Rebecca Carroll on why she’s quitting media:
Since that first media job as a TV producer, I have held editor positions at a range of startups and other online outlets. I started to recognize a pattern after one job when a white coworker openly dismissed an idea to write about a black artist on the rise: “Nobody even knows who she is.” Actually, I said, a lot of people know who she is. “Mostly just black people, though,” she countered. I argued that “a lot of black people” set the tone and establish pop cultural relevance in this country. My coworker was stunned. She looked at me with an expression of both disbelief and betrayal.
At the start of each new job, where I was almost invariably the only black editor on staff (unless it was a black publication—I have worked at a few), I would be heralded for my “voice” (and the implicit diversity it brought), until that voice became threatening or intimidating, or just too black. My ideas were “thoughtful” and “compassionate” until I argued, say, that having white journalists write the main features on a new black news venture sent the wrong message to the black online community. My editors disagreed.
Years later, in a conversation about Trayvon Martin with another boss, I said something like, “Racism is real.” My white boss came back with an answer that still astonishes me: “But you don’t experience racism, right? I mean, you’re attractive and educated—I can’t imagine that you would ever experience racism.”
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RIP Ben Bradlee. I really recommend Yours in Truth, one of the most fascinating biographies I have ever read, and also this tribute by David Remnick.
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This is NONSENSE, and Lord knows I like to performatively complain about French-Canadians, but one thing I NEVER SAY about French-Canadians is that they are afraid of naked breasts. THE TOAST DEMANDS THAT MS. LAURENT-AUGER BE REHIRED:
School director Michel April declined a request for an interview on Monday. However, in a statement released Sunday to quell the growing storm over the controversy, Brébeuf said it was acting in the students’ best interests by ending Ms. Laurent-Auger’s contract after 15 years.
“The fact that these films were shot 40 years ago doesn’t change their bold and suggestive – even explicit – character,” said the college. The Internet had brought the “erotic portion of [Ms. Laurent-Auger’s] career into the present,” and the students’ discovery of their teacher’s films affected the atmosphere in class, the school said.
“The availability on the Internet of erotic films in which she acted created an entirely new context that was not ideal for our students,” the school said. “After discussion and reflection, we concluded that adult films must remain just that, a product for adults. That’s why we decided not to renew Mrs. Laurent-Auger’s contract.”
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I really enjoyed this, on nose jobs (the author’s, the history, and the general concept):
When my mother told me she’d saved money for my nose job before I’d even thought to ask for it, I felt confirmed in my abnormality. I said I still wasn’t sure, but knowing that she’d saved money for it took a little of the responsibility off of me. If I felt ambivalent, I could tell myself it hadn’t really been my idea. I could accept the gift and slough off the parts that felt like they revealed something about me that I didn’t want to face.
a guide to flinging in oscar wilde
“we’re staying at a hotel this time”:
Q. Don’t Want to Stay With Parents Over Holiday: My husband and I are in our early 30s, with a lot of disposable income. We live out-of-state from my parents and would like to stay in a hotel rather than stay with them over the holidays. We love my parents, but their house is small, they impose an curfew so that they can sleep, and there is no Internet (or time) to keep up with our busy jobs. We are also often drained after spending a whole day with them. They are very excited to have us stay with them, and their feelings are often hurt when we make other plans. What is the best way to break this to them?
Donna Tartt on her time as a cheerleader:
There were pep squads, of a sort, in 1984. I read about them with interest. Banners, processions, slogans, games were as popular in Airstrip One as they were at Kirk Academy. Realizing that there was a certain correspondence between this totalitarian nightmare and my own high school gave me at first a feeling of smug superiority, but after a time I be an to have an acute sense of the meaninglessness of my words and gestures. Did I really care if we won or lost? No matter how enthusiastically I jumped and shouted, the answer to this was unquestionably No. This epiphany both confused and depressed me. And yet I continued–outwardly at least–to display as much pep as ever. “I always look cheerful and I never shirk anything,” says Winston Smith’s girlfriend, Julia. “Always yell with the crowd, that’s what I say. It’s the only way to be safe.”
It’s not that Lakewood residents enjoy having their doorbells rung two, three or four times a day to hear a hard-luck story. But while other towns may criminalize beggars or tell them to move along, Lakewood has an obligation to fulfill — Jews are literally family, according to the Torah. So the town came up with a modern solution to an ancient problem: paperwork. Beggars are registered and licensed in Lakewood, as a means of preserving trust in this community that aspires to be a village but is outgrowing that label.
I thought this was fascinating.
