Best Of MetaFilter

Engraving by George Vertue, 1725

The perspective of an angry green parrot was used by Eliza Haywood back in 1746 to point out problematic elements of 18th century. Now, as ShooBoo’s post highlights, those writings (originally published as The Parrot) are being re-released. If you’re reminded of Lady Whistledown from Bridgerton, you’re not wrong!

By si.robi - Townsend RG19 (29), CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80164672

America hating fat Black women — it’s just part of life. It’s in the culture. It’s in the health-care system. You see it in Hollywood, you see it in sports. You don’t have to look around very hard. misskaz posts a superb personal essay by tennis pro Taylor Townsend.

Twenty-year old Malone Mukwende, a second-year medical student at St George’s, University of London is working to correct white bias in medical textbooks. The aim of this booklet is to educate students and essential allied health care professionals on the importance of recognising that certain clinical signs do not present the same on darker skin." Mind the Gap: A Handbook of Clinical Signs in Black and Brown Skin

A Metatalk thread collecting resources for anti-racism activism and funding

Lying Liars by katmeresin (cc by)

Next you're going to tell me it was actually only a couple of hundred yards to go before he slept? – not_on_display

"the best example in all of American poetry of a wolf in sheep’s cloth" explains how everyone knows Robert Frost’s "The Road Not Taken" – and how almost everyone gets it wrong (though not everyone: "I wrote a whole commencement speech about this general idea")

Plus a post about Best American Poetry guest editor Sherman Alexie's response re a white male poet who appropriated a Chinese name for submission to the anthology

and in Ask Me, looking for the author who said (something like) "The poet lies ... most especially when writing about himself"

Hands up by vapour trail (cc by-nd)

The hardest (oddest?) part? You learn that a fairly likely outcome of your attempt to rescue a conscious non-swimmer is that you will be attacked, and so you have to learn underwater combat tactics, so that you won't be drowned the first time you try to carry out a rescue.

infinite intimation and other former lifeguards comment in the Spot the Drowning Child thread, while some survivors remember. Plus, Mefi's worst (imaginary) lifeguard, racial swimming disparity / swimming pool discrimination, dreaming underwater, and PS: Please don't throw babies in pools.