Opinion
SHOHAM GEVA
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AND REGAN DETWILER
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4A — Monday, Sept. 12, 2016
ISAIAH
ZEAVIN-
MOSS
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Misogyny doesn’t have to win
L
ast month, presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton made history by
becoming the first female presidential
nominee from a major
political
party
—
an
enormous
milestone
in the fight for gender
equality in America. But
as we celebrate this important victory, we
must not fall victim to complacency. The
battle is not yet won. Although Clinton has
made “18 million cracks” in the glass ceiling,
the falling glass may just reveal a titanium
plate awaiting us beyond.
Don’t get me wrong — a Trump presidency
will likely be catastrophic for women’s rights.
However, electing the first female president
will not solve our problems overnight.
Misogyny has already reared its ugly head
during this election cycle, evidenced in
shouts of “Lock her up!” at the Republican
National Convention and “Trump that bitch!”
bumper stickers. Even if Clinton is elected in
November, these voices will not fade away
quietly — and they may even worsen.
A few weeks ago, I found myself on a
10-hour car ride to my grandmother’s
house and decided to start listening to
Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent new podcast,
“Revisionist History,” to kill the time.
During his first episode, I was compelled
by Gladwell’s discussion of the sociological
phenomenon of “moral licensing” and found
it alarmingly relevant to today’s presidential
election. According to an article from
Stanford University, moral licensing “occurs
when past moral behavior makes people
more likely to do potentially immoral things
without worrying about feeling or appearing
immoral.” We have already seen this concept
in action with the noticeable increase in
blatant racism throughout the country
since the election of President Obama.
To put it simply, people tend to feel more
comfortable openly making racial comments
or jokes because, in their minds, they couldn’t
possibly be racist if they helped elect the first
Black president.
Disturbingly, a number of our international
friends, including Brazil, Germany, Poland,
Turkey, France, Canada, Australia and —
until Teresa May’s election following the
Brexit fallout — the United Kingdom, have
elected a female head of state once, and then
never again. In our own country, despite
women gaining the right to vote in 1920, we
still only have 20 females in the Senate and 84
in the House of Representatives. This only
makes up about 20 percent of each chamber,
even
though
women
constitute
50.9
percent of the U.S. population according
to the U.S. Census Bureau. If Clinton
wins the presidency this fall, we must not
allow ourselves to fall victim to this same
pattern. The door cannot close behind her
for the millions of capable, passionate and
competent women that can surely follow in
her footsteps.
Unfortunately, misogyny is an ingrained
part of our culture. It is not likely to slip
away easily. If we elect the first female
president in November, the misogyny will
grow stronger and uglier. She will almost
certainly work twice as hard to earn the
respect of both her government colleagues
and the general public. She will almost
certainly receive more hateful comments,
challenges
to
her
temperament
and
credibility and watchful eyes critiquing
her every move than any other American
president in recent history. While it will be a
necessary and historical milestone, the first
female U.S. president will face her fair share
of difficulty.
This all being said, moral licensing is
likely not a conscious decision. Although I
am certain that a few bad apples spoil the
bunch, I refuse to believe that most people
are inherently bad. Most of the time, we
don’t intend to offend others. And this is
all the more reason to remain diligent in
the fight for gender equality. If we get too
comfortable, the louder and angrier voices
win. If Clinton takes office this fall, we need
to challenge those voices that seek to put
her down based solely on her gender.
If we fight together, moral licensing
doesn’t have to win.
Misogyny doesn’t have to win.
Hate and anger don’t have to win.
We need to ensure that the door remains
open not only for our sons and brothers to
reach their fullest potential, but also for our
incredible daughters and sisters.
—Melissa Strauss can be reached
at melstrau@umich.edu.
Politics and mechanical reproducability
T
hroughout
the
ongoing
election cycle, I have been
made acutely aware of our
national media’s
tendency
to
remove
politicians from
their histories,
forgetting
the
ways in which
politicians have
demonstrably
impacted
our
lives
and
focusing
instead on their
words,
their
outfits and their
“personalities”
(an
idea
that,
given the extremely limited access
we have to these people’s lives, I
question outright).
These
figures,
then,
become nothing more than TV
characters
whom
we
watch,
judge, mock, make into memes,
etc. And why should we care
about
two
characters
whom
the heavy majority of us find
untrustworthy
and
corrupt?
