This book was published in 2004, but with the elections upon us, the message seems more powerful and relevant than ever. Melissa is a truly gifted writer and thinker. Beyond that, she is straight-forward and does not try to sugar coat her message: America has made progress in the last 40 years, but "we might be in a more shockingly similar place than any of us would like to admit."
In a recent interview in American History, she says, "Black and white Americans perceive everything differently--from whether King Kong is a fun family movie or fundamentally a lynching film, all the way to whether O.J. Simpson was guilty or innocent, up to whether what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was fundamentally about race. It's more the rule than the exception that African Americans and whites see and experience the world across a vast difference in perceptions."
Melissa brings up how the current election has been skewed to be all about race and gender, emphasizing how little movement America has made to, "judge a person by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin." She brilliantly states, "In some ways Barack Obama's campaign is a very liberating, post-racial campaign that is freeing up the fetters of separate but equal. But at the same time it's reasserting in the 21st century the one-drop rule by establishing that Barack Obama--the child of a white mother and an African father--is considered black.
One of the most powerful messages Harris-Lacewell makes is that the Black community is disenfranchised by the media. The lack of accurate coverage on so many topics of relevance to our community go unheard or are skewed in a very subjective manner-- usually opposing the beliefs of the Black community. Consequently, she says that beauty shops, barbershops, street corners and stoops, and churches are a more legitimate source of gaining communal truth in the Black American community.
Did I mention that she's a professor at Princeton University? This sista is deep!
Check her out on Democracy Now/Youtube:
To read steinem's article, click here.
There's both sides, you decide....
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