http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/dialogues/users/Kimberly.Bonner/blog/black-activism-sexuality-studies
Feb 17, 2010
by Kimberly Bonner
I envision the idea of activism as acts necessarily encompassing many
things. Unfortunately, in the case of Black activism, race alone is
commonly centralized. It is difficult to argue against the evidence
that indicates that many injustices faced by people of African
descent in particular have much to do with how race has been
historically constituted. In particular, I am very concerned with the
ways those who are deemed as "racial others" frequently find
themselves physically sequestered in public as well as private spaces
(such as Black churches, Black neighborhoods, prisons, and
militaries). I am also deeply concerned about the ways being
sequestered into places that are commonly underfunded, helps to paint
a more clear picture of the multiple ways inequality, traveling along
the axis of race, is perpetuated in society.
Though race, race as a social construct, racial inequality, racial
injustices (social, political, medical, intellectual), racism and
racists take a great deal of energy from Black activists, other
systems of power that intersect with axis of race are commonly and
summarily denied Black activists' intellectual attention. For
example, the ways that gender, class, sexual orientation, religion,
religious oppression, and the popular cultural tendency towards a
celebratory anti-intellectualism amongst young Blacks specifically
must be considered as forming additional formidable axes between
multiple power structures which intersect with race; but, these
issues are frequently identified as secondary to the primary issue of
race. As I perceive the situation, there is an ongoing failure of
Black activists to acknowledge and/or address the constant
concomitant relationships between race, gender, class, sexual
orientation, literacy, national identity and so much more, as always
important. I believe this failure leads to a critically blind racial
politic that achieves less than possible for so many additional and
equally important issues remain under critiqued. In short, Black
activism that can not form a platform to support the "others" within
spaces and places identified as Black simply can not make a long
term, hence, meaningful difference for any members inside of or
outside of the racial group.
I understand and see these shortcomings starkly through the lens
provided me by the vantage point of my particular social standpoint
which is to say my pedagogical platform is comprised of those very
things that I find to be missing, generally speaking, in the most
popular of Black activists circles. Gender, class, sexual
orientation, religion, religious oppression, and institutional places
where Blacks are concentrated such as churches, the military, prison
system, and the very bottom of educational institutions, have all
shaped and informed my life and inevitably inform my intellectualism.
I believe Black activists must develop strategies to engage social
issues such as citizenship, disability, veterans issues, literacy,
national identity, and must also strive to develop strategies to
combat rampant anti-intellectualism amongst Black youth in
particular. This being the case, all of these issues (and so much
more) represent the ways I elect to pursue social justice on multiple
fronts as a Queer Black Feminist Activist.
Black activism, if it is to survive and be meaningful in the
generations to come, must create a politic capable of going beyond
race based issues; otherwise it will, on its own, render its already
stunted growth politic permanently politically obsolete. In short, I
will argue that given the "new racism" facing people of color, the
mere conceptualization of Black activism needs to grow up so that it
may actually provide a conceptual land map to help those
disenfranchised by "disempowering" intersecting axes of power.
With a mature Black activist platform, those most vulnerable may be
educated on the things necessary to form brave counter tactics for
enhancing not just the odds of political and social survival, but
also by creating conditions whereby those constructed as "others"
within spaces identified as Black may also thrive in territories
disguised as friendly but upon closer inspection indicate hostile
conditions – higher education for example. This is a call for Black
activist and their allies to "queer" the political paradigm of racial
politics and take seriously the compassion necessary to cohesively
merge the personal with the political thereby increasing the strength
and agility of all types of activism. All difference matter and
regardless of how personal any of these things are, it's all political.
[For more on the "new racism" see Patricia Hill Collins' Black Sexual
Politics (2004) and From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism, Nationalism,
and Feminism (2006).]
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