It wasn’t until March 15 that the news of the then-impending strike truly hit me — just five days before the successful vote to start the strike authorization process. My favorite Graduate Student Instructor suspiciously ended our discussion 10 minutes early to make an “announcement.” As I recall, the first thing she did in her spiel was apologize. Now, this is dawning on me — people don’t usually feel the need to apologize for defending their beliefs. She knew, much better than I, that this was going to be a rocky road.

The Graduate Employees’ Organization officially launched their strike with a rally on March 30, 2023 at 10:24 a.m. — giving me a little more than two weeks to find my footing and brace for a GSI-less college experience. Thankfully I was prepared, because Ann Arbor quickly became cold, and my GSI-dependent classes, to my dismay, fell apart. 

The University of Michigan made its first post-authorization official comment on Friday, March 24, by mass emailing students and faculty — causing my phone to buzz itself off the desk in my French class. Straight from the corporate America playbook, the tone of the email isn’t even noticeable until you’ve read it as a composition. The University thus was able to strike an uneasy balance: They were informative, with only the slightest hint of discontent. Which could all be seen as an attempt to remain neutral, but it could also be interpreted as a lack of empathy or concern for the striking graduate student. And when someone is in tune with their emotions like I am, it feels like the latter.

On the other hand, GEO didn’t toe the line like the University. They were, and still are, unequivocal: Their demands must be met, seemingly regardless of the collateral. Which meant that since March 30 at 10:25 a.m., my fellow undergraduates and I have been showered with assertive chants, accosted with flyers, told our grades are “bullshit” and more. I know, firsthand, that there is anger and displeasure from GEO, as well.

This was all frustrating and a little overwhelming. The University, who possesses the ability to reach me at any time through my school email, was whispering one thing in my ear, while GEO was shouting the opposite in my face. I was hurting. Our campus was hurting. I felt lost without my GSIs. I missed being able to walk into my classes without feeling like I was personally hurting a GEO member. But, mostly, I was confused about what to think. Who is right? Who is wrong?  And maybe I’m still confused — after all, the world has never yielded to black and white arguments.

But I set out to understand the anger, the pain, the loss experienced by GEO members — the humanity bursting at the seams of the issue. Not to figure out who is right or who is wrong.

I talked to six GEO members in search of this understanding, because there is a clear disconnect between undergraduate and graduate students — their wants and needs are different from ours and not always easy to be compassionate toward. I wanted to understand GEO as a group of human beings. So, I listened and laughed and sympathized. No, this didn’t magically heal my GEO-inflicted wounds. Nor did I expect it to. But I think it kick-started the mending process. Or, at least, the issues finally felt real to me — because shouting and whispering doesn’t work, but talking does. So now, I present to the world some real-life humans of GEO. I hope, maybe, this might bring you some peace, or at least, some understanding.

Anna S., she/they, M.A. candidate in the School of Public Health:

Anna is a member of GEO’s bargaining team. She had just finished up the morning session of bargaining with the University’s Human Resource representatives when she walked out of Pierpont Commons, straight past the pizza sent by Bernie Sanders, to sit in the grass. They wore red socks that were speckled with moose silhouettes, and anytime I got to nervously rambling they would say “yeah, yeah, yeah,” which made me feel not only safe, but like I had known Anna for a long time.

“Like many of us (entering college),” Anna intended to go to medical school. But she discovered she wanted to make a “bigger and broader” impact than she could in individual medical situations. Now, they’re working towards a Master’s degree in social and occupational epidemiology. At the same time, they work as a birth doula.

Prior to the beginning of the strike, Anna was a GSI for the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies. As part of the bargaining team, Anna has spent months and months shaping some of GEO’s demands, specifically the abolition and the transgender healthcare demands. Being constantly in the bargaining room is dehumanizing for them, kind of like talking to a brick wall for hours and days and weeks on end would be. Anna is a tried-and-true Michigander with familial roots in the automotive industry. One of the best parts about organizing for GEO, they said, is feeling a connection to past labor movements, while also advancing this current one.

In addition to aiding the GEO strike, Anna collects records and cassettes. With their roommate, going to the record store in Kerrytown is a ritual. She accidentally picked up and subsequently bought the Fleetwood Mac live album The Dance, which is now her most-played record. They use cassettes in their car, absolutely refusing to buy a bluetooth adapter because it might mess up the cassette player.

That morning, she sang “Linger” by The Cranberries to her girlfriend over breakfast.

Kelsie E., they/them or she/her, doctoral candidate in the Department of Middle East Studies:

Kelsie’s eyes lit up when I explained why I wanted to talk with her. Not only were they easy to talk to, but they didn’t bat an eye when I asked if they would sit on the bare sidewalk with me. She wore a Kate Bush shirt — an airhorn indicating she has taste.

They study ancient history, but want to avoid getting stuck in the past because we live in a changing world that “needs help.”  One theme Kelsie and I touched on was changing the world: “We need as many people trying to make the world a better place as possible.” This is why they are in GEO. “In an organization like GEO, we have a lot of really cool people trying in different ways … to make the world a better place.”

Kelsie has been a student since kindergarten. They’re very close with their cohort in Middle East Studies, but appreciated how GEO has helped them branch out to make friends in other departments. Kelsie feels both defeated and angry: Defeated because her needs are being ignored and angry because these same needs are being labeled as ridiculous.

