique, Hopinka represents the energy people have and create, in relation to the film’s message of spirituality.

Heavy significance is placed on language throughout the film. Hopinka discussed the importance when answering a question about Sweetwater speaking English, even though Mercier and other people in the film spoke Chinuk Wawa.

“I didn’t want to create a hierarchy between the two languages,” Hopinka said.

When the film was spoken in English, subtitles were in Chinuk Wawa. When it was spoken in Chinuk Wawa speaking

parts, the subtitles were in English. At times when no speaking can be heard, the subtitles were in both languages.

Hopinka aimed to make them equal and put dedication into them, which made the subtitles a key part of the film’s understanding.

“Chinuk has always been a way for me to be expressive in film through the friends I have, through the community I’m a part of,” Hopinka said. “It was a way for me to be like ‘What does a film look like entirely in Chinuk Wawa where it isn’t a spectacle to have a language, it’s just everyday usage? What does it look like in a contemporary setting?’”

Though he hates to edit his voice, Hopnika realized the importance of the film’s narration to the narrative and wanted to do both language translations justice.

“As I was blocking out Sweetwater and Jordan’s scenes, I was trying to figure out how they fit together,” Hopinka said.

“I was trying to find a common way to tie them together, and I felt like, okay I think I need to do a voiceover as a way to provide some abstract way of context to everything.”

To Hopinka, freedom to make what he believes in is important. He goes by his own guidelines to do it ethically, kindly, and gently to do both himself and his story service. Hopinka thinks a lot about permissions to do what filmmakers want to do to express themselves and their ideas.

“No one is going to ask you to make the films you want to make,” Hopinka said. “Having these tools so that I don’t need to depend on anyone, I don’t need funding from anyone. I can learn how to shoot, how to edit, I can make what I want to make. Fortunately, I have people around me that offer critique and feedback and help me make [films] as best I can.” karissa_schaefer@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

Sports

Hongyu Liu / Beacon Staff

Women’s soccer team defeats Wheaton College 2-1 Erin Fitman

nt

onde Beacon Corresp

Emerson’s women’s soccer team topped Wheaton College 2-1 in a Wednesday night matchup at Roch Field, bringing the team’s record on

the season to 6-4.

The Lions were coming off a 2-1 loss to Babson College, and their plan entering the match against Wheaton was simple—the team wanted to stick to their strong suits.

Wednesday’s game was especially meaningful for the Lions because

their families were allowed entrance into Rotch Field for the first time this season. The team was motivated to put forth a great game and a win for the home crowd of friends and family.

“We need to play our style of soccer possession, attacking style, and just play our game,” head coach David Su-

vak said in a postgame interview.

The Lions fell behind halfway through the first half when Wheaton College forward Lily Brown soared the ball through the defense to the back of the net in the 21st minute. Despite the early deficit, Emerson dominated possession time and controlled the pace of the game, tallying 12 shots to Wheaton’s five shots by the end of the game.

The first half consisted of the Lions trying to find opportunities to score.

They were in control of the game, defending the ball well, and trying to create offensive chances. At halftime, not many changes needed to be made, Suvak said.

“We really didn’t make any adjustments,” Suvak said. “We started with a plan of what we are trying to accomplish out there, and I only asked them to create more shooting opportunities and that is what they did.”

Going into the second half, the team was in high spirits––they were happy with the way they maintained possession in the first half.

“We had motivation and knew that we could dominate,” sophomore forward Simone Barrigan-Shaw said about going into the second half. “We just needed that extra push.”

That extra push would come early in the second half where Senior forward Grace Cosgrove would connect with Barrigan-Shaw, who would find the back of the net to tie the game 1-1 in the 50th minute.

Emerson continued to maintain control of the game throughout the second half, keeping to the plan of playing their game which ultimately led to the game-winning goal in the

October 14, 2021

8

69th minute.

First-year forward Alianna West-Rodrigues connected on a crossing pass from forward Gina Lukoskie and sailed one to the back of the net to take the lead the Lions would never relinquish.

“I’m super excited,” West-Rodrigues said after the game. “My family is here from Hawaii so they came a long way to watch me and it’s super exciting to be able to score and have them watch in person. This team is a family and we have created such a great bond with each other, and scoring the winning goal, I did it for them, not just me or my family, and it just meant a lot to me.”

Many players’ family members crowded the sidelines for the first time since 2019. Before tonight’s game, many dedicated family members would stand outside the fence at Rotch Field to catch a glimpse of the game.

One parent, Michael, who declined to provide his last name, expressed how he did not miss a home game all year as he would stand outside the fence at Rotch Field. He was excited to be able to get a better view of the game now that families are allowed entrance.

“It was hard to watch,” Michael said. “Especially with old eyes through the fence, but I’d come regardless. That’s the job of a parent.”

The Lions next take the field on Saturday, Oct. 16 for family weekend against Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

erin_fitman@emerson.edu

Emerson men’s soccer team defeated on Senior Day Cont. from Pg. 1

Tyler Foy

Beacon Staff For the first time in 710 days, Emerson’s men’s soccer team trotted onto Rotch Field with family members and opposing fans in attendance for a match against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which they lost 4-2.

