Rev. Jeremiah Wright for President
April 30, 2008 by womensspace
This post is not about Barack Obama. This post is not about Hillary Rodham Clinton. This post is not about the Presidential campaign, which is making me more ill and heartsick by the day for so many reasons. This post does not mean I have turned from my woman-centered ways or politics. This post is about the speeches, sermons and beliefs of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the unbelievable, to me, public response.
I have been absolutely floored, in a continuing and ongoing way, by the media coverage and public reaction to Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s former pastor. It is a continuing, ongoing, painful, painful reminder to me of everything that has gone wrong with the United States over the past 40 years, of the ground we have lost as progressives and persons committed to justice and an end to oppression for all people, of the turn we have taken in the wrong direction in this country.
The statements described in the following excerpt of a news article I read yesterday, which, among others, are causing such outrage and uproar and gnashing of teeth, are, in my opinion, absolutely right on. In these statements the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is, to me, a welcome, welcome, breath of fresh air, a prophetic voice to which every American should be paying heed:
Having said America’s own terrorist acts encouraged the attacks of 9/11, [Wright] said, “You can not do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic, divisive principles.”
He was asked questions about his association with Louis Farrakhan (”Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains. He did not put me in slavery. And he did not make me this color.”) and his past assertion that HIV was a government plot to kill off people of color. (”I believe our government is capable of doing anything.”)
Following is more of what Wright said about 9/11 from another article:
“I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday. … This is a white man and he was upsetting the Fox news commentators to no end. … He pointed out that what Malcolm X said … was in fact coming true, America’s chickens are coming home to roost. We took this country, by terror, away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Rapaho, the Navaho—terrorism. We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear—terrorism.
“We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel; we bombed the Black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hardworking fathers. We bombed Qadaffi’s home and killed his child. …
“We bombed Iraq, we killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy; killed hundreds of hardworking people, mothers and fathers who left home to go to work that day, not knowing that they’d never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima; we bombed Nagasaki; and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon—and we never batted an eye: kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school, civilians, not soldiers; people just trying to make it day by day.
“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yard.
“America’s chickens are coming home to roost. Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that, y’all, not a Black militant, not a reverend who preaches about racism.”
These are prophetic words. These are visionary words. They are the words of a leader. These are also words spoken across the United States in black churches, especially, but in white churches of Wright’s denomination as well, every single Sunday morning, words which have been spoken for, by now, many decades by some of the greatest progressive leaders of our time.
The public response to these words and this message is absolutely heartbreaking to me, on so many levels. It tells me our nation has moved hopelessly, possibly intransigably and certainly dangerously, to the Right. It tells me that the backlash against the Civil Rights movement, the Peace movement, the Lesbian/Gay rights movement, has successfully dulled the sensibilities of the vast majority of the American public. It informs me that this nation labors under racial apartheid still in the most central and significant of ways. There is no other explanation for what has also become so obvious: that white people and nonblack people have absolutely no idea of the role of the black church and black pastors in the journey towards liberation for all people in this country, not only black people, but all women and all human beings of good will and good faith. It tells me that this nation wants a moderate President or even another conservative President, that contrary to my deepest hopes and dreams, and even beliefs, Americans do not want any real or meaningful change, they are not, as I am, longing for peace in the world, or real justice, or an end to oppression for all people, an end to racism, war, torture, murder, genocide, racism. They want business as usual, war as usual, racism as usual, lesbophobia as usual, just give them a better health plan and help them with their mortgages and they’ll be happy.
I have known that the numbers of true revolutionaries — real revolutionaries — has dwindled precipitously over the past decades. I see this every day across the “progressive” and “liberal” and “feminist” blogosphere so-called, where by far most of the bloggers are moderates, conservatives or libertarians, not progressives, leftists, or even liberals at all in the classical sense. They are not really interested in human rights, civil rights, rights for women, or an end to war, they are interested in carving out the best possible deal for themselves and the rest of the world be damned. I see this in the unbelievable, to me, reactions to actual revolutionary thought among so-called liberals and progressives. But I’ve held it in my mind and heart that what was needed was prophetic words and insights, spoken without apology, visionary calls to Americans to rise above their own self-interests and self-absorption for the sake of saving a nation and a world teetering on the brink of every form of destruction. I have been so wrong about Americans– about who Americans really are inside. Americans aren’t rising to any occasion, that much is clear. Left and right they are –incredibly, preposterously, absurdly – demanding that Wright apologize! It is unbelievable to me and honestly, so, so heartbreaking.
I do not want to talk about the Presidential campaign or frontrunners, I have nothing to say about them that is useful, productive, positive or helpful, so please do not attempt to comment about the candidates or the Presidential campaign which is currently making me ill. Even if I really like you, I will not approve any comments that are pro- or anti- any of the candidates, but especially the Democratic candidates. Thank you.
Heart
“It tells me that this nation wants a moderate President or even another conservative President, that contrary to my deepest hopes and dreams, and even beliefs, Americans do not want any real or meaningful change, they are not, as I am, longing for peace in the world, or real justice, or an end to oppression for all people, an end to racism, war, torture, murder, genocide, racism. They want business as usual, war as usual, racism as usual, lesbophobia as usual, just give them a better health plan and help them with their mortgages and they’ll be happy.”
Well… I’m sorry Heart but… yes, that is absolutely right. That is what the majority wants.
This is why I harbor a deep distrust of “democracy” some days and wonder how, if at all, it differs from “mob rule”.
Presidential races are popularity contests.
(sorry for a double comment)
I hope the above didn’t violate your terms there, but on to the main point you have:
“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yard.”
He’s right. He’s absolutely right. All that indignation and horror and rage Americans felt on September 11, 2001? How many stopped to consider there are people in the world who feel like that every. Single. Day?
It makes me feel the same way, Heart. Thanks.
It’s just nice to know that not everybody is willing to give that kind of “criticism” (truth-obscuring feigned outrage, I’d call it) traction.
I never was “outraged” by what Wright had to say. I’d rather leadership be coming from places other than Christian churches in this country, I’ll admit, but there not all Christian churches are equal, and I’ve done my fucking homework, I know that Black Liberation Theology can NEVER be compared to the sewage and hate that comes from white evangelicals in the U.S. Black churches were the one community institution left intact in African-American communities when Reconstruction was gutted to return control of black lives to whites (North and South), and it’s played a key role in every step toward civil rights since.
