Link Roundup! -The Toast

Melissa Gira Grant on how trafficking courts are just stop-and-frisk for women of color:

Nearly 70% of defendants facing prostitution charges in the Brooklyn trafficking courts are black. For loitering charges, 94% appear to be black. (The group sent monitors and used open records to track 364 cases in Brooklyn and Queens, where 58% of defendants are Asian, over nine months.)

LOVED Jaya’s new piece:

A while ago I wrote this piece about growing up biracial, which is technically true. My mom is white and my dad is Indian. Though that technicality immediately got murky. As soon as the piece was published, some people argued with my definition of biracial. Indian didn’t count as another race, because they were Aryan, or maybe Caucasian (a classification with a weird, gross history). I could look it up right there on the internet, and with that newfound information, I should probably start calling myself “bicultural” to be more accurate, OK?

Jenny Diski on her mother/daughter-like relationship with Doris Lessing (the piece gets into Jenny’s own mother’s sexual abuse of her):

Sometimes, for lack of a solution, I thought I’d simply call her ‘my mother’, but that made me so inordinately uncomfortable, ‘mother’ and ‘my’ being more than doubly cringeworthy, that even now I feel the need to reiterate that she wasn’t really my mother. We never spoke about it in more detail than the Auntie Doris joke, but she must have had a sense of it because when my daughter was about a month old and lying on the carpet in her flat, Doris said, out of the blue, in the awkward, clipped and embarrassed tone she used for any discussion of our relationship, which I very well recognised by then: ‘Do you want her to call me grandma? Or some sort of thing like that?’ I took it for the kindly and difficult gesture it was, but awkward and embarrassed myself by her manner, I said I thought ‘Doris’ would be the best name to call her. In any case, I said, ‘she’s got two grandmothers, even if one is invisible – please god.’ I was quite taken by surprise at the thought that all along while I was trying to figure out how to refer to Doris, I actually had a real mother to call my own. But having thought that, it seemed irrelevant.

On being a hero and not a princess:

Being a girl successfully wasn’t just acting — it was acrobatics. Get attention, but don’t seek it out too much. Dress acceptably, but don’t look like you’re trying to copy anyone. Know the lyrics to popular songs, but don’t let anybody know that you memorized them deliberately. My daydreams were still about doing things, saving people, but I started obsessing about how I was perceived. Instead of movie scenes keeping me up at night, it was all the ways I’d embarrassed myself that day. Being a girl wasn’t about doing right, it was about not doing things wrong. Not being loud, not having hair on your legs, not tripping, not taking up too much space or time. I had to make myself smaller, neater, less annoying. It was a negation. The terror of humiliation was paralyzing and didn’t square with the way I had thought about myself before. I had considered myself prepared to face the fires of Mordor, but it was becoming clear that if one of the orcs happened to make an offhand remark about the length of my gym shorts I’d get a stomachache and have to go home.

Okay, everyone keeps telling me this Elon Musk piece is great so I’ll get around to it.

EARLY MISANDRISTS (sent by a reader):

How are people enjoying The Mindy Project this season? I am enjoying it greatly, as Danny and Mindy are my OTP, and they are both terrible in their own ways, so. Like, people are all “Danny’s a jerk,” and I’m all “MINDY IS A FUCKIN’ MONSTER.”

this is adorable

You KNOW I hate being told to eat seasonally against my will, but a lot of these look really good.

Nicole is an Editor of The Toast.

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+42 Vote up Vote down

aravisthequeen 134p · 547 weeks ago

Jaya, you perfect sunflower, that piece was amazing.

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+17 Vote up Vote down

Currer_Belle 133p · 547 weeks ago

I think the girl on the 2nd row, left side may be surreptitiously flicking off the camera, and she is giving me life this morning.

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3 replies · active 547 weeks ago

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anninyn 124p · 547 weeks ago

Oh, that grammy is so cute.

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Girl Named Jack 117p · 547 weeks ago

Loved the Funkhouser piece on being a hero: "I knew how to like and want and protect things, but I didn’t know how to be liked and wanted and protected." That resonated like a big ol' gong. Excellent piece.

I once dressed as Robin Hood for Halloween, after I was old enough to know better, in junior high. I even brought a bow with me to school. People were still confused, somehow.

Damn. I wish I still had that bow.

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22 replies · active 547 weeks ago

+23 Vote up Vote down

thebellewitch 122p · 547 weeks ago

I loved it, too. I wonder, in retrospect, how many girls who dutifully dressed like princesses felt like this underneath.

Oh man, and her last paragraph described pretty much every halloween of mine I can remember. I had a tendency to dress as things that made no sense to anyone. I went as Elanta from Enchantress from the Stars one year. Shocking that no one recognized that one.

