O

n 
Jan. 
16, 
Claudia 

Rankine 
spoke 
at 

Rackham 
Auditorium 

about 
her 
book-

length 
poem, 

“Citizen: 
An 

American 
Lyric.” 

There 
was 
an 

exchange during the 
question-and-answer 
portion that I will 
expound upon here:

Crowd Member: I 

want to preface my 
question by saying 
I come from an all-
white 
suburb 
which 

does nothing for Martin Luther 
King Day. Where people have 
Confederate flags hanging out of 
the back of their pickup trucks.

Claudia Rankine: Oh, so you 

come from America.

This moment had a profound 

effect on me. It made me reckon 
with the way in which I imagine 
the United States based on New 
York City, where I grew up, and 
the diverse group with which I 
rode subways every day.

I do not mean to suggest 

that New York City is some 
egalitarian 
wonderland 
— 

far from it. Eventually, the 
subway ride ends, and I come 
out onto streets, which are 
starkly 
divided 
by 
color, 

creed and background. The 
subway ride, then, serves as 
a moment, a fleeting blip, 
in which the influence and 
existence altogether of certain 
fundamentally 
American 

barriers seems to dwindle.

And I think this blip, this 

moment, which allowed me 
throughout 
my 
childhood 

to view the United States as 
wholly egalitarian and diverse, 
also spreads to people who 
grow up in almost entirely 
white suburbs, who did not 
experience this daily blip in the 
form of subway rides. Instead, 
it might have come in the form 
of certain narratives promoted 
by the media, by their teachers 
and their textbooks, etc. And 
this blip expands and can very 
easily consume us until it is all 
we see.

In the above interaction, the 

crowd member subconsciously 
tries to transcend the world she 
knows in order to align herself 
and her experience with the 
United States in the world of 
that fictitious blip. According 
to 
a 
Brookings 
Institution 

study, if zero is a measure for 

perfect integration and 100 is 
complete segregation, the U.S.’s 
largest 
metropolitan 
areas 

have 
segregation 

levels between 50 
and 
70. 
Yet 
this 

crowd 
member 
— 

along with me and 
millions of others — 
has been taught that 
our lived experience 
of 
a 
segregated, 

divided 
country 

does not resemble 
the 
real 
United 

States.
And Rankine, whose 

work 
deals 
explicitly 
with 

the white imagination and 
its deleterious consequences, 
demands that we do not allow 
this 
collective, 
dominant 

imagination 
to 
shape 
our 

perception 
of 
the 
United 

States, but, instead, that we 
scrupulously and skeptically 
interrogate what we see and 
feel every day.

Amanda 
Alexander, 

assistant professor of Afro-
American 
studies 
at 
the 

University 
of 
Michigan, 

introduced Rankine’s lecture 
introduced the lecture with an 
excerpt from Rankine’s poetry: 
“Because white men cannot 
police 
their 
imaginations, 

Black men are dying.”

In her discussion, Rankine 

also mentioned the 2016 film 
“Moonlight,” 
whose 
main 

character, Chiron, is a closeted 
homosexual. As a child, Chiron 
is nicknamed “Little” because 
of his small size and meek 
personality. But as he gets 
older, Chiron gets extremely 
buff. We see him at the gym 
lifting massive weights; he 
has 
physically 
transformed. 

Rankine connected this muscle 
building to a trend she sees 
among Black Americans at 
large: She argued that Chiron 
tones his body this way as a 
shield for the evil, restricting 
world around him.

I 
would 
like 
to 
extend 

Rankine’s point to white people 
and, specifically, to the person 
who chose to preface her 
question by saying she comes 
from a homogenous, racist 
town, for the purposes of saying 
she comes from a wild, unusual 
place: This is indeed also a 
shield against the dangerous 
and scary idea that the United 
States 
is 
a 
homogenous, 

racist place. This shield, like 

Chiron’s, stems directly from 
the dominant narratives that 
we are told: Chiron is forced to 
transcend his actual identity 
because of the homophobic 
world around him. Likewise, 
this crowd member was forced 
to transcend her background 
because 
of 
the 
insistence 

of the dominant narratives 
about the United States that 
this is indeed a relentlessly 
egalitarian, democratic place.

