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4A — Thursday, February 25, 2016
E-mail anniE at asturpin@umich.Edu
ANNIE TURPIN
The best revenge is your paper
As he entered the polished ware-
house to raucous applause, Sen. Marco
Rubio (R–Fla.) stepped up to the stage
flanked by signs that read: “End the
debt.” If only it was that simple.
Curiously, he chose to hold
this rally — the same night as the
Nevada caucuses — at Lacks Enter-
prises just outside of Grand Rapids,
a seemingly indistinguishable cor-
porate office on an average service
road. Maybe because it was home
to a private enterprise, a facet of
our economy that Rubio described
as “the only economic model in the
world where you make poor people
rich without making rich people
poor.” This style of verbose rheto-
ric made up almost the entirety
of his speech. I struggled to tally
the number of times he empha-
sized how this election was “the
most important one” of our time.
He railed against Democratic can-
didates Bernie Sanders — whom
he described as a “nice guy, here’s
the problem: He’s a socialist” —
and Hillary Clinton — whom he
said was “disqualified” from being
president because she “lied to the
families of American servicemen,”
referencing the Benghazi scandal.
He denounced President Obama,
and the crowd roared. He detested
the closing of the Guantanamo Bay
detention center, and pandemo-
nium ensued. Though Rubio has
recently been criticized for sticking
to a script, he did just that.
Nevertheless, his message was
clear and concise, though at times he
subtly contradicted himself. If he went
off track denouncing Democrats, he
would immediately flip the script and
espouse optimism in statements such
as, “When I’m president, I will be the
president for all Americans, not just
those who voted for me.”
In my mind, Rubio’s self-identi-
fied pure conservatism is still up for
debate. Though on some issues, it’s
undeniable. A consistent war hawk
in the Senate, Rubio broached the
subject of national defense by stat-
ing, “My number-one priority is to
undertake a Reagan-style rebuild-
ing of the military.” To a nation that,
after over a decade of constant war,
should be weary of military conflict,
it’s hard to imagine this message
would resonate with the American
public at large. But to an increasing-
ly far-right Republican voter base, it
is music to frustrated ears.
What remains to be seen is how
exactly he would go about accom-
plishing all of what he expresses in
his lofty rhetoric. To close a segment
on how student loans are extraor-
dinarily burdensome for college
graduates, he attempted to reassure
the crowd: “We have a plan for that.”
When he spoke of numerous foreign
policy conundrums, he said current-
ly we have a “symbolic war on terror.
I will bring a real war.” What that
meant exactly is of critical impor-
tance, but at this juncture in the
race, there’s no impetus for Rubio to
provide specific policies, especially
when his chief rival resorts to big-
otry and self-aggrandizement as a
way of garnering voters (seemingly
a great tactic nowadays).
Primaries are primaries; can-
didates will always put on a guise
of ideological consistency during
this time, when party voters would
rather listen to Obama-bashing
than images of future compromise.
Rubio has been extraordinarily
successful to this end. Yet, he has
apparently become the one person
who can bridge the pragmatism of
establishment Republicans with
the brash ideologues of the Tea
Party faction.
Near the end of the rally, a gentle-
man standing in front of me turned
around and said, “He’s doing a
great job, isn’t he?” In an effort to
appear impartial, I shrugged. How-
ever, in my mind I pondered why
Rubio wasn’t leading the polls if
he constantly performed as he did
Tuesday night. He has tremendous
appeal, even to more moderate
voters. A fresh face, Cuban roots,
compassionate conservative foun-
dations, a successful legislative
career; just switch out the race and
ideology and you have a close copy
of Barack Obama in 2008.
The problem for Rubio seems to
be an electorate that doesn’t fit with
his message. The country is different
now, and the current campaign cycle
certainly illustrates this point. Gone
are the days of “hope and change.”
Now, at least in Republican circles,
the message has become akin to:
“Doom and gloom, but I can fix it.”
Rubio’s fleeting optimistic enthu-
siasm regarding the future may be
too late. As Donald Trump’s ascen-
dency becomes reality, it is evident
that a candidate’s tone should match
voters’ outlook: anger. Rubio has
increased this form of bombast, but
at this point, he needs to increase his
delegate count.
