I’ve alerted the publisher to the concerns voiced in this thread. They’re reviewing the cover and they’ve asked me to take it down, because I didn’t realize that there were potential artistic rights issues.
If you haven’t seen the image, it was a retro-Hollywood pulp cover of a gorilla carrying a scantily clad woman. The gorilla had some extraneous toe issues.
Sorry that we couldn’t use any of the titles from this ass-slappingly hilarious thread. That said, I promised that my favorite title would get a free book, and I make good on my promises. So the winner of the contest is derrick, who came up with “So Long And Thanks For All The Pricks”.
I won’t bore you with all the details of how the title was settled upon, but I just want to say: This cover rocks my socks off. I was bouncing around, praying that they’d decide to go with a retro feel, since I know that fans of this blog really enjoy the retro advertising and art that I use to illustrate so many posts. That it’s got a corny, old Hollywood feel just makes me even happier. So, opinions? Outrage? Praise? Offers to blow it up and frame it?
The book was finished about a month and a half ahead of schedule, so that may mean moving up the publishing date. I will keep everyone posted as I know more.
526 Responses to “Book cover!”
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Remember me when you’re famous.
/I woulda gone for “Scream Bitch, Scream!”
Wonderfully corny.
It almost looks like an old children’s book in a way.
I love it! It’s definitely eye-catching. You should definitely get that poster-sized and hang it in your house.
congratulations! i’ll be sure to buy a copy.
I shall no doubt read this book. and no doubt have my blood angried up.
damn kids. get off my lawn.
OMG, that is too awesome. I LOVE it.
Brilliant! (As a fellow author, I know it’s rare to not only have a cover you like, but one that you have any input on at all! So brava to you!)
Congratulations! And extra extra congratulations from someone whose last couple of books were finished about a year after schedule! The cover is perfect — and would look great as a poster.
But how the hell did you secure the rights to that photo of Dan Riehl carrying Laura Ingraham in his arms?
HA! Michael, you are sizzling tonight- I thought it looked more like Kim Cattrell from “Sex and the City” with Jim Belushi’s ape from “Trading Places”.
Congrats, Amanda!
And you’ll be sending autographed copies to all of your regulars, right?
Great news, and congrats. You may have finished it ahead of schedule, but to my mind, it’s long overdue.
The Feminist Guide To Primitive Enironments
environments
Sorry
Or at least sell us an autographed copy.
Squeee!
*does happy dance*
Chef wants an autographed copy to go in his feminist blogger collection.
Hey, do I count as a regular?
Only send one to contributors. Be professional. Never give it away.
Hmmm, as far as I can see she wears a tight knit top that draws attention to her breasts and reclines right in front of him and positions herself to make her breasts as obvious as possible.
She should be wearing a beret. Blue dress would be good too.
It’s brilliant, Amanda. I can’t wait to order my copy.
Hearty congratulations to you!
YESS!!!!!
I love it.
congratulations
…Amanda, as smart as you are, and i actually love the title, but the cover image is so vintage racist i’d have thought you would have written *about* a book that looked like that rather written *in* it.
i don’t intend to stop reading the blog, or to not read the book (because i expect the content is as good as the blog, and really, there’s worse– a picture of Michelle Malkin, for instance) but… really? a big black anthropomorphic gorilla and a little white woman? this is exactly what you’re talking about! i really, really respect you as a writer but… do you think there’s any room for criticism of the cover? i mean, images of helpless white women abound and deserve to be poked fun at, but why does it have to come with a big black gorilla that walks like a man?
congratulations on the book.
congrats…
OK, one other person finishing a book before my dissertation is done. I should really just quit.
Needs more skin.
(What’s that whistling sou-
And Jonah Jacob Jingleheimer Goldberg’s book still isn’t finished.
…
It’s not often that I’m at a total loss for words. Congratulations.
Amanda, I think it’s fantastic, and I can’t wait to add a copy to my personal library.
Congrats on the book Amanda.
And i wasn’t disappointed in how long it took the eagerly offended to by outrage by their perceived racism of the cover.
And i wasn’t disappointed in how long it took the eagerly offended to by outrage by their perceived racism of the cover.
We had a running bet on how long it would be before people saw the sexism and not the irony.
OK, one other person finishing a book before my dissertation is done. I should really just quit.
My research levels for this were in the low region. Or, to be more to the point, blogging did the research for me. I just supplied the (hopeful) funny.
Sweet. That’s definitely getting added to the list.
If it were my cover, I wouldn’t have the cavewoman being carried by a gorilla. I’d have her keeping the gorilla at bay with a torch. Either that, or posing by herself with a spear or club in her hand, looking fierce.
But it’s not my cover. Congratulations on the book! I’m sure it will be witty and funny as hell.
Maybe the backcover has the gorilla on the ground, the woman with her foot on its neck?
Brilliant cover–but she forgot her pearls!
I don’t know which distracts me more, the blonde’s nether regions barely displayed or her arm sunk into the gorilla’s neck. I’d rather read the arm as wrapped around, but it looks more like preparing to rip out his throat.
Gorillas seem friendly to me - as do bears and rats - so my feelings are mixed. But the point being made is clear, and being made cleverly. You have to laugh.
That is a fabulous cover: love the retro aspect and the message that it is feminism that is truly politically incorrect (hence, the public hysteria over the simple fact that we are indeed…human).
I must admit that I would have wanted her to be a bit more active in actually fighting back against the beast. She is most passive and only seems to muster a stern glare.
When I was in college (back in the Dark Ages), a lot of professors would assign their own books for courses. Are we going to see your book as a book club selection?
Three simple words “Best Cover Ever”
If we buy through an Amazon link on Pandagon, do you get EXTRA money?
serena kitt, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
And i wasn’t disappointed in how long it took the eagerly offended to by outrage by their perceived racism of the cover.
Oh, so the racism is merely perceived? How dismissive and so typically male, pablo. I assure you that the retro artist who drew that filth fully intended the upright anthropomorphized ape to conjur up the horror of a black man ravishing a lily white woman.
We had a running bet on how long it would be before people saw the sexism and not the irony.
I think you mean ‘racism’ instead of ‘irony.’ And, yes, the racism does make it harder to see the sexism. You certainly don’t get the impression, looking at that picture, that white men’s bureaucratic institutionalized misogyny has anything whatsoever to do with the political hostility feminists confront.
The problem isn’t brutes in jungles. The problem is gentlemen, businessmen, and politicians right here in civilization. Perhaps you call that irony, but I call it obscuring the reality of misogyny in favor of offering “liberal” white patriarchs comforting images of black-hued savages, as if misogyny is the result of unenlightenment and not the result of 6000 years worth of the concerted influence of religion, philosophy, several revolutions, and a rennaisance.
Congratulations on your book and all, but yeah, racist art is still racist art, even when used in the service of ostensibly feminist aims, and even when it might also be reasonably considered irony.
serena kitt, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
And i wasn’t disappointed in how long it took the eagerly offended to by outrage by their perceived racism of the cover.
Oh, so the racism is merely perceived? How dismissive and so typically male, pablo. I assure you that the retro artist who drew that filth fully intended the upright anthropomorphized ape to conjur up the horror of a black man ravishing a lily white woman.
We had a running bet on how long it would be before people saw the sexism and not the irony.
I think you mean ‘racism’ instead of ‘irony.’ And, yes, the racism does make it harder to see the sexism. You certainly don’t get the impression, looking at that picture, that white men’s bureaucratic institutionalized misogyny has anything whatsoever to do with the political hostility feminists confront.
The problem isn’t brutes in jungles. The problem is gentlemen, businessmen, and politicians right here in civilization. Perhaps you call that irony, but I call it obscuring the reality of misogyny in favor of offering “liberal” white patriarchs comforting images of black-hued savages, as if misogyny is the result of unenlightenment and not the result of 6000 years worth of the concerted influence of religion, philosophy, several revolutions, and a rennaisance.
Congratulations on your book and all, but yeah, racist art is still racist art, even when used in the service of ostensibly feminist aims, and even when it might also be reasonably considered irony.
Congrats, Amanda! I’ll definitely be picking up a copy when it’s released. Will you be doing a book tour? Will you be on The Daily Show or the Colbert Report?! ?!!? !!!!
Yeah, I don’t really like the cover. I would avoid it at the bookstore. But then, maybe I’m not the target audience. Or maybe they know I’ll just buy it anyway because I read this blog.
But congrats on choosing a title and getting the cover settled. That’s great.
Congratulations, Amanda. I’ll be buying a copy. You are such a fantastic writer: this is going to be one of those landmark books.
(I don’t like the cover, but hey. Don’t judge a book by its cover, as they say…)
I thought the correct terminology these days was “rain forest”.
thalarctos: Jungles and Rain Forests are two different things. You’re basically saying that the politically correct term for a “beach” is a “dune.”
Different.
Oh.. um… ugh. Sorry. I’m with Serena on this. That was the very first thing that came to mind when I saw the cover. I know the retro is right up your alley, Amanda, but I really wish you could rethink this one.
serena kitt, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
And i wasn’t disappointed in how long it took the eagerly offended to by outrage by their perceived racism of the cover.
Oh, so the racism is merely perceived? How dismissive and so typically male, pablo. I assure you that the retro artist who drew that filth fully intended the upright anthropomorphized ape to conjur up the horror of a black man ravishing a lily white woman.
We had a running bet on how long it would be before people saw the sexism and not the irony.
I think you mean ‘racism’ instead of ‘irony.’ And, yes, the racism does make it harder to see the sexism. You certainly don’t get the impression, looking at that picture, that white men’s bureaucratic institutionalized misogyny has anything whatsoever to do with the political hostility feminists confront.
The problem isn’t brutes in jungles. The problem is gentlemen, businessmen, and politicians right here in civilization. Perhaps you call that irony, but I call it obscuring the reality of misogyny in favor of offering “liberal” white patriarchs comforting images of black-hued savages, as if misogyny is the result of unenlightenment and not the result of 6000 years worth of the concerted influence of religion, philosophy, several revolutions, and a rennaisance.
Congratulations on your book and all, but yeah, racist art is still racist art, even when used in the service of ostensibly feminist aims, and even when it might also be reasonably considered irony.
In fact, Thalarctos, there are rain forests that are not even tropical. On the Canadian Pacific Coast, there is a boreal rain forest.
Hm … I’m really torn about the racial stuff. On the one hand, I can understand where people like liz and serena are coming from, on the other hand, the point of the jacket is that it’s a postmodern appropriation of the retro look … the whole point being that the conservatives actually pine for that bullshit (not just the sexism but the racism too) and the jacket isn’t trying to glorify the ape/black man making off with the white woman — it’s mocking that trope.
Particularly since the last major book put out by a feminist blogger also had a controversy surrounding it’s usefulness for WoC, it would be really a shame if the cover created a controversy and alienated potential readers… is it too late to change, Amanda?
The overall retro feel is pulled off nicely, but I really dislike the color scheme. Blech.
Also, the little blurb under the main title looks like it’s written on a stuck-on piece of masking tape. It’s distracting. “The feminist survival…environments” should probably have been placed on the lighter background; no need for the irregular backing box.
Otherwise, good on yer.
-MH
If we buy through an Amazon link on Pandagon, do you get EXTRA money?
Yes indeedy.
Congrats lady!
Amanda, the cover of that book is racist. The hell.
Heart
Good to know what the joy-killing narrative is going to be. My money was on “pornographic”. Shows my guessing skills.
No wonder black feminists keep telling us we don’t get it…I was really looking forward to the book but I’m having second thoughts now.
A big word to Justice Walks.
Yeah, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be joy-killing, honestly. And given recent events, especially, I’m raw as all hell and I can’t stand feminists mistreating feminists. But dang it, whether you believe it or not, I am *on your side*, I *am*, and I can’t stand to see something disseminated out there that is going to get skewered 20 times til Sunday by people who are *not* on your side or mind.
I’m betting your book is *great*. You’re a great writer, a good thinker, sharp, you have the experiences under your belt, all I have to say is
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
And don’t you want to hear it from us first so you can fashion your response, rather than all of us come in and say, oh, that’s so great and not say anything, even if we’re thinking it, and then you get blindsided?
Anyway, congratulations on your book, for sure, GO YOU. I want it to be successful and you to be successful, I want you to go, and be heard, and that’s the trouble, oh fuck,
waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!
Sorry to be a killjoy. I should have thought longer before I commented abruptly like that.
But damn.
Heart
Good to know what the joy-killing narrative is going to be. My money was on “pornographic”. Shows my guessing skills.
Wow. Are you not even willing to consider that maybe, just maybe, this is in fact a pretty racist image?
I don’t think that going into battlemode is going to help anything. It’s just going to get people all pissed off and defensive and then there will be bitterness and blogroll purging.
This is one of those postmodern exercises in irony, right? The thread, not the cover, that is. Someone does something in jaw-droppingly poor taste–it’s not exactly blackface, but it’s more than halfway there–and when called on it, the offender first claims it was meant to be “irony”, because racist tropes are okay if they’re ironic. Accusations of being “joy-killing” follow, and in at least one case someone actually responds to that, hedging her bets, apologizing profusely and saying that of course she didn’t mean it was racist, and she bets that it’s a real fine book to boot.
This is especially surreal given that Amanda is so keen (skilled, even) at pointing out this exact sort of behavior in other people. I’m really hoping that this is some kind of brilliant effort to make a clever point.
saying that of course she didn’t mean it was racist, and she bets that it’s a real fine book to boot.
If you’re talking to me, that wasn’t me. I said straight up the cover IS racist. I’m the joy killer therefore. Don’t twist crap around and make shit up.
I stand by every word I said. I did not intend to attack Amanda, because damnit, I am so done attacking feminists. I mean to say that cover is going to be a big fat problem, no matter what.
Heart
Right. It’s racist, but you’re not attacking Amanda. You’re sorry for mentioning that it’s racist, and you want to cover for members of your affinity group, but it’s still racist, which is mainly a problem because other people might care. Got it.
i have a fun idea! let’s all piss on our favorite blogger’s first book because the cover is icky! and then let’s kick puppies! and burn down ice cream factories! and make her feel like shit because she does what she always does by finding a kitsch-y picture to attach to something she wrote.
godDAMN. could she BE more brilliant? extrapolating to her real life book a marketing tool that she uses on her blog?! especially using an image with racist/sexist tones that even racist/sexist people can see and usually avoid thus reaching out to a broader audience because it’s not a scary, boring image of a coat hanger.
f’ing fantastic.
One can criticize without attacking. I fully believe that Amanda did not intentionally try to put out something racist. It appears, however, that she did. If it were a Republican Senator who put out a book with this cover, what would Amanda write about it? Which derogatory attacking name would she use in the title of her go-for-the-jugular commentary on this bookcover if it came from Norm Coleman of MN for instance? Maybe the lesson that will come from this will be that everybody should relax a little in deciding the complete character of an individual based on doing something that can rightly be criticized. Maybe this will wake up the blog to the fact that people screw stuff up sometimes and it doesn’t necessarily mean they are 100% an asshat. Does this slip up define Amanda? Is she a racist in everything she does? Does she yearn for a return to this as a poster earlier said conservatives do?
from here on out, let’s all promise to never ever ever ever ever use images to promote concepts and ideas. everything must be on a solid color background with a contrasting color font. but not black/white, of course. probably not pink/green because pink has annoying connotations as well. maybe purple/brown? though we did have an issue with betty friedan and the lavendar menance.
Go away, grendelkahn, you’re an asshole.
I am NOT sorry for mentioning that the cover is INDEED racist. I virtually never comment here, but this was important enough that I *did* comment here. Not to attack Amanda, but to offer honest, feminist feedback about the cover of this book.
Why give all the assholes who hate us something to point to to discredit the otherwise good work we do? If it means we have to have plain cover books, so be it! Why have a cover that hurts more than it helps?
Heart
rachel - Just say it and stop beating around it. No-one has the right to be offended by this cover because you aren’t. See, that’ll stop you from having to write 10 more pithy little criticizing posts taking shots at people who have different life experiences than you and who may therefor draw different conclusions. We’ll all get ourselves in line and march behind your ideas. ‘kay?
When Jessica’s book came out, I thought we all learned that authors do not get to pick what goes on the cover of their books. Apparently we did not. Let me reiterate, then:
Authors do not get to pick what goes on the cover of their books.
Nowhere did I see Amanda say she designed or picked the cover. Publishers suck about stuff like that. I’m just happy she’s getting a book out.
That being siad, whoever did design the cover needs some help with photoshop. The girl and gorilla are sliced off at some very odd places.
…by finding a kitsch-y picture to attach to something she wrote.
rachel, the picture’s overriding characteristic is not “kitsch.” It is racism. If you want people to overlook the racism in favor of the kitsch, that is racist, as in, supportive of the hierarchy built on race. It trivializes the concerns of those who are not white in favor of attracting white people who are racist and/or sexist. Your priorities are not feminist, rachel, whether they make for good marketing practices or not.
grendelkhan, I think I understand where you’re coming from, but Heart was speaking to Amanda as a feminist, not as a white person. It is feminism, not white supremacy, that is compromised when racism is used as its reinforcement. Heart is on our side.
I think I have to agree with justice walks. The first thing I thought of when I saw that cover was, “Man, didn’t I just have to go through the re-hash of the racist marketing campaign for King Kong *last* summer?”
Why couldn’t it be a white Tarzan carrying the girl away instead of a gorilla? Then you could still have the “jungle” pun without bringing up the whole “black men are after our white womenz!” trope. Or you could make it look like an actual vinatge survival guide or a boy scout/girl scout handbook.
I enjoy the retro images that you use in the blog, but I can’t remember ever seeing one like this. I really hope you will reconsider.
-Megan
So, those of you who are offended by the “racist” cover, do you think that black people are apes?
Or do apes just remind you of black people?
Well, I knew people would complain about something, since they have to. I’ll admit, I didn’t see “racist” coming. But I knew it would be something. I seriously thought it would be a rehash of the Jessica thing, with “too sexy” being it.
And that’s my last comment on it. I knew it would be something, since liberals take the phrase “we have seen the enemy and it is us” as a maxim to live up to. I just need to hone my guessing skills.
I’m glad people think I can draw as well as write, but actually, I can’t. But I’m impressed you think I made the artistic choices for the cover.
There then follow strawman attacks; e.g., if black jokes were made, it’s “oh, maybe I should never anyone’s race again”; if an obviously racist image is the problem, then it’s “maybe we should never use any pictures at all”. These ideas purposefully miss the point that it’s the racism that’s the problem. For bonus points, critics are derided as puppy-kickers who hate ice cream.
Bah. Enough third-person nonsense.
In a related but not precisely applicable context, see ebogjonson’s “should I use blackface?” decision tree; laying aside the “are you white?” question, note that the question “is your proposed blackface image something that you might find (in terms of context or basic argument) on a white supremacist website?” appears; I believe that this cover certainly hits that criterion.
I hope that you don’t mean to imply that Amanda is to be made immune to criticism because you’re a fan of hers. Was that what you intended? Are you pissed off because I called you on judging members of your affinity group by a different standard than you use for those outside of the group? Also, you’ve misspelled my name. But she did get defensive about it; I suppose she can’t very well just disown the book cover since it’s her book, but she kind of owns it now, at least in the context of this thread. Yes; rereading Heart’s post, I agree with where she’s coming from. I initially read it as apologizing to Amanda for pointing out the racism; I now see that she meant only to express concern that this will be used to discredit Amanda. I did realize that the affinity group in question was feminists, rather than white people.There then follow strawman attacks; e.g., if black jokes were made, it’s “oh, maybe I should never anyone’s race again”; if an obviously racist image is the problem, then it’s “maybe we should never use any pictures at all”. These ideas purposefully miss the point that it’s the racism that’s the problem. For bonus points, critics are derided as puppy-kickers who hate ice cream.
Bah. Enough third-person nonsense.
In a related but not precisely applicable context, see ebogjonson’s “should I use blackface?” decision tree; laying aside the “are you white?” question, note that the question “is your proposed blackface image something that you might find (in terms of context or basic argument) on a white supremacist website?” appears; I believe that this cover certainly hits that criterion.
I hope that you don’t mean to imply that Amanda is to be made immune to criticism because you’re a fan of hers. Was that what you intended? Are you pissed off because I called you on judging members of your affinity group by a different standard than you use for those outside of the group? Also, you’ve misspelled my name. But she did get defensive about it; I suppose she can’t very well just disown the book cover since it’s her book, but she kind of owns it now, at least in the context of this thread. Yes; rereading Heart’s post, I agree with where she’s coming from. I initially read it as apologizing to Amanda for pointing out the racism; I now see that she meant only to express concern that this will be used to discredit Amanda. I did realize that the affinity group in question was feminists, rather than white people.Amanda, you of all people should know that liberals don’t just complain for the sake of complaining. We do not criticize bits and pieces of pop culture to get in our daily snark. We say what we say because we believe in it.
We all struggle against privilege everyday, be it the male privilege that we encounter or the white privilege that we struggle to push down within ourselves. We can’t expect to be taken seriously if we say one type of privilege is to be abhorred and another is no big deal.
-Megan
“from here on out, let’s all promise to never ever ever ever ever use images to promote concepts and ideas. everything must be on a solid color background with a contrasting color font.”
I object strongly to the use of contrasting colors. They are highly offensive because of the implication that non-contrasting colors are not as valid and worthy. We must learn to get past our colorist and contrastist culture and embrace monotonism, or else this planet is doomed!
If the image is eliminated but a solid background and contrasting text colors are still used, I will boycott this book and suggest the same to everyone I know (all three of them…)!!!
Darn. My last comment is currently in moderation. That’ll teach me to respond to that many posts at once.
I agree with Megan; it’s not like it would have been hard to make the cover without the racism. I think it’s been assumed that Amanda was behind it because it’s the sort of vintage image she uses regularly, and because she’s been defending the cover. (I see that in the post she explicitly states that it wasn’t her pick.)
Alternately, one might say that liberals are less inclined to provide cover when “one of us” does wrong. The problem isn’t so much that, as Megan puts it, you’re assuming that white privilege is “no big deal”; the problem is that it’s being assumed that white privilege is no big deal when you’re doing it; that is, it’s not racist for white women we like to use racist iconography in a way that doesn’t undermine its basis, but it is racist when white women we don’t like do it.This goes along with Justice Walks’s “Heart is on our side” bit; I’m strongly against the idea that we should refrain from arguing with (even disagreeing with?) people who are supposed to be “on our side” when we do disagree, even strongly.
Well, I knew people would complain about something, since they have to.
You just refuse to even entertain the notion that our complaints are justified, don’t you? Yes, we are obligated to point out racism, yes, we “have to.” It means we’re anti-racist. It means we don’t believe you ought to wrangle your white privilege and use racism to sell your book. I’d have the same problem with a man using a sexist (also known as ’sexy’) image, like the one Filipovic put on her book cover (and, yes, being a member of the sex class, she’s entitled), to hawk his own wares, even if he called himself a feminist.
Why does our anti-racism bother you? Do you think that if we do not name racism for what it is - in the name of feminism, of course - that it would be better? Well, that would just make your feminism racist. Or is it that we should be passive enablers of racism on behalf of your joy (thus the kill-joy reference)?
To what noble end is racism a means?
“liberals don’t just complain for the sake of complaining.”
hahahahahahahahaha!
Perhaps you call that irony, but I call it obscuring the reality of misogyny in favor of offering “liberal” white patriarchs comforting images of black-hued savages
But that’s what’s so great about this cover art! It totally obscures the reality of misogyny in favor of offering “liberal” white patriarchs comforting images of black-hued savages. As a “liberal” white patriarch myself, I can assure you that I was very comforted by this image. I’m hoping the book will obscure the reality of misogyny, too.
Good to know what the joy-killing narrative is going to be. My money was on “pornographic”. Shows my guessing skills. . . . I’ll admit, I didn’t see “racist” coming.
Actually, Amanda, it’s always a safe bet to put your money on “pornographic.” So if you just added a burqa to this cover art somewhere, I’m pretty sure everyone would be happy. As for not seeing “racist” coming, well, you just don’t get it — most likely because it didn’t occur to you to see the gorilla as a representation of black folk.
And would this image be any different if it were on the cover of a book by Norm Coleman? Why, yes it would — for roughly the same reason that the word “queer” means one thing when James Dobson says it and another thing when Judith Butler says it. It’s kinda queer how that works.
Amanda–
I know you said you wouldn’t comment anymore on the topic, but as a general point, do authors, such as yourself, have veto over cover artwork, or is it assigned by some mid level functionary or editor at a publisher?
And still … all the women are White, all the men are Black.
Oh, and apparently all the feminists are white, too.
But that’s what’s so great about this cover art! It totally obscures the reality of misogyny in favor of offering “liberal” white patriarchs comforting images of black-hued savages. As a “liberal” white patriarch myself, I can assure you that I was very comforted by this image. I’m hoping the book will obscure the reality of misogyny, too.
Isn’t it cute? It thinks that the intentions of white folks have a goddamned thing to do with the political implications of their actions. As if one individual white woman failing to see (or, perhaps, hoping the time had come when it might no longer be considered in poor taste) “the gorilla as a representation of black folk” means it’s not racist anymore.
And it’s also clever because it can use itself as an example of an individual white patriarch who was only sarcastically comforted by the racist cover, rather than actually so. Which means diddly squat because Berube isn’t representative of white patriarchs, “liberal,” liberal, or otherwise, and Berube certainly isn’t doing anything to dismantle the heirarchy erected in men’s honor by pretending as if he, in his condescending refusal to acknowledge the history, and present reality, of black people being portrayed as animals or as animalistic, is representative of the powers that be.
One can find contemporary p0rn0graphy featuring white women being rammed by “knucke-draggers,” which is both a reference to black people and to great apes. This is current. People, especially white ones, and regardless of whether Berube does, still to this day draw links between blacks and beasts. Pretending as if this is so farfetched as to be preposterous is not enlightened. It is racist, as in supportive of the current social heirarchy that says, but only implicitly now, as opposed to the overt violence of days past, that blacks are inferior.
I honestly don’t see racism in the cover, but I am but a lowly Canadian, and thus have been shielded from a lot of the history of racism in America. (For example, I once used the phrase “calling a spade a spade” on a posting board, where someone freaked out and starting screeching at me all, “HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT YOU RACIST ASSHOLE? DON’T YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? DON’T YOU?” and I was all, “Whut?” , completely confused and ignorant of any use of the term “spade” besides that of a deck of cards or as gardening tools.)
I mean, to mine innocent eyes, the group most potentially offended by this image are Gorillas, (i.e. the Genus Gorilla), when everyone knows from watching George of the Jungle, gorillas are actually wise and erudite speakers and excellent friends, and would never push a female around against her will.
I object strongly to the use of contrasting colors. They are highly offensive because of the implication that non-contrasting colors are not as valid and worthy. We must learn to get past our colorist and contrastist culture and embrace monotonism, or else this planet is doomed!
What are you going to do - ethnicly cleanse every mixed-colour book cover that doesn’t fit in?
Apartheid! FASCIST!
DH: Mostly not much input on it. But trying to avoid capring after it’s been proven inevitable is, suffice it to say, a losing game. I watched the fussing over Jessica with interest and realized if it’s not one thing, it will be another, so the best choice is to just do what you will and let people think what they need to think.
It did make writing it easier, though. I realized that stressing out over inclusive vs. not condescending vs. humor was pointless when there was no such thing as the perfect mix that will avoid criticism that I’m secretly a racist/sexist/Markos-lover, and that realization freed me up to write in my own voice and aiming for humor.
Isn’t it cute? It thinks that the intentions of white folks have a goddamned thing to do with the political implications of their actions.
It also puts the lotion in the basket . . . hey, wait a second! I’m feelin’ kinda dehumanized here!
OK, let me be “serious” for you, O Pleasant But Kinda Dehumanizing One. The subtitle of the book speaks of “politically inhospitable environments.” (And not, say, African-Mexislamohomofascists carrying off our wimmenfolk.) It’s pretty clear, from the context (for those of you who believe in “interpreting” “things” in “context”), that the “gorillas” in question here are the guys who create those politically inhospitable environments. (And not, say, people of African descent.) So it seems pretty clear, at least to me, that the cover is taking the image-history of which you speak and putting it to a completely different, and completely nonracist, use. (You could also argue that the cover is signifying on — you know, in that sense of “signifying” — white patriarchy’s history of pretending to defend white wimmenfolk. That would work, too.)
But if you’re going to argue that the image is always and everywhere racist no matter what the context, and cannot possibly be rearticulated to any other agenda by any anti-racist person for any purpose, hey, knock yourself out.
Maybe find a pic of an abominable snowman? Like the one from Rudolph?
Though, I will say the similarities with King Kong are obvious, and no one would ever say that isn’t a racist film.
Or, what Michael said.
grendelkhan, sorry I spelled your name wrong, I didn’t mean to, and thanks Justicewalks and grendelkhan for revisiting my comment and understanding my intentions. I appreciate it.
Heart
So… said guys are behaving so uncivilized that theyŕe ape-like, and this is why we’re representing presumably white guys with apes. If it takes that much thought to unpack a nonracist meaning out of an obviously racist image, it’s likely that folks will not mostly do it. It’s just as easy, if not easier, to follow the train of thought saying that those white guys are acting so uncivilized that they may as well be black.Repurposing racist iconography is complicated. See the “should I use blackface?” chart that I linked to above for more.
Did someone actually argue that? I must have missed it.We don’t live in utopia, Berube. We live in a world structured around racism and sexism. Wishing away the context in which the racism and sexism are relevant doesn’t do any good. Regardless of Amanda’s intentions, that book is going to sit in bookstores run within a racist economy by racist capitalists for the consumption of racist consumers. There isn’t any way around that. Amanda stands to benefit from this racism. And while she has attempted to “rearticulate” the image, it doesn’t negate the racism inherent in the image and it doesn’t change the intent of the artist or make the “gorilla” any less anthropomorphized or upright.
Would anyone be arguing that we should just overlook the racism if she’d used one of those WWII images of the anthropomorphized “Japanese” rodents with buck teeth? Would we be pretending as if the rodent was never intended to bear any resemblance to Japanese people or that it shouldn’t matter now even if it was?
One can find contemporary p0rn0graphy featuring white women being rammed by “knucke-draggers,” which is both a reference to black people and to great apes. This is current. People, especially white ones, and regardless of whether Berube does, still to this day draw links between blacks and beasts. Pretending as if this is so farfetched as to be preposterous is not enlightened. It is racist, as in supportive of the current social heirarchy that says, but only implicitly now, as opposed to the overt violence of days past, that blacks are inferior.
Exactly. And Berube, your idea doesn’t work, because feminists aren’t in position, vis a vis the white male power structure that relentlessly trashes Amanda (and all of us who are feminists), to remoptely do what you’re suggesting was the intention here — (as though white people’s intentions matter anyway, as justicewalks pointed out so well, but whatever) — which amounts to some sort of “reclaiming” of this racist, sexist imagery, which is not *only* about black men as thugs, rapists, beasts and animals, but which is also about white women as childlike victims together with white men’s racist and murderous obsessions over black men’s interest in raping or otherwise violating them, which obsessions have produced countless numbers of fucking lynchings.
So yeah, right, we’re supposed to just forget all of that (even though it’s still happening today in various ways) and say, lookee der, don’t you see, the gorilla is supposed to be anti-feminists! All the while the anti-feminists, racists, sexists, clap their hands with glee.
Heart
Something about the cover just rubs me entirely the wrong way. I work in the publishing industry, so I know authors don’t exactly get to choose their covers, but they do get a choice of 3-5 covers, from which to make a selection. So in the end, I’m pretty sure that any blame can at least partially be laid at the author’s feet.
maybe i’m too young, or maybe it’s because i’m white (and therefore inherently a bigot who should off myself, as i’ve been told is the only thing i can do to fight racism), but, gorilla=black dude=whut? i mean, i’ve heard of the concept, but all i see when i look at that cover is (facetiously putting it) ‘lolz stupid ’50s tropes about helpless women’.
If it takes that much thought to unpack a nonracist meaning out of an obviously racist image, it’s likely that folks will not mostly do it. It’s just as easy, if not easier, to follow the train of thought saying that those white guys are acting so uncivilized that they may as well be black.
Maybe. But it’s also possible that the “easiest” thing is to follow the train of thought that says “um, retro image.” The harder thing to do, intellectually speakin’, is to link it to the history of depicting black men as apes, either to condemn the image as racist or to suggest that the image isn’t racist in context.
Did someone actually argue that? I must have missed it.
I think you did miss it, yes. But it’s an entirely legitimate argument; some things, after all — like swastikas, as certain British punks learned 30 years ago — are very hard to rearticulate to new contexts.
Grendelkhan - It’s not an obviously racist image, as you can tell by the fact that a whole bunch of people who are more attuned to racism than the average person managed to look at it and not immediately cotton to the possibility of a racist subtext. I only saw the possibility of a racist subtext after it was pointed out (and I agree there’s a valid interpretation of the image as racist, though as Berube points out, the context makes it kinda hard to take the racist interpretation seriously).
i think the original image has quite obviously got racist tones to it, and i’m surprised people are dismissing that possibility out of hand. on the other hand, i also think that it’s a pretty good cover for a book that aims to take down all manner of outdated assumptions about sex and race. on the other other hand, i wouldn’t be surprised if most of this particular book is going to be about sex and not about race — that is, that while i’m sure the text will make obvious what the author thinks of the original image’s sexism, no mention will be made of its racism. i’m basing this guess on (a) amanda’s refusal here to acknowledge that the retro politics of the picture were not just about sex but also about race (and i completely love amanda and her writing but come on, she expected objections of “pornographic” and didn’t even think of “racist”?) and (b) amanda’s relative weakness wrt blogging about race. again, not a personal flaw per se, just something i’m guessing she didn’t choose to spend most of her energy on in this book. SO, all that said, i still think it’s kinda crappy to use an image that has worked, and still works, as a dog-whistle to racists, without planning to address that in the context. basically you’re counting on us not to even think about the image’s latent racism because we know YOU are an anti-racist person and we know that’s not what you mean — but it shouldn’t work that way, if we’re being honest. sorry for asking you to do a round of denunciations and all, but still.
The image looks a lot like one from a pamphlet a white supremacist so kindly slipped in my locker when I was in law school about seven years ago. Then he went on a shooting spree.
http://www.cnn.com/US/9907/05/illinois.shootings.02/
For some people, these images aren’t retro.
Perhaps we should identify an exemplar of racist book-coverdom to serve as a yardstick before passing judgement on Amanda’s case? If this, say, scores a 10 on the racist-book-cover scale, Amanda’s book is probably somewhere more like a 3, right?
I have to wonder about the mentality of someone who sees a picture of a gorilla and automatically thinks of black people…and then calls SOMEONE ELSE racist.
That’s just so special I am at a loss for any further words.
It *is* an obviously racist image. In fact, the gorilla as black man idea is an entire *category* of racist images. It lives in right next door to Li’l Black Sambo and across the street from Uncle Ben.
If you don’t understand the history of the image, than your first impressions of it are not exactly helpful, philosophizer. And it has nothing to do with whether or not you are white. I am white, and in college (so I assume you are not *that* much younger than me), but I have taken the time to educate myself about this particularly dark part of our cultural imagination.
The fact is that this type of image, much like an image of blackface, has a terribly offensive history. This makes it difficult for such an image to be used in a manner that empties it of all of its previous content. It is not impossible, but in this case, I think that the attempt fails.
-Megan
I think it’s funny that Amanda says she doesn’t get to pick the cover when she gets some heat - distancing herself from someone else’s doing, but before the heat started she said “This cover rocks my socks off.”
She was for it before she was against it.
Also: You have to be pretty stupid to believe that some of us are simply seeing a gorilla and thinking “black people” out of the blue. This image has a history, a history that white supremacists created in order to represent and marginalize African Americans. Read the above post by me. Or, failing that, read a book.
-Megan
Also: gorillas aren’t really jungle critters. They tend to live in more mountainous regions.
Now, a woman looking triumphant as she rides a jaguar would be both nonracist (I think) and zoologically accurate.
““politically inhospitable environments.””
I believe that the book cover states “surviving” such. Isn’t rather the point of the book that Amanda didn’t “survive” in such?
Yes, maybe it’s because I’m European, but whenever I see a gorilla, I really don’t make any connection to black people either.
Or maybe I’m just an unenlightened woman from the old world or something…
If this, say, scores a 10 on the racist-book-cover scale, Amanda’s book is probably somewhere more like a 3, right?
Right, because if it’s only a little bit of racism, or unintended racism, it doesn’t count, and we should be grateful to have only a little bit of unintended racism with our feminism
have to wonder about the mentality of someone who sees a picture of a gorilla and automatically thinks of black people…and then calls SOMEONE ELSE racist.
You sound exactly like the MRAs and Nice Guys who claim that a feminist insistence on “perceiving” sexism, especially when it’s only just a little bit and it wasn’t even intended, amounts to man-hatred. It’s unconvincing whether sexism or racism is the issue.
Megan, I didn’t mean to imply that I didn’t understand the historical context of the image (and ftr, I’m older than you). I meant that understanding that it happens is very different from a first impression, based on what one’s been exposed to (in this case, me never having been exposed to gorilla=black dude outside of scholarly analysis). Point being, and I suppose I wasn’t clear, that most people who aren’t scholarly types like us Pandagonians and similar may not even be aware of this history or if they are, realize to associate it with the image unless they think about it for a while.
“I’d have the same problem with a man using a sexist (also known as ’sexy’) image, like the one Filipovic put on her book cover (and, yes, being a member of the sex class, she’s entitled)”
That wasn’t Jill Filipovic of Feministe, that was Jessica from Feministing.
The repeated stripping of Mr. Bérubé’s properly accented é’s in comments here is offensive and bigoted.
Those who do this are ignoring his ethnic and cultural background and forcing his name to fit their narrow view of how names should be spelled.
It’s an outrage and should not be tolerated!…
Though, I will say the similarities with King Kong are obvious, and no one would ever say that isn’t a racist film.
The product of a Kiwi, in the last incarnation. The politics of race in NZ are quite, quite different from those of America (for a start, it isn’t slavery that formed the basis of continuing tension, but land wars fought to a compromise).
When I saw the image, I thought “sex” not “race”.
Point being, and I suppose I wasn’t clear, that most people who aren’t scholarly types like us Pandagonians and similar may not even be aware of this history.
Please, just stop trying to pretend as if this is so far removed from the present day that anyone who isn’t a tenured historian would have trouble making the connections. I just gave the example of the “knuckle-draggers” in p0rn0graphy. There are the dixie-whistling, shucking and jiving crows in that sing-along movie Disney just re-released. There are the evil black orcs (some with animal heads, claws, fangs, all led by a white wizzard) in opposition to the white men, hobbits, elves, and dwarves, who bear no resemblance to animals, and who are the side of good in the Lord of the Rings series.
This stuff is not bygone history. It is still happening. And it’s happening again on the cover of a book that will no doubt fail to clarify or refute any (not-so-)old-fashioned racial connotations in its content. If any American was able to look at that image and not see the racism, it is the result of white privilege, period. That you don’t have to think about the ways in which black people are still likened to animals in this country (and elsewhere, but I’ll limit this to Americans) is an enviable state of oblivion, and one in which no black American will find herself, no matter how young or unexposed to academic race study.
