Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Thursday, April 12, 2018

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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Reflections on bargain jargon

ISAIAH ZEAVIN-MOSS | COLUMN

ERIK NESLER | COLUMN

J

ournalists 
Mary 
Jordan 
and Scott Clement of The 
Washington Post recently 
wrote a piece on the surge of 
political activism experienced 
throughout 
the 
nation 
in 
response to the Donald Trump 
presidency. 
The 
two 
wrote, 
“One in five Americans have 
protested in the streets or 
participated in political rallies 
since the beginning of 2016. 
Of those, 19 percent said they 
had 
never 
before 
joined 
a 
march or a political gathering.” 
This 
involvement 
is 
both 
unprecedented and inspiring. It 
is also absolutely necessary if we 
want to change the status quo. 
Jordan and Clement attribute 
much of this activism to Trump. 
Whether they love or hate him, 
Americans are playing more 
active roles in our democracy. 
People are actually caring. Even 
if you’re unhappy with Trump, 
something good may come out 
of his presidency.
As I began writing this 
column, I couldn’t help but 
think of a piece written by 
Co-Editorial Page Editor Anu 
Roy-Chaudhury in September 
2016 titled “Maybe we needed 
a Trump.” Though she wrote 
the 
piece 
before 
Trump 
was elected, I believe her 
arguments have become more 
and more relevant with time. 
Roy-Chaudhury 
discussed 
how 
the 
Trump 
candidacy 
had, 
to 
a 
certain 
extent, 
given a voice to previously 
uninvolved 
Americans. 
Trump 
garnered 
significant 
support during the election by 
shining a light on this group 
of individuals — specifically 
people who felt cheated by the 

political 
establishment 
after 
experiencing 
great 
hardship 
as a result of the advancing 
economy. These members of our 
society, who Roy-Chaudhury 
properly labeled “neighbors,” 
deserve to be heard.
Since the election, people 
have turned to books like 
“Hillbilly Elegy” by J.D. Vance 
in an attempt to understand 
what life is like for these 
displaced 
Americans. 
Vance 
gives us a slight glimpse into the 
lives of this highly marginalized 
group of individuals. Even if 
you disagree with their political 
ideologies and beliefs, it is 
important to be aware of what 
our neighbors are feeling.
However, Trump has given 
more than just this group a 
voice. He has prompted all sorts 
of people to speak their mind 
and 
become 
more 
involved 
in 
politics. 
The 
Women’s 
March, a protest that sprung 
up 
immediately 
following 
Trump’s inauguration and has 
become a global phenomenon, 
is a powerful force advocating 
not only for women’s rights 
and gender equality but also 
for racial equality and LGBTQ 
rights. The recent March for 
Our Lives demonstrations that 
called for tighter gun control 
also 
reveal 
the 
heightened 
political activism experienced 
throughout the nation.
Protesting is one way people 
are showing their discontent 
with the current status quo. 
Deciding to attend may seem 
trivial, but protests can have 
lasting 
effects: 
Suffragists 
marched for the passage of the 
19th amendment, and protesters 
pushed along the Civil Rights 

movement. 
People 
are 
also 
taking more behind-the-scenes 
political action by contributing 
to or volunteering for certain 
campaigns. I volunteered for a 
local campaign my first year at 
the University of Michigan, and 
it was one of the most rewarding 
experiences I have had in my 
undergraduate career. You don’t 
need to be out protesting to 
make a difference.
The 
Trump 
presidency 
has 
also 
prompted 
an 
unprecedented 
number 
of 
women to run for seats in the 
House 
of 
Representatives 
in 
this 
upcoming 
midterm 
election; there are currently 
548 female candidates that will 
be campaigning in the coming 
months. Despite making up 
just over half of the population, 
women make up only 20 percent 
of Congress. I hope this surge 
in 
the 
number 
of 
women 
candidates can bring about a 
more balanced Congress. 
Though 
I 
disapprove 
of 
Trump, 
I 
acknowledge 
his 
presidency may be advantageous 
to our democracy in the long run. 
We need more and more people 
getting 
involved 
politically, 
especially 
considering 
that 
40 percent of eligible voters 
haven’t voted in the most recent 
presidential elections.
Instead of sitting idly by for 
another election, Trump has 
motivated scores of people to 
take action to change the status 
quo. Maybe Trump isn’t so bad 
after all. To echo Anu Roy-
Chaudhury, maybe we needed 
a Trump. 