Why should we be moved to
action? We already have Don
Draper,
SpongeBob
and
the
Gilmore Girls to worry about.
And
I
actually
trust
them.
Predictably, we turn off the TV
when these political figureheads
appear, leaving us apathetic and
unamused.
This notion of the media
dehistoricizing objects is not a
new one — and I think it’s fair to
refer to our political figures in
this way because, for most of us,
they will never be anything more
than images on our screen.
In his formative 1936 essay,
“The Work of Art in The Age of
Its Mechanical Reproducibility,”
Walter Benjamin discusses the
effects of the emerging film
industry on its contemporary
audience. He notes that sharp,
clear reproductions of original
images have never been more
easily attained.
Before film, art could still
be replicated. The difference,
according to Benjamin, lies in
film’s ability to “place the copy of
the original in situations which
the original itself cannot attain.”
And while the reproduced piece
might otherwise feel and look like
the original, Benjamin asserts
that this process of reproduction
will inherently leave the copy
lacking authenticity. The original
piece, Benjamin claims, maintains
a certain aura obliterated with
the new capability to endlessly,
relentlessly
replicate
the
object. This process, in effect,
deconstructs
the
concept
of
originality all together — what
is an “original” if it will always
be placed into some new context
the object could never attain by
itself?
Think of your favorite Drake
“Hotline Bling” meme. Is the
video itself the original, or is it
that meme, which puts Drake
into an entirely new conversation
with some other idea — maybe
an inside joke between you and
your friends? Doesn’t that meme
become the original object? Every
time we put something into this
sort of new context, are we not
recreating an original? But how
could an original be recreated?
Our national media enacts this
same method of removing objects
from
their
larger
historical
context, thereby obliterating the
sense of the original. Just as a TV
character might evolve with each
episode of its show, politicians
become new figures every time we
hear about them, in new contexts
that operate singularly, neglecting
to address their larger histories.
An
example:
Michael
Bloomberg, who instituted racist
and unconstitutional stop-and-
frisk policing in New York City
while mayor, spoke in prime time
at the 2016 Democratic National
Convention.
I
was
shocked
Bloomberg was allowed to speak,
especially at a convention for a
party that claims to be the voice
of marginalized people in this
country. Liberal media outlets,
in anticipation of Bloomberg’s
speech, described him as “the
nation’s leading independent and
a
pragmatic
business
leader.”
And, because of his career as a
businessman, Bloomberg’s pro-
Clinton sentiments would prove
that Trump, even among his
colleagues, is disliked.
Here, we see Bloomberg lifted
out of the muck of his history,
without a stain, in order to further
the Democratic Party’s message.
But we must remain skeptical
of this, to examine our political
figures’ histories and policies,
because these are the ways in
which they actually impact us.
At the convention, we do not
even need to listen to Bloomberg’s
words to examine his efforts
to detach himself from his own
history. The mayor of Atlanta,
Ga.,
Kasim
Reed,
introduced
Bloomberg: “Please welcome, the
three-time mayor of the City of
New York…,” which sounds exactly
like the introduction athletes
receive:
getting
the
audience
excited about the present moment,
about the sporting event to come.
This moment glorifies the future
and ignores, for the moment, the
past. For now, they are on your
team; they are here to help.
Bloomberg
then
took
the
stage, with blaring saxophones
accompanying him — almost the
exact track celebrities receive as
they come onstage to talk with
David Letterman. Perhaps this
is all that matters: his fame, his
name recognition. The fact that
he, that guy with that name, is
endorsing our candidate… It must
be terrific!
Bloomberg
began
his
remarks by thanking Mr. Reed,
mispronouncing his first name
in the process. I should also note
the irony that Reed is a Black man,
introducing a figure who actively
implemented a policing program
that
consistently
violated
the
civil liberties of people of color.
I posit this scheduling decision
was designed to make us, on some
level, look past Bloomberg’s past
entirely. Not only is he at the
students’ convention, but he’s
being introduced by a Black man
who’s talking about Bloomberg
as a “mentor” and a “friend.”
Why should we worry about all
that stuff he used to do? He’s
here now.
What we see here is Bloomberg
as the work of art in the age of its
mechanical reproducibility. The
original object, with its tattered
and destructive history, is long
gone. The past has been effaced.
