Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Tuesday, April 10, 2018

F

rom the ages of three 
to 17, dance was my 
“thing” — my 

primary 
after-

school activity, my 
source of exercise, 
my creative outlet. 
Though 
I 
never 

intended to dance 
professionally, 
my 

experiences with the 
discipline have had 
an enormous impact 
on me. I committed 
hours upon hours each week 
to ballet, tap, jazz and modern 
styles as a child and teenager.

While 
dance 
gave 
me 

strength, 
flexibility, 
balance, 

an artistic way to express 
myself, 
incredible 
memories 

and a powerful sense of focus, 
it also reinforced a mentality of 
perfectionism that I have since 
found hard to shake. And while 
dance isn’t completely to blame 
for these thought patterns in 
me, they have certainly gone 
hand in hand.

In ballet — which is often 

described as the foundation of 
all dance — you aim essentially 
to achieve perfection: perfect 
posture, perfect body placement 
and perfect lines. Dancers contort 
themselves 
into 
unnatural 

positions to create this illusion by 
turning their hips, legs and feet 
out, dancing “en pointe” (on their 
toes), etc. Though ballet demands 
an ideal nearly impossible to 
achieve, dancer training can act 
as a kind of journey to hover ever 
closer to that perfect, seemingly 
effortless performance.

Growing up, I would use 

my 
dance 
studio’s 
floor-to-

ceiling mirrors to examine the 
technical and physical minutiae 
of my positions and self-adjust 
constantly. 
Teachers 
would 

give 
constructive 
criticisms 

of dancers’ movements every 
few seconds and occasionally 
comment 
on 
our 
bodies. 

We’d rehearse each piece of 
choreography to death leading 
up to end-of-year performances 
and compete with one another 
for coveted lead roles.

Since 
coming 
to 
the 

University of Michigan, I’ve 
continued to pursue perfection, 
which had felt so salient in my 
years as a dancer. And I’ve noticed 
similar 
thought 
patterns 
of 

perfectionism, overachievement 

and competitiveness in many of 
my classmates. It seems natural 

in 
the 
environment 

here. 
Our 
role 
as 

college students at a 
top university asks 
us to constantly work 
toward high grades 
in our classes and 
involve ourselves in 
the 
“best” 
possible 

extracurricular 
activities, 
jobs 
and 

internships.

This 
forward-looking, 

overachieving approach is often 
thought of as an important 
component 
to 
developing 

perseverance, 
discipline 
and 

drive. The University implicitly 
encourages 
perfectionism 

through deeming its students 
the “Leaders and Best.” But 
I’ve found it difficult to sever 
my perfectionistic approach to 
my work from other aspects of 
my life — to put the cycles of 
self-critique that come with 
perfectionism on pause and 
just be.

I stopped dancing when 

I came to the University. I 
explored 
different 
interests, 

focused on academics and found 
my place on campus. Unlike 
in dance, I can’t measure my 
success in college by the height 
of my jumps or the precision of 
my turns — seeing my progress 
laid out in the mirror in front 
of me — but I still began to 
consistently judge my work in 
other ways, striving toward 
earning 
typical 
benchmarks 

of achievement like As and 
internships.

At the same time, in focusing 

on other aspects of my life, I 
wound up spending two years 
lacking 
a 
regular 
exercise 

routine, trying to squeeze in 
time for late-night visits to the 
gym 
and 
feeling 
completely 

disconnected from my body. On 
a whim the summer after my 
sophomore year of college, I 
bought an unlimited summer 
package at a yoga studio a 
few minutes away from my 
Chicago apartment.

And though I didn’t enter 

that studio intending to find 
anything more than a regular 
class schedule for workouts, 
practicing 
yoga 
seriously 

changed my relationship with 
myself. It helped me begin to 
unwind the years of conditioning 
that motivated me to sacrifice 
my well-being in pursuit of 
achievement. Since taking it up, 
I have not only been able to find 
strength, flexibility and most 
other benefits of dance, but I also 
surprised myself by creating a 
small space to shed my inclination 
to yearn for perfection.

The rooms of the studios 

where 
I’ve 
practiced 
are 

mirrorless. 
There’s 
no 

performance at the end of the 
year to look to. Movement 
is appreciated for the sake 
of movement and not for an 
audience. No one competes with 
you, and you don’t even compete 
with 
yourself. 
Process 
and 

presence are valued. Teachers 
correct you only to prevent 
injury or suggest a deeper 
expression of a pose. There’s no 
such thing as a perfect pose. You 
meet each class with what you 
have, and it’s enough.

