…as usual. I imagine this won’t be the last time you see this particular post title. However, I am posting this mainly for the benefit of anyone I know IRL who might be reading and who might not have run across it yet, not to pile on per se, though I don’t think more coverage of this topic is specifically a bad idea either. It follows on the heels of a topic that I tried clumsily to write about a little while back; said clumsiness means the main value of following that link is the feedback, context, and resources provided by littlem in the comments, so if you can’t stomach my crap then at least take a look at those.

Check out Holly’s post at Feministe for a discussion and examples of the images–whose mind-bogglingly overt racist content apparently escaped the book’s publisher, Seal Press–originally selected for use in Amanda Marcotte’s new book. And by saying “mind-bogglingly” I am not trying to be self-righteous; to the contrary, I think that if the implications of the images are that stark TO ME, in my general oblivion, then how the fuck did they get by the multiple people who had to OK this at Seal Press? I would buy, as has been pointed out elsewhere, that some people involved in the process and maybe Marcotte herself would not have seen or looked closely at the images as the book was prepared for production. But dude, SOMEBODY, and probably multiple somebodys–all of whom worked for Seal on a direct or contract basis and should therefore have been, to say the least, attuned to how offensive such imagery would be–must have approved them. As Holly states:

As for the intentions, according to Seal it was simply witless ‘this imagery is campy and funny’ decison-making of the sort that we usually only expect from Urban Outfitters and drunken Cubs fans, not a feminist press.

As stated in the update at the end of the post, Seal has pulled the images from future printings, so at least that is a positive step.

littlem and The Rotund compiled a logical and do-able action plan to get the word out and voice our intention to vote with our purchase dollars, whether–as she points out–that be this book or a future book. I especially like the following suggestions, and I’m putting them here as much as a reminder to myself as anyone else:

Should you decide to reach out quietly, by private telephone call or email, to your friends who are
- publishers
- booksellers
- university administrators
- university professors
- conference organizers
- mainstream and alternative print, radio, and television journalists

to let them know that you will probably not purchase the book until an edition is released without the images in question,
TELL THEM WHY.

(Because somehow I can’t quite see the author or the original press including a statement in the second edition as to WHY the first edition was pulled).

(emphasis added.)

Ottermatic’s great post provides more context for this situation and, not incidentally, a bunch of links that I need to remember to follow a LOT more often. Again with the “posting it here partially to force information through my thick apathetic head.”