The Oberlin Review April 21, 2023

Affordable Housing Plan Discussed at City Council Work Session, Project in Development

On Monday, City Council held a work session for an affordable housing proposal created by the affordable housing subcommittee in the social equity committee and Revitalization Strategies Group, Inc. City Council and affordable housing subgroup members Ray English, Eboni Johnson, and Elizabeth Meadows led the work session. The public was invited to ask questions and view a presentation on the work done by the subgroup and plans for the proposal.

Throughout 2021 and 2022, the affordable housing subgroup worked to find a developer that would suit the community’s needs. They spoke with Cleveland Housing Network, Woda Cooper Companies, Inc., The Community Builders, and New Sunrise Properties, Inc., before building a proposal with the current partner.

“We got really excited when we first talked with CHN Housing Partners of Cleveland,” English said. “We talked about doing 30 homes with a nine percent low income housing tax credit. And that tax credit basically would have created a huge amount of funding for a large, affordable, owner-owned housing project. They thought we would be eligible for this, but when they looked at it, it turned out we just aren’t eligible. We’re considered a rural community, and that program is

The affordable housing subgroup eventually decided to work with Revitalization Strategies Group, Inc., a developer group led by Michael Bowen. Bowen has 26 years of experience building affordable housing. Since starting his own company in 2017, Bowen has developed about 750 affordable housing units. RSG would build eight rent-toown houses on land owned by the City. The houses would be both accessible and sustainable as well as built in existing neighborhoods. Examples of possible house layouts for a plot at 878 Kimberly Circle were included in the proposal draft. The proposed layouts were two-bedroom, 1.5 bathroom, and 1,462 square feet total, or three bedroom, two bathroom and a total of 1,668 square feet, featuring an open floor plan and covered patio in the backyard.

Before RSG could begin bringing together funding and building the properties, City Council would need to pass an ordinance and enter into an agreement with the company. After the agreement is passed, RSG would be responsible for securing funding for the project.

RSG would make use of a variety of funding sources, including applying to grants, working with investors who buy low income housing tax credits,

CALL FOR ACTIVIST GROUPS

and other investment sources. In the proposal, Bowen outlined five potential sources of funding for the project. Bank financing would account for the majority of funding with $1,200,000 sourced from private banks. The project hopes to earn $520,000 from the Housing Trust Fund, a federal program that allocates funds to states which then allocate money to qualifying projects. In 2022, the Ohio Housing Trust Fund allocated $53 million to various projects across the state.

Additional finances, in the approximate amount of $237,200, would be sourced from the Federal Housing Lending Bank. The Federal Housing Lending Bank is a federally organized group of private banks that provide funding for affordable housing projects. The Federal Housing Lending Bank does not use taxpayer dollars.

According to the proposal, Housing Development Assistance Programs would provide $186,000 for the project. HDAPs provide competitive loans and grants for programs that serve households at or below 50 percent of the area median income.

Oberlin is a part of the Cleveland-Elyria metropolitan statistical area. The median fourmember household income for the area is $85,400. Fifty percent below the median for a fourSee City, Page 2

The Oberlin Review is creating a directory of organizations in both the College and City of Oberlin that engage in activism for our special issue April 28. Organizations who engage in activism in a variety of ways are invited to submit information, including organizations that focus on community-building, outreach, fundraising, community engagement, etc. Please send newseditors@oberlinreview.org current contact information for your organization as well as a brief description of the activism you engage in. Submissions due April 25.

Pacing System

Emma Benardete Editor-in-Chief

Synapse Biomedical, an Oberlinbased biotechnology company, received FDA premarket approval on April 5 for the NeuRX Diaphragm Pacing System.

“Approval for the NeuRx DPS® is intended for use in patients with stable, high spinal cord injuries with stimulatable diaphragms, but who lack control of their diaphragms,” the FDA’s Approval Order Statement reads. “The device is indicated to allow the patients to breathe without the assistance of a mechanical ventilator for at least four continuous hours a day. Its use is only in patients 18 years of age or older.”

Onders, one of the main project leaders, noted that in certain cases, the electrodes can eventually be removed when the nerves regain function.

“We have very good evidence now of what we call the trophic effect of electrostimulation, and we stimulate the diaphragm and there’s an afferent effect to the nerve that changes the spinal cord milieu,” Onders said.

The system was designed by Professor Emeritus J. Thomas Mortimer of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Mortimer said that he developed an interest in electrical stimulation after a childhood friend was paralyzed in an automotive accident. Mortimer later recruited Onders when he was a resident to help recruit patients for human trials at the suggestion of Dr. Tom Stellato, another doctor with whom he was working on the project.

Raymond

The system works by using electrodes to stimulate the paralyzed diaphragm, causing it to contract and allowing the patient to breathe. Dr.

See FDA, Page 2

Photo courtesy of Library of Congress

Nathaniel Dett, an African American Composer.

Eight lots owned by the City would be developed into affordable housing by Revitalization Strategies Group, Inc.

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor only for cities.”

Friday, April 21

5:30–7:30 p.m.: Oberlin Green

Group Vegetarian Potluck

Gathering at First Church

Oberlin, Fellowship Hall

Attendees are invited to bring a vegetarian dish to serve six to eight. “Green group” representatives will briefly present on their organizations at 7 p.m., and College Campus Energy and Resource Manager

Joel Baetens will speak on updates to the geothermal energy project. Organizers hope this potluck serves as both a celebration and a networking opportunity.

Saturday, April 22

10 a.m.–12 p.m.: 2023 Earth Day 5K Run, beginning in Tappan Square

This year’s iteration of the annual Earth Day 5K Run is open to runners of all ages. Participants may register for $25 on the day of the race.

1–4 p.m.: Reproductive Justice Spring Flea Market in StudiOC

The Reproductive Justice Alliance is set to host a spring flea market, which will serve as a gathering space for student musicians and speakers with an emphasis on centering BIPOC voices. Student-made art will also be available for purchase, and proceeds will go toward Midwest organizations dedicated to reproductive justice for BIPOC people.

8:30 p.m.: #OCDragBall23

America Has a Problem Drag Ball in Hales Gymnasium

This year’s iteration of the annual Drag Ball is themed “#OCDragBall23 America Has a Problem.”

Sunday, April 23

12:30–1:30 p.m.: Concert in Memory of Maura Olivero in Warner Concert Hall

Colleagues of Maura Olivero will gather in Warner Concert Hall to perform in celebration of Olivero’s life and impact. Light refreshments will be served.

4–5:30 p.m.: OberlinWellington Rescue Documentary World Premiere at the Apollo Theater

A Higher Law: The OberlinWellington Rescue of 1858 will make its debut in the Apollo Theater. The film details a key event in Ohio’s history of abolitionism during which 37 men were charged with violations of the Fugitive Slave Act. Filmmakers Scott Spears and Christina Paolucci will be present for a question-andanswer session after the showing.

Monday, April 24

7:30–9 p.m.: OJS + Crimson Collective Present: Brandee Younger Trio at the Cat in the

Cream Harpist, composer, and educator Brandee Younger, accompanied by Rashaan Carter and Allan Mednard, will perform. Younger will also host a master class earlier on Monday in Bibbins Hall, room 237, at 1 p.m. Both the performance and master class are hosted by the Oberlin Jazz Society and the Crimson Collective.

Thursday, April 27

4:30–6 p.m.: Stitched & Sewn: A Testimony from a Holocaust Survivor in Dye Lecture Hall

Sponsored by the Chabad at Oberlin Student Group, attendees are invited to view the story of Holocaust survivor and artist Trudie Strobel through the lens of tapestry and other works of art. Admission is free and open to all.

City Council Works to Acquire Funds for Affordable Housing

Continued from page 1 member household is $42,700. Income can be adjusted based on the number of individuals in the household.

The City of Oberlin would provide the smallest portion of funds in the total finances of the project — $20,000 of American Rescue Plan Act funding per house as a loan.

Despite the $2.3 million price tag of the project, the City is only contributing $160,000. Michael Bowen and his team assume the majority of the financial risk in the project.

“He would take out a loan of over a million dollars to make this whole thing happen, and that is part of his risk in this,” English said. “He has to perform. And to get a loan like that, he would pledge certain assets of his own, where if for any reason he defaulted on the loan or couldn’t come through with payments, he would potentially be in a position where he could lose assets. If this somehow failed like that, which I think is unlikely if he’s able to put together the initial funding of about $2.3 million, then we would have expended ARPA funds when we could have used those funds for something else that might have also improved housing in the community.”

Once RSG has secured funding for the project, the City would transfer the land for the project to RSG. Bowen had requested tax abatement from the City, which

would allow RSG to be exempt from property taxes while his company owned the property as well as allowing families who assume ownership to be exempt. English said that he thinks it is unlikely that the City would provide tax abatement.

According to the proposal draft, RSG could begin building in the first quarter of 2024.

When the houses are completed, families will be selected to occupy the homes. According to English, it has been projected that construction could finish in as little as one year after financial closing. While the selection parameters have not been negotiated with RSG yet, English said that Oberlin residents and former Oberlin residents would receive preference for housing.

“A preference will be given to either current Oberlin residents who are rent-burdened, who are paying a much too high percentage of their income for housing, or to former Oberlin residents who want to return here and want to assume home ownership,” English said at the work session.

Additional parameters will likely come from income, as many federal and state funding sources set income limits on who projects that are funded can serve.

“The financing that this company puts together would determine what level of income people would be eligible for,”

English said. “And it could be, say, 80 percent of the area median income, it could be 100 percent, or the like. So people would qualify for this, they could apply and be selected and it would be based on their income.”

The selected families would participate in programs to help them prepare for assuming ownership of the home. Within five years, the families would assume a long-term mortgage and transition from renting to owning their home.

“They would pay an affordable rent, which is, again, based on their income, ensuring that they are not rent-burdened by having to pay more than they can really afford for rent,” English said. “Their mortgage payment

would be tied and similar to their payment for their rent.”

English clarified that the mortgage would not be for the full cost that it took to build the home, but instead would be in the range of $125–150,000.

Attendees expressed both gratitude and concerns to the Council during the work session.

“I would like to thank the social equity committee for their work on this,” William Jindra, a resident of Oberlin, said at the work session. “I would like to see the city take a holistic approach at looking at housing issues. There’s a great need across the spectrum, both for [low-cost,] affordable homes and older people that want to downsize.”

April 21, 2023

Volume 152, Number 21 (ISSN 297–256)

Editors-in-Chief

Kushagra Kar

Emma Benardete

Managing Editor

Nikki Keating

News Editors

Alexa Stevens

Cal Ransom

Opinions Editors

Emily Vaughan

Hanna Alwine

Arts & Culture Editors

Dlisah Lapidus

Yasu Shinozaki

Sports Editors

John Elrod

Kayla Kim

Conservatory Editor

Delaney Fox

Photo Editors

Abe Frato

Erin Koo

This Week Editor

Eloise Rich

Senior Staff Writers

Ava Miller

Chris Stoneman

Celia Perks

Lyric Anderson

Maeve Woltring

Web Manager

Nada Aggadi

Production Manager

Isaac Imas

Production Editors

Addie Breen

E.J. LaFave

Gideon Reed

Jasper Swartz

Serena Atkinson

Trevor Smith

Lia Fawley

Layout Editors

Erin Koo

Grace Gao

Katie Rasmussen

Molly Chapin

Illustrator

Molly Chapin

Distributors

Leah Potoff

Nondini Nagarwalla

Neva Tayler

FDA Approves Distribution of Respiratory Aid

Continued from page 1

According to Synapse CEO Anthony Ignagni, the device has helped 2,500 people in over 30 countries including Japan, Canada, Australia, the U.S., and others in Europe and the Middle East.

“We’ve completed mapping 11 patients,” Mortimer said. “Tom Stellato says to me ‘I don’t know [what] Ray’s telling these people. He recruited 10 and I was only able to recruit one.’ … Dr. Onders was a critical force in getting this into the place where it is now where it’s a commercial product,” Mortimer said.

According to Onders, the DPS was previously approved under Humanitarian Device Exemption Approval, which it received in 2007. He explained that the HDE approval severely limited the number of hospitals at which the device could be used. In order for

a device with a HDE approval to be used at a given hospital, it must be greenlit by the hospital’s institutional review board.

“Under this program, there’s a 1988 FDA rule that requires somebody to have an IRB approval to do it, even though it’s not research,” Onders said. Additionally, Ignani wrote that the IRB would have to review the data each year, not just as a one-off occurrence, a timeconsuming process.

“If you’re injured in Iowa or someplace and you don’t have a hospital that’s already doing it, it’s very difficult to transfer,” Onders said.

Onders noted that the COVID-19 pandemic introduced a broader need for the device given a shortage of ventilators.

“So year 2020, roughly, that’s when we started realizing we

needed to have improved access,” Onders said. “The COVID pandemic started highlighting that also. … We can help get anybody off the ventilator earlier, and that’s very important when you reach a shortage of ventilators.”

The premarket approval removes the IRB requirement, meaning that any hospital in the country can now use the device. While currently only approved for patients over the age of 18, the device has shown preliminary success with much younger patients.

“I’ve actually implanted NICU babies,” Onders said. “We [also] just implanted a very unfortunate one year old at our hospital within four weeks of her injury.”

Synapse Biomedical was officially founded in Oberlin in 2002 to commercialize the

NeuRx DPS. Mortimer and Ignagni chose Oberlin because they were able to find an old seed factory to operate out of without having to pay rent. Onders noted that because agricultural operations are subject to FDA requirements, the seed factory was up to the standard they would need for biotech. Synapse currently employs 29 people out of its office in Oberlin and may expand its operations.

“As we grow our business we will continue to add to our staff in that facility,” Ignagni wrote. “We currently have sufficient people to build our forecasted needs, but certainly know that we will need to add in the future.”

Onders noted that in addition to the NeuRX DPS, Synapse is working on securing approval for a device for stroke patients.

Will Young

Published by the students of Oberlin College every Friday during the fall and spring semesters, except holidays and examination periods. For advertising rates, please contact edsinchief@ oberlinreview.org.

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Photo courtesy of Revitalization Strategies, Inc.

The proposed housing would be accessible and sustainably designed.

Felicia Webber

Oberlin Elementary School Principal

many other professions that get a chance to do that, but I know it’s something that makes teaching and being an administrator especially unique. There’s always something in every profession that everyone’s envious of, and I hope our envious piece is the relationships with kids and families.

