A Black Feminist Statement

The Black Feminist Statement was written by the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO). The NBFO was an organization made up of Black women who met to battle racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression in the 1970's. The collective states that Black women, unfortunately, were the worst to feel the oppression because they are at the lowest place in society. During the time when the collective was written, the NBFO formed communities that fought oppression on a certain stance each time. The new formed community enabled Black women to fight on many issues including race, class, and sex in a collective way. However, apart from the communities they formed, most impact was derived from individuals who were able to receive education and societal tools to freely argue for their rights. The differences in oppression between white women and black did not stop at class and race, but rather escalated to the way they were able to fight the oppression. Black women had to fight oppression on more than two fronts, unlike the White; they also did not have the race, class, heterosexual, or sexual priviledges that white women relied on. Lastly, black men were threatened by black feminists, whereas white men were not threatened of white women.

My analysis of this paper yielded some questions.

The first: Who is the audience of this paper? Throughout the paper there is mention of white politics, which encompasses the greatest societal class and gender in one occupation-white men. However, with the problems of creating a collective movement, I feel that the true audience of this paper were students who were taught by Black women, who were fortunate enough to receive the educational tools needed in society.

The second: It's been approximately four decades since the NBFO was formed, but the obstacles faced by Black women remains unchanged. They are still faced with race, class, and sex oppression. In the paper it was evident that one of the causes of oppression were stereotypes. Today, have stereotypes been transformed to lower the oppression barrier or have stereotypes raised the barrier with the changes in media, society, and diversty?