I would like to thank the Students Association,
the faculty, and the Administration for thinking about me and
inviting me to be here this afternoon with you as we celebrate
Women's History Month.
It is appropriate to think about the status of women here at
home and around the world because we also just celebrated International
Women's Day. Of course, as a Black woman, I'm committed to improving
the status of both women and Blacks.
The theme of this year's Women's History Month Symposium is
“Women Redefining the Politics of Power.” I believe that we
should also investigate the extent to which “The Powers That
Be,” that is, “Power” with a capital “P” has redefined women's
politics - to the detriment of women. So I have entitled my
speech, “Is Power Redefining the Politics of Women?” I believe
we should also ask the same question with respect to African-Americans.
Here's why:
It was my father who literally pulled me into the political
arena and taught me its power.
You see, I saw, in my life, a direct benefit from the kind of
political action that presses a specific demand. We were not
involved just to be active - we were involved with a purpose,
to make a difference. Of course there were men and women who
were involved because they sought adulation from others and
politics was a way to get that, but it was important for me,
and those around me, to be able to distinguish the sincere candidates
of change from the sycophants. It was important that candidates
and incumbents alike, voters and constituents, be the ones pressing
the system at all times, with nothing in mind but our interests,
therefore making a difference for all of us. We felt that anyone
holding an official position, not pressing for our interests,
was not working on behalf of the community. We were trying to
redefine the politics of power.
My story starts with my father who
was arrested in his Army uniform, still on the train coming
home from
Europe, and when
that train stopped, he went into the station to taste that white
water. He drank from the white water fountain, still in his
U.S. Army uniform, and promptly got arrested.
That was my father's welcome back to the United States
after serving his country to make the world safe for democracy.
Shortly
after that, my father became one of Atlanta's first Black police
officers. He couldn't arrest Whites even when they were in the
midst of committing a crime; the Black officers would have to
call a White officer to make the arrest; there were certain
parts of town the Black officers couldn't venture into; and
they couldn't even change into and out of their uniforms inside
the Atlanta Police headquarters. They would have to trek down
the street and around the corner to the Black YMCA. So my father
would protest all of this, in his uniform, most times alone,
because the other Blacks were too afraid to join him. For 20
years, while he was a policeman, my father watched as others
received promotions based on whatever the indignity was that
he protested. From my father's experience, I learned service
without expectation of reward.
And then one day, my father decided that it was insufficient
to protest public policy, one ought to make public policy. So,
he ran for office: two times he ran, and two times he lost.
Because both times he ran were before the Voting Rights Act
was law.
But then in August of 1965, after Lyndon Johnson signed the
Voting Rights Act into law, things changed for Black people
across the South - things changed for our country.
From the film American Blackout, you get a bit of this history
and the story of what happened to me - twice - and how the Black
vote was systematically disfranchised, not only in my elections
by the use of crossover voting, but also in our last two Presidential
elections by various Republican schemes uncontested by the Democrats.
The Voting Rights Act mandated that election laws and certain
practices prevalent in the South change or be discontinued.
With the elimination of those practices, backed by the strong
arm of the federal government and the Courts, the landscape
changed in Georgia and my father ran for office
and won.
That was an interest, in this case,
Black people, redefining the politics of Power (with a capital
P).
With his position in the Legislature, my father could use the
power of his position to inject his values into the system and
make the system respond. He immediately, then, filed a lawsuit
against the State of Georgia for its discriminatory hiring practices,
won that lawsuit, and the State of Georgia was under a court
decree on hiring until my father's ouster from the Georgia Legislature
by the same forces and methods that targeted and ousted me in
2002.
I
wanted you to have this background so you can understand why
I believe that the political process, even as imperfect as it
is today, can do powerful things to help people and change circumstances.
Why I believe that we can use the tool of our vote to obtain
from the political system what we need to be free, to be treated
equally, to find justice, and to live in peace. Frederick Douglass
told us that power concedes nothing without a demand. It is
clear that the political system can deliver, but we need to
be clear on what is the demand.
According to United for a Fair Economy, racial disparities in
2004 were in some cases worse then than at the time of the murder
of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - that on homeownership, without
public policy intervention, it would take 1,664 years to close
the racial gap in home ownership in our country.
In 2005, United for a Fair Economy explored the disparate impact
of Bush's “Ownership Society” economic program that saw Black
and Latino lives shattered as employment, income, home ownership,
business ownership, and stock ownership plummeted.
In 2006, United for a Fair Economy focused on the devastating
and embarrassing effect of government inaction before, during,
and after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. They focused on car ownership
and the relationship between vehicle ownership and race. In
the case of
New Orleans, car ownership
literally meant the difference between losing or saving one's
life.