The road ahead for Rubio is
riddled with obstacles. Upcoming
primaries look favorable to Trump,
who, with recent victories in New
Hampshire, South Carolina and now
Nevada, could virtually lock up the
nomination with a sweep of South-
ern states. Moreover, the remaining
mainstream candidates continue
to nab potential voters from Rubio,
namely Gov. John Kasich of Ohio.
Thus, don’t be surprised if we start
hearing more and more desperation
eek from Rubio’s stump speeches as
the final hour draws nearer.
For the sake of the Republican
Party, Rubio should be the nominee.
Obviously, he’s not the perfect can-
didate. His aggressive foreign policy
and ultra-conservatism regarding
social issues certainly make him less
palatable in a general election. It is
also disconcerting to hear nothing
substantive from him, but again, this
isn’t a surprise in today’s Republi-
can primary. But, juxtaposed with
the option of Trump or Ted Cruz,
there’s no deliberating. If Republi-
cans want to win in November, they
should start flocking behind Rubio.
Ideally, his disposition will calm
during a general election.
For now, let’s just hope he gets
there.
— Ben Keller can be reached
at benkeller@umich.edu
The curious case of Marco Rubio
B
eauty, perseverance and possibility:
three adjectives that embody the blend
of attendees of the 21st annual Black
Solidarity
Conference.
Over this past Valentine’s
Day weekend, more than
400 Black college students
representing 50 colleges
and
universities
nation-
wide networked with one
another and participated in
small group discussions at
Yale University. The series
of college uprisings regard-
ing race relations over the
past few years set the tone
for the conference, titled
“The Miseducation: Changing History as We
Know It.”
In anticipation of the conference, I was elat-
ed with the idea of being surrounded by young
Black people uniting themselves in a space
to learn and heal from the ongoing physical,
political and economic violence administered
against Black bodies. But by the time the con-
ference concluded, I felt slightly underwhelmed
by the conversations taking place. Instead of
the conference serving as a place for sharing
best practices for protesting, creating tangible
demands and building cross-campus alliances,
our comments largely centered around the
growing pains of being Black at a predominate-
ly white institution.
The barriers to inclusion, diversity and
equity of Black university students at predomi-
nantly white institutions are obvious flaws in
higher education institutions that students can
easily rally around. However, the more obscure
but ever-present symptom of systemic oppres-
sion is the overlap of class and race. The con-
sequences of systemic oppression on race and
class have been conjoined as the thesis for Black
mobilization, without critical examination of
their intersectionality in contemporary Black
movements. In consequence, some of the Black
university students’ demands for racial justice
can be narrow in scope.
At the BSC, I could not help but notice that
there were no community college students or
nontraditional students in attendance. Stu-
dents at the conference primarily attended elite
institutions. In the workshop titled Why Class
Matters, the majority of attendees were from
professional middle-class families, and a few
students were from working-class families. We
were able to afford the time and money to spend
a weekend at Yale discussing issues pertinent to
the Black community.
As much as I had anticipated learning pro-
testing strategies from university students at
this conference, I realized that the majority
of Black social movements across the United
States this year were grassroots-organized, and
largely led and participated by working-class
Black people. Where were their voices in this
conversation? The voices of the working-class
Black activists who protested in Chicago, Bal-
timore, Cincinnati and Ferguson. The voices of
Detroit community organizers who make time
to enact social change in their neighborhoods.
The students of BSC were a fusion of activ-
ists and academics in the making. Both are
necessary for collective movement building.
Academics and activists come from a diversity
of class statuses; their class backgrounds serve
as examples for building mixed-class coali-
tions for racial justice. The impact of class
on the structural violence that takes place in
Black communities underlies the overarch-
ing goal of racial justice. Without directly
addressing class, how can we accurately and
authentically ensure all Black interests con-
tribute to the movement?
American historian Henry Louis Gates Jr.
said, “The class divide is, in my opinion, one
of the most important and overlooked factors
in the rise of Black Lives Matter, led by a new
generation of college graduates and students.”
The Why Class Matters workshop facilitator
used Gates’ statement to highlight that Afri-
can Americans have primarily focused their
efforts on fighting racial injustice, so much so
that addressing class impacts has been on the
peripheral of modern racial justice movements.
