Read This Week

This is my 46th Read This Week feature! If you’re new to Gradient Lair, each week (though I’ve missed a few) I post essays, articles, journal articles and/or papers of interest to me that I think will be of interest to you, based on your interest in my blog. Below are good reads:

Violence Against (Trans)Women Today by CeCe McDonald herself is an important read. She has faced a gross and disgusting injustice, where once again, self-defense was not applicable to a Black trans woman. This essay is an important read.

Sister Assata -  This Is What American History Looks Like by Alice Walker is an important read! She has met and spoken with Assata Shakur on more than one occasion. She speaks to the psychological warfare, capitalism, imperialism, racism and misogynoir involved in Shakur being labeled as a terrorist in this country, someone she is NOT. Best believe that this labeling and two increases in the bounty in the last decade is psychological warfare against Black women in this country.

Framing The Panther: Assata Shakur and Black Female Agency [PDF] by Joy James is a fascinating read. She examines the similarities between Harriet Tubman and Assata Shakur in terms of rejection of the State and also examines how not being anchored by or known in relation to a heterosexual male partner that was also “icon,” impacts perception of her.

We Cannot Have It All Because We No Longer Have Dreams by Flavia Dzodan on Tiger Beatdown is an exquisite essay. She went IN! She writes: “I do have to bring up my disillusion with most of mainstream feminism. I do have to denounce this hegemonic feminist discourse that promotes success without questioning the very context in which said success is supposed to take place. I do have to protest the increasing promotion of corporate participation as a measure of “feminist achievement” and women’s prosperity. Because for as long as we do not question at whose expense we are succeeding, we are going to continue creating a deeper gap between those women who are allowed to succeed and those who never stood a chance to begin with.” READ THIS.

I’ve mentioned this before, but it needs to be mentioned again, hence the suggested read below. We must STOP placing Black women in patriarchal binaries, and then calling such placement “feminist” if we worship the “positive” side of the binary. Respectability politics plus benevolent sexism are NOT feminism. In fact, they can quickly become misogynoir.

Queens of Consciousness & Sex-Radicalism in Hip-Hop:On Erykah Badu & The Notorious K.I.M. [PDF] by Greg Thomas is a good read. He explores the “consciousness without sexuality” versus the “sexuality without consciousness” binary (or in other words “queen” versus “females/bitch” binary), revealing that listeners and fans NOT the artists themselves type them as one or the other. Erykah’s music reveals a connection to the erotic just as Lil’ Kim’s music reveals thought and exploration on a variety of topics. A must-read before EVER comparing two Black women in music ever again.

Stay tuned for next week’s suggestions! And, to keep up with the books that I am reading, check my Pinterest board for 2013 or for past reads, view the 2012 one.

I Don’t Want To Have To Deal With Racism In Order To Support LGBTQ White People

In the last several years, I’ve found it very difficult to talk to many LGBTQ White people. Everything I learn about LGBTQ experiences is primarily from LGBTQ Black people and other ones of colour. Because I am a cisgender heterosexual Black woman, often times LGBTQ White people approach me with the assumption that I am homophobic, transphobic and theist (where theism justifies the bigotry, as if theism is arbitrary [without history] and only applies to Black people). I am none of these. I’m a Womanist. My feminism is intersectional. I’m an agnostic atheist.

There’s been several times on social media networks (and in person) where a LGBTQ White person started speaking to me with the assumption of homophobia and theism. Once a gay White man assumed the sheer mention of Tracey Morgan meant I defend him. He accused me of homophobia, mentioned that my avatar revealed the truth about me (since in America, to be Black is to be deemed homophobic) and actually hashtagged the word “black” in his tweet reply. For the record, I don’t like Morgan’s comedy; I pointed out how his White audience and White fans laughed at his homophobic jokes, but as a way to punish Black men in general, and uphold White supremacy, White homophobes must be obscured and ignored. This angered LGBTQ White people (others came along) who felt that attacking me with racist tweets was better than recognizing that I didn’t defend Morgan and that yes, Whites, not solely Blacks are a part of the problem of homophobia in this country.

Why would they think racism is the best way to respond to presumed homophobia? Well, as long as this society is White supremacist, media figures like Anderson Cooper and David Gregory continue to push the idea that Black people are virulently homophobic, and Whites receive awards despite homophobia or homoantagonistic policies (i.e. Brett Ratner, Bill Clinton) while Black people are repeatedly and statistically inaccurately portrayed as “exceptionally” homophobic and the “real” problem, White supremacy will not only remain unchecked but LGBTQ Whites privileged in every other area can unequivocally blame Black people for their oppression while ignoring White supremacy, racism and White privilege. His approach ignored what I actually tweeted and was not intersectional.

