blackascoal
The Force is With Me
The Loud Silence Of Feminists
By Mary C. Curtis
Saturday, June 21, 2008
excerpt --
Michelle Obama has become an issue in the presidential campaign even though she isn't running for anything. An educated, successful lawyer, devoted wife and caring mother has been labeled "angry" and unpatriotic and snidely referred to as Barack Obama's "baby mama."
Democrats, Republicans, independents, everyone should be offended.
And this black woman is wondering: Where are Obama's feminist defenders?
---
Just as the Rutgers women's basketball team was miscast by Don Imus, Obama is being labeled something she clearly is not. Her achievements are being dismissed.
But in America, there's seldom a cost for disrespecting black women.
I'm waiting for feminists who speak of second-class citizenship and being pushed to the back of the bus to remember the civil rights movement that gave birth to those words. After all, it was a black woman, Rosa Parks, who took her seat up front and pulled others there, too.
I'm not holding my breath, though.
As a journalist, I have stayed neutral about political candidates. But as an American, I would have been excited about the historic first had Hillary Clinton emerged victorious from the Democratic primary battle. Yet when an African American made a different kind of history, it seems that feminists can't share in the triumph.
They don't have to vote for the husband to defend the wife.
Okay, I get it: Your candidate lost. You're angry.
But frankly, I'm getting a little peeved myself.
-- more at link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy.../06/20/AR2008062002209.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
By Mary C. Curtis
Saturday, June 21, 2008
excerpt --
Michelle Obama has become an issue in the presidential campaign even though she isn't running for anything. An educated, successful lawyer, devoted wife and caring mother has been labeled "angry" and unpatriotic and snidely referred to as Barack Obama's "baby mama."
Democrats, Republicans, independents, everyone should be offended.
And this black woman is wondering: Where are Obama's feminist defenders?
---
Just as the Rutgers women's basketball team was miscast by Don Imus, Obama is being labeled something she clearly is not. Her achievements are being dismissed.
But in America, there's seldom a cost for disrespecting black women.
I'm waiting for feminists who speak of second-class citizenship and being pushed to the back of the bus to remember the civil rights movement that gave birth to those words. After all, it was a black woman, Rosa Parks, who took her seat up front and pulled others there, too.
I'm not holding my breath, though.
As a journalist, I have stayed neutral about political candidates. But as an American, I would have been excited about the historic first had Hillary Clinton emerged victorious from the Democratic primary battle. Yet when an African American made a different kind of history, it seems that feminists can't share in the triumph.
They don't have to vote for the husband to defend the wife.
Okay, I get it: Your candidate lost. You're angry.
But frankly, I'm getting a little peeved myself.
-- more at link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy.../06/20/AR2008062002209.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