In 2007, United for a Fair Economy explored Black voters' attachment
to the Democratic Party, and in a piece titled, “Voting Blue,
but Staying in the Red,” they explored goals that the Democratic
Party should have put at the top of its agenda for its first
100 hours in the majority. While noting that the Democrats didn't
even mention Katrina in their agenda, United for a Fair Economy
concluded that Blacks and Latinos voted in the November 2006
elections in the blue, but due to a failure of public policy
to pay attention to their needs, they continue to live in the
red.
In United for a Fair Economy's 2008 report, they explore the
sub-prime mortgage crisis and note that the largest loss of
wealth in U.S. history is being experienced by the Black and
Latino communities with an estimated $92 billion being lost
by Blacks and an estimated $98 billion being lost by Latinos.
And while families who are losing their life savings and their
only major investment, policy makers are asking them to tighten
their belts. But the banks' CEOs are walking away with record
remuneration.
Sadly, United for a Fair Economy
isn't the only research organization to find glaring and intolerable
disparities by race in our society with no appropriate public
policies enacted to address them. Hull House did a study that
found that it would take 200 years to close the gap in the quality
of life experienced by Black Chicagoans and white Chicagoans.
There has been no public policy initiative taken up by the mayor
or the governor of
Illinois to begin closing that gap.
Several years ago, the New York Times published a finding that nearly half the men between
the ages of 16 and 64 in New
York City were unemployed. There was
no initiative by the mayor or the governor of New York to begin addressing such pain.
Every year, the National Urban League
publishes a study, “The State of Black America,” in which the
ills and disparities that persist in this country are catalogued.
Every year, the story is basically the same. Only public policy
can address these glaring disparities.
Pressing the system with a public policy demand constitutes
an interest redefining the politics of Power. That's power with
a capital P. Now, that same Power likes to use politics to advance
its own, not others' interests.
Now,
what I've learned is that the rich folks of this country (Power
with a capital P) know what government can do and they know
how to press a demand in their interest. That's why they've
got lobbyists pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the
political system so the corporations and individuals they represent
can get what they want.
That's what the Jena 6 District Attorney meant when he went
to the high school and announced to the students that with the
stroke of a pen he could ruin their lives. He could use the
power of his position, the power of politics, to impose his
values on the community at large.
It is to wield and influence the power of position and the power
over the public purse, the power over public policy, that we
engage the political system. Not merely to hold positions. Dr.
King said that the Negro in
Mississippi must be able to vote, but the Negro in New
York had to have something for which
to vote. The power to make public policy in our interest is
that “something for which” we vote.
The statistics reflecting life for Blacks in the United
States cited in repeated studies
reflect, in my opinion, a dismal failure to translate our votes
into an agenda that eliminates disparities and presses our interests.
As United for a Fair Economy concluded, Blacks vote in the blue,
but stay in the red. That I maintain, is politically dysfunctional.
Please understand that a three trillion dollar federal budget
and 51, including the District of Columbia, multi-billion dollar
state budgets, and thousands of multi-million dollar county,
school board, and city budgets hold the possibility of doing
a tremendous amount of good; however we are now seeing that
a lot of bad can be done when that kind of money and power are
put in the hands of those who are not well intentioned, or to
those who are easily swayed off course by proximity to power
and wealth.
”All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good
men do nothing”. I was not raised in a family where doing nothing
was an option.
So, I participated in protests with
my father, to get the Civil Rights and the Voting Rights Acts
passed; I faced an armed Alabama Klan with my father; and I
eventually ran for office as a part of my father's vision -
it surely was nothing I was too much interested in doing. I
was content to support good candidates.
But, the '60s and '70s, despite the challenges, were heady times
for the movement because my father's generation identified a
problem, fashioned a solution, implemented that solution, benefited
from their sacrifices, and then relied on succeeding generations
to continue pushing the Movement forward.
And move forward our country did.
The women's movement, the gay liberation movement, the American
Indian Movement, Puerto Rican independence, Chicano pride, and
a powerful antiwar movement formed a synergism that propelled
success on many different fronts - but also set the stage for
the setbacks that were to come from Power's reaction. And that
is Power with a capital P.
While
the American patchwork of humanity was being stitched together
for real change in our country, the government didn't sit still.
Its response was COINTELPRO, the Counter-Intelligence Program,
a program whose mission it was, in the words of the FBI, “to
misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” Black leadership
in this country. I would posit to you that we, the keepers of
the flame in my generation, failed to fashion a response to
the concerted and largely successful COINTELPRO attacks on authentic
leadership that surfaced as a result of our struggles.
