Quickies: Goats Breastfeeding Babies, Sexual Harassment in Indie Music, and “Slavery with a Smile”

• “You Will Be Tokenized”: Speaking Out About the State of Diversity in Publishing – “Publishing doesn’t exist in a bubble. Systemic and individual racism, misogyny, trans- and homophobia, ableism: these structure and surface in every American workplace. But publishing’s deadening sameness is unusual, and it makes for an unhealthy book culture.”
• Wild gorillas compose happy songs that they hum during meals – “Food-related calls have been documented in many animals, including chimpanzees and bonobos, but aside from anecdotal reports from zoos, there was no evidence of it in gorillas. To see if they make these noises in the wild, Eva Luef, a primatologist at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany, observed two groups of wild western lowland gorillas in the Republic of the Congo.”
• How Two “Slavery With a Smile” Controversies Are Changing the Conversation About Diverse Children’s Books – “In some ways, the discussion about children’s literature and historical truths parallels the one recently swirling around the Oscars, which encompasses dismal overall representation numbers, but also the idea that certain kinds of ‘diverse’ narratives slip through in a majority-white industry and never get seen. ‘Generally speaking, we as black people have been celebrated more for when we are subservient, when we are not being leaders or kings,’ David Oyelowo said a year ago.”
• This 43-tweet story explains how black kids are treated by America’s criminal justice system
• ‘I Felt So Trapped’: In Indie Music, Sexual Harassment Is an Accepted Nightmare – “In the wake of the first allegations against Berru, women in the industry who also are victims of sexual abuse tweeted their stories, and a woman who works at a record label in L.A created a Tumblr called ‘The Industry Ain’t Safe,’ where women can talk about their abusers. Since its inception a month ago, there are already four pages of accounts, and almost all specifically reference indie music.” From Courtney.
• The Original Six: The Story of Hollywood’s Forgotten Feminist Crusaders – “In 1979, six women directors banded together to challenge the male-run Hollywood machine—then the industry tried to erase them. On the eve of the Oscars, the Original Six share important truths about the industry.”
• Sarah Palin’s Mustache – “Women in the public eye walk a perilous line. Last month, President Obama told Politico that he admired Hillary Clinton for the fact that when she was campaigning against him, she had to do everything he had to do but ‘like Ginger Rogers, backwards in heels.’ She even had to wake up earlier than he did, the president said, ‘because she had to get her hair done.’ “
• This Week’s Episode Of Black-ish Wrecked Me – “Part of me was hoping that Wednesday night’s episode of Black-ish would give me the Magic Words: the exact right things to say to my daughter when she starts asking me about institutionalized racism. It didn’t, because, really, how could it?”
• Why goats used to breastfeed human babies – “French mothers typically let their babies suckle from goats, wrote Deborah Valenze in ‘Milk: A Local and Global History.’ In the 18th century, orphans, some of whom had syphilis, were sometimes held to the udders of animals kept on site just for feeding.” From Dan.
• Lupita Nyong’o and Trevor Noah Revealed the Gatekeepers Maintaining Hollywood’s Racist Status Quo

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