In order to understand the black feminist movement my group and I had to read three major readings about black feminism. The readings consisted of “A Black Feminist Statement,” “The Matrix of Domination,” and “Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination.” These three readings helped us shape our presentation to our class mates on the subject of black feminism.
A Black Feminist Statement, Combahee River Collective In this reading, it is explained that black women have been meeting for centuries trying to get equality and rights. It is known that in 1974, black women began meeting in hopes of defending and clarifying there politics. These women were up against the oppression of men and the color of their skin and many were seeking for change. Their fight against oppression included race, sex, hetero-sexism, and class. “…Black feminism we would like to affirm that we find our Afro-American women's continuous life-and-death struggle for survival and liberation” (Combahee River Collective). These women felt as if it was an obligation to fight for their rights and took it as a matter of life or death situation. Many powerful women arose from the black feminist movement such as: Harriet
Tubman, Frances E.W Harper, Ida B. Wells Barnett, Sojourner Truth and Mary Church Terrell. These women were major leaders and collaborators in the black feminist movement. In 1973 The National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) was created (Combahee River Collective). This organization was created to give the black women some economic and political stance. Even today, African Americans are at the bottom of the American capitalistic economy in regards to the economic positions. These women believed that political work must be organized for the collective benefit. The Black Feminists believed in many things but it brought them across some problems. They were trying to fight too many issues at once, had very little access to resources or power, didn’t have racial privileges like white women did, and they didn’t have class privileges over all (Combahee River collective). Soon after many of the issues arose, the NBFO split and women declared themselves independence since there were serious disagreements in their political focus. Even though these women were no longer working as a group many individuals continued their involvement in lesbian politics, sterilization abuse, and abortion rights. Today because of these women we have special hot lines, groups, workshops, and programs to help women.
The Matrix of Domination, Patricia Hills Collins In “The Matrix of Domination” it seems that the women believe that a person must be black or white and can’t be met in between. Following that, the black feminist women believed there were three systems of oppression, specifically for black women, that consisted of race, class, and gender (similar to the previous article). These women were as well looking for equality and rights for themselves. The articles shared that there are multiple levels of domination but it is structured on three levels of experience and resistance. Individual consciousness is where new knowledge can generate change which consists of people’s personal biography, group or community level work, and a systematic level on social institutions. This is the way people experience and resist oppression on the three levels. Patricia also shares that every person is different and is made up of concrete experiences such as values, motivations, and emotions which sets us up for the domination.
“Domination operates by seducing, pressuring, or forcing African-American women and members of subordinated groups to replace individual and cultural ways of knowing with the dominant group's specialized thought” (Patricia Hills) some woman are found resisting the domination. The women that resist the domination resist because they have a problem with victimization or identification. This gives them little empowerment since they don’t have a stance on who they are.
These women believed that it is not possible to have one group produce the ultimate “truth.” Patricia discussed two ways of asserting the truth. First, that the absolute truth exists in the knowledge we gain looking for it and in the development objective and unbiased tools we use to find them. Second, a relativism approach that says that all groups that produce thought is equally valid. The power to act and want to learn is the answer to the domination of black feminist.
Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination, Bell Hooks
Bell Hooks expresses her thoughts about the way the black population feels about the whiteness in their lives. To begin, she speaks about the purpose of studying white people as a way to cope and survive in a white supremacist society. For many years black domestic servants working for white folks were looked upon as informants who returned with knowledge to segregated communities. This was a form of learning more about the whiteness in their culture. Hooks believes that today many people live in what she called “bush of ghosts.” This means that black people today do not separate themselves from whiteness and don’t know the difference between the two.
Hooks later explains how she believes that black people imitate whites by adopting their values, speech, and habits. She explains this as a way of putting on a mask to protect themselves from evil and terror. The evil and terror is the whiteness in their lives. James Baldwin’s collection of essays is some writing that talks about the way white minds perceive blackness, and how very little expressed interest in representations of whiteness in the black imagination. Hooks believed that in a white supremacist society it is said that white people safely pretend that they are invisible in a black persons mind because of the harm that was caused during slavery. She later compared the fact that today white people do not have to see black people and stay on guard or keep themselves safe from them, they can live as though black people are invisible and can imagine that they are also invisible to blacks.
