#BlackLivesMatter
The unprecedented scale of the #BlackLivesMatter Protests
Ill Doctrine (Jay Smooth): On Ferguson, Riots and Human Limits. “Ferguson didn’t fail to protest peacefully. We failed their peaceful protests.”
Black Lives Matter: “…when you look at the percentage by population, black people in the U.S. are three times more likely to be killed by the police than white people. The links below are some of those deaths from 2014. This is in no way a complete list.”
Tressie McMillan Cottom: Riots and Reason. “Why are police advocates, prosecutors, white people in online comments, the white guy who yelled at me to get a job as I crossed the street last night so angry? They won.”
Dear White Allies: Stop Unfriending Other White People Over Ferguson. “With each “unfriend” post, I felt myself getting angrier and angrier, wondering how on earth white people (who understand racism) disconnecting from white people (who don’t) was supposed to help anyone.”
The new threat: “Racism without racists.” “Colorblind racism is the new racial music most people dance to,” [Eduardo Bonilla-Silva] says. “The ‘new racism’ is subtle, institutionalized and seemingly nonracial.”
The Intellectual Condescension of White Liberals (via Natalie Luhrs @eilatan)
I’m Dreaming of a White Privilege Christmas.
@Awkward_Duck: I witnessed stuff like this a few times in #Ferguson.
First Person View: For Entertainment Purposes Only. “We enjoy violence and suffering. It is, and has been for much of human history, a center piece of popular forms of entertainment. … It is everywhere. And this, based on the historical record is, pretty normal. …And right now, we talk about what it will take for someone to do something, when so many are entertained by the festivities.” (viaTressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd)
December 6, 1989: twenty-five years later
I have very vivid memories of this day, twenty-five years ago. I remember thinking, in response to an early news report that suggested that there was more than one shooter, “my god, they’ve started hunting us.” I remember the adrenaline surge when, leaving work a few minutes later, I realized that I was getting into an elevator with just one other person in it—a man.
And I remember my rage when commentator after commentator denied that anti-feminist misogyny had anything to do with the slaughter of women by a man who explicitly said he was killing them because he hated feminists. Some things never change.
Metafoundry 17: Twenty-Five Years Later by Deb Chachra. “I don’t think being a woman in technology is worth dying for, but I learned early that some men think it’s worth killing for. “
Shelley Page: How I sanitized the feminist outrage over the Montreal massacre. “I arrived in Montreal four hours after the killing was done. Yellow tape wrapped l’École Polytechnique like a macabre Christmas present; surviving students gripped each other in numb disbelief. I was 24, sent by the Toronto Star to write about the slaughter of female engineering students, all around my age; fourteen of them.”
Other socio-political commentary
Emic, Etic, and the depiction of Otherness in SFF. (via Rochita Ruiz @rcloenenruiz)
New York Magazine: Gamergate should stop lying to journalists — and itself.
I found this explanation of chan culture and how it shapes online behaviour and responses fascinating. How Chan-Style Anonymous Culture Shapes #gamergate.
Design/Art
Harriet Mead: Sculptor. “Welder who makes natural history out of agricultural history. Cross between Steptoe and scrap heap challenge.”
Interesting
Science Shows Something Surprising About People Who Still Read Fiction: They tend to be more empathetic toward others. (via Chris Boese @ChrisBoese)
Haunting images of a lost city: Postcards from Pripyat, Chernobyl.
The Problem With the Internet of Things. “Want to turn on the bedroom light? Sure, just pick up your smartphone, enter the unlock code, hit your home screen, find the Hue app, and flick the virtual switch. Suddenly, the smart home has turned a one-push task into a five-click endeavor, leaving Philips in the amusing position of launching a new product, Tap, to effectively replicate the wall switches we always had.“ (via Chris Boese @ChrisBoese)
Stop Wasting Everyone’s Time. (via Chris Boese @ChrisBoese)
Quote of the week
Tweet by Ashley Ford: Don’t be the second lead vocalist in your own life.
Just cool
The motions of canoers and kayakers revealed with LEDs in long exposure photography.
And… the best birth announcement ever.
microfishing.wordpress.com 