Black Feminism: Combahee River Collective Statement

The Combahee River Collective Statement: Black Feminist Organizing in the Seventies and Eighties

We are a collective of Black feminists who have been meeting together since 1974…involved in the process of defining and clarifying our politics, while…doing political work within our own group and in coalition with other progressive organizations and movements…. [W]e see Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face.

1. The Genesis of Contemporary Black Feminism

[W]e find our origins in the historical reality of Afro-American women’s continuous life-and-death struggle for survival and liberation…. As Angela Davis points out, Black women have always embodied an adversary stance to white male rule and have actively resisted its inroads upon them and their communities…. Black, other Third World, and working women have been involved in the feminist movement from its start, but both outside reactionary forces and racism and elitism within the movement itself have served to obscure our participation…. Black feminist politics also have an obvious connection to movements for Black liberation, particularly those of the 1960s and 1970s…. 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. There is also undeniably a personal genesis for Black feminism…. However, we had no way of conceptualizing what was so apparent to us, what we knew was really happening…. Our development must also be tied to the contemporary economic and political position of Black people…. [A] handful of us have been able to gain certain tools as a result of tokenism in education and employment which potentially enable us to more effectively fight our oppression…. [A]s we developed politically we addressed ourselves to heterosexism and economic oppression under capitalism.

2. What We Believe

Our politics evolve from a healthy love for ourselves, our sisters and our community which allows us to continue our struggle and work. This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics…. [T]he most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity…[t]o be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough…. Although we are feminists and Lesbians, we feel solidarity with progressive Black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand…. We struggle together with Black men against racism, while we also struggle with Black men about sexism…. 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…. We need to articulate the real class situation of persons…for whom racial and sexual oppression are significant determinants in their working/economic lives…. [O]ur Black women’s style of talking/testifying in Black language about what we have experienced has a resonance that is both cultural and political…. No one before has ever examined the multilayered texture of Black women’s lives…. “Smart-ugly” crystallized the way in which most of us had been forced to develop our intellects at great cost to our “social” lives…. We have a great deal of criticism and loathing for what men have been socialized to be in this society…[b]ut we do not have the misguided notion that it is their maleness, per se–i.e., their biological maleness–that makes them what they are.

3. Problems in Organizing Black Feminists

The major source of difficulty in our political work is that we are…trying…to address a whole range of oppressions…. We are dispossessed psychologically and on every other level, and yet we feel the necessity to struggle to change the condition of all Black women…. 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. Feminism is, nevertheless, very threatening to the majority of…people because it calls into question some of the most basic assumptions about our existence, i.e., that sex should be a determinant of power relationships…. We feel that it is absolutely essential to demonstrate the reality of our politics to other Black women and believe that we can do this through writing and distributing our work.

4. Black Feminist Issues and Projects

The inclusiveness of our politics makes us concerned with any situation that impinges upon the lives of women, Third World and working people. We are of course particularly committed to working on those struggles in which race, sex and class are simultaneous factors in oppression…. One issue that is of major concern to us and that we have begun to publicly address is racism in the white women’s movement…. Eliminating racism in the white women’s movement is by definition work for white women to do, but we will continue to speak to and demand accountability on this issue…. As feminists we do not want to mess over people in the name of politics…. We are committed to a continual examination of our politics as they develop through criticism and self-criticism as an essential aspect of our practice.

Are we, as black people willing to not “fractionalize,” be committed to “continual examination of our politics as they develop through criticism and self-criticism as an essential aspect of our practice?”

Or shall we continue to default into the tracks, patterns and paths laid out for us by our enemy? Shall we continue to devalue black women and practice patriarchy and real domination? Can we talk about these issues with emotional integrity, with intellectual and spiritual courage?

We’d better begin and soon.

They Live!

A construction worker who just so happens to be down on his luck discovers a pair of special sunglasses that allows him to see the world as it really is. People are being constantly bombarded by various media with subliminal messages such as conform, stay asleep, no imagination, submit to authority, marry and reproduce, consume, watch television, and obey. Even scarier is the fact that the glasses give him the ability to see the true nature of some regularly normal looking people are in fact some very frightening aliens that are managing a massive propaganda campaign to keep humans subdued. The glasses reveal a black and white world full of messages of mind control.

