The attitude that claims we-of any group- are essentially victims and so can't be charged with our behavior is destructive to all of us. - Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz

1980. I recognized in Reagan's election that the liberalism I had for years seen as the real danger was being superseded, that the right was gaining power, with all its Jew-hating, racist, sexist, homophobic capitalist thrust. At the same time the anti-Semitism I was encountering in the women's movement and on the left hurt me more, not because it was more threatening but because the feminist left was where I needed to be: this added to my sense of isolation as a Jew.

What we are beginning to see glimmers of, and what we must see operating in full force if there is to be a human future-not to be melodramatic, but given the level of environmental disaster, this is our last best shot-is more and more unity across our differences.

Your privilege, insofar as it divides you from others, is in your way, unless you resolve how to use it for others, as well as for yourself.