Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 325

Here are a few excerpts from a book I recently read, "ain't i a woman: black women and feminism," by bell hooks.

At a time in American history when black women in every area of the country might have joined together to demand social equality for women and a recognition of the impact of sexism on our social status, we were by and large silent. Our silence was not merely a reaction against white women liberationists or a gesture of solidarity with black male patriarchs. It was the silence of the oppressed—that profound silence engendered by resignation and acceptance of one’s lot. Contemporary black women could not join together to fight for women’s rights because we did not see “womanhood” as an important aspect of our identity. Racist, sexist socialization had conditioned us to devalue our femaleness and to regard race as the only relevant label of identification. In other words, we were asked to deny a part of ourselves—

and we did. Consequently, when the women’s movement raised the issue of sexist oppression, we argued that sexism was insignificant in light of the harsher, more brutal reality of racism. We were afraid to acknowledge that sexism could be just as oppressive as racism. We clung to the hope that liberation from racial oppression would be all that was necessary for us to be free. We were a new generation of black women who had been taught to submit, to accept sexual inferiority, and to be silent.

Usually, when people talk about the “strength” of black women they are referring to the way in which they perceive black women coping with oppression. They ignore the reality that to be strong in the face of oppression is not the same as overcoming oppression, that endurance is not to be confused with transformation.

During that time I expressed to white feminists my concern that so few black women were willing to support feminism. They responded by saying that they could understand the black woman’s refusal to involve herself in feminist struggle because she was already involved in the struggle to end racism. As I encouraged black women to become active feminists, I was told that we should not become “women’s libbers” because racism was the oppressive force in our life—not sexism. To both groups I voiced my conviction that the struggle to end racism and the struggle to end sexism were naturally intertwined, that to make them separate was to deny a basic truth of our existence, that race and sex are both immutable facets of human identity.

Scholars have argued further that by not allowing black men to assume their traditional patriarchal status, white men effectively emasculated them, reducing them to an effeminate state. Implicit in this assertion is the assumption that the worst that can happen to a man is that he be made to assume the social status of woman. To suggest that black men were de-humanized solely as a result of not being able to be patriarchs implies that the subjugation of black women was essential to the black male’s development of a positive self-concept, an idea that only served to support a sexist social order.

The popular notion that black men desire white women because they are so much more “feminine” than black women has been used to place responsibility for black male desire for white female companions onto black women. In sexist terms, if black men are rejecting black women and seeking other companions, then surely black women must be doing something wrong since men are always right. The truth is—in sexist America, where women are objectified extensions of male ego, black women have been labeled hamburger and white women prime rib. And it is white men who have created this race-sex hierarchy, not black men. Black men merely accept and support it. In fact, if white men decided at any given moment that owning a purple female was the symbol of masculine status and success, black men in competition with white men would have to try and possess a purple female. While I believe it is perfectly normal for people of different races to be sexually attracted to one another, I do not think that black men who confess to loving white women and hating black women or vice versa are simply expressing personal preferences free of culturally socialized biases.

The extent to which black men absorbed this ideology was made evident in the 60s black liberation movement. Black male leaders of the movement made the liberation of black people from racist oppression synonymous with their gaining the right to assume the role of patriarch, of sexist oppressor. By allowing white men to dictate the terms by which they would define black liberation, black men chose to endorse sexist exploitation and oppression of black women. And in so doing they were compromised. They were not liberated from the system but liberated to serve the system. The movement ended and the system had not changed; it was no less racist or sexist.