Over the course of the past year, local
and state governments have urgently
declared racism as a public health crisis.
On Aug. 5, 2020, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
signed an executive directive to this
end and created the Black Leadership
Advisory Council as an advisory capacity
to develop and direct racially equitable
policies and actions in Michigan. These
declarations were long overdue, and both
the COVID-19 pandemic and the surge
in state-sanctioned violence in 2020
brought to light the historical failures of
our institutions which serve as a constant
threat to the health of marginalized
populations.
Health
inequities,
or
systematic
differences in the health status of certain
population groups, are driven by social
determinants of health. “Healthy People
2020,” a federally supported prevention
agenda, describes social determinants of
health as “conditions in the environments
in which people are born, live, learn,
work, play, worship, and age that affect
a wide range of health … outcomes and
risks.” In other words, if an individual
is born into a neighborhood that has
poor access to health care, they do not
have the appropriate means to maintain
their health. These kinds of barriers are
man-made, enforced by legislation that
has been historically exclusionary. Thus,
stark disparities across these factors
must be traced back to their root cause:
systemic racism.
Systemic racism is the foundation for
the nation we live in today, but what does
this ultimately mean for public health?
What does this mean for future public
health professionals as we strive toward
a more equitable world for all? This
past weekend, Public Health Awakened
(PHA)’s Michigan Chapter hosted its
first-ever public webinar promoting
community education and engagement
in a two-part series to discuss “Anti-
Racist Public Health: What it is, What it
is not, and What it Could/Should be.”
PHA is a grassroots organization
that came together in response to the
2016 election. Since then, it has grown
into a “national network of public
health professionals organizing for
health, equity and justice” — all the
way from California to Washington,
D.C., to Michigan. As a national project
of
Human
Impact
Partners,
PHA
focuses on incorporating the skills and
backgrounds of its members as people in
public health to social justice movements
across the nation. Locally, the Michigan
chapter has been actively involved
in voting initiatives, harm reduction
programs and the development of
educational toolkits.
Importantly, PHA practices anti-
racist public health to move beyond
performative measures and create true,
lasting change. For the organization,
this entails an explicitly abolitionist
agenda,
which
involves
conscious
re-education and coalition building, as
well as a transformation of prison and
policing systems from the inside out.
Chapter members Jannah Bierens and
Vanessa Fry kicked off the first part of
this series by discussing the importance
of historical context when considering
health today. By raising awareness of the
dominant narratives that justify current
policies, Bierens encouraged attendees
to dig deeper into the root causes of
population health.
“History does not end,” Bierens
reflected, “If we don’t know our history
… We are missing a large part of our
narrative.”
Re-education
demands
critical
analysis of past legislation and how
it
continues
to
affect
population
outcomes. For example, FDR’s New
Deal aimed to stimulate the economy
through mortgage loans, but this aid
only extended to the white population.
Ultimately,
the
federal
program
legitimized housing segregation and
left predominantly Black neighborhoods
divested
from
further
widening
the racial wealth gap. The policy’s
aftermath is still present in cities today
that have poor access to nutritious
food, high exposure to pollution and
unsustainable infrastructure for natural
and man-made disasters. Addressing
public health is acknowledging racist
history and power dynamics. At its most
fundamental level, holistic public health
must be actively anti-racist.
In the second part of the series, PHA
invited guest panelists Maria Thomas
and Jordan X. Evans to speak about their
fieldwork in a Q&A moderated by Jannah
Bierens. Thomas is a public health
activist who works with the Washtenaw
County-based
organization
Liberate
Don’t Incarcerate, whereas Evans is a
racial equity consultant and Black Lives
Matter organizer from Lansing.
It was so dark that I could barely see to
the end of the driveway. The porch lights
illuminated the chirping crickets and
fireflies fluttering around. Eight-year-old me
had no idea why my mom had interrupted
my cartoons and dragged me and my brother
outside in the middle of the night. My dad
tried to light some candles but the frigid
autumn wind kept blowing the flame out.
