Separatism
Essay #3: Separatism
During the 1970’s and 1980’s, black female scholars addressed the limitations of “separatism” as a way to study social and political mobilization. Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Patricia Hill Collins, and Fannie Lou Hamer rejected “separatism” and created new theories for understanding black women’s social and political mobilization…We are dispossessed psychologically and on every other level, and yet we feel the necessity to struggle to change our condition and the condition of all black women1
Political Activist, Angela Davis, involved herself in local and global struggles for progressive social change2… Davis spoke on many different social issues such as racism, economic justice, poverty, prison reform, women’s liberation, welfare reform, reproductive freedom, sexual violence, health child care, public education, apartheid, peace, and disarmament. Davis’ essay, Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves, was an example of black feminist oration. Ms. Davis, goes on to argue that negro women were no less punished than the negro man…On occasion, when men were hanged, the women were burned alive3…these acts thrown upon slave women were signs to the other black women to not be like their “sisters”. Many slave women threw acts of rebellion, with one being sexual abuse. Black females were forced to submit to their slave masters …to become his unwilling concubine4…
1 The Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement”, Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought, ed. Beverly Guy-Sheftall (New York: New York Press, 1995), 236.
2 Angela Davis, “Reflection on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves”, Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought, ed. Beverly Guy-Sheftall (New York: New York Press, 1995), 211.
3 ibid., 212.
4 ibid., 215. which goes back to McDougald’s claim of the other race stereotyping black women of having low sex standards and
During the 1970’s and 1980’s, black female scholars addressed the limitations of “separatism” as a way to study social and political mobilization. Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Patricia Hill Collins, and Fannie Lou Hamer rejected “separatism” and created new theories for understanding black women’s social and political mobilization…We are dispossessed psychologically and on every other level, and yet we feel the necessity to struggle to change our condition and the condition of all black women1
Political Activist, Angela Davis, involved herself in local and global struggles for progressive social change2… Davis spoke on many different social issues such as racism, economic justice, poverty, prison reform, women’s liberation, welfare reform, reproductive freedom, sexual violence, health child care, public education, apartheid, peace, and disarmament. Davis’ essay, Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves, was an example of black feminist oration. Ms. Davis, goes on to argue that negro women were no less punished than the negro man…On occasion, when men were hanged, the women were burned alive3…these acts thrown upon slave women were signs to the other black women to not be like their “sisters”. Many slave women threw acts of rebellion, with one being sexual abuse. Black females were forced to submit to their slave masters …to become his unwilling concubine4…
1 The Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement”, Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought, ed. Beverly Guy-Sheftall (New York: New York Press, 1995), 236.
2 Angela Davis, “Reflection on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves”, Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought, ed. Beverly Guy-Sheftall (New York: New York Press, 1995), 211.
3 ibid., 212.
4 ibid., 215. which goes back to McDougald’s claim of the other race stereotyping black women of having low sex standards and