Pools of carmel swirling around a black hole abyss 

My eyes call themselves beautiful.

Candied flakes swallowing influxes of light, 

I love this skeleton,

Composed of bones proven durable 

From years of resisting wordly tarnish 

I love this skeleton, 

Despite the unevenness of my ribs

The lopsided steel bars that 

Protect my fragile beating core 

I love my shoulders,

Likened to soils drenched

And weighed down heavy 

in the exhausted screams,

of my mother 

of her mother

and hers 

They are distinctly proud and poised 

I love how I am bound 

I’ve stretched my muscles like rubber,

Then alchemized them strong 

Chainlinking flesh to bone

Flesh I now love enough to not dig into,

The places where crimson once percolated

between slivers of once fragile skin 

Now fastened shut, scars nearly indistinguishable

I love the places where mountains have formed proudly 

I adorn them in loose silks and velvets

I’ve been told of the beauty of my deepest trenches

I’ve come to love being the tree that grows the flower

I’ve come to fall in love with melting into my souls warm embrace

the reality of dismantling the police

O

n Sunday, June 7, nine members of the Minneapolis City Council acknowledged that the current system of policing is not working 
and that they intend to “defund and dismantle” the city police department. Council President Lisa Bender stated, “(We need) to 
listen, especially to our Black leaders, to our communities of color, for whom policing is not working and to really let the solutions 

lie in our community.” While still in the process of planning exactly what these new, transformative and community-based initiatives 
may look like, the goal is to implement a model of public safety that actually keeps each community safe. Conversations of defunding 
and dismantling police departments have popped up all over the country, and many are concerned about what exactly this means. 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan In Color
6 — Monday, August 31, 2020 

ANA MARÍA 

SÁNCHEZ-CASTILLO
MiC Co-Managing Editor
‘Adorn’

My mother is a 5 foot 2 inch 

Indian woman and I’m her only 
child. 
This 
statement 
alone 

should speak volumes about our 
relationship. To compensate for 
my lack of siblings, at times she 
acts like my older sister. At times 
when I’m overwhelmed with life 
and a bit lost (as one is inevitably 
bound to be in their early 20’s), 
she acts as my guide and great-
est comfort. Somehow, she’s also 
managed to find the right bal-
ance of being my best friend and 
my greatest annoyance and even 
a few times what seems to be 
my arch nemesis. How a single 
person can encapsulate so many 
different roles and keep them all 
at various steady states is simply 
beyond me. It also shows that 
parenting is very much an art and 
a full time job. 

As a woman and an immigrant, 

society has not given my mother 
any favors. Like the majority of 
the incredibly strong women in 
my family, she’s had to kick some 
serious ass and is one of the hard-
est working people I know (trust 
me, raising me was no vacation). 
My mother had undoubtedly 
learned these qualities at an early 
age but they were definitely put 
to the test as she set out to fulfill 
the “American Dream” (what-
ever that may mean now) with 
my father. In her 5 foot 2 inch 
frame, my mother carries herself 
like Shaquille O’Neal. Her shoe 
size may be 5.5 but she leaves 
footprints that could be mistaken 
for those of an NBA All-star. She 
has a warmth and confidence 
about her that is bound to bring 
a smile to the face of anyone who 
interacts with her. But as her kid, 
she was also the judge and jury 
in my household with her blue 
Chevy Malibu being her court-
room. For anyone that doesn’t 
know, the Chevy Malibu is a car 
that screams “I’m a parent but 
I’m too cool for a minivan”. Car 
rides with my mom were often 
the time she’d take out of her day 
to painfully analyze the variety 
of stupid decisions I used to and 
still make. I knew upon entry 
through the passenger door that 
if my mother was speaking in 
English or Hindi then our inter-
action would be rather civil. But 
if at any point my mother started 
to speak in Punjabi, I knew I was 
in for a full fledged bar fight. 

But standing at a mighty 5 foot 

2 inches didn’t particularly help 
my mom in her role as the disci-
plinarian. Imagine a courtroom 
for an example. You’ve got your 
plaintiff’s table, your defendants 
table and your jury box that are 
roughly at the same height. But 
the judge’s bench in comparison 
is significantly higher. The judge 
literally looks down on everyone 
and makes a decision. This was 
very much our relationship till 
the age of around 12-13. My moth-
er would tower over my skinny 
four foot something self, make 
the meanest face she could make 
and bring me to swift justice — no 
trial or deliberation needed. Con-
sidering this, puberty pushing me 
over the height of 5’ 2’’ may have 
been one of the highlights of my 
early adolescent life. It’s as if the 
defendant now has a bench that’s 
taller than the judges - compro-
mising the height difference that 
is integral to our justice system! 
And like any comic book villain 
with an epic origin story— at 5’ 
3’’, my newfound sense of tallness 
gave me license to wreak havoc in 
middle school. This set off a long-
standing back and forth between 
my mother and I of me making 
very stupid decisions and my 
mother somehow always being 
one step ahead of me and catch-
ing me within the act.

