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