Michigan in Color
6 — Wednesday, February 8, 2023
From the joint desk of Michigan in Color and Groundcover News
One might think that a com-
munity street newspaper like
Groundcover News is entirely
different from Michigan in Color
at The Michigan Daily, the long-
standing student-run newspaper
of the University of Michigan.
But these two publications that
seem disparate from the outside
have more in common than one
might think.
Groundcover News was found-
ed in 2010 with the purpose of
empowering low- to no-income
people of Washtenaw County
to transition from “homeless
to housed, and from jobless to
employed.” Groundcover News
is grounded in several principles,
including the beliefs that “all
people have the right to dignity,”
“poverty is political—systemic
change is necessary,” “building
community is essential to social
change” and “solutions to pov-
erty must involve people who
are directly affected.” As a street
paper, Groundcover is sold by
people experiencing poverty or
homelessness as an immediate
and dignified means of obtain-
ing income — all while wielding
journalism and advocacy to fight
poverty from its roots.
Michigan in Color was found-
ed by three women of Color in
2014 as a safe and brave space
for people of Color at the Uni-
versity of Michigan to express
themselves and their urgent
needs. Since its founding, MiC
has remained committed to its
mission of liberation for people of
Color, especially in intersection
with other marginalized identi-
ties — liberation which neces-
sitates an abolition of oppressive
forces like imperialism, capital-
ism,
colonialism,
occupation,
apartheid and white supremacy,
which mutually reinforce one
another.
Here at Groundcover News
and Michigan in Color, we believe
our missions are intertwined.
The fight for abolition cannot be
separated from the realities of
racism and the stark “pileup of
inequities” experienced by work-
ing class and oppressed peoples.
We are committed to publishing
work that challenges traditional
ways of knowing — and no, that
doesn’t just mean we identify as
“alternative” media.
For these reasons, Ground-
cover and MiC stand in solidar-
ity with each other and proudly
present this special collaborative
edition. Our intentions for this
issue are twofold: first, we want
to build connections between
the U-M community and the
unhoused community of Washt-
enaw County. Make no mistake:
the University of Michigan is a
wealthy institution attended by
thousands of students of finan-
cially privileged backgrounds.
The students and faculty of the
U-M community hold social
privilege that cannot be under-
stated — but this truth can also
muddle the simultaneous real-
ity that there are many working
class students who often struggle
with feeling alone and invisible
in their experiences, FGLI stu-
dents who don’t enjoy the same
privileges as their peers, students
who have experienced homeless-
ness themselves, students whose
dire needs are seldom met by the
University.
Our second intention is to raise
awareness of the Washtenaw
unhoused community’s circum-
stances, in their own words, and
of the ethical responsibilities
U-M students, from their posi-
tions of immeasurable relative
privilege, then have to those
unhoused around them — wheth-
er it be mutual aid, a Groundcover
News purchase, a simple conver-
sation or even just eye contact
and a smile.
In 2020, 274 people in Washt-
enaw County were homeless on
any given night. The Washtenaw
Housing Alliance reports that
same year, almost 2,800 people
were literally homeless; among
those literally homeless, 38%
comprised families with young
children and 20% experienced
chronic homelessness: long-term
homelessness
in
conjunction
with a disability. Unfortunately,
Washtenaw
County
numbers
among the most expensive hous-
ing markets in Michigan. The
standard monthly rate of a two-
bedroom apartment in Washt-
enaw is more expensive than
98% of the state. The National
Low-Income Housing Coalition
reports that in order to afford
a two-bedroom apartment in
Washtenaw, a person earning
minimum
wage
($9.87/hour)
would need to work approximate-
ly 98 hours per week, or more
than two full-time positions.
The greater knowledge com-
munity members have of Ground-
cover News, the better their street
paper model works. Groundcover
vendors are up against the Uni-
versity’s
population
turnover
constantly, especially because
they are not allowed to sell on
campus. Each year, relationships
are made, people move away and
are replaced by 7,000—10,000
new residents who have no clue
what Groundcover News is —
unless, perhaps, they come from
another city with a street paper.
