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Books by Kalamu ya
Salaam
The Magic of JuJu: An Appreciation of the Black Arts
Movement /
360:
A Revolution of Black Poets
Everywhere Is Someplace Else: A Literary Anthology
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From A Bend in the River: 100 New Orleans Poets
Our Music Is No Accident /
What Is Life: Reclaiming the Black Blues Self
My Story My Song (CD)
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Our Women Keep our
Skies From Falling
Six Essays
in Support of The
Struggle To Smash Sexism/Develop Women
Revolutionary Struggle/Revolutionary
Love
By Kalamu ya Salaam SEXlSM: The systematic exploitation and/or
oppression of one group of people by another group of people
based on the criterion of sex. In America today, sexism
manifests itself as the male domination of women.
I. CONTEXT AND CONDITIONS
Many of us are discouraged to the point of
despair about life, love and liberation, about woman/man
relationships, about how to stick and stay together. Tragically,
many of our leaders and theoreticians are equally as stymied as
are the masses of our people.
Too many of us steadfastly and foolishly
refuse to recognize and act )n the reality that African-americans
are willfully and purposefully oppressed and exploited by the
white ruling class.
There are those among us who pretend that the
war is over, and even a few brazen enough to contend that we won
the war because we have elected a handful of Black officials to
public office and have seen a highly visible but, powerwise, an
essentially insignificant increase in he ranks of an alleged
Black bourgoisie and Black middle class. This deception is the
roots cycle.
The roots (or should we say "ruse")
cycle contends that we are all now one big happy family, working
together in modern america. However, an accurate analysis of our
daily existence reveals the opposite. But, like children in a
haunted house confused by a myriad of mirrors which throw out
intentionally false and deceptive images, many of us believe
more in appearances than in reality.
If we weren't so metaphysical (attributing
material and social development to unknown and/or
incomprehensible nonmaterial, nonhuman forces) and fatalistic
(believing that our future is predetermined and/or beyond the
influence of our struggle to transform ourselves and the world)
we would look beyond the image to he controllers of the image
and the mechanisms of image making; we would look for the hidden
hand of humans acting in their own interest rather than the
invisible hand of "our God(s)" allegedly manipulating
reality. Furthermore, what we "think" or
"believe" about reality does not determine reality or
necessarily aid us in confronting and changing it. We can create
better and more beautiful lives only by critically and
concretely investigating and transforming material and social
reality.
II. THE
REALITY OF SEXISM
The oppression of our men is widespread, well
documented and undeniable. The exploitation of our women is
equally widespread, but is not as well documented and, as
numerous writings demonstrate, is often denied. It is important
to distinguish between the physical oppression of our men, and
the economic and/or sexual exploitation of our women.
Misunderstandings between our men and women may be based in part
on our failure to recognize that there are differences in the
mechanisms used to oppress and exploit our women as compared to
our men even though the same external enemy controls both
mechanisms.
The facts of life are that African-american
women are more economically exploited than are our men, white
women and/or white men.1 Additionally, our women face
a sexist discrimination exploitation and harassment which our
men do not.2 To deny these facts only aids in
perpetuating sexism as we can not eradicate it or it~ effects
and influences until we face and fight sexism head on.
It is equally inappropriate and down right
reactionary to resist the criticism that we African-american men
have generally adopted sexist outlook and behavior vis-a-vis our
women. Our lack of the power to institutionalize sexism means
little because sexism is already embedded into nearly every
institution in America. Regardless of our lack of power, the
fact is that we routinely act out sexist behavior and the
controllers of society at large condone, seldom punish and even
sometimes reward such.
Some people argue that women have made
significant inroads into the power structure of america and that
sexism is being ameliorated as a major force in America life.
These same people argue the "declining significance of
race." They are purveyors of grim and gruesome fairy tales.
Sexism, just like racism, is far from dead in
america. While on paper (newspapers and congressional records)
it may appear that conditions are improving, in reality the
results are mixed. It is no accident that simultaneously with
the development of a caste like parameter around the Black poor
in america, there is a resurgent anti-feminist movement
building. It is no accident that ERA is being beaten back in
this post Bakke era, an era which can be characterized by a
proliferation of both racist right-wingers and pornography
profiteers.
