Misc.03.18.2021

The Miscellany News

Vassar College’s student newspaper of record since 1866

March 18, 2021

miscellanynews.org

Volume 155 | Issue 4

Vassar begins drafting three-year accessibility plan Annabelle Wang News Editor

V

The door to the Bridge for Laboratory Sciences was one of the most frequently mentioned accessibility issues on campus in forums held in February and March by the Accessibility Committee.

Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News.

Inside this issue

Reporter investigates Vaccine Equity Coalition campus weed culture aims to reduce inequalities Sam Patz

Guest Reporter

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Copy Staff Bryn Marling sits down with Vassar's WriterARTS in-Residence, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, talks writing, COVID and working in retail.

assar’s Accessibility Committee has begun to draft a 3-Year Accessibility Plan. The plan, which is set to be finalized in Fall 2021, will be a holistic strategy that will advise the College on improving its on-campus accessibility by 2024.

The Accessibility Committee was established during the Spring 2020 semester at the request of President Elizabeth Bradley in response to needs that emerged as part of the Priorities and Planning Process undertaken two years ago.

It is comprised of Vassar students, faculty, staff and administrators.

The current committee differs from prior efforts in that it is established as part of the College Governance. Director of Sustainability and Accessibility Committee Planning Support Micah Kenfield highlighted the administrative power of the committee. “As a governance level committee...decisions carry weight. They’ve got the full support of the administration and there’s a

clear routing process for...making sure they go somewhere where they can be implemented,” he explained.

The Committee launched its first phase of the drafting process in late February by hosting a series of four virtual forums that were open to all campus students, faculty and staff.

Kenfield noted the importance of collecting community input during the drafting process: “I think it’s really making sure we have a sense of where the biggest priorities for campus are so that we can make sure we’re doing the most good, for the most people as quickly as possible.”

Kenfield shared an initial report with the Miscellany News summarizing the feedback received during all the forum discussions. According to this preliminary summary, across all four sessions, there were 57 attendees total. 56.3 percent were administrators, 18.8 percent were students, 15.6 percent were staff and 9.4 percent were faculty.

See PLAN on page 3

C

annabis is a contentious topic.

It draws ire from those convinced it is the devil, or praise from others who medicate with it. In my dorm, not a day goes by in which my hall isn’t filled with the herbal aroma. It’s no wonder that Vassar students flock to the extraordinary plant. After all, there are numerous ways to consume it and seemingly infinite strains. It’s very user friendly. But this isn’t an advertisement for weed. Of course, consuming cannabis is a personal choice, and one must weigh the pros and cons

before proceeding with the drug.

On some recent starry nights, I interviewed two students and a Vassar employee about weed. On conditions of anonymity, we discussed their relationships with weed, the weed culture on campus and the drug’s ever-changing legal status.

If there’s one thing that students can agree on, it’s weed. At least that’s what the students told me. “There’s definitely a large percentage of the campus that’s very comfortable and kind of embraces this weed culture,” said one sophomore with confidence.

See WEED on page 9

Carolyn Patterson Guest Reporter

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n Tuesday, March 9, Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro announced the formation of a Vaccine Equity Coalition focused on ensuring equitable vaccine distribution to underserved communities. The coalition is a joint effort between Dutchess County, the City of Poughkeepsie and several local stakeholders, including community organizers and healthcare professionals.

In keeping with nationwide trends, racial disparities are

reflected in vaccination rates in both New York State and Dutchess County. Overall, 78.1 percent of New Yorkers who have received at least one vaccine dose are white, although white people only make up 70.4 percent of the state’s total adult population. In Dutchess County, the vaccinated population is 90.2 percent white, while the general population is 82 percent white.

African American and Latino residents of Dutchess County are significantly less likely to be vaccinated. While African See VACCINE on page 4

Loeb unveils ‘Women Picturing Women’ exhibit Hadley Sparks

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Guest Reporter

he new exhibit at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, “Women Picturing Women: From Private Spaces to Public Ventures,” opened Managing Feb. 6 and will be on display until June Editor Taylor 13. Vassar curator Patricia Phagan’s Stewart and last exhibition is inspired by a study FEATURES Features Editor for a 1905 mural entitled “Westward,” Janet Song look which led her to wonder how many into how two Asian-owned images of women that were created local business have adapted to by women were in the Loeb’s collecthe COVID-19 pandemic. tion. Phagan also acknowledges Vassar graduate and former Professor of Art History Linda Nochlin ’51, widely acclaimed for her 1971 article “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” as well as her focus on femEver feel like NBA inism in art. Phagan’s selection for players are just the exhibit features 40 works and exout there copying plores the world through the female what the other perspective, a rarity in pre-modern SPORTS team is doing? art.

Find out if you're The first gallery of the exhibit conright as Sports Editor Alex sists of the most common subject Eisert takes a deep dive into the selected by women artists: portraits.

"Answer" effect.

See EXHIBIT on page 7

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Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News.

Page 2

March 18, 2021

COVID19 AT VASSAR 11,126

Total Tests Administered, Spring Semester

63

Total Student Cases to Date, Spring Semester

MARCH 17 DATA VIA VASSAR TOGETHER

13

Total Employee Cases to Date, Spring Semester

3

Total Active Cases on Campus

For daily updates on Vassar's testing and cases, visit https://www.vassar.ed u/together/dashboard

THE MISCELLANY NEWS Ted Chmyz Taylor Stewart Tiana Headley Dean Kopitsky Olivia Watson CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Aena Khan Jessica Moss Holly Schulman Abby Tarwater NEWS EDITORS Lucille Brewster Annabelle Wang ASSISTANT NEWS EDITORS Sara Lawler Alex Wilson FEATURES EDITOR Janet Song OPINIONS EDITOR Sawyer Bush ARTS EDITORS Nina Ajemian Leila Raines HUMOR EDITOR Isabella Migani ASSISTANT HUMOR EDITOR Madi Donat SPORTS EDITOR Alex Eisert ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR Jackie Molloy SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR Natalie Bober ASSISTANT SOCIAL MEDIA Alison Carranza ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITORS Sherry Liao Grace Rousell COPY EDITORS Jacqueline Gill Phoebe Jacoby Caitlin Patterson GRAPHICS EDITOR Juliette Pope AUDIO EDITOR Alex Barnard ASSISTANT AUDIO EDITOR Mrin Somani LIVE EVENTS CHAIRPERSON Ben Scharf BUSINESS MANAGER Emma Tanner ASSISTANT BUSINESS MANAGER Logan Hyde WEBMASTER Chloe Gjoka EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MANAGING EDITOR SENIOR EDITORS

REPORTERS COLUMNISTS

GRAPHIC DESIGNER COPY STAFF

CROSSWORD

Monika Sweeney Francisco Andrade Karina Burnett Madison Caress Doug Cobb Johnathan Dean Rohan Dutta Ben Fikhman Nicholas Gorman Helen Johnson Xin Rui Ong Danielle Recco Massimo Tarridas Sandro Luis Lorenzo Arlene Chen Katie Gebbia Glenna Gomez Jason Han Sophia Jahadhmy Tori Lubin Bryn Marling Claire Miller Sashinka Poor Melissa Roybal Mia Stein Reese Collins Ian Rosevear

CORRECTION POLICY The Miscellany News will only accept corrections for any misquotes, misrepresentations or factual errors for an article within the semester it is printed.

Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. Staff editorials are the only articles that reflect the opinion of a two-thirds majority of the Editorial Board.

March 18, 2021

NEWS

Page 3

Vassar community reflects on one year of pandemic Mahlia Neely

Guest Reporter

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n March 7, 2020, Vassar College shut its doors for spring break, expecting students to return two weeks later. But, on March 23, Vassar students and professors logged onto Zoom to begin the semester online. One person who found themselves navigating the infamous mute button was Chelsea Zak ’23. “At first, I was extremely frustrated,” she remembered. “I felt like my college experience was stolen from me, and, from March to April, life felt so unfair.”

Professor Robert DeMaria of the English department recalled that, although remote learning was a difficult transition, returning to classes gave everyone a sense of normalcy. “Spring 2020 was disorienting, but the hours logged in person before we went remote stood us in good stead,” he said.

“There was a little bit of excitement about the new format and a desire to stay in touch when we had been so suddenly separated.

That wore off a bit as the semester went on.”

There were questions about whether students would return to campus later in the semester, differing opinions on grading policies and concerns about graduation.

Students listened to lectures while worrying about the safety of their families, communities and the world at large.

After five months of lockdown, Vassar reopened its doors in August 2020 for the fall semester. Students and faculty, unsure of what to expect, cautiously returned to campus, only to find it dramatically different from the Vassar they remembered.

The protocols implemented to keep COVID numbers under control—social distancing, masks, grab-and-go dining, the inability to leave campus and biweekly testing—left the campus almost unrecognizable.

A few weeks into the semester, isolation

began to take a toll. In a survey conducted by the Vassar Student Association (VSA) in October 2020, 81 percent of respondents agreed that they were experiencing worse mental health than in a typical semester. Zak recalled, “I was very thankful for the chance to come back to campus, but I was incredibly isolated…Even though I had friends on campus, I was not allowed to pod with any of them since they lived in different dorms.”

For many students, the fall semester was bitter-sweet. Although Vassar was successful in keeping the virus contained, with only 46 COVID-19 student cases and 39 employee cases, the mental health issue cast a dark shadow over the entire semester.

More than 2000 students returned to campus in early February. Reflecting on how the semester thus far has differed from last fall, President Elizabeth Bradley commented, “The fall was harder in many respects because it was all new, and we had to develop new systems for everything…In the spring semester, those systems were more routinized.” She acknowledged, however, that the colder weather this semester posed new difficulties. “Although we were able to go to pods and indoor dining earlier, socializing was more difficult because it was too cold to have meetings, meals and gatherings outdoors. Tents will arrive at the end of March, and I expect the weather to be more friendly then, so we can socialize more easily outdoors.”

Spring semester’s indoor dining, inter-house podding and larger pod sizes have been helping students wrestle through the winter months. “I think podding has certainly improved my mental health and everyone else’s,” Zak said. “It’s given people an outlet to have normalcy in a world that is so far from normal.”

A junior who asked to remain anony-

mous, however, thinks there is still more that can be done. “I think a good idea would be to increase pod sizes as the semester progresses if low COVID numbers continue. In a more extreme view, I think Vassar should be more strict about people leaving campus, and have on campus life close to normal.

That…is what I expected when I heard of the ‘island model.’”

Although most students have become accustomed to Vassar’s safety protocols, some, like Stephen Han ’23, haven’t returned to campus since they left in March 2020. “I went into this whole pandemic as a second-semester freshman, and now I’m a second-semester sophomore, which is totally bizarre, sobering and sad to think about.”

For the fall semester, 379 students decided to study remotely, and about half of that number remained home for the spring as well.

Han commented, “In some ways, it feels like my college experience or my place at Vassar is less ‘real’ because I’m not on-campus.”

Han also mentioned that he does appreciate the efforts Vassar makes to keep remote students in the loop, like weekly emails from Vassar’s Remote Student Engagement Initiative: “For me, just knowing that there are faculty members, student organizations and leaders, and administrators actively thinking of ways to integrate people who aren’t on-campus is reassuring.”

With vaccines being rolled out nationwide and around the globe, a post-pandemic reality is finally in sight. But, even after herd immunity is reached, things may not return to exactly how they were pre-COVID. Bradley anticipates, “Wearing a mask, particularly if one is not feeling well or having symptoms, I think may become part of the new normal. Regular testing if one has symptoms will be with us for a long time.”

