Who Should Be First?: Feminists Speak Out on the 2008 Presidential Campaign

by Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Johnnetta Betsch Cole

Overview

Who should be first? With Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as frontrunners, the 2008 Democratic primary campaign was a watershed moment in United States history. Offering the choice of an African American man or a white woman as the next Democratic candidate for U.S. President, the primary marked an unprecedented moment—but one that painfully echoed previous struggles for progressive change that pitted race and gender against each other. Who Should Be First? collects key feminist voices that challenge the instances of racism and sexism during the presidential campaign season, offer personal reflections on this historic moment, and trace the historic legacy of opposing issues of race and gender that informed debates and media representations of the 2008 Democratic primary. In this collection of writings by leading feminists including Patricia J. Williams, Gloria Steinem, Alice Walker, Carol Moseley Braun, Maureen Dowd, Katha Pollitt, Pearl Cleage, Robin Morgan, Erica Jong, Mark Anthony Neal, and M. Jacqui Alexander about and during this unprecedented—and to many, unexpected—moment, editors Beverly Guy-Sheftall and Johnnetta Cole deftly balance charged conversations in the first collection on this key moment in contemporary U.S. history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781438433769
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	08/01/2010
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	357
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Beverly Guy-Sheftall is Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies and Founding Director of the Women's Research and Resource Center at Spelman College. Johnnetta Betsch Cole is President Emerita of Spelman College and Bennett College for Women. The authors of several books, together they have written Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women's Equality in African American Communities and coedited (with Rudolph P. Byrd) I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction Beverly Guy-Sheftall Johnnetta Betsch Cole 1

I Editorials, Opinions, and Petitions 9

1 Feminists for Peace and Barack Obama Frances Anderson Carolyn Eisenberg Marlene Fried Linda Gordon Judith LeBlanc Nancy Kricorian Eliza Migdal 11

2 Feminists for Clinton Christine Stansell 13

3 Stop the False Race-Gender Divide Ann Russo Melissa Spatz 17

4 Morning in America: A Letter from Feminists on the Election Patricia J. Williams 21

5 Duel of Historical Guilts Maureen Dowd 25

6 It's Not as Simple as White Trumping Black or Man Trumping Woman Patricia J. Williams 29

7 Sex Versus Race, Again Tracy A. Thomas 33

8 Obama and the Sisters Melissa Harris-Lacewell 41

II Personal Reflections: Having Our Say 45

9 Lest We Forget: An Open Letter to My Sisters Who Are Brave Alice Walker 47

10 Culture Trumps Politics and Gender Trumps Race Carol Moseley Braun 53

11 What Would Shirley Chisholm Say? Mark Anthony Neal 59

12 Voting for the Girl: Some Thoughts on Sisterhood and Citizenship Pearl Cleage 63

13 The Sisterhood Split Jessica Valenti 71

14 Hillary Versus the Patriarchy Erica Jong 75

15 Hillary is White Zillah Eisenstein 79

16 Your Whiteness is Showing Tim Wise 85

17 Black and for Hillary Tara Roberts 89

18 Why I Support Obama Andrea Guerrero 93

19 Daughters of the South, Rise Up: On Generation, Gender, and Race in the 2008 Democratic Election Cassie Premo Steele 97

20 Generation Y Refuses Race-Gender Dichotomy Courtney E. Martin 103

21 Why I'm Supporting Barack Obama Katha Pollitt 107

22 The Obama Feminists: Why Young Women Are Supporting Obama Ariel Garfinkel 109

23 Yo Mamma Linda Hirshman Linda Hirshman 111

24 Feminists Must Heal the Wounds of Racism Aishah Shahidah Simmons 115

III Essays: Making Our Case 119

25 Crises of Representation: Hate Messages in Campaign 2008 Commercial Paraphernalia Jane Caputi 121

26 Goodbye to All That #2 Robin Morgan 155

27 Race to the Bottom Betsy Reed 163

28 Intersectionality: Race and Gender in the 2008 Presidential Nomination Campaign Dianne M. Pinderhughes 171

29 Does Race Trump Gender?: Black Women Negotiating their Spaces of Intersection in the 2008 Presidential Campaign Cynthia Neal Spence 183

30 The Generation Gap: Graduate Students and Democratic Primaries Spring 2008 A. Lynn Bolles 201

31 Michelle Obama On My Mind Arica L. Coleman 215

IV Post-Election: What We Learned 231

32 Why We Need to Stop Obsessing Over Obama Andrea Smith 233

33 Learning from a Year of Hope and Hard Choices Gloria Steinem 251

34 Reading Obama: Collective Responsibilities and the Politics of Tears M. Jacqui Alexander Gail Lewis Gloria Wekker 285

Appendix 305

List of Contributors 327

Index 335

What People are Saying About This

Alison Bernstein

Guy-Sheftall and Cole have performed an invaluable service. This is a timely and riveting compendium of perspectives on the most important election of our times. A must-read for anyone interested in how U.S. politics intersects with race and gender. (Alison Bernstein, coauthor of Melting Pots and Rainbow Nations: Conversations about Difference in the United States and South Africa)

Wilma Mankiller

This anthology of brilliant essays and reflections captures the passion and raw emotion of the 2008 dialogue about race, gender, and generational diversity among feminists. It furthers an important conversation about what it means to be a feminist in the twenty-first century. (Wilma Mankiller, author of Every Day is a Good Day: Reflections by Contemporary Indigenous Women)

Editorial Reviews

While the media colored the 2008 campaign between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination as one of race vs. gender, feminists like Guy-Sheftall and Cole saw the nuances of this pivotal moment. Articles, op-ed pieces, essays, and personal reflections written during and after the campaign fill a volume that on first glance seems like a late arrival, but which upon reading reminds readers that politics are never simply black or white, particularly if one has stock in both sides. The theme of identification as a basis for presidential representation runs through the work, exposing the biases of voters and politicians alike. Balanced by contributions from supporters of both Obama and Clinton who are black and white, male and female, the collection brings to light the errors in binary thinking so prevalent in politics, and unavoidable in the American two-party system. Repetition nearly detracts from the central message that it's never to late, or too early, to learn from the past.
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