Rebecca Solnit
UPDATE: The free offer is over, but the book is still available at a big discount at the link below.
The writer and activist Rebecca Solnit — probably best known as the woman who came up with the idea of mansplaining, though not the term itself — is giving away her book on activism and hope for free, in hopes it can help some of us horrified by Trump’s win to work through the despair and helplessness so many of us are now feeling.
Solnit is aware, though, that we will all do this in our own way and at our own pace. “[I]t’s okay if you’re not ready, if you’re bitter, terrified, horrified, devastated this week,” she wrote in a Faccebook post yesterday.
I’m against lashing out, but I’m against running away from the impact too. I’m for taking it in and then gathering our strength to move on.
Hopefully her book will help a lot of people with that. (Including me — I just downloaded it myself.)
You can download it here.
Here is part of the book’s introduction:
“Memory produces hope in the same way that amnesia produces despair,” the theologian Walter Brueggeman noted. It’s an extraordinary statement, one that reminds us that though hope is about the future, grounds for hope lie in the records and recollections of the past. We can tell of a past that was nothing but defeats and cruelties and injustices, or of a past that was some lovely golden age now irretrievably lost, or we can tell a more complicated and accurate story, one that has room for the best and worst, for atrocities and liberations, for grief and jubilation. A memory commensurate to the complexity of the past and the whole cast of participants, a memory that includes our power, produces that forward-directed power called hope.
Amnesia leads to despair in many ways. The status quo would like you to believe it is immutable, inevitable, and invulnerable, and lack of memory of a dynamically changing world reinforces this view. …
One of the essential aspects of depression is the sense that you will always be mired in this misery, that nothing can or will change. … Things don’t always change for the better, but they change, and we can play a role in that change, if we act. Which is where hope comes in, and memory, the collective memory we call history.
I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book.
ugh, that link didn’t work. Trying again.
Maria Popova at brainpickings did a lovely post about Solnit’s book earlier this year. Worth reading even more in the current circumstances.
Thanks for letting us know about the freebie.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/03/16/rebecca-solnit-hope-in-the-dark-2/
Thank you, Ms. Solnit. You are doing a great act of kindness and it is acts like these that makes America great!
@Dave: Thank you for pointing us to this! Keep being your strong self!
@Mish: Thank you, I’ll check that out.
Stay strong, everyone! We will get through this together!
Finally, a book I can afford.
Thank you, David.
I had this checked out of the library recently, but had to return it before I got very far.
So nice to have my own copy I can read some and think and come back and re-read. And SO RELEVANT now.
Thank you Rebecca Solnit and Haymarket
(and to the woman I was reading about, who decided to sell safety pins for 4 dollars on etsy and she ‘might’ donate some money if she makes enough, ^^^^^ this is how you do activism)
Well, that’s nice…
@Axe
You ok?
I can’t see the front page of this site now for some reason.
It’s a lovely suggestion, and everyone needs help getting through the confusion and grief, and to find the hope.
But it’s a very short step from hope to acceptance. Don’t lose the anger or the outrage.
@Scildfreja,
Excellent point; and see this from Solnit:
That’s great stuff, thanks Mish.
Perhaps this book can help me focus some of this anger constructively into deeds. Thanks David for the info.
Off topic question, hope this is OK.
I’m Jewish. I have been using the triple parentheses, the ‘echoes’ on my Twitter account for months. I see some people use them, not as many as there were a while ago, but lots.
Then I became aware that someone on my Twitter feed, not Jewish, was assertively telling people not to use the parentheses, that they were triggering to Jews, bad allyship, she wouldn’t follow or RT you if you had them, etc. I kind of asked her to knock that off, and got a vague response, basically, “I’m sorry you have a different opinion.”
Then, a day or two ago, I had an exchange with a young woman, Jewish, on Twitter, from the above person’s social circle, who asked why I was ‘still’ using the parentheses, and told me that ‘tons of Jews’ were extremely triggered by them and had ‘begged’ people to stop using them.