Thanks, quotelyricshere, for the correction.
While defending our hostess isn’t something I do very frequently, I simply can’t see the cover picture as racist. Once pointed out, I looked again, and the only way I could come up with anything racist is if one equates black men with gorillas — and that can only be in the mind of the observer. That would be to infer something the author never implied.
If you look at a gorilla and see a black guy, then maybe the problem is with you and not the gorilla.
Did somebody just call me an MRA? Them’s fightin’ words.
I’ll see your point as soon as one of you makes a case against the insidious white supremacist blackface theatrics of the Guerilla Girls.
Congratulations, Amanda! You were obviously happy about your book being completed and publication scheduled, and it’s your supporters, not your opponents, who have turned your day sour. Apparently you forgot to take some Felix Felicitous this morning.
Guys, seriously.
This is not the sort of behavior we would want to see if a book about racism had a troubling depiction of women on the cover.
No — it’s not a black man on the cover. It’s a gorilla. But there is a very strong tradition of equating black people to primates and when you combine that with fears that they’ll rape white women and you have a cover of a gorilla carrying off a white woman, there is going to be added meaning to that content. Particularly when a lot of exploitative media (pr0n) still uses jungle/beast imagery for people of color. Me? I don’t think that the book art is racist, and I’m not right, and I’m not wrong.
And no — not everyone is going to see that imagery as obviously racist, including the author of the book. So going after her guns blazing about what a horrible racist she is — particularly when she was just hoping for a little bit of glass-clinking over the fact that she’s just finished her first book isn’t how you raise consciousness. It’s how you make people feel like shit, then they get defensive and when they’re defensive they’re not going to be open to critique.
We had to deal with this recently in the gaming community over the Resident Evil 5 trailer.
look, i’m just saying i never would have seen it just based on pop culture, just like i don’t ‘instinctively’ see the orc thing. based on what i hear in this thread (and i cringe to be on the same side as Dana), i’m not the only one who didn’t look at it and instantly see ‘black dude’.
i’m not saying it’s not there. i’m just saying that i don’t know if ‘the masses’ are going to see it until they’re educated to see it. every once in a while, ignorance works in our favor.
Hey– I’m a long-time reader, very infrequent commenter, but I just wanted to say “Congratulations” on the book in general, as it nears completion into an actual final product.
I just skimmed through the kerfluffle in these comments, and can’t help but think it resembles the discourse between the People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Front, which is unfortunate for a variety of reasons, but chief among them is that it distracts from the main point here: Your book is getting published, and there should be a lot more congratulatory “yay!”ing going on.
I am the father of a soon-to-be 3 year old girl, with another daughter on the way —due in Sept., and while I was aware of feminist issues in a general way before, suddenly realizing that the world my little girl is going to grow up in will be more dangerous, hostile, and hateful to her by dint of her gender is the surest way to “radicalizing” me, but quick, on being active and aware about women’s rights– reproductive and otherwise. I just want to tell you (and Pam) that I hope my little girls grow up to be strong, proud, aware and women like you.
So again, congrats and yay for you on this book–you should be happy and proud; I am happy for you and proud of you; I will be among the 1st to help its Amazon sales rating when it comes out.
I think it’s too pat to say that the gorilla (or this kind of faux-gorilla) universally represents blackness in American pop culture. On the other side of the coin, it’s certainly off the mark to say that reading racism into such an image is merely an “eye of the beholder” thing.
Racist conceptions of black masculinity are definitely a part of the cultural baggage of any image of an anthropomorphic gorilla abducting a white woman. They’re not the whole story of such an image, and there’s room to disagree about how prominent they are in this particular use of the trope, but the folks who have raised the issue aren’t just making up reasons to gripe.
I assume you’re talking about the 1933 Kong here, and yes, it’s to some degree a racist film. It’s a Hollywood movie from the Jim Crow era that depicts “African” natives and white explorers, and I don’t know if I can imagine such a movie that wasn’t racist.
But having said that, I don’t consider Kong to be an egregiously racist film. Its depiction of blacks leans on racist tropes far less heavily than most films I’ve seen of its era. (Or even later — the 1976 Kong remake is far more racist.)
And as for Kong himself, clearly he can, and has been, read as a racial caricature, but I think the characterization is actually pretty complex and multi-layered.
As for the book cover, its possible racial connotations struck me immediately, but I thought that on balance the other cultural references it was drawing on were dominant in the mix. If it didn’t occur Amanda or any of the folks at her publishing house that the image might be construed as racist, that’s more than a little surprising — and hugely unfortunate.
I don’t think it’s a racist image as used here, all things considered, but that’s only my own perspective, and I wouldn’t dismiss those who see it another way. There’s definitely a serious case to be made for the opposite point of view.
By the way, I’m not actually arguing with anyone. If you feel it’s racist, go with that. But I’ve just completely burned out on the cycle where someone has a success and that’s followed by a flamewar about racism/porn/sexism. I got it from being praised in Playboy, Jessica got it twice for her book, I expect I’ll get it when the books comes out, I got it for going to Yearly Kos, the list goes on. What I’ve learned is that nothing you can do or say will change the fact that certain successes will lead to cries of racism/sexism, and you can’t slow down or stop the flamewars by either fighting back or acquiesing. Nothing I could do will change this, and as such, I feel I have to move forward as if this didn’t happen. My presence is unnecessary to the discussion, since it will proceed exactly the same no matter what I do. Experience has taught me very well.
I actually think there is a place and time to discuss the ironic recycling of images of the past in this context as Michael’s doing, but since this has that plodding inevitability to it, I can’t really work up the enthusiasm for it.
I will say that my book doesn’t address racism very much. It’s mostly a bunch of jokes, and I feel as a white woman, I’m probably not the best person to make those jokes about race, since mine isn’t the one where the humor perspective is best represented, if that makes sense. I expect I will get shit about that, but I would have gotten shit if I’d tried to be more inclusive and that came off as not really funny, since those aren’t my jokes to make. But I do know that either route leads to shit, so what can you do but go with what reads the best?
Dr. T, to be fair, Amanda didn’t say “I didn’t pick the cover!” as a defense to the claims of racism, she was specifically answering someone’s direct question about how much input she had in picking the cover.
The cover rocks my socks off because of the design elements and the ironic nod to some very old and silly portrayals of women’s lack of power. To suggest I’m getting off on racism (again, which I’m not saying is or isn’t there—I refrain from feeding this argument) is a stretch, and shows an utter lack of good faith on the part of anyone who says that.
Maybe this will light up a few brain cells, instead of some of the crap you have been taught.
Inference: the act of passing from one proposition, statement, or judgment considered as true to another whose truth is believed to follow from that of the former
Implication: 1 a : the act of implicating : the state of being implicated b : close connection; especially : an incriminating involvement
Logic: 1 a (1) : a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration
From Webster.
nothing you can do or say will change the fact that certain successes will lead to cries of racism/sexism, and you can’t slow down or stop the flamewars by either fighting back or acquiesing.
EXACTLY. Accusing people of racism and sexism is a singularly pointless exercise, is it not? How is one to ever assume responsibility for the guilt heaped on us by others? And why do we expect those we vilify to do the same?
Well, I would have to agree that the cover art doesn’t quite sit right with me either and there are probably lots of other retro-style images that would be more appropriate to the topic, still provide the reader with a good sense of irony, and not offend your blog-readers. Knowing what I do about your writing if you kept this cover art it wouldn’t prevent me from buying the book. I’m wondering where people draw the line though: if you’re offended or disturbed by the cover art, how many of you would *not* buy the book because of it? It seems silly to risk low sales among the demographic you’re specifically trying to market to, just to take a stand on the cover art.
But did the damsel have to be blonde? Come on. Brunettes get no love.
All that aside, it’s seriously lame of you, Amanda, to write, “This cover rocks my socks off…. So, opinions? Outrage? Praise? Offers to blow it up and frame it?” and then go all talk-to-the-hand when your readers actually do give you negative feedback. Bad form, o’ sassy Texan.
These accusations of racism are so terribly lame. It saddens me.
The illustration is a tip of the hat to the movie King Kong, is it not?
When they designed the video game Donkey Kong wherein the giant ape villain captured the blond princess and locked her up atop his wacky castle, was that racist or was it just a video game?
There’s plenty of genuine racism out there in the world to get upset about. You need to choose your battles. This one is so wrong, so unnecessary, and I dare say that it is now verging upon cruelty on the part of those of you who are attacking Amanda.
Grow up.
BlogWarBot, anyone? Just, hands off, though. He’s got a boyfriend.
To suggest I’m getting off on racism (again, which I’m not saying is or isn’t there—I refrain from feeding this argument) is a stretch, and shows an utter lack of good faith on the part of anyone who says that.
Jesus, Amanda, no one said you, yourself, are a racist getting off on the racism of the cover art for your book. You’re showing an “utter lack of good faith” with this mischaracterization. What we are saying is that the cover art is racist, that you will benefit from the sale of a book with a racist cover on it, racism you don’t intend to refute in the content, and that perhaps you don’t see the racism because you aren’t personally affected (white privilege). You managed, after all, somehow to see the sexism in the picture, meaning that you see the “gorilla” as male, even human, while denying the implication of his blackness.
You don’t have to “feed” anything, Amanda. The racism is there, whether you say so or not. You can either acknowledge it or you can continue to make excuses for it. Acknowledging it won’t make the cover anti-racist, but continuing to make excuses for it will speak unfavorably as to your own character, and as Heart intimates, that of feminism in general.
What I’ve learned is that nothing you can do or say will change the fact that certain successes will lead to cries of racism/sexism…
This is way out of line. Everyone here who has criticized the cover has also congratulated you on the publishing of your book, so it certainly isn’t some irrational reaction toward your success. No one is “crying” racism, here, any more than women “cry” rape. These are serious and well-justified concerns, which you have chosen to trivialize, minimize, and dismiss, in the name of feminism.
Accusing people of racism and sexism is a singularly pointless exercise, is it not?
Oh, I didn’t say that. And accusing me of that is certainly in bad faith. I’m just pointing out that there’s a plodding inevitability to it when someone has a success, and that there’s no good answer or way to counteract it, so really, why bother?
Some people raised some interesting historical issues and context issues, so I will venture to say this, while not committing to any more or less than this: When I got this, I did think, “Why King Kong and not Tarzan?”, and I realized that if it was a man, it gave the incorrect impression that the book is about the direct oppression of individual women by individual men, and certainly I don’t think that’s what sexism is so much as a systematic thing. But with an animal, I thought, you get closer to the general “environment” theme.
Which isn’t to say that anyone else’s interpretation is wrong. I unilaterally refuse to have an opinion on anyone else’s interpretation. Just that was my thought on why an animal was better than a man of any race.
Justicewalks, I am not assenting or denying your feelings. I’m aware that there is a way to say this is racist. I am also aware that there is a way to say it is not. Both are true and both are false. I am, for the record, utterly opinionless on this. But it’s a stretch to say that I use retro iconography because I’m desiring a return to it; I think we all know I like it because it’s got an ironic fissure to it. My motivations on it are clear—I like the way ironic use of imagery captures the attention and has an odd ambiguity to it.
My real fears were that I was going to get back a cover that had that “woman’s book” feel to it—like pink or non-funny or otherwise looking like a tampon box.
I really aimed for some dark humor in the book, though, so I’m saving my energy for some of the offense that will cause.
This is way out of line. Everyone here who has criticized the cover has also congratulated you on the publishing of your book, so it certainly isn’t some irrational reaction toward your success.
I am opinionless on why these flamewars always, always happen. I suspect that the motivations are as diverse as the people who get involved. I am not committing to a motivation. I am not saying why anyone does anything. Just that I knew it would happen, because it always, always does. And it will happen when the book comes out. Why is not mine to say. Since I won’t commit to ascribing motivations, I think your accusation is a tad out of line. It might be something as benign as the magnet effect.
But it’s a stretch to say that I use retro iconography because I’m desiring a return to it…
No one at all has made any mention of your intentions, Amanda, because they aren’t relevant. No one has made any speculation whatsoever about why the racist image was chosen. We have merely pointed out that it is in fact racist. That you keep dancing around this issue in order to talk about your reclamatory intentions is the height of privilege.
Now I see that you deny having “ascrib[ed] motivations” to your detractors:
I am not committing to a motivation. I am not saying why anyone does anything.
You were just erroneously ascribing it to your success, when it is not your success that has brought accusations of racism. It is the racism in that picture, which is there whether you want it to be there or not, whether you saw it or not, and whether you intended us to see it or not.
Agreed. My intentions or feelings are utterly irrelevant to this. Thus I don’t really feel involved. I’ll retort to people who accuse me of anything directly. This discussion has nothing to do with me.
No, I’m saying that there’s a pattern. Something good happens, it draws attention, flamewar inevitably commences. I told at least half a dozen people this thread would be a flamewar about racism or sexism and we tried to figure out how it would start. The history is undeniable. I’m not committing to why that happens. Who knows? Probably a mix of things.
There’s plenty of benign interpretations, in case you’re finding it hard to think of something other than “trying to undermine Amanda/Jessica/whoever has success”. For instance, it could be just plain old opportunism—something big happens, and everyone weighs in and invariably something will take off and spin into a flamewar. The 100 comment rule sort of applies here, I think.
You’ve argued that it’s racist, and you’ve persuaded some people but not others. Amanda has conceded that it can be read as racist, but she’s declined to take a position on whether it “in fact” is or not.
For what it’s worth, I think that’s fair. People of good will can disagree about what the cover signifies, and Amanda clearly doesn’t see racism in it that rises to a level that would obligate her to push the publisher to substitute another design. Given that, I’m not sure she’s got any obligation to leap into this discussion — particularly since she doesn’t feel she has anything to contribute to it.
It’s good that this conversation is happening, but it doesn’t need Amanda’s active participation to be productive.
I doubt she chose the cover. The publisher does all of the marketing and Amanda probably has very, very little input as to the layout.
Here’s an insight into book marketing. Publishers collaborate and design covers along themes. This year it’s orange-gold color schemes (seriously: go to your local bookstore and look at all the bestsellers. It’s like Halloween and bling. That is, they all look like the cover of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows).
The only thing that suprised me is that Amanda did not look at it and say “Guys…don’t you think this might be construed as racist?” But the fact that neither Amanda nor the publisher is probably “racist” or putting the cover out there to beat down the Black Man (or Woman) should cool you guys’ jets. Seriously. Look who you’re talking to. What exactly would be gained by changing the cover? Art isn’t racist. Artists are racist. I mean, come on.
The problem is the racism and not the opportunity your success provided. Had your cover not been racist, you wouldn’t have people accusing you have having a racist cover. If you’d used that picture as one of your blog headers, we’d be having the same discussion. We’d have complained if you’d merely linked to it without decrying the racism in it. It has nothing whatsoever to do with your success or opportunism on the part of people who are offended.
This discussion has nothing to do with me.
No, all the parts about the absolute necessity of you benefiting from racism have everything to do with you. All the parts that deal with the hurt and confusion people feel at your pride in this racist cover are about you. Your reaction and the way it has been received are about you.
It’s just not about you when it comes to the fact of the racism in that cover. These are your readers:
i really, really respect you as a writer but… do you think there’s any room for criticism of the cover? i mean, images of helpless white women abound and deserve to be poked fun at, but why does it have to come with a big black gorilla that walks like a man?
congratulations on the book.
Yeah, I don’t really like the cover. I would avoid it at the bookstore. But then, maybe I’m not the target audience.
No wonder black feminists keep telling us we don’t get it…I was really looking forward to the book but I’m having second thoughts now.
I really hope you will reconsider.
Those comments, and others like them, which have been a part of this discussion, are about you. If you don’t want to address those feelings, under the pretense of some ostensible objectivity in the face of fame and success, that is your privilege and prerogative.
justicewalks
No one at all has made any mention of your intentions, Amanda, because they aren’t relevant.
Bullshit. The intent of the artist is always relevant. If a white skinhead plasters downtown with pictures of black people in chains, it’s not the same as a black studies professor putting that picture on the syllabus.
Amanda, I think you can say flamewars are inevitable without saying that all flamewars are created equal. Some flamewars are over trivia, and some are over important stuff. I don’t get the sense that you mean to suggest that the concerns about your book’s cover are trivial, but some of your comments seem to imply that.
Can we have some rationality here? Griping about the supposed racism of Amanda’s book cover is silly. It sounds like this:
1) People who try to ban Mark Twain’s works because they have the words N-word Jim.
2) People who say that the first Jurassic Park movie was unfair to lawyers because the first victim of the T-rex was a lawyer.
What’s next? Ban HG Wells War of the Worlds as unfair to Martians? Excoriate Bram Stoker because Count Dracula comes from Hungary?
Some of the comments on here are quite literally judging a book by its cover. At least read what Amanda wrote and then comment.
If you don’t like the cover art, then shut up and design a cover yourself. Or write your own book.
Can we have some rationality here? Griping about the supposed racism of Amanda’s book cover is silly. It sounds like this:
1) People who try to ban Mark Twain’s works because they have the words N-word Jim.
2) People who say that the first Jurassic Park movie was unfair to lawyers because the first victim of the T-rex was a lawyer.
What’s next? Ban HG Wells War of the Worlds as unfair to Martians? Excoriate Bram Stoker because Count Dracula comes from Hungary?
Some of the comments on here are quite literally judging a book by its cover. At least read what Amanda wrote and then comment.
If you don’t like the cover art, then shut up and design a cover yourself. Or write your own book.
We have merely pointed out that it is in fact racist…It is the racism in that picture, which is there whether you want it to be there or not, whether you saw it or not, and whether you intended us to see it or not.
These are assertions, not arguments. Yes, I am fully aware of the whole sordid history of racist imagery. It does not convince me that an anthropomorphized gorilla automatically signifies a black man. This is simplistic horseshit that borders on racism itself, and none of your snide, self-important posts have convinced me otherwise.
People with any background in the history of racist imagery will recognize this image immediately. There is no reason to use this image, particularly when the book WON’T be covering race issues and will leave the image unaddressed. Please, please, please change the cover if at all possible. I’m asking as someone who really wants to buy the book. Someone who’s been reading your blog since Mouse Words, incidentally, and who’s not trying to torpedo your book. I sent dozens of emails over the whole Donahue nonsense, defended you at the Edwards site and at Pandagon way back when you first came here.. I guess you could say I’m a fan. Please consider that the people speaking up over this are worth hearing out and that what they have to say matters. Ignoring it will only prove your critics right.
Bullshit. The intent of the artist is always relevant.
I’m not the artist, FYI. There seems to be minor amounts of confusion about how much input authors have into the marketing of books. I was asked what I wanted and I just begged and pleaded for something that could be read as retro arch irony, and not Tampon Box. Which I got, which is why I was so happy. And still am, because while I realize that irony leaves open some pretty big doors, I prefer that to boring.
1) People who try to ban Mark Twain’s works because they have the words N-word Jim.
Maybe.
2) People who say that the first Jurassic Park movie was unfair to lawyers because the first victim of the T-rex was a lawyer.
Bullshit. There are issues here, which is what Amanda is saying. I’m not sure where I fall, as I see a book cover as completely irrelevant when thinking about a book, but that is me, completely. There could have been other choices, I think, but it’s the fucking cover. Not mportant unless you don’t read books.
Oh, Petey, you’ve changed both the venue and the act in order to call “bullshit” on me. If you maintain the same activity and the same environment, you will see that there is little difference from a viewer’s perspective of a white man posting KKK-validating pictures downtown with skinhead intent and a white man posting KKK-validating pictures downtown with ostensibly educational intent. If you change even the writing on the posters, which you’ve implied by saying that one is part of a syllabus, you have changed not only the intent but the presentation. If intent were all that was necessary, you wouldn’t be taking the white man off the streets of downtown and placing him into a college classroom, presumably giving him a non-skinhead appearance, AND making him a black studies professor, at that. Surely you aren’t suggesting that appropriating KKK-validating images is only OK if in the service of anti-KKK content - because Amanda already assured us that there won’t be any of that in her book.
Then there is always the question of why a white man would choose to use his privilege in such a way as to validate KKK sympathizers anyway, even ironically, if it can be avoided. But then, it has been said among nonwhite feminists that white feminists enjoy opportunities to use naughty racist words and images under the pretense of irony or plausible deniability just as their white brethren do.
I think it’s akin to men having the authority to make female underlings laugh at sexist jokes in order to keep the male favor that allows them employment, housing, a relationship, etc.
Despite all that I’ve just said, from a marketing perspective this discussion may be an indication that the cover idea isn’t going to be good for this book.
No, all the parts about the absolute necessity of you benefiting from racism have everything to do with you.
You do realize that this could be trotted out basically non-stop about all white people all the time, right? Which is why it invariably lends itself to be interpreted as you’re asking me to fold up shop and go away, since everything I do is de facto racist by my position in society.
Amanda, I think you can say flamewars are inevitable without saying that all flamewars are created equal. Some flamewars are over trivia, and some are over important stuff. I don’t get the sense that you mean to suggest that the concerns about your book’s cover are trivial, but some of your comments seem to imply that.
I am saying that my sense that these flamewars erupt in good faith disappeared a long time ago, since it appears that there’s exactly no way to avoid them. I’m implying that success=flamewar. And whether or not people are truly offended this time or that doesn’t change the fact that they are picking the absolute worst time to ride someone if they want a good response.
But again, I don’t think any one person is horrible. Big things create long threads and long threads tend to flamewars. Anything outside of that, I won’t commit to. But I am going to point out that the inevitability of this makes it a lot harder to take it on good faith. And when this happens when the book comes out and offense if found lurking inside the text, I’ll probably have the same inability to assume good faith anymore. It happens every single time.
Despite all that I’ve just said, from a marketing perspective this discussion may be an indication that the cover idea isn’t going to be good for this book.
I wouldn’t say that controversy is the worst thing. But I will say that a very small number of dissatisfied blog commenters doesn’t speak much to the marketing in the blogs on the whole, much less to the non-blog-reading market.
But I will say that a very small number of dissatisfied blog commenters doesn’t speak much to the marketing in the blogs on the whole, much less to the non-blog-reading market.
Hope you’re right. This whole thing has surprised me, as I’ve always found gorilla suits to be inherently funny. Does this make me a racist, or just someone with a lame sense of humor?
Yeah. Fair enough.
Seems to me that it might not be a bad idea, when making future announcements of this nature, to say something along these lines:
I don’t know if that’d work, or if it even makes sense. But from a practical standpoint as well as an interpersonal one, it seems to me that you’re entitled to a couple of days of basking before the knives come out.
(Congrats, by the way.)
Eh, I don’t really care either way. I wrote that knowing that if it wasn’t one thing, it would be another. Denying people the chance to have the inevitable flamewar is just putting off the inevitable. Don’t worry; I’m basking. Watching shit flare up every single time has been a learning experience for me in that regards. There’s only so many success-started flamewars you can endure before cynicism sets in as a protective mechanism.
Well, I suppose I should have avoided the snark this time around, but you know what? When I saw this cover last night — even though I’m very well aware of the history of racist imagery — the first thing I thought of, quite honestly, was Dan Riehl and Laura Ingraham. But Justicewalks just happens to be right about this: if you’re not aware of that racist history, it’s a fair bet that your (blameless) ignorance is part of white privilege. (That’s part of what white privilege is, after all — the luxury of being unaware of the history of racism.) Justicewalks, the reason I took (snarky) issue with your claim that the cover “offers ‘liberal’ white patriarchs comforting images of black-hued savages” is that it presumes to say what the cover does in all circumstances for all people. I honestly don’t think a claim that sweeping is warranted here. Likewise with your remark that the book will be sold in “bookstores run within a racist economy by racist capitalists for the consumption of racist consumers,” because, well, that pretty much condemns every book everywhere.
But I do understand your disagreement. Because if we took the image of a gorilla carrying a white woman and said, “does this image have a racist history,” the answer would quite clearly be yes. The question is whether such an image is racist here or, alternatively, so indelibly and irredeemably racist that it cannot be used in any context, however “ironically.” About that, I imagine that reasonable people of good will can disagree, as they’re doing here.
And lastly, I’d just like to remind everyone that when it comes to “repurposing” and “rearticulating” creepy images, there was once a certain law professor who tried to claim that the bird-flipping parodies of mudflap girls on Feministing were anti-feminist. Let us never distrust each other so thoroughly that we wind up subscribing to Althousean theories of semiotics.
Which is why it invariably lends itself to be interpreted as you’re asking me to fold up shop and go away, since everything I do is de facto racist by my position in society.
But no one has asked you to fold up shop or even to give up the white privilege you receive on a daily basis. We’ve only asked you to address this one instance of white privilege, this one instance, in which a racist image will be used to sell your book. No one has asked that you stop being a white person in a racist society. This is ridiculous. It’s like when you tell a man it’d be nice if he’d every now and then speak up about sexism to other men, even when it would benefit him more not to (always), and he complains about the burden of never being able to just relax and coast along in a sexist society without being lumped in with the misogynists, despite his “intentions.” I’m thinking good old what’s his face from Alas, who attributed feminist anger to everything but his own good ol’ boy appropriation of women’s dehumanization for his own profit.
Congratulations indeed.
Berube, see above, wherein I say that changing the presentation, as was done with the Feministing image, is different than merely changing the intent. I would also point out that Feministing is a site run by women, appropriating an image of women’s oppression for their own purposes. Amanda is a white person using a racist image that is also sexist. While she is addressing the sexism, as the women of Feministing do, she is not addressing the racism. She is letting it stand unchallenged. I hope you can understand why this is problematic, both her exclusion from the race being denigrated (ha; the white woman’s sex is being denigrated, her race exalted, by the way) and her failure to provide anti-racist content are not apolitical.
“It’s not an obviously racist image, as you can tell by the fact that a whole bunch of people who are more attuned to racism than the average person managed to look at it and not immediately cotton to the possibility of a racist subtext.” - togolosh
I understand what you are getting at here, but it is seriously problematic to assume that liberals or “progressives” are automatically “more attuned” to any “ism” or suddenly more of, or as much, experts on “isms” as individuals who are the object of “isms” in their daily lives. Many of the posts on this very site aptly point out the sexism of some liberal dudes out there, for example. Liberals are just as susceptible to the blindness of privilege as anyone else, if not MORE so, given our conviction that we ARE more attuned and are all social justice-y, which can interfere with good old-fashioned introspection or foster greater defensiveness: after all, we have “more to lose” if we slip up or are shown to have slipped up. We don’t lose white privilege or gain exemption from racism by virtue of identifying with “liberal”, or even “feminist”, ideals. Further, to grossly oversimplify Paulo Freire (among others), people who are oppressed are better authorities on said oppression (i.e., the TRULY “more attuned” group) than are members of the oppressor class or group, even if said oppressors consider themselves enlightened and empathic. Kind of like, we (women) don’t like it when men define women’s experience or deign to tell us what is or isn’t sexist or misogynist, that kind of thing. If we get irked for some reason when we are asked to apply this principle to race, it’s time for some serious self-examination. (And I realize how paternalistic and hypocritical this all may sound, as I feel just making these arguments comes close to defining black people’s experience, which I am simultaneously decrying.)
And as for the highly scientific “whole bunch of people” standard for “proof” that something is not “obviously racist”…are you SERIOUS?
yeah, up-front I have read none of the above comments.
Amanda, congrats, and I love the cover! I’ll be looking for this in my local women’s bookstore when exactly?
all the best!
TG
This thread is quite the learning experience for me. I’m still pretty much OK with the cover as is, but the objections to it have been (for the most part) well argued. I appreciate the fact that most of the commenters arguing that the image is racist have backed up their assertions, though I don’t find the arguments compelling. Essentially it comes down the the fact that most symbols are overloaded with multiple meanings - to assert that the racist meaning is the primary one effectively denies that any other meaning is real. The picture certainly has overtones that fold together racism and misogyny, but in doing so it calls up a whole complex of ideas that reflect a particular worldview from a particular time - and that worldview is the target of Amanda’s snark. She’s not striking directly at racism, but racism does suffer collateral damage.
Do the gorilla’s feet look a little odd?
Yah, I know. See previous post.Uhh…exactly? The intent and the venue are different, therefore you yourself cannot throw the bullshit flag on Amanda.
I assure you I am not ignorant of the history (mom and dad almost got killed by toothless rednecks back in ‘64). But, again, the image itself is not and cannot be racist, so you are in fact asking Amanda to “fold up shop” if you criticize her based on a completely blameless intent and venue.
Exactly what are you trying to gain here? What’s your objective? Are you just venting, or did you wake up and decide “Hmm, today would be a great day to alienate potential supporters and piss off people who agree with me?”
Quick comment to any of you in Chicago…
If you buy Amanda’s book from Amazon rather than bopping down to Women and Children First then you deserve the severest of purple nurples.
It’s just north of Foster & Clark.
Justicewalks: Wow, you’re my hero. I wish there were something more that could be said to get people to see how their white privilege is oozing out all over, but I think you’ve already said it as best as it can be. It’s incredibly frustrating watching people continue to fail to get it, but I very much appreciate how much time you’ve been putting in here.
CK, even Quixote figured out what a windmill was eventually. We’re still waiting for justicewalks to catch up.
Petey: Yeah, ha ha, you’re one of the people I wish would get the point!
But if you’re happy as being as full of hot air as a windmill and not coming across as any more racially aware than one, well, it’s nice for you that you’re happy.
And kindly don’t use “we” as if you speak for everyone, Petey. There’s a pretty sizeable group of people in this thread who are in agreement with justicewalks, who did not even initiate the conversation.
Looks like that girl is smiling at her gorilla lover to me. Perhaps he is carrying her to the bed for a bit of fun?
Good lord. I just waded through this whole thread, and all I want to say is, congratulations, Amanda. I’ve been looking forward to the time that you would publish a book, and I’m very happy that you’ve gone and done it. Bravo! Can’t wait to read it.
Congrats Amanda!
justicewalks, what *exactly* do you expect amanda to *do*? simply agree with you? bullSHIT that would make you happy. change the cover? with her limitless power in the publishing world?
it’s positively gorgeous how much we love to rip apart fellow feminists. makes me glad i’ll never be successful. i’d probably dismiss most of my principles just to distance myself from the people who agree with me the most.
I’m honestly wondering how many people are going to purchase this book because of the fact that the image on the cover is racist. I mean, I’m not sure how that computes, unless said people are illiterate and can not also read the title of the book, and thus, are buying the book purely for their own racist edification. Though, I suppose that there are feminist racists who would buy a feminist book purely because the cover art uses racist imagery.
it kinda weirds me out that so many people are stonewalling on this. what’s so hard about saying “you know, i didn’t think about the rich history of racist imagery and rhetoric where african=animal, but yeah i guess i can see why an image like that might still sting [especially when the white person using it doesn’t plan to mention the racism that drives the image]”? do we really have to dig in our heels and make it a fight and say “why do you insist on PERCEIVING racism where there is none”? i hate that people who responded with (requested) complaints were dismissed for infighting or pettiness or something like that. wtf.
and btw, i too (and i’m white) feel like it’s white privilege that’s allowing people to be so cavalier about how it might come across to others. it’s very uncomfortable to wonder if that i’m being “oversensitive” or rather overly privileged.
sorry to rant.
Well, I definitely agree on the fact that the image is racist. I just can’t see how it being originally racist is going to be a determining factor at all in how many books Amanda sells, and from the implications here, it would seem that Amanda is using the image to sell books, and will succeed in relying upon said image to sell said book. I can’t see how that follows given the book’s obvious subject matter.
mm, jackgoff, i see what you’re saying, and personally i don’t really believe that “image’s racism will cause book to sell, therefore amanda is profiting off racism” or that racists will see it and think “ooh! racist book to add to my wishlist!”. i also don’t think anybody else said that, either.
i DO think it kinda sucks for a painful image to be perpetuated across our cultural currents with little captioning, so to speak. yes OBVIOUSLY amanda or the publishers never meant to be racist and so we shouldn’t get as upset as if some white supremacist put up a poster with this picture saying “do you know where your daughter is tonight?”, or whatever. obviously. but i there’s a range in between that level of upset and none at all, and “the publishing house wasn’t trying to say that black men are animals” is an inadequate reason for everyone to go “oh ok, that’s fine then”.
i don’t know. i’m trying not to be fascist about it but i am also still surprised that a lot of people really couldn’t care less. to be honest, just because conservoliberwhatevs like dana and pretty lady are arguing that it’s just a gorilla carrying off a blonde, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t give it a second thought.
all things considered, the cover isn’t the most important thing about the book. the post is about the cover, which is why i commented about the cover.
i think Amanda’s right in saying 1) her success is an occasion for people to get excited, aroused, and remember that angry-making-thing they might have forgotten when they weren’t paying attention and 2) there’s no point in playing good dog/bad dog and trying to decide whether she is omg teh racist for having a book with an image that’s racist in some/many people’s interpretation on its cover. now, as for whether people’s (my) interpretation of the cover is grounded, sensible, or itself racist, that’s debatable. but i think it’s a debate that’s best served not by throwing another “we’re allowed to tout our anti-racist agenda but we’re not allowed to discuss sources and methods” log on the fire. we are all smarter than that, and we are better feminists when we remember that when we really succeed at dismantling the patriarchy we’ll have succeeded at dismantling racism, too. i think Amanda’s working on that and she does good work. that’s not in question. what’s in question is what it *costs* when we have to get past a racist cover to get to a feminist book. it’s not too much, but it’s more than enough.
As justicewalks pointed out, if you change the context and intent of an image, it’s not the same as it used to be.
This is why gays use the pink triangle, why Jews took over the Star-of-David badge, and why rappers can throw around the word “nigger.”
It’s also why if Amanda’s publisher says “I need a retro-ish image that has something to do with ‘feminism’ and a ‘jungle”…oh, wait, here’s one!” that doesn’t make Amanda racist.
If you feel like you’re getting stonewalled, it’s because lots of people think you’re wrong. Hey, how simple is that? The image is an inanimate object that is subject to the intentions of the presenter and the context in which it is presented. Justicewalks already admitted as much. Why can’t the rest of you clowns get onboard?
You can safely bet that the majority of black/brown persons who see this image at the bookstore or online will feel the white supremacist knife twist inside their gut, just as they have so many times before.
But I do understand your disagreement. Because if we took the image of a gorilla carrying a white woman and said, “does this image have a racist history,” the answer would quite clearly be yes. The question is whether such an image is racist here or, alternatively, so indelibly and irredeemably racist that it cannot be used in any context, however “ironically.” About that, I imagine that reasonable people of good will can disagree, as they’re doing here.
Context strikes me as everything. As someone intellectually intrigued by these issues, I want to jump in and offer a “yes but and” opinion, but since this is yet another in a loooooong string of success-based flamewars, I know that any and everything I could say would be immediately used against me to demonstrate I’m undeserving and horrible in some way. Again, if there wasn’t the context where this always happens everytime any feminist blogger has any success of any sort, we could maybe have a more interesting discussion.
But no one has asked you to fold up shop or even to give up the white privilege you receive on a daily basis.
Not really. Unless you can come up with a response that’s appropriate that isn’t “fold up shop and disappear”, then that’s how it’s read. And since, in the multitudes of success-based flamewars I’ve dealt with, apologies, acquiesance, rejection, accepting that someone has a point, or basically any reaction short of disappearing has been rejected as inadequate, I know how this goes.
I’m not mad. That’s how it is. I’ve seen it happen every single time someone has a success. The angry flamewar must exist, and trying to stop it is like trying to put out the sun—impossible and you’ll just get burned. I miss the me that took these flamewars in good faith, but their sheer inevitability has worn me down.
Not to change the tone of the thread here, but where’s the obligatory floating head?
Why do you think this discussion has anything to do with your success?
This is why gays use the pink triangle, why Jews took over the Star-of-David badge, and why rappers can throw around the word “nigger.”
It’s also why if Amanda’s publisher says “I need a retro-ish image that has something to do with ‘feminism’ and a ‘jungle”…oh, wait, here’s one!” that doesn’t make Amanda racist.
These two paragraphs describe completely different phenomena. In the first case, people are consciously engaging with oppressive symbols and words to assert pride in the trait that others were trying to oppress.
In the second case, someone is taking an oppressive symbol and pretending that it carries no offensive weight in order to use it for their own purposes, while ignoring how its offensive weight will come down on people still being oppressed for the trait denigrated in the symbol.
Also note that no one has called Amanda racist.
But the picture on the book cover is racist, the book does not engage with its racism, and it’s disappointing to see people deny this is problematic.
It’s got to be just jealousy of success/hotness, whatever, because otherwise we’d have to examine the relative merits of the srguments of anyone who has a problem with the cover. And if we did that, then we couldn’t just scream “stupid jealous pc oversensitive whiny slimy cry racists who wish they could get a book published!” And if we couldn’t do that, then we’d actually have to listen to people and we’d have to change our behavior and it would be all hard and it would be all hard and demanding and stuff. And then the next time we screwed up, we’d have to take responsibility yet again. It’s much easier to make the same mistakes over and over and then go, “Wait, we did something similar to what we did befire, and that again caused a problem? Impossible! Inexplicable! No–inevitable! Because the PC hoardes, shouting crying, need to suck it up and shut up and stop lying, never can resist creating a controversy where there isn’t one….”
I will agree on one point, there is a certain predictability to all of this.
Something tells me this is not the thread to ask for someone to help us distinguish brute fact from social fact re: the image on the cover no matter how relevant. So I won’t.
Jebus, people. The book cannot “engage with its racism” because the book was written before a cover was applied to it, probably somewhat arbitrarily by a designer who knew nothing more about the book than its title. What, exactly, do you want or expect Amanda to do? If you want to complain, complain to the publisher and graphic designer, not Amanda.
Jebus, people. The book cannot “engage with its racism” because the book was written before a cover was applied to it, probably somewhat arbitrarily by a designer who knew nothing more about the book than its title. What, exactly, do you want or expect Amanda to do? If you want to complain, complain to the publisher and graphic designer, not Amanda.
Amanda gets to decide what she wants to do.
Personally, I wouldn’t try to ignore the fact that it’s problematic to have a racist cover outside of a context explicitly dedicated to discussing racism. Personally, I would try to make sure that any book I wrote was presented in a fashion that didn’t make many people of color feel uncomfortable and like the book was only written for happily clueless white people.
The cover image immediately hit me as racist. It doesn’t follow that Amanda or the book are racist, but the stonewalling has curdled my stomach, too.
Amanda, you make a good point about the context of being constantly smacked down in bad faith. I can see how this is a good reason for you to be skeptical about the motives of this criticism.
Nonetheless, a lot of people have worked really hard to carefully explain the problem with the image, so I don’t understand what would be lost in conceding that the image has a nasty history and that you’d probably make a different choice if it were up to you.
Instead of this being an occasion for another flamewar, why can’t it be an occasion for a gracious mea culpa? What would it cost you to just offer that admission that all privileged folks have to make sometimes: I’m sorry. Thanks for helping me understand what I didn’t see.
i also don’t think anybody else said that, either.
JusticeWalks said:
We’ve only asked you to address this one instance of white privilege, this one instance, in which a racist image will be used to sell your book.
This image will most likely not be a motivating factor in anyone’s decision to buy this book, though I cannot say it never will be. But definitely, I do wish another picture had been used.
