The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color & News
Monday, January 29, 2018 — 3A
When I joined Michigan
in Color over one year ago, I
wrote about my excitement to
contribute to a space that allows
people
from
marginalized
communities to finally have a
voice at an institution like The
Michigan Daily. To me, this
was and is necessary because
I
recognize
the
immense
power that stories can have.
And only by showcasing these
stories can we move forward
in bridging the divides on
our campus. However, what I
didn’t expect from this space
was the personal growth I’ve
had over the past 12 months.
My time with MiC has
introduced me to a host of
people,
communities
and
organizations I wasn’t familiar
with before joining the section.
I’ve gotten to interview student
leaders and faculty members,
and had the opportunity to
cover speakers and events on
campus. When West Quad
Residence Hall was hit with
racist vandalizations early last
semester, we were able to serve
as a platform for the students
who were personally attacked.
Experiences like those have
opened my eyes to the reality
of racism on our campus and
have reaffirmed my desire to
fight these inequities.
Though MiC has changed
a lot since our founding over
four years ago — and Ashley
and I have big plans for this
upcoming year — we strive
to reflect MiC’s core values
of inclusivity and bravery in
the work we do every day.
I’m forever grateful for the
guidance from the editors who
came before me (our founders,
Toni and Demario, and anyone
I’ve forgotten), the ones I’ve
worked with over the past year
(Tanya, Sivanthy, Halimat and
Adam), and the new group of
assistant and senior editors
we’ve
assembled
for
this
upcoming year.
Wow, how time flies. It seems
like just yesterday I was a first-
year entering The Daily for my
first mass meeting. I didn’t start
as an Michigan in Color writer; in
fact, when I first heard of MiC, I
wasn’t sure I was even included
in the category Person of Color.
However, following a series of
accidents, I found myself at the
MiC desk, I’ve never looked back.
As a member of the MiC team, I’ve
had the privilege to bear witness
to the impact power sharing
narratives has on an individual
and a community. From writers
who say MiC was the first time
they felt their story was validated,
to community members listening
and
learning,
I
know
the
importance of this section. Stories
matter. Representation matters.
As I enter my final year with
MiC, I feel a sense of bittersweet
accomplishment. I’ve seen MiC
evolve from a radical column to
an established section and the
growing pains that come with
it. In the same way, I’ve seen the
way I’ve grown. Before MiC, I
was confused about my purpose
on this campus. Every other
organization and community I
tried to join just didn’t feel like
home. With MiC, I found my
voice was heard and my actions
were recieved. I wouldn’t be the
person I am today without the
opportunities I’ve had here.
I want to thank the mentors
and community I found while at
MiC. To the amazing women of
color founders whom I never met,
your courage is an inspiration
— look at everything that has
happened because of you. To Toni
and Demario, you two will forever
remain my social justice icons; I
continue to aspire to the passion
and care you two showcased
in every interaction. Last, but
not least, to Sivanthy, Adam,
Christian, Halimat, Jason, Tanya,
Areeba and Neel: thank you so
much for the love and support
over the past year. Long nights
were easy because of you all.
JASON ROWLAND
Managing MiC Editor
ASHLEY TJHUNG
Managing MiC Editor
Why I joined MiC: Jason Rowland
Why I joined MiC: Ashley Tjhung
At Michigan in Color, we
have the privilege to share many
important narratives of students
of color on campus. One of my
favorite parts of my job is working
with these individuals — listening
to their unique voices. But one of
my other favorite parts of working
at MiC is listening to the wild
banter among me and my fellow
editors about all things pop
culture.
Some topics include:
1. Critiques about the MET gala
and celebrity fashion choices
2. Live Grammy commentary
3. Our embarrassing pasts on
Tumblr
4. The social justice
implications of Harry Styles’
“Sign of the Times”
Yeah, some conversations are
obviously not at all serious, but
they’ve been fun and important
nonetheless. And a lot of the
time, these conversations have
prompted me to think more about
my position as a person of color
navigating through pop culture
that is constantly evolving in our
digital age.
Off the Record comes from
former MiC managing editors
DeMario Longmire and Toni
Wang. They’re honestly some of
the funniest people I’ve ever met,
while at the same time some of the
smartest people in a room.
CHRISTIAN PANEDA
Senior MiC Editor
“I noticed the bus running
mostly empty along the edge
of campus, and I thought,
‘Wow, can we actually do an
on-demand multimodal transit
system here?’” he said. “That’s
where the RITMO project
started.”
