Issue 2 Spring 2019

The

Tufts

Observer.

# T R A N S P A R E N C Y

Issue Vol.

2 CXXXVIII

S TA F F EDITOR IN CHIEF: Alexandra Benjamin MANAGING EDITOR: Wilson Wong CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Erica Levy FEATURES EDITOR: Jesse Ryan NEWS EDITORS: Anita Lam Brittany Regas ARTS & CULTURE EDITORS: Juliana Vega del Castillo Alice Hickson OPINION EDITORS: Sasha Hulkower Alexandra Strong CAMPUS EDITORS: Myisha Majumder Josie Wagner POETRY & PROSE EDITORS: Ruthie Block Cris Paulino VOICES EDITOR: Rosy Triggs Fitzgerald PHOTO DIRECTORS: Stuart Montgomery Paula Gil-Ordoñez Gomez ART DIRECTOR: Laura Wolfe LEAD ARTIST: Joanna Kleszczewski COLUMNS EDITOR: Sivi Satchithanandan VIDEO DIRECTOR: Emai Lai PODCAST DIRECTOR: Julia Press

Transparency – we see right through you.

Enduring disagreement 2 Feature | By Rosy Triggs Fitzgerald with Brittany Regas

a deadly exchange 6 Feature | By Amira Al-Subaey, Leila Skinner, and Sam Drezner

what’s in an algorithm? 10 8 Opinion | By Stuart Montgomery

if you can be kind it should 12 be to stupid things Poetry | By Elana DeSantis

13 through the looking glass Photo Inset

PUBLICITY DIRECTORS: Nasrin Lin Sarah Park STAFF WRITERS: Trina Sanyal Sonya Bhatia Muna Mohamed

17 meet the columnists Shreya Marathe and Claude Shwartz

18 the race for space Campus | By Yumei Lin and Issay Matsumoto

20 honest money

COLUMNISTS: Shreya Marathe Claude Shwartz DESIGNERS: Richard Nakatsuka Brigid Cawley Daniel Jelčić Sofia Pretell Brenna Trollinger Emma Herdman Janie Ingrassia LEAD COPY EDITOR: Sara Barkouli

News | By Becca Leviss

22 the most important 2020 decision Opinion | By Alexandra Benjamin

24 queering pop: king princess Arts & Culture | By Caroline Blanton

26 they do it out of love Voices | By Anita Lam

28 oscar predictions...

Arts & Culture | By Chris Duyos COVER DESIGNS BY ERICA LEVY BACK COVER PHOTO BY MATILDA BISCALDI

COPY EDITORS: Kate Bowers Aidan Schaffert Leah Kirsch Lola Jacquin Mahika Khosla Akbota Saudabayeva EDITOR EMERITUS: Emmett Pinsky CONTRIBUTORS: Mollie Leibowitz Rabin Donavan Payne Tati Doyle Yas Salon Celeste Teng Matilda Biscaldi Ryan Sheehan Ethan Lam Eleanor Sultana

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Enduring disagreement: defining anti-semitism in the modern world

By Rosy Triggs Fitzgerald with reporting by Brittany Regas

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CW: Racial violence

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n the afternoon of Tuesday, February 12, Tufts students received a community message from President Monaco describing some “profoundly disturbing and hurtful” posters discovered on the exterior of the Granoff Family Hillel Center. The message announced plans to investigate the situation and expressed support for all members of the Jewish community. Many students responded to this message with understandable confusion: what, exactly, did these offensive posters say? And which details, or lack thereof, informed the rather pointed choice made by President Monaco to refrain from describing this event explicitly as anti-Semitic? This, many have deduced, would have been the obvious implication of the incident, given its “derogatory,” if vague characterization, and the targeting of Hillel, a center for Jewish life on campus.

The next day, the Tufts Daily released its coverage of the event, including photographs of the posters in question and interviews with Hillel leaders and community members. The Daily’s reporting, which helped to demystify some of the initial uncertainty surrounding Monaco’s message, revealed the posters to have been based partially on political artwork by Emory Douglas, the Minister of Culture of the Black Panther Party, from 1967 until the organization’s disbandment in the 1980s. Douglas was known during his tenure for his use of political cartoons to criticize American imperialism and White supremacy. The posters found at Hillel, which depicted cartoon pigs as military imperialists representing the United States, were reappropriated from their original publication to single out the relationship between the US and Israel. “Destroy Israeli Apartheid Forces and Amerikkkan pigs which fund it. Free Palestine,” one poster reads in capital text.

Rabbi Jordan Braunig of Tufts Hillel described what it was like to arrive at work on Tuesday morning. “It didn’t take me long upon entering Hillel to recognize that something was up. I was told by somber-faced colleagues that when they’d arrived that morning there were posters around the building portraying pigs. I took a deep breath and sat down.” He said the situation made him feel “unmoored, unsteady, unsure.”

Though there is the related fact that many observant Jews refrain from eating pork for religious and cultural reasons, there is little evi-

ART BY ERICA LEVY

dence to support a claim that pigs have any particular history with anti-Semitic imagery. The imagery of pigs has been used throughout political movements primarily to represent fascist leaders and police officers. However, many have pointed to an element of dehumanization in the posters’ portrayal of pigs, some of which were reportedly posted on Hillel windows facing inwards—by any measure an unsettling message of hostility, and starkly reminiscent of Nazi propaganda depicting Jews as subhuman.

Most students seem to agree unequivocally with this sentiment. Katelyn Mullikin, a member of Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), concurred that the posters represent an act of anti-Semitism. “Making generalizations of any group is always wrong, including generalizing about the Jewish community,” Mullikin said. “By only placing posters that critique the Jewish community on Hillel, a Jewish community center on campus, there was clear antiSemitism in the act.”

On Thursday, Monaco released another message to the community. The update announced that since Tuesday, “additional information has come to light regarding this incident that makes it clear that this was a deliberate anti-Semitic act.” According to the Tufts Daily’s reporting, this additional information was initially discovered by their own investigative journalists and communicated to Rabbi Naftali Brawer of Tufts Hillel, who did not yet have the full story. That “at least one of the posters called for the destruction of ‘Israeli Apartheid forces,’” was apparently unbeknownst to both Brawer and the Office of the President at the time of the first university-wide message.

How this exact sequence of events unfolded is unclear; the author of the Tufts Daily article, Daniel Nelson, confirmed in an email to the Tufts Observer that Rabbi Brawer provided him with the photographs in the published article, including one that plainly shows the caption Nelson later reports was overlooked by Brawer.

It begs the question: how could all of the Hillel staff and responding TUPD officers have missed this seemingly large detail, only to be pointed out later by a Tufts Daily reporter? Evidently this piece of information was significant enough for Monaco to rephrase his statement.

The entire investigation process and the reasoning behind Monaco’s revised analysis has not

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yet been explained—the Tufts Observer was unable to reach Rabbi Brawer or President Monaco’s office in time for the publication of this article. Regardless, Hillel officials and students alike seem to share Monaco’s eventual conclusions. At this time, no individual or group has claimed responsibility for the posters.

The marked ambiguity in the University’s response to the situation on campus is indicative of a common difficulty when it comes to defining anti-Semitism today. Recall the recent political debacle that included widespread declarations of shame and wrongfulness—from both sides of the aisle—when freshman Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, the first Somali-American elected to Congress, said that American political support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins.” Omar was referring to the involvement of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in American politics. The organization spends millions of dollars each year lobbying for US policy changes that benefit Israel; in addition, its members, donors and lobbyists contribute money to both Democratic and Republican political campaigns. In 2018, the nonprofit arm of AIPAC, the American Israel Education Foundation or AIEF, organized multiple all-expenses-paid trips to Israel for Democratic and Republican members of Congress, pitching these trips as “educational” opportunities.

Omar’s stance is consistent with her history of calling out the influence of special-interest money in politics. Some have rushed to defend the Congresswoman’s statement; to others, the criticism was a show of blatant anti-Semitism. This is not the first time Omar, one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, has been accused of religious bigotry—an earlier tweet of hers from 2012, which also criticized the actions of Israel, has been called anti-Semitic as well.

The idea of Jews controlling money is part and parcel of antiSemitic ideology. The stereotype stems from the Middle Ages, when many Jews were moneylenders and faced criticism from the Christian church. The trope has persisted through the centuries and today many anti-Semites espouse conspiracy theories claiming that Jews control the global economy. In 2009, a survey of several European countries found that 31 percent of adults blamed Jews for the 2007 economic crisis. In October 2018, then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican who has notably criticized Omar’s remarks, posted a tweet insinuating that three prominent Jewish Democrats were attempting to “buy” the midterm election. Republicans at the time remained mostly silent about McCarthy’s perpetuation of this anti-Semitic stereotype.

More recently, politicians across party lines have deplored Omar for her comment. Democratic party leaders, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, issued a joint statement describing Omar’s “use of anti-Semitic tropes” as “deeply offensive.”

President Trump separately called for Omar to resign from both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and her position in Congress. Fellow freshman Democratic Congressman Max Rose responded saying, “Congresswoman Omar’s statements are deeply hurtful to Jews, including myself.” McCarthy has promised to “take action” against Omar if others don’t, and Omar responded to the backlash by saying she “unequivocally apologize[s]” for her tweet.

Part of the backlash Omar has faced stretches beyond professional condemnation from colleagues and journalists— overwhelmingly, Omar has been hit with a wave of racist and Islamophobic hatred as a result of her statement. Luther College Professor Todd Green, who specializes in the study of Islamophobia, explained in a recent interview how this type of backlash is part of a larger pattern which pits Jews and Muslims against each other.

“Much of this controversy has been driven by Islamophobia, particularly the belief that Muslims by default are anti-Semitic and that the rest of us must assume the worst of them,” Green said. “Omar has received far more attention for her tweets than prominent White Christian politicians have for their overt promotion of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. We should not back down from asking why the different treatment for Omar.”

