Representation and the Black Woman

Recently Tandazani Dhlakama and I curated an exhibition Dis(colour)ed Margins whose focus is the black woman. for us this was part of an ongoing conversation that we are both passionate about; the representation of black women in all media. I am particularly passionate about how systems have been created to repress, suppress and exclude females of colour.

Berni Searle’s Discoloured series dealt with issues of the permanence of documentation, recording and intervening into historical stereotypes. She explored the representational ‘absence’ of ‘othered’ bodies[1] in history. In the same regard Dis(colour)ed Margins furthers the conversation of historical erasure of the black woman (her achievements and her place) and encapsulates the conundrum over history and ownership. Alissandra Cummins has raised the questions which are the centre of the fight for emancipation by people in the margins: Who is allowed to write the narratives that will be recorded and remembered? Can art historians and societies trust that those narratives are as multi layered as they should be?[2]

Here we refer to the black female body as spectacle and more specifically to the capitalist paradigm of the visual and performance arts. The political use of the body in the visual and performance arts is fraught with difficulties because of the internalised capitalism of artistic practices. Dis(colour)ed Margins relates to both an erotic and political democracy for the black female body; the multitude of ways that women have used their bodies for political action[3] and the implications of using the body along the lines of social action as well as political action while considering an escalation of religious fundamentalism and aggression. We also speak of the correlation of power and the black female body. The recognition of the social and systemic oppression of women replaces what was formerly perceived as isolated and individual.

We  speak of agency for the black female. In the system that created white supremacy and black persecution, nearly all of our causes lie trapped in the swamp of white mythology, all our hopeful futures slowly drowning in it. Throughout world history for the better part of the past millennium, people of European descent have on average benefitted compared to – and often at the expense of – other ethnicities. Other cultures and languages have been effectively wiped out or crippled in order to accommodate the European lifestyle. Native Americans live on reservations of land in the country they inhabited well before Europeans. African slaves were considered 3/5 of a person (in terms of the U.S. census) during slavery. During World War II, people of Japanese heritage were rounded up and placed in internment camps based on their nationality regardless of their beliefs.

We speak also of the differences that make all individuals unique. It seems that people are often taught to ignore the differences between themselves and others. They are taught to pretend that the differences do not exist or they become boldly aware of the differences and use them to separate themselves from others. It seems that at this point in time, there is no middle ground. There is no acceptance of differences, and becoming united despite those differences; that women can look at the colour or each other’s skin, each other’s lifestyle, each other’s class, each other’s personality, each other’s religion and realise the potential for change made by accepting differences.  Simone De Beauvoir hinted for the need of community in the women’s right movement. De Beauvoir called for the use of “we” instead of the use of labels[5]. Lorde believed that women need to recognize differences and to unite because of them. Without unity, permanent positive change for all women would never occur.

 

The feminist movement has done a lot to further the cause of women. Audre Lorde has however criticised feminism saying it tends to exclude women in minority groups[4]. Unfortunately, a lot of feminism has focused heavily on white, rich women. They are prioritized in a society where they hold some degrees of privilege, despite their oppression as women. While their experiences as women are important and should be taken into consideration, the way that they dominate and eclipse the struggles of women outside those and other categories has been regarded as frustrating. It shouldn’t be the responsibility of the oppressed to educate the privileged on how their actions are unacceptable. This is why Intersectionality is such a crucial goal for feminism, as it is one that the modern movement still struggles to achieve. This is an acknowledgement of that fact that people can belong to both an oppressed and a privileged group at once, and it makes it necessary for people with certain privileges to navigate the world conscious of the way their actions might contribute to the oppression of other groups.

Lorde expressed that women must come together and work as a team; that to work alongside one another doesn’t mean we have to change who we are or pretend we are not the way we really are, it means accepting one another regardless. This concept echoes the Malvina Reynolds song “Little Boxes” because the song exemplifies being exactly like everyone else in order to fit in to the mold of society’s expectations. To ignore the differences or to conform to the standard model of what we should be causes us to be in a monotonous static state. Micah White acknowledges that to some, Lorde’s words The Master’s Tools Will Not Dismantle the Masters House may simply encourage cynicism and inaction. In response, he argues that the master may have appropriated certain tools over time, but that marginalized people can yet find ways to reclaim those tools for their own benefit[6].

People might see the issues of ‘feminism’, ‘racism’, ‘classism’, and so forth as completely separate issues. They might be considered distinct and without overlap. These are the facts: women are poor, women are black and Asian and Hispanic. Issues to do with surveillance, government control[7], privacy, security, maintenance of infrastructure, tolerance of religion and non-religion, environmentalism, the desire for justice and equality, access to healthcare, the right of free expression and dominion over one’s body are fundamental  issues to the liberation of people of colour. The issues of race and poverty and sexuality are women’s issues because they affect women. To segregate them yields too simplistic of a view on the life of women.

What can or should people of colour do to improve their lives? There have been opportunities grasped and lost by black females through the systematic exclusion often by violence and claiming ownership over wealth created by those being excluded from opportunities throughout history. The them vs us rhetoric of supremacy that points to a fear of what the comeuppance would look like. Louis CK said;

We’re not just gonna fall from number 1 to 2. They’re going to hold us down … forever and we totally deserve it[8]

And finally in the words of Quinn Norton, no one living is responsible for creating this system and no one living is really at fault for being caught in its workings[9]. It’s crucial to be open to the differences that women have. One race doesn’t represent all of women’s oppression or troubles. If we only talk about middle-class white women, then we isolate the women of different ethnicities: African American, Hispanic, and Asian women to name a few. People want to talk about their experiences; they want to be heard. It’s so important to let people speak into their microphones, so they can be seen and heard. When women hear other women’s troubles, it sparks a debate. When there are intellectual debates, we become so much closer to a solution. We need empathy. For that to happen, we need to be willing to listen.

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[1] http://archive.stevenson.ifo/exhibitions/searle/texts/text_smith.htm

[2] Alissandra Cummins, Did Black Lives Matter? Rewriting History in a Caribbean Context

[3] Reference here is to how bell hooks has described in the essay Moving Beyond Pain how Beyoncé uses her body as analogous to terrorism

[4] Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider

[5] Simone De Beauvior, The Second Sex

[6] Micah White, On the Masters Tools: The Wisdom Of Audre Lorde

[7] Echoing Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti’s words “As for the charges against me, I am unconcerned. I am beyond their timid lying morality so I am beyond caring.”

[8] Louis CK On Being White ‘Chewed Up” Special 2008

[9] Quinn Norton, How White People Got Made, 17 October 2014