LAUREN INGRAM | MICHIGAN IN COLOR Dear Mainstream, You have seen my thighs dangle out from under my shorts and my skirts. They jiggle, they flap and cause problems whenever I try on something new. It’s a little difficult to learn how to love every inch of my body fat when I go into a store — take your pick, H&M or Forever 21 — and have difficulty buying shorts. All of a sudden my regularly size six thighs can’t fit into your size 10 shorts. That’s a problem. Oh, my beautiful thick thighs — I put so much onto you that it always leaves behind lines and marks from the jeans I force onto you each day. Mainstream, I love my rolls, the rolls that roll over my size six pants — but do you? Why don’t you see the beauty behind my curves and my rolls? I never see my reflection on any of those websites when I’m shopping online. I’ve rarely met someone who looks like those size small, 5’10” models, with a small bust and a small waist. You deceive us, making us think those clothes will fit just like they do on the models, but they don’t. Are they ever tried on by someone who was larger than a small? You imagine all of us to be the same, and you expect for us to change until we are. Mainstream, you don’t allow for individuality, and you’re so quick to deem someone’s body out of the norm, to be plus-sized. Why is plus size a different section in general? You choose every chance you get to embarrass my big black thighs, forcing me to go to the plus size section when you can easily extend the sizes into your regular lines. Mainstream, learn to love and accept my body for what it is. What you see as imperfections I see as uniqueness. Mainstream, you have taken away my uniqueness by manipulating my nanas, aunties and mommas for years. For so long, I was told that I had to tame my hair and make it look “presentable,” all the while damaging my hair. My hair, oh my hair, it’s been pinched and bobbled, robbed of its texture and all. It’s been strained, lost, shortened and almost completely uprooted. For years, my hair follicles have endured chemically-induced pain. Sitting there for what feels like years, being permed and burned, permed and burned, permed and burned. I constantly complainied from the pain only to be reminded that “beauty is pain.” Why does it have to hurt to be beautiful? Mainstream, you’re the one who told our mommas to scold us in the morning if we didn’t wrap our hair the night before, always making sure that our hair would be neat. We’ve been placed in a bubble where we would rather spend the money to look good than spend the time to be true to ourselves. Mainstream, you are a catalyst for change — to make everyone look just like you. You have beaten into the heads of my nanas, aunties and mommas that the natural curl coming straight from my scalp shouldn’t be there. You have convinced many of them that the hair we are blessed with is not okay, forcing us to assimilate to straight long hair just so we are not looked at as beneath the rest of mainstream. How I choose to wear my hair is my prerogative. I want to see my natural curls back. I want to walk into a job interview with the curls that sprout from my head and not worry about whether or not my qualifications are the only thing in consideration for the job. I’m slowly having to prove to those who come before me that it’s okay to wear my hair in its natural state. Mainstream, accept me and my natural afro of curls, just like we’ve had to accept everything else that you’ve thrashed in our faces. Accept my skin, embrace it — it’s not going anywhere. I am born and proud of my smooth cocoa skin — my beautiful chocolate skin that reminds you of filth, that you describe as dirt. Mainstream, you set aside my skin color as if it’s removable. We are not seen as an entity that needs representation. You were in my friend’s head when she thought her only option was to bleach her beautiful skin — her beautiful chocolate brown skin. Mainstream, you tell my sisters and me that we will be accepted if we look just like you, if we try to match you as best we can. There’s a divide between me and my lighter-skinned sisters. Mainstream, do you only wish to inflict pain on me and my sisters? Do you know how difficult it is to look in the mirror and never see the image reflected back at you in media? Mainstream, do you hear from your nanas, aunties and mommas that you need to date someone with lighter skin so that your babies will have lighter skin so that your baby will be considered beautiful based upon her skin color? Mainstream, if you could change your skin color, would you be chocolate? No. You would rather just take everything else about black women and claim it as your own. My lips, oh my lips, I was born with these luscious, full and round lips. They were not manufactured — just au natural. You constantly tore down my sisters for their lips and used it as a way to emasculate my brothers. “Big lips” are equated with ugliness, mainstream, except when it comes to today’s reality stars. We embrace many reality stars as if their newfound interest in having big lips make them look better when that same amount of tissue in my lips is deemed unattractive. These are the same lips I use to mindfully obey your every whim, policing my sisters about their hair expression and reminding our brothers that assimilation is the only way to get ahead — all of that to finally have my lips deemed “cool.” My grandmother actually tried to teach me ways to make my lips look smaller based on the type of makeup that I used. There’s only so much about my appearance and my body that I can continue to take from you, so I’ve decided to take it all back. No longer will I look to you for justification. If you will not represent my beautiful body and everything that comes along with it, then I’ll find or create a space that will. If you refuse to recognize the part of your current culture that takes parts of the culture that I’ve had for years, I will shame you for it. Mainstream, if