09.15.16 Final.Pdf

09.15.16 filling in the blanks Inside: Identities, Intra-Extracurriculars, and Imagination 09.15.2016 09.15.16 The Indy is outside Vol. XLVIII, No. 2 the classroom / bubble / box! filling in the blanks CONTENTS Cover design by Audrey Effenberger ‘19 Inside: Identities, Intra-Extracurriculars, and Imagination President Aditya Agrawal '17 3 What I’m Not Editor-in-Chief Caroline C. Cronin '18 Managing Editor Caroline Gentile ‘17 4 (cont’d) Production Editor Audrey Effenberger ‘19 Vice-President, Daniel Um ‘19 5 HUDS Rally Business 6 (cont’d) News Editor Pulkit Agarwal ‘19 7 Leaders Forum Forum Editor Hunter Richards ‘18 Arts Editor Andrew Lin ‘17 8 Evening with... Sports Editor Jess Clay ‘17 9 He Dreams Designers Yaara Yacoby '17 Alice Linder '17 10 Art of the Tailgate Abigail Parker '17 11 (cont’d) Staff Writers Andrew Adler ‘17 Peyton Fine '17 Ritchey Howe '17 As Harvard College's weekly undergraduate newsmagazine, Hannah Kates '18 the Harvard Independent provides in-depth, critical coverage of Dominique Luongo ‘17 issues and events of interest to the Harvard College community. Chris Riley '17 The Independent has no political affiliation; instead, it offers diverse Megan Sims ‘18 commentary on news, arts, sports, and student life. Shreya Vardhan ‘17 For publication information and general inquiries, contact Sally Yi ‘18 President Aditya Agrawal ([email protected]). Letters to the Editor and comments regarding the content of the publication should be addressed to Editor-in-Chief Caroline Cronin ([email protected]). To request or inquire regarding an email subscription, please email [email protected]. The Harvard Independent is published weekly during the academic year, except during vacations, by The Harvard Independent, Inc., Student Organization Center at Hilles, Box 201, 59 Shepard Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Copyright © 2016 by The Harvard Independent. All rights reserved. 2 harvardindependent.com The Harvard Independent • 09.15.16 INDY FORUM What I’m Not Multiraciality in an increasingly mixed world. By AUDREY EFFENBERGER o be honest, I’m a bit late to the game on US population self-identified as multiracial this. I don’t really keep up with sports in 2015. We occupy the space between culture Tin any capacity, aside from cheering [Race is] a and blood, between groups, between others. for Team USA every four years. When We have to figure out what that means not Colin Kaepernick started kneeling instead only to ourselves, but to others. of standing at attention for the national anthem, I didn’t hear about it through first- potent and poorly In practical terms, this means that people or secondhand sources – I got third-, fourth-, like Rodney Harrison may be right: if you and probably fifth-hand interpretations of weren’t raised black, and if you don’t really what he was (metaphorically) standing for, defined thing [...] “look black,” you aren’t black in the same and what that meant about the state of way that the leaders of Black Lives Matter America. are. You don’t face the same fights or the same consequences. Replace “black” with There was the one headline phrase that made up of cultural any other race, for any multiracial person of stuck with me, however. From Rodney any background, and the same statements Harrison: will probably hold true. There are ways that values, parentage others treat you based on what they see, “He’s not black.” ways to do with both blood and water, and In the interest of full disclosure, and ways that are both cruel and real. Regardless due to the wealth of personal information or parenting, raw of personal identity, the world imposes this that celebrity status makes accessible on on you. the internet, I can tell you that Colin Rand In my life, I have had my perceptions of my Kaepernick was born to a white woman blood, and the way own multiracial identity challenged in many and a black man, and then raised by an ways. In my eyes, I am closer to an Asian adoptive white family in Wisconsin and American raised in an Asian household, then California. He was a good student in you look... with the cultural marks to prove it. I was high school; he still is an amazing athlete a brief student of the Singapore math book in baseball, basketball, and most notably series. I am, bizarrely, a fan of the way that football. all Asian supermarkets smell (and if you He might be, in some ways, all-American. grew up going to Chinese supermarkets But undoubtedly, incontrovertibly, African- quantification, too, there is a laundry list of every Saturday, you know what I mean). I American is what he’s not. ways in which people have been identified am fluent enough in Chinese to talk about as “other.” From US blood quantum laws food and school. I was deeply sympathetic