Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Monday, November 14, 2016

Let’s grieve, let’s fight

T

he first time I remember 
it happening, I was 
standing on the rooftop 

of the Cathedral in Santiago 
de Compostela in Spain. I 
had just finished a 600-mile 
solo pilgrimage, in which I 
walked from Seville in the 
south of Spain to Santiago in 
the northwestern corner over 
the course of six weeks. I was 
taking a tour of the Cathedral 
of Santiago and on this tour 
you are permitted to walk 
along the rooftop and view the 
old city below. One minute, I 
am simply standing on top of 
this cathedral, the next, the 
building is crumbling around 
me and I am falling to my death. 

I imagined this, of course, 

as I am still here to write 
this. The point is to illustrate 
what is called an “intrusive 
thought,” one of five diagnostic 
criteria 
for 
Post-Traumatic 

Stress Disorder, a disorder I 
was diagnosed with in October 
2015. This news came to me 
nearly four years after the first 
time I was raped, and only nine 
months after the most recent 
episode of sexual assault. 

In total, I have been raped 

four times. Only one of which 
happened 
while 
I 
was 
a 

student. All of which happened 
with people I knew. None of 
which happened in a dark 
alley behind a dumpster or 
while I was unconscious from 
drinking. The sad truth is 
that this is the reality of rape. 
Sexual violence against women 
is largely not committed by 
strangers at gunpoint as the 
media would like us to believe. 
It is committed in the safety 
of our own homes by those we 
know and trust. 

My 
story 
is 
about 
the 

aftermath of rape. What happens 
to survivors after the fact is 
so often ignored, minimized 
with a blanket statement or 
sensationalized when someone 
is brave enough to speak out 
about it (take the Stanford Rape 
Case). The truth is, though, that 
our suffering doesn’t end when 
the trauma stops, it is only the 
beginning. The truth is, not all 
of us have witnesses. The truth 
is, rape is a contest of “he said, 
she said” and more often than 

not, what she says is denied 
its own validity. The truth is, 
reporting these crimes isn’t 
taken seriously. The truth is, 
Brock Turner only spent three 
months in jail for being caught in 
the act of raping an unconscious 
woman. The truth is, rape causes 
so many of us to suffer so much 
more after the physical act than 
the world cares to know. The 
truth is, unfortunately, that 
survivors of sexual assault often 
suffer in silence.

PTSD is a mental disorder 

that I have to carry daily. For the 
six months after my pilgrimage, 
I lived (and still live) with 
intrusive thoughts, among other 
things. I envisioned myself being 
hit by a bus each time I crossed 
the road. I would walk into the 
bathroom and imagine that my 
roommate would be dead in the 
bathtub. Waiting at the bus stop, 
I expected to be shot down by a 
drive-by gunman. This was so 
common that I thought it was 
normal. I thought to myself, 
“the worst thing has already 
happened, so of course I imagine 
all these terrible things all the 
time.” I didn’t think I needed 
help; it just made sense that the 
world was a terrifying place.

These 
are 
the 
milder 

symptoms 
of 
PTSD; 
others 

include 
flashbacks, 
mind 

and 
body 
disassociation, 

avoidance 
of 
activities 
and 

places, hypervigilance, general 
disinterest, 
disabling 
panic 

attacks caused by severe anxiety 
and depression spotted with 
suicidal episodes. I call PTSD 
my “invisible disability,” always 
there but never seen. I am able 
to function highly in daily life; 
I remain employed and in a 
healthy, long-term relationship, 
but my life is permeated with 
a constant feeling of fear and I 
struggle with a severe mental 
illness that only those closest to 
me witness.

In 
some 
sense, 
having 

PTSD is like living as though 
you are dying. Your body 
is constantly on high alert, 
ready to take action against 
any 
danger, 
triggering 
the 

fight, flight or freeze response 
almost constantly. However, 
this becomes exhausting and 
disabling when simply standing 
at the bus stop is perceived as a 
true threat.

