User:Crisedevers/Black feminism

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Black feminism is a philosophy that centers on the idea that "Black women are inherently valuable, that [Black women's] liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else's but because our need as human persons for autonomy."

Race, gender, and class discrimination are all aspects of the same system of hierarchy, which bell hooks calls the "imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy". Due to their inter-dependency, they combine to create something more than experiencing racism and sexism independently. The experience of being a Black woman, then, cannot be grasped in terms of being Black or of being a woman but must be illuminated via intersectionality, a term coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. Intersectionality indicates that each identity—being Black and being female—should be considered both independently and for their interaction effect, in which intersecting identities deepen, reinforce one another, and potentially lead to aggravated forms of inequality.

A Black feminist lens in the United States was first employed by Black women to make sense of how white supremacy and patriarchy interacted to inform the particular experiences of enslaved Black women. Black activists and intellectuals formed organizations such as the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) and the National Council of Negro Women(NCNW). Black feminism rose to prominence in the 1960s, as the civil rights movement excluded women from leadership positions, and the mainstream feminist movement largely focused its agenda on issues that predominately impacted middle-class White women. From the 1970s to 1980s, Black feminists formed groups that addressed the role of Black women in Black nationalism, gay liberation, and second-wave feminism. In the 1990s, the Anita Hill controversy brought Black feminism into the mainstream. Black feminist theories reached a wider audience in the 2010s as a result of social-media advocacy.

Proponents of Black feminism argue that Black women are positioned within structures of power in fundamentally different ways than White women. In the early 21st century, the tag white feminist gained currency to criticize feminists who avoid issues of intersectionality. Critics of Black feminism argue that divisions along the lines of race or gender weaken the strength of the overall feminist and anti-racist movements.

Among the notions that evolved out of the Black feminist movement are Alice Walker's womanism and historical revisionism with an increased focus on Black women.[page needed]bell hooks, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Angela Davis, and Patricia Hill Collins have emerged as leading academics on Black feminism, while Black celebrities have encouraged mainstream discussion of Black feminism.

The Combahee River Collective
The Combahee River Collective (1974-1980), a group of black feminists, spoke on how black women are constantly and simultaneously fighting this ongoing battle of multiple oppression from all angles. Within the Black Feminisms: Combahee River Collective Statement of 1977, they spoke on how, “…difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression because in our [black women’s’] lives they are the most often experienced simultaneously". (Combahee River Collective Statement, pg. 504). The Combahee River Collective articulated this interlocking system of oppression based on sexism, heterosexism, racism, and classism due to the lack of basic human rights provided to black women in comparison to other groups, such as white women. All of this is crucial to the political beliefs of black feminism due to their difference among other groups, as they tackle additional struggles don’t necessarily need to fight for. Black feminism is the fight for recognition as human beings who just want the same treatment and rights as everyone else. White women fighting for feminism was different from black women fighting for black feminism, simply because they’re only needing to address one oppression [sexism] versus an entire range of oppression, like black women. Therefore, the black feminists of the Combahee River Collective aimed for an inclusive, & not an exclusive, movement because, ''“The major source of difficulty in our political work is that we are not just trying to fight oppression on one front or even two, but instead to address a whole range of oppressions. We do not have racial, sexual, heterosexual, or class privilege to rely upon, nor do we have even the minimal access to resources and power that groups who possess any one of these types of privilege have…”'' (Combahee River Collective Statement, pg. 505).

Second-wave feminism[edit]
Further information: Second-wave feminism

The second-wave feminist movement emerged in the 1960s, led by Betty Friedan. Some Black women felt alienated by the main planks of the mainstream branches of the second-wave feminist movement, which largely advocated for women's rights to work outside the home and expansion of reproductive rights. For example, earning the power to work outside the home was not seen as an accomplishment by Black women since many Black women had to work both inside and outside the home for generations due to poverty. Additionally, as Angela Davis later wrote, while Afro-American women and White women were subjected to multiple unwilled pregnancies and had to clandestinely abort, Afro-American women were also suffering from compulsory sterilization programs that were not widely included in dialogue about reproductive justice.