Fast forward a whole decade 

to now, if you’re taking classes 
from home and living with your 
parents and particularly if you’re 
a freshman — reading this may 
not make you feel any better 
about your current living situa-
tion. But take it from a seasoned 
vet who’s commuted to campus 
for the last three years now — it’s 
not as bad as everyone thinks it 
is. Yes, I understand that living 
with your parents as a 21 year 
old isn’t a particularly attractive 
quality but hear me out. I’ve had 
the luxury of going to college in 
my hometown. I’m on campus 
for the majority of the day and to 
get home I take a Bursley - Baits 
and walk 10 minutes. Therefore, 
as a sophomore when I told my 
very Indian father about my idea 
of living with my friends in a 
house on campus I was met with 
a confused reaction. I was sternly 
reminded of how he immigrated 
to the United States not even 
dreaming that he’d end up own-
ing a house in Ann Arbor and 
now I was asking him to pay for 
a second place in the same city? 
It was one of the rare times you 
see a person’s blood pressure rise 
visibly. 

At the time I had my concerns. 

I mean I had lived in the dorms 
during my freshman year and 
was afraid of missing out on an 
essential 
college 
experience. 

Sure living away from home 
meant that I went from finding 
texts from my mother “annoy-
ing” to actively trying to call her 
when I could. But moving back in 
with them? I had done four years 
of high school and who wants to 
do that again? Whenever an adult 
tells me that they wish they could 
go back to high school, I prompt-
ly remind them that it didn’t get 
any better. But what I overlooked 
is the ability for relationships to 
change. If there’s anything that 
the 300 page Khan academy 
MCAT 
psychology/sociology 

review document taught me, it’s 
that the cerebrum — the part of 
your brain that is responsible for 
actions such as critical think-
ing and decision making — is 
far from fully developed during 
adolescence. Therefore, as a high 
schooler dealing with classes, 
hormones and trying to do every 
extracurricular out there to make 
your college resume special, 
some things are bound to just 
not stick. For me this was often 
the many conversations that my 
mother and I would have in her 
Chevy Malibu. Sure, some of 
those were about academics, but 
most of them were about growing 
as a person. 

I can guarantee that your 

relationship with your parents 
will not be the same as it was 
under the angsty pretenses of 
high school. Mine certainly isn’t 
the “catch me if you can” type of 
game that my mother and I have 
been playing from the ages of 13 
through 18. In fact, many of those 
conversations from my mother’s 
Malibu have really started to res-
onate with me and have become 
an important part of my identity 
as I’ve gone through college. I’ve 
been truly blessed to have the 
best of both worlds of being from 
the town that I go to college in. 
I’ve been able to have my free-
dom and grow as an individual by 
being on campus while also keep-
ing myself grounded with where 
I’m from. Continuously learning 
invaluable lessons from my par-
ents about growing up and being 
an adult (responsible or not — the 
jury’s still out on that one). Take 
it from your now very boomer 
sounding friend, give your par-
ents a chance. I promise they’re 
not as hopeless as you think they 
are. 

Now more than ever before, 

I have found myself with a fuse 
shorter than imaginable. I am a 
ticking time bomb, eager to be 
set off preemptively. Harmless 
slights from my siblings lead to 
prolonged campaigns of verbal 
exodus consisting of every insult 
in the book and insignificant dis-
agreements with my parents are 
the catalyst to what seems to be 
the next world war. It’s a marvel 
no one in my family has had some 
type of mental breakdown result-
ing from the compounding stress 
and anxiety being generated 
like electricity from a turbine of 
anguish.

I have been on the brink of los-

ing it quite a few times since this 
all began. I get into these moods. 
It happens intermittently, maybe 
about once every 2 - 3 weeks. And 
similar to the tide, the intensity 
of the wave that carries my emo-
tions oscillates violently. These 
moods translate into episodes in 
which I just shout about all of the 
little things that have been eating 
away at me. 

