Now That's a Bad Bitch!: The State of Women in Hip Hop

By Asha Layne

The state of rap music has changed since its creation in the 1970s. Starting in Bronx, New York rap was always seen as an underground subculture that deviated from the social norms and patterns of the dominant culture. It was here that the expressions of young Black and Hispanic men were freely expressed and not criticized. Rap music is a cultural art form that consists of four elements: deejaying, break dancing, rapping, and graffiti. Having its historical roots in ancient African culture traditions, rap music can also be traced to countries that were part of the African diaspora. For example, Lliane Loots indicated that two elements of hip-hop culture have their roots in Brazil and Jamaica (2003, p.67). The art of rhyming culturally stems from West African tradition of the griots or story tellers that were part of the oral tradition of African culture. The Jamaican influence on hip-hop can be located in deejaying practices referred to as dub-mixing, utilized first by Jamaican immigrant Deejay Kool Herc.

Since its inception, rap music has evolved from an underground subcultural movement to a mainstream subcultural expression that profits from the ideology of dominant culture and vice versa. Rap music during the 1970s remained national commodity until the 1980s. During this time participants in this subculture were involved directly in one of the four elements (Hunter, 2011, p.16) in which young men and women of color were rapping at parties, tagging or creating graffiti on subway cars, or breaking (Nelson, 1998). The 1980s ushered in the idea that rap music could not only be popular in the United States but also in other countries. The market for rap music increased as capitalism expanded along with the industry. With the increased popularity of the genre, media sources became the main locus for rap music to not only become more mainstream, but to also increase their purchasing power under capitalism. In order to examine the purchasing power of rap music under capitalism it is important to talk briefly of the underpinnings of capitalism.

Rap and Capitalism

Capitalism can be defined as an economic system based on private ownership with the goal of making capital or profit for the owner. Under capitalism there exists a divergent economic relation between the laboring class (proletariat) and the ruling class (capitalist). Unlike the capitalist, the laborer becomes a commodity as their labor is sold to the purchaser. According to Rousseau, the relationship between the owners of production and the workers is inherently oppressive, as the goal of the capitalist to accrue wealth from the laboring working class (2009, p.20). As the laboring class becomes increasingly objectified in the market, the state represents the instrument of class rule. The state can be seen as an instrument of power because of its production of ideological hegemony of the ruling class, which not only legitimizes exploitation but maintains the ruling class ideals as described by Antonio Gramsci. The state produces ideas that control our behavior through various forms (i.e. the media).

Manning Marable argues that the logic of the ideological apparatuses of the racist/capitalist state leads inextricably to Black accommodation and accommodation into the status quo, a process of cultural genocide which assists the function of ever-expanding capital accumulation (1983, p.9). As capitalism moved from the industrial sector to financial, and from financial/corporate to global, capitalists are continuously seeking cheap labor power and methods of exploitation; and the rap industry is not immune. This buttresses Antonio Gramsci's argument that the capitalists can assert their power and control through the subordination of the working class by means of ideological hegemony. The ideological hegemony of the ruling class, therefore, prolongs the subordination of the working class and also legitimizes the power and control of the capitalist or owner.

As hip hop grew in popularity, capitalists found new ways to assert their control and power over the industry, which became more lucrative with neoliberal policies. According to Derek Ide, rap was born from the ashes of a community devastated by a capitalistic economic system and racist government officials (2013). Ide continues to express that it was not long before corporate capitalism impinged upon the culture's sovereignty and began the historically familiar process of exploitation (2013). As hip-hop transitioned from its unadulterated underground image to mainstream adulteration, the industry began to support the capitalist ideologies which spread rapidly as profits increased with the deregulation of the market.

As the rap industry expanded, many have argued that the image and state of rap worsened as rap became a keen marketing tool for corporations. Corporate giant, Viacom, which owns Black Entertainment Television (BET), VH1, and Music Television (MTV), has been influential in disseminating controversial messages and images to its audience and critics. Felicia Lee asserts that "protestors want media companies like Viacom to develop 'universal creative standards' for video and music including prohibitions on some language and images" (2007). Achieving this level of prohibition has not happened in recent years as images of scantily clad female rappers, misogynistic lyrics, and the negative portrayals of African culture continue to be exploited. The relationship between rap artists and corporations can be paralleled to that of slavery.

Solomon Comissong explained that the 1990s saw a corporate takeover and commodification of rap, which has made the music less diversified in various media forms (2009). This change has led to changes in lyrical content, style, and fashion as artists display themselves in the best way to expand their marketing power, which is directly influenced by capitalism. The hegemonic ideologies of the ruling class have been transferred into the beats, rhymes and imagery in the rap industry as artists continue to exploit themselves and culture for economic gain.

In 2007, Forbes magazine released its first annual "Hip Hop's Wealthiest Artists" list which measured the annual earnings of rappers. As stated by Greenburg, unlike traditional music genres like pop, rock, and country, whose artists generally make their money through touring and album sales, rappers like Jay Z, 50 Cent, Kanye West, and Sean "Diddy" Combs have become entrepreneurs who have parlayed their fame into lucrative entertainment empires (Goldman and Pain, 2007). More recently, Nicki Minaj became the first documented female rapper on Forbes "Hip-Hop's Cash Kings" list since its creation in 2007. Earning an estimated $29 million in 2012, Minaj has successfully beaten many boys at their own game. But at what cost?

This paper explores how the commodification and consumption of the black female body has given rise to the "bad bitch" phenomenon in rap culture. It is argued that the effects of being a bad bitch not only changes the state of rap but also the attitudes and behaviors of young black girls, and their interactions with the opposite sex. Also, the topic of whether or not the bad bitch phenomenon is a form of deviant behavior within African-American culture will be addressed.

Bad Bitch

The word "bitch" has morphed from a term of disrespect to a term of endearment that often takes on the meaning of empowerment. Once viewed as debilitating, the term has appropriated a new perspective within a subcultural context that is perceived as a term of empowerment. In examining this change, Aoron Celious explains that the term "is located in a society where sex and power are interrelated - men afford status and privilege over women because they are men, and women are relegated to a diminished status and restricted access to resources because they are women" (2002, p.91). The change in the meaning of the word thus subverts the tools of oppression used to dominate women to now empower them. This has been seen in the frequent usage of the word by many female rappers as rap music became commercially lucrative.

Although the word historically has been a long-noted negative stereotype against women, it has only added to many stereotypical orientations for women of color. Misogynistic orientations of Black women were not separate from the historical changes in the United States - "the imagery projected in rap has its roots in the development of the capitalistic patriarchal system based on the principles of White supremacy, elitism, racism, and sexism" (Adams and Fuller, 2006, p.942). During slavery - a form of capitalism - Black women were not only exploited for their labor power but also their reproductive power. The location of Black women under capitalism therefore is dually exploitative and profitable. The patriarchal attitudes seen against Black women today can be traced back to oppressive and exploitative control methods of the state and the economy.

The images of Black women historically have served the interests of the ruling class. Adams and Fuller further assert that the images of the "Saphire" are analogous to the "Mammy" image in that they both serve the entertainment needs of Whites (2006, p.944). In rap music, the word "bitch" can be linked to the stereotypical image of the Saphire, as a woman who de-emasculates her man by running the household and being financially independent, or as a woman who simply does not know her place. This sentiment has been shared by radical feminist Jo Freeman. In Freeman's The Bitch Manifesto, the word is used to describe a woman who "rudely violates conceptions of proper sex role behavior" (Buchanan, p.12). Among Generation Y, this word has been enhanced to compliment women who are sexy, smart and independent, thus justifying and perpetuating the commodification of the Black female body.

According to Stephane Dunn, in "Baad Bitches" and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films," the term "Baad Bitches" began with the sexploitation of Black female actors in the 1970s, as well as being products of contemporary dominant culture (2008). Scallen highlights Dunn's (2010) work by referencing the following:

The "Bad Bitch" suggests a black woman from working-class roots who goes beyond the boundaries of gender in a patriarchal domain and plays the game successfully as the boys by being in charge of her own sexual representation and manipulating it for celebrity and material gain" (2010, p. 27).

The role of black women in film is strikingly similar to the rap industry in that they both lucratively exploit black sexuality in different media outlets. The image of Foxy Brown, Coffy, and Cleopatra Jones by Pam Grier embodies her super-womanhood and sexuality. Gwendolyn Pough (2004) states:

By exploiting Black women's bodies, the blaxploitation movies fall short of offering fulfilling and complete images of empowerment for Black women. However, the films do offer some interesting subversions and complications. If we really begin to critique and explore the genre, we can see the ways Black women such as Pam Grier have participated in the cultural processes of gender construction for Black women and turned some of those processes completely around. We will also be able to explore and critique contemporary reclamation of Grier's characters such as the ones offered by Foxy Brown and Lil Kim. They are bringing the big bad Black supermamas into the new millennium and using them to construct contemporary Black women's gender and sexuality (p. 67-68).

The portrayals of Black women in film, along with the music industry, have either classified Black women as Saphires, Mammys or Jezebels, also known as "hos". These various forms of imagery have continuously been accepted by White America and thus perpetuated into the social interactions and perceptions of Black women and men in the Black community. The depictions mentioned here are increasingly common as more and more consumers are not only buying, but are also emulating these negative stereotyped roles.

Black Feminist Thought

The inclusion of black feminist theory is essential in examining the exploitation of the Black female body in rap. Collins' Black Feminist Thought explains that race, gender, and class are oppressive factors that are bound together. In investigating the placement of the commodified Black female rappers in the industry, the role and location of Black women in the United States has to be examined. Since, central to this analysis, one may ask: Is the emergence of the bad bitch phenomenon foreign to the lives of Black women in this country? Collins highlights how the role of Black women always contradicted the traditional role of women in mainstream society. Collins poses the question, "if women are allegedly passive and fragile, then why are Black women treated as 'mules' and assigned heavy cleaning chores" (2000, p.11)? The placement of Black women as 'objects' and 'tools' for production has been and will always be embedded into American culture.

Black feminist thought places the standpoint of Black women at the forefront, which deviates from the general practices used under conventional feminist theories. According to Collins (2000), Black women in the United States can stimulate a distinctive consciousness concerning our own experiences and society overall (p.23-24). Collins understands this knowledge can be thoroughly attained from both women in academia and outside academia. The lyrics of some female rappers have taken a vocal stance displaying the issues and struggles faced particularly by Black women. These rappers have voiced their opinions on women's oppression in the industry as well as within their communities from the hypermasculinity of their male counterparts. For example, in Queen Latifah's U.N.I.T.Y., she writes:

But I don't want to see my kids getting beat down
By daddy smacking mommy all around
You say I'm nothing without ya, but I'm nothing with ya
This is my notice to the door, I'm not taking it no more
I'm not your personal whore, that's not what I'm here for
And nothing good gonna come to ya til you do right by me
Brother you wait and see, who you calling a bitch (1994)!!

Rap music has been used as a stage for both men and women from disadvantaged neighborhoods to express their experiences with oppression and also serve as a means for coping with that oppression. One main characteristic of oppression is the repressive nature it places on the individual that results in objectification of material wealth. Historically, the Black body has taken the form of material wealth in that it was aggressively commodified during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, especially for women. The commodification of the Black female body has changed to meet the needs of the political economy in a particular society. The "bitch phenomenon" in rap culture is no different because it has been integrated into forms of the dominant culture to serve the needs of the dominant and ruling class.

Collins argues that the domination always attempts to objectify the subordinate group in which the ideas and one's own reality is not defined by members of the subordinate group (2000, p.71). This was clearly visible in the distinction between the figures of the "Mammy" and the matriarch. The Mammy symbolized something good by the dominant group whereas the matriarchal figure was deemed bad according to the same "standards". Collins references the Patrick Moynihan's report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, in locating the thesis for Black matriarchy. She writes:

…the Black matriarchy thesis argued that African-American women failed to fulfill their traditional "womanly" duties at home contributed to the social problems in Black civil society (Moynihan 1965). Spending too much time away from home, these working mothers ostensibly could not properly supervise their children failure at school. As overly aggressive, unfeminine women, Black matriarchs allegedly emasculated their lovers and husbands (2000, p.75).

Black feminist theory reminds us to never forget how race, class, and gender are central in understanding the development of the Mammy, matriarch, and the vast appearance of the "bad bitch" phenomenon.

Data and Methods

The "bad bitch" and Black feminist thought theses could be utilized to explain the manifestation of the "bad bitch" phenomenon. The bad bitch thesis explained by Dunn and Pough is a black woman who can be successful under a patriarchal system of control by defining success for herself and how she will go about achieving it. The limitations of the bad bitch thesis are considered by Collins through the use of Black feminist theory. This expansive theory examines how the intersection of race, class, and gender serves as a form of oppression for Black women under a patriarchal system.

To answer the question of how the bad bitch phenomenon continues to increase the commodification and consumption of the black female body, a content analysis of Nicki Minaj's songs will be reviewed. Nicki Minaj's work was selected because of her being the first female rap artist to make the Forbes list since its creation in 2007. It is argued that the effect of being a "bad bitch" not only affects the state of rap but also the attitudes and behaviors of Blacks. Also, it will be important to examine whether or not the bad bitch phenomenon is a form of deviant behavior within African American culture.

Pink Friday

The mentioning of women in rap music by men has been a largely demoralizing phenomenon, at which women are referred to as "gold-diggers," trifling, bitches, and hos. While it is easy to criticize male rap artists for demoralizing Black women, female rappers have not only participated in the gender politics but have also capitalized from these stereotypes in the rap industry. Born Onika Maraj, Minaj's popularity skyrocketed in 2010, with the releases of several mixtapes: Playtime is Over, Sucka Free, and Beam Me up Scotty, before her first major album Pink Friday in 2010. According to Caulfield, Minaj scored her second number one album on the Billboard 200 Chart in 2012 following the release of Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded with the hit single "Starships" (2012). Upon her growing album sales, Minaj's popularity further increased with various collaborations that widened her notoriety to other areas of music, beyond rap. In analyzing the content of Nicki Minaj's songs, the following themes appeared: reclamation of the words "bitch" and "ho"; female independence; and female masculinity.

Reclamation of the Words Bitch and Ho

One significant difference seen between male and female rappers is the usage of the words "bitch" and "ho". Despite the negative, literal meaning of the words, Minaj has used them to demand attention from her competitors. In her controversial song Stupid Ho, Minaj allegedly addresses fellow female rappers in the same misogynistic form of disrespect typically reserved for male rappers. In the song, she writes:

Bitch talking she the queen, when she looking like a lab rat
I'm Angelina, you Jennifer
Come on bitch, you see where Brad at
Ice my wrists and I piss on bitches
You can suck my diznik if you take this jizzes
You don't like them disses, give my ass some kisses
Yeah they know what this is, giving this the business
Cause I pull up and I'm stuntin' but I ain't a stuntman
Yes I'm rockin' Jordans but I ain't a jumpman
Bitches play the back cause they know I'm the front man
Put me on the dollar cause I'm who they trust in
Ayo SB, what's the fucks good?
We ship platinum, them bitches are shipping wood
Them nappy headed hoes but my kitchen good
I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish
A bitch would (2012).

In this example, the word "bitch" is used as: a form of address, form of disrespect; and distinction. Above, the word "bitch" is metaphorically used to address her competitors in a disrespectful manner traditionally used by male rappers to address women. It becomes self-evident that she is not on the same level as her competitors and refers to them in an unattractive manner as, "nappy headed hoes." The labeling of her female competitors as "nappy headed hoes" is even more destructive than the words bitch and ho, in that it brings about a new area of concern, which is beauty.

Female Independence

The establishment of female independence in rap has taken many forms. Black female identity by male rap artists has helped generate negative stereotypes of the Black female body or a male objectifying the female body. Female independence could also be seen as a woman objectifying her own body and image to gain financial independence. In her song Blow Ya Mind, Minaj writes:

She said her name is Nicki
She came to play and her body was sicken
She gets what she wants, so sexy when she talks
Oh, you know she gon' blow your mind
Okay, Nicki
Did these bitches fall and bump their little heads
I got 'em like, oh, which one of them I'ma dead
'Cause when they get sick, they start to cough bread
Body looks right, plus we crop heads
The Rolls Royce Phantom, yeah, the drop head
And that just goes to show I'm that bitch
I 26'inched the rims with black lips
Now this is the anthem, this is the anthem (x2)
In-ear, in-ear, all in your in-ear
Boy, I put this pussy on your chinny, chin, chin hair (2011).

In the above lyrics, Minaj demonstrates that her body allows her to get what she wants, which (according to her) makes her unique. Self-sexual exploitation can be seen here as a method in gaining financial freedom from the traditional methods.

Female Masculinity

The use of masculine rhetoric has been used by rap artists since the days of "battling", or battle rap, to gain popularity and to command respect from their fellow artists. The machismo attitude in rap music has been denoted by images of male rappers "acting hard", and having multiple women and material possessions, which have been expressed through misogynistic imagery and lyrics. However, female rappers have utilized this macho image as a tool of female empowerment despite its negative imagery. Nicki Minaj has continuously utilized masculine rhetoric in her lyrics as an act of empowerment which implies that, just like men, women could also be violent-so don't mess with me or else. In the song, I am your Leader Minaj writes:

Look sucker, this my gun butter
Street fighter bitches, this Is the up cutter
Nunchucka,' no time to ducka'
Sign of the cross, cause this is her last suppa'
Play with me, check who came with me
I brought a couple 9's, plus the k's with me
I breeze through Queens to check some bad bitches
I stunt so hard, assess the damage
Cause this that aw, this is that aw
And yes I body bitches go get the bandages
I hate a phony bitch that front that chunk chummy
I'm the top shotta' drop the top toppa
Big fat pussy with a icy watch (2012).

