The week of July 23, 2016 was building a wall we can get behind; a thorough analysis of the craigslist sex trolling of the RNC; and the 17th anniversary of the Juggalos.

And before you move on with your day, get ur freak on with Michelle Obama. Copywritten. So don’t copy me.

Mash-Ups in the News:

The Mash-Up Life Of Donald Trump

Donald “America-is-ruined-I’m-gonna-deport-all-the-immigrants” Trump is the emblem of all that is anti-mashy, right? Well, not exactly. Because it turns out, The Donald actually has a super rich, complex immigration and Mash-Up American family narrative of his own. Last fall when we launched our podcast, we talked to a Trump biographer about the Mash-Up life of The Donald, but we never thought he would be the Republican Presidential Nominee. And here we are.

via The Mash-Up Americans

The New Meaning Of Whiteness

#Longread: What is whiteness? This is a powerful exploration of the sense of abandonment that working class white people feel. Por ejemplo:

“Skin color no longer feels like an implicit guarantor of privilege. There is a sense that others, thanks to affirmative action or lax immigration policies, have nudged ahead of them on the ladder of social ascent. Their whiteness is, in fact, the very reason they suspect that they are under siege.”

via New Yorker

Why Are So Many Unmarried Millennials Having Kids?

It turns out income inequality and other critical economic factors have a huge impact on whether people decide to get married.

via The Atlantic

What Sub-groups Besides Whites Have Contributed To Society?

Remember when an elected member of Congress went on TV and preached white supremacy? Oh, right, that happened this week!

via Washington Post

How A Danish Town Helped Young Muslims Turn Away From ISIS

Over the course of a few months in 2012, a Danish town had dozens of young Muslim men disappear. When the police realized that these young people were headed to Syria to join ISIS, they did a surprising thing: They invited other young Muslim men in the community to coffee. They developed individual relationships and slowly some of the men came back. The story is all about taking the surprising, more compassionate approach. PSA: Invisibilia is one of our favorite podcasts and it’s finally back with a second season!

via NPR

The Role Of Athletes In Black Lives Matter: What Would Ali Do?

“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” — Muhammad Ali.

We demand neutrality or some kind of bi-partisanship from our star athletes, but maybe what we actually need is for these role models to take a strong public stand for what they believe in.

via The Nation

How To Say LaCroix

It’s “La-CROY.” Oops, some of us have been very pretentiously pronouncing it “La-QUA.” The Midwestern contingent of Team Mash-Up is endlessly amused by the sudden hipness of LaCroix. Which, of course, does have the perfect amount of bubbliness.

via Town and Country

Breaking Down The Hummus Wars

We like to say we are 25% hummus. It turns out that of all the wars in the Middle East, there’s one that is not violent, but very important: Who makes the best hummus, where is hummus originally from, and who can win the world record for most hummus made at one time. This is a battle in which we’re happy to choose sides.

via Saveur

John Cho Navigates The Universe

“Culture is this thing that exists apart from our real life but is something we all have tacitly agreed to in America. [I]t’s tied up in this idea of personhood, that Asian-Americans are looking to be affirmed as real people.” — John Cho

We love Mr. Cho, and not just because he’s a total dreamboat. In this BRILLIANT interview, we nodded along at every line as he described being a parent, being an immigrant, being a public figure, and having big ambitions. We were also reminded of a word in Korean — um-chin-ah — that describes that kid of your parents’ friends who is perfect and you can never live up to them. Mm-hmm.

via Vulture