In Shirley Chisholm’s “I’d Rather Be Black Than Female,” she presents an examination of race and gender in politics. Chisholm was a black woman involved in politics, which led her to the conclusion that being black is preferable to being a woman. To substantiate the conclusion, Chisholm provides examples of racism and sexism from personal and observed experience. The primary purpose of “I’d Rather Be Black Than Female” is expressive. The first sentence of the essay, “the first black woman elected to Congress” (409), provides an historical context for the reader and a self-definition of Chisholm. Later the in essay, Chisholm adds more detail about her political career by writing “I have been active in politics for more than twenty years” (409). By self-definition, Chisholm is introduced as a seasoned politicians, who has struggled against patriarchal expectations of female behavior. In terms of expressing her values, Chisholm is dedicated to civil rights and feminism. Chisholm writes about whites indifference towards racial prejudice until “blacks finally started to ‘mention’ it, with sit-ins, boycotts, and freedom rides” (409). Another topic, related to feminism, …show more content…
The characteristic of a thesis statement is present and there is comprehensive evidence. The thesis statement is “Of the two handicaps, being black is much less of a drawback than being female” (409). Chisholm proceeds to explain the thesis statement by providing evidence, including “When I tried to break out of that role [in low-level politics, such as “district or county vice-chairman”] in 1963 and run for the New York State Assembly seat from Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant, the resistance was bitter. From the start of that campaign, I face undistinguishable hostility because of my sex” (410). That quotation provides evidence supporting the idea in the thesis statement that women are considered more subordinate than black
Which was written to demand equal education for women and to emphasize the sexualizing race. The central theme of this book was that women were a crucial element to uplift the black community. I strongly agree with this theme because women make the black community. Women have the power to create a new generation, and with a new generation comes new change. Thus, with an equal education, women can pass on their knowledge to their children which can influence a positive effect on the black community. Cooper also acknowledges how black women are inferior victims to racism and sexism. She argues that black women are unacknowledged by other races, including blacks. In addition, she argues that black women are the one’s that have a true perspective on what oppression really is. As a Latina minority, I also agree with her statement because as women we are always overlooked. Our struggles being a women are never recognized, even within our own community. The men of our community oppress us while they are being oppressed themselves. As minorities we are struggling to survive because we’re at the bottom of society’s hierarchy, but as a woman, we are even more degraded. Cooper also notes the importance of contribution that a black woman can make to correct the oppressive system. I believe in this statement because since women have the true experience of what oppression really is, they know what needs to be done in order to eliminate it. Another important central theme in this book incorporates the emphasis of respect within the contributions of each race. With this theme, I feel that respect among one another is an important factor to civilization because without it, there will always be conflict. I feel that the majority of the population should respect the hard labor that minorities face trying to survive. I believe we
Within the Black Community there are a myriad of stigmas. In Mary Mebane’s essay, “Shades of Black”, she explores her experiences with and opinions of intraracial discrimination, namely the stigmas attached to women, darker skinned women, and blacks of the working class. From her experiences Mebane asserts that the younger generation, those that flourished under and after the Civil Rights Movement, would be free from discriminating attitudes that ruled the earlier generations. Mebane’s opinion of a younger generation was based on the attitudes of many college students during the 1960’s (pars.22), a time where embracing the African culture and promoting the equality of all people were popular ideals among many young people. However, intraracial discrimination has not completely vanished. Many Blacks do not identify the subtle discriminatory undertones attached to the stigmas associated with certain types of Black people, such as poor black people, lighter/darker complexion black people, and the “stereotypical” black man/woman. For many black Americans aged eighteen to twenty-five, discrimination based on skin color, social class, and gender can be blatant.
When write an essay or make a speech, the way a writer use to deliver his message is especially important. A good writer or lecturer is fully aware whom he will be delivering his message to, and what kind of rhetorical strategies he will be using to convince his audience. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the rhetorical strategy of two articles, “Ain’t I a Woman” by Sojourner Truth and “ How it Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Hurston. Both Sojourner and Zora speaks about the inequalities that women and blacks faced at that time in America, and their goals is to make their readers--usually the vulnerable groups in society, to pursue their rights of equality and identity. However, the rhetorical strategies
In the weekly readings for week five we see two readings that talk about the connections between women’s suffrage and black women’s identities. In Rosalyn Terborg-Penn’s Discontented Black Feminists: Prelude and Postscript to the Passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, we see the ways that black women’s identities were marginalized either through their sex or by their race. These identities were oppressed through social groups, laws, and voting rights. Discontented Black Feminists talks about the journey black feminists took to combat the sexism as well as the racism such as forming independent social clubs, sororities, in addition to appealing to the government through courts and petitions. These women formed an independent branch of feminism in which began to prioritize not one identity over another, but to look at each identity as a whole. This paved the way for future feminists to introduce the concept of intersectionality.
In her book, A Voice from the South, Anna J. Cooper expressly addresses two issues: the participation of women in American society and America’s race problem. These are two issues very close to Cooper as an African American woman herself and she claims to speak for all African American women on these points. She argues that for America to be a truly democratic country that has freedoms for all people, it must have participation by women and blacks.
