My Great-Grandfather, the Nigerian Slave-Trader

Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani writes about how her family is reckoning with her Igbo great-grandfather’s work in the transatlantic slave trade.

Source: New Yorker
Published: Jul 15, 2018
Length: 14 minutes (3,692 words)

Why New Zealand Is Furious About Australia’s Deportation Policy

New Zealand and Australia have had a strong relationship, which included porous borders with each other. That relationship has eroded since Australia started deporting many Maori and Pacific Islanders based on “character” or criminal history.

Published: Jul 3, 2018
Length: 6 minutes (1,677 words)

Why I Lied to Everyone in High School about Knowing Karate

As a teen, Jabeen Akhtar discovered that trying to be an exceptional immigrant can make you do stupid things.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 17, 2018
Length: 15 minutes (3,917 words)

Lorena Bobbitt’s American Dream

When Lorena Bobbitt cut off her husband’s penis and threw it out her car window in 1993, she not only did what many woman want to do to abusive, deserving men, she became both a feminist icon and a tabloid caricature. Twenty-five years later, the couple still disagrees about what really happened, but the Bobbitt’s castration story remains relevant today, when women’s rights are under fire and our President is accused of sexual assault.

Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Jul 11, 2018
Length: 16 minutes (4,248 words)

Environmental Disaster Is Canada’s New Normal. Are We Ready?

Canada, the second largest nation in the world by area, is highly susceptible to the effects of climate change. According to nationwide assessments, the country is struggling to prepare itself.

Source: The Walrus
Published: May 23, 2018
Length: 16 minutes (4,218 words)

Silence is a Lonely Country: A Prayer in Twelve Parts

A personal essay in which poet Sadia Hassan reflects on finding her words in the face of injustice.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 13, 2018
Length: 17 minutes (4,468 words)

Inhuman Resources

David Dayen tells the story of Mike Picarella, an HSBC banker who witnessed a coworker being repeatedly sexually harassed and had his life ruined after he reported it to HR. The account shows how power imbalances within the banking industry prevent whistleblowers from coming forward and why there have been so few #metoo stories that have come out of Wall Street despite its notorious frat boy culture.

Published: Jul 12, 2018
Length: 41 minutes (10,400 words)

The Extinction of the Middle Child

Statistics show that a family’s ideal size has shrunk to two kids, leaving the middle child to go the way of the mastadon.

Source: The Cut
Published: Jul 11, 2018
Length: 18 minutes (4,746 words)

“I Was Devastated”: Tim Berners-Lee, The Man Who Created The World Wide Web, Has Some Regrets

Tim Berners-Lee reflects on how corporations like Facebook and Google have misused the World Wide Web to manipulate and spy on users. In a bid to revive the original promise of an open and safe web for all, he’s redoubling his effort to give users privacy and control over their information with a new platform he’s building, called Solid.

Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Aug 1, 2018
Length: 12 minutes (3,078 words)

The Great Unsolved Mystery of Missing Marjorie West

Eighty years ago, four-year-old Marjorie West went missing from a park in Pennsylvania. As one of our country’s oldest unsolved cases, theories still abound – did a she-bear take her? A wildman? Is she still alive?

Source: Narratively
Published: May 8, 2018
Length: 14 minutes (3,500 words)