Spring 2017 Issue 1

Tufts Observer

VOLUME CXXXIV, ISSUE 1

February 6, 2017

Politics in the The Labor of Student Activism Age of Memes Page 3

Page 8

Investigating the Trans Task Force at Tufts Page 18

The Resistance Issue

Tufts Observer The Tufts Observer has been Tufts’ student publication of record since 1895. Our dedication to indepth reporting, journalistic innovation, and honest dialogue has remained intact for over a century.

Today, we offer insightful news analysis, cogent and diverse opinion pieces, creative writing, and lively reviews of current arts, entertainment, and culture. Through poignant writing and artistic elegance, we aim to entertain, inform, and above all challenge the Tufts community to affect positive change.

@tuftsobserver www.tuftsobserver.org

February 6, 2017 Volume CXXXIV, Issue 1 Tufts Observer, SInce 1895 Tufts’ Student Magazine

The Resistance Issue In this issue, we’re thinking about resistance in all of its forms. Beyond politics, resistance can ingrain itself in the choices we make in our daily lives. What are the conditions for resisting? In what ways can we push back on structures of power and what effects can we have?

Staff

Feature Ben Kesslen

Editor in Chief

News Alexandra Benjamin Misha Linnehan

Claire Selvin

Managing Editor Sahar Roodehchi

Creative Director Chase Conley

Art Directors

Rachel Cunningham Annie Roome

Multimedia Director Greta Jochem

Photo Director Lily Herzan

Lead Copy Editor Eve Feldberg

Lead Artist Jake Rochford

Opinion Liza Leonard Jamie Moore Arts & Culture Susan Kaufman Will Norris Campus Dana Guth Emma Pinsky Voices Julia Doyle Poetry & Prose Carissa Fleury

Design Abigail Barton Matt Beckshaw Benson Cheng Josh Goodman Kira Lauring Lily Pisano Hannah Vigran Interactive Evie Bellew Kayden Mimmack Video Anastasia Antonova Aaron Watts Photo Kyle Scott Conrad Young Publicity Alyssa Bourne-Peters Yumi Casagrande

Web Julia Press MT Snyder Columns Henry Jani

Contributors Aishvarya Arora, Tess Dennison, Oly Huzenis, Sarah Kotis Jessica Mar, Lauren Samuel, Rachel Yang, Roxanne Zhang

Staff Writers Sam Crozier Yaa Kankam-Nantwi Lena Novins-Montague Layla Rao Katie Saviano Grace Segers Alexis Tatore Wilson Wong Copy Editors Nicole Cohen Owen Cheung Nasrin Lin Christopher Paulino Alexandra Strong Fact Checkers Erin Berja Sivi Satchithanadan

Contents

13

Photo Inset

17

Poetry

18

Campus

transparency.

let’s get free

The Task At Hand

Roxanne Zhang

sonofkwame

Emma Pinsky

2

Letter From The Editor Claire Selvin

FEATURE

3

The Cost of Student Resistance Wilson Wong

NEWS

6

Running Left of Liberal Alexandra Benjamin & Misha Linnehan

OPINION

8

Scrupulously Avoiding Coherence Jamie Moore

ARTS & CULTURE

10 Reimagining Symposium Lauren Samuel

PROSE

12 When They Say Body Jessica Mar VOICES

20 Light Sent Home Through

the Prism

Aishvarya Arora OPINION

22 On Art As Protest Tess Dennison NEWS

24 Rage Against the Regime Alexis Tatore with reporting by Alexandra Benjamin ARTS & CULTURE

26 The Enduring Appeal of

Modern Love Oly Huzenis

COVER PHOTO BY LILY HERZAN

Letter From The Editor

By Claire Selvin

T

he past month has felt surreal and vertiginous. I wish my friends, my peers, and I weren’t anticipating grim, life-altering news every day; I wish those I care about most weren’t brought to tears so frequently, their days consumed and colored by current events; and I wish there weren’t knots gnawing at my stomach in the early hours of the mornings.

I don’t need to tell you that injustice has plagued this country since its genesis, but I think it is particularly difficult and exhausting to watch, from our homes or dormitories, any sense of progress slip away, and to feel, at times, small and powerless. This sense of anguish and inadequacy, I find, is exacerbated by the bombardment of bleak information that takes up residency on my newsfeed these days, as well as comment storms that are more often upsetting than productive.

This administration’s seemingly relentless racist, xenophobic, sexist, and environmentally destructive actions coupled

2

Tufts Observer

February 6, 2017

with its Orwellian contempt for knowledge and facts have made my forays online consistently harrowing.

Protests are happening worldwide, and it’s important that we stand in solidarity, energized, and that we continue to practice civil disobedience. But I’m wondering what resistance to government will look like throughout the next four years, and if protests will be enough to alleviate the fears of so many people or foster real change. We can hope for defiance, for revolution, but, the truth is, the future feels like a chasm of unknowns. We do know, however, that we are going to fight, and I know that I’m going to be supporting and fighting for those whose bodies are in far more danger than mine.

So, while we continue, together, to push this University to fulfill its promise to protect its students, to speak truth to power, and to resist those who seek to destroy our democracy and revoke our rights, I want the Observer to act as a space for ca-

tharsis. The O means, and has meant, a lot to me during my time as a Tufts student— it has meant community and hard work and thoughtfulness. This magazine exists for students to share their voices, experiences, and perspectives, and, now more than ever, it must succeed in this regard.

I hope that reading the Observer might make you feel less alone, that you might find solace or comfort in these pages throughout the course of the semester. I hope that writing about your optimism or anger, victories or losses, brings you a sense of peace, reassurance, and relief amidst incomprehensible chaos. I believe in the indelibility of creative expression and its ability to empower creators and consumers alike. It’s a privilege to read your stories and fill this magazine with your words.

Feature

The Cost of Student Resistance

By Wilson Wong

PICTURED LEFT TO RIGHT: NICOLE JOSEPH, PATRICK MAHANEY

PHOTOS BY CONRAD YOUNG

L

ast semester, Tufts saw victories in its most diverse class of admitted students, ratification of a four-year janitorial contract, implementation of policies promising to protect undocumented students in light of Trump’s election, and recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ Day (IPD)—all of which rose out of relentless student activism. But despite the University’s espoused mission to “empower students to be advocates for social change,” the students at the center of these campaigns are bearing the brunt of this work. Instead of

feeling empowered, they feel exploited, exhausted, and disrespected.

Without institutional support, students’ participation in activism can have adverse effects. One of the most prominent effects is burning out. Burning out means more than just having a bad day. Rather, it is a type of psychological stress for many social activists, resulting in physical and mental exhaustion. Subsequent consequences of burnout can manifest in various ways, such as physical, emotional, and economic challenges for students involved with activism

February 6, 2017

Tufts Observer

3

Feature

and resistance. Student activists in particular report symptoms of burnout from their organizing.

Nicole Joseph, an Asian American junior and member of Tufts Labor Coalition (TLC), described the impact of working on the janitorial campaign since her first year.

“I couldn’t sleep regularly because there was always work to be done, whether that encompassed scheduling meetings with workers on campus revolving around their availability, facilitating TLC meetings, writing press releases for media outlets, planning actions, or postermaking—every little detail adds up to more than 20 hours a week.”

Parker Breza, a mixed race sophomore and one of the lead organizers of IPD, elaborated on the economic toll of student activism. “When you’re in a middle of a campaign, everything else stops…Organizers outside of the University spend 60 to 80 hours of the week working, and are only paid for 40 of those hours. We do very similar work to them and still don’t get paid. On top of that, we have to balance our schoolwork, part-time jobs, personal matters, and all of our other commitments. It’s so many extra demands on us, and zero compensation for it,” he said.

Student activism’s significant time commitment can also cause physical strain.

Patrick Mahaney, a multiracial sophomore and an organizer with Tufts Student Action (TSA), said, “I was tired, like physically tired, physically staying up late to do research, planning for an event, and communicating that information with my entire team. It’s emotionally draining to absorb all of that information and then relay it, and then to have conversations with people who are resisting and pushing back against you.”

Last year, organizers of #TheThreePercent movement demanded that the University do more to combat racism by providing

better support and representation for Black students at Tufts. Erin*, a Black student organizer with #TheThreePercent movement, described the difficulty of simultaneously “getting the community to come together, balancing academics and organizing, gaining support for the movement, and dealing with deteriorating mental health during and after organizing.”

tend on building a family here, people that wish for nothing more than their family to join them, people that leave people behind and never get to say goodbye—it’s all so close to my mind and heart, and there is no way for me not to fight for this,” she said.

