HELLO and welcome to the 161st installment of Things I Read That I Love, wherein I share with you some of the longer-form journalism/essays I’ve read recently so that you can read them too and we can all know more about diabetes! This “column” is less feminist/queer focused than the rest of the site because when something is feminist/queer focused, I put it on the rest of the site. Here is where the other things are.
The title of this feature is inspired by the title of Emily Gould’s tumblr, Things I Ate That I Love.
Why These Tweets Are Called My Back, by Shaadi Devereaux for The New Inquiry, December 2014
“Toxic Twitter” is largely made up of Afro-indigenous, Black, and NDN women using technology to discuss our lives. The established media sees us as angry and impossible to please, waiting to rip people apart like a pack of Audre Lorde were-feminists. But we cannot look at the presence of marginalized women in digital spaces without considering our oppression. What some are truly afraid of are the layers that begin to unfold if we take a more careful look at how women are using Twitter to engage with a movement they previously had trouble connecting to because of disability, interpersonal violence that limited their movement, marginalized motherhood with little support, transphobia and class. When our voices come to the fore, mainstream organizations and anti-violence movements have to come to terms with the fact that we might have a different vision.”
The Honeyed Siphon, by Evan Calder Williams for The New Inquiry, December 2014
This is an incredibly thorough essay about diabetes and the whole world vis a vis diabetes. The author has Type 1. So does my girlfriend, which means I have a special interest in the topic, and this really dives into it: the history, the evolution of medical science’s understanding of it, the culture, the philosophical, the present-day intersections with government and capitalism, the social forces, all of it, in specific and illuminating prose.
Live From The Front Lines Of College Party USA, by Allison P Davis for The Cut, October 2014
This reminded me of everything I hated about college!
The Dignity of Risk, by Stephanie McCrummen for The Washington Post, December 2014
On a new effort in North Carolina to allow adults with serious mental illnesses try independent living. Which is, of course, a bit harder than imagined.
Selma and the American-ness of the Academy, by Iquo B. Essien for Gawker, December 2014
“As we wound down, a rather tall, elderly gentleman tapped me on the shoulder. He had gotten up from the dinner table to introduce himself, he said, because everyone at his table kept telling him what an amazing job I’d done in the film. I gave him a puzzled stare, throwing my glance back toward the table where his friends grinned eagerly at me. But what was this man talking about?
I do not look anything like anyone in the film, although, by virtue of our dreadlocks, I could be said to bear a passing resemblance to Ava. That said, it would have been obvious, given my conspicuous absence from the Q&A, that I was not in the film. And of course there was the problem of my dress, a pair of jeans, while Carmen, in a ball gown, and the rest of the cast were in their Sunday best. I simply did not now what this man could possibly be thinking, other than all the black and brown faces in the room were the creative help.
“I wasn’t in the movie,” I replied, with a kind, almost apologetic smile.
His eyebrows knit together as he squinted, examining me, his face gradually relaxing into a smile. “Well then, what brings you here?” he asked, extending a hand.”
“I wasn’t in the movie,” I replied, with a kind, almost apologetic smile
Paper Birds, by Liz Greenhill for The Rumpus, December 2014
“And what came later in my life—all the trouble and isolation, the drugs and running away, the aching loneliness—that wouldn’t have happened, because I would have known love. I would have had this memory of being safely in your arms, since this one click in time, instead of stumbling into each other’s lives at thirty-six and forty-two. If we could have found each other then I might have loved someone, truly and sweetly, with all the musk and magic and invention of the young.”
A Night Without End, by Flinder Boyd for SB Nation, August 2014
35-year-old basketball player Kimani Ffriend, who was from Jamaica and had been playing basketball all over the world since he was a teenager, never finding a team to really call home for a long time, was drunk when he hit and killed an (also drunk) young Serbian woman who was married to a local pop star and the accident may or may not have been his fault and this is that story.
