Mallory and Sansa are best friends now. Here is another picture:
“The Funny Thing About Abusive Relationships” (this piece is very, very good):
Offhand, there are maybe three times in my life I can clearly recall laughing at something really terrible. One: when my mother told me my grandfather had a heart attack. Two: when a friend and I were driving to Cape Cod and a huge bird careened into the windshield, instantly bonking itself dead. Three: when my friends tried to keep me from going home from a party because they thought my boyfriend might kill me.
The first two occasions are easily explained by the fickle, wacky human limbic system: In the presence of a big enough charge, the brain shorts out like the wiring in an old house. The physical reactions to “hey, funny ‘Marmaduke’ today” and “potentially dead relative” get crisscrossed. But the third thing, the morbid, in-on-the-joke, for-the-benefit-of-other-people laugh, I’d figured out how to do over time: I’ve been a comedy writer in some capacity for most of my adult life. When anything happens to me, I tend to be a little silly about it, because it’s both my default operating mode, and my DEFCON.
yes (autostraddle on the platonic use of “girlfriend”)
Twitter’s white people problems:
“Not only were we as a company not doing things about diversity, but the employees who did want to take a more active role were denied the resources to actually make anything happen,” says Mark Luckie, another black Twitter employee. Luckie, who worked for three years at Twitter as the manager of the journalism and media department, says he witnessed virtually no executive buy-in for diversity initiatives.
“A lot of the diversity initiatives—community service, guest speakers—originated from within the employee resource groups,” Luckie says. “In some cases, there was executive support, but not many of the initiatives came from the top down. To me, that sends a message to the company that diversity isn’t a priority.”
Erika Sanchez on her experience with colorism in Mexican society:
Colorism in Mexican culture has a long history rooted in colonialism. Many people don’t know that Mexico had a complicated legal caste system in the 1700s, which continues to influence beauty standards today. To exert control over their colonies, the Spanish commissioned paintings to illustrate different racial distinctions. As the cultural historian John Charles Chasteen describes in his book Born in Blood and Fire, a person’s caste was recorded in their baptismal register and those of lower (and darker-skinned) castes were legally barred from, among other things, becoming priests, owning weapons, attending university, and even wearing silk. There were 16 theoretical categories in all, though only six were typically used. Some of the lower castes were derisively given animal names such as Wolf or Coyote. Although the members of these six categories were legally prohibited from mixing, there was a whole lot of boinking and raping going on, so it was inevitable. Ironically, because the Spanish crown was desperate for money, those from lower castes who became successful were allowed to purchase exemptions. You could actually buy your whiteness.
Friend of The Toast Ashley C. Ford on when your dad gets out of prison:
When a parent goes to prison, the lack of straight answers doesn’t only affect the inmate, it affects their families, too. It affects the income and education of their children and spouses, and of course, it strains the familial bonds. My father has been in prison since I was six months old (I’m now 29). He was convicted on rape and sexual battery charges in 1987. He pleaded guilty on all counts. I have no reason to believe he is innocent, and I do not believe he should have served a day less than he was ordered to serve.
I do wish I could have gotten to know him more. There were always so many physical and metaphysical walls between me and him. I have two memories of being in his presence, both times in a prison visiting room. I am nervous to know him outside of prison, and outside of our letters. I am worried my nervousness means something worse than I assumed, that I am not ready or may never be ready to know him as a free man. I’ve only ever known him as he is now: a man who loves me, but cannot reach me.
What the finding of perjury means and doesn’t mean for the state trooper in the Sandra Bland case:
Walk me through what happens now. Is it possible that he won’t go to prison at all?
It’s possible. The charge has been laid against him, so he will have to appear in front of a judge and enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. He may enter a plea in exchange for a more lenient sentence. If the sentence of up to a year in prison and a fine of $4,000 is the maximum penalty that he can be given, it’s entirely possible, and likely if it’s his first offense, that he would get no jail time at all—that he would get community service or some kind of probation and pay a lesser or no fine. Unfortunately, accountability beyond being charged is by no means guaranteed.
the lady who has saved all the peoples of the earth via blackface
I find Gawker’s rundowns of the best deleted Wikipedia articles of the week really entertaining.
The Laquan McDonald emails (a predictable sea of “people want us to release the tape how can we avoid releasing the tape”)
Your husband needs to stop using you as a meat-shield, pronto:
Dear Prudence,
My husband “John” and I are expecting our first child. John’s parents are devout Christians whose lives revolve around their church. They have no idea their son is an atheist, although they know I am. They are assuming that John and I will take our children to church. My husband is extremely nonconfrontational when it comes to his parents. I want him to tell his parents we have no plans to raise our children in a religious tradition, but he won’t do it. Whenever his parents are alone with me, they sneak in questions about my family’s religion and tell me they look forward to John going back to church once he has a family of his own. I don’t want to cause tension with my in-laws, but I don’t want to lie for my husband either. I’d rather have it all out before the baby is born.
—Confirmed Non-Churchgoer
Autistic journalists and activists “cautiously optimistic” about Hillary Clinton’s policy proposals:
In 2007, when she was a senator for New York, Clinton introduced the Expanding the Promise for Individuals with Autism Act. That same year as a candidate, she spoke at an autism event in Sioux City, Iowa.
Clinton’s language has changed over time. At that 2007 event, Clinton spoke frequently about “combating” autism. This was very much in line with the paradigm at the time, as the major legislation focusing on autism was the Combating Autism Act, signed in 2006.
However, since then, as understanding and acceptance of autism has evolved, the concept of “combating” autism has fallen out of favor. When the 2006 legislation was re-authorized in 2014, it was called the Autism CARES Act. Similarly, last week at a town hall in New Hampshire, Clinton talked about “supporting” people on the spectrum and their families.
“Improving support for children and adults on the autism spectrum and their families can vastly improve their lives,” her policy proposal said.
Lydia Brown, an advocate on the spectrum and a law student at Northeastern University, welcomed Clinton’s evolution. “I am glad to see she has evolved,” Brown said. “If you want us to be supporting you, then you should use supportive language.” However, while pleased with many of the policy proposals, what matters is what happens concretely if Clinton is elected, Brown said.
A little observation about submissions that Nikki and I have made:
We frequently get pitches about being in an interracial marriage, but almost EXCLUSIVELY from white people, often in the “I’ve learned a lot about racism since being married to a POC” vein, and we would really like to see more pitches from POC who are in an interracial marriage (especially if they are married to OTHER POC, like black/Asian marriages, etc.) If that’s you, drop us a line!
Russell Tovey and I have more in common than I knew (also, I SAW HIM in “The History Boys” on Broadway, before he was the guy in “The Hounds of Baskerville” Sherlock episode, and never knew it was him):
A decade ago, Mr. Tovey was on Broadway in Alan Bennett’s “The History Boys,” which won the 2006 Tony Award for best play. “We all went slightly mad,” he said. “We were like the One Direction of Broadway.” He told James Corden, his co-star at the time, that he “used to fantasize about getting stabbed on the subway so I could have a show off. Just a surface wound.”
“Total Loss: A Lifetime Erased By Fire”:
“Are you bringing anything?” I’d asked. “I should bring things…”
We both paused, the enormity of Laurie’s predicament racking into focus. She would need everything again. But what now? Snacks? Toiletries? Alcohol?
Then, my mother shouted, “Panties!”
“What?”
“Panties!” she said. “She does not have panties with her, I am sure! Please bring panties!”
I did not like hearing my mother say the word “panties.” More disturbing, though, was the utter delirium in her voice, which rattled in a fragile, desperate vibrato. Laurie had nearly worked from home that day. She was alive.
So, I bought new underwear, and stuffed those into a suitcase of goods that seemed both essential and useless: a split of red wine, sneakers, a loofah, pajama pants, a hairbrush, whiskey, chocolate.
Before hanging up, my mother added, “What Laurie feels, I feel one hundred times more. Umma hurts one hundred times more.”
This parting comment seemed a pinch delusional. Maternal transitive heartache aside, the plain fact was that a fire had annihilated my sister’s home and its contents. How could my mother understand that kind of undoing?
When Dickens Met Dostoevsky (or didn’t):
I have been teaching courses on Dostoevsky for over two decades, but I had never come across any mention of this encounter. Although Dostoevsky is known to have visited London for a week in 1862, neither his published letters nor any of the numerous biographies contain any hint of such a meeting. Dostoevsky would have been a virtual unknown to Dickens. It isn’t clear why Dickens would have opened up to his Russian colleague in this manner, and even if he had wanted to, in what language would the two men have conversed? (It could only have been French, which should lead one to wonder about the eloquence of a remembered remark filtered through two foreign tongues.) Moreover, Dostoevsky was a prickly, often rude interlocutor. He and Turgenev hated each other. He never even met Tolstoy. Would he have sought Dickens out? Would he then have been silent about the encounter for so many years, when it would have provided such wonderful fodder for his polemical journalism?
Facebook comment on the Jessica Jones/moral injury piece that I didn’t delete, but eye-rolled at (idiots continue to pile up in our deleted comments tab for Nikki’s piece on racism, but even mocking them is growing stale):
If you need more Russell Tovey in your life (and honestly, who doesn’t), he had a prominent role in Looking, that Jonathan Groff vehicle that was boring as dirt, but had many, many pretty men in it. But we’re still getting a wrap up movie from them, so hopefully Russell will be in that as well.
Team Richie
Team Richie Finding A Nice Boyfriend That Is Not Patrick Because Patrick Does Not Deserve Richie.
I would like to be on your team (seriously, Patrick is really really cute, but NOT good boyfriend material)
It’s so deceptive, because Jonathan Groff is so adorable, therefore making Patrick adorable, but Patrick needs to get his shit together in the worst way.
I kind of loved that show, but I did spend the ENTIRE time yelling at Patrick to get better friends BECAUSE GOOD FRIENDS WOULD PUT A STOP TO THIS.
That’s true. I suppose what I mean is Team Richie Is A Better Relationship Prospect Than Kevin And I Want Him To Be Happy.
Not that I don’t love Russell Tovey, it’s not his fault that Kevin is a shithead.
That’s fair.
I’ve loved Russell Tovey for so long. He’s just so adorable.
I *think* the first thing I saw him in was Gavin & Stacey (which is my favourite thing in the world anyway), but Him & Her is the best thing he has ever done.
I do kind of have a bad habit of describing him as ‘the one with the ears’ though. But only because I couldn’t remember his name for ages!
Budgie!
I can’t find the gif I want of Budgie dancing, so here’s some dancing Smithy’s
Gavin and Stacey is everything. Specifically, this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHKzsnU3JEo
(Also, though, I’ve never seen season 3 because I can not. find. it. anywhere.)
Season 3 is the best! I have it on DVD, but I’m sure you could find it with… other means…
Have you seen the Christmas specials? ITS LIFE.
Welp now I know what I’m doing this weekend.
(I could go on and on about Gavin and Stacey, but I’ll refrain. for now.)
