huh. Before I read about it, I thought those images were just from some stupid '50s Tarzan comic book and thought "that's not really worth getting upset about -- it's 60 years old and we know they're stupid and racist already." and then I saw what the book was really about. She should be ashamed for perpetuating that imagery.

I haven't been commenting much lately for personal reasons (nothing bad, I've just been trying to focus my writing energies on my own projects), but I feel invested enough in feministing that I wanted to sign on to register how disgustingly racist this is and how angry I am about it. It's racist bullshit and is exactly why women of color do not consider themselves feminists. Amanda and Seal Press are making all of feminism look bad--there's a post on Angry Black Woman now entitled "Feminism and Racism go hand in hand," and it's not hard to see why. This kind of crap hurts black women, it hurts the cause of anti-racism, and it hurts the cause of feminism. There's nothing--nothing at all that could justify it. The fact that Amanda apparently didn't see anything wrong with these pictures until what she terms "the current dust-up" speaks volumes.

Amanda has posted at Feministe saying she was unaware of the issue till this morning.

Which I find really odd from what I know of book publishing (I work in the business).

Yeah there are so many things wrong with those damn pictures it disgusts me. It's totally racist, and promotes a fucked up body standard, and violence. That's not acceptable.

This might end up being a double post but my comment disappeared.

Amanda has posted on Feministe and said she was unaware of this until this morning.

I work in publishing in the editorial process and find it really weird that she wouldn't have seen these images in galley proofs. I know that authors have very little say about covers etc but this is odd.

My mind is boggled that these images were published and that it was possible for so many people not to see the issues inherent with them.

It hurts. It really does. It's a slap in the face and then to be told that it's not really a problem, and that they don't see it is a swift kick in the ass to go with it.

This is terrible. I'm almost used to this "primitive African" image elsewhere in pop culture, but it hurts to see something that pisses me off so much used in conjunction with a belief I hold deeply. One of the hardest things for me about arguing in favor of feminism with other people is when they accuse it of being a movement of white, upper/middle class women who don't know what real hardship is, and this sort of thing just reinforces that (I think) mistaken belief. It's hard to persuade people that feminism is a movement to benefit everyone when ignorant people pull stunts like this.

It's possible she didn't see them until page proofs, at which point it can often be "too late" to change anything major.

But she should have gotten them changed.

Often, authors can have a say, but they don't get the final word, either.

Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like these images were inserted by the publisher against loud protests by Amanda.

Would it have been so hard to replace the shocking depiction of brown-skinned savages, with white male patriarchal guys in suits and clergymen outfits as the real savages? She could have kept her jungle schtick, avoided racist stereotypes, AND make a valid point about the woman's true enemy.

She could also have issued an earlier public statement.

Wow. I always feel so overwhelmed when there are these huge, raging debates about racism within feminism. Not because I don't see these images (and many other things) as racist or because I don't understand why people (including myself) are upset, but because I don't feel like I fully understand the scope and reach of racism within feminism and the opinions of some non-white feminists.

I know there are some people who don't even like to call themselves feminists because they feel like feminism ignores their needs and issues as WOC or POC. This saddens me but also makes me angry... not at them, maybe not even at anyone in particular. But it seems so terrible to me that someone would shun the word and perhaps even the movement itself because of a certain portion of the feminist community. Some say it's the "mainstream" and that feminism has drifted away from its purpose at this point, but fuck, isn't that what the anti-women people always say? That feminism is outdated, useless, no longer needed, doesn't serve women anymore, etc? Isn't it all just a ploy?

All I know is that when I think of feminism, I think of equality for everyone, and I've never once limited the idea of that in my mind to only white women or only women of a certain type or lifestyle. I really felt like the majority of feminists were with me on that. Now I don't even know if they are or if I even understand what's going on here. It makes me so, so sad and confused.

This breaks my heart. And infuriates me. I don't even know what to say.

First and importantly: the images--wtf? I mean, really? Used in a book about feminism? Really? I mean, sure, of course...but REALLY? I don't even know where to begin, the sort of ignorance and stupidity and outrageousness and privledge and stupidity (again) that these images would be used--and yeah the author and publisher have some heavy explaining to do, loudly and publically.

