The College Hill Independent Volume 41 Issue 2

VOLUME 41 ISSUE 02 02 OCTOBE R 2020

A SHUT-AND-OPEN CASE Rhode Island’s Road Back to Trial by Jury

“I MAY DESTROY YOU” MAY JUST HEAL YOU On the Innocent Protaganist

TIGER WIDOWS Understanding Strife in the World’s Largest Mangrove Forest

Indy Cover Anticipatory Anxiety: Will It Ever Be The Future Joyce Tullis

Week in Review 02

Sad Reax Only ;( Justin Scheer Lucky Number 7(50) Erika Undeland

Nation + World 03

Tiger Widows Rhythm Rastogi

From The Editors It is Halloween 2012, Ari and I decide to dress up as PSY. I ask Ari what PSY wears, he says blue tuxedo black bow tie. Neither of us have blue tuxedos so we wear our youth orchestra suits. Ari’s dad is a conductor, so we have plenty of bow ties. We go out with our friends who dress up as witches and vampires. I listen to Flo Rida as we walk up the doorsteps. Ring the bell. Lady gives us a king-sized KitKat and asks us who we are, we tell her we are PSY. She looks at us. We do the horse dance - Gangnam Style.

She looks at us. We ask her if she’s seen Men in Black.

In 2020, things are hard to forget. Watch the debate, go on Twitter, check your Insta stories. It’s Libra season. Stand in front of the bathroom mirror with your toothbrush and your phone. The flash goes off as your roommate walks in, they ask you what you’re doing. You point your neuralyzer at them.

“Have you seen Men in Black?”

Metro 05

The Crisis Within A Crisis Amelia Anthony & Phoebe Ayres

09

A Shut-And-Open Case Louglin Neuert

Features 11

All Hands To The Pump Claudia Liu

Arts + Culture 17

“I May Destroy You” May Just Heal You Uwa Ede-Osifo

Science + Tech 13

Imagining Otherwise Anonymous

Literary 15

Sun Drop Nick Michael

Ephemera 7

8

Rub Two Seth Israel

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STAFF

Remembering the Ghost Crab Summer Kasia Hope

Week in Review Amelia Anthony Nick Roblee-Strauss | Nation + World Emily Rust Leela Berman Giacomo Sartorelli Anchita Dasgupta | Metro Ricardo Gomez Deborah Marini Peder Schaefer | Arts + Culture Seamus Flynn Alana Baer | Features Alina Kulman Alan Dean Edie Elliott Granger | Science & Tech Gemma Sack Anabelle Johnston Thomas Patti | Literary Kate Ok Bowen Chen | Ephemera Sindura Sriram Anna Kerber | X Maia Chiu Ethan Murakami | List Tara Sharma Sara Van Horn | List Designer Mehek Vohra | Staff Writers Uwa Ede-Osifo Mara Cavallaro Muram Ibrahim Justin Han Izzi Olive Bilal Memon Seth Israel Nell Salzman Victoria Caruso Zach Ngin Evie Hidysmith Kaela Hines Ella Spungen Sarah Goldman Alisa Caira Laila Gamaleldin Drake Rebman Morgan Awner Elana Hausknecht Rhythm Rastogi Nicole Kim Lucas Gelfond Rose Houglet Joss Liao Nicholas Michael Belinda Hu Leo Gordon CJ Gan Vicky Phan Tammuz Frankel Amelia Wyckoff Auria Zhang Olivia Mayeda Justin Scheer Gaya Gupta Eduardo Gutiérrez Peña Marina Hunt | Copy Editors Christine Huynh Grace Berg Jacqueline Jia Elaine Chen Sarah Ryan Jasmine Li Nina Fletcher Madison Lease Alyscia Batista | Design Editor Daniel Navratil | Designers Anna Brinkhuis Katherine Sang Kathryn Li Isaac McKenna Miya Lohmeier Clara Epstein | Illustration Editor Sylvia Atwood | Illustrators Sandra Moore Katrina Wardhana Floria Tsui Mara Jovanović Hannah Park Jessica Minker Rachelle Shao Yukti Agarwal Sage Jennings Ophelia Duchesne-Malone Joyce Tullis Charlotte Silverman Simone Zhao | Business Isabelle Yang Lauren Brown Evan Lincoln | Web Designer Sindura Sriram | Social Media Christina Ofori | Alumni Relations Jerry Chen | Spanish Translation Felipe Félix Méndez | Senior Editors Tara Sharma Sara Van Horn Cal Turner | Managing Editors Audrey Buhain Andy Rickert Ivy Scott | Managing Designer XingXing Shou

List 20

Tara Sharma, Sara Van Horn, & XingXing Shou

MISSION STATEMENT The College Hill Independent is a Providence-based publication written, illustrated, designed, and edited by students from Brown and RISD. We are committed to publishing politically engaged and accessible work. While the Indy is financed by Brown University, we hold ourselves accountable to our readers across the Providence community. The Indy rejects content that explicitly or implicitly perpetuates racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, ableism and/or classism.

Though this list is not exhaustive, the Indy strives to address these systems of oppression by centering the voices, opinions, and efforts of marginalized people in Providence and beyond.

The Indy is constantly evolving: we are always working to make our staff and content more inclusive. Though our editing process provides an internal structure for accountability, we always welcome letters to the editor.

*** The College Hill Independent is printed by TCI Press in Seekonk, Massachusetts.

02 OCT 2020 VOLUME 41 ISSUE 02

@THEINDY_TWEETS WWW.THEINDY.ORG

week in american innovation ILLUSTRATION Simone Zhao DESIGN XingXing Shou

SAD REAX ONLY ;(

BY Justin Scheer This Indy staff writer woke up at 7:30 AM and clicked on that wonderful black square with an eighth note in the middle, opening up a world of mind-numbing, digital bliss. He was perfectly content: lying under the covers, scrolling through an endless, curated stream of videos captioned “#shuffledance # � or “#myfitisfantastic #fyp� frying his silly little brain.

The app in question is, of course, TikTok, a short video sharing service that gained massive popularity after repeated coverage by The College Hill Independent. This morning routine—practiced by a vast swath of Gen Zers—faces an existential threat in the United States after the White House, purportedly acting in the interest of national security, issued an executive order on August 6 placing restrictions on the app. The first phase of restrictions—which includes a prohibition of new downloads and software updates— was initially set to begin on September 20 but was then delayed by the White House until the 27th. However, late last Sunday night, a federal judge granted TikTok a temporary injunction on the first phase of restrictions. According to the executive order, the next phase of restrictions—which will prohibit all web traffic to the app— begins on November 12 pending the outcome of the ongoing legal debacle between TikTok and the US Government.

The Trump Administration argues, using its trademark antiChina fear-mongering rhetoric, that ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, could use the data it collects on American users for nefarious purposes. The validity of these claims is up for debate, but if Trump is right—if Chinese intelligence has access to TikTok’s endless stream of data on the Hype House, the Sway House, Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae; if they collect and analyze information on every “WAP� dance, day-in-the-life vlog,

đ&#x;˜Šđ&#x;˜Šđ&#x;˜Šđ&#x;˜‡đ&#x;˜‡đ&#x;˜‡đ&#x;˜?đ&#x;˜?đ&#x;˜?đ&#x;Ľ°đ&#x;Ľ°đ&#x;Ľ°

and “Top 10 Lo-Fi Hip Hop Albums� compilation—then China would hold an overwhelming cyber-intelligence advantage over the US. Quite frankly, it makes this Indy staff writer scared. That said, Trump’s national security argument is largely speculative and unsubstantiated, but he may nevertheless force TikTok to shut down U.S. operations in the near future.

The White House delayed the initial September 20 ban because Trump tentatively approved a deal between Walmart, Oracle, and ByteDance the day before. He then walked back that blessing, stating that he would not approve any deal wherein ByteDance owns a stake in the app. According to Oracle and TikTok, ByteDance wouldn’t directly own any stake in the app in the proposed deal, but would instead own 80 percent equity in a new cooperative business entity, TikTok Global, until TikTok’s initial public offering. To be perfectly honest, all of this business jargon is beyond my comprehension or interest, so if you really want the business details, you can go read the Wall Street Journal or something.

In TikTok’s ongoing lawsuit against the US government over Trump’s August 6 executive order, they argue that the order is itself unconstitutional, citing a lack of “due process.� Additionally, a new constitutional argument, articulated by the ACLU in a series of highly authoritative tweets, has emerged in this public debate: the ban violates the First Amendment by “restricting our ability to communicate and conduct important transactions.�

True, there is no speech or expression worth defending more than that which the TikTok algorithm serves up to Gen Zers at any lull in their day at Zoom school.

The American people, if not the courts, need to wake up to the magnitude of the First Amendment implications before them. Charli D'amelio hitting the Renegade. Tony Lopez trivializing social justice issues. Mid ‘90s fan edits. Adolescent skaters enumerating the quirky idiosyncrasies of skate culture in order to ‘“confuse the posers.�’ Videos of people squishing kinetic sand, or other videos of the “oddly satisfying� genre. OH MY GAWD MY FIT IS FANTASTIC edits. “Put a finger down� videos. The list of sacred content at risk of suppression is endless.

Gen Z is begging the American judicial system to uphold this speech, to defend their right to consume whatever brain-frying content they choose or else risk compromising the integrity of the Constitution forever. Gen Z prays that ByteDance, Oracle, and Walmart strike a deal that Trump approves. But at this point, it’s out of their hands. — JS

LUCKY NUMBER 7(50)

BY Erika Undeland What do a single refurbished Dell laptop, five small Telfar bags, and 757 cans of Goya black beans have in common? They all cost $750. This sum has enjoyed a moment in the spotlight this week thanks to the jaw-dropping report printed by the New York Times, which revealed that President Trump paid 750 USD in taxes in 2016 and 2017, and a whopping 0 USD in 10 out of 15 years since 2000.

The internet quickly took to ridiculing the number by listing different consumer goods available to Americans with $750 to spare. This writer’s contributions to the discourse include a month’s rent in the residential cartel* of Fox Point, 1.28 percent of a year’s worth of tuition at Brown University, and a semester’s supply of Bagel Gourmet breakfast sandwiches. Unfortunately, one still cannot afford a Canada Goose jacket with that meager sum.

Why people focused on the $750 is a mystery, given that a payment of $0 for 10 years seems worse. Maybe it’s because the number has a history of outraging us. It is, after all, the cost that Martin Shkreli started charging per tablet for Daraprim, a life-saving drug that sold for a mere $13.50 before Shkreli began price gouging. Maybe it’s because we can see that Biden has paid over 4900 times more in taxes in 2017. Maybe it’s $750 of Maybelline.

Donald Trump Jr. proudly defended his father on Fox News, sweating out passionate filial piety, even though he seemingly has no inheritance in store for him. He claimed, spitting and frothing, that “people don’t understand what goes into a business.� This is halftrue—it’s doubtful that many people knew that one could write off $70,000 for haircuts.

