Month: February 2023

PINK AND BLUE

The article the “Prism Gender” it says that most people in the western world are grown up learning that there are only two genders, two sexes, and two sexualities. This type of thinking is known as the “blue and pink syndrome” It is how honestly I grew up relating blue to a boy and pink to a girl.

key words:sex, gender, sexuality

MULTIRACIAL FEMINISIM

The author explains how men and women have the same rights but multiracial women don’t have the same advantages as a middle class woman.It goes to speak on about Latinas, African Americans, Asian Americans , and Native Americans as known as being “outsiders within”.

key words: feminist, gender, ethnic

I feel like these two readings are connected because they talk about how feminism has been around and it is still around in a huge way today.

Question: How do you feel feminism has changed over the years?

At the very start of “The Combahee River Collective Statement” the author clearly states what kind of group she’s apart of by saying that black feminism is “the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face.” She felt strongly about how black rights movements in the past such as the civil rights and even the black panthers were racist to the female gender. The white woman groups failed to talk about and include black woman experiences in their political talks to the people. The group let their voices out about social change towards black lesbians and all women of color, and just wanted their voices to be heard from the people and other social groups. The group wanted to tell the people about their queer experiences and wanted to liberate black woman in general, “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.”

“Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” is a strong writing that goes over how women need to unite and fight oppression against the female gender. She talks about her past as a black lesbian woman and talks about her perspective on the world through her eyes and what she’s gone through. My favorite thing about this writing is how she can talk about using people differences to unify people and bring them together, I also like how she explains how one aspect of you doesn’t describe you because if you someone for there one aspect then you can miss all their other valuable aspects, she says it’s a “destructive and fragmenting way to live.” She is an amazing writer because not only can she write stories and writings like this one, but she also adds poems in her work.

“So You Want To Talk About Race,” goes over Ijeoma Oluo’s personal life growing up and how people always made comments about her hair, how she was looked at differently than white people, etc. She got paid differently than everyone else and people started making racist comments towards her. The writing is how she started out making a blog about her problems of being a colored woman and she saw how in her city of Seattle where her “white friends weren’t really her friends and how her neighbors weren’t really her neighbors.” After she talked about her personal life she talked with the audience about race. She talks to the audience about racial oppression and how the people of this country don’t know the actual problem with people and race, and how there needs to be a change, she also tells them about racist and what a racist truly is.

All three of these writing is all about the same thing: black women and their troubles over the years with racial issues with people and oppressions. They are all writing from black women, and they all have some of their personal experiences. Tupac Shakur “Keep Ya Head Up” is a anthem to women but to black women specially to keep their head up and to love their skin even if no one else does. He talks about the issues that are going on in black women’s lives. The song is also dedicated to the memory of Latasha Harlins. Latarsha was a 15-year-old black girl who was shot dead by a Korean store owner. I think this song fits perfectly to the writings because in the writings they all talked about all the troubles they had to go through being a black woman, Tupac tries soothing their pain in music by telling them to keep their head up and to not listen to anyone and to keep going on and doing them.

Differences

equality

oppression

Why do you think black woman were treated worse than everyone else?

The Combahee River Collective discusses four main points: how black feminism has evolved, the group’s beliefs, obstacles to organizing Black feminists, and Black feminist issues and projects. The goal of this document was to educate the audience about the main points outlined in the beginning, which they do in great detail. The women’s movement in America caused the need to create a separate movement for Black feminists so that they could clearly articulate the struggles their community faced. The group as a whole believes that “Black women are inherently valuable…our liberation is a necessity…because of our need for bodily autonomy. There are numerous obstacles in the way of organizing Black feminist groups, such as lack of privilege, psychological tolls, negative reactions from black men, and more. The intersectionality of identities is briefly discussed at the end, but the main point of the document is liberation and equal rights for Black women. (The Combahee River Statement, 1977)

Ijeoma Oluo spoke about why it is difficult in the United States for us to have proper conversations about race, despite it being a topic that everybody should know about. She claims that “we are deliberately denied the tools we need to talk about race,” and that is important because that ignorance about the broken system allows that system to prosper. She also discusses how a lot of white people want other people to see us as the “good guys” and “not racists.” Our intentions don’t amount to anything if we make choices that will make life harder for those around us, even if we didn’t “mean to.” (Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want To Talk About Race | Talks at Google, 2018)

Audre Lorde’s excerpt discusses how we view differences in our society. She points out that we often view differences in our populations as being in opposition to one another, instead of just existing qualities. Human “difference” is more often viewed as human “deviance,” from the white norm. She speaks about how she’s experienced different facets of her identity that have caused conflict in her life, such as being a Black woman and a Black lesbian. The conflict comes from the idea that being a lesbian as “un-Black” and thus is a threat to Blacknationhood (Audre Lorde, “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1984), pp. 114-123).

