November 3, 2017

The Oberlin Review November 3, 2017

established 1874

Volume 146, Number 8

Conference Brings Ideas, Array of Leaders to Oberlin Johan Cavert Staff Writer

Students protested on Wilder Bowl Thursday in favor of adding additional staff to the Office of Disability Resources, among other demands.

Tensions flared last month following the unexpected resignation of Interim Director of the ODR Isabella Moreno.

Photo by Mary Madison Baker

Students Demand More Full-Time ODR Staff, Resources

Jenna Gyimesi Staff Writer

The Office of Disability Resources is searching for a permanent director to fill the position after Isabella Moreno’s abrupt departure in early October.

Meanwhile, Assistant Dean Monique Burgdorf has been appointed interim director.

Moreno’s departure left the office with no permanent full-time staffers. The office was embroiled in controversy last month after messages circulated on Facebook suggesting that Moreno resigned due to an overwhelming workload.

Now that the College has revealed plans to address campus anxiety about the office, it is once again the focal point of major student mobilization.

Many students feel that the hiring of a new director is an insufficient solution to ongoing problems the ODR faces.

Students Building Community Power hosted a March for Disability Justice yesterday afternoon to “show the Oberlin administration that we have not forgotten about the Disability Resource Crisis,” according to the Facebook event page.

Students gathered at Mudd and proceeded to march to administrative buildings. Students Building Community Power demanded for five permanent ODR full-time staff with proper training in disability support and a separate, accessible office space with a common area designated exclusively for disability resources.

Protesters chanted, “Don’t cut our accommodations; don’t ruin our chance at an education.”

Several students delivered personal accounts of their experiences with the ODR and shared sentiments about how the office has been continuously deteriorating.

Narratives were also read on behalf of students who claim that they are no longer able to attend Oberlin because their disability support needs were inadequately met.

Protest organizer, College sophomore, and Student Senator Liz Cooper said she wants administrators to know that students will not stop advocating for justice for people with disabilities.

“The student body is paying attention,” Cooper said. “The Oberlin administration will not be able to undercut students with disabilities for budgetary reasons without student attention. We will not forget about students with disabilities.”

College senior and protester Max Cooper stressed the importance of recognizing the critical impact disabilities have on students’ lives.

“As someone with several disabilities, I can say that it was difficult before, but it’s completely inaccessible now,” they said.

“The College owes support to its students.

It owes us an education and we are here to take action. A lot of people without disabilities don’t realize how disabilities affect their peers. Disability resources are vital to our campus.”

All-OSCA Accessibility Coordinator Alison Cameron said she wants to see the administration prioritize student needs.

“In the past we have not centered student needs,” Cameron said. “Disabled students should be recognized as a large group on this campus — literally one fourth. We are visibile. We are angry. This

is a protest to address the lack of resources, and to acknowledge the students who have not been able to get those resources.”

Assistant Dean and Multicultural Resource Center Director Toni Myers, chair of the search committee, appreciates that students are taking action,and wants to incorporate student opinions in searching for an ODR Director.

“The demands are sound, reasonable, and within the scope of the institution’s commitment to provide resources to students with chronic illnesses, disorders, and disabilities,” Myers wrote in an email to the Review. “I’m absolutely certain that Oberlin administrators are in agreement with the student body that disability resources are of critical importance to the academic success and holistic well-being of Oberlin students. We are committed to cultivating an incredibly talented pool for the search and we look forward to students’ engagement with the search process.”

Myers added that she hopes the resurgence of student activism around disability could lead to the creation of longstanding student organizations and resources on campus.

“I hope that students will feel encouraged and empowered to create a student organization, which might unite them as a community and provide them with the opportunities to bring speakers, organize events, and increase critical engagement in disability justice, healing justice, and sick, disabled, POC communities,” she wrote.

Student Search Committee member and double-degree senior Rebecca Klein See Students, Page 2

An impressive array of writers, politicians, educators, and national leaders will convene at The Hotel at Oberlin for a private conference in a couple weeks to address contensious issues concerning the state of American democracy.

The conference, which will take place Nov. 15–17, is titled The State of American Democracy: A National Conversation and will, according to organizers, discuss solutions for rebuilding what they refer to as “the frayed edges of American democracy.”

The lengthy roster of guests features a broad range of speakers from both sides of the ideological spectrum with expertise on a wide range of comtemporary issues. Among the guests listed are J. D. Vance, author of The New York Times bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, former Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, academics from America’s most prestigious universities, and numerous writers for The New York Times, The New Yorker, and other publications.

David Orr, the Paul Sears distinguished professor emeritus of Environmental Studies at Oberlin College, is one of the lead organizers. The conference is the first in a series of events that will take place into 2018, which are expected to be held in Los Angeles, Denver, and Atlanta.

“It’s more like a succession of meetings that builds momentum so that it becomes more like an avalanche of ideas and energy and action,” Orr said.

Although the conference is the first of its kind Orr is hosting, he said he is hopeful for positive outlook and outcomes to emerge.

“I’m not sure what to expect,” Orr said. “I’m hoping to see a lot of great energy, a lot of great ideas, a lot of great people, a lot of smart comments.

But right now, I think that the country is adrift, and I fear that the anger and anxiety that Donald Trump [encourages have] become too powerful … I’m hoping to come out of this with real momentum.”

Assistant Professor of Politics Jennifer Garcia said that although the Politics department wasn’t involved in the organization of the conference, she is excited nonetheless and supported Orr’s rationale for holding such a meeting.

“The 2016 election inspired this new interest in American politics,” Garcia said, adding that the issues the conference will focus on are extremely See Conference, page 4,

CONTENTS 07 REC Revenue Should Be Invested in Sustainability

NEWS

OPINIONS

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Faculty Searches Reinstated, Suspended

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City Council Rejects NEXUS Offer For Easement

06 Claims About Athletics Per- 08 OSCA Iron Chef: Winning petuate Community Divisions Recipes

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Editorial: Student Engagement Must be Well Informed

The Oberlin Review | November 3, 2017

THIS WEEK

ARTS & CULTURE

SPORTS

Figaro Explores Gendered Power Dynamics

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Halsten’s Overall Victory Highlights NCAC Meet

On the Record with Author 16 My Experience as a Black Soccer Player at Oberlin Mia Alvar 12

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Oberlin Police Chief Hire Sparks Controversy Within Department Devyn Malouf Despite the Oberlin Police Department’s announcement in August to hire Elyria Police Officer Clarence “Ryan” Warfield as its new police chief, that desk still remains empty. Warfield has yet to accept his potential position not only because of the time required for a full background check, but also due to opposition from multiple sergeants in the department.

Warfield has over two decades of experience with the Elyria Police Department, where he began as a road patrol officer and eventually served in the community impact and investigative units. Town officials and current members of the Oberlin Police Department have variously voiced their support — or lack thereof — for the potential hire.

City Manager Rob Hillard was heavily involved in the process for selecting Oberlin’s new police chief, publicly endorsing Warfield as the prime candidate.

“[Warfield] is a great individual and exhibited the traits that I thought were acceptable based on the listening session criteria,” Hillard said.

Hillard added that he was interested in hiring a candidate focused on community building, working with youth in the community, and continuing to build a great relationship with Oberlin College and felt confident that Warfield will do just that.

Many officers disagree, however.

Sergeants Patrick Durica, Melissa Lett, and Steve Chapman recently wrote to City Council expressing their lack of confidence in Warfield’s hiring, calling him the “least qualified candidate” for the position. They cited disciplinary infractions Warfield received while working for the Elyria Police Department as means for disqualification.

“When it is taken into account with his documented discipline from his current department … he would have been eliminated as a candidate for any entry level position within the Police

Department,” the letter states.

The letter also mentions that many other members of the Oberlin Police Department have taken issue with the process of selecting a new candidate.

It claims that members of the police force were denied their request to have a representative from the department serve as a panelist during the selection process.

“The panelists chosen to be a part of the application and interview process consisted of two individuals who were employed together and worked closely with the chosen candidate at his current department,” the letter reads.

“Additionally, another panelist was also a personal reference for the chosen candidate, which renders the question whether the process was fair and equal to all candidates.”

Hillard maintains that the search was conducted fairly.

“The process is valid,” Hillard said. “I believe that the listening session, notes, and many items that came forward represent the entire community.”

The decision to hire an external candidate versus promoting an officer currently employed by the Oberlin Police Department was another decision that was criticized by Durica, Lett, and Chapman.

“An external chief eliminates any possible promotional opportunities for those individuals who wish to excel and advance in their professions, which in turn creates unmotivated employees,” they wrote.

Hillard chose not to respond to the claims from the three sergeants that Warfield is unqualified for the position.

However, he said that the decision has yet to be made official.

“I think this is important to emphasize: We’re still in the process,” Hillard said. “[Warfield] has not accepted the official hire yet. We are still doing background. From there, we’re pursuing salary parameters, and a start date would need to be determined.”

Warfield did not respond to a request for comment.

Faculty Searches Reinstated, Suspended

Interim Director Hire Not Enough For Students

After informing all College department chairs over a month ago that there would be a temporary freeze on permanent hires, the administration has reinstated two of the five tenure-track faculty searches that were approved last year.

The Geology and Computer Science departments each had one search reopened while another from Computer Science and searches by the Comparative American Studies and Rhetoric and Composition departments remained frozen.

The suspension was an attempt by the College to address its financial status, according to Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Tim Elgren.

“These searches were temporarily suspended due to budgetary considerations,” Elgren said.

“The other three searches remain as approved searches and our hope is that we will reopen those searches next year.”

“There [was] a very small number of allocated faculty positions last year,” Chair of Geology Zeb Page said. “There was a decision made in the College Faculty Council, the elected hiring body of the college faculty, to grant an unusually small number of requests. We were very fortunate last year to have this position allocated, and we are very fortunate to be able to hire a new position this year.”

echoed Myers’ sentiments regarding the importance of student input.

“There are many perspectives that need to be taken into account in hiring a new director; I believe the student perspective is invaluable,” Klein said. “The new director will need to not only have expertise and skills, but they will also need to be a person students can trust. We are all impacted by disability in different ways, and conversation on the topic can be challenging.”

During her time as interim director, Burgdorf hopes to bring some stability to the office amid the tense campus climate. “[There] needs to be a conversation that includes staff, students and faculty — we need to talk about why the climate is so challenging for students,” Burgdorf said. “I watch students bottom out during midterms and sometimes they don’t come back up. I watch faculty and staff struggle too. I watch the whole student population go into crisis twice a semester. If they are in such a state, what are they learning, exactly? How is this model contributing to our educational goals? I feel as though it is almost normalized here, kind of like “this is the way we have always done it” kind of thing. That students expect to be miserable. I am positive one director cannot fix this,

Alex Davies Staff Writer

The Geology department faces several challenges looking into the future, as three tenured faculty members will not be on campus in the spring semester of 2019.

Two tenured professors will be left to teach the core curriculum.

Page said he understands the necessity of the decisions the administration has made recently.

“I think that everyone on campus is aware that the College is making very careful choices about its finances right now,” Page said.

“Because of financial shortfalls from the smaller than average expected class, that money needs to be cut.”

The CAS program was on the brink of completing an effort over ten years in the making to hire a Native American and Indigenous Studies faculty member before receiving the last-minute news from Elgren’s office. Chair of CAS and History Professor Shelley Lee said that last year CAS was approved to conduct a search for the position, but the candidate they hired accepted a position at another institution. As a result, CAS was permitted to launch a search again this fall. Lee added that CAS had been accepting applications until Oct. 13 — just days before Elgren informed Lee that the search would have to end.

“By then we had 73 applications,” Lee said. “We had a subcommittee that was reading the applications, preparing to do the first round of interviews the week after fall break. We hadn’t heard

The Oberlin R eview November 3, 2017 Volume 146, Number 8 (ISSN 297–256) Published by the students of Oberlin College every Friday during the fall and spring semesters, except holidays and examination periods. Advertising rates: $18 per column inch.

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anything from the dean’s office in the meantime. But they had never actually communicated anything directly to us about the status of our search until the Tuesday of fall break ... at which point I got an email from the Dean saying, ‘Your search is suspended. You need to suspend your search.’”

Lee said she met with Elgren, during which he explained why the hiring freeze was only lifted for positions in Geology and Computer Science. “[Elgren] said that it came down to matters of curricular urgency,” Lee said. “So some departments had urgent needs about having to fill their positions in order to cover the courses that needed to be covered in their departments.”

Lee added that she disagreed with the decision — which she said was made by Elgren and President Carmen Twillie Ambar — saying that the CAS program has tried to grow.

The department has four core faculty and 40 majors now.

“It’s the situation that we’re in and we would really like to grow, but we realize that we also don’t control these decisions,” Lee said.

“We hope whoever’s in charge of the money stuff at Oberlin really figures it out so that departments can just get back on their feet … and grow if they need to grow.

Our students will be better-served if we have a Native American and Indigenous Studies specialist teaching in CAS.”

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but I hope they will keep the conversation going and be a good listener.”

Burgdorf emphasized that reforms to the ODR should improve the support available to all students on campus.

“I hope the institution focuses on the reality that these are our students,” she said. “If we focus on universal design, we will improve things for all of the students I feel passionate about supporting, first generation/low income students, students of color, and students with disabilities. We have an obligation to support our students.”

Burgdorf encourages the students involved in organizing the protest to come speak with her.

“I want them to know that I will make time for them, but I also want to be mindful of continuing to work with the students who also need our support,” she said.

The ODR Director search committee is chaired by Myers.

Other committee members include Professor Yolanda Cruz, Associate Professor Janet Fiskio, Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences Elizabeth Hamilton, Conservatory Associate Dean of Academic Support Chris Jenkins, Associate Professor Laura Romberg, College sophomore Ehryn Ortega, and Klein.

Corrections: The Review is not aware of any corrections at this time.

To submit a correction, email managingeditor@oberlinreview.org.

Community Showcases Student Research

Security Notebook Thursday, Oct. 26, 2017

College sophomore Alyssa Altheimer speaks to students about her project titled “The Effect of HMB on C2C12 Cells” at the Celebration of Undergraduate Research. The celebration — which included two sets of poster presentations from 6–7:30 p.m. last Friday — highlighted student research projects from summer 2017 and was open to all College and community members. Altheimer presented her research in the Science Center with about 90 other students who conducted their work at the College and at institutions nationally and internationally; many students researched with the support of foundations like the Mellon Foundation. Oberlin has more students earn Ph.D.s in STEM fields than any other liberal arts college in the country.

