Opinion
SHOHAM GEVA
EDITOR IN CHIEF
CLAIRE BRYAN
AND REGAN DETWILER
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
LAURA SCHINAGLE
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 — Tuesday, January 26, 2016
T
he Flint water crisis dramati-
cally calls attention to the
inherent dangers of Gov. Rick
Snyder’s
emer-
gency managers.
But if you listen
to Snyder, you
might not realize
that EMs even played a role in this
crisis.
In his State of the State address,
Snyder only mentioned emergen-
cy managers once. He said, “This
crisis began in the spring of 2013
when the Flint City Council voted
7-1 to buy water from the Kare-
gnondi Water Authority. Former
Flint Mayor Walling supported the
move and the emergency manager
approved the plan.”
This statement could mislead you
in two ways. First, regarding the
facts about emergency management
that he strategically omitted, Snyder
failed to mention that “[a]fter initial-
ly supporting the plan, the Flint City
Council, reacting to public outrage
over water quality, voted (in early
2015) to return to the Detroit sys-
tem … EM Jerry Ambrose, the fourth
person to hold that job in Flint, over-
ruled the vote of those elected offi-
cials, forcing residents to continue
using river water.”
From Snyder’s statement, you
might interpret the EM’s role as
mostly advisory. But from the record
assembled by journalists, such as the
American Civil Liberties Union’s
Curt Guyette (quoted above), the
picture looks quite different. We see
that EM Ambrose prevented local,
elected officials from executing the
will of their constituency. This is not
the act of an adviser. It’s the act of an
authoritarian.
Second, though the immediate
crisis probably began when Sny-
der claims, his timeline limits our
understanding of the problems in
Flint to the relatively recent past.
Likewise, from Snyder’s statements,
the issues involved in the Flint
water crisis appear highly specific
and isolated, not systemic or struc-
tural. He is focused on solving the
“lead problem” in Flint. For many
of us, this is far too simple-minded.
To us, the lead contamination is an
especially painful and visible symp-
tom of the many diseases raging
through the body of America today
— e.g. white supremacy, global capi-
talism, economic terrorism, etc.
The anti-democratic history of
Snyder’s emergency management
policy helps us understand its cata-
strophic application in the case of
Flint. In November 2012, Michi-
gan voters rejected Michigan’s first
emergency manager law, Public Act
4 of 2011, via referendum. Less than
two months later, Snyder signed
Public Act 436 of 2012, which was
mostly similar to Public Act 4,
except it included an appropria-
tion that made it immune to refer-
endum. At the time, Snyder hailed
the replacement EM law, saying,
“This legislation demonstrates that
we clearly heard, recognized and
respected the will of the voters … It
builds in local control and options
while also ensuring the tools to
protect communities and school
districts’ residents, students and
taxpayers.”
As Snyder understands it, “the
will of the voters,” as expressed in
the referendum, is for laws immune
to referendum, unlike the one
they’d just rejected (via referen-
dum). Clearly, the voters want less
direct say in the laws that govern
them. In Snyder’s mind, there’s
no question that the voters desire
emergency management, since they
cannot possibly be trusted to elect
competent
representatives.
The
people need a strong man, a patri-
arch, to “manage” them, temper-
ing their desires for basic resources
such as fresh water with more seri-
ous concerns such as balancing the
budget. We are too weak and meek
to make the hard choice of auster-
ity, so we desire someone to impose
it upon us. In these troubled times,
democracy must be suspended.
Only such absurd, fascistic phi-
losophy could possibly explain
the decision to impose emergency
management and austerity in spite
of the voters’ rejection of it. It’s
blatantly disrespectful to our basic
desire for autonomy and ignorant
to the structural sources of Flint’s
financial collapse.
One safety of municipal democ-
racy lies in the fact that elected
representatives live in the commu-
nities they serve. They often direct-
ly experience the problems they
seek to solve — like when they turn
on the tap, they see brown water
running. They are interpersonally
tied to their constituency. On the
other hand, emergency managers
have none of these characteristics,
and so, much like police officers
employed outside their home com-
munities, they don’t have any direct,
personal stake in the well-being of
the communities they serve.
