A

s we drove down Carpenter 
Street in the Binghampton 
neighborhood of Memphis, 

Tenn., 
schoolchildren 

in royal purple polos 
and khakis flooded the 
sidewalk as school let 
out for the day. Their 
backpacks 
bounced 

on their backs as they 
crossed the street to the 
Carpenter Art Garden, 
a lively purple house 
with a yard full of large, 
painted, wooden hearts. 
Our tour guide, Noah 
Gray, the executive director 
of the Binghampton Development 
Corporation, explained they were 
part of a Valentine’s Day craft. The 
same hearts were speckled around 
the neighborhood, the children’s 
colorful masterpieces proudly on 
display in nearly every yard down 
the street. It was the picture of 
a loving, vibrant community. 
Though poverty levels and crime 
rates in Binghampton remain 
high, it was hard to believe people 
avoided even driving through it 
about a decade ago. 

Over Spring Break, six students 

and I visited Memphis with a 
global health and design student 
organization 
called 
Michigan 

Health Engineered for All Lives to 
serve the city — a destination that my 
mother constantly worried about. 
All she knew was that Memphis 
ranks as one of the most dangerous 
cities in the United States, and 
that statistic was enough for her to 
imagine a blighted, desolate ghetto. 
She’s not alone in this thinking. 
Media and statistics have framed 
Memphis — and similar cities of 
highly concentrated poverty and 
racial minorities, such as Detroit 
— as dangerous, drug-ridden and 
to be avoided. It was a perception 
that I, admittedly, shared before 
a week in the city showed me just 
how inaccurate and unfair the 
stigmas attached to Memphis are. 
In seven short days, my impressions 
of 
Memphis 
were 
completely 

transformed.

One of the goals of Serve901, an 

organization we worked with in 
Memphis, is to educate outsiders on 
the history of Memphis and to erase 
the negative stigmas attached to the 
city, and they surely did just that. 
We learned from many residents 
that Memphis was once primed 
to be the “New York City of the 
South” until yellow fever struck and 
wealthy, white residents fled to the 
suburbs, leaving behind a population 
that was predominantly poor and 
Black. Institutionalized segregation, 
perpetuated by years of systemic 
racism, 
further 
concentrated 

African Americans in certain 
impoverished 
neighborhoods, 

such as Binghampton and Orange 
Mound. Needless to say, Memphis 
did not become the Big Apple of 
the South and instead garnered 
a reputation as a city falling apart 
at the seams.

However, what the statistics 

and media fail to show is all the 
wonderful change that is happening 
in Memphis.

One of the largest problems 

in Memphis is food scarcity, a 
phenomenon in which people living 
in an area do not have regular access 

to healthy food, either because they 
cannot afford it or because grocery 
stores are too far away and there are 

no transit options, such 
as bus lines or access 
to cars. For example, 
the historic Orange 
Mound neighborhood 
of Memphis is a USDA-
classified urban food 
desert, because most of 
its residents do not own 
cars and often have to 
choose between paying 
rent and buying food. 

Recognizing 
this 

serious problem in his 

community, resident Mike Minnis, 
whose wife was born and raised in 
Orange Mound, started Landmark 
Farmers Market, an urban farming 
operation and food kitchen in the 
middle of the neighborhood. Now, 
residents of Orange Mound can 
access affordable, healthy, fresh-
grown fruits and vegetables only a 
short walk away. Minnis’s efforts 
have even inspired others in the 
neighborhood to start their own 
gardens and take control of their 
own health.

And it doesn’t stop there. With 

intimate knowledge about the 
exchange of information within 
the families of the community, 
Minnis plans to educate his 
neighborhood on nutrition and 
health education by way of 
children’s comic books. Through 
these simple yet genuine actions, 
he is stirring tangible change in 
the roots of his community.

The Binghampton Development 

Corporation is another organization 
that aims to combat food scarcity in 
the Binghampton neighborhood. 
Although Gray did not grow up 
in Binghampton and thus hasn’t 
experienced its problems firsthand, 
he makes it a priority to engage 
members of the community in 
the BDC’s efforts by hiring them 
or listening to their personal 
testimonials. For example, after 
consulting 
with 
residents 
of 

Binghampton and discovering they 
have to take multiple buses to get 
to the nearest Kroger for groceries 
— a trip that can take several hours 
— the BDC began development 
of a new plaza in the heart of the 
neighborhood. When it is complete, 
no resident will live more than a mile 
away from a grocery store.