It is not up to white people to reclaim racist imagery. White people don’t just get to wake up one day and decide that pictures of nooses don’t have to be considered racist anymore.
If the Swastika is ever to be reclaimed successfully, it won’t be by neo-Nazis. If the Confederate Flag is ever to be successfully reclaimed, it won’t be by rednecks. The hooting and hollering over that flag by rednecks right now isn’t a reclamation; it is a continuation of the anti-black spirit that had them carrying it during the Civil Rights Era. If a mudflap girl is ever successfully reclaimed, it won’t be by men. If those anthropomorphized buck-toothed rats are ever to be reclaimed, it won’t be by non-Japanese Americans.
I’m asking Amanda to state that she would not have expressed joy at this particular cover having been chosen if she had been aware of the racism. I’m asking Amanda to at least admit that it is problematic and that it is not her place to reclaim this racist image, especially when she has done nothing with the context of her book to make her claims of “reclamation” or whatever seem reasonable. I am asking her to use whatever influence she may have to get an image more reflective of her politics, if she feels that the racism in the cover is in fact a poor reflection of them. If she is unable to exert any influence, she could express regret that this is the case. If she is unwilling to exert any influence she may have, she is a part of the problem.
When people in Asia by Darky Toothpaste, they might not be buying it specifically for the smiling darkies on the front - they’re obviously buying it at least in part for the toothpaste - but that doesn’t change the fact that they are buying a brand that has a racist image on it, an image that some, not all, Darky buyers get a kick out of. And you know what? The fact that the manufacturers of Darky claimed unfamiliarity with the racist slur and the racist imagery doesn’t make the word ‘darky’ or the image of shucking and jiving black men any less racist and offensive. Regardless of their awareness, black people still see nonblack people using a derogatory image of black people and a slur used against black people in order to sell products to people who are not black. If that word and those images are to be reclaimed, it won’t be by Asian people, or white people.
Goff, if her marketers didn’t think the racist image could sell the book, they wouldn’t have chosen it. That racist cover will sell the book just like a racist image was once used to sell that toothpaste. At least the manufacturers of Darky had the right idea.
Apologies in advance for what I anticipate being multiple and redundant comments. My first comments were in moderation for about four hours which I erroneously attributed to having used a new username.
Note: I did not, I repeat not say it was “jealousy”. I went out of my way to make sure that I did not impugn any individual motivations for why these success-related shitstorms always, always happen. I do not know. I just know that they do, they are inevitable, and when the book comes out, there will be another one about something slightly different, but along the same lines.
It’s sort of like the Yearly Kos thing. Last year the shitstorm was that it was sexist, since there weren’t enough women on panels. This year, they went out of their way to rectify the situation, and some of us were chastised for going. Apparently, the best way to rectify the underrepresentation problem is to boycott the event so that underrepresentation continues to be a problem. Is it “jealousy”? Who knows? For some people who flame, sure. For others, it’s opportunism. Others just see long threads and have to get involved. Others maybe didn’t involve themselves in prior shitstorms and don’t realize that the crying wolf factor has kicked in, since those of us who’ve done this a dozen times before are aware that there’s no way to avoid it.
I guess that’s why I find the requests for another image to be tiresome. Whatever the substitution is will create another shitstorm, sure as you’re born.
I can be convinced that this doesn’t have to happen, when there’s a big success that doesn’t set off a shitstorm about the horrible taint of sexism-racism-capitalism. At this time, that doesn’t seem possible, in no small part because the system itself is tainted. Again, since it’s not possible to avoid the shitstorm, those of us who know that this is inevitable see no reason to really do anything about it. There’s nothing you can do to change the shitstorm, and any attempts to apologize, resist, recitify, or engage will only make it worse, in my experience. I’ve tried them all and have found weirdly that trying to rectify/apologize tends to intensify the shitstorm.
What, exactly, do you want or expect Amanda to do?
I’ve been through this a lot. There’s nothing that can be done, period. I’ve seen every sort of response, and like I said earlier, attempts to deal with are like trying to put out the sun. Flamewars have a life of their own, and attempts to kill them only make them stronger.
I knew releasing this cover would result in a flamewar. I couldn’t predict what it was and didn’t have the time to try to guess. And I know when the book comes out there will another one. Hell, Jessica meeting President Clinton resulted in like 4 entirely separate flamewars.
If I recall correctly, the people upset about Jessica’s boobs were right-wingers, not her own readers. Your plight is not like hers, and if I were her I wouldn’t want you appropriating the right-wing shit-storm she endured in order to justify the racism in your cover.
It seems we have our answer. Unless we want to be mischaracterized as opportunistic racism-crying vultures, we have to suck up any misgiving or offense about the racism in her cover, pretend as if we didn’t see it, since she didn’t intend for us to see it, and tacitly encourage racism for the ostensible sake of feminism, or Amanda’s joy, or sense of herself as a decent person worthy of life (thus all of the claims that people upset by the cover want her to just disappear), or something.
She’s admitted wholeheartedly and unabashedly that she will not take any of these concerns seriously, on account of the success. It may be time that the word ‘racist’ be extended to more than just the cover of her book.
Amanda, I know you’ll just write another of your childish responses about how it’s too much of a burden to expect that a famously successful white person such as yourself should be responsible for refuting every complaint (which are all unwarranted and spiteful, of course) against unintended symbols of bigotry used to hawk her wares. I know you’ll just post another spoiled and entitled refusal to address your readers’ concerns, since they’re obviously unfounded, what with you being color-blind and successful enough to just ignore the political implications.
You should know, though, before you waste your time posting yet another justification of your racism-tainted profit, that you won’t be the first person to ride the wave of plausibly deniable racism into fame or success. You’re in crowded company. Perhaps that is why you associate accusations of racism/sexism/classism with success; success is so often accompanied by acquiescence to the values of the dominating hierarchy. Where I come from, we don’t call that ’success,’ we call it ’selling out.’ But whatever keeps you happy, since that is so clearly what is most important here.
There’s nothing that can be done, period.
Yes, there is.
And the progressive web is full of explanations for what you ought to do when members of historically oppressed groups - women, blacks, native-americans, trans folks, gays, etc - tell you that your action evokes a long history of pain and carries that pain forward - which is acknowledge that the racist reading of the cover image of your book is a real one, and one that *will* scrape at open wounds. After that you can take whatever steps seem appropriate, and attempting to change the book cover may not be one of them. Leaving it as it is - and then using it to start conversations about white privilege and the complexity and power of images might be a great strategy for both selling your ideas and opening new dialogues about issues you care about, for example.
It isn’t ’success-bashing’ for readers of Pandagon to respond with exactly what you asked for - a critical analysis/response to the cover art selected for your book. Especially as it was given as a kind of yellow-flag warning, hey - is this what you meant?
To whine now that just knew that they would find something negative and create a flamewar (and, seriously, you know full well this is not a flamewar) is to take a page from every sensitive artist ever who didn’t like the criticism they got when their work went public (see Anne Rice and ‘interrogating the text from the wrong perspective’ for a lovely example).
If you really didn’t want your regular readers on your board to tell you what they really thought, you shouldn’t have asked them for their opinion. But you did - and, as you should have known about your readers - they gave you what you asked for - a thoughtful response to the way the cover evokes certain racist image traditions.
How you respond to that is up to you, of course, but a better spelled version of ‘u r jst jealous’ is no more satisfying here that it is on your average fanfiction board.
Congratulations on the book, in all seriousness. A book is hard work and a testament to your determination (and your publisher’s estimate that people will actually step up to pay for what they can read for free on the net!). I wish you all the success in the world with it. But, since you asked, I don’t really care for the cover either - the image of the ape holding the white chick is, for an American writer, really problematic.
Hell, Jessica meeting President Clinton resulted in like 4 entirely separate flamewars.
Yes, funny how the first black president always manages that when he goes to harlem.
Why has the girl stuck her hand inside the throat of the gorrilla (and is presumably controlling its mind to save having to walk all the way to her wardrobe)? And why has the big ape got some sort of serious disability going on with its feet?
White women enslaving disabled gorrillas and using them as a form of personal transportation is wrong, imho.
Apparently, the best way to rectify the underrepresentation problem is to boycott the event so that underrepresentation continues to be a problem.
I shall dub thee “strawmandagon” and you shall forever more and hence before miss the point entirely.
Others maybe didn’t involve themselves in prior shitstorms and don’t realize that the crying wolf factor has kicked in
The crying wolf tale is designed to emphasis to children (not that you’re being patrionizing, hell no) the importance of not telling lies to such an extent that no one believes you when you tell the truth.
Now this, as far as I can make out (because it’s a hard metaphor to logically shoe horn into this discussion) means that you’re accusing everyone who has ever criticsed you of lying just to get attention, and that you were never wrong before - which is factually inaccurate, twice - AND you’re accusing everyone criticising you now of being right in this instance, but you’re suffering from some sort of wolf blindness or a unicorn or something that makes it, via the transubstantiation of elements or Xenu or whatever, okay for you to ignore the factual existence of “wolves” that are going to “eat” your “sheep”.
Which I don’t think is what you meant to say.
I wonder what mcguyver would do in this situation?
“Amanda Marcotte
August 22, 2007 at 9:02 am
What, exactly, do you want or expect Amanda to do?
I’ve been through this a lot. There’s nothing that can be done, period.”
1. You could admit this is a real issue instead of hiding behind the success-brings-attack argument.
2. You could call the publisher, explain the issue that you and the publisher were clueless about now that your readers have pointed it out, and try to see if they are willing to address the situation. If they won’t, you took a shot.
But there’s plenty that can be done here. You’re just not doing it.
If I recall correctly, the people upset about Jessica’s boobs were right-wingers, not her own readers.
Yes, and no. About her boobs, yes. About her book cover - no. And the book cover reaction issue is eerily similar to this one.
Right wingers did use the cover art of Jessica’s book for an attack of the pearl-clutching vapors about crude young feminists, but that *was* predictable, and even intentional.
The very painful part of the negative reaction to the cover art of Full Frontal Feminism was when, as Amanda just did (!), Jessica shared the cover design on her board. A young woman of color said that the cover art - showing a young, slim white woman’s torso, made it seem to her that she - as a woman of color - was not invited to this particular feminist party - and she noted that a lot of the high-attention getting feminism is primarily white and young, and while it addressed the concerns of that population - did not address the primary concerns she held has a feminist of color and that the cover was a continuation of that.
What happened next isn’t entirely a clear narrative because it happened in a lot of different places all at once, as blog storms do, but one of the worst outcomes (IMO) was that the young woman who raised the concerns was scolded pretty vehemently for raining on Jessica’s parade and from there it spun out into a particularly painful episode of young white feminists vs. young feminists of color, ending (more or less) with the few young feminists of color with any meaningful blog presence circling the wagons and feeling ostracized, and some taking a full on web-break for a while, further reducing the presence of women of color in the blog sphere and leaving the white girls (to be understood broadly and not just as an age-identifier) vibrating with tension and confusion even as they stood triumphant for getting the black girls to back down. That one of Feministing’s regular bloggers is a young woman of color who probably felt ripped right down the middle was one of those deep ironies that never can be fully resolved.
It wasn’t very pretty. And it left a lot of very raw feelings as what many had hoped was a ’safe space’ was revealed to be full of the same old, same old unnamed, unresolved issues as RL.
Thanks for that, nell. I wasn’t aware of the backstory. It is sad that white feminists are unwilling to just admit when they’ve overlooked nonwhite women and attempt to do better next time. Vallenti could easily have said, “Yes, I understand that my patriarchy-approved physique and skin-tone might not be the best beacon for a feminism that is supposedly inclusive of nonwhite, non-sexxxay women. I hope that I am able to show what I’ve learned from this when I publish my next book.” Instead, people concerned about nonwhite women in feminism get smacked down and maligned, called opportunists and success-chasers, their complaints dismissed as “flamewars.”
White women currying favor with white men (and their yea-sayers) against nonwhite women is and always will be white supremacy, not feminism.
Speaking of which, I personally feel as if I have been “scolded” for bringing up these issues. I had assumed that I was actually being asked my opinion. I offered one in an attempt to help (Maybe that was where I acted naive). I’m a college student who is really attempting to immerse herself in feminism, so perhaps I am too earnest.
I really like the blog, Amanda, and I was excited to see that you were brining a book out. But right now I’m uncertain as to whether I will be purchasing it. Please, even if it doesn’t “put out the flames” of this war, just acknowledge that we have every right to be concerned for you and for ourselves. Admit that this image has a history and that it is perhaps unfortunate that it was selected. Save me from becoming the jaded young feminist that you have become (by your own admission. You said you wished you weren’t so cynical about these types of threads)!
-Megan
She’s “yes-anding” that one. She’s conceding that there’s a racist history to the iconography, but she’s arguing that there are other dynamics in play in this discussion as well.
I’m not entirely convinced by her interpretation of those dynamics, but I don’t completely dismiss it, either. It strikes me that there are two things going on:
First, a lot of people have a lot invested in folks like Amanda, and they want her and her ilk to succeed. But they want that success to take a form that they can be unconflictedly supportive of. When someone in Amanda’s position makes (what they see as) a misstep, they’re eager to help her correct it, and I can see where that eagerness to help, and the disappointment that goes along with it, could come to feel like a real burden. Particularly in the light of this:
This is where I really get Amanda’s refusal to speak to the issue of whether the cover is problematic. Because if she says that it is, the clamor for her to intervene with her publisher on the question will only increase, and the disappointment I referred to above will turn into anger.
I think you can say that there are racial tropes at work in the cover without saying that the cover itself is racist, or that Amanda has an obligation to intervene with her publisher to try to scuttle it. But I suspect that Amanda’s right that the more she engages the first question, the more she’ll be feeding the fire on the second.
This cover is a joke right??
It looks a lot like stuff you see on white supremacist site. I believe any feminist with common sense would invoke King Kong imagery to promote feminism.
Sorry too many typos to be legible. It should read:
“This cover is a joke right??
It looks a lot like stuff you see on white supremacist sites. I can’t believe any feminist with common sense would invoke King Kong imagery to promote feminism.”
BTW-I can’t read the letters in the spam filter. I tried to post the last comment 3 times, but the third time I was too frustrated to be coherent any more.
I thought some more about how cheap it is to pretend that success doesn’t automatically bring flamewars by pretending I’m saying that everyone is “just jealous”. I think that the way Jessica gets flamed has a lot more jealousy to it, because she’s got the Sex and the City vibe going and I’m more boring.
I think it’s more that people’s professional successes inch them closer to “icon” status, and as such, they become convenient dumping grounds for a lot of very legitimate grievances, even if they personally have no responsibility for causing them. And because we’re bloggers and thus very accessible, it’s much easier to slip into holding us personally accountable for being the cause of certain issues, instead of maybe just an example of how white people are privileged.
Which also explains why engaging these arguments is counterproductive. During the burqua wars, I learned this very well. I had turned into a symbol of every dumbass white liberal who buys into humanitarian cover stories for imperialism, and the fact that I actually disagreed with those dumbass white liberals was no impediment to the shitstorm. Before too long, it appeared that I had to do something to personally reverse history and get American troops out of Afghanistan.
I knew the dangers of using retro imagery going in—it defies a straightforward interpretation. Look at the shitstorm over Jessica’s book cover, and that had about two dozen less layers of interpretative possibilities than this arch irony. And yet you couldn’t single The Definitive Offensive Interpretation that everyone could agree on so we could all hold Jessica accountable for everything that bugs us. Is the cover racist, in that it’s only a white girl? Is it dehumanizing because it just shows her stomach? Objectifying because it’s sexual? Ageist because the stomach belongs to a young person? Discriminatory against those who don’t fit conventional beauty standards? It was impossible to settle on the definitive interpretation.
This is exponentially more complex. In a good faith discussion, the various levels of complexity could be teased out, but since this is framed as a debate about me (which it’s not) and my success (bound to make me and people who are rooting for me defensive), then it’s close to impossible to have a thoughtful discussion about the layers of complexity. And of course, anything I even venture to suggest about how I interpret the book will be run away with as a crass denial that there’s a racist history to some portrayals of apes in movies and books. I don’t deny that. All I will say is that there are many, many layers of meaning any time someone uses retro imagery.
I really was afraid the source of the shitstorm would be that I was endorsing rape somehow.
This cover is a joke right??
I think nowadays retro imagery used by avowed liberals can safely be assumed to be at least an attempt at coy irony. I’m not committing to whether it’s successful or not. I think it’s a fool’s errand to lay claim to definitive interpretations of archly ironic imagery.
It isn’t just the history that is racist. This is a comparison that persists in being made to this day, as I have explained previously. This is a current matter, not one of merely historical interest.
No. If there are “racial tropes” at play that liken one racial group to animals, it is racist, not racial.
Now, while Amanda, it is true, may be at no obligation to exert whatever influence she may have to change the cover art, we are at no obligation to pretend as if her refusal to do so isn’t racist. I’m willing to consider that her refusal is a consequence of her inability to affect change and that the matter is out of her hands. However, if her refusal is really just an inability to act without making her publishers uncomfortable, for example, then we know that she is willing to deliberately throw nonwhite people under the bus for white privilege. Which, you know, as I’ve said before, it’s not uncommon, but it certainly isn’t admirable.
And like I said, she’s not at any obligation refuse white privilege, any more than men are at an obligation to refuse male privilege. But neither are we who seek justice obligated to sit here and ignore the bigoted political implications of her actions as a white person, any more than we as feminists are obligated to ignore the misogynist political implications of men using dehumanizing images of women for their profit.
Yes, there is.
About a dozen shitstorms ago, I would have believed this. Now I know for a fact that if it’s not one thing, it is another.
Amanda’s skepticism here makes more sense because nearly all of the people objecting seem to be white. But that she would say the same thing about that other book, when the people objecting were in fact women of color themselves, possibly jealous of the author’s Sex and the City glamour, is pretty spectacular.
You seem to be saying that any depiction of an anthropomorphic ape in anything but an explicitly anti-racist context renders the image in which its embedded racist. Is that your argument?
If so, is it an argument that you’d make about the Guerilla Girls? They do some anti-racist stuff, but most of their use of gorilla suits isn’t explicitly anti-racist. What if a movie-review television show used a King Kong poster as part of its set dressing? Would that use of the iconography be sending a racist message?
I don’t think it’s possible for any depiction of an anthropomorphic ape to completely break free of that image’s racist connotations, but I don’t believe that those connotations render all such depictions racist.
Just some, b. Not all. Apply as you see fit.
Amanda’s skepticism here makes more sense because nearly all of the people objecting seem to be white.
That is not correct. There are POC objecting.
They do some anti-racist stuff, but most of their use of gorilla suits isn’t explicitly anti-racist.
It’s the image of the implied manhandling of a white woman by a gorilla that is being objected to.
I don’t know anything about the Guerilla Girls. I’m sure that I would find their use of gorilla costumes offensive as well because I’ve personally never seen any use of a gorilla costume that didn’t involve the “gorilla” raping (if male) or forcefully “mothering” (if female) a terrified human being.
I imagine, however, that if the gorilla-suited people in question aren’t doing such anthropomorphic things as feining raping human beings or smothering human beings with motherly love, it might mitigate claims of racism. But I’m not sure how that’s relevant, since the picture in question does involve a gorilla walking upright while carrying a white woman for the implied purpose of kidnap and rape.
Are we seriously going to sit here and try to figure out how much white people can get away with before they’re considered racist? We may as well try to figure out which infinitismally unlikely circumstances would warrant a nonracist interpretation of white people in pointed white hoods. Or discuss when it’s considered both nonracist and appropriate for white people to burn crosses.
can’t say I’m surprised Amanda is insinuating that she’s some poor white woman whose success is being decried out of petty jealousy on the part of those sensitive poc, and their antiracist allies, as if there could not be any criticism of the cover or the book that is valid.
It’s still sickening though, not to mention the cover is ugly
It’s relevant because you’re arguing that the presence of the trope itself renders the image racist, independent of how the trope is being deployed.
A quick google will turn up any number of editorial and gag cartoons that use King Kong and Fay Wray as their conceit. (See examples here , here , and here.) Are these cartoons racist? Or does the use to which they’re putting the Kong image matter?
I don’t think that’s the right way to frame it. Saying it’s about “how much white people can get away with” assumes as a premise the question we’re trying to answer, which is when representations of anthropomorphic apes are racist.
Let’s say that I hear tomorrow that some progressive blogger has come out with a book whose cover includes a photograph of someone eating watermelon, and that someone has charged that the book’s cover is racist. If I ask questions about the cover — who’s eating it, why watermelon, what else is going on in the photo — am I trying to figure out how much white people can get away with? Or am I trying to make a determination about whether the watermelon, a cultural icon with a long history of racist use, is being deployed in a racist way in this instance?
As soon as people explain to me how every invocation of a gorilla or ape in art or pop culture, ever, is always always always a negative depiction of a black man, I will concede that Amanda’s book cover is overtly, inherently, inarguably racist.
I would then appreciate it if someone could please supply a list of animal representations that correspond to various racial archetypes, so that such a travesty should never be repeated.
In all seriousness, I read the title “It’s a Jungle Out There: a Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments” and looked at the picture, and assumed the gorilla was a representive of assorted patriarchal blowhards: MRAs, neo-cons, religious wingnuts, etc. Because that’s what the title implied. I’ve not necessarily heard that black men cause politically inhospitable environments for feminists - at least, no more than any other race of men, but certainly not more than white men - but please educate me if this is the case.
As soon as people explain to me how every invocation of a gorilla or ape in art or pop culture, ever, is always always always a negative depiction of a black man, I will concede that Amanda’s book cover is overtly, inherently, inarguably racist.
Again, that’s not what people are saying. It’s not every depiction of gorillas that is the issue here.
I’ve got a comment tied up in moderation, but in the meantime…
JW, last year my three-year-old was obsessed with King Kong, and for a while she was considering going as Kong for Halloween — most likely carrying a Barbie doll in a long white dress, with me accompanying her dressed as the Empire State Building.
Ultimately she chose a different get-up, but I’d like to ask you two questions:
1. Do you think that her wearing that costume would have been an expression of racism?
2. If I’d mentioned to someone that she was thinking of trick-or-treating in that costume, and they’d told me they thought it was racist, would I have been trying to figure out “how much white people can get away with” if I’d pondered the problem for a while before telling her she wasn’t allowed to wear it?
No one has to show you that every single image of a gorilla ever produced has racist intent. We only need to demonstrate that within the racist context of American society, every image of an anthropomorphized ape kidnapping/raping a white woman is racist. The number of contexts in which it would be antiracist for a white person to promote the image of an anthropomorphized upright ape ravishing a white woman are few and far between; they certainly don’t lay the tone for the reception most such images can expect to receive and are therefore irrelevant to this discussion.
A book about sexism is NOT a context in which an image of an anthropomorphized, kidnapping great ape rapist of white women can be considered antiracist.
If you’re asking whether or not she would have intended to express racism, the answer is no. On the other hand, if you’re asking whether or not a little black child or her parents might have been justifiably hurt by her costume, then, yes, racism is being expressed despite your daughter’s innocence.
2. If I’d mentioned to someone that she was thinking of trick-or-treating in that costume, and they’d told me they thought it was racist, would I have been trying to figure out “how much white people can get away with” if I’d pondered the problem for a while before telling her she wasn’t allowed to wear it?
Based on my response to answer 1, in which I hold you responsible for the effect your daughter’s costume has on nonwhite trick-or-treaters and their families, YES, I’d consider your hemming and hawing over your daughter’s costume racist. Why should your daughter’s trick-or-treating delight come at the expense of perpetuating racist tropes that may hurt her fellow revelers?
Oh, and Jack:
A few years back, the Guerilla Girls did a billboard that depicted King Kong in drag, grasping an Oscar as if it were Fay Wray. (The billboard was intended to draw attention to discrimination against female directors in Hollywood — you can see a photo of it on the GG website.)
So. That icon inverts the gender dynamic in the original Kong story, but it leaves the idea of a big brutish gorilla manhandling a small, implicitly white human intact. Racist? Non-racist? Or can reasonable people disagree?
In your opinion, and it still only flies as an argument if you’re totally irony deficient.
In your opinion, and it still only flies as an argument if you’re totally irony deficient.
And your argument only flies if you think irony makes an acceptable vehicle for racism.
But what if my hemming and hawing is stemming from the fact that I’m honestly not sure whether I agree that it’s likely someone would be hurt by the costume? If you say, “that costume is racist,” and I say “wow, that never occurred to me. I’ll have to think about that,” is my response racist? Really?
Because no offense intended, but you’re just some random person on a comment thread. If I don’t immediately take your word for something, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m calculating what I can “get away with” — it may just mean that you haven’t convinced me that your analysis is correct.
RKMK and others who aren’t conscious of this imagery’s deep-seated psychic meanings and social significance in our culture, may I recommend a book.
If a nonwhite person tells you something is racist, your anti-racist obligation is not to figure out whether or not their logic is seamless; it is to figure out how you managed not to see the racism so clear to the unprivileged.
So. That icon inverts the gender dynamic in the original Kong story, but it leaves the idea of a big brutish gorilla manhandling a small, implicitly white human intact. Racist? Non-racist? Or can reasonable people disagree?
I’m pretty certain that it isn’t my place to judge that particular quality for anything, as I have not experienced racism.
Not quite. If the same image was used on a book titled “How the Black Man is a Threat to Our Wimmin”, it would be a racist image. In the present context, it is not.
Kai, goshthanks, but I’m Canadian, and am not particularly swayed by the argument that American history and iconography dictates how the rest of the world is supposed to interpret an image of a gorilla.
Look, RKMK, if you aren’t American, this discussion doesn’t pertain to you. If people in Canada want to use racist images under the guise of unfamiliarity with American racism, go for it. It seems bizarre to me that you’d recommend a policy in Canada that is less anti-racist than the Darky toothpaste company in Asia, though. You really do set the bar low.
The context need not be specifically racist for the image to retain it’s racist implications. The context need only be not specifically antiracist. If that image appeared on a cook book, it would be just as racist as it is now. It doesn’t need to go on a pro-KKK (for all the far-removed Canadians in the audience, the KKK is a white supremacist organization known for lynching and harassing black people in the years after the Civil War) flyer to retain it’s racist connotations.
No. I’m sorry, but no.
If I defer to any random person of color on questions of racism, then I’m abdicating my responsibility to be a truly anti-racist white person, and to be an opponent of racism among whites. If my wife were to ask my why I vetoed the Kong costume, “because some person who claimed to be black on the internet told me to” would not have been an argument she would have accepted, and rightly so.
In principle, I believe that whites should listen to the arguments of people of color, even — and yes, especially — if those arguments seem bizarre or counter-intuitive. When a black person tells me something about his or her experience of race, I take it very seriously, just as I do when a woman tells me something about her experience of gender. I’ve followed that principle for my entire adult life, and it’s served me well.
But no, it doesn’t mean that I’m a passive receptacle for anything any black person says about white racism. I’ve spent enough time in multiracial organizing to know that there are kooks in every community, and that it’s my obligation to think critically — openly and sympathetically, but critically — to the claims that others make.
I find this statement imperialist and offensive to all those who live outside the borders of the the U.S. of A, who while not American, do possess brains and valid opinions. I demand an apology.
Fine, Brooklynite, if you think you know racism better than nonwhite “kooks” who might tell you otherwise, by all means, let your daughter wear King Kong costumes.
Non-white people can’t ever be kooks? Ohhhhhhkayyyyy….
I fully agree with RKMK here. As a European, I think it’s a bit rich to see Americans dismiss the experiences of the rest of the world in the name of anti-racism. Please acknowledge that people in different continents experience things differently than you do. You act like American culture is the end-all and be-all. Amanda’s book will not only be read by American people, but by English-speaking people from Europe, Australia, etc.
JW, I didn’t say you were a kook. I said that it doesn’t make any sense to demand that I defer to you just because of your race.
Take the Guerilla Girls example. Let’s say that I show you one of their posters, and you tell me it’s racist. Let’s say that I discover later that the poster was created by a woman of color, and she makes an argument that it’s not racist. What’s my obligation as a white person? Do I try to find a third person of color to break the tie? Do I go with whichever person of color has the most expansive conception of racism? Or do I study and think and reflect and ask questions and try my best to find an answer that’s coherent to me?
It seems absolutely obvious to me that the right thing to do — the only thing I can do — is work it out for myself.
RKMK, yeah I grew up in Canada too. Doesn’t make a difference, this imagery is European in origin and has been used to justify genocidal colonialism for centuries. But no biggie, I was just offering it in case anyone was interested in the wake of this discussion. If not, carry on.
Amanda wrote:
I think it’s more that people’s professional successes inch them closer to “icon” status, and as such, they become convenient dumping grounds for a lot of very legitimate grievances, even if they personally have no responsibility for causing them.
I have no doubt that happens; however, in this particular case, Amanda *does* have responsibility here. The book cover has both a racist image and her name on it. Amanda professes to love the book cover. Amanda hasn’t shown that she wants to do anything to try to change the cover to something that does not have a frankly, gratuitously racist image; instead, she denies that it’s a problem because some people somewhere will always have some kind of problem.
The fact that Amanda doesn’t feel the image is racist, since she doesn’t intend for it to be racist, doesn’t change the fact that many people of color will feel the negative, racist impact of the image. And in her refusal to address that, Amanda has responsibility for this negative impact.
As a European, I think it’s a bit rich to see Americans dismiss the experiences of the rest of the world in the name of anti-racism.
Apparently, the English-speaking people reading it in Europe, Canada, Australia, etc. need not concern themselves with the racism of the image, since the racism is ostensibly just American, not global. American readers, however, do need to confront that, so excuse me if I think discussing the American racism of the cover art on a book published by an American author is important. And excuse me if I don’t think non-American perspectives, especially those uninformed as to the context of racism in which this book is being published, are particularly useful to this discussion.
Brooklynite, whatever opinion most supports the status quo is always the least anti-racist option. If the status quo is you allowing your daughter to wear a King Kong costume and you receive 1 argument in favor of it, and 1 argument against it, chances are, the one that doesn’t support the status quo is the anti-racist option.
Also, it is not anti-racist to base your activities on whether or not someone is “likely” to express distaste or discomfort, as you suggested was your measuring stick in the King Kong costume example. The likelihood that oppressed nonwhite people will say they are offended is not as high as the likelihood that they will feel offended and it is this feeling of offense, not just the expression of offense, that we should seek to avoid.
Re: the non-Americans, what the hell? It’s great if the book has no racist import for non-American readers (though I’m doubtful), but it will still be read by a lot of Americans.
Okay now i get it. Justicewalks is a super sharp parody of the sanctimonius progressive! I didn’t even see the satire at first.
Well done.
I would think that if the illustrator wanted to be racist he would’ve drawn a stereotypical cariacature of an african “native”. It’s not like racists of the 1930’s had to express their racism in subtle ways. They weren’t exactly known for their sensitivity.
Take the Guerilla Girls example. Let’s say that I show you one of their posters, and you tell me it’s racist. Let’s say that I discover later that the poster was created by a woman of color, and she makes an argument that it’s not racist. What’s my obligation as a white person? Do I try to find a third person of color to break the tie? Do I go with whichever person of color has the most expansive conception of racism? Or do I study and think and reflect and ask questions and try my best to find an answer that’s coherent to me?
A person whose goal is to avoid perpetuating racism can always just reflect, “Some people find this racist, and other don’t; since I’m not going to be dressing up in gorilla outfits or presenting images of anthropomorphic gorillas, I don’t really need to determine who’s definitively right in this particular situation. I’ve learned from this discussion that there will be a lot of people for whom this kind of gorilla imagery will rub open wounds, so I’m going to choose to avoid using that imagery myself.”
Also, I don’t see how anyone could not see the racism in this. It was the first thing I thought of, not because I’m especially perceptive, but because, like most people (or so I thought), I am familiar with the standard cultural criticism of the movie King Kong.
By the way, last year’s version of that movie, amazingly, managed to be more explicitly racist than the old one–so yeah, not so “historical.”
And excuse me if I don’t think non-American perspectives, especially those uninformed as to the context of racism in which this book is being published, are particularly useful to this discussion.
Excuse me if I think your americano-centric vision is xenophobia in disguise, but I’m just an “uninformed” European, I suppose. European history is rife with racist images, esp. related to the colonies, but they mainly depicted stereotypical natives, not apes. But I guess the whole idea that racist imagery is different from one country to the other is just unenlightened because WHO CARES WHAT NON-AMERICANS THINK? After all, it’s not like non-Americans will be able to buy that book from Amazon, right?
I would think that if the illustrator wanted to be racist he would’ve drawn a stereotypical cariacature of an african “native”. It’s not like racists of the 1930’s had to express their racism in subtle ways. They weren’t exactly known for their sensitivity.
The racism is not subtle. The racism is part of a racist trope that says people with African ancestry are more like apes than humans. This sort of drawing, which was incredibly common, makes this trope blatantly, blazingly obvious, i.e., is the opposite of subtle.
These kinds of images do leave out the step of explicitly linking the anthropomorphized ape to a person of African ancestry, which means some people drawing or engaging with these images perpetuate that racist link unconsciously rather than deliberately, but that still does not mean the racism is subtle.
We are talking about racism against black descendants of slaves in America, Scarlet. If you have something relevant to add to that discussion, you are free to do so. But your claims that the image would not be considered racist in Europe has diddly squat to do with the discussion we’re having now, which is about the racist connotations this image will have for readers in the USA, from which racist shores the author hails.
Perhaps you should start a side thread about the ways in which darker races (slavs and eastern Europeans included) have been likened to animals in the Old Country. That would be more useful than trying to get Americans to agree that the gorilla imagery is not racist within the context of America’s anti-black culture.
Once again, how does the cover not reinforcing racism outside of America in any way mitigate it reinforcing racism in America? It’s not that the non-Americans’ points here aren’t interesting or valid, just that they’re irrelevant.
WHO CARES WHAT NON-AMERICANS THINK?
Really, so discussing how this affects people in America, and being of the opinion that it will hurt a large amount of people in America who have been on the receiving end of this particular racist image is equivalent of “Fuck the Non-Americans”? Okay, this is officially funnier than BlogWarBot.
Excuse me if I think your americano-centric vision is xenophobia in disguise, but I’m just an “uninformed” European, I suppose. European history is rife with racist images, esp. related to the colonies, but they mainly depicted stereotypical natives, not apes. But I guess the whole idea that racist imagery is different from one country to the other is just unenlightened because WHO CARES WHAT NON-AMERICANS THINK? After all, it’s not like non-Americans will be able to buy that book from Amazon, right?
Scarlet: It’s true, the consideration that some people in some cultures might not be offended by a book cover for a book written and published in the US primarily for a US audience is irrelevant to the fact that the book cover will offend many people in the US and elsewhere.
That isn’t xenophobia; it’s the fact that lack of offense in some contexts does not mitigate the offense the cover will cause in many of the contexts it will be found in.
I certainly do not claim to have a deep knowledge of America’s anti-black culture, nor do I “want Americans to agree that the gorilla imagery is not racist” in the US. I am merely pointing out that the racism so obvious to some in that image is not necessarily obvious to everyone else, because our cultural contexts are different. I’m obviously not commenting on American experiences of racism, I was rather objecting to the condescension which was expressed several times towards non-Americans, implying that if their perception of an image is different, it just means that they’re stupid and/or unenlightened. I’m absolutely willing to acknowledge differences of perception, I find it quite obvious, I just don’t like to be dismissed out of hand just because of my nationality.
I’d say “some people,” but okay.
Yup. I certainly would never create a book cover that used an image like the one here, and after this discussion, I think I might well veto the Kong costume.
But you’re describing exactly the kind of judgment I engage in all the time, and which I think white people have an obligation to engage in. I know that some people find the term “picnic” offensive, because they believe that it has a racist etymology. Does that mean I shouldn’t use the term? Maybe, if the likelihood of offense is high — if I were speaking on a campus that had just had a huge blow-up over the issue, it would be obnoxious, and maybe even racist, of me to go out of me to go out of my way to use the term. But that’s a judgment call that I’d have to make, and though justicewalks’ opinion on the question might sway me one way or another, it might just as well not.
I think she should change the cover photo to a large nosed jew carrying the white woman. Then Europeans won’t feel left out of the historical racism conversation and we can all reflect on our common badness as whiteys.
I refer back to an earlier comment here; once upon a time, I used the phrase “call a spade a spade”, and another poster started flaming me, calling me a racist, insinuating that my ancestors had owned slaves, asked if I’d dragged anyone behind my car recently. I was totally bewildered, and it wasn’t some “guise of ignorance” of American culture - I had never heard the word “spade” used in any other way than referring to playing cards, or gardening. I’m sorry, while I’m sure there are degrees of racism in Canada, it is nowhere near that of the U.S., and to this day I have never heard another person refer to a black person as a “n-”, let alone a “spade”, in real life.
And as it happens, that person who was so familiar with the derogatory term was wrong. They had personally experienced someone using the term in a derogatory manner, and then heard the phrase “calling a spade a spade” and had assumed that the phrase was racist. And it isn’t. They were totally wrong, overreacting, and taking offense to something that did not have racist or derogatory origins or intentions.
While I admit a shelter of white privilege (and, I suppose, Canadianness), I’m with Brooklynite. The image is not universally considered inherently racist. Anthropomorphicized images of animals abound over pop culture, literature, movies, including gorillas - I never got a “GORILLA = EVIL BLACK MAN” vibe from say, George of the Jungle, or Tarzan, both American productions.
Context counts. Intent counts.
And who are you to dictate whose opinions are useful to any discussion? You really are irony-deficient, aren’t you?
I’m on my way out the door, so I don’t know if I’ll get another chance to post to this thread. Just wanted to note, though, that my moderation-locked comment from earlier has surfaced — it’s at #215, and it links to several cartoons depicting caricatures of Kong and Fay Wray. I’d be eager to hear what the critics of the book cover think about the racial subtext of those, and about whether they crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed.
I have to agree with Serena Kitt.
It’s interesting to see a few people dismiss her concerns so disdainfully, rather than addressing the issue head on and asking for more info.
Just supporting Serena Kitt’s comment.
I’m glad a feminist book is coming out, but disappointed to see a few people reacting so dismissively to concerns about the cover.
After viewing this discussion and Amanda’s responses, I can’t see this site in the same light any more. Why do people spend time dissecting and mocking sexist imagery while arguing to the point of hair-splitting about what constitutes racist imagery? Every argument for why the cover image is not racist can be equally applied to any kind of sexist image as well.
and though justicewalks’ opinion on the question might sway me one way or another, it might just as well not.
Luckily, the racism of your actions will be judged, not as as reflection of my opinions, but as a function of the amount of racist offense you cause, “critically” thought out or not.
RKMK, you are obviously not very bright if you think non-American perspectives are particularly relevant to a discussion of the racist cover of an American book published in America for a mostly American audience.
If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t contribute to discussions of the assassination of that Dutch filmographer a few years back. My American perspectives of racism have nothing to do with the religion-influenced racism Europeans feel against citizens/immigrants with Muslim or Arab backgrounds.
This idea that American and European or Canadian racism are totally separate is wrong. We have plenty of ant-Muslim racism here. And have you ever seen “Tintin in the Congo”?