Because the image of money-hungry Jews has been used throughout history to justify their global extermination, articulating inoffensive criticism of Israeli lobbyist groups seems almost impossible. Still, many have flocked to Omar’s side in an effort to draw a line which distinguishes anti-Semitic remarks from legitimate criticism of Israel and its government. Journalist Glenn Greenwald, whose tweet Omar initially responded to, has since stated: “Of course everyone knows that [AIPAC money matters].

And to call that anti-Semitic is just obscene.” Paul Waldman, a writer for the Washington Post, argued that “what this whole episode has mostly revealed is how insanely narrow the debate over the subject of Israel is in Washington.”

To Mullikin, it’s clear that Omar’s tweet demonstrated a critique of money influencing politics, and that the influx of racism she’s gotten in response is incomparable in scale to what was owed to her initial tweet. “The attacks against Ilhan are attacks against her person and character based on her religion and the color of her skin,” Mullikin said. “That is racism. That is Islamophobia.

Black activists who stand in solidarity with Palestine have and will continue to be the targets of false accusations of anti-Semitism.”

Tufts senior Cecilia Rodriguez, co-president of Tufts Democrats, also found the Democratic Party’s reaction to Omar’s tweet frustrating. “I think that calling out AIPAC as an isolated act is valid,” she said, “but there’s obviously a very fine line between that

The marked ambiguity in the University’s response to the situation on campus is indicative of a common difficulty when it comes to defining antiSemitism today.

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and anti-Semitism.” She continued, “The response to the Omar tweet is definitely guided in part by [politicians’] own campaign finance and donors.”

In a similar vein, it has raised complicated, personal issues for the Tufts Jewish community that the posters at Hillel referred to Israel as an apartheid state. Rabbi Jordan explained that “for some, the distinction between anti-Israel critique and anti-Semitism is clear, for others it feels like a blurred line, yet for the vast majority of people I spoke with last week, the targeting of a Jewish communal space felt like a violation.”

Tufts junior Molly Tunis, a member of Tufts Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), seeks to complicate the reception of the incident and commented on the importance of unpacking the nuances of this situation. “Not enough people really understand what anti-Semitism looks like and how it operates,” she said. “The parts of the posters that were problematic were the exclusive placement at Hillel and the appropriation of Black Panther cartoons by anonymous people who undoubtedly were not affiliated with the Black Panther Party. At the same time, the messages that advocated for Palestinian freedom are not alone anti-Semitic.”

While anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism can and do occur at the same time, they are not, in their essence, one and the same.

Zionism, a term first articulated by Theodor Herzl in 1897, is a political ideology that asserts the right and need to establish an exclusively Jewish state in the land that is now Israel. The first official steps towards the realization of this vision with the Balfour Declaration some 30 years later were the direct result of British attempts to retain imperial influence over the region. Since then, conflict has continued for decades through a military occupation and multiple violent wars. Many anti-Zionists see modern political Zionism as a project of settler colonialism which necessitates the continued expulsion, killing, and disenfranchisement of Palestinians. To others, the ideals of Zionism are vital to the safety and survival of the Jewish people in defense against global anti-Semitism.

At Tufts, the conflation of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism is common, according to Tunis. Put simply, “the distinction is important because one represents a form of bigotry while the other represents a political ideology that advocates for liberation,” she says. “People [are] conflating Hillel with Judaism and Judaism with Zionism.” Tufts Hillel makes no effort to speak on behalf of all Jewish students, and welcomes open dialogue about all issues relating to Israel. But still, the connection between Hillel and Zionism is not imaginary; the organization’s official “Standards of Partnership” stipulate that campus Hillel groups may not associate or work with any other individual or group that questions Israel’s right to exist as an exclusively Jewish state, including those who support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement led by Palestinian Civil Society. “Hillel is steadfastly committed to the support of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state,” reads the foremost statement on the Hillel International webpage for “Campus Israel Activities.”

It is worth noting that alternative Jewish spaces on campus like Alt-J and JVP, which fall outside the umbrella of Hillel organizations, were not targeted by the posters. Despite the hostile way it was communicated, this fact makes a direct political commentary on Hillel’s association with Israel. Furthermore, this critique, like Omar’s of AIPAC, should not, as a result, be dismissed across the board. Hillel’s policy has a real impact on students.

“No one [is talking] about the fact that Hillel also makes [some] people feel unsafe and unwelcome or that there is thriving Jewish community elsewhere,” said Tunis. “When I see that the largest Jewish center on campus specifically prohibits people with views like mine or who have the potential to disrupt their programming, it makes it very easy for me to feel unwelcome and confused. Jewish students can and should critique Hillel’s views on Israel and their ‘Standards of Partnership.’”

Separating anti-Semitism from anti-Zionism is complicated, but all the same, it is undeniable that anti-Semitism has been on the rise in the US, especially in the two years since Donald Trump was elected president. American Jews have experienced a rise in anti-Semitic defacement of synagogues, seeing swastikas and antiJewish slurs graffitied on and around their places of worship. For example, Jewish comedian and activist Ilana Glazer was forced to cancel a get-out-the-vote event at a synagogue after anti-Semitic graffiti was found on the building, which included the phrase “Die Jew Rats” and mentions of Hitler. In 2017, a White supremacist group chanted “Jews will not replace us” during a now-infamous march in Charlottesville. And last year, 11 Jewish people were murdered at a Pittsburgh synagogue by a man who would later explain to police that he “wanted all Jews to die.” This massacre is the most deadly attack against Jews in American history.

During a time of emotional exhaustion, fear, and vulnerability, Jewish students at Tufts will look to each other for support in spite of differences. “As a Jewish community at Tufts, we can always be doing more to create spaces where real disagreement can come to the fore without feeling like an existential threat,” said Rabbi Jordan. “Jewish tradition holds that there are some types of disagreement (machloket) that are for the sake of something higher. This disagreement, the sages teach, will endure; only Jews would hold up enduring disagreement as the ideal form.”

While Jewish communities mourn, seek safety, and attempt to heal, the question remains: how can one appropriately and respectfully denounce the actions of the state of Israel, the only official Jewish state in the world, without their statements being received as anti-Jewish rhetoric? With White supremacy and hate crimes on the rise, for Mullikin, the importance of resolving this issue cannot be emphasized enough. “When we get it wrong,” she says, “Jewish people are hurt by the advancement of anti-Semitism and White supremacy which work hand in hand; Black women are falsely accused of anti-Semitism, placing them in the line of fire from power elites like Donald Trump; the actual White supremacists and anti-Semites in America continue to gain power. This is what’s at stake. We owe it to everyone, particularly marginalized communities, to get this right.”

february 25, 2019 Tufts Observer 5

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THE IMPLICATIONS AND EFFECTS OF AMERICANISRAELI POLICE RELATIONS

By Amira Al-Subaey, Leila Skinner & Sam Drezner

CW: Racial violence, police brutality

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n December 2017, Kevin Maguire, Tufts’ Director of Public and Environmental Safety, attended a National CounterTerrorism Seminar (NCTS) in Israel. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the organization that funds these trips, more than 175 high-ranking American law enforcement officers have attended these trips, which consist of an “intensive week long course led by senior commanders in the Israel National Police, experts from Israel’s intelligence and security services, and the Israel Defense Forces.” In an itinerary from a 2016 trip, attendees visited Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank, which are classified by Human Rights Watch as “severe and discriminatory restrictions on Palestinians’ human rights.”

Participants also visited prisons where children are incarcerated and prisoners are tortured, including the Gilboa Prison.

In that same prison last month, officials called for “harsher conditions” and “limited food and water” after Israeli prison guards sprayed Palestinian prisoners with tear gas. Finally, members of the trip attended a lecture from Micky Rosenfeld, the spokesman of Israel’s National Police.

Rosenfeld oversees a department whose arrestees from 2011 to 2015 were 60 percent non-Jewish, although only 25 percent of Israel’s population is non-Jewish.

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Given these documented human rights violations of the Israeli army, the militarization of police in both the US and Israel, and the trading of arms, tactics, and ideologies that take place on these trips, activists around the country are calling the program the #DeadlyExchange. Since Maguire’s trip in 2017, Tufts community members have also voiced concern regarding Tufts’ involvement in the program.

Last spring, a letter was written and signed by more than 216 people—including 46 faculty and staff members, 117 students, 48 alumni, and five community members—in protest of Tufts attendance on this controversial trip. The letter notes that “these trainings contribute to the militarization of police forces. Adoption of Israeli approaches to security would endanger our students, staff, and faculty.”

The letter draws attention to the fact that TUPD Chief Maguire visited checkpoints, prisons, and other locations of documented violence against Palestinians. Tufts Professor of Anthropology Amahl Bishara was especially disturbed to find out that one of the site visits on Maguire’s trip was a checkpoint near where she lives when she

is in Bethlehem. Noting that the checkpoint separates people by nationality, she said, “[It is] on its face discriminatory, it makes people feel unsafe.”

While it is deeply troubling that TUPD has participated in one of these trainings, they are not the only US or university police department to have attended. In addition to Tufts, a handful of other universities have also sent officers from their police forces to train with the IDF. Several of these schools are within the Boston area, including MIT, Northeastern, and Suffolk. So far,Tufts is the only school where students have mobilized in protest of the arrangement. The Chicago, New York City, and St. Louis Police Departments have also attended this training––departments which were responsible for the murders of Black teenagers Laquan McDonald, Ramarley Graham, and Michael Brown. The tear gas used by police to disperse protesters in Ferguson, MO following Brown’s death was the same tear gas used on Palestinians by Israeli law enforcement.

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Just last year, reports came to light that the Boston Police Department, which also attended the counter-terrorism trip, was using social media spyware to surveil and track Muslim people in the Boston area. After countless instances of police brutality against Black men in Baltimore, the US Department of Justice published a report that documented “widespread constitutional violations, discriminatory enforcement, and culture of retaliation” within the Baltimore Police Department (BPD). According to Amnesty International, BPD was also trained in Israel—on “crowd control, use of force and surveillance by Israel’s national police, military and intelligence services.”

