The Tufts Daily - Monday, November 23, 2020 by The Tufts Daily

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VOLUME LXXX, ISSUE 46

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Monday, November 23, 2020

Referendums from SJP, TREE to appear on TCU special election ballot

ANN MARIE BURKE / THE TUFTS DAILY

West Hall and the Academic Quad are pictured on Oct. 18. by Madeleine Aitken Deputy News Editor

Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Tufts for a Racially Equitable Endowment (TREE) recently completed the process to get their referendums on the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate special election ballot that will go out to the student body on Nov. 24. SJP’s referendum is in regard to the demilitarization of the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD), and TREE’s involves the divestment from corporations that profit off of the private prison system.

Julia, a member of SJP, told the Daily in a written statement that SJP is “an organization working toward the liberation of Palestinians … [with] on-campus campaigns including organizing for the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement and organizing for the demilitarization of the Tufts University Police Department.” Julia, Leila and another member of SJP asked that part or all of their names be omitted to protect their safety. “Our referendum is seeking to promote the safety of students (especially POC students) by demanding the Tufts administration prohibit TUPD officers from

attending military-led and/or similar international trips in the future, refine the vetting process to prevent prior attendees from being hired, and apologize for sending the former Tufts police chief to a militarized training trip,” Julia and the anonymous member of SJP collectively wrote to the Daily. In December of 2017, Kevin Maguire, who served as director of public and environmental safety and oversaw TUPD, traveled to Israel for a National Counter-Terrorism Seminar (NCTS) along with various Massachusetts police officials, according to previous Daily reporting. Although Maguire did not disclose the details of the 2017 trip,

a previously reported 2016 NCTS itinerary listed speakers who were affiliated with organizations that had claims of human rights abuses made against them. This included Alan Moss, the former head of the Israel Security Agency, also known as Shin Bet. Shin Bet has been accused of using torture tactics. Controversy later surrounded the 2017 trip itself, prompting community response at Tufts. Patrick Collins, executive director of media relations at Tufts, wrote in an email to the Daily that the 2017 trip to Israel, which SJP refers to in their referendum, was not a military training trip.

“The Anti-Defamation League-sponsored trip to Israel— which over 200 different federal, state and local agencies from across the U.S. have participated in over the years—was not a military training program, nor was it intended to serve as an endorsement of any particular policy or policing strategy,” Collins said. He also said the university strongly disagrees with SJP’s classification of TUPD as militarized. “TUPD has made community policing a priority for many years and has policies and training in place that emphasize that see REFERENDUM, page 2

Actor Hank Azaria talks career, mental health, racial justice by Yiyun Tom Guan News Editor

Hank Azaria (LA’87), an Emmy Award-winning actor and comedian, addressed the Tufts community on Friday as part of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life’s Distinguished Speaker Series, as the last speaker of the semester. The discussion was moderated by Jim Glaser, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. Glaser began the conversation by asking Azaria about how his experiences at Tufts informed his career trajectory.

Azaria explained that the liberal arts education he received allowed him to explore many subjects from journalism to psychology but his experiences with theater convinced him to pursue an acting career. “I figured this is a really long shot, pursuing a career in acting. Let me try it when I’m young though because I knew that I would always regret it if I didn’t try it,” Azaria said. “If I [hadn’t] made any headway as an actor, I [was] going to go back to grad school for psychology; I knew because I really enjoyed psychology at Tufts.”

Glaser then asked Azaria about his extracurricular life at Tufts. Azaria confessed that while he made meaningful friendships, his extracurricular life was vexed by substance abuse. He then noted that his own experiences seeking recovery, along with seeing others undergo the same path, later inspired him to help bring The Haven at College, an organization through which students can receive rehabilitation services, to the Tufts campus. “I had a student come out of [Los Angeles] that went to Tufts and ran into some difficulty with drugs and alcohol on campus,

and had to take a year off to go get sober and get well and, in talking to Tufts [about] how to support him, we started thinking … is there a better way to support students who might run into this problem?” Azaria said. “And I knew a lot of folks in this sober community, which led me to the Haven.” Glaser later noted that with the COVID-19 pandemic and the presidential election, people are living in a stressful moment. He asked Azaria what advice he would give to people experiencing substance abuse to cope with the stress.

EDITORIAL / page 6

ARTS / page 4

SPORTS / back

Consider running for TCU Senate

Why ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ deserves recognition on 10th anniversary

Sonia Raman, former Jumbo, ready to coach Ja Morant in NBA

Azaria stressed that one of Alcoholics Anonymous’ precepts is “I can do today,” and said that focusing on each day is a healthy way to reduce anxiety induced by the current environment. “There’s so much worry and fear of the future in this pandemic and in this political climate, in this wild society we live in right now, that it’s easy to get lost in another program phase in the wreckage of our future,” Azaria said. “If you can just focus on today, and what you see CAREER, page 2 NEWS

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Monday, November 23, 2020

THE TUFTS DAILY Alex Viveros Editor in Chief

EDITORIAL

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Azaria explains decision to stop voicing 'The Simpsons' character Apu, calls for greater representation

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Emmy Award-winning actor and comedian Hank Azaria and event moderator Dean Jim Glaser are pictured during one of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life’s Distinguished Speaker Series events.

