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Frontiers, Inc. !"#$%&'"()'*+&,(-%'./0)$,% 10/2+34%56'7"38"3"'.&$/2 !,9$,:,)':+3;4%56 .+03#,6'<3+(/$,3%6'1'=+03(">'+?'*+&,('./0)$,%@'A+>B'C@'D+B'E@'D"/$+(">'*+&,(-%'./0)$,% 1%%+#$"/$+(6'.,>,#/,)'F+(?,3,(#,'G3+#,,)$(H%@'EIJI'4.K3$(H@'EILM5@'KKB'NLONI G08>$%2,)'8P6'University of Nebraska Press ./"8>,'Q!R6'http://www.jstor.org/stable/3346304 . 1##,%%,)6'MLSMESTMEU'MM6MC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of Nebraska Press and Frontiers, Inc. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Tue, 8 Jan 2013 00:05:45 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Racism and Women's Studies BarbaraSmith Although my proposed topic is black women's the last year. The formationof C.R. groupsto deal solely studies, I have decided to focus my remarksin a differ- with this issue, study groups, communitymeetings and ent way. Given that this is a gatheringof predominantly workshops,articles in our publications,letters in news- white women and given what has occurredduring this papers, and the beginningof real and equal coalitions conference, it makes much more sense to discuss the between Third World and white women are all issue of racism: racism in women's studies and racism phenomenathat have begun to really happenand I feel in the women's movement generally. confident that there will be no turningback. "Oh no," I can hear some of you groaninginwardly. The reason racism is a feminist issue is easily "Not that again. That's all we've talked about since we explained by the inherent definition of feminism. got here." This of course is not true. If it hadbeen all we Feminismis the politicaltheory and practicethat strug- had all talked about since we got here, we mightbe at a gles to free all women: women of color, working-class point of radical transformationon the last day of this women, poor women, disabled women, lesbians, old Conferencethat we clearly are not. For those of you women, as well as white, economically privileged who are tired of hearing about racism, imagine how heterosexualwomen. Anythingless than this vision of much more tired we are of constantly experiencingit, total freedom is not feminism, but merely female self- second by literalsecond, how much moreexhausted we aggrandizement. are to see it constantly in your eyes. The degree to Let me make it quite clear at this point before going which it is hard or uncomfortablefor you to have the any further something you must understand: white issue raised is the degree to which you know inside of women don't work on racismto do a favor for someone yourselves that you aren't dealing with the issue, the else, to solely benefit Third World women. You have degree to which you are hidingfrom the oppressionthat got to comprehend how racism distorts and lessens underminesThird World women's lives. I want to say your own lives as white women, that racism affects right here that this is not a "guilt trip." It's a fact trip. your chances for survival too and that it is very defi- The assessment of what's actually going on. nitely your issue. Until you understandthis no funda- Why is racismbeing viewed and taken up as a press- mental change will come about. ing feministissue at this time and why is it being talked Racism is being talked about in the context of wom- about in the context of women's studies? As usual the en's studies because of it being raised in the women's impetus comes from the grassroots, activist women's movementgenerally, but also because women's studies movement. In my six years of being an avowed black is a context in which white and Third World women feminist I have seen much change in how white women actually come together, a context that should be about take responsibilityfor their racism, particularlywithin studyingand learningabout all of our lives. I feel at this BarbaraSmith is a blackfeminist writerand activist who lives in Roxbury,Massachusetts. She has been a memberof the Combahee River Collective, a Boston black feminist organization, since 1974. The Collective began doing workshops on racism in the women's movement in 1977 which shefeels provided the experience necessary to conceptualizethis talk. Smith recentlyco-edited "The Black Women'sIssue" of Conditions,a magazine of writingby women with an emphasis on writing by lesbians. She currently teaches for the Women's Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. This paper was given as one of the closing Sesssions at the NWSA Conference. FRONTIERSVol. V, No. 1 @ 1980 FRONTIERSEditorial Collective This content downloaded on Tue, 8 Jan 2013 00:05:45 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Smith 49 point it's not only about getting ThirdWorld women's the worst conditions in your town and how does your materials into the curriculum,although this must be work positively affect anddirectly touch their lives? If it done. This has been happeningand it's clear that racism doesn't, why not? still thrives,just as the inclusionof women's materials The question has been raised here whether this in a college curriculumdoes not prevent sexism from should be an activist associationor an academicone. In thriving.The stage we're at now is havingto decide to many ways this is an immoralquestion, an immoraland change fundamentalattitudes and behavior, the way false dichotomy.The answerlies in which emphasisand people treateach other. In otherwords, we're at a stage what kinds of work will lift oppression off of not only of having to take some frighteningrisks. women, but all oppressed people: poor and working I'm sure that many women here are telling them- class people, people of color in this country and in the selves they aren't racist because they are capable of colonized ThirdWorld. If liftingthis oppression is not a being civil to black women, havingbeen raised by their priorityto you then it's problematicwhether you are a parentsto be anythingbut. It's not about merely being part of the actual feminist movement. polite: "I'm not racistbecause I do not snarland snapat There are two other roadblocks to our making black people." It's muchmore subtle than that. It is not feminismreal which I'll mentionbriefly. First, there is white women's fault that they have been raised for the ThirdWorld women's anti-feminismwhich I sometimes most partnot knowinghow to talk to black women, not sense often gets mixed up with opposition to white knowing how to look us in the eye and laugh with us. women's racism and is fueled by a history of justified Racism and racist behavior is our white patriarchal distrust.To me racistwhite women cannot be said to be legacy. Whatis your fault is makingno serious effort to actually feminist, at least not in the way I think and feel change old patterns of contempt. To look at how you about the word. Feminismin and of itself would be fine. still believe yourselves to be superior to Third World The problemsarise with the mortalswho practice it. As women and how you communicatethese attitudes in Third World women we must define a responsible and blatant and subtle ways. radical feminism for ourselves and not assume that A majorroadblock for women involved in women's bourgeois female self-aggrandizement is all that studies to changingtheir individual racism and challeng- feminism is and therefore attack feminism wholesale. ing it institutionallyis the pernicious ideology of pro- The other roadblock is homophobia, that is anti- fessionalism. That word "professionalism" covers lesbianism, an issue that both white and Third World such a multitudeof sins. I always cringe when I hear women still have to deal with. Need I explicate in 1979 anyone describe themselves as "professional," be- how enforced heterosexualityis the extreme manifesta- cause what usuallyfollows is an excuse for inaction,an tion of male dominationand patriarchalrule and that excuse for ethical irresponsibility.It's a word and con- women must not collude in the oppression of women cept we don't need because it is ultimately a way of who have chosen each other,that is, lesbians.I also wish dividingourselves from others and escaping from real- I had time here to speak aboutthe connections between ity. I think the way to be "successful" is to do work the lesbian-feministmovement, being woman identified with integrityand work that is good. Not to play cut- and the effective anti-racistwork that is being done by throattricks and insist on beingcalled "Doctor." When many, though not all lesbians. I got involved in women's studies six years ago and In conclusion, I'll say that I don't consider my talk particularlyduring my three and a half years as the first today to be in anyway conclusive or exhaustive. It has ThirdWorld woman on the ModernLanguage Associa- merely scratched the surface. I don't know exactly tion Commission on the Status of Women, I quickly what's going on in your schools or in your lives. I can began to recognize what I call women's studies or only talk about those qualities and skills that will help academic feminists.
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