...Replaced...It's All Good w/ Revolutionary Cries

On Non-Blacks being Black Feminists

poemsofthedead:

pssincerelyadventure:

See here…..

My mostly white women and gender studies class, after reading the Combahee River Collective, wanted to know if they could be Black Feminists because they cared about all those issues and wanted to end oppression and liberate women etc..

I said no. I stand by no. Mainly because, I believe it was Patricia Hill Collins, had a valid point. Black Feminism is grounded in the experience of being black. It’s why the movement varies from other feminism movements in that black feminists wish to work alongside our black brothers BECAUSE it is all the same fight.

Then people had a problem with the fact that black feminism exists at all because why racialize the movement, it tears people apart…

No, the first couple of waves tore people apart by not addressing our issues as women of color and being so limited in class aspects as well.

Also why I don’t ID as a womanist even though I am very fond of Alice Walker and completely believe in her vision (not that I don’t have other critiques of her also) of what womanism means/is. I just feel like it is something that is specific to Black experience. As much as I agree with it, honor it, love it, I don’t feel comfortable using it to describe my experience as a non-Black but First Nations & Muslim person.

(And before anyone asks, no, I do NOT ID as a feminist either. Ever. For reasons.)

Idk, I feel like, as a box of tools/theories one can use…I don’t see why anyone couldn’t id as Black Feminist? I think you can center Black Feminist analysis without being Black.

I feel a little differently about the term Womanism, but idk why.

I have not at all read enough Black Feminist writings to really say tho. I’m anxious to see what folks who’ve read/studied Black Feminisms think?

I agree with the OP. I think that tons of folks can have an analysis of the world that is supported by their readings in Black feminist thought. But *being* a Black feminist is about the experiential knowledge of Being a Black person opposed to patriarchy and concerned about issues of oppression and injustice. I feel similarly about womanism but I think that womanism as a model is intentionally open to other folks of color *so long as they don’t espouse anti-Black values as a means to their own pursuit of justice and freedom.*

Source: pssincerelyadventure