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16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Riding the Third Wave of Feminism, April 7, 2000
This morning I was sitting in the Laundromat down the street quietly reading Rebecca Walker's anthology of feminist essays, To Be Real. I was reading the line "in much of our understanding, power is equated with oppression: images of white supremacists dominating people of color, men dominating women, and the rich dominating the poor underline the histories of many cultures and societies," in an essay by Jason Schultz, when an ironic thing happened. I heard pieces of a conversation between an older white man and a middle aged white woman that was going on the other side of the room. I heard words like, "nigger" and "lazy" within phrases like "all they do is make babies and live on food stamps." I couldn't hear whole sentences, and so I tried to shut them out and read my book. Another girl my age was not so lucky. She was waiting for her clothes to dry, just a few feet from the conversation. Just before leaving the scene, she approached the two and said "I'm sorry, but some of us are trying to do our laundry and we shouldn't have to listen to your racist conversations..." The old man threw up his hands, mocking her, and said, "Ok, we'll stop. Peace, man." She went on, and again I could only hear bits of her words, over the whining drone of washing machines. I heard her say, "the problem is your redneck mentality," and "educate yourself." But her words fell on deaf ears. As she stormed out to her car, carrying load after load of laundry, the two small town residents mumbled about her things I could only imagine to be extremely offensive. I followed her out to her car to congratulate her. I told her that I agreed with everything she said and that she was a strong person to have done what she did. At the same time I felt immense guilt. Because I, the Feminist, did not get up and go over there to hear the conversation that I knew to be oppressive, and that I was not the one who said something. Here I was, reading a book about how Feminism needs to fight towards equality- not only between the sexes-but in terms of Race, Sexuality, and any form of difference. A book whose essays, compiled by the incredible Rebecca Walker, were personal confessions about times when each author was forced to question their own position in the feminist movement. I felt that I had just been tested, and failed. So I began to analyze the situation. Had I been standing closer to the conversation would I have responded as this other girl had? I would like to think so. If the target of oppression had been gays and lesbians instead of black folks, would I have responded? Most definitely, I don't think that I would've been able to help myself from attacking the attackers. So what does this say about me? That unless I, myself, am part of the group being oppressed I wouldn't get directly involved? The point of these questions are exactly what Rebecca Walker is bringing up for discussion. We, as individuals, have to ask ourselves such things in order to determine who we are and what our place is within this Third Wave of Feminism. This Third Wave encompasses the notion that there is no one way to be a feminist, and that there is no betrayal in being yourself. As humans, we will fall short at times, and we will constantly surprise ourselves.
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