According to Mahaney, people often frame the narrative around student resistance as a hobby or pastime. “Student activism doesn’t just exist in a vacuum. It’s not like you can just turn it off and on. I can’t just say I’m going to stop doing the work… For me, this work affects me every day. It’s a lived reality.”

But for people who do organize, Breza elaborated, “student activists are unpaid consultants for the University. Our work is a full-time job.”

Despite harboring emotional ties to these causes, students have sustained themselves with intentional communities, and by voicing their capacity to perform their responsibilities with other members of their respective organizations. Rodríguez underscored the importance of the collaborative nature of the sanctuary campus movement among UIJ members.

“We tried our best to be honest with ourselves and each other about how much we would be able to contribute to the action planning,” she said. “Our organizing community felt really supportive and didn’t try to impose that any member should be reacting in any particular way in response to the action or election.”

Expressing similar sentiments, Mahaney emphasized the importance of adequately delegating tasks, ensuring that people of marginalized identities weren’t bearing a large portion of the physical and emotional labor.

“I’m always thinking about whose emotional labor goes unthanked and unreciprocated,” they said. “People of color’s energies are often taken for granted, doing a lot of the work that other people don’t. Broadly speaking, this goes for people of other mar-

“I felt exploited… There were many things that we struggled for… the diversity dashboard, the mental health initiatives, and hiring of a new mental health counselor—these changes are things that they pride themselves on having happened, without recognizing that these changes came out of student resistance.”

4

Tufts Observer

February 6, 2017

These campaigns carry a significant weight for students like Mahaney and Erin, whose realities are impacted daily by the actions of the institution they are fighting against.

Lupita Rodríguez, a Latina member of United for Immigrant Justice (UIJ) and organizer with the sanctuary campus movement at Tufts, described the harsh realities of resisting these injustices. “Fighting for [a sanctuary campus] is natural because it’s for my mom, my dad… people that arrive alone without family, people that never in*

Name has been changed at the student’s request

Feature

ginalized identities, such as women, trans, Even when reaching their intended goals, gender nonconforming people, etc. In my students voiced their concerns about the lack experience with TSA, I was working with of acknowledgment of student-led campaigns. some of my closest friends, so we were re- “I felt exploited…There were many things ally there to support one another.” that we struggled for…the diversity dashWhile receiving unconditional support board, the mental health initiatives, and from organizational members, the students hiring of a new mental health counselor— interviewed for this piece reached unani- these changes are things that they pride mous agreement that they did not feel sup- themselves on having happened, without ported by the administration in their efforts to achieve their campaign’s respective goals.

After gathering a petition of 2,693 signatories asking Tufts to become a designated sanctuary campus, and publicly expressing their concerns, UIJ members were still met with ambivalence from President Tony Monaco, who had shown up at the rally. Rodríguez said, “He had the opportunity to alleviate a lot of concerns and worries, though we felt his overall message lacked sincerity, and felt inadequate in meeting our demands… After the rally, President Monaco didn’t even try to meet with us, even after expressing our fears, worries, and concerns.”

Joseph, who has attended numerous negotiations, outlined how and when the University responded to students’ concerns, stating, “They only cave into the community’s demands when their bosses are mad at them, when they’re receiving public PICTURED: LUPITA RODRÍGUEZ pressure, or if it makes more financial sense.”

No stranger to negotiations, Breza said that his most frustrating recognizing that these changes came out of challenge in organizing is facing the run- student resistance,” Erin said. around he receives from the administraBreza noted that his dissatisfaction tion. He said that their response is always with the lack of acknowledgment of stualong the lines of, “I don’t have that infor- dent resistance also stems from the fact that mation; this is the person you should talk other students of the Tufts community hide to” or, “I can’t give you this information under a guise of social justice dogma, toutbecause of this undisclosed and unfound- ing how “radical” Tufts is. ed reason.” He added, “The worst is when Fighting for IPD came from “months [the administration] says point-blank that and months of hard work…working with they can’t do it and when you ask for an Native populations in Massachusetts, and explanation, there isn’t one.” then also a massive lobbying effort targeting

PHOTO BY LILY HERZAN

administrators and faculty members. Not to mention the amount of meetings it took to get it onto the agenda,” according to Breza.

“So,” he continued, “when everybody acted like it was something so obvious for a school like Tufts to vote for [IPD], it was really frustrating because this had been attempted many times before, and it failed.”

When it came down to celebrating IPD this past year, Breza recounted how he “received little support in the actual planning for this day.”

Robert Mack, Associate Dean for Student Success and Advising, stated that he knew that “student activists often dedicate a lot of time and energy in support of various important causes.” He said, “My office and the Dean of Student Affairs office works to support student activists in any way we can, engaging them in conversations, and providing them with resources and support.

We’re always open to hearing about new ways we might support our student activists. We’d invite that kind of feedback.”

The Observer was unable to reach Dean of Student Affairs, Mary Pat McMahon, for a comment.

Like Breza and Rodríguez, Joseph expressed how students working across multiple campaigns on campus are met with silence and ambiguity from the administration. When asked how the administration could better support student activism on campus, Joseph expressed that “the administration should foster more community-based decisions. There have been numerous opportunities for the administration to actually listen to feedback from the people who are working really hard to give it to them.” She added, “We are organizing alongside workers that have concrete demands, and they never spoke to their workers…it’s not helping the janitors fight their own fight by telling us we’re passionate—like, no one cares.”

February 6, 2017

Tufts Observer

5

Running Left

News

Democratic Party norms

I

“This last election tells us something as Democrats. No more playing the middle.

No more playing moderates.”

6

Tufts Observer

February 6, 2017

n 2014, Democrat Marty Walsh was sworn in as the 54th mayor of Boston, declaring his vision for a city with equal opportunity and “creative solutions to the challenges of the 21st century,” according to his website. Three years later, Walsh’s incumbency is being challenged by another Democrat passionate about progress and equality: Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson.

At first, it is not obvious why Jackson would run against another liberal Democrat with whom he agrees on most issues.

However, Jackson has made it clear that his plan is to challenge Walsh from the left, and that such a challenge is important not only for the city of Boston, but also for the Democratic Party in general.

At a recent panel hosted by the Tufts Democrats on immigration law, Jackson made his feelings about the needs of the party perfectly clear.

“This last election tells us something as Democrats,” Jackson said during the panel. “No more playing the middle. No more playing moderates.”

Indeed, contentions between the progressive and moderate wings of the party have become increasingly common within the Democratic Party not just in Boston, but on a national level.

This effect was most clearly seen in the 2016 Democratic Presidential primaries. The heated race between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders had those “with her” and those “feeling the Bern” at each other’s throats for much of the past twelve months.

Most of the conflict between Sanders and Clinton came down to a division between the left and center. “Sanders basically has faith that there is a majority view in this country that supports much more aggressively redistributive policies…and a much more ambitious government effort to set a high minimum standard of living (single payer, a higher minimum wage) than Clinton can accept,” Greg Sargent noted in the Washington Post. Clinton has also been cited as being significantly more conservative on defense and international issues.

By Alexandra Benjamin However, many of her other positions on issues, such as individual rights, are just as liberal as Sanders’. Some of her stances have also shifted throughout time, particularly as she adopted many of Sanders’ ideals into her platform after his defeat. Still, a portion of the party remained reluctant to get behind her, in some cases never changing tune.

And just as many gravitated towards Sanders for his more drastically liberal policies on matters like health care and affordable education, Jackson has also attracted attention for his agenda of committed activism. As with Sanders, this has resonated particularly with young people.

But is this disparity reflected between Jackson and Walsh? Some think not. Political Science Professor Jeff Berry, for one, doesn’t see the real motivation for Jackson to run.

“Both [candidates] are very progressive,” he said. “Walsh is quite liberal, so it doesn’t reflect any—or much—of a schism.” He adds, however, that there is “some dissatisfaction that the party is not energetic enough and not doing enough for income inequality.”

Income inequality, as well as inequality in housing and education, is one of the main pillars of Jackson’s platform. A Boston Globe article by Adrian Walker announcing Jackson’s candidacy cited some of his focuses as “the social cost of underfunded schools, gentrification, and income inequality…He is running to be the mayor of those who feel left behind, even as much of the city is booming.”

One group that Jackson plans to champion is the city’s population of undocumented immigrants. Jackson has been very vocal about his investment in immigrant communities through his support of the TRUST Act and the maintenance of Boston as a sanctuary city, an issue Walsh has shown similar dedication to, though, perhaps, not with the same kind of fervor.

Jackson claims that one of the most important elements of this issue is that we “watch our language” and work to welcome immigrants into our community without branding them with dehumanizing labels like “illegal.”