CAREER

continued from page 1 can contribute to yourself today and what you can do today and realize that’s plenty, it makes it a lot easier.” Glaser subsequently inquired about Azaria’s decision to stop voicing Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, an Indian American character on “The Simpsons” (1989–). Azaria said that he was first approached by Indian American comedian Hari Kondabolu, who

considered Azaria’s voice performance to be a white person imitating the stereotypical portrayal of the Indian accent by another white person. Azaria admitted that, indeed, he based his voicing of Apu on actor Peter Sellars’ portrayal of an Indian character. He then explained the concept of white privilege and related it to his experience voicing Apu. “[White privilege] means advantages that I was completely oblivious to that I had as a

white person … if somebody decides to make a silly voice about my heritage, I don’t live with it every day in my life,” Azaria said. “Indian people in this country don’t have that luxury, don’t have that privilege. I got this reported to me a lot: They [would] walk into the grocery store, and people would hit them with an Apu imitation.” Azaria ended with a discussion about the way in which racial marginalization usually translates to the loss of a group’s

voice and that in his decision to end his tenure with Apu, he sought to recenter minority voice and representation. “Not to mention that one of the first things that go in our society when people of color are marginalized or any group is marginalized is quite literally their voice,” Azaria said. “They don’t have a voice like I do, or like we enjoy as white people in this culture, so that’s beyond ironic … So I thought the very least I could do was stop doing the voice.”

1/6 of TCU student body must vote in favor to pass referendums REFERENDUM

continued from page 1 everyone – regardless of background – must be treated with dignity and respect,” Collins said. Meanwhile, TREE’s mission is to pressure Tufts to actively commit to anti-racism by divesting from corporations that uphold the prison-industrial complex, particularly those that benefit from private prisons and prison labor. “The referendum revolves around the question: ‘Do you support the Tufts Board of Trustees divesting Tufts’ endowment from corporations that profit off of the prison-industrial complex? This includes all corporations that use prison labor, capitalize on fundamental goods and services in prisons, construct prison facilities, and operate private prisons, contributing to the disproportionate policing and incarceration of BIPOC, queer, disabled, and poor people,’” Gabe Reyes, a junior and a member of TREE’s Internal Education and External Pressure working groups, wrote in an email to the Daily. The university denies that it is significantly involved in the private prison system. “The university holds no direct investments in private prisons. When we last reviewed our detailed holdings through commingled funds earlier this year, the university’s exposure to private prisons through commingled funds was less than 0.01% of the total portfolio,” Collins said. Collins also said that the university is committed to taking social impact into account when making decisions around investment. “The Board of Trustees last year introduced a process by which members of the Tufts communi-

ty can propose the creation of a Responsible Investment Advisory Group (RIAG) by making a strong case that, for example, their call to divest has wide community support in the University, takes on a significant social issue, and will have a positive impact,” Collins said. “The process provides students with a reliable mechanism to raise concerns to the attention of trustees.” Prison divestment movements have garnered traction at Tufts in the past, with the creation of the Tufts Prison Divestment Coalition in 2015, which was composed of Students Against Mass Incarceration, SJP, Tufts Climate Action and Tufts United for Immigrant Justice. According to TCU Parliamentarian and Class of 2021 Senator Taylor Lewis, SJP and TREE are the only student groups who went through the referendum process for TCU’s Nov. 24 ballot. The approval process involves the Committee on Student Life (CSL), the Elections Commission (ECOM) and the Judiciary, all part of TCU, according to Micah Kraus, a junior involved with TREE. “The group proposing has to send a referendum proposal with referendum language to the CSL, who checks that the wording does not violate any local, state or federal laws, while the Judiciary is supposed to check the referendum for fair wording. ECOM is responsible for providing the student group with a petition that the group must get 250 valid signatures on in order for the referendum to be presented on the Election Day ballot,” Kraus wrote in an email to the Daily.

Referendums can be helpful to organizations trying to gather support for an issue. In order for a referendum to pass, at least one-sixth of undergraduates must vote in favor of it and achieve a simple majority, according to Lewis. “A referendum … is a chance to poll all Tufts students and can help present a more compelling case for change if successful,” Lewis wrote in an email to the Daily. Julia explained the potential implications of the SJP referendum being passed. “We want to send the message that the Tufts Administration cannot increase the militarization of TUPD under the guise of counterterrorism,” she said. “One of the main objectives of our referendum is to hold the Tufts Administration accountable for compromising the safety of students (especially POC students) by sending a TUPD officer to a militarized training trip in Israel.” Leila said SJP is part of a coalition of over 40 clubs on campus, and they have been a source of solidarity and support during SJP’s campaign titled “End the Deadly Exchange.” “Especially as a campaign that is offering an alternative conception of community-based safety on this campus, our coalition members formed our vision of safety through solidarity,” Leila said. Reyes explained what the passage of TREE’s referendum would mean for their organization. “If the referendum is passed, it will definitely push the Tufts administration to think more critically about its investments and complicity in classism and white suprem-