Why do people spend time dissecting and mocking sexist imagery while arguing to the point of hair-splitting about what constitutes racist imagery?
FYI, I have stubbornly refused to enter any opinion on whether or not there is a definitive interpretation. There are plenty of good arguments on all sides, and I absolutely refuse to sign onto anything, since that’s basically a no-win situation. Please do not spread the misinformation that I entered an opinion in any way, which is what people are trying to provoke me to do so the flamewar can really spin out of control.
I think she should change the cover photo to a large nosed jew carrying the white woman.
I just beg and plead for attempts to flamewar to even try to even remotely seem accurate. Please keep in mind that I did not draw this or choose it. Not that I am committing to an opinion on it, just that you are stating that book authors control the marketing in ways they don’t. It would be helpful to flame with some at least nod towards the facts on the ground.
I’m writing to support Serena Kitt’s comment. It’s good that a feminist book is coming out, but very disappointing to see some folks reacting so dismissively to concerns about the cover.
(Having trouble reading the antispam numbers, so I’m sorry if more comments show up.)
Yes, I agree that they are not entirely separate, but they are obviously different enough that Europeans find themselves unable to identify with American racism. We certainly have anti-Muslim sentiment in America, but it doesn’t define our racism the way black/white matters do. In America, Muslims (or at least people perceived to be Muslim) end up somewhat higher on the white privilege scale than blacks, as a result of their typically closer-to-white-than-black appearance, coupled with the economic middle-man position they often occupy as mediators between black people’s need for goods and white people’s supply.
It’s not quite the same as it is in Europe where Muslims/Arabs often make up the bulk of nonwhite residents and are therefore more readily available as targets than they are here. Plus, like I said, Europeans often see their hatred for Muslims/Arabs as a religious thing, rather than a racist thing, which muddies the waters. (I’m aware that racists in America also try to disquise their racism as anti-baggy pants-ism or whatever, but this is not as common as racism denial in Europe).
Never seen Tintin in the Congo.
CK, totally with you on that hook-nosed Jew idea for the cover of the book. Could we make it one of those posters where the Jews were likened to vermin and had rats’ tails in addition to the schnauz? Then we could talk about how the existence of Mickey Mouse means that not all portrayals of Jews, I mean vermin, with hooked noses and rats’ tails are racist.
Amanda, you’ve already given your opinion. You find the claims of racism spurious, petty, and unworthy of your consideration because you’re successful. You don’t care if the image is racist and hurtful because that’s not what you intended us to take from it. You won’t denouce the image because that would make explicit your understanding that, depsite your intentions, the image retains its racist connotations, and doing something you know to have racist connotations, instead of something you might be willing to consider has racist connotations for the “few complainers in this thread” or whatever you called us a while back, is to take the step from plausible deniability into racism.
We all know you didn’t draw the image. We just know you are happy with it, which isn’t much better. Are you going to start arguing that rednecks have to hand-stitch their own Confederate Flags before they can be considered racist for waving them?
I’m probably not going to make any friends here, and may lose a few. I hope not, but I’ll say my piece anyway.
Amanda, if you don’t want to voice any discomfort about the book cover, that’s your prerogative–I know you’d said in the post that it rocked your socks off. It would have rocked mine off as well if it was a White guy being Tarzan. But this cover makes me really uncomfortable for all of the reasons previously stated.
I don’t see anyone here making pointless flames–there was criticism and concern over the cover, coupled with good wishes for the book.
If I were in your shoes, I’d feel defensive. I won’t assume that’s how you feel, but I’m guessing it’s in the ballpark. This could be an opportunity to continue a dialog about racism–you’ve had several people of color comment on how hurtful the image is. People here get the fact that you don’t have a lot of control over the cover; I think that what’s rankling people is the fact that they don’t feel like they’re being heard or respected.
Given the fact that so many women of color have felt shut out of feminism, and silenced and ignored within the movement, I hope you consider what justicewalks and other people have said. I don’t think they’re eagerly offended; you and I have heard this before from anti-feminists and conservatives and rolled our eyes at this.
To everyone here insisting the discussion is America-centric: Seriously? I’ve lived overseas, and have seen this sort of imagery used to denigrate people of color, especially Black people. And the fact that people of color are supposed to STFU for the sake of White folks outside of North America is just plain ludicrous.
“I knew releasing this cover would result in a flamewar. I couldn’t predict what it was and didn’t have the time to try to guess.”
Uh, you said many comments earlier that you and others had a running bet on what it would be. Both of which statements imply dismissal of, rather than pointlessness-to-address, the well-articulated critiques in this thread.
Also - I had a book come out last year. Yeah, it is a really heady time, and a busy one, and no I did not have full say on what my cover would be. And, like you, I loved my cover, not the least of which because it saved me from a cartoonish cover the publishers had earlier proposed. Publishers and their art departments are sometimes completely bonkers when it comes to book covers. Writers don’t have NO say - even if I hadn’t proposed the cover we eventually went with, they wouldn’t have used that intensely bad one I hated. Still, technically a publisher can be lame and say they don’t care how you feel, they’re going with x cover. It doesn’t sound like that’s the case here, so I’m not sure what the relevance is of who made the final call - all parties were in agreement, as was the case with me.
And I understand what it’s like to not want to be brought down from the high. “Most authors never succeed in getting famous or supporting themselves through writing alone, let alone book-writing,” was water in my face, and I would have liked certain people to not greet me with that reality when it was so pleasant to fantasize, in the early moments, about finally having things I wanted to have and also maybe gettintg laid out of the deal. Joy killers, no motherfucking kidding.
The thing is, if anyone had said to me (cut to me daydreaming that anyone was actually paying attention) that the book cover OR the subject matter was problematic from a feminist or anti-racist point of view, I would feel like, as a feminist and racism-hater, it would be like breathing to AT THE LEAST hear it and consider it. Not some great exercise in openmindedness or magnanimous-ness, not a big effort in the middle of my rocket to greatness, and definitely not something to dismiss as being pointless to address because some other people are muckracking assholes and always will be.
What does it mean to care about others at all if their concerns are things I can either choose to generously turn my attention to or righteously refuse to be brought down by? Does everybody have the equal ability to put racism out of their minds, whether it be their own or someone else’s, when the topic is, ahem, a downer? Or are the consequences of it a constant in some people’s lives and not others?
Amanda,
If it is a joke, it is in very poor taste. Honestly, when I first saw the picture, I thought you were using it as a fake cover to make some commentary about racism. But if it is really going to be on the cover, I’m shocked and disgusted.
What the hell does a King Kong looking gorilla carrying a blonde white woman have to do with fighting anti-feminists? I can’t imagine you writing anything related to the actual cover. And it is fairly evident that you had some influence over the cover, which make me feel much more comfortable criticizing you directly. I thought you would know better than this.
That’s pretty sad…The last thing we need is more stupid white feminist tricks to execerbate the divides between between women.
Rachel S.
Dear Amanda,
When all is said and done, remember that everyone is here because of your blood, sweat, and tears. I admire your ability to see past the flame wars, and congratulations on the book
Northern Virginia
i second much of what has already been said by people objecting to the racist nature of this cover. i felt the same as soon as i saw the cover.
why is it that people of color all over the world are familiar with the king kong story as racist allegory, but european and canadian white people on this thread are unfamiliar with it? also, this is specific to the story of king kong; it is not that gorillas by default represent black men, it is that this is a specific allegory in which they do, and this specific allegory is what is being represented on this cover.
why is this thread riddled with, “you’re the REAL racist for bring it up”?
why are the multiple opinions of both people of color and white allies being dismissed here?
why, after a well known and well documented history of white women’s feminism being condescending and unconcerned with women of color, do we still have to go through this?
this is ridiculous.
i think this comment deserves one more go-around, since it got ignored the first time:
#
lizvelrene
August 21, 2007 at 6:47 pm
People with any background in the history of racist imagery will recognize this image immediately. There is no reason to use this image, particularly when the book WON’T be covering race issues and will leave the image unaddressed. Please, please, please change the cover if at all possible. I’m asking as someone who really wants to buy the book. Someone who’s been reading your blog since Mouse Words, incidentally, and who’s not trying to torpedo your book. I sent dozens of emails over the whole Donahue nonsense, defended you at the Edwards site and at Pandagon way back when you first came here.. I guess you could say I’m a fan. Please consider that the people speaking up over this are worth hearing out and that what they have to say matters. Ignoring it will only prove your critics right.
I agree (with comments 267/145). This would be a great cover if the book had a subtitle having to do with race.
As it is, I find it jarring and disturbing… not in a funny ironic way, but in an “ick ick avert eyes” way.
I admit I didn’t catch it at first, and also that now that I do see it, I’d choose not to use the cover if I were Amanda and she had the power to change it.
But I don’t think there’s any innate feminist presumption that a “politically hostile environment” to feminists is one dominated by Black men, rather than White men. So the racist reading, while it would be the obvious first one for many people, isn’t the intended one.
Not that intention washes it all away, of course.
justicewalks: I don’t know anything about the Guerilla Girls. I’m sure that I would find their use of gorilla costumes offensive as well because I’ve personally never seen any use of a gorilla costume that didn’t involve the “gorilla” raping (if male) or forcefully “mothering” (if female) a terrified human being.
I recommend The Pink Panther for another reading of the gorilla costume.
Potential better retro images:
http://www.leconcombre.com/serials/junglegirl/thrilling62.jpg
http://www.leconcombre.com/serials/junglegirl/rima-junglegirl-1st.gif
http://www.atlastales.com/covers/1846.jpg
also, this is specific to the story of king kong; it is not that gorillas by default represent black men,
actually i think the history IS broader than just king kong — see someone else’s comment above that mentioned the long tradition of implying (or even directly stating, under the guise of “racial science”) that people of african descent are closer to other animals than they are to white humans, and certainly closer to other animals than white humans are. which in fact is NOT just american but dates back to european colonialism. just wanted to re-add that.
What the hell does a King Kong looking gorilla carrying a blonde white woman have to do with fighting anti-feminists?
Well, phrased that way sort of begs the question. The better way to phrase that to be very fair is to point out that it’s a generalized throwback image. The use of retro imagery pretty much assumes an ironically prediposed viewer. What does a happy housewife showing off her pot roast have to do with fighting sexism? If you put it that way, it makes no sense. But if you look at the bigger picture—the fascination with retro iconography, the ironic glint, the title of the book—it’s easy to see why it was easy to be drawn to a fairly standard retro image that, in all fairness, is not read as racist by most people, even if there’s a meticulously documented history that this image had that meaning in prior times that a lot of people are unaware of.
Again, so no one can misconstrue my point, I’m not saying that the image is not racist. Nor am I saying it is. I am maintaining strongly that multiple interpretations by reasonable people are valid.
It would have rocked mine off as well if it was a White guy being Tarzan.
Well, as I said earlier upthread, I was sort of glad it wasn’t a man, because while I was not attuned to possible historical interpretations of this in the sense of racism, I did think that it was nice not to have it be a man. From a strict reading of “animal=jungle”, it’s better than a man, which implies things I don’t really engage in the book, namely man-hating or man-blaming.
If I were in your shoes, I’d feel defensive. I won’t assume that’s how you feel, but I’m guessing it’s in the ballpark. This could be an opportunity to continue a dialog about racism–you’ve had several people of color comment on how hurtful the image is.
I’m trying not to. But I disagree that these inevitable flamewars are a good opportunity. My definition of “good” opportunity is one where there’s a lot less chance of the discussion turning into a flamewar, a place where someone feels her career is being attacked, or there’s high personal feelings that interfere with the ability to take this calmly. I’m not even thinking of myself so much here; since a flamewar erupts over every success someone has, it creates this situation where concerns are less, not more, likely to be heard because they are part and parcel of a history of every success being followed by a flamewar. While I grasp that opportunities can seem few and far between, I would say the better ones are not the ones where it becomes about how this person is sexist or that person is racist in the wake of a career advancement, especially if we know for a fact that said person is generally a person of honor.
Again, I think I get it lightly. The inevitable flamewars around Jessica seem a lot worse, maybe because she’s more iconic of the feminist blogosphere than I could ever be. But using career successes as opportunities creates a defensive feedback loop that actually obscures instead of highlights the issues.
What does a happy housewife showing off her pot roast have to do with fighting sexism? If you put it that way, it makes no sense. But if you look at the bigger picture—the fascination with retro iconography, the ironic glint, the title of the book—it’s easy to see why it was easy to be drawn to a fairly standard retro image that, in all fairness, is not read as racist by most people, even if there’s a meticulously documented history that this image had that meaning in prior times that a lot of people are unaware of.
Of course an ironic, retro image of a happy housewife showing off her pot roast has to do with fighting sexism when it’s used in conjunction with a message that states that the happy housewife is not a woman’s ordained or natural role; in that context, the picture gets across the idea “Isn’t it silly to think that the best way for women to find happiness is in serving pot roast? And, yet, this picture shows people *have* thought that, and that’s why I’m discussing the problems I am here.”
A retro image based primarily on racism and that is incidentally sexist in the way it conceives of white women as white men’s property in danger of being stolen by black men (and that, actually, *is* read as racist by most people who are sensitive to racism, and that perpetuates racist tropes still active and harmful today), however, does nothing to help fight sexism (unless it’s used in conjunction with a text that explicitly discusses and argues against the racism and sexism of viewing white women as white men’s property). And, at the same time the image fails to fight sexism, it does, no matter how unintentionally, hurt people who are sensitive to racism.
So, no, the situations are not the same at all.
I’m not even thinking of myself so much here; since a flamewar erupts over every success someone has, it creates this situation where concerns are less, not more, likely to be heard because they are part and parcel of a history of every success being followed by a flamewar. While I grasp that opportunities can seem few and far between, I would say the better ones are not the ones where it becomes about how this person is sexist or that person is racist in the wake of a career advancement, especially if we know for a fact that said person is generally a person of honor.
I also think it’s pretty shameful for Amanda to keep referring to this discussion as a “flamewar.” People in this thread are, in good faith, pointing out why the cover is problematic, and the thread goes on while other people are trying to argue that it is not problematic. Voicing concerns is very different from flaming.
And, in contrast to Amanda’s perception of the discussion, no one started out saying, “This person is racist”–people were pointing out that the image on the cover is racist and, for the benefit of people blinded by white privilege, took the time to give detailed explanations of how it is racist and why it is hurtful.
However, it does not speak well for Amanda as “a person of honor” that she feels people’s are not “likely to be heard ” in this kind of situation, when, in this particular situation, she is the one actively choosing not to hear very reasonably stated concerns specific to an object tied in with her success as an about-to-be-published author, because of her feeling that it’s not useful to voice concerns in connection with someone’s success. She is the one preventing the voicing of those concerns from being useful when the extent of her engaging with these problems consists of basically saying, “The interpretation of people who don’t have a problem with the image is just as important as the interpretation of people who are negatively impacted by the racism of the image, so I will do nothing to address or even acknowledge the racism and negative impact.” The reaction that Amanda seems to think is so neutral and reasonable is, in fact, inflammatory to people who believe that those who would call themselves allies should do their best not to do things that negatively impact them.
Hello! Welcome to The Furor Over Jessica’s Book Cover, Part II!
A/k/a, You Can’t Please Everyone, Part the MCVIIth.
Concerns heard. As you can see in the post now, she took the thread to the publisher and they are reconsidering.
A/k/a, You Can’t Please Everyone, Part the MCVIIth.
But you can listen to them. Just saying.
Done and done, JG.
And yeah, personally, I hope whomever can make this decision will decide to change the cover to a less offensive, yet ironic retro image. I absolutely love the idea of a Tarzan/Jane retro pic, of which there are MANY.
Um, oops. Yeah, sorry, PM, I crossposted with you at first, and I hadn’t read the blurb at the top until now. Very sorry.
No prob there, JG. Amanda’s in a tough spot, b/c there’s only so much say she has in the matter (aka, suggestions only). And she certainly couldn’t be expected to come out and denounce her own publisher without first being given some space to broach the subject with them behind the scenes.
All in all, I think this was a really interesting and useful discussion, and I’m hopeful the publisher will consider something we can all enjoy.
holy shit, i just wanted to say, thanks amanda for taking the above concerns to the publisher.
i really sympathize that you probably felt (and feel) that no matter how you respond to a complaint, people will say you should have done otherwise or have fucked up somewhere else. i do. but i also am happy that you considered what was voiced. it isn’t about bossing you around or scoring a point or getting the blogger to obey, even though i know that’s what it was like with donohue etc — i’m just frankly relieved that you ultimately felt it was worth bringing to attention, and it’d be great to get to unequivocally cheer when i finally see the book on shelves.
for the record, i am a huge fan of found kitsch art too, especially of the 1930s-60s variety, and i liked the feel that i thought you MEANT to go for, but i thought there was other art out there that could achieve that feel better.
er, and “found” is not the same thing as in “found art”, my bad, i shouldn’t throw words around so cavalierly.
#
But you can listen to them. Just saying.
Oh, you can listen, and that’s a good thing, but it’s also a good thing to know when to stop listening, lest you be deafened by the din.
Congratulations.I think it will go well. I hope everyone understands the awkward spot you are in. For the record, the racist connotation was obvious. Well played. Amanda.
I think you probably made the right move. It doesn’t make sense to let your first book (congratulations, by the way) be tainted by reactions to this obviously charged picture. Since I may have already been typecast as one of those privileged white people who just doesn’t get it (we’ll leave the Native American side of my family out of this for now) let me say for the record that while I’m still put off by the self-righteous, arrogant posturing of one particular poster on this thread (you know who you are), the many others who have chimed in are enough to leave me agreeing that this particular image has way too much historical baggage to be treated lightly, and I thank you all for the schooling.
I can only say in my defense that I have a genuine fondness for gorillas (the actual animal as opposed to the symbol) and enjoy seeing them show up in unexpected places. Of course, real gorillas are peaceful vegetarians who don’t attack humans…hmmm, it could’ve been worse: at least we didn’t have a 300-post flamewar on animal rights.
Thank you so very much, Amanda, for doing what you could do about the situation. Right now you are probably thinking that it won’t do any good, that the complaints will continue… I hope that the people on this thread prove you wrong. In a good way!
-Megan
Amanda, I’m so happy you decided to go back to the publisher. It’s the right thing to do.
I’m glad you decided to bring it up with the publisher. I hope they’ll come up with another cover that’s still retro and ironic.
Agreed, thanks for taking the concens seriously, Amanda, and congratulations on the book, I will definitely be buying it.
J Neo, thanks for saying what you did, and I’m glad you feel you were *schooled* by some of the things you read. For the record, though, that loudest voice that you referenced was, IMO, absolutely necessary for so many others to feel OK with chiming in. Also, saying someone is “self-righteous” and “arrogant” for being unapologetic and vehement in identifying racism and privilege sounds dangerously like calling them “uppity.” People who have lived with oppression shouldn’t have to be *polite* and make their message more palatable for us to listen and know it’s valid.
I maintain that it’s ill-advised to flame every single time someone has a success, because as you can see, it creates the sense that it’s the successes themselves that are being attacked, and makes it hard to differ between legitimate complaints and taking potshots.
I won’t comment on my book, but on Jessica’s, I felt the complaints were 99.5% short-sighted. The use of non-headed women on book covers is a fairly common marketing ploy for books aimed at young women, because it’s believed that it inclines the customer to project herself into the cover itself. It’s the same technique used in the iPod ads that show shadows of people but not their faces. You can, if you want, argue that it’s dehumanizing and sexist, but since it’s well know that it’s actually an attempt to personalize the cover, people who know this will think you’re a crank. The naked stomach/sexual objectification angle had a minor hook, but considering the double entendre of the title, it was actually pretty mild nudity. The fact that the model was white is a no-win situation—it would have been a million times worse to use a woman of color as a model for a book written by a white woman. The incongruity would have seemed far more racist and a clear-cut case of exploitation. The overall project of analyzing Jessica’s book for evil lurking under the surface struck me as a bit silly; surely we can approach our allies with a bit more generosity than we’d give a book by Wendy McElroy, right? And yet sometimes I feel it’s the opposite going on with people’s wariness of Jessica.
i really sympathize that you probably felt (and feel) that no matter how you respond to a complaint, people will say you should have done otherwise or have fucked up somewhere else. i do.
I do, but I also realize there’s occasions when people of good will can see a point. I’m under no illusions that we’re going to avoid future flaming over the next steps I take with this book, but I’m hoping people of good will will see the difference between genuine concerns and flamewars that erupt due to the inevitability issues I’ve reiterated above.
I’m not doing anything to be congratulated. In fact, it makes me uneasy, though I appreciate the sentiments. Because I’d at least like to believe I act out of my own sense of what’s right and not because of pressure campaigns.
Good move, Amanda. Now obviously I will never see substantive anti-racist critique as mere success-related flaming, so I guess we can forget about finding common ground there; but in any case it seems you’re doing the right thing in the wake of this (quite civil, I felt) discussion and I think that a better cover can only be good for your book sales, your career success, and the world.
I’m under no illusions that we’re going to avoid future flaming over the next steps I take with this book, but I’m hoping people of good will will see the difference between genuine concerns and flamewars that erupt due to the inevitability issues I’ve reiterated above.
You keep insinuating that this has been a flamewar, Amanda. It’s very unbecoming, not to mention insulting, that you can’t manage to address our concerns without doing a simultaneous figurative eyeroll at our supposed pettiness.
Perhaps you’d do us all the honor of pointing out the “difference between genuine concerns and flamewars” in this thread, since you imply that some the expressions of outrage here were genuine and some were not. I’d be very interested to know how you’ve distinguished the two. I hope it has nothing to do with the long-standing discomfort social superiors have felt with uppitiness from those beneath them, which rebeccab so perceptively discerned in the tortured ravings of your dear sycophant, J Neo Marvin.
Justicewalks,
It would be easier to take your point if you weren’t ignoring the big issue (that she listened) and continued to stick to the small one (whether this constitutes a flamewar).
Most of the comments here have been fine. Some have been petty and inflammatory. Flamewar may be in the eye of the beholder, but is that _really_ the issue here? Because suggesting that her use of the word “flamewar” means she doesn’t like it when you’re “uppity” sure makes it sounds like you’re working to paint her into a racist corner no matter what. And that, friend, would be a flamewar.
Well, Faletti, that figurative eyeroll she’s affecting with the “flamewar” talk looks a lot like the nudge, nudge, wink, wink white folks and men always slip in whenever there have been “pressure campaigns” against their racism and sexism. Amanda painted herself into a racist corner by foisting responsibility for the grudging reconsideration of her cover art on a so-called “pressure campaign” consisting of a few unconnected commenters to her blog.
If Amanda were truly interested in presenting herself as a conscientious person who “act[s] out of [her] own sense of what’s right and not because of pressure campaigns,” which are her words, she’d do well to leave out all the overblown talk of “pressure campaigns,” then, as if the offended comprise some sort of conspiracy group of influential moneyed white men like Donahue’s get-up. If Amanda hadn’t explicitly said that she sought to see herself as conscientious, I wouldn’t have pointed out the way in which she has failed to demonstrate altruism.
So, yeah, thanks for heeding our concerns enough to take it up with your publishers, Amanda, but if you made the same nudge-wink to overburdened put-upon white folks there as you did here (and, really, even if you didn’t; why put it here if you didn’t take it there?), don’t cry flamewar when people see that as underhanded.
Well, Faletti, that figurative eyeroll she’s affecting with the “flamewar” talk looks a lot like the nudge, nudge, wink, wink white folks and men always slip in whenever there have been “pressure campaigns” against their racism and sexism. Amanda painted herself into a racist corner by foisting responsibility for the grudging reconsideration of her cover art on a so-called “pressure campaign” consisting of a few unconnected commenters to her blog.
Hmm. For this _not_ to be a flamewar, this thread would have to be a substantive discussion of whether or not the cover was objectionable on grounds of racism. And from where I sit, Amanda not only heeded the commentary but fought for it up the food chain. I’d say the substantive discussion was fruitful and that Amanda acted justly.
But your concern now (after she successfully fought for the same point you did) seems to be about whether or not Amanda is a true bigot.
If we’re to decide whether or not her her language used to describe the discussion now suddenly trumps the the discussion itself, or that it reveals her real secret racist agenda, we’re veering off the substantive path into uglier places that start to earn the word flamewar from _anyone’s_ vantage point.
In the context of her actions yesterday, I’d say your complaint looks a little misplaced in the big picture.
I didn’t complain, Faletti. I merely pointed out that if she’s really interested in coming off as the type of person who does what’s right because it’s right, and not because she was put-upon, she failed.
She didn’t have to say anything about wanting to come off as more conscientious than she has. She could have left it where she did, flamewar caveat and all. But she didn’t. She inserted the caveat, then expressed a desire that she not be seen as the type of person who’d need a caveat for doing the right thing. If this isn’t the right place to talk about that, perhaps she should have left off that part of her comment. I’m at no obligation to turn a blind eye to it.
She did what’s right. That’s more important than worrying how you sound while you do it.
Faletti, I didn’t start the conversation about how she sounds while doing it. She did.
Actually, what WOULD turn this into a “flamewar”, IMO, is third parties deciding who is *arguing fairly* vs. *attacking*, based in part on whether they appear appropriately *appeased*, and proceeding to shape the discussion into one in which it becomes necessary to “take sides”, as either an attacker of Amanda or a defender. Surely we are more sophisticated than that.
Also framing my point that way would also be the kind of disservice that starts a flamewar.
My only point is it’s hard to get legit points through when there’s a lot of noise and bomb-throwing—which there has been in the past over other issues, such as being Playboy Magazine, Jessica’s book cover, Jessica meeting the President, etc.—that is actually unjustified. I wasn’t kidding when I said that I was gearing up for a fight about some other aspect, especially the nekkidness.
I’m really looking forward to this book coming out; and I’m glad Amanda has taken the concerns about the cover to the publisher. I think that if it were to Amanda, the cover would end up being changed; but that’s a fantasy world. It’s not up to Amanda.
I think Amanda has a good point about the way that public successes are, in effect, punished in the feminist blogosphere. I still remember when I was invited to be a guest on Janine Garafalo’s radio show - a personal high point for me, since I’m a big fan of Garafalo’s - and the flame-roasting I got from some feminists in my comments over that.
I’m not saying people were wrong to criticize the cover art for Amanda’s book. Frankly, I agree with the criticism of the cover image. But the particulars of the current controversy aside, there’s a disturbing pattern formed.
I think Amanda’s right to say that in general, the environment of our blogging community doesn’t foster healthy, constructive criticism being heard. I think Amanda’s right to say that there may be no way for her to really engage with the criticisms without screwing herself over or feeling that people are sifting through her words for ammo to be held against her on a later occasion. And for those folks who do have healthy, constructive criticisms to offer, that should be a legitimate concern.
Obviously, I don’t think the solution is for critics to shut up — I don’t advocate that. I don’t even know what the solution is. But there must be something better than the way we are doing this sort of thing now.
No, Marc, framing your point that way would be *accurate*.
Enough from me now.
I wrote, “I think Amanda’s right to say that there may be no way for her to really engage with the criticisms without screwing herself over or feeling that people are sifting through her words for ammo to be held against her on a later occasion.”
Just to clarify, I’m not saying that it’s necessarily anyone currently on this thread who will be “sifting” words this way. But it’s not as if this thread is a private conversation.
If I never hear the words “it was meant to be ironic” again, I would have heard them too soon. Oh and RKMK, the clueless Canadian, I’m an African Canadian and I had a strong reaction to the cover and the images it conjures. You know why? It’s because I’m not an ignorant buffoon who thinks racism and racist images are an American problem
Also, saying someone is “self-righteous” and “arrogant” for being unapologetic and vehement in identifying racism and privilege sounds dangerously like calling them “uppity.”
DO NOT put words in my mouth. I meant exactly what I said.
If I never hear the words “it was meant to be ironic” again, I would have heard them too soon.
I’m really not trying to make hay, but I think it’s wise not to make sweeping generalizations. I’m as guilty as the next person, but this is the sort of thing that creates noise. I think that there’s obviously room for certain ironic imagery. It would be a colder world without campiness, even if some things don’t quite make themselves as available for campy reclaiming as others. Finding the ironic value in a minstrel show might be close to impossible, but, as an example hanging over my computer right now, the cover art from a swinging singles cookbook from the 70s called “Sex Pots And Pans”? Absolutely.
I stand by what I said, especially when it comes to whites using images with obvious racial and racist undertones (or maybe you were just too blind to see it). If you want to use sterotypcal images and say it’s ironic, I won’t stop you. But be prepared to have a proper argument, and not just “Oh you’re too dumb to get it”
rebeccab,
Sorry you feel that way. My point, to be clear: Amanda’s actions as a result of this thread should be factored in when lobbing accusations of racist intent behind words used to describe this thread. Is that asking for divisive factions and for people to get all in a tizzy choosing sides? Not as far as I can tell.
Justicwalks is clear and articulate and sharp and right-on. If that equals “self-righteous and arrogant,” sign me the motherfuck up.
Long comment, but I hope it’s of value.
libertywalks: Perhaps you’d do us all the honor of pointing out the “difference between genuine concerns and flamewars” in this thread, since you imply that some the expressions of outrage here were genuine and some were not.
What turns it into a flamewar is characterizing people, not actions or attitudes. I can stop doing X and become less offensive. But If I am a Y, I’m always going to be a worthless fucking Y and I should just close up shop and go home.
The flames can be sparked by genuine outrage, and they can be appropriate when other things aren’t working. But they’re rarely an effective first response.
When you say that you hope that Amanda won’t be doing that “us put-upon white people eyeroll,” you’re characterizing her, not her actions, becuase you’re predicting some action as a racist action consistent with a racist mindset. That’s unfair. And in light of my admittedly casual online experience with her (which stretches back to, oh, 1995), I believe it’s totally off base.
This reminds me of the discussion last year about Biden calling Obama “articulate.”
Some people were unaware of the insult. When it was explained to them, some got it right away, or pretty quickly, for example after reading the blogosphere discussion that came out the year before.
Some people were unbelieving, having never heard it in this context, and demanded “proof” that it was an insulting phrase, then argued that it makes no “logical sense” so it doesn’t count.
Some used a slippery slope argument that we’re getting so PC removing words from use that soon we won’t be able to use any words at all.
Some said that, yes, it has been used in a racist context by others, but context is king and if it wasn’t meant as an insult then it shouldn’t be taken as one.
Eventually some of those people came around. Others did not.
When the discussion came up on a forum I frequent (alt.fan.miss-manners), some people kept telling me I was calling them racists, no matter how many times I told them I thought they probably weren’t trying to be offensive and just weren’t familiar with the problem. This became their excuse to ignore what I had to say, even when I didn’t say it.
It’s bad enough when people do this of their own volition. Don’t put yourself in the position of being ignorable right away to people who are, in my experience, hoping to be on your side.
And I know I can’t speak to your experience of people who should be on your side and aren’t. I know I don’t have your experience of frustration. But no one promised you it would be easy to try to change minds.
I also realize this is a lot like the whole “be nice to men, feminists, or you will be ignored” argument. But I think in this particular space, among these known people, we would do well to assume that most of us are of good intent, and that explanation rather than imprecation is the best first response.
I think Amanda would have been less defensive about the whole thing, more likely to engage rather than say “I don’t want to get into a flamewar,” if the disucssion had been phrased as “oh noes!!!” rather than “fucking idiot racist bitch.”
Duh, that should be “justicewalks”. Sorry.
whoa…
I think Amanda would have been less defensive about the whole thing, more likely to engage rather than say “I don’t want to get into a flamewar,” if the disucssion had been phrased as “oh noes!!!” rather than “fucking idiot racist bitch.”
You must have been reading at COMPLETELY different discussion than I was. Would you mind telling me where yours was being held?
If you want to use sterotypcal images and say it’s ironic, I won’t stop you. But be prepared to have a proper argument, and not just “Oh you’re too dumb to get it”
I don’t think I said that. I do think that different images have different potential. But I also think—have thought for long, long time with regards to other controversies of various degrees of validity—that the liberal blogs would be a lot better off if people extended generosity to each other and don’t assume the worst right away.
It was like the whole Twisty-is-transphobic thing or the accusations that Jesus General acted out of misogyny when lashing out at a blogger when it seems clear to me that he was just, like a lot of us, angry at what he thought was a wingnut attacking Steve Gilliard before he was even put in the ground. If I seem a little defensive, it’s because these events distressed me to no end, particularly with regard to the ugliness that erupted during a period when people should have aimed their energies to reminiscing about Steve and contemplating how we can honor his memory the best. It’s unproductive is all. I’m not saying that there’s no place for legitimate complaints, just a large tendency for illegitimate complaints and assuming-the-worst-of-allies that can make it much, much harder for real complaints to be heard.
One way that white people demonstrate good intent is by not speaking dismissively and dishonestly towards people of color who are quite civilly and brilliantly addressing racism. It is my experience that, rather than it being inevitable that a supposed flamewar would ensue (or that it even did here) when something good happens to someone else, it is inevitable that some, most?, white people will get defensive when confronted about what can at best be described as blindspots. It is the confrontation, and not the supposed tone of the confrontation, that determines the response.
I have read people talking about the cover, discussing its racist history and present day implications, defending Amanda, and flaming Justicwalks. That’s really the only flaming I’ve seen, actually.
And I’ve been guilty as hell of assuming the worst. And I feel sick about it, but the best I can do now is what I’ve been quietly trying to do, which is offer quiet, non-aggressive support of people I think are being unfairly accused of something. Now, I don’t think that’s the situation here—I think while a minority of people got into hyperbolic language that cast unfair assumptions about the mindsets of people who have real reasons not to think first of racism when presented with images from stories they think of in entirely different lights for various reasons—-mostly people in this thread refrained from tossing insults or saying that someone is stupid or racist or deliberately blind if they see things differently out of fairly innocent ignorance at worst. But I do realize that I was gearing up for an unfair battle, since they’re so common, and that concerns me.
I was on a panel at Yearly Kos about blogging while female and a couple audience members went over the line and generalized about insensitivity to these issues from liberal men, and one woman, who I do like a lot of course, said, “We have to hold our allies to the same standards, etc.” I don’t disagree with that, necessarily, but I see—not in this thread so much, which had a good substantive-comment-to-flame ration, but in others—a tendency to take that rule and translate as, “We can assume our allies who offend us come from the same mental place as our enemies.” I think that’s shooting ourselves in the foot.
It’s not really my place to speak on race issues, but I can say this on feminist issues—I do have a different standard for Jesus General, the guys at Sadly No, and even Markos when they do something that is or could be construed as sexist. I know that they’re not out to get me. I know that they generally and sometimes enthusiastically support feminism. I know well enough that if they say something, even completely out of line like the sanctimonious women’s studies set crap Markos spouted, that’s evidence of short tempers, defensiveness, or general human nature and not even close to evidence that they have some lurking agenda. The job of educating allies is a much different one, in my eyes, than the job of fighting enemies and requires a different set of tools.
Also, the tendency of the worst of these fights to be a direct result of the success magnet is something that is important to consider. Markos acted rashly because he felt his livelihood was being attacked. Sniffing around someone’s paycheck tends to get their backs up quickly. Should we all be better humans and less defensive when our livelihoods are wrapped up in this? Sure. We should all probably lose 10 pounds and visit our moms more.
I’m not really all too concerned about this. I’ve walked this off a lot and have concluded that this was actually on the reasonable side and has nothing in terms of hot tempers on some of the flamewars I’ve referenced here. Really, I don’t even know what my point is. On one hand, I feel bad that I hunkered down for a fight that didn’t actually happen (since another, more reasonable, one did), but on the other, it concerns me that there’s enough history there that I was hunkering down. I’m not sure what to make of it—part of the problem is that it’s often different people in different fights and there’s just a baseline noise issue.
“the liberal blogs would be a lot better off if people extended generosity to each other and don’t assume the worst right away.”
If you look at the thread, all of the people initially expressing criticism did in fact extend that generosity, going out of their way to say they were sure it wasn’t mean to be racist and offering congratulations on the book. It was only when those critics were, repeatedly, dismissed, mocked, and insulted that they began to lose patience.
“can make it much, much harder for real complaints to be heard.”
The passive voice here is telling. There was nothing preventing the real complaints from being heard except some people’s active refusal to hear them. There was nothing preventing anyone from exercising their judgment and deciding which comments were legitimate and which were “flames” (of which there were very few, if any).
I read but rarely comment on this blog. However this thread bothered me and seems very uncharacteristic of the usual standards of discussion around here.
wasn’t MEANT to be racist.
(of course it is mean to be racist)
I know, b. Maybe read the rest of my comments where I point that out? But it’s also worth noting I never actually denied anything.
The passive voice here is telling. There was nothing preventing the real complaints from being heard except some people’s active refusal to hear them.
It’s very easy to tell other people to strive for perfection. But when it’s your livelihood and your career and your baby on the line, maintaining that idealized distance is much harder to do.
I’m using the passive voice because I barely get close to the worst of it. I’m thinking of the ongoing problem of assuming the worst. This thread wasn’t a good example of that, actually. There were a few comments that were potshots that assumed the worst, and there were more comments that didn’t. It was admittedly hard to see that this wasn’t that bad, since 99% of the time, it’s really horrible, with everyone assuming the worst all over the place.
The thing about extending generosity is it’s a two way street. You can’t expect to be given the benefit of the doubt while assigning the worst motives to the people with legitimate grievances against you (calling them success-motivated flame warriors). That’s just hypocritical and as a long time reader of a myriad of liberal blogs who only recently started commenting, it’s a script that seems to play out time and again especially when it concerns people of color. It just makes me feel that you’re (i.e. white liberals) perfectly willing to use the racism of conservatives as a political tool to further your own agendas, but are reluctant to examine it within yourselves.
Oh and one more thing, it’s not your place to call yourself an ally. we’re (i.e. people of color and other marginalized groups) are perfectly able to decide whether you’re a true ally or not regardless of how you feel about yourself.
That’s my $.02
Peace
The notion that I’m dismissing the complaints as illegitimate is not borne out by the evidence.
I do think that there’s a long, long history of feminist successes generating a backlash effect. I don’t think that you can generalize about individual motivations, though. And sometimes the complaints have a point. Sometimes, though, I’m utterly baffled as to how people can nitpick someone to death who is clearly a good guy—again, I’m relatively unscathed by this, but man, do I see it happen to others.
What gave me a gut punch was that some people I know for a fact are not flamewar enthusiasts were drawn up short by the cover. FWIW. Which is unfair, I guess, since it’s not like I don’t like me some flamewar. But I have no taste for it when it comes to the good guys.
When you say that you hope that Amanda won’t be doing that “us put-upon white people eyeroll,” you’re characterizing her, not her actions, becuase you’re predicting some action as a racist action consistent with a racist mindset.
Brush up on your reading comprehension.
First of all, an “us put-upon white people eyeroll” is a behavior, not a characteristic. She’d already made the nudge-wink head nod to those who’d like to think of this as a case of PC-ness run amok, rather than a justified case of outrage. So, the behavior you’re telling me I’m allowed to critique had already been performed. It was this behavior that I decried. My hope was that her behavior, the figurative eyeroll she’s already made, wasn’t born out of a desire to separate the gracious grateful detractors from the uppity ones. She is free to divest me of my hunch, if it is not accurate.