In sharing print space with
each other, we hope to expose
future customers and readers to
Groundcover News early, and
amplify their support of its work,
operations and mission.
We hope that this collabora-
tion will inspire the U-M commu-
nity to develop relationships with
unhoused people, carry physical
dollar bills on your persons to
provide financial aid to those in
need and to purchase — and read
— Groundcover News as often as
you can. We hope you will inter-
act with Groundcover News ven-
dors on the streets, because even
when you lack the means to lend
them help monetarily, a smile or
a conversation can bring them
comfort and emotional support.
And we hope you will learn some-
thing about the topics covered in
this collaboration — anti-home-
less infrastructure, the Trotter
Multicultural Center and the
Ann Arbor public school system,
to name a few — and think about
them, and the lenses through
which our staff views them.
JESSICA KWON &
LINDSAY CALKA
Previous MiC Managing
Editor & Groundcover News
Managing Director
Agniva Bhaumik/MiC
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Movie night
I don’t wish I had never been
homeless. How else would I
have discovered my impeccable
Scottish accent? Or how to make
cheese and off-brand Ritz crack-
ers feel gourmet? Or that the back
door in the local library never
got locked so you could sneak in
to use Wi-Fi even in the dead of
winter?
That being said, waking up the
morning of your 16th birthday to
put on a wrinkled, hand-washed
AP
Environmental
Science
t-shirt you got for free is not
ideal. Neither is the cold.
“Pirates of the Caribbean: At
World’s End” is why I have such a
good Scottish accent, by the way.
I snuck back to my house (not my
house) after school one day and
squatted in the backyard with the
clunky old laptop I had borrowed
from an uncle. I connected to the
Wi-Fi and held the Dell out of
the snow for the 23 minutes and
16 seconds it took to download
the movie. That night, I told my
younger siblings, “Now we have a
movie we can watch without the
internet, how fun!*”
In “Pirates of the Caribbean:
At World’s End,” the squid-faced
pirate (Davy Jones, apparently)
spoke in a Scottish accent. I bra-
zenly mimicked that same inflec-
tion to make my family laugh.
Every time we’d watch the scene
with the hordes of crabs running
around every which way, I’d take
in a deep breath and, channel-
ing every single one of my Scot-
tish ancestors (of which there are
none), yell out accented, impro-
vised dialogue. I’d shout, “What
have you done to my brethren!”
as they scuttled about my warped
screen, rolling my r’s like any
self-respecting Scotsman. My
siblings would collapse in heaps
of giggles, sprawled out in glee.
I’d pull the shared blanket back
over them to conserve heat. I
cannot count how many times
I’ve seen that movie.
I was homeless and it’s fine
because it happened but also it’s
not fine because what did we do
to deserve that? Why did that
have to happen to us? Why does
that have to happen to anyone? In
what world is that an acceptable
reality?
After some time, your brain
starts to warp your perception
of reality to reconcile the cogni-
tive dissonance brought on by
the whole situation. The human
brain is made deeply uncomfort-
able by conflicting information.
“I was homeless,” you reason,
“because I deserved to be. I must
be a truly terrible person deep
down inside. I believe I have
good intentions but that must be
my deceptive evil subconscious,
so evil that it lies even to me. I
must be a bad person and that is
my explanation and now I move
on with my life knowing I am, at
the end of the day, no good at all.
It all makes sense.”
If you believe you are a bad
person for long enough, you
become one. There is no use in
not stealing, telling the truth
or sharing a smile because you
are constantly told that you are
fundamentally bad and will be
treated as such. Engaging in bad
behavior is not just a possibility
but an eventuality. So of course
you stole that pen. You are bad
and that is what bad people do.
It’s what you always would have
done even if you want to be good
because, at the end of the day,
your true nature will always win
out. A bad person has no business
trying to be good because they
will always be bad. Being good is
a fruitless effort. You will always
be bad because it’s the only thing
that makes sense. Such is the
nature of self-fulfilling prophecy.
I was never able to fully con-
vince myself of my badness.
My intentions are good and my
actions minimize harm and I
would rather not hand all my
agency to a self-fulfilling proph-
ecy like that.