Through yoga, I’ve sought 

a sense of daily presence and 
acceptance of things as they 
are. And while I get this feeling 
through 
exercise, 
I 
truly 

believe exploring any space 
and taking any regular time 
to cultivate acceptance of our 
present 
selves 
is 
absolutely 

paramount to success in college. 
Various facets of our lives may 
take unexpected twists and 
turns, and perfection doesn’t 
truly exist. In an environment 
where 
overachieving 
is 
the 

norm and where individual 
accomplishment is idealized, 
we must take time to separate 
our worth from our résumé and 
from our work.

Shedding perfectionism

STEPHANIE TRIERWEILER | COLUMN

Stephanie Trierweiler can be 

reached at strier@umich.edu.

Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz

Samantha Goldstein

Elena Hubbell
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram

Jeremy Kaplan

Sarah Khan

Lucas Maiman

Magdalena Mihaylova

Ellery Rosenzweig

Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury

Alex Satola
Ali Safawi

 Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger

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The truth behind your sandwich

CARLI COSENZA | COLUMN

I

magine this. It’s lunchtime. 
You’ve just had a busy 
morning of class and now 

have an hour before 
your 
next 
lecture. 

Since you’re feeling 
hungry, you decide to 
walk to the Michigan 
Union 
to 
grab 
a 

bite to eat. Stomach 
grumbling, you head 
downstairs 
to 
the 

basement, which has 
a variety of fast-food 
options. You’re in the 
mood 
for 
chicken, 

which is perfect because there’s 
a Wendy’s right past the bottom 
of the stairs. You walk up to 
the register and place your 
order: a spicy chicken sandwich 
($4.69), 
medium-sized 
fries 

($1.99) and a small soft drink 
($1.69). The total amount that 
you pay for your meal adds up to 
approximately $8.37. Pleased by 
the low price and quick service, 
you walk away excited to eat, 
oblivious to the fact that the 
price you just paid for your meal 
is more than a worker’s daily 
wage at the farm where Wendy’s 
gets its tomatoes.

Two 
weeks 
ago, 
nearly 

100 
farmworkers 
and 
their 

allies held a protest in New 
York City outside the office of 
Trian Partners. Nelson Peltz is 
the chairman of the Wendy’s 
Board of Directors and CEO of 
Trian Partners, Wendy’s largest 
shareholder. 
The 
protesters 

stood outside Peltz’s office for 
five days, during which they 
fasted to call attention to the 
human rights abuses toward 
farmworkers that have been 
occurring for decades in the 
Wendy’s 
supply 
chain 
and 

protested the fact that Wendy’s 
hasn’t signed a binding Fair 
Food Agreement.

Wendy’s is one of the five 

major 
food 
corporations 
in 

the United States, along with 
fast 
food 
forerunners 
like 

McDonald’s and Burger King. 
On its website, the company 
boasts about its workers: “From 
our headquarters to the amazing 
employees in every location, 
we like to think of Wendy’s 
as a big family.” However, the 
reality of how Wendy’s treats 
its employees — specifically 
the farmworkers who produce 
the 
company’s 
supply 
of 

“hand-chopped tomatoes” — is 
astonishingly different. It is time 
that consumers boycott Wendy’s.

Now, 
imagine 
something 

different. You’re 14 years old, 
living in one of the poorest 
regions of southwestern Mexico. 
According 
to 
Mexican 
law, 

you’re too young to be employed. 
But the law doesn’t apply to 
you because the only thing 
that matters is that you are 
meeting quota. Who are you? 
You’re a farmworker in a labor 
camp for a company called 
Bioparques 
de 
Occidente, 

which 
is 
a 
major 
tomato 

grower. It produces as many as 
6 million boxes of tomatoes for 
the U.S. market each year and 
is also a supplier of tomatoes 

for Wendy’s. That’s right, the 
same tomatoes that are found 
on a spicy chicken sandwich.

As a farmworker 

in the labor camp, 
you 
sleep 
head-

to-toe with other 
workers on concrete 
floors. You’re forced 
to protect yourself 
from 
scorpions 

and bedbugs. Each 
morning, 
you 

receive a stack of 
tortillas 
that 
is 

supposed 
to 
last 

you throughout the day, which 
will be spent picking, sorting 
and carrying heavy buckets of 
tomatoes in 90-degree heat. 
You have to work quickly. If 
you don’t fill a minimum of 
60 buckets with tomatoes, 
then you will not receive 
your pay for the day, which is 
100 pesos, or the equivalent 
of approximately eight U.S. 
dollars. 
Conditions 
are 

miserable. You just want to 
be at home playing with your 
siblings. But you cannot stop 
working or attempt escape 
from the labor camp because 
you’re afraid of what your 
bosses will do to you. Last 
week, another field worker 
asked for extra tortillas for her 
children and was threatened 
with a slap from her boss. 
The memory — and fear from 
witnessing the threat — is still 
fresh in your mind.

