Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Black Women? The Most Disrespected Person On The Planet?

January 12, 2019 by  
Filed under News, Opinion, Relationships, Weekly Columns

Like
Like Love Haha Wow Sad Angry
2

(ThyBlackMan.com) Anyone who has sat in on one of my lectures can attest to the fact that I go to extreme lengths to involve the audience. This effort is a tactic targeted at keeping the audience engaged as I discuss pressing issues affecting Black America. Of all the topics that I cover during lectures, there is no more contentious one than “the place” or role of Black women in the struggle for racial equality.

It is with the goal in mind of illuminating this issue that I frequently ask female audience members the following question.

Who are you? Specifically, what is the bigger part of you — are you Black or a female.

Of course, this inherently biased question is used to force Black women to make an impossible decision; which do they identify with their Race or Gender? Only the wisest among them realize that whatever decision they make leads to an avalanche of other issues.

I hope that by the lecture’s culmination that every female present realizes that their positioning as a Black female or a female who happens to be Black, places them in a peculiar position few others face. The dilemma they face is that they are too Black to be involved in the feminist movement and far too female to have their issues and concerns placed center stage by Black male activists. You know the type, a charismatic pseudo-revolutionary whose focus on racial oppression blinds them to all other forms of oppression. I can only imagine the frustration that Black activists seeking to accentuate forms of oppression other than Race (gender, sexual orientation, class, etc.) must feel when they are silenced by those who believe that they are working toward a slogan such as “All Power to the People.”

Just as problematic as the muting of Black women by their male counterparts seeking to replicate patriarchal constructs is the silencing they experience by white middle-class women whose view is informed by an unseasoned political agenda that ultimately serves to buttress white world supremacy interests. My understanding of this peculiar situation ensured that I would not be surprised by the recent announcement that Women’s March Chicago would not occur this year.

I did not need to hear an “explanation” for why the March would not occur, I intuitively realized that March leaders Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour, and Carmen Perez violated the unspoken demand that non-white women perform a white-faced minstrel performance whose script called for them to parrot the political priorities and agenda of white middle-class women whose privileged status has facilitated their ownership of the Women’s Right Movement. Of course, they routinely fail to use that bully-pulpit to address the oppression that non-white females experience. I am sure that Tamika Mallory realizes, like so many before her, that the punishment white female political activist are eager to dole out for failing to be a “team player” is harsh and immediate. Although I am more than confident that White female activists will deny that their oppressive behavior toward non-White female political activists seeking to interject their political priorities into the debate are Hitleresque, their denial fails to lessen this truth.

There is little room to debate against the reality that the White leaders of the Women’s March Movement are continuing their longest and most reverberating tradition of silencing Black Women activists. One must remember that it was White women who were aghast when Congress passed the 15th Amendment that granted African-American men the right to vote on February 26, 1869, as it pinpointed gender, not Race, as the cause of natural inferiority. White women were up in arms regarding the assertion that Black men were superior to them; particularly revealing is the failure of the aggrieved white women to include the plight of Black Women in their agitation for voting rights during the Reconstruction era.

This tradition of White women agitating for first-class citizenship with little concern for their darker sisters continued throughout the twentieth century and into the new millennium. We must never forget that politically powerful White women demanded that Black Women march in the rear of their rallies and parades so as to not upset southern-based White women.

Those who are literate in the history of racial bigotry within political campaigns headed by Whites realize that racial bigotry has been a fixture throughout the Women’s Movement from its conception. So, it is not surprising that contemporary Women’s March leaders are operating under the same banner of “It’s our way or the highway” that covered their political predecessors. Unfortunately for Black Women, the above political agendas have never considered, let alone promoted, the unique issues they face. The canceling of the Women’s March Chicago is yet another reminder for Black Women political activists that coalitions are nice, however, they are a poor substitute for the development of a political agenda centered on the issues of Black women.

Staff Writer; Dr. James Thomas Jones III

Official website; http://www.ManhoodRaceCulture.com

One may also connect with this brother via TwitterDrJamestJones.


Comments

3 Responses to “Black Women? The Most Disrespected Person On The Planet?”
  1. Trae Dave says:

    To Trevor Craw,
    I, as a proud BLACK man respect YOU, and or anybody ELSE,for their OWN opinion as to WHATEVER you you chooses to define your race/color,HOWEVER, speaking for MYSELF, or anybody ELSE who choose to agree on this,from my PERSONAL point of view. First, I’m about as close to being the color or a tire,than I am being BORN ,or even having LIVED in Africa. I am a PROUD American ,born and RAISED in Memphis Tennessee, which as YOU know ,is in America. I feel it is in TOTAL disrespect for any BLACK American born citizen to look at, or VIEW themselves as a migrated foreigner when they PERSONALLY wasn’t never a native BORN citizens of that country. When ANY black person born and raised in America chooses to call themselves AFRICAN American,THAT in itself tells me,someWHEREVEN some SERIOUS brainwashing has taken place on THEIR part. NOW ! let me share with those of us BLACK folks who are APPARENTLY intellectually confused as to WHAT they are regarding racial color. You are a proud BLACK American (at least that what you SHOULD be). You and I areally an AFRICAN American ONLY IF you are born in AFRICA with legal printed documentation as proof who WISH to become an American, by applying ,and receiving LEGAL documentation (as REQIRED)and making America you new resident ,you are THEN an African American,which THEN tells ANYONE you are from one native country to another.As long as you have a bith certificate that states America,(or wherever you are born) THAT where you (they) are FROM. AGAIN, any BLACK person, if they so chooses, has the RIGHT to be called WHATEVER one chooses, my hope is just don’t choose to be call IGNORANT .

