Guest Shitter: Josie Duffy Rice (Plus, Happy Birthday to Us!)

Josie talks 2020 backlash, her secret Instagram follows, Botox transparency, and the shit she bought and liked

Shitters! Do you want to hear a funny story about my number dyslexia? I was all set to send this out today to celebrate FIVE years of Shit I Bought and Liked—a milestone I’ve been really excited to celebrate!—but when I went back to look at our very first newsletter (oof, but also lol), it turns out the anniversary was actually on May 7th… Hopefully this newsletter has made you laugh as much as I am right now at some point over the past five years!!!

There’s so much I could say about this letter and what it means to me. It started the way most side projects do—I was feeling frustrated at work and wanted to reconnect with writing something simply for fun. And to my amazement, other people found it fun too! From the OG Crooked team who used to hype me up when I sent early editions, to the world’s best friends who have always been the first subscribers to every newsletter I’ve ever written, to all the new friends (online and IRL!) I’ve made through this newsletter, I’m so beyond grateful to everyone who has read and championed this project. You all embraced the label of Shitters, and every time someone tells me they love this newsletter or raves about something they found here, I cannot even explain how incredible it makes me feel. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here and for giving me that feeling!

Circa May 7th, 2019

Aside from sharing the things I love, the other thing that really lights me up is talking to people about their paths and how they found their way. Nothing makes me feel more inspired! For a long time I was waiting to do this on a podcast. And who knows, maybe I still will one day! But I thought that this little birthday of ours might be a nice time to start doing some of that here.

Every month or two, I’ll be sharing conversations with some of the most inspiring people I know (and hopefully some I haven’t met yet!), along with the shit they’ve bought and liked, because who doesn’t love knowing what all the cool people are buying/ doing/ loving?! Sound good?! Let’s get to it!

Our inaugural Guest Shitter is the one and only Josie Duffy Rice! Josie is easily one of the smartest, most impressive people I’ve ever met. She’s a journalist and writer, an expert on the criminal justice system, a Harvard Law alum (including this detail will probably give her the ick, but it’s true), and her limited series Unreformed was just nominated for a Peabody Award (!!!!). She also happens to cohost the daily news podcast What A Day with me, which is the only reason our names have any business being in the same sentence.

I remember seeing this picture of Josie before we ever met and thinking she seemed so pretty and nice and cool. All true!

Her work is serious and oftentimes heavy, but talking with her is anything but—she’s warm and funny, she’s opened my mind in so many ways, and she’s also the first person I text when someone on Instagram has an insane wedding I want to dissect every detail of (what more could you want in a friend, really?).

Talking to her about her career path and her latest obsessions was one of the best half hours I’ve had in a long time. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did!

This interview is condensed for length and clarity!

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PA: There are a million biographies of you on the internet. I'm pretty sure you have your own Wikipedia page [Ed note: She does.] But tell me—what are you working on right now and what are you excited about?

JDR: That's a deep question! Right now I'm working on a series about public defenders. That's exciting in particular because it's a way of helping people think about public defense and what it is and what it could be. I'm also working on a story about a case in Michigan that I've been kind of obsessed with for a few months. Those are the two most exciting things in the like, 17 jobs I have [laughs]

PA: You have a really interesting path. First law school, then media with this specific focus. How did it all start for you?

JDR: When people ask about my career arc, the truth is that I tried a lot of things that I failed at. I went to law school and lawyering wasn't for me. I did policy work and it really wasn't for me either. Before I went to law school, I worked at the public defender's office. And that was really the thing that shaped my entire perception of the system and made me understand the importance of it in a really tangible, urgent way. That kind of drove me going to law school. 

In 2015, I got a notice that there was a job opening for someone to write about prosecutors. I had written freelance a lot and wanted to get into journalism. My then-boyfriend, now-husband was in journalism, and I was like, why don't we both go into a totally unpredictable, failing industry! So that's when I started doing this work. It takes a lot of different forms, but most of what I do is try to illuminate and shape the way people think about the criminal justice system by letting them know what's happening in it. All of my work comes back to that ultimately. 

PA: How did you get to the public defender's office? I imagine you were also pretty young at that time.

JDR: I graduated from college in 2008—I thought I was beating the rush by graduating a little bit early, but I graduated as the stock market crashed. I remember leaving my last final, going to a bar with my friends, and looking up to see the little news chyron. It was graphic of the stock market and a down arrow…

I first took a job in a video archive space for a TV station. That was not super fun. And then someone reached out and said they needed an assistant [at The Bronx Defenders]. And I was like, sounds great, sounds different, sounds interesting! But I didn't go into it knowing what I was getting into. I didn't really even understand public defense. I had no idea how much that job would change my life. I just thought it was a better job than working in the archives.

