Fascinating interview with Jennifer Makumbi:
The reality is, as I keep saying, that we all read differently. Remember for a long time, African writers have complained or have been surprised by the way their books are perceived in Europe. For example, in many parts of sub Saharan Africa, Arrow of God is seen as Achebe’s best novel but for some reason the rest of the world claims it is Things Fall Apart. And then again in Things Fall Apart, Achebe’s attention to the idea of fear as a human condition which drives us to great achievement and then destroy us just as quickly is crucial in many parts of Africa. This is ignored in Europe; to them all that Things Fall Apart does is focus on European action in Africa.
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The Ivy League and how to deal with the legacy of slavery:
In 2003, Brown University president Ruth Simmons opened an investigation into the school’s role in the slave trade. The findings exhumed unsettling accounts of the many ways in which important founders of the institution participated in and benefited from slavery, including the use of slave labor to construct the oldest and most iconic building on campus, University Hall. Rather than burying these revelations, university president Christina Paxon dedicated a slavery memorial sculpture that now sits on the campus main green during the school’s 250th anniversary celebrations this September, and, in October, a new Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice was opened. Each of these initiatives stemmed from university officials’ desire to acknowledge and make amends.
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Our very own Jaya on An Untamed State and The Hunger Games.
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A conversation about rape and wanting for words.
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HOW watermelons became a racist trope:
Newspapers amplified this association between the watermelon and the free black person. In 1869, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper published perhaps the first caricature of blacks reveling in watermelon. The adjoining article explained, “The Southern negro in no particular more palpably exhibits his epicurean tastes than in his excessive fondness for watermelons. The juvenile freedman is especially intense in his partiality for that refreshing fruit.”
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Scripps College is now admitting trans women.
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I was relieved to see, upon actually watching the footage, that this person trying to back out of the parking spot is actually a fool, because I myself have made some really embarrassing 345 point turns in my day, and still think about this guy in a white van who witnessed me taking like five full minutes to remove myself from the hospital parking garage last month.
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Deaths in The Illiad: A Classics Infographic!
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
Hey, it’s my birthday! And my boyfriend bumped our plans! Because he “forgot” — and then also did not immediately backpedal and reschedule his other shit without ever letting me know he had ever made a mistake. Because apparently my birthday is the re-schedulable thing.
Happy birthday! You should go have fun without him!
Happy (belated) birthday and I hope you had a smashing time with or without your boyfriend.
Ugggggh, that’s so shitty. I hope you have better friends who make it a better day, and he finds a HELL of an impressive way to make up to you.
Happy birthday!
Tom is horrified by your BF’s behavior.
I sent him a gif of Hermione punching Draco.
I make sure that my partner would never forget my birthday by planning it to the hilt. I also plan my girlfriend’s to the hilt, so it’s ok. Also, why do i never take advantage of the free bagels? I’ve known about it for years.
They’re only half-off now — a dozen for $4. Meh.
if it’s not free then it’s not oatmeal.
Throw a huge tantrum! Get those feelings out there.
YMMV, but it worked for me.
ETA: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
I agree with the tantrum suggestion. Go to town now, so he NEVER does it AGAIN.
As much as I would love to, we’re basically at the point of breakup this week anyways. [I gave him specific instructions to treat me with a pleasant and uncomplicated birthday, and I did wonder a bit if maybe this was some passive-aggressive retaliation shit.]
Then you have nothing to lose but your voice! I’d throw some plates. It feels verrrrry good.
Oh dude I’m sorry. I would hope for you a relationship where you get what you need and want without shitty behaviour designed to make you doubt yourself.
I was actually talking to my bf about this just last night. I ask him to do things ALL THE TIME – little things, big things, and he just does them, no drama, no huge pushback, no retaliation. Sometimes he’ll say no or whatever, but in a pretty neutral way. Like, “Actually, I was going to do X today, so could we re-think Y” or whatever. It’s… incredible. And so different from how I grew up. I swear my dad would do twice as much of whatever my mom asked him not to do just to punish her for asking and prove how independent he is. And that’s a recipe for resentment and crazy-making.
Nothing I’ve heard about The Newsroom so far has made me reconsider my decision to never watch The Newsroom.
