
 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
January 17, 2008
10 Shevat 5768
Politics of gender and race
By
Suzanne Fields
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
When Al Gore chose Joe Lieberman as his running mate, Jews were elated and scared. Many worried that if he said or did anything wrong, everyone would blame the Jews. That never happened; there's little evidence that anti-Semitism played any role at all in the election of 2000.
Now there's a similar buzz among blacks, who fear the nomination of Barack Obama would unleash a racial backlash. Black reaction to certain of Bill and Hillary's remarks suggest just such fears. The most insulting remark, in the complaints of many blacks, was the question of emphasis in Hillary Clinton's remark that "Dr. [Martin Luther] King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act." Fair enough (although a reference to her old civics textbook would remind Hillary that Congress passes legislation; presidents sign legislation into law). Then she added that "it took a president to get it done." That wasn't exactly wrong, but it wasn't smart. It wasn't racist, but it was polarizing. She diminished Martin Luther King Jr. and elevated Lyndon B. Johnson.
Questioned about her remarks on "Meet the Press," she told interviewer Tim Russert that "this campaign is not about gender, and I sure hope it's not about race." That's disingenuous and she knows it. She and her husband appeal to considerations of both gender (i.e. sex) and race, and so do many of their supporters.
Race and gender issues are frequently discussed together, but racial politics and gender politics are very different, historically and politically. Rights and injustices differ in degree, most dramatically perceived in the antebellum South, where many white women lived in plantation luxury through the hard work of black slaves. Both blacks and women campaigned vigorously for the vote, but blacks got the right to vote 50 years before women did. Nevertheless, blacks continued to suffer painful discrimination.
Many early feminists were abolitionists and crusaders for civil rights for blacks, but there was competitive tension in their rhetoric over the urgency of getting the vote. "Before Obama and Clinton, there was Douglass and Stanton," writes one black blogger, referring to the acrimonious debate in 1869 between feminist leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton and black abolitionist Frederick Douglass, the year before blacks won the right to vote.
Frederick Douglass framed the issue from a black perspective: "When women, because they are women, are hunted down through the cities of New York and New Orleans; when they are dragged from their houses and hung from lampposts; when their children are torn from their arms and their brains dashed out upon the pavement; when they are objects of insult and rage at every turn; when they are in danger of having their homes burnt down ... then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot equal to our own."
Gloria Steinem drew race and gender parallels in an op-ed in The New York Times, but her emphasis was on sex: "Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House." She didn't include in her "restricting force" the matter of who goes to college: There are many more women than men, and more black women than black men, enrolled in college and graduate school. Proportionately, black children suffer more the lack of fathers than white sons and daughters. African-American boys are more likely to drop out of high school, commit crimes and land in prison.
It's fine for Hillary to inspire our daughters to aspire to the highest rungs of power, but it's true that the feminist revolution yielded greater access to success for young women than the Civil Rights Movement yielded for young black men. There are several complicated reasons why, and Barack Obama is such an attractive candidate because he's an example of "making it" without a focus on color. No small thing.
But certain women still wave the feminist flag. Erika Jong, an aging member of the sisterhood, writes on Huffington Post that she's sick of "pink men" as well as "brown men and tan men and wheaten men" who argue, blather and bloviate with wrongheaded predictions for the future while insisting that women shut up.
"I know there are bad mothers, bad women, bad sisters, bad aunts, and bad females of every stripe. But I have seen enough men in high office to last a lifetime. Let's give women a chance." This is the latest feminist rationale for Hillary.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on JWR contributor Suzanne Fields' column by clicking here.
Suzanne Fields Archives
© 2006, Creators Syndicate, Suzanne Fields
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|