Their arms are sleeved with mesmerizing tattoos, each one with a story. One, she explained, is of a lamassu — an ancient Mesopotamian human-headed winged bull. The reason they got a lamassu tattoo is because it reminded them of an “obscure piece of knowledge” that got them into their field of study. 

Another tattoo was inked into her skin courtesy of the oldest continuously-operating tattoo parlors in the world — Razzouk Tattoo in the Old City of Jerusalem.

That week, Kelsie hit 5,000 followers on her TikTok page where she teaches cuneiform in her free time.

Hedieh A., she/they, holds a doctorate in Biomedical Engineering, M.A. candidate in the Department of Philosophy:

Hedieh was watching the treeline to our left while I was talking with her. Their eyes reflected the swaying of the trees in the wind. She spoke diffidently at first, growing into her voice the more we conversed. Hedieh is a lifelong learner: After receiving her doctorate from the University in biomedical engineering, she decided to return to school for a master’s in political philosophy. When I asked them about the seismic shift in academic areas, they described their study of philosophy as a “hobby.”

It’s hard to imagine how Hedieh manages to juggle so many responsibilities. She works full-time as a biomedical engineer, is a dedicated mother and is also a full-time student. On top of all that, she’s an active member of GEO, where she’s known for her talent as a shirt-maker. I was awestruck when I saw her screen-printing a shirt, which looked very much like the one she was wearing. I asked why they started to screen-print and they said, “because they needed someone to do it.” Hedieh stepped up for her union — that’s the kind of person she is. She steps up for the people she loves. 

In 2014, the fatal Ann Arbor police shooting of Aura Rosser, a 40-year-old Black woman, really affected her. As an Iranian immigrant, getting into activism was scary — but doing nothing was scarier. Rosser’s murder was Hedieh’s catalyst. This current GEO movement is the “third or fourth” time Hedieh has been around this track with the University. And it never gets easier, she said: “It only gets more important.”

No day is started — or even finished — without a latte in hand for Hedieh. She used to fancy having a latte with her favorite authors or musicians, but now she only dreams of being able to hear stories firsthand from a person living in Rojava (the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria).

That morning, like every morning, Hedieh gently awoke her daughter and helped her get to school, all before she got her latte.

*** 

It was April when my roommates and I got into a tiff. I tried, and failed, to defend the GEO movement to them — they were, and are still, angry. But, their anger didn’t stem from apathy. Their anger grew because they forgot these people are people. They’re mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, parents and children. By no means do you have to be pro-labor, but I’d argue that you do have to recognize the humanity of GEO strikers.

It was also April when a state judge ruled that the GEO strike violated their, since expired, contract. But, if a judge could squash a labor movement with a signature, I sincerely doubt any of the rights gained for workers over the past 100 years would’ve happened.

***

Markus M., he/him, doctoral candidate in the Department of History:

Markus twiddled broken blades of grass in his hands the entire time I was talking to him. If I hadn’t been taking notes, I would’ve joined him. He was wearing a see-through watch, so you could see the gears turning, almost as if the watch itself was moving time forward. It’s important to him that his name is Markus, because when he was younger people decided, against his will, to call him Mark.

He knew for a long time that he wanted to be a historian, but did not accept this desire until he had no choice — his love for the subject eventually outweighed his fears of instability. After finishing his preliminary phase (part of a doctoral degree done before writing a dissertation),Markus hopes he is sent to Italy to do archival research on Italian politics during the Cold War. His favorite historian isn’t his advisor, because that would have been “simply too much brown-nosing.”

Though he loves the class he teaches about World War I (he’s done it twice), he had no reservations about going on strike. That being said, it hasn’t been easy. The day before our interview, his teaching evaluations from his students were returned to him. This caused a lot of anxiety for him. He knew, his voice breaking when he made this admission, that he was “hurting undergrads in some way.” Thankfully, everyone was very kind to Markus. Ultimately, he’s been pleased with how the majority of the undergraduate students have reacted to the strike.

Despite being a “part-time ferret father,” Markus thinks he needs more hobbies. His girlfriend introduced him to three ferrets. To his surprise, despite their smell, Markus loves the silly creatures. The oldest ferret, Aspen, is partially blind and loves to collect stuffed animals. 

That next Wednesday, Markus had to take his preliminary oral exam. He had been preparing all year. 

Larisa M., she/her/they, M.S.W. candidate in the School of Social Work:

Conversing with Larisa was pleasant and comforting, as though every word she spoke radiated warmth. They were wearing an eye-catching pair of Doc Martens that were peppered with flowers. Her water bottle sported a sticker that read “I love my union. Ask me why.” 

As a first-year social work student, Larisa is already halfway through her time at the University. They are also a part of the GEO bargaining team. Specifically, they represent the School of Social Work and the “Payment4Placements” demand. This demand represents the desire to be paid for the more than 900 hours of field work required to graduate. She says that field work is “draining,” and not getting paid is an improvement that needs to be made.

Music is very dear to Larisa’s heart. They have an entire army of instruments they can play, notable among them being the kokle — a Latvian plucked string instrument. In college, her a cappella group gifted her the nickname Lari. They were able to arrange a Bon Iver song, “Heavenly Father,” for their group to perform. When she performs as a solo artist, her stage name is Mother Mushroom.

