Laura Flanders and Patricia Williams: Post-Election Race and Gender Analysis

Patricia J. Williams, renowned legal scholar and expert on race in the U.S., joins Laura Flanders, Barnard alumna and feminist activist and journalist, in this conversation about the 2008 election and its implications for future political alliances, possibilities, and risks. The discussion, introduced by Janet Jakobsen and moderated by Ann Pellegrini, took place on April 2, 2009 at Barnard College. There is no question that the results of the 2008 U.S. presidential election were monumental. For the first time in the nation’s history, an African-American man has been elected to the highest political office in the country. The presidential campaigns themselves were also full of other important milestones in the fight for truly diverse political representation. Hillary Clinton obtained over 18 million votes in the Democratic primaries, and for the second time a woman was chosen as the Vice Presidential candidate for a major political party. Now that the dust has settled from last November’s election, it is time for feminist scholars and activists to regroup and begin a conversation about the impact of these events and the changes they represent. Have the politics of civil rights changed fundamentally? At all? Has the meaning of feminism broadened? Or narrowed? Will these changes set the stage for future movement toward justice in the United States?

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