The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
6 — Wednesday, April 13, 2022
A recent article published in The Michi-
gan Review left many Michigan students
appalled yet unsurprised. After digesting
the manipulative and hateful content of the
piece, we felt that it was necessary to address
the author’s poor interpretation of Ameri-
can racial dynamics and recycled conserva-
tive talking points in order to debunk some
fundamental issues that appear in common
discourse. We need to talk about “reverse
racism.”
Reverse racism is first and foremost
a myth. The concept also referred to as
reverse discrimination, is the backward
notion that color-conscious programs such
as affirmative action that seek to address
racial inequality are a form of anti-white
racism. Not only is this concept completely
ludicrous, it is also an immensely harmful
ideology that actively sets back racial prog-
ress.
The current battleground of this discus-
sion is the Trotter Multicultural Center
here on Central Campus. In an attempt to
drum up controversy, the author of the piece
grossly mischaracterizes the purpose and
history of the building in order to perpetu-
ate the harmful narrative that marginalized
students of Color are actively engaging in
some sort of modern ‘reverse segregation’.
For context, a Black graduate student sub-
mitted a letter to the University of Michigan
Administration expressing his frustration at
“white student organizations kicking Black
and brown students out of spaces within
Trotter because their white organizations
reserved the space.” Instead of understand-
ing the historical and societal context of
these events and coming away from the situ-
ation with reflection or understanding, the
author proceeded to react to the letter with
an air of indignation and disgust.
“It has become almost a cliche to say it
at this point, but if a white advisor to CSG
wrote a letter to the administration articu-
lating his discomfort that there are too many
black students in a campus space, he would
be deemed unfit for office,” the article states.
This is a demonstrably disingenuous per-
spective of the events taking place in Trotter
and is only a small example of the “reverse
racist” rhetoric that permeates the article.
The author’s apparent “gotcha” moment
highlighted in this quote only serves to show
how hopelessly delusional his perspectives
on racism and race relations actually are.
His purposeful ignorance of the historical
context of segregation and domination of
Black Americans at the hands of the white
race is as disgusting as it is shallow.
To no one’s surprise, the author has not
and will continue to not have any repercus-
sions for his racist assertions against the
students who find a safe haven in Trotter.
We do not mean to imply that the University
should necessarily take action against this
student for practicing his freedom of speech.
However, we do mean to say that neither he
nor other white students at this university
have to deal with the emotional anguish that
comes from the public release of such tone-
deaf, insensitive and historically inaccurate
information.
How did we get here? How does the dom-
inant racial group get to play the victim?
For some, the concept of racism is very
easy to grasp. Throughout our lives, we are
taught that discrimination against another
on the basis of their race is a practice that
should be denounced and outright abolished.
We hear about and learn of the historical
figures who fought against racist oppression
and paved the way for our modern society.
We hear of their virtue and undying loyalty
to social justice and humanity and celebrate
their memory. Many historical figures, par-
ticularly of the Civil Rights Movement, are
rightfully lauded as heroes.
We all know of the legacies of Dr. Mar-
tin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm
X, Charles Houston, Harry T and Harriette
Moore, among many others. Yet, for some
reason, the author felt the need to twist the
words of Dr. King in order to portray him-
self, and white students by extension, as the
victims of systemic racism. This is gross. We
shouldn’t need to explain why this is prob-
lematic, but we genuinely don’t think the
author understands. So let’s engage in basic
modern social theory.
Racism and discrimination are not the
two-way streets that the author implies. The
historical domination, oppression, enslave-
ment, rape and perverted bastardization of
Black culture by the white race is the foun-
dation of this country. The vestiges of that
cultural dynamic permeate throughout
every modern institution. Black students
cannot segregate white students. This is
simple. To insinuate that the author and
other white students can be the victims of
targeted racism is tantamount to claiming
Black students have any sort of profound
institutional authority.
Not enough white people in Trotter Multicultural Center, white student claims
A summer in the construction boots of my father
The beauty of wilted flowers
It was a ceremonial and cine-
matic day in Santiago Papasquiaro,
Durango. The streets were flooded
with families observing the cere-
monies taking place throughout the
city. At every angle of our periph-
eral, there were bandas playing
corridos, food trucks selling elotes
and raspados and a desfile full of
mariachi bands accompanied with
young women dressed in folklórico
attire. We were making our way to
the feria, which for many was the
main attraction of the festivities.