I think there are numerous parallels between these texts, despite the gaps in time between all three of them. I think that all three authors would be in agreement that educating the oppressor about why their oppression is wrong is normally a task that falls upon the oppressed when the oppressor should be making more of an effort to bridge the gap. Oluo and the Combahee River Collective both recognize how the current political / socio-economical systems in place function because the general public is unaware of how damaging they truly are to minorities. The Combahee River Collective and Lorde both discuss how intersectionality between identities, such as race and gender or race and sexuality, create their own unique conflicts regarding Black feminism.

I think “Keep Ya Head Up” acknowledges the struggles of Black women, particularly mothers, with its lyrics. While it does not say verbatim the problems that Black women face in their community, the song talks about Black women being disrespected, tossed aside, and eventually abandoned once they have a child. He also calls out the issue of rape and other abuse. I think the song could be seen as positive or negative depending on the individual. I can see one person interpreting it literally as “you should keep your head up because things will get better eventually,” but I can also see someone finding the message of the song hypocritical since in our society the oppressors often want people to be docile and wait for change instead of fighting for it. (Tupac. “Keep Ya Head Up.” 1993)

My (late) question for the class is: Do you agree with Oluo that we are conditioned to not speak out about injustices in our political and socio-economic systems?

Everything is whiteness

the art that we call fine art versus the art that we call “ethnic art”

Oluo

Here Oluo is talking about this white standard in our society, which dictates what is appropriate, and what is not…like African American braids and afros being unprofessional, when it is a common hairstyle. She also mentions a standard of race in the art world. In my creative invention class, we also discussed this idea of elitism and classism in art. For example, the Venice Biennale, a huge event in the art world, was infiltrated by a female artist who goes by “Swoon.” She built a raft out of trash found in NYC and sailed it through Venice as a statement. I just thought it was interesting that Oluo mentioned this, as I’m an art major and a person of color. 

As white women ignore their built-in privilege of whiteness and define woman in terms of their own experience alone, then women of Color become “other,” the outsider whose experience and tradition is too “alien” to comprehend

Lord

 This quote points out to me how those in privilege ignore the oppressed, continuing to benefit from the cycle. Rather than joining together for a common cause of women’s rights, Black women are excluded as this “other.” This connects to the idea of the white standard in our readings this week as well as the connection to last week of the idea of intersectionality affecting people even within the same group (women) differently based on race. 

Our situation as Black people necessitates that we have solidarity around the fact of race, which white women of course do not need to have with white men, unless it is their negative solidarity as racial oppressors. We struggle together with Black men against racism, while we also struggle with Black men about sexism.

Combahee Statement

What I interpret from this quote is that Black women not only have to face adversity from other white women, but from black men as well. Thus the Black Feminist group, while alienated from who should be allies, seeks for better understanding between the groups as well as joint effort to end systemic racism. 

Connections

While playing Momo Pixel’s Hair Nah, I felt a feeling of disgust as well as being overwhelmed. The hands which kept constantly reaching out in increasing intensity just felt wrong in so many ways. Not to mention, the people saying phrases like “can I touch it?” without waiting for a response just solidified this idea of entitlement and privilege. While researching this topic more, I learned that this act can be considered a micro agression according to Simone Aba Akyianu. She is a lawyer and an educator who wrote in Parents for Diversity. She explains its a micro agression because in wanting to touch this particular hair, it is singling out difference by making it seem as an exotic “other” and dehumanizing them by petting their hair like you would a dog. She also talks about how its a privilege to always be able to walk into salons and have them know how to do your hair, which relates to the white standard of our society. Overall it was an interesting read and if you would like I’ll leave the link here: https://parentsfordiversity.com/touching-black-hair-as-micro-aggression/

Some questions I have left after this are if this phenomenon of exotic hair being touched is common in other parts of the world. I’ve heard for example that blondes travelling to asain countries will get their hair touched. Another question I have is about the Combahee statement. It was a bit difficult for me to read and I’m wondering if anyone else interpreted it the way that I did 🙂

Key Words: Alien, standard, opression, privilege

Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference (Lorde)

I learned something from reading Lorde’s text this week. In the stirring essay Women Redefining Difference, women are urged to band together, create a strong movement, and identify oppressions beyond sexism. Lorde accomplishes this by speaking from a black lesbian perspective, which sheds light on issues that have gone unnoticed and dispel many myths and assumptions that both black and white women hold. Lorde explains how class and race are frequently linked with producing various forms of literature, outlining some issues that sustain a flawed system of handling differences. Poetry, which Lorde claims many people consider to be a less severe or rigorous art form, contrasts with prose. Lorde’s identity, which she reveals in this text, Lorde’s identity is a complex amalgam of many various elements, as she explains here. In this particular instance, the inclusion of a poem at the end of the prose demonstrates the author’s distaste for restrictions on her writing and the way she presents herself in general. Lorde writes in the passage that others frequently encourage her to showcase one aspect of her identity and give it an accurate representation of who she is as a whole. One of Lorde’s main points is that everyone has been taught to react to difference with “fear and loathing” and to deal with it.