Text by Sydney Allen, News Editor

Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo Editor

City Council Rejects NEXUS Offer For Easement

The NEXUS pipeline, which was recently approved for construction by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, will be running through the southernmost part of Oberlin.

Photo courtesy of Bryan Rubin, Photo Editor

Katherine Kingma City Council held an emergency meeting Saturday, deciding to reject a $3,500 offer from NEXUS for means of access. The offer would have given NEXUS the legal right to use city property without owning it, granting the company the ability to begin building its pipeline.

The Oberlin Community Bill of Rights, which was created in 2013, prohibits the creation of infrastructure relating to fracking in the city. City Councilmember Bryan Burgess added that the city also does not have authorization to allow oil or gas infrastructure in Oberlin.

City council also agreed to authorize the City Manager Rob Hillard to negotiate with The Oberlin Review | November 3, 2017

NEXUS for an easement on the condition that the pipeline would be rerouted so that it would be farther away from Oberlin homes, businesses, and the local fire station. The current pipeline route runs just north of the homes on Reserve Avenue near the edge of the city, close to New Russia Township.

John Elder, vice president of Oberlin’s Citizens for Safe and Sustainable Energy, said that this placement would leave the fire station, businesses, and residences in the “blast zone” in the event of a disaster. “[Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] assumes the pipeline will be safe,” Elder said. “It doesn’t test whether it will be safe.”

According to Elder, other

concerns include the possible negative environmental impact of the pipeline. It will move through wetlands and have four compression stations, which would contribute to air pollution.

He said another concern is the pipeline’s economic viability. The natural gas the pipeline produces will not have a significant customer base in Ohio, and, therefore, won’t serve Ohians, he added. Embridge, a Canadian energy company, owns the pipeline. One of the biggest customers will be Dawn, which is a storage hub in Canada.

“It’s a foreign company pumping gas for foreign use,” Elder said.

The pipeline, which will run from Ohio into Canada, has been met with resistance and legal battles from some of the towns it will run through. In other towns, court cases have been filed to delay pipeline construction. Oberlin has retained Carolyn Elefant, an eminent domain lawyer based out of Washington, D.C., to represent it. She has been working for the city for over a year and coordinated with some of the communities the pipeline will affect.

A federal judge will make a decision regarding the NEXUS pipeline this Thursday with a host of property holders who haven’t granted permission for it to be moved.

“NEXUS has filed a case under imminent domain,” Burgess said.

“It’s interesting because the concept of imminent domain is taking private property for public purpose. In this case, NEXUS wants to take public property and use it for private purpose.”

1:31 a.m. A student reported a confrontation with a man taking his bike from the Wright Laboratory of Physics at approximately 1 a.m. When the student approached the individual, he returned the bicycle and left the area. Officers of the Oberlin Police Department also checked the area for the individual, but he was not located.

2:29 p.m. A student reported the theft of their bicycle sometime during spring semester from the bike rack outside of Zechiel House. The bicycle was first noticed missing in April 2017 but was not reported at the time. The bicycle was not locked at the time of theft.

8:18 p.m. Officers assisted with a Life Safety inspection violation on the first floor of South Hall. Officers found a rubber bong, silver grinder, cigarette butts, tea light candles, incense and holders, and a can of beer.

All items were confiscated. The beer can was disposed of, and the bong and grinder were turned over to the Oberlin Police Department.

8:25 p.m. Officers assisted with a Life Safety inspection violation on the first floor of South Hall. Officers found four empty beer bottles and one full can.

8:32 p.m. Officers assisted with a Life Safety inspection violation on the third floor of South Hall. A bagged smoke detector was found in a dorm room. Facilities staff responded, removed the bag, and the detector was reset.

Friday, Oct. 27, 2017 4:12 a.m. An officer responding to an Asia House lock-out reported a strong odor of smoke on the first floor. Upon investigation, the officer found that a student lit a candle and threw the match into a trash can.

A piece of paper ignited and was extinguished with water. The trash can with burnt items was taken outside, and the candles were confiscated.

1:24 p.m. A student reported the theft of their bicycle from the front of Fairchild House. Officers talked to a witness who observed a juvenile carrying away the bike. The area was checked with negative results.

6:45 p.m. Officers assisted with a Life Safety inspection in Talcott Hall, where a short knife and incense were located in a third-floor room. The items were confiscated and taken to the Safety and Security Office.

Saturday, Oct. 28, 2017 8:50 a.m. An officer found spray-painted graffiti on the south exterior wall of Warner Concert Hall. A work order was filed for cleanup.

11:33 a.m. A student reported the theft of their backpack from the first floor of a Woodland Street Village Housing Unit. The backpack contained a new laptop.

The Oberlin Police Department was contacted.

11:23 p.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at a Union Street Village Housing Unit. A smoke machine may have activated the alarm. A smoke detector in a third-floor hallway was found not fully seated on the base. The detector was seated correctly, and the alarm was reset.

Sunday, Oct. 29, 2017 1:01 a.m. A student reported what appeared to be a large fight across the street from Dascomb Hall. Officers and members of the Oberlin Police Department responded. Several cars were seen leaving the Gray Gables parking lot at a high speed. No one was observed fighting in the area.

9:17 p.m. A student reported finding a bong near the sink in a third-floor bathroom at South Hall. Officers responded, photographed the bong, and then transported it to the Safety and Security Office. The bong was turned over to the Oberlin Police Department.

Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017 1:11 p.m. A resident of a Goldsmith Village Housing Unit reported that an unknown person(s) tore the screen from a window in the apartment and stole a backpack, which was sitting under the window. An officer and members of the Oberlin Police Department responded.

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Hotel Prepares for Democracy Vershawn Ashanti Young, Rhetoric Professor Convention Vershawn Ashanti Young is an associate professor in the OFF THE CUFF

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topical. “What are some things that can be done to make American democracy more robust and help create a democracy that can respond to the demands that we’re facing in the 21st century?”

Although the event will be held on campus, it will only be open to invited guests.

Approximately 150 people are expected to attend the three-day gathering.

“It’s a closed meeting,” Orr said. “It’s just happening in Oberlin because I’m here. It’s not a college-affiliated event.”

“The State of American Democracy” is financed entirely by outside funders not connected to the College or the conference’s roughly 20 sponsoring organizations.

“The College has not put a nickel into this,” Orr said.

Although the College is not sponsoring the conference, it is expected to be a boon to Oberlin since it will be held at The Hotel.

“We spent a lot of money on The Hotel,” Orr said. “If you see The Hotel as a means to a larger end, the question is what events can we hold in The Hotel … that have the effect of directing national attention.”

Part of the original motivation for rebuilding The Hotel was to attract events like “The State of American Democracy.”

This conference, the recent “Exploring Beauty and Truth in Worlds of Color,” and last year’s “After Fossil Fuels” all display the College’s strategy to host events at The Hotel to attract attention and provide an economic stimulus.

Although this convention will be private, a number of upcoming events will be open to the public, including the closing convocation talk by author and conservationist Terry Tempest Williams. Professor Marc Blecher, chair of the politics department, is also organizing three side-events featuring some of the conference participants.

Some expressed regret that students and community members will not have more access to such distinguished guests. College sophomore and Co-Chair of the Oberlin Democrats Monica Dix said she was frustrated by the admission restrictions.

“It would be great if all of these really intellectual, intelligent, educated people that are spokespeople for their fields in very real ways were accessible to students,” Dix said.

Despite her frustration, Dix conceded that overall she is glad the conference is taking place.

“It definitely should not be taken lightly that people are putting in effort to organizing around this,” she said. “I think that action is good at any level.”

Orr explained that Oberlin’s hosting role is still important to the mission and values of the College, even if students won’t be granted access.

“I think that with our history, our capacities, our music, arts, our visibility in the nation — this is the best place to kick off something like this,” Orr said. “This is a great place to start this conversation.”

Department of Drama and Speech Communication at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario. Young is a pioneer in the field of sociolinguistic code-meshing and has written books about African-American English, intercultural communication, about performances of masculinity, and representations of race in art, film, and literature. He held a talk at Oberlin called “Making Black Lives Matter in Digital Spaces: Race, Justice, and Literacy Instruction” Monday in King. He also led an interactive workshop called, “Allies of Code-Meshers and Translingual Writers: Who? How? And Why?” This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Sydney Allen, News Editor Nathan Carpenter, Opinions Editor

How did you get into this field?

I got into the fields of writing and rhetoric and composition studies because I was a high school English teacher and high school drama teacher, and I started working at a university, working with principals. At the university they had a Ph.D. program in English, and because I was working there it was free, so I decided to do it. I decided to not go back to the school system after I finished my Ph.D. I felt like I was called to do the work that I’m doing. No one else is doing this work exactly the same way that I’m doing it, and it’s a little bit bolder and more uncompromising in terms of students’ rights to their language habits and own Englishes. Every time I tried to step away from this and do something else, I would be pulled right back in. I just don’t know why I’ve had such success around something that is very provocative and controversial.

Is the idea of code-meshing something you mulled over or something that just came to you?

I had been talking about the idea of students being allowed and encouraged to use their own voices in writing. It just seemed right to me. My dissertation director said to me, “I think what you’re talking about is code-meshing.” I was always critiquing codeswitching, but I didn’t have a term for it. I have to attribute the term code-meshing to Joey Graff because he actually gave it to me and then I started using it in my writing,

and then people started attributing it to me.

What are the differences between code-meshing and code-switching?

Code-meshing is encouraging the blending of dialects and registers and languages in one piece of writing or in one conversation. Code-switching, from an educational perspective, is using one particular dialect at home and using another one, which they identify as Standard English, at school and at work. Code-meshing says that that’s really not possible to do.

What do you say to critics who disagree with that meshing-component?

I hate to say it — I mean, I don’t hate to say it — but some of the critics who disagree with me are racist. I think that Rebecca Wheeler would never say she’s racist.

She actually thinks she’s not racist. She wrote an article with the title “It Is What It Is.” When she’s talking about Black students and their language habits and when they would fail classes, she’s like, “It is what it is.” I’m speechless. Then she called me an African American Celebrationist. I’m like, “If I’m an African American Celebrationist, then you’re a white America Celebrationist.” She was trying to disparage what I was doing, and Celebrationist is a derogatory term in academic communtiies. If you’re celebrating something, you’re not really serious. I don’t play the race card to shut people down; I play the card in order to show them the face

Vershawn Ashanti Young

of the card. I use a lot of examples of white discourse that go unanalyzed because it comes from somebody that’s in power or from a different race. People must be getting used to me because I’m not getting as much resistance.

Can you talk about the connections you drew in your talk today about how literacy functions in violence?

Traditional literacy education is informed by violence. Teachers, especially English teachers and literacy teachers, teach by threat, which is, I think, a problem. You should never have to threaten anybody to get them to learn. People want to learn. Think about two-yearolds always asking questions.

What’s this? What’s that?

People want to learn. Think about games. To play a game, you have to learn how to play. Here’s how you teach by threat: “You’re not going to get a job if you don’t.

You’re not going to pass another person’s class if you don’t.” You don’t have to do that. But a lot of threat goes on in education. It’s always a warning. To me, threatening is violent because it creates fear in students to do things that might be creative for them or might have them learn, and then they start selfcensoring. Then there’s violence because the ideologies that are connected to race are connected to language. Most people don’t understand this, but race is expressed in ways other than how you look.

If you’ve heard of passing, it’s not the color of skin that matters — it’s heritage, background, expressions.

Oberlin Community News Bulletin

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Photo by Hugh Newcomb, Photo Editor

Election to Determine City Policy

Councilwoman Linda Slocum Holds Office Hours

Tuesday’s election will give Oberlin residents the chance to vote on city councilmembers and a number of important local issues. Eight candidates are running for seven Council seats. Some hot-button issues being decided on include Issues 16 and 17, which will determine the future of the revenue available from Oberlin’s Renewable Energy Certificates.

City Council Vice President Linda Slocum, who is running for re-election in next week’s election, will be available to meet with students Sunday from 6 – 8:30 p.m. in Azariah’s Café in Mudd library. Students are encouraged to sit down and chat and enjoy cookies and cider

How do you envision these practices being incorporated into mainstream accepted discourse?

I think it kind of is getting there. A lot of people are using this terminology in the academic arenas and sociolinguistics and applied linguistics. They have adopted the idea of code-meshing. It is being theorized by other linguists. It’s seeping into the academic arena, and it’s seeping into the larger culture.

Everybody does it. Everybody code-meshes. There’s not one person who doesn’t.

The task is to get people to see that they do it and to stop thinking ideologically that they don’t.

How does code-meshing and bringing different voices into one space connect to journalism?

My honest response to the style guide is that an opinions section should not have a style guide. I think it goes against the whole idea of an opinion page. The opinion page is the one place in the newspaper where the façade of objectivity is not there.

People should be able to express their individual idea and opinion on a subject. If it’s an extensive style guide, then it’s impeding the performance of the opinion piece.

The opinion page is actually one of the most powerful parts of a newspaper because it will increase your readership for people who may not ordinarily read the other parts. In an opinions section you do not need to have a style guide that goes along with the rest of the newspaper. Did you know the opin-

Moody’s Downgrades Oberlin College’s Rating Oberlin College has been given an outlook of negative from Moody’s Investors Service, after previously having an outlook of stable. The company also affirmed the College’s Aa3 ratings, affecting $130 million of outstanding bonds. Moody’s recognizes that enrollment numbers have been inconsistent in recent years, and predicts the College will face a deficit of $2.5 million in fiscal year 2018 due to this volatility and budget pressure. Moody’s concluded that the College remains financially flexible and will continue to fuel financial reserve growth due to strong fundraising.

OPINIONS November 3, 2017

established 1874

Letter to the editors

Insufficient ODF Funding Should Discourage Prospies To the Editors:

More than a month has passed since Isabella Moreno resigned as the interim director of Oberlin College’s Office of Disability Resources, and we have still seen no significant structural changes planned for the critically understaffed and underfunded ODR. There is no plan to hire a sufficient, full-time staff trained in disability support and there is no plan to provide a committed, accessible safe space designated specifically to provide support for disabled people. Every Band-Aid solution presented by the administration so far has been thinly-veiled efforts to mollify student concerns without spending the money to substantially impact the office’s critical situation. As events have unfolded, it has become clear that the ODR needs five full-time members on its staff in order for it to effectively do its job. The administration has no plan to fill this need.