The
RITMO
team
has
collected data on bus ridership
on campus, which they will
use to decide where to run
buses and where to deploy
on-demand shuttles that will
pick up commuters and bring
them to a bus route or their
destination directly.
Jonathan Levine, a professor
of Urban and Regional Planning
at the Taubman College of
Architecture
and
Urban
Planning, has lead a team
collecting data by surveying
the use of transportation by
students, faculty and staff.
“(We ask questions about)
how you would travel under
new scenarios,” Levine said.
“What route would people
take? We build models based
on the data that comes out of
hypothetical
questions
we
ask.”
One of the team’s greatest
technical
challenges
comes
in the form of using cloud
computing
and
artificial
intelligence
to
optimize
routes and ride-sharing in the
shuttles.
“What
we
are
doing
behind the scene is analytics:
Designing
the
system
and
predicting what people are
going to do,” Van Hentenryck
said. “We want to dispatch
the vehicles as quickly as
possible and maximize ride-
sharing.”
Taubman graduate student
Jacob Yan works with Levine
on his team. He described
the social responsibility that
comes
with
designing
an
innovative
transportation
system.
“We have been talking about
the travel agencies: how they
might re-define the system,
and how the aggregate demand
for the system will look, how
this will impact low-income
populations,” Yan said.
Ultimately, one important
goal for the RITMO project is
to work with communities to
revolutionize
transportation
by
making
it
accessible,
efficient and cost effective.
While
we
have
seen
the
transformation of taxi systems
with
applications
such
as
Uber and Lyft, public transit
has
yet
to
become
more
dynamic, according to Van
Hentenryck.
“We are trying to improve
accessibility,” Van Hentenryck
said. “In the U.S, the best
predictor
of
poor
social
mobility is whether you have a
car or not. If you make people
walk even a quarter of a mile,
you lose 50 percent of your
ridership. People don’t want to
walk very far to be picked up,
you have to be picked up very
close to your location.”
The RITMO project has
strong ambitions for the future.
They
hope
to
incorporate
autonomous
vehicles
to
create a more cost-effective
University transit system, as
well as use electric vehicles.
“At some point, we also
want to have all of these
vehicles electrified to reduce
greenhouse gas emission,” he
said. “(Using shuttles could
be a) way to integrate electric
vehicles.”
RITMO
will
continue
expanding on North Campus
this year, focusing especially
on serving graduate students
who live within two miles
of campus. Down the road,
services
like
RITMO
may
be scaled to larger cities,
increasing
efficiency
and
access for all commuters.
RITMO
From Page 1A
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
When I was younger, being Black
and Nigerian never caused me any
problems. I grew up in a fairly
diverse town and school district.
Throughout elementary school, I
had friends of multiple races and
ethnicities. Though it was obvious
to us, even as elementary schoolers,
that we differed by skin color, it
never changed how we saw each
other. The only thing I didn’t like
about myself that stemmed from
my race and ethnicity was my hair.
I was always ashamed of my hair
and how it was naturally kinky and
coily, unlike my friends’ hair. This
probably stemmed from the media
to which I was exposed, and how
all the girls my age on TV, in movies
and in magazines were white with
hair extremely different from
mine. Other than that, being Black
and Nigerian wasn’t much of a
problem for me.
My ethnicity started to play a
bigger role in my life in middle
school. Before that, I never gave
a second thought to the fact I was
Nigerian. I was Black and I was
Nigerian. And that was it, until
middle school. Then, being Black
started to have connotations. Being
Black meant you were loud, rude,
unruly, didn’t care much about
your education and only spent
your time with other Black people.
I did not align with any of these
characteristics; none of my friends
happened to be Black. Another
thing that set me apart was that
I wasn’t just “African-American
Black,” I was African Black, which
meant I had a different culture,
background and experience than
an
African-American
person.
But unless I constantly reminded
people that even though our skin
looked the same, we were very
different because of my Nigerian
heritage, then I was seen as a Black
kid who didn’t “act Black” or fall in
line with the rest of the Black kids.
The whole of my middle school
experience
could
have
been
described as an elephant-in-the-
room situation. Everyone was
aware I was Black, but didn’t “act
Black.” It was never brought up, it
was just an ever-present fact and I
just tried to carry on with my life
with this in the background. The
only time during middle school it
was brought up was in my eighth-
grade history class. In one class, we
were all split into groups of four,
and a student in my group found
it important to bring up that “all
of us in the group happened to be
Black, except for one of us that was
an Oreo…” Even though he didn’t
explicitly say he was referring to
me, it was still apparent he was
talking about me. At the time I
just sat there quietly, even though
if that happened now I definitely
would have a few choice words to
say.
