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, October 30, 2015
Last Friday marked the beginning
of the three-day Yalla Vote sum-
mit conference at the University of
Michigan-Dearborn. Hosted by the
Arab American Institute, a national
nonprofit, the conference aimed to
provide refugees from the Middle
East the chance to engage with presi-
dential candidates ahead of the 2016
election. One of the keynote speakers
was Democratic presidential candi-
date Martin O’Malley.
Before O’Malley spoke, three pan-
elists — Radhia Fakhrildeen and Noor
Al Dabbagh from Iraq and Moustafa
Assad from Syria — discussed their
experiences migrating to the Unit-
ed States with me and the rest of
the auditorium.
After the panel, there was a break
in the conference while O’Malley
arrived. Minutes before O’Malley
gave his speech, he met the pan-
elists personally in a small room
next to the auditorium. He came
into the center of a circle of chairs
where the refugees were sitting.
The press buzzed around the edges
of the circle. While he placed his
hand on his chest and nodded his
head and listened to each of their
names, I couldn’t help but feel that
this breakout circle was more about
the refugees meeting O’Malley
than O’Malley really hearing and
addressing the refugees’ concerns.
If O’Malley had been at the panel,
he could have spent his time in the
small room engaging in a real, pro-
ductive conversation with the refu-
gees about how to solve the asylum
process — the means by which
refugees seek protection granted
by the United States. Instead, he
spent the time hearing the refugees
recap the stories they had just told.
He stated that he wants the United
States to accept more refugees, but
he did not generate a dialogue about
how the United States is going to
accommodate them. After all, he
was sitting among Fakhrildeen, Al
Dabbagh and Assad, who all have
valuable insights into how the pro-
cess works, or more accurately,
didn’t work.
My feeling was reinforced once
O’Malley exited the small breakout
room and entered the auditorium to
give his speech.
O’Malley called for the United
States to admit 65,000 Syrian refu-
gees. As of September, the United
States has accepted 1,500 refugees.
Last month, the Obama administra-
tion announced it will increase that
number to 10,000 in 2016.
Beyond these numbers, O’Malley
noted how some leaders of the Unit-
ed States are shaping a problematic
culture.
“Ben Carson flat
out said he would
not be comfortable
with a president
who
happened
to
be
Muslim,”
O’Malley
said.
“One
wonders,
from a man who
understands
the
value of education,
what sort of mes-
sage that sends to
Muslim American
little boys and girls
studying American history.”
O’Malley called for the need of
a culture shift: away from Islamo-
phobia and xenophobia and toward
an understanding of the pain
and struggles refugees face and
a reminder that all of us should
know our country is made up
of immigrants.
“The image of our nation is not a
barbed wire fence, it is the Statue of
Liberty,” he said.
Accepting more refugees is the
moral thing to do (O’Malley asked
the audience, “If they don’t come,
how is it going to affect our soul?”)
and it has garnered support from
the International Rescue Commit-
tee, other presidential candidates
like Hillary Clinton and more
than 100,000 signatures through
an online petition. Nonetheless,
O’Malley’s call to action did not get
at the root of the problem voiced by
the refugees I heard that day.
During the panel, the refugees
didn’t spend time telling us about
their time in Iraq or Syria and didn’t
spend time telling us about their cur-
rent life in the United States. What
they did describe was the lengthy
struggle they endured with the
Department of Homeland Security
once in the United States attempt-
ing to gain citizenship. This transi-
tional period is problematic — the
time when the most intense suffer-
ing and pain of refugees occurs. This
transitional period is what needs
O’Malley’s and all leaders’ attention.
Noor Al Dabbagh arrived in the
United States in January 2014 with
her
husband
and son and
couldn’t
get
a job because
she and her
husband’s
work
autho-
rizations
wouldn’t pro-
cess. Addition-
ally,
because
they had yet
to receive asy-
lum
status,
they did not
qualify for government assistance or
medical insurance.
Radhia Fakhrildeen’s husband’s
asylum application was denied upon
entry. This has separated him from
his family for almost a year now.
O’Malley did briefly address the
asylum system, saying it needs to be
modernized so that problems like
these don’t occur, but he did not
specify how this would happen, what
DHS’ role should play and any other
measures for how to improve the
process of being granted asylum.
It is wonderful that O’Malley
wants to inspire each American to
welcome refugees with open arms.
However, his call to action lacked
concrete plans that left me feeling
more overwhelmed by the problem
than inspired by his solution.
If 65,000 refugees are coming, are
we going to be hearing 65,000 stories
just like the ones of Fakhrildeen, Al
Dabbagh and Assad?
— Claire Bryan is a senior
editorial page editor.
O’Malley’s call to
action did not get
at the root of the
problem voiced by
the refugees I heard
that day.
Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Ben Keller, Payton
Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, Victoria Noble, Anna Polumbo-
Levy, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm,
Stephanie Trierweiler, Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Asylum process needs attention
T
he student lifestyle requires
a lot of time spent sitting
down. We sit in lecture halls
and
libraries
and on the bus
to class. And if
we’re not sitting,
we’re
walking
(or the more cre-
ative and rushed
among
us
are
skateboarding,
biking or maybe
just
running)
across campus to
get
somewhere
or other. Some-
times we go to the gym or sports
practice, where we can move our
bodies and get sweaty and gross, but
often it’s not for the point of feeling
joy in the action — it’s to lose weight
or burn calories or change the way
we look. It’s all too easy to tune out
the way a movement or action makes
us feel, especially in a stressful
schedule packed with classes, work
obligations and extracurriculars.
But that’s the whole point of Nia,
a
dance-fusion
exercise
form that’s been around
since the early 1980s. Nia
stands for both non-impact
aerobics (that’s the boring
one)
and
neuromuscular
integrative action, and the
word itself also means “pur-
pose” in Swahili. It’s some-
thing I never know how to
describe to people when I try to tell
them that I do it. It’s dance and yoga,
martial arts and a great workout.
It’s challenging and so, so reward-
ing. It draws on elements of jazz
and Feldenkrais and more, while
still taking into consideration the
way the body is put together, the
way joints work and the way mus-
cles move. Nia is the original fusion
exercise that combines three mar-
tial arts, three dance arts and three
healing arts.
“It doesn’t just borrow move-
ments from those, it borrows the
principles,” said Megan Sims, a Nia
instructor at the Ann Arbor YMCA,
A2 Yoga and several other venues
around town.
Sims is also the owner of Me-
Again Dance Healing & Fitness, a
counseling business based in the
greater Ann Arbor area that pro-
vides therapy through methods such
as interpretive dance and is geared
toward helping each individual grow
and find themselves.
“It’s very structured,” she added.
“There’s just freedom within the
structure to move at your own level
or your own way.”
Nia does this by drawing on 52
unique movements and 13 principles,
connecting mind and body in a way
that doesn’t happen in most people’s
day-to-day walks across the Diag or
time spent on a treadmill.
Of her own practice, Sims said,
“Nia is my therapist, Nia is my gym
… As a Nia teacher, I get to really
express my authentic self on a daily
basis, and I think that’s a really
great opportunity.”
Sims teaches Nia to people in
wheelchairs, people with Parkin-
son’s disease and people who have
difficulty moving, as well as to
people who are more physically
able. She firmly believes that it can
be valuable for everyone. No matter
who you are or where you’re coming
from, Nia can be something that’s
meaningful, and it can help each
dancer to feel whole.
“The research is finally catch-
ing up to what dancers have always
known: that you have to move
your body every day to feel good,”
Sims said.
I find that to be true when I take
daily walks around my neighborhood
but more so in gym dates and partic-
ularly during my weekly hour of Nia,
where I’m encouraged to go barefoot,
where I can express pent-up stress
with sharp punches or let emotions
drip out through languid spinal rolls.
While doing Nia, I allow myself to
forget whatever’s on my mind, what-
ever’s weighing me down. Instead, I
pour myself wholly into the motions,
the sensation of that movement, and
that’s what I’m focusing on — the act
of dancing, not what it looks like so
much as how it feels and whether or
not it feels good. The whole point of
Nia is to find joy in the movement,
and honestly, that’s never hard to do.
Yes, dancing can be intimidating.
At my first Nia class, I had absolutely
no idea what was going on. There
were mirrors plastering the class-
room walls, and I didn’t know where
to put my feet or how to move my
arms. But the thing about Nia is that
it stays with you.
“Most people who take it take it
more than once a week,” Sims said.
“Many people take it two to three
times a week, if they can.”
Once it gets into your routine, it’s
hard to go without it (after all, why
bother?). My Nia class is that one
hour a week when I allow myself to
forget about everything except the
present moment. The clarity I get
from this weekly routine is invalu-
able and infinitely more rewarding
than a straight-backed walk across
the Diag with a backpack in tow.
“You know you got a great work-
out,” Sims said. “You feel happier
than when you walked in, and you
feel like your mind has gotten a
workout as well in some way.”
But there’s also so much more
built into the form itself, and one of
these principles is called Awareness
of Dancing Through Life.
“Even as you’re driving, you’re
putting away dishes, you’re walking
to work, you’re shaking hands with
someone — all of those move-
ments can be part of your life
dance,” Sims continued. “And
if you feel awareness in your
movement, then you’re con-
nected to yourself, you’re
connected
to
your
body,
you’re connected to people
— you’re connected to the
moment. That’s a pretty good
way to live.”
If the life-dance of a college stu-
dent consists of sitting in class or sit-
ting down to study (with some gym
time or sports practice thrown into
the mix), how much joy can come
from those sorts of motions? I’ve
dedicated this entire article to Nia,
and maybe I don’t have you con-
vinced, but it’s almost impossible
to pin down what exactly it is if you
aren’t already familiar with it for
yourself. Like Sims said, “Nia is like
chocolate — you have to try it.”
So go ahead — start dancing
through life. Start being aware. Put
on some fun tunes and walk to your
next class with a bit of a spring in
your step. And if you’re feeling too
self-conscious to skip through Cen-
tral Campus on your way to class, try
dropping in for a free hour of Nia at
A2 Yoga. At least there, you know no
one will be watching.
— Susan LaMoreaux can be
reached at susanpl@umich.edu.
