Information is power. Our mission at Portside is to seek out and to provide information that empowers you -- that empowers the left. Every day we search hundreds of sources to connect you with the most interesting, striking and useful material. Just once a year we appeal to you to contribute to make it possible to continue this work. Please help.

Archives

For posts before June 2012, please follow these links to our archives.

Portside list: Visit the archives
Portside Labor list: Visit the archives

December 17, 2019

A New Black Christmas Sharpens the Feminist Edge of the Original But Dulls Its Scares

Beatrice Loayza AV Club

Despite a bumpy execution, this Black Christmas works in the way it summons the anxieties of women and how they’re attuned to the danger of men lashing out against “persecution” that undermines their privileges and reputations.

December 16, 2019

Everyone Who Invented the Everything Bagel

David Farley Taste

A handful of middle-aged men think they invented the everything bagel. We talked to four of them.

December 15, 2019

Cloud 9 Attempts to Unionize in 'Superstore'

Eryn Murphy CheatSheet

Superstore illustrates the precarious nature of unions in a retail environment with an episode that takes on the vagaries of organizing and negotiations.

December 13, 2019

when asked why “all lives” don’t matter

MEH Radical Teacher

The poet MEH describes a classroom moment, someone hijacking “communal grief,” and a good teacher’s response.

December 12, 2019

Both Sides Now: The Myth of Media Objectivity

Marissa Brostoff BookForum

Objectivity may be tricky; fairness in reporting is not. The book author blasts the media for using a rhetoric of neutrality to marginalize insurgent POVs. Truth may be contingent on time and place, but leading news venues only serve power.

December 11, 2019

Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender Performance and Ballroom Culture in Detroit

Chase Dimock Lambda Literary

The FX network TV drama, Pose, dramatizes New York City's 1980-1990s black and Latino LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming ballroom culture scene. This book, on the ballroom culture in Detroit, describes a community of affirmation and resistance.

December 10, 2019

Midnight Family Shines A Spinning, Neon-Blue Spotlight On An Urgent Medical Crisis

Vikram Murthi AV Club

Mexico City’s health care crisis, much like America’s, primarily revolves around prohibitive costs and limited access. The issue’s myriad complexities are neatly embodied by a single problem plaguing the city: an ambulance shortage.

December 9, 2019

This object speaks. What does it say?

Shane Mitchell Southern Foodways Alliance

This potholder could have been an emblem of the abolitionist movement, but is now considered offensive by modern standards.

December 8, 2019

Midge Pursues Her "Bad Feminist" Dreams In The Season Premiere of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Arielle Bernstein AV Club

Midge ultimately struck a nerve with a lot of women not because she is “perfect” but because she is, as Roxane Gay might say, a decidedly, “bad feminist.”

December 6, 2019

Mark Zuckerberg and I

Brendan Walsh Rattle

“I’ve become obsessed,” writes the poet Branden Walsh, “with trying to understand the compulsions and sickness of a society that believes billionaires are a healthy/natural component of civilization.” He tries here to humanize just one.