I am occasionally tempted by the idea of hatewatching… Then I see write-ups of sh*t like the most recent episode and decide that my mental health is better off without it.
I guess if your house is already immaculately clean, you are independently wealthy, your loved ones are presently unavailable to spend time with you, you’ve watched every other episode of current TV, and your DVD collection is at the cleaners, sure, why not watch The Newsroom?
I slogged through the first season with my husband and the ‘pin write-ups. There was no force on earth that was going to convince me to go back for the second season.
I tried watching Reign on Netflix the other day. It was… not good. I could write a five paragraph essay about every episode of that show and it would simultaneously be more interesting and less expository than any given episode of Newsroom.
“That stayed.”
Yay Scripps! Happy for my alma mater.
Happy birthday! Even if it’s mediocre, you’re sure to get literally thousands of Facebook greetings, and even if 99% are boilerplate, the 1% who took the time to write something truly personal or hilarious are going to make it OK. Also, here’s a cake.
One year on my birthday, my husband was an hour late to pick me up from my office. When he got there, my only solace was that he brought me a stuffed Appa as penance/a pre-planned gift.
What I’m saying is, DUDES AM I RIGHT
(This was for you, allanaaa)
I waaaaaaant a stuffed Appa!
Is it larger than a stuffed animal has any right to be? If so, my boyfriend bought me the same Appa for our anniversary, and it’s so wonderful and soft while also being gigantic. So really props to your husband!!
I can feel the left-hand column of that conversation in every muscle in my body.
No shit. I don’t often read things that have such a deeply physical effect on me. Oof.
God. I’ve never been more thankful that I’m not really attracted to men anymore, that I don’t seek romantic/sexual relationships with them. I know perfectly well that Not All Men do those things (and bad things happen between women, too), but some of the things described are in that *gray* area, where there may have been no malicious or even indifferent intent — but lots of men will try them, will try to see what they can get away with, and when you’re trying to date to find someone, the risk that you run into one of the assholes is so high.
I had a boyfriend, once. For five years, even. I’ve had enough of those gray areas. (My sexual interest was waning sharply the last few years, and he knew it, and it didn’t make enough of a difference.)
That’s a pretty great cake! I am pretty envious of the penguin just languishing on the very peak. I am now considering leaving work and going back to bed just to be that penguin for a while.
I don’t have Facebook, so the only messages I get are from my mother, my dentist, and some websites I don’t remember signing up for. It’s pretty great.
And The Toast! Happy birthday! To hell with your boyfriend- make your own plans for tonight and do whatever the fuck you want!
Happy Birthday!! Are you a Sephora card holder? Go get your free thing!
I am not! But I am getting other free-birthday-stuff this month. And probably a dozen bagels from What A Bagel! today.
Ha, I loved that Iliad infographic! I chuckled at the lack of deaths in Book 9, as of course no one dies, as Achilles is off having a massive, massive sulk. God, what a wang. So glad Hector beats him in the number of kills graph.
*high five*
Hector is kind of the only non-wang in the poem, and even he has his moments–“sorry, babe, I know your idea is really tactically sound and would probably win the war for us, but over here in the real world we prefer to focus on hopeless heroics because we’re so manly. It’s going to suck when I’m dead and you’re enslaved to someone who’s raping you six ways from Sunday, but it’s totally inevitable. Shhhh, I’m going to do man things. Do some lady things, ‘kay? Love you!”
/wrote entire dissertation on Iliad, can no longer get misty-eyed about book 6
YESSSS. I’m here all day for this analysis!
The actual literal translation of the opening line of the Iliad is “Sing, goddess, of the MANPAIN of Achilles.”
Dude is such a whinger. I’ve always felt that Hektor is the real hero of the book.
I can’t believe I watched almost 5 minutes of that guy trying to get out of that parking spot. It was surprisingly frustrating, like an itch you can’t quite reach.
It was sorta mesmerizing. At the beginning I thought, “No way this takes him four and a half minutes. I mean, how would he even do that?” But it did. I just want to know more about him now. Was that his first time in a car? Was that actually a slow-motion car theft carried out by an extraordinarily stoned 5th grader?
