THE EXPECTATIONS, OPPRESSIONS, AND SUPPORT OF BLACK WOMEN

These t-shirts were created and worn by actresses in order to support the movie Suffragette.  I fully expect that this movie, set in Britain, will be almost entirely about the feminist type rights of  white women.  Of this, I never had a doubt.  But let these t-shirts sink into your brain for a minute

In response to the irate black women -- some of them black feminists and some black women feeling quite superior because they do not identify as 'feminists' -- a well-meaning white woman wrote the following:

 * * * * *

"I know that women, once convinced that they are doing what is right, that their rebellion is just, will go on, no matter what the difficulties, no matter what the dangers, so long as there is a woman alive to hold up the flag of rebellion. **I would rather be a rebel than a slave.** I would rather die than submit; and that is the spirit that animates this movement…..I mean to be a voter in the land that gave me birth or they shall kill me, and my challenge to the Government is: kill me or give me my freedom: I shall force you to make that choice."

In that version, it's obvious Pankhurst's talking about British women in the nineteenth century rebelling against their lack of rights and representation. Taken out of context (and without any knowledge of who Emmeline Pankhurst was), it could be radically misinterpreted. I'm personally not keen on equating a lack of representation and rights for women with slavery, and the fact that all the models are white women is equally troubling.

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This explanation could only make even partial sense to white women (I hope)

Britain knows all about slavery and always has. Pankhurst couldn't have been ignorant of what slavery was or was not whether executed in Britain or in the United States. And she especially couldn't have been but so ignorant in 1913 as she was alive and present when chattal type slaver was in newspapers as *a current event* having been born in 1858.

Equating the experiences of unable-to-vote well-to-do white women and middle class white women to that of slaves is problematic in 1913 or 2013, in real life or in the movie "Suffragist."  The fact that white women associated with the movie erased black people from their minds as they compared their own experience to slavery is no where near surprising.

But securing rights for themselves without thinking of others in the same situation is hardly exclusive to white women.


It's not like black men held back on getting their right to vote so that black women would get the right the vote at the same time as black men did.

And this is something I've been thinking about quite a bit since reading that Sojourner Truth was very much in favor of making sure black women got the vote at the same time as black men.
Let me say it again.

Sojourner Truth was not in favor of getting the vote for black men without getting the vote for women at the same time. She wanted to make sure black women and black men stepped into equality together. She did not want black men to have too much power over black women.


And I see Truth's point. Don't you?

I think black women saying, "Yes, we won't demand that you take care of securing our rights at the same time that you secure your own" was the beginning of a pattern of black women agreeing to be, not worthless, but worth less. --just like white women continue to be worth less to white men.


A lot of white women were surprised that Barack Obama overtook Hillary Clinton with relative ease. But I wasn't.  I worked in a place that was 90% men for nearly two decades. And white men in charge were racist but when white men ACTUALLY NEEDED something in the form of brains and know-how, they gravitated to black men first.  

And the situation described was not unique to my work environment either.

When white men in the North were losing the Civil War, the turned to black men to fight. When white men were losing WWII, that's when they let black men fight. When WHITE WOMEN were trying to get the vote even they turned to black men, like Frederick Douglas -- who they thought owed them due to their position on abolition years early (which is not entirely quite true, nor were white women abolitionists consistent)

Most importantly, when white male led families were losing their homes to foreclosure in 2007 and 2008, enough white men --maybe a 1/3 or 1/4-- ENOUGH of them turned to Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton which gave the United States elected it's first black president.

Now that you've considered how much white femaleness is worth in this country. You should consider just how much femaleness is worth within the black community as well.  

Black Female Civil Rights Leaders had to fight Black men, including Martin Luther King, to get a single black woman, Daisy Bates, 60 to 90 seconds worth time on stage during the program during The March On Washington. Gloria Richardson, Rosa Parks, and other black women were actually sent home in a cab for trying to speak to the press and were in that cab during Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream Speech."  Septima Clark all but flat out called King a sexist.

