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, February 2, 2016

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

M

onday, Jan. 25, students crowded the 
seats in the Pendleton Room to listen 
to students share their experiences 

with Islamophobia. The 
event was organized by 
a committee of Muslim 
students as well as the LSA-
sponsored event “Sharing 
Stories, Building Allyhood: 
Student 
Voices 
Against 

Islamophobia.” This event 
seemed to finally be a step 
in the right direction — 
with great attendance in 
terms of demographics and 
size — because a safe space 
was created that allowed 
students affected by Islamophobia to share 
their stories without fear. One student was even 
able to lay claim to the story she had submitted 
anonymously to the group, thanking people 
for creating a space where she felt welcomed. 
After the first part of the event, in which 
students shared their stories, people broke up 
into groups to discuss what it means to act as 
an ally for Muslim students. This would have 
been more effective if there was more time for 
discussion and if there was more room capacity.

Regardless, this is the kind of action that the 

University should be taking in order to enhance 
Muslim student voices. I interviewed Prof. 
Evelyn Alsultany, director of Arab and Muslim 
American Studies, afterward, and she pointed 
out the effect of LSA organizing such an event, 
as opposed to a student group organizing 
one. She started by speaking to me about the 
University administration’s plan:

“I think that it’s yet to be seen in terms 

of ‘they have this plan for diversity, equity 
and inclusion, we’ll do our part by doing a 
report and then it’s really in their hands,’ 
” Alsultany said. “I think a good sign right 
now is that this event was actually organized 
by the LSA undergraduate division, which 
says something. In the past it’s usually that 
students organize something or a mosque 
organizes something and it doesn’t draw a 
crowd like this, and I think having the support 
for LSA for this event was meaningful.”

The event demonstrated positive aspects 

that I hope will be carried through in future 
programs. With the help of LSA, the event 
was advertised better than any solely student-

organized event, and done in collaboration 
with a group of students so that it did not feel 
isolated from the Muslim community. When 
the University organizes events with similar 
goals, such as the diversity summit events, they 
should try to use similar methods to welcome 
students of different backgrounds to bridge 
the gap and foster trust in the University.

I also talked to Nadia Aggour, a graduate 

student in the School of Social Work who is 
training with CAPS, about the effectiveness 
of the event. Aggour attended the event and 
offered a lending ear in case the event itself was 
triggering to students, which was comforting 
and mindful of the organizers. I asked Aggour 
what she thought about the effectiveness of 
the event and she, like Alsutany, said some of 
the departments are better at being attentive 
to the history of the institution’s awareness of 
the effect of sociopolitical events on students, 
but that other initiatives are just meant 
to appease students. She also commented 
on the effect of discrimination on student 
mental health: “I definitely think any form of 
discrimination or fear for safety affects mental 
health of students. Your body is put into a 
completely different response when it feels you 
are in danger.”

Recognizing Islamophobia on campus as an 

issue that genuinely affects students’ mental 
health is important. Mental health is often 
viewed as a separate issue that the University 
needs to tackle, but the intersectionalities 
between the minority and discrimination 
issues and mental health and assault were 
often not realized. Students at our university 
should not have to fight for their voices to be 
heard. This event also demonstrated the need 
for more diverse professors and faculty to be 
hired at the University, because their role in 
supporting students can be used for initiatives 
to improve campus climate.

The final portion of the event, where 

students worked together to talk about how 
to act as an ally, served as a reminder to all 
students and faculty that the problem does 
not stem from students that are affected 
by discrimination, but instead stems from 
people who act as aggressors and those who 
remain silent.

Rabab Jafri can be reached 

at rfjafri@umich.edu.

Inner conflict, the right way

T

his past summer, I found 
myself sitting across the 
table from the rock band 

Highly 
Suspect, 

educating 
the 

group 
on 
the 

features of Apple’s 
newly 
launched 

music 
streaming 

service. This was the cooler part 
of my job as an intern for the 
New York-based record label 300 
Entertainment. This internship also 
required me to sift through all the 
nuances of this new Apple Music 
platform. When the largest company 
in the world enters the music 
streaming space, 300 and the rest of 
the music industry watches. From 
labels to bloggers, this summer 
raised an important question from 
everyone: What is the future of 
music streaming?

