Fall 2016 Issue 2

Tufts Observer

VOLUME CXXXI, ISSUE 2

October 10, 2016

Who Trusts Fact-Checkers?

Mental Illness & Ableism in Tufts' Policies

TUTV's First Women of Color Producers

Page 20

Page 22

Page 8

The Roots & Routes 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 effect positive change.

@tuftsobserver www.tuftsobserver.org

October 10, 2016 Volume CXXXI, Issue 2 Tufts Observer, SInce 1895 Tufts’ Student Magazine

Theme This week we’re thinking about roots as histories, causes, and the origins of political ideology and identity, and routes as an examination of means and methods of reaching endpoints both physical and ideological. How do roots and routes intersect and diverge in your life?

Staff Editor-In-Chief // Carly Olson Managing Editor // Eve Feldberg Creative Director // Chase Conley

Section Editors

Web Columns // Jordan Lauf Features // Sahar Roodehchi News // Will Norris & Claire Selvin Opinion // Julia Doyle & Ben Kesslen Campus // Greta Jochem & Emma Pinsky Web // Susan Kaufman & Misha Linnehan Arts & Culture // Carissa Fleury & Jamie Moore Tech & Innovation // Lily Hartzell & Lauren Samuel

Art, Photo, & Design

Art Directors // Nina Hofkosh-Hulbert & Rachel Cunningham Lead Artists // Jake Rochford & Annie Roome Photo Director // Lily Herzan - Photo Editor // Kyle Scott Designers // Abigail Barton, Alexandra Benjamin, Josh Goodman, Caroline Smith, Hannah Vigran & Conrad Young

Multimedia

Publicity // Yumi Casagrande & Ashley Miller Video // Anastasia Antonova, Evie Bellew, Aaron Watts & Luke Zhao Interactive // Gabby Bonfiglio, Jade Chan, Danielle Kong & Kayden Mimmack

Writing & Copy

Staff Writer // Katie Saviano Lead Copy Editor // Dana Guth Copy Editors // Matt Beckshaw, Henry Jani, Julia Press, Sivi Satchithanandan

Contributors Tess Dennison, Morgan Freeman, Noah Harris, Emma Herdman, Yaa Kankam-Nantwi, Liam Knox, Sarah Kotis, Madeline Lee, Morgan Leppla, Olivia Meyer-Jennette, Muna Mohamed, Maya Pace, Ben Rutberg

Contents

20

News

22

Opinion

24

Tech & Innovation

The Truth Spectrum Ableism in the Tufts From Charlie Cards Administration to Uber Cars Sahar Roodehchi Lauren Samuel & Lily Hartzell

Brianna Lavelle POETRY

FEATURE

2

Your Opinion is Now Live Anastasia Antonova & Maya Pace

12 Too Infinite Liam Knox PHOTO INSET

NEWS

6

A New American Conservatism Claire Selvin

13 Headshots PROSE

17 Digging Towards Home Liza Leonard

ARTS & CULTURE

8

ARTS & CULTURE

roots.

Interview with Muna Mohamed & Yaa Kankam-Nantwi

18 What Makes a Household

Name?

Morgan Leppla

CAMPUS

OPINION

10 Our Forgotten Publication

26 Go ‘Bos?

Katie Saviano

Morgan Freeman COVER // ART BY SARAH KOTIS & TESS DENNISON // PHOTO BY NOAH HARRIS

Your Opinion is Now Live

Navigating Controversial Discourse in Online Forums

By Anastasia Antonova & Maya Pace

2

Tufts Observer

October 10, 2016

ART BY EMMA HERDMAN

Feature

F

acebook prohibits hate speech. Ideological debate, on the other hand, is encouraged. Given increasing intensity surrounding topics such as race, free speech, gender, and sexuality, how do we discern between what is controversial hate speech and what is contrarily a difference of opinion? How does that, in turn, shape the way we react?

The difference between fundamental disagreement and pure hate speech can be difficult to pinpoint. When this ambiguous language appears online, things can get even messier, given the public nature and quick type-and-enter posts and comments. These aspects of online engagement create a discourse that can be overwhelming to navigate. Yet, there are trends and guidelines one can use to engage conscientiously in these virtual forums.

Students use similar mental frameworks to define what material constitutes an “inflammatory” post online. Benya Kraus, Diversity & Community Affairs Officer on TCU Senate and a Tufts junior, labels material on public forums, especially at Tufts, as controversial or inflammatory depending on the “amount of attention it’s gotten,” which she measures with the number of comments, likes, shares, and the presence of derogatory words present in the comments. Eric Snyder, another junior at Tufts, gave a similar description.

“It’s easy to spot it when you see it,” he said, noting that certain trigger words will often label something as controversial within the Tufts community. Claudia Mihm, also a junior, agreed. “Anything that expresses views that are commonly opposed,” she said, has the potential to be inflammatory.

Kraus, Snyder, and Mihm all expressed some wariness about getting involved in these types of posts through commenting, particularly given the depersonalization of an online platform. Paul Joseph, Professor of Sociology at Tufts, explained that online

forums allow certain ideas to receive validation that perhaps shouldn’t be given the amount of attention they receive. “You can legitimate people or positions that deserve to be banished to the sidelines,” he said.

Social media can allow potentially violent ideas to be given as much credibility as nonviolent ones. In conjunction, the credibility of the source is hardly vetted or questioned. Since anyone is free to post online, the author’s credibility is not of paramount importance—individuals don’t have to prove their qualifications to say things, unlike on traditional journalistic editorials.

Joseph noted that the reality of digital engagement today often has us “focus on the performance”—things like grammar mistakes or issues in form—rather than the actual content of what is being said. He cited the presidential debate as an example, expressing that he believes the rules of the debate allow for viewers to compliment Trump’s performance while allowing him to avoid criticism of the actual ideas he expressed. By focusing on the performance, Trump and his ideas still get airtime, but remain somewhat insulated from criticism that could dismantle them.

While focus on form can’t dismantle hate speech, the use of anger in response to controversial or violent content is more nuanced. Anger was considered by some students to be potentially ineffective, if not harmful, forms of engagement, especially when it takes the form of a personal attack.

There’s “danger when your anger turns blind,” said Kraus. “How do you channel that anger?” She believes that people often should feel angry about the content they are seeing, but asks people to consider whether they are using their anger as a “bridge” to “unite” others, or whether it is splitting people apart. Unproductive engagement for Kraus occurs “when the language starts turning into personally attacking.” Joseph

October 10, 2016

Tufts Observer

3

Feature

echoed this sentiment, noting that best practices for engaging with inflammatory material include the guideline “don’t attack the person, attack the position.”

Senior David Ferrándiz disagrees.

“I defend the short-term expressions of ‘You’re fucking stupid and this is why,’ because even though we do need to clarify the ways in which systems of power uphold violent configurations so that we may collectively dismantle them, it’s not the exclusive role of the oppressed or marginalized groups to teach,” he said.

Posting a comment like the example Ferrándiz brings up can create a sense of support. Senior Jessica Howard said, “There is something worthwhile to letting other people know that there are people who don’t agree with the original content and that when you put things out there, you have to take responsibility for the potential of backlash, especially online and in blogs where people can just write and not expect there to be consequences.”

These consequences can—and will— come regardless of an original poster’s intention. Senior Rasika Sethi, a queer woman of color and an international student at Tufts, explained, “[The poster] might not think it’s harmful, because they’re just expressing free speech, but it can be really painful for people from marginalized communities. You’re triggering a huge wound with your words. Everyone has a responsibility to take care of how they’re speaking. The word is so important. Be careful with it.”

Sethi continued to explain how those who comment on problematic posts can often alienate others, even if they stand as allies against hate speech. She notes that specific academic vocabulary can be a barrier to dialogue and can alienate people from participating. “[Scholastic terminology] might be useful for people who don’t experience oppression or maybe people who do and want to pinpoint it, but I would describe oppression not through jargon but through personal stories. [Using academia] can leave already marginalized people feeling excluded from the conversation,” said Sethi.

4

Tufts Observer

October 10, 2016

In order to combat harmful rhetoric, Mihm expressed that she first has to “judge whether [she’s] qualified to challenge” the content in the post. Mihm explained that she often feels she doesn’t have the “proper vocabulary to write a response that would spark a conversation.” To work around this feeling, she will often attempt to lift up the words of others by sharing relevant articles or highlighting quotes she finds importance, in order to show her support.