These are the conditions 

that hundreds of farmworkers 
have been forced to live 
under for decades, as major 
American corporations like 
Wendy’s 
have 
outsourced 

their labor costs to camps 
like Bioparques de Occidente 
in other countries. In 2014, 
a federal investigation was 
launched against Bioparques 
de 
Occidente 
after 
a 

successful escapee reported 
the abusive conditions to 
authorities. 
The 
company 

was found to have violated 
health and labor laws and was 
ordered to pay a $700,000 
fine.

Once information from the 

investigation reached other 
field workers and farmers 
across North America, they 
decided to take action and 
form the Fair Foods Program, 
which is composed of farmers, 
farmworkers and retail food 
companies. 
The 
widely-

acclaimed, uniquely successful 
organization seeks to raise 
awareness about and provide 
humane wages and working 

conditions for farmworkers, 
along with giving them a 
representative voice. The FFP 
has received recognition from 
major organizations and its 
efforts were even recognized 
by the White House in 2013.

Today, 
the 
FFP 
has 

partnered with almost all 
of the major food retailers 
and fast food restaurants, 
including 
Chipotle, 
Burger 

King, Trader Joe’s, Subway 
and 
McDonalds. 
But 
not 

Wendy’s. In fact, in response 
to 
pressure 
to 
join 
the 

FFP, Wendy’s retaliated. It 
abandoned its longtime Florida 
tomato supplier and shifted its 
purchases to Bioparques in 
Mexico in support of a work 
environment 
derived 
from 

fear, violence and corruption. 
Furthermore, 
Wendy’s 

released a modified supplier 
code of conduct that contains 
“no 
effective 
mechanisms 

for 
worker 
participation 

or 
enforcement,” 
despite 

Bioparques’s proven history of 
human rights violations.

In October 2016, Wendy’s 

released 
a 
statement 

regarding 
its 
relationship 

with Bioparques: “We are 
quite happy with the quality 
and taste of the tomatoes we 
are sourcing from Mexico.” 
But what about the quality of 
life for the workers who picked 
the tomatoes with their bare 
hands so that consumers across 
the continent can enjoy a spicy 
chicken sandwich that costs the 
equivalent of a day’s salary?

Personally, I can’t eat a 

sandwich knowing that the 
process to make it consciously 
violates human rights law. I 
cannot eat tomatoes that were 
picked by the hands of an 
underage child in a labor camp 
that doesn’t even provide beds 
for its workers. Furthermore, 
I cannot support a company 
that knowingly perpetuates 
human rights abuses in order 
to have a cost advantage over 
its competitors. And I cannot 
support 
a 
company 
that’s 

board of directors has the 
information and power to end 
the violent conditions forced 
upon its farmworkers but 
refuses to take meaningful 
action to end it even though 
a viable solution (the FFP) is 
right at its fingertips.

The 
five-day 
fast 
in 

Manhattan was only a small 
fraction of the hunger pains 
felt by Wendy’s farmworkers 
at Bioparques de Occidente 
labor camp. But as consumers, 
we can make an impact too. If 
enough informed consumers 
boycott Wendy’s, then maybe 
the Board of Directors will 
be forced to acknowledge the 
inhumanity of their behavior. 
It is time for Wendy’s to 
follow through with its “big 
family” ideals. Until then, I 
boycott Wendy’s, and I think 
that the rest of us should too.

Carli Cosenza can be reached at 

carlic@umich.edu.

I can’t eat a sandwich 

knowing that the 
process to make it 
consciously violates 
human rights law. 

I can’t measure 
my success in 
college by the 
height of my 
jumps or the 

precision of my 

turns.

KARUNA NANDKUMAR | OP-ED

O

n March 24, University 
of Michigan students 
marched for their lives. 

In January 2017 and 2018, 
thousands of college students 
marched for the protection 
of their rights and diversity. 
Now, imagine if those 4 million 
citizens gathered throughout 
the country in protest had been 
gunned down.