Wait. Are we sure a person was driving and not a dog-cat team with one working the wheel and the other the pedals? Yeah, I’m gonna go with that.
It was (almost) worth it for the poor guy at the end finding out what happened to his car. I felt bad for him, but at the same time his obvious “well, FUCK” pose at the end cracked me right the hell up.
I don’t think it was that guy’s car though – I think he’s the one that pulled up to park during the 2nd turning phase, went into the building, came out and was going to drive away, but noticed this BMW was having a hell of a time. Either way, his hands-on-hips thing is a perfect ending. The whole thing reminded me of Tina:
I found it quite validating, hahah – I am a very nervous driver and my parking skills are somewhat mediocre (but I only passed a few months ago so still practising!) but watching that guy gave me a ‘well at least I’m not THAT bad’ moment. That was crazy, especially when that one car left near the beginning – the space was huge!
I avoided watching it because I the same exactly way (50% of my driving fears involve parking woes with people waiting/watching behind me, the other 50% being highway merging). But if it’s THAT bad, maybe I need to watch too for self-confidence reasons / perspective!
It’s THAT bad.
The conversation in “That Stayed” reminds me of a conversation I’ve been having recently with my own sister. Language is so very important for humans, but it also makes discussion of sexual assault so very difficult. “Survivor.” “Victim.” “He said-she said.” “Blackout sex.” All of these are labels, and all of them are valid, if they help individuals define their own experiences and provide words for the experiences of individuals. But we must not define the experiences of others for them, and we must leave space for others to define their own experiences. At the same time, we must not invalidate those others’ experiences, categorize them as we ourselves would. And, to complicate things even further, at the same, we must try and make those on the outside (e.g., media, universities, MRAs) understand the very real violations that occur in a countless number of ways to a multitude of individuals in our communities (which of course, is never a responsibility of an individual has experienced violence).
Language is hard, and talking about violence is harder, and reaching across borders and boundaries and working for change is the hardest. It seems like so many separate conversations, sometimes.
Haaaa, #NorthernRacism was… not what I was expecting. Canadian #NorthernRacism is also a real and terrible thing.
I kinda thought it would be a Canadian thing too!
Man, a conversation about Canadian racism really really needs to happen. (I’ve heard way too many people in my life say that “Canada doesn’t have race issues because we banned slavery in 1798”)
Remember when Sweatervest McKitteneater announced at a G20 summit that Canada has “no history of colonialism”?
YES.
Apparently Canada was just a big empty country with no one in it when the Europeans came?
Yup! Even more galling given that earlier in his tenure he was trying to be all “my legacy is improved relations with First Nations people.” (Which is laughable in and of itself, but still.)
Hey, if Canada has no history of colonialism, of course we have great relations with First Nations people! Nothing to see here, just move right along…
(Sweatervest McKitteneater is possibly the best nickname I’ve ever heard for Harper)
Totally thought it was a Canadian thing, too, and yes, #Great WhiteNorthRacism is real AND terrible!
Jaya’s assessment of Mockingjay highlights the reason I liked the book. It certainly wasn’t a happy ending but it was realistic.
yes. Both the endings of Divergent and Mockingjay did things in ways that I didn’t expect, but ultimately liked, but many other people hated.
I liked the ending to Mockingjay as well! It helped that I had read Suzanne Collins’s Underland Chronicles ages before THG which had a similar ending that I had hated with a passion at the time, but now am kinda fond of. Actually, I was expecting a horribly sad ending for Mockingjay, but it turned out much better than I had expected (I stil cried an ocean of tears about it though).
I loved that Iliad infographic! But I think that any top 3 of grim deaths needs to include Astyanax, the infant son of Hector and Andromache, who gets hurled off the walls of Troy by Neoptolemus. In another version of the story, Neoptolemus actually uses the baby’s corpse to club the Trojan king to death. By a sacred altar. In front of a crowd of horrified witnesses. Ancient poetry was HARDCORE.
Oh man, that scene in the Iliad when Hector comes in with his helmet on to say goodbye and Astyanax is crying, so Hector laughs and takes off his helmet to hold him…TEARS. ALL THE TEARS. ilu, Hector, Breaker of Horses.
