Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Trump

by Duchess Harris

  One of the greatest concerns with the popularity of Clinton’s welfare reform package was its maintenance of a conservative social welfare discourse that upheld the exploitation of racial stereotypes and marginalized disadvantaged minority groups. The so-called welfare reform measure that was passed in 1996, like other “behavioral” policy solutions (family cap, workfare, and the like), shifted the entire burden and fault of the poverty and the system onto those who were most disadvantaged themselves. The entire political and ideological brunt of PROWRA was principally concentrated on flawed misperceptions of the “welfare system” and racist stereotypes of its recipients.

  Contrary to the dominant welfare queen stereotype , the typical welfare recipient is neither Black, nor has numerous additional children to receive benefits. According to a December 15, 1996, Minneapolis Star Tribune article on welfare reform, in 1995 AFDC had 13.6 million recipients , including 9.3 million children and 4.3 million adults, virtually all of whom were single mothers. Demographically , about 37% of AFDC parents are white; 36% are Black, 20% Hispanic, about 3% Asian, and about 1% Native American. Additionally, the average AFDC family size was actually shrinking over the last 20 years of the program, from 3.6 in the early 1970s to about 2.8 in the 1990s. Furthermore, there has been no empirical evidence to date to substantiate claims that availability of welfare has provided incentives and motivation for having additional children. Finally, in terms of spending, the biggest increases in outlays (besides the “special insurance programs”) in the means-tested welfare programs are found in Medicaid , medical insurance for the poor, and SSI , which have tripled and doubled in spending respectively since 1980. Once adjusted for inflation, AFDC spending actually held flat for 15 years. Spending on food stamps had also been held flat from 1980 to 1990, but has since increased by one-third due to a 30% increase in eligible recipients.

  The typical duration on welfare is difficult to determine because many recipients cycle on and off the AFDC program. If we were to count first-time applicants, 56% leave AFDC within a year and 70% leave within two years. But counting all return spells, about 52% of applicants stay on AFDC less than three years in a lifetime and about 35% will be on AFDC for five years or more.40 As two prominent social scientists and welfare policy architects, Mary Jo Bane and David Ellwood , commented in Welfare Realities,41 welfare durations are not just a short-term situation depicted by liberals, nor are they a long-term “narcotic” as described by conservatives.

  A most troubling concern with neoliberal Clintonism was that minority groups continued to be shortchanged within the political process as their interests were sacrificed in appeals to the “swing” Reagan Democrats , namely, working-class whites. Adding insult to injury, racist caricatures of minorities, and especially that of the welfare queen, were used to appeal to these voters, even if only subtly. The Clinton Administration did not establish a stellar record of interactions with outspoken Black women. Additionally, it was also particularly ironic and paradoxical that this convergence of the passage of welfare reform and continued manipulation of racist caricatures (especially Black women) occurred within a “Democratic” administration. The emergence of the New Democrat philosophy can partly be attributed to the sense of liberal “inevitability” that developed in the late 1980s in response to continued defeat of national Democratic candidates. This position, espoused by a number of influential “liberal” writers and thinkers, seems to argue that the resulting disastrous interaction between race and social policy, politics , and liberalism was inescapable.

  Is Bill Clinton Black?

  So what can we learn from this? Blacks in general and Black women in particular have been blindly devoted to the Democratic Party. This has led to disappointment at best, and mistreatment at worst. Black women have been labeled condom queens, quota queens, and welfare queens and have not been defended by those who have claimed to be our greatest allies, such as President Clinton . An example of this blind devotion is Toni Morrison’s claim that Bill Clinton was our first Black President . In a 1998 New Yorker article, Morrison argued that when Clinton committed a “profound, perhaps irrevocable, error in judgment, … the Republicans smelled blood, and a shot at the totalitarian power they believe is rightfully theirs.” She went on to say:…[T]his is our first Black president . Blacker than any actual Black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of Blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone playing, McDonald’s loving boy from Arkansas.

  Morrison’s framing was problematic. Jazz and junk food are not what make people Black. In fact, it was precisely Clinton’s “white skin privilege” (a term that Bill Bradley learned from Cornel West), that allowed him to remain in office despite sex, lies, and audiotape, while making his Black appointees disappear.