So — I was filled with dismay last night when I heard Wright had been tossed to the wolves. (No names mentioned.) He doesn’t speak for me, directly — it’s not just that I’m no longer Christian, I’ve gone to great lengths to undo my Christian upbringing/mindset/encoding. An ongoing process. Still, I believed his message was an essential antidote to some of the poison out there, especially in the war on racism. I had been thrilled the shock of his ideas was gaining airplay.
Thanks for this post, Heart. Especially good to hear that my lesbian-feminist principles were on track with this one. For me, the core definition of feminism includes stopping racism (and classism) worldwide, with JUST as much effort as we pay to gender issues. All chains are connected, all liberation struggles are my struggle.
I would never want Rev Wright for president. Wright does not respect women. I’m sorry that the media has chosen to pay more attention to missing white girls than women of colour but knowing that fact, declaring that fact, working on changing that does nothing for the missing and dead girl. Direct anger at the media, direct anger at the government but when the actual girl is blamed for her own murder because she “gave it up”, my ears shut. Wright is no friend of women. I will take a symbolic gesture over someone who do not get the position of women, all women.
Nice to be in such fine company, thank the goddess.
Hey, Maggie, re Christianity, the UCC denomination is Christianity like none other, really, on the forefront of gay rights, anti-war, anti-racism work, always. The bizarre thing is it is overwhelmingly a white denomination, making the criticisms of Wright (by white people) even more preposterous. Also, Farakhan is no threat to anyone, he’s just been maligned as one forever and the general public has evidently bought it.
Totally agree re the white girl who “gave it up” hideous statement. And you’re right, it makes Wright ineligible for President. That was unforgivable, and I was trying to remember the specifics of it when I posted, so as to make a disclaimer. Notice I didn’t include in my list of admirable qualities that preachers in Wright’s tradition have a stellar history so far as sexism or feminism. They do not. I’m not giving them a pass for that either.
This is what he said:
“Black women are being raped daily in Darfur, Sudan, in the Congo and in Sub-Saharan Africa. That doesn’t make news,” Wright said in the August 2005 edition of Trumpet Magazine, a publication of his Trinity United Church of Christ.
But, “One 18-year-old white girl from Alabama gets drunk on a graduation trip to Aruba, goes off and ‘gives it up’ while in a foreign country, and that stays in the news for months!” he added. “Maybe I am missing something!”
Evidently he says this in this Youtube video, though I haven’t watched it myself.
For those who don’t know the backstory, the 18-year-old girl was Natalie Holloway, a graduating high school senior on a trip with her class to Aruba. She was found raped and murdered on the beach and so far as I know, the murderers have so far not been found or arrested.
I was worried about your reply. I don’t know what to expect anymore from anyone. I am glad you did not disappoint me (not saying I am anybody to worry about disappointing though). I have been thinking a lot about cases like Rev. Wright. He speaks the truth, the truth that applies to male-to-male racism in a patriarchal world, the truth about imperialism (another male thing) and the power dynamics of patriarchy, except he does not label it as patriarchy because if he did he would be saying that he recognises that there is a male/female imbalance.
It is my opinion that when men such as Rev. Wright speak up all of his –isms do not have to be purified first before he is credited as a noteworthy voice. However, before women (all women, if one default that to mean white women then that is on them) are allowed to speak the Truth, all of her -isms (real, perceived, or projected) must be in its purest form (an impossible task). Therefore her voice is never legitimised, thus not worth listening to. I’m sick of it.
EKG !!! Huzzah!
So true, ekittyglendower. I’ve got this story in the front of my mind right now, no way am I giving these guys any kind of pass. I looked up to this guy and guys like him years ago in my Civil Rights movement days. I trusted him to be who and what he said he was.
This is who I thought Bevel was:
http://www.jameslutherbevel.com/Page331.htm
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1726656_1726689_1726383,00.html
Wright said that stuff? Huzzah. For a minute there I thought you were quoting someone from the ND party in Canada. For which I vote.
So what was it he said that was so blasphemous?
I’ve been trying to deliberately stay out of this conversation. As Heart knows, I attended Rev. Wright’s church when I lived in Chicago. What he said about Natalee Holloway was abhorrent. At the same time, the church I know has a phenomenal record of female leadership and preaching against the too-often-repeated “God says woman must be submissive to men” thing. Of course, one does not excuse the other.
EKG–I have noticed in a few comments that you have written: “women (all women, if one default that to mean white women then that is on them).” I sense that you are frustrated with charges that feminism does not embrace women of color. Not trying to hijack the thread about this point, but in this context it seems like an unneccesary dig about what really is an important issue to women like myself. Am I off base?
EKG is free to answer Tami’s question, if she wants to, but after that, I would prefer that this thread stay on the topic of the good things Rev. Wright is saying and the discouraging, demoralizing response to what he has said on the part of the American public.
Tami, I have absolutely no doubt that what you say about your former church is true so far as its work on behalf of women. Wright making the kind of statement that he made about Natalie Holloway doesn’t, in my mind, change my own belief that he has prophetic voice and is a leader to whom the American public should listen. What he has said, imo, rocks, as I said on our blogcast a while ago as well. EKG agreed in her comment. Really good men can say and do really sexist things and it doesn’t change the good that they have done, neither does the good that they do and have done cancel out or compensate for their sexism.
Sis, see No. 8, we cross-commented.
“They are not really interested in human rights, civil rights, rights for women, or an end to war, they are interested in carving out the best possible deal for themselves and the rest of the world be damned.”
Self-preservation. Isn’t that one of the roots of male supremacy: the scales are balanced in favor of the white male so he can grab as much as he can exploiting and quashing others (women) at his will because he has been taught this is the only true way to survive.
*sigh* It always seemed to me that ever since I was old enough to be aware of society, I knew that humans did not want change or progression, they just wanted to grab as much for themselves as they could and to hell with everyone else.
I never had faith in humanity at all.
The thing that REALLY bugs me: this country won’t tolerate a non-Christian, non-churchgoing President. At the same time, the violence dripping from what is NOT mentioned, ever, in staid white mainline Christian services - which tend to value the glories of the afterlife to addressing injustice in this one, and value blamelessness over activism - is ignored as being “normal,” even desirable.
It’s not about You-Know-Who and where he goes to church; it’s about the fact that millions of Americans go to church, and only one kind of church is “controversial.”
I don’t excuse what Wright said about Holloway, either. But I will recognize that he also says the word “rape” in the pulpit, which word I *never* heard in all my seemingly INFINITE hours in church. Not among the fundamentalists, obviously, but not in the nice white liberalish UMC, either.
