NB Commentary: Sharing this article from Atlanta Black Star. A must read speaks to the disparity between the needs that vary between White and Black Feminism movements.
Why the Historic Women's March Was Controversial for Some Black Women - Atlanta Black Star
By Tanasia Kenney - January 24, 2017
Men,
women and children — but mostly women — turned out for the historic march on
Saturday, Jan. 21, to stand up for women’s rights but also to protest against
newly inaugurated President Donald Trump, who made a series of overtly
misogynistic remarks during his campaign.
Millions ultimately gathered to unify under
the umbrella of feminism, civil rights,
immigration and environmental activism, among other issues. However, many Black
female organizers and intellectuals had their doubts about the march meeting
the needs and concerns of Black women.
Old rifts between Black women organizers and the white
feminist movement began to arise soon after the idea for the Women’s March on
Washington was announced. The New Yorker reported that the idea for the march was credited
to Teresa Shook, a retired white lawyer who resides in Hawaii. After
Trump’s surprising presidential win, Shook launched a Facebook event page
suggesting a protest. Word of her anti-Trump idea quickly spread, garnering
more than 10,000 supporters overnight.
Shook
initially called her event the Million Woman March, a moniker originally
attributed to a massive protest for Black sisterhood and self-determination
held in Philadelphia in 1997. The
retired attorney eventually changed the name of her rally, but some Black women
still weren’t convinced and accused white women’s rights advocates of
appropriating movements started by Black women.
 |
| MWM 10-25-1997 Philadelphia, PA |
“The
many mistakes inherent at all levels of organizing the Women’s March event from
very early on demonstrate the very problematic nature of ‘white
feminism,’ ” Jalessah Jackson, a Gender and Cultural Studies major working on
her master’s at Simmons College in Boston told Atlanta Black Star. “That is, white feminists’ tendency
[historically] to align themselves with white supremacy to achieve their own
goals.”
“What
we see happening is white women tokenizing and using women of color to advance
their own agenda,” Jackson continued. “I don’t think that’s genuinely
intersectional. I’m not interested in faux solidarity or intersectionality
being merely an afterthought.”
The
“intersectionality” Jackson spoke of is a term coined by African-American
feminist and legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 and is the concept of
inextricably linked facets of race, sex, gender identity and economic status.
The galvanizing issue behind the march was the election
of President Trump, who walked to victory with 53
percent of the white female vote. But could
white women who couldn’t convince other white women to vote against Trump
now center themselves in the “resistance” against his policies?
Many
African-American women questioned why they should respond to white women’s call
for human rights when they felt their own calls had gone unanswered.
Historically, African-American women’s rights advocates have taken issue with
the feminist movement overall, highlighting its sometimes racist and
exclusionary practices. Was this present-day equality march tumbling down the
same rabbit hole? Was it catering to the anxiety of white women over Trump’s
victory, while bypassing the real concerns Black women (and communities) have
been organizing around for centuries without the resources or support from the
people now jumping in front of the line?
Lastly,
if Hillary Clinton had won the election and broken the glass ceiling, would
there still not be a need for a march to make sure Clinton was clued in that
women, particularly Black women, would still be facing income and wealth gabs,
police and incarceration issues, terrible public education policies, as well as
reproductive rights issues?
Columnist Jamilah Lemieux addressed these concerns in an op-ed
piece for ColorLines on Tuesday, Jan. 17. In it, Lemieux explained that
she wouldn’t be participating in the Women’s March because she didn’t see the
point in “putting my body on the line to feign solidarity with women who, by
and large, didn’t have my back prior to November.”
“When
I learned that some of those women had decided to channel their disappointment
into a ‘Million Women March,’ my twisted moment of pleasure quickly gave way to
a familiar sense of annoyance,” she wrote. “Once again, the labors of Black
folks (in this case, the 1995 Million Man March and the 1997 Million Woman
March organized by Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam) were being
co-opted and erased by clueless White ones.
Correction: The Million Women’s March grassroots approach to organizing involved Black women sharing information through groups such as Alpha Kappa Alpha, Black media and word of mouth. Organized by Phile Chionesu and Asia Coney, that march focused on the idea of Black women supporting each other. Speakers had included Jada Pinkett Smith, Sistah Souljah and the daughters of Malcolm X. Assata Shakur also read a message from Cuba. People marching held signs that read “I am one in a million,” and “Black Women: No more AIDS, abuse, addiction,” according to CNN. http://www.phillytrib.com/news/local-women-to-rally-for-women-s-march-in-d/article_850a3906-51da-53cc-84de-93fed0a4587e.html
“Will
the Women’s March on Washington be a space filled primarily with participants
who believe that Black lives matter?” Lemieux added. “I’m not sure.”
Black
women’s rights advocates like Lemieux and others who spoke out against the
march’s lack of intersectionality and called for more inclusivity were quickly
deemed “divisive” and destructive to the vision of feminist solidarity. White
feminists condemned African-American, LGBTQ, and Muslim activists who dared to
speak up when their interests were forgotten or ignored, creating what critics
called “conflict.”
“The
attempted hijacking of the march’s agenda and all the nasty tit-for-tat between
white vs. black/queer/Muslim/trans and other identities tells a very disturbing
story about the divided state of feminism today,” contributor Emma-Kate Symons
wrote in an opinion piece for Women in the
World. “It saddens me to see the inclusive liberal feminism I grew
up with reduced to a grab bag of competing victimhood narratives and
individualist identities jostling for most oppressed status.”
Jackson
countered Symons’ argument, however, by pointing out how white feminists who
supposedly care about the rights of ALL women failed to rally behind Black
female victims of police brutality. She added that white women’s rights
advocates have a tendency to pick and choose whose female rights they care
about.
“Most
of the women who marched pat themselves on the back and go back to ignoring
women who reside at the intersections of multiple identities,” Jackson
told ABS. “Identifying these issues
is not being divisive. I believe that in order to affect social change, we must
identify what hasn't been working in order to fix it.”
Some
of these issues were resolved or at least finagled by including experienced
nonwhite women organizers and activists in the writing of the guiding vision of
the march, including them in the list of speakers and having them help lead the
organizing process after the rocky start.
The
Women’s March was a historic success in bringing out the masses, with far more
people turning out for the protest than for Trump’s inauguration, according
to The New York Times. But as the
feminist movement struggles to become more diverse and open, many concerns need
to be addressed, such as leadership, resources and the next steps in creating a
viable “resistance” to Trump’s agenda. Moreover, there’s a need to tackle the
liberalism of the historic feminist movement, which has too often fought for a
place for white women at the expense of Black ones.
The
original women’s march took place in Philly 20 years ago
Hundreds
of thousands took to the Parkway
BY MELISSA ROMERO JAN
19, 2017, 10:30AM EST
Two years after the
Million Man March, two grassroots activists organized the Million Woman
March in Philadelphia for black women to come together and
address the ills in their communities. They walked for two miles past
symbolic settings, including the Liberty Bell and City Hall, spilling onto the
sidewalks of Benjamin Franklin Parkway and up the steps of the Philadelphia Art
Museum.
Some also took issue
with the name Shook had proposed, the Million Woman March, which was the name
of a 1997 black women's march in Philadelphia. The racial concerns set off a
heated conversation on the group's main Facebook page, with some African-American
women especially taking umbrage.
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Thanks for your comment. Peace, NB