Secondly, @ Ayla: Agreed. I certainly can empathize with the notion that, if one is a part of a community, but then your community is not acknowledging you, is repeating oppressive & abusive mistakes, is behaving in ways that are in contrast to your values & to the values that you think should be intrinsic to the community...I absolutely see and understand how irate that would make a person, and rightfully so. But it is saddening to see the conclusion drawn from that is to emphasize withdrawal and separatism, rather than move to fight to reclaim the community, enrich the dialog, etc. Feminism has never had a clear, singular identity--and second it starts to be rejected because it fails to encompass all voices and people who seek gender equalities (among and in addition to the many other types of equalities that we are culturally in need of), is the second it becomes a dead and meaningless entity. I like to think of feminism and being a feminist as a methodology, not an identity, and a methodology whose framework absolutely, and rightly, parallels the methods relevant to righting any inequalities that are ground in identity-qualifiers (race, religion, gender, sexuality, etc). Subdividing and fracturing along identity lines only repeats binaristic behaviors that are born out of historical modernist patriarchal thinking in the first place...and as a feminist my commitment is to transcending those lines, not reinforcing them.

This is just an honest question:

Hasn't this book been out for a month? How did these illustrations become an issue just now, seemingly today? I mean, they are patently offense. But what happened?

It's truly just a question.

Total coincidence - I just ordered it from Amazon Wednesday night. *sigh*

The use of these kinds of images would be disturbing at any time, but it's unfortunate that it's happening now, at a time when issues of racism and sexism are unusually visible because of politics.

Maybe a double post (repeated errors) -

This is just an honest question:

Hasn't this book been out for a month? How did these illustrations become an issue just now, seemingly today? I mean, they are patently offense. But what happened?

It's truly just a question.

Total coincidence - I just ordered it from Amazon Wednesday night. *sigh*

I agree with MT... This is so blatantly fucked up and disgusting.

I've issued a statement. The blogosphere moves much faster than someone can who is trying to do the right thing, so I apologize if this isn't as hasty as some would have liked.

I read this book a couple weeks ago. Perhaps I was so wrapped up in the words that I didn't see the pictures. I was bothered by the woman (or Barbie)'s image. I didn't think it embraced all women. I like the 'superhero' aspect of her though. I just wish she didn't look like Barbie.

Sidenote: Halloween is my favorite holiday, and unfortunately I was raped at a party 5 years ago on Halloween. So for Halloween this year, I was Superwoman because I wanted to be something empowering. And I had a great time. I, thankfully, didn't look like the cartoon.

So, I understand the empowering idea of having a 'superhero' on the cover. Just not an impossible looking woman throwing sticks at things other than patriarchy.

Amanda Leigh - I'm totally not trying to disregard your concerns. I hope it doesn't come off that way. However, I feel like it's becoming so apparent that white feminists are blind to racism and I can't express enough what a huge issue this is. I don't want to play ye olde "oppression olympics" regarding this book's illustrations. That said. I am a million times more offended by the racist "savage" images than I am at the tired, yet common, image of the body shape of the superheroine dipicted.
I "get" that they were using the stereotype of the Marvel-Comic look of women. But this is written by a white woman. In a way, I feel like if she wants to "reclaim" that image to fight off the religious right, great. I like Wonder Woman too. But there is no reclaming the "savage villian" in these illustrations. They cannot be reclaimed in this context. It's flat out racist. All feminists need to recognize that, or we risk becoming just like the privileged dudes that we're constantly butting heads with. Recognize your privilege. It's crucial to the feminist movement and our credibility.

Thank you AM. Mistakes happen.

Perhaps the second edition could take on intersectionalism! ;)

thanks amanda, for apologizing and getting this dealt with.

i'm glad i have been lazy and hadn't gotten around to buying the book yet--i've already had to deal with some just totally disgusting racist behavior this week and that would have just make it worse. i will be sure to wait for the new edition.

I know this is kind of OT and picky, but can we not get so many posts titled something like "Just...wow." The reasons being 1) There's no information conveyed 2) When as feminists we have to confront embarassing errors such as this one, we need to own up to them and cover the issues like anything else. This feels like a cop out, like we're so flabbergasted that we focus on distancing ourselves from the offense, when really we should be focusing on it and owning those realities in order to correct them.

Thanks for listening to my input.

You know what's so completely messed up about this is how totally oblivious these folks were not only to the presense and concerns of people of color in general, but specifically to the presence and concerns of black Africans in the American feminist community and how we might feel about this kind of portrayal.

In case this is news to anyone, HELLO, WE EXIST. This black African woman and naturalized American does not accept Amanda's apology or Seal Press' apology. They will have to do better than "we're sorry people were offended and we never meant to be racist." They need to take responsibility for what they did. They fucked up. There is no excuse.