You can assemble the bits of the episodes on YouTube. The quality is terrible but the full season is there.
I still think of him as Midshipman Frame. “Allons y, Alonzo!”
Also, the UK Being Human!
In which he played alongside Aidan Turner and made me fancy him more than ol’ scythe-chest. There’s just something about him. (I know, I know…)
Lesbianism/WLW-ism creates a semiotic paradox: all of a queer lady’s female friends are “girlfriends,” and all her girlfriends are “just good friends.” Observe:
In this way, your girlfriend is just a girlfriend, but you haven’t gotten to a point in the relationship where your girlfriend is your girlfriend yet.
wot?
(Your female romantic partner) is totes just (a female friend), gosh, Mom, and you don’t think (a female friend for whom you have conflicting feelings) is (your female romantic partner) yet, because feelings and terminology are confusing. As is being a WLW.
“gal pals”
[whispers] Harold, they’re lesbians
This Mallory series reminded me of the time y’all went to see the miniature horses, and then it occurred to me that one day, probably pretty soon, ragdoll-of-love Sansa is going to be bigger than a miniature horse, although theoretically much more floppy than one. Then I wondered what Sansa would think of miniature horses and if she would love them and if they would become interspecies best friends. And so on.
So thank you for introducing a pleasantly circular and incurable contemplation of very cute animals to my Friday morning!
Sansa’s definitely already bigger than this miniature horse:
That is a truly TINY HORSE! Jeez. Take it easy, mini horses. We can’t handle much more of your tininess.
Or I guess it could be an enormous baby
Enormous baby human and small size baby mini horse?
Maybe the baby is small and the horse is far away
NOooOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
RUSSELL TOVEY. I absolutely ADORED him on the British version of Being Human, which I was not able to watch after Aidan Turner left because that episode DESTROYED me utterly. I know there was at least one other season, but my heart wouldn’t let me keep going.
Also, DAREDEVIL SEASON TWO I AM SO EXCITED I THOUGHT I WAS GONNA HAVE TO WAIT TO WATCH IT BECAUSE IT WAS GOING TO BE THE WEEKEND I WAS GONE AT A BACHELORETTE PARTY BUT NOW I CAN USE IT AS MOTIVATION TO GRADE FINAL EXAMS YEEEEES.
There were TWO more seasons of Being Human! It got steadily better after season 3 (which felt like the low point in the series imo) and I would re-watch but I do not have time to lay about in television-induced fits of agony. That show was TAXING to say the least.
Ugh yes. I love everything about George. His way of speaking and mannerisms are just perfect.
I only just watched being human recently for the first time. I gave up at the beginning of season 4. Both my loves were gone and my crush on that young werewolf guy (Micheal something) was not enough to forgive how annoying that new vampire was.
I’m in the middle of rewatching the first three seasons (aka the only ones that exist) because Aidan Turner and I am so pleasantly surprised to remember how great everyone else on that show was
Well you’ve said almost everything I was coming into the comments section to say (really, I wanted to talk about a) being human and b) daredevil).
Added bonus (for me) for Daredevil: season 2 will be released on my birthday. It is going to be an excellent day, complete with couch-lazing, cake-eating, and Daredevil marathon. Gorgeous.
Lin-Manuel Miranda has been trolling a podcast host (Griffin McElroy of My Brother, My Brother and Me) by repeatedly posting pictures of the fabulous professional wrestler Golddust on MBMBaM’s facebook group. Carly Rae Jepsen got roped in at some point. The internet is a funny place.
edit: An illustrative example
Best use of MacArthur Genius Grant ever.
i’ve spent several minutes frantically trying to figure out how to share a picture of Goldust with the Toast because he is amazing. As awful as pro-wrestling can be (and it can be super awful) there is this other side to it where Dusty Rhode’s kid can have a long and lucrative career as an (in wikipedia’s words) “enigmatic, flamboyant, sexually ambiguous” gimmick character that isn’t (mostly) played for the gay panic angle. Anyways, if the picture doesn’t pop up do yourself a favor and image search goldust, he is indeed fabulous.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Go-LWRWS9fk/TUsy2fgzlDI…
Goldust is wonderful (though the commentary about him in the Attitude Era was … yikes.). I love all the Rhodes family, and it’s baffling to me how he and Cody have never gotten the spotlight their talent deserves.
They really shit the bed on the Goldust/Stardust feud. That would have been an epic WrestleMania showdown.
I seem to remember one of them (probably Goldust?) was injured and that’s why that just kind of petered out? I’m not sure, though, and I’d definitely believe it’s just terrible booking.
Goldust was always one of my favorites, which probably explains so much about me now. He had the best alternate costumes (also regular costumes) in the wrestling game I used to have for N64.
I LOVE GOLDUST
That is all. I’m pleased that I’m not the only professional wrestling Toastie!
AFAIK I think LMM and the McElroys are actually meatspace buddies outside of the weirdness of internet fame, so that’s even better (LMM was in one of their fantasy football leagues, e.g.).
Annnnd now I realize I know too much about random internet personalities so I’ll just be sitting over here re-evaluating my life choices.
Speaking of girlfriends…I finally saw “Carol” last night, and I would like to be the girlfriend of both Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara! The two leads and the movie were almost painfully beautiful.
My husband and I saw Carol last weekend and said we would do absolutely anything Cate Blanchett told us to do. The end.
And the costuming! I would like to dress like Cate Blanchett in that movie, forever and ever.
I was so GIDDY every scene Carol was courting Terese. Ahhh that movie.
I know! There was SO MUCH contained in each glance and smile they exchanged. It was so understated and lovely. Every courting scene was full of sexual tension.
I finally saw it yesterday too! Now all I want is to be seduced and taken on a road trip by Cate Blanchett. I spent most of the movie being jealous of Rooney Mara and also completely sympathizing with her moon-eyes every time she looked at Cate.
yes, the whole thing was just…breathtaking!
HAROLD I THINK THEY’RE LESBIANS
In that second pic, Mallory has excellent “DOG, you are licking my FACE and I love you and wish to snuggle you FOREVER but the actual licking is slightly disconcerting and yet I CANNOT LET GO” face.
Mallory looks so HAPPY omg
The joy and sheer glee that emanates from the photos of Mallory and Sansa is almost unbearable, it’s all so damn magnificent. Now I will sit at my desk and sigh for 20 minutes because I want a dog and can’t have one.
“How is this in anyway a feminist show. I’ve seen it and I didn’t get that in the slightest.”
2016 Resolution: Explain nothing. The confusion of men is no longer our problem.
I like that resolution!
Was he watching a different show? Or watching it without the sound on, or something? It feels like something that’s hard to miss.
PREACH.
I agree wholeheartedly. I think it’s pretty clear he doesn’t WANT to get it anyway.
My (white dude) co-worker’s summation is that the villain is what makes JJ worthwhile, if you’re willing to sit through watching all of these other people for hours first. So many things wrong! Combined with my (white dude) brother not getting the magic that is Mad Max: Fury Road, my takeaway is that it must suck to be a white dude who is incapable of appreciating anything that is not directly tailored to his demographic.
Ugh yes, the guys in my office do not get Fury Road. Its a dumb action movie that even I like, what’s not to get? (since I usually don’t like dumb action movies because their based on stupid premises, or treat women badly, or are just plain boring. Fury Road is none of these, therefore it is a good movie.)
Is there a Tumblr of “Guys Who Don’t Get It” quotes? If not, there should be
“it must suck to be a white dude who is incapable of appreciating anything that is not directly tailored to his demographic.” Really though! Well said. Never thought of it like that before, but my god, how much they miss out on! Such a narrow, blinkered existence.
They only have a zillion (rough estimate) other things out there to identify with! SOMEONE THINK OF THE MENZ! /sarcasm
I can only imagine the whistle JJ made as it went over this guys head.
Incidental, but bemusing to me presently for inexplicable reasons – this imperfect world is so rife with typos and ignorant blargh – I wonder if he actually thinks “now adays” is in any way correct?
And now I want to pepper my sentences with the fantasy word “adays” – then adays, lack adays, haul adays?
PS Best Resolution Ever, obvi.
And don’t forget “hero’s.” Because all plurals need apostrophe’s!
You are my hero. Please teach me your ways.
I’m pretty sure this dude has been all over the AV Club recaps. I’ve seen feminism go well and go REALLY BADLY at the AV Club, but he got called out pretty consistently in the reviews I’ve had time to read.
Perhaps he expected her to turn towards the camera and deliver a monologue about positive consent and the panopticon. So really, it’s not a feminist show so much as just a good show that anyone can enjoy, which might be the greatest praise of all (?)
The Dickens/Dostoevsky piece is quite long and hard to read and quite unlike anything I’ve read recently. What a weird story.
It was WILD. And could have used 50% more paragraph breaks.
Toast, I’m back! (I was never really gone. Just without internet access.)
Everything is terrible. I was grocery shopping earlier, and an old woman with a cane asked for help, and I didn’t do anything and no one else did anything either. I think some guy finally reacted, but I just went away. And I feel so awful. My only “excuse” is that I had both my hands full of stuff and my handbag was wide open, with my purse sticking out, and I actually feared that this old lady was a trickster and wanted to rob whoever helped her. I really, really hope she is ok. Why didn’t I do anything??
(I’m not really sure what I expect from posting this, am probably deleting it later, I just needed to tell someone because I feel so terrible.)
This happens to me sometimes when taken by surprise out in public. I tend to be up in my own head all the time, and when something really out of the ordinary happens, my instinct is to Run Away. And then after the fact you realize, “oh I really wish I had reacted differently there”. So, I feel you.
i have had this too. I’m not good at quick decisions and often that means making a non-decision instead. Which is its own decision of course and often not the best one, but I’d probably do the same thing.
I was on the train home yesterday and a man came through the inter-carriage doors that I was sitting beside and scared the ever loving shit out of me because he started talking before I could see him. He was begging for money (which happens a lot on the trains) and I just ignored him.
In those situations I tend to feel cornered and I just retreat into myself and ignore everything that’s happening; its not that I don’t want to give you money, I’m just a generally anxious person and I don’t really know how to go about this interaction so I just shut everything out
Yeah, that is sort of what I’m experiencing – I’m so paralyzed that I can’t think clearly anymore, even though I know what I would want to do.
I hear you. I think there are times where – perhaps especially so as women – we are in a position where we could be helpful or kind but we must be protective of ourselves and our safety over that instinct of kindness. In the moment you make the decision that feels safest (you don’t want later someone to be like, “Wow, you totally got taken”) but afterwards when any threat is gone, you’re left with the lingering guilt and self-punishment.
I, of course, have had a similar situation the other day, slightly more intense (the needy person in question was clearly in a not-stable mental state and truly distressed about something only he could see), and have been mulling over my inaction, the inaction of those around me, and my continued feelings of guilt and responsibility towards my fellow humans when I must also be responsible for taking care of me.
