A black woman walking up to the counter at Macy's will be a customer, not an American-American customer; a Latino buying a car at a used car lot in Memphis won't be a Mexican-American he will be a customer. That's how it should be.
THREE: Why is the focus so different between male authors and female authors? For the same reason that men see the world from a very different lens than women see the world. Naomi Wolf has a very good perspective on why there is such a dramatic difference between what men write about and what women write about, and I agree with her wholeheartedly. There were archaic yet potent attitudes toward women a century ago, Wolf explains, in which "normal female activity, especially the kind that would lead women into power, was classified as ugly and sick." In fact, there were whispers that if a woman engaged in too much reading, "her uterus would 'atrophy.'" And if she went on reading her entire reproductive system would "collapse"; if she assertively pursued educational interests, she would become sterilized and surely become less sexually attractive. One can readily see that Victorian society -- at least to some extent -- embraced the idea that rather than lift herself up in the social milieu a woman was a womb to be busy producing offspring and having sex with a man. Her body was a factory, designed for action and at the pleasure of men. That's not the way it is today, but perhaps women...
As to McIntosh's list of 26 "conditions" she exaggerates frequently. Depending on what neighborhood she is in, persons of any skin color would not be safe (#4), for example. But moreover if a white person runs for office, it is seen as normal. He's a candidate. An African-American running for office is a "black candidate" -- but is that necessarily bad? Especially since Barack Obama became president "black" has a more positive tone.
FIVE: Dr. Maya Angelou experienced brutal bigotry growing up in Arkansas, but she overcame racial discrimination through her genius and creative power to express herself. She freed herself with her poetry and her drama:
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.
Freedom is what Angelou was determined to find for herself, and she did more than that. She became an internationally celebrated author, poet, actress, director and advocate.