Erik Nesler can be reached at 

egnesler@umich.edu.

I

write this on Monday, April 
9, the day that the Lecturers’ 
Employee Organization was 
initially going to begin its work 
strike, protesting the University 
of 
Michigan’s 
hypocrisy 
and greed in their ongoing 
bargaining negotiations.
Before I provide my take on 
this movement, with which I have 
become pretty involved over the past 
several weeks, I want to provide some 
statistics. Right now, the minimum 
salary for a lecturer is $34,500 in 
Ann Arbor, $28,300 in Dearborn 
and $27,300 in Flint. Lecturers 
frequently work second and third 
jobs — as baristas, Uber drivers or 
teachers at other schools — to make 
a livable wage.
On Feb. 12, in its first salary 
counterproposal, the University 
offered a $1,000 increase in 2019, a 
$750 increase in 2020 and a $500 
increase in 2021. On March 23, in 
its second counterproposal, the 
University offered to increase 
minimum salaries by $2,000 in 
2019 and 2020, providing 2.25 
percent annual raises over three 
years in Ann Arbor, but giving 
nothing at all to lecturers already 
making 
above 
the 
minimum 
salaries. Finally, in its third 
counterproposal March 28, the 
University offered a $5500 starting 
salary increase for lecturers only 
in Ann Arbor, while offering no 
new negotiations for either of the 
University’s other two campuses.
And then, last night, the 
University 
offered 
a 
$10,000 
increase in minimum salary wages 
in Ann Arbor and a $7,500 increase 
in Dearborn and Flint. This was the 
most significant movement with 
respect to salary so far, so LEO 
decided not to strike and to continue 
bargaining, with the hopes that they 
now have the necessary momentum 
to move forward.
I provide this timeline to 
convince 
you 
of 
one 
crucial 
fact: The University’s ostensibly 
benevolent move Sunday night was 
not anything besides it realizing it 
cannot continue to disrespect its 
lecturers. A strike would make bad 
optics at this school, which loves 
more than anything else to tout 
its legacies and its traditions, as it 
prepares to celebrate the annual 
Commencement ceremonies. This 

shift in the bargaining only took 
place because of the tireless efforts 
of LEO and its allies who have 
consistently 
packed 
bargaining 
rooms and organized a substantial 
campaign effort on all three U-M 
campuses. Please, in trying to 
understand why this happened, 
focus on the grassroots work that 
has happened to force the hands of 
our administrators.
Now, a few reflections on my 
experiences as an ally working 
with 
LEO. 
These 
bargaining 
meetings are incredible affairs to 
take part in. Here’s why: The work 
going on at the bargaining table is 
extremely boring. We, the allies — 
lecturers, people’s families, etc. — 
sit in chairs set up for us with our 
computers and notebooks in hand, 
passing the time, looking up now 
and then to see what’s going on, 
feeling frustrated that we cannot 
hear anything or, even when we 
can, that we cannot understand 
the bargain jargon, inhaling a 
rush of body odor pouring off 
of us in this humid, disgusting 
room, wondering why someone 
can’t just open a window and 
then ultimately returning to our 
homework with a wry smile as we 
look around at all of the friends 
with whom we sit, knowing we 
are in solidarity, knowing we are 
on the right side of history.
My 
experiences 
at 
these 
bargaining meetings — along with 
the gradual progress the various 
grassroots protest demonstrations 
have created — have furthermore 
taught me another crucial fact: 
Protest is often boring. It often 
takes place in crowded, sweaty 
rooms where nothing is officially 
happening. Where the task is to 
wait — nothing glamorous or loud 
or spectacular to show for it. Just 
a bunch of smelly people crowded 
together in a bland, fluorescently lit 
room who have decided to attend 
this meeting out of a sense that how 
we treat our lecturers represents 
how this University, in practice 
— as opposed to all of the chit-
chat about the Leaders and Best 
— fosters inclusive, egalitarian, 
participatory community.
Family 
members 
shared 
stories about why they need their 
spouses to earn more money 
for 
their 
newly-born 
child. 

