APRIL 12 2019

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VOL. 19, NO. 9 Editors-in-Chief Sophie Jones Ian Feather Treasurer Charlie Rinehart-Jones Content Editors PJ McCormick Devin McMahon Ben Richman Jane Wickline Cover Art Hannah Tishkoff

EST. 1999 April 12, 2019

OBERLIN’S STUDENT CULTURE MAGAZINE

Layout Editors Natalie Hawthorne Grace Kirk Leora Swerdlow Nico Vickers

Copy Editors Nell Back Eleanor Cunningham Olivia Hacker-Keating

Staff Writers Jason Hewitt Zoe Jasper Sam Schuman

Photo Editor Emery Webster Web Editor Leah Yassky

Contributing Writers Raphael Dreyfuss Abby Lee Emma Marcus Amari Newman Torin Record-Sand Brennan Ryan Sam Schectman Grace Smith Back Page Molly Sheffield

WANT TO SEE YOUR NAME IN PRINT? COME TO OUR NEXT MEETING! SUNDAY, APRIL 14TH, 4:00 PM IN WILDER 115. OR SHOOT US AN EMAIL- THEGRAPE@OBERLIN.EDU

AAPR-itis: Yes, We Know The Review wrote about it already

BY SOPHIE JONES AND IAN FEATHER | CO-EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

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OSCA Looks Toward Self-Sufficieny post-AAPR

BY SAM SCHUMAN | STAFF WRITER Since the Pyle Inn opened in 1950, the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association (OSCA) has had a complex relationship with Oberlin’s administration. Last month, the preliminary recommendations provided by Oberlin’s Academic and Administrative Program Review (AAPR) steering committee indicate that more change is in store for the organization, which provides meals and/or housing to nearly six hundred Oberlin students across eight separate, semiautonomous co-ops, making it one of the largest college cooperative programs in the country.

The AAPR Steering Committee’s primary recommendation concerning OSCA is that the organization, which is student-run and separate from Oberlin College and Conservatory, become entirely “self-sufficient,” in order to eliminate what the College says is a negative impact on its revenue. In a series of presentations delivered the week of March 11 to faculty, staff and students, representatives from the AAPR Steering Committee empha-sized that Oberlin College loses out on roughly $1.9 million in revenue from students who live and dine in OSCA, as opposed to participating in Oberlin’s room and board programs. This figure also includes the money Oberlin loses from renting its buildings to OSCA below market rate.

“By underpricing its own buildings and providing extensive supportive services to OSCA’s residents and diners, the College has allowed OSCA to offer its services substantially below market and has increased its own labor costs due to lost economies of scale,” stated a summary of the AAPR’s work to date sent to Oberlin students by David Kamitsuka, Acting Dean of the College of Arts and Science and chair of the AAPR Steering Committee. “These costs are effectively passed along to other students who reside and eat in required College housing and dining — an average additional cost of $1,545 apiece for students who do not benefit from OSCA’s programming or cost structure.”

First-year Gabbie Spielberg, who is on the OSCA board as the representative for Keep Cottage, said that while financial independence would give OSCA greater autonomy, it would be difficult to achieve.“The idea of us being independent would be really, really cool, and a lot of co-ops at other schools are independent. If we own our buildings, that means we could paint walls, we could just have more say over what we do with [them]. But getting there safely and within a reasonable budget would be really difficult.” Spielberg said that several years ago, OSCA bought several off-campus buildings, but the College “put an end to it,” because the liabilities -- such as insurance costs -- were financially prohibitive.

AAPR participants claim that OSCA should become self-sufficient because it contributes to financial inequity on campus by subsidizing the cost of attendance for already-privileged students. “The choice to participate in OSCA isn’t just a choice for a student. It also affects everyone in OSCA. OSCA is a whiter—meaning less diverse— and a more affluent student population than students who are not in OSCA. Based on our current structural situation, those students who are not in OSCA are providing a subsidy…for those students,” said Kam Dunbar, chair of Oberlin’s Student Senate and one of the three

students who serve on the AAPR Steering Committee.

“I think it’s inequitable to defray the cost of a whiter and less diverse and more affluent body on the other [non-OSCA] part of campus.”

Because OSCA is a 501(c)(7) non-profit, it is not legally permitted to give priority to any applicants who apply to join, regardless of factors including race or financial status.

Dunbar, who has been a member of OSCA since Fall 2018, also said that because OSCA is an independent organization from the College and Conservatory, the AAPR was unable to include OSCA’s finances in its review.

AAPR representatives were clear that they do not recommend that the College sever its relationship with OSCA, a move which could put the organization’s continued financial stability at risk.

Said Dunbar: “We don’t want to eliminate OSCA. That doesn’t mean we are unwilling [to] or don’t think PHOTO CREDIT: OBERLIN COLLEGE we should have conversations about things such as the scale of OSCA, how it is related to the college, does it have program, according to OSCA’s website. an appropriate tax status to fulfill its educational mission.”

In 1976, when the Talcott and Fairchild dorms were both under Spielberg said that one reason OSCA is more affluent as a body is consideration to become the sixth OSCA co-op (joining Pyle, Harkbecause in the fall of 2017, Oberlin College started to reduce the need- ness, Tank, Old Barrows and Keep), the College complained that crebased financial aid it gives to students who live in OSCA—those who ating a sixth Co-op would force it to double its board bills from six dine in co-ops have their aid reduced by $1,000, and those who both dollars to twelve— equal to about $54 today, compared to the current live and dine in OSCA lose $2,000 in need-based aid. “That discour- College board fee of over $8,000 per year. aged a lot of people who really do need that financial aid and who OSCA’s relationship with the College is determined by a threecould also really benefit from OSCA,” she said. year rent contract that is continuously renewed. The contract covOne aspect of OSCA that the AAPR committee did not dedicate a ers OSCA renting facilities from the College and handling day-to-day significant amount of time to is its role in attracting prospective stu- operational tasks, among other things. Normally, the contract is redents. “There are so many ways that this supposed loss of revenue for negotiated in its third year, and would be renegotiated this year, but the College does not represent the non-financial services that OSCA both parties agreed instead to a one-year extension of the existing provides to the College that are impossible to quantify, nor does it contract, pending the release of the AAPR’s recommendations. take into account how big of an admissions draw OSCA is for the ColIn an open forum on March 19, members of the OSCA board lege,” OSCA’s leadership wrote in a published email to the Oberlin said that they were made aware of the AAPR’s recommendations at Review last week. roughly the same time as the rest of Oberlin’s students, staff, and facThird-year tour guide Miranda Purcell, who has dined in OSCA ulty, and that requests to meet beforehand with Oberlin administrain past semesters, said that she talks about OSCA during her tours. tors in charge of contract renegotiations went unanswered, with the “I talk a lot about the community aspects of OSCA and how I really College citing absences and new personnel as the reason why. enjoyed having a community to eat with every meal” she said. “It OSCA board members said that they were still considering the draws a lot of questions, so people seem to be intrigued by it.” Spiel- AAPR’s recommendations, but that they believe that the AAPR is enberg mentioned that she chose to attend Oberlin in part because of gaging with OSCA and the College in good faith.

OSCA. “Everyone I know applied to Wesleyan and Brown and Smith “OSCA does a lot of things that ResEd and the College can learn and wherever else, and those schools are all basically the same [as from,” said fourth-year Sadie Keller, who serves on the AAPR SteerOberlin], except we have co-ops and they don’t, and Oberlin College ing Committee and is a member of OSCA. knows that.”

“This is an exciting time for OSCA to take a leadership role in not The AAPR isn’t the first time OSCA has come into conflict with only changing the culture at Oberlin but improving the residential the College over finances. Throughout OSCA’s history, especially as it education experience for Oberlin students as a whole.” expanded throughout the late 1960s and 70s, Oberlin’s administration has pointed to revenue loss as a major detriment of the co-op

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Oberlin Data Breach Speaks to Larger Crisis of Private Education

BY RAPHAEL DREYFUSS | CONTRIBUTING WRITER At 2:45am on March 5, the online database of Oberlin’s Office of Admissions was breached in a targeted cyber attack. For four hours and four minutes, the hackers gained access to massive amounts of students’ (both prospective and enrolled) personal data, including names, addresses, birthdates, emails, and social security numbers, as well as their accompanying admissions files. When the College notified students of the data breach two days later, they provided resources to place fraud alerts on their credit reports and disclosed that similar attacks had occurred at comparable institutions (Grinnell and Hamilton). The administration’s statements, however, did not explain the full intentions behind hack: to solicit payments from prospective students in exchange for their confidential admissions files.

After obtaining contact information for all prospective students, the hackers reached out to the young applicants by email.

In the message, which was posted by a Grinnell applicant to a Reddit forum dedicated to the college application process, a pseudonymous person identifying themselves as “Diane Evergreen, UDA International” presented prospies with the “unique opportunity to purchase [their] entire admissions file.” These files allegedly included “Comments by Admissions Officers, Assigned Ratings, Interview Report (if present), Teacher Recommendations, [and] Tentative Decision (if applying Regular).”

The email requested one Bitcoin (roughly $3,890 USD) in exchange for this information, promising that “although the price tag is substantial, this offer presents a unique opportunity to look at yourself from the inside… absolutely unfiltered.” While the provided bitcoin address has thus far not registered any payments on the publicly available blockchain, the data breach nonetheless speaks to a broader crisis at the core of the private education system.

The cyberattack – which occurred only one week after the

Justice Department disclosed conspiracy charges against fifty people in six States in what has been described as the largest college admission scam ever – cartoonishly underscores the tragic consequences of the commodification of education. The higher education caste system which first drove wealthy parents to bribe college officials and photoshop their children into photos of sports teams they never participated in, has now turned its attention to the insecurities of the scions themselves, employing hijinks straight from the scripts of Pretty Little Liars. These insecurities are likely relatable to anyone who has submitted themselves to the high-stakes nightmare of the modern college admissions process, and the chance to glimpse inside its cold, bureaucratic machinery would undoubtedly be tempting. Less relatable, of course, is the price tag. As one online commenter wrote, “I love how they expected me to pay $3890 just to find out I was being rejected....” Yet these criminal means being offered to wealthy college applicants to improve their already advantaged positions are only the extreme manifestations of the broader inequity of private education writ-large.

