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: 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!

• 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!

• 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!

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.

Weekly Link Roundup

Internet gleanings.

• The New Republic on the impulse to cast out our violent demons and label them away from us accordingly: “Why Are White Racists Always Called White Trash?”

Only the most desperate white racists openly identify as racists. Invariably, these white people come from a social stratum deprived of all that whiteness tries to connote: wealth, beauty, power, cleanliness, grace. But because it is uncomfortable for white people to define such things too clearly, the phrase “white trash” had to be invented to cover them. The phrase, developed to describe all Southern whites outside the aristocracy, has shifted in tandem with economic and social changes so that it now applies to a demographic sliver. Yet this reduction in range has not corresponded to a reduction in the disgust it evokes in whites of putatively higher status.

• Tech that encourages exploration girls to learn how to code and revels in its own girliness: programmable friendship bracelets! They make a better gift for your niece than yet another Barbie.
• MTV piques my interest with their new documentary, ‘White People’

• The Obama administration takes step to address one of the ‘hidden frontiers’ in combating racism: discriminatory housing practices.  

“Housing discrimination is the unfinished business of civil rights,” says Sherrilyn Ifill, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. “It goes right to the heart of our divide from one another. It goes right to the heart of whether you believe that African American people’s lives matter, that you respect them, that you believe they can be your neighbors, that you want them to play with your children.”

• On color in comics: “Lighten Up”

Acro Collective Greatest Hits: Celebrating 100 Posts!

I don’t know about you, but I can’t believe that this little project has already reached 100 posts! Thank you so much for continuing to grow with us and for supporting this community of thought, discourse, and love.

To celebrate our first major milestone, I highlight some of our most popular and beloved posts, in case you missed them or feel like revisiting the ideas they present. Stick with us! We love having you, and the best is yet to come.

• How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Living Alone (B.C.)
• Pretty in Pink: Rethinking Elle Woods (S.T.)
• Humanities Teachers from Least to Most Believable, a list (E.L.)
• Adventures in Mental Unwellness: Grad School Edition (K.H.)
• Looking at “China”: Met Gala 2015 (E.Y.)
• Big Sound Saturdays: Sister Soul  (S.A. and M.H.)
• Atlanta Street Style (K.O.)
• The Politics of Style: A Primer (E.L.)
• LA Street Style (Y.K.)
• Activism at the Intersections of Race and Gender (M.H.)
• Encounters with True Crime (K.S.)
• International Women’s Day: #ladymafia and @AlltheWomen (E.Y.)
• In Search of the Female Gaze: Pleasure and Cinema (E.L.)

Weekly Link Roundup: Charleston, Voting Rights, and Marriage Equality!

This week on the interwebs:

• The Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in all 50 states. Yeeeees!
• Congressional Democrats introduce a new bill designed to bolster the gutted Voting Rights Act. From the article: “The 2016 election will be the first in 50 years where voters will not have the full protections of the VRA, which adds urgency to the congressional effort. Since the Shelby decision, onerous new laws have been passed or implemented in states like North Carolina and Texas, which have disenfranchised thousands of voters, disproportionately those of color. In the past five years, 395 new voting restrictions have been introduced in 49 states, with half the states in the country adopting measures making it harder to vote. “If anybody thinks there’s not racial discrimination in voting today, they’re not really paying attention,” Senator Leahy said.”
• Don’t know what to watch this weekend? Indiewire collected a list of 115 films by and about women of color, following a Twitter conversation led by Ava DuVernay (who’s just been tapped to direct Marvel’s Black Panther!)
• From The Toast: an interview with a slavery specialist who guides historical tours, and an interesting look in an arena of “heritage tourism.”
• Don’t let the Charleston massacre get lost in the 24-hour news cycle. From the African American Intellectual History Society: a powerful syllabus that collects op-eds to spur further discussion and a wealth of resources on South Carolina, Confederate history, the Confederate flag and its symbolic legacy, and the history of American racism.
• A particularly powerful piece that’s worth reading from the syllabus above: ways in which our racially fraught, violent history, which is sometimes framed as something antiquated, is in fact persistently present. A warning that this is a fairly upsetting read. But then again, so is being a victim of racism.
• Finally: do computers dream? Google’s neural image recognition software gives us an idea of what “AI inception” might look like.