Slate On The Black And White Women Divide

Interesting post here at Slate's XX Factor.  Melinda Henneberger tries to understand why black women and white women struggle to find common ground. The obvious reason, to my mind, is segregation. Black women live around, and in most cases with, other black men or boys. They have fathers (not enough), they have husbands (not enough), and they have sons (maybe too many, hehe). But they don't have these sorts of close relationships with white women, under any circumstances.

The same, I suspect, is true of white women, which is what explains Gloria Stienem and Geraldine Ferarro. I'm just going to guess that neither of them know many black women. I'd bet money that if you ask them to name three different black families they'd sat to dinner with, they'd probably have to reach back a decade for each equation. Without some tangible understanding of each other, it seems to me it's going to hard to find much transracial unity. Until segregation falls, sadly, I think this will always be the case.