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13 replies · active 547 weeks ago

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littlehuntingcreek 135p · 547 weeks ago

Bacon-Latticed Apple Pie!!!!

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+10 Vote up Vote down

n0n1c3th1ngs 106p · 547 weeks ago

the granny-voicemails just made my Friday. nothing can go wrong now! *nothing!*

(knocks on wood)

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+57 Vote up Vote down

littlehuntingcreek 135p · 547 weeks ago

Love the Grandma VMs. How nice to have a normal Grandma. Mine used to cut clippings out of the newspaper of girls/women who had been brutally murdered and dismembered and mail them to me when I was away at college. Because we all know an unsupervised woman away from home w/o a father's protection is one step away from becoming a dead prostitute.

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5 replies · active 547 weeks ago

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threatqualitypress 136p · 547 weeks ago

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it before, but here is a pretty correctly-furious breakdown of the Texas Circuit Court's ruling on Texas' abortion restrictions:
http://wonkette.com/562303/federal-court-saves-te...

Man, I am definitely starting to worry about how straight-up dumb judges seem to be.

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+47 Vote up Vote down

lemonadefish 112p · 547 weeks ago

Unrelated, but I think I'll be out and about for open thread time: my baby is growing teeth! She seems to be jumping right in, with all four canines. I really hope they are nice and big by halloween, and she grows no others before that. I will have the best baby vampire ever!

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4 replies · active 547 weeks ago

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ecupcake 128p · 547 weeks ago

Well now I really miss my grandmothers.

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lilsebastian01 151p · 547 weeks ago

Mindy Project spoilers in this comment.

MINDY IS A HORRIBLE PERSON. LEAVE POOR CLIFF ALONE, YOU CAN AFFORD A REAL LAWYER. I mean, Cliff got his, but STILL.

I still like the show, but Mindy is the new Michael Scott, for real.

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6 replies · active 547 weeks ago

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helvetica547 130p · 547 weeks ago

I love Mindy and Danny, no matter what awful things they do because they are adorable, Chris Messina is just so effortlessly charming and the way he kisses makes me weak in the knees.

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8 replies · active 547 weeks ago

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aria_maria 102p · 547 weeks ago

The Mindy Project has only gotten richer and more joyous with time. I really love that Mindy Kaling doubled down on making Mindy Lahiri terrible after people's comments on making her more likable in the first season. She is horrible in SO MANY ways and it is delightful.

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2 replies · active 547 weeks ago

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aravisthequeen 134p · 547 weeks ago

I was never close to either of my grandmothers--to one I was The Unfavourite because I wasn't blonde and blue-eyed and also I looked like my grandfather, her late, hated, husband, and so while she fawned over my other cousins I was the reject--and the other one lived with us for years but had Alzheimer's for most of that time and usually thought I was my mom. Really I would have given just about anything to have a grandmother who left adorable supportive voicemails on my phone and thought I hung the moon. Oh dear, now I am mopey.

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2 replies · active 547 weeks ago

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alittleimprobable · 547 weeks ago

Hey so I was sleepily perusing the Link Roundup as usual and there was a paragraph that looked familiar... and then I SHRIEKED because it was mine. Thank you for linking to my Archipelago piece! You guys are my everything.

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projectbeks 119p · 547 weeks ago

I dressed as a pirate one year. An awesome, jaunty pirate, with a sword and a face tattoo. I have zero regrets.
I also have clear memories of dressing as Hobbes once, and people insisting I was Tigger. I was not amused. Nor did I bounce.
ETA - this was supposed to show up in reply to Girl Named Jack. Intense Debate needs to get its act together. :P

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ppyajunebug 137p · 547 weeks ago

I'm currently super anti-pumpkin because this country has decided to ruin it for everyone, but those pumpkin cornbread muffins look DELICIOUS. And the apple pie biscuits.

That was the wrong post to look st the day of Kol Nidre.

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1 reply · active 547 weeks ago

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thisclimbingbean 94p · 547 weeks ago

Those early misdandrists are just awesome! Ha.

Jaya's piece is great. I also read the previous one... both really well written. But wow, unbelievable, what people feel they're entitled to believe about one's ethnicity or race. Honestly.

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1 reply · active 547 weeks ago

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sednarea51 128p · 547 weeks ago

APPLE PIE BISCUITS. ::attempts to eat screen::

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+21 Vote up Vote down

greentype 117p · 547 weeks ago

Is signalboosting allowed in the comments section? If not, my apologies!

Friends of the Toast Mikki Kendall and Jamie Nesbitt Golden are raising money to support Hood Feminism! If you'd like to help, you can go to this link: http://www.youcaring.com/other/help-hood-feminism...

