the combahee river collective statement quizlet

the combahee river collective statement quizlet

A Black Feminists Search for Sisterhood, The Village Voice, 28 July 1975, pp. During our years together as a Black feminist collective we have experienced success and defeat, joy and pain, victory and failure. Although we were not doing political work as a group, individuals continued their involvement in Lesbian politics, sterilization abuse and abortion rights work, Third World Womens International Womens Day activities, and support activity for the trials of Dr. Kenneth Edelin, Joan Little, and Inz Garca. But they were not only reacting to the deficits they found in organizations led by white women and Black men. When I came back to the Combahee Statement, in the aftermath of the Ferguson uprising, I saw that its politics had the potential to make a way out of what felt like no way. 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. And, trust me, very few people agreed that we did have that right in the nineteen-seventies. The C.R.C. 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. Barbara Smith at a National Gay Rights March, 1993. Their centering of Black women was not an exclusion of others with . Vacations in the Soviet Union were hardly idylls spent with ones dearest. In the practice of our politics we do not believe that the end always justifies the means. The Combahee Statement obliterated that premise. When we first started meeting early in 1974 after the NBFO first eastern regional conference, we did not have a strategy for organizing, or even a focus. They realize that they might not only lose valuable and hardworking allies in their struggles but that they might also be forced to change their habitually sexist ways of interacting with and oppressing Black women. !@9 .nosps5B{B>#@] 0qMpd 8|Fw |:bS1Z =0 endstream endobj 229 0 obj <>stream Smith told me, Many of the people in the Movement for Black Lives absolutely acknowledge that they are inspired by the politics of the Combahee River Collective and by the feminism of women of color, not just Black women. She was thinking of Audre Lorde, June Jordan, and Cheryl Clarke, and of the pioneering Chicana activists Cherre Moraga and Gloria Anzalda. It leaves out far too much and far too many people, particularly Black men, women, and children. An example of this kind of revelation/conceptualization occurred at a meeting as we discussed the ways in which our early intellectual interests had been attacked by our peers, particularly Black males. 85, No. As BIack women we find any type of biological determinism a particularly dangerous and reactionary basis upon which to build a politic. 6-7. 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. The Combahee River Collective (CRC) ( / kmbi / km-BEE) [1] was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization helping the academic community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways. 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. Although our economic position is still at the very bottom of the American capitalistic economy, 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. 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. I first encountered the Combahee River Collective Statement in a womens-studies class, my second year of college at SUNY Buffalo. In many ways, they built on the work of the Third World Womens Alliance, which was an outgrowth of the Black Womens Liberation Committeea caucus of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. "A Black Feminist Statement" by the Combahee, Feminist Theory, the body and the Disabled Fi. drew on their experiences in Black, male-dominated organizations. The collective joined together to develop the Combahee River Collective Statement, which was a . Black women were at the helm of the growing Black Lives Matter movement, and they, too, were gravitating to the politics of the C.R.C. The work to be done and the countless issues that this work represents merely reflect the pervasiveness of our oppression. We realize that the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation are us. As an early group member once said, We are all damaged people merely by virtue of being Black women. 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. In the case of Black women this is a particularly repugnant, dangerous, threatening, and therefore revolutionary concept because it is obvious from looking at all the political movements that have preceded us that anyone is more worthy of liberation than ourselves. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. The Combahee River Collective Statement conceptualized the notion of intersectionalitythe idea that marginalization and oppression are experienced simultaneously in different, interlocking ways as a result of how systems of domination interact with people's identities. Instead, I read it as a powerful intervention for the left as a whole. Instinctively, many of us turn to history as a way to grasp some frame of reference. document.getElementById( "ak_js_3" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); JSTOR Daily provides context for current events using scholarship found in JSTOR, a digital library of academic journals, books, and other material. We had a retreat in the late spring which provided a time for both political discussion and working out interpersonal issues. 2. connected the exploitative tendency of capitalism to a range of oppressions that kept apart those with the most interest in coming together. 1-8, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 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. In A Black Feminists Search for Sisterhood, Michele Wallace arrives at this conclusion: 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. [3]. I had seen feminism as the domain of white women primarily concerned with glass ceilings and access to abortion. document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); We are a collective of Black feminists who have been meeting together since 1974. Before becoming leader of communist China, Mao was an ardent library patron and then worked as a library assistant. 