"Leveraging the Power of Race & Gender"

This is the title to a piece written by Kavita Ramdas, President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, ( http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/cms/ ) for the NATION. This piece is a must read ( http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080310/ramdas ) in the context of the current Presidential election. Kavita is a brilliant leader of the social justice movement and I am honored to serve with her on the Board of the Women’s Funding Network. ( www.wfnet.org ) She so eloquently expresses what many of us our feeling about the missed opportunities in the current political debates. Both Clinton and Obama have an incredibly opportunity to talk a very different kind of leadership, pulling from the richness of their personal histories and perspectives. Why are they not doing that? Let me leave you with the last paragraph in hopes it will inspire you to follow the link and read the whole piece. Bravo Kavita!

“The next President needs the ability to demonstrate the inner courage and conviction that comes from owning his or her "otherness." As a woman and a mother, Hillary Clinton could bring insights and perspectives no other President in US history could have brought to the negotiating table of war and peace. As the stepson of an Indonesian Muslim and the son of a Kenyan and a white woman from Kansas, Barack Obama manifests what it means to be a global citizen. What is at stake in this election is not merely the historic first that would be accomplished if either a black man or a woman became the next US President. What is at stake is the fragile future of our shared world. “ – Kavita Ramdas.