I’m sure that it makes you quite angry that not everything is this big old world revolves around racism. But it doesn’t. Feminism doesn’t. Jessica’s book didn’t. And nothing Jessica can say or do will make any difference to people like you. Not because she can’t or won’t try, not because her heart isn’t in the right place, but like Hugo, simply because she’s white.

Well, there’s apparently no point that I could bring up that Hugo can’t twist and distort and use for his purposes:

The “Full Frontal Feminism” controversy again, and a call for suggestions

Always plenty of time until we all realize we haven’t done a damn thing about how white feminists continue to short change women of color. Michelle brings up great points.

“One young woman, a very articulate and thoughtful conservative…”

This sounds like all those white people who are so impressed Obama is an articulate speaker. An articulate young woman (and a conservative to boot)? No! /sarcasm

Great job assigning this book…I’m also happy to hear that there was such a positive response from your students. Being a young feminist blogger, and activist for women’s rights it feels good to see that people took so well to Jessica’s book. She inspirers me and I’m glad she could do the same for others, especially young women (because I think a lot of us need it!)

As for the criticism on FFF being too “white”…well duhh! Jessica is a white middle class woman, that’s the perspective she has. She’s not trying to take on a role that she doesn’t know. As a man doesn’t know what it is like to have a vagina in our patriarchal society, the same goes for Jessica—she doesn’t know what it feels like to have black skin or be Latino etc, in a dominate white society. However, she is aware of this and doesn’t try to be what she is not. Being aware is having the knowledge to act responsibly. I believe Jessica acted intelligently, and responsible in her choices. She acknowledges the differences in different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds; however she didn’t voice specific insight into those matters, because she doesn’t have the knowledge to do so.
Anyway—cheers and continue enlightening today’s youth—it’s a difficult job but it seems as though you’re doing quite a good job at it.

“I think there’s plenty of time, Jeff, for us to bring up the past shortcomings of white feminists in reaching out to young women of color. But Valenti’s book is radically relevant to their lives right now, irrespective of class and ethnicity. Read in a vacuum, it would be problematic in a women’s studies course — read in conjunction with a variety of other texts, it’s superb.”

Hugo, there always seems to be “plenty of time” to talk about the colored folks. But it never seems like the time is “now.” This is exactly the kind of attitude that annoyed the original critics of Jessica’s book. It’s not that we don’t appreciate her desire to introduce feminism to a new audience. We don’t appreciate her whitewashing an entire movement by omitting the unique struggles of nonwhite women.