After the switch from Lake
Huron water to Flint River water,
the people of Flint knew immedi-
ately that something was wrong:
The water didn’t look right (it had
a brown tinge), it didn’t smell right
(kind of like rotten eggs) and it
didn’t taste right (metallic). But
such plebian methods of detecting
problems, like using the cognitive
faculties of sight, smell and taste,
are, by our government’s stan-
dards, unreliable and cannot con-
stitute true knowledge. (Though
brown
water
isn’t
necessarily
toxic, it’s a pretty good indicator
of the need for further research;
What’s more, it wouldn’t be toler-
ated in affluent white communi-
ties.) Thus, in turn, their voices
were ignored and their collective
will suppressed.
People
calling
for
Snyder’s
arrest and/or resignation specifi-
cally because of Flint’s lead con-
tamination should prepare for
the criminal investigations not to
return a smoking gun. The state
bureaucracy will likely filter out
any responsibility before it reaches
the governor’s office, and then the
people will not have their justice.
Instead, we should recall Snyder
because he has impeded democ-
racy and threatens to continue to
impede democracy with his policy
of emergency management.
—Zak Witus can be reached
at zakwitus@umich.edu.
Emergency managed
Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Caitlin Heenan,
Jeremy Kaplan, Ben Keller, Minsoo Kim, Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, Anna Polumbo-
Levy, Jason Rowland, Lauren Schandevel, Melissa Scholke, Rebecca Tarnopol, Ashley Tjhung,
Stephanie Trierweiler, Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe, Hunter Zhao
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
I
f you were to text me right now, my
response would likely show up on your
iPhone as a green bubble. To some peo-
ple, that first text might be
the last one they ever send
me because, as it turns out,
many people aren’t fond of
green bubbles.
In case you are unaware,
when an iPhone sends a mes-
sage to another iPhone, the
responses will show up in
blue bubbles. This indicates
the messages being sent are
iMessages, Apple’s propri-
etary
messaging
format,
not standard SMS text mes-
sages. If an iPhone user were to send a message
to an Android phone (like my Google Nexus 6P),
the Android response would show up in a green
bubble on the iPhone, indicating the messages
are SMS. Unlike SMS, iMessages can be natively
sent over Wi-Fi, traced as “read” or “unread,” and
do not possess character limits. Technologically
speaking, iMessages are superior to SMS.
Chances are you already knew all of that.
Apparently, iPhones are popular. A walk through
the Diag or a glance around an Angell Hall audi-
torium only confirms this fact. From my three
years of experience at Michigan, it is very clear
that we as a university do indeed bleed blue.
As a Michigan student, I realize the off-put-
ting nature of anything green. However, I never
realized the extent to which many people out-
right hate receiving green bubbles. Beyond the
common “Why don’t you just get an iPhone?” I
get from my friends a few times a month, I have
seen a number of top yaks pop up on Yik Yak diss-
ing those of us who choose the green bubbles.
However, I figured occurrences such as these
were the exception, not the norm. That is, until I
read a recent piece by Paul Ford.
All you need to know about Ford’s piece can
be found by doing a quick search on Twitter for
“green bubble.” It turns out those top yaks were
more of the norm than the exception after all.
As an Android user on a largely iPhone-based
campus, I understand the technological com-
plaints about green bubbles. They’re slower, you
can’t send them from your MacBook and they
absolutely destroy any type of group text. You
have a right to hate the underlying and dated
technology that is the green bubble. You do not,
however, have the right to hate the green bub-
ble in and of itself because, in some parts of the
world, blue is synonymous with green.
In passing discussions, international students
have told me of the messaging service What-
sApp. It operates in a similar fashion to iMessage
and is technologically superior to SMS in pretty
much every way. However, unlike iMessage,
WhatsApp is cross-platform, meaning iPhones,
Android phones and even Windows phones (yes,
those do exist) can all reap its benefits. This is one
of the many reasons WhatsApp is one of the most
popular messaging services in the world.
To any of the hundreds of millions of
WhatsApp users, green and blue bubbles are
equal; they are not WhatsApp messages, so
they are inferior. Like my iPhone-owning
roommates hate my Android phone, What-
sApp users hate iMessage.
All of this hate can manifest into something
real. While many people are merely joking, some
of those tweets you might have found in your
search reflect real people making real life choices
to avoid those of the green bubble. Dates are can-
celed, friendships are strained, people clash.
A recent article from The Verge detailed how
one of the publication’s writers suffering from
depression purchased an iPhone in order to gain
access into his friend groups’ iMessage chats,
which he was previously excluded from as an
Android user. To know such a minor feature
could have such a profound effect on a person’s
life really struck me. What if I’m missing out on
my friends’ conversations because I’m green?