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. It made sense of her senseless death, just shy of the twenty-first century. It celebrated the possibilities of a political coalition born out of solidarity among groups who recognized the need to be engaged in struggle. The Black feminist collectives 1977 statement has been a bedrock document for academics, organizers and theorists for 45 years. Both are essential to the development of any 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. As children we realized that we were different from boys and that we were treated differently. Sociological analysis of social movements has progressed dialectically, each new theory building off and in contrast to what previously existed, whilst what previously existed is modified as newer theories bring up relevant new ideas. 1. We hope you find it a valuable resource for yourself, and for students. I first encountered the Combahee River Collective Statement in a women's-studies class, my second year of college at SUNY Buffalo. Accusations that Black feminism divides the Black struggle are powerful deterrents to the growth of an autonomous Black womens movement. As Black women we see Black feminism as the logical political . To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough. The Combahee River Collective is devoted to fighting race, sex, and class oppression. We are a collective of Black feminists who have been meeting together since 1974. It is a living thing. The Combahee River Ferry, also called the Combahee River Raid, was a military operation that took place over the River Combahee, South Carolina, in 1863. Analyzing the Combahee River Collective as a Social Movement . However, we had no way of conceptualizing what was so apparent to us, what we knew was really happening. 2-3, Hypatia, Vol. described how the myriad ways that Black women experienced oppression could translate into a radical rejection of the status quo. 81-100, Meridians, Vol. The material conditions of most Black women would hardly lead them to upset both economic and sexual arrangements that seem to represent some stability in their lives. Wells Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell, and thousands upon thousands unknownwho have had a shared awareness of how their sexual identity combined with their racial identity to make their whole life situation and the focus of their political struggles unique. No one before has ever examined the multilayered texture of Black womens lives. 3 (February 1974), pp. If black women were free, everyone . Photograph by Ellen Shub / Courtesy the Estate of Ellen Shub. 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. 2 (February/March, 1975), pp. The view is decidedly different from the top. The C.R.C. 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. When we first started meeting early in 1974 after the NBFO first eastern regional conference, we did not have a strategy for organizing, or even a focus. We decided at that time, with the addition of new members, to become a study group. hb```f``e`a` @V8OCH'2 19Qiq.&)L)Sa\@>s L95 J:pj]gkivud|8:8:GsGGCi$& y@g00* @, A good portion of the tension was generated by wild and unfounded assertions that socialism and the spoils of social democracy were only of interest to white people. Equality of men and women is something that cannot happen even in the abstract world. 3/4, THE 1970s (FALL/WINTER 2015), pp. 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. 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. My mothers advanced degrees could not protect her from bankruptcy in 1982. But the civil-rights revolution and concerted efforts by the political establishment created a different reality for a small number of African-Americans. Evictions and foreclosures in the U.S. could trigger a new wave of infection and illnessbut its not too late to act. During our time together we have identified and worked on many issues of particular relevance to Black women. THE COMBAHEE RIVER COLLECTIVE: The Combahee River Collective Statement, copyright 1978 by Zillah Eisenstein. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. Illustration by Palesa Monareng; Source photograph by Vivien Killilea / MAKERS / Getty. 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. 20072023 Blackpast.org. Summary: The Combahee River Collective. We struggle together with Black men against racism, while we also struggle with Black men about sexism. 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. The overwhelming majority of Black women were working-class and were forced to labor both outside and inside their homes. There have always been Black women activistssome known, like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frances E. W. Harper, Ida B. saw themselves as revolutionaries whose aspirations far exceeded womens rights: they aspired to the overthrow of capitalism. May 28-29, 1851 The Combahee River Collective, A Black Feminist Statement. The authors argued that race, sex, and class had to be considered together in the lives of black women, and that no one would fight for them except themselves. Thats right out of the Black feminist playbook.. We have also done many workshops and educationals on Black feminism on college campuses, at womens conferences, and most recently for high school women. 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. At the beginning of 1976, when some of the women who had not wanted to do political work and who also had voiced disagreements stopped attending of their own accord, we again looked for a focus. 1 (Spring, 2001), pp. Our development must also be tied to the contemporary economic and political position of Black people. 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. 