VOL. 69 NO. 4
OBERLIN’S ALTERNATIVE STUDENT NEWSPAPER
EST. 1999
DECEMBER 6TH, 2019
Front Cover: Leah Yassky Back Cover: Leah Yassky Editors in Chief: Molly Bryson P.J. McCormick Managing Editor: Charlie Rinehart-Jones Visual Arts Editor: Molly Sheffield
December 6th, 2019
Section Editors: Serena Zets - Features Damani McNeil - Arts + Culture Ben Richman - Opinions Jane Wickline - Bad Habits
Layout Editors: Maddie Shaw Sam Schectman Amy Baylis Anna Harberger Photo Editor: Clio Schwartz
Copy Editors: David Mathisson Maisie Sheidlower Miriam Khanukaev Levi Dayan
Staff Writers: Jason Hewitt Grace Smith Cameron Avery Fionna Farrell
Duality of 1965 Commencement: MLK Jr. and Secretary of State Dean Rusk BY SERENA ZETS | FEATURES EDITOR
Illustration by Charlotte Price
This is a part of the continuing Features column profiling radical past speakers and faculty of Oberlin College and Conservatory. If there’s a figure you want to be profiled, submit them to The Grape
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. giving the 1965 Commencement address at Oberlin College, Courtesy of the Oberlin archives In 1965, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters, and he gave Oberlin’s Commencement Address entitled “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.” 1965’s Commencement is one of historical significance for Oberlin because of MLK Jr., but he was not the only national leader recognized. Then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk was honored too. It is clearly ironic that Dr. King, who called for peace negotiations and advocated for an end to the Vietnam War, shared the Commencement stage with Secretary of State Rusk, one of the principal drafters and theorists of foreign policy that escalated that tragic war. Less than two years after their joint appearance at Oberlin’s 132nd Commencement, MLK Jr. made his famous “Beyond Vietnam” speech at Stanford University, in which he fully denounced the Vietnam War. In that speech, he stuck to his nonviolent roots and argued that U.S. power should be “harnessed to the service of peace and human beings, not an inhumane power [unleashed] against defenseless people.” In MLK Jr.’s Commencement speech at Oberlin in 1965, entitled “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution” he urged and called on Oberlin graduates to uphold the values of “embracing peace,” “working for peace”, and “opposing the waging of war and killing of other human beings.” Dr. King called on graduates “to work passionately and unrelentingly to get rid of racial injustice in all its dimensions” and “to get rid of violence, hatred, and war.” Meanwhile, Secretary of State Rusk’s speech was entirely apolitical. In it, he offered generic advice to graduates entering the professional world and did not address his role in the Vietnam War or student demands that had been placed on him that Commencement Weekend. The irony of this pairing was not only evident in the content of their remarks, but in the reception they received from students. MLK Jr. made multiple appearances in Oberlin over the years, and the 1965 Commencement was not his first visit to Oberlin; he had previously visited in 1957, 1963, and 1964. During his 1964 visit, only his second appearance after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, he gave a speech on integration efforts to over 2,500
students, faculty, and community members. This speech, “The Future of Integration,” sparked campus-wide conversation and caused faculty members to nominate him to receive an honorary degree the following year. Oberlin’s Doctorate was King’s 19th honorary degree. The only concession Secretary Rusk made to student activists was agreeing to a brief meeting with them the night before Commencement. The meeting occurred as part of an agreement between Oberlin’s administration, Rusk, and the student body. Graduate Marcia Aronoff ’65 recalled, “[We] met with Rusk the night before to argue with him about the mistaken foreign policy of the United States...[and] with considerable hubris felt we could convince him of the inappropriateness of our position in Vietnam.” (Historical Note: At Oberlin, Aronoff served as co-chair of Oberlin Action for Civil Rights and as one of the co-founders of The Oberlin Sanctuary Project. She then went on to serve as Chief of Staff for Senator Bill Bradley before becoming Senior Vice President of Programs at the Environmental Defense Fund). Many students had reluctantly planned to miss MLK Jr.’s Commencement Address in their attempt to protest Secretary Rusk’s presence, but by meeting with him the night before, they were able to attend the event. One can hope that the remarks MLK Jr. gave on that day in 1965, and his interactions with Oberlin students, stayed with him in his last years of life. There remains a littleknown strange and fatal final connection between MLK Jr. and Oberlin College. James Lawson was a civil rights activist and graduate of Oberlin’s Graduate School of Theology. While at Oberlin, one of his professors had introduced him to MLK Jr., sparking an activist partnership. In 1957, King urged Lawson to move to the south telling him, “Come now. We don’t have anyone like you down there.” Years later, Lawson extended an invitation to MLK Jr. in 1968 to come join him as he organized with and for black sanitation workers on strike in Memphis. While in Memphis, MLK Jr. delivered his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech and was then assassinated. article continued on next page...
“Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Carr at Oberlin College’s 132nd Commencement” by Arthur E. Princehorn
MLK Jr. ended his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech by stating, “Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that
we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” While it feels like we have countless impending things to fear, we must try to evoke MLK Jr.’s fearless and tenacious nature in our approaches to not only our activism, but in living our lives. To recall the title of MLK Jr’s 1965 Commencement Address, we must “remain awake through a great revolution.” Just like he did. ◊
Installation Memorializes Those Lost to Israeli Military Violence, Sparks Vitriol BY MATT KINSELLA-WALSH | CONTRIBUTING WRITER This past Wednesday, Oberlin Students for a Free Palestine installed a memorial to the thirty-four Palestinians killed by Israeli rocket fire in Gaza the week before. Consisting of a wooden sign explaining the installation’s purpose, thirty-four small black flags marked with the names of the victims, and a larger Palestinian flag, the memorial commemorated those lost, and reminded Oberlin students of the human stakes of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Palestinians living in Gaza are subjected to daily violence at the hands of the Israeli state, whether that be loud and explicit– a rocket’s explosion– or the constant degradation and deprivation of living under an apartheid regime. However, on American campuses it can be easy to forget the visceral cost of this violence due to our geographic and emotional removal from Palestine. As such, the installation asked Oberlin students to consider the people that are regularly killed by the Israeli government as part of its nearly thirteen year-long siege of the Gaza Strip. It asked us to begin interrogating our own complicity, as residents of a country that provides roughly 3 billion dollars in aid to Israel every year, in their murders. Israel heralded these rocket attacks as “targeted strikes” against Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militants, and yet casualty figures released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health demonstrate that the primary victims were civilians. Of the thirty-four killed, eight were children and roughly half were civilians. When the more than eighty-five injured are factored into this ratio, it’s clear that those who bore the brunt of these attacks posed no military threat to Israel, but were civilians going about their day. How then, can the Israeli Defence Force claim that these were pinpoint strikes aimed at militant leaders?