I’ve heard good things about the church, too, Tami, and yeah - it really is awful that not only is Wright being demonized (for the wrong things) but that the entire church is being maligned as something fringe (in the negative sense).
EKG–I have noticed in a few comments that you have written: “women (all women, if one default that to mean white women then that is on them).” I sense that you are frustrated with charges that feminism does not embrace women of color. Not trying to hijack the thread about this point, but in this context it seems like an unneccesary dig about what really is an important issue to women like myself. Am I off base?
If you see it as a dig, maybe it is because you want/need to see it as a dig. I will say it every time I want to say it. I say it because I believe in personal power. I say it because women (all women, if one default that to mean white women then that is on them) need to know that there are women who think of all women when they use the word women. If you want to pretend that I am digging on people like you [“women like myself’] then you need to think about what you are projecting and if you are not projecting what you are assuming, or not assuming what you are implying. Are you setting yourself up to be dig’ed on? Do you want to be dig’ed on? If when you say women “like myself” to imply women of your colour (whatever that colour may be) then I can safely assumed that you think that only women like you default the word to mean just white women, thus assuming anyone who would say such an inclusive thing (or in your opinion digful) must be white because only white women are this way and women of colour are some other way. Or if she (the white woman) is not being inclusive and trying to make a point of being inclusive than she must be one of those nasty women who just have to dig on other women, to stick to other women. I’m so sick of boxes.
There are loads of white women who in the name of anti-racism will add to the trope that when women (who they think are white) are using the word women that they just mean white women. Well I’m tired of it.. Just like I’m tired of the assumption that I’m of this class, or this race of this background or had this reality, etc. When I say women, I mean women, all women. If you want to take it as a dig, take it as a dig.
I am say it because I am interested in changing the perception that when a woman says women she means women. I’m not going around the mulberry bush. When I say it, it is proof that I am consciously aware that someone may not only assume to know what colour I am but will also assume that I must be only talking about white women. Or if they assume I am another colour, assume that I am speaking of only that colour of woman. Well I’m not. If I ever plan to talk about white women only or any other colour of woman only I will use the proper signifier followed by only, such as white women, black women, bi-racial women. Until then you are free to take it as a dig if you need or want to take it as a dig. I am using my personal power to express that I don’t appreciate the default assumption and I’m not going to allow someone to assign that default assumption to my use of the word woman.
funnie: I don’t excuse what Wright said about Holloway, either. But I will recognize that he also says the word “rape” in the pulpit,
No kidding. And not only do most pulpits never use the word “rape”, neither are the mainstream presidential candidates talking much about rape, or violence against women, period. I can be thankful for Wright’s outrage over rape and atrocity against women in Darfur no matter what.
Kitty, you said:
I think you may underestimate the man. I did not like his comment about Natalie Holloway either, but he did say this at the end of his speech at the National Press Club, just before the moderator begins the questions:
He may have a blind spot about the male/female imbalance (I know of no male who does not, at least to some extent) but apparently he does recognize it enough to speak about it.
Now, the implications from the outside are obvious. If I see God as male, if I see God as white male, if I see God as superior, as God over us and not Immanuel, which means “God with us,” if I see God as mean, vengeful, authoritarian, sexist, or misogynist, then I see humans through that lens.
My theological lens shapes my anthropological lens. And as a result, white males are superior; all others are inferior.
YES.
Thanks for posting this, Aletha. You know, I know so well what it is to be so frustrated, so enraged, that I say something that later on I regret. I’ve been there many times. What must it be to have right wingers, conservative jerks, racists, Republicans, you name it, combing through everything you have ever said — especially when your sermons are taped every Sunday, so they’ve got a fracking banquet table! — for something you have said that they can use against you. I know what this is like on a very small scale; fairly regularly I observe that someone, or a few someones, are clicking on and reading every post I have ever written, looking for something, anything, to use against me. Sometimes it’s radical feminists doing this, causing me to regret and rue the day I ever identified as a radical feminist because this kind of crap is absolutely deadly and misogynist and ugly as all heck. Anyway, I can forgive a man who is willing to think and reflect deeply about what it is to be male under male supremacy, as Wright does here, even if, in a moment of frustration, he said something really hurtful.
Perhaps Wright and I could be running mates!
More:
According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Wright was listing the accomplishments that a black man can achieve if he stands up for himself, such as being the first African-American to edit the Harvard Law Review and the first to win the Iowa Democratic caucus. Then came the presidency.
“You can be … the first black man to have a black woman sleeping at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue legally,” Wright said.
So Wright had a feminist revelation between Saturday and Monday? So was it very sensitive and feminist of Wright to insult every black woman who has ever slept at the white house? To imply that she was either a prostitute or a whore.
But I know the drill. Give Wright a pass, he is a man, a man fighting racism. Oh like who else was that? You know that white man who has racist and sexist porn on his site. He gets a pass too.
I’m not impressed.
Yeah. Well, I’m not giving any man a pass. I sure wouldn’t compare Wright with Amp, for a bajillion reasons beginning with that I can’t recall that Amp has ever uttered the word “misogyny,” including that I don’t think that for one moment Amp has ever considered what it means to be a woman in this world. I think Wright has, even though he is a man and has not divested himself of his sexism. Then again, what man has?
Heart, I think this is true of the punditry, and that the candidates have bought into that script, at least to the extent they will only challenge it superficially. However, I think there are many people keeping relatively quiet who are plenty disgusted with business as usual, but are resigned to it, thinking there is no practical alternative. The mainstream has always done its worst to marginalize such people, make them invisible. I think their numbers are far greater than anyone realizes.
For the record, Holloway’s body has never been found.
For the rest, this post makes me too angry to comment.
“According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Wright was listing the accomplishments that a black man can achieve if he stands up for himself, such as being the first African-American to edit the Harvard Law Review and the first to win the Iowa Democratic caucus. Then came the presidency.
“You can be … the first black man to have a black woman sleeping at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue legally,” Wright said.”
I imagine Wright was referring to black women like Sally Hemmings who were forced to be playthings and concubines to presidents, but certainly not given the honored title of First Lady. That is the immediate connection that came to my mind. I think it’s a stretch to say he was referring to every black woman who ever slept in the White House.
I hope you’re right, Aletha. I feel so discouraged by all of this, but maybe this is about the pundits and not the American public. I want to believe that!
Miranda,
.
