M

y adolescent years were weaned on
Tumblr, a website that stole too much
of my middle school free time and

taught me words and phrases such as “queer,”
“neurotypical” and “social justice warrior.” These
were the days before celebrities such as Halsey
and Zendaya took social justice from the hid-
den corners of the Internet and made it trend on
Twitter. Back in middle school, there was no Amy
Schumer to tell me I could love my body even
though stretch marks painted my thighs, no John
Legend to explain to me that #BlackLivesMatter
doesn’t mean that other lives don’t matter, just
that Black lives matter, too. No, social justice and
political correctness were self-taught classes back
in middle school, and I was the star student in my
class of one.

Yet, as the world began waking up and social

issues found themselves on the front cover of
renowned magazines and newspapers, it seemed
the people immediately around me were still fast
asleep, Sleeping Beauties stuck in a past era. Din-
ner table conversations were hopelessly lopsided
as I struggled to educate my family on topics they
just couldn’t understand. There was no malice
in my friends’ voices when they expressed shock
about a fellow classmate’s change in pronouns or
their fabulous fuchsia dress at prom, just confu-

sion. “I just … don’t get it,” my friend said once,
upon learning that Laverne Cox was transgender.
“How can you just feel like a different gender? Isn’t
that just being, like, a tomboy? What’s the differ-
ence between being a tomboy and a transsexual?”
“Transgender,” I corrected gently.

Teaching my friends and family to think oth-

erwise was a challenge. After all, they’d grown up
in conservative homes in a perfect cookie-cutter
Midwestern town: Troy, Mich. Cis and trans were
chemistry terms, and gender was as binary as a
base-two number system. I’d learned in Troy that
it was easier to stay quiet and “stick to the status
quo.” Online, I could safely rock the boat and dis-
cuss police brutality, but in real life, it was easier
to just nod with a tight smile when my co-worker
condemned abortion and “homosexuals in the
government.” I was waiting for my community to
catch up to the social activism on the internet, but
it just seemed hopelessly stuck.

Stepping foot onto the University of Michigan’s

campus during Summer Orientation was like
Tumblr coming to life around me. As my orienta-
tion leaders introduced themselves by their names,
majors and preferred pronouns, my jaw dropped
to the ground. I’d never heard anyone state their
preferred pronouns in person before. This min-
ute detail made all the difference in welcoming
anyone who may not identify as male or female
with open arms. The Educational Theater Com-
pany performance only reinforced the culture of
inclusion and diversity as the players danced and
sang about topics I’d always considered “taboo”
in real life: mental illness, gender roles, racism,
sexism and feminism. Awestruck in the dark
auditorium, I realized that staying quiet wouldn’t
inspire change in the community around me. I
couldn’t just wait around for my family and peers
to “catch up;” change needs a catalyst, and a voice
is the first spark.

Emboldened by the spirit of activism on the

University of Michigan’s campus, I returned
home a bolder woman. The change was small,
but it was a flicker where previously there was
none. When my co-worker denounced abortion,
I replied to him, offering many reasons women
choose to abort and control their own bodies. I
may not have changed his mind, but I offered him
the perspective of a woman in the pro-life debate,
a necessary viewpoint which he lacked. When
my mother fretted over the length of my skirt
before I left to hang out at a boy’s house, I ques-
tioned why promiscuity by females is so condem-
nable but promiscuity by males is celebrated. And
when my well-meaning friend called a celebrity
“weird” because “she tweets stuff like ‘hashtag
feminism,’ ” I, with the help of another friend,
explained to her that feminists aren’t all angry,
man-hating monsters.

These steps are little, but they are the result of

a single weekend on campus. I can only imagine
how much more I’ll learn after one year, and then
four years. “College makes students liberal,” my
government teacher had stated as if it were some-
thing terrible, but I don’t think college pushes
students one way or the other. Rather, college
students are allowed, for the first time, to experi-
ence social issues unfolding right in front of them.
On a college campus, students can form their
own opinions and views without the overhang-
ing influence of family, and they are wowed to see
that they, too, can inspire change.

—Ashley Zhang can be reached

at ashleyzh@umich.edu.

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
4A — Thursday, September 8, 2016

T

he city of Detroit has long been a great
American city that has gone through a
lot as our nation has developed. Over

the past few years, Detroit
has had its fair share of
struggles, having filed for
bankruptcy in 2013 and
seen a monumental decline
in population over the last
few decades. Pundits and writers from as close
as Michigan and as far away as other countries
are always lining up to take shots at Detroit and
its identity as a city.