It’s something I remind my male students sometimes (I teach middle and high school): as a woman, I’ve been taught to see the threats around me, and to be responsible for my own defense, even when the “threat” in question looks like nothing to them.
I totally feel this, especially in instances where I DO end up giving someone money or whatever and then someone else gets on my case about it, like I’m such a “bleeding heart” or “could have gotten hurt” and so on. Correct on both accounts, probably, but I try to do what feels best in the moment and don’t need anyone patronizingly telling me how stupid I was for it.
I think you have to trust your gut! I’ve been in this situation before and felt very bad afterwards, but at the same time in the moment I felt that something was off, or that by trying to help I was putting myself at risk, and I had to listen to that signal. I know people who are very heedless about helping everyone, and sometimes those situations ended horribly. There’s a middle ground in there, but it can be hard to pin down.
You’re absolutely right about trusting my gut! In this case, however, I think my gut was telling me to stay and help, while my head said, “Look, no one else is doing anything, so she’s probably a beggar, just go on” – that is sort of the opposite of what you were referencing, but I think it narrows down to the same thing: Learning to trust your own feelings, and doing what you feel is right.
Someone with a walking stick asking for help in a shop is not begging, they’re probably just wanting help getting something down from a high shelf, or something like that. Or maybe she was ill and needed something like a glass of water. Trusting your gut is great in many ways, but sometimes your gut feelings come from unfortunate places, such as ableism. There’s a huge amount of nastiness about disabled people in the media, to the point that many people stare suspiciously at disability aids such as walking sticks and assume that people are faking disability. My guess is that’s where this instinct came from. I’ve had to spend a lot of time thinking about why people treat me so differently if I’m using a walking stick or wheelchair.
That poor woman in the shop, how humiliating for her to have to keep asking people. It can be very frightening when you need help and people speed up to pass you and pretend they didn’t hear. It makes you feel like a lower life form.
I apologize, and you are absolutely right about everything you said (as far as I can tell as an able-bodied person). I would have helped her in an instant if this had happened in the shop for exactly the reasons you have pointed out. It was, however, outside the grocery store – it is located in sort of a small mall with several other shops where a lot of people pass through and there are often people who do beg for money. This is why I was so taken by surprise and wasn’t sure about what to do – I couldn’t tell right away what she wanted.
And as I said, my gut instinct was indeed to help – but I often have the problem of not following through with this instinct and instead trusting my head/thoughts which tell me to do the exact opposite thing. Whether this particular thought stemmed from internalized ableism, I can’t tell, but it is important that you brought up this topic.
But this “not trusting my gut” thing is a problem I encounter time and again and try to work on, and will continue to do so in the future, because it often leads to uncomfortable situations for both me and others.
Again, I am very sorry, and thank you for your response. You brought up an important aspect I didn’t considered in the least. I will definitely search my heart for the reasons I do or don’t do things the next time a situation like this comes up.
(This is not supposed to sound cheesy or insincere, I just don’t know how to phrase it in English any better.)
When I lived in Santa Fe I was once eating my home-prepared lunch of soy ginger chicken over fettuccine in a public park, and a disheveled woman passing by squawked “can I have a bite??” in the most aggressive and shocking way. I said no, because, am I going to just lend a loud and terrifying and unhygienic person my fork? The one that goes into my mouth? And then I felt sad and worthless and couldn’t stop dwelling on how I was probably a terrible person. Is it a gender thing, a lapsed Catholic thing? I don’t know, but both, probably, at least in my case.
The only person I share my food with is my husband and maybe a couple of my best friends. Definitely not strangers, however needy. If I have a bag of oranges or something? Sure. But not like a meal that you eat with forks.
You’re not a terrible person!! That’s basic hygiene!
Something like this happened to me recently. I saw a guy sitting on the ground at the train station and assumed he was drunk or on drugs. Then a woman started yelling for someone to help him– turns out he was a diabetic who hadn’t eaten, so a cop called 911 and I got some oh with sugar into him. The emts eventually took him off, but I’m disappointed that my first reaction to someone in trouble is that they’re a threat to me.
I think maybe cis men need to prove they’re not asshats before they can post a comment on The Toast. Regularly do clinic defense and never try to get ally cookies for it? You’re in! Have three women who offer unsolicited testimonials that you regularly let them take the lead in conversations at home or at work and never, ever interrupt them or act resentful about it? You’re in too!
Cis-het men teaching their children to be feminists are in as well, as long as they don’t ask for cookie rewards.
Like some sort of CAPTCHA, only for screening out patriarchy?
you could say the same thing for white women, since there are far more of us here on the toast and our shittiness about race, class, queerness, is frequently ignored or brushed under the rug (not on the toast though, luckily)
The Dear Prudence letter about the man who came out and his family’s reaction really is heartbreaking. Excellent response by Mallory. That one can’t have been easy.
I’ve been praying it’s one of the “people write to Mallory with the plot of an English novel” but no, reality is that horrible. I want to hug that poor man so much. I also want to bring his father back from the dead for a minute just so I can yell at him for being a selfish bastard (not for committing suicide but for pretending his son’s sexuality is the reason for his suicide).
The man writing to Dear Prudence absolutely needs to tell his parents and not leave it all to his wife. My dad’s parents are also very religious (Catholic) and strongly dislike my mother partly because she is an atheist (they are also horrible people, admittedly), to the extent of trying to talk my dad out of the wedding the night before. However, my dad (also an atheist, despite a Catholic upbringing) did not leave my mum to deal with all of the “we’re looking forward to you bringing your children to church!” stuff, because he is not a monster.
yeah, I didn’t want to go through the process of making an account on Slate, but my mom and dad were in this exact situation when we were kids, and my dad wound up pretending for years to his mom that we were regular churchgoing folks. I and my brother were both baptized, we always went to church whenever grandparents visited (which was fine, but we also did it acting like this was the church we always attended every week), etc. Turns out, in that case, if a guy is okay lying to his loved ones over sort of important matters because his philosophy is “oh knowing the truth will just hurt them, so I’ll just do what I want and lie to my loved ones about it”, he will apply that to a lot of different areas of his life, like say, his willingness to be monogamous, and will use that exact same philosophy to explain why he lied for years about that stuff. Just something to consider!
That sounds like a hard situation – I’m sorry.
I hope a toastie pitches that article! I’m terrible at distilling the point from something, so there’s that. But I have so many thoughts! About Nikki’s article about dinner parties. Also about the comment by @MsShona, which I would also love seeing expanded into an article too, about how another thing that hurts is being put in that ‘other’ category. Like you’re just trying to get through a meal or whatever and then someone has to make it clear about “which one of these things is not like the other”.
Which leads me to a question I have for other toasties in interracial relationships: I’ve noticed that a large portion of our couple friends are in also interracial relationships, but I have never brought it up with any of them in person to see if they have similar experiences to us or worry about the same things I do (as a natural worrier, I expect the answer would be no, you’re crazy) because I don’t really want to disturb the general sense of “this is a totally normal way for all couples to look, there’s nothing to discuss here” BUT as an over-thinker by trade, I also kind of want to discuss it? How do I have my cake and eat it too? Want to discuss it here toasties?
I am in an interracial marriage but truthfully, I don’t really think about it that much. Pretty rarely. I don’t have any other real life friends in interracial relationships (right now), though, so I might feel differently if it was like a common thing in my peer group?
I think that might be the more common mode! Which is also why I’m a bit gun shy about bringing it up with our friends.
Like, I wouldn’t be offended or anything, but I’d feel strange about talking about it not due to the race aspect but because the issues it brings up are pretty personal and intimate, and I don’t want to discuss my relationship with anyone. It’s one thing if it’s just a sort of lighthearted discussion of a goofy cultural exchange or “wouldn’t believe what some idiot said to us” but anything more than that, to me, falls into the category of just relationship issues that I wouldn’t be discussing with friends anyway.
re. being in interracial relationships and talking to other interracial couples about some of the microaggressions (or funny moments) that come along with it: I personally find it a source of relief that I’m not the only one who experiences similar weirdness of awkward things said by family or strangers, the little things you pick up from each other after living with one another, etc. But that’s me. I could see how someone who, for instance, espouses to being “colorblind” or whatnot would be extremely uncomfortable with these kinds of conversations.
On pitching on interracial relationships: I just want to put this out there to see if anyone else has similar hesitations, but one of the reasons I wouldn’t want to write about my own POC interracial relationship is because I’m a bit worried about airing out “our” dirty laundry in front of white folks. Just to use my own relationship: I think there’s a lot of internalized prejudice and cultural stuff that can be touched on and unpacked in these sorts of discussions and I worry about things coming off the wrong way to people. Also, while I’m comfortable talking about my own family and community (kinda to the latter, hahaha), I feel uncomfortable writing things about Black communities. Like, I’ve had some weird conversations with some Black folks and some Asian folks about our relationship (I almost shared one in the comment I left in Nikki’s post earlier this week*), but I would never want it to be used for fodder by some non-Toastie white (or POC, frankly) person to be like “see?? everyone is racist, it’s okay to believe in stereotypes!!”
Of course, this is all me, and a more careful or thoughtful writer could do this justice. Also, I’m realizing that I should probably unpack why, my experiences to the contrary, I generally assume the Toast’s readership is majority white. ANYWAYS. Or maybe we should just go “fuck the racist folks anyway!” and write whatever? I don’t know.
*this was also made by an Asian woman (admittedly raised in a boarding school in India) in a setting where we were all interracial couples ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
P.S. That strange moment of insecurity when people ask if you’re together and you’re not sure if they’re asking because you’re an interracial couple or if there is something about your body language that suggests that you’re not together? I would guess we could swap those stories for a bit too.
No, 100% yuuuuuuup. Exactly. The microagressions check thing is totally what I want all the time. Like basically a poll that has a yes/no box with the question, “Have you ever had the sense that a host at a restaurant had difficulty understanding that “table for two” meant a table for you and the person standing right next to you? Did it seem extra difficult?”
And I also have a comment I was going to leave on that post, and I refrained for exactly the same reasons! And I’m trying to allude to it, without any actual specifics for exactly that dirty laundry worry. But also, because it was all shared or said in a circle of community/family trust. It just feels like a confidence or something. And yet, man, so much stuff to unpack too.
I totally get not wanting to air this stuff in an essay, Hieu! (I don’t write much about being in an interracial marriage, except jokes.) But I know and trust you, and if you ever wanted to take a stab at drafting or even just discussing things, with or without intent to publish, I’d be really glad to talk with you about it.
Re: your comment just below, there’s really not great language to describe the feeling you get when you know or just sense that other people are puzzled that you’re together. But I know that feeling, too. Sometimes “Where did YOU TWO meet?” is just a question, and sometimes it’s…not.
Nikki, I deeply appreciate the offer! I know that you and the entire Toast staff and commentariat are generally fantastic and I have thought about writing about this (because I think about writing on all aspects of my life as an Oversharer) but I hadn’t thought about why exactly I was drawing back.
Also, thank you for linking me to those jokes again, I think I need to share them with even more people.