It has become overwhelmingly clear that the administration and trustees do not value the wellbeing of Oberlin students with disabilities, a position in keeping with those they’ve taken in the past through dismissing the needs of students of color and low-income students. The administration’s choice to lump the ODR into the Center for Student Success is telling. It implies that Oberlin doesn’t value the kind of qualifications staff need to effectively support disabled students.

It implies that they are willing to jeopardize the quality of support of both disabled students and low-income students — the groups that the programs and departments now housed under the Center for Student Success have traditionally been designed to

support — in order to pursue budget cuts. It implies that they value their checkbook over the needs of students marginalized within the Oberlin community.

Given these implications, my belief — as an Obie and a student senator — is that it would be irresponsible to recommend Oberlin College to prospective students until, at the very least, Oberlin hires five full-time, permanent staff members from disability support backgrounds for the Office Disability Resources and structures disability resources as a distinct department provided with ample office space designed for the accessibility of disabled students. Until that time, I plan on working to disseminate the above information to prospective students so they can get a fuller picture of what to expect from the College. I encourage my friends, comrades, and constituents to do the same.

– Liz Cooper College sophomore

cial Accessibility during their 2014–2015 organizing against proposed financial aid changes. In July 2015, after a trustee’s hedge fund was charged with fraud by the Security and Exchange Commission (“SEC Reaches Settlement with Trustee Charged with Fraud,” Sept. 4, 2015), discussions between DOFA, the Responsible Investment Organization, and student senators reached an understanding to collaboratively pursue student representation. Student members of the Steering Committee became involved that fall, and after that school year I sent the public letter to the board. The push for student representatives has been going on for nearly three years. If students wish to achieve long-term influence at Oberlin, they should understand the extent to which this was a campaign planned for the long haul, not a sudden expression of dissatisfaction with the direction of the school. However frustrating the various iterations of that campaign have been, students have been racking up successes. They shouldn’t stop now.

– Jeremy Poe Double-degree fifth-year, Student Senator 2015–2016

Review Unintentionally Misrepresents History of Student Activism Firearm Restrictions To the Editors: Imperative to In the Oct. 27 edition of The Oberlin Review, it was Protect Citizens implied that I began the student representatives initiative recently rejected by the board (“Trustees Reject Proposal for Student Representative,” Oct. 27, 2017). This narrative is understandable, given the time and word-count restraints on student reporters, but is unintentionally misleading. It is incorrect to credit me with initiating the pursuit of student representation at the highest level of Oberlin governance, or for coming up with the idea.

Student representation was a demand developed internally

by Defending Oberlin Finan-

To the Editors: The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Obviously, the need for a state militia has been replaced by the National Guard and Coast Guard, whereby trained military personnel are entrusted with the defense of this country against domestic enemies. Their weapons are See Letters, page 7

Submissions Policy

The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and op-ed submissions. All submissions are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board. All submissions must be received by Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at opinions@oberlinreview.org or Wilder Box 90 for inclusion in that week’s issue. Letters may not exceed 600 words and op-eds may not exceed 800 words, except with consent of the Editorial Board. All submissions must include contact information, with full names and any relevant titles, for all signers. All writers must individually confirm authorship on electronic submissions. Op-eds may not have more than two authors. The Review reserves the right to edit all submissions for clarity, length, grammar, accuracy, strength of argument and in consultation with Review style. Editors will work with contributors to edit pieces and will clear major edits with the authors prior to publication. Editors will contact authors of letters to the editors in the event of edits for anything other than style and grammar. Headlines are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board.

Opinions expressed in editorials, letters, op-eds, columns, cartoons or other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those of the staff of the Review. The Review will not print advertisements on its Opinions pages. The Review defines an advertisement as any submission that has the main intent of bringing direct monetary gain to a contributor.

The Oberlin Review | November 3, 2017

Volume 146, Number 8

Editorial Board Editors-in-Chief Melissa Harris

Christian Bolles

Managing Editor Daniel Markus

Opinions Editors

Nathan Carpenter

Jackie Brant

Student Engagement in Elections Must Be Well-Informed One of the first questions many Obies are asked upon arriving on campus for their first-year orientation is whether they would like to register to vote in Ohio.

Several groups — student and community, partisan and nonpartisan — descend on Oberlin with voter registration forms and voter information packets.

In some years, this is an easier question to answer than others. First-years arriving on campus in fall 2016, for example, were given the opportunity to register in a swing state for one of the most heated and divisive presidential campaigns in history.

This year, however, is a different story. The local elections that will occur this Tuesday, Nov. 7 — which some students likely do not even know about — will be decided with considerably less fanfare than the showdown between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, or even between Rob Portman and Ted Strickland.

That being said, the candidates and issues Oberlin residents will vote on in a few days’ time will have an enormous impact on the community and, in many ways, the College.

Given the importance and local scope of these elections, it’s valuable to examine whether eligible students should make their voices heard, and on what issues.

That debate hinges largely around the question of whether students who will no longer reside in Oberlin within a few years can truly be held accountable for the impacts that their votes have on the local community.

From the City Council race, to the school board, to the ongoing debate on Renewable Energy Certificates, among other issues, there are a variety of reasons why student voices are relevant. Issues 16 and 17, for example — the two ballot initiatives that will determine the future of Oberlin’s available REC revenue — have significant implications for the future of the city’s investment in environmental projects that will become increasingly vital as climate change continues to pose a great threat.

Furthermore, as Professor of Environmental Studies John Petersen wisely points out in his op-ed this week, “your four-year term at Oberlin is twice as long as the term of Oberlin city councilors.” Whether students choose to attend City Council meetings or not, decisions made at City Hall impact students in significant and inescapable ways. When council affirmed Oberlin’s status as a sanctuary city, it extended protections not just to long-term residents, but to students as well. If council had instead stripped protections for undocumented people, then students — documented and undocumented alike — would have had every right to engage with council. While this example is an easy one to highlight, it is representative of the very valid reasons why student voices should not just be allowed but encouraged in local issues.

Ultimately, it is foolish to turn away voters who are well-researched on local issues and politically involved in Oberlin and Ohio, as many students are. Though we may not be lifelong Oberlin residents and only live here for four or five short years, the local political climate certainly does impact our lives and paychecks, and we have a right to weigh in.

That being said, students should not walk into the voting booth on Tuesday with ill-formed opinions on issues they plan to vote on. Because many of us did not grow up in or around Oberlin, it takes a concerted effort to become acquainted with the nuances of local politics. While making that effort may seem boring or unimportant, taking time to become informed should not only be a prerequisite to voting; it should be an obligation for students interested in being conscientious and informed neighbors. In your research, you may decide that an issue is not relevant to you and that you don’t feel comfortable voting on it — an informed decision to not vote is more productive than an uninformed decision to vote.

Students take up a lot of space around Oberlin — one look into The Local Coffee & Tea or Slow Train Cafe on a weekend can tell you that. Having such a sizeable presence in town comes with responsibilities, one of which is to engage responsibly as partners with community members who will remain here long after our college years end.

Students should make an effort this weekend to read up on the issues that will be appearing on Tuesday’s ballot. To begin, the Review’s Letters to the Editors sections from the past few issues provide insight into key talking points. Then, on Tuesday — with the utility bill that was placed in their OCMR — students should go and vote, if they can, on the issues and candidates that they have a well-formed opinion on. As Oberlin residents, you have the right to vote here, if eligible — but you also have an obligation to make sure that you vote responsibly. It is vital to honor that responsibility as an engaged, if short-term, member of the Oberlin community.

Editorials are the responsibility of the Review Editorial Board — the Editors-in-Chief, Managing Editor, and Opinions Editors — and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the Review.

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Opi n ions

Claims About Athletics Perpetuate Community Divisions Gwennie Gardiner Production Editor

In order to produce tangible resolutions to discourse surrounding the athlete/ non-athlete divide on campus arising from the “Athletics 101/Hate Sports?” panels, it is important that multiple perspectives are represented and that people on all sides of the issue are willing to really listen and hear one another. Though College fifthyear Marissa Maxfield made some valid points in her article, “Athletics Encourage Toxic Belief Systems,” the thinking behind some of her ideas contributes strongly to misconceptions about athletes (Oct. 27, 2017, The Oberlin Review.)

One of the key points Maxfield makes at the end of her article is that she wants to believe in the “Athletics 101/Hate Sports?” conversations aimed at solving some of these issues, but that she feels the conversations replicate existing displays of love for athletes while ignoring some of the key issues that prevail within Oberlin athletics.

After the first “Athletics 101” conversation, I agreed. I spoke with the organizers and voiced my opinions. The organizers also felt that we needed to hear more diverse opinions in order for campus culture to truly shift. In response, the format of the next event was changed to no longer feature a panel of coaches; in fact, the pro-

gram was marketed completely differently.

Posters that once screamed “athlete” with basketballs, bats, and “Athletics” sprawled across the foreground were replaced with ones that featured a simple black background with “Hate Sports?” as the headline. Through the changes in marketing, format, and conversations with students, panel organizer and Professor of English Yago Colás encouraged those with negative experiences with the athletic community to come and speak their minds.

This response is not meant to invalidate Maxfield’s experience. On the contrary, I think there are wider implications to this divide than just one person can express.

With that being said, I feel that it is important to address some of the misconceptions to which Maxfield alludes because they serve to deepen the divide between athletes and non-athletes.

Early in her article, Maxfield states, “Occasionally, first-years are naïve enough to find natural friendships across athlete/ non-athlete divides, but in my experience those relationships often do not last.” As an athlete who lives with non-athletes, I have found tremendous value in these relationships and I know many people with similar experiences. When non-athletes don’t make an effort to understand athletes’ lives and athletes don’t make an effort to understand non-athletes’ lives, it is certainly difficult for a relationship to be

formed. But how is that any different from having relationships with people outside of Oberlin? Sure, differences in schedules and priorities are undeniable; sometimes, personalities simply don’t mesh. But that’s not to say that all relationships between athletes and non-athletes are bound to fail; correlation does not equal causation.

During my time here, I have been able to form lasting relationships across athlete/ non-athlete divides, so long as those relationships were based upon a foundation of listening to and understanding one another’s experiences.

Furthermore, one of the discussions in the most recent “Athletics 101/Hate Sports?” panel explored how, in a place like Oberlin that seeks to break down binaries, it seems that this goal can actually raise more barriers and binaries. For example, I have found that there seems to be a divide between the ways in which Oberlin is advertised and the experience students have once they get here. Oberlin is marketed as a place where everyone can come together, engage in intellectual conversation, and understand differing viewpoints. Yet before a non-athlete can have an experience with an athlete themself and vice versa, they have already been informed of a divide between North Campus and South Campus. Non-athletes and athletes are to be distinguished from one another, and anyone who does not hold

liberal, atheist views (whether a non-athlete or athlete) is seen as an outsider not to be heard, let alone be accepted within the wider Oberlin community. These social norms and distinctions are already in place before first-years have even stepped on campus, and I fear that Maxfield’s statements only further some of these misconceptions. These views threaten the ideals that Oberlin was built on: that Oberlin should be a place of hearing and listening, rather than a place known for its lack of acceptance and homogenous viewpoints.

Surely to say that every non-athlete or athlete fits into these kinds of stereotypes is absolutely absurd; there are always going to be exceptions. While I sit further right on the political spectrum than the typical Oberlin student, one of my best friends is someone who self-identifies as “Liberal as Hell.” Similarly, though I identify as Christian, some of my best friends are Jewish and atheist. I have found that there will always be something that divides us. There is always something to disagree over, and there are few people with whom you will share all the same values.

But with 2,895 students with similar academic priorities and so much going on in the world at such a pivotal time in our nation’s history, there’s plenty of room to find commonalities. We just need to choose to do so.

Students Have Right to Vote in Oberlin Elections Board Decision Disregards John Petersen Contributing Writer

“Think One Person Can Change The World? So Do We.” This is one of the most successful promotional campaigns Oberlin College has ever run, because the desire to bring about positive change by engaging with the world around us resonates so strongly in our campus community. Students at Oberlin today are part of a proud history of civic engagement. Campus issues, local community issues — not to mention regional, national, and global issues — are among the ways that Oberlin students have made and continue to make a difference. Exercising your right — and I would say responsibility — to vote this coming Tuesday, Nov. 7, is one of the most direct ways students can enact positive change.

For those of you who are registered to vote in Ohio, your participation could have a critical impact on whether the College and the city become a more sustainable, resilient, and socially just community.

Many students ask themselves, “Should I vote in local elections?”

You need to answer this question for yourself, but I would like to offer some reasons why you should and provide a few suggestions regarding individuals and ballot initiatives that are worthy of the support of progressives.

Why should you vote? Since Oberlin College and the City of Oberlin were collectively founded in 1833, students have been engaged and vital members of the community.

Throughout our history, Oberlin students have worked and volunteered in the area and have collaborated on progressive politics locally, regionally, and nationally. Students have worked with non-student members of this community to take local action and provided national leadership as abolitionists, suffragists, and environmental activists.

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More recently, students, faculty, staff, and townspeople have collaborated closely to address how a city and college in the Rust Belt might collaborate to build a vibrant, resilient economy that alleviates poverty and inequity, promotes sustainable agriculture and local business, and ultimately weans itself off fossil fuels. The candidates and issues on the ballot this Tuesday present citizens — including Oberlin students — with important choices that will help answer this question.

Some students feel that because they are transitory residents, they should not vote. But your four-year term at Oberlin is twice as long as the term of Oberlin city councilors.

Many students engage deeply in and contribute very meaningfully to this community; you have a right to engage in decision-making. Some argue that since students often don’t pay taxes and because Oberlin College does not pay property taxes on campus, students do not have a right to vote on issues related to the economy. But Oberlin students are in fact a vital component of the local economy. The dollars you spend downtown — and I hope you are spending downtown — provide critical jobs that support the city. Oberlin College itself is the largest employer in this city. Your tuition helps pay for all of our salaries, including mine; even if you don’t have a local job, you are indirectly supporting property taxes and income taxes that support city government.

While there are a number of fine candidates running for City Council — you can vote for up to seven — I urge those of you who support progressive politics to consider voting for four candidates who have demonstrated commitment to a positive agenda: Heather Adelman, Bryan Burgess, Sharon Pearson, and Linda Slocum. Collectively, these individuals have been tireless advocates for issues that include local economic

development, celebrating diversity, LGBTQ and immigrant rights, green energy, bicycle-and-pedestrian-friendly streets, and local food initiatives. They support the kind of town-college collaborations that have always provided Oberlin with outsized leadership that ripples outwards to affect the larger world.

