Author Archives: zx53

The Blues Brothers and The White Brothers

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I walked into The Blues Brothers with absolutely no preconceptions or notions of what it was. Judging by the name, I assumed it had to involve some kind of musical aspect (a correct assumption). However, I had no idea the film would touch on themes that would still be so relevant almost four decades after its initial release.

The scene that struck the largest chord in me – and, arguably, for most viewers today – was the image of the Illinois Nazis on the bridge, stoic even against the rage of protesters cursing at them from behind a police blockade. The variety of protesters in terms of race, age, and gender stood in stark contrast to the overall demographic of the Nazis, who at one point mockingly said – and I’ll probably never forget this – “The Jew is using the Black as muscle…Whities, what are you going to do?” Soon after, they performed a Nazi salute.

The Blues Brothers, from how I interpreted it, is a celebration of blues and soul music framed within a mildly ridiculous comedy. Perhaps in 1980, they believed that the Nazi party was a dying organization, and the provocative scene would turn into a mocking parody of backwards ideals by 2017. However, there is no denying that recent events – including the United States presidential election (White Nationalists Salute the President-Elect); controversy surrounding the largest Youtuber in the world (Pewdiepie apologizes for Nazi jokes but says the press is out to get him); a scene eerily reminiscent, albeit much more violent and frighteningly real, of the Nazi protest in the movie (2017 Charlottesville Protest Timeline); and even events on our own campus (Anti-Semitic Posters Appear on Ezra Cornell Statue, Campus Buildings) – have only reaffirmed the continued proliferation of white supremacy ideals in the world. For all the progress America has made in social rights since its foundation, the white supremacist movement (or white nationalist movement, or Nazi party, whatever you want to call it) is blight on our history that refuses to squashed out.

Racism (in this context, I’m discussing white supremacy, although racism between other groups is also very real and should in no way be minimized) isn’t an issue that developed out of the blue one morning, and therefore can’t be completely flushed out/addressed by a wacky 1980s musical. It’s systematic and systemic, an ideology that has its roots in the earliest human inter-group contact – there are still an abundance of steps to be made towards more progress.

In other words, The Blues Brothers isn’t a movie that appears to be attempting to wholeheartedly tackle the topic of racism – but if it aimed to at least open up the topic to a new audience, and spur discussion every time it is shared with new viewers, then I think it’s a valuable film experience (on top of its star-studded guest cast and feel-good soundtrack, of course).

Modern Primitives and the Nasty Woman

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Last Wednesday, GRF Sam Legasse discussed “modern primitives” – how our perceptions of various stereotypes in the past has shifted as people frame them in new contexts, modify their labels, and blur their lines.

For me, the most striking image, the example of subverted stereotypes that stood out the most in my mind, was Josephine Baker in her banana skirt, swinging onto a Parisian stage from the top of a fake palm tree. From a simple internet search about her life, I learned that this performance catapulted her into international fame overnight. Apparently, the vision of her swaying hips, seducing the stereotype of the “primitive African” itself, also stuck out in the minds of her predominantly white audience.

The idea of taking (back?) control of a (frequently damaging and prejudiced) stereotype as a way of discrediting it is, I think, a tactic that’s still being employed today in various contexts. Especially today, when social media allows for the rapid and widespread dissemination of information, these kinds of social movements quickly go viral. Without trivializing the valuable racial impact of Josephine Baker’s dance, the most prominent recent example that comes to mind is the “nasty woman” phenomenon of the most recent presidential election, during which the term “nasty woman” was widely used as a form of self-identification by people (mostly female-identifying) across all social media platforms after Donald Trump used the term to refer to Hillary Clinton in a derogatory manner. One could argue that the term is still degrading – and therefore, a pointless cause – from the eyes of the opposite side, but regardless of one’s political views, the phenomenon itself – an attempt to reclaim a negative stereotype or concept by the very people it once targeted – is fascinating, and begs the question, what is the result of such an act?

For Josephine Baker, the short term outcome was her own fame and fortune. The long term outcome was a slow shift in the perception of the primitive/modern divide. Decades after her death, her influence lingers in modern social movements, and is brought to the very forefront of the public mind every so often by contemporary artists carrying on her legacy (Beyonce’s 2006 performance at Fashion Rocks!). For the “nasty women” of the world, the immediate response was a solidarity of sorts, an acknowledgment and clustering together of people with the same intention of fighting back against a perceived wrong. As for the long-term effect, only time will tell.

