Usually, when people talk about the "strength" of black women they are referring to the way in which they perceive black women cop...ing with oppression. They ignore the reality that to be strong in the face of oppression is not the same as overcoming oppression, that endurance is not to be confused with transformation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No other group in America has so had their identity socialized out of existence as have black women.... When black people are talk...ed about the focus tends to be on black men; and when women are talked about the focus tends to be on white women.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What had begun as a movement to free all black people from racist oppression became a movement with its primary goal the establish...ment of black male patriarchy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Today masses of black women in the U.S. refuse to acknowledge that they have much to gain by feminist struggle. They fear feminism.... They have stood in place so long that they are afraid to move. They fear change. They fear losing what little they have.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... contemporary black women felt they were asked to choose between a black movement that primarily served the interests of black ...male patriarchs and a women's movement which primarily served the interests of racist white women.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Separatism of any kind promotes marginalization of those unwilling to grapple with the whole body of knowledge and creative works ...available to others. This is true of black students who do not want to read works by white writers, of female students of any race who do not want to read books by men, and of white students who only want to read works by white writers.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We are rarely able to interact only with folks like ourselves, who think as we do. No matter how much some of us deny this reality... and long for the safety and familiarity of sameness, inclusive ways of knowing and living offer us the only true way to emancipate ourselves from the divisions that limit our minds and imaginations.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We must continually remind students in the classroom that expression of different opinions and dissenting ideas affirms the intell...ectual process. We should forcefully explain that our role is not to teach them to think as we do but rather to teach them, by example, the importance of taking a stance that is rooted in rigorous engagement with the full range of ideas about a topic.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Most young black females learn to be suspicious and critical of feminist thinking long before they have any clear understanding of... its theory and politics.... Without rigorously engaging feminist thought, they insist that racial separatism works best. This attitude is dangerous. It not only erases the reality of common female experience as a basis for academic study; it also constructs a framework in which differences cannot be examined comparatively.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The notion that black folks have nothing to learn from scholarship that may reflect racial or racist biases is dangerous. It promo...tes closed-mindedness and a narrow understanding of knowledge to hold that "race" is such an overwhelming concept that it negates the validity of any insights contained in a work that may have some racist or sexist aspects.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »