Narrative of Power: Essays for an Endangered Century, and: Heart Politics Revisited, and: The Feminization of Racism: Promoting World Peace in America (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by Mary R. Sawyer Narrative of Power: Essays for an Endangered Century by Margaret Randall. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2004, 281 pp., $16.95 paper. Heart Politics Revisited by Fran Peavey. San Francisco: Pluto Press, 2000, 396 pp., $20.00 paper. The Feminization of Racism: Promoting World Peace in America by Irene I. Blea. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2003, 238 pp., $70.95 hardcover. Young women seeking models of feminist activists should consider the authors of the three books under review: Margaret Randall, Fran Peavey, and Irene Blea. Each represents a different mix of careers that include professional academic, freelance social commentator, and community organizer. But all are consummate social change agents. In this, they remind us of the original mission of Women's Studies and Ethnic Studies: to empower people through the application of intellectual inquiry to real life situations of injustice and oppression. Margaret Randall is a longtime (she is now in her 70th year) feminist and (mellowed) Marxist. Stung by the anti-Communist McCarthyism of the 1950s, Randall made her home in Mexico City during the 1960s and then lived in Cuba and various Latin American countries until her return to the United States in 1984. During those 23 years abroad, Randall worked as a journalist, photographer, and poet, providing commentary on the social revolutions taking place in Cuba, Central America, and elsewhere in the world. Upon her return to the United States, she became a teacher of Women's Studies and American Studies at New Mexico University. In 1985, under provisions of the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act, Randall's writings were declared "subversive," and she was deported from the country. Only after prolonged court battles was she able to retain her citizenship. Undeterred, Randall has persisted in writing trenchant social and political commentary. Narrative of Power is a collection of essays developed during the last decade of the twentieth century and the first years of the twenty-first. The theme of power pervades the collection, reflecting her conviction that "an unjust distribution of power lies behind all other injustice" (xvi). Her analysis of power is applied to all dimensions of life, from the most intimate (her own history of incest and her experience as a lesbian mother) to the most global. Randall speaks of her deepened understanding of the feminist idea that "the personal is political" as she came to see that "global and domestic violence are related aspects of the same problem. Both have their roots in patriarchy." For Randall, "the invasion of a woman's or child's body by an adult (usually male) with power over [End Page 206] her life, mirrors the abuse of power that takes place when a small country is attacked by a larger more powerful one" (xvii). Of the three authors reviewed here, Randall speaks most directly to the events of 9/11 and the manner in which this tragedy has been and is being used to implement the ultra-conservative agenda of the Bush Administration. The first two essays, in particular, go to the core of the issues confronting peace and justice activists today. "Is It Really a Global Village?" offers a succinct and hard-hitting overview of the abuses of power by the current Bush Administration, the mass media, and large corporations. In this and subsequent essays, Randall points to tactics such as shaming—"the economy is in trouble because consumers are not buying enough;" "those who criticize our government policies are unpatriotic"—and doublespeak—"preserve freedom by relinquishing freedoms;" "save democracy by destroying democracy" (118)—that are being employed to manipulate the U.S. citizenry into supporting actions that contradict our most dearly held values. "Fundamentalists for All Seasons" adds a critique of the power being exercised in national and world affairs by religious fundamentalisms or what Randall argues "might more accurately be called patriarchal fundamentalism" (36). This essay is an eloquent and impassioned plea for women...