Modern private high schools, which came to widespread prominence in the United States largely as a bulwark against desegregation in public schools, have long maintained a tieredsystem of education which benefits the propertied classes at the expense of their workers. While phenomena such as the admissions cheating ring or the hackers’ racketeering scheme are more obvious instances of this, so-called “college preparatory” curriculums, private tutors, test prep, college counselors, even mere institutional prestige all comprise mechanisms which grant wealthy private-school students disproportionate access to quality higher-education as well. Nonetheless, a recent study from the University of Virginia has concluded that despite vast performance disparities, private schools do not in fact nec-

essarily provide a better education. Dr. Robert C. Pianta, who conducted the research, told the Washington Post, “You only need to control for family income and there’s no advantage. So when you first look, without controlling for anything, the kids who go to private schools are far and away outperforming the public school kids. And as soon as you control for family income and parents’ education level, that difference is eliminated completely.”

Private higher education institutions – despite their attempts to level the playing field through financial aid programs – are built atop this fundamentally imbalanced system, adding their own forms of class bias. Even disregarding the more obvious advantages granted by familial donations or legacy status, admissions decisions based on internships, volunteer work, glowing letters of recommendation – assets which are far more difficult to come by outside of private institutions – all contribute to the institutional apparatus which maintains the ruling class’s accreditation by elite institutions, regardless of their actual merit.

Privatization, although rarely directly referenced as such, is at the root of current conversations around higher education following the cheating scandal and data breach. Beyond merely heightening the disparity between social classes, private institutions desecrate their educational missions by privileging the education of the wealthy and the white. While class and race privilege may provide one with a long list of qualifications, they are often hollow and do not translate into scholarly ability. The social role of these institutions becomes not the betterment or education of their student body, but rather accreditation by the bourgeoisie – a multi-thousand dollar license to serve in a respectable social occupation.

Ohio Passes Six-Week Abortion Ban

BY ABBY LEE | CONTRIBUTING WRITER On April 9th, the Ohio House Health Committee passed Senate Bill 23, known as the “heartbeat bill.” This legislation, would make it illegal for a doctor to perform an abortion once a fetus’s heartbeat can be detected. A fetal heartbeat can be heard as early as six weeks, a point at which most people are unaware of their pregnancy. SB 23 makes exceptions for cases in which a pregnant person is facing a medical emergency or death, but does not extend this to situations of rape or incest, or a mental health emergency in which the person’s own life is threatened. Former Ohio Governor John Kasich (R) vetoed a similar “heartbeat” bill in 2016, but signed a twenty-week abortion ban into law.

The current laws regarding abortion in Ohio include a twenty-four-hour waiting period before undergoing an abortion procedure; parental consent is required if the person seeking an abortion is under eighteen; a doctor must perform an ultrasound, and ask the patient if they would like to hear the fetal heartbeat. The Affordable Care Act only covers the cost of an abortion in the case of rape, incest, or if the patient’s life is at risk.

In the first round of hearings for the bill, the Ohio House Health Committee heard from supporters. At the second hearing, almost forty people from across Ohio testified against the bill, sharing personal stories and encounters with the State’s efforts to restrict abortion access. On April 10th, the bill passsed the entire Ohio House of Representatives, and now awaits Governor Mike DeWine’s signature. In January, DeWine stated that if the bill passed in the House, he would “absolutely” sign it into law. DeWine was formerly Ohio’s attorney general, and during that time was passionately promoting the false claim that Planned Parenthood sells aborted fetus parts,

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which put Planned Parenthood in an incredibly vulnerable position.

Lotte Brewer, a fourth year and former member of Obie SURF (Students United for Reproductive Freedom), is a native Ohioan and says, “If this bill were enacted into law, it would, in practice, make abortion illegal in Ohio. Planned Parenthood East Health Clinic is the only surgical abortion provider in Columbus, Ohio, the largest city in the State, and my hometown. With the twenty-week ban in place, their demand is so high that they can only schedule abortions five weeks out. That means that if SB 23 were passed, the only way you could receive a legal abortion there was if you scheduled your appointment when you were one week pregnant. Pregnancy hormones cannot be detected in urine until twelve to fifteen days gestation.”

This year, twelve States have filed “heartbeat” bills. Many other “heartbeat” bills that have made it through State Senates, or both Senate and House, but have been vetoed by the governor, or struck down by judges on the grounds of being unconstitutional. Republican sponsors of these bills, including lead sponsor of SB 23, Ohio Representative Kristina Roegner, have said that they hope these bills will be presented in front of Circuit Courts of Appeal and the US Supreme Court, and ultimately use it as a stepping stone on the path to overturn Roe V. Wade. If Ohio’s bill becomes law, a doctor who violates the six-week ban would be charged with a fifth-degree felony, and could face six to twelve months in prison and a $2,500 fine.

Another abortion regulation has passed in the Ohio State Senate on March 27th, now making its way to the House. Senate Bill 27 requires abortion practitioners to dispose of the medical tissue from the abortion via burial or cremation. A pregnant person would have to choose which method of disposal. In a

statement, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio said, “This bill is intended to shame people who have had abortions and interfere with Ohioans’ private health care decisions.” Brewer echoes this statement, and adds, “Clinics are short-staffed and underfunded as it is, and the cost of burials, cremations, and the mandated death certificates for fetal tissue extracted at twenty weeks gestation takes time and money away from clinics, ultimately limiting their ability to provide comprehensive care, and in many cases keep their doors open.”

The situation is dire, not only in Ohio, but in over a dozen other States. While there are organizations on Oberlin’s campus doing hard work to put reproductive justice issues at the forefront, like SURF and the Sexual Information Center (SIC), Brewer feels that there is a lack of attention or urgency from the student body. “Oberlin students need to wake up and realize the grim reality of reproductive healthcare in Ohio. While Oberlin apathy is not exclusive to issues of reproductive justice, I think we collectively need to reevaluate what it means for us to claim a stake in this rural Ohioan community for up to five years. Is the reason you aren’t involved because you are from a state with more liberal abortion laws and you know if worse comes to worse you could go home and get an abortion? Is it because you can’t get pregnant from your sexual practices and think this issue doesn’t apply to you? Everyone loves someone who’s had an abortion, and everyone cares about someone who will need access to abortion.”

For updates on these bills and other reproductive rights issues in Ohio, follow Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio on Twitter (@PPAOhio). Stay up to date on SURF information and events on Facebook by friending “Obie SURF” or on Instagram, @obiesurf.

123 Magic

BY EMMA MARCUS | CONTRIBUTING WRITER PHOTO CREDIT: EMMA MARCUS

Fwd: Stuff Eva Kocher <ekocher@oberlin.edu> To me, Octavia, Lara, Michelle Feb 22, 2019 Hi Eva Whole house filter is in and floor is rock solid now Dance on

JERRY WANTED ME TO REFER BACK TO HIS PHILOSOPHY IN LIFE: BE HAPPY, BE HAPPY, BE HAPPY. HE WANTED ME TO FOLLOW HIS GAZE AROUND THE DIM BASEMENT OF WATSON’S AND SEE THE BEAUTY IN IT. My housemates and I were standing in the living room when it happened. Lara and I jumped up and down, holding each other, excited by something someone had said, and as we jumped we felt the hardwood floor bend beneath our weight.

Oh, Jesus were the words that left my mouth, I believe, and we were left standing in what we had discovered.

“This floor…” Eva’s voice was sharp with nerves.

“This house,” I think I shot back. After months of disruption, nothing surprised us anymore, the girls of 123. We lived in a palace of chaos. From doors collapsing off of hinges to squirrels in the walls and now a broken floor. Our house has been a vital Oberlin gathering place since well before we were all born, according to our landlord, Jerry. Its constant need of repairs is due to herds of students treating it like a dance hall year after year. Had it been any other weekend, we all might have agreed to forget about it, to let it slide. But it was the Friday before a party, one that was sure to be large, like they often are in the desolate monotony of Oberlin winters.

“I’ll call Jerry,” Eva said. She had taken it upon herself to be Jerry’s point person that year. When our heat wasn’t working in the dead of winter, her sweet, even tone managed to convey urgency as well as empathy to our kind landlord. So it was Eva who called Jerry that evening, telling him that maybe our floor was going to cave in and, also, hadn’t he mentioned putting in a water filter a few days back? He said he’d be right over to check it out. It was only hours later that I received a forwarded email.

The five of us giggled uncontrollably at that one, realizing that Jerry probably knew more about why our floor’s stability mattered than we could possibly have thought. “Dance on!” We repeated to each other in our preparation for the party, giddy with permission.

A few weeks later Jerry and I were sitting in the basement of his hardware store, surrounded by 2 by 4s and open paint cans. He pulled a folded up piece of paper from his breast pocket. “Be happy, be happy, be happy,” he read to me, calling it his philosophy. He told me about the store, about how he sees it as a way to connect with people, to help solve their problems. I found this beautiful, and I remarked something of that effect to him. But, selfishly, I turned the conversation back to 123 South Professor. I was so invested in this narrative of my house. The idea of its magic, its reputation. I wanted him to help me add to its charm.

Jerry welcomed all of my questions without hesitation.

“Have you ever heard of the hippie house of Oberlin?” he prodded, his smile unfaltering. “The hippie house of Oberlin is 123 South Professor.” He went on to tell me that when he bought the property twelve or so years ago, people in town told him the house was internationally known. “It really has a history, going back farther than you or I know.”

Jerry grew up at the second curve west of town and never hung out much in Oberlin in his youth. He comes from a long line of carpenters, and he learned how to farm from a man named Charlie Roman, who raised dairy cows (just a couple Friesians), planted wheat and lived in a chicken coop for a year after his house burnt down. Roman was, according to Jerry, an old farmer who had stories to tell. But any sort of biological family seemed absent from Jerry’s narrative.

When I asked him about it, his voice got low. “Oh, I have a lot of family members,” he said, “not so much in town.”

I tried not to react too strongly as I noticed his speech slowing. I did not want him to think I only wanted some kind of simplistic characterization of his local status out of this interview. If all I had gotten out of this conversation were sticky details about his family, I would be remiss. Jerry wanted me to refer back to his philosophy in life: be happy, be happy, be happy.

He wanted me to follow his gaze around the dim basement of Watson’s and see the beauty in it. He wanted me to hear that his 35-acre farm was just certified organic, that he learned to farm from a man who had the knowledge to give and chose to be generous with it. But he did tell me that yes, he has a lot of family who steer clear of Oberlin. “There’s a lot of prejudice,” he repeated a few times. “Honestly, the rural people sort of stay out of Oberlin.” He made sure to remind me, he grew up in such a neat age. So much progress, so much change.

Jerry has spoken to me with pride about Watson being a place for all sorts of people to enter, to seek support in their repairs and projects. I am quite familiar with its front entrance, gently acquainted with its dusty surfaces and cluttered countertops. I am used to the glances of the people that work behind the register, I make sure to smile wide, ask for Jerry, so they know I am not lost. As I’ve come to familiarize myself with the aisles of nails, ropes, smells of rubber, there has been a feeling that hits me. Stepping into Watson means departing the main street of my beloved college town into a real place, one that is not meant for me. And sometimes this feeling shocks me.