acy,” they said. “It will show that we want to create another Tufts that, instead, values Black and brown lives, believes in transformative justice, and pursues racial equity.” TREE is a new organization on campus, prompted by the Black Lives Matter movement and renewed interest in antiracism causes. “Over the summer, the resurgence of Black Lives Matter had a particular influence in getting our students aware of Tufts exploitative investments and recommitted to the work of these former student groups at Tufts, and thus TREE was formed,” Reyes said. SJP has been in existence for a longer period of time and has been running its End the Deadly Exchange campaign on campus for over three years. “Our campaign has originated from Jewish Voice for Peace’s national End the Deadly Exchange movement, which calls for the eradication of all military practices shared between the United States of America and Israel,” Julia and another member of SJP said. In addition to the referendums, the ballot will also include two Judiciary seats, two community senator seats, two at-large Senate seats and one Class of 2022 Senate seat. Lewis explained that this election is a special election. “Special elections happen when vacancies open on Senate, or for seats that weren’t filled in a previous election due to a low number of candidates,” he said. Lewis expressed his hope that students vote on Nov. 24. “Turnout is more important than ever when a referendum is on the ballot,” Lewis said.

Features

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3 Monday, November 23, 2020

Navigating Fall Break: Students weigh whether to stay on campus, university shares decision-making process

ANN MARIE BURKE / THE TUFTS DAILY

President’s Lawn is pictured on Oct. 18. by Evelyn McClure Features Editor

Since the pandemic hit the United States in March, this has been an unprecedented year. Of course, Thanksgiving is no exception. With cases rising across the country, health professionals are urging people to forgo large family gatherings. For many Tufts students, this news doesn’t change much. In late September, the student body was informed that it had two choices for the break: go home and complete the semester remotely or stay and finish the semester on campus. This was a difficult decision for many students to make as it marks either a holiday away from home or almost a full month away from what is normally spent on campus. Nick Januario, a sophomore living in a 10-person suite in Haskell Hall, discussed his decision to stay on campus for the Thanksgiving holiday. “[The] majority of my suite is planning on staying for Thanksgiving weekend. Many of us live far away from school and would rather finish out the last days of the semester with friends before returning home,” Januario said. As typical Thanksgiving meals are home cooked, there are a few obstacles in the way of that for some Tufts students. One of these is that many dorms or suites, including Haskell, have communal kitchens. “Our plan is to order food through Tufts’ Thanksgiving meal program and set up all the food in the common room to eat family style. Some parents who live nearby may even bring some

extra home-cooked food for us to enjoy,” Januario said. As for the rest of the break, Januario hopes to spend it relaxing with his friends. When asked about Tufts’ Thanksgiving plans, Januario stated his support. “Tufts’ meal plan for Thanksgiving break is a thoughtful solution that both ensures the dining workers get a well-deserved holiday and students are provided with quality food for Thanksgiving Day,” Januario said. “Outsourcing to local restaurants that would appreciate the business in times of economic hardship is a plan that the entire Tufts/Medford/Somerville community can benefit from.” Other students have decided to depart before the holiday, including sophomore Maya Friedson. For Friedson, the difficulty of being away from family on a holiday was not desirable. “Thanksgiving has historically been a time where my whole family gathers … While this year it seems like we will have to forgo the big family event, I do have elderly grandparents who we plan to see over the holidays, and ultimately, they are why I’m choosing to leave campus,” Friedson said. This decision means that Friedson will complete the semester remotely from her home in New York City. For her, the possibility of seeing her grandparents over the break makes the time at home worthwhile, even with remote schooling. “In all honesty, I’m not that nervous about having to finish up the semester at home,” Friedson said. “In the days leading up to my departure, I am doing all that

I can do to set myself up for success, including working a little ahead in some of my classes. I’m hoping that if I do my best to define my home space from my work space, it won’t be that bad.” Tufts has contracted out to restaurants in the Medford and Somerville communities for Thanksgiving meals as a way of supporting local businesses and allowing the dining workers a much needed, and deserved, respite. Camille Lizarríbar, dean of student affairs and chief student affairs officer for the Schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering, detailed the importance of giving students who choose to stay on campus some holiday spirit. “Because the university has asked students to remain on campus throughout the Thanksgiving break, there was a general consensus among several offices that we should offer the holiday dining program as a way to provide students with food options that would be different than usual, support our local restaurants, and give as many dining service employees time off on and around the holiday as possible,” Lizarríbar wrote in an email to the Daily. In the past, dining halls have been closed over long holiday breaks, such as Thanksgiving and winter break. This year, however, with many students remaining, the university had to get creative to provide food to all students, regardless of meal plan status. “We wanted to be sure food security was not a concern over this holiday, especially on Thanksgiving Day, when many restaurants and markets are nor-

mally closed, making it particularly hard to access food. We wanted students to be able to take a break from what has been a very different and often stressful semester and to enjoy the holiday without concerns about cost,” Lizarríbar said. Another piece of the puzzle is deciding which restaurants to hire for the job. Patti Klos, director of dining and business services, outlined the process of choosing the restaurants to feed the students who choose to remain on campus. “Logistically, it’s very complicated to bring in such a large number of meals, so we’ve turned to three restaurants, 2 in Medford and 1 in Somerville, for the lunches. We’re still working out the details for the dinners, and hope to offer students more variety on Friday and Saturday night,” Klos wrote in an email to the Daily. The School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) has more flexibility than Tufts’ Medford campus due to size and location. Laura DaRos, associate dean of student affairs at the SMFA, delineated the variety of restaurants the school decided upon. “Due to our size, SMFA is able to select a different restaurant for lunch each day to put together a diverse menu over the four-day period,” DaRos wrote in an email to the Daily. There are many obstacles to the program, including distribution of such a large number of meals and new statewide and Tufts’ COVID19 restrictions. Nevertheless, the Office of Student Affairs and others working on the program are powering through.

