LETTERS

Dear Sisters:

I am writing this as a kind of open letter to feminists because I have several things on my mind that I want to communicate with more immediacy than I could by writing an article.

F

As usual, as a Black feminist I am concerned with the intersections of race and sex in my politics and in my life. I am feeling these intersections more viscerally than ever, because I think that we are finally at a stage when the Black community is having to deal internally with the implications of sexual politics, feminism and most crucially Black feminism. The evidences of this are many during the past year and I won't go into them here. I feel that it is urgent, however, that women familiarize themselves with some aspects of the "debate" over feminism that is now surging among Black people by reading several recent Black publications.

In April, 1978 The Black Scholar did a special issue on "Blacks and the Sexual Revolution." It was an astounding mixture of pro-feminist, even pro-Lesbian, articles by, for example, Assata Shakur and Audre Lorde, and the most reactionary anti-Black women articles by Black male writers. This year The Black Scholar published a virulently anti-Black-feminist article by Robert Staples in its March/April issue entitled "The Myth of Black Macho: A Response to Angry Black Feminists" and asked people to respond. The May/June 1979 issue entitled "The Black Sexism Debate" again contains many more articles that arc pro-feminist, anti-feminist, innately antiLesbian (though the word is hardly mentioned) and ones that fall somewhere in between. I think what these issues show is that sexual politics is finally up for discussion by Black people and that there is a massive amount of resistance to the idea of Black women being autonomous on the part of many Black people.

Committed white feminists should also read issues of Essence, Ebony, Jet and other Black publications, not only to familiarize themselves with what is going

on in the Black community around issues of sexual politics, but also to see what we as Black feminists are up against. The most recent issue of Ebony, for example, is a special one devoted entirely to the theme of "Black on Black Crime" and yet it does not deal with the epidemic of violence against women or sexual oppression and patriarchal notions of "manhood" as causes for Black women's abuse and deaths. I find this particularly ironic since in my own community twelve Black women were brutally murdered in a four-month wave of killings this year and there has been a complete "white-out" in all

4

IZABETICALLY

types of media about this. Feminists might also be interested to know that there is a slick Playboy type magazine aimed at Black men called Players. (A proBlack feminist publication which I consider to be "must" reading is the Black Women's Issue of Conditions which I co-edited with Lorraine Bethel.)

The other thing on my mind dovetails with encouraging white women who are actively anti-racist to read Black publications to find out what's happening and this is my frustration that white women in

general do not grasp that the Black feminist movement is in a very different period historically than the white feminist movement, even though the participants in these movements are each other's contemporaries. I have been constantly aware of this "time-lag" during my seven years of involvement in Black feminist politics. If measured by the closedness of the Black community to feminism, the still relatively small number of Black women who identify themselves as feminists and the lack of Black feminist institutions Black women have, our movement is still in its early stages. Merely by comprehending this, the lack of support that Black feminists have for being Black feminists, white women might be able to give at least psychic and preferably practical support to Black women whom they know, and not assume that it means the same thing for us to be feminists and Lesbians as it does for them to be feminists and Lcsbians. I don't know if my point is clear, but just think about the last time you went into a Black/Third World women's bookstore, restaurant, or women's center or read a Black/Third World feminist newspaper or magazine or a book printed by a Black/Third World women's press. Think about whether you've even heard of these things existing.

I am optimistic. I see our movement growing, the Black feminist movement in particular and the women's movement generally, I know things will change. But in the meantime Black feminists don't have a lot of alternatives, particularly alternative institutions, and we are also up against a very-resistant Black community which is, given racism, particularly racism in the women's movement, a community where we need to feel at home. White feminists not only need to fight racism, but to familiarize themselves with the substance of our lives and struggle. Reading some of the things I've suggested and everything you can find about Black women is one way to do this.

-Barbara Smith Roxbury, Mass.

Dear What She Wants,

The Take Back the Night march was a real lesson! It was bad enough to hear Mary Rose Oakar (antiabortionist) speaking at the rally but it was even worse to see several hundred women marching along Prospect Ave. chanting "No more fear to walk here"-while Cleveland police stood by to protect them.

Do Feminists expect the patriarchy to defend them? I learned the lesson: yes they do!

Self-defense should have been stressed-"Only women can stop rape." If police could stop rape, it

It is not the police, the courts

or men who

will

stop ispe.

Women will stop

would have been abolished long ago! (Whether the police are male or female. Besides, even male police rape.)

We should have demanded self-defense courses be taught in schools, offices, and factories. We should have demanded changes in laws to protect those who

Page 2/What She Wants/September, 1979

use self-defense. And of course, we should all learn self-defense.

Another lesson I learned is that we haven't learned from the past! Back in the days of the suffragists, the vote was considered more important than the heartfelt needs of working women. Now, Mary Rose stands above us and says, in effect, "We must be united! Women politicians will get women's rights." Are we going to believe that the second time around? Like many women in the march, I wanted to be enthusiastic and was sad that the politics were all wrong.

Dear Ms. Epstein:

-Pat Hilliard

I received What She Wants in the mail today and was quite impressed with the article you wrote on women and alcoholism. It communicated well issues that are peculiar to the Woman alcoholic, in the progression of her disease and services available for her treatment.

It may be helpful to your readers to include Alcoholism Services of Cleveland's phone number under telephone hotlines. We have a twenty-four hour number, 391-2300, that people can call to get information for an alcohol problem and assistance for where they can go for help.

I appreciate the time you spent on this article. Hopefully as a result more women will be seeking help.

-Abbie Frost Director of Information and Referral Services Alcoholism Services of Cleveland, Inc.

Still Waiting For Dinner Invitation

There is still no word on where the Dinner Party will appear next, but the Through the Flower Corporation is hard at work on it. The exhibit has been in storage at great expense since closing in San Francisco in June (see WSW, Aug. 1979 for details).

Fortunately, several possibilities are brewing, most notably in Washington, D.C. and New York. We will keep you posted. Unfortunately, the project is now more heavily in debt than ever. If you are interested in helping this important piece of art survive, send your tax deductible donations to Through the Flower Corporation, P. O. Box 1876, Santa Monica, CA 90406. Or offer your support by buying posters, postcards, and the book The Dinner Party from Coventry Books, 1824 Coventry, Cleveland Heights.

Moving?

If you're a subscriber, please let us know your change of address. Not only are we charged for issues returned to us by the post office, but you may miss an important issue of What She Wants!