Whenever I've brought up the subject of slavery and its legacy in a classroom, at least one student is quick to inform me that slavery was practiced everywhere in the world. In other words, lots of people were enslaved! This individual assumed, and rightly so, that I would focus on American slavery, given my race! Perhaps now that an objection has been rendered, I would oblige the white students at least and drop the matter. If nothing else, I was to recognize in this person's glaring eyes how angry I had made him or her by suggesting slavery had left a legacy in America. Maybe the tension in the room would cause me to rethink my intent to discuss the legacy of American slavery.
Because journalist professor Howard W. French's Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War was published in 2021, I never had the opportunity to teach my students about the "age-old practice" that developed in the sub-Saharan regions of Africa. A practice that stripped millions of people of their humanity. I never had the opportunity to trace the development of the enslavement of Africans and their descendants under European colonization, for the benefit of the Western world's concept of itself as a civilized free people. I never had the opportunity to offer French's analysis of that practice of enslavement that "civilized" Europeans and Americans alike because, as French writes, the blackness of Africans "offered the convenient rationale of a categorical difference from whites, something that became a prime justification for a new and soon to be dramatic expansion of slavery".
Contrary to Governor Ron DeSantis' belief that descendants of American slavery benefited from their captivity, the bondage of black Africans that became a boom for capitalists around the globe, not just here in the US. Slavery helps bring the so-called "dark ages" into the light. But, yes, here in the US, the enslavement of black Africans allows the US to amass wealth and grow an Empire, in which, in turn, enslaves the conquered population that consists of blacks, Aborigines, indigenous, Latino/as and Asians. But here in the US, it is that enslavement of black Americans that makes the subject of American slavery an uncomfortable one in homes where parents and other family members have long hoped that blacks would cease and desist talk about slavery. We see evidence of this in college classrooms. In the glaring stares of white students. Or at community meetings to discuss anti-black, among adults who, too, have long ceased and desisted talk about slavery and its legacy.
The legacy of slavery, however, offered American colonialists a brand of white supremacy, still a factor in the lives of black Americans, as it still justifies a fear and hatred of black Americans. It was Afro-European contact, explains French, that "changed the way that people everywhere not just Europeans saw the world and understood their humanity, in increasingly relativist ways." Even among those who insist on being our allies, we are marginalized, if not excluded, still, in the 21st century. The legacy of slavery is white supremacy and that it persists in a system of oppression and exploitation of black Americans.
A few years back, after yet another meeting in a predominantly white town, on "diversity," a well-dressed white woman stood up, and looking straight across the table at me, one of two blacks in attendance, let me know that she was in accordance with her and my racial ranking on that hierarchical ladder. The others in the room were gathering their things and put on the coats and didn't hear this woman as she referred to the last protest, she attended back in the late 1960s and early 1970s when a police baton struck the side of her head. She looked at me as if I had held that police baton all those many years ago, and when she finally looked away to gather her things, I heard her explain that she had done her part. The baton was enough. The injury to her head enough. I heard the question she didn't ask out loud: what more do black Americans want from her? She didn't have to utter this sentiment. I understood. I understood when I was facing her backside as she walked away from the table. I understood that for her, black Americans haven't mattered for a long time. If black Americans matter even then, on that day when she attended a protest and found herself being treated like a black American by law enforcement.
I can count two white women as friends. I thought about after reading professor and writer, Brittany Cooper's Forward in The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism. "I don't count very many white women among my friend group, for precisely the reason that this book so deftly analyzes," Cooper writes. I immediately thought about my effort, not necessarily completely successful, of removing myself from toxic situations where, with some white women, I will also be that second-class woman, let alone, second-class human being.
Of my two white friends, both are readers. They read black writers. One, in particular, was a former student turned friend and holds a doctorate herself and, just like The Trouble with White Women's author, has long embraced and "engaged the work of black, indigenous, and trans women". In fact, this friend suggested this book when I emailed about what happened with my attempt to work with a local community organization to address the matter of an anti-black atmosphere in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
My cancer, in remission, at least "stable", I thought I would see if I could do something to abolish this anti-black atmosphere in this town. This is the town where members of the women studies collective supported the racist patriarchal order by never inviting me to a meeting, even though I taught a women of color course and at least one African American women's course. And, 23 years later, this town still has no viable black organization dedicated to social justice, race and equity. Nonetheless, I thought I would check out the Race and Equity Commission meetings held downtown this summer. I really had no expectations. So I wasn't disappointed or shocked when, after three meetings, I heard a representative on the commission deny the existence of racism in Kenosha. When the only black woman on the commission attempted to rebuke this claim, she was told that she was "out of order". Seated next to me at this third meeting was a representative from Congregations United to Serve Humanity (CUSH). In fact, a member of its staff. I nudged her and said, "that's it for me".
When it comes to black people in town, white residents equated with the "riots" of 2020 when black people attempted to destroy Kenosha's downtown. Period. On the other hand, I have yet to hear a white resident make a negative statement about Kyle Rittenhouse or say anything that would identify with the humanity of Jacob Blake, a victim of a police shooting in 2020.
