What I’m Reading, February 4, 2015

Posted on February 4, 2015 by wellsdc

Marshawn Lynch and Richard Sherman Are Black Heroes, Jaleesa Jones, Huffington Post, January 30, 2015

The systematic iteration of the word “thug” in reference to black bodies is problematic because it perpetuates white supremacist ideologies about black people, namely that we are pathological, violent and lawless.

I’ve grown particularly weary of the phrase recently as the media have lampooned Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman and running back Marshawn Lynch with it.

The duo presents an interesting case study as both have been labelled “thugs” for polar reasons.

Sherman has been criticized for his “arrogance,” from his assertion that he’s “the best corner in the game” to his refusal to entertain inane questions. Conversely, Lynch has been attacked for his ostensible unwillingness to speak to the press. Of note, media have tended to practice selective attention — effectively ignoring friends’ speculation that Lynch has a fear of public speaking and is wary of sharing his intimate thoughts and disadvantaged past with strangers — and write Lynch off as stony and impersonal, even inhospitable.

Death of a Boogeyman: Why We Must Dispel the Black Fatherhood Myth, Goldie Taylor, Blue Nation Review, January 30, 2015 Continue reading →

What I’m Reading, February 3, 2015

Posted on February 3, 2015 by wellsdc

“I am No Man” Doesn’t Cut It: The Story of Eowyn, Mariah Huehner, The Mary Sue, January 27, 2015

It says something to me that a WWI vet from a devout Catholic background wrote about a warrior woman in a book published in 1954 that was more feminist than her modern interpretation ended up being.

I know what you’re thinking. “But Eowyn kicked ass! She swung a sword and she fought the Lord of the Nazgûl! She said “I am no man!”

Yeah, I know. And look, I’d really like to tell you that that’s enough for me. But it isn’t.

***

I guess what bugs me most is that they took a legitimately “strong” female character, and by that I mean a complex, flawed, brave, and ultimately a triumphant warrior woman who has her own major arc…and reduced her down to something less than that. To me, strength in a character is about more than their ability to hit or kill things, and while Eowyn’s big moment is certainly defeating The Lord of the Nazgûl, it’s her defiance in the face of insurmountable odds that truly makes her “strong”. I wish the film version had honored that more.

Because that would have been honoring the proto-feminist character Tolkien created.

10 reasons Christian heaven would actually be hell, Valerie Tarico, Salon, February 1, 2015 Continue reading →

What I’m Reading, February 2, 2015

Posted on February 2, 2015 by wellsdc

Why I Am Not a Maker, Debbie Chachra, The Atlantic, January 23, 2015

Every once in a while, I am asked what I “make.” A hack day might require it, or a conference might ask me to describe “what I make” so it can go on my name tag.

I’m always uncomfortable with it. I’m uncomfortable with any culture that encourages you take on an entire identity, rather than to express a facet of your own identity (“maker,” rather than “someone who makes things”). But I have much deeper concerns.

An identity built around making things—of being “a maker”—pervades technology culture. There’s a widespread idea that “People who make things are simply different [read: better] than those who don’t.”

Genetic Testing and Tribal Identity, Rose Eveleth, The Atlantic, January 26, 2015 Continue reading →

What I’m Reading, January 30, 2015

Posted on January 30, 2015 by wellsdc

Enough Is Never Enough with Blaming Anti-Vaxxers, Science Babe, January 24, 2015

Let’s get one thing straight; if a blogger with zero medical credentials tries to claim that they have more accurate science than the vast majority of the scientific and medical establishment, they are, on every level, wrong. I promise you, somebody who got their degree at Google University and has a waiver on their website that says “my advice isn’t designed to treat anything” has nothing to lose by giving you terrible advice. A real doctor’s advice doesn’t come with an asterisk. They will give you advice that’s grounded in real science.

Friend in Need: The tragedy of my friend’s life and death is that he lived in a society that left him to deal with it alone, Saul Elbein, Texas Observer, January 21, 2015 Continue reading →

What I’m Reading, January 29, 2015

Posted on January 29, 2015 by wellsdc

McMorris-Rodgers and Anti-Choice Marchers All For ‘Life’ Until It’s Born, Nathalie Baptiste, The American Prospect, January 22, 2015

Currently, 43 million American workers have no paid sick leave. For them, an illness or the illness of a loved one comes with the risk of losing wages, or worse, their jobs. One would think that Obama’s renewed vigor on paid family leave should be extremely attractive to anti-choice activists, with their love of large families.