December 6th, 2019
Rockets, like most ordinance, operate by criminalizing space–in this case, around Palestinians suspected of terrorism–and collectively punishing all those within it. Israel’s first strike in this salvo ostensibly targeted Baha Abu al-Ata, a PIJ leader, but, more explicitly, hit his bedroom. It killed Abu al-Ata and his wife while they slept, and injured four of their children and a neighbor. Similarly, two children, Ibrahim Ayman Abd al-Aal, 17, and Ismail Ayman Abd al-Aal, 16, were killed, along with their father and two other men confirmed to be Islamic Jihad militants, when Israeli rockets impacted their family’s woodshop. In this case, the two brothers’ only crime was inhabiting the same space as their father. In Gaza, the military myths of “surgical precision” and “just retribution” are made ridiculous not only by the tactics of the IDF, which include carpet bombings, but also by the geographic nature of the Gaza Strip. As the third most densely populated polity in the world with 42,600 people per square mile (for reference, Manhattan has 66,940 persons/sq. mile) even though Israel purportedly targets “militants” in Gaza, it inevitably kills and wounds civilians guilty only of living alongside them. Furthermore, as has repeatedly been the case, Israel operated with mistaken intelligence in their two days of bombing and assassinated families with absolutely no connection to the PIJ. An Israeli strike on the al-Sawarka family home killed eight people, including five children, on the suspicion that the home belonged to a PIJ leader who used it to store arms. Soon after the strike, neighbors made it unequivocally clear that the family had no association with the terrorist group. IDF sources suggested that confusion had arisen due to the family’s father, Rasmi Abu-Malhous, sharing a name with a PIJ militant. Similarly, Rafat Muhammad Ayyad, 54, and his sons Islam Rafat Ayyad, 24, and Amir Rafat Ayyad, 7, were on a motorcycle heading to al-Shifa hospital to visit family members wounded earlier in the day’s attacks when an Israeli rocket hit, killing all three. No explanation has been given for their murders. Once again, one must wonder if their only crime was being Palestinian in the Gaza Strip. In many ways, these recent murders of Palestinian civilians serve as a microcosm of Israeli policies towards the Gaza Strip. The now thirteen-year blockade of the Gaza Strip, enacted after the 2007 elections which saw Hamas gaining governmental power, functions by criminalizing an entire region for the terror activities of a few. A form of collective punishment, this blockade is a war crime under international law, and is the reason why many international observers– including even the Conservative British Prime Minister, David Cameron– call the Gaza Strip the world’s largest open air prison. In fact, the IDF justified Baha Abu al-Ata’s assasination using the exact same rhetoric– that he was “a ticking time bomb”– that the the Israel Security Agency (better known as Shin Bet) uses to extrajudicially torture Palestinians. Although torture is illegal under international law, a 1999 Israeli High Court ruling introduced a loophole in which they legalized physical interrogation by Shin Bet in “ticking time bomb” scenarios. Between 1999 and 2017, Shin Bet faced over 1,000 allegations of torture and has been the subject of extensive international comdemnation by international humanitarian bodies, including Amnesty International, for its illegal practices. A 2010 report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions stated that “applying such a scenario to targeted killings threatens to eviscerate the human rights law prohibition against the arbitrary deprivation of life. In addition, drone killing of anyone other than the target (family members or others in the vicinity, for example) would be an arbitrary deprivation of life under human rights law and could result in State responsibility and individual criminal liability.” Both of these violations were apparent in Israel’s recent actions in the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, as Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organization, has observed, Israel has, in conjunction with the bombings, suspended movement in and out of Gaza and reduced the already miniscule fishing zone alloted to fishers in Gaza, thereby only “accentuating the existing policies of domination and fragmentation which Al-Haq and its partners recently recognized as constituting the maintenance of a regime of apartheid.” This article in no way condones the actions of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which fired rockets upon Israel in response and has targeted civilians in the past. Although in large part informative reporting, it does interrogate some of continual processes of dispossession and domination that might instigate armed resistance. This is a complicated issue, with distinct moral valances. Please reach out with any questions. Since the installation went live, SFP and JVP have received death threats and promises of doxxing. It has also been covered on sites such as Breitbart, Fox, Daily Mail, and the New York Post. ◊
A Quick Guide to On-Campus Resources BY SIDNHY CHENG | CONTRIBUTING WRITER Going to college is like being locked in a room full of mirrors. For some, it might feel like you’re really looking within yourself for the first time. It’s scary but necessary to go through this. Figuring out what makes you who you are is all a part of the big process of growing up and becoming an independent person who is ready to tackle the real world. Instead of embracing all the changes and opportunities that college has to offer, some students who feel out of place, lonely, or homesick begin to develop some bad habits that are normalized on campus. Here are some examples of such bad habits: • Refusing to go to Stevie for a healthy, filling meal (not because the menu is bad that day, but because you have to walk up all those stairs!) and instead, sticking to DeCafe, where pizza, cookies, and chips are always Grab-N-Go ready. • Skipping one or more classes frequently because why not?? • Staying up until 1AM working on that history paper in Mudd the night before it’s due even though you’ve known about it since the very beginning of the semester. • Not reaching out when you need it and instead, thinking: “everyone goes through this,” “it’s normal, I’ll be fine, I just need to have a salad,” and “other people have it worse than I do.” Going through change is hard for everyone! Any struggle is a struggle regardless of its intensity-- and it’s so worth it to voice your thoughts, emotions, and bad habits in order to reach out and get the help that you need to feel better. Taking the initiative to take better care of yourself is the first step forward. Luckily, Oberlin is full of on-campus resources available to guide you in this journey towards personal growth: • Having trouble in your classes? If you have free time in your schedule, try visiting room 118 in Peters Hall, where the Center for Student Success and Student Academic Programs are located. Here, the staff will try to work with you to provide you with potential programs to join, services to look into, or events to attend that can benefit your academic goals. • Dealing with miscommunication? Stressed out because of a lagging conflict in your life? Try visiting the Office of the Ombudsperson on the second floor of Lewis House at 68 S Professor St. Regardless of the problem you’re going through, this independent administrator is here to serve you as a neutral party that can, according to their web page, “present options, devise strategies, and help find solutions.” • Feeling excluded? Dealing with discrimination or harassment? The Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion is here to support you. Visit them in room 204 in Carnegie Building to discuss options to further assess the issue(s). • Need to talk to someone? Feeling under the weather? Try scheduling an appointment with the Counseling Center for some mental health support, regardless of what’s bothering you. Or schedule an appointment with Student Health for a check-up or flu shot. You can even just walk in if you’re really in a crisis (Walk-In hours for Student Health are 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 2-3:45 p.m., Wednesday). Luckily, both facilities are located in the same building: Dascomb, Suite B. (Note: Even though they request it, they will see you regardless of insurance coverage). • Feeling out of place? Try visiting the Multicultural Resource Center (MRC) at 187 N Professor St (It’s a big blue house on the same block as Stevie). The MRC provides a safe place for students of color, LGBTQ+ students, firstgeneration college students, etc. They have cool resources such as the Unicorn Lounge, a food pantry, and free professional clothes that you can borrow for things like job interviews! • Don’t know what’s wrong or bothering you? Just need someone, anyone,
