Titania McGrath - My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism

Titania McGrath

CONSTABLE

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Constable

Copyright Titania McGrath, 2020

Illustrations by Emil Dacanay

Graphs by Liane Payne

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-47213-426-4

Constable

An imprint of

Little, Brown Book Group

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

An Hachette UK Company

www.hachette.co.uk

www.littlebrown.co.uk

I believe the children are our future,
teach them well and let them lead the way.

Whitney Houston

T his is a book for aspiring activists between the ages of six months and six years. If youre an adult, kindly fuck off and read something else.

Now that ancient prying eyes have been averted, we may speak candidly. As a young person, you represent the next generation of intersectional warrior queens. I make no apologies for using advanced terminology such as intersectional, because I refuse to patronise you in the way your parents have done. I know that there is wisdom in youth. As a baby, my first words were: Seize the means of production.

If anything, people become more retarded as they grow older. The most intelligent person in the world at present is the teenager Greta Thunberg (Peace Be Upon Her). And by far the stupidest is that Professor Jordan Peterson. I havent read any of his books, but apparently hes some kind of shadowy beef-munching Mephistopheles figure who thinks that lobsters should tidy their rooms or something.

I am fully aware that the word retarded has become an offensive pejorative term, but I am reclaiming it. This is because to be retarded simply means to move backwards. And as paradoxical as it may seem, in order to progress we must move backwards to a time before our culture became infected with democracy, free speech and facts. I feel no compunction, therefore, in declaring that social justice is a profound form of retardation.

As a young person in a world swarming with crypto-fascists, you will need guidance from one whose benevolence is beyond doubt. Enter Titania McGrath.

Thats me, by the way.

Your parents are not to be trusted. At least one of them is likely to be straight, which is an aberration that has plagued humankind since the aeon of the velociraptors. Given that sexuality is fluid, the World Health Organization really should classify heterosexual desire as a severe mental and behavioural disorder. Believe me, future generations will thank us if we successfully eliminate heterosexuality.

Many of you will have been gestated in a traditional female womb, and been arbitrarily assigned a sex at birth. You will have been told you are a girl or, even worse, a boy. You will have attended an indoctrination camp known as a school and will have been programmed by the media to believe ludicrous lies. This book is your first step towards undoing that damage.

To the little girls who are reading this, it is important that you learn that you will always be oppressed, no matter how much you try to distract yourselves with weekend breaks in the Loire Valley or the occasional spree at Harrods. As for the boys, you really should transition to female as soon as possible so that you might begin to understand the extent of our persecution.

Let me put this as clearly as possible. Your teachers hate you. Your parents hate you. And as for your grandparents, theyre just gnarled and embittered gnomes whose only redeeming feature is that they wont be around for much longer.

As this is the first time I have written anything aimed at young children, I have undertaken a great deal of research on how best to go about it. I have been reliably informed that kids adore illustrations because they help to clarify the meaning of the text. With that in mind, here is a diagram which will help you to better understand the complexities of intersectional activism.

Intersectional Activism: How It Works

I think we can learn a lot from this.

So let me tell you a bit about myself. I am Titania McGrath: scourge of the patriarchy, breaker of chains, the embodiment of social justice. If truth bombs were eggs, Id be a chicken. So if youre unsure about which opinions to have, this is the book for you.

In addition to being a feminist and a socialist, Im also the most important poet of my generation. To prove it, a selection of my best work is included in this volume. My speciality is the genre known as slam. So when you read the poems, imagine that Im reciting them in a vaguely urban accent. Take great care when approaching my poetry, as it tends to expose new layers of meaning with every reading, like the very wokest of onions.

I have started performing my more shocking and evocative poems at environmental protests, such as the ever-popular Mother Earth is Not Your Slut. I tend to recite it completely naked, except for a pashmina fashioned from interlaced earthworms. Some people find my performance so moving that they actually have to leave.

In addition to my lyrical prowess, I am also an oppressed minority. Im ecosexual, which means I only have sex with plants and vegetables. Im trans-disabled, which means that I am permitted to use the more spacious public toilet facilities in spite of my functioning legs. And Im also hay-racial, which means that my ethnic identity tends to fluctuate depending on the pollen count.

I have a reputation not only for my intelligence, but also for my righteous anger. Like Joan of Arc, I have successfully fought for justice against incredible odds. But unlike Joan of Arc, I havent made the dumb mistake of getting myself burned to death in the process.

I didnt ask to be an icon, but part of growing up is to accept the role that fate decrees. You will learn this as you reach adulthood. Obviously, your role is unlikely to be as important as mine. Youll probably end up working in a supermarket or something. But even a lowly shop assistant can be woke.

People often ask me to define woke. I dont need to. I am the living definition of the word. But if youre interested to know more, you should tell your parents to buy a copy of my first book, Woke: A Guide to Social Justice, which has a particularly strong chapter on how to defeat capitalism. Its available on Amazon.

And now, in spite of the patriarchal forces that would see me vanquished, I have penned My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism. There have been many progressive childrens books flooding the market of late, such as Feminist Baby, C is for Consent and The Little Girl Who Gave Zero Fucks. Perhaps the most accomplished is Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, which pays tribute to feminist role models such as Michelle Obama, Maya Angelou and Yoko Ono. My favourite chapter is the one on Coco Chanel, the most empowering of all the Nazi collaborators.

Needless to say, my book is even better. In a series of groundbreaking and poignant chapters, I shall take you on a journey with the most inspiring individuals in history, such as Emmeline Pankhurst, Hillary Clinton and Joseph Stalin. Even if you havent yet learned how to read, you should carry it with you wherever you go to prove that youre not a bigot.