On the Pick at Her Line

I am struggling to reading a very tiresome book in which the main character is a poor Southern black woman. And of course there is sexual assault up top along with tired vernacular, hyper-sexuality, and a lack of agency. Always. Why? This is something I think I will just go ahead an leave out of my writing. It is something that has always turned me off about a lot of so-called modern black canon.  We can make choices, even those of us who are not so bright. Maybe it chafes me because I grew up in a rural Southern area and there were dumb people who made bad decisions and dumb ones who didn't--the former get all the literary shine. It seems the more educated the writer, the more workshoppy the text, the more desperate the characters. 

Unable to continue the drivel, I decided to cheat and read the reviews. That's okay isn't it? At least I can still be "in the conversation". The character has an abortion. Whew! At least they skipped over the single motherhood trope. The moment I sense a character is "to dumb to live" I am out. And I was already done with this sad sack character after her umpteenth raw-dog fuck a stranger in the woods scene. Apparently my subconscious was not. I woke up this morning, slowly as always, coming off a dream. In this one I was at the picket line for an abortion clinic similar to the one described in the book. I stood among a bunch of deluded sign holding biddies but I was holding up signs of support. I guess I had a lot of arms. The signs said the following:

These people are crackpots and death cultists who get wet thinking about the apocalypse. (Embellished with arrows pointing at the anti-choicers.)

• Irony: Their promise land is death.
• I support your choice.
• I heart Planned Parenthood.
• You do you! (In case there are so-called millennials around.)
• I had an abortion and all I got was the freedom I've been enjoying the past few decades.
• A picture of an eraser with no text.
• Your body, your business.
• Dick Cheney is an asshole. (Nothing to do with abortion and the fact that it's a personal medical matter and not a policy point, but why not just say it? He sucks.)