The BDC has also reshaped the 

community in other substantial 
ways, such as building parks in 
abandoned 
lots, 
converting 
a 

rundown apartment complex into 
a senior living center and opening 
the Carpenter Art Garden. The Art 
Garden houses a number of after-
school activities and clubs, allowing 
the children of Binghampton to 
discover 
artistic, 
engineering, 

carpentry, sewing, writing and 
entrepreneurial skills that might’ve 
otherwise 
gone 
untapped. 
By 

listening to and engaging with 
the community — rather than 
coming in and assuming they 
know best, as many “saviors” 
of blighted neighborhoods do — 
the BDC is proof that positive 
change can happen quickly 
when people are passionate 
about their communities.

BDC 
Boardmember 
Robert 

Montague is another figure who 

has used his privilege for the 
betterment of those not as fortunate. 
Once a successful businessman 
and computing analyst, Montague 
used his money and expertise to 
found the BDC. His latest endeavor, 
Tech901, aims to confront the 
shortage of IT talent in Memphis, 
as well as the lack of diversity in the 
field. By teaching young Memphians 
how to code and equipping them 
with 
professional 
development 

skills, Tech901 is making the future 
of Memphis marketable. It would 
be easy to make lots of money by 
teaching programming classes in the 
richer suburbs of Memphis, but by 
investing in people in the inner city, 
Tech901 is investing in its future.

Landmark 
Farmers 
Market, 

the BDC and Tech901 are only 
a handful of all the wonderful 
organizations that are dedicated 
to improving different aspects of 
Memphis, and the more I saw, the 
more I realized how mistaken my 
initial impressions of the city were. 
With the work of these community 
organizers, Memphis is proving 
its negative reputation wrong — 
proving me wrong.

Many University of Michigan 

students come from a place of 
privilege and may feel far removed 
from the problems in Memphis — or 
even in Detroit, a mere 40 minutes 
away — but as the people at the BDC 
and Tech901 have demonstrated, 
that is no excuse to ignore and avoid 
the very real problems that are 
happening. These organizations 
recognized the problems within 
these communities and made real 
improvements by working with the 
people living there. As University 
students, we, too, can use our 
privilege for good. Our education 
has afforded us knowledge, skills 
and resources that would be well-
spent helping a population that 
doesn’t have the same privileges.

And we don’t have to wait 

until 
graduation 
to 
start 

making a positive impact; even 
as undergraduates, there are 
a number of resources at our 
fingertips. M-HEAL is just one 
fine example. Devoted to global 
health, M-HEAL project teams 
reach out to contacts in developing 
countries to identify health needs 
in those regions and design 
solutions to the problem using all 
the resources this University has to 
offer. Through this design process, 
we gain valuable experience in 
engineering and global health, but 
the focus of these projects is always 
on the people we are hoping to 
help. Through constant contact, 
research and needs assessment 
trips, we make sure we are always 
catering to their needs, requests 
and wishes, because when you’re 
helping a city or country in 
need, it’s really about helping 
the people there.

As we finished our tour 

of Binghampton, Gray said of 
Memphians: “We do not love 
Memphis 
because 
it’s 
great; 

Memphis is great because we love 
it.” That love is so evident in all the 
wonderful work they do, and it is 
truly something to learn from and 
aspire toward.

M

y friends know me to be 
an inconsistent texter 
at best, and I readily 

admit that it’s not my 
forte. The optimal way 
to reach me is as simple 
as it is surprisingly 
intimate: call.

I’ve always loved 

phone calls. When I was 
younger, I memorized 
my home number — 
along with those of my 
grandparents and my 
great-grandmother 
(Gammy). Every night, 
I’d sit in our small breakfast nook, 
pick up the landline and chat with 
Gammy. It was meaningful time.

I can’t recall what we talked 

about, but I remember viscerally 
that it brought me a great deal of joy. 
I liked hearing her voice and having 
a real conversation. My Gammy has 
long since passed, but my impulse 
to engage with others not directly 
in my presence via phone has 
persisted throughout my life.

When I was allowed to get an 

AOL Instant Messager account, for 
example, I always insisted on video 
chatting with friends. It made the 
interaction even more personal to 
see whom I was talking with and 
feel like their whole presence (as 
opposed to just their voice) was 
there in the room.

It’s why I love FaceTime so 

much now. For those of you who 
watch “Broad City,” FaceTime is 
an integral part of the show. Its 
main characters, Abbi and Ilana, 
FaceTime each other no matter 
the context. FaceTime feeds their 
impulse to speak to one another 
whenever they’re not together (and 
sometimes, even when they are), 
whether it’s from the street or a cab 
or the bathroom.

I 
asked 
Nansook 
Park, 
a 

University of Michigan psychology 
professor 
who 
specializes 
in 

personality and social contexts, 
whether or not my tendency toward 
phone calls and FaceTiming is 
rooted deeper than individual 
preference, and she explained 

that “human beings are social 
animals” for whom interpersonal 
communication is as necessary as 

food and water.