4-5. Combahee River Collective Statement. hbbd``b`U@P: 1D8 @k2~$2012b`Mg . endstream endobj startxref 0 %%EOF 248 0 obj <>stream In 1973, Black feminists, primarily located in New York, felt the necessity of forming a separate Black feminist group. 21-43, Meridians, Vol. This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. At the beginning of 1976, when some of the women who had not wanted to do political work and who also had voiced disagreements stopped attending of their own accord, we again looked for a focus. Instead, they argued that Black womenand all oppressed peoplehad the right to form their own political agendas, because no one else would. As feminists we do not want to mess over people in the name of politics. Material resources must be equally distributed among those who create these resources. The Combahee Collective's 1977 "A Black Feminist Statement" was, and still is, a crucial statement of black feminism. 38, No. 4, Democratic Theory (Autumn, 2007), pp. I had seen the everyday variety of racism in the U.S. that left most Black people with a bitter edge, at least those in my family. 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. The overwhelming feeling that we had is that after years and years we had finally found each other. 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. Identity politics has become so untethered from its original usage that it has lost much of its original explanatory power. The Combahee River Collective Statement is believed to be the first text where the term identity politics is used. Match. 190-222, African American Review, Vol. 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. 159). We reject pedestals, queenhood, and walking ten paces behind. We are not convinced, however, that a socialist revolution that is not also a feminist and anti-racist revolution will guarantee our liberation. A Black feminist presence has evolved most obviously in connection with the second wave of the American womens movement beginning in the late 1960s. 3, Why We Cant Wait: (Re)Examining the Opportunities and Challenges for Black Women and Girls in Education (Summer 2016), pp. 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. My father left when I was two, and my mother took us to Dallas, where she worked as a reading specialist for the Dallas Independent School District. 13, No. We just wanted to see what we had. In describing the distinct experiences of Black women who were lesbians, they pioneered what would eventually become known as intersectionalitythe idea that multiple identities can be constantly and simultaneously present within one persons body. Demita Frazier had been a member of the Black Panther Party in Chicago, right up until the Chicago police helped to assassinate the Panther leader Fred Hampton, in 1969. Our politics evolve from a healthy love for ourselves, our sisters and our community which allows us to continue our struggle and work. THE COMBAHEE RIVER COLLECTIVE: The Combahee River Collective Statement, copyright 1978 by Zillah Eisenstein. It is a foundational document in Black feminism, whose impact continues to be seen and felt . 16 minutes. The most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. 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. JSTOR, the JSTOR logo, and ITHAKA are registered trademarks of ITHAKA. 164-189, The Massachusetts Review, Vol. [3] They are perhaps best known for developing the Combahee River Collective Statement,[4] a key document in the history of contemporary Black feminism and the development of the concepts of identity as used among political organizers and social theorists.[5][6]. Organizing around welfare and daycare concerns might also be a focus. But my mothers experiences were altogether different. To clarify, the woman said she was as much in solidarity with the women who cleaned her home as she was with white middle-class women like herself, who had also been trained to lower their horizons and expect less out of life. Learn. 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. But her caution also betrays the hope and deep desire for radical change that all revolutionaries harbor. 384-401. All Rights Reserved. In 1973, Black feminists, primarily located in New York, felt the necessity of forming a separate Black feminist group. Today, there is a small but influential Black political classa Black lite and what could be described as the aspirational Black middle classwhose members continue to be constrained by racial discrimination and inequality but who hold the promise that a better life is possible in the United States. Even our Black womens style of talking/testifying in Black language about what we have experienced has a resonance that is both cultural and political. 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. We realize that the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy. Identity politics originated from the need to reshape movements that had until then prioritized the monotony of sameness over the strategic value of difference. But Black women who tried to utilize public welfare so that they could spend more time caring for their children were demonized as freeloaders, even as white women who chose to work at home were celebrated for prioritizing their families over personal ambition. [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 . The C.R.C. Have a correction or comment about this article? [2] Wallace, Michele. Help us keep publishing stories that provide scholarly context to the news. mammy, matriarch, Sapphire, whore, bulldagger), let alone cataloguing the cruel, often murderous, treatment we receive, Indicates how little value has been placed upon our lives during four centuries of bondage in the Western hemisphere. We realize that the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy. We reject pedestals, queenhood, and walking ten paces behind. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. ThePennsylvaniaMagazineofHistoryandBiography, Combahee River Collective Statement: A Fortieth Anniversary Retrospective, Reflections on the Black Woman's Role in the Community of Slaves, "One Great Bundle of Humanity": Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911), Missing in Action Ida B. As feminists we do not want to mess over people in the name of politics. ITHAKA. The Combahee River Collective Statement (1977) by Combahee River Collective. The Black women of the C.R.C. The post World War II generation of Black youth was the first to be able to minimally partake of certain educational and employment options, previously closed completely to Black people. 6-7. 5, No. we feel solidarity with progressive Black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand. During the summer those of us who were still meeting had determined the need to do political work and to move beyond consciousness-raising and serving exclusively as an emotional support group. 11, No. After a period of months of not meeting, we began to meet again late in the year and started doing an intense variety of consciousness-raising. 3, Gendering the Carceral State: African American Women, History, and the Criminal Justice System (Summer 2015), pp. Many of us were active in those movements (Civil Rights, Black nationalism, the Black Panthers), and all of our lives Were greatly affected and changed by their ideologies, their goals, and the tactics used to achieve their goals. So we asserted it anyway.. [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. We believe in collective process and a nonhierarchical distribution of power within our own group and in our vision of a revolutionary society. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. As Black women we see Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face. [2] [3] The Collective argued that both the white feminist movement and the Civil Rights Movement were not addressing their particular needs as Black women and more specifically as Black . [3]. This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. "$JP Flashcards. 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. For example, we were told in the same breath to be quiet both for the sake of being ladylike and to make us less objectionable in the eyes of white people. We will discuss four major topics in the paper that follows: (1) the genesis of contemporary Black feminism; (2) what we believe, i.e., the specific province of our politics; (3) the problems in organizing Black feminists, including a brief herstory of our collective; and (4) Black feminist issues and practice. My other revelation came out of their insistence that Black feminism was necessary to clearly articulate the experiences of Black women. Contemporary Black feminism is the outgrowth of countless generations of personal sacrifice, militancy, and work by our mothers and sisters. 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. We also decided around that time to become an independent collective since we had serious disagreements with NBFOs bourgeois-feminist stance and their lack of a clear politIcal focus. 1/2 (2007), pp. hTmO0+i%T/tEFCh)4U{Pl0Y%sXjbI-*FAb5LK k1iQ"oe##xIiIsNeQv~6_cq= 2J#VDsY. 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. We might use our position at the bottom, however, to make a clear leap into revolutionary action. disbanded, in 1980, Barbara Smith went on to play a critical role in the establishment of womens studies in colleges and universities, as well as in publishing. She and my father met in high school, dated through college, and eventually landed in graduate school, at SUNY Buffalo, in the early nineteen-seventies. We reprint that version here in commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of its publication by Monthly Review Press. 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. Black feminism made sense of my mothers life of work, her compulsory caretaking and debt. 3. Black Americans have always been drawn to radical and revolutionary politics as a salve for the diseased wound of racial oppression and the poverty and misery it creates. It was one of, if not the first, documents to coin and define identity politics, and its descriptions of interlocking systems of oppression are integral to Kimberl Crenshaws concept of intersectionality. The Combahee River Collective, a black feminist lesbian organization, released the Combahee River Collective Statement in 1978 to define and encourage black feminism. In the sixties and seventies, fighting for the rights of queer people was considered radical activism. We must realize that men and women are a complement to each other because there is no house/family without a man and his wife. 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. The fact that racial politics and indeed racism are pervasive factors in our lives did not allow us, and still does not allow most Black women, to look more deeply into our own experiences and, from that sharing and growing consciousness, to build a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression. There is a very low value placed upon Black womens psyches in this society, which is both racist and sexist. The material conditions of most Black women would hardly lead them to upset both economic and sexual arrangements that seem to represent some stability in their lives. When I was seven, I saw my father jump in to stop a group of white teen-agers from threatening my older brother, only to have the police blame him for the altercation. 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. Was the Conspiracy That Gripped New York in 1741 Real? The experiences of Black lesbians could not be reduced to gender, race, class, or sexuality. were not the first to break with white feminist and Black-nationalist organizations. Racism alone could not explain what killed my mother.

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