This reminds me of Shaun 

King’s discussion at Rackham 
Auditorium on Jan. 23, in 
which he continually asked the 
question, “If this is true, how 
is this true?” Then he would 
show two consecutive images: 
The first might be a graph that 
shows linear human progress 
over time, therefore situating 
the present moment with the 
pinnacle of our progress, while 
the second image might be a 
video taken in 2016 of a young 
boy being shot and killed by 
the police. If Black people are 
being murdered by the police, 
if Donald Trump was just 
elected, we cannot be at the 
pinnacle of our progress.

Instead, King posited that 

history operates in a series of 
what he called “dips:” moments 
in which humanity regresses 
intellectually, politically and 
socially. Crucially, King noted 
that in American history, these 
dips always take place after 
what he called “introductions 
of 
innovation.” 
His 
first 

example 
was 
the 
end 
of 

slavery, which was followed by 
an era of Jim Crow laws and 
segregation. His next example 
was the civil rights movement, 
which was followed by the 
war 
on 
drugs 
and 
mass 

incarceration. 
Finally, 
he 

noted that the election of 
our first Black president was 
followed by the election of 
Donald Trump.

So today we live in a dip. 

It seems to me that the only 
way out of a dip, just like the 
only way out of any difficult 
situation ever, is to face it, to 
name it, to recognize it and to 
call it what it is. And this is what 
Rankine was getting at with 
her response: She was calling 
the 
questioner’s 
experience 

one 
that 
is 
foundationally, 

centrally and fully American.

I 

have observed the price of 
a candy bar in the vending 
machines on the University 

of Michigan’s campus rise 40 
percent since 2006. A Coke, 
60 percent. The cost of an 
employee membership at the 
Recreational Sports facilities, 
100 percent. An employee meal 
in a residence hall cafeteria, 
145 percent.

For the members of the 

American 
Federation 
of 

State, County and Municipal 
Employees contracted to work 
at the University, this poses a 
significant problem. Who are 
these AFSCME workers, you 
ask? They are your custodians, 
maintenance 
mechanics, 

groundskeepers, bus drivers, 
cooks, food service workers, 
patient transporters and so 
much more. 

The University community 

expressed in last November’s 
election 
a 
concern 
about 

income inequality and what 
can be done about it. While 
those at the top are earning far 
more than they need, those at 
the bottom do not earn enough 
to live in the area. Maybe the 
fight against income inequality 
seemed like a distant far away 
battle that nothing could be 
done about locally, but that 
fight is here, on this campus.

It does not matter what a 

person’s job is or how much 
they make. If prices and the 
costs of everyday goods and 
services rise faster than their 
income, they lose purchasing 
power. 
For 
people 
at 
the 

bottom end of the income scale 
this loss is more noticeable 
more quickly. While President 
Schlissel enjoys a pay raise 
that by itself is more than a 

full-time custodian makes in a 
year, as a member of AFSCME, 
I can no longer afford the same 
standard of living today as I 
could 20, 10 or even five years 
ago. Unless their spouse works, 
they get a second job or have 
some other secondary source of 
income, they have been forced 
to make decisions about what 
they can live without. Some 
have 
no 
television 
service 

and drive cars older than 
incoming 
freshman. 
Some 

wear old worn-out clothing 
and carpool, while others live 
with their parents or other 
families to save on costs. There 
is a certain amount of injustice 
when a person gives most or 
all of their working adult lives 
to a company or organization 
and cannot afford the same 
standard of living at the end as 
they had at the beginning.

