Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Friday, October 11, 2019

Alanna Berger
Zack Blumberg
Emily Considine
Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz

Emily Huhman
Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Magdalena Mihaylova
Timothy Spurlin

Miles Stephenson
Finn Storer
Nicholas Tomaino
Joel Weiner
Erin White 

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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

RILEY DEHR | COLUMN

Let them eat ramen!
I 

hurriedly 
typed 
out 
the 
last 
lines 
of 
my 
essay and logged out of 
the 
computer. 
The 
printer 
grumbled 
along 
with 
my 
stomach as it spat out sheets 
of paper. My Mac had died on 
me the day before, so I was 
trapped in a dark computer lab 
completing an assignment. It 
wasn’t due until the next day, 
but I had to finish it before 
I went home for the night 
and made dinner; something 
I desperately needed as the 
fluorescent 
lights 
shocked 
my hungry brain. I shoved my 
things into my backpack and 
rushed to the faulty stapler, 
which crushed its only staple 
into my title page. I rubbed my 
now aching head as I searched 
for my professor’s office in the 
labyrinth of hallways known 
as the East Quad basement. I 
tossed my papers under her 
door and made a beeline for 
the exit. 
At the top of the stairs, a 
line of chattering freshmen 
and sophomores waited to get 
their Mcards swiped as the 
staff began serving dinner in 
the dining hall. I would have 
joined them if I hadn’t opted 
out of the school’s insanely 
expensive meal plan when I 
moved into my own apartment. 
My mouth watered at the smell 
of deep-fried something that 
filled the air. Ten minutes 
later, I finally made it to my 
apartment and popped three 
ibuprofen in my mouth to 
soothe 
my 
hunger-induced 
migraine before having pizza 
rolls for dinner — the first 
thing I had eaten since 10 a.m.
While going hungry like 

this is rare for me, for many 
students it’s the norm. 
The 
skyrocketing 
price 
of attending college, paired 
with more socioeconomically 
diverse 
student 
bodies, 
has made student hunger a 
growing issue. 

In fact, in 2016, nearly half 
of all college students reported 
going hungry at least once 
in the past month. The scale 
of 
the 
problem 
prompted 
Michigan’s own Sen. Debbie 
Stabenow 
and 
presidential 
candidate 
Sen. 
Elizabeth 
Warren, D-Mass., to request 
that 
Congress 
investigate 
the issue. The Government 
Accountability Office found 
that more than 30 percent of 
students are at significant risk 
of consistently going hungry. 
This may only be the tip of the 
iceberg, however, as the issue 
is severely understudied. 
Often food insecurity most 
severely affects those who 
are 
already 
struggling 
the 
most. Students who are low 

income, 
first-generation 
or have children often find 
themselves having to work 
many hours or, as in my 
mother’s case, multiple jobs 
to put food on the table. This 
severely inhibits their ability 
to succeed in school and 
decreases their likelihood of 
graduating. 
Universities 
have 
used 
food pantries to Band-Aid 
the issue, but they fall short 
of finding a solution. With 
the endowments of the 10 
richest schools equaling a 
whopping $155.6 billion, we 
deserve more than Band-
Aids. 
Colleges, 
and 
four-year 
universities 
in 
particular, 
should provide all of their 
students with free meal plans. 
Even those who aren’t parents 
or 
low-income 
students 
shouldn’t have to pay upwards 
of $50,000 in tuition costs and 
still wonder where they’re 
getting lunch.
No student — whether they 
be a single mother trying to 
feed her child or a sorority 
girl cramming for an exam 
in the Shapiro Undergraduate 
Library — should go hungry 
while 
the 
University 
of 
Michigan plays with more 
than $7 billion. As $1 billion 
go toward the construction 
of new projects and even 
$10,000-a-day 
private 
jet 
excursions on occasion, myself 
and 
many 
other 
students 
must continue to plan our 
days around when, or if, they 
should eat.

Riley Dehr can be reached at 

rdehr@umich.edu.