In addition to the City Council election, there are a number of ballot issues that are important to strengthening this community. In particular, I urge you to vote “YES” on Issue 16 and “NO” on Issue 17.

These initiatives will move this community toward investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy and toward meeting the shared College and city goals of achieving carbon neutrality. I also encourage “YES” on Issue 2, which is designed to keep drug prices affordable — backers include the AIDS Task Force of Greater Cleveland and Cleveland chapter of the NAACP; the “NO” campaign is largely funded by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association.

Some students are particularly hesitant to vote on school initiatives because you are unlikely to have children in the school. But particularly for the many College students who have demonstrated commitment to our public schools by tutoring or otherwise volunteering, consider voting “YES” for the levy renewals on ballot initiatives 40 and 41; these provide necessary continued funding for our schools.

It is quite appropriate for college students to abstain from voting on issues on which they do not feel informed or feel that they have no stake. However, I would suggest that students who are registered to vote in Ohio have a responsibility and a right to exercise their franchise on the issues that affect both them and the life of the community in which they are currently living and studying.

Value of Student Input Josh Koller Contributing Writer

This article is part of the Review’s Student Senate column. In an effort to increase communication and transparency, Student Senators will provide personal perspectives on recent events on campus and in the community.

Cornell University, Colorado College, Ithaca College, and Howard University are just a few of the elite private institutions with currently enrolled students serving as full members of their respective school’s Board of Trustees. These schools, along with many private and a significant majority of public institutions, have welcomed student membership on their boards, acknowledging that they deserve a seat at the table.

The nearly two-year-long path that many dedicated Oberlin students have taken to have the Oberlin’s Board of Trustees vote to add a student member may imply that adding student trustees is a daunting prospect with uncertain consequences. However, reviewing the records of schools that have already taken the admirable step of representing students at the board level shows that this is not the case.

To provide a sample of assessments, a University of Massachusetts spokesperson holds that “student representation is a way for other board of trustee members to have direct feedback on issues that affect students.” A St. Mary’s College of Maryland, associate vice president relayed that the school is “very receptive and appreciative of the insight from the students.” A former vice chairman of Anne Arundel Community College wrote that “students — who are, after all, what the institution is fundamentally about — have no such power [to deal with issues through negotiations and contract decisions] unless they have a voice on the board.”

The views of these college administrators and board members may be shocking to some members of Oberlin’s board, but they are certainly not unique. We did not ask for voting rights on the board, for a say in tenure review, or to affect hiring and firing decisions. We asked for students’ voices to be heard at the highest level of the College’s governance and for reformed communication channels. We asked for non-voting membership, nearly identical to faculty membership, on board committees. We didn’t ask for the Academic Affairs Committee or the Executive Committee. We asked for seats on four committees where we felt our insight and expertise would be relevant and valuable.

Our proposal was rejected by a board that was not ready for even the mildest level of student participation See Rejection, page 7

Letters to the editors, cont.

Continued from page 5

tightly controlled and safeguarded.

The only two reasons for a citizen to own a firearm are for hunting or for defense of the household from intruders. In either case, ownership of a handgun, shotgun, or rifle is more than adequate to satisfy these purposes. There is absolutely no need for any U.S. civilian to own any weapon more powerful or sophisticated than these.

Accordingly, all handguns, shotguns, and rifles should be licensed and registered so that authorities can match weapon to owner at the click of a computer key. Furthermore, we must guarantee that the mentally ill do not gain access to them under any circumstances. Finally, if we had prohibited the purchase of more sophisticated weapons, many innocent victims would not have died or been harmed at shopping malls, college campuses, congressional meetings, churches, and now concerts. We as a country must deal with this issue immediately, or else society will fall back to the days when everyone carried a holster.

– Joe Bialek Cleveland Resident

Singleton Offers Expertise to City Council To the Editors: On Tuesday, Nov. 7, I will have the distinct pleasure of voting for Kelley Singleton for Oberlin City Council. I urge you to do the same — not because of Kelley’s experience in management, or because of his already outstanding service as an Oberlin Rotarian and city councilman. It won’t be because he grew up here, or even because he shares my passionate advocacy for renewable energy, Oberlin’s status as a sanctuary city, and LGBTQ rights.

I’m so excited to vote for Kelley because he is full of ideas: He’s paving the way for food trucks to draw people outside on sum-

mer nights; he has sounded out local growers to plant cherry trees on a dreary corner for a blossom festival in some future spring; and he’s planning a green path to connect all the parks scattered throughout Oberlin.

Kelley has a vision for Oberlin that gets me excited to live here and contribute to this community. As one of the founding artist-members of Waterloo Arts in Cleveland, I saw first-hand how people with ideas — people like Kelley — can turn a place into a thriving neighborhood bursting with potential.

Oberlin is already an awesome place to live. Kelley Singleton will bring out the best that Oberlin and its engaged citizens have to offer.

– Martha Ferrazza Oberlin Resident

Redd, Williams Provide Experienced Candidates To the Editors: I am writing to express strong support for School Board candidates Sandra Redd and Jason Williams. I believe it is important that we elect School Board candidates that will move the district forward, bringing in diverse thoughts and opinions. As a registered nurse and an Oberlin High School graduate who has been involved in Oberlin schools for over 30 years as a student, parent, and advocate, Redd will bring a new voice to board deliberations and decision-making. Williams is a Lorain County native, parent of two Oberlin school children, and an Oberlin College graduate who founded a program that promotes STEM literacy among school-age children. I am confident Redd and Williams will each make important contributions as members of the board. Please support candidates Sandra Redd and Jason Williams for election to Oberlin’s School Board.

– Jim Walsh Professor of Mathematics

CARTOON OF THE WEEK

Hope Paramount in Face of Danger To the Editors:

We on earth have our problems. The first is that in a second, comets, asteroids, or an all-out unleashing of the world’s nuclear stockpiles could wipe us all out. More slowly, it could be the effects of global warming. If none of these occurs to eliminate all life, then surely the best scientific evidence is that in a few billion years our sun will shine no more, forever extinguishing all of us humans and all other life.

The first thought of this bleak picture is that we are doomed, left solely with our seeking to get as much pleasure as we possibly can out of our brief stay on this Earth — still brief even if it’s 90-plus years — without regard to whom or what we destroy. Thus, “Make America Great Again” offers far less than “Make America Greater Than Ever.” The latter offers hope to people anywhere on this Earth and underscores that that there is so much good in all humans.

“Make America Greater Than Ever” reminds us of a God who inspired all the brilliant scientists of the past to unlock the mysteries during their times that once seemed so unfathomable — for example, jumbo planes flying around the world, DNA, the subatomic world, telescopes peering into galaxies revealing stars, perhaps one of which might replace our sun, and more.

We today need only understand and appreciate that all we are asked to do for future generations is similar to that which we inherited — an undying quest for the betterment of all, using maximally what God gave us — minds.

Of course, history is replete with evil and inhumanity, which served both as roadblocks to progress and as incen-

tives for us to work harder and smarter.

And that is what we Americans are called upon to do in our lifetimes.

“Make America Better Than Ever” by striving to eradicate poverty and all forms of injustice and discrimination at home and understanding that we can never achieve a fullness and lasting greatness unless and until human beings everywhere in the world enjoy some measure of the liberty, prosperity, and peace that we seek for ourselves.

Our humanity can never be whole if it is always restricted just to ourselves.

It must be one that recognizes that we are all seriously at risk of extermination. Survival cannot be guaranteed, but it is far more likely to be attained if we work for and embrace “A World Humanity” — one uniting and enriching us with the gifts of love, joy, and inventiveness that all God’s people have.

Celebrate this day.

REC Revenue Should Be Invested in Sustainability Madeleine Page Contributing Writer

Students should do all that they can to educate themselves before voting in the elections that are coming up this Tuesday, Nov. 7. I care deeply about Issues 16 and 17, which are focused on the City of Oberlin’s Renewable Energy Certificates. These certificates are the equivalent of money that the city has accumulated by using renewable energy, and Issues 16 and 17 will allow the voters of Oberlin to decide how the money will be spent. I am in agreement with many key city environmental figures to vote “YES” on 16 and “NO” on 17, and I support the investment of the money so that it can be used for important future sustainability projects.

In short, the city earns RECs by generating electricity from renewable sources. These RECs can then be bought, sold, and invested. Oberlin has accumulated an abundance of RECs because the type of certificates the city has acquired through Ohio landfill gas are worth significantly more than other kinds of renewable certificates.

The city sold these high-priced RECs and used that money to The Oberlin Review | November 3, 2017

buy cheaper out-of-state wind certificates, which resulted in a sizeable profit. Now, Oberlin has accumulated over two million dollars worth of REC revenue.

In 2007, City Council passed an ordinance creating the Sustainable Reserve Program — an account into which most of the REC proceeds were deposited­— while some were held in another account with the city’s electric company, Oberlin Municipal Light and Power Systems. Since then, the SRP account has been used to fund six sustainability projects in Oberlin.

The large increase in REC revenue ignited a debate over the best use of the available funds. The director of the electric company thought RECs should strictly be used for projects related to electricity. For example, the director wanted to use the RECs to lower electricity rates for all ratepayers in the city by approximately $10 a month until the money would run out after a period of two or three years.

Issues 16 and 17 were placed on the ballot by Oberlin’s Citizens for Safe and Sustainable Energy to given the community agency in deciding how

Mikaela Fishman

this money should be spent, and students can weigh in on this debate. By voting “YES” on Issue 16 (“Ordinance changing Oberlin City Sustainable Reserve Program Ordinance”) all of the revenue from RECs will go directly to the SRP Account and be invested. This issue also requires any changes made to the SRP be done through legislation. If this money is invested, the City of Oberlin will maintain its commitment to the Climate Action Plan by becoming carbon-neutral by 2020.

Issue 17 (“Oberlin City Community Choice Program Ordinance”) focuses on an ordinance passed in 2016 stating that 85 percent of RECs revenue should be dispersed to Oberlin’s top ratepayers, which include Oberlin College, Walmart, and the Federal Aviation Administration. Once all of these ratepayers’ electricity bills are reduced, it is through the “Community Choice Program” that they have the choice to give some or all of the saved money back to the city. Issue 17 is strictly a referendum on this ordinance, asking whether this Community Choice Program Fund should be adopted or not. Voting “NO” on Issue 17 will prevent the Com-

munity Choice Fund from being created and will allow all of the RECs to be used by the city. This will allow the city to further its effort of combating climate change through investing in sustainability projects.

All of these opinions and information regarding “Yes on 16/ No on 17” are shared by many environmentalists in the Oberlin community. Such supporters include Community for Safe and Sustainable Energy, leaders in the Citizens Climate Lobby, and many professors in Oberlin College’s Environmental Studies department. These issues may not seem important to a temporary resident of Oberlin, but decisions like these can lead to big changes in the future.

The wise investment of REC revenue will return more value to the city and to ratepayers than the few dollars they would get by choosing not to invest. As students, it is important to take advantage of our right to vote here in Oberlin by voting “YES” on Issue 16 and “NO” on Issue 17. Take the arguments above seriously, educate yourselves on all ballot issues, and vote this upcoming Tuesday, Nov. 7. Students have made a difference before, and we can again.

– Booker C. Peek Emeritus Associate Professor of Africana Studies

Rejection of Student Representation Leads to Disappointment Continued from page 6

in board proceedings. The board said that they want “as much student input on important matters as is feasibly possible,” yet when we presented the way to amass that input in a direct, regular, and institutionalized manner, they said no. The board demonstrated through their vote that they fundamentally do not believe that students would provide valuable contributions to board committees.

In fact, they think it would be damaging, that some trustees would “think out loud less candidly if students were in the room.”

I’m hugely disappointed. Our board — comprised of CEOs, COOs, vice presidents, and law partners — does not feel comfortable discussing how to keep Oberlin a great school in posterity before the very people the school is built around: its students. I truly believe that the board has made the wrong decision for themselves, for students, and for Oberlin. While Senate is disappointed by these results, we will continue to explore avenues for student-trustee engagement.

Senate Chair Thobeka Mnisi will be leading a working group to develop other possibilities. Senate working groups are open to all students, and we encourage those interested to reach out and get involved.

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OSCA Iron Chef: Winning Recipes

Layout, art, and text by Lucy Martin, This Week Editor Background image courtesy of ASDA Good living Ingredients courtesy of respective co-ops

Ginger Cookies:

Olive Oil, Ginger, Molasses, Flour, Sugar, Baking Soda, Cinnamon, Cocoa Powder, Salt, Coconut Milk

Cauliflower:

Flour, Milk, Corn Starch, Cauliflower, Turmeric, Olive Oil, Black Pepper, Salt, Ginger, Cardamom, Curry Powder

Tofu, Fry Oil

Cucumbers, Purple Onions, Salt, Vinegar, Sugar, Ginger

Keep

Rice Noodles, Miso, Sesame Seeds, Tamari Sauce

Coconut Milk, Oil, Ginger, Salt, Turmeric, Black Pepper, Carrots, Onions, Garlic, Cumin Cilantro

Eggplant, Lemon Juice, Paprika, Tahini, Salt, Garlic, Ginger; Served with Pita Bread

Ginger, Potatoes, Garlic, Onion, Olive Oil

Deep Fried Tofu:

Ginger and Soy Sauce Marinade; Reduced Balsamic/ Molasses/Ginger glaze

Pyle

Flour, Carrots, Oil, Coconut Milk, Sugar, Fake Cream Cheese

Eggplant, Salt, Garlic, Onions, Ginger, Oil, Water

Fairkid

Molasses, Ginger syrup (sugar, water, molasses, ginger), Chocolate chips, candied ginger

Green Beans, Olive Oil, Lemons

Carrot Cake:

Eggplant:

Bread:

French Fries:

Roasted Green Beans:

Harkness Rice Noodles:

Carrot Ginger Soup:

Baba Ghanoush:

Butternut Squash, Ginger, Water

Lemon Juice, Cilantro, Garlic, Rice, White Flour

Glazed Tofu: Salsa:

Squash Soup:

Rice Pilaf:

Muffins:

Ginger, Yeast, Flour, Water, Oil, Baking Powder, Earth Balance, Salt, Sugar, Candied Ginger

Chickpea Curry:

Turmeric, Coriander, Garam Masala, Curry Powder, Salt, Garlic, Ginger, Ginger Powder, Earth Balance, Diced Tomatoes, Tomato Sauce, Rice Milk, Cauliflower, Onions, Potatoes, Chickpeas

Miso Caramel Apples: Apples, Ginger, Flour, Sugar, Butter, Miso, Milk

Vegetables:

Coconut Milk, Curry Powder, Ginger Cauliflower

Friday November 3:

Public Observatory Viewing of the Night Sky at 8 p.m. in Peters Hall Feel the floor of Finney tremble during its monthly Organ Pump at 11:59 p.m.

