Petty Plantation Politics

Throughout the 2008 presidential elections, I am constantly reminded in newspapers and within the feminist and Civil Rights circles in which I run that my issues as an African American woman are mine only. When I hear quotes regarding Hillary’s women’s vote putting her over the top I think wow, I heard 79% of black women voted for Obama. When I hear of the inimitable inspiration that she will bring to them, their daughters, and me, I wonder if they stop and think about the plight of our sons: 70% without fathers, 1/3 between the ages of 20 and 29 in jail, prison, on parole or probation; 1 in 10 black men in their twenties and early thirties in prison or jail; 13% of the black adult male population without the right to vote due to felony disenfranchisement laws. I’m not one to knock their glass ceiling. Shit, for every 77 cents they earn to a (white) man’s dollar, I earn 64. It’s just that for me, first as a black woman and next as a single mother raising and African American son, the endangerment of a species lies heavy on my heart as well as feminist trailblazing.

I’ve joked before about the impossible predicament of picking sides when it comes to race and gender. I’m both - I’ve got that. It’s inconvenient for the predominantly white women’s movement to deal with my statistics, too complicated for the Civil Rights movement to acknowledge my existence - I get that. The talk is of national AIDS rates on the decline as mine skyrocket, urban renewal boosting urban economies while I’m left evicted, the impossible predicament of a black woman raising a son with little community accountability in regards to voluntarily absent fathers - I hear that. My invisibility in the context of this election - I see that.

I’m feeling Oprah, “don’t play me small,” my vote has everything to do with foreign policy and little to do with race. But don’t dismiss, in the excitement for your daughters, my son’s first glimpse of a prominent black man outside of hip hop, outside of sports, and off of the police blotter. Don’t rebuke a man who supports women’s choice, a woman’s right to birth control, a woman’s right to emergency contraception - a man with an equally fierce wife and counterpart plus two doting daughters to answer to should he forget. Don’t speak of a man “not black enough,” because he’s actually been able to harness the white male vote. Do not assert that he is lacking in experience as his qualifications took place in the field and not the house - that’s petty plantation politics.

First and foremost - this election is monumental because it is the end of an unfortunate eight-year-era called the Bush administration. Second, it has turned out more young, more African American, and more women primary voters than ever in history. And lastly (damnet lastly), lest we forget, there are two viable candidates, one black and one female, poised to make mother fucking history. As equal rights advocates in a world rife with inequality, your daughter and my son should be happy for one another.