Beale, Frances. "Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female." An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought. New York: New, 1995. 146. Print.
“[T]he cage may or may not be specifically developed for the purpose of trapping the bird, yet it still operates (together with the other wires) to restrict its freedom” (Alexander, 184). This metaphor used by Michelle Alexander gives a good basis on the idea of intersectionality within feminist theory. What Alexander has stressed hugely in ‘The New Jim Crow’ is the idea of racial hierarchy, which bell hooks also stresses in her chapter Men: Comrades in Struggle in her book ‘Feminist Theory: from margin to center.’ She discusses the hierarchy of men and women while also discussing race. She claims that the history of the feminist movement has not wanted to “acknowledge that bourgeois white women, though often victimized by sexism, have more
Amadu, K. (2007). African Americans and U.S. Politics: The Gradual Progress of Black Women in Political Representation. New York: Prentice Hall Publishers.
During the twentieth century, people of color and women, suffered from various inequalities. W.E.B. Du Bois’ and Charlotte Perkins Gilman (formerly known as Charlotte Perkins Stetson), mention some of the concepts that illustrate the gender and racial divide during this time. In their books, The Soul of Black Folk and The Yellow Wallpaper, Du Bois’ and Gilman illustrate and explain issues of oppression, dismissal, and duality that are relevant to issues of race and gender.
"Voices of Color-Invisible Women: Sexism in the Black Panther Party | Www.socialism.com."Voices of Color-Invisible Women: Sexism in the Black Panther Party | Www.socialism.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
Sojourner Truth’s speech entitled “Ain’t I A Woman?” became popular for its honest and raw confrontation on the injustices she experienced both as a woman and an African-American. The speech was given during a women’s rights convention held in Akron, Ohio in May 1851 and addressed many women’s rights activists present (Marable and Mullings, 66). Sojourner began her speech by pointing out the irrational expectations men have of women and contrasting them to her own experiences. She exclaims that a man in the corner claims women “needs to be helped into carriages and lifted ober ditches or to hab de best place everywhar,” yet no one extends that help to her (67). This is followed by her rhetorically asking “and ain’t I a woman?” (67) Here, Sojourner is calling out the social construction of gender difference that men use in order to subordinate women.
Gloria Steinem’s “Living the Revolution” commencement speech highlights the hardships and stereotypes placed on women and men of all ethnicities in general society of the 1970’s decade, and suggests a necessary change is needed in the way we view people in general. Steinem goes on to support her ideas with numerous pieces of evidence. Foremost, she calls attention to the past and present stereotypes and prejudices and suggests that these ideas are “imbedded so deeply in our thinking” that we don’t often realize they are there (5). Secondly, she points out our society’s lack of female and African American role models and that the traditional white male leader is outdated and overdue for an upgrade (12-16). Steinem also puts for...
Deborah Gray White’s Ar’n’t I a Woman? details the grueling experiences of the African American female slaves on Southern plantations. White resented the fact that African American women were nearly invisible throughout historical text, because many historians failed to see them as important contributors to America’s social, economic, or political development (3). Despite limited historical sources, she was determined to establish the African American woman as an intricate part of American history, and thus, White first published her novel in 1985. However, the novel has since been revised to include newly revealed sources that have been worked into the novel. Ar’n’t I a Woman? presents African American females’ struggle with race and gender through the years of slavery and Reconstruction. The novel also depicts the courage behind the female slave resistance to the sexual, racial, and psychological subjugation they faced at the hands of slave masters and their wives. The study argues that “slave women were not submissive, subordinate, or prudish and that they were not expected to be (22).” Essentially, White declares the unique and complex nature of the prejudices endured by African American females, and contends that the oppression of their community were unlike those of the black male or white female communities.
Throughout history, the black woman has always had a multitude of responsibilities thrust upon her shoulders. This was never truer than for southern black women in the period between 1865 and 1885. In this span of twenty years, these women were responsible for their children, their husbands, supporting their families, their fight for freedom as black citizens and as women, their sexual freedom, and various other issues that impacted their lives. All of these aspects of the black woman’s life defined who she was. Each of her experiences and battles shaped the life that she lived, and the way she was perceived by the outside world.
On Being Young-A Woman-and Colored an essay by Marita Bonner addresses what it means to be black women in a world of white privilege. Bonner reflects about a time when she was younger, how simple her life was, but as she grows older she is forced to work hard to live a life better than those around her. Ultimately, she is a woman living with the roles that women of all colors have been constrained to. Critics, within the last 20 years, believe that Marita Bonners’ essay primarily focuses on the double consciousness ; while others believe that she is focusing on gender , class , “economic hardships, and discrimination” . I argue that Bonner is writing her essay about the historical context of oppression forcing women into intersectional oppression by explaining the naturality of racial discrimination between black and white, how time and money equate to the American Dream, and lastly how gender discrimination silences women, specifically black women.