New York State NOW...NOW With Even More Crazy!

Courtesy of a friend, the latest press release from our pals at NYS NOW. Feel the crazy! I seriously think Marilyn Fitterman has a lucrative second career in front of her as a writer for the WWE (the erstwhile WWF...or is "erstwhile" sexist, as it implies that the WWE changed its name when it got married?). Just check out the gem of a lede! Race vs. Gender! Oh yeah! Feel it coming! Can you smellllllllllllllllll what BARAK is cooking?!!!! No you can't, because he doesn't cook, since he's such a womyn hater that he thinks only womyn should cook! RACE WAR! GENDER FIGHT! Only on PAY-PER-VIEW!!!

EDIT: I posted this as soon as I got it, just 'cuz I like to scoop Drudge whenever I can, but for your benefit, I've now gone through and bolded some of my favorite passages:

Deja vu: Race vs Gender 1870-2008

By Marilyn Fitterman
NOW NE Regional Director & Past President NOW-NYS

The press, the media, the pundits, everyone is saying the Democratic presidential race should not be about race vs. gender. How ridiculous is that? We look at Hillary Clinton and we see a possibility of the first woman in the white house. We look at Obama and we see the first man of color in the white house. Therefore, to say it is not about race vs. gender is to deny reality. Let’s get real, and from there it will be easier to make the right decision, which of course is to put women first in a women’s organization. We must, as women, unite.

If not for ourselves then whom are we for? If not us, who? If not now, when? [You forgot the rest of the quote! "If not.. I'm sorry, Pat, what was that question?"] Back in the early 1820s and 30s there were numerous women fighting for and speaking up for abolition. Women saw the inhuman cruelty of slavery. Lucretia Mott, Maria Chapman, Lucy Stone, Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, to name just a few, spoke up against slavery at the very real risk of physical violence. In 1833 the American Anti-Slavery Society actually barred women from speaking. So what did women do? They started their own anti-slavery society throughout the country and even had conventions in 1837, 1838, and 1839. In 1840, when some of these women went to England to attend the International Abolition Convention, they were barred from attending and, after fighting to get in, were barred from speaking even though some were there representing an American Society of Abolitionists. It was not long after this that Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton realized that women had to unite and fight for themselves. They met to discuss a movement for equality and suffrage, and this historic meeting was the impetus for the 1848 first Women’s Rights Convention in Senaca Falls. Those women asked:

If not for ourselves then whom are we for? If not us, who? If not now, when?

In that period married women had no right to their paychecks, their children, or their property, let alone the right to vote. For a time the women’s movement and the abolition movement worked together. In fact, Frederick Douglas, a freed slave, was a frequent speaker at women’s conventions. While women were struggling to attain the vote, Douglas spoke for them and sided with them that women and Black men should have suffrage.

However in 1869, when Congress offered up the Fifteenth Amendment giving only Black men the vote, Douglas betrayed women by making the concession. Some women even agreed with Douglas that it was o.k. for Black men to leave us behind instead of holding fast for suffrage. In much the same way today, some think it is o.k. for Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, et.al. to support Obama. [Ummm...what? I mean, I'm not going to sit here and defend the fact that women didn't get suffrage until 1920, but the fact that the 15th Amendment passed in any form in 1869 is pretty impressive...also, I don't seem to recall women having to deal with more than a century of Jim Crow after being granted the vote.] Back then, because of that betrayal [You keep saying this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.], women had to wait another fifty years. Not until 1920 did we get the vote. That betrayal caused a split in the suffrage movement which is mirrored in today’s race vs. gender situation in the Democratic Party and in our current women’s movement.

If not for ourselves then whom are we for? If not us, who? If not now, when?

Recently, a famous TV personality declared that the United States owed more to Black men than it did to women, this being his reason for supporting Obama. I found that to be one of the most repulsive reasons for not supporting Hillary Clinton.

Women have been second class citizens since recorded history. The internalized misogyny that rears its ugly head and so insidiously creeps into our everyday lives will never end until women stick together as do other oppressed groups. Recently I was reminded that pre Roe vs. Wade women had a great uniting force in that all could be forced to complete unwanted pregnancies. I remember how women who were strangers would help and support other women to find a doctor or a back alley abortionist. Women then understood the importance and the value of joining together to help each other control their own reproductive lives. However, since Roe vs. Wade many young women don’t have that very common problem of forced pregnancy, a problem which crosses all economic and social lines. They have forgotten the importance of uniting for each other. And with the loss of this camaraderie we have apparently also lost the knowledge that forced pregnancy could return with a single US Supreme Court vote. And to get Hillary elected, we could sure use a revival in some of that old girls’ club camaraderie.

The current circumstances of race vs. gender are very much alive in spite of media denials. Just looking at the results of Super Tuesday one can see that Black communities were hands down for Obama. Meanwhile women, who are more than fifty-two percent of the population, did not do the same for their sisters. The charisma and preacher-like emotional speeches that Obama gives enrapture the younger generation. [That...that...that snake oil salesman! "And all week long your River City youth'll be frittern away, I say your young men'll be frittern! Frittern away their noontime, suppertime, choretime too!"] But there is very little information in the rhetoric. Were Hillary to show this same agitated style, she would be ridiculed for excessive emotion. She is caught between a rock and a hard place. If she shows emotion, as does Obama, she is vilified, as was recently demonstrated. So even though she is enormously qualified and experienced [especially counting those eight years as the president's wife, no?] for the presidency, all that goes by the wayside when Obama enchants the youngsters with charming rhetoric that says little. [What is he, the freaking Pied Piper? And wait, are you suggesting that young people, including young women, who are Constitutionally granted the right to vote, actually shouldn't be allowed the franchise, because they are too emotional and impressionable? How very forward-thinking and non-paternalistic of you.] If Hillary were to be “charming” she would be disparaged. Women just can’t get it right, can we? [Well, some women can...but judging from this press release, not all of them are capable of getting it right all the time.]

If not for ourselves then whom are we for? If not us, who? If not now, when?

Many young women today have forgotten or do not know of the sit-ins, the hunger strikes, the marches, the tears as we lost the Equal Rights Amendment, the thousands upon thousands of women, mothers and grandmothers who died having illegal abortions. Those many young women have forgotten the women’s movement and all the gains we have made. They have abandoned us and instead have fallen for the charisma and charm of a Black male instead of the experience, dedication, and proven life’s work of a White female. ["Oh laws, massa! The missus done run off with that bad negro Catcher Freeman! When will them White Women learn!"] Will it take losing Roe vs. Wade to get back that old camaraderie? We’ve got to realize that and ask:

If not for ourselves then whom are we for? If not us, who? If not now, when?

But, it’s not too late. It’s up to all of us who care about women’s equality to educate each and every young woman we meet, and remind her that all the freedoms she has can easily be lost if women don’t unite for full equal rights. We should remind young women that we have a long way to go because even today women are only making seventy-seven cents for every dollar a man earns. This pay inequity hits single mothers and retirement-age women. They should know that it’s about time young girls had the role model of a woman in the White House. Yep, women’s equality is very important and we’ve got a long way to go.

DAMN IT, we woman have been at the forefront of every progressive movement in this country. It’s about time we stand together for ourselves and stand together at the forefront to elect the first woman president. After all:

If not for ourselves then whom are we for? If not us, who? If not now, when?

We must unite for Hillary.