The aforementioned lyrics demonstrate how female rappers have perpetuated the repressive and oppressive nature of women in hip hop. It is important to note that the usage of negatively degrading words against women by women carries more weight and meaning. Within the subcultural context of rap, women disrespecting other women in the same manner as men solidify their "street" credibility therefore perpetuating the cultural acceptance of misogynistic lyrics, regardless of the gender of the artist.

Justifying the Commodification of a Bad Bitch

The role of female rappers in the rap industry has been manipulated to justify ongoing exploitation and repression of Black women. Examining the lyrical content alone does not clearly illustrate the role the media plays in justifying the commodification of a "bad bitch". Following the lyrical trend and imagery of female rappers in the industry, it is strikingly evident that the sexploitation of women has become more lucrative, thus legitimizing the bad bitch phenomenon. In making this connection, it is imperative to recognize how forms of media serve as tools of oppression by reproducing ideological hegemony. Gramsci saw that the ruling class maintained their power not by coercive actions, but through hegemony at which the ruled would accept the norms, belief systems, and culture of the ruling class without challenge.

The media, like the family, serve as an agent of socialization. Mass media is seen as a powerful agent of socialization in that it has been, and continues to be, used to manipulate the consciousness of others. For example, consumer research has shown that there is a correlation between mass media and the attitudes of consumers. In terms of music, Viacom Inc. owns the controlling interests of MTV, VH1, and BET. As a result, the interests of Viacom are not reflective of the 'ruled' class, but instead of the ruling class; which uses its platform to maintain its hegemonic control. The raunchy lyrics and depiction of female rapper Nick Minaj is largely supported by these capital investors who are benefiting off of an alternate form of labor: self-sexploitation.

The media is a tool of oppression that justifies and perpetuates the negative stereotypes of Black women. Therefore, support and acceptance of these negative stereotypes is measured lucratively by media giants. The three factors discussed: reclamation of the words "bitch" and "ho"; female independence; and female masculinity have been repackaged and sold to consumers in today's market. The popularity of mainstream rapper Nicki Minaj not only demonstrates cultural acceptance of the thesis of a bad bitch but approves of the notion that self exploitation and objectification is justified because women are defining it for themselves within a male-dominated framework.

Conclusion

The placement of Black women in the history of the United States has always deviated from the norms and standards of dominant culture. Black women's bodies have been both criticized and exploited by Whites for economic gains. These stereotypes have created images of Saphires, Jezebels, and the Mammy, which further pushed Black women's intelligence onto the periphery while mass media has largely capitalized on body and cultural images. The mainstream representation of these stereotypes, especially the Saphire or bad bitch, revisits how Black women have always been exploited and oppressed.

Attributes of the bad bitch phenomenon are not exclusive to Generation Y but can be traced back to sassy images and roles Black women coveted. The rap industry has served as a new locus for this type of Black female to dominate in. Adopting the bad bitch persona not only gives Black women the opportunity to survive economically and socially in a Eurocentric male-dominated society, but also provides them the freedom to assert their power under their own rules without apology. This essay indicates that the adoption and commercialization of the bad bitch phenomenon are not foreign to the history of the Black female body. One important difference is the rise in self-exploitation by Black women in the industry to attain money, power, and respect that is indicative of the transferring of a Eurocentric-based ideological hegemony onto an oppressed subcultural group.

References

Buchanan, P. (2011). Radical Feminists: A Guide to an American Subculture. ABC-CLIO. Santa Barbara, California.

Celious, A. (2002). How "bitch" became a good thing-or, at least not that bad." Perspectives. Retrieved November 25, 2013 from http://www.rcgd.isr.umich.edu.

Collins, P. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Second edition. Routeledge. New York, New York.

Comissiong, S. (2009, September). Corporate hip hop, white supremacy and capitalism. Black Agenda Report. Retrieved November 25, 2013 from http://www.blackagendareport.com.

Dunn, S. (2008). Baad bitches and sassy supermamas: Black power action films. Urbana. University of Illinois Press.

Fuller, Adams and Fuller, Douglas. (2006). The words have changed but the ideology remains the same: Misogynistic lyrics in rap music. Journal of Black Studies, 36,(6), 938-957.

Goldman, L. and Paine, J. (2007, August). Hip-Hop cash kings. Forbes. Retrieved November 24, 2013 from http://www.forbes.com.

Ide, D. (2013, June). How capitalism underdeveloped hip hop: A people's history of political rap (part 1 of 2). Social Movement Studies Analysis. Retrieved November 24, 2013 from http://www.hamptoninstitution.com.

Lee, Felicia R. (2007, November). Protesting demeaning images in media. New York Times. Retrieved November 24, 2013 from http://www.newyorktimes.com.

Marable, M. (1983). How capitalism underdeveloped black America: Problems in race, political economy, and society. Boston, MA: South End Pres.

Moynihan, P. (1965). The negro family: A case for national action. Office of Policy Planning and Research. United States Department of Labor. Retrieved on November 24, 2013 from http://www.blackpast.com.

Nicki Minaj (2011). Blow ya mind on All Pink Everything [CD]. MTC Records.

Nicki Minaj (2012). Stupid Ho on Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded [CD]. Cash Money, Young Money, and Universal Motown.

Nicki Minaj (2012). I am your leader on Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded [CD]. Cash Money, Young Money, and Universal Motown.

Pough, G. (2004). Check it while I wreck it: Black womanhood, hip-hop culture and the public sphere. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.

Queen Latifah (1994). U.N.I.T.Y. on Black Reign [CD]. Motown Records.

Scallen (2010). Bitch thesis. Department of American Studies. Retrieved from http://www.americanstudies.nd.edu.com on November 24, 2013.

http://www.billboard.com . Retrieved on November 25, 2013.

Herstory: The Origins and Continued Relevancy of Black Feminist Thought in the United States

By Cherise Charleswell

Academics, second-wave, and third-wave feminists would likely agree that the Black Feminist movement grew out of, and more importantly, in response to, the Black Liberation Movement (itself an out-growth of the Civil Rights Movement), and the Women's Movement taking place in the United States and the West. The title of the groundbreaking anthology, All the Women are White, All the Blacks are Men, But some of us are Brave , published in 1982, and edited by Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith, perfectly illustrates the sentiments behind the need for the development of the Black Feminist Movement. In short, Black women were being marginalized and openly discriminated against in both movements, and they were finding it difficult or impossible to build solidarity with those who were also acting as their oppressors. All too often, "black" was equated with black men and "woman" was equated with white women; and the end result of this was that black women were an invisible group whose existence and needs were (and many would rightfully argue continues) to be ignored. Frustrations over this led to the formation of the National Black Feminist Organization in New York in 1973. Thus, Black Feminism is merely an effort, coping mechanism, and tool to be utilized by Black women who are racially oppressed within the Women's Movement, and sexually oppressed within the Black Liberation Movement, as well as within the patriarchal system of the Black community, which simply mimics the sexist ideas of the larger society.

Documentary filmmaker Nevline Nnaji's film, Reflections Unheard: Black Women in Civil Rights, released in 2013 along with the Association of Black Women's Historians text, The True worth of a Race: African American Women and the Struggle for Freedom, which was released to commemorate the 150 th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington, both carry out the wonderful mission of giving a voice to the Black women involved in the Civil Rights Movement, Black Liberation Movement, and other liberation struggles. These women include the likes of Mary Church Terrell, Fannie Lou Baker, Ida B. Wells, bell hooks, Audre Loure, Barbara Christian, Angela Davis, and the many other women who have gone on nameless and forgotten by history. These are the women who were told to stand in the back as Black people were collectively fighting to sit at the front of the bus and at the lunch counter. These are the women who were fighting to end racial inequality, while dealing with gender inequality and sexism. These were the women who were expected to just keep on marching, singing, sexing, and birthing "babies for the revolution." This revolution did not include their liberation and was subsequently nothing more than a fallacy. As explained by Michele Wallace in her book, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman, "There is no revolution if, at the end of it, you ask any group of people to continue their subjugation."[1] Therefore, these women declared the following manifesto:

Black Woman's Manifesto

Racism and capitalism have trampled the potential of black people in this country and thwarted their self-determination. Initially, the physical characteristics of those of African descent were used to fit blacks into the lowest niche in the capitalist hierarchy - that of maintenance. Therefore, black women and men of today do not encourage division by extending physical characteristics to serve as a criterion for a social hierarchy. If the potential of the black woman is seen mainly as a supportive role for the black man, then the black woman becomes an object to be utilized by another human being. Her potential stagnates and she cannot begin to think in terms of self-determination for herself and all black people. It is not right that her existence should be validated only by the existence of the black man.

The black woman is demanding a new set of female definitions and recognition of herself of a citizen, companion and confidant, not a matriarchal villain or a step stool baby-maker. Role integration advocates the complementary recognition of man and woman, not the competitive recognition of same. [2]

Daring to become an activist and join the various Black Liberation struggles meant that a Black woman would have to face constant sexism. Viewing Black women as merely objects to be controlled meant that even their bodies and sexuality would be controlled. The following comment by feminist, author, popular speaker, and social activist bell hooks, explains the nature of this control as well as the underlining hypocrisy: "Black men overemphasize[d] white male sexual exploitation of black womanhood as a way to explain their disapproval of inter-racial relationships." It was, however, no contradiction of their political views to have inter-racial relationships themselves. Again, part of "freedom" and "manhood" was the right of men to have indiscriminate access to and control over any woman's body." [3] In other words, these attitudes, again, only represent a desire to switch or assume the position of the oppressor, and not truly bring about liberation and equality.

Within the Black liberation struggles, there was also a blatant disregard for Black women's humanity, autonomy, and bodies; and so, they were subjected to sexist statements, practices, and even violence. Even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was guilty of being a male chauvinist. In particular, he resisted allowing women to take on leadership positions within his own organizations. [4] In the article, "Martin Luther King, Jr. Revisited: A Black Power Feminist Pays Homage to the King," Gwendylon Zoharah Simmons, a former Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) volunteer, provides an account of her experiences with this widely known chauvinism and rampant sexism within the Civil Rights Movements:

"Sexism was definitely a problem throughout all civil rights organizations. Dr. King, not surprisingly -- like most if not all men in the movement who were products of the Black Church and American culture was sexist. ... The civil rights movement was hardly a model of female inclusion in the area of leadership. Patriarchy plagued the black freedom struggle on all sides. ...All men had difficulty seeing women in leadership roles."

She goes on to say that "King's inability to see movement women as his peers and even mentors prevented him from forging strong connections with radical black women who could have been his greatest allies in the struggle he was about to launch against economic oppression."[5]

Even more appalling were the daily acts of misogyny. Former Black Panther Party member, Elaine Brown, shared the following recollection of those experiences:

During an organizational meeting of the Black Congress in which she and the other women were forced to wait to eat until the men were served food for which they had all contributed money. The "rules" were then explained to her and a friend: "Sisters... did not challenge Brothers. Sisters... stood behind their black men, supported their men, and respected them. In essence... it was not only 'unsisterly' of us to want to eat with our Brothers, it was a sacrilege for which blood could be shed."

Much of this was carried out minus any criticism; and, of course, speaking about it openly would have been, and remains to be, deemed as a form of treason, or "airing out dirty laundry." Nevertheless, when Black liberation leaders would speak, much of the vocabulary they would choose and statements they would make focused on the greatness of the Black man, the needs of the Black man, and the oppression of the Black man; all while rarely mentioning the Black woman.

Consider the following statements that exemplify the disregard of the humanity of Black women:

We have black MEN who have mastered the field of medicine, we have black MEN who have mastered other fields, but very seldom do we have black MEN in America who have mastered the knowledge of the HIStory of the black MAN himself. We have among our people those who are experts in every field, but seldom can you find one among us who is an expert on the HIStory of the black MAN.

- Malcolm X, The Black MAN's History, December 1962

And so this separation [of black men and women] is the cause of our need for self-consciousness, and eventual healing. But we must erase the separateness by providing ourselves with healthy African identities. By embracing a value system that knows of no separation but only of the divine complement the black woman is for her man. For instance, we do not believe in them 'equality' of men and women. We cannot understand what the devils and the devilishly influenced mean when they say equality for women. We could never be equals... Nature has not provided thus."

- Amiri Baraka statements expressing that gender equality between Black women and men are unequal, and that Black women are complements "for" Black men.

I became a rapist. To refine my technique and modus operandi, I started out by PRACTICING on black girls in the ghetto-in the black ghetto where vicious and dark deeds appear NOT as aberrations or deviations from the norm, but as part of the sufficiency of the Evil of a day-and when I considered myself smooth enough, I crossed the tracks and sought out white prey.

- Black Panther, misogynist, rapist, and wife beater, Eldrige Cleaver, discussing his predatory pattern. It is telling that he viewed violence committed against black women to be "less serious, less criminal," than that against their white counterparts.

Feminism, White Women, & Hierarchy

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

- Sojourner Truth, "Ain't I A Woman," Delivered in 1851 at the Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio.

The above sentiments delivered by abolitionist and pioneering Black feminist Sojourner Truth speaks to the problem of marginalization and invisibility that plagues Black women. In fact, she repeatedly punctuates her speech with the question, "Ain't I A Woman?" and, in essence, is pointing out that she and other Black women are indeed women, and equals to white women. Therefore, their humanity should also be recognized. Sojourner Truth delivered this speech during a time when women's suffrage and other empowerment movements were beginning to take root; however, these movements almost always focused on solidarity and the rights of white women only. At times, the exclusion or undeniable racism was quite blatant. This difficult dance of sisterhood was continued into the 20th century, particularly during the 1960s, when the feminist movement re-emerged. However, the racism that Black women experienced was more subtle and structural in nature. A number of Black women were invited to engage in the movement and women's studies courses only to discover they were treated as tokens.

Much of these frustrations with inherent racism, classism, etc. in the feminist movement and women's studies exploded, and were explored during the first National Women's Studies Association Conference held in 1979 in Lawrence, Kansas. Barbara Smith, an attendee of that Conference shared the following during her address:

Although my proposed topic is black women's studies, I have decided to focus my remarks in a different way. Given that this is a gathering of predominantly white women and given what has occurred during this conference, it makes much more sense to discuss the issue of racism: racism in women's studies and racism in the women's movement generally." Oh no, "I can hear some of you groaning inwardly. Not that again. That's all we've talked about since we got here." This of course is not true. If it had been all we had all talked about since we got here, we might be at a point of radical transformation on the last day of this Conference that we clearly are not.

For those of you who are tired of hearing about racism, imagine how much more tired we are of constantly experiencing it, second by literal second, how much more exhausted we are to see it constantly in your eyes. The degree to which it is hard or uncomfortable for you to have the issue raised is the degree to which you know inside of yourselves that you aren't dealing with the issue, the degree to which you are hiding from the oppression that undermines Third World women's lives. I want to say right here that this is not a "guilt trip." It's a fact trip. The assessment of what's actually going on. [6]

Barbara's calls for the honest discussion of racism apparently went unheard by many of the majority-white female audience that she spoke to, and feminists as a whole. This disregard became quite apparent during a NWSA's Conference that took place much later, in 1990, in Akron, Ohio. Viewed as a watershed moment, over a hundred women of color and their allies got up and walked out of the Conference in protest to the entrenched and continued racism existing within the movement. Again, the concerns and viewpoints of Black women, and other women of color, were relegated to the margins. The fundamental issue was that the experiences of white, middle class women were viewed as the universal experience of women, without any considerations for race, class, sexuality, and so on. Compounding this problem was/is that many white women operate, often times unknowingly, from this point of privilege. The walk-out signified the frustration of having to educate another group about the privilege they enjoy (in this case, racial privilege), and having to deal with their discomfort and push-back in the process.

Just last year (yes, this is still an issue in 2013), the issue grabbed national headlines during a two-day Twitter campaign on the topic #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen. Writer Mikki Kendall started the hash tag during a discussion about Hugo Schwyzer, who gained notoriety for being an admitted manipulator and antagonizer of women, especially women of color. So, what was the problem? Well, a number of white women rushed in to defend Schwyzer after he claimed he was being bullied and attacked. In other words, so much for sisterhood and solidarity. Women of color watched, and later reacted to, the actions of their "sisters," and these actions once again made it clear that white women's issues and stances continued to be a priority over women of color; and yes, true solidarity was/is for white women. In an article for The Guardian, Mikki explained the following regarding the controversy, "It appeared that these feminists were, once again, dismissing women of color (WOC) in favor of a brand of solidarity that centers on the safety and comfort of white women. For it to be at the expense of people who were doing the same work was exceptionally aggravating." Black women and the issues that directly impacted them (such as racism) were again being shout out, silenced, ignored, and marginalized by white women's positions of privilege in feminism.

The trending topic #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen quickly spread to other media platforms, and women shared the following sentiments on Twitter:

Ayesha A. Siddiqi (@pushinghoops) August 12, 2013

#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen when you idolize Susan B. Anthony & claim her racism didn't matter.

Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia) August 12, 2013

#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen when "sexpositivity" never includes women of color.

SaltedCarmelSouthron (@deluxvivens) August 12, 2013

#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen white feminists get seen as 'heroes' for starting feminist societies, but WOCs are brushed off as 'aggressive'

Angry Black Fangirl (@TheAngryFangirl) August 13, 2013

I know #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen when any critique of white privilege in feminism is written off as "racist" and "divisive."

Cabbage Patch Ninja (@thewayoftheld) August 13, 2013

#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen means criticizing Beyonce for wearing onesies while applauding Lena Dunham for going topless.

Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) August 15, 2013

SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen on display: Alice Walker disinvited from U of Michigan's women center 4 Israel comments.

