"Listen Here, Women's Movement:"

A BLACK

WOMAN ADDRESSES FEMINIST RACISM

"Sisterhood is powerful; it can kill you," is attributed to the wit of Florynce Kennedy, Black feminist lawyer. Yet to other Black women involved in the making of a sisterhood via the New York-based women's movement, that observation is not only a witty truism, but a painful experience.

Horror stories travel among Black feminist circles--stories such as Black lesbians agreeing to begin a dialogue with white lesbians to explore any basis for working together, only to be told by one woman present: "I never met Black women who are also feminists," or Third World lesbians, after serving as living proof that women of color are feminists, asking the women present "What do you see when you see Black and Third World women?" and not being able to get one woman present to answer. Horror stories such as one Black woman presently working for a feminist publication (so she asked not to be named) who told of her being used as proof of Third World women on staff when visitors came to the office, yet constantly experiencing the inability of the women to understand her uniqueness as a Third World single parent and to realize that her working schedule, which she was quite willing as anyone else to meet, would have to be set up around her children's needs. Horror stories such as a Latin woman who was a tenant organizer and welfare rights counselor for years in her building, being approached by white feminists to be a part of a multinational women's project, only to be accused months later of stealing the funds of the group--the same group that had approached her and asked her to be treasurer.

Many Third World women were in positions where they were unable to reopen the discussions publicly of the above-mentioned charges. One woman when asked if she would be willing to be named as the person who was making the charge, said, "That's like someone publicly discussing the workings of the CIA. A character assassination would take place if you are lucky and anything worse they can think of and get away with doing." Other women were too busy in ongoing community, political, or educational goals to bother.

But increasingly, Third World women who are a part of the women's movement or who are avid watchers are willing to talk about similar experiences and offer some analysis of why these things happen. LFL (Lesbian Feminist Liberation) recently hosted a panel entitled Third World Lesbian Invisibility. The Third World Lesbians took that label to task, commenting, "Just because you don't see me don't mean I'm not here." From there, a discussion revealed some interesting information about LFL. LFL has hosted conferences to ask the same question yearly for the last two years. Yet their membership still remains one Black woman (the woman who was chairing the meeting) who was bemoaning that fact, citing that there was no place else she could go. Members present from the Third World lesbian group Salsa Soul gently reminded her that Salsa Soul did exist and proceeded to tell her why they were not interested in easing her aloneness by joining LFL as well as why they had not responded to her visit to Salsa Soul to recruit Third World women to participate in the panel. One of the founders of LFL, Jean O'Leary, was alleged to have said in a public meeting that the reason she left the gay bar, Bonnie and Clyde's, was because of the influx of Black women. She wanted to go where she could find "attractive women. Women there, both Black and white, verified that they were present when this comment was made. This organization might tell its founder to try looking in B&C's where some of the Third World lesbians, seen as invisible, might be found. Another point raised by Luvinia Pinson (Salsa Soul Steering Committee member) and almost uni-

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versally agreed upon by the Third World women present was the question--on what basis did LFL (an admittedly white organization) call a conference on Third World Lesbian Invisibility 'and invite Third World women to be "panel members?" If LFL has a commitment to look at that lack of Third World participation in the lesbian community and all across the women's movement, should not the experts themselves be the planners,

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I have done a great deal of work, as much as a man, but did not get so much pay. We do as much, we eat as much, we want as much. ~Sojourner Truth

1853

HPERAN MEWS GRAVITI

and LFL, if it is truly committed to dealing with this issue, support a conference whose terms are set by Third World women, not by themselves?

The issue that was agreed to by Third World women present as being the central issue was racism. The same conclusions are being reached throughout the whole spectrum of Third World organizations from a Black women's organization on the New York University campus created two years after New York University's Women's Center to serve the needs and interests of Black women since "nowhere else are our needs met", to Black welfare activist Beulah Sanders who when asked how she has survived in the movement so long answers, "because a lot of Black women don't realize that they have to know how to deal with white women as well as everything else. Just because someone is a feminist doesn't mean she isn't a racist." The issues aren't as simple as admitting racism or the next step of saying I need help in dealing with my racism. As observed by one Black lesbian present at the LFL conference, "you have to deal with your racism. I can help you, but the work has got to come from you. I have but so much time and my first priority is my sisters."

Barbara McBride, Black community center volunteer in West Harlem, comments on her observations and experiences of the women's movement. "I see women now who don't realize that medicaid abortions are still available in some places because they know medicaid abortions will soon be unavailable anyplace. Yet some bitch on TV will sing 'You've come a long way', -way back to the back alley. I see women who get sent by the welfare case worker to jobs that are technically 'open' to

them, or they get sent to women's centers statted by women, yet they still get the same shit. At least you could give the guy who had the power a little 'nookey' and if you were lucky you might get over. Here that don't even work! In fact these women feel like all white women want is stories about how hard it is to be poor and Black and on welfare, so they can get more money to run the programs that give them their jobs. Black women going to the centers can't learn how to read and write because they're spending all their time being pumped for information on being a welfare mother. Yet when they take back the programs like they are taking back abortions, the women who run the centers will at least get unemployment. And Black welfare mothers will again get nothing."'

Inez Singletary admits that she is in the process of déciding where she will direct her energies as a Black feminist. When asked about the issue of racism in the women's movement, she redefined some terms and proceeded to answer: "I define the term 'women's movement' as 'women on the move'. But if you consider women's movement in the organized sense, the majority of organized feminists are white, and where there are white people, there is racism because if you are white you have a certain experience based on the fact that by virtue of being white, you are 'superior'. The other side of that is, if you are Black, you are 'inferior'. But the organized movement is only a small part of the movement. And Black women mustn't say, 'Listen here, women's movement: Address Black women, because white women can't deal with Black women's issues. They don't know them. What has to happen is a change of consciousness. To get what we really want, we have to change our consciousness, and then once our consciousness is changed, we can go about changing our lives."

The reality of racism versus the power of Black women is a point of view that Betty Powell shares with Inez Singletary. Betty Powell, Black lesbian activist and board member of a women's foundtion, Astraea, committed to supporting women's projects controlled by women and serving the needs of women. Powell also points out that Black women have always dealt with feminist issues as issues that affect women through established organiations such as the National Council of Negro Women as well as grass roots community-based women who nurtured and produced leaders such as Fannie Lou Hamer and Beulah Sanders.

The issues of feminism are as complex as the women who identify themselves as feminists. But the women who will articulate and plot strategy for the resolution of those issues are increasingly going to be Third World. One of the criticisms of the women's movement is that it has failed to address the needs of most women. Because most women are women of color, it must rise to this task or it won't survive.

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..Demetria Royals Majority Report January 6, 1978

Banned Contraceptive Still Prescribed

New York (LNS)--Los Angeles doctors are still prescribing Depo-Provera as a long term cóntiedeptive despite the Food and Drug Administration's banning of the drug for that purpose, according to the Institute for the Study of Medical Ethics, a patients' advocacy group.

Given in injectable form once every three months, Depo-Provera is associated with a serious list of side effects, and has caused cancer in labentory animals. Its use is only approved for the treatment of certain forms of uterine cancer.

February, 1978/What She Wants/page 13