The College Hill Independent Vol. 41 Issue 5

VOLUME 41 ISSUE 05 23 OCTOBE R 2020

THE CRUX OF THE COOP Examining the elements of Rhode Island’s progressive coalition

I HATE MY PAST AND DON’T WANT TO KNOW MY FUTURE The presence of Ren Hang

ON MY WAY Monologuing on partner, father, and self

Indy Cover

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Untitled Hannah Park

From The Editors

Week in Review

Biggest comebacks of the century— an abbreviated list:

Paw Printing Press Loughlin Neuert

1) String cheese, the swirly kind with both provolone and monterey jack that you separate in two and then dangle over your whetted lips like a baby bird’s first breakfast…

Raccoup D’état At The White House?

Nell Salzman

Nation + World 03

Taking The Pulse of a Polarized Nation Ivy Scott

Metro 5

The Crux of The Coop Bilal Memon

Features 07

11

What Swans Teach Us About Life Nell Salzman

2) Bellybutton piercings, especially on elegant gentlemen, and especially with the little dolphin charm that sways back and forth like a pendulum in your timetelling belly-hole…

3) Mitt Romney, somehow, sort of, even though it’s less of a comeback and more of a come out of that dark place you were in that led you to strap your dog to the roof of your car…

4) Ritt Momney, a band whose popularity really ought to work like a voodoo doll, bobbing to and fro with the general public’s opinion of moderately conservative politics. But alas, they are just sort of medium-unexpectedly-cool, and always great for a nap…

5) A humble local newspaper groveling at the feet of the Powers That Be, learning something dumb about bootstraps and sleeping with the enemy to make our dreams come true…

6) Heelies.

Libterté, Égalité, Soroité Lucas Gelfond

Arts + Culture 13

I Hate My Past and Don’t Want to Know My Future Chong Jing Gan

Literary 15

On My Way Lauren Lee

Ephemera 10

Lorem Ipsum Bowen Chen

X 12

17

Mesh Hug Yumen Gai

Translation/Traducción

STAFF

Déjà Vu En El Distrito Escolar De Providence Alicia Mies

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 Issra Said | 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

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Tara Sharma, Sara Van Horn, & Mehek Vohra

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.

23 OCTOBER 2020 VOLUME 41 ISSUE 05

@INDYCOLLEGEHILL WWW.THEINDY.ORG

week in noble beasts RACCOUP D’ÉTAT AT THE WHITE HOUSE? Raccoons invaded the White House lawn this week. Though they’ve mostly been stepping on telecaster cables and sniffing at gear bags, on Tuesday, October 5 one of the sneaky crawlers interrupted CNN senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns during an early morning live shot. Johns’ leg must have looked like a delicious dinner, because the raccoon tried to attach itself to his pants. Johns turned around, screamed, and frantically threw a nearby stool at it. The animal scampered off.

“I felt something on my leg and the first thing I thought was that it was a camera man from another network,” Johns reported to CNN after the incident.

“I looked down, and it was a raccoon!”

On Twitter, Johns reported that no animals were harmed during the confrontation, but now it’s evolved into animal vs. human warfare. Law enforcement officers are trying everything to get rid of them—sand bags, dogs, traps, even broomsticks. Nevertheless, the racoons have persisted.

And of course, humans have made the actions of these animals inherently political. The Wayne Dupree Show tweeted, “Things have gotten so bad for the fake news crew over at CNN that even the White House raccoons are lashing out at them.” A more liberal tweeter asked, “Could you please go after a Fox News reporter as well when you get the chance?”

With raccoons running amuck, flies finding habitation in Vice President nominee Mike Pence’s hair, and a bat-traced illness wreaking havoc across the nation, it’s hard to not think about how animals and humans live and breathe on the same planet every day. Humans are territorial and get angry when animals ‘invade’ what they perceive to be their own space.

So, are these animals landing on our heads, attacking our reporters, and contributing to the spread of diseases because we’ve encroached on their spaces? Are they subconsciously getting back at us for our buildings, our parks, and our city centers? What will be the next big act of animal revenge?

This Indy staff writer thinks the solution is finding ways to coexist. The Coolidge family, for instance, had a pet raccoon named Rebecca that accompanied them on vacation and joined the first lady in the White House Egg Roll. Teddy Roosevelt nursed a badger and allowed it to run wild in the house, Benjamin Harrison bought a wily goat named Old Whiskers for his grandchildren to play with and he also had two opossums—Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection.

President Trump, however, seems less interested in pursuing peaceful coexistence with anyone—human, raccoon, or other. In fact, he’s the first president in 100 years not to have a dog! Over the course of his presidency, he’s rolled back regulations for an Obama-era animal welfare rule, removed thousands of animal abuse records from the United States Department of Agriculture website, and lifted a ban on the import of sport-hunted trophies from elephants—with his track record, it’s hard to imagine him even so much as petting a dog.

So, perhaps this raccoon invasion isn’t an accident after all. Perhaps this is an organized and coordinated attempt from the animal kingdom to invade the territory of the man sitting in the Oval Office. After all, raccoons are known to eat trash…

—NS

BY Nell Salzman and Loughlin Neuert ILLUSTRATION Hannah Park DESIGN Daniel Navratil

PAW PRINTING PRESS What has a dwindling population, sharp teeth, one degree of separation from Hugh Jackman, and is no longer protected by the powers that be? If you answered either: A) the North American wolverine (Gulo gulo) B) the collective readership of the College Hill Independent … then you would be right!

On October 8, after a years-long internal review process, the United States Department of Fish and Wildlife decided that wolverines did not need any governmental protection, declining to add them to the growing lists of species considered ‘threatened’ or ‘endangered’ by climate change. This is a major win for the anti-wolverine forces in D.C.: Big Snowmobile, Big Oil, and Big Agriculture. It is a major loss for small mammals.

This week, in seemingly unrelated news, the Indy’s printing schedule was temporarily halted. The decision comes not as a cost-cutting measure; rather, it attempts to limit a potential vector of COVID-19 spread.

While the public health reasoning of the Students Activities Office cannot be questioned—the science is quite clear on the fact that only papers with an Ephemera section can facilitate spread—it still comes as an added insult to the wolverine populations of North America, who rely on the physical distribution of newspapers to stay informed.

The fine people of the online forum WildFact tried to warn us this might happen. In a 4 AM post from December of 2016, a forum user and self-described “Grizzly Enthusiast” under the name @brotherbear offered us a reminder: “Wolverines have a history of having to watch their back.” Clearly, in a dog-eat-dog world, wolverines have to look out for themselves. Maybe that’s why they fight animals 10 times their size, in forests and in forums. They draw large enemies online. One user, @polar, a “Polar Bear Enthusiast,” casts doubt on the thread that names wolverines “the most badass carnivore on the planet.” Au contraire! ... cries @polar, at 5:02 AM on a Sunday, “I am already afraid that title belongs to my favorite, the polar bear .”

In real life, wolverines are just as ambitious. WildFact abounds with stories of large animals turned to prey by Gulo gulo: moose, caribou, lynx, and bison among them. User @pantherine opens the forum with a written account of a lone wolverine managing to disperse a pack of wolves by killing one: “Then, no doubt, the other wolves, seeing their comrade overpowered and done to death, had turned away and left the scene of battle.”

A wolverine killing a wolf!? That’s like a tangerine beating a tank or an aubergine overwhelming an auberge. The difference in size alone is baffling. It’s hard to bet in any fight against a competitor that punches up so well.

But the wolverine did not come out on top in this particular battle. In the game of rock-paper-scissors that is the great outdoors, it looks like wolverines beat wolves, wolves kill civil servants, and, in turn, civil servants obliterate protections for wolverines.

How could the Department of Fish and Wildlife justify denying protection to a species that most scientists say is in trouble? Government officials point to the overall magnitude of wolverine populations to argue that, in effect, they can survive a bit of a hit. It’s true; there are plenty of wolverines, even if their population is on a downward trajectory. If wolverines ran their own weekly paper, the masthead would, for the moment, appear full. The problems run a little deeper though. Shrinking snow across the continental United States belies the fact that one day, the bottom might just fall out. Already, most wolverines aren’t digging the three snow burrows per semester that they expect. The survival of a wildlife species (or a newspaper) is grounded in long term viability and buy-in, something a one-time analysis of membership cannot capture.

It might be easy to write off attacks on something that 99 percent of the population never ever interacts with as unimportant, but we shouldn’t simply turn our backs on everything that needs a little bit of help just because it is defensive, territorial, and a menace to ranchers. Take it from us over here at print media. It’s a long slippery slope, and it ends in our… fellow journalists… at the BDH printing newspapers while we cry for help.

—LN

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

WIR

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TAKING THE PULSE OF A POLARIZED NATION

BY Ivy Scott ILLUSTRATION XingXing Shou DESIGN XingXing Shou

REFLECTIONS ON THE LONG YEARS OF 1968 AND 2020 In the United States, the election year of 1968 is perhaps better compared to 2016 than to 2020. Both were years of political shock, racial violence, and the splintering of progress towards social justice as the country split apart into bitter factions. In 2020, we are still deep in the middle of that split. If 1968 represented the shifting of tectonic plates—the moment that precedes an earthquake or volcanic eruption— then 2020 is mid-explosion.

Although there are key differences between 1968 and our own political situation—the candidates, the key issues, the fault lines of polarization—it is difficult to argue that much has changed significantly except for the political establishment. That change alone, however, accounts for much of the disorder that haunts us in 2020, including an erosion of the relationship between the media, politicians, and citizens that is foundational to a well-informed public. Americans are different now than they were 52 years ago; we have over 150 million new faces to prove it. Certainly, some of the fears, dreams, ambitions, and icons that motivate Americans to engage with their political system have evolved. One Pew Research study, for example, indicated that racial and ethnic diversity has increased steadily among US voters since 1990, reaching an all-time high at the midterm election in 2018. A similar Pew study from that year indicated that a desire to “check & balance” President Trump’s executive power was an especially strong impetus for voting. Despite perceived progress, the questions that once frustrated and enticed politicians in the 1960s are doing the same to candidates and pollsters today: Who are Americans?

What do they want? And how can our government make it happen?

It’s perhaps a bit depressing to consider how many of the issues that plagued the country over 50 years ago are still present today: police brutality, political polarization, socioeconomic stratification along geographic lines. Some might even posit that with this year’s unique challenges—a global pandemic, months of forest fires, murder hornets, and the return of the bubonic plague among them—2020 shows more signs of regression than they do of progress. However, this year has marked a significant shift in how we solve our problems. People have access to many more avenues for change-making (digital technology alone has opened dozens of previously nonexistent doors), and over the course of the year, many have learned to take full advantage of the items in their tool belt. From donating a collective $90 million to bail funds in less than three weeks to inundating Aurora, Colorado city councilmembers with phone calls until they agreed to ban the use of ketamine by police officers, Americans are weaponizing any and every medium as a vessel for social transformation on scales both big and small. +++ If nothing else, 1968 was a bloody year in the United States. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy were assassinated barely three months apart. Cities burned across the country amid the clash of race riots and police brutality. Amid President John F. Kennedy’s Civil Rights Act, an alleged beacon of hope, dozens were murdered in the gruesome aftermath of protests in Baltimore, Chicago, and New York. Tensions were high, and violence was the reaction.

In 2020, mortality is an equally crucial issue for very different reasons. Fear spins not around the death of individuals, but of masses. Hospitals struggle to subdue a virus they cannot cure, while governments clamber to mitigate damages that are growing exponentially. Amid the disorder, old issues of racial injustice and socioeconomic inequality were brought violently to the surface by the summer’s repeated instances of murder and police brutality—and then smothered by the heavy blanket of empty promises and political inaction.

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There is also the question of geographic ‘fault lines’ across the country: a critically overlooked factor in understanding the values of the American public. In 1968, the most painful and intimate divide was a racial one, but it materialized through spatial politics. Middle and upper-class white Americans moved to the suburbs, bringing their wealth with them. In their wake, they left African Americans in the city with those most resentful toward them and their socioeconomic progress: poor whites. Anti-Black racism among working-class white Americans only grew as they simultaneously witnessed both an increase in white wealth that they could not attain and an increase in the number of Black faces they encountered every day, who they eagerly blamed for their poverty. A study of the dozens of race riots that took place in cities from 1964 to 1969 reveals that latent resentment and unconscious bias rapidly gave way to open animosity, as police flooded Black neighborhoods under the presumption of criminal activity.

Frequently instigated by instances of police brutality, conflict was inevitable. The mood was thus hostile and angry among those clamoring for change, and nervous and uneasy in the suburbs where people quietly prayed to maintain the status quo.

