“Oppressed groups are frequently placed in the situation of being listened to only if we frame our ideas in the language that is familiar to and comfortable for a dominant group. This requirement often changes the meaning of our ideas and works to elevate the ideas of the dominant groups. In this volume, by placing African-American women's ideas in the center of analysis, I not only privilege those ideas but encourage white feminist, African-American men, and all others to investigate the similarities and differences among their own standpoints and those of African-American women.”
—Patrica Hill Collins—Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment , page xiiiNumber of young African American women in prison rises
madamenoire.comNikki Jones, a sociologist from UC Santa Barbara and Meda Chesney Lind, University of Hawaii, and attendee of the conference, has studied the statistics of imprisoned black girls for over 10 years and explained, “we have never seen these kind of numbers before,” reports EthnoBlog.
So far, the cause for this epidemic has been attributed to national zero tolerance policies and a justice system that treats girls of color differently than white girls.
http://madamenoire.com/50225/numbers-of-young-african-american-women-in-prison-rise/
Attacks on Black women in Louisiana
If you live in the Marrero or Westwego, LA (right outside of New Orleans) area and you are a woman of color please be careful. This is second hand knowledge but a Black woman was doing her daily walking exercise and three white females rode by in a truck and started spewing racial slurs at her. She responded by saying “your mother”. The three white women turned around got out of their truck and asked her “what did you say about my mother?” The woman replied “whatever you said about me”. The three white women proceeded to jump her. The Black woman had to go to the hospital; they damaged her kidneys and she now walks with a limp. When she reported to the police they stated she was the third person to report something like this. So ladies be careful. Signal boost
“As Black women, we do not have the privilege or the space to call ourselves “slut” without validating the already historically entrenched ideology and recurring messages about what and who the Black woman is. We don’t have the privilege to play on destructive representations burned in our collective minds, on our bodies and souls for generations. Although we understand the valid impetus behind the use of the word “slut” as language to frame and brand an anti-rape movement, we are gravely concerned. For us the trivialization of rape and the absence of justice are viciously intertwined with narratives of sexual surveillance, legal access and availability to our personhood. It is tied to institutionalized ideology about our bodies as sexualized objects of property, as spectacles of sexuality and deviant sexual desire. It is tied to notions about our clothed or unclothed bodies as unable to be raped whether on the auction block, in the fields or on living room television screens. The perception and wholesale acceptance of speculations about what the Black woman wants, what she needs and what she deserves has truly, long crossed the boundaries of her mode of dress.”
—From: An Open Letter from Black Women to the SlutWalk Read this!!