Perhaps this is what Kraus is attempting to do: she said that she “look[s] at the conversation that’s already going on, and if there’s a narrative that [she] think[s] is missing,” that’s when she decides to add her voice. While such engagement takes energy

Online platforms are not always, but can be, an important tool to gain exposure to critical modes of thought and action, and advance conversations diagnosing violence and proposing solutions and adds to the space that the content itself takes up, if the result is creating a “net positive,” as Mihm put it, then it’s worth it.

“There needs to be a counternarrative...to that violent space that person has taken up,” shared Kraus.

She also acknowledges that remaining cognizant of the space one’s own contributions are taking up is important as well. “I try to make my point get across in as inclusive a way as I can,” she said. “It’s not because I’m prioritizing comfort of the poster, but I think when you are able to have as inclusive a dialogue as possible I think that’s when things can actually change.”

Feature

Joseph agreed. “Based on who the person you are talking to, you have to find common language that focuses on the language not the person.” Ultimately, you have to “talk in a way that encourages buy in,” he said. However, this is complicated. Kraus added that one has to consider if one is being “inclusive for comfort or for change.”

Still, transitioning online conversations into real actions can be difficult. Ferrándiz and Kraus both stated that it’s important to ground online arguments into substantial actions outside the screen in order for them to be productive.

“Online platforms are not always, but can be, an important tool to gain exposure to critical modes of thought and action, and advance conversations diagnosing violence and proposing…solutions,” Ferrándiz said. Kraus agreed: “In order for real change to be made it has to manifest in real life too,” she said.

Sometimes, these challenging conversations are best had in person rather than online. Having a more private and personal forum for discussion “necessitates some sort of compromise because you’re forced to recognize that this other person you’re talking to is a human,” shared Snyder.

“There’s a performing aspect that comes with the public forum,” noted Mihm, also explaining that smaller discussions can lead to “education and learning from each other and [become] less about fitting in.”

There are endeavors on campus that work to facilitate productive discourses and positive change, and these are being taken off of the web.

One such student organization is the Union, a group looking to create a formal setting for public discourse on international, national, and Tufts-centric issues. “By virtue of not having discussions in person, a lot of things online can be ignored, misinterpreted, or blown out of proportion,” said Nimarta Narang. She, along with Manal Cheema and Elizabeth Ahrens, are the co-directors of the organization formed this semester. Cheema explained that a big problem could be that discourse online can simply get lost in translation

and transmission. “An actual conversation…worth having becomes lost after it gets condemned because it was introduced poorly [online],” she said.

The Union aims to have eight debates with timed sessions to talk and audience participation in the form of questions and comments. On part of the Union’s formula aiming at effective conversation. “By having paper speeches, the speakers can present their arguments fully … in a structured way as to not let it digress away from the actual topic at hand,” Cheema said.

Besides emerging campus groups, there are also existing leaders on campus who are here to facilitate in-person discussion, although their roles as such might not always be visible. Senior Tafari Duncan is the student chair for the Committee of Student Life, a student-faculty committee that makes important decisions and changes to student policy at Tufts.

He explained that a lot of the policies in the student handbook are decided by the CSL. “One of my challenges as the student chair for the CSL, which is supposed to be involved in student life and change policy, has been to get students involved in the process. For example, when we were amending the code of conduct, I realized this is a huge deal because we were literally rewriting, in some cases, the rules. I tried to reach out to students on the class pages and through attending clubs…yet no one brought up anything to me.”

Duncan doesn’t think this represents a lack of student interest. Political discourse is thriving on social media, both on campus and on a national scale. What’s preventing action, according to Duncan, is the sentiment that there is no outlet for people to express those controversial opinions and get policy change. “A lot of people assume that [student government] can’t help them,” Duncan said.

Though students expressed the importance of taking these conversations into the world beyond online forums, this does not always happen. “Sometimes the only place where these conversations are happening is online,” Kraus said. “Engaging online can be so powerful.”

October 10, 2016

Tufts Observer

5

News

A New American Conservatism

by Claire Selvin

I

n 2013, Stephen Bannon, former Executive Chairman of Breitbart, a conservative news website, spoke against the Republican establishment in Washington D.C., calling for a populist insurrection “to continue to hammer this city, both the progressive left and institutional Republican party.”

Three years later, in August 2016, Bannon became Chief Executive Officer of the Trump Campaign. Establishment Republicans in recent history have not allied themselves so directly with media moguls and vice versa, so this partnership represents an unprecedented shift in Republican campaigning. Bannon was formerly a United States Navy Officer and then an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, and he has also directed and produced films such as Fire from the Heartland: the Awakening of the Conservative Woman. Conor Friedersdorf wrote that month in the Atlantic, “Bannon’s visceral hatred of the left and self-righteous desire to destroy it frequently appears to overwhelm whatever other moral or ideological beliefs he holds.” According to Friedersdorf, Bannon’s anti-leftist sentiments have overwhelmed his work in media and left little room for accuracy and plenty of space for outrage, turning Breitbart into “a propaganda arm of the Trump campaign.”

“There’s always fear mongering in American politics so I think [sites like Breitbart] appeal to those who are worried about the American future and their role in America,” said Jeffrey Berry, Professor of Political Science at Tufts and co-author

6

Tufts Observer

October 10, 2016

of The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility. “Breitbart is certainly alternative in the sense that it is very conspiracy-oriented. Breitbart and similar websites have lots of articles that are, if not fantasy, then representative of very extreme points of view that are not based on real journalism. They have less respect for data and hard journalism precepts.”

Breitbart’s tab titled “2016: The Race” features articles heavily biased in favor of Trump and against Hillary and Bill Clinton.

One article’s title features the phrase “Crooked Hillary,” a phrase coined by Trump himself, and in the “National Security” section of the site, one can find an article headlined, “Mexico Sees Spike in Death Cult, Demonic Possession, Exorcisms.”

“This stuff isn’t like the old Republican or Conservative politics.

This is different: far more xenophobic and far more nationalistic,” said Professor of Political Science at Tufts and President and Founder of the New Democrat Network, Simon Rosenberg.

Breitbart’s overt, and therefore novel, display of xenophobia and racism mirrors the transformation that the Republican Party is seeing with Trump’s candidacy.

According to Rosenberg, Trumpian Conservatism is a “cousin” of other strains of Republican rhetoric that America has already seen.

“Trump is articulating something that feels different, and it is. There has been, historically, in the modern era, an outwardly focused, globally oriented political party, and a more nativistic, parochial Republican party. There’s

part of the Republican Party that is still focused on the Chamber of Commerce, growth, capitalism, etc. Trump is far more avowedly nativistic and, arguably, anticapitalist,” Rosenberg said.

Political Science Department Chair and Professor Deborah Schildkraut explained that this shift in the Republican ethos to one more focused on White nationalism depends on factors like immigration, the Obama presidency, the rise of the Tea Party, and the 2010 midterm elections. Professor Berry noted that demographic changes in America have inspired feelings of uncertainty within White, often-rural communities at different points in the country’s history, including today.

“There’s frequently a nationalist or much more extreme-oriented sector that’s less committed to small government and business and more committed to working to protect certain peoples’ rights, White rights,” he said. “There’s also a reaction against growing numbers of minority people in the United States, and a feeling that an ‘American way of life’ has been lost.

Trump appealed to that constituency in a much more direct way than any of the other candidates.”

Schildkraut believes that the prominence of the Tea Party, a grassroots movement with the idea of “taking America back” from big government as its core message, in recent elections propelled Trump to his current position in the Republican Party.

“I think it’s very unlikely that [Trump] would have been as successful as he is

News

without the Tea Party, even though he is not aligned with the Tea Party and does not use that label to describe himself,” she said.

“I think it’s fairly clear that this is the case of the Tea Party phenomenon working its way up the political food chain in that you have a Republican political establishment that just doesn’t know what to do.”

Internal factors within the party also contributed to changes in Republican ideology. The 2010 mid-term elections saw substantial gains for Republicans in Congress. Schildkraut explained that there was huge pressure for Republicans to move further right, while establishment leaders were left in the minority with little voice.

This new, extreme, fringe conservatism that is xenophobic, nativistic, and antiglobal at its core is not present only in the United States.

“This is not happening in a vacuum.

There are similarities to what’s happening in Europe but it’s not the same,” Rosenberg said.

European nations are taking strong stances against immigration in the midst of the Syrian refugee crisis. A Pew Research Center survey revealed that in Greece and Italy, over half the sample population said that growing diversity makes their countries worse places to live. Another Pew Research Center poll showed that over half the populations of 8 out of the 10 countries surveyed believe that refugees will increase the likelihood of terrorism on their soil.