The Black Panthers are famous for free breakfasts, school lunches, free ambulances, and self-defense against police brutality. But they are not so famous for a number of sexist beliefs made even stronger by resentment over black women being in leadership positions according to Elaine Brown. And Brown even admits to using patriarchal structures to help her rule the Black Panthers (with an iron fist?)...until black male panthers beat up and broke the jaw the person most responsible for the success of the Black Panther School.

Black Panther Regina Davis was beaten so badly by black male panthers that she had to be taken to a hospital with a broken jaw. Why? She asserted her authority and took some of the male members to task for not following through on some instructions she'd given.

"Brown writes that when she told Newton of her anger over the attack, he refused to break solidarity with the men, challenging her to a debate in the Central Committee." http://socialism.com/drupal-6.8/?q=node/2291

Most recently, Black Lives Matter, started by black women, has had to fight to have the murders of black women be counted and protested at all. Black Women loyal to black men had to beg for reciprocation by creating #SayHerName. 

All of this is why I can't get Sojourner Truth's shocking position out of my head. ~~No votes for blacks until there are votes for women too because the includes black women.~~ Black men saying, "We'll take of ourselves first, then we will look to you" has become a pattern so ingrained in the black community that black women have not been able to overcome it some 150 years later.

AND

My own brain is so perfectly soaked in patriarchy
that it didn't even occur to me
that I should have found it strange
that white feminists of the 1800s
chose to work with black MEN like Frederick Douglass
instead of working with black WOMEN
to secure the vote for ALL blacks.

And then these white women had the nerve to be surprised when black men thought men getting their rights first (or only) was natural and correct. It seems to me that black men had to have been perfectly honest about equality with white men being their primary goal post-slavery. And I'm pretty sure, that for most black people--not just black men-- that it still is.  


I keep wondering how different The March On Washington would have been. Diane Nash would have spoken about keeping the Freedom Rides Going. Rosa Parks would have let the crowd know that nobody would even know who she or Martin Luther King is, if it hadn't been for Jo Anne Gibson Robinson and her Women's Political Council conceiving of and starting the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Martin Luther King was one of the, then unknown, preachers to whom Robinson and the women passed leaflets for distribution in church.   


I'm thinking black women wouldn't have had to be co-founders of N.O.W. (The National Organization for Women) as a result of their shabby treatment during the March On Washington. I'm thinking feminism truly would have been a white woman issue because black men would have kept us at their side instead of trying to keep us one to two steps behind whispering "You are my Queen" the entire time.   


I wonder how different the Black Panthers would have been too.


Eldridge Cleaver's crazy, rapist @$$ would never have been allowed in or allowed to beat Kathleen Cleaver --no matter how profound his words on this or that were. Angela Davis might have become a Black Panther. Huey Newton would have to live up to the speech below when Regina Davis was beaten so badly. I haven't finished reading the autobiographies I have on the Panthers, but it doesn't sound like Newton even found the courage to apologize for having failed black women so miserably in that instance. If he had, we'd all know Regina Davis's name, wouldn't we?


#SayHerName would never have been necessary.

In the black community,
"Nobody's perfect!" 

would never be uttered 

about a white man beating a black man 

OR 

a black man beating black woman either,

no matter how otherwise benevolent,

talented, rich, or famous 

that man turned out to be.

NEVER  

I don't want to victim blame. But I really do wonder how all of our black lives would be different if we, as black women, had held black men's feet to the fire from the very start, if we had insisted that we ALL MOVE together, each step of the way from the moment we stepped out of slavery into the rest of American History.  Our black girls would know their own black female history so much better and so would our black boys. And there wouldn't be black women silly enough to think feminism means something other than a desire for equality not sameness -- same as anti-racism.


But I'm just dreaming. I'm all but 95% certain that black people crossed the ocean with just as much patriarchy on board the boat as they found here to copy among white people.


The world is the way it is. So we have to face the hard facts.


The only group consistently advocating for black women is black women. We need to hold fast to the black men who see sexism as a thing as real as racism like they are rarer than finding fist sized diamonds in your own backyard because they are. We need to see other groups, black men and white women, as potential allies that need to be called on the carpet from time to time OR often as the case may be.


And I know which group I care about valuing me most. Don't you?