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Nuuon
Regular Poster
Username: Nuuon
Post Number: 60
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 18, 2008 - 09:04 pm: | 
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Some of us who have seen Alice Walker operate first-hand have been
trying to pull Black America's coat to the REAL Alice Walker for years
now. Finally her own daughter has provided some of the facts about
how Walker operates in her personal life. How this relates to Walker's
"feminist work" (some would call it "viciously anti-Black male) must
be assessed. Was Walker a "down sister" or merely a self-focused,
self-interested opportunist willing to sacrifice anyone (including her
own daughter and Black men) for fame and fortune?
You be the judge.
How my mother's fanatical views tore us apart
By Rebecca Walker
She's revered as a trail-blazing feminist and author Alice Walker touched the lives of a
generation of women. A champion of women's rights, she has always argued that
motherhood is a form of servitude. But one woman didn't buy in to Alice's beliefs - her
daughter, Rebecca, 38.
Here the writer describes what it was like to grow up as the daughter of a cultural icon, and
why she feels so blessed to be the sort of woman 64-year-old Alice despises - a mother.
The other day I was vacuuming when my son came bounding into the room. 'Mummy,
Mummy, let me help,' he cried. His little hands were grabbing me around the knees and his
huge brown eyes were looking up at me. I was overwhelmed by a huge surge of happiness.
Maternal rift: Rebecca Walker, whose mother was the feminist author of The Color Purple - who thought motherhood a form of servitude, is now proud to be a mother herself
I love the way his head nestles in the crook of my neck. I love the way his face falls into a
mask of eager concentration when I help him learn the alphabet. But most of all, I simply
love hearing his little voice calling: 'Mummy, Mummy.'
It reminds me of just how blessed I am. The truth is that I very nearly missed out on
becoming a mother - thanks to being brought up by a rabid feminist who thought
motherhood was about the worst thing that could happen to a woman.
You see, my mum taught me that children enslave women. I grew up believing that children
are millstones around your neck, and the idea that motherhood can make you blissfully happy
is a complete fairytale.
Family love? A young Rebecca with her parents
In fact, having a child has been the most rewarding experience of my life. Far from
'enslaving' me, three-and-a-half-year-old Tenzin has opened my world. My only regret is that
I discovered the joys of motherhood so late - I have been trying for a second child for two
years, but so far with no luck.
I was raised to believe that women need men like a fish needs a bicycle. But I strongly feel
children need two parents and the thought of raising Tenzin without my partner, Glen, 52,
would be terrifying.
As the child of divorced parents, I know only too well the painful consequences of being
brought up in those circumstances. Feminism has much to answer for denigrating men and
encouraging women to seek independence whatever the cost to their families.
My mother's feminist principles coloured every aspect of my life. As a little girl, I wasn't even
allowed to play with dolls or stuffed toys in case they brought out a maternal instinct. It was
drummed into me that being a mother, raising children and running a home were a form of
slavery. Having a career, travelling the world and being independent were what really
mattered according to her.
I love my mother very much, but I haven't seen her or spoken to her since I became
pregnant. She has never seen my son - her only grandchild. My crime? Daring to question
her ideology.
Well, so be it. My mother may be revered by women around the world - goodness knows,
many even have shrines to her. But I honestly believe it's time to puncture the myth and to
reveal what life was really like to grow up as a child of the feminist revolution.
My parents met and fell in love in Mississippi during the civil rights movement. Dad-- Mel
Leventhal --was the brilliant lawyer son of a Jewish family who had fled the Holocaust. Mum
was the impoverished eighth child of sharecroppers from Georgia. When they married in
1967, inter-racial weddings were still illegal in some states.
My early childhood was very happy although my parents were terribly busy, encouraging me
to grow up fast. I was only one when I was sent off to nursery school. I'm told they even
made me walk down the street to the school.
When I was eight, my parents divorced. From then on I was shuttled between two worlds -
my father's very conservative, traditional, wealthy, white suburban community in New York,
and my mother's avant garde multi-racial community in California. I spent two years with
each parent - a bizarre way of doing things.
