Pronunciation: a'näv-a-lista. Function: noun. A writer of novels, non-fiction and screenplays; entrepreneur; beauty junkie; history buff; foodie; fashionista; un-fashionista; bookworm; Christian; Lt. Uhura namesake; Oprah-holic; Coffee Fiend; Hopemonger; Black Forest Berry Honest Tea Lover; Newark-born, South Jersey-raised New Yorker;
Copyright 2005-2008 Nichelle Gainer.
Making people out of words is hard and intimidating. I'm never fully satisfied with them; they seem to be just gestures, or shadows of reality. I guess that's what keeps me writing; I keep trying to get a better grasp of who they are.
Jhumpa Lahiri, author of Unaccustomed Earth, The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies in the April 2008 edition of Vogue India.
Michelle Obama is being demonized for things she allegedly said on tapes that are rumored to exist. She is a victim of sexism and racial stereotypes.
Just as the Rutgers women's basketball team was miscast by Don Imus, Obama is being labeled something she clearly is not. Her achievements are being dismissed.
But in America, there's seldom a cost for disrespecting black women.
I'm waiting for feminists who speak of second-class citizenship and being pushed to the back of the bus to remember the civil rights movement that gave birth to those words. After all, it was a black woman, Rosa Parks, who took her seat up front and pulled others there, too.
I'm not holding my breath, though.
Mary C. Curtis, a columnist for The Charlotte Observer, from her article The Loud Silence of Feminists in The Washington Post.
"I wasn't supposed to have my own successful career. They said my achievement must have been the result of
racial preferences. And I am certainly not supposed to be standing
here, maybe to become the next first lady of the United States."
Michelle Obama in the New York Times, February 14, 2008.
The most remarkable fact about the announcement is that the newly anointed leader, 35-year-old Benjamin Todd Jealous, was the only candidate presented to the board for its consideration.
The only candidate! I'm sure that Jealous, a former Rhodes scholar, newspaper editor and foundation executive, is superbly qualified. But one would think that with the explosive growth of the black professional class, which has produced Fortune 500 CEOs, top Cabinet officials and a front-runner for the presidency, the NAACP would have been swamped with applicants. Doesn't anybody want to be a civil rights leader any more?
Jack White, a former columnist for Time writing at The Root.
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