Ebony in Inwood (@TheRealMsMurphy) February 22, 2014

@TheRealRoseanne supports Tommy Sotomayor's black woman hatred and calls ME a bigot. Isn't that cute? #solidarityisforwhitewomen

Intersectionality

When considering their daily interactions, as well as academic and professional experiences, it became apparent that is difficult, or impossible, for Black women to separate race from class and sex oppression, because they experience them simultaneously. Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term "Intersectionality" to describe this phenomenon. Patricia Hill Collins, in her groundbreaking book, Black Feminist Thought, explains why the theory of Intersectionality is central to Black feminist thought: "Black feminist thought fosters a fundamental paradigmatic shift in how we think about oppression. By embracing a paradigm of race, class, and gender as interlocking systems of oppression, Black feminist thought re conceptualizes the social relations of domination and resistance."[7] Thus, in considering intersectionality, Black feminist thought makes it clear that Black women do not have the luxury of focusing on issues of gender oppression, in comparison to their white counterparts. Instead, they must be equally, or more so, vigilant on issues of race, class, sexuality, etc. that is tied to separate means of oppression and discrimination.

For instance, consider the following:

26.5% of African American women are poor, compared to 22.3% African American men, 11.6% of white women, and 9.4% of white men. [8] Thus, Black women are twice as likely as white women to be living in poverty, a fact that creates a different set and larger amount of challenges and obstacles in life. Further, white woman are more likely to be tied to white men, those with the greatest degree of social equity and lowest rates of poverty, which allows them to benefit from the higher degree of privilege experienced by their male counterparts. Understandably, the concerns between the two groups of women will be different.

Black women and other women of color have been historically failed and ostracized by the communities which they identify with, whether based on race/ethnicity or gender. The extent of this failure could easily be discerned by simply looking at the nation's health indicators. African American women have much higher rates of disease prevalence and mortality than Caucasian women - differences which are not purely explained by genetic and physiology factors. Instead, the differences are mostly due to socio-economic conditions (again varying intersectional factors) within the built environment. In comparison to Caucasian women, more women of color live in low income and impoverished areas; and this lack of resources and access to health services - especially preventative care, nutritional foods, safe living conditions, and employment opportunities - help to account for the great health inequities. Consequently, the question of whether feminism and women studies have any real benefit to Black women, on the surface, seems valid. However, within their own ethnic and racially-identified communities, Black women and other women of color continue to face abject sexism and cultural norms that reinforce their positions of inferiority; and these circumstances stand as testimony to the need for women of color to be actively involved in feminism/womanism.

What about Our Daughters?

"White girls don't call their men 'brothers' - and that made their struggle enviably simpler than mine. Racism and the will to survive, it creates a sense of intra-racial loyalty that makes it impossible for black women to turn our backs on black men - even in their ugliest and most sexist of moments. I needed a feminism that would allow us to continue loving ourselves and the brothers who hurt us without letting race loyalty buy us early tombstones," [9] shares Joan Morgan in her book, When Chickenheads Come Home To Roost. Joan's statement helps to explain the paradox of loyalty-and-priority that black women face. While racial oppression has forced black women to constantly rally around black men, reciprocity is often not carried out. Due to "loyalty," black women are expected to accept these unfair circumstances, and in fact address those who often act as their oppressor as "brotha." Even in the rhetoric of the Black Liberation movements, race was tremendously sexualized and freedom itself was equated with manhood; and this continues to be the case. When there was talk about "The Man," it was primarily due to frustrations of Black men who wanted to switch places with that oppressor so that he could be as dominant; which, again, leaves Black women in a position of subjugation. These sentiments continue today, where Black men continue to view the loss of manhood as the real tragedy of racism, and openly accuse Black women of assisting in the emasculation of Black men. For Black women are expected to "hold a brotha down," even when there is no reciprocity for her actions. Black feminism provides the means to point out these double-standards and hypocrisies.

Pioneering Black feminists and women's suffragists, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, expressed this cautionary statement about the need for Black women to be empowered and guaranteed the same rights of men, particularly Black men, whose liberation is not tied to Black women's:

There is a great stir bout colored men getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights and not colored women theirs, the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before. So, I am 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.

- Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, 1867 AERA Meeting

Her warnings essentially foreshadowed exactly what would begin to manifest in the later Black liberation movements, within the Black church, and within the Black community; the accepted subjugation and disrespect of Black women. As of recent, there have finally been honest discussions about Black men failing to "Show Up" for Black women.

In her article, On Black Men Showing Up for Black Women at the Scene of the Crime , a Crunk Feminist Collective contributor recounted her experience on a panel that included a white woman and Black man, where her questions and prodding of this man to provide a deeper analysis of gender dynamics, instead of his repeated statement about "what he had done for us [women]," resulted in her being cut off, yelled at, publicly humiliated, frightened (by his towering frame), and with her face and clothing soaking wet by the cup of water the man threw at her during his abrupt departure. The most interesting or worrisome and sad part about her ordeal is that no one, not even the other Black women in the room (who of course have been programmed to accept this behavior and only rally for Black men in need) readily stepped in or stood up to defend her. In considering her ordeal, one has to ask whether those who witnessed the exchange truly believe she deserved this treatment due to her audacity to question a Black man's authority, to challenge him to admit there is rampant sexism in our communities, and for not remaining silent.

Yet, similar scenes are played out on street corners and other areas every day; and, again, no one, particularly no Black man Shows Up in defense of Black women. Just consider the historical epidemic of Street harassment, where for generations Black girls and women have to cope with cat-calling, uninvited conversations, being stared at, taunted, and touched by random Black men as they attempt to navigate city streets. Regardless of how offensive the act, or whether or not they are actually interested in these men who cross their paths, they are expected to accept the behavior, to feign some sort of appreciation for the unsolicited compliments, and, above all, smile through the ordeal and refrain from challenging these men, unless they want to be victimized - whether verbally or physically. These situations are played out daily - and often, when a Black girl or woman finds herself in this predicament, she quickly realizes that the other Black men who are witnessing the behavior will not Show Up in her defense. Proving that #SolidarityIsAlsoForBlackMen.

While Black women have traditionally taken to the streets to rally against forces of oppression that harm Black men and boys, the same amount of fervor is not given to them in return. The focus continues to be on Black men and boys - leaving many to ask, What About Our Daughters? A website with this name launched in April 2007 in response to the Oprah Winfrey Show episode entitled, "After Imus: Now What?," which focused on the infamous "nappy headed hoes" remark made by radio commentator Don Imus. Adding fuel to the fire were the distasteful comments, under the guise of comedy, made by comedian-actor DL Hugley. The mission of the website is as such, "Unapologetic, uncompromising, and unbowed in defense of Black women and girls." In other words, the website steps forward to fill a gap - to uplift and protect Black women and girls from the constant waves of oppression, discrimination, and prevalence of destructive images of Black womanhood.

Further, those who have assisted in creating and disseminating much of these negative images of Black womanhood have unfortunately been Black men. It is Black men who have helped to make the terminology and images of the "sassy, lazy, over-sexed, ratchet, Black vixen…ho, slut, bitch" popular and ubiquitous globally, which, contrary to misconceptions, started before the hip hop generation. During the Blaxploitation era, Black women were still portrayed as hyper-sexual caricatures and prostitutes, while pimps were celebrated as pop culture figures.

It is not difficult to trace the continuation of pimp/misogynistic culture from the 1970s to the present, particularly when looking at hip hop. Jay Z boastfully rapped about Big Pimpin', Bishop Don Juan, dressed in his stereotypical pimp attire, became part of Snoop Dog's entourage, Snoop's mannerisms and speech have always been reminiscent of the celebrated pimps, and Three 6 Mafia's "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp," part of the Hustle & Flow soundtrack, even won an Oscar for best original song. Indeed, the pimp culture has ingrained itself in Black culture, and this is problematic because it represents the celebration of a figure whose "job description" is controlling, using, and often abusing women. Therefore, pimp culture is nothing more than a means to protect and celebrate the "Black Macho." It is for this reason why, despite wanting to address the issue of cultural appropriation, Black women, and particularly Black feminists, found it difficult to stand in solidarity with Black men who were angered over Seattle, Washington born-and-bred, Caucasian rapper, Macklemore, winning "best rap album" at the 2014 Grammy Awards. Instead, they were forced to be honest with themselves and admit they could appreciate a rap/hip hop album that wasn't filled with misogynistic lyrics that caused them to flinch each time their favorite rapper called women "bitches" and "hoes" - or described them as nothing more than conquests. As pointed out in the viral article, " Why Macklemore Beat Your Favorite Rapper ," Macklemore actually presented music that was void of hyper-consumerism and the glorification of luxury and material items, and instead touched on topics of social justice.

The Numbers - #BlackPowerIsForBlackMen

The fact that Black women have been taught, or arguably programmed, to constantly protect and Show Up for Black men results in them having to be silent about their own abuse and oppression. It has to do with the push-pull historical factors of prioritizing race or gender. Essentially, Black women are typically unwilling to "offer up" yet another Black man to a system they know to be corrupt and unjust, even when they are victimized by the same Black man. This is one of the many ways that Black women Show Up for Black men.

The Truth - across the board, Black women have the highest rates of victimization of rape, intimate partner violence (or domestic violence) and homicide, and their attackers are usually Black men - not surprising, since most cases of violence are intra-racial:

• Black females experience intimate partner violence at a rate 35% higher than that of white females, and about 22 times the rate of women of other races. [10]

• African-American women experience significantly more domestic violence than White women in the age group of 20-24. [11]

• Approximately 40% of Black women report coercive contact of a sexual nature by age 18. [12]

• The number one killer of African-American women ages 15 to 34 is homicide at the hands of a current or former intimate partner. [12]

• Black females made up 35% (or 1,200) of the nearly 3,500 female homicide victims. [13]

• In 2005, most homicides involving one victim and one offender were intra-racial. [13]

• In a study of African-American sexual assault survivors, only 17% reported the assault to police. [12]

• For every white woman that reports her rape, at least 5 white women do not report theirs; and yet, for every African-American woman that reports her rape, at least 15 African-American women do not report theirs. [13]

It is on these issues - harassment, abuse, and violence - that Black feminists and Black women in general truly need the support of male allies. When looking at these statistics, the relevancy and need for Black feminism cannot be denied or dismissed. In her article, Why #BlackPowerIsforBlackMen: Exploring Intragroup Domestic Violence , Bea Hilton, intersectional activist and founder of the Freedom Project, eloquently shares the following sentiments: "It is imperative that Black men unpack their privilege and begin to accept these truisms not as betrayal, personal attacks or attempts at emasculation, but as acts of self-love, as steps toward a more equal and peaceful reality."

In an attempt to address this hypocrisy and inequality, the hashtag #BlackPowerisforBlackMen was created, and the posted comments provided concrete examples as to why this continues to be the case:

FilthyFreedom @Filthy Freedom August 14, 2013

#BlackPowerisforBlackMen because reporting domestic abuse also means serving up another black man to an unjust system - & - u don't get that

Zellie @Zelliemani August 14, 2013

#BlackPowerisforBlackMen because black on black violence never includes sexual violence against women

KayJacks RT @ RobinDGKelley February 25, 2014

#BlackPowerIsForBlackMen When we can name Emmett Till but can't name Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson…

GRSurvivingRape : RT @ BlackCanseco I got nuthin. Thx @ UncleRush RT @ LurieDFavors #blackpowerisforblackmen when female slave rape parodies are mass marketed.…

Posted in regards to Russell Simmons' endorsement

GRSurvivingRape : RT @ nealcarter : Another "black america" panel, without one black women's voice http://t.co/cY25ytPnaD #blackpowerisforblackmen

Posted in regards to this:

Auset93 : RT @ thembithembi: #blackpowerisforblackmen when we agreed that Trayvon was no thug but divided on whether Rachel Jeantel had an "attitude" …

@_theELLE_ # blackpowerisforblackmen when a Black man's way of uplifting Black women is writing a book telling her what she needs to change to get a man

Demetria Lucas @abelleinbk RT @ GradientLair: # blackpowerisforblackmen When Stop & Frisk is deemed wrong, yet BM street harass me 10-75 a week for TWENTY YEARS

Essentially, Black feminism, which advocates for the removal of all systems of oppression, is a means to truly bring about solidarity within the Black community - a solidarity that does not depend upon the subjugation of one group in order to uplift and coddle another.

Conclusive Statements

Black feminism continues to remain relevant for a plethora of factors, including the fact that Black women are often asked to choose a side or are shamed into putting race and ethnicity over their gender; and, for this reason, many of them shy away from the title, feminist, instead accepting the more appropriate title, Womanist. From the beginning, the Black women who took part in the Black liberation movements (Civil Rights, Black Power), the Suffrage movement, and Women's movement, were often discriminated against sexually and racially. Anna Julia Cooper, a Black woman who was also a staunch suffragists, is best known for the statement, "Only the BLACK WOMAN can say when and where I enter in the quiet undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence or special patronage; then and there the whole Negro race enters with me." Rightfully, Cooper believed and was particularly effective in emphasizing to Black women the fact that their access to the ballot and right to vote was important for their own determination, and crucial to ensure their needs were addressed; instead of the erroneous belief that Black men's experiences and needs were the same as theirs.

Nevertheless, Black feminists continue to be reminded by men of color, and to some extent White feminists, that the Feminist movement is also a place of inequality and privilege. White women were and continue to be the greatest beneficiaries of the Feminist movement - a fact that cannot be ignored, as it is often thrown in the face of Black women and other women of color who attempt to assert themselves as being women who are also interested in gender equality. Ultimately, white feminists are not burdened by the additional barriers of racism and prejudice; such as the anxiety African American female job seekers face when it comes to how they wear their hair, particularly if it is natural, and whether or not their hairstyle will disqualify them as a job candidate.

Black women have to cope with a multitude of these intersecting factors, as well as the intra-racial issues with sexism, misogyny, abuse, and violence. For this reason, True solidarity and Black liberation will not be brought about by mimicking the patriarchal system of the broader society and replacing one oppressor (white male) with another (black male). Instead, it depends on the removal of all forms of oppression, particularly gender oppression, which Black feminism works towards.

The following sentiments of Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, speaks to the fact that continued support and acceptance of oppression and discrimination cannot be viewed as revolutionary, or as any part of a revolutionary values system:

Remember, we have not established a revolutionary value system; we are only in the process of establishing it. I do not remember our ever constituting any value that said that a revolutionary must say offensive things towards homosexuals, or that a revolutionary should make sure that women do not speak out about their own particular kind of oppression. As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite: we say that we recognize the women's right to be free. [14]

Thus, the purpose of Black feminism is the development of theory which can adequately address the way race, gender, and class are interconnected in our lives, in order to take action to stop racist, sexist, and classist discrimination. In the end, Black women's strength does not equal the emasculation of Black men; and Black women's subjugation is not a requirement for Black men to be men.

References

Wallace, M. Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman. Verso Books: New York; 1999.

La Rue, L. The Black Movement and Women's Liberation, Black Women's Manifesto. The Black Scholar, Vol. I. May, 1970. p.42 http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scriptorium/wlm/blkmanif/

But Some of Us Are Brave: A History of Black Feminism in the United States. Retrieved from: http://www.mit.edu/~thistle/v9/9.01/6blackf.html

Dyson, Michael Eric. I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. Free Press: New York, 2000.

Zoharah-Simmons, G. Martin Luther King Jr. Revisited a black power feminist pays homage to the king. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. 2008; 24(2):189-213

Smith, Barbara. Racism and Women's Studies. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 1980; National Women's Studies Association: Selected Conference Proceedings. 5(1):48-49.

Collins P. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Routledge: New York 1990.

Cawthorne, A. The straight facts on women in poverty. American Progress. 2008. Retrieved from: http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2008/10/pdf/women_poverty.pdf Sterling D. We are your sisters: Black women in the nineteenth century. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1984.

Morgan, J. When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down. Simon & Schuster: NY, 1999.

Callie Marie Rennison. and Sarah Welchans, U.S. Dep't of Just., NCJ 178247, Intimate Partner Violence (2000), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/ipv.txt

Callie Marie Rennison, U.S. Dep't of Just., NCJ 187635, Intimate Partner Violence and Age of Victim, 1993-1999, at 4, (2001), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/ipva99.htm

Africana Voices Against Violence, Tufts University, Statistics, 2002, www.ase.tufts.edu/womenscenter/peace/africana/newsite/statistics.htm

Harrell, E. Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report: Black Victims of Violent Crime. US Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. 2007, NCJ 214258. Retrieved from: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/bvvc.pdf

Newton HP. A Black Panther's view in 1970. Retrieved at http://www.workers.org/2012/us/huey_p_newton_0524/

Confronting Columbus: Revisionism Versus Reality

By Colin Jenkins

Regarding the painstaking process of historiography, someone of relative importance once remarked, "History is written by the victors." A statement which echoes Plato's dictum that, "those who tell the stories also hold the power," its modern source is unclear. Still, many do not hesitate to attach these words to Winston Churchill, Britain's renowned Prime Minister during the Second World War. Considering Churchill's own history - born into an aristocratic family; his grandfather the 7th Duke of Marlborough; his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, a wealthy British statesman; his mother, Jennie Jerome, an "American socialite," herself the daughter of a financier, speculator, and mass landowner - and the fact that he made an early living overseeing the mass killing of indigenous Africans and Indians located everywhere from Bombay to Sudan to South Africa, such a statement would hardly come as a surprise. If "victory" is defined in terms of deploying one's immense privilege - whether socioeconomic, "racial," or national - to enslave, oppress, and murder others who lack such privilege in order to maintain that very system for oneself and generations to come, then Winston Churchill was certainly one of history's "victors."