  Morrison held onto this position until 2008, when Senator Barack Obama competed to become the Democratic nominee for the President of the USA against rival, Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton. Vijay Prashad observed that,When Bill Clinton ran for the White House in 1992, I was deeply annoyed. He represented so much that we, on the left, despised: The reaction within the ranks of the Democratic Party’s elite that wanted to “save” the party form what it saw as the excesses of a combination of the New Left, the already declining trade unions, and, most importantly, the Rainbow cultivated and mobilized by Jesse Jackson’s two runs for the presidency (1984 and 1988). Clinton was despised by the rank and file trade unionists, most of who turned out to vote for Jerry Brown and Paul Tsongas (who had already left the race O in the Connecticut primary. Brown opposed NAFTA and endorsed the concepts of a living wage, both positions anathema to Clinton. Few of us on the left went into that general election, and into the Clinton years with any illusions.42

  Prashad goes on to write that once Clinton is in office,The braying of the right was so abhorrent and hypocritical that Clinton gained some measure of forgiveness from those who were otherwise livid with him. It was in this context, that Toni Morrison said that he was being treated like a Black man: given no quarter, shown no mercy, but treated guilty as charged without any consideration or process. (ibid.)

  Prashad explains how things have changed between 1998 and 2008.But now, finally Clinton has given us some honesty. He has opened his heart during this primary season, joining Hilary Clinton in pandering to the Old South, the hard core racist bloc that was never reconciled to Civil Rights, that continues to blame Blacks for the vivisections of their economic fortunes. It is this bloc that handed Hilary Clinton the primaries of Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky. After her loss in the South Carolina primary, where the Democratic electorate is substantially Black, Hilary Clinton’s husband, Bill, told the press, “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in 1984 and 1988. Jackson ran a good campaign and Obama ran a good campaign here.” (ibid.)

  It was after these remarks were made that I predicted that Toni Morrison would take back her invitation of Bill Clinton into the Black family, and indeed she did.

  Footnotes

  1Miller, A., ed. (1994). The Complete Transcripts of the Anita Hill - Clarence Thomas Hearings. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers.

  2Giddings, P. (1992). When and Where I Enter. New York: HarperCollins.

  3Kolbert, E. (1991, October 11). “The Thomas Nomination: Sexual Harassment at Work Is Pervasive, Survey Suggests.” The New York Times.

  4Kolbert, E. (1991, October 11). “The Thomas Nomination: Sexual Harassment at Work Is Pervasive, Survey Suggests.” The New York Times.

  5Dawson, M. C. (1994). Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African American Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

  6Mansbridge, J. , & Tate, K. H. (1992). “Race Trumps Gender: The Thomas Nomination in the Black Community.” Political Science and Politics 25 (3): 488–492.

  7Crenshaw, K. (1996). “Whose Story Is It, Anyway? Feminist and Antiracist Appropriations of Anita Hill .” In Applications of Feminist Legal Theory to
Women’s Lives: Sex, Violence, Work, and Reproduction, ed. D. Kelly Weisberg. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

  8Cohen, C. J. (1999). The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  9Crenshaw, K. (1996). “Whose Story Is It, Anyway? Feminist and Antiracist Appropriations of Anita Hill .” In Applications of Feminist Legal Theory to Women’s Lives: Sex, Violence, Work, and Reproduction, ed. D. Kelly Weisberg. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

  10Prestage, J. (1977). “Black Women State Legislators: A Profile.” In A Portrait of Marginality: The Political Behavior of the American Woman, eds. Marianne Githens and Jewell Prestage. New York: David McKay.

  11Moncrief, G., Thompson, J., & Schuhmann, R. (1991). “Gender, Race, and the State Legislature : A Research Note on the Double Disadvantage Hypothesis.” The Social Science Journal 28 (4): 481–487.

  12Mansbridge, J. , & Tate, K. (1992). “Race Trumps Gender: The Thomas Nomination in the Black Community.” Political Science and Politics 25 (3): 488–492.

  13See, for example, Simien, E. (2004). “The Intersection of Race and Gender: An Examination of Black Feminist Consciousness, Race Consciousness, and Policy Attitudes.” Social Science Quarterly 85 (3): 793–810.

  14Lublin, D. (1997). The Paradox of Representation : Racial Gerrymandering and Minority Interests in Congress. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 101.

  15Fenno, R. (1978). Home Style: House Members in Their Districts. Boston: Little, Brown.

  16In St. Louis Post Dispatch, March 22, 1992, p. 8.

  17Wilkerson, I. (1992, November 4). “Milestone for Black Woman in Gaining U.S. Senate Seat.” The New York Times.

  18Wilkerson, I. (1992, November 4). “Milestone for Black Woman in Gaining U.S. Senate Seat.” The New York Times.

  19Wilkerson, I. (1992, November 4). “Milestone for Black Woman in Gaining U.S. Senate Seat.” The New York Times.

  20Clymer, A. (1993, July 23). “Daughter of Slavery Hushes Senate.” The New York Times.

  21Clymer, A. (1993, July 23). “Daughter of Slavery Hushes Senate.” The New York Times.

  22The New York Times. (1994, July 24). “Ms. Moseley-Braun’s Majestic Moment.”

  23The New York Times. (1994, July 24). “Ms. Moseley-Braun’s Majestic Moment.”

