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Face-To-Face, Day-To-Day, Racism CR City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Women's Studies Quarterly Archives and Special Collections 1980 Face-to-Face, Day-to-Day, Racism CR Tia Cross Freada Klein Barbara Smith Beverly Smith How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/wsq/468 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] Face-to-Face, 6. When were you first aware that there through political groups, or socially, what Day-to-Day, was such a thing as anti-Semitism? How old proportion of these interactions were with Racism CR were you? Recall an incident. How did you Black men? with Black women? feel? 9. What were your experiences as white By Tia Cross, Freada Klein, 7. What did you learn at home about women with Black men? What were the Barbara Smith, and Beverly Smith Black people and other people of color? racial-sexual dynamics of these relation­ 8. What did you learn about Jewish ships , that is, in what ways did they fuel The following consciousness-raising guide­ people? your own racism, and, on the other hand, lines were developed as a way of 9. How was what you learned about Black how did they affect your developing enabling feminists to explore and un­ people and what you learned about Jewish feminism? Were you making connections at derstand their own racist feelings and people connected? that time between the racial and sexual behavior through the use of a uniquely 10. What terms did your parents use to aspects of what was going on? feminist tool. ''The CR format, '' the authors refer to Black people and other people of explained in a preface which originally color? If these terms were negative, how did Becoming a Feminist - appeared, along with the guidelines, in the hearing these terms make you feel-curious, Racism in the Women's Movement Cambridge, Massachusetts, newspaper uncomfortable, angry? Sojourner ( 4:9 May 1979), "encourages 11. In the group say out loud and make a 1. When did you begin to believe in your personal sharing, risk-taking, and in­ collective list of all the terms you were ever connections with all women? volvement, which are essential for getting at taught or heard about people of color. Also 2. As you became a feminist, to what how each of us is racist in a daily way, and it do the same activity with all the terms used degree did you feel connected to women of encourages the 'personal' change that for other ethnic and religious groups . all different backgrounds and lifestyles? makes political transformation and action 3. How does your class background affect possible. '' Although the authors caution Adolescence-Early Adulthood your racism and making connections with · 'that these guidelines are not instant women different from yourself? What are solutions-you can't spend fifteen minutes 1. What kinds of messages did you get the barriers you have to overcome to con­ on each topic and assume you 're done, '' the about race as you entered adolescence? Did nect? guidelines can serve as a beginning for a your group of friends change? 4. How do you see yourself as different variety of social action groups and com­ 2. Discuss the connections between from a Black woman? How do you see munity workshops. They are also adaptable coming of age sexually and racial yourself as the same? for women's studies classrooms in various separation. (When the four of us discussed 5. Everyone in the group fills in the blanks settings, and we therefore reprint them, being a teenager, one woman pinpointed the in the following statements. This exercise with the authors' permission, below. sexual-racial dichotomy by saying, "It's could be done out loud or by each person about who you can't date!") writing her response down first before Early Memories -Childhood Experiences 3. If you went to integrated schools what hearing from the group. "Black women messages did you get about Black people in I . When were you first aware that there always ---." "When I am with Black general and about Black males specifically? was such a thing as race and racial dif­ people I always feel or usually feel --- ." 4. In what ways was race used by you or ferences? How old were you? Recall an "I wouldn't want Black people to ---." your friends as a subject of so-called teenage incident if you can. How did you feel? "When I'm with Black people I'm afraid that rebellion? 2. What kind of contact did you have with ---." "I'm afraid I will --- ." "I'm 5. How did different groups of students get people of different races? Were they adults, afraid they will --. " along in your school? Were you aware of children, playmates? 6. Discuss different values you think white divisions by race and class? How did it feel? 3. How did you experience your own and Black women have around childrearing, 6. How were different groups of students ethnic identity? clothes, food, money, upward or downward treated by teachers and the school and the 4. How did you first experience racism? mobility, etc. school administration? From whom did you learn it? What did it 7. Each week the group has the 7. If you were growing up during the '50s mean to you? How did it function in your "homework assignment" of noticing racist and '60s, what kind of information did you perception of yourself? How did it make you situations-things each member sees, get about Black people through the media? feel? How did it affect you in relation to hears, or reads. Begin each session by How much of it was specifically about Black other people? sharing the things you've noticed . men? How much of it was specifically about 5. When did you first notice yourself 8. Discuss what happens when you call Black women? treating people of color in a different way? another white woman on her racism. What 8. If you had interactions with Black people are your fears? How does it feel to do this? through work during the '50s and '60s, © 1979 by Tia Cross, Freada Klein, Barbara Smith, and Beverly Smith. Women's Studies Newsletter Vlll:l (Winter 1980) 27 9. Discuss the ways in which white women Thus, in addition to issuing "calls for first conference they had ever attended, and lower their standards for being feminist for papers" through the usual channels , we for the vast majority, the first women's Black and other Third World women. Do you made particular efforts to contact local conference. For some, it was the first time find yourself ''hiding'' your feminism in a women with special expertise who hadn't they had been away from home without their situation where there are Third World been involved in women's studies before . husbands-several of whom had shown people? Are you afraid to confront a Black We also encouraged groups of students to resistance to their coming. Attendance, for woman's anti-feminism? present workshops. In all, fifty workshops them, meant taking an independent step. 10. Discuss issues that the women's were offered . * Moreover, twenty-five The conference made the women's movement has worked on which might be undergraduates who enrolled in my two­ movement more tangible and less considered racist, because they do not touch credit modular course, Mothers and threatening to them . One undergraduate the lives of women of color. Discuss feminist Daughters, explored the mother / daughter wrote: " My mother didn't understand the issues which are classist. Discuss feminist relationship before the conference through women's movement. She was afraid to break issues that cut across racial and class lines , readings, class discussions , and papers. the traditional feminine stereotype . touching the lives of all women. Which of all The conference was a great success. As Talking .. about women's studies and these issues have you worked on or con­ one daughter put it: " It brought many new coming to the conference helped her realize sidered a priority? ideas and issues to a central meeting place what liberat ion is all about." 11. In what way does being a lesbian where two and three generations of women The most profound effect of the con­ connect to the whole issue of racism between could understand their common needs , ference on daughters, as a group, was the white and Black women? What kinds of hopes , triumphs, and oppression, and look development of a new respect for their racism have you noticed in all-women's to each other for strength and mothers , and for older women in general. social situations, at bars and at cultural camaraderie ." Many realized for the first time that they events? In what ways can shared lesbian Although we were initially angered by the could learn from the life experiences of their oppression be used to build connections lack of support shown by the College in mothers and grandmothers . between white women and women of color? failing to provide housing, which forced us The conference provided mothers and to put everyone up in local homes, this daughters a unique time and space in which Tia Cross, Freada Klein, Barbara Smith , and community-based housing turned out to be a to look at themselves and each other. The Beverly Smith are two Black and two white boon. Many mothers stayed in the apart­ most consistent response women reported feminists who have been active in doing ments or homes of their daughters, which was that their relationship with their mother work on racism in Boston.
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