Similar to the well-documented history of US police murders and racialprofiling of Black and Brown people is the history of the Israeli military’s unlawful murders, racial profiling, use of torture, and surveillance of Palestinian adults and children. The statistics on Israel’s widespread imprisonment of Palestinians also mirrors those of the mass incarceration of Black people in the US. While 40 percent of Palestinian men are arrested in their lifetime, Black Americans account for 34 percent of the total US prison population

but only account for 13 percent of the total population. State-sanctioned violence against Black and Brown people is a global systemic oppression, and its many forms—from police brutality, to surveillance, to incarceration rates—manifest both here and abroad.

In an attempt to call attention to the grave implications of TUPD’s participation in this program, Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) launched their own Deadly Exchange campaign based on the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) campaign to end US-Israel law enforcement and military exchange earlier this year.

Tufts SJP member Parker Breza explained how TUPD’s training with the Israeli military can affect students. “While all students are impacted by the militarization of the police… students of color, undocumented students, and Muslim students are disproportionately impacted by police violence and police aggression in the world at large…” Breza said. “If we want these trends to stop, then we also need this relationship to stop between Tufts University and a foreign military.”

Tufts Executive Director of Public Relations Patrick Collins said the University is “opposed to the militarization of police” and characterized the semiautomatic weapons that TUPD officers have been carrying since 2008 as “needed protective gear and equipment.” However, many Tufts community members—especially students, faculty, and staff of

color—do not feel “protected” by TUPD officers with guns.

Christihanna M., co-president of Pan-African Alliance (PAA) and an organizer with the #TheThreePercent movement, expressed that she and other Black students already feel unsafe on campus and that the integration of weapons only exacerbates that fear. “The role of TUPD should be safety—not terrorizing their students and not policing the existence of their students,” she said. Particularly when Black and Brown students are disproportionately profiled and surveilled by TUPD, the increase of TUPD’s firepower coupled with attendance on a training with visits to known sites of racial profiling and discrimination reinforces existing feelings of fear for students of color instead of feelings of safety. As Christihanna added, “going to get trained by an occupying army is not a tactic to use to make students feel safe.”

Collins dismissed the political nature of Tufts’ trip to train with the Israeli military, saying, “The trip was not intended to serve as an endorsement of any particular policy or policing strategy. Rather, it was meant to serve as a collaboration between local area police leaders who were invited to attend.” However, this contradicts the view of the ADL, who organize the trips.

In 2015, David C. Friedman, the ADL’s national director of law enforcement initiatives, remarked that American officers who go on trips to Israel “come back and they are Zionists.” Though TUPD denies any ideological influence or endorsement behind the exchange, the influences of being trained by any kind of foreign security forces inherently involves political bias.

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State-sanctioned violence against Black and brown people is a global systemic oppression, and its many forms—from police brutality, to surveillance, to incarceration rates— manifest both here and abroad.

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Tufts Black Student Union (BSU) President and lead organizer of #TheThreePercent movement at Tufts, Caila Bowen, noted that “nothing about [the trip] is impartial.” When Christihanna M. learned of TUPD’s attendance on the military trip, she said, “It makes me feel disgusted, unsafe, disappointed, but not really surprised.” Professor Bishara added that “it definitely made me feel unsafe, and I know that’s true for other faculty of color as well.”

This isn’t the first incident where students and faculty of color have felt unsafe or have protested issues of racism within TUPD and Tufts more broadly—Black students and faculty have historically led major campaigns against issues of racism on campus for decades.

In 2015, Black students led the #TheThreePercent movement “to demand that Tufts address our treatment as secondclass citizens by this university,” as stated in a letter to the administration written by a coalition of Black organizers. Christihanna M. noted that #TheThreePercent movement was sparked not only by the rampant racism plaguing the University of Michigan, but also by the #IndictTufts movement, another undertaking led by Black students at Tufts to “interrogate antiBlackness on campus and nationwide,” according to a Tufts Daily article. #TheThreePercent movement had nine demands, two of which were centered around the lack of representation of Black students on campus––an issue that persists today. Bowen noted that “a huge problem of the disenfranchisement of Black students on campus is that we simply don’t see ourselves, not with our peers, but also in faculty and staff.” Of all Tufts faculty members employed in Fall 2018, only 2.8 percent were Black, and of all Undergraduate students enrolled in Fall 2018, 4.3 percent were Black. The letter written by Black activists highlights the history of Black student resistance at Tufts, noting that “the Black community has historically had our needs both dismissed and deferred by this institution.”

Bowen echoed this, asserting that “this university thrives off of free student labor” in reference to the creation of countless programs, departments, and spaces at Tufts for Black and Brown students that exist thanks to student organizing. The

letter further emphasizes the history of Black student activism as the force which pushed Tufts to create “the Africana Center instead of establishing the Black Studies Major that Black students had been fighting for in 1969” and again in 2011 when “Black student activism led to the creation of the Africana Studies major.”

Student organizing has been critical to many major changes throughout Tufts University’s history. According to Bowen, the creation of the Black-centered preorientation program, Students’ Quest for Unity in the African Diaspora (SQUAD) is also a “direct result of the #TheThreePercent movement,” yet there is no mention of this history on the Tufts website.

The posters of anti-apartheid protests can be seen from Tisch Library to Hotung Café, yet students protested for months against Tufts’ refusal to divest from South African apartheid.

Immigrant students have also led the fight to protect undocumented students at Tufts amid national attacks on immigrant and refugee communities, which led to President Monaco making a statement in support of protecting undocumented and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Tufts students. After students found out about Maguire’s attendance on the trip, students and faculty expressed concern about the safety of undocumented students on campus as well as how the trip undermines Tufts’ statements of supporting those students according to a Tufts Daily article. Recently, through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request led by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), it was revealed that the deputy Director of Immigration Customs Enforcement had also attended a “Deadly Exchange” trip.

In a 2017 Observer article, Black students detailed many instances of unfair and aggressive treatment they had experienced from TUPD. Bowen and Christihanna M. also shared multiple stories of times TUPD had profiled them and made them feel unsafe—a feeling they say other Black students at Tufts share in and identify with. K. Martinez, former Director of the Women’s Center at Tufts, previously reported incidents of police harassment during their tenure at Tufts when unmarked cars patrolled the Women’s Center. According to Patrick Collins’ email, TUPD

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only uses unmarked vehicles “sparingly.”

The experiences of Black students and faculty on campus say otherwise, “Why are [TUPD] following Black faculty into buildings?” Bowen asked.“Why are they patrolling around the Women’s Center and Africana Center and Latinx center in unmarked police cars? If we already have TUPD as plain clothes and unmarked cars, how is that gonna change when they are training with a military?”

These cases exemplify an unfortunately common trend at Tufts and across the country: law enforcement abusing their powers under the guise of “counterterrorism” to unjustifiably target Black and Brown people. Martinez notes that antiBlack racism goes beyond TUPD, from the lack of “Black and Brown counselors well versed in racial trauma” at Tufts to the high number of faculty of color departing from the University documented in another Observer article from 2018. The exchange of tactics between the IDF and American police, both of which have a documented history of human rights violations and racist violence, only serves to exacerbate the oppression of Black and Brown people in Palestine and in the United States.

Black-Palestine solidarity has a long and vibrant history, as with other crossborder solidarity struggles for justice for Indigenous people. On their website, Black activists in solidarity with Palestine describe their activism as an active choice, stating: “We choose to join one another in resistance not because our struggles are the same but because we each struggle against the formidable forces of structural racism and the carceral and lethal technologies deployed to maintain them.”

One of these activists, Marc Lamont Hill, was fired from his position at CNN on the basis of his advocacy for Palestinian freedom. His story fits into a longer history of silencing and criminalizing Black internationalist activists. Similarly, Angela Davis––a historic and influential Civil Rights activist and educator––received a human rights award which was later revoked because of her “long-term support of justice for Palestine.” Davis called the decision “not primarily an attack against me but rather against the spirit of the indivisibility of justice.”

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Activists leading the #DeadlyExchange campaign around the world argue that community and solidarity makes for a just world—not security and militarization. Beyond the Tufts campus, communities across the country are running campaigns to stop their police forces from participating in Deadly Exchange trips.

By bringing together Black youth and immigrant rights organizations, in Durham, NC, for example, the city unanimously voted to pass a city council bill to end all military exchanges between the local police department and any foreign military.

Laila Nur of Durham For All, one of the coalition members, characterizes this as “an important step towards divesting from militarization and over-policing, and investing in Black and Brown futures… it’s a huge victory towards a vision of safety and sanctuary for all.” In November 2018, Vermont State Police Director Colonel Birmingham and Northampton Mayor Narkewicz withdrew their respective police forces from participating in the annual trip to the Counter-Terrorism Seminar in Israel because of pressure from local JVP activists.

As Bowen noted, “What keeps us standing is knowing that we are not alone, and

building solidarity with all Black and Brown people.”

At Tufts, a coalition of organizations and student groups—including the Arab Student Association, Tufts Labor Coalition, United for Immigrant Justice, Students for Justice in Palestine, Tufts Jewish Voice for Peace, Association of MultiRacial People at Tufts, Muslim Students Association, Pan-African Alliance, and Students Against Incarceration, Left Unity Project, and South Asian Perspectives and Conversations—are coming together to demand that the University take action.

