Words of Fire

by Beverly Guy-Sheftall

  Florynce “Flo” Kennedy (1916—)

  Flo Kennedy, born in Kansas City, Missouri, is an outspoken attorney, civil rights activist, and one of the few Black feminists in the radical wing of the women’s movement at the beginning. She organized the Feminist Party (1971) which supported Shirley Chisholm’s candidacy for President in 1972. A founding member of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966 (she attended its first meeting in New York), she quickly became frustrated by its lukewarm positions, establishment orientation, and absence of a radical vision. She indicated in her autobiography, Color Me Flo (1976) that she “saw the importance of a feminist movement, and stayed in there because I wanted to do anything I could to keep it alive, but when I saw how retarded NOW was, I thought, ‘My God, who needs this?’ ” (62). In 1968, she protested with Radical Women (organized in 1967 in New York) at the Atlantic City Miss America pageant during which feminists were labeled “bra burners,” and in 1971 at the Coat Hanger Farewell Protest, a speak-out for abortion rights at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. She was also a founder of the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) and delivered one of the keynote addresses at their first conference in New York City in 1975. In 1976 she coauthored with Diane Schulter one of the first books on abortion, Abortion Rap, which described the class action suit she filed to test New York’s abortion laws. In her autobiography, Color Me Flo, she discusses the negative responses of black nationalist organizations to the New York law legalizing abortion in 1970, which was reminiscent of the 1967 Black Power Conference in Newark which argued that birth control and abortion were genocidal, a position with which she strongly disagrees.

  Kennedy’s early feminist consciousness is apparent in an undergraduate paper written for a sociology class at Columbia University in 1946 in which she analyzes links between institutionalized racism and sexism. The essay was included in her autobiography, Color Me Flo: My Hard Life and Good Times (1976).

  A COMPARATIVE STUDY: ACCENTUATING THE SIMILARITIES OF THE SOCIETAL POSITION OF WOMEN AND NEGROES

  The similarities of the societal positions of women and Negroes are fundamental rather than superficial. The obvious differences are accentuated by the fact that women are supposed to occupy a privileged position. No such pretense is usually made where the Negro is concerned, but a dispassionate consideration of the economic, sociological, historical, psychological, political, and even physiological aspects reveals some rather startling parallels.

  The majority of both groups are generally dependent economically upon the dominant group. Great lengths are attained to insure these dependencies. The necessity for an F.E.P.C. (Fair Employment Practices Committee) in a “Democracy,” and support clauses in divorce codes, which according to Hobhouse existed in pre-Christian societies, and which Monica Hunter, Naomi M. Griffen, Ruth Benedict, and Cora Du Bois refer to in their accounts of various primitive societies, may be accepted as proof of the excessive abuses prevalent.

  More than any other aspect of culture, the economic factor determines cultural development and direction. The political and social implications of this fact are infinite. It is therefore of primary importance to examine carefully the means by which women as a group and Negroes as a group are rendered hors de combat by being deprived of economic equality and independence. The far-reaching effects of their economic incompetencies leave not the minutest detail of their lives unaffected.

  Women and Negroes are less apt to be hired and more apt to be fired than a similarly equipped member of the currently dominant group. Exceptions are made for extraordinary competence or during emergencies such as wartime or political revolutions. Both women and Negroes command lower wages, and are usually confined to lower-bracket positions.

  In times of economic stress working women and Negroes arouse the resentment of those of the dominant group who are unemployed. Thus a returned serviceman may be especially upset to find his job occupied by a woman or Negro. Without entering into a which-came-first-the-chickenor-the-egg argument, it seems sufficient to point out that rivalry for jobs provides a source of serious friction.

  Industry frequently adds insult to injury by exploiting the subordinate group to lower wage scales or break strikes. A dual purpose is served, since this divide-and-rule technique further alienates society from those women or Negroes thus exploited. It goes without saying that the disdain is directed not at the employer but at the tool.

  Both groups are barred from many specialized fields. Prestige of a position tends to decline upon their entrance. The withholding of training and education precludes development of potentialities. Exclusion from intimate situations where powerful combines are made places a definite barrier in their path. Even those women or Negroes who have attained some prominence in a preferential field are only tolerated in exclusive clubs, at banquets, or on golf courses with equally distinguished members of the dominant group. In the isolated instance where such chummy relationships prevail, the adoption of patronage and subtle condescension saves the day for the dominants.

  The preeminence of those exceptional among the weaker group is paradoxically viewed. Many conflicting theories and realizations are encountered: “Determination will win” ... “The majority (e.g., of women or Negroes) are inferior; these are the exceptions that prove the rule” ... (bosh) ... “This woman has a masculine mind” ... or ... “This Negro has white blood” ... what “Negro” hasn’t? ... “Women are getting all the best jobs” ... “Negroes are ‘taking over’ the theatre” ...

