"The 39 Most Iconic Feminist Moments of 2014"

"If there's one thing history has taught us, it's that the backlash against feminism will always be a measure of our success. That's the thing with progress — it is perceived as a threat by those too weak to embrace equality."

http://mic.com/articles/105102/the-39-most-iconic-feminist-moments-of-2014?utm_content=bufferf56b3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

I really enjoyed these.

"The genes that turned wildcats into kitty cats"

"The researchers uncovered at least 13 genes that changed as cats morphed from feral to friendly. Some of these, based on previous studies of knockout mice, seem to play a role in cognition and behavior, including fear responses and the ability to learn new behaviors when given food rewards. “That jibes with what we know about the domestication of cats,” Montague says, “because they would have needed to become less fearful of new locations and individuals, and the promise of food would have kept them sticking around.”

http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/11/genes-turned-wildcats-kitty-cats

"Obama, amid racial tensions, keeps a measured approach after past backlashes"

“Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, director of the African American Policy Forum, said de Blasio was channeling “the old Obama,” who tried to talk about race in personal terms but has been stung by the backlash. Now, she said, Obama has “begun to speak about race in the third person — he’s the arbiter of how black people are feeling. . . . It’s ‘people may perceive’ or ‘people may think’ or ‘people have lost confidence.’ ””

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-urges-persistence-in-confronting-deep-roots-of-racism/2014/12/07/ebb32c96-7cbd-11e4-b821-503cc7efed9e_story.html?hpid=z1

Ugh though, who wrote the patience thing? That’s going to be quoted constantly by people who think that racism will just fade away if we let the really old people die, that we all just have to take a chill pill and stop wanting attention.

Who Will Survive in America?

"I won’t get shot in the back on the street. I’m a half-Chinese, half-Korean girl with a book in my purse. I’ve got my hands in my pockets all the time, and I know no one’s looking twice. Most of the time I’m glaring so hard at everyone who walks by me that I probably should be stopped by the police, but it’s only because I learned a long time ago that if I don’t, eventually some white boy in a baseball cap is gonna look me up and down and ask if I can love him long time.

But forty years ago my parents were yelled at, spat on, beat up—if I complain about the identity assigned to me, of violins and math problems and tinkling laughter, I feel guilty right away. Violence is tricky like that: it morphs and slides and molds around your scars. It stays white, though, most of the time. Whether police baton or verdict or pale fingers pulling blue eyes into slits, it stays white."

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/12/16/who-will-survive-in-america/

A beautifully written series of vignettes on race in America today. I wonder if the Prince would ever publish this - maybe in the opinion section.

Related: the This American Life episodes on Katrina, that made me see race in America really differently, and add another level of terror for me about apocalypse scenarios that everyone I know is slightly convinced will eventually happen. I think that was around the time I decided that I should actually try to listen to rap and hiphop instead of being distantly scared of it.

"Gifts For Your Crushing Seasonal Depression"

" With the obvious caveat here that I am not making an expensive fake sun-lamp ("making light") out of the type of mental imbalance that cannot be "gifted" anything but therapy, prescription medication, and a significantly easier life to contain it—let us acknowledge that the holidays are an important time to invest in some private, easeful self-chill. Here are some suggestions, straight from the heart of someone who will do pretty much anything to avoid the bite of discontent."

http://jezebel.com/gifts-for-your-crushing-seasonal-depression-1671328881

I really like these ideas. A friend of mine is trying to find a way to "treat herself" every day - even if it's small, like just giving in to the desire to pull all the tissues out of the box - and I am really into this idea of figuring out how to gift things to yourself 

"Big Ideas in Social Change, 2014"

“we often underestimate what ordinary people can accomplish and succumb to stereotypes about low-income people or minorities. Look at the Springboard Collaborative, a summer reading program in Philadelphia, for example. Springboard uses the public school system’s most underemployed resource: low income, predominately African-American or Latino parents, a group usually falsely written off as unable or unwilling to help their children… nine million women in villages in Mali and some 40 other African countries are living better by using savings groups. Women make small deposits at each meeting, and members can borrow from the pool of funds… We usually define “helping people” as doing things for them. But often, it should mean asking them to do things for others.”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/11/big-ideas-in-social-change-2014/

"When we talk about police shootings, we need to talk about gender"

"It seems that it isn’t just cops who are killing the Michael Browns and Eric Garners of America. It is male cops. At first, this seems unsurprising, given that only 11.4 percent of all police officers in the US are female. But, on this basis, female police should be responsible for more than 1 in 10 police shootings. They’re not...The question is: what about the combination of being black AND male invokes such fear in white male police?"

http://feministing.com/2014/12/17/when-we-talk-about-police-shootings-we-need-to-talk-about-gender/

Also this: "Cops aren’t shooting many women, but male cops are raping us. The CATO institute found, in 2010, that sexual assault was the second most common form of police misconduct — though the more correct term would be male police misconduct — and that women of color are disproportionately targeted."

