Opinion
JENNIFER CALFAS
EDITOR IN CHIEF
AARICA MARSH
and DEREK WOLFE
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
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MANAGING EDITOR
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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 —Friday, February 13, 2015
Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Aarica Marsh, Victoria Noble, Michael Paul,
Allison Raeck, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm, Matthew Seligman,
Linh Vu, Mary Kate Winn, Jenny Wang, Derek Wolfe
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
I
n Cuba, the walls of buildings are often
only partially painted. There are swaths
of yellows, pinks and blues before they
taper off to reveal cold,
blank chunks of stucco and
stone. The unfinished aes-
thetic extends far beyond
the paint jobs. It’s seen in
the houses that haven’t
changed since 1959 and
the holes of the chalk-
boards that lie tilted on
the walls of a University of
Havana classroom.
Driving
along
the
Malecón,
the
oceanside
promenade that stretches
along the coast for miles,
one sees the silhouette of
tall buildings — spread apart, dark and empty.
There are no recognizable signs or shimmer-
ing lights along doorframes — just old, faded
architecture on one side and the ocean erod-
ing a stone barrier on the other. The vision,
written out, sounds bleak. But it’s beautiful
for what it is — its hollowness, its singularity,
its antiquity. It’s free from becoming a string
of shops that all look the same, sell the same
things and discontinue a culture dedicated to
the scarcity of materialism.
My grandmother, originally from Roma-
nia, grew up in Mexico. Escaping the Nazis
during World War II, she and her family
moved from Bucharest to Paris to the south
of France to Mexico City, where she lived
until her studies brought her to the United
States. Before she died, she wrote a collection
of memoirs for her grandchildren — bound
together in a spiral notebook consisting of
150 pages.
When she writes about her adolescence
spent in Mexico, she mentions the colors,
the warmth, the dogs and cats and birds that
nested themselves within her home. She writes
about the city of fishermen, the beautiful, clear
ocean from which they fished and the small
group of cliff divers, known only by the locals.
One would never guess that the city which
she describes — idyllic and quaint — is in
fact Acapulco, presently bustling with spring
breakers, cheap hotels and A-line restaurants.
In her memoir, my grandmother men-
tions that she returned to Mexico City with
my grandfather 30 years after leaving the
country, only to be greeted by air thickened
by fumes, severe economic disparity and the
disturbing implications of tourism and time.
She vowed never to go back after that, and
never did.
When I returned home from Havana in
May of 2014, after having studied there for
four months, I had dreams about the embargo
being lifted. I imagined that during the 2016
presidential election, Hillary Clinton would
win, would somehow make Congress lift the
embargo and I’d go back to Cuba. I thought
of how my Cuban friends and then-boyfriend,
Alberto, would fare in a new Cuba — one
that was no longer avoided by the free world.
When I lived there, the majority of problems
plaguing my friends were those associated
with the economy — shortages, rations, the
general lack of money — and ironically, the
reason we were all probably friends in the first
place. At the time, I hated the embargo, and I
hated socialism even more, because in order
to maintain a participatory workforce, it held
those who I loved on the island captive.
After a formative four months, I came back
to America and time went by. I went back to
throwing all of my waste in the trashcan as
opposed to reusing it, going to the grocery
store only to let my tomatoes go bad a week
later, shopping for T-shirts I’d wear three
times. Back in Cuba, Alberto had two shirts
and one pair of pants that he washed with a
bar of soap and a bucket of water every few
days. When in Cuba, I resented the system
that made dispensability impossible. But back
in America, once the small and painful daily
realities of Cuban life faded away from my
consciousness, I began to reestablish my faith
in the functionality of socialism.
In the fall, I took a class on Latin American
Revolutions, and when we studied the Cuban
Revolution I thought, Damn. Che and Castro
accomplished some serious shit. They made
the country, previously rife with inequality,
socialist within a matter of years. But my new
opinions, formulated within an academic
context, negated ones I’d formed while actu-
ally living amongst socialism — that humans
are inherently too selfish, too individualistic,
not to crave economic progress. That aside
Cuba’s hollow beauty
O
n Feb. 8, Central Student Government President Bobby
Dishell, a Public Policy senior, announced the creation of a
task force to develop a student honor code for the University.