PA: I became familiar with your work probably when a lot of people did in 2020. And at the time, it seemed like people were so motivated to make lasting changes to our world and the criminal justice system—so many of the things that your work centers around. But in the time since, it seems like there's been this forceful rejection almost of some of the ideas that people were starting to be more open to. I’m really curious about your perception of that, and what your reaction to that is.

JDR: You know, it's funny. The summer of 2020 I was in my third trimester pregnant with my youngest kid, and I feel like I wasn't even really able to process what was happening in real time. Looking back, it feels so crazy to think about what we saw. And at the time, I think I didn't totally get it. I think I also understood—maybe not exactly, but generally—I think I knew that this was going to be temporary. What happens in situations like this, where people get very, very invested in movements, especially when it's a movement having to do with race or safety or issues that are really kind of intractable for people… I knew that there was going to be backlash, and I knew that it wasn't going to be a permanent dedication, because frankly, the truth is that crime goes up and down. That changes people's perceptions of what's working. There's so much partisan backlash right now and moderate backlash to leftist ideas—this was kind of a new version of that, but I figured it would come back. 

I will say that I still see 2020 as such an incredible success. It gave people language to talk about certain things differently. People know what the concept of abolition is, they’ve thought about it. A lot of them don't agree, a lot of them think it's crazy, a lot of those people think we need more cops. But even integrating the concepts of some of the things we were talking about, like what is public safety really? Do we need cops to fill in the holes in our society? What would it look like if we scaled these things back, and accelerated [other] things? They’re just ideas that lots of people hadn't really thought about, and now they're on the table. And so, in that way, I feel like we made some real progress, even though we have lifetimes to go.

PA: Thank you for answering that. If people reading this want to learn more about the criminal justice system in general, where do you think they should they go?

JDR: There are incredible resources out there. No More Police is a great book by Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie. Another by Mariame Kaba is called We Do This ‘Til We Free Us. Becoming Abolitionists by Derecka Purnell—Derecka in general is a great person to follow. There's also a really good edition of Vanity Fair that talks a lot about abolition from September 2020—I'm not just saying that because I'm in it, but it's very good. And we have a newsletter—me and my friend Hannah Riley. It’s called The Jump Line, where we try to create some space to see what's happening across the country right now in the criminal justice field. 

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Read on for the JDR starter pack! (Also, can we discuss how good the initials JDR are?! Very jealous.)

PA: Now onto the Shit I Bought and Liked portion of the program! I very distinctly remember the first time that we met—it was on a Zoom for What A Day and I remember being very intimidated by you because I only knew you from your work…

JDR: That’s so funny. I felt the same way. Also because you were really pretty. You were also really smart, but I was like… [laughs]

PA: [Laughs] Wow, Josie, thank you so much! I remember halfway through the meeting you side-Slacked me and complimented my skin! I knew immediately that we would be friends. But now I want to know—what are you using these days? I know you're kind of a product junkie.

JDR: I am a product junkie and it is crazy. If my husband ever finds out how much money I spend at Sephora… I’ll hear about it for the rest of my life. I will say that I'm very bad at routine. I'm not one of those people who wakes up at the same time every day and washes their face. I try to wash my face every morning. I get there, but I work from home, so is it gonna be seven in the morning or 11 in the morning, I don’t know. 

I really like the Tatcha Cleansing Oil. It's not too drying or harsh on my skin. Now that I'm in my mid 30s I can't use what I used at 22—my skin is just different. I use Tretinoin, which I get from Ro, the mail order pharmacy. I know it's more expensive than it would be if I got it through my insurance, but I’m just not gonna go to the dermatologist regularly enough. I have two kids, I have a lot of jobs—telehealth is my answer for so many things. I use another Tatcha serum—the Violet C Brightening Serum. And then the most expensive thing I use that I wish I could quit but I can never is the Augustinus Bader Rich Cream. I can feel a difference in my skin in a way I normally cannot. And if I use it regularly, my skin just feels a lot better and looks a lot healthier.

I will also say, I have started getting Botox. That is a recent thing. I got it in my jaw because I had horrible TMJ, and that only kind of worked. But I also got it in my forehead for the first time recently and it was great. People who are like, “Oh, I don't wanna get Botox”—literally you look the same. It doesn’t mean anything. 

PA: Right, who cares! It means nothing! I know you’re a skincare shopper, but do you consider yourself a big shopper otherwise? Where do you shop, and what are your shopping vices?

JDR: Okay, well one shopping vice is my kids. Zara especially does the cutest kids clothes. My daughter is an incredibly intense dress girl—the girliest girl ever, in a way that kind of surprises me. So that has fed my going-to-zara.com-looking-for-dresses-for-girls problem. 