It’s interesting what you say about not wanting to air ‘dirty laundry in front of white folks’. I feel similarly but in a different way since my 9-yr relationship was with a white man…like there were difficulties due to a few prejudiced and/or ignorant family members, etc which I’d be reasonably okay with sharing but in some ways it’s the fact that most of the time I did forget that we were in an inter-racial relationship, which I’m afraid of white folks using as a ‘SEE! Being a POC in our post-racial society is not an issue! You even forget!’ when most of the time I’m trying to make it clear that ‘I’m colourblind, me’ is basically another way of saying ‘Hey guys, I have white privilege!!!’
We were at a party a couple of years ago with some of Dan’s former colleagues (he’s since moved on to a diff company), and just by chance most of the couples in attendance were interracial, with multi/biracial kids. I don’t honestly remember who brought it up or how, but suddenly we were all discussing weird things people had said to us (“That’s SUCH a great combination!” and “how Asian” or “how Latinx” the kids “look,” and the like). I remember being so surprised because usually it’s not something we find ourselves discussing, even with fellow interracial families, for precisely the reasons you mention. I have to say, it was remarkably affirming and good to vent about it as a group.
That sounds lovely! An evening’s worth of a kvetch session.
Oooh, anecdotes…
When we first moved in together, we moved to a Chicago suburb that’s noted for its diversity. (That’s not why we moved there, but bonus.)
One Sunday, while we were trying to find a church home, we visited this lovely congregation. At the end of the service, a couple in the pew ahead of us turned and commented about how nice it was to see us again and inquired after our children. We smiled and nodded and on the car ride home, I suggested that maybe this wasn’t the congregation for us if there were so few BW/WM couples that we could be mistaken for The Other One.
There’s also the time we had to have a conversation about the number of white people/black people jokes we tell at home because our white-passing daughter was getting old enough to repeat them in the street. Ooops.
I think that may be why it’s on my mind all of a sudden: we just moved to a new place, which puts us in a spot to think again about how we present as a couple. Although I trust right now it’s the American accents that everyone notices first. But it’s just got me re-asking all the where/how do we fit in questions.
And certainly yes! Better to avoid being put in that The Other One pigeon hole. Unless the other The Other Ones are really friendly and willing to do pranks on all the other congregants.
I think about my interracial relationship (my boyfriend is white) in the way I think about a lot of things re: my racial identity–not at all, at least, not at all out loud, but then again: all the time. Like…it’s a low-level consciousness, a sort of…color filter on the lens, I suppose. I pass for white (or…whitish?) most of the time, so I have this privilege of not being reminded constantly (though I have a tendency to remind myself constantly :/ ), until something particularly egregious smacks me in the face. I have a lot of stories that I’m thinking of compiling into a theatre piece (actor/playwright by trade) but who knows, maybe it’ll take another shape.
I may have shared this story before, but the big story I have about my interracial relationship is:
My boyfriend’s white parents are lovely, gregarious, outgoing people who have welcomed me into their family. They know I am biracial and specifically aware of my Filipino heritage. One night we were chatting after dinner when it came up that boyfriend’s maternal grandfather, who died before he was born, was a hard man, very strict, and also very “prejudiced”. And boyfriend’s mom made it a goal in her life to not be like that with her kids, that it was very hurtful and terrible and good people are all different colors, etc. Which is great!
Except: Boyfriend said something to the effect of “yes, I knew you would always be accepting of our relationship, etc.” And his parents were totally puzzled. “What? You don’t have an interracial relationship.”
Then it came out that his parents see race as very black and white–literally. “Well, there’s black people and white people. You’re not black, so!”
I’m still not sure either one of us got through to them.
Not at all, but all the time is exactly it! I’m mixed latina, sometimes white-passing depending on the observer, and I grew up feeling really displaced and confused about my place in the world. It took me all through college to really sort out a sense of my identity and where I fit in and all that jazz. So yeah! Always pondering.
A theater piece would be great! As someone who did do a lot of identity struggling, I gobbled up all the books and plays and articles that were out there and reflected even somewhat my reality.
Also, his parents. I just can’t even? Can’t. It’s funny (read, sad) how far people can miss the mark, even when trying their best.
I was talking to a guy who is ethincally greek about how he was talking to a white friend and was told that because other people saw him as white and he’s a sort of ‘borderline’ case, he couldn’t properly consider himself a POC. Which is obviously a horrible thing to say. He recognises that he doesn’t suffer a lot of the prejudices that, say, a person of Sub-Saharan African ancestry suffers for example but one’s experience vis-a-vis race is always about self-identity as well as how others see you.
Personally, being of Japanese origin, I am spared a lot of the worst of racial prejudice, which obviously I’m grateful for…in a sense. But it makes me feel uncomfortable too — I feel myself to be an ethnic minority immigrant and the idea of being a sort of ‘honorary white’ to racist people makes me feel quite sick. I really feel you about feeling confused about your place in the world. It’s weird this sense that you are seen as ‘belonging’ or welcome in a group you don’t quite identify with.
Oh man, I’d love to hear your recs on books/plays/articles re: identity struggles. Still struggling here, obviously, though I think I’m forging something out of all the struggles. Sometimes I think the struggling is my identity, haha.
And yeah, that was sort of my reaction as well. “I literally don’t know how to respond to that, so I’m…I can’t even.”
I’d be happy to! I’ll put together a list (and then agonize over it, overthinkingly) and then post sometime this weekend or so.
Yay! Here’s to overthinking and struggling!
…there are probably better ways to say that. LOL
I meant to write back so much sooner, but my beginning week was a bit out of control! But I’m here to say that the first bit of reading I did that tipped the scales for me was called “Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodríguez”; we read it in my high school class and it just got me thinking about identity and all that jazz. And then the next book to give me a sort of point of understanding was “The Truth about Stories” by Thomas King. After that it was mostly blogs and articles, including a really great set of pieces in Ebony that featured Heidi Durrow. The NY Times Race Remixed series has had some hits (and misses) for me too: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/us/series/race…
Sorry for the delay!
Ahhh omg! No, this is awesome, thank you. Can’t wait to dive in!
Oh man, the boyfriend parents story: I’m white and married to a woman who is half-Filipina. My (mostly lovely and supportive) white parents have said a million things ranging from hilarious (my mother insists that Filipino isn’t Asian and I cannot figure out why) to horribly offensive. My mother has literally said that she doesn’t believe interracial marriages should exist, in reference to my cousin marrying a black woman, and she had no idea why I just stared at her with my jaw dropped. I have not yet found the mental strength to tackle that topic with her again.
Oh man, OUCH. There have to be more eloquent ways to say that, but yeesh. The cognitive dissonance! Hooooo boy. I don’t blame you for your lack of desire to tackle that. Because, in my experience, I suspect it’ll be like trying to move a brick wall using only your pinky finger :/
For me the issue in discussing my interracial marriage is, I don’t think my husband and I have a unified perspective on it. We approach things from our own POVs: me as a POC who sees, fields and frequently has to point out to him the slurs, slights and little “oh, you’re TOGETHER?” comments that fly right over his white, Anglo non-American-born head. And non-American-born has a LOT to do with it; the cultural context of American white-black racism is impossible for a non-native to grasp.
On the other hand, my (interracial) family welcomed him unreservedly, while his (white) grandmother and great aunt were openly hostile and bigoted towards me. So while I feel and see more of the day-to-day stuff, he had unvarnished and unapologetic racism from family members that he had to buffer for years.
Julianne Smolinski’s piece is just my whole heart.
Agreed. I have a lot of cover-it-up-with-humor reflexes about both my childhood/family and when I was with my Darth Ex, and I found myself continually nodding going, “Yep, did that.”
I don’t think I took a breath the whole time I read it, except possibly once when I decided I couldn’t read any more, then finished it anyways.
One of the bits that really got me was “I’ve only barely told my family or friends about my own experience, because it’s humiliating and scary and frankly, I don’t like thinking about it.” When my family asks me why I left, or why I didn’t tell them… god damn, I stopped breathing again.
My favourite thing about the Russell Tovey piece, without having even read it in its entirety, is that he loves his stage managers and they love him. That speaks volumes to his character.
God, I fucking love Rudge so so so much.
Truth. So much truth. Any stage actor liked by the stage managers is a Good Egg, period. And any disliked by them invariably turns out to be an asshat of some sort.
Yes! Also I have worked with Martha Donaldson and she is AMAZING, so her part in that article speaks even more highly of him.
Hm. I watched Something New again last night and I wondered to myself what it is that draws me in about movie. Almost certainly Simon Baker and Sanaa Lathan’s combined beauty. Probably seeing black folks on screen not acting foolish. Also, sympathizing with her desire to marry a black man and finding one’s self accepting that love had come in an unexpected form. And the things your partner can empathize with and the limits of that empathy.
Also the pain of being asked if the child with you is *yours*, in that not-as-subtle-as-they-think manner and trying to find ways to say “yes, she emerged from my vagina” while remaining polite.
But I really have nothing to say about my interracial marriage other than to say I love him very much and could not ask for a better partner.
Ah, and my very favorite interracial couple anecdote…
We were chatting quietly on the El when we were approached by a young black man.
YBM: Dating a black girl, huh?
Husband: Yup.
YBM: That’s cool. I tried dating white girls once.
Husband: So did I.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is why I married him.
God, I love that movie, for all of the reasons you mentioned.
Thank you for reminding me that I need to go watch it again.
On Netflix Streaming. Have at it 🙂
Also, Toast, here is Your Daily Channing Tatum: http://www.vulture.com/2016/01/beyonce-channing-t…
I found that on facebook earlier and it has been making me very happy all day. I’ll be in my bunk.
That entire video! It just keeps one-upping itself with greatness upon greatness.
I was just coming here to post that! You can also watch Jenna Dewan Tatum (of Step Up fame) flip the script and lip sync Pony here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdfMKnJ1y2o
if anyone finds a UK-friendly version of that please share! I haven’t found one so far other than a really short preview.
Magic Mike XXL might be coming out this evening.
YES YES YES I love it with my whole heart and body.
Their relationship just seems like a thing of joy and acceptance and I dig it.
My favourite parts: Channing’s makeup matches Beyonce’s EXACTLY. He bows to Bey, as is proper.
My favourite part of the Pony one: Everything, but especially how LL Cool J is in the background like, “I have the weirdest boner right now.”
My favs are literally all of Pony. And also how Channing is totally nailing the choreo until Bey comes out and then he just kind of flails joyfully.
No, YOU”RE crying at your desk with happiness.
My heart
My heart has been pierced with a bolt of pure joy
Oh my GOD. The genderfuck! The dancing! The outfits! QUEEN BEY. Bless you for posting this.
That is a thing of pure joy and happiness. Thank you so much.
The Dickens/Dostoevsky thing reminds me AGAIN why I’m not overly crazy about Claire Tomalin as a biographer — at least about literary men.