In recent years, these fault lines have shifted.

Money has returned to the city; New York, D.C., and especially San Francisco are the places to be for young professionals hoping to make money and old pros hoping to keep it. The tech, finance, and consulting industries have skyrocketed in the past decade, with service sectors following their lead as urban populations continue to multiply. Even ‘smaller’ cities—Boston, Atlanta, Chicago and Portland among them—are home to a wide network of start-ups fueled by venture capitalism and a gaggle of millennials eager to either carve their own path or start working for the Gen Xers who got there first. Consequently, the coasts are overpopulated and underrepresented, leaving a huge gap in the middle of the country filled by the farmers and factory workers that liberal academia always seems to forget. Poorer than their coastal counterparts and neglected by mainstream media, these communities were inspired by Donald Trump to speak up where their voice counted the most: at the ballot box.

For context, each state gets a certain number of Electoral College votes based on its total number of representatives in Congress. Since that includes both the House (where representatives are allocated in proportion to a state’s population) and the Senate (where every state gets two representatives), states end up with electoral voting power that isn’t always proportionate to their population, usually favoring states with lower populations. This imbalance extends beyond the presidential vote; today, states containing just 17 percent of the American population could theoretically elect a Senate majority.

Analysts who dissected polls from the 2016 presidential election determined that it was the overrepresentation of these rural voters in the election that caused Trump to win the electoral college despite Hillary Clinton’s victory in the popular election. “If you’re talking about a political system that skews rural, that’s not important if there isn’t a major cleavage between rural and urban voting behavior,” Frances Lee, a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, told the New York Times. “But urban and rural voting behavior is so starkly different now so that this has major political consequences for who has power.” For once, rural Republicans had both the opportunity to be the deciding factor, and the candidate to inspire them to action.

The characteristics that determine voter preferences have become largely socioeconomic and increasingly defined by education. Race is still a factor, but political consensus today is much more likely to be found between the white surgeon and the Black litigator than it was in 1968. Though the Black poverty rate in the US still remains more than double the poverty rate for white Americans (22 percent vs. 9 percent),

the percentage of African Americans living below the poverty line has decreased by over 30 percent since 1968, and it was projected to continue declining prior to the pandemic. Since the most recent wave of support for the Black Lives Matter movement peaked in June, a host of wildly popular books like How to Be An Antiracist and So You Want to Talk About Race invite white progressives to work for and alongside Black people to dismantle systemic racism. By contrast, the white surgeon and the white bricklayer are now much less likely to see eye-to-eye. Interestingly, differences in voter preference are also seen much more sharply along generational lines today than 52 years ago. The old stories of college kids convincing their parents to switch from hawk to dove have been replaced with anecdotes of vicious Thanksgiving dinners and ice-cold Christmases. Exit polls from the 2020 Democratic primaries corroborate this, with a majority of 18 to 39-year-old voters favoring Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders while 40+ voters consistently backed former Vice President Joe Biden.

These societal divisions are paralleled by political ones: party loyalists and Establishment figures vs. reformers and ‘insurgents.’ Americans happy to snuggle deeper inside the system fight against the bold few who dare to stick their heads outside and see who the system leaves behind. For the comfortable, the advantage to playing by the Establishment’s rules is stability—the promise that things will more or less go as expected if everyone does as they’re told. American society, however, is much larger and more complex than the Establishment. The reward for politicians willing to challenge the status quo is an opportunity to rope more people into the system and increase political participation by convincing citizens that their vote actually counts for something.

Robert Kennedy built rapport with Black militants and Latinx grape pickers, which won him California in the primaries. Donald Trump broke all the rules of Establishment politics to earn the trust of blue-collar workers, securing him the presidency. People muse about the ‘shocking’ outcome of the 2016 election, a poll starring two candidates that each had about as many fans as they had enemies. Faced with a question of the lesser-of-two-evils, many Americans didn’t vote at all. The pattern of electoral apathy isn’t a new one— the 1968 ‘Yippie’ youth party candidate, Pigasus (who was, let’s remember, a literal pig), elicits memories of the thousands of Harambe write-ins on the 2016 ballot.

Despite the similarities, what was new in the most recent election was a reversal of norms: an anti-Establishment figure bringing people into the system while still remaining outside the Establishment.

Unlike Donald Trump or admitted do-it-yourselfer Bernie Sanders, the candidates in the 1968 election were self-proclaimed team players. The opposite of today’s cast, neither party was particularly interested in attracting ‘outsiders’ 50 years ago. In 1968, politicians bemoaned any voters who couldn’t be counted on to stick to party lines, switching parties freely depending on each candidate’s response to the key issues. Today, it is not only failure to pick a side that results in derision, but failure to dig one’s heels deep into the most extreme beliefs of their respective party. There seem to be some similarities between the modern hyperliberal affinity for cancel culture and the doctrines of the 1968 New Left as described by David Halberstam: “If a society is wrong, you can do anything you want to redress it, and if someone says something you don’t like, you can drown him out and deprive him of his speech.”

In fact, these tactics are celebrated at both extremes in 2020, contributing to a genuine sense that it is ‘uncool’ to be moderate. The first (and only) presidential debate—which favored name-calling, bullying, and shouting matches over policy debate—was a prime example of the increased inability of political candidates to have a thoughtful discussion about any political issue, let alone a polite one. Polarization certainly showed its horns in 1968, but the divides were never

23 OCT 2020

ones that threatened to destroy politics and society simultaneously—at least one was always left more-orless intact. Though less violent today, what is missing are the Obamas of a decade ago or the Kennedys of the 1960s: someone to extend the olive branch and attempt some bipartisan peace. While neither was perfect or worthy of veneration, both politicians were archetypes of a time period when reaching across the aisle was perceived as both fashionable and necessary. Both leaders symbolized a sort of civility that the country briefly witnessed during the Vice Presidential debate (which itself was far from an arena of compromise), but which otherwise seems distant and forgotten. This tendency toward negotiation is not the only marker of a healthy administration, nor is it the single most important element of politics; rather, it is a humble beginning in the noble effort to produce policy that adequately addresses the needs of all communities— an effort that has been lacking as of late. +++ When considering the question of how we solve our problems in such a bleakly divisive sociopolitical context, it would seem at first that we can’t. Fortunately, assassinating our heroes and enemies is no longer part of the norm, but what have we opted for instead? Months-long strikes of the French variety are a relic, as are sit-ins and boycotts large enough to make the nightly news. Caustic Twitter debates and virtual hate speech can’t be called an improvement, but the case could be made that the big change from 1968 to 2020 was the switch from radicalism to pragmatism.

Unlike current American political positions— which are largely characterized by an intolerance for centrism—our preferences for political action have surprisingly grown less extreme over time. As a result of the pandemic, the trial-and-error method has become the problem-solving strategy of the year, and it seems that where we’ve landed is on the conclusion that no one style of change-making will bring about the revolution we desire. Rather, only through a combination of sociopolitical movements on various scales can we retain any hope of arriving at a future brighter than the opaque darkness we’ve endured all year. Though pragmatism is a strategy employed on both sides of the aisle and across various demographics, the rise of Black pragmatism is a useful case study.

Pragmatism can easily be mistaken for ‘doing nothing,’ and when Black citizens voted Biden over Sanders, several critics accused African Americans of just that. However, perhaps a bit ironically, pragmatism this election year is seen by many as the most reasonable reaction to a chaotic president, a lethargic Congress, and an administration that has by and large ignored the needs of the people.

African Americans have observed the Trump effect with the rest of the country: fans who reward him for bad behavior, approval ratings that increase in proportion to his lies, insults, and swear words. In a country this divided, any attempt to protest only encourages more enthusiastic Trump support from the far-right. Four years of coloring outside the lines and playing by imaginary rules has yielded few economic gains, the burning of foreign policy bridges that will likely take years to rebuild, and no social progress.

The federal government endorses a military faceoff with its own citizens, preferring brute force to an investigation into what structural inequities are at the root of the summer’s unrest. The President glorifies racial violence with tweets stating, “...when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” ignoring the reality that the culprits in peaceful demonstrations turned violent are more often the far-right and white supremacist groups so beloved by Trump than they are Black protesters. As a young Black woman, I have no reservations speaking for the collective when I say that Black Americans are acutely aware that we live in a world where our existence is perceived as a threat, while our white counterparts can carry and even fire assault rifles in public and still be sure to keep their life. If we are turned off by pure radicalism, it is for the simple reason that we would like to see tomorrow.

Rather than tap further into America’s underlying racist beliefs, digging a deeper hole as the November election approaches, the Black approach this year has been pragmatism—pursue a diversity of approaches at varying levels of government and to varying degrees of extremism, always keeping in mind the quiet reality

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

that none of these efforts will be sufficient on their own. Resource lists widely circulated on social media platforms advocate for a ‘find your lane and stay in it’ policy that underscores the fact that different types of political activism exist for different people, while maintaining that everyone should be doing something.

Whether it’s calling, signing, donating, or marching, everyone can and should participate in bringing about change because this gradual collection of millions of ‘drops in the ocean’ are quite possibly the last recourse to bringing about radical justice. Somewhat akin to the sit-ins and walk-outs of the ‘60s, activism in the pandemic era takes an even more atomized approach to the unified front, with people joining together over screens from miles apart and petitions racking up names from people united by a common goal, but who will probably never meet. Multiple activist platforms can flourish at a time, and support for various causes is exponentially larger thanks to the ability to connect rapidly across miles and time zones.

This model has already yielded tangible results— over the summer, both New York and Los Angeles city governments agreed to partially defund their police departments, shifting $1 billion and $150 million respectively towards social services. It is an unquestionable victory that the killers of both George Floyd

We are now 10 months into 2020, and we find ourselves asking the same questions which no doubt prevailed over 1968: What happened? And for many, where did we go wrong? Reflecting on Robert Kennedy’s assassination, journalist Jack Newfield wrote: “Now I realized what makes our generation unique, what defines us apart from those who came before the hopeful winter of 1961, and those who came after the murderous spring of 1968. We are the first generation that learned from experience, in our innocent twenties, that things were not really getting better, that we shall not overcome… we had already glimpsed the most compassionate leaders our nation could produce, and they had all been assassinated. And from this time forward, things would get worse.”

Newfield describes the spirit of a paralyzed and polarized America, torn in very different directions than the nation we see today. As in 1968, today’s geography is an excellent indicator of who feels comfortable in the system and who’s been left out. Suburbia used to symbolize a white middle class, upwardly mobile and clinging happily to the country’s wealth and power.

Today, that money, knowledge, and influence is in the cities, largely concentrated along the shorelines. The mid-to-southwest has always differed sharply from the coasts, but today, communities driven by rural industries are less and less able to identify with urbanites.

On the other hand, racial tensions that manifest differently in rural and urban communities are nevertheless exacerbated in both cases by a de-facto segregation created by wage gaps, resulting in income inequality that forces low-income individuals into neighborhoods with underfunded schools, an absence of community organizations, and a host of environmental conditions that endanger the health of community members. Residential areas near power plants and landfills, food and medical deserts, a lack of reliable public transit and a deficiency of green spaces are only a few of the challenges present everywhere that systematically target people of color. These conditions might cause white Americans to look unfavourably upon the ‘scourge’ of the ghettos in a big city, or raise anxiety in a small town about job-stealing and Black prosperity at the white man’s expense. Though archetypal, these summative caricatures of socioeconomic and racial divisions in our country paint a painfully accurate picture of what makes consensus so hard to come by—especially as more and more Americans come to see these divisions not as reconcilable differences of circumstance but as fundamental incompatibilities in identity.

Finally, true to any explosion, we are currently facing lingering uncertainty about how to pick up the pieces of 2016 and start again. Newfield’s comments suggest that there were no more pieces to pick up in 1968: a resignation to the fact that plates were shifting, volcanoes were erupting, and there was nothing to do but wait it out. In 2020, confused as we are, we can no longer afford to wait.

In 2020, the United States is less violent but more vitriolic than fifty years ago. Hatred has found other avenues and intensified; there is a sense that being unkind has become American. Despite the corruption of the political machine, 1968 offered avenues for conversation that didn’t end in total shutdown.