I walk through Oberlin like I own it. I am deeply in love with my hippie house, I sit on my roof, watch people walk by with their dogs as my fourth winter in Ohio thaws, and feel intimately connected to this town. Residing in 123 feels like a well-earned prize for my making it to my senior year. However, like the vast majority of my fellow seniors, all of my plans are directed towards imminent departure.

When Jerry spoke about my house it was as if he was talking about a beloved cousin.

“That curved porch gets me! It really does!” His love exudes most from his phrases about the technical aspects of the construction of it. He waxes poetic when describing the incredibly square shaped rooms, musing that part of the house’s charm is its strong foundation. The town sawyer built our porch, Jerry told me, reminding me that mucking up early on without stopping to straighten up your stake “will haunt you, because it’s gonna get magnified as you build a structure.” Problem solving is his generous way of describing what he does for people every day, who ask questions of him that he probably learned the answer to decades ago.

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Alternative Careers: Q&A with Alum Ava Keating (‘14)

BY DEVIN MCMAHON | FEATURES EDITOR

For the second installment of my column in which I interview Obies who never pursued a traditional career path, those who will probably never be celebrated by the alumni office, but who are doing exciting and interesting work we want the Oberlin community to know about, I interviewed self-identifying communist revolutionary Ava Keating. Graduated in 2014 with a Comparative Literature and French major and a hefty minor in Chemistry (for a prior pre-med track), Keating now works at a “rambunctious medical clinic” and has done work as a union spy. We chatted about all this and more over the phone last month.

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Devin McMahon: Can you tell me about your work?

Ava Keating: I am an organizer. I currently work as Director of Operations at a medical clinic and research institute, which certainly has atypical parts to it; namely that we do psychedelic assisted therapies in our office and take insurance for it, and all identify as healthcare revolutionaries. And right before that, I did something perhaps more atypical, which is that I worked as a spy for a labor union, working in a grocery store. That is also called a salt, and it essentially means you’re going undercover in a workplace that is either unionized or is not unionized yet to help gather information for a labor union or an organizing drive to identify conditions on the ground, form relationships with your coworkers, be a leader in the workplace, but more importantly to help facilitate the self-organization of your coworkers in that space.

I’m a communist. Sometimes I call myself a socialist, depending on which company I’m keeping. Sometimes the word “communist” really freaks people out, but I also have an urge to reclaim that and to push back against bullshit Red Scare stuff of the 1950s and 60s. All of the work that I do, before, during, and after my education at Oberlin, has revolved around upending the system of capitalism and, in the interim, working within the system to make people’s lives better. I believe that this socio-economic political system in which we live is deeply inequitable and fundamentally untenable in the long term. I’m of the mind that we have seen crisis after crisis with this economic system that necessitates a huge intervention in order to get itself back on track. The invention of credit, world war, and the massive move to incarcerate people who are considered throwaways in our society -- none of this is okay with me, and my life is dedicated to being, I guess, a revolutionary in that way. I don’t say that to give myself a pat on the back; I use it as an identifier, and as a statement that undergirds my orientation and way in which I hope to live a life of service.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF AVA KEATING

DM: So interesting. How did Oberlin inform your work?

spective after I graduated, or maybe towards the very end.

I read Karl Marx in my senior year, and only in my senior year, and really had not been exposed to many anti-capitalist ideas before that point. And I really don’t feel like Oberlin helped to foster that, though certainly there were student movements and resistance being shown in other ways, which I think indirectly contributes to this political trajectory that I’ve had. But I came with Pell Grants when I came to Oberlin -- I did not come with wealth -and I found it kind of hard actually first of all to relate to my more affluent peers and, second, to live the material reality of what it means to be a poor person trying to go to school at an extremely expensive for-profit liberal arts school. I worked a lot, probably more than I should have, while attending Oberlin. I had to take a semester off of Oberlin to make more money to make sure that I could graduate. So I think I had an atypical time at Oberlin. The process of feeling isolated on the basis of my financial status at Oberlin was very impactful for me. In terms of coursework, I learned to think critically and learn about systems of oppression, but I can’t say that when I left Oberlin as a twenty-two year old, I really knew what to think about all of that, but it was certainly the launching pad from which I sprung going forward into political organizing work; it was fuel for the fire.

AK: You know, I did not find Oberlin to be very supportive of [my views]. I kind of developed my political per-

DM: A large reason why I wanted to write this column was to talk to alumni doing interesting and productive

work outside of the typical corporate system, and see how they made it work financially.

AK: I never thought my work would grace the glossy pages of the Oberlin alumni magazine, which was totally fine by me. Not to say that there aren’t Obies in that magazine who do amazing things -- I think that’s totally true and I am in support of them, and am proud of to be in a community of them as an alumna. But, frankly, I think that Oberlin, in the way it’s set up, just wants people to be successful in a narrow definition of what that means: to go to graduate school, to become heads of companies, to become faces in high places if you will, to be conventionally successful, in order perhaps to say to potential students, “Look what our school turns out in terms of typically successful people and look at how valuable the Oberlin degree is. Here’s the return on your investment.” It’s a very monetized way that we consider success, and Oberlin is no different than other schools in that way, I think. The way that we’re going to get free, I think, is to organize as a class -- and I mean, the working class, which includes the petit bourgeoisie and anyone who has to sell their wage labor to get by.

I really want Obies to think about what it means to organize in a workplace as a way of contributing to positive social change. I’ll give you an example. When I was at Oberlin, I worked at the Reserve Department in Mudd. I think I started at $7.35 an hour, and it’s higher than that

“I THINK THAT OBERLIN, IN THE WAY IT’S SET UP, JUST WANTS PEOPLE TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN A NARROW DEFINITION OF WHAT THAT MEANS: TO GO TO GRADUATE SCHOOL, TO BECOME HEADS OF COMPANIES, TO BECOME FACES IN HIGH PLACES IF YOU WILL, TO BE CONVENTIONALLY SUCCESSFUL. “ 6

THE GRAPE

now because the statewide minimum wage has increased.

But that’s still pennies. And when you’re paying $60,000 a year to go to Oberlin, it really doesn’t cut it. And there are deeper inequities that are built into the way not only students but other employees and contractors and people who are paid by Oberlin receive pay. Like the cafeteria workers at Oberlin: are they property compensated? No, I would say. Are the students properly compensated for their work based upon the value produced for the institution? No. And if that exists at Oberlin, you can bet your bottom dollar that that exists elsewhere in the world. So if we truly want to be people who change the world -- or, what is Oberlin’s motto?

DM: “Think one person can change the world?”

AK: Oh, god. That is such garbage. Because no! It’s only collective action that is going to change our world and we’ve seen that across all social movements in history.

The fact that Oberlin can have that motto is in disservice of its students -- it’s teaching them a mistruth.

DM. Agreed. Can you talk more about your work as a salt?

AK: It was a really secretive job. There would be many times when on my break, I would walk by the administrative copier machine and steal papers off the top to see what information we could glean about what management was doing.

I’ll give you an example of one of the grievances that we had at work. People in the same job got paid vastly different amounts, and you can imagine what that was on the basis of. For example, my coworker, she’s black, a mother of four, and formerly incarcerated, had been working in the grocery store in the deli department for over a year.

She was a very good employee, she was known as the Sandwich Queen, but she was paid $3.50 less per hour than I was. I came in at the rate she started at and then was offered a raise three months later or even less than that, when she had not been offered a raise at all during her time there. Did that have to do with the fact that I was white? Yes. They would surveil her when she stepped off the floor to go to the bathroom and would be like, “You took four and a half minutes in there, what’s going on?” and it was disgusting to watch. She was not the only person that this happened to. All of us saw this and saw how terribly particularly black people in our workplace were

what led me to look around for a labor union job. And I want to be clear, I think that labor unions really have fallen short in a lot of different ways, and they have fallen into a lot of the same traps that I was just discussing--like putting an overemphasis on donating to political campaigns to get their guy elected--and I think that’s a huge missed opportunity. The way I see real change happen-and there are historical examples that follow this same trend--is when people on the “lower echelons of society” get together with other people that they care about, or other people who they know are in their corner, and force change. That’s the kind of work I wanted to do and I want to, frankly, cut the bullshit.

“PEOPLE CRAVE SOMETHING THAT IS MORE IMMEDIATE AND MORE ROOTED IN THEIR DAILY EXPERIENCE AND IN THE COMMUNITIES THEY CARE ABOUT, AND THAT’S WHAT LEAD ME TO LOOK AROUND FOR A LABOR UNION JOB.“

DM: What advice do you have for students?

being treated, and we started all talking to each other about how much we made and it caused this huge kerfuffle, because people realized they were being paid different amounts for the same job and this whole idea of getting a raise because of seniority wasn’t the case, and compensation didn’t correlate to effort put in by the employees. It was a huge headache for management and we were all so giddy about it. I think when people feel their collective power together, you can’t undo that, and that plants the seed for more positive struggle in the future.

DM: How did you become a salt?

AK: I did a lot of political organizing work that I was not paid for before beginning work as a salt. That included going to city council and making comments to elected officials or door knocking or flyering and postering and doing some of those other pounding-the-pavement sort of activities, writing articles for various Left publications, and that sort of thing. There was this huge emphasis on getting the right elected offical into office, and we still see this now; everyone’s announcing for the 2020 presidential campaign--which hindsight is 20/20, go Bernie, that’s my personal feeling--but I also think that people feel very alienated by the political process and think that democracy is this spectator sport where you show up once every four years, or every two years, and you cast a vote, and it’s no question in my mind why people feel really disenfranchised and like their vote doesn’t matter. I think, frankly, that’s a huge reason that we got Donald Trump. But all of that is to say that I think there’s so much more to being a good organizer than getting someone elected, though that can be a very powerful tool to work towards liberatory projects.

I think that people crave something that is more immediate and more rooted in their daily experience and in the communities that they care about, and that’s

AK: I think that people work--and this is the vast majority of us--in large part because they need to be able to sustain themselves and their family, or they need to pay back their student loans, which many Oberlin students do. And I will tell you, I pay $750 a month back to Oberlin for my education, and it’s really a lot: it’s another rent in a cosmopolitan city. If you can find a way to sustain yourself in doing something that you love, that’s great; however, if you can’t and you need to make money to get by, that’s also good and fine and we can’t look down upon that whatsoever because, frankly, that’s what a huge swath of the population does and it’s not only our workplace successes that define us. You know, when you show up to a party and you say, “Hi, I’m Ava, what do you do for work?” that really reinforces that notion that one’s value to society and one’s sense of self is defined by the work that they do. And I would like to problematize that notion, because I don’t think it’s true. There’s some privilege involved that comes with being able to pursue a different path, an atypical path. Oftentimes, a robust social safety net or familial systems and financial support are a big part of that.

