{"id":4371,"date":"2008-04-25T13:31:53","date_gmt":"2008-04-25T20:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/04\/25\/amanda-marcotte-and-seal-press-both-issue-public-apologies-for-racist-images-in-marcottes-book-its-a-jungle-out-there\/"},"modified":"2008-04-25T13:31:53","modified_gmt":"2008-04-25T20:51:41","slug":"amanda-marcotte-and-seal-press-both-issue-public-apologies-for-racist-images-in-marcottes-book-its-a-jungle-out-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=4371","title":{"rendered":"Amanda Marcotte and Seal Press Both Issue Public Apologies for Racist Images in Marcotte's book, It's a Jungle Out There"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Pandagon, Amanda writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry. Plain and simple. I didn\u2019t pick the offensive imagery in my book, but I should have caught it sooner than now. I didn\u2019t and there\u2019s no excuse. It was my first book, I was excited and happy, but I needed to have a more critical eye. I would do anything to remove racist images from the first printing of the book if I could, and I am relieved and happy to say that they will be removed from future printings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since the book is currently in its second printing, Seal Press is already removing the offensive images. They write<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Please know that neither the cover, nor the interior images, were meant to make any serious statement. We were hoping for a campy, retro package to complement the author’s humor. That is all. We were not thinking.<\/p>\n

As an organization, we need to look seriously at the effects of white privilege. We will be looking for anti-racist trainings offered here in the Bay Area. We want to incorporate race analysis into our work. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although the apology from Seal Press is not 100% satisfying in it’s wording, I congratulate them for understanding (with prompting) that these images, combined with their extremely problematic response to women of color discussing their publishing diversity, indicate a problem with them not their critics. I wish them the best of luck in addressing it.<\/p>\n

Seal Press, if I were you, I would go straight to the Angry Black Woman or Nojojojo, both of whom I can personally attest are excellent writers (and ABW an experienced editor), and ask if either would be willing to edit a collection of articles for you on any subject she desires, even if it’s the lack of diversity in the publishing industry with an article about Seal Press in it. I don’t know if either of them would have time or inclination to take you up on it — they’re legitimately pissed at you — but if they did, you would end up with a clearly excellent collection of articles. That would just be my first step.<\/p>\n

Alternately, if someone could help you find BFP, and if she had time and inclination, I’m certain her writings could be compiled into an excellent text.<\/p>\n

Oh, and drop everything and go read this post from Angry Black Woman on how to promote diversity in fiction markets<\/a>. It’s not 100% salient to non-fiction publishing, but it’s close enough.<\/p>\n

I am very pleased that the book will soon be available without this offensive imagery. I’ve only excerpted from these apologies; I suggest you read further yourself.<\/p>\n

I imagine many people will be wondering why Amanda apologized about this issue, while staying silent on her own blog about appropriation. Only Amanda can answer that, though I suspect the answer has something to do with her feeling she did something wrong here and not in the other instance. To the extent that my desires are relevant (i.e. about 0%), I’d urge Amanda to address the appropriation issue on her blog. Even if she doesn’t feel she appropriated, she could easily mention the controversy, apologize for whatever portion of it she feels rests on her shoulders (and surely she can agree that appropriation is a systemic issue, and one she and many other white people have participated in without intention or conscious knowledge, if not in this instance specifically, then surely in others) and compile a set of links to salient works by women of color. Even if those links don’t feel like direct sources to her, they would certainly be excellent reading for her audience, and what is there to lose? More sets of eyes on excellent, progressive writing by women of color? Oh, please don’t throw me in that briar patch.<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/b>Seal Press has updated their apology with the following:<\/p>\n

Please note that, upon reflection, we realize that the second to the last paragraph of this post doesn’t do a good job of conveying our intended meaning. We do not want to delete it, but we do want to make a note around our intent, since its purpose was to further articulate the “what were they thinking?” question. We apologize that this paragraph undermines our apology. We acknowledge that the images are racist and not okay under any circumstances. We are wholeheartedly sincere in our apology, and the actions we’ve laid out above will be acted upon immediately.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Feminist, anti-racist comments only please.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Pandagon, Amanda writes: I\u2019m sorry. Plain and simple. I didn\u2019t pick the offensive imagery in my book, but I should have caught it sooner than now. I didn\u2019t and there\u2019s no excuse. It was my first book, I was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whatever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}