A
sk anyone who has ever
stepped foot into a high
school, and they’ll tell
you that high school
is nothing like the
way it’s portrayed
in movies. People
don’t jump on to
lunch
tables
and
break into perfectly
choreographed
musical
numbers,
nor are the walls
adorned with larger-
than-life
murals
of the school’s star
basketball
players.
(OK, so maybe I’m pulling from
one movie in particular, but
you get the gist). Hollywood’s
portrayal of college, however,
isn’t far off.
Walk
into
any
college
fraternity party, and all the
movie tropes are there: beer
pong,
the
all-mysterious
“jungle
juice,”
speakers
blasting the top 40 hits and a
packed dance floor occupied
by many, many couples locked
at the lips in the throes of
passion. At my first college
party, it didn’t take long for
me to realize that not many of
those “couples” were actually
in
committed
relationships;
rather, they were just engaging
in a party activity so popular
that there’s even an Instagram
page dedicated to it: making
out with strangers.
Coming
from
a
rather
conservative upbringing, the
whole party atmosphere was
a culture shock for me, but the
discovery that hookup culture
is alive and real shocked me
most of all. You see, I’m a
romantic at heart, and what I
was seeing around me seemed
to defy my very definitions of
love and relationships. As I
watched my friends so easily
accept and join this culture, I
felt stuck and alone, isolated
in this fast and casual world
by my notions of romance and
having one true love. What’s
wrong with me? I thought as
the girls around me gossiped
about all the boys they’d kissed
the
night
before.
Am I the only one
not enjoying this?
I’d wonder as I yet
again
squirmed
away from a boy
who got too close at
a party.
For a long time,
I grappled with the
feeling that perhaps
I was behind the
times. Perhaps I was
too prudish for this
new society, which had fully
embraced its own sexuality and
freedom. Or maybe proponents of
hookup culture knew something
I didn’t: Maybe they knew that
Mr. Right would not come along
and sweep me off my feet, no
matter how long I waited, and I
might as well have some fun.
“Hookup
culture
makes
me so sad. Is romance dead?”
I texted a friend once, in
melodramatic despair. “Is love
just a farce?” My tender heart
was breaking at the thought.
She messaged back promptly,
with a question I had never
once considered: “Why do they
have to be mutually exclusive?”
It was such an obvious
question, yet never one that
had even crossed my mind, as
I’d just automatically decided
in my mind that love and
hookup culture were polar
opposites: neither could live
while the other survived.
Dr.
Zhana
Vrangalova,
renowned sex researcher who
delivered the TEDx talk “Is
Casual Sex Bad For You,” would
beg to differ. In an interview
with Vogue’s Karley Sciortino,
Vrangalova stated: “Sex and
love are two separate needs, and
humans have both of them …
Just because you have sex with
a lot of people doesn’t mean
that you don’t need love and
relationships — people will want
that no matter what. However,
people may decide to postpone
love and relationships in order to
have more sex, because we live
in a culture that doesn’t leave
room for open relationships for
the most part. But there is no
research suggesting that having
a lot of casual sex will somehow
impede your ability to have
relationships or form intimacy
in the future.”
Our generation is known
to engage in more premarital
sex with more partners while
holding off on marriage for
longer than generations past,
but that doesn’t mean the
sanctity of marriage is suffering
for it. Rather, marriages that
begin later in a couple’s life
have a lower chance of divorce
than those that begin in a
couple’s early 20s. That means
that marriages today might
even last longer than those
of our parents’ generation. In
short, hookup culture in college
does not infringe on love and
romance in our futures.
To my fellow romantics
out there: fear not. Hookup
culture does not mean the
death of our hopes and dreams.
It can be difficult to classify
this culture as “good” or “bad,”
and I have concluded that it is
neither — instead, it is merely
a byproduct of social progress,
and we are free to follow it or
leave it; neither path is more
righteous than the other.
L
ast Saturday, I joined
more than 8,000 people
in front of the Michigan
Capitol for the Women’s March
on Lansing. Over these past
few days I have tried to qualify
what I felt and experienced
in words, but honestly, all my
attempts so far have seemed
cheap. And while it was the
Women’s March, I feel it’s
important to explain why I, as
a man, chose to participate.
I marched for my immigrant
father who is most at risk if
President
Trump’s
Muslim
Registry becomes reality. I
marched for my mother and
sister whose hijabs mark them
as targets for the hateful,
xenophobic factions of our
country. I marched for my little
brother who should know there
is nobility when men stand for
women’s rights.
My family was not with me
in Lansing, but I saw many
other families. Parents brought
their children, even infants
in strollers, to this historic
moment. An elderly couple came
to what I learned was their
first protest. A girl a few years
younger than myself ran around
wrapped in a rainbow pride flag,
a giant smile on her face.
