Bette Midler: How White Women Get Intersectionality Wrong

Singer Bette Midler tweeted a controversial remark (now deleted) on Thursday about women's rights while referencing John Lennon and Yoko Ono's 1972 controversial song. The tweet gained over 4k retweets and 13k favorites. Black people voiced their disapproval, such as Youtube beauty guru Jackie Aina questioning where that puts black women and black people in general. Given how far this current wave of feminism has tried to go to make itself inclusive to women of all races, this tweet is a sharp step backwards to the racist exclusivity of first and second wave feminism. Additionally, it's ironic how Midler's tweet tries to put women and race in separate categories when black women in this country have been through everything her tweet mentions.  Going back to the history of the song made by a white man and an Asian women, black feminists in 1972 called out the song for its toxic erasure of the struggles of black women. It's also worth noting the complicity of a white man and an Asian woman writing an anti-black song and the repurposing of this quote among white women even today.