But for now, the lines continue to blur, and the gleaming boxes in every museum are starting to melt together under the heat of change.

Home Sweet Ithaca

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During the Rose Cafe last week, John Schroeder didn’t hold back when it came to talking about the state of housing affordability in Ithaca (which, by the way, is a very emphatic not good). Of course, it also wasn’t unexpected. I mean, does anyone at Cornell feel good about housing? For me, applying to be a Rose Scholar and continue living on West Campus junior year was the best decision for me time-wise, money-wise, and, to be honest, food-wise; however, my housing plans for senior year are still up in the air, and I’d rather not be caught in the headlights when the next lease-signing season rolls around.

Having watched my friends camp out at a rental office earlier this year for a total of 24 hours in order to just claim a room – not even worrying yet about the price – I know firsthand how difficult everything about off-campus housing is. It’s funny, in the most ridiculous sense of the word. In the fourth grade, I was taught that food, water, and a suitable habitat are the three basic needs of all humans by my science teacher…and yet, here I am, ten years later, watching everyone around me struggle to fulfill one of those needs.

Obviously, I’m not a huge fan of the housing situation in Ithaca, but John Schroeder’s presentation brought up a lot more nuanced details than I originally considered. For one, I never considered what he called “Cornell’s complicity,” which is the idea that if Cornell decreased the cost of dorm residence, local landlords would also be forced to lower their prices – an easy concept in theory, but one made more complex by House Professor Blalock’s reminder that Cornell does not pay the same taxes the landlords are forced to pay, and such competition could be considered highly unfair. Another great point brought up was the fact that Cornell is building a Sophomore Village on North Campus, but this notion’s potential was dampened by the corollary that most of the housing would be a swing space for residents displaced from other dorms undergoing renovations. The most eye-opening thing I learned, however, was that most of Cornell’s staff (non-faculty) live outside the county because they can’t afford to live closer to Cornell. These people, who cater to the needs of Ivy League students at one of the country’s richest, most exclusive universities, can’t afford to even live where they want – why is no one else talking more about that?

All in all, I left not feeling significantly better about the affordability, access, and safety of housing in Ithaca, for both students and local residents – but John Schroeder’s reassurance of progress was, at the very least, more comforting than what I’d heard from other, less qualified sources.

I’m not an economics major, nor am I studying urban planning or government; I am an average, anxious student who just wants to have a nice bed, a clean bathroom, and a functioning kitchen to go home to at the end of a grueling day at Cornell. Going to this Rose Cafe expanded my narrow perception of the housing situation, and filled in some of the gaps in my understanding of development in Ithaca. Previously, I’d come up with a slew of “solutions” to the housing issues, and wondered why none of them had ever been implemented – as you can probably guess, those “solutions” weren’t as good at solving problems as I believed in my tunnel vision state. John Schroeder didn’t hold back, but I’m glad he was honest and willing to engage with us.

Plus, my roommate and I managed to snag a cool poster with a sketch of Ithaca in the 19th century before we left, which is now covering up various unsightly blemishes on the wall of our dorm (fun fact: apparently, just the exterior upkeep of our dorm costs upwards of several hundred thousands to one million US dollars, which explains why no one has bothered to remove the old adhesives left on our wall by previous residents).

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

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Last Wednesday, I had the wonderful opportunity to hear House Fellow Nicholas Carbonaro discuss his experiences in hairstyling, from Donald Trump’s wax figure to Broadway stars to newly-graduated Cornellians. Going in, I was a novice – I’ve never had my hair professionally cut before, and my only knowledge of hairstyling comes from binge-watching Guy Tang’s Youtube videos after every prelim. As such, I was excited to learn more about professional hair treatments, but also mildly terrified that he would recognize the sad state of my hair.

After the event was over, I was still a novice, and only had my novice-ness reaffirmed. The ease and efficiency with which Mr. Carbonaro dealt out treatment plans for everyone who had a question was impressive. One only needs to hear him speak about hair to realize that he is very, very good at what he does – and he knows it.

