"Jewish Women, Black Women: Guarding against the Oppression of Surrogacy"

Abstract

wassail bowls, St. George and the Dragon, mummers and minstrels.More than anything I longed to play Mary in the nativity play.To prove my worth to Miss Decker, I worked harder than anyone else in the class.Miss Decker took me aside before she handed out the parts and told me a Jew could not be Mary.I was to be the innkeeper, a very nice part with lots of lines to memorize.At the time, the obvious response I should have made never occurred to me.I agreed with her! How fitting to be the innkeeper!I had learned all that was taught at Girls Academy, especially the bitter taste of self-hatred.In retrospect, what I also gained from my schooling was an insight on racism and self-identity.I realized that if I were Black, I would similarly have been disqualified from portraying Mary.When I read Alan Freeman many years later, I understood his insistence that rights cannot effectively redress the problems of a racist society.'While rights eliminate some external constraints on choices and opportunities imposed by the state or others, they continue to ignore the power structure built into social relationships 2 and the ugly pervasiveness of prejudice. 3Power is not just the visible actions of a well-publicized tyrant concretized on the six o'clock news.It is also the amorphous, invisible hand of structural, systemic restraints embedded in ordinary social life.Power is exerted through decision-makers in various social institutions and administrative bureaucracies acting out of bias and ignorance, on unconscious assumptions and unquestioned rules.Furthermore, assimilation into the dominant culture cannot eradicate racial hatred or discrimination.The minority person who is in an economic position to assimilate and who learns the grammar of the dominant language also internalizes that culture's hierarchy and prejudice.The referent is outside the self, leading to alienation, lack of confidence, and self-abasement.I believe it is impossible to talk of constructing an authentic self without recognizing the degree to which identity is con-