We have to believe that we can hold different points of view without labeling each other bad feminists.

I keep trying to imagine a universe in which too many public figures declaring themselves feminists would be a bad thing.

I am failing as a woman. I am failing as a feminist. To freely accept the feminist label would not be fair to good feminists. If I am, indeed, a feminist, I am a rather bad one. I am a mess of contradictions.

I think one of the most important things we can do as feminists is acknowledge that, even though we have womanhood in common, we have to start to think about the ways in which we're different, how those differences affect us, and what kinds of needs we have based on our differences.

What worries me is that 'post-racial' America is not that different from the Americas that have preceded us, and it might not ever be.

I will keep writing about these intersections as a writer and a teacher, as a black woman, as a bad feminist, until I no longer feel like what I want is impossible. I no longer want to believe that these problems are too complex for us to make sense of them.