Rakestraw said he was impressed
with Duggan’s efforts to ensure
the city is well lit.
“So much of wanting to go to
a city is being comfortable and
feeling safe in it,” Rakestraw said.
“I thought it was really cool how
much he emphasized making
sure the streets were clean and
well lit as a precursor to making
real change. It seemed like the
kind of response you would get
from someone who is looking at
the big picture in totality.”
Duggan has also spearheaded
a
number
of
crime-fighting
initiatives in Detroit.
Given that the city does not
have the resources to employ
more policemen, Duggan said
the current police force must be
used more efficiently. Even with
current law enforcement efforts,
the city’s murder rate fell by 3
percent in 2014.
“If we are going to reduce
crime in the city of Detroit, I
need to take the same 2,400 cops
and use them smarter than we
ever did before,” he said. “And
so we are essentially, for those of
you who are ‘Moneyball’ fans, we
are applying ‘Moneyball’ policies
to fighting crime. And it’s pretty
interesting to see business school
grads and cops mixing. The key
to getting violence down is you
have to get criminals to make
different decisions. How do you
get them to change the decision
not to commit the crime in the
first place?”
Ceasefire Detroit is a program
the city has implemented to
address this question. Under the
program, the city brings 30 to 40
residents, many of them youth,
with known criminal histories
together for a discussion once a
month. Community members,
Duggan and the Wayne County
prosecutor are all present to
speak about the state of violence
in Detroit.
“We’ve had 30 American men
and women killed in Iraq last
year, in this one little corner
of Detroit we’ve had 40 people
murdered,” Duggan said. “It is
more violent in our corner of
Detroit than in war-torn parts of
the world. And what I say to them
is, the ones who are most likely to
be the next victim, are you. The
violence has to end.”
Duggan has also worked to
jumpstart GreenLight, a program
aimed at securing high-risk gas
stations. The nine participating
gas stations will be lit out to the
street front and outfitted with
high-resolution, color security
cameras. These cameras will
be connected through Wi-Fi to
police headquarters where there
is a real-time crime center.
“The technology is so advanced
that
if
somebody
carjacks
somebody at a gas station, we
will be able to rewind that image
at police headquarters, take
a snapshot, send it out to the
patrol cars in the area that have
laptops so that they’ll be able to
see the cars and the perpetrators
immediately,” he said.
Duggan also emphasized the
importance of enticing young
people to move to Detroit — an
area where he said he has seen
significant improvement.
“Today every housing unit in
downtown Detroit is leased out,
there is a six-month wait list,”
he said. “We caught this trend
of the millennials who don’t
want to live in the suburbs and
drive a minivan, who want to
be closely connected, who have
creative energy, are moving in in
remarkable numbers. We have a
lot of initiatives going on in the
arts side, the cultural side.”
For one thing, the city has
launched a program called Motor
City Match, which will give out
$500,000 every quarter for the
next five years to new businesses
in the form of $50,000 grants.
Last quarter, 370 people applied
for one of 10 grants.
Business sophomore Emily
Gorman, a Michigan native,
said she is excited by the city’s
continued
improvements
and
will consider living there after
graduation.
“I
definitely
can
envision
myself there,” Gorman said.
“I love the city, I volunteered
there a lot in high school. I think
there’s so much more energy
there than people see. You see
the perceptions around campus
of people who aren’t from around
the area, or even who are from
the area. But whenever I go
there’s just such an energy to
bring Detroit back to what it used
to be, and I just think that it’s a
really cool place to be.”
Rakestraw expressed similar
sentiments.
“All the stuff that’s happening
with Shinola, the recent tech
investments, what Dan Gilbert’s
doing with Quicken Loans, to me
it seems like the next American
town,” he said. “As a young
person, why not go where things
are exciting?”
“The implications that a student
representative must either shed
all ideas or stop expressing them
and that a basic requirement for
leadership in CSG is either to
have no ideas or to remain silent
is foreign to the underpinnings
of a free democracy,” Arm wrote
in an e-mail interview with The
Michigan Daily on Monday.
