Community & Government
Don't Erase Black Women
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw explains why advocates of anti-racism need to operate using an inclusive, intersectional framework—and why that approach is the only way to fight white supremacy.
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Topics include: Don't Erase Black Women
Lessons from Influential Black Voices
Seven preeminent Black thought leaders share their insight on the reckoning with race in America in three parts: past, present, and future.
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[MUSIC PLAYING] - So you might be wondering, how does intersectionality apply to the way we understand anti-Black racism? How should we adapt intersectional prisms in the work that we do? What are some of the moments that the gendered way that we understand anti-racism has to be broadened and rethought? And so my answer would be let's look at some of the ways that we imagine in our history what anti-Black racism has looked like and where Black women fit in those imaginaries. There was a time during the period in which anti-Black violence was rampant that a banner would fly outside of the offices of the NAACP when a Black man was lynched. That banner flew all too often. Because too many Black men were lynched. But what it was missing is Black women have also been lynched. What it was missing is Black women have also been raped. They've been sexually abused. They've been beaten. So one of our challenges is to broaden our conception of what anti-Black racism has been, what anti-black racism is now, where Black women are situated in how anti-Black racism, how white supremacy plays out. So it's just a reminder that we have to recover histories that have been lost, that have not been passed on, partly because of shame about some of the things that happened to Black women, partly because the inability to protect Black women sometimes is a very sensitive issue for our community, for our brothers, our fathers, and our sons. But we can't let the shame over determine what we remember. Because what is remembered is what we can fight about and fight against today. The same might be true if we look to some of the images of the classic Civil Rights movement. Remember when Martin Luther King went to Memphis. He went to Memphis to support sanitation workers. And one of the iconic images from that moment was the poster, "I Am a Man." And that is very real anti-racism attempted to erase Black manhood and all of the things that are associated with that. But it also erased Black womanhood. And we don't have images that really recall the way that Black womanhood was denigrated, the way that Black women were devalued, the way that Black women's loss of autonomy. And their availability for sexual abuse was part of anti-Black racism. So if we can't remember these things, if we don't have iconic images in ways of telling that story, then we're unable to understand today, how does anti-Black racism play out with the erasures, for example, of Black women who have been killed by the police? Or the fact that Black women are least likely to have their sexual abusers arrested, and prosecuted, and convicted? These are contemporary manifestations of a long history of Black women being marginalized and excluded. So the takeaway is if you are marching for anti-racism, if you are proponents of the idea that our history requires us to be 100% present right now, if you are an advocate, a soldier, a student, a practitioner of anti-racism, then...
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From critical race theory to the 1619 Project, Black intellectuals are reshaping conversations on race in America. Now seven of those preeminent voices share their insight on the reckoning with race in America in three parts: past, present, and future. Gain a foundational understanding of the history of white supremacy and discover a path forward through the limitless capacity and resilience of Black love.
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Angela Davis, Cornel West, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Sherrilyn Ifill, Jelani Cobb, and John McWhorter
Seven preeminent Black thought leaders share their insight on the reckoning with race in America in three parts: past, present, and future.
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