Felicia Webber

Imas Production Manager

On April 11, Oberlin City School District announced Felicia Webber as the new Oberlin Elementary School principal. Webber, formerly the assistant principal of OES, will be replacing current principal Meisha Baker as Baker advances to the role of OCS curriculum director. Before she was assistant principal, Webber worked at OES in a variety of roles, including substitute teacher, third-grade teacher, and fourthgrade teacher. Webber spoke to the Review about how her history in the classroom, both professional and personal, informs her actions as an administrator.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Your fourth-grade class loved having you as their teacher. How did you undertake the decision to leave the classroom?

Once a student is my student, they’re always my student. One of the things I’ve really enjoyed here in Oberlin is seeing students in our building whose parents I once had as students. That’s just special. And what really warms your heart is when the people who are parents now ask you things like, “Do you remember when?” and they share things from your class years ago. I don’t know if there’s

I didn’t feel like moving out of the classroom was a tough decision or a hard decision. I knew there would be elements of teaching that I would miss, but I was so happy to be able to take the things that I loved about it and expand it to a wider population — being able to talk with more kids, inspire them to do more, having someone be a champion for them. What direction do you hope OES will move in under your leadership as principal?

A big piece is continuing implementation of the district strategic plan. We had three really big focus areas this year, the first of which was expanding our knowledge of cultural competency, humility and methods of inclusion. We worked closely with Dr. James Knight this year — he wrote a book called Heart: A Journey Toward Cultural Humility. This book is a component of the professional development training that we’ve done with our entire staff all year long. Another part of the strategic plan is working on Tier 1 instruction, which is providing staff with professional development resources that empower them to deliver strong instruction to all of our students. The third part is working on creating systems that help our families in the community and becoming collaborative with a more holistic approach to student needs and family needs beyond academics. What are their socialemotional needs? What are barriers they might be facing, and how can we assist as a school district to help them? And if we don’t have the right resource within our district, let’s see what we can do within the community to hook them up with someone who can.

Speaking of meeting students’ needs,

how will OES continue to support students who struggled during the remote learning period and are currently working hard to rebound and meet standards for their grade level?

There’s not a one-size-fits-all strategy. It just takes consistent progress monitoring and saying, “This is the information we’ve gathered about this student, and what their needs are — how can we provide and meet those needs here within the building?” One thing in Oberlin that I’ve enjoyed is when we have family nights for math and literacy — seeing the investment families have in their kids. I’ve been a lifelong believer that all parents want their children to succeed, and it’s really the partnership between home and school that can make that relationship stronger. If they’re hearing it at home and they’re hearing it at school, then they’re like, “Okay, I can do this.”

What other programs and communitybuilding events are being hosted by Oberlin City Schools in the coming months? What resources should parents be aware of?

Right now, we’re participating in the Ecolympics, which has been a big deal — the kids are really, really enjoying it. We actually have members of Oberlin College coming to teach our students about composting in the cafeteria. I even had a student today say, ‘Mrs. Webber, do you know what? At home, I am making my family turn off the lights.’”

So it’s really cool to see the things that we’re doing here at school transfer over at home.

We also have some upcoming English language classes that the district has been offering to family members of students. Our district family support coordinator, Jay Nimene, is helping us with enrichment programming for students over the summer — families can access that information on our website. And, of course, we always like community events. Later in May, we’re gonna have our Family Math and Literacy Nights. We’ll have a night that focuses

all on literacy, and it’s inviting families and students to take part in different types of literacy activities and games. Same thing with math, where they might come in and learn some techniques and play some games related to, for example, fact fluency. And then for both nights we provide the materials on the subjects for the families to take home, and do it with their kids.

You’ve spoken about the importance of forming relationships with students and their families as a classroom teacher. As principal, what steps will you continue to take to build meaningful connections with students?

I try to be purposeful in my interactions with the kids no matter what the circumstances are. To let them know I understand their situation, their perspective, their thoughts. And it’s not just when students come down to the office. I make a point to try to see them in the hallways, visit classrooms, and when I see them out someplace, say hello to them. So they’re not just seeing me as someone who’s in the office. They’re seeing me as a person in their school, congratulating them on accomplishments they’ve made.

My former principal — now my advisor, Dr. Paul Johnson — did something where he had Student of the Month. As a kid, you thought it was a huge deal. They would set up one cafeteria table away from everybody else, and they put down little paper placemats and a little carnation on the table, and you got to eat lunch with him. When I was a kid, I thought this was so wonderful, so this year I tried to do that with students, where a couple months out of the year we would have what we called “fancy lunch.”

That’s one of the other reasons that I’ve really liked the switching of roles. I had really fantastic administrators as a teacher, but also as a student myself, and the impact they had on me, helping me see all the things I can achieve — I wanted to do that for my kids.

Nord Center Representative Spoke to Students on Healing and Resources

Ava Miller Senior Staff Writer Cal Ransom News Editor

On Tuesday, the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion held a talk with a representative from the Nord Center. As a part of Consent Month, students were invited to learn about the process of healing from sexual harm or violence.

The Nord Center is a community mental health organization located in Lorain that offers a variety of psychiatric and trauma programs. It provides both mental and physical health services for victims of sexual assault that are available to Oberlin students at no cost. Forensic medical exams, which collect data that can be used to pursue legal processes and help determine treatment for injuries, are available at the center and can be administered during the first 96 hours after an assault. The exams are performed by trained Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners. In addition, advocates are available to provide support to victims throughout the medical examination process or the legal process of reporting the assault, if the victim chooses to do so.

A 24-hour hotline staffed by Nord Center advocates who have undergone 40 hours of training provides support specifically

catered to sexual assault victims. Advocates can also advise College students involved in the Title IX reporting process.

Advocates are also able to provide psychoeducational support for individual students, offering a transitional service to victims before they go into therapy. It provides education around trauma, addressing what common responses are, what the student might be experiencing, and coping mechanisms.

Confidential Student Advocate Emily Seng is one provider of such support.

“It’s meant to be education about sexual harm … in printable, readable form,” Seng said when talking about the paper that is also provided to victims. “Usually I’ll talk with students, we’ll go through it, highlight, talk about what’s important to them in there. Are they relating to any of the stuff there? Depending on that, we can also do coping skills, making a self-care plan. Are they doing any types of self-care? I think a lot of times in college you realize, ‘Oh hey, I have to make all of these things, finding out also what works,’ because maybe what works in high school or earlier isn’t working anymore in this place. So we can do stuff like that, talking about triggers, panic attacks, flashbacks, and also talking about transitioning into therapeutic services if the

reactions are intense — when they’re feeling like, ‘Hey, I could really use extra help.’”

Oberlin College is required to report felonies to the local police department. However, the Nord Center is not required to report felonies.

“If somebody really wants to make sure that nothing gets shared outside of who they’re wanting to share with at the moment, the Nord advocates are phenomenal options,” Director for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and Title IX Coordinator Rebecca Mosely said. “Yes, they can truly keep it confidential, both from the Title IX office and from the police.”

Additionally, the College provides transportation to and from the Nord Center at no cost to students.

“If Oberlin students do need to go to the Nord Center, we’re able to get Ubers for any of our clients,” Nord Center Community Educator Kayla Gelb said. “And that’s the same for any of our services. So if students aren’t connected with us, and they need to come to the Nord Center for sexual assault services, they’re able to get Uber for general counseling and other support services.”

Gelb commented on the importance of using Nord’s hotline if in crisis.

“We have general mental health services and sexual

assault services,” Gelb said. “Either way, both of those services can be accessed through our main hotline. So if you call our main hotline, they’re going to explain what’s going on, they’re really going to be able to help you figure out what resources would be beneficial to you in that moment and how to access them.”

The Title IX office can help students in formal and informal resolution processes and provide on-campus support with processes such as changing residences and

communicating with professors. Mosely believes that having a variety of partnerships and resources available is important to providing full support for students.

“Anything that we can do as an office to continue to make sure that students know about the opportunities that are provided by the Nord Center, that is always our goal,” Mosely said. “They can provide things that we cannot, … and so it’s knowing that there are different places and spaces where our work can work well.”

The Nord Center works with the Title IX office to provide support for students.

Photo by Erin Koo, Photo Editor

Photo courtesy of Felicia Webber Isaac

Karthik Ranganadhan

Ceasefire in Sudan Breaks Down

Armed conflicts in Sudan continued a few hours after a ceasefire was supposed to begin on Tuesday. The internationally brokered truce between the armed forces led by General Abdel Fattah Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group led by General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, was supposed to come into effect at 6 p.m. local time. The two generals had jointly led a coup in 2021, but disagreements caused violence to break out between their respective factions last weekend. Another attempt at a ceasefire fell through on Wednesday. Residents in the capital of Khartoum faced power cuts and struggled with dwindling food supplies. According to Ahmed Al-Mandhari of the World Health Organization, 330 people have died and more than 3200 have been injured.

Former Member of Indian Parliament Shot Dead During Interview

Atiq Ahmed, a former member of the Indian Parliament, and his brother Ashraf were shot dead on live TV on Saturday. The brothers were facing charges that included kidnapping, murder, and extortion, and Ahmedʼs kidnapping conviction in March carried with it a life sentence. While Ahmed and his brother were handcuffed and talking to journalists before a visit to the hospital, three gunmen pretending to be journalists shot both of them. Amid criticism of increasing lawlessness, The government of Uttar Pradesh — the state in which the assassination took place — has ordered an investigation into the incident.

Fox News Reaches Settlement of $787.5 Million with Dominion Voting Systems Fox News settled a suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems in relation to the network’s airing of misinformation in the aftermath

of the 2020 presidential election. The $787.5 million settlement represents slightly less than half of the $1.6 billion that Dominion sued for. It is the largest disclosed settlement for a defamation case in American history. The lastminute deal was announced just after jury selection, minutes before opening arguments in front of the Delaware Supreme Court. Fox will now have to deal with another case from the voting technology company Smartmatic, which is suing for $2.7 billion from the network.

Chinese COVID-19 Protesters

Released after Four Months

Cao Zhixin, a 26-year-old book editor, and Zhai Dengrui, a 27-year-old teacher, were released on April 20 after four months. The two were charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” which can have a maximum sentence of five years. Many of the protestors in the “Blank Paper” protests who were detained were released after 24 hours or a few days.

Security Report

Thursday, April 13, 2023

A student reported the theft of their bicycle from the bike rack on the south side of Dascomb Hall.

Saturday, April 15, 2023

An Allen Memorial Art Museum security officer was notified of chalk graffiti on the sidewalk in front of the museum.

Sunday, April 16, 2023

Officers on routine patrol of Barrows Hall observed a damaged exit sign on the first floor.

A student reported the theft of their bicycle from the south side of Wilder Hall. The bicycle was not locked at the time of theft.

Monday, April 17, 2023

Staff reported that an unknown person tampered with equipment in the pool area at Philips gym.

An officer responded to a staff report of possible vandalism at the Geology Department in Carnegie Building.

A student reported that a suspicious person entered their room on April 15 in the early morning hours. The individual may have been intoxicated.

Officers responded to a report of suspicious activity in Price Hall on the first floor.

Dog Park Proposed at City Council Meeting, Residents Suggest Prospect Park

Cal Ransom News Editor

A group of Oberlin residents attended the City Council’s regular meeting on April 17 to discuss the possibility of allowing their dogs to roam freely in Prospect Park.

During the pandemic, a group of residents living near Prospect Park created a group that brought their dogs to the green space located behind Prospect Elementary School from 4:30–5:30 p.m. However, it is illegal to have a dog off-leash in Oberlin.

During the April 3 City Council regular meeting, City Council members discussed how to deal with dogs being off-leash at Prospect Park. One factor brought up was that Oberlin hosts summer camps at the Oberlin Activities and Enrichment Center —- formerly known as Prospect Elementary— and council members expressed concern in prioritizing children’s safety when the dogs were let off leash in the same area.

Ian Yarber, recreation director, shared with the council that he had spoken with some, but not all of the individuals who let their dogs off-leash during summer camp hours.

“When we had summer camp, we [had] 85 kids out on the playground,” Yarber said. “People would come and just let their dogs loose and run. And I would say, ‘Look, you see we have all these kids, can you come back after 3 p.m.?’ Because these kids don’t know your dog.”

Residents who bring their dogs to the park had requested the recreation commission to create a time frame making it legal to let dogs off-leash in the park.

Chair of the Recreation Commission Kevin Miller shared with the Council that this request was denied by the Recreation Commission.

“What it comes down to is that it’s just not possible to facilitate what’s being asked of the dog park creation,” Miller said. “They aren’t asking for a formal dog park to be created, but they want certain hours to be designated as dog park hours and with just how little space there is there, and with the summer program coming up there quickly you have to prioritize the kids who are using the space for what it’s there for so we decided, the commission, to

not to move forward with it.”

The Council decided to move forward with clear signage and enforcing the law as stated.

“I believe that it’s best to begin with education, clear signage, I dont have the ordinance in front of me whether it’s a misdemeanor, court appearance, any of that,” City Manager Rob Hillard said. “I think we educate, inform, be clear and enforce because that’s the law unless council changes the law.”

Any animal found on park property off-leash may be impounded according to ordinance 927.03.

On April 17, a group of residents who congregate at the park urged the council to allow dogs offleash at Prospect. Members of the group expressed that their informal gatherings, dubbed the ‘dog party,’ created a sense of community, stewardship, and neighborliness.

“I am struck by the irony that the inaugural act for this community and enrichment center is to eliminate the most vibrant community currently using it,” said Will Kunert, hospice chaplain at the Cleveland Clinic.

Rebecca Cross, OC ’84, asked the council to consider setting aside part of the park as an official fenced-in dog park.

“Let’s make part of this big green space an official dog park,” Cross said. “We have been invited as community members to weigh in on the use of this space. I’d like to see my tax dollars spent on building a fence across the lawn area, establishing the western half of the field for a dog park.”

Sixteen members of the group signed a letter that was sent to Council. In the letter, the group

expressed that Splash Zone, a legal dog park available to them, was too small for their group and required that they drive, increasing their carbon footprint.

The Council advised that the group should bring their request for a dog park to the Recreation Commission. For the time being, Splash Zone is the only legal dog park in Oberlin.