Another time I discussed media stereotypes and a White trans woman said the media will see me as a “criminal” and her a “whore.” Her response considered my race not my gender and intersectional experience. This isn’t to say that Black women aren’t the most punished and incarcerated women in the country; we are, just as Black men are the most punished and incarcerated of men. But I doubt that she was thinking of women’s incarceration statistics. She was thinking of the stereotype of the “Black male criminal” because I am Black. However, overlooking my experience as a woman, a Black woman no less, she wasn’t able to see how the stereotype “whore” that she thinks could harm her life has harmed generations of Black women and even has hegemonic controlling images (Jezebel/welfare queen/hoochie mama) associated with it. I was expected to listen to her experience as a trans woman since cis privilege shields me from her experiences yet to her, I was interchangeable with a Black man. Again; not intersectional.

Recently I had an exchange with a different White trans woman who felt that I derailed her criticisms of cis women by mentioning Black trans women who felt supported by cis Black women. I apologized, as it wasn’t my intent. She didn’t want to continue to speak with me to continue the conversation. However, she started the conversation by mentioning that I was the only woman of colour that she’s ever encountered who mentioned cis privilege/support trans women and no women of colour really do. How do you say that as a White trans woman and not realize it sounds like “you Black women are transphobic just like Black men are homophobic.” She didn’t critique cis White women. She specifically mentioned ones of colour, as a White trans woman. That’s why I mentioned what I did—not to obscure valid critique of cis privilege but to repudiate the White supremacist idea that cis Black women or ones of colour aren’t supportive and cis White ones are. The imperative for me to check my cis privilege (important) yet ignore her White privilege and endure racism (painful) is exhausting to me.

What some LGBTQ White people fail to realize is LGBTQ Black people deal with homophobia AND racism. Will the former write the latter off as automatically homophobic too? I shouldn’t have to be called a homophobe for rejecting racism from LGBTQ White people any more than when I am called anti-Semitic for rejecting Jewish men’s cinematic interpretations of Blackness through a racist lens or Jewish comedians’ obsession with blackface.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t acknowledge cis and heterosexual privilege. For example, I see how Black women who are marginalized and oppressed by race and gender (and class, complexion, weight, ability, education, immigration status/citizenship, nation, for being trans etc.) are further marginalized and oppressed when their sexuality is deemed deviant. Even heterosexual Black women, with heterosexual privilege, deal with our sexuality labeled as a deviant form of heterosexuality; pathological, hypersexual and “unrapeable.” (“Deviant sexuality” is more than a label—it facilities oppression on multiple institutional, structural, systemic and social planes). I also listen to and talk to queer Black men about the intraracial and interracial difficulties of navigating or rejecting patriarchal masculinity and the emotional/physical violence that homophobia breeds. Clearly an intersectional perspective is needed, especially in regards to Black women who are bisexual, lesbian, queer and trans. It’s not one that I can always exhibit effectively because my cis and heterosexual privilege have to consistently be checked. Further, some experiences I won’t even have the experiential knowledge (which culturally for Black people is highly valued as an epistemological approach) that some bisexual, lesbian, queer and trans Black women have, so listening to them and not speaking for them is important to me.

When I see LGBTQ Black people without heterosexual privilege like I have, stating the exact same things that I just wrote above, there’s a problem. That’s their own community that they’re being excluded from by LGBTQ White people. I see this a lot, actually, and I feel stress and pain for them because despite dealing with the same racism as them and for some, the same sexism, misogynoir, colourism, classism, and more, and even with stereotypical constructions of my heterosexuality as deviant, I still don’t face the homophobia/transphobia that bisexual, lesbian, queer and trans Black women deal with, for example. While I face one of the highest risks for rape or assault as a Black woman, I don’t risk being beat up just for “looking gay;” something that Black men face in a hetero-patriarchal and homophobic society. (Gay Black men and Black women have a lot of overlap in experiences since homophobia and misognyoir are honestly two sides of the same coin.)

I don’t understand how to communicate with LGBTQ White people if the assumption is that I am homophobic and theist because I am a Black woman, if the conversation cannot be shaped with an intersectional perspective, if White homophobes are always off the hook and if they continue to believe that Black people are “exceptionally” homophobic and responsible for America being a homophobic nation. If the price of connection is me admitting homophobia that I didn’t exhibit, checking cis and heterosexual privilege that I do have but enduring racism along the way as they deny its existence and pretend like White supremacy and White privilege are figments of my imagination, that’s an impasse.