The #DeadlyExchangeAtTufts coalition is calling for Tufts to apologize for Kevin Maguire’s participation on this trip and pledge to never go on this specific trip, or any training trip with a military again. Further, the coalition demands an increase in transparency and accountability starting with a public town hall, followed by the creation of a community advisory board of TUPD. The advisory board must include students and workers, as well as Medford and Somerville residents in order to create a more safe, inclusive, and equitable campus. O

february 25, 2019 Tufts Observer 9

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I

f you’ve been online (or even just alive) in the past three years, chances are you’ve encountered an article somewhere about “algorithms.” What an algorithm actually looks like can vary greatly, but they are defined broadly by the Association for Computing Machinery’s US public policy council arm as “a self-contained step-by-step set of operations that computers and other ‘smart’ devices carry out to perform calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning tasks.” The breakneck speed of technological advancement and the fever for automation have resulted in these selfcontained decision-makers worming their way into all aspects of life; algorithms aren’t just the property of social media news feeds anymore, they’re also used to predict consumer habits, make investments, and even determine courtroom decisions. China, for example, is in the process of rolling out a system of “social credit-scoring” in which data collection and analysis techniques will be used to give each citizen a score. Demerits can include smoking in public areas or walking dogs without leashes, and one’s resulting score can then determine anything from access to public transit to hotel bookings. Though this system is still highly experimental, it is a testament to the widespread datafication of the modern world and the increased primacy of algorithms and machine-learning in shaping our day-to-day experiences.

Following this rapid expansion of algorithmic use and under the looming specter of Big Tech™, social scientists, policy makers, and activists have begun to turn towards computer scientists for answers. Thus far, many developers have seemed unable to answer a simple question about their software: what’s going on

inside? Before we criticize these systems and their creators, it’s crucial to understand how they do (and often don’t) work, and why accountability is so rare in algorithmic systems. The short answer is this: no one really knows what’s going on inside a machine-learning algorithm.

The main issue with regulating algorithms is what’s often referred to as “the black box problem.” In the process of their creation, machine-learning algorithms become so complex that they become unreadable except by their inputs and outputs. It’s a black box—you put something in, you get something out, but whatever happens inside is a mystery.

One of the most common iterations of machine learning in use today is called a “neural network,” because it takes its basic metaphorical structure from the brain.

The actual process of building these is complex, but the simple version goes like this: you build an algorithm with a basic set of instructions and steps to follow, a rudimentary framework for the kind of predictions you want it to make. Then, you feed it a set of test data, which it tests, and then generates a new set of rules (a series of supplementary algorithms) based on the results of those tests. Then it does that again. Then again. And again and again and again until it reaches its optimal state.

The end product is an algorithm with a top layer of decisions and frameworks coded by humans, a middle layer of extremely complicated math (literally called convolutional layers), and a bottom layer of its predictions. The middle layer is essentially inscrutable to the human eye because there is no means of effectively documenting the logical leaps that the program makes at each stage—a problem that’s compounded

by the fact that algorithms are liable to run thousands of rounds of testing before being finalized.

Think of an algorithm like it’s a child— you raise them with a basic set of rules, you can control the basic way they approach the world, but at the end of the day you just have to let go and hope they don’t kick any strangers in the shins. And just like human children, algorithms are exceptionally skilled at unknowingly recreating the biases of the people who create them. In 2015, Google faced explosive controversy because one of its facial recognition algorithms tagged a photo of two Black users as gorillas. They published a fix within hours of the mistake’s exposure on Twitter, and the scandal eventually disappeared.

When a journalist revisited the problem a few years later, however, he found something surprising—Google didn’t recognize gorillas at all. In other words, rather than coding in a fix, Google’s engineers had simply removed the system’s ability to tag things as gorillas at all. Google’s response was certainly a band-aid solution to get out of a bad PR moment, but it also reveals the unruly and unpredictable nature of algorithms—they are liable to behave in ways we don’t expect, and are hard (if not impossible) to scrutinize with detail.

In order to explain the implications of the black box problem we can turn, as we often can, to Twitter. Democratic Representative of New York’s 14th District Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) recently put out a short video in which she stated, “Algorithms are still made by human beings… If you don’t fix the bias, you’re just automating [it].” Ryan Saavedra, a reporter for the Daily Wire, later tweeted the video and fired back, “Socialist Rep. Alexandria

What’s In an Algorithm?

The problem of the black box

By Stuart Montgomery 10 Tufts Observer February 25, 2019

ART BY RYAN SHEEHAN

Opinion

Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) claims that algorithms, which are driven by math, are racist.” There are a few truths to uncover here—the first is that AOC is right. Machine-learning algorithms follow a set of instructions given to them, and those instructions are a product of the very human assumptions and opinions of those who code them. The second is that Saavedra’s point exposes a common defense against claims of algorithmic bias—math can’t be racist, it’s math! The question though isn’t about the math—it’s who writes it and what

algorithms are exceptionally skilled at unknowingly recreating the biases of the people who create them. it’s used for. It’s important to remember that, although they might be represented in equations, the frameworks coded into algorithms are human decisions and opinions.

Tufts Assistant Professor of Anthropology Nick Seaver specializes in the study of music recommenders; he hypothesizes that you can’t build a music recommendation algorithm without first making a decision about what is music and what is noise, what constitutes a melody and what kinds of people like what music—these decisions are informed by cultural biases often so subtle we don’t see them until they become macro-scale, as they do in algorithms.

Joy Buolamwini, a computer scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recently published an article in which she demonstrated that facial recognition softwares are categorically worse at identifying darker-skinned people, with error rates for Black women up to 35 percent—something she attributes to majority White, male training sets (the images on which the software’s algorithms are based) being used to make these kinds of machines. This vulnerability to bias and our tendency to think of machines as objective arbiters of the future is what makes transparency so important. As algorithms continue to take over more and more territory in our daily lives, it is doubly important that they have some sort of accountability built in.

The reality is that the drive to automate rests in the hands of a select few, and in order to leverage some kind of access to the systems of tomorrow, it’s important to demand transparency, or at least explainability. Algorithms have sprung out of computer screens everywhere and into the big leagues; some recent innovations in algorithmic decision-making include investment-bots on Wall Street (which account for approximately 80 percent of trades by volume) and programs that predict recidivism risk and determine bail. One tech company, Axon, has announced plans to develop a technology that interprets police body camera videos without human input, developing reports to save time for officers who would normally do the work by hand. Though this project is still far from fruition, the idea behind it is dangerous—a black box coding and understanding police data would be based on how similar videos

have been coded in the past. Considering the contentious history of racist policing and the use of police bodycams, it’s understandable that some might want know how or why an algorithm makes a decision in a situation like this. To turn territory like this over to algorithms without some kind of transparency or accountability is to make a decision about the lives of many without a second thought. The idea that algorithms are simple mathematical formulas that operate without real consequence is not only passé, it is dangerous.

This is not meant to feel apocalyptic; rather, it’s a call to attention. Researchers, journalists, and activists alike have begun to call for greater transparency in algorithmic systems through a variety of methods. A new field has developed called XAI, short for “explainable artificial intelligence,” which aims to develop artificial intelligence systems that can at least offer viable explanations for their actions, if not complete transparency. The European Union recently adopted the General Data Protection Regulation, a wide-sweeping piece of legislation that includes in its tenets an individual’s right to an explanation of the actions of an algorithm.

The possibilities for creating positive change through artificial intelligence are practically endless. However, in order to sustain a technological future that is just and avoids the mistakes of the past, it is imperative that these systems be open to scrutiny. Artificial intelligence is a fact of life at this point, and it is no more immune to bias than the people who build it—transparency is crucial to a continued future in the technological world. Punch a computer scientist today!

February 25, 2019 Tufts Observer 11

FEATURE

PoetrY

Squirrels fail to recover three quarters of the nuts that they bury each winter and my father still does everything in his power to keep them off of the bird feeder beside the south-facing windows in my kitchen.

I keep chocolate in my desk drawer, buy fruity candies to chew on the walk home from the pharmacy, admonish me for my sweet tooth.

You suck on plum pits, crush ice in your molars, tell me you love me only if I ask.

If you can be kind it should be to stupid thing s 12 Tufts Observer FebruarY 25, 2019

Art bY Mollie Leibowitz rabin

Elana DeSantis

DONAVAN PAYNE

i

COUNTERCLOCKWISE FROM TOP: TATI DOYLE, ALICE HICKSON, YAS SALON, PAULA GIL-ORDOÑEZ GOMEZ

TOP TO BOTTOM: CELESTE TENG, TATI DOYLE, CELESTE TENG

OVERLAY: PAULA GIL-ORDOÑEZ GOMEZ PHOTOS: MATILDA BISCALDI

FEATURE

FEATURE

columns

MEET the

Shreya Marathe Shreya’s friends have always had to put up with her obsession with games. Whether they’re going out on a Friday night or waiting in line at the grocery store, they always wince when they hear her ask, “Wanna play a game?!” This doesn’t stop with the games they play. Despite being one of the least athletic people at this school, Shreya loves to watch and argue about sports. She questions things nobody else seems to care about, like why we choose to root for the teams we do or the weird rituals we practice while watching big games. Instead of having her friends roll their eyes when she pesters them with her thoughts, Shreya decided to write them down.

This column explores everything from the role games play in different people’s families to the way people pick a sports team.

Find Shreya’s and Claude’s work online throughout the semester at tuftsobserver.org/ columns.

ART BY YOON SUNG

Claude shwartz Claude Shwartz is trans, but they feel less confident about what their gender is now more than ever; they’re very uncomfortable around men, but they keep seeking relationships with men; they’re consumed by social anxiety and a fear of being judged, but they rarely go out of the house without an outfits that never fails to stand out. To put it simply, Claude is a series of contradictions. In their column, they share their stories and thoughts about daily life that varies widely from their embarrassing seeking of validation from men on Grindr to the pressures and anxieties they feel about conforming to the physical standards for their trans body to their love and celebration of The Real Housewives and other women of Reality TV. In a loving exploration and examination of what it’s like to be young, trans and hyper-feminine in 2019, Claude shares their adventures and their failures in pursuit of a world that feels right while being trapped in a world that feels just so wrong.

february 25, 2019 Tufts Observer 17

FEATURE

The Race for Space:

campus

By Yumei Lin & Issay Matsumoto

O

utside the brick row houses on Tyler Street in Boston’s Chinatown, a crowd of 40 gathered to support YenChi Chen an hour before his February 14 court appearance. Chen owns A Salon, where he has been cutting hair in Chinatown for seven years. His landlord has been renting out the old row houses’ upstairs units through AirBnB. The rise of AirBnB rentals has led to the eviction of many Chinatown community members, including Chen.

