Perhaps the most dreaded facet of online
learning is the Zoom Breakout Room, a
wasteland of black screens and muted
microphones and often silent, unrequited
group work in a shared Google Document.
And like Grant Wood’s “American Gothic,”
the Zoom Breakout Room has come to
define itself as a somber event of cultural
permanence. It’s s the ultimate battleground
of the virtual college experience and more
deeply, one of the darkest underbellies of
social interaction. My experiences in breakout
rooms have left me questioning my peers’
integrity, maturity and emotional depth, but
more importantly, have led me to a much
more refined understanding of the human
condition. You see, our experiences are not
always novel or paramount: all of our hearts
begin to race before we enter a breakout room,
our palms begin to sweat and sometimes we
stutter and ramble and overshare about our
love for Jhumpa Lahiri or Audie Cornish from
All Things Considered or Emily Ratajkowski’s
essay on buying herself back. With this in
mind, I have amassed a list of proven tips
and tricks, through a lengthy process of trial
and error, on conquering the Zoom Breakout
Room once and for all. Use at your own
discretion.
1. Turn Your Camera On. Taking the
initiative to turn your camera on in a breakout
room can often be nerve wracking and
nauseating especially when no one else has
theirs on. People tend to mirror one another
and turning mine on has almost always
catalyzed a chain reaction of cameras turning
on. It’s important to be aware that often people
keep their cameras off because of external
circumstances we may not understand. For
this reason turning on cameras can be a hefty
matter and one that should be approached
with tact and care. Never force cameras to
be turned on, this is a process that is best
undertaken naturally. If you turn your camera
on and no one follows suit, you should probably
turn it back off. According to the students in
my biology discussion breakout room, each
breakout room has its own delightful bags of
tricks and surprises and sometimes we get
handed a smelly bag rotting at the seams.
2. Ask People How They’re Doing. I start
every conversation in breakout rooms I’m
thrusted into by asking people how they are
doing. This is a common courtesy and should
always be asked. “How are you doing?” poses
itself as an even more potent conversation starter
in the midst of a pandemic. People are not often
asked this question with sincerity, nor are we
expected to answer honestly. It’s okay to not be
doing well. It’s okay to be honest and open about
failure. It opens the floor to productive dialogue
and most importantly, renders the breakout
room a safe virtual space for completing group
work. Sometimes I don’t know the answer to the
group work. Sometimes unprecedented events
happen or we lose motivation or the world can
become lean and mean for periods of time and
we fall weeks behind in lectures or readings.
That is OK.
3. Ask People About Their Music Taste.
People love to be understood, validated and
heard in all kinds of ways. Music and sharing
music presents itself as one of the most sacred
forms of friendship and communication.
People love to talk about music and more
importantly, the kind of music they listen to,
because by default it is an extension of the soul
and the mind and the heart. Sometimes this
doesn’t work and I’ll receive vague answers
like I-listen-to everything-but-country but
sometimes I’ll get things like Phoebe Bridgers
(who I discovered through a breakout
room!) and Ms. Lauryn Hill and Mos Def.
Earlier this month, I was walking down
South Forest Avenue with a friend of mine on
a Friday night when two white men drove by
us on the sidewalk. They rolled down their
windows and one of them proceeded to shout
at me to “get off the street” followed by the
N-word. Two weeks later, I can still vividly recall
the fear and discomfort I felt in the moment.
The event, which happened mere blocks away
from my apartment, turned what used to be a
familiar street to me into a cruel reminder of the
antiquated attitudes still existing everywhere
in the United States, including (and especially)
here, at the University of Michigan. It reminded
me that, as African philosophy scholar Mabogo
P. More once stated, “To live under the threat of
non-being is to live in what existentialists call
a condition of finitude, the constant possibility
of disintegration and death and, therefore,
anguish and anxiety.” This immense lack of
control over the way society perceives us, as
Black beings, has a tremendous impact on our
lived experience.
Nowadays, we often talk about racial
oppression on a systemic level, typically
from an economic standpoint by examining
the impacts of structural inequality. But
not nearly as often do we discuss the effects
oppression has on the body, mind and soul
of the oppressed being –– the disparaging
impact that incessantly being perceived as an
other, along with the ongoing relativization to
the white norm, has on the psyche of the dis-
possessed subject.