ART BY RACHEL CUNNINGHAM

of Liberal

News

questioned in Boston mayoral race & Misha Linnehan At the immigration panel, he became particularly animated when speaking about this, smacking his palm down on the table as he spoke, and declaring, “It’s actually time to stand up and say, ‘We love poor people!’, ‘We love immigrants!’”

Jackson’s charisma is one element that certainly distinguishes him as a candidate.

Jackson is spirited, witty, and upbeat, especially when it comes to encouraging legislative action and community activism. But he is also strikingly realistic.

“My message to all of you is that the cavalry is not coming,” he told students in the panel audience. “Nobody is coming to save us.” He then challenged students to take on active roles as leaders and activists both on and off campus.

“The last thing I will say is from the 21st century poet Lil Jon’s ‘Turn Down for What,’—it is absolutely critical that you literally ‘step it up,’” he joked.

Jackson’s energetic position on issues like sanctuary measures may be the key to an edge over Walsh. He is particularly in tune with young, diverse audiences, and his commitment to unapologetic equality may resonate especially deeply on campuses like Tufts, where issues like the possibility of becoming a sanctuary campus is on the minds of many.

“Young voters might be more supportive of Jackson...they are more diverse,” said Berry.

Even so, students have not expressed overwhelming dissatisfaction with Walsh.

“Mayor Walsh has done an excellent job encouraging voter registration and engaging students in government,” Tufts Democrats President and senior Ben Kaplan said. “Both Mayor Walsh and Councilor Jackson recognize that college students are an important part of the community, which is great to see.”

However, some do see the potential for Jackson to improve upon Walsh’s leadership. Junior Alex Mitchell, for one, critiqued the way Walsh handled the city’s bid for the Olympics, marijuana legislation, Boston’s public schools’ budgets, and the Boston Police Department body camera effort. He, too, thinks that Jackson’s emphasis on advocacy is his best shot against Walsh.

“Jackson’s local ties and history of advocacy is going to help him, plus, District 7, which he currently represents, is critical in mayoral elections. However, Walsh has really been capitalizing on the Trump administration’s decisions over the past week or two, which puts him in a good position” he said.

While the policy differences between Walsh and Jackson may not be as stark as in the 2016 primary, there are certainly still some parallels between this race and that contest.

The most conspicuous similarity is that Jackson enters the race as a sizable underdog.

According to Berry, Walsh has a significant fundraising advantage, like Clinton’s, that will almost certainly enable him to get the vote out more effectively.

“I’m not sure exactly what [Jackson’s] path to victory would be,” Berry said.

Of course, while Sanders was not able to win last spring, he did provide a significantly larger challenge to Clinton than their initial tallies of cash on hand would have suggested. According to Robert Borosage, the co-director of the progressive Campaign for America’s Future, Sanders’ success was primarily the result of “this younger generation coming into politics and moving with their own energy.”

If Jackson is able to harness young voters to a similar degree as Sanders, in a studentdominated city like Boston, he might be able to succeed.

Jackson has recognized this fact.

Speaking at the immigration panel, he said, “Every social movement in our country’s history was vastly moved by young people.

Don’t wait your turn. They want you to wait your turn.”

He has from now until November to try and create such a movement behind his candidacy. In the meantime, he has at least created interest among observers of Massachusetts politics in what could have been an essentially uncontested race.

“Both Mayor Walsh and Councilor Jackson are devoted public servants and have compelling messages,” Kaplan said. “I am excited to see how the race plays out.”

February 6, 2017

Tufts Observer

7

Opinion

Scrupulously Avoiding Coherence

Memes and the alt-right

By Jamie Moore Content Warning: descriptions of racism and violence

R

ichard Spencer could be described as “moderately infamous.” In the past year, he became fairly wellknown among followers of politics as an intellectual leader of the alt-right movement; however, I doubt that many of my older relatives would be able to say with any certainty who he is. He and the movement he leads were devoted followers of Donald Trump during his presidential campaign. His movement maintains a heavy social media presence and is notable for its highly active user base.

Richard Spencer is also perhaps the most well-known and prominent White supremacist in America today. He has been called a neo-Nazi, a label which he repudiates, mostly due to the bad optics surrounding the term “Nazi.” In truth, there is little daylight between his political views and the tenets of National Socialism, and he is, overall, best described as blood-curdlingly racist. He has advocated for massive ethnic cleansing measures to rid the US of people of color, and has, in the past, proclaimed the benefits of “black genocide.” There is, sickeningly, much more I could say, given more space.

Spencer supported Donald Trump’s campaign because he felt that many of Trump’s policy positions legitimized his views and the messaging of the alt-right as a whole; when Trump won, Spencer’s purposefully blandly-named National Policy Institute held a conference in Washington, D.C. where he and attendees joined 8

Tufts Observer

February 6, 2017

together in a Nazi salute, shouting, “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!”

The alt-right’s online presence, meanwhile, consists of a legion of trolls—recruited from and organized in the more fetid corners of the internet—who engage in targeted, relentless harassment campaigns against Jewish people and people of color, particularly celebrities, journalists, or other media personalities. They make extensive use of memes in these efforts: crudely photoshopping their targets into Holocaust imagery (concentration camp jumpsuits, gas chambers, and ovens); the (((echoes))) meme originally used by members of the group to mark Jewish targets on social media for harassment, which originated on the neo-Nazi podcast, The Daily Shoah, and has since been repurposed by nonalt-righters in a show of solidarity with the targets of anti-Semitic hate; most famously, “Pepe the Frog,” a crudely-drawn cartoon frog which originated as a “chill” and “good-natured” cartoon character in 2005, became a meme shortly thereafter, and was resurrected as a symbol of White supremacist hate by alt-righters during the recent presidential campaign.

Of course, this is all old, awful news.

What’s new is that Spencer himself is now a meme.

You see, on January 20, shortly after Donald Trump was sworn in as President of the United States of America, a video of Spencer being sucker-punched during a news interview went viral. The low-defini-

tion video depicts a grinning Spencer explaining the significance of a Pepe pin on his lapel, until a black-clad protester erupts from the left side of the frame and punches him in the jaw, hard, before ducking back into the surrounding crowd. The camera searches to the right to find Spencer rubbing his jaw and readjusting his hair as he stumbles away. Even without context, the video is an accidental masterpiece of comedic timing. In context, it is the kind of beautiful twist of fate the world so often denies us: here is the smug neo-Nazi explaining his ghastly meme, here is the punch that silences him, here is everyone who hates hate, cackling in delight.

(A note: of course it is okay to laugh at Spencer being punched. Never has there been a man who more obviously deserved a swift blow to the head. I say this as not at all the face-punching type: Nazism, as an ideology, is fundamentally corrosive to the very concept of free, reasonable public discourse, and will, given the opportunity, erode it at every turn. It does not deserve engagement, negotiation, or discussion.)

Why is this important, though? Why am I writing about it instead of just watching the video again? Because the alt-right is a tricky thing. On the one hand, it is a pernicious movement of hate-speaking trolls who advocate for genocide, engage in vile targeted harassment campaigns, seem to be gaining traction in the greater media and cultural landscape, and possess a worryingly close link to the President of the United States. On the other hand, it is a laughably pathetic movement that exists purely in digital form, is represented by a badly-drawn cartoon frog, and is afraid to stage protests because people might heckle them. Its moment of maximum public exposure involves a viral video of its dear leader Richard Spencer, an SS-haircut-wearing, shitty tweed jacket-owning, walking embodiment of the thinking face emoji, getting punched in the face.

There’s intentional self-contradiction in that paragraph because, I suppose, that’s just how things work now. The alt-right is both dangerous and deeply sad. They are both a joke and very, very real. This is, in fact, how they operate: their preferred tactic is to, essentially, say a deeply horrible thing and seriously discuss it with those who agree with them, while taking cover ART BY NICOLE COHEN

Opinion

under the justification of “irony” for those who (rightly) react with shock and condemnation. Milo Yiannopolous is another famously (air-quotes) “ironic” alt-rightfigurehead (I say this because he seems to have very little idea of how irony actually works; he, or at least his public persona, is apocalyptically stupid). He claims, between inciting harassment campaigns against Black comedians, to be a “free speech activist.”

This is a tactic that has proven to be shockingly effective. By scrupulously avoiding any semblance of earnestness or coherence, alt-righters confuse the uninitiated who try to discern what is happening on their own and stave off mainstream condemnation (despite growing awareness of the group’s hateful nature, Yiannopolous recently received a large book deal from Simon and Schuster). While doing this, they still manage to energize their compatriots and terrify their targets, who rightly don’t care if the account tweeting Holocaust cartoons at them has a profile picture of a cartoon frog.