If you want to organize your workplace--and I hope that you do--it requires deep empathy for what your fellow workers are going through. It requires you showing up for yourself and others in the workplace and doing the best job that you can given your set of circumstances, and it requires forming deep and caring relationships with the other people that surround you at work -- and that requires knowing them not just as a worker, but as a whole person, and holding that notion really close to you all the time. When you build rapport and trust with your fellow workers and you have a shared language around the grievances you may face, then that’s really fertile ground for organizing. And then there are a number of things you can do, and I don’t think I’ll get into specific tactics so much, but it all starts with people coming together around a shared set of goals. It doesn’t matter if you’re the same gender, or the same age, or the same race, if you come from the same country of origin, if you speak the same language, even; but you can recognize fully that your liberation and the liberation of the entire working class is bound up in the fate of one another. Oberlin is lying to you: no one person alone can change the world. We do that together.

DM: Thank you so much Ava, it has been so wonderful to talk to you.

APRIL 12, 2018

7

Long Live Nipsey Hussle

BY JASON HEWITT | STAFF WRITER On March 31st, the world lost a real one. That’s one of the best ways I can describe the death of businessman, humanitarian, and rapper Nipsey Hussle. Nipsey was fatally shot outside of his store, Marathon Clothing, in Los Angeles on that fateful Sunday, and it has broken the hearts of millions of people across the nation, including mine. Nipsey’s popularity rose from his prolific mixtapes such as “Crenshaw” and “The Marathon Continues.” His popularity grew to its peak when he dropped his only album, 2018’s “Victory Lap,” which was treated as a celebration of all the hard work he put in as an artist over the years.

Nipsey Hussle is mostly famous because of his music, but his impact as an agent of change was infinitely greater than any song he had ever recorded in the booth. It feels just like yesterday when I first listened to “Victory Lap” and admired so many of the things he was saying. He promoted black wealth and prosperity, which is a topic that isn’t addressed by many artists of today. He also talked about how far an individual can go if they continuously work hard.

This man started from humble beginnings and became a selfmade millionaire in a matter of years. He was one of the most inspiring representations of where hard work can get you in life.

Nipsey grew up in the poverty-stricken Crenshaw neighborhood in Los Angeles. Once he started getting successful in music, he invested in his community. He “bought back the block,” so to speak. This is “the dream” to many people who come from poor, marginalized communities. Getting rich and giving back to the neighborhood you came from is a narrative that is praised in hip-hop, and Nipsey embodied that to the very fullest. He was a beloved member of the Crenshaw community. News reports flooded in this week full of community members talking about how deeply Nipsey loved his neighborhood and how willing he was to help it become a better place.

One of the main things I will remember about Nipsey comes from a YouTube video he made to promote “Victory Lap.” In the video, the focus is placed on an elderly black cus-

8

THE GRAPE

todian who had worked at Nipsey’s store for thirteen years.

He expresses how much love he has for Nipsey and his family for treating him so well over the years he worked at the store.

Then, Nipsey pulls up in a Maybach S600 and starts talking to the custodian. You can immediately tell the custodian and Nipsey have a close relationship based on how they interacted with one another. They call each other “neighbors,” and Nipsey asks if the custodian is okay. After the custodian says he is fine, Nipsey randomly invites the custodian to travel with him for the day. It turns out that Nipsey has planned to treat this custodian to a day entirely dedicated to him. Every service that is provided to the custodian was entirely on Nipsey’s tab for the day. First, he takes the custodian to an upscale barber shop to get a fresh haircut. That is just the beginning. Next, he takes the custodian to the jewelry store and lets him choose any jewelry he likes. The custodian picks out what he likes, and Nipsey pays for all of it. And it doesn’t stop there. After doing all of this for the custodian, Nipsey takes him to a Tom Ford store to get a suit. Once the custodian gets the designer clothes he likes, Nipsey proceeds to take him to a high quality dinner. Things get even more heartfelt as the video continues. One of the biggest critiques of rap music in general is how hypermasculine everything is. Nipsey, who was clearly comfortable with his masculinity, pays for the custodian to get a Mani-pedi. That’s right. Gangster rapper Nipsey Hussle paid for his custodian’s mani-pedi. As ironic as that seems, it was a beautiful thing to see. They were just chilling in the nail shop, comfortably enjoying getting their nails cleaned. As the video concludes, the custodian talks about how amazing of a day he had and how grateful he is for Nipsey to randomly show him that much love. The best part about all of this was the fact that Nipsey never bragged about buying the custodian anything. He just did it without hesitation because he felt that in his heart, that was the best thing to do. That was the type of person Nipsey was. He was a proud advocate of his community, and he expressed it through his actions and his music. I’m going to miss him, and my thoughts and prayers go out to his wife, Lauren London, and the rest of his family. Rest in peace.

SleepWalker 2019 Freshman List

BY AMARI NEWMAN AND BRENNAN RYAN, THE SLEEPWALKER TEAM | CONTRIBUTING WRITERS We are SleepWalker Radio and you should tune into our radio show on Tuesday nights at midnight on 91.5fm or wobc.org. We listen to a lot of rap and watch a lot of rap music videos. Right now XXL is the only relevant hip hop outlet that puts out a “Freshman List,” which is a list of the best artists relatively new to the rap game who have gained a lot of attention in the most recent year. Unfortunately, every list that XXL has put out seems to be more and more out of touch with what actual fans of rap in our age range listen to. They also only highlight rappers in their list, even though so much more goes into the overall content put out by these artists including the beats they rap over and the music videos they put out.

So we’ve put together our own list of rappers, producers and videographers in the rap game that’s more in touch with what people are listening to and want to experience.

Splurge @ssgsplurge1 Splurge, from Arlington, Texas, is quickly blowing up.

One of the youngest (he’s 17) and rawest people in the rap game, Splurge gets his beats almost exclusively from Beat

by Jeff and Beat by Six7. His songs normally consist of him just going bar after bar over some hard ass drums and 808 patterns. Splurge doesn’t do hooks or choruses. He gets in the booth and spits strictly trap and street shit, resulting in some of hardest content put out in 2k18. Listening to his music really just makes you feel invincible. Like, if you commit any crime while listening to Splurge you’re almost never ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF gonna get caught beARTISTS’ SOCIAL MEDIA cause it just gives you the energy to get away with anything.

This past year, Splurge began to blow up in the underground and mainstream community, as evidenced by rappers like Lil Uzi Vert and Chance The Rapper doing the #woah dance to his songs. He only has one feature on his released projects -- from Q da Fool -- but Splurge’s

intense flow can be heard on tracks with YungManny and S3nsi Molly. He’s like if Lud Foe was from Texas and started rapping with a Hoodrich flow over slower but harder beats.

Splurge is steadily getting more and more recognition in the rap community and is gonna be on some big moves this summer.

Songs by Splurge to listen to: “Free Granny,” “No Deal,” “Tear it apart,” “UK Talk” MIKE @t6mikee M I K E , from Brooklyn, New York, is operating on a whole different wave than the vast majority of people in the rap game, and the world. Choosing from an extremely diverse array of production ranging from old soul samples, piano riffs, and strange samples in odd time signatures, MIKE can rap over anything and everything. All of his music just sounds so different, in the best way possible. When you listen to him, you can hear the feelings and passion he puts into every verse.

MIKE’s been dropping music since 2015, and has a pretty extensive discography with each project having its own unique vibe, but still finding a way to fit perfectly within his overall body of work. Founder of the [sLUms] collective, MIKE has collaborated with a large group of artists in New York, and the general rap community, with people on similar wavelengths as his, including acts like King Carter, Wiki, Mehdane, Pink Siifu, Sporting Life, Navy Blue and 6press.

At the moment, MIKE is one of the most recognizable people in his scene, and has become, in a sense, the face of a movement in rap’s underground that is steering the community towards more soulful and experience-driven music.

Songs by MIKE to listen to: “Rottweiler,” “God’s with me,” “Nothin to Me,” “God save the Queen” BbyMutha @bbymutha Bbymutha, from Chattanooga, Tennessee, is just raw as hell. She be saying the most wildest, realest shit in a way that makes you be like damnnn whenever you hear one of her verses. She’s really one of the best in the game at talking her shit. You can feel her confidence and knowledge in every word she says. Her ear for good music has lead to her rapping over any and every type of instrumental, but she’s still got unlimited songs of her fucking up some hi-hats and 808s.

She’s been putting out music from as far back as 2012, but started getting a lot of attention over the past year. BbyMutha has worked with artists like Rico Nasty, LSDXOXO and La Chat. She’s currently on tour with Earl Sweatshirt, MIKE, and Black Noise (which hopefully means future collabs). BbyMutha has one of the rawest energies in the whole game, and it seems like the rap community is quickly realizing this, if they didn’t already.

Songs by BbyMutha to listen to:

“Heaven’s Little Bastard,” “Dragon,” “D.I.Y.,” “Playtime” YungManny @ItsYungManny YungManny from Hilmeade, Maryland, is another one of the rawest and youngest (he’s 15!) people in the game.

He uses the rapid “Maryland flow,” delivering a plethora of stand-alone bars over dark piano samples with hard ass drums behind it. YungManny honestly might have the best punchlines coming out of the “DMV flow” scene. The “DMV (D.C, Maryland, Virginia area) flow” is a style of rapping pioneered and popularized by rappers, almost all from Maryland, who design their verses to be filled with stand alone bars that follow one another rapidly, often cutting the tail end of each one off. When’s it’s done right it can really get to crankin.

YungManny makes references to all types of off the wall shit ranging from Roots, viral memes, WWE, and, like, every Disney movie/show you can think of from the 2000s.

It’s hard to listen to any of his songs and not die laughing at something he says in it. It’s like every song is just him joanin on someone over a hard ass beat, and it just happens to rhyme. He can sing too.

Over the last year YungManny has released 6 tapes and a plethora of singles and features. Most of the projects Manny releases have very few features, but he is a frequent collaborator of Xanman (Free Xan) who has also become a punchline heavyweight in the DMV area. He’s also worked with upcoming rappers MoneyMarr and Splurge. It seems like the more music YungManny releases the more popular he becomes, so if you haven’t heard of him already you probably will soon.