However, the problems with Detroit didn’t

start in the last 10 years. Decades of systemic
racism and inequality have allowed privileged
white people to move to suburbs as far away as
Ann Arbor, while stranding low-income minority
populations inside the city with less and less
resources available to serve the city.

Even this last year, Detroit Public Schools

were reborn as the Detroit Community Schools
as part of a deal worked out in the Michigan
legislature — a deal that I have already spoken
out against. Despite the fact that Detroit is
the largest city in Michigan, enrollment at
the University of Michigan features a sparse
population of Detroit residents.

To add onto all of this, Republican presidential

candidate Donald Trump still found a way to
call Michigan, specifically the manufacturing
sector of Detroit, a “disaster.” Michigan students
frequently have a litany of bad things to say about

the city. Even students who have never been to
Michigan ask if they are safe to visit the airport,
which is located 20 minutes outside of Detroit
city limits.

Despite all of this, I still have hope. Detroit

is an amazingly diverse city, with pockets of
areas made up of a majority of Muslim or Latino
people. The culture and spirit of Detroit can’t be
crushed, and I firmly believe that things will only
go upward from here. All across the city, people
are coming together to do what the city motto has
instructed the city to do for hundreds of years.
“Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus,” the
Latin mottos on the city flag, say we shall hope
for better things, and that those things shall rise
from the ashes.

That motto is something I can believe — not

for a “new Detroit” only for wealthy suburban
residents or downtown trustafarians, but
for a Detroit that rises from the ashes for all
Detroiters. I highly urge all Michigan students
to visit Detroit via the free Detroit Center
Connector and to explore all that the great
things the city has to offer.

Finally, I urge everyone to keep abreast on

issues in the city. While it may be easy to ignore
developments about the ongoing school concerns
or the unfair tax foreclosures that are taking
place across the city, it is incredibly important to
stay up to date on what is happening.

— Kevin Sweitzer can be reached

at ksweitz@umich.edu.

Just 40 minutes away

M

y sister is sitting straight
up on the end of our
living room couch, her

eyes
refus-

ing
to
waver

from our large
flat-screen
TV. She’s been
binge-watching
“House of Cards” for nearly four
hours now, and in this particular
episode, President Underwood is
threatening his own wife in the
most overdramatic, Machiavellian
manner I have ever witnessed. My
sister is hanging on the fictional
president’s every word in pure awe
of what she believes is a dramatical-
ly accurate picture of the dark side
of American politics. Meanwhile,
I sit there in utter disgust at the
almost insane depiction of Ameri-
can politics. I hate political dramas.

In total truth, I have seen nearly

every major political drama put to
TV, Netflix and HBO. Being high-
ly interested in politics naturally
leads me to watching a fictional-
ized version of my obsession. Yet
the current political climate has
brought me to begin to despise
these shows.

Americans distrust our govern-

ment, and our current election
cycle clearly shows that. Candidates
on both sides of the aisle have vowed
to work against the establishment
and the typical government bureau-
cracy that they say has failed the
American people. To add to this
distrust, the public also lacks a basic
understanding of the functions and
responsibilities of our government.
For example, the Annenberg Public
Policy Center reported that a little
more than a third of Americans
could name all three branches of
the U.S. government. This funda-
mental lack of understanding of our
complex government, paired with
a growing distrust of politicians,
leaves us in today’s chaotic presi-
dential election.

The public’s “imagination” of

what politicians do within the
upper echelons of government
can be somewhat attributed to
the emergence of American politi-
cal dramas. Shows like “The West
Wing,” “Scandal” and “House of
Cards” are truly terrible guides to
the way our government operates
and how our politicians work. Yet
these shows are extraordinarily
entertaining and addictive. They
carry massive audiences through
multiple seasons, winning awards,
securing excellent ratings, all at
the expense of shaping false mis-
conceptions of the politicians of
our country. The shows person-
ify politics to a crippling degree,
oversimplify the policy making
of our massive bureaucracy, and
most importantly, cast politicians
as these scheming sociopaths who
manipulate and warp the system
for their own benefit. These fac-
tors culminate to a false representa-
tion of our government within the
minds of millions of Americans, and
as the current election cycle shows,

unorthodox candidates can capital-
ize on this ignorance.