“Once [new immigrants] receive the eviction notice, they tend to move out because they don’t want to cause trouble,” Chen said to the crowd through an interpreter, Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) Executive Director Karen Chen (no relation). “Neither can they afford the time to fight the eviction… But me, I had to fight to stay because it’s my livelihood. That’s what brings food to the table.”

As AirBnB and private luxury development in Boston rise, Chen is one of many residents and small business owners in Chinatown who have faced eviction. Likewise, urban renewal in the ‘50s and ‘60s and institutional expansion in the ‘80s and ‘90s displaced entire blocks.

Recent developments on Chen’s street are not an anomaly—they stem from a

history of racial exclusion and removal in Chinatown as old as its brick walls.

On Tyler Street, Oak Street, and Johnny Court, the 100 remaining brick federal-style row houses are structural remnants of the resistance against racism and displacement. These row houses are a testament to the struggles of working class Irish, German, Jewish, Italian, Syrian, Lebanese, and Chinese immigrants since the 1800s, when exclusionary immigration laws, local anti-Chinese business ordinances, and violent forced removals began their spread across the country. These histories continue to shape the community’s fight for affordable housing today.

Low-income Asian immigrant communities have been rapidly priced out of a community that once supported their livelihoods and culture. According to a 2013 Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund report, the Asian poverty rate in Chinatown was 44 percent in 2009, the highest of any racial group in Boston. Between 1990 and 2010, the non-Hispanic White population of the neighborhood has more than quadrupled, while the Asian population has decreased from 70 percent to 46 percent of residents. While these numbers are

emblematic of the increasing gentrification in the area, they only tell part of the story.

Mei Qun Huang, a former row house resident on Johnny Court, described the disruption that short-term rentals brought to her life. “My family felt like there was no sense of security,” Huang said. “Every few days there were different people.” Eventually, Huang was pushed out of her home of 20 years by a rent increase.

Since 2015, the non-profit Chinatown Community Land Trust (CCLT) has tried unsuccessfully to buy and secure row houses as low-income housing units that will preserve the community’s cultural legacy. According to CCLT Executive Director Lydia Lowe, real estate developers and speculators have outcompeted the land trust’s offers.

“The challenge is if an investor bought it at an inflated value, they’re not going to sell it at a reasonable price,” said Lowe. “And it’s not easy finding the money to do it.”

To bolster acquisition efforts, Lowe has co-led the Chinatown Stabilization Volunteer Committee, a volunteer group raising awareness of the row houses’ cultural and political history.

“Public awareness can make a difference,” said Lowe. “There needs to be more recognition of Chinatown’s history.”

Tremont Street: Affordable Units, and a Bigger Garage

A ROW HOUSE ON HARRISON AVENUE SURROUNDED BY TUFTS MEDICAL BUILDINGS.

While efforts by community organizations to acquire privately-owned row house properties have faced enormous odds, Angie Liou has worked with the City of Boston and Chinatown residents to develop new low-income housing units at Parcel 12, a publicly-owned lot next to Tufts Medical Center’s Tremont Street garage.

IMAGES COURTESY OF ETHAN LAM, CLASS OF 2022

18 Tufts Observer February 25, 2019

FEATURE

campus

Chinatown’s Fight for Low-Income Housing Liou is the Executive Director of the Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC), a non-profit that creates and preserves affordable housing for underserved and immigrant Asian American communities in the greater Boston area.

This past December, the city approved a bid by the ACDC, real estate developers Millennium Partners and Corcoran Jennison, and Tufts Medical and Tufts University’s equal-part joint venture Tufts Shared Services to build affordable housing units at the site. In addition to its proposed 45 low-income rental units and 126 lower to middle-income condos, the development includes a community space that could hold a branch for the Boston Public Library, 140 units for the DoubleTree Hotel owned by Corcoran Jennison next door, and 264 Tufts Medical Center parking units.

Liou noted the importance of Parcel 12 development, considering the increasing scarcity of available publiclyowned land in Chinatown. The development will be a more efficient and economic way to provide a large amount of affordable units than going through private owners, like the many who own row house properties. Liou remembered one row house that the ACDC once looked at on Tyler Street: “It was horrible inside,” she said. “It was a gut-job of asbestos, lead, code violations, you name it. Everything.” Liou estimated that buying and renovating the row house property would have taken a costly $600,000 per unit investment.

Despite the difficulties of private ownership, Liou noted that many medical institutions have recently recognized the important connection between housing and health—investing in the former.

In the Boston area and around the country, hospitals have far exceeded Tufts in putting community benefits directly into housing. For example, in 2017, Boston Medical Center announced it would in-

vest $6.5 million over five years into community organizations that directly fight homelessness and displacement in the vulnerable communities the hospital serves. Although Tufts, which owns more than a third of Chinatown’s land, has invested in various Chinatown community partnerships, no such plans to invest directly in low-income housing have ever been revealed.

“I think for Tufts, that could be a potential way to go if you think about the hospital being right in the middle of Chinatown,” Liou said. “What is the number one issue facing Chinatown? It’s housing.”

When asked to comment on the role that Tufts Shared Services would play in the future of the low-income Asian immigrant community in Chinatown, Director of Real Estate Robert Chihade did not respond.

Tyler Street to the Courthouse: The Community Speaks After Chen addressed his supporters, Pei Ying Yu took the megaphone. Yu was Chen’s neighbor on Hudson Street before a new owner bought the building and evicted her.

“And just like Mr. Chen, my former landlord used all kinds of scare tactics to force me out,” Yu said through the interpreter, Karen Chen. “It saddens me to see that a small business—they’ve been in the community for such a long time—is going through the same thing. It’s almost like telling us we can’t live here, small business can’t stay in Chinatown.”

The crowd dispersed as Chen was escorted by CPA organizers to the Edward Brooke Courthouse for his 9AM appearance.

Chen sat in the front row of Courtroom C, surrounded by his legal team

and CPA organizers. Asian American professionals, community members, and college students sat on Chen’s side of the courtroom—among them were seven current Tufts students and two alumni. Chen and his supporters waited for two hours in the courtroom, only to be informed that the court-vetted Toishanese interpreter was unavailable. Chen would have to close his shop again the next Wednesday for a third court appearance.

Small businesses like Chen’s serve an important role in providing affordable and linguistically-accessible services for Boston’s working-class Chinese immigrant community. But Chinatown is not only a business district—it is also a home and a community. The institutional forces shutting down small businesses like Chen’s and pricing out working-class immigrant residents constitute nothing less than the latest Chinese Exclusion; and they are linked to the struggles of communities of color across the country.

As Asian American Tufts students, we recognize our stake in Chinatown’s survival as a community for working-class immigrants. We reiterate the charge of students and community members: Tufts Medical must invest in low-income housing for the community that supports it.

We call on students to show up at critical moments for Chinatown residents, like the Asian Americans who came to support YenChi Chen in Courtroom C. By showing up, we bear witness to the cruelty of institutions perpetuating racist histories that date back to the 1800s. We tell them: our community is watching.

For more reflections by the authors, visit the Tufts Observer website.

february 25, 2019 tufts Observer 19

News

Honest Money

The Non-Profit Sector Has a Transparency Issue. Candid Aims to Fix it.

By Becca Leviss

*Note: Leviss worked for the Foundation Center during the Summer of 2018.

F

or those of us not frantically scanning the Chronicle of Philanthropy every morning, the creation of Candid might not seem like a big deal. Candid is the product of many years of collaboration and deliberation between non-profit industry giants Foundation Center and GuideStar. Foundation Center was founded as a reaction to the McCarthy-era hearings that placed philanthropic transparency (or lack thereof) smack in the middle of public and governmental scrutiny. The organization has continued its commitment to advancing knowledge in the sector by tracking grants and grantmakers in global philanthropy. GuideStar emerged almost 40 years later as the first searchable electronic database on non-profit data and has since grown into the most comprehensive source on US non-profits.

Now, as of February 5, the two organizations have formed a joint entity: Candid. True to its name, Candid combines the experience, technologies, insights, and information of the two leading institutions working for transparency in the non-profit sector. By providing individuals and organizations alike with access to resources and best practices, Candid helps them better serve their communities.

Candid’s conception marks the most recent step in a decades-long venture to increase transparency and knowledge in the non-profit sector, which has historically struggled to define itself as it navigates tax codes, government institutions, individuals, and organizations.

20 Tufts Observer February 25, 2019

Most organizations in the non-profit sector are designated as 501(c)(3), which corresponds to the US tax code that identifies organizations that are exempt from federal income tax. According to the Internal Revenue Service, to be qualified for 501(c)(3) status, an organization must demonstrate that its purposes are either “charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals.” In other words, 501(c)(3)s are organizations that appear to serve the public good.

This idea of public good, however, is harder to define. Here, the tax code is vague and open-ended: anything from helping the poor and advancing religious beliefs to defending civil rights and “lessening neighborhood tensions” are designated as charitable purposes.

Think about what qualifies as tax exempt under those specifications: major foundations, local community non-profits, hospitals, the NCAA, your neighborhood church, the Family Research Council, Tufts University. All of these organizations receive 501(c)(3) status from the IRS and the reputation and benefits of being viewed as “charitable” causes.

One of the primary benefits of a 501(c)(3) entity—beyond relief from federal income tax—is that any money given to the organization is tax deductible. To incentivize charitable giving, the federal government allows donors to deduct their donations from their taxable income.

A taxpayer in the highest tax bracket who donates $1,000 dollars to charity

doesn’t actually pay $1,000 in the long run.

