February 2024, sk***y b***ches
ban the ozempic ads
This part is usually my favorite part of writing this bookletter, but I keep staring at this blank space, and all I can think about is "ozempic" and how suddenly everyone is skinny and how it makes me sad that we're so quick to regress; to repeat history all of the time. There was a sweet spot in the past few years where I felt more comfortable, much different from my experience growing up, where I was always the "other" person in the room. The only Black person usually and almost certainly the almost biracial person in most of the spaces I existed in growing up, which means most of my friends didn't look like me or share my experiences. I was the only chubby kid, which isn't at all true, but when you're overweight, and certainly when you're fat, you feel like it is. The only poor person, which also wasn't true, but more and more, I've realized that I was likely, and, without exaggeration, the poorest person in most rooms. The norm never felt like it was for me, and I realize I say this as someone living a pretty "normal" life. It's not necessarily abnormal to be a biracial-Black woman with a trauma-informed poverty background who now works for a nonprofit and lives with a nice boyfriend in a big city. But for me, it feels abnormal that this is where my life is. What I ended up doing in my 30s wasn't guaranteed for me, in the way it feels it was for many of my peers.
Nothing is guaranteed, including a thin, svelte body, even though society is back to tell you it is and you should attain one. I was brought up, as Kate Kennedy highlights in once in a millennial, in an era where America was obsessed with skinny, blonde women. The narrative around body image in the 00s was highly, if not entirely, focused on white women's experiences that are now, like Kennedy’s, being given book deals. The people most featured in these conversations are also thin, white women - Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Kate Winslet.
But Black girls and other people of color were affected by that shit, too; it's just not talked about. As Angela Tate writes for "Culture Study,”
If you look at the popular Black celebrities of the '90s, the thin, modelesque figures of Halle Berry, Whitney Houston, Lela Rochon, Tyra Banks, and others don't appear too different from their white contemporaries (Julia Roberts, Claudia Schiffer, Shania Twain, et al.). Yet the myth persists that Black women do not suffer from eating disorders — and that if they do, they are perceived and treated in the same manner as white women. It doesn't appear there are very many researchers, physicians, or treatment centers willing to tackle this gap in the literature.
With that in mind, I was affected by my upbringing being told flat abs are good, and you should bare your sexy midriff if you had one and definitely not otherwise. Britney Spears got fat and ugly because she was no longer 16 years old, so we didn’t want to have sex with her anymore (?) and every woman felt like she should be working her ass off to be that Black-girl "curvy" people like Beyoncé were pulling off. As Tate says,
Bootylicious Beyoncé and video vixens may have touted a love of curves and being thick, but they still wore the low-rise jeans, bandana tops, skin-tight bandage dresses, and velour sweatpants aimed to show an "acceptable" amount of curvyness.
Why am I talking about bodies in my bookletter? Because all of a sudden, it feels like we're back there, that all of the "body positivity" and "body neutrality" and "fat positivity" and and and is seeping out the window. I hate when I feel that culture shift, even though it's not really even trying to hide from us. All I want to do is grab onto the end of the discourse and pull it back to the side of progress. It's so hard to do that, and it's isolating to feel like everyone has been faking their feelings about swimsuit bodies being bodies wearing a swimsuit and all of the other dumb phrases people say that annoy me but work because groupthink is effective.
We're back to skinny, and it feels like we're going back to very straight (more on that next month), but I'm not going. I'm comfortable being the "other," and I will continue to report the ozempic-esque ads that are preying on people exactly like me (and probably you!) and continue to not talk about my body because, as one of those dumb platitudes says, "my body is the least interesting thing about me."
Here's what I read in February.
[Books I read]
One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In by Kate Kennedy (2024) | Quick summary: An exploration of pop culture, nostalgia, the zeitgeist, and life lessons learned from a white millennial.
I wrote about one in a millennial for “you paid for this,” but ultimately, I liked the book for the nostalgia but was distracted by how Kennedy’s millennial experience as a white, blonde woman is often the millennial experience, which just isn’t the case for many of us. You can read that below!
