Black feminism: Difference between revisions

'''Black feminism''' refers to ideologies centered on the experiences of Black women.  A central theme in Black feminism is ''intersectionality'', which refers to the ways gender, race, and other social categories interact to influence an individual's life outcomes and experiences of oppression.  Prominent Black feminists from the 19th to 21th centuries include [[Anna Julia Cooper]], [[Ida B. Wells]], [[Sojourner Truth]], [[Audre Lorde]], [[Patricia Hill Collins]], Gloria Jean Watkins aka [[bell hooks]], [[Kimberlé Crenshaw]], [[Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie]], and Claire Heuchan aka [[Sister Outrider]].

In 1851, women’s rights advocate and abolitionist [[Sojourner Truth]] gave a speech at a women’s rights convention in which she challenged both racism and sexism faced by Black women.  No actual transcription of the speech exists, although Marius Robinson, who was present during the speech and who worked with Truth, published the following written version some weeks after the original speech:

I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman's rights. [sic] I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal. I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now. As for intellect, all I can say is, if a woman have a pint, and a man a quart – why can't she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, – for we can't take more than our pint'll hold. The poor men seems to be all in confusion, and don't know what to do. Why children, if you have woman's rights, give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won't be so much trouble. I can't read, but I can hear. I have heard the bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well, if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again. The Lady has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept and Lazarus came forth. And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and the woman who bore him. Man, where was your part? But the women are coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard.

The leaders of the movement trembled on seeing a tall, gaunt black woman in a gray dress and white turban, surmounted with an uncouth sunbonnet, march deliberately into the church, walk with the air of a queen up the aisle, and take her seat upon the pulpit steps. A buzz of disapprobation was heard all over the house, and there fell on the listening ear, 'An abolition affair!" "Woman's rights and niggers!" "I told you so!" "Go it, darkey!" . . Again and again, timorous and trembling ones came to me and said, with earnestness, "Don't let her speak, Mrs. Gage, it will ruin us. Every newspaper in the land will have our cause mixed up with abolition and niggers, and we shall be utterly denounced." My only answer was, "We shall see when the time comes."

Turning again to another objector, she took up the defense of Mother Eve.  I can not follow her through it all.  It was pointed, and witty, and solemn; eliciting at almost every sentence deafening applause; and she ended by asserting: "If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together (and she glanced her eye over the platform) ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!  And now they're asking to do it, the men better let 'em."  Long-continued cheering greeted this.  "Obliged to you for hearin' on me, and now ole Sojourner hasn't got nothin' more to say."

In 1892 another Black woman, [[Anna Julia Cooper]] published ''A Voice from the South'', a book in which she described the importance of the voices of Black women for social change.  Another exemplary Black feminist, [[Ida B. Wells]], an activist and journalist, led a crusade against lynching during the 1890s.  The work of these and other Black women shows how Black community politics laid the foundation for social justice toward sexism from Black men, marginalization from White feminists, and disenfranchisement under White male privilege.

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