CodeApology: #CodePink Apologizes for “Insensitivity” to “Women of Color”

[sheshe2]

CodePink:
We would like to apologize for our recent actions that displayed an undeniable insensitivity to persons of color, especially women of color.

As an organization, we strive to speak truth to power and stand for human rights for all. We respect intersectionality and strive to stay aware of the many forms of privilege among our group. We would like to make an unequivocal apology to Michelle Obama, Alicia Keys, and everyone who took offense to messages we posted on Twitter.

By tweeting about how Michelle Obama “should have” responded to Ellen Sturtz’s interruption, we behaved in such a way that reflected a long history of white women dictating how Black women should behave. Our actions were not in keeping with our own values as an organization. While yesterday’s interruption was not a CODEPINK action, it is exemplary of CODEPINK tactics, and the way we responded to it was insensitive and thoughtless.

When the process of petitioning, lobbying and writing letters fails, and when mainstream media ignores the real issues, interruptions of high-profile officials are one tactic to make our voices heard. Because it crosses the line of agreed-upon civility, this tactic is always messy.

http://thisweekinblackness.com/2013/06/06/codeapology-codepink-apologizes-for-insensitivity-to-women-of-color/

[NYC_SKP]

1. K&R

All the way from Molokai!

[sheshe2]

3. Thanks for taking the time to post on DU!

Mahalo, NYC_SKP!

Rest and enjoy Molokai when you can!

she~

Aloha~

[Cha]

7. Aloha, brah..

[NYC_SKP]

14. Mahalo!

Molokai, not at all like the other islands.

It's pretty local and like it!

Now off for an adventure, what I don't yet know!

[Cha]

16. Beautiful paradise~ Lucky you, SKP!

[catbyte]

2. Good for them. The level of disrrespect shown towards the Obamas is unprecedented.

I am glad they didn't issue one of those bs "If anybody was offended..." non-apology apologies that Republicans are so very (in)famous for.

[sheshe2]

4. Thank you, catbyte.

The disrespect is so very far over the top!

I am glad Pink issued the apology.

[freshwest]

9. Their suddenly realizing the wrong of white women schooling black women is at least 40 years late.

I joined NOW in the early seventies. It was mainly middle class men and women. We attended open meetings, most usually in homes. After a span of time, i lost interest and got into more fruitful organizations.

When women of color, gays, socialists and others wanted to form coalitions, they soon, at least in my area, withdrew their support. Back then the concerns were about equal pay for equal work, as with the changes coming that lowered wages for men and required women to work outside the home and be independent.

For a while, for some, that was enough progress. And it did help all women, up to a point. The white women in the NOW groups I knew were more concerned with the glass ceiling in the executive suite. They worked on that and it served middle class women well to get into the upper middle class or management or what have you.

They seemed, in my area, to not want to delve into issues of women of color, those that had been abused, or grew up in poverty, or emigrants, or did not have good educations, but needed the help of unions and other coalitions to help make their lives better. They did not associate with our class.

What happened with NOW later, I don't know. But there were arguments even then as to how white women did not share the same problems as women of color. They didn't want to embrace the larger pictures of racism and being discriminated against.

That is not to say that the fruits of feminists did not benefit women, they did and many women of color benefitted. But another thing happened that is more disturbing. By the late seventies a back lash to all civil rights was building, some from white men, and other traditional liberal groups. They felt they were being squeezed out of employment by less qualified POC and women, too, to be fair. These people voted for Reagan to maintain the status quo many of fought against and that affected POC and women of color greatly. The rest is history.

Black women and the other women of color were in many instances treated brutally and simply ignored historically. They had no help from groups of white women who only saw the gender issues, not race. There was a loss of solidarity, it was getting uncomfortable.

Race was always a larger issue for women of color. They were doubly discriminated against. It was well known. For CODE PINK to be clueless about this and act as if they didn't know, shows an elitism that they are in denial about.

The charges they make against a black president, like it or not, cannot be percieved as if we are in a 'post-racial' world. At one time I had a high opinion of them, during the Bush era. Although they didn't really change anything then, either.

They didn't encourage the real change that happens at the ballot box. It took the people who they were separated from, the ones that NEVER get media coverage, to make it happen. It is those people, who do not make celebrity status, that are most in need of hope and change, it's no joke to them.

It's easy to criticize and shred everything that someone does when you have the luxury of being able to stand aside and find fault. At this point in history, many of us cannot indulge ourselves with the self-righteousness we are having to listen to spouted so often.

We have to change the basics of life or die. Small things to some, who are not in need - food, housing, health care and education for our children that will enable them to survive. Things the middle class takes for granted or screams bloody murder about when they see it slipping through their hands - and they should, they do not want to join the masses who have been caught in poverty for generations.

