One of the reasons I dedicated a few of my blogs to the cofounding way the media treats her. I can tell that either majority of these white pundits have no educated black woman friends or are just oblivious to other race perceptions.

Republicans aren’t the problem here. So-called Democrats and so-called Feminists are. One expects slings and arrows from one’s enemies –

the real test is where one’s ‘friends’ are. And those ‘friends’ are absent.

Angela, thank you for the column. Town, WORD to both of your posts. Required reading. Jed, you don’t want to see, so there’s no opening your eyes until you open them yourself. NMP, remember what Malcolm said about that type of thing?

Sara, intensity is everything — and it just ain’t there for Michelle, as it continues to be for Hillary.

Michelle Obama: Ain’t She A Woman?
by Gary L. Flowers
NNPA Columnist
Originally posted 6/24/2008

Sororal treatment has linked Sojourner Truth and Michelle Obama in history.

In 1843, a domestic servant in up-state New York whose given name was Isabella Van Wagenen changed her birth name to one that would reflect her mission in life – Sojourner Truth.

Her life’s journey would lead her to be revered for her stature, intellect, and fearlessness. Like Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth was one the first Black feminists to publicly assert that Black women should be viewed as total human beings.

In other words, within the Black community there are women; and within the feminist movement, there are Black women.

As an abolitionist and an itinerant Pentecostal preacher, Ms. Truth was invited to the 1851 Women’s Conference in Akron, Ohio. According to Frances Gage, a White abolitionist and president of the conference, as Sojourner Truth rose to approach the stage, White women whispered, ”For God’’s sake, Mrs. Gage, don’t let her speak.”

Despite the whispers, she was reported to have famously said, ”I have borne children and seen most of them sold into slavery, and when cried out with a mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me. And ain’t I a woman?”

One hundred and sixty-five years after Sojourner Truth assumed the national stage comes Michelle Robinson Obama. Like Truth, Mrs. Obama stands 5′ 11” tall and possesses a commanding, yet feminine presence. Raised by parents who instilled in young Michelle and her brother, Craig, a thirst to succeed despite racial oppression in the world, the potential First Lady of the White House is gifted and grounded.

Ivy-League educated at Princeton and Harvard, the wife, mother, lawyer, and woman is worthy of respect. Yet, like Mrs. Truth, Mrs. Obama has had to succeed amidst the whispering campaigns of negativity.

She is said to be ”angry” and ”the baby mama of Obama”. Maureen Dowd suggested that many Americans believe Michelle Obama to be ”emasculating” to her candidate husband. Likewise, the blogesphere is rife with the modern version of whispered insults and innuendo.

For example, a recent posting on the Daily Kos revealed an image of a wrist-bound Michelle Obama about to be burned on the back by Ku Klux Klansmen, with the title ”Our New Hi Tech Southern Strategy” sponsored by the David Duke Fan Club.

Whether 1851 or 2008, fear-mongers and the ignorant that use race as a dividing wedge are not surprising. What is alarming is the lack of defense for Mrs. Obama that is afforded to others. If Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton who once was First Lady in the White House deserved – as she did – defending by leading White feminists from stereotypically sexist attacks on the campaign trail such as hecklers yelling ”Hillary: Iron my shirt”, than surely Mrs. Obama as a potential First Lady in the White House deserves the same. One set of defense rules. The only leading voice I have heard has been National Organization for Women president Kim Gandy who is ”watching” for sexist attacks on Michelle Obama. And this is a good start.

But where are the famous names in feminism now that Mrs. Obama is under attack?

Metaphorically, the cultural chasm between Helen Reddy’s ”I am Woman” (1972) and Chaka Khan’s ”I am Every Woman” (1992) must be closed to open a new paradigm of equal defense for equal offense.

Appearing on the television show, ”The View”, last week, Mrs. Obama was poised and personal; elegant and electric. As she fielded questions, Michelle Obama did so with a sense of genuine openness, which seemingly connected with the viewers of ”The View”.

But why did she have to appear in the first place? Sojourner Truth’s words still instruct us:

”If the first woman God ever made [Eve] was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right-side up again.” Together, we are one.

Gary Flowers is executive director and CEO of the Black Leadership Forum.

I guess we can’t defend Laura Bush either, since she’s been on many a “Today” show and was on the cover of “Ladies Home Journal.”

@ annaarcturus:

I think a lot of people just want to be heard. I don’t know how to answer your question but to say, “Please just listen.” I think some white feminists want WOC to sit at the table but only if they’re quiet and don’t say anything or only if they back them up. Just listen. I guess that’s the only answer I could give you.

They are actual feminism too — and one of those forms of feminism was LOUD in support of Hillary Clinton and running all sorts of racism during the primary.

IMO naming complexities should not erase the ugly reality that is actually part of them.

The thing is, these divisions are hardening, in large part because this political race has put the issues in our face. A recent article by Linda Hirshman sent waves through the feminist blogosphere with her assertion that mainstream feminism OUGHT to ignore the issues of non-white, non-professional, or non-middle-class women. In essence, she said that middle-class white women shouldn’t be concerned about the well-being of anyone else until they get . . . well, I don’t know what they really don’t have at this point other than a presidential office.

It is interesting to me that so many of these mainstream feminists seem absolutely baffled that other women don’t automatically support them. The big question in my feminist classes was why black women put their black identity before their feminine identity, as if race is a non-issue.

All that being said, I’d like to echo some commenters here that have noted that there have been really strong feminist WOC voices in the blogosphere and that even when I don’t think all bloggers/commenters are on the same page on blogs run by younger feminists (like Feministing), they certainly haven’t ignored Michelle Obama’s treatment.

This is not to say that racism doesn’t pervade the ranks of feminism like it does other parts of life, but I think dismissing sexism in this election is like the (predominantly) older and white feminists dismissing racism. Both are real and both affect us and both are horrible.

http://www.gbminnyc.blogspot.com

IMO, this is putting the blame for the separation of black and white women on black women. This may not be your intention but that’s how I read it. I’m not seeing trying to set a place at the table for black women, or Asian women or Latino women. Or even poor white women. I’ve always seen it as “you can come to the dinner but you have to sit at the kids’ table over there,” and the only time WOC are allowed at the table is to clean it off and make it look pretty.

I think it goes both ways. Just as there are black women who don’t desire to sit at the table, there are white women who don’t want us in the dining room to begin with. And I think that needs to be addressed and rectified and if that can’t happen then WOC need to sit at our own tables.

You talk about not wanting to be separate from our men, no one is asking you to be. But separation (fear and hate and blame etc.) has not helped progress in anyway, that includes separation of black women from white women.