I checked Amazon- her book is #5,400 in Books. Clearly a lot of people, and I would think a lot of feminist bloggers, have bought and read the book. I am willing to bet cold hard cash that many of the "mainstream" feminist bloggers, including the ones here, have read it. It has been out for a month. What suddenly made people notice this? Why now? This whole thing is very stange, and I will be curious to see where her book is next week on Amazon.

I'm going to echoe JenLovesPonies' question.

Why now? I haven't read or bought the book, and I've always found the cover image unsettling (much as I'm not a fan of the Full Frontal Feminism cover), but I had no idea what was inside the book, which is much worse.

But SOMEBODY at a mainstream feminist blog must have been - is Holly really the last of the Feministing-Feministe-Pandagon set to notice?

JenLovesPonies --

It is incredibly easy to miss racism, particularly in cultural artifacts. A week back I was saying how I had gone a long time without knowing that "squaw" was a slur (yeah, I used it in front of a Native American, I looked like an asshole. It felt great.) I've said incredibly racist, homophobic, horrible things in my day (and expect I'll say more in the future) because they were "conventional wisdom" handed to me that I didn't question, or I thought I was being ironic, or funny, when I was really just being a jackass. There were times when I got indignant for being called out on it, the time I really dug my heels in was when there was a creative effort involved (like Amanda, I needed a "branding" image for something I'd programmed, and it didn't pass scrutiny from a WOC I was friends with). That doesn't mean that I didn't eventually figure it out and realize that there was no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, but it took time because being called a racist really sucks when you'd like to think of yourself as adamantly not a racist, and you have to untangle your own core creative effort from the racist creative effort that's been attached to it. And I had only a handful of people making some very tactful objections to it... not an entire blogosphere calling for my head. Moreover, this system was not my fledgling effort at being recognized for my trade: I didn't have to worry about my whole career ending before it started over something that (in Amanda's case) might not have even been the decision of another party entirely who I didn't feel comfortable questioning.

This is why I give Amanda the benefit of the doubt. Because it is such a human reaction to be defensive the the face of that sort of such serious criticism (even if that criticism is right), but good people will eventually figure it out and come out of it a better person.

Oh, I'm a little more suspicious. You know, I can sympathize to being clueless about cultural "artifacts" that surround you - it took me a long time to really see the image on a bag of cornmeal flour that'd been in my kitchen for a long time and recognize that the "Indian Chief" logo on it was not okay, because, well, I'd seen it forever.

But Amanda Marcotte was called to the carpet for her first choice of cover art - and that was one in which the "angry black savage" imagery was only symbolic, in the form of a gorilla ravishing a white heroine. She's been criticized round and round for BFP etc. And she didn't notice, for weeks, the racist images inside her book?

Good grief, yet another Stupid Seal Press Trick. o_O

t6283798: "But it is saddening to see the conclusion drawn from that is to emphasize withdrawal and separatism, rather than move to fight to reclaim the community, enrich the dialog, etc."

I'd recommend "Why I Will Not Disavow the 'Feminist' Label" posted by professor and blogger Anxious Black Woman on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at http://diaryofananxiousblackwoman.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-i-will-not-disavow-feminist-label.html

t6283798: "I like to think of feminism and being a feminist as a methodology, not an identity, and a methodology whose framework absolutely, and rightly, parallels the methods relevant to righting any inequalities that are ground in identity-qualifiers (race, religion, gender, sexuality, etc)."

I like that perspective too. :)

MightyPonygirl,

I'm not sure I understand why we should be privileging Amanda's feelings of hurt over accusations of racism over the considerable evidence that - at the very least - she has a consistent issue with taking POC concerns and feelings seriously. As I think you know, since I see that someone with the same handle as you commented on this thread in August, this is not the first time that Amanda has been called out for racist imagery associated with her book. As the comments on that thread show her initial reaction to concerns about this was incredibly dismissive. She has shown time and time again that she can't really be bothered with taking POC perspectives seriously until people get very upset with her and she has to back down. And in each situation her apology or retraction has been half-assed.

This situation is not any different. Why should we, especially WOC, give her the benefit of the doubt when she's done this multiple times? How many times does a white feminist have to spit all over the concerns of feminists of color before we stop giving her the benefit of the doubt? Amanda has forfeited that privilege as far as I'm concerned.

I understand that it can be easy to miss racism MP (I like your name, btw). I still find this all very strange that no one noticed. Not one person on the blogosphere (that I have seen) noticed this until today. So here we all are, complaining about Amanda and her racist book... expecting her to catch something we didn't. I am not saying I think she is completely innocent in this, exactly, because this isn't an isolated incident of issues with POC(s). I do think that she would be given more of a pass on this if not for the BFP and former book cover (and maybe other incidents I am not aware of?). But maybe we should be a little less mad at Amanda and a little more mad at all those people who made the book 5400 in ranking for not noticing, either.