“Even 
with 

emoticons, 
texting 

is limited in terms 
of conveying deeper 
and intimate feelings 
and subtle nuanced 
messages,” she wrote in 
an email. “We can pick 
up a lot more subtle but 
significant 
messages 

about the other person 
through different tone 

of voices and facial expressions. 
Through body languages, we can 
communicate … (a) variety of subtle 
messages that is not always easy to 
convey in written words.”

The more extensive sensory 

experience of voice-to-voice and 
face-to-face communication, Park 
noted, “can make people feel closer 
to one another.” Sounds right to me. 
You can’t “ghost” someone when 
they’re listening live on the other 
end of the line. A phone call is an 
investment: of time, of substance 
and perhaps of emotion, to some 
extent. Answering a phone call is 
as active as making one; it means 
that both parties actually want to 
be part of it (for the most part). It’s 
not a coincidence that I associate 
phone calls with the strongest 
relationships in my life.

Phone calls are how I check 

in with my parents throughout 
the week, and how I catch up 
with my grandparents (albeit a 
little less frequently). My sister 
and I sometimes FaceTime in 
silence while we do homework, 
intermittently 
exchanging 

BuzzFeed quizzes and comparing 
our results when we need a break. 
It’s about the company, you know?

When I FaceTime non-college 

buddies, it’s as much about talking 
as it is about seeing what the other 
person’s environment is and how 
they occupy that space. What is 
their normal? Their routine? What 
does it look like? Sound like? How 
is it different from (or the same as) 

the space in which we interacted 
in the past? Video chatting is so 
special because physical separation 
is bridged by literally bringing 
another human being into my lived 
experience (and vice versa).

And when folks aren’t around 

to pick up the phone (or when I’m 
not, for that matter), I’m thankful 
for the documentary nature of 
voicemail. Some people don’t listen 
to voicemail, but I treasure it. My 
mailbox is frequently full — in 
part out of laziness, sure, but also 
because I save certain messages 
and re-listen to them.

Some are for laughs, like this 

favorite from my sister: “Hello. 
It’s me. Mom and Dad are being 
weird again. Okay. Bye.” Others 
have a deeper meaning. Last 
January, while I was on the East 
Coast as part of the Michigan 
in 
Washington 
program, 
a 

monumental blizzard hit D.C. one 
weekend. I still have the voicemail 
saved from my dad’s father, who 
called to ask me about it. He died 
over the summer, and every once 
in a while, it’s nice to pull up that 
message and hear his voice.

To 
be 
certain, 
text 

conversations serve a purpose, 
and they’re not to be avoided. 
Some of my funniest and most 
memorable exchanges have been 
via text, particularly in places 
where speaking aloud would be 
rude, frowned upon or altogether 
unacceptable. 
But 
voice 
is 

powerful, and even more so when 
it’s accompanied by visage. It’s 
not a coincidence that I ran this 
column by both my mother and a 
high school friend via FaceTime 
before I finished writing it.

Now that I’m graduating, I’m 

cognizant of the fact that my 
college friends will be added to 
the list of people who are spread 
across parts of the country 
where I am not. So a heads-up: 
expect frequent FaceTime calls 
from this guy.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Friday, March 17, 2017

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

Sarah Khan
Max Lubell

Alexis Megdanoff
Madeline Nowicki
Anna Polumbo-Levy 

Jason Rowland

Ali Safawi

Kevin Sweitzer

Rebecca Tarnopol

Stephanie Trierweiler

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Phone call fanaticism

MICHAEL SUGERMAN | COLUMN

Using privilege for good

ASHLEY ZHANG | COLUMN

Ashely Zhang can be reached at 

ashleyzh@umich.edu.

Michael Sugerman can be reached 

at mrsugs@umich.edu.

ASHLEY 
ZHANG

R

ecently, a student-written 
article titled “My Child 
Will Not Be Allowed to Be 

Transgender” has been popping 
up on my social media. From one 
student to another, here’s my 
response:

Moriah,
This is about to be a critical 

response, but I want to level with 
you first. I admire your desire 
to do the best for your future 
children. I do. As someone who 
works in a family psychological 
clinic, I love seeing people who 
want to do the right thing for 
their children — who want to sing 
to them, care for them and make 
them happy. I have no doubt that 
you will love your children.

But here’s the thing that most 

people don’t want to acknowledge: 
From those who do all the “right” 
things to those who commit abuse 
or neglect, a vast majority of parents 
love their children. Loving your 
children does not mean that you 
cannot, or will not, hurt them. So, I 
ask you to be vigilant in evaluating 
your behavior; do not fall into 
the trap of believing that doing 
something out of love means that it 
is the best thing to do for your child.