When he finally managed to light them,
we put them inside a bright red whale and
butterfly lantern that dangled on a long
plastic stick. I quickly forgot about how low
the temperature outside had dropped as I
ran around the driveway with the shining
lantern and playing with sparklers. I still
remember my mom watching me nervously,
afraid I would fall and somehow catch on
fire — which, knowing my klutziness, was,
and still is, a likely possibility. At the time,
I assumed that we were playing outside
because it was Halloween or someone’s
birthday, but as
I know now, it was actually
the Mid-Autumn
Festival.
This celebration falls on the 15th day
of the eighth month of the lunar calendar
(Sept. 21 this year) and is also known as the
Moon(cake) Festival or Lantern Festival. It is
celebrated in Northeast Asian countries like
China and South Korea as well as Southeast
Asian countries like Malaysia and Singapore,
where my parents are from. I have heard this
day be referred to as “Chinese Thanksgiving,”
but in reality, the two holidays have little
in common aside from the time of year it is
celebrated and family reunions.
There are many versions of the story
behind this day, but the common retelling I
learned is that the Earth was being scorched
by 10 suns and no vegetation could grow.
An archer named Hou Yi saved everyone by
shooting down nine of the suns with a bow
and arrow and was rewarded with the elixir
of immortality. However, he didn’t want to
live forever without his wife Chang E and
gave the elixir to her for safekeeping. Hou Yi
earned many followers for his bravery, but
one of them found out about the elixir and
attempted to steal it. Instead of letting him
take it, Chang E drank the elixir herself and
flew to the moon, the closest place to Earth
in heaven. Hoping to someday reunite, he
would present the moon with mooncakes
every anniversary of that day. It is said that
the full moon shines the brightest on this day.
Traditional mooncakes are typically
round and golden-brown with ornate
patterns stamped on top of them. During
the Ming Dynasty in China, secret messages
were hidden in mooncakes and used to
pass information between resistance forces
during an uprising against the royal court.
Today, these pastries are typically filled with
dried fruit, nuts, sweet red bean paste, white
lotus paste or my favorite, green tea paste.
Since the mooncakes tend to look identical
from the outside (much to everyone’s
annoyance), I remember sneakily taking bites
out of several ones trying to find those filled
with
green
tea
paste
and white lotus paste.
Some mooncakes even have savory fillings
such as Chinese sausage or radish. Other
unique flavors I have come across include
peanut butter, chocolate, ice cream and
durian. When I was younger, I remember
being offered ones filled with a salted egg
yolk. To this day, I’m still not on board with
this traditional flavor and will eat around the
yolk when given one, but needless to say, this
filling remains one of the most iconic today.
Water caltrops, known as “lihng gok” in
Chinese, are also associated with the Mid-
Autumn Festival. These bizarre-looking black
nuts are boiled to become soft and reveal
a white, slightly sweet nutty interior when
peeled. This snack resembles a bat, which is
considered auspicious because the Chinese
character for the word “bat” is a homonym for
the character of the word “prosperity.”
My family celebrates this day by enjoying a
special dinner together. Every year, my mom
wants family pictures with all the food and
my dad repeatedly asks, “Can we eat yet?”
My brother and I sneak food into our mouths
when my mom isn’t looking. And there’s
nothing quite like the coziness you get from
being surrounded by steaming dishes when
the weather is chilly outside. As far as I know,
there is no one specific food associated with
this meal like we would usually associate
turkey with Thanksgiving. The main
purpose is to reunite and enjoy each other’s
company. My family in Malaysia will bring a
table outside and put joss sticks and candles
on it and pray to the moon. Neighbors will
chat, enjoy mooncakes, drink tea and gaze at
the moon together. Children will play with
sparklers and bright red lanterns in animal
shapes after it gets dark. My mom says that
she remembers bringing in toilet paper rolls
for arts and crafts time in school to make
their own lanterns when she was growing
up. People will barely be able to make each
other out in the faint moonlight, but you can
hear laughter and chatter for miles.