Though the cloudy weather may
have discouraged many from being
outside, there was no denying that
the people of Santiago Papasquiaro
were not going to miss the first day
of their esteemed and most antici-
pated fair.
Since I was in the sixth grade,
my family and I traveled to my par-
ents’ hometown in Mexico every
year. The month of July attracted
not only a lot of domestic visitors,
but a lot of other Mexican-Amer-
ican families that had ties to the
state of Durango. I felt immensely
joyous to be standing on the soil
where generations of my family
had grown up.
Except in 2016, I wasn’t real-
ly there. I was in the middle of
nowhere Montana.
The date was July 16. The fright-
ening noise of my phone’s alarm
jolted me awake at 4:30 in the
morning. Reality quickly sank in,
and I was upset that I was not a
part of the vibrant crowd march-
ing down the streets of Santiago
Papasquiaro. Rather than spend-
ing the summer in Mexico visiting
my abuelitas and primos, my dad
insisted that my brother Oscar and
I spend a couple of months with
him in Montana to work at his con-
struction site—the very opposite
of Durango. The wind blew loudly
through the many valleys and
mountaintops of America’s ninth
least populated state. Within those
blue, green and gray valleys was
scattered, sparse and rundown
infrastructure. The very limited
civilization seemed so insignifi-
cant when contrasted to the vast-
ness of the state’s nature. People
displayed classic American cordi-
ality, of course, but rarely the hos-
pitality and colors I had witnessed
in Mexico just a year prior.
At 15 years old, the thought of
making my own money seemed
promising and offered some finan-
cial freedom my peers were not
afforded. After doing my own
research on the up and coming
state, I learned that many other
construction workers ventured to
the Great Plains state of Montana
and made really good money. Hell,
I was excited! Little did I know
what I was getting myself into.
After two months of working
with my dad, I somehow failed to
get used to the monotonous rou-
tine he went through every morn-
ing. The pesky alarm, pungent
smell of the drywall and joint com-
pound boxes scattered throughout
our temporary apartment compet-
ed with my overwhelming drowsi-
ness from my lack of sleep. We had
returned home from the construc-
tion site at 1:30 a.m., a few hours
prior, so it was extremely difficult
for me to find some sort of motiva-
tion to keep my eyes open.
On the other hand, my dad had
no problem with getting less than
three hours of sleep. He somehow
managed to wake up in a radiant
mood every morning. Every other
day, he would wake up earlier than
the rest of the crew and buy us all
donuts from the nearest 7-Eleven.
It annoyed me so much in my tired
grumpiness. How the hell did he
do it? He urged Oscar and me to
hurry because he did not want us
to be late on our last day of work.
My dad has worked in construc-
tion for more than 30 years. In
those three decades, he has mas-
tered the craft of drywall finish-
ing. Construction workers who
specialize in this are referred to as
tapers. Though the task of a taper
is considered by many other con-
struction workers to be one of the
least physically demanding, the
monotonous task of smearing joint
compound across hundreds of dif-
ferent units still felt extremely
strenuous. I had no idea how my
dad, at the age of 54, remained
poised through these conditions.
Although my dad is nearing the age
in which he becomes eligible for
the plethora of benefits all elderly
Americans are entitled to, my dad’s
citizenship status deems him ineli-
gible of receiving these perks.
Both of my parents are law-
fully permanent residents. My
dad first came to the United States
in 1988. One of my uncles, who
had migrated to the states before
my dad, was in Chicago at the
time and informed my dad of the
rapidly expanding employment
opportunities. Eventually, my dad
returned to Mexico and got mar-
ried to my mom. My parents both
agreed that if they wanted to start
a family, moving to the United
States was the right thing to do
because of the seemingly limitless
upward mobility and the ultimate
allure of the American Dream. In
1997, both of my parents crossed
the Mexican-American border and
headed back to Chicago.
