T

he first time someone referred 
to me as an alien, I laughed. I 
did not have a big, bald head. 

My skin wasn’t green and my eyes, 
while on the large side, looked quite 
normal to me. The word “alien” 
followed me around for years. In 
America, because of my immigration 
status, I was as extraterrestrial as Zoe 
Saldana in “Avatar.” 

Therefore, when confronted with 

the question, “What does an alien 
look like?” in a freshman seminar, my 
answer was, “they look a bit like us.”

According to the Oxford English 

Dictionary, the meaning “foreigner” 
has been associated with the word 
“alien” as early as the 1380s. The 
first citation for the science-fiction 
meaning was in 1929, in the Wonder 
Stories magazine. It appears that we 
had been using the word “alien” to 
refer to foreigners long before we used 
it to refer to extraterrestrial creatures. 
Consequently, we can conclude that 
when the English-speaking world first 
wrote about Martians in space, they 
imagined these Martians to be similar 
to foreigners. Alien means the same 
today as it did in the 1380s — it is used 
to differentiate between people based 
on race and borders. It is a pejorative 
term that strips immigrants of their 
humanity and their rights on the basis 
of such humanity. 

In 
18th 
and 
19th 
century 

humanitarianism, 
autopsies 
were 

popularized. They made it clear 
that on the inside, our bodies are 

extremely similar, if not all the same. 
It is one of the reasons humanitarian 
aid exists today. We realize, above all, 
we are human. According to Thomas 
Laqueur, “the humanitarian narrative 
relies on the personal body, not only 
as the locus of pain but also as the 
common bond between those who 
suffer and those who would help.” 

But the act of referring to a person 

as an “alien” clashes with the notion 
of humanity. Identifying someone 
as “alien” disregards all of their 
other forms of identity and simply 
classifies them as “the other.” It 
is an unnecessary word that only 
serves the purpose of differentiating 
between people on the basis of race, 
ethnicity and nationality. It is used to 
deepen the divide between “us” and 
“them,” and it perpetuates racism and 
problematic stereotypes. 

In his article about the social 

and legal construction of “aliens,” 
Kevin Johnson writes: “the concept 
of the alien helps to reinforce and 
strengthen 
nativist 
sentiment 

toward members of new immigrant 
groups, which in turn influences U.S. 
responses to immigration and human 
rights issues.” 

These influences appear in politics 

and laws that are very prominent in 
our society’s very recent political 
agenda. The Muslim Ban comes 
to mind. The infamous wall at the 
Mexican-American 
border 
comes 

to mind. Children in cages and 
separation of families comes to 

mind. The rampant sentiment of 
“go back to your country” comes to 
mind.

My mother, who doesn’t speak 

English, works at a bistro. A customer 
thought that she made his coffee with 
water instead of milk and told her to 
“go back to Russia.” My mother is not 
Russian. 

Words carry meaning. Language 

influences attitudes in society. The 
fact that extraterrestrial beings are 
named after immigrants serves as 
proof. The word alien carries negative 
connotations that reinforce distinctions 
and divisions between human beings. It 
perpetuates stereotypes that make it 
impossible for our society to progress. 

The only thing all aliens have in 

common is that they’re aliens. The 
only thing that all people have in 
common is that they’re people. You 
can’t be both. 

D

espite 
the 
few 
fond 

memories of my time at 
high school, I am certain 

that I would have preferred my 
in-person experience to that of any 
K-12 student currently attending class 
virtually. Now, nearly a year into the 
pandemic, a significant proportion of 
schools still remain closed, offering 
instruction solely via a computer 
screen. 

President Joe Biden entered office 

with an ambitious reopening plan, 
pledging to return K-12 students to 
classrooms within his first 100 days. 
Following the Centers for Disease 
Control 
and 
Prevention’s 
new 

guidelines for reopening, announced 
last Friday, it is looking like that plan is 
not only ambitious but unlikely. 

With that being said, even if Biden’s 

original threshold back in December 
was over-aggressive, opening schools 
is possible. And, for the sake of all of 
the students who have dysfunctional 
or 
abusive 
households, 
depend 

on food from their school, do not 
have strong internet connections 
or are suffering through Zoom-
administered physics lessons, it 
should be treated as a priority. 

According to the CDC’s report, 

elementary 
schools 
are 
pretty 

much in the clear to go back to 
the classroom. As long as proper 
procedures, such as mask-wearing 
and social distancing, are followed, 
they can operate regardless of the 
community transmission rate. Doing 
that is not feasible for every school, 
depending on the potential size and 
infrastructure limitations, but for 
many, it can be done. Middle schools 
and high schools are also permitted to 
operate, except if transmission rates 
in the district reach the highest level 
— defined by either a 10% or greater 
positive community test rate or 100 
or more cases per 100,000 people in a 
seven-day period. 

