LEST WE FORGET: AN OPEN LETTER TO MY SISTERS WHO ARE BRAVEAlice Walker
Pambazuka News is pleased to reproduce for our readers this well
received essay by Alice Walker in which she looks at Obama using various
lenses such as black feminism and international solidarity while
reflecting on race, class and gender
I made my first white women friends in college; they were women who
loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they
did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered. That, for
instance, at Sarah Lawrence, where I was speedily inducted into the
Board of Trustees practically as soon as I graduated, I made my way to
the campus for meetings by train, subway and foot, while the other
trustees, women and men, all white, made their way by limo. Because, in
our country, with its painful history of unspeakable inequality, this is
part of what whiteness means. I loved my school for trying to make me
feel I mattered to it, but because of my relative poverty I knew I could
not.
I am a supporter of Obama because I believe he is the right person to
lead the country at this time. He offers a rare opportunity for the
country and the world to start over, and to do better. It is a deep
sadness to me that many of my feminist white women friends cannot see
him. Cannot see what he carries in his being. Cannot hear the fresh
choices toward Movement he offers. That they can believe that millions
of Americans -black, white, yellow, red and brown - choose Obama over
Clinton only because he is a man, and black, feels tragic to me.
When I have supported white people, men and women, it was because I
thought them the best possible people to do whatever the job required.
Nothing else would have occurred to me. If Obama were in any sense
mediocre, he would be forgotten by now. He is, in fact, a remarkable
human being, not perfect but humanly stunning, like King was and like
Mandela is. We look at him, as we looked at them, and are glad to be of
our species. He is the change America has been trying desperately and
for centuries to hide, ignore, kill. The change America must have if we
are to convince the rest of the world that we care about people other
than our (white) selves.
True to my inner Goddess of the Three Directions however, this does not
mean I agree with everything Obama stands for. We differ on important
points probably because I am older than he is, I am a woman and person
of three colors, (African, Native American, European), I was born and
raised in the American South, and when I look at the earth's people,
after sixty-four years of life, there is not one person I wish to see
suffer, no matter what they have done to me or to anyone else; though I
understand quite well the place of suffering, often, in human growth.
I want a grown-up attitude toward Cuba, for instance, a country and a
people I love; I want an end to the embargo that has harmed my friends
and their children, children who, when I visit Cuba, trustingly turn
their faces up for me to kiss. I agree with a teacher of mine, Howard
Zinn, that war is as objectionable as cannibalism and slavery; it is
beyond obsolete as a means of improving life. I want an end to the
on-going war immediately and I want the soldiers to be encouraged to
destroy their weapons and to drive themselves out of Iraq.
I want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behavior
towards the Palestinians, and I want the people of the United States to
cease acting like they don't understand what is going on. All
colonization, all occupation, all repression basically looks the same,
whoever is doing it. Here our heads cannot remain stuck in the sand; our
future depends of our ability to study, to learn, to understand what is
in the records and what is before our eyes. But most of all I want
someone with the self-confidence to talk to anyone, "enemy" or "friend,"
and this Obama has shown he can do. It is difficult to understand how
one could vote for a person who is afraid to sit and talk to another
human being. When you vote you are making someone a proxy for yourself;
they are to speak when, and in places, you cannot. But if they find
talking to someone else, who looks just like them, human, impossible,
then what good is your vote?
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.
And yes, I would adore having a woman president of the United States. My
choice would be Representative Barbara Lee, who alone voted in Congress
five years ago not to make war on Iraq. That to me is leadership,
morality, and courage; if she had been white I would have cheered just
as hard. But she is not running for the highest office in the land, Mrs.
Clinton is. And because Mrs. Clinton is a woman and because she may be
very good at what she does, many people, including some younger women in
my own family, originally favored her over Obama. I understand this,
almost. It is because, in my own nieces' case, there is little memory,
apparently, of the foundational inequities that still plague people of
color and poor whites in this country. Why, even though our family has
been here longer than most North American families - and only partly due
to the fact that we have Native American genes - we very recently, in my
lifetime, secured the right to vote, and only after numbers of people
suffered and died for it.