I don’t want the price of dismantling oppression in one area to be suffering in silence in another. I don’t understand how to support LGBTQ White people who exclude and oppress LGBTQ Black people and ignore intersectionality, racism and White privilege in regards to heterosexual Black people who aren’t homophobic and aren’t using heterosexual privilege to silence them. I most certainly do not condone homophobia from anyone of any race, to be clear. There ARE Blacks AND Whites who are homophobic, and this is a problem. And homophobic or not, ALL heterosexuals benefit from heterosexual privilege, just like individually racist or not, the historical, institutional, structural and systemic manifestations of racism, White supremacy and White privilege benefits all Whites.

I know the possibility of intersectional thinking exists because videos like this powerful spoken word performance with a queer White woman and a heterosexual Black woman help me visualize the possibility. Maybe such a possibility will materialize into common, not fluke experiences for me.

Read This Week

This is my 45th Read This Week feature! If you’re new to Gradient Lair, each week I post essays, articles, journal articles and/or papers of interest to me that I think will be of interest to you, based on your interest in my blog. Below are good reads:

So Gwyneth Paltrow is the “Worlds Most Beautiful Woman?” Yeah Fucking Right on The Negress is a good read. She isn’t calling Paltrow “ugly” and she does mention Beyoncé’s past selection, with important context. Very important, regarding how narrow memes of Eurocentric beauty is forced on and decided for women.

Baby Hair: For Gabby, Blue Ivy & Me on Crunk Feminist Collective is a great read that I and just about every Black woman I know can relate to.  “I wonder what would happen if we praised black girls for their beauty instead of looking at them through a lens of criticism.”

An Open Letter To Folks of Color on Black Girl Dangerous is a great read. It’s difficult and sweet. It alludes to the resilience and resistance, the creativity and the character of people of colour despite oppression. It doesn’t deify or dehumanize though because there IS pain and we DO feel it, but it’s like a “you’re amazing despite this” kind of letter.

Black/Non-Black Divide and The Anti-Blackness of Non-Black Minorities by Robert Reese of Still Furious and Still Brave is a great read. As the former letter I mentioned discusses the connection between people of colour, this one discusses something that is often silenced—the anti-Blackness that many non-Black people of colour have, and how White supremacy and the ever shifting boundaries of race play a role.

Why Jason Collins’ Faith is Ignored… And Tebow’s Isn’t by @graceishuman is a good read. There’s a homophobic meme going around among Conservatives about how Collins is a hero despite being gay and Tebow isn’t for being Christian. Um…Collins is Christian too. Thus, she explores how White supremacy shapes even who is considered a “real” Christian. (As an agnostic atheist, it made me think of something Black feminist, atheist and radical humanist Sikivu Hutchinson said.)

Stay tuned for next week’s suggestions!

Can People Critique Black Women Without Resorting To “Isms?”

Do you know how utterly rare it is for someone to tell me that they do not like a specific Black woman, nonfamous or famous, without resorting to:

• racism
• White supremacist, Eurocentric constructions of beauty
• colourism
• sexism
• racialized sexism
• misogyny
• misogynoir
• classism
• the politics of respectability / theist-shaped perceptions that involve misogynoir and classism
• fatphobia
• homophobia
• transphobia

Do people realize that it is possible to dislike someone’s writing, art, music, personality, style or something else without resorting to oppression-supporting slurs/criticisms or bigotry? They should be able to articulate why they dislike the Black woman in question WITHOUT any of this.

But no…instead they resort to wanting a fictional Black female character in a film or show dead, or a Black female celebrity to be endlessly criticized while anything she does that is good is ignored, or Black women degraded for doing the same things that White women do, or Black women shamed for something that every other race and gender is applauded for—like earning a degree, and on and on and on…

Related Essay List: On Black Women…

Brittney Griner and Race, Gender, Sexuality and Sports

I just read an article in The New York Times called Female Star Comes Out as Gay, and Sports World Shrugs, by Sam Borden and it is in reference to the awesome Black female basketball superstar Brittney Griner. She shined at Baylor University and recently became the number 1 draft pick for the WNBA team Phoenix Mercury.

In the article, Borden asks why her revelation is met with little response as the world awaits a professional male athlete to reveal being gay. The people he asked alluded to the sexism and stereotypes involved, which you can read in the article.