Saturday November 4:

Support the Oberlin football team as they play against Hiram College at 1 p.m.

Student musicians and bands play at the Cat in the Cream for a Parents’ Weekend Showcase at 8 p.m. Featuring Ultus, Muntaha & Tony, and Bémbe.

SUPC presents Chynna with Spice Lo at the ‘Sco at 10 p.m.

Wednesday November 8:

J Street U Oberlin presents Palestinian field researcher Nasser Nawaj’ah as he discusses the ways that the international community can support the fight for peace, justice, and human rights in Israel and Palestinian territories.

Craig Lecture Hall at 7:30-9 p.m.

Rocking out the Revolution: A Soviet/Post-Soviet Dance and Costume Party at the Cat in the Cream at 9 p.m.

Thursday November 9:

The Apollo Theatre presents Monty Python and the Holy Grail from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Focaccia:

Water, Flour, Yeast, Sugar, Salt, Garlic, topped with Honey

Chocolate Cake:

Flour, Sugar, Baking Powder, Vinegar, Cocoa Powder, Canola Oil; Ginger Curd with Ginger, Water, Lemon Zest, Sugar, Arrowroot Starch, Salt; Glazed with a Ginger, Cocoa Powder, Powdered Sugar, and Water Glaze

Lentils:

Red Lentils, Water, Oil, Onions, Garlic, Ginger, Coriander, Chili Flakes, Tomatoes

Tank Tofu and Vegetables:

Marinated with Oil, Orange Juice, Ginger, Cayenne, Cumin, Red Chili Flakes, Salt, Pepper, Bay Leaves with a Honey, Tamari, Garlic, Salt, and Pepper Glaze Served with Sweet Peppers, Bok Choi, Carrots, Coriander, Salt, Pepper, Oil

Greens:

Rainbow Chard, Broccoli, Tamari, Oil, Salt, Garlic, Ginger

Loukoumades:

Flour, Salt, Sugar, Yeast, Water, Olive Oil, Canola Oil, Honey, Ginger, Water, Sugar

OSCA Iron Chef: Winning Recipes

Layout, art, and text by Lucy Martin, This Week Editor Background image courtesy of ASDA Good living Ingredients courtesy of respective co-ops

Ginger Cookies:

Olive Oil, Ginger, Molasses, Flour, Sugar, Baking Soda, Cinnamon, Cocoa Powder, Salt, Coconut Milk

Cauliflower:

Flour, Milk, Corn Starch, Cauliflower, Turmeric, Olive Oil, Black Pepper, Salt, Ginger, Cardamom, Curry Powder

Tofu, Fry Oil

Cucumbers, Purple Onions, Salt, Vinegar, Sugar, Ginger

Keep

Rice Noodles, Miso, Sesame Seeds, Tamari Sauce

Coconut Milk, Oil, Ginger, Salt, Turmeric, Black Pepper, Carrots, Onions, Garlic, Cumin Cilantro

Eggplant, Lemon Juice, Paprika, Tahini, Salt, Garlic, Ginger; Served with Pita Bread

Ginger, Potatoes, Garlic, Onion, Olive Oil

Deep Fried Tofu:

Ginger and Soy Sauce Marinade; Reduced Balsamic/ Molasses/Ginger glaze

Pyle

Flour, Carrots, Oil, Coconut Milk, Sugar, Fake Cream Cheese

Eggplant, Salt, Garlic, Onions, Ginger, Oil, Water

Fairkid

Molasses, Ginger syrup (sugar, water, molasses, ginger), Chocolate chips, candied ginger

Green Beans, Olive Oil, Lemons

Carrot Cake:

Eggplant:

Bread:

French Fries:

Roasted Green Beans:

Harkness Rice Noodles:

Carrot Ginger Soup:

Baba Ghanoush:

Butternut Squash, Ginger, Water

Lemon Juice, Cilantro, Garlic, Rice, White Flour

Glazed Tofu: Salsa:

Squash Soup:

Rice Pilaf:

Muffins:

Ginger, Yeast, Flour, Water, Oil, Baking Powder, Earth Balance, Salt, Sugar, Candied Ginger

Chickpea Curry:

Turmeric, Coriander, Garam Masala, Curry Powder, Salt, Garlic, Ginger, Ginger Powder, Earth Balance, Diced Tomatoes, Tomato Sauce, Rice Milk, Cauliflower, Onions, Potatoes, Chickpeas

Miso Caramel Apples: Apples, Ginger, Flour, Sugar, Butter, Miso, Milk

Vegetables:

Coconut Milk, Curry Powder, Ginger Cauliflower

Friday November 3:

Public Observatory Viewing of the Night Sky at 8 p.m. in Peters Hall Feel the floor of Finney tremble during its monthly Organ Pump at 11:59 p.m.

Saturday November 4:

Support the Oberlin football team as they play against Hiram College at 1 p.m.

Student musicians and bands play at the Cat in the Cream for a Parents’ Weekend Showcase at 8 p.m. Featuring Ultus, Muntaha & Tony, and Bémbe.

SUPC presents Chynna with Spice Lo at the ‘Sco at 10 p.m.

Wednesday November 8:

J Street U Oberlin presents Palestinian field researcher Nasser Nawaj’ah as he discusses the ways that the international community can support the fight for peace, justice, and human rights in Israel and Palestinian territories.

Craig Lecture Hall at 7:30-9 p.m.

Rocking out the Revolution: A Soviet/Post-Soviet Dance and Costume Party at the Cat in the Cream at 9 p.m.

Thursday November 9:

The Apollo Theatre presents Monty Python and the Holy Grail from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Focaccia:

Water, Flour, Yeast, Sugar, Salt, Garlic, topped with Honey

Chocolate Cake:

Flour, Sugar, Baking Powder, Vinegar, Cocoa Powder, Canola Oil; Ginger Curd with Ginger, Water, Lemon Zest, Sugar, Arrowroot Starch, Salt; Glazed with a Ginger, Cocoa Powder, Powdered Sugar, and Water Glaze

Lentils:

Red Lentils, Water, Oil, Onions, Garlic, Ginger, Coriander, Chili Flakes, Tomatoes

Tank Tofu and Vegetables:

Marinated with Oil, Orange Juice, Ginger, Cayenne, Cumin, Red Chili Flakes, Salt, Pepper, Bay Leaves with a Honey, Tamari, Garlic, Salt, and Pepper Glaze Served with Sweet Peppers, Bok Choi, Carrots, Coriander, Salt, Pepper, Oil

Greens:

Rainbow Chard, Broccoli, Tamari, Oil, Salt, Garlic, Ginger

Loukoumades:

Flour, Salt, Sugar, Yeast, Water, Olive Oil, Canola Oil, Honey, Ginger, Water, Sugar

A r t s & C u lt u r e

ARTS & CULTURE November 3, 2017

established 1874

Volume 146, Number 8

Voices Against Human Trafficking Combines Education, Performance Julia Peterson Arts & Culture Editor

Editor’s note: This article discussion of human trafficking.

contains

Voices Against Human Trafficking, which combined musical and poetry performances with education about human trafficking, drew a large crowd to the Cat in the Cream for its fourth iteration last Friday night. Project Unbound, Oberlin’s anti-human trafficking advocacy group, organized the event and raised $480 in donations for the Human Trafficking Collaborative of Lorain County.

Project Unbound’s work addresses an issue that has a major impact both locally and globally. Worldwide, an estimated 24.9 million people are victims of trafficking, according to a 2017 report from the International Labor Organization and Walk Free Foundation. In Ohio, 191 cases of human trafficking have already been reported as of June this year, and Lorain County is known to be a major transit hub in a national human trafficking route.

“Human trafficking is forced labor — whether it be physical labor or sexual labor,” said College junior Kellianne Doyle, co-chair of Project Unbound. “A lot of people actually think that sex trafficking is more common, but labor trafficking is more common. By labor trafficking, I mean being forced to work with little or no pay, and being exploited by a person or a group of people.”

College senior and fellow co-chair of Project Unbound Sarah Blum explained common misconceptions that many people have about human trafficking, and how the Oberlin community has become more aware in recent years.

“When I [first] came to Oberlin, human trafficking was [seen as] either something that happened far away in [places] like Cambodia or Thailand, or people had no literacy with human trafficking [at all],” she said. “Now, people know about human trafficking. … People know that it happens, and it happens here.”

Last Friday’s Voices Against Human

the room, or tears were shed on stage, but that never stopped the audience [from throwing] in snaps in solidarity or [passing] a tissue to [someone] who needed it. When I first heard of the event, I anticipated a few statistics about [human trafficking] and secondhand anecdotes, but nothing as engaging [as] what was shared. … There was a positive atmosphere, everyone was cheering everyone on. But the heavy moments hit hard for me.”

If students or community members would like to learn more about human trafficking or become more involved in supporting local organizations, there are a variety of concrete steps that they can take, as Project Unbound tries to host at least four events about human trafficking every semester. “[This] parents’ weekend, [Project Community member Meeko Israel performs two poems during Friday night’s Voices Against Unbound is] actually hosting a Human Trafficking event at the Cat in the Cream, accompanied by Mohit Dubey on guitar.

Photo by Hugh Newcomb, Photo Editor workshop,” Doyle said. “You can bring your parents and your friends, and that Trafficking featured acappella groups draw, the real heart of this year’s Voices will just be some basic information on Pitch Please, CHALLaH capella, and the Against Human Trafficking was the two human trafficking.”

Obertones, as well as a variety of individual survivors from Lorain County who For Blum, the prevention of human singers and poets. According to Blum, who spoke about their experiences. trafficking must go beyond single first had the idea for Voices Against Human “This was the first year that we events, and involve intentionally caring Trafficking four years ago, incorporating had survivors from Lorain County for the people in one’s communities. performances into the evening was critical willing to speak with us,” Blum said.

“Keep your eyes open,” Blum said. in ensuring that the event drew a crowd.

“I think that was probably the most “Even if they’re not a trafficking “I knew I needed to throw a big event, … memorable thing for me because from survivor — which the likelihood is and I thought of the type of event I would the beginning, I wanted to be able to that they’re not — supporting someone want to go to,” Blum said. “Even if I had be a platform for survivors. For the on a dark day can prevent this from no idea what trafficking was, who would last three years, I wanted Voices to be happening. Human trafficking is I want to be there? And I thought of all that. But I didn’t want to ever force any ... a big climax of a person’s little the show-stopping groups that we have survivor into speaking if they weren’t vulnerable moments. You don’t just end [on campus], which we have a ton of. … I ready. … Now, we as a community get up in human trafficking. You end up in [thought], ‘Well, what if we combined to embrace two survivors. … I think the human trafficking because you were all the groups that I know have a huge love that was present in that space — vulnerable for [any number of reasons], crowd following and bring them they got standing ovations — was really and then something capitalizes on all of together for one event, and … have it be empowering for them.” your vulnerabilities. But if one person an awareness event as well, [where] we According to College first-year loved someone through that tiny little bring the activists and we bring survivors Carson Dowhan, who performed vulnerable moment, they wouldn’t have and we bring the knowledge.’ Honestly, the an original song, the event was very been so tempted by that big, big draw first year … I knew that people weren’t successful in blending performance of human trafficking, for whatever going to come because it was a human with education and advocacy. motivation. I feel like as a community, trafficking event. They were going to “I didn’t think the show would hit we can be supporting people better come because OSlam and the Obertones on such heavy themes,” Dowhan wrote through the little vulnerable moments, and Pitch Please were there.” in an email to the Review. “There whatever that looks like. Even if they’re Though the performances are a big were moments when silence filled not at risk for trafficking, it can’t hurt.”

Supreme Court Justice Biopic Thrills with Legal Twists, Turns Russell Jaffe Staff Writer

Editor’s note: This article contains mention of sexual assault, violence, racism, and anti-Semitism.

In a thrilling biographical legal drama, Marshall tells the story of the Supreme Court justice and civil rights lawyer, Thurgood Marshall, as he confronts one of the first and lesser-known cases of his prolific career. When a wealthy socialite accuses her Black chauffeur of sexual assault and attempted murder, Marshall must join forces with local insurance lawyer Sam Friedman to uncover the truth and defend the chauffeur from a town that has already presumed his guilt.

This films stands out from the typical biographical drama, as it avoids the usual attempts to glorify an individual by focusing on their greatest triumphs.

Marshall’s more famous cases — such as Brown v. Board of Education, which desegregated public education — are already taught in most American history classes. The film provides a new perspective by confronting a case from 1940 that few members of the audience are likely familiar with. Viewers hoping to see Marshall’s entire life story crammed into a two-hour window will be disappointed. This tighter focus, however, is exactly what allows this film to be a true drama rather than supplementary material for

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a history textbook.

By focusing on a lesser known case of Marshall’s, the film also highlights the kind of man that Marshall was and the values he championed. Ultimately, this saves the film from falling into the common trap faced by biopics, where glorification often overpowers the humanity of heroes. Over the course of the film, the audience gradually gets to know Marshall as if he were speaking directly through the screen to them.

Although he certainly shines in court, the nuances of his life are revealed far beyond his career: caring for his wife, drinking with friends, and in many respects, simply living an ordinary life. A portrait is ultimately drawn that illustrates Marshall not only to be a just lawyer, as most people already know him to be, but also a regular man, hitting home at a personal level.

Marshall’s partner-in-law, Friedman, is given just as much character complexity throughout the story. Reluctantly thrust into the defense case with Marshall, Friedman is petrified by the negative attention that it will bring to both him and his family in the beginning of the story. As a Jewish person living during the peak of Nazism, he faces great struggles with anti-Semitism, and gradually, as the story progresses, begins discovering parallels between this bigotry and the racism that Marshall — and their client — must confront daily.