Although Vassar students are increasing-

ly receiving the vaccine, it might not cause much change in campus safety protocols until next semester. “We are hoping that the fall semester may be fully in person, with fewer limits on gathering, eating together, and socializing,” Bradley commented. “As far as this semester, we do not expect a large amount of the campus to be vaccinated until late May so the impact will be less dramatic.”

The Vassar community is counting down the days until the pandemic is over. DeMaria is most looking forward to reconnecting with loved ones and travelling, while the student who asked to be kept anonymous is eager for music performances. “I actually had tickets to a My Chemical Romance concert back in September,” they mentioned.

“I’m looking forward to going to the rescheduled date for that.”

In the meantime, people are reflecting on what they have learned over the past year.

Han observed, “The pandemic has reminded me to cherish family: To treasure and surround myself with those I love and those who love me because life’s too short not to.”

For DeMaria, the pandemic has highlighted the Vassar community’s dedication to learning. “I’m impressed with the strength of Vassar’s academic culture...We have a well-established identity as a community of learners and it is remarkably durable.”

Bradley also applauded the strength of the Vassar community. “It is difficult to create a collective commitment and stick to it, and that is what Vassar has done. It isn't perfect, but seeing students really look out for each other continues to be inspiring.”

Although some can see a few silver linings, others are simply ready for change. As the world crawls past COVID-19’s one year anniversary, Han’s words are more relevant than ever: “This pandemic has gone on for far too long.”

Accessibility Committe gathers input for upcoming plan Continued from PLAN on page 1 At the beginning of the forums, the Committee members shared their prospective plans. They presented the four main guiding principles for the Accessibility Plan, which were to identify and address immediate and long-term accessibility needs of the Vassar community; to recognize that all constituencies of the College reflect a neurodiverse spectrum of individuals; to prioritize inclusivity and accessibility for the entire campus community; and to center principles of equity and social justice.

Committee members also identified three main areas of focus for the proposed plan, which included building and campus grounds (e.g. building access, navigation/wayfinding, sidewalks & outdoor spaces, air & noise pollution), the learning environment (e.g. educational technology, academic policies, classroom accessibility support) and campus life and wellness (e.g. campus culture, shuttle services, events & activities, dining options).

After being presented with the proposed plan outline, attendees were given the opportunity to participate in large-group activities using a virtual participation tool called Mentimeter and were also able to engage in a series of small-group breakout conversations, during which notes were taken by volunteers.

Over the course of all four forums, the summary report sent to the Miscellany News indicated that much of the feedback received was fairly narrowly focused on specific locations or challenges individuals might encounter. For example, one of the most commonly mentioned locations was the Bridge for Laboratory Science and its infamous doors.

While much of the feedback centralized around accessibility to particular locations, a

broader theme surrounding Vassar’s culture emerged.“One of the most striking takeaways for at least several of us [Committee members] was there seemed to be this...macro-level concern of how...Vassar’s culture of super high performance...can pose barriers to people either feeling comfortable asking for help, or for us being able to make it available,” said Kenfield.

Moreover, there were also significant concerns raised about how implicit biases might deter a truly inclusive approach to accessibility. During one of the forums, Associate Professor of Mathematics and Statistics and Accessibility Committee member Jan Cameron raised this concern: “Race and gender are factors in this issue and also power structures. Some who are members of advantaged groups or in positions of greater power in our community feel more comfortable about speaking up on these issues than others.”

One suggested way to address these main areas of concern is through emphasizing universal design, both in terms of physical spaces and policies. Universal design is a design of structures and environments that is usable by people with a wide range of abilities, disabilities and other characteristics, without the need for adaptation or specialized accommodations. Others recommended increased transparency in the decision-making process, increasing the resources made available for accessibility efforts and shaping policies to be more inclusive.

During the final forum, Head of the Committee and Dean of Strategic Planning & Academic Resources Marianne H. Begemann assured the community that the Committee is proactively finding short-term solutions to particular accessibility issues, which will lay

the groundwork for future projects. She stated, “We’re not just waiting until a plan is in place before we can actually try to implement some change, but we will be looking for... short-term gains for the short-run.”

For instance, when the Committee noticed that they were receiving a lot of feedback from students on how to improve remote learning the past winter, they helped send a list of advice to faculty in February based off of the input they received from the community.

As explained by Kenfield in his interview, “The advice was about how you [faculty] can make your classes more accessible by default.”

Following the conclusion of each session, participants were asked to complete a brief parting survey to gauge how confident they were in the planning process.

One of the questions was the following: “How confident are you that the Accessibility Plan will address the needs of the entire campus?”

In response, 26.1 percent of participants indicated that they were “Very Confident,” 56.5 percent marked that they were “Somewhat Confident,” 13.0 percent claimed they were “Not Very Confident” and 4.3 percent were “Not At All Confident.”

In response to participants who marked “Not Very Confident” and “Not At All Confident,” Kenfield stated, “At the start of the process you're probably going to have less confidence in a plan, than as the conversations continue.” He elaborated, “I think that getting a good sense of the process is really important, as well as the next steps.”

Currently, the Committee is collaborating with Institutional Research to design a campus-wide survey that will ask similar questions to those posed during the open forums.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

This survey is expected to be released via email within the next couple of weeks.

After reviewing all the community input, the Committee will begin writing up a formal draft of the 3-Year Plan between April and May 2021.

The initial draft is planned to be finished and shared for public viewing by summer and early Fall 2021. The Committee is planning on hosting another series of forums at the beginning of the next semester to gather additional feedback. This is intended to be an opportunity for the Vassar community to express what the proposed plan does well or if there are any particular blind spots that need to be accounted for prior to its formal implementation.

Although the Committee is hoping to provide more opportunities for community input, President of the Vassar Disability Coalition Isabella Perez ’21 voiced concern about student involvement.

“I’m worried engagement might be low on the student end, and they might not get the chance to be heard.” She continued, “I feel like a social media presence could help...just to give regular updates, especially for transparency because students often feel left out of the loop,” said Perez.

Kenfield responded to this concern via email: “We … intend to launch a website detailing the stages of the plan (including the results of the forums and the survey) after the survey itself is concluded...we'll have more information about continuing opportunities for involvement.”

He continued, “We’re very committed to making sure the final plan is fully representative of the needs of the entire campus community … I would just say to people...that this is the very beginning of the conversation.”

NEWS

Page 4

March 18, 2021

Dutchess County officials respond to nursing home scandal Alex Wilson

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Assistant news Editor

n the past month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has found himself embroiled in controversy after evidence emerged that he allegedly misreported nursing home deaths across New York state. As Albany wades through these allegations, Dutchess County continues working to protect the nursing home residents that critics charge were endangered by Cuomo.

Last month, the state Department of Health (DOH) updated Dutchess County’s tally of 96 nursing home deaths to include the deaths of residents who died outside of the facility. At that point, Dutchess County had a total of 155 nursing home-related COVID-19 deaths, 59 of which occurred outside of these facilities—usually in hospitals. As of March 3, the total number of nursing home deaths in the county had increased to 169.

Among local leaders, a more deeply-seated frustration with the governor’s earlier COVID-19 policymaking underlies the recent anger concerning his incorrect reporting of nursing home coronavirus deaths.

This frustration has been pointed towards Cuomo’s March directive to compel nursing homes to admit COVID-positive patients. While debates concerning this decision have taken center stage since it was announced last spring, more recent DOH reports indicate that the number of coronavirus patients admitted to nursing homes was over 40 percent higher than previously reported, at over 9,000. Although the intention of the policy was to move medically stable patients out of hospitals and ease pressure on overburdened medical facilities, some—including State Assemblymember Jonathan Jacobson (D)—saw it as an excessive risk for nursing homes.

Jacobson, whose district includes the City of Poughkeepsie, wrote to DOH Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker last April urging him to reverse the directive.

In his letter, he wrote: “Nursing homes are simply not equipped to act as hospitals and should not be used as depositories for infected individuals. Instead, they should rehabilitate in a facility specifically designated for recovering COVID-19 patients and separate from any nursing homes or anywhere large populations of elderly residents are housed.”

The Dutchess County Department of Behavioral & Community Health (DBCH) also expressed concern with the policy’s implementation, explaining via email that “Facilities like nursing homes and assisted living facilities are generally at higher risk of disease spread. Congregate living, staff issues (turnover, overworked, lack of training and assistance) and lack of support these facilities get from the State all increase the risk of spreading something like COVID-19.” With issues such as staffing shortages that the state failed to foresee or provide support for, DBCH says that ultimately, the policy was difficult to implement.

As to whether the state, more broadly, has taken the appropriate steps to protect residents of nursing homes, leaders are in greater disagreement.

Brendan Lawler (D), who represents Hyde Park in the Dutchess County Legislature, said in an interview that the state has recently taken the correct steps to protect these facilities, citing the priority that residents and staff receive for vaccinations, as well as increased availability of personal protective equipment. Jacobson said that the Democratic-led state legislature has taken “a great first step” to dealing with the problems in the nursing home system that the pandemic has revealed. This first step includes reforms

such as A.3922-A, which aims to create a task force to examine the toll that the pandemic has taken on long-term care facilities, and A.5846, which requires that adult care facilities include infection control in their quality assurance plans.

Still, DBCH maintained that the state’s response was flawed, saying, “The lack of clear, consistent and concise guidance from the State has been problematic for nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Additionally, the State did not always communicate with the local health department regarding their visits or reviews of these state licensed facilities.” The department says that Dutchess County led the way for appropriate nursing home support, and that despite state objections, they demanded testing of the asymptomatic (the state later decided to require this testing statewide).

Furthermore, they established a taskforce to assist nursing homes that consisted of personnel from DCBH, the Office of Aging and the Planning Department, while also supporting facilities attempting to receive state guidance, distributing PPE and assisting in the vaccination process.

Despite this increased workload, Lawler explained that DCBH was forced to cope with a 15 percent reduction in staff after this year’s county budget slashed the department’s budget by over $2.5 million, roughly five percent of its annual appropriation.

Lawler, who was a private citizen at the time of the budget’s passage, voiced his opposition to the measure. “Hopefully, with the funding from the American Rescue Plan we will be able to restore full funding to [DCBH] to provide the necessary resources to continue to fight the pandemic,” he said.

While Dutchess County works towards the protection of its nursing home resi-

dents, the state continues to grapple with the political future of Cuomo, who—besides the fallout of the nursing home scandal—is also facing a growing number of sexual assault allegations.

Amid this wave of allegations following close on the heels of the nursing home scandal, more members of the governor’s own party began to turn against him after NYS Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D) called for Cuomo’s resignation and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D) authorized the Assembly’s Judiciary Committee to begin an impeachment inquiry.

Jacobson joined the growing bipartisan group of officials representing Dutchess County, including Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer (both D), Representatives Sean Patrick Maloney and Antonio Delgado (both D), NYS Senator Sue Serino (R) and Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro (R), who have called for the governor’s resignation.

While clarifying his stance that the underreporting of nursing home deaths alone is not cause for Cuomo’s resignation, Lawler explained that “The governor’s handling of the scandal demonstrates a failure of leadership. There is no logical reason that the number of deaths in residential care facilities was not fully reported. The state legislature should further curtail the governor's emergency powers and make policy changes based on the results of the attorney general’s report when it is completed.”

As of last m0nth, several of the county’s elder care facilities, such as Fiddlers Green Manor and Wingate at Beacon, had surpassed 20 COVID-19 deaths and The Pines at Poughkeepsie was nearing 30.

With such high mortality rates at stake, officials seem to agree on one thing: There is a dire need for meaningful elder care safety solutions.

