Hey Y’all,
I want to share a few thoughts with you about the feminist icon Gloria Steinem, who died Wednesday at the age of 92.
Not surprisingly, there’s been a whole lot of debate around her legacy and what folks are supposed to remember about her. Steinem’s death reopened old controversies about Steinem’s connection to the CIA and longstanding critiques of second-wave feminism and its racial blindspots.
Was Gloria Steinem a hero? Was she a villain? A racist? Ally? A feminist hypocrite? If you believe the digital streets, this complicated historical figure can only fit into one of these categories.
But my mentors back in grad school taught me that history doesn’t give us people that clean. And they also taught me that you gotta go into the archives, sit quietly, listen to the voices of the past, read the whole record, examine the evidence, sit with the contradictions and what they teach us. My mentors also taught me that the dead don’t care. The dead don’t need us to protect or punish them. The dead need our study.
Come sit down and listen to my take on the messy debates over Gloria Steinem’s legacy.
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THIS CONTENT IS WRITTEN IN THE AUTHOR’S PERSONAL CAPACITY. ANY OPINIONS EXPRESSED ARE THE AUTHOR’S OWN AND SHOULD NOT BE ATTRIBUTED TO HOWARD UNIVERSITY OR MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY.