6 — Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Michigan in Color
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com
By August Miller
©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/29/21
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
09/29/21
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Wednesday, September 29, 2021
ACROSS
1 A third of XXX,
maybe?
4 Rorschach image
8 Make oneself
decent, so to
speak
13 “That’s rough”
15 Clothing store
website category
16 Spunk
17 Colombian coin
18 *Steam
20 One in a
Hollywood crowd
22 Yoko who voiced
a self-named
character in
2018’s “Isle of
Dogs”
23 Sedate, say
24 *Western capital
28 PC file suffix
29 Skip over
30 Come clean, with
“up”
32 __ buco
34 Paul who
founded a pet
food company
37 Utterly lost
40 *Systematic
rumor spreading
43 “Buffalo Stance”
singer Cherry
44 Fail to enunciate
45 Love of money, to
all evil?
46 Faltering step
48 Condescend
50 “So pretty!”
52 *Wite-Out
alternative
57 Made fun of
59 Zero-__ game
60 Hyundai sedan
no longer sold in
the U.S.
61 Hikers’ starting
points ... or what
the ends of
the answers to
starred clues can
be?
65 Work on text,
maybe
66 They’re rarely
worth splitting
67 Blue prints, e.g.?
68 Do a fall chore
69 Tear up
70 With everything in
its place
71 Young guy
DOWN
1 Records, old-
style
2 Siri counterpart
3 Daydreams
4 Munich-based
automaker
5 Bucolic setting
6 En pointe
7 Taiwanese
golfer Yani __,
youngest to win
five majors
8 It’s known for
lines, briefly
9 Fork locale
10 Steel guitar
device
11 Dakota tribe
12 Suit material
14 Postgame griper
19 It may be pitched
21 Provençal pal
25 Dog in the
comics
26 Raises
27 Half-moon tide
31 Telescope toter
32 Come clean, with
“up”
33 __-crab soup
35 Commonly
injured ligament
for NFLers
36 Riyadh native
38 Freudian focus
39 Carpenter __
41 Singer Collins
42 TV’s talking
horse
47 “Don’t be silly!”
49 Brewpub initials
50 They’re taken on
stands
51 Daytime TV
mogul
53 Knight adventure
54 MSG flavor
55 “Get Out”
actress
Alexander
56 Like books on
goodreads.com
58 Very serious
indeed
62 Drug whose
effects are similar
to psilocybin
63 July 4th letdown
64 Pigs’ digs
SUDOKU
7
3
2
8
5
9
8
3
4
6
5
6
7
2
9
4
3
9
6
7
4
2
3
6
5
4
8
6
3
9
1
7
“How many
subs?”
“It’s pretty
siiiiimple, man.”
WHISPER
09/22/21
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
27 How some taxes
I spent much of my adolescence in a locked-
in, exhausting, clawing, screaming one-sided
war with Taylor Swift in the same way I had
spent much of my childhood in the same kind
of battle with the color pink. Taylor Swift sings
about boys too much and Taylor Swift lied
about Kanye West and Taylor Swift makes
music for little girls and for girls that can’t
throw and for girls that worry about breaking
their nails, and I’m just not that kind of girl you
know? I don’t worry about breaking my nails
and I wear blue jeans and did you know I don’t
own even a single dress and I retch and gag
every single time one of her songs come on the
radio and scream CHANGE THE STATION
my EARS are BLEEDING mostly because
I don’t like myself. And perhaps more than
anything else, it was a raging, crawling sort of
sick, a crippling envy, an aggressive jealousy
that fueled the war I began with myself and
by extension, Taylor Swift, because I felt like a
huge, gaping fraud every single time I listened
to her.