Redefining privilege
T

he 
concept 
of 
white 
privilege 
was 
first 
contextualized 
in 
Peggy 
McIntosh’s 
1988 article, “White 
Privilege: 
Unpacking 
the 
Invisible 
Knapsack,” 
which 
pioneered putting the 
social 
construction 
of 
privilege 
in 
the 
theoretical 
frameworks 
of 
power, gender, race, 
class 
and 
sexuality. 
Highlighting 
the 
advantages associated with her 
identity as a white, cisgender, 
able-bodied American woman, 
McIntosh demonstrated that 
there are invisible forces that 
condition society to believe 
in and behave according to 
a particular status quo — we 
work to create and sustain a 
community that is meant to 
serve only a subset of the diverse 
population. Per her article, 
white privilege is evidenced in 
the satisfaction of being widely 
represented in the mainstream 
media, freedom from racial 
profiling 
and 
selective 
entitlements that surely are not 
transferrable to all. This notion 
that privilege — namely, white 
privilege — is an unconscious 
threat to diversity has since 
taken a strong foothold across 
all sociopolitical movements 
in the United States, with 
politicians 
promising 
to 
recognize 
it, 
industries 
designating diversity offices 
to acknowledge it and schools 
designing curricula to teach it. 
These interpretations and 
relative 
understandings, 
however, do little to inspire 
action.
Subsequently, 
McIntosh’s 
version of white privilege has 
primarily been interpreted as 
highlighting issues of cosmetics 
and 
inconvenience. 
Hence, 
white privilege has become a 
new buzzword to be casually 
tossed in political discourse, 
a definitive answer to layered 
issues. Considering how white 
individuals find representation 

in entertainment or live their 
entire 
lives 
without 
being 
subject to police brutality, 
this 
definition 
can 
be 
grossly 
ignorant 
of 
the 
racialized 
origins 
of 
oppression. 
Everyone has the 
right to equal pay, 
the right to bodily 
autonomy, the right 
to a presumption 
of 
innocence 
and the right to 
police 
protection 
regardless of their identity. 
Terming these selective rights 
as privileges takes away from 
what 
McIntosh 
argued 
all 
along: That our understanding 
of entitlement itself stems from 
a legacy of racism. So, rather 
than addressing these social 
phenomena as privilege, we 
should ask why others act upon 
the same claim. 
Framing inequalities in the 
context of rights rather than 
privileges is the first step in 
achieving large scale systemic 
change, a position McIntosh 
opposes. As it pertains to 
white privilege, for instance, 
is a white woman subject to 
the same privileges as a white 
man? How does this label 
apply to the different strata 
of 
socioeconomic 
status? 
The 
discourse 
of 
privilege 
creates 
intangible, 
abstract 
dichotomies 
that 
offer 
no 
leverage for systemic change 
and unnecessarily pits minority 
groups against each other and 
everyone else. Our energy as 
individuals and as a collective 
whole should instead focus on 
a 
productive 
understanding 
of rights certain groups lack 
and how we can even out the 
playing field so all can achieve 
those rights. After all, most 
of the rights that we consider 
privileges today are a result of 
systematically depriving other 
populations of those rights. 
Addressing these will have a 
greater impact in the long run, 
one that stems beyond making 
others contemplate and feel 

guilty for what they have. 
Dialogues around privilege 
tend to establish a pretentious 
hierarchy, as well. In a recent 
study analyzing the privilege 
and reception of white women 
and women of color within 
the Peace Corps, the crux of 
the argument is based on how 
privileges between the two 
groups vary, and which group 
is able to better identify with 
and assist underrepresented 
communities. 
The 
study 
concluded that white women 
are awarded a certain degree 
of 
“male” 
privilege, 
thus 
making them less capable 
of 
connecting 
with 
other 
communities simply because 
of their race and nationality. 
By focusing on which group 
of women has more privilege, 
the study does not properly 
demonstrate 
how 
we 
can 
overcome those differences 
and 
stand 
with 
other 
populations, regardless of the 
intersections of identity. 
Surely, 
there 
are 
many 
privileges that are beyond 
basic 
fundamental 
rights. 
For example, the privilege 
of 
being 
taken 
seriously 
in a conversation, of being 
screened in a job application 
because of gender or race 
and so on. These, among 
others, are the undeserved 
benefits of having certain life 
experiences, not entities that 
every subgroup is inherently 
guaranteed. We should be 
conscious of these privileges, 
and in turn, act upon them by 
recognizing how much space 
we take up and fostering 
a drive to eradicate unfair 
advantages. 
Beyond 
these, 
however, 
the 
distinction 
between unfair privileges and 
basic rights has been blurred 
to the point where advocacy is 
doing little to serve the most 
vulnerable. Hence, we need 
to use our privileges to create 
a world of more equitable 
rights.