Music streaming is at a critical 

point — though it only makes 
up about a quarter of all music 
consumption 
today, 
it 
seems 

inevitable 
that 
streaming 
will 

become the dominant medium for 
listening. Music companies are 
engaged in a battle for market share, 
known as “streaming wars.” The 
winners of these so-called streaming 
wars will collect data generated 
from hundreds of millions of active 
streamers. Really, the streaming 
wars are part of a much larger battle 
for data.

The 
music 
industry 
has 

collectively been trying to answer 
the question of how to use data 
effectively. With declining album 
sales and slowed overall growth, 
record labels and their artists 
desperately need to find ways to cut 
inefficiency. Labels have partnered 
with tech firms, and music analytics 
companies such as Next Big Sound 
have emerged — all with the hopes 

of understanding data’s relationship 
with the music business. And while 
the future role of data in music is still 
mostly unclear, streaming services 
are in a position unlike anyone else 
to tackle this problem.

Which brings us to Spotify.
Already a leader in the crowded 

music streaming space, Spotify just 
announced acquisitions of startups 
Soundwave and Cord Project, each 
indicative of where streaming is 
headed. 
Soundwave 
will 
likely 

improve social features for finding, 
sharing and talking about music. 
When I hear a song that inspires me, 
discussing it with others is a natural 
first instinct. Better messaging 
systems 
on 
these 
streaming 

platforms seems obvious for that 
reason, but isn’t happening outside 
of Spotify.

Apple Music’s attempt at a social 

network — which they call Connect 
— is actually not very social at all. 
Only artists have profiles, not users. 
This seems backwards. Artists have 
enough social networks to regularly 
update with Twitter, Facebook, 
Instagram 
and 
Snapchat. 
Does 

another one make sense?

The second Spotify acquisition, 

Cord Project, could be even more 
important for its potential in the 
evolution 
of 
data 
capabilities. 

Not 
only 
would 
discovery 

and 
curation 
improve 
with 
a 

greater understanding of music 
consumption patterns, but Spotify 
could repurpose that information 
for record labels as well. The labels 
are interested in using that data 
for things such as optimized tour 
schedules, 
targeted 
marketing 

campaigns and more efficient album 
releases.

As Spotify grows, it will collect 

more data and its product will 
get better. In a sense, quantity is 

quality. The focus on Spotify has 
been to reinvest now and worry 
about profits later. As long as they 
continue to grow, profitability won’t 
be an issue. This is another reason 
why Spotify is an outlier in the 
streaming landscape. Pandora is a 
public company, Deezer attempted 
to launch an IPO and SoundCloud 
is working on a new subscription-
based model. Spotify’s competitors 
are trying to cash in now, but the 
real money will come later.

The list of competitors is deeper 

than you may think. YouTube, 
Rhapsody, Tidal and even Amazon 
Prime offer streaming products. 
Yet out of all of them, nobody 
else is integrating social features 
like Spotify is. And nobody else is 
working to analyze the data that such 
social features will help to generate 
either. Spotify has an opportunity to 
break away from the competition as 
it continues to acquire key startups 
and grow its active user base.

I 
could 
be 
wrong, 
though. 

Between 
Apple, 
YouTube 
and 

Amazon, there are plenty of other 
big-name players now. Ultimately, 
all the investment into streaming 
is a good sign for a struggling 
industry. Music is going through a 
transitional phase because album 
sales have been cannibalized by 
streaming. As streaming services 
fight 
among 
themselves, 
they 

will be forced to solve problems 
that will benefit the industry as a 
whole. Whether you use Spotify 
or not, we should all be rooting for 
them. Creating better products and 
smarter ways to utilize data will 
connect more fans to artists and 
allow the music business to grow. A 
win for Spotify is a win for music. 

Zach Brown can be reached 

at zmbrown@umich.edu.

Why we should root for Spotify

ZACH 
BROWN

C

iting the 33,636 deaths the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention attrib-
uted to firearms in 2013, President 

Barack Obama seems intent 
on placing gun violence at 
the forefront of our national 
conversation. The National 
Rifle 
Association 
seems 

equally intent on arguing 
the opposite of whatever he 
says. Neither side, though, 
has comprehensive, repro-
ducible data supporting 
their 
arguments. 
While 

both rely on anecdotes and 
natural 
experiments 
— 

both of which can be quite 
convincing — the CDC remains mute on how 
to achieve one of the primary roles of govern-
ment: protecting its citizens. 

In 1996, former U.S. Rep. Jay Dickey (R–

Ark.) successfully lobbied on behalf of the NRA 
for putting language in the budget preventing 
the CDC from advocating for, or promoting, 
gun control. This, by former Rep. Dickey’s own 
admission, unintentionally stymied all CDC 
research on gun violence prevention and has 
led to two decades of silence from our primary 
public health research center.

