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?

Advertisement

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.

 

Organization Spotlight: Unconscious Bias Project

We all know STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields are rife with sexism. It seems like every week, there’s a new story about sexual harassment, or absurdly sexist statements about how women can’t science. And, of course, the many other forms of bias that plague us – racism, homophobia, transphobia – are prevalent in STEM fields too. (And, you know, everywhere.) Sometimes it just feels like everything is terrible and everyone is terrible to each other. But, there are also a lot of awesome people working hard to change things, in STEM and elsewhere. This week, I talked to Cat Adams, a PhD student a UC Berkeley who is fighting biases in STEM fields through The Unconscious Bias Project, which, in her words, is designed to “help people be more awesome to each other.”  You can follow her and her project on facebook and twitter. Our interview is below.

Weekly Link Roundup!

• This past week’s popcorn.gif moments come courtesy of the reddit debacle. Former Reddit CEO Yishan Wong is just over in a corner giggling about this whole thing. Meanwhile, Ellen Pao was never the feminazi monster she was made out to be. Oops. Reddit is a fascinating place, and harbors some productive/fun communities in addition to its cesspools, but let’s not pretend we won’t survive without it.
• In more serious news, we continue to ask: What happened to Sandra Bland? The latest, highly suspicious case in continuing police violence against black lives.
• Bigotry nestled deep within niceness: how lack of empathy, and lack of humanization, often comes with a smiling face and sincerity, rather than vitriolic hate.
• Medium gives us a glimpse into the shifting economy of Tinder. The mantra? Dick is abundant and low value.

• Study confirms implicit biases against female bosses, even in cases where such biases are explicitly disavowed. Look closely at yourself, look closely at your practices.
• This earthquake is coming for you and death is nigh.
• And lastly, simply because it’s heartening: these young ladies celebrated their hearts out at the ticker tape parade for the US Women’s Soccer Team, and it’s great.