Sporting the same photograph of a gun-wielding African-American male across all 10 of its lanes, WCC’s gun range has aroused concerns of racism by some. (Adrian Hedden/The Washtenaw Voice)
WCC gun range targets incite outrage among students, staff
As an African-American male, Harold Coleman has experienced bigotry throughout his life. So when the employee at Washtenaw Community College’s Student Connection was shown a photograph of the school’s gun range at the police academy, he was appalled when he saw that he had more in common with the photographic targets than he would ever hope.
All of the targets at the ends of the 10 lanes at the range when reporters from The Washtenaw Voice were granted access to it on two recent occasions about a week apart sported the same photograph of a young, African-American male pointing a revolver.
“That (above photo) is reprehensible,” Coleman said. “That’s basically teaching them to profile. I’ve been a victim of profiling and that can be very difficult. Things like that are just really stupid and very disturbing. I’d like to think that’s not happening here.”
After seeing the photo, some students, disturbed by the image, accused the range of bigotry.
“This makes them look racist,” said Shayla Robinson, 16, of Ypsilanti, majoring in social science and law. “It does seem like a stereotype because they are all black.”
Officials at the police academy, however, denied that race is a factor. Director Larry Jackson said multiple denominations are present in the targets used on his range. It is that very diversity, Jackson said, that is essential to law enforcement education.
“I’ve never thought of it that way. No one has ever directly asked for African-American targets,” Jackson said. “There are several different types out there and you’re trying to get people experience dealing with different situations and people.”
Michael and Daniel Combs were startled by a photograph of the targets at the gun range. (Adrian Hedden/The Washtenaw Voice)
The targets, specially developed and certified by the state of Michigan for law enforcement training feature the likenesses of multiple different genders and nationalities, according to Mark Baker, the firearms range master at WCC. Baker asserts that any similarity between targets from visit to visit holds no bearing or preference for the school or the law enforcement program.
“If you saw that twice, it was a coincidence,” Baker said. “The targets are packaged with a variety and they’ve been trying to vary them more. It’d be absolutely ludicrous to think that any law enforcement agency would be targeting specific people.”
The photographs of people, Baker believes, better help with target practice by bringing realism into the exercises.
“It’s not symbolic,” he said. “It’s for bullet placement.”
But school administrators were nonetheless disturbed by the picture. Damon Flowers, vice president of Facilities Management, has worked closely with the police academy to maintain the gun range’s high safety standards, such as lead levels and noise reduction, but was surprised at what he saw being fired on upon the range.
“It’s a little discomforting, personally, somewhat of a stereotype,” Flowers said. “All the gun ranges I’ve seen had targets that were non-person. I had no idea they had these.”
The school does not provide the photographs used in the range, Flowers said, adding that he was disturbed by the implications brought on by any actual images of real people being used for that purpose.
“Do they have to use a photograph at all?” Flowers said. “Why an African-American, young looking male? It looks like in law enforcement there is a perception that criminals will be an African-American male. I find it hard to rationalize the use of that photograph.”
Vice President of Student Services Linda Blakey was also dismayed by the human element of the academy’s targets. Blakey did not like the image the targets create, in her mind, of the school.
“I thought they just used silhouettes. I didn’t know they had targets like these on campus,” Blakey said. “This doesn’t look good for us.”
Blakey understands the importance of realism in law enforcement training, but asks for more diversity in the targets as they are presented for drills.
“You could argue that when they’re in real-life, they might freeze at having to shoot at something that’s looking back at them,” Blakey said. “They should expand the diversity of the targets to include more ages, ethnicities and genders.”
An expansion of that nature is essential in the eyes of Daniel and Michael Combs. The 16-year-old twin brothers agree that different targets should be used to avoid negative implications.
“Maybe they could have more different types of targets,” Daniel said.
“This makes them seem ignorant,” Michael said.
However, Eric Walls, a 30-year-old culinary arts student from Ypsilanti, doesn’t see the problem. African-American himself, Walls sees accusations of racial tension resulting from the targets as overtly sensitive and dismissive of the purpose of the range itself.