It’s bad enough when people do this of their own volition. Don’t put yourself in the position of being ignorable right away to people who are, in my experience, hoping to be on your side.
Look, I don’t need your help with expressing myself. If I were interested in presenting myself as a humble, nonthreatening, shoe-shuffling Negro so as to curry favor with white folks who’d find anything more aggressive unseemly, I certainly possess both the vocabulary and the savvy to do so. However, I’ve found that white folks who can’t deal with the straightforward and eloquent delivery of an opinion with which they are at odds, or for whom a confident carriage seems arrogant on a black woman, don’t make the best of allies anyway. They’re certainly not the ones with whom I seek to communicate. Racist white people who require submissive black teachers before they’ll reconsider their racism don’t deserve any benefit of the doubt, let alone forced politeness, from me. Anti-racist white people who are actually interested in minimizing their privileged foot-print in this world don’t need me to sweeten my tone to before they’ll deign to consider my words.
You aren’t the first person, white or male, to threaten that a failure on my part to soften my approach will result in the refusal of my social betters to pay me attention. To which I say, anyone willing to dismiss the words of the oppressed due to a lack of proper fawning adoration has already been lost to bigotry.
I didn’t say you were dismissing them. I merely said you were assigning the worst possible motives to the commenters who had the criticisms, and were being very smug about the whole thing.
And do you really seriously believe that considering yourself “one of the good guys” means you should be exempt from criticism?
Need I explain what’s problematic about this stance?
Why should you criticize Obama, Clinton and Edwards for their stance on gay marriage? They’re good guys, right?
WHy should you criticize Clinton and Edwards for authorizing the war? They’re good guys, n’est ce pas?
Why should any one who calls themselves liberal ever be criticized? After all we’re all good guys, right? right?
I didn’t do that either. I said that people have a hodge-podge of motivations and it was wrong-headed to assume anything general. I wouldn’t even say that jealousy has much to do with it, but in some cases opportunism (in the sense of treating big events like opportunities, as Sheezlebub said) is fairly safe to point out. There’s good sides and bad sides to opportunism, but one serious drawback is that it comes across as if you’re joy-killing someone’s success. Which may or may not be a big enough drawback, but denying that it’s not there because it feels like it shouldn’t be there is counter-productive. Opportunism doesn’t seem like a big factor this time out, though, but there are cases (Amp’s interview on Air America, the Playboy mention, a lot of stuff that Jessica gets shit for) where it’s clear that the issue has nothing to do with the specifics but is just a generalized, if justified, complaint about larger issues. Like if you don’t like porn, my getting mentioned in Playboy might seem like a good opportunity to get some attention to your issue. And it is. But the drawback is that you’re using someone else’s good news as that opportunity. I’m saying if the issue is very specific—in this case, it is—then it’s not joy-killing. But I’m not going to use the birth of someone’s baby as a chance to expound on why water births are better than C-sections, no matter how right I am.
I never said “exempt from criticism”. If you’re going to thrash strawmen, I don’t have time for this. I said specifically that criticism is important, but it’s helpful to remember that there’s a difference between those who act on good faith and those who don’t.
In the grand scheme of things, Amanda, your joy at your success should not override your anti-racist obligations, if you do in fact consider yourself, and want others to perceive you as, an ally. We can acknowledge that you might find it a bit of a sore time to confront the racism in your cover, but for anti-racists, there’s never a better time than now to address racism. Are you saying that accusations of “joy-killing” and accusations of racism ought to be weighted the same in an agenda of equality?
The majority of people in this thread did assume, correctly, that people who don’t immediately see a gorilla and get the racist connotations are not bad people or secret racists. I want to make that abundantly clear. Mostly the good faith assumption stayed in the game.
You make it sound like there’s some sort of cabal that’s waiting for you to make a mistake and then pounce. But that’s not my view of how things went down at all.
You made it all about you, when the problem was with the cover which I remember you saying “knocked your socks off”. But if you feel like you were unfairly targeted, then I’ll have to respectfully disagree with you there. You put yourself out there by showing the cover, and people have a right to be offended and to explain why without snide remarks about “everyone’s out to get me, give me the benefit of the doubt, I’m one of the good guys”
This should be my last comment about this since your views are obvious, my views and those of the people who objected are there plain to see, and at least you made an effort to rectify the situation (without ever admitting anything…very slick)
Well, I was going to fumble around with some retort to JoAnne’s utterly patronizing, wrongheaded comments (I mean, “no one promised you it would be easy to try to change minds”…who were you channeling on that one?) and distorted perception of how things have been said here, which actually illustrates beautifully how it is NOT safe to assume everyone in certain *spaces* is *on the same page*, and how references to blindspots and privilege can be perceived as quite threatening (which generally means said references have hit the mark), but instead I will echo Joan Kelly above, re: Justicewalks. Sign me the fuck up too.
But the drawback is that you’re using someone else’s good news as that opportunity.
Is the “goodness” of the news calculated entirely as a function of the way the person benefitting from the event would see it? Or are we to understand that people who found that cover racist, for example, should be looking at the release of a book with a racist cover on it as “good news” as well?
Because I can see problems with this the next time you feel like raining on the parade of forced-birth supporters celebrating the newest implementation of anti-choice legislation. Should we let their enjoyment of the “goodness” of their news die down before we decry their misogyny?
Yikes. I can’t believe I missed this thread, not following up on what turned out to be my utterly pointless early comments.
Certainly Amanda is right that there are multiple legitimate readings of the cover. But since, as justicewalks so passionately points out, there is a distinctly racist one available to anyone who doesn’t know Amanda, and since the book is an attack on a form of institutionalized discrimination, the cover will oviously be replaced.
And kudos to Amanda for how this has been handled. She engaged her critics honestly and acknowledged a rather awkward oversight on her part.
When the book comes out with the new cover I expect justicewalks to join me in lauding her intellectual integrity.
Remember: justicewalks but freedomrides.
Justicewalks wrote:
I think she said precisely the opposite; that in this particular case, concerns about joy-killing should not have prevented people from criticizing racism.
Lloyd Webber wrote:
I don’t think these are mutually exclusive possibilities.
I agree, that’s not how things went down here.
But I also thing there are at least a couple of substantial groups (not “cabals,” which implies a conscious conspiracy) who would be delighted to see Amanda’s life be as hard as possible, and her career go down in flames. For example, the level of hatred some right-wingers have for Amanda is unbelievable; they are extremely irrational on the subject.
Did those folks drive the criticism in this thread? No, they didn’t. Does Amanda have to assume that at any time, those people might be reading everything she writes and looking for things to be held against her - even in threads they are not participating in? If I were her, I’d assume that.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying that the anti-racist criticism in this thread is at all part of that. (Both of the groups I have in mind, that would love to stick a dagger in Amanda’s career, are all or virtually all white.) You’re totally right about that. But Amanda has good reason to want to be very cautious, especially about anything relating to her career, and especially about any controversy she’s part of. Because these are not private discussions.
You make it sound like there’s some sort of cabal that’s waiting for you to make a mistake and then pounce.
You’re misinterpreting me. I’m saying that feminists who have a certain level of success easily become “opportunities” and icons and a lot of issues that are completely legitimate get hung on them when it’s not appropriate. I think the C-section issue is a good analogy. I think they’re overperformed. I will say so most of the time. But if a friend of mine gets a C-section, I’m not going to leap all over her about it, because a) it’s not her fault b) it’s going to be taken wrong no matter how I put it. I say, “Cute baby,” and try to keep the blame squared on the system.
If you think I am the target, then yes, that’s unfair. I didn’t design it, and for whatever reasons, I didn’t see it until it was pointed out. I think there were criticisms that were mindful of the actual reality of how the book cover happened and that people of good faith can totally see it and not think about the racist history of the King Kong story. Which again, doesn’t change the fact that it has a potentially offensive reading. I’m just arguing the reality—people of good will saw it differently and most were open to seeing that seeing it differently comes from having a different mindset when you saw it, not lurking ill intentions. But at least there was a reasonable point here. Flamewars—like the ones over Yearly Kos or Jessica’s book or Ampersand going on Air America—don’t even have a direct complaint. They are just general symbols for larger frustrations, and as such, it’s counterproductive to launch a flamewar that’s going to be read as a direct attack on someone who is not the cause or has the solutions to the problem.
This case is a little different. The cover had a specific issue that wasn’t a stand-in for larger issues that I can’t personally control or fix, and thus could be addressed as such. And was.
Also, what Ampersand said. I’m saying there’s a temptation—that’s understandable—to make someone a symbol of legit grievances, even if they don’t have any direct power to change things and actually fight the good fight. There’s also some leftists, a tiny, tiny minority, who are just looking for a fight. (Actually, I didn’t really see any of the usual suspects here.)
As an aside, one thing I’ve noticed is the more people are full of shit, the more flamewars spin way, way out of control. This thread was about as tame and reasonable as it gets, because people have a point. Saying, “X is offensive,” when that is accurate, tends to have a short shelf life. Saying, “Why didn’t you write X when I wanted to read Y?” can be crazy.
And yes, there’s a lot of right wingers who are dying to hijack strife and divide and conquer. That’s why think tanks front a lot of money to women and racial minorities to say that progressivism is the REAL racism and that conservative policies are the default. They’re hoping to turn people on each other.
Ampersand: I think she said precisely the opposite; that in this particular case, concerns about joy-killing should not have prevented people from criticizing racism.
Yes, we were to feel free to express criticism of the racism, but only at the cost of willingly accepting the brand of “asshole success-chaser who’d rain on someone’s good-news parade just for spite,” otherwise known as a joy-killer. That is what this sentence of Amanda’s was about:
But the drawback is that you’re using someone else’s good news as that opportunity.
My inquiry as to the nature of the “joy,” this “goodness,” has not been answered.
Do you care to elaborate on that? Or did you merely feel a need to point a privileged finger at what you perceived to be a flaw in my reasoning?
epistemology: Certainly Amanda is right that there are multiple legitimate readings of the cover. But since, as justicewalks so passionately points out, there is a distinctly racist one available to anyone who doesn’t know Amanda…
There is just so much to address here. “Certainly Amanda is right that there are multiple… readings of the cover,” but the blissfully nonracist ones are only made “legitimate,” as was settled upthread, by the blindness that white privilege affords.* This doesn’t automatically make malicious hood-clad night-riders out of the privilege-blinded. At the same time, it does not absolve our allies of acknowledging their heretofore unrecognized privilege and adapting their antiracism accordingly. We are at a point where “I didn’t know” can no longer be tolerated as an excuse to “legitimize” a viewpoint.
I don’t accept it from men either. Once the discussion as reached a point at which the sexism has been acknowledged, I don’t excuse a slide back into the justifications of oblivion. No no no. I expect both men and white people to adapt to new knowledge about racism and sexism. We don’t get to say, Oh, my privilege blinded me to the racism, which I see now that I’ve been apprised, but it’s still “legitimate” to interpret that image as nonracist.
That would just be silly.
And, finally, just as a favor to me, if you will, consider all the reasons why you’d make mention of my “passion,” rather than any number of other characteristics that have defined my contributions here. Let me just say that I am not flattered. I’ll leave it at that.
Amanda: A C-section is unlike the unveiling of the racist book cover on your blog in many, many ways. For one, a C-section is a private reproductive decision that a well-informed woman should be allowed to choose for herself, regardless of your comfort with her reasons.
A public unveiling of a racist book cover on a blog is neither private, reproductive or medical in nature, nor something I think a well-informed person ought ever be condoned to do, regardless of her reasons.
*Please note, that while white privilege gets handed out to white folks first, which doesn’t leave much for nonwhites, some nonwhites, including some black nonwhites, have in fact received at least enough white privilege not to have to constantly think about the ways nonwhites are ever likened to beasts.
This is where I really get Amanda’s refusal to speak to the issue of whether the cover is problematic. Because if she says that it is, the clamor for her to intervene with her publisher on the question will only increase, and the disappointment I referred to above will turn into anger.
Okay, I stopped reading after this comment, but Brooklynite, I’m with you. I didn’t immediately read the cover as racist, but now that it’s been pointed out it’s there and it’s hard to get around now.
I don’t know what happens from here on out, but let’s give Amanda some credit as a thinker and an activist who is trying to break into the publishing business. This is her first book, she may or may not have an agent that is helping her negotiate this deal, and she’s treading a fine line as a first-timer getting progressive works out there. There is no fallback. Considering the circumstances of her as another person with financial needs and writing aspirations, not as a figurehead for the feminist blogging community (which is pretty specialized, let’s admit, famous among dozens), I think ascribing bad faith intentions to her part is really unfair.
Regardless I don’t think she’s going to be updating us with the minutiae of what she’s hashing out with the publisher that’s taken her on and making these negotiations more public. She may have power in this community, but she has relatively less power in the publishing world. It’s been three days. Let’s assume something might be done. Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt.
Let’s also give Seal Press the benefit of the doubt. Seal is less academic, more pop culture, but it’s still inarguably a well-known feminist press. I’m aware of the controversy surrounding the Valenti cover, but I highly doubt a reputable feminist press will take the risk of being pegged as a company that uses arguably historic racist imagery to sell books.
Especially considering the state of the book publishing industry.
“Flamewars—like the ones over Yearly Kos or Jessica’s book or Ampersand going on Air America—don’t even have a direct complaint. They are just general symbols for larger frustrations”
Okay, You have stated that you’re committed to fairness. Can you see why that’s not only an unfair characterization but an offensive statement? If someone says, “I hate Jessica because she’s so hawt and I’m jealous of her hawtness and her success!” yeah, that’s a flame. But if someone else takes someone else’s argument and mischaracterizes it as “oh, this is bullshit, they got nothing, they’re just being opportunistic and wish they were as succesful and SATC hawt as Jess,” well, yeah, that’s kind of a flame, but not in the way that you mean.
Just because someone doesn’t want to listen to people/doesn’t agree/doesn’t care what they think/doesn’t like the fact that there’s more than one complaint, which makes everything anyone says apprently indirect and invalid, whatever, doesn’t mean they don’t have a legitimate complaint. Nope, the YK issue wasn’t about professional whiners who are never happy no matter what. It was about the difference between true inclusiveness and tokenism. You feel kos is an ally, and you’re entitled to your opinion. But please try to understand there are a lot of POC and white women who do not feel at all welcome there. Who feel that they’re stepping in territory where they’re going to be, at best, treated with indifference, and at worse treated to hostility. And they’re concerned that that culture is firm in place and isn’t going to change and in fact, is going to be even more entrenched if kos is able to play it off by pointing to all of his close personal female friends and all the women who he had on panels at YK that didn’t account to a hill of beans, and, coincidentally, portray his critics as irrational whiners who are just never happy no matter what.
That’s a discussion. That’s a question. But you know, being an ally is a two way street. If good intentions should be assumed, then they should be assumed on both ends–care should also be taken before being so quick to dismiss any and all criticisms and invalid, illegitimate, oversensitive, and prompted by the worst possible motivations. And something along the lines of pish tush, the poor little dears don’t even know what they’re talking about, they must be PMSing or have something else on their minds, sounds suspiciously similar to “no direct complaint here, if I can’t see it it can’t be seen, let’s chalk it up to larger frustrations.” If we’re trying to avoid overbroad generalizations.
Cavalier, there’s a wide ideological gap between accepting tokenism versus exposure, and as feminists and activists we can either grab the opportunity to be heard and get our voices out there or sit it out.
I say we get out there. A backlash can’t be countered by boycott.
That’s fine, Lauren. As I said, it’s a discussion. I understand that you guys feel it’s a net gain because you’re gaining larger exposure for issues. But there is another side, another valid way of looking at the situation, and the way Amanda characterized the debate earlier (basically, they complained about sexism because there weren’t wnough women, when he invited women they told us not to go, what the hell do they want) wasn’t fair, and then again it’s been characterized as some kind of flamewar with no basis that’s standing it for some other frustration or something.
justicewalks,
Excellent comments, direct well thought and effective. Off topic:
Never heard of someone refer to a black person, or any racial minority, as having white privilege. Do you see this as a temporary affect, as in assumed for practical purposes?
When black people obtain white privilege, is it the same not reversible situation or just kinda wrapped over non-privilege. Can women have male privilege the same way?
If you were just being humorous, sorry for the dumb question, but I couldn’t tell for sure.
Staydaddy,
It is “just kinda wrapped over nonprivilege,” as it can be revoked by their superiors the second they start spouting anti-status quo ideas. Think of Michelle Malkin, who is both an “honorary” white person as well as an “honorary” man. She is allowed the delusion of imagining herself an exception to her dark race and female sex in exchange for parroting anti-dark race and anti-female drivel, just like a little jester, who gets to eat at the big table (the “privilege”) but only at the cost of his dignity. In doing so, though, she validates the notion that these hierarchies are meaningful, for if dark people and female people aren’t actually inferior, she wouldn’t need to fancy herself an “exception” for some semblance of self esteem.
Women and nonwhites never experience privilege the same way the people for whom the privilege is intended (white men) do. Never mistake my words as blaming oppressed people for basing their self esteem on the good favor, nay, acceptance, of their social betters. I do, however, hold the people who stand most to benefit from the self-debasement of the oppressed to a stricter standard. The people playing the paying customer to Malkin’s musical monkey routine, or denying that it is racist, disgust me.
Lauren, You keep saying Amanda should be given the benefit of the doubt. So I guess Male allies should be given the benefit of the doubt when they spew their male privilege unchecked. The thing is AFAIK, Amanda doesn’t really have a stockpile of goodwill when it comes to poc, what with the burqa gaffe, not to mention her cries of jealousy at the legitimate criticism leveled by woc at the Valenti novel. You may not be an enemy, but repeatedly calling yourself an ally doesn’t make it so.
justicewalks,
Thanks for the response and the time. Again, clear, concise, refreshing. Thanks.
.
I adopted your unapologetic, less than inflamed, direct tone and stick to the point methodology with positive effect on a thread (all white priv., mostly male, upper middle class) with modest but encouraging results. Do I have to pay a royalty?
What I could manage took massive self control and rewriting and I still was not that good at it. When you write your comments, is this your normal demeanor?
I’ve been watching this debate for a couple of days, and I’m in total agreement with Justicewalks and everyone else.
Amanda, I do appreciate that you took this to the publisher for consideration. But do you really expect us - that is, others who also saw the cover as racist imagery -to take that act seriously when you’ve put our concerns down as nothing more than a flamewar and jealousy over someone else’s success?
Frankly, I’m happy that there’s another book out there supporting feminism. And good for you for being the one to publish it. But am I gonna stand by and support it when I believe it’s an affront to me as a Black person? No. Unfortunately - and if I have to repeat this until I’m blue in the face, so be it - I can’t choose when I’m going to be Black or a “womyn”.
In other words, Amanda, this is not about you. This not about jealousy. Nor is it about starting a flamewar. It’s about seeing something from the past that causes great pain, and hoping you would be sympathic enough to honor those feelings and not just invalidate them with:
A little history lesson: Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia.
Well, I knew people would complain about something, since they have to.
Yes, Angel, that was a particularly bad instance of dismissal. She’s explained, though, that she only meant those kinds of comments to refer to the people who were “attacking her because of her sucess,” though.
We’re still waiting - I know I am anyway - for her explanation as to how she’s distinguished between the “attackers” for whom the snide snubbery is intended and the “genuine petitioners” or whatever. My suspicion that the distinction is one of uppitiness versus properly grateful appeasement has not yet been denied.
justicewalks:
Perhaps you think you settled this upthread, but humor me. There is nothing inherently racist about the image of a woman in the grasp of an ape. It derives its racist connotations from historical associations. You may argue that for someone as literate as Amanda to overlook those connotations is evidence of her being blinded by white privilege, but to claim that it is impossible for any human, ignorant of the racist history of this image, to have a visceral reaction that is not racist, is so self-centered as to verge on solipsism. Is every mindset different than yours evil? Do you really think that if we presented that image to a peasant woman in China, and she failed to get your point, she is supporting a racist interpretation? And it would be a tortured reading of this image, a WWI recruiting poster that shows a white woman being abducted by an ape that represents Germany, to say that it is racist. Since Germany was more white than America, how could this possibly be interpreted as referring to white America’s fear of black people?
Sorry, but people can have honest interpretations, or responses, to Amanda’s proposed book cover that have nothing to do with racism. When it is pointed out how racist the image seems in modern America, one expects the sensitive person to acknowledge this truth and distance themselves from it. The racist reading does NOT invalidate non racist interpretations, it just trumps them. However startlingly offensive you may read the cover as being, I doubt it compares to the gut-punch offensiveness of a swastika, with its hateful associations. So you think that a Jain who displays this symbol, holy in their religion, must admit that their interpretation is ignorance? Again, while sensitive people labor to avoid adding to the burden of oppressed groups, to reduce all human psychology, literature and art, to a simple good/evil morality test denies the ambiguity that gives art its power. It also reduces the complexity of each person to simply a member of a class, the problems with which your tortured footnote only begins to hint at.
The simple answer is that passion seems to well capture the flavor of you comments. But you caught me. I was sitting in bed last evening, waiting for Val, hoping to impose my white male privilege on her while writing that (no luck, privilege ain’t what it used to be), and I may have projected my own mood onto you. Sorry. Now as a favor to me, can you explain why you were offended by being accused of being passionate about the truth? In your austere interpretative universe, is passionate an insult?
Epistemology, you might be interested to read some of justicewalks’ other thoughts. I know I found her thoughts on things like infanticide and selective abortion based on gender to be quite interesting.
There is nothing inherently racist about the image of a woman in the grasp of an ape. It derives its racist connotations from historical associations. You may argue that for someone as literate as Amanda to overlook those connotations is evidence of her being blinded by white privilege, but to claim that it is impossible for any human, ignorant of the racist history of this image, to have a visceral reaction that is not racist, is so self-centered as to verge on solipsism. Is every mindset different than yours evil?
Another poster with a reading comprehension problem.
You are right that “[t]here is nothing inherently racist about the image of a woman in the grasp of an ape.” However, that is not what we are talking about here. What we are talking about is an image of a scantily clad blond white woman being carried upright by an anthropomorphized gorilla, in the context of an American society that persists, as in not just historically, in likening black people to animals. Real gorillas, in case you were under a misconception, wouldn’t “grasp” anything the way the woman in that picture is being carried.
… to claim that it is impossible for any human, ignorant of the racist history of this image, to have a visceral reaction that is not racist, is so self-centered as to verge on solipsism.
That is not what I said. What I did say was that any American able to look at that picture and not see the racism is blinded by white privilege. This point was not disputed and was in fact supported further upthread. I’m not going to copy and paste for you, since you would obviously benefit from a more thorough re-reading of this thread anyway. I said that the opinions of people who are ignorant of the racist history, as a result of either white privilege or a foreign background, are irrelevant to this discussion. They are not “legitimate” perspectives, but uneducated ones.
Note, since you seem to have missed this the first time, that having an uneducated perspective does not speak at all to the character of the person in question. It does not indicate maliciousness or even stupidity, despite your efforts to mischaracterize my words thusly.
Does the fact that we denigrated (there is a clue in this word) and dehumanized Germans using similar imagery mean that it’s no longer racist? No, of course not. A blackness of character has been represented throughout history as a blackness of body (which is racist), so it is possible to liken Germans to black people to beasts, or Germans to beasts to black people with one image.
However startlingly offensive you may read the cover as being, I doubt it compares to the gut-punch offensiveness of a swastika, with its hateful associations.
Are you telling me that you’ve calculated my allotment of outrage and that I’m not entitled to as much as the average Jew? Perhaps you could examine why it is that you feel Jews (who are often read as white) are due to feel more outrage at reminders of their oppressed history than I am. Do you think that these sorts of images, meant to represent dehumanized black people, don’t conjure up knowledge that these kinds of portrayals were used to justify the centuries of enslavement, beatings, rapes, lynchings, hobblings, tortures, murders, kidnappings, humiliations, and degradations black people have endured? Do you think I haven’t wept for the suicides, the tragic waste of life, that were the only way to keep masters’ will from mutilating black bodies and minds? Do you think dying in a gas chamber is worse than being cast into the sea to drown in chains? Do you think black slaves were not also starved? Do you think they were not emaciated? Do you imagine they were well-fed and robust? Do you think that black slaves didn’t dig graves for the bodies of their used up/murdered fellows? Do you think the slaves who wailed to loudly in mourning were not also cast into the ground to spare the masters’ sensitive ears? Do you think they felt less grief than the Jews who were forced to dig graves in camps?
That you don’t feel a punch in the gut when you see reminders of this history is not the demonstration of stoic objectivity that you intend it to be, I assure you.
Now as a favor to me, can you explain why you were offended by being accused of being passionate about the truth?
I’m not interested in hearing appeals to my emotion, my “passion,” from you. If, as you’ve amended here, you were trying to make an appeal to my truthfulness, you could have done that without making an unnecessary reference to a state of excitement that I have not demonstrated. My contributions here have not been acts of “passion,” and I resent the implication, as if I just flew off the handle and wrote these screeds, the way a crime of passion is distinguished from a strategic heist.
Rumblelizard, I’d be happy to discuss with you my revolutionary (because, yes, I’m interested in revolution, not merely reform) brainstorming, but this is not the place to do so. If you’d wanted to talk about male entitlement to female bodies, you could have said something in the threads you link to instead of interrupting an unconnected conversation to avenge your hurt feelings.
The fact that you find the very idea of the selective abortion of male fetuses so repulsive as to threadjack here is going to look extremely unfavorable when I am unable to find evidence that you’ve decried the selective abortion of female fetuses just as stridently.
Rumblelizard:
Well, I’ll just be accused of being a privilege-blinded man for saying this, but I doubt that if men were gone, and reproduction were by parthenogenesis or some such, the evils of oppression would be eliminated.
It doesn’t take a Machiavellian mind to think that women in positions of power would oppress the have-nots. Evidence is abundant. To say otherwise is almost to let men off the hook for their violence and misogyny as if it derived unthinkingly from the Y chromosome.
It would probably be better to treat men as individuals, condemning the evil, encouraging the good, and working to change our frightened, inherited, institutions of oppression. Indicting people for their membership in a group (in infancy no less), while more deserved with men than just about any other group I can think of, is still profoundly anti-liberal.
Of course this is not to deny that men have a near patent on stupid violence. And certainly women have the right to do whatever they choose with their pregnancies, including aborting all male fetuses.
Instead of universal male infanticide (I say, squirming for a better bargain), how about just castrating us all at birth? I think you’ll find it achieves much the same purpose in gentling men, and you might be charmed by the beautiful voices some of us develop as a result!
Shoter epistemology: I’ll take the threadjack, please.
Instead of universal male infanticide
Riiiiiiiiiight. Because if women don’t nurse and raise them it’s exactly the same thing as just wringing their little necks. It’s not as if men themselves might actually step up to the plate and do the raising of our oppressors that women aren’t obligated to do.
Thanks for making men’s refusal to think outside the box when it comes to reproduction so stark, epistemology.
JW, my feelings aren’t hurt. And if mildly pointing out your very own words (call them brainstorming or whatever else you like) as “interesting” is strident, then fuck, I guess I’m strident.
“Mildly?” You link to posts that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand, attach the words “infanticide” and “selective abortion” to them in an obvious attmept to discredit her, and you claim you were just them “mildly”?
What-the-fuck-ever.
If someone advocates what JW advocated in the thread I linked to, I think it’s relevant in any context, on any subject. It’s up to individual readers to decide what they think and whether they agree with that assessment or not. That’s all I’m going to say about it, so you can consider this “threadjack” over.
Thank you, Angel and rebeccab. These nutjobs are chasing me all over the internet from that forum trying to get to me curl up in a ball and take back my words. Well, I won’t.
And I haven’t found as single shred of evidence that it bothers Rumblelizard one iota that female fetuses are in fact being selectively aborted right now at alarming rates. His faux outrage at my mere suggestion that it might serve feminist ends to cut men off from the teat, so to speak, is extremely transparent in its opportunism and naked selfishness of perspective.
You hear that, Amanda? That right there is opportunism.
Rumblelizard, that you felt the need to say even that, in a completely unrelated thread instead of taking on what justice walks is actually saying in this one that is dealing with racial issues, historical injustices and white privilege, - well, that too says something.
Individual readers can decide what.
But do you really expect us - that is, others who also saw the cover as racist imagery -to take that act seriously when you’ve put our concerns down as nothing more than a flamewar and jealousy over someone else’s success?
Since I repeatedly said that I did not say that, repeatedly, I’m inclined to wonder if people who are insisting that I did say that, though I did not, have ulterior motivations. Why would you say I said something that I didn’t say? I want to be open-minded and assume that there’s no one that’s out to get me, but that’s harder to believe in a situation where words are being put into my mouth.
My only point is that it would be much easier for legitimate complaints to make their way to the surface if there wasn’t a long history of every success of a feminist getting punished by a backlash. History matters. I would point out, for instance, that the reason this cover is an issue is history matters. A long history of flamewars that get started on the backs of people who’ve had successes—flamewars that aren’t really about them or their success, no less—means that the crying wolf effect kicks in. You see another one brewing and you tend to think, “Ah yes, I knew this was coming,” and if it’s that rare occasion when the complaints are relevant—and this was—there’s going to be trouble seeing that because history shows that most success-related flamewars aren’t directly relevant.
Since he brought up that forum, perhaps you’d both find interesting the thread on drag and blackface, which was prematurely brought to an end. It is much more relevant to the topic at hand.
His faux outrage at my mere suggestion that it might serve feminist ends to cut men off from the teat, so to speak, is extremely transparent in its opportunism and naked selfishness of perspective.
I believe Rumblelizard has identified as female before. This is, however, not the thread to discuss this, as has been indicated.
My guess would be that they’re confusing your feelings about Jessica’s hordes of Sex and the City wannabe-haters and their jealousy with your totally unspecific, but not jealously-related, whimsically success-associated description of the “pressure campaign” here. Seems like an honest mistake to me, since you, yourself, said there were so many similarities between the two events.
Ahh, the wonder of technology:
Shall I continue?
justicewalks, you keep saying you’re not characterizing people rather than actions, and then you use your “extended vocabulary” and “savvy” to try to craft statements of the form “only a racist would do X, and you’re doing X.” This doesn’t pass the sniff test.
Amanda didn’t immediately respond to criticism with an acknowledgment that the cover is racist. She should have.
But your tactics are offensive and presumptuous — for *anyone*, not just a Black woman. White men who do this get the same smackdown from me. They cannot see into my heart, or Amanda’s, and neither can you.
Psychoanalyzing actions, implicating motives and predicting future behavior are all touchy at best, and when you do it to someone you don’t know, who’s right in front of you, who is telling you you’re wrong about their motives and beliefs, it’s just plain insulting.
And insult does seem to be your metier. Your *very first comment* in this thread called Amanda a liar, though misattributing her comment to pablo and calling it “typically male.” I guess I’m not the only one with reading comprehension problems.
You baldly stated that what she “really” meant to say that there was a running bet that people would see that the cover was sexist and not see that it was racist, as though there is some conspiracy to put this racist image on the cover and White people are snickering behind Black people’s backs about it.
I don’t think that’s true.
That doesn’t mean no one should have insisted that Amanda acknowledge and confront the problem of the cover. I think she was too slow to do so, glossed over the issue too long, and gave too many excuses, and I don’t think that was right.
But it does mean that you’re not blameless in turning this into a flamewar. You came out flaming. And a quick Google on “justicewalks” shows that this is not a new behavior for you, if you’re the only one using the nym. It’s a habit that’s earned you the boot from at least one blog.
Maybe you find that a badge of honor. I don’t know. I won’t do any psychologizing about why you do this, because I can’t see into your heart. I will characterize my own feelings about the behavior . I find it supremely annoying, and in my experience it’s usually counterproductive.
I think had the tone of the responses continued in the vein of Serena’s, for example, Amanda would have been more likely to respond positively sooner. And she would be left thinking, damn, I should have seen that, rather than, damn, I can’t make one mistake without getting my ass chewed for being a racist bitch before I know what’s happening.
Defensiveness. Don’t ignore the consequences. You can say all you want that you don’t care about other people’s feelings, but then I think you lose the right to be suprised when they ignore you or your message, and you lose the right to assume it’s always because of your message or your race or your sex, rather than your tactics.
justicewalks:
You’ve misread me. I claimed that there were non-racist interpretations of a scantily clad white woman being in the clutches of a gorilla while conceding that the interpretation that trumps all others in our culture is racist. And I’m still not clear where we are in disagreement.
I linked an image of a scantily clad white woman in the clutches of a gorilla which represented Germany during WWI. You made a very weak case that this was a racist appeal based on the fact that dark has negative connotations that go way back. Let me suggest that humans’ fear of the dark long predated racism. You are certainly right that it has been used as a metaphor to oppress blacks, but not every use of darkness can be seen this way, since the more universal human association is with the fear of the night.
Sorry, but in your response to me, you forgot to add the “foreign background” bit. Rather you said:
The word “only” fooled me.
But I’ll take your word you included upthread the “foreign background” caveat. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
This misunderstanding has led to an even more pernicious one:
I said nothing of the sort. I’ve been talking about nothing but the interpretation of symbols, not parsing levels of oppression. Don’t take my word for it, ask your friends: A swastika is a much more accessible and obvious symbol of evil than a gorilla with a woman. I was not comparing the evils to which they refer, but the immediacy of the imagery. Had the image been one of a black man being lynched, I would reverse my judgment, this is an even more universal symbol of evil than a swastika. I was clearly comparing SYMBOLS not the evils to which they refer.
Come on, this is just tendentious. You may as well sit in a corner and argue with yourself if every utterance, every image can only be legitimately read in the context of your experience, and you don’t care to even try to understand other people, or rather insist on the most damning interpretation, no matter how tortured.
“Amended here?” I said “But since, as justicewalks so passionately points out, there is a distinctly racist one available…”
You misquote me, the word was passionately, an adverb, and the subject was “points out”, which is to say, I was agreeing with the truth value of what you said. It was NOT an amending as you say. Nevertheless, I went on to explain how I may have been projecting my own emotional state onto you, yet you still come back with this nonsense.
Since you feel free, on an obvious misreading of my discussion of the relative impact of the SYMBOL gorilla-with-woman vs. swastika, to ascribe a heartless “stoic objectivity” to me, I would invite you to re-read this thread and see whether “passionately” characterizes your arguments more than “stoic objectivity” does mine. Or do you alone get to make unnecessary references to states of excitement?
What the fuck is this? This is some seriously petty high school shit.
And what makes me really upset is that not too long ago, on a nother blog, there was a nice civil discussion about why so many White bloggers can’t seem to understand how WOCs feel so strongly when we perceive that we have been wronged. But instead, WE’RE the ones being too sensitive. WE’RE the ones who are causing problems where there were none before. WE’RE the ones with the problem.
I’m tired. It’s Friday.
Fuck you bitches. I’m going home.
rebeccab, queen of procrastination is right, I took the bait. Sorry. Although I didn’t really disagree with the general import of what justicewalks said on the other thread (”the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world” is just condescending pap, but wouldn’t be if all women took to heart her sentiment on that thread to heart), but for her to pretend I came up with the word infanticide, when I was quoting her, is dishonest.
Hm. I’m still unsure how Justicewalks being smarter, more articulate, and more on-point than those attempting to bring her down a notch = her starting a flamewar. Thinking out loud here.
Joan Kelly
Hm. I’m still unsure how Justicewalks being smarter, more articulate, and more on-point than those attempting to bring her down a notch = her starting a flamewar. Thinking out loud here.
You don’t think calling Amanda a liar and a racist is flaming? What would be your definition, then?
“And insult does seem to be your metier. Your *very first comment* in this thread called Amanda a liar, though misattributing her comment to pablo and calling it “typically male.” I guess I’m not the only one with reading comprehension problems.” - JoAnne
Factually incorrect (hint: read the comments again, or - should I say more accurately - *for the first time*), but, hey, FINALLY some irony I can get behind! Do you design book covers by any chance, JoAnne?
Again I apologize for getting threadjacked. I was quoting justicewalks’ infanticide comment in a humorous vein, and probably out of context. If she has been harassed for it, I want no part of it.
The Drowning Maestro.
@ Kai,
Word
Where did you quote me, epistemology? In that thread, the word ‘infanticide’ was interjected by one of the dejected mothers of sons who decided to attack me with hyperbole, which hyperbole I did not deign to refute, as I saw it beneath me to address false accusations. Since she did bring up infanticide, though, as if it were the worst thing in the world, I figured I’d tell her where I stood. Without advocating infanticide, I told her that I found the idea of it more merciful than women’s current lot.
Why is it that the mere idea of male infanticide, which I did not advocate, is more harrowing than the reality of the abortion, infanticide, rape, beating, husbanding, trafficking, and general abuse that female fetuses, infants, toddlers, children and adults suffer right now in real life all over this planet? Why should I have to refute petty accusations of male infanticide advocacy in the face of this overwhelming violent exploitation and abuse of female people?
Whether or not you want to play a part in my harassment, you have.
Also, if you don’t automatically think about the horrors of slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK, the War on Drugs, Katrina, etc. when you see racist imagery, it is not because the symbol lacks power; it is because you lack the insight to appreciate it.
OK, JoAnne. Gosh, I thought you were asking me to take it down a notch because you were uncomfortable being shown up by someone lower down on the social scale than you. Now I think it may have just been an admission of your obviously remedial reading capabilities. Here are the relevant quotes for you:
This is pablo’s:
I’ve added bold to the part of pablo’s comment that I then ended up quoting in a comment of my own:
Hmm. It looks like I directly quoted and correctly attributed pablo’s comment to pablo.
You are a liar. And a pathetically juvenile one at that.
Well, I guess anti-racism has been completely discredited as an ideology now. Thanks for providing this pertinent information, Senator McRumblelizard.
As an aside, it’s come to my attention that all of the WOC who had criticisms of Jessica’s book prefer Townhouse crackers to saltines, so clearly that validates Amanda’s really well supported assertion that that was just a mindless random flamewar based on success and irrelevancy.
justicewalks, in that very comment, you did not attribute
“We had a running bet on how long it would be before people saw the sexism and not the irony.”
to Amanda. Your only attribution was to pablo.
You made the first mistake there, and I took what you wrote as what you meant. Silly me.
That you focus so much on my thinking you were referring to pablo because I read what you wrote, that you insist on calling me a juvenile pathetic liar (characterize anyone much? flame anyone much?) is hilarious.
That’s not the root of my saying you’re calling Amanda a liar. Smart, savvy, vocabulicious that you are, you still miss the point. So now read CAREFULLY.
In the original comment you wrote, “I think you mean ‘racism’ instead of ‘irony.’ ”
You’re telling Amanda that she’s lying about the running bet. You’re telling Amanda she really intended the cover to be racist and just wondered how long it would take anyone to catch the “real” meaning which is a racist one. You’re telling Amanda that the racist meaning was intentional, and a secret little joke she was sharing with others.
That’s characterization. That’s flaming.
Squirm out of that, if you can.
I’ve been talking about nothing but the interpretation of symbols, not parsing levels of oppression. Don’t take my word for it, ask your friends: A swastika is a much more accessible and obvious symbol of evil than a gorilla with a woman.