Vaccine Equity Coalition advocates for fair vaccine distribution

Continued from VACCINE on page 1 Americans make up 11.2 percent of the adult population, only 6.2 percent of vaccine recipients are African American.

Only seven percent of vaccinated Dutchess County residents identify as Hispanic or Latino, compared to 11.2 percent of all adult residents.

Disparities in vaccination rates are the result of a myriad of factors.

On Feb. 26, the Vassar Community Care Team released a lecture focused on COVID-19 related racial health disparities.

The event, which was co-sponsored by the ALANA Center, Student Growth and Engagement, Africana Studies department, Science Technology and Society department and the Transitions Program, included opening comments by Biology Professor Leroy Cooper followed by a presentation by Dr. Alexis Johnson, MD, MPH. Johnson works as an Emergency Department Physician at Westchester Medical Center and Mid-Hudson Regional Hospital. The lecture was moderated by Tiana Headley ’22 [Full Disclosure: Headley is a Senior Editor for the Miscellany News].

They described the factors that contribute to disparities in vaccine access, including geographical location, technological access, scheduling flexibility and financial resources. For example, in a vaccine registration system facing massive demand, individuals who lack technological knowledge or resources are vulnerable to slipping through the cracks. Cooper noted that residents without reliable internet access may

miss out on the opportunity to register for open vaccination appointments that are often filled quickly.

Additionally, Johnson identified that people of color may be fearful of receiving the vaccine given the long history of medical abuse against minoritized communities. Johnson shared, “I do think that fear and caution is a big factor, from my own personal experience in my family, I know that that’s the case.” Cooper connected skepticism surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine with a general sense of misgiving towards the medical establishment. “A lot of it goes back to whole-sale distrust in the medical healthcare system, period, for African Americans,” said Cooper.

Johnson and Cooper emphasized the disproportionate toll that the pandemic has taken on communities of color, as reflected in nationwide hospitalization and death rates. Although Black and Latino Americans are only slightly more likely to contract COVID than white Americans, larger racial disparities are seen in hospitalization and fatality rates. Compared to white Americans, Black, Hispanic and Latino Americans are approximately three times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 and are approximately twice as likely to die. Native Americans are nearly twice as likely to contract COVID-19 and nearly four times as likely to be hospitalized with the virus, compared with white Americans.

The Vaccine Equity Coalition has already identified several starting points to address-

ing racial disparities in vaccine access. The coalition aims to create more pop-up vaccination sites that are geographically accessible to underserved communities.

At a recent pop-up vaccination site at Beulah Baptist Church in Poughkeepsie, all 450 vaccination appointments were successfully filled. Additionally, the coalition

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

will work to distribute materials provided by the Dutchess County Department of Behavioral & Community Health to address misinformation about the vaccine.

“Focusing on hard-to-reach populations is critically important to the county, and we are committed to continuing this effort,” emphasized Molinaro.

Natalie Bober/The Miscellany News.

March 18, 2021

ARTS

Page 5

Student photo club Phocus focuses on accessibility Massimo Tarridas Columnist

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or many members of Vassar’s student photography club Phocus, the best camera in the world is a disposable point-andshoot. Elitism within the art world has always existed, but photography—superseded only by film—is one of the most difficult to enter in this regard. Cameras are prohibitively expensive, lenses even more so; before digital, 36 pictures were all that you got per roll, and that’s not including the cost of developing and printing. As Phocus’ darkroom manager, it may be strange to hear me wax on about these cameras, which have to be shipped to labs for development.

However, to actively glamorize point-andshoots is an act which spits in the face of this hierarchy, lowering the cost of photography into the realm of the feasible. Accessibility is the standard by which we conduct ourselves.

Perhaps the prime example of this is FIX, our annual publication. As FIX Co-editor Alex Garza ’23 describes it, “FIX is an annual photo journal, a platform to publish a diverse set of photo works from the whole Vassar student body. The publication showcases different formats of shooting—film, digital, color and black and white.” Phocus is expecting to begin accepting submissions via email as soon as possible with a deadline set for after spring break. FIX is not just for members of the club; absolutely anyone can submit, and even though the editorial process is thorough in its aesthetic demands, I have yet to see someone who was denied a spot at the table. We also create projects such as Take Photo Don’t Steal, where disposable cameras are placed around campus with eponymous signs. Anyone can take a picture, creating a beautiful anonymity which preserves the democratic nature of the project, as well as highlighting the somewhat fleeting nature of documentary photography. Once archived, who will remember the names of those who took selfies on cheap plastic cameras one fall day at Vassar?

The club also serves as an intermediary between other campus events and the student body. One such event is an upcoming Jade Parlor exhibit, curated by Cassie Jain

’20 as the Loeb’s Post-Baccalaureate Curatorial Fellow. Within this space, Jain says, “I’m hoping the exhibit is an opportunity for current Vassar students to take agency over the ambiguous history of the Jade Parlor by showing work about their own identities…acknowledging its past as a space dedicated to international students and questioning why no one knows why it had orientalizing aesthetics.” This exhibit offers an opportunity for students to have their work professionally printed and framed—a valuable moment of validation. As Phocus treasurer Laila Barcenas-Meade ’22 elaborates on the benefits of Phocus’ exhibitions and FIX, “Seeing the things I make in print is a pretty amazing feeling … It’s like, your artwork is valuable. You have talent. You can show that to the world and be proud of what you’re doing.”

If the services that Phocus provides seem generous for the average college club, it’s because they have to be in order to make up for the college’s minimal offering of photography-related courses. Advisor to Phocus and supervisor of the Baldeck Photographic Center Monica Church works with the club’s executive board in order to achieve its goal, which include bringing in contemporary photographers to speak, having workshops, creating a Phocus archive, making zines, attending regional conferences, as well as keeping the darkroom and photographic center open to anyone looking to loan out a camera. Last year, when I joined Phocus as darkroom apprentice, I took advantage of every single one of these opportunities. And as darkroom manager this year, I have worked alongside Church to make sure that they continue to be available. We’ve made the darkroom a safe space by setting up an online scheduling system to reserve time slots and establishing health practices, such as making it an absolute requirement to use gloves when working with the equipment. In some ways, the darkroom is more suited than other spaces to adhere to COVID guidelines; for example, its ventilation system, which was originally installed to remove chemical fumes, also helps to circulate airflow, reducing the possibility of contamination. Similarly, moving everything online has had its own

silver lining, making it easier for our club to bring photography-based artists—who would previously never have been able to come to Vassar—to speak for Phocus.

These talks are both autobiographical and instructive, as the artist speaks about their own work and then critiques a selection of student photography.

Barcenas-Meade describes the impact Phocus has had on her experience this year, explaining that “I think one of the most important things that Phocus has done is [encourage] me to continue photography, which can sometimes be a very solitary pursuit … Hanging out with other people who have completely different styles and completely different approaches has been helpful to my own craft.” Many of the club’s meetings are dedicated to critical sessions, where everyone in attendance can receive constructive feedback on their photogra-

phy. As people come again and again to these critiques, Phocus has forged a strong sense of community and familiarity. We can track each other’s progress and notice themes within our peers’s work, as reinforcement and advice is shared equally by all. I stated earlier that FIX might be a prime example of the egalitarian nature of Phocus, but I might have to contradict myself. FIX is a magazine, and as such is a perfect example of what Phocus can do for the socially distant era. The public image of photography itself is one of solitude. The iconic photographers are all lone wolves.

A single student invested under the glow of the safelight, enjoying the magic of paper and chemistry. But now, the image that comes to mind of what Phocus should be is one where we’re sitting together around a round table, sharing what moves us about the images flickering on screen.

Phocus is a photography group on campus that focuses on accessibility and creating a community for photographers on campus.

Courtesy of Igor Martiniouk '24.

Courtesy of Max Freedman ’24.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Sandro Luis Lorenzo/The Miscellany News.

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March 18, 2021

Writer-in-Residence's prose deems attention a form of love Bryn Marling

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Copy Staff

n a moment where decrying our global dystopia is a pedestrian pastime, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and his prose have never indulged in hopelessness. I first heard Adjei-Brenyah speak when I was 15. As Colgate University’s 2017 Olive B. Cooper Fellow, he delivered what would become the titular story of his PEN Award-winning debut collection, “Friday Black.” Since then, the succinct cruelty and compassion of his writing have captivated me. The day after his 30th birthday and the submission of his first novel, I finally had the chance to speak over Zoom to Vassar’s 2021 Writer-in-Residence about how these themes manifest in his life and art.

Adjei-Brenyah’s voice is uncompromising throughout the collection as he surgically deconstructs the absurd logic that informs a culture of consumerism, racist violence and apocalypses big and small. He deploys his words like a series of funhouse mirrors— funny, grotesque and always far too close to reality. When asked about his attraction to his form of choice, Adjei-Brenyah responded, “You can’t hide in a short story.” This mindset is evident in the intensity of his writing, yet his work also makes the argument that you can’t hide from a short story either. Rather, readers of “Friday Black” are forcibly discomforted as they reckon with how they participate in these systems of dehumanization.

Adjei-Brenyah went through a similar experience during his six-year stint as a salesperson in the malls of upstate New York.

He would work opening to closing, devise stories on the late night bus ride home and write until morning. Discussing his motivation during this period and what it taught him about the dynamic between our economic productivity and our individual worth, he said, “I wanted to feel like I could be excellent in some sort of space, which is a very normal desire. I think capitalism is really good at getting you to think that by default you are not worthy. Prove it to me, not only that you’re a good salesperson, but prove to me that you’re a good person. That’s the sort of inherent argument of our system: unless you produce at a certain level, we will literally let you die. So, we’re taught from the beginning this very transactional mode of existence.” He went on to analyze how this mode of existence also diminishes our interpersonal relationships, saying, “The negative thing about it is that it teach-

es you to view people as a means— it teaches you to view people as things you finesse to get resources as opposed to human beings."

The relationship between the chameleon skill of customer service and the concept of code-switching that Adjei-Brenyah visualizes in the collection’s first story as a 10-point Blackness scale is particularly compelling.

I asked how this played into his approach to doing a residence at a predominantly white institution (PWI) like Vassar. “I won’t change my persona or demeanor to fit the space,” he said. He continued, “But one of the things I do know how to do, and how I had the access to even write that book, I know how to move around and be whatever the audience wants me to be. The thing is, I choose not to, and that’s a privilege afforded to me because of how people identify with me because of the book.”

Despite the need to conform and finesse, Adjei-Brenyah said that especially in the sales environment, unexpected moments of intimacy sustained him. He recalled helping a woman find plain gray clothes for her

“That's one of my favorite things about [writing]...I can make a whole world, and where else is that true?” incarcerated partner: “It wasn’t a big deal for what I was doing, but it was something that was a big deal for her. It gave me the opportunity to break out of that sort of fleece attitude that is the default you need to get by in that space and to remember that every single person has a story, every single person is a human being. They’re not a means to an end, they’re an end to themselves. I learned early on to attach to those moments. Not particularly because I was some cool sort of empathetic person, but because I needed to survive because I hated the job.”

Adjei-Brenyah’s appraisal of his mindset as a writer at this time jarringly resonates in the day-to-day monotony and cataclysm of pandemic living. “At the beginning, I made the mistake of feeling like my life is not interesting, this place is boring and therefore there are no stories here,” he admitted. To young people living through a period in which it can feel like the scope of life has been narrowed, he said, “This time is not a

wash. It’s probably the opposite. It’s not like those years didn’t count; they count a lot if you look at it right.”