Though I cannot cite why this is the response she receives (insults or ignoring) from the perspective of a lesbian, as I am heterosexual and have heterosexual privilege, I believe it’s a combination of factors that contribute to this (stemming from patriarchy, male privilege, capitalism, sexism, misogynoir, homophobia), ones that allude to her intersectional experience, which includes:

Men’s sports are always treated with higher regard than women’s sports, period. No announcement from a female athlete is going to generate the attention that an announcement from a male athlete does, regardless of what the announcement is. Such a division is clearly seen in men’s NCAA sports versus women’s, let alone in professional sports. (Even in Olympic sports, male sports get more primetime coverage [outside of volleyball, track and gymnastics] and while most can easily cite Usain Bolt as the fastest man in the world, do they know that Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is the fastest woman in the world? They’re both Jamaicans. This gender issue isn’t even accounting for the racist [and sexist] media issues regarding Olympic sports.)

Female athletes are always assumed to be lesbians UNLESS the media and public deem that they meet an almost hypersexualized version of femininity to derail such homophobic assumptions for misogynist ones. Further, the sheer act of being physical and competitive (as in sports) are associated with patriarchal notions of gender, so women engaging in sports is often viewed as being “male-like.” (We see the same type of rhetoric regarding women in combat, for example.)

Some people who claim to be tolerant (as if tolerance alone is enough) of LGBTQ people are only “tolerant” through a fetishized and disrespectful way; they’ll accept lesbians but not gay men, because in their self-centered minds, lesbians solely exist to “perform” for men, not as independent humans in their own relationships with their own meaningful lives. They do not see lesbians as a “threat” in the way that they do gay men, so to them, a female athlete “coming out” is not worth a response in the way a male athlete coming out is; in that their only response to the latter is anger.

Black women are already viewed as not “feminine” with the combination of racism, sexism, misogynoir and homophobia shaping these perceptions. Thus, it wouldn’t matter what her sexuality is to homophobic people; they already have negative views of lesbians and Black women in general, so Brittney existing at that intersection is a “duh, I already knew she’d be gay” reaction from some, a reaction shaped in stereotypes, not actual acceptance of who she is.

No one should feel forced to come out and no one who chooses to do so should be given disregard, silence or disrespect as a reply. Recognizing a person’s full humanity is embracing who they are completely—not who people want them to be or stereotyped them to be.

Brittney Griner is an exquisite athlete and seems to be a very confident young woman, comfortable in her own skin, sexuality and ability. As we’ve seen, a Black woman who is happy and self-possessed is deemed a threat to many and an object of scorn to even more. When a 9-year-old Black girl with confidence and talent like Quvenzhané could have so many angered in their seas of hatred, seeing nasty negative responses to Griner’s talent or purposeful ignoring/disregarding (and not because of acceptance, as I illustrated) of Griner’s sexuality doesn’t surprise me at all, actually.

I hope that she truly shines in the WNBA and enjoys doing it, and that her talent, skill and confidence continues to inspire.

Read This Week

This is my 42nd Read This Week feature. Each week I recommend essays, articles and/or papers/journals that I’ve recently read. Below are some great reads:

Blanket “Don’t Go To Graduate School!” Advice Ignores Race and Reality? by @tressiemcphd is such an important read. She challenges the anti-grad school spiel that comes from White middle-class writers and educators who completely ignore the role of race and class in labor. What might be a useless credential or a not good enough job to them could be a markedly large step forward for a Black person coming from poverty. Education advice need not be “blanket” advice. GREAT read.

On Being Called Out My Name on Crunk Feminist Collective is a great read. While it is easy to tell someone to get over themselves if they want to be addressed as Dr. (in this case, a professor) the underlying sexist, racist, and classist issues as to why people find great difficulty doing this for a Black female professor versus a White male professor, for example, are telling. Great read; the comments also include some interesting perspectives and debate. I promise, the comments aren’t YouTube-like; they’re safe to read.

Street Harassment, Masculinity, and Impressing Other Dudes guest posted by Michael Denzel Smith on Feministing provides another perspective regarding street harassment; men engaging in it to perform patriarchal masculinity for other men, lest their sexuality be questioned. This reveals another link between misogyny and homophobia; as I’ve always said, they’re two sides of the same coin.

Stay tuned for next week’s suggestions!

Heterosexual Black Women, Gay Black Men and Creation of Culture

There’s been a few times that I’ve seen gay Black men accuse heterosexual Black women of appropriating their culture. I’ve seen other gay Black men push back on this by mentioning that gay Black men also appropriate from heterosexual Black women. I’ve seen some heterosexual Black women suggest that gay Black men are just copying/appropriating us.

