Feminists speak out on race and gender in the 2008 Presidential campaign.
Who Should Be First?
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle.
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"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
"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.
"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.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Who Should Be First?: Feminists Speak Out on the 2008 Presidential Campaign by Beverly Guy-Sheftall and Johnnetta Betsch Cole
I don't read much any more but I read The Guy-Sheftall/Betsch Cole anthology. It starts with group position papers for one candidate or the other, a very 70s no-one-leaves-until-we-come-to-consensus approach, that drove me nuts then and drove me nuts now. Lines like Patricia Williams conclusion, "As we gathered up the empty plates, we recommitted ourselves to further joint discussions..." My God these academic types can talk.
Since it is the essential question the book poses: Whom did I vote for? Either one. I had to work late and my state had switched to a late caucus. Maybe I had to show up in person and argue politics. Dunno. Had committed to a friend who lived 40 miles away that I would turn on her space heaters so her pipes didn't freeze overnight. No reprieve from weather. Time got away, work interfered, other obligations. Winded up missing the Primary so I made up for it by voting early, taking no chances, in the General Election. Who would I have voted for? I started out supporting Bill Richardson, the candidate with a pro-Gay rights voting record although he didn't seem to know a thing about Gays other than the behavior he saw in his ranch animals. Then I would have voted for Clinton, because I thought with her experience she could hit the ground running, but Obama hit the ground running too. Stories from Volunteers inside the Obama campaign were more impressive. Neither campaign tried to hire me. Either candidate really was fine.
A number of the articles were a gratifying blast-to-the-past of volunteering for Shirley Chisholm as a teenager in 1972. It was frustrating that my liberal high school teachers were irritated that I treated her as a viable candidate in class discussions and privately. When I went door-to-door in Cambridge, MA, people wouldn't say they were voting for Chisholm but they did say they liked her. Mark Anthony Neal, Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan's pieces made it perfectly clear why Chisholm's candidacy should have been taken seriously. Don't you love it when everyone said you were wrong but you were right?
Carol Moseley Braun's piece reiterated dismissive perceptions towards her own candidacy in 2003, and looking at the recent Chicago Coalition for Mayor, an influential group of about 200 African American business leaders and clergy members, endorsement of Congressman Danny Davis as its consensus candidate over Braun in 2010, little seems to have changed in that regard. If that phrasing sounds familiar, it was pulled right out of newspaper coverage.
A publication that includes my history, elections and candidates so I started enjoying this in spite of having taken Editor Johnnetta Cole's African American Women's Studies class at UMass Amherst in the 1970s. The class had an exceptionally interesting reading list, which hasn't been improved on much in similar classes at many universities since the 70s. Cole's legacy was that a student could not come out of that class without being very interested in African American Women's History. It was the kind of course that changed students' Majors.
Don't ask me why I sort of believed Cole's prophesy of widespread economic collapse in the 1990s. I watched for it from the desert. I was out of Chicago issue and community organizing and electoral politics, and no one had offered references or encouragement to go to Kennedy School of Government. I was living in the desert by 1990, hadn't invested in anything except whatever project I was participating in decided we needed. Worked for social change like Women's Studies majors of the 70s were trained to do. The change I effected was so tiny and at big personal expense, but there were a lot of us doing it, so we had some effect. I'm not bitter. It wasn't a bad way to spend a life but it did make me aware that I'm a sucker for a convincing argument.
What we are going through now is very bad for any homeowner trying to sell as well as many people out of work, and it may last for the rest of our lives, but it isn't bread lines.
Interesting that older Black people didn't think a Black person could win at the start of the campaign. Right before the primary I witnessed many White women go through the same panic that a White woman couldn't win, and switch their votes. By the election it seemed surprising that enough people had enough faith to elect either one.
When Zillah Eisenstein and Tim Wise launch into white women I started not liking the anthology. I never threatened to boycott the November election or to vote for McCain. Some Feminists were sore losers for a short while and you jumped right on it, as if you would have been nonthreatening if you had lost. They really cared. So did you, and you only have to go back to the Illinois ERA vote (which I didn't work on but I did watch) if you think you have to go back to suffrage to rehash race vs. sexism lack of solidarity.
