Weekly Link Roundup: 4/14/16

Our collection of thought-provoking, discussion-sparking reads.

• How ‘Empowerment’ Became Something for Women to Buy: “[Sheryl] Sandberg and [Kim] Kardashian are perceived by most to be opposites, two aesthetically distinct brands fighting for our allegiance, when each has pioneered a similar, punish­ingly individualistic, market-driven understanding of women’s worth, responsibility and strength. In the world of women’s empowerment, they say the same thing differently: that our radical capability is mainly our ability to put money in the bank.”

• Who Disrupts the Disruptors? We Need to Change the Way We Talk About Innovation: “The culture of disruption’s American Dream 2.0—where you can both be the man and claim to be sticking it to him—glosses over the fact that the type of innovation venerated by disruption culture often works to keep white men in positions of power and strengthens our relationship to instant-access consumerism. More importantly, it lacks critical engagement with the processes of disruption and the values being advanced by those we call disruptors.”
• What ‘white folks who teach in the hood’ get wrong about education: “There’s a teacher right now in urban America who’s going to teach for exactly two years and he’s going to leave believing that these young people can’t be saved,” says Dr. Chris Emdin, associate professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “So he’s going to find another career as a lawyer, get a job in the Department of Education or start a charter school network, all based on a notion about these urban youth that is flawed. And we’re going to end up in the same cycle of dysfunction that we have right now. Something’s got to give.”
• Teaching Men to be Emotionally Honest: “As men continue to fall behind women in college, while outpacing them four to one in the suicide rate, some colleges are waking up to the fact that men may need to be taught to think beyond their own stereotypes.”
• More Than One Medical Student at UVA Believes Black People Don’t Feel Pain: “The researchers found that half of the sample endorsed at least one of the false [medical] beliefs [about black patients], and those who endorsed these beliefs were more likely to report lower pain ratings for the black vs. white patient, and were less accurate in their treatment recommendations for the black vs. white patient.”

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Weekly Link Roundup: 2/21/2016

This week we feature thoughtful pieces rather than news per se: I’m sure, as this election season advances, we will all be glutted with more news than we can handle. For now, good reads for your Sunday afternoon.

• How We Failed to Protect Kesha: Judge rules that Kesha must continue to work with her alleged rapist
• The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens: The New Republic delves into the weird and wonderful world of tumblr teens, who are savvier digital marketers than you
• The remarkably different answers men and women give when asked who is the smartest in the classroom: a new study documents clear patterns of gender bias in the classroom
• The tipping system in the US actually grew out of racism: the dark history of waiters and other service workers in America
• The opposite of rape culture is nurturance culture: what men can do to step away from a toxic culture of violence, toward compassion and something more fulfilling
• All the single ladies: why are we still so hung up on the old model of marriage that was a ‘flash in the pan’ of the 1950s and 60s?

Weekly Link Roundup: 1/22/2016

Happenings and stories gathered this week.

1. “If not even an avowed socialist can be bothered to grapple with reparations, if the question really is that far beyond the pale, if Bernie Sanders truly believes that victims of the Tulsa pogrom deserved nothing, that the victims of contract lending deserve nothing, that the victims of debt peonage deserve nothing, that political plunder of black communities entitles them to nothing, if this is the candidate of the radical left—then expect white supremacy in America to endure well beyond our lifetimes and lifetimes of our children.” —Ta-Nehisi Coates on Bernie Sanders and reparations

2. Daniel Holtzclaw given 263 years in prison for serially raping and targeting black women.
3. The exploitation of Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy: some things you should know.
4. Taiwan elects its first woman president, Tsai Ing-Wen.
5. “Every single presidential candidate is a character from Lord of the Rings.” It’s hard to disagree.
6. #OscarsSoWhite is more than a black and white issue.
7. A writer wades into the Trump and Sanders campaigns from the perspective of his own whiteness.
8. College application season has ended and admission season is about to begin. NPR brings us a list of ways the admissions process squeezes out poor kids (and one they forgot: standardized test prep classes, which can have a hefty price tag).
9. The seductive nature of problems that aren’t your own, and why young people are flocking to the “third world” and f*cking things up.
10. The EPA’s role in the Flint water crisis.

 

Weekly Link Roundup: 1/6/2015

I have been sadly remiss about this, sorry! So much has happened since our last roundup, and there’s absolutely no way I can remotely begin to cover everything, but here are some of my favorite interesting pieces from the past couple of weeks, including sad/absurd news, food for thought, and more.

1. When and how does “adulthood” begin? “All of a sudden you’re out in the world, and you have this insane array of options, but you don’t know which you should take. There’s all these things your mom and dad told you, presumably, and yet you’re living like a feral wolf, who doesn’t have toilet paper, who’s using Arby’s napkins instead.”
2. Meta linkspam: Longreads’ Best of 2015

3. On constructing feminist identity (or not) through “offense”
4. Tamir Rice and the value of life: “Take a moment and time yourself giving three commands, imagining a response from Tamir and making the decision to shoot. Maybe it can be done in less than two seconds. But to my mind, it strains credulity.”
5. Anti-muslim actions spread to Sikh communities as well
6. Keith Chow bites back at self-hating radio host who claims the idea of an Asian-American superhero is impossible.
7. “The social pressure on people of color to keep the peace, not get mad, just make sure everyone keeps having a nice time…can be overwhelming, bearing down on us in so many situations we do not see coming and therefore cannot avoid. What does our dignity matter, what do our feelings amount to, when we could embarrass white people we care about?”
8. Cliven Bundy et al. defending their right to owe more than $1 million to taxpayers: why the local militia has taken over federal property and why the double-standard in police response to this situation, versus situations involving POC, is so absurd it’s almost laughable

Weekly Link Roundup: 11/20/15

Goodreads from this week on feminist friendships, ISIS, and more.