It's such a great site, and those two are amazing writers with really important things to say-- consider supporting if you can!

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Steph 99p · 547 weeks ago

That picture's great! There's a picture of my grandmother when she was in high school where she's making *exactly* the same expression as the girl in the pointy lace collar without a cigarette, and I thought for a split second it was her. (It's not, sadly.)

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+17 Vote up Vote down

susan_calvin 70p · 547 weeks ago

Man, I feel Jaya's piece so much. I'm applying to grad school and the ethnicity section is giving me a mini existential crisis. My dad's white and my mom's latina, and I'm afraid that if I check "yes" to the "are you of hispanic/latino ancestry?" question, they'll see my super German last name and think I'm lying. They probably don't even care, but ugh. And there's a part of me that recognizes that it's a privilege to be able to pass as a vaguely ethnic European white person, but then if I roll with that it feels like I'm slapping my mother's family in the face. I don't even know, you guys. *throws self away*

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3 replies · active 547 weeks ago

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ljndawson 111p · 547 weeks ago

The books with Jenny as a character are my very favorite ones. Love love love Doris Lessing.

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Either_Ada 139p · 547 weeks ago

I need a time machine so I can be an old-timey misandrist. Get me a cigarette, sepia tones, a jaunty collar, and a knowing expression STAT.

THIS IS MY CALLING.

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+19 Vote up Vote down

Ross Andersen · 547 weeks ago

Just popping in to say thanks so much for linking to my Elon Musk piece. We are huge fans of The Toast at Aeon—this made our day.

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+32 Vote up Vote down

ladyimogen 112p · 547 weeks ago

When my then-boyfriend agreed to be Tinkerbell when I went as Peter Pan for Halloween, I knew he was The One.

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moxycrimefighter 112p · 547 weeks ago

That princess/hero piece hit me right in my adolescent heart. I've never questioned my gender identity except for some abstract philosophical thoughts, but I feel like I am SO BAD at being a girl. For other people, it just seems...easier? Neko Case's "Man" is maybe the thing that comes closest to describing it.

In possibly related news, I am going to be Tina Belcher for Halloween. (Trying to convince my bf to be Summer Frankenstein.)

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1 reply · active 547 weeks ago

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briliantmistake 120p · 547 weeks ago

One Halloween I dressed as Germaine Greer when she was on UK Celebrity Big Brother. More specifically, I went as the time they had her dress as a german beer girl. Of course no one recognized me because (1) I promptly lost the copy of "The Female Eunuch" I was carrying in a futile attempt to convey the joke, (2) the party was in the US, where Celebrity Big Brother does not air, and (3) not many people in the US know who Germaine Greer is anyway. This led to everyone I encountered saying "Hey, St. Pauli girl" great costume!" to which I insistently replied "No, I'm Germaine Greer!" Cue host of confused looks.

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1 reply · active 547 weeks ago

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headonist 111p · 547 weeks ago

I went as a Doozer one year. (For the children of the 80's.)

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Es_Petal 120p · 547 weeks ago

Hello, fearless leader at number 16! http://www.buzzfeed.com/jenniferschaffer/things-a...

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bmorganjoy 93p · 547 weeks ago

I love when my CSA share starts coming up brassicas, I LOVE IT. Brassicas are better than other vegetables, but in-season brassicas are better still.
Kale in tofu scrambles. Kale in squash soup. Kale in spicy black bean soup. Kale on pizza. Kale, just steamed with a little oil and vinegar.
Broccoli and brussels sprouts can come too. Maybe some standard-sized cabbages and bok choy. But kale has my heart.

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bookwormV 119p · 547 weeks ago

I am a horrible person, because I would find those grandmother voicemails intensely irritating.

(I do not have particularly nice grandmothers. My immediate family is estranged from one, and the rudeness of the other is a running joke among us. Possibly my feelings are warped when it comes to normal relationships.)

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spiffygrits 114p · 547 weeks ago

I had a dude demand to know my daughter's race in increasingly aggressive tones once. And while it was upsetting and weird for me, and my daughter handled it fine by entirely ignoring him, it was also disconcerting to realize that soon the that guys of the world will be aggressively demanding it of her (and my sons) rather than me. I'd really like to be able to put my body between them and that ugliness for a lot longer than I will be able to. Ironically, this attack came the day after I had a talk with my husband about how the kids are probably mostly perceived as white, and how should we handle the gap between how people see them and how they see and understand themselves. The next day: a reminder that not everyone will see them as white, and some of those people will be really freaked out by this.

It is also disconcerting to realize how much ugliness I've been shielded from for most of my life. Whiteness is a hell of a drug.

Link Roundup!

ByNicole Cliffe

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