Three things come to mind for me:

1) We’re going to share quite a bit because we are all Black. All of what we create becomes a part of Black culture. This culture, of course, has an incredible amount of nuance because of certain aspects. Gender. Sexual orientation. Being cis/trans*. Region (i.e. Southern, Northern) in the U.S.. Living outside of the U.S. (where MORE people of African descent live than in the U.S. anyway). Class. And most importantly, individuality. Some things that are popular to both groups only took a single individual to create, whether it was a heterosexual Black woman or gay Black man. (This is not to imply that heterosexual Black men and queer Black women do not also create Black culture; of course they do. I am speaking specifically about the former’s relationship.)

2) We simultaneously create and share culture, back and forth. It’s not completely linear. There are some sayings, styles and mannerisms that I’ve never seen a gay Black man do until a heterosexual Black woman has. There are some sayings, styles and mannerisms that I’ve never seen a heterosexual Black woman do until a gay Black man has. Also, there are things where the input of both groups of Black people can clearly be seen, input that morphs over time as both continue to input and alter it.

3) We need to tread carefully and lovingly here. I saw a gay Black man suggest that all Beyoncé does is appropriate, for example. She’s a Black woman from Texas, with a Creole mother. They have culture. She has style. She’s not an empty vessel waiting for gay men to fill her up (and to suggest so is treading that patriarchal, sexist and male privilege line heavily, even if their actual manifestation of male privilege is not exactly like a cisgender heterosexual Black man’s). At the same time, she hires gay choreographers and other artists, and we can clearly see the influence of specific aspects of Black gay culture and fashion within her public persona and performances. Additionally, heterosexual Black women cannot suggest that gay men are just copying us (when they in fact create too) or worse, retreat to homophobia. This further divides us, unnecessarily, especially since despite differences in gender and sexual orientation, we share so much in terms of how misognyoir and homophobia manifests in this society; they’re truly two sides of the same coin. Black women are deemed less “feminine” than other women and are oppressed while gay Black men are persecuted and oppressed for not performing patriarchal masculinity up to not only heterosexual Black men’s specifications, but White supremacist capitalist patriarchal ones, in general. We both face intraracial and interracial oppression. We live intersectionality; it’s not just a theory for us. We don’t have a massive power differential between us in the way that Whites who appropriate Black culture do with us, nor do we have the history of oppression, destruction and genocide between us that we have with Whites.

There is so much history, cultural richness, nuance, layers, and depth to Black culture. When it comes to heterosexual Black women and gay Black men, there’s a beautiful cultural bond that is often there, especially when they are womanist/feminist and queer, respectively, and committed to anti-oppression and the wholeness of each other. I feel this even more after several years of chatting with, learning from, teaching, and loving gay Black men as some of my online buddies. I feel this even more after reading Asia Brown’s essay A Letter To My Black Gay Brothers. It’s important to see each other as cultural creators who share and are supportive of each other.

Related Posts: White Responses To Black Creativity, My Thoughts On Marriage Equality, Dealing With Men Who Are Anti-Racism, Yet Pro-Sexism/Homophobia, About A Troll Who Thinks To Be Black Is To Be Homophobic…

I Don’t Like The Word “Unfeminist”

[TRIGGER WARNING: street harassment, rape]

I am not a fan of the word “unfeminist.” I see it used often by some feminists to call other women’s choices unacceptable because they do not meet the arbitrary definition of what the former thinks a “feminist” choice is—as if a choice type itself is what determines anti-oppression praxis, versus personal agency and the removal of social, cultural, structural and institutional barriers that prevent women from making choices for themselves.

The prefix un- means:

Absence of a quality or state. The reverse of (usually with an implication of approval or disapproval). A lack of.

The prefixes un- and non- both mean “lacking” or “not” but there is a distinction in terms of perspective. The prefix un- tends to be stronger and less neutral than non-.

Example would include “unacademic” versus “nonacademic.” The former is stronger language.

This is why this term “unfeminist” becomes incredibly dangerous. Notice the implication of approval/disapproval. Disapproval is inherent in the term “unfeminist.”

The problem with “unfeminist” is that it’s not a real concept in the first place, as it implies feminist absolutism as a destination, not the journey and praxis that it is.

