“M
y hair was long
then. Long like
the
sighs
of
Loving Trees soaking in the still air
before rain. I could hear their voices
with the anticipation of thunder.”
Hello and welcome to my first
novel! Well, the first line of my first
novel. Actually, the first line of the first
novel I tried to write. I was 14 when I
scribbled this line into a notebook
margin, and it eventually ended
up in the notes section on my
phone - a place where prose goes
to die.
I titled this prose graveyard
“Shower Thoughts,” though few
of the lines collected there actually
came to me in the shower. They fall,
seemingly from nowhere, into my
head. They dribble down into my
hand where I can either write them
down or feebly clutch them for a
moment before they disintegrate
back into vapor, waiting to condense
once again into someone else’s brain.
I rarely used these lines in any actual
writing. I just wrote them down so no
one else could have them.
I have kept “Shower Thoughts”
since middle school. A kind of diary, it
chronicles my thoughts and feelings
throughout my teens. As I scroll back
through, I am reminded of moments
both momentous and insignificant.
I can see through the emotional
kaleidoscope of my 15-year-old eyes
as I waited for something important
to happen to me, like all the young
adult novels said it would. It captures
in amber my perspective at one
particular moment in my life.
As a junior, I find myself sitting
anxiously at one of life’s many
thresholds. With childhood behind
and adulthood ahead, I lie in wait,
in between. I feel achingly far away
from this young person who wrote
and imagined all the time. I am not
pursuing the dreams she had for
me: I am not majoring in English, I
am not yet a published author, and I
won’t be studying abroad in the U.K.
(where I won’t be falling in love with
a beautiful Scotsman who wears
cable knit sweaters and is in touch
with his feelings). Despite all of this,
I want to make sure I am somehow
still me.
This column will be about
that shifting of self and how one
can reconcile who they were at an
unformed 15 with who they are at 21,
fighting for a place at the adults’ table.
I will be rifling through my prose
graveyard and exhuming bodies,
breathing life back into the moments
that birthed them and asking how
they feel about where I am now with
my life.
The line that opened this column
was meant to be the first line of my
first novel. I was fixated on the idea
of being a child but writing for adults,
amazing everyone with a beyond-
my-years maturity and complexity of
thought. Once it became a bestseller,
Anne Hathaway and Leonardo
DiCaprio would star in the film
adaptation. I had the whole thing
sketched out in my head, but getting
it onto paper proved more difficult.
Not that I tried very hard. I was fairly
certain that, when I decided to write
it, the whole book would just pour
out, standing there shocked and
gawking like Adam moments after
his creation. I trusted my future self
to make this dream come true for the
both of us.
Freshman year, I did so to a
certain extent. I wrote a book, 250
pages in six weeks. I took a class on
children’s literature and our final
project was to write and illustrate a
children’s storybook. I decided this
was my chance to fulfill my dream,
so I swapped the storybook for a
children’s novel. There would be
no bowing to laziness or boredom
if I had the threat of an academic
deadline on my horizon. So, I wrote
a plan. I wrote character descriptions
and plot outlines, and did extensive
research. When I set to actually
writing, the pace was grueling. It was
regimented and difficult, and some
days the words just refused to come.
To top it off, I was 19 and writing for
11 and 12 year olds, something I would
have considered an unthinkable
embarrassment at 14.
Writing a book, it turns out,
is really hard (Who knew?). My
romantic delusions obscured the
inconvenient reality that inevitably
manages to seep in once we get to a
certain age. The line with which I
opened this column always evokes
in me an all-consuming idealism. I
can once again feel how it felt to have
those words fall from the sky and into
my churning mind. I can practically
feel the weight of the imagined novel
in my hands, knowing I would one
day make this dream come true.
The reality was far worse and
far better than how I had pictured it,
both in the accomplishment and in its
promise for the future. I accomplished
something I had dreamt about since
I was eight years old, proving that
I am unstoppable if I choose to be.
However, the experience also begged
me to question in what other ways
I am romanticizing my ideas of the
future. I imagine going to law school
and eventually becoming a living
version of a character from “The
West Wing.”
