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

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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!

• Words to be intoned—on the steps of South Carolina’s capitol, and in your heart. “Take it down now…drive out this cult of death and chains.” As usual, Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic speaks truth.  Here, he makes clearer the connection between the racial terrorism of Dylann Roof’s murderous crimes, and the logic of the Confederate flag fluttering in the breeze.
• Words that need to be spoken (via The New Yorker) and the history of the church that Dylann Roof bloodied.
• Parsing the stakes of “is this feminist?” or “is this feminist enough?” (via The Mary Sue).
• Maggie Mertens argues that women’s soccer, and women’s sports more generally, deserve feminist attention. With women playing on a turf field for the World Cup and getting paid a fraction of what men get paid (surprise, surprise?), I’d say she’s right.
• And finally, because the world is a bitter place and laughter is a good protection against emotional exhaustion, have this tumblr, which hilariously captions old dress patterns. That doesn’t sound funny, but it is.

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