The most worthwhile aim of director George Tillman, Jr.’s (“Notorious”) ambitious adaption of Angie Thomas’s multifaceted 2017 YA novel “The Hate U Give” is its complex portrayal of modern- day activism. Though the film often struggles against the constraints of homage to its source text, the film still succeeds in making this eloquent political statement all its own, and such a statement could not have come at a better time. In an era where the socio- political climate ask questions like “What do Americans stand for?” and “Can we believe anything we see or hear?” the film refuses to shy away from them. In its brashness, it works to rebuild the reputation of American civil society and restore needed momentum to truth. Riffing on Tupac’s “Thug Life” — i.e. “The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody” — the film follows Black teenager Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg, “Everything, Everything”) as she reels from this hate with which she has been given since birth. The narrative addresses the range of this hate, from the micro-aggressions Starr endures at the hands of her predominantly white classmates at the elite prep school she attends, to the explicit racism at the turning point of the film: when Starr is the sole witness to the murder of her childhood friend Khalil (Algee Smith, “Detroit”) at the hands of a white cop. The latter trauma forces Starr to undertake an agonizing but vital journey in pursuit of a genuine, productive, justice-centered breed of activism that will be familiar to some audience members but epiphanic to others. Along the way, she gains exposure to ideal, real and counterfeit activism — alongside the confidence to build her own vision thereof. Lawyer April Ofrah (Issa Rae, “Insecure”), who mentors Starr as she decides whether she will testify before the grand jury that will determine whether the cop who killed Khalil will be indicted, is the representative of ideal activism. While some characters in the film came across as little more than mouthpieces to articulate themes the storytellers hadn’t the time to convey through characters’ action, Rae’s performance stands out. Her speeches are among the most memorable points in the film’s 2:12 runtime, especially her impassioned defense of nonviolent protest as an ideal protest at Khalil’s funeral. She raises a particularly resonant question in this speech as well: How can Black people ever be seen as unarmed if their skin is considered a weapon? She thus charges the media with the task of deescalating violence, challenging the media to stop weaponizing race. Tillman, Jr. also stresses the oft-distorted realities of activism through ground-level shots of protest scenes. These unmediated scenes reimagine resistance. In one, resistance is chanting the names of the unjustly killed in the streets. In another, resistance is holding up your cell phone — nonviolently policing the police. In a climactic scene and affirmation of Stenberg’s talent, resistance is standing on the hood of a car, screaming a eulogy of your murdered friend into a megaphone while police ready the tear gas. One constant, heartening variable across these scenes of resistance is the instrumental role youth play in them. Imposter activism appears in two forms. First, we see it in those who selfishly pretend to stand for just causes. Starr’s white classmates embody this treachery in a particularly sickening scene where Starr’s friends reveal that their primary motivation for attending a protest for Khalil’s case is so they can leave school early. The second form appears in those who misrepresent protest efforts to undermine it. Tillman, Jr. carefully juxtaposes the raw scenes of civil disobedience with the media-packaging thereof, exposing the disparities between activism and its imposter dominating television news. Herein lies a weakness in the film, however. While some of its deliberate ambiguities were productive — for instance, the moral ambiguity of every character subverted the mass media’s reliance on simply casting figures as good and evil to neglect the more complex systems of evil which individuals either consent to or resist — others were detrimental. An inordinate number of subplots (the most confounding of which focused on Starr’s white boyfriend) and contrived scenes that served as little more than an homage to Thomas’ novel ate up time, leaving audiences in want of more direct evaluations of the media’s role in systemic issues. Nonetheless, the necessity of the film’s well-argued message about activism renders it a film not only worth seeing but perhaps obligatory if we hope to reinvigorate civil society. “Let’s cry and watch shitty Netflix shows together,” my best friend texted me on Oct. 6th, the same day that the full Senate voted on the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court Justice. Any other day, poking fun at less than average actors and oddly placed camera angles while sobbing into a bowl of Ben and Jerry’s would’ve cured my sadness almost instantly. But as I cuddled next to my best friend, a woman I knew had been a victim to the same type of sexual assault our new Supreme Court Justice was accused of, I could only feel the sadness and anger I held