via thehotness.comBlack women have understandably been quick to claim Erykah Badu’s new ‘Window Seat’ video as their own. One of the great tragedies of the women’s movement in America — unlike the international women’s scene — is that feminism divides on racial lines.

We’ll step out here, claiming Badu’s video for all women. Her personal message at the end of her song is about what’s happening in America, not what’s happening to Black women in particular.

I reiterate that we welcome the liberating aspect of the video for Black women.

Erykah Badu’s ‘Window Seat’ video

I wish Badu’s lyrics had been as introspective as her comments at the end of the ‘Window Seat’ video. Then she would have created an rallying cry for 21st century women’s rights, under assault with the whip and words by fundamentalism and the global morality police.

As Erykah Badu reminds us, the morality police live in America’s back yard, too.

The killer of a Kansas abortion doctor received the harshest possible sentence yesterday, but his trial only inflames the patriarchy’s determination to return remind American women that are wombs for bearing their children, first and foremost.

Beyond that, we are the evil temptress. Badu makes this point brilliantly visually, if not in words and music in her ‘Window Seat’ video. Anne

More reading:

Erykah Badu’s ‘Window Seat’ video: Too far, or artistic expression? LA Times

Erykah Badu’s ‘Window Seat’ Video theHotness

Erykah Badu bared all in her latest video. Is this progress? the Root

Erykah Badu’s ‘Window Seat’ video is great; the song itself? Not so much Washington Post

Written 4-2-10