“Distribution of meals on Thursday, and lunches on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, will be at the Gantcher Center. Logistics for dinner on Saturday and Sunday are still being worked out. The mobile ordering app will not be used,” Klos said. Due to the program’s design and the sheer number of meals needed, customization of orders is sometimes impossible. Instead, students were sent options to choose from, which include options for those with dietary restrictions, such as vegetarian and Kosher. “There will be a good number of choices, but a program of this size by necessity must limit options to a manageable number for each meal. Students who had indicated they need meals over the break have been asked to complete a survey to enable us to communicate and/or plan what is available,” Klos said. This Thanksgiving will be very different from those in the past, but students are looking forward to a break from classes and excited for some downtime before final exams. With cases rising across the state and within the Tufts community, new COVID-19 restrictions have increased both vigilance and stress on campus. “We’re pleased with how the program is coming together, although new COVID-related restrictions at both the state and university level, which are needed in light of current trends, will curtail some of the activities and options we had hoped to offer,” Lizarríbar said.

Arts & POP ARTS Pop CULTURE Culture

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Monday, November 23, 2020

Maeve Hagerty Maeve’s Music Mondays

I miss live music

Celebrating ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ 10 years later

’m sure a prerequisite for writing this column is my evident love for music, but I think I have forgotten to mention just how much I love live music. There is almost nothing I miss as much as going to live concerts and, as the pandemic has progressed, I constantly find myself listening to live versions of my favorite songs on YouTube and Spotify. The ultimate test of a musical artist, for me, is how they sound without the autotune and the sophisticated editing. That’s why today I’ll be sharing some of my favorite live albums from some of my favorite artists to give us all a taste of that concert setting we’ve been missing. Rounding out the top of this list is one of my favorite albums from one of my favorite bands: the Nirvana “MTV Unplugged in New York” (1994) album. Nirvana needs no introduction: One of America’s favorite grunge/punk rock bands, their memory has endured long after Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994. But the Unplugged album is a true example of the band’s raw talent. The wailing, broken quality of Cobain’s voice is featured live in “Something In The Way” (1991) and “About A Girl” (1989), while Nirvana’s cover of the David Bowie hit “The Man Who Sold The World” (1970) became one of their most popular songs. There’s just something about the quality of the warbling guitar and bass notes in the Unplugged version of “Come As You Are” (1991) that feels strangely sentimental to me in a way that the studio versions of most songs simply don’t. Keeping with punk rock, “The Queen is Dead (Deluxe Edition)” (1986) by The Smiths also features some great live tracks like “Never Had No One Never” and “Cemetry Gates.” One of my other favorite artists, Lorde, released a short album titled “Live in Concert” (2013) with four of her early hits. Again, there is an intimacy to hearing the crowd in the background as she croons “Buzzcut Season,” one of my personal favorites, and “Swingin Party.” The 2012 “MTV Presents Unplugged: Florence + The Machine” album is another masterful example of live music at its finest, though Florence Welch’s powerful and wraith-like timbre contrasts with the darker undertones of Lorde’s voice in live performances. The songs “Never Let Me Go” (2011), “No Light, No Light” (2011) and “Only If For A Night” (2011) make use of Welch’s lilting voice, background choirs, string quartets and harps in a wonderful symphony that fills the MTV Unplugged stage fully. Additionally, alternative artist BANKS released her “Live and Stripped” album in 2020 with four songs, the best of which is probably “If We Were Made of Water,” which seems to have been made for the chic minimalism of a stripped album. Lianne La Havas, who appeared in last week’s column, also has a great live version of Aretha Franklin’s “Say a Little Prayer” (2016) as well as a live 2015 “Spotify Sessions” album with tender portrayals of her songs “Green and Gold” and “Midnight.” Live music is magical, and I hope this list can sustain you — as it has for me — until it is safe to go to concerts again. So, until next week, happy listening! Maeve Hagerty is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Maeve can be reached at maeve.hagerty@tufts.edu.

The cover of Kanye West’s album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” (2010) by George Condo is pictured. by Tuna Margalit Arts Editor

It has been a full decade since Kanye West unleashed the greatest album of all time. If this sentence makes you recoil, then allow the rest of this article to make up for it. As always, context is needed to back up such a bold, superlative claim. Luckily, context is abundant for “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” (MBDTF) (2010). You almost definitely know about Kanye’s Hennessey-aided stage storming of Taylor Swift’s MTV Video Music Awards acceptance speech in 2009. A piece of pop culture that can be viscerally recalled using a mere four-word quote, “Imma let you finish,” this moment simultaneously elevated Kanye to his greatest celebrity and sunk him to his lowest approval rating. Even former President Barack Obama weighed in. Though he had released “808s & Heartbreak” (2008) shortly after his mother’s death, “MBDTF” was really the first piece of work that found Kanye in a different stage of his life. “808s” was the transitional album from “Old Kanye” to “New Kanye,” with “MBDTF” completing the evolution. During the summer prior to the November release of “MBDTF,” Kanye and Amber Rose ended their two-year relationship — West’s highest-profile relationship by that point. Drawing from the pain that he caused to others and to himself, Kanye fashioned his magnum opus. One thing that is inarguably true about any Kanye record is that it expresses exactly where his head is at the time of creation. “The College Dropout” (2004) saw an unknown artist with globe-trotting aspirations and a five-beats-a-day-for-threesummers drive, rapping about his desire to abandon the life of a retail employee and fly off on a spaceship. “Late Registration” (2005) found an up-and-coming star musing on the morality and meaning of what his life was becoming, having accomplished the goal of fame but trying to balance it with who he was before.