“My only regret … is [that] the dog park there operates in conjunction with the operating hours at Splash Zone,” City Council President Brian Burgess said. “So when Splash Zone closes at, I want to say 8 p.m. on weekdays, the dog park closes. And people were bringing up that there’s a cost associated with it. It is nominal and really the point of the cost is to partially offset the cost of operating the dog park.” Burgess expressed that changes would not be likely because the City has to account for the potential harm from others outside the group expressing their concerns.

“The woman at the podium made a good point that the dog owners that were in attendance tonight, they’re responsible,” said Burgess. “They’re the ones that really care. It’s not the ‘dog party,’ it’s not them. You also heard her say that when she shows up, she finds fresh piles of dog poop on the ground and she’s cleaning up after other people because most people who are going over there are not as responsible as the people tonight. We can’t just put out an exception — what, have an ordinance that says only responsible people can have their dogs off-leash — it’s just not feasible.”

Sirius, Peavine, and Lula play at Prospect Park.

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

OPINIONS

Marijuana Legislation Must Account for Racial Injustice

Julian Ring Madeline Stocker Vida Weisblum Kiley Peterson

Editorial Board

November 6, 2015

Editors’ Note: While medical marijuana was legalized in Ohio in 2016, people of color are still disproportionately impacted by the criminalization of marijuana and racialized rhetoric surrounding its use. Given current discussions around legislation, the Editorial Board has decided to reprint this editorial.

With an almost two-to-one ratio vote on Issue 3, Ohio did not legalize recreational marijuana Tuesday. By a much smaller margin, Issue 2 passed. The state-sponsored Issue 2 was a direct response to ResponsibleOhio’s marijuana legalization proposal, which would have created an oligopoly of 25 total investors in 10 proposed growing plots, concentrating the revenue from legalization in their already-wealthy hands.

A recent poll from Quinnipiac University showed that Connecticut had a 53 percent approval rate for recreational marijuana and a 90 percent approval rate for medicinal marijuana. Yet Issue 3 may not have passed because many voters were concerned that Black and other minority communities affected most by the drug war and criminalization of marijuana wouldn’t see their share of the profits from legalization.

In Ohio, there’s no doubt that Issue 3 going up in smoke will disproportionately affect Black people and other people of color, who are being arrested for possession at a much higher rate than their white counterparts. An exhaustive report by the American Civil Liberties Union shows that, as of 2010, Black Ohioans were four times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession as whites and made up 38.1 percent of possession-related arrests despite making up only 12.6 percent of the state’s population. Less evidence has been collected on the arrest rates of other communities of color, but history shows that the majority of non-white communities have been dispropor-

tionately punished for drug-related crimes.

Had Issue 3 passed, all penalties on possession of one ounce of marijuana would have been eliminated, and 12,000 arrests per year would have been prevented, saving the state over $100 million annually. Legalization also would have paved the way for the proposed Fresh Start Program, an initiative designed to expunge the records of those convicted of marijuana-related crimes and allow those convicted to petition the court to reverse or modify any currently imposed sanctions.

Legalization would have, if nothing else, helped ease the burden of Black and low-income Ohioans whose fight against the criminalization of drugs, police brutality, and systemic incarceration is a daily reality.

But for many, all the “would haves” and “could haves” didn’t add up to a “should have.” The main argument among those otherwise pro-legalization was that it would have created an oligopoly, limiting the profits to former reality star Nick Lachey, fashion designer Nanette Lepore, and sports stars like retired NBA player Oscar Robertson and the Arizona Cardinals’ Frostee Rucker, among 22 other well-off investors. In the words of The New Jim Crow author Michelle Alexander, “Granting an oligopoly to 10 wealthy investors who hope to get rich quick by exploiting an opportunity created by a movement that aimed to remedy decades of relentless punishment of the poorest and most vulnerable is not justice.”

At the polls, voters decided the reality of the state’s political situation: Those disproportionately affected will continue to suffer until a more equitable legalization policy is proposed. The rejection of Issue 3 may disregard communities who would have benefited from legalization, but we’ve made our decision. The next step is to capitalize on the time gained from tabling the legislation and advocate for a policy that will prioritize racial justice over capitalist greed.

Inevitably, developing just legalization policy would involve a multitude of strategies: increased

See Equity, page 7

SUBMISSIONS POLICY

The Editorial Board encourgages anyone interested in submitting an Opinions piece to email the Opinions Editors at opinions@oberlinreview.org to request a copy of the Opinions primer. Opinions expressed in editorials, letters, op-eds, columns, cartoons, and other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those of The Oberlin Review staff. Submission of content to the Review constitutes an understanding of this publication policy. Any content published by The Oberlin Review forever becomes the property of The Oberlin Review and its administrators. Content creators retain rights to their content upon publication, but the Review reserves the right to republish and/or refuse to alter or remove any content published by the Review. It is up to the Editors-in-Chief whether to alter content that has already been published. The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and op-ed submissions. All submissions are printed at the discretion of the Editors-in-Chief. All submissions must be received by Wednesday at 4 p.m. in the Opinions email for inclusion in that week’s issue. Full-length pieces should be between 800 and 900 words; letters to the editor should be less than 600 words. All submissions must include contact information, with full names and any relevant titles, for all signatories; we do not publish pieces anonymously. All letters from multiple writers should be carbon-copied to all signatories to confirm authorship. The Review reserves the right to edit all submissions for clarity, length, grammar, accuracy, and strength of argument, and in consultation with Review style. Editors work to preserve the voice of the writers and will clear any major edits with authors prior to publication. Headlines are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board. 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 or otherwise promoting an event, organization, or other entity to which the author has direct ties.

EDITORIAL

Washington Leaders Out of Touch with Technological Advancements

The United States’ leaders are growing increasingly old. Joe Biden recently made history as the first U.S. president to turn 80 while in office. Among the five living former presidents, three were born in the same year, 1946. Though this phenomenon is not limited to the U.S. — plenty of other countries have leaders well into their 70s and 80s — it does seem to occur more frequently in the U.S. Senate party leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell are both over 70, though Senators Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein beat them both out at 89. To be clear, there is value that comes with age in politics. Older politicians provide the legislature with much-needed perspective, experience, and connections that politicians of younger generations simply cannot hope to bring to the table. However, the fact that the 118th Congress is one of the oldest in the past century presents an issue. Young politicians are essential to a properly functioning and effective legislative process that faithfully represents the nation that Congress serves. New arenas of politics are emerging, like burgeoning technologies that necessitate evolved regulations. Such policies can be difficult to draft without the benefit of having grown up with the technology in question.

Instances of security breaches on foreign social media sites — notably the classified U.S. military documents that were released on a Discord server — place the onus on legislators to turn their attention toward regulating these emerging technologies. We live in a world where technology is constantly growing and redefining itself, to the point where even college students, supposedly on the cutting edge of technological advancements, sometimes have a hard time keeping up with the latest developments. This struggle is also embodied by our older leaders, who have had to absorb the same amount of information about technology within a relatively shorter timespan and then, based on that information, make decisions that define how the country as whole treats social media and technology.

Recently, the U.S. federal government has taken a stand against popular social media and technologies our generation has incorporated into our daily routines. Congress recently called TikTok CEO Shou Chew to testify in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which convened on the basis of a congressional investigation into TikTok’s privacy and data protection practices. Some lawmakers called for a ban of the app, whose parent company, ByteDance, is based in China. Members of Congress also posed questions that reflected a lack of knowledge about the app and technology overall. Representative Buddy Carter of Georgia’s First Congressional District questioned whether or not TikTok tracks pupil dilation as a form of facial recognition for the app’s algorithms. Representative Richard Hudson of North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District asked whether or not TikTok can access home Wi-Fi if someone’s phone is connected to the network. Both these questions were irrelevant to the overall debate of privacy and, for many people in our generation, self-explanatory.

Though it’s true that familiarity with technology and its uses is not one that only young people can acquire, it is also fair to say that younger generations who grew up using a piece of technology enter the room with a preexisting understanding of how that technology functions. This knowledge

gives them a hard-to-quantify but undeniable advantage over older generations in understanding how to regulate that technology. With familiarity come some limitations. Because our generation is so reliant on technology and its benefits, it is possible that we could be disregarding certain harmful influences apps like TikTok have on our lives.

Other arguments have been made about the ways in which an aging legislative body can have negative implications for legislators’ constituents. A Congress with such a homogeneous demographic makeup is not representative of the general population and does not account for the views of an increasingly politically active younger generation. These recent problems, such as concerns over TikTok’s privacy, have highlighted more pressing concerns about elected representatives who lack an understanding of the rapidly shifting world of social media. While this isn’t necessarily a direct result of an elderly legislative body, electing younger legislators would help bridge this gap. As we move into election season, U.S. voters need to consider the benefits of electing younger leaders to positions of power. As college students interacting with these technologies every day, we are aware that those who will regulate these technologies need a better understanding of their practical day-today applications.

AAUP Asks Oberlin to Value Faculty

The American Association of Univeristy Professors calls on Oberlin College to acknowledge the importance of our long- and shortterm contingent faculty and teaching staff and to treat them equitably as valued members of our educational labor force.

We note that many contingent faculty and Administrative and Professional Staff whose primary duty is to teach have been pressured to sign contracts that contain explicit “at will” employment language, stating that “you or the College may end your employment at any time upon written

notice to the other.” No employee with this language in their contract can be understood to benefit from the protections of academic freedom. Without those protections, no such employee can effectively teach at Oberlin College, uphold Oberlin’s values of courageous truth-telling, and lead students in free inquiry into difficult, fraught, or culturally sensitive topics.

We call on Oberlin College, therefore, to remove all such language from the contracts of our contingent faculty and teaching staff. “At will” employment lan-

guage is antithetical to their primary work and to their well-being as valued members of the Oberlin teaching community.

The Executive Committee of the AAUP at Oberlin

Kirk Ormand

DeSales Harrison

Stephen Checkoway

Claire Solomon

Marta Laskowski

Matt Senior Tom Lopez

Five U.S. Presidents convene in the Oval Office Photo courtesy of U.S. News & World Report

Economics Department Overly U.S.-Centric, Should Offer Courses in World Economies

that course, I learned about the varied global economies and read theory pursuant to all three types of economy.

However, as it was a political theory course, we did not engage in statistical modeling of any sort.

I’d advocate for a course such as this one to be taught in the Economics department — so as to engage the graphical element deeply present in Economics research.

I spoke with College second-year and Economics minor Ben Rapkin to hear his perspectives on the department.

“Many of the professors are incredibly talented and skilled in their field and in finance and their contributions to academia,” Rapkin said. “Just because it’s skewed in a particular lens or with particular focuses — that doesn’t by any means invalidate much of their research.”

According to Rapkin, this particular lens comes from the professors’ backgrounds as well as the current state of U.S. academia.

makes it so that any discussion we have is forced onto some very simplistic models that often don’t really describe what happens in the economy.”

Rapkin also spoke to the limitations of the department’s U.S.-centric curriculum.

“For most of the courses it was very much focused — really all of them, I’ll say — was really focused on the U.S.,” Rapkin said. “The Econ department leans to a focus on micro[economics]. And so in those classes, it doesn’t so much matter which countries specifically, but when we looked at some of the macro[economics] classes — such as intermediate macro or public economics — those classes both focused very heavily on U.S. economics and how our economy functions as a whole. They didn’t really look at a lot of case studies of other countries with different organizations.”

Alexa Stevens News Editor

I want to start off by saying that I feel very fortunate to attend Oberlin College. I am so grateful for the academic, networking, and lifelong friendship-building opportunities afforded to me during my time on this campus. As a graduating fourth-year, I’ve been thinking a lot about these opportunities and how I will deeply cherish them forever.

That is to say, I do not write this piece to bemoan that which I identify as a shortcoming of the College’s Economics department, but aim to enact change as one of my parting acts as I look toward my fast-approaching graduation.

I recently learned that some departments, such as the Jewish Studies department, arose from student activism. This serves as proof, in my mind, that the College has historically listened to students’ academic concerns and has consequently enacted change

accordingly.

As an avid watcher of the show Gilmore Girls, one of my few expectations upon my arrival to campus was that I would feel like I could learn anything I ever wanted to learn in these hallowed and historied halls — like Rory did in her early college days. However, there was one thing I wanted to learn about here but didn’t have the opportunity to: the varied types of world economies.

I came to college hoping to major in Politics and minor in Economics, expecting that this combination of departmental study would afford me context as to the broader economic and political realities that shape our ever-changing world.

After taking Introduction to Economics — remotely, in the fall of 2020 — I quickly realized that this would not be the case.

While, as someone who enjoys statistics and statistical modeling, I appreciated Intro to Econ, a more apt title for the course

would have been Introduction to the U.S. Economy. But that’s a semantic qualm. My primary concern is that there are very few courses offered in the the Economics department that focus on non-U.S. economies, and those that do focus on economies beyond our borders do so in one of two ways: exploring the ways the U.S. economy might interact with other economies through trade or exploring the “weak institutional frameworks tha[t]could explain a low growth trajectory,” as in the case of ECON 310, Economic Development in Latin America.

I would love to have learned about socialism and anarchism, for example, in the same way as we did capitalism in that first Economics course. I later received an education with regard to socialism and anarchism in the Politics department in the course POLT 252 — Capitalism, Socialism, Anarchism: Perspectives on States, Markets, and Justice. In

“Just because our nation’s organized with a certain amount of governmental intervention doesn’t mean that in the set of assumptions that they research under and they look at that their mathematical models aren’t perfectly valid,” Rapkin said. “It is just an issue of number one, undergraduates are not at the level to really have those discussions and two, many of them just are not focused on socialist organization and comparing that to capitalism.”

Rapkin initially wanted to major in Economics, but ended up minoring in the department after finding that it was not as interdisciplinary as he would have liked.

“My big issue with the Econ major — it’s really shared by a lot of undergraduate economics programs — and put simply, economics is a really complex hard science,” Rapkin said. “It’s trying to describe how pretty much everything in the world can be better, most efficiently done. But a lot of undergraduate economics is very light on math which is understandable. … However, even the upper-level classes don’t really include a lot of math, which

Oberlin College, a school that presents itself as academically progressive, seems to fall behind other Economics programs in its failure to include global economies. Other colleges and universities, though, have modeled this inclusive departmental design.

For example, the University of Chicago, which is often recognized as having one of the top Economics programs in the United States, includes “The Economics of Socialism” in its department, as well as a course titled “Labor Markets: A Global Perspective.”

