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Black Women's fight for Equality during slavery
Black Women's fight for Equality during slavery
The struggle
The struggle
Women have had a long struggle to gain the rights we currently have. It’s been thousands of years of oppression and we have been fighting for such a long time just to have the same opportunities that men have. Unfortunately, not all women were able to receive what we fought so intensely for. Black women did not receive the rights white women fought for. In fact, black women were tied more to their race than they were to their gender. They were excluded from the feminist movements for equality that white women were a part of. They weren’t included because they weren’t considered equal to the white women, they were seen as inferior because of their race. In this essay I will be talking about the idea that enslaved black women had more in common than with enslaved black men than they did with white women, and how slavery continues to affect our society.
We usually group all women together based on gender, but back in the antebellum area people were divided by their race and gender at the same time. This put black women at a “double disadvantage” first because of their race and secondly because of their gender. Black women had more in common with black men than they did with white women because they had a lot of shared experiences since they had to suffer equally through the horrors of slavery. In the first chapter of Women Race and Class, Angela Davis argues that in slavery both men and women were treated equal, they were exposed to the same violence. Unlike white women, enslaved women were not treated like they needed protection or seen as weak, they were abused, overworked, and even tortured.
Equality
Equality
Both black men and women were considered property, they were bound to do hard labor at the plantations and had equal punishment methods which most of the time were enforced through corporeal discipline. Neither one had the right to coverture, they had no right to own property or inherit it. Davis says, “Slave Owning industrialists used men, women and children alike, and when planters and farmers hired out their slaves, they found women and children in as great demand as men.” They were both in high demand because slave owners used them for the same purposes.
Inequality
Inequality
Black women’s value sometimes was based on their ability to make more capital for their owners which meant having more kids who were born into slavery to increase the owner’s assets. This incentivized sexual violence towards black women which degraded them through their abuse. Both black men and women were abused through extreme manual labor and corporeal punishment. For black men, the idea of masculinity in this time used to be defined by the right to control their women and slaves as well as the ownership of property. Black men were constantly emasculated by the reminder that they lacked all of these things. Even though they had their differences black men and women had more in common than white and black women ever had.
Photo illustration by Najeebah Al-Ghadban
Pem Davidson Buck in his essay Constructing Race, Creating Privilege explains that “White privileges were established. The "daily exercise of white personal power over black individuals..." This defines how the privilege came from being white. This is why there is a clear distinction between white and black women, because white women still had some form of power over the black woman which impeded them from working together.
Although women came together to fight for their rights, black and white women had very different fights.
Not only were black women fighting sexism, but also racism. These black women had to join black men and fight together to gain their rights.
Women's Strike for Peace and Equality, New York City, Aug. 26, 1970. Eugene Gordon—The New York Historical Society / Getty Images
White Women's Feminist Fight
White Women's Feminist Fight
White women were fighting for equality to white men in society. They wanted to be respected and have the same opportunities as men. They were recognized through coverture which was a system that set up the inheritance of property and power in which women stopped existing legally once they were married, they were absorbed into their husbands. Motherhood and wifehood became ideal for white women through the “cult of domesticity.” This was an ideal in which women should stay home and could not work outside of it. Housewives became very important in this time for capitalism because society benefited from their free reproductive labor as well as having them as the head of household consumption. White women wanted to break free of these societal norms and become equal to men. What they didn’t realize is that at least they had some kind of value in society, unlike black women.
Black Women's Feminist Fight
Black Women's Feminist Fight
Black women’s oppression was very different. They were fighting for their freedom and basic human rights. They were already treated equal to black men they had equality to men. Their problem was the abuse they had to go through because they were considered property instead of human. Their fight wasn’t against men, it was against white people, specifically men, that kept them submissive. Coverture didn’t apply to them because they weren’t allowed to get married or have a family. They were also excluded from the cult of domesticity because they were not housewives, they were just property. It was difficult for black and white women to see each other as allies because they were fighting for different things. White women were fighting to have equal rights as white men, while black women were already treated equal to black men. Black women were fighting for their liberation and having ownership of themselves.
Official Freedom
Official Freedom
They were finally set free by the 13th amendment that declared slavery illegal in the U.S in 1865. Despite the fact that slavery has been abolished for some time, it continues to impact black communities in the US. The system of slavery set the basis of the society we live in. We continue to see the repercussions of it in black communities. It set the way for black communities to remain suppressed and stuck in a lower income status.
Photo by Robert Crow for vividcorvid – Fotolia, accessed via American Oversight
Modern Day Slavery
Modern Day Slavery
One example of how the institution of slavery continues to impact black communities is the prison industrial complex. After the abolition of slavery, black codes were established to continue to oppress previously enslaved people in a system where they continue doing labor that benefits white people. Davis explains that “The new Black Codes proscribed a range of actions—such as vagrancy, absence from work, breach of job contracts, the possession of firearms, and insulting gestures or acts—that were criminalized only when the person charged was black” (28). These codes specifically targeted black people and established different punishments for them that white people didn’t have. This was a direct attack on black people, not only because they were wrongfully criminalized, but also because the reality of their situations left them no other options.