The perniciousness of the alt-right lies in its irrefutability; it is a target that cannot be hit with earnestness. The views this group holds are beyond the realm of earnest debate; the way they espouse them is, in fact, intended to make a mockery of the very concept. No one can have a real debate with a cartoon frog that calls you some slur or another, posts a Holocaust cartoon, and then disappears into the ether. Their “engagement” with the rest of the American public, primarily in online forums like Twitter, comes mostly in the form of trolling, which, of course, isn’t a

behavior designed to produce meaningful responses. It is meant to infuriate the target and invigorate the troll. This is, in fact, part of how the alt-right recruits, how they maintain morale—by selling the appeal of being a frustrating asshole.

The fact that these strategies are used to advance the politics of violent racism is what makes the group so dangerous. With memes and harassment and a select few public figures who make a surface effort at respectability—while I noted Spencer’s clever tactic of giving vile concepts misleadingly bland names, he’s also been careful to buck the cultural image of neo-Nazis as sweaty basement weirdos by instead dressing, basically, like a normal person—the group has made remarkable and worrying progress in advancing open White nationalism back into the realm of mainstream political discourse.

So, what is the best way to fight them?

How do you push back against a group that refuses to engage in the first place?

The best solution, of course, would be for the mainstream social networks that see the most action by alt-right trolls—looking at you, Twitter and Reddit—to ban them outright. Forcing alt-righters back into the darker corners of the Internet that they normally tend to inhabit limits their ability to pollute normal political discourse, recruit new followers, and, most of all, prevents them from engaging in further harassment. Given the worrisome lack of progress on this front, though, there will have to be other measures as well.

I believe that the best way for individuals to push back against the altright is by repurposing their tactics against them. Spencer being punched is the perfect tool to do this; already there has been a flood of Twitter users replying to his posts with gifs or videos of the punch. (My favorite version of the video is one set to “The Star-Spangled Banner:” every time the cymbals crash, Spencer gets punched.) A few days after the punch became a meme, an image of Spencer getting punched at a different rally surfaced; it, too, became ammunition for counter-trolls.

The most telling sign of this tactic’s efficacy is in Spencer’s own response to it.

A few days after being punched, he hosted a Periscope talk with fellow alt-righters: during it, he said, “I’m afraid that this will become the meme to end all memes. That I’m going to hate watching this.” I think that, in this case, he’s right.

Of course, this is all old, awful news.

What’s new is that Spencer himself is now a meme.

February 6, 2017

Tufts Observer

9

Arts & Culture

By Lauren Samuel

T

he basement of 32 Adams Street, Medford, where the student art show “Nasty Women x Tufts” is on display, is dim, but functional. White light fixtures are placed about the labyrinthine room; some hang from the low ceiling, nearly brushing atop heads.

On the right-hand side, near the laundry machines, a projector is displaying School Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) dual-degree senior Oona Taper’s moving imagery: a cyclical, developing sketch of a woman’s face, strikes of color and black flashing through. Behind the projection is a dated television set displaying a surreal, edited compilation of Janet Jackson and Madonna videos by SMFA student Camiel Duytschaever titled janetfan4life.

Screenshotted iMessages are printed and taped onto a board against the back wall.

They are assorted texts the anonymous artist has received, and the saturation of their words evokes an image of the boys behind the screen as impatient, aggressive, and vulgar. Protest posters from the women’s march are propped near metal pipes. Pieces of embroidery are displayed side by side. One says, “I will not set myself on fire to keep you warm,” and another, “Fuck boys get pizza.” There are two different nude paintings, each with a strong body and an unaffected air.

One, by sophomore Emma Herdman, is acrylic on cardboard, titled Not convenient for you not ashamed. It depicts a woman crouching with a hand coolly on her chin, the navy background filling the space of her spread thighs. A full poem on 8.5 x 11 paper hangs along the basement’s post—it is by Libby Langsner, titled, When I’m Alone I’ll Always Have the Moon.

10

Tufts Observer

February 6, 2017

Around 9:45 PM, Angie Lou (A16) orates a harrowing poem, God is a 12-year-old girl. The lone microphone amplifies her deadpan tone over the now-silent crowd. “America is a swimming pool filled with spit,” she recites.

Later, senior Céili Hale shares her comedy. In between speakers, the crowd haphazardly shuffles around to both examine the artwork and chat with one another. Naturally, the space becomes dual-functional: both art gallery and, for many, a social gathering.

“Nasty Women x Tufts” was primarily organized by senior Cecily Lo. It was motivated, in part, by other student grassroots initiatives, as well as the Nasty Woman exhibition that started in Queens, and had sister pop-ups in cities across the United States. According to the mission statement on the show’s Facebook page, “Nasty Women x Tufts” was a response to the discriminatory policies of Donald Trump and his administration, as well as the hatred that he and his supporters promote. The statement describes it as an invitation “to join us in solidarity and protest through art.

Throughout this event we hope to provide anyone who identifies as a NASTY WOMAN—regardless of age, race, religion, and sexual orientation, gender or non-gender identification, and economic background—with a space for personal expression.” In an interview with the Tufts Observer, Lo stated, “I was taking all the submissions I got in an effort to be as uncensored as possible.” The event was also a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood. According to Lo, the event raised just under $2,500, more than five times the expected amount.

Liza Leonard, a senior who helped organize the event, told the Tufts Observer that “Nasty Women x Tufts” was inspired by Polykhrama’s first art show.

Polykhroma is a student-run “independent curating collective,” according to their Facebook page, that “encourage[s] active engagement among our community with the arts.” Seven of the eight members previously worked together at the Tufts Art Gallery on the Students Relation Committee and started the group after realizing there wasn’t a space at Tufts conducive to exhibiting student artwork. The first show was held in a member’s basement in December 2016.

In a group interview with the Tufts Observer, Polykhroma members Sarah Kotis, Rotana Shaker, Estelle Tcha, Ella Huzenis, and Eran Sapaner described their intentions for the collective.

“It’s not trying to be some sort of uptight endeavor; we’re trying to make it fun and accessible. We want to encourage engagement with art, making that a setting that people would want to go to and walk around and be a place to see performances.”

The group discussed the limitations of curators who are not part of the student body, and how this sometimes leads to lost nuances, and a misunderstanding of how to cohesively manipulate space. The curators prioritized the flow of the event, which reflected the group’s commitment to accessibility. Diverse contributing artists were thrilled with the size of the turnout, and the group was proud of the space they created. According to Kotis, “It was great to have a social event that was focused

ART BY ANNIE ROOME

Arts & Culture

around something, and an event that was important and can spark conversations.”

While “Nasty Women x Tufts” had more of an explicit political message, Leonard noted that Polykhroma’s December show created an atmosphere centered on the experience of the visitors.

She said, “I think it was really successful and we saw that this was something at Tufts that was lacking. People are interested in going out and socializing, but not just standing around and drinking.

They’re interested in talking about things and are interested in what other people are doing beyond just a frat party or a house party.”

Conflating the college nightlife scene with artist-oriented and expression-based projects is not unusual or ahistoric behavior, particularly in times of societal tension. The stigma of college parties as foolish spectacles has prevented many from recognizing the potential of these social spaces.

How Booze Built America, a 2012 docuseries from the Discovery Channel, discusses the role of the tavern in its premier episode, “America’s Revolution.” During colonial times, the tavern was an effective way to encourage trade amongst farmers and businessmen. A staple of colonial American culture, the tavern was a respected space that was both politically and socially important. And in Ancient Greece, discussions of the symposium, elite drinking events, were not ridiculed, but memorialized. This connection between alcohol, gathering, and critical thinking has transcended time in important ways. According to Quartz, over the weekend of January 26, 2017, French consulates in 30 cities across the world, including Brooklyn and Los Angeles, held a “Night of Ideas,” which the media referred to as “intellectual rave parties.” New student-focused initiatives led by Boston museums, such as the Museum of Fine Arts and the Institute of Contemporary Art, that involve all-night, booze-incorporated events harken back to this coupling of social activity and provocative idea-sharing.

Unlike the French consulate or a museum board of directors, the recent events emerging around campus operate independent of institutions. It is important to recognize that places like the cooperative-living Crafts House, the Arts House, and many other pockets of Tufts students, have been hosting art-focused gatherings for decades. In correspondence with the Tufts Observer, Crafts House resident and junior Nicole Joseph

describes some of the fun items, from large puppet heads to cockroach murals, displayed at their events. “We like to create a lot of art for the parties, which we think showcase the spirit of the house,” She said. “We like to provide an inclusive and fun time for all. We hope to be a place where people can cut loose and hang out with their friends and get to know new people.”

On the other end of the spectrum are sororities and fraternities, which no longer occupy the epicenter of campus social life. The recent suspension of virtually all Greek life activity is a historic moment in Tufts’ history, and it is interesting to see which spaces have emerged to fill some of the gaps. Increases in local bar-hopping are now being matched by events like Nasty Women x Tufts, Polykhroma, all-night techno dance parties, and house parties turned into Planned Parenthood fundraisers. Within the Tufts student body, social gatherings are often associated with wealth and exclusivity (just like the school itself), but increasingly, students are seeking spaces to gather in imaginative, welcoming ways.

Polykhroma’s student-oriented, inclusive structure seeks to disrupt convention in a different way. “We’re independent of Tufts, so that’s a really important part,” explained Shaker. “We are just people—we met through the Tufts Art Gallery—but we came together and didn’t want to have restrictions and everything imposed on us

by Tufts as an institution. We try to make it clear we are not Tufts affiliated.”

“I wanted it to be an alternative thing to do on campus,” said Lo about “Nasty Women x Tufts.”

“Not a party, but also not a movie, or something you would do regularly. I was surprised because it brought together a lot of circles of people who you normally wouldn’t find at the same party. And I also think people are looking for something to do on campus. I felt really good being able to provide that to people, and from the feedback I heard, I feel like it was worth their time.”

From art galleries to basement shows, there is a developing trend among Tufts students claiming independence in the spaces they can create.

Seeing how a Somerville basement can be transformed into an art gallery, a comedy club, or a Berlin-like light show is a necessary reminder of the valuable potential of social space. In a time of seeming powerlessness, these reimagined spaces offer a meaningful way to harness the power of art and collaboration.

February 6, 2017

Tufts Observer

11

Prose

When They Say Body

By Jessica Mar

When my momma says body, I think of eyes. I think of how she told me to keep myself covered, to keep eyes off of me. How her eyes bore sadness into mine when she saw my body changing. How her eyes became fire when my sister came home late at night in mini skirts. The eyes of her relatives scanning my face for a resemblance to my mother.

When my dad says body, I am 7-years-old on the couch, trying to get closer to him by watching television when he is watching. He loves watching National Geographic, how the cameras graze over landscapes like a journalist scans a crowd for news to tell. One time, he flips on the history channel instead to a documentary on the Rape of Nanking in 1937. How the black and white images of mutilated women’s bodies on the screen look like newspaper to me, bodies thrown and made old news.

His body becomes one that cannot connect brain and speech, he says nothing.

Fears what he says “won’t change anything about the world,” so says nothing. Fears words cannot reach me. Does not fear that his arms never reach me.

Recently, when I hear what Donald Trump says about bodies, I think of hands.

The hands of immigrants holding their heads as they sob. My aunts’ and uncles’ immigrant hands. Of my grandmother’s hands bearing jewelry she saved from what feels like a past lifetime—packrat hands. Hands with lines of memory.

Hands shifting furniture and found goods around to make room for more. My grandmother always knew how to make space for more.

Hands open, palms up, means welcoming. Means “I’ll keep it.” Means “I’ll take care of it.”

Hands raised means stop. Stop taking. Hands raised, resisting. Means “I won’t take this crap.” Means “my body is valuable.” Means “you don’t have a say in what my body means.” Hands raised, protecting. Protecting each other fiercely—now.

And trust me, you don’t want to catch these hands, Trump.

12

Tufts Observer

February 6, 2017

PHOTO BY JESSICA MAR

Feature

transparency.

by roxanne zhang

February 6, 2017

Tufts Observer

13

Feature

16

Tufts Observer

February 6, 2017

featuring rachel yang

let’s get free

Poetry

by sonofkwame the greatest voice once sang i believe the youth are the future i agree with her so bring me the heads of those who kill our children ya know, the ones who hoard the wealth and leave us poor folk with no freedom & resources just death & destruction i will put their heads on a silver platter i call it “serving the master” i do not believe in violence though i am birthed from it and ghetto confined to it i believe in peace i believe in the sacredness of nature and honoring all of humanity but those who deny i am human as if that’s natural well they compel me to enact a greater violence on them than they do on me after all that is all they seem to know so clearly that is the only way i will ever get free which is to say self-defense is not believing in violence but is sensible thinking if i want to live and not just barely survive

i long for the days where no bellies ever cry out from hunger where no homes are left empty where no mothers ever go from holding their babies in their wombs to holding them on the concrete paved with their babies’ blood because a cop was good at their job the world i’m struggling to build will have no cops, no prisons no poverty, no other current foul conditions i fight this fight so that one day and one day soon us people around the world who are forced to do all the work will own the materials we use to produce the wealth for bloodsucking capitalists yes, i’m talking about socialism now don’t be scared just get prepared all our material needs will be met so we can finally live like people are supposed to like we are human beings and not slaves not property not objects but people. that said, is you in or out?

ART BY SARAH KOTIS

February 6, 2017

Tufts Observer

17

Campus

“T

The Task at Hand Assessing the state of trans life at Tufts

By Emma Pinksy 18

Tufts Observer

February 6, 2017

rying to get gender neutral housing last year was terrible,” said junior Ray Bernoff.

“It’s fair, in that the people with the higher numbers have a better chance, but it’s not equitable since there are people with higher need for gender neutral environments.”

Securing gender-affirming housing, as Bernoff described, is just one of many structural difficulties that trans and nonbinary students at Tufts face. Much of Tufts’ infrastructure—from housing, to bathrooms, to gender markers on IDs and SIS/Trunk—relies on students’ binary genders, and often the ones they were assigned at birth.

“The majority of having any kind of safety or comfort at Tufts comes almost completely from self-advocacy and looking for resources that are not easy to find,” said Bernoff.

This, along with a general lack of visibility of trans students on campus, motivated Nino Testa to create the Transgender Support Task Force. When Testa took on the role of LGBT Center Director in 2014, he began comparing Tufts’ policies with the Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals’ list of Best Practices for Supporting Transgender Students.

“I saw that we were not where we needed to be,” said Testa.

Testa began working with individual departments at Tufts, but soon realized that “coordinating formal policies and informal practices at such a large scale really meant getting people in a room together to talk about intent and impact.” In the fall semester of 2016, Testa teamed up with then Chief Diversity Officer Mark BrimhallVargas to form the Transgender Support Task Force.

Sophomore Mar Freeman heard about the Task Force from Testa at the end of the 2016 spring semester.

“I facilitate T-Time [a discussion group for trans students] and am really involved in other LGBT Center groups, so Nino thought I would be interested.” Freeman said that this was generally the case for all of the students—around five—who attended the Task Force meetings.

Testa confirmed that he and BrimhallVargas selected students based on their

previous involvement in campus dialogue about transness.

“We asked students who were active leaders in the queer community, worked at the LGBT Center, and/or had written powerful, critical pieces about their experience as trans and nonbinary students in the Tufts Observer,” Testa said.

Within the structure of a task force, a large group size can sometimes be limiting.

Testa worried that too large a group would make the Task Force feel “more like a town hall as opposed to a working group.” So, only a handful of active students on campus were selected to participate.

“I was surprised that he didn’t think of me,” said Bernoff, who heard about the Task Force last semester from his housemate who was invited to join. “I’ve been pretty actively trans in a somewhat political way on this campus for, like, two years…why didn’t I hear about this? And why did I hear about it from someone who maybe wasn’t supposed to tell me about it?”

Trans and nonbinary Tufts students— both those who were invited to join the Task Force and those who were not—were unclear as to whether or not the Task Force was a secret group, and whether or not they could tell their friends about it.

Sophomore Conrad Young echoed this sentiment. Young, like Bernoff, did not hear about the Task Force until last semester during a Queer Students Association meeting. She was upset about the apparent secrecy of the group.

“It’s just so counterintuitive because it’s for the good of a marginalized community at Tufts—that should be public knowledge and information.” According to Young, the selectivity of the Task Force created a “moment where there was this huge tension within the trans community at Tufts.”

Freeman agreed that although it makes sense for Testa and Brimhall-Vargas to have selected students who were already active in the LGBT Center, that approach fundamentally overlooked groups of students who “do activism work but don’t really get involved with things put on by the university.” Freeman added, “For a lot of trans individuals, T-Time and LGBT

ART BY SARAH KOTIS

Campus

Center aren’t spaces for them to be, so they don’t get to know Nino very well, so they aren’t invited.”

Both Freeman and another Tufts undergraduate, who wished to remain anonymous, commented that the makeup of the student representatives on the Task Force was not representative of the trans population at Tufts.

