Jack Salzman, Cornel West Struggles in the Promised

Blacks, Jews, and Gender \\ 389
for the ticket and the pitfalls of a male-female candidacy. When Mondale and
Ferraro greet one another, we wondered, should they kiss or shake hands? How
would her husband relate to his wife? After a few minutes, I noticed that the
Black women were not bubbling quite as effervescently as the Jewish women.
"How come you guys aren't so excited?" I asked. "Is there something wrong
with Ferraro?"
"No, but she's white," they answered, almost simultaneously.
"But she's a woman, like you, like us," said I.
"Yeah, but she's white."
"She's also an Italian Catholic but I still feel her achievement as my own," said
another Jew. "I think to myself, if an Italian Catholic woman can do it, maybe
someday a Jewish woman can be in the White House."
"Maybe so, but it's a big leap from a white Italian to a Black candidate of any
kind," said another African American.
"Shirley Chisholm was Black but her 1972 candidacy was only symbolic,"
replied a Jewish member. "Angela Davis was Black but it made no dent when the
Communist Party ran her for president. This time we've got the real thing; it's a
tremendous breakthough for women." The Jewish woman gestured toward the
Blacks, all of whom were prominent enough to have run for office. "If Gerry
Ferraro can be the vice presidential candidate of a major party, you could be too."
"Not so!" was the reply. "And that's the point. The woman in me is glad for
Gerry but the Black in me has no greater political possibilities today than she did
last week. Ferraro's success won't help my people one bit."
Thinking this through, I found it helpful to substitute a Jewish man for the
Italian-American woman. If Congressman Ted Weiss had been nominated as
Mondale's running mate, would I have been popping my cork? I would have felt
proud but I would have seen it as a man's triumph, and thus familiar. It would not
have greased the track for a Jewish woman or any woman. Suddenly, I understood
how Ferraro's moment of glory might not mean the same thing to my Black sisters.
It would take Jesse Jackson's strong performance in the 1988 presidential
election added to Ferraro's breakthrough to make an African American woman's
political aspirations plausible.
This discussion raised another critical difference between Black women's marginalization
and ours. Because of our white skin priviledge, Marilyn, Jackie, and
I could identify with the success of a woman trailblazer even though she was not
of our ethnic group. In short, Jewish women are allowed to feel like women first.
We lead with our femaleness or our Jewishness depending on the situation. But
racism does not allow Black women a choice of identities. In the eyes of the world,
Harriet, Bernice, and Marguerite are Blacks first, and until there was an African
American groundbreaker, the earth would stay frozen under their feet. Sexism
may be their burden-du-jour at home, but in society at large, racism holds the
trump every time.