This statement is patriarchy. It is not anti-oppression orwomanismor Black feminism or anything like that. Black women are not Black men’s “allies.”
We are their oppressed at worse or their partners (speaking politically, not romantically right now) at best. “Allies” implies we stand at a structurally more powerful position than them and have to facilitate the undoing of their oppression that we cause. Are Black people White people’s “allies?”
Are LGBTQIA people heterosexual people’s “allies?” Using “ally” in this context in her article is also epistemic violence. It’s too gross an inaccuracy to overlook and it is dangerous as it paints Black women as oppressors who have to work to not oppress Black men. And with a heterosexual framing, this is simply not the case. (With an intersectional framing, for example, a cishet Black woman [and for the record, not all cis Black women are heterosexual or thereby “cishet”] could be homophobic to a cis gay Black man as he could simultaneously be misogynoiristic and misogynistic to her.
In other words, it is not a linear supposition that Black women can never be oppressors and oppressed by Black men simultaneously, but with a heterosexual framing, the claim Black women have “privilege” over Black men is epistemically violent.) Black women are not oppressing Black men in this context.
I mean, just a few weeks ago I experienced extremely abusive Black men telling me to shut the fukk up about street harassment on Black women (and I included other men/cops harassing me, by the way, not just Black men) and instead focus on State violence on Black women. Now all of sudden (again) some Black men are stating that Black women’s activism against violence
doesn’t exist(which connects to a long history of erasure of Black women and activism) or shouldn't exist, and some Black men and some Black women (like the author of the referenced article) are centering Black men as the only victims of State violence? Interesting.(And I Discussed This before, the nuance needed to examine why suggesting Black people “don’t care” about intraracial crime is ahistorical and violence via dehumanization, but also how “Black on Black” crime, beyond being a violent misnomer, eclipses the experiences of Black people who are not cishet Black men anyway, when used as a false equalizing silencing tactic against discussing extrajudicial execution and State violence on Black people.)
As Alluded to on Twitter this morning, my activism is NOT about turning Black men into White men’s peers via patriarchy and continue the oppression of Black people. My activism is about the liberation of Black people and that cannot occur by indulging erasure and deciding that silence can replace justice. Black women’s lives matter. Them mattering does not mean Black men’s lives no longer matter. I don’t have to erase myself to support Black men. I refuse to engage in “support” that requires me to be silent and categorizes the abuse that Black women experience as a “privilege” by erasing the history and experiences altogether.
http://www.gradientlair.com/post/95311948888/erasure-black-women-as-state-violence-victims
They're the only ally we'll ever have.
......I have no idea what the fukk I just read.
#tnt