This is not the same term as “anti-feminist,” which I ONLY use in reference to specific attacks on feminist theory and praxis, or on women who identify as feminist. (For example, an article I saw via Twitter, in a magazine in the UK mentioned how to “change” feminist women, and implied heterosexual sex “fixes” us. This is specifically misogynist, sexist, and homophobic, in addition to being anti-feminist.) Otherwise, the appropriate terms to use in regards to oppression against women include sexism, misogyny, misogynoir, homophobia, transphobia, racism, classism, ableism, sizeism or whatever terms speak to the specific situation at hand.

If an artist releases misogynist work, it’s not about him being “anti-feminist” at that point; it is about misogyny. (To say it is just anti-feminist is to imply feminist women are somehow more valuable than ones who don’t identify as feminist. Problem.) It might be about misogynoir, if specific to Black women. Women themselves > feminism. Feminism matters only in that it can provide women and men who are anti-oppression with a way to engage in critical reflection, deconstruct the oppression they face, name it, and educate themselves and others on anti-oppression praxis. The praxis itself and protection of it does not supersede women’s existences themselves. This is why it is important to name things to be able to speak about oppression, but also important not to allow said labels to further marginalize.

If a feminist does not understand why a heterosexual feminist woman might want to take her husband’s last name (and even the recent bruhaha about Beyoncé’s tour’s name speaks to this), and calls such a choice “unfeminist” without regard to context, she is actually engaging in an oppressive act. She is telling a woman what choice to make, versus supporting women having the agency to make choices without facing further sexism or abuse for that choice.

If a feminist does not understand why a woman does NOT want to have multiple sex partners or show her breasts in protests and calls such a choice “unfeminst” without regard to context, she is actually engaging in an oppressive act. (Imagine one feminist telling another [who is a rape survivor] to show her breasts at a feminist rally, and that demand actually functions as a trigger…) The myth that compulsory sexuality (H/T @adeerable for the term) is liberation is a construct of patriarchy, actually. Woman must have choice and agency regarding sex. They shouldn’t have to avoid sex to hope for “respect” in a patriarchal society, or engage in it, but not by desire, to appear “liberated” in a patriarchal society.

As I tweeted yesterday:

If patriarchal men demand being a “prude” for “respect” and some feminists demand fucking everyone for “liberation,” NEITHER are CHOICES.

— Trudy (@thetrudz) April 7, 2013

This would be like a feminist calling a woman a “prude,” a very patriarchal label. And, for Black women, @Karnythia explains why this is even more problematic:

40-60% of black girls are abused before 18. Talk about that + #streetharassment + #rapeculture when we call black women prudes.

— Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia) April 7, 2013

Further, the implication is more dangerous for Black women. We are already deemed hypersexual, regardless of actual behavior, where hypersexuality is “bad” or “immoral;” thus, how can a stereotype lauded on our heads be deemed “liberation” anyway, IF we are performing compulsory sexuality just to be what some deem feminist?

We have to be able to speak about imperialist White supremacist capitalist hetero-patriarchy, sexism, misogyny, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, sizeism and more, or kyriarchy at large, WITHOUT behaving as if feminism involves “teams” where anyone doing anything that (usually) deviates from what a thin, middle-class, cisgender, heterosexual American/Western White woman who identitifes as feminist says is “unfeminist” has committed some unredeemable action and should be harassed for it. Replicating patriarchal binaries in feminist spaces is not revolutionary. If freedom isn’t CHOICE but solely doing what someone says or the opposite of what someone says, it ain’t freedom. It’s a binary.

Read This Week

This is my 41st Read This Week feature. Each week I recommend essays, articles and/or papers/journals that I’ve recently read. Below are some great reads:

He Slipped Me a Mickey: Examining Black Feminist Responses to Rape Culture by Jazmine Walker of Still Furious and Still Brave is really important. She examines class privilege and self-blame in regards to responses to Rick Ross’ lyrics and others that proliferate rape culture. She writes: “Many feminists sitting in seemingly safe spaces—middle class homes, coffee shops, classrooms—who think they don’t have the deal with the likes of Rick Ross or other threatening men, concluded that it would be best that women dismiss Rick Ross as disgusting, don’t consume his music, and maybe if we create enough cognitive dissonance between us and him, Ross and his patriarchal cronies will finally acknowledge that we are people with the right to consent.” Important read.

Navigating Masculinity as a Black Transman: “I will never straighten out my wrist” by Kai M. Green is an amazingly beautiful and complicated and at times painful read. Very important. Talk about intersectionality. Wow. I learned a lot from this powerful essay. The rigidity of gender as visual presentation and performance can be a prison. I am glad that Kai is NOT here for it!