I can’t even handle it if someone it watching me do a run of the mill parallel park in front of my building. Its like a rule that if anyone is standing on the street it will take me 5x longer than usual and I will probably end up jumping the curb and or scraping my tires and making a very loud noise.
Just saying, “Bear” should be mandatory on all Canadian lit survey courses.
I almost want to go back to school just for the possibility that I could teach Bear to undergraduates.
I just spent some time trying to figure out if I can buy Kintu by Jennifer Makumbi. Anyone know if that’s possible for us here in the US? The Kwani? website said Michigan State Press sold their books and I plan on sending them an email, but I couldn’t find any such books on the MSU site. I’ll just keep an eye out for it in the future if it’s not possible, but it sounds like an interesting book and I loved the interview.
I meant to tweet this at Nicole yesterday to get it into the roundup, and then ended up sick as a dog, but: One Week One Band is doing South African jazz this week, with interviews and photography by Tselio Monaheng.
(I am better now. Meeting with one of my dissertation advisers at 1:30. Apprehensive.)
You all need to stop what you’re doing RIGHT NOW and read this amazing article on toast (the edible kind, not the readin’ kind).
This article just accomplished the formidable task of making me feel happy and calm despite: Tuesday morning, winter, insomnia due to panic attacks, stack of marking due in five days, impending menstruation, #NorthernRacism of both USian and Canadian varieties (and all other countries that have a northern part), basically everything that is not toast or The Toast.
When I was very small and still living in the Motherland, I would spend summers with my grandparents at their country house which had no indoor plumbing and a tiny kitchen with a wood stove. They would make me toast grilled right on the hob of the stove, then spread with a thick layer of lard.
Now I’m on another continent, and my grandfather is dead, and the house has long since been sold and demolished, and right now I would do pretty much anything for one more slice of toast like that.
(damn you, I didn’t want to feel these feels)
Oh man, I did a grocery shop yesterday and decided to skip bread. GUESS WHAT I’M GOING BACK TODAY
Man, there’s some shitheads in the National Post comments.
As opposed to the bylines?
I check out The National Post (and The Vancouver Sun) on a daily basis and man, I hate the National Post commenters…so, so dumb. Makes me embarrassed for Canada, honest to God.
That Iliad infographic made my heart quiet and happy. I am going to ride this wave of contentment all day long, with the satisfied air of a Classics degree-holder who has seen something orderly and wonderful.
Alright, huddle up, Toasties.
I do social media for the academic library where I work. Last night, A Man tweeted “So when is Rolling Stone being moved to the fiction section, library?”
I have stared at/thought about this damn tweet for nearly 12 hours. We could ignore it, as it’s just one guy who makes anti-affirmative action jokes (yes, really). On the other hand, this is an educational institution and I would take to school any student who said something like this to my face.
So I’m thinking links. Something higher-ed appropriate that pushes back against the nonsense that RS has pulled in the past several days. Anyone got something good?
Bless his heart < /North Carolinian sarcasm >
I’m thinking links to topics like Fact Checking 101 and other such journalistic basics would be useful.
That’s a good point. Make it about how we unpack reporting on a controversial topic and not about the issue itself.
Thanks for your suggestion, Bessie. It led me to this article, which is perfect for my purposes (also a great read) –
http://feministing.com/2014/12/08/on-rolling-ston…
Did you tweet it at him? Report back, report back!
Is #northernracism a response to that really heinous Daily Beast editorial? Because my favorite part of yesterday was watching my twitter feed tear that thing apart.
In other news, Emily Yoffe is complete trash and has written another garbage article for Slate about campus sexual assault: http://www.donotlink.com/ctgy
(using DoNotLink because Slate doesn’t deserve the clicks)
Agreed. I have ALREADY BEEN SENT THIS DAMN ARTICLE FOUR TIMES by people with whom I’ve had long, and in general, successful conversations with on sexual assault and college campuses. It is long-form garbage, the more dangerous because of occasional okay-to-good points. Like most of her stuff.
