[1] During that time we have been involved in the process of defining and clarifying our politics, while at the same time doing political work within our own group and in coalition with other progressive organizations and . But then I understood it differently, not just as a critical document in the canon of feminist literature or as a much-needed exposition of the origins of Black feminism. We must also question whether Lesbian separatism is an adequate and progressive political analysis and strategy, even for those who practice it, since it so completely denies any but the sexual sources of womens oppression, negating the facts of class and race. It is a living thing. In A Black Feminists Search for Sisterhood, Michele Wallace arrives at this conclusion: Black feminism made sense of my mothers life of work, her compulsory caretaking and debt. As feminists we do not want to mess over people in the name of politics. In this section we will discuss some of the general reasons for the organizing problems we face and also talk specifically about the stages in organizing our own collective. How do those who have been the objects of scientific study and medical experimentation become the agents or the producers of scientific knowledge? 1-24, Off Our Backs, Vol. "w- d4bJeR|oEj ')IwLDc8="zJ 8X!. . We had always shared our reading with each other, and some of us had written papers on Black feminism for group discussion a few months before this decision was made. JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. There have always been Black women activistssome known, like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frances E. W. Harper, Ida B. The Combahee River Collective Statement (1977) by Combahee River Collective. Heres some of what has happened since they began. A Black feminist presence has evolved most obviously in connection with the second wave of the American womens movement beginning in the late 1960s. THE COMBAHEE RIVER COLLECTIVE: The Combahee River Collective Statement, copyright 1978 by Zillah Eisenstein. As they put it, If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.. As Angela Davis points out in Reflections on the Black Womans Role in the Community of Slaves, Black women have always embodied, if only in their physical manifestation, an adversary stance to white male rule and have actively resisted its inroads upon them and their communities in both dramatic and subtle ways. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough. We dont have to do white feminism, we dont have to do patriarchal Black nationalismwe dont have to do those things. Mao Zedong: Reader, Librarian, Revolutionary? The class and race tensions within feminism lasted far beyond the seventies. The statement is an important piece of feminist theory and description of black feminism (Balliet, pg. We have found that it is very difficult to organize around Black feminist issues, difficult even to announce in certain contexts that we are Black feminists. The psychological toll of being a Black woman and the difficulties this presents in reaching political consciousness and doing political work can never be underestimated. As BIack women we find any type of biological determinism a particularly dangerous and reactionary basis upon which to build a politic. 2, Harriet Tubman: A Legacy of Resistance (2014), pp. gave us the political tools to understand the difference between bottom-up and top-down politics, and their distorted manifestation in the identity politics of today. The Strange Career of the Lady Possum of the New World, To Get Help for Sick Kids, Mothers Wrote to Washington, Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, About the American Prison Newspapers Collection, Submissions: American Prison Newspapers Collection. Statement Combahee River Collective We are a collective of Black feminists who have been meeting together since 1974. As the statement read: We need to articulate the real class situation of persons who are not merely raceless, sexless workers, but for whom racial and sexual oppression are significant determinants in their working/economic lives. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like interlocking, manifold, inroads and more. We are socialists because we believe that work must be organized for the collective benefit of those who do the work and create the products, and not for the profit of the bosses. 3. No one had the right to strip socialism and its rootedness in collectivity, democracy, and human fulfillment from Black women, or the Black radical tradition. All rights reserved. I was still annoyed by her absence and neglect when I was younger. During our first summer when membership had dropped off considerably, those of us remaining devoted serious discussion to the possibility of opening a refuge for battered women in a Black community. Many Black women have a good understanding of both sexism and racism, but because of the everyday constrictions of their lives, cannot risk struggling against them both. 190-222, African American Review, Vol. Solidarity was the bridge by which different groups of people could connect on the basis of mutual understanding, respect, and the old socialist edict that an injury to one was an injury to all. There is also undeniably a personal genesis for Black Feminism, that is, the political realization that comes from the seemingly personal experiences of individual Black womens lives. What was the Combahee River Collective and what were the politics and vision advanced by the group, The Combahee River Collective was a Black feminist lesbian organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980. We might, for example, become involved in workplace organizing at a factory that employs Third World women or picket a hospital that is cutting back on already inadequate heath care to a Third World community, or set up a rape crisis center in a Black neighborhood. [1] During that time we have been involved in the process of defining and clarifying our politics, while at the same time doing political work within our own group and in coalition with other progressive organizations and movements. One issue that is of major concern to us and that we have begun to publicly address is racism in the white womens movement. Black feminist politics also have an obvious connection to movements for Black liberation, particularly those of the 1960s and I970s. 225 0 obj <> endobj 240 0 obj <>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[<55A8DDF17D624C57A3DD9554302617BF><2BF3B81EF49545358296A73A72E810D6>]/Index[225 24]/Info 224 0 R/Length 78/Prev 307736/Root 226 0 R/Size 249/Type/XRef/W[1 2 1]>>stream There are no maps or predetermined paths that guarantee the success or failure of a movement. We have spent a great deal of energy delving into the cultural and experiential nature of our oppression out of necessity because none of these matters has ever been looked at before. As Angela Davis points out in Reflections on the Black Womans Role in the Community of Slaves, Black women have always embodied, if only in their physical manifestation, an adversary stance to white male rule and have actively resisted its inroads upon them and their communities in both dramatic and subtle ways. Test. Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism, Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership. But we can take inspiration from the imaginative optimism of the Combahee Statement. Smith is skeptical about the longevity of this particular moment, as she has earned the right to be. We have also done many workshops and educationals on Black feminism on college campuses, at womens conferences, and most recently for high school women. 3 (February 1974), pp. They envisioned coalition politics on the basis of mutual solidarity, including a commitment to the struggles against sexism, heterosexism, racism, class oppression, exploitation, and imperialism. The psychological toll of being a Black woman and the difficulties this presents in reaching political consciousness and doing political work can never be underestimated. drew on their experiences in Black, male-dominated organizations. We had a retreat in the late spring which provided a time for both political discussion and working out interpersonal issues. [2] Wallace, Michele. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough., I recently spoke with Barbara Smith, who made clear that identity politics was not intended to be exclusionary or to contend that only those who suffered a particular oppression could fight against it or even comment on it. y~ ;`bz*,f-Fu\i "$JP Black womens extremely negative relationship to the American political system (a system of white male rule) has always been determined by our membership in two oppressed racial and sexual castes. This intersectional group was created because there was a sense that both the feminist movement or civil rights movement didn't reflect the particular needs of Black women and lesbians. What We Believe In this section we will discuss some of the general reasons for the organizing problems we face and also talk specifically about the stages in organizing our own collective. We believe in collective process and a nonhierarchical distribution of power within our own group and in our vision of a revolutionary society. We just wanted to see what we had. When, in the early eighties, my mother got burned out from haggling with less qualified white male administrators and a fancy career that was going nowhere fast, she started a house-cleaning business. Women's Studies Quarterly, Vol. It is a foundational document in Black feminism, whose impact continues to be seen and felt . In her introduction to Sisterhood is Powerful Robin Morgan writes: Although we are in essential agreement with Marxs theory as it applied to the very specific economic relationships he analyzed, we know that his analysis must be extended further in order for us to understand our specific economic situation as Black women. She founded the legendary Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, with Audre Lorde, in 1980. JSTOR, the JSTOR logo, and ITHAKA are registered trademarks of ITHAKA. 3 (2017), pp. 155-191, Race, Gender & Class, Vol. In 1973, Black feminists, primarily located in New York, felt the necessity of forming a separate Black feminist group. In 2016, as the fortieth anniversary of the Combahee Statement approached, I realized that it would be an opportunity to draw attention back to the document and its astounding prescience and analysis, and to complicate a stilted and unsatisfying national discussion about who the real inheritors were of socialist politics in the United States. Barbara Smith at a National Gay Rights March, 1993. Smith told me, By identity politics, we meant simply this: we have a right as Black women in the nineteen-seventies to formulate our own political agendas. She went on, We dont have to leave out the fact that we are women, we do not have to leave out the fact that we are Black. In her introduction to Sisterhood is Powerful Robin Morgan writes: I havent the faintest notion what possible revolutionary role white heterosexual men could fulfill, since they are the very embodiment of reactionary-vested-interest-power. As Black feminists we are made constantly and painfully aware of how little effort white women have made to understand and combat their racism, which requires among other things that they have a more than superficial comprehension of race, color, and Black history and culture. As they explained, Black feminists and many more Black women who do not define themselves as feminists have all experienced sexual oppression as a constant factor in our day-to-day existence. And they were doing even more than that: the Combahee Statement was also written to describe how race, gender, and sexual orientation were woven together in the lives of queer Black women. The final, definitive version was published in Zillah Eisenstein, ed., Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism (Monthly Review Press, 1979), 362-72. We need to think about things in a different way. And who better to do that than feminists of color who are queer and on the left? She added, One of the signs to me that feminist-of-color politics are influencing this moment is the multiracial, multiethnic diversityand not just racial and ethnic, but every kind of diversityof the people who are in the streets now. This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. Eliminating racism in the white womens movement is by definition work for white women to do, but we will continue to speak to and demand accountability on this issue. However, we had no way of conceptualizing what was so apparent to us, what we knew was really happening. 1100 Words5 Pages. The value of men and women can be seen as in the value of gold and silverthey are not equal but both have great value. The reaction of Black men to feminism has been notoriously negative. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough. It was our experience and disillusionment within these liberation movements, as well as experience on the periphery of the white male left, that led to the need to develop a politics that was anti-racist, unlike those of white women, and anti-sexist, unlike those of Black and white men. 8XXANaA{s*ZQe(GCCM|+J_mCmI^tiPrLs:YfZ/&`7?2I!KRODf!;EM$X Ghpo:A0r# We reprint that version here in commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of its publication by Monthly Review Press. He is the leader of the house/nation because his knowledge of the world is broader, his awareness is greater, his understanding is fuller and his application of this information is wiser After all, it is only reasonable that the man be the head of the house because he is able to defend and protect the development of his home Women cannot do the same things as menthey are made by nature to function differently. And every Black woman who came, came out of a strongly-felt need for some level of possibility that did not previously exist in her life. The sanctions In the Black and white communities against Black women thinkers is comparatively much higher than for white women, particularly ones from the educated middle and upper classes.
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