That day, Larisa performed in the strike band, and she was quite good, I might add.

SN Y., they/them, doctoral candidate in the Department of Classical Studies:

SN has piercing blue eyes, the kind that make you aware of how much they see you. They never looked at me like a student interrupting their plans, only as a peer. They wore a waffle knit sweater underneath their t-shirt.

“Bad religion in the ancient world” is how they describe what they study. Specifically, they’re interested in “bad religion” after the fall of the Roman Empire. They went to a conservative, Christian undergraduate institution and SN has sort of “accidentally” fallen into their life here in Ann Arbor.

In their first year at the University, they were not a part of GEO — but mainly just because they didn’t know how much GEO’s work impacted them. But then, they “fell in love with collective action” after sending an open letter to their undergraduate school calling out racism. Summer 2020 was a “summer of uprising,” marked by Black Lives Matter protests and an uptick in racial violence against Asians in America. This radicalizing summer changed a lot about them. 

Every morning before checking Twitter, SN tries to read for fun and then does a sudoku. They do sudoku so much that they can’t bear to do it on paper any longer. They enjoy fries, but not the kind from McDonald’s. Their favorite thing to do to “revive” themselves from a day of collective action is walk to Ravens Club on Main Street and do happy hour while munching on fries.

I hope that on that day, SN went to Ravens Club and had the best fries of their life.

***

It’s now May, and I spent the last hour and a half reading every hate comment left by scorned undergrads, overprotective mothers and overly-involved internet trolls on The Michigan Daily’s GEO-related Instagram posts. In retrospect, opening Instagram was so obviously a mistake. People are upset with GEO’s decision to strike, and understandably so — hell, I might even be upset. Their decision undoubtedly hurt people, chief of which are undergraduates: my peers, friends, enemies, co-workers, roommates, mentors. And now, after reading the internet’s vitriol, to be quite frank, I don’t want this piece published. I’m scared. I’m scared for myself. I’m scared for the GEO members I talked to. I’m scared for our community. And, mostly, I think I’m scared because sometimes humans get so upset that we forget the humanity in ourselves and, especially in this case, in others. 

This extraordinarily human behavior is rather terrifying. The only antidote I can dream of is to listen. That’s what I implore you to do. Listen to the sound of the jet that interrupted commencement. Listen to the union chants. Listen to how much these people care. Listen to the pain, the joy, the school spirit. Really pause to take it all in. Because labor movements are beautiful. Humans are beautiful. Stories are beautiful. Giving a shit is beautiful. And if you stop listening, you stop learning. And if you stop learning, you stop caring about people — and the idea of my community not caring for and about each other is unacceptable.

Statement Correspondent Samuel Fonte can be reached at sfonte@umich.edu

The post Hey hey, ho ho, humans of GEO appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

The Journal of Psychiatric Research asserts that 2.82% of 18 to 29 year olds have a skin picking disorder, which makes skin picking most prevalent among college-age students. By my count, as someone with a skin picking disorder, I’m about one in 35. That’s maybe someone in your first-year writing class. Or your two hour computer science lab. Or someone in line with you at Ricks. Or at least, someone 20 feet from you on your Commuter North ride.

Skin picking disorders aren’t uncommon, they’re usually just hidden. For example, Lindsay Gellman, reporting for the New York Times, followed Deborah Hoffman, a Texas woman who picks at her back, an affliction she was able to hide from her husband for 21 years. In fact, one of the most common places to pick at skin is behind the ear: another perfect place for concealment. Unfortunately, my scabs and scars and wounds and welts aren’t in a concealable place on my body because I pick at my fingertips.

Skin picking disorders are part of a collection of body-focused repetitive behaviors. BFRBs are, most generally: repetitive self-grooming behaviors that can and often do lead to physical damage and social impairment. Just some examples of BFRBs include hair pulling, cheek or nail biting, and skin picking. 

The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology investigated BFRBs’ relationship with the COVID-19 pandemic and concluded that 67.2% of people with a BFRB experienced increased symptoms over the course of the pandemic. What I wish the Academy of Dermatology had investigated instead was the number of people whose BFRBs’ origins lie amidst the pandemic. Based on anecdotal evidence found in Reddit threads and FaceBook support groups, I think the pandemic jump-started a significant amount of BFRBs — including mine.

There are two avenues from which skin picking disorders can originate: obsessive compulsive disorder and boredom. For me, it began with boredom. My go-to coping response in the face of boredom has become picking and peeling at my fingers and quite unnervingly, I usually don’t notice until my fingers are raw and bloody. During the pandemic, I had the privilege of being extremely bored. I was not an essential worker surrounded by the virus, nor was I on the frontlines combatting the virus in emergency rooms; instead, I was sitting at home, developing a (so-far) unconquerable skin picking disorder.

In public, I keep my hands in my pockets or folded slyly under my armpits. I don’t want people to see my fingers, which they would if my hands were out in the open. They are perpetually scabbed, red or bleeding — so much so that people notice in passing. I carry around silicone thimbles, hoping to scratch them instead of tearing up my skin. I struggle to hold pencils because sometimes the stylus must rest on an open wound. I can’t do the dishes without gloves because the soapy hot water stings. And man oh man do my fingers hurt. All the time.

