InsightFebruary 2007

Insight
February 2007
Insight
Welcome
february 2007
to the 15th edition of Insight Magazine!
Insight, born from the University of Michigan’s FOKUS student
organization, comes from parents who believed art could unite this
campus. By creating a space for diverse voices to be heard, they
believed that we could bridge the divides that separate us, not by
negating our differences but by bringing us together and celebrating
that which makes us eclectic and beautiful. They committed to the
creation of a diverse community, and while today, Michigan sits,
sidelined by the passage of Proposal 2, we, the next generation, will
take up our parents’ fight. Our university may have been sidelined, but
we have not been silenced because we know that before we are cultures,
colors, genders, or sexual orientations, we are human.
In this edition, we recommit to what our parents began:
connecting not only the arts but the people
since day one.
photo by kristine keller
Editor:
Marja Lankinen
Founders:
Atiba Edwards
Alma Davila-Toro
Insight Contributors:
Cover Photo by Rodney Brown
Back Cover Photo by Kristine Keller
Coert Ambrosino, poetry, “proposal accepted”
Kristin Schroeder, photography
Hanna Ketai, poetry, “Shed”
T. Reeves, photography
OyamO, poetry, “Dot Something”
Sean Dwyer, photography
Chadwich Gibson, poetry, “Limbic Flutter”
Rodney Brown, photography
Adam Falkner, article, “Race Relations and
the Dynamic of Whiteness”
Marja Lankinen, poetry, “bloom”
President Mary Sue Coleman, interview,
“Beyond Ideas”
Atiba Edwards, cd review, “Hellogoodbye”
proposal accepted
11-8-2006
today we sit in our sog
black and white ash smearing our clothing
damp and dirty
from a day in which the rain fell
like decisions from above
only this day it is us guilty for the gloom
today we are quiet
we have missed our chance to speak
we have spoken
today michigan sits soggy
divided like sandwich wedges
left in the rain
last night ann arbor waited in fog
yesterday there was hope
and denial
and detachment as there will be tomorrow
but today it is impossible to ignore
the cold smoke from our silent mouths
charred tongues tired from talking, or apathied from lack of practice
today we overt our eyes and wait for winter
long for the days when we cloak our faces
plug our ears speakered
strap on boots to trudge through
tattered scraps of propaganda and ash
creeping into every stone nook and cranny of the university
today we are conflicted
unsure whether or not to retrace
car window words washed away in the storm
whether to wipe ash from our raincoats and ghostly faces
or leave them as dilapidated reminders of past glory
scars from fights that ruined birthdays and graduations
detroit’s hallow train station, once bustling
standing alone
forgotten
today we cringe at the things that feel normal
as classrooms go back to being places
where you are talked at instead of listened to
police stations dismantle booths
bibles replace ballots in community churches
we come up with excuses inside our minds
pray that the cause was misunderstanding instead of faith
plot ourselves outliers
paint ourselves martyrs victims to a world, to a state
foreign
antiquated
distant
different
than us
today the word homogeny drips from my dictionary
the ink runs down the drywall, ruins the white carpet
synonymous with equality
in a world unequal
today some celebrate victory
in a game they have never lost
u.s. sports claiming world championships
while all other countries are excluded from competition
today we have offended
ended
no get up stand up left to be had
we have stood
for what we believe
in equality
just as long as the in comes first
and that’s the part of the crowd we be
today it is too early to act
it is too late
coal cannot be turned back to wood
today i am a white man
as i was yesterday
as i will be tomorrow
today i am white man
though my finger is stained red
as proof of my participation
i cannot stop thinking it is blood on my hands
today we are not proud of our allegiance
today we whisper the name of our birthplace
curse the countryside
imagine setting fires not tamed by rain
extinguishable only by the depths of blue bordering this mitten
a hand raised in salute to the uniform flesh singed and falling off bone
smoldering like history
coert ambrosino
Shed
Like the trees in autumn
I'm shedding my leavestoo heavy for these shoulders of mine.
