My issue is with this: “Every teenage girl I’ve known in my life who got pregnant always had a variation of the virgin rape story to share.” Which is a shitty thing to say, and needed to be called out. My point is not about the book, or Claudette, but about how women who talk about their rapes are doubted, shamed and blamed from all sides, even unexpected places like blogs about YA books written by women who making sweeping generalizations about the motives of teens who become pregnant.

So, PLEASE – do not think for a moment that this was a formal book review in any way, shape or form. I thought I made it clear in how I was so informally discussing the subject matter. As a judge for a book I had to look at how the book was written and the pregnancy issue was just one more event in the book where only Claudette’s voice was present. My entire post was about the lack of corroborating voices – the lack of friends and family members who shared how Claudette was feeling throughout the entire period after she was forcibly removed from the bus. Further, Claudette brought up the pregnancy in her interviews with the author as a reason why she felt Civil Rights leaders did not support her. As a reader (and a judge in this case) I would have appreciated the voices of someone else from that period who could agree with what Claudette was saying. (In other words, if she was going to bring this up as something that was not her fault and used against her in such a historic matter, then I needed someone else to comment on what was going on back then.)

Claudette in fact never states explicitly that she was raped. She says they were friends, he was older – it’s all very subtle. My point was that Hoose seemed to take many of her statements on face value (about the boyfriend and a lot of other unrelated events) and didn’t seek out other witnesses who might be able to add more.

I think you misread me here, big time. My read on the entire book was that Claudette perceives herself as a victim in many ways who was never appreciated by the Civil Rights leaders. That was how either she sees herself or Hoose present her (or both). To carry that off, I think you need more than the words of Claudette herself. (And the pregnancy is actually only the smallest part of that sequence of events.)

PS – Please bring me a baby elephant! :D

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09291/1006134-28.stm

Google has also cached the original blogger site, where you can be treated to even more of this guy’s general grossness.

As of Friday, his posts were still available for your reading pleasure on his Facebook page.

The original post is here:

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=129349745290

His rebuttal is here:

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=281604545290

“I have been kind and respectful of everyone who has come into my shop.” Well, of course he has been! He’s not a dumb businessman. But it’s one thing to be good at customer service, and another thing to have something in the public sphere (the hateful post about President Obama’s inauguration and his “followers”) that makes former and potential clients wonder what he is saying or would say behind their backs.

It’s his right to say (and write about) and believe whatever he wants. It is my right to not patronize his store — for whatever reason. It is, unfortunately for him, also my right to share my opinion with people I know — people who may be interested to learn that a business is misrepresenting itself. And they are free, also, to shop wherever they feel comfortable for whatever reason.

He’s been burned, and he’s probably learned something about social media. I do wonder if he’ll change the name to something else though.

ciao,
rpm