to Taking a step back from the incredibly to nineteenth-century slurs like mulatto, Amy Chua’s daughters when I was in eighth important political and social dialogue in quadroon, octoroon, or quintroon. grade. I could go on. which Kaepernick’s protest is playing a role, we can begin to see the complicated Ugly as that history may be, what racial But I’m tall with green eyes and not-black space that race takes in shaping these quantification gets at is the uncertainty in hair. My skin’s base tone is decidedly pink, conversations, and in shaping people’s deciding who is what race, and how that not yellow. In the eyes of most anyone else, lives. It’s a potent and poorly defined thing race becomes part of personal identity. This what I identify most closely to is exactly – made up of cultural values, parentage or anxiety is not going away. Through whatever what I am not. I do not receive insults about parenting, raw blood, and the way you look. circumstances, multiracial babies are born my immigration status, or backhanded This has been used to make people feel, and and will continue to be. According to the Pew compliments about my English or math to make them hurt. From the history of racial Research Center, almost seven percent of the scores. When such racist tensions exist in The Harvard Independent • 09.15.16 harvardindependent.com 3 INDY FORUM What I’m Not, continued. the world, I cannot claim to fully understand Kaepernick and I are visually white-passing It’s important to know who we are. But them; despite never asking for it, I am – sometimes, that matters more than how sometimes, the most important thing is protected in a way that is uncomfortable to we identify or how we choose to use our what we’re not. acknowledge but no less real. identities. Audrey Effenberger (effenberger@college. It is hard to put into words what I feel Above football, patriotism, racism, police harvard.edu) wishes she were this about the space that I occupy, or the “other” I brutality, social justice, socioeconomic reform motivated to write an essay for her gen ed. may be to others. Every biracial, multiracial, – or beneath it all, as the bedrock of ourselves and/or mixed person can have a different – we have to consider race critically. Race personal identity with which to navigate does not go away, and for the multiracial the world. However, the inequalities of kids coming of age in this world, we have a our world are built on both physical and responsibility to ourselves to consider how intangible qualities, both blood and memory, we want to be seen. We have to be conscious inextricably intertwined. Whether Colin of how others see us. Protestors gather along Mass Ave and in Harvard Yard. (Article page 5) Megan Sims 4 harvardindependent.com The Harvard Independent • 09.15.16 INDY NEWS When Harvard Workers are Under Attack, What Do We Do? HUDS and students rally as strike vote approaches. By MEGAN SIMS n Wednesday September 7th, dozens Action Movement, Protestors surround the John Harvard statute. of members of the Harvard and or SLAM, who spoke greater Boston community gathered at the rally, “Concretely, HUDS workers Harvard dining service.” Her speech, like so O many others given that day, was met with in a side room of University Lutheran are asking for at least $35,000 a year for Church to hear from HUDS workers and those who make themselves available to applause and cheers from the crowd. their allies about the impending worker’s work year-round, and to keep their current And indeed, Pappas has reason to be strike. It was a warm afternoon. Members healthcare plan. In doing so, the workers are afraid. Under Harvard’s proposed healthcare of the standing-room-only crowd fanned also fighting for basic dignity and respect, plan, co-pays would increase drastically, themselves and drank bottles of water and a Harvard that centers and cares for its jumping from $40 to $100 for an emergency from the cases provided. Many students students, workers, and faculty, the people room visit. For workers who are making less proudly sported Harvard gear—a subversive who make up this community.” than $35,000 a year with no overtime, an means of signaling their opposition to the increase in the cost of necessary healthcare University’s current treatment of its staff. Support for the strike does extend into the community beyond Harvard. Brian has the potential to be highly detrimental Harvard dining hall workers will vote Lang, the president of Local 26, the union of to the health of Harvard workers. “With its today on whether or not to strike. This vote which HUDS workers are members, spoke resources and visibility, Harvard has the comes after months of contract negotiations at the Wednesday rally.

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