With that said, let’s get into it.
I want to believe you truly love 

and respect transgender and other 
LGBTQ people as you say you do, 
but after reading your article, I find 
it hard to do so. This is the message 
that your article gives off: I love you 
and respect you, but your existence 
is invalid. I love you and respect 
you, but you are a flawed human 
being. I love you and respect you, 
but you are sick. I love you and 
respect you, but you cannot be who 
you are unless it is in a way that I 
deem acceptable.

That’s not how love and respect 

work. You cannot say you respect 
someone 
and 
then 
invalidate 

their existence and trivialize their 
identity to a simple “decision.” 
And what message does it send 
to say I love you, but I would not 
let someone who is “closest to my 
heart” be like you?

After 
reading 
your 
article, 

I gather that you have two 
main 
concerns: 
that 
being 

transgender is against how God 
intended us to be, and that being 
transgender is a mental illness. 
So, let’s talk about that.

“My children will always be the 

ones closest to my heart, but this 
does not mean that I will accept 

their desire to be anything other 
than who God made them as.” 

Let me ask you a question: How 

does one know what God intended 
for them? Growing up Catholic, 
I was taught that the Bible offers 
insight into God’s will. In the 
absence of an actual scriptural 
reference, many religious people, 
yourself included, argue that God 
created man and woman and that 
being transgender is wrong because 
transgender people go against God’s 
will by straying from that design. I 
don’t buy that argument — mostly 
because it reveals a misconception 
of what it means to be transgender 
in that it conflates identifying as 
transgender with receiving gender 
reassignment surgery.

Being transgender does not 

mean that you will change your 
biological sex; it just means that 
you don’t identify with it. While 
many people choose to have 
gender reassignment surgery in 
order to make their physical state 
match their mental state, not all 
transgender people do. Whether 
they choose not to have surgery 
because 
of 
financial 
reasons, 

age, lack of resources or simply 
because they don’t feel a need to, 
they are still transgender as long 
as they experience a disconnect 
between their biological sex and 
their identified gender. It is 
problematic, then, to argue that 
being transgender is against 
God’s will using a biologically 
based 
argument, 
because 
it 

doesn’t reflect the reality of what 
it means to be transgender.

It’s also important to note that if 

we are basing gender on genitalia, 
then it isn’t true that God only 
created man and woman because 
God also created intersex people, 
who were born with ambiguous 
genitalia. Many people who are 
born intersex have a surgery 
performed upon them, in which a 
doctor changes their genitalia to 
look more like a penis or a vagina. If 
you are strongly opposed to surgery 
that changes one’s genitals (like 
gender reassignment surgery), then 
you should probably be open to a 
third gender — or else you would 
have to allow intersex people to 
choose whether to be a man or 
woman regardless of the genitals 
they were born with.

So perhaps God’s design isn’t all 

that clear cut, Moriah. But even if 
it isn’t ungodly to be transgender, 
could you still be right that being 

transgender means that you are 
inherently sick or mentally ill? 
Not quite.

“In my opinion, transgender 

humans are suffering from a 
mental illness, in a similar fashion 
to those fighting sicknesses such as 
anorexia and depression.”

Disorders like anorexia nervosa 

and depression are described in 
the Diagnostic and Statistical 
Manual, the manual clinicians 
use to diagnose and treat their 
patients. Transgenderism is not 
described here. To equate being 
transgender to having a mental 
illness is a dangerous comparison 
to make. We used to make 
this comparison in regards to 
homosexuality until the American 
Psychological Association — with 
the help of some tenacious activists 
— realized how detrimental it is to 
pathologize homosexuality.

To be fair, I could see how you 

might be confused. A concept that 
is related to being transgender 
is in the DSM-5 under “gender 
dysphoria,” which is described as 
distress resulting from “a conflict 
between a person’s physical or 
assigned gender and the gender 
with which he/she/they identify.” 
But gender dysphoria is not an 
identity, and it is not an inevitability.

Praying that your child will 

suddenly feel like their penis or 
vagina fits with their body isn’t 
going to make gender dysphoria 
go away. Taking your child to 
conversion therapy that will try to 
make them “accept” their biological 
sex isn’t going to work either — in 
fact, it can make it worse. There 
are reasons why some states 
have made conversion therapy 
illegal and why the American 
Psychological Association does not 
support it: It can lead to higher rates 
of depression, anxiety, drug use 
and homelessness. Scariest of all? 
Conversion therapy is correlated 
with a higher number of suicide 
attempts and completions. So 
perhaps we should be focused 
on making conversion therapy 
illegal if we want what’s best for 
LGBTQ youth. 

By the way, do you know 

what 
is 
recommended 
for 

people with gender dysphoria? 

My child can be transgender

ANNA SMITH | OP-ED

Anna Smith is an LSA senior.

MICHAEL

SUGERMAN

Read more at 

MichiganDaily.com

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