Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon Books

Book Bag
Back to the '50s
Five favorite novels from a decade that was wilder than you think.
By E.L. Doctorow
[07/26/99]

Reviews
"The Crisis of Desire: AIDS and the Fate of Gay Brotherhood"
A gay activist turns the revolutionary lens of the '70s on the sleepy politics of the '90s.
By Dante Ramos
[07/26/99]

Reviews
"Brown Dog of the Yaak" and "The Dream of the Marsh Wren"
Two authors confront the dramas of the natural world and the writing life.
By Sally Eckhoff
[07/23/99]

Ivory Tower
Dancing lessons
I was a college girl stripper, and while I'm glad I got out, it beat the hell out of working at Starbucks.
By Nicole Grasse
[07/23/99]

Kiss and tell
For a sex columnist who's crude, self-destructive and outrageous enough to make her colleagues cringe, Amy Sohn is a &*%$ good novelist.
By Jennifer Kornreich
[07/22/99]

Complete archives for Books

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

At the same time, the Loma Prieta earthquake, the Oakland hills fire, a hostage-taking and shooting at a popular Berkeley bar and the unsolved stabbing of a Filipina student on campus lent a dark backdrop to our increasingly ordered understanding of racial and social injustice -- throwing everyone a little off balance and constantly reminding us of our own mortality.

I silently congratulated myself when I was arrested after dramatically protesting the Rodney King verdict. Yet I went to Italy for my junior year, not Nicaragua; I studied Italian, art and literature. I wasn't following any strict PC party line. I was also hanging out with a group of friends that resembled a haphazardly assembled rainbow coalition. At Berkeley, back in the days of affirmative action, diversity wasn't just a buzzword -- I met people of every conceivable origin. Half Chinese/half Mexican and half Russian/half Nigerian were two of the more interesting combinations. Whites either were or seemed like a minority in the dorms.

It was also a time of serious racial tension. Identity -- that catch-all term for the non-individual selves we inherited at birth -- became the lightning rod for much of our intellectual and social strife. White males were often put on the defensive in class, just for being born part of the "patriarchal hegemony." People of mixed race were often asked, "How do you identify? What do you consider yourself?" Light-skinned blacks wore T-shirts emblazoned "It's a black thang -- You wouldn't understand" in order to clear up any confusion.

In my sophomore year, I was eager to spend my free time on some kind of meaningful extracurricular activity. Many people in my group of friends worked for Smell This, a new student-run art-and-literature magazine for and about women of color. I asked my acquaintance Rosa Flanagan (half Mexican/half Irish), who worked with the mag, if you had to be "of color" to join. She said, "No, just down with the cause."

I felt I was pretty down with the cause, which in my mind was a stew of notions about racial and sexual equality. Academically, socially and politically I felt immersed in issues of race. I had also always felt somewhat "of color" and ethnic myself, especially as a short, dark Jewish girl at my WASPy high school. In addition, I was into both art and literature -- a perfect fit, I thought.

So I joined, along with my friend Erika, who is African-American. At first it was fun and interesting. Erika and I were on the art staff. Once a week, we'd meet, look at students' submissions and decide what was good enough to make it in. After several meetings, however, I started to feel a little uncomfortable.

For one thing, looking around me at the meeting, I didn't see any other white women who were just "down with the cause." Everyone was (at least half) "of color." In addition, the primary discussions were less about collective sexual and racial inequality and more about how each of us had been victimized and oppressed, disrespected and discriminated against.

I don't know why it surprised me, but my experiences didn't correspond with the rest of the group. To say I felt victimized and oppressed would have been untrue. But I also tremendously admired the magazine's founders and frankly envied their zeal and conviction.

It was already halfway through the semester when I began to feel like I really might not belong. I knew I would soon be leaving for my year abroad, so I figured I'd work for Smell This until I left. In the meantime, I was an active contributor. I tended bar at fund-raising parties and recruited works from (woman-of-color) artists in my drawing classes. I sometimes wondered if Rosa Flanagan had been wrong about the "just down with the cause" thing, but I wasn't sure. No one had ever questioned my presence at the meetings, so I had no reason to think white women were officially excluded.

In mid-March, Erika and I went to the usual Wednesday night meeting. This time, there was something in particular the managing editor wanted to discuss. A group of Jewish women had come to the heads of Smell This and asked to be involved. The question for us, then, was whether or not to admit Jewish women.

Next page | From sisterly solidarity to anti-Semitism