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Azad1984 t1_iz9roz1 wrote

She did not say that Malcolm X is good because he made MLK seem reasonable. She said that even if Malcolm X did not persuade people because he is too radical, he nonetheless creates room for the slightly less radical MLK to be accepted. In fact, she mentions nothing about whether she thinks Malcolm X is right; she is only talking about the effect of Malcolm X on public discourse to illustrate the point that persuasion is not the only function of discourse.

As for the “wrong” body thing, it could be simply that you do not share that aspect of the experience she describes. But, even if that is the case, it is undeniable that who we find desirable is partly shaped by the culture (just compare the beauty standards today vs 50 yrs ago and compare beauty standards across societies!). And, for many people, there would be fleeting moments when we find ourselves attracted to someone that not our “type” (and, come on, we all have a type). One way to see the plausibility of her claims is then to identify that “type” as partly a product of the culture (hierarchical culture in fact), and see those fleeting moments as being attracted to the “wrong” body. The suggestion, then, is to affirm those fleeting moments and to try to change the culture in doing so.

Finally, she never said that the husbands are not also responsible for putting food on the table. More likely, what she means is that if you start with a traditional family with a working husband and a house wife, now with the husband unemployed, the house wife takes on responsibility that she did not have before. And it is easy to see how this may lead to an “awakening” of sort for the house wife.

Hope this clears some things up.

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