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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971
1971-01-29 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 11
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CONSTITUTIONAL KAREN: The meeting really brought out the political splits in our movement, but what was even more discouraging in a way was the total chaos and confusion and lack of discipline and organization. People screaming at each other, ignoring the poor chairwoman, it turned so many women off. The only way you could preserve any sanity was to completely retreat from the discussion. A whole lot of people left. I don't think CONVEN our movement can survive too many more meetings like that. We've got to get ourselves together and provide structures for organization and leadership, and that's not a male trip--anarchy is just as oppressive as authoritarianism. SALLY: I know for a lot of people like me it was the first time we'd been in a national gathering of women. A lot of other women from the Midwest were there also. It was very discouraging for us that the meeting was so bad. The only good thing I can remember from that meeting was when one girl got up to speak and right in the middle of a political rap she saw a friend across the room and she got really excited and stopped right in the middle of her speech and said "Hello." Everyone in the room just roared laughing because something had finally broken the tension. I know that a number of women from the Midwest were so totally discouraged they wanted to go back to their own cities where they had organizations built up that they knew and could just work with, because they felt it is just impossible to work in this kind of situation. We couldn't even get a resolution passed in support of the Panthers and other revolutionary people gathered in Washington, even though most of the women really did want to express their support. If we'd been more organized we could have gotten the resolution written up in a way that most women would have agreed with, and that would have been a positive thing we could have done as women. BARBARA: We failed to do that small thing because we were so busy arguing and getting mad at the Panthers and each other. And of course we totally failed to do the necessary work of forging a movement that would be able to present our criticisms to the Panthers and negotiate with them from a position of strength so we could all get down to the business of fighting the real enemy. TION SALLY: We all felt pretty down when we left the women's center to go over to the church to hear Huey's speech. He was still talking about "mankind"--"A man is less of a man if he can't pick up a gun to defend himself, or he's not a man at all"; "It's not a matter of Marxism, it's a matter of manhood." For him to be so insensitive is really bad, even when he does criticize himself and say well it's a bourgeois fuck-up of his. BARBARA: It wasn't just Huey talking about mankind, it was the real male supremacy of that event at the church. All the guards were men. All the speakers were men--Huey, Michael Tabor, and Robert Scheer. Robert Scheer went on a trip to North Korea on which there were a majority of women. So why was it Scheer who was picked to report on the trip? A lot of us would have been really interested in hearing from the women. Also, it would have been good to hear Panther women speak. SALLY: Another thing--we'd gotten the leaflet in the morning saying the constitution was going to be read. Now here was Huey talking about how we couldn't hold a constitutional convention in America because we hadn't liberated the territory yet. How come the people didn't get to decide that? Why did they call the convention in the first place then? KAREN: I thought it was kind of weird for Huey to lay down this hour-long abstract rap to people who were waiting to be told what the fuck was going on. I don't feel like I want to comment right now on his theory of vast numbers of unemployed Lumpen making the revolution, or about intercommunalism. I think a lot of people have serious questions about these things. Particularly the "nations don't exist any more" theory--I wouldn't like to lay that on the Vietnamese or the Palestinians who are waging wars of national liberation. But whether we agree with them or not, these ideas don't seem to relate to the immediate problems of the movement in America. And he only briefly mentioned the Panther political prisoners, the fact that Bobby and Ericka might die. SALLY: After Huey's speech I went back to the women's center, but not many women were there. Some women just came back and went to sleep, some of us just talked. The discussion I was centered around our discontent with Huey's speech and our experiences at this convention. None of us felt like we had gotten any unity or strength from the weekend. Sunday morning was better; a few regional meetings which had been planned the day before were still held, and ideas and plans for the NLF anniversary on Dec. 20 were exchanged. Women from New England made plans for a January regional meeting to exchange ideas and plan for future projects. The meetings Sunday seemed to be the most positive and concrete things that happened the whole weekend, yet they had almost no connection to the Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention. LNS By Karen, Barbara, and Sally Of Ann She crossed her arms in sleep or wakeness, which, it doesn't matter. She must have been aware of the decision her fingers had made; by the grace with which she placed them over the strong part of her arm. If I lie beside her, will her hands forget their conclusion and reach out to me instead? Will I, sometimes, be able to cross them back again. And will she. [hand drawing of 2 women's faces] Closing my arms across my chest is an easy thing. I do it naturally. But leaning across to you high comedy I wish I could reach out and simply hug you; Let go of all the crystal palaces let bright edges and clear corners of the world we live in. I wish I could reach across brush away the tinsel the mirrors So we could see each other as we are. Ann Wagner A Woman? 29 January 1971 Page 11