Looked at from this angle, creative expression becomes another way of surviving and defending our humanity. “Anything you imagine, you possess,” reads the book’s epigraph, quoting a Kendrick Lamar verse in School Boy Q’s “Blessed.” Given the collection’s exploration of the close relationship between property ownership and our understanding of safety, authority and value, I was curious about how the act of writing could be a similar means of possession. Adjei-Brenyah explained, “The reason I do writing is because it’s something I can do that’s free and no one can take away from me. So, all writing, if it’s not an act of possession, it subverts the traditional relationship to possessions. That’s one of my favorite things about it. It’s something that’s mine and can’t be taken. I can make a whole world, and where else is that true?”

Adjei-Brenyah envisions not-so-distant futures infused with surrealism and satire, although the author strains against the hierarchies such labelling enforces. In an age of deadened language, words tossed around as glibly as “surreal” have lost their original potency. I wondered if Adjei-Brenyah felt a similar desensitization as he approached writing in an era becoming continually uncanny in character. He explained, “It’s not about the grade of strangeness, but also about the delivery of it and the way it unfolds. So for me [writing during surreal times] is not harder because there are a lot of other considerations I make besides the surreal-ness of it, that render it what people call surreal. The overlap between what you call reality and what you might call surreal is the strength of it, not a weakness.”

He imagines that someday he might explore the concept of utopia, too, saying, “I look forward to a time when this whole age of humanity is considered a dark period and they look at us with grace—because you do need to have grace with yourself and others—but also huge shame. Would they even understand us? It’s a scary premise because how much of what I understand as humanity requires interpersonal harm. I know that love is real and I’m advocating for more of that, but there’s this other side too. What would that take? What would that look like? And what, if anything, would be lost?”

For now, though, Adjei-Brenyah’s characters struggle to assert themselves in systems

that not only demand the devaluation of human lives but also use language to legitimize the suffering they cause. Adjei-Brenyah’s prose exploits the ubiquity of euphemism in neoliberal society, exposing a world of corpses and corporate-ese to sobering effect. I was curious about his fascination with these artificial vocabularies. “If you deaden your language enough, you can say anything and not feel bad for it,” he explained. “All oppressive governments have a way of speaking that implicates anyone but themselves and infantilizes the people.” However, as is custom for Adjei-Brenyah, he again emphasized the impact of these tactics on our personal relationships, continuing, “I think with the people who hurt or harm or murder, they’re doing that on a personal level—trying to find a way of being okay with the horror they’ve unleashed. Language is a way of navigating that with yourself and with others.”

It’s clear that Adjei-Brenyah wants us to reject these linguistic coping mechanisms and the easy callousness they offer. “Friday Black” asks: How can we avoid becoming sadists while living in sadistic times? I posed the same question back to the author. “Part of the answer is yes. That’s why these stories exist,” began Adjei Brenyah. “To me it comes down to a deep humanism. Just being unwilling to negotiate someone else’s humanity or your own—something has to be sacred. That’s the core of abolitionist thought—there’s the slogan, ‘Where life is precious, life is precious’—if we have a cultural life which isn’t precious for some, we can’t have that on the table at all.” Here is where the unusual brilliance of Adjei-Brenyah’s writing lies: Cynical, but never cruel, his stories urge an appreciation for what is precious.

Adjei-Brenyah does more than plead for a better future. Taking inspiration from Solmaz Sharif’s poetry collection, “Look,” he offered instructions on restoring our estimation of human value: “If you think about the attention you pay to someone you love— or anything you love—if you can pay that level of attention to anything, you’ll be able to understand it so deeply and it will be very difficult to hate it.

To me, close reading is an act of generosity and grace that allows you to love the world better and participate more actively.”

For the writer, attention—whether to the needs of a department store customer or to the subtle rhythms of a sentence—is an act of care.

‘The Pull of the Stars’ provides solace with story of 1918 pandemic Naima Saini

Guest Columnist

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t’s human nature to look for media that we can relate to, especially in stressful times like the ones we’re living in now. Because of this, creators of all different art forms have produced quarantine-inspired pieces, musings on life in the pandemic and stories about people experiencing these unprecedented times. For instance, in August 2020, a miniseries called “Love in the Time of Corona'' came out on Freeform. The show follows several different households navigating quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic and delves into the challenges it poses to their relationships. I’m sure the series is interesting, but I knew that I would not be watching it from the moment I first found out about it—it felt a little too real.

I instead picked up Carmen Maria Machado’s short story “Inventory,” which I had read last spring. The story follows a woman living through an imagined future pandemic. I had to put the book down, though, because it filled me with such an immediate sense

of dread, even though I had started rereading it precisely because of its connections to COVID. It turns out that reading about the current moment and reading about an imagined future where we’re still isolated from one another are not comforting. However, many of us still seek solace in stories about people in similar situations to our own. I experienced this when I read “The Pull of the Stars.”

“The Pull of the Stars” by Emma Donoghue is about the 1918 flu pandemic. Set in Ireland, the book follows nurse Julia Power as she oversees a special hospital ward for women who are both pregnant and sick with the flu. Though it takes place over a short period of time, every moment that Julia spends caring for her patients is a matter of life and death. Donoghue also delves into the social inequalities that are affecting patients, healthcare workers and the greater Dublin community.

Along the way, Julia meets Bridie Sweeney, a hospital volunteer to whom she is immediately drawn. The two women work

alongside each other and form one of the central relationships of the novel. As they care for their patients, their friendship develops and they confront their troubled pasts amid the background of their shared work.

Many elements of the characters’ experiences are unsurprisingly very relevant today, such as the signs issued by authorities urging the public not to gather with people outside their households. At one point, Julia admits, “I was having trouble foreseeing any future.

How would we ever get back to normal after the pandemic?”

I will admit that as I was reading, I found some of the parallels to the present situation to be a little heavy-handed. Obviously the book is historically accurate, but it clearly felt like it had been written to point out the connections between the flu pandemic and the current pandemic. But after reading the novel, I discovered that Emma Donoghue started writing it in 2018, well before COVID-19 was first documented, and finished in March 2020. Its publication was fast-tracked once it became clear just how relevant it was.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

I don’t know if I can characterize this as a comfort read—it takes place in the middle of a pandemic, after all. The characters face serious, high-stakes issues, and not all of them survive. At the same time, there are many hopeful notes; the relationships that people build with each other, whether they are friendships, romances or chosen families, are incredibly strong and valuable. And while many of the societal problems apparent in the book still exist today, it is striking to be reminded of how far we’ve come in terms of technology and modern medicine.

If you crave literature that reminds you of the current moment but don’t want to read another COVID story, I recommend “The Pull of the Stars.”

As Donoghue’s characters do, you might find solace in the fact that the very modern-seeming problems we’re facing are not new: “The human race settles on terms with every plague in the end, the doctor told her.

Or a stalemate, at the least. We somehow muddle along, sharing the earth with each new form of life.”

March 18, 2021

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Vassar Still Life captures campus through shots of found objects Nina Ajemian Arts Editor

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assar Still Life is a messy museum of images that, collectively, can only be described as being so Vassar. The Instagram account (@vassarstilllife) shared its first post on Oct. 25, 2019 and has since posted 226 similarly random, yet oddly meaningful Vassar still lifes, most submitted anonymously by other Vassar students. Weird, contradictory, ironic and important, these photos mark the seemingly insignificant, yet evidently noteworthy, traces of our presence on this campus.

The subjects of these photographs range immensely: lonely masks abandoned on the sidewalk; milk cartons next to Marlboro cigarettes; overflowing recycling bins; unsuspecting solo cups in unexpected places.

Together, these found objects captured on camera tell the story of Vassar—its culture, its vibe and the random moments that make up life here.

I’ve followed @vassarstilllife since last spring and honestly wish I had come up with the idea myself, as many of my own photos easily fall into this genre. So I was really excited to meet the person behind the account, who wished to remain anonymous, and chat about this space that they have created.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Miscellany News: What sparked you to start Vassar Still Life?

Vassar Still Life: There was a bunch of random stuff just kind of left in the entrance of my dorm building one of the first few days, and I took a photo because I thought it was really funny—it was like olives and veggie chips and very stereotypically, I don’t know, Vassar. And I just took that and took a couple

other photos of random things I saw lying around move-in week, and they were just these little Vassar still lifes. And I was like, what if I just posted these random, little photos of just objects and little still lifes? And then I really enjoyed doing it, and it kind of spiraled.

The Misc: I liked the line in your bio: “intentional and unintentional readymade.” What does the idea of readymade mean to you, and when you were taking the photos how did you decide what you were going to photograph? What made you see something and think, “Oh, this is a Still Life—this is something I want to share?”

Vassar Still Life: The theme of the account is kind of split between what would more classically be just like a still life and what would be more like a readymade or Dada kind of inspired piece. But I guess I choose things that I feel either look interesting and look like they shouldn’t be there, or even if they should, anything that I feel reflects the culture or lives of Vassar students. I really just want the account to be authentic documentation of the way that people live at Vassar and the way that Vassar exists. And I feel like, especially with social media, it’s so focused on individual people or groups of people, and it’s very curated and edited and posed. And just photographing random objects the way that they just happen to occur or even setting up funny little tableaus of objects is a more authentic representation of daily life.

The Misc: What is it about Vassar and the culture here that you think makes it suited for this type of account?

Vassar Still Life: I feel like this account would be really different anywhere else.

What people are doing is reflected, so there are substances in photos and people doing art—it’s a lot of what people happen to leave around. It is really interesting to see the same things that reoccur in everyone’s photos, whether it’s photos my friends are sending me or people I don’t even know. Just like people doing creative things, like art supplies, also just like a lot of milk and cigarettes are in every photo.

The Misc: Definitely a theme. And I saw on your account that you made a zine [We paused here to discuss the pronunciation of the word “zine.”] with photos from last year, right? What was that process like?

Vassar Still Life: That was a project I’d wanted to do every semester of just compiling all the photos, doing tallies of what different objects reappear most, because I think the trends of what people have constantly around them is really interesting.

And I also just wanted to make the photos more connected to each other; even though they’re kind of posted randomly and not really in sync with each other, I wanted to

show that there are connections that you can make with some of them. And I also just really wanted to make a zine, and I left it a few places around campus and I want to do it again this semester, especially since I’ve gotten so many more submissions.

The Misc: Because this semester and this whole year is just so different than last year, do you feel like the connection to campus and that connection to your account feels different?

Vassar Still Life: Yeah, I definitely think so. It’s helped me stay connected to different parts of campus, especially with more restrictions on what dorms you can go into and not going into classroom buildings at all, basically. It’s really been nice to see that there’s life still happening in the places I’m not able to go.

Life is certainly still happening on campus, and @vassarstilllife reminds its followers of that. The little moments it shares are what really matter. These simple images of objects, clutter and messes are sacred. They are raw and real, a true reflection of Vassar’s offbeat character.

Courtesy of @vassarstilllife.

Exhibit examines public and private portrayals of women Continued from EXHIBIT on page 1 “The Checkered Dress,” a watercolor painted in 1907 by Hilda Belcher, depicts a young woman reclining in a chair. Her relaxed pose and casual dress place the setting firm-

other portrait of note, “Study of a Head,” was done by Vassar Class of 1870 alumna Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin. The daring close-up, unconventional for the time, enhances the unknown woman’s direct gaze. Her long,

Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News. ly in the domestic sphere. Belcher confessed she considered the painting “fake,” as it was constructed from various sources—her memory of a dress, her imagination and her friend and fellow artist Georgia O’Keefe’s face—rather than one distinct moment. An-

exposed neck, Gibson-girl styled hair and set jaw signal her modernity to the viewer, likely inspired by Coffin’s own identity as a college-educated, unmarried woman living in a time when the expectation for women was motherhood.