to talk to? Located in Wilder 304, the Peer Support Center (PSC) is a safe and open space for anyone to walk in and receive support. You can bring your homework, eat snacks and hang out, or talk to a trained, peer listener! There’s no pressure at the PSC. Change is inevitable. The only way to fully embrace change is to build new things like friendships, routines, and memories. If you don’t know where to start, reaching out could be your best bet. Step one: embrace one of or all of the wonderful and helpful resources that Oberlin has to offer! ◊
The Story and Impact Behind Eli Valley’s Unseemly Art BY FIONA FARELL | STAFF WRITER
December 6th, 2019
rigidity of his father, Valley began to question, explore, and scrutinize the layers of his Jewish identity. He wondered why his father transparently requested the last names of his high school classmates, and why the issue of Israel brought out such a raging fire in otherwise mild-mannered people. Valley determined that it was not his job to put out this fire, but to overshadow it with a greater creative fire of his own—a fire sparked by his age-old fascination with comicdrawing. Naturally, yesterday’s superheroes began to grow into more than just distractions from an overlong sermon. They became tools capable of expressing the concern, anger and frustration that began to fester within Valley over the changes that confounded his identity---all veiled under the Mad Magazine-inspired veneer of daring, unapologetic satire. Take, for instance, his Batman and Robin comic-what Valley refers to as “my way of making superheroes Jewish.” In this comic, young Johnny presses Batman: “‘What’s wrong? Is there a bomb?” to which Batman responds “‘Worse, Johnny! Are you aware that American Jews are on the verge of vanishing completely?!’” Batman then castigates Johnny for sitting with gentiles in the cafeteria, because, to him, this is analogous to “letting Hitler win.” No less subtle is Valley’s permutation of “The Incredible Hulk.” Says Valley: “The Incredible Hulk
Illustration by Eli Valley
Remove all of the words, urgency, and political regalia from his comics and you might find yourself looking at...the crudelycrafted cover of an amateurish death metal album? An ill-placed advertisement for an obscenely low budget horror-comedy? A caricatured depiction of the fiery ramparts of hell? If Eli Valley’s comics remind you of any of the above, fear not---it is to no fault of the reader: it is, rather, a sign that Valley has done his job right. Which may prompt one to wonder: what exactly might this job be? Ask Valley himself, and you’re left to decipher an unabashedly snarky remark. The matter of one’s occupation, after all, is decidedly intimate and complex. But it’s one that Valley explained to us with perfect clarity on November 19th, during his much-awaited sojourn to Oberlin. Valley’s job, quite frankly, is to wake us up. Not graciously, not with the superfluous niceties of tenderness and warmth, but with all the raw and unbridled aggression required to attack quietism, hypocrisy, and inaction at their core. Before we understand how Valley does this, we must first understand why. The son of a devout rabbi of hawkish oversight, Valley was raised in an orthodox Jewish home, where he developed an affinity for reading comics and drawing at an early age. This combination of circumstances would prove greatly fortuitous; in his own words, being a comics reader and the son of a rabbi was kind of a “kinetic combination.” Young Valley did not hesitate to merge these two worlds into one at every opportunity granted him; at his lecture, he reminisced on sitting through bleak sermons with his mind elsewhere, spent imagining superheroes battle it out on opposite sides of the blue ribbon in his father’s Bible. Growing older and galvanized by the
is your average Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde treatment applied to a libeal Jew who becomes right-wing batshit insane on the solitary issue of Israel...Destroys television for antisemites..cutting funding from PBS... starting Facebook groups ‘Palestinians already have a state --
Jordan!’” These comics are prime bait for the ravenous dogs of polarized politics. Yet, no matter how glaringly contentious Valley’s comics are, one critical fact remains: they are all produced out of a deep sense of
Eli Valley (continued)
caring for one’s own, which was brought about by a lifetime of bittersweet endurance and reflection. This runs contrary to the inflamed suggestions of Valley’s critics, who conflate his flagrant rejection of far rightwing ideology with antisemitism. Valley is in fact not a self-hating antisemite. He claims: “We’re in a state of emergency in America, and we’re also in a state of emergency as American Jews. The silencing of diasporic Jews, but, more precisely, the silencing of a secular, non-nationalist majority, has helped pave the way for today, and it’s –why so many of our organizations are inert, complicit, or grappling with how to respond.” Valley’s art is aimed not at reflecting disgust over the advancement of his people, but disgust over the discriminatory trajectory of advancement promoted by extremist movements such as Zionism. Valley champions the advancement of all of his people---and people of other groups and identities, too. In Valley’s eyes, anyone who thrives upon the repression of others should be exposed for what they truly are -- a monster. Hence, no human features proliferate Valley’s comics. Instead, we witness savage, outlandish corporeal distortions of every kind. Enormous heads perched in acute disarray atop microscopic necks. Obscenely oversized, cowish teeth protruding from devilishly snarling half-mouths. On women, Medusian hair cascading over hideously jarred shoulders. On men, no hair at all, or hair comically slicked back into oblivion. All drawn in a blotched unruliness, everything falling into place in an implacable wretchedness. This wretchedness is Valley’s cudgel against the far right. Supremacists and enablers have replaced superheroes as his playthings. After reading Valley’s comics, we might remain paralyzed for a few moments—but nothing longer. Their contents might scare us, their truths might rattle us to our core—as any reckoning or hurricane would. No matter how hard we try to forget them, though, the truth of the matter is that we simply can’t. Through their ink bleeds Valley’s past; in their picture lives our present. Whether it be due to the temerity of their content or execution alike, Valley’s comics remain unshakeable in their power and influence. They scold in their willful intimacy and personal resplendence. They interrupt preeminent disquietude. They penetrate beyond the flesh, into the murky abyss of the human psyche. They leave a mark. And they implore us to leave one, too. ◊
“YET, NO MATTER HOW GLARINGLY CONTENTIOUS VALLEY’S COMICS ARE, ONE CRITICAL FACT REMAINS: THEY ARE ALL PRODUCED OUT OF A DEEP SENSE OF CARING FOR ONE’S OWN, WHICH WAS BROUGHT ABOUT BY A LIFETIME OF BITTERSWEET ENDURANCE AND REFLECTION.”
