Opinion
‘Cavemen’ Keep Sexism Alive
“Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now”
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W
omen serve in almost
every high-powered job
in the United States:
CEOs of Fortune 500 companies,
Senators, university presidents,
race car drivers and even astro-
nauts. Yet, there are some male
bozos who think women should be
treated as inferior beings.
Conservative blogger and Fox
contributor Erick Erickson is the
latest man to come out of his cave.
After the publication of a Pew
study that found that women are
the primary or sole source of
income in 40 percent of all Amer-
ican households that have minor
children, Lou Dobbs had the poor
judgment to assemble an all-male
panel May 29 for “Lou Dobbs
Tonight” to discuss the report.
Lou Dobbs: “Erick, your
thoughts on this study and what it
portends?”
Erickson: “Lou, I’m so used to
liberals telling conservatives that
they’re anti-science. But this is —
liberals who defend this and say
it’s not a bad thing are very anti-
science.
“When you look at biology, look
at the natural world, the roles of a
male and female in society, and
the other animals, the male typi-
cally is the dominant role. The
female, it’s not antithesis, or it’s
not competing, it’s a complemen-
tary role. We as people in a smart
society have lost the ability to
have complementary relationships
in nuclear families, and it’s tearing
us apart.
“And what I find interesting in
the survey is that three-quarters of
the people surveyed recognize that
having moms as the primary
T HE C URRY
R EPORT
George E.
Curry
breadwinner is bad for kids and
bad for marriage, and reality
shows us that’s the truth.”
After pushback from a lot of
women, many of them conserva-
tive, Erickson tried to clean up his
remarks the next day on his radio
show, but only made matters
worse:
say it, tend to out-perform those
where the mother is the primary
provider of the family outside of
the home. Those are the facts. All
I have done is pointed them out.
“… And I understand that some
women believe they can have it
all, and that’s the crux of the prob-
lem. I have to tell you, as a man,
where women are told that men
have so many more advantages in
society, we can’t have it all.
Women, you can’t have it all
either. Life is a series of compro-
mises and choices.”
“America Live” anchor Megyn
Kelly challenged her Fox News
colleague.
Kelly: So I’ll start with you,
Erick. What makes you dominant
‘What the study highlighted, and what
Erickson and his fellow Fox News
commentators ignored, is the
persistent class divide among
mothers’
“It is a fact that children in a two
parent, heterosexual household
tend to have a more stable
upbringing and a better chance of
success than those of single par-
ents or gay parents. This is a fact.
This is not to insult gay parents.
This is not to insult single parents.
It’s just a fact. And the, of the sub-
set of children who are raised in a
two-parent, nuclear, heterosexual
household, children where the
father is the one who is the leader
of the family, or the breadwinner
of the family, however you want to
and me submissive, and who died
and made you scientist-in-chief?
Erickson: …This isn’t healthy
for society when we think that
roles of gender are completely —
can be interchangeable. No one’s
saying women can’t be or should-
n’t be a breadwinner or even the
primary breadwinner. It’s just that
when we forced ourselves to this
point in society where they have to
be, that’s not a good, healthy thing
for society.
Other women Fox contributors
also weighed in.
“I’m sincerely confused as to
why you used behavior of animals
to suggest that women shld stay at
home,” Fox political analyst
Krisen Powers tweeted.
Katie Pavlich wrote on her Twit-
ter account, “Not offended by idea
of a strong male leading the house-
hold, offended he implied women
aren’t capable of doing so.”
MediaMatters, the press watch-
dog group, noted, “What the study
highlighted, and what Erickson
and his fellow Fox News com-
mentators ignored, is the persistent
class divide among mothers.
According to the data, married
mothers who earned more than
their husbands were ‘dispropor-
tionally white and college educat-
ed.’ The single mothers, on the
other hand, were ‘more likely to
be black or Hispanic, and less like-
ly to have a college degree.’ They
also made significantly less: single
mothers in the study had a median
income of $23,000, about a quarter
of the median income of couples
with a female primary earner. If
those single mothers were never
married, their median income
dropped to $17,400, hovering near
the poverty threshold.