Some Black feminists who were active in the early second-wave feminism include civil rights lawyer and author Florynce Kennedy, who co-authored one of the first books on abortion, 1971's Abortion Rap; Cellestine Ware, of New York's Stanton-Anthony Brigade; and Patricia Robinson. These women "tried to show the connections between racism and male dominance" in society.

Fighting against racism and sexism across the White dominated second wave feminist movement and male dominated Black Power and Black Arts Movement, Black feminist groups of artists such as Where We At! Black Women Artists Inc were formed in the early 1970s. The "Where We At" group was formed in 1971 by artists Vivian E. Browne and Faith Ringgold.During the summer of that year, the group organized the first exhibition in history of only Black women artists to show the viewing public that Black artist was not synonymous with Black male artist. In 1972 Where We At! issued a list of demands to the Brooklyn Museum protesting what it saw as the museum's ignoring of Brooklyn's Black women artists. The demands brought forth changes and years later, in 2017, the museum's exhibit "We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women 1965-1985" celebrated the work of Black women artists who were part of the Black Arts and Black Power movements.

During the 20th century, Black feminism evolved quite differently from mainstream feminism. In the late 1900s it was influenced by new writers such as Alice Walker whose literary works spawned the term Womanism, which emphasized the degree of the oppression Black women faced when compared to White women and, for her, encompassed "the solidarity of humanity".

1980s and 1990s[edit]
In the early 1990s, AWARE (African Woman's Action for Revolutionary Exchange) was formed in New York by Reena Walker and Laura Peoples after a plenary session on Black women's issues held at the Malcolm X Conference at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) entitled Black Women and Black Liberation: Fighting Oppression and Building Unity. In 1991, the Malcolm X Conference was held again at BMCC, and the theme that year was "Sisters Remember Malcolm X: A Legacy to be Transformed". It featured plenary sessions, a workshop on "Sexual Harassment: Race, Gender and Power", and was held in a much larger theater that year. Black women were a central focus and not an aside as they were prior. Speakers included Sonia Sanchez, Audre Lorde, Verniece Miller, Reena Walker, Carol Bullard (Asha Bandele), and Vivian Morrison. At the same time, Reena Walker, along with the members of AWARE, also worked in coalition with AWIDOO (American Women in Defense of Ourselves), formed by Barbara Ransby, to sign a full-page ad in The New York Times to stand in support of Anita Hill.

In 1995, Reena Walker went on to put out the call to various women and organized the group African Americans Against Violence that effectively stopped a parade that a group of reverends led by Al Sharpton were attempting to hold in Harlem for Mike Tyson. The group, including Eve and Kathe Sandler, Nsia Bandele, and Indigo Washington, worked successfully to stop the parade from happening, bringing attention to the struggle of Black women against sexism and domestic violence. A supporter of Mike Tyson, social worker Bill Jones, exclaimed "The man has paid his debt" (in regards to Tyson's rape conviction), and joined a large group of other Tyson supporters in heckling the African Americans Against Violence group, accusing them of "catering to white radical feminists".

Hip-hop culture[edit]
Further information: Misogyny in rap music

A particularly imminent medium of oppression for Black women in the 1980s and '90s was hip-hop music. The New York hip-hop scene was mainly dominated my men and most producers were focused on rap superstars such as Notorious B.I.G. and Sean "Diddy" Combs. A number of female emcees can be credited for having expanded Black womanhood in music during this time; notable artists in the '80s such as MC Lyte, Queen Latifah, and Salt-N-Pepa carved out space for later black female artists. Throughout the '80s and '90s, black female rappers were classified into four categories, often seamlessly traveling between or blending a number of labels together. The categories included the wise "Queen Mother," an intelligent, Afro-centric, and activist-driven image, the beautiful and outspoken "Fly Girl," characterized by fashionable clothes and a self-sufficient attitude, the rebellious "Sista with Attitude," an intensely assertive image that threatened patriarchal stereotypes, and the revolutionary "Lesbian," which openly defied heteronormative ideals. While the first three groups emerged throughout the '80s, the "Lesbian" category was not recognized until the '90s, popularized by the release of Queen Pen's track, "Girlfriend;" until then, gay and lesbian hip-hop artists were alleged. Black female emcees used these categories, and various combinations of their respective images, to address issues that affected Black women and girls and push the boundaries of a historically misogynistic and homophobic industry.

