The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Monday, November 19, 2018— 3A

A headline from The Michigan 
Daily 
reads 
“Conservative 
commentator Steven Crowder 
critiques erasure of conservative 
voices 
on 
campus.” 
As 
a 
photographer for The Daily, my 
editor assigned me to cover a 
live taping of his show, Louder 
with Crowder, on Oct. 25 at the 
Power Center. Crowder had the 
nerve to claim “no one is othered 
on college campuses more than 
conservatives.” Unbeknownst to 
me, what was to ensue was, as a 
person of color, one of the most 
terrifying events of my life.
I walked into Power Center to 
be rudely greeted by a University 
of Michigan police officer, who 
begrudgingly let me talk to the 
event organizer who directed 
me to the press area. Walking 
into the main auditorium felt 
like walking from the dungeons 
into the Coliseum as a gladiator. 
The auditorium was with over 
1,381 
people 
in 
attendance, 
almost all clad in the Trumpian 
uniform of red MAGA hats and 
white rage. Crowder was late. 
His fans were getting anxious 
and unruly. Chants of “We want 
Crowder!” broke out through 
the audience, gaining power and 
zeal with each passing minute.
Finally, the “Arthur”-voice-
actor-turned-white-nationalist 
peeked out from behind the 

curtain, to be met with a roar 
and a raucous chant of “U.S.A.!” 
Crowder did a victory lap on 
stage, 
dressed 
as 
Supreme 
Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh 
wearing a red MAGA beer 
hat, spilling one of the cans of 
Miller Light onto the floor when 
the hat tumbled off his head. 
Getting settled, some of the very 
first words out of his mouth 
constituted a threat, instructing 
the audience to hold up their 
phones to show “the media” that 
they have their own account. 
The crowd obliged, shining their 
phone flashlights onto me and 
the other photographers present 
while hissing a menacing jeer.
I stayed as long as was 
necessary to take enough photos; 
on account of reporters getting 
harassed and assaulted at 45’s 
rallies, and especially cognizant 
of my perilous position as one 
of the few Brown people in 
the room, I left out of fear for 
my own safety. Even if I didn’t 
feel endangered, I still would 
have left – I tested my patience 
by withstanding roughly 20 
minutes of blatant homophobia, 
transphobia, 
misogyny 
and 
racism before I felt like my 
stomach was going to vomit up 
all of the hate that my eyes and 
ears had ingested.
Shortly 
after 
coming 
on, 
he described to the audience 
in 
great 
detail 
about 
how 
beautiful 
and 
lovely 
his 
assistant was: comments that 

were patronizing and clearly 
made her uncomfortable. He 
continued on a 15-minute tirade 
mocking 
transgender 
people 
and 
gender 
identity, 
egged 
on by the audience’s raucous 
laughter. Not satisfied with only 
spewing vitriol against women 
and the LGBTQ community, 
Crowder aimed to prove he 
was also well-versed in racism 
and xenophobia, 
interspersing 
his 
show 
with 
a 
running 
joke 
mocking 
a 
Honduran 
immigrant being 
interviewed 
by 
CNN.
Crowder 
never 
explicitly 
attacked any of 
my identities as 
a person of color, 
which may leave 
some white folks 
wondering 
why 
the 
experience 
was 
so 
terrifying. 
Being 
surrounded by a large, unruly 
crowd composed almost entirely 
of white people would give any 
person of color pause, even if 
they hadn’t congregated for a 
colloquium of hate. Crowder 
and other members of the 
so-called “alt-right” (read: white 
supremacists) have not hesitated 
to espouse loathsome ideology 
against people who look like 
me before. Given the history of 

white violence against racial 
minorities in this country, and 
its recent encouragement by the 
fascist demagogue in the White 
House, I had every reason to be 
on my guard. This was a situation 
during which the threat of 
violence was ever present. To 
exacerbate the threat, the police, 
representing the authority of 
the state, were sent to protect 
this odious pundit 
from facing any 
pushback against 
his 
opinions. 
I 
have 
personally 
experienced 
enough 
misconduct 
at 
the hands of the 
police 
to 
know 
they were more 
likely 
to 
cause 
me 
harm 
than 
give me help in 
the 
event 
that 
something 
did 
occur. According 
to 
political 
scientist Iris Young, one of the 
five faces of oppression is not 
only violence itself, but also 
the constant threat of violence 
because of one’s membership in 
a social group.
Whenever 
I 
hear 
some 
white boy crybabying about 
how conservatives and whites 
are the ones who are actually 
discriminated against, I always 
want to laugh, but too many 
white people across the country 