The Combahee River Collective Statement

From what I learned about reading, this is that Between 1974 and 1980, a Black Feminist Lesbian group called the Combahee River Collective operated. They collectively joined forces to develop the Combahee River Collective Statement, a key document in developing contemporary Black Feminism. This intersectional group was founded because they felt that neither the feminist movement nor the civil rights movement adequately addressed the needs of Black women and lesbians. They have been working on defining and clarifying their politics during that time and conducting political work within our own group and in collaboration with other progressive movements and organizations. The broadest summary of our political philosophy at the moment would be that we are actively committed to fighting against heterosexual, sexual, and racial.

 

Momo Pixel , Hair Nah

Hair Nah is a fun game that is video game about a black woman tired of people touching her hair. The game is played via motion captured without using joysticks and buttons. I feel like this game shows what black women are going through compared to white women because white women’s hair is seen as normal, so they had it easier because black women’s hair was different, so their hair was seen as nappy.

Keywords- Feminist, Feminism, Oppression

Question: Did this week help you understand the struggles that black women go thought?

Age, Race, Class, and Sex

Being black and being a woman is no joke. My everyday life consists of having to fight for rights to my body and to go home safely without being shamed for my skin tone. Today’s readings hit the nail completely on the head. It gives everyone an insight on the things that black women have to go through just because they are women and black. In the text, Age, Race, Class, and Sex, Lorde stated, “For in order to survive, those of us for whom oppression is as American as apple pie…”. My colleague told me one day that, “Racism is so American culture, that when you fight against it, citizens feel as though you are fighting against America. Also reading this text I feel as though, educating someone can be tiring because of the simple fact that it has been decades and centuries trying to educate and fight for the equality that we are still fighting this day. This reading gave a look at stereotypes that are common being in the black feminist and of the LGBTQ community. I find it most interesting when Lorde talks about the similarities between the oppressions of being black, being a woman, and part of the LGBTQ community.

The Combahee River Collective Statement

This text really put some insight on the struggles of being liberated as a woman and a black woman. Often times we hide our struggles, so we don’t be seen as the “bitter” woman or too masculine when we are talking about what our everyday struggles are and this text really shared some insight on that! That I enjoyed reading and learn things that even I, not so much as didn’t know, but didn’t too much recognize or kind of brush it off. A quote that kind of put it in a simple context for me was ” We exists 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.” This was also such an amazing read as well. Touching basis on black lesbian feminist in comparison to “Age, Race, Class, and Sex.”

Femininity-Love- Race

The songs for this week were ones that have always been on my playlist and have been with me in times where oppressions were taking over. Or when I just want to feel like the black woman I am. Honestly, I think that every reading was in correlation with all the songs, so it was very difficult to choose texts to link together because they all come from one message and one message and that is how we live day by day with our struggles as black women and feminists in a predominately white male society. Nina Simone and Solange have some of the same concepts and approaches when it comes to boundaries black women have set for us, such as phrases like “Don’t touch my hair, when it’s the feelings I wear” and “my hair is woolly, my back is strong, strong enough to take the pain.”

Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference (Lorde)

The writing this week from Lorde is an amazing piece defining the issues that black lesbians go through, both from racism and homophobia, and how these issues interlock to form a unique group of people that don’t have the chance to fit into many groups that claim to be for social justice. She goes into the subject of difference, and how important it is to recognize it, as our differences mean we go through different issues that the people around us should be aware of. She explains this well in her quote, “These accusations, coming from the very women to
whom we look for deep and real understanding, have served to keep many Black lesbians in hiding, caught between the racism of white women and the homophobia of their sisters.” She goes into detail in her piece, explaining that white women do not nearly face the same problems as black women, and often, they turn their backs on women of color to be seen as more agreeable to the patriarchy they want to be liked by. Along with this, being called a lesbian in the Black community is seen as synonymous to being, in her words, “unworthy of the attention or support of the scarce Black male”.

The Combahee River Collective Statement

The Combahee River Collective Statement is a writing that details both that goals and struggles of black feminists. They explain that they realized that white feminist movements sometimes did not apply to them and even, in some cases, were against them. However, they do not believe that they deserve liberation more than any one group; all they ask for in the end is equality. “We reject pedestals, queenhood, and walking ten paces behind. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough.” They contend that while difference is important, it does not make one oppressed group more or less in need of help than another. I did find this interesting, because I do tend to find myself thinking like this sometimes. It is a good reminder to readers that no one group deserves help any less than another.

