Review Towards Black Feminist Criticism

This is a first copy. Stat tuned for updated and revised versions

Here is a link to the article: http://webs.wofford.edu/hitchmoughsa/Toward.html



         Black women’s literature needs to be examined using a scope that allows for a comprehensive and essential way to understand Black women, Black culture, Black politics, sexuality, and other areas that are overlooked in society. These writings, whether fiction or non-fiction are not to be taken lightly and serve as a venue and outlet for voicing and representing a large group of people and their experiences. The “connections between the politics of Black women’s lives, what we write about, and our situation as artists” (Smith 1998 Pg. 5) serve as not only a picture of what happens to us personally, but they serve as an additional link connecting us by age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, class, geographic location, and many other ways; these flow over into others’ lives as many share these same experiences.

In the largest part of the women’s movement and in almost all segments of the literary world, Black women’s writing has been overlooked and ignored, and this is the case for the large majority of Black women. There have been very few exceptions to this, but generally, regardless of class or social position, is the case. This is especially true for people who are exceptionally marginalized such as Black lesbians as well as those who are viewed as belonging to a lower social status. In these instances, often a very small, token amount of information is portrayed in mainstream academia that most often does not elaborate and go into detail on how this relates to people in these groups and the significance their presence makes on society. In other cases, the works of these women are so severely misunderstood that often their work is rendered inadequate, with readers believing the work is nothing more than a simple work of fiction, or a novel without relevance or a connection to a majority of people.

But examining Black women’s work is necessary because by understanding this work, we’ll understand the significance this has on the overall community in the past, present, and any projections and hopes for the future. This would also brings these women out of the margins as well as recognize race, sex, and class divisions and their important positions in society. By ignoring and not understanding these, many voices continue to be silenced and the messages conveyed are destroyed. And this has another detrimental effect on the Black community.

In order to recognize these connections and relevance, it is important to first understand how these voices are marginalized and overlooked in academia as well as in literary works, and by this it allows for a more thorough understanding of why Black women have been forced and must continue to pursue an alternate route in society, and this will hopefully shed new light and provide exposure that is needed in groups that are too frequently misrepresented, their works misconstrued, misused, and dismissed.

Barbara Smith provides examples where knowledge and understanding were not used to determine how meaningful certain characters and stories are, but instead are too often rendered mundane and irrelevant. Friendships between two women are most often not viewed as having the potential as anything more than just that; a friendships. But by examining and taking a closer look may allow for the idea of a relationship beyond a friendship that are also often marginalized because of the way heterosexual relationships and heterosexism pervade society. Being able to understand these works allows for this potential.

         Attempting to examine these writings without a thorough knowledge of Black feminist criticism only allows room for bias and misinformation to pervade institutions and it misses the point of the literature completely. This approach often also disregards sexism that also pervades academia and that is experienced in the lives of these women. And because of the prevalence of racism, and homophobia in society and the devaluation that Black women experience, Black men’s work is generally seen as the only authentic source of information dealing with the Black community.

Alice Walker explains the two reasons why Black women continue to be ignored. The first reason, she explains, is because she is a woman, and second because, Black women have been the “Least willing worshippers of male supremacy” (Smith 1998 Pg. 10), meaning Black women’s non-compliance with the dominant male structure is seen more in their lives than their white counterparts. White women had the luxury of having the necessary venues while their feminist agendas were erupting, something that was desperately needed for their literature, yet there were no such venues for Black women and definitely not Black lesbians. With this way of viewing, these voices remain in the margins and the messages and meaning are destroyed.

Black feminist writing is a doorway to exposing many situations and the lives and experiences of a very under and misrepresented group of people. But Black literature is often viewed as a distinct sub category, meaning it only pertains to a certain group and is looked at mostly through the context of race and ignores sexual and other politics.

Learning to understand the writing of Black women by reexamining and reconfiguring the ways we understand these women’s lives and the impact they can have in overall society is necessary. By doing so, we can gather a clearer understanding by viewing the relationships between these characters in fiction and evaluate this and it's relevant link to Black women in society; these embedded stories, which most often reflect actual lived circumstances. By having a Black criticism, it blows out of the water any other interpretation from other perspectives or white, male perspectives, which do not describe in detail the implications and politics of Black women’s experiences.

Through a Black feminist gaze, the truth can be seen for what it is. This may have a different structure that may not be considered “normative” in the larger white society, but it is the truth in the lives of many Black people. Understanding the writings of Black women and Black feminist criticism is necessary not only for a Black audience, but if we as a collective group of people can’t or wont’ take the time to delve deeper in the these works, we are doing nothing but shortchanging ourselves as we continue to walk around in ignorance and refusal. We critique and scrutinize and pull apart everything else in other disciplines and other areas, why do we continue to disregard our sisters?