QPOC/IRIS Intertextual Analysis

"Our politics initially sprang from the shared belief that Black women are inherently valuable, that our liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else 's may because of our need as human persons for autonomy". The opening of the second part of The Combahee River Collective Statement, What We Believe, expresses one of the major will of the Third World Feminist studies: making Women a topic of research in its own rights. It 's in 1977 that the Combahee River Collective, a US radical feminist lesbian group, wrote this very famous manifesto that became essential for the Black Feminism Mouvement. They made as central the total recognition of the different forms of oppressions, sexual, racial, social, that black women endure and the necessity to fight against them. Therefore, the integration of notions of gender, sexuality, race, class in any feminist analysis that deals with power and domination become unavoidable. They express clearly the logical result of their struggle, the destruction of the political, social and economical system as they are the representative basis of an unfair and racist society. To bring a fresh way of looking at the position of some women in the American society turn to be a way to consider differently the organisation and the functioning of the actors of a society on a national and also international level.

An intersectional approach is an approach which seeks to demonstrate how race, class, gender and sexuality make certain experiences different. Intersectionality is the overlapping of social categories such as race, class, gender and sexuality that leads to further discrimination against a certain individual or group. To take an intersectional approach to understand race, class, gender and sexuality, is to consider hardships not as a similar element for all individuals without regards to race, but instead consider where in a specific hardship different races, genders, classes and sexualities are affected different. According to Crenshaw, “many of the experiences Black women face are not subsumed within the traditional boundaries of race or gender discrimination as these boundaries are currently understood, and that the intersection of racism and sexism factors into Black women’s lives in ways that cannot be captured wholly by looking at the woman race or gender dimensions of those experiences separately” (Crenshaw, 357). Crenshaw explains that the personal experiences of women of color cannot be fully understood by looking at race or gender discrimination as two separate factors, but in fact can be understood if both aspects are looked at together. When race and gender are examined separately, this causes for women of color to be “erased”. Crenshaw says, “ And so, when the practices expound identity as “woman” or “person of color” as an either/or proposition, they relegate

The Combahee River Collective “was a black feminist lesbian organization active in Boston from 1874 to 1980.” Their key proclamation was to highlight the fact that the feminist movement was mainly about the priorities of white women, and in no way helped the needs of Black women and other women of color. “Black feminist presence has evolved most obviously in connection with the second wave of the American women’s movement beginning in the late 1960s.” Though this was a good thing, Black women still were receiving no spotlight and still struggled with racism and sexism. However, in 1973, Black feminists who were located in New York started their own group called the National Black Feminist Organization.

The exclusionary aspects of feminist activism in the 19th and 20th centuries are fundamental topic of the Sojourner Truth and The Combahee River Collective. In these two readings some of the concerns arisen are very similar, and they are both from the prospective of black women. In both readings they talk about how they would like to see equality between men and women because there is no reason why women and men can’t be equal.

As a result, the black feminist movement developed, where black women were the sole leaders of the movement that liberated all people. Many black women believed that it was counterproductive for the Civil Rights Movement to neglect the needs of black woman because black men continued to use the same systemic oppression that white people used against them on black women. In “I Am a Revolutionary Black Woman,” Angela Davis writes that “black women constitute the most oppressed sector of society” (Davis 461). It is evident that black women have been super exploited by American society economically, sexually, and politically, making them the lowest on the social hierarchy. Because of black women’s low social standing, if the black woman is liberated, then everyone else will follow, which will ensure the liberation of all people. Thus, Davis argues that “women’s liberation is especially critical with respect to the effort to build an effective black liberation movement” (461). Unlike Hamer, Davis believes that black women should liberate themselves from the black man if they are too oppressive like the white man; black men should be held accountable for their chauvinistic efforts, and should embrace the fight for liberation of women just as black women supported the liberation of black men.

The organization was instrumental in stating that the mainstream white feminist movement was not meeting their wants or needs. In their Collective Statement they spoke, “A combined antiracist and antisexist position drew us together initially, and as we developed politically we addressed ourselves to heterosexism and economic oppression under capitalism” (1982, 4). This statement truly grasped a portrait of the politics and thoughts of black feminists. As previously, mentioned, Black Feminist Politics is the intersectional analysis of the multitude of oppressions that black women face. It is not just the experience, for example, of sexism or racism, it is the overlapping prejudices and microagressions that black women face daily. Black Feminist Politics seeks to end these prejudices, discriminations, and microagressions. The Combahee River Collective was a crucial assemblage of individuals who expanded the politics and thought-process of black feminists. The Combahee River Collective Statement was a very important document because it set forth the foundations of contemporary black feminist thought and theory.

Doetsch-Kidder’s (2016) monograph defines the important role of intersectionality as a defining sea-change in the way that women of color began to unify across racial and cultural barriers. Interviews with minority activists define the perception of the diversification of feminist ideology through the lens of intersectionality. One interview with a African-American activist named Donna illustrates the unity between women of color that evolved in the 1970s: “But overall, we are all fighting for civil rights, so there has to be some type of overlap with each one” (Doetsch-Kidder, 2016, p.103). This development defines the “overlapping’ ideology of different feminist groups, which soon began to devolve the racial and cultural barriers not only between women of color, but also with white feminist groups. In Doetsch-Kidder’s (2016) point of view, the civil rights movement laid the foundation for intersectional feminist principles to be practiced for women seeking greater representation in the workplace.

