Abstract

From Birmingham to Baghdad

The article offers a discussion about United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. That woman haunts most of us middle-class black women of a certain age. Rice and her hyper-articulated intelligence is just under the surface of us all, the differences made all the more uncomfortable for the similarities. Nobody "hates" Rice. If she is not exactly liked it is because her beliefs are at odds with approximately 92 percent of African-Americans, whose commitment to the progressive programs of the civil rights movement runs strong and deep. It is odd for many of us to see President George W. Bush touting her as embodying that precious tradition of nonviolent resistance, that liberation theology so dedicated to honoring the memory of four young girls killed as they worshiped. If it is nice to see a black face in high places, that pleasure is more than outweighed by Rice's deployment as spokeswoman for an unprecedented policy of preemptive war--the public face of an undisciplined, frightened, chaotically mismanaged yet supposedly liberatory force that thoughtlessly bombs mosques with unarmed civilians inside.