I have been in a cognitive 

behavioral therapy program 

for a year now. I’ve tried three 
different medication cocktails, 
of which one made me deeply 
suicidal and another made me 
gain 45 pounds in six months. 
My mind and body have finally 
settled on a combination of 
Zoloft, Abilify and Wellbutrin. 
A medication cocktail they call 
“well-loft” because it works so 
well for those of us who need 
it to leave the house in the 
morning. PTSD has severely 
impacted 
my 
relationship, 

draining us both and sending 
us to couples therapy to cope 
with the imbalance. It has 
taken away from my ability 
to explore the world on my 
own. When I was 19, I spent 
six weeks travelling Ecuador 
alone. A year and a half ago, 
I crossed the entire country 
of Spain on foot by myself. 
Now, I’m afraid of my own 
bathroom. It’s disorienting and 
disheartening to say the least.

I 
once 
heard 
someone 

who struggles with severe 
depression 
say, 
“I 
must 

remember 
that 
my 
track 

record with bad days is 100 
percent.” I want to thank this 
girl for describing resilience 
so eloquently. No matter how 
hard things get, I stand and I 
face them. Every day, I get up 
and I shout out into the world, 
“You will not take me!” I am 
strong and I am determined to 
win my life back.

This is a battle, a battle 

against the invisible demons 
someone else handed me when 
they took away my dignity. A 
battle I must fight when I did 
nothing wrong. A battle that 
is so incredibly unfair. That 
makes me angry; it fills me 
with grief. Some days it drains 
my will to live. But every day, 
I stand and I face the battle, 
determined to win.

MICHELLE SHENG | CONTACT MICHELLE AT SHENGMI@UMICH.EDU

A dark day for Detroit

KEVIN SWEITZER | COLUMN

B

y now, we’ve started to 
figure out how much 
of a disaster Tuesday’s 

election 
was. 
The 

Democratic 
Party 

was served one of 
the most thorough 
defeats 
they’ve 

received 
this 
century, 
and 

the Electoral College system 
allowed Donald Trump to win 
the 
presidency. 
This 
means 

that 
a 
Republican-controlled 

House of Representatives and 
Senate will likely allow whatever 
policy proposals Donald Trump 
proposes to be easily passed.

However, as I sat crying 

and wide awake Wednesday 
morning, the tears streaming 
down my face weren’t simply due 
to the defeat of Hillary Clinton. 
The city of Detroit was handed 
an incredible defeat up and 
down the ballot — a defeat that 
certainly threatens a lot of the 
growth that has been happening 
in Detroit over the last few years.

Most 
monumentally, 
a 

surge of anti-tax Republican 
voters in the working-class 
suburbs of Macomb County 
led to the defeat of the 
Regional Transit Authority 
plan, a plan that I endorsed 
earlier in the year. This 
defeat means that low-income 
Detroit 
residents 
without 

cars must continue to endure 
the worst transit system in 
America. Additionally, any 
hopes of establishing any sort 
of commuter train service to 
Ann Arbor was defeated in 
this plan, sentencing Detroit 
to auto pollution for the 
foreseeable future.

The losses for Detroit don’t 

stop there. In one of the most 
highly contested races of the 
year, an inability of community 
groups and business leaders 
to come together led to the 
approval of proposal A and 
the defeat of proposal B, both 
designed 
to 
mandate 
that 

businesses receiving tax breaks 
enter into a legally enforceable 
contract 
with 
neighborhood 

groups 
in 
the 
surrounding 

neighborhoods. Proposal A, which 
was supported by community 
groups and was organized by 
grassroots organizations across 
the city, differed from the 
Detroit City Council-supported 
Proposal B only on the threshold 
of tax breaks.

The difference between the 

two proposals was the threshold 
that mandates the community 
benefits contract. For Proposal A, 
any contract receiving more than 
$300,000 in tax abatements would 
have to enter into a contract with 
the surrounding neighborhood. 

This proposal could be beneficial 
to 
the 
neighborhoods, 
but 

opponents argued that it would 

slow 
down 
growth 

and new development. 
Under Proposal B, the 
project would have to 
receive $1 million in 

order to be forced into the contract 
with the neighborhood — a limit 
that prevents many controversial 
developments from being forced 
into the contract. In the last 10 
years, only Little Caesars Arena 
— the Detroit Red Wings’ new 
Midtown arena — would have 
required a contract with the 
community. Once the votes were 
cast, Proposal A was defeated 

54 percent to 46 percent, while 
Proposal B passed 53 percent to 
47 percent. This is problematic 
because rather than coming to 
a middle-ground conclusion 
in which community wishes 
and 
business 
interests 
are 

respected, the debate over 
community benefits contracts 
is largely over with little to no 
change for the community.