you continue to purposely tear me and my sisters down, remember that we’ll always keep rising up. Sincerely, The Conventional Black Girl 5 OPINION Thursday, May 19, 2016 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Science needs storytellers I read an article recently in The New Yorker written by the physician- scientist Siddhartha Mukherjee, which introduces the topic of epigenetics through stories about his mother and aunt. They’re identical twins, but Mukherjee remarks on how their personalities differ despite their genetic similarity, which he alludes to in the title, “Same But Different.” He attributes their distinctive qualities to another layer of biological data encoded over the DNA in each cell of the body. The epigenome, he says, is a system composed of proteins and other small molecules that interact with DNA, controlling how it is read, which, in part, defines individuality. It was a welcome example of how employing a personal narrative can be used to explain an area of science by bringing it to life, enabling a casual reader to absorb the information comfortably. Epigenetics and other areas of science might otherwise seem intimidating or dry if encountered through a textbook or peer-reviewed article. It’s enjoyable to leisurely read and learn about an unfamiliar subject, but also interesting to observe how a familiar subject is presented to somebody else in an unfamiliar way. In this case, however, biology experts reading Mukherjee’s explanation of epigenetics reacted differently. The article quickly received widespread criticism for providing an incomplete explanation about the mechanisms of gene regulation. An article in the scientific journal Nature noted that one genetics researcher said the article was “a horribly damaging piece” for the field. Another called it “a truly painful read.” Researchers believed some of Mukherjee’s descriptions were inaccurate and noted that he failed to include any mention of transcription factors (a completely different group of molecules that affect how DNA is read), misleading the public about the true inner-workings of gene expression. Naturally, a more objective explanation of the science would have left little print room for his personal narrative, which may not have appealed as much to the magazine’s non-science-specific readership. Mukherjee himself has acknowledged his article’s shortcomings, but The New Yorker has defended the content. This controversy highlights an important discussion about the communication of science. Because science, especially biology, can be so complex, anyone actually working in the field must have a deep understanding of where the boundary of knowledge exists in order to ask the right questions and to obtain the answers that extend that boundary. A researcher might spend years trying to understand the mechanism of a new cell-signaling pathway, when thousands of different pathways are already confirmed to exist, and many more remain undiscovered. There arises a substantial gap between the depth of what scientists believe to be true or possible, and what the lay- public has the capacity to understand. Mukherjee exhibits how storytelling is an important method for communicating science. Using personal anecdotes and explaining concepts at a surface level is effective in enabling a lay-audience to relate and understand. Inevitably, many mainstream media outlets will fail to present scientific topics with thoroughness and depth when constraints, such as word count or air time, exist. In these cases, it should be acknowledged by journalists, who can direct someone with a deeper interest to sources where they can learn more. But sometimes science can be packaged so artificially for the media that the message presented hardly resembles the conclusion of the original study. In a recent episode of his show “Last Week Tonight,” comedy news anchor John Oliver bashed media outlets like Time magazine, “The Today Show,” local news broadcasts and even the TED series for sometimes overlooking the diligence and nuances of scientific studies in order to hook the viewer with a catchy headline. (In one instance, a study testing the effects of eating chocolate on childbearing, which turned out to show no effect, somehow received the local news headline: “Eating moderate amounts of chocolate could benefit mom and baby.”) While attention- grabbing headlines are important for sequestering viewers and readers, journalists should ensure more consistency from what the study concludes to what the reader or viewer sees by interviewing the researchers themselves, instead of merely trying to interpret conclusions in press releases. Keeping scientific news and discussion in the mainstream media is vital to the dissemination of new knowledge. In addition to accuracy, reach is also important. Those believing that dry, comprehensive accounts are the only tools for distributing new findings will be greatly disappointed in their lack of permeation among the general public, when people cannot connect to the concepts. A more scientifically DAVID MERTZ informed public generates new ideas for solving problems and better policies. The scientific community should appreciate journalism that creatively shares new findings and, instead of quickly antagonizing its messengers, should request for findings to be communicated accurately with the proper context and implications. In “Same But Different,” Mukherjee chooses to prioritize telling a story to explain epigenetics instead of purely objectifying the subject matter and diluting the element of humanity he uses to connect with his audience. His new book “The Gene: An Intimate History” becomes available May 17. It will include other narratives and fill the scientific holes left by his article, providing a more comprehensive, yet still accessible, understanding of gene regulation. Hopefully it will appease his critics. —David Mertz can be reached at drmertz@umich.edu. “The conventional Black girl”