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The saga of “Fruitvale Station”

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Film depicts Oscar Grant’s last day AARON TAYLOR AMOS Contributing Writer It seems as though our generation is often criticized for the use of social media.

We check our Facebook timeline, comment on Vine videos and re-tweet famous quotes. But what if the very thing we upload, comment or share could spark a global conversation on injustice in America?

Well, that is exactly what happened on New Year’s Day 2009 in Oakland, Calif.

Oscar Grant, 22, was fatally shot by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer at the Fruitvale Station in Oakland.

Passengers recorded the entire encounter and uploaded it on YouTube. The video helped assist lawyers in a case against the officer, Johannes Mehserle, who was sentenced to two years in prison.

The story of Oscar Grant was so compelling that writer/ director Ryan Coogler turned

Grant’s last day into a motion picture titled “Fruitvale Station.”

The movie debuted earlier this year in January at the Sundance Film Festival. The motion picture, produced

by Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker, took home two awards at the festival.

Starring Michael B. Jordan as Oscar, Octavia Spencer and Melonie Diaz, the movie has been receiving Oscar buzz since its release in theaters July 26.

I had to see for myself what all the hype was about. As soon as the film began, silence fell on the theater so deeply I could hear the ceiling fans above.

The movie places the main characters in a joyous New Year’s Eve as they carry on with their daily lives. Then, the mood quickly changes as viewers relive Oscar Grant’s last moments on New Year’s Day. I could hear crying coming from the audience and for

a moment the screen became blurred by the tears that filled my own eyes. I actually closed my notebook and gave the woman sobbing next to me a hug.

After the movie, I spoke with a few of the viewers to ask them exactly why the film was emotional.

“I heard about Oscar back in 2009 when it happened, but I didn’t know that he was completely innocent and lived a simple day before his death,” Detroit resident Christopher Horne said. Horne had seen the film once before, but had to see it again, he said, because it was too powerful.

Wayne State student Anesha Hamlin said, “the movie was very relatable. Dramatic, of course, but relatable. It could have been any one of those young men.”

Given recent events in Florida, namely George Zimmerman being acquitted for the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, the black community

has been rallying for change.

The harsh reality that racism still exists in America — and Oscar Grant or Trayvon Martin could have been me or any of my black friends — makes life a little scary.

Attending WSU, one of the most diverse campuses, has definitely increased my knowledge and tolerance of others’ differences and backgrounds. I also know that there are a lot of individuals that don’t utilize WSU to become more diverse and knowledgeable.

So, I want my fellow students to get to know someone outside of their typical social circle, because what if that one person you think is so different is actually similar?

“Fruitvale Station” is now in theaters, and the camera phone-captured footage of the New Year’s Eve tragedy is available on YouTube, but I warn you the footage is graphic and not suitable for all ages.

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2 I AUGUST 14 - AUGUST 21, 2013 I THESOUTHEND.WAYNE.EDU

NEWS CITY

VP rebuts The Atlantic WSU offers as many benefits as private colleges, official says CHRIS EHRMANN News Corresspondent Detroit has been receiving a good amount of attention in these last few months.

But with the city filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, the new mayoral race involving Mike Duggan and Benny Napoleon, and the Tigers’ recent winning streak, it seems there’s one thing that is not getting enough attention: Wayne State.

The Atlantic recently posted an article, “Could A Private University Have Saved Detroit,” arguing how a private university could have helped Detroit if it was brought up the same way as many other well-off private universities in the country. It compares WSU to colleges across the country, but it doesn’t give the university enough credit, according to Ned Staebler, WSU’s vice president for economic development.

“I liked that people were talking about Detroit — whenever people are talking about Detroit, it is usually a good thing,” Staebler said. “I know people say, ‘oh, they were talking about a bad subject of Detroit,’ but you know publicity is usually good. If they spell your name right, it’s better (that they’re) talking about you than not talking about you.”

Staebler also said, that the Atlantic missed a perfect opportunity to discuss the benefits of the university already within the city.

“Primarily, I think, what upset me was the implication that Wayne State wasn’t a major impact, or having a major impact, on the city of Detroit,” he said.

The article mentioned how WSU has a relatively small budget of $576 million, whereas university budgets in Pittsburgh, at Carnegie Mellon and the “quasiprivate” University of Pittsburgh have roughly $3 billion combined.

