W

hat can I say about 
my 
hometown 

in 
Northern 

Michigan? 
A 
small 
village 

right on the harbor, with 
plenty of hipster-y restaurants 
and 
quaint 
knick-knack 

shops, it’s the perfect spot for 
upper middle class families to 
vacation during the summer. 
Go a few miles out, and there 
is an endless supply of hiking 
trails and hunting spots for 
the more adventurous type. 
Tourists come every year to 
enjoy the beaches and take part 
in the small-town culture.

So what do I say when others 

ask me about where I grew up? 
Do I talk about how idyllic it 
was? To be able to go hiking 
in the wilderness whenever I 
wanted to have a view of the 
crystal clear waters every day 
of the year? How every fall, 
tourists came from all around 
to see the leaves that I drove 
by every day on my way to 
school, and how every summer, 
families would spend copious 
amounts of money to stay in 
the houses next door to my 
grandpa? About how I took 
the breathtaking nature for 
granted until I moved away and 
came to Ann Arbor?

Or will I talk about how after 

hearing my sister and me talk 
about what happened to our 
childhood friends, our friend had 
said, “What’s wrong with this 
place? Why is it that everyone 
died or went to prison?”

This type of contradiction 

was the undercurrent of my 
childhood, and has defined how 
I look back at those innocent 
years. When I was young, I 
honestly thought that I lived 
in the best place in the world. 
Sure, the world had problems, 
but 
those 
problems 
would 

never reach us all the way up 
north. I felt safe knowing that 
I was from a town too idyllic, 

too remote to ever be the 
center of anything scandalous. 
But as the years passed, and 
the cracks on the surface of 
my town’s reputation became 
more and more obvious, I 
began to lose the innocence 
and naïveté I had regarding 
the safety and wholesomeness 
of my hometown.

I 
know 
I’m 
incredibly 

privileged to have not had this 
veneer of stability shattered 
for so long. I had two parents 
that cared for me and my sister 
and took our lives and our 
education seriously, and for 
that I’m very grateful. But as 
I began to realize around my 
teenage years, this wasn’t the 
case for all my classmates. For 
some, the problems systemic to 
Northern Michigan had already 
become obvious to them at an 
early age.

Recently, 
news 
stories 

have emerged in local papers 
discussing a heroin problem 
and an overall drug problem 
in Northern Michigan. Grand 
Traverse 
County, 
the 
same 

county 
where 
the 
National 

Cherry Festival — an event 
to celebrate community and 
tourism — is held, is also ranked 
25 on the list of counties in 
Michigan with the most drug 
overdose 
deaths. 
A 
recent 

nationwide study also showed 
11 Northern Michigan counties 
were “among the top 5 percent at 
risk for the rapid spread of HIV.”

For many, myself included, it 

comes as a shock that the very 
place lauded for being family 
friendly and welcoming could 
hide something so dark just 
below the surface. But it’s also 
not fair, upon learning this 
information, to judge Northern 
Michigan as a type of rural, 
redneck, backwater place.

My hometown is not the 

idealized rural community that 
a lot of Michiganders believe 

it to be, but it’s also not the 
white trash place a lot of other 
people think it is. Like any 
place, Northern Michigan has a 
complicated history that has led 
up to a complicated present. Like 
any place, Northern Michigan 
has a lot of problems as well as a 
lot of amazing qualities.

So what will I say about my 

hometown? I’m not entirely 
sure yet. I know what others 
will say when I tell them where 
I’m from: probably a couple 
“My family owns a house up 
there,”s a few “You’re from 
such a beautiful place,”s and 
maybe even a “What was it 
like growing up so far away 
from everything?” It’s true 
that these responses really only 
reflect one side of Northern 
Michigan, but I can’t blame the 
people who see my hometown 
in its more idyllic form. I myself 
had a tilted view of my home 
until recently. 

I think the only lesson that 

can be learned from these 
experiences is that nothing 
is as perfect as it seems. No 
matter how beautiful and 
idyllic a place can be, there 
will 
always 
be 
something 

darker 
lying 
right 
below 

the surface. And this may 
be 
a 
depressing 
thought, 

but it’s also a wonderfully 
humanizing 
thought. 

Learning to see everything 
in a multidimensional light 
— that person you hate, your 
beliefs, that place you used 
to vacation at — is the mark 
of 
someone 
who 
is 
truly 

maturing. And though it’s 
painful to have to confront 
the ugly in something near 
and dear to your heart, the 
ability to see the world in a 
more nuanced way is valuable 
beyond compare.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Friday, October 13, 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.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

No place is perfect

ELENA HUBBELL | COLUMN

Instead of “check your privilege”

BEN BUGAJSKI | OP-ED

Carolyn Ayaub
Megan Burns

Samantha Goldstein

Caitlin Heenan
Jeremy Kaplan

Sarah Khan

Anurima Kumar

Max Lubell

Lucas Maiman

Alexis Megdanoff
Madeline Nowicki
Anna Polumbo-Levy 

Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury

Ali Safawi

Sarah Salman
Kevin Sweitzer

Rebecca Tarnopol

Stephanie Trierweiler

Ashley Zhang

JOE IOVINO | JOE CAN BE REACHED AT JIOVINO@UMICH.EDU

Elena Hubbell can be reached at 

elepearl@umich.edu.

