Reading List #35 (Patreon)

This month, in addition to re-visiting one of my favorite fiction series from high school on audiobook**, I've read a lot of non-fiction in preparation for the next generation of Intelexual Media videos coming in late April. I really think you'll enjoy this list, so check out what you can!

**Its the True Blood, or "Southern Vampire Mysteries". Please tell me I'm not the only one who has read the books or listened to them on audiobook. Comment below if you have-- I need someone to rant to! Lol 

1) The New Trophies of Domesticity (Amanda Mull)

It's wild how a few weeks before reading this article, I talked myself out of buying a Kitchen Aid Mixer. I don't splurge on clothes or jewelry or [mostly unnecessary] technological gadgets [ahemapplewatchesahem], but like a lot of my millennial peers, I do love home goods and nice kitchenware.

Read Length: Short

2) George Washington Carver: Touching Infinity (Devyn Springer)

In this brilliant essay, Devyn Springer explains how Carver's legacy has been sanitized, writing:

"Any cursory search into the life of Carver reveals a sort of apolitical figure, someone who cared about peanuts and plants and little more. This could not be further from the truth. 

Carver was deeply invested in finding alternative crops to cotton, which was vital to the US economy, covered massive swaths of farmland across the US South, and represented some 75% of the world’s supply. Despite the popularity of the cotton crop, Carver was one of the first scientists to warn of an immediate need to transition into alternative crops both as a social, political, and agricultural remedy for the land." 

Read Length: Short

3)  Frederick Douglass Railed Against Economic Inequality 

In the same vein of the above essay reveling the sanitization of a historical figure, this article includes two of Fredrick Douglass's writings detailing his thoughts on poverty and capitalism-- and the roles of land ownership and slavery in both. Like Martin Luther King Jr's anti-capitalist sentiments, Douglass's radical thoughts aren't usually taught in public school.

"To look at the treasures of Paris, or London, or New York, and other centres of wealth, one might at first feel disposed to agree in the assertion that man is acquisitive creature, even in the extreme case claimed by the defenders of the present system, by which wealth is accumulated by the few, instead of being distributed, as it should be, among the mass, rendering none rich, allowing none to remain poor.

A wider range of observation, however, including man everywhere, will show that with the vast majority of mankind, a satisfaction of the wants of nature is all that is sought; and even in those centres of selfishness spoken of, there are vast multitudes who would be thus satisfied, but that the rush and crash of the mighty machine of society compels them, in self-defence, to join in the rush for wealth."

I'm excited to use this source for my upcoming video analysis of black people and capitalism! 

Read Length: Medium (but it may take a bit longer  to read Douglass's grander and dated prose)  

4. Cheer Is Built on a Pyramid of Broken Bodies (Amanda Mull)

Have you watched "Cheer" on Netflix? Evidently it was a big hit, and I admit I am one of the people who got sucked into the show (damn Netflix and their auto-play previews). I watched the six episodes in one night, completely enthralled by the drama, camera work, music, and sheer insanity that unfolded on the gym mats of Navarro College. I CANNOT imagine why ANYONE would want to be thrown through the air like a rag doll, trusting to be caught by my companions, but hey! Different strokes for different folks. The following article confirmed a bunch of the conclusions I had drawn during my binge -- like how dangerous and under-rewarding this sport is. While 'm amazed at these incredible athletes, I can't believe they often can't monetize or continue this profession after college. Fans of Bring It On and/or horror, be sure to check out the series or at the very least this article! 

"As Navarro prepares to compete in the national championship, viewers see multiple concussions and other head injuries. The first concussed athlete casually mentions that this is at least her fifth, and another girl who suffers the latest in her own series of concussions does not see an outside doctor. It’s unclear whether any of them ever do. Instead, she’s told to keep the lights low at home and stay off her phone."

Read Length: Medium

5. Why do people believe con artists? (Barry M. Mitnick)

As someone who still receives sporadic death threats and accusations of being a bed wench for pointing out Dr. Sebi's flaws over a year ago, you could definitely say I have a major interest in why people are drawn to obvious con artists. This article lists 11 reasons, and can certainly apply to followers of the late Dr. Debi to the spiraling Dr. Umar Johnson to the misogynist Tariq Nasheed to the king of con artists, Donald Trump.  

Read Length: Short

6.  The First Drag Queen Was a Former Slave  (Channing Gerard Joseph)

I can't wait to get my hands on the book that Joseph is writing and publishing next year!

Read Length:  Short

7. How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America (John M. Barry)

People are a bit too calm about the coronavirus for my liking. This article puts things into perspective, especially for folks who are adamant that a viral outbreak or pandemic could never happen here, in the land of the abominably atrocious public healthcare. You know, the wonderful country where most people don't wash their hands properly or don't call off sick from work. 