Hair Nah – Game

This is a fun, but also enlightening game. It’s so simple but manages to get its point across fairly effectively. It starts out kind of difficult and only gets harder, the barrage of hands coming toward Aeva getting almost overwhelming. I feel like this is a metaphor for how constant and overwhelming this kind of behavior from other people can be in everyday life. The vocal lines in the background, like “Can I touch it?” and “Is it attached to your head?” also pack a powerful punch, and they’re more than just meaningless dialogue. They illustrate how black women and their hair are seen almost like strange foreign objects to play with and explore rather than just people with their own boundaries.

I feel this game relates to the texts, as it is a good example of something that black women go through that white women will never understand. Their hair has never been seen as strange or bad, it is simply the norm. It is another aspect of black women’s lives that white feminists may be disconnected from.

Keywords: Sexuality/Intersectionality/Difference/Politics/Feminism

Question: Did this week’s texts open your eyes a bit to the experiences black women go through that you didn’t know about? How did it make you feel?

This week’s readings are Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference by Audre Lorde and The Combahee River Collective Statement. In Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference, Lorde talks about how different people’s perspective and ideologies on age, race, class and sex and how these different perspectives and ideologies of these topics can create conflict, mis-information and skepticism. Lorde talks about each topic in detail by stating the problem, people’s perception and idea of the problem and how it effects women and women of color. In The Combahee River Collective Statement, the reading talks about four main topics: The genesis of contemporary Black feminism, what we believe, the problems organizing Black feminists, and Black feminist issues and practice. This reading goes into great detail about each topic and how it effects Black feminist and women of color.

One thing that both of these readings have in common is they both highlight the oppression that surrounds women of color. For example, in the reading Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference, the reading states that “In a society where the good is defined in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, there must always be some group of people who through systematized oppression can be made to feel surplus to occupy the place of the dehumanized inferior”. The reading continues on to state that “Within this society, that group is made up of Black and Third World people, working-class people, older people and women”. In The Combahee River Collective Statement, the reading states that “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”. the reading continues on to state that “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”.
Two quotes I found interesting from Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference, are : “Certainly there are very real differences between us of race, age, and sex. But it is not those differences between us that are separating us. It is rather our refusal to recognize those differences and to examine the distortions which result from our misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectation”. Another quote is “Racism, the belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance. Sexism, the belief in the inherent superiority of one sex over the other and thereby the right to dominance”. There were also two quotes that were confusing to me as I was understanding this week’s reading material. Those quotes are: “Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people”. The other quote states that “Unacknowledged class differences rob women of each others’ energy and creative insight”.

I think the song Four Women (1966) by Nina Simone relates to Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference by identifying the mis-naming of Black women. In the song, Nina states multiple times what her name is, however each time, she names a different name such as Aunt Sara or Sarah, Sephronah or Saffronia, sweet thing or peaches. in the reading, it talks the mis-naming of black individuals as well as Black women. the reading states that “Those of us who are black must see that the reality of our lives and our struggle does not make us immune to the errors of ignoring and misnaming differences”. The reading continues on to state that “Differences between ourselves as Black women are also being misnamed and used to separate us from one another”.

Key Words: Ageism, Elitism, Purgatoried

Question: How can better inform the next generation of Black feminism?

(1977) “The Combahee River Collective Statement”

Key Words: Feminism, Identity, Race

The reading about ” The Combahee River Collective Statement” explains about how most black women went through certain obstacles during that time in order to have justice, “Afro- American women’s continuous life and death struggle for survival and liberation”. This emphasizes of how black women are treated poorly in the political system. Yes, they faced a lot through feminism but endured harsh sufferings in order to have Women’s rights.

Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference

In this reading of “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” Lorde thinks that women are sperated by their color mostly than just by their sex. “As white women ignore their built-in privelege of whiteness and define women in terms of their own experience alone, then women of Color become “other,” the outsider who experience and tradition is too “alien: to comprehend”.

Solange (2016), “Don’t Touch My Hair” lyrics

 The music by Solange may sing about “Don’t Touch My Hair” throughout the entire song, but that is not the only part it is directing towards. One our hair is defined as our crown and what makes up our identity. But, this song is towards women of color because afro hair tells a story from past generations from styles of braids, locs, and weaves. A lyric that stood out to me the most was this saying “Don’t test my mouth; they say truth is in my sound.” Meaning that many black women have been ignored for a long time for their women’s rights. Mouths is the sound for others to hear them and understand their pain and hardships they faced in order change to happen.

Questions:

While reading these texts and listening to the videos that were given, which one of them interest you the most?

What other songs or poems that you know relate towards black feminism and what do they mean to you?