I don't quite know how to say what I am thinking, but I feel weird about holder her to a higher standard than everyone else who didn't notice (including all the people in this thread!)

"Not one person on the blogosphere (that I have seen) noticed this until today. So here we all are, complaining about Amanda and her racist book... expecting her to catch something we didn't."

I didn't notice it until today because I didn't know the book existed until today. The book's editor had better have been paying more attention to the book than I did! ;)

Diablaazul is right on all accounts.

In response to those saying that "no one noticed this until today."

Sorry, but that's crap. Some of us have been shouting for a while about the book promo (ever since it was posted on Feministe). A quick summary:

WOC bloggers called out Marcotte again and again -- on the cover, on the appropriation issue (Yes, there was a thread on the cover, which had a big gorilla menacing a white woman. Marcotte was very dismissive to concerns about it but changed it under pressure). There was the stuff with BA and Seal Press, the publisher of Marcotte's new book. And of course BFP's withdrawal from the blogosphere. Each time WOC were dismissed/ignored/and insulted. The dominant narrative became, "A bunch of mean, angry WOC are endangering the white woman's career!" And "OMG they engage in negative discourse!"

A lot of that was only about 2 weeks ago.

Now, right after that, what happens? Jill posts a thread promoting Marcotte's book (the one with the racist pics no one noticed) as if NOTHING HAD HAPPENED. She didn't fecking notice or think or care until a bunch of us screamed at her over it on Feministe and asked her to retract her support because it was so insensitive to WOC after all the sh*t that went down.

And the pics -- oh, the pics. Hugo and Jill BOTH had the book and both had access to them. Was there an immediate cry for Marcotte to apologize or remove them?

NO.

Littlem and I and others were calling for Hugo, Jill, et. al to retract promotion of the book the day before the pics went onto the web. We demanded it, screamed it, over and over, but NOTHING WAS DONE. EVEN THOUGH HUGO ET AL HAD ALREADY SEEN THOSE PICS. They didn't react to them except to say, "Hmm, yeah, they're problematic."

It took one of us with a camera sneaking into the bookstore to get those pics and post them before anyone cared. And then it was just too in-your-face too ignore. THEN Hugo called out Marcotte. Then Jill apologized. Then Marcotte apologized. Because it went public. Not because the people defending the book were immediately horrified and appalled and took quick and decisive action, but because suddenly they looked really bad.

And now Marcotte's apology thread is a lovefest over how great she is, for something she didn't even deign to notice until it was so big she couldn't ignore it.

The way this all played out sickens me. Totally. Utterly. I am a white feminist. And I am disgusted with us.

Full background, with lots of links, is here:

http://dearwhitefeminists.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/an-open-letter-to-the-white-feminist-community/

Marcotte, Seal, and their defenders have a lot to answer for. A lot. The book illustrations are just the very last in a looooong list of grievances.

To clarify: I think that despite her fuckup with the thread, Jill is basically a good person trying to handle things as well as she can. But that doesn't excuse her from any of what she's done. I'm waiting on her response post.

As for Seal Press and Marcotte - I think the apology is a good start. So is the removal of the images. But it only means something if Marcotte, Seal, etc. are sincere in looking back at their own white privilege and committing to anti-racism.

Are they?

Well, Marcotte still hasn’t apologized for her egregious treatment of WOC. And by “treatment� I mean so many different things that have gone down in the blogosphere that I’ll just say… there’s a history. A lot. Apologizing for the most recent fuckup doesn’t erase the past ones, and shouldn’t.

It’s a beginning. And if there isn’t more to follow then it means NOTHING.

diablaazul -- I'm certainly not going to demand anything: I can understand exactly why WOC would not believe her or trust her, but as someone who has gotten a lot of joy from her writing, I really want to give her the benefit of the doubt. Not "make excuses" per se, just not assume that the mistakes that were made were done out of a malicious agenda. I'm making no "demands" on how WOC should approach these situations, nor am I saying that the racist imagery isn't a problem: I'm saying that sometimes it takes time for an otherwise totally cool white person to overcome their initial defensiveness at having their work torn apart to come to an understanding of what's going on. I can't say for sure what's going on in Amanda's head because I'm not Amanda, but I can certainly speak from my own experiences and say that not every white feminist who does something racist will just dig in their heels and leave it at that... even if that's what it looks like. The fact that it took her time to apologize might not have been a matter of political expediency and instead been a matter of introspection and revelation. I don't know this for sure, but I do know that that's how it is for me, and I felt it was important to point out.