The act of whitewashing history - whether literally through the domination of Eurocentric perspectives, or figuratively through blatant omission and revisionism - is certainly common practice. It is the "victors" main tool in shaping history. Historical revisionism has been defined as "a consciously falsified or distorted interpretation of the past to serve partisan or ideological purposes in the present;" "a collective task in a nation's cultural development, the full significance of which is emerging only now: to redefine a nation's status in a changing world;" or the act "of 'truth-seekers' finding different truths to fit the needed political, social, or ideological context." In the United States of America, such revisionism becomes immediately apparent when one steps into a public school classroom - where histories of indigenous genocide and human enslavement are, at best, minimized; and, at worst, utilized to stroke a false sense of superiority and exceptionalism; and where the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity are magically transformed from conquerors to "explorers," from murderers to "adventurers," and from slave masters to "patriots" and "founding fathers," all in the stroke of a pen or the voice of a lecture.

The act of historical revisionism has deep-seated cultural effects. Essentially, it creates two worlds:

1. The first based in quasi-fiction, informed on selective data and historical accounts from either the actual "victors" or the direct beneficiaries of the perceived "victory;" and one that enjoys unquestioned dominance through manipulation and a process of layered assimilation where commonly accepted "knowledge" is constantly reproduced through academia and seamlessly delivered to its intended audience.

2. The second based in reality, informed on factual data and historical accounts from not only the "victors," but also from the supposed "losers;" and one that faces almost certain or near-extinction through numerous acts of manipulation and/or omission which are carried out over a number of years, decades, or even centuries.

Historiography is the proving ground for this ongoing struggle between revisionism and reality. The ruling classes deploy their army of "traditional intellectuals," born and bred of privilege and churned through the most prestigious schools and universities, to protect the dominant ideology through a sophisticated presentation of revisionism. The working classes, struggling to maintain actualities, look upon their own ranks to create a semblance of reality as the torchbearers of truth. Hanging in the balance is the direction of society: towards continued polarization, inequities, and dehumanization; or towards a sense of being - something that cannot be realized without truth.

Revisionism gives us Columbus Day; a federal holiday "in commemoration of Christopher Columbus's historic 1492 voyage," for which, in 1934, the U.S. Congress "duly requested the President proclaim the second Monday of October of each year as such"

Reality gives us Indigenous People's Day; "a holiday celebrated in various localities in the United States, begun as a counter-celebration to Columbus Day, with the "purpose of promoting Native American culture and commemorating the history of Native American peoples."

Revisionism gives us the following announcement from the White House: "When the explorers laid anchor in the Bahamas, they met indigenous peoples who had inhabited the Western hemisphere for millennia. As we reflect on the tragic burdens tribal communities bore in the years that followed, let us commemorate the many contributions they have made to the American experience, and let us continue to strengthen the ties that bind us today."

Reality gives us the words of Columbus himself: "(The natives) are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone."

Revisionism gives us the words of Michael Berliner of the Ayn Rand Institute: (Western civilization) brought "reason, science,self-reliance,individualism, ambition, and productive achievement" to a people who were based in "primitivism, mysticism, and collectivism," and to a land that was "sparsely inhabited, unused, and underdeveloped."

Reality gives us yet another dispatch from Columbus: "I promise this, that if I am supported by our most invincible sovereigns with a little of their help, as much gold can be supplied as they will need, indeed as much of spices, of cotton, of mastic gum, also as much of aloes wood, and as many slaves for the navy as their Majesties will wish to demand."

Revisionism gives us this official statement from the U.S. government: "In the centuries since that fateful October day in 1492, countless pioneering Americans have summoned the same spirit of discovery that drove Christopher Columbus when he cast off from Palos, Spain, to pursue the unknown. Engineers and entrepreneurs, sailors and scientists, explorers of the physical world and chroniclers of the human spirit -- all have worked to broaden our understanding of the time and space we live in and who we are as a people."

Reality gives us Columbus' words: "They (the Arawak Indians) brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned.... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane.... They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."

Revisionism gives us this:

Reality gives us this:

The "whitewashing" of history has an intended purpose -to control information and knowledge, to keep the "huddled masses" ignorant, and to maintain the status quo. The Churchills of the world and their keepers would have it no other way. For if history were reality-based, the immense wealth and power they have enjoyed and continue to enjoy - of which has been accumulated through the stolen resources of indigenous peoples, and multiplied on the backs of the enslaved, the imprisoned, the working classes and the peasantry - would cease to exist. If history were reality-based, the hierarchical systems that keep this illegitimate wealth and power intact, and the government watchdogs that protect these systems, would cease to exist.

On this day, reality begins with recognizing the real consequences of Christopher Columbus' "expeditions," which continued far beyond the hallowed year of 1492. "In 1493, Columbus returned with an invasion force of seventeen ships, appointed at his own request by the Spanish Crown to install himself as 'viceroy and governor of [the Caribbean islands] and the mainland' of America, a position he held until 1500," explains Ward Churchill. "Setting up shop on the large island he called Espa-ola (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he promptly instituted policies of slavery (encomiendo) and systematic extermination against the native Taino population." In all, "Columbus' programs reduced Taino numbers from as many as eight million at the outset of his regime to about three million in 1496. Perhaps 100,000 were left by the time of his departure" some seven years later.

As working class women and men, we have an intimate connection with indigenous peoples who were "so free with their possessions" that "they would offer to share with anyone," just as we do with our neighbors. We have a bond with those whose only wish was to be left alone, to live and carry on as they please, to progress their livelihoods, and to care for their families, loved ones and neighbors, just as we do. The conditioned need to possess "worldly goods" at the expense of enslaving and murdering other human beings does not exist for our benefit, and should not be celebrated. Reality does and should mean something.

Reject revisionism. Embrace reality. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

References

James McPherson, Revisionist Historians. Perspectives, 2003. American Historical Association.

Harold D. Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in World War I (1927), MIT Press, pp. xxii-xxvii.

Matthew d'Ancona, History men battle over Britain's future. The Times, May 9, 1994.

Presidential Proclamation, Columbus Day 2012. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/10/05/presidential-proclamation-columbus-day-2012 . Accessed on 10/13/13.

"Winston Churchill" . Historylearningsite.co.uk. 30 March 2007. Accessed 10/13/13.

Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States: 1492-present. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.

http://www.amstudy.hku.hk/columbusletter.html . Accessed 10/13/13.

F. David Peat, Blackfoot Physics: A Journey into the Native American Universe (2005), Weiser, pg. 310.

Medieval Sourcebook: Christopher Columbus: Extracts from Journal, Fordham University archives. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/columbus1.asp. Accessed 10/13/13.

History Not Taught is History Forgot: Columbus' Legacy of Genocide. An excerpt from Ward Churchill's book, Indians Are Us (Common Courage Press, 1994) http://www.mit.edu/~thistle/v9/9.11/1columbus.html. Accessed on 10/13/13.

Will Black Nationalism Reemerge?

By Sean Posey

In the summer of 2008, a tidal wave of liberal and youth activists began to carry presidential candidate Barack Obama on a journey leading inexorably to the White House. Town halls and campaign stops attracted droves of admirers-with Obama taking on a persona more akin to a rock star than to a senator from Illinois. However, during a campaign stop in St. Petersburg, something unexpected happened. Obama was greeted during a question and answer session by protesters carrying a sign emblazoned with the question, "What about the Black Community, Obama?"

After attempting to ask Obama questions, and after getting shouted down by the crowd, Diop Olugbala, one of the protesters, confronted Obama asking, "In the face of the numerous attacks that are made against the African community or the black community by the same US government that you aspire to lead. . . why is it that you have not had the ability to not one time speak to the interests and even speak on the behalf of the oppressed and exploited African community or Black community in this country?"[1]

Obama seemed flustered. This was a rare, pointed question about what his campaign would mean for the black community. The young questioner was a member of the Uhuru Movement, a Pan-African organization representing one of the remnants of Black Nationalism in the United States. The incident was laughed off and Uhuru jokingly dismissed. However, as the Obama administration moves through its last term, it's clear the question posed by Uhuru will not go away, especially as the wider black community faces continued socioeconomic problems. This poses a broader question: Is Black Nationalism relevant in the twenty-first century? And as the crisis facing black America builds, will it reemerge?

Origins/Development of Black Nationalism

The origins of Black Nationalism can't be separated from the experience of slavery. Since Africans were first brought to the colonies, a common racial oppression produced calls for not only a release from slavery, but for repatriation to Africa, or to some other place where a black nation might be formed. This ideology also embraced Pan-Africanism, or the idea that black unity must be a worldwide affair. Men and women alike championed early Black Nationalism: Paul Cuffee helped ferry formers slaves to Nova Scotia and then to Sierra Leone; Robert Alexander Young wrote the 1829 "Ethiopian Manifesto," which spoke to the commonality of blacks in the Diaspora; and Maria W. Stewart became the first woman to espouse nationalist ideas in speeches and writings. All of these activists and thinkers represented early yearnings for black autonomy and nation building.

The compromise of 1850 helped reinforce Black Nationalism. This is the beginning of what William Moses-perhaps the foremost scholar on the subject-calls the "Golden Age of Black Nationalism," which lasted until the imprisonment of Marcus Garvey in 1925.[2] During this period people like Martin Delaney, the "Grandfather of Black Nationalism," made plans to relocate African Americans back to the Africa. Nationalism also took hold among very educated "elites." Whereas Black Nationalism in Garvey's time, and later during the 1960s, came primarily from the working class, some of the most bourgeois and formally educated African Americans in the nineteenth century espoused emigration schemes and black self-sufficiency.[3]

The emergence of Marcus Garvey's United Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League in 1914 marked the beginning of the largest movement of blacks in American history. Garvey drew on Pan-Africanism and wanted ultimately to move African Americans back to Africa, but he also advanced the idea of black economic self-sufficiency as a principal part of the UNIA platform.[4] Garveyism specifically represented two of the three main strands of Black Nationalism: cultural and political nationalism. Garvey's Negro Factories Corporation manufactured black dolls, sponsored black beauty contests, and published high-fashion photos of black women.[5] The Negro Factories Corporation also started black-owned neighborhood businesses to provide services to communities like Harlem.

Garvey's enormous popularity drew the wrath of other black intellectuals-especially W.E.B. Du Bois. However, despite their differences, Du Bois and his rival Booker T. Washington also espoused ideas consistent with Black Nationalism. Washington advocated a "technocratic Black Nationalism" that did not call for political or social integration but instead espoused a "do for self" model of black economic empowerment. [6] Du Bois was much more of a cultural nationalist.[7] Though seemingly mutually opposed to each other, both advocated black pride and support for the growth of black-owned businesses. It was only after the jailing of Garvey-on flimsy charges-and the decline of the UNIA that class issues fractured Black Nationalism. The working class would become the center of future nationalist revivals in the 1930s and 1960s.

Nationalism and Religion

The third main strand of Black Nationalism, religious nationalism, flourished in the years after Garvey's fall. The Moorish Science Temple gathered a strong following in the 1920s and 1930s. The founder of the temple, Noble Drew Ali, blended Black Nationalism with mysticism and Islamic thought, prefiguring the most successful of the religious nationalist groups-the Nation of Islam. The NOI formed in Depression-era Detroit. Shrouded in mysticism itself, the organization grew in the poorest and most deprived slums of the industrial cities of the north. The group's leader, Elijah Muhammad, held up blacks as "the original man," and he called for the creation of an independent black state within the borders of the United States. Despite their ideological and cultural differences, the Nation of Islam, and especially Malcolm X, had a large influence on the Black Power movement of the 1960s.

Black Power

The Black Power movement of the 1960s seemed to come out of nowhere for many Americans, but Black Power descends directly from the long history of Black Nationalism. Stokely Carmichael, who coined the term Black Power, stated, "…Before a group can enter the open society, it must first close its ranks."[8] This harkened back to Garveyism, but it opened up the possibility of eventual integration of some kind. Marxism and class analysis also came to influence the Black Power movement. This proved especially true of the Black Panthers, who eschewed nationalism while also representing many of its major strands.

The success of the civil rights movement during the 1960s had little impact on the economic and cultural issues brewing in America's inner cities. Urban riots were the result of complicated problems the mainstream civil rights movement was unable to address: The NAACP and the Urban League represented an emerging black middle class; street level movements represented a discontented working class. The struggle between the civil rights movement and Black Power moved into the culture as well. "New ways of being black" played a huge role in groups like the Black Panthers, whose emphasis on a "revolutionary culture" were explicitly anti-capitalist. That separated them from both mainstream black organizations and previous Black Nationalist groups. [9] The Black Arts movement and cultural movement slogans such as "Black is Beautiful" also came primarily from Black Nationalist groups. Attempts to build economically self-sufficient black communities, calls for black separatism, and explicit rejections of white culture, continued well into the mid-1970s.

Afrocentrism, "Conscious" Hip Hop, and the "Under Class"

Nationalism faded rapidly after the 1970s. Class fissures and emerging opportunities for some African Americans took the wind out of the movement. It was Afrocentrism, a relic of the cultural nationalist movements of the 1960s that remained vital in the 1980s and 1990s. Scholars of Afrocentrism sought to build an epistemology around African ways of thinking. As political scientist Dean Robinson describes it, these scholars tried "…to denote a new African-centered perspective, one shorn of problematic 'Eurocentric' assumptions, and one fashioned to produce more accurate and sympathetic assessments of African life."[10] Maulana Karenga, whose holiday of Kwanzaa emanated from the cultural nationalist ethos of the sixties, remains the most famous of the Afrocentric scholars. The continued popularity in some circles of Afrocentrism in the 1980s and 1990s partially masked the decline of other forms of nationalism and the structural economic and social inequality affecting African Americans.

The promise of the civil rights movement-especially the promise of economic justice-never filtered down to the ghettos of America's cities. In the 1980s, the emerging musical genre of hip-hop came to reflect many of the ideals of Black Nationalism and Afrocentrism. Hip-hop channeled the frustrations of urban youth who found themselves left out of the economic growth of that decade. In 1980, an effort between Brother D and a group called the Collective spawned what was one of the first "conscious" tracts. The song "How We Gonna Make the Black Nation Rise?" represented the beginning of a sub-genre called "conscious hip-hop", which included many strains of Black Nationalism and Afrocentrism. Adherents of the Five-Percent Nation-an offshoot of the Nation of Islam-were and are well represented in conscious hip-hop. Afrika Bambaataa and the Universal Zulu Nation, Paris, Brand Nubian, and especially Public Enemy, represented core groups that formed a culturally and politically nationalist semi-rebirth that in some ways reflected the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. With the commercialization of hip-hop in the late eighties and early nineties, Black Nationalism and Afrocentrism went underground. Gangsta rap proved more suited to the rampant individualism that pervaded hip-hop and the larger culture in the latter-1990s.

The Working Class and the New Jim Crow

Initiatives taken in the wake of the civil rights movement increased access to jobs in municipal governments and in the public sector for blacks. This formed the backbone of the new black middle class; however, the ghettos that fostered the Black Nationalism of the late sixties remained far behind. America's deindustrialized urban areas continued to collapse during the 1970s and 1980s. Violent crime, the crack cocaine epidemic, gangs, and the spread of jobless neighborhoods have now devastated several generations of the black working class; and though the cycle has diminished in intensity, it remains a central truth. In the 1990s, historian Michael Katz expounded on the structural reality of poverty and blackness in America: "Because racism directed toward African Americans is so powerful, the contemporary fusion of race and poverty remains the most resilient and vicious in American history." [11]

The reality of ghetto poverty today is as powerful a force as ever, and one of the strongest reinforcing mechanisms for it is the prison system. Sociologist Loic Wacquant sees the modern or "hyper ghetto" as part of a symbiotic relationship with the prison system, or a "kinship," as he calls it. [12] Since the 1970s the American prison system has gone from being about 70 percent white to about 70 percent non-white, with blacks making up forty percent of state and federal prisoners.[13] Michelle Alexander succinctly dubs this system the "New Jim Crow."[14]

Wacquant argues the failure of the urban ghetto to contain African Americans in the late 1960s led to, by way of "Law and Order" campaigns and the War on Drugs, the affinity between the hyper ghetto and the prison system. According to Wacquant, "They (whites) extended enthusiastic support for the 'law-and-order' policies that vowed to firmly repress urban disorders connately perceived as racial threats. Such policies pointed to yet another special institution capable of confining and controlling if not the entire African-American community, at least its most disruptive, disreputable and dangerous members: the prison." Black Nationalist groups were firmly among the groups considered most dangerous to the state in this scenario.

Liberalism and the Failure of the Second Reconstruction

The failure of liberalism and the stalled Second Reconstruction leave African Americans in an increasingly precarious position at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The promise of the historic election-and re-election-of Barack Obama has proved illusory. As Obama moves into his second term, black unemployment is actually worse than when he was sworn in. Almost every socioeconomic measure from education to homeownership shows wide disparities between whites and blacks. White median household wealth is 20 times greater than that held by black households.[15] Almost 30 percent of African Americans live below the poverty line, and 40 percent of black children are in poverty. [16] Urban sociologist Patrick Sharkey calls "the failure to complete the progression towards full civil rights" one of the four main trends keeping neighborhood level inequality in place.[17] Yet, no real programs to address urban poverty and disadvantage have existed since the Model Cities initiative of the 1970s. All this leads to the "inheritance of the ghetto" from one generation to the next.

