Entering the University
LSA freshman Brian Hicks
moved around a lot growing up
with his father in the military.
From Virginia to Panama to
Germany, he has little recollection
of encounters with racism, if
there were any at all, early on in
life. His first experience with it
was when his family moved to a
majority-white suburb in Iowa.
“I was in ninth or 10th grade
and I was riding my bicycle from
my friend’s house; it was like, eight
at night,” Hicks said. “That’s why
my mom is super overprotective,
because you really have to be
when you’re Black and you live in
the area we live in. This car with
three white dudes pulled up, they
lowered their window, and they
screamed the ‘n-word’ at me.”
Other
students
expressed
experiences with teachers or
friends making microaggressions
or
tensions
with
neighbors
toward their families. And still,
others reported practically no
experiences with racism, due to
growing up in predominantly
Black
neighborhoods.
LSA
sophomore Carlena Toombs grew
up in Detroit and Southfield.
“I wouldn’t say I experienced
racism,” Toombs said. “I was
always around my people. In
Detroit, I was surrounded by
Black people most of the time. In
Southfield, even though it was a
suburban area, my community
was predominantly Black.”
LSA junior Kayla McKinney
also grew up in Southfield and
said when race was discussed, it
was more about celebrating her
Black culture.
“Race wasn’t really talked
about,” McKinney said. “We
talked about in a sense of
celebrating our history and our
culture, but not in a sense that
there was any negative thing to
worry about.”
For these students especially
and coming from places with
large Black communities entering
the University, with only 4.96
percent of the student body being
Black, can be a shock. McKinney
said
entering
the
University
freshman year, there’s always
some sort of incident making
Black students feel isolated.
“What’s funny is that as a Black
person freshman year, something
lets you know, ‘oh this campus
is racist,’” McKinney said. “Me
in particular, my instance was
we had this UMich 2019 chat. It
was filled with a whole bunch of
people and then one day someone
just kicked out all the Black
people.”
LSA freshman Dylan Gilbert
experienced this shock even
though she comes from Ann
Arbor, which is often perceived
as more liberal and welcoming.
Gilbert wrote an article detailing
racism she experienced as soon
as she entered the University. At
her first football game, she and
her friends asked a group of white
students to pet their dog, only to
be met with a gesture to Gilbert
and the response, “If I can pet
yours.” Gilbert said she did not
experience this type of racism
growing up in Ann Arbor.
Having to constantly consider
race on campus can be exhausting,
LSA senior Damaris Doss said.
She expressed the relief that
comes with being back with her
own community in Detroit.
“Race is talked about a lot
here,” Doss said. “And when I’m
back home, it’s not talked about
in the same manner that it is
here. It’s something I don’t have
to think about all the time. When
I’m on campus, I’m constantly
thinking about what other people
are thinking of me, I’m afraid if I
don’t do a reading that people are
going to question if I’m smart. I
remember just being back home
in Detroit just sitting on a bus,
or walking down the street, and
I feel so relieved after an entire
semester of being under that
pressure.”
In
Classrooms
and
Conversation
“Being one of the only Black
students in the classroom has
happened to me probably every
semester,” Doss said.
This was an experience shared
by all of the Black students
interviewed.
LSA
sophomore
Pascal Casimier said when this
happens with him, he feels
more comfortable when it is
not addressed. He doesn’t want
people to ask him to speak
on behalf of the whole Black
community.
“I feel like in my experience,
a lot of the time it’s better to
not bring up the elephant in the
room,” Casimier said. “In groups
I’m a part of when I’m often the
only Black person there, when
they acknowledge the fact that
I’m the only Black person, that’s
when I feel on the outside of a
group.”
But, even if their Blackness
wasn’t explicitly addressed, many
students felt the effect of their
race on teachers’ and students’
interactions with them. Gilbert
reported one of her teachers
continuously
standing
behind
her and touching her hair during
class. Toombs said a GSI once
refused to answer her question in
office hours, though he answered
every white person whose hand
was
raised.