Though the rhetoric may be similar globally, Rosenberg points out how the United States and Europe are separate entities, each with its own distinct past and present.

“I think our country is very different and it’s not going to play as well here, that’s my own view. We have a completely different history with migration and race than Europe does,” Rosenberg said. “What [Trump] is doing is conflating the terrorism in Europe with domestic threats.”

Rosenberg also hinted at troubling connections between Trump and Russia.

Trump has claimed that Obama founded

ART BY JAKE ROCHFORD

ISIS and has blamed both Obama and Clinton for strife in Syria though Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has supported President Bashar al-Assad militarily.

Moreover, Russia seems responsible for both hacking DNC emails and infiltrating Clinton Campaign data in July; this occurred following a public statement

by Trump encouraging hackers to search through Clinton’s data.

“He had all the time in the world to denounce the Russians for interfering in the election and he’s never criticized them for anything,” Rosenberg said.

It seems this election has changed the Republican party irrevocably and indelibly.

Rosenberg suggests that, aside from his racist rhetoric, this aspect of Trump’s campaign is another reason why establishment Republicans have distanced themselves from him. Trump appears willing to compromise the democratic process in order to win the election.

Rosenberg, who has worked in politics in Arizona, cites the Arizona Republic’s endorsement of Clinton on September 27 as an “unimaginable event” considering the publication’s conservative history.

It seems this election has changed the Republican party irrevocably and indelibly, and Trump was a natural result of factors present for the last decade.

Schildkraut thinks that using strategies of

White nationalism to win a presidential election may fail, but they can be effective in congressional and senatorial races.

“I think in the long-term there’s some truth to the argument that demography is destiny, and the nation is changing so much demographically that to be a party where your supporters are mainly White is going to make it really hard to be successful at a presidential level. In the short-term, the fact is that many senators, governors, and people running for congress don’t face that same problem,” she said.

While Berry predicts that Trump will become the “dominant force in the party going forward” if he wins the election, he also believes there could be “a fight over the soul of the Republican party between the very conservative, grass-roots Republicans and the business, establishment Republicans” if he loses.

Rosenberg posits that, win or lose, Trump has already boosted the confidence and self-importance of some far-right members of the government.

“Huge numbers in the House who have been empowered by Trump are going to come out of the election believing that they are not a minority of the Republican Party, but rather the future of the Republican Party,” Rosenberg said. “So, the fight over the future of the Republican Party is going to be more bloody and consequential even than it’s been to this point.”

Establishment Republicans’ disavowals of Trump and unwillingness to associate with him make this election so remarkable. The Tea Party outcropping enabled Trump’s rise and he has, inadvertently or not, widened the divide within a major political party.

“There’s been a rejection of Trump by institutional interests in the Republican Party that is unprecedented in the modern history of our country,” Rosenberg said.

“That’s a sign that things are not okay. This is a more pernicious version of this strain of xenophobic politics that had been latent in the Republican party.” O

October 10, 2016

Tufts Observer

7

Arts & Culture

roots.

O

bserver: Do you want to just tell us a little bit about who you are, and about your project?

Muna: I’m Muna Mohamed, I am a sophomore here at Tufts, and I’m working with Yaa on a project called “Roots,” which we’re really excited to have come out this upcoming fall.

Yaa: And I’m Yaa, I’m also a sophomore at Tufts, and I’m also really excited for this to come out.

O: Can you tell us about why you made “Roots,” or what your thought process was in working with TUTV? M: My freshman year winter break I was bored at home, and was looking at this series that Yaa sent me—a video series called “Strolling” that she can tell you about—and through watching those videos, I wanted to do something that involved video. Yaa is into film, and I wasn’t at all. So I remember messaging her on Facebook at 12, and she was in Ghana, which is six hours ahead or something, like, “Yo Yaa, I have an idea, let’s do something that involves video, and I know you’re into it.” And as time went on, it kind of just blossomed.

Y: Yeah so, “Strolling” is this docu-series by this British-Jamaican filmmaker named Cecile Emeke, and each episode she follows a different Black person, primarily in Europe, but she’s trying to go all over the world, she’s done Europe, she’s done— well, a bunch of different countries in

8

Tufts Observer

October 10, 2016

Muna Mohamed and Yaa Kankam-Nantwi are the first people of color to produce a TUTV series centering on the expierences of people of color at Tufts. Arts and Culture editors Carissa and Jamie sat down with them to discuss their project.

Europe, sorry, not the whole continent [laughter]—and she’s done Jamaica, she’s done three episodes in America. I remember sending this to Muna and we both liked it, primarily because it was one thing, especially with identity, to figure it out on your own, and another to hear people say the exact same things that you think about, when you thought you were the only one. And I know it helped me a lot.

M: And echoing her point, there are some videos that followed a Somali person in England, and talked about their experiences being Black and Muslim, and I’m like “That’s me!”—but in America.

And it was cool—Cecile’s saying that what “Strolling” is meant to do is connect the stories of the Black diaspora, and this made us realize that we’re not alone. So, by watching “Strolling” and using Emeke’s work as a basis of what we wanted to do, as our inspiration, we developed “Roots.”

We decided to not have it just be focused on Black students at Tufts, and make it broader and larger for the entire people of color community, including staff, faculty, and students.

O: Why’d you decide to do it with all people of color and not just Black students?

Y: We talked about it, and we just felt like one big part of it was quantity. It just wouldn’t go for long if we just did Black students at Tufts. A second part was also the fact that Tufts especially can feel—not divided—but that the conversations are happening separately, even when they have

overlapping points of discussion. So we felt like, if we’re dealing with different-butsimilar things, or things we can connect on, especially last year, which was really turbulent—it was our freshman year and we had the Three Percent and everything [going on]. And because of that it felt like, okay, you’re hanging out with Black people, and we’re working through this, it would be a way to connect people’s stories and for us to hear each other as well, and be a part of changing that idea and centering ourselves, especially in this time I feel like it’s what we need.

M: I agree completely. Storytelling is just so powerful, and now more than ever people need to listen to us. So when we have a video come out of a janitor who works here, who’s a person of color, and they’re telling their story, and the people that ignore them when the janitor is cleaning their common room, or cleaning their bathroom... I guess them listening to their stories, we’re just trying to give them the mic. In this day and age, what people need most—whether you’re a person of color, whether you’re Black, Latinx, whether you’re White, whatever—is to listen to one another. And we’re trying to put the emphasis on POC because that’s who we feel need to be listened to the most.

O: This is a two-part question. How did you both decide on TUTV as the distributor for your project and what kind of reaction did you receive from your friends and the other people you had talked to about this project?

ART BY MADELINE LEE

Arts & Culture

to root yourself in anything and everything roots are intertwined Growthseedstrees M: That’s a great question. So with TUTV, we were looking at our options at first and people said, “Oh you can look at the Ex-College, they have equipment, or you can look at TUTV or renting a camera through Tisch.” We looked at all these options, and in addition to last year and the climate of Tufts and feeling like we couldn’t be in certain spaces because they’re predominantly White spaces. But that means we can’t be in a lot of spaces here because a lot of spaces here are predominantly White. I remember talking to Yaa multiple times, saying things like “What if people don’t feel comfortable talking to us because we’re a part of this group, that isn’t known for having a lot of people of color?” I remember talking to the people that run TUTV saying “we want our own channel, we don’t want to have a playlist under yours, just because we don’t think that people will look at it” and I guess that came from my inner skepticism from people not feeling comfortable with us working with a predominantly White group.

Y: I remember even freshman year writing for the Tufts Daily and a similar thing was, during the Three Percent protests, and someone basically told me “no, that’s a White space”—or something like that.

And questioning what it means to be authentically Black and work with TUTV and this attitude that we shouldn’t go there, but then we figured it was just as much as our space as it was anybody else’s. And they have equipment and a community, and the producer and the heads of TUTV were really friendly, heard our concepts,

and admitted that TUTV isn’t the most diverse space.

M: Now we’re glad we’re a part of TUTV, and of course the equipment is nice, but also the sense of community and knowing that if we need someone on our crew, we can ask these people who already know the film. So we’re learning and that’s what college is about, to learn, and oftentimes as students of color, it feels like we have such limited spaces that the learning is so limited. And we want to have POC freshmen on crew so that once we go

“Storytelling is just so powerful, and now more than ever people need to listen to us.” abroad or once we graduate, “Roots” still carries on. There are a lot of people here who are interested in film or interested in the arts and it’s just the matter of saying “here, we’ll help you out.” Even if you feel like a space isn’t meant for you.

