Eschew Xenophobia
Why Do They hate Us
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Shirley Chisholm: Living The Dream By Dr. Aubrey Bonnett |
Jan. 2005: The New Year has not started well. Wickets are falling, as they say, and there is no relief in sight, the first innings isn't even over. First it was Shirley Chisholm, then Charlie Stayers, next Robert Christiani and, much later, the mothers of two good friends of mine. Was this a bad omen or what?
Shirley Chisholm's death, particularly, had a profound impact on me for many reasons. I had met her in the early 60's in the companionship of my aunt and her constant companion and businesswomen in the Brooklyn African American community-Iva Wooding. Mrs. Wooding hailed from the South and had married a "bajan", Preston, and had increasingly become a West Indian American and immersed in its culture. During my summer breaks from college, I would help her plan and write her speeches for the annual Alpha Cosmetologists of Brooklyn luncheon and, in return, she would introduce this young student of the "Diaspora" to the leaders in our black community.
Shirley Chisholm was impressive when I first met her .She was then an emerging force in the
Brooklyn
political establishment and followed a long line of other West
Indians who had chosen the political route in their quest to
further the goals of political and economic empowerment for West
Indian Americans and native African Americans. She, in
our first meeting, talked about the intrinsic value of education
especially the role it played in our [immigrants'] own emancipation
and upliftment. She seemed so bold, so unafraid of the strongly
patriarchal society which enveloped her in America and in her
own communities-civil rights and ethnic. This was impressive
to me as a young man, and reminded me of other strong women in
the West Indies, at "home": Edna Manley, Jane Phillips
Gay, Janet Jagan, Jessie Burnham and others who had fought so
gallantly , but unsuccessfully, to overcome patriarchy and make
their mark in our struggles to end colonialism and racial oppression.In the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries, I would hear her speeches in her waning years; would lecture on her resilience, political astuteness, courage and abiding faith in man's basic humanity, to countless students on both coasts in the USA and in Canada; and draw comparisons on her fight to make a mark against overwhelming odds, in the context of oppressed groups here and abroad.
In a sense, Shirley Chisholm had two strikes against her her race and her gender. As a Black person she had to constantly assert her right to enjoy, for herself and those of her elk, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But also, as a woman, she had to struggle, feverishly, to be taken seriously by men-white and black in the rigidly, patriarchal social hierarchy existent at that time. She was never diminished, however, by the sheer obstacles or the odds. When she ran for the Presidency she was not taken seriously by black (leaders) - men in the civil rights establishment- nor by the white feminist then masquerading as champions of women's rights. It was left to grass roots cohorts and segments of the radical left establishment, including the Black Panther Party, to lend her some modicum of support. She fought on regardless, and was less concerned with establishing her many "firsts" than in ensuring that all Americans especially those she called the "little people"-the forgotten got their just dessert.
Shirley was at heart a unifier-a warrior and a centripetal force in our society- and her efforts at bridging the intermittently intense social competition, and at times overt conflict, between West Indian Americans and native African Americans are legendary.
So I find it fitting that, on the eve of the celebration of Martin Luther King's holiday, we can also salute a dreamer, a unifier, and an individual imbued with the American Dream. So, as we celebrate King and revel on the life and exploits of Chisholm-let us remember Sojourner Truth, Cuffy, Marcus Garvey and Harriet Tubman and others. For in many respects their dreams and struggles are still ours -even as they become more difficult and tortuous to achieve; and let us remember both Martin and Shirley, our hero and heroine. May they both rest in peace?
email: bonnetta@oldwestbury.edu