“All of the students were White. That’s huge.” Freeman said, stating that this is also “pretty representative of people who attend LGBT Center events in general.”

“White trans communities differ from trans communities of color…trans people of color in this institution are working under two intersecting modes of silencing,” said Young, “and to not have any students on this task force only serves to literally further that silencing.” To Young, the job of Testa and Brimhall-Vargas was to advocate for marginalized groups on campus, and their selection of solely White trans and nonbinary students to sit on the task force further hurt the very communities they were supposed to serve.

“Even across racial locations, it’s such a small community [that is] really diverse in interests and in locations on campus, so it’s really hard to organize and come together as a trans community,” said Young.

According to Anne Moore, Program Specialist in Scholar Development, that’s the goal of the Task Force moving forward: to reach out to a larger portion of the trans population at Tufts through surveys and

focus groups. Moore, along with Professor Misha Eliasziw of the Tufts Graduate School of Medicine, will be co-heading the Task Force since both Testa and Brimhall-Vargas left Tufts last semester. Moore and Freeman both see the Task Force as a mechanism to involve a larger group in trans issues at Tufts.

“We’re working with focus groups now,” said Freeman, “which is something that I’m personally assigned to in the group.”

They said this is where the broader student involvement will happen—not within the Task Force itself, but rather in the structures, like focus groups, that it facilitates.

Moore said that the main goal of the Task Force is to put together a report on the state of trans life at Tufts to submit to Provost David Harris. The report will focus on three areas: bathrooms, housing, and name and gender marker change.

“I see this being ‘inside the system’ kind of work,” said Moore. “If you can have the official report on the state of trans life, that’s going to be an indicator that this is a place where the institution is interested in putting time and resources.”

Task Force will tackle issues that affect trans students on a daily basis: constructing more all-gender bathrooms, redesigning the housing system, and streamlining the process by which students can change their names and pronouns on official University documents. Additionally, Testa expressed hope that Eliasziw, who was already on the Task Force last semester,

The Task Force will tackle issues that affect trans students on a daily basis. will “help ensure that the scope of the task force [doesn’t] end up being Medford-centric, as is so often the case.” Moore views these changes as “very baseline to make sure the basic day-to-day human needs of trans folk are being met on campus.” She hopes that the Task Force will have even further lasting effects.

“Beyond, in a long term way, I’m hoping that these conversations will help contribute to an overall campus climate that is more inclusive, friendlier, and welcoming.”

If you are interested in participating in the Task Force through surveys and focus groups, contact Anne Moore at anne.moore@tufts.edu or mar.alan.freeman@gmail.com.

[The] selection of soley White trans and nonbinary students to sit on the task force further hurt the very communities they were supposed to serve.

February 6, 2017

Tufts Observer

19

Voices

Light Sent Home Through the Prism

By Aishvarya Arora

America’s shut mouth opens after decades to reel in a long breath and by 1998 pulls me over white clouds to streets and mirror towers in New York—the world upon landing, also White.

Pre-school is a time for learning fundamentals—how my name sounds snapped with an extra syllable and eating plain things everyone likes, like applesauce, swallowing its whitish mush teaches the far-propelling habit of not biting. On September 11th 2001 I bet Nickelodeon is still showing cartoons, not news, and win. But on CNN, the flag plugged into debris isn’t white and Lindsey’s parents tell her to tell me that she can’t come over anymore.

I print this into a new picture of myself and in 2004 beg to avoid white hot shame in the sullen gurudwara, surrounded by who’s to blame I hate all of our nothing-in-common, I’m already too full for langar. White light fractures in a prism and dissipates, and by 2008 I stamp my mother a new blueprint for her body too, “normal” jeans and shirts from JC Penney. Those years her new white hairs are more coarse and sinewy, alive and thrashing with the demanding, white electricity I wire to light our home. I promise Emily in 2011 that I’ll never kiss an Indian man, white knuckled, knowing them only as men like my father, who gave me this body I can’t hide anywhere. Push the like-poles of a magnet together and they will peel apart with enough White electromagnetism it will levitate the face of a continent, a nation. In 2013 I ask Rachel if I am white and she says no. I finally start to pin the blame.

20

Tufts Observer

February 6, 2017

Voices

How do you learn to hate yourself, and why?

What do you do with this hatred, to whom—and for whom? * When I was three years old I left India and moved to New York City with my mother and father. I didn’t know I had a “culture” to learn or forget, an “Indian self ’ to reconcile with, or to conceal. All I knew was that I had parents I loved and school to go to, fundamentals to learn: what to eat, how to dress, when Halloween was, English, and pronouncing my name a new way. I had some sense that I was different than the other students in my majority White Catholic school, that I’d have to catch up, like—what were Christmas trees and why were they asking what I put on top of mine? Still—I didn’t hate what I did have, didn’t hate my mother and her embroidered shalwar kameez, grabbing its silky folds under my hands when I met her at the end of unfamiliar schooldays, didn’t hate the lilting softness of her Hindi, I still loved the sounds that made the first grooves in my heart and mind. How did I learn to hate myself, and why? In first grade I had a best friend, Lindsay: a ginger-haired, White girl across the street, she had a razor scooter I loved, and we loved playing with rocks. Finally, my uncle got me my own Red Razor Scooter, a week after 9/11, and when I crossed the street to show her she gave me these words: “My parents told me I can’t hang out with you anymore.

Because of what happened to the towers.” This message: it is bad to be brown: brown people are terrorists: you’re brown: people think you’re a terrorist: get away from everything and everyone that could give you away. What do you do with hatred…I annotate the years in violence: shame and discomfort going to the Indian temple, shame and discomfort for my mothers clothing and her accent, shame and discomfort being seen with any South Asians, ever…To whom? I slash a rift heavy and deep: I became a person my parents couldn’t recognize, couldn’t talk to, an “American” in their home suddenly, a child aspiring to Whiteness. A rift: if they are on one side, I am on the other: if I hated myself for being South Asian, I hated them for being the ones that gave me this identity. For who? For who? * This moment is not new or original. It is a common story in Asian America—we are marked perpetually foreign, marked with the violence of American war abroad. In 1882 it was the Chinese Exclusion Act prohibiting the entry of Chinese laborers into the United States. This was the first American Law implemented to prohibit a specific ethnic group from entering the country and was not repealed until 1943. In 1942, it was Executive Order 9066. The government interned Japanese Americans for the duration of World War II. First, second, third generation—it didn’t matter if they were American citizens, didn’t matter if they had never been to Japan, didn’t matter that the State Department itself commissioned an extensive document on Japanese Americans called the Munson Report and did not find a single piece of evidence to garner suspicion. The violence of internment still reverberates. Masking racism as attention to national security is not new. After 9/11, it was Sikh Americans, Arab Americans, South Asian Americans—the list goes on and on and on—anyone that fits the image of a Muslim in the White gaze was, is, subject to physical and emotional harm. The new mask: a war on “Radical Islam.” The new laws have started coming and will not stop. * The violence is intimate: teaching folks of color to hate ourselves, to divide and weaken our own communities, to build internalized racism that takes years, lifetimes to recover from.

The violence is vast: immigration bans are breaking apart families, hate crimes are destroying lives, extreme surveillance and vetting like the Muslim registry are taking away our basic freedoms. The violence is urgent: in this political moment we must not reinscribe these mistakes, we must imagine otherwise, we must resist.

February 6, 2017

Tufts Observer

21

Opinion

22

Tufts Observer

February 6, 2017

ART BY TESS DENNISON

Opinion

On Art as Protest

By Tess Dennison

T

he morning after the election, my girlfriend and I were in a grocery store outside Boston. As we were browsing, I absentmindedly reached for her hand and then almost immediately withdrew mine. I had seen a large “Make America Great Again” sign near the parking lot, which made me feel nervous and uncertain about showing affection in public. However, this fear and discomfort felt small compared to the realities that many Americans woke up to that day, or have been facing in this country for years. Recognizing the power in that sign to make me feel so uncomfortable was a spark for me, and I started making art in an attempt to do the opposite.

I wanted to create a space to show solidarity, love, and community for people who were the most affected by this election and its aftermath—a place to demonstrate that although many of these issues have existed in America for years and years, we will not accept the normalization of our leader spewing hate and lies. On November 28, I created a Facebook group called “30 Days of Art as Protest,” in which I dedicated myself to creating a piece of protest art every day for 30 days. The project did not pretend to be a solution to the issues that we face, nor did it claim that these issues only began post-election; rather, it was a place to gather anger, hope, and support. Over 1,000 people joined, friends and strangers alike, and many posted inspiring art over the 30 days. While the project began as a reaction to the election, it grew from being centered around Trump and his administration to addressing broader emotions and issues—because it was never about just him. He is just a byproduct of greater societal problems, a mouthpiece for those who accept racism, sexism, xenophobia—the list goes on.