Songs by YungManny to listen to: “W.O.F.”, “Bonfire pt. 2,” “All my guys are ballers,” “I’m Yungmanny” ANKHLEJOHN @ANKHLEJOHN ANKHLEJOHN, from Southeast, Washington D.C., has established his own very distinct sound.

Often talking his shit over production filled with dark samples that sounds like an evil Madlib produced them, ANKHLEJOHN has developed a grimey flow that sounds like he’s on the verge of slapping the shit out of someone. When you listen to his music you feel like you’re with him on the block hitting a jack as he describes his surroundings to you and the wild ass adventures he casually goes on daily.

ANKH has released at least 11 projects in the last 2 years and most of them have one or no features, only really collaborating with other D.C. artists including Raheim Supreme and The Khan. He’s already garnered respect in the DMV area and it’s spread up the East Coast to New York too, so expect to start hearing about ANKHLEJOHN soon.

Songs by ANKHLEJOHN to listen to: “God S**t,” “Round 2,” “First Class,” “UUV.” Lil Xelly @lilxelly Lil Xelly, from Rockville, Maryland, has recently flooded the rap game with an avalanche of content. He’s like 2017 Chxpo from Maryland. This past year Xelly has put out more than 30 projects and 260 songs, working with some of the hottest producers in the underground including Maaly Raw, DP Beats, Sparkheem, Noir Brent, Danny Wolf, nedarb, Chinatown, StoopidXool, Grimm Doza and Levitatingman.

He’s got that “Maryland flow” with quick deliveries of a bunch of stand alone bars that follow one another rapidly.

He spits every verse like he’s the last fool in a cypher whose been eagerly waiting his turn. His intense delivery over his extremely wide and diverse selection of beats is just a great combination, like he really be spitting over literally anything and it cranks.

This last year, Xelly has worked with budding underground artists like Warhol.ss, Chxpo and The Khan, along with underground legends like P2TheGoldMask and Sickboyrari (Black Kray). Xelly’s got so much released content out there that people can’t help but come across it. His following is steadily increasing and I can see him really blowing up soon.

Songs by Lil Xelly to listen to: “Vengence,” “Tony,” “Morgue,” “Stamina,” “V6” Tisakorean @cudyman Tisakorean, from Houston, Texas, is probably the weirdest and most interesting person in the rap game right now.

He makes some of the most ignorant dumb shit out here that just gets to crankin for no reason. Honestly, if you listen to his music and don’t immediately love it then it’s just not for you because it’s really that dumb ignorant ass shit that might just go too hard for you, and that’s very understandable.

His diverse, unconventional and unusual delivery is kinda weird, but goes for some reason. Also, his use of layered ad lib tracks of him screaming “ayeee” and “workkkk” with his whole heart and soul accompanies his wild ass bars perfectly. He reminds me of a toned down Dankgod.

This past year, Tisa has established a solid following, at first due to a dance he started called the “Dip” that was pretty big in Texas, and his weird but lit Instagram. He took down most of his posts, but there was a period where Tisa’s instagram was full of videos of him dancing in a random area with no music and freestyling, while dressed strictly in Aeropostale. After a few of his videos went viral, Tisa started to get noticed for his musical style with Lil Uzi Vert remixing his “Dip” song. Since then, he’s dropped songs with 10.K Caash and Kenny Beats, and has previewed content he’s worked on with A$AP Ferg, A$AP Rocky and Chance The Rapper on his Instagram. Tisa makes all his beats, not only showcasing his versatility, but also assuring that you really get his full vision when you hear his music. You definitely need to check this guy out because he’s got a good team behind him and he’s probably gonna blow soon.

Songs by Tisakorean to listen to: “But Not Wheat,” “Brush my teeth,” “Pat yo weave,” “Justice League,” “Bagel Chips”

9

COMIC BY GRACE KIRK

12

Mudd Art History: John Pearson’s Flip Flop Paradox A

BY DEVIN MCMAHON AND P.J. MCCORMICK | FEATURES EDITOR, ARTS AND CULTURE EDITOR In a new column by your favorite Features and Arts + Culture editors, Devin McMahon and PJ McCormick, we conduct research to ascertain the history and context of some of the pieces in Mudd Library’s eclectic collection of art.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SOPHIE JONES We’d reached a roadblock; John Pearson, the artist whose piece Flip Flop Paradox A hangs in the stairwell between the first and second floors of Mudd library, was unfamiliar with his own piece. Given Pearson’s copious oeuvre, we’d soon find, this wasn’t all that odd, but for the moment, we were stuck. For the first edition of our new column, Devin and I had selected Pearson’s large Tetris-block-esque sculpture, and after some digging, found that he was a retired Oberlin professor still living in town.

A few quick emails with the Art Department later, and we were in touch with Pearson’s daughter, who helped us set up an interview at his Oberlin home and studio. But once we had found his home -- no easy task, it turned out, as Devin and I were apparently blind to a building we’d each walked by a million times, even though it sits right between the Apollo and Slow Train -we floundered to find a new direction for our interview. Pearson had no memory of the work, or apparently any of the others scattered around Oberlin: “I would [tell you about Flip Flop Paradox A], but I don’t even know what you’re talking about.

There’s stuff all over the place but don’t ask me where it is, I just let people borrow it and then I forget about it.” In retrospect, this was probably about as apt an introduction as one could get with

Pearson, a frank, intelligent, principled (and slightly cranky) career artist and teacher, who was generous enough to share his time and talent with the Oberlin community, and luckily, with Devin and I. Although we found little on Flip Flop Paradox A itself, Devin and I were fortunate enough to sit down with Pearson in his impeccably organized and designed studio and home (hidden behind the College Street building’s brick facade), and hear about the life and process of one of Oberlin’s most prolific artists.

How’d you end up in Oberlin?

“Well I was at the Institute of Art in Cleveland. I had been living in Canada. I was kicked out of this country for visa reasons.

I don’t remember now, but the state department said, ‘Get out,’ I said, ‘Fine,’ so I went to Canada. They said I had to go back to England, to my country of origin, and I said, ‘I’ll go where I want to go,’ so I went to Canada, and then after two years, I was able to apply to come back to the States, so I just came back through a formal channel.

What were you doing in Canada?

“Same as I do anywhere: make art. The Canadians have a socialized system of supporting the arts, like in England. It’s not like the States where it’s all about money and competition and control and crap like that. They just expect art and want art to be made and to be on public view.”

So then why’d you come back to the States & Oberlin?

“This is the center. This is where any progressive ideas were being developed and where you can do anything. People don’t even blink. In England...there’s so much regulation, I guess because it’s a small country. I found it ridiculous for a country of that size to be arguing about every little detail, it’s ridiculous.

In the States, it’s like, whatever you want to do. You do what you want to do, but if you do anything that’s going to hurt other people you’re going to get taken to task.

Nobody will look at you stupid if you do something different; they kind of get curious. And I kind of like that openness.

You discover things that people are doing here that you’ve never seen before or have never considered doing yourself. It’s a bigger country, there’s more opportunity. And, frankly, there’s a hell of a lot more money here. It all revolves around money, eventually it comes back to that bottom line, and there’s a lot more money here. And a lot more people that have their own ambitions and visions of the way things could be. It’s much more open. There’s a lot more going on.”

Did your art change here?

“Probably just a lot bigger. I mean it’s constantly changing for all kinds of reasons. The thing about the States is there’s a lot of sophistication here. Companies and communities are much more aware and want art around, so it just gets supported. In England, everybody expects everything for nothing. [Mimicking] ‘Hey, we like that painting, can you give it to us?’ No, I won’t give it to you. I like your coat, will you give it to me?”

What about Oberlin specifically? How his living in this community affected your art?

“Well, I’m sure it has. I don’t think about it. I just do what I want to do. I just got to a position where I have independent means, and so I can do what I want to do. Sometimes I do absolutely nothing, because that’s what I want to do. Nothing! Other times I’m very actively involved. I’ve been involved with education all my life, so I’m constantly involved in some way in teaching or helping students. I don’t actively go looking for it, it just somehow comes looking for me. I just do what I want to do.”

“Just studio classes. I have taught lecture classes, art history classes, in terms of current issues and things like that, just when I felt like it wasn’t being offered by the art history department.

I’ve always taught what I thought students weren’t getting at Oberlin. There’s a lot going on in Cleveland. Cleveland is an incredibly rich and fertile city in terms of its cultural involvements.

It’s not by chance that it has one of the finest art museums in the world. It doesn’t just happen. It’s because people are really engaged. And there’s a lot of money here, made in all kinds of ways, primately in industry. And the people that are involved in that are also pretty sophisticated in terms of the arts. They’ve developed an interest in the arts. So over the years, it’s just kind of grown. I mean the Cleveland Orchestra is known all over the world. It’s not just some funky orchestra in a little town, it’s a world renowned orchestra. There’s all kind of things like that.

And why it happens in Cleveland, I think it’s because it’s pretty open. People have got open minds. And there’s a lot of money in Cleveland from all kinds of industries. I was kind of surprised when I first discovered Cleveland. I thought it’s a pretty great place. A great place to live. I mean, a lot of people through the country think: Cleveland - a dirty industrial town. They have no idea. People are constantly surprised by Cleveland. People will come visit me from New York and Europe or Japan and just be surprised about how the city was, what it had to offer. Think of the Cleveland Museum of Art. How many museums are like that? You gotta go to New York or London to find museums like that.

Cleveland is sort of laid back in a way. It doesn’t go around bragging about itself. A lot of cities go about bragging about themselves, and they can’t deliver. Cleveland can deliver. It does it’s thing and doesn’t think it’s out of the ordinary. It doesn’t think anything’s extraordinary. It’s just the way things are supposed to be. I’ve [also] never had difficulty meeting anyone I wanted to meet and discussing ideas I wanted to discuss ideas with. It just seems pretty open.”

Who are you inspirations?

“I’m just interested in art period. If I like a work, I just look them up, give them a call, and say, ‘I’d like to come to your studio.’ There’s an idea that people who are well known or artists who are famous are on some lofty plateau, and they’re not.

They’re just like everybody else, they’re just guys trying to do something. And they just want people to be interest in what they do, so it doesn’t matter if it’s Joe Schmo, or the Queen. Interest is interest. On the other hand, because it’s Cleveland, Cleveland isn’t put on this map as being as hefty as New York or whatever, so artists in Cleveland are pretty free to do and act however they want, and not worry whether the outside world gives a damn.