In her bio of Thomas Hardy, she bends over backwards to always make Emma at fault, even in anecdotes where, just reading it, it’s easy to tell that Hardy is being a jerkbag. (Here’s a quick example. On page 307 of the paperback of Thomas Hardy, we get a luncheon anecdote. Henry Newbolt and the poet W.B. Yeats were at the Hardys’. Hardy was deep in questioning Newbolt about his thoughts on Italian architecture; Emma, Hardy’s wife, was regaling Yeats with “much curious information about the two very fine cats” (that’s from an account left by Newbolt, quoted in Tomalin’s book), proving once and for all the Emma Hardy is my Identical Cousin because what I, too, have is a lot of curious information about my two very fine cats. Anyway, Newbolt goes on: “At last Hardy rose from his seat and looked towards his wife: she made no movement, and he walked to the door. She was still silent and unmoved: he invited her to leave us for a few minutes, for a ceremony which in accordance with his wishes was to be performed without witnesses. [Editor’s note: ?!?] She at once remonstrated, and Yeats and I begged that she should not be asked to leave use. But Hardy insisted and she made no further appeal but gathered up her cats and her train with perfect simplicity and left the room.”)
The thing with her Dickens biography is that she’s often dismissive of Catherine, Dickens’s wife, whom he left for Ellen Ternan; and she decides to ::not:: cover at all the fact that Dickens forced Catherine’s sister, Georgina, who remained in Dickens’s house as a kind of housekeeper, to submit to a chastity test because there were some rumors out there that Dickens was schtupping his sister-in-law and Dickens wanted to quash those rumors with a quickness. And THEN, when we get to this Doestoevsky nonsense, it’s even more frustrating because Tomalin ::knew:: the anecdote was fishy but didn’t go to any great lengths until specifically asked. From an Irish Times article: “[Tomalin] initially found the account of the meeting ‘electrifying’ but began to have doubts after her biography was published. Then she and her husband, the writer Michael Frayn, looked for the original source of the account, not the translation she had relied on. She could find nothing to back up the English account, and other biographers who used the translation also admitted that they were unable to verify its source.”
[I…would understand entirely if this comment was deleted because it is Almost Too Much.]
Dicken’s compassionate, comprehensive depictions of people and institutions and his compassionate treatment/advocacy of the women in the home Ellen Tiernan managed is so hard to understand in view of the horrific way in which he treated the rest of the women in his life. I still can’t understand that compartmentalization.
He’s just arrested, developmentally, after that nonsense with the first woman who broke his heart.
(There’s a story from much later in his life, when he’s famously CHARLES DICKENS, and Maria Beadnell, the Girl Who Got Away (because her parents said, “No you can’t marry a guy without a secure job are you MAD?”), sends him a letter saying something along the lines of, “I’m going to be in town…” and Dickens is VERY excited to meet here and even says things like, “You can write me IN THE NIGHT because I have a private mailbox and your confidentiality is guaranteed.” And they meet, and she’s not the 15-year-old girl he knew, but a woman, an adult woman, with a body that has felt its years and he sort of peaces-out, saying, “So, have a great time in London and you don’t need to worry about writing any more. Dickens, out!”)
I think he married Catherine because she was the exact opposite of Maria: submissive and docile. I think he makes a vow to never be treated by a woman in the way Maria treated him, but then realizes that that’s not the answer to his insecurities, either.
He’s not great at romantic women. But he’s terrific with “character actresses” in his novels.
My undergraduate thesis involved a lot of reading of his letters, they weren’t done publishing them all yet. So disappointed, she is like, an adult (flashing back to this week’s GIGI comments).
What was your thesis? I’m VERY interested and will drop everything.
ha ha! It was several years and 7 houses ago. And on floppy disk.
Basically, despite his protestations that he’d never read Jane Eyre, entire CHAPTERS of Bleak House can be read as line-for-line responses to chapters in JE, and the character of Esther and her willingness to marry out of duty can be seen as a reaction to Jane’s impetuousness, especially when read through the lens of Dicken’s work with “fallen women” and if the reader views Esther’s character and actions as the proper example of what Jane should have done, or Jane wouldn’t end up married, she would end up being just another cautionary tale.
I went through 10 volumes of his letters, but there is no smoking gun. However, it can’t be ruled out, they were in the same places at the same time. It’s more a “doth protest too much” sort of thing. And a close reading of the text makes it seem obvious. My prof wanted me to publish it but I never did. AFAIK the literary world thinks that he never read it/Bleak House has nothing to do with JE. (or they did, up till 2001, which is when I stopped reading Dickens research journals)
Oh man — Michael Slater is probably your nemesis?
http://bronteparsonage.blogspot.com/2012/06/charl…
(I wasn’t crazy about his bio of Dickens. I’m probably a Peter Ackroyd man, even though that bio is TOO LONG and then also periodically has fits.)
“But Hardy insisted and she made no further appeal but gathered up her cats and her train with perfect simplicity and left the room.”
Now that is an EXIT. That story leaves me entirely enamoured with Emma and indifferent-to-hostile to the other three.
Also what “ceremony without witnesses” was Hardy planning?? Cat sacrifice?? (Too late, wise guy, Emma has already removed the cats from your presence with perfect simplicity)
I believe “ceremony without witness” was slang at time for “orgy”.
That’s just upsetting.
An orgy involving Thomas Hardy and WB Yeats????
The mind boggles.
Yeats was part of that whole noisy Aleister Crowley crowd — I’m sure he knew he way around a variety of orgies.
I love Hardy’s novels (well, some of them), but he was the WORST, first constantly talking about how his wife was terrible and then when she died going “OH NO, my wife, pity me,” and if he wanted to do that he should have been nicer to her in the first place.
AND YET some of his novels, Tess and The Well-Beloved and Far From the Madding Crowd, are SO good, man.
I was there, sort of, once upon a time, re: liking Hardy’s novels. But now they seem to me to be unnecessarily cruel. He might be the cruelest writer in English — and I’m including Ken Starr and the Starr Report. (Specifically, I’m thinking of that scene in Tess where she’s on the run after [redacting] Alec and ends up in a grove of trees that she thinks is safe on account of all the pheasants asleep until she wakes up the next morning in a PILE OF DEAD PHEASANTS because they’d all been shot and each died on top of her during the night and that just seems so WE GET IT, TOM.)
One of my favorite things about Emma is that she wrote a series of diaries that she titled “What I Think of My Husband” and it turns out, she didn’t think much of him. Claire Tomalin characterizes Hardy’s destruction of Emma diaries this way: “Sensibly enough he decided they were largely the product of a mind subject to delusions.”
Guys.
When did Russell Tovey get SWOLE?
I also love that every gay man in NYC is wondering who gets to have babies with him.
I am on hour three of trying to get this scanner to connect to some very specific software, and photos of Sansa are all that are sustaining me. fuck me this is fucking ridiculous.
Also, I got to use a rapier last night, so I can become the woman of my own awesome dreams.
I have a horrible IT person, who is a consultant because our mayor won’t even let me have a server, much less an IT guy who understands GIS and maps. (this guy once tried to delete my *one* ortho raster that I use in every map, saying it was too large). Every two weeks he messes with the entire building’s server, and screws up my connections to the two large-format printers. This is immediately followed by the mayor’s office and the engineering office suddenly needing multiple large-format maps that they didn’t need for the previous 2 weeks when the printers worked.
This has been going on for a year. The IT guy knows less about printer drivers than I do. My point is that it usually takes me a WEEK of rebooting, removing, renetworking, uninstalling, reinstalling, and behind-his-back undoing things to get at least one printer going. I completely understand your pain, and I rely on the toast to keep me sane-ish, also. Plus, if I had a rapier, I might use it on the IT guy.
There’s a rather complicated set of steps you have to follow to make these scanners hook up properly to the software. If you don’t follow these steps EXACTLY, it won’t work.
Unfortunately, no one’s discovered the steps really, so you end up mucking about until SOMETHING works.
This is why I started bladed weapons and middle distance running.
Oh god, this comment is giving me flashbacks of standing over a plotter, sweating and praying that /this/ time, the line work AND the ortho would print, not just one or the other.
Just in case you haven’t seen it, I feel this is relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9wsjroVlu8
Even worse on the Sandra Bland thing: the explainer is incorrect. Perjury is a Class A misdemeanor here, which carries a max sentence of up to one year county jail, not prison. Only felonies carry prison sentences.
And by “even worse,” I mean, the reality of how little punishment he could face is worse. Not that this isn’t already a terrible scenario. My phrasing is off before the coffee kicks in.
People are being so unfair to twitter. They hired a white male director of diversity who came from APPLE, which is a totally different tech company! And their 8-member board of directors has FIVE people who aren’t white men named Peter, three of them white men with entirely different first names.
and they think we need sarcasm emoticons! pshaw!
First the train trip and now the puppy loving?!? Mallory is so winning 2016!
I would thumb this up except for Frog and Toad. I am – damaged.
Y’all, that woman in blackface. I cannot even with her.
But I also have so many questions. Most pressing is: why do African tribal women need the attention of Western white people? Like, she’s “raising awareness” that…what? Women live in Africa? Thanks, I already knew that.
I saw that on FB last night (as in the original ‘woman turns herself into African Women to raise awareness post’ not the ‘OMG this is a problem’ buzzfeed post going around now) and I didn’t even open it, I just looked at it for about 3 seconds and thought ‘yeah, this is going to go over *real* well. Also racist.’
Also yes I totally agree about the ‘raising awareness’ thing; like what is she trying to raise awareness of? and on a larger scale, why do white people think that them going places or taking picture or what every ‘innovative’ thing they decided to do on a gap year, is actually going to help anyone, and why do you they think they need your help anyway?
Raising awareness is the worst communications goal. (Blackface is the absolute worst part of this situation, obviously. And the assumption that white people being aware of them will somehow benefit African tribal women.)
I work in communications and clients are always naming “raising awareness” as their goal. Why? What does that accomplish? It’s like any initiative that raises awareness of breast cancer. Is there anyone who can legitimately say at this point “Breast cancer? Huh. I was unaware.” No! So is it just to pat yourself on the back without actually doing anything that you’ve come up with some awareness campaign?
My follow-up to the “raise awareness” goal is always “OK. But once people know about your thing, what action do you want them to take? What do they do with this information you’ve given them?” That’s usually met with crickets. Awareness is a first step, it’s not the entire action plan.
Andrew Maxwell has a great joke that I can’t find right now; but its about people doing charity sky dives and such
Its basically:
‘Hey will you sponsor me for this charity sky dive I’m doing?’
‘Why?’
‘Because its for charity, give me money’
‘No, you want to go skydiving and you want me to pay for it. Stop using ‘charity’ as an excuse’
Clearly I am not funny, but you get the jist and I feel like people who are ‘raising awareness’ usually have the same idea.
Right? Women in Africa have some real, honest-to-God struggles. But I imagine not being talked about by white Europeans and Americans isn’t one of them.
