Dearborn 
is 
my 
safe 

haven, a city with the highest 
concentration of Arabs in all of 
America, a place for people who 
are just like me. Growing up, 
I had the best of both worlds. 
I was able to connect with 
my Middle Eastern roots and 
culture in a city that has the best 
Mediterranean food around. I 
could speak Arabic and not feel 
out of place. My days would be 
filled with visiting “khaltos” 
(Arabic word for aunts) and 
potlucks where we would eat 
our days away while playing tag 
outside with the neighborhood 
kids who were more like family 
than friends.

However, my city was never 

meant to be this vibrant, lively 
and diverse. Henry Ford built my 
town with the intention that it 
would be a slum for his workers 
of color and their families, but 
that backfired because he’s given 
me a home unlike any other. As a 
Muslim, I grew up with mosques 
and 
religion 
surrounding 

me. During Ramadan (holy 
month of fasting), our bakeries, 
restaurants 
and 
stores 
stay 

open until 5 a.m., but are closed 
during the day because everyone 
refrains from eating. Ramadan 

is my happiest month because 
it’s when our nightlife shines 
through; kids play in the streets 
until three in the morning, 
families come over and stay until 
“suhoor” (sunrise, when fasting 
resumes for the day), friends go 
out to hookah lounges and our 
mosques are the fullest they get 
every year for taraweeh prayer 
(special Ramadan prayers). I 
never grew up with a Christmas, 
but I believe Ramadan more 
than made up for it.

Despite all of the wonderful 

things about Dearborn, I spent 
my whole life fighting to get 
out of its bubble. I hated the 
relentless gossip and people set 
in their old ways from the old 
country. I wanted to see more 
than my picturesque town and 
I grew up with such big dreams 
fighting 
against 
the 
status 

quo. And despite all of this, 
now that I am in Ann Arbor, I 
yearn for my town. I become 
retrospective and think back to 
the now defunct Arab-American 
festival on Warren Street, my 
old neighborhood growing up 
and of my wonderful parents 
who instilled in me the values 
of family, culture, tradition and 
community. Even though I live 
only an hour away, I feel like 
everything I have ever known 
has been ripped away from me.

Back home, I would spend 

my days eating grape leaves, 
falafel, 
tabbouleh, 
fattoush, 

etc. Needless to say, during my 
first week at the University 
of 
Michigan, 
my 
pampered 

taste buds found the dining 
hall food bland, unappetizing 
and incredibly foreign. I saw 
students carrying plates filled 
to the brim with food I had 
never before seen in my life and 
downing it all like it was nothing. 
Meanwhile, I needed extra salt, 
unattainable lemon slices and 
unheard-of spices to season 
my food, all of which seemed 
wholly unavailable in the South 
Quad Dining Hall. My biggest 
realization since setting foot on 
campus is that I may have grown 
up in America, but my taste buds 
are 100 percent Middle Eastern. 
I don’t think I had a decent meal 
besides pizza for days. This self-
inflicted “starvation” forced me 
to throw away my pride, call 
my mom and beg her to make 
me food I could genuinely eat, 
telling her I would board a bus 
back home to Dearborn for the 
day if she did. Now, as I sit in my 
dorm room, my supply of Arab 
food is dwindling and I am once 
again venturing out into the 
dining hall hoping for the best. 
They say you never appreciate 
something until it’s gone and it 
has never rung truer because 
now, I want my home back.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Monday, September 10, 2018 — 3A

The definitive ranking of “Bring It On”

Hands down, the “Bring It On” 

movie franchise is one of the best 
series of all time. If you don’t agree 
with this then you probably just 
need to sit down and watch them 
all again to reeducate yourself on 
cinematic greatness. Time and 
again, the “Bring It On” movies 
have been ranked, but never 
have they been ranked by their 
representation of people of color, 
only the quality of the film. With 
the removal of the “Bring It On” 
franchise from Netflix, I decided 
the time had come to undertake 
the task of ranking them by this 
specific criterion.

* “Bring it On: The Musical” 

will not be included in this ranking 
as this is solely a ranking of the 
“Bring It On” films. “Bring It On: 
Worldwide #Cheersmack” will 
also not be included in the ranking 
simply because the movie sucks 
and is an embarrassment to the 
“Bring It On” franchise.*

5. “Bring it On: Again.”
This placement should come as 

no big surprise as the first “Bring 
It On” sequel was one of the least 
successful movies in the franchise 
and the least talked about by fans. 
This lack of notoriety within the 
fandom is most likely due to its stark 
lack of representation of people of 
color. The only named character 
of color is the main character’s 
(Whittier) 
Black 
best 
friend 

Monica. This does not say much 
about the writer’s inclusiveness 
due to the rampant popularity of 
the “Black best friend” trope seen 
in pretty much every ’90s to ’00s 
teen movies. (i.e., “10 Things I Hate 
About You”, “Clueless”, “She’s All 
That”, etc.) Not only was Monica 
the lone person of color in the 
film, but her role was completely 
relegated to fulfilling negative 
stereotypes of a Black woman: 
loud, sassy, rude, always talking 
back and ready to give someone a 
piece of her mind.