This new code would serve as an addition to the University’s pre-
existing Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities with
the goal of addressing academic integrity, individual behavior and
student rights. While attempting to put the University community’s
values in writing is a commendable effort, the creation of a new
honor code is a misguided attempt to influence the behavior of
students at the University.
Released in 1996, the Statement of Student
Rights and Responsibilities incorporates
aspects
of
“civility,
dignity,
diversity,
education, equality, freedom, honesty, and
safety” into its objective. It informs students
on acceptable behaviors that the University
values and the actions taken if they are
violated. The final chapter of the Statement
also provides sanctions and intervention
plans for violations of any of its standards
In the press release, Dishell stated,
“The aim of the task force, and eventually
the honor code, will be to encourage and
motivate students to hold ourselves to a
higher standard.” He added, “Currently,
there is not one place where students can
turn to in order to know what our community
stands for.” Since it is commonplace for
large institutions to implement a wide-scale
honor code, something the University is
lacking, developing this code is worthwhile.
However, it is naïve to believe a new honor
code will achieve what Dishell hopes. A brief
written statement on its own will simply not
be successful in motivating positive behavior
across campus.
If CSG is serious about taking steps to
improve campus behavior, it should focus
on more tangible initiatives. CSG should
begin by convening forums throughout
the year for student organizations that
receive funding through CSG to facilitate
open dialogue and discussion on positive
behaviors.
Participation
in
this
forum
should be mandatory, and in order to ensure
members of the 1,000-plus organizations
attend, yearly CSG funding totaling more
than $300,000 should be withheld until
they actively participate. By doing so, the
student population that is involved in
clubs will be directly engaging with the
goals of the Statement and honor code. The
generation of open dialogue within clubs
will increase social pressure and incentivize
students to abide by and respect the honor
code and Statement. This plan of action will
undoubtedly be more effective than having
another document to read that will ultimately
be tossed aside. And for those not involved
in student organizations, the honor code
should be heavily advertised and promoted
around campus.
CSG must also address which social factors
hinder the current ideals of the Statement
from being integrated into students’ conduct
on and off campus. By bringing relevancy,
value and respect to the honor code through
open dialogue, peer-led discussions and group
intermediaries, CSG can impact the social
atmosphere from which these behaviors stem
and generate positive relationships between
students and the honor code proactively.
A few weeks after 9/11, I remember
walking
down
the
playground
with my best friends, Maureen and
Kathleen, after a tiring day of first-
grade arithmetic and grammar.
I was a timid, skinny six-year
old with large brown eyes and silky
black hair cut to my shoulders; my
only thoughts must have been about
what food will be served during
lunch, the latest episode of Arthur
and my newborn sister.
As we walked, I remember sens-
ing Maureen and Kathleen being
standoffish. I remember them walk-
ing a few steps in front of me, whis-
pering to each other and looking
back at me.
As the three of us convened in
our usual hangout under the slide
and behind the monkey bars, I qui-
etly asked what was wrong. The two
looked at each other, and then Mau-
reen, her usually gentle blue eyes
glaring at me behind her glasses,
her usually pale cheeks and ears
a soft pink in the September chill,
spat, “Allana, it was your people that
killed everyone in New York.”
I don’t remember the exact
events of what followed, but I do
remember my vision going dark. I
remember looking around the play-
ground and not seeing colors, only
seeing the trees and sky in different
shades of gray.
According to my father and faint
memories, I cried throughout the
rest of the day. Unable to articulate
my shame and fear, and already
over-sensitive, I took to quietly
sobbing into my sleeve and sitting
away from my peers, perhaps fear-
ing retaliation from the rest of the
class, perhaps scared I would hurt
one of them, too.
My teacher took me aside during
class and asked me what was wrong.
Repeatedly she asked, and I only
responded with more furious cry-
ing. Exasperated, she sent me to the
principal’s office and called my dad.
When he arrived, I quickly
recalled what had happened as the
tears continued to fall down my
face. He went to go tell my teacher,
and they both agreed to devote the
last 20 minutes of the day explain-
ing to the group of first graders
how not all Muslims are killers,
how Islam is not synonymous with
terror. Maureen apologized to me
after class.