Not to mention, women with different tribal identities probably have different problems. And they will solve their own problems without the “help” of some Hungarian woman with clay on her face.
This was so clearly a case of a woman who thought tribal makeup and clothing looks cool and wanted to wear it. Her inflated sense of self-importance convinced her that her desire was MEANINGFUL. “Oh my God, I recognize that African women are beautiful I am so EVOLVED.” No one else needed to be convinced of their beauty, asshat.
This was so clearly a case of a woman who thought tribal makeup and clothing looks cool and wanted to wear it.
I was going to say exactly this!
the idiotic part about it is…she didn’t even dress up/put on makeup. She used PHOTOSHOP. Racist and lazy, to boot.
She not only used photoshop, she STOLE the original portraits from off the internet without permission/credit/any indication they weren’t her photographs. Just another layer of total fuckery.
I think that the whole point of using “raising awareness” of any random Bad Thing That Happens To People is not only that there aren’t any real standards or measurements of raised awareness, or at least any that are expected of the alleged awareness raiser, but that it is literally impossible for someone to fail at this goal if they give even the slightest token effort at doing so. Say that someone is riding their bicycle across America to raise awareness of Middle-Aged Dudeitis. Say that someone is me. A passerby might come up to me and say, “Look, dude, it’s pretty obvious that a lot of middle-aged dudes don’t really take care of themselves,” and I could retort with, “Yeah, but were you aware that last year it was estimated that 78% of all middle-aged dudes in America didn’t take care of themselves?” and unless passerby is super-up on their stats concerning middle-aged dudes, they’d probably have to admit that, nope, they did not have that specific stat for that specific year. Boom, mission accomplished, take me into your home and feed me hot wings and tell me how much you admire people like me. (Part of my irritation at people who do this is that I really would like to be able to take off and ride across America, but I’m not at a place where I can do that. Some days, I’m half-tempted to put out a GoFundMe for a bicycle trip across America to raise awareness of people who jump on a random bandwagon to pay for their vacations.)
I also hate when people use it to justify (possibly) gratuitous sex and violence in media. I mean, if you’re getting your “awareness” that Rape is Bad from Game of Thrones, I. . .I don’t even know what to do with that.
I actually think awareness campaigns can often be really important.
Breast cancer awareness NOW is, like, a pink-branded juggernaut of industry, but there genuinely was a time when people didn’t really know breast cancer was a thing. People who had breast cancer, from what I’ve read, would often report that the worst part was being unable to talk to anyone else about it, because they’d constantly have to rehash the conversation of “yes breasts can get cancer,” and then field super-personal questions about their breasts; raised awareness can remove that burden. Awareness is also a key prerequisite for preventative care.
In general I think a marker of a successful/necessary awareness campaign is that it provides people with specific and important information that they are trying to avoid knowing because it’s uncomfortable.
That might be because it is about uncomfortable body parts (I think prostate cancer awareness is on the bring of tipping over from ‘genuinely very necessary’ to ‘sufficiently normalized that we’re not weirded out any more’), or because it asks people to rethink their own actions (campaigns focused on, e.g., supporting rather than combatting autism!), or because it asks them to care about/take action to support people that they would prefer not to think about at all (exploited sex workers, homeless populations, etc). To make someone “aware,” in these cases, is to equip them to act with greater empathy going forward.
Which of course makes this UTTER NONSENSE a complete failure as an awareness campaign also, unless she was trying to raise awareness of how TOTALLY RACIST AND GROSS white people are STILL allowed to get in public.
A year or two ago there was a campaign by Cancer Research (I think) with posters asking “Do you know the five signs of breast cancer?” and which DIDN’T EVEN SAY WHAT THEY WERE; you had to text to find out. It felt like a terrible way of raising awareness. “There are signs to look out for which might signal breast cancer, I guess? But who even knows what they are.”
Raising awareness in general is usually a pretty meaningless political goal designed to make us feel better about allegedly making a difference while we fail to take substantive action that might change things.
Remember, it could always be worse. So much worse: http://www.amazon.com/Warrior-Princess-Become-Fem…
NO! NO NO NO NO NO!
Yesterday I learned that there are Jessica Jones/Kilgrave shippers and I was ready to quit the world and I was justbarely brought back from the brink by the White House’s official SoTU ad. (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CXaSaNtVAAAMA9S.png)
But that’s it. I’m done with this world. Burn it down.
Before you light that match, read some of the comments absolutely eviscerating the book, and they’ll give you hope.
But 49% of the reviews are 5 star reviews! What the hell, world?
See those are the people you need to ignore to get through your day.
A lot of those are fake though.
She immediately popped into my head just from the description, before I even saw the pictures.
When I read this story in article form a few years ago, I got the impression the tribe members finally gave her a few comparatively easy tasks and then presented her with their equivalent of someone’s twenty-year-old sixth-place bowling trophy just so she’d shut up and go away.
Oh my god what
Update: She’s removed the pics–good for her–but her explanation/quasi-apology is, well…
Since I had no intentions to offend anyone and yet I’m not able to answer to all of you, I’ve decided to delete my post.
My intention was 100% pure with this tribal art, being a human right lawyer and journalist who knows pretty much about racism and similar issues, I have never imagined that my work will annoy so many people and that I will have to explain myself. And sure, I will not do that. Keep calm and love every human.
The sad thing is that the women in the original photos look so fierce and great, and then she just overlays her own somewhat poleaxed expression over them. Some of the Jez commenters have responded with their pasting her eyes and mouth on a Minion and a crocodile.
Thank you for sharing that, I have no words.
“I KNOW PRETTY MUCH ABOUT RACISM AND SIMILAR ISSUES”
No words, just headdesk. I can’t even with this.
“Racism. I heard someone say that word once!”
Wait, there are women living in Africa? My mind is blown!
I’m going to print that press release and hand it out as needed. I’m so thankful for it. I’ve never experienced this phenomenon so much as when I started the job I’m in now and the first several months here were SO confusing.
Ohhhh boy that letter about the super-Christian parents. Hi, wow. Yeah. My parents recently visited Mr. Wren and I for Christmas. My dad and Mr. Wren stayed up super late one night and ended up talking about theology. My dad reported to me that he was “deeply saddened” to discover that Mr. Wren believes Christianity just can’t be THE only way to God, and dad told him (and me) that he’d pray for Mr. to “get all the way there” in his beliefs. THEN (there’s always a then, isn’t there?), my dad very seriously informs me that Mini Wren is now my spiritual responsibility. “I know she likes these superheroes, and hearing these other stories, but the only way she’s going to come to know Christ is if she hears those stories, too.” (Fair, that’s accurate). Anyway…yeah. I let him talk, because I am a coward who has a hard time telling my father that I have my own doubts, that I still believe but find most church settings uncomfortable now, and that I share Mr. Wren’s view that there are many paths to God/god/whatever.
TL;DR – I totally understand the husband’s reticence, because I am reticent, too, but I don’t expect my spouse to be the one to stand in front of that bus in my place.
I don’t know, there’s a pretty good argument that you can get a good idea about Jesus from reading Superman comics.
Yuuuuuup…sigh. I dunno. It was just heartbreaking to feel like no matter what, I would be disappointing my dad. Who hasn’t always been like this! It’s like he hit his mid-fifties a few years back and blammo! Evangelicalism took over where my dad used to be.
Yeah, unfortunately this is an ongoing problem with the “dad” model of having parents. There are not a lot of easy solutions, but I hope that you will be able to find one.
Jesus died for all our sins but Superman saved the world from Galactus and Doomsday, and has died heroically at least a dozen times now. I’m afraid coming from a Supermanist upbringing Christianity is going to be a hard sell.
You got to read All Star Superman, where he flies into the sun in order to fix it after Lex Luthor conspires with Solaris, the Tyrant Sun to turn it blue or something.
I have planned entire worship services around Harry Potter and Narnia. I have written sermons about the discipleship of Harry Potter. We call them “Modern Day Parables.”
If anyone knows the power of allegorical story telling, it’s Mr. Parable himself, Jesus.
(This is not to say, of course, that fantasy and superhero stories must be interpreted through a Christian lens or only hold value as Christian allegories. But they can be, and they can give us a modern context for difficult to grasp theological concepts.)
This may be relevant to The Toast’s interests: http://tomandlorenzo.com/2016/01/natalie-dormer-f…
The Baskerville episode of Sherlock is just – the best of the series, I think. Overall that show is hit or miss for me (this year’s special was so so miss), but when they nail something it’s just pillow-bitingly good. Tovey was brilliant casting.
Jeremy Brett’s Holmes, though. Now that’s the good stuff.
On a completely different note, Dear Prudence seems like a pretty tough gig sometimes. Good on Mallory for handling it so well so far. The difference in tone from other Dear Prudence advice in the recent past is appreciated.
Sansa looks like a living plush toy and I want to give her SUCH a scruffling, the kind where you just bury your hands in the fluff and move it all around and the dog is just delirious with confusion and joy?? So good. Ugh, puppies. <3 <3 <3
Just to carry on the theme of puppies for a second, once upon a time I worked with dogs, and one of my absolute favorite dogs of all time was a sweet dumb English Mastiff named Princess who was a 50lb 6 month old. She plopped into my lap with the utmost confidence like, clearly an available lap was just a space waiting to be filled with puppy. It was so sweet I almost cried, and I still remember it fondly ~10 years later. How are dogs so great and good?
My friend’s Newfoundland, who hovers around 110lb I think, kept trying to do that when she was a half-grown puppy, not realising she was a tad big for laps. She looks like a big black teddy bear in her baby photos, and that tail!
This year’s special was indeed a miss. The show’s become an ouroboros, it’s only producing its own fanfic by now. How difficult can it be to just present a strong mystery, flavored with just the right amount of Sherlock/Watson banter?
ETA: can someone remind me which post had a comment thread about the special? Now that I’ve seen it, I’d like to go back and read that.
I have learned a new word today. ouroboros. Thank you.
I think it was Monday’s Link Roundup? I imagine it would be that one, or Tuesdays maybe. Defintely a link round up
Thank you! It was indeed Monday’s roundup, and I went back and read all the comments and agreed with them very much indeed
BTW I totally agree with you that Sherlock has just become its own fanfiction now. I’ve been saying that since season 3.
I caught the last half hour of the first one last night, and the John and Sherlock banter was SO GOOD.
An acquaintance of mine has written her thesis on The Hounds of Baskerville, comparing the book and the Sherlock episode, and I’ll definitely have to ask her to send me the file the next time I see her.
That’s amazing! There are times when I pretty much sweat jealousy over how GOOD some people are at that type of critical analysis of pop culture – rock on, your friend, rock on!
The History Boys has been one of my favorite movies since high school and I feel very personally proud and protective of each of them and I love your love of Russel Tove & co and you are all truly My People (like I needed this extra confirmation)
yeah, same. every time I see one of them in, well, anything, I get unreasonably proud. (when I heard that Jamie Parker will be Harry Potter in the new play I was like, beaming. “THAT’S MY BOY”)
Me too! I dragged my mother to see The History Boys on Broadway when I was 16 and it was excellent.