Low wages have made it 

difficult to meet basic living 
costs. Food prices are 30 
percent higher on average than 
they were in 2006. Rent in the 
Ann Arbor area has risen 14 
percent in the last five years 
alone. The average rent is now 
$1,075 per month, which would 
leave very little money for 
these workers to cover all other 
living 
expenses, 
assuming 

they have the cheapest health 
insurance 
option 
available 

and no children. They still 
have not paid any utilities, 
transportation 
expenses 
or 

bought any food. To combat 
these high living expenses, 
some people choose to live 
outside of the city, which 
increases traveling expenses 
such as gasoline and parking.

As bad as those numbers 

are, it only gets worse when 

health expenses are factored 
in. Since 2003, the monthly 
premiums 
these 
men 
and 

women pay for their health 
insurance have risen from 
zero out-of-pocket expense 
for premiums and a very 
low co-pay to $42 a month 
for the lowest cost Preferred 
Provider Organization option 
premiums. 
The 
University-

provided 
prescription 
drug 

plan is still free, but there are 
drugs it covered then that it no 
longer covers, and the co-pays 
for generic drugs are now five 
times higher than they were 
before. The co-pay for name 
brand prescriptions is even 
higher. The problem becomes 
even larger if they have an 
adult dependent or children to 
carry on their insurance. 

Washtenaw 
Community 

College, 
Eastern 
Michigan 

University, 
Michigan 
State 

University 
and 
Ohio 
State 

University all pay their service 
and maintenance employees 
$4,000 to $6,000 more per 
year than the University of 
Michigan, reflecting a better 
understanding 
of 
the 
cost 

of living in the areas those 
schools are located in. Not only 
would the men and women of 
AFSCME benefit from a wage 
increase matching those peer 
institutions, but the Ann Arbor 
area and state economy would 
as well. The time to tell the 
administration that the people 
who work here meeting the 
community’s needs on a daily 
basis should be paid enough to 
live in or near the community 
they serve is now.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Monday, February 6, 2017

I

n the winter of 2007, 10-year-
old 
me 
bitterly 
watched 

then-Senator 
Barack 

Obama announce his bid for the 
presidency from his hometown of 
Chicago, Illinois. As I sat on my 
grandmother’s bed, arms folded, 
I lamented, “He is going to take 
my job! I want to be the first Black 
president!” She rubbed my back 
and with a smile said, “He might 
actually win, and it would be good 
for us.” I grimaced. “But don’t 
worry, you can be the second Black 
president.”

Although I was not initially 

onboard with this funny-named 
candidate, I eventually conceded 
to my grandmother’s rationale. 
Maybe he would be good for us. 
Within no time, I was my field 
office’s youngest volunteer for 
his 
campaign: 
calling 
voters, 

posting signs and canvassing 
neighborhoods.

On election night in 2008, I 

celebrated 
with 
screams 
and 

applause while my mom cried 
tears of joy and my entire family 
watched him accumulate 270 
electoral votes. On Inauguration 
Day, I stayed home from school 
to watch the first person who 
looked like me take the oath of 
office, after 43 other men had done 
the same. For generations, Black 
parents have told their children 
to aspire to be the best thing that 
they could be, even the president 
of the United States. However, that 
opportunity, although optimistic, 
had not been previously attainable. 
With the election of President 
Barack Obama, we now know this 
opportunity is real.

Representation matters, and the 

visual of a Black first family was 
undeniably inspiring to African 
Americans all over the country. 
However, the Obama message 
resonated with myself and so 
many others on a deeper level. 
‘Hope’ was not just a slogan, it 
was our feeling. ‘Change’ was not 
just an empty campaign promise, 
it was our premonition. And 

Obama came through on these 
commitments, leaving our country 
better off.

President 
Obama 
appointed 

a record number of women and 
racial minorities to his cabinet 
and nominated the nation’s first 
Hispanic Supreme Court justice. 
During his administration, there 
were more LGBTQ ambassadors 
representing this country around 
the world than ever before. His 
army secretary was gay. The first 
full-time 
transgender 
White 

House employee worked in his 
West Wing.