LSA
sophomore
Sydni Warner said she was once
rejected by students when she
asked to join their group project.
“We were supposed to do a
group work, and I asked to join
a group and they just straight up
told me no,” Warner said. “Didn’t
give me a reason, didn’t give me
any type of explanation.”
Toombs
attributes
this
avoidance of Black students to
fear.
“What I notice, and a lot of my
friends notice is people avoid us
more so than approaching us,”
Toombs said. “Like do you want
to pick me to be your partner in
class. Or if you look uneasy when
I’m walking past you. I notice
people tend to be more afraid of
us, and the only time they really
have anything to say is when
they’re under an influence or
they’re with their friends.”
Other times, though, Hicks
observed how comfortable people
are approaching him and talking
to him about his experiences and
being Black.
“People have come up to me
and if they have some story that
has to do with Black people, they
feel like it’s cool to come up to me
and tell me about how it is being
Black,” Hicks said.
Another assumption people feel
comfortable making is that Black
students are at the University as
athletes. Warner said when she
lived in South Quad Residence
Hall last year, she was constantly
asked if she was an athlete. The
anonymous LSA sophomore said
he was at BTB Burrito recently
when a white woman asked him
if he played on the football team.
Toombs observed Black athletes
are respected by white people in
a way that does not translate to
other Black students.
“It’s funny, white people will
treat Black people like they’re
nothing unless the Black person
is on a sports team,” Toombs said.
“Regular Black man or woman,
your opinion doesn’t matter, if
you sit down in class, I won’t sit
next to you, I don’t want to be
your partner. Any Black athlete,
they’re honestly kissing ass.”
In general, these students said
they are made to feel they don’t
belong at the University, or they
didn’t earn their acceptances
through
their
own
efforts
or
intelligence.
Warner
said
people have told her she was
only accepted to the University
because of affirmative action —
something the University does
not use. Hicks said he still is
met with surprise when he tells
people he attends the University.
“When I got into U-M, anytime
someone found out in my high
school that I knew was a bigot,
they would act all surprised,”
Hicks said. “To this day, people
are like ‘Oh you go to Michigan?’
because I’m a Black man, that’s
something I’ve had to deal with.”
At Parties
Gilbert
attended
fraternity
parties earlier this year, just
trying to relax and have fun
with her friends. But she found
fraternity members and other
white male partygoers reacted
to her presence with hateful,
racist behaviors. She said males
would mimic animal noises in
her direction, pull her hair while
dancing with her or lock eyes with
her while shouting the “n-word”
in songs. In her article, she wrote
about a student asking to dance
with her. When she declined, he
responded, “Fine, I don’t like n---
ers anyway.”
“I feel white men are at this
weird point of fetishizing me but
also hating me, and that comes
out a lot at frat parties,” Gilbert
said. “Which is why I don’t go to
white frat parties anymore. It’s
either
them
hypersexualizing
me or being blatantly aggressive
toward me, or both.”
Other
students
described
similar behavior, if at times less
extreme. Warner said she feels
male students avoid her at parties
and has noticed white fraternity
brothers trying to hook her up
with the only other Black people
in the room. At other times,
though, she found herself being
fetishized with comments like,
“I’ve never hooked up with a
Black girl before.”
Fraternities
already
have
a history of being involved
with high numbers of sexual
misconduct cases, one of the
reasons for their shutdown last
semester, and the fetishizing of
Black women make this issue
even more prevalent for them.
LSA junior Joy Boakye expressed
the difficulties associated with
being a Black woman.
“Identifying as a Black woman
is honestly its own double-edged
sword, because the experiences
of Black men are very different,
and the experiences of non-
Black women are very different,”
Boakye said. “It’s a thing of being
fetishized and hypersexualized,
but also, statistically, receiving
the least romantic interest of
all racial groups for women.
