Black Women & Misogynoir within Social Movements

“We cannot enter the struggle as objects in order later to become human beings.” (Freire, 26). Bell Hooks contextualizes this quote in a conversation with Melissa Harris-Perry -”Black female voices - Who is listening?”. In which they discuss race, black womanhood, politics, media and the imperialist-white-supremacist-patriarchal worlds response to it. Throughout history and now in the contemporary, Black women’s political, cultural and intellectual works have been ignored, overlooked and stolen. Even as black women fight for the freedom of their race, specifically the concept of black manhood through organizing, theorizing and in digital spaces they are unfairly criticized, distrusted and in a lot of cases abused by the very people they are fighting for. Social movements that have been at the forefront of change such as; Black Lives Matter, Say Her Name, EndSARS, MeToo and even radical organizations like The Black Panthers have refused to give Black women their well-deserved dues. Black women are victims within movements surrounding them and movements they created. This is a direct reflection of racism, sexism, queerphobia and a specific type of misogyny that is uniquely aimed at black women, misogynoir.

Black lives matter (BLM) is a grassroot decentralized social and political movement advocating for victims of police brutality and racial violence against black people. It was created in 2013 as a response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Black teen, Trayvon Martin. This movement was created by three black women; Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, since then these women and many more have organized marches, die-ins, online and in person protests and other various responses to police brutality. Women across the world specifically young, queer, black women have played a central role, putting their bodies on the front lines fighting for black lives including their own. Any conversation about racial disparities and violence must include women, yet the outrage of BLM is only heard when the lives of Cis black men are on the line. According to The Status of Black Women in the United States by The Institute of Womens Police research, Black women of all ages are twice as likely to be imprisoned as White women in 2014 (109 per 100,000 Black women were imprisoned in state and federal prisons compared with 53 per 100,000 White women). Research by African American Police Forum and Columbia University also shows that in New York in 2013, 53.4 percent of all women stopped by the police were black, while 55.7 percent of all men stopped were black. Not only do black women face almost the same risk of racial disparities at the hands of the police just as black men, but they are also at risk for gender specific violence from these very same encounters including but not limited to; sexual assault, strip searches, violence against the children in their care. The impact of police brutality on women goes beyond the surface, whether at the scenes of arrest, at detention centers and in their homes. Cases like that of Breonna Taylor, shot dead in her own home, seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones, murdered in her home, Rekia Boyd, Sandra Bland and a long list of other black women, names unknown show that violence against black men has been used as the baseline of racism against black people as a whole, leaving the stories of black women invisible. This hyper focus on police brutality against black men has inspired the creation of spaces revolving around the rehabilitation of black men in society and rightfully so, but these initiatives often leave out black girls and women and when they do not are inherently sexist and misogynistic. This reinforces the point that we do not see black womn as a priority in the BLM movement, even though they are the driving force in this space.

Apart from the erasure of black women from BLM and the discussion of police brutality as a whole, black women on the front lines of black lives matter marches and in other activist spaces are often met with sexism, abuse (trans)misognoir from black men themselves. Black Lives Matter is feminist in its interrogation of state power and its critique of structural inequality. It is also forcing a conversation about gender and racial politics that we need to have women at the forefront of this movement are articulating that black lives does not only mean mens lives or cisgender lives or respectable lives or the lives that are legitimated by state power or privilege. As said by Marcia Chatelain, professor of history at Georgetown University “a space that is not cognizant of the struggles that black women face cannot claim to be feminist in nature.” The death of Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Salau, 19-year-old Nigerian-American activist, is a painful reminder of misogynoir within the BLM movement. On June 6th 2020, after leaving a protest in Tallahassee, Toyin was sexually assaulted by a man who offered her a place to stay. Even after following all the “right” actions post assault; DNA evidence, a full report to the police, a thread on social media describing what had happened to her in detail, they were no repercussions. Salau was missing for a week before being found dead, assaulted again and killed by another man she had met at the protest. A study of Historically Black Colleges and universities shiws that black women are less likely to report assault, stating that “14 percent of rape survivors who were physically forced and 7 percent of those who were incapacitated said they did not believe the police would think the incident was “serious enough.” However, Toyin amongst the minority who did report was failed by her family, her community, the system, the people she was fighting for and the very movement she was fighting in.

In an effort to create a platform and movement as large as BLM, highlighting the violence and police brutality against black women specifically, they Say Her Name movement was born. It was created in 2015 by Kimberlé Crenshaw, along with other members of the African American Police Forum (AAPF) due to mass medias tendency to sideline black womens stories relating to anti-black violence. The movement advocates for intersectionality, a term also coined by Kimberly Crenshaw, “shining a light on gender and sexuality specific forms of police brutality often experienced by Black women such as sexual assault, police violence against pregnant and mothering women, and police abuse of lesbian, bisexual, transgender, gender nonconforming Black women.” (AAPF 2015, 4).