Of course the aliens could not have done their subjugation without the help of some humans who are assumed to have played a key role in the alien’s domination. Some humans have consciously made the choice to betray the rest of the human race. Others humans are unwittingly working with the subjugators by allowing themselves to be manipulated for their own personal gratification while the rest of their community suffers.

The movie is a social commentary about the too often corrupt, deceptive, and indifferent character of our economic, social and political culture. The controlling alien race has managed to exploit the human race with maximum effect. The thought control that the aliens have managed to develop allows people to allow themselves to be subjected to substandard living conditions such as homelessness, unemployment, hunger, and poor finances while the aliens live large and lavishly. We sleep while they live. We obey while they write the rules. We consume everything they market to us. We pay while they profit. We have no idea how long the aliens have been here. All we know is that they are here.

This movie serves as a perfect analogy for the disparity between the black community and the white community. We allow ourselves to make due with substandard housing, the gentrification of our traditional black neighborhoods, rampant unemployment in the black communities, woefully substandard medical care and substandard education while the white community enjoys the best of everything. Some black people are doing well but the black people who do well are black people who are full supporters of white dominance. These well to do black people are fully aware of the disparity between the black and white communities but are either too selfish to think about the welfare of the black community or are consciously participating as full collaborators.

The subliminal messages that are constantly being directed at the black community run along the lines of consume, sleep, reproduce, stay asleep, and everything else that appears in the black and white world from the movie. Even though black people are far less likely to have the financial resources or make the salary of their white counterparts, members of the black community are pushed to consume the products put forth by corporate America. The few television programs targeted to the black community run along the lines of buffoonery and tomfoolery. The vast majority of black characters illustrated on so many television shows and movies are depicted with the most negative and the most nonsensical behavior of black stereotypes. And too many of us want to emulate this behavior and convince other black people that being subjugated is a good thing.

There are people now talking about the benefits of black people lifting themselves out of their predicament by taking on their personal responsibility. People promote the idea that universal healthcare is bad and it is much better for the country to have a very large and ever growing segment of our population living without adequate healthcare or under insured with respect to medical coverage. People will say that it is better to have a low minimum wage where more people can work themselves into their graves rather than employ people at a living wage.

But the true nature of these arguments is a defense of the status quo which can easily be translated into a system of white privilege and black subjugation. A large segment of our population has plugged into this message and has conformed. At the same time another large segment of the population has plugged into the other message and has gone consciously asleep and remains unaware. Another segment watches television and remains oblivious while another segment simply obeys what it is told by the media.

Submit to the establishment and you too will do well and enjoy a small portion of society’s good fortune. Tow the line and you will be rewarded. And it is interesting how the often marketed role models of the black community are the very blacks who are most adept at distancing themselves from the black community and at the same time promoting behavior that will help other black people assimilate to mainstream America.

For example the mantra of go to college and get good jobs is deeply rooted in a philosophy of learn to conform. Colleges are most proficient at teaching young adults to conform to the status quo. Not many people who go to college and graduate are harbingers of rebellion or deep philosophical change to our social makeup. But most black people with success stories will fund scholarships and grants for black people to go to school and get higher educations instead of helping to develop black businesses primarily focused on the black community. The promotion of assimilation is thick in the African American community. And it is this very promotion that is helping to subjugate the black community.

To continue the same old patterns of behavior and expect change is insanity. Therefore, we are truly living in an insane world. We don’t like the growing disparity between the black and white races but we continuously promote the very behaviors that will widen the gap between the races to even higher proportions. The dominant culture will continue to thrive and flourish and accumulate wealth and be the very definition of success. The black community will continue to promote all the values that will assure our subjugation. Until we find our sunglasses they will live and they will live well. We will live only as much as they allow us to in our perpetual state of subjugation.

Images of Black Britain: 1950s – 1960s era

I found this excellent book about Black Britain in my university library. It tells the history of this microcosm in images. Here are a few images I have scanned if anyone is interested!

1) This was a young Shirley Bassey, who is now Dame Shirley Bassey and still going strong at 71 . One of the voices of the century of my opinion. According to the book, this photo was taken in Cardiff, Wales in 1955. Bassey is of Nigerian & English origin.

2) This man was PC Gumbs, London’s first black policeman in 1968

Looking through this book has really made me think of how at times, we can take things for granted. I have been living on and off in England for over 10 years now and just looking at the harsh injustice African and West Indian immigrants had to put up with really makes my blood boil. The book features loads more pictures of black immigrants arriving in London, pictures of the Notting Hill riots that plagued London and photos of other famous faces like Paul Robeson in England and the inimitable Malcolm X in Oxford, which can be seen below.

