Herd Watching

It took a little while, but Amanda and Seal Press finally had to admit it, the cover and internal images for Amanda’s book were badly chosen and stupid. I frankly can’t be bothered tracking them down but it is classic pulp comic “Tarzanna” stuff. Some big blonde chick fighting her way through the jungle and a bunch of classic “natives”. Hell, even I wouldn’t have used them… and I am not very paranoid about this stuff.

Whatever failing Amanda has, including blind hatred of a number of groups, I don’t think racism is one of them. Nor do I think the folks at Seal press are racist by any reasonable definition.

The choice of these images were stupid for a number of reasons.

1. The whole book, and it’s premise, is stupid so it is inevitable these illustrations would be
2. A bunch of illustration of some white chick fighting a bunch of evil dark skinned guys will almost always be a bad choice
3. #2 is even more problematic when you have built your whole business by pandering to hyper sensitive “-ism” junkies who pick stuff apart for a hobby and demonstrably have no sense of humor
4. #2 is even more problematic when you just got done being attacked as an offshoot of the KKK by a bunch of people who will spend the next few years flipping out every time you sneeze

In any case, Seal Press apologized and so did Amanda (which is surprising, because she has certainly said a bunch of stupid and offensive stuff in the past and never batted an eye). That’s really as far as they should have gone. Apologized, pulled the images and revised the next printing. All of which they did. Unfortunately, being who they are and how tied they are to the mental gymnastics of victim based ideologies, Seal Press then proceeded to commit intellectual suicide.

“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.” - Seal press leaves a note

It is the abject appeal to authority that is the killer. In one stroke, Seal Press has bought into an entire world view that has sealed there doom. It is one that says “we are clearly too stupid to know what we are thinking, thus to appease both our own lack of confidence and the howling mob we will relinquish our ethics to the judgment of others”. Like most people who buy into all manner of “sensitivity training” it is a sign that Seal Press has so completely accepted the illusion of their own guilt and thoughtcrime that they have effectively renounced their own agency.

Anyone who has had much experience with the sort of folks who offer sensitivity training courses knows they come in two varieties…

• Charlatans and hucksters who know they can charge a lot of money to offer a illusion of protection from accusations
• Politically motivated victimization junkies who have an axe to grind so large they can only be happy telling people they are scum for a living

Their detractors wasted no time in taking this weakness to heart and offering Seal Press the rope to kill themselves with.

“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.”

Yes, by all means Seal Press. Spend the rest of your existence sucking up to people who will take joy in kicking you in the teeth every chance they get, forever. Take notes people, this is exactly they state of affairs the victim culture wishes to engender. Seal Press is the perfect end product of their ideology now. Distrusting of their own brains, desperate for outside validations, cravenly desperate for forgiveness and willing to crawl forever to get it. The perfect victim for a wordview of people who absolutely needs victims to feed from.

The actual apology should have gone like this…

“Wow, that was stupid. The images in question clearly can be interpreted as having racial overtones and as those meanings are absolutely inconsistent with our intentions and ethics, we have pulled the images and they will not appear in future editions.” - suggested apology, by me, for Seal Press

That is all. Period. let them howl and scream. Mobs do that, you can’t stop them.

My questions to Seal Press is this: Did you really think throwing yourself on their mercy would help? Can you really be so damaged by this point as to really believe that you might be racists? Do you really think hiring a professional blaming committee will help?

My recommendation: Dissolve Seal Press as an entity. It is dead. You killed it. It could have survived the outrage if you had stayed strong and believed in yourselves. What it cannot survive is that you clearly have begun looking to others to replace your own knowledge of yourselves. You have delivered your companies identity into the hands of a mob that has no intention of ever letting you up again.

Remember - to many of this peopel you are guilty of being evil because you are white, jsut liek to many of them anyone with a penis is evil. They have already used your race to judge you and they will never let you forget it.

“I don’t believe any of them have ever had a racist thought”

Dear Joan,
Of course they have. They’re white, neh? They live in America, don’t they?” - Rachel drives in a nail

You will never, ever win. The only hold those who attack you have on you is your own guilt. They need you to internalize it. They need you to believe you can never shake it. They need you to be deeply, achingly guilty of your own existence. It is through that they control you.

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