I am a member of MomsRising.org but this makes me think. When MomsRising.org first started, I was disturbed by the lack of credit given to the decades of work on mothers' rights issues by the welfare rights movement, but I tried to be satisfied with your responses and I do truly believe that your lack of attention to the activism of poor mothers was unintentional. I also believe that your lack of attention to how the Rosie logo would make women of color feel excluded was unintentional...and that I could have made the same mistake...but it still needs to be fixed.
We bear the responsibility for our ignorance when we build a mothers' movement that makes mothers who are not middle class and white feel excluded. We should know better and it is wrong when we do not. I hope that you will choose to correct this mistake, as I am trying to correct my own ignorance. We could take this opportunity to open a dialogue about what sort of logo and communication would make all mothers feel represented in the work of MomsRising.org. I hope we will do so. I can see that I have a lot to educate myself about and hope that the mothers' movement can resolve together to be the inclusive movement that we all need.
4 comments:
I found the link to the original blog article, I think: http://blackbreastfeeding.blogspot.com/2007/09/as-it-turns-out-im-not-done-yet.html
I couldn't find the MomsRising.org response to Ms. James, though. Would you be able to post it?
Hi Mariah,
I never wrote a letter to MomsRising. I was simply ranting on my blog about it for about a week and getting feedback from other moms. I haven't addressed it to MomsRising and probably won't. Thanks for supporting the cause, though. That's Great!
I meant their response to the blog, but I see now that the response-comment that upset me so rather deeply was not actually from MomsRising but from just someone who felt that way...I'm sorry, MomsRising! I have apparently displayed just the sort of hot-headedness that such discussion does not need. I have revised my post to not attribute to them any offending response as, for all I know, they could be right at this moment busily polling American mothers and revising their logo so that is inclusive and unifying. I hope so!
So do I!
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