SleepWalker Radio’s Top Projects of 2019 BY SLEEPWALKER RADIO | CONTRIBUTORS
to turn and it leads to your own bed that SleepWalker Radio (made up of Amari album anywhere at anytime from start to has sheets and covers that are fresh out the Newman, Brennan Ryan, and Max back and anyone touched by its futuristic dryer. Baby Smoove - Flawless: Smoove McGee), broadcasts on Thursday nights sound waves will experience true euphoria. delivers an account of his daily routines at midnight on WOBC. The following are over beats provided by Detroit’s most their favorite records of 2019. Future - The WZRD: Only Future quintessential producers, giving you a can drop a 20 song album where every Lucki - Freewave 3: This project song thoroughly cranks. peek into his city that levels up your inner elevates your mind to the highest plane finesser with every listen. and numbs all of your unwanted emotions, Lucki - Days B4 III: Top tier with each track operating as a different soundscapes from the best producers out Earl Sweatshirt - Feet Of Clay: 15 form of spiritual novacane. there, paired with mesmerizing bars, and minutes of strictly the best bars of 2k19 auto-tuned Lucki. If you listen to any part over mind-bending sounds. It’s physically MIKE - Tears of Joy: Listening to of this project and close your eyes you will impossible to listen to this project and not this album all the way through feels like automatically smile from pure joy. immediately run it back. giving your soul a deep tissue massage. The kaleidoscopic production accompanied by Zelooperz and Black Noise - DySteve Lacy - Apollo XXI: This album extremely genuine and direct bars makes it feels like floating through a bright orange No-Mite: Every track on here is very impossible not to be moved by this album. maze with a lot of twists and turns, but different from the next and it serves as a you subconsciously know exactly where clear reminder that these Detroit legends Toro y Moi - Outer Peace: Play this can make any type of song and have that
shit hit in every type of way. Diamondsonmydick and Hi-C - Reptilian Club Boys Bizzare Adveture: This sounds like you got sucked into a GTA and Smash video game collab and you’re going against 3 Captain Falcons with AKs while on molly. It’s an insane experience. Honorable Mentions: HOOK and nedarb - Bully Xanman - Xan Servin 2 Pi’erre Bourne - The Life Of Pi’erre 4 Larry June and CardoGotWings - Mr. Midnight Young Thug - So Much Fun Young Nudy and Pi’erre Bourne - Sli’merre Blink 182 - NINE ◊
Breaking Out on her Own Terms: an Interview with Sasami BY GRACE SMITH | STAFF WRITER Two weeks ago, ethereal synth and in another band and it was kind of just melancholy guitar reverberated through a hobby/outlet/diary to work on songs the Cat in the Cream. Sasami Ashworth, a [Sasami played synth for the band Cherry 28-year-old Los Angeles based musician, Glazerr until she decided to pursue a solo was touring for her self-titled album. career in January 2018]. Her performance could be epitomized as By the time I had recorded enough “shoegazing with stage presence”. The songs to make an album it was also a genre shoegaze lies at the intersection of natural time to split from that band. It all indie and alternative rock, derived from just happened really organically. the wave of psychedelic groups that spent their performances staring at effects Was there a particular way pedals, heavily detached from the audience. you wanted your music to make SASAMI, however, broke the stage’s three listeners feel? foot barrier, often pausing between songs to I think in a lot of ways I wanted to banter with the audience. make music for myself. Because I had SASAMI wore white eyeliner, partial spent so much time being in orchestra braids, and a pirate-esque shirt with a where you’re a part of a bigger thing corset and short billowy sleeves. She and you’re playing music that you didn’t played a white PureSalem Tom Cat electric write. For years I played in bands and guitar, accompanied by a bassist and worked on other people’s albums, so this drummer. Audience members alternated was the first album that was truly mine. I between swaying or bobbing their neck and think I was really making music to elicit shoulders in what I could best describe as emotions from myself, hoping that if it the “Harkness Two-Step.” This bobbing only was good other people would connect to intensified as electric dissonance swelled in it. And they are! Seems like there’s other her final song, “Free.” I had the opportunity sad-ass horny people out there [laughs]. to sit and chat with SASAMI on the day of her performance. The following interview You’ve really lived a full life: has been edited for length and clarity. scoring for films, teaching music to children, and touring with all How does it feel to be back at a these incredible bands. Out of all conservatory? those experiences, what was your It’s good! I want to go over to the favorite gig? conservatory and see if anyone’s rehearsing Mmm! I liked one tour I did opening or something. Is the conservatory nearby? for King Tuff, because I was opening and [Sasami graduated from Eastman School of playing in the band. So I got to play two me as an elf because it’s a holiday album. You Do you feel pressure to sound Music in 2012, specializing in french horn. shows and I wasn’t tour managing or selling know, it’s on brand. And people are really a certain way now that there’s After this interview, she ended up crashing merch. I wasn’t doing anything except for into freaky shit so it’s a freaky elf aesthetic. money involved? a Brahms 1 orchestra rehearsal in Finney playing music for most of the day and that’s You just have more stakeholders and Chapel.] my ideal scenario. Do you have any tips for young there’s more opinions involved. Not musicians trying to make it? that people who are doing music full SASAMI is your debut album, So I looked at your social media and I would say don’t make music your main time can’t make incredible art! It’s just which is so exciting! What was your saw this “unsettling elf aesthetic”... source of income, right away. Like make sure process for developing it? [Laughs] That’s for the holiday EP that you are keeping your music and your art pure somewhat... tainted or something. It’s That album I actually wrote on tour. I was came out today, lil drmr bb. The imagery is for as long as you can. Because I think once not as pure as when you’re working at a money gets involved, coffee shop and you’re all sad and you’re it changes how making albums at home on the side. you make art. I’m That’s like some other level that’s really grateful that I made hard to replicate, you know, once people this album when I are involved. There’s a lot more things to wasn’t pursuing a think about, that you weren’t thinking solo career. I think of when you were just recording in your that it was really bedroom. Or for me, on tour in hallways honest and I made a and hotels. lot of decisions that I probably wouldn’t make now.
“FOR YEARS I PLAYED IN BANDS AND WORKED ON OTHER PEOPLE’S ALBUMS, SO THIS WAS THE FIRST ALBUM THAT WAS TRULY MINE. I THINK I WAS REALLY MAKING MUSIC TO ELICIT EMOTIONS FROM MYSELF, HOPING THAT IF IT WAS GOOD OTHER PEOPLE WOULD CONNECT TO IT.”
December 6th, 2019
article continued on next page...
Issue #4 Playlist
BY DAMANI MCNEIL | ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR
“Headphones” - Maxo “Labalaba” - Tiwa Savage “Quality” - Roddy Ricch “Toxic” - BbyMutha feat. Kindora “Margiela Madman” - Playboi Carti “Dior” - Pop Smoke “W” - Koffee feat. Gunna “Need U Bad” - Jazmine Sullivan
Interview with Sasami (continued) Where was your song “Not The Time” written? I feel like that was maybe written on this phone. [She checks her notes app]. Written in Birmingham, Alabama! On tour with Cherry Glazerr. I remember because I was listening to a lot of Neil Young and blues, a lot of southern music. That song was originally written as kind of a country-ish song [laughs]. In the studio we decided to go in a more My Bloody Valentine direction. What does your sweatshirt say? [Laughs] Do you know the brand “Comme des Garcon”? It’s like a really fancy designer. Some other random brand made this “Comme des FUCKDOWN”. My sister’s boyfriend gave it to me, they’re young and cool. I don’t know! It’s warm. How do you feel identity has impacted your experience in the industry and your work? If
you’re comfortable sharing. Yeah! I think that identity politics are really tied into my work, because I’m very honest and aware of how capitalism intersects with the music industry. For me, being a really small artist, I don’t really have a lot of capital. But what I do have is my team and musicians that I hire to play with or open for me. I think it’s really important, of course, to uplift POC, queer, and other minority voices. But I also think it’s really important to make sure they get paid. Because yeah you can repost shit on Twitter as much as you want, but if you’re not sending dollars to those people, it’s very echo-chamber-y. Capitalism is built on the backs of white supremacy and that’s just a fact, I think people try to be in denial of that. But the truth is that we do exist in a capitalist society and you do need to participate in that to exist not by choice, but by survival. As I say, clout doesn’t pay the bills. Clout won’t buy me groceries.
