The Daily Rumpus
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From Stephen Elliott
At Mother Jones, Mac McClelland writes a must-read piece about her time working in an online-shipping warehouse, exposing an appalling workplace reality at the center of popular and profitable cyber-retailers.
“It’s the first time anyone has ever tried to comfort me because I got a job, because he knew, and everyone in this industry that’s growing wildfire fast knows, and accepts, that its model by design is mean.
...moreAt Mother Jones, our friend Mac McClelland reports from Uganda, focusing on the defiance of the country’s gay community in the face of bigots (some of whom have American allies). McClelland calls attention to the fact that despite the media’s recent focus on Uganda, anti-gay violence and attacks on gay rights is occurring elsewhere, including here in the United States.
...moreFeministing published an article on the backlash to the Mac McClelland piece on PTSD, commending her bravery, defending the art of the personal essay and citing yesterday’s Roxane Gay piece for its wise advice on how our diverse personal narratives should work together to “present a more accurate view of one part of the world.”
Maya of Feministing responded by saying, “I’d say that’s pretty good advice in general.
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Last week journalist Mac McClelland wrote a brutal, exceptional essay for Good where she plainly discussed her experience with PTSD and her desire for violent sex as one means of coping with the atrocities she had witnessed as a human rights reporter.
This past Monday, we linked to a piece in Good by friend of The Rumpus Mac McClelland that detailed her struggle with PTSD and her use of violent sex to help ease it. On Friday, Jezebel posted an open letter to Good‘s editors from 36 journalists who claimed that McClelland maligned Haiti in her piece.
...moreThe poster person for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a war veteran, which isn’t surprising given that anywhere from 11 to 20 percent of veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are diagnosed as sufferers. But it’s not solely a soldier’s disorder.
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In March, Soft Skull Press released For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question, Mac McClelland’s memoir of the six weeks she spent in Thailand, helping refugees from Burma living illegally in a border city.
This week in New York Keith Gessen and Elif Batuman talk, Guernica has a reading, Joanna Newsom sings and plays harp, Marcel Dzama appears, talks and signs books, The Moth has a Story Slam, Christopher Walken loses a hand and Zoe Kazan gives him one, and Atlas Obscura presents an international celebration of curious and obscure things.