Sansa got more puppy shots yesterday. She did not like it. The box of wormer looks as though it’s positioned for product placement, I can assure you that is purely coincidental (pay me if you want, though, Novartis!)
Charles M. Blow in the New York Times emphasizes a particular aspect of Tamir Rice’s murder:
Not only is the shooting itself disturbing, but the failure to render aid is unconscionable. And this didn’t just happen in Tamir’s case. The same apathy about the immediate administration of care is echoed in other cases where black boys and men lay dying.
Stacey Patton on why she doesn’t want to write about Tamir Rice:
An editor emailed me just a few minutes ago to ask if I’d write a 1200-word reaction to the Tamir Rice decision. I said no.
I’m tired of explaining the same racist shit over and over again knowing that more of us are going to die a death-by-scared cop. Tired of reaching into the archives to show historical precedence for the current remixed ideologies and 400-year-old sadism.
Sometimes I feel like being able to explain this madness gets coopted into the racial spectacle: Kill another black person. People get angry and march. Watch the funeral on TV. No indictment. More anger and marching.
“Let’s find a negro academic or journalist or culture critic who can help us decipher all this inelegant rage because we are totally ignorant about structural racism and the psychosis of white supremacy. We’re colorblind after all. Oh, isn’t she so articulate? We got 400,000 hits on that piece. Here’s $300, we hope you’ll write for us again…. the next time one of you blacks gets killed.”
The Guardian‘s writers and readers on the best book they read in 2015. Eater’s best features of 2015.
Canada’s first-ever First Nations person has been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship (this is from November, but I just saw it today):
Belcourt comes from the small reserve community of the Driftpile First Nation, north of Edmonton.
“I was raised by my grandparents in a single-income home, in a small hamlet of about 100 people and my high school graduating class only had about 22 people.”
At Oxford, Belcourt plans to research how colonialism has contributed to increased rates of HIV in Canada’s indigenous populations, and how feminist theory can be used to respond to violence against indigenous people.
Back off, mother-in-law:
Q. Genealogy and abuse in my past: My mother-in-law recently took up genealogy and has paid for the privilege of compiling a family tree on an ancestry website. She is now asking me for my personal information to place on this website, including my exact birthdate and place of birth. She is aware that due to a history of abuse in my family, I don’t use social media of any kind—we have argued over her placing pictures of my kids on social media. I’m also not completely comfortable compiling a resource that links me to some of the members of my family, some of whom are still serving time for the abuse I mentioned, that my mother-in-law wants to share with my young kids. I’m also particularly against providing my parents’ personal information without their permission, as they have similar viewpoints to me. My husband wants me to cough up the information to avoid a major conflict.
I have not watched Making a Murderer on Netflix yet, but I am sure I will get extremely engaged when I do, thoughts?
Since this is our last link roundup of 2015, and I am a human, I would now like to hear about your New Year’s resolutions, if you have made any! If you have an elaborate monologue about how you attempt to live moderately and well year-round, and have no need for such a system, I am very happy for you, and would ask to to refrain from harshing my mellow at this time.
My New Year’s Resolutions for 2016 (apart from more private religious and weight-lifting related ones that I will not burden you with):
- Waste less food (no more letting things die in the crisper! better planning!)
- BOOK EMBARGO UNTIL I HAVE READ ALL THE BOOKS I ALREADY OWN (exception for books-by-friends-and-enemies, obvi)
The Awl’s collection of end-of-year essays is always great, 2015 is no exception, and Emma Carmichael’s was incredible:
I talked about it in the weeks following, as friends came to visit. “Want to hear what I remember?” I’d ask. I was prepared, even if my audience was not. For a while, I found comfort in re-telling it, and even in seeing their horror. I couldn’t remember much, but I could tell you about where we’d been standing, and just how it looked when my vision mercifully faded black as I went into shock. Telling it, more than the rods protruding from my body—four down my left leg, one in each hip—was proof that it had happened. It all felt like a dream, so the story mattered.
At dinner not too long ago, I found myself using salt and pepper shakers to show where the cars had been, a fork to show the side of the bridge. See? And then, after a long look: Is this weird? Another time, meeting with a new physical therapist, I found I had to stifle laughter mid-story as her face shifted from interested to frightened. It’s not that it was funny, it’s just that I didn’t know what I could say to comfort her—and yet I knew that part was up to me, too.