When it’s time to file taxes, the taxpayer subtracts the money they donated from their taxable income. In this case, the highest tax bracket pays 37 percent of their income. This taxpayer has saved the 37 percent of $1,000 that they otherwise would have had to pay in taxes: $370.

On the other hand, when the federal government does not collect taxes on donations to non-profits, they still need to account for the money elsewhere in the budget. As a result, these tax deductions are collectively carried by US taxpayers—at a steep price. According to the book Just Giving by Stanford professor Rob Reich, deductions for charitable giving cost taxpayers at least $50 billion in 2016 alone.

“All of us subsidize the philanthropic sector because of the charitable deduction on our taxes… so all of us have to make up for that money that’s lost,” Tufts professor of political science, Jeff Berry, said. Berry teaches Non-Profits and Civil Society, a seminar that examines the role of nonprofits in the US. While our tax money pays for aircraft carriers and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), it also mitigates the tax deductions of Bill Gates and the Koch Brothers.

In this way, both the government and taxpayers collectively participate in philanthropic giving; and yet, it is often difficult to trace exactly where that participation leads. “We have a right to know…where that money’s going,” Berry said. “And to know that that money’s actually going to organizations that are charitable in terms of their purpose.”

News

Ideally, adds Berry, it is the role of the federal government to monitor philanthropic behavior through the IRS. In practice, however, it is largely inactive. “The IRS has hardly anybody who works in the non-profit division, and therefore the chances of the government actually looking over a non-profit’s shoulder to see what it’s doing and how it’s spending its money is close to nil.”

As part of their 501(c) (3) status, nonprofits make their tax returns public, often on their website.

To the average taxpayer, however, these tax forms are full of industry-jargon. Most of us are not inclined to take the initiative and slog through pages of 990 forms to understand how our tax dollars are benefitting both our community non-profits and our neighborhood billionaires.

The non-profits themselves—while required to publicize tax information—are not obligated to explain that information.

For smaller organizations with less resources and smaller websites, it is difficult to provide comprehensive resources on performance metrics and finances, which makes it harder for the public to understand their work.

This is where Candid comes in.

“Transparency builds trust, and trust is the foundation of getting things done” emphasized Jen Bokoff (A’08), Director of

Stakeholder Engagement at Candid. Previously, both Foundation Center and GuideStar were major names in the sector with a shared commitment of using data and information to educate and empower the non-profit world.

The formation of Candid eliminates some of the redundancies and “grey area” between the two organizations.

“Now,” Bokoff said, “we’re a one stop shop. When you bring many audiences and their data together—non-prof its, foundations, donors, corporations, social enterprises, and others—you get insights and results you could not achieve otherwise.”

Organizations like Foundation Center, GuideStar, and now Candid are important because they advocate for transparency practices beyond financial accountability. The role of Candid is not just to highlight tax forms, stresses Bokoff, but rather, “to tell the story of foundations and non-profits in a fair and objective manner, to provide trusted data and knowledge for the sector.”

This means capitalizing on what each independent organization does best and incorporating talent and capacity to generate a broader impact. Foundation Center’s databases on global grant-making combined with GuideStar’s comprehensive profiles of non-profits and their work al-

The role of Candid is “to tell the story of foundations and non-profits in a fair and objective manner, to provide trusted data and knowledge for the sector.”

ART BY LAURA WOLFE

lows users to access more information with more efficiency. Resources to encourage transparency and data distribution can flow across both networks to improve philanthropic practices.

It is these types of collaborations and efforts that mark a turning point in the sector’s growth. Bokoff hopes that as the non-profit industry expands and deepens, Candid will inspire other organizations to join forces in productive ways.

In the first two months of 2019 alone, approximately $89.3 million worth of grants are already in circulation, funding everything from universities and health centers to religious orders and art museums. As the federal government’s jurisdiction continues to morph and shift, new non-profit organizations are emerging to supplement social services and complement pre-existing government initiatives.

“I think there are more imaginative things that could be done in terms of partnerships between government and non-profits,” Berry added. “I think this administration, because it’s so unimaginative in terms of domestic policy, is really trying to shrink [and] is not going to be a source of that.”

Yet as the sector grows and the government shrinks, Candid remains cautious about the trade-off between government monitoring and industry self-regulation.

“Candid is not a regulatory agency,” Bokoff emphasized. “Nor do we aspire to be one.

We are ourselves a 501(c)(3) public charity; we are by the sector, for the sector.” In other words, Candid’s creation does not mean that the government no longer has an obligation to supervise the sector. If anything, Candid marks a concrete need for increased transparency in philanthropy and the potential for powerful partnerships between organizations and communities.

February 25, 2019 Tufts Observer 21

opinion

The most important 2020 decision no one is talking about

By Alexandra Benjamin

T

he 2020 Presidential Election lies over a year away, but already, Americans have a growing list of potential Democratic options to choose from. Re-energized Democrats are determined to defeat President Trump, but many, including myself, are struggling to pick their candidate.

All the contenders appear to be supporting variations of a similar, fairly progressive platform. Endorsing Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, for instance, has essentially become a mandatory prerequisite to announcing a Democratic bid for president. The media and the public will have to dig deeper to find distinguishing factors in candidates’ personas and positions. This could be a good thing; substantive debate exposes voters to issues beyond the mainstream and, hopefully, allows them to make a better-informed decision. We can only speculate which issues will become pivotal to primary debates, but there’s one that’s been increasingly on my mind—reforming the Supreme Court.

In many ways, the nine Justices who sit on the US Supreme Court are the most important officials in our government. Not only do they ultimately decide what constitutes the law of the land, but they are also intended to be the most unbiased means of oversight over the Executive and Legislative branches.

Unfortunately, like many elements of our political system, today’s Supreme Court has been weaponized to uphold partisan power. Supreme Court nominations have become one of the most closely watched and hotly contested actions of the presidents who appoint them and senators who confirm them.

Nominees once needed 60 Senate votes for confirmation, and often enjoyed widespread support across the aisle (lest we not forget that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a largely popular, but also openly liberal figure, was confirmed by a vote of 96 to 3). Now, decisions are increasingly divided, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has reduced the confirmation threshold for the Supreme Court to just 51 votes.

Nothing has exposed the Court’s flaws more clearly than the controversial confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh last October. Anthony Kennedy, a historically moderate Justice and 22 Tufts Observer february 25, 2019

the Court’s key swing vote, had just announced his retirement.

President Trump was granted his second Court nominee, after McConnell barred outgoing-President Obama from appointing Merrick Garland to fill Justice Scalia’s seat. Any Trump pick would have been unpopular, but Kavanaugh’s case became an unprecedented ordeal when he was accused of sexual assault

by Stanford University School of Medicine research psychologist and Professor of Psychology at Palo Alto University, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.

If the accusations were not enough to put Americans off of Kavanaugh, his behavior during his highly-publicized hearings certainly was. Not only was Kavanaugh irate, hot-tempered, and snappy—hardly the candor expected of a Justice—he was also openly partisan, denouncing the allegations against him as a political maneuver by Democrats, and “a conspiracy of the Clintons.”

Nevertheless, the Republican majority Senate confirmed Kavanaugh, shifting the Court undeniably right, and leaving many Democrats anxious about what another court vacancy in the Trump presidency could bring (RBG is going to live forever and that’s a fact, but, you know, the rest of them are fair game).

This is why the Court could become a relevant discussion in 2020. When issues like abortion rights and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) could be overturned by the Court, Democrats look eagerly to the election not only to oust President Trump, but to win back a Senate majority to confirm liberal nominees. However, the chances of regaining this majority are slim.

So, if the Court is going to change, it will be up to the president to reform it. There hasn’t been much public discussion about this yet; however, in the event that a Democratic president presides over a divided Congress, reform will almost certainly be considered.

Recently, reform was brought up in an interview with one of the many million Democratic hopefuls, Kirsten Gillibrand, on Pod Save America. Pod host Jon Favreau asked Gillibrand if she was in favor of reforming the Court, specifically about add-

opnion

ing more Justices. Gillibrand called Trump’s influence over the Judiciary “shocking,” and “destructive,” but wasn’t committed to the idea.

But the proposal is actually nothing new; it’s called “courtpacking” and was attempted by FDR in the 1930s. There’s also nothing in the Constitution that says the Supreme Court must have nine Justices—throughout history, the Court has held few as six, to as many as ten. But nine has been the standard since 1937, and the idea of adding seats is controversial. I understand why—I have an almost visceral reaction to the concept, and do feel like the Court should be an independent means of checks and balances untouched by partisan legislation. But what if its independence has already been compromised? And, moreover, how would I feel if Republicans tried to add seats to a liberalleaning court? There’s no reason packing couldn’t become just another way to weaponize the Court.

Regardless, packing is periodically brought up in reform conversations, as is enacting term limits for Justices. But there’s another option that goes largely unmentioned: creating stronger transparency laws around the relationships between Supreme Court nominees and special interests groups.

Open Secrets explains how one such group, the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), a non-disclosing 501(c)(4) non-profit, has become “a key ‘dark money’ conduit for conservatives to funnel millions of dollars into Supreme Court battles while keeping their identities secret, [and] established itself the preeminent advocate of conservative contenders for the US Supreme Court.”

Similarly, The Intercept reports that wealthy donors pumped 501(c) groups with “[upwards] of $15 million in reported advertising spending in order to convince the public to support Kavanaugh’s nomination.”

Gillibrand emphasized these points in her interview, saying she would be more inclined to pursue dark money lobbying as a method of reform rather than targeting the Court itself. Many Americans may not even be aware of the role that money plays in Justice nominations, and that’s part of the problem—for all this money, there is about zero transparency and accountability. Of course, this is far from the only place where money plays an unduly influential role in politics. However, for the Judicial branch specifically, this lack of transparency automatically undercuts the integrity of the independent, nonpartisan, impartial reputation the Court so proudly proclaims.