Art is successful as a form of resistance if it accomplishes three things: creates hope, amplifies underrepresented

narratives, and inspires further action.

As a queer woman attempting to start an art initiative, I was interested in the resistance art movement centered on LGBT+ rights and the HIV/AIDS crisis. I began by researching the rainbow Pride Flag, which has become a symbol of the diverse and inclusive nature of the LGBT+ movement. According to Julia Zorthian, an artist named Gilbert Baker designed the flag for San Francisco’s pride parade in 1987.

With the help of his boyfriend Jomar Teng, as well as 30 others, the flag was dyed and stitched with the colors of the rainbow to represent the different colors, genders, and races the community welcomes. The flag amplified the queer narrative by giving the community a symbol to rally around, creating hope for a growing movement in San Francisco, and inspiring action as people waved and hung the flag to show their pride.

As the government and mainstream media largely ignored the HIV/AIDS crisis, a guerrilla art group emerged to resist: Gran Fury. This group, according to Steven Heller, created the iconic “SILENCE = DEATH” graphic in 1987, and in 1989 they began disseminating their piece “Kissing Doesn’t Kill: Greed and Indifference Do.” Their advertising campaigns appeared on buses, in museums, and across a variety of public spaces to counter stigma around HIV/AIDS and increase awareness. Around this time, another artist, Keith Haring, was creating art with a similar message around embracing sexuality and the disastrous governmental passivity around the AIDS crisis. Haring’s art created a unique visual language to portray radiant queer love and rally people to act on the HIV/AIDS epidemic. By discussing LGBT+ issues at a time when it was still taboo, Baker, Gran Fury, and Haring used art to shed light on this marginalized narrative, give support and hope to the queer community, and inspire people to act, therefore creating a successful resistance art movement.

Seeing the vibrant community that formed around “30 Days of Art as Protest”—a community that exists in the nascent post-election movement to make America love, learn, and listen again—hasbeen humbling and powerful. The watercolor dreams that people posted, the redolent inky poetry, and the passionate videos are all seeds of hope. Their art discusses issues that mainstream media has been too uncomfortable or oblivious to publicize, and it has inspired me (and hopefully others) to action: making phone calls, signing petitions, and showing up to marches and rallies. Although there are days when the injustices and tragedies seem overwhelming, I no longer feel the way I did in the grocery store that morning. I am louder and prouder than ever—fueled by the hope that in some small way we can continue the resistance of artists that came before and join those who are creating radical art now.

In America today, there seems to be a growing empathy deficit—two sides, each struggling to understand the experiences of the other. I see art as one solution to bridge this gap because, in a way, all art is resistance. It brazenly defies boundaries, resisting the binaries we are relentlessly tempted to fall back on: good or bad, liberal or conservative. With its unending nuance, art prevents us from succumbing to these binaries because it can be interpreted 100 different ways by 100 different people. It can never be distilled into just one side or one argument. Now, more than ever, art holds a crucial place in our resistance. It has the ability to restore hope, represent the marginalized, and inspire people to take action. Over the next four years, I urge everyone capable to make as much art as possible—cover your walls with art, turn streets into chalk murals. Let’s inundate the current administration with art until they are drowning in paint and their ugly actions are covered with radiant brushstrokes.

February 6, 2017

Tufts Observer

23

News

Rage Against the Regime

W

By Alexis Tatore with reporting by Alexandra Benjamin

ith a 36 percent approval rating, President Donald Trump will not commence his presidency with the optimism that most recent presidents have enjoyed. Rather, his administration has faced resistance from the start, with #DisruptJ20 protestors blockading entryways on Inauguration day. On the day after his Inauguration, protesters took to the streets against his administration and values in an organized Women’s March. With 500,000 people in Washington D.C. and 673 marches worldwide, the fervor reverberated across the globe in defense of women’s issues and other progressive causes.

A few days later, starting on Saturday, January 28, thousands gathered at airports across the country protesting his recent executive order on immigration. The opposition does not stop there. Additional protests have already been planned in defense of science and LGBT rights in the upcoming weeks. With a historically low approval rating and two widely-publicized protests only two weeks into his presidency, his administration is rife with controversy and instability.

The organizers of the Women’s March called for a protest dedicated to 24

Tufts Observer

February 6, 2017

ending violence, as well as preserving reproductive rights, LGBTQIA rights, worker’s rights, civil rights, disability rights, immigrant rights, and environmental justice. First-year Anna Kim shared what she believed was most remarkable about the Boston protest.

“Something that stood out to me was the variety of people there. There were people aged from babies to grandmothers—it was cool to see such a multi-generational thing.”

It was a march for progressivism rather than strictly women’s issues. When Senator Elizabeth Warren spoke in Boston, she remarked, “We can whimper, we can whine or we can fight back. Me, I’m here to fight back.” By uniting several causes, Senator Warren called for action to translate the spirit of the protest into palpable political change. With over two million participants worldwide, the marches signify vehement resistance to the Trump administration—but the question remains, What’s next?

“The march does something to show that people care, but it’s going to take legislative action to enact change. Are people going to call their senators and representa-

tives? How do we care to place our votes?

I think that’s going to be more powerful than marching, based off how Trump has reacted to the march itself,” first-year Kate Lamberti said.

Another first-year, Maddy Reid, believes this spirit will remain alive long after the march. She described how a spontaneous rally broke out on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial the next day, filled with people hugging and chanting.

“After they stood with everyone and felt the power of collective determination, I think people will be more likely to try harder,” she said.

While the need to mobilize these participants is clear to the Democratic Party, the means of doing so remains uncertain.

Following President Trump’s surprise victories in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, some Democratic activists, such as Tom Vilsack, called for a policy tilt toward the White working class. In their minds, Hillary Clinton’s message of “Stronger Together” failed to address this cohort’s grievances. However, other activists, like Cornell Belcher, urge the party to remain cohesive and stress solidarity. They fear that a new focus on White working

News

class workers will deemphasize their racial and social concerns.

Various divisions among liberals came to light during the Women’s March.

Several protestors’ signs included images of uteruses, linking them to womanhood, which many felt excluded trans women. A queer sophomore who preferred to remain anonymous remarked, “My main issue was with the transphobic assertion that womanhood is tied to being biologically female. Feminism should be intersectional and it’s upsetting when big movements like the [W]omen’s [M]arch fail to do so.” Others felt that women of color and their issues were underrepresented at the march, further undermining the idea of inclusivity. By not fostering a sense of community for all, progressive organizations risk promoting the very same marginalization that they fear will occur under the Trump administration. As senior James Gordon urged, “We must be careful […] that this reclamation does not come to define and normalize what our resistance can look like. If our resistance is to be effective, we must be vigilant that it is intersectional and that it is inclusive.”

Only a few days after the Women’s March, crowds began to gather in airport terminals. Thousands protested an executive order that bans entry to the United States for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries and for all refugees over the next 120 days. Like the Women’s March, these protests were embraced by notable Democratic politicians such as Governor Andrew Cuomo (NY), Mayor Bill de Blasio (NY), and Senator Corey Brooker (D-NJ). Tufts Political Science Professor Richard Eichenberg explained that the mass public support is likely driving politicians to involve themselves.

“The rallies and protests have mobilized tens of thousands of people, and politicians are taking notice,” he said.

Several lawyers also offered free counsel to those adversely affected by the executive order, including refugees, government translators, and college students. Temporary relief came after a federal judge in New York ruled citizens of the seven banned countries could not be removed from the United States. Howev-

er, fear arose once again once authorities and protesters learned that Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents were ignoring the ruling.

While the Women’s March largely attracted attention from the left, the executive order on immigration has received harsh criticism across party lines. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) issued a joint statement that described the order as a “self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism.”

They continued to warn, “This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country. That is why we fear this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security.”

Yet, this bipartisan opposition has not swayed President Trump’s actions.

Instead, he released a statement on Sunday evening in defense of his ban, writ-

“The rallies and protests have mobilized tens of thousands of people, and politicians are taking notice.” ing, “To be clear, this is not a Muslim ban—this is about terror and keeping our country safe.” He further dismissed the protests by tweeting on Monday that “only 109 people out of 325,00 were detained and held for questioning.” However, both these statements were later found to be false. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani revealed that Trump consulted him explicitly about how to legally conduct a “Muslim ban.” Furthermore, the New York Times and other outlets reported much larger numbers of detainees than Trump originally stated.