As these moods swallow me 

up, I feel as if I’ve been thrown 
into the ocean accompanied by 
a sack of bricks to help weigh me 
down. My natural buoyancy isn’t 
enough to keep me afloat, and so 
I’m pulled deeper. Without any 
semblance of what’s pulling me 
down further, I become disori-
ented. As what feels like dark, 
cold saltwater fills my lungs I 
scream out. I try to remain con-
scious in an attempt to construe 
why I’m drowning, why it is that 
I am so distraught.

Even as I eventually breach 

the surface, as suddenly as I was 
pulled to the depths, I struggle 
to understand what sequence of 
events, emotions, ebbs were to 

blame for my episode.

As I said, I haven’t been able to 

figure out what it is that drives 
me into the aforementioned 
moods. I’m not familiar with 
some dogmatic approach like the 
scientific method to better grasp 
the probably neurological devic-
es facilitating my episodes. 

One 
virtue, 
however, 
has 

served as a floatation device. 
This virtue, patience, has kept 
me afloat at times when I was 
bound to have another episode. 
It should be made clear though, 
I am not describing inherent 
patience. The patience I speak of 
is learned, conscious and seem-
ingly tangible. It’s easily attain-
able, though upkeep requires 
effort. 

It can be difficult, remaining 

stuck in our homes, virtually 
experiencing the same thing day 
in and day out. We begin per-
forming familiar tasks, latching 
on to whatever brings us closest 
to that sense of normalcy, of a 
routine. These de facto routines 
that keep us from what seems 
like dying of boredom become 
monotonous and to an extent 
create faulty faculties of comfort. 
Once we’re accustomed to these 
routines, even the slightest devi-
ations caused by external fac-
tors (i.e. a younger sibling rudely 
disrupting your mid-afternoon 
nap) can feel catastrophic. We’re 
snapped back into our current 
(and 
indefinite) 
reality, 
los-

ing grip on those routines that 
ensured we kept pace.

That’s where patience steps 

in. It acts as that intermediary, a 
breath before the yelling ensues 
and insults are hurled. It reels 
us in, offering a moment of clar-
ity to decide whether the battle is 
worth fighting, if there really is a 
battle that needs to be fought at 
all.

That insight, that awareness 

that creates those brief pauses 

for patience to intervene are 
only half of it. We may learn that 
skill, but we still have a conscious 
decision to make. It requires 
willpower to deliberately take 
what’s commonly known as “the 
high ground.” I’d prefer to refer 
to it as a willful election of an 
alternative to conflict. I don’t 
think there is anything immoral 
about expressing human emotion 
(even if it may come in the form 
of shouting), so to call it “the high 
ground” would be an admonish-
ment of those who choose to 
share their feelings in a more 
passionate manner. By resorting 
to that willful election we reaf-
firm that ability to defuse con-
flict and dissipate tension. 

It would be quite ignorant, 

foolish even, of me to place the 
responsibility of being patient on 
a single individual in an entire 
household. It goes in either 
direction, and just as we must 
practice patience we should be 
able to expect it in return. How-
ever, to think that the principal 
incentive of practicing patience 
is for oneself contradicts the act 
of willfully electing something 
other than conflict; as conflict 
requires more than one. This 
means that our attempt isn’t to 
become more virtuous or pious 
than those around us, but instead 
to guide those we reside with 
in being more thoughtful when 
interacting with one another — 
even if that requires taking the 
first step. That first step is prac-
ticing patience with others even 
if it isn’t reciprocated.

Patience is a virtuous cycle that 

pays dividends in an invaluable, 
intangible currency. A currency 
that cannot be spent, yet is typi-
cally worth more than the value 
we assign it. It is best we hold on 
to it though, so as we continue 
on in these times we have some-
thing to keep us sane when facing 
total and utter uncertainty. 

 ADAM BAZZI
MiC Staff Writer

 DEVAK NANUA

MiC Staff Writer

From Your Friendly Neighborhood Commuter

What I Learned in Quarantine: Patience

As the summer comes to a 

close, and our time as Manag-
ing Editors is now complete, 
we would like to close off with 
a letter and a hope for MiC — 
an ode to a summer of revolu-
tion, if you will. Neither of us 
could have predicted what we 
signed up for, but we are more 
than proud of what we were 
able to accomplish. Thanks to 
a group of brilliant and talent-
ed writers and staff, we were 
able to pull off a summer of 
enlightening and educational 
series of writing which not 
only shared personal expe-
riences or reflections, but 
provided scholastic and expe-
riential insight into the many 
departments and institutions 
that feed the Black and Indig-
enous plight in America — a 
truth that is often rejected 
and whose existence is per-
petuated through journalism. 
Not only did we learn so much 
from our peers, but we are so 
grateful to have been given 
this opportunity to amplify 
issues in our country which 
have been occurring since 
the genesis of our nation, and 
which built the nation. These 
issues will persist until we 
confront them in every system 
through which we function — 
social, governmental, econom-
ic, etc. — we hold our peers 
accountable 
for 
this 
same 

confrontation, actively edu-
cate ourselves on how these 
systems affect society at micro 
and macro levels and utilize 
that education to grow and 
change with an united front. 

