Literature: Black Women

Introduction

The tradition of Black women thought is an articulation of the activist and intellectual tradition of Africana women in the United States. It is a paradigm for understanding oppression, inequality, and resistance. The most important analytic tool of Black women thought is intersectionality — a paradigm for re conceptualizing oppression and resistance. Race, class, and gender intersectionality is a framework for analyzing ways in which various spheres of inequality work together to affect social life simultaneously. Intersectional analysis is not exclusive to other spheres of inequality. Racism, class exploitation, sexism, heterosexism, imperialism, ethnocentrism, religious chauvinism, elitism, ageism, and other hierarchical and oppressive concepts and practices configure people's lives in many ways. Thus, the social world cannot be understood without considering the ways in which these axes mutually construct one another. To unveil the socially constructed nature of hierarchy and difference, intersectional work examines the taken-for-granted aspects of the social order, including those things people have been socialized to view as “natural.”

Elements of Black women thought, including intersectionality, have been articulated by activists and scholars/activists within the humanities, the social sciences, and law. Patricia Hill Collins, however, deserves special mention because she has attempted to summarize the views of women from these various perspectives and has made strides in delineating this perspective to sociologists.

There is a historical legacy for intersectionality within the thought and action of women of color in the United States and elsewhere, surviving and working to create better living conditions for themselves and those they care about. This is the premise of Black women thought—that Black women have always had a standpoint from which to theorize about oppression and resistance. The problem for intellectuals and for the academic canon has been that the thought of Black women has not been acknowledged.

Simultaneity

According to the intersectional framework, it is not enough to look at race, class, or gender in isolation, for example, to discuss gender and then point out that Black women and White women have different experiences. This is simply additive analysis because one is “adding on” race to a gender analysis. One must examine race, class, and gender simultaneously to get some sense of the ways in which these spheres of inequality support each other to maintain the status quo. The significance of simultaneity is expressed by the perspective emanating from Black women thought that there is no such thing as a singular experience representing all women. Women's lived experience of sexism is conditioned by each woman's social positioning. Black women's experience is conditioned by class, sexuality, nation, and other social locations. (Zerai, 34)

For example, images associated with poor Black “crack moms” and White middle-class women seeking treatment for cocaine addiction are informed by racism, sexism, and elitism. These interlocking systems reinforce the notion that White women with high incomes are inherently good mothers who just need to get back on track and that poor Black women inherently cannot be rehabilitated. An additive analysis describes these two women's experiences as simply different. But the two hypothetical ...