Further, the University of Maine offers a Marxist and Socialist Studies minor, which culls an interdisciplinary catalog of courses in economics, philosophy, art history, and more. Harvard University even offered a course titled “The Economics of Socialism” in its Economics department in the spring semester of 1940. Our History department doesn’t study just U.S. history and our Politics department doesn’t exclusively study U.S. politics — or, rather, global politics as they relate to the U.S. So why, in 2023, hasn’t the College adapted its Economics department to address economies beyond the U.S.?

Black Feminist Thought Must Be Valued in Primarily White Institutions

Nikki Keating Managing Editor

Black feminist thought is founded on the centering of Black womenʼs experiences and their positions within discourse about gender, class, race, and all the overlapping elements of their identity. Black feminist thought is separated from white feminists and Black men because it draws explicit attention to how Black womenʼs experiences differ from those of their counterparts. I consider myself a Black feminist in every space that I occupy. At Oberlin, a predominantly white institution, I often have to combat feeling isolated or stereotyped. This manifests in awkward class discussions focused on politics and race to having someone at a party exclaim that he had read bell hooks and, subsequently, wanted to spend 30 minutes probing me with questions about a book I had never read. Oberlin has a long history of Black feminist thought, from Mary Church Terrell learning in these halls to bell hooks teaching in them. But to my dismay, much of the dialogue centered around feminists and feminism on this campus often actively creates an exclusionary environment for women of color. These exclusionary feminist forms do not consider the intersectionality central to Black feminist

thought, and often, I find that people who have read Black feminist texts still center white feminist ideals as the overall goal of feminism.

The real question is: How do people engage in Black feminist theory respectfully and educationally while using this kind of thinking to contribute to womenʼs liberation? I think it first comes with acknowledging not only the struggles that Black feminists such as bell hooks or Angela Davis write about, but also the struggles faced by the Black women around you. Black feminist practices which require acknowledging the patriarchal and white institutions we live in, and challenging the ideologies that stem from hegemonic thinking, are among the main ideas consistent in Black feminist literature. Implementing these practices starts with understanding that within a predominantly white institution, spaces dedicated to Black women and Black feminist dialogue are few and far between, and it is common for there to be only a handful of Black women in your classes, if not only one. There is especially a need for these conversations within classes and majors outside the Africana Studies program, which are coveted classes with a limited number of seats. It’s worth considering this need when discussing Toni Morrison in your

gender and sexuality class or staring at Black students when talking about slavery in your anthropology class. Refrain from directing questions at your Black female classmate — even if itʼs done to uphold their experience in the space, which is isolating in itself. It can quickly feel like you are deferring to them because they are Black and not for actual intellectual conversation. This is especially true in a classroom, as it is a space that should be educational for all, even those who experience the topic in their daily lives. Black women donʼt take Africana Studies classes to validate or answer questions about the Black feminist experience; we take those classes to learn. It can become very isolating for Black women in these classes because they are thrust into the position of having to speak on a topic that they are in the class to learn about. While I encourage wanting to learn and asking questions, that is exactly what a professor is there for. If your professor is not engaging or knowledgeable enough to answer the questions you have about the Black experience, they shouldnʼt be teaching it at all.

With that said, how do you interact with Black feminist literature? It starts with decentralizing your white and/or male understanding of the texts you are reading. To combat white and/or male privilege,

read with a conscious effort to absorb the knowledge and consider the Black politics, experience, and cultural differences in the texts. Make space outside these readings to apply what you have learned in real life. Fight for causes that donʼt directly affect you and channel your privilege to address the systemic issues that directly affect Black women — for example, the wage gap that has Black women getting paid an average of $36,303 per year in comparison to white men who, on average, make $57,005. You also must ask yourself why you are reading these texts. How can you use the knowledge you gain to better those around you, instead of bragging to your peers that youʼve read bell hooks? Look at the spaces you occupy and ask if you are doing all you can to make space for Black women in your clubs and organizations. If you worship Erykah Badu or quote Nikki Giovanni, radical Black feminists in their own right, ask if you are giving that same admiration and respect to the Black women present in your lives.

To truly be engaged in Black feminist thought, you must be engaged with its practice. Black women who fight and push back against a society that is against them should have support from their white feminist peers, knowing that while our struggles are different, our fight should not be.

The Economics department displays its course offerings.

Photo by Erin Koo, Photo Editor

Culture Fest Missed

Opportunity To Celebrate Culture

Kayla Kim Sports Editor

Like many, my high school had an event akin to a world culture day, where people would share food, dress, and music of their cultural heritage while discussing relevant social and political issues.

Given Oberlin’s history of change and protest and its students from across a wide variety of states and countries, the Multicultural Resource Commons’ Culture Festival seemed like an opportunity to do something similar while connecting with the greater community, and I was excited. Its promotions, from posters with the flags of the world countries to the Campus Digest announcement, seemed to confirm this vision.

“The event will celebrate the diverse ethnic, religious, and other cultural groups on campus and in Lorain County, highlight local businesses and restaurants, and promote more interaction amongst the diverse groups of individuals that make up the Oberlin community,” the Campus Digest announcement reads.

On the day of the actual Culture Fest, however, the types of culture represented were different than expected. Multicultural Resource Commons BIPOC Community Fellow Ava Brown, OC ’22, described this diversity in the article “MRC Culture Festival Focuses on Community Building,” published in the Review one day before the event. The article described planned activities, from an obstacle course to a bouncy house to a tinikling dance workshop facilitated by the Filipinx American Students Association to battling friends with a hand-crafted lightsaber.

I want to clarify that I am not trying to discredit or demean the hard work that the MRC and the event planners put into this event. The event had great turnout among both students and community members, and it was a solid step forward regarding town-gown relations. However, I think combining a cosplay convention, a prospective student tabling event, and a variety of ice cream trucks muddled the actual definition of culture.

Despite our aforementioned activist history, spaces for cross-cultural celebration aren’t easy to find at Oberlin. The few programs we do have in place with the express purpose of promoting cultural and religious inclusion, such as the Third World House, Thir-

World Co-op, and Kosher Halal Co-op, have been diminishing. Even the MRC has only now been fully staffed for the first time in two years. There have been events such as the Asian Night Market, the Black History Month Ball, banquets held by several different identity organizations — such as the Muslim Students Association, the African Students Association, and the Japanese Student Association, and so much more. Still, there has yet to be an event that is able to offer a space for multicultural celebration — simply put, a world culture day. That kind of event is something that is needed, and something that I expected of Culture Fest. I understand that, like many colleges, Oberlin has its own unique culture, and I’m not saying that sci-fi and cosplay can’t go handin-hand with cultural, religious, and affinity groups. Lumping it under a culture fest, though, was an unusual decision, and more importantly, a missed chance to celebrate the multiculturality of Oberlin. It’s almost disrespectful to put a bouncy house next to identity-based organizations, spaces, and groups that haven’t really gotten the chance to be recognized, and the opportunity to reflect on these cultures was simply overshadowed by the variation in types of celebrated culture. Because now, when people think of Culture Fest, they won’t remember it as a day to think about and appreciate the cultural heritage of Oberlin students, but instead as a fun time to play in a bouncy house and cosplay. After all, how is a traditional Filipino folk dance comparable to a lightsaber battle?

Ultimately, it all comes down to the fact that Culture Fest lacked a cohesive definition for the cultures they wanted to showcase. Was it a celebration of world cultures? Was it a celebration of things specifically found at Oberlin? Why couldn’t it be called a family fun day or a tabling event? By failing to give its view of “culture” a specific meaning, Culture Fest was aiming for a target that was never set up in the first place. I hope that the MRC can celebrate Culture Fest again next year, but with a more definitive stance on what culture means and an acknowledgement of cultures that haven’t received as much support from the College.

Equity Must Be Considered in Marijuana Policy

Continued from page 5

advocacy, community organizing, and wider educational policy, to name a few. Issue 2 does ensure that no future monopoly will gain full financial benefit of the future industry, but this does not mean that policymakers will prioritize racial justice while forming future legislation.

As a community of temporary Ohioans, it is our job to make sure that the crawl toward legalization remains at the forefront of policymaking. This is a history that recognizes that Black folks, people of color, and low-income communities have been shamed and punished for selling the drug for the past half-century — a history

Republicans Ineffective in Debt

Ceiling Dispute

Gautami Kunde

Year after year, the American government spends billions of dollars on healthcare, social security benefits, and bolstering the military, among other initiatives. Every year, the sticker price of operation for this plethora of government initiatives is larger than the amount of money the government can collect in taxes. Tax revenue is the primary way for the government to make money, but when this does not suffice, it issues treasury bonds, borrowing money from financers around the world and promises to repay this amount with interest. The amount owed is what makes up the national debt.

Congress is an incredibly important body when considering the national debt, as it decides how much money the government needs to spend on programs and how much should be borrowed to finance them. In 1979, former U.S. Representative Dick Gephardt, a Democrat from Missouri, created the “Gephardt Rule,” a parliamentary procedure that raised the debt ceiling every time a budget was passed. He tells The Atlantic what he said to other members of Congress when asking them to raise the debt ceiling.

“‘Did you vote for the appropriations bill? The defense bill? The highway bill?’ They’d all say yes. And I’d say, ‘Well, then you gotta pay the bill. If you didn’t mean it, don’t vote for it. Then you won’t have to pay for it.’”

Congressional spending falls under two categories: mandatory spending and discretionary spending. Mandatory spending consists of programs that the government has already committed to, such as Medicare and social security. In these cases, the government has promised the American people money in some form, so payment is automatically allocated to these programs with-

out debate. Discretionary spending is made up of expenses that Congress continually decides on, such as military spending. Every time a budget is passed, members of Congress debate how much money should be allocated to the military. 63 percent of the budget is mandatory spending, or programs that Congress cannot cut. When the government borrows money to finance Congressional programs, the majority of them are non-negotiable.

Republicans see themselves as the fiscally responsible party, the people keeping rampant spending from Democrats in check.

In 1995, when the Republicans took the House, they suspended the Gephardt Rule. Republicans could vote for discretionary spending programs but withhold the vote to increase the debt ceiling as a way to appear fiscally conservative to their voters. The debt ceiling quickly became a partisan issue.

If the debt ceiling is not increased, the government will have to default on the national debt. This has never happened before, although it came close in 2011. In the case of a default, the United States’ credit rating would be degraded, undermining global confidence in the dollar. Government employees would go unpaid and social security benefits would be placed on hold. The stock market would take a dive, and experts are certain that the American economy would fall into a recession. If nothing is done, the United States will default on its debt by this summer. To pass an increase of the debt ceiling in the Senate, Democrats will need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. While Democrats may be able to muster a simple majority of 51 votes, 60 requires a plan that Senate Republicans can get on board with. President Biden wants a “clean” debt ceiling increase, or one free of conditions, but Republicans want provisions

EDITORIAL COMIC

Molly Chapin Staff Illustrator

that cut government spending tied to the package. Recently, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy unveiled a plan to increase the national debt for one year with a host of conditions. This included cutting spending to be in line with 2022 levels, removing tax credits for electric vehicles, and blocking Biden’s plan to cancel student debt, among other measures. His plan increases the work requirements on those receiving food stamps and Medicaid, placing an unfair burden on struggling Americans. McCarthy’s plan reads more like a Republican wish list than a bill that Congress would pass, and it would be dead on arrival in the Democratic Senate. Under McCarthy’s weak leadership, it is unclear whether it has enough support from his own party to pass the House. Disunity among the Republicans ensures that any plan McCarthy makes with the Democrats would fail in the current House, as he has little control over the right wing of the party that prolonged his election as Speaker of the House. Meanwhile, analysts from Goldman Sachs estimate that the country could default on its debt as early as mid-June.

Speaker McCarthy knows how catastrophic a default on the national debt would be for the country. The current standoff between the two parties is unsustainable. He must find a way to exert some control over House Republicans and unite his party, as it currently has no interest in keeping the country functional. Speaker McCarthy released a plan that prioritized the Republican party over the American economy. President Biden has indicated a staunch unwillingness to consider the plan. McCarthy needs to find a way to make his party actually govern the country and sit down to craft a bill that helps more than Republican reelection campaigns.

that has destroyed families and fed millions back into the prison industrial complex. Tightening Ohio’s already-strained resources with a state prison system that exceeds capacity by 33 percent is a history that we have the potential to indefinitely alter.

As we move to different avenues of legalization, it is imperative that we hold ourselves accountable to these histories and ensure they do not persist. A truly equitable legalization policy is one that neither erases nor further exploits the communities disproportionately affected. Issue 3 was not the answer to this injustice, but the 2016 ballot has yet to be written.

The Review’s Second Annual Art Contest

“Hylas and The Nymphs: Redux”

I first saw fourth-year Studio Art major Beaux Watwood’s screen print, “Hylas and The Nymphs: Redux,” at their senior art show two weeks ago. When I walked into Richard D. Baron Gallery, a group was gathered in a circle, holding hands around a table made of cherry, maple, and birch wood — another of Watwood’s creations — as Watwood spoke to the group that had gathered to see the array of student artwork.

The opening night of the exhibition coincided with Good Friday — important to Watwood due to their Christian upbringing — as well as with Passover and Ramadan. The night was also under the influence of the full moon in Libra, hence the small detail of the full moon in the print, which Watwood admitted they added

last-minute once they knew the anticipated date of the show.

Watwood grew up eating dinner around a table with his parents, a tradition he holds dear. The food displayed on the table — honey, pomegranates, dates, clementines, oranges, and unrisen bread — referenced the “Song of Songs,” a love poem from the Old Testament. In their research, Watwood learned that, fittingly, this is a text also read during Passover.

“There was something so special and universal about the act of gathering around a table to share food and to share conversation,” Watwood said. “I wanted to christen the table into its life in that way. … One of the things my mother really taught me how to do, that she learned from her mother, was the act of hosting. I wanted

to carry that forward and consider the act of hosting an art in and of itself.”

“Hylas and The Nymphs: Redux’’ was mounted on the wall across from the table. The piece is a culmination of Watwood’s journey making creative works, at Oberlin as well as in their personal artistic endeavors. Framed as a reinterpretation of John William Waterhouse’s late-19th century oil painting, “Hylas and the Nymphs,” Watwood’s refreshed version of the Greek and Roman tragedy is “imbued with unapologetic, sensual subjectification,” as described in their artist statement.

“I’ve been thinking about making that piece actually for about two years,” Watwood said. “I have a sketch of it from when I was living at home during the pandemic. I even had one of my ex-lovers model for it, which was a really tender moment.”