“Graduation” (2007) captured the end of a transformation for the hip-hop king — a shedding of the humility that comes with being unproven and the donning of an attitude shaped by fame and status. The aforementioned “808s & Heartbreak” caught the supernova of a celebrity, a beautiful and tragic explosion triggered by the death of his greatest love, and the realization — whether true or just a wishful thought — that he would never sacrifice a real life for the fame and flashing lights. This is where “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” enters. It is the culmination of all his work prior, and it is the breakthrough of thought and narrative that had been building up in a genius since he crashed his car and rapped about it through a wired-shut mouth. So much can be said about each song, but it would really be better to just listen intently, cover to cover, than for me to attribute meaningless adjectives to the 13 tracks and you to derive any sort of enrichment from such a thing. Instead, there are a few structural aspects to the work that should be highlighted, and for a listener to take notice of as they make their way through. Each song tells its own story, in its own way. “Power” opens with a chant and clapping, then leads into a short rap introduction before exploding into a bombastic, prog rock-backed chorus, jumping back and forth between chorus, verse and King Crimson sample. The track then descends into a contemplative outro featuring two different voices alongside a trippy synth fighting against the King Crimson sample, a maniacal laugh and an enraged guitar. “Runaway” begins with the same piano note 15 times, then slowly adds layers — the drums first, then a Rick James sample, followed by Kanye’s strained singing voice and shifts to verses that tread the line between rapping and singing before landing on a bridge that precedes and prepares us for the release of anguish that is the three-minute outro — distorted and melodious, unintelligible and brilliant, messy and sharp cries that transform pain

VIA HIGHSNOBIETY

into art and pierce the soul by way of vocoder. At the same time, the tracks make up a greater, overarching story. “Dark Fantasy” opens the album with Nicki Minaj narrating a cautionary tale on fame. “All of the Lights” continues the motif of lights that had been woven into his previous albums, but this time with Kanye having the most visceral and negative reaction to their brightness. The four-song stretch of “Devil in a New Dress,” “Runaway,” “Hell of a Life” and “Blame Game” is a story within a story. We learn of a failed relationship — or, really, many different relationships — and we follow the fallout through the eyes of a man who is angry, arrogant, shameful, guilty, disgusted, deprived, regretful and remorseful, all in the span of just over 28 minutes. “Who Will Survive in America” closes the album without Kanye coming to a conclusion. The nearly 67 minutes before the closing track don’t bring Kanye any closer to knowing where his life would go. He has voiced everything he could think of, but there was never a guarantee that doing so would lead him to an answer. A weight has been lifted off his chest, but all he can do at the end is ask more questions. A character study comparable to James Joyce’s “Ulysses” (1922), Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” (1503) or Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood” (2007), “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” is music at its peak. It is a novel of sound, a portrait of vibrations, a film of frequencies, amplitudes and wavelengths so meticulous, so maximalist and so masterful that it would have deserved a shelf in the Library of Congress, a room in the Louvre or an Oscar. To supplement the musical experience of “MBDTF,” one should look at the accompanying album artwork by George Condo and the short film “Runaway” (2010), titled after the album’s centerpiece. Though a 10-year anniversary means nothing more than the Earth’s having rotated around the sun 10 times, at least it reminds us to clear off our schedules and sink into the fantastically beautiful, dark and twisted mind of our generation’s greatest musical talent.

Monday, November 23, 2020 | Fun & Games | THE TUFTS DAILY

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F& G

LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Ethan: “My favorite show is iCarly.”

Fun & Games

SUDOKU

LINDA C. BLACK ASTROLOGY

Sagittarius (Nov. 22–Dec. 21) Household projects yield satisfying results. Bake something delicious or clean out a closet. Clear clutter and free up space. Share some family sweetness.

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Difficulty Level: Remembering to set a timer for the laundry

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6 Monday, November 23, 2020

Opinion

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EDITORIAL

TCU crisis illustrates need for participation in student government

BY ANNABEL NIED The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Judiciary temporarily suspended the TCU Senate Executive Board and Elections Commission (ECOM) on the night of Nov. 11, after believing that members of the Senate Executive Board were attempting to bypass an election and appoint students to fill vacant Senate seats. Ultimately, the Judiciary rescinded its suspension against the Senate Executive Board, clarifying that this incident was a result of a misunderstanding concerning the meaning of “appointment.” Although this was a misunderstanding, recent contestation over how to fill vacant government seats illustrates a larger issue of a lack of student interest in running for elected student offices. At its core, the confusion would not have occurred had the vacant government seats been filled in the fall.

Involvement in student government is critical not only to ensuring the long-term health of student democracy, but also to building the foundation of local government and civic engagement beyond Tufts’ campus. Moving forward, it is essential that Tufts students run for TCU offices and get involved in other forms of student government in order to effectively represent student voices on campus and enact real change. In a time like this, a lack of student interest in running for elected office is not surprising. Due to restrictions presented by the pandemic, many students are struggling to keep up with school work and lack the time or capacity to stay involved with extracurricular activities. In addition, some may have been discouraged to run due to the difficulties of campaigning virtually or staying involved while remote.

Nevertheless, our community currently faces considerable challenges, many of which demand student response and input. It is important that students are represented in campus government in order to properly respond to these challenges and improve campus life. It is clear that Tufts students harbor the capacity to get involved in student government, even in testing times; their participation in and organizing for the 2020 presidential election was a true indicator of students’ commitment to the democratic process and civic engagement. Tufts students must translate this civic potential to on-campus affairs by running for student government. Even in normal times, civic engagement in student government elections is essential to enacting real change on campus. Student representatives act as the rapport

between the Tufts community and administrators; they voice the change that the student body wants. In addition to its influence on campus, student government also has the potential to influence changes in the surrounding Medford and Somerville communities. As a locus of civic engagement, student government establishes the foundation of local democracy. Competitive elections are the cornerstone of any democracy, as they ensure that the needs and interests of the students are entirely represented. This follows the very purpose of student government. In order to make sustainable change on campus, students must run for positions in the TCU Senate, the TCU Judiciary and the Committee on Student Life. In addition to running for government, students can become more involved in student govern-

ment by voting in TCU elections, proposing a referendum or campaigning for student candidates. In order to increase public knowledge and interest in student government, the TCU Student Government should consider ramping up outreach operations by enacting initiatives that educate students about the responsibilities and functions of student government. Understanding the diverse array of actions that this governing body takes is the first step to increasing student involvement. Running for student government is an impetus for change on campus; it provides a central line of communication between student demands and administrative action. As the first to be affected by university changes, students must also be the first to advocate for their needs and invest in the betterment of the Tufts community.

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Op i n i o n

Monday, November 23, 2020 | Opinion | THE TUFTS DAILY

OP-ED

Vote YES to End the Deadly Exchange at Tufts During the TCU Special Elections tomorrow, we in Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) have a referendum on the ballot as a part of our campaign to end the Deadly Exchange at Tufts. The question, as approved by the TCU Judiciary and the Committee on Student Life, will read on the ballot as follows: “Do you support Tufts University administration 1) apologizing for sending the former Tufts police chief to an intensive week-long course led by senior commanders in the Israel National Police, experts from Israel’s intelligence and security services, and the Israel Defense Force, 2) prohibiting TUPD officers from attending programs based on military strategies and/or similar international trips in the future, and 3) refining the vetting process to prevent prior program attendees from being hired, not including veterans who may have been stationed or trained abroad during their service?” In this piece, we will walk through each component of this referendum to explain the urgency of voting in favor on Nov. 24. Our campaign to end the Deadly Exchange began when it came to light that Tufts sent the now-retired chief of the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD), Kevin Maguire, on a military training trip to Israel in 2017. Since 2004, hundreds of American law enforcement officials have gone on these exchange trips, during which they have trained with Israeli police, military and the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal intelligence agency. Under the guise of “counterterrorism,” participants have learned Israeli military tactics for intelligence gathering, border security and forceful suppression of protest. Further, these trips normalize the U.S. and Israel’s shared security model of mass surveillance and criminalization that gives grounds for human and civil rights violations. This is the Deadly Exchange, the mutual advancement of the United States’ and Israel’s discriminatory and repressive policing, which is part of a larger exchange between the two countries of arms and money (the U.S. sends Israel $3.8 billion in military aid every year) as well as military tactics. Our campaign at Tufts stems from a national movement to end the Deadly Exchange led by Jewish Voice for Peace ( JVP), a grassroots organization that advocates for Palestinian self-determination and an end to the Israeli occupation. The Deadly Exchange campaign, focused on ending U.S.-Israel exchanges, fits into broader calls to end all such police exchanges around the world and to end U.S. funding for Israel’s brutal military occupation of Palestinians.

When considering the Deadly Exchange, it is necessary to acknowledge that American policing has always been racist. Police surveillance of communities of color and quelling of protest, especially Black-led organizing and resistance, has been inherent to the institution since its founding in this country. Further, the process of militarizing American police is primarily rooted in U.S. imperialism and its military industrial complex. However, the Deadly Exchange between the U.S. and Israel solidifies and augments both countries’ methods and equipment for state violence and control, including mass surveillance, racial profiling and suppression of protest and dissent. In that vein, our referendum essentially calls for the end of TUPD’s involvement in military training trips abroad through three distinct points, which are explained and contextualized below. The first point of the referendum calls on Tufts University administration to apologize for sending Kevin Maguire on the trip. When Kevin Maguire attended this seminar, the University did not inform or consult the Tufts community. Rather, this incident was first reported by a Tufts Daily article, not by the Tufts administration. The university’s clandestine approach itself is damning, and it also demonstrates a blatant disregard for transparency and accountability. Kevin Maguire’s attendance constitutes a serious breach of our community’s trust. TUPD is a campus police force: It should not train with any military or intelligence forces, especially not those currently engaged in an illegal occupation of Palestine. Under Occupation, Palestinians live under a regime of constant surveillance, regulated movement, racial profiling and Apartheid and militarized state violence against dissent. TUPD should not be exposed to these tactics and technologies; they have no place on our campus. We must hold the university accountable for bringing these destructive and toxic policing methods to our campus and for implicating all of us in the occupation of Palestine. We must require recognition of their wrongs in the form of a written apology. The referendum also demands that Tufts University administration bar TUPD from attending any military training trips abroad. While this incident occurred in Israel, TUPD should not be allowed to attend any training seminar led by military officials abroad. Such trips will without doubt contribute to the ongoing militarization of TUPD, which has followed in step with the militarization of our country’s police. TUPD began training officers to use semi-automatic rifles in

case of an emergency, and, this year, TUPD’s presence has been expanded as a means of ensuring that COVID19 guidelines are followed on campus. However, TUPD’s increased presence and new technologies do not make our community safer. Rather, they augment an already threatening environment for Palestinian students as well as other BIPOC. We therefore must end these trips that normalize and encourage the militarization of TUPD. Finally, the referendum dictates that no former attendee of these military training trips should be permitted to join TUPD. The Tufts University administration must review and reevaluate its hiring criteria to ensure that participants of the Deadly Exchange are not responsible for the safety of our community. The tactics and practices encouraged by the Deadly Exchange are particularly harmful to Black and brown students. Police violence is not the result of ‘lack of training’: rather, it’s the result of a system doing exactly what it was built to do. More training for police deepens the power and scope of policing, and therefore does nothing to reduce the harms. As the Black Lives Matter movement brings demilitarization and abolition to the forefront of national discussion, we must force Tufts to reckon with its own methods and forces of policing. On Nov. 24, we as the Tufts student body must declare ourselves opposed to our administration’s involvement in the Deadly Exchange and complicity in the occupation of Palestine. Demilitarizing our Tufts community is crucial for creating a safer campus and building a police-free world, and ending police exchanges is a key step in demilitarization. This demilitarization means ending these harmful exchanges alongside other changes: ending programs that distribute military equipment to police departments, disarming law enforcement, ending surveillance technologies and repealing laws that enable police violence. Just as SJP’s campaign will continue long after the referendum to ensure these measures are enacted and continue to urge accountability and transparency from our university, the work to demilitarize and abolish TUPD and other American police forces will continue as well. SJP’s referendum and campaign are merely a part of this larger reckoning, but they are an essential piece of this work. Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is a student group that aims to promote the Palestinian narrative on the Tufts campus. Members of SJP can be reached at sjptufts@gmail.com.

Matt Rice The Countdown

2024 speculation begins

s is tradition in American political media, some are already speculating about who may lead which party four years from now. With Trump already signaling that he may run in 2024, many wannabe Republican candidates have to weigh their options. So, who are they? We can expect to see some of Trump’s old rivals from 2016 jump into the ring. Considering his relative youth and previous experience running, it is likely that Sen. Ted Cruz is planning another run for the White House. Cruz — the runner-up for the nomination in 2016 — went from being one of Trump’s most ardent critics to his most loyal defender. Cruz famously refused to endorse Trump’s candidacy at the 2016 Republican National Convention, but that Ted Cruz is gone. He seems far more interested in national, partisan fights than issues facing Texas. Just last week, thousands of Texans waited in line at the North Texas Food Bank, and the Texas National Guard was sent to El Paso in order to help handle the “morgue overflow” resulting from the pandemic. But based on Cruz’s personal Twitter account, the most important issues facing Texans are Thanksgiving gatherings, censorship of conservatives and the disputed results of the 2020 election. Cruz’s attempts to become a mini-Trump are impressive and depressing, and they might work four years from now. One pair of senators to keep your eyes on is Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. Cotton is a U.S. Army infantry veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Cotton’s most prominent Senate accomplishments include holding up one of President Barack Obama’s diplomatic nominations in order to “inflict special pain on the president.” That nominee, Cassandra Butts, who was a close friend of President Obama, tragically died while awaiting a Senate vote. Barely seven months after calling for Hong Kong police to cease violence against peaceful demonstrators, Cotton argued for the deployment of the U.S. military in order to crush popular uprisings during Black Lives Matter protests — a testament to his hypocrisy. Sen. Hawley is a more interesting character. A graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School, Hawley clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts before serving as Missouri’s attorney general. Hawley has marketed himself as a Bible-thumping, corporate-bashing, elitist-despising Midwestern conservative. Despite his Ivy League pedigree and resume, Hawley’s denunciations of “coastal elites” have made him well-liked among Trump’s base and in the GOP establishment. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is also rumored to be looking at a 2024 candidacy. Last year, Pompeo told the Washington Examiner that he is interested in a presidential run after Trump leaves the spotlight. In July, Pompeo even used his official government aircraft and staff to travel to Iowa, the first primary contest state, for a gathering of conservative activists. No one can possibly know what the political landscape will look like four years from now. But just by looking at this list of potential candidates, it is clear that Trump’s policies, style and influence are not going away anytime soon.

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Matt Rice is a senior studying political science. Matt can be reached at matthew.rice@tufts.edu.