A friend of mine once called me to see if I knew any lawyers in DC because her friend's mother had been sexually assaulted by a DC police officer and was trying to find help navigating a justice system that was not maintaining her safety.

"How a password changed my life."

"Of course, there were clear indicators of what I needed to do -or what I had to achieve- in order to regain control of my life, but we often don’t pay attention to these clues.

My password became the indicator. My password reminded me that I shouldn’t let myself be victim of my recent break up, and that I’m strong enough to do something about it.

My password became: “Forgive@h3r”"
https://medium.com/@manicho/how-a-password-changed-my-life-7af5d5f28038

I have to reset my password at work soon, and I am so glad that I read this article first :) it's such a constant part of our lives, I am almost surprised that using passwords as positive reminders hadn't already happened. 

Now what other annoying but necessary things can be made productive? Maybe like, every time I do the laundry I will think about washing away something stressful. Every time I finally get around to folding my clothes and putting them away I could hide an encouraging note to myself for a surprise later. 

"Serial Isn't About Ferguson. (But It's Kind Of About Ferguson.)"

"But let's say you wanted to listen to Serial simply as a whodunnit or a drama full of WTF — wouldn't you have to contort around everything else happening in our particular cultural moment to do so? For months, our news media have been dominated by stories of people who have found themselves on the business end of our criminal justice machinery, only to have their lives upended or obliterated. Serial isn't about Ferguson, of course, but, oh, the resonances."

http://www.wbur.org/npr/370423380/serial-isnt-about-ferguson-but-its-kind-of-about-ferguson

Yes. This is why Serial disappointed me a little bit - the race and religion aspects should have been presented in the first episode, and definitely should have been further explored as the podcast started to be released at the same time as 2014 grand jury decisions. It's interesting, because This American Life had a lot more discussion of This Black American Life in the 90s - a lot more people of color, and a lot more of just Ira Glass saying black. I think it's sort of the same way that the first season of Friends is way, way more feminist than like How I Met Your Mother; something happened in the 2000s that is making people less prepared than they were.

Or, I don't know, I was like tiny then and stuff,  but that narrative pulls together a pattern for me.

"THE THINGS YOU WON’T REMEMBER"

"This woman will call her cellphone provider and they will send her a new phone–maybe with a small charge. She will tell her friends, and maybe even her family, and they will all sympathetically comfort her with brunch and bottomless mimosas– as good friends are meant to do.

Still, no one will wonder about the fate of the boys.

No one in our car will be able to send the red t-shirt boy’s mother a new son or give him a second chance."
http://thestripesblog.com/2014/08/30/the-things-you-wont-remember/

Related to two things: Why I never call the cops on Black people, white people less likely to support prison reform.

"7 Steps You Can Take To Address Street Harassment"

"People who often experience public sexual harassment, as well as those who have experienced public sexual assault, can become reserved and suspicious when they’re out in public.

They may avoid talking to their neighbors or miss opportunities to make genuine connections in their fear that the interaction might turn into harassment or assault. Their harassers’ attempts to intimidate and silence them can succeed.

That’s why it can be incredibly valuable for bystanders to stand up against the harassment they see taking place."

http://everydayfeminism.com/2012/11/7-steps-to-address-street-harassment/

"Jennifer Lawrence: Legal Tipping Point for Women in Hollywood?"

"While Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner and director David O. Russell received nine points of profit, Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams got 7. And Jennifer Lawrence was originally slated to receive just 5.

This revelation, unfortunately too commonplace in Hollywood to be shocking, could be the long-awaited “tipping point” needed for state and federal agencies to launch industry-wide legal action to fight gender inequity under Title VII."

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2014/12/17/jennifer-lawrence-legal-tipping-point-for-women-in-hollywood/

This would be exciting. Obviously, this is information that was revealed during a cyber-terrorist attack, and there is this debate about whether it is morally appropriate for journalists to report on it, and then those of us who are sharing and engaging are also culpable, but also - also there is information in here that could make changes that could be really good for the treatment of non-white non-men in Hollywood and in media and so I can't quite bring myself to feel fully condemning.

It's like Anonymous - sort of evil and unchecked and questionable and making things worse but also sort of doing things the evil and vindictive part of me wishes would happen. 

