Excerpt only below. Please read the whole essay at Counterpunch:
http://www.counterpunch.org/wise06072008.html
You must help me. I do not know every over-eager Hillary fan who needs to read this article. Come on, please share this article. Any former Hillary Clinton supporter who threatened to vote for John McCain has to read this! Tac it up in their cubicles. ~KW
An Open Letter to Certain White Women Who Are Threatening to
Withhold Support from Obama in November
Your Whiteness is Showing
By TIM WISE
This is an open letter to those white women who, despite their proclamations of progressivism, and supposedly because of their commitment to feminism, are threatening to withhold support from Barack Obama in November. You know who you are.
I know that it’s probably a bad time for this. Your disappointment at the electoral defeat of Senator Hillary Clinton is fresh, the sting is new, and the anger that animates many of you–who rightly point out that the media was often sexist in its treatment of the Senator–is raw, pure and justified.
That said, and despite the awkward timing, I need to ask you a few questions, and I hope you will take them in the spirit of solidarity with which they are genuinely intended. But before the questions, a statement if you don’t mind, or indeed, even if (as I suspect), you will mind it quite a bit… (cont’d)
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P.S. (He also asks why, if they like women candidates so much, they don’t vote for former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney for President!)
Read the rest of the article at CounterPunch. (And, don’t forget to write Tim Wise a thank you letter for this article!)
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Tim Wise is the author of: White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (Soft Skull Press, 2005), and Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White (Routledge: 2005). He can be reached at: timjwise at msn dot com
Filed under: Barack Obama, cynthia mckinney, democrat, election, elections, Green Party Websites, hillary clinton, John McCain, More Events Calendars, Political Websites, president, presidential race, progressive politics, third party, US Politics Tagged: | Barack Obama, democrat, Feminism, feminist, hillary clinton, John McCain, Race, racism, Tim Wise
He is incorrect when he states that some feminists are not supporting McKinney. I have heard the call to support the green party because now of course that HRC is out of the running Cynthia can be considered a woman. It disgusts me that she is the fall back candidate for white feminists when they don’t get their way. There is talk of taking over the green party with vagina power.
It seems to me that they don’t even realize how racist these calls to vote for Cynthia are. I posted about this at my blog.
http://www.womanist-musings.com/2008/06/cynthia-mckinney-fallback-choice.html
When racist and sexist images appeared of Mckinney white feminists had nothing to say. The one thing that this campaign has cemented in the minds of POC is that feminism will never be about anybody other than white middle/upper class white women. They expect POC to serve as support staff and shame on the uppity negro that does not know his/her place.