As for the original cover art: Clearly, she did change it. I have my suspicions that (as Amanda had indicated in-thread that the art was chosen by the publisher, that the interior illustrations were as well), that the editor's order to change the cover art at Amanda's behest did not extend to the interior illustrations as well, and that Amanda either did not know about the interior art until is was too late, or didn't see the racism (again, it is extremely easy, even for an avowed progressive), or saw it but felt that she was on thin ice with the publisher over demanding the cover change. But that's just my hunch, I can't back that up. Again, I want to give Amanda the benefit of the doubt on this one, for reasons that are admittedly selfish. I like to think of progressives as allies, even if they are fallable. But I also want to make it clear that to give someone the benefit of the doubt is not the same as "everything's fine..." I had actually emailed Amanda privately about the cover art at the time. I won't get into that here because well, it was private. But for those of you who don't want to wade through that thread, once I woke up and started seeing that people were very upset about this, I pretty much maintained the same position that I've held here: that it can be very easy for white progressives to miss the racist cues of the culture we've grown up in, and that we're much more likely to actually absorb when we've done something racist if we're not on the defensive.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Amanda has a blind spot. A big ol' white privilege blind spot that most of us white progressives have to some degree or another. And 99.9% of us would rather not have it. We can only work on it when we know about it. But if we feel that someone is attacking us, personally and not our blind spot, then it's a lot harder to focus on getting rid of the blind spot than it is to defend ourselves.

OK, one last thing mostly because I'm a little tipsy after celebrating passing my certification and I'm afraid I'm being a jackass right now as I type this: I'm not trying to tell WOC that they need to handle white women with kid gloves lest we become so defensive that we don't come to understand what's going on... it sounds a little too much like "Feminists need to stop being all shrill and demanding and make the boys like them." I type all of this fully aware that real damage has been done to the progressive feminist blogosphere. All I'm trying to say is... we are listening and digesting what you are saying, even as we struggle to overcome the cognitive dissonance of being called out for behavior that we thought we were above.

JenLovesPonies,

It seems to me that there is a rather simply explanation for why Amanda is being held to a higher standard: because it is her name on the book. The same goes for Seal Press. She and the publishers are ultimately responsible for the book's contents. It's a shame that this wasn't picked up as a big issue in the feminist blogosphere until today, but that doesn't change the fact that the buck stops with the author and the publisher.

I've never seen or even heard of the book until today. The posted images are completely new to me. Yet it was completely obvious both to me and to my white husband and my white co-workers that this was not subtle racism. Large sinister black men in masks and "native" garb are NOT SUBTLE. So yes, it's a bit alarming that - it seems - a number of white feminists who read the book did not at all pick up on the racism of the images. But that doesn't let Amanda or Seal Press off the hook for perpetuating this kind of imagery at all.

Ayla & t6283798 (and others who have posted along these lines),

It's incredibly offensive to tell people who have pointed out, again and again the racism and privilege blindness in our community that events like this require THEM to make an attempt at dialog. White feminists' racism (and I did intend the plural -- while AM and Seal Press are very much at fault and the topic of this thread, they are hardly alone in this) is not the responsibility of Women of Color to "dialog" about.

Imagine a group of progressive men ignoring women and sexism over and over, or only paying attention to "women's issues" when the project is helmed by a man. You complain, and you're told to start your own group if you don't like it, that they're very progressive, but you're trying to distract from the larger issue by crying sexism.

Questions about why this hasn't been noticed previously, why it went to press in the first place, and why so many of us white feminists are giving AM and Seal Press the benefit of the doubt because we like their work are incredibly pertinent. This is hardly the first time these exact women have been called to the carpet for racist behavior, and yet we keep defending them and saying how hard it is to overcome your racism. But I don't hear a lot of feminists here defending "Nice Guys". Where were all of these understanding women when the Ferret was being called out for the Open Source Boob Project? When friends of his defended him, most women here rightfully pointed out that how good of a guy he is, or how much you like most of what he does is ENTIRELY BESIDE THE POINT. What he wrote was fucked up, and his way of explaining it was as well. AM may have her politics sorted in many areas, and Seal Press may do wonderful work on behalf of some authors, and publish books we wouldn't have otherwise, but that doesn't excuse this book art, or their recent actions.