Sunday, May 8, 2016

BLACK FEMINIST MOTHERHOOD IS EVERYTHING

Whether a woman stays at home or not, feminist mothering is one of the things the black community misses most. 

Without feminist black men and feminist black men able to see sexism as a threat equal to racism, we will not know why we aren't all pulling in the same direction at the same time.

It is shameful, to me, that every man, woman, and child that has experienced racism cannot understand that requiring equality with men is not the same as requiring sameness --- when so many already understand this concept when talking to white people about equality with whites.


The one benefiting form oppression without knowing there is any benefit to being white IS THE SAME AS the one benefitting from oppression without knowing there is any benefit to being male. Black men are oppressed by white people but they also occupy an oppressor space.

We all occupy sites of both oppressor and oppressed. Patricia Hill Collins is worth reading to understand this concept thoroughly. 

Since the oppressor rarely stands up and just tires of being on top, it is up to the oppressed to make changes.

In other words, just like
1) Racism isn't our fault.
2) But we're the ones suffering from it.
3) so it is partly our problem to alleviate

And so it goes for sexism and hotep-ish-ness too

1) Misogyny is not our fault, as women of color.
2) But we are the ones suffering from it 
3) So it's our problem to alleviate.


One of the ways we alleviate the problem of sexists and misogynists in the black community (male and female) is to not give those who don't deserve our time very much of it if zero effort is there.

The other way we alleviate the problem of sexists and misogynists in the black community is to raise feminist sons and feminists daughters.

I know the haters of feminism took firm hold of feminism's narrative for a long while. Pre-Beyonce's announcement of being a feminist, if you put "feminist" in google's search engine you'd get nothing but hate speech and stereotypes. And part of that anti-feminist hate speech involved assuming feminist hate motherhood, hate stay at home moms when it's been feminists advocating loudest for

1) a woman's choice to work or stay home,
2) a man's choice to work or stay home,
3) childcare very, very close to work if not inside the workplace itself.

Even feminists have been swayed by the anti-feminist messages out there. 



I am not a mother. But I have a mother that was not raised a feminist and that has had multiple negative affects on her children and, likely, on her husband. But that negative affect was in play from my birth to 17 years of age. The thing that's affected me more (and will affect me) from ages 18 to 80 are anti-feminist, sexism-denying, misogyny denying black men. 

That's how I know that black women waiting for black men to change is not the answer. Waiting for a privilege denying oppressor to tire of privileges they don't acknowledge as existing is never the answer.

 
It is black feminist women,
black feminist mothers
initiating change through
raising sons and daughters

able to think 
and feel 
and empathize
well enough

to use the more obvious oppression,
the more talked about oppression, racism
to see into sexism and misogyny
that are the major key
to getting the black community to pull together  

Black Feminist Motherhood Is Everything. 



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