Two months after this movement was launched, Sandra Bland a Black Lives Matter activist was found dead in her jail cell. Troopers claimed that she had committed suicide 3 days after being arrested for failure to use her turn signal. Her name gave the say her name movement the push it needed, making a trans-media story, a story told across multiple platforms, preferably allowing audience participation” (Pratten 2011, 2). Though rather popular, Say Her Name has not been able to receive media attention for a lot of the women that die at the hands of police violence. “Black women across the country including Sandra Bland, Kindra Chapman, Joyce Curnell, Ralkina Jones, Alexis McGovern, and Raynetta Turner, as well as countless others that have not received national media attention (rt.com), were all found hanged in their jail cells, a fate which presumably could have been avoided had they received social and legal protection.” (Battle, 128). According to the Washington post who In 2015, began to log every fatal shooting by an on-duty police officer in the United States; police have shot nearly 250 black women, 89 of them were killed in their own homes since 2015. Even with the push of this movement, not only are black womens stories being repressed, they are also being coopted.

One can argue that the biggest form of harm against black women is the erasure of their existence. Though Say Her Name has managed to make space for intersectional stories of violence, the phrase is constantly taken out of context by black men and other black organizations. Similar variations of Say Her Name; #SayHisName or #SayTheirNames erase the point of having a movement created around black women. It is important that we gatekeep the use of these phrases to what they were originally made for because "Without frames that allow us to see how social problems impact all the members of a targeted group, many will fall through the cracks of our movements, left to suffer in virtual isolation." (Crenshaw, 2016).

This erasure is a clear form of misogynoir as they claim the labor of black women and counter the exact point of its creation. This form of cooption has seen in Janelle Monae's video "Hell You Talmbout" which refers to sayhername and sayhisname. Also seen in the June 2020 edition of The New Yorker, a painting "Say Their Names" by Kadir Nelson which focuses on Black men. Faulting these to lack of knowledge is not enough and is an insult to the dead women that this movement is trying to make space for. If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression. (Combahee River Collective, 1977). The centering of Cis gender men in the social movements of black lives is one of the biggest mistakes to date, as it refuses to acknowledge the oppression that women face from men. Bell Hooks in conversations with Melissa Harris-Perry notes "until we challenge patriarch, there will be no valuing of black women's lives over the already small valuing of black men's lives that takes place because the system militates against it."

The MeToo movement is a social movement against sexual abuse and harassment. It's a term that was coined by Tarana Burke on Myspace in early 2006 to promote empowerment and through empathy amongst women of color who'd been sexually abused. The movement came to light again in late 2017 after sexual abuse allegations were raised against Harvey Weinstein. American actress, Alyssa Milano posted it on Twitter and the widespread media coverage ran with it. The hypervisibility of the hashtag and movement in digital spaces centered the movement around white feminism, in turn suppressing the black woman who had already been doing the work.

All women are victims of state-sanctioned violence in some form; however, the co-opting of black movements don't only happen in black spaces but across all platforms and races. When black women speak up about their labor and how it's been stolen from them, they are often shut down, blacklisted, and ignored. Black women have no allies outside of the spaces they've created for themselves, and this is even worse for queer, trans, and non-binary black women. In response to the co-opting of MeToo, SayHerName, and the erasure of black women from the BlackLivesMatter movement, the Defend Black Women's March was born. Focusing solely on cis, trans, and non-binary black women, it is a step to take the defending and uplifting of black women beyond a hashtag or digital movement.

Garret Ferguson, grassroots organizer of the march, says, "We don't have the privilege of being fragile, we don't have the privilege of being graceful, or anyone really seeing us as victims; we are always seen as survivors, and that is harmful because at the same time, that's stripping away a part of our humanity." The statement is simple yet radical because black women from young to old need to be recognized before they can even be helped. "At the core of the mission of race women, and a central characterization of culture within the Black community, was the responsibility to raise consciousness and advocate for the social justice of those most marginalized. Even in examining the Black woman as an individual with shared common experiences with other Black women, the goal is for the collective improvement of the entire community." (Battle, 113).

On Saturday, October 3rd, 2020, in Nigeria, the most populous black nation in the world, a video of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) officers dragging two men out of a hotel and shooting one of them surfaced on the internet and was immediately followed by outrage that turned into the #EndSars movement. For almost two weeks straight, the youth mobilized, taking to the streets of Lagos, Nigeria every single day. Within this two weeks span, something this nation had never seen before was created, an organized peaceful protest, completely decentralized in power, with a grassroots organization - "feminist coalition" creating a fully functioning infrastructure that this country has claimed to be "too poor" to create.