Y: Which is valid though. Not to downplay not feeling like a space is yours. I feel like people make it seem as though it’s all in your head, but it’s in your head for a reason. So we understand why there were concerns.

O: Just to end on a hopeful note—well, the whole thing has been hopeful—but what do you hope to get out of the project, both for yourselves and a larger audience?

Y: I feel like, at least personally, that especially at Tufts, and just being in college in general, there’s so many people that I admire that I don’t necessarily talk to, but that I like from afar, and so many people have interesting stories, and everyone’s here for a reason. And getting to know the people on this campus... I remember in the pitch document, one of the things that we wrote was that “Roots” may educate people or a non-POC audience, but we’re not trying to educate, and we’re not trying to humanize. No, this is more a personal thing, getting to know your friend and their personal experiences.

M: Yeah, I echo that. I’m excited to hear stories, actual stories—not that, “Hey, where’re you going, want to have lunch soon?” Not the surface-level stuff. We know people but, do we really know them, and do others really know them? I guess that there are people on this campus, even in communities of color, that might not be in the community of color, you know? Or they might be in the community of color, and have a very strong voice and presence, so: why? So I’m really excited to hear why.

And also, just to become friends with more people, because that’s always fun.

Find a podcast and accompanying video of this interview on tuftsobserver.org

October 10, 2016

Tufts Observer

9

Campus

Our Forgotten Publication

By Katie Saviano Content Warning: Race-based violence

T

he trouble with the minority houses,” said a 2006 article published in the Tufts Primary Source, “such as the Africana Center and the Asian Start House is that they imply inferiority of the groups for which they exist. The groups coddled by these houses and their administrators (namely, the Group of Six) are perfectly capable of surviving Tufts on their own.” In this article, entitled “End the Segregation,” former Tufts student Alison Hoover argued for the dissolution of the Group of Six. Until 2013, much of the campus dialogue surrounding freedom of expression and nondiscrimination centered on one specific campus publication: The Primary Source, a Conservative student publication.

“We saw it as Hate Speech, pure and simple,” stated Seth Markle (‘00). He described articles and editorials that claimed all people of color at Tufts were products of affirmative action and damaging to the university’s credibility, and editorials that attacked Black student leaders by name. He finished, “Now, I will let you be the judge in determining what Free Speech means…”

The content of the Primary Source prompted backlash from students of color, though the publication remained a recognized student group for years after this resistance began. While members of the Source claimed that their content was intended to give voice to those with marginalized or unpopular opinions, other students classified this content as university-sponsored hate speech. Though the Source is no longer published, the debate 10

Tufts Observer

October 10, 2016

over what constitutes free speech and what constitutes harassment continues on Tufts’ campus today.

A Black alumnus (’98) who wished to remain anonymous was attacked by name in the Primary Source. She explained in an email, “I was called a whore in one issue and I cried a lot during that time. [It] was really hurtful to have a big portion of an issue dedicated to me in my senior year because I was engaged in providing resources for students of color on campus.” She continued, “Free speech is a coded way of saying you can say what you want. However, free speech does not mean that you can be hurtful and wrong… It was racism masquerading as conservative thought.”

In the eyes of alumnus Andrew Núñez (’15), the Primary Source turned the campus into a hostile environment under the guise of free speech. He stated, “If your living and learning environment is affected, that is an unequitable state for you to learn and to study and to be a student… Students should have the right not to be verbally abused and assaulted on that campus.”

Núñez identified the emotional and physical labor that went into existing in the same environment as the Primary Source as a student of color. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Black students were actively throwing away newly printed copies of the Primary Source, according to Markle. A ‘04 alumnus commented, “Events such as Black Solidarity Day and many others were born out of the silent hate that existed on the campus.” She explained that the Primary Source galvanized the radical activism that took place during this time, mobilizing students of many races and ethnicities into action.

From its inception in 1982 into the early 2000s, the Primary Source continued to exist at Tufts without severe criticism from Tufts administration. However, in the December 6, 2006 holiday issue, the Primary Source published “O Come All Ye Black Folk,” a self-proclaimed satirical Christmas carol stating that the only reason Black freshmen had received acceptance into Tufts was because of affirmative action. A line read, “We need you now to fill our racial quotas. Descendants of Africa, with brown skin arriving: O come, let us accept them…Fifty-two black freshmen.” The song rightfully received widespread criticism and condemnation, yet the administration cautioned students against overreacting. Members of the Source defended themselves, saying that students had unfairly conflated racially insensitive comments with relevant criticism of affirmative action. That same year, the Muslim Student Association (MSA) charged the Source with harassment after they published “Islam—Arabic Translation: Submission,” an editorial imitating the format for MSA’s advertisements for Islamic Awareness Week.

Later that year the Committee on Student Life (CSL) found the Primary Source to be in violation of community values.

However, there were no attempts to shut down the publication. Instead, rules were put in place so that no student on Tufts campus could write anonymously—the Source’s most inflammatory pieces had been published without a byline. Later that summer, James Glaser, Dean of Undergraduate Education at the time, reverted CSL’s ruling, thereby allowing students to again write anonymously on Tufts campus. Dean GlaART BY ABIGAIL BARTON

Campus

ser commented, “For the most part, having an unpopular political opinion should not disqualify them from having the right to speak or write… I don’t like it when people are derogatory or offensive. But I don’t think that you can overly regulate.”

As a result, the Primary Source maintained its position on Tufts campus, continuing to publish issues every semester.

However, in December 2012, the Source re-published a Christmas carol from their 1991 issue, parodying the annual Take Back the Night event, a sexual violence awareness and education event hosted by various sororities on campus. The parody was widely condemned as mocking the issue of sexual assault. For this reason, the editor-in-chief imposed a semester long suspension on the publication. In the spring of 2013, the Source did not have the minimum number of members to get re-recognized and submitted a membership list with names of students uninvolved with the Source, constituting fraud, according to an article by published by the Tufts Daily in May of 2013.

However, in the fall of 2013 the Judiciary and the Office of Campus Life once again granted recognition to the Source.

In an interview with the Daily, Austin Berg, editor-in-chief of the Primary Source in 2013, emphasized that the Source did not condone insensitive or harmful content, and that the magazine was starting from scratch.

In Berg’s opinion, the Source “… [was] an important source of dialogue for students whose views are marginalized... It gives the spotlight to those whose voices aren’t otherwise heard, and that’s an honorable goal.”

Tyler Cooper, a 2011 Tufts graduate and a former editor of the Source, believes that there is a double standard at play. He stated, “If we’re going to judge every single

Tufts institution based on the actions of members who are no longer on campus, we might have to shut down virtually all of the fraternities…for hazing, sexual assault, and narcotics trafficking…It feels like a double standard to excuse the fraternities for committing various felonies over the years while continuously blaming current writers of a publication for tasteless articles written a decade ago.”

Núñez firmly disagreed, arguing that there is no room on campus for organizations with a legacy of hate speech.

“No matter how many times the Primary Source targeted students, targeted women of color, targeted faculty of color, harassed survivors of assault, the Tufts community continued to welcome them back every

“Free speech is a coded way of saying you can say what you want. However, free speech does not mean that you can be hurtful and wrong.”

time since they resurged under the auspices of free speech and having different points of view,” he said.

The Primary Source no longer exists at Tufts. This does not mean that the views articulated in the Primary Source are gone.

An alumnus stated, “People didn’t want to be affiliated with the Source but they shared the views and that was evident by the conversations in classes and dining halls.”

Núñez echoed this sentiment: “There is definitely a silent majority at Tufts.”

Though there is no clear evidence of such a “silent majority” on Tufts’ campus, the idea that one exists still fuels campus debate today. On September 25, Tufts Sophomore Jake Goldberg posted a petition entitled “Free Speech Is Dead At Tufts” in the Class of 2019 Facebook group.

Goldberg was consequently interviewed by The Tab, where he stated that his views and platform had resonated with Tufts students, many of whom who had privately messaged him on Facebook. Goldberg feels that such students comprise a silent majority on Tufts campus afraid to speak out. His interview has since been taken offline.

These sentiments mirror a piece published by the Primary Source on May 18, 2008 titled “Five Common Lies About the Primary Source.” The article reads, “So what is our purpose?