King Cotton’s Long Shadow by Walter Johnson (a professor at Harvard) at The New York Times is an important read. He carefully explains how slavery is in fact responsible for the capitalist system we have today. This part of the history is rarely examined. He writes: “It is not simply that the labor of enslaved people underwrote 19th-century capitalism. Enslaved people were the capital: four million people worth at least $3 billion in 1860, which was more than all the capital invested in railroads and factories in the United States combined. Seen in this light, the conventional distinction between slavery and capitalism fades into meaninglessness.”

Girls, Women, and Sexual Legislation: The Trifecta by @FeministGriote is an important read, examining the importance of emergency contraception, and how contraception itself is mitigated by the State for women, yet not for men. Critical read.

Beating your Daughter will NOT Keep Her Off the Pole on Charity Is…The Catalyst is a great read. It’s in regards to a Black father who beat his daughters for twerking, (something I adamantly oppose, as I’ve written about why Black girls and women should be able to do this dance without facing a plethora of types of abuse and bigotry). This essay discusses the importance of healthy Black father/daughter relationships and the misogynoir and sexuality policing (re: pole) that Black women face. “So…while people are praising the man for physically abusing his daughters, claiming that he was doing it ‘because he cares’ and ‘wants the best for them’ we forget that the girls may associate a man’s affection with physical abuse. Instead of saying that Black women have ‘daddy issues,’ it would be more accurate to say that Black fathers have daughter issues.”

Stay tuned for next week’s suggestions!

Black Women Are Not Just White Women’s “Allies” In Feminism

This is a common theme—the idea that the most Black women can be are cheerleaders and “allies” for White women’s feminism. NO. Just as bell hooks notes, Feminism Is For Everybody.

The daily whining that I encounter over why Black women can’t just be good little “allies” to White feminists by co-opting White experiences while ignoring our own, liking their problematic issues and media without critique and ignoring our race in the name of shared biology (which usually means ignoring Black trans women too) to be real troopers for White women is insulting, disrespectful, annoying and inherently White supremacist. Still it continues.

They’re quick to co-opt statistics about the challenges of Black women’s lives yet will quickly plaster a White woman as the image for that life or expert for that life. They consistently use Black women’s lived experiences as examples of “feminist failures.” The mainstream media example of a feminist “expert” is usually a cisgender middle class White woman who will claim that she “checks her privilege” yet she continues to speak for “all” women, even on issues that in no way impacts her life but impacts many other women whose voices are purposely muted or ignored, but certainly voices from women that speak up despite this.

I don’t suggest that being an ally is not important. It is. Being an ally is a process, not an identity (shoutout to @FeministGriote) for those who stand at the helm of privilege amidst a sociopolitical juxtaposition between groups. For example, Whites can work as allies for anti-racist, anti-oppression work. Men can work as allies for womanist and intersectional feminist work. Heterosexual people can work as allies for LGBTQ communities. Cis people can work as allies for trans* people. Ally work can be noble when not self-centered, domineering and solely a salve for personal guilt, but no more noble than those in the trenches doing the work and living the experiences. Ally work needs to be noble without the incessant need for the praise of its nobility, otherwise it becomes about oppressed people applauding their oppressors, which is not revolutionary.

As Melissa Harris-Perry notes, what makes a good ally:

• First, DON’T demand that those you are supporting produce proof of the inequality they are working to resist.
• DO recognize that the shield of your privilege may blind you to the experience of others’ injustice.
• DON’T offer up your relationship with a member of the marginalized group as evidence of your understanding.
• DO be open to learning and expanding your consciousness by listening more and talking less.
• DON’T see yourself as the Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves or the Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai. You are NOT the savior riding to the rescue on a white horse. 
• DO notice that you are joining a group of people who are already working to save themselves.
• DO realize that the only requirement you need to enter ally-ship is a commitment to justice and human equality.

“Ally” though? This IS NOT who Black women are, in regards to feminism. We are not auxiliary feminists, feminist adjacent, a chord or a tangent in a feminist circle, or feminist mascots that should be objectified as examples of “good feminism” and “bad feminism” for White women to use in their blogs, panels and books. We are not “allies” for their feminist causes—as if we are not women as well, with needs, as well, with intersectional concerns, with vision, with theory and praxis, with a legacy of work and identity as Black womanists/feminists. We aren’t just feminist products for consumption (i.e. they’ll quickly spit Audre Lorde’s words out…but to justify dehumanzation of Black women, the actual opposite of Lorde’s work), critique (i.e. they love to throw Beyoncé, Michelle Obama and Rihanna under the bus for staying in their lanes as celebrities, while they, not these public figures, thirst for celebrity feminist credit) or duplication of experience (i.e. they disrespectfully call their reproductive justice work “The New Jane Crow” or call themselves “niggers” at SlutWalk).