within myself even more viscerally. The days that followed that Oct. 6th nomination were days I spent listening to survivors of sexual assault. I couldn’t believe that nearly all of my female identifying friends had experienced sexual assault in one way or another. Actually, now that I think about, it really isn’t that hard for me to believe. I decided that I wanted to create a space where my friends could talk to one another about their experiences as a woman in the United States of America. On one Friday afternoon, I invited them over to my house for coffee. We sat down and listened to each other, in the way that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford should’ve been listened to. We didn’t just listen —but we believed. We shared stories about our bottoms being grabbed without consent while dancing at parties. We talked about being cat called while walking to lecture. Of our male teachers asking us to stay for a little too long after class, looking too closely at new blouses that had been purchased. My Black friends shared stories about them going on dates with boys who fetishized their Blackness, saying “I’ve only ever dated white girls before. You’re pretty exotic.” We talked to one another for nearly four hours that day, and at the end of the conversation, the walls of my room seemed to sigh with us in exhaustion after having listened to all we have gone through. We reached one unfortunate conclusion with our discussion: There didn’t seem to be much hope of anything getting better. Especially, when this man, who has publicly been accused of committing the same type of violence toward women we experience daily, holds one of the highest and most respected positions in our government. As women, how are we to believe that we are respected when the men who have openly shown blatant disrespect toward us have all of the power in our politics? Often times, I feel that people separate politics and the human condition. I hear a lot that “political views don’t define a person as good or bad.” I believe that in some cases this can be true. However, I find it difficult to look at my older brother, an open supporter of Brett Kavanaugh, and believe that he respects me and my place as a woman in this society. I don’t want to see my brother, someone I love, as someone who does not see me as a human being worthy of being listened to. But I worry that if I approached him and told him of that one time in high school, when a boy held my thigh for a little too long and that escalated to the boy holding other parts of me for way too long, would my brother believe me when I told him I didn’t want it? Would my brother tell me my skirt was too short? Would he tell me I got too drunk that night? That I had too much beer? Would he follow the same logic that Brett Kavanaugh and the rest of the Republican Party seems to follow when excusing themselves for their actions against women? I’m not sure I want to know the answer. Answers are something I have been looking for a lot since early Oct. One question in particular I wish I could answer was asked to me the very night of the nomination. I tried to make my arms into a fort that would protect my best friend as she quivered beneath my embrace, but I don’t think I have the power to save her from a nation that refuses to even acknowledge she has anything to be saved from. She cried into my shoulder, and the question I wish I could resolve emerged in between her tears: “If they didn’t believe her, when she gave that kind of a speech, when she has those kind of degrees, when all of America is watching, why in the hell would anyone ever believe me?” I believed her, though. That isn’t enough, but, in that moment, it needed to be. The women sitting in my bedroom the following week believed her. And maybe we don’t have any power right now. Maybe we don’t have any voice that people want to hear. Maybe our country doesn’t view us beyond a sexual object. Maybe we aren’t respected, or listened to or believed right now. But we will be. We need to be. This shouldn’t be a battle we have to fight, but it is. We need to believe one another. We need to believe her. I believe her. Do you? The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com b-side Thursday, October 25, 2018 — 5B In the 2018 fashion scene, what you’re wearing is either conformity or rebellion. Laws of fashion hold us to this standard, but in wake of changes in political climate, tensions in our government are shaping the fashion world as well. Or rather, the fashion world is contributing to the shape politics are taking today. With primaries under our belts, midterms on the horizon and a new Supreme Court Justice sworn in, among other world altering events, it seems as though we will never be able to keep up with these variations and their effects on our political system. As new movements and conflicts rise and fall, the fashion world follows suit. And although hard to believe, new trends in everyday fashion are seriously impacting politics and how we share our views, as we can quite literally wear our opinions on our sleeves. The prominence of the t-shirt has been present in fashion since the beginning of time. Its simplicity, practicality and comfort have