SUSAN
LAMOREAUX
Freedom to move
—Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R–Wis.) in his address to the
House of Representatives.
“
NOTABLE QUOTABLE
We have nothing to fear from
honest differences honestly stated. If
you have ideas, let’s hear them.”
FROM THE DAILY
G
ov. Rick Snyder (R) recently signed into law an eight-bill
package that aims to reform Michigan’s civil asset forfeiture
laws. These laws allow the police to take citizens’ property,
including televisions, cars, cash and houses, if it is believed to have been
used in or acquired by way of criminal activity. The police department
is then free to use those assets as it sees fit. Even if a person is not
charged or convicted of a crime, he or she is assumed guilty and must
go to court to get their property back.
Cease the seizures
Civil asset forfeiture laws need further reform
The reform legislation raises the standard
for civil asset forfeiture from a preponderance
of evidence to clear and convincing evidence.
It has also increased the reporting and
transparency of civil asset forfeiture. These
changes are necessary and long overdue, but
they are also not nearly enough. It is imperative
that the standard of civil asset forfeiture is
raised to “beyond a reasonable doubt” — the
highest level of proof in the legal system.
Further, the citizen must be presumed innocent
and the funds raised by civil asset forfeiture
must be used for the state’s general fund, not
primarily for police departments. Only then
could this matter of civil asset forfeiture be
considered resolved.
Civil asset forfeiture laws became widely
used throughout the United States as part
of the War on Drugs in the early 1980s. The
rationale behind these laws, generally, is that
they deter criminal activity, punish criminals,
prevent further criminal activity and raise
funds for more crime-fighting. When used
correctly, these laws make sense. Few
would argue against the police confiscating
contraband or using a drug lord’s profits
from drug sales to help catch more criminals.
However, it isn’t clear that this is how these
laws actually play out. In fact, these laws
have recently come under scrutiny because
of many abuses that have been highlighted in
the media, both in Michigan and nationwide.
An example of this abuse was reported
by the Detroit Free Press, which details
how a 72-year-old disabled cancer patient
with a medical marijuana card was accused
by the police of selling marijuana, then was
handcuffed and had his house searched. The
police found that he had extra marijuana
seedlings, but never charged him with a
crime. His personal property, including
$11,000 in cash and his Dodge Journey,
was still taken by the police. Many similar
stories
have
surfaced,
suggesting
that
this shakedown of a medical marijuana
card-holder for money was not an isolated
incident. Since there are legal and financial
barriers to regaining property taken under
civil asset forfeiture, many of these wrongs
go uncorrected. According to the Michigan
State Police, more than $24.3 million in cash
and assets in 2013 were seized from Michigan
citizens. The majority of these seizure cases
went uncontested in court, despite the fact
that many were not charged with a crime.
It has become increasingly apparent that
civil asset forfeiture laws are designed in a way
that at best does little to limit abuses and at
worst encourages them. When police can profit
from targeting individuals and squeezing them
for their assets, it is hardly surprising that they
do so.
The reforms signed into law by Snyder will
make it slightly more difficult for police to
abuse civil asset forfeiture. The government
will be held to a higher standard to keep the
seized property, but the burden will still be on
the citizen to cough up legal fees and prove his
or her innocence. The police still have incentive
to abuse the laws, but their use of these laws will
be documented more thoroughly and examined
more carefully. Undoubtedly, abuses will
decrease as a result of these reforms, but there
is not enough protection for Michiganders.
Reform of civil forfeiture laws should
not stop until the proceeds from civil asset
forfeiture are used for Michigan’s general fund
and the standards for seizing property are
raised. The Institute for Justice recommends
raising these standards by requiring a
conviction before taking someone’s property.
Michigan should follow this advice to make
sure that the abuses stop and, considering the
prevalence of this problem across the nation,
other states should listen, too.
The abuses in the criminal justice system are
simply too rampant, with the nation learning of
something new nearly every day. While there
is significant room for improvement in many
aspects, at the very least, the police should be
stopped from taking people’s possessions prior
to a conviction.
CLAIRE BRYAN | VIEWPOINT
Cleaner air equals better
health
TO THE DAILY:
As a nursing student working in Univer-
sity of Michigan Health System hospitals, I
have witnessed firsthand how the health of
Michigan residents is negatively impacted
by air pollution. Michigan relies heavily on
coal-fired power plants for energy, yet the
toxic chemicals released from burning coal
are known to cause or exacerbate a variety
of health conditions. These adverse health
outcomes include asthma, cardiovascular
disease and cancer. To put all of this into per-
spective, Michigan’s asthma rate is 25 per-
cent higher than the national average, and
residents suffer the 10th-highest death rate
from cardiovascular disease in the nation.
It is evident that air pollution continues to
threaten our health every day. This is why it
is so important for the state government to
support Michigan’s transition to clean energy
sources through strong renewable energy and
energy optimization standards.
As a future nurse, I am passionate about
preventative health care and promoting the
well-being of the populations I will care for.
By improving Michigan’s air quality, resi-
dents will experience a healthier future and
increased quality of life.
Anna Koenigsdorf
Nursing junior