Tenured professors offered heart-
wrenching 
testimonies 
about 
their colleagues. Students whose 
University experiences have been 
fundamentally 
transformed 
by 
lecturers told their own stories. 
And, of course, lecturers themselves 
described the everyday struggles 
into which the University has 
forced them.
For 
all 
skeptics 
of 
this 
movement, I suggest going to an 
open bargaining meeting. I suggest 
speaking to these lecturers and 
their allies about this movement, 
about what it means to them. I 
suggest hearing their stories, so as 
to humanize the people whose lives 
are at stake.
This is my last column for The 
Daily, because I’m graduating in a 
few weeks, and I would just like to 
say these experiences have made me 
proud to be part of this community. 
They’ve taught me education does 
not need a classroom or a university 
to support it; in fact, these deeply 
educational experiences have taken 
place as a university specifically 
tries to suppress them.
We 
can 
make 
our 
own 
education in small, unexpected 
(humid, 
sweaty) 
pockets. 
We 
can form our own communities, 
working against or outside of any 
institutional affiliation. It seems 
like this is the direction life heads 
toward now: finding solidarity 
and community on our own terms, 
knowing it can take place and grow 
in surprising ways and places.
Living life curiously, open to 
this possibility. It all comes back 
to perception: As Henry David 
Thoreau wrote, “I know of no 
more encouraging fact than the 
unquestionable ability of (a person) 
to elevate (their) life by conscious 
endeavor.”
Join a movement you believe 
in, invest in the community that 
movement creates, look around 
and, despite the sweat and the 
humidity and the stubborn, cruel 
administrators trying to stamp you 
out, that community will not falter. 
And you will grow into yourself, as 
an individual, as a social being, as a 
thinker and a writer and a citizen of 
the world, all the time.

Isaiah Zeavin-Moss can be reached 

at izeavinm@umich.edu.

Maybe Trump isn’t so bad

KRYSTAL HUR | COLUMN

Emasculation and “yellow fever”
A

s 
children, 
my 
friends 
and I used to watch TV 
shows, usually produced 
by 
Nickelodeon 
and 
Disney 
Channel. Some of our favorites 
included “Hannah Montana” and 
“Drake and Josh.” We idolized the 
characters and the actors who 
played them, and, of course, with 
such media consumption came 
childhood crushes. From what I 
remember, glossy posters of teenage 
heartthrobs Jesse McCartney and 
Justin Bieber covered many girls’ 
bedroom walls. The “Twilight” 
craze that came later resulted in 
perhaps one of the most talked 
about debates for not just teenagers, 
but all fans of the franchise: Team 
Edward or Team Jacob?
However, as far as I can 
remember, there were no Asian 
characters, other than the occasional 
extra who served a role that fulfilled 
stereotypes, such as a “math nerd.” 
There 
certainly 
wasn’t 
anyone 
worthy of having a crush on.
This kind of limited and often 
flat portrayal of Asians bolsters the 
message that all Asians are damned to 
be “nerdy” and weak. This depiction 
of Asians aligns with a general 
consensus in American society that 
Asian people are not attractive, or 
are attractive for reasons rooted in 
disgusting and untrue stereotypes. 
These messages are not only false 
but perpetuate harmful stereotypes 
about Asians that homogenize them. 
Interestingly enough, Asian men 
and Asian women are defined by 
differing stereotypes, with Asian 
men often emasculated and Asian 
women fetishized.
Steve Harvey mocked Asian men 
on his talk show in early 2017 by first 
stating no woman would ever want 
to date a man of Asian descent and 
then asking, “You like Asian men? I 
don’t even like Chinese food, boy. It 
don’t stay with you no time. I don’t 
eat what I can’t pronounce.” He later 
apologized for his comments on 
Twitter, claiming the “humor was not 
meant with any malice or disrespect 
whatsoever.” It’s interesting to note 
he believed stating that all men of 
Asian descent are not attractive 
would not be offensive. Is it so deeply 
ingrained in society that Asian men 