* * *
Years had gone by. Almost rou-
tinely we would hear stories from
relatives,
friends
of
relatives,
friends of friends on their various
Islamophobic attacks. One eve-
ning, my father told the story of my
teenage cousins being taunted and
assaulted by their neighbors while
playing basketball outside; another
day, my mother recounted how our
mosque had been vandalized and
racial slurs painted on the walls;
soon after, my grandmother called
my parents anxiously revealing that
my uncle had been detained while
visiting Chicago.
We were coming back from a fam-
ily vacation in Mexico. I aged about
three years, but remained shy and
gangly. My sister was now a ram-
bunctious toddler and my brother
walked hand in hand with my mom.
As my family and I slowly made
our way through the painfully long
line in immigration, tired and hun-
gry from being on a plane for six
hours, we ached to go home. Finally
our turn had come, and we made
our way to the singular glass booth
where a large white man, balding
and barely squeezing into his baby-
blue TSA button down, meticulously
watched us approach.
He took our passports and began
to analyze. We stood in front of the
booth as three, four, five families
behind us in line had been approved
by other officers and went to
retrieve their luggage. My mother’s
arms grew tired carrying the weight
of my sister.
More agents arrived at our cubicle.
They looked over my father’s pass-
port, scrutinizing the profile of his
tan skin and black mustache.
Without giving reason, they took
us aside and said we needed to stay
here a little bit longer than usual. I’m
sure they assumed our dark hair and
complexion, my parents’ accented
English, and our last name “Akhtar”
were reason enough for suspicion.
I then watched as my father, the
top of all of his classes in high school
and college, the first in our family
to become a doctor, the owner of a
thriving private practice devoted to
treating patients with cancer and
leukemia, lead away from us to be
interrogated for suspected terrorism.
I remember my mom trying to
pacify my agitated siblings while
waiting patiently to hear back from
the TSA. We sat on the floor of the
airport (they did not offer us chairs),
under the imperious gaze of a self-
proclaimed
Homeland
Security
agent (didn’t he understand that this
was my homeland, too?).
An officer returned with our lug-
gage. Immediately, he and his friend
broke the locks and unpacked every
item inside the bags. I watched a
strange man pick apart the items
in our luggage that my mother
painstakingly organized for days;
I watched his gloved hands touch
her undergarments; I watched the
others at the airport look over at us
as they walked past, like we were a
roadside accident or a circus act.
I watched in rage as they laughed
amongst themselves, ignorant to
the ostracism and humiliation of
my family. Their decision to racial
profile was thoughtless and I’m
sure they forgot about it soon after,
yet they will never know the years
and years of shame and embarrass-
ment this inflicted on me.
Eventually my father returned,
his search proving null and our lug-
gage of bathing suits and sunscreen
verified as bomb-free. We returned
home, my mother made us scram-
bled eggs, and we went to sleep.
* * *
Now I am almost 20 years old, no
longer as gangly yet still timid.
As I watched stories unfold
reporting the uptick in anti-Mus-
lim hate crimes after the Charlie
Hebdo shooting in Paris, the surge
in online threats upon the release of
Clint Eastwood’s “American Snip-
er” and, perhaps most haunting, the
killing of three Muslim-Americans
in North Carolina, these memories
of mine resurface and I am forced
to reconcile the profound and last-
ing effects my exposure to Islamo-
phobia had on me.
Some of my most prized child-
hood memories have to do with my
Pakistani-Muslim identity: putting
henna on my palms with my cousin
on the stairs of her condo for Eid,
visiting my grandparents’ house in
Pakistan and making roti with their
housekeepers, and praying maghrib
alongside my father every evening
when he came back from work.
However, after 9/11 and into my
adolescence, I turned my back on
these features of my life that I felt
separated me from everybody else.
I yearned to escape from the endur-
ing shame after being told “my
people” killed nearly 3,000 lives. I
ached to forget the humiliation of
having to sit on an airport floor for
four hours because my dad’s skin
was too brown.
I detested my parents’ strict “no
dating, no sleepovers, no alcohol”
policy. I hid the fact I volunteered
at my mosque every Sunday from
my peers and soon stopped going
when I no longer wanted to associ-
ate with religion. I cringed at my
mother’s thick Pakistani accent
when she would speak to my teach-
ers, or the clothes she bought me
that would cover up my legs and
arms even in the summer.