In theory, I know that path won’t
be easy. I’m sure I will look back
at my college years and chuckle at
the idealism of my undergraduate
kaleidoscope. Choosing to major in
public policy instead of English is
not the first time my ambitions will
change. However, I hope I always
manage to find things to look forward
to in the most abstract of ways. And
as I go, I will work to reconcile these
different parts of myself—my past,
present and future—and keep them
all in balance. Make sure they learn
from one another. And, eventually, get
Anne and Leo to star in an adaptation
of the book I trust my future self to
write one day.
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Monday, September 10, 2018
Emma Chang
Ben Charlson
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Lucas Maiman
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland
Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger
DAYTON HARE
Managing Editor
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.
ALEXA ST. JOHN
Editor in Chief
ANU ROY-CHAUDHURY AND
ASHLEY ZHANG
Editorial Page Editors
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
MARISA WRIGHT | COLUMN
Let’s talk about women’s health
I
f you walk into almost any
hospital or major health center
in the United States, there will
be some sort of Women’s Health
Center on the directory. In some
ways, these can be really good things.
They allow women to access focused
specialists in one convenient location,
which is especially important since
women often encounter doctors who
doubt their pain or do not take their
symptoms seriously. These kinds of
areas can also be a refuge of privacy
and healing for many women who are
experiencing extremely traumatic
medical problems or diagnoses.
However, setting aside a different
part of the hospital specifically for
women acts as a metaphor for the
culture in which medical issues
primarily faced by women are dealt
with over there. They are dealt with
in places that are not as visible or
frankly, accessible, to everyone. When
they are out of sight, and therefore out
of mind, these illnesses, diseases and
maladies are not acknowledged or
grappled with as much as they should
be in proportion to how many people
they affect.
This past summer, I learned the
implications of this dismissive culture
the hard way. At the end of June, I was
on a flight home from New York City
when I began to have excruciating
pain. While exiting the airplane, I
collapsed in pain, and an ambulance
eventually rushed me off the tarmac
to the nearest hospital. After several
uncomfortable
ultrasounds,
I
was alerted that I needed to have
emergency
laparoscopic
surgery
around 2:00 AM. Once the anesthesia
wore off later that day, my surgeon
informed me they had diagnosed
me with a chronic illness called
stage IV endometriosis, as well as
adenomyosis. If you’re like me or
almost everyone else, you probably
have no idea what endometriosis is, if
you’ve even heard of it at all.
Endometriosis is a chronic illness
in which endometrium, the tissue
that lines the inside of the uterus,
sheds but does not exit a woman’s
body during menstruation. Inside
of her body, it can grow outside of
her uterus and spread to organs
and nerves around the pelvic area
(though endometrial tissue has been
found as far away as the lungs). As a
result, the woman may experience
incapacitating pain so physically
and emotionally insufferable that it
dominates and controls almost every
corner of her life: career, social life,
sleep, relationships, sexual activity,
diet and hobbies.
Though endo is incurable, it
is highly treatable. The problem
is that it is so rarely treated in a
timely manner because it is so often
ignored or misdiagnosed by doctors
who lack the education about
women’s health and endometriosis
specifically.
Because
of
endo’s
variety of symptoms, women may be
diagnosed with common maladies
such as appendicitis, irritable bowel
syndrome,
sciatic
nerve
pain,
ruptured ovarian cysts, depression,
functional
pain
syndrome,
etc.
According to the Endometriosis
Foundation of America, one in 10
women and girls suffer from endo;
however, the average woman is 27
years old before she is diagnosed.
I suffered through this disease
untreated for seven years. And I
was one of the lucky ones who was
diagnosed earlier than most women.
And while I was lucky to be
diagnosed earlier than many, I
could have been diagnosed earlier.
When I was 13, I was rushed to the
hospital after collapsing in pain at
home. Barely conscious, I endured
several ultrasounds and eventually,
an appendectomy (removal of my
appendix). Out of curiosity, my mom
recently requested and reviewed
my records from that surgery.