Again, Gillibrand pointed to Kavanaugh as a prime example of this problem. “The fact that a Supreme Court Justice

ART BY LAURA WOLFE

for the judicial branch specifically, this lack of transparency automatically undercuts the integrity of the independent, nonpartisan, impartial reputation the court so proudly proclaims.

can be wined and dined… where they can be lobbied incessantly by the wealthy special interests, I think we have to make that illegal,” she said. “I’d be very interested in looking at a very significant transparency agenda for the Supreme Court… I don’t think they’re held accountable [and] they are no longer public servants in the way that we have always imagined them to be.”

The extent to which other Democrats will agree with Gillibrand’s ideas remains to be seen. Several other politicians have spoken about reforming the court, including fellow-presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, a well-known opponent of money in politics.

I believe this is an issue that should hold particular importance for young voters and political activists. As young people, we are not just voting for a person or platform, we’re voting for our future. That’s a big ask with so much at stake in the coming years—be it the fate of our environment, our access to health care, or the future of civil rights. But while specific legislation can be undone or redone, the Court ultimately decides the constitutionality of our laws. The Justices being appointed today could impact those laws for decades.

So when we’re thinking about the next president, we need to be thinking about this, and about a president who will be willing to boldly denounce what Republicans have done to the courts, and take action against it. Adding Justices or creating term limits could be a hard sell if the public believes those efforts to be solely supporting a politically motivated agenda. But stronger transparency laws and secluding nominees from special interest lobbying could drastically reduce the role of partisanship from the process, and put an additional check on power back in the hands of the people.

February 25, 2019 Tufts Observer 23

Arts & Culture

queering POP: King Princess aScENDS

By Caroline Blanton

“I

can make old men cry” is the first line pop musician Mikaela Straus, known in the music industry as King Princess, sang at her concert in Boston on January 25. The line, just like the concert that followed, was provocative, brash, and unapologetic. I stood to the side of the stage at the nightclub Royale before the concert began with a cluster of my queer friends, feeling both excited and strangely vulnerable. There was something cathartic and exhilarating about the prospect of screaming the lyrics to King Princess’ “Pussy is God” alongside a club full of largely young, queer fans like myself. I can only describe it as akin to the feeling of saying your first curse word in front of a parent and getting away with it—you feel liberated and just a little bit dangerous. I couldn’t imagine myself even admitting to liking King Princess, much less attending her concert, when I was still in the closet two years ago. For me, this concert was an exercise in fighting my own shame and internalized homophobia with pure, unabashed joy.

King Princess has been out as gay and genderqueer since the age of 13, and her songs intentionally and explicitly explore her romantic and sexual relationships with women. The crowds at her concerts are often filled with many young, queer women.

Because of this, the 19-year-old singer feels simultaneously familiar to many of her fans and startlingly captivating in her confidence, talent, and passion. She’ll reference a Vine, jokingly call herself a “faggot,” and hit her Juul, all before starting to play one of her songs from her debut EP, Make My Bed. 24 Tufts Observer February 25, 2019

For young, queer women who are not used to seeing themselves so clearly represented in the world of pop music, King Princess’ concerts take on an almost ritual quality—they become a haven of queerness flirting with the blurred lines of femininity, all within the context of the traditionally straight male world of pop music. Tufts sophomore Nadia Slater, who also attended King Princess’ show in Boston, explained that King Princess was the first queer artist she had ever seen in concert. “It felt like I was watching one of my friends onstage,” she said. I felt the same way. I almost couldn’t really believe

that someone so similar to me could carry themselves with such confidence in front of such a large audience.

On the night I saw her in concert, King Princess’s opening act was an hourlong drag show that she watched from the wings of Royale, adding clips of the performance to her Instagram story all the while. This reveals another integral element of King Princess’s brand: her unapologetic celebration of the queer community. At one point during the chorus of her popular song “Talia,” audience members even held up homemade rainbow-colored hearts. In an interview with The Cut, King Princess explained that her core audiences “are kids who are going to [a] venue to find peace… it’s a queer gathering. If I can provide that, that’s really important.” That sense of comfort and camaraderie was constant throughout the night. My friends and I danced and sang with abandon, and afterwards we all agreed that the atmosphere of support and community was unlike anything we had experienced at a concert before.

Oftentimes, queer women in music are fetishized in popular culture and their art is performed for the male gaze.

This means the audience is automatically put into the perspective of a heterosexual

arts & culture

man. The male gaze presents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the male viewer, and prohibits the women depicted from transcending this label. Essentially, any celebration of female sexuality in popular culture must still be performed for male consumption.

While King Princess walked on stage at her concert in a men’s polo, khaki pants, sneakers, and no makeup, sensuality and pure sex appeal were definitely still a large part of her performance. However, King Princess’ relationship with sexuality reminded me not of the classic, highly-sexualized, barely-legal female pop singer that is so common in the music industry, but of the male pop rock legends of the past and present—Led Zeppelin, Jack White, even Harry Styles. As her predominantly queer female fans threw everything from bras to roses on stage while King Princess belted her collection of intelligent, overtly lesbian pop songs, the energy throughout the venue was almost surreal. King Princess somehow managed to integrate her sexuality into her performance while maintaining her agency and completely subverting the traditional boundaries of gender, femininity, sexuality, and female performance established and perpetuated by the patriarchy. King Princess’ sexuality, and for that matter, the sexuality of her fans, is not for male consumption and is thus almost revolutionary in its boldness.

King Princess carried herself with the overwhelming confidence usually reserved only for male stars and commanded her audience with the masterful bravado of someone who knows she’s a force to be reckoned with. Her relationship to femininity and queerness does not restrict her. In fact, the power of her performance lies in her ambiguity. Her identity transcends labels, and this fluidity is a part of every facet of her art from lyrics to music videos. Her concerts are, in her own words, a “multimedia queer experience… [she] wants [her] shows to feel like a shrine, like a history lesson and a f*cking reminder of what we have to be grateful for.” For her young queer fans, a King Princess concert is often a welcome respite from the rest of the world—a place

to be unabashedly themselves, whatever that may look like. For me, seeing King Princess celebrate her queerness without it being reduced to a male fetish or something to be ashamed of was truly transformative. The next time I wore one of my four (4) oversized rainbow striped t-shirts, I thought, I would let myself feel sexy without fear or embarrassment. If King Princess can celebrate sexuality without adhering to the rules of patriarchy, so can I! As her stage name implies, King Princess is awash in contradiction. A classicrock-influenced musician in a synthetic pop world, fluent in the internet language

into the mainstream already a fully formed queer icon—completely independent of any powerful man.

As King Princess says in an interview with LGBTQ publication them, “I think I wanted to emulate these male music figures… that were able to just talk about the women that they wanted to be with.” Her queerness is not a gimmick played up by an all-male marketing team in order to sell concert tickets. It is not a label that restricts her to a niche audience. And it is most certainly not up for debate.

Watching her perform is like watching a glimpse into the future of pop: rebellious, innovative, authentic, and overtly queer.

While she may have only recently burst into the mainstream, King Princess is already actively breaking down barriers and comfortable norms about gender and sexuality that have existed in pop music for decades. King Princess’ ascension feels like a natural continuation of our current cultural reckoning with the restrictive norms of patriarchy— or, as King Princess herself says, “Art is just gay as f*ck.”

King Princess’ sexuality, and for that matter, the sexuality of her fans, is not for male consumption and is thus almost revolutionary in its boldness.

ART BY ERICA LEVY

of her age cohort and yet so firmly rooted in the generations of queer art and culture that came before her, she is both debonair and slightly grunge in her music and in her performance. She is one of the few female artists in pop today that remains unscathed by the male gaze, and has entered

February 25, 2019 Tufts Observer 25

voices

they do it out of love In my family, love came in the form of sliced fruit. Plates of peeled apples cut into five exact chunks appeared at my elbow during late nights of studying, cubed cantaloupe when I read in the living room, quartered persimmons silently placed beside my bed. Love also came in the form of music on Sunday mornings. Some families had church; we had Celine Dion and Amy Winehouse. Some of my first memories are of sunlight dripping like honey through blinds as music filled our small San Francisco apartment. Love is expressed through many things in my home, but like many other Asian American families, it was almost never said through the words “I love you.”

I can count the number of times my dad has said the words “I love you” on one hand, and the number of times I’ve said it to him on two. What’s more, I’ve always been the one to initiate saying so, and even still, it never feels quite right. The words sit awkwardly, heavily on my tongue, always with a slight pause as I rehearse them in my mind before pushing through as casually as I can. Love in my Chinese family never seemed to work out like it’s portrayed on American television. The phrase “I love you” felt like it belonged only to the White people on screen.

Love for my family is many things, but most importantly, love in my family is secrets.

For many years, I thought I had a conventional upbringing. My family gave my sister and me more independence than most Chinese parents ever would. We lived in suburbia and had the traditional nuclear family—it doesn’t really matter if I never said “I love you” to my dad, right?

26 Tufts Observer february 25, 2019

secret

1

My parents are divorced.

They’ve been divorced since I was three.

And while 40 to 50 percent of couples in the United States are divorced, and the arrangement has become increasingly common, it’s certainly not common for those divorced couples to live together and tell their children they’re still married for ten years. Even now, my mom still introduces my dad as her husband to everyone we meet. I found out my parents were divorced when I was 13. My mom was filling out some government forms, and she marked a small “x” across the box that read “single.” When my sister and I tried to correct her mistake, her only response was, “No, it’s right.” She continued on as if nothing had happened.

secret

2

My dad remarried. Twice.

After learning about the divorce, I made my peace with it and sometimes even forgot about it entirely. It’s easy to forget when they feed lies about their marriage to everyone they meet, when I feed the same lie to my friends.

