Feminist Bookstore on Interconnectedness

The Book Club Chicago blog reports that the intersectional feminist bookstore in the city, Women and Children First had their front window broken by someone who had taken exception to the shop displaying a Palestinian flag.  The popular feminist bookstore now plans to decorate the boarded-up window with a mural for Palestine to “make something beautiful out of something very ugly,” co-owner Sarah Hollenbeck said.  “We believe that all liberation struggles are connected, and we’re not going to turn our backs on this cause because we’ve experienced this act of violence,” Hollenbeck said. “We believe the systemic oppression of Palestinian people should not be normalized the way it has been for decades.”  The bookstore’s staff collectively decided to hang the Palestinian flag in the window after multiple Jewish employees suggested showing public support for a ceasefire, Hollenbeck said.   “As an intersectional feminist bookstore, our role, in our events and curation and politics, has always been to center voices that have been silenced, marginalized and otherwise oppressed,” Hollenbeck added. “Our support of the Palestinian people is an extension of that.”