Discharging on Sexual Exploitation and Racism
Tokumbo Bodunde led a brilliant class on sexual exploitation and racism at the recent Contemporary Women’s Issues Workshop. She reminded us that the institution of slavery had been built not just on economic and racial exploitation but also sexual exploitation. Black women’s reproductive lives had been controlled and exploited to produce laborers.
I have been discharging on how this history has impacted me as a white woman and a mother of an eighteen-month-old white son. Even though white women were not the targets of the oppression, we were made “fragile.” The idea that we needed to be protected was installed on us to ensure “racial” purity and as a counter-narrative to Black femaleness. As a result, our internalized sexism colludes with racism. We look to (white) men for our “protection” instead of standing with Global Majority and Indigenous women to end sexism and racism. Our reproduction has been controlled and exploited to support white supremacy.
I have been taking the direction “You can’t have him,” to fight against the exploitation of my reproductive labor and against my beloved child being taken up into this system. I have been discharging about the Black mothers who refused to let their children be taken into the system of slavery. Some decided to kill them rather than see their humanity reduced to property. Can we white mothers face that the dehumanization of our own children is as urgently unacceptable? Can this help us fight more fully against the sexism and racism targeting Global Majority and Indigenous women, and unite with them as never before?
Monson, Maine, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of women
(Present Time 204, July 2021)