Moving into the second gallery, a series of domestic scenes and idyllic landscapes greet the visitor. Perhaps the most arresting painting is Florine Stettheimer’s “Natatorium Undine,” which displays diaphanous bodies garbed in whimsical hues frolicking about at a fantastical pool party. The artist herself can be seen at the top left, reclining under a yellow parasol. Stettheimer deeply valued her privacy, so it is no surprise that this decadent, exuberant gathering takes place in an imagined landscape rather than one drawn from her real life.

Finally, the third room contains documentary photographs as well as paintings and sketches that convey intellectual narratives. This gallery differs from the first two as it reveals the works created by women who entered the public sphere, a realm considered suitable only for men until the 20th century. An image entitled “Nurse Attending to Ill Woman at Home” offers an intimate look into the everyday life of ordinary New Yorkers during the early 1900s.

The photographer, Canadian-born Jessie Tarbox Beals, was part of a group documenting social conditions for charity organizations before becoming the first female news photographer in the United States.

Towards the center of this gallery is Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs’ allegorical linoleum cut, “Black Venus.” The cut parodies Sandro Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus,” but this goddess takes a more active role, steering two fish to ride over the waves rather than standing passively in a clam shell. According to the Loeb’s description of the piece, Burroughs promoted Black art and culture while fighting for social justice, co-founding the Southside Community Art Center and the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago to spread her love of art

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

to the community.

In “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Nochlin explains that “It was indeed institutionally made impossible for women to achieve artistic excellence, or success, on the same footing as men, no matter what the potency of their so-called talent, or genius.” Despite the limitations faced by women, the sheer diversity of subject matter, medium and style in the exhibit reveals that these artists’ creativity and imagination could not be extinguished by the prominent societal expectations of the 17th to mid-20th

Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News. centuries. “Women Picturing Women” serves as a recognition of female artistic pursuits in times when art was a man’s world, a farewell to the Loeb for Patricia Phagan and a renewed pledge for the museum to acquire and display more works by women.

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March 18, 2021

Asian-owned Fresco’s runs strong amid pandemic Janet Song

Features Editor

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hen you think of Fresco’s, “Asian business” does not come to mind. On a daily basis, the restaurant serves a variety of Mexican cuisine, from fajitas to tostada salads. But despite the warm tacos and tortillas it serves to the Poughkeepsie community, Fresco’s has been an Asian-owned business for eight years. Kim, the owner of Fresco’s, has had to adjust her small restaurant to a pandemic-stricken world. For the most part, however, the adjustment hasn’t been difficult.

“We closed our shop for a month [after we heard about the pandemic],” she explained to me on the phone. “After that we’ve been doing takeout for the last year.” Fresco’s continues to sell warm tortillas to Vassar students and Poughkeepsie residents.

Kim has been living in the United States

for 16 years, but only came to New York eight years ago. Her family originally emigrated from Fujian, China, to the United States, and as she described her past, she recalled some of her struggles settling in a new country. “What was most difficult was adjusting myself to English,” Kim said. “My English wasn’t great at first.” As she settled down, what drew her to Poughkeepsie was the community. “There are a lot of Chinese families in the town,” she said. “Overall, I feel that it’s a safe place with many nice people, with lots of police, teachers and doctors.”

Upon arriving in Poughkeepsie, Kim soon acquired Fresco’s after the previous owner retired. Today she continues to serve tacos, enchiladas and other favorites through takeout, and while she says nothing major has changed, she did explain to me some of the precautions she adopted when news of the

virus spread. “It was simple,” she explained.

“I continued to disinfect tables, wear masks and wash my hands once I was outside of work.”

As we talked, she briefly asked me about my own life at Vassar. “You’re an A.B.C. [American Born Chinese], right?” she asked. We had been speaking Mandarin through our interview, which had made me realize how much I had missed speaking the language back home with my parents. “My children, too, are in college,” she said. “I’ve always wondered what it’s like for them there.” While Kim told me she didn’t experience any anti-Asian racism during the pandemic, she has worried about her children: “I’m worried if they’re facing any racism on campus.”

She seemed to be in disbelief when I told her about how students weren’t allowed to

leave campus at the time of the interview.

“I see students come here all the time!” she cried. “Without masks!” I asked her to clarify. “Yes, I see them walking in front of our building,” Kim said. “So many of them,” though I couldn’t verify if they were students from Vassar.

And while her business continues to serve takeout, Kim explained how many dining restaurants have suffered since the pandemic. At the end of our interview, Kim emphasized safety as an important thing to keep in mind during COVID-19. “Wear protection, don’t leave campus without masks,” she said in a terse but well-meaning manner.

Continuing to practice COVID-19 protocol means the sooner restaurants can open and Fresco’s can allow indoor dining again.

To place an order, call Fresco’s at (845) 4856650.

Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News.

Welcome Oriental supplies foodstuffs, from boba to bean curd Taylor Stewart

Managing Editor

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elcome Oriental Grocery is situated about a mile north of Poughkeepsie’s Stewart Airport, in a New Hackensack strip mall. The family that currently runs the store inherited it from the previous owner. Welcome Oriental remains a small operation and cozy community staple. They stock goods that are all too rare in the Hudson Valley: In addition to staples of college cooking like spicy ramen, you’ll find snacks (with pickings from Thailand, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and more) and even fresh produce.

Running the grocery store doesn’t only involve shelving, customer service and cleanup; the owners are responsible for sourcing

their items, too. The variety would rival similar markets in the city. Naturally, the owners have one distributor in Brooklyn and one in Chinatown. They trek to the city to restock—a trip made not only more dangerous, but also quite troublesome, by the virus. They used to visit two times a week, ensuring that their shelves were stocked to maximum capacity, but due to increased closings among their distributors, they have had to reduce the ritual to once a week. They used to get hot prepared foods from NYC on Saturdays, roast duck and dim sum and the like—no more, ever since the pandemic.

While being a small business makes the daily schedule much busier, it does have its perks for the clientele, making shopping much more personal. The owners will often

add to their stock based on customer requests.

Or when popular American magazines feature a certain ingredient or product, they try to incorporate that food into their shelves to meet the new demand. Magazine features are to thank for Sriracha’s popularity it seems, and more recently chili crisp.

Some of the market’s “specialty” foods, many of which have similarly rose to fame in the West and across its social media, include brown sugar boba ice cream, bubble tea mixes, Thai ice tea and mochi (in many fun flavors). Welcome Oriental also offers frozen dumplings and buns, rice noodles of several shapes, an impressive array of condiments (from fish sauces to Japanese seven-flavor spice blend) and even meat substitutes like seitan and dried bean curd. The produce se-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

lection includes lemongrass, bitter melon, taro, enoki mushrooms, leek, often for much cheaper than at chain groceries in the area.

They even provide chopsticks and bamboo steamers.

Despite the unique barriers presented by distance and space—the store is but a few shelves, though they are packed satisfactorily— the owners do humbly insist that business continues to run smoothly, virus and all.

People still need to cook after all, maybe more now than ever. And with former NYC residents relocating to the Hudson Valley (former frequenters of perhaps the country’s greatest Asian grocers), the clientele may have even expanded. Welcome Oriental refuses to fret.

You can contact Welcome Oriental at (845)462-6433.

March 18, 2021

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A candid conversation about cannabis consumption on campus

Continued from WEED on page 1 “It’s definitely more present than at a lot of my friends’ colleges. I think that Vassar is also stereotyped as a ‘hippie-liberal,’ very weed-friendly place,” she explained. One junior interviewed remarked, “I feel like everyone smokes weed at Vassar. I don’t know that many people who don’t smoke on campus.”

But perhaps this culture is an imagined version of a few stoners’ dreams. The employee, who has worked at Vassar for less than a year, hasn’t noticed too much of a weed culture at Vassar. “I don’t walk around and think this is a pot school, but I have no idea,” she said.

COVID-19 restrictions have made large gatherings, where alcohol consumption is the norm, largely obsolete. In turn, some students, the interviewees say, are turning towards marijuana. To the sophomore, the restrictions dissuade her from drinking because she consumes alcohol at large social gatherings. “There’s no TH parties, so the social gatherings are more weed-friendly to me,” she explained.

The Vassar employee agrees that college is a formative time in one’s weed journey.

Recalling her first year at a liberal arts college, she said, “It was time to spread my wings and just rip bong constantly. Then I got my freshman year grades back and was just like, ‘Oh shit, I’m definitely not a functioning stoner.’”

The novelty of the college experience and being away from home isn’t the only catalyst for cannabis consumption. With mandatory state and college quarantines lasting up to two weeks, it’s no wonder that people may want to pass the time with a little more zhoosh. Reminiscing over nostalgic memories, the employee chuckled. “If you’re bored, it makes anything a task. The movie turns into an Imax,” she said.

Returning to a quarantined campus was the perfect recipe for being chronically baked. Thanks to a staggered move-in, students were on campus for up to 17 days

before classes started. This, coupled with freezing temperatures and snow, forced students inside most days. What does a 20-something college student do when they are trapped inside with no homework for multiple weeks on end? As the employee told me, “If you’re feeling under-stimulated it’s a great way to stimulate yourself.”

Of course, the pandemic has exacerbated existing and newfound mental health problems globally, and many have turned to weed for relief. According to a September 2020 study of college students, 71 percent indicated increased stress and anxiety because of the pandemic. Beyond that, social isolation and disruption to sleep patterns have also increased among college students during these uncertain times. Unsurprisingly, marijuana consumption has also increased during the pandemic.

The students say they use marijuana to destress, sleep and generally lift spirits.

The sophomore detailed her health benefits from smoking. “I first started upping my consumption as a response to depression and anxiety because it helps me a lot,” she explained. “I also use it to relax. I feel so much more positive.” Both students said they consume to combat the stress from the demanding college workload and pandemic-related mental pressures. The junior explained, “I’m stressed pretty often and high strung, so you know, [weed] helps. Sleep is a big one, too.”

The employee prefers CBD tincture and edibles because she’s worried about lung damage. “I’ve been consuming a lot of CBD, because I like athletics, and after a hard workout CBD is a way to give your muscles a little treat,” she described. “[I’m] trying to stay kind to the lungs, [so] edibles have been really great.”

All three also choose weed over alcohol consistently, citing myriad health benefits and lamenting the volatile effects of drinking. The sophomore passionately said, “I don’t think they’re even comparable. I don’t like how I feel after I drink, and I love how

I feel after I smoke—that means like right after, it means a few hours after, [and] the next morning.”

The employee also made similar claims, “I think alcohol is the devil. Alcohol makes you make stupid decisions. Weed doesn’t.”

She then gave a would-you-rather question on choosing alcohol or weed, and concluded, “I will never ever regret choosing the high night because I’ll get a great amount of sleep, and I won't have any hangover.”

Of course, there can be negative effects to using cannabis, and users should proceed with caution. The sophomore who smokes to relieve anxiety says, “There are definitely downsides for some people but for me it’s mostly positive.”

The junior knows someone who had cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, a rare condition that makes long-term users consistently vomit. Some also have allergic reactions to marijuana.

Due to its FDA status as a Schedule I drug, the same legal status as heroin, marijuana is largely understudied. Widespread miracle health claims, as well as severe negative effects, have yet to be fully studied, and more studies are needed.

The CDC acknowledges the wide-ranging health effects too: “Marijuana use may have a wide range of health effects on the body and brain.” Indeed, the effects are far and wide. The CDC’s list of potential effects ranges from short-term memory loss to pain relief for cancer patients. But the CDC also acknowledges the lack of data, concluding, “More research is needed to understand the full impact of marijuana use on cancer.”