Arm said the protest’s purpose
was to provoke thought and
expression, and that he was
responding
to
the
protesters’
invitation to look at their display
and produce a response.
“I am a fervent believer in
political pluralism and freedom of
speech,” he wrote. “It is impossible
that all members of Central
Student Government will please
all students all the time. Some
students will inevitably disagree
with us and even disdain us for the
decisions we make and the votes
we take.”
Whether it was regarded as a
matter worthy of investigation,
Hislop said there will be positive
takeaways from the experience.
“This investigation will allow
for CSG to improve our Operating
Procedures, which at the moment
lack a clear definition as to how and
when the Ethics Committee should
be used,” Hislop wrote. “We need
to improve the rules we operate by
so future cases are not marked by
this same confusion.”
One such improvement in the
rules would be whether or not a
student has right to legal counsel
in ethics hearings, which the ethics
committee requested the rules
committee determine. Hislop also
wrote the investigation can lead to
a dialogue on counter-narratives
through the University.
Arm said in an e-mail he was
happy the committee confirmed
that his right to free speech was
protected under the Student Body
Constitution.
“It is a shame that those who
disagree with me politically tried
to make me the first because of
my public support for Israel,” Arm
wrote. “Freedom of speech is of
critical importance and all students
should recognize that truth. I hope
that in the future all students will
be able to engage in respectful
dialogue freely without fear of
repercussions for their ideas.”
The
ethics
committee
wrote in the report that while
representatives should be held to
higher standards than the average
student, Arm’s words should not be
held against him.
“We as an Assembly cannot
let hurtful words stop us from
having important dialogue and
from making difficult decisions,”
the report said. “The Ethics
Committee encourages students
and representatives to continue
to passionately and respectfully
advocate on behalf of the causes
they believe in.”
Arm said he was pleased by the
results of the investigation, and is
eager to continue his work in CSG.
“I hope that in the future all
students will be able to engage in
respectful dialogue freely without
fear of repercussions for their
ideas,” Arm wrote. “In the future, I
hope we can vet these accusations
more seriously before conducting
big investigations and bringing a
student’s name into the media.”
said. “But then the rains will
stop, and the floods will drain,
what are people going to do
about the damage?”
Venkatachalam
and
Lakshmi Narayanan said many
of their Indian classmates
in the Business School call
Chennai their home, and still
have direct or extended family
living there. The pair has been
working with other students
to contact family and friends.
“We couldn’t reach people
because the phone lines were
down, there was no power
and the ground floor and
first stories of houses were
submerged,”
Venkatachalam
said. “We had no idea if people
were actually OK, including
our own family members.”
The two Business students
attended high school together
in Chennai, and have retained
connections with the city.
“The estimate of damages
right now is about $3 billion,”
Lakshmi Narayanan said. “We
asked ourselves if there was
anything we could do through
Ross. This is a place that
encourages collaboration, this
is a place that has impacts in
other parts of the world — the
outreach is huge.”
They set a goal of raising
$5,000 for the cause, which
will be distributed by an
organization
working
on
the ground in India. In one
day, they had already raised
half that amount, in part by
contacting the Ross School of
Business Student Government
Association
and
other
associations on campus to
spread the word.
“We
thought,
‘Hey,
we
should do something about
this,’ and we felt that the
Ross
Student
Government
Association has the maximum
reach,” Lakshmi Narayanan
said.
The Ross SGA distributed an
e-mail to all Business students,
faculty and staff Thursday
urging people to donate.
After Venkatachalam and
Lakshmi Narayanan surpassed
$5,000, they increased their
goal to $10,000.
The two partnered with an
organization called Milaap.
Similar
to
GoFundMe,
provides a forum for donors to
make contributions.
“The
site
was
started
by one of our classmates
in
undergrad,”
Lakshmi
Narayanan
said.
“We
knew it was an authentic
institution and there’s a lot of
accountability in where the
money gets dispensed and how
it’s used.”
The
website
will
also
include
campaign
updates
throughout the process.
