The Madison Journal of Literary Criticism, Volume 13

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Fall 2023 Volume 13

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CONTENTS 8 Jordan, ******** - A. Jenson 9 Self - Parker Hurkman 10 Desert Whispers: An Overland Crusade To Falfurrias - Alexander Punguil Bravo 14 Yes You: A Response To Queerphobio - Dakota Dowding 15 The Comprehensive Guide To Falling - Mckayla Murphy 16 Creativity Parallels The Classroom? - Anju Kinoshita 17 What Does Resistance Mean To You? 20 Departure - Stella D’acquisto 23 icing on the top - Frida Braide 24 Women’s Ways - Alyssa Aung 25 Distortion - Isabella Minkin 27 Carbon Lullaby - Joshua Geinapp 28 The Microphone - Ese Yarasik 30 Is Hockey For Everyone, Really? - Emily Wesoloski 32 Timeline 34 “Hate Speech” And Palestine - Andie C Barrow 38 A Look Into Forms Of Resistance 44 If A Tree Falls In Atlanta: Madison And The Stop Cop City Movement - Quinn Henneger 46 Forward - Meg Bierce 48 You [We] Will Change[D] The World - Sophia Smith 50 Tarot Spread For Mary Lakeland - Mckayla Murphy 51 A Bigger Impact - Charlotte Knihtila 52 My Bedroom - Cloey Deignan-Koelzer 53 Messy Woman - Sasha Ivanov 54 Meri Maa - Shrushti Nayak 56 Full Home Sestina - Tor War 57 The Crows Kindness - Riley Haller 58 The 500 Block Is Burning - Ella Olson 62 Nuestra Lucha Wisconsin - Camila Trimberger-Ruiz 64 Somehow Mother - Gabrielle Watry 66 Twentysomething (She/Her) In Manhattan - Margaux Trexler 69 The MJLC’s Resistance Mixtape 70 A World (Found) Lost - Ray Kirsch 73 Industrialization - Bella Niforatos 74 An Englishman’s Obeah - Elizabeth White 74 Look What You Did - Kathryn Blommel 80 Existence, Endurance, Womanhood, And Means Of Resistance 85 We’ve Been Through Too Much To Water Poisonous Flowers - Isabell Ku 86 Stone Circle - Catherine Young 87 Daisy Fresh Girl - Kathryn Blommel 88 Contributors MJLC

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Co-Editor in Chief Ria Dhingra Anna Nelson

FA LL 2023

Publishing Director Sophia Smith Managing Director & Administrative Assistant John Nugent Managing Editor Landis Varughese Financial Officer Jonathan Tostrud

Editor: Fiction/Prose Ella Olson Editor: Nonfiction Ray Kirsch Editor: Poetry Lacey Brooks Editor: Art Carsyn Barber Editor: Academic Aspen Oblewski Nina Hekmat Quinn Henneger

Outreach/Social Media Sophia Shashko Graphics and Layout Emily Wesoloski Cree Faber

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LETTERS FROM A letter to our curious visionaries: The MJLC is an abolitionist collective. And while those of you reading this letter are aware that we produce a biannual magazine, we are first and foremost a study group. Every week, we bring our voices together, discuss texts and events, imagine new worlds, and always ask questions. We disagree. We giggle. We get frustrated. We hug. And together, we create a space that breeds living praxis.

Just as our fall magazine reflects the theme of resistance, our study group follows suit. Each week of this semester, we analyzed a new form of resistance—strikes, protest, arts and music, policy, care, etc. We’ve questioned the efficacy and limitations of each method, analyzed their goals, and fashioned new approaches.

So in the spirit of maintaining motifs, I find it fitting to ask: how does our study group—a collective—and the discussions we hold, serve as a form of resistance? Beyond our goals of connecting, sharing, and building a community— which are indeed necessary—what do we really do? From many angles, we’re just sitting in a room, in an academic space, talking.

Talking, however, is the one form of resistance that can withstand the required flexibility that abolition begs for.

Abolition is a process, a practice, an ideology—amenable to changing opinions. It is not a monolith. Our discussions are never set in stone, and our members are never held to previous beliefs or statements. We welcome the challenging of ideas and the changing of our perspectives that move with the flow of time. Because unlike the tangible actions of our protests, performances, speeches, and our magazine, we are not cemented in history. In the face of the rigidity demanded by these public statements, our classroom is a nursery for thought, and we, the midwives, birth these movements. Without this open space—a space for intellectual malleability—we are bound and limited to the inevitable mistakes of yesterday and fallible prescriptions of the future.

The carceral state we aim to abolish is an intricate web of carefully perfected practices, policies, and social norms.

Resistance to such a complex system requires persistence in creative solutions and adaptability. It all starts with the rearing of ideas, and today, we have no shortage. Every week, our members intertwine their brilliant brains to confront misconceptions, vindicate radical thought, dispute definitions, defeat imposter syndrome, and experiment with the medium of conversation.

For such a radical theory as abolition, we cannot and will not provide a blueprint for what a world without the carceral state may look like. We do not expect to have all the answers. However, one day we may. And tomorrow we will know more. We will discover better questions, better methods, and better understanding. But right now, our conversations exemplify tenacity in innovative thought to such a degree that steadies the unknowing nature of abolition.

So, to all my visionaries: thank you for making this collective and for continuously building strength in our evolving resistance. Thank you to the people who got this dream off the ground and to the curious minds turning this platform into a space for dreams of their own and others. I cannot wait to see where you take us.

Much love,

Co-Editor in Chief of the MJLC

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THE EDITORS Following our transformation of the Madison Journal of Literary Criticism into an abolitionist study group and magazine, the Fall 2023 edition set out to further expand our mission of social and literary critique. But before all that, before I found myself co-running a magazine, I used to babysit. I took care of two lovely little boys aged two and four. I loved them dearly. The job was not easy.

The younger child was a troublemaker. Constantly questioning, pushing against authority. The sort of kid who wore gloves on his feet and socks on his hands. He laughed constantly, ran away quickly, and cried frequently. But think about all that for a minute: throwing a tantrum, playing the “why” game, being stubborn, following suit of your sibling, hugging them, standing in solidarity in the time-out corner with them, creating chaos, telling stories, drawing on the walls, hanging upside down after being told not to, crying, kicking, screaming, laughing, pushing a bowl off a high chair and saying “no,” then laughing louder…

When you hear the word “resistance” what often comes to mind is something daunting, something violent. But the capacities for resistance are not really all that radical—rather, they are intrinsic within us. Resistance is all the things those two little boys did to drive me mad. It was so natural for them; a way of being. It should be for all of us.

The Fall 2023 edition of the Madison Journal of Literary Criticism is a publication that captures the narratives of resistance in its multitude of forms. The Resistance issue thematically follows directly from our Fall 2022 Consciousness issue and Spring 2023 Renaissance issue. As our mission defines abolition as asking “why?” and dreaming of more, Consciousness was about “waking up,” of attuning yourself towards the existence of the carceral state and its harms.

Subsequently, Renaissance was about re-imagining, innovating, and returning attention towards structures we once took for granted. Now, Resistance is about pushing back. Holding your ground. Raising your voice.

As the study group spent this semester talking about forms of resistance, trying to develop a working definition of the term, this magazine aimed to create and curate an issue that reflected our discussions. From a brief timeline on the history of resistance on this campus to an analysis of a seminal work by Angela Davis to a comparative analysis of resistance as protests, strikes, policy, art, music, and more, this publication examines the strengths and limitations of various modes of resistance. This Fall, we invited creators and now invite readers to consider what resistance means to them and to assert it through art. I am honored to share their work, and the work of talented hometown and international artists, with all of you.

This issue looks at the NHL and Atltanta’s Stop Cop City Movement. It showcases speculative fiction and discusses forms of identity through poetry. In creating this collaborative publication, I am beyond grateful to our study group for their ingenuity and our staff for their dedication.

As a magazine about resistance, it’s also pertinent to briefly discuss the role a literary arts journal plays within resistance movements. Unlike a protest, a magazine is not limited by temporality as a publication is permanent. That being said, we are “out of date” the second we go to print. There are strengths and limitations of a magazine as well. Our founding intention with this publication was to reach more people regarding abolitionist rhetoric and feature an array of voices tied to the subject. The purpose of a magazine is to distill a narrative from a tangled mess of events taking place outside of it. In regards to resistance, we hope to remember it. To capture it. To showcase it. I believe our selected works from contributors truly embodies this vision and I am beyond excited to share their creativity with you.

With that, I encourage you to read. Read stories. Share them. Remember them. Half the battle in any resistance movement is getting the word out, getting people to truly understand why you’re resisting. It’s like being two, being four, and saying “I don’t like this, it’s not fair.” So be stubborn. Be loud. Ask questions. The capacities for resistance have always been within us. Resist: today, right now, more than ever before.

With so much Love,

Co-Editor in Chief

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ACKN OWLE DGEM ENTS

As usual, it is beyond necessary to have a separate letter of acknowledgement to properly thank the multitude of individuals and organizations that have aided in our process. As an entirely student run social justice group that produces a magazine, there are many amazing people and supporters who have worked tirelessly to bring together this edition of the journal over the course of the past semester.

Their efforts, aid, and continued belief in us has never ceased to be overwhelming.

We are grateful for the continued aid and support of the L&S Honors Department, the Activist Student Action Program, and the UW English Department. For this particular edition and semester, we would like to extend our gratitude to the Associated Students of Madison and their Grant Allocation Committee, ASM Financial Specialist Makenna Kull, the Evjue Foundation, and the University of Wisconsin Foundation for facilitating grant proposals.

To English Advisor Erin Polnaszek Boyd, our sponsor for the journal. Erin is a woman who wakes up at 5am to respond to our emails, miraculously manages to produce funding strings, whips out letters of recommendations

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before you can even begin to ask, and is a pillar of support for members of our editorial team. Erin sees the brightest potential in people, in us, and has worked so ardently to take care of this publication and the students who produce it. Thank you.

To Professor Ingrid Diran, who single handedly derailed our collegiate experience in the very best way, thank you. Professor Diran found us, over Zoom, three years ago.

Since then, she has constantly been working behind the scenes, sparking inspiration for this publication, providing mentorship and her ceaseless creativity. Professor Diran has radicalized all of us, reminded us to be incessant in our questioning and holistic in our perspectives. She (along with the previous MJLC staff ) entrusted the two of us to take over and run a publication—something we had no experience doing—and transfigure it into something new, unknown, exciting. Thank you.

The MJLC is first and foremost a study group. Together, we make a magazine.

Despite us touching on study group earlier, we are so thankful for the students who join us each Tuesday. This group of students— our little found family—has grown over the course of the past three semesters and is composed of some of (who we believe to be) the brightest minds on this campus.

Weekly, these study group members show us how it is possible to be an activist, advocate, community member, leader, and go above and beyond the minimum criteria for civil/political engagement—all while being college students. To our collective, we look forward to seeing your faces and hearing your voices every week. We are honored by your engagement and contribution and are sure you all are destined to take the MJLC to great heights. In a world of uncertainty, your dedication to social justice, to art, is a beacon of hope.

To our contributors, thank you for sharing your work with us. We are so honored to be showcasing your art—work that elicited care and inspired resistance. Art, as a medium, has always been a political act. Your bravery

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in continuing the tradition today is moving.

To all those who submitted—thank you.

Despite this being our third publication, we are always so excited by how many submissions flood our inboxes. We received emails from fellow students, scholars, community members, and international academics.

We are thrilled to showcase fellow Badgers, high schoolers, and academics! Editing, reading, and viewing your work was truly a joyous process. We do hope to hear from you all again.

The creation of this issue and our semester as a whole resulted in event collaborations with the organizations of Sex Out Loud, PubCom, ASM Sustainability, UW Amnesty, Madison Solidarity, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives, the Center for Campus History, and student radio station WSUM 91.7. Together, we held workshops, made zines, scrapbook-ed, passed campus legislation, advocated for community members, made a podcast, organized, marched, and so much more. “Appreciative” does not begin to cover how lucky we felt to work with such amazing groups to create spaces for abolitionist praxis in our community.

Finally, we need to do more than simply acknowledge our team, our staff, our lovely, unconventional, group. As a fully student run group/publication, our team is unpaid and our publication is not consistently funded. None of us ever had publication experience coming into this. This means that these lovely people not only work to create a magazine together, but raise the money to print it along with so many other administrative tasks. Everybody on this team knows that position titles are a loose formality—we all run this magazine together. Over the last three months, we created a podcast, applied for travel grants, wrote feverishly into the middle of the night, researched, presented at student government meetings, made lesson plans, learned how to use a button press, set up our first office, spent way, way, too much time together, and so much more.

To put it bluntly, this team puts up with a lot of madness. They are mad (wonderfully mad) to do so—to trust us always while

embodying the mission of the MJLC in their actions.

We would like to thank our spectacular team this semester: Sophia Smith, John Nugent, Landis Varughese, Jonathan Tostrud, Sophia Shashko, Emily Wesoloski, Cree Faber, Ella Olson, Ray Kirsh, Lacey Brooks, Carsyn Barber, Aspen Oblewski, Nina Hekmat, and Quinn Henneger. For some of these people, it was their first semester on the staff. They were outstanding. For many, this was round three—they went above and beyond. For two, this was their last semester with us. Thank you. You will be missed, and you are always welcome here.

More importantly, we showed up for one another—constantly. They provided us with patience and feedback when we messed up, support when we needed it most, and care—constantly. Above all, it shocks us how much this team cares about the world, about one another. We are confident that with this staff, this publication has the foundation to continue its mission long after the two of us graduate.

We have said it before but it needs to be said over and over again: this started as a magazine, we started as a staff. We are so much more. We love and appreciate all of you so dearly.

So thank you all. We are beyond excited to share this edition of Madison Journal of Literary Criticism with you all.

With so much Love and Gratitude, Ria Dhingra and Anna Nelson Co-Editor in Chiefs

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Jordan A. Jenson

I hope it’s alright if I think of you now when I never did before I keep seeing a photo of you smiling, wearing red, socks showing– and it tenses the line between us The soul has left my work before people I love have swept me out of doors like floor grit I’ve spat the most insensible words trying to shape agony into a small enough thing that someone else could (please) hold it for a while I’ve seen my own light flickering I know what happens to gils, to lungs, to the brain I hope it’s alright that I feel the twitch slightly—so slightly—between us because I’m here still far away from that chokehold place maybe as far as one could get and still be tied to you Tied on a line so fine it disappears in certain lights Tied, I mean, on the other end I, in the mudpack below the fisher’s boot You, thrashing on the hook I hope it’s alright if I think of you while I stretch myself into a gulf so big it can swallow up your legion killers and all of their shrugging tools I cannot help you, Jordan but I can look into the platform pools and think of you

******** A. Jenson

Have you ever met someone who chose the name you gave away?

Have you ever felt the particular joy of a curse lifting?

When it happens, you will want to say to them: Look at how we can recycle these things.

What was hideous to me is made so beautiful by you.

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Self Parker Hurkman 9

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DESERT WHISPERS

Image: Jimmy Emerson (Flickr)

An Overland Crusade to Falfurrias

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by Alexander Punguil Bravo

orn in the vibrant heart of Ecuador as a young teenager, I embarked on a journey that would challenge the essence of my being. The colors, sounds, and memories of my homeland were soon to clash with unfamiliar lands and unexpected challenges. This personal story is based on my experiences and culture and serves as a reflection of my life. It is more than just a narrative; it is a part of who I am, a reminder of the strength and perseverance of those who, like me, seek new opportunities in a foreign country. This story you are about to delve into is an excerpt from an extensive work chronicling this arduous voyage from Ecuador to the United States.

place to hide, be safe, and change our wet clothes. Our group of 24 people headed to a small town and took refuge, where we showered and slept, splitting into different areas of the town. The five Ecuadorians, including myself, stayed After crossing to the other side in one of the town’s motels, resting of the river and hearing the guide and preparing to cross the desert. say, “Welcome to the north,” I was In the town were people of varioverwhelmed with emotions: hap- ous nationalities; the great majorpiness, relief, and a hint of fear. For ity were migrants and mainly from a moment, I felt like that young boy Central America. At that point, we again, back in Ecuador, naive and were around 200 individuals, each full of dreams. My eyes welled up accompanied by a guide or a “coyfrom exhaustion, realizing how far ote.” Our Ecuadorian coyote facilI had come physically and emotion- itated the accommodation for our ally. stay. The five of us shared two beds Once on U.S. soil, we quickly in one room. I shared a bed with a had to hide among the bushes un- girl and a boy, while a man I will In moments of unfamiliarity and til very early in the morning when call “John” shared his with a young uncertainty, I questioned my jour- two large vans with dark windows girl he had overseen since our journey’s purpose. Was it the appeal of picked us up to take us to another ney back in Ecuador.

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the unknown, the promise of a better life, or the burden of others’ expectations? However, memories of home and the love of my family became my guiding light, urging me to move forward even when every step was difficult.

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We joined John on our journey while crossing Mexico. Our previous guide from Ecuador had less experience than John. John had more contacts and was more assertive in decision-making. Besides, our former guide, “David,” brought his family with him, which complicated the journey because they complained the entire time. They were too loud and were always fighting among themselves. One day, in southern Mexico, while we were hidden in the hills and bushes, they gave up and decided to try to get some food at a gas station.

However, their luck was bad, and they could not get any food because Mexican immigration authorities had taken over the gas station, and the officers captured them.

In that small town, we stayed for one day. Every time we had the opportunity to sleep in a bed, it was the best sensation that my body could feel, as there were many times that we had to sleep on the ground, hidden in bushes, to avoid migration officers. While talking with other Ecuadorians in the group, I heard rumors that John had repeatedly inappropriately touched the young girl he was supposedly taking care of, all while pretending he was ensuring that she was alright. True or not, this kind of behavior occurred often with other people during the trip.

On July 31st, at 4:00 in the afternoon, the other guides told us it was time to leave. We left the town in the same vans, piled on each other, and very uncomfortable. I was so uncomfortable that my legs cramped up. The journey must have lasted an hour in that discomfort before they left us in a deserted area. That is where the haunting desert odyssey would begin. By then, the guides had reminded us that the walk would be challenging. So, most of

us were prepared, at least mentally, for what was to come. The leading guide for the crossing was a young man, about 20 years old, with many pieces of jewelry on his body. He frequently guided migrants, smuggling them across for pay. He knew when officials were not patrolling the area and where it was the safest to cross. That afternoon was one I will never forget.

I walked 16 hours nonstop that day. The 200 people in my group were women, men, children, and teenagers. At the beginning of our walk, we laughed and talked about the day we spent in the small town.

Some Honduran women who drank the night before with two of the guides were not physically stable as they were still hung over. They thought the guides would protect them by spending the night with them. They were wrong. During the crossing, the guides were there to help everyone without exception. After a few hours, those girls and others began to vomit from the excessive heat. The two gallons of water each of us had been given quickly ran out. I remember crossing many desert ranches. The sun became more and more intense; people on the journey complained.

Many started begging others for water that most of us did not have.

The guides replied, “If you finished your water, we are sorry, but we do not have more water. We told you not to drink it all at once.” Some people shared their water. I remember finishing my water right away as the day was hot.

After a few hours of walking, people began to walk more slowly and get behind. Many would yell, “Let’s keep walking; we can do this. We are almost there.” That, of course, was not true. We were so far from being almost there. But I understood their intentions. I helped where I could without falling be-

hind myself. The idea was to keep walking. The path was sand, like a beach without a sea. There were hills and dry branches everywhere.

There were no big trees to give shade. The sun consumed us.

While walking, I heard some people say that the desert was the most dangerous and extended part of the journey. One overweight Ecuadorian man I met on the journey sat beside a dry old branch and said to me and the others, “I am sorry.

I cannot keep walking. This is my destination.”

We replied to him, “Come on, this is not your destination; you need to keep walking.” We pulled him up, but he refused to continue.

He said, “I am done; let me be.”

We grabbed him and moved him near some dry bushes to protect him from the heat of the scorching sun. We all looked helplessly at each other, and I knew it was the last time I would see him. Even if I wanted to help him, I could not do much for him: two souls would have been lost in this desert. As I walked away, I saw his eyes close and heard his labored breathing.

It was 8:00 in the evening, and the sun was still out. After so much walking, we rested for an hour. I removed my boots and put my feet up on a branch. My feet hurt a lot, and I had calluses on both. My body was exhausted; I could not take it anymore. I wanted to stop, but I knew I could not give up at this point in the journey. I lay down on branches while listening to people complain of the heat. I looked around and saw faces of desperation. We were exhausted and scared. The guide said we still had three more hours of walking. Some sighed, and others complained because of the difficulty of the journey. Even though some people wanted to show courage and strength, they crumbled

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from exhaustion and long hours patrols had several dogs following enduring the never-ending heat of us, red lights flashed everywhere, the sun. and we heard people speaking a At 9:00 in the evening, after our language we did not understand. short rest, we prepared ourselves The Mexican man “Luis,” who had and started our journey again. The crossed the border many times rapid, audible beating of our hearts (five, to be exact), told us we should broke the stillness of the night. change our steps in sandy areas to With every step I took, memories of confuse the officials about our dimy past life flashed before my eyes: rection. As we kept running, the the happy times spent with my fam- infrared lights passed near our feet, ily, the warmth of my home, and but fortunately, they did not detect the comfort of being surrounded by loved ones. But there was no turning back now. Like the others, I was driven by hope, dreams, and sheer determination, notwithstanding the moments of vulnerability.

We had not walked half an hour when the guide made us stop because he had seen patrol lights. He motioned for us to stop and hide among the bushes. As we did, I realized there were several patrols. I saw them coming towards us. us. In my mind, I was praying that The guide said, “Do not make any the dogs would not be set loose. The noise; they will leave. Stay calm.” story would have ended differently However, I was so exhausted, if the officers had forced the dogs to scared, and overwhelmed that my chase us. first reaction was to run, so I ran After long minutes of being rather than risk being captured. I chased, a helicopter flew over us, told another guy from Ecuador to illuminating the area so the officers run with me, and he did. Five oth- could locate us. Luis kept repeating, ers joined us, and we separated “Keep running and stay caught up.” ourselves from the larger group.

He suggested we climb onto the It was already dark, and we could not see anything. In the darkness, we ran aimlessly towards an uncertain fate. In our group were two Ecuadorians, two Salvadorans, two Hondurans, and a Mexican. We ran non-stop into the unknown. Hearing our desperate footsteps, the patrols began to chase us, leaving the rest of the group free.

During the chase, we fell many times and quickly got up. Thorns embedded themselves in our arms and legs, but there was no time to remove them; the only thing that mattered was not being caught. The

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so much adrenaline and anxiety. I was finished. My feet did not want to continue, and my will to continue was gone.

Luis told us, “Guys, we made it. Now it is time to rest and sleep so we can start our journey early in the morning.” Even though I was exhausted, I reacted strongly to his statement and told him and the group that we could not rest.

If we did, the sun would consume us the next day. Also, I wanted to avoid dealing with scorpions and other desert creatures. Somehow, out of nowhere, my strength had returned. I told the other six men I would continue walking toward the unknown, and whoever wanted to follow me could. The other Ecuadorian was the only one who volunteered to join me. The others chose to rest for a while and then continue.

My fellow countryman and I said goodbye and good luck and walked away. After 30 minutes, we met the group again. I realized we were walking in circles, and those who had decided to rest began walking together. Not knowing where to go, I impulsively pointed in one direction with my hand.

Luis asked me, “And how do you know that is the way if this is your trees to mislead the officers by pre- first time?” tending we were part of the trees.

I replied, “Something is telling Looking back, we would have been me that the direction where the easily captured if it had not been moon and the increased light in the for Luis’s idea. After two exhaust- horizon is is the direction to take. ing hours of hiding and fleeing, The moon spoke to me and told me we lost the officers. We no longer to go that way.” heard dogs barking or foreign and The moon must have been my unknown sounds. grandmother, who takes care of me Our hearts were still beating so fast, and we had looks of confusion on our faces. We could hardly believe that we could finally breathe and continue walking. I remember thinking that I just wanted to get out of this place that was filled with

in spirit, answering my prayers. In addition to the moon’s glow, in the distance, lights were seen as if from some city, and my intuition was to head that way. We continued walking in the direction I pointed without anyone disagreeing. We

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all wanted to sleep and rest, but I insisted we could not. Once again, I repeated that the sun would consume us the next day. We had to keep going until we got there. We walked. I cried silently. I prayed.

on us. As we crossed other ranches, Luis asked for food and help. When he asked at one ranch, he came running back, yelling, “Run, run, that guy took out a rifle!” We all ran from that ranch until we reached During that moment of uncertain- a safe place. Luis told us that the ty, I asked for a miracle. I prayed rancher swore he would kill us if he and knew that my loved ones, dead saw us again on his land. and alive, were praying for me, With no words for what hapso I felt spiritually accompanied pened, we continued walking until in many ways. I knew my mother we reached a road. We crossed the and grandmother would always be road, and Luis said, “Be careful and praying for me. When I remem- run without being seen.” At that bered that, I felt a little relieved. I point, I did not care about anyknew their prayers would care for thing. If immigration officers came me and everyone with me. In those and picked me up, I was ready to moments, the invisible threads of surrender. I had no strength or will faith and familial love kept me go- to move on. Luis felt I was giving ing, even when all seemed lost. up and told me, “Do not give up; we I was tired of walking, and my are already on the other side.” He physical and emotional strength continued, “Where is that person ran out. We walked and walked who gave us strength to keep walkwithout stopping. Our feet and bod- ing during the night? Do not give ies could not take it anymore. We up now.” walked while sleeping. We looked like zombies. Thirst tormented us, and to drink water, we had to refill the one bottle that we had found near a barn, one probably left by other immigrants. As we passed through many cattle ranches, we found water troughs built for cows.

Although it was animal water, the weeks of travel had taught me to drink water in many ways. We took our shirts and used them as filters so that larvae or other bugs that could make us sick would not enter our stomachs.

house. The house was super small but perfect for one person or a couple. There were now eight people in the house. The tiny house became our place of refuge. The guy living in the house was tall. He had a mustache and dark hair. He wore boots, tight pants, and a big hat. He also spoke Spanish, but with an accent I had only heard in movies. I stared at him the whole time. The man told us he could help us to get to our destination. The first thing he asked was if we were hungry. No one said anything, but the answer was evident by the look on our faces. He told us to shower and that he would return with some food.