Every now and then I must drop
the extra weight that I choose to no longer hold inside my womb
my joints, my head.
Hanna Ketai
photo by kristin schroeder
Dot Something
photo by t. reeves
What a beard world
Concealed in the eternally beating,
Pulsating cave
Flowing through darkness, itself a
Still liquid
That paints the boundries
That separates all the separates.
Bruce Lee inspired kings
Of tiny personal kingdoms,
Best selling grotesquery,
Unaware undercoverism,
Not unemployed though.
Gittin' paid, dog, dawg, mah dawg,
"You ain't nothing but a
Found dawg"
Howling all the time:
Feed me, pay me, praise me
At last!
I may be a pomo coon
But, poverty, I escaped fast
From untouchable cast
On a role
Slathered with organic sass
For the guilty
Who yet control my black ass.
OyamO
Associate Prof. of theatre at U of M
Limbic Flutter
A flutter by my window yesterday
sent me into traveling limbics.
Shuttering ruffs of wind
brushed my stare
and rapid echoes domino-crawled
and burrowed
thru moist box hair.
Chest chickells chirped
into spasmodic smirks
in lastic flaunt
of tastic fluirks
then teems of down
laid me lounge
lust before
time made its mounds.
Chadwick Gibson
photo by Sean Dwyer
Race Relations and the Dynamic of Whiteness
Adam Falkner
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
Episode 1:
I am in the fourth grade and slowly starting to separate reality
from an inflated playground ego. My neighborhood school bus
stops at a convenience store where several classmates and I
share daily sodas like teenage girls pass lipstick before going
our separate ways. One spring afternoon, three of us are
browsing through the refrigerators in the back of the store.
After making a rather impulsively quick selection, I shuffle
outside, anxiously uncap what cottonmouth killer I’ve been
anticipating since recess, and wait for the rest of my crew. No
sooner does my youthful level of impatience begin to grow even
thinner, when a store clerk joins me on the sidewalk, promptly
asks that I re-enter the store and hand him my drink. The
lunchroom tater-tots settled in my stomach curdle in fear as I
walk back in the store. To my confusion, two employees are
already inside scolding my friend (who happens to be black),
demanding that he pin his hands and chest to the counter and
spread his legs for a body search. I am told to do the same. We
are frisked, three ten year old boys, in the front of a store with
customers watching intently as if window-shopping our
humiliation. After all is said and done, a manager explains
their recent problem with shoplifting and I am the only one
to receive a genuine apology.
photo by Rodney Brown
Episode 2:
As a freshman in college, I am just starting to acclimate to the
social differences between my Ann Arbor high school and the
University of Michigan. Late one October evening, I am
walking down the sidewalk with one of my best friends. Our
conversation screeches to a halt when from a passing group of
white kids, a racial slur slips into the air as carelessly as
cigarette smoke invades a neighboring table in a crowded
dinner restaurant. Without thinking twice, my friend stops and
calls out surprisingly politely for clarification on what he
thought he’d overheard. The student promptly separates
himself from the group, walks back several steps and abrasively
bloom
repeats “nigger” in my best friends face as though he is property
to be spit upon. My heart sinks as quickly as I can feel my
muscles tighten.
He briefly glances in my direction and grabs hold of my stare
long enough for me to recognize his unconscious and premature
apology for what is about to take place. The unexpected crack
of a jaw line breaking is a dissonance worse the shrill of a radio
station suddenly stuck between signals. The collision of knuckle
at warp speed on teeth is hollow as if thumping the base of an
oak tree with a bat. The word on its own is ugly, but compared
to the blender-battered hand of my best friend as I watch it
release the rage of a million caged animals into the side of a
wealthy white face, it seems as harmless and detached as a rap
lyric on the radio. After a few minutes, with every ounce of my
body pushed into his, I calmly tell him, as if I have any idea,
“That’s enough kid, that’s enough. Look at him…” Screaming
over my shoulder like an infant separated from its mother after
birth, his tears are foreign to those of a teenage breakup or a
toddlers impatience and both ours shirts are soaked in blood
that is not our own. His shouts between choking sobs shatter
my ear drums like crystal dropped on concrete: “You have no
idea what that means!”