“The
link
has
updates
about how well we are doing,
where the money is going and
showing the receipts of the
money
being
transferred,”
Venkatachalam said.
Lakshmi Narayanan said
the money will be spread
across different causes.
“The initial money is going
towards helping people find
water and food,” she said.
“People have lost all their
clothes, all their food, all
their money. We want to also
provide
that
rehabilitation
support.”
Business
Prof.
Puneet
Manchanda,
who
studies
emerging markets, particularly
business in India, said the
recent floods are destroying
Chennai’s infrastructure.
“The
effects
are
truly
devastating,
both
from
a
human capital and a business
point of view,” he said. “A lot
of people are stranded, a lot of
people are stuck, and there’s
a big economic impact of a
shutdown of all the services.”
Manchanda noted that by
channeling the money through
a
local
organization,
the
students are making sure the
funds go to a good use.
“There’s
always
a
need
for money to make things
happen,”
Manchanda
said.
“The students are doing an
awesome job at collecting
money.”
Both
Venkatachalam
and
Lakshmi
Narayanan
emphasized the importance of
student contributions.
“As
a
community,
we
should be proud of ourselves,”
Lakshmi Narayanan said. “We
all are students and faculty
contributing, and for us to be
able to say, ‘This is a meal for
me, but instead I’m going to
give it to the people who need
it,’ that’s just phenomenal. To
see it in our community at the
University says we should be
really proud about it.”
basis for an interdisciplinary
symposium titled, “Conjuring the
Caribbean: How Sweet it is.”
Bahadur’s
novel,
“Coolie
Woman:
The
Odyssey
of
Indenture,” focuses on the lost
histories of enslaved women,
like
her
great-grandmother.
The women described in the
book were often uprooted from
their families, or were runaways
who fled from India to Guiana
only to face more mistreatment.
A “Coolie” is a name that was
traditionally given to indentured
laborers by the British.
Throughout
their
journeys
and in Guiana, Bahadur said
these indentured women were
subjected to sexual assault and
domestic violence. Many were
simply killed. Bahadur said she
wrote the book not only to create
a tangible record for her great-
grandmother, but to discover
more about herself.
“Does ‘Coolie Woman’ provide
a home in the world for my great-
grandmother and the women like
her?” Bahadur asked. “Does it
provide more for me and women
like me? I’d like to think that the
answer to both questions is yes.
Telling the stories of indentured
women gives them a place in
history, a symbolic home and it also
gives their descendants a home
and a sense of self, of identity.”
Much of Bahadur’s keynote
focused on the archives she
worked with while researching
the book. The archives, however,
did not provide a full record, and
Bahadur found she needed to
find ways to work around the
gaps. Because the majority of the
primary sources from this time
were written by translators or by
the very people who oppressed
the indentured women, she said
they cannot fully convey the
women’s thoughts and feelings.
In an attempt to fill these
gaps,
Bahadur
listened
to
period folk music, as well as
viewed pictures of and listened
to audio interviews with some
of the women. Bahadur noted
that even some of the accounts
the women gave were not fully
representative
because
the
trauma they endured made it very
difficult for them to talk frankly
about their experiences. Instead
of letting the sometimes false or
contradictory archives hinder
the research, Bahadur said she
actively used the archives to
further her novel’s plot.
In the novel, Bahadur said
the gaps in the limited archival
material provided as much of a
subject as the actual histories.
“(The book) is a history
written with the archive, but
also
against
the
archive,”
she said. “It uses questions,
sometimes cheeky questions, to
expose the archive for the fiction
it sometimes is. The archive
becomes the subject itself.”
Of the roughly 50 people who
attended the event, many were
graduate students who were
either artist scholars or were
studying topics related to the
keynote and symposium.
Manan Desai, an assistant
professor in American Culture
and
Asian/Pacific
Islander
American Studies, had actually
featured some of Bahadur’s work
in the class he teaches: South
Asian Diaspora in North America.
He said that he was pleased
with the event as it highlighted
a history not many people in the
United States know about.