I celebrated the president’s 

successes as though they were my 
own, and bore the weight of his 
failures just the same. Despite the 
harsh criticism President Obama 
faced for exercising a “feeble” 
foreign policy, I was reassured 
by the fact that after nearly eight 
years of a more hawkish (and 
failed) pursuit, U.S. special forces 
— under the president’s command 
— successfully found and killed 
Osama bin Laden. Inversely, the 
debacle induced by the Affordable 
Care Act, his namesake domestic 
policy, was incredibly frustrating. 

After 
President 
Obama’s 

election, there was talk of America 
being a “post-racial” society. To 
many, the new Black commander 
in chief served as a mark of our 
country progressing beyond its 
ugly past of prejudice and racial 
inequity. However idealistic, this 
claim was hardly the reality. At 
the peak of the recession, I heard 
the 
Republican 
congressional 

leadership vow to make his 
presidency unsuccessful. I heard 
a lawmaker shout, “You lie!” in the 
middle of a speech to a joint session 
of Congress. Confirmations for 
President Obama’s nominations 
stalled due to partisan obstruction 
that lasted longer than those of any 
other chief executive. Between 
2008 and 2016, the nation became 
desensitized to the unprecedented 
lament of a president whose 
legitimacy was questioned nearly 
his entire governance.

As a Black man, Obama’s 

presidency made me feel like I 

mattered. His assertion that if 
he had a son, “He would look 
like 
Trayvon 
(Martin)” 
was 

poignant to me and so many other 
African Americans at a time of 
heightened 
racial 
animosity. 

In light of the many killings of 
unarmed Black men caught on 
camera and circulated via mass 
media, I applauded his efforts to 
reform police departments around 
the country. President Obama 
made himself accessible to at-risk 
minority youth with his mentoring 
program My Brother’s Keeper. 
He made criminal justice reform 
a household topic, and was the 
first sitting president to ever visit 
a prison. Although his economic 
policies benefited all Americans, 
Black unemployment in particular 
was decreased by a third. Obama 
administration policies have also 
improved high-school graduation, 
uninsured and incarceration rates 
in our community.

In 
recognizing 
the 
effect 

Barack Obama’s presidency had 
on my identity as an African 
American, it is just as important to 
acknowledge the intersectionality 
of my identities. As a gay man, I 
considered it a good start when 
he banned the “Don’t Ask, Don’t 
Tell” policy that was keeping so 
many LGBTQ service members 
in the closet. Then, when he came 
out in support of the legalization 
of same-sex marriage, and in-turn 
influenced the country to do the 
same, I felt as though I had a 
genuine ally in the White House.

President 
Obama 
was 
my 

president. I loved him because he 
looked like me, he cared about the 
same issues I did, and he fought for 
my interests. In the face of defiance, 
he actually made America great 
again. But I love him most because 
he was what we should all aspire to 
be: the bigger person. In the era of 
alternative facts, rising nationalism 
and heightened division, I will 
always keep his words near to my 
heart: “Choose hope over fear.”

Thank you, Mr. President.

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

Alexis Megdanoff
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Anna Polumbo-Levy 

Jason Rowland

Ali Safawi

Kevin Sweitzer

Rebecca Tarnopol

Ashley Tjhung

Stephanie Trierweiler

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

U needs to care about workers

JEREMY PHILLIPS | OP-ED

Our imagined American identities

ISAIAH ZEAVIN-MOSS | COLUMN

Isaiah Zeavin-Moss can be reached 

at izeavinm@umich.edu.

ISAIAH 

ZEAVIN-MOSS

AARON SANDEL | CARTOON

What the Obama Presidency Meant to Me

MICHIGAN IN COLOR

MICHAEL HEYWARD

Jeremy Phillips is a university 

custodian.

Michael Heyward is a Michigan in 

Color contributor.

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