 First edition | |
| Editors | Akasha Gloria Hull Patricia Bell-Scott Barbara Smith |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Publisher | Feminist Press |
Publication date | 1982 |
| Pages | 401 |
| Awards | National Institute's Women of Color Award |
| ISBN | 0912670959 |
| OCLC | 8165060 |
All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave (1982) is a landmark feminist anthology in Black Women's Studies printed in numerous editions, co-edited by Akasha Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith. [1]
Hull received the National Institute's Women of Color Award for her contribution to this book. Her contribution to this "landmark scholarship directed attention to the lives of Black women and, combined with the numerous articles she wrote thereafter, helped remedy the emphasis within Feminist Studies on white women and within Black studies on Black men". [2]
The interest in black feminism was on the rise in the 1970s, through the writings of Mary Helen Washington, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and others. [3] : 87
In 1981, the anthology This Bridge Called My Back , edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa, was published and But Some of Us Are Brave was published the following year. In both anthologies, the emphasis was placed on the intersection between race and gender. The contributors argued that previous waves of feminism had focused on issues related to white women. They wanted to negotiate a large space for women of color. According to Teresa de Lauretis, This Bridge Called My Back and But Some of Us Are Brave revealed "the feelings, the analyses, and the political positions of feminists of color, and their critiques of white or mainstream feminism" and created a "shift in feminist consciousness." [4] : 221
In the 2000 reprint of their anthology, editors Hull, Bell-Scott, and Smith described how in 1992 black feminists mobilized "a remarkable national response" - African American Women in Defense of Ourselves - to the controversy [5] : xvi surrounding the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court of the United States against the backdrop of allegations by law professor Anita Hill, about sexual harassment that became part of Thomas' confirmation hearings. [6] [7]
Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw cited But Some of Us Are Brave at the beginning of her seminal 1989 paper, "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics", in which she introduced the concept of Intersectionality. Crenshaw is known for introducing and developing intersectional theory to feminism. [8] Crenshaw noted that it was one of the "very few Black women's studies books". She used the title All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us are Brave, as her "point of departure" to "develop a Black feminist criticism". [9] : 139
Barbara Y. Welke published her article entitled "When All the Women Were White, and All the Blacks Were Men: Gender, Class, Race, and the Road to Plessy, 1855–1914", in reference to Hull et al., in 1995 in the Law and History Review. Welke wrote how Crenshaw, referring to But Some of Us Are Brave, said that the title "sets forth a problematic consequence of the tendency to treat race and gender as mutually exclusive categories of experience and analysis. [9] : 139 [10] [11] : 139
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Triple oppression, also called double jeopardy, Jane Crow, or triple exploitation, is a theory developed by black socialists in the United States, such as Claudia Jones. The theory states that a connection exists between various types of oppression, specifically classism, racism, and sexism. It hypothesizes that all three types of oppression need to be overcome at once.
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Feminist sociology is an interdisciplinary exploration of gender and power throughout society. Here, it uses conflict theory and theoretical perspectives to observe gender in its relation to power, both at the level of face-to-face interaction and reflexivity within social structures at large. Focuses include sexual orientation, race, economic status, and nationality.
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Akasha Gloria Hull is an American poet, educator, writer, and critic whose work in African-American literature and as a Black feminist activist has helped shape Women's Studies. As one of the architects of Black Women's Studies, her scholarship and activism has increased the prestige, legitimacy, respect, and popularity of feminism and African-American studies.
The African American Policy Forum (AAPF) is a social justice think tank focused on issues of gender and diversity. AAPF seeks to build bridges between arts, activism, and the academy in order to address structural inequality and systemic oppression. AAPF develops and promotes frameworks and strategies that address a vision of racial justice that embraces the intersections of race, gender, class, and the array of barriers that disempower those who are marginalized in society.
Intersectionality is the interconnection of race, class, and gender among an individual or group. This is often related to an experience of discrimination or a disadvantage. This definition came from Kimberlé Crenshaw. Kimberlé Crenshaw, a feminist scholar, is widely known for coining the term intersection in her 1989 essay, which sheds light on the oppression black women have been exposed to, especially during the slavery period. Crenshaw's analogy of intersection to traffic flow explains, "Discrimination, like traffic through an intersection, may flow in one direction, and it may flow in another. If an accident happens in an intersection, it can be caused by cars traveling from any number of directions and, sometimes, from all of them. Similarly, if a Black woman is harmed because she is in the intersection, her injury could result from sex discrimination or race discrimination."
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