In Lieu of Flowers; Instances of the Fetishization of Mental Illness /  by ALT Magazine

by Leah Maitland 

(Trigger Warnings: Self Harm, Anorexia, Suicide, Mental Illness)  

Daily News at 11: Pink-haired girl offers cigarette to her reflection!? I cringe at the click-bait 

Craving nicotine; I clearly bummed that smoke from Ramona Flowers. 

 

My mother scrapes her arm on my ribcage as we hug in a white haze 

We toast to smallness; tracking weight I’ve lost through countless bags of all-purpose flour. 

 

I draw a tally mark on my wrist, one for every person who thought they could fix this 

The list grows along my forearm, skin blooming into a field of scabbed-over flowers. 

 

My stalker slips another note through the vents of my locker; I’m fourteen  

He calls my self-harming ‘sexy’, and I toss it next to one asking if I’ve ‘yet to be deflowered.’  

 

A girl stops me on the street and asks how to best pull off my depressed girl chic, 

She frowns when I say grippy socks, forgetting to bathe, bruises starting to flower. 

 

Mid panic attack, my boyfriend tells me that my eyes are even prettier when I cry, 

Yet somehow his reassurances of my beauty don’t stop the intrusive thoughts from flowering. 

 

I beg for the world to let me ground my grievances, for anyone to truly listen,  

Yet my headstone will read Ophelia, as you cover my grave with dried hydrangea flowers. 

 

 

 

 

Trans Day of Visibility /  by ALT Magazine

Scream, and Shout, and Let it All Out /  by ALT Magazine

by Jillian Turner


A “spectacle” is defined as a display to be viewed as notable, unusual, or entertaining. It's an event meant to excite or evoke something—a feeling, reaction, or curiosity. With a negative connotation, people are often told not to make a scene or bring attention to themselves; however, sometimes that is exactly what is needed. 

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has a long history of discrimination, prejudice and outright violence. In a recent culmination of art and history, an exhibit titled Sifting and Reckoning brought actions of hate and reactionary displays of student politics and protest to the public eye. The exhibit was only displayed for a short period of time, but the content spans decades. 

In case you did not have a chance to make it over to the Chazen to see the display, you can head over to the sifting and reckoning website to see a digitized version of the exhibit, but here is a brief overview of some events you may have seen: 

1951:  Students of UW organize against the university’s police department

In response to concerning and violent behavior from officers in UWPD—throwing leaded clubs at students, searching rooms without proper authority, and inappropriate responses to student sexual activity—The Daily Cardinal publishes an article titled,  “Brash, Outdated Police Practices Need Action, Now.”, calling out UWPD. Students and faculty had been raising concerns about the officers prior to the article being released, but the university’s president at the time, E.B. Fred, made no move to reprimand their conduct. The Student Board began to look into the department themselves and released a statement to reevaluate the attitudes and conduct of the officers. As a result, the UWPD was fully changed in the way they operated. 

1966: Black Students Strike for Equal Rights

Black students at UW-Madison began organizing together in support of each other, especially in the heat of the Civil Rights Movement sweeping the nation. They would meet together in the “colored people corner” of Der Rathskeller in Memorial Union. The need for their voices to be heard ramped up after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. The university was going to hold a memorial for the activist and the Black students wanted to use the event as a platform to discuss racism on campus and their experiences. The university needed to face its racialized past and present for the benefit of their students. In support of Black students at UW-Oshkosh who were vying for equal rights on campus, Madison students prepared a demonstration as well. 

1969: Black Students Demanding Power

After the previous years of striving for rights and equal treatment, on February 7th, 1969, a group of Black students gave Chancellor Edwin Young a list of 13 demands. Some items on the list included a campus social center for Black students, scholarships for Black students, and admission for their expelled Black students from UW-Oshkosh. If their needs were not met, they swore to protest and keep the campus closed by “disruption or destruction”. The next morning, 1,500 students organized across campus to support the Black students’ fight. The Black Student Strike ended weeks later after a fight between students, police officers, and administrators broke out. The results of this strike were as follows: bringing in lecturers to educate the student body on Black history and culture and meeting three of the 13 demands. The Department of Afro-American Studies and the Black Cultural Center are the only results that remain. 

1992: The Gender and Sexuality Campus Center is founded

Alnisa Allgood founded this center through segregated fees to get around the Board of Regents who disapproved of the support center. It was at first located off campus in the Capital Center, but can now be found in the Red Gym on Langdon Street. 