Again, I ask you to consider why it is that symbols of Jewish oppression are more readily familiar and repulsive the average American. Could it be in part that the presentation of the two horrors in the average American public school is skewed?
Could it be that the way the Holocaust is presented as the single most horrific tragedy in the history of mankind, and as the only holocaust ever to be perpetrated against an unarmed and unsuspecting people, actually increases the disgust people feel? We don’t get so worked up about all the other massacres, genocides, and slaughters. Not even the ones in our own country, including, of course, the many many black people who were killed, drowned in the Atlantic, suffocated on ships, stabbed, beaten, tortured, flogged, raped, starved and lynched to death here. But also including the butcher of the native peoples once thriving from the Caribbean to Alaska, herded to the edges of habitability, in the same manner as the native peoples of Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.
Could it be that the way slavery is minimized and dismissed- the manner of its ending casually debated to this day, with some saying Lincoln was wrong, even unethical, to turn his people against one another - reduces the horror people feel at this atrocity? Could it be that a systematic focus on happy slaves and pleasant masters allows people the distance to shrug it off? You certainly very rarely hear about any happy Jews or pleasant gassers during The Holocaust, though there were surely quite a few more than it would seem.
Perhaps if we called what was done to black people here “The Enslavement,” instead of just plain old slavery with a lower-case ’s’, and honored those who’d made it out alive and invited them to teach and speak and mourn publicly and with dignity, you’d feel about racist imagery the way you do about Nazi symbolism.
JoAnne,
You read a direct quote from Amanda, followed by a response that included this paragraph:
And you took it to mean I was still addressing pablo. Did pablo mention that he’d published a book?
Did anyone else have trouble discerning that I’d redirected my attention, despite my glaringly intolerable failure to actually write out Amanda’s name?
In the original comment you wrote, “I think you mean ‘racism’ instead of ‘irony.’ ”
You’re telling Amanda that she’s lying about the running bet. You’re telling Amanda she really intended the cover to be racist and just wondered how long it would take anyone to catch the “real” meaning which is a racist one.
Look, JoAnne. “I think you mean ‘racism’ instead of ‘irony’” - that sentence - is a statement that communicates to Amanda that if people had been diverted from the sexism in the picture, it was due to the ‘racism’ and not any struggle with the ‘irony.’
justicewalks, you speak a secret language that can only be discerned by those with really, really poor and bizarre reading comprehension skills. We’re on to you, we got you!
justicewalks:
Look, JoAnne. “I think you mean ‘racism’ instead of ‘irony’” - that sentence - is a statement that communicates to Amanda that if people had been diverted from the sexism in the picture, it was due to the ‘racism’ and not any struggle with the ‘irony.’
No, it doesn’t.
Her original statement was that she predicted people would be confused by the sexism and not see the irony.
You “corrected” her to say that what she “really” meant was that she predicted people would be confused by the sexism and not see the RACISM.
Irony was what she says she intended in the book cover. You “corrected” her statement to mean that RACISM is what she intended in the book cover.
You said she was a liar and a racist.
I think had the tone of the responses continued in the vein of Serena’s, for example, Amanda would have been more likely to respond positively sooner.
Bingo ?/!
Cavalier,
Thanks for the late-in-the-game humorous support. If she’s starting at the top with posts from 4 days ago, this could take a while.
Oh my god, JoAnne, seriously, you’re beginning to sound a bit disturbed. That’s what the sentence was intended to communicate.
If anyone else took offense at this sentence, please speak up.
JW, I find your drag=blackface dig to be homophobic, but definitely gives me a good idea of what potshots you’ll be taking in the future. Being semi-right* on this particular occasion is increasingly looking like a stroke of good luck for you.
*That the cover could be read in a historical context is true, that this is evidence of some lurking racist agenda on my part or the various other hyperbolic flaming that accompanied the fair enough-hook is what earned the “semi”.
Amanda, show me where I insinuated that “there is some lurking racist agenda on [your] part.” Please tell me it isn’t this craziness JoAnne’s been talking about.
I am trying not to see this as an attempt to shut down antiracist debate. The phenomenon of oppressed people being shut down as petty is at least as pernicious as any pattern of success-chasing.
…increasingly looking like a stroke of good luck for you.
And we’re back to the question of what makes something “good.”
That the cover could be read in a historical context is true…
See my post above for just one reason why it isn’t being “read in a historical context.” The historical context has been systematically suppressed by an America ready to forget, to the protests of those still affected by it.
That suppression of this history both perpetuates and reflects racism. That suppression of black history, for the kicks and grins of white Americans, is racism. It is a manifestation of our ongoing oppression.
Now, being brought up in a society in which the history of its most degraded* doesn’t necessarily make you a racist. Saying unequivocally - and I’m not saying that you have - that an opinion born out of a deliberate deprivation of oppressed perspectives is as legitimate as an opinion that is inclusive, well, that, when the oppressed in question are subjugated based on race, is racist.
* Women are its most degraded sex, and our history has been suppressed too. Under which anti-feminist conditions, I am not surprised that you found my words on drag to be homophobic. I am of the mind that women are an oppressed class of people deserving of the same dignities due to all other oppressed classes. If white people ought not mock me with blackface, men ought not mock me with drag. Everything that I’ve said about black people can be extrapolated to women and vice versa.
JoAnne,
In the above post, I failed to complete a sentence. I think that most people can supply a reasonable word or phrase that will allow them to get the gist of the paragraph. Just for you, though, I’ll complete the sentence:
Now, being brought up in a society in which he history of its most degraded* people has been silenced does not necessarily make you an actively malicious racist.
I had turned into a symbol of every dumbass white liberal who buys into humanitarian cover stories for imperialism, and the fact that I actually disagreed with those dumbass white liberals was no impediment to the shitstorm. Before too long, it appeared that I had to do something to personally reverse history and get American troops out of Afghanistan.
YES! That’s exactly what was being said to you!
Such a statement is therefore NOT a strawman, irregardless of what reality says, after all, Kenneth Eng can’t be wrong about sophistry being a valid way to approach the world (is your book going to be about the sexiness of dragons btw? because that’d be awesome).
but all sarcasm aside for a second, even if that wasn’t a gross misapprehension of what people actually said to you, Kos would still be the symbol for all crap, and anyone who argued otherwise would get a kick in the teeth from me, I mean, you’re annoying, you seem to be quite blissfully happy to play the anti-race card every two seconds and you’ve got an immensely stupid hairdo (which suits you btw) but you’re not kos, your ignorant arrogance is nothing like his, your nonsensical defensiveness is not quite at his level and your voice doesn’t sound like you’re still going through menache despite being in your 40’s
4 reel.
You’re misinterpreting me.
Actually you really should note that that is how your previous comments actually read like, if you can handle the concept that you can still be less racist than the KKK while still being racist that is.
Which I know is a wacky far out there theory as far as you and many of your extremely pale male fans are concerned, but just try to hold that idea in your head for a few seconds before you start the dance of caucasian justification… for once.
Is that really asking so much?
JW, I’m done. You claimed that the problem was the book cover, that was addressed, and yet somehow you want to keep going. People of good will actually admit it when someone else has considered their points. People of bad will keep digging around for something else to keep railing about.
Amanda,
My impression is that you were so focused on the cover’s sexism and so prepared to fight on that front that the racism flew over your head. The fact that you responded to pablo’s comment about racism with a defense of the sexism suggests to me you had shut down and were not listening before this all even got started. I don’t fault you for this. Being in the public spotlight the way you are, and with the history of blog dustups around here, it’s understandable to me that you would brace yourself the way you did. I think that contributed to you not hearing people as soon as you should have.
That being said, what’s disappointing to me now is this unwillingness to admit your mistakes and apologize in a direct and sincere manner. This kind of shit happens to all of us who are white, and it will continue to happen because ignorance is inevitable when you do not experience racism directly. I hate to get all after school special but really, all we can do - and what we should do - is admit our mistakes, apologize, and try to learn from them.
justicewalks is right. That’s all that really matters here. But you’re right too that this isn’t about the book cover anymore. It’s about how those who criticized the cover were - and continue to be - treated. It’s really striking to me how much twisting and turning people are willing to do to avoid admitting that justicewalks and others are right. They will grasp at any little victory over her, no matter how petty, to diminish her rightness somehow, to find some final “yeah, but…” to walk away with and cushion the hit of knowing they fucked up.
And you did fuck up here, Amanda. A lot of people fucked up. I have fucked up in the past, too, and we all probably will again, because we’re human beings and that’s what we do. Let’s at least be adult enough to admit that and to do so with some integrity and honor.
justicewalks:
I apologized for allowing myself to be threadjacked, but I’ll answer your question. You said:
“Refuse to nurse male neonates” is not a commentary on breastfeeding vs. bottle feeding. It is a clear reference to allowing the male infants to starve to death. You make this explicit by saying:
In other words, those male neonates would have died. And then you use the word:
You discuss reducing the number of males by allowing the newborn males to starve. It is not hyperbole to call this infanticide. But you wrote:
This clearly implies that I used the word infanticide first, when you not only used it, you described the method, the result, and the rationale. And I did NOT attack you for it. Rather I said:
So you said it, then pretended I came up with it. And I didn’t even attack you over it. If just being reminded of what you said offends you, then just take it back. Or have the courage of your convictions.
I already apologized for using that quote when I became aware you may be getting unfairly attacked over it. Unfairly because it seemed to me to be Swiftian satire born of real frustration, and containing more than a germ of truth.
I have been party to infanticide, unlike you I suspect. We put an anencephalic neonate in the corner of the nursery and went about caring for the other babies while he dehydrated and died over the next couple days. Indeed you have hit upon the approved form of infanticide for patriarchy approved purposes. And the horrors of rape and abuse heaped on women are surely more onerous than that of caring for an anencephalic baby in a more nurturing fashion until it dies more naturally. But we digress…
justicewalks:
You put the word infanticide in my mouth, when it was yours not mine. And you’ve put an invidious comparison of the oppression of blacks vs. Jews in my mouth, when it was yours not mine. I took the blame for the first digression (though not the misreading), this one is yours.
My initial comment on this topic was:
Certainly Amanda is right that there are multiple legitimate readings of the cover. But since, as justicewalks so passionately points out, there is a distinctly racist one available to anyone who doesn’t know Amanda.
You quoted this, and have been attacking me ever since.
My point is that even as clear a symbol as a swastika, much less a woman in a gorilla’s arms, is subject to legitimate interpretations that are not racist, as in the case of a Jain.
A white man using the symbol of a white woman in a gorilla’s arms is far different from Amanda picturing herself in the arms of a gorilla.
It is entirely plausible that she saw the gorilla as men, and not as black men.
She has acknowledged it, and taken action to correct it. That this doesn’t satisfy you implies you think she’s a closet racist and won’t admit it. If that’s your argument, say so without all these silly tangents, attacking me based on misreadings of what I’ve said.
I reiterate that I would not have mentioned your failure to demonstrate pure antiracist sentiment - regardless of whether or not you may actually feel it - if you had not expressed a desire to seem like the kind of person who does what’s right because it’s right. When the news was posted to the thread that you’d taken the concerns to the publisher, I didn’t say anything until you made your wish that we perceive you as having the purest of motivations known. And then when I did say something, I also said my thanks for grudging-seeming gesture that was going to your publishers.
So, in thanking you for that, I have “admit[ted] it when someone else has considered [my] points,” as those of us with “good will” are required to do. I’d never have said it was grudging-seeming if you hadn’t sort of asked.
epistemology
Not sure what’s going on – it looked right in the preview. I’ll try this again.
I reiterate that I would not have mentioned your failure to demonstrate pure antiracist sentiment - regardless of whether or not you may actually feel it - if you had not expressed a desire to seem like the kind of person who does what’s right because it’s right. When the news was posted to the thread that you’d taken the concerns to the publisher, I didn’t say anything until you made your wish that we perceive you as having the purest of motivations known. And then when I did say something, I also said my thanks for grudging-seeming gesture that was going to your publishers.
So, in thanking you for that, I have “admit[ted] it when someone else has considered [my] points,” as those of us with “good will” are required to do. I’d never have said it was grudging-seeming if you hadn’t sort of asked.
epistemology:
Oh my god, epistemology. (If anyone would like to host a discussion of my oh-so-confusing views on male entitlement to female bodies, I’d be happy to take this there.)
“Refusing to nurse male neonates” is just that. In my mind, the number of male people on the planet would reduce naturally as a result of the death of old men, the death of young men (wars, petty in-fighting), and the reduced rate at which male neonates would even be born, due to the use of abortion as a means of birth control.
If any male infants starve to death just because the mother that bore them refused to continue to give of her body (or, tacitly, her bottle-heating labors) to sustain him, it would be because the sires of said starved neonates simultaneously refused to lend their own bottle-heating labors to the task.
Yes, in response to whichever dejected mother of son(s) made the same leap of judgment you just did when you likened “refusing to nurse male neonates” to infanticide. Like I said, I didn’t advocate male infanticide, but if someone wants to use my words as an opportunity to tut-tut at the mere thought of it, I won’t stop them.
I didn’t use the word ‘infanticide’ to describe my own words. I used it to describe the tortured interpretation of my words made by whichever dejected mother of son(s) made the mischaracterization.
Responding to epistemology…
I’ve seen swastikas all over Asia. They’re not racist. But a swastika on a white man’s armband is racist; a black swastika on a red flag is racist; basically, a swastika in North America or Europe that is not in an Asian religious setting is racist. And even in Asia, in their original pre-Nazi settings, Asian folks are very sensitive with the deployment of this symbol, keeping it to certain strict usages, understanding that cultural memes sometimes spin out of your own control. Cavalierly declaring “we used this symbol long before Hitler” is true but particularly cool.
I’ve never seen an image of a black gorilla walking upright and carrying a white woman that was not racist. I’m interested in seeing examples, though, for my own ongoing anti-racist education, which is after all a lifelong journey for those of us who are serious about anti-racism. We’re always learning more, we don’t just declare “I’m not racist” and try to leave it at that.
I’m not sure what is meant by “closet racist” but as I see it all people of all backgrounds who are socialized in a racist society have to do a lot of work in order to uncover their normative and often invisible participation in racism, whether overt or covert, personal or institutional. Of course persons of color tend to have a clearer view and deeper analysis of racism because they usually don’t benefit from denial, whereas most white folks (good guys or not) go to great lengths to maintain a non-racist self-image and deny various aspects of the reality of racism while benefiting from it. Some white folks take on this anti-racist work and both accept and transcend their whiteness in the process, de-centering the white lens in their worldview, giving up some white privilege but gaining a lot of humanity and integrity; people of color call such persons “allies”.
[ above: “true but particularly cool” should read “true but not particularly cool” ]
anony: It’s really striking to me how much twisting and turning people are willing to do to avoid admitting that justicewalks and others are right.
“justicewalks is right” about some things. Wrong about others. She’s not the Pope.
Several commenters, including me, have agreed that the book cover is racist and should be replaced. Long ago.
What you and justicewalks want is apparently something else, because the issue has been acknowledged and Amanda has gone to the publishers with the problem.
justicewalks, whatever you thought you wrote, the sentence about sexism, irony and racism means what it means. If you wanted it to mean something else, you should have written it better. Not “dumbed it down.” Made it correct. The problem with the sentence isn’t mine, it’s yours.
And I can’t help seeing another irony — you’re so resistant to simply having your words parsed out literally, while you see no problem in explaining others’ beliefs to them, without the support of or even in direct contradiction to what they’ve actually written. Why are you the only one who gets to have her good intentions taken for granted? When did you become a psychic?
I didn’t quote every flame you’ve made here. I don’t think that is necessary, and it would take up quite a bit more space in an already tl;dr comment. But if you really want more examples (and you are saying there will be many), I can add a few now. Would you prefer to start from the bottom?
That would definitely be a flame.
Misrepresentation, since he pretty early on said that, while a swastika is more obviously offensive to the average person than King Kong, an image of someone lynched and hanging from a tree is more offensive than the swastika.
You revise your opinion of me from racist to idiot. Both opinions are based on your self-awarded “superiority” to me. Flame.
Another tasty irony: “remedial reading capabilities” is awkward, even incorrect wording. Why? The word “remedial” in “remedial reading” doesn’t describe the reader’s reading abilities, it describes the way that the teaching is being applied. The need for remedial reading may the original teaching was poor, or nonexistent, just as often as it means the student has an inherent difficulty in learning to read. Remedial reading applies a remedy.
So I am in fact applying my remedial reading skills — to you, right now, by explaining your lexical gaffes. Trying to help you learn to read, so maybe you can write more effectively. Because if you really didn’t mean what that comment says, you’re less verbally agile than you thought.
I suppose you might have gotten tired of using the hackneyed “reading comprehension” gibe — a phrase most often seen in the writing of libertarian apologists and Usenet lawyers — and decided to use some other insult. But you should have spent more time looking for a workable substitute.
When I start from the top, you suggest it’s because I’m slow, and you’ve really latched on to this, as if pretending I’m stupid will excuse your lapses of comprehensibility.
I have a rational appreciation for my intelligence and abilities. If I misunderstand something even after a close reading, it’s more often because the writer made a mistake than because it’s too complex for me.
Now that I’ve started from the bottom (or darn near it, as your most recent posts since early this morning aren’t represented), will you suggest that I just don’t understand where you started, that I’m ignoring context? Or will you employ some other nonsensical, irrelevant assumption about me to excuse you from having to answer real criticism?
You write:
Amanda, show me where I insinuated that “there is some lurking racist agenda on [your] part.” Please tell me it isn’t this craziness JoAnne’s been talking about.
Maybe she’s thinking of these examples:
and
and
and
If this were really true, how would Amanda respond to the enormity of this? Slicing her neck open and leaving an apologetic suicide note?
There’s a lot you’ve said that you can’t unsay. A lot of it is offensive and presumes knowledge you just don’t have in direct contradiction to things people have said about themselves.
Your message is getting associated with irrational, poorly focused anger at individuals who actively deny thinking, feeling and acting in the ways you ascribe to them.
You started out, in your first comment on this post, blatantly insulting Amanda. Denying it doesn’t make it go away.
You continue to insult me, whom you do not know, and others whom I am pretty sure you don’t know, though your insults are phrased as if you know all about them, including their private motivations and thoughts and actions you can’t see.
I agree with your cheering section that high school might be a relevant time of life here. Because high school is about the time when we start taking adult responsibility for our words and actions. High school is when our history is a little more permanent and we realize we can’t just run endlessly from shelter to shelter, can’t just erase the board and forget you ever made a mistake.
If you don’t like to be held accountable for your words as you present them here and elsewhere, if you want to hide your history or claim you’re being misunderstood when your hastily flung imprecations come back to bite you, then there is a solution. Well, two, actually: Post responsibly, or don’t post at all.
Speak of what you know, not what you imagine of other people.
kai:
I’ll give you two:
Here’s one, a recruiting poster for WWI, where the gorilla represents Germany. It is a tortured reading to claim that this is racist against blacks since Germany was more white than America and everyone knew it.
And Amanda’s interpretation of the original book cover is another. Now you’ve been enlightened. If you still want to claim Amanda is a racist, fine, but you still have adduced NO fact to support it.
epistemology, the image you’ve linked is the same as the book cover I linked earlier in this thread, and is in fact used in the book as an example for racist deconstruction. Are you positive that likening Nazi Germany to an upright black gorilla carrying a white woman, for the purpose of recruiting soldiers to go to war against said gorilla, has absolutely no racist baggage? You may want to think that over; or read the book. Anyway, you seem pretty determined to frame discussion of racism as “am not! are too!”, which isn’t my approach, as I explained in my previous comment; so I think I better just thank you for the dose of enlightenment you’ve offered me and wish you cool runnings. Cheers.
Oh! You were talking about flames against you, JoAnne. I stand by all of those.
Uh, yeah, I’m with Kai (and justicewalks, upthread) on that WWII image. How better to dehumanize and demonize an enemy, how better to conjure feelings of superiority and disgust and righteousness (necessary for rousing the motivation to fight and kill in a war) than to appeal to “time-honored” racist imagery of what a *savage, bloodthirsty, beastly, animalistic, brutish* kind of *person* looks like? We needn’t be so literal as to say, well, Germans are rarely black so it’s impossible this has racist overtones. It’s actually MORE telling, IMO, that the propagandists in this instance couldn’t come up with an image OTHER than a *black beast* to convey these sentiments and reliably arouse the desired feelings in their audience. OR, that they knew this image would be MOST effective in conjuring disgust and rage among their audience of Americans, based on the kind of prejudices said Americans already have.
I believe one of the concerns that many commentors may still have - NOT JUST justicewalks, though it’s interesting that everything keeps getting attributed to her and her alone - is not that Amanda had a secret racist agenda or malicious intent. That’s been stated and restated several times over, by many, many voices here, as far as I’m concerned, and I really don’t think anyone would bother sticking around or engaging with her if they thought that was the case. The concern may be, at least from my perspective, that there could be a much more valuable and productive discussion here, and a bridge built, if Amanda were to say something along the lines of, not only what she’s already said indicating she agrees a racist interpretation is one possible interpretation, but that perhaps she missed the racist interpretation in her original appraisal of the image (she may have said this too, somewhere, but if so it was pretty far into the thread), AND that yes, this is problematic and a function of privilege. Pressing her to acknowledge this is pressing her to validate rather than invalidate the experience of a good portion of her readership, to validate the TRUTH for god’s sake (it IS problematic to “miss” things like this, which we ALL DO), and to make an honest dialogue possible. I, and every other white person, *no matter how liberal or feminist* is guilty of missing stuff and making mistakes that hurt or marginalize people when it comes to race…it is not necessarily a function of malicious intent or bad character or lack of exposure to formal education about race issues. It’s about differences in lived experience, some of which we had no control over but some of which we do. *However,* while honest mistakes don’t reflect character, subsequent denial, projection of blame, and/or trivialization of the issue (which is what the early and repeated “flamewar” references had the effect of doing, as these terms and their implications did NOT accurately characterize the content or tone of what was being said) can start to get into different territory than just lack of awareness.
IMO, bringing the issue to Amanda’s attention was absolutely a demonstration of “good faith” (to plagiarize Nanette re: a different situation on another blog), and pressing her on it 300 comments later can be interpreted as even more good faith, in either Amanda, or other readers, or both. If there was nothing capable of being salvaged here, people would have stayed silent to begin with or given up and gone home long ago.
justicewalks writes: “Oh! You were talking about flames against you, JoAnne. I stand by all of those.”
And that’s it.
I guess that means you give in on everything else? You admit to flaming Amanda, epistemology, Michael Berube? You admit to claiming a verbal acuity you don’t quite manage to exhibit for us here? That you only wish to examine others’ motives and find your own beyond reproach or even question?
rebeccab: “trivialization of the issue (which is what the early and repeated “flamewar” references had the effect of doing, as these terms and their implications did NOT accurately characterize the content or tone of what was being said”
The flames started early. “I think you mean ‘racism’ instead of ‘irony.’” counts.
I agree that reacting to them instead of the issue did have the effect of trivializing the issue. And I agree that Amanda should have grappled with the issue much sooner.
But not everyone who objected to the flames was doing so because they wanted to obscure the racism of the cover and just wanted the problem to go away.
Could it have been denial? Could it have been an uncomfortable feeling, knowing you missed something very obviously racist on a book cover that’s supposed to be a “win” for “our side” (whatever that is)? Sure, that could be a huge factor. I can’t speak for others but I felt uncomfortable when I realized it was racist and I didn’t see it right away.
But another factor is that people don’t like being called names and assigned ulterior motives based on what they say and do, having been conditioned by a sexist and racist culture. People are complex. Enlightenment and education isn’t a one-minute process.
If you’re battling a political or social enemy, like a Pat Robertson or a Jesse Helms or Focus on the Family, polemic speech is appropriate. But when we as people, as peers, are discussing an issue, it’s counterproductive to start there.
I’m not trying to assign singular blame for this fuckup. But I don’t think we can dismiss flaming as a part of the reason it took so long for Amanda to act.
I’m actually glad that WWII image was offered, because it really illustrated for me that we don’t even have, culturally, the “tools,” so to speak, for dehumanizing, demonizing, and otherwise insluting *white people*, and as such we have to resort to using images meant to dehumanize other races, or alternatively, resort to EQUATING them with other races, to *get the job done*. Kind of like, although not exactly like, the most reliable and stinging way of insulting a male is typically to use feminizing language or imagery.
Also, I’ve re-read my post above and am struck by how automatically I revert to hesitant, overly *qualified,* and frankly coddling language in describing what transpired here. Damn.
JoAnne,
That you refuse to pose your arguments within the frame of givens in this discussion makes it difficult, in addition to my low opinion of you, to address your wild meanderings. Amanda has had at least as many opportunities as you have to point out which of my comments (or anyone else’s) prevented her from hearing the complaints being made.
She has also had as many opportunities to make her appreciation for your “support” known.
I am willing to agree to disagree with your assessment of these proceedings, and see no further point in communicating with you.
It’s clear that Amanda was seriously blindsided by this — not just unaware of the problems with the image, but mistaken in her assumptions about the motivations of the early criticism. She didn’t see what other people saw, and she couldn’t hear them when they described it to her.
The early critics of the cover took a variety of approaches, and none of them were able to make themselves heard in the first couple of days. Amanda herself has said that that had less to do with what they said or how they said it than with her past experience with dustups that she considered parallel. I think it’s possible to be sympathetic to Amanda’s situation and still recognize that all that is pretty much on her.
I believe that image was a WWI image, not a WWII image, judging from the helmet style.
Thanks for the correction JG; it was correctly identified as such by everyone but me, it seems. I don’t think that detracts from my point, however.
Oh, definitely not, sorry if I gave that impression. I’m pedantic, at times.
Not at all; it is important to be accurate.
Thanks for the correction, JackGoff, WWI it is!
JoAnne, to answer your question - I don’t think pointing out when someone is being dishonest and behaving in a racist way, as clearly and unapologetically as justicewalks did and continues to do, is flaming, no. The I’m-a-good-person-so-you’re-hurting-me-by-pointing-out-when-I’m-not-behaving-as-such is a defense of white liberals that pre-dates, by far, the flamewar fatigue that keeps getting referenced here as an understandable reason for Amanda to write the things she wrote early on in this thread. Now, I happen to like justicewalks’ tone myself, but if I didn’t, wouldn’t a similar “understanding” still be reasonably granted by people of good will, towards someone who has dealt so many fucking times with white people who, when confronted with criticism around race, either dismiss it or go on the attack? Why are the words you don’t like that Amanda wrote forgivable because we’re all human and she was uncomfortable and she’s been through so much…but justicewalks is a Google-worthy male baby killing meanie flamer because she pointed out what apparently everyone now agrees is the truth and then told people off who tried to scold her for it, and continues to do so? Amanda was in the wrong, but forgivable. Justicewalks was right, but somehow this thread is now about…her unforgivable insistence on such? For christ’s sake already.
justicewalks:
Which givens are these? Make them clear.
Sigh.
Don’t hide in “I can’t explain it to you because you’re too dumb and too confused.” You’re flailing and have no answers. Just admit it.
Ah, so because your flames were not addressed directly by Amanda, you don’t have to answer for what you said about her. If she leaves the field, you win by default.
I don’t have to have her consent to argue with you about what you said about her. Or epistemology, or anyone else, for that matter.
I’m not her champion. I think she should have acted long before she did. But that doesn’t render you blameless for the ill will you’ve spread here.
Again you don’t see how what you do and what others do might be treated the same.
But by your rules above, you leave the field, so I win by default.
Joan Kelly:
Ever heard of a sore winner?
Ever think that there’s more to life than the binary right/wrong?
I don’t think and didn’t say everyone who’s trying to “do right” gets a free pass to be racist. If you actually read what I said, it’s not about giving free passes or ignoring racism, it’s about confronting it in a human way.
I don’t think and didn’t say that justicewalks’ actions are “unforgivable.” I’m holding her to them the way she says she is holding the closet racists here to theirs.
You’re playing the same mindreading games JW favors. Ignoring what I wrote in favor of what you want me to have meant.
Furthermore, I don’t think everyone that justicewalks scolded was being dishonest. I don’t think justicewalks has some kind of magical ability to know when someone’s lying about their thoughts or feelings.
I don’t think Googling someone is a crime, or childish. If justicewalks’ history of being fucked with by White people is relevant, the rest of her history is, too. She’s the one who made it public. We don’t post or comment on blogs so that no one will read us.
But history in dealing with racism is germane to this discussion. Ad hominem attacks relating to other discussions that have no bearing on this particular discussion do nothing to advance anything other than a flamewar. Which is what you were arguing against, n’est pas?
Not to mention that *I* rather unabashedly flamed you twice (by your apparent definition of flaming), JoAnne, yet you still insist on singling out justicewalks as the official identified “problem”, the *flamer*, in this thread. Her tone is somehow egregious to you, when my much more sarcastic tone escaped your attention (or your comment).
“If justicewalks’ history of being fucked with by White people is relevant, the rest of her history is, too.”
No. You haven’t really grasped that this is not just *history*, for one thing, neither the “fucking with” aspect nor the racist imagery aspect. And I’m not convinced that you *honestly* believe that because personal history relevant to the topic is *admissible*, ANY aspect of personal history is therefore also *admissible*. (I’ve resorted to courtroom language because it seems appropriate to your point.) Aside from that, justicewalks has really relied very little, if at all, on personal, andecdotal experiences in her comments, so to frame anything as simply *her* history, rather than the broader cultural and social history she has actually referenced (not to say individual history alone would somehow be less valid, of course) is more than a little disingenuous. If we view what *actually* transpired in the thread and then use your *logic* as outlined above to transparently rationalize an utter threadjack or inflammatory tangent, we get something like this: if the history of racism in the United States is *admissible*, any aspect of the history of the United States is also admissible. Why don’t I just start talking about the New Deal, then, or the Wild West, or the Winter Hill gang? Because that would be off-topic and ludicrous.
Again, it’s worth a *process comment* about WHO is being singled out as the villain commentor, despite the myriad voices expressing similar perspectives (and in similar tones). It’s also worth a hearty laugh that you imply justicewalks has a *cheering section*, which serves to preemptively minimize anyone who agrees with her (which, if you’re sentient, you’ll know is a sizeable group of people) and/or serves to imply that she’s looking for, or in need of, validation or an affirming nod of approval, which in turn minimizes HER. You STILL operate from the premise that she should be, or is, out to win people over and should alter her presentation (which has been clear, calm, and measured, incidentally, but has been *projected onto* up the wazoo) to accomplish that goal. That’s inherently problematic in situations where there is a clear injustice.
Kai (to whom I apologize for being rude and condescending, I was being rushed out of the house–we had a lovely time, Mom-mom got a new puppy–and you exasperated me), justicewalks, and rebeccab, queen of procrastination:
I don’t want this thread to be about the WWI recruiting poster of the ape, Germany, with innocent, white American womanhood in its paws. But I think a more reasonable reading of it is that apes seem fearsome brutish creatures that have figured in human nightmares since before racism existed. And the human association of dark with fear has similarly been used by racists. But it is universal and will always derive primarily from our fear of night. That racists can re-direct our fears of apes and dark onto black people is a pernicious bit of propaganda on their part, which we should oppose. But we don’t oppose it by claiming fear of the dark is racist, or fear of apes is racist.
There was a white woman in an ape’s paws in the movie King Kong, and while there were racist images in the movie, the ape was not one. As you recall, the ape fell in love with the woman and treated her tenderly. This is ANOTHER example of a white woman in an ape’s paws that is not racist. Do you seriously think that when Amanda thinks of abduction, she thinks of black men? I don’t doubt it.
I share your shock that she could overlook the racist reading of the cover since it is OBVIOUS. But this is NOT an example of unaware indoctrination into racism as Kai implies (common and important to recognize as it is). A Jain unaware of the significance of the swastika has not been indoctrinated. He is just unaware. When informed, a sensitive one will act accordingly, as Amanda has. Amanda was ignorant, not racist. I am quite sure she was not exempting the white part of the male sex from her interpretation of the cover. In fact I’d guess, if pressed, she was specifically imagining a white male.
It’s fascinating how long Amanda allowed herself to be called racist rather than admit she was ignorant.
But shame on all who have gone from pointing out the racist implications of the cover to calling Amanda racist.
Kai said:
Amanda doesn’t fit your criteria of ally?
Conseravtives are willing to support opponents if it profits them, while liberals are willing to tear down their friends, even if it costs them. For shame.
I think the problem is that the cover is so obviously racist it is hard to believe Amanda didn’t intend it. And if she had drawn the cover, I’d agree with Kai, this is either overtly racist, or a product of racist indoctrination. But I think she just pictured herself in the cover, and men were the apes.
But the artist needs an education if he thought this was acceptable. Who was he Amanda? You’ve shown his work without his permission (damn bloggers; don’t think the rules apply to them), at least give him credit. He’s caused you a world of trouble.
And what to do with the fact that his work has been used in connection with the book, but won’t be the cover?
I think it is extraordinary, and blog-like, that this conversation has taken place with an author of a book before it was published, and it changed the finished product. How about a post script in the book that shows the cover and explains the controversy, Amanda? STOP THE PRESSES!
JoAnn, do you see any irony in the fact that you’re upset that justicewalks supposedly told Amanda what she really meant, when you’ve probably taken 5 hours out of your life to inform justicewalks that she didn’t REALLY mean what she’s explained 600 times that she meant, not to mention the fact that you seem to be the only person who had any confusion over that statement? Nobody else apparently interprets that statement the way you do, not even Amanda. justicewalks seems pretty straightforward and has called you a liar, using the standard formulation of “you are a liar,” not once but twice. If she wanted to call Amanda a liar and a racist, it seems likely that she would have done so without using some kind of secret (but extremely flamey!) code only you can hear.
You’re doing pretty much everything you’re erroneously claiming justicewalks is doing, “ignoring what I wrote in favor of what you want me to have meant” pretty much wins the irony prize, not to mention all this maturity about “the field” and “winning.” If not spreading ill will and approaching conflicts in a reasonable and mature way and granting the benefit of the doubt is important to you, maybe you should try leading by example.
Now this is interesting: King Kong Review
Read the last sentence of the comment at 29 and Amanda’s comment immediately after at 30. Seems she did know about the “Kong as Black Man” motif.
But I think a more reasonable reading of it is that apes seem fearsome brutish creatures that have figured in human nightmares since before racism existed.
This right here is what I just don’t get. It is not “reasonable” to ignore the history of black people, just so you get to go way way back to when the only association white people had with darkness was night time and skip over all the years in between in which that darkness/badness analogy was extended to people. It is uneducated, but only to an extent; persistence makes it racist.
Ummm’s comment I just let out of moderation: Let’s keep pretending no one is combing through your words looking for something you can use to play “gotcha” and accuse me (wrongly) of ill intent.
Anyway, I should drop this. Reasonable people brought it to my attention that there were multiple readings, and reasonable people were satisfied when I listened and acted. I pointed out that some people were determined to conduct a flamewar no matter what; the continuation of this thread is very nicely played out proof of that. Things like flaming about how “long” it took someone to act—yeah. Wow. Looking for something to start shit over? I’m not entirely certain everyone here has a job or a life, but most of us realize that in the real world, instanteous is not the norm. There’s nothing worse than when non-reasonable people stumble across a reasonable point—they wear that like a badge of honor, they got something right for once, and use it as cover to rant and rave about whatever until everyone forgets they had a point to begin with.
justicewalks:
I acknowledge and am sorry for my part in the racism (and sexism) that oppresses you to this very day. I abjure the appurtenances of oppression such as images, words, and other social constructs used in the past and to this day as means to further that end. I grant I have far more than is warranted by my cleverness and hard work due to my privileged position as a white male in 21st century America. I hope I behave in accordance with these beliefs. My wife, with whom I make my living, has total control over all finances, I have no checkbook or wallet and only buy what she approves ahead of time (yippee, no worries). I spend my non-working, non-blogging days cooking (epistemology, king of cupcakes) and cleaning (it is the best therapy, I feel better, and things are clean when I’m done). I spend whatever small authority that has been vested in me to assist women and children (this house is the hangout, and has taken in more than one rejected teenager).
But if you tell me that I can’t have a non-racist fear of the dark, or Amanda can’t have a psychological reaction to this cover that is non-racist and involves her in the hands of a beastly white man, then you’ve become the thought police.
You know who’s very, very smart? ilyka. Maybe you should listen to her and learn how, while doing the right thing you can actually make things worse by the way you handle things. Very, very perceptive person, that ilyka. Yeah, I know, she too hates you, is out to get you, etc. No. Not so much.
JW, the strawman is out of straw. Drop it. You seem almost pissed I listened, because that makes it so much harder to demonize me—now you have to make shit up.
Amanda,
My point was that while you may in fact have taken steps to have the cover changed - for which I thanked you - you have still failed to come across as having purely antiracist motives. It has nothing to do with the timing. It has to do with the way you have treated the detractors.
It is true, you have honored the request the detractors made, but you have not done so honorably. That you cannot manage to honor the request without mocking the detractors and glorifying and legitimizing the ignorant opinion you “once” held, which opinion was only maintained by the deliberate suppression of black history in our racist environment, is and has been the problem all along. I believe you’ll find evidence of such throughout this thread. It would have been my problem to ponder in silence if you hadn’t voiced a desire to appear 100% driven by righteousness, at which aspiration you’ve failed miserably. And it has nothing to do with any juvenile notions of timely expediency on my part.
If a man came here trying to hold on to ignorance born of an environment deplete of female perspectives (patriarchy), he’d be quickly disavowed of any notion that his stubborn fondness, or respect, for the old male-centered perspective is feminist. “But we shouldn’t always have to look at smiling happy momma/wife imagery as sexist!” (remember, if the sexism is being deconstructed, it mitigates the offense, not the sexism in the image) has never flown as a feminist argument around these parts, but it’s racial parallel is supposed to suffice as antiracist?
No.
And this is a lie. You’d do well to cite a quote wherein I’ve made anything up.
Alas, the scales have welled up solidly in your eyes now, though. You can see nothing but your dislike for me. Where once there may have been something antiracist to salvage, I see that you are only interested in salvaging your reputation from the taint of racism and hurt pride. I wish you luck with that.
Not to change the subject, but what WILL the cover be?
I think the current cover should be used as an appendix, as a teaching moment.
And for the new cover, how about posing for a photo, in your favorite retro style, Amanda, with YOU (yeah, you; you are photogenic, and if you want to write in America, it doesn’t hurt to develop that brand), in mock horror realizing the elevator you are about to get on has some smug, but intimidating looking lacrosse team members?
It tweaks the conservatives while being self-mocking at the same time.
If the conservatives can sell books using buzzwords and images that are dishonest beyond defending, then surely liberals shouldn’t be afraid to court controversy with images containing more than a grain of truth to them.
‘Justice’walks and her sycophants, perhaps when inciting others to join the ‘revoution’ you proclaimed earlier in the thread, you will consider the following:
Terrorism, as defined by the Terrorism Act 2000, includes: serious violence against a person, serious damage to property, endangering a person’s life - not including endangering the life of the person committing the action - creating a serious risk to the health and safety of the public, and any action designed seriously to interfere with or disrupt an electronic system.
Inciting violence for violence’s sake would not be incitement to terrorism, but for a successful prosecution for incitement to commit terrorism in the UK, a motive must be proved.