The universities are located in a city that is less than half the size of Detroit, according to the article.

“We don’t have a medical center, which reduces the amount of administration that we have at the university,” Staebler said.

“And I think that’s really the key.

We run an incredibly lean operation - I think people have these visions of public universities as these big bloated institutions and the reality is that’s just not the case at all.

“If you are comparing us to our peers, we are one of the leanest organizations in our peer group,” Staebler said. “Look at Michigan State — if we were going to have the same number of administrators to students, we would have to hire 1,600 more administrators instantly, which tells you we’re running a really lean ship around here, and as a result, we have a much smaller budget, which I think is ultimately good for the students and not a bad thing at all,” he said.

Staebler wrote a letter to The Atlantic mentioning the fact that WSU had a bigger impact than what he said was just “glossed over” in the article.

“I think he had a point that he was trying to make — I’m not sure why he wanted to make that point exactly about private universities and public universities,” he said.

“Maybe it was supposed to be an attack on our business community … when we were one of the richest places on the planet, the private industry didn’t start a big university, like a Stanford, or something like that.

“I think he picked and chose a bunch of examples that served his purpose, but he missed some obvious ones. I mean, there are some cities that are anchored by some big public universities — Austin, the University of Texas at Austin; Madison, Wis., and the University of Wisconsin. Those are public institutions and they are big anchors in their communities, and frankly, Wayne State is a major anchor with a huge impact here in Detroit,” Staebler said.

Susan Mosey also understands

WSU’s immense impact on the city. Mosey has worked in the Neighborhood University Cultural Center Association, now known as Midtown Detroit Inc, for 26 years. She said she has led many efforts focused on real estate and economic development, as well as large community-wide events like Noel Night, Dlectricity, Art X Festival and Detroit Festival of the Arts.

“Typically, private colleges are smaller and don’t have the same amount of impact on their local neighborhoods,” Mosey said.

“WSU, due to the physical size of the footprint and the number of students, really creates most of the market for housing and much of the market for commercial activity in the neighborhood.

“In addition, they have many outreach programs out of the College for Urban Studies that have greatly benefited the neighborhood in the areas of blight and safety,” she continued. “They also build new buildings with space for businesses on the ground floor, which add vitality to the neighborhood, and they employ lots of folks and students as assistants, etc. Wayne State has also done a good job of partnering with private developers to create housing and other types of facilities on the edge of the campus which also helps the neighborhood.”

According to Staebler, WSU has a $2 billion impact on the state of Michigan, with the vast majority of it in the city of Detroit.

WSU is also one of the largest landowners in the city, sitting on 200 acres of land and more than 100 buildings.

He said they are continuing to invest in it and improve it so that it will bring in more jobs. In the last 15 years, $1 billion has been invested in maintaining and improving their physical plan, which creates thousands and thousands of jobs.

“We pay taxes — our employees pay over $122 million in taxes in a year, which is no small sum,”

Staebler said.

The Atlantic article also left out some important information regarding Detroit’s size, according to Staebler.

“Here is a great metric; so we often talk about Detroit, (it) doesn’t have as many people as it used to and it’s not all that dense,” he said. “The city as a whole is about six or six-anda-half people per acre, which is relatively small … but the area around Wayne State, the Midtown area, is 13 people per acre. We are the densest part of (the city), and that’s not a coincidence.”

The reason it’s not a coincidence, Staebler said, is because WSU is here with over 3,000 students living on campus and thousands more living in the neighborhoods, with faculty, staff and administrators living there, working there and spending their money there.

“It’s not an accident that this is the most thriving part of the city,” Staebler said.

To answer the question posed in the article, “Could a Private University Have Made a Difference in Detroit?,” Staebler said he thinks having another university, a private university, for Detroit would be great and he would be happy with that, but he doesn’t believe a private university would have done better than WSU. “There are a lot of other schools with much larger endowments that don’t really do anything for their city or their neighborhoods, whereas we have a smaller endowment but we are committed every day to it,” Staebler said. “So if we had a larger endowment, could we have a bigger impact? Absolutely, but just because somebody has a larger endowment does not mean they will have a bigger impact.”