Divya Gumudavelly can be 

reached at gumudadi@umich.edu.

Since 
their 
inception, 
the 
protests 
have 
become 
increasingly violent with as 
many as eight suicides linked 
to them. Additionally, 18-year-
old student protester Tsang 
Chi-kin was shot in the chest 
by a police officer at close 
range on the same day, further 
compounding the protesters’ 
fervor. 
The extradition bill that 
first sparked the protests was 
introduced in April 2019. It 
allowed for criminal suspects 
to be extradited to China under 
certain circumstances. Critics 
of the bill stated that it would 
expose residents of Hong Kong 
to unfair trials and potential 
violence at the hands of the 
Chinese government. Other 
criticisms include fears that 
China would further increase 
its influence over Hong Kong 
and potentially begin to target 
journalists. These hostilities 
towards the bill are what first 
led to the protests, which 
became much more pressing 
in June. The protests have 
become increasingly violent, 
with more instances of the 
Hong Kong police force firing 
tear gas at protesters and 
deploying water cannons. In 
return, 
protesters 
have 
lit 
fires and thrown petrol bombs 
and bricks. As of Sept. 30, 48 
people had been admitted for 
medical treatment as a result 
of protest violence. 
Despite the obvious chaos 
and violence characterizing 
these protests, the protesters 
involved 
have 
maintained 
their 
momentum. 
The 
extradition 
bill 
that 
prompted the initial protests 
was 
withdrawn 
in 
early 
September. Protesters remain 
steadfast with their other 
demands 
oriented 
toward 
broader 
democracy 
and 
greater suffrage, demanding 
an independent probe into 
force used by police, amnesty 
for 
arrested 
protesters, 
a 
halt 
to 
the 
categorization 
of 
the 
protests 
as 
riots 
and the implementation of 
universal suffrage. Many of 
the protesters, the majority 
of whom are young adults, 
have taken to social media to 
declare that the withdrawal of 
the extradition bill is simply 
not enough to bring an end to 
the protests. The chaos and 
violence have not deterred 
demonstrators 
from 
their 
cause. Instead, many have 
doubled down, refusing to 
give in to the pressures and 
tactics employed by mainland 
China. Most recently, this 
includes 
the 
widespread 
refusal to comply with an 
emergency law banning face 
masks during protests. During 
the Oct. 6 protests against this 
ban, almost all demonstrators 
covered their faces, chanting 
“Hong Kong, resist!” as they 
marched through the streets 
in clear defiance of the laws 
employed to control them. 
Along with the use of social 
media, these young activists 
have 
employed 
several 

nontraditional 
methods 
in 
constructing 
the 
protests. 
First of all, the movement 
is largely decentralized and 
without a clear leader. Earlier 
protests, such as the Umbrella 
Movement of 2014, were based 
on the concept of occupying 
essential areas of the city for 
several months. In contrast, 
the 
current 
protests 
have 
adopted the slogan of “Be 
Water.” Originally a reference 
to a quote by famous Hong Kong 
actor Bruce Lee, demonstrators 
have co-opted this saying as a 
call for agility and adaptability 
within 
the 
movement. 
As 
opposed to a fixed occupation, 
these 
protests 
are 
much 
more mobile. Marches often 
do not have a fixed route, 
rallies may abruptly turn to 
marches and small groups 
of protesters may break off 
from others and carry out 
smaller, targeted occupations 
of 
government 
buildings. 
Moreover, these protests are 
essentially leaderless. While 
this is partly because of the 
harsh 
prosecution 
of 
the 
leaders of past movements, the 
absence of a leader also allows 
more 
equal 
collaboration 
among protesters on internet 
forums. Those involved in the 
protest say this method allows 
more 
equal 
participation 
within the movement while 
also encouraging the type of 
participatory democracy that 
they are ultimately fighting 
for. 