Even races in metro Detroit 

were bad for Detroit proper. 
L. 
Brooks 
Patterson, 
long-

time Oakland County county 
executive, won his 7th term 
in charge of Detroit’s wealthy 
northern suburbs. Patterson has 
spent his entire career trying to 
keep the people of Detroit down 
in as many ways as possible. He 
came under fire for an article 
profiling him titled “Drop Dead 
Detroit!” in which he said that 
he wanted to “turn Detroit into 
an Indian reservation, where 
we herd all the Indians into the 
city, build a fence around it, and 
then throw in the blankets and 
corn.” Patterson hates Detroit 
with a burning passion, and his 
re-election only serves to strain 
city/suburb relations even more.

Detroit’s Election Day was 

terrible on the results end and on 
the voting end. Voters across the 
city faced incredible barriers to 
voting, including two-hour waits 
and broken voting machines. 
In spite of all of this, voter 
turnout was higher than in 2012, 
clocking in at 48.49 percent. 
However, even with such a high 

turnout and with 95 percent 
of the ballots cast in Detroit 
going to Hillary Clinton, Detroit 
couldn’t overcome the massive 
deficit that the rest of the state 
of Michigan dug itself in to. In 
the end, the race for Michigan 
was won by Donald Trump in 
the suburbs of Macomb County. 
This county, located northeast 
of Detroit, is the home of two 
of the largest municipalities in 
Michigan and had 67.3 percent 
of its voters cast a ballot. What 
sealed the deal for Trump was 
the appeal of “America first” 
to the county’s white, working 
class voters, with 53.6 percent of 
the normally Democratic county 
casting their ballots for Trump.

Because 
of 
this 
election, 

Detroit faces unique problems. In 
addition to the disastrous “Urban 
Renewal” proposals — including a 
reinstatement of unconstitutional 
“stop and frisk” policies to 
attempt to reduce crime in 
urban areas — Trump’s wild 
economic 
proposals 
threaten 

the industries that make all of 
southeast Michigan work. On the 
state level, the Michigan House 
of Representatives and Michigan 
Senate are as Republican as ever, 
and Gov. Rick Snyder still holds 
power, even after his shameful 
and possibly illegal handling of 
the Flint water crisis. Republicans 
in Lansing can continue to not 
care about Michigan’s urban 
centers like usual, only this time, 
there is no end in sight.

In all honesty, this wasn’t just 

Donald Trump’s fault. It wasn’t 
the state Republican Party’s fault. 
It wasn’t the racist L. Brooks 
Patterson’s fault either. It wasn’t 
even the fault of the Macomb 
County Trump voters who turned 
out to the polls like never before. 
This election was a failure on 
all levels to prioritize the needs 
of cities like Detroit. Everyone 
— Republican or Democrat — is 
responsible for the tragedy that 
fell upon Detroit this election. 

Only by getting real with one 

another about the real issue 
facing America’s cities can we 
hope to move forward. Detroit, 
and other cities, are real places 
filled with real people, and I 
hope that the cities of the future 
aren’t places that have been 
forgotten by political leaders and 
suburbanites alike. For now, this 
election leaves a dark shadow 
over Detroit, and the years of 
inequality and pain won’t go 
away soon. A solution must be 
found — the future of Detroit 
depends on it.

LAURA SCHINAGLE

Managing Editor

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

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SHOHAM GEVA

Editor in Chief

CLAIRE BRYAN 

and REGAN DETWILER 

Editorial Page Editors

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All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

Carolyn Ayaub
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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Kevin Sweitzer can be reached at 

ksweitz@umich.edu.