“Furthermore, though more
women may be ‘breadwinners,’
women still earn significantly less
than men. The report showed that
75 percent of husbands still make
more than their wives. In fact,
women’s wages decreased in
2012, causing the gender-wage
gap to widen with women earning
only 80.9 percent of what men
earned, or about $163 dollars less
per week.”
George E. Curry is former edi-
tor-in-chief of Emerge magazine.
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Hip Hop Can Maintain Political Momentum
H
ooray! The Associated
Press reported that Ameri-
ca’s Blacks voted at a
higher rate than Whites in 2012 for
the first time in history. Was it
because there was a Black man
running for president, or because
threats of voter suppression? Was
it a combination of the two? Or,
did White America vote in fewer
numbers because they felt, like
many Blacks have felt for years,
that neither candidate represented
them and their views?
Whatever the reason, 1.7 million
more African-Americans voted for
Obama in 2012 than in 2008. That
raises another question: Do we
understand what role we play in
American politics?
When I was a young girl, I asked
my mom if we were Democrats or
Republicans. She told me we
were Democrats. I asked why,
thinking I was going to get an
explanation with so much sub-
stance that I could rush to school
and educate my classmates. Her
reply was simple and direct:
“Because we are Black.”
As I ventured out into the world,
what my mom said seemed to res-
onate among most Black Ameri-
cans. People really don’t ask
African-Americans if they are
Republican or Democrats unless
they are the stereotypical Black
conservative who goes out of his
or her way to walk, talk, dress and
act differently from the rest of
Page 4 The Portland Skanner June 5, 2013
H IP H OP U NION
Jineea Butler
Black America. As conservative
darling Ann Coulter put it, “Our
Blacks, are so much better than
their Blacks.”
Our Blacks? This is not slavery
and Coulter is not my slave mas-
ter.
For most of my life, I went to the
polls and voted a straight Demo-
cratic ticket, never learning about
rats to run game on us by not par-
ticipating or only choosing to be
Democrats.
On the other hand, should vote
for Republicans simply because
they are not Democrats? Accord-
ing to the last NAACP Legislative
Report Card, every Republican in
Congress earned an F when voting
on issues deemed important to us.
Not even a D in the whole bunch.
We must hold Democrats –
including the ones who vote like
Republicans – accountable. Black
Americans want better for our
Black Americans want better for our
communities, but just don’t know how
to get better from either Democrats or
Republicans
the candidates and the political
process. It wasn’t until a Black
Republican entered my life and
challenged my reasons for being a
Democrat did I begin to see the
process clearly. He made me
think, if all Black people are
Democrats, what happens when
Republicans or any other party
wins? Do we expect those who
won without our support to vote
for legislation that resonates with
the Black plight? We make it easy
for Republicans and even Democ-
communities, but just don’t know
how to get better from either
Democrats or Republicans.
In Malcolm X’s acclaimed
speech of 1964 “The Ballot or the
Bullet,” he says we should control
the politics and the politicians in
our own community through
Black Nationalism. He says, “We
must know what part politics play
in our lives. And until we become
politically mature we will always
be mislead, lead astray, or
deceived or maneuvered into sup-
porting someone politically who
doesn’t have the good of our com-
munity at heart.”
We underestimate our political
power. Thanks largely to Abraham
Lincoln’s Emancipation Procla-
mation, Blacks voted solidly
Republican until Franklin D. Roo-
sevelt’s New Deal. Even as late of
1960, Republicans were receiving
30 percent of the Black vote.
Blacks left the GOP in droves
after Barry Goldwater’s right-
wing presidential defeat in 1964
and the Party’s adoption of a
“Southern Strategy” – concentrat-
ing on White voters at the expense
of Blacks.
Many worry what will happen
now that Obama’s name will never
appear on another presidential bal-
lot. But Hip Hop can play a unique
role in keeping our issues on the
front burner.
Rev. Jackson Sr. put it best when
he said “We never lost a battle that
we fought, but if we don’t fight we
can’t win.”
Most of us who don’t vote, are
certain not to win. Our non-vote is
also a vote – a vote for the opposi-
tion.
As political season begins and
petitions begin circulating, don’t
suck your teeth and walk away.
Demand that these candidates that
are asking you if they can have a
job representing your community
have a plan for fixing problems
and a vision for the future.