ANONYMOUS
MiC Contributor
Examining Ann Arbor’s
hostile and hospitality
architecture
My struggle with
education
If you’ve ever taken a long
walk through Ann Arbor, you
might note that for a rela-
tively walkable city, benches
are somewhat rare. They’re a
bit more common at bus stops,
but there’s usually something
a bit odd about them. A bar is
affixed — usually welded on so
removal is impossible — to the
bench, dividing it into sections.
It’s often cylindrical, making
it difficult to use as an arm-
rest. Smaller benches are made
impossible to sit in for plus-
size individuals and the overall
lack of benches makes it harder
for those with chronic pain or
fatigue to traverse the city on
foot. So the question arises: Why
are they built this way?
This bench division is a long-
standing
practice
of
hostile
architecture, which makes cit-
ies less hospitable for those
mentioned above, but that very
hostility is intended toward one
of the most vulnerable popula-
tions — the unhoused. Bars that
divvy up benches make it more
difficult for unhoused people
to potentially use them to sleep.
Hostile architecture to prevent
the rest of the unhoused mani-
fests itself in many other ways
all over the world: Several sharp
stones placed inside structures,
spikes on the ground under the
pretense of modern art, benches
that are fixed to tilt forward,
the lack of access to public
bathrooms, loud noise blaring
through the speakers of local
businesses — Ann Arbor being
especially complicit in those last
few.
If you’ve ever taken a walk
through downtown — espe-
cially in the winter — you might
notice that many restaurants
have built small huts, igloos and
heated patios for diners to eat
in. This hospitality architecture
originally started during the
COVID-19 pandemic, when res-
taurateurs had to figure out how
to serve patrons under quaran-
tine regulations in the cold of
winter, even under risk of fire to
their building. Even after things
warmed up and patrons began
getting vaccinated, local busi-
nesses kept this practice for the
sheer novelty of the customer
experience. And isn’t that just a
little odd?
Throughout my life, I struggled
with school. I got my education
through the Ann Arbor School
District. I attended Bach Ele-
mentary School, Slauson Middle
School and Pioneer High School.
As a young lad, I first attended
Mack Elementary School. Mack
Elementary had a predominantly
Black student body; it was where
all my neighborhood friends went
to school. One week into the start
of my schooling, the AAPS relo-
cated me to Bach Elementary
because I lived on Ashley Street
between Kingsley Street and
Miller Avenue. I was outside the
district and had to attend Bach
Elementary, which had predomi-
nantly white students.
Every
year
in
elementary
school, at the end of the school
year, I would have a one-on-one
talk with the teacher about my
disruptive behavior. I was simply
moving to the next grade because
I was too big, he explained, and
was not going to let me disrupt
next year’s class.
In the fifth or sixth grade the
principal of Bach Elementary, my
teacher and my grandmother had
an IEP meeting concerning my
disruptive behavior. In that meet-
ing they decided to put me in spe-
cial education for the emotionally
impaired. I was sent to Thurston
Elementary School.
Mr. Lee was the teacher and
Judy was the assistant teacher.
In special education class they
required two teachers per class-
room. Besides Mr. Lee, in special
ed., the teachers were called by
their first names. The first thing
I noticed was that the educational
curriculum was more reflective of
third-grade education. I noticed
this throughout the special edu-
cation system as a whole — even
in middle school and high school
the educational material was kept
at a third- to fourth-grade level.
They tended to deal with
behavioral issues more than
actually educating the students.
For example, every day in school,
the teacher, the assistant and the
students would have two group
meetings per day to discuss
behavioral issues. The teacher
and the assistant would basically
engage in conversation with the
students that would end with a
student (or students) being put
on timeout where the student
would sit in a corner in a study
carrel. If the disruptive behav-
ior continued, then the student
would be sent to the blue room.
SAARTHAK JOHRI
MiC Columnist
SHANTY WOBAGEGE ALI
(MIKE JONES)
Groundcover Vendor No. 113
Maya Sheth/MiC
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Courtesy of Shanty Wobagege Ali (Mike Jones)