This official, government-led attack on communities' authentic
leadership is chronicled in Ward Churchill's book, The
COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against
Dissent in the United States (South End Press Classics Series).
There, we see that in 1918, J. Edgar Hoover was concerned that
Marcus Garvey, “excites the Negroes.” The story of the government's
interest in this authentic community leadership is available
on the internet and should be understood to extend to today's
cultural icons, hip hop artists, community activists, and even
pro-peace and environmental leaders.
But, in 1965, a document stamped by the CIA, described what
I call regime change on Black America. It said somewhere at
the top there must be a Negro who is clean who can step into
the vacuum and chaos once Dr. King is either exposed or assassinated.
This memo described exactly what I saw taking place in
Georgia while I was in the Legislature and the
issue was who was going to go to Congress from Georgia's
new Black-opportunity district. The Speaker of Georgia's House
and the Governor of my state got together and decided who the
next Black Congressperson was going to be before the people
in the new district even had had the chance cast one vote.
That's when I decided to run - because
I saw how the Democratic leadership of my state intended to
trick Black people in
Georgia's
new, but poor and rural Black belt Congressional district. Voters
would invest their dreams and precious votes, in a candidate
who, unbeknownst to them, had already been pre-selected to protect
the status quo and not them - the voters. This was Power's response
to my agitation from the Legislature to get more Blacks from
Georgia
into the U.S. Congress.
I witnessed this and pulled the plug
on it. That's how I became a Member of Congress from
Georgia. I had the temerity to think
the people should have a representative, too, and the people
agreed.
(Parenthetically,
I agitated with other civil rights leaders in the state for
more Black judges, too. And the beneficiary of that agitation
then turned around and ran against me in the 2002 election,
going to Congress, voted into office by Black voters, but only
after having been pre-selected by the White Power structure
in my state.)
So, an immediate challenge was to understand the scope of the
problem associated with true representation. I had to learn
the truth before I could fashion a public policy intervention
that the numbers cry out for. And that's what I've done throughout
my political career - focus on the issues and the appropriate
public policy intervention necessary to make ours a more just
and peaceful country.
That meant, at times, also telling some inconvenient truths.
However, telling those truths comes from my observations and
experiences inside the world of politics.
Now, would my experiences lead me to believe that the need for
civil rights is over?
The answer is an emphatic no.
But I would quickly posit that Power wants you to believe that
the need for civil rights is over. Power doesn't want you to
think about pressing a demand for a group of people, Power only
wants you to press a demand for your single Black self. Power
wants the freedom to go about satisfying its interests and wants
you to redefine what your interests are.
I
would suggest that statistics like those in the reports of United
for a Fair Economy are a reflection of what happens when civil
rights are no longer vigorously pursued. Statistics like those
can only occur when everybody in charge of the shop goes home
and leaves the shop untended. Or rather, when public policy
interventions are not sought to resolve communities' problems.
So now, let me turn to women.
The United Nations informs us that women have not achieved equality
with men in any country; that most of the world's poor are women;
roughly 50% of women experience some form of domestic violence;
and the use of rape as a weapon of war is becoming more evident.
It is the struggle of women for equal treatment in the political
life of our country that has motivated women to become candidates
for office. Did you know that even before women had the right
to vote, women ran for President of this country? Between 1964
and 2004 there have been 50 women on at least one state ballot
in November for President of the United
States. But not until 1972
and the run of the unbought and unbossed Shirley Chisholm did
women candidates do well. Chisholm got over 400,000 votes -
at that time a record - and sent 151 delegates to the Democratic
Convention.
The only woman to ever appear on the ballot in
all 50 states plus D.C. was Dr. Lenora Fulani in 1988. In 1987,
Congresswoman Pat Schroeder formed an exploratory committee,
but declined to run after not being able to raise enough money.
It was at this press conference that she cried and the media
derision of women candidates truly began. However, by 2006,
in an LA Times/Bloomberg poll, only 4% of registered
voters said that they would not vote for a woman presidential
candidate.
While this is certainly progress,
it is public policy progress that ought to motivate our political
activism and provide a measure of our effectiveness.
So for example, women are present and achieving influence in
politics and in the labor force; but even today, with a woman
Speaker of the House and a woman running for President, women
still earn less for the same work than men.
Even worse, when a woman runs for office, I've noticed something
terrible about the reportage.
At first, the press pays real close attention to the clothes
- even the choice of colors is newsworthy. Then there is the
issue of wearing a dress or pants. Then there is the cleavage
issue - how much is too much.