“Sometimes you gotta lighten up, they’re trying to put someone in a real situation,” Walls said. “I don’t find it that bad. After all, they’re just practicing. It’s not racial profiling if they’ve got black officers shooting at these targets.”
Jackson agrees with the need for life-like targets in practice. He argues that the targets used by his program have been getting more and more progressive over the years to include a wider range of potential assailants.
“In the last 30 years they’ve really been adding more women,” Jackson said. “What happens when people train on just a round bulls-eye target of some kind, is that they may be unprepared of real-life.”
Various companies print and ship the certified TCQ targets, according to Baker, for different situations and decisions. Jackson named two companies that supply the targets for his range: Law Enforcement Targets Inc. (Minn.) and US Target Online.
WCC’s newsroom has been a breeding ground for future leaders in politics and publishing
The Voice, like Washtenaw Community College itself, had its start in the turbulent ’60s. Students across the country were protesting the costly Vietnam War, civil rights protesters were fighting for racial equality and America’s youth were rebelling against their parents’ values. Popular leaders like Martin Luther King were assassinated. A man walked on the moon.
WCC opened its doors in the Fall of 1966 and The Voice was first published on Dec. 15. It had an improbable student leader named Gary Owen, and it launched him on a career in which he would become one of the most powerful figures in Michigan politics for many years.
Owen, 67, of Scio Township recently granted an interview with The Washtenaw Voice.
Gary Owen, then 27, was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives in November, 1972. This photo was published in the Jan. 2, 1973 edition of the Voice.
     
In the early ’60s, Owen was a poor, illiterate high school dropout from Alabama. He served in the Army then came north to Ypsilanti looking for work. Owen recalls sleeping under a bridge for a time, but eventually he earned enough money through a construction job to pay for housing and even to accumulate some savings.
From his military experience, he recognized the value of education. He took a few classes at Willow Run High School and worked to educate himself.
“The more I learned the more I craved it,” Owen said. When he heard about the new community college opening at Willow Run, he signed up.
Although Owen still considered himself only marginally literate, Fred Wolven, an English instructor and the first student newspaper adviser, saw potential in him.
“You have the kind of leadership and charisma that can get things off the ground,” Wolven told Owen. Thus Owen, with just a few other students, began publishing The Voice. The name for the paper was selected from entries in a student contest and was based on the Village Voice, an alternative newspaper published in Greenwich Village.
The Voice took on big issues. Together with the teachers’ union and the Inter-Racial Club, The Voice called for a lasting tribute to Martin Luther King by renaming the Student Center (The Voice, April 10, 1968).
Owen wrote an editorial in May of that year decrying the absence of blacks in high-level leadership positions at the young school. A fellow student reporter wrote a counterpoint that hiring should be based only on skill sets. The school supported the paper’s editorial freedom.
“We wrote some editorials that generated controversy among the student body, but I don’t remember getting a call from the administration saying you can’t do this,” Owen said.
Owen graduated in the school’s first commencement in 1968 and was chosen to speak during the ceremony. He went on to earn a Bachelor’s degree in economics at University of Michigan.
Did Owen’s experiences with The Voice affect his later career decisions? “Absolutely!” said Owen. He was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives in November 1972 where he served for 16 years, including seven as Speaker of the House.
The path of journalistic freedom did not always run smoothly, however. In 1970, the Board of Trustees put restrictions on The Voice, saying that the paper did not properly differentiate between fact and advocacy and that it had a “dirty word syndrome.” This, they contended, was hurting the school’s reputation (Ann Arbor News, July 29, 1970).
One result was the establishment of a publications committee composed of five students, two faculty members, two administrators, and the faculty adviser to set publication policy for the paper. This structure persists today.
Dan Kubiske, shown here in a photo from the Voice in April 1971, was editor in the '71-'72 school year.