While we showered, he returned with two bags of bread and some mortadella sausage, which we devoured in seconds. After we ate, he gave us a flip-up phone to call our relatives to let them know we were safe and how to proceed with I saw tiny trailer houses after the payments for the next part of crossing the road and passing some our journey. For the man, we were bushes. This was the first time I money that just fell from the sky. had seen houses like that. At that Right away, I called my father and point, I thought about going and told him about our odyssey. Also, I asking for help, even if they did told him that this man would take not understand what I was saying. us from this part of the border to I was starving after not having eat- Houston with some money inen for almost two days. Luis had volved. My father gave me encourshown us how to eat the nopal, and agement to continue and the faith we were so hungry we had gladly to move on. As we sought refuge tried it. However, nopals were not in a stranger’s home, it was a powenough. Our hunger was so intense erful reminder that kindness can that Luis went to ask for help at one be found in the most unexpected of the tiny houses. We were scared places, even in dire situations. We that another guy would threaten arrived at the Texas town of Falfurhim with another rifle and that, rias, from where we would head to this time, there would not be any Houston. Unfortunately, the story warning. We hid while waiting for does not end there… him. After a few minutes, we saw Every journey has its trials, but Luis running towards us with a big the spirit of perseverance and the smile. He told us that the man in belief in a better tomorrow drive us that house was willing to help us. forward, regardless of the obstacles

We walked all that night and through the early morning until we reached a nopales (prickly pears) ranch. On the ranch, we slept two hours, which felt like a lifetime, because we were exhausted, without energy, and all we wanted was sleep. Upon waking up, we were resigned to whatever came. Luis went One by one, we cautiously walked in our path. to ask for help at the ranch house, toward the house. This was the first but sadly, they turned their backs time I had seen and been in a trailer

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Yes, You: A Response to Queerphobia Dakota Dowding I hate that you refer to me as unnatural. Why

can’t see the misery that you’re spreading. All because

don’t you see me within the same species as you; is it

you can’t get out of your way. No one is asking you. No

because I’m masculine? because I don’t need a man as

one is forcing you to be queer. I hate that you think this.

a lover? because I’m not a little girl anymore? You wish

We know what it’s like to be forced into sexuality: to be

you could have intervened; saved and protected my child

told who to date, how to date, how to love.

self from corruption. To show her how to embrace the

Every day, I am furious with you. You spew your

gift of femininity that was bestowed upon her on the day

opinions as facts, you dismiss my existence, and you

of her birth; to show her how to swallow the pain and to

claim that I need to be institutionalized, sterilized, and

appear grateful for the sake of tradition. To prepare her

neutralized. How does this not eat you alive? I hope that

for the husband that she’s never wanted.

it does. I hope that you dissolve your own armor from

I gave her better. I let her know that she doesn’t

the acid that you spit; I hope then you realize your own

need to perform to be loved. She can wear what she

horror and that you’re met with the same compassion

wants, date whom she loves, and express herself. I gave

that you’ve granted me.

her unconditional love and the resources to succeed.

I gave her the framework for a healthy home, and I taught her how to say no. I was the parent she needed. I hate that I’m seen as a fraud and monster. You call me disgusting and deranged while you obsessively scrutinize me; you want to know about my body, my sex, my relationships, and my past. All in hopes to prove that my expression is a result of trauma or indoctrination, to prove that I’m not to be trusted, to prove that I am a mistake. Before you even know my name, you’ve decided that I’m amoral.

I hate talking about this. I want nothing more than to live my own life. But I can’t because you assert that I’m throwing my identity in your face, that I’m brainwashing your kids, that I’m a sickness. You make your bigotry my business because you can’t handle that people don’t live the way that you’ve chosen to. No matter how much you want it to be the truth, it’s not my fault you’re unhappy and scared and it’s not my fault that you’re unaware and unwilling to learn. I hate that you

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the comprehensive guide to falling Mckayla Murphy

like lucifer, like icarus, like every other sweet-faced boy who fell in love with something far too big for their angelic bodies. sticky words slip off the tongue with all the grace and glory of the names that are uttered in verse and rhyme. (the myth of icarus is bullshit- that’s why it’s called a myth. and isn’t paradise lost just a fanfiction of the bible? someone else came up with their stories, and from someone else’s mouth their stories are something spectacular and something stupid. but there’s always been something beautiful in stupid stories with no meaning and all the meaning in the world.) for when you deny your father, your Lord, your inventor, your hubris becomes your downfall. you are all forceful whispers to a background cacophony of angelic music and your words are beautiful and stupid. you are all flapping wings going higher, higher, and you are beautiful. and stupid. and that’s how you fall. just like lucifer. just like icarus. stupidly and beautifully. (but in the end icarus laughed as he fell, and lucifer, watching below, cried “hark! he must fall before he flies.”)

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MJLC 16

Creativity Parallels the Classroom?

Anju Kinoshita

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I WAIT AND ACHE. I THINK I HAVE BEEN HEALING… THERE IS A GREAT DEAL ELSE TO DO. SYLVIA PLATH, THREE WOMEN

Resistance is, quite simply, an adherence to one’s beliefs and values in a setting where these said values are unpopular or opposed. It can be opposition towards a major element of one’s country or even the world – inequalities that are seemingly entrenched in society – or as simple as a gathering of friends in opposition to something only they believe is unjust.

There is no metric for resistance, nor is there any particular field it must be observed in. As I have grown older and matured, I have increasingly looked towards myself—what do I resist?

These answers tell me a great deal about who I am and what I value, as they should anyone else who asks the same question. This is because resistance is not merely an action, but a state of being. Just as how you conduct your life is telling of who you are, resistance reveals more about your identity than almost anything else.

-Evan Randle Resistance to me is the feeling in my gut when I know something isn’t as it should be. When I, or a collective of people, recognize that our environment or something within ourselves is fundamentally flawed and needs to be changed. Resistance is not always easy, nor is it always popular, but it is to be true to yourself and your values. People should not resist for

popularity or out of a trend, but out of genuine care or frustration about a circumstance they find themselves or others in. Resistance is allyship, and resistance is self-care. Without resistance, we lose a fundamental part of the human experience. We all have core values, things that we will protect when challenged regardless of what we are up against. Resistance is the ability to look at the status quo and reject it as you work to improve or completely restructure it in some form. Resistance is not one act, but a state of being, a way of approaching life that frees you to act as the person you really are or the person you strive to be.

-Nathan McGinnis Resistance, to me, is refusing to accept. Pushing against boundaries and fighting for what you truly believe in.

Making sure that you’re fighting for what is right, and resisting oppressive forces that try to put a stop to it. Resistance can be confrontational, disobedient, rebellious. To me, resistance is going against the grain and challenging the units that challenge you. When the world faces prejudiced, discriminatory, and unjust obstacles, it is up to us to resist these parties and defend, protect, support, campaign, lobby, and so much more.

- Aspen Oblewski

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As simple as it is, to me, resistance means using your voice.

Resistance can be yelling so thunderously that you feel your vocal cords straining against your skin. It feels as if you were to stop, you wouldn’t be able to start again. If you were to stop, they might snap, your voice lost forever.

Resistance can be laughing. The kind that starts deep in your stomach, the kind that you can feel as it travels up and up until it’s released into the world.

The kind where you and your friends just look at each other, and break down in laughter and tears.

Resistance is drinking water to ease the dryness in your throat. Resistance is having all of those “remember when we did this” conversations.

Resistance, in its truest form, is love.

Resistance is fighting for what we believe in, fighting to better this world we care about so, so much. Resistance is loving yourself, and forgiving yourself when you fail. Resistance can be getting out of bed in the morning, encouraging yourself to keep going.

Resistance is everything.

-Mary Murphy Stroth Growing up seems to be unspokenly synonymous with raising your guard. You stop wearing your heart on your sleeve to avoid pain andembarrassment. You hold your tongue because there seem to be so many people older, smarter, wiser.

You keep your cards close to your chest, because everyone else, every friend, at the end of the day, is competition. Being an adult is first taking care of yourself— bowing down to this ubiquitous rhetoric of individualism, leaving behind collectivism with children in playgrounds.

All that is deemed childish—soft, is slowly given up.

I argue, truly believe, that there is strength in choosing to stay soft. That kindness is not a default, but a constant, often difficult, choice. It takes effort to

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I FEEL IN MYSELF NOW A FAINT, A DREADFUL STIRRING OF WHAT SO OVERWHELMINGLY STIRRED IN ME THEN, GREAT THIRSTY HEAT, AND TREMBLING, AND TENDERNESS SO PAINFUL I THOUGHT MY HEART WOULD BURST. BUT OUT OF THIS ASTOUNDING, INTOLERABLE PAIN CAME JOY; WE GAVE EACH OTHER JOY THAT NIGHT. JAMES BALDWIN, GIOVANNI’S ROOM

love your neighbor when they decide to mow their lawn at 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday, pissing you off. In caring for your community even when it lets you down.

In continuing to believe in your friends even when they falter or give you reason not to. There is strength in cultivating solidarity, in care, in connection, in understanding—there is so much strength in softness. There is resistance in retaining that softness in a world that constantly tries to strip you of it, within a capitalist system that demands you harden.

This isn’t to say be naive, be passive, be scared. Softness, care, and love alone is what combats indifference, calls out harm. Caring for people, for community, for the world, is what compels outrage when people or things are hurt. Care is what motivates action—its fuel. Continuing to care, prioritizing collectivism, and choosing to love, deeply, ardently, not only propels resistance, but is resistance in itself. -Ria Dhingra Resistance: it means many things, but for me it’s about my academic career and resisting the urge to stop completing my undergraduate degree because I’m tired after being in college for almost seven years now. Resistance to me is resilience, knowing that I have been in academia for a long time and want to just be done, but having to resist taking a semester off and rather keep pushing forward despite the hardships of having ADHD, Dysgraphia, and Dyscalculia.

Resistance to me is resisting the urge each day to not sleep through classes and to instead go to class every day and grind it out. Resistance to me is anyone who works with the McBurney Center or has an academic disability, those of you who struggle and still choose to resist giving in or giving up on completing your bachelor’s degree. Those of you who instead choose to keep going every day and resist the urge to not finish what you started in your academic career. To me,

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that’s resistance: embracing the struggle through resilience.

-Daniel Fitch Resistance shows up to me the most as simply existing. We resist gender norms by plainly being ourselves. We resist a heteronormative society by loving who we love. Resistance does not have to be a large protest or movement; it can be everyday actions, like putting on certain clothes. Resistance is not negative nor should it be framed as only attainable through a collective. You can be resistant by yourself, just as you can resist as a collective group of people. For many people, resistance isn’t something you necessarily have to put on in the morning; it is built into who you are.

-Ray Kirsch Resistance is defiance. It is devotion to morality and solidarity in the face of oppressive entities that condition societal complacency while perpetuating nightmarish injustices—mass incarceration, violent dispossession, police brutality, poverty, and funding genocide. Resistance is a promise you make to yourself that despite these horrors, I may bend, but I will not break.

To sink your teeth in rather than bite your tongue, daring to disrupt the system and dream of a future with a legacy rooted in liberation, reparation, decolonization, critical reflection, and community. To dance in the streets with uncovered hair, to voice your anger unapologetically, to share a clandestine kiss where your love is a crime, to write the books that fascists burn, or to simply persist despite, or in spite of, the Kafkaesque.

that has made it difficult for me to articulate its personal significance in the past. However, through a combination of my education, the everyday news, and my own lived experiences, I’ve discovered a common theme: resistance appears in response to pressure.

Whether it be governmental, relational, social, or otherwise, it’s standing up and saying, “Hey. This isn’t how ___ should be.

We can do better.” Resistance relies on the recognition of these pressures. Yet, at its core, to me, it is the choice to plant one’s feet.

ALL THIS TIME I TOLD MYSELF WE WERE BORN FROM WAR— BUT I WAS WRONG, MA. - Ella Olson WE WERE BORN FROM BEAUTY. Resistance is accepting the LET NO ONE uncomfortable feelings you get when MISTAKE US knowing something isn’t right. It’s about embracing that discomfort, FOR THE FRUIT starting conversations about its origin, and working to alleviate the issue that OF VIOLENCE— caused the discomfort. Resisting can BUT THAT look different for many people but it is ultimately about deconstructing what is VIOLENCE, “known” and welcoming alternatives. It’s HAVING PASSED knowing that change is scary but worth it because that change will alter many THROUGH THE people’s lives for the better. It is refusing FRUIT, FAILED to allow the known structures that inherently hurt others to exist further.

TO SPOIL IT. It is pushing back, asking the hard OCEAN VUONG, questions, and demanding more.

ON EARTH

-Sophia Smith WE’RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS

-Nina Hekmat Resistance is a shapeshifter. Its embodiment throughout time takes a myriad of forms, such as music, petition, art, protest, existence, and policy. It’s the diversity of its manifestation, though,

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by Stella D’Acquisto

MJLC 20

A

nother starship roars by, but Silvia doesn’t bother to look up. She knows what it looks like: a golden streak across the sky like a meteor crashing to earth — except it never dives down. Instead, it gets smaller and smaller until she can no longer see it. Once it was a hopeful sight. Now it just makes her tired.

Silvia thinks about the way Turlington talked about Planet X. He described it as a utopia, a paradise full of lush gardens and dancing children. As if she needs a reminder, she takes out her phone and pulls up the images that had been sent back last year. They are grainy, pixelated by the light years of distance, but she does not need high definition footage to know that Planet X is an Silvia sits back in her lawn chair, empty, colorless desert with no gardens or children in sight. closing her eyes. The patrol will The images look like they’re in come for her soon, she knows. black and white, even though Not for the first time she thinks they’re supposed to be color about the shotgun on the top photographs. The new homeland shelf of her kitchen cupboard, Turlington promised is a gray but she does not go to get it.

Hades.

She already knows how that Locking her phone again, she would end. returns her gaze to the farm She still remembers the day the first starship departed from around her. The farmhouse once sat in a vast swath of land, the planet. The richest men in passed down to Silvia from her the world took it, of course. In school long ago, she had learned great aunt, who worked the land that everyone would one day be her whole life and eventually saved up enough to buy it from able to flee the planet together for a better place, but it was not her employer. Auntie Eliza told her that she wanted the farm to long before she was disabused be in the family for generations, of that notion. a gift to her lineage to prevent “I built the damn things,” them from ever seeing poverty Alexander Turlington said in an again. interview a few years ago. “Why The farmland is barren now. shouldn’t I be on the maiden What was once acres of corn voyage?” fields has become lifeless black The real maiden voyage dirt, razed to the ground by last had ben a decade earlier. year’s fires.

Silvia remembers standing on Silvia used to watch the news this same lawn with her sons, every night. She remembers watching the ship explode like seeing the report about the fireworks. The people who drought, remembers a famous helped build that damn thing actress collecting donations burned up before they even left to help people affected by the the atmosphere.

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drought. She remembers seeing a report about aid that was coming to save people from the fires. No one ever came to help her.

She smashed her TV that day.

She hasn’t watched the news in a year.

Another starship careens through the sky. They’re leaving faster than ever. The interval between departures has shortened from months to weeks to minutes.

A month ago, her eldest son finally decided to leave. They had a screaming match the day before, and she almost ripped up his ticket. But it wouldn’t have mattered; the real tickets were online. Instead she fled to throw up in the bathroom.

“Mom,” he shouted after her.

“Just come with me. You’re gonna have to leave eventually.”

“That’s not my ticket,” she told him then. “That’s Stevie’s ticket, and I won’t take it from her.”

That was the last time she and her son spoke. She closed her eyes when his starship took off.

She thinks of Stevie now, of her small footprints leaving tracks in the mud where she had run off to play in the fields.

The crumpled remains they had found after the fires. Her father’s grief driving him to forever leave behind the planet that killed her.

As if trying to rescue Silvia from these thoughts, the soft rumble of an engine approaches from afar. She soon catches sight of the patrol car, a cloud of brown dirt kicked up by its wheels approaching like a demon made of dust. It looks like a small dust storm itself, invoking the storms Silvia has become accustomed to.

A maudlin laugh spills out of her when she imagines what Auntie Eliza would think if she knew that her glorious green farm of American Dreams was weekly beset by dust storms.

“I thought you might say that.”

He falls silent after that, looking out at her empty land, just one small part of this wide, empty planet.

leaving.”

“Why didn’t you leave sooner?”

He grimaces. “Sorry, ma’am. I got orders to take you into the city to prepare for departure.

The last starships are leaving tomorrow.”

“Couldn’t get a spot on a ship till now. I used to work in retail.

Not a lot of demand for us over there.”

“Doesn’t look that much The patrol car stops just different from Planet X, does it? outside the house, and a solitary I’d just leave behind one lifeless man steps out. “Can’t believe wasteland for another.” there’s still somebody out here,” “Hm,” says the patrolman. he says, approaching her with a “You a cop?” she asks, noting slow, cautious gait. “What you his lack of uniform. still doing here?”

“Nah,” he says, scratching his “You’re two years too late,” scruffy beard. “Just a volunteer.”

Silvia says simply. “I am not

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” she says irritably. “I’m not leaving.”

The man is close enough now to touch her, and one of his hands reaches out slightly as if to threaten or to comfort. “If you don’t leave by tomorrow, there won’t be any more ships,” he says. “The terraforming starts next week.”

She watches him wearily from her lawn chair. “Do you really believe they’re gonna terraform this hunk of rock? Turlington already got a new mansion and five uranium mines on Planet X.” The patrolman looks surprised that she knows this. “Oh come on,” she adds. “I just don’t want to leave my home. Doesn’t mean I’m a Luddite.”

He sighs and sits down in the post-mortem soil next to her chair. “What’ll it take for me to convince you to leave?”

She looks down at him. “You’d have to drag me.”

Silvia gives him a pitying look.

“But you’re still moving to the planet with the same people who wanted to leave you behind.”

He frowns, still staring out at the farm. “What else am I supposed to do? Nothing left here. At least this planet lasted longer than we thought it would.

We all get to leave.” Then he looks up at her. “You were a farmer. They need your skills.

You could’ve left months ago.”

She shakes her head, smiling ruefully. “You are persistent. I already told you I’m not leaving.”

“Why not?” he says, exasperated. “You got a death wish or something?”

Silvia sighs, not quite sure how to answer. Unbidden, a memory comes to her: sitting in her second-grade classroom, learning the words to a song about the ozone layer. Their teachers didn’t know, then, that it was never the ozone layer that would end it all. That was a problem that second graders could help fix. Earth’s blistering

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rage was not so easy.

Finally she says, “You’re wrong, you know. We don’t all get to leave. About two billion of us don’t.” “…You lost someone.”

“Everybody lost someone. Why do you think they have enough starships left to carry people like you and me? The people who were supposed to be on them are gone.”

“Hmm,” he says again. “Sorry.”

He looks at his watch, an old analog one with little silver hands moving so slowly they look frozen in time. “Well, my ship is leaving in two hours. You coming with me or not?”

Silvia smiles again, a genuine one this time. “No,” she says.

The volunteer patrolman nods slowly. “Okay,” he says. “I hope it works out for you. Staying, I mean.”

She pats his hand as he stands up. “I hope it works out for you, too. Leaving.”

The car leaves again, disappearing into the cloud of dust it came in. She watches it until it’s nothing more than a small brown smudge on the horizon.

Silvia remains perched on her lawn chair, waiting for the world to end. Waiting for the powersthat-be to hit reset on this planet and make a new Eden. The patrolman thinks he knows what will happen to her, but the truth is, nobody does.

Maybe it will all just end. Maybe she will sit and sit until she turns to stone, waiting for a promised new beginning that will never come.

Or maybe the new residents of

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Planet X or their descendants really will return to Earth someday, once the terraforming is complete. They will find her just where they left her, with her feet turned to roots, her arms stretching up to the sky. Just like her little Stevie used to reach for the sun, staring at it till she saw spots.

Maybe they will see that she has transformed into a mighty oak tree just like the one she used to play under as a child, the one that burned with everything else. Maybe she will be just one tree in a vast forest, a brave new world for humanity to devour all over again.

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icing on the top Frida Braide

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WOMEN’S RESISTANCE

by Alyssa Aung

He spoke of women’s ways. He admitted to his affairs, named every other woman that had haunted his wife all those years. He told me he was still virile. Once, I showed him a viral essay by a feminist writer, where she criticized a past boyfriend who saw her only as a “sex object,” and he complained, What if sex is all she’s offering?

him about us. She’s good-looking, he said, jabbing a finger at the screen. Well done. He insisted I invite her to visit. Maybe later in the summer, I responded. She’s busy, she has two internships and a part-time job. He nodded sagely. Asians, very hardworking.

What? What now? It’s a compliment. My own job for the summer was to organize all the junk bursting from the guts of the house.

This was life with my grandfather. His three I couldn’t, however, throw anything out, children had stopped speaking to him after because he might need it in the future. Or, the death of my grandmother, the bitter as he kept reminding me, I might need it. woman whose loyalty he’d squandered for He was going to leave all this to me when he fifty years. I alone of the family came down died, the house and everything in it. Nothsouth that summer. I had nowhere else to go ing for the rest of them, fucking bigots. Not until university began. The day I graduated how I raised them. Got it from this shit ass from high school, I was kicked out for good. town.

My parents gave me a final reminder that God loved me, and that they too could love In one box, I collected my grandmother’s me again, if only I would drop the whole les- unused art materials. Large flat shells to bianism thing. I told my siblings to call and paint in. Plain white shirts awaiting tie dye. they said that they would miss me.

Glass jars with the labels carefully puckered off. In another, I collected my grandfaThen I left. I sat in the old house with the ther’s army medals and memorabilia, and old man and he made me tomato sandhis father’s too. We were killers, he said, wiches and gave me “advice” about women. offhandedly, because we were told to be, If they catch you staring, he would begin, and informed me about his involvement in and I would try to cut in. No, Teddy, this is Veterans For Peace. He held up his Vietgood, let me finish. He went on. The trick nam dog tag and said, I never returned. is, you’ve got to compliment their outMy mother told me once that when he first fit. Hide what goods you’re really there came back, he was still waiting to die. Sleepfor. He gestured to himself, See, it works ing pills, a loaded gun under his pillow. I for me cause they’ll think I’m a bit effete, knew that gun. It was empty now, but I’d homosexual, you know, and it works for still placed it in the box for what I considyou—here he gestured to me—because ered dangerous items, mostly pesticides and that’s just how women talk. He mused rat traps. I thought the absence of bullets about how I’d already bypassed the hardest was a good sign, indicative of a permanent part of romancing women. If you can’t get healing of some sort. them pregnant, then it’s really free rein. He grumbled at the sensitivity of people these At night, when I was done with the boxes, days. You can’t say anything anymore. we sat on the porch, where it was too hot Once, I pulled up photos of my girlfriend to sit during the day but cool enough in the Macy on my phone to shut him up. I told dark. This was when it would all come out.

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WAYS RESISTANCE

Distortion Isabella Minkin

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Old hate and old love. He spoke frequently about my grandmother, about her sweet tea, her loneliness, her cassette singalongs, how he had treated her, how sorry he was, how much he loved her still. But at least he’d never become his father, that angry man, a belt and a bottle. He had strict ideas about what a man was. None of us could ever measure up. One day, he shot himself and freed them all. Occasionally, my grandfather spoke about someone else too, a former high school best friend who had drifted home from San Francisco back in ’83. He was sick, but his family wouldn’t meet him, not even after he’d come all that way just to see them.

He stayed with my grandparents briefly, his oldest friends. They told my mother, the only child old enough to ask, that he had cancer. When he agreed to a baptism, when he said he’d repented, he went home.

And just once, my grandfather spoke about the other women, not all of them, just the ones he’d really cared for, a short but not insignificant list. Was it so wrong he’d loved more than one person? Wasn’t there enough love to go around? Of one hell of a woman, he said, I should’ve brought her back with me. Your grandma would’ve loved her. If I hadn’t been there. Ha!

One day I saw them together. On the porch, sunset. Still too hot, I thought, to sit out there, but there they were. I wasn’t yet done with one of my last boxes, but I set it aside for the moment. I watched my grandfather lean back, eyes closed, and quietly intone, There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28. Macy was nodding.

My grandfather sighed, and said, Isn’t it something? That sentiment. Set free from everything you had to be. Not a man. He turned to Macy. Not a woman. He closed his eyes, shifted lower in his seat. There would be no divisions, no borders, no conflicts.

Isn’t it something? Macy agreed. Yes, she said, it is. My grandfather laughed, a choking sound. If you go to heaven, that is, he clarified. Macy tapped the arm of her chair.

But what if everybody goes to heaven?, she said. And then, even if you did wrong by another person, it doesn’t matter. You can still be happy because now, they are too.

She went on, talking about how all wrongs could be righted, all faults forgiven, all regrets reversed. And he, my grandfather, he was crying. I couldn’t believe it. He had cried only twice in his adult life that the family was aware of. Both times were Broadway in the ’90s, New York trips with my grandmother. “Angels in America” and then “Miss Saigon.” The family had attributed the tears to a heretofore repressed love for the theater. I’d put the Playbills for both shows in a box for paper items, under letters and maps and newspaper clippings.

Macy came to visit at the end of the summer. Are you sure you want to come? I’d asked. He’ll probably just say dumb shit about how immigrants are stealing jobs.

A pause. Then her response, crackling, bad internet everywhere out here. That would be my parents, actually. I was born here.

See you Tuesday. She hung up. Macy and I had met at our religious all-girls high What if that’s heaven?, Macy was asking. school. One-time lab partners, the chemistry was there. We were attending university Oh yes, my grandfather was saying, yes, I on opposite coasts, which likely meant we hope so, yes. wouldn’t last, though I hoped we would.

Macy wasn’t religious –– her parents sent her to the school for its academics –– but I always thought she should be. So much faith in everything and everyone. I saw her during school prayer, hands clasped tight, fingers interlocked, her own pulse amplified and thumping out. I could picture her telling people, God loves you, and meaning it every time, no strings attached.

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CARBON LULLABY Joshua Gienapp

(August 2023 – Eighteen Syrian migrants cross into the Evros region of Greece.

They find themselves between police and a wildfire.)

“All forests on our left are burning, and the fire is behind us.”

Yallah, habibi— Against the wind we fly, my darling.

Choke that rebel flicker down to heat your weary thighs.