Of course, the news should come as an outrage but not as a shock. The IRS has let taxpayers with savvy accountants save immense amounts over decades. From 1999 to 2001, a bodybuilder from Wisconsin deducted $14,000 for tanning oils, which he claimed helped his career. An orthodontist in 1962 claimed that the clarinet fixed an overbite, and thus let the family of the child write off the medically-necessitated lessons. A stripper in 1988 deducted her breast implants as a stage prop, given that her weekly earnings jumped from $750 (!) to $3500. Notably, writing off a mink coat to spruce up your wife for business dinner parties has been tried and ruled as an unacceptable deduction.

As the week churns by and the President provokes a new outrage that buries the bombshell into mere bytes, consider relaxing with a deductible luxury blowout, a group Plant City brunch, and Baccaro dinner, the combination of which can average around 750 USD. — EU *A cartel in this (and most) context(s) is a group of producers/suppliers who gather to fix prices.

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WEEK IN REVIEW

02

‘TIGER WIDOWS’ Understanding Strife in the World’s Largest Mangrove Forest

BY Rhythm Rastogi ILLUSTRATION Jessica Minker DESIGN Clara Epstein

content warning: mentions of PTSD, discussions of Known as ‘Tiger Widows,’ over three thousand of trauma and suicide, descriptions of violence these women carry on in the Sundarbans, grieving the deaths of their husbands, suffering financial insecuriIn May of 2020, the eastern states of the Indian subcon- ties, and experiencing the social stigmas of widowhood tinent saw a super cyclone overflood cities, displace in India. thousands of people, and cause over $13 billion in The inhabited regions of the forest are also chardamages. One of the areas that suffered most from acterised by extreme poverty and poor health. Over 50 these fierce storms was West Bengal’s first line of percent of the population is landless, with no access to defense—the Mangrove Forest of Sundarbans. Famous safe drinking water, transportation, or network connecfor its mangrove trees that act as a natural barrier tivity. Stable economic opportunities are hard to come against the periodic natural disasters, this 3900 sq. by for women, who are among the most marginalized. mile belt prevents high winds and tides from reaching Much of the economic work is based on agriculture that major cities like Kolkata, but it often suffers on its is highly dependent on the rain and soil conditions, and own. Because of the region’s unique geographic posi- the few people that work in the national parks find their tioning, cyclones and storms barge into this area first, livelihood dependent on the influx of tourists. The lack tearing down houses, dislocating power systems, and of energy access, infrastructure, and healthcare faciliuprooting lives. The chief minister of the state esti- ties increase their struggles to make ends meet. mates that the most recent cyclone may have destroyed The power structures that place the burden of 28 percent of the region and triggered an evacuation for bread-winning on men leave women unable to sustain half a million people. themselves. Women in the region have inferior access In the mosaic of islands, where water veins through to education and healthcare, and they often do not the terrain and the vegetation stands as a sentinel, life work. This further limits their social mobility and is a cruel blessing. The forest offers fertility and abun- increases their reliance on the men of the family. dance, only to quickly wash it away.

In an interview with The Indian Express, Kabita, The Sundarbans have one of the richest and most a mother of two and member of a folk dance troupe complex ecosystems in the world. The site supports that performs in the national park, talked about how fascinating biodiversity and is home to a number of she rarely finds work for the better part of the year. endangered species, such as the Bengal Tiger. For Every year, thousands of tourists reach Sundarbans the four million people who inhabit these islands, life to experience its natural beauty and biodiversity, and in the Sundarbans is intricately intertwined with the these women perform folk songs and dances about the forest. The primary economic activities include fishing, history of the island. As the three-month tourist season collecting honey, and hunting for crabs. Inhabitants comes to an end, so does their only source of income. co-exist with the flora and fauna, take care of the forest, Kabita’s husband had to migrate to a big city to and reside within it. support their family. “There are no jobs for women here, Over the past decade, the area has become famous and the money our husbands send is never enough,” for a more peculiar reason—deadly tiger attacks. she explained, “But no one thinks of generating jobs for Eroded natural habitats and submerged hunting us. We can’t leave behind our children and go outside. grounds push tigers into villages, where they attack What do we do to help run the family?” men who venture into the forests for work. These These preconditions of vulnerability are only exacconflicts have shaken up communities, often resulting erbated by the death of their husbands. There are presin fatal injuries or permanent scars for those involved; sures to take care of their homes and children, find food, the spouses of such injured men remain particularly and fetch fresh water from miles away, while simultaaffected. neously navigating the emotional toll of their loss.

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NATION + WORLD

Having no alternative source of income, most women must turn to the same work of fishing and hunting that killed their husbands, a dangerous job that puts them at the risk of being attacked by tigers, crocodiles, and other wild animals. In a twist of bitter irony, these women must return to the same water that swallowed their husbands and venture deeper into the forests with little hope of return.

Their communities don’t offer much help. Widows are often blamed for the deaths of their husbands, stigmatized due to superstitions, and shunned by society.

Called by the name ‘husband-eater,’ these widows are thought to bring misfortune onto the family, and the young ones are even physically and mentally tortured by their in-laws. Their community stops them from attending social and religious festivals, neglecting to invite their families to marriages or local celebrations.

This triple burden—social rejection, constraint on resources, and sexual vulnerability—that they must bear is scarcely mitigated by government policies.

There are no specific schemes that address the plight of these widows or the compounded struggles they face.

Where do you go when your forest betrays you and your people turn their back on you? Where do these women look?

The rising rate of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) adds to these troubles among tiger widows.

Often overlooked due to inadequate awareness about mental health, the rising psychological impacts of these attacks and the trauma they trigger remain unaddressed. A few mental health surveys have found that women in these villages who are in extreme psychological, emotional, and economic distress experience flashbacks of trauma, depression, and high levels of anxiety. These surveys attribute 70 percent of those cases to the tiger attacks.

Ms. Mistry, a 39-year-old tiger prawn farmer, witnessed a tiger drag her husband away in front of her eyes. Devastated by her loss, she suffered from body tremors and hallucinations, frequently exhibiting signs of PTSD. She carried out erratic crying and shouting, exclaiming, “Check the room… what is there… what sound is that outside? Oh God, I could not save him!”

02 OCT 2020

A terrible nightmare often woke her up—a repeated visual of a tiger extending its paws toward her. “Whenever I sit alone, the scene of his mutilated body, his cry from the tiger’s mouth, the sea of blood, the ferocious look of the tiger shatters me with terrible fear, anxiety, and sadness. I can’t remember when I had a good night’s sleep. I have no interest in life, I can’t laugh with the neighbors, I have no appetite for food, and I am just living for the sake of living,” she recounted. +++ For some, the impact of permanently losing a companion and partner goes deeper than the most evident psychological and financial issues. Ms. Gayen, who became a widow at the young age of 29, lost her husband on a ‘black’ trip. She is one of few widows whose husbands were killed by a tiger in a protected reserve—illegal to enter by any farmers or villagers.

Since her husband broke the law, she is not eligible for any compensation by the government. The news of his death must remain a secret, and her grief must bottle up inside her. “Since the accident, I have also changed.

No joy in mind, feeling absent-minded, can’t remember things, sometimes tears roll down my eyes without any reason,” said Ms. Gayen. “Feeling absolutely lethargic, no interest or motivation inside…When I see a couple walking by, it reminds me of my days with him.”

While loneliness is at the core of Ms. Gayen’s PTSD, she is only one of many tiger widows in the Sunderbans who share her tragic story. Structural systems overlook these women’s problems, making them feel worse. The stress and trauma is mentally intolerable and physically debilitating. The inability to go out and work reduces their earning capacities. Some become socially reclusive and stop talking to their family members and friends. Many think about ending their life. There is no space to voice this grief; they receive no support for their experiences.

And though it may seem like the tigers are the worst enemies for these women, they’re not. It’s climate change.

Satellite images of the labyrinthine islands show that sea levels rise by an average of three centimeters each year. Four islands have already disappeared into water, and 6,000 families have become climate refugees. As the fertile landscape vanishes into the sea, an unfortunate truth is revealed—the entirety of the Sundarbans may soon disappear.

The Bay is no stranger to climate change, and

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much like the rest of the planet, it has been unusually warm for the past decade. The rise in temperature not only increases the frequency of storms and cyclones, but it puts the entire ecosystem of the forest at risk.

An increasing salinity of the soil decreases mangrove growth, and this affects agriculture, producing high sulfate concentrations in soil. Industrial development units situated at the edge of the Sundarbans have increased the amount of pollutants and effluents released, with traces of heavy metals found in the region’s lifeforms.

The increased clashes between tigers and humans can easily be attributed to this change. Frequent flooding—owed to the increased occurrence of cyclones—washes away villages, destroys agricultural land, and breaks down homes. It also submerges various tiger habitats and increases the occurrence of these tiger attacks.

The most recent cyclone was the worst of this decade. This year has seen around 20 tiger-related deaths already, alongside the destruction of food and shelter. The islanders who have lost their livelihoods to the cyclone venture deeper into the vast forests to look for work. The tigers that lose their land due to rising sea levels and deforestation wander into human settlements to look for food. As the area of separation slowly shrinks, both sides steadily move into a battle, neither wanting to fight.

We must think about what this fight has in store for women, especially since ecological catastrophes such as these will only worsen. The impact of climate change disproportionately affects the women in these areas. Ecological grief is a relatively new phenomenon that considers the emotional and psychological toll that climatic change can have on humans. It often affects those whose cultures and livelihoods are synergetic with their environments. While it’s observation as a psychological effect is relatively recent, the experience of this grief is far from new for the widows of the Sundarbans. The mental health consequences of the attack combined with the ecological changes in their environment urges us to reconsider the short-term nature of our current climate policies.

While the work of nonprofit and humanitarian organizations helps rebuild infrastructures, the solutions required to holistically tackle climate change need to account for its human elements—personal experiences of loss, systems of oppression, and the need for community and belonging. Most of the mental health courses offered in the area are sporadic, temporary, and not economically viable for these women. The

distribution of food packets and rebuilding of homes after disaster respond to an immediate need within the population, but the interventions often end there.

Technocratic surface-level solutions that pervade such post-disaster assessments often ignore the need for long-term systemic measures that lie at the root of the problem—the need for basic healthcare services, educational access, mental health assistance, and alternative sources of stable income.

Rampant industrial activity, illegal poaching, and over-consumption of resources lie at the heart of the human-induced destruction on the islands. Along with these industrial policies, the climate strategy, like the managed retreat plan being envisaged for the Sundarbans, proposes to displace millions and turn them into climate refugees. Those who reside in the vulnerable zones of the islands will be moved out. They will have to make treacherous journeys to the slums in big cities, live new traumas, and slowly lose the cultural and social histories of their home.