With these instances of reject-
ing my culture, I blamed Islam for
my own sense of estrangement in
school and society. I felt that by
following the culture of my peers,
these instances of discrimination
would cease to exist and that I could
finally feel accepted. I thought that
if I could use makeup to lighten my
skin, wear more revealing clothing
and party more often, I would stop
feeling like the only brown girl in
the room and being seen as such.
And now, with the onset of these
larger attacks demonstrating the
existing prejudice people harbor
against my identity, I continue to
struggle with trying to reconcile
with my feelings of self-hate. How
am I supposed to love my identity
when people exist who vehemently
express their rejection of it? How
can I stop feeling like an “other,”
like an outsider, when I’m constant-
ly being viewed as one?
The truth is I haven’t yet
embraced my identity. I still feel
the need to use an American accent
when I pronounce my last name and
disassociate myself from the larger
Pakistani-Muslim community.
However, I hope that maybe
through expressing my feelings of
estrangement, I will one day be able
to come to terms with the skin and
heritage I was born with.
For me, the worst part about
hearing of these racist attacks
is knowing they will give rise to
another generation of ashamed
Muslim boys and girls, who too will
cry years later at the humiliation of
being stopped at an airport.
I hope through sharing these
memories I can reach out to other
outsiders who suffer similarly from
Islamophobia. In sharing these
memories, I hope I can receive
guidance from others on how to
fight my persisting shame, or so
that we may help each other learn
to stop hating ourselves.
Allana Akhter is an LSA sophomore
and a Daily Staff Reporter.
An ineffective effort
New honor code will not alone change student actions
ALLANA AKHTAR | MICHIGAN IN COLOR
“Your people”
from an aesthetic standpoint —
one that favors a highly primitive,
untouched visage — business that
brings money and people and new
life is needed.
Ironically, I found out that the
United States would be restoring its
relationship with Cuba during the
final exam for my Latin American
Revolutions course. During the last
10 minutes, my professor rose up
out of her seat, smiling, and on the
chalkboard wrote giddily — “Obama
has just restored diplomatic relations
with Cuba.” I read this, scribbled
down a few concluding sentences to
an essay question, shoved the exam
onto her desk, left the room and
cried. That night I called Alberto on
the phone — in the moment it was
worth the million dollars a minute it
costs to speak overseas to Cuba.
¿Como te sientes sobre todo? “How
do you feel about all this?” I asked.
Bien. “Fine,” he answered. “Listen,
my love. Can you send some money?”
His apathy spoke mountains of
truth — despite the exciting pros-
pect of dismantling an oppressive
55-year-long
blockade,
Cubans
aren’t going to see the positive
implications for a while. The only
people who’ll be benefitting now
will be the travelers ooh-ing and
ah-ing at 1950s-era cars. Until the
embargo is, in fact, lifted, life for
Cubans will remain the same —
stagnant, poor, hopeless. Alberto
will continue to ask me for money as
he often does. What the opening up
of Cuba will do, I fear, is the same
thing that happens to all cities and
countries that are overly accepting
of the tourist’s dollar. Havana, I
fear, will become to me what Mexi-
co City and Acapulco became to my
grandmother — unrecognizable.
Scrolling through my Facebook
newsfeed the other day, I saw
pictures of a Cuba backdrop, clearly
intended as a party theme, with a
girl sitting in a beach chair, drinking
out of a straw, captioned, “welcome
to Cuba.” I shut my computer.
As my friend would say, “the hip-
ster reason” for my anxiety about
Cuba’s future is in part due to the
fact that everyone will soon be able
to travel to the place that made me,
me. For a week, they’ll lounge on
beach chairs, drink out of coconuts
and spin on dance floors with Cuban
swingers at a salsa club. But, as tour-
ists, they won’t necessarily begin to
understand the deep cultural, politi-
cal and anti-imperialistic history
that cloaks the small and beautiful
nation. Then, when more people
visit for a week, everything — down
to the coconuts — will get more
expensive. It will create greater dis-
parity between Cuban citizens and
tourists; it will convert it into the
next Dominican Republic.
I drift between different lines of
thought. This is what Alberto would
want, I think to myself. This is what
they need. But this validates that
perfect socialism isn’t attainable
there — a concept I’m reluctant to
admit but finally do. Still, I hope
that the hollow beauty along the
Malecón remains the same. But I
know it won’t.
— Abby Taskier can be reached
at ataskier@umich.edu.
ABBY
TASKIER
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