Hong Kong has enjoyed a 
“one country, two systems” 
style of government for over 
two 
decades. 
This 
notion, 
indicating that Hong Kong 
is a part of China while 
maintaining its own political 
system, is essential to Hong 
Kong’s identity. As a Special 
Administrative Region, Hong 
Kong maintains a high degree 
of autonomy through its own 
independent legal structures 
and 
police 
force, 
while 
Beijing is merely responsible 
for the region’s diplomatic 
relations and national defense. 
This 
unique 
status 
grants 
Hongkongers an independence 
and freedom they hold dear, 
yet 
many 
have 
expressed 
concerns for the arrangement’s 
upcoming expiration in 2047. 
As this deadline approaches, 
China 
is 
continually 
encroaching on Hong Kong’s 
democracy. In the past few 
years, 
owners 
of 
banned 
bookstores have disappeared 
mysteriously and lawmakers 
have been disqualified from 

running in elections due to 
their support for Hong Kong 
independence. In 2014, the 
Umbrella Revolution emerged 
in response to a series of 
restrictive 
and 
reactionary 
electoral 
reforms 
proposed 
by the Chinese legislative. 
Even though the movement 
concluded without resolving 
any 
political 
disputes, 
it 
was a warning for China’s 
determination 
to 
suppress 
democratic 
voices 
and 
generated 
awareness 
for 
the 
importance 
of 
dissent 
in 
resisting 
authoritarian 
measures. 
The 
most 
well-
known 
leaders 
of 
the 
movement, 
Joshua 
Wang, 
Nathan Law and Alex Chow, 
were even nominated for the 
Nobel Peace Prize in 2018, 
to recognize their efforts to 
promote peace and freedom.
Similarly, 
the 
ongoing 
student-led protests, keeping 
in the spirit of the 2014 
Umbrella Movement, are also 
fighting for Hong Kong’s right 
to democracy and autonomy. 
As 
students 
with 
ample 
access to democracy, it is 
imperative that we take note 
of the determination of our 
counterparts in Hong Kong 
and fully participate in our 
own 
democratic 
processes. 
Such participation can include 
supporting the Hong Kong 
protests while also registering 
to vote in our own upcoming 
elections and creating systems 
to facilitate increased voter 
turnout.
Though the spirit of the 
protesters 
has 
remained 
fierce for the past few months, 
it is hard to say whether 
their struggle will yield the 
desired results. The failures 
of previous campaigns, the 
silence 
of 
Chinese 
state 
press and the indifference 
of international leaders may 
foretell a bleak future for 
the 
Hong 
Kong 
protests. 
However, this does not render 
the protesters’ attempts futile 
or reduce the significance 
of these movements. Rather, 
it conveys the importance 
of defiance in the face of 
oppression and makes the 
protesters 
more 
honorable 
in their endeavors to defend 
their 
own 
democracy. 
Protester Hazel Chan, 18, told 
the BBC that she was “not 
sure how many more chances 
we’ll get to fight for freedom,” 
and while she did not think 
their actions will have a huge 
impact on the government, she 
said she believes their actions 
are worthwhile in gaining 
international 
attention. 
As 
Hong Kong’s political tides 
gradually shift from liberal 
to 
authoritarian, 
these 
protests leave much room 
for contemplation about our 
own situation and the decay 
of democracy in the United 
States. 
Nevertheless, 
by 
standing with Hongkongers 
today, we are standing with all 
of those who were oppressed 
in history and, perhaps, even 
ourselves in the future.

Colleges, and 
four-year 
universities in 
particular should 
provide all of their 
students with free 
meal plans

FROM THE DAILY

In solidarity with Hong Kong
I

n the past five months, Hong Kong has been rocked by intense 
anti-government protests against the Communist Party of China’s 
encroachment on its sovereignty and democracy. These protests 
experienced their most extreme levels of violence thus far in the days 
surrounding the 70th anniversary of the Communist Party of China on 
Oct. 1. The initial impetus for the protests in their current form was the 
decision by Carrie Lam, chief executive of Hong Kong, to push forward 
a bill allowing for the extradition of fugitives to mainland China. 

DIVYA

GUMUDAVELLY

DIVYA GUMUDAVELLY | COLUMN

China is 
continually 
encroaching on 
Hong Kong’s 
democracy

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