Position(s): MiC Managing Editor (2023), MiC Senior Editor (2022)
Section(s): Michigan in Color
Semesters at The Daily: 7
I joined MiC in the summer of my freshman year, after a year of writing news stories and a longing to return to creative pieces. I wasn’t expecting to stay there for as long as I have, or to become ME, but there is something about MiC that grabs you, tells you that this is where you need to be.
I might have felt at home, so perfectly in place, at MiC because it’s the only section in The Daily that truly allows you to explore the revolutionary power of narrative and art. The work people of Color create often can’t be extricated from our backgrounds or our experience of being marginalized. MiC understands this, urges us to keep looking within ourselves to understand what systems of oppression do to us, and to seek solidarity with those who are hurt and healing in the same way.
What many people overlook about MiC, though, is that it also seeks to challenge. We’re meant to challenge the assumptions we hold about ourselves and the Western ideals that shape our worldview. We’re meant to challenge our university and our country. We’re meant to confront, to contribute to the dismantling of oppressive systems, instead of wallowing within them or seeking profit from them.
I never truly understood this second principle of MiC’s mission until I became ME. My love and admiration for MiC — its goals, its constitution, its bylaws, its people — forced me to be confrontational, to stand my ground. And as I began to do so, I started to understand something then about journalism and narrative — and why MiC encourages us to join those separate forms together.
In my time as ME, I often thought about the leadership that came before me — from Jess and Eliya — and how firm they always were, how sure. Through their bad jokes and off-key harmonies, they guided me to a better version of myself, first when I was a columnist and finally as an editor.
I need to thank Jess especially, who hosted me on her couch for hours after a particularly hard shift, fed me Ritz crackers, always listened to my woes and supported my creative endeavors — even after I compared her to bacterial cultures in one of my pieces. She was the core of our Tuesday shift team. When I became ME and stopped working that shift, I missed the people that used to sit at the desk — Hugo, who would make sad, knowing eye contact whenever something strange was happening that always made me laugh, and Sarah, who spoke breathlessly about magazine paywalls and astrological charts. Even though it’s been a year, I still miss them, their infectious energy and MiC’s lost blue toy car at shift.
I’m glad, though, to have worked with another amazing group of people this year. I’m going to miss Monday shift with Maryam and Maya, who are astute, funny and smarter than me. We might never agonize over how to perfectly word a single sentence for half an hour again, but that’s probably a good thing for our sanities. I appreciate your camaraderie and intelligence and am so grateful for the work you have produced, for using your words to challenge.
I’m grateful for all of MiC’s staff — those working in podcast, social media, graphics and photography — for always putting out creative and innovative content. I’m grateful for the columnists that form the core of our section, for being brave enough to put their most vulnerable selves on display. With every piece, I’m reminded of why I love MiC and am inspired to keep writing.
As I leave MiC and the Daily, I know that my work with words and radical storytelling doesn’t end here. My 18-year-old self didn’t make very many good decisions, but I’m glad that she got her lazy fingers to type out answers to the MiC application, beginning a journey of self-discovery and an ever-changing understanding of liberation. MiC has inspired me to question, to confront, to center the ideals of liberation and equity in my writing. It’s made me a more thorough reporter, but also a more empathetic one. Journalism is ineffective without narrative, and it is also ineffective without a core understanding of the systems that create imbalances in power. Through its unique structure, MiC has made me more conscious of these differences and better prepared to point them out. I’m not sure where my writing will lead me, but I know that wherever I go, I will always think about MiC’s radical mission that put me on this path.