In my opinion, the class divide within Black
America is not overlooked, but collateral to cur-
rent racial justice demands. After all, racism is
inherently intertwined with economic, politi-
cal and social injustice, and therefore cannot
be completely untied to the struggle for racial
justice and social equity. Throughout history,
Blacks have consistently called for better hous-
ing policies, living wage rates, and equal access
to quality education and health care.
Booker T. Washington beckoned African
Americans to concentrate their energy on
industrial education and accumulating wealth.
The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program
demanded tangible policies that tackled eco-
nomic inequality as a means to obtain racial
equity. Today’s racial wealth gap is wider than it
was in the 1960s. Economic mobility has always
been a priority in Black liberation. Income and
wealth divides within Black America have
generated a secondary marginalization of low-
income Black people that social movements
indirectly address. The Black Lives Matter
movement’s guiding principles do not explicitly
state economic justice as a platform, but says it
could be encompassed in the “Black families,”
“Black villages” and “collective value” precepts.
The assessment of class impacts on Black
movements needs to be more intentional in
order to mobilize direct action for racial jus-
tice that is inclusive of all Black Americans.
The lack of intentional reflection about class
explains why class is not overtly included in the
framework of current racial movements.
How often do we ask ourselves what the
strengths and limitations of our class back-
grounds are, and examine how our backgrounds
inform our approach to racial injustice? How
can we be more inclusive in ensuring all class
divisions — poor, working class, professional
middle class, upper class and even a portion of
the “1 percent” — have their voices and interests
in conversations around social change?
Discussing class is a messy topic. I left that
workshop with more questions than answers,
but I came to two realizations: 1. Cross-class
alliance building is fundamental to securing
Black liberation by helping the most mar-
ginalized populations and 2. Beyoncé wisely
noted that the best revenge is our paper, and
Blacks need to ensure everyone has the paper
to bring our material and political aspirations
to actualization.
— Alexis Farmer can be reached
at akfarmer@umich.edu.
I
n Michael Moore’s newest
film, “Where to Invade Next,”
Moore goes on an international
tour in order to
“steal” the best
aspects of other
countries’ social
politics.
The
film, which is an
almost-two-hour
critique of Amer-
ica’s social fab-
ric — its schools,
its prisons, its
eroding
middle
class
—
some-
how conveys a
profound
sense
of optimism. Moore ends the film
by reminding us that other nations’
current bustling, successful systems
derive from methods and notions
first developed in the United States.
In order for us to change our ways,
he says, we must only look inward, to
our past, to ourselves.
In other words, the power lies
within us to create the world that
many so desperately seek: a world
that, poetically, might include ele-
mentary school students — regard-
less of socioeconomic status — being
fed gourmet lunches by real chefs,
or prisoners — no matter how severe
their crimes — being placed in pris-
ons where rehabilitation and re-
entrance are actually possible, or
teenagers attending world-class uni-
versities for free.
This message — turning inward
to drive us forward — represents
democratic empowerment. No mat-
ter who you are, inherently, as an
American, you have the right, and
thus, potentially, the power to cre-
ate the change you seek. This idea
rests at the heart of “equality,” the
core principal of our founding docu-
ments. And yet today, in our political
discourse, this kind of empower-
ment is derided as overly “optimis-
tic,” as far too “ideal” of a wish.
Despite
the
film’s
relentless,
empirical critique of how we con-
duct ourselves today, it is a classically
American text. The very idea of open-
ing a dialogue that allows for criticism
is an extension of this idea of “equal-
ity”: Together, by honestly examining
what our brothers and sisters around
the world are doing best, we can bet-
ter ourselves, we can learn, we can
become equally egalitarian.
In the film’s final scene, Moore
walks next to what remains of the
Berlin Wall, a divide that, as Moore
remarks, was once built to stand for
eternity, but was actually torn down
in just a matter of years. One can
imagine the minds of those people
who fought for its destruction —
despite every societal force stacking
up against them, they had a vision
for the world within them, and that
vision drove their actions. Moore,
who by the film’s end dubs himself
an “idealist,” has created a pro-
foundly optimistic text: By looking
inward to our pasts as Americans
as well as to our comrades’ efforts
from across the oceans, we can real-
ize even our wildest ideals.