The feminist coalition, founded by 10 Nigerian women, was created to push for women's rights in Nigeria and became the source for information and organization at the height of these protests. They crowdfunded, created a nationwide helpline for medical aid, legal aid, food, supplies, mental health emergencies, and security for protestors in a country that has never had an emergency line or number. "We joke that this was a baptism by fire. We designed a logo, set up the website, got some copy assets together, set up our social media, set up the donation accounts, the request forms, the tracking sheets; Feminist Coalition as it's known today was literally a reality overnight. This was only possible because every founding member is at the top of her game. We handled it the same way we handle our professional work and brought the same amount of focus and dedication to the table." - Ire Aderinokun, Nigeria's first female Google developer expert and a founding member of the Feminist Coalition. Days before the movement went global Oseyi Etomi, who is also part of the feminist coalition wrote, "There'll be some traction to the #ENDSARS movement when women organize around it," and she was proven right.

Globally, social movements organized by women have proven to be the most efficient. Research by Erica Chenoweth for The Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes show that women are more likely towards a movement that represents them. In Chenoweth's words, "Women—thanks to their roles in society—also have a keen sense of the best tools to use to bring about social change." Otemi also wrote, "One thing you will see in common with, I'd say, almost all if not every woman who was at the forefront of organizing was that we are all feminist women—we have a strong sense of social justice and a desire for an equal society. An injustice to anyone is an injustice to us all, and there is an understanding that no one is free until we are all free. It just continues to show that women are an underestimated asset to society."

While these women and their organization took on the labor and consequences of the protests, they received heavy critique. From being questioned about how the money crowdfunded donation was being spent, how they didn't choose a leader, to even how their logo was created the way it was. This movement didn't only garner attention online and in person but also in media and political spaces. Women-led grassroots socio-political groups moved to Nigerian traditional media channels to speak for the fight against police brutality. Journalist and media personnel at CNN, Stephanie Busari, drew attention to the realities of what was going on in the country and how far the government moved to try to hide it.

n Nigeria where misogyny is deep-rooted in traditions, the impact that the feminist coalition made is a win in itself, but it's not enough. As protests slowed down, members of the feminist coalitions faced lawsuits from the government, were barred from leaving the country, and were threatened. The repression of women's voices is a worldwide occurrence, and this brand of misogynoir ensures that the work women do is erased by history or at best credited to men. This structure of misogynoir as it relates to black women and their voices in organizing spaces is not new nor is it going to be ending anytime soon. Taking a step back from current social movements to take a look at the black panther party shows a pattern of patriarchy being the reason these women's voices are buried. Created by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in 1966, the black panther party, much like movements of today, was created with the goal of protecting the black community from state-sanctioned violence and police brutality. Their membership grew from one chapter in Oakland to more than 2,000 members leading to over 30 chapters all over the United States and worldwide. The panther's movement was created and revolved around black cis men, but many women played key roles and ensured the survival of the party. By the '70s, women made up most of the party.

Afeni Shakur, the infamous panther 21, was among one of the most prolific women in the movement. She discusses the visibility of women in the party at the time, saying, "Kathleen Cleaver, Eldridge's wife, was the only visible female force of the party." (Shakur, 122). But the invisible women were doing more than ever, "They were fighting for their lives, they were fighting for their loved ones' lives, they were fighting for their children's lives. They were motivated by the fact that the black community was under assault and it was time to make a difference," says Angela LeBlanc-Ernest, co-founder of the Intersectional Black Panther Party History Project.

Afeni also discusses a time Huey Newton tried to coerce her, "And Huey Newton explained to me that I should be honored to sleep with him because he is the king, the boss, the president, and the mastermind of the Black Panthers." This form of coercion and infiltration of supposedly safe spaces for black people has not been kind to black women who seem to either be fighting for justice against racism and sexism from the outside and in their communities.

Social movements across the world and over history have proven to be the labor of love and justice for black women. Yet, as we've seen in the dissection of all these spaces, it is a double-edged sword of misogynoir. From the erasure of women in the Black Lives Matter Movement to the co-option of Say Her Name, the digital backlash from white women throughout MeToo, attacks from the government in Nigeria after the EndSARS protests, the repression of women's voices minus very few in the Black Panther Party, overall fighting against patriarchy, sexism, racism simultaneously. Black women are often left standing on their own front lines (Melissa Harris-Perry). Bell Hooks tells us that "if you work for freedom, move away from the binary." This critique must also reach cis black women. Though this paper reflects on ways in which black men and white women perform this patriarchal repression and "taking away the mic" from black women, straight black women can also repress queer black women, privileged black women can repress poor black women, cis black women can repress trans black women. The goal is to create safe spaces where all black women can hold the mic and tell their truth without fear of it being taken away from them.

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Works Cited

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