I would like to know the answer to this question too! But without knowing the catalyst, I’m pretty happy to see this hashtag become a thing. After a few weeks of holiday parties and mingling with people I don’t know well, I’ve had my fill of white northern people joking about how scared they have been to drive through Mississippi or Georgia on their way to New Orleans or Florida. It’s a gross convergence of three of my least favorite things: white people pretending to be in danger, a convenient consumerist exoticization of certain parts of the south coupled with a derisive dehumanization of the rest of it, and above all, using southern racism and other -isms as a way to avoid looking at the oppressive institutions we are a part of in the north. Philly is REALLY bad about this.
ETA: reply to bird_internet, above. (Normally I delete my comment and re-post when it becomes disengaged from the thread, but The Toast as viewed through Firefox is particularly slow and choppy today.)
This is also, I think, one of the biggest problems with racism (and other -isms) on university campuses. It is easy as pie to look out from your liberal institution of higher learning and believe you are above the insidious racism that seems to pervade the less fortunate sections of society. However, it is sometimes people in these positions of extreme privilege who really need to do work in looking at intersections of implicit and systemic bias.
Not to mention that the author of the piece I was asking about above was arguing that progressives should just stop trying to engage with the south, as if there are no progressives who LIVE in the south. Not to mention that the white conservatives the author is trying to stick it to would be perfectly pleased to have uncontested control of state and local governments while poor people and people of color would lose out big time. To summarize: if you’re going to advocate policies that actively harm and ignore people of color, try not to do it in the name of anti-racism.
Also, I can think of very few things I’m more sick and tired of than people who conflate a progressive cultural identity with actual progressive action. “I’m so young and hip and urban, how dare you suggest that I’m not a model citizen? I have a prestigious degree in the humanities!” Yeah sure, call me back when you’re actually willing to support people in struggling communities instead of just whine about how scary and backwards they are.
Hear, hear. I currently live and work at a university in a very rural region of the southeast US, and what is needed is more engagement, not less. There are fantastic people working in state capitals and communities all across the south to change antiquated policies and to challenge embedded systems of racism (which, of course, exist nation-wide). Success will not be possible unless this work is recognized and supported by individuals in ALL geographical regions of the country.
Word. I used to do political work in a red state and when I talk about it to people in the very blue (but also very segregated) city where I live now I often hear something along the lines of “good thing you got out of that hellhole! Lol do the people there even have teeth?” etc. Which, first, is not a very progressive way to regard your fellow citizen. And second, while that job was frustrating and gave me good reason to leave, I feel guilty every time I see a headline out of that state, because I know they need people on the ground.
Sounds like the reverse trajectory of my own! I moved down south to the current position from a very blue/very segregated city. It’s hard work, everywhere. (And I think the guilt factor, unfortunately, is omnipresent whenever you leave somewhere it seems like you are doing at least a little bit of good. At least for me.)
So while doing this poems-for-a-young-man-for-his-birthday project, I came across two poems in a book called “Poems from the Women’s Movement” that seem depressingly fitting for right now.
TW for this first one – http://www.sascwr.org/files/www/resources_pdfs/po… http://www.angelfire.com/ca/iloveDave/mysg.html (sorry for the dodgy webpage but it’s the most complete one I could find)
To anybody who enjoyed the illiad infographic, you may also enjoy Alice Oswald’s Memorial. She covers every death in the Illiad, from first to last and writes about each one. It’s beautiful and well worth buying the whole book.
A brief excerpt:
ECHEPOLUS a perfect fighter
Always ahead of his men
Known for his cold seed-like concentration
Moving out and out among the spears
Died at the hands of Antilochus
You can see the hole in the helmet just under the ridge
Where the point of the blade passed through
And stuck in his forehead
Letting the darkness leak down over his eyes
Part of it is here: http://www.thepoetrytrust.org/podcast_poem/memori… & there are some YouTubes of her reading it.
I do not disagree with a single thing Shanley says in this interview: A Feminist Critique of Silicon Valley.
Meanwhile, in Canada: http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/saskatoon/man-tos…
Everything about that story was amazing.