Our purpose is to say what no one else is willing to say. That doesn’t mean a lot of people aren’t thinking it, of course; there is a silent minority of conservatives on this campus, one much larger than the staff of the Primary Source.”

The debate over free speech continues today. “I think it’s too bad that there is not a stronger conservative voice on campus, it’s important that lots of different points of view are articulated,” said Dean Glaser. “The Primary Source was a chronic offender of people and I certainly don’t miss them, but I think they had a right to be here.”

October 10, 2016

Tufts Observer

11

Poetry

By Liam Knox Gliding ghostlike through raindrop curtains, eventual hearses rub lovingly against each other in the evening traffic, and somehow

I think of you—

gold-flecked and indiscriminate,

waist wrapped snug

around mine, ergonomic

cock-tangential, jig-saw loving;

how you fit me into the Bigger Picture

used a crowbar when needed.

Then I went off to get a degree in self-critique and white guilt and long-ass train rides to foreign places like home, and it’s not often now that I think of you like this, except for when, frozen to the soft earth to peer at star-marled sky with swirling heavenward vertigo, I’m caught between looming earth follicles and their shadowy pincers, squinting dizzily at lines of newly lain tarmac crisscrossed chaotic like a map to some ancient catacombs, before, blinking in opiate streetlight calm, I walk back to my 10’ x 12’ shell.

I tend to regret things.

You used to call

a lot to tell me when

I was being an asshole,

I told you to stop. I kind of wish

I hadn’t, your voice was

pedantic and plush

and I could lose myself

in your starched white complaints,

like hiding from death in hospital sheets.

I can’t hide in freedom—it’s too infinite and too many people are looking for it.

Before rolling out of bed and into the dark churning ocean, I check my pockets to make sure they’re empty.

Yeats was right— no center holds so why not submerge me in those centrifugal waters

(you know they say saltwater is great

for open wounds) and drop me breakneck to serene depths to find facedown floating like a live fish

(or a dead man) something exquisitely weightless— O, to be wrapped in that old wet coat, drifting through night

leaving no note.

I blow my nose so many times a day in the winter I think I’ve lost pieces of myself in tissues.

When I’m sick my snot feels like wet sand, and

12

Tufts Observer

October 10, 2016

ART BY NINA HOFKOSH-HULBERT

Feature

HEAD SH TS

October 10, 2016

Tufts Observer

7

“I’ve always had really long hair and then a few months ago I went short and I feel like it’s all just come together.”

“I started growing my hair out as a bet, a total joke. But then it became a thing that I really liked.

It just felt more like me.”

“I don’t know what my hair means to me. I just cut it, I guess that’s a form of rebellion!”

14

Tufts Observer

October 10, 2016

PURNA ENGLISH, BEN TELLER, MELISSA BAPTISTA

“I’ve been trying to make my hair as healthy as possible these last few years.”

“Hair is pretty important to me. It’s a critical way for me to navigate and think through things of gender.”

SOSENA DANIEL, JAMES GORDON, MINA BREWER

“I chopped a lot of my hair off this summer and it was definitely an emotional thing. You hold a lot of yourself in your hair.”

October 10, 2016

Tufts Observer

15

“I feel like my hair is always teaching me things about myself.”

“My hair is all about low maintenance and ease because I’m lazy.”

16

Tufts Observer

October 10, 2016

JESSICA HOWARD, KRISTIANA JORDAN

Prose

Digging Toward Home

By Liza Leonard August Picking myself back up after wilting in the heat. Every day the sun rises, crests, and I melt again. I am constantly re-freezing myself, to play games with nighttime, to transform, crystalize. When it’s hottest, I run to the lake and back, tracing my thoughts in the cracks in the concrete spreading out beneath my feet. I think I am waiting for something to happen. I think it is already happening. Everything is coming into focus, more solidly, the way the house creaks and the way the cat that lives on our street knows when I am coming home. The places I sit, the places I cry. They are becoming more real, and they move towards me, meeting me as I sink down into them. Every day I am more open, and more heavy. I am sinking down into this earth. I will pull you with me.

September We hold each other’s company delicately, with pain and uncertainty and finally love. I hold other things too: the questions between routine and freedom, the differences between accepting this history and writing our own. I consider them carefully, feel their weight and size.

I watch their sand fall through my fingers and dust the pavement like coarse sugar on morning buns. When it is dark we fill our lungs with smoke. We want oblivion. That is when the world hits hardest though, when we are swinging so far to the other side. It picks me up and puts me back down. Everything is unexpected, wild, provocative, strange.

I have been thinking about all the people I love and where to put love and who to touch and how to grow more love by the windowsill with water and light. Splitter splatter of light. Dappled thumbprints upon my heart. Tears on the dashboard. Hot and cool. Dry bristles. Dark oil. I paint lines, wet into wet: colors mix, confusing themselves and becoming more beautiful. Wet creases divide my legs from my body.

Summer is over but it is still hot. It is still hot and more solidly still, we congeal.

October The colder it is, the more I love you. The more I love this patch of earth.

This orbit that we are making again and again, centripetally, moving ever closer towards the center. It is raining at the lake now. I don’t run there anymore. Better to stay close to home. I’m learning how to live here, really be here and feel the dirt on my hands, the smudges on my face as I wipe the snot pooling in my nose. I embrace ease. I hug my knees to my chest. I generate my own heat. We are juicy balls of fire, rolling towards one another, clearing the brush as we go. Forest fires, we illuminate the early night. And my lungs aren’t full of smoke now.

I inhale the coldest air of fall thus far and sigh it out, my chest is still, my head clear. I am here.

ART BY LIZA LEONARD

October 10, 2016

Tufts Observer

17

News

The Truth Spectrum Online Fact Checking and the 2016 Election

by Sahar Roodehchi

“W

ell, I hope the fact checkers are turning up the volume and really working hard.” In an especially telling moment of the first presidential debate on September 26, Hillary Clinton addressed fact-checking directly—an almost meta moment in what had been a debate dominated by two versions of facts and two versions of “truth.”

The 2016 election cycle has seen many such clashes between the two major candidates—Donald Trump has been frequently criticized for his exaggerations and misrepresentations, and Hillary Clinton has been labeled “crooked.”

Both candidates are attempting to garner the trust of voters in a political environment affected by a general distrust of politicians.

18

Tufts Observer

October 10, 2016

This is where fact checkers come into the picture.

Fact checkers are designed to fill the gap between what candidates say and what’s really happening. They are meant to hold candidates accountable to the truth and provide information to the voters that politicians may not be providing.

Fact-checking has become increasingly prominent in this election, not only because of the specific candidates running, but also because of a general political atmosphere in which politicians and the media alike face apprehension and skepticism.

Many media outlets, such as WIRED, the Washington Post, and NPR, offer factchecking outlets as one part of their larger platform. But groups also exist that are entirely dedicated to bipartisan and nonprofit fact checking, such as Politifact and

factcheck.org. These groups are intended to analyze statements made by candidates from either party in an unbiased way—to discern the simple facts. Both websites became prominent in the year 2007 and have been fact checking the past three presidential elections.

However, fact-checking has roots beyond its current online iterations.

Simon Rosenberg, founder of the New Democrat Network (NDN), worked in “The War Room” on the Clinton campaign in 1992, and refers to that election as the first in which there was “real-time fact-checking.” He worked on a rapid response team that would point out when their opponents said misleading statements by contacting journalists and producing press releases.

According to Rosenberg, being able to ART BY ANNIE ROOME

News

question politicians’ truthfulness is “part of democracy.”

What is different about the 2016 election, however, is that fact checking has become much more immediate. This was apparent in the first presidential debate, during which NPR produced a Fact Check site with a live-updated transcript. Though moderators traditionally intervene very little in debates, Lester Holt functioned as a real-time fact checker during the debate by correcting and clarifying some of Trump’s false statements, like falsely claiming the constitutionality of New York City’s stopand-frisk policy. Bloomberg News broke with tradition from other cable news networks by announcing they would have a fact checker running on-screen during that same debate. CNN did something similar when covering an earlier statement made by Donald Trump claiming that President Obama was the founder of ISIS. During its coverage of the statement, the network put up a caption stating, “Trump calls Obama founder of ISIS (He’s not).”

Fact-checking has even gone beyond journalism. It’s become a part of political strategy. Clinton surprised voters in the first debate when she announced that her campaign had changed her home page to a fact checker, telling the audience, “If you want to see in real time what the facts are, please go and take a look.”

