An Appalling Display of Bigotry from the New Yorker

Dear New Yorker Assholes,

Your cover of the New Yorker this week featuring Michelle and Barack Obama dressed up as "terrorists" is atrocious, sexist, racist, uninformed, and unbelievably offensive. I cannot BELIEVE that the NEW YORKER would agree to print such a thing. It is NOT ironic. It is NOT funny. Not only does your cover feed into the beliefs of many uninformed assholes in this country (who already privately believe that the Obamas are Muslim and therefore "terrorists"), but it also gives them the impression that, if the (formerly) well-respected New Yorker is doing so, then it must be okay to publicly assert such lies and bigotry. I would have thought that a magazine with such a large respected following would give more thought to the influence it has on people's beliefs before propagating such vile bigotry.

Don't you DARE put me on your email list.
~Sarah


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Books for Raising Revolutionary Children (more to come & seriously in need of revision)

"The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns."
--George Santayana

Tired of reading anachronistic picture books to your kids featuring farm animals and lots of little white boys (or perhaps too many princessy girls slathered in pink)? Me too! Kids aren't stupid. They know the world's not perfect. condescending books just turn them away from reading. here are some tips for raising radicals and revolutionaries.

when harriet met sojurner:
absolutely beautiful picture book about what might have happened during the undocumented meeting between Harriet Tubman and Sojurner Truth.

as good as anybody:
this is a gorgeous picture book about Martin Luther King Jr and Abraham Joshua Heschel growing up and meeting each other. the reason it's so awesome is because it doesn't sugarcoat history for kids. both martin and abraham as children rage against the injustices they face. "things won't always be like this," their parents tell them, "maybe things will be better in the next world." "i dont want to have to wait for the next world" they say. this book inspires not only activism, but also the uniting of all oppressed groups. shockingly, it's published by Random House (the corporate scourge of consumerist conformity).

americans who tell the truth
i haven't read this, but it looks awesome.

evolution me and other freaks of nature
hilarious YA novel about a christian girl ostracized by her church for defending a gay classmate. but that all happens before the book starts. the actual plot is about her and her lab partner fighting for their science teacher's right to teach them evolution against all the religious fundies.

memoirs of a bookbat
harper loves to read, but her parents are conservative christians who travel around the country, enrolling her in different school districts so that they can ban as many books as possible. she has to sneak her books home and hide them under her mattress.

his dark materials
okay everyone knows about these books by now. but they are seriously revolutionary as I've pointed out before. in how many books do we get to hear a positive description of a female main character being dirty, conceited and arrogant? awesome. also features gay angels and sustaining mutual friendships between powerful women. the whole theme of the books is that experience and knowledge are better than innocence and purity. hott!

the family book
todd parr is way cool. i'm not very into his illustrative style--kind of cartoony and neon--but he talks about ALL kinds of families from ALL kinds of backgrounds. awesome. also, THE PEACE BOOK is neat too.

Hope for the Flowers
"A different sort of book for everyone except those who have given up completely. (and even they might secretly enjoy it.)" this book is about two caterpillars (Yellow and Stripe) who met each other while making the arduous soul-sucking climb to the top of the caterpillar ladder. it's every caterpillar for itself with faces getting stepped on and caterpillars being shoved off the top. but what's the point in all this struggling to get to the top, they wonder. so they stop climbing and instead spend their days snuggling together in the sun. awww!

why war is never a good idea
i haven't read this yet either, but its a new picture book by alice walker and it looks awesome.

the great kapok tree
a man comes to cut down the great kapok tree in the jungle. he falls asleep in the heat before his work is done. as he sleeps, all the animals and chidren of the forest come and tell him how they depend on the kapok tree for survival.

hero
okay, not that activist-oriented. but it's about gay superheroes, and its an excellent way to sneak The Gay into kids hands. who doesn't want to read about superheroes?

Not one damsel in distress
collected stories from jane yolen featuring self-sufficient heroines. good for bedtime reading.

the hero and the crown, and the blue sword
women warriors. hot. hot hot hott. and newberry award winning. better than the Alanna books because the main characters aren't constantly obsessing about the fact that they're women and therefore can't possibly be as strong and heroic as men (gag).

woolbur
this book seriously rocks. it's about a sheep that doesn't fit in with the rest of the herd. he wont let the farmer shear his wool and he cards the wool on his body instead of the wool he's supposed to be spinning. then he dies himself blue, instead of the yarn and tries to weave his own forelock. finally his parents tell him that he has to act just like all the rest of the sheep--no more individuality! so instead of conforming, Woolbur gets the rest of the herd to be individualistic too!

paper bag princess
"you are an ungrateful bum!"