“Organic Mud” - Larry June “Big Drip” - Fivio Foreign “No Calabasas” - Lil Bean
Is there anything you want readers to know? For new musicians or people who aren’t musicians at all, I think that the process of making music, improvising, and writing music is really therapeutic and powerful. I think people get intimidated by it. I would recommend anyone who’s reading this to just pick up an instrument, don’t judge yourself and make music freely. Because it should be fun, and joyful, and expressive, or whatever you want it to be! I just think making music is the best feeling, everyone should do it. [HOT TIP: Sasami may have put some of her merch in the free store.] ◊
What We Can Learn From Oberlin’s Trolley BY BEN RICHMAN | OPINIONS EDITOR
December 6th, 2019
This 1913 photo shows a stranded trolley on West College street. The passengers, who were bound for Cleveland, were forced to sleep in the train cars that night. This shift from trolleys to cars reflects a larger shift in This 1887 shows an Oberlin Trolley in action. According to American culture. The growth in highways in the ‘40s, ‘50s, Oberlin College Archives, trolleys had special trains for cerand ‘60s reconfigured our landscape, and oftentimes, resulted tain Oberlin sports teams and clubs. Trolleys would have also in the neglect of lower-income communities. In many cases, have baggage cars, which carried freight and milk cans from highways trampled slums, and in turn, displaced the poor neighboring farms. and changed the layout of cities. In places near where I grew up in northeast New Jersey, highways were also often systems in cities across the country it is clear that cities are built through historic neighborhoods in working class areas, in need of cheap and accessible urban transportation. Could where people did not have the means to fight the destruction more trolleys and trains have survived if the government had of their neighborhoods, unlike the protesters that prevented invested in public transportation rather than highways? It is highways from being built in The Village in Manhattan. This very possible that subsidies on trolley lines and investments building lead directly to the urban blight in these areas and in trains could have prevented the destruction caused by assisted with white flight away from decaying urban centers, highways. Though trolleys are out of date, electric trolley buses and light rails could be the answer. towards expanded suburbs. New highway cities brought about urban sprawl and Investment in better public transportation reduces commuter traffic. Americans in this time period made the pollution and could bring development and access to areas choice to invest in highways and cars rather than trains and that have been neglected. Though it is unlikely we will ever public transportation. Cars represented a new, post World get a trolley, or even a light rail in Oberlin anytime soon, you War II America, based on individual liberties and private can’t blame a kid for dreaming! ◊ property. If you met the idyllic criteria of white America’s picket-fence dream, your family could have your own house, with your own yard, and your own car. Today, highways are an integral part of American society. In reality, highways are yet another example of a system that contributed to white flight and urban decay, and also, caused our dependence on oil, destroyed our environment, and murdered our beloved and cute trolleys! To be fair, trolleys had many faults and won’t solve all of our problems. They caused congestion and many died out from lack of use. However, the symbol of the trolley represents so much more. The death of the trolley was in many ways part of a death of investment in public transportation and a death of investment in urban centers. It was the death of walkability and cheap accessible travel. In the wake of crackdowns on fare evasion, rising ticket prices, and failing public transit Decommissioned trolleys in dump, Los Angeles, 1956
PHOTOS COURTESY OF OBERLIN COLLEGE ARCHIVES
Imagine you want to go out to dinner or a show in Cleveland and you can’t get a ride. No one on Ober is responding and your friend of a friend who has a car is sick of giving it out to people. If you were living in Oberlin at the turn of the century you could take a 25 cent round trip trolley ride straight to downtown Cleveland! The green trolley went through downtown Oberlin and connected our quaint college town to Elyria, Cleveland, and Lake Erie. Oberlin’s trolley line was built in the late 1800s and lasted until 1931, around the time many of America’s trolley lines were being decommissioned due to the Great Depression. There was also a train service that connected Oberlin to California and New York, which lasted up until 1970, when it was torn out and replaced with a bike path. The fall of the train in Oberlin mirrored a national shift from trains and streetcars to cars. Most small towns and suburbs across the country had trolley service up until the 50s and 60s. Trolleys were key components in the expansion of American cities and many of America’s early suburbs were designed around trolley and train lines. In fact, in the 1920’s there were 17,000 miles of streetcar lines that ran across every city in the country, including cities we don’t associate with mass transit like Atlanta and Los Angeles. Often developers would build the train lines first and wait for houses and towns to develop later. Today only 5% of workers in America commute via mass transit. So what happened? The Highway Act of 1956 and the purchase of streetcar transit systems by a conglomerate of oil, rubber, and car manufacturers marked the death of trolleys in America. This decline was further affected by the fact that many trolley lines had set cheap rates, which were no longer profitable. Many urban trolleys were replaced with bus systems, which reduced congestion and could carry more passengers, but others, like the trolley in Oberlin, were lost forever.
Our Current Shade of the ‘80s: Is It All Roses? BY KATHRYN BLESSINGTON | CONTRIBUTING WRITER
DRAWING BY SMER
In early November, Terminator: Dark Fate reigned on Oberlin’s Apollo Theatre marquee as Hollywood revived another 80s hit. In our current 80s Renaissance, many modern films cash in on the nostalgia. It and It 2 either take place in or focus partly on the 80s. The Blade Runner sequel travels back in time to capture the thrill of the 80s classic. Stranger Things on Netflix is nothing more than a pastiche of the era, in its vibrant clash of neon, Dungeons and Dragons, and the introduction of technology. This 80s fever is everywhere in America, and it’s been around for a long time. To quote Jen Chaney, in her article, “It’s 2016. Why Are We So Still Obsessed With the 80s?”: “Our cultural fixation on the Duran Duran decade has now officially lasted longer than the decade itself.” Whether through remakes, sequels, or docudramas, the flashy past has dominated our present. What is at the root of this cultural craze? What is it about our present that makes us focus on the past? Although many factors lend themselves to the 80s trend—the technological boom, the nostalgia, the bold fashion choices—I want to focus on politics. Our current political turmoil causes many to retreat towards the simpler times of cassette tapes and Pacman games, as Hollywood cashes in on cathartic nostalgia. But I would argue the 80s does the opposite, providing not an escape, but a mirror. At its core, the 80s presents a clear parallel to the present, as long as we stop seeing the decade through rose-colored lenses. Let’s paint a picture of the 80s, starting with its most infamous figure: Reagan. Once a Hollywood actor, he was well-liked by voters for his confidence and optimism. Upon taking office, however, he became well known for “Trickle-Down Economics”– rewarding those with money, by letting them keep it, assuming it would benefit others down the financial chain. Of course, that did not happen; by 1982, America was in a recession comparable to the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929 and nine million people were left unemployed. The military, however, gained from his presidency. The Pentagon’s spending would reportedly reach $34 million an hour, free from budget cuts and tax. Reagan’s “Tough on Crime” policies disproportionately affected people of color, ignoring the failure of trickle-down economics and previous drug policy. Despite accumulating more debt in the decade than all our nation’s history, however, Reagan left the office with the highest approval rating since Franklin Roosevelt. In further upheaval, disaffected liberals made up the majority of Reagan’s voters. Known as “Reagan Democrats,” they provided millions of votes for his candidacy because they wanted any kind of change from the norm– no matter if their hopes were later bellied by recession and debt. While Reagan and Trump’s candidacy has glaring differences, the disenchantment of the Republican party remains similar: now, and in the 80s, Republicans feel disillusioned after a period of liberal executive rule, and give seemingly less-establishment right-wing candidates the vote. Today, Trump draws a thin line between him and Reagan by directly quoting him and his policies. In Trump’s 2018 “America First” speech in Davos, Switzerland, the president argued that a strong America would lift the world’s economy: suggesting, a global trickle-down system. By establishing massive corporate tax cuts, he aims “to get the rich to be even richer and therefore the poor will do better. Kind of a world trickle down.” Even though Reagan’s economic policies brought about the worst recession since the Great Depression, as Trump tries to expand the system to a global level “Trickle Down Economics” has been brought back into the political narrative. Trump also perpetuates the narrative of law and order– disregarding the harm that has been done in the past. In
