^smce offender in tde (BCoc^ Camfrus Community
‘By
CErica % Smi'fey
"What’s up with all the black men? I’m
looking for a husband!” proclaimed one first year
woman at a recent forum hosted by Delta Sigma
Theta and Alpha Kappa Alpha sororities
Incorporated. I thought to myself, “What an inter
sting concept? Come to college not to get an
education in order to achieve equality and a bet
ter way of life, but to please a man.” I have to
admit, I have never looked at it this way before
for a variety of—let’s just call them different—
reasons I suppose. But it was somewhat intrigu
ing to hear it admitted openly and publicly. In
fact, it was so intriguing that I lost a bit of sleep
trying to understand why young black women
are still thinking this way. Wasn’t there a feminist
movement or something? Oh, I forgot that was
just a white girl thing from the 70s.
Another question came up. “What if I get
pregnant? Will I have to drop out of school?”
That’s a legitamate question. Panelists? “You
can raise your child in family housing at Odum
Village. We have wonderful doctors in Student
Health that will help you during each stage of
your pregnancy.”
Though answers to this question were
adequate, they were only half-adequate. All of
the possible choices were not given. Only after a
little prodding did even the medical representa
tive remind the young women that, “you don’t
have to stay pregnant.” Roe v. Wade was decid
ed back in 1973; yet the idea of having an abor
tion is still a new concept - or maybe it’s just one
of those hush-hush subjects. You know the
ones. Everybody’s doing it, but nobody’s talking
about it, kind of like sex. Regardless of the
excuse, it seems as if the entire American
Women’s Rights Movement effectively passed
through one ear of the black community and
out the other.
We see ourselves as black before we
identify with being a woman. Obviously stated, it
seems the only possible excuse for why we still
see ourseves as inferior to men. Why else would
we come to such a prestigious university in
search of a man to make us whole? When one
says black, one thinks of a race of men. When
one says woman, one thinks of white women. In
fact, black women really don’t have a place in
society, except maybe behind a black man.
What an atrocity!
We should appeal to the U.S. Supreme
Court. But wait, the Constitution wasn’t written
for us. Even still, as a few black men groucious-
ly mentioned when I ran in last year’s campus
election, “who would take you seriously?”
Louis Farrakhan definitely aren’t helping.
He is one of the most influential figures among
black men in our generation. This is somewhat
scary considering the patriarchal themes of his
Million Man March. Men were told to go out, be
good providers and to take care of their women
and children. I didn’t realize women were poses-
sions to be claimed, did you?
It seems that some of this would have
made black women angry by now. But what is it
about the Feminist Movement that we didn’t
like? I suppose when Betty Friedan wrote the
Feminist Mystique calling for women to get out
of the kitchen, black women missed it because
they were at work. The Feminist Movement was
for white women. That is evident. But what
about the Black Radical Feminist Movement?
Why have black women been so quick to criti
cize and turn away from Black Feminism? To
answer this, let us review some myths about
feminism and black women outlined by the
Thistle newspaper of MIT.
17
Black Ink