This is essentially what 

occurred six years ago in 
Syria. The violent response to 
a peaceful 2011 uprising against 
President 
Bashar 
al-Assad 

spiraled into a civil war that 
has 
killed 
and 
displaced 

millions. The situation is not 
improving. On March 27, the 
U.N. Emergency Coordinator 
Mark Lowcock reported that 
“the last few months have 
been some of the worst yet 
for 
many 
civilians 
inside 

Syria.” The Syrian conflict 
displays a detrimental failure 
of international cooperation. 
However, the innovative use 
of international law will be 
necessary to achieve peace 
and reconciliation.

The past six years make 

it easy to become a cynic. 
Negotiations 
have 
been 

unsuccessful, 
because 
the 

rebels will not stop fighting 
until the seemingly impossible 
abdication 
of 
the 
Syrian 

government. To complicate the 
situation, major world powers 
have become involved. Russian 
interference has shifted the 
balance of power in favor of 
the government. The Syrian 
opposition, trained by the U.S. 
and Turkey, maintains faith 
that international law lies in 
their favor. The U.N. has, 
in fact, passed resolutions 
that “reiterate the need for 
political 
transition.” 
The 

question is whether we can 
overcome the bureaucracy of 
international law.

Both sides have committed 

war crimes and crimes against 
humanity, including torture, 
use of chemical weapons and 
violence 
against 
civilians. 

Human 
Rights 
Watch 
has 

collected enough evidence to 
ensure the delivery of justice in 
international tribunals. First, 
however, we must create these 
tribunals. In a perfect world, 
the U.S. or another power 
could submit the case to the 
International Criminal Court, 
but Syria is not a member of 
the ICC, and would probably 
not be willing to join anytime 
soon. The only body with the 
power to authorize the use of 
the ICC for a non-member state 
or create an ad hoc tribunal 
is the U.N. Security Council. 
When the UNSC referred the 
case to the ICC in 2014, the 
resolution was vetoed by Russia 
and China.

Though the situation seems 

hopeless, 
International 
Law 

Specialist Nicholas Koumjian 
would disagree. In his recent 
lecture 
at 
the 
University, 

Koumjian 
insisted 
upon 

the 
value 
of 
international 

justice, even if it comes at a 
slow pace and high economic 
cost. 
International 
justice 

has tangible benefits, such as 
satisfaction for the victims 
and 
deterrence 
of 
future 

crimes. Victims of the Bosnian 
genocide confirmed that the 
punishment of even a few guilty 
persons can restore a sense of 
the righteousness of the world.

We 
must 
renew 
the 

search for an international 
solution to the Syrian crisis. 
Every additional hour of war 
indicates 
increased 
human 

rights violations, U.S. dollars 
spent on airstrikes and refugees 
flooding the shores of Europe. 
Universal jurisdiction or the 
prosecution of Russia could 
provide short-term relief.

The principle of universal 

jurisdiction upholds the ideal 

that national courts charge 
individuals 
with 
crimes 

against international law. An 
uninvolved 
state, 
therefore, 

could 
potentially 
convict 

criminals fleeing the Syrian 
conflict. If the United States 
or another power was truly 
determined, it could also charge 
Russia, an ICC member, with 
involvement in international 
crimes. Russia recently lost its 
seat on the U.N. Human Rights 
Council. While these are both 
feasible options, realistically 
immense 
exterior 
pressure 

would be required to convince 
states to take actions that could 
jeopardize relationships with 
Russia and China.

No matter what occurs, 

it is imperative that a peace 
agreement outlines a framework 
for judicial proceedings that 
address perpetrators on both 
sides of the conflict. Bilateral 
tribunals will inevitably result 
in the removal of the Assad 
regime. 
Syrian 
survivors 

insist that peace cannot come 
without justice. The crimes 
of the regime are too broad 
to be ignored. International 
or 
hybrid 
courts 
should 

also 
operate 
close 
to 
the 

community to assist in the 
restorative process.

In the long-term, the UNSC 

should be reformed to prevent 
abuses of veto powers that 
impede the protection of human 
rights. 
The 
international 

legal system is still a work 
in 
progress. 
As 
Koumjian 

concluded, 
international 

justice is not perfect, but it’s 
better than nothing. In the 
case of Syria, it can make 
the difference between the 
continuation of a catastrophic 
conflict and the transition to a 
brighter future.

Stuck in Syria

Karuna Nandkumar is an LSA 

freshman.

CARLI 

COSENZA

STEPHANIE 

TRIERWEILER

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