I used to buy a lot more clothes. I don't do that as much anymore. I usually buy stuff from Sezane, I get a lot of stuff from Poshmark. I definitely am at a point where I don't want to buy something cheap—if I'm buying something, I want it to last. I probably buy less things than I once did, but I spend more money on the things I buy, so in the end I'm spending just as much money.

PA: Do you have any favorite follows? They don't have to just be shopping-wise, but across Instagram, TikTok, newsletters, what are you loving?

JDR: So the other thing I love is home stuff. Just trying to make my house look decent. I have a separate Instagram account—I made it before I got married to follow wedding stuff because I didn’t want it to be all over my regular Instagram, and then I unfollowed all the wedding stuff and now I just follow house stuff and sometimes preppers.

PA: …sometimes what?? 

JDR: Doomsday preppers. [Laughs.] That’s another thing I sometimes spend money on.

PA: What, Josie!!! My jaw just dropped… Do you have a Judy? Is that what it’s called?  

JDR: I got that for my parents. But no, I didn't get Judy. I made my own Judy because people online say that Judy is overpriced and doesn't have everything you'll need. This is the thing about shopping, which I feel like maybe you’ll relate to—it makes you feel like you've been productive, even when you haven’t. [Ed note: Unfortunately I relate too much.] And the apocalypse stuff is that for emergencies! I’m like okay—I'm not in shape, I don't have a real plan, I wouldn't know what to do in a real emergency, but I have bought some flashlights and whatever weird water filter thing I saw on prepper Instagram. It makes me feel like I'm ready for something.

PA: Move over Judy—there’s Josie! I would buy your doomsday kit. [Laughs] I don't think I even have bottled water here, so I'm dead in a heartbeat. 

JDR: I will say a prayer for you if it happens—if you can make your way down to Atlanta, we have some water for you. But in terms of follows, I feel like some of the people I follow are kind of basic. I love Chris Loves Julia. They're one of the original house influencers that didn't look like Chip and Joanna or the other ones that are on Netflix. Their house is interesting and they like wallpaper and color. I am a big Architectural Digest person—[I like] looking at people's houses and seeing what I want to take. Even though I can’t afford what they have, I want to copy their design. I spend a lot of time on Pinterest trying to see how I want things to look. 

The other account that I love—this is a friend of mine, but I really do love his account so much—is Robell Awake. He's a woodworker here in Atlanta, and he makes a lot of really, really cool furniture. His [Instagram] has made me see all of these people doing interesting artisan work that's awesome for home stuff. 

And I really love Gee Thanks, Just Bought It, which is Caroline Moss’s account. Caroline is very good at trying everything out and seeing what she likes and what has worked and what hasn't. I would say most everything I try I hear about from your newsletter or Caroline's first. [Ed note: !!!!] It's partly because I know you guys and I trust your opinion, but it's also because you guys are very good at being aware of what you want. Sometimes I feel like I’m not totally clear on what I’m actually looking for.

Shit I Bought and Liked, Josie Duffy Rice Edition:

1. Twist Curl Reign Hair Oil: The reason I like it is because it's light. I have curly hair, but I also have kind of thin hair—thinner than it looks. I'll put oil on, my hair gets weighed down. This hair oil is really light but works very, very well. [Twist] is [curl brand] Ouidad’s spin-off line, so they do know what they're doing. 

2. Lululemon Ribbed Mini Flare: My dad's like the world's biggest Lululemon fan, he LOVES it. I had not actually bought anything from them in years, since the Align Leggings, but then my sister had these very cute flared leggings. I bought them and they're amazing—I'm wearing them as we speak. And they have even more colors now… I know where this is headed.

3. Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer: I have very sparse eyebrows. I put eyebrow pencil on, but by the end of the day it's patchy. I recently started putting eyeshadow primer from Urban Decay on my eyebrows first, and it has worked excellently. I hadn’t used Urban Decay in forever, but people always say it's the best primer and I had forgotten that. 

4. Merit Mascara: I also don't have great eyelashes—the hair on my face rarely grows—but this makes me look like I actually have eyelashes.

5. Ami Colé Skin Tint: This is the best foundation I've ever used. Now, it's not something that's going to work for people who have lighter skin than you or me. It's a black woman-made brand and focused-brand. But I just think it's the best tinted moisturizer on Earth, truly. It lasts a really long time, the cap doesn't fall off, which is my number one biggest complaint about makeup. And I am obsessed with it—I cannot recommend it enough.

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Thank you a million to the incredibly brilliant and kind Josie Duffy Rice for stopping by! My Sephora cart and my library waitlist have gotten a lot bigger since our conversation! If you have any thoughts/feedback/people or questions or formats you want to see for these chats, drop a line! I’m really excited about adding guests to the mix, and I hope you are too!

And THANK YOU for five amazing years of Shit! To a million and one more!!!

xoxoxo,

Priyanka

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