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CONSTITUTIONAL KAREN: The meeting really brought out the political splits in our movement, but what was even more discouraging in a way was the total chaos and confusion and lack of discipline and organization. People screaming at each other, ignoring the poor chairwoman, it turned so many women off. The only way you could preserve any sanity was to completely retreat from the discussion. A whole lot of people left. I don't think CONVEN our movement can survive too many more meetings like that. We've got to get ourselves together and provide structures for organization and leadership, and that's not a male trip--anarchy is just as oppressive as authoritarianism. SALLY: I know for a lot of people like me it was the first time we'd been in a national gathering of women. A lot of other women from the Midwest were there also. It was very discouraging for us that the meeting was so bad. The only good thing I can remember from that meeting was when one girl got up to speak and right in the middle of a political rap she saw a friend across the room and she got really excited and stopped right in the middle of her speech and said "Hello." Everyone in the room just roared laughing because something had finally broken the tension. I know that a number of women from the Midwest were so totally discouraged they wanted to go back to their own cities where they had organizations built up that they knew and could just work with, because they felt it is just impossible to work in this kind of situation. We couldn't even get a resolution passed in support of the Panthers and other revolutionary people gathered in Washington, even though most of the women really did want to express their support. If we'd been more organized we could have gotten the resolution written up in a way that most women would have agreed with, and that would have been a positive thing we could have done as women. BARBARA: We failed to do that small thing because we were so busy arguing and getting mad at the Panthers and each other. And of course we totally failed to do the necessary work of forging a movement that would be able to present our criticisms to the Panthers and negotiate with them from a position of strength so we could all get down to the business of fighting the real enemy. TION SALLY: We all felt pretty down when we left the women's center to go over to the church to hear Huey's speech. He was still talking about "mankind"--"A man is less of a man if he can't pick up a gun to defend himself, or he's not a man at all"; "It's not a matter of Marxism, it's a matter of manhood." For him to be so insensitive is really bad, even when he does criticize himself and say well it's a bourgeois fuck-up of his. BARBARA: It wasn't just Huey talking about mankind, it was the real male supremacy of that event at the church. All the guards were men. All the speakers were men--Huey, Michael Tabor, and Robert Scheer. Robert Scheer went on a trip to North Korea on which there were a majority of women. So why was it Scheer who was picked to report on the trip? A lot of us would have been really interested in hearing from the women. Also, it would have been good to hear Panther women speak. SALLY: Another thing--we'd gotten the leaflet in the morning saying the constitution was going to be read. Now here was Huey talking about how we couldn't hold a constitutional convention in America because we hadn't liberated the territory yet. How come the people didn't get to decide that? Why did they call the convention in the first place then? KAREN: I thought it was kind of weird for Huey to lay down this hour-long abstract rap to people who were waiting to be told what the fuck was going on. I don't feel like I want to comment right now on his theory of vast numbers of unemployed Lumpen making the revolution, or about intercommunalism. I think a lot of people have serious questions about these things. Particularly the "nations don't exist any more" theory--I wouldn't like to lay that on the Vietnamese or the Palestinians who are waging wars of national liberation. But whether we agree with them or not, these ideas don't seem to relate to the immediate problems of the movement in America. And he only briefly mentioned the Panther political prisoners, the fact that Bobby and Ericka might die. SALLY: After Huey's speech I went back to the women's center, but not many women were there. Some women just came back and went to sleep, some of us just talked. The discussion I was centered around our discontent with Huey's speech and our experiences at this convention. None of us felt like we had gotten any unity or strength from the weekend. Sunday morning was better; a few regional meetings which had been planned the day before were still held, and ideas and plans for the NLF anniversary on Dec. 20 were exchanged. Women from New England made plans for a January regional meeting to exchange ideas and plan for future projects. The meetings Sunday seemed to be the most positive and concrete things that happened the whole weekend, yet they had almost no connection to the Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention. LNS By Karen, Barbara, and Sally Of Ann She crossed her arms in sleep or wakeness, which, it doesn't matter. She must have been aware of the decision her fingers had made; by the grace with which she placed them over the strong part of her arm. If I lie beside her, will her hands forget their conclusion and reach out to me instead? Will I, sometimes, be able to cross them back again. And will she. [hand drawing of 2 women's faces] Closing my arms across my chest is an easy thing. I do it naturally. But leaning across to you high comedy I wish I could reach out and simply hug you; Let go of all the crystal palaces let bright edges and clear corners of the world we live in. I wish I could reach across brush away the tinsel the mirrors So we could see each other as we are. Ann Wagner A Woman? 29 January 1971 Page 11
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