“AT ITS CORE, THE 80S PRESENTS A CLEAR PARALLEL TO THE PRESENT - AS LONG AS WE STOP SEEING THE DECADE THROUGH ROSE-COLORED LENSES“ his 2000 book “The America We Deserve,” Trump states that “Tough crime policies are the most important form of national defense.” Trump is using the law and order narrative of the 80s, and focuses not only on African Americans, but also on another minority group: immigrants. He utilizes 80s rhetoric to paint them as the new “criminals,” stating in an infamous campaign speech: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re bringing rapists.” Detaining more than 52,000 immigrants across the nation, Trump continues to use the prejudiced foundation of Reagan “Tough on Crime” rhetoric. Even Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” is a direct reference to Reagan’s slogan, “Let’s Make America great again.” The “Again” Trump is referring to is that of Reagan’s 80s– which in reality, is characterized by recession, nationalism, and propaganda crusades. Once again, the 80s become glamorized, but without the charm of girls with psychokinesis or Street Fighter arcade games. Trump doesn’t have Reagan’s approval numbers, but his renewal of 80’s political rhetoric and policies has brought
the decade back to life in a harmful way. From “Trickle Down Economics,” to “Tough on Crime,” to “Make America Great Again,” both decades reflect the same issues. As our media continues to romanticize the 80s, it may be time to question our fascination with the decade. The silver screen tends to paint the 80s with a rose-colored hue– for example, Stranger Things does not acknowledge the racism or homophobia of the decade. This version of growing up in the 80s is as idyllic as it is fictional. The truth, however, is that the issues of the 80s mirror many of our current struggles—but are we learning from the past, or idolizing it? In The Guardian’s review of Terminator: Dark Fate, Peter Bradshaw states that the decades-long series from the 80s about a weaponized robot force and humanity’s fight for survival, “absolutely will not stop – not merely repeating itself but somehow repeating the repetitions.” Thus is the modern curse of the romanticized 80s. As we repeat our past mistakes, we dig ourselves deeper into a societal rut stuck in the past and run on circular time. ◊
Find My Friends: Helpful or Dystopian? BY GAIL JOHNSON | CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Since its release in October 2011, Find My Friends has received a boatload of praise, combined with suspicion and criticism. Sure, it seems harmless enough. It has been exceedingly helpful for me when tracking my sister, who is driving cross country and promised not to text and drive, or when surprising a loved one, after not seeing them for a long period of time. So, how troubling can this iPhone feature really be? While there are upsides to the app, surprisingly, there seems to be a general consensus that Find My Friends is truly dystopian. I realized that Find My Friends’ significance has become even blurrier as I talked to a close friend about the end of her last relationship.. Their relationship came to an end on one drunken evening after being friends, and then lovers, for many months. The last text she got from him was a
notification that he had disabled her from being able to see his location on Find My Friends. Tough, right? A seriously harsh way to end things, and now what? How does a person respond to something so hurtful, but so odd? This wasn’t possible before 2011, but now, sharing your location has developed meaning—it suggests a deep sense of intimacy. The person that you share with can see where you are, at all times. Sharing your location entails trust and possible infatuation. Once this is broken, the sharing must stop, adding salt to the wound of an ending relationship. On the most basic level, this app incites two questions: “Is Apple tracking us?” and, “what do they do with this information?” In writing this piece, I surveyed some friends, asking their opinions on Find My Friends. One respondent mentioned that they were “too scared” to use the app in fear that someone was watching or tracking them. But where is the line drawn? For instance, other apps such as Snapchat,
Instagram, and Maps consistently track our location. So much of our information is already attained by these apps, but the major consensus is that Find My Friends goes too far. For example, on Snapchat, there is a program much like this app, already included—you can zoom out to see a map of the world, pinpointing where all of your friends are. But while these apps track you, what about people actively searching for you? Find My Friends can assist your friends, family, or partner in catching you in a lie about where you are. When asked if they thought Find My Friends was helpful or dystopian, one of my interviewees had a straightforward answer: “Dystopian. You don’t need to know where I am. I go where I want.” Despite being so opposed to the use of the app, this person uses it anyways. Is it necessary to know what all your friends and acquaintances are doing at every second of the day? Find My Friends, along with a constant stream of Instagram and Snapchat stories, makes viewing everyone
“BUT NOW, SHARING YOUR LOCATION HAS DEVELOPED MEANING - IT SUGGESTS A DEEP SENSE OF INTIMACY. THE PERSON THAT YOU SHARE WITH CAN SEE WHERE YOU ARE, AT ALL TIMES. SHARING YOUR LOCATION ENTAILS TRUST AND POSSIBLE INFATUATION.” else’s activities almost unavoidable. This constant ability of being able to know where everyone is, and what they are doing, may add to feelings of FOMO and isolation. These are sentiments that have been acknowledged to be exacerbated with heavy social media use. For instance, if you open Find My Friends, and see that all of your friends are at Long Island night, and you didn’t get the invite, wouldn’t that be disappointing? But there does seem to be a line between the good and the bad of the app. There are cases when Find My Friends is truly helpful. For instance, if you lose your phone and do not remember your Apple ID password to log into Find My Phone, it is nice to have shared your location with a pal, so you can see the last location of your phone, without having to remember any pesky passwords. Or, when you’re having a ~crazy~ Oberlin night out, and lose a friend, and you need to get home because you are cold and tired, but don’t want to leave them alone at a random jazz show. You can pull up Find My Friends and see where they are. When talking to two other friends, I asked their opinions on Find My Friends. Immediately one friend exclaimed: “I love Find My Friends!” The other responded: “Wait, do you track us?!” The first shouted back: “OH MY GOD YEA!” So, consensus? Helpful for one friend, yet terrifying for another. In conclusion, Find My Friends can be helpful, and it is popular: I use it, and many of my friends and family use it as well. Still, it seems as though the general consensus is that this app is dystopian, mildly spooky, and overused. It is also interesting to think of the future of technology, in regards to the application Find My Friends. Many people that I know are weary of the lack of privacy associated with this app, but they still continue to use it. It will be interesting to see how tracking and sharing locations will expand into future innovations and technologies. What will people deem as okay? When will apps be going too far? Find My Friends is an example of an application where people are willing to give up their gut feelings, just for convenience, and treat technology as being the exception to the rule. ◊
December 6th, 2019
Illustration by Molly Sheffield
Why We Must Divest BY LEVI DAYAN | COPY EDITOR
is not just because the Apartheid policy was morally reprehensible —which it was, both then and now—but because it also showed us rejecting a form of student-led institutional change that worked. Pro-Palestine activists tend to cite South Africa as historical precedent for good reason, as the conditions were very similar to the current fight for Palestine. The escalation of South Africa’s apartheid policies began roughly around 1948, the exact same year Israel was founded, making both of them relatively recent examples of white settler colonialism. Like Palestinians, Black South Africans were collectively smeared as terrorists simply for asking to be treated as human beings. And like the fight for Palestine today, the fight against Apartheid was an uphill battle, and much like today, the United States had an on-the-record white supremacist president who showed zero interest in taking any meaningful action against the oppressors. With the challenge of pressuring politicians seemingly hopeless, students instead turned the pressure on their colleges, launching nationwide campaigns to divest from South Africa. While there were a number of factors in the end of South African apartheid, the success of the campus divestment movement certainly helped the cause, as the capital loss in international trade bled the nation’s economy. To conclude, this is an incredibly urgent time for Palestine. With near constant warfare in the region since Israel’s founding and with abysmal healthcare and water quality, the UN has ruled Gaza may be unlivable by 2020. An entire group of people may be erased entirely due to Israel’s complete disregard for their humanity. In this context, many have asked why we boycott, or why we fight to divest, given the crushing gravity of this situation. Truth be told, Oberlin’s relative isolation and heavily college-centered community can make it feel difficult to pursue meaningful activism. But Oberlin is still powerful as an institution, and as stakeholders in this institution, we have power as well. Oberlin students pay unimaginable amounts of money just to go here, and with that much money being put into the college, there is no excuse for our money being used to benefit an apartheid state. Divesting from Israel may prove to be controversial, but the truth is that as long as Oberlin attempts to have any consideration for marginalized communities, we will continue to be targeted by the right. We should never let fear of retribution prevents us from doing what is right. The people of Palestine’s lives can’t be ignored simply for the sake of convenience. ◊
PHOTOS COURTESY OF OBERLIN COLLEGE ARCHIVES