In the 1990s, Lil' Kim who was signed to Biggie Smalls' Junior M.A.F.I.A. Imprint, expressed her message. She achieved an image of fierce independence and comfort with her body. She defied the presumption in hip-hop that women are there to humble the presence of men. Lil' Kim's outspokenness and unprecedented lyrics were rejected by many people who believed in the traditional sound of hip-hop. Lil' Kim stood behind her words and never apologized for who she is. Faith Evans is another female emcee who broke barriers in the hip-hop world. At just 21 years old, she was the first female artist signed to Bad Boy Records. Faith Evans spent more than 20 years in the music business fighting gender discrimination and harassment in an industry where men were the dominant content creators and producers.

Mary J. Blige was another artist who became an advocate of women empowerment in hip-hop. She was a legendary singer who influenced the Bad Boy Records label, although she was never signed by them. Together, these women shared a sense of freedom in the music business that allowed them to bring women together across the world. There was a new perspective in the spot light that swung the pendulum in a different direction and gave women in hip-hop a voice.

Hip-hop feminism, first coined by Joan Morgan in 1999, is considered to be a branch of Black feminism that  Author Gwendolyn D. Pough described hip-hop feminists as people who are "immersed in hip-hop culture" and actively advocate against gender discrimination within that culture. She asserts that hip-hop feminists share the same predecessors as black feminists and womanists, inherently connecting the missions and goals of the two communities and grounding them both in the examination of racial, class, and gender-based discrimination. Writers who were figureheads for Black feminism such as Joan Morgan, Denise Cooper, and others from the Third Wave of Black feminism blended their passions for hip-hop culture and Black feminism or womanism, ultimately leading to the inception of hip-hop feminism.

Some argue hip-hop feminism does not simply overlap with Black feminism but is an extension or expansion of Black feminism. Dr. Whitney A. Peoples argues that examples of Black women being sexually objectified in hip-hop are hyper prominent due to deep-seated racist ideologies and stereotypes that deem Black women as sexually and morally deviant. Hip-hop feminism explores hip-hop as a vehicle for addressing the complexities of misogyny in hip-hop and any discrepancies in mainstream feminism. More than speaking out against misogyny in hip-hop, however, a key characteristic of hip-hop feminism has been said to be its mission to uplift black women and girls who partake in hip-hop culture in their everyday lives. Black women grapple with some of the complexities and influences of hip-hop culture within discourse and writing surrounding black feminists and hip-hop feminists.

Social media[edit]
The new century has brought about a shift in thinking away from "traditional" feminism. Third-wave feminism claimed the need for more intersectionality in feminist activism and the inclusion of Black and other ethnic minority women. Moreover, the advancement of technology fostered the development of a new digital feminism. This online activism involved the use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, and other forms of social media to discuss gender equality and social justice. According to NOW Toronto, the internet created a "call-out" culture, in which sexism or misogyny can be called out and challenged immediately with relative ease.

As an academic response to this shift, many scholars incorporated queer of color critique into their discussions of feminism and queer theory. Queer of color critiques seeks an intersectional approach to misidentifying with the larger themes of "radicalized heteronormativity and heteropatriarchy" in order to create a more representative and revolutionary critique of social categories. An example of queer of color critique can be seen in the Combahee River Collective's statement, which addresses the intersectionality of oppressions faced by Black lesbians.

The 2010s saw a revitalization of Black feminism. As more influential figures began to identify themselves as feminist, social media saw a rise in young Black feminists willing to bring racist and sexist situations to light. Brittney Cooper, assistant professor in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, said: "I think Black feminism is in one of the strongest moments it has seen in a while; From Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC, to Laverne Cox on Orange Is the New Black to Beyoncé ... we have prominent Black women [sic] identifying publicly with the term."

Social media served as a medium for Black feminists to express praise or discontent with organizations' representations of Black women. For example, the 2015 and 2016 Victoria's Secret Fashion Shows were commended by Ebony magazine for letting four Black models wear their natural hair on the runway. Black feminists on social media showed support for the natural hair movement using the hashtags #melanin and #BlackGirlmagic.

