Opinion JENNIFER CALFAS EDITOR IN CHIEF AARICA MARSH and DEREK WOLFE EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS LEV FACHER MANAGING EDITOR 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. 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 TODAY IS FRIDAY THE 13TH. READ OUR ARTICLES ONLINE. 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