America got its first taste of

political drama in 1999 with the
NBC series “The West Wing.”
Though
the
show
was
well

received
from
an
entertain-

ment standpoint, many of the
more politically informed view-
ers were disappointed with its
“personality-driven politics,” to
quote an article from The Atlan-
tic. It portrayed a false image of
what happens within the levels of
bureaucracy in our government.
Individual characters tackled mas-
sive responsibilities and challeng-
es that have been unsolvable for
decades. For example, the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict is solved in a
matter of a few episodes, prompt-
ing this idea that major conflicts
can be solved through some per-
sonal “heart to heart” negotiation
and compromising policy between
understanding individuals.

But who could blame NBC? “The

West Wing” was only entertaining
when the cast was able to solve
the unsolvable through their hard
work and dedication. What audi-

ence wants to watch an Israeli-
Palestinian compromise descend
into failure? Or see a debate over
what entitlements to cut for poor-
er Americans? Or listen to presi-
dential candidates speak about
banning entire religions or how
much the United States will tor-
ture its military prisoners? Well
unfortunately, that is the reality,
and these dramas only add to mak-
ing that reality worse in the fact
that viewers are led to believe in
a false possibility within the over-
personified and simplified politics
of shows like “The West Wing.”

Yet, the more prevailing effect

that TV political dramas have on
their misinformed viewers is con-
vincing them of a darker reality in
which politicians operate. To put it
simply, to be a politician within this
country, one must also be a socio-
path. The political drama “House
of Cards” bludgeons this point to
death. Within America, Kevin Spac-
ey’s character seems to have molded
the archetype for politicians: an
apolitical madman who uses pol-
icy and his position solely for the
advancement of his power.

What’s more is the contrast

between the U.K. and U.S. ver-

sions of “House of Cards.” In the
U.K. version, the main protago-
nist’s self-interest and desire to
gain and hold power is rooted in
the fact that he believes his poli-
cy agenda and legislative ability
will come to benefit the country.
His ruthless acts are thereby a
means to a rational end. In con-
trast with the U.S. version, the
protagonist comes off as almost
apolitical throughout the entire
show. His ambitions are simply to
become the most powerful man in
the world. This presents the idea
that the problem with American
politics is not borne of a particular
party or ideology, but rather the
American political system itself
— that, in fact, our political land-
scape is dominated not by partisan
hawks or doves, but by a power-
hungry class of elites competing
for influence and domination.

Yet these shows are made for

one purpose, for my sister to sit on
the edge of our couch hanging on
every word. Is it the responsibil-
ity of TV networks and producers
to ensure an accurate representa-
tion of American politics is deliv-
ered to their audience? Of course
not — these are TV dramas meant
to capture massive audiences and
achieve high ratings. The writers
and producers of these shows are
simply capitalizing on the igno-
rance and disdain toward the
American political machine.

Besides, some may argue a posi-

tive effect is that these shows have
helped push more people to become
involved in the political landscape
of America, due to their newfound
interest these shows have fostered.
Does not the benefit (a more politi-
cally interested public), outweigh
the costs (a few inaccuracies and
over dramatizations)?

No. Though these shows indi-

vidually may have a few inac-
curacies or oversimplifications,
their aggregate effect relates to
the overall problem that is the
reason why these dramas have
become a success. These shows
capitalize on how the present-
day American citizenship is too
misinformed, untrustworthy and
divided toward its government
and politicians. Add in the rising
intensity of partisanship, and this
lack of pragmatism leads to strict,
often ignorant, blind party ideol-
ogy alignment.

Most importantly today, this

phenomenon allows for the emer-
gence of unorthodox candidates
capitalizing
on
this
growing

hatred. These shows that add to
this negative perception can only
lead to further missteps within our
political system. How much will
the misrepresentations and inac-
curacies affect the voting decisions
of the general public? It appears as
if the presidential election cycle of
2016 has answered that.

—Michael Mordarski can be

reached at mmordars@umich.edu.

Against political dramas

MICHAEL

MORDARSKI

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, Kevin Sweitzer,

Rebecca Tarnopol,

Ashley Tjhung, Stephanie Trierweiler

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

KEVIN
SWEITZER

No longer in a class of one

IN CHAN LEE Email in Chan at tokg@umiCh.Edu

DO YOU LIKE DISCUSSING

CAMPUS ISSUES?

STATE AND LOCAL POLICIES?

MAYBE EVEN THE ELECTION?

JOIN OUR EDITORIAL BOARD.

The Daily’s Editorial Board meets Mondays and Wednesdays

at 7 p.m. in the newsroom at 420 Maynard St. Stop by

sometime — we’d love to talk to you about joining our staff.

“The more

prevailing effect

is convincing
viewers of a

darker reality in
which politicians

operate.”