This expansion of fact-checking has come about because voters are dealing with an entirely new kind of candidate— Donald Trump. Rosenberg referred to Trump as “an unorthodox politician who has struggled with the truth.” Articles detailing the ways in which Trump lies have been rampant in this election. “It’s far more of an issue than it’s been in the past because usually what we’re debating is an argument and not facts,” Rosenberg said. He explained that former elections have been about differences in opinion and ideologies, but Trump has instead been asserting his own versions of “facts.”

Indeed, Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale posts a daily update listing the lies that

Trump said that day under the hashtag #TrumpCheck. It has become clear that Trump goes far beyond simply another political candidate exaggerating or misrepresenting the truth.

As a point of comparison, factcheck. org recorded 14 “incorrect or twisted factual claims” between the two candidates in the first presidential debate of the 2012 election. In contrast, for the first debate of 2016, factcheck.org recorded 18 checked facts—14 of which were false claims made

by Trump alone. Eight were claims that Trump had made and had been proven

Fact checking has even gone beyond journalism. It’s become part of political strategy.

wrong on before. Thus, a pattern emerges: Trump is not only making false claims, but he is also sticking to them. According to Politifact, only 14 percent of statements made by Trump on his campaign thus far have been true or mostly true, with the vast majority, 54 percent, being entirely false.

This compares to 53 percent of Clinton’s statement being true or mostly true, and 14 percent being entirely false.

Though fact-checking services seem like a necessary check on political candidates, many voters do not trust them. Some trace this back to the public’s general distrust of mainstream media. On both sides of party lines, there is a notable distrust of information from “mainstream

media.” In a recent Gallup poll, only 40 percent of Americans responded that they have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in mass media to portray news fairly and accurately. Fact checkers face a similar apprehension. According to a poll by researchers Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, only 59 percent of Democrats had “very favorable” opinions of fact-checkers, versus 34 percent of Republicans. Thus, it seems there is no consistently trusted resource where American voters look for objective or bipartisan information.

Among Republicans, Trump perpetuates this distrust, showcasing himself as someone who tells the truth but is misrepresented by mainstream media. Indeed, he called this into attention in the first presidential debate with his statement, “Now everybody in the mainstream’s gonna say, that’s not true. Look, it’s true.” On the other side, then, Clinton responded by using her campaign’s fact checker to push back against Trump’s frequent references to the “truth.”

Some wonder if we now inhabit a sort of “post-fact society” in which politics no longer deals with “truth” and facts have become malleable. Lucas Graves, who recently wrote the book Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism, told Vox’s Dara Lind that he doesn’t agree with this view, but that he believes this perspective “underscore[s] the need for journalists to do anything they can to steer political debate onto firmer ground.”

It’s clear that media and journalism largely hold responsibility for emphasizing the importance of truth.

Partisan media bubbles, however, have provided a major obstacle to this endeavor, working as spheres in which people are able to confirm their own biases rather than finding an objective truth. And according to Rosenberg, the problem is currently exacerbated by “a candidate…whose connection to reality and truth is more tenuous than we’ve seen in the modern era.”

October 10, 2016

Tufts Observer

19

Arts & Culture

What Makes a Household Name?

By Morgan Leppla

20

Tufts Observer

October 10, 2016

ART BY EMMA HERDMAN

Arts & Culture

“L

iving in a place named the ‘Africana Center’ makes me feel even more welcome,” said Janemary Okafor.

As a Black woman at Tufts, Okafor immediately saw the Africana Center as a comfortable space from the name alone.

Simple names are ways that individuals can find likeminded peers, especially when coming into college, where many students are searching for a community.

The names given to Tufts’ special interest houses are critical—they denote what sort of community they promote and recruit for. Whether intentional or not, these names are important because they reinforce images and identities of those who feel welcome in those spaces.

of these houses intentionally produce different atmospheres meant to bring together students with similar interests and backgrounds.

The names of special interest houses impact who moves between those houses and for what reasons. Some describe how the experience of living in a special interest house, though gratifying to live with similar-minded people, can often feel insular. Aidan Huntington, who lives in the co-op style Crafts House, commented that, “living in a house where we cook together and have our own space can sometimes make it harder to see people outside of this community.” When a place is associated with a lifestyle, people who occupy it tacitly acknowledge the ways in

People’s upbringings can also encourage their decision to live in specific houses. Asamoah explained that being around individuals also immersed in her culture is particularly meaningful. “As an African student at Tufts, I did want an opportunity to be around more people from the African Diaspora in order for me to be closer to my community and feel closer to my home,” she said.

Reciprocally, a person’s presence, with their specific set of personality traits, desires, and talents, contributes to a house’s meaning as well. “There’s so much culture in the Africana Center… I can walk downstairs and chill in the lounge with my bonnet on and that’s okay. I can take out my braids in front of my friends there and

Names are ways we can find similarities between people and build community.

Naming and describing places of congregation, like naming Rainbow House as the Rainbow House, influences where and when people spend time. To name is to transform a word into an agent in its own right.

The world, Tufts included, is rife with different names, places, and identities. Africana House is different from Green House, and rightly so. A quick search for “meaning of green” pops up over 378 million hits, and the top five prove “green” is conceptually equivalent to nature, fecundity, and growth. Fittingly, Tufts’ Green House as explained by Tufts ResLife is “intended as a focal point for the environmentallyminded community on the Tufts Campus,” whereas the Africana House acts as a gravitational center for “students of African descent.” The distinct names

which it reinforces their own identities.

But Huntington affirms that he appreciated the sense of similarity and community inherent to his living situation.

Huntington’s choice to live in Crafts House reflects his desire to associate with a specific community: “The description of [Crafts House] being a place for artists, activists, and musicians was very appealing for me,” continues Huntington. “It gives you a culture that many other places at Tufts don’t offer.”

Michelle Asamoah, who lives in the Africana House, or more commonly called Capen, still echoes Huntington’s sentiment, though her house of residence is different. “[Living in Capen] really is part of the core of my identity at Tufts… it really does create a community spirit and makes me feel more comfortable at Tufts,” she said.

that’s okay,” Okafor says, “I can be myself and that’s why I chose to live there.”

One sentiment echoed by residents of different houses is that they recognize that the value of their communities will remain even after they move out. People expect the patterns of the houses they choose to imprint on habits and friendships for years to come.

MP Monks, a Green House resident, explained that her experiences in the Green house will surely affect her living arrangements down the line. “I hope that after living here for a year I will take away things that will change how I live in communities in the future,” she said. Asamoah affirmed that there is a meaningful social component: “It’s actually how I made most of my friends and kept the relationships going, so I’m really grateful for it.”

October 10, 2016

Tufts Observer

21

Opinion

Ableism in the Tufts Administration

By Brianna Lavelle Content Warning: suicidal thoughts

I

was crying in Harvard Yard. I felt hopeless, helpless, and tired of being alive. I didn’t want to hurt myself, but I was afraid of what might happen if and when my thoughts overwhelmed my body. A friend held my hand as I told her I needed to go to the hospital. She told me I was strong.

Lying in the emergency room bed, I finally felt safe. I had spent the last three weeks afraid to drive my car, afraid to take a bike ride, afraid to sleep alone. Choosing to admit myself to the hospital is the bravest thing I’ve ever done. The person sitting in Harvard Yard was a hollow shell of Brianna. The moment I asked for help was the moment I felt myself returning.

Through a crack in the curtains of my depression I could see my strength, my courage, my resilience.

I spent two weeks in a short term psychiatric unit, anxious about my return to school. I was afraid that the intense academic environment and focus on productivity at Tufts would send me spiraling back downwards.

Tufts does not know about my hospitalization because it occurred during the summer. Students who are hospitalized during the semester and must take a medical leave of absence are in a much more difficult situation when attempting to return to Tufts. In addition, mentally ill students, regardless of whether or not they have been hospitalized, are not given academic part-time status as

22

Tufts Observer

October 10, 2016

an option for accommodation. While an option for reduced course load does exist, it is insufficiently publicized and not encouraged by the administration for mentally ill students.

The root of these problems is that Tufts is a business. Mentally ill students are a liability to the University, and their needs are a threat to its prestige. Although I do believe individual administrators care about Tufts students, the administration as a whole prioritizes itself over our wellbeing. Ableism is discrimination against people with physical and mental disabilities, and Tufts discriminates against mentally ill students by offering insufficient accommodations.

