'Feminists of Color' Take the Reins

[Guest guest]

>From the latest (April 21, 2004) issue of "In These Times," a really

great independent voice in the U.S. media:

 

FEMINISM'S FUTURE: Young Feminists of Color Take the Mic

 

By Daisy Hernández and Pandora L. Leong

 

When San Jose State University senior Erika Jackson tried to recruit

fellow women of color for a new feminist group on campus, the

overwhelming reply was the sneer: "white women." Those words were code

for another term: racist.

 

Many women of color, like their Anglo counterparts, eschew the term

"feminism" while agreeing with its goals (the right to an abortion,

equality in job hiring, girls' soccer teams). But women of color also

dismiss the label because the feminist movement has largely focused on

the concerns of middle-class white women. This has been a loss for

people of color. Likewise, it's a loss for the movement if it expects

to grow: the U.S. Census projects that the Latino and Asian- American

population is expected to triple by 2050.

 

The "browning of America" has yet to serve as a wakeup call for

feminist organizers. Attempts to address the racism of the feminist

movement have largely been token efforts without lasting effects. Many

young women of color still feel alienated from a mainstream feminism

that doesn't explicitly address race. One woman of color, who wishes

not to be identified and is working with the March for Women's Lives,

put it this way: "We're more than your nannies and outreach workers.

We're your future."

 

Progressive movements have a long history of internal debates, but for

feminists of color the question of racism and feminism isn't about

theories. It's about determining our place in the movement. As the

daughters of both the civil rights and feminist movements, we were

bred on grrlpower, identity politics, and the emotional and often

financial ties to our brothers, fathers, aunties, and moms back home,

back South, back in Pakistan, Mexico or other homelands. We live at

the intersections of identities, the places where social movements

meet, and it's here that our feminism begins.

 

ORGANIZATIONS AS OBSTACLES

 

Feminism in the United States has stagnated in part because it has

largely neglected a class and race analysis. Feminism can't survive by

helping women climb the corporate ladder while ignoring cuts to

welfare. Family and medical leave only matter if we have jobs with

benefits. Feminism has to recruit beyond college campuses.

 

"If the message doesn't get broader, [communities of color] aren't

going to open their arms," says Sang Hee Won of Family Planning

Advocates in Albany, New York. "These issues don't resonate with an

immigrant woman on the streets of New York City. I'm first generation.

When I think of my parents, they have so many other things to think

about. People are struggling with daily lives and it's especially hard

to connect [traditional feminist] issues with their situation."

 

The priorities of national feminist organizations often are secondary

to our daily struggles. Reproductive freedom has to include access to

affordable healthcare and the economic opportunities to provide for

the children some of us do want to have. Likewise, it's jarring to see

the word "policing" on a feminist Web site and be directed to

information on gender equity in police departments without mention of

police brutality.

 

For feminists of color to identify with the mainstream movement,

national organizations need to address race explicitly. Women of color

always have participated but largely have remained ignored.

Organizations purport to be aware but don't hire, promote, or

recognize women of color as leaders. Affinity groups and special

projects remain ghettoized add-ons.

 

"[Feminist organizations] try and are well-intentioned," says Lauren

Martin, a New York activist. "They talk a lot but don't do a lot.

Organizations I've worked with talk a lot about being anti-racist.

[There would be] lots of trainings and in-services, but [racist]

incidents that occurred would be brushed under the rug."

 

"Their attitude is, 'I'm going to empower you. I'm going to teach

you,' " says Alma Avila-Peilchman, program manager at ACCESS, a

reproductive rights organization in Oakland, California. "When the

truth is we already have that power. We need to use it. We need to be

listened to."

 

CHANGE IN LEADERSHIP

 

The young feminists of color we interviewed called for the inclusion

of women of color and low-income women in national campaigns—when the

agenda is being set.

 

"Forming a real coalition means starting from the very beginning

rather than the 'add and stir' approach," Martin says. "The beginning

is when issues are defined. It doesn't work to tack our perspective on

at the end and call it 'outreach.'"

 

Khadine Bennett, a board member of Third Wave Foundation, which

supports the activism of young women, says that feminist organizations

need to share their power. "Sometimes your organization is not the

best one to carry out the work," she says. "Part of the mandate from

funders should be to work with people of color organizations."

 

More than 30 years after the first charges of racism against the

movement, these young feminists believe progressive women of color

need to be the leaders of national feminist groups. That the executive

directors of these organizations and senior staff still are

overwhelmingly white testifies to the movement's division. The

professionalization of the nonprofit world has deepened this divide by

internalizing corporate expectations and marginalizing the involvement

of women who can't afford to work for free. In pursuit of mainstream

acceptance, organizations are losing touch with the grassroots that

could revive feminism. There needs to be a commitment to leadership

development among women of color and low-income women that includes

mentoring and training.

 

SEEKING COMMON CAUSE

 

The movement also should consider models already practiced by younger

activists who actively seek out coalitions. "The people I know are

working around anti-violence including sexuality and anti-war work and

anti-globalization," says Mina Trudeau, of Hampshire College's Civil

Liberties and Public Policy Program. "Our feminism is about social

justice."

 

Election years are good moments to broaden an organization's agenda.

Last fall, Erika Jackson's feminist campus group organized against

Proposition 54, which would have eliminated racial classifications in

California. They were the first student organization to tackle the

issue, and they didn't debate whether it was a feminist issue.

 

"Like with public health, we talked about how it affects women of

color," she says. A lack of racial classifications would hide the

higher rate of low birth weight babies born to women of color. The

measure was defeated in the November 2003 state election.

 

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, a Toronto-based spoken-word artist,

sees race as a central part of the work she did in counseling women

who have suffered from sexual abuse and racism. "You can't deal with

the abuse and not the colonialism," she says of her work with Native

American women. Healing, she adds, can often mean reconnecting to

cultural pride.

 

Avila-Peilchman has talked to women of color "who've given up on

working with white women." However, she doesn't fall into that

category. "I don't think that all white women don't want to work with

us. I can't think that. But how is it going to happen? When?"

 

These are questions the mainstream feminist movement must answer, and

some are hopeful.

 

Trudeau observes, "There is new visioning. Maybe this happens at all

different points but at this time, we're conscious of our history and

of where we want to go. I think there's some back and forth, an

internal dialogue that will hopefully take us to a better place."

 

Daisy Hernández is the coeditor of Colonize This! Young Women of Color

on Today's Feminism. She can be reached at dazeher Pandora

L. Leong directs the Teen Health Initiative at the New York Civil

Liberties Union. She can be reached at labrys

 

Source: In These Times

URL: http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=703_0_1_0_C