The main barrier to schools 

reopening 
countrywide 
is 
not 

necessarily the logistics of adhering 
to safety regulations, even if that is 
difficult to do in some districts. One 
of the most prominent oppositions 
is from teachers’ unions and staff 

within the buildings, many of whom 
do not believe that schools can be 
reopened in a safe manner.

Teacher unions have held firm that 

a strict set of demands must be put in 
place before the process of reopening 
schools can begin. But even they are 
beginning to lay down their guard 
following this new report from the 
CDC, with Randi Weingarten, the 
president of the American Federation 
of Teachers, responding with a 
positive review: “Today, the CDC met 
fear of the pandemic with facts and 
evidence. … For the first time since 
the start of this pandemic, we have a 
rigorous road map, based on science, 
that our members can use to fight for 
a safe reopening.” 

For some, vaccinations have 

been at the heart of that strict 
set of demands — teachers in 
Minnesota 
have 
rallied 
and 

nurses, educators and parents plan 
to hold daily press conferences 
to voice their concerns about a 
rushed reopening.

While the CDC agrees with 

unions that teachers should be 
among the top of the priority 
hierarchy, vaccinations are not a 
prerequisite for students nor staff 
under these new guidelines. New 
York City’s success in regard to 
teacher safety has been evidence 
for that.

Still, one prominent concern 

remains for others: ventilation. 
Many schools are old and lack 
proper 
ventilation 
systems, 

which in the context of COVID-
19 could present a significant 
risk for its occupants. Experts 
have criticized the CDC’s report 
on this point, noting that a less 
aggressive emphasis should be 
placed on sanitizing surfaces 
around school buildings and more 
should be placed on ensuring 
adequate ventilation. After all, 
this is an airborne disease. 

Biden and the House Democrats 

are working on a solution to various 
infrastructure 
restraints. 
Their 

proposed 
COVID-19 
relief 
bill 

includes $129 billion in education 
relief funding that, in theory, could 

address improper ventilation in 
applicable 
districts. 
Of 
course, 

infrastructure like that will take 
some time to implement, but once it is, 
a true in-person learning experience 
could be in sight. 

The reality is reopening will not 

be perfectly risk-free. But that does 
not mean it is extraordinarily risky. 
And the values of in-person education 
need to be weighed against these 
risks. 

As 
Gov. 
Gretchen 
Whitmer 

stated this month, “The value of 
in-person learning for our kids is 
immeasurable.” She is spot on. 

Virtual schooling removes nearly 

all of the social aspects of school, 
stripping learning down to the cut-
and-dried: teaching and learning. 
There is only so much that teachers 
can do to foster participation and 
students certainly do not have the 
same ability to chat or check-in with 
their peers as they do in person. 

Racial inequities, which were 

already prominent within our school 
systems prior to the pandemic, are 
now exacerbated by online or hybrid 
learning. Nearly 30% of all K-12 
public school students in the United 
States do not have proper access to 
the internet in their homes. This, 
mixed with parents who are often 
already stretched thin with their own 
jobs and the loud environments that 
are common within multiple-family 
homes, makes for a horrendous 
learning environment for a large 
proportion of American students.

The virus’s danger must be 

acknowledged. But the CDC has 
already considered the risks, and 
within the context of schooling, the 
danger can be heavily mitigated in 
several ways. 

We should not be abandoning 

the concept of in-person schooling 
because it may require some extra 
work to reopen. Instead, go full steam 
ahead. The consequences of being 
stuck at home for students are only 
going to multiply if we don’t. 

T

his summer was not 
the first time Black Lives 
Matter protesters took to 

the streets demanding change and 
accountability of and within “the 
system.” However, it was one of the 
first times that substantive policy 
proposals came out of the movement 
and into mainstream discourse. The 
main policy proposal: defunding the 
police. 

This has different definitions 

depending on who you ask, but it can 
range anywhere from reallocating 
some 
of 
the 
funding 
police 

departments receive to mental health 
and counseling initiatives all the 
way to abolishing the entire police 
system in this country. I am not here 
to discuss the merits of this plan, but 
merely the messaging that younger 
progressives brought to the streets 
this summer. 

