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In this way, the C.R.C. gave us the political tools to understand the difference between bottom-up and top-down politics, and their distorted manifestation in the identity politics of today. We might use our position at the bottom, however, to make a clear leap into revolutionary action. 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. One of our members did attend and despite the narrowness of the ideology that was promoted at that particular conference, we became more aware of the need for us to understand our own economic situation and to make our own economic analysis. As Angela Davis points out in Reflections on the Black Womans Role in the Community of Slaves, Black women have always embodied, if only in their physical manifestation, an adversary stance to white male rule and have actively resisted its inroads upon them and their communities in both dramatic and subtle ways. Your donation is fully tax-deductible. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. 20 (2018), pp. 22, No. The Combahee River Collective, founded by black feminists and lesbians in Boston, Massachusetts in 1974, was best known for its Combahee River Collective Statement. . It was years before I pulled those different strands of my mothers life together. [3] Mumininas of Committee for Unified Newark, Mwanamke Mwananchi (The Nationalist Woman), Newark, N.J., 1971, pp. Instead, I read it as a powerful intervention for the left as a whole. 271-280, The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, By: Review by: Liz Kennedy , June Lapidus, Feminist Studies, Vol. In her introduction to Sisterhood is Powerful Robin Morgan writes: 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. The C.R.C. from those groups was the explanatory power of their statement, which was first collected in Zillah Eisensteins anthology Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism, in 1978. 50, No. The fact that individual Black feminists are living in isolation all over the country, that our own numbers are small, and that we have some skills in writing, printing, and publishing makes us want to carry out these kinds of projects as a means of organizing Black feminists as we continue to do political work in coalition with other groups. We are not convinced, however, that a socialist revolution that is not also a feminist and anti-racist revolution will guarantee our liberation. 2 (February/March, 1975), pp. Those were fine things to act against and struggle for, but they felt like lightweight politics in contrast to the things that my nineteen-year-old self was concerned about: the U.S. presence in the Middle East, police brutality and racism, poverty and inequality. Tessa_Nunn. There have always been Black women activistssome known, like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frances E. W. Harper, Ida B. 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. They are, of course, even more threatened than Black women by the possibility that Black feminists might organize around our own needs. It celebrated the possibilities of a political coalition born out of solidarity among groups who recognized the need to be engaged in struggle. We have a great deal of criticism and loathing for what men have been socialized to be in this society: what they support, how they act, and how they oppress. 4. We also were contacted at that time by socialist feminists, with whom we had worked on abortion rights activities, who wanted to encourage us to attend the National Socialist Feminist Conference in Yellow Springs. [2] Wallace, Michele. 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. The women of the C.R.C. The Combahee River Collective, a black feminist lesbian organization, released the Combahee River Collective Statement in 1978 to define and encourage black feminism. Our development must also be tied to the contemporary economic and political position of Black people. In our consciousness-raising sessions, for example, we have in many ways gone beyond white womens revelations because we are dealing with the implications of race and class as well as sex. 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. Identity Politics: Friend or Foe? | Othering & Belonging Institute JSTOR, the JSTOR logo, and ITHAKA are registered trademarks of ITHAKA. 5, No. It was mind-blowing! Apparently, the sisterhood was powerful. The Combahee River Collective (CRC) ( / kmbi / km-BEE) [1] was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980. The Combahee River Collective Statement is believed to be the first text where the term identity politics is used. [3]. 2 (Spring, 2001), pp. 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. 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. 3/4, SOLIDARITY (FALL/WINTER 2014), pp. As the statement read: We need to articulate the real class situation of persons who are not merely raceless, sexless workers, but for whom racial and sexual oppression are significant determinants in their working/economic lives. [1] This statement is dated April 1977. Thats right out of the Black feminist playbook.. The final, definitive version was published in Zillah Eisenstein, ed., Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism (Monthly Review Press, 1979), 362-72. 