snap/shot 📷
🎨 sesseelangwe
protests.pandemic.politics ⤵️
stuff we’re paying attention to as July comes to a close? Isabel Wilkerson’s first on-the-record conversation (with Justin Worland) about Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. The NAACP’s new issue of Crisis — the cover line is “We are done dying.” How white supremacists are truly inciting riots in the wake of George Floyd’s killing.
⤴️this profile of Julián Castro as a “seer” is pretty brilliant (and here’s a convo with the person who wrote it). And in this first-person story, Dr. Michele Harper refuses to examine an arrested man until he consents. It’s terrifying, and worth the 19 minutes it will take you to read. And while we’re at the intersection of race and medicine: “Dermatology is no different.” The absence of darker skin in COVID-19 studies leaves those most vulnerable behind. And if you’re thinking of buying a home in a pandemic —here are three things to consider.
music+
Compton’s own Roddy Ricch is making some of the most popular music in the country and has been doing so for a while (🎨by Technificent). The Tony-winning Broadway icon Audra McDonald says “theatre can’t miss this moment.” Somebody asked thousands of people whether they recognized hit songs from the ’90s — such as Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” and TLC’s “No Scrubs.” Then they placed the results in order by each respondent’s year of birth. All of this to see which songs are most likely to be recognized by future generations. The results are weird and good, and they’re here.
words + screen
you are watching Katori Hall’s P-Valley on Starz? Here’s a profile of Jamaica Craft, the show’s choreographer. It was just renewed for a second season. Other things to know: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me is off to HBO, Chris Chalk is dope on HBO’s Perry Mason, and Julian Kimble calls director Hype Williams’ Instagram the “the best nostalgia account” on the platform. While we’re on directors, over here there are more scanned pages of the handwritten first draft of Spike Lee’s 1989 Do The Right Thing ⤵️
…right?! crazy to see the calligraphic beginnings — so full of possibility! it makes you think all kind of stuff is possible: what if there were amazing books with pansexual main characters? what if there was a new bookstore, where young Black girls, women, femmes and gender-nonconforming people never have to search for stories that represent them? What if Toni Morrison edited a book about Creole food and recipes?
media + style
so much going on: there’s the coverage of AOC’s pointed speech on sexism and how it puts “gendered power imbalances” on full display. there’s the fact that today’s Hollywood paparazzi are predominantly Latino men. There’s the site-crashing ‘Bushwick Birkin,’ an ‘it’ bag for creatives in the know. There’s Ben & Jerry’s, out here getting their BLM activism right. There’s the fact the Oprah’s magazine will soon no longer be a magazine.
throwback
⤴️ the wild 1997 Playboy chat is here.
outside/free:
⤴️via @drdre
🗝no time like present: please register to vote immediately. not sure if you’re registered? go here, like right now ✌🏾⬇️sending love along with all of the above curation for your information ✊🏽this is your newsletter. diverse work curated by a diverse team for a diverse readership. in this curation you see work from writers you know (and some you don’t). work from creators of color. from women writers. and LGBQTI creators. basically storytelling curated with the idea that the many segments of our multiverse are equally interesting and important.
team HRDlist
Danyel Smith || Elliott Wilson || Darian Harvin
special thanks this issue to Parker Williams, Benjamin Meadows-Ingram, Dyana Larios, Wesley Harvin, Nicole Jones and many others.