The Remnants of Nationalism

Surviving the decline of Black Power and Black Nationalism in the 1970s, the Nation of Islam continues to be the principle Black Nationalist organization in the country. After the death of Elijah Muhammad, the Nation came under the leadership of his son, Wallace Muhammad, who sought to integrate the organization. The fallout over Wallace's rule split the group. A dynamic speaker named Louis Farrakhan reformed the Nation-bringing it back into line with Elijah Muhammad's original message. Farrakhan entered the national spotlight in the 1980s, becoming primarily known for his often-controversial comments and his efforts to build black economic power. In 1995, Farrakhan and the NOI organized the largest gathering of African Americans in history at the Million Man March.

The Nation thrives working in the most depressed urban areas in the country. Converting ex-convicts and recruiting prisoners was a part of the organization from the very beginning, with Malcolm X being only the most famous of the prisoners turned Muslims. Providing security for troubled public housing projects and policing dangerous streets endeared Farrakhan's organization to residents in areas all but abandoned, or in conflict with, the police. Last summer, as Chicago's homicide rate soared, the Nation organized community patrols and outreach efforts. The well-respected anti-violence organization CeaseFire claims the Nation is becoming intimately involved in combating street violence in Chicago's toughest neighborhoods. [18]

Economic nationalism is also still a crucial part of Farrakhan's plan today. The Nation owns 1,500 acres of farmland in Georgia and is apparently looking to buy thousands of more acres in the Midwest, possibly also including vacant land in places like Detroit. Farrakhan continues to call for blacks to save money, invest in property, and build communal economics. All this comes at a time when median wealth for black families is about $5,600. [19]

Other Black Nationalist movements are either very small or local, or are fractured and ineffectual. The New Black Panther Party, formed in 1989, has garnered major headlines in recent years for its rhetoric and protests at various racial hot spots in the country-including a much ballyhooed voter intimidation case in 2008 that was seized on by the right. The NBP also hosted a "Black Power Convention" in 2010 that attracted ex-politicians like Cynthia McKinney and a variety of entertainers from Erykah Badu to Andre 3000. In September the party will hold a "Million Youth March" in Harlem to address the needs of black youth, especially in the aftermath of Trayvon Martin murder. The party's chairman Malik Shabazz described the effort by saying, "The whole purpose of these events is to establish a strong Black Power Movement across America and the world specifically for the youth." [20] It's unclear, however, how many social programs the NBP has or what level of support it enjoys in the black community.

Black Women and the Middle Class

The patriarchal trappings of the Black Power movement drew a large degree of criticism from black female intellectuals. However, it must be remembered that women from Amy Jacques Garvey to Angela Davis championed key tenants of Black Nationalism. Despite that fact though, black women face an "intersectionality" of both racial and gender oppression.

There has been reluctance by Black Nationalist movements to deal effectively with sexism, misogyny, and homophobia within their own ranks. Historian E. Francis White calls for an expanded and less constrained vision of blackness, one that could accommodate differences of gender and orientation. Sociologist Patricia Hill Collins writes of a nationalism that adapts itself to feminist sensitivities. Strides made by black feminists and the gay rights movements will make problematic the rise of any nationalist movement that discounts the desirability of these groups.

The question of the class divide is one that goes back to the days of Garvey or even further. Capitalism has integrated, to a certain extent, the black middle class. Black political power blossomed in many cities and states after the civil rights era, and much of the black bourgeoisie enjoyed an upward mobility unknown to them in the era of segregation. In 1999, over half of African Americans could fit comfortably into the middle class. [21] Yet at the same time the black middle class was in a precarious position.

In a recent groundbreaking book, sociologist Mary Pattilo shows the black middle class tends to live in neighborhoods with substantially higher poverty rates than middle class whites. They also tend to be spatially closer to, or often adjacent to, ghetto neighborhoods. [22] When the sub-prime mortgage crisis hit, most of the hard won gains of the middle class were wiped out. Now even the white middle class is under siege, which means even more pain for the black middle class. Marian Wright Edelman, co-founder of the Children's Defense Fund and a veteran of the civil rights movement, recently said of the emergency facing all of black America, "We face the worst crisis since slavery."[23]

Returning to Black Power?

Shortly before he died, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) said in an interview with C-Span, "Black Power has not been arrived at; we don't have Black Power yet."[24] There is no political will to deal with the catastrophe facing black America. The recent bankruptcy of Detroit, the largest majority black city in the nation, is a potent reminder of that. Indeed, black political power is fading, ironically in the age of the first black president.

Liberal electoral politics by themselves cannot and will not solve these problems, As Dr. Brittney Cooper pointed out after the fiftieth anniversary of the March for Jobs and Freedom: "Black liberal advocacy in this country for more jobs, less poverty, more education, less prisons, more life chances and less gun deaths doesn't have a fighting chance without a visible radical alternative."[25] Where will this all lead?

Austerity, continued stagnation, and the refusal to address urban and suburban poverty, puts black America at a crossroads. It's unclear what impact the disappointing Obama legacy will have for the future of black politics. Still, regardless of whether a Democrat or a Republican occupies the White House in 2017, it's doubtful any agenda addressing black communities will be discussed, much less enacted. In the months and years ahead, it is possible that we will see the rebirth of a new, almost certainly unique and unexpected version of Black Nationalism. If so, it will come at the darkest hour, and if it does-look for it in the whirlwind.

References

[1] Greg Wallace, "What about the Black Community, Obama," ABC News, August 1, 2008, under "Politics," http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/08/protesters-what/ (accessed August 20, 2013).

[2] See Wilson Jeremiah Moses, The Golden Age of Black Nationalism, 1850-1925 (North Haven: Archon Books, 1978)

[3] Ibid., 100.

[4] Tony Martin, Race First: the Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Westport: Greendwood Press, 1976), 33.

[5] Ibid., 13.

[6] Golden Age, 28.

[7] Theodore Draper, The Rediscovery of Black Nationalism (New York: Viking Press, 1971), 49.

[8] Roderick Bush, We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century (New York: NYU Press, 2000), 10.

[9] Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin Jr., Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 270.

[10] Dean E. Robinson, Black Nationalism in American Politics and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 129.

[11] Michael Katz, "Underclass as Metaphor" in The Underclass Debate: Views from History, edited by Michael Katz, 11. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991.)

[12] Loic Wacquant, "From Slavery to Mass Incarceration," New Left Review 13 (January/February 2002) http://newleftreview.org/II/13/loic-wacquant-from-slavery-to-mass-incarceration (accessed August 21, 2013).

[13] Ibid.,

[14] See Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: The New Press, 2010)

[15] Rakesh Kochar, Richard Fry, and Paul Taylor, Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics (Center for American Progress, 2011) http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/07/26/wealth-gaps-rise-to-record-highs-between-whites-blacks-hispanics/ (accessed August 20, 2013).

[16] George E. Condon Jr., "Has Obama Done Enough for Black Americans?" nationaljournal.com, May 30, 2013, http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/has-obama-done-enough-for-black-americans-20130404 (Accessed August 20, 2013).

[17] Patrick Sharkey, Stuck in Place: Urban Neighborhoods and the End of Progress Towards Racial Equality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 21.

[18] Sophia Tareen, "Farrakhan Focuses on Economics in Chicago Speech," Associated Press, February 24, 2013. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/farrakhan-focuses-economics-chicago-speech (accessed August 29, 2013).

[19] Thomas Shapiro, Tatjna Meschede, and Sam Osoro, The Roots of the Widening Racial Wealth Gap: Explaining the Black-White Economic Divide (Institute on Assets and Social Policy, 2013).

[20] PR Newswire, "Million Youth March 15th Anniversary, Yahoo Finance, September 6, 2013 http://finance.yahoo.com/news/million-youth-march-15th-anniversary-152400694.html (accessed September 1, 2013)

[21] Steven Gray, "Can the Black Middle Class Survive," Salon.com, September 3, 2012 http://www.salon.com/2012/09/03/can_the_black_middle_class_survive/ (accessed August 30, 2013)

[22] See Mary Pattillo-McCoy, Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999)

[23] ibid.,

[24] C-Span, "The Life and Career of Kwame Ture," April 15, 1998.

[25] Brittney Cooper, "Marches Won't Cut it Anymore: Why This Week's Feels Like a Funeral," Salon.com, August 27, 2013 http://www.salon.com/2013/08/27/marches_wont_cut_it_anymore_why_last_weekend_felt_like_a_funeral/

The Audacity of Privilege

By Syard Evans

The existence of privilege in our society is a prominent, stifling reality that hinders our very humanity.  Yet privilege, in and of itself, is certainly an obstacle that we could collectively overcome.  The reality of privilege, the reality that certain characteristics of who I am will inevitably prevent me from experiencing hardships that others will encounter, can be acknowledged and disempowered, if not even relinquished, by knowledgeable, conscientious members of a privileged sect.  In doing so, the privileged member does not relinquish identity and worth but, rather, the oppressive power which holds others at an unfair disadvantage.   The audacity of privilege, however, continues to suffocate the decency and humanity out of our collective existence.  The boldness and entitlement that accompany most privileged experiences are the poisons that have our social fabric tattered and torn and manifest as outright prejudice and discrimination.   

Growing up in an all-white, low-socioeconomic, rural community, my childhood memories are peppered with one racist, bigoted experience after another.  Literally, some of my first memories are of the adults in my life telling offensive jokes about groups of people they plainly had no direct interaction with or knowledge of.  To be more accurate, some of my first memories are of the terrible feelings I had in response to these awful “jokes.”  At the time, I had no information or context to help me understand why the horrible things people said made me feel the way they did, but as a very young child, I had significant emotional reactions to this hatefulness.  As I grew and continued to have these experiences, I often attempted to communicate the concerns I had when this type of vitriol was disgorged.  At as young of an age as 6 or 7, I can remember saying to an adult who had just said, “We’re crammed in here like n*ggers on food stamp day” in reference to having several people riding in a pickup truck, that “I don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t sound nice.”  The concern I raised was first met with a flippant explanation of how the hateful stereotype was essentially true, a sick “enlightening” for me regarding the living strategies of black Americans.  When I questioned further with, “How do you know that?” I was chastised and ridiculed for not understanding how making such a statement was very much justified. 

While privilege has been an ever-present part of my life and afforded me significant gains, many that I never even realized, these were my first personal encounters with the audacity of privilege - the fierce and reactive response directed at any voice of reason and fairness.  This response is reflexive and intended to protect the existing status benefits.  The castigation that I received from the adults in my life, in response to my questioning why they would say such hateful things, was intense and only continued to gain in ferociousness as I developed more sophisticated methods of communicating my disapproval.  To adults, I became a silly, naïve little girl who wasn’t smart enough to understand how the world really was and accept, without question, the facts which they knew to be true.  One such fact I remember being “taught” was that black people smelled differently than white people.  To my peers, the difficulty I had accepting the nastiness of the racist, privileged mindset was simply summarized as me being a “n*gger lover.”

As I reminisce on these “lessons” in my development, I find two points to be particularly poignant.  First, in considering all of the lectures and tongue-lashings that I endured as a child to convince me of the superiority of white people, I can’t help but conclude that many people would/will/do give up battling such a persistent system and concede that the voice of the surrounding chorus must be true.  In short, they accept their right to the privilege they have and commit to defending it, even when it makes no sense to them.  Secondly, and more profoundly, in addition to harming those who are without privilege, privilege is extremely damaging to those who possess it.  It was in an attempt to retain the comfort and privilege of the all-white world that they lived in that many people from my childhood gave up opportunities beyond that world and waived the pursuit of growth and betterment.  Remaining in the comfort of the majority was worth giving up whatever else the world might hold.  People often claimed that the “simple” life of their childhood appealed to them, and maybe that’s true, but I’m certain the privileged life had just as much of an attraction, if not more.

Recently I had the opportunity to visit with a cousin of mine who works for a college preparatory program that supports students from low-income families whose parents have not finished college.  I always enjoy our conversations as we discuss the challenges facing young people in our society, how we each go about battling these challenges in our daily work, and the successful moments that reinforce to us that the effort we put in is worth it.  In our most recent conversation, my cousin spoke at length about her concern regarding the lack of white male students in the college preparatory and college environment.  As a black female, many might not expect her to spend her time considering recruitment strategies to reach white males in her area, but as someone who is not only great at her job but extremely committed to it, I was in no way surprised to learn that she was always working to promote an accurate representation of her community in her program.  She relayed that white males have become non-existent in her preparatory program and decreasing in number overall on the small college campus on which she works, despite remaining a significant majority in the community’s population.  I reflected on the institutions of higher education that I interact with and anecdotally noted observing a similar pattern. 

As we discussed, we came to the surmise that the issue isn’t as much a lack of white males in the college environment but rather the declining completion rates of white male college students.  My cousin noted a number of times in our conversation that many white males struggled with the diversity of the college campus.  They often do not know how to interact with, be taught by, and accept guidance from women and people of color.  They feel alienated in the classroom, as if they don’t belong, and often abandon the process as a result of their discomfort.  The privilege that has traditionally held them securely in the position of power and authority is now stifling their growth and development. 

Let me be very clear, my point here is not that we need to implement interventions to “save the white men.”  Instead, I think it’s valuable to understand the destructive effect of privilege on those who cling to it when considering the lengths that the privileged will go to remain privileged.  This is the audacity of privilege.  Often we error when addressing privilege by taking a soft, passive approach to it.  We implement diversity trainings and ask privileged individuals to admit to the privilege they have.  While these sessions may create a warm, fuzzy feeling for those involved and serve to alleviate guilt experienced by individuals with privilege, admitting privilege alone is not effective in creating change.  Saying “I’m privileged” and continuing to actively, knowingly benefit from privilege only continues to perpetuate privilege and discrimination.  Combating privilege requires action.  It requires the active, public refusal of privilege by those who are given it, and even small acts can change the thought process of those who have never challenged their own privilege or who once challenged it unsuccessfully and thus accepted their privileged role.

Several years ago, I was traveling across state to a meeting for work, which required me to leave early in the morning to make the 3-hour journey.  Less than an hour into my voyage, I was having trouble keeping my eyes open; so I stopped at a gas station in a sleepy little town to get some coffee.  When I entered the store, there were only 2 other people present - the cashier, who was a young white woman, and one customer, who was a young black man.  I paid little attention to either of them and headed straight for the coffee.  After fumbling around with my cup and searching for a proper lid, I made my way to the counter to pay.  At the counter, I found the other customer waiting as the cashier frantically searched for something.  It took me a minute to realize what she was looking for, but I eventually was able to process the scene.  The other customer had paid for his items, a Red Bull and a pack of gum, with a $20, and the cashier was in an almost panicked pursuit of that special marker used to check for counterfeit bills.  It quickly became apparent, based on the difficulty she was having finding the special, crime-fighting marker, that she didn’t use the damn thing regularly and that she felt absolutely certain that she must use it on the bill that this young man had given her.

Eventually, the cashier was able to locate the marker, check the bill, and finally proceed with the transaction with a visible sense of relief.  She returned the man’s change to him, and he stepped to the side to place his change in his wallet so that I could pay for the coffee that I obviously needed.  As I handed the cashier my $20 bill, she punched cash register keys without the slightest thought, grabbed the bill, and stuffed it in the register. 

“Wait!,” I said, now being fully awake and alert. 

Startled, she looked at me with a very confused look on her face. 

“Don’t you need to check that bill?,” I said. 

With a semi-wink and a smile that let me know checking bills wasn’t something “we” had to deal with, she tossed her head and said,

“Oh, no. That’s not necessary.” 

“It must be necessary,” I said.  “After all that you just went through to find that pen and check his bill, you all must have had some problems with counterfeit bills.” 

I looked in the direction of the other customer and realized he had stopped putting his money away and was standing watching the exchange.  The cashier stood paralyzed, glaring at me with eyes that exposed her considerations of violence.  She wanted nothing more than for me to shut the hell up and go away without her having to check my bill.  You see, checking my bill made her a part of my refusal of the privilege she had afforded me, and all of her living and social training had instructed her to never do that, because to aid in my refusal of privilege meant she was being forced to refuse some of her own.  I repeated my demand,

“Check my bill.” 

She removed the bill from the drawer and checked it dejectedly.  The other customer returned his wallet to his back pocket, collected his purchased items, and quietly left.  The cashier continued to look at me with a confused and defeated glare.  I took my change, told her to have a great day, and left with the knowledge that she will think about this exchange every time she is handed a $20 bill for a very long time to come.

You see, audacity may be the very thing that makes privilege difficult to combat, but I believe audacity is also the key to disarming and relinquishing privilege and its harmful effects on us all.                                      

Supremacy: A Social Order of Division, Control, and Enslavement

By Kali Ma

"It seemed like Mrs. Elliott was taking our best friends away from us."

These are the words of a third-grader from Riceville, Iowa. Her schoolteacher, Jane Elliott, had just put her class through an exercise that showcased the viciousness and injustice of white supremacy in the late 1960s. Jane Elliott has since replicated this exercise countless times, but her original lesson remains a groundbreaking insight into the mechanisms of supremacy as depicted in the documentary A Class Divided. By labeling the blue-eyed students in her class smarter and better, and giving them more privileges than the brown-eyed students, Jane Elliott instantly creates division and hostility between the two groups. She constantly reinforces the superiority of her blue-eyed students who suddenly feel more confident and perform better at tasks than their now demoralized and dejected brown-eyed classmates. This division creates conflict between the students, which greatly upsets them and even leads to physical fights. Jane Elliott is stunned by the results of her exercise, saying: "I watched what had been marvelous, cooperative, wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating little third-graders in a space of fifteen minutes."

Jane Elliott's exercise clearly illustrates how simple it is to ignite conflict between people once a group of individuals is elevated above another. It also demonstrates how supremacy creates powerlessness in the "inferior" group and that the loss of personal power eventually leads to hostility and violence. This is the system we live under today - a hierarchy that ranks people based on their "worth" and socio-economic status.