Save your breath to beat its fearsome lullaby alongside mine in the dust— for lie we must.

Else the sacral shine between the trees is nigh on us, else the heat will raise our dreams to the skies alone; to better homes, unshown.

Against the risk to die, we go, Bismillahi “The fire has reached us.”

(Weeks later, their deaths will be shared and read and liked and posted and even less seen.

In that hell, what does their resistance even mean Anymore?—)

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by ECE YARASIK What do I say what do I do it is coming towards me yet language fails me I planned the perfect scenario but it is not perfect no no not perfect at all it is an utter failure of a speech of an attempt at a question of showing that I realise the ruse that has been set and I know I believe there are others there are others they think the same these accursed wooden chairs are so uncomfortable and sitting here for two hours no is it three by now but what do I do if it comes to me and I take it and I stutter if words do not come to me what if it just does not come out right just like I imagined surely if I am not sure I must not speak up it must come out perfect for it to have the impact I imagine I must not miss a detail I must do it confidently but discreetly so that even he doubts what I am saying yes I need a certain gentleness of touch when saying such things something that starts with an introduction to ease into it yes to agree with his premise to give a false sense of security something like ‘I was interested in the discussion raised about X and Y and I thought some great points were raised overall’ yes first they will let their guards down! Then I will come in with the ‘now I understand how clouded and how untransparent things may seem nowadays but then my question is why do I know for a fact that you were doing the opposite of everything you said today just yesterday?’

But no that is too… unsubtle!

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At worst I get expelled and even then my question and my accusation is so half-baked at best he ignores me but no what if I get shut down mid-speech that would be the worst that would be worse than anything it is so ridiculous that he can sit there so smug obviously not aligned so uninclined with practicing what he preaches with anything that was said and spoken as if he cares as if he gives a damn what happens to this world I cannot believe cannot comprehend how he who also resides on this earth in this city can stand there and say ‘such important issues were raised today ah yes immigrants and oh of course the oil companies and not to forget the pressing issues of poverty’ when he himself has contributed to the crisis himself he repeats a list he repeats a script but it is a sorry excuse pitiful excuse of an attempt to relate with us how he pretends how he puts himself in the role of the interviewer how he points to the interviewee for all problems of course he would so many investments under his nose a vile wretched man and not for a second I believe anything and any word he utters so wrong I say oh no there it is there comes the microphone!

This is my opportunity to speak up this is my moment no not mine this is for everyone this is for them not for me but is it selfish that I am doing this why is everyone introducing themselves quick quick think of a fake name think of a fake degree a fake year it will be fine he cannot find you you will be safe ah how selfish why do I think such things I just need to speak up I just need to say it how he cheated people’s lives that struggle out there

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everyday day trying to make the ends meet as he laughs on that high chair under that decorated ceiling of these figures no doubt he thinks he is among them as if they jumped straight from the school of Athens to judge us to judge him as the pinnacle of western philosophy how he has mentioned we need to distance ourselves from Eurocentric ideas twice today yet he sits under this dome so arrogant and how he speaks of friends involved with the policy-making as if they are innocent as if they are not as corrupt as him as if they are sources of interest how curious is he really so oblivious or is he really that audacious but oh no!

single villain-like figure what if he was misrepresented why do I get these second guesses at this crucial moment when I hold a sword of such a sharp edge of such potent value of knowledge and here I have these trepidations most heinous this is a work of his no at least I cannot blame this on him or can I but it so so obvious that the talking points he raised of media literacy of speaking open mindedly is all for the sake of creating doubt when he so single mindedly focused on saving himself and distracting us of his deeds as he purposefully stood over those topics regarded at me at my generation of how he looks down on us but no maybe it really is not right that we hold a single person and There it goes I did not raise a single word accountable but it my hand there it goes the only sure as hell is not right that he chance I had but maybe it is for can speak up there in that panel the best I would not be able to in that context as if he cares as spurt it out anyway in the end if he cares about the future of I am a coward after all but oh the youth as if he cares about wait… poverty of people going through hardship when just yesterday If you raise your hand now there he broke through that barriis a chance there is hope they cade promoted that book those come back to you look there ideas he thinks he is the right there they come back holding of course he does but then why the microphones for questions would a person who thinks they a row behind me a few rows in are so wholly innocent try to covfront of me they all get to speak er such tracks and he says how up and they do not even ask any- this place is a place of tolerance thing of substance but no why of sharing contrary opinions in a do I judge them when I cannot safe environment yet he keeps even speak up come on you fool showing those movies and raise your hand raise! keeps supporting those books of tolerance he says how disapHe sits there so confidently what pointed he is he speaks of the if I am wrong he did talk about students not being tolerant… the pessimism of my age and what if he was talking about me It happens right under his nose what if he was talking about all of even if he does not comment on us what if it is just our hotblood- it the fact that these continue ed irrational decision making the fact that they were pushed that leads to these outbursts aside the fact that that event is it right to hold accountable a goes on and they claim tolerance

he says tolerance he repeats tolerance but then how is it true to be tolerant to the intolerant!

This has gone on enough I raise my hand and ah there she approaches me with the device that will make my question heard that will reveal this whole plot of his nature of his hypocrisy of his two-faced lies and they said I must listen to my instinct my emotions so here I listen and see how stoic he sits how those faces of previous ages stare at us all around how enlightened they seem how stupid he looks would they be at my side I doubt it I have nearly lost my will but I must ask I must take this stand for once for any semblance of hope.

Here, the microphone comes, I stand up and clutch the warm metallic cylinder. He looks at me and the grim look painted over my face and he understands. He stands up: “That is all the questions for today, thank you, particularly all the students for coming, for thinking about our future. Amazing work everyone. It is these conversations we must have for the future, to ensure that despite all these worries we have, we need to keep talking about these things. We talked about leaders today, but please remember all of you are leaders by just being here, and all of you are future leaders of the world. Have a good night, and once more thank you for coming.”

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Is Hockey for Everyone, Really?

Emily Wesoloski

Nearing the end of Pride month in June of 2023, the NHL made an important announcement: its thirty-two teams were now banned from wearing Pride jerseys on the ice.

Not just banned from Pride jerseys, either, but jerseys celebrating Black history, women’s history, military appreciation, and even those advocating for the fight against cancer.

The reason for this on-ice solidarity ban? In a Sportsnet interview, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman stated he believes the trouble the league has to go through to maintain theme nights has “become more of a distraction . . . [w]e’re keeping the focus on the game” (2023).

This trouble began when six players across the league in the 202223 season refused to participate in Pride Night warmups, unwilling to wear jerseys in support of the LGBTQ+ community. Each cited religious or personal-value reasons, and highly publicized controversy ensued.

The “Hockey Is for Everyone” campaign, as we know it, got its start in 2017 as an NHL diversity and inclusion initiative meant to “provide the sport in a positive environment for players, families and fans of every race, colour, religion, national origin, gender, age, sexual orientation, socio-economic status and for those with disabilities” (NHLPA, n.d.).

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Each of the thirty-two teams then began the tradition of hosting theme or cause based nights. They partnered with related charities and hired local designers who identify within the supported communities to design the themed jerseys. Those jerseys, after being worn during pregame warmups, were auctioned off to raise money for the night’s partnered charities.

For the past five years, this has been how the NHL has taken action to support players and fans of minoritized identities. Now, they’ve walked almost all of it back.

The NHL maintains that teams can still, if they choose, create and sell themed merchandise to raise money for causes. However, queer artist and jersey designer for multiple NHL teams Mio Linzie shares that specialized warmup jerseys haven’t just been about money for charity, but instead are “a space for artists to express themselves and be able to create unique work . . . and that venue has now partly been taken away. Not having the jerseys being worn on the ice . . . removes a significant part of what they’ve meant for communities” (Wychynski, 2023).

Four months after the jersey ban, the NHL sent out a supporting memo stating players were also no longer allowed to match their stick tape to theme nights. No hot pink for “Hockey Fights Cancer,” and no rainbow tape for Pride Night.

These new guidelines

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“... instead of creating institution-wide change, the league is abandoning what they claim to be one of their most important principles” contradicted the 2023-2024 NHL Season Rulebook, which states in Rule 10.1 “[a]dhesive tape of any color may be wrapped around the stick at any place” (NHL, 2023).

For the next two weeks, individual players and league employees voiced their disapproval. Many stated they intended to protest the ban and apply stick tape in spite of it (Mendes, 2023). On October 23rd, Arizona Coyotes defenseman Travis Dermott did just that.

For the Coyotes’ home opener game of the season, Dermott wrapped rainbow tape around the top of his stick, like he’s elected to do for much of his hockey career, and took to the ice. Currently only possessing a one year contract with the Coyotes, protesting the ban meant Dermott risked his position in the NHL more than most would have (Johnston, 2023). When asked why he went ahead, he said he was ready “to deal with the consequences and . . . hopefully have a positive impact on some people that needed [it]” (2023).

Three days after Dermott’s defiance, the NHL reversed the tape ban, unable to determine a punishment or fine and unable to justify the ban alongside the official rulebook. Dermott’s response? “The fight’s not over,” and he looks forward to continuing to support the queer community however he can, on or off the ice (2023).

The jersey’s and the taping traditions have been indicators for the past five years that the

NHL is serious about wanting to make space for minoritized identities on the ice. By leaving acts of solidarity and community support up to the teams and players instead of creating institution-wide change, the league is abandoning what they claim to be one of their most important principles. They can say inclusion is something they strive for all they like, but without implementing league-wide visible representation and support, creating an inclusive environment ends up an insincere, empty promise.

In the end, the jersey and attempted tape bans completely combat the “Hockey Is for Everyone” mission. To continue using the campaign in their marketing materials, for fans and future players, is simply hypocritical. How does an organization build a safe, positive, and inclusive environment for all if they continuously ban seeing those identities represented on the ice?

The NHL needs to commit to “the trouble” that comes with supporting minoritized communities.

They need to stand up to “distractions” that arise from supporting a leaguewide culture of inclusivity. They need to enter the modern era, where sports truly can be for everyone, or they are going to fall to insincerity and irrelevancy.

References Clark, R. S. (2023, June 22). NHL commissioner: No more specialty sweaters during warmups. ESPN. Johnston, C. (2023, October 23). Why Travis Dermott decided to defy the NHL’s Pride tape ban, and why he’s dropping it for now. The Athletic.

Mendes, I. (2023, October 11). The pushback on the NHL’s ban on Pride tape is already underway as players, teams react. The Athletic.

NHLPA. (2023). Hockey is for everyone.

Wyshynski, G. (2023, June 25). LGBTQIA+ community upset with NHL’s Warmup Jersey Ban. ESPN.

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RESISTANCE International Club Formation, 1903: This collective of international students strengthens understanding and friendship among students from different countries; Chinese Students’ Club, 1909: The CSC provides support and a sense of community for Chinese students studying at the university; “Sifting and Winnowing” plaque, 1910: Uses wording from the Board of Regents meeting in September 1894, in support of professor Richard Ely, who was accused of socialist, pro-union activities in 1894; Wisconsin Student Workers Union Strike, January 1914: Over half of the student workers in the dining rooms in Lathrop, Barnard, and Chadbourne Halls strike in protest to budget issues; University of Wisconsin Suffrage Association, April 1919: Over 300 members of the association meet weekly to discuss issues relating to equal voting rights for women. In the following June, Wisconsin became the first state to ratify the 19th amendment - according voting rights for women; UW-Madison Hillel 1924: The second campus Hillel was founded on UW-Madison’s campus amidst rising growing antisemitic on campus; Eve of Armistice Day demonstrations, November 19 1934: Several hundred students stage an anti-ROTC, anti-militarism, and anti-war parade from the Union to the Capitol; All University Peace Convocation, May 23, 1940: A coalition of over 800 people demonstrate efforts to prevent the United States from engaging in war; Protests Against Compulsory ROTC, May 11, 1950: 20 students picket the annual federal inspection of ROTC troops at Camp Randall Stadium; India Association, 1951: IA was focused on uniting Indian and American identities with the growing Indian-American population on campus; Student UWPD-conduct resolution, May 1951: Students organize in support of a re-evaluation of the campus police department’s functions; Africa Union Formation, 1953: The AU brought awareness about African cultures and issues, while providing a supportive community for African students; Wisconsin Black Student Union Formation, 1956: The formation of the WBSU played a significant role in advocating for civil rights and social justice for Black students on campus; Demonstrations Against House Un-American Activities Committee, February 21 1961: Over 200 students attended a hearing by the Judiciary Committee of the Wisconsin Legislative Council against the HUAC’s retention; Student Protests against U.S nuclear testing, March 26 1962: Over 300 students hold a demonstration against such testing, with onlookers heckling the students; The First Dow Riot, February 1967: Students for a Democratic (SDS) rallies against recruiters from the Dow Chemical Company in Engineering, Chemistry and Commerce Buildings, and blockade offices in Bascom Hall; Handicapped Students Association Formation, 1967: This alliance of students was formed to address the needs and concerns of disabled students on campus and advocate for accessibility and inclusivity; Second Dow Riot, October 1967: Chancellor Sewell calls in police who use tear gas to clear protesters against the Dow Chemical Company, and a general student strike is called – resulting in over 3,000 students rallying on Bascom Hill, one of the largest demonstrations this campus has seen; Wunk Sheek Formation, 1968: Indigenous students pushed for the creation of this coalition of both students of Indigenous identity, as well as UW-Madison community members who are interested in learning about Indigenous issues, culture, and history; Concerned Black People group and University Community Action Party opposed Apartheid, May 1968: Black students, and community members rally against the system of segregation imposed within South Africa during this time; Afro-American Race Relations Center Opens, October 1968: Later known as the Black Cultural Center, was created through Black student advocacy and leadership. This center provides a space for Black students and addresses racial issues on campus. Council against the HUAC’s retention; Student Protests against U.S nuclear testing, March 26 1962: Over 300 students hold a demonstration against such testing, with onlookers heckling the students; The First Dow Riot, February 1967: Students for a Democratic (SDS) rallies against recruiters from the Dow Chemical Company in Engineering, Chemistry and Commerce Buildings, and blockade offices in Bascom Hall; Handicapped Students Association Formation, 1967: This alliance of students was formed to address the needs and concerns of disabled students on campus and advocate for accessibility and inclusivity; Second Dow Riot, October 1967: Chancellor Sewell calls in police who use tear gas to clear protesters against the Dow Chemical Company, and a general student strike is called – resulting in over 3,000 students rallying on Bascom Hill, one of the largest demonstrations this campus has seen; Wunk Sheek Formation, 1968: Indigenous students pushed for the creation of this coalition of both students of Indigenous identity, as well as UW-Madison community members who are interested in learning about Indigenous issues, culture, and history; Concerned Black People group and University Community Action Party opposed Apartheid, May 1968: Black students, and community members rally against the system of segregation imposed within South Africa during this time; Afro-American Race Relations Center Opens, October 1968: Later known as the Black Cultural Center, was created through Black student advocacy and leadership. This center provides a space for Black students and addresses racial issues on campus; Black Students’ 13 Demands, February 1969: Black students at UW-Madison issued a list of demands aimed at rectifying racial inequality and discrimination on campus; testing, with onlookers heckling the students; The First Dow Riot, February 1967: Students for a Democratic (SDS) rallies against recruiters from the Dow Chemical Company in Engineering, Chemistry and Commerce Buildings, and blockade offices in Bascom Hall; Handicapped Students Association Formation, 1967: This alliance of students was formed to address the needs and concerns of disabled students on campus and advocate for accessibility and inclusivity; Second Dow Riot, October 1967: Chancellor Sewell calls in police who use tear gas to clear protesters against the Dow Chemical Company, and a general student strike is called – resulting in over 3,000 students rallying on Bascom Hill, one of the largest demonstrations this campus has seen; Wunk Sheek Formation, 1968: Indigenous students pushed for the creation of this coalition of both students of Indigenous identity, as well as UW-Madison community members who are interested in learning about Indigenous issues, culture, and history; Concerned Black People group and University Community Action Party opposed Apartheid, May 1968: Black students, and community members rally against the system of segregation imposed within South Africa during this time; Afro-American Race Relations Center Opens, October 1968: Later known as the Black Cultural Center, was created through Black student advocacy and leadership. This center provides a space for Black students and addresses racial issues on campus. Council against the HUAC’s retention; Student Protests against U.S nuclear testing, March 26 1962: Over 300 students hold a demonstration against such testing, with onlookers heckling the students; The First Dow Riot, February 1967: Students for a Democratic (SDS) rallies against recruiters from the Dow Chemical Company in Engineering, Chemistry and Commerce Buildings, and blockade offices in Bascom Hall; Handicapped Students Association Formation, 1967: This alliance of students was formed to address the needs and concerns of disabled students on campus and advocate for accessibility and inclusivity; Second Dow Riot, October 1967: Chancellor Sewell calls in police who use tear gas to clear protesters against the Dow Chemical Compa-

The history of UW Madison is the history history of walk outs and sit-ins. Madison beer and cheese—the history of Madison,

The history of the University of Wisconsin Madison is the history of resistance. Founded in 1848 as a “land-grant” university, UW-Madison’s origins are tied to Lincoln’s Morrill Land-Grant Act policy that enabled seizure of Native territory. With its very origin and foundations on stolen land, the university as an institution has always elicited the need for community protest and outrage.

Academia itself, an agent of social reproduction, is often considered removed from— incapable of— social change.

Theorists and tenured scholars can write all the papers they want, but the elitism of university work creates a gap between revolutionary theory and praxis, between policy and community.

Yet, not all is hopeless. Despite the power of an institution in upholding the status quo, the Madison community and University student body has always called out systems of harm. While the university seems unchanging, its student populace, with its increasingly diverse composition, is changing—constantly. Suddenly, the institution doesn’t seem so static anymore–rather, a public university, UW-Madison in particular, is a dynamic system balancing

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RESISTANCE ny, and a general student strike is called – resulting in over 3,000 students rallying on Bascom Hill, one of the largest demonstrations this campus has seen; Wunk Sheek Formation, 1968: Indigenous students pushed for the creation of this coalition of both students of Indigenous identity, as well as UW-Madison community members who are interested in learning about Indigenous issues, culture, and history; Concerned Black People group and University Community Action Party opposed Apartheid, May 1968: Black students, and community members rally against the system of segregation imposed within South Africa during this time; Afro-American Race Relations Center Opens, October 1968: Later known as the Black Cultural Center, was created through Black student advocacy and leadership. This center provides a space for Black students and addresses racial issues on campus; Black Students’ 13 Demands, February 1969: Black students at UW-Madison issued a list of demands aimed at rectifying racial inequality and discrimination on campus; Madison Alliance for Homosexual Equality Formation, 1969: This group was the first group to fight for gay liberation in the state of Wisconsin, increasing the visibility of the LGBTQ+ community through a wide array of public events; Mifflin Street Block Party, May 1969: The party originated as an anti-war protest, with students dancing on the street and confronting police officers looking to stop them. The party would consistently stage fundraisers for social, political, and community causes through the 1990’s; Hmong American Student Association Formation, 1988: HASA was created following the hire of a cultural adviser for Southeast Asian students, and calls from these students regarding the creation of a Hmong-Amercan organization for students; MEChA Formation, 1970: MEChA is a Chicano student organization that originated in the late 1960s and is active in advocating for the rights and interests of Chicano and Latino students; Teaching Assistant’s Strike, March-April 1970: TAA calls a strike over collective bargaining issues with the university. As a result, TAA wins recognition and exclusive representation and bargaining rights for TA’s, job security, and a transparent grievance process; State Street Protests March 20, 1972: Around 3,00 students demonstrate due to the decision to convert State Street from a traditional street to a pedestrian mall, and clash with police in a 10-hour protest; Protests against President Nixon’s 2nd Inauguration: Around 1,500 people march from campus to the Capitol on the eve of Nixon’s inauguration, including Madison Police Chief David Couper; International Women’s Day Rally, March 1973: Students participate in several events around International Women’s Day, advocating for equal rights for Women; “Take Your Money and Run”, October 1974: The First Wisconsin National Bank of Madison increases checking fees for people with “insufficient balances”, and 75 students partake in the demonstration — withdrawing their money and burning checkbooks in the bank’s lobby; Wisconsin State Employees Union Strike July 1977: A 15-day strike is organized in order to strengthen working conditions for all Wisconsin State employees; Students for a Libertarian Society, 1981: SLS members march on State Street and burn their selective service registration cards in an anti-draft protest; Black Student Union “Day of Outrage Against Racism”, 1988: BSU members organize demonstrations in response to a fraternity’s “slave auction.”; Minority Coalition’s Demands, November 1988: Submission of 10 demands, following the Fraternity ZBT’s party in which a mock slave auction was held; Multicultural Student Center Opens, 1988: The Multicultural Student Center was established in 1988 to provide a hub for diverse student organizations and promote inclusivity. Culminating years of student advocacy for cultural spaces on campus; “No Hate in the Dairy State,” April 1990: Anti-hate and anti-discrimination efforts in Wisconsin, including Madison; Protests against Military Intervention in Middle East, November 1990: 700 people march from Library mall to the Capitol to protest the buildup of US troops in the Middle East; Rally Against the Gulf War, January 1991: Around 2,000 people demonstrate their opposition, including an attempt to disrupt the UW-Iowa basketball at the Field House; ACT-UP! Protests, June 1991: Members of the gay-rights organization protest the child of an HIV positive mother being denied daycare services; Protests Against Columbus’ 500th Anniversary: Native American and Chicano students protest the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ landing in the Americas; Gender and Sexuality Campus Center Opens, 1992: Born out of student advocacy for physical cultural space on campus, the GSCC was established to provide support and resources for LGBTQ+ students and address issues related to gender and sexuality. The first physical space of its kind of campus; Indigenous Student Center Opens, 2009: Born out of student advocacy for physical cultural space on campus, the ISC serves as a space for Native American and Indigenous students and promotes awareness of Indigenous cultures; #TheRealUW, 2016: UWPD’s arrest of a Black student, Denzel McDonald, during class prompted the social media campaign to highlight and address racial issues and inequities on campus; Black Cultural Center, 2017: Born out of student advocacy for physical cultural space on campus, the Black Cultural Center was established in 2017 as a space for Black students and cultural activities. Formerly known as the “Afro-American Race Relations Center”; Latinx Cultural Center Opens, 2018: Born out of student advocacy for physical cultural space on campus, the Latinx Cultural Center was established in 2018 to provide support and cultural activities for Latinx students; Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Student Center Opens, 2018: Born out of student advocacy for physical cultural space on campus, the Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Student Center was established in 2018 to support and promote the cultures of Asian, Pacific Islander, and Desi-American students; Removal of Chamberlin Rock, August 6, 2021: Removal of Chamberlin Rock, a boulder on the UW-Madison campus with a controversial history related to racism, was removed in August 2021; Protests Against Overturning of Roe v. Wade, May 2022: More than 1,000 demonstrators rally in the downtown Madison area to protest the removal of abortion rights for women nationwide. Wisconsin is one of the few states whose existing laws would criminalize abortion without these federal protections; Protests Against Matt Walsh, October 2022: Students from the Madison community protest the conservative speaker’s appearance on campus — a showing of his film “What is a Woman?” Protests included gathering outside of Memorial Union, as well as graffiti across Alumni Park and over a Bucky Badger statue; Blk Power Coalition, May 2022: The Blk Power coalition formed after a video of a white student exclaiming racial epithets surfaced across social media. The BPC arranged a list of demands to be met by University Administration, as well as protests and sit-ins;

of protests. The history of strikes. The is not just Midwestern pleasantries and this university, is the history of resistance.

the desires of its student body while attempting to appease political/financial stakeholders. While it is impossible to undo history, it is possible to reckon with it, remember it, learn from it. It is possible to work towards —demand— change.

The young people of Madison, in today’s polarized political climate, living in walking distance from the state capitol, on a liberal leaning campus in a swing state, can not and do not take civic engagement and political protest lightly.

It is impossible to go a month without joining or witnessing a march, walkout, vigil, student council open forum, or strike. The young people here are activists and organizers all whilst being students. They have to be. And their voices are getting louder. Listen.

The following list, far from exhaustive, offers a glimpse into the history of resistance at UW-Madison: a history of protest, strikes, walk-outs, and forming student groups. An embodiment of student recognition that resistance has always been needed.

Thank you to University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives and University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Campus History for helping us compile this information.

Citations Kennedy, Tyler, and David Null. “Protests & Social Action at UW-Madison during the 20th Century.” Protests & Social Action at UW-Madison during the 20th Century | UW Archives and Records Management, University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives, www.library.wisc.edu/archives/exhibits/campus-history-projects/protests-social-action-at-uw-madison-during-the-20th-century/.

“Student Activism.” Sifting and Reckoning, University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Campus History , reckoning.wisc.edu/student-activism/.

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“HATE SPEECH” and PALESTINE

defined my own sense of myself through have been recategorized as “hate speech,” both by the usual cadre of bad-faith actors who refer to any criticism of Israel as antisemitism, I came out as a transgender woman in and more worrisomely, by supposedly liberal 2019, and since then I’ve occasionally woken governments and media organizations.2 I will up thinking about hate speech. I don’t think give a few early examples of this chilling of the this is a totally unusual situation for trans* free speech of pro-Palestinian voices before people—sometimes someone says something moving on to the topic of hate speech itself, awful to you and it hides somewhere in a with the hope that by the end of this essay you darkened corner of your mind, only to creep will have joined me on my journey to rethinkout some morning months later. Readers of this journal can, I am sure, imagine the sort of ing what the phrase “hate speech” really might refer to in the present political environment. unimaginative transphobic slogans and rote hate I’m discussing, so examples are unnecesOn Monday, at New York University, Law sary.

