Alice Walker: “An Open Letter to My Sisters Who Are Brave”
“…It is hard to relate what it feels like to see Mrs. Clinton (I wish she felt self-assured enough to use her own name) referred to as “a woman” while Barack Obama is always referred to as “a black man.” One would think she is just any woman, colorless, race-less, past-less, but she is not. She carries all the history of white womanhood in America in her person; it would be a miracle if we, and the world, did not react to this fact. How dishonest it is, to attempt to make her innocent of her racial inheritance.
“I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking, person to person, with any leader, woman, man, child or common person, in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks. I cannot see the same scenario with Mrs. Clinton who would drag into Twenty-First Century American leadership the same image of white privilege and distance from the reality of others’ lives that has so marred our country’s contacts with the rest of the world.” (Read more…)
April 8th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I am quite shocked that Alice Walker is endorsing Obama. Psh, I’m shocked as hell. I guess I can lift my Alice Walker embargo (long story) as she’s proven herself to be level-headed and fair and rather objective (and not just a crazed, hairy-legged, man-hater type). That was a great article, thanks for posting it.
I guess the real reason why I’m shocked is that Maya Angelou is staunchly supporting Hillary Clinton, for some-odd reason. Me and [your very near-future favorite guy from Chicagosterdam] were talking about how we’d love to sit down with her over tea and listen to her line of reasoning. Because Hillary Clinton is definitely not a beacon of hope for women, colored people or this country. I’ll vote for her ass over the former POW, but geez…
April 8th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Hey, Mary…
I think Maya Angelou is just tight with the Clintons. He made her Poet Laureate, right? I know she wrote a poem for his inauguration.
You might want to put that embargo back on Walker, though. In her daughter Rebecca’s latest memoir, she writes that AW didn’t want her to have a child, didn’t like what she had to say about her (AW) in her first memoir, and at some point during Rebecca’s pregnancy, AW severed her relationship.
From an amazon review of Rebecca’s book “Baby Love”:
” Baby Love never mentions Alice Walker by name, and some readers may not infer the connection. Regardless, Rebecca’s mother does not come off well. For years, she kept a sign over her desk comparing her young daughter to the obstacles faced by great women writers — Virginia Woolf’s madness, Zora Neale Hurston’s poverty and ill health. “You have Rebecca,” the sign reminded her, “who is much more delightful and less distracting than any of the calamities above.” Walker had the right to say that (she concludes one important essay by quoting that sign in full), but for her daughter, there were consequences to being considered a “calamity,” no matter how prettily it’s put.
When Rebecca told her mother she was pregnant, Alice was hardly effusive. Later in the pregnancy, she suddenly threatened to denounce Rebecca in a letter to the online magazine Salon, which had recently quoted a passage from her memoir (Black White and Jewish) that criticized her parents. “She called me a liar, a thief . . . and a few other completely discrediting unmentionables,” reports Rebecca. Alice backed down, but there were more confrontations via e-mail: “She writes that she has been my mother for thirty years and is no longer interested in the job.”
Now…I’ve been on both sides of the mother-daughter divide. As a past-wounded daughter, I understand Rebecca’s position, but as a mother, I want to give AW the benefit of the doubt. Being a mama ain’t easy, and there are always three sides to every story…but this just…wow.
I’d love to hear your long story about the AW embargo some time. Maybe Saturday when I see you and my very near-future favorite guy from Chicagosterdam on Saturday!
April 10th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
What a wonderful letter, Alice. In a world that seems too often determined to destroy itself by avarice it is wonderful to read a testimonial that can give us hope for the future influence of your country.
When Obama becomes the next President of the US I will be delighted to once again look forward to visiting my former teacher and school-kid friends in Atlanta without being nervous about crossing the border.
From “Mr Roger”, as some Atlanta elementary school kids knew me as a volunteer back in 2000-2002, and as many now know me in Ottawa, Canada.