Feminism for women of colour...

[AnotherEpisode]

As a black woman, I quite often feel sidelined within feminism.

I don't feel feminism addresses the difficulties faced by women of colour in western societies and quite often I feel I am drawn to race issues over feminist issues because of this.

I absolutely have more difficulties in this society because of the colour of my skin than I do because of my sex.

I feel that the lack of understanding towards racism amongst feminist circles gives me a stance of one over the other in which racism usually wins, which is unfortunate really!

This article, although written in a strong, comical and sometimes rude tone, gives a good insight!

thegrio.com/2015/02/23/patricia-arquette-blacks-gays-white-women/

Not sure why I'm posting but I'm interested in a wider perspective especially people's thoughts on the article!

popping thank you for all those links

It is so basic yet here we are spelling it out. I find Feminism so odd on this topic. They can see that bring back our girls is worthy but if it's in your town then you just don't see it. This is why the stereotypes are so dangerous and why you cannot and should not rely on communities to self police. When has that ever worked out well for women

With the clebrity cases wasn't there also a lot of weirdness about the Chris brown and Rihanna case - was he given a bit of a pass or was he punished sufficiently?

He was given a pass. And some community service. He had conversations with his pastor. And then kept on going.

Could Justin timberlake have beaten Britney. Of course not.
Could Chris brown have beaten britney. Of course not.
Could Justin have beaten Rihanna. Probably yes but there would be a lot of noise from black men. But also questions about what she did

Woc have less value

So did Janay rice house

That's an odd post to make on this thread. What are you trying to say?

You don't think that if I made a public criticism of R Kelly that he would not defend himself on the basis that he has his glittering career, his Christianity ( yes really) his philanthropy but as a white woman all I am looking at is his misogyny?

You don't think feminists would have dried their tears about being called a racist by a paedophile if he had targeted White girls for 15 years!

That is the whole point broom everyone is a lot braver when the victims look right. Have you read the thread

Bright - you appeared to be making a case that he couldn't be criticised about it for that reason

No I am not. Not remotely you are twisting what I'm saying. I am suggesting that that is the case he would make. I never said he should not be challenged.

whodrank as far as I know he targets black girls but I don't think Kelly wouldn't use the same defence if the girls were white if his accuser was also white.

WRT communities self-policing, it seems to me like there generally are women within particular communities who are attempting to address the issues of misogyny and abuse (which exist in all communities) but there's this weird thing of councils etc wanting to 'liaise with community leaders'. One solution I've seen has been for eg Muslim feminists to start going to interfaith women's groups - it seems like just about the only way to access those kinds of channels as a woman. (well, probably not the only way - but hopefully yswim).

It's like the reaction of men in a community are seen as of utmost importance. I think it's very loaded to imply that men don't look after 'their' women properly.

I was watching the film Beauty in Truth about Alice Walker (it's on PBS and you can watch it online from the UK if you use Hola) and they covered some of the reaction to the film 'the colour purple'. The silencing of Walker's narrative in case it cast Black communities in a bad light was so extreme. Partly it was awful that Alice Walker was really the only Black woman at that time who was in a position to have that kind of reach so it was only one narrative instead of a myriad voices talking about all kinds of facets of Black identity and experience. So I get why it would be disappointing if you wanted to see something positive.

But if you actually read the book there are plenty of decent men, and even Mister is redeemed towards the end. Plus the Third Life of Grange Copeland is largely about the idea of men being capable of redemption.

Anyway it just seemed like a shame that the coverage was so damning.

Understandable, but sad. It seemed like homophobia got a lot of airtime too.

There aren't simple solutions but it seems like feminism centering the voices of women of colour and signal-boosting work by women speaking out is important.

'If feminists can shrug off unfounded accusations of 'man hating' etc, then they should be able to shrug off a rapist claiming that they're only pointing at him because they're racist.' yes!
And speaking about what racism actually is will probably help with confidence in those kinds of situations. Just as speaking about misogyny helps with accusations of man-hating.

An event I organised had a really good workshop that just attempted to talk about how to offer and receive criticism when speaking about race and racism within feminism - it seemed like more of those kinds of conversations are needed.

Broom you are making my point. Fear of black male rapists and abusers screaming racist takes precedence over the woc hurt

Even if the woc are children.
It's chilling because an individual hesitation leads to group silence because no one wants to jump in first

whodrankmycoffee would you say that black men more than white men are given the label of being more sexually "cant control themselves" than white men?

I guess there were other celebrity black couples where there seems more than a whiff of victim blaming - James Brown...?, Mike Tyson, Whitney Houston, does the media though unfairly home in on these things though to make it appear its a black relationship thing.

I always inwardly shudder when government reach out to community leaders. I don't want justice by proxy because I am a woc

No I don't think its that people suggest black men can't control themselves it's more that it is the woc herself. Her sexuality is so extreme that it is her fault and she is outside the bounds of proper womanhood so feminists can avert their eyes

I say this because even if the abuser is white there is still this sensation of so what black women are fully women so it's not as bad

Are not fully women

Where did the trope of WOC being hypersexual originate and is it just 'white' media moguls perpetuating it via the media? All those hip hop videos etc?

Slavery I believe. And it just continues into popular culture. But someone feel free to jump in with another answer or link
It's applied to black men too but I think it's more problematic for the women

It's a reversal, isn't it? What was/is actually happening = white men predating on black women and girls. Then, in the name of eugenics and v much linked to slavery. Now, because they 'look older' etc. And the notion of hypersexuality.
I'd say the corollary for men was hypermasculinity - it's possible that R Kelly is seen as no worse than eg Jay Z because they both play up to a certain image but hopefully it is fairly clear that raping young girls is a crime and not an image.

"whodrankmycoffee" I imagine all those white male explorers who went to Africa and drew their warped conclusions from their 'studies'.

Black men get labelled with being more endowed so if anything gain the envy of white men as being seen to be even more studly.

www.rewindreframe.org/ This was a good initiative- quiet lately - discussed here
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/13/sexed-up-music-videos-problem-beyonce
It's not necessarily drawing the same conclusions as I would, but it was great in the sense that it was led by young women of colour who had well-formed opinions.
what seems to happen quite often is that a large, white-led/dominated organisation will have ideas, create a project, then bring women of colour from smaller organisations in at the end to endorse and promote it.
I hear about that kind of thing far too much.