On November 12th, 34 unarmed Palestinian citizens, including 8 children, were killed in an airstrike on the Gaza Strip by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The US government had no response, other than to “officially” declare that Israeli settlements in the West Bank comply with international law. This is plainly false, and could doom peace efforts. And on the day I am writing this, November 21st, Israeli prime minister was indicted by the Israeli Attorney General, not for war crimes, but for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. These recent atrocities are not new developments. This is definitely not the first time the IDF has committed war crimes in Gaza. The U.S. has long been complicit in these war crimes, donating billions in aid to Israel yearly, and the fascistic partnership between the two nations has only strengthened under President Trump. Additionally, Netanyahu has always been corrupt, and has generally been on a slow decline following a recommendation for indictment and a loss in the most recent Israeli elections. However, the fact that each of these events have occurred roughly around the same time underscores the urgency of this political moment. In the past couple of decades, the world, and especially younger American Jews, have grown more and more outraged at Israel’s violent colonization of Palestine. Israel certainly has cooled under pressure, and their attacks on the Palestinian people have continued to escalate as the government descends deeper into white supremacist extremism. These are the reasons why this is the time to divest. The Oberlin divestment campaign is essentially pressuring the college to withdraw investments in both Israel and companies that support Israel. This effectively means boycotting, petitioning, and doing everything in our power to make it impossible for the Oberlin administration to ignore its complicity. This has taken shape in the form of a campaign to boycott Sabra hummus and have it removed from DeCafe, and a petition for the administration to officially commit to the BDS guidelines. However, despite the fact that Sabra has been unpopular on campus, CDS had refused to withdraw it from DeCafe, and Sabra hummus is, in fact, the only product sold by DeCafe that they are not allowed to stop selling for the reason of the product itself not selling. Additionally, despite having been approved by the Student Senate multiple times, most recently in Fall 2018, the BDS resolution has been repeatedly rejected by the administration. Every person and every institution should feel the responsibility to reject complicity in these war crimes. With that in consideration, Oberlin is in an even more unique position to lead on this issue, considering our history as a progressive institution. You don’t need me to tell you that Oberlin has its roots in abolitionism, that it was one of the first colleges to admit black students, and one of the first to admit women; these facts are touted on pretty much every Oberlin walking tour and at All Roads every year. However, while there is pride to be taken in these facts, it can also be used to cover up a darker side of our history. While Oberlin was certainly a much safer space for black people searching for education than anywhere else in America at the time, to say that meant it was void of racism would be a major overstatement. Black students were still in the minority during the college’s early years and had to deal with different, but still violent, forms of racism. A notable case would be the sculptor Edmonia Lewis, namesake of the Edmonia Lewis Center, who was accused of poisoning her white friends. She was viciously assaulted while awaiting trial, and though she was completely
exonerated by the court, the college bowed to outside pressure and denied her permission to continue studying, and never investigated her assault. This example of succumbing to the pressures of racism proved to be pertinent, as following the failure of reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow in the south, the institutionalized racism and disadvantaging of Black students began to take hold, turning the first school to admit Black students into the very, very predominantly white college it is today. This also explains how an institution that is known for student activism ended up being one of the last major insitutions in the US to divest from South Africa in the apartheid era, a truly embarassing and baffling fact that you most certainly won’t hear mentioned on a walking tour. My intention in citing these facts is to show that there are essentially two sides to Oberlin’s history; one shows an abolitionistfounded college with ties to the John Brown raid that continues to have a proud history of student activism to this day, and the other is another American institution that, in the key moments, will always cave and make the safest political decisions, ones whose consequences ripple throughout its history. By ignoring the voices of student activists and refusing to divest from Israeli businesses, the college is aggressively placing its foot in the latter history. The fact that we divested from South Africa so late is particularly relevant, as we were blatantly on the wrong side of history throughout much of the battle against apartheid. This
Start Distancing Yourself From Friends Going Abroad Now
BY BEN RICHMAN | OPINIONS EDITOR As Oberlin students the world is our oyster: from London to Buenos Aires, from Morocco to Italy and beyond! These are all the exciting places your friends may be traveling without you when they go abroad this Spring. While they’re out enjoying the Tuscan sun and eating croissants under the Eiffel Tower, you’ll be eating Kims in the lobby of South because your roommate sexiled you. Some of you may give in to the urge to be bitter, however, there is no need for that: instead of adapting to the new social dynamics in Spring semester, just start emotionally distancing yourself from your friends going abroad now. So you decided not to go abroad. Fair! You have the rest of your life to travel through Europe for 4 months. Except post-grad you’ll probably need to find a job, and then you’ll start paying rent, and your boss won’t let you take time off to go to Europe because you already took too many sick days (those bad hangovers plus your mental health days start to add up) plus the chips the government started put-
December 6th, 2019
ting in people’s brains are giving you chronic headaches. But maybe when you retire at 65 you can use that fat social security check and take a submarine to visit the underwater remains of Venice, or go backpacking through the parts of the French countryside not occupied by Alien invaders. But going abroad is overrated anyway, and you need to start preparing now for how things are gonna change when your close friends are off galavanting in foreign countries. The Junior slump is only real if you let it be real! There are many things you can do to make Oberlin as exciting as going abroad. Maybe pick up a hobby, or start collecting stamps...I don’t know… I don’t have all the answers. Yeah, your friends may be flirting in another language, but I bet they’ll be mad that they’re missing out on all the social validation you can get from chatting with people on the first floor of Mudd. You’ll also need to prepare in advance for all the Instagram stories of food and nightclubs in the major par-
ty cities of the world. Yes, you thought your friend was content with smoking a jay and stopping by a jazz party for a little bit before capping the night off with a Dominos delivery. But now you see them on Instagram getting totally wasted at a nightclub with bottle service and sweaty frat boys that offer them molly. That same friend who’s always too tired to go out is all of a sudden throwing up on the side of a beautiful cobblestone street in front of a cute bakery at 3:00 am. Having friends go abroad is tough! You’re gonna miss your best pal a lot! They were your chum, your bestie, your BFFL, and your partner in crime, but as they prepare to go to a different time zone I suggest calling the friendship off. Who has time to remember how many hours ahead they are, plus Facetime doesn’t always cut it. I know its sad but it’s what needs to be done. Hopefully things won’t be awkward Fall senior year... ◊
Thanksgiving Bingo
Thanksgiving may be over, but for those interested in reflecting back on this year’s most fraught family dinner, the Gape Staff has helpfully compiled a Thanksgiving Bingo game to play here at school with your chosen family. Drink up! -Mom gets angry and defensive when you ask why we still do boy-girl seating. -You are asked to explain “that bakery stuff” to the whole room. -Huge fight with a home friend. -Afternoon crying fit because this visit makes you feel caught between worlds. -Someone who ghosted you texts “Happy Thanksgiving, hope you’re well!” -Awesome hookup with high school ex, which prompts identity crisis. -Surprisingly nice moment where Dad gives some gruff words of maybe-not wisdom but definitely affirmation. -Uncle makes uncomfortable Monica Lewinski joke. -Art snob cousin picks today to come out to everyone (which was sort of your plan). -Someone brings something called a “cheese pie” which sucks. -Mom brings up your recent UTI anecdotally. -Family friend’s college-aged son still isn’t hot. -You get drunker than you were on Halloween. -Too drunk to trust yourself to explain why what grandpa just said is racist. -Insane amounts of American exceptionalism in the family prayer. -Dad uses your visit to float the idea of turning your room into a study for him. -Mom heavily implies she hates your sweater by saying “That’s not your color.” -Aunt emails you a link to an article a couple of days later that is evidently related to a conversation you have no memory of. -You are seated at the kids end of the table because the adults did not want to hang out with their kids or hire a babysitter. -The mashed potatoes are sort of weird this year. -Talking about your major, hearing yourself say things like “I don’t think a major really matters.” ◊
Harkness Grads: Where Are They Now? BY FIONNA FARREL | STAFF WRITER We’re all Obies here, so, naturally, we all love sticking it to The Man. We quote Foucault in our sleep. We roast the patriarchy for lunch and skewer capitalism for dinner, with anger in our hearts and lukewarm lentils on our plates. The seeds of subversion course through our irondeficient blood. And, although we all, for the most part, bleed this same Bernie blood here, there is
one particular cohort of Oberlin students who have gone above and beyond in their Man-sticking, hell-raising, and normbending. To catch up with this bunch, we tracked down a Harkness grad from the lclass of ‘89 to see just how a granola maker or a DLEC applies those skills to the workforce. As it turns out, the answer is Investment Banking!