What is the solution to this problem? In the-
ory, iMessage on Android would fix your group
chats in an instant. But this is unlikely to happen,
as iMessage is a defining feature of iPhones, and
the societal pressure to adhere to the blue bubble
is a powerful economic force. It is, after all, the
only reason I’ve ever legitimately contemplated
getting an iPhone.
A second solution would be for the entire
world to use WhatsApp or any similar service
like we all once used SMS. Given that many
friend groups have a tough time finding a restau-
rant in Ann Arbor on which they can all agree,
deciding on one messaging platform is an ideal
but unlikely solution, at least in the near future.
A final solution would be for us all to just
live in harmony — blue, green, WhatsApp and
more. In the short run, we miss out on some of
the benefits of living in a unified, all-iMessage
or all-WhatsApp world. But in the long run, we
allow important societal and individual charac-
teristics, such as a person’s moral fiber, devotion
to friendship or general personality dictate our
relationships, not a silly colored bubble.
After all, I am green. Your grandmother
with a flip phone is green. Your friend who
goes to Michigan State is green. It would be a
shame to let something as trivial as the color
of our bubbles on your phone dictate our rela-
tionships with people like you.
—Elliott Rains can be reached
at erains@umich.edu.
Green and blue bubbles
In our world, I believe progress often happens
slowly. I believe the path to significant, ideologi-
cal change is rooted in dedication, conversation
and activism; in listening to those with perspec-
tives and stories that differ from your own; and in
programs like the one I was able to participate in
this year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
I spent last Monday in Detroit taking part in
a daylong, thought-provoking program honoring
King and his work, examining the modern-day
civil rights struggle and working on a handful of
service projects in the southwest neighborhood
of the city. Our cohort consisted of teens and
young adults from various youth groups, high
schools, universities and communities — each
individual hailing from a unique background and
bringing a unique voice to the table.
The majority of my time was spent talking
to someone who, over the course of the day, I
would come to know as one of the most passion-
ate and driven people I have ever had the plea-
sure of meeting. She was a senior in high school,
a Detroiter and a self-proclaimed lover of history
and advocate for social justice. We made signs
for the Martin Luther King Jr. march downtown
(posters with messages ranging from “#Black-
LivesMatter” to “Water 4 All”) and dove deeply
into conversation about race, privilege and
power. We talked about the issues that persist in
our country in and around the modern-day civil
rights movement openly and honestly — topics
that are incredibly important, yet all too often
deemed as “taboo” or left unacknowledged by
our society. She gave me new ideas, new vocabu-
lary and a new perspective — and I like to believe
I offered her the same.
When the day had come to an end, my mind
was racing. It was easy to recognize that our con-
versation was far from complete. In fact, it had
really only just begun.
This realization — that our discussion about
systemic social issues was not nearly finished
and that the ideas we were sharing were hardly
fleshed out in full — made me view this program
as more than just a gift of fate. I began to see it
as more than just an educational opportunity or a
way of bringing diverse individuals and commu-
nities together. I started to think of the program,
and of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in general, as
an invitation: an invitation to begin and continue
to participate in a conversation that has been
going on for centuries, that analyzes every diffi-
cult and uncomfortable aspect of our society and
that we should be having all the time.
I believe that where there is dialogue, there
is power; where there are people coming
together with open minds and open hearts,
there is room for opportunity and societal and
ideological change. The conversations that mil-
lions of Americans have on Martin Luther King
Jr. Day each year (in Detroit, in Ann Arbor and
all over the country) should not cease to exist
when the march ends, when Martin Luther
King Jr. Symposium keynote lecturer Naomi
Tutu leaves the stage, when the group dispers-
es or even when a new day begins. The ideas
and concepts we all think about so critically
and carefully in honor of King should continue
to be considered the following morning; they
should be thought about daily and manifested
into conversation regularly.
If you have not already received it, I want to
extend the invitation I was presented with in
Detroit last Monday to all of you now. I want to
challenge our community — here on campus, in
Ann Arbor and beyond — to continue these con-
versations past the scope of Martin Luther King
Jr. Day, to continue to seek out spaces where open
and respectful discussions about the most press-
ing issues in our country are being had and to ask
others to do the same. I want to encourage us all
to speak out against injustice in any and all forms
and to never shy away from the conversations
our communities and our nation need the most.