Black Girl Magic (#BlackGirlMagic) is a movement that was popularized by CaShawn Thompson in 2013. The concept was born as a way to "celebrate the beauty, power and resilience of Black women". Thompson began to use the hashtag #BlackGirlsAreMagic in 2013 to speak about the positive achievements of Black women. Although it was popularized on social media, the movement has inspired many organizations to host events using the title, along with support from celebrities and politicians globally.

Alleged instances of the "appropriation" of Black culture were commented on. For example, a 2015 Vogue Italia photo shoot involving model Gigi Hadid wearing an afro sparked backlash on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Some users claimed it was problematic and racist to have a non-Black model wear an afro and a fake tan to give the appearance of Blackness when the fashion magazine could have hired a Black model instead. Kearie Daniel wrote that White people wearing certain hairstyles is a particularly touchy subject in Black feminism because of the perceived double standard that when White women wear Black hairstyles, they are deemed "trendy" or "edgy", while Black women are labelled "ghetto" or "unprofessional".

Black feminists also voiced the importance of increasing "representation" of Black women in television and movies. According to a 2014 study by the University of Southern California, of the 100 top films of that year, "nearly three-quarters of all characters were white", NPR reports, and only 17 of those 100 top movies featured non-White lead or co-lead actors. That number falls further when only looking at non-White women leads, considering only one-third of speaking roles were for women, according to the same study.

Black Lives Matter[edit]
The activist movement Black Lives Matter was initially formed by Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza, and Patrisse Kahn-Cullors as a hashtag to campaign against racism and police brutality against African Americans in the United States. The movement contributed to a revitalization and re-examining of the Black feminist movement. While the deaths of Black men played a major part in the Black Lives Matter movement, Rekia Boyd, Michelle Cusseaux, Tanisha Anderson, Shelly Frey, Yvette Smith, Eleanor Bumpurs, Sandra Bland, and other women were also killed or assaulted by police officers.

While Black Lives Matter has been critiqued for a failure to focus on Black women's treatment by the police, it has since been better about incorporating the interlocking systems of oppression that disadvantage Black women in particular. Activism of Black feminists in Black Lives Matter has included protests against political candidates such as Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton, and they have used hashtags such as #oscarssowhite and #sayhername.

The importance of identity[edit]
Michelle Cliff believes that there is continuity "in the written work of many African American Women, ... you can draw a line from the slave narrative of Linda Brent to Elizabeth Keckley's life, to Their Eyes were Watching God (by Zora Neale Hurston) to Coming of Age in Mississippi (Anne Moody) to Sula (by Toni Morrison), to the Salt Eaters (by Toni Cade Bambara) to Praise Song for the Widow (by Paule Marshall)." Cliff believes that all of these women, through their stories, "Work against the odds to claim the 'I'".

Examples[edit]

 * 2011, Black Internationalist Feminism: Women Writers of the Black Left, 1945-1995 by Cheryl Higashida looks at Black women writers and their contributions to the feminist movement; specifically the Black feminist movement. Higashida "illustrates how literature is a crucial lens for studying Black internationalist feminism because these authors were at the forefront of bringing the perspectives and problems of black women to light against their marginalization and silencing." Included in her work are writers such as Rosa Guy, Lorraine Hansberry, Audre Lorde, and Maya Angelou.
 * 1970, Black Woman's Manifesto, published by the Third World Women's Alliance, argued for a specificity of oppression against Black women. Co-signed by Gayle Lynch, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Maxine Williams, Frances M Beal, and Linda La Rue, the manifesto, opposing both racism and capitalism, stated that "the Black woman is demanding a new set of female definitions and a recognition of herself of a citizen, companion, and confidant, not a matriarchal villain or a step stool baby-maker. Role integration advocates the complementary recognition of man and woman, not the competitive recognition of same." Additionally, Toni Cade Bambara edited the eclectic volume The Black Woman: An Anthology (1970) which sought to "explore ourselves and set the record straight on the matriarch and the evil Black bitch." It featured now considered canonical essays, such as Frances Beal's "Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female" and Toni Cade Bambara's "On the Issue of Roles."
 * 1979, Barbara Smith and Lorraine Bethel edited the Autumn 1979 issue of Conditions. Conditions 5 was "the first widely distributed collection of Black feminist writing in the U.S."
 * 1992, Black feminists mobilized "a remarkable national response" to the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas Senate Hearings in 1991, naming their effort African American Women in Defense of Ourselves.
 * 1994, Evelyn Hammonds: "Black (W)holes and The Geometry of Black Female Sexuality"

