Love and Consequences: The Epitome of White Appropriation in Book Form

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Originally published at Am I the Only One Dancing?. Please leave any comments there.

Sunset at Huntington Beach, California. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Turns out there was good reason for Love and Consequences by Margaret (Peggy) B. Jones to not be named “Truth and Consequences”. There was no truth in it, and Margaret was afraid of the consequences.

Turns out Margaret B. Jones, (supposedly half white, half Native American, poverty class) was actually Margaret Seltzer, an all white woman from Sherman Oaks, a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles. She “borrowed” the stories of people she worked with while doing anti-poverty and white ally work in Los Angeles gang territories, and worked them into a “memoir” about “her” difficult life.

There are so many things wrong with what Ms. Seltzer did that it’s difficult to pick a “worst”, but my vote would be on the betrayal of all those who considered her an ally by appropriating their stories for profit, without credit, without attribution.

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