I have a deep fondness for Samuel Barnett, and also Stephen Campbell Moore (?!) because he was also in Bright Young Things, another favorite film of my youth.
I was trying to explain to my mom why I was so elated/emotional at the HP casting announcement, and as soon as I went “well he was in The History Boys” she went “oh, you and your History Boys, of COURSE he’s one of those boys, I’m sorry Meg but I can’t keep them all straight”
and like… I didn’t think I talked about them THAT much??
A fair amount of time I get an email telling me that a person has reponded to one of my comments, and I’d like to reply, but I end up not doing it because I can’t remember which comment thread it’s hidden in. The “go to comment” link in the email generally only takes me to the article itself. Does anyone have a good strategy for finding comments again? Is there a particular browser or magic incantation which will make the “go to comment” link work? Share your toasty wisdom with me!
Mine used to work before the redesign, so it might be a bug? I’m usually following threads anyway so manage to find my comment again after a bit of hunting
The “go to comment” link only ever works if the comment is on the first page, and even then it’s iffy
But I think that if you just reply to the email itself it will post a comment in the proper thread. Maybe? I’ve never tried it, but that’s supposed to work.
Oh snap let’s see if this works.
Sent via the Samsung GALAXY S®4, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
——– Original message ——–
Wow! Now I know what to do if I ever forget what kind of phone or carrier I have….
I think you can edit the automated signature on your phone email. Also hooray!
Lol, yeah, I just figured out how to turn it off. I’m learning so many new things today!
but what operating system is it running??
GOOD POINT. How remiss of my email app!
The thumbs up turns orange when you click it (and automatically on your own comments) so I use it both as a thumbs up and as a flag. If there’s a thread I want to come back to (or that I’ve commented on and want to be able to find) I’ll thumbs up the first comment in the thread so I can quickly scroll down and stop at the orange thumbs. Not ideal but better than nothing!
I use ctrl+f to find my username/the commenter’s username in a giant unwieldy comments thread if I need to reply. But nice to know there are other methods!
I do that too, but that isn’t helpful when your comment is buried in one of the collapsed threads and you don’t know which one! Is there a way to auto-expand all the comment threads?
The “Total Loss” article is heartbreaking. Yes, I could do with less things, but material belongings are not “just some stuff”, they are part of my life, and I don’t want to imagine losing everything without having a choice.
The Toast: I need some lesbian etiquette advice? I am meeting this girl from ok cupid, she has never dated a woman before, and I don’t know if she expects me to pick up the check? I did ask her out but also I’ve always done separate checks. Is it going to put her off if I ask for separate checks? Please advise.
I would ask this question in Open Thread in a bit, you’ll get more responses!
I always by the rule, “I ask, I pay; You ask, you pay.” I am always prepared to pay my own way, though. I think you should be prepared to pay, but you don’t have to immediately offer.
Is this coffee or drinks? Because then you can order first, pay for yourself, and avoid any confusion. If it’s dinner…well, that’s trickier. Be prepared to pay, but it’s okay to accept her offer to split the bill.
Speaking from experience, when I had my first date with a girl, we both looked at each other blankly when the barista asked together or separate, until she finally babbled “separate.” If she’s never been on a date w another woman before, she’s probably going to be following your lead, or at the very least, knows less what to expect than you do.
I don’t know if things are different necessarily for lesbian dating, but I’ve always paid if I did the asking when dating guys. I would expect to be “taken out” by anyone who asked and would be surprised to be expected to split the bill in that situation.
FWIW, I am a queer woman who has never dated a woman before but would like to someday, and I think separate checks are eminently reasonable. It can feel awkward when people pay for me (granted, I have only experienced non-date contexts so far, but could certainly imagine it also being awkward in date contexts). (Also, uh, is it weird to say thank you for asking out a girl when she’s never dated girls before and you have? I kind of worry that I am increasingly undateable due to lack of experience — kind of like how the longer you’re unemployed, the harder it is to get hired again? — so it’s nice to know there are women out there who aren’t automatically put off by that.)
OH MY GOD WHAT KIND OF NIGHTMARE PERSON COMMITS SUICIDE AND BLAMES IT ON THEIR CHILD’S SEXUAL ORIENTATION. What a monster.
I can only imagine that a level of intolerance so high that your child’s sexual orientation is the hill you would literally choose to die on makes for a pretty torturous existence in general.
My mother read my diary, spent the entire day in bed crying about the fact that I wasn’t a virgin, then spent the entire evening fighting with me about it. (I was 24 and she was visiting me in my home.) And even that doesn’t hold a candle to this actual garbage-can of a parent. I cannot even fathom the amount of delusion and bigotry etc etc the LW must have encountered and my heart breaks for him.
That was in response to a Prudie letter. I should have perhaps added context. Also I understand that mental illness is complicated, and the dad must have been dealing with other untreated issues, but damn, I still think that’s just about one of the shittiest things a person can do to another human being.
Do we get horoscopes this month? I always look forward to them so much and check for them obsessively.
Monday!
Hurray!
One of my best friends from college saw The History Boys when it was on Broadway, and honestly HONESTLY I have more deep-lying resentment/jealousy about that than with any of my friends who’ve seen Hamilton. The amount I love that movie/play/cast is… bordering on unhealthy.
anyways Russell Tovey deserves all the good things in life, and his puppy is adorable
Ugh, that letter about the Christian parents. Am currently struggling with the knowledge that my (Pre-Vatican II) Catholic in-laws are under the illusion that we go to (my Greek Orthodox) church every week. In six weeks we’re going to have a kid and I’ve not been to church in several years. How am I supposed to arrange for a churching and baptism when no one there knows me?
Why ARE you going to arrange for those things? Seems to me that if you and your partner aren’t religious at all, or practicing at any rate, why bother? I think that if you’re not planning to raise the kid in the church, the effort isn’t worth it.
A very fair question, and the answer has to do more with cultural identity than anything else. I want my kid to be Greek, and a lot of that identity centers around the church community. And even if I don’t go to church, I’m not quite a 100% nonbeliever yet. I’m just super torn.
I don’t know anything about Greek Orthodox churches in particular, but I would be shocked if you were the first people to turn up out of nowhere for a baptism. Many people go to church for big life events that don’t attend regularly. If you decide this is really something you want, show up for service some week and ask the priest about it, it’ll probably be fine.
I’m sure you’re right and I’m scared over nothing – I’m just a wimp!
Unbaptized halfie here, piping up to say that it’s not that big a deal! I went to Greek school at the church, know all the words to the Pater Imon, and just don’t take communion. Accidentally lighting someone’s hairspray on fire with your Easter candle is fun whether you’re baptized or not.
So I read the internal emails on the McDonald shooting, and it seemed like some important parts were blacked out.
I can’t go back and find this exactly, but there’s one part where someone on the communications team tells a higher up in the police department that people are saying that police officers at the scene intimidated witnesses out of giving statements, which “sounds like nonsense.” The police guy writes back, “Yeah, that’s nonsense, [three blacked out lines]. [New paragraph, three more blacked out lines].” Doesn’t it look possible that the next word there was “but” ??? The articles I read just said that some things were redacted for attorney client privilege, but so much was redacted in conversations not between an attorney and a client.
Does anyone know anything about who got to chose what to redact and what criteria they were using?
They hide as much as they can, on the flimsiest of justifications or no justification at all. What are you going to do, sue them? They don’t care, they pay their lawyers with your tax money, not from their own pockets. Maybe they’ll lose in court months or years down the road and have to turn it over then, but more likely you just won’t have the money to sue.
I guess Chicagoans could vote for a different mayor, but a substantial majority voted to re-elect him just last year.
It’s so infuriating to see all their layers of secrecy. They’re trying to hide the video, and they also want to hide the emails about trying to hide the video, and when they’re forced to release the emails they still remove half of them. Even though they’ve just lost legal battles about this cover-up, they refuse to give it up.
I don’t live in Chicago, but my impression is that this might actually be seriously hurting his chances for re-election? Maybe I’m biased just because all the Chicagoans I follow are furious, but it would be nice to think that serious changes will come from this.
He’s not up for re-election until 2019, so this will probably blow over by then. Not that I’m happy to report that, but let’s face it, that’s the reality.
It also just seems that any serious challenger is going to have to be SO on point, so well-funded, so connected. . .
I quite liked the alderman from my old neighborhood (I don’t have much sense of my current one yet) and would happily support him if he ran, I think (it’s been mentioned–Scott Waguespack.)
No one wants to shoot at the king unless they can be sure to kill the king, so challengers don’t get support.
Information can be redacted if it reflects communications between attorney and client, not just if it is such a communication. So if the next lines were “Sally Police-Counsel told me that that would look bad, but would not affect the legal case,” they could legitimately be redacted.
That said, defense lawyers always over-redact. It’s a very effective tactic.
Yeah, that does make sense. I mean, they’re still obviously covering things up, but I can believe that some portion of the redacted parts are discussions of things a lawyer told them… Do you know if attorney client communications are really truly totally private forever, or are those still things they could have to reveal if they were sued?
There are some exceptions, but, by and large, yes, they are. The reasons you can redact under FOIA are not identical to the reasons you can redact in discovery in a lawsuit, though–they’re generally broader–so it’s possible that documents produced in discovery would not be redacted in the same way.
It’s also possible (although I could be wrong – I am, though lawyer-adjacent, not a lawyer) that they were allowed to redact because it mentioned other civilians/cases, like “Yeah, that’s nonsense, like when we had to do xx with yy case,” where not redacting could reveal information about other people. For a clearer example – we’re working on a case right now that involves a mortgage company; many of the emails produced reference various people’s mortgages, but that information isn’t relevant to our case, so it was redacted to protect those people’s privacy.
That said, lawyers in general, and I firmly believe these lawyers in particular, will redact as much as they can possibly get away with, and it sounds like in this case the system is going to let them get away with quite a lot.
Look, if we turn over this video of the police gunning down your son, every grieving mother is going to want the same thing.
Via the abusive relationship article, has anybody had a friend in that situation, and what did you do?
I’ve been the abused, so I have a fairly good idea about that side of things. However, at the moment me and my friends/coworkers have a young woman who recently quit everything to “save” her suicidal ex bf, moving halfway across the country to get to him, and now lives in her car in a big city.
Obviously we’re very worried about her, and many tried to stop her before she left, but it was a weird dance of hints and small suggestions out of fear she would double down (as I had). We all believe the man to be controlling and emotionally abusive, and one friend outright told her she was in an abusive relationship before she left, but nothing clicked.
Anyway, have you ever been in that situation? What did you do?
It took my friend calling me from across the country and begging me to at least have lunch with her MIL in my town (who worked the DV hotline), to get things to sink in. But fear of what happens after leaving and being afraid to make him mad are pretty potent de-motivators to facing the truth. The only thing you can do is try to get her to see that whatever she fears happening, it can’t be worse than what is happening, which is being abused. But that is a hard thing to get across. Does anybody still call her and keep in touch with her? Obviously anyone who was a friend would want to check in and make sure she was safe and had found somewhere to live (just thinking of what you can say when she thinks you are making the conversation too personal).
