(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #230 - Folder Black Revolution: Intersectionality: The Black Feminism: at the crossroads of oppressions (fr)

Back on the history of black feminists can understand the concept of intersectionality of 
social relations (gender, race, class ...). Indeed, these are the struggles and analysis 
of Black feminists we must largely this major contribution to the analysis of power 
relations. ---- Black feminism [ 1 ] emerged in the years 1970 to 1980 in the United 
States in a context of multiple social movements (movement against the Vietnam War, civil 
rights movements ...). It is the result of multiple historical heritage. ---- The history 
of black feminism is inseparable from the history of North American slavery and 
abolitionist movements. From the second half of the nineteenth century, black women and 
white combine to fight slavery in the southern United States. Many of them are actively 
involved in the escape of slaves by the famous "Underground Railroad" [ 2 ].

Harriet Tubman was an African-American women who actively fought for the abolition of 
slavery and against racism. The fighting emerging feminist claims, which later will be 
realized by the American suffrage movement ("first wave" feminist) which will combine the 
struggle for black suffrage and women's suffrage. This is where things get complicated. 
The discussions then were instead of what was the priority: women or blacks. So which side 
are black women?

Abolition of Slavery

At a conference on women's rights in Ohio (1851), composed overwhelmingly of white men and 
white women, the discussion in full swing for whether women (white) were able or not to 
take political responsibilities. Women are then described as too fragile and delicate to 
be able to assume such responsibilities. Faced with these very useful to oust women from 
politics, Sojourney Truth (1797-1883), black woman, emancipated slave stereotypes, speaks: 
" Look at my arm! I have plowed and planted and stored in granaries, like a man - and I'm 
not a woman? I worked and ate as much as a man whenever I could, so I endured the lash! 
And am not I a woman? I gave birth to three children and I have seen most of them sold 
into slavery, and when I screamed my mother grief, only Jesus heard me - and is not I a 
woman? "[ 3 ].

For this intervention, Sojourney Truth shows that there is a gulf between the ideological 
myth of "femininity" (meaning white) and the reality of concrete experiences of Black 
women. They are black women like her who have positioned themselves critically in the 
struggles by highlighting their own experience of multiple oppressions they suffered. 
Black women fleeing the feminist movement then who are under the yoke of the white women 
of the ruling classes.

Movement of African-American feminist

In the 1970s the United States, the concrete experiences of Black women are not taken into 
account in feminism-called "second wave". Indeed, it, again monopolized by white 
middle-class feminists, is centered solely on the sexual oppression and the needs of the 
moment. For example, the claims of white feminists focus on access to employment and 
social mobility, while black women, mostly working for or are these white women workers. 
Also, how to ally with white women and black men to oppose and "The Family" when just men 
Black and extended families of the Black community and the Black churches are allies 
against a racist society and classes. There is a social barrier between the Black and 
white feminists, and as bell hooks [underlines 4 ]: " [...] as long as women have not 
understood the need to redistribute wealth and resources of the United States and they 
will not work in this direction, they can not join across social barriers "[ 5 ]. The 
issue of sexuality has also been the source of a split, all Black feminists speak in their 
writings. Because when white women of the upper classes are exposed to multiple 
pregnancies and illegal abortions, black women face forced sterilization and 
contraceptives massive testing.

The Black feminist therefore " ? ass between two chairs without being able to feel like a 
fish in water ? "as a seminal work perfectly summarizes the Black feminism" ? All The 
Women Are White, All The Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave ? "[ 6 ]. The Black 
feminist therefore undertake independently in social and political struggles. They face 
racism of white feminism and sexism of the Black Movement. Michele Wallace, Black Women, 
feminist activist is furious in his writings of machismo activist groups blacks: " ? It 
took me three years to understand that Stokely [ 7 ] was serious when he said that my 
position in the movement was "lying "three years to realize that I was not included in 
countless speeches invoking" the Black man "... I learned "[ 8 ].

In response to these multiple oppressions they face, the Black feminist organizing in 1973 
NBFO (National Black Feminist Organization). This organization lasted only two years, but 
the movement was launched. In 1974, the Combahee River Collective (CRC) was founded by 
Barbara Smith, Cheryl Clarke and Akasha Gloria Hull, all activists disappointed Black 
movements, the feminist movement and the political struggles of the left: " ? These are 
our experiences and disappointments within these liberation movements [for the Black 
liberation movements: civil rights, Black nationalism, Black Panthers] and the periphery 
of the white male left, which pushed us to develop a policy that is racist, to unlike that 
of white women, and gender, in contrast to that of Black men and white ? . " They engage 
in a struggle both activist and academic. This feminist group, the most active time 
together feminists and lesbians Black, participates in many activities and events 
organized " ?group consciousness ? "and published numerous pamphlets, posters, books. To 
carry out their struggles, which are simultaneous / integrated, they reject the Black 
separatism and lesbian separatism, they call for a coalition with other revolutionary 
groups and activists to action: " ? We are not convinced that a revolution socialist who 
is not also a feminist and antiracist revolution will guarantee our liberation "[ 9 ].

We see the practical utility and theoretical analysis of an intersectional systems of 
oppression (gender, 'race', class ...). The Black feminists, for their thoughts and 
political struggles, we show that it is not appropriate to only fight on one of these 
areas, because all intertwined. The revolutionary feminist and anti-racist action will or 
will not!