Into the realm of darkness

They always operated within the realm of darkness. Whether it was under the cover of the darkness of night or during a bright sunny day under the darkness of hate… their ultimate goal was to spread the darkness of fear.

They would seize upon their Black prey like a pack of hyenas with an insatiable thirst for blood. His only crime: being a human being… or more accurately… acting like a human being. This would never do. Whites were human beings. Blacks were… if not animals, they were somewhere in-between… but certainly not human beings. Not equal to Whites. Maybe 3/4 humans…but that ultimately was for God to decide on “Judgment Day” when we all get to heaven. Until then… the White mob would decide on what would become “Judgment Day” for the Black man here on earth. 

So they would set upon the Black man with clubs, stones and bricks. He was beaten, whipped, kicked, punched, dragged and spat upon to an “inch of his life”. They purposely made sure that death wouldn’t come so easy… or quickly. He would be dragged mercilessly, all the while crying and begging for his life, to a tree which would be furnished with a rope. Sometimes he would be stripped naked. Most times he would be immersed in coal oil. Every time he would be hung on the tree.

The Black man, barely conscious and now numb due to the shock of all the trauma, would remember the sermon he had heard in church on what was now to become his last Sunday morning. The sufferings of a “White” Jesus would return to his mind and he would try to identify and sooth his soul that like HIM, he was bearing his cross. Like HIM he was innocent of any crime. Like HIM he was being led like “a lamb to the slaughter”. BUT as he takes his last breaths… as he looks through his swollen eyes into the hate filled souls, see the crooked smiles and hear the shouts and jeers of the citizens of the realm of darkness… there is a stirring in his soul… a moment of clarity of his mind… that he is not “White” like his beloved Jesus. No… he is a Black man. This is not a religious experience… a crucifixion to save the world. No… this is a terrible injustice. This is a lynching.    

Some of the perpetrators would cut off body parts for souvenirs… ears, toes, fingers. Pictures would be taken. If some thought and planning had gone into the event, a picnic, a barbeque with other festivities would take place. Then he would be set ablaze. A human torch. A beacon of light in the realm of darkness. 

A Day of Hope for the Child in America

Tags

Jr., Martin Luther King, Obama

A Day of Hope for the Child in America – by Eddie Griffin, BASG

It wasn’t just the blustering winds and frigid temperature that had my eyes watering as we rolled down Main Street. It was the children, those little innocent spectators waving and cheering on the sideline- and about the youngsters who strutted ahead of us in the parade. This Martin Luther King Day was all about the children, not about an old black disabled veteran from a bygone age, whose body was racked with a life debilitating respiratory disease.

O how I wish that I was young again!

My dreams have perished with time. But sitting atop a parade float that said Obama ’08, I had reason to hope. Maybe these, my grandkids and great-grandkids, would see the “Promise Land” of Martin’s dream. Maybe one day a man would be judged by the content of his character, and not by the color of his skin. Maybe Barack Obama represent that day.They will write about Martin- his life and legacy- what it meant. And through their eyes, each will see something different. The image of Martin, iconize in death, some writers have made him larger than life. Still, half the story is not told. Nevertheless, they will remember him. Tomorrow, after the day is past, they will again forget.The news cameras panned the crowds and asked the children what they knew about the man Martin Luther King. One child replied, “He was a man who loved everybody.” Sounded more like Jesus than Martin, but this is what children see when they idolize such a national hero. Why should an old beat-up civil rights soldier make them think otherwise? Every child has a right to a fairytale.But Obama is not a “fairytale”, no matter what Bill Clinton said. But then, he is no Martin either. Maybe Obama is the end of which Martin dreamed, where an African-American running for the presidency of the United States would be judged by the content of his character. At least, so far, he has conducted himself honorably despite being reviled by so many.

