If we set aside political affiliations, Condoleezza Rice and first lady Michelle Obama have many things in common. For the purpose of this opinion, I will maintain the fact that Rice and Obama are two successful black women, born and raised in the United States. Focusing on their gender and ethnic backgrounds using the lens of black feminism, I will show the intersectionality of rituals practiced through sexism, class oppression and racism are inextricably bound together. This  bound  pushes forward the historical fetishes, domination and discrimination of the black female body, by rejecting these two black females as authorities and seeking to sexually charge their agency at any costs. How does the American black woman overcome this generally white-male patriarchal system of identity without reinstalling the marginalization it seeks to change?

 Condoleezza Rice, author, professor, founding partner at Rice-Hadley-Gates LLC, former U.S. Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, pianist, golfer and avid football fan, got the call to speak at the University of Minnesota for the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The University of Minnesota promoted the event and announced to participants that Condoleezza Rice was to share her perspectives on the progress achieved and challenges ahead in efforts to promote civil rights for all Americans. Rice’s lecture, and its price tag were sponsored by a gift from Carlson and the Carlson Family Foundation. The invitation for Rice to speak at the U of M was met with some violent backlash from staff, faculty and students. Politico reporter Rich Lowry’s story, “The Stupid Hounding of Condi Rice,” said “When the University of Minnesota invited her to give a lecture as part of a series marking the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, the herd of independent minds that is the school’s faculty roused itself.”

 According to author Patricia Hill Collins’ “Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment,” black feminism argues that sexism, class oppression and racism are inextricably bound together. This well articulated definition would seem to hold truth when looking at black women and their agency in the United States. Historically, black women have been purposely deconstructed, and sexually and morally raped. They are constantly underpinned with assumptions directed to the black female body and how the black female body can only sexually serve a patriarchal system of checks and balances.

 Because of Rice’s affiliation with the Bush administration and the war in Iraq, she was maliciously attacked via social media, labeled as a war criminal with petitions and a letter was sent to the U of M president from Humphrey School of Public Policy & Affairs administrators. They felt Rice did not have the “background” to speak to the nature or history of civil rights. Rice probably wondered what qualifications one would need to speak at a public university in Minnesota. In Rice’s favor, besides being a black female prodigy and the nation’s first female African-American Secretary of State, Rise represented an African-American first long before the election of Barack Obama in 2008. What were University of Minnesota officials, students, staff and faculty looking for?

The system that wanted to dismiss Rice as an authority on civil rights is the same system built on a patriarchal foundation that promotes sexism, class oppression and racism—grounded in a liberal political ideology. If not Rice, who is best suited to lecture on civil rights? This assault on Rice sent a clear signal that academic freedoms at the U of M are in lockstep with Democratic ideologies. It was not that Rice did not have the civil rights background; it was a simple case of her political affiliations, which at a land grant public university should have brought into question the rationale of sponsored Rice from the beginning — not her ability to lecture on civil rights.

 It seems there were two issues with Rice giving the keynote address at the University of Minnesota for its Civil Rights Act festivities: (1) It was assumed Rice did not have the educational nor civil rights background to speak on civil rights and (2) She was getting paid one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I’m confused; if formal studies in a civil rights curriculum are what qualify someone to speak on the topic, then there are a whole lot of people out there who need to shut up and sit down, myself included. And if the former first African-American female Secretary of State cannot command that kind of fee for a speaking engagement, who the hell can?

 In analyzing Rice’s public rejection and looking at the historical accounts that bring critical evidence on why Rice is qualified to speak on civil rights are the events that took place in her lifetime, which she, incredibly survived. On Sept. 15, 1963,  the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed. It was an act of white supremacist terrorism. Rice, who was friends with one of the girls killed in the Birmingham Church bombing, could have been dealt the same fate as her close friend. It seems Rice has experienced hate and oppression first-hand in 1963 and now in 2014.

 This is telling when looking at the goals of academic freedoms in a time and space when intellectual rejection based on gender, sexual orientation, race and economic status is underpinned by patriarchal concepts of assumed roles and fixed identities. We must ask the question “Is the dog wagging its tail – or is the tail wagging the dog?”

 In 2008, First Lady Michelle Obama fell victim to the societal normativity of implanting suggestive thoughts of her likeness with the female protagonist in “Planet of the Apes.” When the mainstream media went rabid over the tall, statuesque, dark-skinned first lady, it only took a short time for comedians, late night talk shows, social media and right wing zealots to compare the First Lady’s rather shapely backside to that of Suzan Lori-Park’s character Venus Hottentot: “Thuh gals got bottoms like hot air balloons. Bottoms and bottoms and bottoms pilin up like two mountains. Magnificent.”

 This year, the First Lady ran into problems when students from a Topeka, Kansas high school began circulating a petition protesting Michelle Obama’s planned speech at their graduation. Michelle Obama cancelled her planned appearance. Critics of Michelle Obama’s graduation day presentation argued that having Michelle Obama at the commencement would make it all about her, not the students, which is precisely the opposite of the message the Topeka, Kansas high school wanted to send their students.

 Do not challenge me on my rationale for supporting an African-American woman who made history working in the Bush administration. Condoleezza Rice has the background and the right to speak about civil rights in America. The University of Minnesota, its students, staff and faculty had no right to demonize her, nor did they have to the right to dismiss Rice’s journey in the struggle for equality. The United States war machines did not start with Rice, and will not end with her because of her association with George W. Bush’s administration. In the case of Rice and her role in history, we cannot minimize her accomplishments for the stake of a one-sided liberal agenda. Again, how does the American black woman overcome this generally white-male patriarchal system of identity without reinstalling the marginalization it seeks to change?

 Unfortunately, the civil rights movements of the 1960s primarily focused only on the oppression of black men. Reinstalling marginalization has a foundation constructed, obeyed, distributed and practiced through sexism, class oppression and racism, bound together by historical fetishes or domination and discrimination of the black female, her body, her black man and family. Rice and Obama must both set aside political ideology and deal with the historical assumptions of the human condition and consequences to move the agenda of flack feminism forward and reset performances of master, slave and concubine.

An academic system that punishes anyone because of their political center is a system in need of hope and change.