Staebler said Detroit can’t go back in history or recreate things, but he knows WSU is here every day, every semester, making a difference and impact in the lives of Detroiters and in the community that they live in.

THESOUTHEND.WAYNE.EDU I AUGUST 14 - AUGUST 21, 2013 I 3

A&E MOVIES

Optimus time Transformers 4 excites crowd

JAMILAH JACKSON The South End Could Michigan be the Hollywood of the Midwest?

This summer has been jampacked with movie making. From Ryan Gosling’s “How to Catch a Monster” to the new “Need for Speed” movie, Detroit has been the hot spot for directors and producers.

The biggest movie filming may have been “Transformers 4.” Director Michael Bay brought the Autobots back to the D for the fourth installment of the saga.

Bay and the cast finished summer production of the movie Aug. 9. They’d been filming since midJuly.

Hundreds of Metro Detroiters flocked to the set on Grand Circus Park and Washington Boulevard to catch a glimpse of the movie.

Optimus Prime and Bumblebee

made guest appearances. People crowded around the “tricked-out” semi-truck and the famous yellow Chevy Camaro to get pictures.

Bay transformed downtown Detroit into downtown China.

The area was completely remodeled. The People Mover even got a makeover including a Chinese ad for Red Bull.

Many people were excited to have such activity in the city.

Some people hoped more movies would be made in the city after it filed for bankruptcy.

Although Transformers 4 has wrapped in the city for a while, the production will not leave Michigan. The cast and crew are headed to Lansing for the next segment of filming. Sources for the film’s publicity team say production will last until September.

Hopefully, Bumblebee and Optimus will make another trip to Detroit soon.

PHOTOS BY JAMILAH JACKSON/THE SOUTH END

4 I AUGUST 14 - AUGUST 21, 2013 I THESOUTHEND.WAYNE.EDU

FEATURES PHOTOS BY ELI HOERLER/THE SOUTH END

Untitled Bottega open for inspiration New space welcomes art in all forms LYNN LOSH Staff Writer The sound of drills, the smell of spray paint and the sight of art work littering the floor.

This is the experience one gets walking into The Untitled Bottega. The building is currently in transition to become an art gallery.

The Untitled Bottega is an open art campus that takes up the block of E. Baltimore between John R and Brush Street.

The campus consists of five buildings, one of which will be turned into a studio loft space for artists to live in.

“Every form and aspect of art, you should see it here,” said Aaron Johnson, project manager of The Untitled Bottega.

The idea to start The Untitled Bottega spurred from an obstacle every artist has to face: rejection.

Founder Flaco Shalom, 27, be-

came sick and tired of his artwork being rejected by various institutes around the city and came up with the idea to open his own gallery.

In 2011, he opened The Untitled Bottega. “(My vision was) to have a small campus that is not institutionalized for artists to create freely,” Shalom said.

The name “The Untitled Bottega” itself explains Shalom’s vision.

“Bottega is Italian for master’s art studio where he has other artists under him, where they learn from what that artist does. The name Untitled just comes from that in itself because I don’t want it to be a formal-ish thing,” Shalom said. “I want it to be fluid.”

The first location, on Iron Street, was successful but it was too small, with little parking and other businesses around. Shalom knew that he needed to move the business to a more spacious loca-

tion.

After telling his vision to an investor, he acquired the current campus on E. Baltimore.

“Sometimes you just have to do things your way,” Shalom said.

The Untitled Bottega is an art forum where any artist can showcase their work.

Shalom said the campus will allow “all art, anything that has to do with art.”

“Everybody has an opinion, everybody has a way to express (themselves). If you don’t allow them to express themselves in the best way they can, how can they?

That’s why we have The Untitled Bottega,” Johnson said.

Artists will be charged a 20 percent commission for work sold, or they can rent out the space for a flat fee.

“The gallery is really for the artists to come in and showcase and perform whatever it is that they want to showcase and perform. That can be anything from

actual fine art paintings and sculpture to music and dance, acting,” Shalom said.

The hardest thing Shalom has faced is enforcing restrictions.

“People really like the freedom idea,” Shalom said. “Something I’ve had to learn is putting on restrictions and teaching responsibility.”

Shalom has plans to expand his vision to other places once he is done in Detroit. He’s looking at California, Chicago and Florida, where there’s an “untapped market.”