"Ferguson burns, South Africa simmers: Why America is but a matchstick away"

"In the images of jacked-up riot cops facing off against enraged citizens, we find an American city aping South African archival footage. It’s not just that America’s enduring, undying racial nightmare echoes South Africa’s, or vice versa—that’s both a no-shit truism and a vast over-simplification. But it’s a reminder that in divided countries with histories of institutionalized racism, reconciliation without actually reconciling—which is to say, hugging and making up without addressing the structurally ingrained disparities that keep old legacies alive—means that justice is not just impossible, but a massive cover-up, a ruse used by power to sucker everyone into quiescence....

This rage is contagious, and patient zero lies dead so deep in our terrible pasts that he or she untraceable, a smudge on history that we cannot remember and cannot forget"

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-11-26-ferguson-burns-south-africa-simmers-why-america-is-but-a-matchstick-away/

This is tremendously well written, and I love this last line. 

FB: a South African's perspective on the shooting of Michael Brown and systemic racism in America

"White Feminists Are Fucking Up By Ignoring Lena Dunham’s Abuse"

"It’s all very surface-level feminism. Lots of talk about accepting your body and being able to have the kind of sex you want, not much about the lives and experiences of anybody outside their demographic, accompanied by the assumption that of COURSE we must all be interested. It’s light, it’s easily digestible. And when we are in that nook, that warm little wrinkle of surface-level feminism that focuses on the “me me me”, it can become escapism. Liberating on an individual level, for sure, empowering even, but ultimately it’s for the individual and not for the collective."
http://feminspire.com/white-feminists-fucking-ignoring-lena-dunhams-abuse/

Maybe this explains why I never got that into Girls, it wasn't being subversive in a way that actually subverted anything related to me, and I kept waiting for it to, and at best it mostly reinforced stuff.

"A Short History of the Kiss in India"

"From India, academics who have studied it say, kissing spread slowly to other parts of the world after Alexander the Great and his army conquered parts of Punjab in northern India in 326 B.C.

Further proof that India was the birthplace of the kiss, Mr. Bryant said, is the origin of the word itself. He points out that in ancient India, “busa” or “bosa” were used to refer to kissing and from these early words, the Latin term for kiss ”basium” and the Old English words “ba” and “buss” are derived. Meanwhile, the root of the English word we use today – “kiss” – stems from “kus” which was used in northern India."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-IRTB-27097

I feel like I read about this a long time ago, super interesting. Although I am not sure if it should have been published in this way - It's not the Wall Street Journal's place to be letting India know how it should feel about public kissing.

"Why I Am Teaching a Course Called “Wasting Time on the Internet”"

"It seems that the Surrealist vision of a dream culture has been fully realized in today’s technologies. We are awash in a new, electronic collective unconscious; strapped to several devices, we’re half awake, half asleep. We speak on the phone while surfing the Web, partially hearing what’s being said to us while simultaneously answering e-mails and checking status updates. We’ve become very good at being distracted. From a creative point of view, this is reason to celebrate. The vast amount of the Web’s language is perfect raw material for literature. Disjunctive, compressed, decontextualized, and, most important, cut-and-pastable, it’s easily reassembled into works of art."

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/wasting-time-on-the-internet

I really, really enjoy this

"‘Why One Village In Sierra Leone Remains Ebola-Free,’ Resident Matthew Roberts Explains"

"When the epidemic first started, our village headman (the chief) called on all villagers to have a meeting in which everyone was educated thoroughly about the virus. All major ethnic groups residing in the village were represented – Temne, Sherbro, Loko, Limba, Mende and Fula – and each group had a speaker of their local language to educate their people. All groups were given the same message, but spoken in their different languages."
http://www.okayafrica.com/news/why-we-are-ebola-free-in-tokeh-village-sierra-leone-by-matthew-roberts

"Africans in India: From slaves to reformers and rulers"

"India and Africa have a shared history in trade, music, religion, arts and architecture, but the historical link between these two diverse regions is rarely discussed.

Many Africans travelled to India as slaves and traders, but eventually settled down here to play an important role in India's history of kingdoms, conquests and wars...The main African figures of the past have not been forgotten but their ethnicity has been erased, consciously or not, she adds."

http://m.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-30391686

"How Facebook Is Changing the Way Its Users Consume Journalism"

"The shift raises questions about the ability of computers to curate news, a role traditionally played by editors. It also has broader implications for the way people consume information, and thus how they see the world.

In an interview at Facebook’s sprawling headquarters here, which has a giant, self-driving golf cart that takes workers between buildings, Mr. Marra said he did not think too much about his impact on journalism."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/business/media/how-facebook-is-changing-the-way-its-users-consume-journalism.html

THINK ABOUT YOUR IMPACT ON JOURNALISM, FACEBOOK. What?? How are they being this willfully unaware of their impact on the world?? They need mandatory sociology courses on power and privilege.