FROM THE DAILY

More transparency, please

A

fter the 2016 election, University of Michigan President Mark 
Schlissel received criticism from conservative students and faculty 
who believed his politicized comments at a Diag vigil marginalized 

conservative viewpoints since public officials are expected to remain 
neutral. That November, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy — a nonprofit 
research-based think tank — filed a Freedom of Information Act request for 
emails from Schlissel containing the word “Trump.”

This month, the University 

settled a lawsuit from the 
Mackinac Center claiming the 
information the center had 
requested in November was 
not released in a timely matter. 
As a result of the lawsuit, the 
University 
released 
seven 

additional emails (11 in total) 
regarding the election. The 
University’s failure to follow 
basic transparency protocol 
inflated the importance of 
the 
released 
emails. 
The 

Michigan 
Daily 
Editorial 

Board implores the University 
to hold itself accountable to 
its own transparency in its 
actions and decisions.

The 
emails 
in 
question 

contained little information 
the public did not already know, 
or at the very least, assume. 
As someone who has publicly 
criticized President Donald 
Trump and his policies, it was 
no surprise that Schlissel’s 
emails revealed his concern 
about a Trump presidency. His 
small, albeit partisan, worries 
displayed a normal human 
reaction to what we believe 
to be a concerning presidency. 
The closest he even gets in his 
emails 
to 
“discriminating” 

against conservative students 
on campus is to point out the 

irony of Trump supporters 
feeling 
“marginalized 
and 

ostracized in our campus,” when 
Trump’s 
policies 
marginalize 

countless 
groups 
in 
society. 

Otherwise, 
Schlissel 
remains 

relatively 
moderate 
when 

expressing his feelings toward the 
administration and its supporters, 
even in private discourse.

Given the uncontroversial 

nature of President Schlissel’s 
emails, 
we 
believe 
the 

University’s 
slow 
response 

time to the Mackinac Center’s 
FOIA 
request 
caused 
the 

controversy. The center only 
proceeded to sue the University 
because it took 46 work days to 
procure the first four emails, a 
task that was estimated to take 
2 hours and 45 minutes. The 
University claimed the delay 
was due to the high volume 
of FOIA requests filed in 
January, when the Mackinac 
Center made their request. The 
Mackinac 
Center 
therefore 

capitalized on the University’s 
slow 
response, 
creating 

controversy over something 
entirely 
noncontroversial. 

Had the University acted in a 
timely manner in completing 
the FOIA request, it is quite 
possible the findings would 
have flown under the radar.

Moreover, dragging out the 

release of the emails allowed 
the Mackinac Center to bring 
more attention to the real 
problem of transparency at 
the University. But, given the 
mildness of Schlissel’s emails, 
it makes little sense why the 
University chose to wait for a 
lawsuit before releasing the 
last seven emails. As part of 
the settlement, the University 
has agreed to review and 
change 
its 
FOIA 
policy, 

including moving away from 
charging fees for 75 percent 
of responses, hiring two new 
personnel to manage FOIA 
requests and publishing annual 
FOIA response performance 
reports. Since FOIA requests 
often carry lofty price tags 
or an unreadable volume of 
information, these are tangible 
steps the University can take 
to increase their transparency, 
and we hope they follow 
through on these plans.

Increased 
transparency 

will ultimately only help the 
University in the long run, 
as it will allow them to avoid 
extraneous 
“scandals” 
and 

lawsuits like this one. We 
implore the University to hold 
itself accountable to its own 
transparency from here on out.

SUBMIT TO SURVIVORS SPEAK

The Opinion section has created a space in The Michigan Daily for 

first-person accounts of sexual assault and its corresponding personal, 
academic and legal implications. Submission information can be found at 

https://tinyurl.com/survivespeak.

A

s seen on The Michigan 
Daily’s Facebook page 
and 
website 
in 
the 

comments of my article about 
the 
importance 
of 
having 

spaces for straight men to 
grapple pressing issues facing 
minorities, many people dislike 
my opinion, and that’s OK. 
However, it worries me that 
many of the responses devolve 
into demeaning insults that 
are anything but constructive. 
Anything 
that 
silences 

conversation and the exchange 
of ideas only hurts the position 
that marginalized commenters 
advocate for because they have 
nothing to gain and everything 
to lose from this approach. The 
worst of all is telling someone 
to “check their privilege.”

