MORE STEINEM REBUFFS

I am still super pissed at Gloria Steinem – and the more rebuttals I read, the more angry I become. Word to all you are, 2nd wave… but there’s still so much you’re not.
An Open Letter to Gloria Steinem (sent by Humanity Critic – whose funny Obama endorsement is a must-read)
Professor Mark Anthony Neal on Hillary vs. Barack:
Ms. Steinem misses the point that for a significant amount of black folk, separating gender and race out of the equation is not possible. Much has been made about the increased significance of the black vote in the democratic primaries, but black women make up more than a majority of registered black voters–some numbers suggest that they make up nearly two-thirds of registered black voters. Thus this process is not about winning the hearts of black voters, but more specifically, about winning the hearts of black women voters. This is why South Carolina is such critical terrain for both Obama and Clinton, with black voters representing more than 40% of registered democrats in the state. Black women voters are the primary reason why Senator Obama employed Oprah Winfrey’s celebrity in his stumps in the state; those black women are the reason why Reverend Marcia L. Dyson has been traveling throughout the state on behalf of Senator Clinton. Ironically Black women represent a segment of the American electorate that has rarely had their concerns addressed or even acknowledged. Think, for example, about the collective silence of John Edwards and Dick Cheney when Gwen Ifill asked them about high HIV rates among black women in the 2004 Vice-Presidential debate. Nearly four years later, like some surreal remix of The Children of Men, black women may dictate the future of the democratic party and thus the future of this country.
Too Sense: Women, White Privilege and the Bradley Effect: a must-read that made me think hard. An excerpt (definitely go read the original:
It is a simple fact that when Applebaum and Steinem say “women” they mean white women. When they don’t mean white women they say black women. Black women remain largely absent from the equation of white feminism unless the target of criticism is black, such as a Hip-hop artist. Under such circumstances, white feminists are often content to employ a black female voice so that they cannot be accused of being “racist” for their criticism. The interest in including black women usually wanes soon after.
I do not restrict this criticism to white women, or white feminists. The use of black voices as political props goes across both genders and political parties. While Republicans are somewhat more “honest” about expressing their prejudices, they largely can’t be reasoned with in terms of establishing that racism is still an issue in this country. Liberals are comfortable only when the discussion is about how uncomfortable Republicans are with race. When it comes to confronting their own prejudices, most aren’t as sanguine.
In terms of electoral politics, white women have a privilege no black person, male or female, will ever have. The GOP functions as a party entirely without the black vote because they don’t need it. The same cannot be said of white women voters. An election can turn on their vote in any state in the Union, but the black vote is only significant enough to do so in certain states.
But discussing sexism without acknowledging white privilege, saying “women” when what you mean is white women, is fundamentally dishonest. It allows people like Applebaum and Steinem to minimize their access to power, which by any objective measure is greater than that of black Americans of either gender. This is not to say that sexism doesn’t exist, or doesn’t place significant obstacles or social double standards in the path of someone like Hillary Clinton; but the reality is that such essentially race neutral discussions about sexism minimize the fact that while Clinton may be a woman, she is still white. There is no Bradley Effect for someone like her.