#5SmartReads - February 2, 2021

Today’s guest curator is Kate Slater! You probably know her as a regular contributor to #5SmartReads. Once again, here is a link to her anti-racism roadmap. Now, some questions to get to know her better:

Q: What was your most recent purchase?A: I bought a tuxedo jacket to wear to my dissertation defense at the end of February!

Q: How many times did you move as a child? or Where do you think of when you hear “childhood home?"A: Yarmouth, Maine

Q: Your favorite qualities in a woman?A: Tenacity, vulnerability, humor, indomitable spirit, and a potty mouth

Coded Language Is Part of Our Racist Education System (Teen Vogue)

Racially coded language is one of the more subtle, yet frequent forms of racism, especially in public schools.

This article describes how words like "at-risk", "inner-city" or "gritty" reinforce deficit ideas of BIPOC individuals.

America Is Back, Indeed: With Biden we’ve restored our country’s favorite tradition: basic, middling, white patriarchy (The Cut)

Traister again hits it out of the park.

This article perfectly encapsulates my ambivalence about, on one hand, a new chapter for American democracy, and on the other hand, the same-old same-old recycling of white middle-class male privilege in government.

How the School Reopening Debate Is Tearing One of America’s Most Elite Suburbs Apart (Slate)

This article is a FASCINATING read that describes how the debate around COVID and schools reopening is playing out in one of the most educated and wealthy suburbs in America.

Nikole Hannah-Jones On "The 1619 Project's" Genesis, Backlash And What's Next (BUST Magazine)

A fantastic interview with the creator of the 1619 Project, one of the most groundbreaking works on the history of racism in America in the last decade.

Rebels at the Multiplex (Criterion Collection) 

"Though the left seems to have won a significant battle, we may be fighting the war—taking the next chance, and the next—for a long time to come. A blockbuster movie may not have been where I expected to locate the strength to come back stronger."

Author Wang reflects on seeing ROGUE ONE in the aftermath of Donald Trump's election in 2016 in this wonderful essay.