"Unequal Treatment of 2 Protesters in Eric Garner Case, One White and One Black"

"But Mr. Perry, a white man, and Mr. Torres, a black man, say what happened to them showed disparate treatment in subtle and stark ways. The president of the seminary has written to Mayor Bill de Blasio to suggest that the experiences of the students were “an object lesson” for retraining officers; the Police Department said it would have to review the details of the matter."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/nyregion/unequal-treatment-of-2-protesters-in-eric-garner-case-one-white-and-one-black.html?smid=fb-share

(credit to JC)

"The Pain of the Watermelon Joke"

"“Brown Girl Dreaming” is the story of my family, moving from slavery through Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the civil rights movement, and ends with me as a child of the ’70s. It is steeped in the history of not only my family but of America. As African-Americans, we were given this history daily as weapons against our stories’ being erased in the world or, even worse, delivered to us offhandedly in the form of humor...

To know that we African-Americans came here enslaved to work until we died but didn’t die, and instead grew up to become doctors and teachers, architects and presidents — how can these children not carry this history with them for those many moments when someone will attempt to make light of it, or want them to forget the depth and amazingness of their journey?

How could I come from such a past and not know that I am on a mission, too?"

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/29/opinion/the-pain-of-the-watermelon-joke.html?smid=fb-share&_r=1&referrer=

Yes. These kinds of moments are hard to grapple with, because to understand why they are so offensive the "joker" sort of needs to be re-educated in history from the perspective that there are people around them who have to think about the ugliest parts everyday, every time they think about their families. It's real that a lot of people who don't do that thinking can't really understand why something is offensive, and are offended by people who find them offensive - and I can only be glad that the guy who made this joke made an actual apology that wasn't mostly about how annoying all the offended people are.

"Shootings, Love, & The Gunman Myth"

"The story is that a girl rejected him. And, so, he killed her, and killed himself. This might show many things. People will write for years about the things it shows, and they’ll be right, but we have known them all already, known them all: We know about male entitlement to women’s bodies, we know that women too often pay the price. But, what I want to talk about is the slit that’s opened in our definitions of men. I want to talk about how badly we’re failing the boys who can’t see their way out of a totally lethal, totally toxic distortion of masculinity — the kind that says that if boys aren’t manly, or gentlemanly, they can be gunmanly."

http://www.refinery29.com/2014/10/76835/what-turned-jaylen-fryberg-into-gunman

This idea of "gunmanly" - that's so horrifying but also something I can so easily understand, it's in so many parts of popular culture if not every single part of popular culture, the manliness of gun violence.

It is so important that there be a national conversation about masculinity (!!). I see this unexamined violent and possessive masculinity in the casual stares I get every day from men who probably don't even realize that they are staring because it's just so coded into how they are meant to express their masculinity in public. I really think that there are people who knowingly irritate me because it makes them feel more validated in their gender identity.

"I Can’t Breathe, Either"

"We can debate cause and effect, but the facts allow for minimal wiggle room: our most downtrodden communities are entrenched in a cycle of social dysfunction; our police employ brutal and sometimes deadly tactics in their interactions with these communities; and within the debate about who and what is right or wrong, the most significant aspect of the discussion is — as usual — absent. Our culture inspires and subsequently neglects serious mental illness in too many of its citizens.We can no longer afford to perpetuate this problem by stubbornly refusing to address it...Officers like Darren Wilson are humans; susceptible to the same stresses, fears, and other mental issues as any of us. Given the combination of their fallibility and the dangers of their jobs, it’s unfathomable that we still lack universal policies on psychological evaluations for police officers. It says something frightening about our culture that we’d rather increase the scope and sophistication of police weaponry than take steps that ensure the health of both police and those they serve."

https://medium.com/the-cauldron/i-cant-breathe-either-a08516e2bef6

!!! 

This is the best and most useful and wise thing I have read in a while, I want this guy to run for President. Can we please, please absorb these links between mental health and systemic violence and prejudice? 

Related: Depression makes people more prejudiced.

"Why your family drives you crazy"

"The main reason why family members clash in this way is the same reason why they love each other so much: comfort. Family members know each other so well — too well — and that means they feel comfortable around each other. There are obviously great benefits to being in relationships where people feel accepted and secure. But comfort is a double-edged sword. It means that individuals feel safe showing every side of themselves to others — the good and, unfortunately, the bad and the ugly.

