Black Macho and the Long Tradition of Black Feminism: Michele Wallace

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Encore! Encore!

Fans of the Womens' Magazine, thank you for an ongoing online/on air call to awareness through consciousness, conscientious and collective dialogue about feminism, women and women of color. You provide a forum to discuss and define feminism, historically, mentally and spiritually. Thank you. Through you we hear of and celebrate Kate Chopin's triumph of Creole Womens' Suffrage, 1848; Susan B. Anthony and the Reformers Movement, 1850; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglas, Harrriet Tubman and New York State's Seneca Falls Abolitionists' Convention, 1860. The only similiar vehicle in the 1800's was Douglass' North Star News. Tragically the Suffragettes split from the abolitionists movement to broker the deal that won for white women the right to vote in the 1920's. Suffragettes stood silent while post Civil War Jim Crow legislation disenfranchised newly freed slaves; the Suffragette Movement was wordless when economic reparations of forty acres and a mule, were promised then denied and stood mute when economic disenfranchisement and the social enslavement of black females and males continued through Reconstruction, was ressurrected as segregationist law which lasted until the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Legislation of 1965. Black females were thrown under the bus by the willingness of the movement to compromise for the economic and social gain of white females. And for 400 years we endured attitudes that persist, entrenched in the minds of some, but not all feminists but certainly in the minds of many, including some so called "progressive liberals" and feminist today and whose numbers stretch from Berkeley to Mississippi. Now however, there is protection under the law.


Which brings us to todays' supervisory staff at KPFA; Aileen Alfandary, KPFA News Co-Editor, General Manager Lemlem Rijio and former Business Manager, Lois Withers. Long before Withers called the Berkeley Police into KPFA to arrest 12 year veteran volunteer, Producer-Writer and Mother, Nadra Foster, an African American female, Withers had waged a campaign of vitrolic, race and gender based hatred against me, tossing overt, racial epithets at me with such frequency and ferocity I was forced to bring it to the attention of KPFA Human Resources and then Interim GM Lemlem Rijio. I requested protection in avoiding verbal confrontations directed toward me by Withers and Alfandary. In a three way telephone conversation, I advised Lemlem and H.R. that Withers habitually sought me out and addressing with overt, race based insults, delivered in a demeanor sufficiently egregious in tone that one would hesitate to use on an unwanted animal. In the same conversation, I also documented Aileen Alfandary's escalating verbal attacks, which were exhibited in a pattern of aggressive behavior usually culminated by her screaming at me what to do, how to do it, where to sit, who to sit next to, because she, yelling in my face explained, "...you generate too much excitement". (?) My request was grudgingly sustained by H.R. and weakly addressed: Both Withers and Alfandary were supposedly restrained, and asked to rethink their behavior. They did and the patterns of hostile behavior turned retaliatory, continued and became covert. I addressed concerns about Withers and Alfandary on more than one occasion, in person and in phone calls with H.R. and Rijio, each time I provided verbal and written documentation and asked for immediate protection.

Months before the Nadra Foster police incident I told KPFA then Interim GM Rijio and the lawyer from H.R. that Withers exhibited a brutal streak of racism, was incapable of speaking with me or conducting business in a professional manner and that she be made to cease and desist. Human Resources and Rijio made a half hearted attempt at mediation. Stop, indeed Withers responded laughing, since she was no longer allowed to speak to me, she would therefore talk about me. Fine with me. Too bad Nadra Foster was not so lucky. After the Withers/ BP/Foster incident, Withers resigned and Rijio issued a thank you for a great job memorandum bidding her continued success and a fond farewell. That adds insult to injury, and is confusing. They had already been made aware of Withers, therefore it was a preexisting condition, documented by me, and had the situation been more effectively managed, future acts of harassment might have been avoided.

There was no memorandum demanding safe haven for Nadra and power concedes nothing without a demand. Perhaps California courts are more open to mitigating circumstances, documented hostile work environment, acts of provocation and patterns of race/gender based harassment.

Bravo! Womens Magazine...O how we need you, how KPFA needs you!

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