I marched because Planned
Parenthood gave my mom her
first job as a nurse. I marched
because without Medicare, my
grandfather would have likely
been uninsured because of his
Parkinson’s disease. I marched
because, as an aspiring public
health practitioner, I know
that closing clinics and gutting
the former President Barack
Obama’s health care law are
terrible ideas.
One of the speakers at the
march, a Central Michigan
University student, told the
crowd
about
her
Planned
Parenthood experience. She
recounted how the “pro-life”
protesters outside the clinic
made her feel. She said that the
first thing the staff at Planned
Parenthood did was make sure
she was healthy. She told us not
once did she feel pressured into
getting an abortion.
I marched because, though
I was born in the heartland
of this country, I am still seen
as an outsider. I marched in
solidarity
with
Black
and
Latin Americans because I,
too, have been profiled by law
enforcement because of my
identity. I marched because
“law and order” should not be
code for marginalization.
I
marched
because
my
transgender friends need less
to worry about, not more. I
marched because my lesbian,
gay and bisexual friends have
told me that the struggle for
their equality did not end in
June 2015. I marched because
loving who you love and freely
engaging with the world as your
true gender are human rights.
People of every ethnicity,
gender, age and ability shared
space on the wet grass that
afternoon. Many people waved
signs with Shepard Fairey’s
images of a Muslim woman in
a star-spangled hijab, a Black
woman with cornrows and a
Latina woman with a flower
in her hair. The organizers had
reserved seats at the front of
the gathering for those with
mobility issues. An Indian man
graciously offered to take a
picture of me on my phone.
I marched for all men who,
during Obama’s and former
Vice
President
Joe
Biden’s
administration, had role models
who told them to step up and
be better. I marched because
President Donald Trump is the
bombastic embodiment of toxic
masculinity.
Gubernatorial
candidate
Gretchen Whitmer said that the
uncle who mistakenly voted for
Trump is not the enemy; it is
Trump himself. I agree. I have
a friend, a Hispanic woman,
who voted for Trump and I am
not ashamed to say that I can
sympathize with her reasons
for doing so. We must buck
our pride and rebuild burned
bridges with the people in our
lives who disagree with us. If
nothing else, at least we will
learn why they voted for a man
so many have come to fear.
I also agree with Dr. Farha
Abbasi, assistant professor of
psychiatry at Michigan State
University, who said in a thick
Pakistani accent that she was
the United States of America.
The unity on that day in
Lansing and across the world
— as millions came together in
defense of what is right — was
amazing. I just hope that this
unity turns into an organized
front against Trump and his
Cabinet, and that all those
marchers in swing states like
Michigan will vote in 2018 and
2020. The 10 Actions/100 Days
campaign is promising but the
motivation must be sustained.
Did it bother me that the
march
was
women-centric
and that there were signs
proclaiming, “The future is
female?” No. The Women’s
March on Lansing was neither
about me nor for me, but I still
felt that my attendance was
necessary and valuable.
I
marched
because
as
a
privileged man, it is my duty to
stand up for the rights of those
threatened by sexism. I marched
not to take over women’s spaces
but to be an ally. I marched
because I am trying to be the best
feminist and ally that I can be.
One of my favorite memories
was joining an impromptu march
down a street and receiving a car
horn salute from drivers stopped
at an intersection. (A close
second would be a papier-mâché
Gov. Rick Snyder holding a cup
of poisoned water.) The events
worldwide on Jan. 21 prove that
the movement toward equity
and social justice has broad
support. Those who oppose this
movement should take note: you
cannot silence us.
While I still cannot do my
experiences and emotions at
the Women’s March on Lansing
justice in written form, a few
words seem appropriate. The
march was inspiration. It was
hope. It was defiance. It was peace.
It was inclusivity. It was diversity.
It was unity.
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Friday, January 27, 2017
There are no alternative facts
MICHAEL SUGERMAN | COLUMN
W
hen asked why Sean
Spicer,
the
newly-
christened
White
House Press Secretary,
outright
lied
about
the size of the crowd
at President Donald
Trump’s inauguration,
Kellyanne
Conway,
Counselor
to
the
President, provided a …
different perspective.
“You’re saying it’s a
falsehood,” she said to
NBC’s Chuck Todd on
“Meet the Press.” “And
they’re giving … alternative facts.”
Alternative
facts.
I
was
incredulous, and apparently the
internet was, too. The clip and
the new term went viral, as the
gaffes of prominent political
figures often do.