"The fact that you can be meanest to the ones you love is not a sign that you feel the most negative to loved ones," said Margaret Clark, a social psychologist at Yale University whose research focuses on relationships. "But that you feel the most comfortable to express your negative emotions to them.""

http://www.vox.com/2014/11/26/7254589/family-crazy

Yessss

I have been reflecting on the ways that the things I have the most positive emotions about are sometimes the things I am able to have the most negative feelings about. Or how to communicate irritation to a friend without making them think there are no positive feelings - but also without diminishing the communication of the negative feelings. 

It's often that I am only able to be really angry about something because I love it so much, and it's not clear what to do about that.

"Why Is Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass” No. 1?"

"So what’s Trainor’s X-factor? It’s the message: “All About That Bass” is a smash because it is being received by America as a particular kind of protest song. Call it protest lite, or, with apologies to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a skim-milk protest song....  When it comes to popular music, America isn’t a “Change Is Gonna Come” kind of country. We’re more of a Zager and Evans, “In the Year 2525” (No. 1, six weeks, 1969) country—topical, chattering, protest-ish rather than protesting."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/10/14/all_about_that_bass_by_meghan_trainor_is_still_no_1_on_billboard_why_video.html

First of all, until reading this article, I had a vague idea that she was South Asian for some reason. Secondly, this helps me understand the US because I sometimes think "what happened to the culture that fostered these amazing protest songs?" and nope, we never really had one, chill.

"Weingarten: D.C. isn’t the second-snobbiest city in America; it’s the snobbiest"

"I’m sure you used advanced metrics to arrive at your rankings, but believe me, statistics alone cannot adequately measure snobbery. Sure, both cities are going to rank pretty high in, say, the number of dog psychiatrists per capita or the percentage of coffeehouses that offer foam-infused espresso made from Kona beans excreted by Namibian marmosets, but I contend you have to be prepared to drill down deeper. Literally. Washington invented the term “drill down deeper,” which is part of the pretentious lingua franca of Sunday morning TV talk shows, a means of entertainment we also invented because we in Washington simply take it for granted that the entire country hungers to watch sexy, A-list D.C. celebrities like Timothy Geithner and Janet Yellen earnestly debate exogenous horizontal equity integration."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/weingarten-dc-isnt-the-second-snobbiest-city-in-america-its-the-snobbiest/2014/09/24/dff9fb78-3776-11e4-bdfb-de4104544a37_story.html

YES. I love DC, but people take themselves so ridiculously seriously. I had been thinking about this, but I didn't realize quite how true this was until a friend of mine from home came to visit and tried to casually joke with people and they all took her slightly too literally. Like, she stopped to pet a pug puppy and jokingly asked "Is he going to grow into these wrinkles?" and his owner said very seriously "well, he is probably going to grow a little more, so he might" because in DC if you think a dog is cute you say "this dog is cute", you don't quirkily appreciate his wrinkliness.

(There have been so many small, awkward pauses in my life as a result of the gap between Californian social norms and DC social norms)

"One week before it ends for all time, The Newsroom trots out its worst episode yet"

"Sorkin is a diehard liberal, but one with a conservative view of society. He wants freedom and equality for all, but do we have to agitate for it?... He is that person on your Facebook feed who understands why people in Ferguson are upset but also doesn't understand why they're protesting. He's the guy who thinks sexual assault is a huge problem but doesn't really want anybody to talk about it."
http://www.vox.com/2014/12/8/7350489/newsroom-rape

This is interesting. I have often thought of Sorkin as being an example of a certain type of Liberal who manages to be very passionate and self-sure while also failing to recognize the real problems

"The Red Juice in Raw Red Meat Isn't Blood"

"The level of myoglobin in meat is what ultimately dictates whether it will be "red," "dark," or "white." The muscles in red meat are used for standing, walking, and other frequent activity, and they're made up of slow-twitch muscle fibers. Red meats' high levels of myoglobin make it red or dark in color.

White meat, on the other hand, is made up of fast-twitch muscle fibers and is comprised of muscles used for quick bursts of activity only. They get energy from glycogen and contain little myoglobin."
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/10/25/myoglobin-red-meat.aspx

Huh. Things I never knew.

"We Rage"

"We are numb. We are angry. We are incredulous. We are afraid. We are hopeful. We are hopeless. We are all the things. Let us be."

http://www.crunkfeministcollective.com/2014/11/25/we-rage/

I kind of want these words on a poster, on a mug, embroidered on a pillow, all over.

"Will Disney Get Race and Culture Right With Moana?"

