Our weekly recap highlighting the best feature stories from around the internet.
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Black Mirror Vs. The Black Social Media Experience – by Ira Madison III, MTV
“Social media, frankly, is a necessity for black life, even as social media platforms are often hostile to black users. Trolls are allowed to live on Twitter in anonymity and hurl insults and vile graphics at their victims, while Facebook allows anyone to message you. Visible black women like Leslie Jones endure targeted harassment that often surpasses the attacks on their white counterparts. For black users, we already know that as much as we need social media in our lives, it’s a lot like a beautiful plant that turns out to be the flesh-eating monster from Little Shop of Horrors.”
The conviction of teenager Losi Filipo is nothing to celebrate – by Madeleine Chapman, The Spinoff
“The Losi Filipo case has proven that more often than not, outrageous moral high ground comes before reason and way before compassion. A young man committed an offence, expressed remorse, attempted restorative justice, and was given a chance to be a positive influence in society. That same young man is now a convicted criminal, a known hated face and name without any apparent clear purpose in life, for the near future at least. Congratulations, New Zealand. You got what you wanted.”
StairMaster to Heaven – by Carrie Battan, GQ
“In the beginning, there were gymnasiums. Open spaces in ancient Greece where men trained, often nude, to compete in public games. In these gymnasiums were halteres, a form of weights that would evolve into dumbbells. Fast-forward a dozen-plus centuries: These dumbbells found homes in new types of gymnasiums—now they're called gyms, because this isn't ancient Greece anymore—like Gold's Gym, where puffy and steroidal men would train (not quite nude) to compete in the public game of self-worship.”
Now Is The Perfect Time For The Indians To Quietly Abandon Chief Wahoo – by Lindsey Adler, Deadspin
“Cleveland fans can kick and scream and shit their pants all they want over what the logo means to them and twist themselves into knots to justify what’s plainly racist. It’s gotta go, and the franchise should do it in the wake of its World Series loss.”
In conversation with Junot Díaz: on the force field of privilege and the power of art – by Constance Grady, Vox
“If we’re talking about Marvel Comics, and the backlash that happens every time there’s a character whose skin colour changes — it’s really fascinating the ways that the imaginers of these cultural objects can imagine anything: They can imagine mutants or other planets, they can imagine all sorts of science fiction devices, but they can’t actually imagine people of colour, women of colour, and women being active fellow participants in these practices.”
Now Is the Greatest Time to Be Alive – by Barack Obama, Wired
“That’s how we will overcome the challenges we face: by unleashing the power of all of us for all of us. Not just for those of us who are fortunate, but for everybody. That means creating not just a quicker way to deliver takeout downtown but also a system that distributes excess produce to communities where too many kids go to bed hungry.”