Black Lives Matter, Black Bodies,
Women’s Bodies
Lately, I’ve been reading and admiring the young Black voice and profound
insights of Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Black Lives Matter Movement. Just yesterday it was announced that he won a
MacArthur Genius Award ($500,000 given over 5 years).
Ta-Nehisi writes about the embodiment of racism. How racism was and is FELT very primally in one's body, in his body. Ta-Nehisi’s book: Between the World and Me, written as a
letter to his 15 year old son, talks about his abject fear growing up as a
Black young man in Baltimore. A fear
which he felt viscerally, deep in his body.
He writes:
“Racism dislodges brains, blocks airways, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks
teeth. You must NEVER look away from
this.” And: “Here is what I would like
for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body – it
is heritage.”
Mr. Coates also rightly notes that whites “presume” their “whiteness”. How easily white society forgets that we are
ALL AFRICAN. We ALL originated from one
Black people.
We are ALL multi-colored skin. “Whiteness” is a myth, as is the concept of
“race.” But it has, and repeatedly continues
to use the “just-ice” system to destroy lives with skin which happens to be
darker. Racism IS America’s heritage.
The Black Lives Movement’s
representatives Daunasia Yancy and Julius Jones tussled with Hillary Clinton
this summer, asking her to account for her role in the mass incarceration of
young Black men. She and Bill advocated harsh
penalties for non-violent crimes. Hillary
pushed back, asking the Black Lives Matter spokespeople what specific
legislative changes are they asking for.
Legislation is an engine to change minds
and entrenched attitudes, but I believe Black Lives Matter is asking globally
for whites to change their hearts, to change their centuries of stereotypes
about Blacks. To stop seeing Blacks as “the
other.” They are asking not to be murdered willy-nilly by the State’s Police Authority
which operates in a near terrorist mode against Blacks.
Of course, I could not read Ta-Nehisi’s work, nor could I hear interviews with
the Black Lives Matter representatives without thinking: “Yes. Of course.
Everything that they are saying is exactly how it feels to inhabit a
woman’s body.” And Black women experience BOTH racism and sexism. Thank you to my dear friend Demita Frazier, and
to Barbara and Beverly Smith and the other pioneering Black women of the Combahee
River Collective. You can google their
Collective’s manifesto which clearly identified the multi-layered forces of
oppression they experience as Black women: race, class, gender, and sexual
orientation. Today, the term for this
multi-layered consciousness of oppression is: “intersections” which I don’t
think truly conveys the intensity, sometimes horror, of what it means to live
in a Black and “non-white” female body.
Society would not consider me Black, despite my being of African origin (as we
ALL are), but I am female and have experienced firsthand how Sexism primally,
viscerally is felt in my body. How often
did I experience abject fear, cold visceral fear while walking home as a young
girl, young woman on the streets of New York City. My near rape in the hallway of our Manhattan
apartment building when I was 8 years old created a firm knowledge that I was
not safe. After this near rape, I
carried a small pocket knife for “protection”.
Of course it wouldn’t have protected me from another assault, but my
body felt safer. The men sitting opposite me in the subway
jerking off (yes, in public). The cat
calls and lewd remarks made while minding my own business just walking on the
street. The calculations I made when
entering my apartment building: if I
enter via the basement and quickly run up the stairs to wait for the elevator
on the first floor, I’ll be able to hear if someone is following me. Always afraid, always looking over my
shoulder, my young being, ready to avert
the next attacker.
We are well into the TWENTY-FIRST
century and society’s attitudes towards women have not budged since my youth. The assaults and rapes (on our streets, in
our schools, workplaces, and our military) to our bodies, our dignity, our
right to exist that we still experience must stop. Even worse, the lack of consciousness
amongst young women seems to also not have budged. This summer, the 15 year old young woman
raped at New Hampshire’s St. Paul, elite prep school kept repeating that SHE
was sorry, that SHE didn’t want her rapist to “feel bad”, that SHE didn’t want
him to “think less of her.” Sandra Bland
was threatened, pulled from her car, handcuffed, head banged to the ground by
police agents of the State. The unequal
pay; no reproductive rights; menstrual protection deemed not “essential” thus
taxed; the daily double standards we encounter doing simple chores and
work. Hell, the U.S. Congress didn’t
have a women’s bathroom until 2011.
Yes, fear, bone crushing fear inhabits women’s bodies and minds, just as it
does the bodies and minds of Black and multi-colored people. This is America’s heritage. Sadly, the WORLD’s heritage. My 67 year old mind and body are tired of BOTH
the racist and sexist stereotypes, the violence against Blacks, against women, the
sexist and racist HERITAGE which destroys us. Enough already.
eldermuse.net September 29, 2015
