Reading List #26 (Patreon)

1) Do We Have To Tell Them The House Is Haunted? (Christine Ro) 10/27/18 

Ever wondered if allegedly haunted houses are really dirt cheap like they are in scary movies? Incredibly, a haunted house in many states is considered "stigmatized property", and can mean significant cost reduction. All these damned paranormal themed horror movies are ruining the reputations of friendly specters who just move your panties and stand at the foot of your bed while you sleep (I swear on everything this happened to me!). There's no need to fear. If ghosts are real, this old and violent country is filled with them no matter where you step. 

Read Length: Short

2) When Americans Say They Believe in God, What Do They Mean? (Pew Research Center) 4/25/18 

Not all American believers are wired the same way- which is clearly evident from the continuing disagreements on abortion, LGBTQ issues, and whether or not greed is good. But how different are believers regarding their fundamental beliefs about God? In this report from the Pew Research Center, it becomes clear.

"Additionally, while 85% of Republicans believe God loves all people, eight-in-ten believe God is all-knowing, and seven-in-ten believe God is all-powerful; Democrats are less likely to express each of these views. Two-thirds of Republicans say they believe God possesses all three of these attributes, compared with roughly half of Democrats (49%). Republicans also are more likely than Democrats to say God has protected, rewarded or punished them. "

Read Length: Medium

3) This Is How We Radicalized The World (Ryan Broderick) 10/29/18

When Google first launched back in 1998, their guiding motto was "don't be evil." Fast forward to 2018 and it seems they've totally thrown those words out of the window while speeding down the highway going 100 miles-per-hour. But they aren't the only internet-based company fucking up the world while simultaneously connecting it.  This article is a recap on how the internet is wreaking havoc across the globe, especially on elections and political parties. Behavioral microtargeting from user data impacted elections in the Philippines, and Russia's Research Internet Agency (read: bots) divided votes here in America and in the UK when British voters pondered over Brexit. The article also offers a short and intriguing history of Fordlandia, Henry Ford's failed Brazilian rubber colony, but what I found most intriguing was the following excerpt:

"It’s 2013 and an ad appears on Russia social networks: "Internet operators wanted! Job at chic office in Olgino!!!, salary 25960 rubles per month. Task: posting comments at profile sites on the Internet, writing thematic posts, blogs, social networks. Reports via screenshots.” Those who answer the ad are placed in a basement in St. Petersburg and become the first iteration of Russia’s now-infamous Internet Research Agency — or troll army."

For the record, 25960 rubles a month is equivalent to $400. That's how much the average Russian troll was getting paid to send America into chaos. 

Read Length: Medium

4) Gun Violence Has A Major Impact on Native Communities in The United States (Allen Salway) 6/14/18

With that infamous comfort-food-filled holiday that promotes the lie of european settlers as gentle compromising people around the corner, I intend to remind you of the problems facing natives. This week dive into an article on gun violence in native communities by Allen Salway, aka LilNativeBoy on twitter. Black people, we rightfully discuss gun violence rather frequently, but how many of us use our voices to discuss the following:

Native communities have the highest rates of fatal police encounters. Our men, women and children are killed by cops with great frequency, most commonly in fatal shootings, but rarely make national news. A 2014 study by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice reported that, per capita, Native Americans are more likely to be killed by police than any other demographic in the U.S.

As little as we have, we have more pop culture, political, and economic representations and platforms than natives, and we should be amplifying their voices and issues. You can also read and share Allen's "Thread of what it was like to grow up on the Navajo Reservation here in New Mexico." 

Read Length: Short

5) YesJulz Is the Latest Example of the Problem With Voluntourism (Shamira Ibrahim) 10/22/18

YesJulz is a white social media influencer and event host with a questionable legacy of of getting too comfortable. She's been recorded saying nigga before, wore nigga on a t-shirt and then defended the use because of [insert silly reason here], and used to brag about black women being jealous of her because black guys love her. So when she posted a stereotypical white-person-in-Africa photo with cheerful local children while visiting Uganda with Koonye West, I was annoyed. Thankfully this wonderful writer dragged her neatly while also informing everyone about the real issue of voluntourism. As someone on twitter asked, why don't white Americans go into poor white neighborhoods here or in Europe for photo-opportunities? 

"...Orphanage voluntourism has become so profitable that many orphanages intentionally exacerbate the conditions at their facilities, intentionally manipulating the circumstances to tug the hearts (and pursestrings) of the relentless rotation of visitors. In these cases where children are sometimes deliberately deprived of resources, the children have a probability of developing attachment disorders from the consistent cycling of volunteer caregivers."

Read Length: Short

6) The Troubling Epidemic of Unnecessary C-Sections Around The World, Explained (Julia Belluz) 10/27/18

Would it shock you if I said it was about money? Well, it's about money. 

