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”

