internet reading list of late

(triplicates of links that occupied my mind at *work* recently)

Citizen Khan from the New Yorker

Oh man, this story here is amazing, and really drives home the true creation myth of America that could be real, except for whatever reason people won't let it. What if instead of a bunch of hipsters buying dilapidated parcels of Detroit, you just straight up relocated 15,000 Syrian refugees? What if instead of leaving it abandoned, the old historically black college or university in Southside Virginia (Saint Paul's) was turned into a boarding home/school for latino migrant children instead of sending them back? What amazing life stories could've been created, which would've only made this fucking place less sterile and hateful and narrow and fucked? (Also, this story really pushes my innate desire to operate a fucked up food cart/shitty restaurant into hyperdrive. It won't happen, because I'm already stretched beyond thin, but if only...)

13, Right Now from progaganda ass Washington Post

This story scared me because - despite the higher level of privilege (which is not to say we are not a privileged family, because I know we are - and I try to remind my children of this) - this reminds me a lot of my own 12-year-old. Technology has outpaced our ability to adapt, and we won't know the long-term effects of all this robot phone shit until, you know, it's been a long term. By then IT MIGHT BE TOO LATE!!! (lolol)

Bobby Shmurder: His Surreal Saga from Gentleman's Quarterly megazine

With the idiotic Troy Ave video making news, GQ jumped up to push this out about another NYC rapper who already went to jail. This story is sketchy as fuck though, and reminds me a lot of some "social media mapping" bullshit article I read a couple years back where NYC police busted a "gang" which it seemed highly probably were just a bunch of kids who lived around each other, and everybody's home was broken so they had not a whole lot of guidance. I think mainstream people (police, media, you know deep space white people organizational shit) underestimate how fractured a lot of communities are, and how it is natural human desire to try and piece together those fractures with a semblance of tribal belonging. Unfortunately, this is painted as "OH MY GOD! GANGS!" After reading this, I'm not sure what Bobby Shmurda did wrong other than be a teenager who got caught up in suddenly having money given to him in abundance.