The scenes within the print offer varied and complex depictions of queer and trans pleasure, love, and sensuality.

“The male gaze in the art world, especially in Western art, is such an inescapable influence,” Watwood said. “It’s part of this reckoning within me for the fact that so many of the artists who I grew up influenced by and who have made an irreversible impact on my aesthetics are these white men who painted so many primarily naked white women.”

Watwood said he has always felt drawn to this style of art. He grew up visiting the original painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with his mother, an artist with a background in figurative realist oil painting. In planning the piece, he used photographs and sketches that he had drawn of Waterhouse’s painting and other sexually charged works by European artists from the Met.

“It’s not just about sex for me,” Watwood said. “It’s also about physical and emotional intimacy that goes beyond a specific category of touch, and that is queerness to me. … I’m interested in the figure, and especially in queer and trans figures, because I want to capture this experience of embodiment that’s so ephemeral and so ever-changing. The idea of capturing a body in a moment to evoke the image of that sexual, physical experience

is really important to me, and I want to create space in the [artistic] canon.”

In the bottom left section of Watwood’s print, you’ll find the original figures from Waterhouse’s painting. In including these figures, Watwood decided to pay homage to the original work, though their first draft from two years ago was a looser depiction of the composition.

“On a technical level, [the piece] is demonstrating how far I’ve come and what I’ve come from, in my understanding of art in a classical, museum sense,” Watwood said. “With European art history, and how inadvertently and heavily that has influenced my practices, … [I wanted] to try to revisit and reconstruct some of that imagery and those narratives to make sense to me based on my lived experience as a queer person, as a radical person, as someone who wants to not just expand the canon, but deconstruct the need for a canon.”

For the screen print itself, they began by creating a mock-up using the digital painting software Procreate. From there, they started making the stencils, which for the screen print were in black and white. The process was characterized by frequent alternating between stencils, which constituted different layers of the print.

“It’s kind of impossible to know exactly how it’s going to look in the final product as you’re making the stencils, because you can’t actually see the colors as they are,” Watwood said. “That’s kind of exciting and adds this opportunity of chance that I think is really nerve-wracking to me, to release that level of control, but that’s also one of the really beautiful things of printmaking as a craft — that the medium inserts itself into the image as an artifact of the process of making it.”

The 27-by-40-inch screenprint, marked by its simple yet evocative hues of cyan, magenta, and yellow has an otherworldly feel. Each of the ten prints Watwood created is slightly different from the last. In one of the iterations they showed me in their studio, a printing error gave one of the figures on the left-hand side a faint mustache, who Watwood, consequently, interpreted as a trans man.

Eloise Rich This Week Editor

Photo courtesy of Beaux Watwood

Photo Courtesy of Beaux Watwood

Watwood’s table at their installation, Agape, offered food like pomegranates and clementines.

ARTS & CULTURE

OCircus Captivates Audience With Time Travel Theme

Yasu Shinozaki Arts & Culture Editor

Last Friday and Saturday, OCircus performed its showcase in Hales Gymnasium. Performers wowed the audience with juggling, handstands, flips, human pyramids, and aerial acrobatics while suspended high above the stage from hanging silks. Through their feats, they displayed both athletic ability and artistic style and showed off countless hours of practice and training.

The theme of this year’s show was time travel. Each act was

based on a historical era or event — the creation of the universe, the Dark Ages, the psychedelic 1970s, and a futuristic zombie apocalypse, among others — with music, costumes, and choreography to match. The arrangement of short, disparate acts gave individual performers a chance to shine, and allowed for costumes to vary from tie-dye to a garb of medieval jesters and for music to range from 1980s exercise tracks to bass-boosted Gregorian chants. The set-up kept the audience on the edge of their seats, never sure what would come next.

Even with the clever theme and excellent direction, the focus of the show was still on the performers’ physical abilities. In pairs, in groups, or by themselves, performers executed stunning splits, somersaults, and walking handstands. They climbed on silks and hung suspended in harrowing yet graceful positions or wrapped themselves around hanging hoops with fantastic ease. The show revealed how physical strength and precision, coupled with an artistic approach, can create something beautiful and awe-inspiring.

ECVI Hosts Art Gala to Fund Citizenship Applications

Tate van der Poel Staff Writer

A furry orange armchair, a pair of upcycled jeans, and a legion of prints and pottery donated by YeoPress and the Oberlin Pottery Co-op were among the works of art up for auction at the El Centro Volunteer Initiative Art Gala last Friday. Attendees of the free event, many dressed in the recommended cocktail attire, lined the perimeter of the Root Room, admiring the pieces and placing bids to help fund citizenship applications for Lorain County residents.

The annual art auction originated with YeoPress, but in recent years ECVI has taken the reins, putting on the event with the aid of donations from YeoPress and the Pottery Co-op.

“Some of [the donations] are from professors,” College fourthyear and ECVI Co-Leader of Grant Writing and Fundraising Signe Meyer said. “We have some this year from librarians, one from a Dean of Student Life. We had a community member donate the other day. It’s a good mix of people. It is predominantly student art, but we accept art from whoeverʼs interested.”

As the night progressed and the closing of bidding drew near, the energy in the room heightened. Bidders discreetly guarded their desired works to outbid any challengers, and the Mexican banda drew a growing crowd to the dance floor.

With its music and food, the gala provided a rare opportunity for Latine students to celebrate their culture alongside Lorain community members.

“Itʼs a fact that thereʼs Latine students in the Conservatory, but there is no band centered on Latinidad or anything like that,”

College second-year and ECVI Co-Leader of Grant Writing and Fundraising Angelina Martinez said. “There isnʼt really Spanish music and Spanish bands [at Oberlin]. The reason we brought the banda is because we wanted that type of representation.”

Cultural connection is also a motivation for many of those involved with ECVI.

“Iʼm from Houston, Texas, and the community Iʼm from is all Black and Brown people, so coming [to Oberlin] was a definite culture shock,” Martinez said.

“ECVI specifically goes out to a predominantly Latinx community to give citizenship and English classes, so one, [joining] was really important for me because it felt like home, and two, immigration is a personal issue for me and itʼs something that Iʼm really passionate about.”

Lorain’s Latine community has a notable history, with hundreds of men being recruited from Puerto Rico to work in the steel mill in the mid-20th century.

“We want people to be aware of that community, and to be able to have an opportunity to support them and to engage in really important local social justice and community-building work,” Meyer said.

To provide Oberlin students with that opportunity, ECVI works to benefit El Centro de Servicios Sociales.

“El Centro provides so many services, weʼre known as a onestop organization here in Lorain County with a big reputation,” Executive Director of El Centro de Servicios Sociales Victor Leandry said. “We do English classes, first-homebuyer classes, we do summer camp, ballet classes, we have senior services, legal aid clinics — we do a lot. ... Lorain County and Lorain City have the

biggest Latino population per capita in Ohio, but we only have one organization thatʼs ours.”

El Centro is the organization for which ECVI is named, though ECVI is entirely student-led. It was students of El Centro’s citizenship test preparation classes whose applications the gala sought to raise funds for. This semester, ECVI-led citizenship classes have been attended by as many as nine participants in one session — a record for the organization.

“This semester, we have the largest number of citizenship students ever,” Meyer said. “Given that every test is $725 just for the application alone, weʼd love to fund at least three if not more, but itʼs super reliant on how many people show up, how much theyʼre willing to pay, how much theyʼre willing to donate to the organization.”

Meyer says they have met the aforementioned goal — out of 136 pieces, all but three were auctioned off, raising enough money to fund four citizenship applications. But regardless of the monetary proceeds from the gala, El Centro values the efforts and contributions of ECVI.

“They have organized a great group; they have a group that runs almost like a board of directors,” Leandry said. “Approximately six years ago, they started volunteering at El Centro, doing citizenship classes, [and] educating our immigrant community on how to pass their citizenship test. … They have very good success rates. Most of the people who take the class — in the 90 percent — pass the citizenship test.”

ECVI is not the only avenue through which Oberlin and El Centro have developed a relationship. Professor of Comparative American Studies Gina Pérez re-

cently joined El Centro’s board of directors and has worked closely with the organization and the Lorain Historical Society to create the Latino Lorain History Project.

“We started our project three years ago to collect and capture the history of the Latino community [in Lorain], because it was not captured [anywhere],” Leandry said.

Pérez led students in her class in collecting oral histories from early members of the Latino community in Lorain.

“This year weʼre working on capturing the story of the Latino veterans in Ohio in Lorain to do an exhibit,” Leandry said. “Some of the students are from ECVI, and some are from [Pérez’s] class.”

Turnout at last weekʼs art gala was significantly greater than at the previous art auction. ECVI organizers were encouraged by the show of Oberlin support for El Centro’s cause.

“Itʼs refreshing to see, especially in todayʼs political environment, that people care about immigration issues,” Martinez said.

Perhaps ECVI’s success in marketing the art gala can be attribut-

ed in part to their collaboration with Oberlin artists.

“This college has such an expansive network of artists that also want to do social justice work, that want their work to be for good,” Meyer said.

For some student artists, donating their art might’ve been an opportunity to put disused creations to use, but it also provided inspiration.

“Sometimes it can be a little bit hard to find a reason to do art, so I think this is a really good way to use my art for something thatʼs really important,” College second-year and ECVI volunteer Camila Ciembroniewicz said.

At the end of the night, as auction winners claimed their spoils and evaluated how to transport the pieces home — the aforementioned neon armchair closing at a bid of $60 — and feelings of warmth and community lingered in the room.

“As much as Oberlin students want to take care of huge global issues, itʼs also important to take care of the local ones, and this event is a really cool way to be a part of that,” Meyer said.

Photos courtesy of Nathaniel Liu

Photo Courtesy of Nathaniel Liu

Art created by Oberlin students and community members was auctioned off at El Centro Volunteer Initiative’s Art Gala last Friday.

Bodies Are Fluid Film Screening Expands on AMAM Conversation Through Feminist Video Art

Dlisah Lapidus Arts & Culture Editor

On Tuesday, Hallock Auditorium was the site of the screening of the experimental film compilation Bodies are Fluid. Viewers interested in media art related to gender identity filled the auditorium to watch short art films exploring the topic. This included a film created solely with the artist’s mouth, a 1970s-era feminist film on menstruation, and a 16-minute-long recording of an intimate performance in which one artist shaves another’s lower body.

The organization of this event started with a Winter Term project: Decolonizing Cinema History, taught by Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow Jennifer Blaylock. The Winter Term course invited students with a variety of experiences and interest levels to participate and allowed them to explore feminist media and film art.

“The impetus for the Winter Term project started from a couple of needs that I saw on campus,” Blaylock said. “One is [that] the Cinema Studies department has a collection of 16 millimeter films that are mostly legacy prints from teaching before DVD or VHS, and they’ve sort of just stayed around. Part of the project was to deal with these films and see what they are. The other part of the project is that I’ve been writing a lot about archives recently, and so I was interested in thinking about a lot of new literature on film archives in particular that have to do with decolonizing institutions of archival memory. How are archivists addressing neglect of certain histories based on race, gender, sexuality, [and] geographic parts of the world that have been left out from film memory?”

The films screened at the event spanned a wide range of topics

and forms, but were tied together by their focus on bodies and bodily fluids. The curatorial process for the screening was undertaken by Blaylock and College first-year Nat Becker-Stevens, who participated in the Winter Term project.

The screening was inspired by Femme ’n isms, Part I: Bodies Are Fluid, an exhibit at the Allen Memorial Art Museum curated by Ellen Johnson ’33 Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Sam Adams that opened last semester. It is the first edition of a new series within AMAM that honors art and forms that highlight and represent intersectional identities and feminist thought. This first exhibition specifically highlights women and femininity, and the works in the exhibit deal with body parts and bodily fluids.

“We also wanted to expand on things that maybe we didn’t see,” Becker-Stevens said. “I really liked the ones that had a lot of sensation. … that was very much connected to a bodily sensation, which I think also works for the body fluid sort of thing, and thinking about bodily presence and when you’re watching that [you’re] having a physical experience.”

During Winter Term, the students researched and sorted through various experimental film catalogs, put together a slide deck of the films they were interested in presenting, and received curatorial advice from Adams. After Winter Term, Blaylock and Becker-Stevens decided to keep fine-tuning the project and put together the final selection for the Bodies are Fluid film screening. The films were chosen to highlight different perspectives on bodies and diverse representation of bodies.

“Part of what we were looking for [after Winter Term] was for our selection to be more diverse and that the films could go in a good, curated order,” Becker-Ste-

vens said. “That was definitely a conscious part of it. We also wanted to feature a few works that were older. We only ended up including two pieces that were older, which were ‘Head’ by Cheryl Donahue from 1993 and ‘Menses’ by Barbara Hammer from 1974. The [others] are from the 2000s.”

Blaylock hopes to continue collaborating with the AMAM and bringing video art into conversations being had through other visual artforms. The medium of video holds a specific role in feminist history as a form of performance art; however, this history and artform seem to be missing from many artistic establishments at Oberlin. Blaylock hopes to continue presenting this art to the Oberlin community through future events.

“I see a place for this here,” Blaylock said. “If I’m here, I would love to continue doing it. I have ideas for other films to bring. … It wouldn’t be necessarily experimental film but would continue this idea of expanding the archive and what we think about cinema and histories of cinema.”

Where Have All the Flowers Gone? Exhibition Opens in Mudd Center, Highlights Oberlin Folk History

Maeve Woltring

The three-part exhibition Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, which runs April 14 – June 16, offers a rich exploration of Oberlin’s intimate ties to major moments and figures within folk music history. The exhibition spans three venues and examines the work of three central players in folk music: Joe Hickerson, OC ’57, in the Mary Church Terrell Main Library’s first floor gallery, Pete Seeger in the Conservatory Library, and Ed Freeman, OC ’63, in the Oberlin College Archives. Throughout the research process and selection of archived materials, College archivist Ken Grossi and Visual Resource Curator and Program Coordinator of Exhibits Heath Patten were able to locate fascinating ties between the exhibition’s three subjects. Folk music constitutes a distinctively collaborative genre, and in turn its local history illuminates a similar harmony.

