Have you ever looked at your kid’s coloring books and thought, “Man, my three-year-old just isn’t getting enough information about members of the Black Panthers like Fred Hampton.” Or maybe you were thinking, “I sure would like to teach my child that it is okay to draw all over our walls.” Have no fear, babywit.com is here.
The snarky local baby tee and books company, which is sponsoring an event called Coloring For A Cause with Portland’s chic baby boutique Black Wagon on Feb. 8, has released two coloring books that are perfect for your little ankle-biting activist to chew on. The Color of Dissent “celebrates revolutionaries and political visionaries in American history in an effort to expose children to the truths and individuals that are rarely, if ever, taught in school.” Phew! Finally our toddlers have access to the truth. But you know what? THEY CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH! Why? Because they’re friggin’ babies!
So Much Love in Just One Can is a “contemporary graffiti and street art coloring book” and “seeks to legitimize graffiti as an art form.” This is a cool idea. Graffiti can be pretty cool looking. But one of the pictures in the book shows one kid hoisting another kid up to tag a wall. I’m sure the picture right before that was of the two kids politely asking for permission from the local proprietor to spray paint his wall. Fifty percent of all profits from the books benefit Books to Prisoners, a non-profit organization based out of Seattle which…gives books to prisoners and Pose2’s Graffiti. Black Wagon, 3964 N Mississippi Ave., 888-0161. 6-9 pm, Thursday, Feb 8. Free.
Photo courtesy of Babywit.com and artist Ashley Montague 
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Maybe Coloring for a Cause makes coloring books because normal, rational adults don’t buy into the childish, immature ideology of Coloring for a Cause.
These books were not created by anyone still involved with babywit.com but rather they were ideas organized and executed by an employee who was unjustly fired and harassed by the owner of babywit.com who ultimately was only an investor. Most of the artists involved never received artist copies of their books, the artist who did all the illustrations for ‘Color of Dissent’ never received any compensation or artist copies, and the profits of these books are not going toward the nonprofit groups they were created to assist. All in all, utter hypocrisy of the most self righteous, self indulgent, and self serving sort. Enjoy the event if you can ignore the two faced nature of such an endeavor.
Juicy Tanya.