For White Feminists: Things that Helped me Learn About the Black Female Experience
By: Sadie Lee
Tags: White Ally, BlackLivesMatter, Feminism, Black Women, For Colored Girls

For White Feminists: Things that Helped me Learn About the Black Female Experience

How you can learn more about the black female experience without making black women explain it to you…

Pexel: Radomir Jordanovic

What comes to mind when I say: black women. It’s okay. I am not judging your thoughts. Just wondering what your brain conjures up when I say black women.

For me it is either two images, either a muscular older black female with a red bandana and two kids, or images of black mom figure like Oprah. I also think of word association like, “angry” or “mother” or “single parent.” It has taken me learning about black people in general to unearth some of my held beliefs toward black people that I didn’t even know I had or that were problematic. It is never too late to heal, learn, and repair. Your brain is like a sponge and it sucks in all the messages that we culturally have about black women.

So where do we begin with some of this education and representations of black women?

We start watching things produced or done by Black Women. This allows black women to control the narrative. Did you know that The Princess and the Frog was produced, directed, and mostly written by white men? It is important we watch different representations of black women and don’t turn away from them because they aren’t sexy or grab our attention enough. You can start here.

I include PYNK because of the soft, feminine representation of black women, black female narrative, the genius of feminism in this film, and labia pride! Black women are paid less as adult actors than white women. However, I also want to say that this doesn’t go against many of the representations of black men and women as we often(incorrectly) view them as more sexual and animalistic. This comes in part from early pseudo science where we justified the horrible treatment of other human beings by trying to say that blacks were more primitive than whites. Their “primitive” side was translated to “sexual” and also stems from a time where their fertility and virility meant actual money for white slave owners.

Black people often feel they cannot express their sexuality because it is so hyper-sexualized in the media. At the same time, black women are often “chosen” last. A darker skin woman is often the last to find a partner, arguably because of how low on the social ladder black women are.

I grew up on rom-coms that taught me that love comes to every young woman in a soulful and magnificent way. I did not learn that there is an entire group of women overlooked based on skin pigment! I won’t stand for it, for my many and much deeper values on the treatment of human beings. But also because I believe we all deserve our Love Actually, Our Notebooks, and our Hitch! Speaking of which… Where are the black lady protagonists in our rom coms!?

I also recommend watching Dark Girls. It is different from watching a film about black people and feminism. This is specifically about black women. The intersection is very important and if you don’t know I will let the wonderful Kimberlé Crenshaw explain this here.

The film follows different black women and talks about the pain and oppression surrounding their dark skin color. It shows you how these messages impact little black girls, on up to older black women. The movie paints a picture that worms its way into your brain, and never allows you see black women as “angry” ever again but survivors of years of prejudice. Welcome to the reality of how shallow the world really is.

Side Note: This documentary doesn’t touch enough on the policies that have impacted black women over the years, I suggest you explore that too!

For Colored Girls

Don’t read the sh*tty Rotten Tomatoes review written by a bunch of white men. Don’t read any reviews. Watch. This. Film.

This is a “drama” but it doesn’t give a single loophole for how white people can often wiggle their way out of truly seeing collective suffering. You will glare and sob at this film, and it will glare back at you. I do think this should be watched in succession, following “Dark Girls.” As a stand alone piece, it is hard to understand all of the areas of systemic oppression this film argues.

Read some books too.