The match also represented the team’s Senior Day, where every senior on the team was honored. Each senior was given a plaque with a miniature form of their jersey and flowers.

Senior forward RJ Dziejma, said the team was looking forward to the match because of the prospect of families returning to their home field.

“Everyone was pumped to come into this game,” Dziejma said after the game.

“We’ve had a rough couple of years as everyone knows and missing family, missing friends, and just to have everyone out, it was really special.”

The team scouted their opponent similarly to their approach to every match, but head coach Daniel Toulson said the message was much more sentimental.

“It means a lot for those guys that have been through a lot of things through the pandemic,” Toulson said in a post-game interview. “[The mindset was] no regrets, that it’s a short journey. The short four years that you get to do this for and it goes by really quick and making sure that they are excited about every single moment that they get to play.”

Dziejma’s mother, Lisa, said it has been tough without the ability to watch her son play but was proud to be able to be in the stands on Senior Day. “It’s so special this year,” Lisa Dziejma said. “The team’s gone through so much in the last year and a half and they missed their whole junior year. So for us as a family, it’s bittersweet. It’s the end of another chapter.”

As special as the day was off the field,

it was not quite as special on the field.

The Lions were immediately met with pressure from MIT’s offense. Some were still finding their seat when the Engineers crossed the ball into the box, taken off the foot of midfielder Richter Brzeski, and sent into the goal less than three minutes into the game.

The Engineers did not wait long to extend their lead. MIT took a shot from a distance which found the back of the net for their second goal, this one just early in the third minute.

After a couple of saves from firstyear goalkeeper Jacob Remer, the Lions would find themselves in another dangerous spot after giving MIT a free kick in the 15th minute. Taken again by Brzeski, who slotted the ball into the upper right corner of the goal for their third goal in just 15 minutes, making it an uphill battle for the Lions. Toulson said the early deficit could be attributed to poor possession in their own half.

“MIT is probably the best team in the NEWMAC in terms of their ball movement, their movement off the ball,” Toulson said. “The first goal we gave the ball away in a bad area, the second goal we gave the ball away in a bad area, and you can’t spot teams those goals.”

It didn’t get any easier for the Lions as MIT would continue to take shots and create chances for their offense. Remer kept Emerson in the match–making eight saves in the first half.

Things started to look up for the Lions in the 27th minute after sophomore midfielder Ben Deeming sent a ball over the top causing the MIT goalkeeper to come out of the box and clear it with a header. The ball landed near the feet of Dziejma and he took his shot, scoring the first goal for Emerson on their first shot of the game.

The goal was memorable for the senior and with his family in attendance.

It gave him the extra boost he needed to find the back of the net “Anytime my family is able to come

Sydney Ciardi / Beacon Staff out to a game it’s always something that I really look forward to,” Dziejma said.

“I really want to perform at the highest level when they’re here and even though the result wasn’t what we wanted it still felt good to have everyone surrounded by friends and family.”

The occasion of scoring in front of families at Rotch Field is a setting that hasn’t been able to happen without a fence in between for nearly two years.

Lisa Dziejma said this was an uplifting moment.

“Not coming through the fence has been the toughest thing,” she said. “It warms my heart, you know, he always works hard on the pitch. Especially in October, it’s breast cancer awareness month which I had and I got over, and it’s my birthday [month].”

The Lions closed the gap to two goals but the half wasn’t over yet. Before the whistle to signal halftime was blown, MIT would get their three-goal lead back in the 40th minute. It was a mess of a goal where the defender saved a goal with a

header that landed back in favor of the Engineers. After the ball was hit towards the right post, it trickled past the goal line.

The Lions went into the half down by three, but they weren’t out of the match just yet–coming into the second half with potentially their best level of play this season.

“The team that we were in the second half is who we’re trying to be,” Toulson said. “We were a lot more dangerous on the attack and I think our center-backs were a lot more confident stepping in to challenge goals.”

Despite a better showing in the second half from the Lions, it wasn’t enough to mount a comeback. Emerson’s second goal came in the 86th minute, when Junior forward Phil Han tapped in a pass from Dziejma. This would be the final point from either side ending in a final score of 4-2.

Dziejma––who had a goal and an assist––said that the second-half performance is something the team would like to carry into their upcoming matches.

“That’s the best half of conference soccer that we’ve played this season,” he said. “Hopefully we take that into our next game, which is non-conference, and then we bring it back on Saturday with a conference game.”

The next four games for the Lions are on the road before their final home game on Oct. 30. In their following matchup, they drew against Framingham State University on Tuesday, which broke a five-game losing streak. Despite their record of 2-8-2 on the season, Toulson said there are positives to the team’s development.

“We constantly talked to our guys about the process,” Toulson said. “There are lots of moments in games that we can be very positive about and try and build on those. In terms of building an identity as a program we’re actually doing pretty well.”

tyler_foy@emerson.edu