Ironically, my mother regards herself as a hugely maternal woman. Believing that women are
suppressed, she has campaigned for their rights around the world and set up organisations to
aid women abandoned in Africa - offering herself up as a mother figure.
But, while she has taken care of daughters all over the world and is hugely revered for her
public work and service, my childhood tells a very different story. I came very low down in
her priorities - after work, political integrity, self-fulfilment, friendships, spiritual life, fame
and travel.
My mother would always do what she wanted - for example taking off to Greece for two
months in the summer, leaving me with relatives when I was a teenager. Is that
independent, or just plain selfish?
I was 16 when I found a now-famous poem she wrote comparing me to various calamities
that struck and impeded the lives of other women writers. Virginia Woolf was mentally ill and
the Brontes died prematurely. My mother had me - a 'delightful distraction', but a calamity
nevertheless. I found that a huge shock and very upsetting.
According to the strident feminist ideology of the Seventies, women were sisters first, and my
mother chose to see me as a sister rather than a daughter. From the age of 13, I spent days
at a time alone while my mother retreated to her writing studio - some 100 miles away. I
was left with money to buy my own meals and lived on a diet of fast food.
Sisters together
A neighbour, not much older than me, was deputised to look after me. I never complained. I
saw it as my job to protect my mother and never distract her from her writing. It never
crossed my mind to say that I needed some time and attention from her.
When I was beaten up at school - accused of being a snob because I had lighter skin than
my black classmates - I always told my mother that everything was fine, that I had won the
fight. I didn't want to worry her.
But the truth was I was very lonely and, with my mother's knowledge, started having sex at
13. I guess it was a relief for my mother as it meant I was less demanding. And she felt that
being sexually active was empowering for me because it meant I was in control of my body.
Now I simply cannot understand how she could have been so permissive. I barely want my
son to leave the house on a play-date, let alone start sleeping around while barely out of
junior school.
A good mother is attentive, sets boundaries and makes the world safe for her child. But my
mother did none of those things.
Although I was on the Pill - something I had arranged at 13, visiting the doctor with my best
friend - I fell pregnant at 14. I organised an abortion myself. Now I shudder at the memory.
I was only a little girl. I don't remember my mother being shocked or upset. She tried to be
supportive, accompanying me with her boyfriend.
Although I believe that an abortion was the right decision for me then, the aftermath haunted
me for decades. It ate away at my self-confidence and, until I had Tenzin, I was terrified that
I'd never be able to have a baby because of what I had done to the child I had destroyed. For
feminists to say that abortion carries no consequences is simply wrong.
As a child, I was terribly confused, because while I was being fed a strong feminist message,
I actually yearned for a traditional mother. My father's second wife, Judy, was a loving,
maternal homemaker with five children she doted on.
There was always food in the fridge and she did all the things my mother didn't, such as
attending their school events, taking endless photos and telling her children at every
opportunity how wonderful they were.
Alice Walker's iconic book was made in to a film in 1985, and starred Whoopi Goldberg and Margaret Avery (pictured)
My mother was the polar opposite. She never came to a single school event, she didn't buy
me any clothes, she didn't even help me buy my first bra - a friend was paid to go shopping
with me. If I needed help with homework I asked my boyfriend's mother.
Moving between the two homes was terrible. At my father's home I felt much more taken
care of. But, if I told my mother that I'd had a good time with Judy, she'd look bereft -
making me feel I was choosing this white, privileged woman above her. I was made to feel
that I had to choose one set of ideals above the other.
When I hit my 20s and first felt a longing to be a mother, I was totally confused. I could feel
my biological clock ticking, but I felt if I listened to it, I would be betraying my mother and all
she had taught me.
I tried to push it to the back of my mind, but over the next ten years the longing became
more intense, and when I met Glen, a teacher, at a seminar five years ago, I knew I had
found the man I wanted to have a baby with. Gentle, kind and hugely supportive, he is, as I
knew he would be, the most wonderful father.
Although I knew what my mother felt about babies, I still hoped that when I told her I was
pregnant, she would be excited for me.