I was talking about this article with a friend who is a residence hall director at a university and his take was basically, “I’m glad to be a resource for the complainant. Such a small percentage of cases on campus go wrong for the accused, and victims are treated terribly in the legal system so that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
Yeah, I think this is one of the biggest problems with the entire conversation right now (it’s also, of course, one of the most unsolvable at the present time). In an ideal world, of course all sexual assaults would be safe to report to law enforcement, and of course all prosecutors would go forward with all cases, and all juries would find all perpetrators of said assaults guilty. However, the world is far from ideal. So terribly far from ideal. And university students are incredibly vulnerable, both as targets for assault and as individuals who experience assaults. The system, as it is changing now, is still broken, but at least people are beginning to acknowledge that these individuals need support, and that their voices matter. Yes, of course, “equality” (Title IX wording) is required, for due process- but it is like any place in history with marginalized individuals. Equality cannot look exactly the same for both groups moving forward because it has looked so very different in the past.
That parking lot driver had to be either drunk or a child, right? There is no way somebody who has ever driven before is that incompetent.
Ooooh Bear is being reissued, now I understand why everyone’s been talking about it. I read it for school like eight years ago, still have my copy, told so many people about it, none of them believed me that it is a real book.
Has anyone else read the CIA torture report?
All I’ve read so far is this: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/09/…
My stomach is churning.
I’d been having a grumpy, petulant evening today, and then I got home and got a cheerful ToastPost from unshored on a strange and lovely postcard and I felt measurably better immediately. Thank you!
Made the mistake of looking at the driver video via Reddit via another website entirely and of course some juicebox in the comments was like “it’s a woman, no surprise” or something like that.
ugggggghhhhhh
That poor parking lot guy reminded me of the Funniest Thing Of All Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZXzjKb8nTw
oh man Bob’s Burgers can do no wrong.
On that parking video—I can tell exactly what’s going on inside the car.
Every time the driver backs up or goes forward, one of those proximity alarms goes off. You can see it happening in the timing. Reverse. Alarm sounds as it senses car/curb/snowbank. The driver panics. Better go in the other direction! Too close! Alarm sounds as it senses car/curb/snowbank. And then the driver realizes the proximity alarm is bullshit. No toddlers are chasing bouncing balls behind the vehicle, no, it is only a car/curb/snowbank. So the driver feels justified, becomes desperate to leave, and goes all in and demonstrates how not to drive, anywhere, ever and the ear-breaking, insistent proximity alarm sounds continually inside the car, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, further stressing and distracting the driver and making more bad judgement calls more likely. I am guessing also that this driver has not been driving that car long, because most people disable that sucker if they can. And I’d guess the driver is unaccustomed to parking other than in the wide spacious lots of suburbia, but inexperience with the vehicle could do the same thing. Note the driver’s unawareness of what the turning radius of the SUV is. Wide sloppy curves again and again.
I fucking hate those proximity alarms. If visibility from the driver’s seat is that bad, the car should be redesigned.
A-fucking-men.
Oh gosh, I’m getting anxious just reading your description.
BRB off to tell my tiny little non-noise-making car that I’ll never leave him.
I live in fear of having to replace my 1999 Corolla which has no bells and whistles nor noises nor automatic anythings. I love my plain car.
I think one issue with that parking guy must be that the lot is icy and he still has his summer tires, right? Because otherwise his decisions make absolutely no sense. He get’s free twice and then just boxes himself back in!
So, this is way too late for today’s Link Roundup (and I’ll post it again tomorrow), but I just read Ta-Nehisi Coates’s response to the TNR meltdown, and it is beautiful:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/…
And then Mallory just dedicated an entire post to TNC’s TNR response, rendering this comment moot.
And then Mallory just dedicated an entire post to TNC's TNR response, rendering this comment moot.
if it's not free then it's not oatmeal.
YES. Cameras enabling shitty design is a huge pet peeve. If I didn't want to see out the back I'd drive a delivery van.
I honestly think my blood pressure would skyrocket if I tried to watch it. That's just about what's happening now, reading not only about the episode but about his kicking that writer out and his reaction to her tweets and to the critical reception of the rape plot (he's already going on about how he's dismayed at how people have 'misunderstood' what he was trying to say and conflated the character's viewpoints with his own. The level of blind ignorance and entitlement is astonishing and his fans are the worst.)
That is precisely why the Mazda 3 and I did not suit. I'm sorry, Mazda 3, you are very fun, but blind spot blinky lights on the mirrors are not an adequate substitute for smaller blind spots and/ or bigger mirrors.