When creators choose to profit on the trauma of children …
I find my fellow New Yorker Jeanine Cummins very frustrating.
She’s the latest author to join Oprah’s Book Club, for her book “American Dirt.” In the book, she tells a fictional story about the troubles facing a family from Mexico trapped in a life-or-death situation, that has to travel to the U.S. for safety and face our immigration system. Her book is being lauded. She’s a foster mom, with a good heart, and this work she’s created has reached the hearts of a lot of good Americans, people like Stephen King and Oprah and all sorts of folks.
It was this tweet, coupled with relooking at some writing she’s done and her interviews, that’s led me to this place of frustration …
I don’t understand how anyone who truly understands the suffering of immigrants can ever think that the barbed wire that hurts and kills so many people trying to escape from war, from crime, from violence, is beautiful. It’s clear she’s never suffered any of this herself, and has a limit to her empathy.