Negotiation, never easy, always seemed possible with the right people. In 2020, those voices have been all but silenced. In their stead, we find quieter means of rebellion—petitions to sign, mayors to call, articles to read and forward along—as well as loud ones—chorused voices, raised fists, and streets overflowing with masked bodies marching in solidarity. Ultimately, though, the sense prevails that all these efforts and more can only go so far under an administration that refuses to be held accountable, chooses temper tantrums as its preferred mode of communication, and sticks its fingers deeper into its ears to drown out the voice of the people. In such times as these, those who dare to preserve a belief in compromise wait patiently for the vote.

and Ahmaud Arbery have faced charges, but Breonna Taylor’s murderers and countless other perpetrators of racial violence walk free. In search of an effective alternative, people have begun to ask: What good is the sound of a million voices if it falls on deaf ears? The answer is a growing conviction that our safest bet for long-term change will be returning to ground zero of political participation: voting in an administration that, if nothing else, seems prepared to listen.

Since the 1990s, Black Americans have become fairly dependable team players in US politics—barring Obama levels of inspiration, they vote less often than white people but at a fairly consistent rate, with approximately 90 percent voting for Democrats. In the 2020 presidential primaries, Black people were among the first to commit to a belief that Joe Biden would be America’s best chance at beating Donald Trump, and in states like South Carolina, they voted accordingly.

Conversations with Black voters revealed no particular dislike for Bernie Sanders, rather a simple conviction that they wanted someone less abrasive with experience responding to the ups and downs of the presidency, and that hopefully, over half of America did too. Leaning on the hope that ‘Never Trumpers’ and other moderates will join them in the fight to restore organization and cooperation to politics, the majority of African Americans in 2020 are waging their war at IVY SCOTT B’21.5 hopes another such comparison the ballot box, for the Establishment. will not be necessary next year. +++

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BY Bilal Memon ILLUSTRATION Jessy Minker DESIGN Audrey Buhain

TH EC RUX O

Examining elements of Rhode Over the summer, every Friday afternoon like clockwork, I received a text from a friend asking me to go canvassing with him for local Democratic races.

Occasionally, I pretended to not see the texts and enjoyed lazy, if guilt-tainted, Saturday and Sunday mornings. However, on other weeks, through a mixture of genuine civic responsibility and a sense of obligation to the friend, I hopped into his Subaru and knocked on strangers’ doorbells until the early afternoon.

Through conversations with candidates, other campaign volunteers, and voters, I emerged from the summer no longer a Rhode Island political knownothing, but an eager neophyte, able at the very least to differentiate between Raimondo and Ruggerio.

My friend, a sarcastically self-declared ‘political operative’ as a member of the environmental activism group Sunrise, was working with campaigns associated with the Rhode Island Political Cooperative. The Coop is a coalition of 25 candidates who all advocate for a $15 minimum wage, the ‘Green New Deal,’ single-payer healthcare, and other shared left-leaning policy ideas. After all of the ballots were counted over multiple days, eight Coop candidates won their races—an impressive number for challengers, many of whom had never dreamed of running for elected office a couple of years ago.

The Coop is an important part of a larger progressive movement in Rhode Island, which includes activist groups and non-Coop politicians. In part, the mobilization of progressives is a reaction against conservative Democrats who control state politics—an establishment that advocates for cuts to social spending and opposes the right to an abortion. And yet, the Coop’s bold platform indicates that the movement is about creating a more equitable vision of the future as much as it is focused on criticizing that status quo. While it is easy for different groups to come together against a shared enemy (‘the establishment’) it is more difficult to unite in support of a common set of policies or a vision for the future. There is still the need to examine different elements of the progressive movement in order to determine whether or not they will prove to be a successful governing force, and not simply a powerful opposition bloc. +++ ‘Progressive’ denotes a big tent, comprising a variety of positions—often anything to the left of the center. The term ‘progressive’ is so often repeated in contemporary political discourse that it risks losing any potential meaning and becoming simply a buzzword. Given the diversity of people who call themselves progressives, the term is better thought of as a network of alliances, as opposed to a single ideology. In parallel to national trends, the past couple of years has witnessed the growth and emergence of a new crop of progressive political groups in Rhode Island, including Sunrise Providence, the Coop, Reclaim Rhode Island, Providence Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and the Rhode Island Working Families Party. Though these groups have different missions and distinct ideologies, they often work together and support each other. The largest potential chink in this alliance is the line that separates groups who explicitly see themselves as anticapitalist and those who

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do not.

The most obvious group to speak for the anticapitalist position is the Providence DSA. Anna Kaster, former co-chair of the DSA, told the College Hill Independent that “even though there are a lot of different tendencies among members, I think we are bound by core ideas: we are all socialist, we believe that capitalism doesn’t work, we believe in human rights over property rights, and so on.” Aware of how grandiose and far-fetched such sentiments sound to the majority of Rhode Islanders, the Providence DSA website reads, “As we are unlikely to see an immediate end to capitalism tomorrow, DSA fights for reforms today that will weaken the power of corporations and increase the power of working people.” There are a number of working groups within DSA that advocate for reforms, including defunding the police and nationalizing utilities.

DSA is also involved in electoral politics, endorsing and campaigning for candidates who support socialism. In the past election, DSA supported challenger David Morales for state representative in District 7 and incumbent Sam Bell for state senator in District 5, both in Providence. Morales and Bell went on to win their primaries and are uncontested in the general, ensuring their election for the upcoming term. When asked why the DSA doesn’t endorse non-socialists who share many of its specific policy goals, Kaster replied, “There are other progressive groups in Rhode Island that would hopefully get those people elected, and certainly in many cases they would be better than the alternative. But we have seen our role as really electing socialists.”

What are those other progressive groups? Given its success, the Coop is a good place to start. Founded by Matt Brown, Jeanine Calkin, and Jennifer Rourke, the Coop was created after a series of disappointing losses by progressives in the 2018 midterm elections, including losses by the three co-founders. As the Coop’s communications and volunteer director, AJ Braverman, told the Indy, “enough was enough in terms of progressives running as lone wolf candidates.” The co-founders recruited 25 likeminded community leaders to run as a slate in the 2020 elections, sharing resources and strategies. Before the campaign season was fully underway, the candidates that were part of the Coop at the time met to discuss and build a shared policy platform. In the end, the platform included single-payer healthcare, a $15 minimum wage, increased taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and a Green New Deal—among other positions. Braverman summarized, “The most exciting part of this policy process was the fact that the candidates came to it together and came to a really progressive platform. One that is really bold and didn’t sink to the lowest common denominator.”

As opposed to the DSA, the Coop is not anticapitalist. Members of the Coop do not, at least openly, have the long-term goal of fundamentally restructuring the economy. Of course, they want to make society more equitable, but there is no ambition to go beyond capitalism and reorganize society around collective ownership, except in limited domains such as health insurance.

There are other groups in Rhode Island that harmoniously contain left

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e Island’s progressive coalition and center-left elements—namely, Sunrise Providence and Reclaim Rhode Island. Both organizations share overlapping membership and have coordinated events with Providence DSA, yet both also endorsed non-socialist, center-left candidates in the recent primary election. Reclaim RI is a group of volunteers initially mobilized by Bernie 2020, who now engage in local electoral work, political education, and policy advocacy. In the primaries, Reclaim supported four candidates, all of whom won their elections.

Reclaim calls itself a left-progressive alliance. In describing what that meant, Dennis Hogan, Reclaim’s electoral coordinator, said, “Look, I’m a socialist.

I believe in socialism and I also think that many of the policy priorities that we have are shared with progressives, left-liberals, people who are part of the grassroots movement of the Democratic Party, who maybe don’t identify with socialism.” He continued, “Then there’s the issue of how do socialists reach the kind of people that they want to reach: working-class people, people in communities of color … Not all of those people, but a lot of them are already in the Democratic Party. We see contesting hegemony within the Democratic Party as an opportunity to bring our message to those folks, to work in those communities more, to support candidates who those folks support, and to build alliances.” While Providence DSA keeps the embers at the hearth of socialism alive, Hogan and Reclaim view compromise and collaboration as essential in order to advance their long-term anticapitalist agenda.

To be sure, most self-titled progressives are not socialists; in fact, I would suspect, they constitute a small minority. Nevertheless, through Sunrise Providence, Renew RI, and Providence DSA, socialists have been able to exert significant influence on the primary elections by endorsing and volunteering for candidates, some of whom also identify as socialist but most of whom do not. +++ The volunteers I talked to at Reclaim, DSA, and the Coop all live, sleep, and breathe political organizing. After their day-jobs end, they hop on phone calls and email threads to strategize and plan next steps. It is also worth noting Brown students disproportionately comprise this class of ‘political operatives.’ For instance, graduate students from Brown constitute nearly half of the leadership of Reclaim. Most Rhode Islanders have neither the luxury nor the interest to devote their days to political theorizing. This is not to suggest that a group of post-grads new to Rhode Island hold a monopoly on nuanced politics. The 25 Coop candidates themselves range in age and hold beliefs deeply impacted by their struggles and experiences living for years in the state. As I learned from knocking doors, people who don’t necessarily think of themselves as politically active are still able to identify local issues that they care deeply about. From insurance to school budgets, these concerns affect people’s daily lives—and at the very least, everyone cares about their property taxes. Although the average voter might not hold the stable ideological positions as exhibited by quotations from organization leaders thus

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far, their adoption and support of progressive politics are ultimately what wins elections.

Progressive candidates who regularly talked to voters about their concerns are uniquely situated to sense whether their constituents are ready for the type of change that they represent. Cynthia Mendes staged the largest Coop victory in the primary, roundly defeating longtime incumbent William Conley for State Senator in District 18, representing East Providence and Pawtucket. Mendes told the Indy that while she faced some resistance to the term ‘progressive,’ voters were fully on board with her policy ideas, “If I went to a door and said, ‘I am a progressive and I want you to sign up for progressive values,’ there would have been an instant resistance because they have a preconceived idea of what it is. But if I said, ‘Don’t you think this is fair?

Don’t you think this is right for us? Are you getting crushed by medical debt because I think that’s totally wrong?’ They check every single box.” Another Coop candidate Alex Kithes, city councilor of Woonsocket who is currently seeking re-election, reiterated the sentiment that while the label is polarizing, progressive policies are popular amongst his constituents, “When you actually talk policy. When you actually talk about really well-funded public schools and libraries, especially in poor communities. When you talk about protecting the environment, decarbonization because we want to make sure our kids have a livable planet. When you talk about these things, most people agree with you. When you remove the labels, a lot of people want to move forward. It is really great that this agreement can be formed independent of labels and party lines.”

While defining terms and determining long-term goals are important for the coherency of any movement—anticapitalist or not—organizers and politicians are apt to remember that the ultimate success of their worldview depends on the everyday struggles of voters. As much as Rhode Island faces serious problems, there is also much to be hopeful about in voters’ support and confidence in progressive solutions.

BILAL MEMON B’22 is ultimately grateful his friend texted him to go canvassing.

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LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ,

SORORITÉ

BY Lucas Gelfond ILLUSTRATION Simone Zhao DESIGN Miya Lohmeier

Greek Power and the Tension of Abolition *content warning: racism, sexual assault, homophobia, hazing/torture Since its founding in 1870 as the first Greek letter organization for women, Kappa Alpha Theta Fraternity Inc. has expanded to include 143 collegiate chapters, including one on Brown’s campus. In its 2018 group tax filings, the organization and its chapters reported more than $57 million in annual revenue. The sorority boasts more than 250,000 initiated members and 200 alumni groups.

Many Greek organizations, including all four of Brown’s historically white sororities, are associated with national chapters. None of Brown’s five historically white fraternities belong to national organizations anymore; Brown’s chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi, for example, disaffiliated from its national organization in 2015. Three Greek organizations, fraternities Kappa Alpha Psi and Alpha Phi Alpha alongside sorority Delta Sigma Theta, are associated with historically African American national organizations. In exchange for dues and obedience to sorority-wide traditions and rules, chapters get access to extensive alumni networks, scholarship opportunities, and more. These organizations also politically lobby for legislation friendly to Greek organizations and advise individual chapters.

Brown’s Theta chapter, however, has seen its relationship with the national organization cool. The national sorority’s large size makes communication difficult. “By nature of the fact that the organization is so large, they are just such a beast and a lot of emails get lost in the shuffle,” former chapter Chief Education Officer Charlotte Everett ’22 told the College Hill Independent. Amidst nationwide calls for racial justice, however, its history has proven even more problematic.

“One of the reasons I was proud to be in Theta was that it was the first all-female fraternity or sorority,” Everett said. “I think the flip side of that coin is that they are so old that they have their own institution that’s inherently classist and racist.”

Everett noted that these barriers in communication presented immense barriers to making change in the sorority. Brown’s chapter, for example, proposed a policy in which members would write their dates’ names on a public Google Document to which all members had access. The policy was designed to protect victims of sexual assault; if any woman saw a guest they felt uncomfortable with, they could request for them to be disinvited. The idea was immediately shot down by the national chapter. “[The national organization told us] if there are issues with boys misbehaving, you should just tell them to behave themselves, or something ridiculously antiquated like that,” Everett said.