As of fiscal year 2015, the CDC received $0 

from Congress for gun violence prevention 
research. President Obama, in response to 
the Sandy Hook shooting in December 2012, 
called for an end to the moratorium on feder-
ally funded scientific research exploring the 
causes of gun violence. The 2015 bill, which 
allocates $10 million per year until 2021 for 
CDC research on gun violence prevention, 
remains buried in subcommittee.

This is not to say that no private funding 

for gun violence prevention research exists. 
Several universities — including Harvard and 
Johns Hopkins — have centers or parts of cen-
ters devoted to firearm research funded by pri-
vate sources. Private funding and the resulting 
research, however, can — rightly or wrongly 
— be accused of bias more convincingly than 
public funding.

Private funding’s presence, then, cannot 

make up for the perception that the govern-
ment isn’t trying to fund the CDC, which 
makes gun violence research a pariah to the 
scientific community. It also inhibits this 
research and effectively blocks a consensus on 
how to best prevent the avoidable accidents, 

injuries and deaths attributed to gun violence. 
Contrast this with the CDC’s estimated annual 
$47.2 billion in medical expenses and produc-
tivity loss due to gun violence and the need for 
federally funded research becomes irresistibly 
reasonable.

It is so reasonable, in fact, that Mark Rosen-

berg, former director of the CDC’s National 
Center for Injury Prevention and Control — 
who claimed to be fired for his commitment 
to gun violence prevention research — and 
Dickey have come together to advocate for 
increased federal funding for gun violence 
prevention research. Through a joint appear-
ance on NPR and an op-ed in the Washing-
ton Post, Dickey and Rosenberg accept that 
though they have vehemently disagreed with 
each other in the past, they now both accept 
that substantial changes are imperative to 
improving our knowledge base and protecting 
our citizens.

Not only is public health funding necessary 

to fill a hole in our public health infrastruc-
ture, it is also an opportunity to inspire and 
train the next generation of eager students 
of public health. The University of Michigan, 
for example, is poised to open degrees in Pub-
lic Health to undergraduates — following a 
national trend. What better way to engage a 
new generation of students than to address 
one of the leading causes of avoidable injuries 
and deaths?

Gun violence is often associated with mass 

shootings, tragic events that occur with a 
depressingly normal frequency. But it is also at 
play during criminal acts, homicides, suicides 
and accidents. These avoidable tragedies mani-
fest themselves differently throughout various 
regions and within the impressively diverse 
communities that define our national iden-
tity. Without federal funding, then, we can-
not effectively develop, promote and prescribe 
tailored interventions that best decrease the 
needless deaths of tens of thousands of Ameri-
cans each year.

Our federal government, to best protect its 

citizens and provide them with the opportuni-
ty to thrive absent the horror of gun violence, 
must lift its embargo on CDC funding for gun 
violence prevention research. Not doing so 
would not only be a shirking of responsibility, 
but a passive acceptance of a disgraceful norm.

Danny Sack can be reached 

at sackd@umich.edu.

Prevent violence, fund the CDC

CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION
Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds. 

Letters should be fewer than 300 words while viewpoints should be 550 to 850 words. 
Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to tothedaily@michigandaily.com.

DANNY 
SACK

I

owa — I didn’t travel six hours 
to Iowa via Ford Fusion Hybrid 
looking for laughs (though I did 

have high hopes 
Sam and Allison, 
the other Daily 
staffers I was 
with, would be 
able 
to 
crack 

a couple jokes 
over the course 
of the trip).

We 
were 

there to cover 
the 
impending 

presidential 
caucus, after all 
— a serious matter, no doubt. Feb. 
1, Iowa voters will have the first 
turn in voting for who will be the 
presidential nominee for each party. 
And with the races neck and neck 
on both sides, there isn’t too much 
for any candidate to laugh about. 
It’s a serious race to rally as many 
voters as possible to get out and 
vote, since whoever wins in Iowa 
has the momentum for the coming 
primaries and caucuses.

However, when reflecting on the 

events I attended this past weekend, it 
became evident to me how important 
comedy is when campaigning. All 
three candidates I saw — former 
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, 
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Donald 
Trump — all invoked humor in some 
form, be it through quips or prepared 
lines, during their events.

