The Root 100 is out for 2014! Congrats to everyone, but especially Roxane Gay and Ta-Nehisi Coates, who may consider this honor to be even better than their status as Friends of The Toast. Now, here is The Root 101-200.
Here is a very different kind of list from Vanity Fair. HAHAHA we already made fun of it yesterday.
Man conducts extensive comparative research to settle question of refrigerating tomatoes w controversial result, people go bananas. (He’s probably right but I refuse to do it bc STODGY AND SET IN MY WAYS.)
YEP. Serena!
Fantastic interview with John Rechy:
You’ve said: “I was always an outlaw except now I want to live.” As a Mexican and a homosexual, you navigated two unrelenting worlds – the American class system, which we routinely deny even exists, and the Heterosexual Dictatorship. Was your first identity as an outlaw tinged with self-doubt?
No, I didn’t think of myself as being easily defined, and I have always rejected self-doubt. As I’ve always said, I shun “humility” as a fake pose. I wince when someone receiving an award, especially an Academy Award but also the office of President or an honor and dutifully—yes, dutifully—mouths the words “I am humbled.” No honor, no recognition, no award should humble anyone; it should elevate, not only the recipient but whoever is extending that honor, a grand synergy.
“It was an execution, no doubt about it,” alleged Crawford’s father, John Crawford II. “It was flat-out murder. And when you see the footage, it will illustrate that.”
DeWine has said that releasing the footage would be “playing with dynamite” and prevent any trial from being fair. He has assigned a special prosecutor from the neighbouring Hamilton County to handle the case. A grand jury will begin hearing evidence on it later this month. A Beavercreek police spokesman said in a statement: “Preliminary indications are that the officers acted appropriately under the circumstances.”
Can a book ever change a reader’s life for the worse (my vote is YES)? Also, um, gotta go buy a book now:
So what in the world were they thinking when they allowed me to read Howard W. Haggard’s “Devils, Drugs and Doctors,” an illustrated history of medicine that focused on plagues, venereal disease, mental illness and the horrifying extent to which women, in earlier eras, suffered the fatal agonies of unhygienic childbirth? Because I was a somewhat morbid child, this book, which I discovered in our attic, remained my favorite for years. And as I learned when I reread it recently, it was not only wildly inappropriate for a young person, but it might well have daunted and disturbed some adults. In fact the evidence suggests that many grown-ups liked it quite a bit. The vintage copy that I acquired not long ago was the 25th printingof an edition originally published in 1929.
Emily Gould drew my attention to this Facebook thread in which people are not well-equipped to handle Susan Miller’s decision to briefly prioritize her health over telling you about the stars.
Kelefa Sanneh wrote a really interesting profile of Bill Cosby for The New Yorker, which hits some (fleeting) notes (the rape allegations, for example) that will not be appearing in the new authorized biography.
Oh, you should also read Sanneh on when gospel singers come out, bc it’s dynamite:
This past September, the television host known as Lexi broadcast an interview with Tonéx on the Word Network, a gospel channel, in which the singer made his clearest public statements so far about his sexual orientation, which had long been a subject of speculation and debate. In the interview, Tonéx sits on a pale-green couch, quietly but confidently answering questions that he had been avoiding for years.
Lexi asks, “Have you struggled with homosexuality?”
“Not ‘struggled,’ ” Tonéx says, cagily. “It wasn’t a struggle.”
Lexi perseveres. “Is being attracted to men under control?”
Tonéx repeats the phrase, weighing it. “ ‘Under control.’ ”
“You said you were attracted to men, at one point.”
“Am.”
“ ‘Am’?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“So. Do you practice?”
“Like, piano?”
#same RT @JournalistsLike: In feline news… pic.twitter.com/QoXSHlzlBS
— Caroline in the City (@carolinecox) September 10, 2014