Poor communication and resistance from the national chapter became a pattern. One of Brown’s members was removed from a leadership role without cause by the national organization, and the Brown chapter’s appeals were denied, Everett said. Brown’s chapter also faced immense resistance in putting together a committee for diversity, equity, and inclusion and received little funding or training for implicit bias workshops and other efforts to make recruitment more inclusive.

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Over the summer, several members noted that clauses into the late 1960s. Progress toward integrathey no longer felt comfortable being associated with tion since then has remained feeble. Matthew Hughey, Kappa Alpha Theta nationals and discussed disaffilia- associate professor of sociology at the University of tion. The process of disaffiliation, separating an indi- Connecticut, published a study of eight historically vidual chapter from its national organization, differs white Greek chapters on three East Coast campuses, among Greek organizations. For Theta, the process finding an average percentage of non-white members involved a chapter-wide vote that would need to be to be at just 3.8 percent. Before Princeton University unanimous. Were the vote contested, any members abolished its Greek system, it was one of a few univerwho voted for disaffiliation would be removed from the sities that collected demographic data on its own Greek chapter, leaving those who voted for continued affilia- system, finding that 77 percent of sorority members tion to rebuild the sorority. and 73 percent of fraternity members were white, The chapter held an official vote on October 5. Of compared with 47 percent of the student body. Issues the chapter’s roughly 120 members, 77 attended the with integration are perhaps more dire outside of the official vote and 91 percent voted for disaffiliation. Northeast; until 2013, the University of Alabama had While those who didn’t attend the vote could later vote pledged a single Black woman to a historically white to remain in the organization, the seven remaining sorority in its entire history. While recent protests for members are now tasked with rebuilding the chapter racial justice have energized the nascent Abolish Greek and recruiting new members.

Life movement, it incorporates critique that has been Everett voted for disaffiliation. “Whenever we try levied against the Greek system for decades. to do something that we feel would make our chapter Much critique around the Greek system has more inclusive or more comfortable for different types revolved around the system’s treatment of gender and of women, we always face backlash from the national the perpetration of sexual assault. A study by Dr. John organization,” she said. “We felt like if we didn’t take Foubert of Union University found Fraternity men a stand as an organization or seek to create an organi- are three times more likely to commit acts of sexual zation outside Theta nationals, a lot of our members violence than other men on college campuses. This of color would drop and then future women who are climate of sexual assault is also reinforced by cultures thinking about joining Theta would see themselves within fraternities; well-documented incidents like an even less represented in our chapter.” email sent to Georgia Tech University brothers titled Theta’s vote parallels nationwide upheaval in “luring your rapebait” or a group of Yale University a re-examination of Greek life. The movement is fraternity brothers chanted “no means yes, yes means largely decentralized, led by anonymous students anal” as they passed the Yale Women’s Center. Rising posting on school-specific pages like the University of Vanderbilt junior Daniel Wrocherinsky noted similar Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University, Duke University, attitudes at his university to NBC News in August.

Washington University in St. Louis, Michigan State “When we brought up the fact that one of the houses University, and the University of Richmond, rallying didn’t have enough lights, one member of the frat around the #AbolishGreekLife tag. The accounts made a joke that we shouldn’t get new ones because follow a common format, split between posting anony- that was the point,” Wrocherinsky said. mous confessions and news updates on administrative These attitudes are reflected in political donations proceedings regarding school’s Greek organizations. paid for by several national Greek organizations using The #AbolishGreekLife movement advocates member dues. Ben Owens ’17, former president of for pure dissolution rather than the disaffiliation that local fraternity Beta Rho Pi, cited troubling legislation Theta discussed. Students advocate for dismantling or around sexual assault as a reason the chapter disaffilquitting Greek life, nationally affiliated or otherwise, iated from the national Alpha Epsilon Pi organization arguing that such institutions are beyond reform. “A in a 2016 opinion published in the Brown Daily Herald. big part of why I chose to disaffiliate or depledge was “It seemed to us that representatives of the national because of the Black Lives Matter movement and organization characterized sexual assault as an issue my views on defunding and abolishing the police,” of ‘risk management’ rather than one of education and Northwestern University sophomore McGuire Price prevention,” Owens wrote. The Fraternity and Sorority told the Daily Northwestern. “I realized it was hypocrit- Political Action Committee (FratPAC) lobbies on behalf ical for me to think the frat can reform if I don’t believe of these organizations’ ability to exist and be absolved that the police can reform.” of resulting liability, and this political disagreement has long fueled the movement toward Greek abolition. +++ Kappa Delta president Lauren Reischer ’21 noted that the national organization’s celebration of Rhodes The spread of fraternities largely parallels the expan- College Kappa Delta alumna Amy Coney Barrett’s sion of higher education to a more diverse group of nomination to the Supreme Court was difficult for students. More fraternities formed as college campuses Brown’s chapter, particularly because of her vocal filled with students who were no longer exclusively support for overturning landmark abortion case Roe white, male, Christian, and wealthy. However, frater- v. Wade. While the tweet praising Barett’s nominanities did not diversify with them, keeping whites-only tion was deleted, Reischer was disappointed with

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the national organization’s messaging which noted that Kappa Delta was not a political organization and praised the nomination solely as an achievement. “We don’t have a party label stamped on us but we don’t just choose to be political when it is trendy or convenient,” Reichser told the Indy. “Her values don’t align with ours, she’s not an alumna of our chapter, so we don’t have to back her.” Almost two thirds of FratPAC’s donations have gone to Republicans between 2006 and 2013, where fewer than two percent of students polled said they would vote for Republican nominee Donald Trump in a 2016 Herald poll.

FratPAC likely began as a response to proposed anti-hazing legislation. At least one man has died in a fraternity every year for the past two decades; last November alone saw four fraternity deaths. Hazing, the brutal initiation process for new Greek pledges, is responsible for many of these deaths. In addition, this dramatic method of attaching new members to the group may prevent members from speaking out against aforementioned abuses committed by members of the organization, hazing or otherwise. A study by two professors at the University of Maine found that 95 percent of students who experienced hazing did not report it. In her phenomenal piece “Special Journey to Our Bottom Line,” writer Elizabeth Schambelan notes that comparisons to torture are innaccurate. The brutality of these rituals, often involving near-fatal alcohol consumption, physical abuse, and humiliation are not like torture, they are torture. University administrations tend to distance themselves from these rituals, instituting zero-tolerance hazing policies or making certain Greek houses “dry” (alcohol free) in the hopes of preventing severe injury or death. These policies are not effective, however; the house in which 19-year-old Penn State University student Timothy Piazza died after a particularly gruesome hazing process was supposed to be “dry” and was considered a ‘model’ fraternity, already bound by a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy like most national organizations dictate.

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The flaw in these measures is that they presuppose that particularly extreme pledging processes are an exception, ignoring the essential role they play in the functioning of Greek life.

While many fraternities dominate the social scenes of their respective campuses, perhaps more significant is the way these power structures continue to manifest after graduation. A now-archived post from an official Cornell University page about Greek life in 2014 boasts that, in spite of making up just two percent of the male population, 80 percent of Fortune 500 executives and 76 percent of U.S. senators and congressmen were fraternity men. This may be particularly visible in finance. A Bloomberg piece titled “Secret Handshakes Greet Frat Brothers on Wall Street” describes secret mottos, career advice, and the extensive network that allows many Greek participants to secure such highlevel jobs in business. Everett notes that she got a finance internship last summer because of connections from Kappa Alpha Theta. “I would be nowhere without the Theta network,” she said.

It’s possible that this is mostly a result of who enters Greek life; a 2013 survey of 200,000 Greek life members at nine universities found that 72 percent self-identified as middle or upper-class. Regardless, the cycles of wealth perpetuated by these organizations may further entrench Greek life. Greek donors are four times more likely than non-Greeks to be lifetime donors to academic institutions, and as such have immense influence on University policy. At least 14 of the 38 members of Penn State’s Board of Trustees, which weighed in on Piazza’s case, were in fraternities or sororities as undergraduates, for example.

Caitlin Flanagan details this in her piece “The Dark Power of Fraternities,” noting, in addition, that fraternities serve as essential marketing tools to specifics groups of students and control immense amounts of property needed to house students (conservative estimates suggest fraternities and sororities own $3 billion in property). Ultimately, fraternities and

sororities reinforce patrician power structures. In doing so, they’ve increased their own power, and made themselves near-impossible to remove from many campuses.

An anonymous student at Mississippi State University told a Vox reporter that abolition is unfeasible because of how strongly rooted Greek life is, and instead that reform must take place within the organizations. “If people like me, people who want reform and change, were to drop their fraternities and sororities, that would lead the space to become even less inclusive than it already is.” +++ At Brown, no historically white fraternities are affiliated with national organizations, but all historically white sororities remain nationally affiliated. Brown’s chapter of Alpha Chi Omega maintains a strong relationship with their national organization, chapter president Sarah Fife ’21 told the Indy. Because of low recruitment numbers, Brown’s chapter was placed on ‘recruitment priority’ and as such received considerably more resources and attention than other chapters. Greek organizations typically send consultants and advisors to visit and check in with chapters once or twice per year; Alpha Chi Omega had two or three visits per semester, in addition to more funding during recruiting.

Brown’s chapter is also one of a precious few to have found luck implementing change from within the Greek system. The sorority began to include the chair of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee in executive board meetings, a change which Fife said their consultant advocated for on a national level; the position will officially be a part of Alpha Chi Omega executive boards nationwide. The chapter has worked to lower barriers in recruitment as well. Many sorority rush events have outfit guidelines that the chapter noted may have affected financial accessibility. As such,

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Fife said the chapter created a ‘community closet’ and had people donate extra outfits so that more people could participate.

Brown’s chapter of Kappa Delta held a vote for disaffiliation similar to that of Kappa Alpha Theta, Reichser said. Unlike Theta, however, members who vote to leave the sorority are not forced to leave if the resolution doesn’t pass, and only a two-thirds majority is needed for dissolution. About 55 percent of the chapter voted to disaffiliate or dissolve and roughly 45 percent voted to remain affiliated and reform. Reichser said Kappa Delta’s relationship with the national organization has improved lately. “We always used to think of nationals as being this big far away thing, and they feel very close recently,” Reischer told the Indy. “There’s work to be done, but we’ve already seen dramatic improvement in how communicative and collaborative nationals have been with us in wanting to create these changes.”

Without national organizations to disaffiliate from, local fraternities like Delta Tau have been tasked with reforming internally. “We hope that we can become a place where everyone feels welcome, and we just want to continue to figure out how we make ourselves a place where that’s the case,” chapter vice president Andrew Alper ’22 told the Indy. At present, Delta Tau eschews many of the norms about fraternities that have contributed to the Abolish Greek Life movement. None of Brown’s official fraternities or sororities own the property that they live on and, because Delta Tau is not affiliated with a national organization, its alumni base is less robust and exerts less influence on the University; while the fraternity has made efforts toward databasing, it only maintains a few years worth of alumni information. Alpert noted that, while Delta Tau has yet to see any people who do not identify as male attend their events, the fraternity sees itself more as a social group than a gendered space. In addition, more than 50 percent of the executive board are people of color and two of the previous three presidents have been from traditionally marginalized identities (both Black and queer), according to president Chaz Vest ’22. “We

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welcome everyone from every background. It’s definitely been disheartening to see a lot of the fraternities that occupy the same ‘fraternal space’ as us be the opposite of that,” Vest said. “The question becomes ‘how do we reshape and remodel the fraternity based on 21st century values?’”

Abolition itself may be an imperfect solution. A guest editorial from the former brothers of Delta Tau Delta in the Vanderbilt Hustler noted that the vacuum of social power left by eliminating Greek organizations must proactively be filled, mentioning efforts to form partnerships with organizations on campus. Here Brown may be an outlier—statistics from 2015 found 11 percent of Brown students were involved in Greek life, compared to 32 percent of Vanderbilt students in the 2019-2020 school year.

Other campuses have failed to take these precautions and proto-Greek organizations have formed in the presence of abolition or abolition-like policies.

Harvard University passed sanctions in 2017 against members of single-gender finals clubs, sororities, or fraternities, preventing them from holding student organization leadership positions, becoming varsity captains, or receiving College endorsement for fellowships. In response, many of the organizations affected by the ban changed their membership policies to be gender-inclusive. While Princeton does not officially recognize fraternities or sororities, 74 percent of the Class of 2020 ‘bickered’ at one of the six selective ‘eating clubs’ at the University.

