In case you’re thinking “hey where are all the JK Rowling sucks links in this links round-up,” the answer is that I am furious with her and so I have saved all of those links for last. In case you are not sure why I am saying JK Rowling sucks, the answer is that she said a bunch of nakedly transphobic things on Twitter and then when people were like “whoa that’s so transphobic” she wrote a like 3500-word manifesto about why trans people are bad, actually. So. Hell with her. She is an asshole.
I never liked ironic detachment. Emily VanDer Werff goes in on why it fucking sucks and we should care about stuff. (link)
“You are not permitted to watch a police precinct erupt into flames under a canopy of fireworks and whisper to yourself, “good.”‘ Tochi Onyebuchi on the responsibility of Black writers in America. (link)
Michael Arceneaux makes the case against forgiveness. (link)
In order to fix our country, white women need to face a clear-eyed reckoning about the role we have historically played and continue to play in upholding white supremacy. (link)
Dear Holmes looks so fucking fun and I don’t even like Sherlock Holmes. (link)
Quarantine is a terrific time to rediscover The Westing Game, which is as cynical about capitalism as you are right now. (link)
“Someone at some point has to get down to the business of reading.” Lauren Michele Jackson on anti-racist reading lists. (link)
Angelica Jade Bastien is typically eloquent and brilliant on Michaela Coel’s new show, I May Destroy You. cw for sexual assault. (link)
What does K-pop owe to the Black Lives Matter movement? (link)
Here is a story about racism in NOW. (link)
White writers of crime fiction are complicit in the valorization of police in American culture. They can change how they write. (link)
Lauren Francis-Sharma hoped that quarantine would let her protect her children from American racism. It did not. (link)
A Letter From a Black Woman in Publishing on the Industry’s Cruel, Hypocritical Insistence That Words Matter, by Mariah Stovall (link)
Why we all turned on Glee. (link)
As we all wait breathlessly for the Millions second half of 2020 book preview, Lithub has used math to compile a list of the mathematically most anticipated books of summer. (link)
And now, the JK Rowling sucks links. Kacen Callender talks about staying alive for the Harry Potter books — and why JK Rowling’s transphobia is so deeply harmful. (link) Gabrielle Bellot writes about how JK Rowling betrayed the world and the readers she made. (link) Mallory Yu on why this is so personal. (link) Aja Romano on finding their nonbinary identity through Harry Potter, and realizing that had nothing to do with JK Rowling. (link) Emmet Asher-Perrin on saying goodbye. (link)
Do you think there’s any chance that JK Rowling being an asshole will save us from further Fantastic Beasts movies? The first one was Not good, and I heard the second one was even Not gooder. But maybe that will be the only two we have to suffer through.