Yeah. I’ve been in an abusive relationship and literally nothing anybody did made me see it. So I understand how impossible the situation can be. At the same time I sort of hate the saying “it’s something she has to figure out herself,” because it normalizes abusive relationships as a weird rite of womanhood. But I also know psychology is complicated and blah blah blah. It’s frustrating and complicated and I just want to kidnap her for her own good.
Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S® 5 ACTIVE™, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
——– Original message ——–
I’m supporting a friend through it right now. One tip I read is to comment on his behaviour, not him as a person, as the latter can make the partner start defending him. So “that was a horrible thing for him to say,” not “he’s horrible”.
There’s actually an example of how it backfires to criticise the person rather than the action in Shakespeare! Romeo and Juliet, when Tybalt’s just been killed and Juliet is very upset about it. The Nurse says, “Shame be on Romeo!” at which point Juliet turns round and gives her what-for.
I’m finding that engaging with the horrible thing that the abusive partner said or did also gives you a chance to reassure your friend that they are not at fault. “That’s a horrible thing for him to say. Of course you’re not disgusting, love,” or, “He had no right to read all your Facebook messages, you deserve to have your privacy. Do you want to use my laptop to log in and sort out the password change properly?” (This actually happened a few days ago, she thought she’d changed her FB password on her iPhone and that it just hadn’t logged out of the session on the iPad still at her husband’s flat, but it turned out that it hadn’t even changed the password. She found this out when he read his way through all our Facebook messages, discovered that I’m helping her, and a few other things she really didn’t want him to know, and then turned up on her doorstep at midnight to confront her with it.)
When my friend was at the stage of telling me about the abuse but not yet ready to leave, I showed her the Issendai article about sick systems, and she found it helpful. I marched her to Women’s Aid not long after that, which definitely helped, but she had to be at the stage where she was ready to go there, she just needed some support. They’re great at talking about how abusive relationships work, why abusers behave the way they do, what they do to your head to keep you there, why they are not going to improve no matter what you change about yourself.
For real about the girlfriend thing. My best friend called to tell me that she is in a relationship with a woman and as she has never mentioned liking women before she was a little nervous. To me the big news was that she met someone she liked which i was pleased about and so when she said “I have a girlfriend” and my reaction was “that’s nice!” she then had to confirm I understood she had an actual girlfriend and hadnt just made a friend.
So not only is the term girlfriend dismissive, it also makes telling people about same sex relationships that much harder. Team recall!
I’ve always thought it was weird when women refer to platonic friends as “girlfriends.” I’ve never heard anyone, male or female, refer to a platonic male friend as a “boyfriend.” My friends are just my friends; if, for some reason, I need to make a distinction based on gender, I say “guy friends” or “female friends.”
I find it really weird as well. My mother does it. (My mother was never very good at accepting my sexual orientation.) I thought it was more of a generational thing and that our generation (I’m 38) don’t do it, although depressingly it just turns out that they do it less.
Yes! Coming out isn’t just (often) psychologically hard, but the “girlfriend” thing makes it logistically hard too! I honestly think if l told my coworkers about having sex with my girlfriend (if I had one, and also, not that I *would* tell them), they would probably still think I was straight and they’d just be like “yeah I did that once in college when I was drunk.”
Another reason why I like the word “partner”, although that’s for long-term relationships and still leaves you hunting for a suitable name in the earlier stages.
I love The History Boys but the film should have kept the ending from the play, because sometimes the ending that makes you feel worse is the CORRECT ENDING.
Hm, I think that in order to keep the original ending they would have had to keep the entire framing structure of Irwin’s tv show and Posner’s breakdown, which would be difficult. Without that, I’m not sure it would have been any more effective than the actual movie ending? But I’m open to convincing.
(I propose to move this discussion to the Open Thread, if you or others would like, bc I could literally talk about it for days and days)
I’m really confused now, I seem to have missed (or just forgotten) that it had different endings? :/
I, I guess like several other Toast readers, am technically in a mixed race marriage and I, too, am the white one. I don’t want to pitch anything, though. I just want to tell Nikki that I really appreciated her post the other day because it made me understand my mother-in-law (who’s Chinese) that much better. Especially because she herself is in a mixed race marriage (which is super hardcore, considering that this took place in the 60’s on up) and I take so much for granted in thinking about her and her husband’s history. That might be because they don’t talk about it much – for real, they react to questions about their past as if they’re being interrogated by the police, when I’m just curious*. Anyway, thanks Nikki and I love the idea of more pitches from people of color on this issue and not so much from the white side.
*Also, I frequently wonder if I’m the asshole in that situation. Will proceed with caution in the future there.
Re the families of prisoners. I support a charity in the UK which helps prisoners retain quality contact with their families. It makes a huge difference to reoffending rates for the prisoner and of course lessens the pain for the children (or other family members).
Prisoners often leave encarceration with their relationships destroyed, no home to go to and no job – caring for their relationships mean they are more likely still to have a home and a stable base to come out to.
One of the worst/best summations I heard on this subject was this: “I sentence you to prison. And I sentence your 4-year-old daughter to 6 years without her father”.
Of course the prisoner, if guilty, is at fault. But society needs former prisoners to reintegrate. It is a difficult subject and it is hard to rattle a tin for the charities that support prisoners, but I am guessing that Toasties are among those who can see a little farther and know that this is a good cause.
I’m not aware of the US organisations working in this area, the one I support in the UK is http://www.familylives.org.uk/ and there are several others. Happy New Year!
In terms of US organizations, I know that the Osborne Association has a research/advocacy project called the Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents. I also found this directory of programs searchable by state, in case anyone is interested in finding and/or supporting something local.
I would also highly recommend Nell Bernstein’s book All Alone in the World, about this exact issue–it was published in 2005 but is still unfortunately relevant, and it provides a really comprehensive picture of all the ways in which a parent’s incarceration affects the rest of their families (emotionally, economically, etc.) and the ways in which current policies let these kids essentially fall through the cracks.
I’m a big fan of Aunt Mary’s Storybook Project: https://cjtinc.org/programs
(some of the text still refers only to “mom” but they’ve signficantly expanded their outreach to fathers, too.)
I am now composing in my head what a care package for my sister would be in case of catastrophic loss of her possessions (which could happen as her husband is in the Air Force and they move a lot.)
– cheese, much cheese.
-Triscuits. Not just crackers. (how does spell check not know Triscuits? They’re the best)
– The expensive face cream she uses, the expensive foundation she uses,
– some kind of rose tasting selection
– Sees candy
I’m just not sure what else.
Nicole you PROMISED you were going to pay more attention to Australia, have you been following (or aware of) the majesty of Dan from Optus, the Politest Anti-Racist Troll?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/01/07/dan-f… http://fallenangelfish.tumblr.com/post/1366986104…
I’m fairly sure that the use of “girlfriend” by straight (white) ladies was appropriated from AAVE and while they (straight white ladies) have no business saying it, Autostraddle’s publication of that letter was super short-sighed and they clearly only had white people in mind.
(im white but i’ve seen this commentary on facebook by black women and it’s extremely important)
"Racism. I heard someone say that word once!"
I'm supporting a friend through it right now. One tip I read is to comment on his behaviour, not him as a person, as the latter can make the partner start defending him. So "that was a horrible thing for him to say," not "he's horrible".
My friend's Newfoundland, who hovers around 110lb I think, kept trying to do that when she was a half-grown puppy, not realising she was a tad big for laps. She looks like a big black teddy bear in her baby photos, and that tail!
There's actually an example of how it backfires to criticise the person rather than the action in Shakespeare! Romeo and Juliet, when Tybalt's just been killed and Juliet is very upset about it. The Nurse says, "Shame be on Romeo!" at which point Juliet turns round and gives her what-for.
I'm finding that engaging with the horrible thing that the abusive partner said or did also gives you a chance to reassure your friend that they are not at fault. "That's a horrible thing for him to say. Of course you're not disgusting, love," or, "He had no right to read all your Facebook messages, you deserve to have your privacy. Do you want to use my laptop to log in and sort out the password change properly?" (This actually happened a few days ago, she thought she'd changed her FB password on her iPhone and that it just hadn't logged out of the session on the iPad still at her husband's flat, but it turned out that it hadn't even changed the password. She found this out when he read his way through all our Facebook messages, discovered that I'm helping her, and a few other things she really didn't want him to know, and then turned up on her doorstep at midnight to confront her with it.)
When my friend was at the stage of telling me about the abuse but not yet ready to leave, I showed her the Issendai article about sick systems, and she found it helpful. I marched her to Women's Aid not long after that, which definitely helped, but she had to be at the stage where she was ready to go there, she just needed some support. They're great at talking about how abusive relationships work, why abusers behave the way they do, what they do to your head to keep you there, why they are not going to improve no matter what you change about yourself.
Another reason why I like the word "partner", although that's for long-term relationships and still leaves you hunting for a suitable name in the earlier stages.
I find it really weird as well. My mother does it. (My mother was never very good at accepting my sexual orientation.) I thought it was more of a generational thing and that our generation (I'm 38) don't do it, although depressingly it just turns out that they do it less.
I think actually that conversation went more that he said he doesn't see himself as white and his friend told him he was basically not allowed to consider himself as a POC because other people didn't. (So I think actually it was less that he was claiming the term, more that he was rejecting the idea of his whiteness.)
But in any case, as you say, many Greeks (including him) do look clearly different from the white people most people would think of when they think 'white'. Certainly he doesn't look Anglo-Saxon at all — he has much darker skin, black eyes and hair. What I found particularly annoying about what his friend said to him is that he absolutely wasn't claiming to suffer as much prejudice as, say someone of African-Caribbean origin for example, all he was saying was that he didn't feel himself to be part of the white majority. We're actually both in the UK, and I think this particularly came to the fore during last year's European debt crisis when Greece became the first EU country to almost go bankrupt and there was a lot of arguing in the media as to what should be done, which did often involve a lot of racist subtext. So I think in that context, where an attitude of "these feckless Greeks shouldn't have been allowed to join the proper (white) European countries in the first place", his sense of feeling non-white particularly strengthened.
I would say it's a combination of others' perception and self-perception. It's wrong if someone isn't recognising their own unearned privileges and pretending that their experience as someone who is regularly perceived as white is the same as someone who is never perceived that way. But equally, if you feel yourself to be a non-white immigrant for example, even if other people don't, the prejudices expressed by others hurts you in a personal way. I've had someone literally complain at length about immigrants to me because they think 'oh but you don't count…' So in that incident, he didn't perceive me as one because of various privileges I possess (completely English accent, middle-class, ethnic origin from rich country, etc) but I still am a non-white immigrant and it hurt me personally, as well as just offending me as all bigoted statements do.