Link Roundup: But Some of Us Are Brave Edition

The gender roles are the deepest source of all violence that is not in direct self-defense and every government has as its most basic responsibility the duty of humanizing, eliminating the gender roles because it normalizes the masculine role, normalizes dominance and the feminine role, and normalizes submission to dominance. This is also normal from a race and class point of view.–Olaf Palma, former Swedish chief of state

Angry Black Woman: No, we’re not gonna take it

Fatemah Fakhraie (via Racialicious): Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Triple Threats and Double Troubles for Muslim Women

What About Our Daughters?: OH Lord: We Do Not HATE Barack Obama…We Just Ain’t Enraptured

What About Our Daughters?: Why Aren’t the Lives of Black Women Treasured?

I don’t know. WAOD kicks ass. They come up with terms like “hip hop industrial complex” and “Internet Ike Turners.” Mike Gravel is as entertaining to them as he is to me.

Quick post

From bell hooks’ Killing Rage: Ending Racism (with NA/Asian/black/Latino substituted for black):

Ultimately, sexist aggression by NA/Asian/black/Latino males towards NA/Asian/black/Latino females creates a cultural climate in NA/Asian/black/Latino life where gender wars and conflicts claim the attention and energy that could be constructively used to create strategies for radical intervention that would challenge and undermine the existing racist and sexist systems of domination. As long as the vast majority of NA/Asian/black/Latino males are brainwashed into thinking that sexist thinking enhances their lives, white patriarchy need never fear being dismantled by progressive NA/Asian/black/Latino male insurrection.“We need to hear from NA/Asian/black/Latino males who have turned their gaze away from the colonizer’s face and are able to look at gender and race with new eyes. NA/Asian/black/Latino men who can hear anew the prophetic words of Malcolm X urging us to change our minds: ‘We’ve got to change our own minds about each other. We have to see each other with new eyes. We have to see each other as brothers and sisters. We have to come together with warmth.’ Any NA/Asian/black/Latino male or female who seriously contemplates this message of radical NA/Asian/black/Latino self-determination would necessarily embrace the struggle to end sexism and sexist domination in NA/Asian/black/Latino life.

Internalized sexism of women of color at least a hundred times more prevalent than internalized racism

Ann went to town on sexist men of color at Rachel’s after I did of course and I wanted her to have her last magnificent word. But I wanted to finish a thought. Since I was a teenager, I noticed APIA women did not speak out against sexism of APIA men. They were in denial or made excuses. I noticed this in college, too, among women of color.

Women of color are a hundred times more likely to condone or enable the sexism of men of color than they are to condone or enable the racism of whites. In other words, women of color are a hundred times more likely to speak out against racism than they are to speak out against the sexism of men of color even though most rape and domestic violence occurs within the community. You see this pattern in real life and online.

Today is the perfect example. How many women of color do you think turned up for the huge Jena Six/Hate Crimes march on DC today compared to the protest for crimes against women of color? (Details and commentary on both protests below.) You can bet your life there were at least a hundred times more women of color at the first protest than at the second. You can also bet your life there were at least a hundred times more women of color at the Jena Six protest in Jena, Louisiana than at the Megan Williams protest in Charleston, West Virginia.

Woman of color feminism (this can be NA/APIA/black/Latina feminism) is generally about two things:

1. ending the racism of white feminists
2. ending the sexism of men of color

bell hooks said people of color must repeatedly speak out against sexism in communities of color and

Until this silence is repeatedly broken, NAs/Asians/blacks/Latinos will never be able to constructively address issues of positive gender identity formation, domestic violence, rape, incest, or NA/Asian/black/Latino male-on-male violence.

The next time a woman or man of color says the words “internalized racism,” think about how neither the woman nor man of color in the same conversation has ever spoken out against the sexism of men of color perhaps even about the sexism of the man in the conversation. Then speak out about sexism in your community.

Visible women of color feminisms are the only way we can end sexism, rape, domestic violence and sexual harrassment in our communities because white feminists do not speak out for us.

What About Our Daughters?:

DUNBAR VILLAGE COUNTER PROTEST MAKES USAToday! - Picture of BlkSeaGoat Included - YOU GO BOY!

What About Our Daughters?:

We survived the Middle Passage, Slavery, Jim Crow and flavor of Love, but what we cannot survive, to some folks, is a VERY PUBLIC CONVERSATION!There is a lot I do not know right now, but one thing I DO KNOW is that Black American can survive a CONVERSATION. In fact, we’ll be better for it. What we cannot survive is continued SILENCE. This craving for SILENCE for the sake of UNITY is killing us literally.

So everybody chill out. Today is a great day for Black America. Today we will have concrete proof that we can have a public CONVERSATION and a public “engagement” and Black America will survive and thrive.

bell hooks said there’s a difference between unity that sweeps differences under the rug and community which celebrates differences.