In the 1971–72 school year, WCC student Dan Kubiske was editor. Kubiske, 59, recently spoke to The Washtenaw Voice via Skype from his home in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
Of course, the Vietnam War was still a big issue then. The draft lottery had been instituted and Kubiske had a low number, meaning he would be drafted as soon as his student deferment elapsed. The war ended first.
Earth Day, which had been instituted in 1970, made the environment an ever-present student concern. The Voice promoted responsible decisions in the design of the new Huron River campus where WCC now resides.
“What is the campus going to look like? What will it be in the future?” was on everyone’s minds, Kubiske said.
The Voice office occupied 1/3 of a trailer at that time. Of course, the staff had minimal resources and certainly none of the computer-based publication tools available today.
“It was all typewriter and typesetting,” Kubiske said. “The staff and I would type up the articles. I would take them over to the typesetter, and we would then take what the typesetter gave us; proof it; then, using X-Acto knives, we would lay it out, put it in the matrix we had, identify the pictures put the cropping marks on it. . .”
Clearly it was a long complex process.
The Voice staff also produced a semiweekly publication at that time, printed on a mimeograph machine, called The Little Voice. They experimented with a wall sheet design that would be posted on a bulletin board.
Kubiske recalled the staff poking fun at the Eastern Echo newspaper, regarding it as toady. They liked to say, “we are a voice, not an echo!”
In his final editorial in the spring of 1972, Kubiske expressed a concern that “the apparent priorities of the administration does not include continuation of a viable and decently financed newspaper for the students.” (The Voice, April 24, 1972). Nevertheless The Voice persisted.
Kubiske went on to be a political organizer, a broadcaster, an international journalist and a teacher of journalism.
The Voice continued to experiment with different formats and different choices of paper. Some issues saved from the 1970s are yellowed and brittle because of the low-grade paper used then.
In the spring of 1974 The Voice competed with other college newspapers in the state and won the right to boast that they were “Michigan’s No. 1 college biweekly.”
During the years 1978–1980, Karin Koek was a reporter and editor for The Voice. Koek, 52, now lives with her husband, organic farmer Doug Galbraith, in Petersburg. Koek’s
student newspaper experience launched a career in
publishing.
“Everything I needed to know I learned at WCC working for The Voice,” Koek said. She was especially grateful to Pat More, an English instructor who was faculty adviser for The Voice at that time. “She was a great mentor for me,” Koek said.
Like Kubiske, she emphasized the laborious nature of producing a newspaper in those days. She spoke of hand carrying copy to and from the typesetter and driving the final text paste-ups and photos to the printer (in Plymouth).
The editor plainly did much more than editing. She was even responsible for soliciting businesses to place ads in the paper.
The paper still covered controversial issues, such as the legalization of marijuana, but there was less political turmoil at that time.
“In retrospect, we were a bit of rabble-rousers,” Koek said. “We were not the pawns of the administration.”
Still, covering an Ella Fitzgerald concert at Hill Auditorium was one of her most memorable assignments.
The Voice in the spring of 1980 was a very professional-looking, high quality publication. But then it disappeared for 14 years.
Koek had gone on to attend classes at Eastern Michigan University and had begun working part-time in publishing. She was unaware that the paper on which she had labored so hard had ceased to be.
There seems to be no simple explanation for what happened. Catherine Arcure, 71, of New York City, who was head of marketing and communications for WCC at the time, said it was a combination of factors, including difficulty finding advisers, student apathy and economic concerns.
In the interim, two newspapers were produced for students by college staff. Focus was published from December 1980 to March 1987. Time out for Students was published from November 1987 to April 1994. Some underground student publications were also in the mix.
Geoff Larcom, 54, of Ann Arbor was editor of Focus in the 1981-1982 school year. He was not a student. Producing Focus was his job, his first job.
Larcom enjoyed his year at WCC. He said he had an office just down the hall from the college president, Gunder Myran. He was given freedom to report on whatever he wanted.
“I had the run of the institution,” Larcom said. “I was young and aggressive, so I remember trying to put out a paper that was not just PR.”