One year later, my parents
moved from Chicago to Las Vegas
because my dad was aware of the
surplus of jobs available for con-
struction workers there. But when
the boom subsided in Las Vegas,
my dad was forced to leave his
workers union. Because of this,
for a very long period of my life
growing up, my dad struggled
with keeping a stable job. Since I
was in elementary school, my dad
has traveled to other states expe-
riencing similar booms to that of
Las Vegas in order to find work. I
can still remember the first time
he went away when I first started
the first grade. We were all weep-
ing because, for the first time, my
dad was going to be so far from us
and we wouldn’t see him until the
next summer.
Neither of my parents were
aware of the struggles they would
blatantly face in trying to start
a new family in a new country.
Because of their citizenship status
and lack of English proficiency,
my parents have been hindered
from the opportunity to live the
life akin to that of the model white
American family. Even to this day,
my parents struggle with under-
standing mainstream American
lingo and etiquettes and thus have
rarely formed relationships with
anyone else that didn’t experience
the same immigration experience
as them.
Nonetheless, my dad has put our
entire family on his back. Growing
up, my mother had to watch over
me and my four siblings so it was
very difficult for her to go out of
her way to contribute to my fam-
ily’s income. Because of this, my
family relied solely on my dad to
put food on the table. Although
my dad would continuously get
his checks postponed, work in the
coldest and most rural states in
the nation and work an arduous
amount of time every day, he never
overtly displayed his exhaustion
or dismissed us as a result. He was
truly inspirational. My time work-
ing with him made me think of all
the sacrifices he has made for the
literal survival of my family.
The location of our worksite
was in Bozeman, but the apart-
ment the rest of my dad’s work
crew and I were staying at was in
Belgrade. It takes 30 minutes to get
from one city to the other and we
were expected to arrive by 5 a.m.
As brain fogged as I was, I swiftly
slipped on my murky brown Wol-
verine work boots, stained white
Dickies,
ripped
white
Hanes
T-shirt and headed straight to my
dad’s white 2001 Chevrolet Astro
van to wait for the rest of the crew.
The skies remained gloomy from
the night storm’s heavy showers.
Though it was the middle of the
summer, it felt as if I was stuck
in a time loop in Montana and
every day was replicative of that
one overcast morning. My dad,
dressed in his all-white work uni-
form, briskly maneuvered his way
to the van. His silhouette, despite
the backdrop of somber surround-
ings and nasty weather, main-
tained rhythmic footsteps trotting
toward the van. Though my dad
was noticeably older than the rest
of the crew, there was something
about his upbeat demeanor that
made everyone else come off as
downhearted.
Oversized
jackets,
jumbled
chargers, weird wall decor and
half melted candles clutter my
roommates’ and I’s already small
apartment. A high-rise build-
ing stands tall outside our large
living room window, blocking
off any daylight from flooding
the apartment. Sitting among
the clutter and the gloom is an
orange-tinted vase. Growing out
of the vase are soft, bright pet-
als flowing from the stems of a
set of pink carnations. The floral
aroma fills the tiny living room it
sits in, but in a subtle way. It is not
strong enough to smell when you
walk in, but noticeable as soon
as you sit down on the old, dark
couch right across from it. When
you don’t directly look at them,
the flowers easily blend into the
clutter, but once you do, they
catch your eye. They brighten the
entire dark apartment, bringing
in that touch of brightness the liv-
ing room desperately needs every
morning and afternoon. They add
a layer of freshness that our dry,
closed-off apartment can’t bring
in since the windows are sealed
shut. The freshness hits our faces
when we come back from class
later in the day, comforting us.
Growing up, I never cared for
flowers. If anything, I disliked
them. I disliked how expensive
bouquets from the florists were. I
disliked the bees that came with
them. I disliked how much effort
people put into growing them,
and I disliked how mad they’d
get when my ball rolled into their
flower patch. I disliked their
names, since I could never pro-
nounce them. I disliked how much
work maintaining them was. But
the biggest of all, I disliked how
they’d always die so soon. My
mother would always say they
were a waste of money because
of how quickly they would fall.
When my family would buy her
flowers, she’d get mad, telling us
not to waste money. She’d only let
us buy flowers to use when doing
poojas as offerings to God. But for
the personal decoration aspect,
she would refuse to buy them.