Why should policies that support families be a top priority for anti-choice activists? Having a child in this country is remarkably pricey—and this is why a majority of women who choose to terminate a pregnancy do so. According to a 2004 Guttmacher Institute survey, 73 percent of women who have an abortion say they made that choice because they could not afford to raise a child. Of those women, 28 percent said that they could not afford childcare, with another 23 percent of respondents saying that they could not afford to provide a child the basic needs of life. The average cost of raising one child is now $245,000 dollars. In 31 states, daycare alone costs more than college.

Essentially, proponents for the March for Life, and others who don’t believe in the right to choose, have forced women between a rock and a hard place: demonized for having a perfectly safe and legal procedure, but given absolutely no aid if she chooses to carry to term. Implementing policies that value families—like paid family leave—would be the true pro-family thing to do. Restricting a woman’s right to abortion while opposing the ways that would allow her take care of herself and her child proves that anti-choicers don’t care about families, they care about control over women’s bodies—and women’s lives.

Stop Blaming Women for Holding Themselves Back at Work, Lisa Miller, New York Magazine, December 1, 2014 Continue reading →

What I’m Reading, January 28, 2015

Posted on January 28, 2015 by wellsdc

‘Selma’ and the woman who should have made history: Ava DuVernay, Nicole Sperling, Entertainment Weekly, January 21 2015

[T]he real reasons behind the Selma snubs are more complex than race alone. They speak to the entrenched nature of Hollywood politics, the intricacies of Oscar campaign strategies, and the simple power of perception to define a filmmaker’s place in history.

***

As production on Selma, her 1960s civil rights drama, began in Atlanta last year, DuVernay was determined to keep a promise to herself. “It was important to me that my voice, my vision, stayed intact,” she says. “Because if this movie failed, then it did so based on what I truly liked rather than on some compromise someone got me to make. I would have never forgiven myself because I knew there was not going to be another chance.”

So she fought for what was hers, and it worked. What we see on screen in Selma is entirely her vision. “So much of it is real,” says Congressman John Lewis, who marched with Dr. King. “The first time I went to see it, I cried to be reminded of what happened on Bloody Sunday.”

That refusal to yield created one of the best films of the year, but on the Oscar-campaign trail it would prove to be a double-edged sword.

***

Race continues to be a thorny issue for the Academy. “We are committed to do our part to ensure diversity in the industry,” Cheryl Boone-Isaacs, the Academy’s current and first black president told the New York Times. “We are making great strides, and I personally wish it was moving quicker, but I think the commitment is there and we will continue to make progress.” As of 2012, according to the Los Angeles Times, voters were 94 percent white, and 77 percent male. Still, in the last 15 years that membership has awarded more nonwhite actors and films about people of color (e.g., Slumdog Millionaire, 12 Years a Slave) than in previous 60 years combined. When it comes to racial issues, they like to think they’re the good guys. Confronting them on that topic can backfire. “The Academy loves to be liberal,” says one member. “But they like to be nice and comfortably liberal.”

Azealia Banks vs Iggy Azalea: ‘Privileged white people shouldn’t steal hip-hop’, Reni Eddo-Lodge, The Telegraph, December 23, 2014 Continue reading →

What I’m Reading, January 27, 2015

Posted on January 27, 2015 by wellsdc

It’s Time to Debunk the Churchill Myth, Simon Heffer, New Republic, January 16, 2015

His was a political career that, apart from what happened during the Second World War, was of a length and scope that was, and remains, difficult to comprehend. Politics was in Churchill’s blood. He was a grandson of the Duke of Marlborough. His father, Lord Randolph, had been a controversial Tory MP and, even more controversially, briefly chancellor of the exchequer in the 1880s. After an undistinguished career at Harrow—which at least had the crucial effect of making young Winston realize that failure was something to be overcome and not to be crushed by—he was, following a spell in the army, first elected to the House of Commons in 1900, during the reign of Queen Victoria, and first served in the cabinet as president of the Board of Trade under Edward VII in 1908; yet he endured to be the present Queen’s first prime minister, and did not resign as an MP until the 1964 general election, held just three months before he died and a few weeks before his 90th birthday. Those facts of chronology, and the list of the great offices he held—not just prime minister, but chancellor and home secretary, among many others—further inspire the awe in which he, or rather his memory, is held, and help to create a picture of the unstoppable romance of his life.