[nonfiction, women and pop culture criticism, written by a white american podcast host, pop culture commentator, and author, quicker read]
You paid for this
You paid for this: one in a millennial & kate kennedy's whiteness
Jess Tholmer • Feb 18, 2024
Every few years, a blonde, white woman comes across the social media sphere, and sometimes into the book world, that people are just totally obsessed with. Right now, it is Kate Kennedy, who seems to have a group of lovely 35-45-year-old sing-songy writing style friends that are also popular online, and I can't pretend it's not giving 2014 era Taylor-Swift-Squad which was famously criticized for the amplification of thinness, whiteness, and exclusivity that felt mean.
Read full story →
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (2023) | Quick summary: Violet Sorrengail was supposed to be a scribe but has been ordered to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become dragon riders, as family history dictates.
Early next week, I’ll publish a “you paid for this” about Fourth Wing and my foray and thoughts into “BookTok.” If you’re not subscribed but are invested, it’s a good time to do so. Overall, and I guess this is my teaser review, I thought Fourth Wing was really…fine.
[fiction, romantasy, written by a white american author, quick-ish read if it grabs you]
Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum by Antonia Hylton (2024) | Quick summary: The history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the United States’ last segregated mental asylums that closed in 2004.
I’ve heard Madness is in the spirit of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which I’ve never read but will finally prioritize after its deep reference throughout Madness. Hylton’s writing style and the format of Madness give me Isabel Wilkerson with a little side of Patrick Radden Keefe. This is a compliment because, as a nonfiction girlie, I love a deep dive that almost feels like fiction. Tell me the story through personal history and weave those facts in. Shock me and break my heart. Make me mad and want to throw the book across the room. I loved Madness, and it pissed me off in its intense unfairness and familiarity with how we operate today, in this country, with Black people, about mental health, with kids in foster care, with homelessness. This book has stuck to my bones and profoundly spoken to me. I am sorry to the Seattle Public Library for keeping it a week overdue and getting my account suspended. It was worth it.
[nonfiction, Black history, mental health, written by a Black american journalist, medium-length, steady read]
[Books I heard]
On the Line: A Story of Class, Solidarity, and Two Women's Epic Fight to Build a Union by Daisy Pitkin (2022) | Quick summary: The story of a five-year campaign to unionize to the terribly dangerous industrial laundry factories in Phoenix, Arizona.
I listened to this phenomenal book for my own completely booked challenge. It was a beautiful read and ended up being as much about friendship as it is about unionizing, something I'm deeply fascinated by and, ultimately, one day, hope to feel confident in complete understanding. I was a part of one union when I was 19 and never again, but I love the damn energy and support anything that ultimately sticks it to "the man" and protects workers' rights. On the Line focuses on the story of unionizing a laundromat. I cried twice.
[nonfiction, labor and industrial relations, sociology, written by a white american community and union organizer and writer, medium-length listen]
The Way We Never Were: American Families & the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz (1992; 2016) | Quick summary: An examination of two centuries of “the American family,” sweeping away misconceptions about the past that cloud current debates about domestic life.
This has been on my list forever, and if you read my book letters, you know I love to pick something that has been on my ~TBR~ for a while. The Way We Never Were explores the myths and realities of the traditional American family while shedding light on how societal changes have shaped our understanding of family life, which is an exciting premise at any given time, especially considering this book was initially researched and then published in 1993. It feels like the theme of this bookletter is “nothing ever changes, everything is always the same,” and this book is the perfect bow to wrap it all up. It's a good audiobook to listen to, albeit the narrator is more academic than delightful.
[nonfiction, sociology and american history, written by a white american author, historian, and faculty member at evergreen state college, long(!) listen, read by Suzanne Toren]
[Books I recommend]
- If you only read one book I’ve recommended in this letter this month or in the past six months: Madness, a book forming connections between white supremacy, mental health, incarceration, slavery, and inequitable status in the US, by Antonia Hylton.
- If you are a white woman about my age: one in a millennial by Kate Kennedy.
- If you want to be a part of it all: Read Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, I guess????
