<p>I apologize to the author for not asking permission in advance before copying her letter [ I wouldn’t know how to contact her], but I thought it was worth reading. I ask that any comments be thoughtful, and not full of hate as so many seem to be these days.
And I ask that the Obama haters refrain from posting their comments here. We already know how you feel about him. No need to let us know again, please.</p>
<p>“I want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behavior
towards the Palestinians”
??? Please lear more about Israeli history before making that statement!</p>
<p>Menloparkmom: very sweet, but very idealistic your wish and those of Obama. The worls is more cruel that that and “Mr Santa Claus” can’t solve all the problems, so I need somebody more concrete. US has too many problems to handle them idealistically.
Sorry about your childhood, but the 60s are over.</p>
<p>The only candidates whose 60s are over is John McCain (b. 1936), 72. Alice Walker (b. 1944) is 64. Hillary Clinton (b. 1947) is 61. Barack Obama (b 1961) is not yet 60.</p>
<p>I read this piece not to agree or disagree with Alice Walker or Barack Obama, but as a reminder of how much history and memory people in their 60s, like Alice Walker or Hillary Clinton, carry with them.</p>
<p>my apologies to you mythmom, my request was directed at another CC poster, who knows who he is. And I did not post this letter because I think she is right about everything she mentions, but rather as “food for thought”. I was hoping for a thoughtful dialogue, rather than the kind of vitriole exibited on other recent political threads.</p>
<p>Not even her account of her childhood?
Just as she carries the wounds of her childhood, so do some whites–who have been frank about never voting for a black man–carry the experiences and feelings from their own childhood.<br>
What I want to stress is that we have come far from the pre-Civil Rights era, but there is some way to go still, The Alice Walkers and Hillary Clintons and their contemporaries are perhaps still the largest demographic cohort.</p>
<p>PS: I also disagree with several of Alice Walkers’ political arguments.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, I might have missed something (I probably did, actually) but how does Clinton carry a legacy of racial oppression with her, but Obama does not carry a legacy of sexual/gender oppression? I ask as an Obama supporter.</p>
<p>"Zoosermom, the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians is a very controversial issue, especially re to the settlements, among Israelis and Jews worldwide.</p>
<p>Barron, the US has had an embargo against Cuba since Kennedy. The country is extremely poor because of this. Enough is enough"
You must think you’re posting with idiots. How nice. Or in the alternative, you’re stuck on the obvious.</p>
<p>“doctormom50,
It’s beyond shameful that the Israelis keep the Palestinians in a virtual prison.”</p>
<p>Not so tightly controlled that they can’t keep lobbing missiles into Israel.</p>
<p>Her argument is essentially that because she experienced racism as a child, a black person should be elected President. Of course she adds that she does not like Jews living in a democratic state but she wants better relations with a nearby dictatorship. </p>
<p>Of all the arguments in favor of Obama, Walker’s are the worst I have seen.</p>
<p>marite: I assume you are asking specifically with regards to the United States. No, I would not attempt to compare the oppression that women face/have faced with that of African Americans, but I don’t think it is necessarily sensical to purport that Clinton carries with her a white legacy of oppression while neglecting Obama’s male privilege.</p>
<p>In some ways, discrimination against women, although not as blatant as slavery, was more extended in American History. Black men could vote (and were elected to Congress) six decades before the first woman in the United States was even allowed to cast a vote.</p>
<p>It’s easy to overlook the fact that most of our grandmothers were born before women fought for the right to vote in his country. The United States is incredibly backwards on issues of gender equality.</p>
<p>Cuba could have had the limitations lifted if they had renounced their policies and held real elections. It now appears they are headed in a more liberal direction and you will see the policy changing to match. We already are a major trader with Cuba supplying much of their food.</p>
<p>I had to walk out of meeting when Black Studies was trying to control the nascent Jewish Studies and they were arguing about who has been more oppressed. Yuck! This is not an argument that we can settld, though as interesteddad points out, in 1900 Obama would have been able to vote and attend Ivy League institutions, not Hillary.</p>
<p>I think there was been more gender bashing in the campaign than race bashing, though that doesn’t automatically make Hillary a better candidate. Victimization should not be the litmus test for national office. I would also like to point out that women often live with their oppressors intimately (perhaps we can even say this about Hillary). However, again, not a litmus test for national office.</p>
<p>I have read Obama’s books and watched his speeches. Just as a personal reaction, I find him facile and arrogant. In one section of one of his books he ridicules his mother for enjoying BLACK ORPHEUS and reduces the entire movie to a mockery of the African-Brazilian population of Rio. This isn’t the way I see the movie or his mother’s appreciation of it.</p>
<p>Hillary can be very disingenuous. She is saddled with a lot. She alienates people and has many mistaken votes.</p>
<p>Neither are unblemished candidates, IMO, but who is? </p>
<p>I would vote for either of them if given the change. I really think we have to stop attacking each other and think about November. I don’t either should be disqualified on the basis of race or gender, nor do I think either of them should be selected solely on the basis of race or gender. I guarantee that I would NOT vote of Ann Colter or Leon Spinks. (sp?)</p>
<p>Black men could vote before women. In theory. What was the Civil Rights Movement about again?</p>
<p>Unregistered: Yes, we’re talking about the US. Slavery has not been practiced in most other countries since well before Abolition.
As a woman, I have experienced discrimination. But never, have I experienced what Alice Walker experienced as a black child in the 1940s and 1950s. </p>
<p>Does male privilege trump racism? I don’t know. From my readings, I doubt it. Female slaves, after all, were doubly oppressed. Maybe some of Hillary supporters believe that she needs to combat Obama’s male privilege. Is that why a union leader praised her for having “testicular fortitude?” I knew the phrase “intestinal fortitude” which can apply to both men and women alike, since, I believe, the digestive system is gender neutral. But “testicular fortitude” is a new one for me. Does Hillary’s universal health plan cover check-ups for women worried if they have it or not? :)</p>