The most compelling element of this film is

the way it uses these parallels to create a highly relevant message about the prejudice currently and increasingly prevalent throughout the nation. More than just acknowledging that discrimination exists, Marshall reveals how history has changed because of heroes willing to rise to the occasion and advocate for what is right, even when they are threatened, ostracized, and beaten down. Such determination holds equal importance today, and in one of the most powerful quotes of the film, Marshall summarizes this principle: “The only way to get through a bigot’s door is to break it down.”

Although the film is certainly excellent as an overall experience, there are several points that warranted improvement, especially the use of humor.

While humor often provides some relief to the dark and often frightening story, the film seems to overuse this, relying on comical moments like a crutch to move the plot through slower parts. This can make the jokes seem forced or mistimed. At the worst moments, the juxtaposition of humor in the middle of otherwise serious scenes is a sour note.

The film is perhaps just a little bit too ambitious.

Many of the plot points that were introduced early on are later abandoned and ultimately irrelevant to the storyline and add unnecessary baggage to the story. However, even this does not subtract from the underlying messages, which alone makes the movie worth seeing.

Figaro Explores Gendered Power Dynamics With Comedic Flair Julia Peterson Arts & Culture Editor Ellis Lane

The operas presented by the Conservatory have long been a campus highlight, drawing students, faculty members, and community members to one knockout performance after another. This semester looks to be no different, as evidenced by Oberlin Opera Theater’s production of The Marriage of Figaro, which opened Wednesday night in Hall Auditorium. However, in the wider world, questions continue to be raised about the sustainability of opera as an art form. On Thursday night, Resonanz Opera presented a panel discussion by members of the Cleveland Opera Theater called “Opera is Alive in Cleveland!” to address these questions and celebrate the form.

“If it was not sustainable, we wouldn’t be sitting here,” said panelist and Cleveland Opera soprano Dorta Sobieska about the feasibility of producing operas in northeastern Ohio.

“It has to change and it has to be changing; we don’t know what’s coming in 10 years, but it’s an art form that is alive. It has to respond to the changes in communities and people’s understandings of reality. …

This is something that we’re still searching for, in terms of artistic appeal and artistic communication with the audience, but saying that it’s impossible is denying the fact that it does exist.”

David Bamberger, artistic director of Opera Theater at the Cleveland Institute of Music, had advice for young musicians who are considering a career in opera.

“It will always stand you in good stead to learn to do something very well,” Bamberger said. “If what you

Students perform Mozart’s opera Le nozze di Figaro, which opened Wednesday night in Hall Auditorium.

Photo courtesy of Oberlin Conservatory

love at the moment is theater, learn to do that really, really well — as well as you can.”

In many ways, Oberlin’s production of The Marriage of Figaro showcases this spirit of excellence and perennial relevance, and the very best of the operatic genre. The opera is one of the most frequently performed in the world, and this popularity speaks to the enduring appeal of Mozart’s complex comedy, which engages themes of class and gendered power dynamics. It only takes a glance at recent headlines to see why these motifs will resonate with audiences today.

“This opera really is about #MeToo,” Oberlin Opera Theater Director Jonathon Field said. “In a sense, it’s been a situation that has been continuing, where men of power assume that that gives them the authority to determine the sexual lives of the people who work under them. And that’s kind of what it’s all about, in a nutshell.”

“There’s a reason this opera has remained popular

since the 18th century,” wrote Conservatory senior Olivia Cosío, who plays Cherubino in the Wednesday and Saturday casts, in an email to the Review. “This opera is adored by so many because the content and music are still so relevant today. I truly believe that anyone can be touched by something in this opera.”

The plot of The Marriage of Figaro centers on Figaro and Suzanna, servants who are to be married, as well as Countess Rosina Almaviva and her husband, Count Almaviva. The Count has been making unwanted advances towards Suzanna, which infuriates Figaro. In a plot twist that would be thrilling in any contemporary story, let alone one first performed in 1786, the Count is outsmarted

by Suzanna and the Countess Rosina, and everything works out for the best in the end.

“Le nozze di Figaro is a show that embodies love, humanity, and forgiveness,” Conservatory junior Diana Schwam, who plays the Countess, wrote in an email to

the Review. “It reaches depths of vulnerability and heights of laughter. It’s a show that is truly a masterpiece in [and] of itself.”

The Marriage of Figaro fulfills the opulent potential of opera, from the music at the heart of the performance to the set and the costumes. The set, designed by Oberlin Theater production staff member Laura Carlson-Tarantowski, is ornate, intricate, and spiralling, and loaned itself to seamless set changes as pieces could simply be moved around to evoke an entirely different location. The arias have a broad emotional range, from snarky to amorous to creepy to heartbreaking. The powerful, joyous overture is well known and is often played independently as a concert piece as it stands on its own merits.

“There are pieces of music that you will recognize instantly, because you’ve either heard it in commercials, or you’ve heard it in movies,” Field said. “The music itself is very, very popular.”

One of the clearest reasons for this opera’s enduring appeal is that it wastes no opportunity for comedy. If there is a character hiding behind a chair, or under a dress, or listening in on a conversation that they were not meant to hear, there is no doubt that they will be discovered at the single worst possible moment. One long series of arias is entirely devoted to the question of who is hiding in a closet, as cast members quickly change places with one another. Cast members also frequently change costumes or cross-dress, creating a thrilling confusion about the characters’ identities. At one point, the Count attempts to seduce Suzanna but winds up involved in a tryst with his own wife who has swapped clothes with Suzanna. At the same time, Figaro sees through his beloved’s disguise but pretends not to, teasing her by flirting with her as though she were the Countess. The climactic moment of the play is hilariously abrupt; at one moment, beloved characters are being threatened at swordpoint, and in the next, these same characters are making amends to each other.

“I think that where the opera really becomes transcendent is, first, that the transgressor actually recognizes the extent of his transgressions and asks for forgiveness,” Field said, referring to the Count’s final aria as he recognizes the wrongness of his behavior towards both Suzanna and his wife. “And then he actually is forgiven. That idea of mercy is always a revolutionary idea, but also the idea of men of power taking an equal level with the people they work with was totally revolutionary.

In a way, it’s still revolutionary today.”

Original Student Musical The Odds Plays with Tropes, Humor

Conservatory sophomore Jacob Britton’s original jazz musical The Odds, a high school drama set in the 1950s, premiered last weekend at the Cat in the Cream.

Photo by Hugh Newcomb, Photo Editor Ananya Gupta Arts & Culture Editor

Fun, cliché Hollywood tropes about high school find a new face in Conservatory sophomore Jacob Britton’s jazz musical, The Odds. Overall, the performance feels like two Zac Efron movies melded into one: a feel-good, low-budget take on High School Musical and Seventeen Again.

The musical, set in the 1950s, engages with the struggles and anxieties faced by high school freshman, Aaron Baker (College first-year Tom Lovoi). Aaron ditches class for the first time, develops a crush on a nerdy girl, and faces tough teachers and bullying — all while living under the shadow of his father, the oncebeloved high school mascot Leonard Baker (College sophomore Calder Laban). While Aaron’s friends and teachers wish that he were more like his father, Aaron is also burdened with his father’s shame. Leonard is infamous for once having left a football game early — as it turns out, because he saw Aaron’s mother-to-be choking and went to save her, abandoning his position as mascot and losing the home-team Bluebirds the game. After navigating the chaos of high school, Aaron reconciles his relationship with his father, continues his legacy as a mascot and, of course, gets the girl.

This slightly overdone storyline is contrasted with the refreshing, jazzy form of the play, highlighted

by College sophomore and music director Paul Lawrence.

“I didn’t have anything specific in mind, and then, over fall break, I got an incredible opportunity to sit in a pit orchestra on Broadway,” Lawrence said. “I watched the musical director and all the people in the pit do everything so precisely and at such a high level of professionalism. That really gave me a model

to what I wanted to do.”

The major themes of the play — friendship, camaraderie, and building relationships — were reflected as clearly behind the scenes as they were on stage. The cast and crew had nothing but effusive praise for each other’s contributions.

“Probably my biggest idol was my [high school] vocal director Carol Burton,” Lawrence said. “She would put friendship and relationships with people in her group first [and] because of that, every [production] I was in with her was so much tighter and close-knit and better than anything else. She was the person that I would always think about when I was working on this.”

“The main takeaway I got from the creative process was that there is no such thing as a one-man show,” Britton added. “I could not have done it without the crew and the show would not be as good without their help.”

The focus on relationships shines through the seamless flow of the play. Like most of the cast and crew, director and College sophomore Abigail Bowman was a close friend of Britton before the idea of The Odds was even pitched for production.

“Jacob … is one of my closest friends, and I actually got the job of director by accident,” Bowman said. “He wanted to pitch the musical and he needed a director, See The Odds, page 13

The Oberlin Review | November 3, 2017

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A r t s & C u lt u r e ON THE RECORD

On the Record with Author Mia Alvar Mia Alvar is a writer currently based in Santa Monica, CA. She was born in the Philippines and raised in the U.S. and Bahrain. Alvar graduated from Harvard College and the School of the Arts at Columbia University. Her 2015 collection of short stories, In the Country, won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, the University of Rochester’s Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, and The New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her work has also appeared in One Story, The Missouri Review, The Cincinnati Review, and other publications. On Saturday, Alvar was featured as a guest speaker at the Oberlin Filipinx American Student Association’s celebration of Filipinx American Heritage Month.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Filipinx-American author Mia Alvar Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo Editor

Interview by Melissa Harris Editor-in-Chief

In the Country tells so many different stories of Filipinos and the Philippine diaspora, and each narrative feels genuine and realistic. What goes into your writing process to help you craft stories the way you do?

The process for me is a lot of reading and thinking, and it usually involves having a couple of things in mind for a story that I feel are connected, even if I’m not sure how. I’ll start reading about the time period that I want my story to be set in or the job that I think my main character has, but I don’t know anything about, or that kind of research — just taking notes as I read. Then eventually, whether it’s a deadline or something else that forces me to start making a story out of that material, that’s when it starts to come together. And the writing for me is figuring out what the connection is between those disparate things that I want to throw together in a story but don’t quite know about.

themes in general, whether that was work or parenting or anything like that. I usually start off with something else, whether it’s a setting or a type of character that I want to explore, but I think those themes kind of did end up recurring throughout the book, so I guess it was a more varied obsession for me that bubbled up as I wrote.

What does being of the diaspora mean to you as both an individual and a writer?

That’s a great question. I think what became clear to me as I was writing about the diaspora was how much commonality and connection there was between Filipino communities in Bahrain and New York and going back to the Philippines, but also how much of the opposite of those things there was — how much class distinction plays into relationships between Filipinos and the diaspora; how much disconnection between members of families plays into the diaspora. I think … both [as] an individual and as a writer, it’s about that tension between community, and that disconnection.

How do you make the obstacles and themes specific to the Philippine diaspora accessible to readers? Do you have a specific audience in mind when you write?

I don’t really have a specific audience in mind. I tend to be focused — when I’m writing — less on readers than on a question or obsession that I have, and trying to figure out not necessarily answers, but some kind of insight to that question. As far as making the themes accessible, I think the easiest way to do that is to focus on the mundane but important details in the stories that I hope are familiar enough to readers that they recognize them, whether they self-identify as part of the Filipino diaspora or not.

Are there any writers who inspire your writing or style?

Yeah, a lot of writers are inspiring for sure. I don’t know how much they show up in my style. I tend to presume that when I was first becoming a writer, it was definitely American immigrant writers writing about their “blank”American communities that inspired me. So the first story collections by Junot Díaz, for example, or Jhumpa Lahiri, were really instrumental for me in thinking about what I wanted to do as a writer, particularly with my first book.

Alice Munro has been a huge influence on me as a writer in terms of what the short story form can do and places it can go beyond what a traditional short story is supposed to look like.

Sandra Cisneros was big for me as a young writer as well, again, in writing in tensions between her Mexican and American identities, and also being a female body in both of those spaces.

A lot of the stories focus on things like motherhood, labor, and a desire for belonging. Do you think those universal themes play into your stories or writing process?

Not explicitly, I don’t think.

I didn’t set out to write about

Have you been back to the Philippines lately? What do you make of the current political climate there?

I have been back to the Philippines recently — as far as my pattern goes — because I went back in 2015 as part of my book tour, and the last

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time I had been back there was 1999, so 16 years earlier. It was a great trip in many ways. I got to connect with my family in Manila, my husband’s family in Pangasinan, and I also got to promote the book and do a literary festival in Davao, which is where my father is from. And being in Davao was interesting because I was there around exactly the time when their [former] mayor, [current President of the Philippines] Rodrigo Duterte, was, after lots of goading from his many fans, announced his intention to run for president. I sort of had inklings about what life in Davao under Duterte was like, in terms of the strict curfews and rules around drinking and smoking, so I knew about his iron fist sort of vaguely. But I didn’t know about the extent of his popularity and what he was going to become for the country. I’m horrified by what’s happening in the Philippines, in terms of the war on drugs and the extrajudicial killings and all of that — as I think anyone should be.

I do think it’s part of a long continuum in Philippine history of targeting the poor and making it a crime to be poor. I think it’s taken different names at different historical moments, whether people who were accused of being communist subversives in the ’70s or Muslim insurgents at

another time. But the targets tend to be the most vulnerable Filipino families, and I think it’s everybody’s problem in the Philippines and across the diaspora to try to solve.

What is the role of literature in our world, in your opinion?

It’s one of the many art forms that can inspire dialogue, connect one person’s experience to another, and make people feel like they’re not feeling things or living things in isolation when they read about someone else going through it — even if that somebody else is made up — and can give people a glimpse into lives that are very different from their own. It can inspire empathy and curiosity and maybe a relationship that way. I think all of those things, but at the same time it’s easy to overstate how much literature can accomplish in the political, real world. In terms of making political change or any sort of real social transformation, it needs the help of other forces, whether it’s other art forms or other disciplines. I don’t think a book on its own can necessarily do great things.

Do you have any projects that you’re working on now?

I’m working on a novel. It’s a sequel to the title novella in In the Country. It follows the main character Milagros as she immigrates to New York, and it

also follows her daughter Jackie who — like many children of overseas Filipino workers or overseas immigrants — is left behind with promises to be sent forward down the road. So it follows Milagros in New York and Jackie in the Philippines and their relationship over time after the events of the novella.

How has being born in the Philippines and living in a variety of places affected your sense of identity?