She later discovered that the reason white people believe this is because black people remain silent about representations of whiteness in the black imagination like the old days where black people learned to “wear a mask” and pretend to be comfortable in the face of whiteness but when they turn their backs they can feel the discomfort rise. Stereotypes are what haunts black people because they are a form of representation that is inaccurate. Hooks soon realizes why she was afraid of whiteness while growing up. Through a series of stories and examples she comes across the fact that the misrepresentation of blacks and whites are what caused her fears of white people growing up. She was never around them and war rare when she saw one. In her town when people talked about white people they described them as terrible, terrifying, and terrorizing. She can clearly remember the terror she felt and can associate it with the fear of whiteness today.
Part 2 The format I used to complete my assignment in the presentation was through quotations and explanations. After reading the text several times I noticed that there were many quotes that were important and would become useful to the class in order to understand the material. In order to demonstrate my chosen quotes I created a power point that later got integrated in to one big power point with my classmate’s information for their presentation. I wrote the quote down in a slide, read it to the class, and talked in depth about the meaning and purpose of me sharing the quote with them. I also used some key terms my author used to explain certain facts and used several of examples as well. In my opinion, I believe it was a good way of keeping the class interested and attentive since I did not put all the information on the slides and talked about it instead.
Part 3 Overall I believe the discussion went pretty well. My classmates that presented with me all put in hard work in making the presentation a success. The first presenter, was nervous at first about presenting in front of the class, but soon snapped out of it and did a fine job in sharing her material with the class. The second presenter, I noticed, opened her discussion with asking the class questions. It was a nice way to get the class involved and start her topic. She as well used various points and explanations to help the class understand her topic. Next, came me I opened my presentation with a controversial quotation that Bell Hooks mentioned in her reading. The final presenter finished with quotations as well with explanations. I feel like we all did a good job and did the best we could in presenting our parts of the readings.
Part 4 Some problems that arose that I noticed were that we all were really nervous about presenting. It seemed like all the preparation, reciting, and work we had done was being taken away from us because of our nerves. I feel like we didn’t prepare ourselves in becoming nervous in front of the class. Us being nervous led to us having to look at our notes a lot and becoming lost in our thoughts. Personally, during the presentation I was sick with a cold, was losing my voice, had a fever, and was trying to fight my way through presenting. On top of all of that, I was extremely nervous while standing in front of the class to speak, which led to me having to look at my notes multiple times. In my opinion that was one of the problems we had while presenting to the class.
Part 5 I believe that our format was pretty effective in engaging our colleagues in discussion. Using examples and not writing everything we had to say on the power point in my opinion is what kept everyone pretty attentive in writing notes and paying attention so they could retain the information that was being given to them. At the end of the presentation in order to have the class participate in what they had just learned we did a debate between students. The class was broken up in groups of twos and was given a question about the topic we presented. Each group had to debate the side they stood for in front of the class and only had two minutes to make a good point. This got the whole class engaged and participating about the material. I believe the debate was effective because they were forced to participate in a topic they were probably not comfortable arguing, which caused them to step out of their comfort zones and try something new.
Part 6 Next time, what I would do differently to improve my presentation and discussion is present in a group of people I do not know. This way I become comfortable with the thought of talking in front of a crowd. I practiced my presentation for almost a week and yet was not confident enough to not have to look at the papers I was holding. Next time I will also use flash cards instead of a regular paper. They are smaller and can easily look at a point and engage with the class again.
Part 7 My overall assessment of how effective my group was in leading the discussion would be a B+. Overall we hit the main points that needed to be discussed and presented the material that was necessary. We did a good job in keeping the class engaged and participating. We had a few flaws, but they were easy to overcome. I think my group did a fantastic job. Even though we were missing a member it was unnoticeable because we covered everything pretty well.