To understand Patriarchy is a daunting task at best. First one has to clear away the debris in the collective mind and see the reality of oppression.
It is reported, even documented, that in ancient times we as a world were indeed a Matriarchy, once. It is still a component in some cultures to this day.
But the bigger question is within a Patriarchy does gender trump race?
Patriarchy runs this world. It is what defines the very essence of not only the world population but our thinking, way of living and very existence. No one knows life out of the confines of Patriarchy and therein lies the beginning of the debate.
Before I go further, to the reader, may I call your attention to the page on Hussein, this discourse is based on a comment by a gifted writer, whom I hold in high esteem.
In order to fully appreciate the impact of Patriarchy one must step outside of it. To examine millenniums of disenfranchisement of women we must necessarily go back to the beginning of “civilization” as we know it.
The hunters and gatherers, the Amazons and warriors of old. They were women. Strong , brave and not yoked with the male superiority that their heirs would inherit.
They were overthrown.
No it does not trump race when it comes to America and the Black American in particular.
Yes experts and luminaries have all held hands to agree that women have always been oppressed, and that is true. But while that dearly held viewpoint is valid, it leaves out the one thing in human history that has not been duplicated before or since. The theft and enslavement of 700 million+ Africans from the Motherland. No where in the annals of history has there been such a wholesale capture, disenfranchisement and dehumanization of the Black Diaspora.
Black women may have received the vote after her black counterpart, but the black man was not allowed to exercise that vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
So while achieved on paper, the reality was the white female could vote, starting in 1848 but not realized until August 26, 1920, long before the black male or female were released from certain death by trying to utilize a supposed right to vote.
Now one can argue the white male indeed did subjugate the white female but Douglass’ claim is patently false. Were there a few who voted for window dressing? possibly, but allow me to point you in the direction of Marcus Garvey, Jim Crow, Strange Fruit, Gerrymandering, still prevalent today, and others who experienced the reality of being black in America. Notwithstanding the black is still considered 3/5 human by law. Article I Section II Paragraph III of the U.S. Constitution. It is called the 3/5 compromise.
Women, are and will for the foreseeable future be subjugated by men , white men in America hold this power en masse. However, there is no comparison to the tactics used to deny the rights that whites enjoyed . Poll Tax, tests, reading and others, closing of polls (still in practice today) registration challenge, 2 or 3 forms of ID , something mysterious called the Black Tax, when the white counterpart does not go through this and dare I say never had to, this includes the male or female.
When talking oppression of the masses one has to necessarily be circumspect and limit each affront to a specific topic within the broader one or risk confusing the necessity for change with the necessity for dialogue and education.
Women are not equal to men, but it is in no comparison to the imbalance of the black and white in America.
The Black Diaspora in America is so far removed from the “white experience” in America, that the Obama- Clinton phenomenon only serves to drive deeper the need to expose the blatant hypocrisy of law versus reality.
Blacks were freed 100 years before that freedom could be rightfully exercised, even though the “law” told a different story.
The Patriarchal oppression of white women as opposed to black women.
Different.
While white women enjoyed certain benefits of the male in charge, her black counterpart was relegated to being her maid. When white women received the right to vote they could get jobs as teachers and nurses and secretaries, the black woman could look forward to watching her children while she pursued her career or clean her house.
In its totality, yes women overall are oppressed but I proffer an argument that the Black American equality trumps the Gender equality debate and has for centuries and is prevalent today.
Not in the hallowed halls of academe, gated communities, or beautiful coastal shorelines of America, but in the inner cities, the ghettos, the new “plantations” and the jails which disproportionately serve the black populace.
When Denzel was jailed ostensibly for “stealing” his own car or when Michael Jordan’s friends were profiled, we have no examples of this happening in the white culture to the white male or female in modern times. Yet, these examples are current and of celebrities letting us in on what it must be like for an average black citizen.
When was the last time you saw a white female stopped for driving while white?
This is an extraordinarily compelling argument and worthy of further development and submission to a journal or magazine.