From an experiential perspective, there are several common threads
that link these personal incidents together. Each, in its own way,
forced upon me an awkward awareness of my own sense of self as a
white person. Each episode also helped me to both recognize and
confront the unearned position of privilege that my status as a
member of the white race afforded me. Through many personal
experiences similar to these, it has become evident to me that white
folks wake up each morning and have the freedom to choose the
extent to which they will be aware of their racial identity. In fact,
that freedom, more often than not, is so automatic, so flagrant, that
it becomes unconscious in such a way that Caucasians develop an
instinctual sense of entitlement. In contrast, people of color never
have that option – they are always irrevocably aware and conscious
of their identity. It is never taken innocently for granted.
i’ve felt discrimination before.
in my lungs
my hands
on white skin,
the pallid powder if hatred descends
like ashes falling
on Aushwitz,
burning the skin i’m in
i say, i’ve felt discrimination.
in my bones,
i’ve felt it climbing up the dairy white heights
of five feet six inches
from white feet to brown follicle
i feel it curving in and out the arteries
misaligning the perplexities
of our ... of our ... of One
multi-colored humanity
i tell you, i’ve felt discrimination.
world,
the shouting,
you’re shouting
and cursing,
you’re piercing the dream of one race:
“pick one, pick one!
and you better pick the right one
cuz we’re not one another
but One or the Other
so you better choose your color!”
i’m silent to your words
cuz i’m not blue but green
like colored daffodil leaves in your
garden, your ghetto, your picket white yard and
i don’t care the difference
between the two
because i’m blue too.
but when i sit on picket fence,
eating white bread
cucumber sandwiches, with brown
rows of cornrows, you look at me
like i’m crazy
you look at me
like i’m the category you made me
but i’m not
i’m not just your lily white vision of purity
purely persecuting the masses
in disastrous fashion,
scratching buildings with slurs,
the words of the cursed souls
infesting the beauty of your city,
running idly through your gallery
with scissors
cutting your body,
your opportunity,
you.
and discrimination, to you, is the daily dose
of a world tipped on its side
one color above the other,
forcing shades to subside, submit
to the few, the blue,
and you cannot believe that lily white heights
can feel discrimination, too
but it’s true, i do.
so what do we do
when you and i decide
that color is another shade,
another hue of the same race
that eats ice cream on sundays
drains coke cans, eats sandwiches
lives in suburb, urban city,
city sidewalks, on country roads
raising children, growing gardens,
growing love
growing love
we’re getting loved.
i say, i’ve felt discrimination before
but you and i can stop it,
halt the schism
of one-on-one division separating
beautiful blue from green
because i have never seen any shade
more beautiful than you and i
on white picket fence, with yellow sun
soaking multi-colored skin.
it’s beautiful, i tell you
we are beautiful
in the skin that we’re in
loving the skin of our kin,
of one race, one hymn
sung top the lungs of one world,
“discrimination is through!”
i know you can see it too
cuz green and blue will rise again
in every color, we bloom.
marja lankinen
Beyond Ideas
An interview with University of Michigan President,
Mary Sue Coleman
After the passage of Proposal 2, President Mary Sue Coleman sent
out a mass email to students affirming that diversity would remain
at Michigan. Since the election, many students have voiced their
opinions in support or opposition to Proposal 2, and while some have
relinquished the fight, our president has not. The university continues
to stand by creating a diverse campus-culture, and we wanted to
hear why Mary Sue Coleman, not only as president but as person,
continues the fight.
President Coleman, why do you personally support
affirmative action?