His most memorable story was one called, “Bridging the education gap – how does WCC rate?” In it he discussed the sometimes-conflicting purposes of a community college to be a vocational school and to provide an academic education.
Except for the typesetter, Larcom was the entire staff for Focus. He moved on to a 25-year career at Ann Arbor News and currently is Director of Media Relations at EMU.
In 1994 The Voice was reborn, renamed The Student Voice, perhaps to emphasize student authorship. It struggled for a time to attract talented students as staff, but it persevered.
The arrival of President Larry Whitworth in 1998 provided a boost to the resurgent publication. Whitworth had been on staff with his own college newspaper, and appreciated the value of student journalism. His advocacy included increased financial support.
The Voice continues to attract some of the most enterprising (some say rabble-rousing) students on campus, many of whom have moved on to start their careers at publications like AnnArbor.com, The Ann Arbor Observer, the Port Huron Times-Herald, and at college publications like The Michigan Daily, CM (Central Michigan) Life, The (Michigan) State News and the Eastern Echo at EMU.
Today’s Washtenaw Voice is a legacy of all those early years of struggle. The Voice continues to be not only Michigan’s top college biweekly, but also one of the highest rated in the country. Today’s Voice owes much to those who went before.
WCC photography major Toko Shiiki-Santos sings and plays a synthesizer alongside her band, October Babies. (Jared Angle/The Washtenaw Voice)
Student-made art project aids Japan on earthquake anniversary
Toko Shiiki-Santos poses in the WCC Photography Lab, located in GM 012. (Kelly Bacha/Contributor)
In the wee hours of the morning last March 11, Toko Shiiki-Santos woke up to distressing news about her home country of Japan.
“I got a phone call around 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. I woke up and listened to my messages. I just couldn’t believe it immediately,” Shiiki-Santos remembers. The messages from family and friends, some arriving via Twitter, too, were all similar.
“I’m alive!” some said. “I’m OK!”
Many thousands were not. The magnitude 8.9 earthquake struck off the coast of Japan at 2:46 p.m. that day, triggering powerful tsunami waves, devastating the Tōhoku region, and causing a number of nuclear accidents.
The death toll is widely reported to have surpassed 18,000. The extent of damage caused by the tsunami was reported to be more than $300 billion.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown is rated a level 7 catastrophe (the highest possible rating). Only one other incident in history, the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986, has attained this rating.
Shiiki-Santos’ mother and sister were together when they felt the earthquake in their home in Chōfu, Tokyo, just south of the quake’s epicenter. Shiiki-Santos, an award-winning photographer and singer, was 6,418 miles away, at her home in Ypsilanti. She felt helpless—and worse.
A photograph taken by Toko Shiiki-Santos for her art project. (Toko Shiiki-Santos Courtesy Photo)
“I am so, so far away from my home place. I felt survivor’s guilt,” she said. “I felt like I had to do something because I felt so guilty.”
And she did. After reading an article telling of survivors finding letters from their lost loved ones within the wreckage, she was inspired to start the “Message in a Backpack” project.
The project began shortly after the disaster and Shiiki-Santos wanted the project to convey how “people in other countries haven’t forgotten. We’re still thinking of you,” Shiiki-Santos explained.
“Message in a Backpack” project gathered 142 handmade postcards with written thoughtful messages from all over Michigan, New Zealand and France, to be hand delivered by Shiiki-Santos to Japan.
Sixty-one students from Tappan Middle School in Ann Arbor created postcards and were delivered to Hirakata Elementary School in Kitaibaraki, Japan. When Shiiki-Santos returned, she had brought with her responses that were translated and given to the students of Tappan Middle School.
Don Werthmann, digital photography instructor for the School of Digital Media Arts at WCC, helped coordinate the postcard fundraiser and the “Message in a Backpack” project.
Werthmann has a deep connection with Japan. After traveling there several times, he has very good friends in Chiba Prefecture, just outside Tokyo.
“These events made a direct impact on my being,” Werthmann said. “My inner voice kept saying, ‘I’ve got to find a way to help.’”