Maybe this is why an old Negro like me can ride a parade float down the Main Street of Fort Worth with hope that the day dreamed about may be a day come to pass.Already I have sent too many of my kids off to war, and some have never come home. Although I knew better and should have warned them, I would rather let them die still believing in the future of America than to remind them of our grim past. Maybe this is why I will not tell all these beautiful innocent children how Martin died, except to say he died that we might be free. In the meantime, I will let their school teachers tell them the myths. Until they are older, I will continue to say, “Yes, there is a Santa Claus.”Why destroy their bright-eyed hope? Life is cruel enough as it is. It is not necessary to tell them that Barack Obama is a black man. This they can see. But telling them what it means to be a black man in America is a story, in a different chapter, in an altogether different book- except now, there may be a different ending.After the parade and a couple of hours of thawing out, I had a chance to visit a different group of young people- a group of black teenagers who live in extremely impoverished conditions. They, too, had a message on this particular holiday. Their message was also of hope.“I will graduate,” they declared, to a church audience of about 300 people. “I will succeed.”The audience, filled with dignitaries, educators, parents, pastors, and community volunteers, listened intently- some with skepticism. We had all seen and heard it before, only to be disappointed by the statistics of declining graduation rate.Wallace Bridges, the program coordinator, blared out the number of at-risk kids “missing” out of the school system. He literally screamed out his feelings for the many kids who sought refuge in his home, some sleeping on the floor simply because they had no haven to shelter them from the harshness of poverty and broken families. By the time he recounts the ones who dropped out and wind up in prison, he is in tears. The church audience is also in tears.“Don’t nobody care,” Bridges relates one boy telling him. “If somebody cared I would go back to school.” But the child never went back, Bridges said. Today, that child is a statistic among the incarcerated.

Maybe this is why I wore my Obama ’08 button to the church. To declare, there is hope, and maybe Obama is that hope. Who knows? But should I let hope die, simply because “nobody cares”?

People can say what they will. They can tell me everything Obama is not. But none of the naysayers can give me words of hope. And, if they cannot convince me, how can they convince my kids?

Normally, I don’t do politics. But I’ll be damn if I stand on the sideline and criticize everything and everybody while my children are dying from lack of hope. I must mount up what little energy I have left in this half-dead body and give it a good fight. If and when I go out of this world, it will not be out the back door. I’ll come out the front door with both guns blazing, fighting for the Right of the Child.

DELEGATE COUNT (as of today):

Obama 13 Delegates
Clinton 12 Delegates

From the Desk Eddie Griffin (BASG)

The Monopoly Analogy

Tags

Monopoly

“Think of it as a [Monopoly] game. The rules are the same for everyone, but the hard fact is that you weren’t allowed to play for a while. Now you can play, but because you’re bitter about being excluded you [want] the rules slanted in your favor.” – H.R. in a response to theblacksentinel

The quotation above was lifted from a response by a commenter to theblacksentinel’s article titled, Ron Paul – Racist Babble or Forward Thinking. This correlation is so appropriate that I wish I had thought of it. Regardless, let’s take a look at the board game of Monopoly and how adept it is as an analogy for the economic conditions between the black and white races here in America.

A Monopoly game starts and all the players that are allowed to play are white. Each gets fifteen hundred dollars and each will start from the same place on the board at the very same time. When the game is started each of the white players race around the board to buy up all the property. They buy up all the utilities and the railroads. Each of the white players buy up everything they can. And each time these players pass GO they are anointed with another two hundred dollars. The players exchange properties with each other. They are building up monopolies and they start to build houses and hotels. One of the players collects both utilities. Another player collects all the railroads. All the properties have been bought up and developed so landing on them can be pretty expensive.  But it’s okay because all the players own some kind of property and so money goes back and forth across the board.  The players know that what they pay to someone now will come back to them later.
Now that the board is developed we will allow the black player to come on board. The black player is given fifteen hundred dollars and starts at GO just like everyone else did. However, the black player has no chance to buy any property. The very first place he/she stops at will charge rent to the tune of two hundred dollars. The next time the black player moves cost another three hundred dollars. The next time the black player moves the rent is four hundred dollars. The player will be lucky to make it around the board once without going broke. If the player could just land on the Community Chest and the Chance spots they might be able to get by.

The Community Chest and the Chance represent the black player’s best chance of trying to get anything out of the white players. Hopefully the black player will get one of those cards that says the bank will make an error in the black player’s favor and he/she will get twenty dollars. Whoopty goddamn do! Or maybe the black player will get that card that forces the other players to give fifty dollars each. Without any real property for the other players to land on this will be the best chance the black player could ever have of getting any reciprocity from the other players. The white players call this type of income welfare or a handout and want to get rid of any positive Chance and Community Chest cards that might benefit the black player.