The notes and images indicate
signs of endometriosis that were
not heeded. Though it is almost
impossible now to know if I truly
had appendicitis or the doctors
misdiagnosed my endometriosis,
I know my body and I remember
that pain. It was the same pain I
have experienced for seven years,
including the time I collapsed
after exiting an airplane and had
the emergency surgery that finally
discovered my endometriosis.
I am not a person who wishes
to share personal information,
especially
sensitive
medical
information, with people I do not
know and trust deeply. But maybe if
I had heard about this illness before,
I could have brought my suspicions
to my doctor. I might have been
diagnosed earlier, and I might have
been able to receive treatment and
limited the amount of suffering and
extreme pain I experienced as a
result of endo.
There
are
probably
many
reasons why I had never heard
of this illness before, but I think
that the disregard for and stigma
surrounding issues primarily faced
by women is chief among them.
When we advise young girls to hide
their sanitary pads and tampons in
a bag or pouch in public or make
noises and faces indicating feelings
of being grossed out at the mention
of her period, we are cultivating a
culture of shame around her natural
biological functions. When we tell
women and girls that intense pain
during their period is normal, we
are reinforcing false narratives and
information about women’s health
and wellness. And when we chastise
them for being overdramatic about
their pain or any symptoms they are
experiencing, we are delaying their
access to an accurate diagnosis and
effective treatment.
I am not making the case to
eliminate designated areas of
health centers dedicated to serving
women’s medical needs. In fact,
I think they should probably be
expanded and given more funding
and resources so that more women
and children are able to have access
to all of the wonderful services
they provide.
I simply believe we—you and
me— all need to start having more
conversations about issues women
deal with, especially those that are
health-related. We need more men
to lean in, instead of detach and stop
listening, to conversations about
women and their health. As women,
we also need to be more open and
louder about our health and how it
affects not only us but also how we
are able to interact with the world
and how the world can and should
be interacting with us.
I hope that by sharing my story
and subsequent health journey,
I am able to bring some light to
a vast world filled with matters
women have been dealing with
in private that is desperate for
some illumination. I invite and
encourage you to share your health
process, too. Share with your
family. Share with your friends.
Share with the world.
Reconciliation of a triad
KENDALL HECKER | COLUMN
Trump’s South Africa sophism
ELIAS KHOURY | COLUMN
T
he
Donald
Trump
administration is a circus.
Naturally, amid all the
chaos, many important stories get
buried. I would like to turn your
attention to a statement Trump
made Aug. 22 via his favorite
medium — Twitter.
“I have asked Secretary of
State
@SecPompeo
to
closely
study the South Africa land farm
seizures and expropriations and
the large scale killing of farmers.
‘South African Government is now
seizing land from white farmers.’ @
TuckerCarlson @FoxNews”
This
half-baked
tweet
is
problematic for a variety of
reasons. Firstly, as is so often
the case with Trump, the claim
is dubious at best. To be fair,
the first part of the statement
is
not
explicitly
false,
just
misleading.
Though
a
policy
of land expropriation is being
carried out by the South African
government, to simply point
that out and treat it as a problem
without
providing
necessary
context is dishonest in practice.
The discriminatory policies of
South Africa’s former apartheid
government created huge levels of
societal inequality between white
and Black people. The legacy of
this morally reprehensible regime
still haunts the country to this day.
One of the many racist policies
enacted under apartheid was the
uncompensated theft of Black-
owned land and the confinement
of the Black majority to only 7
percent of the nation’s arable land.
The current land expropriation
policy is an attempt at redressing
apartheid era grievances. A
returning of stolen goods, if you
will. And the government is well
within their legal right to do this:
South Africa’s constitution allows
for such action on the grounds
of trying to right the wrongs of
the past.
There is also a justification
for doing this on the grounds
of enhancing national welfare.
Too much land in too few
hands naturally creates market
inefficiencies. In the words of
former South African President
Nelson
Mandela:
“(Land
expropriation) fosters national
reconciliation and stability. It
underpins economic growth and
improves household welfare and
food security.”