School Bar Association Student President Ryna Workman wrote a letter standing in solI have never taken seriously the argument idarity with Palestinians as they come under that hate speech against trans people should be protected speech, and I still don’t. The idea another wave of genocidal violence from the that there is an inherent social good in allow- Israeli state.3 For this,Workman has lost a done-deal job offer from a prominent New York ing people to spread bad ideas is not persuasive to me, and anyone who lived through the law firm, and on top of that has faced a regime of criticism far more intense and impactful Bush administration knows that “freedom of speech” extends only as far as the government than that which was faced by (for example) which is in power permits it to.1 While nobody Audrey Godlewski, the UW-Madison student who posted a video of herself spouting a on our side of things is calling in good faith for the present government to lock up TERFs, slur-filled anti-Black rant. Media coverage of Workman’s letter was uniformly negative, at I will never go to bat for their right to spread misinformation and hatred on social media or least in the immediate aftermath of the letter claim that their employers should respect and coming out: Reuters referred to Workman’s “anti-Israel” comments in its headline, wherepermit their odious beliefs. as other outlets have gone further in claiming This week, however, I have had a new expethat their letter “brands Hamas attacks as rience. Seemingly overnight, the expression ‘necessary,’” that it “professed support for of both specific beliefs and general principles Hamas,” and that it is “contributing to the of social justice that I have long cherished and cycle of dehumanization.”⁴

by Andie C. Barrow

1 A good example of the federal government’s heavy-handed approach to free speech issues during and after the Bush administration can be found in

the legal case American Civil Liberties Union vs. National Security Agency (decided in 2006) in which the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the ACLU’s first amendment challenge to the Bush-era NSA’s warrantless surveillance practices. The Sixth Circuit’s ruling argued that government wiretapping does not, in and of itself, constitute a violation of the First Amendment, in effect overruling several previous court decisions which had taken the notion of surveillance creating a chilling effect on free speech seriously. The Supreme Court of the United States upheld this ruling in 2008.

See (https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/american-civil-liberties-union-v-national-security-agency-central-security-service-e-d-mich-2006/) 2 Fortunately, in recent years, brave voices on the Jewish left have spoken out about the racism of Israel’s attempts to equate the Israeli state with Jewish identity. See for example Julia Bard’s review of Anthony Lerman’s Whatever Happened to Antisemitism? Redefinition and the Myth of the Collective Jew at (https://jacobin.com/2022/09/antisemitism-zionism-israel-palestine-corbyn) 3 (https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/anti-israel-comments-prompt-winston-strawn-rescind-nyu-law-students-job-offer-2023-10-10/) ⁴E.g. “NYU Law SBA President Brands Hamas attacks as ‘necessary’” (https://abovethelaw.com/2023/10/nyu-student-bar-president-israelpalestine/), “Firm Rescinds Offer of Employment for Law Student who Professed Support for Hamas” (https://www.nationalreview.com/news/firmrescinds-offer-of-employment-for-law-student-who-professed-support-for-hamas/) (cont’d)

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If Workman really did say those things, I would indeed call them hate speech: it is never “necessary” to target and murder children, for example, and the suggestion is repugnant.

However, even a quick read of the letter itself proves that the claims made against it are pure slander. Workman never says that they endorse violence, only that they stand in “unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression toward liberation and self-determination” and that the violence which is currently happening is a direct result of Israel’s policies.⁵ In fact, the letter never mentions Hamas at all, only the Palestinian people. Workman’s main criticism, outside of condemning the state of Israel for holding two million Palestinians imprisoned in star-vation and misery in Gaza, is in fact directed towards the media: in it, Workman writes “I condemn the violence in labeling oppressed people as ‘animals,” they write.

to the government–the First Amendment guarantees journalistic outlets broad freedom in how they report stories, and to my mind, that’s a good thing. But governments frequently follow media opinions in their policy, and some “liberal democracies” are already making ready to crack down on the speech of pro-Palestinian activists, or even those who simply refuse to offer their full-throated support to Israel’s war of annihilation against Gaza.

To be clear, Workman’s persecution has nothing to do with free speech as it relates

and potentially even criminal. For the first time in my life, I have to seriously ask: are the

Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom (who has oversight over police operations in the U.K.), wrote a missive to senior police officers earlier this week urging them to reclassify the waving the flag of Palestine as a criminal offense—not the distinct flag of Hamas keep in mind, but of the internationally recognized tricolor of the existing Palestinian nation.8 If that sounds to you like the kind of thing that could never happen in the United States, you may want to Reader, I hope you will examine the letter look into the multitude of state laws banning for yourself and see the extreme and unjussupport for the anti-Israel B.D.S. (Boycott, tified nature of this witch hunt. My words Divest, Sanction) movement—all of which the cannot do justice to it. While this happens, US Supreme Court has refused to rule upon, more openly right-wing media outlets are preferring to allow these facially unconstitualready weaponizing their audiences’ pre-extional burdens on free speech to exist.9 There isting hatred of queer people against Workare, of course, perfectly valid reasons not to man, who is nonbinary, virtually guaranteeing support B.D.S. (I, personally, do not,) but for that they will be harassed at length.6 All of governments to label support for a nonviolent this for refusing to lie and say that the Hamas political organization with no proven ties to militants who attacked Israeli civilians several terrorist activity illegal is an infringement of weeks ago did so out of a motivation that is the basic rights of speech and association that more complex than simple hatred—although, make living in a pluralist society possible. again, their letter never denies the fact that For the first time in my life, it feels like my hatred against Jewish people was one of the attempts to speak and act as a moral person motives animating those who participated in are running up against a monolithic media the violence.7 culture that seeks to classify them as illicit

For comparison, note the relatively neutral and accurate headline provided by Business Insider: “An NYU law student lost their post-grad job offer over their statement blaming Israel for the Hamas attacks, firm says” (https://www.businessinsider.com/nyu-law-student-bar-association-presidentblame-israel-hamas-2023-10).

5 Tellingly, the main way to find the actual newsletter at this point is to search for the Twitter posts of journalists who have continued to share it in an attempt to silence others who might sympathize with the Palestinian cause: (https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/1711790931299426802) 6For example, see Fox Business’s recent headline “Nonbinary NYU Student Bar Association president loses job offer after defending Hamas terror attack on Jews” (https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/nonbinary-nyu-student-bar-association-president-loses-job-offer-defending-hamas-terrorattack-jews)

7None of this essay should be misconstrued as downplaying Hamas’s history of radicalism, violence, and their previous stated intentions (as put forward

in the 1988 covenant, which has been revised but never fully disavowed by Hamas’s leadership) of committing genocidal violence against Israelis.

8Braverman’s letter can be found here: (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-chiefs-asked-to-protect-communities-from-provocations/letter-to-chief-constables-in-england-and-wales-following-the-israel-hamas-conflict-accessible See also the Guardian’s coverage of the letter: (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/10/people-supporting-hamas-in-uk-will-be-held-to-account-says-rishi-sunak) 9 (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/21/top-us-court-refused-to-review-anti-bds-law-heres-what-it-means)

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beliefs I hold and wish to express hate speech, or am I being propagandized to? With even Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and other supposed progressives condemning non-violent expressions of Palestinian freedom, I am forced to reconsider my opinion: am I hateful for believing that the Palestinian people deserve a home and the right of return or that Israel is responsible for their continuing dispossession?10 While I am neither Palestinian nor Jewish, I am someone who thinks about hate speech a lot. I am also someone who is willing to speak outside of their expertise if it means condemning that which is wrong. So without further preamble, here are a few beliefs I have come to know through careful deliberation are not “hate speech” of any kind, and why.

These are organized in order of how controversial these beliefs seem to me in the present moment, and they are meant to be read dialectically—just because you accept premise A is not hateful, doesn’t mean you have to accept the same of premise B. A. It is not hateful to say that Israel’s actions have created an open-air prison in Gaza.

Referring to Gaza as an “open-air prison” was popularized by the organization Human Rights Watch in order to bring attention to the violence and starvation the illegal and inhumane blockade of Gaza by Israel has created.11 It accurately describes the situation of the people of Gaza, who are every day surrounded by high walls, barbed wire, and armed men just across the border, and for these reasons cannot freely associate with Palestinians living in the West Bank.

B. It is not hateful to say that supporting Palestine is not the same as supporting Hamas.

Although Hamas claims to be an elected government, they have held power in Gaza without elections since 2007 (note the age of the median person in Gaza is 18— most people there now could not vote in 2007).12 The majority of people in Gaza do not support Hamas, much less the three million Palestinians living in the West Bank or the millions more living abroad. There are more than two million Palestinians living in Gaza, while Hamas has only about 30,000 fighters—Israel’s invasion will kill many more than that. 13 Many, many more Palestinians want their freedom than support Hamas’s methods, but attacks against Palestinian resistance demean them too.

C. It is not hateful to try to understand why Hamas militants killed civilians and took them captive.

I believe the opposite is true: as residents of a country which may soon support Israel’s invasion of Gaza, we have an affirmative moral duty to understand how this conflict came about. There is never a moral excuse for murder, but it is not equivocating to note that Hamas’s actions are a symbol of their desperation, not their strength, and that they have taken place against a backdrop of long-term, pervasive aggression from Israel. Hamas is indeed a hateful, antisemitic movement, and their 1988 foundational covenant openly calls for mass violence against Jewish people (including those not in Israel). 14 However, Hamas only exists today because Israel funded its predecessor organization in the 1970s and 80s in order

10 https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/10/aoc-pro-palestine-nyc-rally-00120684 11 https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/14/gaza-israels-open-air-prison-15 12 (https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25993-the-reasons-why-gazas-population-is-so-young/) 13 (https://www.npr.org/2023/10/10/1204826544/hamas-israel-war-gaza-palestinian). Note that over 5,000 civilians have already been

killed in Gaza, and this is before Israel’s projected land invasion of the city. See (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/23/gaza-deathtoll-exceeds-5000-as-israel-continues-daily-bombardments) 14 In 2017, Hamas rewrote its founding covenant to remove references to genocide, and to explicitly endorse a peace plan involving Israel returning to its 1967 borders. However, both then and now (as these horrible attacks have amply demonstrated) Hamas’s actions have contradicted the post-2017 moderation of its leaders’ public rhetoric. Unfortunately I have been unable to find a publicly available journalistic source that charts this movement accurately, but a detailed analysis of the differences between the two charters can be found in Khaled Hroub, “A Newer Hamas? The Revised Charter” in the Journal of Palestine Studies 46 (2017) pp. 100-111 (https://www.tandfonline.com/ doi/abs/10.1525/jps.2017.46.4.100) 15 https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/

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to delegitimize the more secular and moderate Palestine Liberation Organization. 15 To punish all Palestinians for Israel’s own policy mistake in creating the modern Hamas is blatantly unjust.

D. It is not hateful to call what is happening to the Palestinians “genocide,” or to refer to Israel as an “apartheid state.”

wrong for the Palestinians to shoot back in some fashion is incomprehensible to me—it is the equivalent of saying that the Ukrainians under Russia or Black South Africans under the apartheid regime should have simply rolled over and accepted their fates rather than arming themselves and fighting back against their oppressors.

In conclusion, I hope that you will look critically the next time you see an advocate for Palestinian rights being accused of “hate speech.” You may find, as I increasingly am, evidence of a conspiracy—not of Jewish people, as antisemites would have it, but instead of liberal governments and their media mouthpieces, who are together collaborating to whitewash genocide and colonial violence.

The United Nations convention on genocide (which Israel is legally bound by) says that “genocide” refers to “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” including “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”16 There can be little doubt that this is exactly the intention of current Israeli Defense Minister If you are looking to find out more about Yoav Gallant, who has said of Gaza: “there Palestinian liberation and support the cause, I will be no electricity, no food, no fuel […] recommend www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org.

We are fighting human animals, and we act In solidarity, accordingly.” 17 Andie C. Barrow The case for referring to Israel as an “apartPh.D. Candidate in Literary Studies, UW heid state” is too complex to fully analyze Department of English here, but Amnesty International produced a comprehensive report on the subject in 2022 which is cited here and publicly available through their website.18 E. It is not hateful to stand with the Palestinian people in their anticolonial struggle against Israel, or even to say that the Palestinian people have a right to take up arms against the governments that are oppressing them.

Again, supporting even militant resistance to Israeli occupation is not the same as supporting Hamas. Israeli snipers have admitted to routinely firing into Gaza from afar with orders to maim as many Palestinian protestors as possible by shooting them in the knees and legs.19 Now there is a land invasion in the works, and the idea that it is 16 https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punish-

ment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf 17 https://theintercept.com/2023/10/09/israel-hamas-war-crimes-palestinians/ 18 https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/ 19 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-03-06/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/42-knees-in-one-day-israeli-snipers-open-up-about-shootinggaza-protesters/0000017f-f2da-d497-a1ff-f2dab2520000

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ATheLook into Forms of Institutional Form and Function of A book is not a strike. But both forms participate in Resistance….

When something is formed, the need for its existence, its function, emerges. Yet, when this “thing” is abolished, the need is retained. Take a flat-head screwdriver: its formation as a screwdriver derives from the need, the function, to adjust linear-slotted screws. If for some reason the government were to abolish the formation of flat-head screwdrivers, the need to adjust linear-slotted screws would still exist, so people would naturally develop another tool to carry out the function that the screwdrivers formerly performed. In a similar vein, the proposed function of slavery was rooted in the desire for forced labor; this directly impacted not only the formation of the institution of slavery, but the maintenance of racism. Although the form, slavery was abolished, the socially constructed need for forced labor remained—bringing about the creation of the institution of prisons.

In examining the form and function of something, one can determine not only the strengths and limitations of said thing, but determine its purpose.

The function of resistance derives from the presence of oppressive systems that would much rather see a world of disenfranchisement, prohibition, and suppression, to one of equality and care. But just as the oppressor seeks to adjust the formation of systems of harm to accommodate their function, resistance to such creation manifests in its own complex formations, carefully constructed to eradicate, or call attention to, the function of harm and instead opt for a function of care.

The MJLC is placed in a unique position, one that allows us to reflect on our past and present histories of resistance, thinking critically about the ways in which individuals, coalitions, and communities have advocated for functions of positive change. However our form, printed media, goes outdated the second we go to print.

And while the need to embolden our community to set forth and change the world persists—the words on these pages are left behind. Analyzing narratives through the lens of resistance, however, centers the lives of those who have had a stake in the cultivation of positive change, and we can amplify the impact of that beyond this physical magazine. The form of magazine allows us to function as a medium that captures and broadcasts resistance movements. The form of art included in our magazine functions as a creative way to speak on harm and communicate arguments to a wider audience.

In a world that is moving at the speed of light, with misinformation and sensationalized media spreading like wildlife, very seldom do we take the time to sit with a story, critically reflect upon its significance, and send it back out into the world in the form of healthy discourse, writing, and collaboration. As a magazine, our function is to share stories, showcase a multitude of them. As a study group, our function is to discuss stories—sit with them, question them.

This fall, our study group delved deeper into different forms of resistance, including strikes, existence, arts and music, law and policy, as well as alternatives modes for resistance. Resistance does not operate in a vacuum, meaning that there is room for nuance and complexity in the way individuals choose to participate in resisting MJLC 38

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Resistance: Resistance Movements

the functions of harm that permeate within our communities. A book is not a strike, and a strike is not a list of demands, yet these are all forms of resistance born out of the function of fundamental change—resistance is a common denominator.

The following spread is an examination of all the forms of resistance discussed in the Fall 2023 MJLC study group. Each form is defined, the form and function is listed, the strengths and limitations are considered, and examples are provided.

There’s no one, right way, to resist. A movement is not successful due to a single form of resistance. Rather, a movement thrives off of the combined elements of several forms of resistance, with individuals leaning into their strengths to contribute in a larger movement.

PROTESTS

Police Strike Student-Protestors of the Vietnam War Credit: Heiner Giese, October 18, 1967

What: Protests often consist of gatherings of people that collectively oppose something, often political, and express a desire for change. They can be achieved through marches, walk-outs, rallies or sit-ins.

Social Justice Focus: In recent years, we have seen various social justice movements and political affairs incite protests. Humanitarian issues resulting in mass outrage or policy changes often unite people together to protest in solidarity.

PROTESTS Strengths: Protests show resistance in numbers— people become a collective, use their voices, and demand for change.

Not only do these collective gatherings increase attention in the media but can cause policy change, as well.

Examples: Black Lives Matter protests (July 2013 – Present) March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (August 28, 1963)

Limitations: Being temporal movements of resistance, protests are not permanent. They are not meant to be long lasting. There also tends to be “guidelines of protesting” when wanting to make a great statement (e.g., being arrested)—there is a “socially acceptable” way to go about it, which means people are often limited by needing to adhere to those ascribed rules.

UW-Madison Examples: Gaza genocide protests (October 2023 – Present) Vietnam War protests (October 1967) Black Pwr Coalition protests to Audrey Godlewski (May 2023)

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STRIKES

UW Health nurses hold a rally near the hospital in Madison Credit: Mandy Hague, Spectrum News 1

What: Strikes are methods of withholding service, typically labor, that is fundamental in society’s functioning. This refusal to give in is also an act of taking something from the ones doing the oppressing. Through this withholding of essential parts of a functioning society life and movement is put on hold until demands are met.

Social Justice Focus: Strikes tend to be labor-focused since they often entail withholding labor to incentivize change. This can include anything related to occupations such as teaching, barista-ing, factory positions, etc.

The social justice issues surrounding labor include a lack of livable wages, long hours, and unreasonable or hazardous working conditions.

EXISTENCE

Denzel McDonald graffiti outside of the Humanities Building, contextualizing the social-media campaign: “#TheRealUW”

What: In a world that historically and continuously marginalizes, discriminates, and harms those who hold non-dominant identities, presenting yourself is a form of existence in of itself. Living and loving out loud when the tenets of systemic oppression would rather see you silenced and invisible asserts the need for marginalized populations to exist in the midst of ongoing harm. Existence is stories, traditions, and compassions—passed down through generations of people who strive to uplift their communities’ past in efforts to fortify a future that induces care and inclusion rather than harm.

Social Justice Focus: Land theft of the indigenous people is a prime example of this practice of resistance – in the midst of ignorance and silence of their voices—indigenous individuals are still at the forefront of collective liberation movements.d. Sharing their stories in a nation that far too often glosses over their detrimental experiences with ethnic cleaning exhibits persistence and a nod toward a shared future where their successes are raised and not ignored.

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STRIKES Strengths: Strikes bring acute awareness to the social issues and inequities they address because they directly disrupt the functioning of society or an institution. Without work in any given field, those who interact or depend upon that sector are greatly impacted by the labor shortage. Even if these socioeconomic disruptions do not affect lawmakers directly, their effect on civilians causes tension and strain for change.

Limitations: Due to the labor-focused nature of strikes, they tend to be limited to things that can be withheld, which cannot be applied to all social issues Strikes also depend on how much the workers are willing to lose, since they are the ones sacrificing their wages, and there generally isn’t a specified end date.

Examples: Homestead Strike (June 30, 1892 - July 6, 1892) Steel Strike (September 22, 1919 - January 8, 1920)

UW-Madison Examples: Gaza genocide protests (October 2023 – Present) Vietnam War protests (October 1967) Black Pwr Coalition protests to Audrey Godlewski (May 2023)

EXISTENCE Strengths: Existence as resistance cultivates a sense of joy in a system that actively fights to diminish minorities subverting the very structure of power on its head. By remaining grounded in your identity and community, existence no longer represents standing idly and watching the world continue to be enveloped by harm.

Rather, existence becomes a dynamic unification of perspectives, stories, and passions that allows for a community to exist as a force of change at-large.

Limitations: This form of resistance can individualize responsibility for those already combating oppression. Merely existing in the absence of other forms of resistance can often be conflated with complacency and allegiance to the systems that perpetuate harm.

Taking up space and only increasing visibility can be perceived as inaction, laziness, and other harmful narratives that suggest that these individuals aren’t also advocating for broad change.

Examples: Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama (December 1, 1955)

UW-Madison Examples: The #RealUW Social Media Campaign (2016)

RESISTANCE

POLICY DEMANDS

Minority Coalition of Student’s List of Demands to Chancellor Emerita Donna Shalala Credit: Minority Coalition of Students, November 1988

What: Demanding policy change at various levels of government can take on many forms. These demands can be expressed by lobbying for policy reform in state and federal legislatures, voting on referendums in elections, and reaching out independently to government representatives.

A policy demands can also be a physical list of tasks created by a coalition, and shared with a key decision maker in an effort to change the status quo.

This form of resistance culminates the need and desire of an individual or group of people to fundamentally change our current way of living.

Social Justice Focus: Civil rights issues have historically been defined by this mode of resistance, especially during the 1960’s when Black coalitions organized demands to roll back federal policies that discriminated against them. Encouraging decision makers to make these changes has been integral to communities that have been historically excluded from the decision-making positions in these structures, so taking the initiative to engender substantive change through legislation has paved the way for equitable policies.

CARE/MUTUAL AID

SAFEwalk Services Credit: University of Wisconsin-Madison

What: This form of resistance occurs when a community bands together to acknowledge and address a problem. These solutions come in the form of aid or care for those affected by the inequities within their communal homes. This aid can come in the form of food kitchens, after school programs, shelters, etc.

Social Justice Focus: Care and mutual aid usually tie to community inequities or lack of resources. This form of resistance usually addresses issues individuals have within a community who need immediate aid for what they lack or need assistance with. For example, if students on a college campus lack food or shelter, there are programs that can temporarily care for them.

POLICY DEMANDS Strengths: Policy demands as resistance targets the larger power structures in place, ensuring that the policies—if implemented—will likely have a direct impact.

Policy demands can hold leaders accountable by forcing them to implement demands from constituents who entrust them with using their position of power to facilitate change.

Additionally, policy demands resist complacency with the status quo and asserts that those in authority accept responsibility for implementing changes that improves the lives of the disenfranchised and the collective society.

Limitations: This type of resistance is limited by the degree of recognition that decision makers give to the policy demands they receive.

Although policy makers would ideally be beholden to those who they serve, the easier option is to ignore the cries for resistance and change. For those who reside in their ivory towers and refuse to consider those living outside of them, it can be difficult to resonate or empathize with acts of resistance, which prevents tangible change from coming to fruition.

Examples: Green New Deal proposed by AOC and Ed Markey: list of environmental policy demands/changes (February 7, 2019)

UW-Madison Examples: Minority Coalition of students’ list of demands to address racism and sexism on campus (November 1988)

CARE/MUTUAL AID Strengths: These types of programs are good immediate responses to need that arise within a community. If community members need help that can reasonably be addressed, assistance programs are a great resource to utilize. Care and mutual aid are also forms of resistance that bring communities together in times of social strife or economic hardship.

Limitations: These programs are most likely temporary or limited in resources, which cannot accommodate the substantial quantity of people that require assistance). They can only provide assistance for a certain amount of time and often only help a certain number of people. In other words, mutual aid programs are limited by the community’s resources.

Examples: Alcoholics Anonymous (1935– Present)

UW-Madison Examples: SAFEWalk Badger FARE

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CHOOSING ALTERNATIVES

Slow Food Staff Preparing Food for Dinner Credit: Slow Food UW

What: Carceral practices exist all around us and, sometimes, participation in these practices is a choice. While the capacity to one’s ability to choose alternative practices often depends on identity and privilege, not engaging when possible may serve as a form of rejecting presently available options. Subsequently, this counteracts the narrative that the current punitive practices must continue operating as they currently do.

Social Justice Focus: This form of resistance is often inherently social justice-oriented, as choosing alternatives is a direct action against or in response to social harms.

THE ARTS OVERALL

As all of the cards suggest, arts and music are subjective and interpretative. There is no one correct way to assign resistance to artistic pieces. However, we can use arts and music to be an element of our resistance, typically illuminating a sort of message.

PERFORMANCE ART

Dancers Tye Trondson and Aki Burayudi engaging in performance art Credit: Ziling Guo (Jay), February 6, 2022

What: This mode of resistance encompasses any type of performance—dance, interpretive art, exhibits, and so much more. For instance, someone dancing on the street could be interpreted as performance art. Multimedia and collaborative aspects can make performance art more appealing; dancers can dance silently, but adding music or culturally significant clothing can make the performance more meaningful. It is interpretive—the takeaway for the audience is subjective.

Social Justice Focus: Performance art can bring light to virtually any kind of social justice movement in a more palatable or casual format. The intent can be consumed both in passing and through analytical thinking. It can be applied to any kind of social justice movement.

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PERFORMANCE ART Strengths: Performance art is interpretive and flexible, so it doesn’t need to mean the same thing for everyone. This adaptability can be especially important for the conversations after seeing performance art —having a conversation about what you listened or watched, drawing new conclusions, and expanding your mindset.

Limitations: Performance art can be limited by inaccessibility. Not having interpreters at a performance limits who can understand it. Having a physically inaccessible place limits who can attend.

Requiring compensation to see performance art can constrains its potential audience by excluding those without disposable income.

Examples: “can’t help myself” by sun yuan and peng yu depicts an industrial robot that continuously scoops up fake blood. It’s rusty, it’s tired, and it can be interpreted differently.

UW-Madison Examples: In 2022, the Performing Arts Committee of WUD held a performance called Negentropy. There were two dancers, one painter and two musicians who all bounced off each other to create a chaotic, beautiful piece of art.

RESISTANCE

MUSIC

MUSIC

Cover art for “A Change Is Gonna Come” Credit: RCA Victor Records

What: Music is influential and reachable by many people. This type of resistance can be just about anything: live bands, singers, instrumental, producers, and anyone that is involved in making music, making it one of the most universal art forms. There is essentially an unlimited number of music genres, too.

Social Justice Focus: Music can and has historically been used in social justice movements. People chant or sing as they march. People play uplifting music as they lift up flags. People send messages through music when words fail or can’t be spoken. Some songs have been more associated with resistance, being known for an uplifting or powerful message.

WRITTEN WORKS

Cover art for Black Disability Politics Credit: Duke University Press and Dr. Sami Schalk

What: Written work can contribute to resistance in many ways. Written pieces are interpretable: books help us recall history: news stories inform us of unfolding politics and world events, and research papers communicate novel phenomena.

Poetry and other written works inspires us in creative ways, prompting us to read further or take action with that newly acquired knowledge.

Social Justice Focus: The ideology that “knowledge is power” is well-established, and reading can be an empowering way to stay informed. For any social issue you think of, it is almost certain that someone has written an article about it.

Strengths: Music is basically universal.

Anyone who has access to the internet and can hear music can listen to it, even if it is in a different language.

Songs pertaining to resistance don’t have to be in one language; they can still influence people by the emotional underpinnings of the instrumentals and sound alone.

Limitations: Music is limited by accessibility.

Some people do not have internet access or devices to play music from. It also can be physically inaccessible for deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals, particularly if a song does not have lyric captions.

Examples: “A Change Is Gonna Come”

by Sam Cooke was written during the Civil Rights Movement and pertained to Cooke’s experiences with racism.