The interviewees also gave their opinions on legalization. To remove Schedule I status and facilitate scientific research, though, federal legalization is necessary. Both students expressed strong support for legalization. While there is a growing patchwork of legal states, marijuana is still federally illegal and is not for sale in New York. But Democratic Senate leaders are pushing for comprehensive cannabis reform. This is

seen as a necessary step by many, as there are still more than half a million arrests for marijuana possession each year in the US, not to mention the disproportionate number of Black and Latinx individuals who are arrested. “Weed is very harmless, and by legalizing it you’re going to make it more accessible and have less arrests,” the employee argued.

These conversations around cannabis continue to evolve. With the drug having achieved legal status in Canada in 2018, and with Mexico having just legalized marijuana last week, a pan-North-American cannabis heaven could be a few short years away. “That would be a beautiful feature,” the sophomore said, but she says she can’t wait. “After hearing that, I’m probably gonna move to Mexico,” she announced gleefully. The junior was also in support, “I think it would be good for the global political economy and world peace. There would be less trafficking.”

These deep and dank moonlit conversations about weed’s status on campus and beyond will no doubt continue as long as marijuana and Sunset Lake exist.

Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

HUMOR

Page 10

March 18, 2021

Breaking News

From the desk of Izzy Migani, Humor Editor

Students distraught after Express Dunkin iced coffee replaced with kombucha Desperate inquirer asks Dr G: Is OnlyFans my only option?

Dear Dr. G, I was inspired by your last article, as I, too, am strapped for cash, but I’m not really into the whole sugar baby thing. Do you have any other ideas to find some funds without buying into my own mommy/daddy issues?

-Too Salty to be a Sugar Baby Dear Salty, I’m going to be transparent and say that I didn’t expect many people to be 100% into the idea of being a sugar baby just from the last article. Who can blame them? Adults are scary and f*cked up (I know, I’m an adult who is scary and f*cked up), and generally I think we gravitate away from people who are 30+ years older than us. If you don’t, to each their own, but for the layman there has to be another way. That is why I am going to reveal to you my ultimate money making plan that is guaranteed to help you earn a crazy amount of money in a short amount of time.

You should make an OnlyFans account with your Pod. Let me explain myself. Your pod is a group of individuals that you trust with your COVID-safety and therefore effectively your life. I know many students on campus spent many long and hard hours agonizing over which Emma or which friend from the Lax team to put in your group, and we all had to settle on just five other people at most.

These are the people with whom you certainly spend the most of your time, and it’s possible that you’ve even already considered boning one or two of them. This is probably a discussion that would come up very much in a “haha jkjk… unless?” situation, and it is here that I implore you to find truth in that ‘unless’. You have already had so many talks about community norms and safety standards with these people, and who better to make raunchy pornographic

content with?

First, have that chat. Bring everyone to your favorite room in Rocky, the one with the vulva-shaped seminar table, maybe even buy everyone a coffee, and start your pitch. We have all seen the ridiculous amounts of money that solo acts make on OnlyFans, and accounts which feature more than one individual regularly are proven to make even more each month (Idk I made that up, but like probably).

You would all never need to worry about funds for the laundry machine, running out of Arlington Bucks, or the cost of your online shopping ever again. And all for the small price of your precious friendship?

Hell, that will probably survive all of this if you make enough money. When was the last time that money or sex ruined anything?

Next, make the account and start creating content. Account creation is easy, as

long as every member of your pod is of legal age you should have no problem (you do need to send in a photo of your driver’s license though, so if your pod has any gay New York City kids they just can’t participate I guess). To plan content, just ask yourself: what do horny strangers want to see college kids doing? I mean, you can totally just have normal sex and post that, but you could also use gimmicks, role play, and costumes to give your content an extra pop.

The CCT says that if you’re in a space with just your pod you can have your masks off, so what is stopping you from casually making a sex tape in one of the Swift classrooms after hours?

Just remember, if another person joins you will all need to be masked. Plus, after all these weird Vassar party themes I know everyone has enough quirky clothes to make some interesting costumes. Holidays, Halloween costumes, Founder’s Day, whatever

bizarre-themed party you went to at the frisbee TH that one time, the closet of a Vassar student is a gold mine of illicit clothing and funny props to put on and then quickly take off in the throes of love making.

Finally, be smart! For instance, make sure you set aside part of your funds from your group adventure to pay your taxes at the end of the year (for further questions about this, reach out to your favorite economics professor). You’ll also want to make sure you’re not conspicuous about the amount of money you’re making; the cashier at Crafted Kup might be confused if you’re suddenly buying 30 cups of coffee a week, all in small bills. Finally, when you become rich and famous from this new venture, be sure to make your regular donations to Vassar through the Alumni Association so that future students can continue the beautiful and illicit lifestyle we have all come to know and love at Vassar today.

Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News.

Flying the coop: The time I gave my mother the bird Vivian Phillips

P

Delinquent Child

arents set the stage for the relationships we have with our emotions for the rest of our lives. A mother’s hug exposes us to the warmth of love, a game of peekaboo inspires our first laugh—but among all of these experiences that guide our relationship choices until we seek therapy, perhaps the most vital, is a child’s exposure to shame. There is nothing like shame to hold a household together.

This is a principle that my mother, Dawn Phillips, holds dearly in her heart. The first time I was awakened to my mother’s true gift for inducing guilt was at the tender age of six and a half. With only 17 teeth to my name, I found it difficult to digest not only tough meat but also my mother’s various crash courses in etiquette.

I had just spilled my drink during our family dinner—a mistake my mother would usually reprimand me about all night—but tonight was different. Tonight, I decided to take matters into my own hands and apologize. I figured my actions would mean more than my words, so I decided to

mime out “I love you” to my mom across the dinner table. I began with the “I,” and a decision had to be made about which finger I would use to spell it with. My pointer finger was too crooked. It was too difficult for me to extend my ring finger alone. I needed a clear, long capital “I”—and what better finger to use than the one dead center. My mother was like God and I was standing in the Garden of Eden. My forbidden fruit?

My tallest finger. Like the flick of a lighter, my middle finger popped out right in front of Dawn’s rapidly widening eyes. Much like Eve, completely unaware of her nakedness, I had no idea that at the age of six, I had just silently told my mother “Fuck you” right after spilling milk on her prized rug.

Screams. Shrieks. The sound of a mother’s horror at the sight of what preschool had done to her only child. Everything happened so quickly I didn’t even have time to finish miming the heart or the “U.” I was sent to my room sobbing, confused at how dinner went from being mildly tense to explosive in a matter of seconds. All I knew was that I had done something wrong—but

not the usual, inconsequential mistake.

This was wrong in a different way. Sitting on my bed I considered turning my stuffed animals’ faces away from me.

A knock on my door was followed by my mother timidly walking into my room one step at a time. She sat down on my bed and started to cry. “Yikes,” I remember thinking to myself. Now I just felt uncomfortable, and I still had no idea what was wrong. I was very close to writing the whole series of events off as purely a her problem, when she asked me point blank: “Do you have any idea how using a symbol like that makes me feel?”

“How could I,” I thought to myself, “you didn’t even let me finish.”

I tried to pitch my case but we didn’t seem to be understanding one another.

Each time I brought the finger back to try to finish miming “I love you” to her, she just seemed to get more upset. I was at my wit’s end.

“Do you even know what that finger MEANS?” she asked.

Things were getting interesting. Pandora’s box had been opened. God herself

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

became her own worst enemy. “No. What does it mean?” I asked. Silence. We stared at each other. I cocked my head to the side.

My mother shifted from her body weight from her right butt cheek to her left butt cheek. “Well, you see,” she began, “That finger represents a word. A word that many people find to be very offensive.”

“What word?” I asked. Silence.

“Well you see,” she began, “There is this—activity—that two people engage in when they really love one another—when they want to make a baby.”

I nodded my head.

She went on, “There are acceptable words for this and there are bad words for this. That finger represents one of the bad words for this.”

She hadn’t answered my question.

“What word?” I asked.

Dawn was cornered in a moral dilemma.

Should she or should she not introduce her six year old to the word “fuck?”

“The word,” she said, “Is ‘fuck.’”

Dawn Phillips may be a master at the art of critique, but she has zero improvisational skills.

HUMOR

March 18, 2021

“Probably not. I wouldn’t last two days in the wilderness.”

— Tori Horner ’23

Could you out-survive Bear Grylls?

Madi Donat, Assistant Humor Editor

"Depends on where we are!

Maybe!”

— Julien Peck ’22

HOROSCOPES

Page 11

“I don’t think I could take him.

If anyone says yes to that, then they’re wrong.”

— Johnathan Dean ’22

“[After some hesitation] No. Definitely not.”

—Livia Shine ’24

“Definitely not. I wouldn’t survive a second."

— Lola Wright ’24

“Definitely not, no. I’d lose.”

— Julian Lindenmaier ’22

Banner design by Frankie Knuckles/The Miscellany News.

ARIES

March 21 | April 19

Madi Donat

Astral Projector

The sun is giving us all serotonin, so why not plan a heist with your friends! Make sure that whatever you steal is completely useless and only for show. Oh, and one of you can do that thing where you descend on a cable from the ceiling.

Enjoying the spring-ish weather? Take a nap in

TAURUS a sunbeam. It’s the perfect activity for avoiding all

April 20 | May 20

GEMINI

May 21 | June 20

your responsibilities and feeling very much like a cat.

Prime time is between 3 and 6 p.m., but you can work it into your schedule wherever it fits.

Bored of the skateboarding, biking and frisbee-ing?

Try and come up with a unique outdoor activity—like climbing trees…or buildings. [CRC DOES NOT APPROVE OF SCALING CAMPUS BUILDINGS. THE MISC IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY CONDUCT VIOLATION.] To switch things up, eat at different spots around cam-

CANCER pus. I'm especially partial to Admissions and the Quad,

June 21 | July 22

LEO

July 23 | August 22

VIRGO

but there are tons of fun little corners to hang out! Send your most unique eating spots to me. :) My phone number will come to you in a dream.

What’s a hobby you used to love, but never do anymore? I used to draw all the time, and I could consume multiple novels a day. Now all I do is drink coffee, do assignments poorly, eat hot chip and lie. I don’t have advice for you this week, I’m sorry; I just want to vent.

August 23 | September 22

Confession: I use about six different color highlighters when I take notes and every time I’m in class and I take out my little highlighters I feel like everybody is looking at me and judging me. “Why does she need so many highlighters??” I don’t know!!!!! I just like them!!!!

LIBRA

September 23 | October 22

SCORPIO

October 23 | November 21

Friends sometimes ask me to read their natal charts but I never really fully understood what Scorpios are up to, despite one of my best friends of six years being one.

So, if you don’t mind: Hi! How are you? What goes on in your head? How do you approach relationships?

Being nice and kind and normal is absolutely defiSAGITTARIUS nitely 100 percent recommended. But sometimes it’s November 22 | also okay to just scream a little bit. Have you screamed December 21 recently? Try it out! It’s a cool pastime and I find it quite cleansing.

Everything is changing all the time!! Isn’t that

CAPRICORN crazy??? And we’re all just supposed to deal with

December 22 | it like it’s normal! There are probably changes January 19 happening with you, too. But they’ll probably be good, I think. I don’t know, though; I can’t actually tell the future. Unless…?

AQUARIUS

January 20 | February 18

PISCES

There’s lots of ways to be adventurous without actually going on a walk or something. Maybe you could dip your fries in a different sauce. Or wear clashing patterns. I’m really bad at being adventurous, so that’s where my suggestions stop, but I wish you good luck.