upheld this iconic design as a staple in style and fashion. But, as fashion has evolved and trends have changed, so has the t-shirt. In recent years, graphic tees have centered themselves as a pinnacle of a very curated, eclectic, carefree aesthetic. Starting in the ’70s with the popularity of repping band logos, the graphic tee has since only evolved to reach corners of all industries beyond just music. They have worked their way into everyday wardrobes, they can be dressed up or down and there is certainly no limit to content that can be printed on a t-shirt. In just single stores alone, whole sections have become dedicated to the trend of graphic tees. The curated aesthetic created by centering an outfit around a graphic tee is one many teens and young people strive for, sometimes perhaps without even realizing what message they are sending by wearing certain graphics. As graphics have seeped their way into the closets of style gurus everywhere, so they have also headed up many political movements, completely altering the way these movements are viewed. The clearest example has to be the women’s movement. In the 2017 Women’s March on Washington, tees imprinted with “Nasty Woman”, “Raise I believe Dr. Ford URBAN OUTFITTERS STYLE NOTEBOOK Graphic tees and wearing your voice on your sleeve MARGARET SHERIDAN Daily Arts Writer PERSONAL NOTEBOOK ALIX CURNOW For the Daily Boys and Girls the Same Way” and “This Pussy Grabs Back” made the amount of voice coming from the event almost double, as the presence of these words on shirts serve as a constant visual reminder of these women’s rightfully justified angerwith our government and president in addition to their conversations surrounding gender equality in politics. We see these graphics stating “Black Lives Matter,” “#MeToo,” the LGBTQ movement and even the t-shirt Frank Ocean wore to the Panorama Music festival called on audiences to just be quiet before being racist, sexist or homophobic. These examples don’t cover even half of the political content that graphic tees have begun to cover in recent years. It is a beautiful concept, to have the ability to take ownership over one’s political views and raise awareness about movements for change is an extremely empowering concept, one that is allowing more and more people to be included in the groups represented by these shirts and graphics. To be able to incorporate political views into everyday wardrobe truly combines the best of both politics and fashion, but while this stylish alternative seems oh-so-chic, there’s a fine line between the intersectionalities that lie within this incorporation of graphics and politics that can make for a challenging difference between representing political views and movements and just wearing certain tops as an accessory rather than for raising actual awareness and culminating change. Graphic tees serve as a great opportunity for raising political awareness, but with so many of them circulating the fashion world, the purpose of this fashion staple has very quickly become more of a solely aesthetic choice or form of bandwagoning as opposed to an actual effort to benefit political movements. The consumer or producer cannot take the blame for this strange cycle; it’s practically impossible to avoid when stores like Urban Outfitters have added “Vote” tees to their graphic tee collection, inviting young people to start purchasing them, with half of them not even sure if they’re registered to vote. Graphic tees make it so easy to get behind a moment, creating a challenging double-edged sword to grapple with. To truly take ownership and proudly wear a “Nasty Woman” t-shirt, be prepared to vote, participate in marches and stay in the loop about current events is completely different from purchasing the shirt solely because you saw another girl looking cute in it on Instagram. With social media shaping politics, there is a certain vulnerability that comes with sharing political views or rallying behind movements. Sometimes it can make people feel as though they need to prove themselves in a certain way, hence causing over-compensation in items like graphic tees for various movements, even if it isn’t something the person is completely invested or educated in. Both extremely powerful tools in society, fashion and social media are truly influencing the way we perceive politics. With both of these platforms, we as individuals are now, more than ever, more capable of making politics an inclusive topic, one where we can help others learn about things they might not be as familiar with in order to benefit the greater good and truly change our government. So let’s selectively choose those graphic tees, and curate them to things we truly know about, encouraging our friends to become politically aware and create inclusive spaces in a field that can sometimes seem so uninviting and confusing. Let us fashionably make a change in politics. “The Hate U Give” Ann Arbor 20 + IMAX 20th Century Fox 20TH CENTURY FOX ‘The Hate U Give’ makes civil disobedience cool JULIANNA MORANO For the Daily FILM REVIEW As women, how are we to believe that we are respected when the men who’ve openly shown blatant disrespect toward us have all of the power in our politics?