"While their research strategy quelled some of my initial unease, the duo’s draw to the South Pacific seems to stem from exoticism rather than a genuine desire to learn. In the same interview, Musker explains how he “grew up reading the novels of Melville and Conrad, and the South Seas, the exotic world that a lot of their stories are set in, was extremely intriguing.” This exoticism seems to propel the film (rather than a genuine desire to portray Moana as a nuanced, complex character who happens to come from a different cultural heritage than the two white directors)."

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2014/10/24/will-disney-get-race-and-culture-right-with-moana/

Being adults who have some responsibility in media, they really should have been more self aware. Also, I like that this article gives a recommendation at the end.

"How the rest of the world reacted to the Ferguson verdict"

"Ferguson also gained the attention of the United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, who released a statement asking that U.S. authorities review the "deep and festering" distrust in the country after the shooting and grand jury decision. Brown's father had recently traveled to the U.N. in Geneva to ask the international body to put pressure on the U.S. government for their handling of the case. And, as Colby Itkowitz notes at In The Loop, even followers of the Islamic State on social media have been using criticism of the U.S. handling of Ferguson as a recruitment tool."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/11/25/how-the-rest-of-the-world-reacted-to-the-ferguson-verdict/

"What Happens When Chemists Don't Wash Their Hands"

""The only way to find out what was sweet on his lab bench was to literally taste everything," Michal Meyer, the editor-in-chief of Chemical Heritage, explains in this video. So he did, and he found that a compound called benzoic sulfimide was responsible. He called it saccharine; and to find out if it was safe, Meyer says, he "took 10 grams...swallowed it, waited for 24 hours to see what would happen and found it went right through him. It was basically unmetabolized by his body."'

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/10/what-happens-when-chemists-dont-wash-their-hands/381587/

Thus is a terrifying paragraph.

"North Korea Is Not Funny"

“This film is not an act of courage. It is not a stand against totalitarianism, concentration camps, mass starvation, or state-sponsored terror. It is, based on what we know of the movie so far, simply a comedy, made by a group of talented actors, writers, and directors, and intended, like most comedies, to make money and earn laughs. The movie would perhaps have been better off with a fictitious dictator and regime; instead, it appears to serve up the latest in a long line of cheap and sometimes racism-tinged jokes, stretching from Team America: World Police to ongoing sketches on Saturday Night Live.”… Yes, North Korea has long been ruled by an eccentric dynasty of portly dictators with bad haircuts. Yes, the propaganda the regime regularly trumpets to shore up its cult of personality is largely ridiculous. And yes, we on the outside know better, and can take comfort in pointing fingers and chuckling at the regime’s foibles.

But it takes no valor and costs precious little to joke about these things safely oceans away from North Korea’s reach.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/12/north-korea-is-not-funny-the-interview-sony/383885/?single_page=true

Yes, exactly. I find myself pleasantly amused by North Korea instead of properly recognizing the human rights violations and complex historical factors behind the way the country is structured. This is (a) all of the stereotypes about Asian men being non-threatening despite bumbling scheming, and (b) erasing the real pain of millions of people. I think that when North Korea inevitably crumbles, and rejoins South Korea, and all of the stories of the realities of North Korea start being everywhere – I think there is going to be a moment of stunned silence, like when you are laughing at someone who has just tripped and then you realize that they are actually really hurt.

It’s the anecdote in here about Charlie Chaplain learning about the concentration camps, and regretting his comedic take on Hitler.

"Xenophobia Is The Disease You Should Be Afraid Of, Not Ebola"

"It didn’t matter that he was traveling to Nigeria, a country so successful in its campaign to contain the virus that the US government sent a team of scientists to learn from its public health officials. I thought his decision careless because I didn’t think that he fully understood the politicisation of his black immigrant body. This was not a time to be traveling to West Africa; this was a time to lay low...

Simply, by allowing racist fearmongers to use public health as a shield to promote their xenophobic agenda, we give way to policies that allows for dehumanisation of immigrant communities and offer consent for those who wish to violently express their hate. We see this play out in many countries around the world."
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2014/10/13/xenophobia-is-the-disease-you-should-be-afraid-of-not-ebola/

I read this and wrote a response back in October, before America totally forgot about Ebola because there weren't any more (black) patients to be disturbingly scared of.

We need some kind of intervention before this gets out of hand/more out of hand. Every day, regular people are feeling totally justified in being obscenely racist and xenophobic "for their own safety", and that's because there is a strong xenophobic narrative and no one feels responsible for producing the opposite narrative.

What could work, maybe, is an ad with lots of sweeping vistas and epic-type music and a voice-over from someone super famous (and white) and talking about how America is composed of people from all over the world, how people have often come here from countries with diseases, how we need to come together against stigma and collectively support public health, and then we need some American citizens from Guinea and Liberia and Sierra-Léone to be filmed at their wholesome American jobs and with wholesome American families saying "I am a Liberian-American, not a virus".
It would be all of the respectability politics but that's where we are right now.