In 
early 
December, 
former 

President Barack Obama said, “I 
guess you can use a snappy slogan 
like ‘Defund The Police,’ but, you 
know, you lost a big audience the 
minute you say it, which makes it a lot 
less likely that you’re actually going to 
get the changes you want done.” 

What Obama is saying is that 

there are serious and systemic 
problems that need to be solved 
and addressed by politicians, but 
by using such harsh language, 
younger Democrats have alienated 
themselves 
from 
the 
larger 

population. I know from experience 
that older Americans were turned 
off from the language of “defund 
the police” at first because they 
viewed that as a direct threat to 
their personal safety. One huge 
assumption that progressives made 
is that the average person will read 
beyond the title of a plan and do 
their due diligence in researching 
the actual policies it is aiming to 
advocate. It is impossible to expect 
this of every American. Clearly, our 
messaging matters. A lot. 

In a meta-analysis of polls in June, 

around 31% of Americans supported 
defunding the police system. What is 
even more shocking is that when the 
polling question changes from “Do 
you support defunding the police?” to 
a more specific question asking if you 
would support using some taxpayer 
funds that go to the police to other 
agencies that could better respond 
to some emergencies, the number 
shoots up to 72%. 

This represents a massive gap 

between the support of the slogan 
and the support of the actual 
messaging behind it. Almost three in 
four Americans believe in the concept 
of taking some responsibilities off the 
plate of law enforcement and giving 
them to more qualified professionals 
instead. This stands sharply in 
contrast with the slightly more than 
one in four who support the attached 
slogan. 

This shows us that Obama was 

right: Messaging matters. People 
often quickly jump the gun and go 
for the home-run solution when the 
practical and effective approach 
is right in front of their eyes. It 
is important to understand that 
policymaking does not happen in a 
simple Democratic or Republican 
vacuum. Real policymaking takes 
compromise and understanding of 
others. 

A lot of young people simply see 

the world from one lens, sometimes 
clouded by privilege and relative 
inexperience. While well-intentioned, 
the messaging of defunding the police 
played right into the hands of the 
current Republican Party in the 2020 
election cycle; they ran numerous 
false 
ads 
targeting 
Democratic 

candidates 
saying 
that 
these 

candidates supported defunding the 
police when many had categorically 
denied this. These include the senate 
seats in 2020 in Maine, Iowa, North 
Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia 
— the majority of which Democrats 

lost — as well as attempting to leverage 
this claim in the presidential race. 

Additionally, an ad claiming that 

Joe Biden supported defunding the 
police decreased his net favorable 
rating by 11 points in focus groups. 
Black 
Americans, 
who 
many 

progressives claim to be acting on 
the behalf of, do not overwhelmingly 
support this policy — anywhere from 
51% of Black voters in Michigan 
are actually against defunding the 
police. These findings confirm that 
using this divisive messaging is not 
accomplishing the goal we need to 
be striving for: police reform. It is 
getting us further away from that 
goal in exchange for a snazzy slogan 
that we can exert on our parents or 
less “woke” friends. 

While I believe the damage of 

the “defund the police” slogan has 
already been done, progressives, 
liberals, 
independents 
and 

conservatives concerned with the 
gravely serious issues of police 
brutality and systemic racism should 
instead look to see how we can best 
solve this in the future. 

We can do it by approaching 

people who do not look or think like 
us to see how best to get our message 
across to them. There have been 
many issues where messaging has 
limited the policy goals behind it, 
but it must stop here. Progressives 
have great ideas to move this country 
in a positive direction, but we must 
understand how our views come 
across to others and plan accordingly. 

If 
we 
want 
to 
genuinely 

accomplish something with our 
messaging, it is not enough to merely 
think we are correct and not care 
about the public perception. We must 
engage with others on a substantive 
level to truly accomplish policy 
change in the future.

12 — Wednesday, February 24, 2021
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

MADELYN VERVAECKE 
| CARTOONIST CAN BE CONTACTED AT MIVERVAE@UMICH.EDU.

SHUBHUM GIROTI | COLUMNIST

XHULIA GURI | CONTRIBUTOR

JOHN TUMPOWSKY | COLUMNIST

Shubhum Giroti can be reached at 

sgiroti@umich.edu.

Xhulia Guri is a junior in the College of 

Literature, Science & the Arts and can be 

reached at xguri@umich.edu.

John Tumpowsky can be reached at 

jgtump@umich.edu.

Progressive messaging needs an overhaul

 I am a person, not an “alien”

Schools can, and should, reopen now

BRITTANY BOWMAN

Managing Editor

Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

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CLAIRE HAO

Editor in Chief

ELIZABETH COOK 
AND JOEL WEINER

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