Steve Biko, a radical South African activist,
wrote extensively on what it means to be
Black in an anti-Black world. Before he was
assassinated by the South African apartheid
regime in 1977, he worked heavily with
the South African Student Organization
and contributed towards establishing the
Black Consciousness Movement. This was
a movement combining ideologies of Black
Power, philosophical notions of (Black)
consciousness and radical Christianity in
order to empower Black people to assert their
own autonomy and self-determination, thus
challenging the white power structure. Biko
believed, and once stated, “The most potent
weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the
mind of the oppressed.” I know firsthand
what it’s like to carry the weight of a lifetime
of internalized oppression. It’s an ongoing
process to overcome the never-ending feelings
of imposter syndrome, coupled with my
increasingly negative self-esteem and body
image after years and years of being socialized
by our anti-Black society to hate myself.
It’s true that a lifetime of racialized
oppression
psychologically
alters
the
conscious experience of the oppressed
individual. According to Frantz Fanon,
a radical Black political philosopher, this
constant subjugation to violence results in the
epidermalization of inferiority in the mind
of the colonized subject. In other words,
in attempting to subvert and mitigate the
likelihood of discrimination, the oppressed
individual will subconsciously strive to adhere
to standards of whiteness, thus internalizing
their oppression “in anticipation of the
punitive norms.”
Growing up, I felt this internalization daily
without even being aware of it. Living in a world
where you’re constantly otherized, conscious of
your racialized identity in relation to others or,
as Biko referred to in his “On Death” chapter of
his popular text “I Write What I Like,” facing
“a permanent struggle against an omnipresent
death.” And as much as I try to shake it, by no
fault of my own, this omnipresence of death is
always following me, lingering, as a constant
reminder of my sheer lack of control over how
I am perceived in this world.
But even at my lowest, I remind myself that
I have the capacity to rise above it all. To do so,
I often find myself drawing parallels between
the Black Consciousness Movement’s notion
of salvation and deliverance (by going from
non-being to being) with the Biblical notions
of salvation and deliverance found through
Jesus Christ. As Biko discusses in his text, “The
Radical Gospel of Black Consciousness,” Black
consciousness entails a radical transformation
of the ontological status of the individual,
going from an inauthentic to authentic being.
The inauthenticity of repressing one’s own
self in fear of retaliation from the unjust status
quo is stripped away by the
affirmation of one’s own being.
In a similar vein, liberation
theologists such as Latin
American philosopher Ignacio
Ellacuría,
draw
similar
comparisons of deliverance
in the act of seeking salvation
in Jesus Christ. In his text,
“The
Crucified
Peoples,”
Ellacuría
discusses
how
an overwhelming majority
of humankind is crucified
by means of natural, historical and personal
oppression. He claims that the crucifixion of
Jesus Christ on the cross serves as a double
soteriology (salvation doctrine) by tying together
the passion and death of Christ with the
oppressed.
This carries with it heavy implications:
The notion that the Creator of the Universe
–– all we’ve ever known, experienced or
sensed –– came down onto Earth in order to
side with those who have historically been
persecuted and to affirm the existence of their
beings is something that gives me solace as I
navigate a society hell-bent on killing me. As
Black theologian James Cone wrote in Black
Theology and Black Power, “In Christ, God
enters human affairs and takes sides with the
oppressed. Their suffering becomes His, their
despair, divine despair.”
This new life that is given through Christ
parallels this radical transformation from non-
being to being. They both seek for us to live a
life that is affirmative and liberative of the
oppressed, by wrestling with death in order to
receive life. As Luke 4:18 states, “The Spirit of
the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed
me to preach the good news to the poor (...)