As someone who enjoys comedy in 

most mediums and because I think 
I’m funny myself (character flaw, 
sorry), I place an added importance 
on the candidates’ abilities to be 
humorous. To me, humor is a sign of 
intelligence, especially in the form 
of off-the-cuff lines. If candidates 
use it right, it is an excellent way 
to connect with voters, especially 
with people they have little in 
common with. Because as much as 
I want to hear about policy from 
the candidates (How will you keep 
us safe from ISIS?!?), I also want to 
know they’re human and, even in 
serious times, I don’t want them to 
always take themselves so seriously.

Clinton started her event strong 

on humor. Because there was a 
technical error that didn’t allow a 

short montage to play, immediately 
after she walked in, she told the 
crowd of 200, “We had a video we 
were going to show you, but we had 
a technical difficulty, so you’ll just 
have to settle for me.”

Though she loses points for 

laughing at her own joke, to me that 
quip represents an endearing sense 
of self-loathing. I’d like to believe 
she hadn’t had that line pre-planned.

The jokes didn’t end there, 

though. Luckily for Clinton, this 
past weekend played right into her 
hands. Given that the town hall I 
attended was in Clinton, Iowa, I 
think everyone saw this joke coming 
from a mile away:

“I’m pretty excited about being 

here in Clinton County. You didn’t 
have to name it, I would have come 
anyway.”

Unbelievably corny? Yes, but it 

was absolutely necessary that she 
told it.

Though the rest of her speech 

didn’t contain really any more jokes 
worth noting, Clinton shined in the 
Q&A portion of the event.

When someone in the audience 

brought up how Fox News has been 
hammering her about her age, she 
responded with a smile, “They say 
nearly anything about me, I gotta 
tell you.”

She then continued with a funny 

story about how her mom watched 
Fox News, and when Clinton would 
ask why she kept watching, her 
mom replied, “Well I gotta know 
what they’re saying so I’m ready.” 
Laughter, including Clinton’s, filled 
the room.

And while discussing the role her 

husband, Bill Clinton, would play in 
her administration, she said, “The 
other day I said, ‘Well I’ll test him 
out, see how he does. You can start 
talking at the kitchen table, and if it’s 
good, we’ll go from there.’ ”

There were plenty of other solid 

lines, even better than that one, but 
ultimately what I gained was that 
through those lines, I was given 
a sliver a hope that, underneath 
the years of being a politician and 
being paid by Wall Street to give 
speeches, there remains a real, 
down-to-earth person.

Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, 

displayed more sarcastic humor, and 
he used it to give validation to his 
campaign and his supporters.

“In the last couple of weeks of 

campaigns, a lot of things are said, 
a lot of comments are made and 
you’ll be shocked to know that not 
all of them are true. I know that I 
shock you when I say that,” Sanders 
said dryly. “And one of the myths 
that is being perpetrated by the 
Clinton campaign is ‘Well you 
know, Bernie Sanders is a nice guy, 
he combs his hair beautifully … GQ 
kind of guy. But despite all of those 
fantastic attributes, he just can’t 
win. He can’t defeat the Republican 
candidates in November.’ ”

This isn’t just classic old Jewish 

man humor (trust me, I know 
from experience), but it was an 
effective 
way 
to 
immediately 

engage the audience before he dove 
into discussing his platform. And 
though he didn’t use much humor 
throughout the rest of his stump, his 
emphatic hand gestures drew plenty 
of smiles.

As for Trump, well, I kind of had 

to imagine the whole thing as one 
big comedy act for my own sanity. 
Though he did have a couple good 
lines about Ted Cruz, one being: 
“Look, you know who’s going to 
approve the (Keystone Pipeline) deal 
fast? Ted Cruz. He’s from Canada!”

Other than that, I’m not sure 

I’ve ever been so scared for the 
future of this country (still debating 
whether the tipping point was 
when a Trump supporter told Sam 
and me, “(Trump) knows so much, 
he just hasn’t told us yet” or when 
Trump had everyone look at the 
media standing in back and called us 
“sleazebags”), but I digress.

Of course, when voting for who 

you want to be the next president of 
the United States, it matters to vote 
based on what values you have and 
policies you agree with (duh). But 
we can’t forget we’re voting for a 
person, a complex entity of emotion 
and past experiences.

So the way I see it, seeing who 

can get the most laughs makes a 
difference.

Derek Wolfe can be reached 

at dewolfe@umich.edu.

DEREK 
WOLFE

Finding humor in Iowa

RABAB 
JAFRI