III. FIGHTING SEXISM
Instead of attacking Black feminism, we
should be fanning the flames of struggle by heightening the
anti-sexist critique of America and linking that critique with a
critique of capitalism and racism.3
Instead of using the errors and flaws in
feminist presentations to deny or downgrade the essential
anti-sexist struggle, we should be criticizing and correcting
them in order to make the arguments more potent and thereby,
advance both the struggle against sexism and our total struggle
for liberation.
Our debates and discussions concerning sexism
should not be occasions to murder mouth each other, but rather
should be efforts to gain clarity and direction in struggle.
Moreover, the war against sexism is no threat
to Black "manhood," nor should we confuse being a man
with being sexist.
The same enemy, who spearheads the sexist
attack on our women, also individually, institutionally and
ideologically maims and murders our manhood. It is important to
note that, unlike pre-industrial European history, the history
of Africa is not a history of women fighting men nor vice versa.
The so called battle of the sexes, the preoccupation with a
patriarchal and/or misogynic sexist outlook and form of social
organization, is, in the American context, mainly the fruit of
European history.
Our African history includes a matriarchal
form of social organization which should not be confused with
amazonism. Classically, matriarchy is blood lines traced through
the female and a social organization which insures the
economic/political rights of women; amazonism is a social
organization based on the female domination of men.4
Furthermore, women ideologically and physically defending
themselves should not be confused with women hating men. It is a
prevalent and painful fact of life that far too many of our men
physically aggress/attack and humiliate our women. Often this is
only a thinly disguised effort to regain a sense of manhood.
Regrettably, it is true that many men choose to beat our women
into a quasi-submission rather than meet (and defeat) the
man.
The hard fact of life is that our economic
and political impotence is neither our women's responsibility
nor their doing. Besides, there are no real secrets between our
women and men. Our women intimately know our economic/political
impotence, they know our rage, and know too that our repressed
fury will sometimes be turned against them. Yet, they love us
nevertheless, none the less. However, we cannot expect their
love for us to be a graveyard love.
As Zora Neale Hurston so eloquently addressed
the issue in her book Their Eyes Were Watching God, it
will sometimes be necessary for our women to literally, as well
as ideologically, kill the men whom they love.5 When
we men become sick, infected with the misogynic sexism of
Europe, we should be struggled with. If the situation warrants,
as in cases of brutal physical attacks on women with the intent
or potential to kill, our women should defend themselves
"by any means necessary. Loving a man is not and should not
be synonymous with denying the womanself. Our women are not
masochists. They are correct and courageous when they adamantly
refuse to be the slave of a slave.
In my opinion, there are far more of our men
who hate and/or are afraid of our women than the reverse. One
manifestation of this is the Black man/white woman syndrome.
We are concerned about the prevalence of our
"men of note" mixing, mating, and marrying white
women, However, we harbor no mythical and/or subjective fear or
hatred of miscegenation, which is a "biological boogaman"
that has no concrete basis among our people. Our people have
never rejected each other because of white blood,
But Black men/white women relationships among
those of our people who "seem to have made it" (I
intentionally emphasize this category of our people) is a
burning political issue precisely because when a people's
leading males reject their own females in favor of females from
the historically oppressor group, then indeed that people are in
an advanced stage of self-hate. As Sekou Toure has noted, our
leaders should be proactive cultural personifiers of our people
and not individual humans who de facto deny the importance of
uniting with our women.
Also and not surprisingly, linking the
struggle against sexism with the struggles against capitalism
and racism synergistically increases the effectiveness of our
total struggle. Sojourner Truth understood this well when she
said "I am glad to see that men are getting their rights,
but I want women to get theirs, and the water is stirring... if
colored men get their rights, and not colored women... it will
be just as bad as it was before. So I am for keeping the thing
going while things are stirring; because if we wait till it is
still, it will take a great while to get it going again."6
When we investigate the literatue7
and lives of revolutionary liberation organizations and
individuals in Africa and elsewhere in the Third World we learn
that they made the battle against sexism a major aspect of
struggles for national liberation and socialist development.
IV. OUR PEOPLE
ARE THE SOLUTION
Some women have given up all hope of our people being made
whole again. They do not believe that our women and men can
live, love and work together and arguments will not change their
minds. However, the social arrangements we develop, if
progressive, will give such sisters good cause to reconsider
their hopelessness.
If we, who consider ourselves the cadre of the Black
liberation struggle, can develop woman/man relationships among
ourselves which promote and sustain both individual development
and collective commitment to liberation struggle, we will have
made a significant contribution to our people which will inject
a much needed revolutionary optimism into our movement as a
whole and into each of our lives as individuals.