Through groundbreaking new vibedetecting technology, we located our grad where we truly least expected to find him— sauntering out of the Bank of America Financial Center located at 95 Wall Street, New York City, N.Y. We could not hide our shock. What did Adam “No Relation” Smith, OC ‘89, have to say for himself? “Well, I don’t know, it sort of just
happened. But listen, you need to make some money first if you’re going to make a difference. Radical prophets require radical profits, if you catch my drift.... Anyway, I’ll water my roots once I’m done flourishing.” Ah yes, Adam, as Ellen has recently shown us, this is a strategy that definitely works! Keep up the good work. One person really can change the world. ◊
Study Finds Direct Correlation Between Attending Solarity and Crying
BY PIP BODGER | CONTRIBUTING WRITER Solarity is happening this Saturday night, and if last year is any indication, another, more personal event is also on the horizon: an emotional breakdown the intensity of which would be enough to prompt your friends to submit a SHARE tip if they weren’t definitely going to be wrapped up in comparable crises of their own.
One night a year, students are given free rein to fight, break up with each other, hit on classmates, and do scary drugs in a display that should be named the Purge but for legal reasons we will call the Solarity Cry Baby Phenomenon. It holds that a student in attendance of Fall Solarity, regardless of their emotional state prior to, will cry at some point either during the event or within 2 hours of its culmination. Last year’s Solarity—featuring Lizzo— was a smashing success turnout-wise and performance-wise. But despite this triumph, it turns out, all 1500 of the concert’s attendants, at various points throughout the night, with varying intensities, and for varying reasons, shed tears. “I mean emotions run high at these kinds of things...that’s nothing new,” said head of Psychology Dole Branson. “But yeah, every single person cried. We checked and they all did.” A common theme of the night was slumpinduced mania. This maybe can be partly explained by the timing of the bianual show— December 7th. “December 7th...oof, yeah that’s a tough
spot,” Branson grunted, flecks of sandwich clinging to his stache. “Everyone’s back from their respective fucked up Thanksgivings and unwilling to process any of their shit. Also it’s seen as a sort of last chance for people to get all that pent up sexual energy out. The result is just hundreds of rage-fueled horndogs, which I’ll tell you, is NOT fun to supervise.” The event is infamous among campus faculty as well, seeing as the first weekend of December, student infraction rates are triple what they are during reading week. One freshman was caught painting penises on that rock in Tappan. “I’m sorry, I just...it’s December 7th! I’m confused and caught between worlds and also just so horny,” the boy sobbed as Campus Safety wrote down his info. While the timing of the event can take credit for much of the general volatility of the student body, students cited a host of other contributing factors. Oberlin senior and frisbee legend Sack Opentoe pointed out that Solarity is a night of heavy drug use. “I was crying because I forgot to do drugs,”
Bat Habits: Attack!
BY IZZY HALLORAN | CONTRIBUTING WRITER
A column created-for (and wholly reliant on) what we think is a cute pun: Bad Habits will now dedicate a substantial amount of space each issue to students’ real bat related stories. Submit yours to thegrape@oberlin.edu. It’s 12:30 am on a Thursday morning in J-house. A resident comes running down the hall, panicked, sweaty, that specific look in their eyes one only gets after they’ve seen something they shouldn’t have. They manage to spit out a few words, such as-- “bats!” , “there’s one in my room!”, and “help me!”. I grab my hammer out of my craft drawer and we head across the hall. After standing in the doorway and begging Mr. Bat to leave for a good ten minutes, he soars out. We hurry back to our respective rooms and slam our heavy doors. But there still stands one pressing problem...I have to pee. Perhaps it’s the
excitement of the night, or my newfound commitment to drinking more water, but there is no way of dancing this one off. My friend Ila tells me to be brave, but she will not be accompanying me on the treacherous hike to the bathroom. She tells me she loves me and sends me off, shutting the door behind me. And so I go. All is well until halfway through my pee, when I see the shadow under the bathroom door; it’s a bat! I pee quicker than I ever have before, peek out of the stall quietly, then make a run for it. I don’t even bother washing my hands. It seems that the worst is over until one fateful night, weeks later. Natasha Colman, a wonderful J-house resident, is getting a good night’s sleep in her welldecorated third floor room. The first bat arrives promptly around 1:30 am, interrupting Natasha’s impeccable sleep
schedule. “I woke up to a freaking bat”, Natasha recalled to me later, shuddering at the memory. “And when you wake up to a bat, you may have been bitten in your sleep. So now I have to get my rabies shots...because they think I could have rabies.” So every Monday for the next month, Natasha took the journey to Mercy Hospital to receive her weekly rabies shot. She kept her Instagram followers up-to-date on her rabid status, changing her bio each time she received another shot to indicate she was growing less rabid. “You never think it’s gonna happen to you until you wake up one day and you might have contracted rabies…” Natasha tells me. Thankfully, she has now completed all four of her rabies vaccines, and has received a letter of apology from the school for the bat outbreak. ◊
Opentoe said. “And then I got there and was like ‘ohhh, yeah being on drugs would definitely have helped me to participate in this” Solarity takes place in the Heisman Fieldhouse, which is huge, and does not look like Oberlin. Most things at Oberlin are sort of little, and this place is very very big. So that’s one disorienting factor right off the bat. “Then you get inside and it’s everyone you’ve ever seen before, but they’re all frantically looking for people they don’t usually get to see,” Opentoe said. “Like, the crowd looks like a school of fish in that it’s changing shape in a way that most concert crowds do not. Everyone is taking lap after lap either looking for people they have crushes on, or more often, looking for friends they got separated from.” Sounds like a headache, Sack! Whether or not you are excited for Solarity, or even plan to go, know there is a good chance that you will end up there. And if you do, prepare to cry. ◊
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