When I offered the word "Womanism" many years ago, it was to give us a
tool to use, as feminist women of color, in times like these. These are
the moments we can see clearly, and must honor devotedly, our singular
path as women of color in the United States. We are not white women and
this truth has been ground into us for centuries, often in brutal ways.
But neither are we inclined to follow a black person, man or woman,
unless they demonstrate considerable courage, intelligence, compassion
and substance. I am delighted that so many women of color support Barack
Obama -and genuinely proud of the many young and old white women and men
who do.
Imagine, if he wins the presidency we will have not one but three black
women in the White House; one tall, two somewhat shorter; none of them
carrying the washing in and out of the back door. The bottom line for
most of us is: With whom do we have a better chance of surviving the
madness and fear we are presently enduring, and with whom do we wish to
set off on a journey of new possibility? In other words, as the Hopi
elders would say: Who do we want in the boat with us as we head for the
rapids? Who is likely to know how best to share the meager garden
produce and water? We are advised by the Hopi elders to celebrate this
time, whatever its adversities.
We have come a long way, Sisters, and we are up to the challenges of our
time. One of which is to build alliances based not on race, ethnicity,
color, nationality, sexual preference or gender, but on Truth. Celebrate
our journey. Enjoy the miracle we are witnessing. Do not stress over its
outcome. Even if Obama becomes president, our country is in such ruin it
may well be beyond his power to lead us toward rehabilitation. If he is
elected however, we must, individually and collectively, as citizens of
the planet, insist on helping him do the best job that can be done;
more, we must insist that he demand this of us. It is a blessing that
our mothers taught us not to fear hard work. Know, as the Hopi elders
declare: The river has its destination. And remember, as poet June
Jordan and Sweet Honey in the Rock never tired of telling us: We are the
ones we have been waiting for.
* Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prize winning author. This article first
appeared at The Root, http://www.theroot.com
**Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at
http://www.pambazuka.org
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When I was in my third or fourth year of high school (I disremember which), I was lucky enough to come across a copy of The Color Purple. Reading that novel changed my life and my understanding in ways that I am still absorbing today, twenty plus years later. Because of that and also because of her other writings that enabled me to gain an understanding of my place in America (albeit before I was even ready), my disagreement with Alice Walker is couched in very respectful terms and sentiments. I am not disagreeing because I am a supported of Hilary Rodham Clinton or whatever name she is currently known by. I am disagreeing because as a member of the Democratic Party, I do not believe Barack Obama represents my interests. Over the past few months, I have had serious debates/disagreements over my non-support of Obama. I am starting to feel as if I am "pissing into the wind" in my articulation of my desire to see black people look outside of mainstream political parties for solutions to the crisis we are facing (and have continually faced since the first African person landed on these hostile shores).
In my effort to support my beliefs, I have researched alternative methods of political solutions. I have struggled to add Cynthia McKinney's candicacy for President as a member of the Green Party. I strongly believe that her work, over the years, represents a breath of fresh air sorely needed in these trying times. I have also researched Lani Guinier and her advocacy of proportional representation. I have done so because, in my living, breathing memory, I don't know of one single Democratic president who has actively or even actively tried to improve the overall condition of black people.
It is more than past time that we start looking for alternative methods and political structures to achieve our goals. People of my mother's generation struggled to get the vote and make their vote count. Does voting for Obama continue that forward progress or does it counter it?
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In my effort to support my beliefs, I have researched alternative methods of political solutions. I have struggled to add Cynthia McKinney's candicacy for President as a member of the Green Party. I strongly believe that her work, over the years, represents a breath of fresh air sorely needed in these trying times. I have also researched Lani Guinier and her advocacy of proportional representation. I have done so because, in my living, breathing memory, I don't know of one single Democratic president who has actively or even actively tried to improve the overall condition of black people.
It is more than past time that we start looking for alternative methods and political structures to achieve our goals. People of my mother's generation struggled to get the vote and make their vote count. Does voting for Obama continue that forward progress or does it counter it?