CODE PINK has not saved any lives, anymore than their friend Rand Paul has. I know the lives that Barack and Michelle have or will save mean nothing to the media, and not much unless they can use them, to professional agiators like Medea Benjamin.

So that's where I fall in this, on the side of humanity that does not have a voice. But we aren't going to lay down and die. And we won't forget when someone spits in our face.

[DonCoquixote]

10. If I could K and R this , I would

As a Hispanic, I can say that, as angry as I am about Obama, I still do not apologize for voting for him, and rejecting the candidate whose voters called me "sexist", despite the fact that what pissed me off was the fact she let her Hubby Bill say things like "we got mugged" or say things like "he's not a Muslim as far as I know." Or the classic for Bill Clinton "this guy would be getting us coffee."

[sheshe2]

17. Thank you freshwest, well said.

By the late seventies a back lash to all civil rights was building, some from white men, and other traditional liberal groups. They felt they were being squeezed out of employment by less qualified POC and women, too, to be fair. These people voted for Reagan to maintain the status quo many of fought against and that affected POC and women of color greatly. The rest is history.

The backlash of the late 70's saddens me to this day. To have come so far, before prejudice and fear take hold and the call for a status quo halts the forward progress.

No we will not lay down. Our voices will remain strong. they must.

[frazzled]

5. It's not just about disrespect to the Obamas

As their apology stated, it's about the age-old story of (privileged) white women telling black women how they should behave or even feel.

But I think they should have taken it a step further and rethought such tactics in general. The tactic of disruption by CodePink and other groups, whether in Congressional hearings or elsewhere, is supposedly is based on the following premise: "When the process of petitioning, lobbying and writing letters fails, and when mainstream media ignores the real issues, interruptions of high-profile officials are one tactic to make our voices heard."

Personally, I think that interrupting anyone to scream out one's frustrations involves the same kind of (narcissistic) presumptions as those aimed at Michele Obama and her reaction: to demand how others should think (namely, that they should think like you). In the particular case of Flotus's speech, it was telling her that her focus on gun violence in poor neighborhoods and its effects on children and their futures was not as important as the protester's issue. I don't blame Mrs. Obama for being furious at that. It was tantamount to yelling out, "Yeah, yadda yadda yadda. Who cares if black kids are getting shot and killed and are consumed with merely staying alive most of the time? I want federal contractors to have to sign a non-discrimination clause." Really.

Furthermore, if petitioning and lobbying have failed, I'd like to have pointed out a single example of this kind of behavior getting any better results. Au contraire, it usually has the opposite effect--alienating the very politicians and public they are trying to convince. And no, the media does not suddenly start paying attention to your issue: they pay attention to your behavior and the fact that you got kicked out of a meeting.

Ladies, it's time to rethink tactics. This just ain't working.

[freshwest]

6. Very well stated. I'd add that you don't see them trying to change those politicans out by voting.

They don't encourage that, they simply loudly and publicly 'rail against the machine' and serve to distract from real change.

JMHO.

[JI7]

18. it can work in some cases like when Romney was talking about corporations

and people heckling him are responding to those issues and laughing at his "corporations are people" crap.

in the case of michelle Obama and other non public figures it's even more important to take that into account. especially since this was a private event where she was invited to attend.

but my problem with this whole thing was more of the reaction to Michelle Obama and as code pink did, trying to tell her how she should behave. and when it compare it to people like Christie .

[Cha]

8. Yes, they did show disrespect to one of the Obamas..

By tweeting about how Michelle Obama “should have” responded to Ellen Sturtz’s interruption, we behaved in such a way that reflected a long history of white women dictating how Black women should behave. Our actions were not in keeping with our own values as an organization. While yesterday’s interruption was not a CODEPINK action, it is exemplary of CODEPINK tactics, and the way we responded to it was insensitive and thoughtless.

However it was a good apology.

Thanks She..

[geek tragedy]

11. Terrible tweet, seems like a sincere apology nt

[Kath1]

12. At least they have the decency to issue an apology.

Something you never get from the right-wingers, who have been tearing down and trashing the Obamas in disgusting fashion for years now.

[one_voice]

13. K&R

[Jamaal510]

15. What they truly should be apologizing for IMO

is their apparent lack of knowledge when it comes to basic civics. Why don't these CODE PINK protesters ever hassle Congress? Congress is where all the legislation gets created and voted on. Republicans, in particular, are the reason why gay people cannot marry federally, and they're the reason why GITMO remains open. Yet instead, they're too busy heckling people who already support their causes.
These people are not cool at all.

