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?
I kind of think Black women are treated worse than everyone because of the established hierarchy. If White people are at the top, then everything else follows. Obviously men are on top, so it goes something like White men, Black men/White Women, Black women. People tend to abuse those below them in power either to make themselves feel better, or to reassert their own power. I believe their train of thought is “What can those people even do to resist?” It’s extremely unfortunate.