Letters to the Editor
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RESPONSE TO THRASHER
How you denigrate African-American women when you lump them all into one pile. It's not surprising, though. Many like you believe that if you're Black, you support all things Black. If you're a feminist, you support all things feminist. That's old-time stuff, Thrasher. Old-time thinking.
But let's examine this a bit. Eons ago when I was working for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, I had overall-clad farm boys come up to me and tell me they were superior to me because they were males. I had suit-clad African-American men come up to me and inform me that I had to wait for my rights until they had theirs. Lately, we old feminist have to contend with young women saying "I'm not a feminist" while enjoying the fruits of our hard work. African-American women working alongside me had/have to deal with all of those things, too.
You assume that women who were committed to Clinton's campaign should jump ship because a young African-American man comes upon the scene. That Clinton should step aside and wait her turn, just like those suit-clad guys who told me I had to wait my turn. Well, I hope we've moved beyond that point in time and narrow thinking. And I think that women who happen to be both Clinton supporters and Black believe the woman who has been in the race the longest shouldn't back off, and are tired of that nonsense.
You do a disservice to all women when you lump us into a certain category called "women's vote" and you do a disservice to African-American women when you think they should all support an African-American man.
Every candidate says what she/he thinks will gain votes. Well, except for Dennis Kucinich possibly...and then I'm not sure. A white male Democrat today used the term "shuck and jive" in referring to "the other candidates" but we know who he was making reference to. That's after Jesse Jackson, Jr. proposed the idea that Hillary faked tears (did anyone see them running down her face, by the way?). Heck, we don't need republicans to bring down out side. We're doing it ourselves....as usual!
We Democrats have the most diverse set of candidates in history. All of them are qualified. All of them have good ideas. One happens to be a woman. One happens to be an African-American man. One happens to be a white male. One that just dropped out happens to be Hispanic in ethnicity. Instead of throwing away our possibility of taking back the White House from the most repressive and damaging administration in history, we need to support our side. Not bicker about trivial things.
Oh, and I think that Coretta Scott King would not say anything. I think she had the common sense of many who have been through the wars. She would have known that it was not driving a wedge, but campaign rhetoric. Just as, by the way, Jesse Jackson, Sr. must have reacted to his son's comments. He's probably already advising Junior not to do that again! Just as African-American women who support Clinton are advising her similarly.
As for me, I still remain undecided.