UW-Madison Examples: Local Madison band Kat and the Hurricane is a queer and trans band that makes alternative, rock music. They center themself in being queer and a lot of their listeners identify as LGBTQ, too.

WRITTEN WORKS Strengths: The primary advantage of written works are that they promote continual education and ever-evolving understanding of important topics. Since there is an unfathomably large quantity of written works, writing is a very accessible medium. With technology, books have been made accessible online, making it easier to read from essentially any location.

Examples: “The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde explores the value of art and beauty while following a man named Dorian Gray. The original version was censored, essentially leaving out the romantic attraction Dorian felt for another man.

Limitations: Not everyone has the mental and emotional capacity to consume intensive readings, especially ones that might be about a heavy topic. Reading assumes that everyone has good eyesight, sufficient literacy, access to physical or online books, and time in their day to allocate toward reading. Furthermore, while analyzing metaphors for larger arguments is beneficial, it is not the most immediate and direct form of resistance.

UW-Madison Examples: Dr. Sami Schalk, a professor at UW-Madison and author, has written two books—most recently “Black Disability Politics.”

Schalk focuses on disability, gender and body justice.

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If A Tree Falls In Atlanta:

Madison and the Stop Cop City Movement

by Quinn Henneger

“When a tree is growing, it’s tender and pliant. But

expecting to get some more clarity on this issue that I’ve

when it’s dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are

been loosely following for the past couple months. Just an

death’s companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions

hour and a half later, the wonderful nature of the Stop Cop

of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will

City movement and its ability to build bridges across move-

never win.” This quote by Anderi Tarkovsky were the first

ments was working its magic. As someone who has connec-

words I read from “The City In The Forest”, a zine that I had

tions in the abolitionist and environmentalist sectors of my

picked up while waiting for a presentation to start about the

university, I realized that I had the tools to do something

Block Cop City movement at the Social Justice Center in

important within this movement. An opportunity to show

Madison, Wisconsin. The presentation was being given by

solidarity with the forest defenders in Atlanta in a pro-

a forest defender who had traveled from Atlanta to speak

test that had been described as one of the most important

on behalf of the movement-- about an 869-mile trip. When

demonstrations of my generation’s lifetime. A demonstra-

I picked up this zine and sat down with about fifteen other

tion 869 miles away that has direct ties to Madison, as well

people on a warm September Friday night, I was generally

as the rest of the country.

1

1

MJLC 44

Anonymous, “The City In The Forest: Reinventing Resistance for an Age of Climate Crisis and Police Militarization” [Zine], Crimethinc. Ex-workers Collective. May 2022, p.4.

RESISTANCE For those that don’t already know what is happening

by Minneapolis Police Officers.”3 The indictment put words

in Atlanta or what the Stop Cop City movement is, essen-

like solidarity, mutual aid, collective, and “other anarchist

tially, the governments of Atlanta and Dekalb County along

terms” (as they describe) in alienating quotations and used

with the Atlanta Police Foundation have been attempting to

them as their reasoning behind why “Defend The Atlanta

build a police training compound in the Weelaunee forest;

Forest” is a high-profile conspiracy group.

land that is home to the Muscogee (Creek) people. Land that

First of all, “Defend The Atlanta Forest” are watch-

functions as the “lungs” of the city, trapping carbon emis-

words for an enormous autonomous group of people across

sions and runoff in its marshy lands and dense tree canopy.

the country that oppose Cop City. There is no “board of di-

It is also land where, in the 19th century, slaves were sent to

rectors” for Defend The Atlanta Forest. RICO indictments

work fields that were eventually turned into a prison camp.

are a huge deal, and are used sparingly because they are

Therefore, as the “The City In The Forest” zine I mentioned earlier states, “Paving this land over with new carceral infrastructure perpetuates a historical continuum of dispossession and abuse.”2 Ab-

If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

hard to prove. They are similar to the federal version of the statute that was made to target Mafia bosses and entire criminal enterprises.4 Georgia RICO indictments are already

olitionists and environmentalists from across the country

controversial for how broadly they define racketeering and

have come together under the watchwords “Defend The

allow a DA to, “introduce evidence that, without racke-

Forest” and “Stop Cop City” to oppose these developments

teering charges, would not stand on its own as individual

and protect the Weelaunee forest since the Spring of 2021.

crime.”5 On top of all of this, the Cop City RICO indictment

There are countless movements going on in the world

was still such a weak and absolutely ridiculous case that no

at any given moment, and we inherently have a limited ca-

prosecutor would sign the indictment! Christopher Carr,

pacity as to what we can put our attention towards. This

the Attorney General of Atlanta, had to.

is especially true in a capitalist society that leaves us little

Additionally, it is incredibly ironic for the indictment

time to dedicate towards things that don’t have a monetary

to claim that the Defend The Atlanta Forest “conspiracy

incentive. So why Atlanta, and why now? Let’s start with

group” was formed in 2020 following the murder of George

the more direct implications.

Floyd because it was in fact that moment, and the wave of

Just this past September in 2023, 61 people were

backlash against police that followed, that sent an intense

named in a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organiza-

ripple of fear within police departments across the country.

tion Act (RICO) indictment which asserted that these peo-

A ripple that caused police departments like the one in At-

ple are all part of a well-organized conspiracy called “De-

lanta, as well as many others throughout the United States,

fend The Atlanta Forest.” In the indictment, the state of

to scramble to validate themselves by increasing their fund-

Georgia claimed that, “the purpose of Defend the Atlanta

ing towards military-grade weapons and training facilities

Forest is to occupy of parts or all of 381 forested acres in

that, as mentioned before, would perpetuate a historical

DeKalb County, Georgia that is owned by Atlanta Police

continuum of dispossession and abuse.

Foundation”. They describe Defend the Atlanta Forest as

This has an immediate tie to UW-Madison as 4 of the

“a self-identified coalition and enterprise of militant anar-

61 people charged in this absurd RICO indictment are from

chists, eco-activists, and community organizers… formed

Madison and around student age. All four of these people

in 2020 following the high-profile killing of George Floyd

had already been facing faulty charges that they gained

2 Anonymous, “The City In The Forest: Reinventing Resistance for an Age of Climate Crisis and Police Militarization” [Zine], Crimethinc. Ex-workers Collective. May 2022, pp.5-6.

3 United States, State of Georgia, et al. Cop City RICO Indictment, September 2023. pp. 24–30.

4 Hallerman, Tamar. What to Know about Georgia’s Rico Law, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6 Sept. 2023, www.ajc.com/politics/what-to-know-about-georgias-rico-law/3Y2PBKLHWFDMLKYFEURTHLBVZY/.

5 Hallerman, Tamar. What to Know about Georgia’s Rico Law, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6 Sept. 2023, www.ajc.com/politics/what-to-know-about-georgias-rico-law/3Y2PBKLHWFDMLKYFEURTHLBVZY/.

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RESISTANCE earlier in the movement. Some of their charges stem

City organizers claimed that the atmosphere was a “bold and

from March of 2023, when police raided the South River

joyful procession” with people holding banners and giant pup-

Music Festival and indiscriminately arrested twenty-three

pets, accompanied by drummers and a brass band.2

people, charging all of them with “domestic terrorism”. The

At UW, the Associated Students of Madison (ASM) passed

group was in attendance to protest the murder of Tortugui-

legislation that calls upon the university to show solidarity

ta, a prominent forest defender in the movement who was

with the Stop Cop City movement. Additionally, I organized

killed in cold blood by Atlanta Police in January 2023. This

a tabling event that was held at Library Mall, combining the

included two of the Madison co-defendants named in the

efforts of the MJLC, ASM Sustainability, and Amnesty UW. It

September 2023 RICO indictments.

is not everyday that you see an abolitionist study group/mag-

So, Cop City is not only causing serious harm to fellow

azine organization working with a sustainability student gov-

Madison community members, but also poses a massive

ernment committee and a human rights advocacy group. This

prospective danger to the rest of the United States. If the

is the power behind Stop Cop City, and why it has gained so

construction of the training facility in Atlanta is completed,

much traction for such a long period of time. Stop Cop City and

a precedent will be set for cities around the country to begin

everything it entails is putting on full display how the move-

building their own versions of the outrageously elaborate

ment to reduce institutionalized harm connects beyond topics

institution. There are already developments for more cop

surrounding incarceration, but also how the punitive methods

cities across the United States, one of the most prominent

of the carceral state are linked to, and affect, every social is-

being in Nashville, where there is a 415 million dollar train-

sue that we see today. By bringing together abolitionists and

ing facility proposal that is set to be located adjacent to the

environmentalists, (two groups that are enormous in of them-

Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.1

selves) the Stop Cop City movement is revealing in real time

Still, given all this, one of the most concerning conse-

the power behind connecting with each other in resistance

quences of Cop City in Atlanta has not been mentioned yet:

efforts. The movement asks “if we are all bound up together

the criminalization of protests. Backlash against protests

in our oppression under the carceral state, why not resist this

has been around since the first pickett sign was made - that

oppression together in our own wonderful autonomous ways?”

is not new. What is new are charges against protestors that

The Stop Cop City movement has been utilizing this men-

are used to target entire criminal enterprises; charges of

tality since Spring of 2021, and the organizational efforts have

domestic terrorism for people that were attending a concert

thrived for this very reason, in contradiction to most other

or sitting in a hammock in the Weelaunee Forest. Given UW’s

movements. No matter what happens with the construction of

rich history of student protest, what happens in Atlanta will

Cop City, the Stop Cop City movement will go down in his-

have serious consequences for the future of resistance efforts

tory for how it altered the way activists go about organizing

on the UW campus and the rest of the country.

against oppression. Historians will point to this moment as

For the past two years, forest defenders in Atlanta have

one of the foundational movements that deterred from center-

used a wide array of tactics to resist Cop City: canvassing, pres-

ing the isolationist principles of the capitalist settler-colonial

sure campaigns, speaking out at city hall, children’s marches,

systems that are so ingrained into us. Moving autonomously,

traditional Muscogee stomp dances, music festivals, weeks of

but together - using our diverse

action, sabotage, and demonstrations across the United States.

backgrounds and strengths to

More recently, on November 13th of 2023, hundreds of pro-

tackle these oppressive sys-

testors arrived on the Cop City construction site unarmed and

tems in their own respective

nonviolent in Atlanta. Police declared the protest illegal and

complexity.

responded with full riot gear, tear gas, and rubber bullets. Despite this backlash, the protesters were able to block Cop City construction for a week. In an official press release, Block Cop

1 Stockard, Sam. “State Contracting with 20 Firms for $415M Law Enforcement Training Project .” Tennessee Lookout, 12 Oct. 2023, tennesseelookout.com/2023/10/12/state-contracting-with-20-firms-for-415m-law-enforcement-training-project/.

2 Arnold, Aja. “Cop City Construction Stopped for the Day Due to Block Cop City Action.” Mainline Atlanta, 13 Nov. 2023, www. mainlinezine.com/construction-stopped-today-at-cop-city-site-due-to-block-cop-city-action/.

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Forward Meg Bierce

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ms simonis says in class today - “your generation will be the ones to change the world” the class pauses, confused why would she say this? how can we? how can i? it felt too insurmountable in that moment, impossible to understand why a teacher was putting this on me it stuck with me empowered my tiny little heart to beat alongside changemakers i hate bullies, hear them all the time taunting on the playground making my cheeks burn, stomach turning a million times over playing four square and a kid keeps whipping the ball at people hitting them - arms, legs, face a hot feeling in my chest fills me up to my throat until i scream STOP voice cracks and words fade away until they’re only an echo of my anger fingers tingle with fear, not sure what to do next but when does it end? what can i do? where is the line drawn? the line of what i can and can’t do? does one exist? who is stopping me? we had an activity in small families where my teacher asked us to describe our dream job i thought, what do i want to do with my life?

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by Sophia Smith

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i’m supposed to“change the world, right?” maybe a doctor, saving lives everyday maybe a lawyer, fighting for what i believe in maybe the president, paving new, better ways to protect people those words led me to protest, to fight, to share my voice disbelief towards the Supreme Court who stripped us of rights outrage towards the police officers who kill in cold blood questioning hate in class, in the street anger leeching out of me, like the playground, but now with “real world” consequences and fear is still there but it never feels like enough why is it on us? why can’t they help? they’re not the kids they’re the ones with responsibility and power and meaning who am i without that? i’m new here – the sparkle hasn’t left my eyes, i still believe my feet can take me anywhere if i run fast enough, and i can take my friends with me if i just hold on tight enough where does that all go? the belief? i know now i can’t do it all but then i think of her what would she say? what would she say? does she know more there? is there more where she is? i don’t know what all i can do but i do what i can to live is to change, to change is to live no matter position no matter the time the dream, the fight, the knowing is what matters what there is what is there? is everyone there? is the world changed? can i change it? it did. we can.

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tarot spread for mary lakeland Mckayla Murphy

ii. two of swords. an impasse. staring down the noose, the stake, Ipswich, Ips-witch, the imps’ witch who killed my husband by witchcraft because no one would believe any other way. because i am a woman and i will take the fall so that other women do not have to. the women who call me mother lakeland and who will remember my name and how i stared down the men and spoke to them my truth. xii. the hanged man. pause; surrender. they will not hang me but instead burn me at the stake, the only one – the only one who’s known – because there could have been more. more women who were different, women who were radical, women who were witches. vii. seven of cups. wishful thinking. someday women will be free and the real witches who live in the woods will be able to come out of hiding. and the old women and young girls who refuse to bend to the laws of man and are instead accused of bending the laws of nature will be able to uncover their eyes mouths ears and the men will see the truth speak their evil hear the screams of days far past, screams that come when you burn an innocent woman.

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xx. judgement. absolution. let us be forgiven of our sins and let us never forget the things we did, but more importantly let us never forget the things we did not do. i will be turned away from the pearly gates of Heaven and i suppose that means i will float forever, aimlessly, but i gave my blood to the devil and my power to the grass i burned on and september the ninth sixteen forty five will go down in history as the last witch trial in Ipswich and the last time mary lakeland let men choose her fate for her. xv. the devil (reversed). let go. let go. let go. you couldn’t burn us all, but our daughters will always remember the ones you did. they will not let go let go let go and while i may not have been a witch, while i may have been burned at the stake for killing my husband and nothing else, they are fireproof. and they dance in the flames and paint their bodies with my ashes and they see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil, they will not stand for it, they will not stand for men being cruel, and they will not let go let go let go.

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A Bigger Impact Charlotte Knihtila 51

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My Bedroom Cloey Deignan-Koelzer

My bedroom is a scatter of clutter, clutter compiles each inch and crevice of my space, but somehow, i feel clean.

Clean in the way that I can remember where I placed the hair clip I had in my hair the day before, on my nightstand, right next to my glasses.

The same hair clip that I will use to pin my grown-out bangs with tomorrow, i always think that I want bangs until I have them again.

The same way that I want bright purple nail polish on the same nails that I bit the night before out of rage.

It’s familiar to me, the sense of abnormality.

The knowing that I am not the same girl I was a year ago when she was wilting, and I won’t be the same girl in 2 weeks when I am 21 years old, enjoying a glass of wine.

I try to convince myself that time isn’t moving fast, but, who am I kidding?

I love hard, so hard to the point that my morning cup of coffee seems more enjoyable each day, and the rosy blush on my cheeks seems to become more prominent each time I wear it.

My bedroom is a scatter of clutter, and that same hair clip remains in my hair.

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Messy Woman Sasha Ivanov

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MERI MAA by

Shrushti Nayak

It has taken me 18 years to truly appreciate my mother. And in those 18 years, I have made no effort to get to know her. She has had a life scattered with fragments of joy and sorrow, and it pains me to say that I haven’t listened to her life stories. Hearing what someone is saying is one thing, but to truly listen to every consonant tumbling off of their tongue and feel its impact in your own heart is an entirely different concept. And now I finally know what that feels like.

My mother does not fail to welcome me with a delectable homemade Indian meal every time I step foot into my house after an exhausting three-hour drive from university to home. The place I consider home is Appleton, Wisconsin. It’s not easy being so far away from comfort, but I have learned to manage, and my mother’s food helps. Sometimes the delicious meal that awaits me is butter chicken and naan, while other times she crafts steaming samosas.

All the exhaustion from the drive gets washed away by the aroma of the food, and I feel rejuvenated. But what have I done to deserve such royal treatment? Make fun of my mother? Fail to get marvelous grades?

Show attitude to her whenever she makes me do chores? The amount of disgust I felt when I realized that I was an awful daughter was overwhelming, and yet my mother never stopped being the wonderful woman she is.

My mother, an immigrant from India, sometimes tripped up on English words or mispronounced them. “Scheelds” was what my mother called the sports store once. And instead of correcting her politely as a sweet daughter would do, I laughed at her along

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with my dad and my brother, repeating her mistakes again and again, loud echoes bouncing throughout the living room in which we all sat to watch Indian soap operas.

I am ashamed.

In middle school, my group of friends at the time had asked to see what my mother looked like, and instead of being honest, I found a picture of my white aunt and presented her as my mother, knowing in my heart that what I was doing was wrong.

I was embarrassed of what my mother looked like, even though she was genuinely gorgeous. I suppose I wanted my friends to think that my mom was more “American” than they assumed because I wanted to “fit in” as my brown skin made it difficult to do. So, I did what I had to in order to make that happen. To this day, my eyes still swell with tears whenever I recall that disgraceful incident.

I am ashamed.

I also have, along with my dad, mocked her for walking slower than the rest of us; not being able to catch up.

I am ashamed.

If I could swallow my words, I would be choked by them. However, life doesn’t work like that, and the only way is to learn from these mistakes and grow. I let myself get watered by listening.

My mother waits for the moments my dad leaves for work and tells me about how she was terrified to come to America while she stands at the island chopping an assortment of colorful vegetables. I sit at the dining table, my chair and body turned toward my mother, eagerly gulping down this information. She tells me how she had no other choice than to progress in this direction. She worked as an accountant in India, but once her parents found a suitor, they were off to sacrifice anything to tie the knot. Arranged marriages are a tedious process because there is a lot of stress placed upon the parents. The way it works is that the family of the woman gets a few pictures of the potential match plus a date or two. The families will meet, and if they

observe the woman and man getting along, then the wedding preparation starts. A woman’s purpose in India is to get married and have kids once she is of age. This has been the way for many years, and while some of the generation today is attempting to bend that culture, many still are forced to follow it. Therefore, my mother left her job and fled to the U.S. with a man she barely knew. My dad is Indian as well but was working in the U.S. for quite a while then, so he knew his way around. My mother, however, was clueless. This country was purely alien to her. I could not fathom being in this situation, how foreign everything would feel. I would feel so lonely.

She tells me how my dad’s parents made her feel worthless, how their harsh words pierced her heart so much that she would cry for hours in the bathroom while pregnant with me. Apparently, my dad warned them to stop but to no avail. This harassment went on for years and was unbearable at times, and her frail voice quivers as she tells me this, tension visible in the deep creases on her soft forehead. But she pushed through.

For me. Why couldn’t I for her? For my Maa? How difficult is it to be bullied by your own in-laws while pregnant? Or to have to navigate a new world by yourself because your husband is constantly working? It’s not like she has any friends in the U.S. that she can share this with—they’re all back in the place she considers home. And the way I treat her probably makes her feel lonelier.

Now, I kindly correct my mother on words she trips up on. I proudly show my friends the woman who birthed me and endured such great hardships. I run back to her if she’s walking slowly and match my pace with hers.

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Full Home Sestina Tor War

I knew when I was young that I could not stay in the house I grew up in. Violence was too easy. Too different. I wanted a different kind. The kind that the cartoons showed me on the screen. The mouse always beats the cat. But the cat’s there again when the next episode starts, when I press play. Time goes because I stay sitting in front of the screen with the smart mouse, and I watch the wounds re-open. Violence is expected in our American cartoons.

Violence was what I wanted in my own life, I wanted so badly, so disturbingly, to feel when a person deflates like a cartoon under your own fist. I stay an American in my violence.

In a new house, I catch a mouse I’ve never dealt with a dead mouse before. Now that I have to I wanted never to have to. My real violence killed a small creature when I knew he thought to stay to feed him and his family. My cartoon

x

life makes me draw cartoon.

I draw X’s over the eyes of the mouse.

I wonder if this is a place I can stay at, feasibly. I only wanted a safe place to stay, when I only found another home for violence My eternal roommate, violence.

I hear her on the Chicago streets, a cartoon character plunging off the cliffside. When I left the corpse of the mouse in the dumpster outside, I wanted to have a reason to stay.

The Crow’s Kindness Riley Haller

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by Ella Olson For 364 days of the year, Mifflin Street is a picturesque tableau for the mundane day-to-day of students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a short fifteen-minute walk from campus. The front porches seldom host street spectators, and the twentysomethings walk past in various layers of celldistraction, music enthrallment, shorts, sweaters, parkas, and ponchos as defense from the capricious Midwest weather.

For 364 days, there is little to set Mifflin apart from any other residential street, it’s only exceptionality being the lack thereof. That is, until the 365th day.

Welcome: it’s the Mifflin Block Party.

On the first Saturday in May, wander onto Mifflin Street and be engulfed by the human Red Sea. With 2023’s attendance hitting 10,000, the unsanctioned party may as well be a Badger Christmas amidst

MJLC 58

the kaleidoscopic throng of students in the street. Dizzy crowds shift like pinwheels, revealing pockets of absurdity: a beer bong waterfalling from a balcony, sloppily hitting open mouths. A green hookah puffing dragon-level smoke.

Dirt bikes revving their engines.

Mud wrestling. Spliffs floating between index fingers and lips indiscriminately. Though the university is notably uninvolved, all in attendance sport extensive UW paraphernalia. For one day a year, Mifflin Street morphs into a bombastic celebration that packs the 500 block to extremes capable of collapsing porches.

It goes without saying that this revelry has been less than encouraged by officials. Each year, the call by the Madison Police Department intensifies for an end to the party for its role as the inciting incident to a slew of other legal and safety issues, among them being the literal collapse of a porch two years ago, sexual assault, the confiscation of a loaded gun at last year’s event, and the barely-

worth-mentioning uncountable underage drinking charges. It is discussed as havoc wreaked– irresponsible students with no understanding or respect for the safety concerns the police department holds for the community.

Unless that isn’t what it is at all.

Today “Mifflin” may seem to be an excuse prior to finals to defend UW’s party school reputation, but at its start in 1969, its purpose was protest— specifically, calling for an end to the Vietnam war. The plan was uncomplicated: bands would arrive and set up on local porches, and participants would dance, sing, eat, and fraternize together in protest of the war.

Enter law enforcement. After attempts to disperse the crowd failed, further altercations caused the protest to escalate to full-blown riot. Police tactics to quell the chaos were billy clubs and tear gas, and over the course of three days, over seventy students were injured

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and over a hundred were arrested as the protest bled from Mifflin onto State Street, then Langdon, and eventually the grounds of the Capitol.

When the protests finally lulled, the event was cemented instantaneously in notoriety.

However while the finale’s fame grew, it was the party’s overture that was compiling true significance.

While the first Saturday of May is now the official date of the Mifflin Block Party, the first annual event was set for May 3rd, 1969, in commemoration of the one-year anniversary of another political protest: the French Student Revolution. A year to date prior, students at Sorbonne University in France staged a sit-in at one of the amphitheaters on campus.

It followed a protest at the University of Paris– Nanterre Campus for the right to have guests of the opposite gender in the dorm, but soon evolved to a demand for heavier student influence in education. Before long, the general unpopularity of the French president, Charles De Gaulle, ballooned the movement to a general petition for social and economic reform.

While the Sorbonne sit-in began peacefully, on the arrival of police forces protesters were dispersed by means of brutality, resulting in a night long riot, countless injuries, the closing of the university, and over four hundred student arrests. The protests lasted a month, and the exemplified violence of the police united the French in outrage. By the middle of May, ten million factory workers had joined the students in their strike, bringing the economy to

a near total stop. It wasn’t until the end of the month that the movement finally subsided with President De Gaulle’s promise of legislative reform.

In perspective, the founding of the Mifflin Block Party was no coincidence or silly student pipe dream miraculously come to life.

It was a protest crafted wholly with intention, and like the French Student Revolution, had serious demands. Aside from the crucial role students played in each protest and their shared birthday, the two movements also share what at first may seem a disheartening parallel: neither is considered to have been successful.

on campus if they know Mifflin started as an anti-war protest, and they’ll probably say no. Even though the Vietnam War did eventually end, very little credit can be given to the 500 block.

Instead, headlines from May of any given year detail the everpresent pressure of the Madison Police Department to shut the party down because of underage drinking, overcrowding, and concerns of the block house’s structural integrity.

In contrast, despite its mediocre success rating, the French Student Revolution did have an impact. In the aftermath of the Sorbonne sit-in, fury over the police’s brutality united the French public to a scale massive The Global Nonviolent Action enough to halt the national Database, an archive of major economy. Changes were protests throughout history, implemented in the university provides some insight by systems. The momentum of the compiling case studies to revolution springboarded both synthesize an overall rating of a The French Women’s Liberation protest’s success. The rating is Movement and the French Gay broken into three categories: the Rights Movement, enacting protest’s success in achieving change for groups far beyond specific demands/goals, survival the scope of the original protest. of the movement (i.e. longevity), and growth. The French Student The Mifflin Block Party may have Revolution’s rating is shocking: lost its political significance a mere 5.5 of 10 possible points and boasts little “tangible proof received, with the largest cut to of reform,” but it will celebrate the average coming from the 2/6 its 55th birthday this spring, mark on “Success in Achieving surviving the closing of the specific demands/goals” due Co-Op that originally funded to De Gaulle’s reelection and it, the city’s refusal to sanction minimal reform to the legislation the event, the COVID-19 the students had been pandemic, and 55 years of the petitioning for.

Madison Police Department’s efforts to extinguish the event The evidence suggests then, permanently. that the success of a protest is overwhelmingly defined by its Mifflin shows what students are ability to enact tangible political capable of. Whether students reform. While no official data today know where it started or or ranking exists to measure not shouldn’t be the focus– it’s the Mifflin Riots, ask a student the undoubted fact that the

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police do. Their consistent presence through history proves as much: at the start of French Student Revolution in 1968, a year later when Mifflin came to be, for fifty five years since. Yet this presence not only reveals the police’s, or, the government’s, recognition of students’ capability—it exposes their fear.