USAToday:

When demonstrators rally on the steps of the U.S. Justice Department Friday to protest the government’s handling of hate crimes, blogger-turned-activist Shane Johnson will be waiting for them with a protest of his own. Johnson and a modest band of supporters are pushing back against the outpouring of black support for black male offenders, such as the Jena 6, saying it comes at the expense of female victims of black-on-black crime.

Johnson organized the rally after he read about the assault on the blog, “What About Our Daughters?” He questions why national black leaders and black media who supported the Jena 6 and the alleged victim in the Duke lacrosse case have ignored the Dunbar Village attack, in which the mother, son and alleged attackers are black.

Gina McCauley, an Austin attorney who runs the blog “What About Our Daughters?,” a site devoted to fighting stereotypes of black women in popular culture, says the Florida case has garnered little national attention because “we don’t value the lives of black women.”

Actually, the Jersey Four case is more like Jena Six because they’re both about unequal justice. The Jersey Four are IN PRISON AS WE SPEAK for defending themselves. Sexism in communities of color is one thing, homophobia another. Dwayne Buckle made sexist and homophobic remarks not because of racism but a lack of feminist education which is why woman of color feminism is critical to liberation.

bell hooks: Pop culture and the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy

In case you missed it. There are eight parts. My favorite part was in part IV:

bell hooks: The O.J. Simpson case was not compelling to me personally because the deepest terms in relation to Guy Debord’s work on the notion of spectacle was it was situated as spectacle from the very beginning and that construction of it as a kind of carnival as a spectacle meant one could not participate in that without colluding with the very forces of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy that had lead to the violent death of Nicole Simpson in the first place.

I concur.

Men of colors’ alliance with whites

More from bell hooks’ Killing Rage: Ending Racism with NA/Asian/black/Latino substituted for black:

All too often progressive white women and men who are committed to feminist vision fall prey to liberal sentimental overvaluing of NA/Asian/black/Latino male pain in ways that lead them to accept sexist behavior from this group that they would rigorously challenge in interactions with white peers. These folks stand idly by as sexist NA/Asian/black/Latino men assault the dignity and integrity of NA/Asian/black/Latino womanhood.That complicity for seeing sexism in NA/Asian/black/Latino life yet viewing it unproblematically is often shared by white individuals, even some liberal and progressive white feminists, who ignore and in some cases condone NA/Asian/black/Latino male sexism when it is articulated as a response to racist aggression.

Many NA/Asian/black/Latino males accept and perpetuate sexist/racist notions about NA/Asian/black/Latino manhood not only because they can receive more sympathetic attention from the dominant culture by focusing on wounded masculinity but because by endorsing sexist thinking they also strengthen their alliances with white males.

Men of color should check out the chapters “The Integrity of Black Womanhood,” “Feminism: It’s a Black Thing,” and “Revolutionary Feminism: An Anti-Racist Agenda.” From Ain’t I A Woman, “Continued Devaluation of Black Womanhood,” and “The Imperialism of Patriarchy.”

For the scary, racist history of white feminism, white feminists should check out Ain’t I A Woman’s “Racism and Feminism: The Issue of Accountability” and “Black Women and Feminism.”

When I was 19, I visited a class taught by bell hooks. I was late so I got to sit right next to her. I didn’t know the word feminism yet or that there were two political parties Democrat and Republican so I had no idea what she and the white and black women students were discussing. What I did notice was the students’ rapt attention and furious note taking. I didn’t take the class but told myself on an unconscious level I would someday understand why the students were so raptly attentive and furiously taking notes. Twenty years later, I understand.

The Feminist Movement: Where Are All the Asian American Women?

by Esther Chow in Making Waves, An Anthology of Writings By and About Asian American Women (1989):

Although certain Asian values emphasizing education, achievement, and diligence account for the high level of aspiration and success of some Asian American women, other values hinder active political participation. Such cultural limitation is further compounded by the adjustment to American culture, which is often in conflict and contradiction with their ethnic one.

Four cultural dilemmas frequently face Asian American women: (1) obedience vs. independence; (2) collective (or familial) vs. individual interest; (3) fatalism vs. change; and (4) self-control vs. self-expression or spontaneity. On the one hand, adherence to Asian values, that is, obedience, familial interest, fatalism, and self control, tends to foster submissiveness, passivity, pessimism, timidness, inhibition, and adaptiveness, which are not necessarily conducive to political activism. On the other hand, acceptance of the American values of independence, individualism, mastery of one’s environment through change, and self-expression generates self-interest, aggressiveness, initiative, and expressive spontaneity. All these traits tend to encourage political activism, but at the same time are incompatible with the family upbringing of most Asian American women. The key problem is how to maintain a bicultural existence by selecting appropriate elements of both cultural worlds to make the best adaptation according to the demands of social circumstances.

