"
True, much of the dated advice ... is now amusingly camp,
but the potential thrill of being single still saturates each page.
"

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11/24/2004 "Race, Class & Feminists"

E=themes from The New York Times Series

...Apparently talking about our age never goes out of style.

But it was race, rather than birthdates or preference for flats, that really separated our feminist grandmas. As far back as the 1800's, race had put them in different camps. The movement for universal suffrage broke down when white women leaders realized that black men would get to the ballot box before them. Feminists were still unsettled about the issue of race in the 1970's as they raised their consciousness. So in 1980, when women of color produced an anthology about the movement, they picked a no-nonsense metaphor for the book's title, ''This Bridge Called My Back.''

Edited by Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga, the book wasn't the she-said-she-said some may have expected or wanted. Instead, women of color wrote candidly about their own racism and that of white feminists. Moraga wrote, ''We are afraid to look at how we have failed each other.'' Now a new book edited by Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating, ''This Bridge We Call Home,'' brings the question of differences up to date, and suggests that now looks something like back then. One young writer, Kimberly Springer, wonders if she should attend ''the Black Student Union protest or drive to a Clinic Defense in suburban Detroit? The United Coalition Against Racism meeting or the Take Back the Night March? Like the 1970's Black feminists I would later study, I was torn between two lovers.''

Like those before her, Springer comes to the conclusion that identifying politically with those who look like her doesn't result in instant sisterhood. Being of the same race, national origin or class background is often a good and much-needed starting point, but it doesn't mean shutting the door on everyone else. It requires, as Anzaldúa writes in her introduction, ''knowing when to close ranks to those outside our home and when to keep the gates open.''

Unlike our sisters 200 years ago or even two decades ago, we now have more contact with each other. We have e-mail. ''Woman'' is one of many identities that we can share. Both young and old feminists now find themselves in unlikely alliances. A chicana lives in Norway with friends from Pakistan, Kosovo and India. Palestinian girls grow up with Puerto Ricans in New York. And likewise, the writers in ''This Bridge We Call Home'' are mixed-race graduate students, gay fathers, chicana schoolteachers and first- and fifth-generation Americans.

None of this makes talking about race and feminism any easier than it was back in the 1800's. We joke about gray hair, the news on hormone replacement, the baby fat, the acne, how time passes -- all while riding on the elevator to the office. But talking about race we leave for trips to the bathroom. We check in with each other about whether we sounded racist talking about hair or the Middle East. We add lipstick and exchange that ''can you believe she said that?'' look. A writer in ''This Bridge We Call Home,'' though, talks about it more honestly: ''Being the white mom of an African-American child has not made me more conscious of racism. Nor has it made me a better anti-racism activist. It has made me more vulnerable.''

With the anniversary of Sept. 11 close at hand, ''This Bridge We Call Home'' is a reminder that it's a good time to talk about what keeps us apart and what brings us together. Deborah Miranda warns in the book of ''solidarity on the one hand, silence on the other.'' She's describing the relationship between women of color and Native American women, but the same could be said of feminists in general and, beyond that, of Americans. Solidarity and silence. We're together in sisterhood or tragedy, but our questions and fears don't necessarily get talked about. Instead we put them aside and history, herstory, the story repeats itself.

" We ... exchange the ''can you believe she said that?'' look.

A writer in ''This Bridge We Call Home,'' though, talks about it more honestly: ''Being the white mom of an African-American child has not made me more conscious of racism. Nor has it made me a better anti-racism activist. It has made me more vulnerable.''"

I think the above comment is so interesting - I think those who are not victims are always better at identifying a problem before the victims can do it. She is talking about the state of shock you have mentally while you are being victimized. You stop thinking; become only a reactive mode. The conscious mind is abandoned for a different way of surviving because nothing is rational to the victim. Nothing adds up, makes sense, works out the way you know it should. The victim cannot figure it out because she is feeling it and focused on avoiding the punishment.

It is the non-victims who can bring the victims together and document their experiences with the system and in their selves. This was started in the Consciousness Raising groups of the early feminist movement. Everyone spoke her truth-no one was allowed to respond except with her own truth.

The CR Method was the basis of how I organized victims of violence, The experiences once discussed as part of one topic of the entire situation discussed with others similarly situated started the documentation and the process provided support from the documenter.

The initial experience as told by the one who experienced it was documented, typed from a tape, and updated and refined with the victim, The end product being a Chronology of Events. Accumulation of these stories documenting a pattern and practice of behavior, pointed to institutional and personal change needs. Thus the needs having been identified by the victims with the assistance of non-victims I believe the solutions would avoid the blame the victim solutions of mass culture consumers.

Blaming the victim is the original sin against the law of "Harm None".

The above authors talk of being vulnerable reminded me of the bonds between the victims and the women who worked to document their stories. The documenters were doing a lot of drudge work, typing, fact checking, research. They were acting as private secretaries for no pay to the victims with only the goal of societal change as their reward. Because they saw that the rising of any group of women is the rising of the caste.

That kind of bond across race and class should be acknowledged. Our celebrations should be bond affirming when so much of the work of oppressors is to divide the weak from the protection of the herd. Learning to bond instead of destroy is very necessary as we reach out across race and class and age to help one another.

Posted by GreenConsciousness @ 11/24/2004 10:48 AM CST

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