“Participants bring with them a rooting in their own particular group histories but at the same time realize that in order to engage in dialogue across multiple markers of difference, they must shift from their own centers (Collins 245).” In this passage Collins is giving the definition of transversal politics. In order to connect with and form ties with women all over the world, Black women must become less self-centered in their fight against oppression. Every woman’s struggle is unique and difficult in its own way, so it is important to not only acknowledge the Black feminist struggle, but also the Latina feminist struggle, the Asian feminist struggle, or any other group of people being oppressed by intersecting forces.
As previously stated, shifting from one’s center means to consider and acknowledge one’s own personal struggle while simultaneously showing empathy for the struggles of other Black women who are dispersed around the globe. In the passage, “Empathy, not sympathy becomes the basis of coalition” Collins expresses that through empathy, and only through empathy will American Black women and Black women from different cultures come together against oppression(Collins 247). Collins feels that it is not enough for Black women to only empathize with the fact that they are both black and are both being oppressed by the dominant force. Black women should really make an effort to walk in one another’s shoes and fully try to understand someone else’s personal struggle.
The same idea goes for oppressed women of different ethnicities. Transversal politics can unite oppressed women of all colors to find commonalities in their oppression and collectively fight through their struggles. Once women realize they have been more or less fighting the same battle separately, they will form coalitions to make a greater impact in the challenge against the dominant force.
Works Cited
“Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment.” Alibris Marketplace. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2012. <http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?qwork=9083874>.
One of the most popular African American TV shows of contemporary time is the comedy-drama The Game, a show that takes viewers into the lives of the football players on a team called the San Diego Sabers (wikipedia.org). The show begins with Melanie Barnett, a medical student who has turned down her acceptance to John Hopkins Medical School to follow the rising career of her boyfriend Derwin Davis (wikipedia.org). The couple moves to San Diego where Derwin joins the Sabers and Melanie joins the Sunbeams, a group created by the wives of the Sabers to support one another in dealing with the hardships that come with being married to an NFL player (wikipedia.org). Through the Sunbeams, Melanie meets Tasha Mack, the mother of Malik Wright who is another player on the team (wikipedia.org). Melanie and Tasha are the two leading African American women on the show, and they symbolize two different types of Black women in America. By analyzing Melanie and Tasha’s backgrounds, relationships, and personalities, one can find symbols and images that perpetuate the oppression of black women.
The character Melanie Barnett, who is played by Tia Mowry Hardrict, is a medical student who has put her dreams of becoming a doctor on hold for love (wikipedia.org). Melanie comes from an upper middle class family, who naturally fights her decision to follow her boyfriend’s career, and takes every opportunity presented to make her feel guilty of her decision (wikipedia.org). Melanie’s background has shaped her personality into what the Black community calls white washed or bougie. Melanie is not seen as a real black woman because she speaks proper and she comes from a wealthy background. This is exemplified in an episode where Melanie questions the woman that her boyfriend Derwin cheated on her with by saying, “Not that you owe me or anything, but I am another Black woman,” and the woman replies by saying ,”Barely.” In this scene Melanie implies that the woman, Drew Sidora, should have respected Melanie and Derwin’s relationship because she was a fellow black woman, but Drew doesn’t acknowledge Melanie’s blackness because of her proper upbringing. Drew is not the only one who doesn’t fully accept Melanie’s personality. Tasha and Melanie’s friend Kelly always joke about Melanie’s proper speech and her dedication to her medical studies. So what does all of this information imply? It implies that being black is about more than just having black skin. A person must talk and act a certain way for other Black people to accept them. The treatment that Melanie receives from her friends and enemies exemplifies how Black people are agents of their own oppression. While Black people waste time and energy oppressing their own brothers and sisters for their proper speech, they are misdirecting energy that could be going towards more important issues, like the source of the issue itself. The African American community doesn’t fully accept the proper sons and daughters of the black mothers who broke their backs so that their children could have good educations and middle class lifestyles, and why this is happening in the community is what needs some serious thought.
