Yesterday I met Mabel Yee, co-founder of Engage Her.  She spoke to the Last Friday Ladies Lunch organized by Sylvia Paull about her passion for getting women of color to vote.

The statistics are startling: In the 2004 election, 40% of registered African American women did not turn out to vote, 69% of Latinas and 70% of Asian American women. When Yee, who decided to become a mother at age 50 and now has twins who just entered kindergarten, learned of these numbers she didn't wring her hands, she took action. As a member of Moms Rising, Yee was inspired by the activism of women like Joan Blades and she decided she wanted to make a documentary about the issue. After putting that goal out to the universe, the people she needed to join her in accomplishing the goal showed up and in less than a year the documentary is finished.

Engage Her Trailer

What struck me while Yee spoke of her passion for this project was that the concerns raised by women of color are universal concerns. Yes there are some issues that are of more immediate concern such as Type II diabetes (including the alarming increase of the disease among children) which disproportionately affects blacks and Latinos. But concerns about accountability from elected officials, and the need for quality education in order to be prepared to compete in the 21st century economy are important to all citizens in this country.

If you share Yee's concern about the issue of engaging women of color in voting and the election process, I encourage you to check out the Engage Her website, learn where there will be a screening near you, order a copy of the DVD and have a house party viewing of your own. You never know who around you needs your encouragement. In the process of making the film Yee was surprised to learn that her brother belongs to a different political party than she and that her sister hadn't voted before but plans to register and vote now that she has learned of the importance.

Jeremy Adam Smith of Daddy Dialectic went to a screening

Liza Sabater at Culture Kitchen says Engage Her and make sure she casts a vote in November

Mabel Yee launches the documentary saying Invisible No More

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One of the discussions going on after the debates is how far Obama could go in being forceful without invoking the "Angry Black Man" stereotypes.

Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic says:

Obama is also a black man against a white man. So he must also be very careful not to get angry and to stay cool and calm. He has to do that to avoid the "angry black man" trap. But then he cannot afford to seem weak either. You realize how hard a balance that is for ninety minutes?

Obama has to walk through a racial minefield all the time.

Jenny at Tao of Coffee recognizes the tightrope Obama is walking:

I do hope that Obama will be a bit more assertive in the next debate, albeit carefully so as not to come off as an “angry black man.”

In contrast, The Angry Black Woman examines the subtext of McCain's anger and unwillingness to look at Obama during the debate:

Not so long ago in this country — within McCain’s adult lifetime, though not Obama’s — white men did not look at black men, except to order them around or warn them off white women. They did not address black men directly if they could help it — and if they had to, it was never done in a way that might suggest respect. Black men did not look at white men either, because that was the shortest path to death; a black man who dared to look a white man in the eye was “uppity”. Didn’t know his place. Needed to have a lesson taught him, usually with a bullet or a length of rope. Even today there’s a certain kind of white man — usually older ones from the South or from wealthy backgrounds — who still won’t accord a man of color the simple courtesy of looking him in the eye. They’ll look everywhere else, address “the air” rather than the person, and get progressively more irritated if that person doesn’t back off and go away.

Ta-Nehisi Coates also writing at The Atlantic thinks observers are "confusing strength with arrogance."

Perhaps there is good reason for Obama to be mindful of invoking the stereotype when some viewers have reactions like this:

I was so completely disturbed by Obama’s harsh, angry eyes that I am seriously starting to wonder if the man is an actual sociopath, who is incapable of feeling real warmth and love for another human being. These are the eyes of a serial killer.

And when some opponents are determined to drag racism into the race:

Laura Fitzpatrick, Time: The Ku Klux Klan at the debate

The Klan will, however, have pamphlets and membership applications on hand for any audience members who happen to share the Klansmen's views. Some examples of those views: Obama's election "could be the destruction of America," says Greene, who states categorically that he would not vote for a black candidate. Says the Emperor of the Mississippi White Knights (the group's ritual leader), who asked not to be identified: "Locally, every place that has come under black rule has declined, and has declined sharply." He cited Jackson, Miss., and Washington, D.C., as examples. "Not all black people are particularly bad people," the emperor adds. But leadership, he asserts, "is just not in their character ... it's just not in their ability."

Jim Rutenberg, The New York Times: Pinpoint Attacks Focus on Obama

It is a view shared by Democratic leaders, including Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who, in a recent interview with MSNBC, said of the advertising campaign, “The fact that it is being run in a predominantly white suburb tells you that there is an explicit effort to try to divide people by race.”

Brent Staples, The New York Times: Barack Obama, John McCain and the Language of Race

The throwback references that have surfaced in the campaign suggest that Republicans are fighting on racial grounds, even when express references to race are not evident. In a replay of elections past, the G.O.P. will try to leverage racial ghosts and fears without getting its hands visibly dirty. The Democrats try to parry in customary ways.

Mr. Obama seems to understand that he is always an utterance away from a statement — or a phrase — that could transform him in a campaign ad from the affable, rational and racially ambiguous candidate into the archetypical angry black man who scares off the white vote. His caution is evident from the way he sifts and searches the language as he speaks, stepping around words that might push him into the danger zone.

These maneuvers are often painful to watch. The troubling part is that they are necessary.

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