It’s really just a shit show, to be
honest, being a black woman.”
Though
Black
women
especially
are targeted at fraternity parties,
all Black student interviewees
reported feeling unwelcome. The
anonymous LSA sophomore said
during his freshman year, he
and his friends tried to get into a
fraternity party but were told to
wait off to the side. After waiting
over an hour while others entered
the party, they left. McKinney
said she was told by older Black
students not to attend white
fraternity parties for this reason.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, April 10, 2018 — 3
Muruako said.
Muruako got involved with
PILOT through the Big House
Program, which helps selected
prospective
students
from
underrepresented backgrounds
navigate
the
University’s
undergraduate
application
process.
“We
hope
they
get
more
comfortable
having
conversations regarding social
justice so that they’re able to
bridge the gap within their
communities because Detroit is a
very segregated place,” Muruako
said. “A lot of Arab people live in
Dearborn, a lot of Latinx people
are in southwest Detroit and
Black people are throughout
the city, so we hope that these
communities
come
together
rather than just staying in their
own areas.”
Attendee Jennifer Penaloza
is a sophomore at Detroit Cristo
Rey High School. Having never
visited the University before,
Penaloza said she enjoyed the
campus, and the social justice
aspect
of
Dreams2Reality
appealed to her.
“I just joined it because I was
interested in the social justice
part of it,” Penaloza said. “I
thought it would be cool to go and
talk about that stuff with other
people who are interested in it as
well.”
Keynote
speaker
Shawn
Blanchard, a Detroit native and
a University alum, talked to the
group after their campus tour
about achieving financial success.
“Who
wants
to
be
a
millionaire?”
he
asked
the
students. Everyone, including the
PILOT volunteers, raised their
hands. The average millionaire,
he told them, has seven streams
of income.
Blanchard said he has six
streams of income, as an author,
the style adviser of a suit
company, a motivational speaker,
a proprietor of online courses
for aspiring writers, the owner
of a publishing company and the
founder of a fitness movement,
Run This Town/Networkingout.
“So if I ask you what you want
to be, sometimes we can raise our
hand and say one thing, but I’ll
tell you guys this — that doesn’t
have to limit you,” Blanchard
said. “I’ll tell you guys, you guys
can do anything you want to, and
not only can you do anything you
want to, it doesn’t matter where
you’re from either.”
Blanchard said his mother
often had drugs in her system
while she was pregnant with
him, and of his seven brothers,
Blanchard
said,
three
have
passed away and three are
incarcerated. Even as a student at
the University, Blanchard said he
was “very non-traditional.”
“I had to raise my younger
brother myself,” Blanchard said.
“I actually brought him up here
to the University of Michigan,
once he got out of juvenile, that
is. I was here at the University
of
Michigan,
working
three
jobs, raising a younger brother,
had a girlfriend living with me,
majoring in mathematics and
economics … Just like I have
multiple streams of income now,
I had multiple issues that I had to
work through.”
After graduating in 2005,
Blanchard moved to New York
City, earned a master’s degree in
secondary math education and
founded a mentorship program
for young men.He later moved
back to Detroit and Mayor Mike
Duggan appointed him director
of Youth Services in 2014. In the
role, Blanchard oversaw youth
initiatives
and
worked
with
local businesses to created 5,600
summer jobs for young people
in the city. Blanchard has since
received former President Barack
Obama’s Volunteer Community
Service Award and been profiled
by CNN.
“That means no matter what
you’re going through, wherever
you’re from, whatever is going
on at home, at the end of the day
you can do anything, and as I’m
standing here right before you
right now, that’s proof of doing
it,” Blanchard said. “And as you
guys are sitting here right in this
room right now, that’s proof that
you guys can do it, too.”
Student
organizations
have been on the vanguard of
pipelining high schoolers from
underrepresented backgrounds
to the University. While the Go
Blue Guarantee focuses on class
disparities
with
guaranteed
tuition
and
progrmas
like
Wolverine
Pathways
target
specific school districts, PILOT’s
programming
intentionally
recruits students of color, but
from all over the Midwest.