***

King Midas’ story is tragic, and niche-ly similar to mine. The myth of King Midas begins in Ancient Greece, where he ruled over Phrygia (modern-day Turkey). He was a kind, gentle leader with only two flaws: He was foolish — the coded mythological word for dumb — and, he loved gold … to a fault. One day, King Midas, true to his character, invited an injured, starved satyr into his castle for refuge. Lucky (or, soon to be unlucky) for him, this satyr was a mentor to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and pleasure. Dionysus, in turn, granted King Midas a wish. Foolishly, as was his nature, he wished that everything he touched would turn to gold.

Maybe it was greed, maybe it was fated or maybe King Midas was just plain witless — because this wish, he would soon find out, was a curse. At a feast celebrating himself, Midas would discover that the food he touched turned to gold. He couldn’t eat. He grew scared, eventually falling to his knees and begging for a hug from his daughter. She too turned to gold.

The most poignant aspect of this myth is that King Midas had no escape. He could never heal. His affliction was so immediate and so severe that he had no choice but to watch the world he loved turn to gold. In this way, I am a derivation of King Midas. Everything is at my fingertips, but my fingertips are damaged. In an almost repulsive way, in a way that prompts unwarranted comments from my professors, in a way that people belittle me for, and mostly in a way that scares people. The world in my grasp, until it sees my fingertips.

***

My fingers have gotten me into real trouble before. The first thing I remember from when I got into my car crash were my tears; fear-driven tears, searing tears, the kind that make the whole world stop and order you to feel each one as they come. When I tried to dial 911, my fingers, I remember, were healed. But with every battle won, there seems to be another to conquer. This time instead of bleeding, sore fingers, it became fingers marred with scar tissue. I had gone through the cycle of picking and then healing too many times to count on my perpetually blood-stained fingers. When you pick at scabs or at scarred skin, it grows back — stronger: Scar tissue becomes an inevitable condition of healing — a poetic evolutionary trait — but also a troubling one. For example, scar tissue often causes problems with repeated heart surgeries, c-section recovery and, apparently, skin-picking disorders.

The reason I said I was trying to call 911 — not that I did call 911 — is because my thumbs wouldn’t register on my phone’s screen because of the scarring. Me and my face soaked with prickling, searing tears were helpless. Scar tissue was my body’s final attempt to stop me from hurting myself. A fresh, thick layer of skin which fails to conduct electricity enough for me to hit the nine. Or the one. Or the one.

***

I think a reader’s natural response by now is something along the lines of if it’s gotten you into danger before, and it hurts and it renders living in the world so difficult, then why don’t you stop? I think the answer lies within my very human relationship with pleasure and pain. 

Neuroanatomy would point out the obvious: Pain and pleasure originate from the same place: the amygdala. Just as you can’t scratch your scalp without incidentally messing up your hair, you can’t activate pain neurons without lighting up the pleasure neurons, too. The neural circuitry of the way humans perceive pain and pleasure can, in some cases like mine, confuse the recognition of the two, so I don’t even realize it hurts until the blood is flowing.

***

There are 19 steep steps, worn from use, leading into my apartment. The path is narrow, and I often feel compelled to push against the time-yellowed walls, hoping to somehow spare myself the imminent suffocation the stairway threatens.

Being awoken by a fear-driven scream is a remarkable sort of haunting. The change in mental state is severe: a benign lack of thought to a malignant brace for attack. But this scream, emitted from one of my roommates, was fueled by the sight of blood. I had Rorschach-ed the path’s wall with blood — King Midas style.

After I managed to brush the event under the rug, and sent all of my roommates back to bed, I sat on stair number 16 and let my tears burn my face. One day, I will win — I will end this skin picking disaster. Until then, I think I just need some grace — someone to assure me that everything I touch won’t wear my Midas red.

Statement Columnist Sammy Fonte can be reached at sfonte@umich.edu.

The post The gory, less greedy, Midas touch appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

Most days I don’t have time to, but when I can manage it, I like to go home for lunch. It’s a good break, not only from the competitive atmosphere of our campus, but also from all the responsibilities that hang over my head. Since I live near the Athletic Campus, I usually feel awkward walking back to my afternoon classes while lacking the athletic backpack. A stream of athletes rush against me, outfitted in their dark-blue parkas, heading to what I assume to be practice. Today, I decided to turn around and walk (drive) with them. By doing so, I got to immerse myself in my favorite team’s practice: Michigan women’s gymnastics.

My love of gymnastics is rather unfounded — I was never a gymnast nor anything related. (Though, I do have to resist the urge to cartwheel at least once an hour.) Growing up in a sports-loving family, in a sports-loving town (Ann Arbor), is most likely the root of my search for a sport to become one with. Not to mention, finding a sport to love and entirely dedicate ourselves to is simply good for you: frequent exercise is known to boost endorphins, dopamine and serotonin — bodily mechanisms that, when activated, are proven to increase mood and ensure longevity. But, I had to find the sport I love to watch — a tedious project in itself. Football felt too brutish to watch, basketball has no risk and even swimming, my home sport, seems to lack the certain sort of shine and glamor that I had been inherently craving. It makes sense that gymnastics is the only sport that really resonates with me — it’s daring, glamorous and (even as a spectator) stressful — all I could want as a viewer. But as an athlete? Let’s see…

Coached by Beverly Plocki, the coach with the most Big Ten titles in history — spanning any sport — makes the Michigan women’s gymnastics team not just good, but fantastically great. They are the reigning Big Ten Champions, and, as of today, are ranked fourth in the country. After becoming one of only seven teams to nab an NCAA National Championship title in 2021, Michigan women’s gymnastics seems poised to do it again — with an almost identical competition team (the notable difference being that Abby Brenner is now at the University of Utah). The current team includes the consistent Sierra Brooks, ‘icey’ Abby Heiskell and Natalie Wojcik’s perfection, which left me wondering: How the hell am I here? And: How can I possibly not humiliate myself?