Because Cleveland supports its artists. Cleveland is a very rare city in that regard. It really does support its artists. And that’s what I liked about it. There were a lot of artists there because of that, but they really do give support. And it’s serious support, not just lip service. I think that’s probably why we stayed in Oberlin. When we visited the area, my wife just fell in love with Oberlin. So we just went for it.”

Do you recommend students who want to pursue art to move to Cleveland?

“They should move to any place where they see there are things that are of interest to them. They shouldn’t go somewhere because a bunch of famous artists live there, because 9 times out of 10 those famous artists aren’t going to have time for them anyway. And if there are a lot of famous artists there already, who’s going to be interested in you? You have to do what you have to do and then try and see where you can get it located.

It’s a huge world out there and artists live all over the country. “

What impact did teaching have on your process?

“It probably had some, but I don’t even think about it.”

What classes did you teach at Oberlin?

13

Vulnerability and Plant-Delivery

An Interview with High Maintenance’s Ben Sinclair

BY NELL BECK | COPY EDITOR The third season of HBO’s High Maintenance, an anthology show centered around a Brooklyn weed dealer and his assorted clients, premiered on January 17, offering viewers a few more snapshots of The Guy’s antics, and getting a little more personal with it’s protagonist than in seasons past. Cocreators Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld first started filming the show as a Vimeo web series in 2012 (at the time, the two were married, but have since divorced.) Over the years, the show has gained impressive notoriety for exploring, through the lives of all sorts of Brooklynites, the everyday things that are central to being human.

Sinclair grew up in New York and graduated from Oberlin in 2006 after studying dance and theater. He recently took time out of a presumably busy schedule to participate in an interview with The Grape through a voice memo.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

How did your time at Oberlin direct you towards what you do now?

My time at Oberlin taught me how to just roll up my sleeves and make something. There was never really a question of whether you were allowed to be creative at Oberlin; they really wanted you to do it. That’s a pretty stock answer, don’t you think?

What was Oberlin like for you?

Oberlin was a safe place where I could experiment with interacting with people who weren’t from the same town as I was, and that was really the first time I ever lived amongst people for, like, many years that grew up in completely different environments than I did. So, I really learned how to be with a bunch of different people. I learned information, too, but mostly it was a social education.

How do you come up with such a variety of characters for “High Maintenance”? How do you, as a writer and director, get an audience to empathize with and relate to so many different types of people?

I’ve said this in a couple of interviews, but emotionally I kind of collaborate with Katja and the writers, and we start with emotions that feel real to us, and then we build a character around those emotions, or those vibes. Vibes are another source of inspiration. Not necessarily the person, but this thing that everybody knows about subconsciously that puts out this vibe [...] Then we make a moodboard of that vibe, and make a collage of costumes and production design and everyone comes together and tries to make real life happen by concentrating on the details that we have collaged together.

I don’t think I really answered your question, but to be fair it was a broad question. Make sure to write that in your article.

Period.

that’s what I’m really working on most, is how to be vulnerable and not feel shame, because, yes, I can keep stuff to myself, intimate things that I share with other people, and sometimes I take a little too much. So, I can’t really answer the question of how I balance it because I’m still working on it.

But when I find out, I’ll let you know.

“MY TIME AT OBERLIN TAUGHT ME HOW TO JUST ROLL UP MY SLEEVES AND MAKE SOMETHING. THERE WAS NEVER REALLY A QUESTION OF WHETHER YOU WERE ALLOWED TO BE CREATIVE AT OBERLIN; THEY REALLY WANTED YOU TO DO IT. “

How did you prepare to play the role of a weed dealer?

I worked at a plant shop where I sold, you know, non-narcotic plants. I didn’t sell them, they sold them; I was the delivery guy. This other guy broke his- he actually hurt himself with a vase that broke in his hand, and he couldn’t drive anymore, so I drove the truck, and I was doing all the deliveries.

Little did I know that would set me up for the rest of my life.

And, while I was working at that plant shop I also happened be the most satisfied I have ever been at a job- I mean, besides High Maintenance, of course. But, yeah, I was just very genial and gregarious, and loved to talk to everybody I delivered plants to. So I guess that’s how it all started.”

What is it like playing The Guy, who is so central to the plot but so elusive as a character (in that the audience still knows very little about him)?

“It’s like being myself, but I get to show the best sides of myself. What I want people to understand is that between episodes he has all sorts of shit going on, contours, shadow sides, darkness. I want The Guy to be Buddha as much as everybody, but the truth is, he’s just a guy. You know, it’s nice to just show your best side, but in order to accept someone

wholly, you have to reveal all of what is vulnerable-making for you. So it’s bit-by-bit that we get to know him, and I think that’s a way to get you to watch longer, hopefully.”

What changes are you making with the new season? Do you feel like you took more risks with this season than you might have taken previously?

“I think that the risks that I’m taking this season [are] letting more people have creative ownership over the show, and spreading the wealth. We made a great effort in the writing room to not just stay in a room and talk about things that just happened to us, but to go out into the world and be very observant and kind of take little bits and pieces from the real world, and not just what we saw on social media and other ways people experience the world now. For me, directorially, I took risks because I, you know, felt like because Katja and I were no longer a directing duo, that this might be my chance to show what kind of ingredients I bring to High Maintenance as an individual. But ultimately, like 25% into the season what I realized is that we should continue to make this show as we always have been, which is together. So, while it does say, ‘Directed by Ben,’ ‘Directed by Katja,’ ‘Directed by’ our guest directors, it’s a team effort, and the community really rallies around the show. It’s been going on a long time, and we’re all very lucky to make it. Thanks for doing what you do at The Grape. Lata’.

Do you draw from your personal life a lot when writing these stories?

Yes, I do draw from my personal life. That’s just very exciting to me because I’m exploring vulnerability. Men have a real hard time being vulnerable, and I’m so very lucky that I have a project that is a safe space to be vulnerable in, even though it goes out to the masses. Because, while I do put other people’s skin over my emotions, it does feel like, for the most part, I’m not causing more suffering for people. And that’s what the purpose of everything is, right? To do life with creating as little suffering as possible.

How do you balance being open about some things in your work, while keeping other things to yourself?

I just figure there’s nothing to be ashamed about. I guess

14

THE GRAPE

PHOTO COURTESY OF HBO

Combating Fascism with Self Defense is a Necessity

BY SAM SCHECTMAN | CONTRIBUTING WRITER As massacres around the world have gone from a once-every-couple-of-years thing to a once-every-couple-of-weeks thing, I’ve been thinking more about who exactly is wielding all this violence. Whether it was the incel who killed seven in 2014, the synagogue shooting earlier this year, or the recent attack at a Christchurch mosque, there is an obvious ideological thread running through all of these attacks. Fascism is an inherently violent ideology that depends on taking an increasingly small group of people, which has recently been white men, and trimming down the rest of society. Fascism doesn’t stop being violent, ever. It depends on having an outside enemy that must be destroyed, and depends on that outside enemy appearing to be a violent threat. As oppressed people - women, Muslims, Jews, black and brown people, and members of the LGBTQ community - start to gain even some small fraction of power in society, they pose a threat to white men and are thus attacked. Frankly, I’m fucking sick of it. I think it’s time we start showing fascists that minorities and leftists aren’t going to be bullied or killed any longer.

The conversation around these attacks often tends to focus on guns, especially in the United States. Thanks to that handy ol’ Second Amendment of the Constitution, guns have become a culturally significant item in the States, in a way that differs from much of the rest of the world. This means that when mass shootings happen in places like Christchurch, or in Australia in 1996, guns are banned almost instantly with very little fuss. However, I’m not sure that is the correct approach. To be sure, if we banned guns from our society altogether, or if they never existed in the first place, that would fix a lot of the problems around mass killings. It’s a lot harder to kill a lot of people without resistance if all you have is a knife. However, that’s obviously not the case in America.

Now, I want to cut off right away what most liberals think when they hear this argument: “This dork is gonna say that we just need a good guy with a gun to fight against a bad guy with a gun. What is he,

a Republican?”

Trust me, I used to think this way as well. However, the reality is that with gun bans, the same problems that exist in many of our institutions will crop up. Who will enforce these laws? Probably the police or the FBI, two institutions that have been historically shown to be racist. Passing a gun ban may end up with a lot of people of color being disarmed, but, and forgive me for being a tad cynical here, I’m not sure it will target the fascists who are actually behind the vast majority of recent terror attacks.

There are even historical examples of antigun legislation being used primarily to target people of color, with Governor Ronald Reagan passing legislation in 1967 to ban publicly carrying loaded firearms in California. This was done primarily to target the Black Panther Party and their tactics of “copwatching,” which were necessary in order to prevent police violence in black and brown communities.

My point here is that while the concept of “a good guy with a gun vs. a bad guy with a gun” is in equal shares derided and spouted without much thought. The reality is that some groups need to protect themselves from the institutions that prey upon them. It’s not whether the nebulous “good guy” is holding the gun, but whether they have the ability to resist oppressive violence against them in the service of justice.

The Black Panthers were all about justice, serving the community, and trying to resist the institutions that wanted to destroy them. The easiest way to do this was to arm themselves.

However, I do recognize that there are situations where everyone just willy nilly having guns lying around is dangerous and makes people actually feel less safe. For example, having guns lying around in houses

“THE REALITY IS THAT SOME GROUPS NEED TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM THE INSTITUTIONS THAT PREY UPON THEM.” with young children, around people who might use them to hurt themselves, or in places of worship where nobody wants to think about guns and defending themselves rightfully evokes negative responses.

That’s why I also believe that there needs to be a community focus on self defense in general, such as disarming and unarmed combat. When my high school school first introduced lockdown drills around 2014, we began using the ALICE system, which included empowering students to possibly throw books or desks or whatever they could get their hands on at any possible assailants. As unpleasant as it was to

think about having to throw heavy stuff at a possible school shooter to get them to stop, it did make me feel that there was a concentrated effort among school officials to tell us to defend ourselves. It wasn’t just about hiding under desks, but about stopping whoever was trying to hurt us. I would propose that in communities that could be targeted by fascist violence, there be some sort of communitydrafted plan for self defense training. This probably should not take the place of arming the community, but would be a supplement for people who do not want to have the responsibility of actually carrying a gun, which could make them a target of the police or just make them feel unsafe in general. I don’t think it’s wrong to have qualms about gun use, but I do think that they are a useful tool that the right currently has a monopoly on.

So perhaps rather than turning mass shootings into debates about gun policy, the left should focus on shutting down the spread of fascism through deplatforming fascists and fascist-sympathizers online and creating better material conditions so that fewer people turn to fascist ideology in the first place. It’s not the tools that are the problem - it’s who is wielding them.