An editorial in the Vanderbilt Hustler notes that Greek life may also serve as a scapegoat for some issues that exist regardless on college campuses, citing unchanged rates of sexual assault at Harvard and Princeton before and after Greek life bans. “It thus seems that the AGL movements at these institutions did nothing more than provide their supporters with the symbolic opportunity to absolve themselves of responsibility for horrifying campus phenomena, which can now metastasize ‘out of sight and out of mind,’” guest writer Jared Bauman stated.

In certain ways, Brown has attempted partial Greek

abolition. In October 2019, the University suspended Sigma Chi for violating hazing and alcohol procedures, joining Phi Psi as now-derecognized fraternities.

Instead of disbanding, however, Phi Psi has rebranded as ‘Lantern’ and continues to host parties off-campus, now even further removed from the oversight of a national organization or Brown. Wesleyan University found itself in a similar dance with fraternity Beta Theta Pi, which refused to comply with its Program Housing restrictions and continued operating after it was banned from campus, just outside of the jurisdiction of Wesleyan Public Safety.

Conversations about reform of Greek life parallel those interrogating many long-standing institutions.

Everett noted that, while the chapter felt that disaffiliation was the best process, repairing the harm caused by such institutions should be handled on a case by case basis, although reform may often be insufficient.

“I think it’s a problem that society is grappling with overall and I think it would be hard to say ‘we’re just going to tear down every institution that has stood for something,’” Everett said. “I think, on balance we just didn’t feel like Theta was doing anything to combat a lot of the practices that had for so long persisted because of a classist and racist legacy. Do I think Brown is doing enough? No. But do I think Brown is in the right direction? Yes. Similar to Theta, it’s a slow beast, but it’s a slow beast that’s moving.”

LUCAS GELFOND B’23.5 gave “Animal House” 3.5 stars on Letterboxd.

23 OCT 2020

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

EPHEMERA

10

WHAT SWANS TEACH US ABOUT LIFE

A lesson on heartbreak

On a run the other morning, I passed a swan with its head face-down in the water. I stopped on the bike path and watched it float out toward the middle of the little pond, its delicate neck arching downwards.

An old man coming toward me paused to look at it, too. He had greyish skin, a salt-and-pepper beard, and was wearing a red felt coat. He stared intently forward as he half-ran, half-sauntered his way through his morning workout routine. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have bothered someone so deep in concentration, but I felt like whoever was in the presence of such a humbling creature should take the time to notice it.

The fragility and stillness of its floating body made it feel like everything else in the world was put on hold.

“Do you think that swan is dead or sleeping?” I asked the man.

He stopped and looked over at the floating mass of feathers. The swan’s body was slowly sinking, clearly water-logged.

“Would be a damn shame if it was dead. I’ve heard swans die from heartbreak,” he said in reply, before resuming his morning saunter-run.

It was one of those damp, foggy New England mornings where the clouds fall heavily down on the world. I watched the man’s red square outline disappear in the mist, bobbing up and down. +++

Sleep was settling over the small log cabin, where I and all of my extended family lay bunk to bunk, full of fried fish and corn, letting the sound of the waves lull us into our dreams. My grandma, who was in the bunk over, got up and put her headlamp on to go outside.

“Where are you going, Joanne?” asked my grandpa in what he thought was a whisper, but what was really a shout because he wasn’t wearing his hearing aids.

“To the latrine!” she yelled back, in a similar attempted whisper.

“Be careful. It’s dark out there,” he bellowed.

I could feel the bunk shaking as my brother laughed in the bed below me, and I pressed my head into my pillow to restrain my own laughter.

When she came back a few minutes later, all the inhabitants of the small cabin lay awake listening for her arrival.

“Jesus, Joanne. I was so worried. What took you so long?” my grandpa asked.

“Oh Manny, you shouldn’t have been worried, I was just looking at the stars,” she said, taking off her shoes and getting back into bed.

“No, I was worried about you, Joanne!” he said.

“Wasn’t your butt cold?”

“My butt was fine,” she laughed. “But you really should have seen those stars. They were incredible.”

My brother and I thought about cold butts and buried our heads deeper into our pillows. +++

Swans only have one partner their entire lives; they mate and stay with the same bird until the bond is broken, either by natural death or act of predator.

Members of this monogamous species may even die from a broken heart if their partner dies. In this way, they embody the idea of one true love.

Assuming that my morning swan really did die, why did it die? Was its partner dead or had they simply split up?

Or, maybe this swan was the victim of a predator attack

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and its partner was experiencing extreme heartbreak?

For whatever reason, I couldn’t let go of the old man’s hypothesis that this swan was, in fact, really heartbroken.

I felt an attachment to it, a profound curiosity about what exactly took its life. I thought about what must have gone through the poor fowl’s brain in the time leading up to its final moments.

Perhaps it had an extra fragile heart, or, maybe, it died of pure regret. Regret over all the things it meant to say to its partner and never did, all the times that it meant to freely speak its mind but held its tongue.

Serious heartbreak is a real thing in humans, too. It’s a surge of adrenaline that feels like a heart attack, and though it’s rare, it can be life-threatening. +++

My dad had his 50th birthday in a graveyard. He invited his parents, friends, and coworkers to gather amongst the headstones and eat cake.

It was drizzling and the whole thing felt very morose.

As we shoveled bites of strawberries and cream into our mouths, we pondered our own mortality. He told me it was a “remembrance” that he would actually be there to remember.

My dad is unconventional, always trying to push the envelope, to lead a radical campaign, to challenge an in-law to political warfare. He likes to go asparagus hunting in the summer, to spontaneously belly-dance in the middle of a dinner party, to add new spices and twists to old recipes, and to try different psychedelics with his middle-aged friends on the weekends.

We stood in a circle, and everyone went around and shared a memory, a gratitude, or random thought. There were some memorable performances—poems, speeches, dances. People laughed, and people cried.

Though I was skeptical at first, it was undeniably powerful and beautiful.

“People are death-phobic,” my dad told me afterwards.

“And, besides, shouldn’t we all hear what the people in our lives want to say to us before we die? ” I thought about how funerals carry two types of mourning—mourning what is no longer present, and mourning what never was acknowledged. +++

The next time I went to a graveyard was my grandpa’s funeral.

BY Nell Salzman ILLUSTRATION Ophelia Duchesne-Malone DESIGN Clara Epstein

I wondered what my dad wished he had said to and done with his father when he still had the chance, and what he wished he could say to and do with him now.

Though my dad isn’t uncommunicative by nature, I was struck in this moment by the impermanence and rushed nature of life.

I couldn’t stop thinking that circumstances will never be the same as they are at the exact moment we exist in them. There is nothing we can do if we don’t act/behave/ say what we mean to say. It was this dissonance, this distance, this inability to go back in time, that hung the heaviest over me.

I looked over at my grandma. She sat still, looking straight ahead. She didn’t cry, just stared forward, blankly.

When it was her turn to speak, everyone waited expectantly. What words could possibly sum up the thousands of hours and hundreds of moments she had shared with him?

She walked slowly up to the front of the gathering and just said one thing.

“The best part of a good life is going with you, Manny.” +++

As I ran back home on that foggy morning, it was hard to get the image of the fragile, heart-broken swan out of my head.

I had the urge to call up everybody in my life who I had ever shared time with, everyone in my life who had done something meaningful with me or for me, and tell them how much they meant to me.

Because I do think love—true love—is meant to be given freely. Freely given and freely received. Sent in hand-written notes across continents and through time zones.

I asked myself, why don’t we all have funerals for ourselves every decade? Why don’t we recognize and speak out more often about all of the good around us, and the good in others? It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering, but just recognizing the small things—the moments we share with each other every day.

The grey man’s saunter, the swan’s head in the water, the misty morning. The darkness of the cabin, the shaky bunk and repressed laughter, the stars, Manny’s sweet concern for Joanne. The sweet cake and headstones, the recited poem that made my mom cry, my dad beaming at his own birthday madness. The comfort of family at a time of deep grief.

Then I ran through moments I’d shared with people in the past week that I hadn’t verbally expressed my gratitude for: a phone call, a walk in the rain, a meal with my roommate, laughter, a hot cup of coffee, a recently-picked bouquet of lavender, a spinning record, a game of chess.

I decided that I would much rather be a 50-year-old man dancing in a graveyard than a swan in the midst of heartbreak.

It was a small gathering in a Jewish cemetery in Denver the summer before my freshman year of college, just family. My dad cried and read aloud the eulogy he’d written for his father.

The “no longer present” was apparent in my dad’s words—the grandpa-sized void in all of our lives.

The smell of wood smoke on the red plaid jacket he always wore when he fire-roasted chicken for Passover dinner. The out-of-tune Beatles song he sang every Sunday morning when we played duets, him picking strings on his mandolin, me banging chords on our small, upright piano.

The way he put rubber bands around the bottoms of his pants to keep them from getting stuck in the spokes of his bike. The pride and love he bestowed on his family.

But the other mourning, “the never acknowledged,” NELL SALZMAN B’22 does think the swan is dead after was what I thought about most. all.

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BY Chong Jing Gan ILLUSTRATION Alana Baer DESIGN Audrey Buhain PHOTOS © Ren Hang

I HATE MY PAST AND DON’T WANT TO KNOW MY FUTURE The presence of Ren Hang content warning: discussions of suicide

It was titled I Hate My Past and I Don’t Want to Know My Future. Ren’s insistence on relentlessly documenting his present through an encyclopedia of bodies, refusing to dwell on either his past or his future, belied the crushing depression and pessimism that he battled in private. Fully inhabiting the present moment—and the sensate experiences of his body, and other’s bodies, that occupied it—was his means of compartmentalizing the memories and uncertainties of what came before and after.

On his Weibo, Ren, a prolific poet and writer, kept a depression diary, documenting his struggles with mental illness. In two excerpts, translated by Amanda Lee Koe:

The sun has not yet risen through the miasma of morning fog and industrial smog that clings to the city as the three of them clamber onto the rooftop. When they are at the edge of the roof, the first person softly instructs the other two to strip. He is thin and lanky, his hair cropped close to his angular skull, but his deep-set eyes are soft and wistful. As he takes in the bodies, instinct kicks in. He gently guides and arranges them into a pose, adjusting an arm here, tilting a head there, until they fall into place. She is bending backward, her head angled skyward; he is hunching forward until his face bends over hers. They close their eyes as their lips meet, and he aims through the viewfinder of his small and flimsy camera, its once silver sheen worn into dull grey.

He arrives at his image, the world holds its breath for one ...in those moments, the more convivial the atmosphere, split-second—he depresses the shutter. the more distant I grow inside, like all the lights can’t reach me, can’t shine on me. I’m standing in an upright coffin. +++ I can feel the outflow, drop by drop, of water from my Ren Hang, born 1987, rose to international stardom body, and even my bones are beginning to soften into a in the early 2010s for his unmistakable style of nude malleable mass...I’ve become less than nothing, better than portraiture. They were lit harshly by a single flash, with nothing. models posing in placeless locales, against blank walls, in mysterious landscapes, or dingy hotel rooms, their Writing in the grip of illness, Ren fixated on the bodies often bent at odd, erotic angles, or playfully and metamorphosis of his body. In the first excerpt, it suggestively arranged alongside props ranging from seems to transform into a prison—an “upright coffin”— telephones and cigarettes to peacocks and snakes. He in which Ren is sealed from the world outside, growing was only 24 when Ai Weiwei named him as one of the “distant” from the fading lights even as he parties with top four rising young Chinese photographers in 2012. his friends. Ren was connected to the world through The next year, Ai Weiwei chose Ren’s works to be the sensations of his body, as if his body was a door exhibited in his FUCK OFF 2 art exhibition. Within a through which he reached out to the world outside, couple of years, Ren’s works spawned dozens of inter- and moreover, to life itself. But as his illness twisted national exhibitions and publications. He was flooded his senses, such that his body and its perception of the with commissions by fashion brands and magazines world began to erode and collapse in his mind, reducing from Gucci to GQ. He was even featured in Frank into “less than nothing,” the door slammed shut.