Evelyn Hammonds begins her essay by reflecting, as a Black lesbian and feminist writer, on the "consistently exclusionary practices of lesbian and gay studies" that produce such problematic paucities as the presence of writers of color, articles written on Black women’s sexuality by Black women that complexly examine race in representations of gender, and the visibility of Black lesbian experiences (Hammonds, 127). Hammonds articulates how Whiteness defines the canonical "categories, identities, and subject positions" of lesbian and gay studies and depends on maintaining and presupposing patterns of Black women and Black lesbian sexualities' invisibility and absence (Hammonds, 128).


 * 2000, Alice Walker: "In Search of Our Mothers Garden"

This articulation is directly linked to Hammonds' concern about the visibility and audibility of Black queer sexualities, since Black women’s sexualities are perceived as always invisible or absent, then lesbian and queer Black women and authors must follow as doubly invisible. While White sexuality as the normative sexuality has been challenged by other writers, Hammonds frames her intervention as reaching beyond the limits of this familiar critique. To effectively challenge the hegemony of Whiteness within Queer theory, Hammonds charges lack feminists with the major projects of reclaiming sexuality so that Black women and their sexualities may register as present and power relations between White women and Black women's expression of gender and sexuality becomes a part of theory making within Queer studies (Hammonds, 131).

Black holes become a metaphor used to stage an intervention within Queer theory—Hammonds mobilizes this astrophysical phenomenon to provide a new way to approach the relationship between less visible (but still present) Black female sexualities and the more visible (but not normal) White sexualities. Hammonds writes that in Queer studies' "theorizing of difference" White female sexualities hold the position of visibility which is "theoretically dependent upon an absent yet-ever-present pathologized Black female sexuality" (Hammonds, 131).


 * 2000, in her introduction to the 2000 reissue of the 1983 Black feminist anthology Home Girls, theorist and author Barbara Smith states her opinion that "to this day most Black women are unwilling to jeopardize their 'racial credibility' (as defined by Black men) to address the realities of sexism." Smith also notes that "even fewer are willing to bring up homophobia and heterosexism, which are, of course, inextricably linked to gender oppression."

The involvement of Pat Parker in the Black feminist movement was reflected in her writings as a poet. Her work inspired other Black feminist poets such as Hattie Gossett.

In 2018, Carol Giardian wrote an article, "Mow to Now: Black Feminism Resets the Chronology of the Founding of Modern Feminism", which explores Black women and their involvement with the organizing of the 1963 March on Washington (MOW). Particular focus is given to how this was pivotal to the shift of feminist organizing of the 1960s. Many activists are noted, including Dorothy Height, Pauli Murray, and Anna Arnold Hedgeman. Facing down powerful male figures of the Black church, they established feminist protest models that they subsequently used to inform the establishment of the National Organization for Women in 1966.

Other theorists and writers who have contributed to the literature of Black feminism include Moya Bailey and Trudy of Gradient Lair, who both write about the anti-Black and/or racist misogyny against Black women, also known as misogynoir, a term coined by Bailey in 2008. In 2018, both these women wrote an article named "On Misogynoir: Citation, erasure and plagiarism", which talks about the works of Black feminists often being plagiarized or erased from most literary works, also implicitly and sometimes explicitly linked to gender oppression, particularly for women of color.

Misogynoir is grounded in the theory of intersectionality; it examines how identities such as race, gender, and sexual orientation connect in systems of oppression. Modern-day Black activists, such as Feminista Jones, a feminist commentator, claim that "Misogynoir provides a racialised nuance that mainstream feminism wasn’t catching" and that "there is a specific misogyny that is aimed at Black women and is uniquely detrimental to Black women."