Werthmann has a study-abroad program in digital photography through WCC and The Japan Center for Michigan Universities. He traveled with a group of Washtenaw students to Japan in 2010 and photographs from the trip are on display on the second floor of the Technical and Industrial building.
“We sold a lot of postcards. The first batch made around $4,000,” Shiiki-Santos said, “and at the end close to $7,000 was raised.”
“Message in a Backpack” donations were given to Habitat for Humanity International in aid of Japan.
In fall of 2011, Shiiki-Santos received an email from Nino Trentinella, a photographer and artist living in France. Trentinella found Shiiki-Santos through a photography competition in which Shiiki-Santos placed first in the “People” category for her piece called “In-between “Midlife”.
Trentinella wanted to work together with Shiiki-Santos on a project that could be completed by the one year anniversary of the disaster.
“I wanted to do something for the one year (anniversary),” Shiiki Santos said. “I knew there was lots of people that needed help still, especially in Fukushima.” Shiiki-Santos said.
The trend of enrollment numbers being down has continued into the 2012 Winter semester, according to statistics provided by Associate Vice President for Student Services Linda Blakey.
As of Feb. 13, enrollment was down 7.3 percent compared to the 2011 Winter semester, with just under 1,000 fewer students on campus.
“Every single community college in the state of Michigan is down,” Blakey said. “And my understanding is that’s a trend across the United States.”
But even as enrollment numbers decrease, Blakey says the numbers at Washtenaw Community College are actually returning to “normal” rates.
The headcounts are actually closer to what the college was experiencing prior to the record-breaking numbers last year. To date, 12,609 students have been accounted for this semester. In the Winter 2009 semester, 13,134 students attended classes. That represents a four percent change.
A significant factor in the dropping enrollment rate has been the end of “No Worker Left Behind” program and other incentive-laced programs that encouraged unemployed workers to return to college and upgrade their skills.
“We can account for where those spikes came from,” Blakey said.
The official numbers won’t be available later in the semester, but Blakey said these numbers represented a large amount of the data the college collects each semester.
When President Obama delivered a speech on college affordability at the University of Michigan last month, he briefly spoke about the benefits and affordability of community colleges. That’s something Blakey hopes will encourage more students to return to WCC.
“With students having educational benefits, it was kind of like ‘use ’em or lose ’em,’” Blakey said. “Hopefully, with President Obama talking about community colleges, people will say ‘I’m going to get some training.’”
Blakey also said that as the college implements the new “strategic planning” process, WCC will be marketing to populations where the college feels it could better serve the community.
On a frigid February day at the corner of Washtenaw and Mansfield in Ypsilanti, a man dressed in a Statue of Liberty costume holds up a sign that reads “Honk if you Love Liberty Tax.”
There was silence on the corner that day though almost everyone has to answer to the tax man. The start of February marks the beginning of the 2½-month-long sprint to file taxes here in the United States.
Many college students, or their parents or guardians, across the country are entitled to tax credits, tax write-offs and discounted tax services that were designed to help with the burden of paying for education.
Kathleen M. Jackson, a general manager at Liberty Tax Service, explained that whoever claims a student on their taxes is eligible for education tax credits. This person can be the actual student or the student’s parents.
“Currently, the most advantageous credit that a student can take advantage of in their first four years of claiming their education is the America Opportunity Tax Credit,” Jackson said. “This basically entitles you to up to $1,000 back that you did not pay in income for that year. If you have not personally claimed this education credit then you are eligible to four years of the tax credit.”
“I didn’t know there were any tax benefits available to students,” said Joshua David Martin, 19, of Ann Arbor, a graphic design student at Washtenaw Community College.
“Most people don’t have the time to look up all of the tax benefits that they are entitled to receive,” Jackson said.
Jackson added that she has filed taxes for international students and several of these students have received a tax refund based off of tax credits.
“I am extremely lazy when it comes to my taxes,” said Briannah Henderson, 21, of Ann Arbor, majoring in childhood develop at WCC. “I literally wait for my W-2s then I take them to H & R Block because my sister told me to go there. They do all of my taxes for me.”