I did some searching, and found some other social-justice-y people talking about not reblogging things with the parentheses out of solidarity with the Jews with triggers. What I haven’t found, is tons of Jews with triggers, or even some Jews with triggers, talking about their issues with people using parentheses on their own names.
Does anyone have any insight? I don’t get Twitter, really, never have, but I’m finding it more than slightly weird that this belief seems to have developed while I’m still seeing all manner of Jews using them with no apparent concern, myself included, and no one from outside this particular little area of Twitter has ever mentioned an issue to me.
I’m not even sure this is coherent, but something about the interaction has left me slightly suspicious, of what I don’t exactly know. Curious to know if anyone can fill me in.
Being a Gentile, and new to social justice, take my opinion for what it’s worth.
I think some social justice advocates are simply unaware that some of the people using the triple parentheses are themselves Jews re-purposing anti-Semitic things, as African-Americans did to the enn-word. The triple parentheses are actually an anti-Semitic thing originally, having originated from an alt-right blog called The Right Stuff. It is recognised by the Anti-Defamation League as hate speech.
@Podkayne
Well, you’re Jewish, you get to do whatever you want with the parenthesis because it’s being used to target Jewish people. That’s usually the consensus, the people being hurt get to dictate what hurts them.
I mean, the whole reason people started doing the parenthesis was to protect Jewish people. The Alt-Right began using them to point out or accuse people or things of being Jewish so they’d get harassed, so in order to protect people, non-Jewish peeps started using them in their own names.
I don’t doubt some of these people may get triggered by them as they may have been attacked when someone signaled they were Jewish with them.
But, like, non-Jewish people don’t get to tell you what or whatnot to do with them.
@ Podkayne Lives (Zionist Bonobo))
Well it’s your choice to do so. No reason to let non-Jewish people tell you what you should and shouldn’t be offended by regarding your beliefs and culture.
I’m not Jewish, but I’ve been using the parentheses as an “I’m Spartacus” sign of solidarity with Jews who are reapproprating an anti-Semitic meme. No one has said anything to me about it aside from some at-rightists calling me an assortment of anti-Semitic slurs.
night night, all.
This is very kind of her, and it might help quite a few people.
As for me though, I’ve given up on hope. One more time the nation has shown me its face, and this time I don’t think I am ready to look past it or try to smooth it over anymore. Not sure yet what I will do though. For now, I’ll just keep going.
@Podkayne Lives (Zionist Bonobo))
Some people advocate for causes with out really talking to the people they are advocating “for” (huge issue in the autism community),
reclaimed words are a thing like how “queer” gets used by lgbt+ people a lot despite being a slur,
the logic is that by being used in a positive way by the people its intended to disparage it loses its power as an insult.
I do the same thing as Dave for the same reason and thankfully all that happened was a Jewish lady asked why I was using it and I explained. She thought it was cool. I’m not Jewish but I do have Jew in me (from my maternal grandmother’s mom).
Thanks for the heads up on the book David! I’m still trying to digest what’s happened. I’ve taken a complete break from Facebook to help me gather my thoughts and my strength. Even half a world away in Australia, the mood was grim. The signal has not been missed by local conservatives either and they’re already murmuring about how this justifies their own repugnant views. Fortunately, our prime minister still ratified the Paris Agreement, on the same day as Trump won. That is a slender victory for us!
For now though, I stand in solidarity with those in the US who are hurting right now. Grieve in whatever way and for however long it takes. But when you reach acceptance, I hope it will merely be that this has happened, not that this is the way things have to be. I beg you not to give up the fight – I’ll fight with you all the way!
Thank you for this, and for all that you do, David.
And thanks to Rebecca Solnit too – it sounds like a timely read.
@Lucrece,
Fellow Aust. here. You are so right. Pauline Hanson wasted no time congratulating Trump, for one. And Turnbull was under pressure from Bernardi, Christensen, et al even before the US election. This affects all of us.
@everyone, has anyone heard from SFHC lately? Maybe I’m just really, really unobservant, but I haven’t seen her on here since the Day of Oh My God Please No.