Among Asian Americans, apathy and avoidance are common reactions to unpleasant and stressful situations, particularly when others are trying to involve them in a political activity. Because one of the major reasons Asians immigrate to this country is to seek political refuge and escape the political purges and turmoil of their homelands, this avoidance is not surprising. For example, generally and historically women in China have been socialized to be politically apathetic and now as immigrants are still discouraged from participating in organizations that challenge the status quo.

[...]

The doctrine of three obediences for a Chinese woman to her father, husband, and son well illustrates her subservient roles. The male is still perceived as major breadwinner and the woman as homemaker. For many employed Asian American women, managing multiple roles is a significant problem. Those with young children are more likely than their white counterparts to stay at home. Overburdened with family and work, and without much support and cooperation from their spouses and sometimes from other family members, Asian American women find political participation beyond their own ethnic group difficult, if not impossible.

Although many Asian American women do engage in political organizing within ethnic communities, their activity in white feminist organizations is often perceived by their male partners and even female peers as a move towards separatism. They are warned that the consequences of separation will threaten the male ego, damage working relationships between Asian men and women, and dilute efforts and resources for the Asian American cause. All these forces have impeded Asian American women from more active participation in the larger feminist movement.

Sexism and communities of color

I substituted NA/Asian/black/Latino for black in this bell hooks Killing Rage passage because it works for everyone:

Concurrently, the negative consequences of sexist NA/Asian/black/Latino male domination will remain a taboo subject. Those of us who break the silence will be continually cast as traitors. Until this silence is repeatedly broken, NAs/Asians/blacks/Latinos will never be able to constructively address issues of positive gender identity formation, domestic violence, rape, incest, or NA/Asian/black/Latino male-on-male violence. We will not be able to challenge and critique sexism if the destructive impact of patriarchal thinking is always denied, covered up, masked as a response to racial victimization.Individual, progressive NA/Asian/black/Latino heterosexual males who engage a critique of domination that takes feminist thinking and practice seriously as a radical alternative to the push to institutionalize potentially exploitative and oppressive patriarchal regimes in NA/Asian/black/Latino life must be more willing to act politically so that their counter hegemonic presence is visible. Working in collective solidarity with NA/Asian/black/Latino women who are active in progressive movements for NA/Asian/black/Latino self-determination that incorporate fully a feminist standpoint, these NA/Asian/black/Latino men represent a vanguard group that could begin and sustain a cultural revolution that could vigilantly contest, challenge, and change sexism and misogyny in NA/Asian/black/Latino life.

bell hooks is funny

Like many precocious girls growing up in a male-dominated household, I understood the significance of gender inequality at an early age. Our daily life was full of patriarchal drama — the use of coercion, violent punishment, verbal harrassment, to maintain male domination. As small children we understood that our father was more important than our mother because he was a man. This knowledge was reinforced by the reality that any decision our mother made could be overruled by our dad’s authority. Since we were raised during racial segregation, we lived in an all-black neighborhood, went to black schools, attended a black church. Black males held more power and authority than black females in all these institutions. It was only when I entered college that I learned black males had supposedly been emasculated.–bell hooks, Teaching To Trangress: Education as the Practice of Freedom

I’m not saying this is the average experience of women of color. I’m saying bell hooks is funny.

Some standpoint theory

Just say you have “epistemic privilege.” Thinking Girl:

The pervasiveness, intensity, and relentlessness of their suffering constantly push the oppressed groups toward a realization that something is wrong with the prevailing social order. Their pain provides them with a motivation for finding out what is wrong, for criticizing accepted interpretations of reality, and for developing new and less distorted ways of understanding the world. These new systems of conceptualization will reflect the interests and values of the oppressed groups and so constitute a representation of reality from an alternative to the dominant standpoint.

The standpoint of the oppressed is not just different from that of the ruling class; it is also epistemologically advantageous. It provides the basis for a view of reality that is more impartial than that of the ruling class and also more comprehensive. It is more impartial because it comes closer to representing the interests of society as a whole; whereas the standpoint of the ruling class reflects the interests only of one section of the population, the standpoint of the oppressed represents the interests of the totality in that historical period. Moreover, whereas the condition of the oppressed groups is visible only dimly to the ruling class, the oppressed are able to see more clearly the rules as well as the rulers and the relation between them. Thus, the standpoint of the oppressed includes and is able to explain the standpoint of the ruling class.

–Alison Jaggar, “Feminist Politics and Epistemology,” The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader, Sandra Harding, Ed. (2004)

WOC Must Claim Their Words and Feelings in the Public Sphere

If we can begin to claim our own words and our own feelings within the public sphere, we will seize the means of re-producing our own history, and freedom will become a possibility in a sense that it never has been before.