Wright also referred to Condoleeza Rice as “Condoskeezer Rice” (”skeezer” being another term for slut, ho, etc.). I also recall seeing a video in which he said incredibly misogynist things about Hillary Clinton, though I don’t at the moment recall what they were nor do I know where I saw the video. Given all this, I’m less inclined to write off the comment(s) referenced above as occasional lapses — I think the misogyny runs pretty deep.
I don’t see what’s so “visionary” about Wright. Anyone can sit there and catalog America’s sins until they drop (or make a ton of money at it like Wright did). Everyone knows the US government has done much wrong and many have much to hate it for. What is totally missing is any constructive vision of what to *do* about it that will simply not make it all worse. It is a litany of crimes justifying countercrimes, egging all those concerned, on every side, into ever worse behavior. He is also extremely inconsistent. 9/11 is “America’s chickens coming home to roost”, but bombing a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on the US embassy is just an indefensible crime, not “Sudan’s chickens coming home to roost.” It is desrtuctive, narrow and shortsighted, not “visionary”.
Rebecca, that’s discouraging. I was thinking about all of this– I think that because the first (in my opinion) dominance to be expressed in human relationships was male dominance over women, it is the form or expression of dominance that is most deeply engrained, most recalcitrant, and hence, the last to be overcome. Men can so often be breathtakingly astute in their appraisals of the effects of imperialism, colonialism, racism, war, militarism, nationalism, and yet they can continue to hate on women, completely blind to their own sexist hypocrisy, it runs so deep, and to the way misogyny and sexism have deformed human relationships in such basic and central ways.
Male supremacy is the basis of all other forms of oppression, not merely parallel to them.
Yeah, I agree with you, Mary. I’m always trying to find ways to say that that might make it around some readers’ defenses (true confessions, oh well).
Thursday’s Child, I don’t see anyone cataloging America’s sins for the most part. I see most people defending what America does, blaming it on other people/countries, or they don’t care at all. I don’t know what Wright proposes as a solution, but I also don’t need to know what he proposes to be glad he is unapologetically saying what he is saying. I think he is completely consistent re 9/11. He is saying BECAUSE we have made war on peoples, cultures and nations for centuries, they are retaliating. Wright’s an American citizen calling out America’s violent history and present acts of violence and imperialism throughout the world, he’s not a Sudanese citizen calling out the Sudanese. I think we need to start with our own atrocities before we move on to cataloging the atrocities of other nations. Americans, for the most part, are so great at denouncing what other nations do while ignoring their own violence, warmaking, racism and you name it, that’s where the inconsistencies lie.
Also, why are you saying Wright has made a bunch of money? Preachers don’t normally rake in the bucks unless they are Religious Righters especially if they’re in cahoots with Republican administrations. Preachers who call out the crimes of the United States are never going to be popular and are virtually never going to make money doing that.
So your comment basically makes no sense to me and isn’t consistent with any radical feminist appraisal of history and politics that I recognize.
Tami: I imagine Wright was referring to black women like Sally Hemmings who were forced to be playthings and concubines to presidents, but certainly not given the honored title of First Lady. That is the immediate connection that came to my mind.
Nail, hammer, bang.
I imagine Wright was referring to black women like Sally Hemmings who were forced to be playthings and concubines to presidents, but certainly not given the honored title of First Lady. That is the immediate connection that came to my mind. I think it’s a stretch to say he was referring to every black woman who ever slept in the White House.
If Wright was referring to Sally Hemmings then he should have said it in that context, instead he erased every black woman who have indeed slept in the white house legally. He needs to be held accountable for erasing the black women who have slept at the white house legally, just like anyone else who may have meant the same thing but said it differently. Which goes back to my original point, men are given the benefit of the doubt when they erase women (all women) in the name of another –ism.
ekittyglendower, I think in making reference to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Wright was talking about being President of the United States? Not just visiting the White House. And undoubtedly making reference to the President, Thomas Jefferson, who actually did bring a black woman to the White House but not as his wife, as his slave, Sally Hemmings.
The other thing is, Wright said what he said (re 1600 Penn. Ave.) in the context of a sermon at his church, where the congregation would know exactly what he was talking about, as opposed to making that statement in a speech to random Americans. He was speaking to his own congregation in other words in a language all of them understand, and that doesn’t translate well outside of the culture of which Wright is a part. I doubt he ever envisioned when he gave that sermon that it would become headline news.
Heart, Wright is given a pass on his context, something women are not given. He erased all black women who have ever slept at the white house by not being specific. Don’t women (all women) have to be specific or be called on their erasure of someone else? For example, how many times have I seen black women discussing an issue specifically concerning black women when a black man comes along and demand that she either write a disclaimer making it clear that she is not denouncing black men or frame her stance in a way to make it clear that she is including black men.
It’s a petty point, but it is a point. If he meant as a black male president, well there has not been a black male president before, so what was his point? His point was to attack white men (not a bad thing) who he is implying has mistreated black women, by raping, buying, smuggling them in 1600 for gawd knows what. This is an accurate attack, but at whose expense? He used what white men have done to black women as a jab to other white men. He used some black women’s experiences and in the process he erased the black women that have in fact slept in the white house legally and, in the process he set up the good black woman vs the bad black woman. Because we all know even though Jefferson took advantage of Hemmings, raped Hemmings, used his power over Hemmings, in some realm out there Hemmings is blamed because “she could have prevented it,” she should have killed herself or him before allowing him to “have his way.” We know this accusation. We have lived this accusation. So Wright gets to erase black women, feed off the Whore/Madonna dichotomy all in the name of fighting white men. His context feet should be held to the fire like everyone else’s. If not, the people expecting, demanding accurate and clear context are being hypocrites.
There were women sitting in that church.
It comes down to denial. Americans do not want to own the things that past governments have done in their name. Unless a person is USA all the way, they are accused of being a traitor. Truth is not considered a valuable commodity. Note that it is the same media that has consistently refused to question Americas recent foreign policy decisions that have attacked Reverend Wright. You cannot count on such a duplicitous group to proffer any form of truth that would also convict them of dishonesty.
I also believe the race of Pastor Wright is also an issue. He is not the first man to publicly decry the the crimes of the US. Noam Chomsky and Chalmers Johnson, have published many books critiquing American foreign policy and they have not been subjected to such vitriolic attacks. Blacks are supposed to accept as truth whatever the media has to say about them and certainly not be engaged enough to offer an opinion on any subject that does not directly relate to racism in the US
[...] the Women’s Space blog offers more of Rev. Wright’s words and these spot-on comments: “I have been absolutely floored, [...]