Overall, the movie had an 

extreme lack of representation 
of people of color, and the one 
character 
that 
made 
up 
its 

representation completely fulfilled 
a stereotype.

4. “Bring It On: In It to Win It”
Just like “Bring It On: Again”, 

the only main person of color is 
the Black best friend. Though the 
main character’s love interest is 
extremely ethnically ambiguous, 

he also could just be white with a 
heavy tan. So, we’ll keep the tally 
of actors of color at one and a half. 
(After research, I discovered that 
the actor is actually half-Filipino, 
but his race is never mentioned nor 
in question throughout the whole 
movie, so he will remain ethnically 
ambiguous.)

But back to the Black best friend.
Just as in “Bring It On: Again”, 

the character is a stereotype of a 
Black woman complete with slang, 
a fiery attitude and an eagerness to 
start fights. But even worse than 
the character Monica in “Bring 
It On: Again”, this movie’s Black 
character, Aeysha, is even more 
shockingly over the top with her 
one-liners and phrases that try to 
solidify how “Black” she is. Such 
phrases include “You know a cheer 
Crip can’t be hitting it with a cheer 
Blood.” She actually compared 
two of the biggest and most violent 
gangs in American history to 
opposing cheerleading teams and it 
was played for laughs.

However, “In It To Win It” 

narrowly tops “Bring It On: Again” 
because, despite lines like the 
aforementioned, there are some 
redeeming moments in the movie 
involving Ayesha’s subplot. One 
of these moments comes when 
she’s going completely over the top 
trying to prove her “Blackness” by 
twerking in a cheerleading routine 
and continuing to talk in her 
caricature Black fashion. A Black 
female cheer coach pulls her aside 
and asks her why she’s making 
a fool of herself pretending to be 
this stereotype. It showed at least a 
glimmer of self-awareness.

The second redeeming moment 

is when Aeysha admits to putting 
on this “super Black” character the 
whole time to gain respect because 
she used to be teased for being 
an “oreo” in junior high (Oreo is 
the taunting nickname given to 
Black kids who are perceived as 
being “white on the inside, yet 
‘Black’ on the outside”). While the 
movie attempted to reinforce this 
good message, it didn’t go deep 
enough or really followed through, 
especially when the movie ended 
that “touching note” with a white 
character telling Aeysha, “ooh, 
you’re whiter than me.” Aeysha 
agrees and says she’s proud of that 
fact.

3. “Bring It On: Fight to the 

Finish”

“Bring It On: Fight to the Finish” 

is significantly better than the first 
two, simply because it is one of the 

only “Bring it On” movies to have a 
main character of color, a working-
class Latina named Lina. Rather 
than giving the exaggerated image 
of what it is like to be a person of 
color from a white perspective 
like the other movies, “Fight to 
the Finish” gives a person of color 
a chance to helm the story. This 
movie does a great job stripping 
the norms of the “Bring It On” 
franchise by making the upper-
class white cheerleaders the evil 
antagonists. It also includes a love 
storyline including an interracial 
romance of Lina and the popular 
white basketball player in her new, 
predominately white school. In 
the end, the movie does a good job 
showing people can work across 
class and racial differences to 
succeed and work together for a 
common goal.

The only problem I have with 

this movie in particular is even 
though Lina is Latina and is of 
Latinx heritage, that’s never really 
celebrated. She speaks Spanish 
with her family but that’s about it. 
Everyone in her old neighborhood 
from East Los Angeles is either 
Black or Latinx, but neither of 
their cultures or heritages are 
celebrated. All of them are just 
grouped together by the social 
identity of being lower class or 
“poor,” and that’s how they’re 
referred to for the whole movie. 
Being a person of color in the movie 
is just equated to being poor and 
their individual identities as people 
of color are just erased. Also to top 
it all off, the movie still has the 
cringey stereotypical role of the 
Black best friend.

2. “Bring It On: All or Nothing.”
Two 
words, 
Solange 
and 

Knowles. And one more word, 
Rihanna. Okay, but star-studded 
cast aside, “Bring It On: All or 
Nothing” does a great job with 
its people of color representation. 
The storyline is flipped from the 
storyline of “Bring It On: Fight to 
the Finish”. A privileged white 
girl, Britney, moves to Crenshaw 
Heights, an inner city close to Los 
Angeles. At Crenshaw Heights, 
Britney learns to check her white 
privilege and that (gasp) people of 
color aren’t that different from her. 
This movie has some of the best 
representation of people of color 
in the franchise as multiple main 
characters are Black or Latinx. 

REEM ABURUKBA

MiC Columnist

Yearning for the comfort of home

The need for more POC rom coms

When I first watched Netflix’s 

original film “To All the Boys 
I’ve Loved Before”, my mom was 
there, and we hesitantly clicked 
on the trending movie. Obviously 
no longer in our teenage years, 
we were sure our enthusiasm 
wasn’t going to match the hype. 
However, 
minutes 
into 
the 

movie, our living room rang with 
boasting laughter and dramatic 
gasps, an easygoing warmth 
emerging as we relaxed more and 
more into the lighthearted story 
of Lara Jean Covey and Peter 
Kavinsky.

When I watched it for a second 

time, my aunt was there, and 
we sipped beautiful magenta 
Youthberry white tea together. 
With every sugary sip, I lost 
myself a little bit more in the 
sweetness of Covey’s whimsical, 
bubblegum 
pop 
romance. 
I 

soaked up the predictable, but 
charming love story, secretly 
wishing for my own Kavinsky.

When I watched it for the third 

time no one else was there, and 
I laid cuddled up in my blanket, 
my eyes watching the screen but 
my thoughts caught in tangles. 
I began to wonder why I found 
myself 
watching 
this 
movie 

repeatedly when hundreds of 
other selections were only clicks 
away. Dejectedly, I realized it 
wasn’t the trope-filled storyline 
that kept me coming back. It 
wasn’t even the cute boy. It 
was the starry-eyed simplistic 
depiction of romance with people 
of color, one that isn’t afforded to 
people who look like me.

When I chose not to watch it 

for the fourth time, I thought to 
myself, “When will Black women 
have their Lara Jean Covey and 
Peter Kavinsky?”

“To All the Boys I’ve Loved 

Before” 
is 
Netflix’s 
newest 

romantic comedy that is breaking 
the internet for not only its playful 
plot, but for its wonderful Asian 
representation in a carefree, 
lighthearted film. Coming out 
only two days after the critically-
acclaimed “Crazy Rich Asians”, 
the film tells the story of 16-year-
old Lara Jean Covey, a mixed-
race Korean-American girl, and 
her not-so-pretend relationship 
with high school heartthrob 
Peter Kavinsky.

This movie was the non-

cultural exposé for which I 
didn’t know I was yearning. It is 
incorrect and dismissive to call 
the film post-racial; however, “To 
All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” 
is revolutionary because, as a 
romantic comedy, it portrays 
the race of its main character 
without centering its entirety in 
combating negative stereotypes 
and racial hardship.

Too 
often, 
movies 
with 

predominantly 
Black 
casts, 

or movies that feature Black 
characters 
in 
general, 
focus 

only on Black stories that have 
an element of trauma. We know 
them as our slavery-themed, civil 
rights era, Tyler Perry’s Christian 
guilt storylines. We also, however, 
know them as our indie Oscar-
nominated films that have begun 
to dominate the box office.

Regretfully, 
I 
struggle 
to 

name critically- acclaimed Black 
movies without racial trauma at 
its core. Films like “Moonlight”, 
“BlacKkKlansman”, 
“Sorry 
to 

Bother You”, and “Dear White 
People” need to be produced, and 
they feature amazing storylines 
that deserve recognition. But I 
can only wish the Black movie 
experience can become more 
diversified to showcase movies 
with race-based trauma can exist 
at the same time and in the spaces 

as movies that choose not to.

In the same token, if “Get 

Out” can exist to make Black 
interracial relationships a plot 
point for horror and thriller, 
movies that show lighthearted, 
romantic, bubblegum pop Black 
interracial relationships should 
and can exist, as well.

It is unfair for the success 

of Black film to ride on the 
exploitation of trauma. It is 
also unfair for Black folks to 
be voided of cinema that lets 
Black experiences flourish. It’s 
why action movies like “Black 
Panther” 
and 
comedies 
like 

“Girls Trip” are revolutionary; 
it’s because they show Black 
characters in dynamic roles that 
are usually reserved for white 
characters.

The movement for lighthearted 

Black 
representation 
extends 

beyond the realm of film. We’ve 
seen it in photographer Myles 
Loftin’s 
multimedia 
project 

HOODED, a project to humanize 
Black men dressed in hoodies; 
social media movements such as 
#BlackBoyJoy, #BlackMenSmile 
and 
#CarefreeBlackGirl; 

Quil 
Lemons’ 
photo 
series 

“Glitterboy”; and numerous other 
projects focused on presenting 
alternative 
depictions 
of 

Blackness.

People of color are craving 

representation that exceeds the 
limited scope of narratives that 
have historically been portrayed 
in film. As a hopeless romantic 
and a lover of love, I am craving 
a predictable, trope-filled, cringy 
romantic comedy with a Black girl 
unapologetically loving and being 
loved. It is time that we see Black 
representation that flourishes just 
as much as it does in quality as it 
does in innocence and sweetness. 
Maybe one day, Black women, 
too, will have their Lara Jean 
Covey and Peter Kavinsky.

NA’KIA CHANNEY

Senior MiC Editor

EFE OSAGIE

Assistant MiC Editor

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