'Mum, I'm pregnant'
Instead, when I called her one morning in the spring of 2004, while I was at one of her homes
housesitting, and told her my news and that I'd never been happier, she went very quiet. All
she could say was that she was shocked. Then she asked if I could check on her garden. I put
the phone down and sobbed - she had deliberately withheld her approval with the intention
of hurting me. What loving mother would do that?
Worse was to follow. My mother took umbrage at an interview in which I'd mentioned that my
parents didn't protect or look out for me. She sent me an e-mail, threatening to undermine
my reputation as a writer. I couldn't believe she could be so hurtful - particularly when I was
pregnant.
Devastated, I asked her to apologise and acknowledge how much she'd hurt me over the
years with neglect, withholding affection and resenting me for things I had no control over -
the fact that I am mixed-race, that I have a wealthy, white, professional father and that I was
born at all.
But she wouldn't back down. Instead, she wrote me a letter saying that our relationship had
been inconsequential for years and that she was no longer interested in being my mother.
She even signed the letter with her first name, rather than 'Mom'.
That was a month before Tenzin's birth in December 2004, and I have had no contact with my
mother since. She didn't even get in touch when he was rushed into the special care baby
unit after he was born suffering breathing difficulties.
And I have since heard that my mother has cut me out of her will in favour of one of my
cousins. I feel terribly sad - my mother is missing such a great opportunity to be close to
her family. But I'm also relieved. Unlike most mothers, mine has never taken any pride in my
achievements. She has always had a strange competitiveness that led her to undermine me
at almost every turn.
When I got into Yale - a huge achievement - she asked why on earth I wanted to be
educated at such a male bastion. Whenever I published anything, she wanted to write her
version - trying to eclipse mine. When I wrote my memoir, Black, White And Jewish, my
mother insisted on publishing her version. She finds it impossible to step out of the limelight,
which is extremely ironic in light of her view that all women are sisters and should support
one another.
It's been almost four years since I have had any contact with my mother, but it's for the best
- not only for my self-protection but for my son's well-being. I've done all I can to be a loyal,
loving daughter, but I can no longer have this poisonous relationship destroy my life.
I know many women are shocked by my views. They expect the daughter of Alice Walker to
deliver a very different message. Yes, feminism has undoubtedly given women opportunities.
It's helped open the doors for us at schools, universities and in the workplace. But what
about the problems it's caused for my contemporaries?
What about the children?
The ease with which people can get divorced these days doesn't take into account the toll on
children. That's all part of the unfinished business of feminism.
Then there is the issue of not having children. Even now, I meet women in their 30s who are
ambivalent about having a family. They say things like: 'I'd like a child. If it happens, it
happens.' I tell them: 'Go home and get on with it because your window of opportunity is
very small.' As I know only too well.
Then I meet women in their 40s who are devastated because they spent two decades working
on a PhD or becoming a partner in a law firm, and they missed out on having a family.
Thanks to the feminist movement, they discounted their biological clocks. They've missed the
opportunity and they're bereft.
Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating.
But far from taking responsibility for any of this, the leaders of the women's movement close
ranks against anyone who dares to question them - as I have learned to my cost. I don't
want to hurt my mother, but I cannot stay silent. I believe feminism is an experiment, and all
experiments need to be assessed on their results. Then, when you see huge mistakes have
been paid, you need to make alterations.
I hope that my mother and I will be reconciled one day. Tenzin deserves to have a
grandmother. But I am just so relieved that my viewpoint is no longer so utterly coloured by
my mother's.
I am my own woman and I have discovered what really matters - a happy family. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12333
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 11:28 am: |
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Very interesting. After reading an Alice Walker biography a few years ago, I came away not really admiring her as a person. |
Ferociouskitty
Veteran Poster
Username: Ferociouskitty
Post Number: 244
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 05:15 pm: |
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Cynique: What was it that colored your perception of her? |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 6960
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 20, 2008 - 11:07 am: |
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Alice is a nut. She should have never had children.
Unfortunately Americans believe they can have it all.
You can't) |
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