I do think this furor over Wright is a media circus. A new NBC/WSJ poll finds
That is in the same ballpark as the Bush approval rating. I agree with Lucinda Marshall, observing about the National Press Club event,
I just got back from a conference in Boston where David Gergen was the featured speaker. He referred to Wright as a “nut case” and he went on and on about the virtues of the militaristic McCain. He was a really rotten sexist man, who was slimy and clever. “People call Hillary a bitch,” translation, that’s what I think of her etc. you know the sexist strategy.
The room was almost entirely white men (what else is new) and they all laughed hysterically at the “bitch” line.
Rev. Wright is trying to get at the truth of American Male Foreign policy — none of this stuff has anything to do with women. These crimes world wide are the crimes of men against men, and men against women. It is about male dominance and supremacy, and that is the bottom line.
I was talking to an economist during a break in the conference about what running for president forces you to do in order to get power. I found it sad that Obama was forced to disown an old friend and mentor, and that that was the evil of the campaign. It was the loss of this friendship that really got to me, because I know that when you’re in an oppressed group, it is really hard to find these good friends and mentors. It is hard for young lesbians to find older women mentors. So when white America forced Obama to denounce his friend, even thought it is quite clear that Obama said nothing like what Wright said, it was another injury.
Gergen thought Obama’s virtue was that he “wasn’t angry” white men are ok with black men as long as they aren’t the angry variety. Just as women aren’t allowed to be angry and in your face. I know I get picked on all the time because I am out and proud and in straight people’s faces all the time. They have to deal with lesbian anger, and the goddess I form my “hermanuetic around” is the goddess Kali. I want an angry deity who will draw the sword and kill my enemies, that’s what I like to see in a good goddess!
Obama the naieve didn’t know how these friends would be used against him.
I think Wright is mostly correct. He gets a little bit of sexism. Every now and then there is a glimmer, and he has said pro-lesbian statements in the usual liberal “laundry list” kind of way. As a black pastor, he gets points for standing with lesbians and gays. I wonder how many black lesbians have leadership positions in his church? Anyone know?
I believe he is actually attacking white men, and that that is his lens of injury — the primary injury to him or his hermanuetic. So the lens in which we see the world is profound, and even when we see things as so obvious we can’t believe others can’t see this reality, we have to know that white men in a room together never ever get sexism or racism. They never get that they have power, and that women aren’t included.
Every time a woman hires a male professional of any kind, assume this man goes to professional conferences of all white men. Assume those men will make outrageous statements like they support women’s equality, even when they are addressing a room full of almost all white men.
Women are mentioned now and then, Wright gets points for talking about rape, but his lens will miss the Holloways of the world, just as the Gergens get to say “bitch” at a corporate event, but he won’t utter “nigger.” Again, it is the hierarchy– men get to always insult women, but they are careful about what they say about other men.
But at least there are people of courage who are speaking up.
Wright got the conversation going, and I respect the people who try to tell the truth to Americans. But as far as male supremacy is concerned, chickens are roosting just about everywhere!
Hi there everyone,
I am disappointed to see candidates distancing themselves from someone who tells the truth about so many important isses. That is a bad sign. I am convinced the only way to regain our country (if we ever had it) is to go forward with impeachment. The nonsense has got to stop, to washington with spoons and pots!
I like Wright, too. In fact I think he’s the best thing to come out of this campaign - I would never have discovered him had he not gotten into the news like this! Go Wright!
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I’m glad to see that someone else has the same thoughts as me. Forget Hillary! Forget Obama! Rev. Wright as president.
Darn shame that this will never happen in my lifetime. Sadly our beloved country has been brainwashed into accepting the same old lies, the same old propaganda for too many years. That’s the reason we have been stuck with George Bush & Dick Cheney for 7+ long years and with another 8 long months to go……. most people don’t want to hear the truth about themselves or about the candidates produced by the self-serving media.
If you ever find yourselves wondering why feminism keeps failing, why even women seem incapable of taking women’s rights as seriously as human (i.e. male) rights, review this comment thread.
Rev. Wright is a sexist. He’s a perfect representative of the anti-feminist left, the men who believe in all progressive values except women’s rights. Eldridge Cleaver, Malcom X, etc. He preaches that women have never had to work twice as hard as a man just to get noticed. He preaches that white women “fit the mold” of Presidents. He preaches vile attacks on women who are the victims of sexual violence. He ridicules women in public life.
And he expresses admiration for Louis Farrakhan, a man who believes — and preaches — that women should be subservient to men in all areas of life. According to Farrakhan, it’s God’s plan that women should stay home cooking and cleaning and obeying their men.
But that’s all okay, ’cause Rev. Wright has some correct things to say about U.S. policy. He’s a great guy! Rev. Wright for President! It’s okay not to believe women are human, as long as you’re straight on the other stuff.
Jesus Fucking Christ.
By the way, Rev. Wright also believes black brains are genetically different from white brains, and black children are congenitally incapable of sitting still in class and learning from a teacher.
You know, if somebody came to my blog and started slinging that kind of crap about black children and about women, I’d ban the fucker instantly. Without hesitation
Dr. Violet Socks, you’re a stone Clinton supporter. That’s what your comment is all about, get real.
I don’t like the way you’ve mischaracterized what women have said here. We’ve all said the guy has said some really sexist things. I recanted my statement that he should be president, based on his sexism, after I was reminded about his inexcusable statements about Natalie Holloway.
I think what you’ve said here stinks, even though I’ve approved your comment, and I hope that Tami, who was a member of Wright’s church, will comment in response to your post since I know she can speak to your accusations and allegations. I think you’ve said a lot of stuff that isn’t true, that is distorted, that is incendiary and fucked up, and it pisses me right the hell off, because often I appreciate your posts and I don’t like being pissed off with you. I haven’t paid much attention to your blog for some time, though, because all you can talk about is Hillary Clinton, who I think will be a fracking disaster as President, if she becomes President, who is a fracking disaster for feminism, and I have no idea why otherwise intelligent feminists like you support her. I think you’re out of your gourd. And if that seems strong, take a look at your own goddamn post wherein you have not bothered to actually read or pay attention to what women have said here but have basically come here and gone off.
You know, more than anything, I think it’s this kind of shit that has messed up feminism, women so sure they’re right about something they cannot HEAR what other feminists have to say about it, going off on other feminists, distorting what feminist women have to say, ignoring what doesn’t fit the attack you want to launch, whatever.
NOTE: I do not support Barack Obama either. I want revolutionary change and I don’t believe we’ll get anything like that from Obama. And NEITHER will we get anything remotely like it from Hillary Clinton.