I think it’s given me a sense of how fragile and fluid identity can be, and it’s made me very wary and suspicious of identity in general. I feel like there are moments where I can definitely say, “I feel American.” I’ve certainly lived in this country for longer than anywhere else. I have a very American sensibility when it comes to certain things. But that can be totally exploded in a moment when I experience something that makes my non-Americanness very stark and apparent. In many ways it has given me a sense of non-identity. I should say, in great moments, in positive moments, it gives me a sense of multiple identities and being able to move and feel some connection with many different communities. In less positive moments, it feels like I don’t necessarily know where I fit or what to call myself.

Gypsy Strings Setlist Suffused with Tradition The Odds Recreates High School Memories With Jazz Soundtrack Continued from page 11

Drawing on the Romani romance and improvisatory instrumental traditions, as well as on genres such as Gypsy jazz, Romani band Gypsy Strings performed at the Cat in the Cream Monday night. The band — headlined by violinist George Batyi and featuring Alex Udvary on cimbalom, Billy Rose on guitar, and Anthony Rose on double bass — has toured extensively across the United States. The band was hosted at Oberlin by the Russian and East European Studies course, Roma, “Gypsies,” Travelers.

Text by Julia Peterson, Arts & Culture Editor Photo by Daniel Firebanks, Staff Photographer

Across

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and I was just sitting next to him when he got [called by the professor], so I said that I would direct it.”

Audience members also seemed to feel that it was more the hard work, close-knit dynamic, and talent of the cast, rather than the story itself, that really pulled the play through.

“On the whole, I had a lot of fun watching it,” College sophomore Leo Hochberg said. “It had its rough patches, but I know everyone who worked on it worked very hard, and I’m very proud [of them].”

With a respectable turnout on The Odds’ opening night, the two-hour play garnered laughs, particularly at the antics and dialogues of three supporting characters: Veronica (College sophomore Kathryn Blessington), Charles (College sophomore Danny Rothberg), and Phoebe (College sophomore Mirella GruesserSmith). The misogynistic and potentially offensive representations of these three characters awkwardly handles gender and sexuality issues pertinent to school and college campuses across the U.S. Each female character in the play is showcased as either partially or completely dependent on a male character’s attention. In particular, Veronica creates a tragically one-dimensional character, with the sole motivation of finding her best friend, Trinity, a boyfriend. Similarly, Charles, a class clown, delivered lines such as, “A real man takes what he wants,” which one can only hope were meant to intentionally mock the misogynistic culture of high school and attempt to send a satirical message about patriarchal values to the audience.

Phoebe represents a stereotypical Oberlin student: She is goth, gay, and makes references to capitalism and societal issues, which could be interpreted as either token diversity or merely poking good-hearted fun at our own student body.

While the play is sometimes clumsy in its attempts to delve into deeper interpersonal problems, Lawrence rightfully lauded its scope.

“It’s kind of an [eclectic] little show. It has a little bit of everything,” he said. “It’s goofy, a little serious but not too serious. Be ready for anything.”

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downfall of 57. College athletic grp.

58. Homer 61. Repair 62. Old-school ingredient 63. Imperial infantryman 64. Sums 65. Functions 66. Benign growths Down 1. Unit for alcohol 2. Hot and dry 3. Server response test 4. Ire 5. Having 58. Down 6. Corpse 7. Rough 8. Seven figures, informally 9. Fido, for example 10. Spanish sir 11. Tasty seasoning 12. Connective tissue 13. Strict 18. Medical trend, abbr.

22. Like a good startup 23. Achieved when you hit this puzzle’s shaded squares 24. Hit hard

25. High-caliber 26. Pageant accessory 27. A trick 28. Springsteen song: “_______ Fire” 29. Epithet 32. Frodo’s home 34. Patch locale 35. Type of cola 36. Jugular area 37. “Going _______” 41. Fight (for) 42. Well-wishes 44. As opposed to juvenile 46. Cause of gossip 47. Exposed 48. Tip over 49. 1995 Radiohead album “The _______” 50. Toss 53. 1966 film: The Good, the Bad, and the _______ 54. The Red Cross and Oxfam, for example 55. Two-Face, a.k.a.

Harvey _______ 56. Metal precursors 58. The grippe 59. Like the U.N., but with fewer members 60. College athletic grp.

Editor’s Note: Solutions to the crossword run in the following week’s issue.

The Oberlin Review | November 3, 2017

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Halsten’s Overall Victory Highlights NCAC Meet Jackie McDermott Staff Writer

A resounding first-place finish by junior Linnea Halsten highlighted last weekend’s North Coast Athletic Conference Championship Cross Country meet, but both the women’s and men’s teams fell short of expectations. Widely regarded as the NCAC favorite, the Yeowomen were upset by Allegheny College and finished second, six points behind the Gators, while the men finished seventh.

Halsten said expectations may have lulled the Yeowomen and left them unprepared for a determined Allegheny squad.

“They wanted it really, really badly, and they were very aggressive going at it,” Halsten said. “We thought we were going to win hands down. It was just a shock.

We were all so surprised, and not really ready to fight for it as much as Allegheny was.”

Halsten earned the eighth individual title in Oberlin women’s cross country history, finishing first by a margin of over 30 seconds with a time of 21 minutes and 23.3 seconds in her team’s 6K race. But Allegheny took three of the remaining top-five spots to tally just 31 points and claim first.

Oberlin tallied 37 points and, despite the upset, ended up earning seven all-NCAC honors, making the race one of the best conference meets in school history.

Sophomore Marija Crook finished in 6th place overall with a time of 22:35.0 and joined Halsten to earn first-team laurels. Rounding out the top-10 finishers were sophomores Oona Jung-Beeman in eighth place and Shannon Wargo in 10th. The Urso sisters,

senior Sarah and sophomore Rachel, followed in 12th and 13th, and Sarah Ridley was next in 19th.

Even though the trails were covered in snow, Halsten led the pack behind a chorus of passionate Oberlin fans. Heading into the home stretch, Halsten was drastically ahead, but kept her pace with the encouragement of her peers waving the custom-made Oberlin Cross Country flag.

“It really, really helps … having the team there to cheer and people there to support you, wanting you to do so well,” Halsten said. “[I] want to make the team proud and the school proud of [me], and represent as much as possible, which can mean not just winning but winning by a larger margin.

That’s what really motivates me to keep going and pushing the whole way.”

After Halsten finished her championship-winning race, she and her teammates turned their attention to cheering on the men.

By the time the men took to the course, it was even more muddy and the snow flurries had not let up. Head Coach Ray Appenheimer said he reminded the men that they couldn’t let the icy weather distract them.

“If you make the weather an excuse, you’ve already lost,” he said. “It’s this way for everyone.

We have a game plan, we have expectations, we need to execute the way we were going to no matter what.”

Although Appenheimer said the Yeomen were disappointed by their seventh place finish and 172 point total in their 8K race, junior Grant Sheely and sophomore David Brubacher both had noteworthy races. Sheely led the Yeomen with a 13th place finish of 25:53.9

Sophomore Shannon Wargo races past Allegheny competition at last Saturday’s NCAC championship meet on Oberlin’s North Fields. Wargo finished in 10th place, with the fourth-best time for the Yeowomen.

Photo courtesy of OC Athletics

and was named to second-team all-NCAC. Next came sophomore David Brubacher, whose time of 26:27.9 earned him 21st place and all-NCAC Honorable Mention.

“Going into Saturday, we knew it was gonna be super cold and wet, so Ray and the entire team were really trying to make it a point that we weren’t going to let the weather affect us,” Brubacher said. “I’ve always felt like I run better in the cold, so I was honestly really excited about the weather, and mentally I was just focused on running my race and not letting what was happening around me affect me.”

Appenheimer noted Sheely’s performance on the men’s side and the finishes of Ridley and Rachel Urso on the women’s as breakthrough races. He added that he is encouraging the rest

of the team to emulate their approach at the NCAA Regional meet next Saturday.

“We’re all going to have that [breakthrough] day next Saturday, so [I told the team to] expect to have that day,” Appenheimer said. “We are going into the Regional meet excited, optimistic, a little angry — which is good — but really ready to step up and, on the women’s end, make it to nationals.”

On the women’s end last season, Halsten’s ninth-place finish at the NCAA regional meet earned her a trip to the NCAA Championship meet, where she placed 53rd. This year, Halsten and the six teammates that will be running alongside her — Crook, Ridley, Wargo, Jung-Beeman, and the Urso sisters — will look to finish in the top two. A

first or second place finish would guarantee the squad a trip to nationals.

The Regional meet starts at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 11 at Ohio Wesleyan University. Appenheimer said Ohio Wesleyan’s course is unique in that there is a two-mile section of the course that is inaccessible by fans or coaches. The runners spend much of the race on their own.

“It’s all gonna happen where the coaches are not,” Appenheimer said. “It really will matter how much they trust one another, how much they can run with each other, and how much they want it while they’re back there and there’s no one cheering — it’s just them and their competitors. We’ve got a pretty mentally tough, resilient group, so I’m confident they’ll be OK.”

NBA MVP Vote Must Return to Players, Away from Press Alex McNicoll Sports Editor

Just over two weeks into the NBA season, the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers are already sure to face off in a championship rematch — their fourth straight Finals duel — and once again take all of the suspense out of the league. The 82-game season may not be exciting, but the MVP race has historically added drama to the regular season. Last year was one of the tightest MVP races in history.

Russell Westbrook, James Harden, LeBron James, and Kawhi Leonard all had MVP-worthy seasons, and Westbrook ultimately came away with the award after becoming the second player ever to average a triple-double over the course of a season. This year, the race is shaping up to be just as good, with the usual suspects — like James — already dominating out of the gate, and new faces like Giannis Antetokounmpo emerging as potential legends in the league. However, in a league absolutely teeming with talent, it’s time for the NBA to let the players, not sports writers, vote on the award again.

From 1955 to 1980, the NBA MVP was determined by a player vote, with the only caveat being that players could not vote for themselves or other players on their team. Then for the 1980–1981 season, voting rights switched to sports writers and broadcasters, with an additional fan ballot introduced later in 2010. The voting system shifted after Kareem-Abdul Jabbar

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won the MVP a record six times in only 10 years — the suspicion that players would blackball competitors or organize to make sure certain players did not win also led to Wes Unseld’s controversial MVP award in 1969 during his rookie season. Unfortunately, the move also gave the power of determining MVP to people who either are not currently playing or have never played in the NBA. Rather, they’re more concerned with NBA storylines than who is playing the best basketball.

While sports writers first overhauled the voting system to ensure the most deserving players won the award, this has not been effective. If anything, sports writers have suffered from “voter fatigue,” or refusing to give deserving MVPs to those who have already won recently, leading to questionable MVP decisions.

While this may make their jobs more exciting, it degrades the value of the award.

Most notably, this happened in the 1996– 1997 season, when Karl Malone won the MVP over Michael Jordan despite Jordan having virtually the same, if not better, season than the previous year in which he did win MVP. Players’ picks and writers’ votes are not always the same. Each summer since 2011, after the season has ended, the NFL has its players rank their peers and release the results. In the last three years, the reigning MVP has only been voted the number-one overall player once, and this past offseason, Matt Ryan, the reigning MVP, was ranked number 10. While

most awards are determined by the press, including the NFL and the Heisman, it makes the most sense for the NBA to make the switch back to players.

Today, the NBA is an incredibly exclusive brotherhood — often times referred to as a fraternity — of men who have been playing with each other since as early as middle school, as AAU, a youth basketball league, has made it easier for the best talent to compete against one another. While sports outlets such as ESPN and Bleacher Report may focus on supposed player rivalries such as Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, in reality, the players are on much better terms than in the ’80s or ’90s when players would openly feud, like Michael Jordan and Isaiah Thomas. For the 1992 Olympics, the first time professional athletes were allowed to compete in the games, Michael Jordan said that he would not participate unless Isaiah Thomas, one of the best point guards in the world, was left off the team. Of course, Jordan went on to play on arguably the greatest basketball team ever assembled, and Thomas was left out of history. Today, NBA players are so connected to one another that they actually end up recruiting each other without the help of their front offices.

LeBron James has been openly courted by the Los Angeles Lakers for over a year now, as players there know that he lives only a few blocks from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and James Harden had more to do with the Houston Rockets’ acquisition of Chris Paul this summer than

his general manager Daryl Morey.

The MVP should not go to the best story, or the brightest star, but the most valuable player, and that is why it is the players themselves who should determine who that is. Sporting news follows NBA storylines and personalities as much as — if not more than — they measure the skill of players. NBA players’ jobs are to compete every night, and play basketball at the highest level in the world, and each year there is always an elite pantheon of players who rise above the rest. While each has their own distinct game, their personalities distinguish them most, which has been the hallmark of the NBA since the Magic and Bird era of the ’80s. The baggy shorts and wagging tongue of Air Jordan and the jaw-dropping dominance of King James have helped make the NBA mustwatch television for years. This year, in the greatest rookie class since James, Dwyane Wade, and Carmelo Anthony in 2004, sports writers have flocked to the headline-grabbing Ball family, but Lonzo Ball’s 10.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 7.0 assists on 33 percent shooting per game pale in comparison to Ben Simmons’ 18.5 points 9.6 rebounds and 7.9 assists on 55 percent. Sports writers are paid to tell sports stories, and are paid especially well when these stories are exciting, but by giving them the NBA vote, they put the strength of their stories over the actual game being played.

IN THE LOCKER ROOM

In The Locker Room with Noam Fisherman and Emma March, Ultimate Frisbee Captains This week, the Review sat down with junior Noam Fisherman and senior Emma March, two captains of the Oberlin Ultimate Frisbee Teams. Fisherman is a co-captain of Oberlin’s men’s team, the Flying Horsecows, while March co-captains the women and trans team, the Preying Manti. The Horsecows and the Manti will host their annual home tournament, Force Freedom, tomorrow and Sunday on the North Fields.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Noam Fisherman (left), co-captain of the Flying Horsecows, and Emma March, co-captain of the Preying Manti.

Photo by Hugh Newcomb, Photo Editor

Julie Schreiber Sports Editor

How long have you each been the captains of Oberlin’s frisbee teams?

Emma March: We’ve been captains for just this year. We were both officially elected last spring. Our election process is long and intense; it’s pretty similar to co-op elections but longer.

Noam Fisherman: You first have to get nominated, and then the floor is open for everyone to speak, and eventually there’s a vote after group and individual questioning. The process attempts to really represent what the members of the team are looking for.

Describe the background of Frisbee at Oberlin a little bit.