For those of us who have already seen the light and who are
wholehearted engaged in this struggle against sexism and for the
economic/political equality of women and men, our task is
twofold. Firstly, and most importantly, we must create, maintain
and propagate profoundly human and non-sexist modes of
female/male relationships both individually and collectively.
Secondly, we must ideologically challenge and change backward
and sexist individuals, institutions and ideas.
Our fears about life and each other, our
sexual dsyfunction and incompatibilities, our geometrically
increasing separateness (divorces, separations, desertions), our
individual dissatisfactions and disgusts, all of these are
profound reactions, not to fatal flaws in our nature or to each
other as woman/ man, sister/brother, but rather all of these are
profound reactions to a society which has systematically severed
us one from another and denied and destroyed, albeit in
different ways, the sense of self worth of our women and men.
In America today, to truly love another
person requires a readiness to face down anti-human
reactionaries who view love primarily as a commodity from which
to extract profit and also requires that we face our own
weaknesses and turn them into strengths.
In short, if we do not share struggle, we can
not share love. Love is a function of life and these anti-humans
are constantly and consciously committed to oppressing,
exploiting and killing us.
During times of war and oppression, such as
these are, there is no other love possible but serious and
shared struggle. Every battle we
"consciously" wage together will
bring us closer and bind us more firmly, will increase our
understanding of each other and the world. Revolutionary
struggle brings with it revolutionary love.
NOTES
1 Herman, Alexis."A Statistical Portrait Of
The Black Woman Worker," THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine,
Vol.8, No.5.
2 Stone, Pauline T., "Institutional Sexism And The Quest
For Racial Equality," THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine.
Vol. 9, No.5.
3 Examples of such critiques are: Beyond Connections:
Liberation In Love And Struggle, Dr. M. Ron Karenga,
AHIDlANA~Habari, P.O. Box 3472, N.O.,LA 70177. Revolutionary
Love, Kalamu ya Salaam, AHIDIANA-Habari. Women And The
New World, Pace Setters, P.O. Box 3281, Philadelphia, PA
19121.
4 Diop, Cheikh Anta.
The Cultural Unity of Africa, Third World Press, 7524 5. Cottage Grove, Chicago, IL
60619
5 Hurston, Zora Neale.
Their Eyes Were Watching
God. Fawcett World Library.
6 Lerner, Gerda, editor.
Black Women In White
America. Vantage Books, pp.569, 570.
7 Examples of such literature are: The Role Of
Women In The Revolution, A. Sekou Toure, Black Standard
Publishing Company, 243 West 125th St., Harlem, NY 10027.
Towards A Science Of Women's Liberation: An Analysis From
Cuba, Isabel Larguia and John Dumoulin, New England Free
Press, 60 Union Square, Somerville, MA 02143.
Women Of Viet Nam, Arlene Eisen Bergman. People's
Press, P.O. Box 40130, San Francisco, CA 94110.
Women and Child Care In China, Ruth Sidel. Penguin
Books. "Revolutionary Struggle/Revolutionary Love" was
written as a contribution to the 1979 THE BLACK SCHOLAR (Vol. 10,
Nos. 8,9) forum, "The Black Sexism Debate," which was
generated around responses to an earlier article written by Robert
Staples.
Cover Drawing by Douglass Redd
copyright July 1980 By Kalamu ya
Salaam
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The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
By Annette
Gordon-Reed
This is a scholar's
book: serious, thick, complex. It's also fascinating, wise
and of the utmost importance. Gordon-Reed, a professor of
both history and law who in her previous book helped solve
some of the mysteries of the intimate relationship between
Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings, now brings to
life the entire Hemings family and its tangled blood links
with slave-holding Virginia whites over an entire century.
Gordon-Reed never slips into cynicism about the author of
the Declaration of Independence. Instead, she shows how his
life was deeply affected by his slave kinspeople: his lover
(who was the half-sister of his deceased wife) and their
children. Everyone comes vividly to life, as do the places,
like Paris and Philadelphia, in which Jefferson, his
daughters and some of his black family lived. So, too, do
the complexities and varieties of slaves' lives and the
nature of the choices they had to make—when they had the
luxury of making a choice. Gordon-Reed's genius for reading
nearly silent records makes this an extraordinary work.—Publishers
Weekly |
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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updated February 2010
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