The Miscellany News
Since 1866 | miscellanynews.org
Volume CLII | Issue 8
October 31, 2019
Tiana Headley
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am was an ungrateful Negro man, according to his owner, Gilbert Livingston. Livingston thought he had hashed out a fair deal with the 19-year-old—Sam agreed to be bought for $225, and two would work out a deal for the young man’s freedom later. “He knew I was principled against slavery,” Livingston wrote in a newspaper notice dated July 9, 1804. In the same ad, Livingston offered a $10 reward for Sam’s capture (New York Heritage Digital Collections, “1804, Run away notice for Sam of Poughkeepsie, N.Y.”). But Livingston was not any ordinary disgruntled slave owner. The Livingston family was the land gentry of Dutchess, Columbia and Ulster Counties during the 1700s and early 1800s. Their ancestral line was a force to be reckoned with in New York’s local and state politics. Today, the Livingstons and other slave-holding families are memorialized in the Poughkeepsie streets that bear their names.
But many of the children who stroll, commuters who drive and businesses which operate on these streets remain unaware of this history. Sarah Evans ’18, who investigated this history with other Vassar students for a 2017-18 Community Engaged Learning (CEL) project, believes that the erasure of this history is a decision made by those in power in the United States to forget the atrocities of slavery. At one point in New York State, the enslaved accounted for one-fifth to one-third of the population; 60 percent of enslaved persons lived in the Hudson Valley, according to the committee’s project statement. “What is most certain is that the formation of Poughkeepsie itself was greatly facilitated by enslaved people, that their toil contributed to and constructed the Livingston fortune,” Evans shared in an email. In her final project reflection, Evans proposed a memorial to the named and unnamed enslaved men, women and children of See MEMORIAL on page 3
Courtesy of House Committee on Education and Labor via Flickr
Project acknowledges local legacy of slavery Assistant News Editor
Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY
The House Committee on Education and Labor, chaired by Bobby Scott (D-VA), recently unveiled a bill to overhaul student debt.
Congress introduces loan relief Aena Khan
News Editor
O
n Oct. 15, 2019, the House Committee on Education and Labor introduced the College Affordability Act (CAA) to overhaul the current system of increasing financial burden for higher education in the United States. This is the first update to the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965 in over a decade. In a statement to the See LOANS on page 4
Google claims quantum supremacy Rohan Dutta Columnist
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evolution is a term that inspires both hope and fear, but for the most part, the world has embraced the information revolution we currently live in. Despite the problems that have arisen from our digital universe, our governments, media and societies have irrevocably intertwined themselves
with information technology. For better or for worse, the next big phase of the information revolution may be about to begin. A study by Google was recently published in the highly reputed Nature journal, claiming that the search engine juggernaut had achieved quantum supremacy. If their claims prove true, the breakthrough spells the dawn of the next
big leap in human history. But what exactly is quantum supremacy? In traditional computing, data is encoded in binary (zeros and ones), with each zero or one taking up a certain amount of space. Quantum computing allows for the space required for one value to hold more than one separate value simultaneously. This means that See COMPUTERS on page 8
Whang sketches elderly New York Displaced youth find place on Vassar campus Taylor Stewart
Assistant Arts Editor
E
very Tuesday, Joseph Whang camps out in a study room in the Art Library, the one protruding from the Main Gate, and further enlivens his drawings. His process is unchanging: He transfers a graphite line sketch onto his computer and adds color and dimension. He is as devoted to his subject matter as he is to this se-
quence; he loves drawing elderly people in New York. Whang and his wife, Adjunct Artist in Music Yenne Lee, commute to Vassar every week. While she teaches classical guitar in Skinner Hall, he hunches over a sketchpad and tablet in the library, where, scrounging for study breaks, I watch him draw sometimes. One day, we struck up a conversation. The Miscellany News sat down
Courtesy of Joseph Whang
Joseph Whang, who now draws in Vassar’s Art Library, derives inspiration from the elderly. He shared, “When I see old people, I feel the same emotions I felt from old movies or music. I want to feel or experience those eras I haven’t experienced through watching these people.”
Inside this issue
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Hard nips, limp dicks: Since dorms are always on fire, HUMOR students must brave the cold
with Whang to discuss traditional media, Mr. Rogers and the value of the old. The Miscellany News: You were born in Seoul and you lived there until 2010, when you started studying at Parsons. Does the landscape of Seoul affect your art or artistic practice? Or does New York dominate your art? Joe Whang: I would say New York dominates my art in terms of style and subject matter. When I was in Korea, I focused too much on drawing precisely, but I went to Parsons and I saw students who were focusing on expressing their thoughts rather than trying to draw well. So I think that changed my mind. Since then, I try to draw freely and try to make my own style. M: What inspires you so much about New York in particular? JW: In terms of subject matter, I draw old people of New York, mostly. When I was in Korea, I just imagined there would be young, trendy people only in New York. When I see movies or magazines, there was only fancy New York. I actually came to New York and I noticed there were so many old people who are the opposite of See ELDERLY on page 5
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Congress has delayed justice to hold onto OPINIONS power. The time is now to resist.
Dean Kopitsky
Assistant Arts Editor
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n fall of 2015, Professor of German History and American Studies Maria Höhn, like the rest of the world, was struck by the unfolding humanitarian rights disaster in Syria. President Bashar al-Assad was using chemical weapons to crush protests against his regime. Many refugees fleeing Syria found footing in Germany, where Höhn was living that summer. “Every day there were pictures,” said Höhn. “Another 10,000 arrived in Munich today, another 10,000 the day after.” The refugees badly needed shelter, medication and food. The state government was ill-prepared, so underequipped volunteers stepped in. Höhn recalled, “They phoned pharmacists in the middle of the night, asking for baby powder, diapers.” On the Miscellany News database, Höhn performed a keyword search of The Miscellany News database for the keyword “refugee.” The professor found articles describing how Vassar students raised money for Greeks displaced
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by bombing from the Turks, and how Vassar students sent aid to their peers organizing aid for refugees of the Spanish Civil War. “We were inspired by thinking about the past,” reflected Höhn. That fall, at Vassar, the need for action was simple and urgent: “If we were able to do it then, we should be able to do it now … right away we had students jump in and we started organizing,” Höhn said. The first teach-in on the crisis was held Oct. 8, 2015. By fall break, Vassar Refugee Solidarity (VRS) was formed. Although he wasn’t around for the inception of VRS, Matthew Brill-Carlat ’19 became the student liaison between the organization and Höhn. Four years after the refugee crisis first demanded the action of Vassar students, Brill-Carlat sat with Höhn and I in her Swift Hall office. We discussed the fruits of the consortium so far and the work yet to come. Höhn and Brill-Carlat agreed that Vassar has an institutional obligation to respond to mass displacement. “I think we have not plumbed the bottom of that yet,” Brill-Carlat See NEW AMERICANS on page 9
As MLB juices their balls, teams SPORTS have to take a hit