The Combahee River Collective: The Black Feminist Movement
Grace Petro
Prof. Grigsby
SOCY222501
29 January 2015
Response Paper Unit 2
Feminist issues are not and never will be “one size fits all.” What is important to the masses cannot be defined by the few of a common identity; the current hegemony of white feminists leading the movement has resulted in a cause solely concentrated on the challenges they find pressing. Minority feminist groups have felt marginalized from the progression of feminism, and often go undocumented for building a premise of racially tolerant political action groups. The phrase “multiracial feminism” is defined as feminism based on the examination of dominance through understanding social constructs of race, ethnicity, tradition, and culture (Thompson, 33). Moreover, each …show more content…
The Combahee River Collective was a black feminist Lesbian organization that produced “A Black Feminist Statement” in 1977. In their “What We Believe” proclamation, they addressed the difficulty with hegemonic white woman’s view of feminism and the marginalization involved with it. The proclamation stated, “we have in many ways gone beyond white women’s revelations because we are dealing with the implications of race and class as well as sex” (Kirk, 28). The issues of gender equality are relative to the upbringing and lively hood of those oppressed in certain environments. Women of color, thus, feel as if the civil rights movement and the movement led by white feminists is too limited for them. Black women are frequently absent from analyses of either gender oppression or racism because of their position in society, since the former focuses primarily on the experiences of white women and the latter on black men. There is a large grey area between both feminist and antiracist theory and practice that neglect to accurately reflect the interaction of race and gender, which leads to the marginalization of all non-white …show more content…
The white women’s movement must do more than superficially comprehend race, color, black history and culture. Nothing can be accomplished nor improved if there is a lack of dialect between white women and women of color about this anger towards racist attitudes. “There was work on expressing anger, but very little on anger directed against each other. No tools were developed to deal with other women’s anger except to avoid, deflect or flee from it”(Lorde, 281). A conversation is vital during the continuous feminist movement to abolish all racism, which is an issue black feminist face daily. “Eliminating racism in the white women’s movement is by definition work for white women to do”(Kirk, 31). But, none of this anger is constructive. Lorde speaks about the importance of focusing anger into positive things, such as the Feminist movement. Every woman has a “well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional…focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change” (Lorde,
Prof. Grigsby
SOCY222501
29 January 2015
Response Paper Unit 2
Feminist issues are not and never will be “one size fits all.” What is important to the masses cannot be defined by the few of a common identity; the current hegemony of white feminists leading the movement has resulted in a cause solely concentrated on the challenges they find pressing. Minority feminist groups have felt marginalized from the progression of feminism, and often go undocumented for building a premise of racially tolerant political action groups. The phrase “multiracial feminism” is defined as feminism based on the examination of dominance through understanding social constructs of race, ethnicity, tradition, and culture (Thompson, 33). Moreover, each …show more content…
The Combahee River Collective was a black feminist Lesbian organization that produced “A Black Feminist Statement” in 1977. In their “What We Believe” proclamation, they addressed the difficulty with hegemonic white woman’s view of feminism and the marginalization involved with it. The proclamation stated, “we have in many ways gone beyond white women’s revelations because we are dealing with the implications of race and class as well as sex” (Kirk, 28). The issues of gender equality are relative to the upbringing and lively hood of those oppressed in certain environments. Women of color, thus, feel as if the civil rights movement and the movement led by white feminists is too limited for them. Black women are frequently absent from analyses of either gender oppression or racism because of their position in society, since the former focuses primarily on the experiences of white women and the latter on black men. There is a large grey area between both feminist and antiracist theory and practice that neglect to accurately reflect the interaction of race and gender, which leads to the marginalization of all non-white …show more content…
The white women’s movement must do more than superficially comprehend race, color, black history and culture. Nothing can be accomplished nor improved if there is a lack of dialect between white women and women of color about this anger towards racist attitudes. “There was work on expressing anger, but very little on anger directed against each other. No tools were developed to deal with other women’s anger except to avoid, deflect or flee from it”(Lorde, 281). A conversation is vital during the continuous feminist movement to abolish all racism, which is an issue black feminist face daily. “Eliminating racism in the white women’s movement is by definition work for white women to do”(Kirk, 31). But, none of this anger is constructive. Lorde speaks about the importance of focusing anger into positive things, such as the Feminist movement. Every woman has a “well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional…focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change” (Lorde,