As rude as the comment was,
in the moment it didn’t really
affect me much. But in the long
run, it definitely took a toll. For
high school, I went to a school in
a different district, which meant
starting over socially. I already
knew that 90 percent of the
students in the new district were
white. Through my logic, coming
into this district with no friends as
a Black kid, I could probably expect
jokes and comments based off of
my race. To combat this, I came
up with some coping mechanisms.
The first one was to make jokes at
the expense of my own race before
other people could. For example,
I started calling myself an Oreo,
so that when other kids did, it
wouldn’t be offensive because I
did it first. I also tried to forget
my racial and ethnic identities as
much as possible. I never brought
up my Nigerian heritage or culture
and I never mentioned my race.
Whenever it was brought up, I
wouldn’t say anything so people
would forget I was Black or
Nigerian.
Being
Nigerian
also
added
an extra challenge for me in
high school. Even though the
majority of the kids in my class
were white, there was a number
of
first-generation
immigrant
kids with whom I bonded. I made
friends with people whose parents
immigrated from Germany, Syria,
Poland and more. But even with
those friendships, I still felt like
I was an outsider. All of my first-
generation
immigrant
friends
were so much more in tune with
their families’ cultures than me.
I started to feel as if I wasn’t truly
Nigerian. I couldn’t explain my
culture to people as well as they
could. I couldn’t speak either of
the languages my parents spoke. I
also had the added issue of my race.
Most of my other first-generation
friends passed as white, so people
didn’t know they weren’t just
“white” until they told them of their
background. When people saw
me, they saw me as Black, which
made me even more uncomfortable
discussing my Nigerian culture.
High
school
was
hard
for me in terms of accepting
my
race
and
ethnicity.
But as I made more friends and
became more comfortable with
my peers, I started to make some
strides in my self-acceptance. At our
yearly culture fair, kids would set up
booths representing their culture
or another country’s culture. Even
though it was something most
people looked forward to, it was
something I slightly dreaded.
said he was “not running away
from anything.”
“This was not an easy
decision for my family, and
you should not jump to any
conclusions
based
on
our
decision – listen to facts,”
he
said.
“Much
attention
has recently been given to
outside investigations into the
University and the Athletic
Department, including those
both by the Michigan Attorney
General and the NCAA. Let me
be clear, that in retirement, I
will fully cooperate with these
and any other investigations.”
Furthermore,
an
ESPN
investigation
published
Thursday
showed
administrators did not report
the 2014 complaints to federal
officials, despite the fact that
officials were on campus that
year
investigating
MSU’s
handling
of
sexual
assault
accusations.
In
response
to
her
resignation letter, Simon was
widely criticized for what many
interpreted as defiance and a
refusal to accept responsibility
for enabling and failing to stop
Nassar’s abuse and the culture
that led to it, asserting “there is
no cover-up.”
“As tragedies are politicized,
blame is inevitable,” Simon
wrote. “As president, it is only
natural that I am the focus of
this anger.”
A
second
ESPN
investigation, released Friday,
reveal a culture of sexual abuse
and domestic violence within
MSU’s athletic department to
a degree not previously known.
Lauren Allswede, who worked
at MSU as a sexual assault
counselor until she quit in 2015,
told ESPN sexual assault and
domestic violence complaints
involving athletes or coaching
staff were handled mainly by
the athletic department itself.
“It all got kind of swept away
and it was handled more by
administration [and] athletic
department officials,” Allswede
said. “It was all happening
behind closed doors. ... None of
it was transparent or included
people who would normally be
involved in certain decisions.”
The investigation implicates
MSU football head coach Mark
Dantonio and basketball head
coach Tom Izzo, two of the
university’s most prominent
figures, in the mishandling of
investigations. According to the
investigation, an undergraduate
student-assistant coach for the
basketball team was allowed
to continue coaching after
being criminally charged for
punching a female student in
the face in 2010.
Allswede said in response to
her voiced concerns regarding
the
athletic
department’s
handling
of
sexual
assault
complaints,
MSU’s
general
counsel’s office sent an attorney
to reassure her. What she was
told, though, only concerned
her further: addressing a sexual
assault accusation against one
of his players, Allswede said
the attorney told her Dantonio
responded only by having the
player talk about the accusation
with his mother.
Dantonio called the story ––
as well as any other accusations
of his mishandling of reports
of sexual assault against his
players –– “completely false”.
Courtesy of the author
EFE OSAGIE
Assistant MiC Editor
Finding identity: Black and Nigerian
MSU
From Page 1A
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
STONE STEWART/Daily
STONE STEWART/Daily