A few months ago, Sid Comings, OC ’69 asked Grossi if he was interested in creating an exhibit on the life and work of Ed Freeman. Freeman, a famed photographer of Americana landscapes, began his professional career in the music industry performing as a folk

guitarist and classical lutenist. As explained through the exhibition, “Music may have been his livelihood, but shooting portraits was a secret passion.” Comings, inspired by the career of Freeman, was happy to assist in the installation of the exhibit.

“I thank Ed Freeman for his generosity and his interest in the exhibit,” Comings wrote in an email to the Review. “I chuckled when he told me that I know more about him than he knows about himself.”

Grossi enthusiastically agreed to the project, and, in lieu of Comings’ facilitation of a Pete Seeger exhibit in the Oberlin Public Library, he decided to expand the exhibition to encompass Seeger’s work as well. Finally, a third wing was dedicated to Joe Hickerson, a folk singer with a fascinating history deeply intertwined with Seeger’s.

on a yearly basis, and the Folk Song Club — now the Folk Music Club — held a performance in the exhibit’s Mudd Center wing this past Monday.

“One of [the Folk Music Club members] who is a [first-year] and played the banjo, which was Pete and Joe’s instrument of choice, said ‘The reason I came to Oberlin was because of folk history here,’” Patten said.

Hickerson, during his own first year at Oberlin, attended one of Seeger’s college tour concerts. It’s safe to say the performance ultimately altered the course of both Hickerson and Seegers’ lives.

“While [Hickerson] was here his [first] year, he saw the folk singer Pete Seeger, who was of national acclaim but had been blacklisted because of McCarthyism,” Patten said. “So he was playing college circuits. And Joe, when he saw that concert in ’54, which was in the basement of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, he said it changed everything. So he goes on to bring Pete Seeger back [to Oberlin] and becomes friends with him. Joe also had taken over a folk music show on WOBC, the College radio. But the really cool part is that he worked in the li-

Though Hickerson studied physics during his Oberlin years, his love of folk music drove him to found the Folk Song Club in 1957. Subsequently, in May of 1957, and along with Joani Blank, OC ’59, he founded the first annual Oberlin Folk Festival. Both the club and festival were quickly cemented in Oberlin’s institutional memory; Oberlin’s Folk Festival still occurs See Campus, page 12

Photo by Erin Koo, Photo Editor

Femme ’n isms, Part I: Bodies Are Fluid, is an exhibit currently on display at the Allen Memorial Art Museum.

Photo by Erin Koo, Photo Editor

Various campus libraries display Oberlin’s rich history with folk music.

Roya Hakakian

Jewish-Iranian poet, writer, and activist

Parade Revival Brings Century-Old Murder Trial Back to Broadway

Nikki Keating Managing Editor

Until recently, Parade was an underrated musical that I never noticed. In its original Broadway run, it was often compared to Ragtime, one of my favorite musicals. This is not an unfair comparison, as both shows represent stories about “American life,” highlighting the subjects of class, racism, and the American experience. But it’s because of this that it went to the bottom of the list of musicals I needed to listen to. The March 23 release of the 2023 revival album, however, prompted me to finally listen as I was headed to New York and thinking about seeing it live. And though I didn’t end up seeing it in person during its first weeks, I now intend to see it live, because the album was absolutely show-stopping.

character development. At the beginning of the show, Frank starts off with the song “How Can I Call This Home?” and laments about being a man out of place — he just moved from the North and is struggling to understand Southern culture and what it means to be Jewish in the South. These conflicts strain his relationships with those around him, particularly with his wife. This struggle comes to a head toward the end of the first act, as Frank, finally allowed to speak in court, pulls on heartstrings in his ballad “It’s Hard to Speak My Heart.”

Ava Miller Senior Staff Writer

Roya Hakakian gave a talk this past week titled “The Women of Iran Have Risen Up: Should You Care?”

Hakakian is a founding member of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, and The New York Review of Book. She has published three books and is currently a lecturer in the English department at Yale University. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Following Mahsa Amini’s killing, there have been massive demonstrations in Iran. Since then, you’ve published several essays for The Atlantic on this topic. How can writing be used as a tool for social change?

An excellent place to begin is to look at where we are in society. There’s been a great deal of division and violence within our country, within the United States, and also generally a great deal of loneliness. So many of us are managing by ourselves and alone. It brings up a larger question of whether we have been able to bring meaning into our lives. We need to find causes that mean a great deal to us, and we can organize our own sense of self around them. As a woman, one of the questions I ask myself and encourage other women to ask is: What happened to feminism?

Feminism used to be the thing to do. Women had a great deal to offer the world regarding what it means to have gender equality. In all of the societies around the world, what happened to it? I have a lot of answers as to what happened to feminism, but let’s not go there. There are a great

deal of women who have risen up. Iran has come together and given us a reason to come together again as women. The idea of choice is such an important and familiar issue. We have to remember that women have a choice too. It’s about the choice of whether to keep a child or not and the choice of what they can and cannot wear in public. As women everywhere, we fight for choice, whether it’s about what to do with a fetus or what to do with one’s clothes. I think, for many reasons, it’s important to embrace this cause at this moment.

As a native speaker of Farsi, you’ve published collections of Persian poetry. What is the main difference between creative writing and journalistic writing?

I don’t see journalism and creative writing as being different. To me, all writing is about being creative. There’s nothing uncreative about it. When creating a poem, you have to think about the human story and what aspect you are trying to articulate. I’ve been thinking a lot about how you make something that’s not exactly shiny and not obvious to others in terms of its significance, and through poetry and journalism, you can make it relevant to others. That’s the fundamental challenge for me in writing. We can look into obscure but significant matters through lyricism and reporting.

How has your upbringing as a religious minority changed your view of the world?

When you are the majority, you grow up very comfortable, and that sense of comfort isn’t conducive to being an artist. Being in the minority, there’s always something that bothers you, and sometimes I describe it as an

“itchy sweater.” You don’t want to take it off and can’t figure out why it isn’t as comfortable as it should be. If there has been an advantage to being a Jewish person in a Muslim-majority country, it’s that I’ve always asked serious questions. Starting as a young child, I’ve wondered “Who am I? Do I belong? What is belonging? Do I really want to belong?”

Your most recent book, A Beginner’s Guide to America: For the Immigrant and the Curious, depicts many immigrant experiences. What motivated you to write this book?

The book disguises itself as a memoir, but it is ultimately a book for native-born Americans, so they are able to see what the immigrant sees. Those born in the U.S. assume everything is a part of the social decor. Well, it isn’t. People misunderstand that an immigrant isn’t just someone who picks our fruits and staffs our hospitals. This book shows small things like different traffic laws that everyone believes in and abides by. These small things are a product of a social contract, so the book is an opportunity for Americans to see the perspective of those who haven’t been born here. Donald Trump has said a few things that really shook me up. He said, “Our country is full,” and that we shouldn’t allow people into this country without specialized skills. I’ve looked at his criteria and realized that I would have never gotten in if he had been president when I came to the U.S. I came as an 18-yearold high school graduate with only a backpack and no English. If Donald Trump had been president then, my destiny wouldn’t be what it is today. I’ve felt that I’ve had to justify why letting someone like me into this country is an excellent decision.

The story of Parade alone makes it a must-see performance, and the album is art that everyone should listen to. Based on a true story, Parade takes us through the 1913 trial of Leo Frank (Ben Platt), an American Jewish factory superintendent in Atlanta who was convicted of the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan (Erin Rose Doyle). With Frank initially convicted in the first act, the play takes us through the appeals of the verdict. However, right after the court commutes Frank’s sentence from death to life in prison, he is kidnapped and lynched by residents of the city. The musical takes us through Frank’s journey through the trial and eventually his subsequent death while highlighting the relationship between him and his wife, Lucille Frank (Micaela Diamond), as they fight to prove his innocence in court. The musical, which first premiered in 1998, is based on a book by Alfred Uhry and has music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown.

One thing that I adored about this musical was its dedication to showing the perspectives and ideals of each character in the lyrics. The album on its own shows each character’s journey, which is particularly showcased in Leo Frank’s

“Hell Portal”

Henry Pincus

Even without the stage or a face to envision, I was moved by the rawness within the song and how well it conveys the desperation of a man who has everything to lose in a room full of people who do not know him. One of his last songs, “This is Not Over Yet” — a duet with his wife, who, through this journey, has also gotten closer to him — occurs when both have just found out that Frank’s case will be reopened. The song is hopeful and beautiful as both characters seem to see each other for the first time. This theme is carried on in a later duet, “All the Wasted Time.” These songs act as both reconciliations and songs of hope for Lucille and Leo, which only makes the story more heartbreaking when you know the inevitable end is not a happy one. Not only do the lyrics convey a story, but the melodies throughout all of the songs maintain a musical motif. For example, at the end of “How Can I Call This Home?” the motif is the same as in “It’s Hard to Speak My Heart.” Another example is at the start of “All the Wasted Time” — the lyrics are “I will never understand,” which match the tune and resemble the lyrics, “I pray you to understand,” at the end of “It’s Hard to Speak My Heart.” These small nuances add to the story, making it so intriguing to listen to over and over again.

Another thing I thoroughly enjoyed about Parade was the sto-

See Parade, page 12

I opened a hell portal on my bedroom floor yesterday. I didn’t really do it on purpose, It just sort of ended up happening.

I looked down, and there was a hell portal.

“Huh,” I thought. “That’s a hell portal.”

“Wonder how that happened.”

I knew if I didn’t try to stop it, it would happen at some point, I just wasn’t ready for that point to be now. And now I have a hell portal swirling around on my bedroom floor. Every time I look at it, I have to look away quickly. After all, if I look at it, I’m acknowledging that it’s there. And that would mean I’d have to do something about it.

The hell portal’s been there all day. And it doesn’t seem to want to just disappear. Maybe if I pretend hard enough, it will.

POETRY

Henry Pincus is a College first-year hoping to major in Creative Writing. In this poem, written in 2022, they explore struggling with motivation and living with mental illness. They hope this poem can help others who have opened hell portals of their own and make them feel less alone.

Photo courtesy of the Wilson Center

Roya Hakakian

Parade Features Brilliant Actors and Storytelling on Stage

ries of other characters within the play. The song that got me into the musical, “That’s What He Said,” is not sung by Frank but instead is performed by witness Jim Conley (Alex Joseph Grayson) when he takes the stand against Frank and spins the story of how Frank committed the murder and tried to get away with it. Not only were the vocals from Grayson knee-shakingly good, but the ensemble did a masterful job voicing a public opinion. This was especially exciting to me because so much of this case in real life was decided and led by the media and public opinion within the South, and many songs reflect this. “Big News,” sung by reporter Britt Craig (Jay Armstrong Johnson), shows how biased journalism swayed public opinion against Frank. Additionally, the song “Twenty Miles from Marietta” shows the local prosecutor Hugh Dorsey (Paul Alexander Nolan) slandering Frank and creating evidence and stories to vilify him to the jury.

The song, however, that made me realize Parade would be my next obsession for the rest of the semester was “Rumblinʼ and a Rollinʼ.” As an Africana Studies major who is personally invested in African-American history of the 1900s, I had one thought in the back of my head throughout the first act: how interesting that this case was getting so much attention during a time when Black American citizens were being

Campus Spaces Celebrate Oberlin Folk Alumni

brary as a student employee and he goes on to work for the Library of Congress, where he’ll be the director and the archivist for the folk song archive.”

harassed and attacked nationwide without the same amount of media coverage. And it was as if Jason Robert Brown read my mind — “Rumblinʼ and a Rollinʼ” is sung from the perspective of African-American townsfolk who are present in the play. In the song, the characters question if the reaction would have been as strong if the victim had been a little Black girl or if Frank had been Black in the first place. This song does not remove the threat of anti-Semitism that permeates these charactersʼ lives, only adding to the play’s message by forcing audiences, specifically white audiences, to consider another perspective.

Parade breathes life into a story that occurred more than 100 years ago. It tells the stories of the innocent and what happens when hate and prejudice have a place in the courts and our law system. Because of Frank’s case, the AntiDefamation League was created as a Jewish international nongovernment organization based on civil rights law and the defense against the defamation of Jewish people. This story is not only a musical, but a representation of something that still affects minority communities. Parade pays homage to this story with music that encapsulates the beauty and pain of our history. I hope to see it live in the coming weeks and implore you to take a look at the album.

Friendship blossomed between Hickerson and Seeger, a fact pointedly reflected by the famed song — and the exhibition’s title — Where Have All the Flowers Gone? Seeger, who was deeply influenced by Russian folk music, was working through an obscure Russian text on his plane ride to Oberlin. His reading inspired the writing of “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”, which he first wrote and performed at Oberlin. Later, Hickerson would contribute the song’s final two verses.

In the exhibition’s Mudd Center wing, a giant text displaying the lyrics to “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” outlines Seeger’s and Hickerson’s respective verses. A station dedicated to Hickerson’s

set of dangling phone-like mechanisms wherein viewers can listen to a brief recording of Seeger jamming out with the Folk Song Club.

“Underlying all of this, Heath is going to create a panel that shows all of the collections that were used in the archives, in the Con library, that pulls us all together,” Grossi said. “That’s kind of telling especially students to say, ‘Look at all of this great material we have in our libraries that you can learn more about folk music or any other subject’.

While combing through the archives’ rich corpus, Grossi and Patten found that a fourth figure unites the exhibition’s three respective musicians. Mississippi John Hurt, an American blues singer and guitarist, makes a distinctive appearance across three disparate mediums which came to define the three figures’ professional lives. While working

of Hickerson’s jobs was to record folk music, and one of the first musicians he recorded was Hurt. In Seeger’s late television program Rainbow Quest, which ran for 39 episodes, Hurt comes on to play a handful of blues songs and is introduced by Seeger as a “generous-hearted soul.” Freeman, who was known for housing and photographing ‘seminal musicians of the 1960s folk music revival’, according to text in the exhibiton’s Archive wing, spent time with and photographed Hurt as well. Grossi and Patten added that a photo depicting the recording session between Hurt and Hickerson will soon be featured in the exhibition. To witness the visual magic of local and historical confluence and learn more about Oberlin’s folk music history, Oberlin students and community members can visit any one of the exhibition’s three branches before they close June 16.