Terrorism is particularly concerned with the following motives:
The action must be designed to influence government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public.
The action must be made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.
You are European, right? British, perhaps?
So could you clear this point up for me? Are you inciting or suggesting that males should be killed in order to ‘further’ you feminist revolution? If you are you might want to contact a *very* good lawyer.
Justicewalks, YOU are our enemy.
[I put on my wizard hat and cloak]
BloodNinja
‘Justice’walks and her sycophants, perhaps when inciting others to join the ‘revoution’ you proclaimed earlier in the thread, you will consider the following:
Terrorism, as defined by the Terrorism Act 2000, includes: serious violence against a person, serious damage to property, endangering a person’s life - not including endangering the life of the person committing the action - creating a serious risk to the health and safety of the public, and any action designed seriously to interfere with or disrupt an electronic system.
Inciting violence for violence’s sake would not be incitement to terrorism, but for a successful prosecution for incitement to commit terrorism in the UK, a motive must be proved.
Terrorism is particularly concerned with the following motives:
The action must be designed to influence government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public.
The action must be made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.
You are European, right? British, perhaps?
So could you clear this point up for me? Are you inciting or suggesting that males should be killed in order to ‘further’ you feminist revolution? If you are you might want to contact a *very* good lawyer.
Justicewalks, YOU are our enemy.
[I put on my wizard hat and cloak]
BloodNinja
Amanda, I may well get fired some day for my obsessive blog visiting/commenting that sometimes occurs during work hours, but so far so good; and if the not-having-a-life remark was a dig about my failure to get laid for some time now, ya got me.
You did forget to mention, however, that I’m only on this thread because I can’t manage to get a word in edgewise on the rapid fire thread-d’-hotness-oppression going on over at Feministe. There is also still time to bring up the fact that while there is one finger pointing at you, there are three pointing straight back at me. And my mother dresses me funny. And Kelly rhymes with smelly.
Cuz I know you couldn’t have been talking to any of the people who’ve been handing you your ass, all due respect.
I’m sorry but… blood, a ninja outfit AND a wizard hat and cloak?
Surely that’s just a tad overdressed?
[I put on my wizard hat and cloak]
*crickets*
Surely that’s just a tad overdressed?
When you troll, you go big, or you go home.
I’m late to this thread, but GAWD.
Who but a racist would think “gorilla = black man?” I’m no Amanda fangirl, but some of y’all are really stretching if you think there were racist motives in the choice of a fucking picture of KING KONG (ever see it?) and Fay Wray.
But thanks for perpetuating the “black = gorilla” meme, kids. Brilliant.
Get a life, for fuck’s sake.
I’m sure everyone will be combing through the book once it’s released, looking for something to complain about there, as well. “OMG! My identity wasn’t included or completely represented!!!1! There are no Disabled Age 50+ Transsexual Single Mother MTF Women of Color™ in the book! Call a waaambulance!!!!
(Tip: Want your identity represented? Write your own book.)
Exactly.
Maybe if Amanda had the same life experiences that JW has had, she’d see it as racist. But on the same token, if JW would bother to honestly look at it from Amanda’s perspective, a racist subtext wouldn’t be found.*
Furthermore, you could take it from some MRA’s perspective, if you wanted to, and think Amanda was saying “all men are apes.”
And hey, that gorilla looks kinda heavy–maybe she was talking about fat people!!!1!1
*Of course, that would require acknowledging that not all white people are racists, but I suspect that’s not possible in JW’s case, which pretty much makes her comments pointless in that strawman kinda way.
I know there is a lot of irony, etc. that goes right over my head, but when BloodNinja writes this:
he is threatening violence against justicewalks. Unjust jail is a soul-crushing violence, and we all know that justicewalks is not inciting violence.
Amanda, shame on you for letting that comment out of moderation.
I know justicewalks unjustly called you racist for seeing an ape carrying a white woman, and not thinking of the slander against the black man, she essentially said that I was a racist for being afraid of the dark.
But don’t you want to distance yourself from this fearful little man, with the 12 year old name? (If BloodNinja really is a 12 year old, I take back the above, and beg him to let me talk to his parents.)
I know justicewalks unjustly called you racist for seeing an ape carrying a white woman, and not thinking of the slander against the black man,
That isn’t what happened at all. People in this thread, including justicewalks, have called not seeing the racism of that image an example of white privilege–which it is.
People have cast doubt on Amanda’s ability to be an anti-racist ally because of the way she kept insisting on exercising her white privilege in this thread and dismissing and belittling the concerns of people hurt by the racist image.
To save the jungle/environment metaphor, perhaps the woman could have her head stuck in a lion’s mouth. Or she could be standing in front of a herd of rampaging elephants. There are probably other jungle metaphors that offend no one.
No CK, that the history of the image of the black man as an inhuman ape threatening the women white men think they possess has been so suppressed that it doesn’t have the punch of, say, the swastika (don’t blame the Jews justicewalks, we should emulate, not resent them for exposing injustice, shouldn’t we?) is a testimony to the racism in our society.
But this does not mean Amanda is a racist. Amanda does not see through justicewalks eyes. She hasn’t experienced the specific hurt that justicewalks, as a woman of color, knows. If she claimed to, justicewalks could rightly correct her. Amanda is entitled to her reaction to an ape with a white woman in its arms by imagining herself being abducted by a white man. When she recognizes the significance of the image to blacks, she should disavow its use. Not to do so is racist. But having the reaction that the ape represented men, not black men, can be legitimate, if that’s how she truly responded
Justicewalks said of my fear of the dark:
In other words, if I persist in being afraid of the dark, now that I know of the racist associations, my feelings are illegitimate and I am a racist.
Justicwalks has said that Amanda is not an ally of women of color.
Be honest, do you really think I’m a racist for being afraid of the dark? Do you really think Amanda is not an ally of women of color?
Justicewalks hasn’t just reminded Amanda how hurtful this image is, she has called her a liar and a racist. She should apologize, and so should all who piled on.
Being afraid of the dark or apes is not intrinsically racist. Racists have played on our fear of the dark and apes to shamefully propagandize against blacks. Can’t you see the difference? Am I explaining this badly? This is exasperating. Lurkers, am I nuts?
it doesn’t have the punch of, say, the swastika (don’t blame the Jews justicewalks, we should emulate, not resent them for exposing injustice, shouldn’t we?)
What makes you think that justicewalks wasn’t expending so much time here precisely in an attempt to expose the injustice of that racist image? “Mainstream,” i.e., privileged people have caught on that images swastikas are so hurtful as to be off-limits in most contexts because people went to all the trouble of making privileged people uncomfortable to point it out, just as justicewalks has been doing here.
When she recognizes the significance of the image to blacks, she should disavow its use. Not to do so is racist.
And, instead, she first instead acted as though the image was not something that needed to be changed and that people who were voicing concerns about the racist image’s hurtful impact on people who didn’t have the privilege to see the image without all its historical weight shouldn’t be given more consideration than people whose privilege made them ignorant. When she finally did decide to talk about the image being problematic with the publisher, she still belittled the concerns and motivations of the people who spoke up about how the image was hurtful and in fact continued to defend its use rather than disavow it.
do you really think I’m a racist for being afraid of the dark?
Justicewalks did not say that being afraid of the dark, in and of itself, is racist. In She did point out, very astutely and clearly, that playing on certain primal fears in many images and words are going to carry along all the historical baggage of linking darkness, brute animals, and evil to black people. And to ignore that, and to defend a racist image simply by saying, “But being afraid of the dark is a legitimate fear!” when people are saying, “This image is part of the racist tradition of linking fear and evil to black people,” is racist.
It’s irrelevant that people can be afraid of dark, anthropomorphized apes without being aware that those images are linked to the demonization of black people. Those images *do* have that link, so spreading them without addressing the racism spreads a racist tradition, even if one isn’t intending to do that.
Do you really think Amanda is not an ally of women of color?
What makes you think Amanda is an ally to people of color? It’s something people actively have to work on; not wanting to be racist isn’t enough.
Lurkers, am I nuts?
I think you’ll find that a lot of lurkers who have seen this discussion as dismissive and belitting about the concerns of people of color have given up on seeing this as an educable moment for people who are trying to defend Amanda’s handling of this discussion as unproblematic. I can’t speak for them; maybe some are still reading and might think it’s worth speaking up. But I wouldn’t blame them for having given up.
As a lurker I will echo CK and say that this thread has been dismissive right from the start with Pablo’s post at #27. His ‘eagerly offended’ post and Amanda’s post right after that set the tone. There was a lot of back and forth and good points made early in the thread but when it starts out as dismissive and belittling, it rarely recovers. The situation was not helped by labeling descent to the cover as joy-killing and the entire thread as a flamewar.
I have read the entire thread with interest. I did not see the racism in the image originally but I am white and understand why, with my privilege, I would not have seen it. Once pointed out and explained I knew it would be offensive to a large portion of a group that we should be standing beside and not alienating.
After reading through all these posts I’m not sure a separate thread on racism would do any good at this time. There seemed to be a lot of people on this board that felt since they did not see the racism in the cover, they shouldn’t have to address people who did. Concerns brought up where quickly dismissed. They should have been addressed earlier. It seems to have been handled badly. It seems that a thread on racism here would be as effective as trying to start a thread on sexism at DailyKos. The result would be to illustrate the privilege of posters more so than to educate anyone.
And now, I return to lurking.
Epistemology, again you have forced me to decend from the astral plane.
When you say,
“But don’t you want to distance yourself from this fearful little man, with the 12 year old name? (If BloodNinja really is a 12 year old, I take back the above, and beg him to let me talk to his parents.)”
You make asumptions that I am male as an attempt to slander. In your eyes being male is a disease-like quality. For you, and feminists like your buddy Justicewalks are already in a prison. You made the walls yourself with your hatred. Let’s be clear if you were male, you’d still be full of vile hatred. I doubt you’d have a radical feminist concience though.
You are constrained by your ideolgy into having to exclude half of the human race. I doubt you have fully thought this out. Where are you going to put all the bodies?
It’s not about women being on top, it’s about balance and equality.
Your childish fantasy of a feminist utopia will never happen. It’s a dream, and as a dream it will stay. Advocating such extremism only exposes the transparent fakery of the advocates. For these people, this is all just an exercise in pseudo-academic politicing, and self-centred showboating.
It is quite correct for others to expose the lunacy of Justicewalks and cohorts. This kind of immature extremism only serves to damage the feminist cause in the long term. She and the other extremists are outside the group. You are caught up in ugly group behaviour. Like hooligans, puffing out your chests and egging each other on.
When (and hopefully within our lifetimes) the balance between female and male is struck. It will be struck by enlightened women *and* men. It will not have a manifesto, it will happen because it is the right thing to do. It is the natural state of affairs.
Amanda’s cover was great. It wasn’t intended to be racist. She listened to your points and was open to change it. What the hell more do you want?
BloodNinja.
p.s. You might want to have your irony deficiency looked at. Take ferrous Sulpate, 200mg/once per day, with some food.
Sorry BloodNinja, I thought you were being ironic, but you are a latecomer here and no not what of you speak.
In the last 1/3 of this thread I was the critic of justicewalks. Try reading first, commenting after.
As for your point that people who may seem too radical too radical are damaging the cause of feminism and racial equality, which I assume you are an advocate of, it has often been historically true that the radicals are needed to prick our consciences, even if their vision of utopia differs from yours.
I suspect justicewalks does far more than you or I to advance feminism and racial justice, despite my disagreement with her on the interpretation of this cover.
In brief: You are a man, like me, people like you, not me, make that a slander, and you’ve done NOTHING to help assert a non-racist reading off the cover, I have. Thanks for nothing.
Now, how about putting your mother on so we can have a talk about your misogyny?
I’m a bit late to the party, but as soon as I saw the cover image it struck me as racist. I’m thrilled for your success, Amanda, but that really is some unfortunate cover art, and it was kind of disappointing to see you spending most of the thread dismissing people’s thoughtful criticism. Hope the publishers decide to change the cover!
(BTW, I’m Canadian, and am appalled by those like RKMK who think being Canadian is a fine justification for insensitivity.)
Beth, I know you’re late to the thread, but really, most of us have come around to agreeing that images like the image on that cover do have a racist history. We think JW and Serena and Heart were right to bring up the issue. We just don’t all agree with JW that all images of gorillas and white women are straight-up racist simple and plain. And some of us might take issue with JW’s claim in 386:
My problem with this (just speaking for me) is that it basically says that everyone who saw the image and didn’t think “gorilla = black man” is ignorant of history and therefore perpetuating racism. And the last sentence goes even further, to say that people who think that for some images, nonracist interpretations of gorillas (in cartoons, WWI posters, etc.) are as plausible as racist ones . . . are racists. That seems to me to overextend the concept of white privilege (and the concept of racism).
And if you buy the drag = blackface argument, then black drag queens are racists too.
But then, it would be interesting if this comic book cover were subtly suggesting that Jerry Lewis is black.
My problem with this (just speaking for me) is that it basically says that everyone who saw the image and didn’t think “gorilla = black man” is ignorant of history and therefore perpetuating racism.
That’s not what the quotation says. The quotation says that, yes, seeing the image and not being aware that it’s racist is a function of ignorance. The quotation makes clear the fact that so many people can be ignorant about this is a function of a racist society set up to let so many privileged people go on being ignorant about all the racist harms the society imposes. But the quotation does not say that simply being ignorant is racist.
However, it should be obvious that ignorant viewpoints are not as valid as informed ones. Further, spreading racist images without deconstructing them, even if out of innocent ignorance and with only good or neutral intentions, *does* perpetuate racism. And willfully ignoring these things, for the sake of trying to defend the use of racist imagery, *is* racist.
OK, CK, but then let’s take a hypothetical. Let’s say there’s a hypothetical person who agrees about this book cover but disagrees with you (and JW) that the Guerrilla Girls are racist. Is such a person ignorant and/or racist?
rebeccab, queen of procrastination:
The relevant flaming is that against Amanda, because the topic is, “why didn’t Amanda respond sooner?”
The fact that she was tossed from another blog for being incendiary is extremely relevant to whether flaming is an effective tactic when commenting on other people’s blogs.
I should have written more carefully, to state that *relevant* history is relevant here even if it didn’t occur here. You are right and I am wrong.
Precisely my point. Instead she largely relies on characterizations of the actions, motivations and characters of those here.
If you think my sentence meant that only her personal history is relevant and not the history racism in society, I’m wondering what context you’re omitting.
I’ve clearly said that the image is racist. If you got the impression I meant it was racist only in JW’s mind, I think maybe you’re confusing me with other commenters here, who I think have said this.
It may or may not be “admissible.” The history of racism is admissible even though we haven’t covered all of it here yet.
This would include the racism against Germans expressed in the WWI images, which is obviously visually based on the existing “monkey” racism against Blacks, by the way, so anyone saying “they picked on Germans too” isn’t really getting to the root of that particular tree.
I don’t have infinite time and energy to respond to everyone. She’s the one who has spent the most time, energy and vitriol responding to me, and her responses seem to encompass the existing complaints most broadly.
Oh, sorry, I’m not sentient. Should I recuse myself now?
You see how these little flames really enlighten and give clarity to the discussion.
Are we not all seeking validation or approval, or at least someone to hear us? Why would JW post more than once if she had her say, unless she wanted validation in the form of action by Amanda and agreement from others?
I guess we will have to disagree on at least part of that. Her statements come across as angry, not calm. “Replace irony with sexism” was very clear but now, apparently, she’s decided she didn’t really say that.
Did JW not want to win Amanda over to pressuring her publisher to change the cover?
Maybe I’m confused as to what she wants to do. What is her goal in this exchange?
justicewalks, to Amanda:
immediately followed by
Wow. Just, wow.
You don’t think this is making things up?
CK:
It is not true that a non-racist reaction to the dark or a gorilla is less valid than a reaction that acknowledges the racist implications. And that is the crux of my disagreement with you and justicewalks. It is not ignorance, it is not white privilege, it is not racist.
In what possible universe am I expected to see the world through your eyes? You seem unable to see the non-racist reading of the cover that Amanda saw. In that sense, you too, are ignorant of the full meaning of the image to part of the human race. Just as a Jew who doesn’t know the history of the swastika in Jainism is ignorant of the full picture. Sensitive Jains don’t use swastikas in the the west, not because because they acknowledge their reading is ignorant, but out of concern for the suffering of others. There is a difference.
And there is no evidence that Amanda intends to spread a racist image. So if her initial reaction to the cover was personal, not racist, and she doesn’t intend to spread the image, then how is she a racist as justicewalks implies by saying she is not an ally of women of color?
No, she said “persistence makes it racist.” If I persist in my own personal interpretation of the dark, knowing of the hurtful associations to her, then I am racist. As if a Jain is antisemitic if he continues to hold favorable interpretations of a swastika after learning of the Nazis.
And YOU say being afraid of the dark is racist, also:
No, there are racist uses of dark imagery, and ape imagery, but that’s not what we are talking about. You claim that, knowing that such imagery is used to oppress black people, I have no right to address my honest fear of the dark, without being called a racist. Apparently you think it is OK for me to be afraid of the dark, but if I say so, I’m racist.
Sometimes a train going into a tunnel is just a train going into a tunnel. And not every reference to the dark is a slur against blacks, as you imply.
I understand that there is anger at Amanda for not more quickly acknowledging the racist reading, but that does not make her racist, that makes her defensive.
By the way, do you think there are racist overtones to the cover Flaming Sword of Moderation linked (comment #444) showing a white man protecting a blond woman from a gorilla?
then how is she a racist as justicewalks implies by saying she is not an ally of women of color?
Not being a racist is not the same thing as being an ally. There are people who are not racist in general, but who would not be considered anti-racists (which, to my way of thinking has a specific and distinct meaning), nor would they be considered - by people of color - allies of people of color.
Fair enough, Nanette. Do you think Amanda is anti-racist?
In any number contexts and situations she is anti racists. But… wait - how to put this…
I’ll just say that we’re, many of us, constantly learning and (to some extent) continuously working to move ourselves forward, and that she still has a bit of work to do, in my opinion.
Many of us? Not all of us to some degree or other?
In conversations this fraught, sometimes it’s useful to examine basic definitions. What does racist mean?
Epistemology asked for lurker’s response, so I’ll throw in my support with the following sentiment:
I would go further and question evaluating reactions at all as valid or invalid. How you react is how you react, you can’t change that, can’t go back in time and react a different way. What you can do is what has been done here, notice and take in the reactions of others, and respond to that.
FWIW, I didn’t catch the racism in the image at first, and have no guilt. Anyone who wants that is fuct in the head.
I agree that the cover is hurtful, and appreciate the education.
Seeing Amanda abused in this thread, on her blog, by, yes, irony-deficient artless fuckwits kills me, the forbearance in evidence, contrasted with how much you don’t deserve her.
Many of us? Not all of us to some degree or other?
Well, I dunno. You’d be hard pressed to convince me that some right wingers are doing anything but determinedly moving backwards.
In conversations this fraught, sometimes it’s useful to examine basic definitions. What does racist mean?
Well, I’m too tired to drill down into this or that definition and separating out individual racism, conscious or unconscious racism/racists, structural racism and so on.
So, I’ll just take that judge’s dodge and say, I know it when I see it
.
Magniloquence is doing an excellent series on race relations 101, lots of good stuff there.
No, no Nanette, I mispoke, I meant: Don’t we all have a bit of work to do?
I’d say yes we all have a bit of work to do, sure. A cat may nap from sun to sun, but a human’s work is never done, ya know. Or something like that.
Anyway, maybe it’s better said - we’re constantly learning and working to move forward, except for those that reject learning and work to move everyone backwards. Well, and those who prefer things just how they are and so opt to stay still.
These anti spam graphics are a pain to read.
You claim that, knowing that such imagery is used to oppress black people, I have no right to address my honest fear of the dark, without being called a racist.
No one has claimed that.
You brought up a fear of the dark, while other people were talking about the specific image on the book cover and other images like it.
The image of a dark, antropomorphized ape threatening a white woman is a racist image. It was created with a racist mindset, it was used and is still used with racist intent, and even when people use it ignorant of its racist implications, it reinforces racist mindsets and hurts people who *are* aware of the image’s racism. It requires ignorance and/or insensitivity about how that kind of image has been and is used to be surprised that it would negatively impact many people of color and anti-racists.
Fear of the dark is different from the image of an anthropomorphized dark ape, in that darkness was not created to achieve an effect. No one has said that saying, “I’m afraid of the dark” is racist. Really, I shouldn’t be addressing your fear of the dark here, because it has nothing to do with what’s under discussion.
However, when it comes to the separate topic of how darkness and completely natural fears of it are portrayed in words and images–yes, it does behoove people who want to be anti-racist to be careful how they talk about their natural fears. Racism is so ingrained in this culture that it takes active, conscious work to fight against replicating it. Because there is a very long and entrenched tradition of linking darkness and fear to black people, yeah, it’d be good to be careful how one expresses a fear of the dark.
And if a person were to express a fear of the dark in the way that replicated racist tropes, and someone spoke up and said, “Hey, I understand being afraid of the dark, but the way you expressed it is hurtful because of the racist weight attached to that expression”–persisting in using that expression because one doesn’t think it should be perceived as racist would, yes, be perpetuating racism.
CK:
No, it was not created by a racist mindset. You have it backward.
The fear of the dark, the fear of apes predated racism by a long shot. You are very, very wrong to claim otherwise.
Racists have used these natural human fears in a clever propaganda ploy to denigrate black people. You come close to saying that it is not a racist ploy, but a natural fact that blacks are like apes. You are wrong.
Amanda clearly was not thinking of any racist reading, and perhaps shockingly for her age, experience, and sensitivity, was clearly surprised to hear of that reading that she belatedly acknowledged. So you owe her an apology, or it means nothing to wrongly call someone racist.
Fear of the dark, and fear of apes is not racist as you repeatedly assert while denying it. They both predated the racist interpretation, and are humanly, and non-racistly true, even for small children in Africa today, or are they racist too in your austere moral universe?
CK, your premise was wrong, too, justicewalks raised the issue of the dark, not me. Sorry, you, like Amanda, are just being defensive now. You are clearly wrong. The image of the dark, and fear of apes predated racism, which contradicts Surely it began when we were all Africans, tens of thousands of yeras ago. You have a narrow reading of history that has led you to falsely label Amanda a racist. Shame on you. And shame on justicewalks. You are both unfair and self-centered to the point of solipsism. Human psychology doesn’t begin and end with your hurt, justicwalks.
The image of a white woman being threatened by an ape began with the first white woman who saw an ape. The racists played on this. You have it backwards and owe Amanda an apology for falsely calling her a racist. For shame. You comfort racists by draining the word of its power. For shame.
You’ve got me exasperated again. I won’t correct the typos, you know what I mean. I am going to stop. Clearly there are personality issues between justicewalks, CK, Amanda, etc. which I am unaware of. If Amanda is a racist, then we all are. Justicewalks, too. Just reference her rants about the Jews (#262, 350, 378), only some of which she embarrassingly and falsely blamed on me. The rest, ouch. She said too much. Apparently justicewalks for justicewalks, and her hurts alone. Really, justicewalks, in this thread! It’s as stupid as Amanda thinking of publishing a book about sexism with a racist cover. She got irony she didn’t intend. (Quit it with the irony, Amanda, its a juvenile distancing technique. I feel like I’m dealing with David, my last teenager. Grow up.)
But to say Amanda is a racist based on this episode is to claim that she knew of the racist reading when she presented it, or, as CK claims, that there cannot be a non-racist reading of the fear of the dark, or a white woman (Amanda!) being afraid of apes. “It was created with a racist mindset.” No, CK, that is a human mindset that created these fears. If you can’t access that within you, you are sadly out of touch with yourself. Know thyself.
To publish this cover when told how hurtful it is, is racism. Amanda didn’t do that, and is not a racist. You want her to admit that the very notion of a white woman afraid of an ape is racist. That is false, and she correctly balked at doing so.
You claim that that denial is evidence that she isn’t sensitive to the hurtful meaning, but she acknowledges that by opposing the publication of the cover. Not by telling the lie you want her to say: White women’s fear of apes “was created by a racist mindset.” Sure, and my fear of the dark was hatched in a racist workshop, too. You are wrong. And if you are, you have falsely called Amanda a racist.
Amanda has admitted her ignorance. In my mind, that means she has more intellectual integrity than you. Imagine, she hosted this slander on her own website. She has turned an embarrassing bit of ignorance into a teaching moment for us all, and an example of intellectual bravery and integrity for herself. Screaming racism the loudest doesn’t purify you, CK.
Despite the Jerry Lewis image (link in comment #444) which CK studiously refuses to acknowledge because, along with the WWI image (which has no clear racist reference except her post hoc one, but she is sure it is refers to black men because she read it in a book) which are documentary proof that people have printed this image without thinking of denigrating blacks (as if Amanda’s assurance she was thinking of a white man as the ape isn’t enough) because you know she is a racist from her past behavior, right? Bullshit.
The rest is gossip. Sorry, I visit Perez when I want catty gossip.
See you in the bookstore. I’ll buy the coffee.
Not being a racist is not the same thing as being an ally. There are people who are not racist in general, but who would not be considered anti-racists (which, to my way of thinking has a specific and distinct meaning), nor would they be considered - by people of color - allies of people of color.
nanette, i hope you are still around because i just wanted to ask… you set it up as though you need to already be un-racist to progress on to being anti-racist, but in my mind i’ve long had sort of a venn diagram where one might be any of several combinations. that is, i think that most of us will always have something racist within us that we have to work against, because racism is constantly being drilled into us. and yet i think those people can still be effective anti-racism allies before they become perfectly free of racism. or is that not true from your perspective?
i’m curious because i’m relatively new to “ally” politics i guess and i’ve seen a lot of people interesting but challenging things said about it; and you made a wonderful post at feministing about vaguely-related matters so i thought to ask in response to your comment here.
so, yeah, thanks if you have any thoughts, or anyone else too.
i’m curious because i’m relatively new to “ally” politics i guess and i’ve seen a lot of people interesting but challenging things said about it; and you made a wonderful post at feministing
should be “seen a lot of interesting but challenging things said about it”, and feministe not feministing. whoops.
roula:
nanette, i hope you are still around because i just wanted to ask… you set it up as though you need to already be un-racist to progress on to being anti-racist,
Ack! Perils of typing when I am tired or distracted. Not that I’m a font of clarity at the best of times, but still…
I am not sure it’s possible to become un-racist, at this time and in the world we live in, but I’m willing to hope. Otherwise, though, it’s always a work in progress - and actually, I imagine that working on learning to become anti-racist would have to come first.
I am in no way an expert on all this - I learn stuff I never thought of or didn’t realize all the time, a lot of it from White people involved in anti-racist and ally work. In fact, I just reminded myself of a site that is called “ally work”, and they have compiled a nice list of things written by various people (some of them bloggers), white and of color, about this very topic. I think some of it (in the ‘how to be allies” section) might help others understand the differences between being a political ally, being a casual or situational ally, and being what could be considered an anti-racist ally to people of color.
I haven’t read it all, so don’t know if I agree with every little thing, but that’s okay. I’m fairly certain that, while there may be some broad agreement on various issues, individual poc determine who their allies are according to many different things that have affected them personally, or whatever… and there are those who I would consider allies who have possibly never read a word of the stuff on the site I mention above, or anything like it, but who have still shown themselves to be allies of people of color. Sometimes, for me, it can be something as simple as being believed.
I’m simply astonished that someone can persist in believing that an image like the one that was shown here is neutral, just because there can be people, some of whom just happen to include young, nubile, blonde white women in torn white dresses, who are naturally afraid of apes* and darkness.
*(I am not, however, even convinced that a fear of gorillas is a natural, primal fear. Gorillas are not a threat to humans, either through violence or pestilence. The idea of a threatening gorilla walking on two legs in order to kidnap white women is not ancient–it *is* tied to the racist perception of black people being closer in development to apes and a threat to white women. Yes, this image resonates by playing on other primal fears–fears of darkness and of wild beasts in general–but I don’t think it can even be argued that simply being afraid of gorillas is natural the way it could be argued for animals that do threaten human health and prosperity, like, say, sharks, rats, or cockroaches.)
That’s like saying cartoons of hook-nosed Jews are neutral, because some Jews really do have noses that look like that, or, even more to the point, that it would be okay to repurpose an image originally meant to show, say, Japanese people as anthropomorphized rats, because the image itself doesn’t say the rats are Japanese people, the repurposer isn’t talking about Japanese people and just wants to show disgust, and, hey, a lot of people find rats disgusting.
The kind of image that was shown here was not created simply to express a natural, primal fear. It cannot be “reclaimed” to simply express a natural, primal fear. Anyone who tries to claim it can is being ignorant and grossly insensitive.
I don’t know either Amanda or justicewalks at all. I’m basing my opinions of them solely on how they’ve discussed these issues in this thread. I saw justicewalks take a lot of time to very cogently point out why the image and the defense of it is problematic. I saw Amanda, even once she had agreed to discuss the problems with the cover with her publisher, belittle the concerns of people who are hurt by images like this one and claim that ignorant points of view should carry as much weight in this discussion as informed ones.
You know, one of the most striking features of these (all too familiar) conversations is that many white liberals tend to center their discourse on the question: Who is or is not A RACIST? Whereas most people of color and/or anti-racist activists tend to focus on the question: How do certain social, cultural, economic, or political constructs, patterns, dynamics, behaviors, formulations, fit into our understanding of RACISM and how do we SUBVERT these?
From my perspective, centering discussion on asserting an individual’s genuine non-racist or racist inner condition isn’t particularly interesting, relevant, or fruitful. I’m far more interested in analyzing the broad multi-dimensional interlocking institutions and legacies of racism wherever they manifest in the external world and agitating to dismantle them.
From my perspective, centering discussion on asserting an individual’s genuine non-racist or racist inner condition isn’t particularly interesting, relevant, or fruitful. I’m far more interested in analyzing the broad multi-dimensional interlocking institutions and legacies of racism wherever they manifest in the external world and agitating to dismantle them.
Thanks for this, Kai–I think this is why epistemology and I seem to be talking at cross-purposes, and I’m glad you addressed it.
I don’t think anyone started commenting here to make the accusation “Amanda is a racist!” (or, “Anyone who didn’t immediately see the problems with this cover is racist!”) and I know that certainly isn’t the point of my comments. I actually don’t care what Amanda holds in her heart regarding race, racism, and anti-racism; I don’t know her and am not likely to get to know her (just as I don’t get to know most people on the Internet). But I do care how she’s handled the thread here and how it fits into a pattern of how many people in many contexts routinely suppress anti-racist discussion (regardless of whether Amanda was suppressing anti-racist discussion consciously and with malicious intent, which I certainly wouldn’t claim).
CK,
Darkness is no harm to people either, yet all buy you seem to acknowledge a natural fear of it.
Fear of darkness and apes predated racism, and racists, in a despicable bit of propaganda that has been so effective that you can’t even imagine another reading, used it to stoke white fears.
CK:
Your two examples are quite different from the case at hand. Both of them involve distortions of images meant to mock a group. There was no distortion of the gorilla to suggest it was supposed to represent a black man. If it looked like one to you, it clearly didn’t evoke that in Amanda’s mind.
By your logic you must now attack every undistorted use of a rat, as racist against the Japanese. Every pig represents fat people, etc. Ridiculous. You verge on saying that it is so obvious that apes represent black men that if you don’t think of that, you are racist. Just because you think of black men when you see apes doesn’t mean Amanda does.
CK, there is no more potent symbol of racism than a noose hanging from a tree. According to your analysis, if we watch a cowboy movie now, and a noose swings from a tree, if we don’t ascribe a racist meaning to it we are racist.
You are unjustly calling Amanda a racist. You know she is not. You need to stop. You drain the word of any real meaning. For shame.
epistemology, I tried to find the beginning of this “fear of the dark” stuff, but there is just too much stuff here. However, this seems to be an important point for you, as I’ve seen you mention it a few times, as well as the fear of apes. So, I was wondering… why, exactly? And what does that have to do with anything?
Fear of darkness and apes predated racism, and racists, in a despicable bit of propaganda that has been so effective that you can’t even imagine another reading, used it to stoke white fears.
Well. Sort of. I must first ask how do you know this. And also, are you speaking of individual fear of the dark - one child (or adult) among many who has this fear - or for the fear of apes thing, are you again speaking of an individual fear among many people who have grown up knowing about apes and gorillas and such, from living in areas where they were or some sort of group fear that was pervasive in these areas, that you know about?
Or, when discussing the fear of apes specifically, are you speaking of the fear of Whites/Europeans towards apes, gorillas and other “strange” things on the African continent, including fear of the people who lived there? Because I believe it’s possible that those fears and the conflating of African humans with African beasts were all of a piece, especially in the literature that was printed at the time, of travels and adventures in Africa and so on. There may, of course, have been separate fears of monkeys and gorillas and all that, among Europeans, but I am not certain how separated it was from the fear of the unknown and the fear of the African people, built up especially by those who wished the rest of the world to see Africans as beasts of burden, little more than sort of evolved apes, for whatever nefarious purposes they had in mind. And, as we all know, it worked.
As for the darkness thing - until the invention of the light bulb, pretty much most of the world lived in darkness during the night, no? While there may have been individual fear of the dark, or rather what the darkness hid, I don’t recall stories of mass hysteria brought about by the coming of the night. In fact, in some cultures total darkness at night is still the norm. I imagine, really, that darkness was welcomed by those in various cultures world wide who studied the stars and planets, for whatever reason - religious, prophetic, navigational so on.
So. I’m confused.
You are wrong that this image was done or presented with racist intent. You are right that it should not be repurposed. But not because there is no non-racist reading.
You say: “The kind of image that was shown here” because you know this particular image was not done with racist intent. Nor was the one of Dean Martin (linked in post #444) protecting a white woman from a gorilla. And a noose swinging from a tree in a cowboy movie doesn’t, no matter how potent the subsequent associations. So you are wrong, the image had no racist intent.
And Amanda, unlike what a racist would do, refuses to succor the racists by publishing it. Get the difference between how Amanda and an actual racist would respond?
You persist in falsely calling someone a racist. It is wrong. You should just stop.
Nanette:
Every human child growing up was afraid of the dark. You must have forgotten. Or you are just baiting me. Be nice.
kai:
You say Amanda’s a racist, I say she is not, so you accuse me of making this about who’s a racist. You can do better than that.
This is new to me, but talk of allies apparently is specific to the feminist and anti-racist communities (you will correct me if I’m wrong since you have repeatedly corrected me when I’m right).
All this talk about allies is specifically referring to who is good or bad, who is racist or not, not what behaviors are good or bad. So you promise to abjure talk of allies or racists? Because if you aren’t buying this bullshit, I’m not.
Kai:
So am I. But I also believe if the analysis is accurate, it will be more fruitful. And calling Amanda a racist after she agreed not to use the image is a distraction from, not a step in achieving your goal.
epistemology, where did I say “Amanda is a racist”? I just did a quick search for various versions of that phrase and the only person I find typing it over and over is you. If I said that, I’ll go ahead right now and disagree with myself. As I have repeatedly explained, I don’t think in such terms. You, on the other hand, clearly do. Knock yourself out, dude, it’s all good.
Kai:
Saying that the cover has only racist readings in a thread where Amanda is being called a racist, is supporting the proposition that she is a racist.
Thanks to those who pointed out the hurtful associations of the cover; shame on those, you included, who implied this is racism on Amanda’s part.
Kai, and since you don’t think in those terms, you are disavowing those who use the terms allies and racists? I thought not.
I must ask, epistemology - I see you are upset about either the term allies or maybe that people of color believe they can decide for themselves who is an ally or not, or … well, I’m not sure.
But, what I must ask is this… have you read any - besides the titles of the articles and such - of the two sites I’ve posted here? The racism 101 series put together by Magniloquence or the list of entries at the ally work site?
And, if so, could you tell me what your specific objection to the term “allies” is, in relation to what those articles classify as allies to people of color?
Also, regarding Kai’s dislike for the term “racist” in conversations such as this, I have a suspicion you are not quite grasping his point.
The first reference I was able to find to a fear of the dark was epistemology’s:
I linked an image of a scantily clad white woman in the clutches of a gorilla which represented Germany during WWI. You made a very weak case that this was a racist appeal based on the fact that dark has negative connotations that go way back. Let me suggest that humans’ fear of the dark long predated racism.
I think people argued very cogently why an image of an anthropomorphized gorilla threatening a white women is racist even when the gorilla is meant to represent Germans; this kind of image had already been linked to black people (in fact, had been created to portray black people), and the intended audience for the gorilla-as-German took it for granted that black people were savage beasts; linking the image to Germans was meant to convince the audience that Germans were just as bad as those dark, savage beasts. (And note: gorillas do not actually behave in any of the ways these images portray them. The reason the gorilla can register as a threat is, because as Nanette explained, many Europeans encountering Africa falsely portrayed a lot of what they found in Africa as wild and dangerous, and in particular, made false links between dark apes and dark-skinned humans, both of which they portrayed as wild and dangerous.)
No one said, “That WWI image is racist because it plays on fears of the dark.” And yet you’re fixated on the idea that people here think it’s necessarily racist for an individual to express a fear of the dark. No one here has said that.
There was no distortion of the gorilla to suggest it was supposed to represent a black man.
Yes, there was. An upright gorilla clutching a human to carry her away is a distortion the same way a rat is distorted to represent, for example, a Japanese person. And the image that was displayed here, even though it didn’t have an explicit marker within the image itself of “THIS GORILLA REPRESENTS A BLACK MAN,” was certainly an image that was created to play on fears of blacks as savage beasts and of black men taking white women and, because society has not changed enough since the image was created, still reinforces those racist notions. Similarly, there are images of distorted rats meant to portray Japanese people that do not make the link between the rats and Japanese people explicit enough for every naive viewer to understand the distorted rat is anything but a distorted rat. However, that does not make the image itself less racist or its use less problematic. The two cases are actually exactly the same.
You still seem stuck on something you said far up-thread, even though several people addressed it:
to claim that it is impossible for any human, ignorant of the racist history of this image, to have a visceral reaction that is not racist, is so self-centered as to verge on solipsism.
Everyone here is aware that ignorant people can perceive this image as not racist. No one here is saying that ignorant people are automatically racist for being ignorant. No one thinks Amanda approved of the image with racist intent. The point, however, is that the image *is* racist. I think everyone here knows that people who are not racist can end up doing racist things–racism is ingrained in our culture, and we’re all products of our culture. So, no, maintaining that the only informed reading of this image is to recognize it as racist is not the same thing as saying that Amanda is a racist for having approved of the image.
What people are protesting is the stance that opinions of the image based on ignorance should be given equal weight when considering whether the image is defensible or should be rejected.
And because Amanda belittled the more informed voices in this discussion, there are people who will not characterize her role in this discussion as anti-racist or consider her an ally to people of color. However, neither of those things is the same thing as calling Amanda a racist.
Nanette:
Fear of the dark is widespread in Western culture, for good reason. Before industrialized societies and artificial light, a lot of bad stuff happened in the dark. We are diurnal, not nocturnal animals. Our eyes do not do their best seeing at night.
