Transcript: As a person who spent the first half of my life–I'm 70 this year so I spent 35 years, almost 40 years, being very very clear about having a place in this radical work that I was doing and not seeing what was not there. That's one of the things that white people do: we don't see people of color in our society. We think we do, but we really don't. So when we get involved with something–whether it's a women's movement or working as I did for many years as a teacher or working in a community–we don't necessarily see what's not there. And this country doesn't want us to see it.

So I did not see who was not in my presence, and I think that's very true of the white women's movement. We were so dedicated to making it right for women that we didn't really see beyond our own vision and our vision was very truncated. Because this society makes sure even people like myself who so-called majored in history and was teaching history, I did not know who was not there until it became clearer to me as a person who's now an anti-racist. So, as organizers in the anti-racist movement, if we're going to be effective as women in this movement, we have to constantly be looking around the room, reading the room as we say, to see who's there and who is not there. Whose voices are being heard and whose voices are not being heard? It's a struggle every day for me. I still don't necessarily see who's not there or whose voice is not being heard.

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