Before climate change gets there, the government plans on erasing the memory of the Sundarbans.

India’s climate policies leave a lot to be desired, especially in regards to a consideration of gender inequality. When recognizing the unique vulnerabilities that women face and the differences in the way climate change impacts them, we must actively seek their participation in climate decision-making, provide gender-equitable access to resources, as well as create space for healing and coping with grief. These measures must find a space in our environmental policies.

Beyond that, this increased awareness about mental health problems in groups and accessible healthcare must reflect an active interrogation of national policies toward carbon sequestration, reduced industrial activity in the region, and sustainable adaptation strategies. This is the only long-term way to ensure that this ‘one of a kind’ land sustains itself.

I believe the resilient widows of the Sundarbans will find a way to move forward. They understand resilience from the tree roots that persevere in brackish water and adaptation from the singular species of tigers that learned to swim. With that said, they deserve far better.

RHYTHM RASTOGI B’22 urges you to consider donating to tigerwindows.org—an NGO that works to provide alternative sources of incomes for tiger widows and conserve the tiger population.

NATION + WORLD

04

BY Amelia Anthony and Phoebe Ayres ILLUSTRATION Sylvia Atwood DESIGN Miya Lohmeier

We’ve just crossed the seven-month marker of the pandemic’s presence in the United States, which means that seven months of rent payments have been due amid mass unemployment and loss of income.

COVID-19 has brought widespread suffering across the nation and globe, but the burden has fallen hardest on those who have the least. As those in the housing justice sphere have been emphasizing throughout the pandemic, “You can’t stay-at-home when you have no home.”

Rhode Island had its first two positive cases of COVID-19 confirmed on March 1. Within the next few weeks, all non-essential businesses, including courthouses, were closed until further notice.

Unemployment rates in the state skyrocketed from 4.7 percent in March to 18.1 percent in April. This massive loss of income has left many tenants unable to afford their rent payments. Consequently, landlords have been losing money—and patience.

Any amount of missed rent puts a tenant at risk for eviction. For the first time in Rhode Island District Court’s history, eviction hearings came to a halt on March 16. Due to continued social distancing mandates, no courtroom proceedings took place until June 2.

Pre-pandemic rental arrears evictions were the first to be heard, allowing cases caused by the pandemic to pile up.

Starting July 7, courtroom proceedings began for pandemic-related rental arrears. At this point in the summer, the unemployment rate was still high—11.2 percent in July 2020, compared to the more typical rate of 3.6 percent in July 2019. Additionally, COVID-19 infection rates around the country were rising again, as they would in Rhode Island in late July.

Evictions have long been a cause for protest for housing advocates. COVID-19 has catalyzed their national attention. By early summer, nearly every major

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news publication had aired stories of the impending wave of evictions and questioned how the government would react to the crisis. In the meantime, some activists took charge. In March, a coalition of tenants and organizers formed the Tenant Network Rhode Island (TNRI) with the goals of cancelling rent and mortgage payments and extending the eviction moratorium.

The group undertook widespread efforts to connect with tenants in need of financial and legal support by utilizing free services from the Center for Justice and Rhode Island Legal Services. Multiple weeks throughout the summer, volunteers stood outside the courthouse with signs offering community support for people experiencing eviction. Protesters even blockaded the courtroom doors in an attempt to physically prevent evictions from taking place.

Devra Levy, an organizer from TNRI, summed up a common sentiment across the housing advocacy field: “In a way, I’m glad this is bringing light to housing issues, but every time I hear or read articles about the housing crisis related to COVID, one of my responses is always that all of these problems already existed; none of these housing problems that we’re hearing about are new.”

Indeed, this is true. The eviction rate in Rhode Island is 3.07 percent, more than double its neighboring state of Massachusetts’ rate of 1.52 percent.

Fifty percent of renter households in Rhode Island are cost-burdened—and these are pre-pandemic figures— spending over 30 percent of their monthly income on rent. Over four thousand people experience homelessness in Rhode Island per year. To put it simply, the state does not have enough affordable housing.

The underlying agreement in anti-eviction housing justice is that no one should experience the violence of being removed from one’s home. This summer, social justice advocacy—particularly the Movement for Black

Lives—has provoked conversation around the intersection between housing justice and racial justice. Black women in the US, the ACLU found, are two times more likely to be evicted than white renters. Here in Rhode Island, communities of color were found to experience higher eviction rates. The concurrent crises of COVID19, police brutality, and eviction have all fallen hardest on communities of color, especially Black communities. +++ This summer, an Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award (UTRA) gave us the opportunity to research the effects of COVID-19 on renters in Providence and Rhode Island. This project is part of a multi-year study by Brown University undergraduates into the field of evictions. We took a mixed-methods approach consisting of interviews, Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis, and tenant survey collection. We kept a careful eye on how the government and the people of Rhode Island reacted to the looming eviction crisis.

Part of this research was a virtual, anonymous renter survey, from which we received over 250 responses. We asked tenants in Rhode Island to respond to our survey with the hopes of collecting firsthand information about the renter’s experience during COVID-19.

Thirty-four respondents reported difficulties paying their rent since March 1, which we determined was a result of COVID-19 and its financial ramifications. This was extremely consistent with predictions of renter hardship in Rhode Island as a whole. At the onset of the pandemic, experts predicted that 33–35 percent of renters would have difficulty paying rent once the $600 of the CARES act expired.

Our survey asked, “Did your household lose some

02 OCT 2020

The Crisis Within a Crisis The Story of COVID-19 and Evictions in Providence

or all of its main source of income since March 1?” to which we received 55 responses. 27.3 percent answered “Yes, all.” 65.5 percent answered “Yes, some.” 7.3 percent answered “No.” When asked to elaborate further, 90 percent of respondents specifically cited their loss of a job or income as the reason for their rental hardship since March 1.

Our survey and interviews illuminated the severity of the crisis, both in breadth and depth, for renters in Rhode Island. People are struggling to pay their rent in our city and state, largely due to COVID–related job losses.

We are extremely grateful to any tenant who shared their experience with us by responding to our survey. We have provided a list of resources for struggling tenants to utilize within our survey and encourage anyone struggling with housing insecurity in Rhode Island right now to reach out to TNRI. +++ Our background research included keeping up with the ever-changing courtroom health protocols. Due to social distancing guidelines, eviction proceedings in July and August were limited. Cases were spaced out in 20-minute increments. Masks were required inside the courtroom. No one was allowed into the building without an official court appointment. Due to these measures, a maximum of about 12 cases could be heard per day. The only factor effectively slowing the wave of evictions predicted by activists, economists, and other experts is the rigid scheduling between hearings.

In the world before COVID-19, a typical day at eviction court was crowded, loud, and chaotic. Caseloads ranged anywhere from 20 to 50 per day. At 9 AM, landlords, attorneys, and tenants would pile into courtroom 3E at the Providence District Courthouse. When

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a tenant’s name was called, their landlord’s attorney would signal to them to go meet out in the hallway.

There, the negotiations between attorneys and tenants would take place. Tenants behind on their rent were offered a payment plan or given instructions to vacate their residency. These interactions highlighted power imbalances; research we conducted in the fall of 2019 revealed that 100 percent of landlords were represented in court, whereas only 7 percent of tenants were.

The power imbalance between landlord and tenant has only been exacerbated by COVID-19. Jennifer Wood, executive director of the Center for Justice, spoke to us about the notion of “housing as health” in the pandemic state, which mandated citizens to shelter-in-place.

“Suddenly, people think, ‘I care a lot about keeping you in your house so that you don’t breathe on me’,” said Wood.

In this analogy, landlords are health practitioners, yet because they are vastly unregulated, certain violations might occur. It’s nearly impossible to gather data on the prevalence of illegal eviction in Rhode Island, although housing experts warn of an increase due to moratoriums. An illegal eviction occurs when a landlord doesn’t go through proper court procedure to remove a tenant from their property, for example by changing the locks or filing an eviction in retaliation to the tenant calling code enforcement.

Our survey had a section for tenants to report incidences of illegal eviction strategies or bad landlord behavior since March 1. Six respondents said their landlord has verbally or physically abused them. Two respondents said their landlord threatened to call the police, ICE, or other authorities. One respondent reported that their landlord changed the locks, another that their landlord shut off utilities, and another had their belongings physically removed from the home while they were still living there. +++

behind on rent “because of financial hardship due to the COVID-19 emergency.” For a single person, that’s $45,850 a year. The program requires agreement from both parties—landlord and tenant—for participation.

However, The Public’s Radio reported that out of the total 13.5 million in rental relief, only half a million has actually been paid out to tenants. The backlog is reportedly caused by difficulties in gathering necessary documentation and working with people who are paid in cash or don’t have bank accounts. This administrative delay reinforces Rhode Island’s need for a more robust housing support infrastructure that can withstand the pressures of an emergency—and the everyday. While incredibly important, paying money to landlords to keep people in their homes is a shortterm solution. It won’t fix the deep affordable housing crisis in our state, the root of the ongoing eviction crisis.

The last question in our survey asked, “Do you think that you would still have trouble paying rent if COVID-19 hadn’t happened?” While a majority—73 percent—responded “No,” 19 percent responded “Yes.” (The other options were “I don’t know,” and “Prefer not to answer.”) In the text box provided, some of these tenants chose to elaborate.

“Rent is extremely high regardless,” one tenant wrote. “I always struggle paying, and I never have money to pay for leisurely things.”

The CDC announced a moratorium on evictions on September 1 that lasts until the end of the year. Any tenant who suffered loss of income from COVID-19 and was making less than $99,000 a year is protected.

Tenants only need to show a declaration, linked in the byline below, to their landlords to guarantee protection from an eviction for non-payment of rent. This buys Rhode Island a few more months to develop a system that can keep people safely in their homes. The financial effects of COVID-19, however, and its resulting eviction crisis will last far beyond 2020.

Another long-term eviction prevention program could target the root of the issue: the lack of affordable housing. It is vital that more affordable housing be made available to tenants in our state. The lack of systematic investment in housing is reflected in the state budget: Rhode Island typically spends a meager $6 per capita on affordable housing, while Massachusetts spends $100. Important legal initiatives to keep people in their homes include Right to Counsel, which ensures that every tenant in eviction court has representation. This would alleviate some of the power imbalances present in court, as would the passage of Senate Bill #2264 to seal eviction records.

The concurrent crises of COVID-19 and eviction should restructure the way that we think about housing.

Rhode Island—a state that has been historically negligent when it comes to adequately housing its residents—has the opportunity to reprioritize.

Prior to the pandemic, tenants struggling to pay rent would have had to scrape up money from whatever nonprofits, friends, or family could offer. COVID-19 caused the first eviction prevention programs—in the form of monetary funds granted to at-risk tenants—to be implemented in the state.