Ah your second quarantine birthday. Don’t let it

February 19 | get you down! There’s tons of ways to celebrate. Zoom cocktail hour, pod dinners, not doing your homework March 20

B’S CORNER

BY B GOMEZ

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

What if you deleted all your social media? No, like seriously, I’m asking. What would happen? Do you think it would be really good, or really bad? Or bad at first, and then good? I don’t know. I guess you couldn’t order bagels on the Vassar Facebook then, though.

in favor of going to bed at a reasonable 9 p.m.…the possibilitiesare endless.

HUMOR

Page 12

March 18, 2021

Student dreaming of ‘Californication’ clearly struggling Blair Webber

Righteous Dude

A

year into the pandemic, many people are struggling with their mental health. We remain isolated from one another even as vaccinations promise the end of social distancing. One student, sophomore James Jones ’23, feels he has found the key to not just functioning but thriving in these uncertain times.“I listen to ‘Californication’ by the Red Hot Chili Peppers every day,” said Jones. “It fixes everything.

My life is perfect. Better than therapy.”

His claim rang a little hollow with this Misc reporter. While I am a firm believer of listening to one song over and over and over until you’ve learned every rhythm in every voice in every verse, bridge, hook and chorus, in all my years of only listening to one song at a time, not one has ever “fixed” my whole “life.” So I dug a little deeper.

Mickey Rich '23, Jones’s roommate, had a different perspective on his roommate’s listening habits. “He needs help,” said Rich, “And at this point, so do I. He plays it every second of every day. I’m not exaggerating.

I have to go to Zoom class in the parlor because he won’t turn it off. If I ever hear ‘Californication’ by The Red Hot Chili Peppers one more time, I don’t—I mean, I’ll snap.

I can’t be held responsible for my actions anymore after that.” Jones elaborated on the ways that one song has fixed his life. “It’s made me realize I can’t be held responsible for my actions. And when you realize that, that it doesn’t matter what you do because y’know tidal waves can’t save the world and whatever, it’s better than therapy. I can just let all my issues go and say ‘It’s not my fault.’”

Rich commented on the extremes to which Jones has taken this realization.

“Yeah so him and his girlfriend were in a fight because of something he thought she posted on Vassar Confessions—I mean it could’ve been anyone honestly it was so vague, like about someone’s favorite pooping spot on campus or something—anyway, there’s that line in ‘Californication’ that’s like ‘Destruction leads to a very rough road but it also breeds creation’ or something,’”

Rich shared, “Yeah. He thought he was trashing her room, but he actually trashed her neighbor’s room. Those guys were PISSED.” Jones’s girlfriend, who asked to remain anonymous, declined to comment beyond saying,

“Tell him to stop proposing to me by asking me to be his ‘Fairy to the world.’”

Jones’ friends have tried to intervene. “He keeps saying it’s ‘better than therapy.’ I don’t know what that means, but I do know that trashing his girlfriend’s room stemmed from his inability to differentiate between

“'He needs help,'” said Rich, 'And at this point, so do I. He plays it every second of every day.

I’m not exaggerating. I have to go to Zoom class in the parlor because he won’t turn it off."

Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News. his automatic negative thoughts—particularly mind reading, blaming others and catastrophizing—and a mindful understanding of his emotions and triggers,” Jones’ friend offered.

The friend continued, “I know therapy isn’t for everyone, but one RHCP song isn’t working either, so I don’t know. I just want to be a good friend. I keep offering to let him listen to Mr. Bungle with me but he’s not into it.”

In the meantime, Rich has been working to clearly define his own boundaries.

“I’ve already caught him singing ‘Californication’ shirtless in front of a green screen sky a few times, but I think as soon as he tries to bleach his own hair, I have to take some serious action.”

FROG AND TOAD ARE FRENEMIES

by Julianna + Olivia

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

March 18, 2021

OPINIONS

Page 13

U.S. must reconsider its military presence in the Middle East Sanya Malhotra Guest Columnist

O

n Feb. 26, President Joe Biden authorized an airstrike just over the border in Syria. The stated purpose of the strike was a retaliatory measure after an Iranian-based militia, Hezbollah, attacked an airport in Erbil, Iraq that killed a civilian contractor and wounded at least seven Americans. The American airstrikes came after more than a week of consultation with key Cabinet officials and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, aimed at a calibrated military response. Seven 500-pound bombs were dropped on a small cluster of buildings on the Syria-Iraq border that were specifically meant to destroy a controlled unit of Iranian-backed militia troops, including Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada.

The attack in Erbil was claimed by Awliya al-Dam, an unrecognized group, but intelligence determined that the group is a front for Iran’s proxy attacks on Americans. The number of casualties among the Iranian troops has not been officially released, but American officials stated that a handful of militia members were killed. Nevertheless, the United States is not seeking to escalate tensions with Iran but rather to send a message: “You can’t act with impunity,” a message Biden reiterated publicly that was also sent confidentially to Tehran. The tit-for-tat scenario playing out between Iran and the United States traces back to the drone strike in Baghdad that killed top Iranian commander, Major General Qasem Soleimani.

A new report from The Wall Street Journal reveals further deliberation by Biden on the days and hours leading up to the airstrike in Syria. National security officials considered potential responses in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. Because of the United States’ partnership with the Iraqi government, they chose to target Syria to maintain diplomatic relations. The morning of Feb. 25, Biden finalized two targets in Syr-

ia after an assessment of risk factors. Just 30 minutes before the strike with F-15Es in the air, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan reported to Biden that there were women and children around the second target. Biden called off the strike.

The airstrike in Syria marks Biden’s first use of force since entering office. His decision to do so is in continuation of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that prioritizes the protection of Americans overseas. The number of U.S. troops stationed in Iraq to aid the fight against the Islamic State group has decreased to under 2500.

Though long-term goals of Biden’s policy in the Middle East have not been clearly outlined, the actions by the government will have consequences for the region and the United States. The United States has a long history of interfering in the Middle East through the use of oil, proxies and bombs. Since President George W. Bush advocated for increased troops in Iraq, the U.S. has expressed that without its presence and influence in the Middle East, the entire region would descend into chaos; however, each step that the United States further entrenches itself into the affairs of the region, the more chaos and violence springs up. Emerging diplomacy among Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates following Trump’s withdrawal of troops from the region were quickly dashed when he then ordered the assassination of Qassem Suleimani. With the “global war on terrorism” waged by the Bush administration in the early 2000s, the idea of boots on the ground in the Middle East has been equated to a fight for freedom and democratic values in the American mind. Yet this “freedom fight” has led to death and destruction in the region, dating back to the start of imperialist expansion following the end of World War I. The United States government must ask itself what purpose the troops still

stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan serve: Are they there to fight terrorism and disseminate Western values, or is it simply a ploy for oil money and control? Words may elicit the notions of democracy and freedom being the sole purpose, but the very ideals are questioned when Saudi oil partnerships seem to take precedence over the list of human rights abuses committed by the Saudi government in neighboring countries. In one way or another, the terrain of the Middle East has become a playground for the United States, exploiting it through both ineffective diplomacy and force.

Take for example Syria, the target for the U.S. airstrike. The country has endured a decade of war by state and non-state actors, leaving it divided economically and politically among the government, the Islamic State group, Kurds, Turkish troops and other organizations. The economy is

in distress with the Syrian pound trading at about one percent of pre-Civil War value on the black market. In the surrounding areas, 6.6 million registered Syrian refugees must live outside of their homeland for safety reasons. One of the causes of this crisis is U.S. sanctions, a failed attempt to advance human rights under the broken Assad regime in Syria that has only created more poverty in the country.

The espoused foreign policy goals the United States proposes to its people and the world do not match their practice.

Pressure from Iran shown through their violent attacks on U.S. military forces can justify the decision to launch an airstrike in Syria for now, but sooner or later our presence there will be obsolete and inessential. The government has the power and resources to aid victims of war waged by the United States. Bombs cannot be the only answer.

Courtesy of Joe Biden via Flickr.

Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News.

The opinions expressed above do not represent those of The Miscellany News as a whole.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

SPORTS

Page 14

March 18, 2021

Montgomery, former WNBA star, activist, purchases Dream Jackie Molloy

W

Assistant Sports Editor

hen Raphael Warnock was sworn in as Georgia’s new senator on 20 Jan., helping to hand the Democratic party the keys to the Senate, it was apparent that he was there because of Black women. Stacey Abrams and other grassroots organizers in Georgia had spent the last few years, and especially the last few months, registering and mobilizing millions of voters in their state, working to disprove the notion that Georgia, or any other Southern state, couldn’t be blue. These organizers celebrated all over Twitter and rightfully so. Yet, there is one group of women that were largely left out from these celebrations— those responsible for originally launching Warnock into the purview of the national eye.

Warnock was polling at just nine percent when players across the WNBA decided to wear “Vote Warnock” t-shirts in August of last year, setting his campaign alight and catapulting his Senate race to the forefront of minds across the country.

Why was the WNBA throwing their support around this one candidate in this one state?

The answer is simple: Kelly Loeffler, former U.S. senator and former co-owner of the Atlanta Dream. Loeffler bought the team along with Mary Brock in 2010, and in subsequent years could often be seen courtside mingling with Dream staff. After she was appointed to retiring Senator Johnny Isakson’s spot in late 2019, Loeffler established herself as a hardcore Trump loyalist, but it wasn’t until she publicly condemned the WNBA’s support for the

Black Lives Matter movement in an open letter to commissioner Cathy Engelbert that the calls for her head, and her seat, came to fruition. When her comments criticized the peaceful BLM movement for violence and echoed the popular “stick to sports” rhetoric, there was an immediate outcry from players across the league, which is one of, if not the most, politically active in all of sports. When their first demand to oust Loeffler from her ownership was denied by the league, the players turned to Loeffler’s senate race. After some deliberation and talk over Zoom, Seattle Storm star Sue Bird came up with the idea of the Warnock t-shirt and it played out from there.

After Warnock successfully beat Loeffler in January’s special Georgia run-off, the WNBA returned to their original objective: ousting Loeffler from the league.

And that is where Renee Montgomery comes in. A former Dream player herself, the two-time WNBA champion and UConn all-star had decided to initially sit out the 2020 season due to concerns about COVID-19 and to dedicate herself to social justice activism. When Loeffler’s comments about BLM surfaced, Montgomery sought to meet with Loeffler to discuss her concerns––but Loeffler refused the conversation. Later, when Lebron James announced on Twitter that he would be interested in forming a group to buy the Dream from Loeffler, Montgomery immediately reached out to see what steps she would need to take to get involved. That inquiry led to her joining a triple-pronged investment team with Larry Gottesdiener and Suzanne Abair, two executives from

the Massachusetts-based real estate firm Northland Investment Corp. The trio purchased the Dream in late February 2021.

It’s a Hollywood-worthy tale: after being denied a meeting, former player ousts racist owner by buying the team herself.

It is certainly a wish come true for the Dream’s new Vice President Montgomery, who is the first retired WNBA player to become both an owner and an executive.

The idea of a Black woman owner and sports executive receives little representation, but this is a promising step. Montgomery’s investment comes after a period of many high-profile women investing in National Women’s Soccer League teams, including the new expansion team Angel City, which has a majority female ownership group whose members include Natalie Portman, Serena Williams and Mia Hamm. The visibility of these women in positions of power demonstrates an encouraging move towards legitimizing women in sports, a world in which they have consistently been harassed, demeaned and taken for granted. Women’s leagues are never marketed, televised or supported at the same level as their male counterparts, even when they bear the brunt of off-field community work. The WNBA brought attention to police brutality and the BLM movement even before Colin Kaepernick, and the U.S. Women’s National Team as well as the National Women’s Hockey League have both consistently spoken out about equal pay opportunities.

