I am posting this here because I know not everyone goes back and reads comment threads. Honestly, I think I’ve been spoiled by livejournal emailing comments to me with a handy-dandy response window embedded. And so, from littlem:

here are some useful and interesting suggestions for activities for your downtime.

1) Should someone decide not to read or purchase the book, they might want to
POST A REVIEW ON AMAZON INDICATING WHY (an excellent and concrete suggestion from another blog’s commenter).

2) Should someone who chooses not to read or purchase the book write about their concerns to
- Seal
- Perseus (Seal’s parent company)
- Their own local press
- The press of cities scheduled for the book’s tour stops,

you may want to suggest that the TOUR BE POSTPONED UNTIL THE NEW BOOKS WITHOUT THE IMAGES BECOME AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC.

PERMANENTLY IF NECESSARY.

3) Until that time, should you write to the local press of cities scheduled for tour stops to tell them you will not be attending,
TELL THEM WHY.

4) (Especially for shrinking violet-esque types) Should you decide to reach out quietly, by private telephone call or email, to your friends who are
- publishers
- booksellers
- university administrators
- university professors
- conference organizers
- mainstream and alternative print, radio, and television journalists

to let them know that you will probably not purchase the book until an edition is released without the images in question,
TELL THEM WHY.

(Because somehow I can’t quite see the author or the original press including a statement in the second edition as to WHY the first edition was pulled).

That way, you and your friends have an opportunity to thoughtfully consider the extent to which you want a press – or an author’s voice – that purports to be justice activist but will suppress, but not concede, an error of privilege, in the
- classroom
- lecture hall
- conference
that YOU call YOUR “safe space”.

NO- IT’S STILL NOT OKAY
SO IT WON’T GO AWAY

I would also like to add (this is TR again) that this is a good strategy for answering media that we find oppressive on any topic of social justice. The next time a diet book comes out, the next time some “nonfiction” analysis of why eating such and such is the One True Path to being thin, the next time some article comes out that says Americans would be so much wealthier if only we would all lose some goddamn weight, this list should be a pretty good guide for our response.

Except, you know, with publisher/author specifics changed because writing to Seal Press isn’t going to do us any good if the publisher is, I don’t know, Harvest or whatever.

In the reverse, should a book or other product come out (Rethinking Thin is a good example) that encourages and challenges the status quo, that tells people to stop and think for a moment about everything they don’t question, that teaches people to spend their time LIVING instead of putting living off until they weigh less, we also need to turn to this list and do the opposite – we need to leave powerfully written, positive reviews on Amazon. We need to contact our local media outlets (local news, papers, etc.) that cover and review these sorts of things and let them know why this particular product deserves their airtime/column space instead of whatever dreck they’re reviewing this week. We need to write to authors and publishers and let them know that YES, this is the type of stuff we want to see produced! Then we need to buy it because money still talks.

In this way, we become vocal and more powerful consumers.