"Over time, the cost for health care providers of waiting for a woman in labor has increased. “If you are a clinician, you face the dichotomous choice — persist with a woman in labor whose labor has lasted longer than average, whose fetal heart monitoring is giving you an ambiguous reading,” he says, “or you can pull the rip cord.” Performing a C-section can offer a certain outcome through an uncertain process. When it comes to cost, on average C-sections are reimbursed at 50 percent more than vaginal deliveries in the US, Shah says. Eighty percent of the cost of labor and delivery is staffing, and C-sections generally require a much small staff working for fewer hours."

Read Length: Short

7) You Buy A Purse At Wal-Mart. There's A Note Inside From a "Chinese Prisoner." Now What? (Rossalyn A Warren) 10/10/18

A delicious piece of investigative journalism that might make you see your favorite cheap clothing much differently. This piece is especially impressive because as you know the media is heavily censored in China, and stories like this are not corroborated by the government. Finding sources in a country without free speech and backtracking the origins of a single piece of paper is no easy feat. S/O to Ms. Warren for her research. Find out if she solves the mystery of who wrote the following note: 

"Translated, it read: Inmates in China’s Yingshan Prison work 14 hours a day and are not allowed to rest at noon. We have to work overtime until midnight. People are beaten for not finishing their work. There’s no salt and oil in our meals. The boss pays 2,000 yuan every month for the prison to offer better food, but the food is all consumed by the prison guards. Sick inmates have to pay for their own pills. Prisons in China cannot be compared to prisons in the United States. Horse, cow, goat, pig, dog."

Read Length: Long

8) Why Young Men of Color Are Joining White-Supremacist Groups (Arun Gupta) 9/4/`8 

I was looking into this phenomenon while doing research for my upcoming thread and I couldn't resist sharing. Common gateways for non-white men who join white supremacist and radical left groups are video games, troll sites, and anti-feminism forums.

"David Neiwert, author of Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump, says, “The ranks of people of color who show up to these right-wing events are totally dominated by males.” He says the alt-right targets white males between the ages of 15 and 30 with a message of male resentment, which ends up attracting black, Latino, and Asian men as well."

As myself and numerous other feminists have noted, misogyny is a fundamental component of white supremacy. It keeps the white man superior to white women and everyone else. You cannot claim to want black liberation and progression if you wish to reverse women's rights or make them subservient. But I'm sure I'll come back to this topic soon. ;)

Read Length: Short 

9) The Real Secret to Asian American Success Was Not Education (Jeff Guo) 11/19/16

Who would have thought that treating American citizens with respect and allowing them access to resources would help them progress so much?! Sidenote: Did you know intraracial income inequality is rising the fastest among Asian Americans? Their wealth gap is now wider than that of black Americans, thanks to a variety of factors including high immigration of skilled laborers. Read the full report here on the Pew Research Center.  

Read Length: Medium

10)  All Those Books You Haven't Read? There's a Word For That (Kevin Mims) 10/8/18

The word is "tsundoku, a Japanese word for a stack of books that you have purchased but not yet read." I personally am hoarding all of these unread and half-read pleasure books in my house (usually picked up for a few guiltless coins at the thrift store) for you guessed it, the zombie apocalypse. These are the books that have never been interesting enough for me to jump into, or were too long for me to commit. When the power goes out, I'll have a personal library that will keep me entertained until all the rations run out. No seriously, whenever I'm picking up dollar copies of used books the first question I ask is, "What if I could never buy a book again? Would I be satisfied with what my library is now? I'll never know when I'm in the mood for something!" And it's true, sometimes I just pluck an unread book off my shelves (like it hasn't been there for nearly a year) and plow through it in hours, only to return for the final pages months later (or never). The author of this short piece shares a few of my picky reading sentiments and left me wondering if there's a Japanese word for partially read books.

Read Length: Short

11) The Class of 1946–2018: Twenty-seven school-shooting survivors bear their scars, and bear witness. (As told to Jared Soule and Amelia Schonbek) 10/28/18

There are about as many pictures as there are words, and that makes this difficult read even harder. Walk in the shoes of a school-shooting victim. This was gut-wrenching. In addition to thinking about the variety of school shootings over the years, my mind was transported back to the first time I watched the season 1 American Horror Story episode in which Tate Langdon takes a gun to school and murders his classmates. It's always been hard to fathom hiding from gunfire in school (or in any "safe" public space for that matter), and seeing fictional victims spend their last moments waiting to die at the hands of a classmate was chilling. To know that this has happened multiple times in real life continues to be tragic. I could never be numb to these incidents. Every school shooting, whether the victim count is one or in the double digits, devastates lives and brings trauma. Everyone who participated in this article has true courage for speaking publicly and continuing to live. 

Read Length: Long