113, No. The women of the C.R.C. Alexander Gnassi . The Combahee River Collective formed in Boston, in 1974, during a period that regularly produced organizations that claimed the mantle of radical or revolutionary struggle. What distinguished the C.R.C. We have arrived at the necessity for developing an understanding of class relationships that takes into account the specific class position of Black women who are generally marginal in the labor force, while at this particular time some of us are temporarily viewed as doubly desirable tokens at white-collar and professional levels. [3] They are perhaps best known for developing the Combahee River Collective Statement, [4] a key . 4-5. One issue that is of major concern to us and that we have begun to publicly address is racism in the white womens movement. What was the Combahee River Collective and what were the politics and vision advanced by the group, The Combahee River Collective was a Black feminist lesbian organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980. Test. Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. For this month's Annotations series, we chose the Combahee River Collective Statement, written in 1977 and first published in Zillah Eisenstein, ed., Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism, 1979. No one before has ever examined the multilayered texture of Black womens lives. Both are essential to the development of any life. In 2016, as the fortieth anniversary of the Combahee Statement approached, I realized that it would be an opportunity to draw attention back to the document and its astounding prescience and analysis, and to complicate a stilted and unsatisfying national discussion about who the real inheritors were of socialist politics in the United States. 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. 11, No. 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. 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. 2. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough. The value of men and women can be seen as in the value of gold and silverthey are not equal but both have great value. 38, No. The Combahee River Collective and Intersectionality in the Age of There are no maps or predetermined paths that guarantee the success or failure of a movement. But my mothers experiences were altogether different. 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. They could not stop our lights from being periodically turned off, or a steady stream of bill collectors from coming to our front door. My mothers advanced degrees could not protect her from bankruptcy in 1982. Smith told me, By identity politics, we meant simply this: we have a right as Black women in the nineteen-seventies to formulate our own political agendas. She went on, We dont have to leave out the fact that we are women, we do not have to leave out the fact that we are Black. 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. Equality of men and women is something that cannot happen even in the abstract world. 1. As BIack women we find any type of biological determinism a particularly dangerous and reactionary basis upon which to build a politic. 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. Contemporary Black feminism is the outgrowth of countless generations of personal sacrifice, militancy, and work by our mothers and sisters. The view is decidedly different from the top. Protests of George Floyds Killing Transform Into a Global Movement. 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. THE COMBAHEE RIVER COLLECTIVE: The Combahee River Collective Statement, copyright 1978 by Zillah Eisenstein. Both are essential to the development of any life. 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. They were also inspired by the national liberation and anti-colonial movements, from the Algerian struggle against the French occupation to the Vietnamese resistance to the American war. Theoretically rich and strategically nimble, it imagined a course of politics that could take Black women from the margins of society to the center of a revolution. 164-189, The Massachusetts Review, Vol. Many things have changed since the publication of the document, but many have not, and therein lies the problem that continues to pull people into the streets. drew on their experiences in Black, male-dominated organizations. In the fall, when some members returned, we experienced several months of comparative inactivity and internal disagreements which were first conceptualized as a Lesbian-straight split but which were also the result of class and political differences. Illustration by Palesa Monareng; Source photograph by Vivien Killilea / MAKERS / Getty. In the reality of organizing, these tensions manifested themselves in white womens desire to focus their organizing on abortion rights, while Black feminists argued for the broader framework of reproductive justice, which included the struggle against forced sterilizations of Black and brown women. We believe that sexual politics under patriarchy is as pervasive in Black womens lives as are the politics of class and race. Evictions and foreclosures in the U.S. could trigger a new wave of infection and illnessbut its not too late to act. 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. demanded politics that could account for all, and not just aspects of their identity. 1 (Spring, 2001), pp. 100, No. believed that another world was possible, one in which Black women, and thus all of humanity, were freed from systems of oppression and exploitation, as the result of a collective struggle that reached down to the roots of the problems we face. Learn. 