Posted on 06/12/2018 11:56:48 AM PDT by rickmichaels
An “iconic feminist bookstore and community space” is closing in Portland, Oregon.
What could be the cause of this retailer’s failure? People don’t want to buy their books? Perhaps the rise of e-commerce?
Not in the slightest, obviously. The problem lies in white power, patriarchy and white cisgendered feminism.
That’s the takeaway from a statement posted last Monday announcing the closing of In Other Words, a volunteer-run bookstore made famous by the television show “Portlandia.” According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, the store will be closing at the end of this month — and it’s all the fault of you blue-eyed devils.
“The current volunteers and board members stepped into and took over a space that was founded on white, cis feminism (read: white supremacy). It’s really difficult, actually, impossible, for us to disentangle from that foundational ideology,” the statement said.
“Patriarchy, White Supremacy, Capitalism cannot be reformed and ever serve the people. Abolition is the goal.”
Apparently, all of us white people are responsible for making In Other Words an unsafe space.
“This isn’t sustainable, especially emotionally, for the people who come here and work to provide this space as a resource to Portland Feminist communities,” the statement said.
Of course, this has nothing to do with people not wanting In Other Words’ wares. Nor does it have anything to do with the fact the store’s management decided to shirk the fame they garnered through “Portlandia,” severing ties with the show in 2016 because they “struggled with the spotlight of the hit show,” according to OPB.
Nor was it the fact that as the store’s “focus has shifted from indie bookstore to community space, it has welcomed groups as diverse as AA meetings to Rock Camp for Girls to anti-racist activists.” While this is a nice thing to do, it can’t actually be the focus of a business. A bookstore can indeed be an important community space, but its first goal is to sell books.
No, it’s all the perfidy of white folks. Their supremacy is the sole reason this bookstore is closing down.
There seems to be another non-profit which is interested in running the space, however — although its attitude seems to indicate it will run into the same problems the previous group did.
“We’re definitely keeping things open-ended, in the spirit of In Other Words,” said Anna Swanson, a representative of social justice group Critical Resistance.
OPB says she’s “keeping the space free or low cost and open to all-ages, with an eye to anti-capitalist, anti-racist, intersectional work.”
“It’s really important to us,” Swanson said, “if we can to keep the space alive in that sense, but also to take the opportunity to transition it out of the sort of intractable problems the volunteers and board are talking about.”
Given that the store seems to be definitely anti-capitalist (inasmuch as it can’t actually sell enough to stay in business), I think there’s one very intractable problem that Critical Resistance will still run into.
Good luck solving that one.
It's awful. I would be living comfortably in a villa on a private island in the Caribbean were it not for those scourges.
" … reasons for the closure are increased expenses and the lack of funds …"
So there you have it. Expenses exceed income. Who woulda thunk it!
But it gets more interesting. It seems they expected people to volunteer to work at this business for free. Great business plan. It seems there was a "lack of volunteers" to run the joint. Who woulda thunk it!
But it even gets funnier! Hard to believe, but evidently they had a tie-in with some PBS TV show which actually paid them money, coin of the realm, for being part of some PBS sitcom. But what happened?
Liberals, true to their nature, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. This female bookstore decided to stop accepting the money because of the patriarchy/capitalist/establishment nature of PBS. LOL!
I'm sure the other reasons include "that time of month" and "my kid's sick". The usual.
But ulitimate insane reason is that their were too many honky females: uber liberal white-as-the-driven-snowflake feminists who weren't "intersectional enough" due to their white skin, European-American genes, patriarchy, straight sexuality, and bourgeois lifestyles. In other words, the customers weren't total freaks, only halfway freaks.
a volunteer-run bookstore
So two men in drag cant run a business, but its the white man’s fault??
How can that be. I thought we were all Neanderthals and couldn’t read.
More winning!
What is that thing in the photo on the viewer’s left?
Bwahahahaha
Free market capitalism at work weeding out the lesser desirable business. This reminds me of the photo of a protestor wearing the sign “$96,000 for a degree in lesbian (or something like that) studies and I can’t find a job!”. If you want to sell something at least assess demand for the product and research demographics for strength of your target market.
““Patriarchy, White Supremacy, Capitalism cannot be reformed and ever serve the people. Abolition is the goal.””
Gee, I wish I could go there!
I thought that was where they were.
sounds like a description of a communist organization
I love Portlandia.
Books need an affirmative action plan. You must buy at least one unpopular book for every popular book you buy.
Your home is already full of books? You must buy books deemed worthy of being best sellers, even when they are not, until parity is reached.
And your legacy books have been in your house for how long? You are not allowed any books you like until the books you don’t like have been in your house an equal amount of time.
“What was the point.”
hanging out with other embittered, man-hating, white-hating, anti-Trumper fem Dems ...
“Which demographic was the most unwelcome in that store?”
probably the ones that had enough money to buy their crappy, over-priced books ...
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