Since I am physically weaker, completely untrained and too much of a liability to flip (which my neck thanks and my heart curses), I couldn’t do much actual gymnastics. So, this immersion was basically a two-for-one: Half embarrassing myself while doing the most basic of leaps and handstands — at one point hanging motionless from the high bar — and half admiring my hard work.

Part one: Getting out there

From the moment I emailed Brooks to set this immersion up to the writing of this piece, my hands have been clammy with sweat, too much for chalk — used for its extreme moisture-wicking capacity, which enhances grip, in turn helping the gymnasts stay on apparatuses — to even help. Because I was so star-struck, I spent the first 10 minutes staring at the floor, my legs shaking with each nervous pace. My timidness was cut short by Plocki’s booming, almost regal, voice: “you wanted to immerse yourself — get out there!” I’m pretty sure that my face turned Ohio State red — a difficult color to pull off, especially in Ann Arbor. But I did eventually get on the mat, immediately stuttering while more formally introducing myself.

Unphased by my presence and ready to start practicing, the team decided it was time to break — an end of a huddle cheer — a ritual in which I got to participate. With our feet in an aptly perfect circle (apt because they are gymnasts, obsessed with the details, such as foot placement), the team rapidly discussed what to chant, settling on: “One, two, let’s take big fives!” Conveying their determination to win, which they did, a five team Big Ten meet.

Splitting into two groups — one at the uneven bars and one on the balance beam — practice officially commenced. I went with the beam group first, nervously stepping onto the four-inch-wide leather covered plank, laid out on the floor with mats flanking it for additional safety. I spent what seemed like forever embroiled in a mix of jealousy and complete awe, watching the gymnasts masterfully walking up and down the beam, spinning so quickly and so elegantly a tornado might as well have been summoned, doing it all as if it were second nature.

Maile’ana Kanewa-Hermelyn, the team’s assistant coach who specializes in the balance beam, attempted to teach me how to turn on the beam. Unsurprisingly, I couldn’t balance, and instead took steps off  — costing myself a half point deduction. This seemingly-slight metric is more than enough to lose a meet, where the results often come down to hundredths of points — for example, Michigan’s 2021 national title was only won by .0175 of a point. My lack of balance was clearly a disqualifying trait, and it was a good thing none of the athletes were like me in this respect.

After fooling around for a little while on the beam, sophomore Ashley Lane, was kind enough to take me through her jumping and flipping drills. The gym is riddled with pits filled with fluffy blue pillows, providing a safe landing spot for risky attempts at new skills. Lane and I took turns jumping in. She would first demonstrate a beautiful leap, and soon after I would attempt to replicate it, never coming quite close. Lane, an ever-patient and ridiculously friendly teacher, walked me through her front and back aerial progressions, an awesomely intelligent way to learn these insane skills — a method that translates to the outside of the gym world, one of the many lessons I learned. If you simply slow down and work your way up to the difficult parts of life, for example by starting with one-handed cartwheels, you can work up and achieve goals faster and more efficiently, for example completing an aerial. I really appreciate this lent insight from these athletes. I can’t do an aerial, but I can apply their knowledge.

The limited skills I could attempt were physically challenging, so much so, that I took a sitting (and panting) break until the athletes were ready to move to the uneven bars — where my lack of strength really shined through. After coating my hands in chalk, I was allowed to jump and grab the high bar. Freshman Paige Thaxton, encouraged me to try and swing. My core engaged and my arms flexed, I piked my legs and tried. After about four seconds, I couldn’t hang on any longer because my hands burned like I had just put my palm down on the stove. 

The confines of the gym seem no different than what we all go through in the outside world — we win and lose, and we put so much love into what we do. We fall unabashedly fall and then we get up and try again.

Part two: Engaging off the mat

The other half of this immersion was much more special to me: I got the privilege to watch these athletes put in some truly incredible hard work. What stuck out to me was the self-sufficiency: They were almost coaching each other. How? I don’t know. I can barely motivate three classmates to actually finish our group project, yet somehow these athletes, my age nonetheless, were able to guide and help each other through some truly complicated gymnastics with veritable confidence. 

There was a lot of beauty to the team environment. They worked as a cohesive, familial unit — dropping the individuality of the sport at the door. Helping each other not only professionally, but efficiently. Not putting themselves first, but the team — so extremely obviously. With sunlight streaming in, music humming in the background and cheers of encouragement filling the foreground it seemed so clear, they love this school and their team enough to achieve all of their dreams.