2009: American Indian Student & Cultural Center founded

Created as a space for Native student groups to find comfort and support on campus, it now houses the Ojibwe language group, Wunk Sheek Drum, Alpha Pi Omega Sorority, and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society. American Indian faculty can also utilize the space for advising or academic services. 

2018: Latinx Cultural Center and the Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Student Center

These student groups fought to have a space for themselves for a long time. As a result of those protests and countless demands, they were granted these cultural centers to serve their many needs on campus. 


To round out UW-Madison’s history of making a spectacle and getting a result, most recently was the Chamberlain Rock removal. Starting in 2020, the Wisconsin Black Student Union (WBSU) and Wunk Sheek members approached administrators and Chancellor Rebecca Blank to call for the removal of Chamberlain Rock. The rock was associated with anti-blackness due to its connection to a racist slur in the 1920s. The problem was, geologists on campus wanted to preserve the rock because it was made up of a rare glacial stone that students of the geology department could study. After a year of deliberation, meetings, and recommendations, the rock was removed on August 6, 2021. The president of the WBSU at the time, Nalah McWhorter, hoped that the process, protest, and removal of the rock would inspire students to continue to make noise and speak out. 


Making a scene is an idea that seems to be frowned upon. However, it gets the job done. In the wake of the brave students who came before us, we continue to see students protest the Lincoln statue on Bascom Hill and broader national issues like abortion rights. The question left is how can we ensure that fire never goes out? How can we continue to be heard? 


The answer seems simple: Scream! Make some noise. The future depends on it.

*this article was created using information from reckoning.wisc.edu and the Sifting and Reckoning Exhibit

Cover Photo by Bridget Flanery

Why does it matter? /  by ALT Magazine

by Zack Zens


What is fashion anyways? This misconstrued notion of dress, dictatorially enforced through the metered mandates of what other people think, write or consider is just that: what other people think. What people think is, undoubtedly, the greatest hindrance to the art of free expression known to humankind. Nebulous office dress codes and rules about the length of girls skirts at school have dealt the burden of fitting in disproportionately to women, people of color and other marginalized groups in a predominantly cis, white and heteronormative world.  


Now, if one were to redress this notion of fashion and dress codes, what remains at its core is the immutable fact that clothing gives people power, and this power is often used to thwart the free expression of some while enforcing other, often harmful and predominant, stereotypes. In promoting vibrant displays of personal expression the true potential of any person is only fully realized when the constraints surrounding clothing for reasons of age, sex, race, gender are repudiated and retracted. 


After all, real fashion, the fashion that makes people get out of bed in the morning, is fashion which means something to them, and in many respects, defines, first, who they are to themselves and by succession, to everyone else. Having said this, the conscious freedom to style clothing allows people of all conditions to shunt and shake off the shackles of expectation, leading to a more veritable manifestation of themselves.  


One of the greatest chains which hold people back from reaching their true fashion potential is the notion, not only of expectation, but of age-appropriateness. It has been drummed into the minds of society time-and-time again, once one reaches a certain age they must wear what society dresses them in, whether it be young people flung into business casual or old people into nightgowns and sack-like chasms of clothing which drown the wearer in sun-bleached pastels; regardless, age, in practical terms, should have nothing to do with a garment of clothing, and embracing the timelessness of fashion only further allows clothing to speak for everyone. In this sense, any garment can and should be worn by whoever finds it personally speaks to them.


The harm of these conceptions of appropriate dress extend far beyond the notion of age, as hairstyles, jewelry, tattoos and outfits are scrutinized on body type, race, gender and sexuality. By and large, people of color are scrutinized for their hair and clothing in terms which are unequivocally rooted and baked into the systemic nature of prejudice and racism, often making professional spaces purposefully hostile and uninviting. The defining counterargument to freedom of dress is that to allow these articles of clothing would detract from the ability of people to work effectively in professional settings. While this is ridiculous, these rules persist, and fall heavily on marginalized groups, from which cultural erasure descends. Indeed, it is without reason to think that protective hairstyles or a graphic tee could in any way disallow people to function as competent members of their workplace. 


In Iran, where rules surrounding free expression and clothing have reached the level of government mandate, one which is punishable by death for failure to comply, the value in autonomy and freedom to dress as one wishes becomes immutably apparent. There is nothing wrong with the act of observing religious clothing such as is present throughout the world and in Iran; however, the line is drawn when the freedom to choose is taken away and the act of choosing otherwise means death, imprisonment or torture via public spectical.