Weekly Link Roundup: 11/13/2015

Let’s just dive right in.

• By now, you should know about the incendiary and distressing events at Yale and Mizzou. Regarding Yale: understand that this is about more than an email or even offensive Halloween costumes. This is about the daily struggle of minority students and students of color for dignity, a sense of belonging, and a respectful environment free of psychic traumas. Viet N. Trinh, a doctoral student at Yale, answers Erika Christakis’ perhaps well-intentioned but ultimately thoughtless and insensitive letter about racism and “free speech” in a more nuanced way than we, as outsiders to this struggle, perhaps could.
• To that point, this New Yorker article by Jelani Cobb is a thoughtful response to the Atlantic’s finger-wagging piece about student activist ‘intolerance,’ (as if students with material privilege cannot experience racism), centered on the protests and debates at Yale.
• Cosmopolitan, of all places, has a urgent and important take on the case of Daniel Holtzclaw, a former police officer accused of trading on his power as a law enforcement official in order to sexually assault black women. Why isn’t this getting the attention it deserves?
• The Nation has an important take on the resignation of Tim Wolfe, and the ways in which exploited student athletes can fight back against administrations. In the article’s words: “The administrators created a world in which universities revolve socially, politically, and economically around the exploited labor of football. Now let them reap what they sow.”
• On decolonizing the kind of yoga that exploits the exotic for profit: “As an Indian woman living in the U.S. I’ve often felt uncomfortable in many yoga spaces. At times, such as when I take a $25.00 yoga class by a well-known teacher who wants to “expose us to the culture by chanting Om to start class“ and her studio hangs the Om symbol in the wrong direction, my culture is being stripped of its meaning and sold back to me in forms that feel humiliating at best and dehumanizing at worst.”
• And finally, news that’s a little more lighthearted: I love advice columns, and I love Mallory Ortberg. Two great things collide!

Weekly Link Roundup: 10/30/15

Editor’s Note: Did y’all hear we were mentioned on my favorite podcast, “The Read”? Check it out if you haven’t yet, Kid Fury and Crissle are hilarious and whip-smart. Now read on for some linky-spamspam!

Weekly Link Roundup!

• Elizabeth Warren for president
• Is there a link between mental health and gun violence? (New Yorker)
• For my fangirls: A linguist explains the grammar of shipping (Mary Sue)
• Nicki Minaj is getting her own TV show!
• The last black man in San Francisco (Fusion)
• The politics of pantyhose (New York Times)

Weekly Link Roundup!

Goodreads and things that caught our eye:

• 10 Ways Well-Meaning White Teachers Bring Racism Into Our Schools: “It is from this place of love that I work with teachers to help them improve their practice. And with the realities of the “education debt” and considering that 80% of our teachers are White while nearly half (and growing) of our students are youth of Color, part of improving teaching practice means paying more critical attention to race in our schools. Though I know there are actively racist teachers out there, most White teachers mean well and have no intention of being racist. Yet as people who are inscribed with Whiteness, it is possible for us to act in racist ways no matter our intentions. Uprooting racism from our daily actions takes a lifetime of work.”
• Claudia Rankine celebrates the excellence of Serena Williams: “The notable difference between white excellence and black excellence is white excellence is achieved without having to battle racism. Imagine.” As my dear friend M put it, “I love Serena. I love Claudia Rankine. I love that these women exist.”
• Suffragettes Who Sucked: White Supremacy and Women’s Rights: reminding us that the phenomenon of “white feminism” (feminism that, in a nutshell, centers specifically white, mostly upper-class women while dismissing racial intersectionality) has been around for a while. The Toast compiles a list of notable feminist figures whose achievements in women’s rights had a dark side.
• 8 Ways Asian Americans Can Stand Up To Racist Presidential Candidates: pretty self-explanatory, and very important.
• Register to vote. Even if you’re jaded by the political circus. Our forerunners fought long and hard to win us the right to vote. You owe it to them, and to yourself, to at least pay attention to what is happening.
• Lessons from the Virginia Shooting: “the lesson from the ongoing carnage is not that we need a modern prohibition…but that we should address gun deaths as a public health crisis. To protect the public, we regulate toys and mutual funds, ladders and swimming pools. Shouldn’t we regulate guns as seriously as we regulate toys?”

Weekly Link Roundup!

• One year out from Ferguson, and with a lot of work still left to do, Mic.com assembles a Ferguson syllabus: readings on violence, its aftermath, and what it means for America.
• Why do #BlackLivesMatter activists keep interrupting Bernie Sanders?
• Eileen G’Sell on the paradox of the “hot mess” humblebrag—or why women feel the need to downplay their discipline and success.
• “Hell is empty and all the devils are here”: A Shakespearean guide to the 2016 Republican Primary.
• “Female Friends Spend Raucous Night Validating the Living Shit Out of Each Other“
• Storytelling shapes our perception of the world, and it’s clear that We Need Diverse Books!