But it is his indispensable and nation-saving achievement in 1940 that obscures so much else about him, with myth-suffocating reality. It diverts attention from all else that Churchill did before and after, and even discourages analysis of it. Worst of all, it discourages reflection on his management of the war, which, as anyone who has read the accounts of some of his closest colleagues—notably Sir Alan Brooke and Anthony Eden—will know, was much more hit and miss than conventional history usually has it. The effect of the often unquestioning idolatry with which he is widely regarded not only hinders us from evaluating Churchill properly but from forming an accurate assessment of the times in which he lived, and that he did so much to shape.

Obama would like us all to stop being such idiots, Alex Moore, Death and Taxes, January 21, 2015 Continue reading →

What I’m Reading, January 26, 2015

Posted on January 26, 2015 by wellsdc

6 Reasons Why Being Called a Cis Person Is Not Oppressive, James St. James, Everyday Feminism, January 15, 2015

All sorts of arguments are being flung back and forth across the Internet about this whole usage of the term “cis gender” for—you know — cisgender people. The bulk of the resistance is from the cisgender community, which feels the usage of the term is oppressive. Or reverse transphobic. Or a war against cis people. Or something.

What the hell does “cisgender” mean, you ask? It’s pretty much the polite way of saying “not transgender.”

Now you’re all caught up — and pretty certain on which side of this argument I reside. In fact, the above statement tends to be the Readers Digest version of my whole spiel. It’s polite to say “cis” instead of “not trans.” The end. [Emphasis in original.]

Why Do You Need A Sugar Daddy? College Students Give Some Surprising Answers, Elisabeth Parker, Addicting Info, January 17, 2015 Continue reading →

What I’m Reading, January 23, 2015

Posted on January 23, 2015 by wellsdc

Why Mitt Romney’s tax returns are the most important historical document of the 21st century, LOLGOP, EclectaBlog, January 18, 2015

has given us all a tremendous gift by not giving us something — his complete tax returns. The fact that he’s only the second presidential candidate in the last three decades to not release them — the first was fellow Republican multimillionaire John McCain — makes them all more valuable as symbol.

Now when President Obama proposes ending an array of tax breaks for high earners and their heirs, it isn’t a vague proposition. We see Mitt Romney who amassed a great fortune, often by chewing up companies and spitting them out, paying lower tax rates for collecting checks than some pay for collecting bedpans.

It will also be great context when his old running mate Paul Ryan continues to propose cutting Mitt’s taxes during the next Congress.

Who Regrets Slavery? Not Steve Scalise, BooMan, Booman Tribune, January 15, 2015 Continue reading →

What I’m Reading, January 14, 2015

Posted on January 14, 2015 by wellsdc

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, Mark Manson, markmanson.net, January 8, 2015

Now, while not giving a fuck may seem simple on the surface, it’s a whole new bag of burritos under the hood. I don’t even know what that sentence means, but I don’t give a fuck. A bag of burritos sounds awesome, so let’s just go with it.

The point is, most of us struggle throughout our lives by giving too many fucks in situations where fucks do not deserve to be given. We give a fuck about the rude gas station attendant who gave us too many nickels. We give a fuck when a show we liked was canceled on TV. We give a fuck when our coworkers don’t bother asking us about our awesome weekend. We give a fuck when it’s raining and we were supposed to go jogging in the morning.

Fucks given everywhere. Strewn about like seeds in mother-fucking spring time. And for what purpose? For what reason? Convenience? Easy comforts? A pat on the fucking back maybe?

This is the problem, my friend.

5 reasons “white pride” is always racist, Matthew Rozsa, The Daily Dot, January 9, 2015 Continue reading →

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