LSA
senior
Antonio
Gallegos told The Daily last
August
the
program
was
instrumental
in
closing
culturally-specific
information
gaps.
“I didn’t even really think
Michigan
was
a
possibility
for me,” he said. I’m a first
generation student so I didn’t
know anything. The Big House
really gave me the resources
necessary to apply and not only
apply, but once I came here even
at my orientation people within
PILOT, the student organization,
were reaching out to me.”
enzymes to perform chemical
reactions.
She
said
this
biocatalysis knowledge could
offer a more sustainable method
of performing experiments. Suh
also worked in a biochemistry
lab researching and examining
how microorganisms in the gut
impact human health.
Suh
said
she
hopes
the
scholarship
will
allow
her
to focus on her research in
graduate school. She hopes to
earn her doctorate in organic
chemistry and go into academia
and research.
“I feel incredibly honored,”
Suh said. “It’s an amazing
opportunity and a prestigious
title to hold … I feel really
thankful to my lab members and
all of those who have supported
me and the University which
has provided me with so many
research opportunities.”
LSA junior Noah McNeal,
a scholarship recipient, works
with
high
energy
particle
physics and filling in the gaps of
the Standard Model of physics.
He is studying in the KOTO Lab,
working specifically in the decay
of kaon particles.
“The
problems
we
want
to solve in physics are tough
questions that we don’t have any
answers to,” McNeal said. “They
are fundamental and concern
why we exist, how we exist and
how this universe is piece-by-
piece; we can understand the
fuller picture.”
McNeal began his research as
a freshman in UROP and hopes
to continue working with the
lab and write a thesis. He plans
to go to graduate school to study
physics and go into a career as a
physics researcher.
McNeal said he has spent
a long time working on this
application for the Goldwater
Scholarship and has learned
more about himself and his
career path through this process.
“I am elated,” McNeal said.
“I have been working on it all of
fall semester so getting to this
point was something that … has
been incredibly rewarding. The
inward thinking I’ve done and
the introspective thinking about
my future and my career goals
has been invigorating and I feel
that I am on a career path and
line of work that suits me.”
Engineering
senior
Eric
Winsor, the fourth recipient,
won the scholarship for his
work in mathematics. According
to
Dyson,
the
Mathematics
Department has had at least one
Goldwater Scholarship recipient
every year since 2002.
PILOT
From Page 1
DISCRIMINATION
From Page 1
SCHOLARSHIP
From Page 2
But the attack on Douma
was in a way kind of a wake-up
call, a reminder that we have a
responsibility, so it definitely
motivated this protest.”
Rackham
student
Nusayba
Tabbah, one of the organizers of
the event, agreed with Alsubee
that
complicity
is
an
issue,
especially when a conflict has
been going on for a long time.
“Even last year, there were
chemical attacks on civilians, and
for a while, people acted outraged,
but eventually nobody cared,”
Tabbah said. “I kind of felt like it
was a cycle, and when I saw it on
the news again yesterday, I felt
helpless feeling like I couldn’t do
anything about it.”
In an attempt to combat this
feeling of helplessness, Tabbah
said she and a few friends got
together to bring the conflict
back to the forefront through the
action. By putting the names on
the Diag, she hoped to humanize
the conflict again and make people
realize real lives were being lost.
Alsubee hoped by writing the
names on the ground in the Diag,
students would recognize as they
went through their mundane
tasks, they were stepping on the
names of people who could no
longer go through these types of
mundane activities.
“There was an intended shock
value that we were going for,”
Alsubee said. “You’re on your
way to class, you’re doing such a
mundane activity and on your way
there you’re stepping on names of
people who died.”
LSA sophomore Layla Hak,
who also participated in the
demonstration,
felt
it
was
necessary to demonstrate in a
public area to inspire people to
take action.
