Every month, BUF Black Lives Matters holds a program meeting on the second Monday to educate ourselves about the history, and the impact of racism and white supremacy onourselves and our society.
For the past three months, we have been watching, individually, episodes of a Netflix series, “Amend, the Fight for America,” then getting together, in our program meeting on zoom, to discuss what we learn from each episode.
The whole series describes the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which provides that all persons are entitled to equal protection under the law. We have already discussed the first three episodes, and we will discuss the fourth at tomorrow’s program meeting.
This fourth episode is entitled “Control,” about the rights of women. In the words of Ruth Bader Ginsberg,
“It’s clear that the core purpose of the 14th Amendment is to eliminate racial discrimination, because a person’s skin color bears no relationship to ability. Similarly, sex, like race, is a visible, immutable characteristic bearing no necessary relationship to ability.”
RBG said that her challenge was to educate the men on the bench about discrimination against women in America. Thank you, RBG, women have come some distance since 1970. However, the fight for equal rights for women is not yet over, particularly at the intersection of sex and race: women from marginalized groups continue to face all kinds of discrimination.
I invite you to watch Episode 4 of Amend today, and then join us at 7 pm tomorrow in our program meeting on zoom, to discuss, it.