Hierarchy - A Tool of Supremacy

To varying degrees, most socio-economic systems in the world today are hierarchical.[1] In a system of hierarchy, individuals occupy social ranks based on their levels of income and wealth, which significantly affect their access to vital resources such as food, shelter, healthcare, and education. In all hierarchies there is a ruling class on top that holds significant social, political, and economic power and whose interests are in direct opposition to those of the masses. A hierarchical structure is, in essence, about power - the ability to control and shape outcomes that further the interests of the ruling class. Since money is the way to greater freedom, most people intend to move up the hierarchy and buy their way into a new reality. After all, those at the top have the freedom to act in ways most people cannot: they make the rules and break them with impunity; they have access to resources, people and capital that allows them to easily perpetuate their wealth; and their occupations often include those of "socialite," "philanthropist," and some even get paid to party.

As an economic system, a hierarchical structure is inefficient and creates unnecessary scarcity because it allows the ruling class to hoard wealth and resources while the majority fights it out over "leftovers." Additionally, because its structure grants disproportionate power and privilege to those on top, it creates a system that is only beneficial to a wealthy minority. Economic inequality is particularly insidious in a hierarchical social order in which wealth determines social status. Such systems create extreme inequality where the gap between the rich and poor is great and social mobility is particularly difficult.

Supremacy is the hallmark of hierarchy where being a "winner" depends on someone else being a "loser" and where wealth is created at the expense of other people and the environment without concern for the collective good. Hierarchies are inherently coercive because they grant dominant groups the authority to impose their rules and ideology on those below them. It is thus a system of dominance, commanding its full power, authority and coercive nature against "weaker" subjects (i.e. the "have-nots" or "inferiors"). However, it is by no means a "natural" arrangement or, as many would say, "just the way things are." A hierarchical social system is closely linked to the systemic subjugation of women under patriarchy, which emerged as a dominant structure in the last 5,000 years of modern human history and helped spur on the agricultural revolution. [2] In effect, humans have lived in hierarchical systems for a fraction of our existence; yet during this new time period we have exhausted much of the world's resources and are quickly heading for a collision course with nature itself.

The purpose of hierarchy in a socio-economic system is not to create opportunities but to protect the supremacy of the ruling elite by controlling people's autonomy and dividing the working class amongst one another through social and economic stratification.

'Divide and Conquer'

While a hierarchical structure places the ruling class on top, it also divides the working people into various "levels" of socio-economic status, with money determining the place in the pecking order. Because there are various "levels" of social status with millions of people competing for the few spots on top, solidarity and cooperation between the people becomes virtually impossible. As a result of this stratification, the lower classes compete against each other and become divided along social, political, and economic lines. In other words, a hierarchical structure breeds competition, division, and outright hostility amongst the various members in society.

Social Conflict within the Working Class

In addition to fostering general class conflict and powerlessness in "inferior" groups, supremacy also creates a hierarchy of worthiness that is directly linked to how closely each of us resembles the '"supreme" image. This "supreme" ideal has traditionally been white, wealthy and male. If we do not meet that profile, then we can at least strive to behave and speak like them, think and believe as they do, or shape our personas in countless ways to appear acceptable to them or as close to the "supreme" image as possible. Economic worth and, in turn our ranking in the hierarchy, are directly linked to how closely we resemble the "supreme" image of white, male privilege. Those who least reflect this "supreme" ideal are deemed "inferior" and labeled as the "other." Because we internalize the "supreme" image early on in our lives, we grow up judging ourselves and others based on that standard. We are effectively pit against one another and through our judgments dehumanize, disrespect, marginalize, and deem unworthy individuals who do not meet the "supreme" standard and who occupy a lower rung on the hierarchy. This dehumanization and "otherness" of individuals who are different from the "supreme" standard is inherent in a hierarchical structure and is at the root of sexism (male supremacy), racism (white supremacy), classism (class supremacy), homophobia (heterosexual supremacy), ethnocentrism (cultural supremacy) and all other social and political divisions under the sun. Victim-blaming and general hostility towards those who are "different" or "inferior" becomes a staple of hierarchical society.

Of course there are exceptions and a privileged upbringing can cancel out many "inferior" traits. However, exceptions are just that: rare occurrences that do not reflect the rule and the reality that happens every day, all day, everywhere. In fact, exceptions are often used to distract us and falsely convince us that society has overcome classism, racism, sexism, or homophobia. In reality, society has gotten much better at hiding its inequities by commercializing, fetishizing, and pop- culturulizing the lives of individuals who are subject to real, everyday discrimination. It is privilege and supremacy we must challenge in all their forms, which are still deeply rooted in white, male, privilege and power.

Economic Conflict within the Working Class

The hierarchy of worthiness also plays out in our economic system. In a hierarchical economic structure, the lower classes are the foundation upon which the successes of others are built. For instance, professionals such as doctors and engineers occupy higher socio-economic standings than Wal-Mart cashiers who ring up their groceries or janitors who clean and maintain their offices. Of course, not everyone possesses the skills and talents to be a doctor or engineer, or for that matter, a cashier or janitor. But when more privileged individuals blame others for being poor, "unaccomplished," "unsuccessful," or unemployed, they do not take into account that the reason they are in a superior position is because someone else is in an inferior, lower position. This is how hierarchy works - someone has to rank at the bottom in order for those on top to be recognized as the "winners." Without such ranking, everyone would be equal. Moreover, society absolutely depends on workers to clean, maintain, repair and service various sectors of society, including private property and public commons. These individuals provide an extremely valuable service that allows society to function yet the system gives them no credit and, in fact, looks down on them and blames them for being in that position. Just imagine a society without sanitation workers to haul off your waste and keep the streets clean, or maintenance workers to keep your buildings running and the AC flowing when it's 100 degrees outside, or grocery clerks who stock your food and water so you can conveniently pick it up and feed your family. Without them, doctors, lawyers, engineers and other members of the professional class could not go about their business. But society has little respect for these individuals who are often paid minimum wage with no benefits; yet they are the very people who make society function.

The "winner" in this unequal arrangement is always the wealthy ruling class who owns the factories, corporations, businesses, and most other institutions and profits from the labor of the working class. The "owners" of society, essentially, sit back and watch their profits soar while the working class slaves over increasingly lower wages and deteriorating working conditions imposed on them by the same people their labor enriches. Individuals of privilege occupy "leadership" positions in all areas of society, from corporations, government and non-profit organizations to the medical, legal, and academic fields. The privileged play both villain and superhero, terrorizing and rescuing the lower classes who are simply pawns in the ruling elite's game of interest and intrigue. The supremacy of the ruling class is legitimized by the meritocracy myth that the most intelligent individuals in society naturally succeeded. The truth, however, is that the wealthy and privileged always end up on top in a system that is created by them to protect their own interests and power.

The meritocratic rationalization for why the wealthy have so much wealth - namely that they are smart and worked hard - is simply ridiculous. Janitors, secretaries, sanitation workers, and plenty of other people are smart and work hard - sometimes at 2 or 3 different jobs - yet their incomes can be as much as 1,795 times lower than that of the "owners." The excuse that elites are smarter is equally absurd seen as how the education system is set up to favor individuals of privilege and serves to protect the power of the ruling class. But for the sake of argument, if indeed they are rewarded by wealth because of their hard work and intelligence, when does the time of rewards come to hard-working lower class people? Shouldn't they be rewarded for their invaluable work that keeps society and the world functioning? And what about the fact that the "superior" ruling elite has completely failed at leading society on all levels, pretty much driving us off the cliff into global suicide? The truth, of course, is that in a system based on domination, the few on top who make the rules can do no wrong regardless of their incompetence. All that matters is the supremacy of their position, which is attained through wealth that has, for the most part, been passed down through generations.

Controlling our Bodies

Slavery is the ultimate control of people's bodies for economic exploitation. A slave has no autonomy, because his actions depend on the permission of another who "owns" him. Within our society today, slavery is not as obvious as it used to be when blacks were "owned" by white slave masters. Today, the control of our bodies takes on many different forms: the use of our bodies and labor as economic goods to be traded on the market in exchange for security in the form of monetary compensation; the steady supply of mostly poor minorities into the private prison system whose bodies are used as slave labor for the benefit of corporations; the control of women's bodies through legislation under the guise of "protecting" the woman and the "unborn" which deprives women of their fundamental choice to make decisions about their bodies; regulation of homosexual conduct and relationships which deprives consenting adults of making decisions about how to use their bodies in a sexual way; the vindication of the George Zimmermans of the world who - with the full backing of a systemic and cultural ideology of white supremacy that views black bodies as worth less - internalize these poisonous values and believe in their inherent right to decide the fates of innocent black people and deprive them of their right to exist as dignified human beings without being stalked, marked, harassed, and murdered with impunity. And even those of us who are victims of oppression in some other way, nonetheless, often become agents of the system, internalizing its values and beliefs and turning on those below us in the hierarchy who are deemed "inferior" or "less than." In this way, hierarchy not only controls our bodies, but also our minds.

Working Toward a New Paradigm

A hierarchical system that facilitates social and economic relationships is extremely harmful because it creates relationships of power that are based on coercion in which freedom cannot exist. Power and freedom are essentially opposites: power seeks to control and dominate while freedom is about autonomy and self-determination that yearns to determine its own path of expression. While there are varying degrees of freedom that can be bought by moving up the system of hierarchy, no one is truly free - not even the ruling class because its supremacy solely depends on the subjugation of the masses.

Our goal then is not to move up the hierarchy because this only legitimizes and perpetuates a dysfunctional system of inequality and oppression; the goal is to completely abolish hierarchy, which only the people can do. We cannot look to those in power who depend on the system for their privilege to make things better for the majority of people. Logically, the ruling class will not threaten its own interests and power. Our immediate short-term goal must be to stop further inequality by building mass movements of solidarity with one another. It is important to note, however, that not every person must get out into the streets to protest; rather, each person can contribute to this movement in different ways, even if it means just standing up for truth instead of "going along to get along." Awareness is key, but we also need to take action. What that action is, each person must determine for themselves.

A violent uprising against the most technologically sophisticated military in history is certain to fail and will do little to improve relations between various social groups. Because the system of supremacy has - through its divisive nature - literally "taken our best friends away from us" and discriminated against many of them, we must confront our own shadows and acknowledge all the ways we personally perpetuate the system's ideology and judge ourselves and others based on its oppressive values. As a result of the division, there is much distrust between various social groups and if we wish to move forward in solidarity, we must work to repair those social bonds. Likewise, we must also confront the internalized fear and desire for acceptance that pushes us to sacrifice truth in favor of comfort and privilege. In other words, we have to reach into the depths of our souls and take our individual power back. A power that is not dependent on the approval of the system, but rooted in self-acceptance and self-awareness. It is truly a radical process that seeks to transform human consciousness by bringing about a revolution from the inside out. We certainly have our work cut out for us; but, at this point, evolving into a new consciousness is our only hope.

Notes

[1] The system we live under is often described as capitalism, oligarchy, corporatocracy, or plutocracy. Regardless of the label, all of these structures are extremely hierarchical where most benefits flow to the ruling class at the top at the expense of the majority of people. While hierarchies occur in all systems - even socialism and communism - in those structures inequality between the different classes is much less pronounced and resources are much more evenly distributed.

[2] Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, (Oxford University Press: 1987)

The Zimmerman Verdict and Race: A Brief Criminological Assessment

[PHOTO CREDIT: ASSOCIATED PRESS]

By Jason Michael Williams

After the verdict was read to the world that Saturday evening, I said to myself that Monday would bring a hurricane of legal responses to the case outcome specifically on the role (if any) that race played before and throughout the trial. Having said that, I also knew that none of these dialogues would involve a criminologist – someone who could contextualize the role of race beyond the scope of the law in these proceedings.

Cable stations like CNN, HLN, and MSNBC have invited on an assortment of legal experts throughout and after the trial to help with contextualizing some of the aspects of the trial, however; an issue they could not hit on in any aggressive and tangible manner was the issue of race. Why is this? Because many lawyers, by default, have a natural appreciation for the American justice system. For example, many lawyers are not aggressively conscious regarding the connection between court actors (judge, lawyer, juror, and witnesses) and hidden racisms during adjudication because to them case outcomes are based on the evidence and nothing else, thus the machinery of justice is impartial.

However, the theory that the American justice system is fair and impartial has long been debunked. Decades upon decades of social science research have shown that impartiality in the justice system is a theory at best, yet the majority of Americans continue to believe the opposite at the apparent expense of others who are every day targets of this machinery of injustice and social death.

As a criminal justice professor, one of the main aspects of the justice system that I often discuss in my courses is that it’s based on an adversarial model (e.g. may the best man win). Therefore, one can easily argue that the American justice system is not designed to get to the truth. Meanwhile, notwithstanding the logic of the said argument, many lawyers and Americans continue to advocate quite the opposite. They advocate that the American system of justice is a model for the world.

The problem with society is that it fails to include the perspective of those who are in opposition with the way in which the justice system operates. When one simplifies this conflict of perspectives it becomes clear that this split is predominantly based on race, although some may also implicate class. Sadly, this conflict reflects that the majority of the country uncritically accepts the theory that justice is fair and colorblind in spite of what social science research has historically shown. Meanwhile, those who fall prey to this machinery of injustice are blamed for their victimization as the system is constantly legitimated each time someone is convicted because most people refuse to believe the system can be unfair.

Regarding race and the Zimmerman verdict, a point missed within the race discourse is the role of the jury. Although the actions of Zimmerman are questionable if one focuses in on his language in the 911 tape, could race not have been an issue in the jury box too? Could it be that the jury saw race and included it within their assessment of the facts? Juror B-37 had engaged in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper that had resulted in major social-media backlash (e.g., see, Mediaite for summary/videos). In fact, many people believed that this particular juror could easily validate prior assumptions that the mostly white jury would eventually side with Zimmerman. There were moments in her dialogue when she clearly appeared sympathetic to the defendant while having total disregard to Martin, who was unarmed and murdered.

Consider and analyze the following quotes from Mediaite, who provided a brief transcript of the interview:

Quote 1

If there was one witness who the juror didn’t find entirely credible it was Trayvon Martin ‘s friend Rachel Jeantel . “I didn’t think it was credible, but I felt sorry for her. She didn’t ask to be in this place. She wanted to go. She didn’t want to be any part of this case. I think she felt inadequate toward everyone because of her education and her communication skills. I just felt sadness for her.” She added, “She was embarrassed by being there, because of her education and her communication skills, that she just wasn’t a good witness.”

Quote 2

Cooper asked the juror specifically about Jeantel’s “creepy-ass cracker” statement that drew wide attention during the trial. She said she thought it was “probably the truth” and that “Trayvon probably said that” but said she didn’t “think it’s really racial. I think it’s just everyday life. The type of life that they live, and how they’re living, in the environment that they’re living in.”

Quote 3

In the second part of the interview, the juror told Cooper she thought Zimmerman’s “heart was in the right place” on the night he shot and killed Martin and the only thing he is guilty of is “not using good judgment [sic].” She said she thought he had “every right to carry a gun,” adding, “I think it’s everyone’s right to carry a gun.”

Quote 4

When Cooper asked if the juror thought Zimmerman “really felt his life was in danger” she responded. “I do. I really do.” When he asked if she thought Martin “threw the first punch,” she said, “I think he did.” Despite those assertions, she admitted that among she and the other jurors, “Nobody knew exactly what happened.”

Quote 1 describes the utter use of stereotypes that this juror, and possibly other jurors, had used when contextualizing Jeantel. Unfortunately, it is very possible that those stereotypes clouded this juror’s judgment regarding the validity of Jeantel’s testimony. Remember, Jeantel was a major witness to the altercation because she was the last person to speak to Martin. Nonetheless, the only thing this juror remembers regarding Jeantel’s credibility is her “bad communication skills” and “education,” nothing about the facts of the case. Clearly, this juror did not consider that Jeantel’s testimony did, in fact, match the official timeline of the event. How is that for being objective, right? Nevertheless, theoretically, jurors are not capable of this.

Quote 2 describes the juror’s quick decision to believe that Martin did, in fact, use the word “cracker.” However, what is more important about this quote is the extent to which she associates the use of this word with the everyday lives and environment of people like them (meaning Blacks). Clearly, to this juror, Blacks are foreign to her and they live radically different and decaying lifestyles in which they cannot help themselves. Also, she claimed that the use of “cracker” by Martin was not racial but is sure to paint Blacks as separate from Whites by describing how they live, thus making an implicit racial distinction between herself and Martin. Her responses here indicate that she is more likely to include these stereotypes in her assessment of the facts.

Quote 3 simply shows that at the very least this juror did believe that Zimmerman exercised poor judgment, which is also indicative regarding the value of Martin’s life to this juror. However, she did not feel that Zimmerman’s misjudgment was criminal in any way. She later shows her allegiance to the Second Amendment, which may also have racial implications because many argue that the gun debate is smothered with racial overtones. She also states that Zimmerman’s “heart was in the right place”-insensitive, much? This quote shows that somewhere within the mind of this juror she knew Zimmerman was wrong even though she admitted from the very beginning that she voted not guilty. One could easily argue that the facts did not mean much to this juror.

Quote 4 displays that this juror believed overwhelmingly that Zimmerman was not the aggressor. She believes this even though she admits that, among the jurors, nobody knew for sure what happened that night. Surprisingly, she did not give thought to the possible fact that Martin could have been defending himself against Zimmerman either. Why did this juror, and obviously others, believe that Martin was the aggressor in the face of admitted confusion about the night in question? Perhaps Martin’s skin was too dark, which made him the default aggressor.