The gym buzzed with joy. Not only were the gymnasts falling and getting up, they all had smiles plastered to their faces. And I felt it too — the contagious joy. I mean, after doing handstands or cartwheels the smile could not be wiped off my face. Joy in the hard work, the process if you will, doesn’t come often or easily, and this team has it. The gymnasts cheered after falls or perfect landings, recognizing the work, not the result. All of this seemed to be powered by love and respect — for the sport and each other. 

***
Getting a whistle and a “woo-hoo” from Plocki for simply swinging on the uneven bars, while these girls do things like deltchev’s (a D-rated skill entailing a 180° into a forward salto in straddled position), is just one example of how awesome this experience and environment was. This team’s magnum opus has yet to come, despite the 2021 National Championship. And if they keep working like they are — which I have no doubt they will — their potential is limitless.

Statement Columnist Sammy Fonte can be reached at sfonte@umich.edu.

The post Team 47 and my urge to cartwheel appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

How many unique words in a row must I write before I have created a de facto attribution right? For every twist I take, a source or example will be cited, due to the intrinsic attribution right granted to every author and for the reader’s benefit. But, if I forgot to cite, my journalistic career and I are screwed, regardless of my intentions. This is true in classes at the University of Michigan as well, except it’s my academic career on the line, something admittedly (and drastically) more important to me.

To provide an apt example, Philosophy lecturer Daniel Lowe warns (in bold) throughout his PHIL 361 Ethics syllabus that, “If you plagiarize a Writing Assignment, you will fail the course.” A warning so strict and high-stakes from an ethics professor (of all people!) shoved me down a rabbit hole of plagiarism norm questioning. And now that I’m out, I’m thoroughly concerned — not only because of the consequences of even accidental plagiarism but also because the anti-plagiarism norm rests on surprisingly shaky logic. 

Having an anti-plagiarism statement like Lowe’s is expected. In fact, a syllabus writing guide written at Kansas State University and distributed by the University, implores a syllabus writer to include statements about plagiarism. This system creates a norm, one that is decidedly yet tacitly anti-plagiarism. And punishments for plagiarism are brutal. At the University punishments include, but “are not limited to” (did shivers go up your spine?): “a defined period of disciplinary probation … noted (on your transcript),” “permanent expulsion” or “withholding of a degree.” What else could they even do, egg my house? And what could possibly justify these penalties?

Furthermore, how do we define plagiarism in the first place? Splitting the hairs of what actually defines plagiarism is tedious, maybe even fruitless. While dissecting “The Melancholy Anatomy of Plagiarism,” author, K. R. St. Onge, remarked that plagiarism shares certain features with pornography, noting that “even though we cannot agree on specifics, ‘(w)e know it when we see it.’ ” However, most plagiarism statements can agree the essence of plagiarism is misattributing others’ expressions or ideas to oneself, either implicitly or explicitly. The University LSA plagiarism statement sections off plagiarism sharply, and shockingly well: “Plagiarism is representing someone else’s ideas, words, statements, or other work as one’s own without proper acknowledgement or citation.” But, even sharp definitions like LSA’s beg questions like: how many borrowed words necessitate attribution?

And even if we were to get a perfect definition of plagiarism, a new problem arises: The dissemination of that definition without infringing and becoming plagiarism itself seems impossible. Both illustrative and amusing is the case of University of Oregon misattributing parts of Stanford University’s plagiarism statement as their own. This sheds light on anti-plagiarism as an academic norm that is fully constructed and systemic, operating under the guise of natural, moral conventions. These rules were created at some point and they can be evaluated by those they govern, especially when hypocrisy is apparent in higher education. 

It might be helpful now to explore the limitations and justifications for a related, but distinct, concept: copyright infringement. Because copyright and plagiarism norms often overlap, they are easily, but mistakenly, conflated. Copyright, regardless of attribution, does not allow certain uses of original authorship without permission. Moreover, straight from the United States Code on Fair Use: “In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.” Subsequently, facts cannot be protected by copyright because they are discovered, not created.

The winning rationale behind the U.S. copyright system is that it is justified because it increases social welfare through requiring novel copyrightable material. (The weakest part of this reasoning is the implicit consequentialist — actions are deemed right or wrong based solely on outcomes — assumption it makes). Brian L. Frye, University of Kentucky Professor of Law, observes: “Copyright is justified because it solves market failures in works of authorship caused by free riding by giving authors an incentive to (create new works).” Frye implies that copyright is justified when it increases social welfare, but not justified when it decreases social welfare. 

On the other hand, there are arguments that claim copyright is justified because people have the fundamental right to own the product of their labor, even if that labor equates to less than a few minutes of, perhaps, a ChatGPT input. These black-and-white rule-focused arguments transfer to the subject matter of plagiarism much easier than the economic arguments, but are not widely accepted as the true justification behind copyright.

But, if the U.S. already has a copyright system that protects our economy from the stagnation of new inventions or material due to copying, what could possibly motivate a plagiarism norm? Well, in my view, it’s a selfish rule imposed by the rulers of academia. In academia, students and professionals alike work within a fragile system of indirect compensation through citations — the primary currency of the trade. Such accreditations can range from idea-based concepts like citation of facts or theories to vaguer instances (where lack of attribution can still violate plagiarism rules) like language and sentence phrasing. Thus, the gap created by copyright limitations proves especially harmful for academics. Since copyright law inherently does not protect the product of academics, extralegal plagiarism norms are adopted continuously by academics to seek rent for their work. The ruling social class of academia — professors — have, as American sociologist Howard S. Becker posited, sparked deviant behavior by creating a rule that labels infractors as outsiders. Since no one wants to be an outsider on their own, this contrived rule has done an excellent job of keeping the power on the side of the ruling class and preventing anyone from even questioning anti-plagiarism norms.