[freshwest]

19. In their defense, but not much, they have heckled Congress, but not supported anyone but the Pauls.

And their alleged courage is not put up in the faces of those who don't support the causes. They didn't picket the AFA for same sex marriage, nor the Koch brothers giving orders in Tampa, nor the panel of men deciding on the lives of women in the HoR this past week.

Instead, they came out in the street to stage protests at the DNC with baggers against PBO. They did not deign to speak with minorities and women rights supporters like Sandra Fluke who were there.

I've come to see these groups allied with Libertarian darlings like Rand and the Infowars crowd as nothing more than the latest of GOP 'ratfuckers.' They 'Stand With Rand' instead the crowds who had to wait hours to vote in 2012 and are the most effected by disenfranchisement.

They ignore the harm from the Sequester and the continued assaults on equal rights. They never meet up with those who will have to do without the opportunities of Head Start, the ACA expansion of Medicaid and even food as their hero Rand and others want gone.

You are known by the ideology you run with, and they are no friend of me and mine. I'm not cutting them any more slack since their heroes aren't cutting us any slack to survive. Those who support them vehemently must think the rest of us don't exist, just as Fox News heads were amazed at the invisible people who voted Obama in for a second term.

Obama sees me and the people I care about. And I see the people that want to pretend I don't exist, no matter how much media time they get or how much they are paid to go gallivanting around the country and get air time.

Sorry, but my time as the door mat they wipe their feet upon is finished. They can get on their high horse and look down on someone else, I'm not the stuff under their shoes. Nope, done.

[Jamaal510]

20. "Fox News heads were amazed at the invisible people who voted Obama"

[freshwest]

21. Yup, the Real-Life Democratic Underground just jumped up and spanked them! Oh, the horror!

http://www.examiner.com/article/if-fox-is-your-sole-news-source-you-were-shocked-by-president-obama-s-victory



Fox News Resorts to Race-Baiting, and White Boards, on Election Night

Election night, before the results come in, is awfully dull on cable news. Anchors desperate to fill the air resort to factoids about where, for instance, the most pickup trucks in the country are sold and What It Means. (Virginia, for the record, per MSNBC. What it means remains to be seen.) On Fox, the factoids were less automotively focused. “Independents are breaking for Romney in most states,” Michael Barone told Megyn Kelly at 7:24 p.m., before anyone had broken for much of anything, really. There, as everywhere, it was mostly a waiting game. “We have to wait and see how many white men turn out," Kristen Powers said.

Results began to come in that were unfavorable to Romney. Powers revised her urgency. “They need more white people voting, basically.” Suffragettes, even...

“It’s not a traditional America anymore. There are fifty percent of the voting public who want stuff. They want things. Who is going to give them things? President Obama. He knows it and he ran on it. ... Twenty years ago, President Obama would have been roundly defeated by an establishment candidate like Mitt Romney. The white establishment is now the minority. And the voters, many of them, feel that economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. You are going to see Hispanics vote for President Obama, overwhelming for President Obama, and women will probably break President Obama’s way.”

“Stuff.” Those welfare mothers in their Cadillacs sure have been driving around for a long time looking for stuff...

http://www.newrepublic.com/blog/plank/109776/racebaiting-and-white-boards-fox-news-election-night

I won't even go into the wailing from Glennbeckistan about it. But this article always gives me a big old happy. Yes, I am evil:

My Ten Favorite Kinds of Right-Wing Temper Tantrums



I remember how I felt when George W. Bush was reelected in 2004—that pit of absolute unthinkable, desparate despair—and so I guess I should have a little more sympathy for the 150 Million Waaahmbulances of the Apocalypse currently flailing all over Twitter. And, beyond that, I should probably be sad about the overt racism of our conservative youngsters and frightened at the gun-nuttiness of our gun nuts.

However. At least for right now, I AM NOT. I am just 99% completely fucking delighted by every single weepy right-wing temper tantrum. I can't stop hate-reading. I can't stop. And you know what?

I don't need to stop. It's not like this was some arbitrary election for Homecoming Court—where we were choosing between Mitt Romney's totally on-trend bangs and Barack Obama's ability to pull off a structured blazer.

The party that my team defeated on Tuesday was a nebulous, fiscally disastrous pitchfork mob—united by racism, xenophobia, self-interest, willful ignorance, hatred of the poor, and a puritanical desire to deny my gay friends their civil rights and me, PERSONALLY, equal access to health care and basic humanity. That's about as ungracious as it gets. So fuck being gracious.

Go to see the rest here:

http://jezebel.com/5958966/my-ten-favorite-kinds-of-right+wing-temper-tantrums

And they won't stop messing with us, either. Something that people need to keep in their working memory in the midst of these shit storms.