Ocean’s Boys Don’t Cry. Only in his mid-20s, Ren Hang Ren Hang ended his own life in February 2017. He was everywhere, and to the world at large, he seemed was a month away from his 30th birthday. destined to become one of the greatest photographers of his generation. +++ But in any interview, Ren Hang showed no signs of being the superstar artist that the world made him out Growing up in the suburbs of Changchun, Ren Hang to be. Quiet and soft-spoken, he often rejected the label had never touched a camera before going to Beijing for of being an artist, or even a photographer. In an inter- his university studies. On the eve of his departure, his view with VICE, he described himself as “just someone mother pressed his father’s point-and-shoot camera who takes photographs,” and stressed that the most into his hands, telling him to use it to document the important part of photography for him was just having new sights the city would bring him. Ren Hang went fun. When asked about his hopes and ambitions, Ren on to study commercial advertising, only to find that laughed and responded quietly, “I wish that life can it bored him profoundly and unbearably. Desperate continue on. That it can continue on more smoothly...I for any way to alleviate his boredom, he picked up his have no plans for my future. Nobody knows what will tiny camera and began to photograph his life, particuhappen tomorrow.” larly his friends and classmates going about their daily Ren Hang kept a personal photo collection—a routines. In the shared intimacy of those mundane diary, or a map of his own life, filled with portraits of hours, photographing his friends as they emerged from every person that he met, with each photo embellished dorm showers naked, Ren Hang made his first nudes. with scrapbook-style ornaments from used condoms Throughout the rest of his career, Ren would to hair or marks made with a variety of different tools. repeatedly express a strong aversion to being called

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an artist, or even a photographer, “I’m just someone who takes photographs.” While the reach and fame of his work would soon ensnare it in the politics and the vagaries of the art world, at the heart of it, his practice never left that intimate space in the cramped dorm rooms that he shared with his friends. He only used that same point-and-shoot camera that couldn’t change aperture, shutter, or exposure, but none of these formal qualities mattered to Ren. He did not create works through rational thought—every one of his compositions was the result of spontaneous instinct and impulse. His practice was not primarily concerned with aesthetic beauty and artistic meaning inasmuch as it was concerned with play: the curiosity and excitement of exploring one another’s bodies, seeing what it would look like if someone posed this way and that way, trying to create the most bizarre configurations and pairings he could imagine, wondering at the kineticism of that movement, revelling in the intimacy of touching and seeing and moving with another.

Ren Hang never shied away from the overt sexuality present in his play of bodies—in many images, his models’ poses are either suggestive of or directly simulate sexual play. In an interview with Vantage, when asked if his works were 情色 (Qíng Sè), a term that best translates to ‘erotic,’ he responded that he preferred the term 色情 (Sè Qíng), which is more crass and closer to ‘pornographic,’ saying that, “I don’t need to try and make it classy…there’s nothing wrong with low-class.”

As he often did throughout his career, Ren explicitly refuted the notion that sex and sexuality were unrefined or distasteful, something to be repressed or given the appearance of dignity. His work took on sex in a blunt, matter-of-fact way, often depicting homoerotic relations and fetishtic practices between his subjects.

But it’s important to note that his work can’t be understood solely within the Western discursive framework of sexuality—that is to say, while Ren was a gay artist, he was not only a gay artist, and his usage of sexual imagery did not exclusively refer to the fact of his homosexuality.

Rather, his work showcases bodies of all genders mixing and playing with one another with a kind of indiscriminate, queer fluidity that shows a disregard for categorization and orientation. The erotic magnetism that draws his subject’s bodies toward one another is rooted in a deeper, more fundamental connection— the kinship and attraction of bodies that share the same condition of existence within a human, corporeal form.

In some images, the boundaries between bodies melt away, entangling and merging into one. It’s as if, at every moment, Ren was marveling at his own existence within a body and how it is through the body and the shared condition of embodiment that humans connect to and merge with one another. In his depression, Ren’s body would turn into a prison for his own mind. But in every photograph, he fought to hold onto

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the world and the people around him through visions of bodies united and intertwined in beautiful configuration. Speaking to VICE, he said, “Are we all ashamed of the bodies we own? We should be proud of them— or at least recognize them and value them—recognize and value our own existence.” His photographs were an assertion of life—every single moment of it a gift to be captured and preserved. +++ Ren Hang is survived by his works—each frame, pressed into existence by the pressure of his finger on the shutter, a space in which his own complex relationship and existential dialogue with his body is enacted and staged. But the memory of that space is often eroded within Western art discourse, in which Ren Hang is primarily labelled as an anti-establishment rebel whose usage of nudity functions on shock and outrage.

Since the beginning of his career, Ren Hang was swept along in the tide of Ai Weiwei’s notorious celebrity as “the bad boy of China,” an artist who flaunted his rebellion against China’s authoritarian rulers, and found himself pigeonholed into a similar narrative. Seizing upon China’s strict anti-pornography, anti-nudity censorship laws that resulted in Ren’s works being banned and taken down, art critics hailed him as a spiritual successor to Ai—a political provocateur, out to stir up shock and outrage in a politically and culturally repressed state. When interviewed in 2014, Éditions du LIC, who published Ren internationally, said of his work: “Ren Hang’s images challenge conventional codes of morality in a still highly conservative society…[his] homeland remains harshly censorial against any material it deems immoral and Hang’s work certainly plays with fire.”

But Ren himself constantly and repeatedly denied these attempts to politicize the meaning of his works. In a 2012 interview with Vantage— before Ren had made his name on the global stage—he flatly denied that his works were in any way indicative of a “sexual liberation.”

“Nudes are there since always. We were born nude.

So talking about revolution, I don’t think there is anything to revolutionize…

I just photographed things on their more natural conditions.” Speaking again to Dazed in 2015, Ren once again said, “My pictures’ politics have nothing to do with China. It’s Chinese politics that wants to interfere with my art.” And yet, despite his insistent protests, this projected legacy of political rebellion would come to outlive Ren himself.

In 2019, a posthumous retrospective in memory of Ren Hang opened at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) in Paris. The New York Times headline emblazoned: “Ren Hang’s Provocative Photographs Show a China We Rarely See.” The director of MEP, commenting on Ren’s work to the Times, said, “These people are playing in order to be themselves instead of the stereotypical Chinese citizen. It’s really quite naughty disobedience and about getting the picture before the police

shows up.” Separately, the exhibition’s promotional material wrote that Ren’s work “represented vis-à-vis a repressive political context, the expression of a desire for freedom of creation.”

To politicize Ren’s works in this way risks falling into that same confluence of Eurocentrism and outdated Cold War politics that envisions the Chinese state as an all-consuming, inescapable authoritarian regime that dominates and dictates the entire lives of all who live within it. This vision accordingly suggests that Chinese culture, identity, and people are entirely shaped by the hegemonic Chinese Communist Party—such that Ren Hang’s work can only ever be viewed as something oppositional to it. This idea that everything Chinese exists relationally to the Chinese state implicitly perpetuates the notion of superiority of the “free and enlightened” peoples of the West, and the sub-humanity of the Chinese.

It might seem bitterly ironic that these articles and exhibitions would assert Ren’s political inclinations while also publishing Ren’s disclaimers against the political nature of his own works, but then again, it isn’t really surprising. Ever since Roland Barthes, French philosopher and literary theorist, wrote the revolutionary text, The Death of the Author, in 1967, Western artistic and literary criticism has unseated the author or artist (or as Barthes termed it, the ‘Author-God’) as the one true source of a work’s meaning. Barthes rejected the long-held theoretical position—in fact, the foundational principle of Western criticism before him—that works have a single, fixed meaning engineered by the author in the creation of the work. Instead, Barthes suggested that all creations have plural, expansive possibilities of meaning, brought to life by every individual who encounters it and comprehends it differently.

This idea that meaning revolved around the perception and experience of the audience would pave the way for the various theoretical positions that arose in the wake of Barthes. Today, it is Barthes’ influence that casts legitimacy on art critics and writers who ignore the spoken opinion of the artist and place their work into different political contexts for reinterpretation.

But we should not read Barthes’ key gesture as the dogmatic dismissal of the creator. Rather, the crux of his essay was that he redressed the power imbalance between creator and audience in the reception and meaning of a work, allowing marginal voices to rise and place the work into new light. In the context of Ren Hang, this power imbalance is reversed—the author was not a god; he belonged to a culture and nationality that has historically been silenced and usurped by the Western-dominated art world. The author is not even living— his voice has fallen entirely silent. So we must do the opposite of what Barthes did. We must undo the death of the author and restore his voice.

Ren Hang fought hard to have his work published. He worked underground with a friend to secretly self-publish all his work to bypass state censors, risking police detainment again and again. He was arrested multiple times. His exhibitions were banned. People spat on his photographs and took them down. But his most powerful act of resistance was to endure all that and insist on a message that transcended the power relations that tried to contain him, that located itself in an alternate imagining of humanity and identity away from the state that attempted to impose itself over everything. For the art world to return his work to those confines posthumously is to undo the very freedom that they speak so highly of. Unlike what Barthes did, we will find the meaning of Ren Hang’s work not in his death, but in his life.

Though Ren Hang is gone, his body of work represents a preserved collection of his moments—every single split-second that the shutter clicked and trapped an image that joined together the bodies and lives of photographer and model. That present moment lives on in the photograph, outside the slipstream of time. The life of Ren Hang is still there.

All you have to do is look.

CJ GAN B’23 wishes he had enough pictures to hold onto all those moments.

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On my Way

content warning: mentions of self-harm I see how my friends all want to chuckle when I tell them how we split up, your newly found vocation. How we said our goodbye at a park downtown, where you needed to take care of legal work. That I didn’t even travel with you, in the end, to the monastery. When they consider it for a few more seconds, they remark on how kind of enviable you are. Something like, “Such resolve asks for a particular flavor of courage, which, on nights like these, with the bourbon nearly empty and my feet cold—courage I wish I possessed.” To this I respond, “Yeah, I know, he’s great.”

I still want to tell you everything, even if it’s the stupidest item in my grocery cart on a Thursday

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afternoon: a Heath bar I chose because it sounded like health. “Somebody really believed the masses would enjoy this?” I thought while eating it, remembering how you disliked store-bought candy. I’d say anything just to keep the talk coming.

At various junctures in the past, I told you half-lies when I ran out of words to offer. Tales about the things that I believed in as a teenager, and friends I was trying to have. When you laughed and pressed your fingers into my palm, the contours of these half-fantasies became sharper, upheld by somebody as respectable as you, and we shared a plank of belief. The best was when you could respond, “Hold on. I’m the exact same way!”

And then you would recount a time when you mistook your then-girlfriend’s sex toy for a paperweight, and

BY Lauren Lee ILLUSTRATION Charlotte Silverman DESIGN Anna Brinkhuis

brandished the marbled vibrator atop some papers in front of the girl’s family. That resulted in obscenities with her mom, in which you were denounced for being some exhibitionist who got off on perturbing families.

It was an accusation so far from real, it caused you to question for several months whether you enjoyed intercourse at all. A story even less likely than the one that I’d just told you, but probably one hundred percent true.

So, last week I got brunch with my dad, who, as you know, spent most of my childhood stored away in a high-up office, and then most of his retirement sitting in the living room. We went to Ralf ’s. Every time we meet is the first occasion in months that we exchange air molecules between us. I got eggs on rye, and he ordered a tuna salad so pungent that I could barely

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hear what he was complaining about. We must have discussed cholesterol and the new talked-about biopic.

He asked me how the children’s books were going and forked the gunk past his lip over my answer.

What I am trying to say is that I am working on a storybook that follows a human husband and wife who transmogrify into animals of different species and can no longer sustain a relationship together. It is supposed to help folks from ages five through eight nurture hope through their parents’ divorces, and teach them a bit about love, despite distance. The iguana and the snowy owl depart amicably to climates very suitable for them, respectively.

You sent a postcard talking about “the elation at realizing one dwells exactly where he should.” Everything that happens shall receive its proper energy back—or is that Buddhism? It must be some tremendous freedom to have your fears crowded out by the world’s quiet sense. I wondered in the beginning, though, why God couldn’t attend to you and me together, and why you had to choose a place so comically far.

I saw a Youtube video of a priest explaining the Eucharist. In it, he said that the facticity of Jesus being God’s-word-turned-tangible enabled Jesus to, inversely, change material reality with his words. So atop the mount, when he proclaimed, “My flesh is real food, and My blood is real drink,” he made the bread and wine into actual Jesus. I mean that the Eucharist is not meant to be symbolic; Catholics ought to be convinced that they gnaw on the literal, incarnate entity Jesus each Sunday. Well, but That into Son into Father?

It seems like an enormous procession of symbols to me.

Perhaps, all the names are what trouble me, and if I did not have to translate names into ideas of beings then an immediacy would become more apparent.