The ‘Critical Resistance’ is a good concept to be applied in society, however there has to be a need to restructure the law and how racialized bodies have been stereotyped throughout history. This in itself would be a lot of work to change people’s consciousness. But in the meantime, people, in order to protect themselves, must create their own activist group or figure out how to advocate for themselves in the justice system. Sudbury provides a good examples how women work together like the “Sistah to Sistah and Companeras programs which connect Black women activists and Latinas, respectively, with - Black women and Latina immigrant prisoners, is one way in which CCWP has made efforts to build bridges between women of color organizing inside and outside of the prison walls” (p.349). This is one of many ways how people of color fight for their rights by building a strong activism group that help their experiences to be heard by

Being neutral is dangerous and the exclusion of black women in consideration of women's rights and equality is nothing new as seen in Davis’s work through “The ostensibly “neutral” stance assumed by the leadership of the NAWSA with respect to the “color question” actually encouraged the proliferation of undisguised racist ideas. Davis, 1981).” Thus this calls for a divergence in the way those who call themselves feminist define who is included and who isn't when it comes to issues such as these, and altering the portrayal that feminism is simply “girl power.” That is where Sisters in The Struggle begins to take shape in the lens of the beliefs of those who consider themselves womanist, and how that deviates from feminism. The reliance on feminism is largely exclusive as it caters to white middle and upper-class individuals, as not even poor white women are taken

She describes how white women “ignore their built-in privilege of whiteness” when they ignore the black female’s point of view and focus solely on the white female’s view (117). She points out the hypocrisy of white feminists, in that they will refuse to read black females’ works because they are “too difficult to understand,” but will read the works of Shakespeare, Molière, Dostoyefsky, and Aristophanes (117) There’s an obvious contradiction between white feminists’ “incorporation” of black females into their movement and the exclusion of their literature, which Lorde later analyzes and determines is because white women would feel guilt upon recognizing and validating their experiences. Furthermore, the exclusion of black writings from the feminist movement weakens the strength of the movement, offering the opposite effect as desired. Lorde writes how “ignoring the differences of race between women and the implications of those differences presents the most serious threat to the mobilization of women’s joint power.” (117) Since the feminist movement seeks to apply social pressure to achieve social change, it would make sense to try to gain strength in numbers by including the most people possible; Lorde sees this strength in numbers and calls into question the consistency of the white side of the feminist movement with its

The texts “Radicalesbians” and “A Black feminist Statement” are two very different and often contradictory views on feminism and how women should interact with each other in order to fight the oppressions that affect them. “Radicallesbians” is a text concerned with only one type of discrimination and oppression; the oppression of women. It does not discuss the effects of race or class as “A Black Feminist Statement” does.

The black feminist movement emerging helped black women understand their own womanhood. According the Black Feminist writer Barbara Smith , the Black Feminist movement that emerged in in 1960s focused on reproductive issues, equality in the healthcare system, harassment, amongst many others. The black feminist movement actively fought against the structural and institutional racism that was deeply overlooked by the mainstream feminists. Black feminism for black women argues for their intersectionality of sexism, racism and class oppression and it actively fought against the structural and institutional racism faced by black women. It was during the emergence of the black feminist movement that black feminist write and professor Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the popular term ‘ intersectional feminism’. Intersectional feminism focused on the different intersections( sexuality,

Combahee River Collective in their article “Combahee River Collective Statement” examines the relationship between racism, heterosexism, economics, and racism. The group of black feminists, Combahee River Collective, strived to firmly and clearly establish their position when it came to politics of feminism, and therefore separated from the male counterparts and white women (Thomas). In the statement, the activists dwell on four major topics, including the dawn of modern Black feminism, the domain of politics, short history and the issues and practices of the group. This paper gives a summary of “Combahee River Collective Statement” and reviews some of its key points.

According to Nicole C. Raeburn, “…safe spaces may seem like they are just now on-trend when actually they trace back to the feminist consciousness-raising group from the 1960s and 1970s, others to the gay and lesbian movement of the early 1990s. In most cases, safe spaces are innocuous gatherings of like-minded people who agree to refrain from ridicule, criticism or what they term “microaggressions” – subtle displays of racial or sexual bias – so that everyone can relax enough to explore the nuances of, say, a fluid gender identity. As long as all parties consent to such restrictions, these little islands of self-restraint seem like a perfectly fine idea.”[1]

Even with the full forced feminist movement in the 1970s, black women (and essentially all other non-white women) were pushed aside, while the white middle class women became the face of feminism. As women such as Gloria Steinem’s blonde hair, blue eyes, and light skin were admired and more and more accepted as the face of feminism; black women were still not fully recognized. Therefore, black women and other non-whites began partnering together to work towards a common cause; their own rights that were being ignored by the “mainstream feminists.” Such is evidenced in the The Combahee River Collective Statement, which was created in 1977. This statement chronicled many issues that black feminists faced at the time, and is still highly applicable today. The collective stated, “We do not have racial, sexual, heterosexual, or class privilege to rely upon, nor do we have even the minimal access to resources and power that groups who possess anyone of these types of privilege have.”