Henderson added that she thinks a lot of students are too busy to do the research about the tax breaks that are available to them. She works two jobs in addition to her course work at WCC.
“There are a lot of students who are not taking advantage of the AOTC,” said Jackson. “I file taxes for students every year who do not have any idea that they are eligible for this education credit.”
Also, Henderson said she has not invested time in educating herself about her taxes because she has depended on H & R Block to get her the best tax return. H&R Block charges her $142 to do her taxes.
You can file your taxes yourself for free, or at a reduced cost, using tax software or using a pencil and the printed forms.
“The difference between doing your taxes yourself and filing through a tax service is significant,” Jackson said. “However you do not have support in the event there is an audit. We work to ensure that your taxes are accurate.”
The United Way offers a free tax service for students at 23035 Platt Rd., near Washtenaw, Feb. 4-March 10 from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
Jackson said that her tax business provides free services to certain career fields during March. For more information contact a local Liberty Tax Service office.
“The education tax credits aren’t limited to your tuition and fees,” Jackson said. “The IRS allows you to deduct anything that is necessary to complete your course work can be deducted. If you purchase Word 2007 for a course, then you can deduct the cost of that software from your taxes.”
Martin said that his mother claims him as a dependent on her taxes. Also, she told him to hold onto a receipt for a laptop that he purchased for his classes at WCC for her taxes.
Henderson said that H&R Block has used the receipts from her books purchases to make deduction on her taxes.
The IRS allows you to amend your taxes if you find that you made a mistake or if there is a credit that you didn’t take into account.
“I did the taxes for one student this year and she brought me her tax forms for previous years so that I could amend those taxes so she could get a refund for those years,” said Jackson. “She had no idea that this education credit was available because no one told her.”
Henderson said that she has already completed her taxes for this year.
Luckily she can amend her taxes if she finds that there is a credit or write-off available that was missing from the taxes that were filed.
Henderson said a lot of students learn by word of mouth rather than researching this type of information.
Jackson added that about 10 percent of her clients are students. This number is growing every year because word is spreading about the tax credits.
Martin admits that he didn’t really want to worry about doing his taxes in past years. However, now he works part-time and he has a graphic design business so he changed his mind about doing his taxes.
Martin said that next year he plans to start doing his own taxes. Also, he will educate himself about tax credits and deductions for students, as well as business owners.
“If you want to educate yourself about tax benefits, then you should get on the IRS website,” Jackson said. “They have an excellent search engine.”
The IRS website can be found at
http://irs.gov/.
For more information, visit:
http://aiprx.libertytax.com,
http://hrblock.com/,
or http://wuway.org/
David Yapp, a student at WCC, reported his car stolen from parking Lot 6 on Monday, Feb. 13, according to police reports.
Returning to his parking spot shortly after 8 p.m., the student could not locate his vehicle. The car was nowhere to be found, and he contacted Campus Safety and Security.
“This is the third car theft in two years on this campus,” said Director of Safety and Security Jacques Desrosiers. “It’s not an epidemic.”
The vehicle stolen was a silver, 2000 Honda Civic Ex equipped with a bike and bike rack, valued at $800 and $525 respectively. The Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Department was called to investigate.
“Deputies have been patrolling our lots a little more for the past few days,” Desrosiers said. “They’ve been keeping their eyes open, and we’ve been keeping our eyes more open.”
There was another auto-theft a few days later at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital that law enforcement has connected to the incident, according to Desrosiers.
The reception at the 2012 ADDY awards. (Hafsah Mijinyawa/The Washtenaw Voice)
On a chilly February night, a few hundred of Ann Arbor’s elite within the visual arts industry packed into Babs’ Underground Lounge to socialize with and honor some of the best designers Ann Arbor’s local design industry has to offer.