One more thing. I KNOW, without researching it, that your allegations re what Wright believes about black children are bullshit. I personally believe that close to ZERO children, white or black or of color or biracial, multiracial, or indigenous/First Nations, can learn much at all sitting at desks listening to teachers, which is why I have homeschooled my own kids since 1983. Our education system is patriarchal, hierarchical, and dehumanizing to the core. It warehouses children. It is the invention of white patriarchal males.
I definitely don’t believe that black children forced to sit at desks and listen to racist white teachers — a common common thing — surrounded by racist classmates, especially, are going to be receiving any education that is valuable or useful to them, or forced to use racist materials/read racist textbooks which most ARE, by far, and especially in impoverished school districts which use crap textbooks from 1968 or whatever because there’s no money for anything else. My bet is, that’s what Wright is talking about. He’s a black radical committed to black people, including black children, he’s not the white racist conservative idiot who authored the Bell Curve or anybody who ever paid heed to that particular piece of work, which is the really ugly spectre you are invoking, and why you think that’s going to fly here I have no clue.
Don’t come talking to me about what Wright says about black children until you can produce to me some reason to believe you actually CARE about black children at all, and I mean real evidence, not a bunch of crap you read somewhere that NEVER touches you. Attempting to score points in this way here — someone (you) completely uninvested in black children or children of color, criticizing someone totally invested in them (Wright) on my blog, not to mention it’s the blog of ME, a woman completely invested in children of color, my own, and my grandchildren, for 36 years now and forevermore until I die– is just WRONG. What do you think you have to say to me about black children?
And you want to come tell me about what’s wrong with feminism!
This is what I mean when I say there are precious few actual radicals any more and people you think would, nevertheless do not recognize radical thought or theory or individuals when they see them/hear them/read them anymore. The school system SUCKS. For all children. I know that’s what Wright was talking about.
Jeezus.
Heart, you’re out of your mind. This has nothing to do with Clinton. Jesus Christ, you actually imagine that before Hillary decided to run for President I had no problem with creeps like Louis Farrakhan? That I had no problem with sexists like Wright?
One more thing. I KNOW, without researching it, that your allegations re what Wright believes about black children are bullshit.
Well, try researching it. Don’t you read the news? Wright was very forthcoming with his theories last week. He’s not talking about socialization; he’s talking explicitly about inborn tendencies. For heaven’s sake, I would hardly make something like that up.
Violet Socks, if all you can see when you look at Wright and Farakhan is sexism, YOU HAVE TUNNEL VISION. And it is me, Heart, a radical feminist/separatist saying that to you.
Tell you something, it is not the “inborn tendency” of ANY CHILD OR ANY HUMAN BEING — white, black, brown, biracial, multiracial, First Nations — to learn ANYTHING sitting in a desk listening to teachers blab on. The system is patriarchal, heirarchical, anti-child, dehumanizing to its CORE. I’m not talking about socialization EITHER I am talking about “inborn tendencies,” i.e., children and all human beings need FREEDOM and an absence of COERCION and consistent, caring support in order to learn ANYTHING. This is BASIC. And these are what the American educational system systematically DENIES to children. Wright is talking about black children because it’s black children he cares about. I know what he’s saying, but I am talking about ALL children, not just black children. I have a multiracial family.
I don’t think you’re making anything up, I can see very clearly that you simply do not get it and you don’t get it because none of this touches your life in any meaningful way.
Do I read the news? I read, research and report women’s news the way nobody else on the internet, or for that matter in paper, including you, ever bothers to. If you read my blog, you know that. So knock it off.
I think we have to honor long term personal experience.
Since Heart has educated black children for so many years, I think she has some idea of this.
I agree that it’s annoying to have one’s experience discounted, and we have to be careful in evaluating black leadership today, compared to the leadership of 30-40 years ago.
We don’t all get the whole picture right; we just see parts of the picture. People in desparation have to be extreme, they have to be the truth tellers, and they have to deal with a community that is in trouble. The black community on the south side of Chicago is in trouble, it is in trouble nationwide, and there are forces out there so strong, that they will want to keep it that way.
That’s what makes Wright true to his first name. Black people are the early warning signs of our lost democracy, and the triumph of corporate power and news. We have to take this into consideration.
In time, all of us will be better at seeing how all of this fits together, so we can contribute and DO something different.
I got to hear a speech by one of those arrogant white male elites, and they are scarier in person than they are on CNN. They really are creepy racists and sexists, and then they hide behind smiling faces for the T.V. We are up against some real evil here.
So let’s recognize that Wright is trying to get people to wake up. It’s too bad America acts so “shocked” at his words. I know straight people get pretty shocked at my words too.
It’s complex.
Satsuma, thank you for those insightful words and for putting up with my cursing and swearing, I know you can’t stand that and it’s offensive to you, as it is to many women, and I should have and could have made my points without using foul language. I am sorry.
It’s just, I cannot begin to say how angry this all makes me.
Here is what Wright has to say about the education of children:
ARGH, I am so incensed I don’t trust myself to write!
How can anyone read this, hear this, and with a straight face come to this blog and characterize it this way?
Dr. Violet Socks: [Wright believes that ] black brains are genetically different from white brains, and black children are congenitally incapable of sitting still in class and learning from a teacher.
Alll I can say is, you are not listening, you are not paying attention, and especially you do not care. Because if you cared you would listen and pay attention.
The point Wright is making there isn’t even ABOUT brains other than tangentially. He is making a point about DOMINANCE and about POWER. He is saying that the prevailing culture, the DOMINANT culture — male and white and heterosexual — has had the POWER to make itself the DEFAULT, to establish ITSELF and what it VALUES and what it PROMOTES as the STANDARD. It has furthermore had the POWER to designate anybody and anything which departs from what it values and promotes as DEFICIENT and SUBSTANDARD and DIFFERENT.