What is a “fact?” A quick
Google search will tell you it’s
“a thing that is indisputably the
case.” Merriam-Webster defines
it as “a piece of information
presented as having objective
reality.” With facts, there isn’t
wiggle room.
With
the
perception
of
facts, on the other hand, there
may be nuance. My friend and
fellow Daily columnist Roland
Davidson put it well a year
ago in relation to competing
understandings of capitalism:
“Each individual’s definition
comes from their own political
location.”
Rest
assured,
I’m
not
going to rationalize Conway
rationalizing
Spicer
rationalizing indisputably false
crowd
statistics.
However,
I’d like to share some related
learnings from courses that
have seriously forced me to
question my approach to facts
in a way that I think may be
more valuable.
The first class centered on how
governments can create policies
that
focus
on
apologizing,
reconciling and administering
reparations
to
historically
subjugated and discriminated-
against groups. One of my
primary takeaways was that
“truth”
is
rarely
universal, and what
becomes
historical
record may leave out
the perspectives of
the marginalized.
People
live
and
experience different
truths, and our mass
understanding
of
those truths is often
passed
through
a
gauntlet that filters
out specific identities on the
basis of a power structure.
One paragraph from a recent
reading in a class on social
justice
development
explains
this nicely. In “Decolonizing
Methodologies: Research and
Indigenous
Peoples,”
Linda
Tuhiwai
Smith
explains,
“Writing or literacy, in a very
traditional sense of the word,
has been used to determine the
breaks between the past and the
present, the beginning of history
and the development of theory.”
She later elaborates that these
limitations, among others, have
often restricted the proliferation
of indigenous groups’ narratives
in previously colonized areas of
the world.
Concrete
example:
Was
Columbus a discoverer or a
murderer?
Both?
Which
of
these
presentations
is
the
“alternative” one? Maybe it’s
a question of who’s telling the
story, and clearly, it’s influenced
by whether or not all the facts
are present in the first place.
The combination of the two
courses
in
particular
adds
to this train of thought. One
focused on how media can
influence
political
behavior
and the other focused on how
utilizing concepts of behavioral
psychology can change the
policy implementation process.
Both
included
discussions
about motivated reasoning, an
umbrella theory that explains
that we have competing goals —
accuracy and group belonging
— ruled by emotions, not
rationality.
It
is
widely
accepted that people would
much rather believe they’re
right and find resources to
confirm
their
beliefs
(or
dispute others’) than admit
their views might be flawed.
Ultimately, then, “alternative
facts” don’t exist. Period. But
what we believe is dependent
upon myriad factors: our own
identities, where we grow up,
what we’re taught, who teaches
us, the materials with which
we’re taught and what those
materials either include or
don’t include.
Historical
erasure
and
suppression exist. Motivated
reasoning exists. The reality
that we are not all exposed to
others’ perspectives on a daily
basis exists. Fact (hold the
alternative): there is a great
deal of information dispersed
without nuance or the full
representation
of
all
those
affected by its delivery.
The University of Michigan
has been incredibly formative
for me in this regard. I’ve
learned how easy it can be to
disregard specific groups and
the subsequent actions some
take to rationalize the status
quo when a changing reality
spawns discomfort. I’ve also
come to realize how necessary
it is to challenge the status quo
instead of succumb to it.
In
regard
to
Trump’s
inauguration, photo evidence is
as empirical as it gets. The end
game: Moving forward, it will
be of collective importance to
talk about eliminating barriers
to
unheard
narratives,
not
bicker about crowd sizes. I
hope our federal government
will do the same.
REBECCA LERNER
Managing Editor
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.
EMMA KINERY
Editor in Chief
ANNA POLUMBO-LEVY
and REBECCA TARNOPOL
Editorial Page Editors
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.
Carolyn Ayaub
Megan Burns
Samantha Goldstein
Caitlin Heenan
Jeremy Kaplan
Max Lubell
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Madeline Nowicki
Anna Polumbo-Levy
Jason Rowland
Ali Safawi
Kevin Sweitzer
Rebecca Tarnopol
Ashley Tjhung
Stephanie Trierweiler
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Michael Sugerman can be reached
at mrsugs@umich.edu.
Why I marched
ALI SAFAWI | OP-ED
Romance and hookups can coexist
ASHLEY ZHANG | COLUMN
Ashley Zhang can be reached at
ashleyzh@umich.edu.
Ali Safawi is an Editorial Board
member.
NIA LEE | CONTACT NIA AT LEENIA@UMICH.EDU
MASS MEETING — MONDAY, JANUARY 30 at 7PM
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MICHAEL
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ASHLEY
ZHANG
Hookup culture
does not mean the
death of our hopes
and dreams.