“I thought it was really great,”
Desai said. “I think she not
only talked about this kind of
important history that I think a
lot of people, specifically in the
United States and even the South
Asian Diaspora in the United
States don’t know about; I think
she also talked about the difficulty
of recuperating histories when
you’re dealing with archives that
silence many of these voices. I
thought that was really beautifully
and powerfully described.”
Gonzalez
thought
that
Bahadur’s keynote provided a solid
basis for the rest of the symposium.
“This was definitely a great
kickoff event because each of the
presentations frame things in the
context of conjuring and sugar,
which are two of the metaphors
that we want to explore as we
start to talk about the process
of how the Caribbean resonates
today and with the historical
past,” Gonzalez said.
DETROIT
From Page 1
FUNDS
From Page 1
SUGAR
From Page 1
ETHICS
From Page 1
‘U’ researchers
develop breast
cancer application
The University’s Comprehen-
sive Cancer Center developed
Breast Cancer Ally, a free app
aimed at breast cancer patients
and their physicians.
Using the app, patients can
track their treatment progress
and their physicians can tailor
treatment plans to fit specific
patients.
Components of the app are spe-
cific to each patient and are based
off of the patient’s data.
Right now the app is only being
used at the University Hospital.
“The treatment recommenda-
tions and advice are in line with
what the UM oncologists are
discussing with the patients, so
they aren’t receiving conflicting
information, as can happen when
one uses a generic app or website
for information,” said Dr. Michael
Sabel, a breast cancer surgeon
who led the app’s development.
Former Courser,
Gamrat aides sue
Michigan House
Two ex-staffers for former
State Reps. Cindy Gamrat (R–
Plainwell) and Todd Courser
(R–Lapeer) are suing the Michi-
gan House of Representatives
for wrongful termination.
In July it emerged that Cours-
er and Gamrat had used their
taxpayer-funded offices to cover
up their relationship. According
to audio recordings obtained
by The Detroit News, Courser
planned to distribute a fictional
e-mail that said he had sex with
a male prostitute in an effort
to distract from his affair with
Gamrat.
In September, Courser
resigned and an hour later,
Gamrat was expelled on a 91-12
vote.
Keith Allard and Ben Graham
worked for Courser and Gam-
rat until July 6, at which point
they were fired. The two are
now suing the House and claim-
ing that their firings violated
their freedom of speech and the
federal Whistleblowers’ Protec-
tion Act. They also alleged that
by releasing documents that
included their Social Security
numbers, the House violated
their privacy.
Members of the
state Congress
ask Obama to
reconsider order
Six Republican members of
Michigan’s Congress are asking
President Obama to reconsider
his decision to have law enforce-
ment agencies return surplus
military equipment.
The request was signed by
Mike Bishop (R–Rochester), Bill
Huizenga (R–Zeeland), Candice
Miller (R–Harrison Township),
John Moolenaar (R–Midland),
Dave Trott (R–Birmingham) and
Fred Upton (R–St. Joseph).
Just last week, the Detroit
Free Press reported that Michi-
gan law enforcement agencies
were expressing frustration
with the loss of military equip-
ment. These agencies said
Obama’s decision has taken
away key assets that cannot eas-
ily be replaced.
Obama issued his executive
order pertaining to surplus
military equipment last Janu-
ary. The decision was made after
protests across the country drew
attention to the militarization of
local police. The policy requires
that local police return tracked
armored vehicles, weaponized
aircraft and grenade launchers,
among other prohibited items.
The letter pointed to last
week’s shootings in San Ber-
nardino, Calif. as one reason
for local law enforcement to
retain such prohibited items.
The representatives argue that
the executive order will make
it challenging for law enforce-
ment officials to thwart terrorist
attacks.
—GENEVIEVE HUMMER
NEWS BRIEFS
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
RYAN MCLOUGHLIN/Daily
Gaiutra Bahadur, author of “Coolie Woman: The Oddessy of Indenture,” delivers a keynote on Indian women’s experiences
in indentured servitude at Hatcher Graduate Library on Monday.
#RUSHTMD