While copyright laws may be justified, plagiarism is not so easily addressed. How are plagiarism norms reckoned with? Simply put, they aren’t, or at least not compellingly. American jurist and legal scholar Richard A. Posner advanced a purely economic justification for plagiarism norms in his 2007 work “The Little Book of Plagiarism.” Posner argues that plagiarism is a form of academic fraud, which plagiarism norms work against, inspiring new works of authorship, thereby benefiting the economy. Posner further claims that plagiarism defrauds consumers because the consumer has an implicit assumption that the work is original and not plagiarized. Frye finds this argument a bit circular in reasoning, noting, “Consumers assume that an unattributed work is original and not copied only because academic plagiarism norms prohibit unattributed copying.” With this circularity in mind, I reject Posner’s claim.

In contrast, the rule-focused arguments are clear and compelling, though harsh in nature. The dictionary of negatively-charged language (e.g., larceny, word kidnapping, piracy, pilfering) is almost always hurled at the alleged plagiarism offender. Usually, offenders are likened to thieves (thievery being a widely accepted legal and moral wrong), the idea being that authors have an inherent right to their work beyond its creation. As if scholarly work creates attribution rights simply by existing. And then, almost every professor becomes a warden, protecting their colleagues, implicitly assuming their colleagues will police in return. Yet, without economic theories to support the offense, can something like plagiarism be justified by moral reasoning alone? I don’t think so, especially because morals are often so personal anyway.

To me, what makes the most logical sense when detailing plagiarism and its effects is a cartel model (e.g., oil barons operate under such a cartel model because they have colluded in order to illicitly inflate prices), odd as it may initially feel. The academic world seems to have banded together to ensure everyone is paid with their most valued currency: citations. And true to the cartel model, anyone who goes against the norm is brutally ousted. Arguably, students are more hurt by these standards than their professional counterparts. Before students have a chance to leave the classroom and enter the real world, plagiarism offenders face severe consequences from which their academic careers will likely never recover.

Of course, I’m not advocating for fraud, or even plagiarism. Fraud has the potential to hurt people, and usually termination or resignation is warranted to correct the offense. In my opinion, the relevant difference between fraud and plagiarism is that plagiarism is still true information, just unattributed. Fraud is deception, and often hurts the economy (and thus academia) because it advances claims that the public expects to be true, a much heftier consequence than that of a lack of attribution. 

In fact, I would argue one should feel compelled to cite every source for the pedagogical benefits. Readers want to be able to investigate the cursory points authors often make. (How else would I have climbed so far down the plagiarism rabbit hole?) But, even if all sources are cited, do people even look at them? (To this point — and I say this with love — I sincerely doubt you have looked through all of my cumbersomely cited sources.) Furthermore, plagiarism norms seem to inhibit some forms of learning such as patchwriting. Again, Fyre writes, “And to the extent that academic plagiarism norms prohibit and punish patch writing by students, they impose substantial social costs, by preventing students from engaging in pedagogically productive activities.”

Norms with such severe punishments should be examined incredibly carefully. When norms begin to interfere with our pedagogical goals, rights and duties, they need to be questioned. We need more people to question the arcane, often frustrating norms that plague our lives.

Statement Columnist Sammy Fonte can be reached at sfonte@umich.edu.

The post Academia’s cartel norm: Theories and origins of plagiarism rules appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

Note: All names have been changed, and stories have been truncated when appropriate to avoid the possibility or implication of repeating the message relevant in each encounter.

As a student at the University of Michigan, I’ve rarely witnessed overt homophobia on campus, though I know it exists. Still, I feel inexplicably unsafe in most spaces on campus. Sometimes, I even slyly shuffle back into the closet to protect myself (the morality of which I cannot stop thinking about). But why do I feel safer there? It can’t be because of my clothes — they’re not that cute.

There is a reason I constantly bite the tongue that only wants to defend my identity. The following three instances, all of which seemed relatively harmless at first, upon closer examination revealed deeper, harsher truths about how casual homophobia can still corrode, and what steps we can take to prevent it.

Backlighting this entire narrative is French philosopher Jean-Pierre Faye’s horseshoe theory. Introduced in his 2002 book, “Le Siècle des idéologies” (The Age of ideologies), Faye posits that the far-left and far-right ideologies are more similar than the traditional left-right spectrum suggests. Though horseshoe theory generates lots of criticism (and some praise), it will work to frame my central point; on-campus homophobia usually starts with intentions of normalization, but the execution swings it around the horseshoe, resulting in some wholly homophobic encounters.

To begin, I want to take you to the East Quad basement. The pale yellow walls coupled with the basic school building lighting produces an awful orange glow, but I want you to ignore that. That innocuous Monday evening, my freshman friend group was studying at a table in the main lounge, hunched over our respective computer screens. After making some progress, I predictably got up for a dance break — Spotify shuffle had blessed me with a Taylor Swift song. Then my friend, a white, straight and affluent sorority girl, looked me up and down and proceeded to call me a “fairy.”