However, I didn’t leave with just a renewed sense of appreciation for cosmetologists; strangely, I was also left with feelings of self-validation. Throughout the evening, he emphasized that how each person styles their hair should be in accordance with not only their own style preferences, but also with the amount of time and money they want to spend on maintenance, as well as with the space they occupy in society – be it in a college or work setting. While he didn’t hesitate to criticize some of the choices people make about their hair, it wasn’t in a “This is ugly and you should feel bad” kind of way, but in a “This isn’t what you want, so why are you doing it?” kind of way. It was refreshing to realize just how much control I have over my own self, in the middle of a tumultuous prelim season that has been making me feel like a car without a steering wheel swerving on an icy road. At the same time, it was also a bit concerning (enlightening?) for me, because I found myself asking the same kinds of questions about my entire life – why do I do things I know won’t make me happy, or I know won’t work out in the long run? Is one cause of my stress the fact that I’m following a daily routine that doesn’t fit my schedule or my lifestyle?

Overall, I didn’t gain any solid, life-changing insight into styling my hair (except to avoid DIY purple dye at all costs), and I definitely don’t feel a need to invest in professional hairstyling yet, but I did walk out a little more conscious of myself – hair included. Do I present myself in the way that I want to be seen? Do I present myself in a way that’s sustainable and manageable for me? Would I look good with ombre hair?

Actually, maybe I will stop into Julie Stone Salon sometime – not just for the hairstyling tips, but also for an audience to vent to about my newly-developed quarter-life crisis.

Education By Any Other Name…

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…would smell as sweet.

That was the greatest lesson I learned from Ruth Magreta’s Rose Cafe presentation, “Never a Rose Without Thorns.” She described a childhood that we would hardly call glamorous nowadays, but one  she viewed – and still views – as a highly positive experience. “It was fine,” she repeated throughout the evening, not in the way that we say “fine” when we’re asked how we’re doing, but in a way that made clear she had never expected or wanted more from her childhood. Life was simple: children went to school; everyone looked forward to market days on Saturday; and family life revolved around chores, farmwork, and the simple act of living. There were tragedies – floods, for instance – but for the most part, “It was fine.”

But things would not stay fine, as Ruth discussed. The trees and bushes are disappearing in her village, the population is rising, and people are starving to death. Ruth acknowledged the importance of her education, as it allowed her to not only see these devastating changes in her hometown, but also gave her the means by which she could try to counter them. She didn’t have to stand by helplessly as people suffered; she could take action through her research and repay the village – and the country – which had gifted her the defining experiences of her childhood. She didn’t go to a big, fancy research university like Cornell, and she didn’t have to. Education is an accomplishment and a benefit at any stage of the process.

One thing Ruth mentioned in her presentation was the fact that many girls as young as 13, 14 years of age drop out of school due to pregnancy or marriage, and there seemed to be an implication that too many of these marriages fail, in the disfavor of the women, who then become solely responsible for the needs of the children. One of the most discouraging moments was when Ruth described a conversation with her close friend, in which her friend asked, “Ruth, why didn’t you tell me there was this other life out there?”

Ruth Magreta is inspiring not only because of her drive to help other human beings, and her contributions to the fields of agricultural science, environmental science, and economics; to me, she is inspiring also because she is one of the many women who has put her name out there in academia as a force to be reckoned with, and in a traditionally patriarchal society no less. She pushed through, completed her education, and still refused to leave her village in the dust. Hearing her speak was incredibly humbling, and I’m so excited to see where her work will lead, for the sakes of her people and the entire world.

P.S. To anyone who has the opportunity to attend her dinner conversation this Thursday (9/28), I am insanely jealous that you don’t have a prelim at the same time, and hope one of you can use one of your comments for this semester to tell me how it goes!

Long Lost Plant Legacies: Thoughts on the Cornell Botanic Gardens

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To be completely frank, I didn’t expect much from the Cornell Botanic Gardens when I got there. It was hot, I was thirsty, and we had just trekked what felt like five miles across Central and North Campuses – featuring a surprise encounter with a squirmy garden snake along the way. I had chosen the event because I wanted a break from the stuffy libraries and poorly-ventilated classrooms I was used to. To me, plant science was a field I had always dismissed as “not for me.”  But as soon as we arrived, I was enveloped in every variety of the color green known to man, eye-to-eye with taro and banana plants that should not have existed in Ithaca but did. Suddenly, plant science didn’t seem so boring.

“You might wonder why we’re growing these here,” our tour guide, Shirley, said as she gestured to the tangle of tropical leaves and stems behind her. “Well, it’s because we can.”

And with that sentiment in our heads, we were off to explore the wild wonders of the Botanic Gardens. Although I hadn’t had much interest in any of the gardens when I’d briefly looked through the website, everything became much more impressive in person. In particular, the Robison York Herb Garden caught my interest, with its assortment of everything from sage to stevia to foxglove. In my anthropology class – Health and Disease in the Ancient World – we had just read a journal article on the medicinal practices of ancient Mesopotamia, in which the author noted that due to translational issues and inadequate plant remains, there was no way for modern humans to ever identify the many plants used in ancient medicinal remedies. Standing in front of herbs both all-too-familiar and completely unknown to me, I couldn’t help but wonder if any of those plants were the long-lost relatives of an ancient Mesopotamian cure-all.

The Young Flower Garden also held a surprise for me. On the far side of the garden from the entrance stood a collection of flowers commonly used for dyes, their vivid hues somehow managing to stand out in an already over-saturated environment of color. Surveying the various growths, a memory my mother once shared with me came to mind. Growing up in a rural village in China in the ’60s and ’70s, without many of the luxuries already common to every household in America, she and her friends would pick the bright orange flowers off a certain bush and wrap them around their fingernails as a natural alternative to nail polish. I wondered if any of the many bushes arranged along the fence was the very plant so integral to my mother’s childhood, and jotted down their names to translate into Chinese later. Unfortunately, my mother only knew the local slang name for the flower – and so another mystery faded away, unsolved.

As I’m writing this in the sleek, coldly modern Clark Atrium after my anthropology class, the thought I’d had going into the Botanic Gardens – that it would be a nice break from learning – seems incredibly naive to me. In fact, I’m now hyperaware of the long legacy of plant life on this planet, and the fact that certain plants – which existed thousands of miles away, tens and hundreds and thousands of years ago – could have made it all the way to Ithaca thanks to the gentle hands of Cornell plant biologists and botanists and various others.  Even more frustrating, the questions that come with that awareness have answers that have yet to be discovered, despite the great progress made by people around the world – and at Cornell – working to unlock the mysteries of plant genetics and evolution, hoping to uncover exactly how Mesopotamians treated skin rashes, or how certain crops affect the economies of rural villages. I’m still hopeful, though. Maybe someday, I’ll have the answer to one of my questions.

But alas, plants don’t tell their secrets that easily.

Toto, I Have a Feeling We’re Not in [Missouri] Anymore: Thoughts on the Ithaca Farmer’s Market

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Back home in Missouri, the concept of the farmer’s market is a staple in every town, urban or rural, although the success of each market relative to the success of local commercial competitors varies between regions. In my hometown of Columbia, the farmer’s market is modest, boasting no more than thirty or so vendors on even the busiest Saturdays, and appears as a small cluster of white canopies three times a week in the parking lot of the activities and recreation center (for reasons I will soon elaborate on). There is only one vendor who sells ready-to-eat food, and no craftsmen or artists selling their work. On the occasion there is a live band present, the music is often accompanied by the shouts of the local boys’ soccer teams holding practice barely 100 meters away.

Given what my previous notion of a farmer’s market was, the Ithaca Farmer’s Market was a total surprise – over 150 vendors, a designated space, and products ranging from Cambodian food to handmade clothing to pesto (as a side note, I highly recommend The Garden of Earthly Mirth’s Garlic Greens Pesto). The founding idea was the same as that of the Columbia Farmer’s Market, but somewhere along the way the two markets divulged from each other, for better or for worse. To me, the evolution of the Ithaca Farmer’s Market into a local attraction – I believe GRF Sam mentioned that around 30% of market-goers are non-Ithaca residents – was eye-opening. In Columbia, where the spirit of Wal-Mart’s Sam Walton (an alum of my own high school) survives in every city bill thanks to his mysteriously powerful descendants, there is no way for the farmer’s market to ever expand its territory – and, therefore, no way for it to ever match even half the economic and cultural success of the Ithaca Farmer’s Market. Oh, well: business is business, I guess. If I were a Walton, I would probably also do everything I could to maintain my family’s success.

While it does seem a little sad that there may never be a huge locally-made market in my hometown, Columbia is not Ithaca and Ithaca is not Columbia, and thus the presence, impact, and products of the local agriculturalist identity in both cities are necessarily different; for starters, Columbia doesn’t have quite the range of apple products as Ithaca (a definite drawback to life in the midwest). In the grand scheme of things, Columbia makes its money off other attractions, and I spend most of the year in Ithaca anyways – but I think I’ll wander a little longer and a little more often at the Columbia Farmer’s Market next time I’m in town.