A state-specific rental relief fund of 1.5 million dollars was announced on May 2, titled Housing Help RI. Applicants had to go through a process described in a WPRI article as “onerous” and “opaque” to receive funds. Each struggling household was eligible for a maximum of $5,000, which permitted the fund to support roughly 300 households. On May 28, Governor Raimondo added an extra 5 million dollars due to how quickly it was depleted.

On July 10, Governor Raimondo announced the Safe Harbor Program, an “eviction diversion program” which is a collaboration between the United Way and PHOEBE AYRES ‘20.5 and AMELIA ANTHONY the courts. Sponsored by the federal CARES Act, the ‘22 want any tenants currently at risk of facing eviction 7-million-dollar rental relief fund was expected to to show this document (https://rb.gy/ulwetu) to their help between 1,000–2,000 households. The program landlord. Their final research report is visible here: opened for applications on July 15. To be eligible for the (rb.gy/sfya2f ) fund, renters must meet two requirements: being at or below 80 percent of Area Median Income and being

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THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

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A SHUT-ANDOPEN CASE:

Rhode Island’s Road Back to Trial by Jury

BY Louglin Neuert ILLUSTRATION Joyce Tullis DESIGN Anna Brinkhuis

Bail in Rhode Island for a misdemeanor starts at $100 in cash, and rises quickly from there. The lowest levels of felonies go for $500 cash. That’s the floor—for repeat offenders, the numbers can quickly pile up. This time last year 650 people were awaiting their trial in jail, many because they were unable to pay bail. If you don’t have a car, and live in a neighborhood underserved by RIPTA, a Lyft or Uber runs for about $15 each way.

One part of the weight of the prison industrial complex can be measured in years and dollars. When people are accused of a crime and go to trial, win or lose, they are compelled by the state to surrender their autonomy to months of stress, worry, and heartache.

The process is expensive; and if people cannot afford legal counsel, they are funnelled towards legal aid that

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is much less effective. At every phase of a trial, people have an immense obligation to pay for fines, fees, and phone calls.

Racist and classist institutions funnel that burden disproportionately onto people of color and low-income people. The wealthy aren’t faced with a choice between groceries and legal aid, nor is their ability to pay fines or fees destroyed by a medical emergency.”

Discrepancies in policing and prosecution shift charges disproportionately onto people of color. Punishments compound, quite literally, over years. Charges build onto charges, fines rack up late fees. Years of potential prison time, decades, hang over people out on parole.

This summer, the stakes have gotten even bigger. Jails and prisons are dangerous spreading grounds for

COVID-19, whose impacts are also enmeshed within the country’s racist and classist history of unequal health outcomes. Inmates in jails and prisons aren’t getting stimulus checks, adding insult to the financial injury of mass firings, evictions, fines, and court fees.

One small arrow traditionally remains in the quivers of individuals facing a system that is so often stacked against them: everybody has a right to a jury trial, and nobody can be compelled to wait for it indefinitely.

But the pandemic has changed access to legal recourse, too. Nobody in Rhode Island has had a jury trial since March 16, the day that orders came down to move to only ‘emergency’ trials. The courthouse hasn’t sat empty, though. Bench trials, where the

2 OCT 2020

judge acts as jury, returned in Rhode Island over the summer—hundreds of evictions, for example, which are almost always bench trials, were argued in the last two months. No juries, however, were selected over the entire summer. If courts continue operating under strict social distancing parameters, jury trials will remain out of the question until a vaccine is ready— which is to say, indefinitely. Trials that were ready to go back in March have been sitting on judicial calendars for months. In April and May, as the Department of Corrections scrambled to get monitors and video conferencing software, communication between defendants and their lawyers was largely broken. Even now it isn’t always easy or reliable for legal counsel to speak to their clients, which makes it difficult to build a robust legal defense strategy.

If a state court began granting COVID–related motions to dismiss cases under the ‘speedy trial’ section of the 6th amendment, they would likely be forced to grant them to thousands of people, preventing thousands of trials. “Judges don’t like to just dismiss trials,” said Vermont attorney Lisa Shelcrot in an interview with the College Hill Independent, “nobody is ready to start granting COVID–related speedy trial motions yet.” And it’s not quite obvious when they would start, as precedent is murky at best about what constitutes an ‘unspeedy trial.’

That doesn’t mean that the courts aren’t worried about potential violations to the 6th amendment.

Some jurisdictions in California, already facing a huge backlog of both civil and criminal trials, moved to begin masked trials late this summer, and other states across the country are following suit. However, Rhode Island has taken a more cautious approach when it comes to juries, building over months toward a plan of action that should see trials by jury unrelated to speedy trial objections return to the docket by January 1, 2021.

They have hit the ground running in the remote arena, working to relieve the pressure and backlogs as much as possible through teleconferencing.

As summer turns to fall, and Coronavirus cases begin to rise again in Rhode Island, the eyes of the legal world—private attorneys, judges, prosecutors, and public defenders—are turned toward the upcoming announcement, expected some time next week, about the state’s official courtroom jury-trial protocols for the foreseeable future. Speaking over the phone with Marisa Brown, the administrator of the Superior Court of Rhode Island, the Indy gathered the outlines of what jury trials will look like in the fall. The modifications largely come down to physical changes within the courthouse, along with general scheduling changes, explained Brown. “Our Facilities Department had to find a lot of plexiglass… and it wasn’t so easy to come by a couple months ago,” she explained. “Then, of course, there’s the problem of acoustics with that plexiglass, so we had to find the right audio equipment… which was also hard to do.”

Brown’s descriptions were reminiscent of COVID– proofing whack-a-mole: solving one problem engendered a host of new ones. Jury selection can meet social distancing rules as long as they use a second courtroom for spillover. But asking potential jurors to sit in other rooms for selection means needing to find another room for said jurors to take breaks and deliberate in.

Plexiglass begs audio equipment. Dividing the jury into multiple rooms begs visual equipment. Shortening jury selection to half-days permits jurors to avoid coming and going too much from outside the building, but it might also mean extending the number of days needed to select a full jury, which increases the overall likelihood of someone showing up sick at some point.

The rough picture of the future is this: potential jurors will be asked to come in for shorter days, in socially-distanced spaces. Everyone will wear face coverings. The judiciary has expanded their shuttling system to make sure that jurors can continue to park remotely and be ferried to the courthouse without overcrowding the buses.

Some of the protocol has already been put to use this summer, for hearings (including eviction-related hearings) and for the state’s Grand Jury, which decides whether or not the state has enough grounds to charge an individual which reconvened in May. Any visitor to the courthouse is asked for a symptom, contact, and travel check at the front door by courthouse security.

They also must be there exclusively on official courthouse business. As of yet, there is no proactive testing, temperature screening, or plans to institute those protocols. Brown pointed to success from this summer’s

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

hearings and Grand Jury deliberations as evidence of the efficacy of their system. “When we’ve had a symptomatic person, or a positive test this summer,” she said, “we’ve been able to contain it because we have so few people and we can contact trace them, and everyone has been compliant and good at wearing their face coverings.” Even with the best case scenario, using more courtrooms for fewer trials makes it harder to keep up with the constant inflow of trials, nevermind clearing out the backlog.

If this system is able to prevent particularly egregious wait times for some people, it must also accept the fact that everyone will have to wait longer. And that waiting doesn’t come easy: Rhode Island is one of eight states with no exceptions to at-will employment, a court case or an active charge can often be grounds for firing. Charges, even before they are settled, can prevent access to jobs or housing.

The Rhode Island Judiciary’s expenditure reports from the CARES Act back up the efforts that Brown described. Monthly payments totaling $295,255.50 to Ambient Sound Inc. of Warwick belie the build up of audiovisual equipment, and $53,697.12 toward various janitorial services underscore the focus on cleanliness.

In the mess of expenditures that the portal presents, the Indy was pleased to find the Judiciary’s tab, which represents expenditures for all six courts operating in Rhode Island, well organized and easy to make sense of. Employees at the courthouse seem to be operating

“STILL, ANY POTENTIAL GRAIN OF SAND IN THIS MACHINE IS NERVEWRACKING FOR ITS ARCHITECTS.”

“People don’t really know this, since it isn’t the part that they show on TV, but one of the most important moments in a trial comes just before the jury deliberates, when the judge gives the jury instructions,” added Geiselman, noting that the process is so central that it can often take up to forty minutes. “The judge will usually tell the jury, ‘Listen, there’s no magic formula to determine credibility, but you’ve been doing it all your life. You judge credibility every day when you interact with new people, you read it in people’s faces and in their voices.’” It’s a very new phenomenon for people to try and gauge trust from faces and voices obscured by masks.

“The way the trials are being handled has been turned on its head, and it’s not just a question of scheduling,” said Geiselman. Months-long interruptions in client-lawyer communication make it hard to bring trials in front of a jury, and Geiselman added that, “A lot of us are certainly waiting to see what the actual plan will be before moving ahead.”

Shelcrot, a private defense attorney, raised further concerns about the challenges of COVID-19 restrictions on the conduct of a trial. “In a criminal trial, you are normally sitting next to your client and communicating back and forth. Figuring out a way to communicate with your client that is both distanced and confidential… is not too obvious.” And when it comes to objections and sidebars, the puzzle gets only more complicated. “Lawyers might need to communicate with the judge completely out of earshot of the jurors for various reasons,” Shelcrot explained. “Normally we do that by getting up close to them and whispering, but we can’t do that anymore.”

Normally, the court also works hard to make sure that a defendant is never seen in active custody by the jury; for example, in handcuffs. It’s also imperative that the jury never knows if a client’s lawyer is a public defender. Witnessing either of these can prejudice a jury against a defendant. But lines of movement in the building are complicated by jury spillover, and Geiselman and Shelcrot both fear that COVID– proofing the trial will risk compromising their clients’ protection from the eyes of the jury. The jury won’t all be in one room, so the tactics the court normally uses will have to be adapted. Any slip up will be paid for by defendants in the currency of credibility.

The situation presents itself as a bit of a hesitant standoff. Both defendants and their advocates, along with the state and its prosecutors, have a vested interest in getting jury trials off the ground quickly and in keeping them safe. Defense attorneys, though, are concerned about the exact way that the texture of a COVID containment plan will impact their litigation, especially as the process of making guidelines has come mainly from the court and judges themselves.

For cases that carry the weight of punishment in time and money even when there are only implications on parole, erring too far on one side opens the door for catastrophe. Too slow and the court will have countless (potential) 6th amendment violations on their hands; too constricted and they risk hamstringing lawyers’ abilities to do their jobs, opening the door to a slew of mistrials. And, if they go too fast or too loose, they risk a major Coronavirus outbreak, all as we hurdle towards flu season. Even if all parties do everything right, there is no telling whether the courts can completely prevent the virus from making inroads. As the countable impacts of delays build up, so too do uncountable ones: energy, missed opportunities, and worry. Defendants have been held in limbo by a disease, and nobody can give back months of stress and unfreedom to those whose trials have been put on the backburner. Our criminal justice system cannot provide that kind of justice.