"Lena Dunham's Race Problem"

"And then I am catapulted back to what it is that bothers me so deeply about Dunham. It is absurd and frankly racist that the literary world's axis is now set to spin based on whatever utterances are made by a 20-something white woman who grew up in wealth, likes to get naked and have sex on TV and call it feminism, and who is almost entirely exclusionary on the subject of race... Rae is black; Dunham is white—and black artists, particularly black women artists (see: Shonda Rhimes, Janelle Monae and Beyonce), are rarely afforded the luxury of being celebrated as individual artists. Entertainers, yes. Angry, sure. Afro-futurists, definitely. Feminists, occasionally. Individual artists, almost never."

http://gawker.com/lena-dunhams-race-problem-1649933383

Ya, I personally just can't with Girls.

"The new Hunger Games movie is a love letter to difficult women"

"Francis Lawrence makes their prickly demeanors unmissable, but he also makes it clear that one of the things that this dystopian world understands (that American society might still be missing) is that a woman doesn't need to be likable to be respected.

This trend is slowly taking hold in television — where women are just as morally tilted, complicated, and faulty as men. But this movie goes a step further than even those shows, with a canny commentary on celebrity, suggesting that the badass qualities that we love about women like Katniss (or Olivia Pope or Beyoncé) is only what they allow us to see."
http://www.vox.com/2014/11/21/7257601/hunger-games-mockingjay

"Why I'm Genderqueer, Professional and Unafraid"

"Professionalism is a funny term, because it masquerades as neutral despite being loaded with immense oppression. As a concept, professionalism is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, imperialist and so much more -- and yet people act like professionalism is non-political... As transgender, genderqueer and gender non-conforming people, we deserve better. We deserve to have our work ethic and intellect respected regardless of how we choose to express our gender identities. We deserve to be able to wear clothing and behave in ways that affirm our gender. We deserve to be treated fairly in the workplace."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-tobia/genderqueer-professional-_b_5476239.html

Yes. Yes yes yes. Professionalism means, as much as possible, be a straight, cis-gendered, white man with a sort of Northeast cultural bent. Have enough money and knowledge to buy the right suits, ties, and shoes. Be available to the judgments of the more "professional" people around you. Have a set of neutral conversation topics that are relatable to the other Professionals, can be believably chuckled at without threatening anyone or involving too much thought. Never, ever, ever make anyone uncomfortable/happen to have an identity that makes others uncomfortable.

"WHY WE NEED TO GET OVER CLAIR HUXTABLE"

" We laud these women for their strength, but never consider what it takes to embody such strength. We don’t consider the interior lives of these women. It’s acutely felt when discussing black women, because they have been the pillars of our communities, the only thing that has kept us going.

But they weren’t all Clair Huxtable. And they never needed to be. They were and are fully human, and everything that comes with that. So if slaying this pivotal pop culture figure can be a means of helping us explore the inner lives of black women, then slay we must."

http://feministing.com/2014/10/24/why-we-need-to-get-over-clair-huxtable/

(a) this is from a while ago, before Bill Cosby's sexual assaults became so massively discussed

and (b) It probably is healthier to love her without idolizing her. I realize that I might have bought a dress because, on some level, it reminds me of the dress she was wearing in that scene where she offers to get Elvin coffee while being mad feminist, and so it's going to be a process de-mythologizing her in my mind.

"NYC's Ebola Patient Went Bowling. Why Don't Americans Just Stay Home When They're Sick?"

"This is something my Soviet family and I could never get used to in the States, the stubbornness with which Americans trudge to work or school with triple-digit fevers or noses like spigots, the obliviousness with which an American will greet you with a hug and then say, “I’m sick!,” or reach to try your drink while hacking up a lung. Come to think of it—why are they even at the bar with you? Or the way Americans cough with childlike abandon, like a sprinkler. Or sneeze like no one is watching."

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119969/new-york-city-ebola-case-why-did-dr-craig-spencer-go-bowling

This is interesting (beyond the individualism, I think that a lot has to do with not wanting to have to take sick days. There really should be unlimited sick days). I also want to talk about how he is being treated so much differently from that person at the bar who is just sneezing everywhere and people are joking that he has the flu and if we get the flu from him we will be a little irritated maybe but won't question his basic moral character.

