2010_UWWG_FTI’ll say right up front that I think the racism that I see (indeed the little monkey clown thing) is unintentional. I betcha the t-shirt was designed by a kid and I am 99.9% sure that the kid who designed this didn’t say, “I think it would be awesome to use this unschooling conference as an opportunity for some ironic old school racism.”

(This is a t-shirt for the unschoolers conferences that happens up in Sandusky. Again, click to see bigger. I’ll also give you the heads up that the gathering is mostly made up of white families.)

I think what’s going on here is privilege because someone should have caught this and said, “Whoa! This is not the kind of message we meant to send and certainly could be extremely offensive to our black families. Let’s err on the side of caution, shall we? And not let our good intentions allow a logo that could be misconstrued.”

So basically, those of you who said, ok I can see it but it wasn’t intentional — do you think it’s ok for the conference logo? If someone does say, “Hey this image offends me” should they change it? Or is it enough to say, well, I see where you’re coming from but we didn’t MEAN for it to be offensive so please assume our good intentions and buy the t-shirt anyway. Do good intentions cover all ills?

Because I think missing the potential of this image to be insulting is privilege but I think making excuses for it once you can see it is racist.

Personally the image looks way too much like this or this or this for me to feel comfortable buying one of the conference t-shirts and I think someone should have caught it and the fact that no one did is disappointing to me.

And you know, assuming that some enterprising young unschooling kid designed this, what a wonderful opportunity to talk about historical images of racism and how what was meant to be (I assume?) a happy clown could turn into a PR nightmare with some bad choices at the printers. I’m sure the organizers (because again, I’m assuming this was unintentional, too) would appreciate the heads up and the chance to make good. Which is why I’m gonna write and say something.

We’re having a discussion at potluck. Lemme know in the comments! Thanks! (on and click to make bigger)

2010_UWWG_FT

When I was a teenager and first getting my feminism on, I used to have a test for movies and books. Where am I? Where am I in this story? Who could I get to be? Asking myself this helped me identify why reading some books (Philip Roth, Jerzy Kosinski) left me feeling so … empty/scared/lonely/depressed/angry. Because very often the who I could be (the woman or women in the book) were empty stereotypes. Those stereotypes left me feeling worse than if I hadn’t been there at all. In other words, having women’s roles limited by sexist stereotyping felt worse to me than reading a book where women didn’t even appear. Because I could read a book, say, The Chocolate War and know that the lack of women was about the focus of the book and not about the unimportance of me and women like me in all of our technicolor detail.

It’s not that I’m arguing for a complete lack of representation but I am saying that token representation can feel just as bad if not worse. Because I would read those books and think, “Is this all I am to men? Is this all they see of me? Is all the scope I’m allowed to be?”

I sometimes still use this tool to point sexism out to, say, Brett who doesn’t have a lifetime of evaluating media under his belt. For me, understanding the limited range of my imaginary role-models helped me not to take that subtext on as my own. Seeing that my empty feelings after one of those books or movies had to do with the limited imagination of the artist let me reject it.

Let me say right off that as a writer, I didn’t like The Time Traveler’s Wife. I thought it was a lumpy story full of unnecessary detail that detracted from the narrative. I felt that the complex structure of the plot didn’t make up for the unfinished main characters, stilted dialogue or self-indulgent trivialities. I wanted to like it but I didn’t. I felt about it the same way I felt about Mr. Holland’s Opus; I cried at the sad parts even while cursing the master manipulation at work. I knew I was being strung along but gave into my base emotions anyway.

Still, you can’t argue with numbers and the sales attest to the skill of the author. People loved this book. Writers whose opinions I admire loved this book. Readers who read with a discerning eye loved this book. Besides which, Becca has done a good job in reminding me always that to sit down and write a book is an endeavor worthy of admiration in and of itself. So there’s that.

Thing is, The Time Traveler’s Wife is also really racist and that I can’t forgive.

Let’s dip in, shall we? (after the cut)

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