Pocahontas may seem like a strange vehicle for discussing our gay villains. But Disney gets inventive when they need to circumvent white people’s historical responsibility for genocidal atrocities — and queerness is a useful scapegoat.
colonization
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
The Masterless People: Pirates, Maroons, and the Struggle to Live Free
In the “bizarre and horrifying world” of the early modern Caribbean, maroons and pirates both prized their freedom above all else. And sometimes they worked together to safeguard it.
Posted inHistory, Nonfiction, Quotes
This Essay is the Very Pineapple of Writing
This is the most important pineapple-themed essay you’ll read today.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Many Meanings of Fruitcake
In Food52, Mayukh Sen explores the ways fruitcake became a homophobic slur, queerness, and his own personal attachment to the namesake food.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
What Would Happen If We Lived on Mars
Cabin fever might set in quickly on Mars, and it might be contagious. Quarters would be tight. Governments would be fragile. Reinforcements would be seven months away. Colonies might descend into civil war, anarchy or even cannibalism, given the potential for scarcity. US colonies from Roanoke to Jamestown suffered similar social breakdowns, in environments that were Edenic by comparison. Some individuals might be able to endure these conditions for decades, or longer, but Musk told me he would need a million people to form a sustainable, genetically diverse civilisation.