While reading Combahee River Collective they mention a lot of issue and hardship feminist women of color face in their day to day lives. Almost all of the things they discussed is still very much relevant today. They highlight how black women are seen and treated as they are the lowest of the low. When they say “We realize that the only people who care enough about us to work
consistently for our liberation are us.” The feminist movement was a fight/movement that sought equal rights and opportunities and greater personal freedom for women. But it was not the same for all women. It wasn’t like that for women of color. I realize also that women of color wrote a lot of these statements, marched a lot of marches, protested.. but sometimes it like things have not changed much. I mean like a lot of things have changed but the negative outweighs the good, so that’s maybe why it can feel like that. In addition when they say ” attacked by our peers, particularly Black males… the reaction of black men to feminism has been notoriously negative…they realize they might not only lose valuable and hardworking allies in their struggle but that they might also be forced to change their habitually sexist ways of interacting and oppressing women. Accusations that black feminism divides the black struggle are powerful deterrents tot the growth of an autonomous black womens movement.” This statement stresses how black women had to literally fend for themselves because not only they knew their struggles, and pain but black men, who undergone the same racism as women, wasn’t on their side.
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