"Initially the 1918 pandemic set off few alarms, chiefly because in most places it rarely killed, despite the enormous numbers of people infected. Doctors in the British Grand Fleet, for example, admitted 10,313 sailors to sick bay in May and June, but only 4 died. It had hit both warring armies in France in April, but troops dismissed it as “three-day fever.” The only attention it got came when it swept through Spain, and sickened the king; the press in Spain, which was not at war, wrote at length about the disease, unlike the censored press in warring countries, including the United States. Hence it became known as “Spanish flu.”"

Read Length: Long

8. I Spent 15 Hours At QC's 2020 Stripper Bowl — the Fyre Festival for Dancers (Felicia Kelly)

After all those rumors last year that strippers at the Quality Control label's "Stripper Bowl" were leaving with thousands of dollars for a few hours of work, its no surprise that this event was highly anticipated by strippers and spectators alike. However, as social media posts after the event revealed, dancers were severely underpaid. This article is told from the POV of a civilian watching the dancers, who realizes that while sex work can be empowering, these women were being exploited.

"Security claims they don’t know how much money each girl is getting because they can’t do a proper headcount. Without a proper headcount, they can’t evenly distribute the money. One woman overhears that only $400 is being given and the venue explodes. This causes a huge uproar because, during their call time, the women signed a contract, gave identification and paid a $350 house fee. "

and later:

"After 15 plus hours at Stripper Bowl, I was confused. This wasn’t the story I originally wanted to tell. I wanted to flip the stigma and hypersexualization of black bodies into an empowerment story of black women doing what they love to do and getting paid top dollar to do it. Instead, this experience reinstated a harsh truth: the most disrespected person in America is still the Black woman. "

The writer also mentioned Cardi B chiding the women for not being entertaining and blaming them for their own exploitation. I wouldn't expect anything less from a greedy sell-out like Cardi B, whose true feelings of superiority towards strippers is clearly revealed with the line from Bodak Yellow, "I don't gotta dance now, I make money moves." But don't worry, I'll be returning to that idea in upcoming content. ;) 

Read Length: Medium 

9. White Gay Men Are Destroying Queer Black Lives With “Party ‘n’ Play” Sex And Meth Addiction (Patrick Sudwick)

This was a tough piece for me to read, and it's the first in a three-part series on drugs, sex, race, and exploitation in the gay community.

Kenneth — who asks that his surname is not included — has been in meth addiction recovery for nearly 20 years and as such has witnessed its trajectory into black gay circles. For him and others, this path has been fairly clear: The drug was popular among white gay men from the 1990s onward, but only in the last few years has it proliferated more widely into black and Latino queer communities as white men began introducing it to them.

As Kenneth sits by his bed in his apartment, he contemplates again the role-play request. His body jolts suddenly. “How the fuck do you even ask anybody that?” He answers in just a beat: “When everybody’s high, of course you can ask it. And you may get a yes.”

He whispers: “And I almost did it. I almost did.” He knows he came close “because a few times I let people call me ‘nigger.’” On one occasion, “he was sucking my dick,” says Kenneth, “and he said, ‘Harder, nigger.” This has happened many times. “People have yelled out ‘nigger’ when either I’m fucking them or they’re fucking me.”

I had to chew back my default instinct to call this man-- and the other men in this article-- self-hating. It's the same reaction I'd have to a black man allowing his white girlfriend to call him nigger or black women allowing her white boyfriend to engage her in slave play. But it's deeper than notions of self-hate. These men don't seem to be consenting to the foul racism happening in these circles. A great deal of them are survival sex workers. The racism they are reluctantly dealing with seems to be a byproduct of their addiction to the drugs these white men are providing. It's a culmination of poverty, addiction, fetishization, lack of access to healthcare and support systems, and racism that is driving this exploitative culture. There is also downright sadism:

"They speak of torture, gang rape, guns to the head, intentional overdose by injection, enforced meth inhalation, and systematic, even targeted abuse of individuals over many months — sometimes years. And they speak of the racism, ignited by meth and exploding into realms rarely discussed: plantation slavery role-play; sexual slavery with meth acting as chain, whip, and reward; and sexualized, scattergun use of the n-word — all amid a culture drenched in the fetishization of black men."

The death of two black men in democratic donor Ed Buck's home has cracked the door wide open on this scene-- and I'm sure there will be a lot more info to come. 

Read Length: Long

10.  Perspective | How America developed two sign languages — one white, one black

I'm not sure why I never thought about AAVE seeping into American Sign Language, but this article quickly schooled me on my ignorance. I had no idea that deaf black people codeswitch when signing, too!

Sign language, like spoken language, has regional variations (people sign more slowly in the South, for example), as well as features that reflect gender, age, socioeconomic status and, it turns out, race. A history of educational and social segregation set black signers apart in the 1860s, when schools opened for them, leading to the development of separate grammatical features and vocabulary, in much the way that spoken black English (known as African American English or AAE by linguists) is distinct.

Read Length: Short