share 
the 
same 
ignorant, 
uninformed 
opinion 
for 
me 
to dismiss it this easily. The 
opinions espoused by extreme 
conservatives like Crowder are 
directly contributing to the 
propagation of systems of white 
supremacy. As a person who is 
directly threatened by this, I 
have every right to push back. 
This is not discrimination, this 
is self-defense. Conservatives 
on college campuses are not 
exploited, are not marginalized, 
are not powerless or threatened 
by 
violence: 
the 
hallmarks 
of 
discrimination. 
The 
Daily article gave them the 
privilege of presenting his open 
mocking of gender identity as 
“debating whether gender is a 
social or biological identity” and 
generally commented more on 
how conservative students feel 
than about how these beliefs 
oppress others. The presence 
of the police at the event shows 
how dedicated the state is 
to protecting them, not only 
against violence but also against 
facing any contrary opinions at 
the event. Actual discrimination 
is 
more 
than 
just 
having 
someone disagree with you. 
If white conservatives (or any 
white people, for that matter) 
had to face any degree of the 
constant trauma people of color 
face on a daily basis from the 
institutions of white supremacy, 
I’m not convinced they would 
survive.

White fragility is a huge 
roadblock in the fight against 
racism. Many white liberal 
students here would probably 
be surprised by how many 
people 
attended 
Crowder’s 
event, seeing the University 
as a liberal and diverse place. 
Students of color know this 
is a lie, and have experienced 
all of the day-to-day traumas 
stemming 
from 
interactions 
with white people, which is 
why Crowder’s popularity is 
unsurprising to me. I doubt 
very many of the people in that 
auditorium would identify as 
racists. Most would probably 
react 
very 
defensively 
to 
the accusation, and this is 
counterproductive to the goal 
of getting someone to actually 
critically evaluate themselves. 
Crowder 
and 
others 
like 
him railing against “identity 
politics” fail to realize that 
whiteness is also an identity, 
and it has been the dominant 
political force over the entire 
history of our country. They 
profess feeling marginalized 
on college campuses for their 
political 
beliefs, 
but 
when 
your beliefs include spreading 
hostility 
against 
actually 
marginalized 
groups, 
like 
women, people of color and 
the LGBTQ community, then 
you can expect repudiation. 
A tolerant society must be 
intolerant of intolerance.

DANYEL THARAKAN
MiC Columnist

MICHELLE FAN/Daily
conservatives aren’t discriminated against 
No,

Given the history 
of white violence 
against racial 
minorities in this 
country... I had 
every reason to be 
on my guard

What were the first meeting 
notes like for East Wind, the 
first space for Asian/Pacific 
Islander 
Americans 
at 
the 
University of Michigan back in 
the ’70s?
What were leaders of color 
on campus in the late ’90s 
debating when they occupied 
the Michigan Union for 38 days 
straight? 
What 
were 
the 
reactions 
of 
Asian-American 
student 
organizations during the 2016 
election?
These 
are 
questions 
that 
explore the history of Asians 
and Asian Americans on this 
campus, and the best way we 
can answer them for future 
students and activists is saving 
our important work through 
archiving.
There is unfortunately not 
a lot about Asian-American 
organizing and action in the 
Bentley Historical Library. But 
the United Asian American 
Organizations and the Bentley 
want to change this!
We 
are 
gathering 
vital 
flyers, meeting notes, videos, 
Google 
Documents, 
events, 
petitions, projects and so much 
more to send to the library for 
archiving, so the legacies of 

our organizations and their 
progress is documented and, 
hopefully, recognized. 
But we need your help! If 
you 
have 
anything 
related 
to UAAO and A/PIA student 
organizations, we would be 
incredibly happy to see it. Even 
if it’s something you don’t think 

is a big deal, it might still be a 
valuable piece of information 
that stands for something in our 
point of time — so send those 
Canva posters!
We aim to be inclusive and 
thorough. We want to make sure 
we are properly representing 
the A/PIA community.

Students, professors, faculty, 
staff, alumni — everyone is 
extremely welcomed to submit. 
Please forward all questions 
and submissions to Nisa Khan 
(nisakhan@umich.edu) 
with 
[UAAO Archiving Project] as the 
subject line.

No one ever returns from 
intimacy whole.
We always leave a part of 
ourselves
in the crux of another 
person’s history,
a bookend to their yesterday.
Here lies the flesh,
its youth pulled taut,
and here is the tongue which 
conquers it.
In my dreams, I am
a gentle noise
rolling through the 
countryside,
catching stories on my limbs.
I am my mother’s child
until the sound of a foreign 
boy

takes down an entire village.
A spark of lust
or maybe just curiosity
gone wrong.
The white of the flames so 
perfect
I can almost rewrite my 
family’s past.
His heat begins to
dissolve the tension in my 
chest,
erase the color
with which I was born,
so I put out his light
before it can claim me, too.
After all,
what good is a body
that is no longer a home?

Erasure
Preserving A/PIA history at UM

ELIZABETH LE
MiC Columnist

NISA KHAN
MiC Senior Editor

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