The French Student Revolution began as a peaceful sit-in. The Mifflin Block Party was a call to end the Vietnam war. The demonstrations were initiated by students at well respected and acclaimed universities– educated young people taking a stand against policies that they disagreed with in the medium of successful advocators: Gandhi. Martin Luther King Jr. Malala. It was only upon police

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involvement—government involvement—that either event escalated to the violence, rioting, and chaos for which they are remembered.

Protests erupt. Crowds explode.

Violence ignites. Tinder doesn’t self-combust: it is the relentless friction between enforcement and education that sparks revolution from reform, strike from sit-in, riot from block party.

No matter how “unsuccessful” protests like Mifflin may be at enacting political reform, there is no disputing that the catastrophe they invoke force policymakers to admit that their systems are composed of gunpowder.

In its evolution since 1969, the Mifflin Block Party relies very little on political activism to

power its survival, and with it come an abundance of valid safety and legal concerns.

However, both the party and students’ disregard for the restraints that law enforcement attempts to bind it with call for us not just to revisit Mifflin’s instrumental role as a continual voice of protest, but to reform our entire definition of “success.” The truth is, the Mifflin Block Party’s legacy is not one of massive change, or widespread political impact.

Instead, it is one of continual resistance. A reminder, to the powderkeg: We are made of matches.

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NUESTRA LUCHA WISCONSIN

by Camila Trimberger-Ruiz According to the Wisconsin Historical Society, Latinos first began arriving in Wisconsin en masse following the Mexican Revolution in 1910. More masses arrived during the emergency farm labor program in 1943, the labor shortages of World War II, and the Bracero program. Most of these immigrants to the state were Mexican and MexicanAmerican, settling in areas such as Milwaukee, Kenosha, Racine.

By 1970, 41,402 of the 4.4 million people in Wisconsin were Latino (classified then as “Persons of Spanish Language”). However, this number may have been larger due to seasonal workers who crossed the border annually instead of settling in the state.

the growing populations in areas such as Milwaukee were problematic to the state.

program on campus. Before this, in 1970, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee had organized a Spanish Speaking Outreach Institute and students were in the streets of Milwaukee facing arrest while demanding classes based around Latin history and Chicane counselors, which they ultimately received.

Students at UW-Oshkosh had demanded a Chicano cultural center on campus; by 1972 the university had built a multicultural center.

Inspired by the successes on smaller campuses and after the closure of UW’s Afro and Native American centers and plans for a Chicano center in The University of Wisconsin1972, Chicanes at UW began Madison (UW) was established their battle for a Chicano in 1848, but it is unclear when Studies Department in the years the first Chicane students following. Perhaps another arrived on campus. In fact reason as to why Madison joined much of the information on the battle so late was due to Chicane students currently the history of the university’s available is brief, especially in response to minority protest. In comparison to other schools 1969 during a series of protests in the project. Harry Long, an led by Black students in order alumni of UW created a similar to achieve their 13 demands, project which focused on the Governor Warren P. Knowles history of Black students at the called for over 1,900 National university. He experienced these Guard troops to handle the The sudden increase in the same frustrations, saying in an students. number of Chicanos in the state interview, “It can be extremely was not entirely welcomed difficult to fill in the story, the The Chicane students by the established Anglo blanks, because Black students organizing were a part of La population, especially due to were such a small population, Raza Unida Party, a political anti-immigrant news coverage and the people who are going party started in the 1970s spreading negative opinions to be documented are the centered on Chicano activism. about Mexicans. The Milwaukee people who have resources, They formed a Chicano Advisory Journal was prominent in the students in fraternities, Committee, dedicated to their spreading this message, printing sororities, those who come from cause. They began producing stories that claimed Mexican well-to-do families.” materials with information that immigrants were riddled with supported their cause. Many of mental and physical defects, and With this in mind, our story of the information looked to other would use up public assistance Chicanes arriving in Madison schools in the Midwest that programs. While this racist begins in the 1970s, when were already fulfilling the needs coverage was not singular to students first began to organize of Mexican American students.

Wisconsin, it spread ideas that to demand a Chicano Studies One flier from 1973 reads:

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While many immigrants stayed in the labor force, some desired to matriculate.

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“Fact: The University of Minnesota has a state Chicano population of 29,000 and they have a complete Chicano Studies Department. The University of Wisconsin has a state Chicano population of 41,000 to 65,000 yet does not have any Chicano Studies Program or department.”

By April of 1975, the students began publishing a monthly newsletter called Tezcatlipoca, which means “smoking mirror” in Nahuatl and is the name of the Aztec god of providence and the invisible. Over 1,500 copies of the paper were distributed each month to Latine groups all over the state. During that same month, Mayor Paul Soglin voiced his support for a Chicano Studies Department in a letter to David Cronon, the Dean of the College of Letters and Science.

After this, Jesus Salas, a student largely involved in the Chicano Advisory Committee submitted a request to Cronon to cover finances in order to travel to Texas and observe their Chicano studies program over spring break. When Cronon refused, it became clear to students that their needs were not being heard.

On April 14th, 1975, Salas and students of La Raza Unida picketed outside of the dean’s office and staged sit-ins. The protests continued into May, when at least four students were arrested for painting messages and “ethnic symbols” on sidewalks. When UW continued to ignore demands, they went on protesting during the summer.

On June 18th, Chicanes across the state met with the U.S. Justice Department conciliation specialists to discuss the ongoing battle with the

university. Then, on July 30th the Wisconsin Senate passed the Ethnic American and Chicano Studies bill, which allocated $13,500 to be used to implement ethnic and Chicane studies programs approved by the board of regents. Less than two weeks after the passage of the bill, UW Chancellor H. Edwin Young allowed for a Chicano Studies Program to be made.

– The implementation of a Chicano Studies Program was a catalyst for Chicane visibility at the University of Wisconsin, but it was not the end of student protests. In November of 2016, MEChA or the Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán protested outside of the Wendy’s location on State Street after the company had refused to increase wages for its farmworkers, most of whom were undocumented. By June of 2017, the Wendy’s location closed down. Student protests to protect DACA and Dreamers have happened on multiple occasions.

– Today, UW has around 43,820 students. About five percent are Latine, or around 2,300.

Despite plans being canceled in 1972, a Latinx Cultural Center was brought to campus in 2018.

The Chican@/Latin@ Studies Program allows students to earn a certificate in the subject.

While not available yet, a major in Chican@/Latin@ Studies is expected to be available by 2023.

often works with other organizations, such as Students for Justice in Palestine and Wunk Sheek, an activist group for Indigenous students.

MEChA is also the center of more recent fights for Chicane justice at UW. The organization currently resides in a house on campus, however with plans for a new Humanities building as a part of the “campus master plan,” the MEChA house is at risk of being torn down. The University has forcibly moved MEChA three times before this and is not providing a new location for the group. MEChA has not released a statement at this time, but the Zoe Bayliss Co-op, an affordable housing option for women on campus, is also at risk of removal.

Students at the Co-op had been organizing online and in person to save the house since the university announced the plans.

The university has announced a relocation plan for Zoe Bayliss in Phillips Hall (which the co-op rejected, moving instead onto Langdon Street), but none yet for MEChA. The MEChA house acts as a safe space for Latin students on campus to meet, create and organize.

If it is to be removed, the only place that will remain on campus solely dedicated to Latine students will be the Latinx Cultural Center, a singular room in the Multicultural Student Center.

For the past half-century, UW also hosts organizations Chicane and Latine students for Latin@ law students, medical have pushed for visibility and students, engineering students, space on campus, though it’s Greek life, and Dreamers. The clear that the fight isn’t over.

MEChA chapter on campus

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Somehow

Mother Gabrielle Watry

*Content Warning: Domestic Violence

Mother, I’ll never show you this. Even if I did, I know you’d never read it. You hate reading, no matter if the words are my own. I admire the rare convictions you have.

That tree in the backyard that grew flowers one random Thursday after decades of only sprouting leaves–that’s the happiness you’ve cultivated. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but you’re the happiest woman alive.

Somehow, you smile as you curl your translucent hair every morning after a night of no sleep. Somehow, you befriend strangers each day as you scan their vegetables and the fancy meats you can’t afford, managing to learn and always remember the stories of their lives from behind the register. Somehow, you come home tired, but you still spend hours mowing the lawn, watering the disappointing garden, and trimming the dead branches. Somehow, falling asleep on the sunken couch with a glass of cold Diet Coke beside you is enough. Somehow, you tell me you’re happy, and I know how deeply you mean it. Somehow.

I wonder if I am really your daughter. Of course, I know you birthed me; we have the same grey eyes and bottom-heavy lips. I look just like you in that photo from your senior yearbook. What I mean is that I don’t call myself my mother’s daughter. I am not wholeheartedly you. The slightest misstep saddens me. My happiness is not a flowering tree. My happiness is a glass vase, always teetering on the table’s edge, already having fallen and shattered and been wrongly glued back together one thousand times beMJLC 64

fore. My design is imperfect and mismatched.

As a teenager crushed by the weight of hormones and my congenital austerity, I resented you for your patience, idealism, and dreams. I knew I’d never possess the happiness that comes to you so easily. Where I saw myself in ten years was still laying on my bed.

Like a psychic, I predicted it, and like a prophet, I was right. I could spend forever with my head under my blankets, but you’ve never even slept in. Not even when you’re sick. The sun rises, and you rise with it, competing for the brightest light that touches us. The sun rises, and I do everything to keep that shit outside.

You somehow managed to sit politely at his funeral while his family cried over his casket. I can’t describe that casket because I wasn’t there, but I know you found your spot quietly amongst the pews, listened to the pastor fictionalize a goodness he never had, and didn’t speak a single word. You deserved to have dug that hole yourself. You never received true justice. Not for anything.

Not for the time those middle-school boys cornered you in the woods. Not for the way you were blamed because of your skirt, the one made by your own mother. Not for the love that slipped from your fingers, the love you deserved to keep. Not for the debt he left you in. Not for the pain I bestowed upon you. The pressure of your pregnancy gave you those violet scars on your leg. That was me. I am the reason you refuse to wear shorts or a swimsuit at the beach. I am sorry.

I will always remember the night he brandished

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the knife you used to cook us dinner. That fear lies like a hibernating bear inside my mind. I can coax it to sleep, but I can never make it leave.

I couldn’t sleep that night because how could any child? Having witnessed what I did? I dreamt I lost you. I dreamt I lost you to him and his reddened hands and his poisoned spit.

I found you in the kitchen, washing the dishes. I can’t recall my age, but I can see myself level with your legs. You must have asked me what was wrong, why I wasn’t in bed on a school night. In return, I asked you where you would be in heaven if he killed you. If he took you from this life, from me, where would you be? How would I find you? I knew if he hurt you, I soon would follow and had to be prepared.

I needed your guidance while I could still beg for it from you.

You told me you’d be by the flowers. I’d find you in heaven by the flowers, but I didn’t need to worry about that right now, that you’d be fine, he can’t hurt you, go back to sleep. Somehow, you acted as though nothing had happened.

I wondered how you seemed so invincible. It was like he couldn’t touch you, even when he did. It was your soul that remained sacred and unbruised.

Somehow, you still glow. I know you always will.

You lived through the worst that life could offer.

When you lived in that apartment with your baby alone, eating rice and beans for every meal, you asked your landlord if you could use some space in the yard to garden.

When I was malnourished and hospitalized, you drove four hours after work each day to visit me in my little room for just one. Some days, I barely smiled. Some days, I barely talked. Some days, I wanted the nurses to stop taking care of me and just let me wither away in a corner of my choosing. You always showed up anyways.

When you left me there, you cried. You cried into my hair, and I cried into your shirt, and all the other sick girls watched me and wished their own mothers

were there to hug. You said goodbye because you knew you had to, and I watched you disappear down the hall beyond the locked door.

Though someday you must leave me, I don’t think you’ll ever die. You’re protected by ghosts; you’ve even said it yourself. You’re protected by the family of ghosts in our yard and every friend you’ve ever made with ease and all the angels that love to watch over you and all your children and your grandchildren and everyone you’ve kept alive by sacrificing your own self. You’ll live forever in the trees you grew and the home you built and the beautiful names you gave and the happiness you collected and tossed onto others like sprinkler water in the summer.

Though someday you must leave me, you’ve guaranteed yourself a beautiful view in heaven. You will be by the flowers, just like you said. You will be the happiest woman in heaven, and I will always be looking for you.

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twentysomething (she/her) in manhattan Margaux Trexler

a group of 10 new york university students were asked the same four questions: 1. what is your name?

2. how old are you?

3. what are your pronouns?

4. how has your gender identity, among other identifiers, impacted your experience living in new york city?

the following pages are selected transcriptions of responses to the fourth question. interviewees have been identified by the first initial of their first name, along with their age and pronouns.

C. 21. she/her.

well i definitely think i do have some privileges across my identities however my gender has impacted me in terms of my sense of safety because i have been verbally attacked and followed also at one point which i feel was partially due to the way they perceived me as a woman or as female-presenting rather however of course i know that within feminism that are many intersecting there are many intersections that come into play and i do take precautions via carrying mace on me however i have not had to use it thus far fingers crossed (laughs) oh and also catcalling does happen a lot which does fall into the verbal harassment arena and the way i do handle that is simply by turning up my music and keeping my head down

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M. 22. she/her.

E. 21. she/her.

by those around me

for you

i don’t know why but immediately a memory came to mind um about my twenty-first birthday i went out with all my friends and it was honestly a really horrible night (laughs) and the details of that don’t really matter i just was very very upset by how that night went and i ended up crying on the side of the street and i was in a black dress and high heels and i had done my makeup and gotten my hair done i felt really beautiful and adult and i was sobbing on the side of the street and one of my friends was holding me and this car of guys drives up beside us because we were standing on the sidewalk and they start yelling at us or just saying like “oh, where are you going, baby” like “you look so good” and like while i was sobbing and i didn’t understand why they were doing that and i cried so hard i almost threw up (laughs) and along with a bunch of factors i feel like that memory kind of sums up sometimes what it’s like to be a young woman at least for me living in new york and that’s obviously only focusing on the negative but the negative experiences stick with me a lot more than the positive ones and i don’t love that because it does make me seem ungrateful and i have so much gratitude for how fortunate i am and how how many beautiful wonderful things i have in my life in new york but i also don’t think it’s fair to ignore some of the more unpleasant experiences i’ve had and how they don’t really have to do with me at all but how i’m perceived as a woman um

um my gender identity has impacted my experience living in new york in i think kind of two main ways that i can really like think about very clearly like um one i do think that in certain situations it makes me feel um a little bit less safe or less sure like i’m a little bit more nervous to do things i know that guys in my life are not as nervous to do like just simple things like i have had a like couple experiences of people approaching me or some stuff and like it can be very uncomfortable at times but i’ve also found that among like other people who identify as women and like a lot of like people who are like allies in a lot of different types of ways um i find a lot of solace in it and a lot of just like kind of unspoken just understood like companionship and support like i kind of feel like when i’m out and about other people around there or like other women are looking out for me and i feel like i’m looking out for them and like i’ve had like experiences out where like like somebody needs to like come up to me and my friends because like they might not feel like entirely safe and like we can take care of them and like i know that like i think if i had to do that to somebody else i would be cared for in that same way so i think that it creates a sense of insecurity in some sort of situations but also a sense of like solace and companionship um among other people that want to look out

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K. 21. she/her.

it’s hard to really definitively say but i think like i have never had an experience where i have doubted the fact that i am a woman um so that is something i have lived with my entire life and i don’t know if the experience of being a woman is really unique to new york city other than the fact that i feel like more threatened on a daily basis um just by the nature of like living in a big city you know you have to worry about uh yourself and your personal safety um and so there are moments you know when i walk around and i know i’m going to be out when it’s dark like i have a knife i have mace that i carry with me or a rape whistle um i think like when it comes down to gender identity the biggest part is just the the worries about safety um and then also more on like a a s- i don’t think this is a physical threat but more like a mental thing is i feel like just in the area that nyu students live and congregate um and go to school and work or whatever so this is more so in greenwich village soho area um this this is a very wealthy area and oftentimes you see a lot of creatives in this space and i think that oftentimes if you were to walk around soho or something like that most people are sick-en-ing-ly hot like so hot and i think that’s just a new york thing you know um people are really really attractive and so whenever i’m in new york it’s kind of strange cause i think my sense of style and gender presentation is a little different than um a lot of these more like creative or street style things so you kind of have not like a competition but you walk around and you’re kind of like present yourself a little bit differently um or maybe i look a little bit different maybe i’m not like really skinny tall white model-level status so it’s kind of odd walking around there and being like oh shit you know i look like some people in some ways and i look like other people in different ways and that’s fine that’s just a fact of being in a city but it is something you think about when you go to a school like nyu you’re like shit you know a lot of these people are really really hot (laughs)

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M. 22. she/her.

if you would have asked me this question a couple months ago i definitely would have answered it differently because i think my relationship with femininity and what i have to offer as a woman has changed very drastically in these past few months but in my time living in new york city i think my relationship with being a woman and femininity has kind of been destroyed (laughs) a little bit and i’m working on healing it and reconnecting with it but i feel like when i walk around the city or i interact with men i have just kind of lost all feeling around my gender and what it feels to be a woman because it feels like it’s not even for me it feels like a performance and i’m working on getting back into that and reclaiming my power but existing here has been pretty draining demoralizing at times but it’s something i have to come to terms with and might not be new york’s fault but especially being in my twenties i think there’s like a hypersexualization of that like people have told me that like older men like forty years old that i’ve been with in new york have told me that being twenty is so hot to them and that was one of the catalysts for me doing this reflection of okay what do how do i exist in this world as a woman what do i have to offer what’s fueling that and i obviously have a lot of privileges i am a white woman and my family is very supportive and i have a lot of resources around me that make me a very very lucky girl and that can exist alongside some really awful shit i’ve also been through here

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The MJLC’s

Resistance Mixtape

- Tracy Talkin’ Bout a Revolution o; dz gu un Sh ) tem sys e Power - Public It’s a good day (to fight th - Lauryn Hill; Fight The el) eb (R y Sa To rd Ha It le - John Chapman; I Find Shad; Power To The Peop .1 Pt ol Fo he /T ro/ Int Enemy; Get It Got It Good

- Menahan Street Band; ng mi Co y Da w Ne A ’s ere nd; Th ll; Rebel Lennon, The Plastic Ono Ba nquering Lion - Lauryn Hi Co e Th e; on Sim na Ni ur Arrow - Kasey You’ll Never Walk Alone st - Fort Atlantic; Follow Yo Fa ld Ho t ar He ur Yo t Le ll; Girl - Bikini Ki een Day; Musgraves; Minority - Gr (I can’t get n o) satisfactio nSummertime Blues [Live a The Rolling Stones; Swee t Sir Galaha t Leeds] - The What’s Going dWho; Hunger On - Take 6 Strike - Tem Joan Baez; (ft. Brian M cKnight); Fir ple of the Dog e Drills - De ssa; Perfect W ; orld

(Imagine) - K ore My Way - Fra n Grace; Body - Jordan S uaste; Venom nk - Little Simz; Violet - Hole Sinatra; Revolution - Van Jericho - Inik ; Baraye - S William feat. o; h Fir erv Chappell Roa n; Black Para in Hajipour; The News - st Aid Kit; Self - Noname; Paramore; F de - Beyonce emininomenon -

Listen to the full playlist here!

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World A Lost (Found)

by Ray Kirsch

After a few weeks of taking Gender & Women’s Studies 359 with Dr. Sami Schalk (who I deeply admire), I found myself continuously thinking about visionary fiction and its connection with abolition. In class, visionary and speculative fiction is defined as “imagining a world without war, violence, prisons, capitalism” or other structures that abolitionists seek to reconstruct. We learned that science fiction influences activism and organizing because all activism is inherently an act of imagination—so how do we get there? Combining my knowledge from GWS 359 and the topics we have been talking about at the MJLC’s study group, my objective was to create a piece of visionary fiction that can be specifically applied to the United States today.

The months after the new governor was elected were bleak in Minnesota. The switch—which Layne thought would never happen—came suddenly, with large trucks of metal delivered throughout the state. On the outskirts of downtown Minneapolis were Layne and Syd, a random girl they met the night before.

“Have you found it?” Layne asked, hands deep in their duffle bag.

Syd’s previously-organized backpack was sprawled across her as she frantically searched for her walkie-talkie. They were practically extinct—the cities rolled in new technologies practically every week at that point—but it was the only way to communicate with Syd’s friends stuck downtown. Layne knew Syd would never admit it, but Syd was a pessimist—she was convinced the government was tracking their phones.

The first time her cousin tried to plan a protest, police showed up at his house before he could even leave.

“I think I left it at the house last night,” she said.

The night prior, the duo had met in an abandoned house, taking some cans of food, spare batteries and blankets that hadn’t been taken already. Layne had run into—literally run into—Syd, knocking heads with the girl as they had been searching for clothes. It had started with a fight over who got to take the food, which eventually made them realize that they both were primary targets of the new and widely distributed scanners. Layne never wanted to pair up with someone; they planned to quietly sneak out of the country without anyone noticing.

The scanners, or “robot scanners” as Syd called them, were silver and moved around public spaces, ensuring that everyone adhered to the country’s new dress codes. The dress codes, which were enacted when the newest President was elected, existed to keep every citizen in their assigned gender.

They’d sound an alarm and flash colors if people born female weren’t prim and clean or if people born male weren’t dressed “pro-

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fessionally and respectfully.” When the President announced the new rule, he made it clear: no vulgarness, no baggy or unnecessary clothing. “Go back to normal—rid yourself of these illnesses—or you will be punished,” he said. The President’s choice of punishment was one Layne had seen firsthand: tossing people in prisons until they begged to be released, promising they would stick to their assigned gender at birth. Drag bars were shut down. Clothing stores had new regulations.

Layne, who Syd discovered searching in a man’s closet, didn’t think there would ever be acceptance for non-binary people like themself in the United States—especially Minnesota. Their escape plan was rooted in cash they stole from their parents who had kicked them out when the new President was elected. They heard of a near-forest road through the Dakotas into Canada that they planned to take.

Within the nearly 24 hours that Layne had spent with Syd, they learned that Syd had been preparing for an “unhinged government,” as she put it, for almost a year. The blonde girl ranted for hours about how the scanners were first introduced in Florida and how there was a community of people against them in Minneapolis preparing for the day it reached Minnesota. Layne wouldn’t lie; Syd seemed a little bit unhinged and even more sleep-deprived. The girl’s hair stuck out in every direction, sunburn was peeling at her cheeks and her backpack was horribly stuffed and unorganized. Layne knew they were not much better themself—the edge of their pants was ripped and they hadn’t showered in weeks—but Layne lacked the spark in Syd’s eyes that motivated her to fight the entire city if she had to.

The pair decided to head back to the house they had met in to retrieve the walkie-talkie. It was about a twenty minute walk from the run-down place Layne had been staying in. Syd made no comment about the state of the condo: the crack in the ceiling, the hole in the wall, the stink from the toilet from the water not working. She didn’t ask how they originally found the place. She did ask, though, if Layne would join her back down-

RESISTANCE town, as that was where her girlfriend had been arrested the week before. It took badgering, but Layne eventually agreed to accompany Syd to rescue her girlfriend (although, they were quite convinced the plan would not work).

“Just the girlfriend,” Layne had told Syd. “I don’t want to be wrapped up in any other trouble.”

And so Layne trudged behind Syd toward the abandoned house, across a field and then into a rural town full of family homes and scattered parks. The neighborhood had been slowly cut off from the bigger sub-cities of Minneapolis; many of the families that could not afford to buy clothes that fit in the dress codes were outcast here. There weren’t a lot of people around; even though the scanners had

not been spread to the neighborhood, it was still desolate from how much the police had already cleared out.

They arrived through the back door, just as Layne had the night before, and quietly surveyed the area. Layne noticed it seemed different—more lived in.

“Syd,” they whispered. “I think someone’s here.”

Syd immediately was alerted, grabbing her dented metal water bottle as a weapon. They took a few cautious steps forward, barely peeking through from the kitchen into the living room, when they saw— “Who are you?” Syd demanded, holding her water bottle above the seated girl. She was on the floor, reading some sort of scrapbook Layne could not depict. She did not look startled, either; she simply eyed Syd’s aggressive stance and sighed.

“I think I should be asking that question, as you’re in my house,” she said, leveling with Syd. “This house has been abandoned! No way it’s your’s.”

Seeing Syd’s water bottle swing a little, Layne decided to intervene before they could think too deeply into it.

“I’m Layne. That’s Syd. We left something here yesterday.”

The girl faced Layne. “What’d you leave?”

“Name. Then we’ll tell you,” demanded Syd.

“A walkie talkie,” said Layne, despite Syd’s glaring.

The girl, whose curly hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, only looked amused. “Nora. What do you need it for?” She led them to the connected dining room, sitting on some ripped newspapers.

Something in Syd seemed to return. “We’re joining some people in a robot protest. You want in?”

Nora scoffed. “What makes you think I’d have any interest?”

Syd pointed at the broken light above them. “You’re in an abandoned house. You’re not living happily in a bubble with the new rules. I would bet you’re one of their targets.”

“I’m not just one of the targets. I’m the main one. A Black, transgender girl? They’ll lock me up before I even set foot into the city. I can’t just sneak under the radar like you do. I can’t just put on a hat and look how they want me to look.”

“So you’re going to just hide here until you die?” Syd challenged.

“It’s better than getting locked up.”

Layne zoned out a little, examining the window next to the table. The curtain was tattered but attempted to stay shut.

The grass behind the house was overgrown, random clothes in the yard from a nearby clothing line. Trees in the backyard rustled in the wind as it picked up. For a moment for Layne, life didn’t seem so complicated. They pretended like there

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RESISTANCE were no government scanners rigged against them. They thought about the animals, many of which were strays now in poorer neighborhoods. Life could be so simple, they thought.

Their vision shifted to the living room where Nora had been discovered. The tattered scrapbook was on the ground, and Layne saw photos of two adults. They look like Nora, they thought. One adult was pregnant, and the man looked excitedly at the woman’s stomach in one of the photos. Returning to the conversation, Layne listened to the two women bicker before interrupting.

day for me, Layne joked to themself. They did not have the energy to question how any of this would realistically work.

Their thighs burned. All they could think about was water.

“What happened to your parents?” they asked.