ACROSS

1. Kate Bush debut studio album

10. Tractor trailer

11. Cicero or Seneca

12. Athletic wear brand __lemon

15. Grain container

16. Fruit juice often paired with vodka (abbr.)

17. Yeast or baking soda in bread

21. Cartwheel with no hands

22. A necessary service that may cost over $1,000 (abbr.)

24. Garden guardian

26. Prepare milk for a latte

29. They may be guided by a compass

31. Sound made by 37-across

32. __ and flow

34. Gold bar

35. Amandla Stenberg’s breakout role

36. Hoppy beer style

37. Amphibious ExCo subject

39. Victorian-inspired Japanese fashion

43. Clue weapon not made of metal

45. 2017 thriller __ Blonde

46. More cruel

48. Bob-tailed animal in “Jingle Bells”

49. The Aegean, for one

50. Part shared by insects and radios

DOWN

1. Throat tissue often removed

2. Oberlin English program for world language speakers

3. “Flamingo” alternative trio

4. Meek Mill’s “__ Boss”

5. SF-based publisher of Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems

6. A texter’s agreement

7. Cook in shallow oil

8. Appalachian instrument favored by Joni Mitchell

9. Yoruba god of war and metal

13. Containers for ashes

14. A gamerʼs scapegoat

18. The Sims developer (abbr.)

19. Category of aquatic photosynthesizers

20. “No one” in Latin

23. Thin as spiders’ silk

25. Professional mediator

26. The end of a French fish

27. Feminist often featured on socks and candles

28. Type of bird closely related to chickadees

30. The Copper State

31. __ Believe It or Not!

33. __-lette

38. At the exact right moment

40. Archaeologist Croft

41. Japanese fighting dog

42. Religious utterance

43. A Flock of Seagulls’ “I __ (So Far Away)”

44. They may be square in round holes

Answers to last weeks crossword:

CROSSWORD

Addie Breen, Production Editor

Photo by Erin Koo, Photo Editor

Oberlin’s folk history will be on display in Mudd Center until June 16.

CONSERVATORY

Conservatory Students Form R. Nathaniel Dett Music Society

Delaney Fox Conservatory Editor

The R. Nathaniel Dett Music Society is a newly formed group dedicated to educating Oberlin College and Conservatory students, as well as community members, on the accurate historical performance practices of Black classical musicians in the early to mid-20th century. This week, rehearsals began for a short inaugural concert honoring the late Dolores White, OC ’54, that the Society hopes to present in May.

R. Nathaniel Dett, OC 1908, the Society’s namesake, was the first Black student to graduate from Oberlin Conservatory. After earning degrees in Piano Performance and Composition, Dett arranged a number of Black concert spirituals and worked as a choral conductor at the Hampton Institute, whose performance tradition inspires the pedagogy of the Society.

Conservatory second-year Daesean Lawson founded the Society only a couple of weeks ago, though he has been passionate about Black choral pedagogues like Dett and the musicology of Black music institutions since high school.

“I felt that there was no proper recognition of Black classical literature on campus,” Lawson said. “I also felt the performance of this music was not what it should be, by both student

groups and academic groups led by professors. The production of this music I found insulting, and the steadfastness of people who are in my line of work and relationship with the Negro folk idiom is to correct all false doctrine that may be spread in relation to the performance of this music. There is a style — how to do it — and that style should be respected.”

He also expressed that this lack of historical accuracy in performance extends beyond Oberlin’s campus — that it is a broader collegiate issue.

“I believe that in common practice today, in both the predominantly white institution and the Historically Black College and University, the attention to performance styles and pedagogues of this period have fallen,” Lawson said. “I believe that it is of the utmost importance that these traditions from this time are not forgotten and that they are preserved and they are recognized as full bodied traditions and period performance. Whether it be choral literature, vocal solo literature, or instrumental literature, the emphasis is on the research and the most historically accurate performance.”

Given Lawson’s concerns, the purpose of the Society is to provide an educational resource for Oberlin students, both in the College and Conservatory, and

community members of all racial identities who want to perform Black classical music in the most historically accurate way.

“We hope to offer accredited courses, ExCo courses, in the spring semester of the upcoming year,” Lawson said. “We hope to get the Society accredited as well so that there is a strong impact on the education of this music, because that is what the purpose of this group is.”

In addition to the Society choir and ExCo, the Society plans to sponsor lectures and provide private coachings for students working on a piece of Black musical literature, whether instrumental or vocal.

“They can bring their spiritual or their Negro arts song or their character piece to us, and we can discuss some of the stylistic interpretations unique to that period,” Lawson said. “If you are interested in the pedagogy behind that piece, we can explain the historical thought processes of how it may have been done. The way one breathes is taught differently in the Negro practice. The diction that one uses [and] the idiomatic phrasing is different.”

The Society had its first choir rehearsal Tuesday night in Fairchild Chapel. Students and community members of all backgrounds were encouraged to come, as long as they came with an open mind and willingness

to learn. Double-degree second-year Tia Leung attended the rehearsal, where they worked on one of Dett’s spiritual arrangements in the style of the Hampton Singers.

“Learning about the style of conducting used to perform spirituals was a bit difficult to pick up at first, but once we got over the learning curve as an ensemble, we really did make beautiful music,” Leung said.

This reflection seems to epito -

mize Lawson’s aspiration for the future of the Society.

“What I hope to do with this Society is to make beautiful music, to educate, and to warm one’s heart with the sound, the ideas, and the philosophy of Negro folk music,” Lawson said. “It’s been something that has been very dear to me, so to then share it and make it so that one can go and do that same work by themselves is the greatest gift that this Society can produce.”

Jazz Forum’s Evolution Marks Important Tradition

feedback. Second, audience members should be thoughtful about their comments. Commenting shouldn’t “feel more like an obligation than an opportunity.”

Third, the concerts should be in spaces other than the Cat in the Cream, which would make them more distinct and better attended. Groups should treat the concert as the event to be attended. They should perform well-rehearsed sets and advertise.

Anderson treats the high attendance at Forum by non-Jazz students as a bad thing, since it causes Forum to lose its original or intended function. I disagree. The vibrant energy in the Cat in the Cream, which Anderson describes so eloquently in the opening paragraph of his piece, is something we should cherish.

students also want to hear music at 12:15 p.m. on Fridays, week after week. I can see why. Some of my favorite moments at Oberlin have been hearing my friends play at Jazz Forum. Some of my most cherished musical experiences ever have occurred at 12:15 on a Friday afternoon. I’ve shouted, danced, and even cried from the seats of the Cat. Just a few weeks ago, I heard my friend sing for the first time on stage, a memory I will hold with me forever. There are many factors behind this magic, among them how well-attended the event is, how invested the audience is in the music, and how the groups treat it as a performance.

of such a powerful performance space with these comments? This change would also allow more time for the performances and encourage groups to come earlier and prepare, both of which would ensure that the Cat staff and Conservatory’s Audio Services don’t work overtime.

Abe Gold

In his recent piece (“Jazz Forum Has Become too Performance Focused,” The Oberlin Review, April 7, 2023), second-year double-degree jazz pianist Lyric Anderson argues that Jazz Forum has strayed too far from its original purpose: a space for jazz small ensembles to receive feedback on their sets from an audience of their peers. However, this argument overlooks the organic way in which Forum has developed into something truly special.

According to Anderson, small ensemble groups should “ap-

proach Forum like a masterclass” — they should bring in unpolished material that needs work and feedback rather than treating their Forum like a presentation of a finished, performance-ready set. The latter approach, if it even leaves time for audience feedback, often generates comments that are less helpful and makes groups less open to receiving constructive criticism.

Anderson calls for a few changes. First, performing groups should treat Forum like a forum. They should bring in short sets of works in progress, be open to feedback, and engage with the

The atmosphere at Forum is special. It developed organically in spite of the Forum’s original function as a masterclass for members of the Jazz Studies division. But now that it exists in its current form — well attended by College and Conservatory students alike — we should cultivate it and let it evolve, rather than shackle it in tradition. Anderson asks, “What is Jazz Forum — or, more importantly, what is it supposed to be?”

But what if we asked ourselves “What can Jazz Forum become?”

We are incredibly lucky to have a performance space that groups care enough about to practice hard for and showcase material they care about. We shouldn’t squander it.

Forum might have been designed as a Jazz division masterclass, but it turns out that College

How do we cultivate this wonderful space? The most effective way would be to end the comments and give that time back to the performers. The comments after Forum — as Anderson says, and I agree — feel out of place. They take us out of the concert environment. A negative comment can ruin the performance for others. The audience might have enjoyed the performance, only to “find out” that there was not enough dynamic contrast, or the lockup between the drums and bass was not solid, or the pianist clearly did not know the lyrics to the vocal number. One of my non-musician friends even told me that they were quite offended when an audience member commented that the Forum group should think about the audience they are playing for, and that their music was “too complicated” for the non-musician audience. Why take us out

I agree with Anderson that it is valuable to have a space to receive feedback from our teachers and peers. We are students, after all, and are lucky to be around each other. Right now, Forum and the Crimson Collective’s annual roundtable discussion are functionally the only spaces we have to gather intentionally as an academic division and hear from each other. We have seen how valuable those spaces are, so we need to make more room for them.

In place of Forum comments, we should have a weekly, hourlong Jazz division meeting. The meeting could allocate time for comments about the most recent Forum, with adequate time for discussion. Then, we could talk about anything else that members of the Jazz division feel is important to talk about as a division. This space, like Forum, wouldn’t be mandatory, and could be open to people outside the Jazz division who are also interested in attending and participating in discussion.

Rabbi Mordecai Menahem Kaplan wrote, “We cannot afford to treat our tradition as fixed and final. It is always in the making.” Let us take responsibility for our tradition, at Jazz Forum and everywhere.

R. Nathaniel Dett graduated from Oberlin Conservatory in 1908.

Photo courtesy of John Jiang

Photo courtesy of Library of Congress

Jazz Forum takes place on Fridays in the Cat in the Cream.

James Foster Production Editor

Maria Chutko, a first-year and outfielder from Pittsburgh, just broke the Oberlin softball team’s record of bases stolen in a single year. Chutko has currently stolen 23 bases, crushing the previous record of 17. Softball is 8–22 with eight games left in the season, and Chutko hopes to continue challenging herself and the team.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Walk me through the process of stealing a base. When do you decide it’s the right time to steal?

Basically, we have signs, and our coach gives us a sign to steal. The way that it works in softball is that when you’re on a base and you get the sign to steal — the pitcher doing her motion, which is when she picks up her back foot — is when you leave that base to steal.

How does your ability as a baserunner affect how you look at softball when fielding?

Whenever you get a ball in the field, you try to think about what the runners are doing and how they’re going to be running. Then you can think about where you want to throw the ball. You can also think about your next

Maria Chutko

First-year Stealing Sensation

play after you get the ball, just anticipating what they are doing.

What’s your favorite memory of stealing a base this season?

I would say there’s two. One of them would be when I stole third base, and then our coach was like, “You just broke the record.” That was pretty cool. And then the other one was a moment in our game against Capital University where we were actually down by one run in the last inning, and I had gotten on base. We had two outs and I had gotten on base, and the catcher bobbled the ball. So I took off to go to second after she bobbled it and I almost got out, but I ran into the shortstop really hard, so she didn’t get me out and the ball got away from her. Then I was able to get a hit in because of that. If I had gotten out there, then we wouldn’t have won the game and had that walk off.

Has base-stealing always been an asset of your game, or did the Oberlin coaches help make it a strength of yours?

It’s definitely not been an asset of my game in the past. Our coach this year, Coach Julie Pratt, is super aggressive. That’s one of the main aspects of the game she focuses on — being really aggressive with stealing

bases. Nine out of ten times, if you get on, she’s gonna send you. That’s definitely not been something in the past where I have been like, “Oh, I have so many stolen bases.” That’s been implemented this year because of our coach.

You’ve already set the record of stolen bases as a firstyear with eight games left in the season. What are your personal goals, both at bat and on the bases, for the rest of the season? Do you think you can best your record in the next three years?

I definitely think that’s a good challenge to set, because I’ll be growing as a player throughout the next three years, so hopefully I can try to beat my record. I would say that for the rest of the season, my goal as a hitter is to stay consistent. One of the goals I always have is to try to go .500 each game. Normally when I bat in the lineup, I get up four times a game, so usually I’ll try to get a hit two out of those four times. I think this program is going in the right direction. We’ve obviously had a little bit of a rough past few seasons, in terms of our record and stuff like that, but our new coach, she knows so much about the game, and I think she’s really changing this program for the better.

Photo courtesy of Amanda Phillips

Maria Chutko is wreaking havoc on the basepaths in her first year.

Photos courtesy of Kasey Samuel Adams

Chutko is leading the softball team in batting average this season.

Chutko is one of three players to start all 30 games for the softball team. Photo courtesy of Kali Bateman

Review Staff Reflects on Athletic Experiences

John Elrod Sports Editor

Some might assume that such an intellectual group as the Review staff would not have many experiences in the sporting world. However, after conducting extensive interviews with my co-workers, I discovered that we are a staff of athletes with incredibly interesting sports stories to tell. You will notice that my name doesn’t appear in this list. That’s because I know nothing about sports.

Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Kushagra Kar, Editor-in-Chief: I have done swimming my whole life. It was always something fun for me to do with my brother. In boarding school, it was a way to be a part of a team, and so swimming for me was always community-based, somewhat competitive, and about having a relationship with my brother.

Emma Benardete, Editor-in-Chief: I do horseback riding with my dad, which is really fun. I played softball for one season in seventh grade and was truly awful at it. We lost every game but my dad was great and still drove out to all

of our away games.

Nikki Keating, Managing Editor: I played soccer and was on the same team for about 17 years of my life. I hated playing defense, and one time I was put on defense but I scored anyway and my coach got really mad at me. They never put me on defense again.

Dlisah Lapidus, Arts Editor: I played lacrosse for two weeks in middle school and I quit, not because I didn’t love the sport — I am quite passionate about it — but I ran slower than the goalie with all of their gear on, so it was embarrassing.

Yasu Shinozaki, Arts Editor:

When I played ultimate frisbee, I never felt like I was that focused on what was happening. I enjoy doing things outside that are not organized sports more. I like to bike down to the river and enjoy the trees, flowers, and birds.

Delaney Fox, Conservatory Editor: In high school, I was on the varsity teams for lacrosse and field hockey, and it was fun. We would always play Taylor Swift’s ‘Our Song’ on the bus ride for every single field hockey game, and I can’t get it out of my head ever.

Alexa Stevens, News Editor: People said, “You’re really loud and really short, so the perfect sport for you is steering boats and becoming a coxswain,” so I did that. I was considering going on a track for the Olympics or doing it professionally, but there was a big culture about weight for that. It was stressful and not good for me, so I quit and switched back to tennis. I did doubles, which is low-pressure and pretty fun.