Some people will read my assessment of the quotes and say they may be likely but not necessarily true, and they would be correct. However, they also cannot deny the qualitative significance that jurors’ mindsets can hold in case outcomes. Again, social science research continues to show that implicit biases or extra-legal factors (e.g., racial stereotypes, etc) continue to play a large role within the American justice system. It is also important to note that the above quotes are small snapshots into this juror’s mindset that could have played a role in her assessment of the facts. The full transcript is more troubling as this juror exhibits many more hints regarding her mindset and bias toward Zimmerman. It should also be noted that, at various times, the juror completely misrepresented some of the facts of the case, which makes one wonder if the facts even mattered to this juror. Furthermore, this juror is also married to a lawyer, which could have impacted her and other jurors in their deliberations. Clearly this juror is pro-Zimmerman. Therefore, it is very possible that she backed her perspective on the fact that her husband is a lawyer, which could have had an impact on how her fellow jurors saw the facts as well.

In closing, this small assessment drives so many Americans to lose faith in the justice system. Many people understand that, in a racist society, justice can never be equal. Justice is not blind so long as others (in this case jurors) continue to believe that extra-legal factors supersede the facts. It is the implicit biases held within the justice system on all levels that sustains racial disparities within the criminal justice system. This is the reality from which the outcry from the verdict derives. It derives from a system’s inability to accept the decades upon decades of social science research proving racial bias within the justice system.

Sadly, the justice system refuses to provide a contextualization of race outside the scope of the law, and this is the point from which many legal analysts draw their conclusions regarding the race question (e.g., some lawyers may say the evidence does not support that race was an issue). Some people cannot and refuse to see how the jury box can ruin a trial because, to them, the jury is theoretically impartial. Theoretically, members of the jury cannot be bias and must leave extra-legal factors out of their assessment, yet Juror B-37 shows otherwise. To many people, once the jury decides the trial is over. The justice system should be respected for working as it was designed to work and everyone should resume his or her life. At the very least, the verdict could have been manslaughter, but as some have argued in social-media, Martin may have been the wrong complexion for protection. Once again, extra-legal factors have decided a verdict. Nonetheless, more analyses on the (un)equal application of “stand your ground” laws may be helpful in debating the validity of “stand your ground.” Until a judicial revolution occurs, many will continue to ask the age-old question: will the justice system ever consider Blacks as human beings deserving of protection and justice? Remember, one cannot assess the outcome of this trail without involving the social/criminological framework that surrounds the administration of justice in America.

Originally published in the Spring/Summer 2013 edition of the Race & Justice Scholar Newsletter.

The System Isn't Broken, It Was Designed This Way: A Critical Analysis of Historical Racial Disadvantage in the Criminal Justice System

By Chenelle A. Jones

Contemporary ideologies concerning the structure of the criminal justice system often purports that the system is somehow broken and in dire need of repair from the institutionalized racism that continues to permeate the system. However, to make this assertion of "brokenness" is to also make the assumption that the system was void of any racialized erroneous features at its genesis. This resounding fallacy concerning the structural makeup of the criminal justice system is exasperating because historical trends in justice administration have shown that the criminal justice system is not broken, it was designed that way. The criminal justice system was created in such a way to disadvantage, subdue, and control certain minority groups, namely African Americans. Trends in every facet of criminal justice research concerning police, courts and corrections, provide evidence that the criminal justice system is doing exactly what it was designed to do - marginalize and control minority populations. Although African Americans comprise 13% of the U.S. population, they account for 29% of arrests, 38% of prisoners in state and federal facilities, 42% of death penalty cases, and 37% of executions (Snell, 2011). Research continues to highlight the racial disparities that infiltrate the criminal justice system. While often the recipient of differential treatment, subjective laws, and more punitive sentences, African Americans experience the wrath of the criminal justice system when they are the offenders of crimes. However, when African Americans are victimized by crimes, their victimization is often disregarded and/or addressed with futile effort. Higginbotham (1996) noted these racialized differences in the administration of justice after an extensive review of punishment for crimes committed by both White Americans and African Americans from 1630 to 1865. He found that White Americans tend to ascribe little justice to African Americans while White Americans were indifferent to their own criminality (Higginbotham, 1996). Hawkins (1996) used the phrase "black life is cheap" to describe the devaluation of African American life and their inability to be afforded justice when victimized.

The devalued status of African Americans and their disparate treatment concerning offending and victimization as identified by both Higginbotham and Hawkins, predates the Antebellum period. Even the U.S. Constitution once considered African Americans only 3/5th of a person. So, the notion that the disparities in the criminal justice system are the result of a "broken" system is to overlook and disregard the historical context from which the system was designed. The criminal justice system has been used as a means to perpetuate racial inequalities since its inception. It is a social institution that is vulnerable to numerous external influences and therefore the belief that it is "broken" and somehow in need of repair, is to display a misguided understanding of the macro and micro level contextual factors that affect the criminal justice system and its historical role in race relations. The system is operationally and structurally unsound. There is a need to reconsider the very essence and mechanisms of the criminal justice system. There is a need to reconsider the external influences such as racism, classism, and sexism that influence the system. There is also a need to reconsider the economic and political institutions that control the system. The system is not just "broken" and in need of repair, the system was never right from its establishment.

The criminal justice system is a reflection of society. African Americans have a historical reputation of marginalization and denigration in the United States that reputation is paralleled in the criminal justice system. During the slavery era, African Americans were considered chattel. They were deemed inferior to Whites and forced into slave labor to support the southern economy. Attempts to escape or revolt prompted Whites to use slave patrollers and pass "slave codes" which embraced criminal law and regulated almost every aspect of slave life (Gabbidon and Greene, 2012). These laws were only applicable to African Americans and their violations resulted in harsh punishment because they threatened the very institution of slavery and challenged the status quo. This disparate application of law and the unequal distribution of criminal penalties perpetuated the ideology of White supremacy and Black inferiority. As a result of being birthed from this ideology, the criminal justice system still harbors structural glitches that disadvantage African Americans. Therefore, the assertion that the system is "broken" is an inaccurate assessment, the system was never right from the beginning.

The enforcement of slave codes provides one example of disparate treatment in criminal justice. Laws regulating the slave trade provide another. The slave trade consisted of the abduction, trade, and sell of Africans into slavery, often involving long passages across the Atlantic Ocean. W.E.B. Du Bois found that even after the death penalty was instituted in America for trading slaves, very few Whites were convicted, let alone executed for slave trading (Du Bois 1891). He found that many White Americans believed the punishment of death was too severe a punishment to impose on someone engaging in the slave trade, therefore, White offenders were often found not guilty of the offense. This early form of White crime in America was allowed to persist, particularly due to White supremacy, the devaluation of African American lives, and the economic benefits of the institution of slavery (Du Bois, 1891). Again, historical race relations served as a key component in criminal justice disparities concerning application of the law and imposition of punishments.

Even after 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom to slaves, laws were passed to regulate the lives of African Americans. These laws, commonly known as "Black Codes", penalized African Americans for offenses such as vagrancy and prevented them from testifying against White Americans, serving on juries, and voting. These disparate laws were then enforced by criminal justice practitioners such as the police. Violators were often tried in court by all-White juries, found guilty, and punished by being made to work in the convict-leasing system (Du Bois, 1901). From the beginning, the criminal justice system granted very little justice to African Americans, but if African Americans committed crimes, they endured biased and prejudicial juries who often found them guilty and imposed strict punishments. Conversely, if White Americans committed crimes against African Americans such as rape and/or lynching, rarely were they convicted and made to endure any punitive consequences.

In Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892), Ida B. Wells notes the injustices experienced by African Americans within the criminal justice system. While conducting a broad study of lynchings in America, she found that African Americans were often shot, hanged, or burned to death for minor offenses such as testifying in court, disrespecting Whites, and failing to repay debts. Most of the lynching cases against black men were for rape, even when there was evidence of a consensual relationship. In 1892, Wells found that 66% of the reported 241 lynchings had African American victims. She also found that most White offenders who conducted the lynchings were not convicted of any crime (Wells, 1892). The exclusion of African Americans from testifying in court and the blatant acceptance of White crimes against African Americans without penalty, speaks to the devalued status of African Americans in society and the criminal justice system. It also illuminates the ideology of White supremacy that overtly governed almost every aspect of life then and continues to exist, although covertly now.

The injustices experienced by African Americans within the criminal justice system not only existed in slave codes, black codes, and lynchings, Jim Crow laws further criminalized the mundane behavior of African Americans and subjected them to disparate treatment within the criminal justice system. Jim Crow laws were legal statutes that perpetuated segregation and prevented African Americans from schools, parks, restaurants, theatres, buses, trains, etc. that were designated for White Americans. Violation of these discriminatory laws, which were enforced by law enforcement officials working for their respective criminal justice agencies, carried severe penalties for African Americans. This often led to the increased criminalization of African Americans. Sutherland (1947) noted that African Americans were arrested, convicted, and committed to prisons at a rate of almost three times that of White Americans. Sutherland's findings reveal that even years after its origin, the criminal justice system continued to be used as a means of social control to maintain the social hierarchy of White superiority and black inferiority. This supports the assertion that the system was never broken, it was designed to marginalize African Americans and in doing that, it was very successful.

Building on the idea that the criminal justice system consistently devalues African American life, Johnson (1941) developed a Hierarchy of Homicide Seriousness in which he describes racially disparate perceptions of crime (See Figure 1). Hawkins (1983) further expanded on Johnson's model to include "stranger", "friend", and "acquaintance". Both models highlight the historical devalued status of African Americans in the criminal justice system by noting that crimes are considered "most serious" when there is a White victim and Black offender. These crimes disrupt the established social hierarchy and indicate that African Americans are somehow behaving incongruently with their position in society. As a result, the punishments for these crimes are often very harsh. Crimes in which there is an African American victim and White offender are considered "least serious" because these crimes align with the established social order. African Americans are perceived as inferior to White Americans, therefore their victimization is often overlooked. This model of disparate treatment concerning the victimization of White and African Americans is evidenced in the administration of justice quite frequently.

The Scottsboro Boys is one case that supports Johnson's (1941) model of racially disparate perceptions of crime. The Scottsboro Boys were several African American boys who rode on a train with a group of White boys and two White girls. While they were on the train a fight erupted. Although the White boys were removed from the train, the two White girls who remained on the train claimed they were raped by the African American boys. As a result of their devalued status in society and the belief of White superiority, the African American boys were presumed guilty before the case even began. This was further evidenced by the lynch mob that formed immediately following the girl's claims. The African American boys were granted a trial, however they were tried by an all-White jury, denied legal counsel, found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death. It was later revealed that the girls lied, however the Scottsboro Boys had already served a combined 104 years in prison by that time (Walker, Spohn, & DeLone, 2004). For Scottsboro boys, the criminal justice system was the very mechanism used to steal the boy's liberties and ensure their punishment for crimes they did not commit by denying them a fair trial and any protection under the law.

The case of Emmitt Till is another example of the criminal justice system devaluing the life of African Americans. While accused of whistling at a White girl, Emmitt Till was kidnapped, beat beyond recognition, and shot in the head. His offenders were tried for murder. The case was decided by an all-White, all-male jury because women and African Americans were not permitted to sit on juries. The jury acquitted the offenders of all charges and a few months later, they confessed to the crime. Like the Scottsboro case, the case of Emmitt Till demonstrates the inability of the criminal justice system to provide justice to African Americans.

The Scottsboro Boys and the case of Emmett Till are just a few of many examples in which the lives of African Americans are devalued by the criminal justice system. During the civil rights era, White law enforcement officials frequently used clubs, tear gas, dogs, and hoses on African Americans without penalty (Gabbidon and Greene, 2012). Thus proving that the very institution that should have provided protection to African Americans, was the primary source of harm to African Americans. So the idea that the criminal justice system is "broken" is incorrect. Since its inception, African Americans were granted very little justice in the criminal justice system. It was designed that way and continues to operate that way.

The cases of Rodney King, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, and Lorenzo Collins are just a few contemporary examples of the continued perceptions of the devalued life of African Americans in the criminal justice system. Each of these cases involved an African American victim and a police offender. For these cases, the police offender was either acquitted of all charges or convicted of a much lesser charge. Further solidifying the belief that the lives of African Americans are not valued in the criminal justice system.

Most recently, the verdict in the case of Trayvon Martin reaffirmed the devalued status of African American life. The unarmed, 17-year old boy was racially profiled, shot and killed by an overzealous neighborhood watchman named George Zimmerman who claimed self-defense. The offender's acquittal of all charges, by a predominately White jury, speaks to the historical denigration of African American life in both American society and the criminal justice system. It also reveals the implicit institutionalized racism, birthed from the racialized ideologies of the Antebellum period, which continue to manifest itself within the criminal justice system. The posthumous vilification of Trayvon Martin during the trial and the subsequent verdict parallels a historical trend of injustice afforded to African Americans within the criminal justice system. Furthermore, the verdict contradicts the notion that the system is broken, conversely, it affirms the system is operating the way it was designed to function, which is to suppress, subdue, and socially control African Americans. The system is not broken, it was never right in the first place, and until a substantive systematic change occurs, the criminal justice system will continue to be used by privileged Whites as a means to marginalize African Americans.

References

Du Bois, W.E.B. (1891). Enforcement of the Slave Trade Laws (American Historical Association, Annual Report). Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

Du Bois, W.E.B. (1901). The Spawn of Slavery: The Convict Lease System in the South. Missionary Review of the World, 14, 737-745.

Du Bois, W.E.B. (1904). The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870. Longmans, Green, and Company.

Gabbidon, S.L., & Greene, H.T. (2012). Race and Crime (3rd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Greene, H.T., & Gabbidon, S.L. (2011) (eds.). Race and Crime: A Text/Reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Hawkins, D.F. (1893). Black and White Homicide Differentials: Alternatives to an Inadequate Theory. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 10, 407-440.

Hawkins, D. F. (1987). Devalued Lives and Racial Stereotypes: Ideological Barriers to the Prevention of Family Violence Among Blacks. In R.L. Hampton (Ed.), Violence in the Black Family. 189-205.

Higginbotham, A.L. (1996). Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and the Presumptions of the American Legal Process. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Johnson, G. B. (1941). The Negro and Crime. The American Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 217:93-104.

Snell, T. L. (2013). Capital Punishment, 2011 Statistical Tables. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved from: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cp11st.pdf.

Sutherland, E.H. (1947). Principles in Criminology (4th ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott.

Walker, S., Spohn, C., & DeLone, M. (2004). The Color of Justice: Race, Ethnicity, and Crime in America. (3rd ed.), Belmont, CA.: Thompson Learning.

Wells, Ida B. (1892). Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. New York Age Print. New York.

An Open Letter to My Nephews and Niece on the Day After the Trayvon Martin Verdict

[PHOTO CREDIT: MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES]

By Jonathan Mathias Lassiter

Idealism is for young people. I use to believe that the world operated in a just manner. That if you worked hard against oppression, freedom would indeed ring. I must be getting older because I am no longer idealistic. I no longer believe that with enough hard work, a person, regardless of their skin color can achieve anything they wish. And now, writing this, I don’t know if I ever fully believed that. I think I just wished, prayed, and hoped it was true. It required a lot of hope to resist the truth. The truth that your grandfather told me often during my childhood. “As a Black man, you have to work twice as hard to get half as far.” As a child, I thought I knew better. I always worked hard and I was always rewarded. Teachers praised me for my academic achievement. I won awards and was recognized by adults as a “good boy.” It gave me status to be recognized by the powers that be.

But as I began to mature into a man, my eyes started to be opened. I started to realize that being praised by the powers that be is a hollow achievement-a smoke screen for the injustices perpetrated by those powers. That status only made me docile and content with the status quo. I started to realize what your grandfather was talking about. He was not just an angry Black man. He was angry; but that was not all he was. He was outraged! And justifiably so at a world that degraded him because of his black skin. My father-your grandfather-told me with much fervor, the story of his father-your great grandfather’s-discrimination and cruel treatment at the hands of white people. Your great grandfather was a sharecropper in the 1940s and 1950s Jim Crow Georgia. You are young and may not know what a sharecropper is but it is important that you do because being a sharecropper meant that your great-grandfather was relegated to the bottom of a socioeconomic system that exploited his hard work. This same thing still happens at various levels for many different people regardless of their race across the globe today. Anyway, a sharecropper was a person who leased a plot of land from the owner of the land, planted seeds, harvested the crops, and then sold those crops. After selling the crops from the harvest, the sharecropper then had to pay the landowner a percentage of the earnings to pay the bills of leasing the land and any other expenses that were related to farming. The problem with that business model was that the sharecropper was usually left with more debt than profit and remained in a perpetual cycle of poverty and thus bondage. Your great grandfather was such a man and your grandfather was born into such a cycle. One day as your great grandfather was walking down the street with your grandfather-who was a young boy at the time-a white man “much younger” than your great grandfather referred to him as a “boy.” The social climate of that time was such whereas that type of exchange was commonplace and your great grandfather had no recourse. Your great grandfather-a grown man at the time-was subjected to a dehumanizing assault to his manhood and dignity. That unfair treatment stuck with your grandfather and he carried that with him his entire life. And since being told this story as a young boy myself, it has stayed with me.

That story is testament for the lack of regard for Black life. Black skin has been deemed inferior from the first moment European eyes set upon it. It has continued to be deemed inferior with the enslavement of Africans in the Americas and the Caribbean islands. It was deemed inferior when a young woman named Mira was murdered by her slave master in 1839 North Carolina, when a young boy named Emmett Till was murdered in 1955 Mississippi, when Oscar Grant was murdered in 2009 Oakland, and in the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012 Florida. None of these victims’ loved ones saw justice for these crimes. And there are countless unnamed victims whose lives were deemed inferior enough to take at various times throughout history and presently. However, Black life is not just deemed inferior, it is deemed dangerous. You, my nephews and my niece, are considered dangerous because you have black skin. Some consider you unintelligent, violent, and inferior. But you are none of those things. Please believe me. Please know that.