Tasha Mack is ironically one of those hardworking mothers. After giving birth to her son Malik Wright at the age of 16, Tasha, who is played by Wendy Raquel Robinson, quickly learns how to endure and prosper as a young and Black single mother in America. Tasha dedicates her life to seeing success in her son’s life, and this took a huge toll on her personal aspirations and her love life. Life hasn’t been too kind to Tasha and her personality shows it. To her friends, Tasha is known as the loud, threatening, and bitter Black woman who makes every situation racial, and keeps a gun in the trunk of her car just in case things get ugly. Tasha represent the “Superstrong” Black mother, a woman who has given up her entire life to raise her children (Collins 116). Although Tasha has made a successful career out of managing her son, she has not been able to manage her love life. Tasha goes through long periods of time without dating, but when she does manage to fall into a relationship, her hostile attitude pushes her significant others out of the picture. After being dumped by one of the coaches of the team, Tasha has an emotional talk with the most important man in her life, her son. After Malik tells her that she does in fact have an attitude problem, Tasha suggests that her loneliness in life has made incapable of love. In her novel , “Black Feminist Thought,” Patricia Collins states that Black mothers, especially single Black mothers have spent so much of their lives combating pain and hardships that they never learned how to show affection, and in this episode Tasha is coming to grips with this harsh reality (Collins 127). Tasha’s character collectively perpetuates a controlling image that has been around for years. Although the “Superstrong” Black mother is praised in the Black community, it suggests that Black mothers should always sacrifice their lives when they have a child (Collins 116). There are other Black women on the show who represent other types of Black women in America, but they are not leading roles. The producers of The Game purposely made Tasha a central character because she is entertaining. A bitter Black woman gets better ratings than a well educated Black woman with a good job and healthy relationships. TV shows like The Game can get away with perpetuating images like the “Superstrong” Black mother because the show is a comedy. If certain ideas are presented as a joke they are not really taken seriously by the audience that receives them.
The last issue of importance is the issue of power. Neither of the central female characters have any power unless they mention the name of one of the men on the show. All of the lives of the women on the show, Black and White, have been built around their men. The women always put the needs of their men before their own, and has used their success in football to create success of their own. For example, Melanie passes up the chance to go to John Hopkins medical school, and settles for a school in San Diego where she can support her man while still getting her education. Obviously John Hopkins would have been the better choice for Melanie’s career, but here she decides that her boyfriend Derwin’s career was more important. Tasha who as always put her son first, has used her son’s success to start her own management company. Although Tasha played a huge part in creating the success for her son, the show makes it clear that Tasha would not have been so successful if she wasn’t the mother of Malik Wright. It is clear who has the power in this on this show, and that power belongs to the men. By analyzing Melanie and Tasha’s relationships with men, we see that the show is perpetuating the idea that women can’t have real power without men. The Game and many other shows send out subliminal messages like these regarding Black women of America, but they are overlooked because they are hidden in comedic sitcoms, but it is time to stop laughing and start asking. Why are characters like Tasha popular in the media, and why does the Black community bully characters like Melanie? If Black women don’t begin to read into the media’s subliminal messages and analyze symbols in popular culture, they will forever be ignorantly submersed in oppression.
Works Cited
Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought. London: Routledge, 2000. Print.
“The Game (U.S. TV Series).” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 July 2012. Web. 09 Oct. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(U.S._TV_series)>.
In this passage, Collins is stating that when black women begin to create their own self definitions, they are insisting that the definitions in existence are wrong, the people who created them are not to be trusted, and the intentions of those people are wrong as well. In chapter 6 which is entitled, “The Sexual Politics of Black Womanhood,” Collins discusses how the dominant group has used black womens’ sexuality to gain power. With rape, prostitution, and pornography, the dominant group has defined the black woman as a sexual deviant. This image began during slavery. Black women were raped because they were seen as objects to be used for their master’s pleasure. This act of sexual violence forced Black women into a nymphomatic roll, and is the reason why Black women are commonly found in prostitution and contemporary pornography.