Accommodations such as part-time status are not offered because as an elite academic institution, Tufts has a vested interest in its reputation. After my hospitalization, I decided that returning to Tufts and taking a full course load would not be a healthy decision. Tufts offers part-time status, but it is not accessible to the vast majority of the student population. According to the Tufts website, only students who complete the “residence requirement of eight semesters of full-time study” can enroll part-time. In practice, this means that part-time status is only an option for students who are seniors.

This came as a surprise to me. I thought Tufts offered part-time status for all its students. But part-time students are not good for percentages: accommodating

part-time students would mean that Tufts would have a lower percentage of students graduating in four years.

The desire of the Tufts administration to have an impressive percentage of students graduating in four years is understandable, but it uniquely discriminates against mentally ill students like myself who might benefit from part-time status as an accommodation.

Not all mentally ill students are the same: not all of us want or need to attend school part-time. But I believe part-time status would be valuable, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that sentiment. Part-time status would serve as both a long-term solution for students like me, and a short-term solution for students returning from hospitalization who need to focus on their recovery and transition back to Tufts.

As a consolation prize, Tufts does offer a reduced course load (RCL) option. I am actually taking a RCL this semester because I was recently diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. Kirsten Behling, the director of Tufts Students Accessibility Services, said that a RCL would be reviewed and granted for mentally ill students “if the student’s disability at that point in time warrants RCL as an accommodation.”

But RCL is not well publicized as an option. I only learned about RCL after I did some serious digging on the Tufts website.

I am the only person I know currently on RCL. In addition, the supposed availability of RCL does not negate the need for

ART BY BEN RUTBERG

Opinion

The desire of the Tufts administration to have an impressive percentage of students graduating in four years is understandable, but it uniquely discriminates against mentally ill students like myself, who might benefit from part-time status as an accommodation.

part-time status. Acquiring RCL requires a lengthy petition and doctor’s note. Parttime status would be more accessible, normalized, and institutionalized.

In addition to the issues of part-time status and RCL, there is also the issue of re-entry to Tufts after medical leaves of absence. The Tufts Medical Leave Committee decides whether a student is ready to return to Tufts—once again, the Tufts administration adopts an ableist mindset that strips students of their dignity and agency in determining what is right for their own mind and body.

One student, Maya*, who is currently on a medical leave of absence, did not realize she was signing away her right to return to Tufts this fall. She spoke with her dean over the phone while in the hospital, but she was on “heavily sedating and disorienting medication,” and had “only fuzzy memories of conservations with the dean.” She did “not remember agreeing to take a medical leave for the fall semester.”

Another student, Sarah*, also expressed her frustration with the medical leave of absence process. “I could tell that they cared about my well-being, but I could also tell they cared about Tufts’ wellbeing. With a mental health challenge, I felt I was a liability for Tufts, and it was

clear that they were afraid of letting me remain on campus,” she said.

Sarah and Maya petitioned for reentry to Tufts for the Fall semester. Both of their petitions were denied. “I was very upset at the news because, feeling generally disempowered in my life, I had zero agency,” Sarah said.

After Maya received psychiatric treatment and felt ready to return to Tufts in the fall, her re-entry petition was also denied. She said, “I am so frustrated with the re-entry process because you have to prove that you’re very ready, basically ‘cured.’

But anyone with mental health struggles knows that you’re never ‘all better.’”

Tufts is actively excluding mentally ill students from this academic community.

In an ideal world, both Maya and Sarah would be on campus right now, studying part-time while dealing with the emotional transition of coming back to campus after a psychiatric hospitalization. In the world we live in, their re-entry petitions were denied and there is no option for part-time status.

This is not a nebulous problem. There are concrete steps this University can take to improve the quality of life for myself, Sarah, Maya, and other mentally ill students on campus. Tufts, offer part-time status. Prioritize your students over your

percentage numbers. Give students more agency in determining what happens after medical leaves of absence. We are not liabilities—we are dynamic, thriving members of this community.

If only more of us felt like we could speak out. If only we felt like we didn’t have to be anonymous to be safe. I wrote this article because I am tired of the way the Tufts administration fails to accommodate my friends and peers who suffer from the same challenges that I do. I want students struggling with mental illness to know that they are not alone. Your outrage, sadness or frustration at the way you are treated will not go unnoticed. I think about you every day. I hear you. And now, the Tufts administration will hear me.

*Names have been changed to protect the identies of the students

October 10, 2016

Tufts Observer

23

Tech & Innovation

From Charlie Cards to Uber Cars The ambiguous future of Boston’s transit

By Lauren Samuel & Lily Hartzell

T

his past June, Uber offered a deal for app users in the metropolitan Boston area: $75 for 40 trips, or $40 for 20 trips. The following month, the MBTA raised their fares between 0.10 and 0.15 cents for buses and trains, coming to approximately $2 a ride, similar to the aforementioned Uber coupon.

Uber’s notoriety in changing the transportation game has been extended to public transportation.

Though Uber’s deal was temporary, Boston’s public transportation is still fighting to remain an affordable alternative to more convenient ride-sharing services. According to Uber’s statistics, as of 24

Tufts Observer

2015, “Each Friday and Saturday between 10:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m., Uber facilitates nearly 70,000 trips in Boston.” And, according to a study done by Certify, a business expense report management firm, these “ride-hailing services” were used more than both taxis and rental cars in the third quarter of 2015. This cements the company as a legitimate mode of transit in the city, a fact that the public sector is beginning to acknowledge.

Yet Uber’s popularity is not the only factor at play in this shift away from Boston’s public transit. For years, the MBTA has faced scrutiny by its riders, whether for its outdated facilities, fare increases due to

consistent deficits, or transportation quality. While some may boast that Boston has the oldest public transportation in the country, many complain about the creaks and slow speeds, especially on the Green Line at Park Street during rush hour.

Some argue that these struggles are a natural reason for privatized intervention.

“If they can provide better outcomes for your population and do it at either the same cost if not lower, that’s a win-win for society,” Adie Tomer, a fellow at Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, told Bloomberg.

In order to stay relevant and address this competition with ride-sharing servic-

October 10, 2016

ART BY JAKE ROCHFORD

Tech & Innovation

es, the MBTA has made a unique choice to partner with these very same companies.

This past month, the MBTA announced that it will reduce its spending by defunding its disability program, The Ride, in order to work with Uber on providing transportation for those who qualify—typically those who are physically disabled, sightimpaired, and/or of a senior status.

“This initiative represents the MBTA’s efforts to increase accessibility in a more cost-effective and efficient way that also delivers more convenient service for its paratransit customers,” Governor Baker said in a prepared statement. The initial customers of the pilot program will pay the first $2 of the ride, the rest of which will be subsidized by the MBTA. This partnership, though unusual, is not the first of its kind.

Cincinnati, a city whose population is less than half of Boston’s, has been working in conjunction with Uber on providing free rides to help transport people from bus stop to bus stop, a problem in a city which has no underground subways and whose routes are disjointed.

However, there is notable reluctance from many to widely integrate these private services throughout Boston’s transportation. Tabling outside of Tufts Campus Center in September, the Transportation for Massachusetts coalition has been seeking to provide “safe, convenient, and affordable transportation to everyone.” They have fought (and beaten) MBTA fare hikes, created networks of community members to assist in carpooling, and provided coupons at local businesses to those who choose to walk as part of their commute.

Though they do not explicitly reject ridesharing services, their commitment is towards a public, community-oriented system that works with the state and holds these services accountable. This also means

working towards better bikeways, improving walkability, and “smart reform.”

For many, smart T reform involves pushing against privatized transport, and advocating instead for investments in the public system. James Aloisi, the former Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation, has already begun to express concern over the pervasive trend of ride-sharing.

In an opinion piece for Commonwealth Magazine he wrote, “It stands to reason: If you raise T fares to a point where the regular fare isn’t much different than the [Uber] fare, people of means will choose to take the nicer alternative and will move to [Uber]. Other competitors and private sector shuttles will follow. The T will soon become the transit mode of necessity, and not of choice. Once that happens, the T is doomed, because its riders will never have the political clout to argue effectively for a proper level of investment and service quality and reliability.”

Aloisi’s worries about the future of the MBTA cannot be confined to the ridesharing component of ventures like Uber much longer. These companies are at once moving to replace traditional transportation and working to change it entirely.

In August, Uber rolled out a fleet of self-driving cars in Pittsburgh, a move that has a wide range of implications for transportation. The chance to hail a selfdriving car seems innocuous—it’s a way for curious people to try out the technology. But one of the mutual benefits of Uber’s investment in self-driving cars economic—once there are no drivers to pay, Uber rides will be cheaper for both the customers and the company.