APRIL 12, 2018

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Oberlin’s Impending Budget Crisis

BY TORIN RECORD-SAND AND DEVIN MCMAHON | CONTRIBUTING WRITER AND FEATURES EDITOR Four weeks ago, the school’s Academic and Administrative Program Review (AAPR) steering committee unveiled its recommended areas of fiscal change for the school’s operational budget. Comprised of students, faculty, and administrators, the steering committee spent the last year analyzing potential fiscal changes to address Oberlin’s structural deficit, which is predicted to reach $52 million in 2024 if no action is taken.

However, what the AAPR steering committee has presented so far are only areas of recommendation for fiscal change. As such, specific changes and how they will be implemented are still unknown at this point, which has caused a stir from Oberlin employees who are uncertain about their futures with the college.

professional staff at other institutions, or any differences in jobs in their comparison,” said Lee. Weir also expressed concern about the way in which the presentation of the numbers seemed to overlook traditional relations between the school and union labor; “usually in negotiations, both sides work to come to agreement about what facts and figures they are going to base their negotiations on, [...] the AAPR report is not that – it is management’s numbers only--the unions had no input at all.” she said.

Professor of History Pablo Mitchell voiced a similar opinion. “As faculty, we are not in a position to be representing hourly workers-- we are not in their position, we’re aren’t making the calculations they have to --and yet hourly workers weren’t on the AAPR steering committee, but faculty were.”

Hourly Workers, Professional Staff, and Unionized Labor The AAPR steering committee suggested substantial cuts to professional staff and hourly workers’ positions, wages, and benefits. A large portion of these proposed cuts have been justified through comparisons to similar schools in Ohio: throughout the presentation, the steering committee offered statistics that implied their desire to move closer to the market average. The AAPR committee claims that, when compared to four other colleges in Northeast Ohio, hourly staff are, on average, paid 34% more. The steering committee also claimed that, compared to national averages of other academic institutions, Oberlin has an “unsustainable” student to employee ratio; currently, there are approximately 1,100 employees to 2,850 students.

There has already been an institutional precedent regarding labor cuts, especially unionized labor. According to Diane Lee, a member of the library staff and President of Oberlin College Office and Professional Employees (OCOPE), over 30 OCOPE positions have been eliminated since the Union’s last contract negotiation with the college in 2016.

Some of these positions have been consolidated, while others were outsourced or cut entirely. Furthermore, just last year the College was found to be in violation by the National Labor Review Board of placing temporary workers in OCOPE positions for longer than OCOPE’s contract with the College stipulated.

Lee and others also expressed concern about how the steering committee gathered and juxtaposed differing statistics regarding labor cuts. Comparisons to other Ohio schools do not appear to take into consideration the fact that Oberlin is completely unlike the other Ohio institutions the school used as a fiscal metric. It is also of note that the committee’s presentation compared faculty and staff salaries against different cohorts of “peer institutions”; oscillating between statistics derived from the “Sweet 16” (which includes East Coast schools) and the “Ohio Four” (which does not).

According to Julie Weir, a Reference & Academic Commons Assistant in Mudd Library, “The colleges they choose [in their statistics] represent schools with much smaller student bodies, situated in more rural areas, and have smaller endowments. [The steering committee] admitted that they used just raw numbers--there was no attempt to ensure they were comparing comparable jobs with comparable skills requirements, years of experience or levels of responsibility.”

Diane Lee expressed similar concerns. “[The AAPR steering committee] compared total payroll costs of hourly staff at Oberlin with four smaller, more rural, non-unionized institutions. They did not factor the actual work performed, the skill and qualifications required, length of service, full or part-time, how many hourly positions are considered

Faculty During their presentation, the steering committee proposed a reduction of 25 full-time equivalent faculty positions through attrition or vacancy. However, the steering committee assured that tenure-track positions and currently tenured positions will not be cut. Still, cuts to non-tenure and tenure-track faculty alike could impact the school’s academic diversity, Mitchell speculated: “I am worried about the effect of these changes on [Oberlin’s] ability to recruit and maintain faculty of color. We’ve had several faculty of color depart in the last couple of years-- how is this going to effect Oberlin’s commitment to faculty diversity?”

16

THE GRAPE

OSCA The AAPR steering committee concluded that Oberlin subsidizes OSCA $1.9 million annually; a financial drain and apparent equity issue they are intent on eliminating. Given that OSCA represents a whiter and more affluent portion of Oberlin’s population than ResED and Campus Dining Services, the committee claims that the revenue generated

by ResEd essentially subsidizes this more privileged sect of students. In the future, they hope to minimize or completely eliminate the subsidies provided to OSCA, rendering the association financially “independent” from the college. See Sam Schuman’s article on page 3 for more indepth coverage of OSCA and the AAPR. Other Changes The school is also looking to cut physical infrastructure, add concentrations in business and global health, restructure Winter Term, and increase enrollment of the College while decreasing it in the Conservatory. More information can be found online at https://www.oberlin.edu/about-oberlin/ leadership-and-administration/aapr.

General reactions Student, faculty, and staff alike took issue with the steering committee’s harmonious vision of ‘One Oberlin’ touted alongside so many troublingly abstract austerity proposals.

“The Board of Trustees uses language implying that we -students, professors, administrators, staff -- are all united in the mission of making Oberlin sustainable, and yet these cuts specifically pit these groups against each other. It’s a false morality where we all have to ‘sacrifice’ something for the good of the community” said Emma Doyle, a 4th year student.

Not everyone appears to be sacrificing equally under the “One Oberlin” model; “‘One Oberlin’ is being used as a way to go after Oberlin’s most vulnerable workers”, said Mitchell, “now it feels like we’re in a position of faculty being pitted against staff, of conservatory being pitted against college, of faculty being pitted against students, of students in OSCA being pitted against students who aren’t. And all under the banner

of ‘One Oberlin.’”

Fourth-year student Rashad Saleh reflected on how AAPR might have made their case more fairly; “I wish they had logically presented the facts in the presentation rather than try to drum up ‘we’re doing this great thing’”. Fourth-year student Becca Chant described the AAPR rollout process as “like a senior who’s been working on their thesis all year and is having a rough time explaining it to their friends [...] it’s impossible for them to turn it into a coherent sound bite that everyone can understand.”

Saleh imagined other avenues for change; “I think that students should organize a forum to generate a formal plan of action that is independently generated by the student body so we can move forward and not just rely on the AAPR steering committee to draft future plans” he said. Doyle agreed: “this is not the only way to make cuts. I wish the administration would see this as an opportunity to make a school structure that is more radical -- we could have open forums, referendums... there could be so many possibilities -- but the way they are doing things right now is just going down a narrow path of neoliberalism and conformism and it’s a real shame.”

Other concerns regarded the future of the relationship between the college and the town, as cuts to hourly wages will likely affect many workers who live in Oberlin or the immediate vicinity. According to fourth-year student Cora Browner, “I think the school doesn’t try to foster dialogue or spaces in which college people and non-college people can exist together, and I think that needs to be taken into consideration -- not just how it affects the students and the faculty, but how it affects people who don’t go to the school.

And I don’t know if it will, but I think that needs to be considered.”

Next Steps The AAPR process continues this month with private and public meetings between the committee and the broader college community. The results of these meetings will inform a revised version of the AAPR’s report to be released in the second half of this month. After this point, the General Faculty Committee will review the the steering committee’s recommendations and vote on them. The steering committee will then deliver their final recommendations to President Ambar.

The Ugly Side of Grindr

BY BEN RICHMAN | OPINIONS EDITOR

I downloaded Grindr for the first time the summer after my senior year of highschool. I was immediately dropped into the deep end of a complex world with its own language and culture; a world filled with sugar daddies, unsolicited dick pics, and flexing headless torsos. The first thing I had to do was find a picture that would be transmitted to all the app users in my area. One single picture to express me as a person. I chose a staged pic my sister took of me while holding a basketball, despite the fact that I hadn’t touched a basketball since being yelled at by my friends for not taking it seriously when we played in middle school. After this there was the lengthy profile, which asks your age, height, weight, body type, race, position as well as tribe (bear, twink, daddy, jock, trans, discreet...etc). This overwhelming process was not something I was ready for and served as a foreshadowing of obstacles to come.

After figuring out the complexities of the profile settings, I was then tasked with writing a bio. This act was extremely different from the construction of the cute and witty Tinder bios I was used to. The Grindr bio is about getting down to business. This is also the place where codes and language become very important, and the place that some of Grindr’s more toxic elements peak their head. It seemed that everyone knew exactly what they wanted. Bios ranged

from “Masc top looking, can host” to the open-ended and simple eye emojis with a question mark. There were also the “Please send face pics, no older than 30” and the shaky at best claims that the person is “just looking for friends.” The latter were usually the first to send unsolicited nudes, which in my experience is not the best way to make new friends.

This straightforward and blunt expression of “preferences” is not immune to the racism, transphobia, fatphobia, and misogony that is present across the LGBTQ community. If anything it only heightens it, as people hide behind the anonymity of the internet to express their unabashed bigotry.

Bios, which specify racial preference, body type, and identity under the guise of personal preference are all too common on Grindr. In many ways Grindr has given people who wouldn’t normally have access to gay bars, or other means of meeting gay people, an opportunity to explore their sexuality and find a community regardless of their geographic or cultural isolation. The anonymity that was designed to give people the opportunity to find other queer people safely and express their identities safely is also used to freely express the bigotry that many people already face in queer spaces.

The backlash over the inclusion of black and brown stripes on the gay pride flag at Philadelphia’s pride parade is a recent example of the often ignored undercurrent of racism in queer communities, usually perpetrated by white gay men who fail to see that the discrimination that queer people face from heteronormative society doesn’t make the queer community immune to internal prejudices. The inclusion of the stripes was sparked by complaints of racial discrimination at Philadelphia gay bars, which only added to the general lack of inclusion many people of color feel in white queer spaces. This goes alongside the white washing of LGBTQ history, which has underplayed the role of nonwhite and non-male activists, and the lack of mainstream attention given towards queer issues that don’t directly affect white gay cis men. All of this is only amplified on Grindr.

When I first started exploring the world of Grindr I was not yet ready for the onslaught of messages, the majority of which were looking for anonymous sex. Most of the layout and language of Grindr is designed for this purpose. The term “Looking?” which can be substituted with eye emojis, and the term “Right now” all imply quick hookups. As someone who was just discovering their sexuality, this cavalier approach to sex was very intimidating and is what turned me off the app. Yet, despite its flaws, Grindr is an important app for a lot of people.