That is always what oppression is all about. First the oppressor conquers because he wants slaves or servants or somebody else’s land. And whether it’s women as a group, or indigenous people as a group, or black people as a group, the conqueror points to what is “different” — language, the way people style their hair or the clothes they wear or the color of their skin or the people they love or the fact that the person bleeds once a month and bears children — and uses those “differences” so-called, the ways that the conquered are dissimilar to the conqerors, in order to JUSTIFY dominance and continued oppression. The marginalization of the “different” so called, whose difference isn’t, it is really about colonization, or oppression, exploitation, not “difference,” is then institutionalized. And from that point on these “differences”, viewed as making the conquered substandard to the conqueror, are pointed to as evidence that it was right for the conquered to BE conquered and it is now the “white man’s burden” to “help” out, in the fracking John Wayne/Mother Teresa schizophrenia that has characterized white male supremacy since forever. First we will rape, plunder and brutalize you, steal your land, destroy your culture, then we’ll send the Red Cross in because we are such good guys or we’ll take your children away from you and put them in white schools so they can grow up to be like us or we’ll sterilize you so you can’t bring any more people into the world who look like you instead of like us. Or, first we will make you our servant, force you to bear children, cook, clean without any rights to speak of, but have no fear, we’ll keep a roof over your head and buy you trinkets once in a while, all the while we are writing books about how inferior you and everybody like you is to US, and the proof is, we own you and you serve us, right? That proves that you are deficient, otherwise, you’d own us and we’d serve you, because for us, it’s all about power and dominance in the world.
I’ll be back in a moment.
wow. i just gotta say, you know a comment thread has gotten out of hand when SATSUMA is the voice of reason and compromise!
(kidding, kidding.
)
We know a lot more about the brain now than we did 20, 30 years ago, even though we still barely know anything about how the brain works. One thing we have learned in recent years is that fear, being brutalized, having been battered or assaulted or mistreated or abused, among other things, affects body chemistry, causes the release of various hormones and chemicals, and affects parts of the brain that are critical to learning. We also know that people learn differently, for all kinds of reasons, having to do with their lived experiences, their level of nutrition and general health, whether or not they have been abused or mistreated, their environments growing up, whether they grow up in affluence or poverty, whether they were able to travel or to avail themselves of community resources like libraries, museums, art galleries, whether they had parents who read, whether their parents read to them. We know that conquered people in the creativity and resourcefulness survivors always have develop their own ways to make it in contexts in which they are consistently marginalized and excluded and these ways include but are never limited to language, words, body language, patterns of responding to different kinds of things. That’s what, in part, what we know as women’s culture is about, that’s what black culture is about. People who are not allowed to learn to read or to have books tell stories and repeat the stories and hand them down, they enact the stories, they dance the stories, they sing the stories. People who are not allowed to create their own written history create oral histories, histories in dance, in art, in music. People who are not allowed to say certain things because they threaten the status quo, find OTHER ways to say them that the status quo DOESN’T UNDERSTAND because it would not be safe if the status quo DID understand. All of this stuff and so so so much more, oh my gosh, so much, which really IS about socialization and enculturation (and abuse) — Wright or anyone saying someone’s brain is “different” doesn’t have to mean genetically, biologically, by birth, hereditarily — *affects people*. All of these factors affect people, their bodies, their emotions, their spirits, their brains, everything. It is an interplay, an interconnectedness, with the surrounding culture and experiences affecting the brain and thought process, and the brain and thought process responding to experience and the surrounding culture.
We know now in a way we didn’t decades ago that there’s a lot more to say about learning and the brain than “right brain” and “left brain.” That doesn’t change the brilliance of the woman pioneers Hale is citing to who devoted their lives to black children and the difficulties they have had in patriarchal, racist, white environments.
Beyond that, what the pioneers Wright is citing to have to say — just as I said in my post last night — applies to ALL CHILDREN and all human beings. It’s not a brain thing in the sense, again, of genetics or heredity. It’s how brains and bodies are affected by what people must live through and endure and survive. I don’t think ANY child learns well sitting at a desk and being still and quiet. But white children are going to have the advantage in that senario, for the most part, (1) because of history, cultural and familial patterns and habits passed down generation to generation centered in traditions which celebrated the cerebral and consistently worked to divorce the physical *from* the cerebral in the belief that the mind is good and the body is bad, i.e., white western thought, tradition, culture (2) because they don’t have to deal with racism surrounding them, infusing the culture, in the textbooks, in the teachers.
The response of patriarchal culture to children who do not do well in school or socially has been and currently is to diagnose them as having some sort of mental deficiency or mental illness, ADD, ADHD, whatever, and most of the time to DRUG them. Would to the love of the goddess that any of the frontrunning presidential candidates would talk about THAT, about the way marginalized children, whether because of poverty, or race, or abuse or because they are girls or disabled or whatever, struggle in school, are diagnosed as incompetent or medically ill, then are drugged into oblivion and all to the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry. We’ve got by now a generation of people who have been drugged from childhood. And while the drugs might make them “manageable,” they do not change any of the factors or influences which make school so hard for so many children in the first place, so destructive to them, and so too often, they are more and more marginalized, they drop out, they self-medicate destructively, they get kicked out of their homes, they can’t get jobs, they end up in jail, and then people point to all of THAT as evidence of inferiority.
Argh, I can’t stand it.
Well, I could go on and on.
I wanted to say, too, that in that speech, Wright makes reference to Paula Giddings’ book, When and Where I Enter: the Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America, a very fine book I have and am looking at right now. This is a womanist book and Wright is citing to it and hence to a prominent womanist in his speech. This tells me that although he evidences blind spots all men evidence or have, in some way or another, some time or another, he has concerns for the liberation of women as well.
ladoctorita: HA!
Well, thanks for that. I am calming down here, sort of…
If you ever find yourselves wondering why feminism keeps failing,
I should have obeyed my usual rule of thumb and stopped reading at this point. Crikey.
You know how feminine and masculine socialization are both bad but both contain some qualities that are useful and good (if tempered by sense rather than exercised in the hypergendered fashion we’re supposed to use them)?
One of the things that women have to teach the world is our ability to empathize and also (sadly, because of our experience with abuse as women, but also in a good way, because of how we pay attention to what motivates other people) to sniff trouble in the air before it happens.
The thing about Jeremiah Wright: some women are smelling trouble in the words he’s speaking. Some women are smelling trouble in the words other people speak about him. I think there’s plenty of room for both to be right.
But it really bothers me that women who are smelling trouble in the air of the kind that they know affects THEM and THEIR families and THEIR politics and concerns, and they express that concern by defending those attributes in Jeremiah Wright, they’re accused of free-pass-issuing.
To say those things is to ignore what women are saying about their own lives and experiences.
To insist that one’s own interpretation of the Wright issue (as revolving around some of the things he has said about women)
is more important than another woman’s interpretation of the Wright issue (as revolving around some of the woman-harming ways people have reacted to what he is saying, including blatant race-baiting which IS a *specifically* feminist issue),
is to put one’s own definition of “woman” and “feminism” above other women’s experiences with the kind of trouble THEY personally face, as women, when certain sentiments hang in the air (including when they are fostered under the guise of protecting women).