The pandemic necessitated a shift in the rules at the very center of America’s rule-making and rule-arbitration. For those who live by precedent, ‘unprecedented’ times are a major hurdle, and the outcomes of such times will affect the thousands of lives in Rhode Island that await the next cycle of—very different— trials by jury. Civil servants at the courthouse are doing their best to prepare a system that works, but the process of ironing out the kinks has very real implications—years of potential prison time and thousands of potential dollars in fines—for Rhode Islanders.

faithfully and transparently with the goal of running as clean and safe of a courthouse as possible. What they have accomplished is no small task.

Still, any potential grain of sand in this machine is nerve-wracking for its architects. When asked about the greatest challenge to the system, Brown pointed to the inevitability of flu season. “If one of the jurors is symptomatic or may have symptoms that could be COVID-19, you have to err on the side of caution and that person has to be tested,” said Brown. “And the sitting judge would have to send the other jurors home while we wait for test results.”

Concerns were different for Collin Geiselman of the Public Defender’s office. “If I’m cross-examining a police officer, say, about a potential fourth or fifth amendment violation, how does a facemask impact credibility?” he asked, pointing out that “lawyers on all sides, prosecutors and defense attorneys, have been trained for years to speak persuasively to a jury.

That jury traditionally is sitting together.” Without the ability to read the juries’ faces, whether because they are wearing coverings or because they are scattered across multiple rooms, the job of actually conducting a LOUGHLIN NEUERT B’22 wants, but cannot handle, trial gets much more difficult. How can defendants be the truth. sure that their face coverings won’t impact the perception of their credibility?

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ALL HANDS

BY Claudia Liu ILLUSTRATION Claudia Liu DESIGN Clara Epstein

content warning: mildly graphic descriptions The truth is, I’d already sort of realized I was in fix delicately human things all day long, standing trouble earlier that morning. Each day at around 7 on their feet for 12, 13 hours, one surgery after of blood and surgery AM, as far as I could tell, all the physicians, nurses, another. From my vantage point on a stool in the Plip-plip-plip-BEEP. Plip-plip-plip-BEEP. and medical students in the same department held a corner, the round operating lights framed their My mother’s gossiping always seems to land me in meeting to go over prominent cases and patient updates. heads like halos. They made good subjects. I drew bizarre situations. One smoggy morning in the summer I’m kind of embarrassed to admit it, but despite visiting with my favorite medium: twistable crayons. The of 2019, I woke up in a stranger’s house to get in a China many times, I can’t read a single word of Chinese ones I had that week were fruit-scented, the kind stranger’s car to be driven to a hospital in the center of a either. The presentations and PowerPoints the hospital they make for little kids. The only other people strange city. We came to Shanghai to stay with a family staff so diligently prepared were completely wasted on not clustered around the patient and sitting in friend, but when my mother found out their son-in-law me. As I stared desperately at the only things I had a the corner with me were the assistant anesthewas a local spine surgeon, well, she insisted her pre-med chance of comprehending—the pictures—I hoped that siologists; besides the beginning and end of the daughter shadow him for the week. I don’t want to get the surgeries themselves would carry the experience procedure, when the patient goes under and when in the way, I said. I’m American-born, an impostor; it’s despite the language barrier. the patient wakes up, they don’t have much to do. my first time in this city; I don’t know the culture—What Gazing around at the members of the morning Like the nurses, all of the anesthesiologists I met if I do something rude? I ended up in the parking lot of meeting enjoying their catered breakfast (bao zi, jian were women. In one of my sketches, I managed to China’s second-oldest hospital for Western medicine bing, and soymilk), I noticed something else besides capture them working on a patient at the start of a anyway. As we crossed the main entrance, I spied the my lack of vocabulary. All the surgeons and medical particularly long operation.

English name stamped in subscript beneath the faded red Chinese on the big sign: Renji Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai JiaoTong University School of Medicine. As expected of a public healthcare center, it’s swarming with people even before the break of dawn.

Okay, I checked my phone. 5:32 AM. I guess we’re doing this.

I remember the first surgery I saw while visiting there. It was the first surgery I had ever seen, period.

Dressed in a set of scrubs way too big and a pair of slippers way too small, I stood in the corner of the operating room and tried to keep myself as out of the way as possible as surgeons, medical students, and anesthesiologists rushed around preparing for the patient’s arrival. It was a tight room with a low ceiling and yellow lights, the pale walls obscured by a myriad of strange equipment I didn’t understand—arcane machines with plastic tubes and metal clamps. I remember holding my breath when they finally wheeled the patient in and sent him to sleep, the tension in the air before the first cut. The IV dripped in triplet rhythm with the heart monitor. Plip-plip-plip-BEEP. Plip-plip-plip-BEEP. It felt like witnessing something sacred, something secret, and when it was done, they hosed the blood off the floor like mud off rain boots, the most routine thing in the world.

Unfortunately, after the initial excitement of experiencing the operating room as a spectator for the first time, I ran into a serious problem: I knew zero medical Chinese. My Mandarin is conversational on a good day, but the southern Shanghai accents might as well have been spaghetti to my Beijing-adapted ears. One time, as I was walking to the convenience store in the basement of the hospital, a couple saw my white coat and asked me for directions, but all I heard was, “Hi! Can you tell us where H%Kj^&##@sl is?” Not wanting to out myself as a foreigner, I panicked and told them that sorry, it was my first day there and smiled and ran, which, in my defense, wasn’t a complete lie. But because I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying, and the surgeons didn’t have the time, energy, nor medical English to explain it to me, it became obvious about five minutes in that not having any clue as to what was happening made a four-hour orthopedic surgery a very boring show. The amusement of dodging behind a plastic shield every time the team called for an X-ray wore off fast. Not to mention, with all the doctors clustered around the stretcher, I couldn’t see so much as a capillary. That first day, I took to staring at a mysterious spatter-like stain on the wall while the occasional sounds of bones being hammered or blood being vacuumed played on behind me.

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students were men, and all the nurses were women.

Actually, in my entire time being led around during patient rounds and observing in the OR, I didn’t see a single doctor who wasn’t male. Needless to say, I was a bit unnerved. Later, at a dinner with family in Beijing, my mother’s great uncle ‘advised’ me that women weren’t suited to be surgeons because they don’t have, quote, “stamina.”

I turned to my mother and said in English, “I could break his neck with one hand.”

“He’s not trying to be discriminatory,” she replied.

“It’s just the truth.”

But to their credit, the medical students were wonderfully welcoming. At times when the senior surgeon I’d come to shadow became too busy to babysit, I stayed in the office where the majority of his students had their lunch, studied their cases, and loitered in between surgeries. They asked me where I went to school, what I studied, how I knew their teacher. I learned that one of them had studied in California, and another had never been to America but always wanted to visit. They asked me what my days were like and I asked about theirs. One of them bragged that he got up at 4 AM for hospital work every day. Oh yeah?

I challenged. Well, I go to bed at 5. I’ll admit, I wanted to impress them. I think, maybe, I wanted to disguise a fact I was realizing all the time and didn’t want them to know—that I was an outsider in more ways than one.

Though as it turns out, not completely.

Before anyone can enter the surgical wing, they’re required to change into scrubs in the designated locker rooms. Since I didn’t know my way around, one of the medical students had to escort me there every single time (he usually waited outside while I took care of business). One day, while I was getting out my assigned slippers, the lady at the locker next to me pointed at my shirt and asked if I went to Brown. It took me a second to register that she was asking me in English, not Chinese. I said yes, and it turned out she’d spent time as a student in Providence, working and studying anesthesiology at Rhode Island Hospital, the same place I’d frequented as a student volunteer with a healthcare organization the year before. And now, here we were, meeting all by chance in a locker room clear across the world, a different kind of medical miracle. As we waved goodbye, I thought, Maybe there’s room here for someone like me after all.

On the second day, I started bringing my sketchbook to the OR to head off the boredom.

When the surgery is on, the surgical team is on, focused and disciplined, wielding heavy tools to

“Hey, that’s me!” One of them pointed and shouted excitedly when I showed her. She waved the senior anesthesiologist over. “Teacher Wang, look—you’re there, too!” When we said goodbye, I wound up giving the anesthesiology team the drawing as thanks for letting me barge into their business.

Because no matter what country they’re in, pre-med shadowers are fated to be intruders. During a break between operations, the surgeon I’d been following offered to take me around the wing to see some of the other operating rooms. I trailed along shyly as staff in the hallway glanced at me quizzically, likely wondering what I was doing there. Hell if I knew.

We stopped at one of the sliding doors, and he quickly peered through the window before pressing the button to enter and confidently striding in. I scuttled in behind, then froze. The chest of the man on the table was held wide open, his organs pulsing visibly: open heart surgery. We just waltzed into open heart surgery. My surgeon waved to one of the surgeons working at the table, and they cheerfully exchanged greetings. While they stood chatting, I stood there looking at a man’s exposed and beating heart, thinking, one: SHOULD I BE HERE? And two: EYES ON THE ROAD, PAL. On the same day, as we were leaving the hospital cafeteria after lunch, I went to wash my hands in the sinks. Above the door hung a sign picturing a pair of hands with bubbles, which I assume in Chinese said something like, “Wash your hands.” In China, it’s common for signs to have English translations, but they aren’t always accurate. On the sign, under the Chinese text, rather than, “Wash your hands,” it said, “All hands to the pump.” All hands to the pump. I started laughing so hard the nearby employees looked at me strangely, wondering what the joke was. I wish I’d remembered to take a picture. In the end, it isn’t so bad to sneak among the crowd as a stranger.

And sometimes, it’s a privilege you can’t take for granted. In addition to surgery, the physician I shadowed worked at the outpatient clinic, so naturally, I followed along. Renji Hospital is a public hospital and receives government funding; as a result, the care there is cheaper than a private hospital, but the number of patients is much, much higher. Every day when I visited the clinic, the elevator doors would slide open to reveal a waiting room packed floor to ceiling—entire families piled on one chair, mothers with babies sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the ground, an anxious crowd glued to the door of each doctor’s office, hoping desperately for their turn to be next. Throughout the hospital, the hallways were crammed with more people than air, exhausted from waiting days to get their consultation.

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TO THE PUMP

Sticking close to my surgeon as we pushed through the horde, I felt embarrassed to be a tourist in this place of suffering. What kind of voyeur was I? We saw the patients in a small room with a desk, a computer still running Windows XP, and two chairs— one for the doctor, one for the patient. I stood. Each patient came with their own X-ray results already in hand, stacked neatly in a Manila folder for the physician to quickly check against the light of the window.

