A friend of mine asked a while back, “Why is it that Black feminists don’t want support from White feminists?”
The best answer that I can offer is that it’s because our goals are different. White feminists have been trying to insert themselves into the career world, gain equal pay and reproductive rights, defy gender stereotypes and all the typical stuff that you’ve probably seen and heard in the media. That’s not to say that Black feminists don’t want these things, but our history is very different from White women and because of that history we’re able to look at the world through a different lens that the majority does not have.
I’m going to call that the color lens.
The color lens is racial consciousness; it’s being aware of the struggle of people of color. It’s being aware of the privilege that you do not have as a person of color and especially as a woman of color, and how it puts you at a disadvantage. With the color lens, Black feminist are able to be more aware of the differences that we face in comparison to our White counterparts.
Historically, Black women having been working pretty much ever since we’ve been here and we acknowledge that being a housewife is a privilege that is not common for families of color because of the SUPER WIDE socioeconomic wage gap between middle class White families and families of color. You should definitely take a hot minute to read up on that right here.
Here’s an example, in the book How to Be Black, one Black woman was fully aware of how someone she supervised was receiving more pay than her. According the National Women’s Law Center, Black women make 64 cents to a White man’s dollar with Hispanic women making 54 cents, which is a helluva a lot less than the 77 cents that you always hear about White women making all of the time. You probably never heard of these numbers before and there’s a reason for that:
Even in the world of feminism, there is a racial hierarchy that allows the most privileged to set the priorities, which is really shitty when you think about it because everyone wants equality. Unfortunately, not enough of the majority ( I am looking at you White people) are talking about the problems of women of color enough for it to get acknowledged in the national conversation despite strong evidence of glaring inequality.
Furthermore, Black feminists are aware of the lack of colorful faces in media and the lack of people that are supposed to represent us in Congress are few and far in between. For example, in ALL of our nation’s history we’ve had only 133 African American members in congress. In 2012, 44 were in the House with a whopping ZERO in the Senate.
CUZ ‘MURIKKKA!
On top of that, Black women are portrayed as beasts in many industries, but especially the porn industry whereas her White counterparts are viewed as objects. I can assure you that one is not better than the other, but you cannot begin to imagine the effect that that sort of shit has on personal relationships and the way men of our own race perceive us. I mean really, “My bitch bad, my bitch good.” I love you Luda, but come on! You love your her so much you can’t think of a better word to call her other than a bitch–a female dog? A fucking animal? What a charmer.
Another perfect example is Scary Spice’s persona with the Spice Girls or how often people give Serena Williams crap for grunting when she’s playing tennis. How about Nicki Minaj constantly putting on her rawr-face or dancing in cages? And did anyone see the photoshopped pictures of Beyonce looking like She-Hulk during her Superbowl performance? Or how all of the Black lady superheroes are inspired by animals?
‘Nuff said.
We’re also aware that our hair is political no matter how nonpolitical we want it to be because it is after all JUST hair, right?
We’re aware of how Slavery has devastated Black people socially, economically, and academically. And NO we cannot get over it even though it happened over 200 years ago because it’s still affecting us to this day in more ways than we can count on our fingers and toes so STOP telling us to not gripe over it you privileged jerk.
Yes, we know that the enslavement of Black people is not your fault. We know, we know, we know, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still hurting us and that you have the capability to look the other way and CHOOSE to look the other way while we suffer.
We don’t want your pity or your guilt because that’s not productive. We would appreciate some help by raising awareness about how slavery still affects Black people in present day Post-slavery America. I highly recommended reading the comical, yet informative How to Be Black before you start having those conversations with your friends.
Black feminists are also aware of the lack of post-secondary education for Black people in general. I mean really UofA, 5.2% of the student population is the best you can do? We ALL know for a fact the SEC region does NOT have a shortage of Black people that can be admitted to our institution with the admission standards that we currently have in place. Our school has an overall 17.4% of minority students and other schools have their numbers well above 50% because they’re actually trying. This state has a wealth of people of color that we’re not even tapping into and it is a shame that people of color continue to live in sick cycle of poverty as a result.
So ya see kids, Black feminism is very different in comparison to “overall” feminism, which is mostly just White feminism in disguise. The goals are different, the history is different, and the perspective is different, but we all want the same thing at the end of the day.
We all just want to be equal.
So what can you do? How can you support the Black feminist movement?
You can help support Black feminists and other feminists of color by talking about their struggles with other White people that aren’t aware of what I like to refer to as “The Struggle of Being Brown” because it is only then that we can wiggle our way into the national conversation and shed some light and what people of color go through and begin to make progress.
-O
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