"The Feminist Guide To Non-Creepy Flirting"

"Remember, some women may be on guard because women’s bodies are highly visible. A lot of men do feel entitled to a woman’s time, attention, and body without considering her feelings. Dealing with men like this on a daily basis leads some women to adopt a stony faced, disinterested persona to avoid being targeted for street harassment... So even when you don’t act entitled to a woman’s body, don’t take every cold shoulder personally. Whether you’re one of them or not, there are a lot of creeps in this world that she’s trying to protect herself from."

http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/01/feminist-guide-to-non-creepy-flirting

Ya, I keep on wanting to let passing men know that women can TELL when people are staring at us. We just act like we can't see you because we are afraid of what you might do next. Stop staring, stop staring?

"Can't find your car? Hold your key fob up to your head. (Really.)"

"Holding the device up to your head means that its signal — electromagnetic waves of a particular frequency — passes through a large number of water molecules, contained in your brain. As these waves pass through, they pull the positive charges present in the water (the hydrogen ions) in one direction, and the negative charges (the oxygen ions) in the other.

"In effect, you've got the protons being pulled upward, then downward, then upward, then downward, because of the oscillating electric field," Bowley says. "That means they're behaving rather like a radio aerial [antenna] — as they go up and down, they're radiating energy.""

http://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/11/22/7259707/car-key-fob

so... also if you have some water, you could just hold them up to that and it wouldn't look as weird. But this is cool, I would love to know what else can be extended with this method. 

"When Bad Things Happen in Slow Motion"

"Eagleman and colleagues at Baylor and the Harris County Psychiatric Center in Houston asked people with schizophrenia and those in a control group to report how many stimuli, such as letters, pictures, and faces, they could perceive as they watched a series of rapidly flashing screens. The results suggested, Eagleman says, “a single flash that to you lasts 100 milliseconds, might seem like 120 milliseconds to someone with schizophrenia.” This 20 percent difference at the sensory level, he speculates, could belie temporal dysfunction at higher cognitive levels. For example, it could make it difficult to map the internal dialog one routinely hears in one’s “mind’s ear” onto oneself. In such a situation, Eagleman suggests, the frequent report by schizophrenics of hearing voices might amount to a rational interpretation of their subjective, temporally-dysfunctional experience."
http://nautil.us/issue/19/illusions/when-bad-things-happen-in-slow-motion

Really interesting questions about subjective human experience, and all the ways that different people can experience the world differently. The discussion of the differences across animals is also really interesting: "There is some evidence that this temporal dimension could be critical to the planet’s ecological competitions"

"5 Latinas Discuss Cristela, Jane the Virgin, and Representation on TV"

"In watching these shows I am at once mortified and mesmerized. Is this a mirror of who I am? Does it need to be? Can I relax and just enjoy the fact that our stories are making their way into the world? I am proud of those writers and actors who make these shows. I've chuckled and genuinely hope for the best. Yet at the same time I hesitate. I can't move past the stereotypes: the trap of religion, unrealistic familiar duties, the virgin/whore complex, and the storylines where we all still live with our meddlesome mothers."

http://jezebel.com/5-latinas-discuss-cristela-jane-the-virgin-and-repres-1661374834?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

This post convinced me to watch Jane the Virgin, and I am super glad that I did - and can also see these hypocrisies.

"#36 - THE MYSTERY OF CHILDISH GAMBINO"

"Rapper Childish Gambino (A.K.A actor Donald Glover) famously claims to have received his rap pseudonym, "Childish Gambino," from an online Wu-Tang Name generator. But investigating whether this story is true or not led TLDR host Alex Goldman on an odyssey of discovery."
http://www.onthemedia.org/story/36-/

This was just weirdly enjoyable, and ended in a super surprising place. I love little bits of over-thinking that lead to ridiculous places

"The Different Ways Black and White Women See Stereotypes in STEM"

"University students were asked a series of explicit, straightforward questions about whether they thought particular fields were "masculine," and white and black women had similar answers. But when they were asked to take an implicit association test, designed to tap into subjects’ unconscious stereotypes, the outcomes were different; as a whole, white women were much more likely to associate STEM professions with men than were black women. This means that black women were less likely to internalize the stereotype that STEM fields were predominantly male. And surveys of men revealed the same trend:  Black males were less likely than their white counterparts to assume that STEM fields were more masculine...One of Rowley’s own studies found that black parents expected their sons to perform worse in school than their daughters, even when boys’ grades were actually higher... "What’s happening with black girls is that their parents are seeing them as strong and efficacious and capable, so [they’re] pushing them into whatever it is they want to do and find interesting," Rowley said"

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/11/black-girls-stand-a-better-chance-in-stem/383094/

So rare I get to read a study about being better off - although in this case it's because of the oppression of black men.