And this classically American
film, furthermore, ought to inform
how we locate ourselves along the
political
spectrum
during
this
ongoing election season. Over the
past several weeks, my friends have
often asked me to give my pitch
about why I wholeheartedly sup-
port Bernie Sanders. After I dis-
cuss his policies, his integrity and
his boldness, my friends will often
say something to the effect of: “Oh
yeah, that would all be nice, but it’s
just too idealistic of a vision.”
Moore’s film speaks volumes
about the numbness and insensibil-
ity of this notion that we ought not
strive toward idealism and instead
settle for the system under which we
currently live. It seems these friends
of mine do not believe that the type
of radical social change that Moore
directly observes has taken place in
the world. These friends of mine do
not believe that this kind of change
can happen here, nor that we ought
to vote for a system whose leader is
proposing that it might.
I don’t want to use this as a plat-
form to advocate for my political
beliefs — by all means, support
whomever you wish. I just cannot
fathom why or how we have, some-
where along the line, lowered our
expectations for what is possible by
such a great margin to the point that
the world that we all wish to one
day inhabit — which, for a moment
at least, comes alive through bits
and pieces from throughout the
world in Moore’s masterpiece — is
unrealizable, a fantasy.
As a heterosexual white man, soci-
ety has never institutionally tried to
shut me up. I understand that mil-
lions of people, because of identi-
ties out of their control, have been
and will continue to be kicked to the
curb and silenced by our world that
prefers and judges people based on
their given identities. This becomes
an opportunity for the rest of us —
the privileged rest of us, who are
not societally and institutionally
targeted for certain identities and
circumstances beyond our control —
to fight. Everyone, then, from those
people who society has institution-
ally marginalized to those it has left
untouched, has an opportunity to
fight together.
Those who dismiss these con-
cepts as too idealistic need only
to examine the United States’ his-
tory to find a long-lasting, deeply
impactful social movement whose
core philosophy was one of mutual
respect and love. In “The Power of
Non-violence,” Martin Luther King
Jr. describes a kind of “agape love,”
one that is neither aesthetic nor
reciprocated. Yet he believes agape
love to be a catalyzing idea that all
Americans must adopt: “And when
you come to love on this level you
begin to love men not because they
are likeable … but because God loves
them and here we love the person
who does the evil deed while hating
the deed the person does.”
Instead of giving up, we ought to
fight, and within this activism lies
the truest form of love: the belief
that we are all divine, we all con-
tain the potential for divinity. As
Moore’s film argues, egalitarian
generosity lies deeply within the
fabric of American society.
I would characterize this rejection
of idealism both as cowardly and self-
ish. If you believe this world is good
enough, that our country is living up
to its standards, then you are ignoring
the realities of millions of your broth-
ers and sisters, millions of your fellow
Americans, who did just as little to
arrive in their circumstances as you
did to arrive in yours. Acknowledge
your privilege as someone the world
has, for no real reason at all, selected to
spare, and then use your place in soci-
ety to advocate for the basic liberties of
the rest of our populus.
The optimism of Moore’s film
comes from its belief that change,
inherently, lies within us. It preaches
a message of empowerment. This
“ideal” vision should not be castigat-
ed, because it is a vision that includes
a people who are ideal toward each
other, a people who fight for each
other. And we are that people. To
dismiss the ideal is to say that you
are not capable of such generosity,
of such strength. And I think that’s
a tragedy. When did it become so
outlandish to believe that you can be
whatever you wish?
Moore’s film advocates for gener-
osity on a national scale among citi-
zens. We must collectively believe
we are capable of this kind of inter-
mingling. Otherwise, who are we?
An acceptingly, admittedly cruel
people? I reject that.
— Isaiah Zeavin-Moss can be
reached at izeavinm@umich.edu.
Invasion of our idealism
ISAIAH
ZEAVIN-MOSS
BEN KELLER | OP-ED
Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Caitlin Heenan,
Jeremy Kaplan, Ben Keller, Minsoo Kim, Payton Luokkala, Kit Maher,
Madeline Nowicki, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Jason Rowland, Lauren Schandevel,
Melissa Scholke, Kevin Sweitzer, Rebecca Tarnopol, Ashley Tjhung,
Stephanie Trierweiler, Hunter Zhao
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
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