I would argue, without belaboring my point, that the prisons and inner cities are filled with black men because the easiest way for the oppressor to control the oppressed is to control the male. If racism permeates every element of our culture and supports the powers that be, it fundamentally rests on sexism.
As more than one writer has noted, racism, sexism, and classism are a tightly woven fabric, and at some level become inseparable. Moreover, they extend far beyond America’s shores.
Much of what you say is true for all colonial oppression: dehumanization certainly didn’t start in America, rather it is a transplantation which extends around the globe, as I am certain you recognize.
Your points are well taken.
I would offer one more tidbit as a counterpoint for reflection.
While our prisons and inner cities may be full of a disproportionate number of disenfranchised black males in service to white patriarchy, if lynching and the song of strange fruit hanging below the Mason Dixon line was primarily though not exclusively for the usurpation and emasculation of the male, then the quickest way for women to escape such tyranny is as it has always been: selling sex.
If fear controls and sells, sex controls and sells even more.
The quickest way for a woman to escape the confines of economic oppression, especially when all hope dwindles on her horizon, is to become a commodity worth selling.
The wholesale dehumanization of women in this culture, the ornamentation, the prettying of the package, the allure of mystery, down to the more salacious elements of sexuality, the turning of the woman into an object to be consumed and disposed of, are the most gross form of capitalist dehumanization, experienced by women of all races.
Perhaps more so for women of “color,” as they are socially disposable already.
Domestic servitude simply pays the bills. Sex allows a woman upward mobility, no matter her race.
That is patriarchy, and it permeates every culture where testosterone and violence and the male ego run rough shod over everything and everyone in its way. White males don’t have a special claim on this–twenty minutes or so of MTV or VH1 provides more than ample evidence that black men are more than happy to buy into female subjugation. In fact, it is the easiest and quickest way for the emasculated male to reclaim his power: sexualize and subjugate the female.
But the woman will be blamed. Well, one class of women bears the mantle of that social necessity, the women with the least power. The other class of women remains relatively unscathed, although they are perhaps the more complicit in the process, having a “look but don’t touch” approach. That is part of the process. Blame the woman. Adam is the prototype.
The selling of sex is more insidious and arguably more dehumanizing than lynching, for example, because it is so seeming beautiful, so yoked to the power of pleasure, the gifts of love, that it blinds the male to what really transpires between two people in the interchange. Lynching, we can say that it is wrong, evil, point to the blood lust sport dripping from the white man’s mouth as darkie hangs swinging from the tree, helpless, captive, a human animal swinging with his victorious captors laughing in conquest.
But the woman is the object who is played with, promised the world and then given little of substance. The game is more elusive, less obvious, the trophy is put on the shelf for a few years, until the next best thing comes along. All in the name of love or something similar. The process of dehumanization continues, with a far less obvious veneer, and therefore, I would argue, more surreptitious manner, which blinds both men and women to it’s effects.
Lynching is wrong. Prisons and inner cities stuffed full of black males for whom reality has been writ, that is overtly wrong. But we don’t even know where or when or how to define pornography, because the boundaries between violence and sexuality are so obfuscated. By men.
Moreover, there is a social transaction which may transpire in the best of these situations: marriage. That makes the whole thing legitimate, no matter the treatment thereafter. She may have every thing held sacred under the sun, and written about by men, violated, withheld, and abused, but it will be sanctioned under a social contract ordained by God and legalized by the state.
The woman will either rebel or suck it up, as it has all been written by men and their God.
A wonderfully written essay, Zacca. Thought provoking, insightful, and well documented.
Thanks for sharing.
Comment by bluesmokeofparadise — March 10, 2008 @ 9:12 am |
Thanks, Blue,
Coming from you that is high praise, indeed. We still don’t agree,not quite, but I look forward to your thoughts as always. We are in the same book , just different chapters.
You wrote:
“The selling of sex is more insidious and arguably more dehumanizing than lynching,for example, because it is so seeming beautiful, so yoked to the power of pleasure, the gifts of love, that it blinds the male to what really transpires between two people in the interchange.”
We are on the same page, dare I say, we are reading the same paragraph.
Comment by zacca — March 13, 2008 @ 3:28 am |