So when Amanda Marcotte says the exact same thing about Rihanna that WOC bloggers have been saying for months, & suddenly it’s a good idea not to judge her? Farreal, that’s when white feminists can hear that being a survivor is more complicated than doing what makes other people feel good? Mmm..okay. I see I need to spend less time giving away content & more time selling it.
Just wanted to remind others what Amanda Marcotte chose as her first book cover.
In 2008, Marcotte published her first book, entitled It’s a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments. Jill Filipovic of AlterNet described the book as a “how-to manual for feminist-minded women to take on a sexist society and have a good laugh along the way.” In August 2007, Marcotte posted an image of the chosen book cover on her blog; the image “was a retro-Hollywood pulp cover of a gorilla carrying a scantily clad woman.” The image immediately came under fire for perpetuating racist tropes, and, consequently, Marcotte and Seal Press changed the cover image.
When the book was finally released, it again set off controversy in the feminist blogosphere for use of images that many saw as racist. To illustrate the volume, the publishers used images taken from the 1950s Joe Maneely comic, Lorna, the Jungle Girl, which was chosen for its retro comic art look. The illustrations used included stereotypical images of “savage” black Africans being beaten up by a white, blonde, superhero, described as “racist cartoons of ‘natives’ in a jungle setting.” Marcotte subsequently issued an apology, adding that a second printing of It’s a Jungle Out There will not contain illustrations.
While this was 5 years ago, I think it’s worth mentioning.
