The way through the project is sharing it. So here I go.
I have been reading Telling Histories: Black Women Historians in the Ivory Tower because @Kismetnunez recommended it and also learning about how Black women who I admire, dealt with racism and sexism helps me to deal with racism and sexism.
Lord knows I do not have time to be reading anything that isn’t directly related to reading and teaching, but I started reading the book a few weeks ago and I picked it up again this morning and than an epiphany happened.
In reading about how Darlene Clark Hine and many other Black women scholars who do Black women’s history had to actually fight to study and write about Black women as graduate students, I began to think about how to connect my work to their work.
What is most significant to me, is that while reading about Clark Hine, I realized why my project is important and why how it is related to historical studies of Black women’s history.
I contend that Black women’s history is central to American history. Clark Hine was discouraged from writing about and studying Black women. In fact a white male colleague asked her, “why would you study the most marginalized people in society.” He later apologized. Having read this, I now see that exploring the ways in which Black women, name, see and claim their sexual selves is important because historically Black women have not been seen as legitimate subjects. Yet Black women have been historically present in this country as reproductive and productive labor during chattel slavery, and after slavery as share croppers. Our work and the work of Black women’s children played a significant role in creating the capital to build the infrastructure of the United States.
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I am concerned with Black women and girls being perceived as whole human beings. I want to be seen as a whole human being. My day to day life pivots on asserting my humanity.
Because slavery required an ideology that that defined Black women as unrapeable, ready for sex, naturally made for working the field, as masculine, my project is also about reclaiming our sexuality in order for us to be seen as whole human beings.
Boss bear said the paper lacked the passion that I clearly exhibit when I talk to her about it. I think the passion is there now, no?
I think that sounds good.
It makes sense to you?
#Thoughts I had on the train.
This is great. You are amazing. And I love how you use the interwebs as your workspace/whiteboard/storyboard. You’re an inspiration.
Some things to push you on:
1. Black women’s history IS central. But that doesn’t explain why your project is central to either black women’s history or history in general. WHICH IT IS! So I guess I’m wondering if you pushed deeper into questions of significance specific to what you are working on and to black women’s sexuality, what would you find?
2. Related to #1, I think your real significance starts right here with this statement: “Creating this space is significant because of the ways in which Black women have been historically read as deviant, lewd and lascivious.” If you started a post (or essay or whatever) with that statement and went on to discuss the significance, what would you write?
3. “Because slavery required an ideology that that defined Black women as unrapeable, ready for sex, naturally made for working the field, as masculine, my project is also about reclaiming our sexuality in order for us to be seen as whole human beings.” Sexual ideologies + slavery + black women are time and place specific. Sometimes, black women as hypersexual was central. Sometimes it was only morenas/mulatas who were seen this way and sometimes it was only free women of any color. No reason not to bring in slavery but if your project is 20 or 21st c, try bringing in how we are understanding slavery in a contemporary context and how that impacts our image of black women. Instead of reaching directly back into the past, which may seem ahistorical and inflict more damage than make change.
Folks over at the LatiNegros Project (lati-negros.tumblr.com) were discussing some of this kind of work as it relates to the Gates documentary, and the way it can be easy (and politically expedient) to wash away the complexity, historicity and the particulars of a moment to get to a larger agenda or to jump to the conclusion faster. But this does more harm than good–its in the messy parts that we really make revolution. #Peace to #OWS
My thoughts. Can’t wait to see this stuff develop. Love!!!!!!
Ohhhh.
Yes. The interwebs as a story board. I have @Jess+Lex in my head because I am ALSO thinking about how queer it is to academia to work through your projects online. One, out of fear of theft. Two, because we are taught to work isolated, or that work isolates.
1. Black women’s history IS central. But that doesn’t explain why your project is central to either black women’s history or history in general. WHICH IT IS! So I guess I’m wondering if you pushed deeper into questions of significance specific to what you are working on and to black women’s sexuality, what would you find?
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Why IS it central?
Well, we have been read as not mattering, or if we mattered it was to the extent that we were historically deviant.
This project intends to take the deviance and run with it. Which of course speaks back to most of the literature saying that Black women have been sexual about their sexuality. And of course, many of us have been, however I contend that that has not always been the case (Carby, Davis) and it certainly isn’t the case now (Crunk Feminist Collect, Betta Come Correct, Arielle Loren, Jo Nubian, Racialicious).
“Creating this space is significant because of the ways in which Black women have been historically read as deviant, lewd and lascivious.” If you started a post (or essay or whatever) with that statement and went on to discuss the significance, what would you write?