The goal of The Untitled Bottega is to help artists that aren’t being given a chance.

“It’s time for a change (in the art world) because you should accept people for who they are and what they do,” Johnson said. “We don’t discriminate on art.”

The grand opening for The Untitled Bottega is Sept. 21, 2013.

THESOUTHEND.WAYNE.EDU I AUGUST 14 - AUGUST 21, 2013 I 5

SPORTS GRAPHIC BY JON ADAMS/THE SOUTH END

CFO announces new regulations 2013 season receives eight additions FUAD SHALHOUT The South End With college football season upon us, there are a number of rule changes that will take effect this upcoming year.

Rogers Redding, the national coordinator of College Football Officiating, emphasized that these rule changes are to make the game safer for the athletes, according to footballfoundation.org.

“We want to protect the game and to help reduce critical injuries with this message: play the game hard but stay away from serious fouls,” Redding said. “By making changes, we are signaling that the safety of the studentathlete stands at the very top of our list of priorities. The clear intent is to change player behavior.”

Here are the eight major rule changes for the 2013 season, per footballfoundation.org.

1. Targeting Fouls: Automatic Ejection, Part I: Players will automatically be disqualified from the game for targeting fouls, including (Rule 9-1-3) targeting and initiating contact with the crown of the helmet, and (Rule 9-1-4) targeting and initiating contact to the head or neck area of a defenseless opponent with the helmet, forearm, elbow

or shoulder. The foul itself has not changed. These plays have been illegal for a number of years, but the penalty has been stiffened to include automatic ejection plus the 15-yard penalty.

2. Targeting Fouls: Automatic Ejection, Part II: A player is at great risk of being ejected from the game for a launch (leaving his feet to attack an opponent by an upward and forward thrust of the body to make contact in the head or neck area); a crouch (followed by an upward and forward thrust to attack with contact at the head or neck area); leading (with helmet, forearm, fist, hand or elbow to attack with contact at the head or neck area); or lowering (the head before attacking by initiating contact with the crown of the helmet).

3. Offensive Blocking Below the Waist Rule: The rule establishes a zone for the offense that extends 7 yards from the snapper toward each sideline and goes 5 yards into the defensive secondary and in the other direction all the way back to the offensive team’s end line.

Within this zone, an offensive back who is stationary inside the tackle box and an offensive lineman inside the 7-yard zone may legally block below the waist until the ball has left the zone. Everyone else on the offensive

team may legally block below the waist only if the block is clearly to the front of the opponent. This only-from-thefront rule also holds true for everyone on the offensive team once the ball has left the zone. In addition, no one on the offense is allowed to block below the waist if the block is directed toward his own end line.

seconds from the referee’s signal to “spike” the ball to allow for another play at the end of a half. Teams must still execute the spike, but they will have a reasonable opportunity for another play. If the clock shows one or two seconds, they will only have enough time to run a play without first spiking the ball.

4. Expansion of the 10-Second Runoff Rule:

7. Procedures for Changing Jersey Numbers During a Game:

In 2013, if a player is injured within the last minute of a half, and this is the only reason for stopping the clock, the opponent may choose to have 10 seconds subtracted from the game clock. The injured player’s team can preserve the 10 seconds by using a timeout.

If a team wants to use a player at two different positions during the game, and they need to change jersey numbers, the player must report to the referee who will in turn announce the change. In addition, two players who play the same position at different times in the game may not wear the same number during the game. For example, two quarterbacks may not both wear number 12.

5. Player May Remain in the Game Via a Timeout After Helmet Comes Off: The rule requiring a player to leave the game for one down if his helmet comes off has been modified to allow a player to remain in the game if his team is granted a charged timeout to adjust the player’s helmet.

6. Minimum Time to Spike the Ball for Another Play Set at 3 Seconds: Teams will need a minimum of three

8. Player Uniform Numerals Must Contrast With the Color of the Jersey: The color of the jersey number itself must be clearly and obviously in contrast with the jersey, regardless of any border around the number. For example, teams will not be allowed to wear black numbers on black jerseys with a border of a bright color around the numeral; it must clearly contrast with the jersey in and of itself.

THESOUTHEND.WAYNE.EDU I AUGUST 14 - AUGUST 21, 2013 I 7