The representative and I exchanged email addresses and agreed to come together over the remaining summer months to discuss some course of action to confront anti-black in Kenosha. By late summer, we agreed to hold book and film sessions to be presented to the librarians. The books would include, The Flag and the Cross : White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted A Faith and Fractured A Nation (both titles are recommendations of the representative, by the way), White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, and the James Baldwin documentary, I'm Not Your Negro.
The CUSH staffer would work on informing the organization's board of directors and the key administration personnel at the Kenosha Public Library (KPL) while I worked on preparing notes for each text, along with questions, and a curriculum.
The meetings with the representative had ceased almost a month before this meeting with church leaders. Whenever I contacted her for an update, she indicated that she was waiting on her end for a meeting or waiting for members to come together. After all, it's the summer. I was concerned about the reception for a project that focused on anti-black rather than "diversity." Was the subject of white supremacy in Kenosha too much for Kenosha? Too much for CUSH? Too much for the KPL? I said as much in an email. I also indicated that I could write a piece that reflected the trouble with calling for an anti-black, CUSH task force in Kenosha.
And there was another matter. The collective of women from 23 years ago, at the university, who refused to meet with me. Some of those mainly white women would still be around. Particularly, one who did little to encourage the women of this collective to be inclusive, fair, at least, if not intent on abolishing white supremacy.
This woman, I found out, was now a key member of CUSH's staff! But then I finally received an email. There will be a meeting, at a church. The audience: pastors and rabbis!
And where is the Kenosha Public Library in all of this?
Cordial and respectful, the pastors and rabbis were, nonetheless, baffled. As was I! Was this the CUSH leadership? I had received an email from the pastor and member of CUSH asking how long would I need to resent my presentation. I responded that I would only need 10 minutes, although I had done enough work to present for 30 minutes.
On that day, I gave my 10-minute presentation, interrupted once by the organization's staffer herself. The meeting started at least 20 minutes late, as the pastors and rabbis had expected more church leaders in attendance. But since the attack by Hamas in Israel, both rabbis, pastors, and Imans had priorities elsewhere.
But now, I was to hurry along!
After a few minutes, one of the pastors asked how could they, a coalition of church leaders, help? Were these sessions intended for them?
The CUSH staffer looked past the pastor to me! She wasn't sure! I felt as if I somehow forced a meeting with these people, taking up their time with a subject that they had no intentions of tackling in isolation. In other words, white nationalism is okay, as long as we don't discuss the anti-black racism at its core. And white nationalism was on the agenda. A pastor of color spoke of attending an event on white nationalism and feeling out of place since she was neither black nor white. What about these discussions of white nationalism that seem to focus only on the relations between black and white Americans?
I stated that the staff member and I had been discussing these book and film sessions to be offered to librarians. It was difficult to talk about the lived experiences of black people in Kenosha among people who were living, for the most part, a more comfortable, middle-class lifestyle.
In the end, to the credit of the church leaders, they agreed to consider my proposal, and even suggested working on how the church leaders could participate in this project. When I looked around at the end of the meeting, I noticed that the staff had left, but before I left the church, she texted me. How about a meeting on November 1st ? Have a curriculum prepared!
Did this CUSH staffer see me? No, not really. When she referred to her middle-class status early on, she put up a wall between us. She was the privileged one!
Perhaps I should have suggested a discussion on another form of violence: white feminism. White feminism is akin to white supremacy.
As professor of women's, gender, and sexuality studies Kyla Schuller explains in The Trouble with White Women, centering "middle-class, white, cis women", white feminism excludes everyone else, and is, she adds, "likely to be motivated by racial self-interest". White feminism is not only capable of suppressing women of color, but it does also suppress the interests of women of color. The failure to see women of color is in white feminism's DNA.
Advancing the agenda of white supremacy, white feminism actively engages the violence of suppression. Schuller. quoting scholar Ruby Hamad, warns about that "proverbial bus" black women will find themselves underneath when push comes to shove! Having benefited from women's suffrage and civil rights, white feminism looks to conquer the world, and it does so, writes scholar Ruby Hamad, by "maintaining white power structures".
As "an active form of harm", white feminism serves to advance individual women "up the corporate ladder". On the other hand, given that white feminism is birthed during the women's suffrage movement when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony both argued against extending rights to "black rapists" and "outside barbarians," its call for the incarceration of people of color is logical.
In short, Schuller writes, "white feminist objectives work to liberate privileged women while keeping other structures intact." Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, the first black feminist, realized that black and white women didn't share "the same concerns and priorities". White women, she argued, could be allies, but they also could be trouble.
Reform, therefore, writes Schuller, isn't a solution. If white feminism received a dose of "awareness, diversity, equity, and inclusion", it would no longer be considered white feminism. "Expanding white feminism's tent will not transform the materials of which it is made."
An alternative to white feminism, Schuller writes, is intersectionality. This form of feminism "pushes back against white feminism and advances new horizons of justice". As a theory and a movement, it emphasizes that "the fight for gender justice must be approached in tandem with the fights for racial, economic, sexual, and disability justice, and ought to be led by those most affected by these systems of exploitation working in coalition with everyone else".
More on intersectionality feminism in a follow-up article, but for now the "long-standing cozy relationship with the racist status quo", as Schuller writes, is problematic in a society aiming to fully embrace democracy. One out of two white women, most considering themselves feminist, "supported the most misogynist, white supremacist US president in a century".