When people are forced to conform to the notion of dress society places upon them, what remains is a desert of creativity, starved of the very marrow of individuality and diversity by which not only are the personal components of identity silenced, but the greater identities of cultures deemed not in line with societal expectations. Freedom of expression is a tremendous gift regardless of age, race, sex or gender and it is often taken deeply for granted when millions around the world today, and many here at home, are fighting for their basic right to live and exist freely 


By choosing to embrace the idea of dressing authentically regardless of societal expectations, one protests and resists the monoliths of censorship, ushering away hate, and letting light and hope illuminate fashion. There is power in clothing, and letting the brightness of that light be snuffed out by what others say, is not something this author will stand for, and neither should you. 

Cover Photo by Van Tran

Free Wisconsin! The Democracy of My Childhood /  by ALT Magazine

by Lincoln Miller

As the dust settles on the 2022 midterm elections here in Wisconsin, Democratic Governor Tony Evers has won a second term to the state’s executive office, preventing its takeover by right-wing puppet Tim Michels. Governor Evers’ victory is bolstered by the Wisconsin State Assembly’s Democratic caucus holding enough seats to prevent the formation of a Republic supermajority that could potentially override the governor’s veto. His second term will not only keep attacks on reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, the denial of legitimate elections, and the assault on working families at bay, but opens up a path to the restoration of Wisconsin’s democracy out of the clutches of the Wisconsin GOP and, as a native Wisconsinite, back to the democracy I knew growing up.

Back in 2010, Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker rode a reactionary wave into office that would come to fundamentally change the face of Wisconsin on the national stage. Walker’s incumbency represented not only a backlash to national politics at the time, but the conquering of a long held progressive bastion for national Democrats. In a state that had banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in 1982 and had long been the prime residency of America’s labor unions, Walker was able to turn Wisconsin’s progressive streak upside down  in two monumental ways:

  1. The redistricting of 2010 would produce a Republican-favoring gerrymander that would lock Democrats out of control of the state legislature to this day. In the 2018 state assembly elections, Democrats won approximately 53% of the vote, but won only 36 out of 99 seats up for re-election. Under fair maps, Democrats should have easily won control of the chamber. This gerrymander has been reinforced in the 2020 redistricting cycle and will continue to produce unequal results until overturned. 

  2. In 2011, a wave of protests hit the Wisconsin State Capitol building as former governor Walker prepared to sign a bill that would strip public sector unions of their collective bargaining rights, effectively defanging them from negotiating for better pay and benefits with their employers. Thousands upon thousands of workers descended upon the Capitol for months to make their voices heard, only to be ignored by Walker. This bill, known as Act 10, would be signed into law without care or consideration of those affected.

The latter shift is of particular importance to me as the son of an educator, and has been deeply formative to the values I hold today. Standing in the Capitol rotunda shoulder to shoulder with my family, teachers from my own elementary school, and other community members at the age of 8, I witnessed the largest protest movement in Wisconsin history firsthand. Such an experience cultivated a sense of solidarity with those around me and opened my eyes to the lengths conservative politicians will go to to deny the will of their constituents for the benefit of the capitalist echelon of society. 

But now, you may ask, what about the gerrymandered maps? Well, with the re-election of Governor Evers, Wisconsin has a clear path towards restoring democracy and repealing Act 10. With him holding the executive branch, efforts to further disenfranchise voters in Wisconsin can be prevented. Although Governor Evers’ veto is of utmost importance, the key to turning the tide in democracy’s favor rests on April 4, 2023. On that date, an election will be held to fill an open seat on the Wisconsin State Supreme Court with the potential to change the ideological leaning of the court from conservative to liberal. 

Should the Democrat-endorsed justice prevail, there is an overwhelming possibility that left-wing action groups can sue to have the gerrymandered maps overturned and win the case. This in concurrence with Democrats actually winning both chambers of the Wisconsin state legislature under fair maps in the 2024 elections, true progressive legislation could be passed in Wisconsin for the first time in over 15 years. Young voters coming out to vote in what is likely to be a low-turnout election could be a key impact in determining whether or not reactionary politics will be defeated in Wisconsin, or if they’ll be free to entrench themselves for decades to come. And whether or not you believe in the efficacy of voting, this spring’s upcoming State Supreme Court race is a make-or-break moment for democracy in the state I’ve called home my entire life.

Cover Photo by Lucy Gillard