  24Berke, R. L. (1994, October 3). “In ’94 ‘Vote for Woman’ Does Not Play so Well.” The New York Times.

  25Berke, R. L. (1994, October 3). “In ’94 ‘Vote for Woman’ Does Not Play so Well.” The New York Times.

  26Berke, R. L. (1994, October 3). “In ’94 ‘Vote for Woman’ Does Not Play so Well.” The New York Times.

  27Berke, R. L. (1997, July 4). “Racial Politics Lets Flawed Candidate Find Allies.” The New York Times.

  28Berke, R. L. (1997, July 4). “Racial Politics Lets Flawed Candidate Find Allies.” The New York Times.

  29Berke, R. L . (1997, July 4). “Racial Politics Lets Flawed Candidate Find Allies.” The New York Times.

  30Jeter, J. (1998, March 18). “Conservative Wins GOP Primary for Senate Seat.” The Washington Post.

  31Belluck, P. (1998, September 9). “Beleaguered Illinois Senator Accuses a Critic of Racism.” The New York Times.

  32Belluck, P. (1998, September 9). “Beleaguered Illinois Senator Accuses a Critic of Racism.” The New York Times.

  33Belluck, P. (1998, October 8). “Democrat Loses Ground in Illinois Senate Race.” The New York Times.

  34Belluck, P. (1998, October 8). “Democrat Loses Ground in Illinois Senate Race.” The New York Times.

  35Belluck, P. (1998, October 8). “Democrat Loses Ground in Illinois Senate Race.” The New York Times.

  36Belluck, P. (1998, November 3). “Moseley Braun , Trailing, Pushes Hard.” The New York Times.

  37Belluck, P. (1998, November 3). “Moseley Braun , Trailing, Pushes Hard.” The New York Times.

  38http://​www.​issues2000.​org/​Celeb/​Bill_​Clinton_​Welfare_​+_​Poverty.​htm.

  39Edsall, M. D. , & Edsall, T. B. (1991). Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics. New York: W. W. Norton.

  40Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 5, 1996, A37.

  41 Bane , M. J., & Ellwood, D. T. (1996). Welfare Realities: From Rhetoric to Reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 42.

  42Prashad, V. (2008, May 22). “The Revelation of Bill Clinton,” Znet.

  © The Author(s) 2019

  Duchess HarrisBlack Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Trumphttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95456-1_4

  4. The ’90s in Context: A History of Black Women in American Politics

  Duchess Harris1

  (1)Macalester College, Saint Paul, MN, USA

  Duchess Harris

  Email: harris@macalester.edu

  As far as many Blacks were concerned, the emergence of the women’s movement couldn’t have been more untimely or irrelevant. Historians trace its roots to 1961, with the President’s Commission on the Status of Women chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. At a time when Black students were languishing in southern jails, when Black full time working women were earning 57 percent of what their White peers were earning, the Commission concentrated its attention on the growing number of middle-class women who were forced to enter the labor market in low skill, low paid jobs.1

  The emergence of the women’s movement was untimely for Black women in general, but for a select group it was relevant. Black women, who had largely been left out of civil rights politics and, especially, leadership, hoped, if only briefly, that they would be able to stake a place within the women’s movement where they could promote their concerns as people who were both female and Black. As this chapter will demonstrate, that hope was both heady and intense, though short-lived. The first section of this book compares the ideological positions and political agendas of the Black women who were appointed to the Fourth Consultation of President John F. Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW ) to those of the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) and the Combahee River Collective (CRC ). By examining the ideological and political perspectives of these three Black women’s groups, the evolution of Black feminism from 1961 to 1980 can be documented.

  The first group, the PCSW , was composed of financially and educationally privileged Black women chosen by officials of the federal government to serve on a national commission of women that was charged with the task of identifying and articulating women’s concerns. The NBFO and the CRC , by contrast, included middle- and working-class Black women who had been active in civil rights and grassroots Black organizations. The varied experiences of Black women activists served as the crucible for the development of Black feminist ideologies during that period. Despite differences in education and social class, these Black women and their organizations were aware of three overlapping realities: (1) There were inextricable links between gender and racial identity; (2) Their socioeconomic status was, at least in part, determined by both their gender and racial identity; and (3) There was a need to organize collectively to redress the injustices of these realities.

  Close examination of the political activities of these Black women and their organizations reveals that each group’s ideological perspectives represented an evolution of thought that grew out of the preceding group’s work. The Black women on the Kennedy Commission , for instance, articulated more conservative notions about gender than the women of the NBFO, who, in turn, articulated more conservative notions about female sexuality and the disadvantages of the capitalist system than the women of the CRC. Unlike the women of the PCSW and the NBFO, members of the CRC agreed that sexual orientation was distinctive and separate from gender and racial identity, and they organized around that realization, a third characteristic that contributed to the condition of multiple oppressions.