The expropriation vision laid
out by current South African
President Cyril Ramaphosa is
an extremely moderate one. His
government has made a concerted
effort to target unused land and
abandoned buildings first and
foremost to inconvenience as
few people as possible. What
Ramaphosa
and
the
African
National Congress are doing is a
logical step forward for the South
African nation and ought to be
treated as such.
As for Trump’s second claim,
there is no well-documented
“large scale killing of farmers”
taking place in South Africa right
now. National police records
show the financial year of 2017-
18 saw the lowest number of farm
murders since 1991.
Factual inaccuracies aside,
the casual observer may be left
a bit confused by Trump’s tweet
concerning South Africa. What
do they have to do with us? The
whole thing seems out of left
field. South Africa—and all of
Africa, for that matter—is all
but nonexistent in everyday
American political discourse.
However, the alleged plight of
white South African farmers has
become a hot-button issue with
a rather unsavory crowd. The
“alt-right” has, unsurprisingly,
embraced the false narrative
of white oppression and Black
brutality
wholesale.
The
promotion of this conspiracy
theory seems to be a concerted
effort by the movement to raise
the racial consciousness of whites
and incite a fear of Black people.
Simply put, it’s a propaganda
campaign meant to draw people to
their cause of hatred and racism.
Naturally, the big names on
the “alt-right” have been at the
forefront of propagating this
lie. Former Ku Klux Klan leader
David Duke has spoken out
extensively on the topic, referring
to the land expropriation efforts as
“white genocide.” Breitbart News
Network,
the
self-proclaimed
“platform for the alt right,” has
published
countless
articles
painting white farmers as helpless
victims of their violent Black
overlords.
“Alt-right”
darling
and
popular
YouTuber
Lauren
Southern
recently
came
out
with a documentary peddling
the
conspiracy
theory
called
“Farmlands.” The film has been
met with much-deserved backlash
largely due to the fact that it’s
little more than a collection of
unverified anecdotes about white
farmers who were victims of
violence. Sad? Yes, but the film’s
assertion that these instances are
indicative of a broader trend is
simply not true.
It’s worth noting Southern’s
far-right activism has gotten
her into trouble in the past.
Back in 2017, she was detained
by the Italian Coast Guard for
attempting to block a refugee boat
in the Mediterranean. She then
was subsequently banned from
entering the UK while on a trip to
meet with Generation Identity—a
neo-Nazi terrorist organization
that has set up military—style
training camps across Europe.
Trump’s propagation of this
racist conspiracy theory is just the
latest in a long line of instances in
which he has marched in lockstep
with these bad actors. In the past
he called “alt right” protestors at
Charlottesville “very fine people,”
retweeted
Islamophobic
posts
by the deputy leader of fascist
political
organization
Britain
First and retweeted a fake crime
statistic published originally by
a neo-Nazi group exaggerating
Black on white murder rates. I
could go on, but I won’t.
Trump no longer has the
benefit of plausible deniability.
Richard Spencer is not the face of
the “alt-right”—Trump is. With
the infiltration of such an ideology
into the highest political office in
our country, what were once the
worst elements of the fringe have
become the new mainstream. A
serious swing of the pendulum
will be needed, and fast, if we
want to restore order.
Moreover, with Trump stating
he ordered Secretary of State
Mike
Pompeo
to
investigate,
our foreign policy is openly
functioning off of a foundation
of lies and propaganda. Though
not unprecedented, this is an
abject disgrace and beneath us as
a country. Everything about this
situation screams “DANGER!,”
yet the story largely flew under
the radar.
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national, state and campus affairs.
Elias Khoury can be reached at
ekhoury@umich.edu
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420 Maynard
Trump no longer
has the benefit
of plausible
deniability.
The experience
also begged me
to quesion in
what ways I am
romanticizing
my ideas of the
future.
Marisa Wright can be reached at
marisadw@umich.edu
Kendall Hecker can be reached at
kfhecker@umich.edu