It is always surprising to find a contemporary “leader” mapping out the goals and visions for a revolution with fine print that retains oppression for others, though it never seems that way to the person who feels their entitlements don’t require the entitlements of others. So when I read commentary which is demeaning or insulting to women of color from individuals that I have thought of as sensitive and honest, uncorrupted and truthful, it is a disappointment. I choose not to engage such thinkers in dialogues that will be fruitless because it will take time and a variety of experiences for any changes to occur in them. Moreover, it is neither my job nor my inclination to rail against people whose views are frozen somewhere past. Instead, I am writing here to reaffirm some points to those interested in exchanging information and strategies for change to benefit us all.

For the record: Black women and other women of color earn less than all other segments of the population: white men, white women, Black men and all other men of color. Women of color are dying at the highest rates from every curable disease in this country. Women of color get the least benefit from education in terms of salary, promotions, access to positions, retirements and every other aspect of employment. Women of color do not even have the illusions of significant opportunities in entertainment, sports and all the male oriented occupations. And, even worse, so many high profiled women of color in sports and entertainment are subjected to the worst kinds of sexism. Look at the outfits that women volleyball players are required to wear over their objections, the whore images so many must portray in order to sing or act. Even in areas where there are few women of color, like ballet, there are secrets like the osteoporosis from years of inadequate calcium and other nutrients leading to serious cases of osteoporosis which not only destroys bone in the arms and legs but in the rib cage, leading to death.

Women of color have the least number of representatives in legislatures, courts, and millionaires; are less likely than men of color, white men or white women to have intimate relationships and marriages outside their own ethnic groups because, as was published recently in an issue of Psychology Today, women of color, especially Black women are considered and told we are ugly from birth to death and always with a list of things we need to do to satisfy men who will never see us as worthy of love, commitment, support, encouragement, jobs, promotions, honor, decency and truth. Since the beginning of this country, women of color - including African American Women, have been at the bottom of this society and even in the midst of social revolutions for women or for civil rights are expected to accept disrespect, yet asked to give it to all the others.

Men who think that African American and other women of color don't know, understand and exercise our authentic selves are mistaken. We have survived in spite of being on the bottom and have surely been the reason every ethnic group of people of color has also survived, including our male children as well as our female children to whom we have been the first teachers, the steadfast providers of home and family, love and nurture.

How many dates did Harriet Tubman or Sojourner Truth have - what an irrelevant issue! Yet comparable discussions about the date worthiness of women of color today are going on. Did perfumes or silk make them what they were? They had men that they loved and children too. They worked to free both from slavery. Were they beautiful? Only the truly blind will say no, or those whose sense of beauty is rooted in the same kind of patriarchy that built terrible all-destroying empires. Look around the world. One of its greatest problems is that so often those who have indeed suffered injustices, now preach change and revolution for their own benefit at someone else's expense - like Frederick Douglass and the White women suffragettes working out a deal so they could get rights to vote while leaving out voting for Black and other women of color. This is what Sojourner Truth was talking about when she stood outside, kicking the door down until getting into their meeting and saying her famous speech, "Ain't I A Woman?" There can be no freedom, justice or equality without the inclusion of Black and other women of color.

It is no honor to us to be offered a list of things we can or must do to be accepted by men who want us to stop thinking and to reinvent ourselves into a Madison Avenue fabricated image. What is most amazing is that the kind of men who hold such views think they are desirable and valuable, especially to women. Among ourselves, we chuckle at this, not mad, just moving on to what is better for us, our children and our communities. This is surely one reason that less than half of women today want marriage. Go back and read Sojourner Truth's words which are true still for many of us. We are not the ones having our bags carried by men in our relationships or having car doors opened - symbols of patria poder or patria podestar, social systems in which women are treated under the law as children.

Men and women have different genitals. It’s the primary difference that defines us. Only jobs involving those are specialized by gender. In everything else, it is a matter of intelligence, education, training, persistence determination self esteem. A very few women in history have been queens. Those who have, from Cleopatra to Elizabeth, have never had any impact on the lives and fortunes of the masses of women on the planet. Cornel West and bell hooks, as well as Alice Walker, Michelle Wallace and Pearl Cleage in their various books, have addressed these issues deeply and thoughtfully. I recommend

reading them. There is a great need for new thinking here. The time for women of color to be foot soldiers in the armies of "revolutionaries," who want us to move to the back of the bus after the revolution is over, is past. If there is a demand that Obama and others give back what is due to the Black community, should Black and other women of color be asked to take less from everyone else? Right is right.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist Suzanne Brooks is the founder and CEO of International Association for Women of Color Day and CEO of Justice 4 All Includes Women of Color. Click here to contact Ms. Brooks.