Understand
that
when
you
have
never been allowed to be a woman, your
womanhood is no longer an inherent part of
yourself, but rather, it becomes a commodity,
something meant to be bought and traded,
stolen and taken from you against your
will. It is put up to trial and dangled in your
face as an untouchable, convoluted sort of
construct a million times over, so that in time
it becomes easier to reject the very notion of
being a woman rather than dig and dig until
your palms weather down to the bone, beg
for penance and sell your dignity in search
for a reason why. Womanhood no longer
belongs to you, no longer presents itself as
immovable, unshakable, tangible, something
wholly and unequivocally yours in the same
way you own shoes, or your nose, or your
work or your words. Know that when you
take away ownership of womanhood, you
take everything attached to it, you take
innocence and care, you take grace and
love, you take the spine, so that soon you are
denied existence as any kind of woman, a
loud-mouthed woman, a stubborn woman, a
greedy woman, a woman that likes the color
purple so much she painted the kitchen lilac
and the living room lavender and the dining
room violet. Things become harder and
flawed, infinitely more difficult to navigate
after the fact — because womanhood has
never been as simple as a derivation of the
physical body. To lack in this way, or more
so, to be made aware of this lack and to be
treated as if you are a problem for asking
for more, to be treated as if you are the very
antithesis of anything feminine and a thorn
in a million and one sides, a chewed-up pen
cap underfoot, is to become dead while
you’re alive. And instead, anger, grief, volatile
pain are directed at women like Taylor Swift
because she is everything you have never
been and everything you have never been
allowed to be.
In healing, reckoning and reconciling
with yourself are perhaps the most difficult
tasks. You begin to lead a gritty, rock-hard,
mucky existence fraught with disbelief so
that livid rage turns spite into grief because
to heal is to recognize that you were never
an angry woman but you were a grieving
woman, in grief over all the things that were
taken from you, and the kind of woman you
could’ve been and the kind of woman you
could be if the way you loved and the way
you were loved was anything other than
what it was. And to write about it is the
most assertive thing one can do and where
do you go from here after letting the world
know? Where to start and where to begin
and how to tie everything back together, and
do you stitch it up or do you pack it deep in
a cardboard box and bury it under the time
capsule in your backyard or do you give it to
the wind or tie it to the sort of special balloon
that could break the sky?
And more than anything else, in healing,
the answer lies with Taylor Swift.
I didn’t like Taylor Swift for many reasons.
First, because I didn’t like country music and
then because I didn’t like pop music and
then because I didn’t like her Reputation Era
because who writes an entire album in the
deep dark sewers of social cancellation after
being subsequently canceled and Kanye and
Kim were right and she was wrong. I didn’t
like Taylor Swift because I thought she didn’t
make music for women with one foot here
and the other over there, women who existed
in the ill-conceived derivation of purgatory
that comes with feeling not enough of
something and too much of something else,
women that wrestled and fought and begged
for space and understanding and humility
and to be taken as they were, and mostly,
for women like me. I didn’t like Taylor Swift
because I didn’t like me. It’s easier to find
flaws in a woman like Taylor Swift than to
ever question why you found them, why
you picked at them, had your fingers ready
to unravel snags in every album she had
ever put forth or her fanbase or her lyrics.
It’s easy because she’s Taylor Swift and she
won’t hear a word you say or ever put you in
your place except she’s Taylor Swift and she’s
been questioned and ripped apart not just by
you, but the whole world so much that either
people rabidly love her or hate her.
I listened to Taylor Swift for the first
time in seven years a month before my
19th birthday. Her lyrical genius was
mesmerizing, fantastical, so extraordinarily
well put together that I’d counter Taylor
Swift is a writer before she ever is a singer.
Her albums are never an “open and shut”
case, but rather an evergreen testament to
the sort of love and outrage that we never
seem to forget because nothing is over until
it’s really over. I understand now what it
means to truly listen to Taylor Swift and to
not feel like a liar or a phony or a fake in doing
so, in knowing that she too, has had to piece
herself back together and that to heal is to
listen to Taylor Swift and feel like enough,
and mostly, to love yourself to the moon and
to Saturn.
Taylor Swift as a means of healing
SARAH AKAABOUNE
MiC Columnist
Courtesy of Atiya Safi Farooque
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
The Mid-Autumn Festival
VICTORIA TAN
MiC Columnist
What is anti-racist public health?
EASHETA SHAH
MiC Columnist
Read more at MichiganDaily.com