  This magnifying of hard-won advancement makes it seem that a weak gnarled tree that pushes through the concrete in Brooklyn is a threat to miles of centuries-old forests which have flourished in fertile lands where the best of expert care has been lavished.

  How are subordinate groups kept in subordination? Is their suppression a reflection of the will of all of the dominants? Do those who are submerged struggle to reach the level of their “betters”? If not, why not? How, if at all, are the submerged groups rewarded? How punished? Why do not the “superiors” crush them entirely? Women are much loved; Negroes are generally ignored, distrusted, pitied, or even disliked; do not these differences make any attempt to draw parallels seem a bit ridiculous? ...

  The psychological implications are vastly important in any consideration of personal-social relationships. The geographical, temperamental, financial, political, social, psychological, physiological, and historical are but a few of the most abstract factors which enter into every formula. For example : a customer is asking for a pound of butter ... Alabama or New York?

  ... Humbly or peremptorily? ... Mink coat or Union Square special? ... New Deal and O.P.A. or Republicans and “free enterprise”? ... Does the butcher read P.M. or the Daily News? Is he young or old? ... a Coughlin-Bilbo fan or Henry Wallace devotee? ... All generalizations ignore these variables....

  Social sanctions take many forms. There are written laws governing franchise, property, political participation, and legal articulation. Social legislation reflects the comparative insignificance of women and Negroes. Educational budgets and medical care for Negroes or women have long been unequal. In housing, Negro districts are invariably slumlike. The kitchen where the average housewife spends the majority of her time is often the least spacious, attractive, comfortable, or even practical room of the house. Overwork is the lot of most of the members of the subordinate groups. When their health suffers due to this insanitary environment, their poor health immediately becomes the “reason” for their exclusion from desirable endeavor or choice programs....

  The unwritten laws are often more convenient and certainly more difficult to combat. Some are rational; most are nonrational or irrational. Many paradoxes and inconsistencies exist. There are great discrepancies between theory and practice.

  Nonsupport cases belie the exaltation of motherhood so often heard. Societal penalties and punishments are more severe for sex “transgressions” by women or Negroes. Both are regarded as evil and dangerous. The Christian and other
religious influences, and the white southerner, are but two sources from which such ideas have come. Overemphasis of the potency of women and Negroes in personal-societal relations serves to place an almost insurmountable barrier between these groups whenever it is advantageous. Sex taboos do not prevent miscegenation, but usually guarantee secrecy and therefore minimize the possibilities for legalized union and familial solidarity. There’s no denying that sex drives are frequently far more democratic than contemporary societal pretence.

  Paradoxically, criminal action by women or Negroes may be approached with extraordinary leniency; depending upon the offense, a paternal wedon’ t-expect-much-of-you attitude is frequently encountered. A Negro who cohabits with a white southern woman is almost certainly doomed to die; a Negro who kills another Negro in a brawl may be rescued by his white employer. In rare conformance with the theory that they are the weaker sex, women may receive preferential treatment in criminal courts.

  Indeed, so numerous are the devices employed to delineate and emphasize the desired role that it is difficult to account for the many digressions that exist. Fiction and nonfiction, movies (with silly Billy Burke and groveling Ingrid Bergman, shuffling Stepin Fetchit, and Mammy Louise Beavers as “typical” women and Negroes), radio, drama, myths and legends, gossip and rumor, implication and innuendo leave little to the average imagination as to what is acceptable to “society.”

  A passive woman or Negro is presented with a ready-made role. Choice may be made from a wide range of conceptualizations which are considered ideal and/or average. Individual distinctions are minimized. Accomplishment outside circumscribed areas is discouraged.

  Clothing is designed to accentuate the societal roles which have been chosen for the weaker group. Any concerted attempted to emulate or imitate the dominant group in dress is frowned upon—or laughed at. Women in slacks or a well-dressed Negro in a small southern town may be subjected to numerous embarrassments.

  Religious participation is encouraged. Futile, blind alley endeavor is sponsored. Docility, forbearance, reticence, faithfulness, blind loyalty, silent suffering, acceptance of the status quo, and recognition of the divine right of the dominants are dramatized and applauded by society. Eager for status, the subordinate group accepts the role assigned by the powers-that-be. Hence comes the irony.

  The subordinates become the enthusiastic sponsors of the campaign for their own suppression!

  Endless complexity results from the fact that the majority of a subordinate group, though rejecting the ignominious position, will accept and popularize the devices through which the suppression is maintained....

  Thus, the longer the history of an inferior position, the greater the necessity for a break with tradition. Little effort is required by either group to further the submergence of those chosen, once religion and the prescribed pattern are accepted. The program becomes self-perpetuating. The desire to be identified with the dominant group results in the least significant of the societal underlings becoming the unpaid guardians and champions of their exploiters’ theories.

  Rewards for conformance are spurious or superficial. Security and independence for the entire group are never expected or offered without a death struggle. The inevitability of the societal position is accepted by many of the most militant opposers to inequality.