Black women ARE women too. Some Black women identify as womanists. Many Black women identify as feminists too. In the 2012 election, of Black women voters polled, 66% of Black women self-identified as feminists and 75% agreed with a feminist identification once a definition of feminism was presented to them.

White women’s ladder that they lean in and on to the top has involved Black women’s bodies, freedom and very lives as the rungs. We aren’t their loyal sidekicks. We’ve been the superheros many times, while White women have taken the credit, garner the spoils and still enjoyed the luxuries associated with White privilege.

It’s not about credit and spoils though—I’m not interested in feminism for recognition or honor. Like I wrote about feminism before:

How we embody the oppressor within is where all feminist work begins. I am still here for feminism because I am still here for myself. I matter. I am still here for feminism because I am still here for us. We matter.

White women need to realize that “us” means PEOPLE of this GLOBE, not solely cisgender heterosexual thin middle class White women worried about becoming like White men with power and stepping on anyone else to get there.

Viewing a Black woman as an “ally” to feminism in that an “ally” is external to the actual experience of being a woman and a feminist is one of the most oppressive things that a White feminist can assert or imply, and it will always be unacceptable.

My Thoughts On Marriage Equality

Because I am heterosexual, I did not want to immediately force my opinions into the space of discussing marriage equality for the LGBTQ community, as the topic has been heavily discussed in the last few weeks since the recent oral arguments at the Supreme Court. I have mostly been listening to others on this topic, versus dominating anyone’s platform. I have been tweeting some interesting articles at @GradientLair as I see them come across my personal Twitter account’s stream (@thetrudz) from people of colour in the LGBTQ community. 

Yes, I want to hear their (people of colour) voices, specifically, because much of the popular discourse, media framing and even images that I see that are supposed to represent this community are again of/by/from cisgender, gay White men and sometimes, cisgender lesbian White women, all middle or upper class. This is not a full picture. This is the manifestation of White supremacy, class privilege and the centralization of cis people over trans* people in the LGBTQ community.

How do I feel about marriage, in general? It’s complicated for me. Personally, I am not interested in it for my own life. At the same time, I like weddings and images of Black brides. While I feel happy seeing healthy and happy Black heterosexual couples, and want the same for Black LGBTQ people, I also despise the unfairness that marriage itself creates in our society. I grew up in a two-parent home with heterosexual, married parents, and I know because of patriarchy, heteronormative coupling biases and the politics of respectability, people (intraracially and interracially) infer that I am smarter, healthier and a better person because of this, and this assertion creates hierarchy and feeds prejudice. Because I am not a married Black woman, I face disgusting bigotry, yet I don’t face the hateful misogynist and classist bigotry that a single Black mom faces. The hierarchy is exhausting.

As a single person, I know about unfairness all too well, as pointed out so well in Bella dePaulo’s book Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After. The enormous socioeconomic, cultural, social and status-related benefits that apply to marriage creates hierarchy.  At the same time, I feel genuine disgust that I live in a country—a world really, where there are few places where LGBTQ people can legally marry and have to deal with a plethora of forms of discrimination because of not being able to marry.

I feel complicated ambivalence; I don’t have it figured out to form a concrete opinion. Some of the recent articles that I’ve read that speak to the complexity of this issue are the ones below:

• You Can Support Equality Without Being Into Marriage by Nico Lang
• Why I Almost Defriended Everyone Who Had An HRC Logo As Their Profile Photo This Week by agnesgalore on Tumblr
• Why The Transgender Community hates the Human Rights Campaign by Monica Roberts
• a collection of important LGBTQ realities that are being ignored by the HRC via Anarcho Queer on Tumblr
• Human Rights Campaign Apologizes For Censoring Undocumented, Trans Activists At Marriage Protests via HuffPo
• Why I Support Same Sex Marriage as a Civil Right, But Not as a Strategy to Achieve Structural Change by Scot Nakagawa
• a nuanced position, pro-equality, anti-marriage as an institution by theraceproblem on Tumblr

I am still listening to and learning from the LGBTQ community, primarily Black members and others of colour, who continue to provide nuance on this topic, in a way that I think is truly important. I read and/or talk to some about it daily.