“People don’t talk about it
enough, so I think that if it’s in a
very public arena, it will cause
people to start talking and maybe
take action,” Hak said. “It’s so
easy to just donate and raise your
voice about it.”
Alsubee said he thought the
demonstration’s humanization of
the statistics was important, and
he felt it made it easier for him to
relate to the victims, though the
conflict is something he has been
thinking about for a long time.
“A big part of why the idea
specifically intrigued me was
that it’s a lot more focused on the
individual lives because we’re
writing their names, and the idea
that behind all of those names
there are people who had lives and
stories and passions and dreams,
just like you and me,” Alsubee
said. “All my life I’ve known about
what’s happening in Syria, and all
my life it has affected me a lot, but
writing down those names, I was
like ‘wow, a lot of those names
resemble my name, and my name
could’ve been down there.’”
However, at the same time,
Alsubee said he found the students’
reception of the demonstration to
be ironic, given that many people
seemed to walk past with nothing
more than a glance.
“There’s kind of an irony to
the fact that a lot of people didn’t
care,” Alsubee said. “They just
kept walking, or if anything
they shot a small glance. A lot
of people did care, they did ask
what we were doing, and maybe
they stopped in the center to read
what those names were, but it’s a
little ironic to me that people keep
going through their mundane
daily lives, while at the same time
stepping on the names of people
who weren’t capable of going
through their daily lives.”
SYRIA
From Page 1
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MichiganDaily.com
has created for herself, then my
career will be more successful
than I could ever imagine,” he
said.
Levitsky began her lecture
by
discussing
her
journey
to becoming a teacher. She
explained
how
she
initially
disdained academia, but after
pursuing a law degree, realized
she enjoyed being in front
of students and tackling big
questions about social issues.
While Levitsky recognized
the difficulty of the subject, she
also noted the power which
could come from sociology.
“If you peel back all of the
depression in sociology, our
social science rests on a core of
optimism, and I believe there
is tremendous power in that
optimism,” Levitsky said. “And
I’m not talking about emotional
power or psychological power,
I’m talking about real political
power.”
Levitsky
gave
two
examples
of
ways
audience
members could study social
change:
understanding
what
drives a social problem and
understanding the status quo.
To look at an example of the
former,
Levitsky
cited
the
racial inequalities against the
Black community in regards to
police drug searches and in the
criminal justice system over the
past 50 years.
“The criminalization of the
African-American
community
is one area that has gotten
worse over time, it hasn’t even
stayed the same over the past
half-century,
it
has
gotten
worse, and it is a particularly
insidious problem because there
is a self-reinforcing nature to it,”
Levitsky said. “We know that
racial stereotypes play a role
in the criminalization of the
Black community but locking
up the Black community only
contributes to the stereotype
that Black people are criminals.”
To understand the influence
of the status quo when looking
at
social
change,
Levitsky
offered
the
instance
of
the #MeToomovement. While
she acknowledged the impact of
the recent activism, Levitsky also
pointed out this was not the only
time in U.S. history where sexual
harassment issues have been
brought to the national forefront.
She also noted the common
themes of powerful predators,
and how fear of repercussions
cause many survivors of sexual
assault to remain silent.
“Through
sociology,
we
know power works in different
ways, and (in) many cases
involving
sexual
misconduct
and employment, power is based
on dependence,” Levitsky said.
“But there are other more subtle
dimensions to power that are at
work here too, and one of these is
the capacity of power to silence
people.”
According
to
Levitsky,
sociology shows how silence
maintain
the
status
quo
because it can cause persecuted
individuals to withdraw from
political and social spheres.
She also said social change
can occur when the status quo
is disrupted, and highlighted
some
parallels
between
the #NeverAgain movement and
the 1980’s Act-Up Movement —
which she sees as one of the most
concrete victories for activism.
APPLE
From Page 1
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