MADELINE NOWICKI | OP-ED

A

s my friends and I 
watched the numbers 
on FiveThirtyEight and 

CNN’s coverage tick toward a 
Donald Trump victory, we tried 
to hold back our tears. I watched 
the evening unfold with a group 
of young women around me — 
all from different backgrounds, 
all brought together because we 
were hoping, desperately, that 
love and compassion and reason 
would win.

I was frightened for my 

bodily autonomy because of the 
normalization of sexual assault 
and degrading violence against 
women exhibited in Trump’s 
rhetoric. Another friend was 
concerned for her immigrant 
parents, who came to this 
country in search of liberty and 
equality, and were now facing 
racism and legislation designed 
to destroy everything they have 
worked for, from their small 
businesses to their family’s 
health care. Another friend was 
concerned that LGBTQ rights 
were being stripped away by 
ideology that believes there’s 
only one way to fit into the 
American narrative.

Friends 
called, 
texted, 

FaceTimed, 
tweeted, 
posted, 

shared and reached out because 
they were crying and didn’t 
understand how the America 
we have known since we were 10 
years old could betray us like this. 
The mood fluctuated between 
anxiety so bad it caused vomiting, 
to anger and frustration at the 

progress we were losing, to 
abject despair and loss of faith in 
our nation’s structure and in our 
fellow Americans.

We were together, though, 

and love did win the popular 
vote, if not the structural vote. 
The singular thing preventing 
me from hopelessness is the 
knowledge 
that 
millions 
of 

Americans felt the same way 
I did that night, and the same 
way I continue to feel today. The 
single thing bringing me hope 
right now is the notion that we 
can come together — those of 
us hurting and terrified — and 
make a difference by caring for 
each other, especially women, 
people 
of 
color, 
religious 

minorities, 
LGBTQ 
people, 

disabled folks and every other 
group Trump has demeaned and 
denigrated every day.

I 
can’t 
understand 
any 

other way to make sense of 
these results than to work 
harder than I ever have in 
my life to ensure our country 
works toward common sense, 
compassion, reason and justice 
for all Americans and American 
citizens. I know that millions 
of us exist, and we need to do 
this work. Young people, your 
vote mattered. Young voters in 
Michigan, your vote mattered 
so, so dearly. Young people, 
take your time to grieve and be 
exhausted and feel defeated. 
And then know that once you 
have processed this in your own 
way, now is the time to act.

Come together with us. We 

need to build our coalition, 
support each other through non-

governmental means, advocate 
for 
one 
another, 
practice 

compassionate and unfearing 
alliance and try desperately to 
fight against the horrific actions 
and sentiments of this man. 
I am so disappointed and so 
frightened and so upset. I am 
also so determined to find the 
good folks in this community, 
and to build this community 
and fight the good fight every 
single day. Not for myself, but 
for every single boy and girl 
and person of color and LGBTQ 
person and differently abled 
and Muslim person I know and 
every other person who will 
have their rights and dignity 
tested by this man’s disgusting 
and thoughtless policies.

I am disgusted and horrified 

and upset, and I know this 
feeling is powerful. Let’s harness 
this power. Let’s turn out in 
record numbers to volunteer 
for organizations supporting 
refugees, reproductive rights, 
minority rights and more. Let’s 
turn out in record numbers 
to 
protest 
discriminatory 

policies. Let’s turn out in record 
numbers to vote in 2018 and 
infuse the Senate, the House of 
Representatives and the state 
assemblies and governorships 
with love, tolerance and dignity. 
Let’s turn out in record numbers 
in 2020 to renounce violence 
and despair and racism. Let’s not 
give in. Let’s grieve, let’s fight 
and let’s not let this moment go 
to waste.

Madline Nowicki is a School of 

Information junior.

The aftermath of sexual assault

ARIEL MALLETT

MADELINE NOWICKI

KEVIN 

SWEITZER

This election was 

a failure on all 

levels to prioritize 
the needs of cities 

like Detroit.

This is the fourth piece in the 
Survivors Speak series, which 

seeks to share the varied, 

first-person experiences of survivors 

of sexual assault. If you are a 

survivor and would like to submit 

to the series, please visit 

michigandaily.com/section/opinion 

for more information.

Ariel Mallett is a 2014 UM alum 

and works at University of Michigan’s 

International Institute.