Art by Alex Davies-Morris
Cause and Effect
Cause and Effect
They had just started their free lives with no money, property, shelter, or food. Many had to resort to breaking the law to survive. Others were wrongfully accused just to be able to imprison them. By sending them to jail, they immediately reenter a slavery system since the 13th amendment states that slavery is legal only when someone has been lawfully convicted of a crime. Prisoners were forced to do manual labor. Sometimes these systems were worse than slavery because there was no reason to look out for the health of the prisoners because they aren’t benefiting from their wellbeing unlike slavery where up to some degree slaveowners had to look out for their slave’s wellbeing because they directly benefited from their labor.
Policies
Policies
The justice system continued to take advantage of this newfound labor force by increasingly associating Black people to criminals. In the 1970’s the government advocated for a “tough on crime” agenda. This was launched to strengthen criminal justice enforcement. After this, crimes by people of color, had longer sentences. States began to spend more money on their prison and criminal justice systems. Nowadays the expenditures on the department of corrections have increased almost ten times what it was in the 1980’s. Since the 80’s millions of people of color have been put in jail because of laws and regulations that made more things into crimes that could have prison sentences like the “mandatory minimums” and “Three strikes.” which almost exclusively target people of color. The only way people could defend themselves from this is to continue to resist, just as they have been doing for hundreds of years.
The Resistance
The Resistance
Black women have been resisting slavery for hundreds of years. Even before they were slaves, many black people jumped off and drowned in the ocean while they were being transported here because they were resisting slavery. Black women had to be very determined and creative when resisting because it could be very dangerous. Resistance could be anything from illegally learning how to read, to running away and being defiant to their owners. A good example of how black women resisted slavery is described by Harriet Jacobs in her book “Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl.” She describes a time where she resists not for herself, but for her kids. She plans a complicated scheme through which her children are liberated. She plans for someone to buy her children and then free them to the care of their grandma. She plans this very carefully and quietly in order to free her children of slavery.
Black women have struggled so much because they had to fight twice as hard as white women because they were fighting 2 fights. They had to fight for their rights and equality as human beings and then as women. This is why they felt that they had more in common with black men because they all had to fight to be treated like human beings and not like property. White women were fighting for equality to men while black women fought for ownership of themselves, racial equality and gender equality at the same time. Black women had to withstand so much more than white women because they were slaves, so they had to fight harder to be considered truly equal.
Protesters at the Black Lives Matter demonstration in Berlinimage © Montecuz Foto
Restoration
Restoration
At the end of the documentary “Traces of trade” they talk about taking responsibility for their ancestor’s actions when they owned slaves. They feel responsible for all of the lives their ancestors affected. That made me reflect about what my role would be in reparations. Am I responsible for what my ancestors did? I started thinking and it is our responsibility to help others that continue to live through the repercussions of slavery.
History of slavery in Mexico
History of slavery in Mexico
I’ve never felt like I was that close to slavery, I sometimes felt that slavery was so far away from me because my family is from Mexico. I've never connected myself to the issue or related to either sides of it, so I never really thought about what my role in it would be now. I realize that we had our own form of slavery when the Spanish first conquered us. I know that at some point I either came from colonizers or Native Americans. Natives were enslaved by the Spanish, but not in the way they were enslaved in the U.S. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what my role is in all of this.
Personal Restorations
Personal Restorations
I came to the conclusion that my version of reparations is to raise awareness of the remaining socio-economic effects of slavery. Our society was molded by slavery and even after it was abolished it created systems where black people remained stuck in low socio-economic communities where they have no opportunities to have a better life. They are stuck in a cycle of poverty that is very hard to get out of. Bringing awareness to this is very important because it brings these issues to light and opens up the conversation to find solutions to these social problems. It is also important to talk about our modern forms of slavery that continue to trap black communities like the prison industrial complex. By talking about these issues, I can educate those around me. We need to keep these issues present to avoid them happening again and talk about how we can better our society. Because if everyone is aware of these issues, we can come up with many solutions to these remaining problems.
Cited Sources
Cited Sources
Jones , Nikole Hannah. “Episode 1: The Fight for a True Democracy.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 23 Aug. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/podcasts/1619-slavery-anniversary.html.
Davidson Buck , Pem. “Constructing Race, Creating White Privilege.” Constructing Race, Creating White Privilege , www.elegantbrain.com/edu4/classes/readings/depository/race/buck_brod_whiteness_jews.pdf.
Kovgan, Alla, director. Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. Traces of the Trade, California Newsreel, 2008, www.sdsu.kanopy.com/video/traces-trade.
Jacobs, Harriet A., and Jennifer Fleischner. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself. Bedford/St. Martin's, Macmillan Learning, 2020.
Davis, Angela. Women, Race and Class. Women's Press, 1982.
Images Used
Images Used
https://depositphotos.com/stock-photos/1950%27s-home.html
https://time.com/4008060/women-strike-equality-1970/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/magazine/white-men-privilege.html
https://www.pikrepo.com/fanyd/bill-clinton-president
https://therightsstuff.org/2020/10/27/covid-19-and-prisons-a-case-of-severe-neglect/
https://www.iq-mag.net/2020/09/opening-doors-fight-for-diverse-industry/#.X89H-BNKjPY
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Slaves_Celebrating_their_Freedom%2C_Badagry.jpg
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