Cal Ransom, News Editor: I was a three season athlete in high school, but I wasn’t good at anything. Swimming was my favorite sport because I really like getting in the water and just focusing on my own [things], and it was really meditative for me.

Emily Vaughan, Opinions Editor: I was really bad at cross country, but it was an opportunity to go for very fast walks in a park near my school. Doing spin classes at Oberlin is a lot of fun — very aggressive music and an instructor yelling at you just kind of feels good, I guess.

Hanna Alwine, Opinions Editor:

On my very first hurdling race, I tripped over the hurdle and sprained my ankle, and I was out for the rest of the season. I

never did hurdles again, and the thought of them still terrifies me.

Isaac Imas, Production Manager: I did gymnastics as a kid and I absolutely dreaded it. My favorite part was the trip there and back, because we would pass not just one, but two life-size model horses. On the way there I would watch for the horses and they were a bright spot in an otherwise really uncomfortable experience in gymnastics.

Trevor Smith, Production Editor:

When I was very young, I did t-ball and I remember the first time I was ever up at bat. I hit the ball and I started running the bases, but I ran the wrong way. I heard all the coaches and parents yelling from the sideline and I thought they were just cheering me on. So I just kept going before I made it to third base.

Kayla Kim, Sports Editor: As a seven-year-old in soccer, I rolled down the hill and picked flowers with my friends and got in trouble for that. For swimming, we would lose every meet, and the only one we didn’t lose was against a team who only swam in a [spring-fed] pool and the bottom of it was sand. It was a bad time.

Eloise Rich, This Week Editor:

I was traumatized by a Russian swim coach in my youth. He was really scary and made all of our little child selves run laps and do push-ups. While I was a swimming prodigy, some might say, I had to stop. He used to be a coach for the USSR — what was he doing coaching ten-year-olds in Park Slope?

Molly Chapin, Layout Editor and Illustrator:

I ran cross country in my freshman year of high school. It was not my favorite, but I was carrying on my mom’s legacy because she ran cross country in high school and she really wanted me to do it. I did improve drastically. I went from a 36 minute 5k to a 28 minute 5k.

Erin Koo, Layout Editor and Photo Editor:

The closest thing I did to a sport was learning how to swim because [when I was seven] my parents forced me to. They were like, ‘You’re gonna need to learn this because one day you’re gonna be in a plane, it’s gonna crash, and you’re gonna need to know how to swim.’ What really qualifies me to work as a sports [layout] editor is last Christmas, when I shot down that paper cup on the Christmas tree with the Nerf gun.”

Birth Controlling?

Madeline O’Meara

Sports Editor April 13, 2012

Editor’s note: Given recent attacks on reproductive rights across the country, such as Florida’s six week abortion ban and Wyoming’s prohibition of the use of pills for abortion, and recent efforts to fight against this at Oberlin, such as the GSFS Reproductive Justice Symposium and the Oberlin Reproductive Justice Alliance flea market this Saturday, the Sports section found it especially important to acknowledge this issue in college athletics and reprint this story written by a former Review Sports Editor 11 years ago.

When I first heard a rumor that members of the Northwestern University women’s lacrosse team — last year’s NCAA Women’s Lacrosse Champions — are required to be on birth control, I was infuriated and confused. How could a university mandate that its players be on birth

control, a medication that represents such a personal choice? What purpose does this have? Is it to prevent the players, a huge “investment” for Northwestern, from getting pregnant? Is it so that coaches can know where players are in their menstrual cycles? What possible reason could there be for coaches to have that much control over their athletes’ lives, and, more alarmingly, their sex lives and reproductive choices?

Some proponents of birth control have argued that regulating estrogen levels prevents some of the negative effects of a menstrual cycle, such as fatigue or a decreased ability to handle physical stress, which could potentially affect a female athlete’s performance. However, a recent study by the Institute of Sport Pedagogy and Coaching Sciences at the University of Tartu has shown that birth control has no significant effect on endurance of female rowers.

I turned to the internet in the hopes that it would shed light on Northwestern’s Brave New World-esque pill policy. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, I could not find a shred of information to verify whether or not the Northwestern policy is anything more than rumor. However, I did come across a host of articles celebrating the empowerment that birth control affords female athletes.

In 2007, Kim St. Pierre, a goalkeeper for Team Canada’s women’s ice hockey team who has helped lead the team to win the last three gold medals at the Winter Olympic Games, became a spokeswoman for NuvaRing, a company that markets and sells birth control. She cited the high-stress environment and hectic scheduling of professional athletics as factors affecting her decision to bring more public attention to different forms of contraception, noting, “There are options out there for us that

will work for all women, and we should be talking about them.”

With this public support, St. Pierre made her sport a priority over starting a family, a notion that seems controversial because of its rarity; serious career options in athletics are rare for women, and when they are available, female athletes are not celebrated in the same way or as much as male athletes. It seems more logical that a woman would delay starting a family if she were a CEO, but St. Pierre’s endorsement of NuvaRing made me realize that the ability to compete at any level, college or Olympic, may be important enough for a female athlete to also make this decision.

The women’s rights movement and the history of women in athletics are intimately intertwined. The two share a multifaceted history, with the passage of Title IX in 1972 occurring during the heyday of the women’s rights movement. Women’s athletics is

a prime example of female empowerment, evidenced by the ad campaigns of countless athletic companies — most notably Nike — that cater to the idea of recognizing women’s athletic achievements, and praising strong, muscular bodies that are no longer reserved just for men.

And while I definitely feel empowered by St. Pierre’s endorsement, as an Oberlin College athlete I don’t think I could ever endorse mandatory birth control for women on an athletic team. Participating in college athletics is meant to teach women to appreciate their bodies, not take away the power of choice in their reproductive freedoms. Essentially preventing women from making their own decisions about what they want to do with their bodies is dangerous, whether it’s enforced by the Northwestern women’s lacrosse coach or House Speaker John Boehner.

Illustration by Molly Chapin, Staff Illustrator

Oberlin Golf Club Fails to Serve Oberlin Community

John Elrod Sports Editor

I still remember the first time my dad took me golfing when I was about six years old. It was at a course somewhere near Oberlin and the holes were short enough for me to play on as a small child. It wasn’t the most high-end course, and we played there a few times until one day we showed up and the grass was uncut, and the small building where you paid for the round was abandoned. Those early times learning how to play golf with my dad were fun, and it was before I experienced some of the negative sides of the sport’s culture.

I continued to play golf casually over the years at public courses in the area, but I simultaneously became aware of issues with the sport. Something that specifically sets golf apart from other sports in a negative way is the high cost of play, an issue that is very visible within the

City of Oberlin.

As someone who has played golf and lived in Oberlin nearly my whole life, you might think I would have played at the course located one block from my childhood home. However, the staggering cost of membership at the Oberlin Golf Club put playing there completely out of the question. The cost for a one-year membership is $3,899, and there is also a $2,500 initiation fee. If you wanted to play at the course, you’d be down over $6,000 after your first payment. The course at the Oberlin Golf Club looks better maintained than any course I have played on. Still, because of that astronomical price, it is clear that its main purpose is to provide a place for some of the wealthiest people in the area to do PGA cosplay and participate in events and tournaments that mimic professional golf. There is no chance of social interactions between people of different financial backgrounds because there is no way for a person with

an average income to be a member. The existence of a course like this does nothing for the growth of the game and little for a community like Oberlin, where the median household income as of 2020 was $49,000 per year. The presence of food service in the clubhouse also suggests that the club does not have a positive impact on the business of Oberlin restaurants.

Personally, the only people I knew who had gotten the chance to play at the course were mostly older College faculty with paid memberships, or those who had been invited to play just once as a guest. Even when the College had a varsity golf team from 2001–13, it practiced at public courses in the area like Forest Hills Golf Club in Elyria.

The history of the club is tightly connected to the College, but somewhere along the way it shifted from fostering an inclusive athletic community to a foray into the elitist golf world. According to the club’s site, it

was started in 1899 with Henry W. Matlack — a former professor of organ and harmony — as its first president, and the first nine holes were designed in part by students and townspeople.

The original fee to play was 25 cents — about $9 today adjusted for inflation. A few decades later, the club started to trend in the direction of exclusivity.

After reaching an agreement to lease more land from the College in 1916, the course was reconstructed. Despite the updates and an expansion from nine to 18 holes in the 1950s, the club struggled financially in the mid-20th century and saw membership of Oberlin residents decrease.

It responded by increasing membership costs, which has led to its current state as an expensive, luxury golf club. Visitors to the club’s website are immediately met with a slide boasting “a rich history” of a “private club tradition,” before inviting readers to explore the course’s “her-

itage.” The focus throughout the site on the course’s good old days, while a fascinating documentation of its history, emphasizes the club’s focus on the past rather than prioritizing adapting to Oberlin’s present culture and demographics. While most of the history documented on the club’s website appears honest, it ends with an unconvincing statement:

“OGC persists as a relatively attractive bargain to a large cross-section of players in Lorain County and several adjacent counties as well,” the site reads.

It is quite possible there would be no Oberlin Golf Club if it had not made price alterations decades ago, but having no golf club may not necessarily be a bad thing. As it currently exists, Oberlin Golf Club does not appear to serve a majority of Oberlin residents, and takes up huge swaths of land that could be enjoyed by community members if something else — or even nothing at all — was in its place.

Remembering John Henry Wise, OC 1893, Revered Lineman, Hawai’ian Royalist

Kayla Kim Sports Editor

When talking about Oberlin football, the conversation eventually diverges to the legendary Heisman era. But what about the other contributors during this time period, and what legacy did they leave behind at Oberlin?

John Henry Wise was born in 1868 to a German father and a Hawaiʻian mother. Originally a student at Hilo Boarding School, he was brought to be a part of the first class of the Kamehameha School for Boys by the Reverend William Brewster Oleson, OC 1877, who wanted to educate native Hawaiʻi on Christianity in hopes of spreading a Protestant revival across the island.

“These sons and grandsons of the first missionaries were looking for someone to lead Hawaiʻians back into the church,” Catherine Cruz and Sophia McCullough reported for Hawaiʻi Public Radio.

“They knew they couldn’t do it so they were looking for a Hawaiʻian.”

Wise excelled in the classroom, and the Board of Trustees at the school voted to send him to study for three years at the Oberlin Theological Seminary in 1890, which was a rare exception for a native Hawaiʻian to pursue college.

“We do not want higher education at all in the Kamehameha Schools,” Reverend Charles McEwen Hyde wrote in the late 1900s on the subject of education within the seminary. “Provision for that will be made in other ways in exceptional cases. The average Hawaiʻian has no such capacity.”

While Wise noted the strict schedule — for instance, students weren’t allowed to leave for town without supervision — he enjoyed

his time at the seminary and wanted to take advantage of the opportunities Oberlin gave him. One of these was the inaugural football team that formed during the 1891–92 season, which he joined initially as a guard with two other members of the seminary. He is widely believed to be the first native Hawaiʻian to play college football and during his two years on the team, he was a widely acclaimed player. According to the Oberlin News, Wise was “able to run with three men on his back without noticing the extra weight.” He was also noted for his strategy and ability to execute gameplans.

“Wise went through the line every time he was signaled and kept a hole for the ball until the last of the second half, when the hole was filled by U. of M. quarterback before the ball could follow,” the Review reported in an issue on October 27, 1891

When John Heisman began his role as Head Coach, Wise was part of a record-breaking season where they went 7–0 in the 1892–93 season. Notable highlights of that year included being the last in-state team to defeat The Ohio State University and playing a contentious game against the University of Michigan, in which historian and former Robert S. Danforth Professor of History at Oberlin Geoffrey Blodgett noted that it was unclear who actually won. Wise returned to Hawaiʻi following graduation to do evangelical work and noted the disarray. When he was still in college, Queen Liliʻuokalani, the last and only queen regnant of the Kingdom of Hawai’i, was overthrown and placed in house arrest, and a provisional government was instituted in her palace. Hawaiʻian Evangelical Association leaders such as Hyde were dividing the

members of the congregation with anti-royalist views, arguing that there was only the “civilized Christian party” or the “royal heathen party”, implying that they could only be Protestants if they were against Queen Liliʻuokalani. As a result, Hawaiʻians in these churches left for other sects, such as Catholicism or Mormonism. Wise, however, worked to advocate for the restoration of the Queen by speaking one-on-one to Native Hawaiʻians in the congregations, to the dismay of his former mentors and sponsors.

“John Wise, whom we have been educating at Oberlin for three years at a cost of over $2,000, has been doing nothing but advocating restoration and associating with royalists,” Hyde said.

As Ronald Williams Jr. wrote in his essay, “To Raise a Voice in Praise: The Revivalist Mission of John Henry Wise, 1889 – 1896”, Wise chose both his religion and the rights of native Hawaiʻians in the divide that HEA leaders were trying to wedge.

“Asked to choose between his nation and his God, Wise defended both against the attacks of his church leaders,” Williams Jr. wrote. “He challenged the assertion of his administration that their actions were part of God’s plan: he claimed his Christianity.”

Wise would take his love for his country even further and participated in the 1895 Wilcox Rebellion, where he met with fellow royalists, was commissioned to an underground army, and tasked with preparing guns near Waikīkī. However, he was tried for and sentenced to three years in prison on the same day that Queen Lili’uokalani was tried. During his time there, his two letters of pardon were denied.

“It is probable that the few remaining native insurgents will

soon be released, except John Wise, a native educated at Oberlin, who has proved a fractious prisoner,” an 1895 piece from The New York Times titled “Honolulu May Release All Prisoners” read.

Wise was ultimately one of the last prisoners to be released. After his time, he worked a wide variety of jobs to advocate for Hawaiʻian language and culture such as delegating with former prince David Kawānanakoa at the 1900 Democratic National Convention, serving as a senator, trans-

lating Hawaiʻian legends for the Bishop Museum, and teaching the Hawaiʻian language at both the Kamehameha schools and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Wise took his lessons learned from Oberlin and used them to put his people and religion above all else throughout the duration of his life.

“I so love America, and I love Oberlin for giving me this education, but my heart belongs in Hawaiʻi,” Wise wrote in a letter to his family.

Photo Courtesy of Oberlin College Archives

John Henry Wise was a key figure in Oberlin’s football history.