–Michele Wallace, re-introduction to Black Macho and The Myth of the Superwoman

WOC Blame Themselves For Everything

I made some kind of realization in that Catholic home that allowed me to become a feminist. I think it had to do with listening to the little girl inside of me in the form of other little girls who clearly had been abused, neglected and deprived. I was quite certain that I had never been abused, neglected and deprived; that whatever had happened was my fault entirely. Now I am no longer convinced of that. It is my own story I want to listen to now, but I am only at the beginning of doing so. Meanwhile it seems almost impossible to get many black women to believe this is important despite the success in the marketplace of black women’s writing. Historically, it is not at all unusual for black women to find their stories difficult and embarrassing to tell.

–Michele Wallace, re-introduction (1990) to Black Macho and The Myth of the Superwoman

The Only Way To Avoid Repeating Mistakes Is To Discuss Them Openly

It is my conviction that the only way to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past is to openly discuss them. Whether in nations, families or individuals, the practice of being on speaking terms with your past lives is the only thing that makes it possible to trust yourself or anybody else. Freedom, liberation, happiness and fulfillment don’t come “naturally.” Rather they must be struggled for, moment by moment, against the tide of institutionalization, commodification and repression.

–Michele Wallace, re-introduction (1990) to Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman

Frederick Douglass 155 Years Ago

What to The Slave is 4th of July?

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour.

That’s how I feel every Fourth of July.

To any grad students out there

In more recent talks, I have spoken about how “blessed” I feel to have my work affirmed in this way, to be among those feminist theorists creating work that acts as a catalyst for social change across false boundaries. There were many times early on when my work was subjected to forms of dismissal and devaluation that created within me a profound despair. I think such despair has been felt by every black woman or woman-of-color thinker/theorist whose work is oppositional and moves against the grain. Certainly Michele Wallace has written poignantly in her introduction to the re-issue of Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman that she was devastated and for a time silenced by the negative critical responses to her early work.

I am grateful that I can stand here and testify that if we hold fast to our beliefs that feminist thinking must be shared with everyone, whether through talking or writing, and create theory with this agenda in mind we can advance feminist movement that folks will long — yes, yearn — to be a part of. I share feminist thinking and practice wherever I am.

–bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress

MOC and feminism

The reaction of Black men to feminism has been notoriously negative. They are, of course, even more threatened than Black women by the possibility that Black feminists might organize around their own needs. They realize that they might not only lose valuable and hardworking allies in their struggles but that they might be forced to change their habitually sexist ways of interacting with and oppressing Black women. Accusations that Black feminism divides the struggle are powerful deterrents to the growth of an autonomous Black women’s movement.

–Combahee River Collective, The Combahee River Collective Statement (1977)

White feminists and MOC

The women’s movement enlists the support of Black women only to lend credibility to an essentially middle-class, irrelevant movement, they asserted. Time has shown that there was more truth to these claims than their shrillness indicated. Today when many white feminists think of Black women, they too often think of faceless masses of welfare mothers and rape victims to flesh out their statistical studies of women’s plight.

One unusually awkward moment for me as a Black feminist was when I found out that white feminists often don’t view Black men as men but as fellow victims. I’ve got no pressing quarrel with the notion that white men have been the worse offenders but that isn’t very helpful for a Black woman from day to day. White women don’t check out a white man’s bank account or stock-holdings before they accuse him of being sexist — they confront white men with and without jobs, with and without membership in a male consciousness-raising group. Yet when it comes to the Black man, it’s hands off.

A Black friend of mine was fired by a Black news service because she was pregnant. When she proposed doing an article on this for Ms., an editor turned down the proposal with these words: “We’ve got a special policy for the Black man.” For a while I thought that was just the conservative feminist position until I overheard a certified radical feminist explaining why she dated only Black men and other nonwhite men. “They’re less of a threat to women; they’re less oppressive.”

–Michele Wallace, “A Black Feminist’s Search for Sisterhood,” All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave.

WOC quote of the day

Despite a sizable number of Black feminists who have contributed much to the leadership of the women’s movement, there is still no Black women’s movement, and it appears there won’t be for some time to come. It is conceivable that the level of consciousness feminism would demand in Black women wouldn’t lead to any sort of separatist movement, anyway — despite our very separate problems. Perhaps a multicultural women’s movement is somewhere in the future.But for now, Black feminists, of necessity it seems, exist as individuals — some well known, like Eleanor Holmes Norton, Florynce Kennedy, Faith Ringgold, Shirley Chisholm, Alice Walker, and some unknown, like me. We exist as women who are Black who are feminists, each stranded for the moment, working independently because there is not yet an environment in this society remotely congenial to our struggle — because, being on the bottom, we would have to do what no one else has done: we would have to fight the world.

–Michele Wallace in All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave