Research on Women of Color

When black women respond to racism they are responding with anger; the anger of exclusion, of unquestioned privilege of racial distortions, of silence ill-use, stereotyping, defensiveness, misnaming, and of betrayal. Black women may have a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change. —Audre Lorde, "The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism" (1981). The emotion which accompanies the first steps toward liberation is, for most women, anger. Through the exercise strength may be gained.

Although the text, Women: Images and Realities a Multicultural Anthology, has done a wonderful job of showcasing the diversity of women’s experiences, I find Beverly Daniel Tatum’s work “Defining Racism: “Can We Talk?”” to be the most striking. In the essay, Tatum describes how she (and many other feminists) define racism and who can and cannot be racist. Tatum argues that there are important distinctions between prejudice and racism, wherein racism is defined as a ‘system of advantage based on race” or more precisely “prejudice plus power” (388). Through multiple examples Tatum illustrates that if one accepts and uses her definition of racism then only White people (the group of people who ‘dominate’ society) are racist because “people of

While racism is seen as a broad topic and people can generally grasp its effects on a broad scale, there are many more personal effects of racism and it effects every person differently. Each person can respond to racism in very different ways, while some may be motivated by it others may be harmed by it. In the essays “My Vassar College ID Makes Everything Okay” by Kiese Laymon and “The Meaning of Serena Williams” by Claudia Rankine, the authors analyze how people react to racism in their lives. Along with the analysis, both authors also looks at how those perpetrating racism react to the effects of it. In “My Vassar College ID Makes Everything Okay” by Kiese Laymon, Laymon evaluates how the racism in both his and college students’ lives have influenced them, while “The Meaning of Serena Williams” by Claudia Rankine mainly focuses on how racism affects Serena Williams. When comparing these two groups of people, the extremely wealthy or famous and all the other African-Americans, we can definitely see some glaring differences the reaction to racism in their lives.

Studies have demonstrated that these feelings of frustration and anger as a result of experiencing racial microagressions are common among students of colors who attend colleges with a majority population that is white. The research suggests that Black college students experience race-related stress differently than general daily hassles associated with college. As a result Black students typically report higher levels of life events stress, like racial discrimination and financial stress,

African Americans in the United States have been oppressed for many years. The continuous oppression and negative attitudes towards African Americans has caused an ongoing ethnic conflict. African Americans in the United States are facing injustices in all aspects of life, socially, economically, and politically. Although the conflict involving African Americans in the United States may not be as severe as other ethnic conflicts occurring around the world, it is still a very important ethnic conflict to address. In a study conducted by Givens and Monahan (2009), “participants associated the African American women interviewee more quickly with negative worlds, where as the white interviewee was more quickly associated with positive ones”

ill experience the public spheres and the workplace discrimination at the same level, because they have both conditions. Another example is the fact that African American women are often forgotten in history textbooks (Strickland & Weems, 2000, p. 72). In addition, even in todays’ news we talk more about the killing of African American men but not the ones of African American women (Ted Woman). From this perspective, other myths will derive such as the Strong Black Women myth (Black & Peacock, 2011). This myth is about a “gender-critical approach” in which African-American women are seen as stronger and responsible for their “health experiences” (Black & Peacock, 2011, 144). A research named Scott with his study sees the myth as forcing African American women to feel like they are self-reliant which will lead them to believe that they need to take care of their family, community, etc. Scott will refer to this idea as the management “warrior mode” (1991).

Nevertheless, I learned a massive amount of critical information in this class. Beforehand, I was slightly acquainted with problems pertaining to being Black and on being a Woman. Yet, I never thought about how the two can be interrelated. As odd as it may sound, since I am Black and a Woman I never realized the intertwined confliction based on those two social identities. Kimberle Crenshaw’s video on Intersectionality introduced me to a new

Studies that disect trends of the unique experience of African American women when it comes to self-identity as it relates to educational attainment, income, and occupational ambitions, are timelty and long overdue. Seeing as though, some of the participants were simply unaware of how to articulate how these racist, sexist, and classist constructs affected their lives, further shows the need for this research in this particular discourse. Even though this study is not generalizable, getting the

Throughout our time in class, we’ve hosted conversations about the injustices women face, more specifically, the struggles endured by black women throughout history. Most, if not all, of these experiences may be direct results of a woman’s class, gender, sexuality, nationality, also due to the intersection of structures of races. According to the Tumblr page, Intersectional Feminism for Beginners, intersectionality, originally, referred to the discriminations black women faced. These discriminations were not only in the form of racism, sexism, and class oppression. Today, the term includes an analysis of the discrimination faced by those who identify with any group of people, whether it be cultural, biological, or social, that aren’t “favored

For a very long time in the U.S. society, women of color have suffered too much oppression and discrimination from in many forms including on racial, class, and gender grounds. They have been subordinated, experience restricted participation in existing social institutions, and structurally placed in roles that have limited opportunities. Their congregation includes African Americans, the Asian Americans, the Latinas and others. There case has been made even worse by the fact that being a weaker sex that is subject to oppression from their male colored partners, they are also of color and therefore placing them at the extreme end of oppression. These aspects are more evident in the workplaces, school settings, prisons, families, and others

On this day our guest speakers were a group of community activist, mental health workers, and a few professors. For the hour we discussed intersectional systems of oppression that affect black women (and people of color), ways as activist that we may combat these inequalities, and the psychological impact of unbalanced power structures create for the individual.The discussion was thought-provoking; as always, however I found myself in a conundrum.

The author concentrates on the identity politics as a source of strength, community, and intellectual to illustrate some of the problems that women of color face within both antiracism and feminism.

“In New York City, where colored people are about half of the population, 80% of the NYPD stops were of blacks and Latinos.”(Quigley 1) Racism is like a barricade holding colored people back from becoming as successful as they want to be. Racism affects people in the workplace by limiting their chances to seize a job or promotion they are qualified for and should get. As an example, it has been proven that people who have white names have double the chance to be interviewed for a job than a person with an African American name. Racism is not the only persecution that affects people, sexism also is still a big problem in America. Sexism demeans and is unfair to women all around the globe, these women deserve to be treated as equal to men. In terms of women in leadership positions, the number of women with managerial positions is substantially lower than men. “In 2009, less than a quarter of CEOs were women in the US, and they earned significantly less than their male colleagues made.” (Gender Inequality and Women in the US Labor Force) Women are treated differently, even in places where gender has absolutely no importance towards the job. As an example, most people interview women and men differently, many questions women have to answer have zero importance to their qualification for the job. For example, interviewers ask women about children, which has

Although we live in the 21-century women of color across the United States, have been victims of one or more forms of discrimination. The fight to bridge the gender equality gap is a war that has been going on for generations. Women of color never had the gratification of being just a woman, for they are intertwined with issues of sexualization and sexual exploitation. The representations of the past and present frames WOC as sexualized objects. It’s part of a system of social disempowerment and victimization. It’s part of the larger picture of institutionalized racism that has great personal and

There is a paucity of empirical studies designed to assess levels of discrimination and psychological distress of Latina/os attending HSIs, however, there has been some literature examining these issues in Historically Black Universities. Given that HSIs and HBCUs were created to account for disparities in educational attainment, the HBCU literature was illuminating for the current study. For example, researchers have conducted investigations into the effect of racial identity on psychological symptoms Black students attending Historically Black Universities (Gilbert, So, Russell, & Wessel, 2006). To assess the issue, 154 African American college students attending an HBCU completed measures of psychological distress and racial identity. The