  2. Pelvo White, Jr. says:

    Two of my associates, and I once rented a house in what is now Ho Chi Minh City,Vietnam. We employed a middle aged Vietnamese female housekeeper who shopped at the open air markets for our food, cooked our food, cleaned the house, polished our shoes, and washed and ironed our clothes daily.I received some Ebony Magazines in the mail from my sister living in America. I laid the magazines out on the coffee table on the first floor of our house, and my housekeeper zeroed in on them almost immediately. She began to pour over these magazines containing numerous beautiful pictures of African American female models dressed in equally beautiful fashionable African American styled clothing.She studied these pictures of these beautiful ebony skinned women with intensity. I walked over to the table where she was seated, pointed at one of the models, and said ” soul Sister .” She looked up at me and shook her head repeatedly saying ” no ” as if to say that there isn’t anyone in the world this beautiful. My housekeeper was acting as if she had never seen an African American woman, and it dawned me that she probably hadn’t. There are many other women of color throughout the world who probably haven’t seen an African American woman, and have never had the opportunity to marvel at her beauty, and intelligence. African Americans must work hard to introduce themselves to the world. American Whites aren’t going to do it for us. Let’s introduce ourselves and perhaps we will stop feeling disrespected by just one segment of our overall American population.

  3. Trevo craw says:

    To The Author,

    I suggest you do more research for your position. What stats are you looking at? “Black” women, esp the ones brainwashed by a slave mentality to work against AA men, are still more readily accepted in the workplace and in society in general than the African American man.

    As a former detective who maintained crime stats I can prove that easily. And now as a veteran marriage, family and relationship counselor and mediator, I can prove it in a dozen ways as well.

    Your verbal gymnastics sound intellectual but i don’t see any real hard evidence you have provided for your claims. AA men have been the target of government, society, the courts, systemic racism and even women’s groups and brainwashed AA women.

    AFRICAN AMERICANS ARE NOT BLACK

    It amazes me how many of you are still brainwashed to call yourselves BLACK. Black is not an identity and scientifically black is not even a color. It is next to nothing. Black is the “color” of your car tires, not your skin. The white oppressive slave trader called you black and himself white to set up a contrast and to attach negative images and denotations to you based on a lie about color. Look up BLACK in the dictionary.

    Research even shows that blacks are perceived by other groups as very different from African Americans. But we still keep calling ourselves what someone else defined us as, what we are not and what has a negative dictionary denotation in society. WAKE UP. LOOK AT THE REAL COLOR OF YOUR SKIN. YOU ARE NOT BLACK. You are an African American. The lie of calling us black and defining us by color (the wrong color) has been in place so long that our people accept it as truth – but it’s not. Know your colors.

    Native Americans do not allow others to call them red men. Asians do not accept being called yellow men. Hispanics do not answer to “what’s up brown man”. And Caucasians are not white, notebook paper is white. Wake up and see the plan where white racist supremacists plotted to redefine our people from Africa. STOP CALLING YOURSELF SOMETHING THAT YOU ARE NOT!
    AFRICAN AMERICANS ARE NOT BLACK.

    Black is the “color” of your car tires, not your skin author. Being called “black” is a lie and it should be offensive. Haitians, Jamaicans and even Africans do not accept being called “black”, Why do you think that is? They are identified by tribes, klans, geographic areas and their respective countries. By using the very term black to describe us, we are doing the following:
    1. Using a term white oppressors and slave masters gave us.
    2. Letting someone else define us other than our own people.
    3. Calling ourselves something we are not.
    4. Buying into thee lie and the negative denotation. Check the dictionary.
    5. Being set apart in a way that no other ethnic group allows. Native Americans are not called Red Man. Asians are not called Yellow Man. Hispanics are not called Brown Man. They do not and will not accept being defined by color and by some other race or ethnic group at that.
    6. Ignoring our actual color (brown) which means brainwashing has worked. Any time someone can get an entire race, ethnic group or culture to ignore what they are and call themselves what they factually are not, THEY HAVE BEEN INDOCTRINATED, ASSIMILATED AND BRAINWASHED.
    7. Playing right into the oppressor’s profiles and stereotypes. Did you know studies show there is a different perception of black people than there is of African Americans? Words create perceptions and perceptions create actions towards us.

    WAKE UP. You know your colors. And even though others around the world equated our ancestors with the color of the soil in Africa or the meaning of negro/negroid, that does not change the fact that WE ARE BROWN – NOT BLACK.
    Facts are facts and YOU ARE BROWN, NOT BLACK. When you receive the revelation of why they keep calling African Americans “black” and Caucasian people “white”, you may just wake up!

    STOP LETTING OTHER GROUPS DEFINE YOU WITH AN OBVIOUS LIE that we have heard and accepted so much that we believe it’s true and forget our colors. The de-programming has to take root or African Americans will forever be defined, limited and oppressed by those who get us to accept a lie.

Speak Your Mind

Tell us what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!