WE HAVE TO HAVE A WHOLE SELF BEFORE WE CAN BE JOINED TO ANOTHER SELF.
Every adult woman should know this about romantic love. But it applies in other areas too.
A knowing of self, reducing self-abnegation to comparable levels with your partner, and wholeness are ultra important when a woman decides to join with another person, a man or a woman, in marriage.
And all of these things are equally important when a womanist decides to join forces with white feminists in opposing a similar (but not the same) oppressions.
A woman has to know herself and how she is alike but separate from black men too.
Black men deny the existence and importance of misogyny and sexism using the very same words that white women use to deny the existence of white supremacy and anti-blackness.
Black men and white women have a hard time truly and deeply believing that all the women are not white and all the black people are not men.
We have to remember this whenever women are being spoken of in general terms and whenever blacks are being spoken of in general terms in the news, on black blogs, or on white women blogs because black women can be erased by both
...and for the same reasons.
Black men and white women (feminists in particular), as a group, tend to focus on self until they need something-- like a solidarity with us without any intention of reciprocating or even trying to understand how black women's issues are the same in some spots but very different in others.
We've seen white feminists ignore intersectionality over and over again. The willful blindness part of white privilege is never a surprise.
And we've seen black men fail to acknowledge that sexism and misogyny exist except when they want to point out that white feminists are not good allies. Yet most black men have nothing much to say about why #SayHerName (which didn't really work) had to be created to get black people to pay attention to the deaths of black women at the hands of police when black women created #BlackLivesMatter in the first place.
Male privilege in black men when it is so like white privilege continues to surprise me because I refuse to fully believe in the level that this level of betrayal is really happening...and so often.
This is why black women, in order to have a whole self she has to see who she is as a separate individual; then who she is as a female in her family of origin; then who she is as a woman in a group of sistars; then who she is as part of black womanhood/womanism/feminism. Then she can be sure enough of self to not let white women or black men take advantage of her.
This isn't just important to black women. It is important to the entire black community. Black men rising alone and/or rising first helps individual black men but not the entire community.
I think we've already seen this.
For so long as misogyny reigns in the black community as strongly as it does in the white community, we cannot rise from our circumstances. Most blackness cannot come together into one fist while some of the fingers think they are more important than other fingers.
Male supremacy is real everywhere and in the black community too.
And as we've learned from white people, the most important requirements supremacy has to thrive is the repeated denial of bad intentions, the repeated denial of a conscious desire to oppress, and the denial of the very existence of the -ism in question except in the vaguest of terms.
Black womanism and black feminism can and will heal the black community. Nearly all the black women doing any moving and shaking in government and creating black female images and idols are black feminists and womanists these days.
Little black girls are learning that they can grow up womanist and feminist and rock the world as hard as they want to inside a powerful marriage like Ida B Wells, Michelle Obama, Mara Brock Akil,Viola Davis and Kerry Washington or outside of marriage like Shonda Rhimes, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Supreme Court Justice Sonja Sotomayor.
The girls growing up now are already showing signs of not tolerating white privilege from white women or male privilege from black men.
Black girls growing up now are being raised to understand that reciprocation not sameness or endless sacrifice is the key to a healthy relationship with absolutely anybody.
Every adult woman should know this about romantic love. But it applies in other areas too.
A knowing of self, reducing self-abnegation to comparable levels with your partner, and wholeness are ultra important when a woman decides to join with another person, a man or a woman, in marriage.
And all of these things are equally important when a womanist decides to join forces with white feminists in opposing a similar (but not the same) oppressions.
A woman has to know herself and how she is alike but separate from black men too.
Black men deny the existence and importance of misogyny and sexism using the very same words that white women use to deny the existence of white supremacy and anti-blackness.
Black men and white women have a hard time truly and deeply believing that all the women are not white and all the black people are not men.
We have to remember this whenever women are being spoken of in general terms and whenever blacks are being spoken of in general terms in the news, on black blogs, or on white women blogs because black women can be erased by both
...and for the same reasons.
Black men and white women (feminists in particular), as a group, tend to focus on self until they need something-- like a solidarity with us without any intention of reciprocating or even trying to understand how black women's issues are the same in some spots but very different in others.
We've seen white feminists ignore intersectionality over and over again. The willful blindness part of white privilege is never a surprise.
And we've seen black men fail to acknowledge that sexism and misogyny exist except when they want to point out that white feminists are not good allies. Yet most black men have nothing much to say about why #SayHerName (which didn't really work) had to be created to get black people to pay attention to the deaths of black women at the hands of police when black women created #BlackLivesMatter in the first place.
Male privilege in black men when it is so like white privilege continues to surprise me because I refuse to fully believe in the level that this level of betrayal is really happening...and so often.
This is why black women, in order to have a whole self she has to see who she is as a separate individual; then who she is as a female in her family of origin; then who she is as a woman in a group of sistars; then who she is as part of black womanhood/womanism/feminism. Then she can be sure enough of self to not let white women or black men take advantage of her.
This isn't just important to black women. It is important to the entire black community. Black men rising alone and/or rising first helps individual black men but not the entire community.
I think we've already seen this.
For so long as misogyny reigns in the black community as strongly as it does in the white community, we cannot rise from our circumstances. Most blackness cannot come together into one fist while some of the fingers think they are more important than other fingers.
Male supremacy is real everywhere and in the black community too.
And as we've learned from white people, the most important requirements supremacy has to thrive is the repeated denial of bad intentions, the repeated denial of a conscious desire to oppress, and the denial of the very existence of the -ism in question except in the vaguest of terms.
Black womanism and black feminism can and will heal the black community. Nearly all the black women doing any moving and shaking in government and creating black female images and idols are black feminists and womanists these days.
Little black girls are learning that they can grow up womanist and feminist and rock the world as hard as they want to inside a powerful marriage like Ida B Wells, Michelle Obama, Mara Brock Akil,Viola Davis and Kerry Washington or outside of marriage like Shonda Rhimes, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Supreme Court Justice Sonja Sotomayor.
The girls growing up now are already showing signs of not tolerating white privilege from white women or male privilege from black men.
Black girls growing up now are being raised to understand that reciprocation not sameness or endless sacrifice is the key to a healthy relationship with absolutely anybody.
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