Though President Trump might try to appear unfazed, the protests have certainty irked him and created controversy immediately at the start of his presidency. In an interview with the

Tufts Observer, Professor Roberto Stefan Foa of the University of Melbourne reflected on how the president might seek to restore power in his administration. He believes that President Trump will try to achieve his policy objectives swiftly to give a perception of control and success.

“Protests across the world may have gained visibility, but it will be in the United States that Trump needs to consolidate his weak mandate. In order to do that, he will seek to score policy victories early in his first term. It is by highlighting his failures in this regard, that protestors could undermine his legitimacy in the eyes of voting Americans.”

After already passing executive orders on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines, scientific funding, “the wall,” travel to the US from certain specific Muslim-majority nations, and more, Professor Foa’s prediction seems to be turning into a reality. President Trump is not waiting for triumphs during his first 100 days—he is already acting boldly in the first ten.

Eichenberg expanded upon this idea, asserting that President Trump will not reverse his controversial actions.

“One thing you can be sure of—Donald Trump will not stop doing things that provoke opposition. If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that these things will happen on almost a daily basis. The real question is how much time and energy people have, but so far I don’t see any sign that it’s abating.”

Professor Eichenberg seemed optimistic about this prospect, predicting that the current protests might transpire into a Democratic version of the Tea Party movement during the 2010 midterm elections.

“In many ways this is the Democrat’s side of the Tea Party mobilization in 2009,” Eichenberg said. “Obama started taking initiatives and the Tea Party started mobilizing to stop or modify his policies. Their rallies, though certainly not as huge, were still getting candidates to enter primaries, to replace congressional representatives—it’s all very similar to what’s happening now.”

February 6, 2017

Tufts Observer

25

Feature Arts & Culture

The Enduring Appeal of Modern

By Oly Huzenis

T

he past few years have seen the development of a new social imperative in narrative media. TV shows, books, and articles all seem to be trying to capture a more modern notion of love— what love looks like in the 21st century, the age of technology, social media, sprawling cities, where gay families and transgender parents, while not ubiquitous, increasingly inhabit our TV screens and the pages of our magazines. This type of love is the kind that shows like “Insecure,” “Transparent,” and the web series “Her Story” attempt to capture. Even as these shows and their alternative narratives work to displace what are often seen as the dominant strain of White, heteronormative romance in our ‘modern’ cultural canon, we can see similar narratives in the New York Times weekly column “Modern Love,” a collection of reader-submitted essays that seeks to explore the nature of its ambitious title.

Started in 2004 by Times editor Daniel Jones, the column has quickly risen in prominence, and continues to be among the most searched terms on the New York Times website. Jones, who still personally reads and responds to the more than 7,000 submissions he receives per year, told the news media site Current that he wanted to develop a column “that had intimate, real personal, revealing essays about relationships” but admits that the scope of the column has widened considerably as the volume of submissions has grown.

26

Tufts Observer

February 6, 2017

What makes “Modern Love” so popular that, in one of the largest and most prestigious publications in the world, it remains one of the most-read columns? For a newspaper known for its “hard news,” people are still clamoring in large numbers to the “Modern Love” page looking for…what exactly? In the words of junior Charlotte Hoffman, who says she has read the column every Sunday since she was a freshman in high school, “Modern Love covers every scope of love imaginable— familial, sexual, parental, friendship…it’s not afraid to tackle different strains of love, and not just gay couples but divorcées or adoptive parents.”

Perhaps what contributes to the appeal of “Modern Love,” now in its 13th year of publication with a new accompanying podcast, is that it has evolved beyond a mere discussion of romantic love; it’s about sexual identity, loss, death, the loneliness of big cities, memory and nostalgia, gender politics, the crushing rejection of an online romance or the thrill of a chance encounter.

One popular essay tells the story of how a father’s experience caring for his five-yearold daughter’s dying fish conjures memories of caring for his dying parents and his own brush with cancer. It is as much a meditation on mortality as it is about love, love for a $3 fish. These stories demonstrate that “Modern Love” is more than just a document of romantic lament or exploit. It is a diary of the modern human experience in all its triumphant nuance.

ART BY RACHEL CUNNINGHAM

Arts &Feature Culture

Love Many contributors articulate a feeling of wistfulness in their stories, the frustration and disappointment they feel in their modern lives, adventures and fulfillment they thought would be guaranteed by virtue of finding a long-term companion or moving to New York City. One woman recalls a drunken interaction with a coworker, during which he asked to suck her toes in a shared taxi home, claiming it was his last wish before he would be married the following week. As a kind of protest against her self-proclaimed jadedness, she obliged, and was struck when her coworker reported a similar experience months later with the man offering the same line as persuasive bait. Instead of anger or disgust, she felt admiration for the man who, in her words, was “so focused on his dream that he had managed, through simple boldness—and a dash of deception— to make it come true again and again” (New York Times). To a woman who had continually compromised her dreams to live in what she thought to be the city of dreams, this was an admirable, if bizarre, feat.

“Modern Love” is unique not only for its portrayal of the various identities and family structures so pervasive in our modern culture, but also because it chafes against many of the inherently negative connotations associated with romance in contemporary life.

Much of dominant media portrays modern romance as a plight, where the individual is continually thwarted by the isolating nature of technology and the increasing emphasis on casual, non-committal relationships.

There is a tendency in cultural representa-

tion of this sort of modern love and a tendency in this cultural moment more generally to comment on modern life through the lens of irony and sarcasm. Certainly some of the authors who contribute to “Modern Love” employ irony and sarcasm in their writing, but the real power of the columns lies principally in their unflinching sincerity.

As senior Sophie Krakoff explains, the column is “emotionally intense without being satirical.” In one woman’s tale of her Tinderinspired pursuit of a local Brooklyn baker, she remembers how, after weeks of frequenting his bakery, she finally worked up the courage to ask the baker on a date; when she was rebuffed, however, she didn’t reflect bitterly on the futility of dating apps or of meeting people in today’s world—the overwhelming thesis of many stories like this.

“Modern Love” is rarely about transcendent loves or soul-crushing breakups, but the small interactions—a stranger met on an airplane, the platonic relationship shared with a building doorman, the inexplicable love for a pet fish—that cause us to reflect about the nature of love itself, love in modern times, and how it shapes us as individuals. There is a nakedness to these stories, a nakedness that can only come from the communal nature of a reader-based column, that is rarely encountered in today’s media landscape. As Hoffman said, “Even though there are different authors, the voice of the column seems to carry through. You know it’s a modern love, even if you read it out of context.”

February 6, 2017

Tufts Observer

27

Meet The Columnists Read their columns online at tuftsobserver.org starting February 6

Chris Dowd

“The New Ned Ludd”

This mini-series will peek into a future Tufts community to explore the impacts of existential technologies on student life. Chris is a senior from San Francisco studying International Relations and Economics. He is fascinated by the evolution of American cities and women’s shoe design.

Kate Hirsch

“Kate Hirsch the Famous Tennis Player”

When Kate Hirsch was a first-year, she decided it would be a good idea to lie to everyone she met and tell people she was a famous tennis player.

Later, she wrote a column about it and revealed to the world her true self—a queer, mediocre athlete who took tennis lessons a couple of times a week in eighth grade. This semester, she’s back, she’s definitely (not) better than ever, and she’s ready to take on the column world one piece at a time. Stay tuned for a story of love, loss, resistance, resilience, and finding your #trueself. It’s going to be a wild ride.

Sasha Hulkower

“Tiger Print Journal”

I’ve been journaling with diligent inconsistency since the 4th grade, when I wrote in my pink and gold tiger-print notebook, “Mommy said if I want to be a writer, I should start keeping a diary.” I then forgot to follow up with a second entry for roughly four months. I’d like to think that I’ve grown in the past decade, so over the course of this semester, I’ll be revisiting all of the partially-filled, tear-stained notebooks that chronicle the last ten years of my life as I think about the personal growth I’ve experienced, and continue to experience, every day.

Georgie Oldham

“Wear & Tear”

Each illustrated installment of “Wear & Tear” will be a little different. The column will dare to go deep inside the modern wardrobe and the daily trials and tribulations that come with it. Installments will feature stylin’ stories about everything, from the 8th-grade-formal dress you did bring to college, to your dad’s 1980s ski clothes (neon, of course) that you tried to wear to your 8:00 a.m. last week.

29

Tufts Observer

February 6, 2017

ART BY ANNIE ROOME

February 6, 2017

Tufts Observer

31

Tufts Observer Since 1895 www.tuftsobserver.org observer@tufts.edu @tuftsobserver

please recycle