Michigan in Color started 

out as a safe community exclu-
sively for BIPOC to write and 
share their experiences at the 
University of Michigan and in 
the broad United States. We 
tried our best this summer to 
uphold MiC traditions while 
also adjusting to inevitable 
change and pursuing neces-
sary actions as a section to 
carry on the change we insti-
gated this summer. Before 
we give up our positions, we 
would like to remind others, 

especially at The Michigan 
Daily, that the sentiment of 
change which began this sum-
mer can not and should not 
stop here. The newspaper’s 
responsibility does not only 
rest in its published content, 
but in the team that they hire 
to write, edit and administrate 
that content for the paper. In 
all of our efforts to expand 
content and staff, we must be 
adamant about centering the 
Black and Indigenous voice — 
especially those of womxn. As 
the MiC section, we also want 
to hold each section account-
able for this responsibility as 
individual groups — it is not 
enough to have Michigan in 
Color at the paper; this work 
must be demonstrated by each 
and every section at the paper. 
Simply put, MiC cannot and 
will not be your excuse or your 
teacher. We must treat MiC as 
an individual section which 
operates on our own basis. We 
are not diversity issue scape-
goats and we must operate as 
a whole group to rectify our 
wrongdoings for a greater 
future. 

But this conversation and 

demand 
for 
accountability 

is far greater than the paper 
— we would like to inspire a 
bigger call to action for our 
readers, as this time is one to 
take advantage of. We have 
sat comfortably for too long 
in great periods of performa-
tive activism. As we continue 
to stand complacent in the 
visual apologies granted to 
us by large corporations and 
brand names who participate 
in oppressive systems, we our-
selves perpetuate them and we 
ultimately oppress one anoth-
er. Amidst this pandemic and 
simultaneous civil rights and 
liberation movements sprout-
ing globally, we have been 
given 
the 
opportunity 
to 

demand more from ourselves, 
from one another and from 
those who puppeteer these 
systems. We encourage you to 
be intentional and reflective 
with each pursuit of activism 
you engage in: Is this truly the 
most beneficial way for you to 
wield your privilege and/or 
space for the liberation move-
ment at hand? Do you know 

who and what you are fighting 
for? Do you know what you are 
willing to sacrifice? Will you 
sacrifice it? Ask yourself these 
questions. 

As for me, Cheryn, I also 

wanted to give a big thank 
you to my co-managing editor 
Gabrijela. Without her, I do 
not know if I could have been 
able to do anything this sum-
mer. As a woman who identi-
fies as Korean-American, I 
can’t and will never under-
stand the Black struggle in 
America and wanted to make 
sure this summer I was able 
to work for and with Black 
Americans without silencing 
their voice, and Gabrijela has 
taught me so much regard-
ing how to be a proper ally. I 
simply thought going into the 
summer this would be a job, 
but it was much more than 
that, and I know Gabrijela and 
I will always be a team and 
friendship, whether we are 
MiC ME’s or not.

As for me, Gabrijela, I want 

to first thank Cheryn, my co-
managing editor. With her, 
I was given the space and 
platform to create something 
greater than me and my own 
mind. My dear co-ME works 
like a racehorse, because that 
is simply who she is. And for all 
of your intellect, compassion 
and truth, I thank you. I want 
to thank our writers who were 
committed to their stories and 
to our community, and who I 
ultimately could not do my job 
without. I want to thank you 
readers, even if there are only 
two of you, and tell you that I 
have extreme hope for you and 
for our society’s future. But 
this hope is dependent on what 
we as civilians are inspired to 
manifest. If you want mental 
and economic revolution — as 
I so desperately do — then you 
will see it come to fruition. 

A big thank you to the Opin-

ion EPE, Brittany Bowman, 
for putting her heart and foot 
into her contributions to MiC’s 
educational mission this sum-
mer; as well as our EIC, Emma 
Stein, and ME, Devak Nanua, 
for helping us create and final-
ize our vision. 

CHERYN HONG &

 GABRIJELA SKOKO

MiC Summer Co-Managing Editors

A letter from the summer editors