The names of the two creatures in my upcoming children’s book rhyme: Jeff and Steph. I won’t include the following in the actual thing, but it has been important for me to understand their background. They went to the same elementary school in Maryland for a few years, before Steph and her siblings––their father a Staff Sergeant in the army––had to move to Florida.

Steph and Jeff kissed once, in second grade, and both had managed to memorialize and think (perhaps with too much zest) of one another until they met again through their jobs in Baltimore. As adults reunited, they are joyous and beautiful instead of lonely. They move into a house and are about to adopt twins. Then––and this is where the plot begins––they happen on a potion that turns humans into animals according to essence.

I have never been to Maryland, have you?

+++ What do you think of in your large tracts of time? What insights will swim to you while you’re conserving the energy you might have otherwise thrown into attempting to communicate with other humans? No passive-aggressive coaxing of the person behind you at the Federal Building to step into line before you, though you were first to get onto the walkway from the parking lot tarmac.

Wikipedia wrote, “Some Trappists, rather than resorting to speech, will whistle if in dire need of procuring attention.” I imagined a Brother long down the cloister, blowing fingers between his lips and emitting the soft, round clarity of one who has worshipped through chorus for five decades. A medieval doofus, a beggar who wandered accidentally into the abbey garden, whirls around, no clue about what the tubby cloak is trying to convey—no, sorry. That’s not it.

+++ One of the best things lately is to shower after working out. The less I enjoy the exercise, the better I’ll feel in the wash. This cuttable skin provides just the barrier to separate the coursing in me from the liquid coursing over me. I bought the body scrub you used, except in APRICOT rather than UNSCENTED. Whipped soap: miraculous. It looks like clay, and feels like air. I enjoy squeezing clumps of it in my palm to make orange trickle from my knuckles. I throw a bit at the body part that wants kneading. I like the whole process so much that my skin has been looking stretched and latticed.

So, I went to the store to purchase moisturizer, and guess what, I saw my father. He passed on the other end of the aisle from the distance of POPSICLES, FRUITS, and BREAKFAST as I was reading the descriptors for FROZEN FOODS. I left my cart and trailed him into TOILETRIES / COSMETICS. He had on a pair of

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

sneakers.

“Hello?” I said, watching him brush his hand over swatches of lipsticks and concealers. He turned his vast face up to me. As if he wanted assistance and I were somebody working at the grocery, he squinted.

“Sandra?”

“What are you doing? Dad?” He turned, displeasedly, back to the concealers.

PORCELAIN, MEDIUM BISQUE, PURE BEIGE, TOAST, ESPRESSO. I repeated myself.

“It’s these goddamn,” he blinked, “purple bags frolicking under my eyes.”

My father’s whole face seemed as if it were made of hanging purple bags. Some fatter than the others, but all curving in smiles, ripe for poking and bursting.

A gourd made of warts, his head. Except for the mouth.

His mouth was a thin, gravity-defying, watery pink.

“I barely see what you’re talking about,” I remarked.

I eventually assisted him in choosing a green concealer to cancel the colorage, and a mineral foundation in the shade ALMOND. We walked to his Volkswagen; we put in our small talk for the next few months.

I went to work when I got home, equipped with a new bottle of Olay and a tea towel. I hurricaned a good and honest sweat on the rowing machine. Then, I took a hot shower against the alleged drought. Soon after that, I stepped in George’s poop, so I rinsed again.

Then at night, the mattress got so hot that I had to take another shower, twice actually, and by dawn I was so showered-out that the trammeled bath towel pleaded for a rest.

Do you know that I don’t have any trouble with the writing? Even when I haven’t slept. It spurts out each day: 2000 words, then edits. I do the children’s books, and the celebrity listicles on the side. The editor and/or the illustrator will simplify and segment what I submit, so form is rarely a worry. That story about the animalian couple is going to be good. Vonnegut once said that you should only write to please one person (“open your windows to everybody and you’ll catch pneumonia”).

Well, you know I miss you.

Yesterday morning, very early on a Monday, I went to the church on 2nd Street to inquire further about taking sacrament. First, Father Arnold, wearing a clover pin on his vestment, explained that the Eucharist is not for taking, but that it’s to be received. One bows her head, and opens her mouth slightly for the wafer to be placed upon the tongue. Or she cups her hands perpendicularly to make a throne for the Son’s (God’s) substance. I asked how one ought to prepare, then, to receive Jesus’s blood. He said “folks” typically don’t eat or drink for an hour prior, but that each person’s process of purification will be different. He said we could talk about it further if I were interested in getting baptized.

An hour later I was in the apartment watching high schoolers amble past, their ears tucked venerably into their beanies. My dad called.

I said, “What happened? Why are you up so early?”

So loudly that it crackled through the speakers, he snarled. “My bags are gone.”

I recalled those ugly things, sure that they looked more gruesome in my mind than they actually had at the market. Thought of flesh globs being plucked off a planet of a head, and flicked away into starry blackness to pop, and dissipate, into thousands of infinitesimal liquid bits. The bags, they were gone?

“I needed to tell someone. The fuckers have been slowly deflating on their own over the past week. It’s since I’ve figured out how to stay asleep.”

“Don’t tell me you’re…” He had never been one to trust doctors, unless it came to relief—physical, psychological—then he was a thorough patron of medicine.

“No, no, pills, Sash. Naturally. Want to hear the secret?

“Look, I was waking up at all crazy hours. It just happened that way. I’d stay up trying to think about the number zero, zero, zero, zero. Static counting, then of course that would turn into what will happen to the squirrels who live in the backyard once I’m gone, and what I’ll have for breakfast, snack, lunch, dinner, late snack tomorrow. Counting, tallying in every way on Earth. It was torture. I would lie there screwing my eyes in as if I was trying to take a shit.”

“Dad.” I said. “Just tell me.”

“Two weeks ago, I opened a window before going to bed.”

“That’s it?” I said.

“Yes, dear. Circulation.”

+++ Nights, I drink a glass of water with melatonin, then wonder into my pillow about what it would have meant to reside at a Cisterian monastery during the Middle Ages, prior to the great, disappointing aggrandizement of Benedictine monasticism and Abbot Armand-Jean De Rance’s subsequent reforms at La Trappe. Certain monks were tasked to maintain the tonsured hairstyles of their peers, among other duties involving small blades—from this emerged the term ‘barber surgeon.’

It’s been almost five months since you moved outward, and I believe I’ve envisioned this character, my conception of a lay monk who follows a simplified liturgy and shaves the eleven Brothers in X Abbey on Saturday mornings.

He starts with Brother Elliott, the prior, since once he’s groomed, Elliott sees to Father Abbott in his chamber.

Besides that, the order depends on how the Brothers arrange themselves in line after silent prayer.

The barber surgeon enjoys receiving various sequences.

Will inquisitive Brother Jean follow Brother Elliott, and if so, will he run his palms over the cool arms of the chair before resting down into it?

He shaves each Brother.

After scraping the skin, he swishes the blade around quickly, though gently, in a lukewarm bowl of water to disperse fallen hairs. The bowl, made of cerulean-glazed glass, is thin enough to be nearly transparent in the proximity of solid objects. The blade and the water against the glass make for a pleasant clinking.

He lifts the razor back to the cheek, or the head, of the Brother ensconced before him. Moves it parallel over a veneer of olive oil, which has been applied to smooth the procedure. A little of the oil may dribble down the neck.

Some of the Brothers are ticklish. And there’s a Brother––Victor, perhaps––who sprouts the fastest of them all. That beard has to be trimmed with scissors before the bristles can fall away. These things can be anticipated, but in a way they are also new each time.

I admit that on some occasions it will be my hands that shake slightly with the focus that is put into tonsuring the Brothers’ heads. You, love, caretaker-turned-absence, come up tenth or last in line, having allowed the others to slip in before you. Each week you bid them to do this; it is a well-meaning little gesture.

Without irony. You give me a slice of a smile as you approach. I do your head a degree more slowly, skimming my hands over your un-dyed habit as appropriate.

The practicalities of my time, though—this background and a life ahead—come eventually to the butt end of the daydream. Then the barber surgeon is faceless: what’s important is that he’s quiet, and doesn’t slip up.

LAUREN LEE B’22 doesn’t have trouble sleeping at present.

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DÉJÀ VU EN EL DISTRITO ESCOLAR DE PROVIDENCE Nos complace anunciar que, con el objetivo de hacer nuestro trabajo más accesible para las comunidades hispanohablantes de Rhode Island, estaremos publicando parte de nuestro contenido traducido al español. A continuación, podrán encontrar nuestra primera traducción, “Déjà Vu en el Distrito Escolar de Providence: Dos décadas, dos informes”, basada en un artículo originalmente escrito por Alicia Mies, que forma parte de una antología de traducciones que pronto estará disponible en nuestra página web.

POR Alicia Mies ILUSTRACIÓN DE Eliza Macneal DISEÑADO POR XingXing Shou TRADUCCIÓN POR Felipe Félix Méndez

We are excited to share that, with the goal of making our work more accessible to Spanish-speaking Rhode Islanders, we will now be publishing Spanish translations of some of our content. Below, we have included our first translation, adapted from the piece “School District Déjà Vu: Two Education Reports, Two Decades Apart” by Alicia Mies, which is part of our forthcoming digital anthology of translations of pieces from the past year.

originalmente publicado en inglés el 13 de marzo del colegios están al alcance de Providence”.

2020 El Dr. Eddy también dio su palabra al afirmar que los colegios de Providence serían reformados y transCorría el año 1993. En aquel entonces, una carretera formados sin necesidad de un aumento significativo de cuatro carriles pasaba por encima del Providence en su presupuesto, siempre y cuando contaran con River, el distrito de colegios públicos enfrentaba serios un “sólido liderazgo” por parte de la alcaldía y la cooprecortes de presupuesto y el ahora infame Vincent eración de todos los involucrados – estudiantes, padres, ‘Buddy’ Cianci estaba apenas en el segundo año de su educadores, directivos, autoridades municipales, entre primer término como alcalde de Providence. En medio otros. de una profunda crisis económica que afectaba a todo el estado de Rhode Island, un grupo de líderes empresariales y educadores publicó el “Providence Blueprint for Education” (PROBE, por sus siglas en inglés) – un informe de 125 páginas escrito por un comité de 33 padres de familia y líderes comunitarios presentando recomendaciones para la transformación del distrito escolar.

PROBE, con el apoyo de la Cámara de Comercio de Greater Providence, desarrolló un minucioso estudio independiente sobre los colegios públicos de Providence. Su metodología involucró el análisis de resultados de pruebas como el SAT y Miller Analogies Test, grupos focales, encuestas aplicadas a estudiantes y educadores, además de comparaciones con otras ciudades con características similares. Los principales hallazgos de PROBE sobre el Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Providence (PPSD, por sus siglas en inglés) fueron preocupantes tasas de fracaso en exámenes estandarizados, baja asistencias a clases, planes de estudio monótonos y poco exigentes, acusaciones de prejuicios raciales por parte de profesores y problemas con la enseñanza de inglés para estudiantes con conocimiento limitado del idioma (programas LEP). Varios de estos problemas aún permanecen vigentes.

26 años más tarde, en junio del 2019, el Institute for Education Policy de la Universidad Johns Hopkins publicó un estudio sumamente crítico acerca del PPSD. El informe de Johns Hopkins fue el resultado de una investigación realizada por solicitud de Angélica Infante-Green, Comisionada del Departamento de Educación de Rhode Island. Su procedimiento involucró entrevistas y grupos focales con padres de familia, educadores y líderes relevantes, al igual que visitas a varios colegios alrededor de la ciudad y análisis de varios documentos y estadísticas proporcionadas por A pesar de estos importantes desafíos, el informe las autoridades locales.

PROBE abordó el tema con un sorprendente nivel de optimismo. El Dr. Edward Eddy, entonces presiEl informe de Johns Hopkins detalló las fallas dente de la Universidad de Rhode Island y director del PPSD desde las perspectivas de todos los actores de PROBE, inició el informe señalando que “mejores clave. En resumen, el desempeño académico de los

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estudiantes es deficiente, los docentes no se sienten apoyados por el distrito y la infraestructura de los colegios está tan deteriorada que se ha vuelto un peligro.

Sin embargo, a diferencia del informe de PROBE, el de Johns Hopkins describe la educación de Providence como muy deficiente y disfuncional, utilizando términos poco esperanzadores. Varias de las anécdotas presentadas en el informe resultan sumamente impactantes. En un colegio, una filtración de aguas negras cayó del cielo raso hacia las cabezas de los chicos. Un profesor de inglés que no hablaba nada de español era el único recurso académico asignado a varios estudiantes hispanohablantes.