To set at liberty those who are oppressed, To
proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
I find comfort in this. The knowledge
that I am not determined by my earthly,
bodily existence and the demonic nature of
capitalism and white supremacy omnipresent
in our world. As Fanon once stated in his
seminal piece “Black Skin, White Masks,”
“In the world through which I travel I am
endlessly creating myself.” With this in mind, I
continue traveling, paving my own path amid
the persecution, and whenever I feel hopeless
over my lack of control in the present, I stop
and think to myself who really is in control in
the end –– and that, in all its glory, liberates me.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
6 — Wednesday, March 3, 2021
puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com
By Ed Sessa
©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
03/03/21
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
03/03/21
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Wednesday, March 3, 2021
ACROSS
1 Aussie birds with
drumbeat-like
mating calls
5 Get in a row
10 Regarding
14 Lucy Lawless title
role
15 “Take a look”
16 Hit the brakes
17 Once-common
childhood ailment
19 Nomadic quarters
20 Giant whose #4
was retired
21 Rock’s Pop
22 Figures of
speech
24 Saffron-flavored
Spanish dish
26 Embellish
27 Reporting live
30 The eastern half
of a frozen food
brand
33 Writers’
workplaces
36 Move, in realty
ads
37 Anjou, e.g.
38 24-Across
ingredient
39 Garson of “Mrs.
Miniver”
40 Summit
41 A lot of time, in
Spain
42 Wild party
43 Speculate
44 Corporate VIP
45 Hereditary
information for a
species
47 Having glass
sections
49 Incan wool
sources
53 Race with no real
losers
55 Cruising the
Arctic, say
57 Fish served in
poke
58 Butter substitute
59 Five-pointed
stars ... or, in two
words, what the
sets of circles
represent?
62 Family
nicknames
63 Tribal leader
64 Maine, to Macron
65 The Dead Sea,
actually
66 Cordial dealings
67 “I did it!”
DOWN
1 Many a
bodyguard
2 Maestro Zubin
3 Make one out of
many
4 __ fly: RBI
producer
5 What separates
the men from the
boys?
6 Like the mind’s “i”
7 Guessing game
8 Former Prizm
maker
9 Living very close
by
10 Big name in furs
11 Blended family
relative
12 Vocal quality
13 Gets involved,
with “in”
18 Potters’ needs
23 Oscar-winning
director Howard
25 YouTube clicks
26 Like Van Winkle,
for 20 years
28 Trip to the
market, say
29 “Still Me”
memoirist
31 Water
containers?
32 Greek war god
33 Storied
bloodsucker, for
short
34 Mozart’s
“__ Kleine
Nachtmusik”
35 Somewhat
revealing T-shirt
option
37 Journalist Zahn
39 Pot pie veggie
43 __ Heights:
Mideast region
45 Wildebeest
46 Cate with a falsely
accused cow
48 Sprang up
50 Island near Sicily
51 Winning
52 Slangy sibling
53 Ump’s call
54 Forearm bone
55 The Beatles’ “__
Love Her”
56 Editor’s “Let it be”
60 Title tree in six
horror films
61 Understand
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http://sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/
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WHISPER
“Happy
March!”
“Did you know
‘swim’ upside
down is still
‘swim’?
By Bryant White
©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/24/21
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
02/24/21
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2021
ACROSS
1 It may break and
crash
5 It has an eye
on TV
8 Slightly open
12 Sea that’s a
victim of irrigation
projects
13 Water park
feature
15 Heavyweight
fight?
16 Capital founded
by Pizarro
17 They may draft
briefs
18 Saloon door’s
lack
19 Civil War topper
20 Tattoo joint?
21 Folklore monster
22 Move furtively
24 “Breaking Bad”
org.
25 Verne who
created Nemo
26 Dodger rival of
shortstop Rizzuto
28 Bucket of bolts
30 “Evita” narrator
32 Gummy bear
ingredient
34 YouTube clip, for
short
37 Prefix with call
39 Meek
40 Tubes on the
table
41 Sonicare rival
43 Get into a stew?
44 One who digs
hard rock
45 Wedding
reception hiree
47 Pressing
49 Catch a bug, say
50 Energy unit
51 Loitering ... or
how 3-, 5-, 7- and
9-Down might be
seen?