I think those of us who have spoken out in support of Wright (or at least against the way he’s been treated by the media) are able to acknowledge and validate why some women are triggered by some of the things he has said.
Is the reverse true? Violet and anyone else troubled by the things Wright has said about women: are you able to acknowledge and validate the reasons women would feel defensive of Wright as being specifically *feminist* concerns, rather than as a “free pass” issuing campaign?
I haven’t seen anyone who’s posted in support of Wright making such bizarre conflations as bringing up the Holloway remarks = issuing a “free pass” to the racist patriarchal media and all the rest of the fearmongers profiting from the demonization of this man (and his entire congregation).
So, I don’t think what you’re doing is fair.
Being disturbed by disgusting displays of dominance does not require allying with men against women.
That’s a bidirectional statement; treat it as such, Violet, and take it on board.
spamarama ding-dong.
You’d think that people would be able to take a cognitive leap to understand what makes education a joy or a psychic “block.”
Since my formal education was so long ago, I really have no idea what is happening in schools, other than the ones I go to now and then to talk to guidance counselors. (Our neighborhood association raises money for scholarships for the kids going to the high school down the hill). Mostly, high schools horrify me. I find high school boys repulsive, and never quite get over my desire to shoot them dead! Their foul mouths, their ugly faces! I can’t quite get over my brutal hatred of the species. So it’s hard for me to see what goes on with kids. I always argue for scholarship money to go to the girls, and in a Latino/a neighborhood, this is a huge challenge.
The brain can be affected by trauma and oppression. I know this by how many of my lesbian friends deal with the world, and the toll freedom fighting takes on the people who are out there doing it.
la doctora, I just had to laugh at you being shocked that I am the voice of reason, because my role is usually the Wright role. Maybe it’s why I liked him so much, I could see so much of my own anger in him, and since I go up against the big white boys all the time, I really connected with his raw courage.
The thing is (am I have to say I get carried away with this too), is that social justice work takes its toll. (Geez I used the word toll twice in this post
Lately I’ve been thinking about the contrast between corporate environments and social justice environments. Ironically, corporate educational settings and trainings are far more civil than the radical milieus out there. So, since I frequent both settings, I get to see a different world.
A white education is going to be very difficult for black people to access or deal with, just as a white straight male educational environment is exhausting for me to be in for long periods of time. As an adult, I am aware of this, and can take proper action to protect myself, but as a child, you don’t know what is happening.
You can FEEL the difference walking into a lesbian controlled space, compared to a heterosexual women’s space. It is almost a tangible thing. I often wonder how much farther I would have gone in life if I hadn’t had to deal with that alien culture as a child, and had an early lesbian powerful world.
I don’t think straight women can fathom why lesbians get so angry and drained in the straight world, just as whites don’t understand this about blacks.
That’s the point. As adults we come to realize the stuff we can no longer stand! But the bad part with radical feminism, is that women stay in the anger stage, and thus have a very hard time cooperating. They all become rebells or chiefs and nobody wants to be an Indian. This is a particular problem in lesbian groups, but it may apply elsewhere.
To a white person, Wright’s description of brains can seem quite odd. I think, since he is working through metaphor most of the time, you have to read his speeches in that context. Just like you have to see my commentary as a pure radical lesbian feminist not kow towing to straight women’s sensibilities ever. Wright will not put on white face, just as I don’t put on straight face. The people who are accustomed to the colonized speech of the “masks” are shocked when the real thing bursts forth on national T.V. And white talking heads once again get shocked. One wonders if, like most straight white men I know, their strategy is to “play dumb” and thus try to escape from the wrath of the real? Just musing out loud here today.
“If you ever find yourselves wondering why feminism keeps failing,” …
I don’t think feminism failed or is failing. We have been very very successful with feminism. The thing is, if women are the world’s majority, we think we should be a lot farther ahead than we are. I tend to agree with that statement.
But as a lesbian feminist, I have to sometimes give up on this issue, because straight women marry my enemies, cook, clean and have children they can’t afford with the same enemies, and then it’s a big deal later when these same enemies beat the stuffing out of the women who married them.
It just is frustrating to watch this pattern over and over and over again. I know that men are the enemy, I know they are a danger to women, and I know that living with men increases the danger to women in their own homes! That’s where the charming monsters get away with all their women destroying tactics. But hey, I’m a lesbian, I don’t give a damn!
This means they don’t want freedom from male tyranny as much as I do. And therefore, feminism gets stuck I think.
Be that as it may, men are forced to consider feminism in their “sermons” now and then, mainly because the women in their churches are strong and vocal. So to ignore progressive ideas about women’s freedom is not an option anymore for the Wrights of the world. If he did completely ignore feminism, he would be seen as a hypocritical chump. Instead, he is making attempts I think to reach out to heterosexual women in his congregation.
I wouldn’t sit still to listen to men in pulpits ever. And I think churches are contaminated with male propaganda that goes back a couple of thousand years, but again, I hate heterosexual family norms to begin with, get bored with the whole damn thing, and say scrap it all! Geez, I want to hear what women have to say. The male blab quota was used up ages ago.
So much good stuff in here, thanks funnie and Satsuma.
I can’t listen to men in pulpits anymore either Satsuma, I so hear you. Even when they say good things. I prefer to read the good things they say or listen to them on television so I can turn them off when I start smelling trouble, like funnie said. I know for a fact if I’d been in the pew and heard Wright say what he said about Natalie Holloway, I’d have gotten straight up and walked right out.
It is so discouraging to watch young women take up with bad men in such huge numbers when you know what it means for their futures. I take comfort in knowing that more and more women are *not* getting married and say they never want to get married. That right there is testimony to the success of feminism, as you say, Satsuma.
I got an e-mail yesterday to let me know when I can come down and visit and help out at OWL farm, the women’s land in Oregon that is threatened because the government wants to condemn a huge part of it and run a natural gas pipeline through. I can’t wait to go. I wish every girl and woman in the world could experience women’s lands, women’s spaces for themselves. I feel so grateful that at least my youngest daughter is growing up a Michfest girl, looking forward to that week every August that is nothing at all like the outside world, where girls and women are celebrated just as they are in their unadorned beauty, where radical politics are also celebrated, where the revolutionary values of cooperation, consensus-building, rejection of hierarchies, respect for the earth, animals, and all female persons are the standard, where women’s brilliance and creativity, above all, are celebrated. Michfest is not a perfect