White and Black Women

White women were also treated poorly by white men like black women, but this did not make black and white women allies of each other during the time of slavery despite being oppressed by the same group. This may be due to the different experiences of oppression that black and white women faced during this time. Both white and black women were seen as property of the white man, but their roles on the plantation and in the system were very different from each other. White women were bound to the ‘cult of domesticity,’ a system form that idealized motherhood and wifehood for females and essentially shrank their social spheres to their homes. This is a form of white privilege, as black women were not allowed the luxury of staying at home and taking care of the family because they were not seen as women. Because of their very different realities, white women would have had a difficult time recognizing black women as allies. Another factor in this dilemma is that black women were victims of sexual harassment and domestic violence by their masters as a means to create more slaves after the abolition of the slave trade, but it can have a very different meaning to the slave owners’ wives, who only know what they see, which is that their husbands favor the slave girls and women over them. This preference of their husbands to prefer a slave girl or female may be a large factor in difficulties of black and white women to see each other as allies against a common oppressor, as black people were seen as inferior and it most likely did not bode well with the wives of the household to be a second choice to a person that was seen as inferior at the time. The stigma and differing experiences between black and white women during the era of slavery made it difficult for black and white women to be allies to each other against a common oppressor.

Today

Economically, black people are usually residents in the ghettos or low income areas without resources or help to get them out of the bad environments. To make matters worse, black people are also exploited by companies to make bad financial decisions despite being economically unstable to begin with (“The Economy that Slavery Built”). Slavery has severely negatively impacted the black community, but there is little, if anything, being done to remedy it.

Historically, black women have resisted slavery, and their efforts continue into the present day with movements to resist anti-Black racism. The most obvious example of a Black women resisting slavery is Harriet Jacobs and her experience, but there are many other Black women, such as Harriet Tubman, that have resisted slavery in their own way. Harriet Jacobs resisted slavery by not allowing herself to be taken advantage of by her white owner, and choosing how she lived her life, from choosing her own partner to illegally learning how to read and write to buying back her own children from safety (Jacobs). Harriet Jacobs also quite literally escaped from slavery by hiding in an attic for seven years, a very impressive feat. Harriet Jacobs’ grandmother can also be seen resisting slavery by becoming a free woman and earning her own living despite all the hardships being thrown at her (Jacobs). Much like Harriet Jacobs herself, Harriet Jacobs’ grandmother tried her best to earn as much money as possible to buy back her children from slavery and was successful a few times, making her a role model for Jacobs’ actions later on in life. Some other ways that black women have resisted slavery were by “escap[ing], defend[ing] themselves from violence, were defiant, engag[ing] in work stoppages, engag[ing] in sabotage, and illegally [teaching] themselves to read and write” (“A Black Feminist Analysis,” Slide 8).

My Take on Reparations

As a child of immigrants from Hong Kong, it is difficult to see and think about my role in reparations for black people that were affected by slavery because neither I nor my ancestors in Hong Kong and China played a role in the slave trade or benefitted from it. Despite this, there are still many things a person like me, with no connection to the slave trade, can do to help black people gain some reparations from the people that did have a connection to the slave trade and/or benefitted from it. For example, after slavery was abolished, many former slaves were left without a home or a way to make a living and were essentially forced out of their homes. These former slaves were not given any land or a way to start their new lives, which has led to a continued struggle for black people to rise up socioeconomically. Some ideas of reparations for this issue are to create more programs to help black and colored people economically and give them the resources they need to succeed in life, whether it be money, education, or financial education. Whether the resources should be taken from white families that have roots in slavery or the United States government is up for debate, but as a person of Asian descent, I can advocate for it when a similar proposal is proposed.

Something that I can uniquely do as an Asian person is advocate for black people and help destigmatize them in the eyes of my community. Black people, whether it be African American or Indian, have always been seen as somewhat inferior in the eyes of many traditional Chinese, and I’m assuming most traditional Southeast Asian, people. A somewhat common phrase that can be heard from my parents, aunts, and uncles to my cousins and I is that they wouldn’t know what to do if one of us brought home someone that was black or Indian as a significant other. Having friends that are black or Indian is okay, but we are greatly discouraged from dating someone of black or Indian descent. Because this stigma has been prevalent, Asian Americans like me have to be the voice for black and Indian people in our communities to combat the stigma and hopefully change the worldviews of our traditional relatives in hopes of it leading to change on a larger scale.

There are also groups such as the Asian Solidarity Collective in San Diego that are helping to advocate for movements like the Black Lives Matter movement that can advocate for black rights in a way that reaches different audiences. Groups like this are important in advocacy because they have the resources and reach to communicate with many different types of people for important human rights matters as well as expanding on the struggles that our community is going through and making them heard.