In many ways it is a virtual version of gay cruising culture. Traditionally cruising entails going to a specific location, often in a park or other secluded public space, in order to find other gay men to have sex with. These locations are often informally designated through word of mouth, and the men who met there would use codes and body language in order to determine if the person they were meeting is also looking for sex. The use of these subtle codes have historically been very important to the queer community and have served as a means of survival and safety. These same elements are preserved through Grindr and can serve similar

purposes. The elements of discretion on the app are very important to those that are not out, and are some people’s only way of accessing a queer community. However, at the same time, the surface level connections can exacerbate the lack of intimacy already present in gay hook up culture.

Though I was too scared to ever meet up with anyone on Grindr, I noticed the way it affected people I knew. For some it became an addiction, and fueled unhealthy relationships to sex. One Oberlin student who is active on Grindr here says that “Oberlin Grindr just perpetuates the hookup culture among queer people.” He went on to say,“It’s hard to find anyone who’s looking for more than a random hookup.” This sentiment seemed to be shared by many other active users of the app.

As a cis white user of Grindr, my experience of course differs from others who face exclusion, isolation, and discrimination, sometimes even from fellow Oberlin students.

In recent years Grindr has made an effort to try and combat some of these discriminatory and unhealthy practices by updating features on the app that are more inclusive to non binary and trans users, as well as participating in anti-racist ad campaigns. These efforts are clearly not enough. Grindr can definitely do more to police hate speech on the app. It is clear, however, that the issues within Grindr are representative of larger issues with the LGBTQ community, which cannot be resolved with updated features or ad campaigns.

These issues run deep within the queer community and often go unrecognized by cis white gay men.

“THIS STRAIGHTFORWARD AND BLUNT EXPRESSION OF “PREFERENCES” IS NOT IMMUNE TO THE RACISM, TRANSPHOBIA, FATPHOBIA, AND MISOGONY THAT IS PRESENT ACROSS THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY.” APRIL 12, 2018

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Oberlin Crushes Admin Won’t Publish These Submissions But We Will

BY OBERLIN CRUSH TURTLE | CONTRIBUTING WRITER Hope Plip Bodger is into girls…

Shout out to Plip Bodger for being an amazing friend. You always take the time to catch up with me, even when you have a bad case of pink eye (which as we know is always! haha) Plip Bodger, I honestly shiver when you look at me with those piercing, sticky eyes. I want to slurp up your eye puss like an expensive oyster Plip can CUM(junctivitis) inside me any day of the week!

Plip, in my dreams I plant soft kisses on your neck and nibble on your earlobe. Then I tug on your hair, and mash my lips into yours until our tongues are dancing feverishly.

Your eyes burn red, from passion and bacterial conjunctivitis. Some yellow discharge from your goopy goopy eyes touches my cheek, and I feel the place between my thighs start to tingle. When our lips finally separate, I can’t take it anymore. I tell you to go get a condom, and you huskily reply, “I don’t know where they are because the infection in my eyes has caused irreversible damage to my vision.” I giggle, find us a condom, and we make sweet love all night. I wake up spooning your naked body, with a slight itch in my eye.

YooHoo: The New Yee Haw The Signs As Antidepressants

BY BROTHER GOOSE I CONTRIBUTING WRITER

BY GRACE SMITH I CONTRIBUTING WRITER

In the calendar year 2017, the truly cool were wearing cowboy hats. They accompanied this quirky accessory with beers, shirts unbuttoned too low, string lights in the background etc. With the start of the 2018 school year, the hat continued to gain momentum. And then, right when it was at its peak, a well-timed caption pointing out the correlation between the hat and campus social capital by Oberlin sophomore Anna Aubry catalyzed the decline of an institution. All of a sudden, tweets criticizing cowboy hats were in, but the hats themselves were not. We laughed at the trend, discreetly changed our profile pictures, leaned into it ironically. But when the dust cleared (cowboy pun) and the tweets too became played out, nothing was left to fill the void. Now how would we be able to tell who is cool, besides every other part of the way people present themselves and act?

Prozac - Libra, Virgo (most common for some reason)

Hey, what’s that?

On the horizon, a beacon of hope.

A mast, actually.

A...pirate mast?

Who’s that standing in the bird’s nest?

It’s King Princess or Lily Rose Depp’s cousin or something, wearing a tricorn hat. I’m gonna say it: she looks hot. And that’s an accessible enough type of hat that now I will be getting one and wearing it a lot. Sorry, Butch Cassidy! Your days of string light photo ops are over! Pirate Booty cartoon pirate man? You’re up!

18

Zoloft - Cancer, Pisces (users often have mood swings, are a lot Wellbutrin - Scorpio, Aries (may for their friends to deal with) increase libido) Cymbalta - Capricorn, Aquarius (may cause emotional blunting) Paxil - Leo, Sagittarius (may increase extroversion) Trofranil - Taurus (may increase drowsiness) Lexapro - Gemini (may cause akathisia = inner restlessness)

Point / Counterpoint: Who Shit In The Toilet?

Point: So...Who Shit in the Toilet?

By PJ McCormick

Counterpoint: It wasn’t me!

By PJ McCormick

Hello, hi. Good afternoon. Yes. Hello. You’re probably all wondering why I gathered you here today. I hate to worry you, but there’s been something troubling me for some time now, and I really feel that it must be addressed. Please, PLEASE wait until I am finished speaking to voice your questions or concerns. I think we’ll all have an easier time if you just let me get it out. No pun intended, of course. Not in this climate.

I’m of the opinion that clear and honest communication is key to a healthy relationship. But what to do when there’s a blockage? Physical or otherwise? And what to do when a blockage specific to one locale-say, our bathroom--snowballs (a slushy, grey-brown snowball) into an atmosphere of distrust, deception, and avoidance?

I’ll cut to the chase: who shit in the toilet? I know someone did. And the reason I know is that it is all full up. Something happened when someone shit in the toilet and later when I tried to flush it the bowl filled all up with toilet water that almost got over the sides. I wish I could spare you from the details, but I feel I wouldn’t be doing my duty as the lead investigator of this developing story if I didn’t inform you that the water is brown, and looks kind of poopy, plus there is, like, toilet paper and pee and stuff.

I should know because I was the last one in there and I saw it all.

The situation was so bad I almost filed an emergency work order, before I remembered that I don’t know how to do that.

So who’s going to step up? Who’s going to claim it? I want names.

Don’t try to Spartacus me with the shit in the toilet. Someone has to have done it, and I would like to know.

I’m not angry! I understand that it’s a very natural function and the toilet is probably the most natural place to act on those impulses. But something went wrong, and the toilet looks wrong, and it is full of poop and pee and toilet water and toilet paper and looks very icky.

Wait. Hold on now. I called this meeting so I could point my fingers, not to see all your fingers pointed back right at me! How could I be the one who shit in the toilet when I was literally the last person to have used the toilet and then flushed it, causing this whole mess!

Sure, when I was in there I shit. But it was a cute, acceptably-sized little shit. That shit couldn’t have caused all this.

In my life, my work, and my shit on this campus, I strive not to take up too much space. I would’ve pinched it off if I had thought that I was creating a potential hazard for our toilet, our bathroom, and, by extension, our relationships to each other.

I’m not exaggerating when I say this is the worst possible situation I could’ve envisioned when I planned this meeting. I never thought I’d see the tables turn like this, but turn they have, and I’m left on the other side, with the big huge overflowing bowl of toilet water and not the faintest idea of how to file an emergency work order.

Plus, I don’t have a license, so I can’t even drive to Walmart to get a plunger to figure this all out, so I’m really having a hard time seeing how I could be the one who shit in the toilet. Like, just put two and two together, guys. I didn’t shit in the toilet. Or I mean, I did. But I didn’t shit in the toilet. Not like that.

Ok, if you’re going to keep being like this, I’m going to take a walk.

This house is toxic, and I need to visit East to use their bathroom.

Brawl Turns Deadly

BY SEYMOUR BUTTS, ESQUIRE I CONTRIBUTING WRITER A fight broke out last Sunday evening over an item in the South Free Box. Third-year friends Mimi Berkowitz and Jackie Callahan got into an argument over a discarded pair of men’s paint-splattered Carhartt jeans, which escalated into a physical altercation and ultimately Jackie’s death. Leah Stevenson, OC ‘20, was with the girls at the time and witnessed the brawl. “It was crazy,” recalled Leah. “They were both rummaging through the box and grabbed the jeans at the exact same time. Then they got this look like they were possessed and refused to let go.” This apparently led to a screaming match between Mimi and Jackie, with Mimi claiming that Jackie “wasn’t Obie enough to pull off the Carhartt aesthetic,” and Jackie calling Mimi a “normie skank.”

The fight eventually turned physical, and it was at this point that Leah tried to separate the two girls. “I pointed out that the pants were at least three sizes too big for either of them and there was literally a rip across the ass, but they wouldn’t listen. That’s when Mimi attacked me.” Leah brushed aside her bangs to reveal an ugly gash where Mimi hit her with her Dansko clog. “That’s when I fled to get help.”

By the time S&S arrived on the scene, Jackie was dead and Mimi, and the Carhartts, were nowhere to be

found. While Jackie’s exact cause of death is unknown, one witness, speaking on the condition of anonymity, claims that she saw Mimi strangle Jackie. “I stepped out of the South Lobby bathroom—it’s the only place I feel comfortable pooping—and saw the fight myself. One girl was pinned down and refused to let go of the pants, even as the other was wailing on her with her Danskos.

Finally, the girl with the clogs grabbed a pair of highwaisted corduroys from the Free Box and wrapped them around the other’s neck.” When asked why the witness chose to remain anonymous, she admitted that it was because she actually took the corduroys from the box later that night and didn’t want them to be taken as evidence.

While Leah is mourning the death of her friend, she is not entirely surprised by what happened. “This isn’t the first time my friends have attacked each other for Free Box clothes. This guy Sam bit me last year when I found an oversized sweater that he wanted.” Leah is not alone; a survey taken last month found that one in five students had either witnessed or been involved in a physical altercation over a Free Box item. Nonetheless, she still believes that what happened was a senseless tragedy, especially because Mimi already owned two

pairs of Carhartt pants and Jackie was getting a clothing allowance from her parents every month. “Also,” she reminded us, “the pants literally had a gaping rip across the ass.”

In the meantime, Mimi’s whereabouts are still unknown, and S&S believes that she is still hiding out in South. They have tried to lure her out by planting her favorite types of clothing in the Free Box, but as of yet, the ironic “Oberlin Dad” t-shirt, flannel button-down, and canvas overalls have not been able to draw her out.

S&S is urging students to contact them if they see a girl in South with blood-stained Carhartt jeans and exposed buttocks.