Does the team have a strong history? Do you have any connections to any past players?

EM: Well, one thing we do know is that originally, the Preying Manti started out as the “Oms,” like the wave. Actually, over the past Commencement weekend, we held a Manti/Oms alumni game and the turnout was great. We even played with some people from the original Oberlin Frisbee team, who must’ve been in their 60s. They came with their old shirts and gear and stuff. It was really, really cool to see how big Frisbee was in some people’s lives at

Oberlin.

NF: On the men’s team, we actually have this old shirt from the ’70s that circles around the team. It’s like our team’s vintage artifact — it’s cool to like, hold that history.

As the leaders of an entirely student-run sport, how do you foster accountability and commitment within the team?

EM: I think we do this slightly differently on the two teams. It can sometimes be a lot of work to maintain commitment levels, I would say, and it involves a lot of straddling-the-line of being friends with your teammates while also having to lead them and holding a leadership role over them. On our team, I think we always try to hold people accountable by setting a competitive tone at practice. We’ve recently hired two coaches, actually, so when they come to practice it sends the message that like, we’re using their time and our money, and we should try to reap all the benefits of that. We also do take attendance at practice, and that can sometimes affect playing time at tournaments.

NF: I do think that being a leader of a student-run organization is pretty easy for the most part. Because we’re all friends with each other, the actual com-

mitment issue can sometimes be the hardest part. A lot of people do want to play really competitively, but by nature of being a club sport, there are also always gonna be just as many people who aren’t looking for that same competitiveness and want to have more fun. If there ever is a difficult part, it’s usually straddling that line between being competitive and taking ourselves seriously but also making sure people are having fun.

You played at a big tournament over Halloween weekend. How did that go? Were there any specific moments of the tournament you keep looking back on?

EM: The tournament last weekend was honestly a little historic. The governing body of Ultimate Frisbee, USA Ultimate, hosted its first ever officiallysanctioned, mixed tournament this past weekend, meaning it included open teams, as well as women and trans teams. We knew it would be pretty far away — eight hours — in Appleton, WI, but we asked people if they wanted to go beforehand, and we got 16 people from both the Manti and the Horsecows to go together, and it was so much fun. This past weekend was the first time we’ve ever played of-

ficially mixed at a tournament, and it was great for so many reasons. We were seeded fifth going in, which means we placed fifth to begin with, but by the end of the tournament we had finished in fourth place. We did have to forfeit the last game to get home early though, but it was so good to play with each other officially and on top of that, to have played really well.

NF: The tournament was organized with bracket play on the second day, and that was when we played in the quarterfinals against the fourth seed team. We just absolutely destroyed them, which was so much fun and so exciting for all of us. I think we all felt really proud of how we played.

Club sports often have to grapple with the difficulty of being a year-round sport, while other sports teams are confined to one season and one offseason. How does the year-round nature of Frisbee affect your team, especially with team members taking time off and studying abroad?

NF: That can definitely be a hard thing to face. Technically, our fall season is more of a “down season,” and our officially sanctioned season is in the spring. We usually only play in three or four tournaments in the fall, so we try to keep it pretty relaxed and fun

and wait until the spring to split up into A-B teams. In the spring we definitely ramp it up, but we try to uphold the accountability of team members year round.

EM: The fall tends to be our “rookie season.” It’s when we train all our new people. We have four very good players coming back in the spring from semesters abroad, which is really promising, but I know we’re also losing lots of talented people next semester for the same reason, so the team will definitely see some big gains and big losses.

Even though the spring season is the most important season, we end up playing with a slightly different team every semester.

What’s the next big event coming up for the Manti and Horsecows?

NF: We’re hosting our home tournament this weekend. It’s called Force Freedom, and we’ve hosted it in the past. This year we have ten open teams coming — it should be great.

EM: We’ll be splitting into two teams for the tournament because there are 40 of us, so the total number of teams counting our two is 10.

NF: We’ll play four games on Saturday and then three or four on Sunday. We’re playing on North Fields and everyone should come.

Yeowomen Split Weekend, Earn NCAC Tournament Bid

the most talent I’ve ever had on the team,” Rau said. “We have some young people in important positions which affects consistency, but our three great seniors [Lola Gatti, Dana Thomas, and Claudia Scott] have helped a lot with leadership on and off the court. I think that’s been a really big reason for our improved performance.”

Against Waynesburg, Oberlin won handedly after four sets, thwarting them in all but one.

In the first set, Oberlin got off to a slow start, taking a 5–4 lead.

But after a scorching hot 15–5 run, the Yeowomen finished the The Yeowomen volleyball team regroups during their match against Case match with a dominating 25–13, Western University on Wednesday, Sept. 27. The Yeowomen enter the NCAC and commanded in the second Tournament today against the fifth-seeded Ladies of Kenyon College. set, 25–7. After a close 20–25 loss in the third set, Oberlin returned

Photo Courtesy of OC Athletics James Cato Conference tournament, which for a solid victory in the fourth, Contributing Writer kicks off today against the Ken- 25–18.

Sophomores Maura Gibbs yon College Ladies. and Lexi Mitchell were instruThe Yeowomen split their two With an opportunity to finmental scorers in the victory. games last Saturday, winning ish with more wins than losses Gibbs accounted for 10 of the against the Waynesburg Univer- for the first time this decade, team’s 40 kills and Mitchell sity Yellow Jackets and falling Head Coach Erica Rau credits notched seven of her own.

Team to the Westminster Titans. The her team’s improvement to her captain and junior setter Sara volleyball team, which holds a team’s leadership.

Chang, who collected 19 of the 12–13 record this year, is prepar“We’ve struggled a little with team’s assists, and sophomore ing for the North Coast Athletic consistency … but this is by far The Oberlin Review | November 3, 2017

Samantha Lam, who secured 14, provided key ball movement to the offense. Junior Emily Kelkar led the pack with 17 digs, while Gibbs added 13 to the final tally of 55.

“I think the team played pretty well in the first game,” Chang said. “We let one slip up, but it wasn’t much of a loss of momentum. We were sticking to a pretty basic offense and running it very well, doing the small things — moving as one unit, putting the ball away.”

In the second game of the day, Westminster snuffed out Oberlin in a straight 3–0 flush. The first set was neck-and-neck — Oberlin trailed initially, then tied the Titans at 22 and scored again, but then the Titans garnered three points to win. The second set was close as well, with Westminster winning 25–22. The Titans took the day in a clean third set.

Mitchell once again served as critical on offense for the Yeowomen, dealing 10 kills. Chang bumped up 17 assists. On the defensive side, Gibbs and Lam earned double-digit dig counts by the end of the match, Gibbs

with 14 and Lam with 10.

As the big NCAC tournament is largely looming, the season’s conclusion also marks the final games for this year’s seniors.

Scott took the time to thank her coaches and teammates before taking the court today.

“I’m very grateful to my coaches and teammates for their hard work and support the last four seasons, and I can’t wait to bring home some last few wins this weekend,” Scott said.

The Yeowomen will begin the NCAC tournament at Wittenberg University, a single-elimination trial that will determine the season’s final outcome today at 3 p.m. The team, which is the eighth seed, will face their rivals the Kenyon Ladies, who are the fifth seed.

“We’re playing Kenyon first in the tournament, which is exciting because they’re [our] rivals,” Chang said. “It’ll be a good game.

Last year we took them to five sets, the year before we played twice and beat them once, and it’s a fierce rivalry. I want to beat them so badly, and it’s exciting to have another chance.”

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SPORTS November 3, 2017

established 1874

Volume 146, Number 8

My Experience as a Black Soccer Player at Oberlin Brittany Mendez

First-year defensive back Malachi Clemons cradles the ball past defenders in the Yeomen’s game against the Wabash Little Giants on Saturday, Oct. 21.

Photo courtesy of OC Athletics

Yeomen Drop Final Road Game of Year to Bishops Jane Agler Staff Writer

Despite cutting a 21-point deficit to eight in their final road game of the season, the Yeomen’s comeback attempt was too little, too late as they fell to the Ohio Wesleyan University Battling Bishops 34–26 on Saturday. After starting the season 2–0, the Yeomen are now 2–6, sitting second to last in the North Coast Athletic Conference.

“We struggled early in the first quarter on both sides of the ball, but to everyone’s credit, nobody quit,” senior wide receiver Trace McConnell said. “Up until the final whistle, everyone played their hardest.”

The Yeomen were electric on offense, racking up 400 yards total. Once again, sophomore quarterback Zach Taylor led the charge, throwing for 282 yards and two touchdowns as well as running for 38 and a score. Going in to the second down 21–3, Taylor ran in the ball from three yards out for his fourth rushing touchdown of the year. After sophomore kicker Michael Leshchyshyn’s second field goal of the day, the Yeomen went into the half trailing 28– 13.

In the second half, the Yeomen came out of the gate strong, scoring a touchdown less than 10 minutes into the half. The score came from Taylor, as he threw a six-yard pass to junior wide receiver Ryan Gleeson, who finished with a career-high 142 yards and 11 catches in the game. Although he noted after the game that his individual success felt good, the team’s success was still paramount to him.

“It would have felt better with a win,” Gleeson said.

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The Yeomen did not score again until Taylor threw for his final touchdown with three minutes left in the game. McConnell, who caught a five-yard pass for a touchdown, was humble when asked about his crunch time touchdown. “[Taylor] threw a perfect ball to the back of the end zone,” McConnell wrote in an email to the Review. “I’m just happy I pulled it in for a touchdown.”

Head Coach Jay Anderson, who has been in the position for four years, believes both sides of the ball showed flashes, but their inconsistency was ultimately the deciding factor.

“We were able to stabilize ourselves, but a little too late,” Anderson said. “Offensively, we were consistent. I thought our offense did some good things. [Our] defense got off to a bad start in the first quarter, but we [were] playing fast and giving [the opposing team] a consistent effort of swarm tackling. It’s something that we practice and we preach.”

While the game against the Battling Bishops was the latest in a demoralizing six-game losing streak, Gleeson said that it was just a few plays that made the difference in the defeat.

“There really wasn’t one thing that tripped us up at any point throughout the game,” Gleeson wrote in an email to the Review. “With a game that close, it comes down to small missed opportunities throughout the game that add up in the end.”

The Yeomen will finish the season with a two-game home stand, the first of which will be against Hiram College tomorrow at 1 p.m.

One of the first times I hung out with the soccer team outside of practice, we listened to music with the n-word in it. We were mostly silent when the word was sung, but a few still looked me in the eye and said it. There was clear tension in the moment, but it was most likely soon forgotten by my teammates.

It clearly stuck with me, since I am writing about it in this article. It was awkward, and I was not sure how to react. In that moment, I decided the easiest solution would be to ignore it altogether. I had only known my teammates for a few days, and I did not think it was worth making a scene. As one of the only minorities on the team — and the only one in the room at the time — I was not sure where I could turn for support.

I recognize that being on a team requires pursuing a common goal. As a member of the team, I am prepared to rely on my teammates for support, but that is not always easy when no one on the team can relate. As a result, I’ve had to sacrifice my personal comfort in order to maintain a healthy relationship with my peers. Luckily, when preseason ended and more students arrived to campus, I was able to talk about these experiences with other POC. I found the best support from my roommate, who is also an African-American athlete. She had faced similar situations, and gave me a perspective outside of the soccer team.

The challenges that I faced on the team were extremely similar to experiences I’ve had in the past as a soccer player. As I grew older and began to play at a more competitive level, I noticed fewer and fewer minority players around me. The two major causes of the underrepresentation of minorities in higher levels of sports are cost and accessibility. Many minority athletes cannot afford to play on an expensive club team, and often the better teams will require long commutes, another significant cost. Thanks to scholarships and financial aid, I was able to play on the highest-ranked club soccer team in Maryland; I was, however, the only person of color on my team.

After introducing myself to the club team at our initial tryouts, I sat off to the side to clear my mind and prepare myself to compete. As I laced up my cleats, I could overhear a conversation between my white teammates that included an audible n-word. I am almost certain they knew I overheard them, but that clearly did not bother them. Using this word was part of their everyday vocabularies, and there was no motivation for them to change this dialogue simply because a Black person was nearby. Although I was a bit shaken at first, I ignored it and just focused on the tryout, eventually earning a spot on the team and defeating many setbacks to play competitively throughout high school, furthering my career in the sport I love.

During the process of applying to college, I had to rely heavily on information provided on admissions websites, as I could not afford to make the trip to most schools. For every school at which I considered playing, I visited the team’s webpage, which usually welcomed me with a photo of about 20 friendly, white female faces. However, the team photo I found on every homepage never discouraged me from considering a team, because diversity was not a practical consideration for my athletic career. Ideally, I would love to play among diverse athletes, but since so few collegiate soccer teams at any division are diverse, it’s an impractical wish.

I have played for many teams during the span of my soccer career; however, playing on a college team was a wildly new experience. As challenging as it was to play for my club team, it prepared me for success in college. In my first week at Oberlin, I earned the title of North Coast Athletic Conference Player of the Week. But playing on a college team posed new difficulties, such as practically living with my teammates during the season. Normally, I would’ve gone home after a practice or game and expressed my excitement or frustration with friends and family. In college, my teammates were my closest friends and support system and I could not always express these feelings to them.

Conversations surrounding body image frequently arose in the locker room, and one of the commonly discussed topics was tanning. On many occasions, my teammates compared their shades of tan and exchanged methods of getting tanner. I usually removed myself from those conversations because, frankly, I could not relate. Another subject I avoided with my teammates was my hair. My teammates are affectionate people, so it was normal for someone to casually twirl someone else’s hair. However, my hair was not just touched; instead, fingers inspected it down to my scalp, making my skin crawl every time. My hair was often an object of amusement, but I did not always speak up and ask them to stop. As progressive as Oberlin culture may be, “woke” students still do not understand why it is not the responsibility of minorities to constantly correct the actions and micro-aggressions of their peers. This process is especially difficult when it comes to calling out a teammate. We spend so much time together; added tension would only be detrimental to the team’s dynamic, right?

I joined this team aware that I would be one of its only non-white members, and I am used to fulfilling that role, but I was still not prepared to live as the only Black person. I’ve experienced my fair amount of struggles, but I have also spent some of my best moments of my soccer career with the Oberlin women’s soccer team. Although I feel like a valued member of the team, I also face isolation. But despite the uncomfortable moments, I’m holding on to the great ones, and I look forward to many more.