Raina Kelley on Race and Feminism
Our colleague, Raina Kelley, who was a great champion and supporter of the Newsweek piece from the very beginning, wanted to respond to the race issue:
I wish there was a fascinating history of black women at Newsweek but there isn’t. And that’s because in 1970, black women were seen as mammies, not dollies, consigned to the kind of work where collars are washed, not given cute hued names. Our time would come, just a bit later.
You know what, it is useless to argue about history. This a struggle for equality, not a sorority. There are no prizes for “Most Feminist.”
How hard would it have been to deduce that the authors of this story were telling their own story and through that lens, the story of Newsweek and women? They are white women with similar backgrounds so to add race to the story would have been gratuitous and patronizing.
