Gutenberg Is The Bibliophiliac’s Pimp, You Know

I’ve entered the electronic book age, albeit on the cheap:  I don’t have a Kindle or similar device, but Amazon has a free application that functions similar to the Kindle.  I downloaded the application and made my first purchase of an e-book (Paris 1919:  Six Months That Changed the World) soon thereafter.

There are some things I like about the e-book phenomenon.  For one thing, I find that I am reading more; considering how much time I spend staring at my computer screen, it feels good to actually put that time to good use.  And speaking of time, it took literally seconds for me to download a book of around 450 pages, immediately after I purchased it – I didn’t have to pay for shipping, or wait a week for delivery.  Because I can browse for titles on line, I can also read the reviews posted by people who had already purchased the books, giving me a little insight into whether or not a book is worth my time (and money).  Eventually I imagine I’ll have a little travelling electronic library – which is another advantage of this medium:  I have a small house, without a lot of room for bookshelves, and there is no way for me to fit in all the books I’d like to in the available shelf space.

So those are the positives.  But there’s a major negative that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to overlook, and I wager my complaint is a common one among book lovers.

“Book lover” – a wonderful term, because in essence, that’s what a book becomes:  our constant companion, for an undetermined length of time, one with whom we share stolen moments when we are otherwise alone, in a private place, where we can submerge ourselves into the embrace of those alluring printed pages.  To hold and read a book is to experience a very special intellectual intimacy, but there is a smidgen of the physical as well; nothing quite matches the feel and smell of a book.

E-books are practical, and convenient, and they are undoubtedly the wave of the future as regards the mass-marketing of text.  But they’ll never engender the romance and excitement one gets from holding a real, printed book. 

Racism, Classism, Misogyny: An American Tale

The state of North Carolina is picking at a still-open wound that for years has been ignored:  the involuntary sterilization of those deemed racially undesirable and unfit to reproduce.

The practice of forced sterilization was an outgrowth of the politics of race in late 19^th and early 20^th century America, the child of eugenics, the grandchild of social Darwinism.  Twenty-seven states instituted some type of forced sterilization programs, usually targeting criminals or the mentally ill or disabled.  North Carolina was one of only a few states to include race and class in its formulation to determine who would be subject to the government’s scalpel.  Young women on public assistance – the vast majority of them African-American – were threatened with being cut off from the pittance they were allotted by the state unless they accepted being surgically sterilized.

One such victim is Elaine Riddick, who, at the age of fourteen, was raped, became pregnant, and gave birth to a son, Tony, in 1968.  Unbeknownst to Elaine, her illiterate grandmother was somehow convinced to authorize the state to sterilize the teenager (she marked an “X” on the consent form).  Elaine gave birth via a C-section, and at the same time the physicians sterilized her – a fact she didn’t know until five years later, at which point she was newly married and ready to bear children with her husband.  But of course, she couldn’t – because the state had, without her knowledge and certainly against her will, made the decision that she should never again conceive a child.

Why had the state done this?  Because the state believed she was “promiscuous and didn’t get along well with others.”

Riddick later said “I didn’t get along well with others because I was hungry.  I was cold.  I was a victim of rape.”

The charge of promiscuity is what stands out for me, because it reveals so much about the way in which our male-dominated society has historically viewed the crime of rape.  Elaine was brutally attacked and impregnated by a man – and yet she was branded “promiscuous”.  Was this the state’s way of saying “she was asking for it”?  Was 1968 too early for North Carolina’s law enforcement agencies to recognize rape as a crime of violence, rather than of sex?

Elaine Riddick was a victim many times over.  She was  not only victimized by the man who raped and impregnated her.  She was additionally victimized by a culture that saw her rape not as a crime committed by a stronger man against a weaker girl, but as the result of her own “promiscuity”, making her at least partly responsible for her own rape.  She was victimized by a state which saw her as less human thanks to her race and her class.  And she was victimized by a society that still tries to divide people in order to keep them subservient to the desires of the powerful.

North Carolina’s current government is grappling with how much to compensate the victims of its eugenics program.  No matter how much money the state eventually gives in recompense, it will never be enough to erase the stain of genocidal intent.

The Closeted Atheist

A friend of mine recently admitted that he didn’t use the term “atheist” to refer to himself.  Not because it wasn’t accurate – he holds the same non-belief in gods and the supernatural as I do – but because of the negative traits people in general, and religious believers in particular, associate with the term.  He said he didn’t like how people believe atheists are immoral, certainly less moral than god-fearing folk.

This is one way in which the religious have defined, to their advantage, the difference between those who subscribe to a faith tradition and those who do not.  The definition is one that has become an accepted meme in our culture, and is a major reason why more non-believers are reluctant to publicly identify themselves as such.  Or if they do, they often choose the less-threatening term agnostic because the word atheist carries so much negative social baggage.

I could not argue against my friend’s decision, because keeping his atheism hidden is still the best choice for those of us who live in a country where an African-American man can finally be elected President, but an atheist hasn’t got a chance in hell.

For myself, I am openly out of the non-believer’s closet.  I am not shy about declaring my atheism.  But I am very much aware of the isolation and mistrust that such a declaration can engender – and I am sad for my friend who has to hide his honest opinions for fear of making himself a pariah.