"The Special Plight and Role of Black Women" by Fannie Lou Hamer demonstrates the activist's ability to anachronistically conceptualize the intersectional implications of being a black woman. This thought process leads prompts her to conjure an inkling of sympathy for her white counterparts despite their aid in her racialized oppression. She rationalizes that white women certainly benefit from white supremacy by being the desire of white men and of course functioning out of white privilege. Despite this, she doesn't become apathetic to their plight on the basis of sex but reaffirms that she is rooting for the liberty and justice of all who are oppressed. Her understanding of their plight, as well as their participation in her own, is articulated plainly, saying "But you know, sometimes I really feel more sorrier for the white woman than I feel for ourselves because she been caught up in this thing, caught up feeling very special, and folks, I’m going to put it on the line, because my job is not to make people feel comfortable—[drowned out by applause]. You’ve been caught up in this thing because, you know, you worked my grandmother, and after that, you worked my mother, and then finally you got hold of me. And you really thought, people—you might try and cool it now, but I been watching you, baby. You thought that you was more because you were a woman, and especially a white woman, you had this kind of angel feeling that you were untouchable."(369)(Unit 4)
Activist, educator, and icon Angela Davis unpack her rationale regarding her affixing herself to communist principles in "I Am A Revolutionary Black Woman". Davis essentially walks us through her legacy via her allegiances to the Communist Party, The N.A.A.R.P.R, and the Che-Lumumba Club. and how those groups' philosophies have tempered her activism & political thought so that it may not only serve to liberate black folks from oppression but all people. Being that the this is long before Kimberle Crenshaw coins the term "intersectionality" it may come as a surprise that Davis is understating its framework retroactively. . While certainly acknowledging the racialized, class-based & gendered stratification that is necessary to oppress all people, she reminds us that men are a necessary demographic when it comes to toppling the hegemony of sexism, stating "As black women, we must liberate ourselves and provide the impetus for the liberation of black men from this whole network of lies around the oppression of black women, which serve only to divide us, thus impeding the advance of our total liberation struggle." (461) (Unit 4)
Henry Highland Garnet's "Let Your Motto Be Resistance" acknowledges the irony of the Christian democracy that America functions as. He calls into question the moral compass of America's W85hite Christian majority and ponders how any rationale Christian could possibly perpetuate and sustain the systems of chattel slavery & racial oppression on an institutional and personal level. His assessment of the circumstances they've dealt with sees him combing through various manners in which Black people have been degraded, forcing him to employ what would anachronistically be considered intersectional thought, especially in regards to women. He calls men to understand the danger women and girls face while existing under the imperialistic sex trade that is thinly veiled by chattel slavery. Garnet's disgust, anger, and solidarity are on full display when he begs his fellow black men to conjure their empathy and put it to use, stating "Fellow-men! patient sufferers! behold your dearest rights crushed to the earth! See your sons murdered, and your wives, mothers, and sisters doomed to prostitution. In the name of the merciful God, and by all that life is worth, let it no longer be a debatable question, whether it is better to choose Liberty or death."(61) (Unit 1)
The generally well-regarded Black feminist, LGBTQIA+ advocate, and writer Audre Lorde helps to put into perspective the many intricacies that temper her approach to not only black liberation- but liberation for all in "I Am Your Sister". Lorde articulates her historic and sociological understanding of political power structures and the necessity of an insubordinate within most of them. This leads her to perceive society through the lens of age, class, race, and sex with a keen focus on the latter. She comes to the conclusion that society's inability to ignore these differences is what casually sustains ignorance as well as the oppression of people within those communities. Her thoughts on this regarding gender and class are most obviously on display when she states that "Unacknowledged class differences rob women of each others’ energy and creative insight. Recently a women’s magazine collective made the decision for one issue to print only prose, saying poetry was a less “rigorous” or “serious” art form. Yet even the form our creativity takes is often a class issue. Of all the art forms, poetry is the most economical. It is the one that is the most secret, that requires the least physical labor, the least material, and the one that can be done between shifts, in the hospital pantry on the subway, and on scraps of surplus paper." (517)" (Unit 5)