The doctor could only afford to meet with each family for a few minutes, and even then, completely unrelated people would try to push their way into the office during the visit. Some would just open the door, walk through, and stand, waiting, for the current visit to be over. A med student was often stationed in the doorway to force people back out to the waiting room. Used to the strict patient privacy of American healthcare, I was stunned. It was like a medical lightning round; the doctor must’ve seen 30 patients per hour. By the end of the shift, the staff were exhausted, and it wasn’t even noon.

The infrastructure of the hospital itself struggled under the weight of its clientele. Already an ancient building, the hallways were lined with naked cement, cracks in the walls, and dozens of trash barrels, piled up and rotting. Sorry, the doctor told me. Our hospital’s in a bit of rough shape, isn’t it? The bathrooms didn’t carry

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

soap or toilet paper; according to my mother, people would steal them. The majority of Shanghai citizens, she explained, couldn’t afford to go to a private hospital.

Midway through the week, I actually visited one such private hospital. The hallways were laid with sparkling linoleum floors. It was quiet and empty. No waiting room I saw had more than five people. The bathrooms were clean, stocked, and modern. Most luxuriously, each patient received at least 15 minutes of consultation with no intrusions, practically an eternity. I’ve thought about that difference a lot long after I finished my final day of shadowing and said goodbye to the OR, to Renji, to Shanghai; how privileged I was to see it as an outsider and not a patient. I think about all the things that get missed in a 30-second visit with a doctor who sees a thousand patients a day; about the pain of sitting on the floor with a spinal injury for countless hours; about how disease must spread in a place where the rooms are crowded, and you have to bring your own soap, and the cleaning staff are overbooked; and above all, about how the only thing separating you from being free of all of those things is a bill. An impossibly large, goddamn bill.

I won’t be applying to medical school in China, but with healthcare costs in the United States astronomically high and still climbing, how can I become a doctor knowing so many people don’t get quality care, or any

care at all, just because they can’t afford it? How many have died for someone else’s greed? And even if they do manage to pay, how can I knowingly give someone treatment that will bankrupt them, forcing them to choose between their health, their house, or their child’s education? Why does there have to be such a high price on human life, not only in the era of COVID19, but also before and beyond?

Months after that summer, standing in the triage bay of the Miriam Hospital, where I volunteered until March, I pull out my sketchbook while waiting for work to do. I start sketching an old man reading a newspaper, using the same scented crayons. It feels good. That is, until the head nurse pulls me aside.

“Stop doing that,” she says. “It’s a HIPAA violation.”

I stammer my apologies, that I didn’t know, that it won’t happen again. She walks away and I sigh, slipping the sketchbook back into my pocket. The old man flips a page. I go back to staring at the wall, wishing I had all the answers.

CLAUDIA LIU B’21 is looking for somewhere to go

in her gap year! If you have work for her, please send all propositions to claudia_liu@brown.edu.

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_imagining

otherwise

on making technology

BY Anonymous

ILLUSTRATION Sage Jennings

DESIGN XingXing Shou

There are only so many universes that concern us In one, he isn’t dead In another, you drink lights with your hand all winter There is a universe in which no one is lying emptied in the street as the gas station burns

Cliff Weitzman has always been dyslexic. In a Medium article, the recent Brown alum and entrepreneur describes how in elementary school, he would sit in class with an open book and pretend to read, ashamed to admit his learning disability to those around him. Weitzman soon fell in love with audiobooks, which provided an accessible medium for him to explore novels. Getting accepted into Brown, however, posed a new problem for him: the book his class was assigned to read over the summer wasn’t available in an audio format. Weitzman initially had his mom read the book to him, but eventually, running short on time, he “hacked an old text-to-speech computer system to read the remaining portion of the book overnight.” After years of work perfecting this system, Weitzman has turned his self-made virtual reading assistant into a thriving startup called Speechify.

As of the writing of this article, the Speechify app tops the App Store’s ‘Magazines & Newspapers’ section, beating out apps like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. One notable aspect of Weitzman’s story is that the technological remedy he built was a direct solution to a problem he was deeply familiar with. He didn’t seek out others’ problems so he could capitalize off of them; he just wanted to solve an issue he was facing. It’s also noteworthy that by the time Weitzman was of college age, only a decade ago, there wasn’t a widely available technological tool to help those with dyslexia read with ease.

The lack of accessibility to easily usable software creation tools such as programming editors and languages, as well as the over-reliance on large companies for developing new technologies limits the possibilities of what technology can do for marginalized communities. While it’s important not to fall into the trap of tech saviorism (the idea that technology can be used as a default, catch-all solution to any and all problems), it’s also useful to rethink the current configuration of how technology is conceived and spread, in order to further community goals. Giving individuals the power to create their own software and technologies is a crucial first step towards revolutionizing technology and its potential. Thus, software development needs to be shifted away from a trade that corporations profit off of, and instead into a mindful practice whereby members of a community build tools to either meet a direct need or practice the act of unfettered creation.

Massive potential lies in the ability of individuals and communities to imagine alternate realities and organize towards realizing their visions. The power of organizing as a community can be seen in the massive growth of mutual aid networks through the COVID-19 pandemic, or in Egypt’s social media-based anti-harassment movement, which has inspired thousands of survivors to share their stories. In fact, this movement in Egypt has lead to the arrest of several notorious perpetrators, as well as a drastic increase in the discourse around sexual harassment in a society where this topic was until recently considered a large taboo.

When thinking about the spaces inhabited by communities, we must expand our view beyond the physical and into the virtual. A study produced by the productivity software company RescueTime shows that American adults spend about 3 hours and

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-Franny Choi, ‘Floating, Brilliant, Gone’

15 minutes on their phones every day. That number rises, however, when time spent in front of other screens, like computers, is accounted for. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual time has become one of the few ways in which people can gather as communities. The virtual space we inhabit is quickly becoming just as, if not more, important than the physical. Thus, in the quest to envision and create more equitable realities, building virtual spaces to meet the demands of a more just future is crucial. The spaces we inhabit influence our perceptions of what is possible and what isn’t, thus helping to shape our values in the process. This amplifies the need for virtual spaces to fit within the visions of the future we wish to craft. +++ Who, then, shapes our spaces? Those who craft the spaces we inhabit have considerable authority over how that environment can be used. Thus, they get a substantial say in how those areas can be filled and employed. A majority of today’s most popular software, whether it be productivity tools or social media platforms, are built in offices along the West coast of the United States or in New York City.

Despite pouring millions of dollars into diversity initiatives, the rates of person of color and non-male employees at these companies remain unaligned with US racial and gender demographics as a whole.

At Facebook, a social media platform that boasts about 2.7 billion monthly users, only 23 percent of technical staff identified as female in 2019; four percent identified as Latinx, two percent identified as Black, and less than one percent identified as Native or Indigenous.

The homogeneity in the creators of our technology means that the virtual experiences we have access to represent only a tiny sliver of what is possible; there are billions of people who have the potential to break the limits of what technology can do for their communities, but who do not have access to the tools needed to do so. In addition, the ownership of these technologies by a handful of large corporations means that despite the long hours users often spend in these virtual spaces, we have no real control over them. Data produced by users is owned by the company to use in whatever manner they see fit. Beyond troubling privacy infringements, like hyper-targeted advertising based on user activity data, concentrating power in the hands of tech companies also means that any file not saved directly on a personal device (think Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive, but also even Instagram DMs) is stored and managed in a company-owned data center—quite literally a building filled with super-computers that can store massive amounts of data. Reliance on these services means that users’ access to their images, files, and communications is contingent upon these companies continuing to run data centers and store user data.

If one of these companies were to shut down their data storage services for any reason, there would be no way to access the virtual artifacts that users continuously create. The limitations of our technologies become especially apparent on social media platforms, where users are bound by the choreography set by those who develop the software: swipe, swipe, double tap, swipe.

There is certainly not a lack of online spaces for people with any and all types of interests to meet, discuss, and build. For example, Reddit, a website which describes itself as ‘the homepage of the internet,’ has sub-communities focused around a vast array of interests where users can ask questions, have conversations, and collaborate. There are spaces for everything from politics junkies to World of Warcraft fans. The website averages about 330 million monthly active users.

Despite virtual communities’ prevalence, however, they can also perpetuate existing power imbalances. Technology is often presented as a great equalizer, in that it gives anyone with internet access a way to connect with the world, but this narrative obfuscates the fact that the dissemination of ideas and content is tightly linked to social and economic capital. The option for users to run paid advertisements on social media and search platforms means that those who have financial means get their voices projected above those who do not.

Building platforms off of popularity-centric followership, where a user’s ‘worth’ on the platform is determined by the number of likes, comments, and shares they receive, also creates a hierarchy of users which replicates existing inequalities in the physical world. For example, those who fit tropes of idealized femininity or masculinity watch their reach and influence snowball, while those who do not often get marginalized and pushed to the side. This manifests itself most clearly in influencer culture, which tends to promote unattainable ideals for appearance and lifestyle. Both the prevalence of paid advertising and influencer culture highlight how despite the fact that technology presents the possibility for marginalized communities to build solutions to the issues they face—by giving them the capacity and a platform through which to organize— the current model of technology and social media tends to instead promote a culture of consumerism and superficiality, thus harming them in the process. The effects of these digital dynamics on marginalized communities are far-reaching and varied, ranging from the exacerbation of already exclusionary beauty ideals to the stifling of social movements by limiting their reach.

Promoting the urge to create is where current technologies tend to lag. With ads plastered over every online surface, using software tends to be a consumptive rather than a creative experience. Software for creating unique work, such as Photoshop or Procreate, exist, but are often cost-prohibitive. Photoshop, for example, costs the average user $119.88 per year. But for software development, there is no universally accessible tool for creation that doesn’t require spending significant time, energy, and resources learning how to write code and make good programs. New apps seemingly fall from the sky, with little indication as to who made them, or why they made the choices they did. This bounding of how one can use the computing power at our fingertips acts as a hindrance to individuals and communities’ radical imaginations. We must work collectively to democratize and make accessible the ability to make one’s own technologies.

More accessible technology entails software and tools attuned to the needs of the marginalized.

It means having technologies that work for you, helping you further your community’s goals, and

02 OCT 2020

not against you, as is the case in the struggle against perpetually rising screen times.

Currently, tech companies send representatives out to speak with customers and understand their needs so that they can meet that demand with a product. So much can be lost in translation between the conversation with the user and the development of a final product. Companies, for example, will seek to build features to better accommodate disabled users, taking the time to interview individuals and organizations about their needs and the challenges they face. Ultimately though, those who make the design decisions and write the code to make it all happen, tend not to belong to the demographic they are building for. Instead, they read diluted findings of interviews that specify what their code should be doing.

In thinking about these user interviews, it’s important to consider the inherent unevenness of any conversation that takes place between an individual and a large corporation. Localizing software development becomes a tool towards decolonizing our technologies, in that instead of a ‘benevolent’ corporation building solutions to individuals’ problems, individuals themselves are able to take control of and build those answers themselves. This approach is much more likely to tackle the issue holistically, since the person doing the building is also intimately familiar with the problem at hand.