Doing so is not an end-all solution to the large-
scale social injustices that persist in our country
by any means; rather, it is a step along the way,
one that is absolutely imperative in order for us to
create a brighter future filled with light and love
as King once so famously dreamed.
—Emily Zonder is an LSA freshman.
Beyond MLK Day
EMILY ZONDER | OP-ED
ZAK
WITUS
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION
Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds. Letters should be
fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. Send the writer’s full
name and University affiliation to tothedaily@michigandaily.com.
ELLIOTT
RAINS
I
t wasn’t until the second day
of Math 115 my first semes-
ter here that I realized I was
in way over my
head. After hav-
ing rushed into
class, my back-
pack
unzipped
in
a
manner
that screamed “frantic freshman”
and my graphing calculator buried
under a pile of notebooks and fold-
ers, I sat down next to a group of
students, all discussing their future
academic plans. Wide-eyed, I lis-
tened to each individual recount
their aspirations to major in STEM
fields and how this class was just
their “easy” step before ultimately
conquering the heights of Calculus
II and III. In contrast, I only need-
ed one quantitative reasoning cred-
it, and since I liked calculus in high
school, I figured this class would
be the reasonable answer … right?
As the future engineers continued
to prattle on about topics I did not
understand, I quickly realized I had
never doubted my academic prow-
ess more.
I’ve experienced these feelings
of doubt not only in academics, but
also in athletics. My first day of col-
legiate cross-country camp, after
getting back from what was sup-
posed to be a relatively comfort-
able seven-mile run (that left the
freshmen gasping for air), I pan-
icked. Thoughts raced through my
head such as “these people are all
so much more talented than me,” “I
don’t deserve to be here” and ulti-
mately “am I just going to make a
big fool out of myself?” As the days
passed, these negative thoughts
continued to stir in the back of my
mind, slowly but surely eating away
at my self-confidence.
Unfortunately for myself and
many others, this sinking feeling of
self-doubt and total unworthiness is
all too common — especially at a uni-
versity such as this one where thou-
sands of bright students are brought
together to learn. Just recently, I
realized this feeling has a name. In
1978, psychologists Pauline Clance
and Suzanne Imes coined the term
“imposter syndrome” to describe
the tendency of highly successful,
highly intelligent people to believe
their accomplishments are the result
of luck, and that they are essentially
total frauds. This description has a
flair for the dramatic, but just think
of the numerous times you have
downplayed your past successes or
doubted your abilities (despite pal-
pable results) based on the thought
that the people around you are so
much more qualified or intelligent.
This phenomenon occurs not only
in calculus class or in a varsity sport
— but in the real world as well, from
job interviews to acting in films to
publishing critically acclaimed nov-
els. Maya Angelou, of all people, said,
“I have written 11 books, but each
time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going
to find out now. I’ve run a game on
everybody, and they’re going to find
me out.’ ”
I’m no Maya Angelou, but I can’t
even count the number of times I’ve
passed on submitting works of writ-
ing or applying for positions because
I think I’m simply not good enough.
Yet, by counting myself out from
the get-go, I’m not being humble,
I’m just being a coward and have no
chance of ever achieving my dreams.
Maybe it’s not inadequacy that we
fear, but what lies beyond the vast
expanses of our greatest potential.
I’m in no way telling you to be
an obnoxious narcissist or to start
believing you’re qualified to run this
country, but just give yourself some
credit. You made it here, you’re fig-
uring things out and you’re still the
same kick-butt person you were
when you received your admis-
sion letter and laughed and danced
around your kitchen — giddy at the
idea of the numerous opportunities
and dreams finally in your grasp.
Yes, I am on a team surrounded
by some of the most talented girls
in the nation, which can be intimi-
dating, but it can also be incred-
ibly motivating. I still doubt myself
sometimes, but as the days wear on,
I realize that I (along with all of my
teammates) am here for a reason. It’s
a definite adjustment, but that’s just
the nature of life.
As for calculus? It was tough, but
I made it through — just the same
as everyone else. I soon realized
that the future engineers who had
so intimidated me at the beginning
of the term were extremely help-
ful whenever I needed a problem
explained or help with team home-
work. I struggled, but so did many
people. My early feelings of inad-
equacy did not make me an “impos-
ter” or “unqualified,” but simply
human.
—Kaela Theut can be reached
at ktheut@umich.edu.
KAELA
THEUT
Not an imposter, but human
“You made it here,
you’re figuring things
out and you’re still
the same kick-butt
person you were when
you recieved your
admission letter.”