It was a great day for the WNBA when Kelly Loeffler was officially no longer a part of its league, and it was even better

that she was ousted by a former player.

More than just expelling a villain, the WNBA demonstrated the power they have over their league, a place where hate, bigotry and disrespect will face retaliation.

It is clear from the example of Loeffler that if you violate any of the league’s standards, they will come for your head, your seat and your stake.

Courtesy of SusanLesch via Wikimedia Commons.

Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

SPORTS

March 18, 2021

Page 15

The 'Answer': Statistical fact or basketball myth?

Alex Eisert

Sports Editor

W

hat bearing does a player’s defense have on their offense? Ideally, players would be able to separate the two, for in a literal sense, they do not impact each other: Whether you give up seven errors in a half inning or make a spectacular diving play, you’ll still come up to bat regardless. Whether you give up a wide-open three-pointer after a defensive lapse or make an earth-shattering rejection off the backboard and get your own rebound, all the same, your next step will be to get the ball to the other end of the court and attempt to score.

Practically, however, this is not the case.

Obviously, the amount of runs you give up on the field or the amount of points you allow on defense will dictate the strategy coaches use at the other end. For example, if you are suddenly losing by a ton, the coach will bring in your mop-up reliever or your third-team subs. But beyond game plan, is there another manner in which defensive play can subtly impact offense? And can we measure it in a way that separates it from mere changes in strategy?

After running the numbers from Kaggle’s NBA play-by-play dataset for 2018-2019, I’ve concluded that the answers to the questions above are, respectively, yes and yes we can. I chose this dataset because, aside from it being the last full NBA season, in watching a lot of Knicks basketball these last few months (it’s hard not to, because they are actually good for the first time in seven years), I’ve noticed that teams seem more likely to shoot three-pointers immediately following the other team making one. The play-by-play nature of the dataset allowed me to isolate field goal attempts that came one after another. In other words, I could avoid shots that were separated by a timeout, foul, substitution or any other stoppage. Removing pairs of shots that were detached from each other in any of these ways also helped minimize the likelihood of any change in strategy; any shift in shot selection would thus be attributable to a more reflexive behavior in response to giving up a field goal on defense.

I theorized that of all the types of field goals, allowing a three-pointer would lead to the most significant behavioral change purely because threes are worth the most points.

Giving up a three-ball might instill a sense of urgency in the defense as they transition to offense, a need to reclaim those lost points. At first glance, this seemed to be the case. There were 17,794 shots taken immediately after the other team scored a three; aside from these shots, there were 201,663 shots taken in the entire season. After giving up a three, teams shot a three themselves 38.7 percent of the time. Otherwise, they only shot a three 35.6 percent of the time, an extremely significant statistical difference given the large sample size (p < 1^-15). But one question remained: Do players have the same inclination to “answer,” say, two-point jumps shots, with one of

Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News. their own, that they do with threes?

For two-point jumpers, the answer is a resounding yes (31.3 to 26.3 percent; p < 1^-15).

Same goes for two-point hook shots (4.67 to 3.84 percent; p < 0.05). However, teams were significantly less likely to go for a layup when answering layups compared to going for a layup any other time (23.7 to 28.1 percent; p < 1^-15) and significantly less likely to answer dunks with dunks (4.90 to 5.83 percent; p < 0.0005; see Figure 1). But don’t dismiss the “answer” effect so fast; layups and dunks were probably less likely to be answered because they often happen on fastbreaks. A successful fastbreak is almost never immediately followed by another because the other team has to inbound the ball, providing the team coming off of the fastbreak with time to get back on defense. The answer effect would likely be present if we were to only look at layups and dunks that didn’t occur on fastbreaks; sadly, this data isn’t available on Kaggle.

Because of the lack of fastbreaks after a basket, one might argue that the answer effect I captured above for threes, two-point jumpers and hook shots is just a result of every other type of shot getting more play at the expense of layups and dunks. It turned out that teams responding to a made three were also far more likely to shoot a two-point jumper than they would be otherwise (30.6 to 26.4 percent; p < 1^-15), and the likelihood of answering a twopoint jumper in kind was only slightly higher than the likelihood of answering a three with a two-point jumper (31.3 to 30.6 percent; p = 0.20). While the likelihood of answering a three in kind was significantly higher than the likelihood of answering a two-point jumper with a three (38.7 to 37.4 percent; p < 0.05), it is worth noting this effect is small relative to some of the miniscule p-values for two-point jumpers and threes above.

In addition, teams were insignificantly more likely to opt for a hook (4.00 to 3.84 percent; p = 0.29) after a made three and for a three after a made hook (36.0 to 35.9 percent; p = 0.86). But, teams were significantly more likely to go with the hook after giving up a two-point jumper (4.40 to 3.81 percent; p < 0.001) and to go with a two-point jumper after giving up a hook (31.4 to 26.6 percent; p < 5^-7).

This led me to a different conclusion: What we should be looking at is similarities across types of shots. Two-point jumpers and threes are both jumpshots, while two-point jumpers

and hooks are both two-point shots. My theory was already in need of revising because the strong effects associated with answering two-point jumpers and hook shots in kind run contrary to the idea that trying to answer three-pointers leads to the largest behavioral change. Rather, it seems that players just try to emulate what they see working for their opponent, whether it is an exact emulation or just something similar—big men aren’t as adept at shooting jumpers, for example, so their way of emulating an opponent’s two-point jump shot might be with a hook.

This result is in line with the social psychological theory of informational social influence, which states that when we don’t know all the facts, like which type of shot is best to take, we will look to others (in this case, opponents) to see if they know what works. We do this because we have a desire to be correct in our assessments of the world.

On the other hand, this phenomenon

“Answer Attempts” measures how often teams who have just given up a basket copy their opponents’ shot type. “Other Attempts” illustrates how often teams opt for each type of shot otherwise (i.e., not after giving up a shot or after giving up a different kind of shot). Alex Eisert/The Miscellany News. could also result from normative influence: Even when we do have good information, or an idea of which shot to take, our desire to fit in and conform might override that. In other words, even if an opponent’s two-point jumper isn’t falling, a player might still go for a two-point jumper themself just because they are being cued to conform. To test normative influence, I needed to see whether players were also more likely to answer a failed three-point shot, two-point jumper or hook

Answers to last week’s crossword puzzles

“What's the point?”

By Reese Collins

shot attempt with one of their own. I excluded layups and dunks because of the fastbreak issue; although with a missed shot there is no inbounding, fastbreaks still happen more often on steals and blocks than defensive rebounds, and I selected only those missed shots that were immediately followed by defensive rebounds and a subsequent shot at the other end.

There were 26,812 shots taken right after the other team missed a three; aside from these shots, there were 192,645 shots taken the entire season. After thwarting a threepoint attempt, teams shot threes themselves 37.6 percent of the time. Otherwise, they only shot a three 35.6 percent of the time, a very significant result (p < 1^-9), though slightly less so than when answering made threes.

Interestingly, this effect went in the opposite direction for missed two-point jumpers (25.2 to 26.8 percent; p < 1^-5), and was not significant at all for hook shots (3.65 to 3.85 percent;

“Themeless #1” By Ian Rosevear

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

p = 0.60).

In sum, while we can’t speak for layups and dunks, all other shots likely activate informational influence cues when made, one subtle way that defense impacts offense in the NBA. But only successfully defending against threes appears to induce another subtle effect (while two-point jumpers might even deter it) on offense: normative influence. Perhaps there is something special about threes after all.

March 18, 2021

CROSSWORD The Miscellany Crosswords “Themeless #2”

ACROSS 1. Sport played with a quaffle 10. Droid salespeople in "Star Wars" 15. Emphasize, in a way 16. Warning 17. Flies solo 18. Before now 19. Allege 20. Cut (off) 22. Most common English word 23. Beer barrels 24. Offshore income haven 28. Swindler 30. Constellation with a belt 31. "We're gonna get started now" 35. Applications 37. Goof 38. Colombia-Venezuela border river 41. Bird that can run 31 miles per hour 42. Trim 44. Children's game with lots of instructions 46. Rather rotund 49. Moral principle 50. Bat moonlighter 52. Tavern orders 56. Dull routine 57. VCR button 58. Get down for a prayer 59. Belittle 61. Subject of a 2012 Supreme Court ruling 65. Tempting call 66. Ralph Macchio martial arts movie, with "The"

By Ian Rosevear

67. FaceTime alternative 68. Some women of rank

DOWN 1. Make like a duck 2. "I surrender!"

3. Cat collar component, maybe 4. Stops 5. Nip 6. Ailing 7. Madre's hermano 8. Wolf Blitzer's airer 9. Tall footwear 10. Type of quartz 11. ___ Baba 12. Set sail 13. Nemesis 14. Take the wheel 21. Exclamation of discovery 24. Rank 25. Mythical shield 26. Dish competitor 27. Actress Lucy of "Elementary" 29. "Game of Thrones" network 31. "___ Misérables" 32. Eponymous cube inventor 33. Feeder river 34. Ladies' club restriction 36. Dodgy, as an imposter 39. Sherbet holder 40. Impersonal pronoun 43. Upper-bod muscle 45. Attitudes 47. Tranquil 48. Ram's ma'am

50. Sousaphone's section 51. Came to 53. Makes public, as information 54. Creepy 55. Coasters for ice 58. Actress Winslet 60. Labor Day mo.

62. "Pow!"

1. Baby who received a baboon heart 4. China's military, abbr.

7. Automatic for the People band 10. Pop 13. Horace's ___ Poetica 14. Regimen 16. Pitcher's stat.

17. World clock standard 18. Policy provider 19. "Yum!" 20. *The round mound of rebound 23. HBO show starring Zendaya 24. Possibly cant finish?

25. Can't see the forest for the these, in a saying 26. Removed 30. Experimental platform 34. Texter's qualifier 35. *The stilt 40. Mesopotamian sky god 41. "That's a fact!"

42. Movie books 45. Noted commerce treaty 49. Forensic TV show 50. Significant others 53. *Diesel 56. Meteorology's mugginess measurement 57. Not prepared 58. "Abolish ___" 59. Diarist Anaïs 60. Zuckerberg's foil in "The Social Network"

63. French founder of dadaism Jean 64. Sully

By Reese Collins

“NBA Nicknames” ACROSS

Page 16

61. Term denoting maiden name 62. Playground game 63. Alot 64. Spartans' school, on scoreboard 65. The US's is about $21 trillion

DOWN 1. Water tap 2. King of Camelot 3. Type of room, for fun 4. Heartburn drug 5. Misanthrope 6. Also, in Avignon 7. Group that split off after the ceasefire of 1997 8. Sol., or Nucl.

9. Germany's chancellor 10. Reagan's ailment 11. 3rd letter of 4-across 12. Beaver's build 15. Big instrument 21. Butler played by Gable 22. "The Butler" director Daniels 26. Student issue 27. German river that runs through northern Hesse 28. Beatles' label 29. Spanish title 31. Absolute junk 32. Body works 33. Big pharma company, abbr.

35. Is in the past?

36. "Monster's ___" (2001 movie) 37. Staggering

38. Bryan Adams 1984 hit 39. Country singer Rimes 43. "There ___ god!"

44. 2 player card game 46. Tolling 47. Drew around 48. Catching z's 50. Emotional appeal

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

51. Siren 52. Maker of hard apple ale 53. Islam branch 54. Command-Z 55. Town in Basque that sounds like a track star's reply 56. 20-across & 53-across's channel