I went to Catholic schools and so I cover up. But even that's
not acceptable: I receive messages that I wear too many clothes!
What kind of accessories adorn the outfit is even worthy of
a mention. And don't wear the wrong shoes! Remember the recent
photo with the question, “Is America ready to watch a woman
age?”
I remember having a conversation with a former Black woman U.S.
Senator who lamented that the situation was even worse for Black
women because we're either the “mammy,” or “Sapphire,” or the
jezebel. And that because of pre-conceived ideas held largely
by White men about Black women, and those images are played
out on television every day, you'll almost never read adjectives
like “bold,” “sassy,” “intelligent,” used to describe Black
political women because those aren't the characterizations of
Black women in popular and historical culture.
Keeping women inside the confines of a pre-determined box could
become a politically useful tool.
The authors of “Rebuilding America's Defenses”, the Project
for a New American Century, wrote that genotypically specific
bioweapons could become a politically useful tool. And given
the facts of MK-Ultra, the Tuskegee Experiment, and COINTELPRO,
I have my senses finely honed to detect politically useful tools
in use by people who don't want freedom, peace, equality, and
justice for the rest of us.
Professor
June Scorza Terpstra wrote an article titled, “Hollow Women
of the Hegemon,” found at http://carolynbaker.net.
Professor Terpstra's theme is that more and more of what we
are seeing in politics today are women who represent the Hegemon,
rather than women who follow the traditional role of political
women which used to be to challenge the Hegemon, or as I've
used it earlier, Power with a capital P. According to Terpstra,
Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice represent examples of
this. And, remember, it is far easier to get positive press
when you are or can be of service to the Hegemon than when you're
challenging it.
Dr. Terpstra reaches back to the writings of Franz Fanon to
remind us that the real tragedy is the extent to which powerful
women now do the bidding of the global masters. It is this distinction
that we must remember and constantly ask ourselves when we see
candidates. The Hegemon, has responded to our successes, and
as Terpstra informs us, is now about the business of using women
to carry out tasks that serve its interests. Terpstra forces
us to recognize that it's no longer the way it used to be: that
voters could have confidence that women were in politics not
to advance their own oppression. You could somewhat be sure
that a woman elected to office was there to advance the collective
interests of women.
Terpstra concludes that we, who are standing with the oppressed
and for liberation, need new rules, strategies and tactics to
deal with the dangerous realities of a new gender and color-blind
imperialism.
So, now we know: clean Negroes as described in that CIA document,
and “Hollow Women” are politically useful tools of the Hegemon.
They are the example, not of women and Blacks defining power,
but of Power (capital P) redefining the politics of Blacks and
women. Hence, the name of my remarks to you this afternoon.
Now, if Terpstra is correct and we are entering a new gender
and color-blind imperialism, what are we to do about it?
I think the solution lies in us never veering from our goals
- to keep our eyes on the prize. And the prize is a public policy
result.
We vote to have power over public policy, power over the use
of the public purse. We vote for the agenda and platform that
will move our interests forward. Politics is the authoritative
allocation of values in a society and we want public resources
directed to our values.
I want to subsidize education so you're not a hundred thousand
dollars in debt just because you want to get an education!
I want a single payer health care system so Americans can stop
spending so much and getting so little!
Don't show me wrinkles on a woman's face, tell me what you're
going to do to protect Social Security so our parents and so
we can age with dignity!
I do believe it is possible to have this discussion if we demand
it. And we can have authentic representation, too, if we demand
it.
Therefore, I'm working with a nation-wide group of displaced
Hurricane Katrina survivors and their supporters from the Black-nationalist,
labor, and environmental communities who are prepared to wage
a different kind of action in what is now a different kind of
struggle.
While
the nature of the struggle has definitely changed, our objectives
have not. We must never forget that Dr. King was murdered just
as he was about to launch the Poor People's Campaign, to demand
economic justice as well as peace and political justice. The
notion being put forward by some in the corporate press that
today somehow marks the end of the need for civil rights is,
as George Carlin said, the part of the American dream you believe
only when you're asleep.
The Hegemon is counting on you to fall asleep. And my mother
tells me often that this world isn't going to change unless
women change it. But the change agents will not be the women
of the Hegemon. So, stay alert. The people of our country need
you.
Thank you.
Former Democrat and US
House Representative from the State of Georgia,
Cynthia McKinney is a member of the Green Party, running for
the office of President of the United
States. Her candidacy has also
been endorsed by the Reconstruction Party. You may obtain more
information at her official website. Additionally,
Cynthia McKinney is the author of Ain't Nothin' Like
Freedom.
Click here to contact Ms. McKinney.