First, 
what 
is 
privilege 

and how does one check it? 
Privilege is the combination 
of 
social 
identities 
that 

grants 
someone 
unearned 

advantages, like being white 
or male in the job market. 
To check one’s privilege is 
to acknowledge that society 
“grants unearned rewards to 
certain people based on their 
race, gender, sexuality, etc.” 
and “the role those rewards 
play in one’s life and the lives 
of less privileged people.” On 
the surface, there is nothing 
wrong with you asking people 
to acknowledge that others are 
less fortunate than another.

However, 
checking 
one’s 

privilege is complicated. Let 
me be clear: Individual men 
need to learn to understand 
perspective, and marginalized 
people should continue calling 
them out for it. But if you 
agree that privilege blinds 
people 
from 
understanding 

marginalized 
perspectives, 

then 
it 
follows 
that 
the 

privileged must be educated 
about these perspectives in 
order to see them. In other 
words, 
how 
can 
someone 

expect you to “check your 
privilege” if you don’t know 
what’s wrong? And just as 
importantly, why would you?

The 
harsh 
reality 
is 

that 
people 
in 
a 
position 

of 
privilege 
benefit 
more 

from ignoring marginalized 
perspectives 
than 
listening 

to them. As one GoFundMe 

humorously shows, engaging 
with 
intersectionality 
and 

feminism strips white men 
of their very real privilege 
to “acknowledge that (they) 
have unearned privilege but to 
ignore what it means.” On top 
of that, the structural systems 
of oppression blind them to 
the 
struggles 
others 
face, 

leaving it up to marginalized 
voices to force their way 
into the conversation. The 
conversation is biased against 
marginalized 
people 
from 

the get-go. However, shutting 
down 
the 
conversation 
by 

saying “check your privilege” 
is a counterproductive way to 
approach the situation.

It 
is 
counterproductive 

because when you use this 
phrase, 
you 
intentionally 

or 
unintentionally 
express 

frustration 
and 
arrogance 

— frustration because you 
shouldn’t 
have 
to 
educate 

peers about this in the 21st 
century 
and 
arrogance 

because it implies an “I know 
better than you” attitude. The 
problem is that the people 
who are told this phrase are 
rarely the people who look up 
privilege in their free time. In 
this case, if you want someone 
to understand their privilege, 
you have to lay it out because 
it is the privilege itself that 
prevents them from seeing it 
for themselves; it’s a Catch-22, 
one that hurts marginalized 
people more than those whom 
it afflicts.

On the other end, people 

who 
are 
subject 
to 
this 

reproach are frustrated by 
this lack of understanding 
and, from an argumentative 
perspective, it’s a cop-out. The 
phrase implies an argument 
for something they did wrong 
without revealing to them 
what it is; because they don’t 
know what they did wrong, 
they can’t begin to understand 
or correct their error. This 
putdown is easiest to unpack, 
but any other comment that 
fails 
to 
directly 
address 

something problematic has the 
same effect.

Consider these comments, 

including 
quite 
a 
few 

comments asking me to “check 
(my) privilege:” “Yes, please 

tell me more about how hard 
it is to not comprehend actual 
systemic oppression,” “How 
about you all grow the f*** 
up,” “Go talk to ur straight 
white men!!!” 

Besides 
perhaps 

therapeutically 
releasing 

frustration, 
none 
of 
these 

comments are productive to 
public dialogue, which was the 
point of my article. This type 
of reply leaves no room for 
conversation because there is 
no way to respond to a problem 
when they don’t know what the 
problem is. That’s like trying 
to fix a leak in a boat without 
knowing where the hole is. 
Similarly, if you want those 
with privilege to understand 
what was wrong with their 
comment or action, you must 
deconstruct their error instead 
of just shutting them down, 
even if that is not your intent. 

If 
you 
want 
productive 

political change, then you 
must start with yourself and 
your own tone even though 
that’s simply not fair. It’s not 
fair that you have to police 
your 
own 
emotions 
and 

privileged people don’t. It’s 
not fair that you have to keep 
the conversation open but they 
can disregard you. It’s not fair 
that they have privilege and 
everything is stacked in their 
favor so that they don’t have 
to care but you must. That’s 
the cards that were dealt; the 
rules suck, but this is how to 
win the game. 

We live in a world where 

people who you disagree with 
will be wrong, and they will 
come out on top. It is not enough 
to be right, even when you are. 
White men may still disregard 
your logic, but if you truly want 
them to “check their privilege,” 
it’s better to open a conversation 
on the off chance they listen 
than to shut it down from the 
get-go. Using the term “check 
your privilege” only further 
alienates men who may put in a 
real effort to understand.

Yes, many do not. But in the 

cases where they do, shutting 
down conversation only hurts 
your cause. 

Ben Bugajski is an LSA senior.