@ Violet
The ‘who is Jewish?’ question is a hot topic amongst scholars of Judaism. The most common view is that Judaism passes down the maternal line. So from what your saying, if you have an unbroken line of Jewish ladies back to your great granny then you’d be welcomed as Jewish in quite a few branches of Judaism.
There are some branches (who seem to adopt a rather patriarchal interpretation of the Talmud) who say Judaism passes only down the male line; but they’re very much in a minority.
If you’re interested it’s well worth having a chat with a rabbi. I got nattering to one at a wedding and that’s how I got all the above. Apparently I’m also Jewish, but only since 1983(!?)
There’s another giveaway going on, for this weekend only: the video game Gone Home. You can also pay an amount of your choice if you want, in that case the proceeds will be donated to Lambda Legal:
I thought I’d share this in case anyone hasn’t seen it
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lego-ends-advertising-daily-mail-stop-funding-hate-campaign-a7413361.html
It’s a good book. Despite her sometimes convoluted and rather purple prose, you’ll get a lot out of it. No earth shattering revelations, I think, but she strings together a logical, coherent (and very human!) look at hope.
How do you not realize how bad this looks? How?
@Podkayne Lives (Zionist Bonobo))
apparently triple parenthesis are a antisemitic dog whistle. While it is totally possible that some Jewish people are triggered by that as treeperson person said it’s a problem for people to advocate for another group without talking to them and as someone with a mental illness who does get triggered in the true medical meaning of the term, I take issue with people using the word to mean offended or upset or who use the term to refer to someone else’s feelings when they don’t know if that person was actually having a panic attack or similar mental illness flair up/relapse
I just saw this post on tumblr, seems to be from a lawyer/law student perhaps, musing on Trump meeting Obama (who I gather is a former law professor? Didn’t know that, though I knew he did law). The poster explains why they think this may have been a pretty uncomfortable meeting for Trump.
http://valadilenne.tumblr.com/post/153048664118
I’m hoping it’s generally ok to link to a public post from another forum, especially a pseudonymous one, but if I’m wrong about that I’d be very grateful if this could be deleted?
Speaking of activism, to all my DC-area peeps or anyone in the general vicinity, there is a “Women March on DC’ protest going down the day after Trump’s inauguration. There are spin-offs around the country, but for the one in DC, there are already 45,000 people signed up and another 122,000 interested in going. I know I will be there, and I volunteered my place to the event should someone out of town need a place to stay. Obviously it won’t accomplish anything immediate, but I think it’s necessary to put it on every television in the country and around the world that a huge segment of this country supports equality and progress.
Sorry to necro this, but what program does one use to open and read her e-book?
@Fishy Goat
I use an app called File Converter for iOS (icon is a dark green circular arrow) to convert pretty much any ebook format to any other document format. (It isn’t free but it’s also not very expensive.)
Not sure if something similar is available for PC. However, the Kindle reader is available for PC and the evook was also available in .mobi format. If you’re not having a good experience with the PDF version, this might be worth a try.
😊
@Fishy Goat
Calibri knows most e-book formats (on PC). You can probably convert the book with it to whatever you normally use for reading things.
Adobe didn’t work by itself, so I found an EPUB to Pdf site. THanks anyway. 🙂
@sparkalipoo
I may be reading this wrong but I think Eli was stating that Ms Solnit’s free download is activism (and that the safety pin person was not an activist).
@ Claire
I also may perhaps be reading it wrong, but as I understand it, you’re spot on about what eli was stating but have missed the fact that “you” in sparkalipoo’s “How do you not realize how bad this looks? How?” was directed towards the woman selling the safety pins (not eli), and was intended as agreement with and further comment on what eli said.
Ah. My bad. That makes way more sense.
Solnit did a great article in Harpers Magazine about the way that many people can be both ignorant and cynical at the same time….
http://harpers.org/archive/2016/05/the-habits-of-highly-cynical-people/
I wasn’t able to get the book free – I did buy it for $5 which I’m fine with – but if it says free you want your link to work so that people don’t get upset with you. Just saying. 🙂
Oops. I thought I’d mentioned in the post that the free offer was temporary, but I didn’t. I’ve updated the post. Thanks!