are not attractive that it’s not even 
considered to be offensive to joke 
about it? Obviously, that’s not the 
case for everyone, since Harvey’s joke 
received backlash for its insensitivity.
In a New York Times op-ed 
titled “Hey, Steve Harvey, Who Says 
I Might Not Steal Your Girl?” Eddie 
Huang, the writer of TV series “Fresh 
Off the Boat,” wrote, “Attractiveness 
is a very haphazard dish that can’t be 
boiled down to height or skin color, 
but Asian men are told that regardless 
of what the idyllic mirepoix is or isn’t, 
we just don’t have the ingredients.” 
He further discussed how after 
hearing Harvey’s jokes, he “told 
(himself) that it was all a lie, but the 
structural emasculation of Asian men 
in all forms of media became a self-
fulfilling prophecy that produced an 
actual abhorrence to Asian men in 
the real world.”
In 
contrast, 
Asian 
women 
are fetishized for their supposed 
heightened femininity, and such 
a perception has birthed the term 
“yellow fever.” Yellow fever is when 
men, often Caucasian, have a strong 
sexual preference for East Asian 
women. This offensive exoticization 
of Asian women can be seen both 
in media and in everyday life: the 
musical “Miss Saigon,” which depicts 
a tragic love story between a white 
U.S. GI and Kim, a South Vietnamese 
bar girl, supports stereotypes that 
Asian women are docile and weak. 
Tim Teeman reveals in “Sexism, 
Race and the Mess of ‘Miss Saigon’ 
on Broadway” Kim is represented 
as a woman who lacks agency, 
stating “Kim’s solo songs … are ones 
of sacrifice and the impossibility of 
dreams or love being fulfilled. She 
is often lying down, looking up and 
cowering. The one moment where 
she takes action against a villain 
gets a resounding cheer — and she 
is only then protecting her son.” 
Kim’s depiction in “Miss Saigon” 
exemplifies widespread beliefs in 
America that while Asian women can 
be beautiful, their beauty only comes 
from their supposed weakness and 
ability to “take care” of others.
Such characterizations affect 
Asian women in everyday life, and 
these effects are not limited to the 
United States. In an article from 

the British paper The Telegraph 
titled “‘Yellow fever’ fetish: Why 
do so many white men want to date 
a Chinese woman?” writer Yuan 
Ren explains how she is affected by 
stereotypes. She writes, “I’ve heard 
my Caucasian friends recommend 
to their male, single mates that they 
should date ‘nice Chinese girls,’ 
with the added bonus that Chinese 
women are far more sexually open-
minded 
than 
Caucasian 
girls.” 
She also mentions one interaction, 
writing, “One acquaintance told me 
in wonderment that Chinese women 
are great in the bedroom — as if I 
wasn’t one — to being casually asked 
if I’d be interested in a guy ‘who has 
been with Chinese girls and likes it.’” 
These interactions took place in the 
United Kingdom, but similar ones 
exist in other places as well.
The media’s portrayal of Asian 
people homogenizes a diverse group 
of people who are resilient, and yes, 
attractive. Promoting stereotypes 
about Asian people, unintentionally 
or not, only serves to further alienate 
Asian people from American society 
by establishing them as an “other” 
defined solely by untrue stereotypes. 
I’ve seen this type of behavior in 
my life, with people automatically 
assuming I must be uninteresting and 
bookish because I’m Asian-American, 
as well as people emasculating my 
Asian-American male peers. People 
expect me to by shy and docile, when 
they don’t expect such characteristics 
of people who aren’t Asian, and are 
surprised when they find out I am 
neither. Such preconceived notions 
about people of Asian descent are 
unfounded and need to stop being 
perpetuated.
Asian men are attractive, and it is 
through their strength that they are 
able to achieve success in a society 
that tells them that they are not good-
looking or interesting enough. Asian 
women are not sexual objects meant 
to cater to men’s sexual fantasies and 
they possess powerful agency. It is 
time that the media treats people of 
Asian descent with respect and create 
a truthful depiction of what it means 
to be Asian.

Krystal Hur can be reached at 

kryshur@umich.edu.

HANNAH MYERS | CONTACT HANNAH AT HSMYERS@UMICH.EDU

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