Toots & Boots // Michelle Obama, Black Friday and Christmas rom-coms

Michelle Obama discusses her memoir with Oprah, Vanessa Hudgens does a Lindsey Lohan (not the messy version), and Boshemia reflects on the morality of American holidays – all in this week's Toots & Boots.

TOOTS 🎉

@Askapoc

This instagram account is described as a ‘safe space for Non POC to ask questions to a community of POC.’ It is a brilliant resource for learning about the many dimensions of racism with people asking questions you may have yourself or about issues you hadn’t even thought of. Constant food for thought and amazing work from the POC who answer questions. A @Askalgbt account has also just been created by the same folk!

The Princess Switch

Vanessa Hudgens stars in this remodelled Parent Trap where she plays a princess-to-be and a Chicago baker who meet by chance only to discover they look identical. The pair decide to switch lives a week before Christmas, inevitably having impersonation slip-ups and falling in love with the main man in each other’s lives (you can’t even call that a spoiler, this is a Christmas rom-com). Now on Netflix, The Princess Switch is perfect for switching off.

Vanessa Hudgens in The Princess Switch

The book Know Your Place

A collection of essays by 24 working class writers discussing how their class has shaped their lives and what it means to them. Beginning life on Twitter after the Brexit vote, the soulful and varied collection offers a much needed challenge to the UK rhetoric that demonises those at the bottom of the class hierarchy.

The End of the World with Josh Clark

The 10-episode podcast series explores all the different ways that humanity could die in the next 200 years. Sounds cheery right? The show actually manages to keep the 'looming apocalypse' vibes under control, asking questions about intelligent life in the universe and how (if possible) we can survive the next couple of centuries.

Michelle Obama on Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations podcast

When two of America’s most influential women sit down to have a conversation, you listen. Prompted by her new memoir Becoming, Michelle Obama talks candidly about her childhood in Chicago, her years as an attorney and the trials of being ‘the first black family’ in the White House. Both women are as wonderful as ever.

Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama. Photo credit: Jim Young, AFP/Getty Images

BOOTS 💩

The colonial origins of the Thanksgiving holiday

As much as it is an opportunity to come together with chosen family and loved ones, it would be remiss not to acknowledge those who will be mourning for the genocide of their ancestors this Thanksgiving and every one to come.

Black Friday

Though tempting to partake in, Black Friday and Cyber Monday encourage insidiously capitalist ideals and a chaos of unnecessary consumerism. Offering an alternative is the ‘Green Friday’ movement that promotes giving, spending time with family and getting into nature instead of participating in the unsustainable free-for-alls.

Johnny Depp (yikes) in Fantastic Beasts

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

It only gets worse for the latest film in the Harry Potter franchise. After facing backlash for casting Johnny Depp as the lead villain (despite being accused of domestic abuse) and a stingingly poor opening weekend, the film’s crew are now facing accusations of queerphobia. Non-binary model, Jamie Windust (shown in featured photo. Credit Matt Joy) spoke out this week about anti-lgbtq and misogynistic slurs being used on set by other extras and going unchallenged by crew members.