When you grow up Asian American, you spend most of your life clinging onto what society deems normal because you’re caught between two cultures. I clung onto my parents’ marriage like that, because losing it meant losing one more thing that made me feel like I fit in. Maybe it would have been easier to face the truth if they were truly separated, I thought.

My sister was different. Instead of accepting the lies, she dug. And three years ago,

voices

By Anita Lam she discovered two marriage certificates in my dad’s file cabinets. She kept it a secret.

A painful secret that slowly ate away at her and developed into an eating disorder and insomnia. A secret whose effects I never noticed, too distracted by my impending college applications.

I was in Hong Kong when I unknowingly met my dad’s wife. I was tired and sticky from the humidity and, at that point, had met too many aunties and uncles to care about this lady that seemed to tag along on our every excursion. I left Hong Kong still oblivious. One year later, my family told me the truth.

secret

3

They do it out of love.

Every parent tells their children white lies. They spin tales about Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, and they do this to preserve the innocence of childhood. Likewise, the secrets of my parents’ marriage were kept so that my sister and I could have some semblance of an easy and normal childhood.

Even my sister refused to share her burden with me for a year so that I wouldn’t be distracted from my college applications.

When these secrets came out, I became cognizant that my parents aren’t just my parents, but people, too. They have their own lives, their own childhoods. The day I found out about my dad’s third marriage, I felt betrayed. I remember being wrapped up in a blanket, pushing myself into the corner of the sofa as I tried to come to terms with the feeling that I didn’t really know my parents.

That despite them being there for me every single day of my life, my dad had built an entirely secret one on a different continent.

Next to me was a plate of sliced oranges.

My family history is one that I am still afraid to tell my closest friends back home.

But it’s also one that I’m tired of keeping hidden just because it’s unconventional. Every family has their own unique problems, but one thing holds true throughout them, especially among Asian families: love is shown through sacrifice. Not the kind that people dangle before you, expecting something in return, but the kind of sacrifice that is silent. Asian Americans show their love in the spaces between harsh words and in cut fruit, in the ever-loaded question, “have you eaten yet?” By bundling their children up even when it’s too warm, by placing the first and last dumplings in a basket on our plates during Sunday dim sum. But more importantly, Asian American parents love by tending to their own personal problems as silently as they can.

I often think back to my high school nights, staying up past 3AM finishing homework and projects, to plates of kiwis, lychees, and grapes—I’m proud of you. I go back to arguments followed by bowls of watermelons and mangoes—I’m sorry. Back to all the papayas, pineapples, and pears smattered across my childhood—I love you.

My family loves silently with a fierce sense of loyalty and protection. And the more I have struggled to reconcile the Western concepts of love I’m surrounded by with the Eastern one I grew up with, the more I realized I shouldn’t have to. My family’s love is held in silence and in sliced fruit, in music and secrets—it’s stronger than any “I love you” could ever be, and for now, that’s enough for me.

february 25, 2019 Tufts Observer 27

arts & culture

Oscar Predictions . . . . . did we win?

T

By Chris Duyos

he last few Academy Awards have been hectic and replete with controversy. The 2018 Oscars saw their lowest ratings in 44 years, while movements such as #MeToo and #OscarsSoWhite exposed an unconscionable history of assault, sexism, and racism in the film industry. Now, in 2019, for the first time in 30 years, the show will not have a host, after the originally scheduled host, Kevin Hart, was recently exposed for tweeting homophobic statements in the past. This year, the Oscars had also planned to introduce a “Best Popular Film” category to appeal to a broader audience. While the specifics of this award are still unclear, it is widely believed that “Best Popular Film” would nominate the most successful blockbuster films, such as The Avengers franchise, while “Best Picture” could be reserved for more traditional (and less profitable) awards contenders. But after criticisms that the Academy was shamelessly trying to get higher ratings, the idea for a new category was postponed until 2020. Finally, who could forget the stir caused when La La Land was accidentally announced as the Best Picture winner in 2017, instead of the actual winner, Moonlight?

Just as the recent movements against them suggest, the Academy Awards are self-congratulatory and entrenched in racism and sexism. For most of its history, the ceremony has largely been shaped by White men. Despite recent amendments to create a more diverse Academy, the awards feel out of touch. Whatever the reason, reports reveal that the show’s audience is shrinking every year.

Furthermore, as art, the worth and value of films cannot always be objectively appraised. Is A Star is Born objectively better than Eighth Grade or Black Panther? Everyone has their own opinions, and it’s impossible for the Academy to please everyone. The Academy Awards today feel dated and aloof, while at the same time cash-grabbing and self-promoting. I’m not the only one who dislikes the Oscars. Most notably, after winning the 1971 Best Lead Actor Oscar for his role in Patton, George C. Scott refused to show up to the ceremony, calling it a “goddamn meat parade.” Perhaps today, we should follow his lead.

It is no secret that the Academy Awards are full of flaws. Regardless, the nominees at least help me pick from the variety of new movies to watch, and give me a general sense of which films are well-liked by others. Which films win doesn’t matter to me that much; it’s fun to make predictions anyway. So, without further ado:

Best Picture Who will win: Roma Who should win : Roma

There are plenty of great nominees for Best Picture this year. Bohemian Rhapsody chronicles the life of Freddie Mercury, an icon and musical visionary. A Star is Born is in its fourth cinematic incarnation, with a 21st century spin involving country music and Lady Gaga(!). However, the film that should and will win Best Picture this year is Roma. The protagonist, Cleo, is a housekeeper for a middle class family that adores her as if she’s family, yet constantly reminds her that she is their servant. Too often movies focus on royalty and elites. Roma focuses on the women responsible for the laborious work of housekeeping, caring, and raising kids, yet still have their own ambitions for a happy and meaningful life. Films are supposed to show audiences glimpses of how other people live. While normally they’re about kings or billionaires, Roma gives a voice to marginalized and under-appreciated people whose lives are just as fascinating and complex. It’s a beautiful, entertaining film that deserves to win Best Picture.

Best actress

Who will win: Yalitza Aparicio, Roma Who should win : Olivia Colman,The Favourite Yalitza Aparicio’s performance as Cleo, the protagonist of Roma, is a memorable one because of how seemingly unremarkable her character is. Ordinary and humble characters like housekeepers are never the focus of Oscar contenders. Yet Aparicio shows the depths of someone whose role in life is to be invisible, but who also wants something more from their existence. In addition, to have a Mexican woman of Indigenous heritage nominated for the most prestigious acting accolade is both unprecedented and refreshing. However, the actress I think should win this year is the complete opposite of Cleo: Olivia Colman as Queen Anne in The Favourite. Her character has the attention of an entire country on her at all times, yet she remains depressed due to her 17 miscarriages and the political backstabbing to gain her favor. The irony of being so important and loved yet desperately lonely at the same time makes Colman’s performance darkly funny and tragic.

28 Tufts Observer February 25, 2019

arts & culture

Best actor

Who will win: Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody Who should win : Christian Bale, Vice Rami Malek’s portrayal of Freddie Mercury has already earned him widespread acclaim, including the Golden Globe award for Best Actor. There’s even a viral Youtube video of side by side comparisons of scenes from Bohemian Rhapsody and actual footage of Queen performances that show the stunning accuracy of his depiction of Mercury. However, Christian Bale’s performance in Vice is my personal favorite of the year. His performance also went viral; in his portrayal of Dick Cheney, Bale gained an impressive 40 pounds and shaved his head to completely transform himself into an elderly, overweight D.C. bureaucrat.

His appearance bares no trace of the young, handsome, British man who played Batman a few years ago.

Bale plays a character who makes a Faustian pact with himself: sell his soul, his morality, even his love for his daughter, all in the name of power. The movie itself isn’t my favorite of the year, but Bale’s subtly diabolical performance elevates it to a higher level.

Best Director

Who will win: Alfonso Cuarón, Roma Who should win : Alfonso Cuarón, Roma

For years, Alfonso Cuarón’s movies have transported audiences to fantastical places, be it Hogwarts, a space station, or an apocalyptic future. Yet for his most recent film, he shows us a much more modest world: Mexico in the 1970s. This isn’t a historical place that is typically covered in mainstream media, like Victorian England or Ancient Greece. However, Cuarón puts his heart and soul into recreating the Mexico City of his childhood, and it ends up being his greatest film yet. The devotion he puts into his long takes, his quirky scenes (a German man in a monster costume helping put out a fire was weird as hell), and his empathetic and layered characters are the product of a mature director late in his career. Many think Cuarón is pretentious for his scenes that seem to go on forever, but I think the opposite. Cuarón’s camera has the perspective of an observer from the actual community, curiously looking around in real-time as a person would. His unique directorial style makes you appreciate the work he puts into his scenes, and he does a flawless job of immersing the viewer into the worlds he creates. Roma is the product of a director at his peak, and actively engages audiences in a time and place that isn’t Western-centered.

Best animated feature

Who will win: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Who should win : Isle of Dogs I hate Spider-Man. Not actually, but Sony is now releasing at least three Spider-Man films a year for the foreseeable future, and audiences still eat them up. Most recently, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse introduced us to Miles Morales, a half-Black, half-Puerto Rican high schooler whose origin is strikingly different from the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker. It’s refreshing to see a non-White Spider-Man, and the movie itself is hilarious, exciting, and has a great soundtrack. But there’s just too much Spider-Man content out right now. People know there are other characters in the world, right? I’m getting fatigued. Isle of Dogs should win the Oscar for this category because Wes Anderson’s unique style and narratives, whether live-action or claymation, are always entertaining. The film is funny, original, and praises dogs for their unwavering affection and love for humans no matter how poorly we treat them.

As Oscars viewership declines, and controversy continues to mire the show, it is important to realize that the awards do at times promote and celebrate independent and low-budget films that tackle serious issues. In an age where 200 million dollar superhero films dominate the box office, the Academy Awards offer a voice for many unique and impressive films that otherwise may not have reached the same acclaim and success.

ART BY ERICA LEVY

February 25, 2019 Tufts Observer 29