In slavery, Black women were controlled and defined by their masters. Many were born knowing that their purpose in life was to breed, work, and die. Remnants of that type of treatment has found its way into today’s society along with the image of the Black woman nymphomaniac, so it is important that African American women create their own self definitions. It is important for them to have something other than the dominant group’s definition to rely on. If African American women want to be seen as they see themselves, they must question the negative definitions that are still around, destroy the credibility of those who perpetuate those definitions, and intercept the cruel intentions of those with the power to define.
In Chapter 4, Collins talks about 4 external controlling images that justify the dominant group’s oppression of the black woman. The first controlling image is the Mammy. The mammy is the obedient domestic servant who is the model of what every black woman should be like according to the dominant group. Although the mammy may form strong ties with the family she works for, she does have to keep in mind that she is still at work and must be mindful of her subordinate place in the household and in society. The image of the mammy is used to prolong racial, gender, and economic oppression. In terms of racial oppression the mammy is used to instill a submissive attitude towards the dominant force in her children. In terms of gender oppression, the mammy is seen as the oppositional image of what a “real woman” should be. “All the functions of mammy are magnificently physical. They involve the body as sensuous, as funky, the part of woman that white southern America was profoundly afraid of.” In terms of economic oppression the mammy image, one that represents the best a black woman could be, was paid very little. This consequently suppressed the income of the black family for many years.
The second image is the Matriarch. The matriarch is seen as a failed mammy who is the head of her house hold, unfeminine, overly aggressive, and hardworking. The image of the matriarch is used to support economic and racial oppression. In terms of economics, society blames the matriarch for the failure of black children who they feel would have made more of themselves if their mother spent more time with them instead of at work. In terms of racial oppression, society blames the matriarch’s inability to conform to a patriarchal household, and the lack of Black patriarchal households for the black cultural deficiency.
The third controlling image discussed is the Welfare mother. She is the complete opposite of the Matriarch. She refuses to work depending solely on government welfare to supporter her and her children. The welfare mother is sued to support the stereotype that Black people are lazy and she is also used to justify the dominant group’s control of her fertility. A black woman who lays around all day making babies, is seen as a political and economic threat. To control her fertility, the dominant groups made the policies that support Black mothers and their children expensive.
The forth image is the Jezebel. A type of woman who is seen as a whore or as being sexually aggressive. The Jezebel image was first used to justify the sexual assaults of white slave owners against black women.
The Mammy, the Matriarch, the welfare mother, and the Jezebel were all created to oppress black women to this day. As black feminist work to break those images, driving forces like the hip hop industry simultaneously work to perpetuate the negative images allotted to black women collectively. It is clear that black feminist have a lot of work to do.
- In this statement Collins is trying to convey that the common experiences regarding family, work, and grounding in traditional African-American culture in their everyday lives allows Black women to collectively view the world different from others simply because they are biologically Black and female.
- The experiences of black women are not identical. Yes most deal with racial and gender oppression, but the experiences vary due to differences like class and location. Furthermore these unique experiences change the way Black women view or perceive the world.
- It is important to to keep an intersectional framework when examining the experiences of black women because it is a reminder that the oppression that affects so many of these experiences comes from a combination of things such as politics and racism.
- I relate to black feminism in many ways. For starters, I am a black woman who grew up in western society, so I can relate to some of the struggles that Collins speaks of in chapters 1 and 2. I have experienced racism from my peers at school and have been judged by stereotypes that black women have been held to for years. For example, men of all kinds will not think twice about dating a black woman because of the “all Black women have attitude” stereotype. I for one am tired of being judged by stereotypes like this, and hope to erase them by living a life that is completely opposite.
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