One prime example of this is the Not911 app, built by a group of formerly incarcerated individuals, which presents a user with alternatives to 911 for a variety of scenarios, from a mental health emergency to an incident of physical violence.

The founders came out of a program at Columbia University called ‘Justice Through Code,’ which teaches formerly incarcerated people fundamental coding skills. The app’s mission statement states one goal of the app as “build[ing] technology to create life changing possibilities for individuals and communities impacted by incarceration.”

Other technologies that communities could build for themselves include mutual aid platforms, where users can request and provide services for their neighborhoods like delivering groceries or providing childcare. Possibilities also include potential systems for tracking and maintaining local resources, or even a local method of storing personal data so that its privacy is ensured. People with disabilities can also build themselves tailored tools to meet their specific needs, like an app for detecting objects for the visually impaired, or speech-to-text applications for those with impaired hearing. +++ How, then, do we commonalize software development and make it more accessible? I propose two main threads: language and tools. In terms of

language, most programming languages that exist rely on English keywords. A block of code in any of the most prominent programming languages might look something like: while (x not equal to 5) {

if (x is even) {

continue;

} else {

break; }

x = x + 1; } It is possible to write code without knowing English, but the process becomes more difficult because it is necessary either to learn rudimentary English, or accept the fact that the keywords are unknown. This is both an issue of the underdevelopment of non-Anglocentric software development tools and also a result of computer science pedagogy not making sufficient efforts to combat this language bias.

Writing code is a continuous learning process.

Programming languages tend to be so vast that there is no way of learning all of the features of any language. Oftentimes, you wind up referencing documentation or looking up proper syntax as a project develops. The ever-evolving nature of these languages is reflective of the technology industry’s general tendency towards constant updates and optimization. The needs of a community might be stable and shift over the period of years, but when following the demands of capital, technology has to update every four months in order to stay relevant and in line with what is new and flashy.

Documentation and online reference material is also typically in English, and translating is difficult because existing translators cannot differentiate between the explanatory text and the actual code. Additionally, translators without a computer science background may struggle with specific technical jargon. Thus, this language barrier shuts out a large segment of the world’s population from understanding and producing technology, relegating them solely to the role of the consumer.

Aside from being able to produce software, which may not be appealing for everyone, this lack of cultural consideration in the design of code can have significant social ramifications. In our modern day and age, code is becoming increasingly embedded in our lives, whether we see it or not. From education, to commerce, to even policing, there is hardly any individual in technology-dependent societies whose life is not touched by some algorithm. As decisions begin to be made on our behalf by computer programs, it becomes dangerous to view one’s technology as mysterious and infallible. In doing so, we place our trust in code written by other humans who themselves have

blind spots and biases. This may cause us to treat its outputs as commandments rather than reflections of a person or organization’s beliefs. Only by developing a general understanding of how code functions, and maybe even producing one’s own software, does one begin to realize how subjective code can be, and how we need to constantly question the technologies in our lives. Gaining an understanding of fundamental computer science and programming concepts is quickly becoming the key to informed citizenship, one that is currently largely withheld from non-English speakers and marginalized communities to whom computer science education is often inaccessible.

Diversifying code so that it’s not Anglocentric is a critical first step, but a more long-term goal could be to think beyond the scope of code entirely, creating methods and processes that are more accessible. It’s been widely accepted that code is the only building tool used to create software, but in working towards the goal of bringing computer processing capabilities into the hands of every person, that assumption must be replaced with a methodology that is more flexible and inviting. Services like Squarespace and Shopify have made it possible to build websites and online stores by users with little to no technical ability. There are also new platforms that allow users to query databases by typing what they’re searching for in plain English as well as an AI system GPT3 that lets users create visual interfaces by writing a description of what they seek to make.

This is a start, but it’s time to broaden the scope of what can be done without code, allowing everyone to build complex applications and tools if they so wish, and further divorcing software development from corporate interests.

It’s only fair that the architects of the virtual spaces in which we spend so much time treat community well-being as a priority when building their artifacts. This is an ask that is unlikely to be fulfilled by corporations, but that non-corporate actors are more likely to take on. Making code local also implies rethinking the ways in which software currently gets developed. Namely, it calls to abolish the hegemony of English-based programming languages in order to allow people from all corners of the world to take charge when it comes to making their own technologies. It also calls for constructing non-code-based software development tools to democratize the practice and help it achieve its potentials for community-building and fostering imagination. There’s so much potential that can be unleashed by distributing the tools for creation to all people evenly, instead of centering them in the hands of a few. It’s time to reclaim the spaces we inhabit by taking charge of our technology. Software should aim to serve the needs of the marginalized, not to further perpetuate corporate growth.

One unique aspect of technology, as opposed to other localized industries or the arts, is that the materials for its creation are necessarily going to be created by large big companies. Technology has a very inherent top-down nature to it in that the medium through which it is pursued is very complex in nature, and is difficult to produce as an individual; it’s hard to escape the need for a physical computer to work on, or for the software on which a device runs. Localizing software thus requires an act of reclamation, of reconfiguring and retransforming what is handed to us in order to better meet the needs of community-centered radical imaginations.

There is certainly a tension in working to reclaim the very tools that harm communities seeking to reimagine them, but given the deep embeddedness of technology in modern life, localizing software development can be a first step towards even more imaginative futures. The path towards achieving these goals is long—it requires deep imagination and the effort needed to materialize needed changes— but it is not out of reach.

ANONYMOUS INDY B‘2X just wants lemonade-filled swimming pools and a world where everyone is free to create.

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

SCIENCE + TECH

14

sun drop I wonder when I will watch the sun drop for the last time, melt behind endless mass a lions head perhaps into a sarcophagus for roost, liquid libations and sacrifice shrouded by silk curtains, the same purple as Sito’s house slippers, san francisco skyfall, my mystery bruise framed by gold lit up like a fat pearl on the tongue of a clam that chances to chomp

BY Nick Michael ILLUSTRATION Yukti Agarwal DESIGN Daniel Navratil

the beached whale writhes and you watch her struggle deadened by a mass that’s all her own sinister sun sister drowns in wet air, clamps down to bare teeth and an under the bed black corrodes the light blind flower girl, you are no longer deceived with ornament the putty sublimates, abstracted construction of the ghost her labor, giving material form to a spirit entity gaseous return a liminal looming the hot ball drops forever or maybe just for now.

perils of indisposition Say ah

Let the dragon rise up Eternal flame spit

fire

in my chest

of your breath

The sky was made Of rubies

incense

smoke steam

in the grape leaves pot

Arabic coffee that burns

my tongue

Insulated by flesh

Hot heaves

Chests rise and

sink

Taste the wet on my neck

Thieve me Peach fuzz

Take and soaked in syrup Take,

Sweat that is not Pirate of my jewels, Mine

my soul puddles

I have no

soul now below me Reflects my Hole fat, black tar

fangs pit

pumice covers

my pretty pink pustules

I weep at myself

servile serpent

pummel me with salivate and Moth wings Slither Flap and flutter Down throw down

gusts of wind through melt, and pool

cavernous

bubblegum amoxicillin dreamscape bowels

now an incessant cultivate drip cacophony slosh satiate

the battered bathroom sink

NICHOLAS MICHAEL B’22 abstains.

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LIT

02 OCT 2020

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

LIT

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“I MAY DESTROY YOU” MAY JUST HEAL YOU

BY Osayuwamen “Uwa” Ede-Osifo ILLUSTRATION XingXing Shou DESIGN Isaac McKenna

content warning: sexual assault, racism, and plot favorite shows, I realized just how jarringly white the spoilers casts were (Friends, Sex and the City, Gilmore Girls, to name a few).

In the trailer of I May Destroy You, Arabella “Prior to being raped, I never took much notice of being a (Michaela Coel) says, “There is so much injustice, and woman. I was busy being Black and poor… The Bible says my job is to speak the truth.” I had mostly stayed away you cannot serve two masters. Am I too late to serve this from dramas that I deemed to be too intense. However, tribe called women? ” — Arabella (Season 1, Episode 7). the pandemic left me craving stories that felt authentic.

Although authenticity can be difficult to fully attain, I wanted a show that felt as complex, confusing, scary, Until recently, I found refuge in watching TV come- and hopeful, as the events unravelling in the world dies starring predominantly white characters; no plot seemed from my bedroom in isolation. Put aptly, the twist (hidden lovers, unexpected murders, devastating New York Times labelled the series as a “perfect show illnesses) could shake me to my core the same way that for an anxious world.” television with similar plots featuring Black characHBO’s critically acclaimed series that debuted ters could. My empathy was not as three-dimensional earlier this year in June explores the aftermath of as the screens I watched the show on. To be honest, I a young London writer, Arabella Essedieu, being never noticed this until, when recalling many of my drugged and sexually assaulted at a nightclub. For a

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02 OCT 2020

show that immerses itself in the painful dialogues of sexual assault, sexism, and racism, I felt abashed, for a time, at how comforted the show made me feel.

In this new television era of indie shows, digital streaming, and innovative storytelling forms, I have seen the boundaries of descriptive representation expand. Previous shows featuring characters of color conformed to stock, color-blind plots detached from most political and social realities at the time (think the Cosby Show). Although representation paved the path for heterogeneous quirks and personas that differentiate individuals of the same ethnicity from one another, I have never seen a Black woman on television like Arabella.

I was initially disappointed in Arabella, and just how reckless and apathetic toward the world around her she seemed. Later, reflecting on the show, I commented to a friend how rare it was in television, when Black girls are usually portrayed as drug addicts or goody-two-shoes, to see the nonchalance and laissez-faire with which Arabella recreationally used hard drugs.

Because Arabella was darkskinned and the daughter of West African immigrants, like me, I wanted her character to be a perfect match to myself, or at the least a perfect match to the qualities I found desirable in myself. I wanted her to be at once charming and charismatic, perhaps a deep-rooted remnant in me from a time where one Black woman’s portrayal could inadvertently define the perceptions and stereotypes that other people have about millions of Black women. I never had this expectation when watching white shows. For all the years of popular culture I have consumed that were directed and produced by those who did not look like me, I began to expect more of the Black femme characters than I would ever expect of myself, as if the screen had a shrine of sanctity surrounding it.

I May Destroy You tangles and detangles how we relate to ourselves, strangers, friends, and lovers.

Where so many other shows seem to begin stories built on the premise of inevitable happiness and resolution by the end, I May Destroy You assumes and promises little to its audience. The only guarantee is that any emotions or behaviors witnessed in a single given episode could be easily reversed in the following episode or scene. It puts a telescope up to the internal wars waged as we navigate the world in our respective positionalities. The show is messy in every embodiment of the word—a kaleidoscope of confusion, happiness, regret, and all the moments in between our decisions.

and encourages hasty, quick actions that fit the pace of our social platforms.