Instead, she brought up the idea
of artificial flowers. She’d say
they were just as pretty, and they
last forever. So now our home is
filled with tall glass vases hold-
ing fake roses and fake tulips and
fake hydrangeas and fake peo-
nies, every fake flower the local
craft stores had on sale.
As I got older, I started dis-
agreeing more with my mother,
especially with her stance on
flowers. I always kept my opinion
to myself because I understood
costs add up. The only times I
got to pick out real flowers were
for our poojas. We would rush to
Nino’s on our way to the Bharati-
ya Temple, and I would follow
quickly behind my mother into
the store, since we were already
late to the scheduled pooja. We’d
speed to the flower section. They
always had a variety of beauti-
ful flowers, every color that you
could think of. They’d sometimes
have roses, jasmine, sunflowers,
lilies and mums, but they always
had carnations, usually the pink
ones. Carnations were our staple
— the flower we would get almost
every pooja. They were always
the cheapest ones at the store and
the most readily available. My
brother and I would sit there in
the car, cutting them off of their
stems in preparation for pooja. If
we did the pooja at home instead
of the temple, we would sit at the
dining table taking turns cutting
them. I’d do the first half, and he’d
do the second. Once pooja began,
we would pick each petal off and
offer it to god. I would sneak one
of the flowers in my pocket or put
it under my leg until after pooja.
After coming home or leaving our
pooja room, I’d keep it in my room
until it almost completely disin-
tegrated, because I didn’t know
how to properly preserve them
(and still don’t), or until it got lost.
Eventually, my father took up
gardening
during
quarantine.
He’d buy packets and packets
of seeds and plant them under a
grow light, then transfer them
outside once it got warm. He’d
take me to Bordine’s, the nearest
flower and plant shop, and let me
help pick out the flower plants I
liked. He never bought the ones
I picked, but he let me give my
input on the colors of the flowers
he liked. We’d get hydrangeas,
hibiscus, zinnias and three dif-
ferent colors of roses. No carna-
tions.
Moving out of the house, I was
given real flowers for the first
time instead of the fake ones my
mother loved, for my apartment.
I came home all excited to put
them in our vase. An instant smile
grew wide on my face from how
pretty the flowers were. Coin-
cidently, they were pink carna-
tions, my favorite. They reminded
me of when I was younger and
would sneak a few flowers from
the bunch to keep in my room.
The flowers did everything arti-
ficial ones could never do. They
brought in a calming aroma into
the room, a feeling of fresh life, a
splash of subtle color, brightening
the room in every way fake ones
couldn’t. But within two weeks or
so, they died.
Day by day, another flower
would droop over to the side. A
petal would fall, laying next to
the vase on the black table. The
feeling of freshness left the room
along with any life left in those
pretty flowers. They wilted and
were done for. But I’d leave them
in the vase, because I can never
get myself to throw them out. To
throw out something so beauti-
ful and selfless felt wrong. The
tiniest amount of life left in them
still brightened the room, at least
in my eyes. And thinking about
it, there was something equally
beautiful in the pile of fallen pet-
als and drooping stems. How
they still shine even with a pale
hue that takes over each petal.
How the pretty flower smell
would remain even though it was
so subtle. How they still caught
everyone’s eyes once they saw the
vase, but in a are they saving dead
flowers way. There was some-
thing beautiful in the way they’d
fall after holding on for so long
once they were cut from their
plant, how they selflessly held on
for so long just to make our lives
more beautiful. How each flower
would fall after giving every bit
of life it had left, until it couldn’t
hold on or give any more any lon-
ger.
The wilted flowers added some
things to my life that the fresh
ones couldn’t. It dropped petals
for me to keep as a pretty col-
lection. It made my roommates
laugh a little every time they’d see
it, filling our room with laughter
which, in turn, brightened up the
room. It was an incentive to go
buy more flowers. And it was a
reminder to appreciate the things
in our life in the moment because
eventually, they will wilt. And it
was a message that the end itself
is just as beautiful as the flowers
first blooming still on the plant.
Design by Zoe Zhang
STEPHEN BUCKLEY &
KAILANA DEJOIE
MiC Columnists
IRVING PEÑA
MiC Columnist
ROSHNI MOHAN
MiC Columnist
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Courtesy of Kailana Dejoie