The black player could hole up in the free parking spot for a hot minute. But the white players are just salivating over the black player going broke by landing on their properties. The relief of landing on the free parking is only for a moment. Even Baltic Avenue can send the black player into an economic tailspin that will trigger their financial demise.

And wouldn’t you just know it. Somehow the black player is the one who always seems to land on the Go To Jail spot and has to spend three turns in jail. White players land there as well but somehow they are able to afford the legal bill to pay their way out or to get a pardon or a commuted sentence. All the white players will have a Get Out of Jail Free card waiting to be used. But for many black players the jail represents a reprieve from having to compete in a game that is so stacked against him/her.  The white players continue to go around the board buying and selling with each other while the black player eeks out an existence of just getting by.

But inevitably, the black player will land on a spot that will be financially devastating. With no money and no property to barter the player has no choice but to bow out of the game and hang around with no existence while the white players continue to play. Without the other players agreeing to do something to give the black player an equal footing for the lost time the white players were able to amass wealth and property the black player in the Monopoly game will have little chance at surviving let alone winning the game.

The only problem is that in the reality of here and now, the black community doesn’t really have the choice of just bowing out of the game and existing while the white people continue to play. We still have to obtain food, a place to stay, obtain some kind of medical care, clothing, transportation, and all of the other things that help make life tolerable. The white community that for centuries kept black people from participating now wants the black community to take part as an equal in this game when they have been the benefactors of a colossally huge head start. No one would ever want to play Monopoly under these conditions. But somehow this is supposed to be fair to the real life black player known as the general black community.

It is so true that the abysmal conditions that the black community is going through is just like a Monopoly game. Now that white people have this huge head start they want to let the black community come on in and are surprised when we say this is unfair and we need an adjustment to get our footing as a collective. Yes relatively speaking a handful of black people can make it. But the only blacks that do make it are the ones that find some white person that will give them the chance to show their talent to shoot a hoop or score a touch down or sing a song or swing a club. And when these naturally talented black people succeed they no longer are part of the black community but of the generic dominant society helping to subjugate the remaining black community. The average black person has no real opportunity to gain any equal footing on his/her own. The deck of cards in this game has been stacked too heavily against us.

They Just Don’t Get It!

 

“We knew that image would grab attention, but I didn’t anticipate the enormity of it,” Dave Seanor, vice president and editor of the weekly magazine, said from the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Fla. “There’s been a huge, negative reaction,” he said. “I’ve gotten so many e-mails. It’s a little overwhelming.”

Read article here.

RACE OR GENDER WHICH CARRIES MORE WEIGHT?

 I love  this political season because so many people are having race-vs-gender types of conversations.  Although of late it has turned ugly and mean-spirited as if somehow not talking about race and gender make it all just magically go away like in a fairy-tale…but I digress.
I would add that I am fine with folks voting their gender or their race. What I am not fine with is the notion to do so is some emotional psychosis. Look, for the last 20 years…and I am 44 years old, I have heard that women ought to pull together, Black people ought to pull together. We all join groups and clubs based on our comfort levels and gender. I am in a Sorority–the largest African American Sorority in the world, Delta Sigma Theta, Inc. Carol Mosely Braun is my sorority Sister and she ran for President–she is Black and a woman and could not get the support to get far in her bid. The problem I am having with all the race/gender discussions is the fact that women have a candidate they can rally behind in Hillary Clinton and somehow she isn’t good enough? African Americans have a candidate they can rally around and somehow he isn’t good enough. If it were solely about qualifications and like-ability we all would vote with our eyes closed. But now we have to ask ourselves the hard questions–will having a woman in the oval office further women’s issues? And what the fuck are women’s issues? Will having a Black man in the Oval Office undo 400 years of oppression, prejudice, racism and a general maligning of all things Black in America? This moment is what we all have worked for and we are here and we are uncomfortable with it. I am even fine with that because now we have to deal with our hidden racism and our gender exclusions.  For Black women this is difficult. My other Soror, Paula Giddings wrote a book–”When and where I enter” meaning when and where I enter so does the race. Obama has the weight of the entire Black community on his shoulders–13-15 million of us! and Hillary has to represent women both dead and or alive.  The reality is THEY CAN”T and that is what hurts and that is why we are having all this drama. No one can be all things to all people 24/7, but we can’t hear that and we can’t accept that.

I am looking forward  to rich conversation about race and gender.  It is worth having and continuing through-out the election.