- Aug 28, 2015
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My opinion: I strongly do not believe that Black women have been co-opted by or have fallen prey to the white woman's feminist perspective. Have attempts been made by white women to persuade Black women to join their cause to free themselves of male oppression? Yes. But Black women are not stupid or gullible enough to advocate for their equal rights by alienating herself from Black men or trying to laud power over them. Black women KNOW, at the end of the day, although women, they are also Black and white women do not advocate for their rights as Black people and therein lies a very big problem, thus feminist rhetoric delivered by white women is lost on Black women--again, in my opinion.
Social and religious prescribed roles based on gender...might work for some but not for me.
Having said that, back to topic.
According to The African-American Labor Force in the Recovery, although this is 2011-12 data, it supports what sister Liberty is saying but even still, the employment situation for Blacks overall lags compared to people of other races.
"Blacks are the only racial or ethnic group for whom women represent a larger share of the employed than do men--more than half (53.8 percent) of employed Blacks in 2011 were women, compared to 46.0 percent among employed Whites." But Black men, don't get upset over this because, "...employed Black women still earn less than employed Black men--Black women earn roughly $0.91 to every dollar earned by Black men." "While the wage gap among Blacks is smaller than that for Whites, this is largely driven by the fact that African-American men face lower wages compared to men in other race groups in the economy."
Read the article and you will see, as I did, this is not a gender issue...this is a Black community issue.
There is some kind of "loyalty test", this obsession with feminism. I think it's an obsession, because, I haven't met any AA feminist. None at all. The way these men on the board speak, it's like there are millions of them.
Now, I haven't met any. But, there is actually a small group of AA women who call themselves "Womanists". Women like Alice Walker and Toni Morrison identify themselves with this group that is separate from feminism. Still, I have only "heard" of this distinct group because these women are Pulitzer Prize Writers. I wonder how many of them exist, again, I've never met one of them either.