And once again, Washtenaw Community College students came away with a lot of hardware, winning three golds and three silvers in the annual competition. The gold winners: George O’Donovan, Jennifer Melchi and Christine Moran, all of Ann Arbor. The silver winners: Krystal Burrell, of Romulus; Robyn Charles, of Pinckney; and Darlene Hawver, of Ann Arbor.
The ADDYs – the print and interactive design world’s equivalent to the Emmy Awards – are sponsored by the Ann Arbor Ad Club. Every year, students and interns who are not yet employed in the advertising industry have the opportunity to submit work to any number of categories, for the chance to take home a prestigious ADDY – a marked accomplishment within the design and advertising industries. The event was held on Feb. 9.
“I’ve been an artist since I could pick up a pencil and I always wanted to apply my artistic talents to the real world,” said Moran, 26, who holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Michigan Technological University, “and last Thursday night I finally felt like it’s become a reality
“WCC has exposed me more to real-world experience than my four-year university ever exposed me; I definitely have more confidence about my career in general after enrolling as a student at WCC. I graduate in May and my career aspirations are limitless.”
Kristine Willimann, faculty adviser and instructor in WCC’s graphic design program, finds student successes at the Ann Arbor ADDYs a welcome sign of her students’ future reception into the design workforce.
“Winning ADDYs indicates that what students learn to do in our courses and program here at Washtenaw is in line with industry expectations,” Willimann said. “It validates the kind of talent we are turning out.”
Winners came away heartened about their prospects in the workplace after leaving Washtenaw’s classrooms.
“The close-knit community of talented students and instructors in the visual arts program at WCC makes it easy to succeed,” said Hawver, 30. “I would like to extend a sincere thanks to Kristine Willimann for encouraging me to submit my work.
“As a student, you need validation to reassure yourself that you’re indeed on the right path. Receiving an ADDY and being included in a group of such smart and creative minds is that validation, and more.”
Washtenaw has had a strong showing in the ADDY competition for the past four years. Previous winners include a gold by Maggie Reuter, of Ann Arbor, and a silver by Sarah Stosick, of Dexter, both former award-winning designers with The Washtenaw Voice.
Egyptian activist to give talk at Towsley Auditorium
While large-scale protests and violence have helped to oust an unpopular president, Egyptian activists have seen little difference in their tumultuous economic and political situation.
“I think that people saw that we were happy and celebrating, that it was embraced by other countries as a success,” said Shimaa’ Helmy, 22, from Cairo. “It may have been over celebrated when (President Hosni Mubarak) resigned.”
As a contributor to the protests in the country’s now infamous Tahrir Square, Helmy has begun a speaking tour in America across college campuses to raise awareness and to dispel myths on uprisings happening throughout the Middle East. Taking time between talks at prestigious colleges such as Yale University, Helmy has agreed to give her lecture to the students of Washtenaw Community College on Feb 22.
Long characterized by buzzwords like revolution and a political spring, Helmy told The Washtenaw Voice that there is still much to be done in Egypt before a truly “free and dignified” government chosen by the Egyptian people can flourish.
Currently, the ruling military council controls much of the government and holds all of the political decisions made within her country, Helm said.
Out of all the different demands that Egyptians have called for, which include lowered food costs, better jobs and a stronger education system, what her people really want is the respect and dignity of the U.S., not funding or military intervention.
“When people ask if we will become militant, I ask ‘what is more militant than a government ruled by the military or army?’” Helmy said. “The U.S. believes that we will either support dictators or turn to the Jihadists. But there is another narrative there that people don’t see.”
That narrative includes young people, seeking an educated working class who are willing to have a relationship with the U.S., as long as that relationship isn’t characterized by investments and meddling.
“If the U.S. hadn’t supported Mubarak for more than 30 years, we wouldn’t have the problems that we face and are fighting against now,” she said.
Speaking preliminarily to a class taught by WCC instructor Elisabeth Thoburn, who helped coordinate Helmy’s visit to the college, students had a chance to ask questions about various topics that she will cover in her lecture.
“If you don’t want support and aid, then what should we do?” asked Anne Farrah, a student in Thoburn’s class.