Bill Messner, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering in Tufts’ School of Engineering, thinks that this opportunity will cause the public to begin to trust self-

driving cars more readily than they might have otherwise.

Messner anticipates that Ubers will create even greater competition for buses.

“Buses may still be cheaper, but who wants to get on a bus? That’s a big reason why people don’t take public transportation, is because they’re scared,” Messner said. “[In a self-driving car] you’re by yourself and you’re protected. It’s like I’m in my little castle. And that means a lot to people, it really does.”

Boston, along with cities across the country, is facing a difficult choice when it comes to transportation. The infrastructure is old and expensive to maintain, and the private sector is offering convenient, comfortable alternatives. As more people take advantage of those options, public transportation may cease to be the default mode of movement. Though this may be an unfamiliar landscape, it’s the choices we make today that will determine our route for tomorrow.

In order to stay relevant and address this competition with ride-sharing services, the MBTA has made a unique choice to partner with these very same companies.

October 10, 2016

Tufts Observer

25

Opinion

Go ‘Bos?

A Critical Retelling of Jumbo’s History

By Morgan Freeman

26

Tufts Observer

October 10, 2016

ART BY ANNIE ROOME

Opinion

I

t’s been over a year since the highly contested $1 million bronze Jumbo statue arrived at the Tufts Medford/ Somerville campus. When walking around the school grounds, it’s hard to miss the university’s beloved mascot, Jumbo, an African elephant. Jumbo has been an emblem of this school since 1889, 37 years after Tufts’ founding. His legacy has left a plethora of fun facts for the student body to share: the only mascot to be listed in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, his ashes rest in a Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter jar in the athletic director’s office (a favorite story told by tour guides to prospective students). Even in my third year at Tufts, I’m surprised at the amount of “Fear the Jumbo” and “Jumbo Nation” athletic tees I see on a Division III campus. Jumbo paraphernalia is everywhere.

With all that we celebrate Jumbo for, I have to ask these questions, especially occupying this campus as a Black woman: Why is it that with such a well documented existence, Jumbo the Elephant’s life in captivity is hardly, if ever, looked at critically? What does it mean to so devoutly claim an animal as our own when he was stolen and used for profit? How can the story of this elephant be understood in context of the exploitation of life on the African continent at the time of his capture? And how does this connect to the Medford/Somerville campus’ history as a former plantation that relied on slave labor?

Jumbo was born around the year 1859 in Abyssinia, what is today known as Ethiopia. Ironically, Ethiopia is one of the two African countries to have never been colonized, but this doesn’t mean that these regions were left untouched by imperial powers. At two years old, Jumbo was bought, sold, and moved from France to London, thus beginning “Jumbo’s Journey from Africa.” I borrow this title from the large-scale poster that hangs in Barnum Hall’s front entrance, mapping his transplanting across Europe and eventually touring North America. For the duration of his time at the London Zoo, the elephant’s diet increased rapidly and by the time he reached the age of seven, Jumbo was even consuming one to two gallons of whiskey daily.

The zoo was hesitant to part with the animal, but when P.T. Barnum came with an offer of 2,000 English pounds, a sale was made. According to Adrienne Saint-Pierre, a curator at the P.T. Barnum Museum, when factoring in exchange rates and currency inflation over time, this payment from 1880 is equal to $233,775 USD in 2016. To put this quantity in perspective, the average price of a slave in 1850 was $400, or about $12,000 in 2016. In his first year with Jumbo, Barnum made approxi-

Why is it that with such a welldocumented existence, Jumbo’s life in captivity is hardly, if ever, looked at critically? mately $1.5 million from his exploitation of the circus animal. Jumbo did not do much, besides circle big tops; it was merely his name and size that drew in crowds. In fact, the elephant became so popular that Jumbo merchandise— not unlike what hangs in the bookstore today—could be found throughout the US and Britain. Jumbo had officially become an icon of the Barnum and Bailey Circus.

It is important to note that in 1861—the year of Jumbo’s capture— the word “jumbo” did not exist in the English language. So while MerriamWebster defines its origin as “a huge elephant exhibited by P.T. Barnum,” it’s highly likely that “jumbo” stems from the Swahili word jumbe, meaning chief. This means that the Jumbo name,

brand, and the profits they brought were appropriated from Swahili. PT Barnum’s success was not only a result of theft of Jumbo, but also a theft of language—stealing the word from Swahili.

In 1885, after only four years traveling with the Barnum and Bailey Circus, Jumbo was struck and killed by a locomotive train in Ontario, Canada. Though tales suggest a more heartwarming story—that Jumbo stepped in to save another baby elephant in Barnum’s circus named Tom Thumb—the truth of the matter is that the elephant wandered off through a hole in the fencing and onto railyard tracks. At the time of his death Jumbo was 24 years old, whereas, in their natural habitats, African elephants have an average lifespan of between 60 and 70 years.

For the elephant, there was life after death. It was quickly decided that Jumbo would be preserved; soon after his accident came the process of taxidermy. Contents found in Jumbo’s stomach include a police whistle, multiple keys, and a significant amount of English pennies from his days in the London Zoo, where guests would often throw coins into his enclosing.

After a few years of touring as “Jumbo the Stuffed Elephant,” he was gifted to Tufts University in 1889. Jumbo was destined for the Barnum Museum of Natural History at the school, in which P.T. Barnum served as one of the top trustees at its founding. It didn’t take long for Jumbo to take on his role as mascot and for his image to become immortalized within the Tufts sphere.

Though the story of Jumbo is unique, he is far from being alone in his displacement and display. Jumbo’s story reminds me of the life of Sarah Baartman, a Khoikhoi woman whose body was commodified as a circus spectacle. Born in the Gamtoos Valley of South Africa, Baartman was brought to London in 1810 through a contract she entered with an English ship surgeon for the purpose of entertainment.

This arrangement is regarded as extremely coercive, especially considering Baartman’s illiteracy. Sarah Baartman’s body was looked upon with a violent sexual gaze. She had what is called steatopygia (what I consider to be a faux-condition invented and pathologized by the Whitegaze). Steatopygia is defined as the state of October 10, 2016

Tufts Observer

27

Opinion

having a significant amount of tissue on and around the buttocks, sometimes the labia. For nearly six years she traveled, appeared in shows. It was not uncommon for Sarah to be caged. Europeans were fascinated with her body, hypersexualizing and dehumanizing her every inch. At times, Baartman was showcased alongside animals. In death, Sarah Baartman was dissected: her brain and genitals preserved but not before her cast was made from her body with plaster. Baartman died at the age of 26 and was not laid to rest until 2002, nearly 200 years after her death in 1815. For over a century her body, parsed, remained on display Musée de l’Homme until 1974.

The similarities between the life of Jumbo, an elephant, and Sarah Baartman, a human, are eerily similar. This must be contextualized. This must be politicized. I want to be very careful here not to conflate human life with the lives of animals, as to do so would perpetuate the ubiquitous devaluation of Black human life. Rather, the parallels between Jumbo’s life and Sarah Baartman’s illuminate how Baartman, a human, was treated no better than an animal that was clearly abused. These parallels illustrate the dehumanization inherent to anti-Blackness.

In 1859 a young elephant was ripped from its homeland. In both life and death, Jumbo’s body was used for show

28

Tufts Observer

October 10, 2016

and incredible profits, only to be reaped

by White hands. Today, his existence is glamorized and the harsh reality of his history is disregarded.

Jumbo is not a metaphor for the African continent as something to excavate for capital. Rather, Jumbo’s capture and sale is evidence of how the colonial gaze positioned the African continent and the life on it as available for White use. Jumbo’s story is not “fun.”

The Tufts University Medford/ Somerville campus sits on the former plantation known as Ten Hills Farm. The Royall family and operators of the plantation arrived in Medford with 27 slaves of their own. Founder of Tufts University, Charles Tufts, was allowed his career as a philanthropist through the wealth that slave labor brought his family across generations. It is telling that Sarah Baartman was treated no better than Jumbo was (though this should come as no surprise, considering the ceaseless brutality of chattel slavery). Thus, with Jumbo as its mascot and sitting on the land of a former plantation, Tufts is doubly implicated. Our university is built on slave labor and our mascot reifies a White supremacist narrative: life stolen from the African continent and held captive to fulfill White desire.

So then, what is Jumbo Nation? A nation I’m not proud of, a nation whose history is wrought with violence, one that is not innocent of the stains of colonialism.

OLIVIA MEYER-JENNETTE

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

please recycle