Our Lives and the Black ··Women's Collective Salutes Women in Our History

l\. - J CANADA'S FIRST BLACK WOMEN'S NEWSPAPER ~1.00 MARCH APRIL 19s1 Vol. 2 No. 1 Our Lives and The Black ··Women's Collective Salutes Women in Our History \ . Violet Blackman. Christina Jenkins - Carrie Best, Tilly Mays Jean Daniel, Grace Trotman, Kathleen Searles, Gwen Johnson Kay Livingston, Rosemary Brown Dorothy Wills Vera Cudjoe ' ' 2 1987 Our Lives MARCH. APRIL Issues Facing Black WoITien Immigration Amnesty for Underground Women Today cope because her rent would increase once she was earning a salary and her benefits Many Black women face years of living would be deducted. Single mothers in this 'illegally' and exploited in Canada. (See Economic Issues situation are between a rock and a hard place. Issue 4 of OUR LIVES) Underground women need amnesty now. Black women suffer economically from Sexism in our Community the low paying and low status jobs which Education remain unaffected by affirmative action talk Black women (like all women) are or pay equity jive. Collectively these conditioned to see relationships with men as As a whole, our community has looked permutations apply only to women who are the primary focus in their lives, they spend a at streaming in the educational system but we close to the reigns of power, women who are lot of energy trying to do what the popular haven't looked at how it affects Black girls. in middle and high range clerical, semi songs say. Black sisters must recognize that In particular, how it streams them into managerial or recognized skilled work. these roles inhibit our progress and weaken vocational schools which limit their job These women are usually white. us. Black women often subdue their own prospects to clerical, sales and service work. tried and true intelligence to that of Black As it is, because of the racism in What Black women need is males in the effort of getting a man or finding employment, upon leaving school even a man or keeping a man. In this way we clerical and sales work is hard tQ come by for A higher minimum wage since $4.50 an 'welcome' and participate in our oppression. young Black women. As a result, their hour can't feed anybody, least of all families Just because we feel that we share the history aspirations may be frustrated and limited to where women are the only wage earners. (In of racism there is a tendency to forgive the areas of their lives which they think that they some 30% of Black families, women are the out and out sexism of Black men, or, to say, have some control over. Namely, only wage earners and since traditionally 'well they are oppressed too'. But childbearing. Young Black women may women's work is low paying and Black increasingly we find that this is not enough to begin having children earlier than they want women's work even lower Black women excuse their sexual oppression of us as to and without the economic resources to have to work at two low paying jobs to make women. For if we are so compassionate, support them. Black women know only too ends meet.) they should be respectful and examine their well the difficulty of that existence, whether A better wage for jobs like domestic sexist attitudes which give them certain we were teenage mothers ourselves or work and service work, and higher wages in .Priveleges, as it oppresses us. Black men do whether we had teeenage mothers. Loving as so-called entry level jobs such as telephone not have any harder time than .aiack women. those relationships were, we know it can be operators, secretaries, clerical workers, bank Statistics show clearly that Black women rough. Often talked about as the 'problem of work~rs and nursing assistants. suffer more economic and physical abuse teenage pregnancy', we must realise how this A recognition of the value and worth of than Black males. is engineered by the sexist/racist conditions in the jobs which Black women have been Black women have to examine and fight the school system and the social system. ghettoized into and conditions on the job the weakening role that we are expected to We need to encourage and support young which are decent and humane. play which negates our strength as if it was Black women in their endeavours. Through We also need to demand access to other soh1cthing bad. Traditionally we have been advocacy in the schools, scholarships and O!;CUpati.oPr: and not only to 'pink collar' or told that women's rights must be put second support groups we might help to break the white women's occupation~ but to white to Black rights. Courageous and visionary cycle of racism and sexism which haunts men's occupations. Black women have rejected and must reject them. that notion. We can no longer think that the Right to· Work and two are mutually exclusive. A strong people How Can We Organize· are not strong through the weakness of Universal Daycare women caused by male oppression. To Deal With The Issues Thank our strong mothers, aunts and Some Black women are isolated in grandmothers who took care of so many We must form a broad based coalition of apartment buildings and housing projects, we children on their own, who carried water on Black women - Older women, younger need a 24 hour daycare system if women their heads, who worked in rich white women, activists, artists, lesbian women and want to attend classes or work. If they are womens kitchens, who didn't eat so that we straight women, working women and lucky enough to work and study Black could eat, who bore everyday hardship like a unemployed women, organised and women only have access to expensive load on their backs, who kept the community unorganised women. daytime daycare which means they can't together and who lifted Black men on their We must meet and air the issues, figure study in the evening because children have to shoulders for many years. out where we're all coming from and figure be attended to. When women work they Black women must move from strength out how to work together. We must create a must have affordable and accessable daycare to strength for our own liberation now, for free space, a place where we can talk as if they are to maintain their jobs. the liberation of our daughters and for the sisters. Single mothers living on family benefits liberation of our people. We must also raise Our creativity as Black women is and in Ontario housing are trapped in the better boy children that do not grow up to legendary we must and can figure out the system. One sister tried for three years, her oppress women. future. child having reached kindergarten age, to find a job. She had no skills to 'sell' because her Today Black men must share house Hello Sisters, efforts to find training and daycare subsidy work, take on the emotional, financial and I have been wanting to show my support were frustrated, and when she finally found a practical responsibilities of taking care of to you for some time. But first I had to start· iob. the waEes were so low that she couldn't children and, accept and respect Black my own self re-education. I had to erase the women in their rightful place among the propaganda taught to me about my race as a One year ago this month Our Lives leadership of the community. In fact Black whole, and as a Black woman. Believing in men owe it to Black women to fight for Black their stereotype image of what a Jamaican is, was born! women's rights. Black women today can I've suffered years of tunnel vision and accept nothing less. We want to thank all the sisters who helped lacked the sources and role models to find my Until those who have the least amount of true self. wrote us letters of encouragement and us, rights achieve equality, such as we Black I've since discovered Maya Angelou, donated money to the paper. We'll try to women, there can be no equality or freedom Alice Walker, Rosa· Guy, Malcolm X and a lceep keeping on with your continued anywhere in the world. This must be long list of Black heroes. Some militants, 1support. recognized firstly by us, then by Black men if some radicals, some support non-violent they want to call us sister. This they must social change but all had and have the same Our Lives participate in making if they ever hope to see common goal. For the first time in my life ~er, ~th.NQ!an, freedom themselves. I'm truly proud of being Black and my newly . yes, D~nc,BJand. found knowledge has given me strength in Beatrice Bailey, i Cooper, knowing that I am not alone. There were Carol Allain, June Gabriel, and are others that were denied the same ~Douglas, Marie Dennis, Pauline Peters, Skye Stollmeyer information about themselves and our people. ' The cause is old, but my understanding is Contributor8 this issue: new. I'm ready for the next phase of my new thinking with Our Lives! Kim McNeillv Annette RUs.§ell 1987 3 ARCH' APRIL Our Lives attitudes brought by the heavy Loyalist l'l:iva Scotian Cultural Activist tradition and the isolated conditions rought by slavery here. There d0esn't seem to be a cry Delvina Bernard by Faith Nolan to say that we as Black women be recognized. We haven't fully analysed our significant contributions and we play down is a community civil rights feminist our essential role, - the torch we have to activist born and raised in Lake Loom where continue to carry as Black women in Nova she went to high School, she moved to Scotia.

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