The weirdest part of this encounter was that I genuinely laughed. We all laughed, and then documented the comment on our list of “out of pocket” quotes. I still find it funny now, just in a darker way.

I do not think that what happened here was malicious, or that she meant to belittle my identity, even though she did. I think that ignorance allowed two things to happen: an uneducated use of offensive terms and a humorous attempt to mimic my own language.

With all the niceties stripped away, the word “fairy,” when directed towards someone in the LGBTQIA+ community, is a slur. The reclamation of slurs by targeted communities is a storied endeavor. But a weird thing has happened with homophobic slurs: they have been adopted by all, not just the offended community. So when my friend called me a “fairy,” I almost think she meant it as a compliment — I think she was happy I felt comfortable expressing my identity around her, and wanted to show she was just as comfortable. But the execution was jarring and corrosive.

She never made that mistake again, and apologized profusely. Nonetheless, it happened, and it hurt.

Our next story involves a living room on East University Avenue and, predictably, a drinking game: Kings. From the deck of cards sloppily forming a circle around a forgotten Whiteclaw, my friend (let’s call her Mira) drew a king. When you draw a king, you get to make up a rule. Mira decided to direct two straight men in the group (let’s call them Dan and Caleb) to kiss and slap Caleb’s butt every time an odd-numbered card was drawn. Without skipping a beat, Dan said something to the effect of I would love to, we’re basically already a couple, as if gay romance and sex is some kind of joke, or something to claim as bait.

Again, Mira, Dan and Caleb did not intend to belittle my identity, even though they did. What happened here was quite simple, and possibly a good thing executed poorly. I’m glad we feel comfortable enough in our social circles to allude to sexuality in a joking and light manner. As I’m sure you know, this hasn’t always been the case. Now, however, my friend group can talk about gay people, romance and sex so casually — which is fantastic. But for my community to become the butt (like the one Dan was instructed to slap) of jokes made by straight people is not okay. Pretending to be gay is not funny, it is hurtful. And it happens too often.

For the third and final campus encounter follow me to the G.G. Brown Building. In this North Campus building, a few feet from the 1,500 pound Rubik’s Cube, there is a table that routinely occupies a group of me and my class friends after our lecture. In an effort to elevate our group to friends sans the class label, we began talking about our love and sex lives. Feeling safe enough, I started spilling about the triumphs and tribulations of being gay on our campus. As we went around the circle, one of the guys tried to launch into a monologue about how he was struggling to meet girls he liked. But before he got too far, another girl in the group chimed in:

“Aren’t you gay?”

It might take you a second to understand what happened. It took me 20 minutes and a Commuter South ride. But my friend, despite how well he played it off, was outed. 

There were only six of us at that table, so you might be inclined to think something along the lines of ‘no big deal.’ But you would be dead wrong. Coming out is something so radically personal that to lose agency over the decision of how, when, where and whom to come out to is truly heartbreaking.  

Still, outing happens entirely too often. Many people assume that because I am gay, it’s okay to out other people to me. But that’s weird, right? I mean, if my friend told me she was pregnant, no special moral permission is given for me to tell someone else this reality just because the person I told also happens to be pregnant. Both being pregnant and being gay is something that I would call radically personal. Somehow, people have lost that level of respect for the agency one has over speaking to their experiences, or their identity. Again, why?

I keep wondering why these encounters happen in a way that makes me think the intentions are good. Here goes my theory: I think that my peers have tried so hard to normalize being gay, that being gay has lost the basic respect for agency that all identities deserve.

In my eyes, each encounter was an effort of normalization gone awry. The ‘fairy’ comment was endearing if you can look at it as her trying to step into my gay world. She was trying to talk how I talk in order to make me feel more comfortable — it just did not go well. Mira, Dan and Caleb felt comfortable enough to pretend to be gay, something that would not have been acceptable in decades past due to the levels of visceral homophobia. And finally, my friend’s outing of another could be looked at as a much too loud dog-whistle that was trying to signal personal and communal acceptance of gay people at that table.

All of the people in these stories were making an effort to normalize my identity — they just executed it in an unacceptable way (do you see all of the horseshoes?). This is why I think I feel uncomfortable on campus, because this happens all the time.

As I hope you are expecting, my solution is nothing grand or enlightening. It is, however, important, simple and worth reading: 

Be aware of what you are saying. 

Don’t employ language for communities you are not a part of. Don’t make my love a joke. And remember that you can create safe spaces without outing people. Beyond the specificity of that advice, be aware of the connotations of your words, because as cliché as it is, words — and the context in which you use them — matter.

It’s also important for me to take a moment to acknowledge my own limitations. It has been proven that these sorts of microaggressions harm people of color to a much greater extent than queer, white people. As a white man, I cannot share these experiences, but many queer writers of color have.

The reason my tongue is lousy with metaphorical scars is because I refuse to be the moral authority on all things gay. It’s unfair for me to both take the blunt of microaggressions in stride and fix them. Sometimes, I’m too focused on being hurt by people I care about to call it out. It’s up to all of us to prevent these overcorrections, even if they are coming from an intent to normalize. Call people out, have conversations and think before you speak.

Statement Columnist Sammy Fonte can be reached at sfonte@umich.edu.

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