I think that artists, especially single parent artists, will often make negligent parents. But a dad who leaves any food in the cupboard is a great dad, whereas w/the mom it’s all, “junk food! What a bad mom!” (I wonder what is considered junk food anyway –TV Dinners? Mac and Cheese…?)
Also, thousands (millions?) of kids stay with realtives during the summer. That is not neglect. It’s old school “takes a village” practiced all over the globe and the US, and it has to do with kids developing lifelong relationships with their extended kinfolk too. I think Rebecca’s just upset her mom went to Greece, I guess, instead of being home?

The irony is that Alice Walker’s determination to write “The Color Purple” during Rebecca’s years of 8-13 gave Rebecca the opportunity she had,and which she took, to become a good writer herself. Life’s so wierd.
I also think her dad is making off scot free in her analysis of everything –which is typical. Her dad remarried and set up a cozy stable nest –well, as often happens, right? The dad makes a new family and has more money and the kid gets annoyed with the harried, less-moneyed, depressed and distracted mom? I’ve read Alice Walker say her divorce was bad because unlike many people she really loved her husband. So…shoot.
I think alot of this is Rebecca mourning her pre-divorce childhood which she has described as happy, and then afterward her dad self medicates by remarrying a woman, her mom self medicates by writing, and she felt lost in that. And she is now self medicating by writing too. Because in general, shit happens.
One thing? I think it is strange Rebecca is talking about older feminists being upset about younger feminists who want Obama. Her mom is stumping for Obama, in fact. I think this shows the wide brush she is using in her pain and anger, to paint feminists as all this way or that. Her mom’s stuping for Obama and her god mom (Steinem) is stumping for Hillary.

Part of the problem (at least in LA) is that it’s often reported as “gang violence” even when it means gang members are attacking innocent members of the public. That lets people shrug it off — “Oh, it’s only gang violence, why should I care if bad people kill each other off?” It turns into “caught in the cross-fire of a gang war” instead of being labeled what it is, racially motivated violence.

Here, I think it’s multi-fold. Guatamalan immigrants not wanting to risk deportation for reporting attacks on them. Especially as LE agencies involve themselves more and more in working with ICE or in policing in ways against immigrants. This is especially prevalent in Orange County and now San Benardino Counties with even LE unions (who often oppose their department’s stances on not doing what they call ICE’s work) going out and hiring “outreach” consultants tied to the SOS.

I know in L.A. there’s been measures to chip away at Special Order 40 including a lawsuit.

But also like you said, there’s racial violence that’s often referred to as being gang violence. Whereas at least here, if gangs fought, they sought out other gang members to attack. Now, they’ll shoot people who aren’t in gangs. It’s more racial than turf and some blame that on the influence of prison gangs (given how racially divided most men’s prisons and to a lessor extent women’s prisons are).

A lot of hate crime enhancements are added onto cases involving Latino gang members who target African-Americans and vice versa. Gang enhancements, you don’t have to be a gang member to get one. I think too that the reality might be changing faster than the language. “Cross-fire” situations were more close to being that than they are now at least in Southern California but I suspect other places as well.

I don’t care how close you are to your adopted son or beloved stepdaughter, the love you have for your non-biological child isn’t the same as the love you have for your own flesh and blood.

And after being heavily criticized for that:

“The adoptive parents who are so fixated on wanting this sameness, I just think it’s unhealthy. As a biological parent, I feel like it’s a kind of erasure of the specificity of a biological experience. It’s OK for the adoptive experience to be what it is, different, and with its own terrain.”

Ew.

She seems so bitterly angry. I hope she doesn’t end up transferring it on to her own child (who she has trouble letting go for a play date– yikes), especially when he reminds her of his grandmother (as children inevitably do).

You can see this play out in 3rd wave writings. I don’t think that calling younger women names like whiny or telling them to get over it is going to heal this divide

You, uh, you know Rebecca Walker’s 38, rght? It’s easy to miss because she writes about her mother like a bitter teenager, but she’s not a younger woman.

Please knock it off with the implications that this is some kind of old-young generational warfare. I’m a good ten years younger than Rebecca Walker, and by most people’s standards I’m already too old to be a voice of young feminism.

and that this has become wrongly associated with feminism in the minds of younger women. Many women of my generation (and those are the only ones I speak for)

If you get to speak for women of your generation, I get to speak for mine. We think that narcissism is the biggest cliche of the entire baby boom generation and as such has nothing whatever to do with feminism as a political philosophy or as a social movement. Sorry!

Good response by him to a bad question, but no this isn’t all that unusual and Latino hate crimes are common in California too and probably very underreported given the current climate.

Part of the problem (at least in LA) is that it’s often reported as “gang violence” even when it means gang members are attacking innocent members of the public. That lets people shrug it off — “Oh, it’s only gang violence, why should I care if bad people kill each other off?” It turns into “caught in the cross-fire of a gang war” instead of being labeled what it is, racially motivated violence.

I see and experience the backlash every day, living in central Illinois. There are still plenty of people around who resent the intrusion of feminist gains into what was for them, a pretty good life. That their happily-never-after wasn’t part of the life experience for the rest of us is just too damn bad. Why don’t we know and accept our place?

I can’t say I’ve ever seen narcissism labeled as “feminist”. I have seen normal, adult independence exhibited by women labeled as narcissism, with the blame placed on the feminist movement. The ol’ “she never woulda left me if it wasn’t for Feminism” argument. That’s the real red herring.

To be clear: no, no one here (on this or any other Feministe thread) seeks to turn back the clock. But right outside my door there is a whole shitload of people who would like to turn back the clock, or at least stop its forward motion. Most of those people hold positions of real power—like the Supreme Court. That’s what gets my back up when I hear about “feminism’s” excesses. I think of the ex-foreman I had who railed against his wife leaving him due to “feminism”, when it really had to do him. Feminism just gave her the opportunity for the escape valve, y’know?