The movie Hidden Figures is a must see for me. The level of excitement I feel at being able to see these three black women’s contributions to one of the greatest stories in history is indescribable. This is for one reason and one reason only. It is breaking a centuries old tradition of relegating the voices and contributions of black women to the background. This tradition has the potential to leave little black girls unsure of their place in the world. However, black women and girls across the globe continue to press on and make world-changing contributions in a variety of disciplines in the face of their voices being silenced and in the face of systematic racism and sexism. Women such as Serena Williams and Michelle Obama who are strong, articulate and successful can’t be silenced or wiped out of the history books so they are called racist names and berated while people try to belittle their accomplishments. Recently, Leslie Jones faced a barrage of racist abuse on Twitter after her appearance in the Ghostbusters reboot from some butt-hurt white men. This is all in attempt to tell the black woman her place, i.e. not seen and not heard.
It is easy to blame all of this on the system of white supremacy because that is where the root of this issue lies. White supremacy according to Wikipedia as ‘a racist ideology centered upon the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior in certain characteristics, traits, and attributes to people of other racial backgrounds and that therefore white people should politically, economically and socially rule non-white people.’ This socialisation into a system of white supremacy also affects how we interact with each other as people of colour – often reacting to each other based on the prejudices promoted within the white supremacist system. In trying to overcome the oppression we often oppress or promote the oppression for others to prove that we are not at the bottom of the race/social hierarchy, thereby complying with the system’s hierarchy and mistreatment of others who are not on the same ‘level’. Now if we think of that hierarchy, the black woman lays smack dab at the bottom, neither as beautiful or intelligent as any other race or gender within the system. This is reflected in the way she is treated generally by the system and even by other women and black men, even though she may share gender and race with those categories of individuals. Therefore, white supremacy is to blame for the attempts to silence and erase the contributions and voices of black women even in situations where other ‘disadvantaged’ populations are complicit in the actions.
Gloria Richardson
I tell you two stories of the silencing of the black woman’s voices and neither from the ‘white man’ so to speak but both from groups of people who themselves have organised to bring and call for equality in the face of oppression they have faced from the icon of male white supremacy. The civil rights movement is now hailed as a defining moment in US history and indeed across the globe. We have Rosa Parks as an icon or catalyst for much of the progression of the active protests that inspired the Civil Rights acts. We also have a splattering of other women who are mentioned as by the way characters or helpers in the movement. However, the contributions of women were at times minimised in the face of the male leaders of the movement. Take for instance, the experience of Gloria Richardson, who gave her story on Democracy Now (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UG7YCgkXTo) and the account she gave of attempts to silence the voice of the women leaders of the civil rights movement at the 1963 March on Washington. As black men who were themselves disadvantaged to attempt to silence the voice of a women who literally put her life on the line for the lives of a black man and organised for better standards of living is surprising and a sign of the effects of white supremacy on the mindset of the male leadership in accepting a hierarchical system to equality movements. Ultimately, within that movement black women were seen but heard very little from. In spite of all this, we have people like Cicely Tyson, Eartha Kitt, Maya Angelou and Gloria Richardson as women whose voices could not be silenced even in the face of blackballing and even physical or social attacks.
Shirley Chisholm
Another story is the experience of Shirley Chisholm who became the first woman to run to be president on the platform of a major political party in the US. Despite her experience, her background and her actions to improve life for women and minorities neither camp were effusive in their support for her campaign, preferring instead to support a white male candidate in McGovern who they believe would defeat Richard Nixon. He did not go onto win. Shirley Chisholm may not have won against Nixon either but the lack of support among the two camps to which she so obviously belonged, i.e. women and blacks meant that McGovern had no impetus to listen to her suggestions for improving the Democratic at the DNC convention at the time, adjustments that may have increased his own chances of winning the general election by increasing the voter base at the time. Anyway, that is all in the past, but the point of this story is that as inspirational as Shirley Chisholm is and will always be as a symbol of what each political leader should be, ‘Unbought and Unbossed’, her impact in real time was narrowed by lack of support from the “National Organisation of Women” and black leaders who preferred to back a sure thing. Thinking of this lack of support in the age when Madeleine Albright said that “there is a special place in hell for women who do not support each other” when she was stumping for Hilary Clinton one has to wonder if that same thing applies to ALL women not just the white ones.
These attempts to minimise the voice of black women is reflected in today’s media and entertainment with the black woman being criticised as being too “aggressive” or possessing a “nasty attitude” regardless of how well behaved she is at any given time. She is not to express discontent with her situation regardless of who the perpetrators are and work towards a better life for herself. Stories about black women in history often portray her passively and not necessarily in full control of herself and her place in her society. Despite this we know that there are many women who were creative, forward-thinking and trailblazing in a way that the history books and school lessons continue to ignore. Modern depictions of black women are often stereotypical and deemed as negative, whether those behaviours are themselves actually negative is another story for another day. To the casual observer this removes the black woman’s agency or ability to determine her own identity and place within the world. However, black women continue to in the face of being ignored, erased and hushed work towards being a force within this world who will be seen AND heard.
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