Then some biographies about Feminists whose children had children. Is this filler? Animal instincts, reproduction being a big one, will have their say no matter what someone's politics are. Stories of people who backed the unexpected candidates; There was a price to pay.
Jane Caputi's Crises of Representation article documents blatant, ugly racism and sexism used in the campaigns against Obama and Clinton. The article is an Important resource for future historians, and for us, to understand the hate we are up against, since even if we saw some of the posters or t-shirts of this election we may have dismissed them, not wanting those images in our heads, disagreeing with what they say, hoping we misunderstood (which is how the perpetrators get away with their unlikely excuses), and to numb ourselves to that mentality in order to function in society.
Big kick out of Andrea Smith's article not to expect Obama to do it for you, not that he is bad, but live your own true vision, and Gloria Steinem's insistence that we have more in common and that's a good thing.
There you go; practically an autobiography for Johnnetta Cole, just like the old days. I would give the anthology an AB. Cole is skilled at editing, but an anthology isn't her writing. Found the term paper while packing and burning old files. She gave me an AB when it counted, but Amazon doesn't offer AB so I went up instead of down. I'm nicer. I give her an AB when it counts. Payback. Gotta go; I have an old decrepit trailer to pack and foreclose on, IF they will let me out of paying for substandard housing for the rest of my life.
Forgive the typos, illiteracy and wrong-headed thinking. I didn't read any of these articles when they were first printed. Until reading this anthology I thought we had a president we agreed on.
The final article by M Jacqui Alexander, Gail Lewis and Gloria Wekker, Reading Obama, expands the discussion to international effects of Obama's election out to issues like whether women wearing burkas should be eligible for unemployment benefits in the Netherlands or whether citizens of Kenya can assume Obama will help Kenya. You know I short-circuited when the first sentence read, " What collective stories do we tell of this moment?" but it is an interesting wrap-up with unique insight to even people who read all the articles as they were published.
I don't read much any more but I read The Guy-Sheftall/Betsch Cole anthology. It starts with group position papers for one candidate or the other, a very 70s no-one-leaves-until-we-come-to-consensus approach, that drove me nuts then and drove me nuts now. Lines like Patricia Williams conclusion, "As we gathered up the empty plates, we recommitted ourselves to further joint discussions..." My God these academic types can talk.
Since it is the essential question the book poses: Whom did I vote for? Either one. I had to work late and my state had switched to a late caucus. Maybe I had to show up in person and argue politics. Dunno. Had committed to a friend who lived 40 miles away that I would turn on her space heaters so her pipes didn't freeze overnight. No reprieve from weather. Time got away, work interfered, other obligations. Winded up missing the Primary so I made up for it by voting early, taking no chances, in the General Election. Who would I have voted for? I started out supporting Bill Richardson, the candidate with a pro-Gay rights voting record although he didn't seem to know a thing about Gays other than the behavior he saw in his ranch animals. Then I would have voted for Clinton, because I thought with her experience she could hit the ground running, but Obama hit the ground running too. Stories from Volunteers inside the Obama campaign were more impressive. Neither campaign tried to hire me. Either candidate really was fine.
A number of the articles were a gratifying blast-to-the-past of volunteering for Shirley Chisholm as a teenager in 1972. It was frustrating that my liberal high school teachers were irritated that I treated her as a viable candidate in class discussions and privately. When I went door-to-door in Cambridge, MA, people wouldn't say they were voting for Chisholm but they did say they liked her. Mark Anthony Neal, Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan's pieces made it perfectly clear why Chisholm's candidacy should have been taken seriously. Don't you love it when everyone said you were wrong but you were right?