dealing with dragons
"princesses dont cook. princesses dont fence. princesses dont juggle." cimorene does not WANT to be a princess if she cant do these things and she certainly doesnt want to marry some ditzy prince. so she goes to work for Kazul the dragon. but the princes just don't seem to understand that she doesn't WANT to be rescued. she's perfectly happy right where she is, thank you very much.

herstory
i had this book when i was little and i cant say that i found it crazy inspiring but it was fairly cool at least. basically its a bunch of essays about the history of notable women.

burning up
macy and austin start investigating the history of a building that was burned down 50 years ago when the first black family in town moved into it. but what was their own grandparents role in the burning?

armageddon summer
marina and jed's meet when their respective parents take them to the top of a mountain to await what their pastor assures them will be the end of the world. searing criticism of religious fundamentalism

if you come softly
this is a really amazing and devestating novel by jacqueline woodson about what happens when a white jewish girl and a black boy start dating each other.

the book thief
another devestating book, this one about the holocaust and a little german girl who makes friends with the jewish man her family is hiding in their basement. oh yes, and she steals some books too.

it's so amazing / it's perfectly normal / it's not the stork
so cute cartoony books about puberty, pregnancy, baby making, sexuality, etc. very inclusive, liberal, gay friendly, multiracial. nice. also: my body, my self for girls (or boys) and the what's happening to my body book for girls (or boys).

background reading:
Packaging Girlhood by Lamb & Brown, How to Get your Child to Love Reading by Esme Raji Codell, and Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood by William S. Pollack

Dear PFLAG, I love you

After bitching for years about how much I wish it would occur to my parents to join PFLAG, I finally mentioned to them tonight on the phone that they ought to go. Upon reviewing PLFAG's website so that I can send the link to my parents, it's really occurring to me what a cool organization they are. How cool is it to have a group composed entirely of the privileged class advocating on behalf of the oppressed? And not just being like "oh yeah, i'm against homophobia," the way so many white people are nonchalantly opposed to racism. But there are actually straight people who are dedicating a significant portion of their time to advocating for queer people. For some of these people that's their job! Thinking about that warms my heart. Everytime I see PFLAG at pride it makes me cry because they're so wonderful and loving and unselfish and amazing. It is so admirable that they would spend so much time and be so dedicated to advocating for the rights of an oppressed class they don't belong to. Wouldn't it be cool if there were national advocacy groups like "Whites Against Racism" or "Men for Feminism"? I just checked on Google. There's not. At least not as far as I can find. Although I did just find the Men's Network Against Domestic Violence. Which is cool, but not really as established as PFLAG, or as inclusive as something like Men For Feminism would be.

I'm not a Racist but. . .

Every time I hear someone utter that phrase, I have to suppress the urge to slap them. Instead, next time that happens, I am going to say,"No," quite loudly. Hopefully that will stop them before they have a chance to utter another word. Know why?

When someone puts that in front of anything they say, it immediately implies what the speaker knows but does not want to admit. They are racist and what they are about to say is racist. This isn't the Jim Crow era, in-your-face racism that most people have in their minds as the definition of racism. NO, this is the quiet, slips in through the back, brain-washing, color blind-claiming, (DO NOT get me started on that bullshit), 'reverse racism' believing, false statistic- quoting, self-reliance touting, stereotype-trusting kind of racism that has been institutionalized and ground into American culture for decades- no- centuries. It makes me sick every time someone utters those foul words, "I'm not a racist but," because it means that they are going to say something absolutely horrific but it's OK because they are "not a racist."

Racism did not die with the Civil Rights movement. It did not die with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or the Voting Rights Act of 1965, or the Civil Rights Act of 1968, or affirmative action. As much as some people would like to believe, legislation does not a societal change make. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise, take them out for a walk.

Go to the nearest drugstore, to the first aid aisle. Pick up a box of 'flesh' colored bandages. Ask them, "Whose skin tone is this?" If they don't say, "A white person's," they need a slap from reality. Go up to the magazine aisle. Pick up a copy of Vogue and flip through. Ask the person to count the number of people of color in the magazine. I'm guessing the count is going to be pretty damn close to 0. Then go to the nearest department store and find a security guard. Stand about 30 feet back and watch. Who does this security guard follow? Who does the guard stop? $10 says a person of color. Now take this racism-denying person outside. If in an urban area, walk around. Ask them to take notice of the homeless people that they see on the street. Who are they? Now ask this person, "What do all of these things that you've seen have in common?"

Every single thing is a sign of racism, the institutionalized white privilege, the pigmentocracy running rampant in American culture and society.

Read White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack and do me a favor: next time someone says, "I'm not a racist, but. . ." call them out on their bullshit. Someone needs to stop this willful ignorance and it might as well start with the racist you know.