And limited visibility means danger. Something or someone could jump out and get you, or you could trip and fall and hurt yourself.
Night is a dangerous time and a time sometimes used when people who want to hide what they’re doing. When someone wants to paint racist slogans on someone’s lawn, they do it at night.
This is reflected in the Bible, for example:
I’m an atheist, by the way, I’m just showing how the association of nighttime activities with danger and evil is long-standing in Western society.
I haven’t read this book, but this Publisher’s Weekly review of “At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past” by A. Roger Ekirch suggests that at least one academic has done some research into the subject.
As epistemology says, it looks like already-existing fear of the night was manipulated by racists. Night fear is natural, based on physical reality, and probably not ever going to disappear from the culture.
The gorilla caricature combines symbology of the angry adult male, familiar to pretty much all humans, with symbology of Black people, who aren’t intimately familiar to everyone. By this I mean many people see Black people at work or on the bus, but don’t interact with them in any meaningful way, hence they are open to racist messages that don’t make sense once you know Black people as individuals.
I think the threat detected in the gorilla caricature by someone with no racial expectations or knowledge is simply a threat based on the angry male, who is standing upright, angry, hairy, strong, and large.
Then the (wrong) association is made with blackness and Africannness.
A physical fear of adult men is a survival trait. A physical fear of blackness and Africannness is not. But it’s cleverly linked by the racist gorilla caricature.
This is part of why I think Amanda didn’t catch at first that it’s a racist symbol. Instinctually a woman will look at something large, hairy, strong and angry as “angry scary man”. This is culture-independent. Whether you back away from or stand up to angry scary men, if you’re human, you know they’re angry and scary and men. Your fight-or-flight reaction kicks in.
I would guess that when she sees the gorilla and the woman, she initially sees a man subjugating a woman (and perhaps the woman plotting to escape). But that’s just a guess.
epistemology, I do love the irony that someone with your handle would be so, well, inept at parsing logical syntax and constructing resultant concepts. Frankly, a semi-competent epistemologist should have no problem following the sequence of consistent assertions that a number of us anti-racists have made in this thread; but you’ve really struggled. Indeed your epistemological discourse throughout this discussion has been a showcase in destabilizing theoretical argumentation in nihilistic denial of empirical knowledge and corporeal actuality. It’s chuckleworthy, and a little embarrassing. But keep working on your craft, and keep hope alive.
JoAnne, those things are true. Or, at least, can be.
I guess I should have followed the conversation better (but it’s an awfully long one!) but it seems to me that much of this stuff… fear of apes, pictures of cute gorillas, pictures of ugly gorillas, children cowering in the darkness, other possible interpretations of the picture, so on, so forth … is being brought out in an effort to prove that Amanda is not a racist.
Again, I may have missed it, but in my reading I cannot see where anyone has said she was. A racist, that is. That the picture was racist, yes. That continuing to use it, without attempting to get it changed (which is, of course, not the case) would have been perpetrating racism, yes. Denying, once it had been shown, that the symbology itself grew out of racist practices, myths and monsters and tropes built up to denigrate and dehumanize Black people, would be racist.
But none of this, including the belief of some people of color that she is not an ally of poc, is saying (that I have seen) that Amanda is a racist. I’d hate for that to be what people took away from this thread, if anyone is still around to take anything from it. I have issues with Amanda, but I don’t think she’s a racist. Clueless about some stuff, especially to do with race, sure. Stubborn, steeped in White privilege, probably not given to self examination in some areas… lots of things I could say that are irritating. But that does not mean I think she is a racist.
Had she been aware of the racism in the cover image and decided to use it anyway, convinced she could zap it with her trusty wit and irony gun (except that she doesn’t, in the book, apparently), I would still not say she is a racist. Just maybe a bit too overawed with her own powers or something. I’ve certainly met people like that.
There is a big difference between “this is a racist action, book, saying, thing you’ve done” and “you are a racist”. In my experience, many people of color will gladly (or maybe not so gladly) point out the former, but use the latter sparingly.
I am bothering with this, trying to clarify a bit, because memes (which word I am not fond of, but still) grow up out of stuff like this sort of thing - the mischaracterization, answering and interpretation of what people *think* a person of color is saying and what they actually are… and the next thing you know, there was controversy over Jessica’s book because woc were jealous of her success and hated her because she was beautiful. All the substantive talk gets lost. I’m fairly sure this one is going to be something along the lines of people abused Amanda, saying she was a racist, even AFTER she did what “they” asked and took the book cover to the publisher and so on and so forth, cuz they were jealous of her success and hated her because she was beautiful.
And, showing a bit of cynicism of my own, it’ll likely not matter that the vast majority of people hammering home the points about the cover were not of color as, as far as I can see, justice walks (who I think did an excellent job and showed phenomenal patience) appears to be the only one people remember.
No Nanette, you have it wrong. Look back, it was Kai (I think) who claimed that I was categorizing people as racist or not, and implied this was wrong.
Of course if Kai said it was wrong categorizing people as allies or racists, as opposed to their actual behavior in each case, then I suppose you think it is alright since she is an ally, right?
That’s the pernicious thing about labeling people as allies or enemies, it always ends up that you are asked to excuse bad behavior.
Kai, nonsense. This is not about epistemology. This is about honesty. And funny you objected to me saying Amanda was not a racist, because, you know, white men make such mistakes, and then in correcting me, you refer to yourself as an anti-racist. Very consistent. And you need to learn what epistemology means.
Yes, well… I think I’ve set out pretty clearly what I wanted to say, and provided useful links for those who wish to follow up on things, so I’ll just toodle along now.
Besides, these captcha things are truly a pain.
I am not nearly as sure Amanda is not a racist as I am that her reading was not inherently racist. She did not see a black man as the ape, and it is not racist to not see a black man as an ape.
It is not racist to fail see a black man in every noose hanging from a tree in a cowboy movie, to fail to see every rat as a Japanese man, or to fail to see every ape as referencing a black man.
Again, I am sorry for the hurt of all those that have suffered from the racism that has so advantaged me, but fear of the dark and fear of apes predated racism.
It is not a matter of whether Amanda is a racist, what has been unfair here is that she was accused of being racist for thinking of white men when she saw the gorilla. Perhaps she has her own hurt that the image evoked in her, and it has to do with white men, not black. But apparently her pain is invalid, because your pain is greater.
So let me amend my inflammatory earlier accusation: You are not unfairly calling Amanda a racist, you are unfairly saying she was racist for her personal reaction to this image. But the charge of racism was unfairly made, and never withdrawn. Shame on all who piled on. You liberals really do eat your own, don’t you?
And this thread felt a lot like some of you were just looking to shout racism at her. I shudder to think of the backstory.
It’s gotten so gossipy in here, it’s reminded me to check Perez (is Castro still dead?)
You are not unfairly calling Amanda a racist, you are unfairly saying she was racist for her personal reaction to this image.
Absolutely no one has said Amanda is a racist. No one has claimed that failing to recognize that the racism of the kind of image on the cover (which, once again, is racist not simply because it is an image of a gorilla, but an image of a gorilla distorted in a specific way as part of a racist tradition) makes a person a racist.
People have explained, over and over, that not recognizing the racism of the image requires ignorance. People have discussed the fact that it is so easy for many people to be ignorant about the racism of the image because racist systems in society are designed to keep people ignorant about the oppression of people of color. Pointing out ignorance and the influence of racist systems does *not* amount to calling a person racist. Everyone–racists, non-racists, anti-racists–is influenced by racist systems, and everyone’s natural state is ignorance.
It can make people who don’t consider themselves ignorant or influenced by racist systems uncomfortable when they’re informed they have in fact unintentionally participated in a racist tradition.
But fighting against ignorance and the influence of racist systems is what’s necessary to fight racism itself, and far outweighs the discomfort to people who don’t want to consider they have ever been connected to anything racist. And people who impede this work of fighting against ignorance and the influence of racist systems cannot be called anti-racist or an ally to people of color. (And, once again, denying someone the label “anti-racist” or “ally” does *not* amount to calling that person a racist. Many people who are not racists are also not anti-racists or allies. Being anti-racist/an ally requires certain kinds of active, engaged work.)
CK:
First of all, you know as well as I that much more hurtful things than that have been said here. But I will address this subtle point which you have wrong.
This was about ignorance, but not racism. It makes absolutely no sense to say that our racist society is trying to keep white people ignorant about the racist reading of this image. This image is aimed at white people. It is designed to make them fear and hate black men. That IS the reading the racists want. This reading oppresses black people, NOT the hiding of it as you claim.
Lying about our government’s racist response to Katrina is trying to hide our racism. But publishing a picture of a black man as an ape with a white woman in her arms, is quite openly trying to denigrate black men and scare whites. Nothing is being hidden, it would make no sense. This is ignorance alone, and you insist on seeing racism.
More people should be reminded of the racist history of this image if they have forgotten. But that does not say that every reference to a white woman threatened by a gorilla derives from the racist history of this image.
The WWI recruiting poster linked above, has nothing to indicate it refers to blacks. Look at it. The ape has “Kultur” on its club and “Militarism” on its helmet. It refers to Germany, not blacks. But the clincher is that the face of the gorilla is almost gray, not black. Far from playing up a feature that the racists do when they make the image, it downplays it. Sorry, there is no anti-black racism in hating Germans, who are a whiter society than the US. It makes no sense. Comparing those you despise to an animal (even a gorilla) is not peculiar to anti-black racism. They did it in that WWI poster, they did it with the rats made to look like Japanese, etc. And if another group is compared to rats, it doesn’t necessarily reference the Japanese as you seem to think.
And, while there were many racist images in King Kong the ape wasn’t one: He was portrayed as gentle and kind to the white woman. Is that the message racists portray? Again, your readings are just tortured.
And, screaming for some acknowledgment from you who insists on imposing your false reading on these other images, is the image of Dean Martin protecting a white woman from an ape (linked in post #444). I challenge even your lush imagination to come up with a racist reading for that one.
Not all gorillas threatening white women are racist images. They are hurtful and should be put aside, as a sensitive Jain refuses to publicly display a swastika in the US. But even now, not all displays of swastikas are anti-semitic, nor all displays of apes with white women, racist.
Justicewalks and Nanette are entitled to ask Amanda to acknowledge and respect their reading of that image because of how hurtful it is (how did Amanda miss it?), they do not have the right, nor do you, to tell Amanda that she didn’t imagine a white man as the gorilla. And they are wrong, and so are you, if you don’t think this image hasn’t been used for non-racist purposes before Amanda did just that.
This thread is a shame, because it should have been a teaching moment about the image’s racist history, but by over-reaching (by those who don’t like Amanda?) you have stepped on the message.
And this formal labeling of people as allies is misguided.
We all know the antonym of allies, it’s enemies.
We all know the antonym of allies, it’s enemies.
Actually, in the context of anti racism, someone who is not an ally, is not always an enemy, but can instead just be indifferent towards racism, while having other liberal tendencies and beliefs
Lloyd Weber:
I just learned in this thread of that use of the word. But I think it is misguided. Allies has distinct military overtones, and one cannot, in a thread arguing for attention to the history of signs, pretend that you are not playing on the Allies/Axis dichotomy with its horrifying associations.
But beyond that, for those who are fighting for an inclusive view of humanity to start labeling people this way contradicts the message and should stop, however emotionally appealing.
And in this thread, it is clear that it is being used as a code word for calling Amanda a racist, while maintaining (barely) plausible deniability. CK, in her defense of saying Amanda is not an ally of women of color wrote:
Honestly, Lloyd Weber, if I accused you of not being an ally of women of color, and said you were “fighting” (yes, there are military connotations to the word ally) on the racists’ side to impede their work, you wouldn’t think I was calling you a racist?
There is no new definition of the word ally. Its antonym is enemy and we all know it.
Dude, I’m an person of color myself, and I consider myself an ally to women of color, not because I’m black, but because I take active steps to do this. If I participated in acting in a manner that caused harm to other people of color, and refused to apologize, nay even recognize that I did, then I may not be an enemy to people of color, but at that point in time, I’m definitely not an ally
Let’s start from the beginning again, Lloyd Weber:
Before I entered this argument, Amanda had already decided the cover was inappropriate because it was hurtful to others, and had taken action to change it. So she did recognize what you say she didn’t.
She was defensive because people implied there is ONLY a racist reading of an ape threatening a white woman, implying she was lying if she reacted to the ape imagining a white man. What if Amanda has been raped by a white man? If she thinks white men are beasts, and imagined herself as being in the ape’s arms, are you saying this projection of her pain and fears are illegitimate because your pain is greater?
She acknowledges the primacy of your reading, so as not to succor the racists, but can’t you acknowledge that she may have honestly seen the cover in a non-racist way?
Is anyone here honest enough to just yell racist at Amanda and stop beating around the bush?
epistemology:
You’re just arguing against things no one has said, based on your own mistaken assumptions.
Words are not defined by their antonyms. If someone said, “X is not black,” I think we’d all recognize it would be ridiculous for someone to say, “Hey! X isn’t white! How can you claim X is white? You just did, by saying X is not black! White is the antonym of black, so you’re saying X is white, and you’re *wrong*!”
People use the term “ally” in activist work in specific ways, but it’s actually not through making up a new definition: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ally
By the definition found in common dictionaries, a person or group who is not actively cooperating with and supporting others to achieve a common purpose is not an ally towards those people. This does not, however, mean that person or group is an enemy to those people. Switzerland was not Britain’s enemy during World War II.
* * * *
Also, there simply aren’t images of anthropomorphized black apes clutching white women that aren’t part of a racist tradition, just like there aren’t images of disgusting, anthropomorphized rats created to represent a class of people (whether Japanese, Jewish, or something else) that aren’t part of a racist/anti-Semitic/xenophobic tradition. Claiming otherwise ignores how these images were created and how they have been and still are used, i.e., ignores reality. People have already addressed how the WWI image is part of a racist tradition, and even linked you to a book that explains the matter in more detail. The racism of King Kong is also well-documented (a quick Google search turns this up, for example: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/12/20/171052.php )–racist traditions can be much more complex than what you’re insisting they must be to qualify as racist.
No one disputes that Amanda didn’t mean to portray a black man when she picked this image, or that some people did not realize that the image was racist when they saw it. No one is saying Amanda or anyone else is racist for being ignorant about the image. But the ignorance on their part does not change the fact the image is racist. And the fact that many people did not know enough of the history of how white Europeans and white people from the US have portrayed Africa and people with African heritage to understand immediately why this image is racist *does* have to do with racist systems that suppress this part of history.
She was defensive because people implied there is ONLY a racist reading of an ape threatening a white woman, implying she was lying if she reacted to the ape imagining a white man.
To put it in even more concisely: No one is saying the *only* reading is that this is a racist image. But the only *informed* reading is that the image is racist.
Other, ignorant readings are very possible, and they do not make the people who have those readings racists or otherwise bad people. No one thinks Amanda was lying when she said she had another reading, or that she was racist because of it. But the opinions of people who are not informed do not deserve equal weight in a discussion.
Nanette:
I agree completely.
This was a big part of my objection to *some* of what JW has been saying all along, because it makes it seem like she can fairly characterize Amanda, predict and explain her actions. It assumes she can judge Amanda.
JW has not only said the cover has a racist image on it, but then gone on to explain why Amanda chose it, why she didn’t take it down, why she hasn’t apologized to JW, why others are defending Amanda, that Amanda’s eyes have scaled over and she will no longer be able to see racism, and so on.
I just don’t think she has that right, or the ability, to make those claims. What she finds obvious is not obvious, and maybe demonstrably false, to others here.
Certainty in the face of ambiguous or contradictory evidence is foolish. As epistemology is I think trying to explain, when you claim to know what someone is thinking and why, and you’re wrong, it’s perceived as presumptuous and arrogant. It makes people defensive.
If we are speaking to an avowed enemy, there’s no ground lost. We assume they will not listen, as calmer heads have not prevailed. But when having a discussion with peers, it causes more harm than good.
I don’t think this is unique to liberals. We see it among the Freepers and other conservatives with the anti-Giuliani crowd, the RINO-calling and so on. We get used to using this kind of language on the real assholes, and forget to turn it off when we’re “at home.”
This may mean simply that JW doesn’t consider this blog “at home.” That she considers herself an enemy, or non-ally. I don’t know.
Nanette, I’m discussing the history of the gorilla caricature because I think it’s an interesting story, and I’m discussing its varying meaning to individuals because I think it does have an effect on how people first react to it. It’s not that I find its racist history dismissible. It’s that there’s more to the story, and I’m interested in that.
For example, I was interested in why it was so successful as a racist image while other animals might not be. It’s easier to scare someone about an unknown if you attach an unknown to a scary thing, so why is the gorilla, obviously much less threatening in reality, a more effective animal than a lion or a panther? I suspect it’s the similarity to an angry adult male human, but that’s just my hypothesis.
Anyway. The reason some people don’t see it as racist any more is because the image has outlived its usefulness for any but the most unevolved racists out there. Most people don’t think that Blacks are “more apelike.” This is a story that most people won’t accept any more.
They are more susceptible to the “genteel” racist story about genetics, breeding strategies and so on, supported by magical numbers like those that Murray and Herndon (mis)represent in The Bell Curve. Most people can see that Blacks are not apelike; most people don’t have the mathematical, scientific or sociological savvy to see that The Bell Curve is bullshit. It’s (White) scientists using numbers, it must be true! Racism breeds racism.
So the gorilla picture has fallen somewhat out of the mainstream. Even some racists won’t recognize it. In this way it may be trivially true to say that “political correctness has just driven racism underground.”
The image still has that meaning, of course. It’s just become more secret to those who both don’t agree with it and are not victimized by it. Stone racists and Blacks will be very aware of it.
Which doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the power or ugliness it always had. Just that it’s not as visible to some people.
epistemology:
You’re just arguing against things no one has said, based on your own mistaken assumptions.
Words are not defined by their antonyms. If someone said, “X is not black,” I think we’d all recognize it would be ridiculous for someone to say, “Hey! X isn’t white! How can you claim X is white? You just did, by saying X is not black! White is the antonym of black, so you’re saying X is white, and you’re *wrong*!”
People use the term “ally” in activist work in specific ways, but it’s actually not through making up a new definition: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ally
By the definition found in common dictionaries, a person who is not actively cooperating with and supporting others to achieve a common purpose is not an ally towards those people. This does not, however, mean that person is an enemy to those people. Switzerland was not Britain’s enemy during World War II.
* * * *
Also, there simply aren’t images of anthropomorphized black apes clutching white women that aren’t part of a racist tradition, just like there aren’t images of disgusting, anthropomorphized rats created to represent a class of people (whether Japanese, Jewish, or something else) that aren’t part of a racist/anti-Semitic/xenophobic tradition. Claiming otherwise ignores how these images were created and how they have been and still are used, i.e., ignores reality. People have already addressed how the WWI image is part of a racist tradition, and even linked you to a book that explains the matter in more detail. The racism of King Kong is also well-documented (a quick Google search turns this up, for example: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/12/20/171052.php )–racist traditions can be much more complex than what you’re insisting they must be to qualify as racist.
No one disputes that Amanda didn’t mean to portray a black man when she picked this image, or that some people did not realize that the image was racist when they saw it. No one is saying Amanda or anyone else is racist for being ignorant about the image. But the ignorance on their part does not change the fact the image is racist. And the fact that many people did not know enough of the history of how white Europeans and white people from the US have portrayed Africa and people with African heritage to understand immediately why this image is racist *does* have to do with racist systems that suppress this part of history.
She was defensive because people implied there is ONLY a racist reading of an ape threatening a white woman, implying she was lying if she reacted to the ape imagining a white man.
To put it in even more concisely: No one is saying the *only* reading is that this is a racist image. But the only *informed* reading is that the image is racist.
Other, ignorant readings are very possible, and they do not make the people who have those readings racists or otherwise bad people. No one thinks Amanda was lying when she said she had another reading, or that she was racist because of it. But the opinions of people who are not informed do not deserve equal weight in a discussion.
By extension, the only informed reading of a swastika today is that associated with Nazi Germany, yet Jains persist in their ignorance by reading it as a sacred symbol.
For example, I was interested in why it was so successful as a racist image while other animals might not be. It’s easier to scare someone about an unknown if you attach an unknown to a scary thing, so why is the gorilla, obviously much less threatening in reality, a more effective animal than a lion or a panther? I suspect it’s the similarity to an angry adult male human, but that’s just my hypothesis.
If you’re really interested in this, you’ll find there’s a tremendous amount of scholarship that’s already been done on it where you’re free to read about it so as to base your hypotheses on facts instead of speculation. Many of the people who have been commenting here are already familiar with the scholarship and/or from personal experiences of how the image is used in a racist way; they’ve been making their arguments about why this image is racist and hurtful from that informed position.
The image still has that meaning, of course. It’s just become more secret to those who both don’t agree with it and are not victimized by it. Stone racists and Blacks will be very aware of it.
Which doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the power or ugliness it always had. Just that it’s not as visible to some people.
Yes…and the reason it’s not as visible to some people is because those people have scales of white privilege in front of their eyes. It’s possible for people to remove those scales, but they have to want to. And if they don’t want to, even when it’s pointed out to them how they can, no one’s likely to be impressed by their desire to come across as anti-racist.
By extension, the only informed reading of a swastika today is that associated with Nazi Germany, yet Jains persist in their ignorance by reading it as a sacred symbol.
Obviously not, because the swastika was appropriated, not created by Nazi Germany. In contrast, the image of an anthropomorphized, black ape clutching a white woman was created by racists. Informed people have written a lot of material about all of the racist notions that went into coming up with and producing that kind of image.
Just for clarity: swastikas were used by Hindus and Buddhists before Jains. And in my opinion, any Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain who is unaware of the Nazi appropriation of the symbol is indeed unbelievably ignorant. In my years of travel through Asia, meeting hundreds of people from many religious traditions, I’ve never met such a person.
And fear of apes and the dark predated racism, and was appropriated by them. I’m on a merry-go-round. Let me off!
No images of anthropomorphized, black gorillas clutching white women predate racism. The image was created by racists, for racist purposes. (As has already been explained, it’s also true that particular kinds of fear of apes and darkness–in fact, the kind expressed in the image that was shown here–are also intimately tied to racism and colonialism.)
And, yes, Kai is right–while swastikas predate Nazi Germany and thus are not necessarily symbols of the hateful ideologies of Nazis and Neo-Nazis, it is true that the only informed reading of a swastika today is one that can cause pain because of the monstrous way it has been used. And this is why sensitive people who still have every right to continue to regard the swastika as a sacred symbol after its appropriation are careful about how they use it.
Well, I believe that racists cleverly repurposed fear of the dark and apes, and didn’t invent them. The first white woman to see an ape is the first human instance of the human imagination picturing the image of a white woman being threatened by an ape. Racists wrongly played on pre-existing fears.
Certainly we agree your reading should prevail now.
Thank you for respectfully addressing my views.
Thanks to Amanda for this forum.
The first white woman to see an ape is the first human instance of the human imagination picturing the image of a white woman being threatened by an ape.
Your insistence on believing that this sort of image would naturally arise to document the reaction of a woman who just happens to be white, nubile and blonde and first sees a gorilla and, for some reason (totally unrelated to racism, though!), fears the gorilla will become human-like in its ability to run up on two legs and snatch her up and carry her, tearing her white dress, is so willfully ignorant of the pernicious and destructive effects of racism and colonialism (as well as sexism) as to be offensive, particularly to people who have no choice but to be aware of those hurtful forces.
However, it’s clear you don’t want to consider how racism, colonialism, and sexism created this kind of image, so I’ll leave you to it.
I acknowledge your reading, and the importance of giving it primacy, but to say that nobody can have another reading without being a racist is wrong.
but to say that nobody can have another reading without being a racist is wrong.
Which is why no one here has ever said that.
No one can have another reading of this image without being ignorant of the racism (and colonialism and sexism) that went into creating the image. Being ignorant is different from being a racist.
CK:
Agreed.
Well, then, I’ll just point out that, several days ago, justicewalks said, more than once, the exact same thing that you’ve just now agreed to:
I said that the opinions of people who are ignorant of the racist history, as a result of either white privilege or a foreign background, are irrelevant to this discussion. They are not “legitimate” perspectives, but uneducated ones.
Note, since you seem to have missed this the first time, that having an uneducated perspective does not speak at all to the character of the person in question. It does not indicate maliciousness or even stupidity
And, though you’ve thanked me for respectfully addressing your views, I will point out that nothing I’ve said is different from what many other people had already, repeatedly, said, and I can guarantee I don’t have more respect for ignorant points of view than they do.
CK:
Sigh.
My argument isn’t that it’s not racist and hurtful to use it.
I’m talking about why this image, opposed to an image of any other black animal from Africa, would be the one that has the greatest staying power. I think it’s because it combines something *naturally scary*, an angry adult male human, with something Black and from Africa, the gorilla. It is the most like an angry adult male human of all the black, African animals.
It’s a psychological issue. Not only a question of history. If you have a suggestion for a book that engages this question in a psychological framework, I’d love to know about it.
I disagree with epistemology that the real viscerally-responded-to threat is a real gorilla, since real gorillas aren’t out terrorizing white women in any quantity in Western societies, both because of limited access and because they’re temperamentally not suited to do that.
I mean, really, if you think I’m trying to say that it’s not a racist image and the blackness and the Africannness of the image is irrelevant, you’re not reading my comments. It’s all in there. It’s the combination of the two that seems to be so “successful” as a racist trope, and my side discussion has been why.
Is it harmful to wonder about this? Is it possible to have an opinion about where it gets some of its visceral power without your assuming that I’m trying to say that it’s not racist or harmful?
Well, yes, but I’m not sure whom you are describing here. Can you say?
I mean, I see it as a racist image and did from pretty early on. I’m not likely to make the mistake of missing it again.
In fact, I think had there been no initial context of “men attacking women” in the subject of the book, I would have seen it right away, since I was aware of the racist implications of the gorilla image in King Kong, racist cartoons and other characterizations when I was growing up.
But we all know about contextual readings, right? When we’re focused on one thing, we can miss another.
I’m also discussing why it’s less obvious to some people, even if it’s brought to their attention, because they aren’t exposed to the most blatant racist shit. So when they see it they might not even realize what it is. It’s not the preferred method of spreading racism in all parts of society now. I’m 47 years old. Someone who’s 17 might never have seen this stuff.
Similarly, while in 1930 no one could probably help knowing the racist equation of gorillas and Black people, today someone would more easily associate something like “Welfare Queen” with someone being Black.
This does not make the ignorance anything to be proud of, but in its innocent state, it doesn’t make it shameful, either. If it really isn’t used in one’s subculture, it’s just something out of view.
This does not mean it’s okay to keep saying, “but I don’t think it’s racist so it’s not racist and anyone who sees a gorilla and thinks racism is himself racist.” A couple of people have said something like this here, but not me, and not to my knowledge epistemology either.
This does not mean anyone who does see the racist implications is just trying to be a victim.
Looking into the reasons a particular symbol works so well for racists is not denying that it’s a racist symbol. I haven’t denied the gorilla as a racist symbol anywhere in this discussion and it’s a little frustrating to be treated as if I just don’t believe it or don’t want to believe it and I’m trying to explain it away.
Someone else may be doing that. I am not.
CK:
One last try: I acknowledge that the racist reading of the image, should, out of a respect for the feelings of black people and the terrible injustice we have and are doing them, make it unacceptable, especially in a book like Amanda’s.
But I have repeatedly shown you images from the last 90 years that demonstrate a parallel use of the image that is not racist ( here is a fifth one showing Hitler as the gorilla holding a stone called intolerance with the white woman labeled Germany). You apparently can’t see this because you are so self-centered it verges on solipsism. No, CK, the whole world does not revolve around American racism. White people do have ideas that aren’t racist. Even ideas about gorillas and the night.
Indeed, I am not sure you have even bothered to look at these images. The WWI recruiting poster shows an ape, labeled Germany, with a helmet labeled militarism, and a club, derisively labeled kultur. The face, contrary to your thesis, de-emphasizes the blackness. The lower lip is white, there is red above the upper lip, and the rest of the face is pale gray, except around the eyes, where the shadowing from the brow and helmet cast a dark shadow, seemingly to emphasize the frightening red eyes. But the most prominent feature is the huge red mouth, opened wider than any gorilla, with big threatening teeth. Far from being anthropormorphized as you and your allies claim, the creature is made less human than a real gorilla by a long shot. It is bestialized.
But it is not just a close reading of the image that discredits your thesis, the context does too. This was a recruiting poster which helped persuade more than 250,000 black men to join the fight against the mad brute, Germany, during WWI. It makes NO sense that there would be any racist subtext.
Your thesis that there has been no non-racist use of this image over the years is nonsense that you haven’t even attempted to defend. Your only defense has been that you read it in a book somewhere. This is not a defense, this is the logical fallacy, the appeal to authority, ipse dixit.
You wrote:
So a Jain, learning of the Nazi association of the swastika, has an illegitimate perspective if the poor fool insists he sees it as a sacred symbol. Utter solipsism.
And justicewalks made this small concession to foreigners AFTER I called her on her oversight. I entered this conversation at comment #333, and despite what justicewalks says, this was a response to my critique, and nowhere did she say this prior to comment #333. The assertion that she had “said” this previously was false when she made it, and your repeating it doesn’t make it any truer.
When I entered this conversation with the following post:
at comment #333, the cover had been taken down, and Amanda had gone to the publisher to change it, so none of that entered into my debate with you and your allies. For this I’ve been called ignorant, had the word infanticide falsely put in my mouth, and had an anti-semitic rant falsely put in my mouth. And you’ve gone further and called Amanda racist. Yes, a person who is not a friend of women of color who “impedes” the work against racism is a racist. You just don’t have the guts or honesty to say it outright.
I know that a cover like this has too many racist associations to use.
I also know that there has been parallel use of this image that is not racist.
You are ignorant of the latter. And at this point, it’s willful.
I will leave the last comment to you as I sense that that is more important to you than an honest exchange of ideas, since you have refused to debate any of the images I have shown you that clearly contradict your thesis. Cheers.
epistemolgy,
Why is it so hard for u to understand that even the use of the gorilla in those anti- German propaganda posters is based in racism? Remember that the years before, during, and after WWI and WWII were the height of segregation, Jim Crow and lynching. The comparison of Black people to apes pre-dated those posters, and what better way to recruit against the “evil Germans” than to compare them to “the n*ggers?” Because, I assure you, that is the real message behind the use of apes in those posters: “If given the chance, the barbarian Germans will rape Europe (embodied as a white woman) just like those animalistic n*ggers would if we didn’t keep them away from our women.”
I am sure the real message of such posters were not lost on most people back then. They had been hearing that Black people are not so far removed from apes for decades. They had been hearing that all Black men want to do is rape white women.
So please, give it a frikkin rest.
Um… In comment 112, justicewalks said:
Most people would read that to mean that foreigners have their own reasons for not seeing the racism, since she, you know, limited this sentence to Americans. The foreigners are implied.
She only had to make them explicit for you, hundreds of comments later.
Congratulations.
Can we give this a frikkin rest too?
I think it’s just terrible that Andrew used the n-word. Doesn’t he know of the hurtful connotations?
Yes, Andrew, that is EXACTLY how astute your analysis was.
Trolls like Andrew (CK is not one, clearly), don’t bother, my failure to answer you after this is boredom, not acquiescence.
My last word will be:
Congratulations Amanda, until this thread I hadn’t heard you were writing a book. I am so tickled to hear this. Good for you. Thought about a cover yet? Think hard, images are so much more potent than words. We all judge books by their covers. Another prejudice the human race must overcome.
Anon:
Thank you. I was wrong, there. I shouldn’t let myself get baited into a personal tiff with justicewalks who was unfair to me. It’s not about that.
You still have failed to address my thesis that there is a parallel reading of this image that is non-racist that I have documented and nobody has refuted.
Again, sorry for that false comment, born of frustration. You are absolutely right.
Lol, I’m a lurker, not a troll, thank you =)
My analysis is agreed upon by quite a few scholars of propaganda art and racism. You have been given info on how those posters connect to racism, and you still write that people “have failed to address [your] thesis.” No, they addressed your thesis; you just absolutely refused to take what they said into consideration because there MUST BE a non-racist reading of that image to save Amanda from imaginary accusations of racism, and real accusations of incredible insensitivity to the concerns of POC!!
Hmmm, “boredom.” Must be nice to have the luxury to retreat there when it comes to discussions of racism . . .
Ipse dixit Andrew. Not an argument, a logical fallacy.
Epistemology:
The gorilla in the WWI poster *is* anthropomorphized. It is standing upright, wearing a hat, and carrying a tool for crissakes!
The reason that this poster was effective at recruiting soldiers to fight againt the Germans is because it makes an intertextual reference to racist images of black people. It makes a metaphor out of an already existing racist metaphor. ie: Just as black men are to savage beasts who will attack our women, so are the Germans, who are poised to attack Europe!
The idea that the propogandists who created this image just randomly picked a gorilla (who is anthropomorphized) because its scary doesn’t really make sense to me. It they just wanted to show me how scary the Germans are, why not just draw a scary man with a gun? The poster is an allusion to racist propoganda. A sort of meta propoganda if you will.
-Megan
Megan:
True. But gorillas really can stand upright. And the tool and helmet you are marked “kultur” and “militarism”, respectively. Both explicit references to Germany. You claim they reference African-Americans when they are virtually labeled: German. Not very plausible.
But you studiously avoid addressing the predominant part of the image: the face. It is big, with a mouth larger than any gorilla’s, and red. Red eyes, red mouth. And the part of the face above the mouth is pale gray. Paler than a real gorilla. Cartoons are caricatures. Why would the artist de-emphasize the blackness if trying to mock blacks? It makes no sense.
But it is the context of the image that really belies your reading: Are you aware that this poster helped recruit over a quarter of a million blacks to join the army? Why on earth would they try to insult blacks they hoped would sign up to become cannon fodder? It makes no sense. The image contradicts what you say, and the context coincides with my reading. Sorry. Apparently this image has been misread somewhere and it has become taken as fact. It is clearly wrong.
But my argument that there is a non-racist, parallel reading of a white woman threatened by a gorilla involves many, many more images than that. I am curious to hear how you deconstruct the iconography of image linked in post #444 to achieve a racist reading.
I am watching the Phillies play baseball (reading, of course: Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. “That of which we cannot speak we must pass over in silence”; Hey? You talkin’ to me?!) and what do I seek, but a Bud Light commercial featuring gorillas and a white woman. I kid you not.
The gorillas are in the zoo and the woman is across the ravine getting ready to take their picture. The gorillas are plotting to jump the ravine, to get a Bud Light. That would put them in the lap of the woman. It ends humorously with the gorilla who was to jump being distracted by the camera.
Gorillas, white woman, clear threat. Racist Madison Avenue, I’ll never drink that beer again. Oh wait, I already hate that beer. it’s like making love in a canoe: Fucking close to water.
seek=see, sorry.
No, this poster helped recruit Blacks for WWI: http://www.railsplitter.com/sale11/images/2163.jpg
Propaganda geared to different segments of the populace, what a concept!!
I’m done. You have blinders on and seem happy with that. Well and good. But I’ll let Steve Gilliard have the last word =)
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2005/08/blacks-and-animals.html
You are right, Andrew. Fascinating poster. I’d never seen it before.
Of course the one in question would doubtless have been seen by blacks in America, and it is lost on me why they would try to insult people who, elsewhere they were trying to entice to join the army.
Fairer to say is that comparing a group you are trying to belittle to animals is certainly far older than the United States of America. Isn’t it? Is this a controversial position? And nobody seems willing to dissect the racism they claim exists in the Jerry Lewis poster, the Bud Light commercial, or even the WWI poster under discussion.
The fight against racism does not depend on believing that there wasn’t a parallel use of the image of a white woman threatened by an ape without a racist meaning, does it?
What is ironic Amanda is how you don’t get it. You cling to your victimhood all the while telling people that their cries of racism, their cries of stop the collective punishment, their cries of I really want to be a father to my child, don’t matter. And that you are right.
Please read Steve Gilliard’s words.
There is a way to be feminist and not be about intentionally knocking other people on their ass.
I hope your book does well.
I think you are an immature and very bigoted individual.
PERFECT!
I’m not being sarcastic, either. As much as people sometimes wnat to view the world as an absolute black-and-white place (no pun intended… seriously), it’s a pretty gray planet.
I’ve read a few excerpts from my friend’s copy of the book, and it seems like another Marcotte masterpiece. I’m a white dude, so I’m not coming from the persepctive of one whose particular class was offended, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to make a critical observation about the imagery, and yet still hold tremendous respect for the author and her text.
All or nothing histrionics don’t help ANYONE. Just as it would be silly for me to completely write off the tremendous value of the book because of some questionable imagery, it’s also assanine to perceive that anyone who dares make a criticism of the imagery is just being a total close-minded asshole to Amanda.
We all make mistakes, even the smartest ones among us. No human is infallible - not you, not me, not Amanda. Amanda is a brilliant writer and I hope she has a fantastic publishing career for many years to come. I also hope she can look at this first outing and figure out what worked great (her writing) and what didn’t work so great (the imagery in her book), and learn from these things.
Be nice to each other. Or at least try.
Here’s a fundamental question…
Can a white person be on the correct side of the race issue if they have ever uttered or participated in anything in their life that could be perceived as at least somewhat racist?
Can a man be a friend to the feminist movement if he has EVER said or done anything in his life that could be perceived to be somewhat misogynistic?
Because I have to be honest… I like to see myself as a liberal, progressive white male sympathetic to the causes of racial equality and feminism, and I try my best to carry myself everyday in as non-racist, non-misogynistic manner as possible.
But have I ever slipped up in my life? Yup.
When I was 13 years old, I got jumped by a bunch of black kids for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and the first words out of my mouth in the immediate aftermath of that event? “Fuck those niggers.” Am I proud of myself for having uttered something so offensive? No. Have I worked my ass off to see that I need to be aware of my own white privilege, and to realize that bad people come from all races, and while my anger at that group of kids was justified, my anger at their race was not? Damn right I have.
When I was 19 years old, a girlfriend cheated on me. I was angry, hurt, pissed, whatever… and in a fit of rage, I blurted out to a friend, “Fuck that stupid cunt whore!”
Could there be any doubt that my words were patently offenisve and terribly misogynistic? No. Was I wrong for reacting that way? Yes. Do I try my damnedest to not let my internal male privilege not cloud my judgment and thinking when it comes to my perception of and treatment of women? Hell, yes.
So… given those two events in my life, am I a racist? Am I a sexist? Am I beyond redemption? Should everyone who has ever made a mistake get thrown under the bus and written off if they ever say anything offensive, ever?
Because if I had to bet… all of humanity, male, female, black, white, brown, yellow, gay, straight, atheist, theist… ALL of us have said some innappropriate things at some point in our life about other people who aren’t exactly like us. So is everybody a homophobe, a racist, a misogynist?
We make mistakes. What matters is whether or not we are willing to recognize them as mistakes, and whether or not we are willing to work all the harder not to repeat those mistakes.
Nobody’s perfect. NOBODY.
http://live.psu.edu/story/29221?nw=4
Proof that white folks still think black people are ape-like. Since so many here seemed to think the black folks complaining about it were making shit up.