Muchos niños de una escuela primaria reportaron que el bullying era el pan de cada día en sus colegios. En varios colegios, encontraron abundantes denuncias de hurto de las cosas de los estudiantes. Las condiciones de las instalaciones escolares “le sacaron lágrimas a algunos investigadores” que creían haberlo visto todo después de tantos años trabajando en estos temas.

El tono del informe de Johns Hopkins contrasta fuertemente con el de PROBE. El estudio de 2019 está repleto de gráficas y cifras que demuestran una clara tendencia a la baja en el rendimiento académico, citas alarmantes de estudiantes entrevistados experimentando gran estrés por el colegio y estadísticas desalentadoras sobre la composición racial de las escuelas de Providence. En fin, el estudio de Johns Hopkins pinta una imagen deprimente y desesperanzadora del estado actual de la educación en Providence.

Claramente, muy poco ha cambiado en más de dos décadas desde la publicación del informe de PROBE. Domingo Morel, un profesor de Ciencias Políticas de la Universidad Rutgers que asesoró al equipo de investigadores de Johns Hopkins y que estudió en colegios públicos de Providence, señaló en una entrevista con The Atlantic que “realmente no hay ninguna diferencia” entre la situación del distrito cuando él estudió y en la actualidad.

23 OCT 2020

Dos décadas, dos informesDos décadas,

dos informes

Por razones no del todo claras, el informe de Johns Hopkins no incluye soluciones concretas a las fallas del sistema educativo de Providence, ni mucho menos un plan detallado como el esbozado por PROBE en 1993.

En cambio, el estudio de Johns Hopkins presenta los problemas del distrito como inherentes y estructurales y parece sugerir que sería preferible que el gobierno del estado de Rhode Island asuma el control de los colegios públicos de Providence. Según los investigadores, el PPSD se encuentra entorpecido por una serie de estructuras burocráticas confusas y redundantes que obstaculizan el progreso – el problema es demasiado grande para ser solucionado por el gobierno local. +++ El informe de PROBE, redactado por una comisión de padres de familia y líderes comunitarios, analizó información presupuestaria, características demográficas de los estudiantes, resultados de las pruebas MAT y SAT. Además, incluyó encuestas, entrevistas y grupos focales con todos los actores clave.

PROBE también comparó los colegios de Providence con otros en distritos educativos de tamaño similar, como los de New Haven, Pawtucket y Syracuse.

Dicha evaluación los llevó a concluir que las escuelas de Providence eran inferiores a las demás tanto en presupuesto como en rendimiento académico. Cabe destacar que el PPSD recibe un menor porcentaje de su financiamiento por parte del gobierno estatal que el resto de los distritos analizados. Según el informe en cuestión, 49.5% de los fondos del PPSD vinieron del gobierno de Rhode Island, mientras que los distritos de New Haven, Pawtucket y Syracuse recibieron un promedio de 57.2% de su financiamiento de parte de sus respectivos gobiernos estatales. Por lo tanto, Providence estaba gastando casi mil dólares menos en cada estudiante que los otros tres distritos.

Las investigaciones de PROBE también arrojaron que los estudiantes de los colegios públicos de Providence tienen muchas menos horas de clases que los de los demás distritos evaluados. De hecho, los estudiantes de primaria en Pittsburgh tenían el equivalente de tres semanas y media más de clases que los de Providence. En secundaria, los estudiantes de Rochester tenían cuatro semanas de clase más que los de Providence. +++ Más de la mitad del informe de PROBE se enfoca en desarrollar 19 recomendaciones concretas (de las cuales solo el 15% requerían fondos adicionales) y un calendario para su implementación. Algunas de ellas son reestructurar el sistema de presupuesto en las juntas directivas escolares, establecer asambleas públicas y consejos estudiantiles, al igual que crear un programa de desarrollo profesional y evaluación del rendimiento de los educadores.

habilidades artísticas, musicales y deportivas. El tema con los choice programs es que, como los subsidios se mueven adonde vayan los estudiantes, los distritos ganan o pierden dinero dependiendo de si atraen o pierden más alumnos. Por ejemplo, según WPRI, al Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Warwick le cuesta $17 mil por año enviar a un estudiante a un pathways program en otra ciudad de Rhode Island. La posibilidad de perder dinero ha creado una competencia entre distritos que ha obligado a los colegios públicos a +++ invertir en mercadear sus programas a familias en otros Si algo ha cambiado drásticamente desde la publi- distritos. Sin embargo, en 1993 PROBE vio en estos cación de PROBE, es la composición racial del PPSD. programas la posibilidad de lograr cambios profundos En 1993, 33% de los estudiantes eran blancos, 30% y permanentes. hispanos, 25% negros y 12% asiáticos. El informe de El estudio de PROBE presenta la recomendación Johns Hopkins señala que actualmente 9% de los estudiantes son blancos, 65% hispanos y 17% negros. no. 39 como un último recurso. Para sus impulsores, Johns Hopkins añade que el 87% de los estudiantes las primeras 38 recomendaciones deberían bastar viene de familias “económicamente desfavorecidas’’, para arreglar los problemas del PPSD. La mayoría de sus recomendaciones eran para los administradores un tema que el PROBE no abordó. de colegios y del distrito. El informe no exige cambios El informe de Johns Hopkins dejó a la gente de estructurales ni un aumento significativo en el finanProvidence en el limbo, preguntándose cómo arreglar ciamiento establemente, ni mucho menos puede su sistema educativo. La comisionada de educación, considerarse una crítica al sistema en sí. En cambio, Angélica Infante-Green comentó a WPRI 12 “Primero la propuesta de PROBE enfatiza el potencial de las me sentí devastada. Fue tan difícil leer el informe que acciones individuales y locales para obtener mejores resultados. Su mensaje es claro: Providence puede me sentí enferma al terminar”. tener excelentes colegios públicos si sus habitantes La noche que la Junta Estatal de Educación trabajan juntos para lograrlo. votó para transferir el mando sobre los colegios de +++ Providence al estado de Rhode Island, Infante-Green dijo que el estudio de 1993 demostraba que Providence “le falló a una generación entera de estudiantes”. Al señalar que la raíz de los principales problemas del Además, prometió que “un tercer informe no será PPSD es la burocracia en su estructura administrativa, el informe de Johns Hopkins indirectamente solicita al necesario”. estado de Rhode Island asumir el control de los colegios de Providence. Sobre esto, el gobierno del estado +++ de Rhode Island comentó lo siguiente: “Ha llegado PROBE recomendó ofrecer clases más pequeñas y el momento de que el gobierno estatal se ocupe del personalizadas, establecer y asegurar el cumplimiento presupuesto, programación y personal del PPSD y sus de normas éticas más estrictas, aumentar la oferta de colegios y, de ser necesario, de reformar sus escuelas oportunidades de desarrollo profesional para los líderes reestructurando su gobernanza, presupuesto, plan del distrito, incentivar la participación de la comunidad de acción y planilla, así como decidiendo sobre su a través de posiciones de voluntariado y contratar a un continuidad”. profesional que se dedique exclusivamente a identiTras la publicación del informe de Johns Hopkins, ficar y solicitar fondos adicionales. PROBE también hizo un llamado a los representantes de Rhode Island el alcalde de Providence, Jorge Elorza, se sumó a ante el Congreso para que presionen para conseguir las voces que apoyan esa idea. En una conversación mayor financiamiento federal para la educación pree- con miembros de la comunidad, Elorza comentó que scolar y programas de educación artística y multicul- “Realmente necesitamos llegar al meollo de este asunto tural. Además, recomendaron implementar un sistema y lamentablemente no podemos hacerlo a través de integral de recolección y evaluación de estadísticas, al la autoridad que tenemos como alcaldía. Por lo tanto, igual que ampliar el acceso a servicios esenciales para estamos solicitando el apoyo del gobierno estatal”. estudiantes y sus familias.

En su momento, PROBE trazó un plan de acción El informe de PROBE termina con la recomen- basado en el potencial de la política local y de la dación no. 39, que establece que “Si no se logra cooperación de ciudadanos común y corrientes para avances importantes en un tiempo relativamente corto, cambiar la trayectoria del sistema educativo. Hoy, más entonces por el bien de los estudiantes el sistema de veinticinco años después, la respuesta propuesta deberá someterse a cambios radicales, profundos y del Departamento de Educación de Rhode Island para permanentes”. Ante ese escenario, PROBE sugiere solucionar los problemas del PPSD es muy distinta. considerar una transición a un choice program, un Al terminar citando a un directivo que recomendó programa que permite utilizar subsidios para matric- un “reinicio” – nuevos profesores, nuevas instalaular a los estudiantes en un colegio de otro distrito ciones, nueva cafetería – el informe de Johns Hopkins educativo, dependiendo de lo que digan los estudios hizo un guiño a la intervención estatal sin pedirla explícitamente. sobre la efectividad de dichos programas.

La gente y los maestros siempre te hacen sentir bienvenido. ¡Harán lo que sea por ti!” En cuanto a la diversidad racial en el distrito, un estudiante de Hope High School dijo: “Todo el mundo se lleva bien. ¡A nadie le importa de cuál raza seas!!!!!” (Sí, el informe incluyó exactamente cinco signos de exclamación). De igual modo, cada sección del informe de PROBE comienza con un mantra inspirador escrito en mayúsculas.

PROBE documentó preocupantes niveles de discriminación racial en los colegios de Providence. Por ejemplo, 38% de los estudiantes de secundaria consideraron que sus profesores tomaban decisiones injustas según la identidad racial de los alumnos. Pese a esta decepcionante cifra y al reconocimiento de que no será Desde entonces, los choice programs se han vuelto fácil obtener fondos adicionales para la educación, el bastante comunes en algunos distritos de Rhode Island informe mantiene un tono alentador. y cientos de estudiantes han optado por transferirse a otros sistemas para acceder a educación técnica o PROBE cita varios elogios de los estudiantes a sus vocacional, entre otros programas. Existen 203 pathprofesores. Uno dijo: “Mi colegio es una segunda casa. ways programs en Rhode Island para estudiantes con

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

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These community health centers accept all insurance and have a sliding-scale system based on income for patients without insurance.

Designed by Mehek Vohra

HEALTHCARE RESOURCES

BAIL FUNDS & MUTUAL AID

Blackstone Valley Community Health Center: Pawtucket & Central Falls - 722-0081 Thundermist: West Warwick & Woonsocket - 615-2800 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 If you have COVID-19 symptoms, there are several locations in Rhode Island where you can get tested. For more information, please visit https://health.ri.gov/covid/testing/ Para más asistencia en español, llama a la línea de apoyo de AMOR: 401-675-1414.

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 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 Saturday, October 24: Food trucks and live music at Diamond Hill State Park in Cumberland, RI, 3:30–7pm. Admission is free; face masks and social distancing required.

Saturday, October 24: “Night at the Haunted Museum” at the Museum of Natural History and Planetarium at Roger Williams Park (1000 Elmwood Ave) from 6–9pm. Purchase tickets online here: https:// www.providenceri.gov/night-haunted-museum/. Face masks and social distancing required.

Sunday, October 25: PVD Flea Market from 10am to 2pm across from 345 South Water St. There will be artisans, vendors, live music, and food trucks. Mask required for entry.

Monday, October 26: Black Liberation & Palestine Solidarity. Join RISD Students for Justice in Palestine at 7pm for an online conversation with Emory Douglas, Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, Matshidiso Motsoeneng, and Nerdeen Kiswani on Black and Palestinian liberation and transnational resistance against racist structures of oppression. More info: https://bit.ly/3dJGuDi Ongoing: Drive-thru Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular at Roger Williams Park Zoo. Get into the Halloween spirit from the socially distant vantage point of your car. Car trail open every night 6:30 to 11pm through the end of the month.

Ongoing: “Steps to End Prison and Policing: A Mixtape on Transformative Justice.” A nine-part video series made by activists (including Mariame Kaba, Mia Mingus, and Ejeris Dixon) offering critical political frameworks for this moment. Proceeds go to BIPOC transformative justice organizations based in Chicago.

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.

ELECTIONS Sign up to phonebank remotely and/or canvass in person in Southern RI for local progressive candidate Megan Cotter. Sign up at https://actionnetwork.org/forms/ volunteer-for-megan-cotter.

Volunteer as a nonpartisan poll watcher on behalf of Common Cause RI to assist voters and reduce intimidation. Read about it and sign up here: https://www. commoncause.org/rhode-island/our-work/expand-voting-rights-election-integrity/election-protection.

Sign-up to call voters in swing states and phonebank for the Green New Deal through Sunrise RI: https://bit. ly/3lKhE9q