The white supremacist society we live in is not a new one. Indeed, the mentality-and it is a mentality that enslaves minds and feeds a system of injustice-that privileges whiteness is a global one. We have brothers and sisters in India and China who bleach their skin so that they may achieve or maintain fair complexions. This is a disastrous mentality to have. A mentality that teaches one to so thoroughly hate herself/himself that she/he makes physical alterations to her/his body. However, at this time, my kinfolk in India and China are not in the forefront of my brain. You are. My biggest fear is that you will believe that you are inferior, unintelligent, violent, and dangerous. I am concerned that white supremacist ideas might colonize your mind, plant poisonous seeds, and sprout strange fruit. So in the same spirit that James Baldwin wrote to his nephew in “My Dungeon Shook-Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of Emancipation,” I am writing to you, my nephews and niece. There are many people that will consider and treat you inferior but you must resist this messaging no matter how beautifully packaged it is. Many of these people will have white skin and many will be people of color like you. They will consider you inferior because of their own delusional mental schemas. Their opinions have no real bearing in reality and must be taken for what they are: false. You are not Pecola Breedlove or Bigger Thomas.

Many people that look like you will believe that they are inferior and accept negative descriptions of themselves and because they accept those descriptions of themselves they will try to force-feed them to you. Yet, you must again, resist. You come from great stock. Your biological ancestors and the Black men and women who have come before you are proof of your worth. They are outstanding, so you are outstanding! Your brilliance is right in line with George Washington Carver and Benjamin Banneker’s genius. Your artistry is in the tradition of Lorrain Hansberry, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison. Your athletic prowess is the same as Ulysses Dove, Jesse Owens, and Wilma Rudolph. Your vision is as searing as Nat Turner, Fred Hampton, and Cornel West. Those people are the solid foundation that you must build upon.

You have a lot of which to be proud. You must be proud of yourself. If you cannot love yourself and realize your importance, no one else can. You must be proud of each and every achievement no matter how small. Even as you work towards the bigger picture, you must celebrate the little victories. You made the honor roll, celebrate! You moved onto the next grade in school, celebrate! You resisted temptation to give up even when the task was difficult, celebrate! You said no to peer pressure, celebrate! Celebrate your survival. But do not be satisfied with survival. You must thrive. However, you must know that thriving does not mean becoming Beyoncé, Brian Moynihan, or President Barack Obama. You must resist gangster activities, whether in a boardroom or street corner. You have a responsibility to struggle for equality, justice, and a fulfilling life for you and your fellow human beings. Thriving is a life lived with purpose, meaning, and integrity.

I write these things because this is the only way you will survive. You may still be gunned down by an insecure, arrogant vigilante. But your spirit, your actions will live on if they are actions carried forth from your soul. From a place of love and not fear. Fear is what makes an adult stalk and kill an unarmed boy. Fear of changes in the status quo, fear of realization of one’s own insecurities, and the possibility that she/he may indeed be the inferior one and not her/his prey. Fear is what fuels complacency. Fear of losing a house, fear of losing a job, fear of having one’s own life taken and then not avenged. Fear is a weapon of colonization that communicates to a people that “this is just the way things are.” After the Trayvon Martin verdict yesterday, I saw a lot of Black people on Facebook type: “I knew he would get off.” That statement points to a larger problem.

I, too, knew that there was a very small chance that George Zimmerman would serve any time for murdering Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman is just one more person in America who exerted his white supremacist masculinity through violence. However, I am not satisfied with just saying, “I knew it.” The problem is that I should not know it. It should not be a given that Black lives don’t matter. But in this American society it is and has been a given. And honestly, that makes me scared. Scared for you and scared for me. But I will not just sit and pray to Jesus for “real” justice, again as I saw a lot of Black people on Facebook suggesting. Because Jesus will do nothing. That statement will be hard for some people to believe. It might be hard for you to believe. But believe it. The truth about Jesus, what made Jesus such a great prophet was not any mystical powers or divine lineage. We all are connected to the divine in some way or another. But what made Jesus so remarkable was that he did not let his fear conquer him. He knew that there was something greater than him that needed to be accomplished. He knew that his life had purpose and that purpose was to struggle for the freedom of all people, especially the most vulnerable and oppressed. Jesus was a Jewish man-not some blond haired blue-eyed Abercrombie model, don’t believe the hype-who took the side of prostitutes, people with diseases, and children. He did not care if the people in power during that time agreed with him or not. He would not stay silent. Jesus’ mind was thoroughly liberated. He knew that his power was in his voice. In speaking for those who could not speak for themselves. He knew as one of our great teachers, Audre Lorde, knew that “silence [would] not protect him” and that “when [he] dare[d] to be powerful, to use [his] strength in the service of [his] vision…it [became] less and less important whether [or not he was] afraid. That is the power of Jesus and other great prophets like Malcolm X, Toussaint Louverture, and Shirley Chisholm. So do not give into the complacency of religion. Your higher power is powerful but only as powerful as you are willing to be. You must use your voice. You must speak the truth from a decolonized mind. You must not remain docile in a system that does not value you and will seek to subjugate and/or kill you because of your black skin or any other reason.

I am trying to lead by example. I am trying to speak the truth. This letter does not feel like enough as I write it. But in a world where the dominating systems in operation are designed to stifle growth and maintain the status quo, one’s words and mind are the most powerful tools. If they remain uncolonized and free they are the instruments of creation. A person can create her/his world with her/his ideas and words. Ideas become words, and words become actions. And actions become change. There might be times where you do not know what to say: follow your heart. Listen to the voices within that come from your lived experience. Look at the world around you and know that what you see does not have to be. The status quo is not the best you can do. I am trying to be an example for you. That is why I have been away from home in graduate school for six years now. That is why I have not been able to see you grow up. I am trying to better myself so that I may speak from a place of truth and help others better themselves. I am trying to make the world a little better for you. And you must make the world a little better for others. That is hard work. It requires sacrifice, sitting with ambiguity, tolerating anxiety, failing sometimes, and the ability to move forward in a world in which the ground is constantly moving. It requires for you to be a critical thinker who does not except easy binary solutions or idealized versions of society.

So if you have not been freed from your idealism, you will soon experience such emancipation. The world we live in is a cruel and harsh teacher. This letter is written in hopes that it may inspire you and provide some type of path for you along your journey from children to adults. From complacent citizens to trailblazers for freedom. You, I, your parents, classmates, and fellow human brethren live in difficult times. My heart hurts for Trayvon Martin. I am tempted to fall into cynicism and question all my struggles for justice. But the truth is that all of our time on this earth is limited. Whether we are killed in our own neighborhoods by people who look like us with white supremacist ideas burrowed into their minds, terrorized by people with white skin, or go gently into that good night, we all have a finite amount of time to live our lives with purpose and to struggle against all odds for freedom. The struggle for freedom starts with the individual. It starts in our own minds. You must start with your mind and then spread the message of liberation to others. Once you have decolonized your mind, you will then be able to struggle for the liberation of others-whether you achieve it or not. You may not achieve all of your dreams and you might not change the world but you must continue to struggle to make your dreams your reality and to make the world a little better for your future children and nephews and nieces to live. And as your grandfather told me, you are going to have to work twice as hard to get half as far. And not just because you have black skin but because you are working against a nefarious system. But you must work twice as hard, three times as hard because at least you will have moved at all. And that movement can change a world.

The National Securitization of Traditional Criminal Justice

By Jason Michael Williams

In the post-911 era, traditional criminal justice processes have become nearly ancient. For example, according to some scholars within criminology/criminal justice, the administration of justice presently finds itself at a strange crossroad (Wacquant, 2009; Garland, 2001; Braithewaite, 2000; Simon, 2007). This crossroad has been linked to several paradigmatic shifts that have been occurring within the crime control complex that has governed the administration of justice since the 1980s. Some believe this shift is the consequence of late modernity (Garland, 2001; Monahan, 2006) and others blame neo-liberalism (Brown, 2010), and the changing currents within the social, political, and cultural contexts. Birthed from this discourse are crimes of late modernity. These crimes consist of terrorism, cyber- crime, and other crimes categorized under the umbrella of national security.

What is of essential importance is the context in which the mechanisms of punishment and crime control has changed. For example, traditionally, rights afforded to U.S. citizens via the Constitution were off limits and could never be challenged or taken away under any circumstances; however, today, because of various laws and powers of the Executive Branch of government, U.S. citizens are at a greater risk of being punished and surveilled by the government. A good indicator of this reality is the current debates on the Obama Administration and the National Security Administration's (NSA) spying program. The ACLU has taken measures to combat the intrusive qualities of the NSA's spying program.

According to the ACLU, the U.S. government does not seem to have a concrete purpose for collecting data on its citizens; it simply alleges that, by doing so, it makes it easier for intelligence officials to identify trends and possible leads later. This shifting in the administration of justice implicates a minority report-effect wherein law enforcement has become involved in the business of preemptive-law enforcement. This shift is a process whereby the government investigates to prevent crime but under a dogmatic notion that everyone is possibly guilty before committing the crime. This logic is abundantly counterproductive to the usual processes of law enforcement. However, the biggest question regarding this discourse is why this is happening and what are some critical elements that may need to be contextualized for a better understanding on what is occurring.

In the post-911 era, the crime control model of administering justice has been placed on steroids. Packer (1968) describes the crime control model as a process in which justice is swift and based on just deserts. There is very little room for improvement of the individual under this model, for justice is at best an assembly line and crime is never-ending and unfixable. The crime control model operates off the presumption of guilt, which is congruent to the way in which the system operates today under preemptive-law enforcement. Large quantities of cases are brought into adjudication and convicts are swiftly assigned punishment. In fact, many cases are never brought to court due to the continuous movement of the system and the large amounts of persons being charged daily. According to the Bureau of Justice Assistance, 90-95% of defendants on both the federal and state levels never reach the trail stage due to plea bargains, which have more striking cons to them than pros. Timothy Lynch of the CATO Institute has written a compelling article that focused on government's response to one's option/right to a trial by jury, thus alleging that government retaliates against those defendants who are apathetic to pleas.

On the other hand, Packer describes the due process model as a more egalitarian approach to administering justice. Under this model, the humanity of the victim and perpetrator is recognized, and there is no loss of Constitutional rights for either side. The due process model understands that error can occur within the fact-finding process and makes strides toward making sure that such errors are avoided and considered; thus, it tries to maintain the integrity of justice.

However, the impact that all the above has on modern day criminal justice is one of the most important questions that must be answered. Since 911, social control has become more punitive. Government can now surveil people in ways never done before. Techno-surveillance has become a very attractive tool in modern-day spying. More strikingly, state and local law enforcement agencies are starting to impersonate federal protocol. For example, many states now have counter-terrorism units, cyber-crime units, and departments of homeland security and emergency management. These advents are indicative of a dual police state (federal and state), or a system in which surveillance reigns supreme 24/7 and within all spaces of governance.

Another critical element to process is the extent to which the private sector has increasingly become involved in the administration of justice. Because the post-911 era brings with it a hyper-punitive platform of administering justice, mass incarceration has become a huge phenomenon and profitable idea to many in the private sector. Some scholars have looked at private prisons and the reentry industry as two of the main beneficiaries of mass incarceration (Thompkins, 2010; Wacquant, 2010; Hallett, 2006; Price, 2006), alleging that private prisons and reentry organizations profit off modern-day punishment and surveillance. For example, Thompkins (2010) explains that, many times, ex-prisoners are recommitted back to prison because of their inability to prioritize their need to work alongside attending counseling sessions with reentry organizations. As a result of not attending mandated counseling sessions because of simple scheduling concerns, many ex-prisoners are sent back to prison to repeat the never-ending cycle of surveillance; meanwhile, reentry organizations and prisons continue to profit off their misery and endless captivity.

The private market found its transformational niche in criminal justice after 911. As a result of 911, intelligence became the key focus within crime control. The government wanted to prevent another attack from happening, which gave the intelligence community an opportunity of a lifetime; however, much of what it was and can do requires the voluntary submission of many civil liberties from the citizenry. This new focus would later become known as the intelligence industrialization complex. Under this complex, intelligence is outsourced to private entities to conduct the usual tasks of intelligence gathering and assessment that would be done by government agencies. However, due to neo-liberal logic, this task has been handed over to private industry under the ludicrous assumption that the private sector is free of error and more efficient. Sadly, most are unaware of the effects this has caused on the local levels of law enforcement. It has turned ordinary citizens into criminal suspects. Preemptive-law enforcement has become part of the daily routine within traditional criminal justice. For example, occurrences of police brutality have been met with extreme protests within the last decade. Civil protests have become occasions for law enforcement to test their counter-terrorism exercises on apparent non-threatening citizens, and policies like stop and frisk have become legitimated under the mantras of "get tough" and "crime control."

Under what appears to be a national security-criminal justice, even law-abiding citizens are suspected criminals, and much of this "suspicion" has racial implications behind them. For example, a report by the Public Advocate, analyzing 2012 NYC stop and frisk data, found the following:

1. The likelihood a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded a weapon was half that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered a weapon in one out every 49 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 71 stops of Latinos and 93 stops of African Americans to find a weapon.

2. The likelihood a stop of African American New Yorker yielded contraband was one-third less than that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered contraband in one out every 43 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 57 stops of Latinos and 61 stops of African Americans to find contraband.

3. Despite the overall reduction in stops, the proportion involving black and Latino New Yorkers has remained unchanged. They continue to constitute 84 percent of all stops, despite comprising only 54 percent of the general population. And the innocence rates remain at the same level as 2011 - at nearly 89 percent.

The above findings are grounds for new theorization on the impact of national security and its impact on localized crime. Localized crime under national security-criminal justice has become just as punitive and totalitarian as crimes on the federal level regarding national security. Furthermore, this new formation of administering justice as noticed above seems to have a disparate impact on racial-minorities. The disparate impact has more to do with labeling and stereotypes than any genuine threat. Furthermore, immigration is another "crime issue" in which to contextualize under national security-criminal justice. Immigration, of course, has racial implications behind it as well due to the assortment of pejoratives used against Spanish-speaking persons who are automatically alleged to be "illegals."

What is most important about this new system of social control is the extent to which it has hyper-punitized the traditional system of criminal justice. The same justifying arguments used by the Bush and Obama Administrations have been used by local government officials concerning, for example, stop and frisk and Mayor Bloomberg. Much of this justifying rhetoric is believed by many due to the unwavering presence of totalitarianism. Most people do not care to know whether or not a certain law or practice is just, especially when the law or practice does not affect them. This is the case with stop and frisk, whereas most Caucasians in NYC are not particularly concerned about stop and frisk because their Mayor and flawed police statistics tells them minorities are to blame for rampant crime and, therefore, minorities will be the targets of stop and frisk. However, funny enough, this narrative works notwithstanding the facts as reported by the Public Advocate as well as prior data that had long depicted that the myth of the dangerous minority could not be further from truth.

By framing certain criminal acts under national security, the traditional methodology of responding to crime becomes obsolete. Instead, adjudication is very swift and harsh, and justified by a zero tolerance ideology. There is very little room for fact-finding, which takes away the scrutiny that usually comes with traditional trials. Nonetheless, what is especially intriguing is the extent to which some traditionally domestic issues have suddenly become part of national security discussions, and many of those issues are tied to politically powerless groups. For example, in NYC at one time, there were talks regarding the labeling of street gangs as terrorists. Another issue would be immigration and the extent to which republicans/conservatives believe immigration to be pertinent to national security. Both of the aforementioned issues have racially-anchored implications hidden in the subtext. Therefore, policy implemented in those areas can only lead to disparate treatment onto those selected groups hidden in the subtext (Monahan, 2010).

Moreover, the state will argue the need for such precautionary measures in the name of risk management, which is the quintessential logic behind preemptive-law enforcement and post-modern surveillance. This logic is also legitimated through the use of fear as a tool of galvanizing support for the new form of social control-national security-criminal justice. As the traditional system of criminal justice becomes more like that of national security, citizens can expect harsher policy and penal control. Sadly, much is not being done to on behalf of researchers and government regarding an exploration on the extent to which the powerless will be as always innocent victims in this paradigmatic shifting (see, e.g., Haggerty & Samatas, 2010; Manahan, 2006;).

With the ongoing and aggressive warehousing of undocumented persons and citizens in private detention facilities, and the continued expression of racial disparities in the criminal justice system, time can only tell whether or not the American people will tap into a greater consciousness that will catapult the system into a more egalitarian reality. However, in order for such a revolution to happen, the essentialist concept of hyper-individualism must cease to exist. Furthermore, justice itself must be re-conceptualized to fit the post-911 context (see, e.g., Hudson, 2009) to make brainstorming on this matter efficient. People must begin to sympathize with others, they must begin to see beyond the context of the self and discover the interconnectedness between those who are not suspected criminals (predominantly Caucasian) and those under indefinite surveillance (predominantly people of color). Otherwise, national security-criminal justice will continue to turn the U.S into a police state that will eventually impact everyone - even those who may not be targets of this vicious system at the present time. The national securitization of traditional criminal justice is partly due to society's inability to understand issues of late modernity, and so instead of evaluating the issues logically so that a proper response can be applied society responds in the only way in which it knows. It responds via the institution of usually racist, xenophobic, sexist, and classist, campaigns against the "other/issue," which routinely gets entangled into the criminal justice system, because punishment and social control is of course the only option in America.

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