42, No. Currently we are planning to gather together a collectIon of Black feminist writing. (There was no refuge in Boston at that time.) The "second wave" feminist movement fought for body . The Strange Career of the Lady Possum of the New World, To Get Help for Sick Kids, Mothers Wrote to Washington, Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, About the American Prison Newspapers Collection, Submissions: American Prison Newspapers Collection. To be honest, I didnt know what to do with the Combahee Statement. I had seen feminism as the domain of white women primarily concerned with glass ceilings and access to abortion. This may seem so obvious as to sound simplistic, but it is apparent that no other ostensibly progressive movement has ever consIdered our specific oppression as a priority or worked seriously for the ending of that oppression. 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. HTKo0>!0`PzN6WK$i:$%>>%O/Kp}XfAi8;84q0~23:\B. 3, Gendering the Carceral State: African American Women, History, and the Criminal Justice System (Summer 2015), pp. The C.R.C. As they put it, 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.. 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. Vacations in the Soviet Union were hardly idylls spent with ones dearest. 159). Before becoming leader of communist China, Mao was an ardent library patron and then worked as a library assistant. I had seen my father harassed by police, in Cincinnati, Ohio, for jaywalking. 1 (Jan., 1989), pp. 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. 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. The claims that socialism was for white people were an affront to a long lineage of Black communists and socialists here in the United States. 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. But then I understood it differently, not just as a critical document in the canon of feminist literature or as a much-needed exposition of the origins of Black feminism. March 24, 2022. 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. Before looking at the recent development of Black feminism we would like to affirm that we find our origins in the historical reality of Afro-American womens continuous life-and-death struggle for survival and liberation. 52-71, Feminist Studies, Vol. We believe in collective process and a nonhierarchical distribution of power within our own group and in our vision of a revolutionary society. As BIack women we find any type of biological determinism a particularly dangerous and reactionary basis upon which to build a politic. As Black women we see Black feminism as the logical political . (1977) The Combahee River Collective Statement - BlackPast.org 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. [2]. The value of men and women can be seen as in the value of gold and silverthey are not equal but both have great value. 8XXANaA{s*ZQe(GCCM|+J_mCmI^tiPrLs:YfZ/&`7?2I!KRODf!;EM$X Ghpo:A0r# 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. 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 strugglebecause, being on the bottom, we would have to do what no one else has done: we would have to fight the world. But her caution also betrays the hope and deep desire for radical change that all revolutionaries harbor. 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. We understand that it is and has been traditional that the man is the head of the house. Racism alone could not explain what killed my mother. Match. What We Believe 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 struggle together with Black men against racism, while we also struggle with Black men about sexism. Material resources must be equally distributed among those who create these resources. I myself have found the Combahee Statement more compelling than ever. @B)UH3Qd`-2 HCY=\4D-' 2] endstream endobj 226 0 obj <> endobj 227 0 obj <> endobj 228 0 obj <>stream We dont have to do white feminism, we dont have to do patriarchal Black nationalismwe dont have to do those things. We now have language, we have an analysis of whats going on with the prison-industrial complex, with mass incarceration, with police brutality, with extrajudicial murderswe have that, and we have bases of operation, because there are definitely Black Lives Matter organizations in various cities around the country. She continued, But the question for me is: Whats next? It was the overlap of race, gender, and the aspirations to the comfort of a class that she poked around the edges of but could not ultimately break into. [1] [2] The Collective was instrumental in highlighting that the white feminist movement was not addressing their particular needs. It is a living thing. 6-7. Combahee River Collective Statement Analysis | ipl.org 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. 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. Combahee River Collective Flashcards | Quizlet In A Black Feminists Search for Sisterhood, Michele Wallace arrives at this conclusion: One issue that is of major concern to us and that we have begun to publicly address is racism in the white womens movement. 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. Our politics evolve from a healthy love for ourselves, our sisters and our community which allows us to continue our struggle and work. Still, hundreds of women have been active at different times during the three-year existence of our group. 85, No. Feminism is, nevertheless, very threatening to the majority of Black people because it calls into question some of the most basic assumptions about our existence, i.e., that sex should be a determinant of power relationships.