They reached downtown around two in the morning, staying close to alleyways. Layne could not feel their legs. A group of organizers were staying at their parents’ abandoned houses, strategically switching locations so that no one would become nosy of who was occupying the space. The house they approached had wooden boards around the outside; Syd knocked on what seemed to be a random wall. A man appeared, quickly shooing them in.

“Got arrested on the way to work. They pretended to have no kids so no one came looking for me.”

“I’m Elliot,” he whispered. “Most of ‘em are sleeping, but Val and Brett stayed up to meet you.”

“We could get them out,” Syd insisted.

“You don’t even know if they’re alive.”

“Wouldn’t you want to see?” Syd proposed, holding her hand out to Nora. Nora looked skeptical—Layne couldn’t blame her—but she heavily sighed, hesitated and shook Syd’s hand.

“If we get in trouble,” she warned, “I’m the first to run.”

The three discussed their gameplan of returning to downtown—where Syd claimed a group of protestors were pooling up—and they gathered up their supplies and left that night. It was easier to travel in the dark; there were less bystanders to point at them and more people stayed in their houses at night these days. Syd described the protest as a “big distraction,” which Layne found a little counterintuitive: it apparently aimed to distract the city cops from the real plan of dismantling the robots. They didn’t ask much, although Nora did.

Layne was focusing on surviving and eventually jail-breaking Syd’s girlfriend. Casual jail-breaking? Just a regular Tues-

“How many are here?” Nora asked.

“Just under fifty,” Elliot grinned. “Everyone is here for each other, for the same goal.”

Layne scanned their surroundings of papers pinned to the walls and assorted clothes on the ground. “So everyone is all or nothing?”

A tall individual with long brown hair appeared at the doorway. “Well, yeah. How else can we get rid of the scanners? I’m Val. Let’s walk you through the plan, huh?”

Val, Brett and Elliot spent an hour talking about the upcoming events. The next day would be meeting the rest of the team, figuring out who would be in charge of what. The corner lamp was dim, making Layne even more exhausted, but the group’s excitement kept them awake.

When morning arrived, Layne woke up between Nora and Syd and was surrounded by voices from the kitchen.

“Good morning,” a voice over their head said. “Are you ready to change Minneapolis?”

Thoughts from the author, post-production: I know this seems unrealistic. In a perfect world, I would hope it would be unrealistic. However, the world is certainly not perfect, and rights are continuously under attack in the United States. When I started this piece, bills against people like me were simply on the news. By the time I finished it, my friends and I had attended hearings and protests against proposed anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ legislation in Wisconsin. Visionary fiction is supposed to be hopeful; I found myself drained by the time I finished writing. I am typically cautiously optimistic about the future. I want to be optimistic about my future. So I imagine the unrealistic and think of possibly-unattainable answers.

I encourage readers to imagine a world without bills like AB377 or AB465. Consider what you and your loved ones’ day-to-day lives would look like if these bills had never even been proposed to State Legislature. And go one step further: what are things you can actively do to make every community feel safe and able to express themselves?

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industrialization Bella Niforatos

i keep myself at arm’s length. there is breakage in my hair and my soul. i have failed as a woman. i dip myself into a divine arroyo of rainwater. i drink the earth’s salt and the earth’s tears. (you’re calcified inside me. i gradually chip away at you. one day you will be a pile of stalactite shavings tall enough to climb on. i’ll sit on the heap of you and reminisce about how empty i am, saltless, drained.) they’ll mine my teeth, my hair, my nails. one day they’ll make me into a wedding ring that sits shiny in a glass countertop cage. they’ll drink my calcium. they’ll drain the fat and violence from me and burn oil from it. their cars will run on the diesel and lithium of my lost innocences. my body is their industry. they have made me infinite. when their cities decay, i will be here, nameless, fingerless, hairless, but alive. i have scarred the land. i have drowned the birds. i have succeeded in being feminine when i lie in my own oil spill, finite, flightless, with oil in my lungs. one day, i will mine what’s left of me, the mineral remnants, and make something (terrifying) of it.

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An Englishman’s Obeah: Bringing A Zombi to England

Look What You Did Kathryn Blommel

Elizabeth White

MJLC 74

RESISTANCE From birth, we are known to our

original language” (Damrosch 4).

tation-owning families. Antoinette ex-

loved ones, to our reflections, and

When a work is linguistically translat-

isted in purgatory, lost in the overlap

to our world as our name; therefore,

ed or culturally transported, the lit-

of colonialism—her father’s last name,

changing a name is to acknowledge

erary work is inherently “manifested

Cosway—and imperialism—her step-

a change in one’s world, reflection,

differently” (Damrosch 6). To account

father’s last name, Mason. Despite

and self. Similarly, our characters are

for this, modern authors often write

this, she was neither considered En-

written with a name, conceived within

not for authenticity, but rather in

glish, European nor Caribbean, only

a world, all to receive an image. How-

consideration of ‘translatability’ and

Creole (Raiskin 18n2). Antoinette,

ever, oftentimes, an author can only

reception within consumer culture,

raised by Christophine, a black “da,

accurately shed light on one name,

or notably, the West: “Foreign works

[or] nurse,” identified strongly with

though other characters’ personas

will rarely be translated at all in the

the Black community: “I was glad to

remain unquestionably present. In

United States, much less widely dis-

be like an English girl, but I missed

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë creates

tributed, unless they reflect Amer-

the state of Christophine’s cooking”

multiple characters but only develops

ican concerns and fit comfortably

(Rhys 42, 21). Christophine’s cooking

nuanced personalities for Jane Eyre

with American images of the foreign

represents Antoinette’s association

and Mr. Rochester. Expanding upon

culture in question” (Damrosch 18).

with the Black culture of the West

the voice of Bertha, a Creole woman

These texts are not just translated

Indies. In her childhood, Antoinette’s

in Jane Eyre labeled as ‘insane’ and

to the West but through the West,

only companion was Tia, a Black child

imprisoned in Mr. Rochester’s attic,

compromising the variability and

she “met nearly every morning at the

Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea—a

diversity of culture embedded within

turn of the road,” and “had eaten the

prequel to Jane Eyre published in

every text—and, sometimes, these

same food, slept side by side, [and]

1966—humanizes Bertha Antoinette

constraints are even internalized to

bathed in the same river” (Rhys 13,

Mason, rendering her a nuanced

redirect the language that the author

27). Antoinette longed to see herself

character with a narrative that offers

chooses to write in. When applied

in Tia, and while she saw the jagged

another explanation for Bertha’s

to Wide Sargasso Sea, renaming

stones, she “did not see [Tia] throw it

physical confinement and mental

Antoinette as Bertha encapsulates the

... we stared at each other, blood on

state in Jane Eyre. A close reading

attempt to translate a Creole woman

my face, tears on hers. It was as if I

of Wide Sargasso Sea coupled with

into an English woman, reflecting the

saw myself. Like in a looking-glass”

David Ramrosch’s conceptualization

power of a name, violence, and sub-

(Rhys 27). Born after the racial vio-

of world literature, addresses how a

jectivity behind translation reinforced

lence inflicted by the Cosway family,

name, as in the case of Antionette,

by cultural ideology and superiority.

Antoinette could not conceptual-

can empower an individual or com-

Antoinette’s identity and self-effi-

ize why the local Black population

munity, or in the case of Bertha, how

cacy is shrouded in confusion, con-

hated them: “[t]hey called us white

a name can be weaponized through

flict, and contradiction throughout

cockroaches...One day a little girl

hegemonic positional power dynamics

her childhood; however, she tied the

followed me singing, ‘Go away white

to objectify, control, and reclassify an

self-perception she established during

cockroach, go away’” (Rhys 13). After

individual or community.

adolescence to her name. Antoinette

this rejection, Antoinette’s closest

was born after the abolition of Ca-

connection to the Black community

literature as “all literary works that

ribbean slavery, in which the English

was nothing more than a shattered

circulate beyond their culture of

marooned both the Black population

reflection.

origin, either in translation or in their

and what was left of the former plan-

David Damrosch defines world

75

RESISTANCE Rhys’s title, “Wide Sargasso Sea,”

motifs signify the connection between

Indies, Rochester inconceivably found

suggests Antoinette herself idly drifts

the personhood of Antoinette and

himself questioning the stability of

in a manner analogous to the Sar-

the scenery of the island, tying the

identities as he was now “removed

gasso Sea—suspended between two

engraving of her name to the green

from a totally male-centered soci-

larger bodies, not flowing into one

hills, the blue ocean, and the purple

ety into one in which women play a

or the other, but stagnant between

mountains: “[t]his is my place and

dominant role” (Fayad 228). Roch-

two dominant currents. Instead of

everything is on our side” (Rhys 44).

ester’s thirst illustrates his “need to

delineating the Sargasso Sea from the

Regardless of her past isolation and

control … and because he equates the

Atlantic Ocean or ignorantly grouping

exclusion, the lush colors accepted

island with women, the proof of his

it with the surrounding bodies of wa-

her body (Rhys 13). Rooting her name

control must come in being able to

ter, sailors granted the Sargasso Sea

in the beauty of her environment,

control … the woman who seems key

a name. Just as a name distinguishes

Antoinette secures her character in

to the whole situation, Antoinette”

the Sargasso Sea as a unique, singular

the island’s vibrant climate.

(Fayad 228). Antoinette, in name and

entity, Antoinette’s proclamation of

When Antoinette brings her new-

in image, could not be subdued. This

her name cements her sense of self.

lywed husband to this scenery, she

exoticism Rochester could not con-

Instead of perceiving herself as a shat-

shows him her true colors. . Her hus-

quer, so he must reconstruct: “I hated

tered reflection, embracing her name

band—purposefully unnamed in the

the mountains and the hills, the rivers

solidifies her individual existence and

text, but commonly known as Roches-

and the rain. I hated the sunsets of

paints a cohesive reflection of a larger

ter in criticism—perceives Antoinette

whatever colour. I hated its beauty

whole rather than fragments. Antoi-

as a distorted castaway with “[l]ong,

and its magic and the secret I would

nette’s search for identity was not as

sad, dark alien eyes” and describes

never know… Above all I hated her …

simple as discovering a place of be-

the island of her soul as “not only wild

She had left me thirsty and all my life

longing, but instead finding a people

but menacing … too much blue, too

would be thirst and longing for what I

or place that understood and related

much purple, too much green. The

had lost before I found it” (Rhys 103).

to her without shunning her. Antoi-

flowers too red, the mountains too

To destroy both his exotic and erotic

nette’s first exposure to a cohesive

high, the hills too near” (Rhys 41).

thirst, Rochester chooses to drown his

community was a convent that she

With these colors directly correspond-

memory of Antoinette by replacing

was sent to after the community set

ing to Antoinette’s vision of herself,

her with another—Bertha, a creation

fire to her home, the Coulibri Estate,

Rochester deems it too “extreme,”

void of the ‘secret [he] would never

a former plantation. At the convent,

something to be discovered and

know’ (Rhys 103).

which is carefully void of looking

tamed: “it was a beautiful place—wild,

glasses, a “nun asks [her] name,”

untouched, above all untouched, an

nette as Bertha after receiving a letter

which she gives, for the first time in

alien, disturbing, secret loveliness”

from a man known as Daniel Cosway,

the novel, as “Antoinette” (Rhys 32,

(Rhys 52). Englishmen often ventured

who “hates all white people, [and

31). She utilizes the newfound space,

to the West Indies to ‘domesticate’

Antoinette] the most” (Rhys 77).

cleared by the fire, to affirm her im-

Creole women, who were believed

As Fayad states in his critique, “Roch-

age: “We can colour the roses as we

to be “‘tropicalized’ by their envi-

ester is only too willing to believe

choose and mine are green, blue, and

ronments, emotionally high-strung,

Daniel Cosway’s insinuations” about

purple. Underneath I will write my

lazy, and sexually excessive [with]

the plague-like madness that infects

name in fire red, Antoinette Mason,

inordinate desires” (Raiskin 33n1).

Antoinette’s bloodline (Fayad 229).

neé Cosway” (Rhys 31). These colorful

With only this perception of the West

Daniel Cosway informs Rochester that

MJLC 76

Rochester notably refers to Antoi-

RESISTANCE Antoinette and her mother (Antoi-

does not “laugh like that” (Rhys 68,

(Rhys 101-102). At the end of Part

netta or Annette) share the same

82, 81). Antoinette recognizes this

II, Rhys signals the movement into

name, and thus, the same fate: “[her]

scheme, declaring “Bertha is not my

Charlotte Brontë’s text by describing

madness [got] worse and she [had]

name. You are trying to make me into

Antoinette, now renamed Bertha, as

to be shut away for she [tried] to kill

someone else, calling me by another

“silence itself” (Rhys 101).

her husband” (Rhys 58). In giving

name. I know that’s obeah too” (Rhys

credence to the rootless, construct-

88). Obeah, commonly referred to as

in Brontë’s attic, revealing Roch-

ed identity of Daniel Cosway, a man

“Vodou,” is a creolized, syncretic reli-

ester’s intention to finally destroy

whose “real name is Esau”’ or “Daniel

gion that combines several West Afri-

and contain Antoinette’s essence

Boyd,’” Rochester neglects Antoi-

can religions that have been adapted

by expelling her from the Caribbe-

nette’s side of the story (Rhys 73, 77).

to the new social and political circum-

an, “lock[ing her] away, and like all

The name Bertha, as used in Wide

stances of slavery and is overlaid with

memories a legend. Or a lie…” (Rhys

Sargasso Sea, erases all connection

Christian symbols(Raiskin 64n5). In

103). Rochester hides Antoinette

to the island, and in turn Atoinette’s

referencing Obeah, Antoinette insin-

from the outside world, ensuring that

connection to mother: “[h]e never

uates that Rochester is “baptizing the

“she will not laugh in the sun again …

calls me Antoinette now, he has found

victim with a new name [to create a

or smile at herself in that damnable

out it was my mother’s name” (Rhys

zombi]” (Raiskin 64n5, 88n4). An-

looking-glass” so that only he is left in

68). Antoinette’s voice is lost, forgot-

toinette at first resists this pet name,

the sunlight to narrate the past of his

ten, and overpowered by Rochester’s

pleading “not Bertha tonight,” but

manufactured wife “Bertha Mason by

as he strips her of her mother’s name

later realizes that he no longer wants

name,” but commonly known as his

and attempts to transform her into

Antoinette, only Bertha and acquiesc-

“hideous demon” (Rhys 99; Brontë

the cool-tempered, unsaturated,

es to his request, stating “as you wish”

299, 323). In Jane Eyre, Antoinette

anglicized “Bertha Rochester.” Roch-

(Rhys 82). However, the violence un-

is exclusively referred to as Bertha

ester dissolves every aspect of “Antoi-

derlying “Bertha” stretches beyond a

alongside the context of her insanity,

nette Mason, neé Cosway” (Rhys 31).

nickname as the identification quickly

as Rochester relays. The alteration of

In Wide Sargasso Sea, the name

transforms into a medium of objec-

Antoinette’s name was the impetus

Antoinette becomes a symbol of defi-

tification and domestication. “Ber-

for the disillusionment she experi-

nition amidst boundlessness, reality

tha” was the first step in classifying

enced in England. She considers her

amongst delusion, and community

Antoinette as “Marionette” or a doll to

name the origin of her self-aware-

despite isolation. When Rochester

speak and cry on command, referring

ness and determination, noting that

designates her as Bertha, he eradi-

to her as a possession rather than a

“names matter, like when he wouldn’t

cates the significance and legitimacy

human: “mine, mine. What will I care

call me Antoinette, and I saw Antoi-

of Antoinette as both a name and an

for gods or devils … if she smiles or

nette drifting out of the window …

identity. Rochester attempts to re-

weeps or both. For me” (Rhys 92-93,

with her looking-glass” (Rhys 107).

christen Antoinette as Bertha through

99). Rochester’s treatment of Antoi-

As the years and pages bound within

tender entrancements such as “I hope

nette does not only change the way

Jane Eyre turned, Antoinette dis-

you sleep well, Bertha” and “[M]y

he perceives her but how she exists;

sociated further, unable to tell time,

dear Bertha”; Rochester’s language

he describes his “doll” as “a ghost in

asking herself, “[w]hat am I doing in

demonstrates that his sweet remarks

the grey daylight [with] nothing left

this place and who am I?” as if her

and love are not for Antoinette, but

but hopelessness … no warmth, no

time spent among the green moss, red

rather, reserved for Bertha, a girl who

sweetness, the doll had a doll’s voice”

sunsets, and blue ocean flew out the

Part III officially situates Bertha

77

RESISTANCE window of her cell with her

name anew in fire red in the convent

the end of her narrative, Jean Rhys’s

persona, and she was left wondering,

years ago, she “looked at the dress

Wide Sargasso Sea positions itself

like her mother’s parrot Coco: “Who’s

on the floor, and it was as if the fire

in literary history as an awakening,

there—Qui est lá?” (Rhys 107, 25).

had spread across the room. It was

acknowledging all the characters

Rochester trapped what was left

beautiful and reminded [her] of what

and names that have been fatefully

of Antoinette in the attic of Thornfield

[she] must do” (Rhys 31, 111). Despite

marginalized in famous works. Two

Hall, like a bird locked in a cage with

her wings being symbolically clipped,

million copies of Bertha—the violent,

its wings clipped—again, reminiscent

“[she] took the keys and let [herself]

beastly lunatic in Jane Eyre—have

of Coco, who “after Mr. Mason clipped

out with a candle in [her] hand. [She]

been printed, consumed, and spread

his wings, grew very bad tempered”

walked as though [she] was flying”

in over fifty-seven languages world-

(Rhys 25). However, unlike Coco,

(Rhys 111). After “open[ing] the door

wide (Oxford Research Centre of the

Antoinette is unable to answer Qui est

and [walking] into their world …

Humanities). Jean Rhys supplements

lá?, for Antoinette describes her re-

made of cardboard,” Antoinette set

the life of Antoinette Mason, propos-

flection as a familiar ghost: “[t]he girl

fire to Thornfield Hall, which Rhys

ing that the “original” in Jane Eyre

I saw was myself yet not quite myself”

purposefully equates to cardboard

was a fabrication, an arbitrary story

and “[i]t was then that I saw her—the

as a metaphor for the physical card-

assigned to her by a larger institu-

ghost. The woman with streaming

board cover of the novel Jane Eyre’s

tion—the patriarchy. Without Rhys’s

hair. A gilt frame surrounded her but

hat had imprisoned Antoinette for

performance of Antoinette, audiences

I knew her” (Rhys 107, 111-112). The

years (Rhys 107). She stood at the

would not question the inhuman,

image illustrates that while Bertha

window as Bertha, a stranger bound

monstrous perception of the Creole,

and Antoinette physically remained in

to Thornfield, and “heard [her moth-

easily antagonizing her alongside

the same body, they never consciously

er’s] parrot call … Qui est lá? And the

Rochester. However, Bertha was a lie

co-inhabited the same form. Due to

man who hated [her] was calling too,

not only forged within Rochester’s

Rochester’s invention and weaponiza-

Bertha! Bertha!” (Rhys 112). Looking

embodiment of the patriarchy, but

tion of Bertha, Antoinette only exists

from the edge to the hard stones, with

by the tragic misrepresentation of

within an intangible space, a different

her hair “streamed out like wings,”

world literature. In Jane Eyre, Brontë

axis than the linear destiny outlined

she leaves Bertha in the past, float-

prescribes Bertha by fire, but in Wide

for Bertha in Jane Eyre.

ing over the image of Colibri and Tia

Sargasso Sea, Antoinette repossess-

In Jane Eyre, Bertha wore white,

(Rhys 112). Rhys further emphasiz-

es her shell and is left overlooking

not Antoinette’s reds, greens, blues,

es this sentiment by stating, “fires

the limit of world literature, “forever

or purples. She acknowledges that

always lit for [Tia], sharp stones did

resisting the self-sacrificial closure of

this lack of color is only one facet of

not hurt her bare feet” (13). At this

her plot in Jane Eyre, forever fore-

destruction that stripped her of her

moment, Antoinette reunites with her

stalling the closure of Rhys’s narra-

freedom of expression, stating “if I

body, thereby expelling Rochester’s

tive, [advancing] in furious opposition

had been wearing my red dress [they]

imposed translation and re-embraces

to her pre-scripted fate” (Rody 213).

would have known me” (Brontë 290;

the scenery, colors, and people of her

Bertha is the English translation,

Rhys 110). In this realization, the

past: “the sky was so red…now at last,

or antagonization, of Antoinette, one

colors remind her of Antoinette and

I know why I was brought here and

that was manipulated to conform to

the future ingrained within her, and

what I have to do” (Rhys 112).

Westernized customs and practices,

just as the flames from her childhood

By leaving Antoinette perched

a common phenomenon elaborated

forged the opportunity to write her

over the edge of Thornfield Hall and

upon in David Damrosch’s What is

MJLC 78

RESISTANCE World Literature? Through the lens

institutions. Those left nameless were

as Bertha reflects on a microscopic

of Rochester, as written in Jane Eyre,

either vulnerable to subjectification or

level the weight of culturally removed

the Vampyre-like Bertha Mason is the

a part of the hegemony, with Rhys’s

translation on world literature. Then,

only depiction—as if Bertha Mason

unnamed male narrator embodying

if Antoinette’s destiny lies in the de-

is nothing more than a smudged,

his own “subject” and transcending

struction of Thornfield Hall and of the

black-and-white photograph of a

objectification by name as the “om-

pages that imprisoned her image, are

previously vibrant and colorful Antoi-

nipotent, god-like creator of Bertha’s

the larger communities continuously

nette Mason (Brontë 290). Rochester

narrative text” (Fayad 227).

marginalized by literary history left to

forces the new identity onto Wide

In a larger context beyond Wide

the same fate, or will they reimagine

Sargasso Sea’s Antoinette as if he,

Sargasso Sea, the text One Thousand

their future, “not to burn it down, as

or more broadly, the patriarchy, has

and One Nights, after being brought

in Bertha’s old, self-immolating plot,

the larger responsibility to redefine

to the West by “Oriental scholars,”

but rather as Rhys’s heroine puts it in

women in more “acceptable terms.”

is commonly referred to as Arabian

her last words, ‘to light me along the

Rhys satirically emphasizes these

Nights, which suggests that the collec-

dark passage’—[and] help with some

standards through the nameless male

tion of oral traditions is an accurate

difficult rereading ahead” (Rhys 112;

figure, referred to as Rochester in

historical and cultural representative

Rody 214). With that being said, may

this essay, when he angrily questions

of Arabia. In reality, Arabian Nights

Antoinette, and the generations of

Antoinette (where he only conceives

is a fictional collection of folklore

readers after her, “see what is behind

Bertha): “[w]hat right have you to

independent of regional practices and

the cardboard” (Rhys 107) -–defining

make promises in my name? Or speak

fails to acknowledge South Asian and

her own life and ending through the

for me at all?” (Rhys 102). Regardless,

North African connections to One

destruction of the narrative that con-

these institutions, whether the largest

Thousand and One Nights. Neverthe-

fined her. As readers, it is our respon-

West or the patriarchy, maintained

less, Europeans’ translation of One

sibility to challenge texts preserved in

the “right” to translation and renam-

Thousand and One Nights through

history and reflect on the perspectives

ing, curating a specific legacy of world

the West effectively othered the East,

that may exist beyond each physical

literature that instills distorted prom-

coining another name—Oriental-

and flammable page.

ises, frames cultural expectations, and

ism—to define a world unknown to

further establishes discourse on the

them. The method in which Antoi-

behalf of groups removed from these

nette is non-consensually re-authored

Works Cited Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre, 1st ed., Miramax Books/Hyperion, 1996.

Damrosch, David. “Introduction: Goethe Coins A Phrase.” What Is World Literature?, Princeton University Press, 2003.

Fayad, Mona. “Unquiet Ghosts: The Struggle for Representation in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea.” Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys, edited by Judith L. Raiskin, Norton Critical Edition, W.W Norton & Company, 1999, pp. 221–36. Originally published in Modern Fiction Studies, 34.3 (Autumn), 1988, pp. 437–52.

Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea, edited by Judith L. Raiskin, Norton Critical Edition, W.W. Norton & Company, 1999.

Rody, Caroline. “Burning Down the House: The Revisionary Paradigm of Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea.” Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys, edited by Judith L. Raiskin, Norton Critical Edition, W.W Norton & Company, 1999, pp. 213–21. Originally published in Famous Last Words: Changes in Gender and Narrative Closure, 1993, pp. 300–25.

University of Oxford. Torch: The Oxford Research Centre In The Humanities. www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/jane-eyre-translated-57-languages-show-how-different-cultures-interpret-charlotte-brontes-cl#:~:text=Take%20Charlotte%20Bront%C3%AB%27s%20Jane%20Eyre,languages%2C%20at%20least%20593%20times. Accessed 23 Apr. 2023.

79

RESISTANCE

Existence, Endurance, Womanhood, and means of Resistance

Angela Davis’ “Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves” argues that, during slavery, black women were never sheltered from the most oppressive forms of labor, transcending traditional gender hierarchy as slavery could not afford it.

Simultaneously, these women, experiencing de-facto sexual equality, still served as the domestic head of households, cultivating community within the constraints of oppression. While domestic labor is incredibly difficult, unlike slavery, it is a form of labor that an individual has more agency over—the only free space enslaved communities had. As such, the unique positionality of being a black woman during this time meant that these women were able to transfigure the homes—a place traditionally tied to feminine oppression—into a house of resistance.

“Even as she was suffering under her unique oppression as [a] female, she was thrust by the force of circumstances into the center of the slave community. She was, therefore, essential to the survival of the community. Not all people have survived enslavement; hence her survival-oriented activities were themselves a form of resistance…but much more remains to be said of the black woman during slavery” (Davis, 7).

In her essay, Davis speaks of the experiences and existence of black women within slavery as a prerequisite to more active forms of resistance. As agents of biological reproduction, women experienced a dual form of exploitation under slavery—labor and sexual.

As a medium of resistance, existence and celebration rebut the presumption that one’s social identity has been eradicated. Today, existence and persistence are often viewed as forms of resistance in themselves. Yet, Davis argues that for black women, existence is only a starting point. The legacy of slavery is predicated on producing more slave labor—the existence of slaves.

Thus, enduring the conditions of oppression was only a starting point.

