scattered memories of challenger

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what i remember is all of the adults in my life going into the den and shutting the door.

that’s not actually an accurate memory, as it was my mother and ann, our cleaner, and then, later, my dad. but that’s the memory. the adults in a room with the door shut and me, age 4 1/2, on the other side of it.

this was the year after The Year Everyone Died– my friend from next door, my mother’s grandfather, my father’s boss– so we were already, then, somewhat a house in mourning. or, at the very least, a house that had spent a lot of the previous year avoiding discussion of grief and death whilst living submerged within it.

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a brief word on this portrayal of duchess kate’s white fragility

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whew, PEOPLE. if ever there was a day built for rage?! and it is not yet noon US EST!

between the horrifying story of a police officer murdering an unnamed Black man in minneapolis, the video of amy cooper calling the police on a birder who asked her to leash her dog, the president of notre dame’s op-ed in the times about the risks we must all sustain for the education of students (ie. the continuation of american football), AND the president of purdue’s op-ed in the post about moral responsibility of reopening in the fall (ie. capitalism and the continuation of american football), i would like to go back to bed and spend the day reading my trashy novel about a kept woman falling madly in love a rake with waterloo PTSD while teaching him how to cheat at vingt-et-un in regency england.

ALAS, NO. i cannot do that, because today is also the day that the daily mail posted this nonsense.

which, if we’re in some sort of white supremacy/white fragility/white tears carnival time– and that does increasingly seem to be what was meant by “reopening”– hardly ranks supreme. but it is nonetheless, stupidly consistent with this broader alignment of the racist stars and worth a gander, especially due to the subtlety of the pandering and the broader agenda of thumbs up-ing white femininity. (please, lawd, this is not the gemini season i wanted.) Continue reading →

on jessica simpsons’s memoir

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i am giving myself exactly one hour and thirty-eight minutes in which to write about this. because there are 19 papers that need to be graded and i’m leaving for an estate sale with a friend at 9:45, but there are things i gots to say.

THE JESSICA SIMPSON MEMOIR IS AMAZING. Continue reading →

on silence

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for the last few weeks, i’ve been working on a thing that lacks form– it may be an article or it may be a book.

it is, undoubtedly, a story in progress.

i’ve pursued it through haphazard writing and numerous conversations over expensive dinners i can’t really afford.

still, i do not know what it will be.

(via Getty)

i think it’s something though.

there is a there there.

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i want to talk about carolyn bessette kennedy

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even though there is not a lot to say beyond the same old thing that it seems i always say, which is: OMG, why are we not better at this???!?!

it is 2019. it is twenty years later. it’s been all that time and we still suck.

(by bruce weber)

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dear new england historical society: no, a white woman was not the first Black first lady

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i am not here to play. there will be no gifs.

my last post was about first ladies and whiteness, and lo! we meet at that potuck again.

(via the new england historical society)

let me begin by saying, unequivocally, no, no jackie kennedy was not the first Black first lady. michelle obama was the first Black first lady. Continue reading →