58 Magic prop
59 Tech company
that became a
verb
60 Source
62 Harper’s Bazaar
designer
63 Absurd
64 Swear to be true
65 Tap serving
66 California’s Point
__ National
Seashore
67 Cook Islands
export
DOWN
1 Constitutional
events
2 Disney mermaid
3 Blood-drinking
mammal
4 “Seinfeld”
regular
5 High light
6 Delta of
“Designing
Women”
7 Spelunking sight
8 Try to date
9 Support for
Tarzan
10 Love, to Luigi
11 Judicial attire
13 One working on
bks.
14 Linguistic suffix
23 It may be tapped
25 Fifth of 12,
alphabetically:
Abbr.
27 Place for
shooting stars?
29 Free (of)
30 Shoe that’s full of
holes
31 Dance that may
involve a chair
33 Reddit Q&A
session
35 Cal.-to-Fla.
highway
36 Gossip
38 Poisonous
flowering shrub
40 Terraced
structure
of ancient
Mesopotamia
42 Naval lockup
44 Surrealist Joan
46 Magical potion
48 Persian king
51 “__ Trigger”:
Bugs Bunny
cartoon
52 Stud fee,
maybe
53 Hawaiian
goose
54 Anatomy book
author Henry
55 Five-star
56 Smoked salmon
57 Cuckoo clock
feature
58 Baseball glove
part
61 Vegas snake
eyes
Who’s in control?
I think I’m in love with online tests
Valentine’s Day passed and no one bought you a
bouquet of your favorite flowers or the Baby Yoda
chocolate-covered strawberries or a valentine-
edition Squishmallow or even a card.
If you’re anything like me, scrolling through
TikTok and seeing couples go on picnics and being
all lovey, then you also wonder where your version
of that love is. It’s been 18 years of me, myself and I.
So when I took a love language test at the
beginning of quarantine in March, I thought to
myself, “Why the heck are you taking this? You’ve
literally never been in love before.” My result:
quality time. But that’s not what mattered to me.
While taking the test, I found myself answering
things I never really thought about. Do I like it more
when I get a hug or a note from someone I love? Do
I prefer being close to someone I love or getting a
compliment from them?
The more I questioned and learned about the
way I love, the more fascinated I became with these
online tests that seemed to know me better than I
knew myself. I then took the infamous Myers-Briggs
test with my sister. Our results for this test: ESFP for
me and INFJ for my sister. We spent the next hour
and a half reading and reflecting on our results,
recalling memories together that demonstrated
certain aspects of our personalities according to the
test. My sister and I are as close as can be, and even
then, I found myself revealing to her thoughts and
feelings I never let out. The test told me things that
I never let myself think about, because who really
likes to acknowledge that they have weaknesses and
flaws? It put into words all the thoughts I had but
could never put into words myself.
It’s hard to imagine that a test from 1962 could
describe 2020 me with such accuracy. And I know
people who don’t trust these tests because they think
that it only tells you about yourself if you’re honest
with your responses, and some people choose their
answers based on what they want the outcome to be.
Despite this, I don’t really mind because these tests
set me on a road towards learning and loving myself,
as cheesy or cliché as that may sound.
From the start of April on, my growing interest in
learning how to really love myself as a result of taking
these tests led me to ideas like the Law of Attraction,
manifestation and the Butterfly Effect — all that
good universe stuff. I started journaling more about
my thoughts, my feelings and my flaws, and soon
enough my mindset was changing. I was no longer
focusing on why I didn’t have a boyfriend but rather
on why I was so adamant that I needed someone else
to make myself happy.
This change in mindset is why I believe these
online tests are more than tests. In a Facebook
Messenger group for my Vietnamese Student
Association family, my grandbig sends us these tests
to take. Together, we fill out an excel sheet with our
results, helping us discover the more personal details
within each other’s characters. In a boba shop, my
Japan Student Association family and I take the test
together to see how we each respond; they create
ease and a bond.
HANNAH NGUYEN
MiC Columnist
KARIS CLARK
MiC Columnist
Design by Jessica Chiu
A definitive guide to the zoom breakout room
Courtesy of Sarah Akaaboune - American Gothic, Grant Wood.
SARAH AKKABOUNE
MiC Columnist
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Design by Jessica Chiu