Davis notes that these women not only endured, but fought back. By being placed in the center of their own communities, Black women could promote and actively nurture the push for freedom and more active forms of resistance. In the household, Black women served all of the men and children, many of whom weren’t even their own, while discussing forms of resistance and modes for collective freedom from enslavement. Black women’s role in propping up their community meant cultivating and nurturing a space

MJLC 80

for social reproduction because they themselves were never afforded the luxury of protection in their identity. While white men sought to absolve black women of their agency through egregious murder and manipulation, Davis defines that resistance for black women meant relying on subversive means of resistance tied to sex and domestic forms of care to create community. Resistance for black women was turning the very means of identity-based oppression on its head.

Born in Alabama in 1944, Davis herself witnessed the rampant racism and segregation present in the South throughout her childhood. She took her college education around the globe, attending universities in Massachusetts, Germany, and California. One of Angela Davis’s seminal works, “Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves,” was originally published in 1971 in The Black Scholar. 1971 was a quintessential year in Angela Davis’s rise to fame.

After being accused of first-degree murder—a charge which branded her a “dangerous terrorist” by former President Richard Nixon and placed her on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list—she spent a year and a half in California’s prison system.

It shouldn’t go without saying that Davis wrote this piece about Black women in captivity as a Black woman in captivity. Left to her own devices, Davis thoughtfully writes this piece in a remarkable feat of intelligence and imagination, much like the women she writes about. Resistance, as outlined by Davis, was at the center of community, while simultaneously discovering dynamic modes for collective liberation from enslavement. It’s holding down the fort for your brothers, sisters, and children, while also lifting up yourself and those around you.

Members of the MJLC team chose to reflect on Davis’s powerful piece. They discuss impacts of systemic oppression resulting in insurgency, the proposition of choice, and who can actually afford the decision to resist or not. They question how the very means of oppression can transfigure into means of resistance.

How existence is a form of resistance, a prerequisite of revolution. The ever-evolving concept of intersectionality, where identities coalesce and reinforce the necessity to abolish the carceral state in its entirety.

The beauty in these reflections lie in its overarching theme of humanness. Resistance does not stop at existence; it is moving toward a community of care, thinking critically about our relationships with one another—and most importantly, ourselves.

RESISTANCE

Nina Hekmat, Academic Editor Forces, in physics, are defined as vector quantities—assigned magnitude and direction—that change an object’s velocity. For every push, there is a pull. What rises must eventually fall. Objects cannot travel across a plane undeterred by friction. Likewise, I think that oppression and resistance can be thought of as forces, a dynamic push and pull between the oppressed and the oppressor; the action performed by one naturally meets the opposing reaction of the other. Unlike the physical laws that govern our world, resistance is not inherent; as Angela Davis elucidates in “Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves,” resistance emerges from a conscious understanding of the conditions of one’s oppression.

Under the crushing, dehumanizing force of systemic oppression, wherein the powerful smother embers of hope in pursuit of profits, resistance manifests not just in insurgency, but in subtle acts of defiance. In the context of systemic racism and the carceral system, perseverance in spite of institutions curated to disproportionally exploit and subjugate marginalized identities becomes an active display of resistance. Publicity of the realities people of color are subject to—including police brutality, hyper-surveillance, and racial profiling— elicit outcry from the public that enables them to reflect critically on how these injustices are not flaws within these systems, but rather features that uphold them. Understanding that these systems are functioning as intended and are therefore beyond reform is what engenders abolitionist ideology. This knowledge fosters a sentiment of solidarity within communities that in turn gives them the power to advocate and mobilize against systems of oppression. Education and community solidarity are the means through which these perpetual cycles of harm can be interrupted because these systems rely upon ignorance, complacency, and sowing seeds of division across racial and socioeconomic lines.

Ella Olsen, Fiction and Prose Editor For students entering university, “intersectionality” and “resistance” aren’t in every vocabulary, or the connotations have the same sour taste as “misogyny” or “white privilege–”: unsavory and misunderstood, making utilization of them near impossible. In Angela Davis’ “Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves” she argues that through domesticated work, black women were active parts of resistance within the American slave system. Today, society’s plateau of change keeps intersectionality intact and an active weapon for systemic oppression, and Davis’s argument suggests a new question: can living itself still be a form of resistance?

While Davis’ opponents argue the semblance of life women created on plantations domestically was an acceptance and affirmation of slavery, Davis claims the voluntary labor women performed in the domestic portion of slave life was where resistance thrived. The maintenance of the mundane parts of life—the human parts—made existence bearable for a people stripped of all humanity. The consequent implication then, is that domestic labor–daily existence–became a form of resistance for those women.

But can this be the case today? Is living a form of resistance? It is undeniable that it was for enslaved black women. A crucial difference in the modern day, however, is that resistance to intersectionality now includes a white population, and latching onto the idea of “living as resistance” threatens complacency. White people have not, do not, and will never walk in the daily barbarity of slavery. For enslaved black women, to live was the only weapon available, whereas European ancestry provides the luxury to live a life of passivity. To laud such a life as “resistance” is an insult beyond doing nothing. While living itself has historically been used as a form of resistance, going forth, white revolutionaries’ responsibility as both advocates for change and members of the oppressing force is not to live as resistance itself, but to live resistantly.

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Quinn Henneger, Academic Editor

As Angela Davis explains in “Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves”, while black women were doing the same field work, were on the same front lines, and facing even more severe punishments than their male counterparts during the period of chattel slavery in the United States, black women were also given the responsibility of laboring over and caring for the domestic lives of slaves. As it turns out, this situation allowed black women to use this deeper consciousness of oppression that they gained in the fields and weave it into the community found in their domestic lives, therefore creating more consciousness around liberation, and a platform for revolution. As these stories demonstrate, engaging meaningfully in one’s own community - this liberating, joyful part of life - can be one of the most revolutionary, resistance-filled things someone can do.

When reflecting on the importance of community care and what it means for resistance, I like to zoom out - really far out - to see the Earth. Even in all its glory in our human eyes, it really is just a pale blue dot, alone in the cosmos. We may not know exactly why we are here… or even where, and that’s okay. The sole reason why these hefty questions can even begin to feel okay is because we are experiencing them together. Leaning on each other when the emotions of living become too much, laughing together in the wonderful uncertainty of everything and helping each other find meaning: the more caregiving we engage in (for others, the land, ourselves, etc.) along with a higher level of intimacy and reciprocity in our personal relationships allows for a deeper motivation to exist, as well as a deeper meaning and purpose in life.

Additionally, the diversity of our relationships leads to new perspectives that make a community stronger in its capacity to fight oppression. Relationships, when one thinks about it, are the arenas of our lives where we can already be free. Everyone has the opportunity to practice living in the world they wish to see via their communities, to practice liberation in real time without waiting for some hypothetical utopia of tomorrow.

One has to remember that fighting oppression without building care still centers oppressive systems. Political movements become more effective and stable when we participate in meaningful care because we are engaging in the very thing that capitalism is trying to separate us from: the thing that makes life worth living, the thing that will be around after capitalism, fascism, colonialism, and, after slavery: our ability to care for one another.

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Carsyn Barber, Art Editor *content warning, contains mentions of sexual violence.

I am often humbled and touched by the number of people I can connect with over experiencing sexual violence. It is a deep rooted societal issue, which is another conversation, but what perhaps deserves more attention is the communities of care that come out of surviving a traumatic situation. Let me be clear: No one should ever experience sexual violence.

But I will venture to say there has been healing in the support system I have found afterwards, and it is a special type of healing I feel lucky to experience.

I did not process what happened to me for a full year, and when I did I confided in my roommate. We had a three hour conversation about it at midnight, and this was one of the most healing conversations I have ever had. For some, it is almost like there is an unspoken rule residing deep in the reservoir of pain which sexual violence survivors hold that they must contain their feelings somewhere deep inside themselves. I do not know what governs this sinister law, but I believe the way to relinquish it is to dip into this reservoir, tiptoe around in it, and unleash these feelings in some external way. I have had several friends confide their stories to me in the past few years. It is unfortunate, but it is unbelievably powerful at the same time. Sharing our burdens with each other is a form of resistance.

Repressing a traumatic event is resistance.

Reporting someone for sexual violence is resistance.

Beginning therapy is resistance.

Telling a friend is resistance.

Enacting boundaries for yourself and others is resistance.

Journaling about your story is resistance.

Seeing your aggressor in public and getting through the day is resistance.

Waking up from nightmares is resistance.

Exploring an intimate relationship afterwards is resistance.

Surviving a traumatic event is resistance, but our capacities as humans to carry each other’s burdens is a uniquely tender form of resistance.

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Ria Dhingra, Co-Editor in Chief A reflection of how modes of oppression can transfigure into means of resistance: 1) Experiences of oppression allow for, impose, an education, a sort of “systemic literacy” of how the oppressor creates harm. 2) Education creates consciousness regarding the harms of a system. 3) Consciousness turns an oppressive existence into a form of resistance. Resistance allows for counter-exploitation and potential escape. 4) Escapes allow for narratives to be shared. 4) Narratives (and other forms of sharing systemic education) create outrage. 5) Outrage allows for closer examination into the fallacies of a system. 6) Closer examination shows how oppressive systems rely on exploitation and suffering. Realizing that our core systems rely upon suffering sensitizes the public to what they have previously remained blissfully ignorant of.

This awakening is the birth of an abolitionist movement.

Abolitionist movements shed light upon how systems of oppression perpetuate and rely upon suffering and exploitation and how—universally—it should be accepted that suffering is bad. Therefore, by understanding the cycle of oppression, cycle of resistance, and how education about these phenomena breeds the cycle of change, abolitionists argue that we must abolish and/or replace—not reform—failed systems that breed suffering.

Ray Kirsch, Nonfiction Editor While reading Angela Davis’ “Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves”, I found myself thinking about an excerpt I read from Audre Lorde’s There is No Hierarchy of Oppressions. Audre Lorde describes herself as a Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, poet and mother. “Within the lesbian community I am Black, and within the Black community I am a lesbian,” she writes. “Any attack against Black people is a lesbian and gay issue, because I and thousands of other Black women are part of the lesbian community. Any attack against lesbians and gays is a Black issue, because thousands of lesbians and gay men are Black.”

The intersection of race and sexuality—even before considering class, gender, etc.—creates an accumulation of discrimination and oppression for Lorde, who grew up in the 1940s-50s. You cannot put a box around an individual part of Lorde’s identity because they all impact each other.

“I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group,” writes Lorde.

It is no secret nor surprise that Black lesbians—and other intersectional LGBTQ+ identities, such as Black transgender individuals—face heightened levels of discrimination than white lesbians and other white identities. Similarly, Black queer resistance looks different than white queer resistance. Regardless of race, being queer in itself is inherently a form of resistance—simply existing in a heteronormative society, choosing to present as “straight-passing” or not, etc.

Consider those queer identities and add it to the mix of Angela Davis’ argument: Black women not only were working labor jobs but also birthing children and performing caregiver and custodial roles—all while enduring punishments, sexual assault and more. Their mere existence was a form of resistance: an individual, unique form that I myself will never experience.

Both Davis and Lorde refer to Black women’s experiences with oppression in ways that make me consider my own intersections and how I share spaces with other individuals. How tightly intertwined is my own existence with resistance and identity? How can I create the space for others to explore the same?

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Sophia Smith, Publishing Director Resistance itself is an essential form of abolition because it requires the making up of another, alternative system of functioning to challenge the current, oppressive system. In Angela Davis’ “Reflection on The Black Woman’s Role in a Community of Slaves,” she discusses how resistance was an, “...organic ingredient of slave life,” that was brought about by the social organizations, “...the slaves themselves improvised.” Their resistance started with the, “...consciousness of their oppression,” which ushered them forwards into the abolishment of the slave system, which could not have been possible without the, “...community they pulled together.” Davis goes further in discussion of the permeation of persecution in black communities and how their oppression did not end with the abolishment of slavery. This made me think about how people in oppressed communities are forced to resist to live, rather than others who are more privileged and may choose to live to resist. This means that those in communities who are shunted to the side or chained by the perpetuation of violent suppression have no choice but to resist in order to live. There are some who have the luxury of choice when it comes to picking and choosing when to resist, but, for others, it is a matter of life and death. So, I do not think it is completely a matter of the relationship between living and resisting, but rather choosing and resisting. Who can choose? Who can’t? Does the fight against oppression finally end when everyone has the ability to choose to resist, rather than being forced to do so to live?

Aspen Oblewski, Academic Editor Reading Angela Davis’ “The Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves” introduced me to the sparsely talked about lives of Black enslaved women. It is incredibly important to highlight the horrendous things that these women had gone through, as they were rendered “…vulnerable to some of the most horrific parts of the institution,” according to CrashCourse’s Clint Smith. This specific group of women are rarely highlighted in history classes and textbooks, and I believe that reading pieces like this is integral to expanding one’s concept of intersectionality.

Intersectionality is something that I had admittedly not incorporated into my feminist identity until very late in my teenage years. It’s so easy to disregard how race is intertwined with gender and class when you only regurgitate the things you’ve read by other white feminists that strictly write about gender-based oppression. I believe that integrating intersectionality into the conversations we have about identities—whether it be race, gender, class, or all three—is an important step to understanding that living, in itself, can be a form of resistance.

Resistance, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is defined as “the act of fighting against something that is attacking you, or refusing to accept something.” I believe that those who find themselves in marginalized groups—again, whether that be within one’s race, gender, or class—are resisting oppressive forces every single day. Your very existence is going against the harsh, unfair ideals of said oppressive forces. Although the adversity that specific groups may face varies from identity to identity, it is extremely important to listen to the voices of those whose race, gender, or class differs from your own.

Davis, Angela. The Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves. The Black Scholar, 1971.

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we’ve been through too much to water poisonous flowers Isabell Ku

it’s been 753 days of observing the same sun from the same window from the same house with the same eyes. drowning in the apathy of it all. perhaps i can stomach 753 more. it’ll be hard, though— like shoveling lake-licked greenstones into my pocket like collectables. (women’s pants don’t have pockets.) it’s a carnival out there— a merry-go-around with no stop lever. horses prancing forever like they might outrun their fate as prisoners of sticky hands and ghastly shrieks. could you explain why i mustn’t care so much about the sun’s cinnamon breath? there are puppets on the world stage who cannot control their limbs. i can just not care, you know— pretend that we can all breathe just fine. like there’s still enough oxygen for us. here me out. (even if your ears won’t.) who am i to not try to reconstruct your ears for it may be a step to rebuild people into real beings with hearts that beat. spare me a moment. make me believe that i might be worth listening to in a time like this. we cannot be sustained— not like this, not in a world that’s dying. we used to be one people who banded together under a single heart. we were our own lifeblood. but what are we now? i beg you—don’t give in so easily to the belladonna seeds that so tempt you.

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*

Stone Circle

Catherine Young

You thought stones are inanimate. Like bones, we carry them from here to there. We set them in a ring, and they remain.

But no. Take another look through your lenses fashioned of silica sand. Rocks dance when you turn your back to them, refract colors hummingbirds see and sing to. While your glass spectacles dissolve into puddles and reef corals fossilize, boulders dazzle sky and tree.

They beckon. We haul, cobble cairns, believing we mark the passages of planets. All the while mountains sway and hurl their molten shimmer to the speed of light.

It’s all relative – you, me, the stones.

Listen. Did you really believe these hills are silent? They are laughing at our mayfly tempo.

Beauty is stone deep. At what point do we align our sight for unimagined changes in hue?

*”Stone Circle” was originally, first, published in Geosmin, Torrey House Press **Stone Circle was also first published in the Spring 2023 Edition of the Madison Journal of Literary Criticism and is being reprinted in this edition due to a print error.

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Daisy Fresh Girl Kathryn Blommel

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Contributors ART

Meg Bierce is a junior at UW studying art. Their medium is photography, focusing on subjects such as the queer experience and social justice. They are from Pewaukee, WI, and enjoy crocheting and playing guitar outside of photography.

Kathryn Blommel is a 20-year-old artist currently based in Minneapolis, MN, where she attends the University of Minnesota-Twin-Cities studying fine art. Her artistic practice began at the age of 16 while experimenting with charcoal. Her art engages with notions of feminism that depict forms of intimacy and vulnerability. Her work has been shown in exhibitions across the Minneapolis area. In 2023, she was awarded a grant from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation for her artistic excellence. She recently finished up her internship at the Katherine E Nash Art Gallery as a Preparator Intern. In the future, Kathryn plans on receiving her MFA and continuing to pursue a career within the arts field.

Frida Braide is a Scandinavian born photographer and author based in Brooklyn, New York. She is exploring urban landscapes, architectural structures and untouched accidental sculptures in those environmental settings.

Braide’s work is influenced by her studies in theoretical philosophy, specifically philosophy of language. Braide’s work has been featured in exhibitions and photo festivals such as Landskrona photo festival, the Icelandic photo festival and the International Photography Festival in Pingyao, China. Braide has also held exhibitions in countries such as the USA, China, South Korea and the UK. Riley Haller (she/her) is a 22 year old senior in the Art Ed program. She transferred to UW-Madison last year after a couple years at UW-Milwaukee, and now works for her good friends East of Vilas as their social media manager (@eastofvilas on instagram!). She’s currently saving for a motorcycle and a dog, and she spends her free time reading comic books, creating zines, or baking banana bread. She’d like to thank all of the lovely folks at the MJLC for this amazing opportunity, especially Ria, Cree, and Sophia, who have had her back since day 1 in Madison.

Parker Hurkman is a 21-year-old artist based in Milwaukee. He specialized in portraiture and botanical illustrations using watercolor as his primary medium. Parker has always used art as a catharsis to release inner emotion and to express his feelings. He employs a similar mindset to Frida Kahlo, He is his own muse and is the subject he knows best. Parker is a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, majoring in Art and Art history.

Sasha Ivanov is a 20-year-old junior at UW-Madison studying Molecular and Cell Biology and Philosophy.

Sasha is from Milwaukee, WI, and has always loved creating art to express thoughts that words can’t describe. Sasha is a first generation Russian-American and loves exploring intersections between science, culture, and art, especially in ways that increase an understanding of life’s experiences. One of Sasha’s main goals is to inspire other young women to pursue their passions and uplift women through education in science and critical thought.

Anju Kinoshita is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Asian Languages and Cultures Department at UWMadison. She focuses on inquiries into Japanese manga comic book readers and how they create knowledge through reading manga by using Arts-Based Research (ABR). Kinoshita has received a B.A. in Global Studies from Akita International University, Japan, and an MPhil in Arts, Creativity, and Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, UK. In her free time, she loves reading, doodling, and exploring manga.

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Charlotte Knihtila is a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who is planning to major in art.

She was born in Arizona but has lived most of her life in Wisconsin. Knihtila strives to make the most out of life and what is given to her. She is a hard-working individual who wants to make her family, and herself, proud. While being a creative person, Knihtila also has a passion for programming and utilizing technology in her everyday life. Since realizing her creative and logical passions, she creates works based on relationships between humanity and technology.

Isabella Minkin is a Junior at the Penny W. Stamps school of art and design at the University of Michigan.

She is from Columbus, Ohio. Isabella enjoys running, gardening, baking and spending time with her two dogs and family, when she isn’t painting or making ceramics.

FICTION/PROSE Alyssa Aung is a writer and Barbie collector originally from Hong Kong, currently studying at UCLA. Her love of storytelling began in childhood, when she would use stuffed toys to enact complex family sagas exploring guilt, betrayal, and the suffering of outcasts. Since then, Alyssa has exchanged the medium of doll monologues for the written word. They have also lost all their baby teeth. Alyssa writes under their mother’s last name. (Aung like Ow! You stabbed me!)

Stella D’Acquisto is an undergraduate at UW-Madison studying International Studies and Legal Studies.

A twenty-one-year-old born and raised in Milwaukee, Stella primarily studies human rights and enjoys applying these themes to creative writing.

Dakota Dowding is a 26-year-old mixed-media artist and OSU student from Dresden, Ohio. He creates works within video, sound, sculpture, and digital art, and his inspirations include the processes of destruction and restoration, catharsis, and memory.

Margaux Trexler is a New York-based writer and editor. She has a BA from New York University in English and American Literature and works as a Digital Communications Associate at Planned Parenthood of Northern, Central, and Southern New Jersey. She is passionate about nonviolent storytelling and how language can foster compassion and collaboration, specifically for and around women and the LGBTQIA+ community. Trexler is currently pursuing graduate research around the paradox of public queer cryptolects in the digital age.

Gabrielle Watry is a senior majoring in English: Creative Writing at UW-Madison. She is twenty-one years old and has always loved writing more than anything. Her other loves are music, nature, reading, and thrifting. Gabrielle hopes to someday publish a memoir and to be surrounded by an abundance of animals that she cares for. She is currently striving for a career in the publishing industry.

Ece Yarasik (she/her) is currently studying at the University of Edinburgh and is a second year English Literature student. Growing up in Turkey, now 19 years old, she lived under a government with less-thanideal humanitarian policies (a clear understatement on her part) and observed firsthand how a leader prevents resistance from kindling within. Her other writing endeavors include being involved in the Edinburgh Student Literary Journal as well as writing fun lyrical poetry for local magazines. When she is not writing, you can find her drawing, practicing martial arts or volunteering in her university’s advice place.

POETRY Cloey Deignan-Koelzer is a 21 year old from Madison! She loves writing, creating art, yoga, reading and being outside in nature most. She is very introverted so the arts are something that she thrives in, her favorite food is any type of pasta, and favorite holiday is Halloween! She prefers fall over any other season because of the cool weather and pretty leaves. She loves to hike and read her book in her hammock just as much as she loves to swim and lay out in the sun.

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Joshua Gienapp attended high school in Chippewa Falls, WI. Before matriculating into the University of Wisconsin Law School, he earned an AB in Arabic and Government from Georgetown University. This poem was inspired by the courageous migrants who are its subject. It negotiates the idea of resistance through multiple vectors -- among others, the perspective of the speaker, the position of the migrants, and the reaction of the world to their tragedy.

A. Jenson is a trans/non-binary writer, artist, and farmer from Southern Appalachia, the Midwest, the MidAtlantic, or the Pacific Northwest--depending on what “from” might mean to their readers. Their most recent work appears in 2023 and 2024 issues of Pile Press, Swim Press, Broken Antler Quarterly, The Door Is A Jar, Thimble Literary Magazine, Ouch! Collective, The Bitchin’ Kitsch and Corporeal Magazine. Between rainy, icy days of brassica harvests and apple pressing, A. Jenson is hard at work revising a fiction manuscript.

Isabell Ku is a first year undergraduate studying English and French at Michigan State University. Originally from Troy, Michigan, Isabell’s interests lie in creative writing and film. Her work has been featured in several literary journals and was a finalist in the Charles Crupi Memorial Poetry Contest recently. Isabell hopes to continue publishing her poetry and work on new screenplays in the near future. Her poem “we’ve been through too much to water poisonous flowers” was inspired by the concept of isolation as well as the endless cycles of chaos that’s been occurring in the world for the past few years. Isabell reflects on the ignorance and selfishness of humankind and how time is running out for any and all destruction to be undone.

Mckayla Murphy is in their third and final year at UW-Madison, triple majoring in English (creative writing emphasis), Theatre & Drama, and Political Science. They are the Production Manager for InterMission Theatre, a registered student organization dedicated to promoting student-produced works.

Much of their free time is spent stage managing various theatrical projects and writing anything that comes to mind, usually with the hopes of evoking as much emotion as possible.

Bella Niforatos is a 22-year-old law student from Albuquerque, New Mexico, although she went to undergrad at the University of Notre Dame. She is also a writer and a dancer. She wrote this piece while pondering the power (and trauma) inherent in queer womanhood, especially in contexts of poverty. Must we be angry to be powerful? Once we have experienced trauma, have we permanently lost our sense of self? Or, if we participate in true resistance and renaissance after trauma, can we reclaim our power, body, and self?

Tor War (he/him) is an artist and educator living in Chicago. He graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020 with a BFA and will be attending Depaul for his Master’s in Secondary Education. He currently teaches poetry in Chicago Public Schools with the Poetry Center as a Poet in Residence. Trans, Gay, and Mixed Vietnamese, he seeks out and encourages safe spaces from the marginalized and for the marginalized wherever possible. The last poem he had published was an ode to Sun Wukong the Monkey King.

Catherine Young is author of the ecopoetry collection Geosmin and the memoir of place Black Diamond Forthcoming from Torrey House Press. Her writing is published in literary anthologies and journals nationally and internationally and has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best American Essays. Catherine’s background includes work in environmental science and geography. Rooted in farm life, Catherine lives with her family in the Driftless bioregion of Wisconsin. For more visit http://www. catherineyoungwriter.com/

NONFICTION Andie Barrow (they/them) is a graduate student in English literary studies at the University of WisconsinMadison. They are currently writing a dissertation on queer poetry in translation in the sixteenth century.

Shrushti Nayak is a full-time pre-med neuroscience student at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

When she is not performing tedious but exciting liquid-liquid extractions in the chem lab, she likes to type away poetic stories of her life and find a way to curate them into an exciting read. Shrushti also adores horror

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novels, and you will most likely find her curled up in bed reading one with haunting classical songs playing in the background, procrastinating over the pile of homework that awaits her on her cluttered desk.

Alex Punguil Bravo, originally from Ecuador, has lived in the United States for over two decades. He is a dedicated third-year PhD student at the School of Human Ecology specializing in the Civil Society and Community Research (CSCR) program. Drawing from his profound personal experiences, Alex’s work delves deep into an autoethnographic exploration, shedding light on the untold realities that many immigrants encounter. The central theme of his narrative is resistance, underscored by a prevailing sense of hope, as he chronicles the challenges and aspirations that define his journey.

Camila Trimberger-Ruiz is a Chicana student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As a whitepresenting Mexican, she has always had a conflicted relationship with her identity. Having the opportunity to study Chicano history at UW has been life changing for her, and the focus of nearly every writing assignment she’s had.

ACADEMIC Elizabeth White is a junior at the University of Michigan Ann-Arbor where she is double majoring in Chemistry and English. Elizabeth’s literary & primary research interests lie in 19th-20th century fiction as well as narrative writing, specifically in fields that unravel systemic constructs of the world and resulting discourses that navigate themes of alienation within/through class, gender, and race.

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MADISON JOURNAL OF LITERARY CRITICISM MJLC 92