8 Monday, November 23, 2020

Sports

tuftsdaily.com

An unlikely path to the NBA for former Jumbo Sonia Raman

ANN MARIE BURKE / THE TUFTS DAILY

The Steve Tisch Sports and Fitness Center is pictured on Aug. 28. by Jake Freudberg Associate Editor

One of the NBA’s newest female assistant coaches was once a Jumbo. And an engineer. And a lawyer. Sonia Raman (LA’96) made history as the NBA’s first female Indian American assistant coach when she was hired by the Memphis Grizzlies in September. Alongside that milestone, Raman, whose parents immigrated to the United States from India, is also one of three Indian American assistant coaches in the league right now. “It’s an important part of who I am, period. I take a lot of pride in being Indian American,” Raman said. Raman is also the 14th female assistant coach in league history. Raman’s hiring is part of an overall push within the NBA in recent years for teams to hire female coaches. Her unorthodox path to the NBA began over 20 years ago, playing basketball for the Jumbos at Cousens Gymnasium, before heading to law school and most recently coaching the women’s team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Raman played for the Tufts women’s basketball team during a period of turnover for the program, with three different coaches — Sharon Dawley, Ed Leyden

and Janice Savitz — over her four years as a Jumbo. The mid-1990s were also well before the team became the Div. III powerhouse it has developed into over the past 15 years: In Raman’s four years, the team went 44–49 overall. But Raman, who was a co-captain during her senior year, still credits Tufts for much of her success. “Getting the opportunity to be a student athlete and have that kind of balance in my undergrad experience was so beneficial for me in my own personal growth and development,” Raman said. “Tufts is such a special place.” Part of that development happened during her junior and senior years, when Raman was sidelined with an injury for portions of both seasons. It was that time spent watching — and not playing — that gave Raman a new perspective that she took into her coaching career. “I really got to observe a lot in a different way than when you’re playing or even when you’re on the bench,” Raman said. “I just really embraced it and tried to learn as much as I could and contribute in other ways to really work on leadership skills.” After graduating from Tufts in 1996 with a degree in international relations, Raman returned as an assistant coach for two years, and also got her Juris Doctor degree from Boston College Law School in 2001. Focusing on her law career, Raman worked for the

U.S. Department of Labor and Fidelity Investments while also working as a part-time assistant coach for the Wellesley College women’s basketball team. Landing a college head coaching job — let alone an NBA coaching gig — was never Raman’s plan. “I always was really looking to be as good as I can be where I was,” Raman said. “I think it’s really important to do the job you have really well as opposed to constantly be thinking of what’s next, and what’s next, and what’s next.” But in 2008, Raman made the jump, hired by MIT as the women’s basketball coach and assistant director of compliance (she still had to do something with that law degree, of course). Raman inherited a program with little historical success, and accordingly went 4–19 in her first year at the helm. But the team’s record gradually improved each season, finally breaking the .500 mark in 2015–16 with an impressive 17–9 record. Over her 12-season tenure at MIT, Raman became the winningest coach in the program’s history with a 152–155 overall record and won the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference in the 2017–18 and 2018–19 seasons. “I thought I had landed my dream job with MIT,” Raman said. “I was very much excited to be at MIT for the long haul.”

Her success in Cambridge caught the attention of Grizzlies’ Vice President for Basketball Strategy Rich Cho, who made NBA history himself as the first Asian American general manager when he was hired by the Portland Trailblazers in 2010. According to Raman, Cho first reached out to her last year just to make a connection but followed up this summer as the Grizzlies were hiring to fill a position on the coaching staff vacated by Niele Ivey, another female assistant coach. Raman, who loved her position at MIT, was intrigued. “It just became apparent that it was just kind of an opportunity of a lifetime,” Raman said. After interviewing with head coach Taylor Jenkins, Raman was sold on the Grizzlies. It’s clear that the Grizzlies, too, were sold on Raman and her coaching abilities. “She has a high basketball IQ and a tremendous ability to teach the game, as well as a strong passion for the game,” Jenkins said in a statement when Raman was hired in September. Raman’s hiring comes alongside the hiring of many other female assistant coaches in the NBA. With the New Orleans Pelicans’ hiring of Teresa Weatherspoon last week, there are now eight full-time female assistant coaches in the league, most of whom have been hired in the past few years.

“Just having more people in different professions representative of the larger world that we live in is always key and really important,” Raman said about the recent trend. “We’ve seen men have the opportunity to coach both men and women, so I think this is just kind of a natural progression — that women should have that same opportunity to coach women, but also to coach men.” In her four weeks so far in Memphis, Raman has noticed, too, that women fill other important roles in the NBA aside from coaching, which tends to get the most media attention. “You can see that this is something that really has a lot behind it — it’s not just like ‘we just want to hire a woman,’” Raman said. With the NBA still in its offseason due to schedule changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Raman has yet to step on the court for the first time as an NBA coach. But she said she’s had a whirlwind of a first few weeks in her new home, enjoying the local food, history and Southern hospitality as best as she can amid a pandemic. Most importantly, she’s looking forward to working with the relatively young team led by 2020 Rookie of the Year guard Ja Morant. “I’m excited to learn more and set foot on the court for my first practice, and then I guess I’ll know more from there,” Raman said.