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Here is my problem. I am having a conversation with She’s Gotta Have it in some ways. But my timeline is 1991-2011. I don’t know. I may have to move it back to 85. So I can do SGHI and Clarence and Anita, you know? Right now C + A is my point of departure because of how folks responded to it, and because it involved pop culture.
. “Because slavery required an ideology that that defined Black women as unrapeable, ready for sex, naturally made for working the field, as masculine, my project is also about reclaiming our sexuality in order for us to be seen as whole human beings.”
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Okay. This makes sense. Boss bear rapped me on the knuckles for my slavery comments, so I know I need to tighten this up. I need to talk about Black women’s sexuality as a racialized sexuality. For that matter all women’s sexuality is racialized. So I think if I say this instead, I will be able to side step making the linear slavery argument, which gets me in trouble.
Thank you so much for your help.
Hmm I’m curious about what you ladies think of the notion of sex-positivism… Considering the Christian/Islamic influences in African American culture there comes in that package religious sexual repression. Many wombyn of color have a hard time placing themselves in the conversations about sex-positive feminism because the sexual liberation movement of euro-american wombyn seemed to be based deeply in the confines of white supremacist critics of patriarchy. However all women especially in American culture agree that it is a sacred point of feminism to fight to be seen as a complete human being and certainly not simply sexual objects.
When the sex-positivism conversation becomes racialized historically speaking and even within pop culture, there is complication that comes up regarding the way that black wombyn have always had to fight in order to have their sexuality regarded as our own not to be automatically taken as “deviant, lewd and lascivious” or assumed to be asexual or available for purchase.
However, what of Black wimmin who identify intellectually and actively as feminist and yet find pleasure in sexual activities considered “deviant, lewd and lascivious”. When Black wombyn have been deemed “unrapeable” yielding statistics like “1 in 3 Black females have been raped or sexually assaulted at some point in their lives”. Where is the line of accountability on the expression of positive sex messages for Black women?
Shayne Lee wrote a book (I have not read) entitled Erotic Revolutionaries… and from the Amazon blurb it seems she is arguing that we turn to Tyra Banks and Beyonce in order to begin the discussion on positive feminist messages.. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this topic myself, (Black sexuality) and sometimes I come to this question, Does sex positive bids confuse the boundaries too much to be useful in Black Feminist conversations? Or must we simply remember to apply WEB DuBois “double consciousness” in order to grapple with the complexities of asserting Black female/feminine sexual agency in a hypersexual/racist/patriarchal/ multi-sphered culture (multi-sphered-because we exist in both general American culture, African American culture, hip hop culture, and various religious cultures etc)
Here are some thoughtful blogs that I found interesting on the topic; one is not written by a wombyn identifying as of color… the others are…
http://pervocracy.blogspot.com/2011/10/sex-pozzie.html
http://nunezdaughter.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/sex-positive-feminism-black-male-feminism/
http://eshusplayground.tumblr.com/post/9509916973/soy-dulce-de-leche-im-thinking-we-women-of-color-need
@Oya….Welcome and thank you for responding….
FYI @Kismetnunez run’s nunez daughter….I am not sure if you knew that but I wanted to put it out there.
I have a few questions.
When you say “However, what of Black wimmin who identify intellectually and actively as feminist and yet find pleasure in sexual activities considered “deviant, lewd and lascivious”….. Where is the line of accountability on the expression of positive sex messages for Black women? ”
What do you mean here? Are you asking how does this contradiction work?
I believe Shayne Lee is a man…and I read portions of the book, last fall. Brooks, if I recall correctly, makes some interesting comments regarding Black women in pop culture and sexual agency, however I find conversations about Black women’s sexuality to leave me wanting if they do not discuss political economy/capitalism in substantial and meaningful ways.
Some of the most interesting work that I have read and have been influenced by is Siobhan Brooks’ work on erotic capital and Black women (Unequal Desires) who work as strippers in the Bronx, Manhattan and Oakland. In the book Brooks does ethnographic work where she quantifies how different bodies earn different amounts of money in strip club spaces. These differences are based on body size, skin color, skin hue, hair type and THE PERCEPTION of strip club management of being desirable to (largely) strip club male customers.
I think that your latter statement with regard to Dubois double consciousness may be the move to make. I am wonder also if Sandoval’s idea of oppositional consciousness works here as well. Or perhaps a melding of the two.
Here is a synopsis. http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=kt8t1nd07c&chunk.id=ss1.09&toc.id=ch02&brand=ucpress
Thank you for sharing the links.
-R