The
reproduced
Bloomberg
saunters
onstage,
triumphing
the capture of his original. He
can now begin anew.
These are the mechanics of
mechanical reproduction. Right
in front of our eyes, shameless,
unembarrassed.
Now what?
—Isaiah Zeavin-Moss can be
reached at izeavinm @umich.edu.
T
he summer of 2016 will be one to
remember: For the first time, a
woman is the presidential candidate
of a major political party;
the Revolutionary Armed
Forces
of
Colombia
and
the
Colombian
government
signed
a
peace treaty ending a
50-year war; but most
importantly,
“Pokemon
Go” was released unto the
world.
An
intrinsically
social game, “Pokemon
Go” sated my desire for
human contact until I
heard of PokeDates: a
dating website for “Pokemon Go” players. I
moseyed on down to the homepage and began
the sign-up process until I noticed something
peculiar. As part of finding your perfect
match, the website asks for deal-breakers
and the two first suggestions were “ultra
conservative” and “a bleeding heart liberal.”
It seems like not even Pokemon is spared
from our nation’s hyper-politicization. Is
nothing sacred anymore?
These suggested “deal-breakers” don’t
exist in a vacuum. They’re symptomatic of
the way politics have infiltrated our lives. The
polarization between our parties is as high as
it was during the Civil War. This polarization
has lent itself to a hyper-politicization that
stretches from our day-to-day interactions
to what would nominally be called politics,
and has entered our previously relatively
apolitical institutions such as the Supreme
Court. For years, the Supreme Court had a
protective layer. Judges serve life-long terms
so they don’t have to worry about reelection
and can rule how they feel is correct. There
was also an understanding between the
political parties that even if one doesn’t agree
with a particular judicial nominee’s views,
if they are sufficiently qualified, they should
be sworn into the court. This is no longer the
case.
Candidates like Bernie Sanders and Donald
Trump have helped reduce the court to an
explicitly political institution by discussing
our nation’s highest court in candid, political
terms. Earlier this year, Sanders tweeted,
“Any Supreme Court nominee of mine will
make overturning Citizens United one of
their first decisions.” This notion that a justice
must have explicit priorities is unheard of in
American politics. Similarly, Donald Trump
released a list of whom he would nominate for
the Supreme Court vacancy in a move widely
seen as an attempt to win over evangelicals.
I recall one debate during the Republican
primary in which Trump explicitly called
upon Mitch McConnell to “delay, delay,
delay” Obama’s Supreme Court nomination.
All of this discourse has turned the Supreme
Court into just another pawn for politicians
to play with, rather than an institution that
carries itself aside from politics.
It’s important to recognize the Supreme
Court has been politicized not only from
the outside, but also from the inside. Earlier
this year Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered a
searing critique of Donald Trump: “I can’t
imagine what this place would be — I can’t
imagine what the country would be — with
Donald Trump as our president.” At first, it
was viscerally satisfying to hear one of our
nation’s most accomplished women excoriate
serial misogynist Donald Trump. However,
upon further reflection I began to think that
maybe this type of discourse wasn’t good
for our democracy. It further politicizes
the Supreme Court and diminishes trust
in public institutions, which in turn
destabilizes our democracy.
It would be easy to end this piece with a
call for us to learn to accept one another’s
different political views on a deeper level
and not allow them to become key markers
of our identity. I don’t think that’s
remotely realistic. Frankly, I could never
go on a PokeDate with someone who
plans to vote for Trump this November.
A Trump vote speaks volumes about a
person’s underlying ethics in ways I’m not
remotely comfortable with.
But what I can say is that we should each
critically reflect on how deeply we have let
politics penetrate our lives and whether
we’re comfortable with that level. This bar
will be different for everyone, but reflection
is the first step to restoring some sanity to
our democracy and rescuing our institutions
from the grip of politics which may even —
yes — make America great again.
—Roland Davidson can be reached
at mhenryda@umich.edu.
Polarization and PokeDating
EMILY WOLFE
email emily at elwolfe@umich.edu
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
“Just as a TV
character might
evolve with each
episode of their
show, politicians
become new figures
every time we hear
about them.”
ROLAND
DAVIDSON
MELISSA
STRAUSS