October 23rd, 2016
from Brett
Got a pumpkin yesterday, but the question remains: should I carve it or eat it like the squash it is? I don’t think it’s possible to carve your pumpkin and eat it too? Please correct me if I’m wrong.
- To celebrate Plan Parenthood’s 100th year, Broadly has been publishing pieces on the past, present, and future of reproductive rights. I recommend this piece on the racist and sexist history of oral contraceptives.
- Read Marlon James’s Why I’m Done Talking About Diversity:
“Maybe a diversity panel should be all white.
Think about it: A panel on diversity with no diversity on it. The outrage would be immediate, even from people of color. And yet maybe that is what should happen. And maybe the first question should be why do we need a black person on a panel to talk about inclusion when it’s the white person who needs to figure out how to include?”
- Claudia Rankine is donating her $625,000 stipend from her MacArthur genius grant to found the Racial Imaginary Institute. Learn more about it here.
- In this week’s gossip column: Zadie Smith is your favorite author and a brilliant singer.
- Larissa Pham on writing and what you always knew was there.
- On Carson McCuller, a white writer “whose own personal turmoil and self-destruction may be at the root of the enormous insights about difference found throughout her work.”
- Artificial Intelligence is racist because it learns within white supremacist states.
- Virtual reality is not a neutral reality. Kara Melton confronts the assumption of whiteness in virtual spaces and the technologies that enable them.
- Check out the #NODAPL Syllabus Project.
- Get ready for Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s forthcoming book This Accident of Being Lost.
- Billy Gauthier is on day 10 of his hunger strike in resistance to the planned flooding for the Muskrat Falls hydro development, and Justin Trudeau has no plan to meet with him. Read more on Power, Police, and Muskrat Falls here.
- Halloween is coming up, but don’t worry you’ve still got a week to plan your costume. Here’s everything you need to know to avoid donning a violent and appropriative costume.
- Because of a lack of funding, Innocence Canada is unable to take on new cases.
- Esmé Weijun Wang writes to content creators about accessibility and offering things that people need (as well as accepting things that people offer).
- Give this episode of The Current on disability a listen.
- This week on the GUTS blog Aimee Louw writes about dealing with ableism and inaccessibility while dating.
I hope you stay well hydrated and well moisturized this week. XO