Carol Moseley Braun's piece reiterated dismissive perceptions towards her own candidacy in 2003, and looking at the recent Chicago Coalition for Mayor, an influential group of about 200 African American business leaders and clergy members, endorsement of Congressman Danny Davis as its consensus candidate over Braun in 2010, little seems to have changed in that regard. If that phrasing sounds familiar, it was pulled right out of newspaper coverage.
A publication that includes my history, elections and candidates so I started enjoying this in spite of having taken Editor Johnnetta Cole's African American Women's Studies class at UMass Amherst in the 1970s. The class had an exceptionally interesting reading list, which hasn't been improved on much in similar classes at many universities since the 70s. Cole's legacy was that a student could not come out of that class without being very interested in African American Women's History. It was the kind of course that changed students' Majors.
Don't ask me why I sort of believed Cole's prophesy of widespread economic collapse in the 1990s. I watched for it from the desert. I was out of Chicago issue and community organizing and electoral politics, and no one had offered references or encouragement to go to Kennedy School of Government. I was living in the desert by 1990, hadn't invested in anything except whatever project I was participating in decided we needed. Worked for social change like Women's Studies majors of the 70s were trained to do. The change I effected was so tiny and at big personal expense, but there were a lot of us doing it, so we had some effect. I'm not bitter. It wasn't a bad way to spend a life but it did make me aware that I'm a sucker for a convincing argument.
What we are going through now is very bad for any homeowner trying to sell as well as many people out of work, and it may last for the rest of our lives, but it isn't bread lines.
Interesting that older Black people didn't think a Black person could win at the start of the campaign. Right before the primary I witnessed many White women go through the same panic that a White woman couldn't win, and switch their votes. By the election it seemed surprising that enough people had enough faith to elect either one.
When Zillah Eisenstein and Tim Wise launch into white women I started not liking the anthology. I never threatened to boycott the November election or to vote for McCain. Some Feminists were sore losers for a short while and you jumped right on it, as if you would have been nonthreatening if you had lost. They really cared. So did you, and you only have to go back to the Illinois ERA vote (which I didn't work on but I did watch) if you think you have to go back to suffrage to rehash race vs. sexism lack of solidarity.
Then some biographies about Feminists whose children had children. Is this filler? Animal instincts, reproduction being a big one, will have their say no matter what someone's politics are. Stories of people who backed the unexpected candidates; There was a price to pay.
Jane Caputi's Crises of Representation article documents blatant, ugly racism and sexism used in the campaigns against Obama and Clinton. The article is an Important resource for future historians, and for us, to understand the hate we are up against, since even if we saw some of the posters or t-shirts of this election we may have dismissed them, not wanting those images in our heads, disagreeing with what they say, hoping we misunderstood (which is how the perpetrators get away with their unlikely excuses), and to numb ourselves to that mentality in order to function in society.
Big kick out of Andrea Smith's article not to expect Obama to do it for you, not that he is bad, but live your own true vision, and Gloria Steinem's insistence that we have more in common and that's a good thing.
There you go; practically an autobiography for Johnnetta Cole, just like the old days. I would give the anthology an AB. Cole is skilled at editing, but an anthology isn't her writing. Found the term paper while packing and burning old files. She gave me an AB when it counted, but Amazon doesn't offer AB so I went up instead of down. I'm nicer. I give her an AB when it counts. Payback. Gotta go; I have an old decrepit trailer to pack and foreclose on, IF they will let me out of paying for substandard housing for the rest of my life.
Forgive the typos, illiteracy and wrong-headed thinking. I didn't read any of these articles when they were first printed. Until reading this anthology I thought we had a president we agreed on.
The final article by M Jacqui Alexander, Gail Lewis and Gloria Wekker, Reading Obama, expands the discussion to international effects of Obama's election out to issues like whether women wearing burkas should be eligible for unemployment benefits in the Netherlands or whether citizens of Kenya can assume Obama will help Kenya. You know I short-circuited when the first sentence read, " What collective stories do we tell of this moment?" but it is an interesting wrap-up with unique insight to even people who read all the articles as they were published.
Inside This Book
(learn more)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