  Reforms are usually much too little and centuries too late. Reforms are at best not the result of intellectual conviction but of emotional effort. The recognitions of rights are considered concessions; sentimental reasons are offered to explain long-overdue justices. Progress results from struggle. Little fundamental change can be cited. Superficial progress has been merely a shifting of emphasis rather than an alteration of balance. Progress has seemed to some extent related to societal advancement.

  Women and Negroes are but two of hundreds of groups within groups which occupy subordinate positions.

  Foremost authorities to the contrary notwithstanding, I am convinced that the glorification—without qualification—of family life militates against the achievement of full equality for women. It would be interesting to see how many marriages would result without the church, True Stories, Myrna Loy, sex myths, and the Ladies’ Home Journal. It would be more interesting to see how many monogamous marriages would endure if polygamy were legalized and popularized, and children’s support were guaranteed by the states.

  If women weren’t coaxed and lured from industry and professions by societal cupids, those who are unsuited to marriage and breeding could direct their energies into other channels. Without pleading a case for a doctrine of individualism, it would seem that a recognition of the infinite variations among women and Negroes will lessen the occurrence of the every-girl-should-marry, women’s-place-is-in-the-home philosophy as well as the more diabolical but no less effective keep-the-Negro-in-his-place attitude. Few societies at any cultural level provide for an acceptance of an independent life for large numbers of unmarried women. Emancipation for women and Negroes would seem to be contingent upon the emancipation of societal thought. This is, of course, question-begging at its worst, since there remains to be solved the problem of how to revolutionize the theories and thinking of “civilized” society.

  If a study of this type has any value, it lies in the possible counteraction to the divide-and-rule technique which minority dominants invariably employ. Recognition of the similarity of their position can hasten the formation of alliances to combat the forces which advocate the suppression of many for the aggrandizement of the few.

  The continuation of conscious or unconscious subordination of one group by another will hasten the coarsening of the moral fibre of society. Psychological maladjustments result from the difficulty of reconciling pretense with practice. Personal-social behavior is cramped when societal sanctions and taboos are at too great variance with logic and humanitarian proclivities.

  Societal impoverishment inevitably results form policies of discrimination, segregation, and limitation. That such policies are absolutely necessary disproves the much-publicized contention that women and/or Negroes are “naturally” inferior. Bitterness and societal unrest arise out of attempts to exclude women and Negroes from full participation in societal endeavor.

  No amount of segregation separates one unit of society from society as a whole. Thus, general societal health is ever contingent upon the health of its least significant member.

  Exclusivistic tendencies deprive society of innumerable skills and contributions. The dissatisfied minorities within the subordinate groups provide an ever-present threat to societal peace. Need it again be necessary to call the attention of those who defend the status quo to the fact that it has never been a question of whether or not a subordinate group is capable of selfrule and equal right, but rather whether or not any group is worthy of the right to dominance and autocracy?

  Claudia Jones (1915—1965)

  Claudia Jones, born in Trinidad, migrated to Harlem in 1924, dropped out of school for a factory job following the premature death of her garment worker mother, and at age eighteen joined the Young Communist League. By 1940, she had become chair of their national council and a decade later was found guilty of being a Communist. Indicted in 1951 for violating the Smith Act, which forbade the teaching of Marxism, she was imprisoned in 1955 in the Federal Reformatory for Women and was deported to London, where she continued to struggle for radical causes. She wrote an essay prior to her legal problems entitled “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of Negro Women,” which appeared in Political Affairs (1949) and chronicled the racist history of black women in the United States. Analyzing the situation of black women from a Marxist perspective, Jones calls for greater militancy on their parts since they remain the most oppressed class in the population. Like other radical activists, Jones has been invisible in black and women’s history, which motivated her daughter, Buzz Johnson, to tell her mother’s story (“I Think of My Mother,” 1985), particularly her struggles on behalf of black women burdened by racism, se
xism, and poverty. Jones has been one of the few role models for contemporary black women who embrace socialism or communism, such as Angela Davis and Frances Beale.

  AN END TO THE NEGLECT OF THE PROBLEMS OF THE NEGRO WOMAN!

  An outstanding feature of the present stage of the Negro liberation movement is the growth in the militant participation of Negro women in all aspects of the struggle for peace, civil rights, and economic security. Symptomatic of this new militancy is the fact that Negro women have become symbols of many present-day struggles of the Negro people This growth of militancy among Negro women has profound meaning, both for the Negro liberation movement and for the emerging anti-fascist, anti-imperialist coalition.

  To understand this militancy correctly, to deepen and extend the role of Negro women in the struggle for peace and for all interests of the working class and the Negro people, means primarily to overcome the gross neglect of the special problems of Negro women. This neglect has too long permeated the ranks of the labor movement generally, of Left-progressives, and also of the Communist Party. The most serious assessment of these shortcomings by progressives, especially by Marxist-Leninists, is vitally necessary if we are to help accelerate this development and integrate Negro women in the progressive and labor movement and in our own Party.