While tough to answer, Farrah’s question was exactly the kind Helmy wants to embrace.
“You can make people aware of what’s going in the region, or participate in protests here,” Helmy said. “You have the ability to call your representatives and tell them what you want.”
A right that Helmy and her people are still fighting for.
Appproximately 20 protesters lined up in front of the U-M art museum on January 11 to call for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay.
The Ann Arbor-based group Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice counts among its members: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Baha’i, Native Americans, and atheists – and they get along.
“From whatever religious or philosophical background, there is a shared call to be peacemakers, and we are able to better fulfill that call if we work together across our differences,” said director Chuck Warpehoski, 33, of Ann Arbor. “That collaboration is also part of peacemaking.”
ICPJ was founded in 1965 when a group of Unitarian, Christian and Jewish religious leaders came together to promote peace and social justice. Now the group includes about 750 members and six task forces focusing on specific concerns.
The six divisions are: NOW — NO Weapons, NO War; Hunger; Latin America; Racial and Economic Justice; Common Ground for Peace in Israel/Palestine and Climate Change and Earth Care.
In each task force there are about six members who design programming and make it all happen. Three paid staff members oversee these events. The staffers are also assisted by a group of interns.
Interns are not paid, but they have more set schedules and office hours like the staffers. Their work is mostly behind the scenes. Shahar Ben-Josef, 22, of Ann Arbor is an intern helping with the NOW and Common Ground task forces.
“So, for example, when the Common Ground task force wants to have some sort of event, then you’ll have the task force members and the intern and Chuck, who is the staff member for the task force, all work together to pull together this event,” Ben-Josef said.
Sarah Jadrich, 23, of Ann Arbor, is another intern helping with the Racial and Social Justice group. Janrich is working on a master’s degree in social work at U-M and is required to do 16 hours per week of fieldwork. Her work for ICPJ not only expresses her passion, but also helps her toward a degree.
At noon on Wednesday, Jan. 11, about 20 members of the NOW task force of ICPJ assembled in front of the University of Michigan Museum of Art. They were there to protest the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay. Some of them were dressed in orange, symbolizing the orange jumpsuits worn by the detainees.
The occasion was the 10th anniversary of the opening of the prison. The Ann Arbor demonstration coincided with the “national day of action against Guantánamo” sponsored by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Protestors want the prisoners released or at least given a fair trial.
Anne Garcia, an instructor in behavioral science at WCC, participates in a protest at U-M against the prison at Guantánamo Bay.
Anne Garcia, a psychology instructor at WCC, was one of the demonstrators. Garcia has been a member of Michigan Peace Works, which is disbanding, but which has often co-sponsored events with ICPJ. She, like many of her companions, will now put her energies into ICPJ activities.
Garcia has also been the faculty adviser for Students for Peace and Justice at WCC. The group did not form this year because student commitment was too low.
Sporting a cervical collar, Garcia explained that she had recently been in a car accident and was forced to take a semester off from teaching. It has not diminished her zeal.
“People are being held without due justice, without habeas corpus, without a defense lawyer, without even being accused,” Garcia said of Guantánamo detainees. “Everyone can’t be guilty until proven innocent; it’s against the American system!”
Garcia’s passion for justice was shared by the other demonstrators.
“There are a lot of ways people can get involved,” director Warpehoski said. “Some people get involved being on one of those six task forces, helping us make things like this happen: coming up with the ideas, doing the outreach, doing the publicity, organizing logistics. Other people want to get involved in more behind-the-scenes levels, they do data entry or they help in website design or other tasks.”
Warpehoski emphasized that the staff tries hard to match the skills and interests of volunteers with the jobs they are assigned, “so everybody is getting something out of the engagement.”
Those who are burdened with concern about social injustice, racism, wars, environmental degradation, world hunger, and other such causes will find a way to make their voices heard through ICPJ.
To find more information, a list of upcoming events and to volunteer, visit icjp.net. There is a volunteer form under the heading, “Get Involved.” ICPJ staffers are available at (734) 663-1870.
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