Awareness and mobilization of knowledge located

"Groups of conscience" are fundamental to understand the construction of Black feminist 
struggles. These groups not mix, "race" and gender, have allowed many unlearning racism 
and sexism that had previously enlisted their lives and personal constructions. As 
described by Angela Davis, "The Black Woman" was stigmatized by the dominant white male 
ideology, either as matriarch, bad mother, libertine, gross [ 10 ]. These stereotypes have 
"served" to crack the white men with impunity, rape, physical and mental abuse, separation 
of mother and child and later forced sterilization, contraceptives illegal tests. For 
these "awareness groups" Black women and feminists were able, as it engages Audre Lorde, 
Black woman, feminist, lesbian and poet, " transform the silence in words and deed . " 
Practical experience, material that Black women share them allowed them to create their 
own alternative and subversive namely: (re) write history / herstory themselves [ 11 ] was 
one of the key issues of autonomy of their movement. The culture has a huge role in this 
(re) appropriation of knowledge. Many women artists as Nina Simone and Billie Holiday were 
carrying the hopes and demands of the Black community. The soul and hip-hop have taken 
thereafter, somehow, the torch jazz and blues by artists like Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu and 
Queen Latifah.

The key word is self-determination to avoid all sorts of powers: " ? For, as Audre Lorde 
wrote, master tools will never destroy the master's house ? "[ 12 ]

Queer movement of color

Since the 1960s, other women and men-are from "minority groups" fighting alongside the 
Black Movement. The queer of color is included. From the street and squats, it 
appropriates an insult ( queer = odd) and gathers Chican @ s [ 13 ], Latino, Caribbean and 
Caribbean, "native americans" (Amerindian), Asian-es from the Pacific islands and M?tis. 
Not limited to the borders of the United States, the struggles of queer of color are 
overtly feminist, anti-capitalist, decolonial, and radical anti-imperialist struggle and 
simultaneously against multiple systems of oppression. Gloria Anzaldua is one of the first 
Chicana, feminist, lesbian, activist, academic, writer and poet to have identified as 
queer [ 14 ]. As the Black struggles, queers of color use many alternative forms of 
transmission of knowledge, such as poetry, novels, music, art ...

Social considerations, political and historical women and men-are from minority groups 
provide a more comprehensive view and nested multiple systems of oppression. Depending on 
the position in which we find ourselves, or by our surroundings and the people we meet, 
our world will be focused in one way or another. This is what makes the richness of 
multiculturalism. The route of the Black Movement and especially the feminist Black is an 
exemplary illustration. Regarding the women's movement in France, there is not (yet!) 
Equivalent to the movement of African-American feminists. However, to give some examples, 
groups of Lesbians of Color , and "November 6 group" [ 15 ] are certainly movements 
inspired struggles and thoughts of many protest movements around the world who refuse 
neoliberalism, imperialism and post-colonialism and fight against them, taking into 
account all aspects of oppression.

Clem pamp (Girlfriend AL, Montreuil)

For further reading:

Most of the texts cited in this article are from coordinated by Elsa Dorlin, book Black 
feminism. Anthology of African American feminism, 1975-2000 , The Haramattan Library of 
feminism, Paris, 2008, 260 p.

l For more information about the queer of color, read coordinated by Paola Bacchetta and 
Jules Falquet, book decolonial queer and feminist theories: interventions Chicanas and 
Latinas United uniennes , Les Cahiers du CEDREF, Paris, 2011, 186P.

l A documentary Pratibha Parmar, A place of fury , 2011.

Case summary:
- The roots of racism: From slavery to the ghetto
- labor movement: black or white, always proletarians
- Malcolm X: a life in black and white
- Malcolm X: Building a Black Power
- The Black Panthers beyond the myth
- The Black Feminism: at the intersection of oppressions
- DRUM: The struggle of blacks in the workplace
- black reformist movements: The pitfalls of bourgeois strategies
- Harana Par? (historian): "This is the revolt that brought into existence the American Black"
- A Black Revolution remains to be done

[ 1 ] With reference to the writings of Black feminists, the author chose to retain the 
capitalize "Black".

[ 2 ] Train and roads allowed the African-American slaves to escape from the slave South, 
to the northern United States and Canada.

[ 3 ] Our translation known as the famous speech " Is not I a woman? ", as bell hooks, 
Black woman, feminist, intellectual and activist taken to one of the most influential 
books of feminism" Is not I a woman: Black woman and feminism "in 1981.

[ 4 ] bell hooks puts his name and first name in lower case to emphasize that it is the 
ideas that they share the important, not what it is.

[ 5 ] 5. bell hooks, " Is not I a woman: Black woman and feminism ", Paperback, 1981.

[ 6 ] " All the women are white, all the blacks are men, but some of us are brave "(our 
translation), written by Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell Scott and Barbara Smith book.

[ 7 ] Stokely Carmichael (1941-1998), African-American man, militant Black Panther Party.

[ 8 ] Michele Wallace, a feminist seeking sorority , Invisibility Blues, 1982.

[ 9 ] Statement by the Combahee River Collective, 1977.

[ 10 ] 1 Angela Davis, Women, Race and Class , Vintage, 1981.

[ 11 ] Herstory is an ironic term used by Black feminists to develop their knowledge, 
their history.

[ 12 ] Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider, testing and about Audre Lorde , Mamam?lis, 2003.

[ 13 ] The Chican @ s are men and women from Mexico living in the United States and / or 
sharing the two cultures, Mexican and United States. The @ is used to solve the mess that 
writing more or less equal in terms of gender, it meets the Chicana and Chicano represents.

[ 14 ] 14. Gloria Anzald?a, Borderlands / La Frontera, The New Mestiza , Aunt Lute Books, 
1987.

[ 15 ] The Group of 6 November (1999-2005), brings together lesbians from the 
colonization, slavery and forced migration