I believe that diversity is critical to educational excellence. Let me
share an example from my own experience: I was working on my
doctorate at the University of North Carolina in the 1960s, shortly after
the violent civil rights protests of that time. The protests at Chapel Hill
were bitter and divisive. There were few African American students
there, virtually no African American faculty, and the African American
staff were concentrated in lower-level positions. Twenty years later,
when I returned to Chapel Hill to teach, I found a university that was
much more diverse—and it was a far better institution as a result. The
quality of academic discourse was vastly improved with the growth of
racial diversity. It’s more vibrant and intellectually alive, in great part
because of the many different voices there today.
What are the thoughts, feelings, and perspectives of affirmative
action by your peers? What are the people you talk to saying?
My colleagues here and around the nation are united in our dedication
to creating welcoming and inclusive campus communities. Here at
U-M, we are also focused on supporting the success of our students.
The University’s Expect Respect initiative is a reminder of the
importance we place on respect for every individual.
Are there personal stories from students, faculty, or peers, that have
affected your perspective on the issue?
Yes, I have heard many, many important personal stories on this topic over
the years, and I have seen so many lives shaped by opportunity and by lack of
opportunity. But let me share my own with you:
After high school, I went to Grinnell College, an activist Iowa campus with an
ethic of social responsibility. While Grinnell was a predominantly white college,
we had an exchange program with the traditionally Black school, LeMoyne
College of Tennessee. That was an eye-opening experience for me. It really
opened my eyes to learn what is was like, to go to a movie theater, for instance,
and not know if you could sit where you wanted to, that something that trivial
might be denied to you because of racism. As a female student who aspired to
be a scientist, I know the feeling of looking at your professors and not see any
who look like you. As a woman scientist, I know that, if I had not had people
who were willing to give me a chance, then I would not have had the career
that I have enjoyed.
What do you think the ban on affirmative action will mean to the state of
Michigan as well as the university?
In the state of Michigan, we are undergoing a difficult economic transition, one
in which the education and preparation of our citizens for a new economy will
be more important than ever before. We must tap all available talent if we are
to prosper in the future. The impact of Proposal 2 increases this challenge.
If our public universities— particularly selective schools like Michigan and
Berkeley, schools known for preparing tomorrow’s doctors, scientists and
policymakers—if these universities do not produce graduates of all backgrounds,
our nation and our state will stumble. Where the use of affirmative action has
been restricted, we must find other means to achieve diversity and to extend
educational opportunities to all students.
What final words would you like to give to this campus on the issue of
affirmative action and diversity within the community?
Diversity is a core value of the University of Michigan, and I stand firmly
behind that commitment. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said it well, “The road
ahead is not altogether a smooth one. There are no broad highways that lead us
easily and inevitably to quick solutions.” An open, tolerant society requires
institutions that lead. Our university is known as a national leader for diversity
in higher education, and we will not hesitate to fulfill that role.
under the needle
hellogoodbye
released their debut album,
Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!
in August 2006, and it debuted at #1 on
both the independent and internet album
charts. It is a solid debut album that
features fun, summery, and bright
music.
If you managed to hear the EP Hellogoodbye, the debut
album’s tones resemble the song “Dear Jamie…Sincerely Me.”
Many of the songs can be used to tell the story of a crush and
the cycle of love it will go through (more good times than not).
My favorite two tracks are “Here” and “Stuck To You.” Other
solid tracks include “I saw It On Your Keyboard,” “Homewrecker,”
and “Baby, It’s Fact.” The album features a few revamped songs
that have not been released previously.
hellogoodbye is currently composed of 4 members:
Marcus Cole (bass), Forrest Kline (vocals and guitar), Jesse
Kurvink (keys), Chris Profeta (drums), and one past member,
Aaron Flora (drums).
If you want to hear a drastically different version of hgb, listen to
“Jesse Buy Nothing…Got to Prom Anyways” from their EP
Hellogoodbye.
You can’t be close enough unless I’m feeling your heartbeat
~”All Your Love”
by Atiba Edwards