Knowing that social media can distort our expectations of how we should be physically and mentally, Arabella’s experiences revealed another drawback to these platforms. There are certain moments, thoughts, and feelings that do not necessitate larger audiences.

Yet, Arabella’s identity becomes attached to the idea that she is needed to spark and guide her followers, possibly alluding to the emotional labor Black women often do. Her social media becomes distracting white noise to ward off flashbacks and fixation on all that is going wrong in her life.

Arabella decides to take a break from all her social media accounts. In this current moment, there are so many accounts and platforms that have focused on unpacking sexual assault, environmental injustice, and racism in educational settings, making it easy forget who the faces behind these accounts may be. Although Arabella externally faced the world in

The show teaches us how to forgive ourselves and to forgive one another.

There’s always hope or redemption left for us.

+++ If there is one thing our generation knows all too well, it is that nothing is ever as it seems on social media. Every year, I see influencers on social media platforms who portray hyperreal versions of themselves to connect with their audience. Despite this honest approach, these apps can immortalize posted photos, thoughts, and comments, making it natural for many influencers to continue to present the best version of themselves in exchange for validation through comments and likes.

These encounters can feel oddly transactional, especially when individuals can build entire brands around their social media presence.

For example, Arabella’s writing career took off when a PDF she posted online went viral on Twitter.

When she posts a video to Twitter publicly exposing a man she had been sleeping with for removing the condom during intercourse, the clip goes viral, and her social media presence skyrockets again. Her followers praise her for keeping it real and dismantling the patriarchy, one individual at a time. She soon assumes the role of a social justice warrior fighting the battles of her loyal followers for consent and bodily autonomy.

Compared to the nonchalance with which Arabella shared her assault initially, her transformation to doling out advice on Instagram livestreams is quite the shift from her hesitance to being seen as a victim.

Yet, for all the advice Arabella gives, her friendships and professional life remain strained. Her embrace of this media personality does little to further her own journey of introspection. She has operated at different ends of the spectrum in terms of denial and acceptance. This inhibits her from dwelling in how she feels

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

all these social media encounters, the show makes me wonder how we define our own boundaries in dialogues of suffering. +++

character, I want to sigh in relief: My God, you’ve done that, too? It is no simple task to come to terms with how your ego can make you paint yourself as the innocent protagonist, simply reacting to whatever events that may come your way. Perhaps this is why the last episode of the season is titled “Ego Death.” Throughout the entire season, Arabella has found coping mechanisms to deal with what happened to her, but in the experimental finale that breaks form, Arabella suddenly has a flashback of the face of her rapist. Coel shows us three hypothetical scenarios of what would happen if she were to confront him.

In the first hypothetical, Arabella reverses the situation vixen-style: She drugs her rapist and eventually kills him. This scene reinforces Coel’s intentions to demonstrate that nothing is wholly right or wrong. In the last hypothetical, perhaps one of the most jarring moments of the series, Arabella approaches her rapist and makes conversation with him, ultimately inviting him back to her apartment where they have consensual sex.

I was shocked at this possibility, and honestly, I still am. Compared to the first hypothetical, this scene distinguishes itself as the least violent. Arabella takes the choice to control the boundaries of their interaction and give her consent. I resist the urge to view this hypothetical as more legitimate in its taking the highground route. Instead, I rest in the grey area of what each hypothetical could’ve meant for Arabella’s character development.

With this finale, Coel legitimizes emotions ranging from curiosity to revenge to anger to grief from the fallout of her sexual assault, making anything in between these alternative worlds possible. In the second scenario, the audience is given an opportunity to empathize with the rapist. What was his childhood like? How did he get to where he is today? Even more importantly, do we care? Do we care if he had a fucked-up life, or does our capacity for empathy end with his violence? The show does not attempt to answer this question for us.

I have learnt, more in this year than any, that compassion and empathy cannot rest idly upon our shoulders—rather, we take it upon ourselves to embody what we craved from others in our lowest and most devastating moment. The show teaches us how to forgive ourselves and to forgive one another. There’s always hope or redemption left for us.

So the episode’s title is Ego Death: in spiritual and mythological understanding, the sensation that one has transcended (or lost) their “subjective self-identity.”

In this last episode, I began to think about how tragic it is that Arabella only joined the ‘tribe’ of womanhood after her earlier traumas. The new her, the one that transcends her previous narcissism, is arguably kinder and more self-aware. I say arguably because in truth, it would be presumptuous and possibly reductive to assume that Arabella has been transformed into a saint or an all-knowing better version of herself. Earlier, I wrote that I May Destroy You tangles and detangles our relations. Perhaps, one of the most fraught relationships we possess is the one with ourselves. Following Freudian thought, where there is self-hate, is there indeed also self-love?

The Arabella at the end of these episodes reflects an ongoing, iterative process of taking tiny steps you believe will make you happier, in this case her decision to forgo thinking or pursuing further action concerning her assaulter as an act of self-care and selflove, given the previous pressure and burden she felt to somehow take on entire systems of injustice—what could be interpreted as self-hatred for being subject to such violence. Perhaps, if the series continued, she could become consumed again with thoughts of all the trauma she experienced. These thoughts, however, are the inevitable critique that we place on ourselves as we attempt to rationalize and understand a variable, unpredictable world. Ego Death seems mystified online, a romanticized psychedelic experience. I think back to the phrase her and her best friend repeat to each other: “My birth is your birth. My death is your death.”

In the last episode, Arabella may be reborn, and the next day she may also be reborn; there is no limit to how many times we can transcend and be subject to a preoccupation with ourselves. We do this dance over and over, sometimes feeling balanced, other times languishing in negative feedback loops. But such is life.

“My birth is your birth. Your death is my death.”

Arabella and her best friend Terry (Weruche Opia) repeat this mantra back and forth throughout the series, a reminder of the depths of their love and long friendship. At times, the phrase feels like a wet band-aid used when the characters are feeling guilty or want to reassure each other that they are indeed a good friend.

At one point or another, each of the main characters displays ugliness in their personality. Arabella, when she locks Kwame (Papa Essiedu) in a room with a potential romantic interest while he suffers from anxiety after being sexually assaulted himself. Terry, when she leaves Arabella in clubs by herself when Arabella is clearly intoxicated and not in her right state of mind. As I said earlier, the show assumes nothing.

The depiction of their friendship does not gloss over their arguments and flaws. Rather these tense moments produce particular contexts in which each character faces a choice regarding how they express their care while also addressing the root of their conflicts.

During an interview for the Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Coel remarks, “[In the show,] I’m not saying that anything is wrong or right. I’m just putting characters in a frame, and I’m watching them interact.”

It isn’t her job to appeal to the morals of the audience, either. The whole series is full of experiments that do not lead to any definite conclusions, which is the beauty of a show that is carried by its portrayals of the characters’ imperfections. The most tongue-incheek moment where Coel doubles down on the ugliness within us occurs on Halloween, when Arabella dons a devil costume with horns, in the same episode that she denounces Kwame’s character and morals after a questionable hook-up.

I often question how good of a person I am and how good my character is compared to those around me, who seem to be always helping and caring for others. It’s scary to take a look at yourself and see how internally ugly you can be. Our culture shies away from calling out individuals when race and gender are thrown into the mix, begging the question of whether we should hold everyone accountable to basic principles of dignity and respect. Should Arabella, as a OSAYUWAMEN “UWA” EDE-OSIFO B’22 will survivor of rape, be given certain lenience and immu- probably cancel her HBO subscription soon (but not before rewatching I May Destroy You and Watchmen)! nity from her brazen behavior?

Truthfully, in viewing the selfish actions of each

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L I S T www.theindy.org

This week, and for the foreseeable future, the Indy will publish community aid funds and other ways you can contribute to coronavirus relief and mobilize for racial justice, in addition to our traditional event listings.

HEALTHCARE RESOURCES These community health centers accept all insurance and have a sliding-scale system based on income for patients without insurance: Blackstone Valley Community Health Center: Pawtucket & Central Falls - 722-0081 Thundermist: West Warwick & Woonsocket - 6152800 Tri-County Health Center: Johnston & North Providence - 351-2750 Providence Community Health Center: Providence 444-0570 East Bay Community Action Program: Riverside & Newport - 437-1008 These clinics provide free and/or low-cost health services: Clínica Esperanze, Providence - 347-9093 Rhode Island Free Clinic, Providence - 274-6347

Project LETS Mutual Aid Fund. Project LETS is working in coalition with grassroots organizations in Rhode Island to provide direct financial assistance to the most marginalized and vulnerable in our community.

Donate here: https://projectlets.org/covid19

PROTESTS & EVENTS Friday, October 2 Stand with SEIU workers on strike! Bannister Nursing Homes workers are organizing for safe staffing for their residents and a living wage. Join the community rally at 12pm at 135 Dodge St and support the strike lines all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Saturday, October 3 ART MART pop-up market at the WaterFire Arts Center, 10am to 4pm. Browse an assortment of local artists and vendors. The first of three markets this month; wear a mask for entry.

Sunday, October 4 If you have COVID-19 symptoms, there are several PVD Flea Market from 10am to 2pm across from 345 locations in Rhode Island where you can get tested. South Water St. There will be artisans, vendors, live For more information, please visit https://health. music, and food trucks. Mask required for entry. ri.gov/covid/testing/.

Thursday, October 8 Para más asistencia en español, llama a la línea de Armory Farmers Market at Dexter Park (85 Parade apoyo de AMOR: 401-675-1414.

Street), 3:30 to 7pm. Get your fall harvest from local farmers and food-makers, including the African Alliance of Rhode Island, Fearless Fish Market, and Foggy Notion Farm.

BAIL FUNDS & MUTUAL AID AMOR COVID-19 Community Support Fund Donations go to support sanitation equipment for vulnerable populations, as well as direct financial assistance to families in need. Donate here: https://bit.ly/2UmYJXr. To get involved as a volunteer, packaging and distributing mutual aid, visit https://tinyurl.com/amor-covid-volunteer.

FANG Collective Community Bail Fund As jails and prisons continue to become coronavirus hotspots, they present extremely unsafe conditions for those inside, many of whom are held because they can’t afford bail. Help bail people out from the Bristol County House of Corrections and the Ash Street Jail through this fundraiser organized by the FANG Collective: https://gofundme. come/f/fang-bailfund

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

Ongoing Drive-thru Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular at Roger Williams Park Zoo. Surround yourself with a sea of intricately carved pumpkins from the socially distant vantage point of your car. Trail open every night 6:30 to 11pm through the end of the month.

Ongoing The Sunrise Movement is offering online courses on defunding the police and more. Sign-up here: https://bit.ly/2C1T0jb

ELECTIONS Sign-up to phonebank for the Green New Deal through Sunrise RI: https://bit.ly/2EKZVhF

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