the need to reclassify oneself

     Ask a female black student when she would have been first able to vote--in history--and you will probably get the answer "1865". Which is, of course, utter nonsense. She would have first voted in 1920, when American women were given the vote. Look for the "enfranchisement of women", or "women's suffrage". Try to tell your female black student this, and you may get a denial and an argument, even if you tell her to  look for the "enfranchisement of women", or "women's suffrage".  Did these young women need a public school lesson to tell them that not only are they black, with black skin, but that they are also, 1. women;  2. Americans; 3. people., 4. students? Surely they need to learn to reclassify themselves when occasion warrants--as something other than a skin.