Second Class Citizens?

If Ida B. Wells were alive today, she'd be blogging about the outrageous circumstances in which women find ourselves.

One of my favorite heroines of Chicago history—in fact, of all American history--is yesterday’s-Chicago-woman, Ida B. Wells.

Ida Barnett Wells was born and educated in post-Reconstruction Mississippi, in a time when, and in a place where, African Americans experienced the very worst of what post-slavery white America offered-up to post-slavery black America. Lynching was common, and, in Ida’s Mississippi homeplace, as well as in Memphis, her home as a young adult, all forms of public life were strictly segregated.

Ida was a young woman when the U.S. Supreme Court infamously decided that “separate [could be] equal (for blacks and whites).”

In fact, Ida B. Wells first came to public notice when, still her 20s, and newly arrived in Memphis, she fought against just this kind of segregation. She filed a lawsuit; she wrote editorials in the local newspaper; she spoke-out without fear. But when a friend was lynched and Wells spoke out against the lynching, Ida was forced to flee to safety, to Chicago.
In fact, Chicago was thought to be the “the promised land”* for many of Mississippi’s African Americans.
The Chicago Daily Defender preached this, constantly, distributing the newspaper at the very train stations where Mississippi’s African-American families could board the train for Chicago.
Of course, times were tough here, too, but times weren’t nearly as tough as they were in Mississippi, where the sharecropping economy meant the meanest form of poverty.
Ida hit Chicago and started blogging, writing for the Chicago Daily Defender, among others.
And, girl(s) did she “blog”: She said what she thought, when she thought it. She was clear as a bell, at times caustic, and, always, writing about the political matters of the day most important to African Americans. She was a stirring and untiring voice for equality for women as well as African Americans.
Fast-forward to today. At Today’s Chicago Woman, I try to say “…what time it is,” too.
And here’s what time it is, as I write in mid-January 2010: The U.S. Congress is about to come to agreement on a healthcare bill--with the votes of the women of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in-hand—a bill, which renders American women separate and unequal (just what Ida fought against a hundred years ago), by virtue of its approach to reproductive healthcare to American women.
How can this be, you ask?
Here’s the back story: According to Jessica Arons, writing for the Center for American Progress (www.americanprogress.org), and RH Reality Check, (www.rhrealitycheck.org), there was a “deal” at the outset of developing the healthcare reform bill, which included a commitment to maintaining the federal status quo regarding access to abortion.
The status quo is the terms set by an infamous Chicago Congressman, Henry Hyde, in the so-called Hyde Amendment. Why infamous? Well, the Hyde Amendment denies federal funding to Medicaid-covered, poor women, who seek abortions, while their richer sisters can continue to be reimbursed by their (private) health insurer.
Surprise, surprise, the anti-choice Republicans and the anti-choice Democrats didn’t keep their end of this deal.
They proposed new, and, again, surprise, surprise, worse terms. And, instead of fighting these, the pro-choice women in the U.S. Congress basically folded: So, we got the Rep. Stupak Amendment (see www.rhrealitycheck.org, for a refresher on that one), as well as the Senator Ben Nelson-deal (see the same place for a refresher on that one), both amendments effectively eliminating, each in its own special way, the federally-guaranteed right to access to abortion.
THESE WOMEN LEGISLATORS, OUR SUPPOSED ADVOCATES, ENDORSED A HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IN WHICH ACCESS TO ABORTION, (A FORM OF HEALTHCARE, AFTER ALL), WILL BE EXEMPTED, SOLELY, FROM THE ORDINARY COURSE OF HEALTHCARE TREATMENT AND PAYMENT. NO HEALTHCARE FOR MEN, PILLS FOR IMPOTENCY, SAY, WILL BE SUBJECT TO ANY SUCH RESTRICTIONS TO THE NORMAL COURSE OF TREATMENT OR PAYMENT: NONE, NONE, AND MORE, NONE.
As I write, we don’t yet know what the final version of the healthcare bill the Congress sends to the President will be. And, we don’t know whether the President will wake-up and remember who elected him (among others, America’s women and African Americans), and, therefore, decide that he ought to lead, instead of follow, when it comes to insuring our equal rights.
But, in any event, we know this, as we celebrate Black History Month, this month, and look ahead to next-month’s celebration of Women’s History Month: Our history is being rewritten, for the (way) worse. Ida would rail against this rewrite, and so should you.
Ida wouldn’t have stood this for a hot minute. She would have said, plainly and forcefully:
WE WON’T, AT THE BEGINNING, MIDDLE, OR END OF ANY DISCUSSION, IN WHICH WOMEN’S VERY LIVES ARE AT STAKE, ALLOW ANYONE TO SUBJUGATE US.
WE STAND FIRM AND UNITED. IF THE CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT THINK OTHERWISE, JUST LET THEM TEST US.
WE WON’T MAKE DEALS; WE WILL MAKE WOMEN’S LIVES BETTER.
As your Today’s-Chicago-Woman Ida-surrogate, I say to you: Let’s do what Ida would do. Shout these words from the rooftops, in Black History Month, in Women’s History Month, in every month until the deed is done.

Rebecca Sive
www.sivesiftingsrebeccasivetalksback.com

Rebecca Sive began her career as a community organizer in Chicago. Now a nationally recognized expert on issues affecting women and girls, Rebecca combines grassroots knowledge and boardroom expertise. www.rebeccasive.com