Race, Gender, Class and Sex

The Combahee River Collective reading discusses black women fighting for their rights against a racist patriarchy and the oppression that they face. The black feminist statement "refuses to separate the politics of race and gender" (325). The women created at National Black Feminist Organization in 1973 to fight for antiracist and antisexist policies. They were sick of white women only fighting for white rights and the male black men only fighting for male rights. So they combined a group that is against both. They wanted to seriously end oppression all together. They talk about how difficult it is to "separate race from class oppression because in their lives they experience it simultaneously" (326). They use examples such as the labor force and speaking out in public. The one quote that I really liked was "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" (328). I completely agree with this statement because being a black women of this time means you are the lowest of all when it comes to rights and equality. I don't think it was right at all, and standing up was the right thing for these women to do.

Andre Lorde's incorporates lesbian in the mix with being black and a women. It further extends the oppression that these women receive. She talks about the gap that is between her and other women because of the lack of support, systems and mutuality. She brings in the reality of class into picture as well. "Poor women and women of color know there is difference between daily manifestations of marital slavery and prostitution because their daughters line 42nd Street" (2). In my social inequality class we talk about class, race, and gender and how women like this resort to prostitution because they need to make a living and they don't have the means to live a better life. They don't have the opportunity for education and they do what they can to stay out of debt. This is also brought up in Peggy MacIntosh's article about white privilege. She talks about how white people don't know the advantages that hey really have. Especially white males. They can see the disadvantages of other but they don't see themselves as being in the advantage, they see themselves as the norm. When reading the list that Peggy came up with, I realized that I did notice most of the things on this list as being an advantages but there were some that I never even thought about. Its easy to be oblivious and ignorant to these problems, but its harder to notice them and deal with them or help others deal with them.